A Hole in Babylon

Perhaps this is an interesting period piece, but I'm not convinced it has much to say to an audience in 2020.

And if you're looking for an explanation as to why these particular 3 men went "tooled up" to rob a branch of Spaghetti House, you won't find any convincing explanation here. (Yes, there's a bit of a diatribe about the use of guns being "legitimate", but why did the other two go along with it?)

This is very much spaghetti as a starter, rather than a main.

Having been a trainee assistant film editor (in Tony Woolard's cutting room) at the time, I have an alternative view to most of the reviews. Horace, affectionately I believe, called me "Heeb" (I'm Jewish). I made some very small contributions (I have additional lines of voice over dialogue) and aided the dubbing editor Danny Nissim in track-laying. I recently saw the film on TV again, the previous time was a celebration of Play For Today. I found the acting rather poor by nearly all involved especially the "Italians" & T-Bone (Frank). Floella Benjamin & Carmen Munroe were fine in their all too brief single scenes. The film, understandably controversial at the time (and possibly still is) is not great viewing anymore (if it atually ever was) and the recent showing reinforced my view. It is clunky and disjointed and despite what Indra Ové said in her short opinion piece screened before the latest showing of A Holw In Babylon, the original newsreel footage sticks out like a sore thumb. I know why it was used - no budget and used for verisimilitude - but it just doesn't work. They guys were indeed criminals albeit petty ones (and not "criminals" as Indra said using "air quotes"). Yes Frank had been very badly treated in Nigeria and the cultural opression was all to real but the trio's ineptitude and utter incompetence (at least as shown in the film) was all too palpable. All that being said, I enjoyed my time working on the film and I learnt a lot from Tony, Danny and Sir Horace.

A Hole in Babylon is a drama documentary. It mixes news footage of the actual events of the 1975 Spaghetti House siege in Knightsbridge.

Three black men tried to rob the takings of a restaurant. It goes wrong immediately as the police were alerted. The robbers barricaded themselves with the restaurant staff.

The robbers then claimed they were part of a Black Liberation Army and the siege was a political act.

Director Horace Ové uses flashbacks to examine the three men. Their leader was Frank Davies who was straight out of prison. Wesley was stuck in a dead end job. Anthony was a middle class university drop out.

All experienced various kinds of discrimination. Frank complained of racism from the prison guards and the warden was not interested.

Ultimately the drama does not shy from the fact the robbery was motivated by greed. One of them had gambling debts.

This would had been a controversial play back in 1979. The type of filmmaking would had been seen as experimental but I did not find it engrossing enough.

However given the motive of the robbery, the political edge to this just does not fly. It might had worked better as a bit of a farce like Dog Day Afternoon.