Oedipus the King (1986 TV Film)

 "Judge no man's life until he's dead!"

This is the first of three TV films made for the BBC, in 1986, of Sophocles' "Theban Plays", all both translated and directed by Don Taylor, known to this blog for being recently noted as a director in Dead of Night. The Theban plays are an odd beast, really. They were never intended as a sequence, all are quite unconnected, so this isn't like Aeschylus' Oresteia, a slightly earlier BBC version of which I blogged a while ago.

Anyway, there's a certain inherent awkwardness about this particular play, isn't there? More than any other Ancient Greek play, we all know the plot; we come pre-spoiled. And, well, it's icky. About as icky as plots come.

So the first half of the play consists of the slow unravelling of a mystery which, for us viewers, is already known. The total lack of dramatic irony is less of a problem than might be expected, though. The process of unravelling what happened- relying rather more on hearsay and soothsayers than anything we moderns may regard as proper policing- is entertaining. And we get to know Michael Pennington's assured and kingly Oedipus, confident in his own wisdom and cursing the criminal, with no idea of the sheer horror that is to befall him. Claire Bloom is superb as Jocasta, at first sceptical and then consumed with horror and denial of a truth too awful to contemplate. The great John Gielgud gets a nice little cameo.

But it's the last few scenes where things get unexpectedly intense. Because the words hammer home that Oedipus was always doomed, he never did have any agency. None of this is his fault: he did all he could to avoid the terrible prophecy. Yet fulfil it he did, and he must suffer. As the chorus says 'Ignorance made you happy; the truth has made you blind'. She here he is, a blind beggar, doomed to exile and misery, all waiting for him from the moment he was born. And it gets even worse, with Oedipus really doubling down on his own degradation, wishing he could lose his hearing as well as his sight and, perhaps worst of all, making it clear that he expects to remain blind in the underworld.

And the way this production, purposely stagy though it is, reveals Oedipus' blindness is... effective to say the least.

Yeah... that's dark. Is Sophocles always this dark? The next two plays will be interesting...

Murder by Decree (1979)

 "I prefer bad manners in the theatre to violence in the streets..."

This film is an odd and intriguing beast. It's very well directed indeed, with the scenes involving the Ripper particularly well-realised. It has a superb cast. It's a very well made film. And yet...

Firstly, the script is somewhat plodding, slow, oddly paced and not quite worthy of the excellent way it's been realised. While James Mason gives us a first rate Watson, Christopher Plummer's generally impressive performance as Holmes suffers from the fact that the script doesn't really get the character- this Holmes is too openly emotional, too "normal".

This isn't the first time that cinema has put Holmes and Watson into the context of the Jack the Ripper murders but... well, SPOILERS, but this film adopts wholesale the then-fashionable theories advanced by Stephen Knight in his unfortunately titled Jack the Ripper:  The Final Solution, theories that woukd later form the basis of both the graphic novel and the film of From Hell..

And this is a problem. Not because such theories have fallen out of fashion (Personally, I don't buy the freemasonry nonsense- it's a very silly organisation but, except in the context discriminating against non-freemasons in their careers, harmless nonsense. I'd suggest borrowing a razor off that nice Mr Occam. The Ripper was probably Charles Lechmere.), but simply because adopting this narrative wholesale means that Holmes and Watson are by definition unable to have much agency or influence over events. 

Still, this is an interesting little curiosity nonetheless.

Richard III (1955)

 "Conscience is a word that cowards use..."

Ah, Richard III. Maybe he killed the princes, maybe he didn't. Maybe he was a tyrant, maybe he was a decent bloke and a goodand poular king. Certainly the Tudor propaganda- Shakespeare very much included- doesn't help his reputation.But one thing must be said: Laurence Olivier's mullet here is utterly horrifying. And on the evidence of portraits this is one crime of which Richard III is assuredly very guilty indeed.

This film, though, is as superlative as one might expect, given the director and the cast crammed with first class classical actors, including Claire Bloom, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and at least one Thorndike. Not that there isn't actor spotting fun to be had, of courdse. We get John Laurie of Dad's Army fame, plus Michael Gough as a murderer gets a line or two.

The sets are, perhaps, rather more dated than the acting. This is a very brightly coloured, Adventures of Robin Hood take on the late Middle Ages. The direction and cinematography are deliberately conventional and unexceptional, despite some creative use of lighting. Yet the performances and, of course, the words overwhelm everything. And Olivier's Richard, caricature though Shakespeare's Richard always is, remains utterly captivating throughout. Throughout all three phases of the play- the disturbing wooing/gaslighting of Anne, Richard's plotting, and his speedy unravelling and downfall to "despair and death"- Olivier';s Richard is superlative and,perhaps, definitive.

Assignment to Kill (1968)

 "I'm just calling to say I loathe and despise you and everything you stand for, and what time are you taking me to dinner tonight?"

At first this little film seems to be ripping off James Bond, what with its vague spy theme, its protagonist's great chemistry with the female lead and love interest, and the time it was made, I suppose. But instead it's something very different and, despite the at times pedestrian direction and the low wattage of its stars- although Herbert Lom and John Gielgud, both excellent, provide some heft- very good indeed.

Patrick O'Neal plays Cutter, an investigator of fraudulent insurance claims who finds himself in Zurich and a web of rather deadly intrigue. There he meets Dominique, with whom he establishes a rather delightful little romantic rapport with lots of Steed-and-Mrs-Peel type wit between the two of them. O'Neal is fine, but Joan Hackett is utterly superb.

Great though the characters are, though, this is a clever, complex thriller which has a highly satisfying ending, fully paying off all the intricate twists and turns. And yet, despite the film being essentially a puzzle box, at no point is it difficult to follow and the characters, wthin the limits of the genre, feel like real people.

And it's a real revelation seeing John Gielgud as a crime lord.

This is an odd little film with B list actors for its stars, but the script and most of the performances are superb, and the location of Zurich and the Swiss Alps is perfect. Highly recommended.

Julius Caesar (1953)

 "Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life cuts off so many years of fearing death."

I'm utterly knackered today after a long, difficult drive and the emotional drop after dropping Little Miss Llamastrangler back at her mum's after a wonderful half term week, so I wanted to watch something undemanding and... yeah, it's Shakespeare. But I've seen this version before in my youth and was curious to see it again, and this is the play I've seen on screen the most for some reason.

This is, of course, sublime cinematic Shakespeare. James Mason excels as Brutus who is, I suppose, the closest we come to a main protagonist: it was certainly the part later played by Charlton Heston in his later version, not comparable to this but fascinating in its own way. The direction, the sets, all is at once suitably cinematic yet at the same time appropriately intimate in ways that suits Shakespeare who, writing for the Elizabethan stage, focused by necessity on dialogue rather than complex spectacle.

Yet there are two obvious stand-out performances by two truly great actors who, incidentally, both exemplify different schools of acting, both done to perfection- the traditional stage approack of John Gielgud and the method, er, method of Marlon Brando. Gielgud is the perfect Cassius. Yet Brando as Mark Antony steals the show. Antony doesn't have as much prominence in the play as one might think, but he certainly has the big soliloquys. And Brando performs them in a way that may never be surpassed, perhaps showing once and for all that the best of Hollywood can approach Shakespeare with utter confidence. Making no attempt to pointlessly do a fake British accent, Brando brings an intensity to the part that makes the words come alive. It is, perhaps, the single greatest Shakespeare performance ever committed to film.

So, yeah, this is a truly great film. It also shows how the same Shakespeare play can speak to you in different ways each time you see it, perhaps shaped by the differences in direction, performance, version of the text. Here I was struck by the many references to the inevitability of death and how one must manage one's fear and existential dread that we are all mortal. Death is the only certainty in life.

Yet the one line that struck me most this time came not from one of the characters but from the Roman crowd as Brutus makes his speech: "Let him be Caesar!". Brutus and the conspirators do their bloody deed, ostensibly for liberty and so that the Roman Republic may not know another Tarquin, yet the masses utterly miss the point, thereby showing that such scruples are futile in the long run... and, of course, young Octavian waits in the wings, he and Antony dissing poor Lepidus behind his back...

So, yeah. Nice simple film for knackered old me.

Julius Caesar (1970)

 "This was the noblest Romam of them all."

Obviously, I know this play. I also know the 1953 film with Marlon Brando, and with John Gielgud in a less exalted, but more electrifying part. I mean, is the superlative Sir John Gielgud... phoning it in? I do believe he is.

Not that this film is crap. It's just not the 1953 film, probably. I mean, I saw it probably twenty-five years ago, long before this blog. Memory is an imperfect intrument. But it- and Brando, especially- made a deep impression on me. Any subsequent Mark Antony has big boots to fill. And those big soliloquys must be approached with trepidation. An actor lives or dies by them.

So how does this compare? Well, the standard British characters actors are very RSC. Robert Vaughn impresses with Casca, giving a daring yet pleaasingly arch performance. Diana Rigg shines during her one big scene.

But what of Charlton Heston? Well, this was brave of him. He's no Brando, not even close, but he's good enough. His "Pardon me, thou bleeding piece of Earth" is so so, but his funerary speech for Caesar is fascinating. Not as passionate as many, but great facial acting and restraint, which really, really works.

The entire production is fascinating. We begin with a bird of prey, circling. The battle is visceral, as is the bloody murder. There is no honour in war here, only bloodshed. Shades of Vietnam, and Oh, What a Lovely War?, the 1970 zeitgeist. This is not the best version, being quite flat. But hey, it's Shakespeare.

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

 “Trial by twelve good men and true... is a sound system

I have read, probably, more of Agatha Christie's ouevre than not, although all of it- and it startles me still that I should happen to be of an age to say this- not much less than thirty years ago. Her plots are of course unparallelled: writing in an age where the tropes of the whodunit were well-estabished, she subverted and played with them, and did so with unmatched cleverness. In that respect, she was a genius.

Alas... he characterisation and prose were bloody awful, and she kept her snobbishness  close to the surface of her writing. I, in turn, have become rather more of a prose snob over the last few decades. Functional prose I can cope with. Bad prose I cannot. I prefer Margery Allingham.

However, there are always screen adaptation, which provide the wonder of Christie's plotting without the pain of her prose. This is a particularly sublime example, with a cast to die for, partly- Lauren Bacall, Ingrd Bergman- from Hollywood's golden age. Yet Albert Finney is incrddible. At first, having known only David Suchet as a screen Poirot, I didn't want to like him. Hercule Poirot, unlike Sherlock Holmes, is not a part known for many actors. Yet Finney's subtle and mannered performance makes the film. So does Sidney Lumet's visually creative directing style which nevertheless serves the plot well, masterfully combining subtly sublime camerawork- the backstory of the baby at the strt is particularly well done- with clear storytelling.

Sadly, I remembered over the decades who killed the late Mr Ratchett, so I was unsueprised, and noticed a few of the clues. But this is a hugely successful and enjoyable adaptation.

The Elephant Man (1980)

"I’ve tried so hard to be good...”

This is a film that does something amazing: it’s unabashedly sentimental and gets away with it. This is entirely down to David Lynch, whose interesting local style allows him to be sentimental without over-sugaring the palate in ways that a less, well, weird director could not.

The performances, of course, are superlative, as the cast list pretty much guarantees they would be. John Hurt is superb and justly acclaimed as Merrick himself, although a Leicester native would realistically have been a lot more ay up me duck than this performance. The character is quite superficial, I suppose- his only character trait is “virtuous”, although there’s ambiguity about his death at the end by lying down to sleep instead of sitting and crushing his neck; is it suicide? There’s no denying, though, that Hurt portrays the pathos of the character superbly. A young Anthony Hopkins too, as a Frederick Treves wondering if in the end he is any less of an exploiter than the loathsome Bytes. The monochrome cinematography and occasional piece of weird direction just about stop all this from being too saccharine. And, of course, the presence of John Gielgud is always a dignified of intended seriousness.

It’s an odd success in that it’s not very David Lynch at all in many ways, and there is no real message behind the pathos, but nevertheless the way Lynch creates said pathos is true artistry. This film feels the same kind of sentimental that Steven Spielberg films often are but, of course, David Lynch does it better.

Oh! What a Lovely War (1969)

"The lights are going out all over Europe..."

The cast for this film is ridiculous. Aside from the people I've tagged at the bottom we have the Master himself, Anthony Ainley, as a British staff officer. We also have Thorley Walters, Nanette Newman, Gerald Sim, Edward Fox, Angus Lennie, Dirk Bogarde, Derek Newark, Ralph Richardson, Maggie Smith, Susannah York, John Mills and (uncredited) Jane Seymour and John Woodnutt. All in the same film. It's absurd.

This is Dickie Attenborough's epic film version of the famously improvised musical by Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop. It's a thing of magnificence but it does, of course, present a very Marxist view of the First World War. You certainly don't have to be a Marxist to subscribe to the view that this was not a "just" war but just a silly dynastic struggle between old empires, the War of the Spanish Succession with trench warfare and mustard gas; I'm not, and I do. But it certainly helps. However, this film is a strong proponent of the old "lions led by donkeys" view, an unpopular view in many quarters these days. From the arrogant xenophobia of the British officers towards their French allies to a doddering and uncomprehending Franz Ferdinand declaring war on Serbia this is not a flattering portrait of those in power.

Thing is, though, it's magnificent. As a musical (all the songs are versions from the trenches) it revels in the freedom from realism while maintaining a clever structure through the use of one family's ground level point of view and of the sinister photographer figure.

There are so many fantastic set pieces, from the British recruitment propaganda to the moving Christmas fraternisation between the British and Germans in 1914 (the top brass cancel their leave!) .But the structure, message and intricacy of the whole thing is quite something to behold. A thing of magnificence.