HELLRAISERS: Look Back in Anger

You can pretty much date the “angry young man” movement in British literature as having its beginnings with John Osborne’s play ‘Look Back in Anger’ in 1956. In fact it was a press officer at the Royal Court Theatre who came up with the phrase as part of the play’s publicity.

The “angry young man” movement in British cinema was coterminous with the kitchen sink drama. These grimly realistic films, often tackling controversial social issues (infidelity, abortion, domestic violence, alcoholism), reached their fullest expression in the 1960s with the likes of ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’, ‘A Taste of Honey’, ‘The L-Shaped Room’, ‘This Sporting Life’, ‘The Family Way’ and ‘Poor Cow’. Two striking examples, however, were made in the late ’50s: Jack Clayton’s ‘Room at the Top’, from the novel by John Braine, and Tony Richardson’s adaptation (having directed the original theatrical production) of ‘Look Back in Anger’.

The clue’s in the title. And for anyone who missed it, it’s made explicitly clear in the towering fury of Richard Burton’s performance as Jimmy Porter, the mid-twenties university graduate who has turned his back on everything that university and education stand for and ekes out a basic living behind a market stall. At night, he plays trumpet and drinks at jazz clubs.
He lives in a dingy flat with put-upon wife Alison (Mary Ure) and lodger and co-worker at the stall Cliff (Gary Raymond). The flat, with its proximity to a church whose bells toll the faithful to and from worship with metronomic regularity, is a prison. Alison has become the personification of all the upper-middle-class superficiality he has so robustly eschewed. There is no love left in their marriage. Jimmy’s vehemence towards her leaves her fearful. She can’t bring herself to tell him she’s pregnant.

Cliff does his best to keep the peace between Jimmy and Alison, but his affectionate (though entirely platonic) relationship with Alison adds tension. Jimmy is as derogatory in his treatment of Cliff as he is towards Alison; and there’s no doubt that Cliff is second fiddle at the stall, Jimmy leaving him to tend to customers without a break while he hares off to the pub with “Ma” Tanner (Edith Evans). “Ma” Tanner is Jimmy’s erstwhile landlady and, as the maternal appellation suggests, something of a mother figure to him. A decent side to Jimmy emerges while he’s in her company; he accompanies her to a forlorn cemetery, goods trains clanking past in the distance, where she tends to her husband’s grave.

There’s a grimness to every frame of ‘Look Back in Anger’. From the dismal cemetery to the pubs wreathed in cigarette smoke; from the cramped rows of terraced houses to Jimmy and Alison’s equally cramped flat; from the grubby station platform where leave-takings and returnings are played out to the litter-strewn market place where stall inspector Hurst (Donald Pleasance) sneeringly and punctiliously makes his rounds and a coterie of stall holders close ranks against Indian tradesman Kapoor (S.P. Kapoor). Jimmy is a witness to the racially motivated accusations against Kapoor which see Hurst revoke his licence, and urges him to stand up to his accusers. Kapoor replies sadly and pragmatically that there are other towns and prepares to make his departure. “What made you come to this bloody country?” Jimmy asks him. “In India, I was an outcast,” Kapoor replies.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

‘Look Back in Anger’ kicks Englishness in the teeth. It’s easy to see why the clanging churchbells drive Jimmy mad: he has rejected the doctrines they vouchsafe; he knows full well that the racket they make never quite disguises the provincialism, the xenophobia or the smug hypocrisies of which the likes of Alison’s parents are emblematic; never quite drowns out the bleating of mealy-mouthed jobsworths like Hurst. ‘Look Back in Anger’ kicks against church, state, education and ambition (asked what he really wants, Jimmy answers “Everything. Nothing”). It even cocks a snook at the theatrical tradition (notwithstanding the origins of its source material) by having Jimmy and Cliff boisterously interrupt the rehearsals of a parlour room play Alison’s friend Helena (Claire Bloom) is appearing in.

Jimmy’s an unlikeable character for much of the 100-minute running time (he’s probably even more insufferable for the two hours plus of the play), and my sympathies while watching the film are generally more with Alison despite the fact that she does herself no favours by being such a doormat, but I can understand where the anger comes from and what it’s directed towards. Anyone who can’t is either from the upper-middle-classes Jimmy’s so contemptuous of, or they’ve never lived in England.

As a feel-bad film, ‘Look Back in Anger’ is up there with anything Ken Loach has ever put his name to. As a document of working class Britain, it’s a lot more convincing than anything Mike Leigh has ever put his name to. As a showcase for a searing, raging, no-holds-barred, tear-the-screen-up performance, it’s arguably Richard Burton’s finest hour.

HELLRAISERS: Villain

Michael Tuchner's 1971 Brit crime outing 'Villain' came with one of the best taglines ever: "Meet Vic Dakin ... then wish you hadn't."

Vic Dakin (Richard Burton) is a vicious East End gangster with an appetite for rough trade and an almost unhealthy attachment to his mother. I'm guessing that Tuchner, Burton and scripters Dick Clement and Ian la Frenais were crossed off Ronnie Kray's Christmas card list soon after the film came out.

Burton, coming off bland historical epic 'Anne of the Thousand Days' and indifferent war movie 'Raid on Rommel', tears into the part, turning what could have been a hackneyed, one-note role into a symphony of hair-trigger menace and snarling contempt. When his nemesis Inspector Matthews (Nigel Davenport) announces he has witnesses against him, the caustic response is, "If I looked at one of them, they'd piss in their pants. Because I'm Vic Dakin!" Clement and la Frenais bring the same quick-fire patter to 'Villain' that they did to their sitcom scripts. Greeting Matthews as "Sergeant", the copper reminds Dakin of his promotion. "Come through, has it?" Dakin sneers, adding (without missing a beat), "That's nice. Bit more on your widow's pension."

It's tempting to describe their screenplay as a forerunner of their work on Roger Donaldson's 'The Bank Job'. Both follow the three-act structure of job gets planned; job is executed but with unforeseen consequences; various parties try to screw each other over in the aftermath. Both feature an effortless interweaving of subplots. Both depict peers of realm compromised by their extra-matiral shenanigans and in the pockets of underworld figures as a result. But whereas 'The Bank Job', notwithstanding its occasional moments of brutality, is essentially playful in its construction and knowingly ironic in its evocation of hard-edged 70s thrillers, 'Villain' is a hard-edged 70s thriller and what bit of humour Clement and la Frenais bring to the table is cynical, acidic and sparingly doled out.

The plot kicks off with Dakin getting some inside information from a disaffected wages clerk (James Cossins): a payroll, three heavies, ordinary car (the firm's awaiting delivery of an armoured van), £70k easy. Dakin's mind is more on his former squeeze Wolfe (Ian McShane), a bisexual hustler who's introduced pimping out his Home Counties girlfriend Venetia (Fiona Lewis) to sleazy but well-connected politican Gerald Draycott (Donald Sinden). Dakin's crew have their doubts - robbery's not their usual game - and to complicate matters the job would take place in someone else's "manor". Still, 70 grand is 70 grand (this is 1971, remember) and Dakin sets out get fellow mobster Frank Fletcher (T.P. McKenna)'s permission to operate on his turf.

Fletcher's hesitant, though. The job's risky. Then a strike is announced which affects the payroll transportation dates, and it's make your mind up time for all involved: hit the payroll the next day or not at all. Fletcher comes onboard, along with his right-hand-man Edgar Lowis (Joss Ackland).

What happens next is one of the best botched robberies scenes in crime cinema. The guards handling the payroll twig to Dakin's box-them-in-and-force-them-off-the-road tactics. A frenetic barrage of squealing tyres, twisted metal and down 'n' dirty hand-to-hand ensues (in fact, with its punchy editing, realistic violence and backdrops of industrial wastelands, 'Villain' presupposes the in-your-face aestheic of 'The Sweeney' by four years). The money is booby-trapped. Steel spikes erupt from one of the cases, injuring Lowis. A gas canister spews choking orange fumes from another. Fletcher takes a pasting.

Miraculously, however, they escape the scene. Dakin, knowing the heat will be coming down on him (Matthews has spent the first half of the film harrassing him, seemingly on general principle), leaves what remains of the money with Lowis. This is where things start going wrong for him. In short order Lowis is nicked and Matthews arrests Dakin in front of his dear old mum.

Cue Wolfe, now back in the fold and putting up with the beatings that constitute Dakin's understanding of foreplay, and the dirt he has on Draycott. Alibis a-go-go and Dakin's back on the street, pissed off and wanting the money. But Matthews is just as determined to put him behind bars ...

'Villain' is a solid 70s crime movie: the script is pacy, Tuchner's direction taut and clear-sighted (it was his first film; sadly, everything he made subsequently was by-the-numbers), and the entire cast - including Colin Welland, Tony Selby and Del Henney relishing decently-written secondary roles - fire on all cylinders. Cinematographer Christopher Challis, a million miles away from the romantic musings of Powell & Pressburger (he shot seven of their films), colours 'Villain' grim. His vision of post-swinging-Sixties London is a masterclass in unloveliness: vast acreages of concrete, abandoned factories, soulless arterial roads and flyovers, broken-down lean-to's under railway arches. The poet Shelley wrote "Hell is a city much like London". Pace Challis. His London spawned Vic Dakin, and if that isn't proof I don't know what is.

Exorcist II: The Heretic

To paraphrase Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that all studios in possession of a financially successful property must be in search of a sequel. William Friedkin’s ‘The Exorcist’ made over $66 million in its first year’s release in America*, an impressive return on a total budget (including prints and advertising) of $15 million.

A follow-up was inevitable. Friedkin and Blatty were approached but refused. Retaining the services of playwright William Goodhart to script, co-producer Richard Lederer went scouting for a director. Initially, Lederer conceived the sequel as a quickie cash-in, perhaps even utilising footage from the original that didn’t make the final cut. Again a priest would be the central character but his role would be investigative, probing the circumstances of Merrin’s death. It would be low-budget and make Warner Bros an easy profit.

At least that was the theory.

John Boorman, who felt that ‘The Exorcist’ was little more than a film about the torture of a child, was an odd choice to direct, but Goodhart’s treatment piqued his interest. Goodhart wanted to explore the theories and theology of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest and archaeologist on whom Blatty had based Father Merrin. Teilhard believed that mankind was moving towards an evolutionary stage where telepathic communication would engender global consciousness. This dovetailed with Boorman’s ideal that ‘The Heretic’ “would be the antidote” to ‘The Exorcist’ instead of a sequel; a metaphysical drama instead of a horror film. (It’s telling that Boorman’s autobiography refers to the film as simply ‘The Heretic’, pointedly leaving the word “exorcist” out of the title.)

So far, so dubious. A producer looking for a low-budget hit; a director who didn’t like the original; a writer in thrall to philosophical theorising.

It started going wrong with Goodhart’s first draft. Boorman wasn’t happy with it and states, in his autobiography that “long discussions were required to get him to change a comma”. Boorman and his writing partner Rospo Pallenberg did uncredited rewrites, the script undergoing almost continual revision as production approached. Originally, Kinderman had a prominent role; after Lee J. Cobb’s death, the script was rewritten. Main character Father Lamont was conceived as an idealistic young priest inspired by Merrin’s life and work; when Jon Voight, Boorman’s first choice, turned the part down, the script was revised to make him an older, world-weary character. Richard Burton was cast.

Linda Blair returned as Regan, but Ellen Burstyn had no interest in reprising her role as Chris. Accordingly, Kitty Winn found herself with more screen time as Sharon, formerly Chris MacNeil’s secretary and now apparently Regan’s guardian. Max von Sydow was convinced to reprise his role as Merrin (in flashbacks) even though he had tried to distance himself from ‘The Exorcist’ after it started generating so much controversy.

Blair, Winn and von Sydow are an auto-pilot throughout the whole film. Burton is magnificently indifferent to the material, barking his lines and scowling and looking very much like he wants to get off the set and into a pub as expediently as possible. Louise Fletcher, hot off her Oscar-winning turn in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ seems to have been cast for her resemblance to Burstyn. Paul Henreid, as the Cardinal from whom Lamont receives his instructions, mumbles his way through his few minutes of screen time. And pity James Earl Jones, reduced to playing most of his scenes decked out in a witch-doctor type get-up – the worst costuming since some doofus decided to put Sean Connery in a nappy/bandolier combo in ‘Zardoz’. (Said doofus was John Boorman, btw. Coincidence? I think not.)

In the six autobiographical pages he devotes to ‘Exorcist II: The Heretic’, Boorman blames (i) illness, (ii) an overambitious script and (iii) Richard Burton for its box office failure. The prosecution wishes to re-examine in order to establish that: (i) Joseph Losey was ill during the filming of ‘The Servant’ and that film’s a masterpiece; (ii) unless “overambitious” is an accepted synonym for “incoherent”, this evidence should be deemed inadmissible; and (iii) Burton’s is certainly not the worst performance on display.

Let’s consider the issue of incoherence. Here’s my attempt at a plot synopsis. I use the word “attempt” advisedly. I’ve seen the film exactly twice: at a midnight screening double bill with its considerably more illustrious predecessor (I fell asleep during the mid-section of ‘Heretic’) and just a couple of days ago on DVD when I sat aghast through its two-hour running time, mouth agape and eyes bulging at the sheer, unmitigated, wanton, unapologetic, colossal, spectacular awfulness of it.

But I digress. The, ahem, “narrative” goes something like this: it’s four years since the events of the first film and Regan is now a pouting teenager living in a designer apartment under Sharon’s guardianship. She’s taking dance classes (wanna see the kind of choreography that makes your embarrassing uncle drunkenly strutting his stuff at a wedding look like Busby Berkeley? look no further) and attending sessions with psychiatrist Dr Tuskin (Fletcher). Tuskin is using a machine called the Synchronizer to link people’s minds and explore their memories, a supposedly ultra-high-tech bit of kit that resembles a mug tree with two lightbulbs strapped to it, which makes an incredibly annoying sonar-like sound every time it’s used (ie. for most of the first half of the film). Meanwhile, in a scene that contains two jarring WTF moments, Father Lamont is asked to investigate Merrin’s death. WTF moment #1: why is the investigation only now being opened, four years after the event? WTF moment #2: why does the Cardinal tell Lamont the church is considering Merrin a heretic for practising exorcism when the first film clearly demonstrates that it was not only sanctioned by church authorities but Merrin was actually asked to do it?

Lamont’s investigations bring him in contact with Regan and Dr Tuskin. Despite an immediate antagonism, Tuskin lets Lamont sit in on a Synchronizer session during which he witnesses a flashback/hallucination/vision (delete as applicable) of Merrin expiring at the hands of the possessed Regan of four years ago – who then reaches across time, space and all other logical barriers and attempts to stop Dr Tuskin’s heart. The good Regan of the present tries to comfort Dr Tuskin while Lamont dons a Synchronizer headset and goes into Dr Tuskin’s mind to rescue her from evil Regan.

I swear to God I am not making this up.

Regan begins to demonstrate otherworldly powers: precognition, telekinesis, faith healing. Lamont goes to Africa (or at least a few square meters of polystyrene rocks and an artificial sun hanging over a back lot masquerading as Africa) to track down Kokumo (Earl Jones), who was exorcised as a boy by Merrin. By now there is a telepathic link between Regan and Lamont so that when Lamont is set upon by an African tribe offended by his heretical religious views, Regan plunges off stage during her tap-dancing routine, giving a whole new meaning to coming out in sympathy.

To reiterate: I am not making this up. Nor am I under the influence of narcotics.

Lamont learns that Kukumo has the power to predict a plague of locusts (I’m laughing out loud as I type this) and can repel them by whirling his fist in the air. (Parenthetically, when Blatty saw a cut of ‘Exorcist II’, he informed the producers that he could, without changing a frame, come up with an entirely new plot, dub the film into a foreign language, subtitle it with his script and market it as a comedy. Oh, that they had listened!) There’s also something to do with good locusts, but I think I was trying to slit my wrists at that point and I might have missed something.

The internal logic of the film doesn’t just get lost at this point, it hails a cab, hightails it to the airport, books a one-way ticket to the Twilight Zone and gets wasted in the airport bar while it waits for the flight to be called. I don’t know why, but the finale has Regan and Lamont on a train back to Georgetown while Dr Tuskin and Sharon catch a plane to the same destination. These various parties converge on Prospect Street. Lamont is tempted by an adult version of evil Regan in a slinky nightdress who gives him the come-on …

No, really, I’m not making this up. Honest. On my mother’s life.

… while good Regan clings tearfully onto the stair rail as the house disintegrates around her. Lamont performs an exorcism which dispenses with holy water, religious texts and such piffling requirements as invocations to the Almighty and takes the more direct punch-the-evil-nightgown-wearing-Regan-in-the-face-a-few-times-then-rip-her-heart-out route. The plague of locusts turns up, Regan flaps a hand in the air and they all die. Sharon immolates herself. Tuskin blubs a bit. Lamont and Regan wander off and the end credits role.

Not surprisingly, when the film opened, audiences rioted, hurled abuse at the screen and demanded Boorman’s head on a plate. Fortunately, he survived and went on to make ‘Hope and Glory’ and ‘The General’. Both of which are good films.

‘Exorcist II: The Heretic’ isn’t.

‘Exorcist II: The Heretic’ is a piece of shit. A waste of celluloid that could have been melted down, reconstituted and used as condom wrappers; then at least paying customers could have got fucked in a good way.



*Since its original release in 1974, total worldwide earnings on ‘The Exorcist’ are in excess of $400 million.


SOURCES
‘Adventures of a Suburban Boy’ by John Boorman (Faber & Faber, 2003)

‘The Exorcist: Out of the Shadows’ by Bob McCade (Omnibus Press, 1999)

Hellraisers

There are some film books that effortlessly pin down an era in cinema history, such as Peter Biskind’s ‘Easy Riders, Raging Bulls’. There are some that chronicle in car-crash detail the disastrous consequences of a misconceived, miscast, all round flop – Julie Salamon’s ‘The Devil’s Candy’. There are some autobiographies that are so staggeringly egomaniacal (Michael Powell’s ‘A Life in Movies’) or so elegantly persuasive (any of Dirk Bogarde’s memoirs) that the truth hardly matters. There are diaries that reveal the day-to-day frustrations of even the greatest directors (Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘Time Within Time’). There are biographies that so effectively get under the skin of their subject (Kevin Brownlow’s book on David Lean; John Coldstream’s on Bogarde) that they remain unforgettable.

Then there’s a book like Robert Sellers’s ‘Hellraisers: the Life and Inebriated Times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O’Toole and Oliver Reed’, which is an unapologetic way-hey-the-lads celebration of the collective boozing, brawling and bad behaviour (womanizing needs to be added but I can’t think of a synonym beginning with “B” which will preserve the alliteration) of four of the most devil-may-care talents ever to grace the silver screen.

Because believe it or not, between the bars and the arrests and the brawls with paparazzi and the on-off romances (mentioning no names, Mr Burton) these boys actually made the odd film or two.

In fact, between them, they clocked up some of the most visceral, intense, challenging, dynamic and kick-ass performances in cinema: think of Burton losing it on the pulpit in the opening scene of ‘The Night of the Iguana’, Harris looking like he’s about to ask the fucking camera outside in just about every frame of ‘This Sporting Life’, O’Toole casually announcing “we have taken Aqaba” in ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, Reed getting stuck into a little nude wrestling with Alan Bates in ‘Women in Love’. And that’s just for starters …

From next month I’ll be running an ongoing series on The Agitation of the Mind, celebrating the bad boys of British cinema. There will be booze. There will be blood. There will be some fucking great movies. It all kicks off first week in May but until then the bar is open at The Agitation of the Liver, so raise your glasses to these gentlemen, drink to their hellraising and rue the fact that we live in a world where Zac Efron headlines movies, launches a thousand merchandising products and doesn’t even have the common decency to trash a restaurant, shag for England (oh all right then, America) and wake up in a holding cell wondering what time the pubs open.

THE HEY, INTERNET, STOP BEING SUCH CYNICAL EFFING DOUCHEBAGS BLOG-A-THON: Where Eagles Dare

Inspired by Stacie at Final Girl - respect!

Way back in the day, BBC1 used to show ‘Where Eagles Dare’ as regularly as ‘Holiday Inn’ at Christmas or James Bond over the bank holiday. I can’t remember how old I was the first time I saw it – old enough to plead with my folks to stay up and watch horror or thriller movies, and young enough that they invariably said no – but on this occasion, Dad relented and let me stay up and watch ‘Where Eagles Dare’.

Dad liked war movies, but wasn’t into horror. So it was still a no-no as far as ‘The Omen’ or any of the old Hammer flicks were concerned, but increasingly I was allowed to stay up if ‘The Guns of Navarone’ or ‘633 Squadron’ were on.

‘The Guns of Navarone’ was pretty cool (for a pre-pubscent still denied the frisson of the horror genre, anyway), especially when the big guns blew up at the end. And there was a dead good bombing run in ‘633 Squadron’, even if it was just ‘Star Wars’ but with some Norwegian cliff instead of the Death Star.

(Now, of course, I know better. I wish that Alexander MacKendrick hadn’t been booted off ‘The Guns of Navarone’ and replaced by J. Lee Thompson – he’d have turned in a much more interesting film – and I know that ‘633 Squadron’ was the film that got George Lucas fired up for the climax of ‘Star Wars’ and not the other way round … but, hey, I was a kid at the time and the spaceships in ‘Star Wars’ were way cool.)

But better than either of these was ‘Where Eagles Dare’. It had a bunch of guys parachuting out of a plane into a wintry forest. It had them impersonating German soldiers to bluff their way into a fortress. It had traitors in their midst. It had cable cars and people dangling off the cable cars and there was shooting and lots of explosions and they all escaped in this old bus as half the German army came piling after them and they blew this bridge up to make good their escape and then they drove the bus through this airfield and shot out the control tower and smashed up a load of Messerschmidts … No doubt about it: at that age, reared on Commando comics and Biggles books, this was the. Best. Film. Ever.

When I got into my teens, it was still shown on TV quite a lot (and even if it wasn’t, Dad had the video) and there was the added appreciation – or should I say hormone-addled appreciation? – of Hammer starlet Ingrid Pitt as a German barmaid with a decolletage you could rest your pint on. Oh, there were still plenty of explosions, never mind that I’d seen ‘Lethal Weapon’ and ‘Die Hard’ by then.

In my twenties, having it seen it more times than I could count (it’s probably still my most-watched film) and always in a slightly faded panned-and-scanned print, I bought the DVD. Woo-hoo! Widescreen, remastered, Ron Goodwin’s score punched up and even more explosions for your money. Sure, some of the acting was ropey; sure there wasn’t quite enough plot for the two-and-a-half-hour running time. Did I care? Did I hell! I was in action movie heaven and loving the film all over again.

And I still love ‘Where Eagles Dare’.

I love the fact that Richard “make mine a double” Burton and Clint Eastwood are so bizarrely but brilliantly paired, the former’s scenery chewing perfectly matched by the latter’s effortless laconic cool.

I love all that business with the cable cars. I can’t see a cable car nowadays, whether it’s those dinky little ones at the Heights of Abraham in Derbyshire, or authentically vertiginous ones in Austria or Switzerland, without humming the ‘Where Eagles Dare’ theme music. On the subject of which …

I love Ron Goodwin’s score. It’s by turns brooding, ominous and exciting. In an OST version of ‘Desert Island Discs’, the ‘Where Eagles Dare’ soundtrack would be top of my list.

I love that last scene in the aeroplane, when you realise that the whole thing has been about one name scribbled in a notebook. Minimal dialogue and the drone of the engines in the background.

And yes, I still love the action and the shoot-outs and the explosions. I know that war is hell – ‘Paths of Glory’ and ‘Cross of Iron’ are favourites of mine, powerful and damning cinematic indictments of the inhumanity of war – but we’re talking about straight-down-the-line action movies here and ‘Where Eagles Dare’ ranks among the best.