Taglines: Behind one door a desperate man, behind the other a vulnerable, lonely woman – between them a ruthless youth.
Connecting Rooms xplores the relationships shared by the residents of a seedy boarding house in London owned by dour Mrs. Brent (Kay Walsh). Amongst them are busker Wanda Fleming (Bette Davis), who is flattered by the attention paid her by rebellious pop songwriter wannabe Mickey Hollister (Alexis Kanner), and former schoolmaster James Wallraven (Sir Michael Redgrave), who has been accused of pedophilia and reduced to working as a janitor in an art gallery.
Connecting Rooms is a 1970 British drama film written and directed by Franklin Gollings. The screenplay is based on the play The Cellist by Marion Hart. The film stars Bette Davis, Michael Redgrave, Alexis Kanner, Kay Walsh, Leo Genn, Olga Georges-Picot, Richard Wyler, Mark Jones, Gabrielle Drake, Brian Wilde, John Woodnutt, James Maxwell and Michael Rathborne.
The Paramount Pictures release was filmed on location in Bayswater. It was made in 1969, was given a limited release in the United States in 1970, and opened in the UK in 1972.
Scenes in which Wanda Fleming played the cello featured close-ups of the hands of British classical cellist Amaryllis Fleming. In a scene set in the West End theatre district, a theatre marquee lists Margot Channing as one of the cast of the play it is housing. Channing was the name of the character Bette Davis portrayed in All About Eve.
Film Review for Connecting Rooms
Amaryllis Fleming, a British cellist who was particularly devoted to chamber music and the Baroque literature, died on Tuesday at a hospital in Nettlebed, near Oxford, England, where she lived. She was 73.
Ms. Fleming lived a colorful life, partly because she was born into a family with both pronounced creative abilities and strong social connections, but also because of her own musical abilities, which drew her into the orbits of the pianist Artur Schnabel, the violinist Joseph Szigeti, the cellists Pierre Fournier and Pablo Casals, the conductor Sir John Barbirolli and the guitarists Julian Bream and John Williams.
She made her public debut playing the Elgar Cello Concerto when she was 19, and went on to win several important prizes and competitions. She also appeared — or at least, her arms and hands did — in ”Connecting Rooms” (1969), as the screen fingers of Bette Davis, who played a cellist in the film.
Ms. Fleming was born in 1925, the daughter of the painter Augustus John and of Eve Fleming, the wife of a Maj. Valentine Fleming, Member of Parliament. Ms. Fleming had four half-brothers, the most famous of whom was Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond spy novels. Until she was 24, Ms. Fleming believed that she was Eve Fleming’s adopted daughter. Her discovery of the truth caused a rift with her mother but brought her closer to John, whose home in Wiltshire became a retreat for her.
Having taken up the cello at the age of 9, Ms. Fleming determined early that she would become a professional musician. In 1943 she enrolled at the Royal College of Music, where she studied with Ivor James. By the end of the following year she had performed on the BBC and made her concert debut. When she auditioned for Fournier at that time, he was so impressed that he offered to teach her at no charge. They soon began a romance that mellowed into a long-standing friendship. Ms. Fleming’s mother, determined to separate her from Fournier, arranged for her to study first in Portugal and later with Casals in Prades, Spain.
Ms. Fleming never married, and left no immediate family. In the early 1950’s, Ms. Fleming won the Queen’s Prize, in England, as well as the Munich International Competition. She gave the German premiere of the Elgar Concerto in Hamburg, with Barbirolli conducting, and performed as a member of the Loveday Trio, the Fidelio Ensemble and the Paganini Trio. Later she formed the Fleming Trio, which went through many personnel changes in the 1970’s, but was one of her most highly regarded chamber music endeavors.
The most decisive influence on her career, though, was her meeting in the 1950’s with E. M. W. Paul, a musicologist who introduced her to Baroque music played on period instruments. Under Paul’s influence, she became one of the first cellists to become interested in incorporating musicological research into her performances of Baroque works. She began playing on both restored Stradivarius and Guarneri cellos, and on an Amati with a five-string layout that allowed her to play certain works — including Bach’s Sonatas for Viola da Gamba, and the Sixth Suite for Unaccompanied Cello — without making the transpositions necessary on a four-string instrument.
Ms. Fleming continued to perform until 1993, when a stroke left her unable to play. But she continued to teach, an occupation to which she had devoted herself increasingly, starting in the 1970’s, when she joined the faculty of the Royal College of Music. Her best-known student is the cellist Raphael Wallfisch.
Connecting Rooms (1970)
Directed by: Franklin Gollings
Starring: Bette Davis, Michael Redgrave, Alexis Kanner, Kay Walsh, Leo Genn, Olga Georges-Picot, Richard Wyler, Mark Jones, Gabrielle Drake, Brian Wilde, John Woodnutt, James Maxwell, Michael Rathborne
Screenplay by: Franklin Gollings
Production Design by: Ronnie Bear, Bluey Hill
Cinematography by: John Wilcox
Film Editing by: Jack Slade
Costume Design by: Harry Haynes, Tina Swanson
Art Direction by: Herbert Smith, Morley Smith
Music by: Joan Shakespeare, John Shakespeare
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: May 1970 (US), May 1972 (UK)
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