Rosa 'James Mason' & 5 Fingers
Sunday, June 04, 2017
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| Rosa 'James Mason' June 4 2017 |
After all these years of gardening and also watching my
mother garden in the late 40s in Buenos Aires I am amazed on how plants and
flowers conjure images from my past.
The brilliantly red modern Gallica Rose, Rosa ‘James Mason’ my Rosemary’s
favourite even though I point out that it hardly has any scent brings me the
memory of a scary black+white film I saw in 1953 called 5 Fingers. I remember a
scene where nasty spy Mason is desperately opening and closing a safe when at
any moment he will be discovered.
My recollection of all things Mason were reinforced when in
the late 50s at St. Edward’s High School our class (10th grade)
listened to a recording of him narrating Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee.
I believe I have seen all of Mason’s films but two, standout
in my memory. One is Murder by Decree
where he plays Dr. Watson to Christopher Plummer’s Sherlock Holmes the other is
the startling 1969 Australian film Age of
Consent where a very young and unclad (in several scenes) Helen Mirren
seduces the older James Mason in a sort of reversal of Mason’s 1962 Lolita.
That a beautiful red rose can extract all this from my
memory is but another affirmation of the pleasure of growing roses.
