Tony Slattery was one of the most gifted TV comedians of the late 80s and early 90s. One of the Cambridge Footlight set that included Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson, he became a household name on Whose Line is it Anyway? Then in 1996, amidst rumours of a massive breakdown, he seemed to vanish from our screens overnight.
Now as he approaches 60, Tony has been touring...
A revealing and personal profile of Grammy Award–winning composer and producer David Foster, with interviews from the artists who know the music legend best, including Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, Lionel Richie, Quincy Jones, and Michael Bublé.
One of the most successful record producers and songwriters of the past half century, David Foster has worked on countless chart-topp...
When Dr. Frankenstein is killed by a monster he created, his daughter and his lab assistant Marshall continue his experiments. The two fall in love and attempt to transplant Marshall's brain in to the muscular body of a retarded servant Stephen, in order to prolong the aging Marshall's life. Meanwhile, the first monster seeks revenge on the grave robbers who sold the body parts used in its creation to Dr. Frankenstein. Soon it comes after Marshall and the doctor's daughter.
Paris, 1315. The Tour de Nesle, a guard tower on the banks of the Seine, has become a symbol of mystery and fear. Each morning, at its base, the bodies of handsome young aristocrats are found floating in the river, all butchered by sword or arrow. One evening, two noblemen, Buridan and Philippe d'Aulnay, find themselves in the infamous tower, lured there on the expectation of a night of unbridled passion. Little do they realise that they are to be the next victims of a woman who is determined to take revenge against all men - Margaret of Burgundy, the present Queen of France. Although Philippe is killed, Buridan escapes, and intends to blackmail the Queen. Unless she makes him her prime minister, he will expose her crimes to Philippe's brother and her husband, King Louis X. When she moves to eliminate Burdan, Margaret makes a terrible discovery... In the twilight years of his long and pretty uneven career, the great avant-garde film director Abel Gance made a number of films which, whilst not as grand and artistically inspired as his early silent masterpieces (La Roue (1923), Napoléon (1927)), still compared very favourably with the work of his contemporaries. Of these, La Tour de Nesle is a film that still stands up remarkably well today - an ambitious historical drama based on the famous 1832 play by Alexandre Dumas. It makes a nice companion piece to Gance's subsequent historical romp, Cyrano et d'Artagnan (1964). Needless to say, the film isn't to be commended on its historical accuracy. As any historian will tell you, the Alexandre Dumas version of French history is wildly fanciful, to say the least. However, this doesn't prevent La Tour de Nesle from being an entertaining and, at times, highly poignant, piece of cinema. Whilst the characterisation and dialogue leave much to be desired, the plot (a murky tale of cruel revenge and political intrigue) is gripping, and the film's artistic design is exceptional for a film of this period. Gance brings a strangely expressionistic touch to his use of colour and shade, something which adds to the darkly sinister nature of the plot, whilst imbuing the film with a striking sense of historical realism.
A propos, Gance's assistant director Nelly Kaplan makes her screen début in a small role, shortly before she herself embarked on a successful film making career.
Follows Bowers as he talks about his long journey to his first comedy special, the stigma of mental health, his schizophrenic father and his feelings regarding his Blackness.