Word: agamemnons
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...title of the play derives from the act of a boy named John Taplow (Bruce Wall). The one pupil who fears Crocker-Harris but does not hate him, Taplow brings the teacher a going-away present, a secondhand copy of Robert Browning's translation of Agamemnon. The seemingly granitic "Crock" is riven by tears. The reliably bitchy Millie quickly dries his eyes by suggesting that the boy is simply buttering him up to get a passing grade...
...imaginative English lad finds six dwarfs tumbling out of his bedroom closet one night and accompanies them on their adventures through time and space. But the movie undercuts any involvement in the tale by stopping dead for long derisory skits featuring Napoleon (Ian Holm), Robin Hood (John Cleese) and Agamemnon (Sean Connery). It misuses Holm's talents, underuses Cleese's and doesn't use Connery at all-there's no way to turn him into a figure of antic misanthropy. The film finally regains its footing, with the supernal battle between a dithery Supreme Being (Ralph...
...Briton (not so much played as walked through by unknown Craig Warnock), whose parents ive in subservience to hundreds of whirring, useless kitchen apparati and sit transfixed as horrific gameshows prance across the T.V. Kevin retreats to his room, amidst toy soldiers, cardboard castles, and plastic spaceships, reading about Agamemnon's methods of brutality. Not simply another middle-aged prepubescent a la Justin Henry and Gary Coleman, he is a real kid, untainted and imaginative. Warnock's lack of acting ability adds to Kevin's believability...
...seems chosen for comical rather than didactic purpose. The first era represents Napoleon (Ian Holm) as a silly drunk, obsessed with height and puppets instead of the conquest of Italy. Holm is awkwardly funny in a sort of ludicrous, obvious way, not even bothering to sustain a French accent. Agamemnon (Sean Connery, looking at once--and for once--agacious, fatherly, and mischievous), is concerned more with magic tricks than his empire. Such is the toying with history and apparent lack of morality of these middle scenes...
...temporarily dispose of reality to enjoy a fairy tale any more. Yet he returns to the present, and his cynical morality hits home. Kevin "wakes up" like Dorothy at the end and sees Sean Connery as a fireman (like her scarecrow). But he has uncontrovertible proof that Connery was Agamemnon; and his parents are just as oblivious as ever. Thus, he must conclude the opposite from Dorothy: He could not have been dreaming, and there are most assuredly places far superior to home...