Caught on a Train

     I had intended to take a break from this blogging lark for a few days, but yesterday, purely by chance, I watched 'Caught on a Train' a BBC television play from 1980, part of the BBC2 Playhouse strand of one-off dramas that ran for 8 seasons between 1974 and 1983.  It was deeply impressive, so much that I've felt the need to commit my thoughts to 'paper'.

     'Caught on a Train' was written by Stephen Poliakoff, produced by Kenith Trodd, and directed by Peter Duffnell.  It was first aired 31st October 1980, and has been repeated a few times on the BBC, and is now available on BBC iplayer (if you live outside the UK you may have difficulties in accessing this remarkable play).  Score, I should add, by Mike Westbrook.
          The play, filmed entirely on location (much of it on the Nene Valley Railway nr Peterborough), is set in a Europe in the mist of The Cold War, haunted also by the fear of terrorism.  The 'Red Army Faction', aka 'The Baader-Meinhof Gang', were then active in the German Federal Republic.  In Italy, these were the 'Anni di Piombo' - 'The Years of Lead' - a perfect storm of extreme left and right violence.  Poliakov depicts the continent in decline; the train is filthy; there are football hooligans; the station in Frankfurt, and then the train, are crowded with young people silent, sullen and resentful; the authorities are jittery.  Into this continent of distrust and fear arrives the young Englishman, Peter (Michael Kitchen).  He is travelling by train from Ostend (in Belgium) to Linz (Austria) - he works in the publicity department of a London publishers and is on the way to a trade fair.  Peter is ambitious and 'full of himself'.  Not an entirely sympathetic character.

     At Ostend, when Peter and the other passengers, especially Lorrine (Wendy Raebeck) with whom Peter fancies his chances, have settled into their seats, an elderly Viennese lady, Frau Messner (Peggy Ashcroft) - stylish, neat, self-contained, quite dreadful - steps into the compartment, and proceeds to demand that Peter give up his seat even though it is not the seat she has booked, claiming; 'I don't think you understand. I have to sit by the window."  An uneasy relationship then develops between them that is the emotional centre of this film. Both actors sparkle, but I think the palm goes to Ashcroft.  One feels that her character always has the upper hand, that she has greater reserves of intellect and guile to draw upon. The narrative, keeping pace with the train, lurches towards disaster when Peter is escorted from the train by the Austrian police.

     At the end of the film Frau Messner sits alone in the restaurant car surrounded by detritus of the journey.  The wreck, one is tempted to say, of European culture at the end of 20th century.

The Whitsun Weddings

      Today is the Eve of Whitsun - Whitsunday - Pentecost.  The day churches celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Disciples who were gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of Shavuot.  It is a moveable feast i.e. its date each year is governed by the date of Easter

     It is also the day of Philip Larkin's poem 'The Whitsun Weddings'.  Published in 1964 by Faber in the collection of the same name. The first poem in the collection, 'Here', describes, in part, a journey to Hull, 'The Whitsun Weddings' a departure; describing as it does a train journey undertook one hot Saturday afternoon from the Paragon Station in Hull to London Kings Cross.  The opening stanza suggests the journey, at that particular time and date, has been made before. One gets the sense of the mundane quality of an oft repeated journey.

     Then, in the third stanza, things begin to change.  At first the narrator pays little attention to the noise on the platforms when train stops; 'and down the long cool platforms whoops and skirls I took were porters larking with the mails, and went on reading.'  But when the train departs one of the unnamed stations he looks up and notices:

'grinning and pomaded, girls   

In parodies of fashion, heels and veils,   

All posed irresolutely, watching us go,

As if out on the end of an event

    Waving goodbye

To something that survived it.'

     His interest piqued, he makes the point at the next station and subsequently of looking out at the platform and the waiting passengers, and wedding parties gathered to see off the newly married on their honeymoons.  Larkin it has to be said is a little pejorative in tone, just as he is in 'Here', however as the train moves toward the capital the subject changes from the particular to the universal.

     One of the reasons I like this poem so much, and it is quite a personal reason, is that the poem talks about things I know; Lincolnshire, the eastern side of England, the East Coast mainline.  My line, which I have travelled more times than can remember or count.  It could be my relations on those platforms. My parents took that line on their honeymoon, spending the first few days in London before taking another train down to Cornwall.

     Here is Philip Larkin reciting his remarkable poem.  Of the two recordings I found on YouTube, the best.

Queen Elizabeth Memorial, part 3: A Small Proposal

     This is a response (a little tongue-in-cheek, perhaps) to the proposed national Queen Elizabeth II Memorial.  My proposal is relatively simple, being merely an equestrian sculpture on a suitable plinth.  The image depicts one of the long sides of the monument.

     My design has a number of sources.  Firstly the plinth which I envisage to be constructed of either Ketton or Bath stone.  I dislike the chill of Portland Stone.  The design is based on that created by Alessandro Leopardi to bear the equestrian statue, designed by Andreo Verrochio, erected in the Campo San Giovanni e Paolo by the Venetian Republic to honour the condotierre Bartolomeo Colleone. I increased the number of columns on each long side by one, using the Corinthian order as set out by Sebastiano Serlio in his book 'Tutte l'opere d'architettura et prospetiva'.  The Corinthian order is suitable for such a monument because it has been traditionally connected to funeral monuments.  Vitruvius, in his 'De Architectura', tells us that the order was invented by the Greek sculptor Callimachus after seeing acanthus leaves growing round a votive basket of toys, with a slab on top, on a child's grave.  The French architect and theorist Jacques-Francois Blondel, believed that architecture had it roots in the honouring of the dead.

     A small number adaptations have been to Serlio's interpretation of the order: I have shortened the height of the column by 1/2 module, and have simplified the base by using that from the Maison Caree at Nice; an Antique Temple dating from 1st century AD and used as a Caesareum i.e. to house the Imperial cult.  Each column is quarter attached to the core of the plinth.  The core of the plinth is rusticated in the manner of the Maison Caree.

     The entablature has a deepened frieze to take a lapidary inscription and the elements of the cornice have been simplified, omitting some altogether and enlarging and simplifying others.

     My drawing of the equestrian statue is based not only upon prototypes from the Western tradition; Antique, Medieval or Renaissance, but upon the Sassanian rock sculptures at Naqsh-e Rostam, and the Murghal miniature tradition.

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush

     

     It is the late Sixties, let us say 1968 as it is the year of this film's cinematic release.  It is a Saturday - likely the morning - in a New Town in southern England.  (It is actually Stevenage.)  The town, and particular the Town Square, is busy with shoppers.  Among them is 17 year old Jamie McGregor - sixth form pupil at the local Grammar School.  He is cycling around delivering groceries for a local supermarket.  His mind, however, is not his Saturday job, but elsewhere on another sort of job.  Sex.  Crumpet.  Skirt.  His mate Spike is getting it; even his younger brother is getting it....

     That evening Jamie goes on a date of sorts. His first. It is unsuccessful, as these things often are. 

     And so begins a year of comedic adventures as Jamie bounces from relationship to relationship battered, bruised but undimmed.  Here's the full list of runners: 'runny old Linda'; church-going Paula (and her mate Cath); affected Caroline Beauchamp; ditzy Audrey; and cool, leggy Mary Gloucester, doctor's daughter.

     Clive Donner's 1968 film is an adaptation of Hunter Davies debut novel of 1965, 'Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush'.  Screenplay by Hunter Davies and Larry Kramer, who was also Assistant Producer to Clive Donner; Cinematography by Alex Thompson; and score by Steve Winwood, Traffic, and the Spencer Davis Group - who also appear in the film playing at a young persons' disco at the local parish church. No parochial event that; in perhaps the most stylish scene in the film, the band - all in white - perform upon a circular revolving stage in the midst of a room lined in black engineering bricks, while a cool, well dressed crowd of the beautiful people dance around them.  It put in mind, momentarily, of Jacques Demy's wonderful 1967 film 'Les Demoiselles de Rochefort' with its mix of Nouvelle Vague (almost complete use of location filming) and heightened reality.  Would the Spencer Davis Group really have played a event in the local church hall?  (If you haven't already watched 'Les Demoiselles de Rochefort' then you should.  It's a treat.)

     The cast is excellent.  A 23 year old Barry Evans, playing Jamie, leads a cast of relative new-comers, some of whom went on to become household names here in the UK such as Christopher Timothy, and Diane Kean.  I think, however, the older members of the cast such as Michael Bates and Moira Frazer, playing Jamie's parents, have the edge when it comes to characterisation and dialogue.  One of the faults of films of that period is that they tend to sprawl about, as though the director is easily distracted (or self indulgent), and the narrative structure suffers as a result - think 'What's New Pussycat?', 'Casino Royale', and 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'.  It was as if films were suddenly subject to centrifugal force.  The Mulberry Bush is not totally immune from these tendences as there are a number of 'dream' sequences of various degrees of naughtiness, but their ability to disrupt the narrative is mainly held in check.

     As you may have realized by now I rather love this film, and I recommend a watch.  It's all very 'Sixties' and all rather innocent.  A long way from 'Get Carter'.  What a difference a mere three years make.  Gone is the charm, the innocence, and the optimism.

     It is a comedy of manners but in some ways is also a pre-cursor of the sex-comedy of the 1970s - the comedic bedroom scenes, the coitus interruptus -  and many of the cast would later appear in that peculiarly British genre: Barry Evans starred in 'Adventures of a Taxi Driver' & 'Under the Doctor'; Adriene Posta in both 'Adventures of a Taxi Driver' & 'Adventures of a Private Eye'; Diane Keen in 'The Sex Thief'; Christopher Timothy in 'Up Pompeii' & 'Eskimo Nell'; George Layton in 'Confessions of a Driving Instructor'.  The prize, however, must go to Sheila White, who appeared in all four of the 'Confessions' films.  I simply didn't know that so many were made!

Here we go Round The Mulberry Bush

1968

Producer:               Clive Donner

Director:                 Clive Donner

Cinematographer: Alex Thompson

St Paul, Plasmarl & St Peter, Newton: Part I

This post, both text and photos, was created was created just before the second lockdown.  The plan was create a single post on both the churches.  Plans have changed.  I hope to write a post on St Peter's soon.

     A study in contrast this, and two churches by that prolific Late Victorian Welsh architecture Edward Bruce Vaughan (1856-1919), who until moving to Wales I had not heard of. Bruce Vaughan was based in Cardiff and specialised in ecclesiastical work, designing some 45 churches in Glamorgan alone.  According 'The Buildings of Wales' he built eight churches in Swansea.  All, I suspect. of quarry faced masonry.
     Every time I head into town I pass this sad sight, St Paul, Plasmarl.  It stands at the southern end of the main street in Plasmarl, Neath Rd, hard by a busy roundabout. I rather love this church, which is all rather Bodley-esque with some interesting 'free-style' detailing.  The placing of the octagonal bell tower is masterly. Alas as you can see the whole thing is beginning to give way to ruin.  The people of Plasmarl deserve better.  Since I wrote those words three years ago now, the deterioration has continued.  The top stage of the tower has begun to tilt to the north and large cracks have opened up in the masonry.  All is Ichabod.

Get Carter

Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.

     Saturday afternoon, I'm on the sofa, and in search of a film.  The television has nothing to offer me, so I turn to BBC iplayer, and my eyes light upon 'Get Carter'.  Mike Hodges' brilliant, brutal film of 1971.

     I have watched this film plenty of times.  I'm slightly surprised I haven't blogged about the film before.  It is a hard and uncompromising film.  Brutal and cynical, that has, I think rightly, been likened to a Jacobean Tragedy.  And tragedy it is.  There is a very high body count.

     'Get Carter' was, as far as I can remember, a bit of a cause celebre, when it first came out.  The critic Pauline Kael said of it, 'sadism-for-the-connoisseur [] so calculatedly cool and soulless and nastily erotic that it seems to belong to a new genre of virtuosic viscousness.' It has since then become a cult movie, and also a shorthand for the excesses of early 1970s British films.  It is also a paradox also for being simultaneously a product of the then past decade - the depiction sex, drugs, and pornography - and a criticism of it.  'Get Carter  is, along with two films I have reviewed before on this blog - 'The Ballad of Tam Lin' and 'Straight on till Morning', a prime example of the 'Sixties Hangover Film'.  A rather niche genre, but interesting. And may be important.

     The Carter in question, Jack, works for London organised crime, in the shape of Gerald Fletcher.  He is, as you might reasonably expect, a man of violence.  In an inspired title sequence we travel with Carter back home, to an British unnamed city somewhere in the North of England, to bury his brother Ted.  Carter is already suspicious of his brother's dead, and events confirm his doubts.  The funeral is perfunctory and sparsely attended; Ted's girlfriend, Doreen, arrives late, leaves hurriedly and when confronted by Carter is reluctant to speak.  Jack begins his enquiries.  And this film, in its curious way becomes a detective film, perhaps a dark satire on the English murder mystery, with Jack as amateur sleuth.  He re-enters the dark pit of local organised crime, and then suddenly the film reaches a hinge moment (which, I believe Hodges saw as a 'political' epiphany) and it becomes a revenge movie as Carter, as a destroying angel, goes on a very public campaign of retribution, wreaking havoc upon his enemies.  Though, it has to be said, he seems to be the least qualified person, morally, to do so. 

     The cast is superlative: Michael Caine, as the eponymous Carter, Brit Ekland, John Osbourne, Geraldine Moffat, Ian Hendry, and Kika Markham.  Director Mike Hodges (at his best), Producer Michael Klinger.  Excellent cinematography by Wolfgang Suschitsky, who worked in the British Documentary Movement, and brings an element of reportage to the proceedings.  And then there is score by Roy Budd.  I've heard it said that 'Get Carter' was the the last hurrah of the British arm of MGM.  There a sense that those involved what things to go out with a bang.  And they certainly did.

     Hodges also wrote the screenplay.  It is an adaptation of Ted Lewis's 1970 novel 'Jack's Return Home'.  (Klinger presented it to Hodges in Jan of that year, I believe a month or so before the book was published.)  Ted Lewis (1940-1982) had set the novel in north Lincolnshire where he grew up, in particular in the steel making town of Scunthorpe.  Hodges changed the location to Newcastle upon Tyne.

     I think there may be something in the choice of Newcastle over the less visually exciting Scunthorpe.  The city Hodges chooses to  depict is a wreck, decaying and corrupt.  Filthy and shoddy.  A place of turpitude. There is little glamour and that there is is connected to criminality.  Perhaps some subtle moralising.  The background to this is the then scandal of T Dan Smith, leader of Newcastle city council 1958-65.  A charismatic individual, and a man with fingers in many pies.  The sort of man, who to quote, yet again, the novelist Frank Herbert, 'ought to come with a warning label on the forehead: "May be dangerous to your health."  He was arrested in January 1970 and charged with 'receiving payments to influence local government contracts'.  He was tried in July 1971 and found not guilty.  In 1974 was brought to trial again, and that time pleaded guilty to corruption.  Smith was sentenced to 6 years at Her Majesty's pleasure.

     Hodges indeed saw this film in terms of 'the state of the nation', and he came came to see corruption beneath everything. In a 2016 interview with Adam Scovell he even sounded somewhat like Mary Whitehouse.  I'm stuck thinking that nothing quite fits, that there is something of a gap between Hodges intentions/rhetoric and the finished piece, good as it.  I am put in mind of work of Kurosawa who, for all his talk of being a pacifist, choreographed violence so beautifully.

Get Garter

1971

Producer:               Michael Klinger

Director:                 Mike Hodges

Cinematographer: Wolfgang Suschitsky

St Peter & St Paul, Weobley

     Last Monday, on our return from Worcestershire, we stopped briefly in Weobley - a large, remarkable village rich in half-timbered buildings even by the standards of Herefordshire.  our destination was, however, the parish church, St Peter & Paul.  

     The setting is quite perfect, standing slightly removed on the northern edge of the village and reached by a narrow lane - no footpaths but grass verges rich in foxgloves and cow parsley.  Ahead is the remarkable steeple.  A landmark, visible for miles, an exclamation mark in the border country, prominent rather in the manner of a tower in East Anglia.  The success lies not only in its height - when all the neighbouring churches are rather lowly affairs, but in the contrast of elegant spire, with, in the Herefordshire manner, lucarnes at its base, and large spiky pinnacles, and the austere, windowless tower.  The combined effect is very monumental, even aloof, and quite extraordinary.  I can't think of anything that comes close.

     The church itself is large and complex.  Rather impressive. Somewhat picturesque.  Impressive w front with Geometric Decorated w window w door.  The latter enriched with ball flower.  All very Herefordshire.  Quite a bit of Victorian work too.  The interior is also complex, but to be honest, a disappointment.  Whatever the merits of the architecture, all I can now recall is the way the building is being treated.  Like the City of Rome after the fall of the Western Empire.  Clutter everywhere.  Sadly none of the liturgical furnishings, whether Victorian or contemporary, are commensurate with the architecture.  The monuments, happily, are better, the best being the worldly Baroque monument to Colonel John Birch.