Life must be filled up

At the weekend, I watched A Man for All Seasons. Directed by Fred Zinnemann and scripted by Robert Bolt from his stage play, it won the Academy Award for Best Picture and an Oscar for Paul Scofield, who starred as Sir Thomas More. I probably hadn’t watched the film since it came out in 1966 yet I remembered whole scenes and even chunks of dialogue; it’s that good.

You can see More as a Catholic martyr, a man too principled to betray his beliefs or, as Hilary Mantel does in Wolf Hall, a persecutor of ‘heretics’. The standard work on the subject is R W Chambers’ 1935 biography. More’s son-in-law Will Roper wrote The Life of Sir Thomas More. These books are favourable to More. Peter Ackroyd’s biography was brilliant at evoking Tudor London but disappointing about More, with nothing new to say. It’s years since I studied this period, so I’m not up to date with current thinking on the subject.

The film opens with Cardinal Wolsey (Orson Welles, like a great red jelly), summoning More and saying, ‘The king wants an heir. What are you going to do about it?’ Ever the cautious lawyer, More replies that he’s sure the king needs no advice from him on the subject. Wolsey dies and More is appointed Chancellor in his place. HenryVIII has now convinced himself that he is incestuously married to his brother’s wife. The only person who can dissolve his marriage to poor Katherine of Aragon is the Pope. Henry decides to make himself head of the church in England, a break from Europe far more serious than Brexit. Those who matter, like More, are to swear an oath to this effect, which More refuses to do. Bolt’s Henry is desperate for More’s approval. The king’s ally in promoting the split from Rome is Thomas Cromwell, played by Leo McKern. The Duke of Norfolk (Nigel Davenport) tries to persuade More to sign, as he has done. More’s wife (wonderful Wendy Hiller) thinks he’s unreasonable. There’s great distress for his clever daughter (Susannah York) and her new husband, Will Roper (Corin Redgrave). It’s interesting to see Colin Blakely playing a small part as More’s steward and John Hurt in his first major screen role as ambitious Richard Rich, whom More distrusts and refuses to employ. And who is that beautiful woman who appears briefly (and silently) as Anne Boleyn? Vanessa Redgrave.
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I’ve just watched Alastair Sim in Scrooge so I have to say, ‘God bless us, every one!’

I tried to upload a picture but 'Sorry, there was a problem'. Bah humbug.

Michael Caine was ninety on Tuesday. Last Saturday afternoon was really miserable and I broke my own (ridiculous and self-imposed) rules about watching daytime TV and watched The Ipcress File and Funeral in Berlin. I’ve just noticed that BBC 4 are showing both films again this evening plus a masterclass on acting for film, given by Caine in 1987. I remember this as brilliant, so I intend to watch it. I love The Ipcress File for all the scenes of sixties London: the bowler hats, the buses, everybody smoking all the time. It’s worth watching just for that.

I was thrilled to find that season four of Call my Agent would start this week. I’ve watched two episodes and am pleased to report that it’s as good as ever; seeing the familiar faces, it was like they’d never been away. One of the features of the show is that each episode includes a really famous star, supposedly represented by ASK, the agency of the title. I love the way these glamorous people are just worked into the story and don’t mind if they look silly. Apparently, they’ve been queuing up to do it. The first episode brought in Charlotte Gainsbourg. Amazing legs!



It’s worth watching the next part of this for the interview with Camille Cottin.

Yet another wild, wet day, making me feel like a prisoner. There’s nothing on television this evening. Can anyone suggest a film I might enjoy? I have Netflix and Prime. NB I don’t like horror.

Don’t you love it when an actor who later became a star appears in a small role in an old film? I do, I love spotting them. The other evening, I watched The Rebel, a film of 1961 starring Tony Hancock. There were stalwarts of British cinema to be seen: John Le Mesurier, Irene Handl, Dennis Price. Then, in a French café, Oliver Reed, unmistakable, although with only one line. He got a credit, too, as ‘artist in café'.
Liz Frazer in this clip.

I borrowed this header from the person from whom I got the idea for this post. The plan is to list Shakespeare’s plays, saying whether or not you have read and/or seen them. The trouble with Shakespeare is that you may know a famous speech or two from a play without actually having read the whole thing. I also found Upstart Crow kept interfering with my thoughts.

All’s Well That Ends Well: Can’t remember reading or seeing it.

Antony and Cleopatra: studied this for A-Level. Seen: National Youth Theatre production with Helen Mirren as Cleopatra. My memory of this is that it was at The Roundhouse but I looked it up and it seems to have been the Old Vic. 1965! I was still at school and went with a friend. National Theatre production with Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman; very disappointing. I wonder how many people have seen both productions? I seem to remember a TV production with Colin Blakely as Antony. Perhaps my favourite Shakespeare.
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huskyteer and I watched this film yesterday evening and enjoyed it very much. I love Michael Caine and there were good film clips plus a great soundtrack featuring a lot of Kinks’ numbers. I must have been an annoying companion, with my ‘tsks’ and ‘pah!’s because, as I wrote way back in 2006, I refuse to believe that music and fashion changed the world in any way, or that the working classes asserted themselves for the first time in the sixties. Well worth seeing, though.

Now that Talking Pictures TV is available in my area and I’ve retuned my set to receive it, I have no excuse to moan that ‘there’s nothing on TV’. In fact, my box is filling up with films recorded for a rainy day. I’ve revisited films I saw years ago and never since, like Only Two Can Play. Yesterday evening I watched a film I’d never even heard of (but starred Dirk Bogarde) and wondered how I’d missed such a classic for so long.

It’s a black and white film, released in 1952, in which Bogarde plays Lloyd, a killer on the run. There’s a witness, a six-year-old-boy played by Jon Whiteley, who is himself running away because he fears punishment at home. Lloyd grabs the child and the two begin a strange odyssey. There are many other characters in the film but it’s really a two-hander about this odd couple. At first, the child is just an irritating nuisance but Lloyd softens, becoming almost tender in his care for him. Bogarde portrays this progression beautifully. ‘Robbie’ doggedly follows him around, refusing to stay behind even when told to and putting up with cold, hunger and fear. The sight of the little figure trudging bravely along behind his ‘abductor’ is unforgettable. Jon Whiteley says very little in this film but I think he’s probably the best child actor I’ve ever seen.

I loved this film. What treat for me next?

On the Co-op charity book shelves the other day, I spotted A Companion Book Club ‘Extra’: an omnibus edition of three books by Henry Cecil. Thinking it was a very long time since I’d read anything by Cecil, I took it away with me and it turned out to be quite a blast from the past. This special edition is illustrated by stills from the Boulting Brothers’ film of 1957, so contains many pictures of Ian Carmichael, who specialised in good-looking-silly-ass roles at that time. As well as the film, Brothers in Law became a TV and then a radio series starring Richard Briers. I’ve certainly heard some of the radio version, probably on Radio 4 Extra.

Henry Cecil Leon was called to the Bar in 1923 and became a County Court Judge in 1949, so he knew what he was writing about. Brothers in Law was published by Michael Joseph in 1955 and proved a lasting success. This is slightly surprising since, apart from the criminals, it deals almost exclusively with upper middle class characters. Hard to believe it was published in the same decade as Room at the Top (1957) and Billy Liar and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (both 1959). It has far more in common with Richard Gordon’s Doctor in the House (1952) and its sequels, books which also deal with a naïve young professional just starting out. Several Doctor books were filmed, starring first Dirk Bogarde and then Leslie Philips.

The hero of Brothers in Law is Roger Thursby, twenty one years old and just called to the Bar. He joins the chambers of Grimes (a wonderful character), as a pupil and soon realises what a lot he has to learn. His life is complicated by living with a scatty and impoverished mother and by running two girlfriends (the rotter!) both of whom want to marry him. One of the girls, Sally, would obviously make just as good a lawyer as Roger.

The descriptions of the arcane goings-on in chambers and in court make one think that little about the law had changed since Shakespeare wrote of ‘the law’s delay’ or Dickens castigated the whole system in Bleak House. Some of the cases, especially those involving divorce, seem to prove that ‘the law is a ass’. So has the book stood the test of time? I’d say yes, for its humour and honesty. There’s much that’s ridiculous and Roger at first has grandiose dreams of a glittering future which are shattered by his first court appearance. He is clever, still wet behind the ears but basically a very decent chap you can’t help liking. By the end of the book we leave him, still unmarried, working very hard indeed to master the law and about to move to different chambers. I’ll be reading the next instalment, which is set twelve years later with Roger ‘one of the ablest counsel at the junior Bar’ and wondering whether to ‘apply for silk’. I’d be interested to know how today’s lawyers view these books.

This clip from the film is interesting because it shows Terry-Thomas in an unusual role for him. He could be Peter Sellers here! The scenes with ‘Mr Green’ are among the best in the book and result in Roger winning his first case.