I'll be the first to admit that when it comes to my favourite actresses' films I usually spend most of the film peeping over the top of my wannabe film critic's glasses because I just can't find it in me to judge their films, especially if they're stinkers. Deborah Kerr's 1959 film Count Your Blessings is no exception.
I first saw it 4 or 5 years ago when a very kind soul uploaded it to YouTube, along with many other rare Deborah films. Despite it's terrible and often utterly ridiculous script, it was love at first sight. I watched it over and over again and even transferred parts of it to my tiny mp4 player so I could watch it whenever I wanted.
Rated 4.4 on IMDb, I certainly wasn't drawn to it for it's rank among the great classics (although 4 years ago I probably wasn't as discerning as I am now in regards to film. Wait, who am I kidding? I still feel no sense of shame in admitting that I like live action Disney films more than most of the films I've ever seen...). What I was drawn to, however, was Grace (Deborah) and Charles' (Rossano Brazzi) whirlwind romance and everything that ensued: English girl meets dashing Frenchman during WWII, they get married, he goes off to serve his country, she has a baby, he doesn't come back for 9 years, she then finds out he's been having affairs all over the globe, she gets mad, he gets mad, they get a divorce, their son decides that he likes the amount of affection he gets through the divorce so purposefully keeps them apart, but everything works out all fine and dandy in the end because rubbish films can't afford to be Debbie Downers (no pun intended).
All of that is beside the point though, the most important part of this brain-fryingly awfully wonderful film is the astonishing beauty of Deborah Kerr. Although Deborah looking disgustingly gorgeous is nothing knew, I think you tend to notice and appreciate it even more when it's the only thing, other than the cute, French guy's (You know who I mean! The one who pops up in every film set in France. Thank 'eavens for leetle girls!) accent, keeping you sane (even if you don't realise that you're going insane because you're actually revelling in this rotten mess of a film). Usually Brazzi would be a keeper of the sane too, but in CYB he is more detestable than that woman who stole Captain von Trapp away from the Baroness. I want to bite him.
Looking beautiful, as always.
So, yes, this is definitely one of my favourite guilty pleasure films. I can't write that much about a film which only has a vague outline of a plot and no interesting, flamboyant characters (à la Auntie Mame or Winifred Banks) but if you're a massive fan of Deborah, you really should check it out and maybe you'll end up loving it as much as I do! If you're not a fan, you should probably avoid it - unless you're a masochist.
With the nice, French guy.
---
Written as part of the CMBA Guilty Pleasures Movie Blogathon
No comments:
Post a Comment