Day: November 14, 2022

Frances Barber – beyond Greenaway

UncleScoopy

This was a comment in the Frances Barber thread from A Zed and Two Noughts:

“Cute bum – was this her only nude scene?”

The good news: She did at least five other nude scenes that I know of

The disappointing news:

(1) A Zed and Two Noughts was the only time she showed that cute bum

(2) It was really the only time she did a good nude scene in her physical prime. In 1983, at about age 25, she offered a very brief flash of breast in an obscure made-for-TV film called A Flame to the Phoenix, which aired on Channel 4 in the UK. That scene was barely worth a look. She was in her late 20s when she did A Zed and Two Noughts, and looked ripe and lovely, but then waited five years before a brief topless appearance in an obscure TV series from Channel 4 called The Orchid House. Then it was another eight years before she stripped off again for a film, meaning that she was in her forties for her last three nude scenes.

Caveat: She has been in many films and TV shows, and there are not always good recordings, or any recordings, currently available from all those old TV programs from the UK, so there may be other appearances unknown to me.


A Flame to the Phoenix (1983)

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A Zed and Two Noughts (1986 – covered here)

The Orchid House (1991 – TV)

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Plastic Man (1999)

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Esther Kahn (2000)

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Fly Fishing (2002)

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Emma Mackey topless in that new Emily Bronte movie

UncleScoopy

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The IMDb page shows that this film was been rated an average of 7.1 by 352 men. That’s exactly 352 more men than have ever read a book by Emily Bronte.

Just kiddin’. I read Wuthering Heights (her only novel). In fact I read it twice, but to be fair:

1. I majored in English Lit as an undergrad, and it was required reading for the course on “The English Novel.”
2. I’m not all that manly.

Weirdly enough for a prestige project, this film fabricates an important distortion of history. The first edition of Wuthering Heights is pictured with her name listed as the author.

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This is not possible. She wrote under the name Ellis Bell, and her identity was not revealed until after her death. Wuthering Heights was published while she was alive.

Here is the actual first edition from 1847:

And here is an edition of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey from 1858, ten years after Emily’s death, in which she and her sister Anne were still identified as Ellis and Acton Bell

The reason it’s important to get this right is that it demonstrates that era’s attitude toward women, which is a crucial fact in a Bronte biopic. What’s really odd is that this was not a mistake, but a deliberate decision by the filmmaker, as evidenced by the fact that the prop book has obviously been modeled exactly on the real book, except for the name. (See the two images above.)

Another key fact is that publishers of the time were not even clear that Emily and her other sister, Charlotte, were two different people. In the first American printing, the publisher didn’t even identify the author by name, but just listed it as “By the author of Jane Eyre” which was in fact her sister, Charlotte. (Or maybe I should say “his brother, Currer.”)

“Brits could face £650 fines for having inflatable penises”

UncleScoopy

… and other sex-related accoutrements

To be fair, the rule is not British at all, and applies to other nationalities as well. (It’s actually a new ordinance from a city in Spain that gets inundated by British tourism.)

It is “forbidden to walk or remain in the streets only in underwear, or with clothes or accessories that represent genitals or with dolls or elements of a sexual nature”.

The fine could rise to as high as £1,300 if the offender is with a disabled person. (??? I did not make that up.) I guess that will tend to negate the value of traveling with a disabled person to get a better parking place.