What the Manolo Is…
Manolo says, it is Tuesday, time to see what the Manolo is…
It has been many years since the Manolo last read The Grandissimes and he is finding that is going down much better this time. Undoubtedly, the middle-aged Manolo is more capable of understanding the intricacies of this lost world.
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Comments
klee 14 years ago
The Manolo can not be middle-aged. The Manolo, much like the beautiful shoe, is timeless.
class factotum 14 years ago
I read “Great Expectations” in 9th grade and hated every single stupid page. I read it again as a sophomore in college and wondered when Dickens had re-written it because I could not put it down.
The Charlotte Allen 14 years ago
Quo Vadis! I’ve been waiting for years for it to go to DVD in something other than a Korean bootleg. It is the gold standard for a 1950s hammed-up Hollywood-Roman, Christians-to-the-lions spectacle, magnificently staged and acted (Peter Ustinov as the emperor Nero steals the movie and is worth watching over and over), and with thousands of real-live extras instead of CGI. The only disappointment is Deborah Kerr as Lygia, the young Christian heroine; she was too old for the part (Lygia is supposed to be 18), and also too prim; she seemed to be rehearsing for her role as Anna in “The King and I.” And since she was a Christian and this was 1951, Kerr also had to wear unflattering, cloth-y costumes, in contrast to the pagan ladies in the movie, who were allowed to look enticingly decadent. So, sadly, there is no chemistry between Kerr and the handsome Robert Taylor who plays the young Roman general who lusts after the alluring Lygia but learns to love her selflessly. As an antidote to this one flaw in the movie, I highly recommend the 1880s novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz on which it is based (find an older translation). Sienkiewicz, being somewhat decadent himself, got exactly right the see-saw ride between devout Christianity and titillating eroticism that “Quo Vadis” is supposed to be. I read the novel as a teen-ager and couldn’t put it down.