When Thora met Marlon… The Nightcomers (1971), Stephanie Beacham and Verna Harvey Part I

Creative combinations you never expected, Michael Winner and Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando with Thora Hird… This was indeed the last film Brando made before the career reviving and legend cementing Godfather and, whilst it was not a commercial success, we can now view it as the actor in his peak, knocking off a film for the still striving Winner and presenting as the kind of enigmatic free-spirit who could lead the children to behave in the way they did in Henry James' 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw, which had already been adapted into the 1961 film The Innocents. The idea of a prequel to that story and film is an odd one and so is this film with a sickly feeling of dread permeating throughout and embodied so well by the children; young Christopher Ellis as Miles and the 19-year-old Verna Harvey as Flora.

Harvey had to be older as she had to take on more of the perversity descending on the children’s normality although I’d check to see if Master Ellis was un-touched by some of the tying up, he was asked to do… there’s a case study there.

Marlon conducts his performance in a mumbled Irish accent that seems to be making its way slowly from South Dublin to Cork via Galway, dragged by a donkey and lubricated with Jameson’s.  Marlon O’Brando is nonetheless convincing and carries so much indistinct yet heavy presence that we can well believe in his corrupting influence not just on the children but also their teacher/governess Miss Jessel as played by Stephanie Beacham, who Winner claimed was slightly nervous about her more adult scenes although not so much that you’d notice with her 1973 Italian film Mafia Junction, about which more anon.

Thora Hird

If this film is a masterclass for anyone then it’s surely Lancashire great Thora Hird, who is more than a match for Brando and anyone else who is sent against her. Flora and Miles’ parents have both died on their travels and left their children in the hands of a guardian (Harry Andrews) who has rather more important things to do and therefore entrusts them to the care of housekeeper Mrs. Grose. He decides not to let the mostly redundant former valet, Peter Quint (Brando), who he tells to attend to the vast garden and assist Mrs Grose as required in the house.

Quint is a queer one with a troubled upbringing of his own with a nare-do-well father who abandoned him and an outlook on life that respects little of the boundaries of formality and lets his earthy animal heart seek what is so wilt. Mrs Grose trusts him not but he’s more interested in Miss Jessel’s physical charms and the children who listen so intently to his stories. Is he “evil” though or just a man who finds it hard to love without sado-masochistic stimuli and who is anti-authoritarian but still fascinated in the word whether it be childish cruelties like blowing frogs up with cigarette or larking around in the grounds with his two young pals.

Verna Harvey, Marlon Brando and Christopher Ellis

The children are an important part of their own subsequent story and whilst they take everything Quint tells them to heart, they are also more than willing to take his ideas to logical conclusions even as they lack the maturity to properly assess his moral ambiguities. Flora and Miles are also masters of the house even if they are not yet of majority and everyone around them here is their subordinate especially with their new father figure absent… It’s open to interpretation but I think Winner should have put in a second prequel to explain the children’s openness to turn so wild but perhaps all we need to see is here… parents who were absent, a guardian who got away as quickly as he could and an exceptionalism unbridled.

Quint leads them astray but mostly it’s harmless until they start spying on his sexual liaisons with their teacher. Following his soapy sexual success in Paris, Brando has no problem putting Stephanie Beacham in some sadistic sexual positions which are more uncomfortable to watch than erotic. How much of this is scripted is anyone’s guess but he definitely assumes the dominant role and grabs hold of whatever he feels in their first session. The next time Quint ties up his lover and proceeds from there. Consenting adults and all that but young Miles has been spying on this and starts to get ideas.

He tries to play out these love rituals with his sister, the two of them having no real idea of the missing elements and the feelings involved. They are interrupted by Mrs Grose who bans Quint from the house and threatens to write to the master.

Stephanie Beacham

The children’s capacity for cruelty is demonstrated when they invite the housekeeper out to the tree house they have built with Quint and then pull the ladder away so she’s trapped there for long hours. They only bring her back when Miss Jessel gets hurt and needs medical aid, persuading Mrs Grose to finally get rid of Quint.

But in trying to help Quint and Jessel find true love, as they have heard him describe it, the children may be doing more harm than good… are they the ones who really need help in the end?

Dusty Verdict: The film stands on its own unsettling two feet in the end despite Michael Hastings’ attempt to reverse engineer an “origin” story based the beginning of the Turn of the Screw, plotted backwards. Does that story need an origin and one this vague? The story of the children seems to have already begun before the twisted imagination of Quint connects how they react to that surely says all you need to know about how they had already been brutalised by their parents and their class circumstance… the true horror lies in how ordinary that may have been.

Angles were calculated to hide Brando's girth and Stephanie was the distraction...

Brando’s accent is a distraction but he does deliver a fascinating and feral performance. Winner’s account of the filming vary but it does seem that Marlon was quite pleased with the end result. Sadly, the public didn’t agree and he was soon on top of his game with the Godfather and everything that came afterwards. Sometimes it’s enough to see a man of his capabilities in a simpler role to appreciate his gift more fully. I’m pretty sure Thora would have been impressed and even more certain that the feeling would have been reciprocated.

On the last day of filming Brando commented to Winner that Verna Hervey “she’s got a very nice ass, I wish I’d noticed it earlier.” We presume that she escaped his attention even as Stephanie Beacham probably did but Brando, despite staying in a rented cottage with his girlfriend of the time, still had frequent visitors… a man of great appetite and not just for food. Brando stayed pals with Winner after filming and perhaps the two shared the same “philosophy” as well as exuberance/dominating instinct... complex men and sometimes it’s uncomfortable to watch their work.

 

I might… I'll Never Forget What's'isname (1967)

Oliver Reed is spotted right at the start with a sharp metal axe on his shoulder, walking purposefully through the West End towards what looks like the old Economist building off Piccadilly. As the titles roll he’s bounding through busy 1967 streets with hardly a second glance from the mass of pedestrians around him.

He enters the offices of Lute Advertising, makes his way up to his office and then wields the axe, destroying his desk, chair, filing cabinets in a few devastating movements… he has had this job and wants something more “honest”: “silly boy,” says his boss Mr Lute (Orson Welles), “There aren’t any…” as he aims a golf ball from the agency’s roof garden in eth direction of their competitors.

But Reed’s character, Andrew Quint, is not for turning so easily, he’s exceptionally good at his job but wants to escape and, despite Lute’s conviction that he’ll be back, he goes to work for his old friend Nicholas (Norman Rodway) who runs a worthy but barely profitable literary magazine. The pay is hardly worth mentioning but it’s honest work… what he wanted to do rather than what he ended up doing and being successful at…

Orson and Oliver

This may be a period piece but the central quandary has never dated. Michael Winner directs as he did for The Jokers, Reed’s earlier film in which mainstream values were questioned. Hard to think of the director of Death Wish as this challenging but Winner had been editor of Varsity magazine at Cambridge in the fifties and maybe there was some autobiography here? Quint even goes to Cambridge to meet one of the magazine’s contributors.

This film is not as slapstick as The Jokers and indeed is rather more serious as it progresses: there are no easy answers for Mr Quint nor Mr Winner…

Quint’s a man on the run, not just from his own success but also from his family and his wife, Louise (Wendy Craig) – the two still seem very connected but almost casually falling apart. She’s seeing other men more in retaliation to his constant search for a new sexual partner. Even when Quint meets someone he likes he’s still eyeing up the competition…   he cannot settle and is distracted by the “advertising” on view.

He goes to visit model Josie (Marianne Faithfull) sneaking peeks at her in the bath and then rendezvous with the married Susannah  (Lyn Ashley) at a disused signal box… oh Thomas Beaching, so much to answer for?

Carol White and Ollie

He’s detached form them all with the exception of his wife – who not only understands him but herself as well – watched a lot of Antonioni did you Mr Winner? Nothing at all wrong with that.

It’s too easy to overlook Reed’s acting chops given his later Brando-esque  reliance on his presence (Mr Welles also provides a fine example of the same…) and here he is very good with a far more nuanced and lonely character than in his two previous Winner films.

In this moment Quint wants to find himself through intellectual work, escaping the get-rich certainties his creative talent brings him in advertising. There’s a pretty young secretary, Georgina Elben (Carol White) who naturally attracts his attention but she’s wary of his love ‘em and leave ‘em baggage…

The two grow closer and – for some reason – Quint decides to invite her to his school reunion. It’s an all-male audience of course – and Georgina stands out like and attractive young woman amongst the dinner-jacketed old boys. It’s horrible… and the men revert to easily to type as their former teachers forget their names and jumble up anyone who had an ounce of individuality… no doubt all heartfelt stuff for Winner and his writer Peter Draper.

Carol White and Norman Rodway

Quint is still suffocated by his privileged background and still unable to make lasting human connections – gee, it sure is tough being a public schoolboy with an imagination.

There’s a nice turn from Michael Hordern as the bumbling headmaster – of course such a man would be in charge of a fee-paying school… he never forgets a face and a name only he can’t always remember the two together correctly: emblematic of an  indifferent establishment.

Some of the boys, led by the uber-obnoxious Charles Maccabee (Harvey Hall), spot on old victim and decide to renew their bullying. As they chase the poor fellow through the grounds, Quint steps in and fights back only to end up the worse for wear…

Georgina takes him back to her apartment where, in his delirious state, he has vivid dreams of his school life in which Frank Findlay as an inappropriate Chaplain fills his head full of poison… Waking with Georgina he allows genuine emotion to seep through…

Marianne Faithfull

The two travel to Cambridge together to meet recalcitrant author, Gerald Sater(Harry Andrews) who is late with his work but all too willing to deliver in return for a pay rise and the chance for a pervy flirt with Georgina as he shows her his collection of what the butler saw viewers…

The couple return to London to find that Nicholas, urged on by his long-suffering wife, Carla (Ann Lynn) has sold out to a mysterious third party. Of course it’s Lute just trying to get his man back and it may appear he has succeeded as Quint agrees to produce one last advert that will lay open the dishonesty of his profession once and for all.

He makes his statement, pulling in genuine statements and reactions from his lovers and ex-wife and yet he may not get the result he hopes for: in this world of sacrifice and “new clothes” who knows what anything will mean to anyone?

The films closes out in far darker tones than you’d expect and indeed is far more serious than Reed and Winner’s previous collaborations…both would have to step off in order to free themselves of the World defining their worth and their work…

Dusty verdict: The film has some very good moments and the performances from Black, Craig and Reed are especially impressive.

Maybe the central premise rings a bit hollow but then few of us ever really escape the trap of making money from jobs we’re quite good at: we can’t always chose how to make a living apart from the fact that most of us end up exactly where we’re meant to be in terms of our skill sets.

Not everyone can break free to find a plan B…

Then film is available on DVD from Amazon and other reputable suppliers.

Horse discourse… Equus (1977)

As the recent revival of Peter Shaffer’s extraordinary play showed, almost forty years on it retains an uncanny power, dividing opinion between those who find it too uncomfortable and those who are willing to look it straight in the eye… Eyes feature a lot in the film, from those below Richard Burton’s tortured brow to those belonging to the Alan’s father as he watches his son’s bizarre bed-time rituals and of course those of the horses blinded by Alan for reasons the film takes almost its full length to examine.

One Guardian blogger dismissed the favourite play of her teenage years as so much “psycho-babble” (check out this thoughtful piece in the same paper by therapist Adam Phillips for balance) but most contemporary critics at least tried to contextualise their view of the play with its period: it hasn’t dated – we have. More to the point, religious, psycho-sexual abuse and repression are still very much “now”: the human brain hasn’t changed… our psychosis isn’t “dated” nor “of its time”.

Equus’ reputation has always gone before it and I must confess to being put off by the thought of too much naked man on horse action but on first viewing, 37 years after release, it’s a thoroughly-engaging, mood-altering experience held together by a mighty performance from Richard Burton who was Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning for his efforts matched by the wide-eyed physicality of former Double Decker Peter Firth (who also “Globed”). Equus is essentially a double header between the two but there are excellent support performances from some of the best actors of their generation: a heavyweight cast.

Burton plays psychiatrist Martin Dysart a man of unconventional commitment to his work and who has possibly seen it all too many times. The film opens in close-up on his face as he begins to discuss the disturbing case that has brought him to his own crisis of faith. The camera pulls away to reveal this troubled man sat behind his desk in his consulting room: he has been struck to the core and the disquiet has invaded even his professional inner-sanctum: an area he is used to controlling totally.

The film winds back to the middle of the narrative arc, from where we’ll see the full story unfold through the “flashbacks” of patient consultation. A social worker Hesther Saloman (Eileen Atkins) has come to Dysart to discuss a boy who has committed an atrocious act – blinding six horses using a metal scythe.

The first response is that this is mindless criminality but Hesther thinks there is something special about the boy – Alan Strang (Firth) - and thinks that only someone of Dysart’s experience and sensitivities could help him recover… otherwise he will be institutionalised for life.

There’s an interesting point about criminality and punishment here: is Alan best being cured or is his crime unforgivable. Shaffer seems pretty clear that reform rather than revenge is the way forward… and there is indeed a complex cause to be uncovered no matter how horrible the effect.

Alan duly arrives communicating only by singing snippets of TV advertising jingles. Undeterred, Dysart perseveres and begins to open lines of communication by swapping one truth of his own for each of his patient’s revelations. It’s not always easy going but Alan is a most unusual case.

Dysart goes to examine his home life and finds his father Frank (Colin Blakely) uptight and not a little disgusted by his boy whilst his mother (Joan Plowright) may be free with tea and biscuits but her social nicety hides a zealous fundamentalist religious views. She shows Alan’s bedroom and the painting of a horse which has replaces a tortured image of Christ’s face during crucifixion…

Dysart gets Alan to relive the moment when his fascination with horses began and we see him on the beach deep in a large sand castle and encountering a huge black horse ridden by an imposing dark man (John Wyman). Firth plays himself as a child and the camera makes it appear as if he is overwhelmed by the man and the horse: almost as if they are one and the same. He touches the horse’s head and is whisked off for a ride along the beach…

The child, the horse and the man

Is this code for abuse or just the impact the combination of Christ-like authority figure and sensual beast had on his impressionable mind? Whatever, he never recovered from the moment and his life-long equine fascination grew into something far more obsessional and confessional…

Alan’s father reveals his confused disgust at having found his son late at night conducting a ritual in which he pulls his head back in a home-made string bridal whilst spurring himself with the beat of a ruler… This masochistic display could be a sign of repressed desire but also his belief that Man’s restraint of horses deserves punishment. The horse or rather the Horse God Equus sees all and has become his object of worship.

Looking for an opportunity to get closer to these animals Alan meets a young woman Jill (Jenny Agutter who won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress) who gets him an introduction to the stable owner Harry Dalton (Harry Andrews). For a while all is well and he spends an apparently uneventful year as a stable boy.

Yet, as Dysart uncovers, Alan has been sneaking in every three weeks or so and taking out a horse for a midnight ride, undressing and mounting the creature in an act of unfettered sensual liberation… This relationship between boy and beast is one of the things that makes the film difficult: bestiality is always a tough one… but this isn’t sex this is something more spiritual.

Over this time he becomes friendly with Jill and the two agree to go on a date to see a Swedish skin flick. As they sit there smiling at the soft core silliness Alan’s father enters the cinema and, spotting Alan who then spots him... hauls them both out. He has a story about having a meeting with the cinema owner… but his insistence that the incident be never spoken of again betrays the sad reality. Does Alan notice?

Leaving his father the take a troubled bus home, Alan and Jill head off to the stables to put into practice some of the things they have just seen on screen. Well, that’s certainly what Jill has in mind but as their coupling begins Alan reels away: he can’t continue, too confused by the sensuality of the horses just below the stable loft…

Spoilers… Jill leaves… and Alan’s anguished face contorts into anger as he leaps down to the tables below and begins to exact his horrific revenge on the all-seeing Equus.

We’re back in Dysart’s consultancy room: he’s achieved a breakthrough and knows now that he can “cure” his patient but he’s increasingly unsure whether this is the best thing for Alan. He may have committed an atrocity but joyful relationship with horses as an emblem of utter freedom will have to be lost for ever. For the psychiatrist, trapped in a love-less marriage, finding an expression of his own passion in researching ancient history, this seems too much: he can’t fly like Alan has and despairs of finding the right balance... we’re all as constrained by the watchful eye of secular and religious instructors… forever obstructed in our pursuit of joy.

Dusty Verdict: Sidney Lumet directs with stark economy and allows his performers maximum room for expression: rage from Harry Andrews finding his horses crippled, compassion from Jenny Agutter who sees so much in Alan, resolution and integrity from Eileen Atkins and a combination of repression and uptight frustration from Joan Plowright and Colin Blakely.

But Firth and Burton get most of the screen time and whilst the younger man gives his all it’s undoubtedly a great performance from Richard Burton who didn’t always get this quality of material in his high-flying Hollywood career. He operates superbly well in the close-quarters of the film’s set piece monologues and it is through him that our natural responses to Alan and his crime are channelled in a slightly more complex direction…

A film to watch when you’re in a receptive mood and, for once, the nudity is fully justified: the only thing more naked than a horse is a human being…

Equus is readily available on DVD from Amazon and Movie Mail.

Britannia waves the rules… The Ruling Class (1972)

It’s pretty quaint to see some present day reviewers describing this film as “dated” with its earnest concerns about the nobility. It’s not so much the target of this satire, they say, but the left-wing consensus behind it that may well no longer exist to the same extent… Whilst it’s true that the politics of the left have changed, the film and the play it was based on were always out of step with mainstream thought and are only dated by the reserve that now dominates the politico-creative arena.

Politics is more disorientated than it was but the modern nobility are no less powerful than they were in the 1960s and most of us only see the tip of the iceberg. This country has always been run by a loose self-perpetuating oligarchy that sustains itself through pragmatism and the genuine social mobility Britain can offer the talented exceptions. I don’t even think that’s a political observation in itself: just a statement of fact?

People, regardless of their abilities can still obtain great power and wealth simply by being born to the right parents and the Lords still sit in their own House, albeit in reduced, more qualified numbers. Wealth inequality is even greater than it was in 1972 and the ruling classes still send their sons to public schools and they still dominate the Government from which they still make decisions that lead to the deaths of working men and women in the national interest…

I don’t see that the satire of The Ruling Class is no longer relevant and whilst stylistically it may be of its time, it’s well directed by Peter Medak and has more cutting edge than the mountain of mainstream gag-merchants clogging our TV stations, theatres and arenas.

Mr O'Toole

Most of all it’s got Peter O’Toole throwing himself absolutely into the role of insane. His is such a wholehearted and sincere performance that quite often this film is one you watch through gritted teeth… it’s not comfortable viewing watching someone so evidently disturbed and the human instinct is to look away from abnormality. But, imagine the creative imagination employed to achieve this effect? O’Toole was an actor who took things to extremes and then pushed on.

Harry Andrews

The film opens with a speech from the 13th Earl of Gurney (Harry Andrews) in one of the Guild Halls – there’s not much substance but a collective recognition of Great British values. The Earl drives home to his massive mansion to be greeted by his faithful servant Tucker (Arthur Lowe on brilliant form) who patiently collects his lordships clothes as he discards them ready for bed then brings him the ballet skirt, stepladder and fine silken noose for his regular “nightcap” of auto-erotic asphyxiation.

Unfortunately this particular evening the Judge tries himself too hard and ends up paying the ultimate price…

Alistair Sim, James Villiers, Coral Browne and William Mervyn

The family gather for the reading of the will and what a mixed lot they are… the Earl’s brother, Sir Charles (William Mervyn) , his wife Lady Claire (Coral Browne)  and their  son Dinsdale (James Villiers) along with Bishop Lampton (the great Alastair Sim), appalled at the suggestion of an improper death. Sir Charles is eager to get matters resolved and to enjoy the fruits of the family estate but there’s a problem in the form of the Earl’s son, the rightful heir to the title but who has been locked up in a mental hospital for years.

The will is read and tucker receives a payment of £30,000 – he’ll drink to that – but then something stranger happens as Jack Arnold Alexander Tancred Gurney (O'Toole) arrives to claim his title of 14th Earl of Gurney.

But there’s a problem as Jack is clearly under the impression that he is Jesus Christ returned to earth to lead people back towards the light. None of this cuts any ice with Uncle Charles who quickly devises a plan to marry him off to his mistress Grace (Carolyn Seymour) produce a male heir and then have Jack declared incapable.

But Jack is not without allies and his Aunt wants him well for his own sake and also to frustrate her faithless husband’s ambitions. She encourages Jack’s psychiatrist, Dr Herder (Michael Bryant) and the two begin an affair of their own.

If this all sounds convoluted you need to remember that the film’s purpose is to lampoon Upper Class ambition and “rules”. It’s also a powerful visual fantasy in which Jack’s mental state is often shown on screen. There are Dennis Potter-esque musical numbers – often very funny – as well as the world seen through Jack’s eyes.

He is convinced that he once married The Lady of the Camellias and, as cynical planning would have it, Grace arrives as the Lady herself singing an aria from the opera. Jack is captivated as he is supposed to be but Grace also begins to develop feelings for her “mark”…

Jack’s religious mania continues and he often rests on a crucifix in the study before descending to preach to his family and anyone who visits about love.

Meanwhile Tucker is revealed as a revolutionary “cell” all on his own, dedicated to overthrowing the establishment and seizing control of the means of production… after he’s finished the next bottle that is.

Grace becomes pregnant and it becomes imperative to sober Jack up before Charles can complete his plan to have him sectioned. Dr Herder tries ever more extreme methods before bringing in a more violently insane man, McKyle (the always excellent Nigel Green), who also believes himself to be the son of God, The Electric Messiah! He launches into Jack who sees electric shocks seemingly flow from McKyle’s hands… in exhaustion he calls his own name. Is this the beginning of a cure?

Nigel Green

Grace gives birth to a son and Charles calls in an old favour from the Master of Lunacy (Graham Crowden) who will surely find any lingering slivers of psychosis. But Jack is on the road to recovery and remembering that the psychiatrist had been a sporting hero at their old school Eton. A rousing chorus of the Eton Boating Song ensures the men bond and Jack is declared sane.

But now the film takes a darker tone as Jack suppresses his true thoughts, spending long hours in the attic reading comics about Jack the Ripper and his slaughter... He stops being JC and gradually turns in to “Jack” his sublimation of loving thoughts engendering a murderous response…

But new Jack is welcomed by the local hunt and cheered for his talk about the reintroduction of proper punishment in a society weakened by excess and indulgence from the class that should lead through fear and the application of strict correction to any un-British-ness.

All a bit heavy-handed of course but the film’s grand set piece as Jack preaches to the converted in the House of Lords makes it all worthwhile. As his hard line is greeted with rapture he has a vision of the chamber filled with decaying corpses: fossils held together by centuries of cobwebs still dressed in ermine and furs…

Dusty verdict: The Ruling Class hits its obvious targets cleanly but also with wit and the almost frightening intensity of Peter O’Toole’s performance. And, without giving anything away, the ending is one that disturbs and lingers – this is not a nostalgic easy-watching experience.

The supporting cast are all excellent from Nigel Green’s electrified insanity to Michael Bryant’s conflicted psychiatrist. Carol Browne is superb as the repressed but determined Lady Claire destined to always be let down by the Gurney family whilst Arthur Lowe is effortlessly impressive as the inebriated anarchist, struggling to drink down the establishment from within.

Carolyn Seymour

Special mention should also be made of the peerless Carolyn Seymour who could well be the Lady of the Camellias but is equally convincing as the street-smart “actress” who finds love even in the midst of insanity.

The question is, does society find Jack’s love more delusional and less acceptable than his hate and that’s not just a political issue but a personal one: we have to decide our own demarcation lines in this one.

The Ruling Class is available on DVD from Amazon and there’s even a deluxe edition from Criterion over in America: interesting to see how the film is rated in the land of the free.