Al Pacino admired Alan Bates who was a slave to the rhythm

I always liked him in whatever I saw him in but never followed the off screen doings of movie folk so potential difficulty ... dunno. 

I saw him on Broadway in a couple of plays ... don't remember the plays themselves but seeing him on stage was pretty cool because  had liked Whistle so much   

Gosford Park (2001) as Jennings, the Butler

The Fixer really captured me when it came out. Now sadly it seems like a by the numbers storyof a small man caught up in a wicked system. Alan Bates as the victim had nothing to do but suffer. He had much more interesting roles in other films.

As the soldier converted to joining the mad folks in King of Hearts, as The cold young school teacher in Zorba , as Joss in Georgey Girl, he had so many twists and turns. The last film I saw him in , Gosford park was rather disappointing. In a film filled with people who were up to something , his part was distressingly one note. Not his fault and I guess everyone could not be as mysterious as JAMES Wilton, Camilla Rutherford ( I still don’t get what she was up to) and of course Helen Mirren and Eileen Atkins .

This is an actor I first became aware of in the mid - sixties with Georgie Girl , then Zorba. I probably saw both films ten times each , a lot of theater going in those pre- vcr days. Bates was mysterious , slightly sinister and full of mischief. He became an actor I wanted to see in anything he did. I wish I had seen him on stage. Women in Love , Far From The Madding Crowd, the Go Between, Whistle Down The Wind,  all favorites. His American films, the Rose, and An Unmarried Woman were not too interesting. I haven’t seen and want to see Nijinsky, Three Sisters , Duet For One, Cherry Orchard and Hamlet .


I had high hopes of Quartet, from a beloved novel by Jean Rhys and a great cast , but it did not quite gel. I probably should see it again. The lost condition of the main character , Isabel Adjani resonated with me and a lot of my friends whose lives seemed to lose direction and focus in our late twenties. Bates and Maggie Smith played a wealthy couple up for anything, a kind of fun house Adjani wandered into.

A good early role was as Laurence Olivier's son in The Entertainer 1960.

There you go Spider - see below -enjoy! On youtube you simply search for the Film using the title in the search function at the top - or you could search on a name - Alan Bates - and get a long list of free viewing! Bates' TV series OLIVERS TRAVELS is there too!.
see link Searching youtube  for search function



I envy you rewatching A KIND OF LOVING after a 60 year gap - I love it dearly and rewatch it regularly - wonderful film with Bates at his most charming and dear Thora offering the screen's greatest Mother in Law. 





and here is A KIND OF LOVING



Everything that was "with it" about a 1966 London on the cusp of "swinging".......in one gorgeously trendy couple - with Charlotte Rampling in GEORGY GIRL 



With Lynn Redgrave as GEORGY (her big sister Vanessa's BLOW UP was the other cinematic offering from 66 that put swinging London firmly on the map) 





and off screen together  

Thanks for the links, tim.  I will get to both as soon as I can.  I'm sure I'll love them now as much as I did when I first saw them.  And I know that feeling about watching a film so long after the first viewing; it will be like seeing it for the first time (I think, anyway).