If I may be permitted to introduce a slight thread drift, there was an interesting bit in Paul Merton’s recent BBC4 mini-series on Hitchcock, where The Maestro is seen screen testing an Eastern European actress’s vocals and her accent is very thick, so then a scene is shown of the subsequent movie and Merton reveals how it was recorded with an off-screen actress speaking while the EEA mouths the words. Sadly, Merton went on to reveal that the said EEA’s career did not prosper thereafter.

Very interesting detective work in this thread, by the way, nothing is impossible here!

Flight Sergeant Bates begs to differ. Not much info and no photos but some details of what went on their early in the war.

I must respectfully disagree Mr.Homewood, I thought Brendan Gleeson gave a great performance as Winston and captured well the pathos and despair the early war situation must have had on the man. He also , I felt, got the innate grumpiness of the PM in private spot on, as I got feelings of familiarity having read about his same moods in a couple of biographies. To my mind Gleeson’s portrayal was always going to suffer in comparison to Finney’s (as you say) masterful portrayal and I myself was prepared to be disappointed, but I feel he pulled it off well.

Regarding Gleeson, here in Ireland as well as in the States, he’s a highly respected and lauded theatrical actor with many awards to his name. Check out his IMDB entry. And this is not some sort of Irish patriotism thing, it’s simply that I’m an Englander resident over here and thus am more familiar with his work.

Flying into the eye of a hurricane in 1995.

I think some expansion on this brief sentence would be nice! 🙂

My best (for sick humour value): Ryanair EMA-DUB when two teens sat down next to me. One looks out the window and sees the winglets and, in a worried voice, asked what was wrong? I reply “Oh, it must have hit something and bent it, they’ll fix it when we get to Dublin. Cue an amusing flight with yer man constantly looking out of the window in case the bladdy thing dropped off. When we landed he couldn’t get off quickly enough!

Worst: A flight from Khartoum to Heathrow in the 60s during which we were stuck for five hours in the middle of the night in the terminal in Rome while a problem with the Comet was rectified. Not a single cafe or anything else, including toilets, was open and staff were thin on the ground. As a kid I never encountered such misery or boredom. I tortured my parents.

That is awesome!

In the words of teenagers everywhere… OH. MY. GOD!