The Winter's Tale play contains one of the most famous Shakespearean stage directions: "Exit, pursued by a bear", presaging the offstage death of Antigonus. It is not known whether Shakespeare used a real bear from the London bear-pits, or an actor in bear costume. The Royal Shakespeare Company, in one production of this play, used a large sheet of silk which moved and created shapes, to symbolise both the bear and the gale in which Antigonus is travelling. One comic moment in the play deals with a servant not realising that poetry featuring references to dildos is vulgar, presumably from not knowing what
Pursued Pursued Pursued is a 1947 film that combines western film noir and psychological melodrama. The picture was directed by Raoul Walsh and features Teresa Wright, Robert Mitchum, Judith Anderson and Dean Jagger. Set in New Mexico around the turn of the 20th century and told in flashback, the film tells the story of Jeb Rand (Mitchum), whose entire family was slaughtered when he was a child. In the aftermath of the massacre Jeb is found by Mrs Callum, a widow, who raises him in her family. Traumatised by the killings, Jeb does not recall anything of that night, except for