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James Dalrymple

@jamesewand.bsky.social

1.6K followers 990 following 12K posts

Teaching/lecturing in France. Occasional academic. Cinema, books, music, vintage television, podcasts (usually while cooking for the family), teaching, life in France etc. Film reviews at: letterboxd.com/jamesewand/

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James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 4h

Oh no. Without his moustache, he's unrecognisable!

Reposted by James Dalrymple

John Bleasdale @www.johnbleasdale.com · 1d

I’m happy to announce that I am beginning a new biographical project on Sean Connery.
I am in early stages but if anyone has any contacts, avenues, stories, anecdotes etc then I would love to hear them. Please DM me.

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Reposted by James Dalrymple

Cinefeast33 (but scarier) 📽📺📚 @cinefeast33.bsky.social · 10h

My ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 Review of A FACE IN THE CROWD boxd.it/bnI34X

Prescient, frightening, AND wildly entertaining, Kazan's scathing satire has manifested as truth in American politics.

Andy Griffith, folksy & despicable, is purposefully over-the-top AND utterly magnetic.

#filmsky 📽
Criterion Collection 970

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James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 4h

Possibly my favourite of his

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James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 4h

All brill. One's gotta go!

James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 1d

I'm due a seasonal rewatch of Changeling. Expecting a delivery soon!

Reposted by James Dalrymple

David Benedict @eggsbened.bsky.social · 2d

63 years ago tonight Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? exploded on to Broadway. Uta Hagen played Martha and when she left the show she was replaced by, um, Elaine Stritch. Can you imagine? You don’t have to because 11 years later she recorded the whole damn thing.
AND HERE IT IS.
youtu.be/sx2qZmT4lGc

Whos's Afraid of Virginia Woolf Act 1 (Elaine Stritch)

YouTube video by Vodka Stinger

youtu.be

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Reposted by James Dalrymple

John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 2d

Liberated a couple of red flags from my local Oxfam bookshop today, to avoid the risk of them falling into innocent hands.

Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint and VS Naipaul’s A Turn in the South

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Reposted by James Dalrymple

Michael Savage @michaelsavage.bsky.social · 2d

Last month, something unusual happened in TV - none of the main channels got a million viewers at 9pm. The bigger problem was it happened a 2nd & 3rd time soon after.

Another unwelcome landmark for linear TV & our shrinking shared TV experience.

Does it matter?

www.theguardian.com/media/2025/o...

‘It was a binding experience’: TV producers mourn decline of hot 9pm slot

UK broadcasters used to rely on big audiences at 9pm, but as viewing habits change, figures are falling below the 1m mark

www.theguardian.com

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James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 2d

😬

James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 2d

It was worth a shot 😅

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Reposted by James Dalrymple

John Hodson @mgcroadster.bsky.social · 2d

My 'phone reminds me that it's 10 years since I celebrated getting the Criterion BD of DON'T LOOK NOW, by getting my daughter & grandson to imitate a psychotic demon dwarf serial killer. Ah, such fun... 🤔

Don't Look Now on the TV daughter and grandson imitating the killer of the film

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James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 2d

In the last couple of weeks I've done three round trips Grenoble-Valence and on two occasions I've had a 30-40 minute delay on board

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James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 2d

I'm in danger of losing my rose-tinted view of the SNCF

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James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 2d

What a time to be alive!

James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 2d

yeah, great performances, and some amazing scenes of tension/suspense

Reposted by James Dalrymple

the babahuck @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 3d

In 2004, Parisian police were conducting a training exercise in the french catacombs and found, after moving past a desk and a tape playing audio of snarling dogs, a fully functional movie theater and bar. When they returned 3 days later, the equipment was gone, with a note: “Do not try to find us.”

Members of the force's sports squad, responsible
- among other tasks - for policing the 170 miles of tunnels, caves, galleries and catacombs that underlie large parts of Paris, stumbled on the complex while on a training exercise beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
After entering the network through a drain next to the Trocadero, the officers came across a tarpaulin marked: Building site, No access.
Behind that, a tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing. The mechanism also triggered a tape of dogs barking, "clearly designed to frighten people off," the spokesman said.
Further along, the tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, "like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs".

There the police found a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment, and tapes of a wide variety of films, including 1950s film noir classics and more recent thrillers. None of the films were banned or even offensive, the spokesman said.
A smaller cave next door had been turned into an informal restaurant and bar. "There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous," the spokesman said.
"The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines down there."
Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: "Do not," it said, "try to find us."

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James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 3d

Yes, absolutely, they change with us!

Reposted by James Dalrymple

LesSmarberry @lessmarberry.bsky.social · 3d

As returns from Slow Horses continue to diminish, can I interest anyone in Spy Trap?

A BBC series from 1972-75, about a counter espionage outfit that goes only by 'The Department', it plays like an even less action-packed version of The Sandbaggers (complementary)

A black & white screen grab from Episode 1 of Spy Trap. Paul Daneman as counter-espionage chief Commander Ryan stands reading a file while Julian Glover as his colleague Commander Anderson stands looking at him

I like this show a lot but can't escape the feeling that all of the protagonists would have voted for Brexit

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James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 3d

FWIW - I really like Kiss of Death

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James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 3d

Happy birthday man. Cool picture!

James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 3d

JOE GILLIS: It's quarter past ten. What time are they supposed to get here?
NORMA DESMOND: Who?
JOE: The other guests
NORMA: There are no other guests
😱

James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 3d

I think it's amazing that she is presented as something like a vampire and yet you end up pitying her anyway. I think that was less obvious to me the first time round

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James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 3d

It seems she only made three more films after that, but what a role!

James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 4d

Great film, obviously, but this time I was much more alive to Norma Desmond's pain

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