FILM STARS: Albert Finney, Susannah York, Hugh Griffith, Edith Evans, Joan Greenwood, Diane Cilento, George Devine, David Tomlinson, Rosalind Atkinson, Wilfrid Lawson, Jack MacGowran, David Warner, Lynn Redgrave, Julian Glover
COUNTRY: England
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Henry Fielding
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Signet
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1964
COUNTRY: USA
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: Henry
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1749
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
NOTES
GENRE: Adventure
WORDS: Henry Fielding’s novel may be a classic but I doubt if I’m going to read this. Pre 20th century fiction I read very selectively … Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, James Fenimore Cooper, H.G. Wells, Shakespeare (well, we were all forced to read Shakespeare at school, weren’t we?), Edgar Allen Poe, and a handful of others. And even then I came late to appreciate them. I was in Croatia for the better part of a year back in the 1990s. The place, at least along the coast where I was, lives for summer. The autumn and winter, have their vitality but the atmosphere of an abandoned fairground permeates. And it was cold. I was stuck indoors. The television shows did not have enough variety and movies where infrequent (no cable back then). My spoken Croatian was fine, but my reading was too slow. What to do in the down time stuck indoors (no internet back then either) waiting for the winter drinking festivals and the eventual warmth of Spring? For the most part I was staying with an elderly Aunt who was wonderful. The oral history, stories and family anecdotes were as good as anything I could read but I couldn’t badger her all the time. She was elderly. That leaves a lot of day to fill, even with walks, coffee shops, and general wandering. I had to read. And to avoid the struggle it had to be in English. And, in any event reading a novel in English at some coffee shop in off season Croatian is nothing if not a conversation starter. Now, to find literature in English. Luckily, there was English literature to be found … all Penguin classics, and all pre 20th century. So, without choice (sometimes lack of choice is a blessing), I dove in, and never looked back … I read a good chunk of Dickens and James Fenimore Cooper, and loved them. This is the long way of saying I like pre 20th century literature, but, Fielding and his 18th century social satire may be a bridge too far.
The film I have seen and I’m surprised, given its Englishness, that it was a success world wide, even in the US (where it also won Oscars for Best Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay). I assume its satirical bawdiness (which the novel has as well (apparently)) is what made it popular … and one reason I watched the film and one reason I would think about reading the novel. One reason.
Tom Jones, the central character is slightly rakish or a rake with good intentions (a noble rake?) and the English did rakes well, and did many in the 60s … James Bond, Michael Caine’s Alfie (1966), Alan Bates’ Jimmy Brewster in Nothing But the Best (1964), Peter Sellers as Clare Quilty in Lolita (1962), Laurence Harvey’s Miles Brand in Darling (1965 ) and any number of Terry-Thomas and Leslie Phillips characters. But they are all contemporary characters and that is perhaps the appeal of Finney’s Tom Jones, his carrying on (it may as well be a Carry On film … oh, the sacrilege) like a likely lad in the 60s.
Albert Finney is perfect here. He has fun on his adventures, trying to clear his name, get ahead in life, and marry the right woman and there is a a certain nobility is his desire to succeed with his true love. The film I recall was fun though long. Most noticeable I recall was the film broke the fourth wall, with characters addressing or looking at the camera which I hadn’t seen before, well not in period films.
The novel has been filmed a number of times (films Tom Jones Rides Again (1971), The Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones (1976), mini series The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1997 ), and most recently as a TV series in 2023 with some of the lead characters blackwashed (totally ridiculous in a period piece in this social setting but that’s the world we live in …. I’m waiting for that social satire to be made).
FILM STARS: Anthony Quinn, Alan Bates, Irene Papas, Lila Kedrova, Giorgos Foundas, Sotiris Moustakas, Anna Kyriakou, Eleni Anousaki, Yorgo Voyagis, Takis Emmanuel, George P. Cosmatos, Nikos Papadakis
COUNTRY: Greece
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Nikos Kazantzakis (Translated by Carl Wildman)
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Faber
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1969
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1946
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Drama
WORDS: I have seen the film, many times, as a kid and as a teen, and I have read the book, only once, many years ago.
Despite the Greek setting, being the son of (coastal) Croatian parents, I thought, there was something I could relate to in the film.
Here in Australia, as a mid-teen I embarked on a mad scramble for to reaffirm the ethnicity of my childhood and do away with the “trying to fit in” awkward years.
It was a job easier said than done. Apart from the emotional hurdles and occasional jeers I knew I would get Croatians in popular culture were thin on the ground, even if there was a sizeable minority here in Australia.
Sure, there are famous Croats, but try finding film and literature from the “new world” that has any mention of Croatians. Talk about being marginalised and invisible. Where are our TV shows, movies, books, magazines and acknowledgement? Sure, some will say well, you are white European. Yes, but saying that southern Europeans from the Mediterranean are the same as Swedes or Norwegians is a whole different form of racism (perhaps). We are all white but some are whiter than others. Olive lives matter as well. Right? Okay, I get it, the Slovakians, Czechs, Lithuanians or inhabitants of any small nations (especially the Slavic ones) could say the same, but you know … where was our time in the sun? Well, the Croats certainly have more exposure now but as a kid in the 70s and 80s that wasn’t the case. I know it’s a small country and race – about four million of them and about two to three million left over the last century but that is comparable to the Irish, and they are well represented in popular culture. History and time and place have (had) conspired against the Croats I suspect. The race was always part of another empire – we have been called Italians, Austrians, Hungarians and Yugoslavs, and our achievements have been labelled Italian, Austrian, Hungarian or Yugoslav … at least in the English speaking world.
End of rant.
I still needed something to relate to, so I had to look to the Italians and Italian film (especially), and then I found Zorba the Greek. Why?
It’s all the Mediterranean, right?
And, what’s more, people had mistaken me for Italian and Greek before and I was always lumped in with them when it came to racist remarks, whether they be good natured, casual or otherwise.
Close enough was good enough I thought.
I love Anthony Quinn, and did as a kid, and some of that love was because of this film. He is perfect (and he’s not Greek either though he had played one in The Guns of Navarone (1961) … he went on to play more Greeks in The Magus (1968), A Dream of Kings (1969), The Greek Tycoon (1978), Only the Lonely (1991), Onassis: The Richest Man in the World (1988) and even Zeus in the TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys in the 1990s)). I went out and found the soundtrack in an op shop (a staple in op shops) and would play it incessantly as it had bits of dialogue from the film between the music. I then tracked down the Broadway musical of Zorba, with Quinn, and then finally this book.
The book, I recall, is a good read but it is one where the film overshadows it and you read the novel with pictures of Quinn, Bates and Papas in black and white in your head with the music of Mikis Theodorakis as background. The film you remember while the highly regarded novel fleshes out the characters. Sorry bibliophiles. The film is, perhaps, the greatest of Greek films … even if it’s not it’s the one I enjoy the most. The rest I can take or leave.
But what is it about?
Well, the blog is about how I relate to the book or the film (whilst throwing up some movie tie-in cover art) … but, the loud, lusty, drinking, profane Zorba who’s not hesitant on giving politically incorrect but astute practical advice on life and the human condition reminded me of more than one relative and old Croatian (maybe it is, after all, a Mediterranean thing). Zorba is the heart but he is not the central character, a young Greek intellectual (English in the film) is, and he wishes to escape his bookish life with the aid of the boisterous and mysterious Alexis Zorba. Adventures follow …
The film is dominated by Quinn as Zorba and it is his interpretation that probably reinforced stereotypes in my head (Zorba’s advice isn’t always the best and there is cruelty which is sometimes missed by lovers of the film, just as some lovers of La Dolce Vita (1960) miss the point there also – neither are are great advertisements for the cultures they portray (Greek village island life, Italian big city life respectively) when you think about it) but they made me happy at the time.
And, it made many other people happy … the film was a huge hit when released.
TRIVIA
The famous traditional dance in the film, the Sirtaki, was created specifically for the film rather than a traditional form of dance. The dance is based on a traditional Cretan dance as well as two other Greek dances. It’s not the last time that a new dance was thought to be a traditional old one: the Irish Riverdance, traditional but not.
The underrated film director George P. Cosmatos, the underrated film director of films inclosing Massacre in Rome (1973), Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and Tombstone (1993) has a small role as a young man.
FILM STARS: James Mason, Helen Mirren, Jack MacGowran, Neva Carr Glyn, Andonia Katsaros, Michael Boddy, Harold Hopkins, Slim De Grey, Max Meldrum, Frank Thring, Tommy Hanlon Jr., Clarissa Kaye, Judith McGrath
COUNTRY: Australia – Great Britain
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Norman Lindsay
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Humourbooks
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1968
COUNTRY: Australia (printed in Hong Kong)
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1938
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Drama – Comedy
WORDS: I haven’t read the book, or I think I may have read it a long time ago.
Australian Norman Lindsay was a painter who dabbled in literature, or perhaps he was a writer who dabbled in painting. His visual art is more remembered today that his literature. He belonged to that small and select group of upper middle class Bohemians in Australia which existed between the the early 1900s and the 1960s. Like many pre war Bohemians they looked back rather than forward, and to a place not remotely in their past … the European continent pre 1900. At the time Australia was largely an Anglo-Celtic nation with a smattering of minorities, and the minorities were definitely in the minority. With little “foreign” migration and no media (social or otherwise) Australian exposure to influence outside Great Britain and Ireland was limited. It is, perhaps, their pursuit of otherness or their desire to be different that attracted the Bohemians to the continent. This love of the continent, the old, the renaissance and its nudes, the Romans and their excesses that resulted in in a Lindsay and manifested itself in his art and writing which, not surprisingly, was “shocking” at the time.
The Wikipedia entry on him begins: “Norman Alfred William Lindsay (22 February 1879 – 21 November 1969) was an Australian artist, etcher, sculptor, writer, art critic, novelist, cartoonist and amateur boxer. One of the most prolific and popular Australian artists of his generation, Lindsay attracted both acclaim and controversy for his works, many of which infused the Australian landscape with erotic pagan elements and were deemed by his critics to be “anti-Christian, anti-social and degenerate”. A vocal nationalist, he became a regular artist for The Bulletin at the height of its cultural influence, and advanced staunchly anti-modernist views as a leading writer on Australian art.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Lindsay
And that says it all … a man of talent and ambition not concerned with mainstream views.
I have a vague recollection of reading this book in High School though it is very vague. Maybe I skimmed it looking for salacious passages. I have an even vaguer recollection that his writing writing seems to be akin to a more cheery and happily ribald D.H. Lawrence. Lindsay’s Australian remoteness with it’s convict descendants, lower classes, and fortune hunters probably made him happier and looser than Lawrence in his the class structured English society. Though that is just an assumption. I’m sure there are Norman Lindsay experts out there who have read all his works. I defer to any of them.
Lindsay’s twin careers as novelist and painter / illustrator puts him in a good position to write this semi autobiographical (?) novel. Here is a novel about a struggling artist written about a struggling artist, and it is novel (sic) because the writer isn’t, as in most such novels, writing about his struggle as a writer but about his struggle as a painter.
Being a Queenslander the film has appeal for me, having been filmed in Brisbane and in North Queensland. But, the reason (as an adult) to watch it is for James Mason. Mason is, perhaps, one of the greatest of all English actors (well, I love him) and he nails it as the middle aged painter about to embark on a middle age crisis of sorts. He seems like he could have been a Bohemian painter, obsessed by his art rather than the subject … a million miles away from his other obsessed “older man” in Lolita (1962).
Of course the reason I watched the film as a teen many moons ago (and the reason people, apart from Michael Powell auteurists, watch it today) was because of the nudity. Everyone at the Catholic High Boys High School I was at knew there was full body (though no full frontal) nudity in the film. Maybe that’s why the book was well read as well though Lindsay’s self illustrated line drawings with it’s voluptuous curvy object of obsession in the novel didn’t imprint on the mind like the glorious colour streamlined tanned female of the film.
The nudity was supplied by 22 year old Helen Mirren (who made a career of on screen nudity for a while) but I didn’t know who she was at the time and, of course, no one knew who she was at the time of the film as it was one of her first film roles. She plays the Lindsay-ian nymph perfectly. She seems perfectly free and at ease with herself. It’s easy to assume that the world is a better place with a Helen Mirren in it. Special mention to Frank Thring as an art dealer in a bit (another Australian out of touch with the then Australia).
The book and the film seem to skate close to the line as you would expect, being a story about a job that turns into a “love” between an older man (40) and a much younger (18) woman ( errr ….. look at the title of the book and the film). The artist enamoured by the girls beauty but not sexually interested in her (initially) persuades her to pose nude. But she, Cora, is a child of nature, carer since age eight of her demented alcoholic grandmother, her mother long gone to the bright lights of Sydney. She is an innocent, not stupid, though not educated. She is struggling to escape her poverty and circumstance but she is very much the director of the action. Hmmmm. Despite our much espoused progressive promiscuity I’m not sure the book would be written or the film made today, or if they were, they would have a different outlook.
The film has been updated from the 1938 when the book was written to contemporary times (1960s) and it works. The middle age fantasy of of escaping to a remote sunlit part of the world, with uninhibited young people seemed also to tap into the late 1960s zeitgeist. The painters scandalous-ness would more likely survive in the 60s rather than in the 30s. Though, painters always seemed to get away with a bit more when dealing with all things sexual. It was the only occupation (until photography came along which was “spoilt” by pornographers) where you could have nude people standing in front of you for hours on end and you weren’t excluded from polite society. Maybe I should take up painting. Blogging has no nudity (well, apart from “couldn’t be bothered with clothes” attitude on the part of the blogger) and very little respect.
The late 60s saw a lot of mid-life crisis films. And they were fresh. The 30s had the depression and gangsters and the 40s had the war, so there was no time for personal crisis. The (more affluent) 50s had mid-life crisis appearing though it took the shape of men (inevitably) kicking against the norms of society but remaining within it (The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit (1956), Some Came Running (1958) – both books and films). By the time the (still affluent) 60s rolled around these (inevitably, again) middle aged men were now escaping from society and its conventions by either running off to something remote, or finding someone a lot younger to hang out with, or (as in here) both. They weren’t confronting society so much as retreating from it. Mason’s painter is cousin to Kirk Douglas’ wealthy ad man Eddie Anderson in the (great) The Arrangement (1969), Tony Curtis’ man goes to California Carlo Cofield in (the magnificent) Don’t Make Waves (1967), Peter Sellers attorney Arnold Fine in (the hilarious) I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1968), or William Holden’s real estate man Frank Harmon in (the underrated) Breezy (1973). The trend of middle age men going troppo in beautiful locations would continue, though without the philosophy, in 10 (1979), and Blame It on Rio (1984).
The book sticks to the plot closely except the artist in the film is portrayed as a very successful painter who exhibits his abstract, modernist paintings in New York (which is very 1960s). The painter in the book is a Bohemian and poor painter struggling to make a living (which is very 1930s). Also, the location was changed from New South Wales south coast to the Barrier Reef (Dunk Island) in North Queensland. Interestingly Norman Lindsay hated modernism. It’s not know what he made of the film as he died in 1969, the year the film was released.
The film was a huge success in Australia as were most films made in Australia at the time … as there were so few made.
TRIVIA: James Mason met his 22 year younger future wife, Clarissa Kaye, on this film. She played the part of Meg, Bradley’s ex-girlfriend in Australia. They remained together until his death in 1984.
This was the first film husband and wife Ron and Valerie Taylor worked on. They did the underwater moving picture photography and became minor celebrities as shark experts and underwater photographers after working on films like Jaws (1975) and Orca (1977).
The novel was first published in 1938 (in New York), It was first published in Australia in 1962.
FILM STARS: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf, Jared Leto, Holt McCallany, Zach Grenier, Eion Bailey, Peter Iacangelo, Thom Gossom Jr.
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Chuck Palahniuk
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Vintage
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1997
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1996
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Drama
WORDS: A lot of people love this film and I enjoyed it though only up to a point and with reservations. The world of the fight club (as established by the narrator) is a place where men can come together and fight, bare knuckle as a way of dealing with the modern world, releasing tension , exorcizing demons, as therapy or for any other reason.
Though there has to be a better way with dealing with the modern world the first half of the film is mildly intriguing, (spoilers ahead) but it dragged on and then when the big reveal came, and the characters of Brad Pitt and Edward Norton were one in the same, I was annoyed. I get it, the character has two personalities but why get two actors to play both sides unless you are just messing with the audience … just pissing around with our time. Well, that’s the way I look at it. At that point it may as well have been a fantasy and I lost interest of the narrative. To be fair the book does the same (apparently).
What was left to like, for me, were the performances of Pitt and Norton and the direction of David Fincher.
Fincher likes the controversial, and his films are well made though they tend to be a little solemn and one note. He tackles his material with a style that is in your face, though it is also quite clean. There are no ragged edges emotionally. It’s as if he thumps you repeatedly but then tends to your wounds. His films are at times visceral but they are very slick and controlled, a bit like watching Hitchcock, but without the suspense (or fun). It sounds like I don’t like his films, but I do. They are all watchable and when really good like Seven (1995), Panic Room (2002), Zodiac (2007), Gone Girl (2014) you can watch them again.
Edward Norton is always solid and could have played either character. He plays the whiny, the smug, the smart, the emotionally secure very well (and often) but he can play toughs like in American History X (1998) and the lonely, in the much underrated Down in the Valley (2005). Here he is is in his Dustin Hoffman mode, serious but vulnerable. Brad Pitt is a movie star who can act when he wants to. Here, he is not required to act but to just look cool and fight. He does it well, though not acting can lead to overacting. Pitt is convincing and comes off as a cross between a more talkative Steve McQueen in The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and a more talkative Charles Bronson in Hard Times (1975). In fact Fight Club’s bare knuckles fisticuffs resembles Walter Hill’s Hard Times quite a bit though with homoerotic overtones. I couldn’t see (the great) Walter Hill or (the great) Charles Bronson being too happy with the Fight Club script. Amusingly, in the film, Pitts’s character is Tyler Durden, a soap salesman, and Bronson once said to Roger Ebert in an interview (April 07, 1974 ) about his acting “I’m only a product like a cake of soap, to be sold as well as possible”. Soap aside I’d back the American Lithuanian ex coal miner , GI turned actor Bronson over Brad in a fight. But, Brad is certainly cool.
But the problem, for me is the film which a little serious and solemn despite many dark humour inserts. It’s to nihilistic for me. And if I want a struggle between the ego and the id I’ll watch Forbidden Planet (1956) again.
Will I watch it again? Maybe, maybe not. Probably not, though it’s fun watching the leads. Maybe. Don’t know.
The book I have not read and I’m not sure I will. By all accounts the film is reasonably faithful to the book (in theme if not in narrative) but I cant buy into the film’s emphasis on masculinity (of this type), and rejection of self-care through fight clubs which is meant to be an attack on consumerism and materialism. Sure the modern world sucks and we want to tap into the real, the visceral, the primitive. My advice, get back to the earth, find some dirt, get a hoe, dig and plant a vegetable patch, maybe raise a few chickens. It would be much more satisfactory but a lot less cool and unlikely to be made into a movie. Well, not nowadays, though in the early 70s the back to the earth solution was the solution in book, film and life to the excesses of the modern world.
So why is this book here? Because I picked it up for .50c at an op shop … no one said this blog was about books and films I like … just about films and and their associated tie in books, seen or unseen, read or unread.
FILM STARS: Deborah Kerr, Stewart Granger, Richard Carlson, Hugo Haas, Lowell Gilmore, Kimursi, Siriaque, Sekaryongo, Baziga, Munto Anampio, John Banner
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Jean Francis Webb
TYPE: Novelisation
PUBLISHER: Dell
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1950
COUNTRY: USA
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: H. Rider Haggard
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1885
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Adventure
WORDS: H. Rider Haggard’s original novel may be (would be) criticized (by contemporary readers, if any) for its imperialism, colonialism, depiction of African natives and general disregard for the flora and fauna of the “unexplored” Africa where the book is set.
It was written in 1885.
Having said all that by 1885 standards the book is quite progressive. It’s protagonist, Allan Quatermain, is a private adventurer who chooses to live in Africa rather than visit and exploit it, so the colonialism and imperialism are muted. Likewise he is aware of his negative impact (as a hunter and trader) on the wild free places of Africa he loves so he is a primitive (very primitive) environmentalist. And Rider Haggard’s depiction of native African’s which vary from “barbarous” to “civilized” may not pass today’s tests but his standard for who is who isn’t the norm of the time. There are the usual “noble savages” but there are acknowledgements to their culture and, even, interracial romances.
It is one of the first English adventure novels set in Africa and is considered to be one of the first in the lost world literary genre (Rudyard Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King (1888), Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (1912), Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Land That Time Forgot (1918), James Hilton’s Lost Horizon (1933) etc ). There were enough unexplored parts of Africa (and South America and Asia) for literature to assume there were “lost worlds” where anything could exist … civilisations, dinosaurs, exotic flora and fauna.
It is what it is and is a fun read though I tended to “Tarzan” novels to get my African excitement as a kid.
The book was very popular and was a natural to be adapted into film (and many versions have been made). This 1950 version is the best known (and the best version). It is big budget (big MGM budget which means bigger than normal), in colour, filmed on location (in Africa with real African’s in roles, though also in New Mexico and in Hollywood naturally enough), with a script that ditches most of the asides and observations on whites and blacks in Africa and sticks to the adventure narrative. It also introduces a central female character, not in the book, for the romance amongst the flora and fauna. You have to make it palpable for 1950s audiences and they did. Amongst the modernisms in characters there are always, in these sorts of films at the time, animals getting in the way and getting killed. I was never sure why they just could go around them.
It’s not all that common to novelise a film that was based on a novel but there are enough differences for someone to think a novelisation is warranted which is here described as “fictionalised” by Jean Francis Webb on title page and inside as “H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines – retold version by Jean Francis Webb, 1950”. This version gets rid of the 19th century English prose, focusses on the action and throws in some local colour. In reads like a short, punchy 1950s action pulp, which is what it is. And, in it’s own way it is fascinating.
The film propelled English actor Stewart Granger to American stardom (he was already a star in England) and further encouraged (well he was also in North to Alaska (1960 )and Scaramouche (1953) which I had seen and loved) my search to find and watch all of his films. Stewart Granger (yes I have to mention it … his real name was James Stewart but he had to change it for obvious reasons) was born for these roles. He is the natural heir to Errol Flynn (who apparently turned down this role) though he had some Cary Grant in him and he also made some tough westerns (The Last Hunt (1956), Gun Glory (1957)). His time in the sun lasted till about 1960 and then he headed off to Europe to make action, war, and German westerns (as Old Surehand), quite a few in Yugoslavia, before winding down, but not stopping, his career in the 70s.
As the female lead Deborah Kerr does what is required … get into danger, though she more feisty than the normal woman is distress. She was, like Granger, already a star in England but was also quite well known in the US but this film, likewise, boosted her career.
Richard Carlson, now remembered for his leads in some great 50s sci fi films seems to play the other guy or third lead a lot in bigger films and does so here.
It’s a hoot of a film. Especially if you are a kid watching it on television on a weekend in the 70s. It’s an entertainment, and perhaps, a bit more thoughtful than most (its been a while since I saw it last). Not everything has to have an agenda and any agenda would probably get in the way of the entertainment to a teenaged boy. To this end MGM turned up the interest in some characters, downplayed others and never lost site of the action and adventure. It’s not rough around the edges. It’s gloss. Even the animals look like rehearsed Hollywood bit players. MGM knew what they were doing, and accordingly the film was that big a hit. it was the second highest grossing film of the year in the US (Samson and Delilah released in very late 1949 was the highest grossing film of 1950)
Trivia notes: the film was written by Helen Deutsch. Yes female screenwriters existed in old misogynist Hollywood. And, eagle eyes will spot John Banner as an extra. Banner later achieved fame to millions of kids around the world as Sergeant Schultz in Hogan’s Heroes (1965–1971).
FILM STARS: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl, Pat Hingle, Billy Dee Williams, Michael Gough, Jack Palance, Jerry Hall, Tracey Walter, Lee Wallace
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Craig Shaw Gardner
TYPE: Novelisation
PUBLISHER: Futura
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1989
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above (based on the DC Comics character of the same name, created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger in 1939)
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1989
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Sci Fi
WORDS: Ever now and then I just have to load something up I don’t care about, movie or book. In this case it’s a throwaway novelisation on the first of the Batman reboot films. It’s hard to get excited about superhero films, and what little excitement I had has been dissipated by the bad taste left in my mouth after the superhero film deluge that followed.
Superman The Movie (1978) kicked off the new era of superhero movies, or at least superhero films with a budget. But, in pre CGI days, the films were hard work an intensive and so,. relatively few followed. This Batman from 1989 was one , and it was a big hit. I, like every other person of my generation, grew up watching the 1960s TV show, with Adam West as Batman, on reruns in the 1970s. What was there not to like? It was fun, hokey and filled with great guest stars (and it was a little subversive aimed at adults as well as kids (teens) at times). The show was a hit and , inevitably, a film followed, Batman (1966). It was hokey ,tongue in cheek fun … how can’t it be with Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith and Frank Gorshin all overacting on purpose as the three criminals. Not having seen the 1940s serials (with Lewis Wilson (1943) and Robert Lowery (1949) as Batman respectively), back then, this is the Batman I recall. Loud 60s colour and very tongue in cheek
But, inevitably, audiences grow up and they can’t be seen to like the simple things they did as youths. They have to make everything serious. With that mindset came this Batman (and they also ruined the simplicity of Star Wars, Tron, Battlestar Galactica, and many other films with their updating and strained seriousness). Luckily, despite Michael Keaton being square jawed and heroic, and the film noir landscapes being dark and, errr, film noir-ish, the Joker, played by Jack Nicholson, had dark humour amongst his nastiness. The film straddled the original comic book, which wasn’t dark but was serious, and the 60s TV show which bordered on goofy respectful parody. The subsequent films in the first series with George Clooney and Val Kilmer as Batman leaned one way or the other, but only slightly, from that path laid down in this film.
Sacrilege for some coming … Christopher Nolan destroyed the rest for me. OK, the Batman (Dark Knight) reboot by Nolan with Christian Bale as Batman was based on the dark Frank Miller graphic novels but ho hum …. FFS it’s a bloke in a cape. How serious can we get about a bloke in a cape in contemporary times? Pretty serious apparently. And it seems that’s the way it’s been travelling ever since with Ben Affleck and Robert Pattinson.
So be it. I won’t have to waste time analysing this much more. This is one little black duck who won’t try to intellectualise a story about a man in a cape who catches bad guys.
This first film is still perhaps the best. The refreshing performances (Michael Keaton cast as Batman was a bit out of left field … and he does well), lack of CGI, funny and smart asides and in joke references make it a winner. Do I have to watch it again? No, but I might. Do, I have to read the novelisation. Probably not.
Author, Craig Shaw Gardener wrote a lot of original fantasy novels and paid the bills (I suspect) with novelisations … The Lost Boys (1987), Back to the Future Part II (1989), Back to the Future Part III (1990), Batman Returns (with Sam Hamm and Daniel Waters) (1992) and non-film novels based on licensed properties like Batman, Spider-Man, Buffy, Angel and Battlestar Galactica.
FILM STARS: Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter O’Toole, Siân Phillips, Glynis Johns, Vivien Merchant, Victor Spinetti, Ryan Davies, Angharad Rees, Ray Smith, Michael Forrest, Ann Beach, Glynn Edwards, Bridget Turner, Talfryn Thomas, Tim Wylton, Bronwen Williams, Meg Wynn Owen, Hubert Rees, Aubrey Richards, Mark Jones, Dillwyn Owen, Richard Davies, David Jason, Davyd Harries, David Davies, Paul Grist, Ruth Madoc, Susan Penhaligon
COUNTRY: England
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Dylan Thomas
TYPE: Play
PUBLISHER: Aldine
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1972
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1954
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Drama
WORDS: Dylan Thomas’s “play for voices” Under Milk Wood was a radio play (which grew from ideas, conversations and unfinished or aborted projects) which was given its world premiere in January 1954, a few weeks after his premature death, with Thomas’s friend Richard Burton as narrator. It has since been turned into a record, a stage play, an opera, a ballet, a jazz album and this 1972 film.
The (radio) play is a Welsh classic (though written and spoken in Welsh English). I have not read the (sort of) play and I’m not sure I will. Thomas writes in Welsh English and his words are thick with description and run almost like a stream of consciousness. I suspect Thomas gets his inspiration from Irishman Joyce who wrote in English in an equally mischievous way, and I’m not sure I would read Joyce either. Who knows.
Having said that I have listened to the (1954) Under Milkwood radio broadcast on LP record with Burton whilst following the play along from time to time. Like an early version of an audio book. So, I have read it … sort of. Are audio books “reading”?
The play takes in a day in the life of a small, Welsh fishing village called “Llareggub” (“buggerall” backwards) as seen through “ghosts” of the citizens as they sleep. The narrator (First Voice/Second Voice) informs the audience that they are witnessing the townspeople’s dreams. There are many characters in the town and almost all of the characters in the play are introduced as the audience witnesses a moment of their dreams. The beauty of this is the play can move forward, backwards and sideways and create a vivid cast of characters that populate this small Welsh seaside town.
The film is directed by novelist, academic, biographer, historian and occasional cineaste Andrew Sinclair. It’s a labour of love (Sinclair also wrote the screenplay, as he did with the other two films he directed) and is quite beautiful in it’s images. Actually very beautiful and reminiscent of director John Ford (which may not be surprising as Sinclair wrote a biography on Ford, “John Ford: a Biography” in 1979). But, the film overall is pretty dull. Richard Burton is the narrator as he was in the narrated and I love Burton and the tone of his voice and could listen to him reading the, oft referred to, telephone directory. He loves Dylan Thomas (and all things Welsh) and so takes even more care than usual in his role of narrator character. The trouble is , inevitably, the film shows what the words describe. You are doubling up on the same imagery. And, that is tiring. A pity because the cast is good. Burton is great, O’Toole is always good even when “acting” as he is here, and Elizabeth Taylor (still married to Burton here and one of 11 films she made with him) is fun. The rest of the cast is (mainly / largely) Welsh and are authentic (and familiar from many supporting roles in English films). But, they do just seem to act out the evocative words.
FILM STARS: Henry Fonda, Maureen O’Hara, Ben Johnson, Jack Elam, Clint Howard, Julian Rivero, Roy Jenson, Lieux Dressler, Richard Jaeckel, Woody Chambliss, Link Wyler, Warren Douglas, Rance Howard as Sheriff Bill Smith
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: John Steinbeck
TYPE: Novella
PUBLISHER: Corgi
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1973
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1937
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Western
WORDS: Steinbeck’s “The Red Pony” is four interrelated stories published separately (the first three chapters were published in magazines from 1933 to 1936) then collected into book form in 1937 (actually it is sometimes referred to as an episodic novella which is a printing by which a single larger work, often a work of narrative fiction, is published in smaller, sequential instalments). Not sure if that applied here as the stories, I believe, were written at different times.
The stories in the book are about a boy (aged from 10 to 12) named Jody Tiflin and his life on his father’s California ranch (where else for Steinbeck?) situated in the Salinas Valley between the Santa Lucia and Gabilan Mountains at the turn of the twentieth century.
Steinbeck had a way with characters. His books are always readable and what seem to be simple stories always hide more complex themes underneath. Steinbeck was, in the 30s, quite a political and socially conscious writer though his earlier books (including this one) would not indicate that. “The Red Pony” was his third though it wasn’t released until 1937 and after the his first critical success with Tortilla Flat (1935). It is full of the keen observations on the lives of the families that live on the land seen from, or focussing on, a boy coming of age (they “came of age” a lot earlier then … he would be gaming till he was 25 if set now). The earlier works lack the bite that comes with later Steinbeck but they still resonate in their description of time and place, the relationships between people and their humanism.
Steinbeck is one of my favourite writers or, rather, still is, as I read most when I was in my 20s and haven’t read much recently. But, I recall them fondly. Maybe he has faults but I tend to overlook them. His tales are full of humanity and understanding that transcends the anger over the exploitation he saw which is the focus of some of his more well know novels (In Dubious Battle (1936) The Grapes of Wrath (1939)). I should read more as Steinbeck, like many writers today, can be dark and cynical but, unlike many today, his cup is half full making him a great humanist.
The most famous version of this film is the glorious 1949 technicolour version produced and directed by (the great) Lewis Milestone for Republic Pictures, and starring Myrna Loy, Robert Mitchum, and child actor Peter Miles. This version made for television in 1973 doesn’t look as good but has an equally impressive cast and more bite. The first film is family oriented and concentrates on the a boys coming of age and has a wonderfully appealing performance by Mitchum as ranch hand Billy Buck and the beautiful Myrna Loy as the mother. Steinbeck himself adapted the novel for the 1949 film and he focused mainly on the chapters “The Gift” and “The Promise,” thereby increasing the role of Billy Buck whilst changing some characters names, and adding a happier ending.
The second version has Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara at their best (though both are, perhaps, to old for their roles) with a young Clint Howard as the boy (though it’s hard to reconcile that Clint with any number of eccentrics he played in later years). This version is more darker and adult oriented than the earlier version and is less about the pony than the antagonistic relationship of aging farmer Fonda and sensitive son Howard.
Both films may be based on the same story but they look at the same theme through different lenses. The former is family oriented, the latter reality (well as real as you can get for a Made for TV film in the 1970s), but both are just different views of the same themes – the cruelty of nature (including death, graphic descriptions of animals in distress, and a horse breeding scene), major childhood sadness, and the fallibility of adults as themes (amongst others)). That’s not to say there aren’t family elements in the latter film or realistic elements in the former.
By their nature both films are episodic though the first was better crafted. The 1973 film has all the restrictions of a Made for Television movie … smaller budget, cheaper sets, smaller crew who normally work quickly in television (both director writer Totten and co-writer Bishop worked almost exclusively in American television). But what it lacks there it makes up for in cast … apart from the leads you have Ben Johnson (almost straight off the back of his best supporting Oscar win for The Last Picture Show (1971)), Jack Elam, Richard Jaeckel and Rance Howard (Clint Howard’s real life father, and older brother Ron Howards father as well).
Both films are fine, though the first resonated more with me probably because I saw it first at a young age.
FILM STARS: Kris Kristofferson, Sarah Miles, Jonathan Kahn, Margo Cunningham, Earl Rhodes, Paul Tropea, Gary Lock, Stephen Black, Peter Clapham, Jennifer Tolman
COUNTRY: England
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Yukio Mishima
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Penguin
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1976
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1963
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: Gogo No Eiko
NOTES
GENRE: Drama
WORDS: Hmmm. I haven’t read this and I’m not sure I will.
I saw the film many years ago. I was old enough to watch it and, perhaps, not old enough to understand it, assuming there is something there to understand. I don’t mean to be pejorative but it is simple story of personal fascism and eroticism.
Yes, fascism and eroticism. Not uncommon in literature but here they are elevated by Mishima (or by his admirers) to the level of art. He is still a highly regarded author, and oddly, he seems to appeal to the intellectual literary left as well as the far right..
Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) was err, a character. He was a Japanese novelist, poet, playwright, actor, model, bodybuilder, closeted homosexual, hyper-masculine, militia leader, and nationalist. He saw himself as a post-modern samurai, who launched a failed right wing coup, and committed ritual suicide. Bland he wasn’t. For whatever reason the right seems to put out a lot of these nationalist romantic poets who are forever invading things and are unconventional in outlook – Italian Gabriele D’Annunzio comes to mind.
The novel (and what a great title) is a coming-of-age story from the perspective of a narcissistic adolescent boy living with his widowed mother in Yokohama, Japan. He and his equally narcissistic friends see themselves apart from Japanese society and are obsessed with restoring Japan’s former glory and traditions. His mother meets a sailor, who he (and his friends) see as the pinnacle of Japanese manhood, a modern samurai who lives a solitary life on the sea. They idolise him. But as the love between the mother and the sailor grows (watched in detail by the child through a peephole into the mother’s bedroom), and he becomes more “domesticated” the kids start to see him as flawed. The solution is to assassinate him to cleanse the world, the perfect society being one of beauty, eroticism and death wrapped in tradition and honour.
It’s a world of absolutes there are no shades of grey, fifty (groan) or otherwise.
For the film the location was changed to the English town of Dartmouth, Devon, where it was also filmed, and, this is perhaps its greatest flaw. The English may have been imperialists but they don’t have that militarism, or samurai tradition to draw on. Children fascists don’t organically spring from the ground as easily as they would, perhaps, in Japan (yes, I know, a big assumption). The film, perhaps, knows that and so downplays that a little while beefing up the working class sailor, upper class lady unconventional and erotic romance.
Kids acting like little farkers has a tradition (in film and literature) … Los Olvidados (1950), The Bad Seed (1956), Lord of the Flies (1963), Village of the Damned (1960), Devil Times Five (1974), Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) and all the horror ones, but here the evil stems from their philosophy and, of course, in the book the philosophy isn’t evil.
I enjoyed the film because I was going through a Kris Kristofferson phase. I was watching everything he was in … it was easier then when he was still a leading man. It’s a lot more difficult now. I can’t recall how Kristofferson’s Americanisms are explained but he is excellent as the sailor and in shape which helped with the erotic (and unsettling) sex and nude scenes on the screen. He and Sarah Miles also posed for a Playboy photo shoot in July 1976 which was quite revealing. It may be modest by todays internet standards but for two mainstream actors to appear in a spread like that was quite scandalous at the time and I suspect would raise eyebrows now (and maybe even kill careers) if mainstream. The photo shoot also created big problems between Kristofferson and his wife Rita Coolidge. I recall reading that he explained it away at the time by saying he was drinking too much. Which he was. He later admitted an affair with Miles. The film was never going to be mainstream and was not a hit when released, but it has a cult following. Interestingly, singer, songwriter and actor Kristofferson is of the American literary left.
Written and directed by New York born Lewis John Carlino who also wrote and directed The Great Santini (1979) as well as writing Seconds (1966), The Fox (1967), The Brotherhood (1968) , The Mechanic (1972), Crazy Joe (1974), I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977). All his films mix ideas in with the drama. “The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea” takes the mix to the extreme – art, literature, philosophy, eroticism and sex intertwine in the drama and the romance. In other words, a 1970s film.
SCREENWRITER: Norman Reilly Raine, Seton I. Miller, Rowland Leigh
FILM STARS: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Patric Knowles, Eugene Pallette, Alan Hale, Sr., Melville Cooper, Ian Hunter, Una O’Connor, Herbert Mundin, Montagu Love, Carole Landis, Trigger (as Lady Marian’s horse)
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: none
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Ward, Lock & Co
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1938
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Hardcover
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: None
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1938
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Adventure
WORDS: Okay, a kids book to cash in on a adventure film which kids liked, and, which grown ups liked. This is a novelization is perhaps a “true novelization”. Most novelizations are books written from screenplays so the books can be released at the same time to cash in on the film. This novelization is also, no doubt, rushed out to coincide with the film, but, because it is aimed at a younger audience, it is less fussy with detail and takes the form of narrative with some description … basically describing what is said and going on on-screen with pictures to go along with the action. In the days before TV, VHS and DVD this is the way you re-lived the magic of the movie.
Today, with easy access to the film, this is not worth reading … but what a book! The colour plates (and the sepia scenes) are spectacular and vivid which gives the book coffee table book gravitas … leave this lying around and you are more likely to strike up a conversation about the film than if you left around a straight film edition or novelisation.
The film is, spectacular. Made in 1938 it was a big budget quality production. Directed by the great Michael Curtiz and starring the great Errol Flynn (along with Rod Taylor (and Mel Gibson) the greatest of Australian actors) in perhaps his best role and he is backed by a great leading lady, Olivia de Havilland, and a superb supporting cast (especially Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains and Alan Hale). This is intelligent escapism with never a dull moment and not one shaky camera used. You don’t need a shaky camera to get across action if you have a good director and cast. The sets are impressive (no CGI), the colour is vivid (no down and dirty colour), the costumes are marvellous and the tone pitched perfectly between serious and comedic but always with an eye on adventure. I love this film. Loved it as a kid and love it now. It’s one that adults and kids can both watch (much like the Raiders of the Lost Ark films). A while back I watched this movie with my young kids, and they loved it. We watched it again when they were teens and they still loved it. I suspect they will love it as adults. There is something perfect about the daring do, the chivalry, the romance, the fight between good and bad, the lack of moral greys. Whether it is accurate or not who knows (and, ultimately, who cares). There is some debate whether Robin Hood (who steals from the rich to give to the poor) existed and if he did he certainly wasn’t the Robin Hood that came to be familiar in English folklore and then in subsequent literature, film and television. Many actors have played Robin Hood Douglas Fairbanks, Jon Hall, John Derek, Richard Todd, Richard Greene, Lex Barker, George Segal, Patrick Bergin, Kevin Costner, Cary Elwes, Devon Sawa, Russell Crowe, Taron Egerton and others but Errol Flynn is the most memorable and the best, hands down. My opinion, but I’m not the only one.
I would love to see this on the big screen. Until then it’s the big screen at home.
If you haven’t seen it
A. Shame on You.
B. Go watch it now.
EXTRACTS
The Book
Some Colour Plates
FILM TRIVIA NOTE
Roy Rogers admired Maid Marian’s horse, then-named Golden Cloud, so much that he bought it (in 1943), renamed it Trigger to use in his own films. Trigger became one of the most famous animals in show business.
THE FILM
‘ The biggest problem is Mia Farrow’. That comment could be applied to almost every film she appeared in. An…