Tuesday 30 November 2010

Johnny Guitar and Will Penny

When a child in the 1940’s I had a common view of the Cowboy Western, looking forward to those films in colour with battles between the military and Indians, and playing with cap guns. It was only decades later that I appreciated the truth of how the indigenous people were slaughtered, their lands stolen and their culture destroyed.

I still watch the Western film but with some discrimination and as part of Sky Wall to Wall film week 2 came across the classic Johnny Guitar with Stirling Haydon as Johnny and Joan Crawford as Vienna. The film is based on the novel of Roy Chanslor and directed by Nicholas Ray and has been selected for preservation in the United States National film Registry of the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.

The film is set outside a wind swept Arizona town where a former saloon gal Vienna has built an iconic isolated gambling and drinking establishment having acquired information that the site is on the route of the railroad which is making it way shortly. This angers the local cattle men and in particular Emma Small (Mercedes McCambridge) knowing that the railroad will bring hordes of settlers who will want to fence in the range and farm. Vienna also has antagonised the locals by sharing her bed with a local wild boy called the Dancing Kid, and his cronies use the saloon to let off steam once a week when they come from their secret location alleged secret silver mine.

On his way to join Vienna, her former lover and gunslinger, Johnny Guitar witnesses the holding up of the stage, at a distance, as does not intervene. He arrives at the saloon when Vienna is entertaining a railroad man offering him a share in the saloon which struggles because of the boycott by the rest of the town. Vienna and Johnny pretend they do not know each other, although Johnny is quickly involved in the situation when first the Dancing Kid arrives and one of his sidekicks (Ernest Borgnine) resents the intrusion of the outsider, and then Emma, the Sheriff and others arrive because they are convinced the Dancing Kid and his men are behind the stage hold up with the knowledge and support of Vienna. Borgnine resents the fact that the Kid is not wearing guns and takes the view the man is a coward and they have a fight outside which Johnny wins with his fists. Emma is presented as a tough but deranged woman who is obsessed with bringing the Kid down because she wants him and he has turned to Vienna, which also makes Vienna her enemy. She gives Vienna 24 hours to close the saloon and leave.

Vienna and Johnny overcome the past and he persuades her to cash in, pay off the staff and retreat with her, selling up when the railroad arrives and she goes into town to draw out her deposit from the bank in notes for the staff and for their immediate future together.

Unbeknown to her the Kid and his men, wrongly accused for the stage robbery decide to take revenge on the town by robbing the bank and they arrive while Vienna is still there, do not take her money but take everything else while the rest of the towns folk are attending the funeral of Emma’s brother killed in the stage coach hold .

The gang make their way to the mountain retreat and worked out mine which involves a passage way under a waterfall and log cabin built strategically on a hill overlooking the only entrance from the town, with the only other route over the mountains which becomes closed when the railroad workers use explosions as part of brining the line closer. The gang decide to make their way across the desert but encounter Emma and the posse. The youngest of the gang is wounded and makes his way to Vienna’s saloon where she has decided to stand her ground against the advice of Johnny who leaves after a row about their respective futures.
The other three return to the lair where Borgnine want the money to be divided and for the three to take their separate chances. Emma and the posse find the injured youth at the saloon and persuade him to confess that Vienna was involved on the basis he will not be hung. They lie of course and against the wishes of the Marshall who is killed, they take the two prisoner and burn down the saloon. The youngest is hung but the men then refuse to kill Vienna saying that Emma has to do it which she does. However this has given Johnny time to untie the fixed end of the rope so he is able to ride away with Vienna and make for the hide out where they receive a mixed reception.

Unfortunately for them. A stray horse leads the posse to the entrance of the lair and they do a deal with Borgnine to let him keep a share of money in return for giving up the others. This plot is discovered and there follows a dramatic show down between Emma and Vienna in which Emma accidentally shoots and kills the Kid, before she is killed having previously wounded Vienna. The rest of the posse decide there has been too much killing and leave the two alone.

At the time of its release in 1954 the film was only moderately successful with Crawford criticised for moving away from her roles as a siren of the modern city and because the plot was standard with the characters also standard despite the quality of the acting. The film was recognised by other filmmakers notably Francis Truffaut who has commented on the poetry of the dialogue and its theatrically while Almodovar used a clip from the film in his Portrait of a woman having a nervous breakdown and has a similar ending with an obsessed woman shooting the main female character. My main problem is with Crawford who has never appealed as a woman to die for.

There is a very different quality feel to Will Penny in my judgement which has Charlton Heston as the main character pursued by Donald Pleasance after Heston has killed his brother. The main story is that Will takes on a job to ride a boundary of a large cattle ranch, keeping the stock from straying and preventing travellers from staying on the property. He finds an attractive young woman and her son using a remote cabin to over winter having been abandoned by the man paid to take her to join her husband. Will allows her to stay and then when he again encounters Pleasance and is left to a slow death he is able to make his way back to the cabin where he is brought back to health by the woman. They establish a close relationship, especially over Christmas and they commence to live effectively as a family unit with Will realising what he has been missing by his nomadic life and also developing fatherly feelings towards the boy.

However he is in a dilemma torn between wanting to settle but also recognising that because of his age and experience he is unlikely to be content with domesticity for long. He then encounters Pleasance and his gang again and only survives with the help of men from the ranch who then query his loyalty and question why he did not bring the woman to the ranch for a decision about her future. They would have allowed her to stay until the Spring as long as she agreed to move on with the next wagon train. Will decides it is time for him to move on and leaves. The woman and her son are allowed to stay on and look towards him as he rides away hoping he will look back and return. He does not.

I liked the film more than Johnny Guitar although neither reach the heights of others or are overall as satisfying. This for the future.

Lady Jane (Grey) and Young Victoria

There was a succession of factually historical dramas on Sky channels on the last Sunday in November 2010 and I watched two. One was a revelation, Lady Jane (Grey) while the other, I had previously seen in theatre, Young Victoria.

I begin with the basics which I commenced to check during the film watch and discovered that there was only the briefest of mentions in Antonia Frazer’s Kings and Queens of England, with a little more in the Pelican History of England in the Seventeenth Century Maurice Ashley. My main information source was Wikipedia for a more rounded and comprehensive portrait.

Although she was never officially crowned, Lady Jane Grey became the Queen of the UK for nine days from the 10th to 19th July 1553, in between the sickly Protestant child of Henry 8th, Edward VI, and the Catholic Mary (Queen of the Scots) with intentions to marry the King of Spain.

Lady Jane was the eldest daughter of Henry Grey 1st Duke of Suffolk, a man said to have enjoyed the wealth and estates transferred from the Catholic church, and Lady Frances Brandon an ambitious woman who it is alleged plotted with John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland, regarded as the most powerful man in the UK to force the marriage with his youngest son, Lord Guilford who was about 18 years of age with Lady Jane 15 to 16 years of age.

Jane is known to have been a very bright young woman for the era, preferring books to the hunting parties which her parent’s favoured with the visiting scholar Robert Ascham writing that he found her reading Plato in the Greek and she also knew Latin and Hebrew as well as contemporary languages. She is also known to have become a passionate and dedicated Protestant and it is this commitment which is alleged to have seen her a willing acceptor of the throne which was willed to her by Edward, over Mary and Elizabeth. Her mother was noted as being a disciplinarian to the point of viciousness, in the film beating her daughter who refused to agree to the marriage because she was too young and unready. In the film her husband Lord Dudley is first portrayed as spending his time gambling, drinking and wenching in the taverns, although he subsequently claims to have been a virgin until his marriage and a free social thinker.

The film suggests that the young couple became passionate lovers, in part because they both shared a rebellion against the authority of their respective parents while Jane was able to convert Dudley to her Protestant viewpoint and he converted Jane to his egalitarian humanism. It is said he like Jane had a humanist education and that he refused a Catholic priest at his execution but the ideas they expressed in the film were only developed by others centuries later.

The major difference between film and reality is that the couple were never lovers as portrayed and with Jane remaining hostile to the marriage, refusing to agree that her husband should become King, the plan of his father who had become Lord President of the Privy Council and had acted as a important adviser to Henry VIII. However she is said to speak lovingly of her husband when writing to Queen Mary to plead for their lives.

So what was a young recently married against her will woman to do when suddenly told she is the Queen, that it was Edward’s official Will because of his wish to ensure the Protestant succession? She is described as being reluctant to accept the position but did so, and as a consequence agreed to the sending of an army to apprehend Mary and Elizabeth who having learnt of the plot had taken flight. In the film Mary orders Northumberland to lead the army instead of her father as planned by the parents.

Someone who witnesses Jane’s procession along the Thames to the Tower, the traditional London home of the Monarchs wrote that she was very short, and thin but pretty shaped and graceful, with small features and well made nose with a flexible mouth and red lips. Her hair nearly red and reddish brown eyes in colour which suggests close proximity or a vivid imagination! She wore a green velvet gown stamped with gold. While Northumberland set forth to capture Mary who had gone to East Anglia where she had many supporters, the Privy Council switched sides thus if it was the couple who changed the original plan for Jane Father to lead the army, the young couple were instrumental in their own demise.

After their capture and imprisonment the film reports that Mary is said to have declared that there would be a trial for treason and condemnation but their lives would be spared. The problem was that a rebellion to remove Mary and reinstate Jane took place so the new Queen was placed under great pressure, including from the church to remove the threat by executing the couple. It is also stated in the film that the insecurity put in jeopardy her marriage. Mary’s father was also executed while his wife married again within weeks and received a full pardon from Mary and lived at court with her two other daughters, having married the Queen’s Master of Horse and Chamberlain.

Jane became something of a cult figures in popular culture, especially among Protestants who regarded her as a Martyr. A young Helena Bonham Carter plays Mary with Jane Lapotaire as Queen Mary and Patrick Stewart as Mary‘s father, Michael Horden as Queen Mary’s Catholic confessor who is sent to persuade Jane to recant and save her life, and Jill Bennett as Jane’s loyal Lady in Waiting. The film is beautifully photographed and commences with a snow clad countryside hunting expedition.

It struck me before seeing this film that a battle over the succession appears to be unfolding in the present day. In the event of the sudden death of Queen Elizabeth her eldest son Prince Charles with succeed and not her eldest child Princess Anne. Charles is not popular with parts of the Establishment, including the right, because of his alleged left of centre views on a number of issues including the contradictions of a monarchy within a democracy and the disestablishment of the Church of England where the Monarch remain its head.

The problem in relation to being head of the Church of England is his admitted marital infidelity and subsequent marriage to a divorcee. He is also unpopular with those who remain supporters of his former wife, Princess Diana. The Prince is also said to have responded in answer to a media question while in the USA or in an interview shown in the USA that he could see a situation where his wife became the Queen rather than retain her present title of Duchess.

Interviewed on camera on the day when his eldest son and second in line of succession, announced his engagement to a commoner, Sarah Middleton, Prince Charles said he was pleased as they had enough practice... meaning that they had been living together as man and wife.

There has already been much talk including articles in some surprising quarters suggesting that there could be a jump in the succession with Prince William becoming the next Monarch and commoner Kate the Queen. It also reported that the marriage is taking place in Westminster Abbey where the controversial burial service for his mother took place and that his mother‘s brother will participate with everyone remembering the applause which broke out when he spoke at his sister‘s funeral proclaiming that he would see that the boys were brought up as she would have wished. Kate is now wearing the same engagement ring given by Charles to Diana and the wedding is to be a national holiday with the Prince stating that members of the public will be invited to attend in addition to the usual great and the good. Of course this could be all coincidence and supposition. I think not

The other film about royalty could be said to have started the present situation, Queen Victoria and her nine children which led to controlling the majority of continuing royal households of Europe. The Young Victoria was seen in theatre and I did write and study the accuracy of the film at that time as I own Elizabeth Longford’s 750 page study of the Queen and David Cecil‘s 500 page biography of Melbourne as well as Dorothy Marshall’s Life and times of the Queen. The film accurately shows how Victoria was prepared for her future role without understanding what it was to be during her early childhood and that there were major problems between her mother and the King (Jim Broadbent) which did come to a head at the birthday day when his outburst in fact reduced the Princess to tears but her mother remained seated although proposed to leave afterwards but was persuaded to remain until the following day.

There are two major inaccuracies in the film. The first is that Melbourne is portrayed as a young man able to influence the Princess and young Queen by his good looks and charm as well as wisdom and was therefore a threat to the proposed marriage to Prince Albert, whereas he was forty years her senior. The other is that the Prince was never shot protecting the Queen from an assassination. However the rest of the film is historically correct.

Sir James Conroy(Mark Strong), an army officer did become the comptroller of the Household of Victoria’s father and mother (Miranda Richardson) and after her father’s death effectively controlled her life and her mother where it has remained rumoured and conjecture he became her lover. What is established is that her mother and Conroy controlled every aspect of Victoria’s life with the aim of becoming regent if she inherited the title before coming of age. She hated him, refused to grant him the Regency and expelled him from the court when she became Queen.

It is also correct that while she loved and adored her husband she initially kept him at arms length in terms of exercising any influence over her role as Queen. In part this was because she was well aware that the marriage had been plotted by the King of Belgium Leopold I with the help of Baron Stockmar in order to bring the UK under European influence. Howver she did change her position and arranged for the two to share duties giving Albert effective control of the Royal Household and placing him in charge of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Their marriage lasted for 20 years until his untimely death in his early forties.

It was also correct that Melbourne exercised party politically biased influence over the Young Queen which made her very unpopular with the public when Sir Robert Peel gained democratic control of Parliament. It was under the influence of Prince she took a direct interest in the welfare of the people Albert and requested official investigation and reports. She only became unpopular again because of long retirement from public life and the alleged excessive influence of her game keeper John Brown but recovered towards the end of her reign. Emily Blunt plays the young Queen and Rupert Friend Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. It was with the first World War with Germany that the Royal Household jettisoned its German origins and became the Windsor’s. Sky and the other TV stations plan their schedules months in advance but the timing of these films so close to the announced engagement is interesting

Monday 29 November 2010

88 Minutes and the Spear of Destiny

This is the last writing of the first week of wall to wall films. I begin with an Al Pacino thriller which was a disaster at the box office and with the critics. The film is called 88 minutes. The film is well acted and cleverly written so that there are three possible suspects for a series of horrendous killings. The fundamental flaw is the basic plot. The concept is good and not knew with one previous version as an episode of the X files and I am sure that there have been others.

A man has been convicted of the murder and after nine years of appeals is due to be executed. Early on in the film we learn that Al Pacino plays a forensic psychiatrist upon whose professional testimony the jury had found the man guilty, something which I suspect would not produce the finding in normal circumstances without substantial other evidence such as DNA!

A young very attractive appeal lawyer appears to convinced by the innocence of her client and that the psychiatrist has fabricated his testimony. I thought the behaviour of the lawyer odd at the time even for Hollywood melodramatics

When the man is sent back down he proclaims to the psychiatrist Tick Tock Doc which you know has some significance to be revealed. The basic plot is the man’s claims that he is innocent reinforced when a series of copy cat murders occur. The contention of the psychiatrist is that the man has an accomplice on the outside. Why he waited for nine years in jail to pass and his death within days before trying to have the conviction quashed is one of many failures leading to the negative critical and public reaction.

The psychiatrist is then targeted, and bombarded with messages saying he has 88, minutes to live, then 72 then 60 etc. He narrowly escapes being shot and then his car blown up although these events are odd because of the original emphasis on 88 minutes. It would be inconsistent for him to die sooner

The original horror occurred in 1997 when the assailant breaks into a home where two sisters, one is asleep and the other subdued with the use of a substance, halothane, and then rapes and tortures hanging the woman upside down with latches and a rope. It struck me that that this method also stretches credulity given it involved a break in to an unknown home and that most premises will not readily have the structural means to carrying out hanging upside down process. The murderer then rapes and tortures the other sister but leaves her alive which is again questionable.

During the time that the Doctor is being targeted he is sent a tape of message made of a young girl calling for help from her old brother, the psychiatrist. His sister was 12 years old and he was 28 having decided to leave her on her own for a short while called away. He has not forgiven himself, failing to take the girl with him or arranging for someone else care for her. It is known that 88 mins elapsed between the call and the time of death. It is not stated how this level of accuracy was obtained. One copy of the tape is with the trial papers and other held by the doctor in his secure records area which only his assistant has access so, so she is one those who comes under suspicion.

There is the usual situation of where the psychiatrist does the subsequent investigation, instructing a police colleagues to undertake inquiries and provide information without fully revealing his concerns and actions until the late moment. This enables the cliff hanging type of suspense ending, especially when the Psychiatrist is implicated in two of the subsequent copy cat murders.

In the spectacular finale the psychiatrist is told to attend a particular location by a female colleague, the Dean at the college when he lectures. For a moment she is under suspicion but she has been kidnapped together with his secretary. One is hanging upside down several floors up in the opened centre of the building while the other is close by with both a holding ropes away from certain death falling to the ground below.

And the accomplice to getting the original murderer off by committing copy cat crimes herself? Who is she?

It is the junior legal officer at the original trial who became the main appeals Counsel and who had come under the spell of the murder, planning a life with him after his release. She would have access to all the original material and intimate first hand knowledge of how the original crimes were committed and it is known that a woman when possessed by a man in such a way, or by another woman, will do anything for her lover, but committing several murders of horrific ferocity stretches credulity.

The psychiatrist has had time to contact the police before attending the notified location and the police are somehow able to position themselves to have a clear view and show of the murderer so that even though she releases the rope to plunge both women to their deaths before shooting Pacino, she is killed and he grabs hold of the rope to rescue the women and save himself.

As the film progressed I realised the original killer was being modelled on the Svengali Hannibal Lecter character. For some inexplicable reason, possible a quirk of the USA judicial system, the original murder is allowed to put his case on TV, accusing the Psychiatrist of prefabricating the case against him Pacino in turn is able to talk back live. Pacino has borrowed the mobile phone from the accomplice after his is damaged and the condemned man uses the phone to contact the accomplice to confirm that Pacino is dead and that confession on tape has been obtained and is therefore horrified when he finds that his plan has gone awry and has less than 12 hours to live, It is also not clear why Pacino fails to immediate connect that the original assistant at the appeal was the same woman who had joined his class, then became the main appeal’s lawyer with access to the condemned man, the trial information and Pacino’s personal history

The film has a budget of $30m and made $32m gross. Only having Al Pacino in the lead role prevented significant financial loss.

In the genre of incredulity but billed as a fun entertainment piece of nonsense offering has been the second in the trilogy of the Librarian, Curse of the Judas Chalice. The hero of the series is a perpetual intellectual with 22 academic degrees funded by his wealthy mother (Olympia Dukasis) who wants him to marry, get a job and be happy.

Flynn Carson played by Noah Wyle is told to leave college and experience the world and then receives an invitation to become the Librarian at the Metropolitan Public Library and only when appointed discovers that he is to become the keeper of mythological, some historical, and some magical artefacts including the Ark of Covenant, the Holy Grail, the Golden Fleece, The Goose that laid the Golden Eggs, a live unicorn, Pandora’s Box, the original Mona Liza and Ali Baba‘s flying carpet, to name a few.

In the first adventure which I saw sometime ago, the quest is to stop the Serpent Brotherhood acquiring the two other parts of the Spear of Destiny as whoever possesses the three parts controls the rest of human destiny on planet earth. Hitler it is claimed possessed only one part. The hero finds a female friend who feels responsible for the death of the previous Librarian and together they have adventures in South America and then to the Himalayas and Shangri-la ensuring that all the part of the Spear and held in the Library out of harms way for human eternity.

In this second part of the trilogy viewed during the first wall to wall film week the artefact is the chalice of Judas made out of the thirty pieces of Silver! As with the Bond films there is an opening that has nothing to do with this story but reminds of the role of the Librarian and his employers. He travels to England to bid for a Ming vase under instructions not to exceed a budget of under £100000. During the auction his girlfriends reminds that he is not keeping a date, the most recent of a succession, taking his mind of the bidding process so that the vase is eventually acquired for £2million. The reason for the pressing ahead is in fact that within the vase is the Philosopher’s Stone which turns whatever comes into contact into pure gold. In a fight involving the other bidder and his henchman he turns something into worth more than the bidding price but the Library controllers reject this as a way to recoup the cost because it is something they do not do.

The film now comes to its actual story, Former KGB agents want to re-establish the old order in Russia and to do this want to resurrect the body of Prince Vlad Dracula by using the Chalice and create a small army of the undead. They travel to Budapest and capture the leading authority of the subject who works out that it is located in New Orleans. By coincidence the Librarian also goes on vacation to New Orleans which provides the opportunity to show off the carnival and traditional jazz world of the city as part of the unfolding plot.. During his holiday experience he visits a nightclub where is drawn to the singer who immediate engages him. She later discloses she became a reluctant vampire victim 400 years previously when as a promising opera singer in France was cruelly selected and has to kill the vampire involved if her soul is to rest in peace. As it is this vampire now seeking to obtain the Spear of Destiny for his own ends, she is join forces with the Librarian to defeat him and those also seeking its power. There are various adventurous and challenging moments before the Librarian is able to destroy the monster and draft all those involved, capture the Spear of destiny and enable the now ageless young woman to find peace, after watching one last sunrise together.

Wednesday 24 November 2010

Home of the Brave and Sunshine Cleaners

I bring to an the first of my Wall to Wall film, although until I have caught up with present schedule of available films I will probably watch one to three films day, some only parts because the I did not wish to complete the experience with other catching some with the intention of watching all at a later date if a showing becomes available. This applies to the latest Bond film, the Quantum of Solace where I missed the start and went to sleep for a time towards its end and never really understood or cared much about the action. I will watch all the way through when the opportunity next arises, having seen all the Bond films. I did see Harry Potter and the half blood prince in the cinema about two years ago, but this time missed the start and the end because of something else I wanted to do. It will be good to have the instant record box when the HD is set up early next week.

It was very different this morning when I missed the start of Home of the Brave 2006 and was immediately engaged because I connected with the process the four principal characters experience on their return home from their National Guard tour of duty in Iraq. The film was rushed out in time for Oscar consideration but failed miserably with the critics and at the box office. It only opened in three theatres and the following year in another 44. Why it was not liked tells us a great deal about contemporary USA. It is not an anti war film, or anti the USA continuing operations in Iraq. Perhaps this is one explanation for its lack of success. It is too realistic about the necessity for military intervention on behalf of others and the reality of that intervention.

The film begins in Iraq just before the end of the tour of duty when a small convoy is taking medical supplies to a remote community. The convoy includes a doctor surgeon who has become overwhelmed by the deaths of so many young boys, barely older than his son, by the inability to save limbs or prevent the mental and emotional scarring which will affect the rest of their lives. His part is played my Samuel Jackson who on return home fails to adjust, does not sleep, begins to drink heavily, and reacts disproportionately to the behaviour of the rest of his family especially his son who admits that he is against the war and against his father having been in the war. His wife feels shut out having carried the burden and responsibility of caring for the family when he was away and the marriage approaches breaking point. Dr Will Marsh had the problem which all those who are in senior positions in the broad church of caring professions face, accepting and getting the right help when it is needed. However while it might appear more difficult the more senior position held, it is always difficult, something which I thought the film brings out exceptionally well.

Divorcee National Guard Sgt Vanessa Price left her son in the care of her mother and a loving and caring boyfriend to serve as a driver in Iraq and as with the others is on her final mission when the vehicle is blown up and her passenger killed. She loses an arm and on returns finds she had nothing any more in common with her family, lover and friends. She return to her teaching job alienated from the students she is employed to help. She finds salvation through a fellow teacher who appears ready and able to accept all that she has become and has been.

Someone who calls himself 50 cents, a rapper who mother was shot dead when he was 8 after his father had left them, plays a very angry, I need practical not psychological help, returnee. He has killed a civilian woman in mistake for a bomber and ends up being killed by the police as he takes hostages in theory to get the help her wants quicker unable to understand and therefore accept that the main problem is his emotional and mental state.

Brian Presley is a Home Guard Infantryman who witnesses his best friend from home being killed and is unable to stop grieving and get on with the rest of his life with a career in the police force awaiting him. His blue collar red neck role of a father appears not to understand the way his son is reacting or does but cannot cope and at the end of the film Tommy played by Brian Presley enlist to return knowing he has unfinished business for himself, his friend and his country before he can continue with his life, if he survives. While the film is about four individuals who come together during one warfare incident they do meet up with when Vanessa takes her son with a friend to the pictures and finds Tommy working as a box office assistant. They briefly chat yet find they have more in common with each other than their family and friends. Vanessa seeks out the Doctor (Walt) who cared for her immediately following the explosion. She hopes he will help her not realising he is in more need of help than she. She watches the game at the school where she works and sees the doctor again when he attends with his wife and daughter to support his playing son. Tommy meets up with 50 Cent Jamal Aitken at counselling sessions and then is called by the police to try and help Jamal when he takes the hostages. He also meets up with Samuel Jackson when he leaves a session with Samuel pretending he is calling for someone else, still unable to accept that he is in need of professional help. I believe the film deserved better attention at the time, and hopefully will do so now.

Having spent the past five months in a confidential adventure the change to my former pattern of daily experience has been swift. It is not true to say former pattern precisely because I continue the early morning swimming averaging five visits a week in what is presently week 18 and having raised the daily average to 735 and 49 lengths. Today Wednesday, the first day of Winter, dark, cold with sleet and more horrid weather forecast. Writing now there are brief patches of blue. It does not last long.
There was a minor achievement earlier in the week when reaching over 17 million points for the first time on Luxor Mahjong. Since learning to play I have successfully pushed the total from just over 16 million to regularly over 16 ½ and then over recent plays to just under 17. This progress has been made by playing in sessions lasting no more than half and hour. So my life has come down to this?

After the excitement of Sunderland thrashing Chelsea at Stamford Bridge a week ago I anticipated Monday night’s home game against Everton, again televised on Sky, would be an anti climax. In the event it was a good game which either side could have won in the final seconds. Everton scored early on to a stunned Stadium of Light but Welbeck who scored his first goal for Sunderland against Chelsea levelled the match before half time and then brought the home crowd to frenzy with his second. In fairness Everton had given the better overall performance and Sunderland only showed flashes of their performance last weekend. I suspect they wanted to impress the home crowd too much, individually and collectively after all the praise that continued to be heaped on them during the week and before the game commenced. There was also the problem of the return of top scorer, Golden boot winner, Marcus Bent, who missed the triumphs of the past two weeks. On Saturday they play at Wolves and this will be a greater test.

I had no knowledge of a third Indie film Sunshine Cleaning which is a good film but unlikely to live on in the memory other than for the unusual occupation, small business set up by the main character Rose Lorkowski and her sister, recommended by her married policeman lover, to clean up the mess of in the homes of suicides and murders. That there is demand for such a business provides another insight into contemporary society in the USA. She works as a maid and has her own home using relatives and friends to help care for son while she is at work.

I am not sure about some aspects of the story but gained the impression that she the lover had been her high school boyfriend but they had parted, he had married another but they had established the relationship later, although my impression is that he is not the father of the boy. He sister has less social skills than her and lives with their father who brought both girls up after their mother had committed suicide. The sister loses her job as a waitress and things start to overwhelm Rose and her family when the son is expelled from state school because of behaviour which suggests Attention Deficit Disorder (something which I experienced undiagnosed), because I was not engaged by the content and presentation of the lessons, or understood and was too shy and afraid to seek help.

The business nearly fails because they have not addressed the basic health and safety requirements or possess the right equipment. When this is remedied and the business begins to take off, the sense of achievement and satisfaction is such, especially when she find she has rapport with the partners or relatives of the deceased, she cannot resist attending a baby shower event so she can boast of having become a success at something Unfortunately the event coincides with a sudden job assignment so she sends her sister alone and the sister accidentally burns down the house thus destroying the business and creating a substantial debt.

The film ends on a positive note when her father who has tried one unsuccessful business venture after another, sells his house in order to clear the debts and restart the business with his daughter. During the film Rose admits she has had a series of love affairs with unsuitable men but has been befriended by a local store keeper to whom she turns when needing someone to care for her son who is waiting for a place at a private school which she is yet to afford. She invites the man to the son’s birthday party with the prospect of her commencing are relationship with someone dependable and caring. The boy also commences at a private school which appears to immediately meet his needs. The film has charm and is well written and acted.

Tuesday 23 November 2010

Grand Torino

A second film in succession I planned to see and then did not is the Clint Eastwood directed and acted Grand Torino. The remarkable aspect of the work of Mr Eastwood, unlike that of Wood Allen for example, is his range as well of depth of work with the Spaghetti Westerns which brought him to International attention and films such as the Bridges of Madison County and Mystic River. In Grand Torino he plays his most outrageous and potentially offensive character Walt Kowlaski who epitomises traditional red neck blue collar outlook and speech.

Walt has all the worst characteristics in that he is exceptionally foul mouthed and anti everyone and everything who do not share his set of values, especially those who are non white. Some will say, and I am up one of them, that his portrayal and interactions with his barber and the construction site foreman are realistic. What this film is about is that you should not judge because of speech, regional accents, but on what someone has done and does, or this instances does not!

When the film opens Walt is mourning the death of his wife, a fundamental Catholic who has forced her husband to attend church over the years and set the limits of what he can and cannot do within the home and family. As the film progresses we learn that whatever his banter about her in the past, he loved, respected and tried to follow her ways. While he gives the young new priest a hard time he donates their home to the church because his wife would have wished him to do that and the truth behind the veneer of his aggressive and vitriolic exterior fully emerges during his confessional when he discloses that the extent of his infidelity was a stolen kiss with a neighbour and the non payment of a small amount of Federal taxation in one instance. Despite the constant barrage of abuse directed at the pro USA Vietnamese refugees who have taken over his neighbourhood and reference to all Asians as Kooks the major sin of his life is the killing of a dozen young Koreans in battle for which he was awarded a medal

On the day of the funeral of his wife we learn of the emotional gulf between himself and his two sons, their wives and his grandchildren. They would like him to move into a retirement home so they can make use of the funds from the sale of the house. They also want his original well maintained Ford Grand Torino car which he keeps in his garage while driving an open back truck for daily run arounds. He heaps abuse on the Vietnamese neighbours who are holding a Christening party at the same time and his hostility towards them intensifies when the son in the family, attempts to steal the car, an initiation requirement into the gang headed by a cousin. This is the catalyst event around which the rest of the film centres

He intervenes when the gang calls on the home of his neighbours and his stock further increases when the neighbour’s daughter is threatened by afro Americans after the white boyfriend takes a short cut with her through their neighbourhood. Walt at first resents the gifts of food and flowers which the Vietnamese community bestows upon him. The errant son is required to undertake work for Walt by his mother and as to refuse would be regarded as an insult Walt reluctantly agrees. And he is also influence by the daughter who explains that while the young women seek an education to better themselves the young men are left to join gangs and to go to prison. When Walt arranges a construction job for the young man his cousin and leader of the gang terrorising the rest of the community attacks him, stealing his work effects and burning his face with a cigarette. Walt retaliates by beating up the leader when the henchman have departed. This however does not have the desired effect and the gang shoot up the property of the neighbours, kidnap, rape and beat up the daughter. The expectation of the brother, the community and the priests is that Walt will retaliate with greater violence and for a time the priest arranges a police presence. A knowledge of the work of .Eastwood and the nature of the film to this point, the visit to the church for his confession, the passing of his dog into the care of neighbour’s grandmother and then locking the young man in the garage to prevent his further involvement, all leads us to an inevitable conclusion. Blaming himself as he should rightly do for escalating the situation and resulting in the harm to the daughter, he places himself on the cross, visiting the gang house he puts a cigarette in his mouth and then uttering the opening of the prayer Hail Mary goes for his lighter and is shot to death by the gang members thus providing the way for the authorities to remove the young men from the neighbours for at least 15 years. Neighbours give evidence in response to the self sacrifice.

The films ends on a positive note. He has already encouraged the young man to respond to the interest of a young woman from the community and lets him use the Grand Torino on their first date. It is therefore no surprise when in his Will he leaves the vehicle to the young man.

The film follows a well worn theme, the community terrorised by the gang featured in many a Wild West tale and British Council run housing estate and the reluctance of the community to give evidence from the justified fear of reprisal until a champion emerges and then the unexpected when the champion appears to back off the public showdown, only to achieve the right objective in a way which offers the possibility of a longer term peace solution. The problem is by removing one set of villains, others will fill the apparent vacuum. There are no long term solutions, no advertising and educational campaigns against drug and alcohol use and other individual, family and community destructive problems, no social engineering or final solutions which will work, except for a time. There is just the likely challenge which we will all face during our individual lives, sometimes once, more often on several occasions when we least expect or wish to experience, and for some of us the challenge becomes more frequent. Our responses will vary according to age and circumstance and what happens, including the inevitable unintended consequences, remains unpredictable, except on film.

Notorious

Christmas is becoming a blur as I turn my mind towards the New Year, work priorities and trips.

The event of the day was a new production of the Thirty Nine Steps on BBC Channel 1. It is only a matter of days since I saw the original film again and so fresh in mind I wondered what kind of approach would be taken by the BBC and how I would react. I did not enjoy this version which seemed to impose 2008 attitudes on 1915 but maybe I am being unfair. It is such a long time since I read the book. I decided to check out to see if it is available line and find a copy within seconds. Wunderbar.

If the latest version grated on me then the book was so disappointing until I remembered I had read it as a school boy. I can just about understand that the book was popular with men in the trenches as it harks back to the golden age of British Gentlemen adventurer with a great sense of chivalry and honour.

There is no female interest in the book and although he travels to Scotland, his birth land, to get away from the police, he takes the West coast route and heads of Galloway and Dumfries where he obtains help from a local politician. He is being chased by those who want the notebook given to him by the independent murdered spy/counterspy although how they were able to track hum down raises questions. He is then sent south to see someone in government and from that point it is Hannay who works out that 39 steps is where the escape will be made after killing a Greek politician and making off with the British defence plans and that the location fits in to a property on the Kent coast because of information about the High Tide. The 39 steps were the number of steps in the nursing home where John Buchan was recuperating and counted out by his six year old daughter to her brother when they visited. When this home was demolished the steps were sent to Buchan who used them from his house down to the beach and they are still there although replaced by concrete. Buchan described the book as a shocker because the story stretched credulity.

In the great version, the Hitchcock- Robert Donat film made in 1935, Hannay goes to Scotland because he is given a map by the murdered female spy/counterspy of the person she needs to contact and he takes the Kings Cross East Coast route getting off the train on the Firth of Forth Bridge and making his way with an overnight stop to the Loch Tay Killin Kenmore area, and area which I have stayed close by holiday and in the wider area of a period of decades 1974-1990. In the book he is less of a fugitive and more of traveller making contact with local people including an overnight but friendly stop. There is no reference to the kissing of female passenger to escape the police interest or the subsequent stop over at the Inn with the woman handcuffed to her and posing as runaway lovers in the book and in this first black and white film the 39 Steps is the name of the Organisation and secret defence plans are memorised by musical Hall turn Memory Man with the individual to be taken out of the country. The Hitchcock film is set in pre second world war Britain and not the first. A key moment in the film is when he is thought to be a politician come to help at local by-election and tries to give a speech before being chased by the police and the villains.

I have also recently seen the colour remake of 1959 which follows the Hitchcock film on most of its points including the use of the Forth Bridge, the purpose for the trip to Scotland and the return to the music hall in London to stop the Memory man escaping with the plans,(this time a secret weapon development). The film with Kenneth Moore in the role of Hannay is less serious with several moments of intended humour and with the speech being given to a girl’s boarding school. The ending is something of an anti climax. James and Brenda de Banzie have parts,

The 1978 film version is closer to the book than the first two films although the 39 steps become those inside the Big Ben Clock, in the Houses of Parliament. The basic plot involves the murder of political figures with the a bomb to kill a visiting Greek politician and Hannay manages to stop the clock before the strike which would set off the bomb. The spy/counter spy Scudder is played by John Millis and the chief policeman by Eric Porter. David Warner, Timothy West and Karen Dotrice have roles. Robert Powell who plays Hannay then started in TV follow up stories with two series and 17 films in total. Given the ending of the new TV film I wonder if a similar series of follow up adventures is planned?

In 2006 a comic theatrical version was created which ram for sometime in London before transferring to New York where a ticket costs just under 100 dollars. The play as won several awards and is to transfer to another theatre in 2009.

In 2006 a new film version was also commenced, is now in the process of completion with a planned release in 2009.

After the death of Scudder in the London flat the rest of the film BBC film takes place in Scotland where it was shot on location Many of the previous ingredients are there including the coded black book, the giving of a speech at a political meeting, the young woman who does not believe him and the overnight stay at an Inn. However the young woman is a real British counter spy and she does not know is that her guardian relative is the traitor and that he, like she, has a photographic memory and having sat in at a meeting where the British defence plans are revealed and discussed he is taking the knowledge out of the country by U boat. The film has a shock ending, nearly.

So altogether there is one book, one comic stage production, one black and white film and two colour versions with a third in the making. There is one made for TV film and 17 previously screened follow up TV shows. This is surprising for such a dodgy story and cannot be regarded as among the great Hitchcock suspense thrillers,

This brings me to the lunchtime film on Monday, the Hitchcock thriller Notorious with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman together with Claude Rains. Ingrid plays a high class playgirl whose reputation for promiscuity and excessive alcohol is the one aspects which does match Ingrid in or out of character. When her father is sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for being a spy for the Nazi regime of Germany Federal agent Grant is told to try and persuade the woman to help them work out what a friend of her father, and one time suitor, played by Claude Rains, is doing in Rio De Janeiro with other known former Nazis and Nazis sympathisers. She only consents because of an attraction to Grant and the key moment in the film is when she is asked by Grant on instruction to become Rain’s lover. She only agrees because she believes Grant wants this, whereas Grant hopes that she will refuse and thus indicate that his feelings for her are reciprocated. He therefore turns cold with her when she not only confides that she had become Rain’s lover but he has asked her to marry him.

This coldness does not prevent Grant with Ingrid’s help discovering the nature of one of the activities although this leads to Ingrid’s life being put at great risk. Being Hitchcock there is a feel good ending and with Grant, Bergman and Rains on screen there is some great acting which makes the film fresh and believable sixty years later.

Just as believable but not in the least entertaining is the news that Mr Ashley has taken Newcastle off the market and is hoping the public will support his continuing plans for the club. I predicted this would be the outcome. Newcastle lost 5.1 to Liverpool at home yesterday before an excellent Christmas home game crowd. Michael Own has indicated he will not sign a new contract and which enables him to leave when his contract ends this summer. I was tempted to watch Newcastle live as Mr Kinnear appeared to be the right man for the present crisis, but no long term if the club is to get into Europe and the big time once more. Now I will stay away just as I refuse to listen to the Legends on 606 after the way two of those on the programme responded to the departure of Kevin Keegan earlier in the year. The Liverpool game was on TV at lunchtime and was embarrassing to watch such was its one sided nature. Steve Gerrard, the captain and England International who scored two goals was home in time to go out for an evening meal with friends in Southport. He has been arrested following an serious assault incident and is yet to be discharged.

I had also hoped, without much conviction that the appointment of Ricky Spreggia as Sunderland manager for the rest of this season and for this to lead to a goof performance good performance at Everton. Alas the team lost.30 and Everton had only their second home win of the season. All three North East teams are likely to struggle for the rest of the season although Sunderland has the best opportunity to finish mid table or a little higher.

Having consumed the defrosted food, Sunday was the opportunity to roast one of the two chickens which were at the back of freezer with roast potatoes, followed by ice cream, and then for the evening have a plate of the remaining salami, a slice of ham, olives and cheese for the evening, with a soup and a banana with half a packet of custard. It was enjoyable, naughty but nice. I had a can of Fosters, deciding that I would save the remaining Peroni until the Foster’s bought in nearly a year ago is finished. There seven Peroni and 10 Fosters left, plus nine bottles of red including two Beaujolais and three Asti. The plan is for this supply to last a minimum of three months and to try and stretch to six without buying in further. The Asti will be drunk at the New Year and the dreaded 70th birthday. Oh what a terrible thought is that 70.

The Thirty Nine Steps

Christmas is becoming a blur as I turn my mind towards the New Year, work priorities and trips.

The event of the day was a new production of the Thirty Nine Steps on BBC Channel 1. It is only a matter of days since I saw the original film again and so fresh in mind I wondered what kind of approach would be taken by the BBC and how I would react. I did not enjoy this version which seemed to impose 2008 attitudes on 1915 but maybe I am being unfair. It is such a long time since I read the book. I decided to check out to see if it is available line and find a copy within seconds. Wunderbar.

If the latest version grated on me then the book was so disappointing until I remembered I had read it as a school boy. I can just about understand that the book was popular with men in the trenches as it harks back to the golden age of British Gentlemen adventurer with a great sense of chivalry and honour.

There is no female interest in the book and although he travels to Scotland, his birth land, to get away from the police, he takes the West coast route and heads of Galloway and Dumfries where he obtains help from a local politician. He is being chased by those who want the notebook given to him by the independent murdered spy/counterspy although how they were able to track hum down raises questions. He is then sent south to see someone in government and from that point it is Hannay who works out that 39 steps is where the escape will be made after killing a Greek politician and making off with the British defence plans and that the location fits in to a property on the Kent coast because of information about the High Tide. The 39 steps were the number of steps in the nursing home where John Buchan was recuperating and counted out by his six year old daughter to her brother when they visited. When this home was demolished the steps were sent to Buchan who used them from his house down to the beach and they are still there although replaced by concrete. Buchan described the book as a shocker because the story stretched credulity.

In the great version, the Hitchcock- Robert Donat film made in 1935, Hannay goes to Scotland because he is given a map by the murdered female spy/counterspy of the person she needs to contact and he takes the Kings Cross East Coast route getting off the train on the Firth of Forth Bridge and making his way with an overnight stop to the Loch Tay Killin Kenmore area, and area which I have stayed close by holiday and in the wider area of a period of decades 1974-1990. In the book he is less of a fugitive and more of traveller making contact with local people including an overnight but friendly stop. There is no reference to the kissing of female passenger to escape the police interest or the subsequent stop over at the Inn with the woman handcuffed to her and posing as runaway lovers in the book and in this first black and white film the 39 Steps is the name of the Organisation and secret defence plans are memorised by musical Hall turn Memory Man with the individual to be taken out of the country. The Hitchcock film is set in pre second world war Britain and not the first. A key moment in the film is when he is thought to be a politician come to help at local by-election and tries to give a speech before being chased by the police and the villains.

I have also recently seen the colour remake of 1959 which follows the Hitchcock film on most of its points including the use of the Forth Bridge, the purpose for the trip to Scotland and the return to the music hall in London to stop the Memory man escaping with the plans,(this time a secret weapon development). The film with Kenneth Moore in the role of Hannay is less serious with several moments of intended humour and with the speech being given to a girl’s boarding school. The ending is something of an anti climax. James and Brenda de Banzie have parts,

The 1978 film version is closer to the book than the first two films although the 39 steps become those inside the Big Ben Clock, in the Houses of Parliament. The basic plot involves the murder of political figures with the a bomb to kill a visiting Greek politician and Hannay manages to stop the clock before the strike which would set off the bomb. The spy/counter spy Scudder is played by John Millis and the chief policeman by Eric Porter. David Warner, Timothy West and Karen Dotrice have roles. Robert Powell who plays Hannay then started in TV follow up stories with two series and 17 films in total. Given the ending of the new TV film I wonder if a similar series of follow up adventures is planned?

In 2006 a comic theatrical version was created which ram for sometime in London before transferring to New York where a ticket costs just under 100 dollars. The play as won several awards and is to transfer to another theatre in 2009.

In 2006 a new film version was also commenced, is now in the process of completion with a planned release in 2009.

After the death of Scudder in the London flat the rest of the film BBC film takes place in Scotland where it was shot on location Many of the previous ingredients are there including the coded black book, the giving of a speech at a political meeting, the young woman who does not believe him and the overnight stay at an Inn. However the young woman is a real British counter spy and she does not know is that her guardian relative is the traitor and that he, like she, has a photographic memory and having sat in at a meeting where the British defence plans are revealed and discussed he is taking the knowledge out of the country by U boat. The film has a shock ending, nearly.

So altogether there is one book, one comic stage production, one black and white film and two colour versions with a third in the making. There is one made for TV film and 17 previously screened follow up TV shows. This is surprising for such a dodgy story and cannot be regarded as among the great Hitchcock suspense thrillers,

This brings me to the lunchtime film on Monday, the Hitchcock thriller Notorious with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman together with Claude Rains. Ingrid plays a high class playgirl whose reputation for promiscuity and excessive alcohol is the one aspects which does match Ingrid in or out of character. When her father is sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for being a spy for the Nazi regime of Germany Federal agent Grant is told to try and persuade the woman to help them work out what a friend of her father, and one time suitor, played by Claude Rains, is doing in Rio De Janeiro with other known former Nazis and Nazis sympathisers. She only consents because of an attraction to Grant and the key moment in the film is when she is asked by Grant on instruction to become Rain’s lover. She only agrees because she believes Grant wants this, whereas Grant hopes that she will refuse and thus indicate that his feelings for her are reciprocated. He therefore turns cold with her when she not only confides that she had become Rain’s lover but he has asked her to marry him.

This coldness does not prevent Grant with Ingrid’s help discovering the nature of one of the activities although this leads to Ingrid’s life being put at great risk. Being Hitchcock there is a feel good ending and with Grant, Bergman and Rains on screen there is some great acting which makes the film fresh and believable sixty years later.

Just as believable but not in the least entertaining is the news that Mr Ashley has taken Newcastle off the market and is hoping the public will support his continuing plans for the club. I predicted this would be the outcome. Newcastle lost 5.1 to Liverpool at home yesterday before an excellent Christmas home game crowd. Michael Own has indicated he will not sign a new contract and which enables him to leave when his contract ends this summer. I was tempted to watch Newcastle live as Mr Kinnear appeared to be the right man for the present crisis, but no long term if the club is to get into Europe and the big time once more. Now I will stay away just as I refuse to listen to the Legends on 606 after the way two of those on the programme responded to the departure of Kevin Keegan earlier in the year. The Liverpool game was on TV at lunchtime and was embarrassing to watch such was its one sided nature. Steve Gerrard, the captain and England International who scored two goals was home in time to go out for an evening meal with friends in Southport. He has been arrested following an serious assault incident and is yet to be discharged.

I had also hoped, without much conviction that the appointment of Ricky Spreggia as Sunderland manager for the rest of this season and for this to lead to a goof performance good performance at Everton. Alas the team lost.30 and Everton had only their second home win of the season. All three North East teams are likely to struggle for the rest of the season although Sunderland has the best opportunity to finish mid table or a little higher.

Having consumed the defrosted food, Sunday was the opportunity to roast one of the two chickens which were at the back of freezer with roast potatoes, followed by ice cream, and then for the evening have a plate of the remaining salami, a slice of ham, olives and cheese for the evening, with a soup and a banana with half a packet of custard. It was enjoyable, naughty but nice. I had a can of Fosters, deciding that I would save the remaining Peroni until the Foster’s bought in nearly a year ago is finished. There seven Peroni and 10 Fosters left, plus nine bottles of red including two Beaujolais and three Asti. The plan is for this supply to last a minimum of three months and to try and stretch to six without buying in further. The Asti will be drunk at the New Year and the dreaded 70th birthday. Oh what a terrible thought is that 70.

Otley and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Christmas had always been a time of food for me, beginning with the arrival of a food Parcel from Gibraltar immediately after World War II, containing salami, olives sugared almonds, the two kinds of Turron, one almonds baked in egg white into a solid tooth breaking slab covered with a light white wafer, and the soft version of almond paste mixed with honey rather too sweet for my taste, and pulverones, a Spanish candy eaten especially at Christmas and also made from finely ground almonds, Ibérico shortening, sugar, and not much else, so they literally crumble in your mouth. They are made in different forms, with different tastes.

Christmas Dinner developed into a pattern with prawn cocktails where during my adult years my mother made her own sauce. This was followed by turkey and stuffing, cranberry jelly. hot baked ham, roast potatoes and other vegetables including Brussels sprouts. She would make her own Christmas pudding which included sixpenny and three penny pieces in old money and flamed, accompanied with mince pies and brandy sauce. There would be lemonade which later became and Pepsi/ coca cola. In later years I added wine usually an inexpensive sparking. The Christmas puddings were bought prepared and the Turkey changed to a large breast crown.

Christmas Day tea comprised salmon Sandwiches and Christmas Cake. There would be nuts in shell and chocolates to fill in the rest of the day

Boxing Day was cold meats, Turkey, Ham, Salami and pickles. Perhaps a baked potato wrapped in foil oozing with butter at its opening. Possibly Soup especially during the years when at Seaburn, Sunderland there was a walk along the sea front to where up to 1000 brave, mostly young people took a quick dip in the North Sea for Charity.

This year because of great defrost and cook on Christmas Eve the food at Christmas was different but not in its quality or quantity.

Christmas Day Breakfast comprised two small glasses of Asti and sixteen mini sausages wrapped in bacon.

Christmas Day lunch comprised slices of cold beef steak smothered in warm beef gravy and most of the rest of the bottle of Asti. There was a small individual Christmas pudding, a mince pie overpowered by a whole packet of thickly prepared custard, I usually have half a packet and the rest of the Asti. I had consumed a 96p box of chocolate covered nuts on Christmas eve, possible the day before, but I had rationed the thirty expensive chocolate coins in a small wooden box with metal clasp. There were rounds of chocolate made with Java cocoa from the lava planted hills 34%; There was Costa Rican cocoa 38% with its taste of Mocca and olives; The 43% Venezuela was just pure cocoa; the plain chocolate of Ecuador was 52% cocoa; that from San Domingo was 71% strong while the 85% from Ghana was very dark, strong and spicy. I had also rationed small Belgian chocolate cups filled with Praline, Champagne, Mocha, Caramel, and Pistache tasting soft chocolate.

Later there were slices of salami and some pieces of cold spiced Chicken breasts, a slice of cold smoked mackerel, a few olives stuffed with anchovy, a tiny tiny mounds of cheese topped with tiny tiny tiny pieces of olive, onion, basil and tomato, peppers, oregano and garlic. Some grapes and a slice of Vienetta Ice Cream

For boxing day there was time to finish the plate of coated chicken drum sticks, coasted spicy chicken breast pieces, and the second mini Christmas pudding and mince pie with a full packet of thickly prepared instant custard, before going to the match another repeated childhood experience. On return there was hot soup, and then a stir fry of onion, courgette, mange tout and the two remaining slices of beef steak chopped in pieces. There were a couple of slices of salami and ham for supper, a few olives stuffed with anchovy, a tiny tiny mounds of cheese topped with tiny tiny tiny pieces of olive onion, basil and tomato, peppers, oregano and garlic and some grapes. There was also the day’s ration of chocolate made with Java cocoa from the lava planted hills 34%; There was Costa Rican cocoa 38% with its taste of Mocca and olives; The 43% Venezuela was just pure cocoa; the plain chocolate of Ecuador was 52% cocoa; that from San Domingo was 71% strong while the 85% from Ghana was very dark, strong and spicy together with the ration of small Belgian chocolate cups with Praline, Champagne, Mocha, Caramel, and Pistache soft chocolate.

On the third day of Christmas there was a hot soup and two salmon fish cakes covered with a hot parsley sauce and a little of the fish, followed by a mince pie and a few grapes. Later there was a plate of four Jacobs biscuits for cheese, and although I did have four of the tiny tiny Italian mounds of cheese topped with tiny, tiny, tiny pieces of olive, onion, basil and tomato, peppers, oregano and garlic and some grapes, the crackers had thin slices of smoked salmon on them with twists of lemon and a few olives stuffed with anchovy and two slices of salami on the plate.

Later for the evening meal there was a pork chop followed by Vienetta ice cream and washed down with a Peroni Beer. There was also the day’s ration of chocolate made with Java cocoa from the lava planted hills 34%; There was Costa Rican cocoa 38% with its taste of Mocca and olives; The 43% Venezuela was just pure cocoa; the plain chocolate of Ecuador was 52% cocoa; that from San Domingo was 71% strong while the 85% from Ghana was very dark, strong and spicy together with the ration of small Belgian chocolate cups with Praline, Champagne, Mocha, Caramel, and Pistache soft chocolate.

Christmas also became a time for film and this year two will remain memorable. The first was a second viewing which only gained new appreciation and justified staying up until after 1 am for the start and going to A very different film was watched again overnight was the Almodóvar All About my mother 1999. Although as with the majority of Almodóvar films he has a fascination with characters at the edge of a conventional and conservative society still trying to break free from the rigid authority of a Spanish Catholic Church supported fascism. The characters in the film are all explored with a depth of understanding and complexity and the film is a serious study of loss and failure and our inability to repair the damage of mistakes and misjudgements. It is his best film, having experiences nearly all, and this includes the most recent and well known Volver 2006.

To-do Sobre my Madre, the mother in question came to Spain from Argentina with her husband who became a drug using bisexual, to the extent of dressing as a female and having the operation to develop breasts but retaining his manhood. Although part of his/her world the mother decides to run away from Barcelona for Madrid. when she becomes pregnant, without saying a word to her closest other friend also a male female who works the streets. The film opens on the 17th birthday of her son who is trying to become a writer and keeps a journal of his observations and experiences. To protect herself as much as her son, she tells him nothing of his father and their background life together, but takes him to see a contemporary version of the Tennessee Williams play A Street Car Named Desire in which she had played a major role as an amateur actress in her youth. The main character is played by an established actress whose face is seen on large poster hoardings, and the son persuades his mother to stand under an umbrella in the rain to get the autograph. The women leaves with another actress from the play in a taxi, a younger woman who is her lover and companion, and disappointed the young man rushes after vehicle and is knocked down by another and killed. The mother had agreed to tell the son about his father when they returned home.

If this was not tragedy enough, the mother has trained as a nurse and works as a coordinator in a transplant unit and gives consent for the organs of her son to be used to save other lives. She then misuses her position to find out where the heart has been transplanted and as a consequence knows she must leave the job and decides to return to Barcelona to try and find her former husband and tell him that he had a son who has died. This is not a cruel act but one of desperation to find someone who might share in her pain of her grief..

It is on return that the first twists in this melodrama occur. With the help of her former friend who she rescues from a violent assault while “doing business” she goes to visit the nun social worker at a clinic where the former husband had gone for help for drug addiction and then disappeared taking money and belonging of the best friend whose home the two male females had shared. The nun social worker is played by Penelope Cruz who played several alongside roles before coming to the fore in the Hollywood. She is about to go off on a mission to a central American country to replace massacred Sisters. She has no knowledge of the whereabouts of the former husband but has the idea of using the mother to help her own mother as a cook and as a nurse for her father who has severe memory loss. Thus apart from a member of the theatre company there are no normal men in this film which is often the way of Almodóvar whose work has concentrated on the characters, roles and relationships of women. She is rejected for this job but the nun turns to her for help (mothering), after admitting she is pregnant. The mother rejects unable to switch on again the role she has so cruelly lost especially when she finds that the nun is pregnant by her former husband. However she does offer help when the girl has complications and is diagnosed HIV positive thus emphasising that mothering once established tends to finds ways to continue alongside the other roles women are required to fulfil.

Finding the same company is performing the same play in Barcelona the mother not only experiences against the emotions of the night of her son’s death but attempts to see the actress at the very time the companion and performer has walked out on a drug spree. The mother takes on the position as assistant after finding the assistant, and then performs with great acclaim when the young actress is unfit to perform one evening. When the young actress recovers she turns on mother and this ends the job when the mother is forced to reveal the reasons of her original contact and the circumstances of the death of the son. The mother then devotes herself to the care of the nun who dies from the childbirth. Given the custody of the child she leaves again because of difficulties with the grandmother, but she returns after a couple of years, reconciles with the grand mother, finds her friend again and find her former husband who is dying of AIDS. She is able to introduced his son to him and share the grief of the death of their son.

In this film Almodóvar continues his use of vivid colours and cinematic references, All About Eve with Bette Davis and to the play. This is a brilliantly acted film with a brilliant adult script. You care about every character in this film with one exception, the only male male. Almodóvar dedicates his film "To all actresses who have played actresses. To all women who act. To men who act and become women. To all the people who want to be mothers. To my mother.

The contrast with the second memorable film experience could not be greater! I had not seen before The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe It is the first of the Narnia Chronicle series of stories by C S Lewis. I thought this was an excellently constructed film commencing with World War II and the four children, two boys and two girls are evacuated to the large country home of a reclusive professor and female fearsome housekeeper. The youngest girl goes into the wardrobe as part of a hide and seek game and makes her first entry into the frozen snow filled world of Narnia. She is then followed by the youngest brother on her next visit to see the fawn met on her first exploration. The rebellious brother always at odds with the older two meets the Witch who offers him a future if he brings his siblings to meet her. Following a cricket game in which a window is broken all four hide in the wardrobe and learn its secret entry into Narnia and the real adventure begins. The photography is beautiful and spectacular but not magical as in Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The adventure engages and will appeal strongly to the younger adolescent where once the adventure of Biggles and the Famous Five and Seven captured imaginations and influenced future lives.

It is a film about the eventual triumph of good against evil although its message for adolescents is terrifying but not unrealistic. You must learn to fight in order to save yourself and those you care most about, and for the greater good, and because it is can be the right thing to do in certain circumstances.

There were three other films to be mentioned. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor appeared at Oxford Playhouse in a production of Dr Faustus in 1966 by the Oxford University Drama Club. Elizabeth does not speak but looks expressively beautiful and naked not possible when Christopher Marlow had his play produced in 1588, given that all female parts were then played by males.

The 1967 film is in effect the stage play with cinema effects This was not a great performance for Burton whereas the Oxford student playing Mephistopheles was acclaimed. Andreas Teuber went on to become a Philosopher and is present an associate professor at Brandeis University, Massachusetts, USA although he has had guest appearances in TV shows such as I spy and the Big Valley.

The odd film of the holiday was Otley with the excellent British Actor Tom Courtney and a host of subsequent names including Leonard Rosittor, James Bolam and Freddie Jones. Romy Schneider plays a female James Bond character. Tom plays a sixties thief with friends who are in intelligence unknown to him, and who grow weary of providing hospitality and which in the last instance, leads to his being present at a murder and a complex chase mystery film involving various parties who one cares little about. The real villain is a senior figure in the counter intelligence service who is responsible for the setting up of a rogue agency designed to help feed disinformation. When things start to go pear shaped as one person changes sides, the inevitable happens as all traces of this situation have to be eliminated if the man is to get his knighthood which he does before pressed into retirement. Tom Courtney is very convincing as some one who when caught up in the big time tries to run a mile and get himself locked up rather than be killed. He is forced into helping the authorities survives and returns to his former life and loves as the film ends thus adding some reality.

The final film is a heavier dose of reality about the defeat of the French in then Indo China, the war to keep Algeria French. It is a story told through ambition of Anthony Quinn, a French peasant farmer who has risen to become an officer much to the dissatisfaction of the professional officers of the French army which still regarded the officers as representing the upper class of the Republic. Quinn plays the hero creative leader who keeps his men together and alive after their capture at Dien Bien Phu until the Armistice becomes official.

The war had gone on for eight years from 1946 with horrendous casualties on both sides with France losing over 75000 men and nearly the number wounded with an estimated 40000 captured, half of whom following the battle at Dien Bien Phu. The people of Indo China which covered what is now Vietnam Laos and Cambodia lost over 300000 dead more than half a million wounded and 100000 captured, Vietnam was divided at the 17th Parallel and this decision led to the involvement of the South and the Vietnam War and to the eventual USA departure. So much killing over so many years so what was achieved?

Following repatriation Anthony Quinn’s regiment is abandoned but after taking up the suggestion of staff officer regimental historian who joins the front line and is captured and who write a report commending his leadership, Quinn visit the widow of the General who had fallen at the battle, played by Michelle Morgan and through her connections he is given a command in Algeria. Here he finds that the local insurrectionists is a former colleague and officer under his command in Indo China. The Arab Officer is played by George Segal, I kid you not, whose brother is killed for daubing independence slogans after curfew and who becomes an actions after losing the family home and business because of their associations with the ruling French. The methods of both sides moves further and further away from the standards attempted through the Geneva convention, and Quinn is forced to take stronger and stronger methods in order to save his command and become a General. A sub plot is the relationship between the staff officer historian played by Alan Delon and the sister of the Algerian freedom fighter, played by Claudia Cardinale who is a bomb planting terrorist, At the end of the film while Quinn and his officers are being honoraria for their victory, Alan Delon leaves horrified by the tactics being used and being conned by Claudia. As he leaves the barracks he watches Algerians being forced to clean up an Independence slogan of a nearby wall, only then discover others painting new slogans a few yards away. What did France gain? What did the rest of humanity lose?

Volver and Dr Faustus

Christmas had always been a time of food for me, beginning with the arrival of a food Parcel from Gibraltar immediately after World War II, containing salami, olives sugared almonds, the two kinds of Turron, one almonds baked in egg white into a solid tooth breaking slab covered with a light white wafer, and the soft version of almond paste mixed with honey rather too sweet for my taste, and pulverones, a Spanish candy eaten especially at Christmas and also made from finely ground almonds, Ibérico shortening, sugar, and not much else, so they literally crumble in your mouth. They are made in different forms, with different tastes.

Christmas Dinner developed into a pattern with prawn cocktails where during my adult years my mother made her own sauce. This was followed by turkey and stuffing, cranberry jelly. hot baked ham, roast potatoes and other vegetables including Brussels sprouts. She would make her own Christmas pudding which included sixpenny and three penny pieces in old money and flamed, accompanied with mince pies and brandy sauce. There would be lemonade which later became and Pepsi/ coca cola. In later years I added wine usually an inexpensive sparking. The Christmas puddings were bought prepared and the Turkey changed to a large breast crown.

Christmas Day tea comprised salmon Sandwiches and Christmas Cake. There would be nuts in shell and chocolates to fill in the rest of the day

Boxing Day was cold meats, Turkey, Ham, Salami and pickles. Perhaps a baked potato wrapped in foil oozing with butter at its opening. Possibly Soup especially during the years when at Seaburn, Sunderland there was a walk along the sea front to where up to 1000 brave, mostly young people took a quick dip in the North Sea for Charity.

This year because of great defrost and cook on Christmas Eve the food at Christmas was different but not in its quality or quantity.

Christmas Day Breakfast comprised two small glasses of Asti and sixteen mini sausages wrapped in bacon.

Christmas Day lunch comprised slices of cold beef steak smothered in warm beef gravy and most of the rest of the bottle of Asti. There was a small individual Christmas pudding, a mince pie overpowered by a whole packet of thickly prepared custard, I usually have half a packet and the rest of the Asti. I had consumed a 96p box of chocolate covered nuts on Christmas eve, possible the day before, but I had rationed the thirty expensive chocolate coins in a small wooden box with metal clasp. There were rounds of chocolate made with Java cocoa from the lava planted hills 34%; There was Costa Rican cocoa 38% with its taste of Mocca and olives; The 43% Venezuela was just pure cocoa; the plain chocolate of Ecuador was 52% cocoa; that from San Domingo was 71% strong while the 85% from Ghana was very dark, strong and spicy. I had also rationed small Belgian chocolate cups filled with Praline, Champagne, Mocha, Caramel, and Pistache tasting soft chocolate.

Later there were slices of salami and some pieces of cold spiced Chicken breasts, a slice of cold smoked mackerel, a few olives stuffed with anchovy, a tiny tiny mounds of cheese topped with tiny tiny tiny pieces of olive, onion, basil and tomato, peppers, oregano and garlic. Some grapes and a slice of Vienetta Ice Cream

For boxing day there was time to finish the plate of coated chicken drum sticks, coasted spicy chicken breast pieces, and the second mini Christmas pudding and mince pie with a full packet of thickly prepared instant custard, before going to the match another repeated childhood experience. On return there was hot soup, and then a stir fry of onion, courgette, mange tout and the two remaining slices of beef steak chopped in pieces. There were a couple of slices of salami and ham for supper, a few olives stuffed with anchovy, a tiny tiny mounds of cheese topped with tiny tiny tiny pieces of olive onion, basil and tomato, peppers, oregano and garlic and some grapes. There was also the day’s ration of chocolate made with Java cocoa from the lava planted hills 34%; There was Costa Rican cocoa 38% with its taste of Mocca and olives; The 43% Venezuela was just pure cocoa; the plain chocolate of Ecuador was 52% cocoa; that from San Domingo was 71% strong while the 85% from Ghana was very dark, strong and spicy together with the ration of small Belgian chocolate cups with Praline, Champagne, Mocha, Caramel, and Pistache soft chocolate.

On the third day of Christmas there was a hot soup and two salmon fish cakes covered with a hot parsley sauce and a little of the fish, followed by a mince pie and a few grapes. Later there was a plate of four Jacobs biscuits for cheese, and although I did have four of the tiny tiny Italian mounds of cheese topped with tiny, tiny, tiny pieces of olive, onion, basil and tomato, peppers, oregano and garlic and some grapes, the crackers had thin slices of smoked salmon on them with twists of lemon and a few olives stuffed with anchovy and two slices of salami on the plate.

Later for the evening meal there was a pork chop followed by Vienetta ice cream and washed down with a Peroni Beer. There was also the day’s ration of chocolate made with Java cocoa from the lava planted hills 34%; There was Costa Rican cocoa 38% with its taste of Mocca and olives; The 43% Venezuela was just pure cocoa; the plain chocolate of Ecuador was 52% cocoa; that from San Domingo was 71% strong while the 85% from Ghana was very dark, strong and spicy together with the ration of small Belgian chocolate cups with Praline, Champagne, Mocha, Caramel, and Pistache soft chocolate.

Christmas also became a time for film and this year two will remain memorable. The first was a second viewing which only gained new appreciation and justified staying up until after 1 am for the start and going to A very different film was watched again overnight was the Almodóvar All About my mother 1999. Although as with the majority of Almodóvar films he has a fascination with characters at the edge of a conventional and conservative society still trying to break free from the rigid authority of a Spanish Catholic Church supported fascism. The characters in the film are all explored with a depth of understanding and complexity and the film is a serious study of loss and failure and our inability to repair the damage of mistakes and misjudgements. It is his best film, having experiences nearly all, and this includes the most recent and well known Volver 2006.

To-do Sobre my Madre, the mother in question came to Spain from Argentina with her husband who became a drug using bisexual, to the extent of dressing as a female and having the operation to develop breasts but retaining his manhood. Although part of his/her world the mother decides to run away from Barcelona for Madrid. when she becomes pregnant, without saying a word to her closest other friend also a male female who works the streets. The film opens on the 17th birthday of her son who is trying to become a writer and keeps a journal of his observations and experiences. To protect herself as much as her son, she tells him nothing of his father and their background life together, but takes him to see a contemporary version of the Tennessee Williams play A Street Car Named Desire in which she had played a major role as an amateur actress in her youth. The main character is played by an established actress whose face is seen on large poster hoardings, and the son persuades his mother to stand under an umbrella in the rain to get the autograph. The women leaves with another actress from the play in a taxi, a younger woman who is her lover and companion, and disappointed the young man rushes after vehicle and is knocked down by another and killed. The mother had agreed to tell the son about his father when they returned home.

If this was not tragedy enough, the mother has trained as a nurse and works as a coordinator in a transplant unit and gives consent for the organs of her son to be used to save other lives. She then misuses her position to find out where the heart has been transplanted and as a consequence knows she must leave the job and decides to return to Barcelona to try and find her former husband and tell him that he had a son who has died. This is not a cruel act but one of desperation to find someone who might share in her pain of her grief..

It is on return that the first twists in this melodrama occur. With the help of her former friend who she rescues from a violent assault while “doing business” she goes to visit the nun social worker at a clinic where the former husband had gone for help for drug addiction and then disappeared taking money and belonging of the best friend whose home the two male females had shared. The nun social worker is played by Penelope Cruz who played several alongside roles before coming to the fore in the Hollywood. She is about to go off on a mission to a central American country to replace massacred Sisters. She has no knowledge of the whereabouts of the former husband but has the idea of using the mother to help her own mother as a cook and as a nurse for her father who has severe memory loss. Thus apart from a member of the theatre company there are no normal men in this film which is often the way of Almodóvar whose work has concentrated on the characters, roles and relationships of women. She is rejected for this job but the nun turns to her for help (mothering), after admitting she is pregnant. The mother rejects unable to switch on again the role she has so cruelly lost especially when she finds that the nun is pregnant by her former husband. However she does offer help when the girl has complications and is diagnosed HIV positive thus emphasising that mothering once established tends to finds ways to continue alongside the other roles women are required to fulfil.

Finding the same company is performing the same play in Barcelona the mother not only experiences against the emotions of the night of her son’s death but attempts to see the actress at the very time the companion and performer has walked out on a drug spree. The mother takes on the position as assistant after finding the assistant, and then performs with great acclaim when the young actress is unfit to perform one evening. When the young actress recovers she turns on mother and this ends the job when the mother is forced to reveal the reasons of her original contact and the circumstances of the death of the son. The mother then devotes herself to the care of the nun who dies from the childbirth. Given the custody of the child she leaves again because of difficulties with the grandmother, but she returns after a couple of years, reconciles with the grand mother, finds her friend again and find her former husband who is dying of AIDS. She is able to introduced his son to him and share the grief of the death of their son.

In this film Almodóvar continues his use of vivid colours and cinematic references, All About Eve with Bette Davis and to the play. This is a brilliantly acted film with a brilliant adult script. You care about every character in this film with one exception, the only male male. Almodóvar dedicates his film "To all actresses who have played actresses. To all women who act. To men who act and become women. To all the people who want to be mothers. To my mother.

The contrast with the second memorable film experience could not be greater! I had not seen before The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe It is the first of the Narnia Chronicle series of stories by C S Lewis. I thought this was an excellently constructed film commencing with World War II and the four children, two boys and two girls are evacuated to the large country home of a reclusive professor and female fearsome housekeeper. The youngest girl goes into the wardrobe as part of a hide and seek game and makes her first entry into the frozen snow filled world of Narnia. She is then followed by the youngest brother on her next visit to see the fawn met on her first exploration. The rebellious brother always at odds with the older two meets the Witch who offers him a future if he brings his siblings to meet her. Following a cricket game in which a window is broken all four hide in the wardrobe and learn its secret entry into Narnia and the real adventure begins. The photography is beautiful and spectacular but not magical as in Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The adventure engages and will appeal strongly to the younger adolescent where once the adventure of Biggles and the Famous Five and Seven captured imaginations and influenced future lives.

It is a film about the eventual triumph of good against evil although its message for adolescents is terrifying but not unrealistic. You must learn to fight in order to save yourself and those you care most about, and for the greater good, and because it is can be the right thing to do in certain circumstances.

There were three other films to be mentioned. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor appeared at Oxford Playhouse in a production of Dr Faustus in 1966 by the Oxford University Drama Club. Elizabeth does not speak but looks expressively beautiful and naked not possible when Christopher Marlow had his play produced in 1588, given that all female parts were then played by males.

The 1967 film is in effect the stage play with cinema effects This was not a great performance for Burton whereas the Oxford student playing Mephistopheles was acclaimed. Andreas Teuber went on to become a Philosopher and is present an associate professor at Brandeis University, Massachusetts, USA although he has had guest appearances in TV shows such as I spy and the Big Valley.

The odd film of the holiday was Otley with the excellent British Actor Tom Courtney and a host of subsequent names including Leonard Rosittor, James Bolam and Freddie Jones. Romy Schneider plays a female James Bond character. Tom plays a sixties thief with friends who are in intelligence unknown to him, and who grow weary of providing hospitality and which in the last instance, leads to his being present at a murder and a complex chase mystery film involving various parties who one cares little about. The real villain is a senior figure in the counter intelligence service who is responsible for the setting up of a rogue agency designed to help feed disinformation. When things start to go pear shaped as one person changes sides, the inevitable happens as all traces of this situation have to be eliminated if the man is to get his knighthood which he does before pressed into retirement. Tom Courtney is very convincing as some one who when caught up in the big time tries to run a mile and get himself locked up rather than be killed. He is forced into helping the authorities survives and returns to his former life and loves as the film ends thus adding some reality.

The final film is a heavier dose of reality about the defeat of the French in then Indo China, the war to keep Algeria French. It is a story told through ambition of Anthony Quinn, a French peasant farmer who has risen to become an officer much to the dissatisfaction of the professional officers of the French army which still regarded the officers as representing the upper class of the Republic. Quinn plays the hero creative leader who keeps his men together and alive after their capture at Dien Bien Phu until the Armistice becomes official.

The war had gone on for eight years from 1946 with horrendous casualties on both sides with France losing over 75000 men and nearly the number wounded with an estimated 40000 captured, half of whom following the battle at Dien Bien Phu. The people of Indo China which covered what is now Vietnam Laos and Cambodia lost over 300000 dead more than half a million wounded and 100000 captured, Vietnam was divided at the 17th Parallel and this decision led to the involvement of the South and the Vietnam War and to the eventual USA departure. So much killing over so many years so what was achieved?

Following repatriation Anthony Quinn’s regiment is abandoned but after taking up the suggestion of staff officer regimental historian who joins the front line and is captured and who write a report commending his leadership, Quinn visit the widow of the General who had fallen at the battle, played by Michelle Morgan and through her connections he is given a command in Algeria. Here he finds that the local insurrectionists is a former colleague and officer under his command in Indo China. The Arab Officer is played by George Segal, I kid you not, whose brother is killed for daubing independence slogans after curfew and who becomes an actions after losing the family home and business because of their associations with the ruling French. The methods of both sides moves further and further away from the standards attempted through the Geneva convention, and Quinn is forced to take stronger and stronger methods in order to save his command and become a General. A sub plot is the relationship between the staff officer historian played by Alan Delon and the sister of the Algerian freedom fighter, played by Claudia Cardinale who is a bomb planting terrorist, At the end of the film while Quinn and his officers are being honoraria for their victory, Alan Delon leaves horrified by the tactics being used and being conned by Claudia. As he leaves the barracks he watches Algerians being forced to clean up an Independence slogan of a nearby wall, only then discover others painting new slogans a few yards away. What did France gain? What did the rest of humanity lose?