Part Three: English Stew

Where is the grass greener, then? Well, if you’re climbing up walls, you should take a look at the Royal National Theatre ‘fly’ tower. Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey have been grass artists for almost two decades. And now they’re growing some on those ugly concrete walls of the South Bank. But until they join forces with the quantum physicists and develop a flying grass carpet, like me, you’ll just have to retreat into the world of movies and DVD’s. And Optimum Releasing is doing a great job with helping on that front. Another classic out this week is Saraband for Dead Lovers. We’ll come to comedy later, don’t worry.

Based on the 17th century historical tragedy of Sophie Dorothea’s loveless marriage to England’s King George I in Hanover, it was the first colour feature from Ealing Studios. “Royalty must not look for happiness such as others enjoy. We are not to have hearts. We are not to have feelings. That is not within our province. We have no more right to inequality of temper than the town clock has to irregularities of time. People set their lives by us.” That advice to Sophie from higher up in ‘the firm’ could’ve been spoken by Her Majesty only but yesterday, except that the town clocks in America keep better time than in England. If you were to see this film on afternoon TV (which you never do), you’d instantly be struck by its immediacy of emotion. One forgets that when this was made in 1948, people were still horrified by forbidden passion in high places. There’s no posturing here only wonderfully truthful performances. It’s no surprise that the director Basil Dearden went on to make some of the most ground breaking films of British cinema: Victim (1961) about homosexuality and Sapphire (1959) rascism, and the Rossellini-esque The Blue Lamp (1949). The wonderful production designer on Saraband, Michael Relph, went on to be Dearden’s producer.

Speaking of design, Optimum have also released (bargain price hence no extras) Roger Corman’s horror Masque of the Red Death (1964) his 7th Edgar Allen Poe adaptation (actually it’s two stories). Ever the enterprising cheap skate, Corman’s sets were transformed (art director Robert Jones) by reusing the lavish ones created for Becket (just released on DVD in the States). In addition, he had the young inventive cinematographer Nicolas Roeg, who went on to become another of Britain’s most important directors (the DVD of one of his best, Bad Timing, is just out). The expressionist use of colour to denote psychology state is quite different to most Hammer Horror films (and a prelude to Roeg's later film Don't Look Now). Jane Asher is the young girl caught in Prince Prospero’s (Vincent Price) demonic web. You can also see Asher over the next few weeks in the BBC’s hospital drama Holby City. She still looks ravishing over 40 years later! Maybe there’s something in those Vincent Price movies after all :) Investors stake hopes on revival of the Dracula pictures’ creators

Moving across the English Channel for a moment but still in aristocratic psych probing mode, is the DVD of Gabrielle. It’s the fourth film from one of Europe’s greatest stage directors Patrice Chéreau (triumphs include the controversial 1976 Bayreuth Der Ring Wagner Cycle). I used to saddle my horses in pre-Chunnel days eloping to see his Paris theatre productions. Everything from Racine to the young and exceptional playwright Bernard-Marie Koltès, very little produced in Britain (I tried!). Chéreau rarely tackles theatre now, but Thespis’ loss is most definitely film’s gain. To quote Isabelle Huppert from the copious DVD interview extras: “In some films, you feel you are close up whereas in fact you’re miles away. But a film where you feel the bare bones, something so alive, incredibly intimate, damaged is quite rare.” Based on a Joseph Conrad novella The Return, it charts the unravelling of a Belle Époque bourgeois marriage after Gabrielle (Huppert) has an affair (well a shag actually). Pascal Greggory plays her husband. Chéreau, with characteristic modesty, quotes Roland Barthes: “A little formalism distances you from the truth. A lot of formalism brings you back to it.” More the classical sonata form of Schubert or Beethoven than Debussy or Faure. It’s not an easy film to watch and is quite wordy, in French style. But the use of language (Anne-Louise Trividic’s adaptation) is fascinating as it’s an invented one, neither period nor modern. It’s also shot in Cinemascope (enhanced for widescreen DVD) and I wish I hadn’t missed it in the cinema because it casts quite a spell in that form.

Christophe Honore’s Dans Paris re: contemporary Parisian emotional commitment doesn’t fare well in comparison, and most of the Brit critics found it a quite tedious. Honore is a talented director though and it’s worth a look as Dans Paris’ producer Paulo Branco has a great eye for supporting unusual talent. A Portuguese film of his that still hasn’t had a UK release is Alice (Raindance Fest 2006). You’d think an enterprising distributor would spark into action given the current front page Brit tabloid coverage of the missing 3-year-old Madeleine ‘Maddy’ McCann on the Algarve. Marco Martins’ Alice is very similar and based on the actual Lisbon disappearance of a couple’s daughter. Mario, the father, starts mounting CCTV cameras around the city in desperation as 193 days have passed without a sighting. It’s a poignant, haunting, heartbreaking film of a couple slowly drifting apart through helplessness.

But to end on a lighter note for the weekend, Optimum [again, don’t you hate them :)) ] have an incredibly good value (6 features for £39.99) release of the George Formby Collection. Taking his name from the Merseyside (previously Lancashire) town, George Booth became Britain’s most popular film star when he made No Limit (also released as a single disc) in 1935 about the Isle of Man TT (motorcycle races). Incidentally, does anyone still get taken in by capitalism’s .99p thinking they’re saving a pound and not just a penny? I don’t think even Formby’s characters were as daft as that! My only cavil about this DVD set is the lack of an interview extra (that could have gone on the single No Limit disc) placing Formby in the pantheon of comedy as he’s little known outside the England, let alone a younger generation.

Formby’s gimmick was the cheeky ukulele-accompanied song of his films and his character the hapless working-class outsider who, though the butt of everyone’s joke, ends up the hero getting both the girl and the job. No Limit was directed by Monty Banks, an American Italian who later married Gracie Fields and cut his teeth on Hal Roach slapstick comedies in the States. Even a seasoned cynic like me finds these Formby films irresistible. What's great is that all the comic turns are absolutely plausible, and you feel that given enough time Formby's character could really excel in all the jobs he unwittingly falls into. And within the comedy runs a surprisingly sharp critique of the English class system. Formby's character is a forerunner of Michael Crawford’s accident-prone Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em and other classic BBC TV comedies such as It Aint Half Hot Mum and Dad’s Army. Interestingly, Basil Dearden (Saraband) was the assistant director on It’s in the Air (1938), in which the RAF-rejected George Brown (Formby) “If I had any more sense I’d be daft”, ends up RAF pilot in under a week. Dearden also co-wrote the screenplay for Let George Do It! (1940) in which Formby, a member of the Dinkie Doo Concert Party, ends up in Bergen rather than Blackpool replacing a wartime British intelligence officer. Optimum has also released the Terry Thomas films. But that’s another story. Goodnight.