8 thoughts on “MCM: Yul Brynner

  1. The man had presence and charisma to rival anyone in Hollywood. I didn’t know about at least half of these movies, so thank you for this! Interestingly, it looks like Anna’s costumes in Anna and the King are retreads of Irene Sharaff’s designs for the ball gown and striped day dress from The King and I.

  2. Back in 1978, I got to see Brynner on Broadway in a revival of The King and I. At more than 25 years older than his debut in the role, he truly embodied the weariness of the lifetime monarch trying to bring his nation into the Western world. I sobbed when he died at the end. It is the best thing I have ever seen on stage.

  3. Regarding the costumes in The Ten Commandments: It’s been a very long time since I studied ancient near Eastern religions in college, but I have always remembered the little rearing cobra that adorned the crowns of many Pharaohs; part of the regalia over century. It’s called the ‘Uraeus’. In The Ten Commandments, both Seti and Ramses wear it, as seen in these photos. The question is, why is Moses wearing it in the photo where he is showing the pyramid (not seen in the photo) to the seated Ramses? (in that photo, I believe that Moses’ headgear is the ‘khepresh’, the ‘blue crown’ or ‘war crown’ of a pharaoh, though I don’t know if the khepresh had a metal band around it). I think that the crown Seti wears in the photo where he is sitting and Moses is showing the pyramid is the ‘hedjet’, the white crown of Upper Egypt.

    I am not an expert on the crowns; all the others seem to be fairly realistic examples of various crowns worn by pharaohs of various times. I definitely remember the Uraeus.

    Another part of pharaonic regalia was the false beard, which neither Seti nor Ramses ever wear, as far as I remember, in The Ten Commandments (at least in this production, which, for my money, is the only one that counts, though the Disney animated version is enjoyable).

  4. “Okay so are those glass balls??!!”

    Maybe “pool of light” crystals– either real or simulated? Did those come to the West from Asia during the Victorian era?

    Also, FWIW– while Jean Cocteau’s THE TESTAMENT OF ORPHEUS presents Cocteau as an 18th century poet who travels through time and space towards immortality (or something), after an initial scene in period costume, everyone’s in modern dress (except for “mythological” characters in theatrical getups– and cartoonish “googly eyes” pasted on Cocteau and a couple of others).

    Not for nothing, Cocteau’s full original title translates as THE TESTAMENT OF ORPHEUS, OR: DON’T ASK ME WHY!

  5. “The Seven Samurai” has my undying love – such a masterpiece! To my mind it can’t truly be matched, but despite that I’m extremely fond of “The Magnificent Seven” (great actors, good directing, fantastic music!), so I’ll vote for that one as my favorite on this list.

    The promo photo featuring Brynner and Rosenda Monteros is kinda crazy, though – it makes it look like they’re a couple, when in fact I don’t think his character says more than two words to her through the entire film and she’s actually someone else’s romantic interest! X)

    In regard to the Egyptian costumes, I am by no means an expert, but from my research of ancient Egypt (for a novel I was working on) they don’t look half bad. Women apparently wore various sheath-style dresses (similar to the dark dress in the first photo) and upper class women tended to wear clothing made from very fine, see-through linen (it looks like they attempted to recreate that effect with the white dress in the second photo, since you can see her skin through the material). Although I have read that the way clothing was depicted in ancient art isn’t necessarily accurate to what people actually wore: Egyptian art was highly symbolic, after all. So maybe it is more authentic than we know.

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