In the film The Lake House is a connection to an earlier blog of mine…A blog about a famous actor who just may have been a spy during World War II. There are sequences from an old movie that gave me a pleasant surprise when I watched the film released in 2006 that starred Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. The film is Notorious that starred Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. If you missed reading the blog that I devoted to debonair actor of many a romantic fantasy, go back to an earlier writing called The Spy.
“Post-WW II story of a beautiful playgirl sent by the U.S. government to marry a suspected spy living in Brazil. Grant is the agent assigned to watch her. Duplicity and guilt are important factors in this brooding, romantic spy thriller. Suspenseful throughout, with a surprise ending. Hitchcock makes certain that suspense is maintained throughout this classy and complex thriller.” A review of the 1946 classic film, Notorious from Videohounds’ Golden Movie Retriever. It might be worth renting a copy from your local Rogers Video store if it’s been a while since you saw it. The laser-disc features bonus footage as well as the original trailer.
“She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older - the natural sequence of an unnatural beginning.” - Jane Austen
Also in the film The Lake House, is mention of a book that plays a very pivotal role in the love story. The book is Persuasion by Jane Austen. “…published posthumously in 1817. Unlike her novel Northanger Abbey, with which it was published, Persuasion (written 1815-16) was a work of Austen’s maturity.
“Persuasion tells the story of a second chance, the reawakening of love between Anne Elliot and Captain Frederick Wentworth, whom eight years earlier she had been persuaded not to marry. Wentworth returns from the Napoleonic wars with prize money and the social acceptability of naval rank. He is now an eligible suitor acceptable to Anne’s snobbish father and his circle, and Anne discovers the continuing strength of her love for him.” A review from Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature.
The Lake House is a film worth seeing. It’s a great idea and I must tell you that I’m really impressed by the acting talents of Keanu Reeves. This role is a pleasant diversion from his brooding character in The Matrix.
Finally, The Lake of The Dismal Swamp by Thomas Moore:
“‘They made her grave too cold and damp / For a soul so warm and true; / And she’s gone to the lake of the dismal swamp, / Where all night long, by a firefly lamp, / she paddles her white canoe. / And her firefly lamp I soon shall see, / And her paddle I soon shall hear; / Long and loving our life shall be, / And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress tree, / When the footstep of death is near.’
Away to the dismal swamp he speeds, - / His path was rugged and sore, / Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds, / Through many a fen where the serpent feeds, / And man never trod before.
And when on the earth he sank to sleep, / If slumber his eyelids knew, / He lay where the deadly vine doth weep / Its venomous tear, and nightly steep / The flesh with blistering dew!
And near him the she-wolf stirr’d the brake, / And the copper-snake breathed in his ear, / till he starting cried, from his dream awake, / ‘Oh when shall I see the dusky lake, / And the white canoe of my dear?’
He saw the lake, and a meteor bright / Quick over its surface play’d, - / ‘Welcome’, he said, ‘My dear one’s light!’ / And the dim shore echo’d for many a night / The name of the death-cold maid.
Till he hollow’d a boat of the birchen bark, / Which carried him off from shore; / Far, far he follow’d the meteor spark, / The wind was high and the clouds were dark, / And the boat return’d no more.
But oft, from the Indian hunter’s camp, / This lover and maid so true / Are seen at the hour of midnight damp / To cross the lake by a firefly lamp, / And paddle their white canoe!”
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Don Jackson
In your blog of last night “The Lakehouse” you mentioned your previous blog about “The Spy”. How do I access The Spy blog?
“If you missed reading the blog that I devoted to debonair actor of many a romantic fantasy, go back to an earlier writing called The Spy.”
Thank you
- Alka