Fellini's Roma and Carmen Jones Carmen

Around1954/1955 I saw the film Carmen Jones for the first time with Dorothy Dandridge in the lead role. I was still at school and the aspect of the film which affected me was Pearl Bailey singing "beat out dat rhythm on a drum". It uncorked an attraction to wild music at least that is how I regarded jazz in the days before rock and roll, until I understood that considerable organised musicianship was required to create the spontaneity. I bought the LP as soon as I stated work and played and played until I knew all the contents.

I cannot remember when I first saw Carmen, the Opera, but I believe it was with the aunties locally in Croydon. I now have a number of versions on video, including three 90min recordings of the same production but with different lead singers. I also have the Regina Resnik, Joan Sutherland performance on CD;

I resurrected my interest in the past fortnight because a new production called CarMan is coming to the Newcastle Playhouse. I thought I had such a familiarity with the film because of the LP and seeing it on TV several times, and with the opera recordings and theatrical experiences that I decided to put myself to the test and write a film review before seeing the film, once more on mail order DVD. Of course I failed the test and had to resort to my reliable memory jogger, Wikipedia. I had known that Harry Belfonte had been dubbed, I had just forgotten the fact and the singer was Le Vern Hutchinson.

Fortunately my DVD player had not needed repair after all. I had gone to sleep in the afternoon while watching Fellini's Roma, and went to visit my mother leaving the disk in the machine and forgot about it and when I attempted to view again it would not load and I was too busy to arrange a repair as a I tried another DVD of my own without success. I decided to try the Carmen Jones Mail order library DVD and was able to watch the film, so it was not the machine. I soft wiped both the problem disks and they worked too, so belatedly for my piece about
Rome the city, I can now write about Roma, the film.

I like the film because it is a coherent and authentic work although set in the USA about Carmen who works in a parachute factory and where the bullfighter has become a prize fighting boxer.
Of course the music and singing in the opera is great but I have two reservations about most of the performance I have viewed. The first is the singing in French of a work about Spanish passion. This has always struck me an incongruous. Secondly, many of the female leads did not strike me as having that raw sex appeal which will make a man turn his back on a sweetheart, wife, family, and career, and then murder rather than accept he has been nut one more conquest for someone who like the bullfighter or boxer, likes the sport, and which has become a self destructive addiction.
I suspect more women, and men for that matter have the power within, irrespective of personal frame, but only dome project and then make use of what in the instance of Carmen was a lethal force. I only knew one Opera singer, who I was asked to drive to a Top of the Pops show because she knew he producer and he had promised that the camera would show her in the audience and for which she was wearing an amazingly short skirt even for the sixties, although the cameraman/ cameraman in those days had a titillating interest in young women in short skirts, or perhaps it was some visual editor or producer or director guiding to maintain and develop audiences. I digress, a little but this is an overall work about recreating past experience, and the image is appropriate for a Fellini film!
I have a greater recollection of when I watched Carmen Jones in a cinema theatre, than Roma which was issued in 1972 when I lived in Cheshire, and visits to the cinema were infrequent. Maybe I never have experienced at the cinema and it was a subsequent TV showing. I watched the film through this time without sleeping or a note book to subsequently work out the significance of images, having read some internet beforehand, I knew what to expect and look out for.
The main thrust of this documentary style montage without any story line, apart from inserting himself and his experiences, is to compare Rome of fascist wartime Mussolini with the sixties of hippies, bikers and when the buzz concept was alienation, and with references to Roman history and his own childhood.

It was one childhood experience which reminded of one of my own. Schoolteacher priests show pupils slides of ancient monuments and in the days before TV magic lantern shows were the thing, and I still have the one I acquired to show family event slides. In Roma, a slide of the bare back of a young woman, in bath costume, but this provoked a frenzied reaction from the boys who were told to avert their eyes. Around the same age the boys I went on school trip to a cinema at the park end of Oxford Street to watch a film about the life the previous Pope. It was a special morning show, we arrived late, and were accommodated in the managers viewing lounge at the back of the cinema. The film was a "Father Brown" story, I think, because I remember going to the Library for the books, except that the film was in French with subtitles and there was stunned silence at the time, although much commenting on the way back at a scene when a fly stopped briefly on a naked female breast. The contrast between the reaction of the Fellini schoolboys and the mixed audience of school children at the cinema sums up he difference between the English approach to sex and self expression and the Mediterranean people, and which includes the French.

Fellini has this attraction to bizarre looking women and brothels and in the film first draws an unkind picture of rampant men of all ages clamouring for their time with hard extrovert business women of the day and night, with two exceptions, the shyish, observing, rather bemused young man of himself, and the classy bright and sensitive "working girl" who agrees to going walk with him out, one morning, thus identifying himself as being different from everyone else. However his venom is focused on the hierarchy of the Catholic Church as an aging Italian Noble woman bemoans the loss of the previous relationship with the church, in a bizarre fashion of clerical habits thus indicating the belief that the church had become all fur coat and no knickers.

The film also confirms the belief which I expressed in the piece on Rome that Italians have nostalgia not for Mussolini the man or the brutality and acquiescence of the regime to Nazi doctrines, but for the sense of community and unit, and of getting things done which is government engendered. The film is rich in community activities and togetherness of war time activities and although there are interjected flashes of congregating hippies he appears to be sympathetic to police beating protestors and to an affluent diner who describes them as scum. The final sequence is a multitude of bikers roaring about the deserted streets of Rome making normal conversation impossible. It is evident that Fellini was not just reporting the alienation which many felt from society in the early seventies, he was expressing his own.

I have not researched or made any kind of special study, but it does seem to me that the Italians are more open and honest about what led and what happened in their country in the year of the reign of Mussolini than perhaps has been the situation in Germany, the UK and elsewhere in Europe, and we all have about the plight if other oppressed or starving, or sick people in other parts of the world since. I can never accept the indiscriminate bombing of non combatants by anyone in any circumstance. Did we really need to obliterate and maiming of German civilian populations, and when as now, we rightly condemn the former leader of Iraq for his use of weapons of mass destruction, does that put him in the same league as the US President who authorised the use of two atomic bombs, and would more have been used, if Japan had not surrendered? For those who argue that it is right to hold weapons of mass destruction as a deterrent and we would never use them in reality one has to accuse of being dishonest. If we have them we will use them in certain circumstances, and to argue that we have a God and one of his churches on our side. It is in the nature of Government, regardless of the form of government. I know it is irrational but I have a greater sympathy for a crazed for the behaviour of impulsively crazed soldier of Carmen, Carmen Jones and or in Iraq, Vietnam or where ever than I do for the Generals and Politicians who order them to unleash the devil

Twenty Four Hours of Oscars

For almost all my life after I was about six years and the Second World War had ended I have been interested in the Hollywood Oscars. For the greater part of my childhood I was taken every Monday and Thursday evening to the Odeon Cinema Wallington, because my care mother who worked in various shops in Wallington had befriended an usherette who got for her a half price concession card so that we paid only a few old pence to attend. I would also go to the Saturday morning Matinee for children and at weekends, if I was lucky I would be taken by older cousins to see films at Sutton where there was a Grenada and a Gaumont, or Purley where they was a Grenada and one other, or Croydon where there was the Davis which could seat several thousand as well as other Cinema chains. Sometimes I would also be taken by my birth and care mothers and their older sister to the Odeon Wallington at the weekend when during the interval between the two main pictures an organist would play and the audience would sing. In those days the cinema would be brightly lit and there would be curtains to be moved to the side to reveal the screen. There were three categories of films, the U which was open to everyone and the A film where children had to be accompanied by an adult and the X film where officially one had to be 18 but along with everyone else we would go as soon as we were sixteen and in my case had left school and started work. I have now seen almost all the films which were awarded the best picture, some several times with one the 1943 winner Casablanca, at least once a year.

I do not remember the 1927 winner Wings with 1928 The Broadway Melody, the first remembered. It was several decades later that I saw All Quiet on the Western Front 1929/30, seen several times along with Grand Hotel 31/32. I am not sure about Cimerron which I may be confusing with the Cimarron Kid which is being shown regularly on cable and satellite. Cavalcade, It happened one Night, Mutiny on the Bounty have been seen some several times from the 1930’s but I have a query about, the Great Zigfield not to be confused with the Zigfield Follies, another query is the Life of Emile Zola, but definitely, You cannot Take it with you and Gone with the Wind which was the favourite of my care mother who would see the film every time it was shown subsequently on television during her later life.

Others from this era experienced, and often viewed several times over the years which were highly regarded in their day, were A Tale of two Cities, Lost Horizon, A Star is Born, The Citadel, Grand Illusion and Pygmalion, Stage Door, Alexander’s Ragtime Band, The Good Earth and the Adventures of Robin Hood, San Francisco and Test Pilot, Dark Victory and Goodbye Mr Chips, Mr Smith goes to Washington, Of Mice and Men( I have book), Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights, Mr Deeds goes to Town, Little Women(I had the book and may still have)( which was an eleven plus film) Farewell to arms, I am a Fugitive from the Chain Gang, The Private life of Henry VIII and State Fair, The Thin man, Shanghai Express, David Copperfield and Les Miserables.

1940 Oscar winners were Rebecca, How green was my valley (I have the book) Mrs Minerva, Lost Weekend, The Best Years of Our Lives, Going My Way, Gentleman’s agreement and Hamlet which I saw in theatre when it was released, All the Kings Men, and Casablanca as previously highlighted. Others were The Razors Edge, The Yearling, Foreign Correspondent and the Grapes of Wrath, The Great Dictator, The Philadelphia Story, Citizen Kane, The Little Foxes, The Maltese Falcon and Sargeant York, Random Harvest, The 49th Parallel which I have just acquired the DVD, The Magnificent Ambersons and Yankee Doodle Dandy, For Whom the Bell Tolls and Heaven Can wait, In Which we Serve (have DVD) and the Oxbow Incident and Madam Curie. Double Indemnity and Gas Light, The Bishop’s Wife, Great Expectations and Johnny Belinda which I remember seeing at the Wallington Odeon. Miracle on 34th Street and the Red Shoes, again in theatre. The Heiress and Twelve O’clock High and the Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

The 1950 winners were All about Eve, An American in Paris, The Greatest Show on Earth and From Here to Eternity, Marty and On the Waterfront, Around the World in Eighty Days and Gigi and Ben Hur were all seen in theatres. Others in the running were Father of the Bride, King Solomon’s Mines and Sunset Boulevard, High Noon. Ivanhoe, The Quiet Man and Moulin Rouge(have DVD), Julius Caesar, The Robe, Roman Holiday, Shane, The Caine Mutiny, Seven Brides for Seven brothers, the Country Girl and Three Coins in the Fountain. Love is a many Splendid things, Picnic, Mr Roberts and the Rose Tattoo, Friendly Persuasion, Giant, The King and I, The Ten Commandments(have DVD) and Peyton Place, 12 Angry Men, Witness for the Prosecution and Sayonara, Cat on the Hot Tin Roof, The Defiant ones and Separate Tables. The Defiant Ones and the Diary of Anne Frank, The Nuns Story, Anatomy of Murder and Room at the Top(have book).

1960 winners were The Apartment, West Side Story and Lawrence of Arabia (DVD and Seven Pillars of Wisdom) Tom Jones, My Fair Lady and the Sound of Music (Video Tape), A Man for All Seasons, In the Heat of the Night and Oliver and Midnight Cowboy. Others were Sons and Lovers, Elmer Gantry and the Sundowners; The Guns of Navarone and visited film site(DVD) Judgement at Nuremberg and Hustler, the Longest Day, Mutiny on the Bounty and Kill a Mockingbird. Cleopatra and How the West were won. Becket, Dr Strangelove (DVD), Mary Poppins and Zorba the Greek. Dr Zhivago. Ship of Fools, Darling and Alfie, The Sand Pebbles and Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolf. Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Doctor Doolittle and Guess who is coming to Dinner. Funny Girl, The Lion in Winter and Romeo and Juliet. Butch Cassidy, Anne of a Thousands days and Hello Dolly.

1970 Winners were Patton and the French Connection, The Sting, The Godfather Part II and One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest Rocky and Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter and Kramer V Kramer. Others were Love Story, Mash and Five Easy Pieces. A Clockwork Orange, Nicholas and Alexander, Fiddle on the Roof and the Last Picture Show. Cabaret (DVD) and Deliverance. A Touch of Class. The Exorcist and American Graffiti. China Town, The Towering Inferno and Lenny. Cries and Whispers, Jaws and Nashville, All the Presidents Men(DVD) and Taxi Driver. Julia, Star Wars and the Turning Point. Midnight Express and Heaven can Wait. Apocalypse Now and All that Jazz.

1980 winners were Ordinary People (I do not remember seeing) Chariots of Fire, Ghandi(DVD), Terms of Endearment, Amadeus(DVD) Out of Africa, Platoon(Video) The Last Emperor, Rain man and Driving Miss Daisy. Others Coalminer’s daughter. Raging Bull(Video), Tess and Elephant Man, Reds(seen in Paris), Atlantic City, On Golden Pond (DVD) and Raiders of Lost Ark(on ferry from Holland). E.T(DVD), Tootsie and The Verdict. The Big Chill, A Passage to India, The Color Purple and Prizzi’s Honour. Children of the Lesser God, a Room with a view, Hannah and her Sisters, and the Mission (DVD), Fatal Attraction. The Accidental Tourist, Mississippi Burning and Dangerous Liaisons. Dead Poet’s Society and Born on the Fourth of July (video) together with My Left Foot.

1990 winners were Dancing with Wolves, The Silence of Lambs, Unforgiven and Schindler’s List, Brave Heart and the English Patient (DVD), Titanic and Shakespeare in Love and American Beauty (DVD) Forest Gump Others Godfather III and Goodfellows. Bugsy, JFK (DVD) and the Prince of Tides. The Crying Game, A few Good Men(DVD), The Scent of a woman and Howard’s End. In the Name of the Father, the Piano and the Remains of the Day. Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pulp Fiction and the Shawshank Redemption. The Fugitive and Apollo 13. As Good as it Gets, Life is Beautiful, Babe and Sense and Sensibility. Secrets and Lies, Jerry McGuire and Fargo. The Full Monty, LA Confidential and Good Will Hunting. Elizabeth and Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, Cider House Rules(book). The Green Mile, and the Sixth Sense.

2000 winners are Gladiator(DVD) Beautiful Mind, Chicago(DVD), Lord of the Rings(both sets of DVD’s and books), Million Dollar Baby, Crash, The Departed and No Country for Old Men, Slum Dog Millionaire, Others Chocolate(DVD) Crouching Tiger(DVD, Erin Brockovitch and Traffic. Gosford Park, Moulin Rouge(DVD) and Lord of the Rings( Both sets of DVD’s book). Gangs of New York, The Hours (DVD), The Pianist (DVD and book), The Lord of the Rings (sets of DVD’s and book), Lost in Translation (DVD) Master and Commander, Mystic River and Seabiscuit. The Aviator, Finding Neverland and Ray (DVD). Brokeback Mountain, Munich, Goodnight and Good Luck. Babel, Letters to Iwo Jima, The Queen and Little Miss Sunshine. Atonement, Juno and Michael Clayton. Those highlighted had greater impact than the others. I do not remember seeing Oscar winners Wings, Ordinary People and did not see Million Dollar Baby with a question mark over Cimerron, The Life of Emile Zola and the Great Zigfield which I would need to see again to remember if I have seen before. Several of the Oscar winners and contenders from the 1930’s I did not see until the 1940’s and many of those from the 1940’s I am not sure if I saw first in theatre, or subsequently on Terrestrial or Satellite. Some films such as Margaret Lockwood are Wicked Lady or the early Walt Disney Films. Such as Snow White they left more of an impression, not always a good impression, than those which highly regarded in their day. Some films not on these lists were better or made a greater impressions than many included such as The African Queen, Les Enfant du Paradis (Oxford) Paths of Glory (Oxford), Richard III, The Third Man, The Thirty Nine Steps (original) and Whisky Galore, The Lady Vanishes (original) and It’s a Wonderful Life. Two films in Barry Norman’s 100 lists I did not see until recent years Wild Strawberries and La Strada with both in my Top List as well as Scenes from a Marriage and Saraband, Autumn Sonata and La Dolce Vita, the latter which I did see shortly after release. Many films affect me in childhood while as are important because of the place, the person/people association or the issues, films such as Get Carter and The Wicker Man from recent years, Morning Departure from immediately after World War 2, Bill Haley’s Rock around the Clock, with the dancing in the aisles, Turning the Key Softly and a Bridget Bardot on my first date, the choice of the first date to the disapproval of her parents. This makes me want to do a different piece on films which had an influence and why, if I can now remember or am prepared to say. Another piece will be on actors and acting performances. For example I do not believe that Doubt is a great film but the performances of Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman are together with the actors who play the young nun and the boy’s mother are outstanding. I thoroughly enjoyed Slumdog Millionaire but it was the performances of the children in the early part of the film which impressed more than the adolescents and young adults. I am in advance of myself.

For the greater part decade when I held a cinema see everything ticket, and commenced to keep records of films seen, reviews or my own notes, my interest in those nominated at the Oscars has increased. I have debate watching the Oscars live, resisting so far paying for Sky films as I have seen most of the films which they shown in Theatre or have already seen on TV, DVD or Video. This was the reason why I selected the internet DVD subscription instead because I wanted to look back on the films of Directors such as Bergman and Fellini, and then discovered Almodovar. There is a lot about the Oscars which I do not like, I avoid the Red Carpet shows where remarkably silly and uneducated young women chatter away about dresses and make stupid comments or ask the Actors cringe questions. While I understand that most individual acting performances are the result of the team work of the various technical and directorial staff on films which are often listed in the credits in their hundreds, why do recipients have to claim the crew is the best ever, every time. When a stage actor gets an award they talk of other actors and people who influenced them but I cannot recall hearing about the lighting or the sound. I also believe there should be a better way of paying tribute to those have died, because now it is terribly rushed.

This year I was tempted to go to bed, and keep away from the news until the Sky One showing of edited highlights on Monday evening. However a couple of years back when I did this, I was horrified to find that Sky used over half the two hours allocated to the red carpet, after awards interviews and parties and adverts. The problem is that Hollywood has become schizoid as it is split between those who want to make the award ceremony as big an earner as possible by restricting coverage to pay for view TV in one form of another and those who want more people to go and see the nominated films and make money that way and which involves making the viewing of the ceremony free.

In the event what happened was the wrong choice in every respect. I went to bed but was restless and tired and went to sleep waking about two thirty. I should have returned to sleep as usual but collected the battery operated radio from the bathroom and tried to listen to that, but was very tired so switched off and tried to sleep but could not, got up and listen to LBC radio on Sky digital where the two commentators were awful, sneering, without any good understanding of the cinema or the ability to communicate live events on the radio. They were typical example of the kind of journalists who only thrive on bad story or dramatic story news. They become quickly bored because they are such boring people and cannot cope when the predictable happens. Meryl Streep gave two brilliant performances this year, for Mama Mia and Doubt, superior to the two of Kate Winslet, although I thought her performances were also worthy of an award and superior to that off Angelina Jolie. I have not seen the other two actors nominated Anne Hathaway or Melissa Leo. However Kate had been nominated five times without success, or a Golden Globe until this year, whereas Streep has a total 15 nominations and two Oscars and over 20 other major awards including Golden Globes, Bafta’s and Life Achievement.

I have not seen Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight but did in Brokeback Mountain. He was a young man destined for greatness and his premature death meant that there was an additional reason for honouring him and his family. I would be surprised if his performance was in the same class as that as Philip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt though. Hollywood was split over Mickey Rourke, talented but messed up of his own making. I did not want to see the Wrestler because wrestling is more of a fixed fraud than professional Boxing, although a close run thing, with its fixing of gambling and other criminal aspects. I though Frank Langella was outstanding and head and shoulders above everyone else as best actor in a male role, butt with the recent attacks on the Gay community in the USA it was inevitable it would go to Sean Penn for his performance in Milk. Having not seen the wrestler I cannot comment on the Performance of Marisa Tomei and I am yet to see Penelope Cruz but she is a fine actress whose previous performance deserved recognition outside of Spain. I now come to best Picture and best Director. I thought Slum Dog Millionaire was the best all-round film of the year although I was disappointed that Boy in Stripped Pyjamas did not feature. However the extent of the awards given was more to do with two non performance reasons. The first is that Hollywood wants to compete more with Bollywood in India as India becomes an economic player on the world stage and secondly Hollywood wanted to show support for India following the latest Mumbai massacre and its opposition to what is happening in Pakistan and Afghanistan. I thought the visual effects and make up in Benjamin Button were brilliant as was the performance of Taraji P Henson as his surrogate mother. It is also an imaginative concept, however Brad Pitt is just below the level of the other nominated performance and the story was too Forest Gump for my liking.. I enjoyed The Duchess so was pleased it gained an award for Costume and that Australia got a mention along with the Changeling which I thought was an important film and Angelina merited her nomination. There is only one regret rather than dissent and that is that In Bruges did not win the best script. I am usually opposed the gratuitous use of swearing in films but In Bruges is so dark witted, nearly said bloody funny, that for once it was the authentic use of the f word by the three central characters which added to an already rich script rather than detracted. That’s that I guess for another year or at least until the autumn as film makers usually save their best until the autumn and New Year.

Aces High

A modern take on the young flyer of the First World War is provided in Aces High which starts at an English Public School with the Headmaster reminding of the Crusades, the Armada and that the importance of playing the game for the games sake! The head of house is Malcolm McDowell who has joined the new Army Air Force and he expresses the wish that the war will not be over before his fellow pupils are able to join in. There are shots of him with his parents and girlfriend. He is confident to the point of being arrogant and has the world before him

The scene switches to a couple of years later when one of the adoring young men at school where McDowell was head of house arrives at an airfield in France when Dowell is the Squadron Leader. He is revealed as the brother of McDowell’s fiancée. McDowell needs a constant flow of alcohol to get in a plane and to undertake the responsibility of sending a regular flow of new recruits to meet their deaths. Another young officer played by Simon Ward has lost his nerve and threaded to desert if Simon cannot find a way to get home on medical grounds. The staff officer is played by Christopher Plummer as someone who is part of the Public school upper class world of Edwardian England who tries to maintain standards amidst the horror.

This is reflected when after McDowell shoots down a plane where the pilot survives, he claims him for 24 hours to mark his survival and give him a party before going into captivity, in a scene reminiscent of the film of Colonel Blimp in which a capture German officer known to Blimp before the war is invited to dine at his club on parole.

The new pilot survives his first flight and then is taken by Dowell to the French front line to collect the German pilot and this provides the opportunity to bring home the reality of the war which the three 1939-1945 films do not. There is a crocodile of men blinded by mustard gas, medical staff covered in blood and a [padre attending to the dying and the dead,
An aged Ray Milland and Trevor Howard play staff officers at the HQ who need to know if a gap in photograph recognisance is a natural hill or a fortified position and decide a photograph must be taken although a continuous bombardment and counter bombardment of the big guns is taking place in advance of an assault to gain ground. The potential cost is calculated with the loss of a pilot or two against that of several hundred or men if they advance and find the hill is a concrete gun emplacement. When at HQ to get the orders McDowell asks about the issuing of parachutes he is told that the request is rejected because it would likely get in the way of the pilots using their initiative to protect the plane.
On a subsequent mission a pilot jumps to his death rather than stay in plane when it is on fire. The senior officers chat about Lloyd George having a bedroom next to the Cabinet Office with a separate entrance to entertain his lovers.
On the photography mission Christopher Plummer is killed although he manages to take the required photos with the plane piloted by the new recruit who is much affected by the death. The squadron is then required to attack spotting balloons and during this mission the brother in law to be gets his first kill and then accidentally crashes into an enemy fighter coming in the opposite direction. At least he has had a night out with his comrades at a local French Inn frequented by ladies of good virtue one of whom takes the young man to her home. McDowell is then seen greeting three fresh faced recruits while he tries to write a letter to the parents of his fiancée. This is most realistic of the four films and released in the mid 1970’s when feelings about the war had began to soften and a new generation had grown up without any knowledge.

The Way to the Stars

The Way to the stars was a Terrence Rattigan script which continues where Angels One Five left off. This time it is John Mills who plays the newly qualified pilot in 1940, a former school master attached to an established flying unit used to attacks from the enemy on their base and who have quickly become an established part of the local town and community. The focus is the small hotel with permanent paying guests which includes a married aunt and her companion niece. The new arrival also has a shaky start with his first landing and takes time to settle in.

The Squadron Leader, Trevor Howard in his first film role is shot down and killed, and his position is taken over by Michael Redgrave who initially shares a room with Mills at the airfield. Redgrave marries the manageress of the hotel and they have a son and Mills falls for the niece staying at the Golden Lion hotel public house with her aunt. He is about to pop the question when Redgrave is killed and this leads him to sever relations with the girl on the grounds that those engaged in war have no right to marry and have children until the conflict is over. Because the film is to have a happy ending, (it was released in 1945), Mills is able to survive by being transferred to operational control after completing his first period of flying missions and then is transferred back to flying, to bombers at another aerodrome after the USA enters the war.

The film pays tribute to the contribution of USSAF service personnel who also quickly settle into local life outside of flying although the brash and forward ways of some take some getting used too. The film skates over some of the realities, especially the conflicts between American and British services over relationships with unmarried girls and some wives. Instead, the focus is on a happily married USSAF flight Captain who strikes up a genuine friendship with the widow and her son, and the community, entertaining local children at an annual party arranged by the local Anglican Vicar played by Felix Aylmer. The Captain is about to be sent home to become an instructor but hesitates in part because he has not heard from his wife, because of a hint at the relationship with the landlady developing beyond friendship and because he does not want to leave his nine person crew of the Flying Fortresses who are also nearing completion of their period of mission.

Just after announcing his decision not to accept the instructor’s post there are three missing pales on a mission and after two make it back, the damaged plane of the USSAF Captain returns with one of the four engines damaged and other problems, particularly that there is a 500 pound bomb lodged which cannot be released. All nine crew members parachute to safety but the Captain refuses in case the plane falls in such a way to harm the local community and therefore he crashes the plane ending his own life. The part is played by Douglas Montgomery.
A feature of this production was the poem For Johnny
For Johnny

Do not despair.....For Johnny-head-in- air,
He sleeps as sound....As Jonny underground.
Fetch out no shroud... For Johnny-in-the-cloud;
And keep your tears...For him in after years.
Better by far......For Johnny-the-bright-star.
To keep your head.....And see his children fed.

The poem is written in the film by Michael Redgrave for his wife played by Rosamund John, it is given to Bonnar Colleano after the death of the his Captain. Bonar Colleano was an actor from New York who became a well known film and stage actor in the UK. This was his first major role and he went on to appear in a number of films set in wartime and Once a Jolly Swagman, a film about motorcycle speedway with Dirk Bogard which I remember well. He was killed in a sports car accident at the age 34 years. A very young Renee Asherson plays the niece who eventually is to marry John Mills in the film. Stanley Holloway plays a local who is generous with his cash buying the flying boys drinks and entertaining at the piano, as long as they listen to his long funny stories which he always manages to get wrong despite endless repetition. Basil Radford plays a long standing member of the aerodrome operations and Bill Owen as the young member of the ground crew who eventually gets to fly in the Lancaster Bombers with John Mills and who also survives. The film also marked the debut of a very young Jean Simmons who sings part of one song at a dance in the town the night before the children’s party at which Bonnar Colleano explains that his Captain has not been able to come and how much he cares for them all. Rosamund John reassures that the town will never forget the sacrifice made by the captain.

The film therefore covers the greater part of the war in the Air. The British squadron are posted over seas for a time returning at the end of the film. John Mills, with Bill Owen in tow, has to force land at the aerodrome returning for one mission where he has been acting as the path finder and this gives him the opportunity to meet up with everyone especially Renée Asherson who has been courted by Bonar Colleano. The film also has something of the quality of First of the Few by attempting to put the war in perspective, doing this by showing the deserted airfield and quarters and those involved have gone their separate ways, after the war has ended.

Citizen Kane

Regarded as the greatest film and essential viewing for anyone interested in the art of film making, I remain to be convinced because for me it has always lacked the level of emotional engagement which such a status requires.

However having assembled a list of films I needed to view again it had to be included. I believed I knew why, but I wanted to be reassured. Although it was not high on the agenda it arrived via the mail order subscription earlier than anticipated and provided a good antidote for feeling much better about everything than I should be over recent days.

I have to concur that the film is brilliantly made structured with wondrous photo shots and editing but I was quickly reminded that I liked no one.

To be truly great a work needs to engage emotionally, intellectually, it has to inspire. I did not watch the film in one sitting. I broke off to watch Liverpool play Barcelona. There is something wondrous about Anfield in full song. Liverpool lost but won because of two away goals against the one scored by Barcelona. It was not as magical as when they won the championship league cup against all the odds, or that Johnny Wilkinson dropped goal which won the world cup or I was there at Healingly Botham's Ashes, but it was a good night, and I was even pleased that Chelsea came back to win through against Porto.

The opening scene of Kane is justly legendary with the mysterious final comment of Rosebud, what is this?

The film then adopts the techniques of early newsreel to present the life and significance of Charles Foster Kane. Commencing with opulence and gigantic nature of his artificially created mountain top palace with it world collection of art, and animals. This was built because of the growth of his power through newspapers, oil wells, mines, real estate, travel, etc a power built through knowing the right people and marriage often supporting and then opposing figures, and considered a communist and a fascist. Everything went well until scandal and economic depression he retreated behind the walls of his palace where he died alone, apart form his chief man servant estate organiser and large staff. But this was always a man alone even during his marriage, or when on the crests of waves, or surrounded by those who knew better than to challenge or question.

The very paper that made him a personality sets forth to answer the question about Rosebud. What was the significance of that final word? The film then uses this to retrace his life.

I am reminded of watching the film Reds on a sunny afternoon in Paris and which uses the same technique of on screen interviews in attempt to reveal the person in the context of his life.

The first witness is his former general manager Bernstein and the second is the The Thatcher Autobiography /biography. This Thatcher is the former bank manger who under an agreement with his mother against the wishes of his father takes charge of the boy's upbringing when he inherits one the worlds great financial estates based on oil, mining, real estate, shipping. We are given the impression that because of his lack of a any kind of natural parental social framework he has a typical too much money childhood and young man lifestyle so that by 25 he both rejects the idea of money making, but uses the same wealth to create his collection of toys and trophies which include people as well as objects.

The only indication of what he might have been without the money is through the acquisition of a minor paper the Enquirer which he turns into a crusading vehicle making up the truth as he goes along, buying in the greatest journalist only too willing to write the bosses line, where have we heard that one before, eventually turning to politics.

There is no indication that he married for love or even passion, but a niece of the President was useful, and who having acquired he continues as before with his life making no adjustment to his new situation or to having a son and heir.

Devoid of affection, he becomes attached to a young singer of little talent because she does not know who he is and appreciates his interest and kindness. She becomes his solace alongside his wife until he sets out to take the governorship from an unscrupulous man who uses the knowledge of the infidelity to threaten exposure unless he withdraws. He does not consequently losing the election, and his wife and on marrying the singer tries to turn her into an international opera singer, building the Chicago opera house for her, and then forcing her to go on a tour using his papers to create the illusion of someone who is good,

Another witness is a long standing friend Leland played by Joseph Cotton who he brings to the Enquirer as drama critic, and who writes an honest review about the opening night of his second wife. He has already fallen out with Cotton/Leland by this time and now sacks him. They will perform again together in The Third Man another film which attracted mass audience, I know I was also there, but where is was the Zither and the Harry Lime theme which was the real star of the film.

In Kane Wells shows that he was a first rate character actor only 24 he transforms his facial feature into an old man as does Cotton.

There is no surprise when the second wife leaves him. There is a haunting image towards the end of the film when the executors are attempting to crate the tens of thousand of possessions for disposal and burning anything which has no sale value. I was painfully reminded of the situation I found myself in when I moved home and was overwhelmed by what I brought with me and how the move was carried out and also when I disposed of the possession of my mother and aunt that I could not use myself, knowing at the time of the intention to downsize. There was the sense failure knowing that so little would have any monetary value, unlike the possessions of Kane, but also emphasising that we cannot take with us what we have accumulated when die although there is satisfaction if it can be enjoyed or be of use to others. It ceases to have any value if it was accumulated for self and not with some purpose. I feel that about my work. The fear that it will end incinerated like my flesh and bone. But this dos not matter as long as I enjoy and value what I do. It would be of great value if others were to do so too. Similarly in the end it did not really matter what he meant by Rosebud. Yes a great film but without a soul. I might not create any work which can be considered of merit, but my life has always had soul. I cling to that. Even in the darkest moments I have not felt alone, well not for over four decades

Doctor at Sea

an addition which combines my daily notes with particular experiences which contribute to the work, if only in one instance because of memories and associations evoked.

Why had I included this on my films to see through www.mymoviestream.com where the 100 odds films experienced or re-experienced over the past year has included most of the works of Ingmar Bergman and Almodovar, and some Fellini. The list does include a film for young people because it starred Bette Davies, one of the great actresses of my time. There are two possibilities why the film was added to the list. I may have watched part of it on some channel while I eat lunch and noted the reference to the middle aged spinster daughter of the shipping line owner was brought to a port by one captain from Gibraltar. If the interest was the land of my parents, then the film disappointed because this was just a reference and the action centres on a fabricated South American port. The more likely reason is Bardot. I was sixteen and at work when I had my first ever date with a young woman met through a cycling club and we had missed the opening of one of the films because we had stood waiting at different bus stops at each end of the road where she lived. One film was either Turn the Key Softly with Yvonne Mitchell and others or Yield to the Night also with Yvonne but also Diana Doors. He other starred Bridget Bardot, 'And God Created Woman', I think, as the year was 1956. The choice was selected by the young lady who was daring because we were both under age, and met with parental disapproval when taken back to their home to meet them. Doctor at sea was also a film of that era, and Bardot was selected to fill the role of visual candy, this supposedly comic tale and inconsequential tale with Dirk Bogarde and James Robertson Justice was one of seven films which fore ran the insatiable desire for films about doctors and nurses, but was a tame version of a Carry On genre. This occasion I was tired after a cheese salad, roll, and a banana lunch so slept through part and had to re run with fast back to confirm that there was no sighting of Gibraltar.

The tiredness occurred later in the evening which was surprising and I slept through a semi comic drama about a recent political even when the unlikely of all Casanova's and deputy prime minister had a bout of passion with his diary secretary who according to the bit I saw, sleeping through the rest, waking in time for the news and an outrageously enjoyable Benidorm, took the initiative to find out what the experience would be like.

So although I stayed up working until1 I appear to have slept little and woken by the wind came down once more at 3 and tis now after 4 am which messes up plans for a bright start tomorrow.