The Singer Not the Song

In his biography of Dirk Bogarde, John Coldstream infers that the actor’s disinterest in ‘The Singer Not the Song’, his last outing for the Rank Organisation, led to his deliberately camp performance, a factor crucial to the film’s failure.

Although Bogarde was at the height of his fame when it was released in 1961, audiences clearly preferred him as the lovable Dr Simon Sparrow, or as dashing war heroes in the likes of ‘Ill Met by Moonlight’ or ‘They Who Dare’.

Bogarde was given his choice of the two main roles in ‘The Singer Not the Song’, indicative of Rank's fears of losing him. Bogarde was already tired of the formulaic fare on offer, and ill-feeling between him and Rank supremo Earl St John had been in the wind for a while. Nonetheless, he was one of their biggest stars, and had already been lured to Hollywood for the Franz Liszt biopic ‘Song Without End’.

So Bogarde, swayed no doubt by a significant paycheque (Rank threw a serious budget at the production), took the role of Anacleto, the Mexican bandit chief who enters into a love-hate relationship with an unorthodox priest. Title as metaphor, geddit? The singer not the song = the priest not the religion.

Clad in black (most notably in the extremely tight-fitting leather trouser department), sneer fixed in place, eyebrow perpetually arched, a white cat on his knee in several scenes - this four years before the first onscreen appearance of Blofeld in ‘Thunderball’! - there can be no doubt that this was miscasting writ large. It says something, then, that Bogarde is easily the best thing about the film.

Equally miscast is John Mills at his most avuncular as Father Keogh, the priest who stands up to Anacleto. The script calls for a dynamic - almost an attraction - between the antagonists. Clearly, a much younger, more energetic actor should have been cast instead of Mills.

Of Mylene Demongeot, the European starlet who plays the girl caught between them (a role which should provide the film’s human centre), the kindest that can be said is that she was no actress.

Another misjudgement was retaining Nigel Balchin as scriptwriter. A writer at the forefront of twentieth century British realism (his best known work, ‘The Small Back Room’, was filmed by Powell and Pressburger in 1948), he was simply the wrong man to adapt Audrey Erskine-Lindrop’s melodramatic novel. Also, the geniuses at Rank saw fit to put the whole thing in the hands of Roy Ward Baker, director of ‘The One That Got Away’ and ‘A Night to Remember’, films which demonstrate attention to detail and emotional distance from otherwise thorny subject matter (a German POW’s successful escape bid in the former; the sinking of the ‘Titanic’ in the latter) - again, obviously the wrong man for the job.

In ‘Snakes and Ladders’ - his only autobiographical volume that deals in any detail with his Rank years - Bogarde includes a publicity still from ‘The Singer Not the Song’, but doesn’t mention the film by name anywhere in the text. No reason for him to; audiences stayed away in droves. Baker took the brunt: his career deflated; it was six years before he directed again, and even then he was reduced to trashy Hammer horror quickies.

Curiously - perversely, even - ‘The Singer Not the Song’ began to find its champions. Particularly in France, where it swiftly became a cult hit. Today it exists as a cinephile’s guilty pleasure, one that’s all the more enjoyable for knowing that Bogarde was in on the joke.

The Small Back Room

My thanks to Beyond the Valley of the Cinephile for inviting all film-loving bloggers to contribute to a week-long Powell and Pressburger blog-a-thon, the only excuse I need to wax lyrical about one of my personal favourites.

‘The Small Back Room’ is an adaptation of a novel by Nigel Balchin, one of the most popular and well-respected British writers of his time. The title refers to the sub-basement office occupied by a research and development team – ‘boffins’, to use the vernacular. Professor Mair (Milton Rosmer) is a man of science, lending his acumen to projects designed to assist the war effort and effect a swifter victory for the Allies. His team includes Sammy Rice (David Farrar), the brains of the outfit but a man with his personal demons, and the walking case of nerves Corporal Taylor (Cyril Cusack), whose cuckolding by his wife is an open secret in the department.

Not that Sammy fares much better. Limping from a wound which has resulted in a tin foot, fighting the pain with beer and prescription drugs that do nothing for him, Sammy valiantly tries to stay off the Scotch – the only thing guaranteed to dull the pain – for the sake of his on-off girlfriend Susan (Kathleen Byron). Matters are complicated in that Susan is secretary to Sammy’s oleaginous boss R.B. Waring (Jack Hawkins). Waring is more salesman than scientist, schmoozing with government contacts – a scene involving a minister’s visit (the politico, billed as “A Guest” in the credits, is immediately recognisable as Robert Morley) is one of the best bits of political satire that side of ‘Yes, Minister’ – and not really caring about the poor bastard in the firing line who has to use the product.

The narrative centres around several (personal and professional) challenges to Sammy’s equilibrium. Firstly, a new type of unexploded bomb has been discovered. Designed to resemble a harmless thermos flask, but producing deadly results if handled, this is “Jerry’s” latest booby-trap. As the film opens, Sammy is approached by idealistic Captain Stuart (Michael Gough) to give a professional opinion on the device with only the barest amount of information to go on. The best he can offer is to be called to the scene the next time one is discovered. Secondly, he is summoned to give evidence at committee on a new, still-being-tested piece of ordnance, the Reeves gun, which Sammy can see is badly flawed, but which Waring wants to push through to government contract stage.

Sammy’s clash with Waring over the Reeves gun leads to ministerial resignation and potentially negative changes within the research department. It also fuels a stand-up row between him and Sue. She walks out on him. He goes back on the whisky, big time. Trashing his apartment in the throes of a drunken rage, Sammy gets a call – Stuart has tried to defuse one of the new UXBs and died in the attempt. Another device has been found, buried in the treacherously unstable pebbles of Chesil Sand. Frustrated, angry and hungover, an emotionally unstable Sammy presents himself at the scene and begins to defuse the bomb …

‘The Small Back Room’ operates pithily and effectively on three levels: knife-in-the-back political satire, nail-chewing suspense thriller, and character study of an alcoholic. Make no mistake, ‘The Small Back Room’ is up there with ‘The Lost Weekend’ and ‘Withnail and I’ as one of the greatest drinking movies ever made. Take the scene where Sammy, terrified of being alone, agrees to meet Sue at his apartment only for her to be kept late at work. He sits at a bare table and regards two objects: an (as yet) unopened bottle of whisky and a clock. He stares the clock out through the passage of an hour. He begins to hallucinate. The endlessly ticking clock, every tick hideously and surreally amplified, insinuates itself into the pattern of the wallpaper. The whisky bottle swells so that it occupies the entire room, bearing down on Sammy, forcing him up against the wall. Remember the magnificently off-the-wall cold turkey sequence in ‘Trainspotting’? … ‘The Small Back Room’ did it first.

Then there’s Sammy going off the wagon: argument with Sue; exeunt girlfriend; uncertain future at work. He heads for his local and implores barman Knucksie (a pre-‘Carry On’ Sid [billed as Sidney] James) to serve him whisky. Knucksie, well aware of Sammy’s inability to handle the hard stuff, refuses. Sammy starts wrecking the joint. “Knucksie,” he slurs, “has anyone ever given you a thick ear?” The barman stares him down: “Not without paying cash for it.”

I don’t think anyone’s given a more convincing performance of a drunkard violently (and pitifully) losing it as Farrar does here.

All of this makes the climactic scene that much more tense. Actually, ‘tense’ doesn’t do it justice. ‘The Small Back Room’ delivers its payoff in a twelve-minute scene that is sweatily, agonisingly, sphincter-tighteningly unbearable. Sammy treads slowly out towards the UXB, the pebbles of Chesil Bank cascading beneath his feet with every step. He nearly blows himself to shit just latching up supports around the device. Then he takes a couple of monkey wrenches to the cylinder to try to open it … If you’re not watching through your fingers whilst desperately needing to pee by this point, then congratulations: you officially have nerves of steel.

Bomb disposal scenes are a staple of cinema. Bond movies ‘Goldfinger’ and ‘Octopussy’ … child’s play. TV spin-off ‘Sweeney 2’ … amateur hour. ‘The Small Back Room’, as I may have mentioned before, did it first and did it best. Its only shortcoming is that Powell and Pressburger directed it. In the all-time P&P greatest movies list, arguably half a dozen features rank above ‘The Small Back Room’ … but that shouldn’t detract from one simple fact: it’s the best film of its kind bar none.