A Homage to the “tit and fang” film

Christopher Lee as Dracula

Philip Larkin (the dead poet of “They fuck you up, your mum and dad” fame that is, not the Philip Larkin who occasionally contributes to this blog) during his time as librarian at Hull University in the 1970s was said to have  complained to a friend about the lack of late night horror films on regional TV at the time, claiming ‘We’re absolutely starved of tit and fang up here.”  It is of course conceivable that the other Philip Larkin holds similar views.  But I couldn’t possibly comment on that.

Larkin was referring to that unique, but long gone staple of the British B-movie industry, the Hammer horror.  A classic combination of gothic horror - plundered from the literary works of Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Dennis Wheatley and Sheridan le Fanu among others and endlessly recycled – and soft porn.  Cheaply made and featuring a regular cast of actors, such as Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Barbara Shelley, the Hammer films would be considered quite tame by modern standards, not to mention tacky with their extensive use of unrealistic rubber bats and plastic fangs from Woolworths, but nevertheless are still highly entertaining to watch today.

Phil Barker in his review of Sinclair McKay’s history of the Hammer films, A Thing of Unspeakable Horror, published in the Observer sums up the genre perfectly:

“Hammer gave us a world all their own, a place with Home Counties woodland masquerading as Transylvania (it was Black Park near Slough), heavily cleavaged vampire women, lashings of fake blood with a strange milkshake texture, and the occasional bad sets, particularly in the later films, as if Dracula lived in a branch of the Angus Steak House. It’s immediately recognisable, this land where ‘the inns are full and boisterous only until someone mentions a certain word’, and McKay does a tasty job of evoking it. We all remember the red lining of Dracula’s cape, but what a pleasure to be reminded of Peter Cushing’s eyeball, suddenly seen huge through a magnifying glass as he examines the brain.

I realise The Dreaming Arm is in serious danger of becoming a branch of the Kate Bush fan club at this stage, but to celebrate Hallowe’en, here’s her very own tribute to the Hammer films – Hammer Horror .  In contrast to the very heavygoing “This Woman’s Work” of the last post, “Hammer Horror” is a light-hearted and tongue-in-cheek number, in which Kate takes a leaf out of Alice Cooper’s book.  Dracula will be turning in his grave.  And then he’ll get out of it and find some healthy young virgins to suck the blood of. 

Kate Bush: Hammer Horror

A Fistful of Leone: A Fistful of Dymanite, Part 2

Juan
All revolutions attract a mixture of different personalities, ranging from political idealists to criminal opportunists seeking to capitalise on the confusion that the social upheaval brings. Juan Miranda (Rod Steiger) belongs very definitely in the second category, and the film begins with his scruffy form hitching a lift in a carriage full of upper-middle class snobs (Miranda claimed that his father had died and needed a lift to the next town). This first scene is important as it paints a backcloth (although partisan) to both the socio-political nature of the era, and Leone’s own leftist views. The passengers, including upper-middle class Mexicans, an American businessman, and an Archbishop, all of European origin, unlike Juan, who is of Indian origin, roundly abuse him for amusement, and the impoverished peasant class to which he belongs, calling them “animals” who breed like “rats in a sewer”, without morals or “decency.” Even the Archbishop identifies strongly with these sentiments, and refers to peasants as “unfortunate brutes”, indicating how far removed he is personally from the teachings of Jesus on love, mammon, and many other issues. It becomes clear, while these foul creatures proceed in close-up footage to stuff their faces with all types of food, that they support the dictator Huerta for “keeping the peasants in their place.”

However, when the carriage passes through a ruined village it is ambushed by a gang of bandits – Juan’s seven sons and other associates: Juan, the gang leader, had set the whole thing up in advance. They kill one of the most obnoxious passengers, rob and strip the rest, while Juan introduces the only female passenger to his seven sons, each, he informs her, from a different mother (we don’t know whether this is true or not!). He then violates the snobbish woman, and dumps her and the others into a pigsty. From this introduction we learn that Juan has no interest in political idealism and is far more concerned with keeping one step ahead of starvation, and keeping his pockets lined through petty thievery.

Sean

At this point that Juan comes across Sean (John) Mallory (James Coburn), a lone Irishman, who is testing explosives in the mountains near where the carriage has just been robbed. Sean, after an altercation with Juan and his bandits, claims he is merely using his impressive array of explosives to mine silver. However, we eventually realise through a series of flashbacks that he is really an intellectual left-wing revolutionary, who, after involvement in the Republican movement in Ireland, had had to flee the country after shooting a number of British soldiers who had tracked him down after torturing his best friend and revolutionary colleague. Sean, we later find out, shot his friend as a traitor for revealing his whereabouts (Leone gets the chronology of modern Irish history somewhat wrong, but this does not really affect the film’s central message). We also discover later that British intelligence services were in hot pursuit of Sean as he sought to evade his past. His primary reason for being in Mexico is to further the revolution against Huerta by means of both intellect and force.

An accidental revolutionary

Juan (in a very amusing fantasy sequence) sees Sean’s head surrounded by the halo-like visage of the National Bank at Mesa Verde, a bank which Juan has dreamed of raiding since he was taken to Mesa Verde as a child. He sees Sean’s skills with explosives as a godsend, and Sean himself as his key to the bank. Sean, however, has his own ideas, recognising how useful Juan’s skills as a fearless guerrilla fighter could be in the struggle which he knew was brewing. He entices Juan and his gang to the town of Mesa Verde, and introduces him to a revolutionary colleague, Dr Villega, who offers Juan the opportunity to attack the bank, an offer eagerly accepted. Unbeknownst to Juan (but known to Sean all along), the bank at Mesa Verde has been converted to use as a political prison, and these are all released after Juan’s daring attack. This marks the beginning of Juan’s unwitting involvement with the revolutionary movement.

“A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE: A FISTFUL OF LEONE” Part 1

Phil “The Wild Colonial Boy” Larkin is back with another spaghetti western-themed article.  This time Phil turns his attention to one of Sergio Leone’s lesser known works A Fistful of Dynamite, set in revoluton-torn Mexico in 1913.   The essay is divide into three parts.  Part 1 below sets the scene for the film and examines its historical and political context.

CW

Introduction

“A revolution is not a dinner party, an embroidery, writing an essay, or painting a picture. It cannot be done with elegance and courtesy. The revolution … is an act of violence…”   Mao-Tse Tung.

It is with this quote from Chairman Mao (still alive and influential during the making of the film) that Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dynamite begins. As the quote suggests, the movie itself is, by any standards, very violent, sometimes casually so, although never gratuitously so.  And, of course, it is set during a revolution of the 20th Century. 

In my view, “Dynamite” is one of the sadly underrated and almost forgotten works of Leone, possibly because it lacks the “usual suspects” of his previous westerns such as Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonte and of course Clint Eastwood.  It is also set in a markedly different era and environment than The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly et al. In addition, it was marketed in different countries under various titles, something which may have led audiences to believe that it was not one single film, thereby dissipating the impact it would otherwise have had. In English speaking countries it was sometimes known as “Duck You Sucker!” (a reference to a frequent comment made by one of the main protagonists); in Italy it was called “Gia La Testa!” (literally “Duck Your Head!”).

Sergio Leone, master of the spaghetti western

Interestingly, in France, it was billed as “Il Etait une Fois … La Revolution”, literally, “Once Upon a Time … The Revolution”, which places it as the middle film of Leone’s “Once Upon a Time…” trilogy. I don’t know how comfortably “…Dynamite” would actually fit into this trilogy, but it would seem that French audiences accepted it as such.

Also, “…Dynamite” came out a few years after Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West”, a hard act to follow if ever there was one, and the former was always bound to suffer unfavourably by comparison. For many reasons, I believe that “Dynamite” is a highly interesting, very human, and deeply moving film, which, on viewing nearly four decades on, has not lost any of its relevance, and carries clear political lessons for us today, particularly those who are inclined to use the means of violence in a revolutionary cause to re-create the world as they wish it to be.

The Historical Context of “Dynamite”

The film’s central theme is, in essence, the coming together of two disparate figures at the same time and place in history, and the consequent loss of political revolutionary fervour on the part of one man, a left-wing Irish radical, and the unwitting (and unwilling) growth of the same fervour within another man, a petty Mexican bandit.

The film is set in 1913 against the background of the Mexican Revolution, a multi-sided conflict, and a highly confusing and traumatic period in the country’s history, beginning in 1910 and involving, very broadly, a set of uprisings (some spontaneous, and some planned), against the authoritarian dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz.  The Revolution lasted roughly a decade, petering out in around 1920. As with the Anglo-Irish conflict of 1919 – 1921, and the Irish Civil War of 1922 – 1923, there were elements of populism, agrarianism, socialism and anarchism amongst those carrying forward the revolution.  However, there was no centrally planned bid for power as with the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia of March 1917, which added to the confusing nature of this era in Mexican history.

By 1913, political power in Mexico had been seized by General Victoriano Huerta by means of a coup d’etat after a short period of democratic government. Huerta was a brutal and corrupt military dictator, who, when faced with challenges to his authority, reacted with unbridled cruelty, giving his soldiers and paramilitary police free rein to torture and execute opponents without trial or redress. Indeed, mass executions, arrests, torture, and military harassment of poverty-stricken peasants and their allies are a constant backdrop to “…Dynamite”.

Phil Larkin

Watch this space for A Fistful of Dynamite: A Fistful of Leone”, part 2, “Juan, Sean and an accidental revolutionary“.

ENNIO MORRICONE: MUSICAL GENIUS

The Dreaming Arm’s occasional contributor Philip “We like birds we’re ornithologists/Postman Plod he’s a miserable sod, the tattoo on Biffa Bacon’s Mum’s arm, it’ll be ye ootside and ye’ll hoof us in the knackaz” Larkin is back to pay homage to arguably the world’s greatest living composer (and without a shadow of doubt the world’s greatest ever composer of soundtracks to 1960s spaghetti westerns and films about 18th century Jesuit missionaries in South America) Ennio Morricone.

I  am sitting down to write this small tribute to one of the greatest modern composers for the blog before it is too late, and he has passed on.  CW and myself have prevaricated and “hummed and hawed” about this piece, but happily the legend that is Morricone still remains with us today.  Morricone will never read what I have written, but I feel it only fair that the blog should acknowledge him:  CW and I are both big fans.  I very much regret not going to a concert of his in London a number of years ago, but if such an event ever happens again (and I hope that it will), you may bet that I will be in the audience, whatever my circumstances may be.  I am writing this piece to the haunting strains of the “Ecstasy of Gold” which accompanied the frenzied searches of Tuco for buried gold in the vast cemetery during the final scenes in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Some people in this world have an instinctive genius for being able to stir deep emotions within us, accessing these by a profound knowledge of what fires our most primitive senses. Winston Churchill was able to do this through the medium of words: his speeches remain possibly his greatest legacy to the United Kingdom and its people. Laurie Lee, in his Cider with Rosie had a similar talent for choosing exactly the right combination of words to evoke pictures in our mind’s eye of a young boy growing up in the Cotswolds in the 1920s. I would say that Ennio Morricone, the Italian composer of whom I write, similarly possesses this wonderful talent, except that he expresses it through the medium of music. It is as if he visualises human emotion like the cords of a violin, and knows instinctively which ones to play in order to produce a wonderful reaction in each of us.

I do not know much about his background, except that he is obviously Italian and has been classically educated in music. For those who are unfamiliar with the name of Ennio Morricone, he wrote the music for many of Sergio Leone’s  Western Films, for example, A Fistful of Dollars, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, For a Few Dollars More, Once Upon a Time in the West, and Once Upon a Time in America, to name but a few. Practically everyone knows at least some of these tunes. In addition to the work he did for Leone, Morricone also composed the highly memorable soundtrack for the film The Mission, and so many other pieces that it would be tedious to try and catalogue them here.  I feel personally that his music works in particularly perfect harmony with Leone’s films, their look and feel, their mood, and their environment. This partnership may have worked so well because both were Italians and Latins, and had an instinctive understanding of what the other was looking for.

Morricone’s background music never fails to capture the right mood in a film scene, and almost draws the viewer deeper into the ambience of the picture. Who can fail to be moved by the strains of “Death of a Soldier”, when Clint Eastwood’s ministers to a mortally wounded young confederate, dying alone, in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly?  In that same film, (and with a similar music score), during the scene when Tuco and the man with no name enter the monastery for help, we are filled with empathy and compassion at the sight of the monks in simple brown habits binding and washing the wounds of the helpless, starving, confederate refugees. Sticking with The Good…etc, remember that part when our two anti-heroes, Eastwood and Wallach, are marched into a dust caked, fly-blown prisoner of war camp by their Union captors?  By the use of the whistling and ever-so-slightly wistful marching tune, we almost can believe that we are being shepherded to the same camp.

Claudia Cardinale and Charles Bronson in Once Upon A Time in the West

Changing the film and the mood entirely, remember the wonderful score in Once Upon a Time in the West which accompanies Claudia Cardinale’s character as she alights from the train and we see the birth of a bustling new western town, and the music conveys both hope for future progress, but also wistful regret at the demise of the old “Wild West” and its (often warped) code of honour? In our deepest core we know, without realising it, that civilization as represented by the new town spells death to the Old West, yet the mere footage in this film of the stage town alone could not convey this knowledge to the viewer: Morricone’s musical score darkly hints at the notion in our sub-conscious. Sometimes the melancholy invoked by Ennio’s pieces can be almost overpowering: I would not recommend anyone in a dark mood to listen to “Deborah’s Theme” from Once Upon a Time in America.

Part of the reason for Morricone’s success is that he is prepared to be highly innovative in his approach to musical scores. For instance, during one duel scene in For a Few Dollars More, the feverish, oven-like tension is accentuated by the sepulchral strains of organ music punctuating the classic Western stand-off. Similarly, no other composer could have made work as well as Ennio the frog croaking “wop, wop, wop” “March of the Peasants” in A Fistful of Dynamite. Neither, as with the “Ecstasy of Gold”, was he scared to use female soprano singing in the score. Somehow, the music seems entirely appropriate to the scene of the film.

Some people take a very snobbish view towards composers such as Ennio Morricone, accusing them of being “populist”, and selling their work for pure profit. I do not agree. Ennio’s work has touched the lives of millions of people, even without us being aware of it, and brought fine music within the remit of those of us who do not ordinarily know our Rachmaninov from our Tchaikovsky.

Good on you Ennio! 

 

Dreaming Arm’s Worst Irish Films

I’ve been off work struggling with a heavy cold all day. Confined to the house and in between the bouts of hot whiskey and lucozade I’ve been thinking up entries for the list of all-time worst Irish films. I very much doubt that Twenty Major listens to Radio 4, but the posting on his blog which inspired my latest venture is the sort of thing you’d expect to find on the celebrated comedy panel game I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue.

So here is the Dreaming Arm’s very own list of the worst Irish films of all time:

Schindler’s Lisdoonvarna

Citizen O’Kane

Sean de Florette

Butch Cassidy & the Riverdance Kid

There will be Spuds

A Perfect Stormont
A Time to Kill-dare
Dances with Wolfhounds
Battleship Potemkinsale
The Magnificent Seven Drunken Nights
Lough Neagh and two smoking barrels
Men in Black Rock
Once upon a time in the Westmeath

Munster’s Ball

Finding Nemo Rangers

Sammy Wilson’s War

Silence of the Lambeg Drums

The Witches of EastWicklow

Ferm-Anna and her Sisters

Donnie-gal Brasco

Shan-Kill Bill

Sperrin Brokovitch

Moby Dick Spring

King Solomon’s Rathmines

Armagh-geddon

A Day at the Galway Races

Crocodile Donagahadee

Then there’s one about the West Belfast super-hero:
“Spide-Man”.

Worst Irish TV Shows:Darling Buds of Mayo

 

Monarch of Crossmaglen

Curragh-nation Street

The GA-A-Team

Further contributions from readers would be most welcome!

Premium Bond: What next for 007?

I saw the latest James Bond flick Quantum of Solace recently, not really knowing what to expect.  I was pleasantly surprised.

It’s remarkable that the Bond saga is still going after all this time.  The series has proved its resilience and enduring timeless appeal by overcoming two of the greatest obstacles to its survival – the ending of the Cold War and the advent of political correctness.  Bond changes his appearance (and sometimes his accent) every few years and never seems to age, yet no-one bats an eyelid. 

Unlike that other great icon of popular culture Doctor Who, who is a Time Lord and thus has the power to regenerate when about to die, Bond is a mere human who has no such faculties.  Instead 007 simply reinvents himself as and when required – with no plausible explanation of course, but then no-one really cares – the Bond films are essentially pure escapism at its best.  They complement each other perfectly with Bond as the man of action and Who as the thinking man.

And as if part of a bad joke told by a fat comedian at a working mens club Bond so far has been played by a couple of Englishmen, a Scotsman, a Welshman, an Irishman and even an Australian.  Who the best 007 was is open to much debate.  But it’s more or less universally acknowledged that it’s not George Lazenby.
Traditionlists will insist that that Connery is and always will be the definitive Bond, if not the only “true” Bond.
Frustratingly, Dalton could have been an excellent Bond, but his career was cut short by a protracted legal wrangle, resulting in a long gap of 6 years between films.  Two films just weren’t enough for him to fully establish his credentials or make his mark on the character.  If only he’d accepted the role earlier rather than turning the first couple of offers down.  We could have been spared the (almost) 60-year old Moore doing battle on the Eiffel Tower.  Moore, although not a bad Bond overall, was just a little too over-the-top with his excessive campness and outstayed his welcome in the role.  Brosnan, on the other hand was an excellent Bond, but his films weren’t that great.

The two greatest attractions of any Bond film are the exotic locations and (from a male point of view at least!) the glamorous women – two key elements of the successful formula which will remain no matter how many reincarnations Bond goes through.

Bond’s latest escapade is something of a departure from the norm.  No corny jokes or inappropriate terrible puns following the demise of a villain, no Q and his hi-tec gadgets, no outrageous flirting with Moneypenny.
The comic relief following a high drama car chase or fight resulting in the death of his assailant  – eg “positively shocking” on electrocuting a would-be assassin or “I think he got the point” on dispatching another with a harpoon – has been an essential characteristic of 007, yet glaringly absent from the Craig era so far.  We are also spared the blatant sexual innuendo and Bond’s abuse of the elaborate gadgets he receives like a child with a new toy much to the irritation of Q with his schoolmasterish “pay attention 007!” lines.
The literary purists would argue that such tongue-in-cheekery was in any case a grotesque send-up of the original novels and thus at odds with Ian Fleming’s authentic Bond, a dark and complex character bearing only a superficial resemblance to the wise-cracking hero of the early films.  However Craig’s portrayal of Bond in his two outings to date seems to have gone a long way towards rectifying this.  This isn’t a bad thing in itself, but I sincerely hope it’s a temporary blip, so that 007 can go back to his old ways without taking himself too seriously soon!

However one welcome change to the new Bond is the lack of clearcut distinction between the good guys and bad guys.  In the post Cold War era we have terrorists, deranged businessmen, deranged businessmen, corrupt politicians and rogue agents all pursuing their own twisted agenda and loyal to no-one but themselves.

Craig’s Bond isn’t a terribly likeable character (compared with the more easygoing charms of Connery, Moore and Brosnan), but then 007 is essentially a bit of a bastard.  He’s more concerned about getting the job done rather than being a nice person.  So treating women as disposable objects, sleeping with married women, driving recklessly at high speed through a crowded city centre in hot pursuit of a villain with no regard for the safety of others or the cold-blooded killing of anyone who gets in your way are all par for the course if you want to be a successful secret agent.

The fact that a film only comes out every few years keeps the series fresh.  There’s something particularly appealing about seeing a Bond movie on the big screen which you just can’t capture on TV.
Casino Royale went back to basics with Bond embarking on his secret service career and being assigned “double 0″ status at the beginning.  The series has thus been rebooted with a new timeline, effectively cancelling out the events of all the previous films as if they had never happened.  It was necessary to do this to breathe new life into the franchise and get away from the tired old formulas of the previous films.  However one major casualty has been the songs.  There hasn’t been a decent Bond film song for a long time.  The recent efforts are distinctly lacking in character are all a far cry from the classic tunes like Shirley Bassey’s Goldfinger, Louis Armstrong’s We have all the time in the World from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Rita Coolidge’s All Time High from Octopussy.

The new style may be less tongue-in-cheek, grittier and more sinister.  But as with every Bond film the plots and situations are totally implausible.  Our hero manages to emerge from violent confrontations and exploding buildings with little more than a few cuts and scratches.  And despite how dire his predicament may seem, we the audience know he can never die.  We are even mercifully reminded of this at the end credits with the famous “James Bond will return” line.  How very reassuring.

The Dreaming Arm will return

The power of coincidence before sunrise

Some time ago on this blog I mentioned the remarkable coincidence that occurred when I happened to have exactly the same amount in loose change in my pocket as what the supermarket bill came to.

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in Before Sunrise

Another coincidence of sorts happened to me more recently. When on one of my (now increasingly rare) trips into town (ie Central London) on the pretext of attending a data protection seminar (yes, I know fascinating stuff), I stopped at a branch of a well-known recorded media retailer to acquire some CDs and DVDs. On my shopping list was Before Sunrise, a film from the mid-’90s starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke as two young free-spirited travellers, one French and one American who meet by chance on a train bound for Vienna. It’s quite an uplifting film with a simple plot in which nothing of note actually happens, except that the two characters (the only main characters in the film) wander around Vienna over the course of 24 hours and have various quasi-intellectual conversations on life, death, art, philosophy, then have sex with each other in a park (an uneccesary event which lowers the tone of the film by the way), and sleeping rough, before going their own separate ways agreeing to meet up again at the same place in 6 months time.

The type of film you’d see late on a Sunday night on Channel 4 thanks to the generous sponsorship of a well-known Belgian brewer famous for its pretentious black and white commercials featuring French peasants of the Resistance during the second world war. I’d seen the film before a few years ago (probably late one Sunday night on Channel 4 come to think of it, and being knackered at the work the next day), but was keen to revisit it to pick up on any points I’d missed out the first time – and also for the mesmerising song “Living Life” played over the end credits, which captures the spirit of the film pefectly.In any case it was going quite cheaply, so I bought it safe in the knowledge that I could always flog it off on Amazon once I’d watched it a few more times.

It’s one of those films like Crocodile Dundee, Jaws or Psycho which stands out on its own and thus making a sequel is tantamout to sacrilege. But a sequel did come out about a decade after the original. And predictably enough it didn’t live up to the standard. Swapping Vienna for Paris with the characters 10 years older just didn’t do it for me.

Anyway, the coincidence was that the very next day, the arts section of The Independent (which on Fridays publishes old reviews of films from years gone by) happened to have a retro-review of that very film.

Stranger things have happened though.  Who would have thought 6 months ago that Tyrone would be in another All Ireland final and Stephen O’Neill back in the squad?

Likely Lads stage unlikely Return

 
I was thrilled to hear that the classic situation comedy series of the 1960s and early ’70s The Likely Lads is being relaunched as a stage show. Following the mixed fortunes of Bob Ferris and Terry Collier, two young working class men, played brilliantly by Rodney Bewes and James Bolam in an unspecified location in the north-east of England the show captured the spirit of the times and although it does seem dated, its humour has a timeless appeal.
Co-writers Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais (also known for Auf Wiederschen Pet and the other classic ’70s sitcom Porridge) appeared on the radio to promote their new venture which will feature fresh young actors rather than ageing members of the origianl cast.
 
The superior sequel Whatever happened to the Likely Lads?, made a few years after the original series ended is described by Stuart Maconie in Pies and Prejudice, his masterpiece of social and cultural history on the north of England as “the best British comedy series ever”.  I wouldn’t quite go that far, as for me the inimitable Fawlty Towers holds its own at the top of the comedy premiere league. However, Whatever Happened would certainly feature in my all time top 10 greatest sitcoms alongside Porridge, Dad’s Army, Blackadder, The Young Ones, Father Ted, Red Dwarf, The Office and Peep Show – though not necessarily in that order.
 
In Whatever Happened the two characters’ paths diverge. Bob becomes the social climber who marries Thelma the sensible librarian and joins the ranks of the white collar professional, settling down to a life of middle class suburban domestic bliss. Terry by contrast has returned to the banks of the Tyne/Wear/Tees(?) after a spell as a squaddie in Germany with a failed marriage behind him and remains the salt of the earth working class boy, irresponsible and badly behaved – and this is where much of the comedy derives from.
However, the running joke throughout is that fact that Bob now thinks he’s superior to Terry, because of his new-found social status as expressed by his membership of the badminton club and skiing holidays, but in reality is no better and often just as badly-behaved. Deep down Bob still wants to chase women and get pissed down at the Fat Ox.
 
I’m too young to have seen the show during its original airing, but was inducted via the occasional repeat run which many other popular comedies of the era have enjoyed – and later on via DVD.
 
The show emerged out of the kitchen dramas of the ’60s, the new wave of British cinema known as social realism which broke the mould by depicting the everyday lives of ordinary working class people. The genre was concentrated particularly (but not exclusively) in the north of England, and thus became popularly known as the “it’s grim up north” film. Classic examples include Kes, A Taste of Honey, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Billy Liar.
 
Part of the show’s appeal, along with that of many other programmes of the time is the cosy sense of false nostalgia it evokes, aided in part by its catchy, almost melancholic theme song (“Oh what happened to you, whatever happened to me…). We like deluding ourselves into thinking that life was better back then, things were simpler, people more down-to-earth, the world was a safer place, etc – total bollocks of course, but a nice thought all the same.
 
It would be interesting to see how Bob and Terry would fare as old men, 35 years after their last outing. Unfortunately a reunion is unlikely due to the bad blood between Bewes and Bolam – a disappointment for fans, but a common occurrence in comic double acts. Steptoe and Son, Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore spring to mind. So whatever happens to those likely lads (if you’ll pardon the cliché) the memories of classic comedy will linger on.

 

In Bad Taste

As I’ve mentioned before, Belgium has always had image problems associated with not being one of the more exciting countries in Europe.  Presumably Martin McDonagh, the plastic paddy writer-director had this idea in mind when he chose to set his eponymous film in Bruges.  With its network of canals and fine buildings Bruges is often described as “the Venice of the north”, but Amsterdam and Stockholm also lay claim to this title.  There is certainly no shortage of references to this, in particular the concept of Bruges, a fairytale city of perfectly preserved medieval design with its canals and narrow cobbled streets, being in such an unglamorous country.  Having read the rave reviews and seen two of McDonagh’s highly acclaimed plays, two impressive amateur dramatics productions (in two quite different places) of The Cripple of Inishman (in Dromore, Co. Tyrone) and The Beauty Queen of Leenane (in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire), I was quite looking forward to this film.  Although I wouldn’t call it a bad film as such, I found large chunks of it unpleasant to watch and left the cinema feeling it should never have been made.

Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell are Ken and Ray, two gangsters sent to Bruges to lie low by their boss following a botched robbery which has resulted in the accidental killing of a young boy.  The comic double act, with its surreal incongruous conversations resembles that of Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction.  Also the contrast between Gleeson’s older, wiser and more cultured father figure and Farrell’s naïve, young fool is not unlike the interplay between Ted and Dougal in Father Ted.  However the juxtaposition of Tarantinoesque black humour and moralistic pathos just doesn’t work.  Farrell is constantly haunted by the guilt of being a child-killer, a theme which runs through the film, interspersed with comic moments, two contrasting styles which make uncomfortable bedfellows.  It’s as if McDonagh couldn’t decide whether he was writing a straight gangster film or a screwball comedy.  In fact the mixing of comedy with bloody violence and serious themes of death, guilt and morality is in very bad taste.  By the end of film I was disgusted by the way in which life and death decisions were being used as a vehicle for humour.  Scorsese gangster flicks are not lacking in humour of course, but this is usually a diversion from the killing and violence rather than inextricably linked to it.  Similarly, Tarantino films employ very black humour linked to violence, but  unlike In Bruges, they, make no attempt at didactic moralising.  There were in fact times during the film, when I was the only viewer in the cinema not laughing, as I just couldn’t bring myself to see the funny side of what was a very unfunny situation.

It could have worked perfectly well as an out-and-out comedy – if the comic scenes had occurred in the appropriate context.  Unfortunately the overplaying of the moralistic bullshit, the underlying themes of religion, guilt and suicide, not to mention the unpleasant scenes which accompany the humour tend to get in the way of laughs.  On the other hand, it wouldn’t have worked as a straight gangster film.  The cartoonish nature of the characters, totally implausible situations and string of unlikely coincidences would have made this impossible.  The film ends up as a confused mish-mash of Get Carter/Lock Stock and two smoking barrels and various other British gangster movies, Tarantino, and Father Ted with a sprinkling of David Lynch thrown in for good measure, a combination which simply doesn’t work.

What’s also intensely irritating is Farrell’s character, who borders on the stereotypical Irish charm-filled natural born bullshitter- loveable rogue-with-the-gift-of-the-gab-type who indulges in some rather elaborate eyebrow acrobatics, although is far from loveable.  Ralph Fiennes is the cockney godfather who sends his “employees”, Ken and Ray to Bruges, while they await his instructions.  His character is something of a Michael Caine wannabe who succeeds in sounding like Caine, but physically bears a passing resemblance to a tall, thin Graeme Souness.

There is a strong supporting cast of colourful characters, who form a microscosm of life’s rich paegant within the unlikely setting of Bruges – Jimmy, an American dwarf film actor, addicted to horse tranquilisers, Chloe, a young Belgian woman who has a romantic fling with Ray, her psychotic skinhead ex-boyfriend, Yuri, an eccentric arms dealer and Marie, a pregnant hotel owner who ends up acting as a symbolic link with Ray’s guilty conscience.
 
On the plus side there are some interesting plot twists and some good camerawork.  Shots of a solitary swan on the canal at night, silhouetted ducks flying overhead amidst the ornate bridges and gothic spires capture the spirit of Bruges in winter.  There is also a memorable comic scene early on involving Farrell and some overweight American tourists.  It’s actually not a bad advert for the Bruges tourist industry.  There is one scene in which Farrell and Gleeson are in a  cosy bar sipping fine Belgian beers with mellow jazz playing in the background, safe from the winter chill and leaden skies outside which almost makes you want to go there for a pre-Christmas weekend break.

Overall though, it’s just not my glass of Hoegaarden.  “In fucking Bruges!” Farrell’s character, unimpressed by his employer’s choice of hideout blurts out at one point. 

In fucking bad taste more like.

There will be Bewilderment

I finally went to see There will be Blood after much deliberating and a great deal of skepticism about the rave reviews it had received. I came out of the cinema not really knowing what to make of it.

It’s certainly an interesting film with enough plot twists to sustain your attention, but there seems to be too much unfinished business by the end and lack of clarity in the narrative that leaves the viewer somewhat frustated and bewildered.

On the acting side however, Daniel Day-Lewis is excellent as the eccentric oil prospector Daniel Plainview who puts profits before people. An incredibly versatile actor, one thing you can’t accuse him of is being typecast. The film is perhaps a little too long at around two hours and twenty minutes and the ending is rather strange and unexpected. Set in early 20th century California amidst the US oil boom, the harshness of the dry inhospitable landscape is emaphasised throughout. The interplay and build-up tension between Day-Lewis as businessman and Paul Dano’s young firebrand preacher is also played off to great effect, a theme which is present throughout the film. There’s almost certainly an element of social comment on the American dream and the rags to riches ideal so typical of the US pioneering spirit. Perhaps also a subconscious allusion to the war in Iraq in terms of the economic value of oil and the bitter human cost.

So on the whole, just like No Country for Old Men I would recommend There will be Blood as worth going to see, but would point out that it’s not quite as amazingly good as the critics have made it out to be.