Peter Rhodes on Proms, driving tests and the passing of a screen giant
Last words on the Last Night of the Proms. Does anyone understand how some people, having bought their tickets, chosen a little flag to wave and wriggled their way to the front row at the Royal Albert Hall, the very focus of this soul-stirring event, do not join in the singing?
Okay, then, some more last words. The Proms included a performance of Storm Cloud Cantata, the music from Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece The Man Who Knew Too Much. This inevitably stirred my memories of a lesser-lauded movie, The Man Who Knew Too Little, which has a special place in my heart. It's a riotously funny yarn of a theatre-mad American (Bill Murray) in London who thinks he's taking part in an interactive theatrical performance when he's actually caught up in a real, and deadly, spy operation. I was always an anxious flyer and Murray's caper was the first in-flight movie to make me laugh enough to overcome the fear.
So farewell Robert Redford, who has died at 89. In his prime, he was impossibly handsome and had some great roles. We'll never forget him on the run, high above a raging river in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), facing imminent death by sheriff's guns or drowning. That's the glorious moment when the seemingly indestructible Sundance admits he can't swim. "What, are you crazy?” says Butch (Paul Newman). “The fall will probably kill you!” And so they jumped, off the cliffs and into our affections.
