lucy-66

But if you want to learn how to give someone a massage, don't

copy Natalie! Most unprofessional. In fact all the girls seem to do

is apply (and try to sell) products (it's a good running gag).

This film is rather like Victoria Wood's British series

Dinnnerladies, with an ensemble cast of wonderful actresses

including cameos from some grande dames of the theatre/cinema. Can we believe Angele's tales of her past,

though? What really happened to her parents? Did she really

shoot Jacques? Is he really disfigured (he doesn't look too bad)?

That Roman triumph looks familiar - of course, it's a Nuremberg rally! And the architecture, isn't that Milan railway station? And Nero is a whinging carpet-biter with a limp-wristed salute. When I first saw this movie aged about 11 I fell in love with Peter Ustinov. By the way, the studio suggested he was too young for the role. That's when he cabled back that if they waited any longer he'd be too old.

"Stick yer minces on that!" Is this language "stilted" and "quaint"?

Get real (as you young people say)! Slang is of its time.

Minces are eyes (rhyming slang from mince pies). "Milky" for cowardly sounds like a Greene coinage. (Perhaps "windy" didn't get past the censor.) "Lakes" means crazy, rhyming slang again, from Lakes of Killarney=barmy.

(Raymond Chandler admitted to making up much of his gangster slang.)