Sound of Cinema: A double-bill

[Stanley Stewart]

As an antidote to seasonal affective disorder, I usually compile a set of video off-air cassettes to DVD as Christmas gifts; a double-bill of golden oldies is invariably given a warm welcome by cinebuffs who were around when cinemagoing in the UK was usually a matter of continuous performance. Compiling a list of musical soundtracks for the mb quiz, I recalled Nicholas Brodzsky's score for "Way To The Stars" (1945), I remembered seeing the film as a schoolboy and saving my pennies for a 78rpm of the soundtrack, conducted by Charles Williams. Watching the off-air video before transferring to DVD, the print quality was rather good but the realisation that most of the cast have now shuffled off this mortal coil really gave my heart a pang as (i) I'd worked with some of the cast in TV in the 60s/70s and (ii) I did part of my National Service stint in the RAF - a Brylcreem boy! - and was stationed at Leeming, North Yorks, only a few miles on my bike from Bedale where the exterior shots of the hotel/pub were shot. A sequence shows the bombers from nearby Catterick flying in formation over the main street including the hotel and the elegant church at the far end was the very same where I heard Isobel Baillie in recital, accompanied by organist Sandy MacPherson (spelling suspect)!

The cast included many stalwarts, Michael Redgrave, John Mills, Rosamund John, Stanley Holloway, Basil Radford, Douglass (sic) Montgomery, Joyce Carey and the opening credits added, "Introducing Bonar Colleano, Trevor Howard and Jean Simmons - straight into screen stardom with her spirited version of "Let Him Go, Let Him Tarry...!). Incidentally, today (1st October) is the centenary of Trevor Howard's birth and I must salute his versatile talent on screen and stage until his death at 75 in 1988. Terence Rattigan's sensitive script caught the understated anxiety of daily operations but, fundamentally, the film is also about the need to cope with grieving. John Pudney contributed a couple of poems and "Do not despair..." always brought a hushed intensity to packed cinemas. I quote from memory:

"Do not despair for Johnny head in air,
He sleeps as sound as Johnny under ground.
Fetch out no shroud for Johnny in the clouds
And keep your tears for him in after years.
Better by far for Johnny the bright star
to keep your head and see his children fed." John Mills reading still pricks the eyes.

As I was transferring this title, I also recalled Rattigan's 1948 film script of "The Winslow Boy" and decided that this would be an ideal double- feature to match "Way To The Stars" on DVD. 2012 was also the centenary of the famous case when a single citizen challenged the might of the Admiralty when his 12 year-old son had been expelled from Dartmouth College for stealing a 5/- (25 pence) postal order. Robert Donat magnificent as the QC MP who initialled aired his case in the House of Commons on a basis of 'Let right be done'. In the final scene he adds, "Justice is easy, doing right is hard." Ironic to realise that the time gap between the narrative of these films, 1912 and 1940, is beautifully nuanced in its portrayal of social and political mores. Apart from the harsh draconian depression of the 1930s, I'm quite convinced that the subtext indicated in the Rattigan scripts may also have contributed to the surprise Election result in 1945 when Clement Atlee/Labour soundly beat Churchill/Conservative.

I had a bit of space left on the DVD and decided to add a charming 9 mins feature, "Remembering Sister Ruth" when an elderly actress, Kathleen Byron, recalls her casting and subsequent stormy personal relationship with director, Michael Powell in "Black Narcissus" (1946). Decades later, cinemagoers still recognised Ms Byron and spoke about the terror they felt when Sister Ruth had a brainstorm and tried to throw Deborah Kerr off a bell tower!

[salymap]

I think The Way to the Stars is the film I know best and being about fifteen when it appeared and having a cousin at Cranwell RAF station it seemed to symbolize the war and the uncertainty of everything.

The mixture of tragedy, comedy [MacNamara's Band with someone with a lampshade on his head],
the Americans arriving, 'Toddy' with her stiff-upper lip. WellI was amazed to read recently thatit flopped in the US and was fairly popular here for atime.

I have a video somewhere, I must play it again [Sam]

[Stanley Stewart]

Thanks, sal. Stanley Holloway played the travelling salesman who sang MacNamara's band before 'Toddy' interrupted and welcomed the American contingency before telling them all it was rather late "and will you please get the hell out of here". The film was intended to strengthen Anglo-American relationships but its lack of sentiment and mawkishness probably didn't appeal. I wonder how "Stairway to the Stars (American title for "A Matter of Life & Death") appealed to them only a year later?

Has your new telly been installed? I've got an idea for a DVD house-warmer which may be welcome to keep it company.

[Stanley Stewart]

Sound of Cinema: a double bill

Inclement weather encouraged me to move- on in a list of off-air video/DVD transfers, although still focussed on 1945. I already have DVD transfers of "I Know Where I'm Going" (IKWIG), (1945) and another classic, "Brief Encounter" (also 1945) but serendipity intervened when rummaging in the garage shelves, I came across a couple of videos, "The Making of IKWIG" (1994) and "Return to Carnforth" (2004) both complemented the two main features and I decided to transfer the four titles to a single DVD.

First, happy memories of a lively thread on the R3 mbs - 2007ish -? which may trigger memories for a few current members, re the two main features and its two Dames, Wendy Hiller and Celia Johnson. Celia died, suddenly, in 1981 but Wendy survived until she was 93 in 2003. I last spoke to her in 1994 when "The Making ofIKWIG" was shown on BBC 2 and tried to encourage her to write a biography but, typically, she "didn't warm to the idea at all". A feisty lady, as she was as Eliza Doolittle or Major Barbara, but there was always a bubbling sense of humour beneath the surface. Her driver on Mull spoke of picking her up at 6am, in the blackout era, and how she always sat in the front of the car and chatted on the way to the location for the day. The centrepiece of the documentary (31 mins) is a journalist from the New Yorker, feeling a bit jaundiced after 12 years as a hack, unexpectedly saw "IKWIG" at an arts cinema and knew that, somehow, she had to visit the location of the film and started researching. Simultaneously, director Michael Powell had also quit the UK some years earlier for West Coast/USA after the lascerating reviews for "Peeping Tom"
(1959). Martin Scorsese had also seen "IKWIG" and began to champion Powell's work. We see several sequences of the NY journalist visit the Mull locations and interviewing some of the surviving cast. Fascinating to compare her colour shots, rather than the vivid black and white monchrome of the film. Powell saw these stills, only a few months before his death, and wrote to the lady saying how he wished he'd done the film in technicolour. Intriguing, too, is a sequence showing how Powell cleverly edited several scenes of Wendy Hiller and her leading man, Roger Livesey, as Livesey was commited to a West End play and couldn't get to the locations; the long shots of his stand-in, even taught to walk like Livesey are cunning as well as clever. A 12 year- old Petula Clark was petrified of Michael Powell and daren't ask for a comfort break - she peed in her jodhpurs and also lost her lunch break when they were left to dry on a radiator!

Brief Encounter's 'Return to Carnforth' is lighter fare, 15 mins, but Ben Fogle brings charm and enthusiasm as he visits Carnforth in 2004, aka Milford Junction in the film. The station has now been renovated and still attracts many visitors tracing the platforms and ramps used in the film. Sequences from the film are interspersed and perhaps it is the realism in the detail throughout which still makes it a deeply affecting experience. My favourite moment is the interview with the retired footplate fireman who spoke about bringing in the train into the main platform for the night location work and how Celia Johnson, every night, walked down to the engine to say 'good evening, gentlemen' to the driver and the fireman. "Me, a gentleman!" "She was our favourite lady. Now...that Trevor Howard. (Looking around him like Frankie Howerd stricken with guilt), I don't want to be personal...but I think he was...ALOOF." So sweet!

These documentaries must be in the archives and, as the main features are regularly repeated, I'm sure that viewers would be delighted to see these afterthought musings at the same time.

[salymap]

Wonderful memories Stanley. Has even Petula Clark 'shuffled off etc' I hope not- I vaguely remember hersinging in the grounds of Sidcup Place or another big house or somewhere else locally.

We were both teenagers then.

What wonderful memories contained in your DVDs

[Stanley Stewart]

Thank you, saly. Indeed, Petula Clark, now 82, is scheduled for a tour of her show, 'struth! A real trouper, she even survived the popular Huggett family series of the late 40s with Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison as mum and dad. Never a J Arthur Rank "Charm School" product, her fresh persona developed from the time of her first adult role as a nurse in "White Corridors" (1951). Perhaps the highlight of her film career was starring, opposite Fred Astaire, in "Finian's Rainbow" (1968) and with Peter O'Toole in a musical version of "Goodbye Mr Chips" (1969).

Re video/DVD transfers, I intended to move into the 1950s with "On the Waterfront" (1954), alongside a 60 mins documentary interview with Budd Schulberg, still sprightly at 86, before noticing that I'd overlooked "The Edge of Love"
(2008), surprisingly recorded on BBC 1, ye gods, on 4 Sept. The plot, loosely based on real events, concerns a troilism in war-torn London, 1940, between Dylan Thomas, Caitlin - the superb Sienna Miller - and a cabaret singer who became his infatuation. John Maybury's intense direction is rich in period detail and finds a remarkable contrast between the instant death or injury during an air raid - the direct hit on the Cafe de Paris for instance - with the beauty of the coastal south Wales locations, where peace and quiet is only shattered by domestic warfare!

I recall wanting to see this underrated film on its initial 2008 theatrical release but, locally, it quickly vanished without trace. It has many small pleasures to savour.