Roger Livesey

The Price of Wisdom

by
Mary Newland close-up

Often billed as a drama but obviously a farce, The Price of Wisdom is a British “quota quickie”, one of many films churned out in the 1930s to shore up domestic production. “Quota quickie” is usually a useful synonym for “pile of crap” but this is an exception and if you’re on the lookout for a delightfully eccentric, highly tweedy, very British old-school light comedy, your train has just pulled in. There’s enough plot to power a two-hour movie and the only real argument you could mount against this 66-minute film is that it has to move too fast to get everything in. The actors are literally gabbling their lines to keep up … Read more

A Matter of Life and Death

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Marius Goring in A Matter of Life and Death

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 29 December UK pays off Second World War debt, 2006 On this day in 2006, the last working day of the year, the British Government made the last of 50 payments to the US and Canada, money it had borrowed off them in 1945 at the end of the war, when the British economist John Maynard Keynes had been dispatched to Washington with the begging bowl. With the national debt standing at 180% of gross domestic product, the government had expected, or hoped for, a grant. Instead it was offered a loan, on terms of 2% interest annually, a rate that … Read more