DaisyNinjaGirl

Their Finest (2016) - Catrin Cole, Tom Buckley, Ambrose Hilliard
This movie made me cry quite a lot when I saw it in the movie theatre, and the lesser viewing experience on a TV screen still has its moments.  They're in the middle of the worst bombing of the Blitz and everyone's just having their big emotional experiences and then getting up and going back to work, because doing their job well is a thing that they can do and that has to be done by someone and that someone is them.  I loved the film's attention to detail - things like showing the texture of the fabric people were using with little mottles of stain, or the heavy woven table cloths, or the flash of the actresses' silk kimonos, and the delicacy of the stockings Catrin is washing near the end of the film when she has her big talk with Ambrose really made that moment feel real and fragile for me.  There were also some little things going on - the quiet acknowledgement that the Blitz affected more than the British and the Americans, there were European expats living in England who were contributing in their own ways too.  The cycling in and out of good phrases to say between real life and the movie world "did you think of that before?" and the flip from arch to grief to rage and back again, particularly in Ambrose's studied mindfulness of his art.  And the mission of the movie - don't tell one big truth, let a lot of little truths that add up to something great because it gives everyone some meaning in an unchancy world.

Prompts:
- A "What Happens Next" would be a good thing to know about Catrin and the rest of the Ministry of Information crew, whether during the War or in the years after.  The film has such a strong theme of moving on and dealing with loss, and Catrin has a track record of falling in love with men who are her intellectual equal - does she find someone new who can become The One?  Could this time it be someone who is kind to her?
- Or the filming of "Girls Like Us".  What kinds of shenanigans does Hilliard get up to in his quest for the perfect part?  Who are the three actresses playing girls "from three different walks of life"?  Does Catrin keep on having fantasy sequences where Buckley gives her astringently phrased advice?
- Buckley is such a mouthy arsehole such a lot of the time, but I kept on noticing that people like Parfitt and Baker and Catrin keep on confiding their personal problems to him; and when it matters his ethics always come up to scratch.  What does he think about somehow, disagreeably and reluctantly, finding himself cast as the person it's OK to talk to?
- Speaking of Buckley, what's the other trouser leg of time like in which he lived (either as an AU fork, or in Catrin's imagination).  Throughout the writing of The Nancy Starling, Catrin is pinging with all the best ideas, but Buckley has the skill and experience to mold them - what would their relationship be like if she didn't need him to act in a Virgil role?  Would he turn petty like Cole, or would they form a true partnership? Or both or neither or something else?
- If you're interested in leaving go of the official protagonists, how about looking at all the little stories that get touched on - what happened to the various actors in The Nancy Starling afterwards?  Did Carl Lundbeck and Wyndham Best make it through the war OK?  There was a romance going on in the background that looks like it's on the way to producing a baby - how did things go?  What about Phyl Moore with her dashing pants and 'other inclinations', how did her life go on?  What are the events of the film like from Parfitt's point of view?

Please Don't Eat The Daisies (1960) - Kate Mackay, Laurence Mackay
This is a fun movie I picked up at random because I hadn't seen a Doris Day movie before, and it turned into a comfort watch.  (If you're familiar with the non-fiction essays that inspired the movie, any additional details are fine.)
- We get a very brief glimpse of So Passion Dies, with its overwrought bathos jammed up against cheerful song and dance numbers - perhaps another scene from this immortal epic?  A play by play of the first night?  Or the reviews by Laurence McKay's colleagues?
- I think that the secondary characters make this movie: Deborah Vaughn of the magnificent fanny trying to collect another seductee for the challenge and fun of it; the playwrite taxi driver; the horrible children; the vampiress who's taking over the lease of the McKay's apartment; the charm of the Hooton Holler players.  Perhaps some more vignettes where they take over the action and add to the general chaos?
- For a more serious story, this is pretty heavy on gender politics, with Kate struggling with her role as 'housewife' and how to participate in her husband's life, and that stomach churning attitude of her mother that Laurence is doing a good job as husband when he's making Kate feel small.  So how do things work out after the big denouement?  Does Kate take the same outlet as the original author Jean Kerr did and become a writer of her own?  Does Laurence change his ways for good, or does he need another pertinent reminder?

Frederica - Georgette Heyer - Frederica Merriville, The Marquis of Alverstoke
I came across Frederica quite recently in the Heyer canon and found it to be a magnificently sparkling novel.  One of the things I found of interest is that it's one of the very latest set novels Heyer wrote, in 1818, and she shows in it a keen interest in the technological advances happening in London, like hot air balloons and the rise of automation like steam boats and pneumatic lifts.  It makes me wonder what she might have written if she'd extended her period into the Victorian era and the introduction of the railways as more than a curiousity, for instance.  I also found the section of the book where Frederica and the Marquis of Alverstoke are busy nursing Felix has got to be one of the most emotionally poignant pieces of writing she's done: Frederica's matter of fact frankness about rheumatic fever ruining her mother's health because she kept on dragging herself out of bed to tend to the crying baby, and Alverstoke's surprised realisation that he's putting himself to considerable discomfort because of how much he cares for Frederica and her family.

Possible Prompts:
- the exacting fit of the Marquis of Alverstoke's finely tailored pantaloons
- the further adventures of Frederica's high spirited brothers
- more technological advancements of the period- class issues, such as the extremely able Charles Trevor marrying up and his potential rise through the ranks of the civil service
- Frederica's position as an 'older' girl, who feels herself past the first flush of youth and thus not planning on trying to get married.  How does this affect her feelings in her engagement and marriage?  
- Maybe a Baluchistan Hound Fancier turns up, wishing to inspect Lufra? Or a homesick Baluchistani citizen?
-Heading a bit more in the way of consequences - the Marquis has canonically had a lot of affairs. Does he have any natural sons or daughters, and how does he feel about them?