A serious contender for Harold?

For that small-but-loyal band of followers and merry men/women who have been patient with my Harold-rants for the past few years, let me at last present something dizzy, sunny, fizzy and funny and fine. 

I just figured out who's going to play Harold Lloyd in the movie version of my novel, The Glass Character. (A movie version that doesn't exist yet - that lives only in my imagination. So far.) This is a game that's gone on for several years now, and until Jake Gyllenhaal beefed up a little too much, he was a front-runner, being just awfully good-looking, not to mention a very fine actor.

For a while I was transfixed by Zachary Quinto, but to be honest I wonder if he has enough movie experience, being mostly a TV guy. And he's perhaps a little too Mediterranean, though very handsome, with that movie star big head. But his innate gravitas kind of eliminates him from the running.

But listen up, something just happened. A while ago I read an interview with Suzanne Lloyd, Harold Lloyd's granddaughter. The usual question came up: so who would play Harold in "the movie version"? (which did not exist at all then, except as an extremely abstract concept). She mentioned Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and when I quickly looked up pictures of him I thought: uh-uh. Doesn't really look like him.

I had to go away for a while. 

            

There's such a thing as a "quality", and it goes far beyond physical resemblance. In Harold's case it's a kind of mercurial energy, along with charm and boyish sweetness, but with an underlying intensity. When I started looking at clips, looking at pictures, looking at his track record, watching his movies, I started to think that this at last was a true contender.

A contender for what? A movie based on my novel? Preposterous idea, and I have been severely sniped at a few times for even daring to think of it. "Thank you very much for the opportunity to look at your 'movie-ready' manuscript. Unfortunately, this is an idea that we believe would have no mass-market appeal." Canadians love to shame each other for daring to have enthusiasm or (worse!) ambition, and believe me, I've been through the mill. 

But like in some monster picture, the dream just keeps on resurrecting itself, the Thing that Wouldn't Die. Who knows. Who knows? Could be, I think, and though I have no idea what the next step is, if there even IS one, it all has to start in my head and heart, where Harold has lived since that fateful day in 2007 when I pulled myself up to my computer and began to write.

Could be! 

Who knows? 

There's something due any day; 

I will know right away, 

Soon as it shows. 

It may come cannonballing down through the sky, 

Gleam in its eye, 

Bright as a rose! 

Who knows? 

It's only just out of reach, 

Down the block, on a beach, 

Under a tree. 

I got a feeling there's a miracle due, 

Gonna come true, 

Coming to me! 

Could it be? Yes, it could. 

Something's coming, something good, 

If I can wait! 

Something's coming, I don't know what it is, 

But it is 

Gonna be great! 

With a click, with a shock, 

Phone'll jingle, door'll knock, 

Open the latch! 

Something's coming, don't know when, but it's soon; 

Catch the moon, 

One-handed catch! 

Around the corner, 

Or whistling down the river, 

Come on, deliver 

To me! 

Will it be? Yes, it will. 

Maybe just by holding still, 

It'll be there! 

Come on, something, come on in, don't be shy, 

Meet a guy, 

Pull up a chair! 

The air is humming, 

And something great is coming! 

Who knows? 

It's only just out of reach, 

Down the block, on a beach, 

Maybe tonight . . .

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

The lips don't cut it

Spielberg Gets A Hero For Gershwin Flick

2/01/2010 2:00 PM ET | Filed under: Film Flickers • Zachary Quinto • Steven Spielberg



An interesting choice!

Steven Spielberg is reportedly starting work on a new bio-flick based on the life of composer George Gershwin. Slated to play the legendary piano man is Zachary Quinto. Steven and Dreamworks are so excited about the Heroes hunk coming on board that they have supplied him with accent and dialogue coaches to help him prepare to begin filming in April.

What an opportunity Zach! Guess it wasn't such a hard decision to hang up the pointed ears to take this role!

This has been kicking around the internet for some time now, about five years, and I am not sure what happened to the movie, whether it was ever made or not. My first reaction was that Zach is not very good George material. George was nervous, insecure, ingratiating, dazzling, enigmatic, charismatic, masterful, dreamy, extremely hyper, and knew he was a genius as surely as Beethoven knew (I mean, as Beethoven knew Gershwin was a genius). Zach is hella sexy and has melting brown eyes, and the brow is impressive, but the mouth? George's hallmark was the mouth, the pouty, bratty, sensuous lips that rendered his photo portraits so breathtaking. Strangely, it is very hard to find any shots of George smiling. Nor are there even many recordings, and almost NO film footage except a few ratty-tatty endpapers of home movies.

I said a long time ago that I thought Gershwin was a time traveller. It's weird he left so little permanent trace, except for thousands of portrait photos, many of them similar. Not even a newsreel, George? Only a minute and a half of I Got Rhythm? And what about recordings? By 1937, sound quality was quite good, a quantum leap beyond what it had been when he started out in that alley where they pounded on tin. Any studio would do back-flips to record Gershwin, wouldn't they? Instead, all we have are a handful of scratchy 78s played far too fast because they had to fit 15 minutes of music on a 9-minute side. And dying at 38 - what's THAT all about? Having a big hunk of junk in his brain that nobody knew about, then expiring in a hospital bed, completely alone. The whole thing is hella strange.

Jake and Harold: could they be blood kin?

Writers love to do this. They love to cast their own movies. The movies that won't be made out of the novels they will never publish. It sustains them, somehow.

I've posted on this before, but it's time to revisit. I have a couple of candidates in mind for the role of Harold Lloyd (and guess how I'm going to audition them. The casting couch is still very much in operation.) One was Zachary Quinto, until I realized his energy is all wrong (just too self-contained and subdued, though he made a marvelous Spock in the latest Trek movie). Then I went and saw something with Jake Gyllenhaal in it - he doesn't look like his photos, you know, but has a sort of a strange, vaguely cockeyed look and in some angles is almost nerdy. He has a much beefier physique than Harold, who did 85% of his own stunts and was made of springs and rubber bands. But he could capture Harold's energy, I know he could, and he has those puppy eyes and that tinge of love-me narcissism (just a tinge).

No, I wouldn't say they look alike because Harold's face is much more aquiline, if that's the word - narrow of face and nose, with a classic jaw that kept him handsome until the end of his life. And that three-cornered smile could be a trifle vulpine, evoking a forest faun or perhaps the Great God Pan.

But what about the vulpinosity (or vulpitudinousness) of this shot? There's more than a hint of it there.

Jakey Boy loves to seduce the camera, at least in his still shots. I still think his looks are kind of unorthodox, almost as if one side of his face doesn't quite match the other.

He has that bow-shaped-lips thing going on which can transform a man's face, giving it an appealing androgynous touch. But here it is on someone else.

(Hard to believe this is a goofy comedian, with that super-serious look.)

Somebody's rockin' my dreamboat. . . 

But what could be dreamier than this shot of a very young Harold, looking awfully satisfied about something? In this shot, I think I see a blood-kin kind of resemblance. In fact, it's quite startling.

Yes, the breathtaking Jake can be a bespectacled nerd, reminding you of your Grade 9 Physics teacher. The glasses suit him, somehow.

But they suit him even better.

POSTSCRIPT. Do you think I spent hours finding these? I found these two in fifteen seconds. I am not kidding you. The photos just glom together magnetically. I don't know what's going on here.

'Yeah, I always loved Uncle Harold. . . people used to say I looked like him. . . "

And just one more pair (I promise) just to prove they were both. . .

CROSSEYED!

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm