I COULD GO ON SINGING (1963; Ronald Neame)
A lot of folks will most likely remember director Ronald Neame for THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, but he made a lot of great character-based films as well as the disaster movie classic we all know and love. In 1958 and 1960, he did two excellent movies with Alec Guinness. My personal favorite of the two is THE HORSE'S MOUTH, a dramedy about broke and ornery old painter who is trying to find the right canvas (see also: wall) for his masterpiece. It's a delightful film and one of my favorite Guinness roles ever. After that, Neame and Guinness made TUNES OF GLORY, a Scottish military drama that is also quite good. Soon after that, he directed Judy Garland in I COULD GO ON SINGING, which was to be her final film role. My first contact with this film was seeing that Quentin Tarantino had purchased it on Laserdisc from the video store I used to work at many years ago. As a point of interest, I was immediately curious about any movie that he bought there. There were many that I'd never heard of at all and this Garland film was one of them. Of course, I never got to ask the man about why he bought it, but I can certainly assume that it might have had something to do with it being Judy's last film and perhaps that QT was a Ronald Neame fan. Regardless, I owe him for putting this movie on my radar. Despite it having a listing in Danny Peary's Guide for the Film Fanatic, I had totally never heard of it.
From the opening shot of Judy Garland, there is an immediate vulnerability that she brings with her. This being her conclusion as a movie actor, she shows signs of having aged a bit if you are more accustomed to seeing her in her cinematic prime. Her eyes are still the same, but her face and her hair somehow give hints that she has lived a more taxing life than most people have at her age. She was about forty-one at the time and would be gone only six years later. She's still lovely and carries with her the rare radiance that only the true movie stars are able to convey, but she looks tired. Her eyes and the lines on her face show fatigue. Judy herself must have been feeling it, but it works quite perfectly for the character - an aging singer named Jenny Bowman. Garland sings in this movie and apparently, she hadn't sung in a movie since A STAR IS BORN in 1954 (and this is part of the logic behind the title of the film).
Jenny Bowman finds herself performing in London and seeks out a former flame who she had a child with fourteen years prior. She looks to reconnect with both her former lover (played by Dirk Bogarde) and also with her son, who she has been estranged from for many many years as she left him to be raised by his father. After begging him to see the boy, they come to an arrangement that she will meet him briefly and go on her way. That doesn't happen though and the visit gets a little extended. I've always enjoyed films where the characters are making up for lost time and doing their best to enjoy the fleeting moments they have, especially when their is an undercurrent of melancholy tied to the affair. This movie has a mother connecting with her son for the first time really and it is hard not to feel the emotion within that setup alone. When you add in that the boy doesn't know that he is her son and that the father isn't really thrilled with her spending a lot of time with him, you know things can end possibly end less than happily. There's a tension there, intertwined with the joy that it's clear that the mother is feeling. It's makes for a much more intensely affecting experience overall. And seeing Judy Garland later in her life, playing this character who clearly has some regrets that she is struggling with is very powerful. And the fact that we get get to witness her performing on stage a few times in the movie makes everything even more poignant. It's a pretty excellent swan song for such a great actor.
Special Features:
-Audio Commentary with Producer Lawrence Turman, and Film Historians Lem Dobbs and Nick Redman.

From the opening shot of Judy Garland, there is an immediate vulnerability that she brings with her. This being her conclusion as a movie actor, she shows signs of having aged a bit if you are more accustomed to seeing her in her cinematic prime. Her eyes are still the same, but her face and her hair somehow give hints that she has lived a more taxing life than most people have at her age. She was about forty-one at the time and would be gone only six years later. She's still lovely and carries with her the rare radiance that only the true movie stars are able to convey, but she looks tired. Her eyes and the lines on her face show fatigue. Judy herself must have been feeling it, but it works quite perfectly for the character - an aging singer named Jenny Bowman. Garland sings in this movie and apparently, she hadn't sung in a movie since A STAR IS BORN in 1954 (and this is part of the logic behind the title of the film).
Jenny Bowman finds herself performing in London and seeks out a former flame who she had a child with fourteen years prior. She looks to reconnect with both her former lover (played by Dirk Bogarde) and also with her son, who she has been estranged from for many many years as she left him to be raised by his father. After begging him to see the boy, they come to an arrangement that she will meet him briefly and go on her way. That doesn't happen though and the visit gets a little extended. I've always enjoyed films where the characters are making up for lost time and doing their best to enjoy the fleeting moments they have, especially when their is an undercurrent of melancholy tied to the affair. This movie has a mother connecting with her son for the first time really and it is hard not to feel the emotion within that setup alone. When you add in that the boy doesn't know that he is her son and that the father isn't really thrilled with her spending a lot of time with him, you know things can end possibly end less than happily. There's a tension there, intertwined with the joy that it's clear that the mother is feeling. It's makes for a much more intensely affecting experience overall. And seeing Judy Garland later in her life, playing this character who clearly has some regrets that she is struggling with is very powerful. And the fact that we get get to witness her performing on stage a few times in the movie makes everything even more poignant. It's a pretty excellent swan song for such a great actor.
Special Features:
-Audio Commentary with Producer Lawrence Turman, and Film Historians Lem Dobbs and Nick Redman.
-Audio Commentary with Film Historians David Del Valle and Steven Peros.
-Isolated Score Track (with some effects).
http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/i-could-go-on-singing-blu-ray/

Special Features:
-Isolated Music & Effects Track (with Partial Isolated Score).
-Q&A Audio Commentary with Director Nicolas Roeg at the World Premiere (104 minutes).
-Writer Paul Mayersberg on EUREKA.
-Producer Jeremy Thomas on EUREKA.
-Editor Tony Lawson on EUREKA.
EUREKA can be purchased on Blu-ray from Twilight Time here:
http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/eureka-blu-ray/
http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/eureka-blu-ray/
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