Exiled from the USA because of the blacklist Joseph Losey did some of his bestwork in the United Kingdom and he has a really good thriller here. Not muchof a mystery other than the question is why couldn't the police see who it wasin the first place.Young Alec McCowen is now on death row after his girlfriend was found strangledto death in her family's home where he had been spending the weekend. Likefather like son, Michael Redgrave an alcoholic writer who has been living inCanada comes back to the UK to visit with his son now on death row. He'sbeen convicted of her death and was too drunk at the time to offer any meaningful evidence in his defense.It was at Leo McKern's home where the deed was done. He's a foulmouthedill tempered automobile manufacturer who terrorizes his family like wife AnnTodd and son Paul Daneman who is McCowen's best friend. He's also a bitunbalanced and everyone around him is afraid.The real suspense is in Redgrave battling his own demons and not returning tothe bottle. The pressure to do so is great, but Redgrave summons up enoughstrength to resist. It's a masterful very subtly cerebral type performance. Heand McKern take the acting honors.For fans of Redgrave and McKern this is a must.
No Time for Pity torrent
Some time ago, Alec Graham was sentenced to die following the death of his girlfriend. Amazingly enough, Alec's father, David (Michael Redgrave), never learns about this until it seems too late as he's been in in-patient treatment for his alcoholism. He manages to make it to Britain the day before the boy's to be executed. Considering that David is a drunk and was never there for Alec, there's no surprise when the young man wants nothing to do with him nor his promises to help him. During the duration of the film, David reinvestigates the case. Could he possibly help? And, can David stay sober long enough to be of some use?There is a big problem with the film...it seems pretty obvious who is the real killer and it should be to everyone. This guy is super-angry and very explosive all the time, you wonder why he wasn't considered a prime suspect or, perhaps, he knows more than he's telling. It defies common sense...which makes for a more mediocre film. Too bad...it could have easily been better...though the ending was pretty good.
TIME WITHOUT PITY is a British drama with some unusually dark and well-drawn characters in the cast. The lead actor is the great Michael Redgrave (DEAD OF NIGHT) who plays a washed-up alcoholic who arrives in England from Canada when he learns that his son has been accused of murder and is due to be hanged shortly.Redgrave believes that his son is innocent and must work to uncover the real culprit and bring him to justice before his son hangs, but it won't be an easy job, especially when the stress of the situation gets to him and he begins drinking again. As such, TIME WITHOUT PITY is a rather depressing and grimly realistic movie despite the contrivances of the plot; it feels more like THE LOST WEEKEND than a thriller in its depiction of the depths the human spirit will sink to.The supporting cast is very good including a stand-out turn from a young Leo McKern. Renee Houston, Lois Maxwell, Ann Todd, and Joan Plowright are the females of the cast, while Peter Cushing plays a lawyer just before he made the big time in THE CURSE OF FRANKNSTEIN, and there's a brief role for fellow Hammer actor Richard Wordsworth. I wouldn't call this a perfect film by any means, but the twist ending is particularly good and worth the wait.
There's a lot to be angry about these days. The coronavirus pandemic has affected our jobs as well as our family routines. It has derailed plans and hurt people we love. Everybody seems on edge; we're short tempered and stressed. For healthy recovery to take place, anger needs to be acknowledged and dealt with. Those of us attending to our recovery know we need to develop a wider range of emotional skills than our previous lives required of us, including healthy ways to express anger, and how to recognize ways others' anger affects and triggers us. Learning to accept, understand, and manage our anger can make recovery less stressful and reduce the chance of relapse, something we all can appreciate during this National Recovery Month. In this excerpt from their book, Of Course You're Angry: A Guide to Dealing with the Emotions of Substance Abuse, Gayle Rosellini and Mark Worden call us to examine self-pity as a destructive form of unhealthy anger, and find a way past it.
Addictive people and their family members often suffer from a major problem that doesn't always look like it's related to anger, but it is. It's called?self-pity.?And like resentment, self-pity is caused by negative self-talk.
We feel sorry for ourselves because our family, friends, co-workers, lovers--the whole darn world--don't give us what we want, need, and feel we deserve. As we wallow in self-pity, we don't stop to ask ourselves if what we expect from our family or friends is reasonable. Some of our demands are never even voiced. We just expect other people to know what we want. How unreasonable can you get?
Self-pity is anger, plain and simple. We're angry that life isn't fair, that it's full of hardship and disappointment. We see ourselves as victims tossed around by an uncaring world. We're strong believers in luck--bad luck for us and good luck for everyone else. And we're blamers. Who do we blame? Anyone handy: spouse, kids, Exxon, the environmentalists, the government, the extraterrestrials....
We're experts at this blame game. If we can't find a person to blame, we'll even blame God. Self-pity, resentment, and fault-finding are symptoms of the family disease of substance abuse. Part of our recovery process is fearlessly confronting these defects in our thinking.
Here's a fact of life we had better not ignore: Recovering people can't afford to get into a state over annoyances. We can't waste our energy turning molehills into mountains. We don't have time to spin our wheels catastrophizing some little snafu into a major crisis.
The conclusion is that you won't die, and it isn't necessary to create a torrent of unpleasant emotions about Paul's oversight. He probably feels bad enough already. And if he still doesn't remember after you remind him, well, you'd better find out what's really going on, instead of jumping to conclusions. Talk about your concerns.
25. Towards the close of the same winter, Salaethus, a Lacedaemonian, was sent out in a galley from Lacedaemon to Mitylene. Going by sea to Pyrrha, and from thence overland, he passed along the bed of a torrent, where the line of circumvallation was passable, and thus entering unperceived into Mitylene told the magistrates that Attica would certainly be invaded, and the forty ships destined to relieve them arrive, and that he had been sent on to announce this and to superintend matters generally. The Mitylenians upon this took courage, and laid aside the idea of treating with the Athenians; and now this winter ended, and with it ended the fourth year of the war of which Thucydides was the historian.
27. In the meantime the Mitylenians, finding their provisions failing, while the fleet from Peloponnese was loitering on the way instead of appearing at Mitylene, were compelled to come to terms with the Athenians in the following manner. Salaethus having himself ceased to expect the fleet to arrive, now armed the commons with heavy armour, which they had not before possessed, with the intention of making a sortie against the Athenians. The commons, however, no sooner found themselves possessed of arms than they refused any longer to obey their officers; and forming in knots together, told the authorities to bring out in public the provisions and divide them amongst them all, or they would themselves come to terms with the Athenians and deliver up the city.
36. Upon the arrival of the prisoners with Salaethus, the Athenians at once put the latter to death, although he offered, among other things, to procure the withdrawal of the Peloponnesians from Plataea, which was still under siege; and after deliberating as to what they should do with the former, in the fury of the moment determined to put to death not only the prisoners at Athens, but the whole adult male population of Mitylene, and to make slaves of the women and children. It was remarked that Mitylene had revolted without being, like the rest, subjected to the empire; and what above all swelled the wrath of the Athenians was the fact of the Peloponnesian fleet having ventured over to Ionia to her support, a fact which was held to argue a long meditated rebellion. They accordingly sent a galley to communicate the decree to Paches, commanding him to lose no time in dispatching the Mitylenians. The morrow brought repentance with it and reflection on the horrid cruelty of a decree, which condemned a whole city to the fate merited only by the guilty. This was no sooner perceived by the Mitylenian ambassadors at Athens and their Athenian supporters, than they moved the authorities to put the question again to the vote; which they the more easily consented to do, as they themselves plainly saw that most of the citizens wished some one to give them an opportunity for reconsidering the matter. An assembly was therefore at once called, and after much expression of opinion upon both sides, Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, the same who had carried the former motion of putting the Mitylenians to death, the most violent man at Athens, and at that time by far the most powerful with the commons, came forward again and spoke as follows:
39. "In order to keep you from this, I proceed to show that no one state has ever injured you as much as Mitylene. I can make allowance for those who revolt because they cannot bear our empire, or who have been forced to do so by the enemy. But for those who possessed an island with fortifications; who could fear our enemies only by sea, and there had their own force of galleys to protect them; who were independent and held in the highest honour by you—to act as these have done, this is not revolt—revolt implies oppression; it is deliberate and wanton aggression; an attempt to ruin us by siding with our bitterest enemies; a worse offence than a war undertaken on their own account in the acquisition of power. The fate of those of their neighbours who had already rebelled and had been subdued was no lesson to them; their own prosperity could not dissuade them from affronting danger; but blindly confident in the future, and full of hopes beyond their power though not beyond their ambition, they declared war and made their decision to prefer might to right, their attack being determined not by provocation but by the moment which seemed propitious. The truth is that great good fortune coming suddenly and unexpectedly tends to make a people insolent; in most cases it is safer for mankind to have success in reason than out of reason; and it is easier for them, one may say, to stave off adversity than to preserve prosperity. Our mistake has been to distinguish the Mitylenians as we have done: had they been long ago treated like the rest, they never would have so far forgotten themselves, human nature being as surely made arrogant by consideration as it is awed by firmness. Let them now therefore be punished as their crime requires, and do not, while you condemn the aristocracy, absolve the people. This is certain, that all attacked you without distinction, although they might have come over to us and been now again in possession of their city. But no, they thought it safer to throw in their lot with the aristocracy and so joined their rebellion! Consider therefore: if you subject to the same punishment the ally who is forced to rebel by the enemy, and him who does so by his own free choice, which of them, think you, is there that will not rebel upon the slightest pretext; when the reward of success is freedom, and the penalty of failure nothing so very terrible? We meanwhile shall have to risk our money and our lives against one state after another; and if successful, shall receive a ruined town from which we can no longer draw the revenue upon which our strength depends; while if unsuccessful, we shall have an enemy the more upon our hands, and shall spend the time that might be employed in combating our existing foes in warring with our own allies. 2ff7e9595c
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