A Night of Extremes: 'Toomorrow'

     I have, for the past few years, been on a quest to find the definitive and positive cinematic depiction of Swinging London, and I have come to the conclusion that that search is essentially futile.  Such a depiction simply does not exist.  The best films, cinematically, are, at the very least, ambivalent, if not sharply critical.  Of the others, the not so good, 'Otley' makes a fair stab at things, but the 'Swinging London' setting is perhaps coincidental.

     On Wednesday, after a day in Cardiff, we made another fruitless attempt.  We watched 'Toomorrow', 1970, directed by Val Guest, who called the film 'the first space musical'.  Harry Saltzman and pop impresario Don Krishner were the producers.  Val Guest wrote the screenplay.  The result is simply dreadful.  It even fails to have any camp appeal.  A fledgling pop-group, the terminally twee 'Toomorrow' (assembled Krisher), are abducted by aliens who need their oomph restored.  Apart from a groovy spaceship, the best bits are: an early film performance by Olivia Newton John, and the appearance of Margaret Nolan as the alien 'Johnson'.  Hers is quite the best performance, as the film briefly transforms into a 70s sex comedy.  Sadly, Olivia Newton John has her wings clipped throughout. And what those two fine actors Roy Dotrice and Roy Marsden are doing in this car crash heaven knows.

     The finale 'Toomorrow' was shot in the The Round House, a vast former railway shed in north London.  Included in the DVD extras is a 1969 recording of a performance in the Round House by the American theatre troupe 'The Living Theatre'.  Dreadful, but of a completely different magnitude.

Toomorrow

1970

Producer:               Harry Saltzman, Don Krishner

Director:                 Val Guest

Cinematographer: Dick Bush

Joanna Crawford

 

     A few minutes ago I heard of the death of Joanna Crawford.  The name will probably mean little, or nothing to you, but she was one of the best art teachers I have encountered.  She taught Life Drawing at Stamford Art Centre on Thursday morning, until Lockdown struck.  Her classes were invariably full, with people travelling some distance to attend.  She was shrewd and preceptive, perhaps a little daunting, and she managed to draw out the best from us, no matter our level of skill.

      I know little of her life, except I believe she was born in Poland, possibly of German extraction.  She taught 'the rude soldiery' of the British Army at some point, and had a china shop in Stamford, and in retirement she taught life drawing.  

     Moving here, I missed the her and the life drawing classes immensely.

Currently reading.....

     This arrived in the post yesterday.  The final instalment of Anthony Powell's great, patrician novel sequence 'A Dance to the Music of Time'.  I've been reading them on and off for years with varying levels of enthusiasm.  The first three novels in particular are slow going.  Things, however, pick up with 'At Lady Mollys'.  I am currently reading the penultimate novel 'Temporary Gods', set in Venice and London. 

     A quick word about the front covers.  'A Dance to the Music of Time' has had various cover designs in its time.  However, two series stand out.  The first is that designed by Osbert Lancaster (1908-1986) for Penguin in the 1960s.  Lancaster, writer, illustrator, cartoonist, and designer for the stage, (largely self-taught) was a friend of Powell and the 2nd novel in the sequence, 'A Buyer's Market', is dedicated to Lancaster and his first wife Karen.  Powell described him thus: 'bristling moustache, check suits, shirt and tie in bold tints'.  Lancaster had a reputation as a dandy.  His austere pen and ink drawings give a good sense of 'British Mid-century Frugal'. A feeling of anomie pervades.

     Later editions such as this - the Fontana Books edition of 1977 - are the work of Mark Boxer (1931-1988) the magazine editor, illustrator, and cartoonist (completely self-taught).  As remarked, I think, on Wiki, Lancaster provided the locations, and Boxer the characters in the form of cartoons.  Vigorous, characterful and enviably confident.  As you can see above.

The Prelude

 

The Prelude by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

I felt most deeply in what world I was,

What ground I trod on, and what air I breathed.

High was my room and lonely, near the roof
Of a large mansion or hotel, a lodge
That would have pleased me in more quiet times;
Nor was it wholly without pleasure then.
With unextinguished taper I kept watch,
Reading at intervals; the fear gone by
Pressed on me almost like a fear to come.
I thought of those September massacres,
Divided from me by one little month,
Saw them and touched: the rest was conjured up
From tragic fictions or true history,
Remembrances and dim admonishments.
The horse is taught his manage, and no star
Of wildest course but treads back his own steps;
For the spent hurricane the air provides
As fierce a successor; the tide retreats
But to return out of its hiding-place
In the great deep; all things have second birth;
The earthquake is not satisfied at once;
And in this way I wrought upon myself,
Until I seemed to hear a voice that cried,
To the whole city, "Sleep no more." 

Shellarama

     I think we must be getting jaded, but in the last few weeks we've started films only to give up on them half way through: there was the Belgium horror film 'Daughters of Darkness', then 'Senso', 'Iphigenia' and 'Conclave' (which I feel we must finish before we return it to my family.  The alternative would be to lie, which no doubt we will in any case.), and then finally the other night there was Alain Resnais' 1974 film 'Stavisky'. Not even the presence of Jean Paul Belmondo, and a score by Stephen Sondheim, could save it from near terminal accidie.  It is, in all, a list of shame.  Perhaps, like everybody else, we are loosing our ability to concentrate.  That and the interminable hot weather.

     And so I turn to 'Shellarama' of 1965.  Again this something I have a vague recollection of watching as a child, when in the early days of colour television here in the UK the BBC showed these short documentaries, designed for the cinema, as Trade Test Colour Films. Judging by what I've read in researching this post Shell seemed to have a reputation for producing well made if rather dry films, usually of a scientific or technical bent.  Another Shell film I saw as a child, and a good example of this Shell style of documentary, is the ultra high-minded and visually impressive 'Crown of Glass' of 1967, directed by Michael Heckford, with technical innovation is coupled with the artistic, creative world.
     'Shellarama', I suppose, marks a high point in the work of the Shell Film Unit, and indeed of the whole post war documentary movement.  There was nothing before and nothing afterwards quite like this in its expansiveness, or its supreme confidence, or glamour.  One feels a lot of money was devoted to this project.  Richard Cawston, the writer and director, created in 'Shellarama' something bright, stylish, and modern.  A paean of praise to Modernity and the post War boom.  It is certainly not dry.  Nor high-minded.  Rather it has a deep sensuousness.  Colours are saturated.  Without dialogue, it comes close to pure cinema. 

     Filmed in Super Technirama 70, using 35 mm film stock pulled horizontally rather than vertically, using a camera fitted with an anamorphic lens, it is said 'Shellarama' was two years in the filming, and all for a mere 14mins of screen time - no chance of creeping ennui!  Those two years however were not wasted: the cinematography is marvellous.  The score, by Johnny Scott, is lavish, swinging, and cool.  The first half of the film is concerned with the exploration, extraction and refining of oil. The second half explores the joy of driving and is given over to a montage of locations around the globe, (this film is rather cosmopolitan, a bit 'jet-set') and this montage (the editor was Fred Burnley) seems to be constructed rather like a visual rondo that is an alternating of two themes in this case one fast and one slow, active and contemplative, until we reach apotheosis.  I think the score does the same.  Either way the result is masterly.

     The foundation of the Shell Film Unit by Edgar Anstey in 1934 was under the auspices of the Shell publicity manager, the remarkable Jack Beddington.  Inspired by the Frank Pick, the head of London Transport, Beddington made use of contemporary artists and writers such as John Betjeman and Geoffrey Grigson. It was Shell that sponsored the Shell County Guides, edited by Betjeman and and Piper.  Betjeman also appeared the 'Discovering Britain with John Betjeman' series for Shell on the nascent ITV in the 1950s.  In addition, Shell published 'shilling guides' to the UK counties, and also a whole range of really well produced books such as the 'The Shell Guide to English Villages', and the 'Shell Book of Rural Britain'.  Books that were erudite and stylish.  
     Things, however, I guess, began to slowly decline from the early 70s onwards.  In 1975 the Film unit was restructured, the budget reduced, and the lending library of films closed.  I think the publishing arm remained relatively untouched by these events.  Films made after 1975, such as the 'Regions of Britain' series, show a noticeable decline in quality even though they were still employing writers of the quality of Henry Thorold and David Verey.  In 1984 the last of the old Shell Guides was published - Henry Thorold's 'Nottinghamshire'.  The culture, sadly, had moved on.

Shellarama

1965

Producer:               Dimitri de Grunwald, Roger Good

Director:                 Richard Cawston

Cinematographer: Stanley W Sayer

Crown of Glass

1967

Producer:               Douglas Gordon

Director:                 Michael Heckford

Cinematographer: Allan Fabian

Further viewing and reading:

'Shellarama' is one of the films available on the excellent DVD box set 'Shadows of Progress; Documentary Film in Post war Britain 1951 - 1977', BFI, 2013.  Excellent liner notes.  It is a gold mine and well worth exploring.  Also:

Shadows of Progress: Documentary Film in Post-War Britain. London: BFI, 2010, Patrick Russell and James Piers Taylor (eds)

Own work: Sketches towards 'In Memoriam D S C H'

 

Aberglasney in Black and White

 

     I love black and white photography.  They have such a different sensibility.  More poetic, I feel.  My favourite photographers - Fay Godwin, John Piper, James Ravillious, Bill Brandt, Cecil Beaton, and especially Edwin Smith - were masters of the monochrome.  So, while working on my last post I began to experiment with the photographs I took in the course of that day, turning them into Black and White images.  With the exception of the final image, the original of which was taken back in 2017, these are the results.