Match of the Year

You Tube suggested another Arthur Askey film to me after I had watched him in ‘Miss London Limited’.  More Arthur and more steam trains beckoned, this time with the added bonus of Thora Hird (such an underrated film actress) in fine fettle as Arthur’s wife.  The only downside of this 1955 film, entitled ‘The Love Match’, is Shirley Eaton’s dodgy Lancashire accent.  The rest is a giddy trot through a storyline which plays second fiddle to pure slapstick and some hilarious lines.  In particular, Danny Ross’ turn as gauche youth Alf Hall made me shed tears of joy.  This film is an absolute gem that deserves to be much better known.

I think that the story is rather too longwinded for me to go into here.  As I said earlier, it is, strangely, not that important either.  It is the characters and their interactions that make this film for me.  But much of the plot involves football matches and this gives us a little mid-century glimpse of the game and how it used to be.  The earliest scenes show Askey as an engine driver, who, along with his fireman, is desperate to get back home in time to see the City game.  Finding the ground full when they arrive, they climb over a fence into the kop.  Once in, not only do they stand and watch the game, the loco fireman lights a cigarette.  Neither of these two actions are permitted today due to health and safety concerns.  Another change is that the spectators are absolutely male.  Although the modern terraces are still dominated by men, women and families are much more visible now.  This 1950s game is like an outdoor working men’s club, where you get the impression that a female would be seen as spoiling the men’s freedom to swear at the referee and to expect their tea on the table when they get home.

In order to keep the working lads going until that evening meal that they feel entitled to, they may well indulge in a meat pie; one of these features heavily in the first match shown in this film.  As far as I’m aware, a meat pie is still a vital part of the experience for many supporters today.  This is one of the few aspects that does remain the same, along with wearing scarves in team colours, and the mid Saturday afternoon kick off time – presumably a hang over from the days when most men’s jobs involved a Saturday morning shift.  Another important role that football plays in this film is as a source of partisanship. Growing up in a northern city, this is something that I am very familiar with.  It seems that with one or two southern exceptions (London and Bristol spring to mind), it is mainly the old industrial centres of the midlands and the north that are prone to this situation.  I’m not sure why this should be the case – perhaps it was something to do with the need for more than one sports club to meet demand for respite from the suffocating furnaces and mines.  My city is firmly divided between two teams, your team is chosen for you by family tradition and it forms the basis for many a good playground punch-up, and also which colour wrapper that you choose when offered a Penguin biscuit.  If both teams are in the same league, the city is faced with a couple of derbies a season.  The playground punch-up urge bubbles up into grown men and the evening following the match can be a policing nightmare.  ‘The Love Match’ shows no scenes of violence, but it is clear that it is frowned upon for sons to stray from the father’s team, and that even a potential son-in-law from the other side is a major disappointment.   It also helps if close workmates are on the same side.  This film is over 50 years old, this partisanship is therefore shown to be deep-rooted and will never go away.  It also gently highlights the futility and reminds us that family is more important than the team…just.

Askey by @aitchteee

Finally, you can’t talk about 1950s football without mentioning gambling.  Even the Magistrate in ‘The Love Match’ has his pools coupon, while Askey’s character runs a book on which team will win the local derby.  The few pence on predicting which team will win adds to the fun of a Saturday afternoon and was also taken quite seriously.  The Magistrate is shown asking advice on how Liverpool will do and this was the subject in pubs and around kitchen tables across the land.  Huge amounts of people played the pools back then.  I think that it’s a shame that it seems to be dying out – I still have a go and enjoy the ritual of watching the results come in of a winter Saturday tea time.  The lottery has taken over now.  Where’s the skill in that?  And it’s all over in a minute.  At least people got involved with the pools and interacted with each other over the selections.

I’d select ‘The Love Match’ as a home win.  I just wish there had been a bit of extra time for the injury that I nearly did myself while laughing.

On Form With Carry On

‘Carry on Nurse’ (1959), the second film in the series, is perhaps most well known for that final scene with the daffodil thermometer.  I’ve always particularly enjoyed it for Charles Hawtrey’s performance as the headphone- wearing radio addict.  And the priceless expression on his face as he slides himself into the role of an illicit night nurse.

I revisited ‘Carry on Nurse’ earlier this year in order to remind myself of some references for a more in depth essay that I am preparing.  Quite unexpectedly, I found myself wholly identifying with a small, quite inconsequential scene that has recently taken on relevance.  Mr Hickson (Bill Owen) is laid up in traction with a broken leg, after an accident at work.  When visiting time comes around, we find Mrs Hickson is pleasingly played by Irene Handl.  Those little tastes of Irene that we find in the 1950s are always delicious.  I think that she was at her best in these small pieces, which leave us more satisfied than a whole film of her might have done.  Anyway she dutifully visits her husband, and brings along with her a form that needs to be completed in order for him to claim compensation.  Although he has merely broken a leg, it is Mrs Hickson that has to fill the form in – despite Mr Hickson holding all the answers to many of the questions.

I found the scene funnier than I ever had before, and not just because of Irene’s portrayal of her character.  A close friend of mine had only recently been telling me of a similar situation she had found herself in twice over. The first time round her OH had broken his arm and so quite naturally it was her that had had to fill in the insurance forms. But now he had hit a spell of unemployment, and despite him being able bodied and at a loose end, there was still an expectation that she should be the one who completed the necessary forms!  She's a working mum, she came home from work and carried out many of her household chores  (the washing machine being as unfathomable as a female’s temperament...apparently) and did general mum stuff, and yet it was still the assumption it was her job to fill in the claim and job application forms! It became quite a contentious issue, and they could easily have ended up as another divorce statistic.

So I found Mrs Hickson’s plight very funny – as my friend said, quoting Morrissey, “I can smile about it now but at the time it was terrible.” But with it came a realisation that it wasn’t just her that had taken up with a big girls’ blouse where holding a pen is concerned.  It would appear from my own little straw poll that quite often, once a man has a woman in his life, anything that involves writing is automatically allocated to her.  It can be forms, cheques or greetings cards.  This may be more of a traditional working classes thing.  Those men who earn a living by manual work are, I suppose, just not confident in their abilities where literacy is concerned.

I wonder how much 20^th century education has been to blame for this.  Back in the days when it was assumed that boys would go and work in the coal mine, steel works or foundry, literacy just wasn’t top of the list of concerns.  Not that long ago, a job in the pit was for life.  There would never be any need to fill in another job application form.  Girls meanwhile would be the ones to work as secretaries; to write the invites and thank you notes and letters to family.  I hope that this is therefore a phenomenon that is dying out under increasing educational expectations and changes to our employment patterns.  Or the realisation that these days, everyone needs to know how to fill in a JSA form.

Matron! By @aitchteee

Union Jackie

‘I’m Alright Jack’ (1959) is perhaps one of the Boulting Brothers’ best known films.  It features so many famous faces that it’s hard to pick out just one actor or actress to focus on.  It is one of Peter Sellers’ best known roles, but how can you single him out over Dennis Price, Ian Carmichael and Richard Attenborough?  There are also fine performances from Margaret Rutherford, Irene Handl and Liz Fraser.  It was reading Liz Fraser’s autobiography which reminded me of the film – she has such fond memories of her time on this set, the actors seem to have had fun, which shines through in their performances.

Sellers as Kite by @aitchteee

The film is of course well known for its acerbic take on industrial relations in post war Britain.  As well as industrialists being portrayed as a bunch of sly old robbers, the trade unionists are shown in a highly unflattering light.  I was particularly interested in this side of the storyline.  My old day job for an anti-poverty group brought me into contact with a lot of trade unionist types and I have spent many an hour hanging around the TUC HQ in London, and at various conferences.  In fact, I was at the TUC conference when the 9/11 attacks occurred, which put me in the highly disconcerting position of being in the same building as the Prime Minister as the country went into red alert.  I won’t forget that day in a hurry.  So this puts me in a position of being able to compare and contrast modern trade unionism with that depicted on the screen as being typical of the 1950s.  It would be obvious to say that we can conclude that there has been a significant loss of power and membership.  Also that this film, even if it is an exaggeration, shows the reasons why certain people determined to strip unions of every power.  But the aspect that I was most drawn to was the gender balance.

In ‘I’m Alright Jack’ the union is portrayed as a kind of working class gentlemens' club.  Sellers’ character as shop steward leads a gang of all male committee members/hangers on.  No women are shown as union members, and if their activity has any effect on women, it is to inconvenience them and give them opportunity to roll their eyes and indulge their menfolk.  This demographic is changing considerably.  At the beginning of the 21^st century, the number of female trade union members overtook the number of males and the gap is steadily getting wider.  This is yet to be reflected in the higher echelons perhaps – there are few female General Secretaries out there among the individual unions.  But as of this year, the TUC is being led by its first female General Secretary in its long history.  Trade unions are truly moving on from their image of a fusty old male’s domain.

But aside from all this positivity, we must question why more women now feel the need to join a union.  Is it because we still feel that we need protection from unscrupulous employers and that our working conditions are not as they should be?  Is it because women do all the worst jobs? Or have we now just got more nous when it comes to standing up for ourselves than we ever had before?

‘I’m Alright Jack’ shows us that in fact, although women have muscled their way in to the workplace since 1959, there is still plenty of reasons for us to join together and call for continued progress.  Sadly, we’re not there yet.  

An Escort to the Station

‘Miss London Limited’ (1943) is a jolly Arthur Askey vehicle and wartime morale booster.  Old time rail enthusiasts will love the opening scenes.  As Waterloo Station (I wonder why it’s always Waterloo?) bustles away below her announcer’s box, Anne Shelton belts out a very catchy song called “The 8.50 Choo Choo for Waterloo Choo”.  This in itself educates as well as entertains, with its roll call of Southern railway stations that were – and still are – served by this London terminus.  You even learn where you had to change for Brockenhurst!  I’ve watched this opening song a good half a dozen times now, and not once has the sight of the song lyrics appearing on the departures board failed to raise a laugh. Come to think of it, neither has Evelyn Dall’s hat as she alights said 8.50 choo choo.  Forties fashionistas may also find much to amuse and delight in this film.

The storyline is as daring as Miss Dall’s hat too.  It involves her and Askey running an escort agency, finding young women to accompany lonely servicemen who are strangers to London.  I almost spat out my chocolate when the actual term - “escort agency” was used in this wartime film, and then again when the potential new escorts were told that “after Midnight it’s up to you.”  How on earth did that get through the censor?  Or am I looking at it with too modern a perspective?  I decided to do a little reading around the subject of wartime promiscuity and prostitution, to try and scratch out the thinking behind the film. 

I have a book entitled “Our Hidden Lives” – a collection of Mass Observation diary extracts dating from the 1940s, compiled by Simon Garfield.  One middle aged gentleman diarist wrote down some of his thoughts on promiscuity.  On 22 April 1946 (p208) he wrote:

“Everywhere one sees a positive glorification of prostitution.  I should think it must be somewhat difficult, now, for an out-and-out prostitute to make any sort of livelihood, when so many pseudo-prostitute women are about.”

He returns to the subject a little later on (p273):

“There is an interesting report, in Time and Tide, about the recent publication ‘Report of the State of the Public Health During Six Years of War’…It is interesting to read how tremendously venereal diseases increased during these six years.  The report goes on to say ‘Sexual promiscuity must have been practiced on a scale never previously attained in this country’. This confirms what I said several years ago, that, broadly speaking, every woman in the United Kingdom during the six years of war had promiscuous sexual relations…”

This is obviously an opinionated man!  But he’s not alone in this view and the report that he refers to shows that there was definitely an increase in promiscuity.

Human nature throughout history tells us that in a war, wherever there are troops in need of R&R, there are prostitutes touting for business.  Among the general upheaval, there is bound to have been a big rise in demand both for the service and the payment.  The numbers of ladies plying their trade were bound to have been swelled by amateurs, trying their luck at making a bit of extra money for whatever reason was most pressing to them.  This of course would lead to concern among the moralising classes and inevitably, an increase in finger-pointing.  There was some concern about a collapse of the country’s morals, as people grabbed at what bit of life they could.  Women, who were not exactly prostitutes but were enjoying the opportunity of regularly entertaining GIs in exchange for a few luxury items took the risk of being vilified by local busybodies.  As were lonely servicemen's wives, who might have been seen merely sharing a drink with another man.

Applying this to ‘Miss London Limited’ it makes me wonder if the screenwriters were mounting a defence of the UK’s womenfolk.  It portrays women as being hardworking, we see or hear about them working at all kinds of dayjobs.  And it portrays the newly recruited escorts as being decent girls, who are persuaded to help our poor lonely lads by providing them with a bit of friendly company – no harm in that!  And this is after a hard day’s work at the station or in the hospital – they are in fact angelic in their efforts to soothe brows.  The films seems to be inviting the audience to look at wartime relations from a different angle, and to consider just how much women’s roles were changing. Fancy Arthur Askey being involved in something that actually seems quite permissive for the time!  He deserves a bit of an “I thank you” from all the friendly girls who were out to help and who were tarnished with a brush of sweeping generalisation!

Thanks Arthur!  By @aitchteee

The Variety Pack

‘The Good Companions’ is the earliest film that I have tackled so far.  Made in 1933, it stars John Geilgud.  To someone of my generation, the fact that he was once so young is quite astounding!  If his name had not appeared in the opening titles, I would have had no idea that it was him.

The film is based on the 1929 book of the same name by J.B. Priestley, one of my favourite 20^th Century writers (anyone wanting insight into pre World War Two England should read his “English Journey”).  It is about a troupe of entertainers, initially called The Dinky Doos.  They wisely change their name to The Good Companions and proceed to wow English theatres with their variety show.  Jessie Matthews plays the singing sensation, Susie Dean, with a lot of the story revolving round her quest for fame.  Another Priestley book that I enjoyed reading is entitled “Lost Empires” and is a story based on old music hall theatres.  He clearly had a huge affection for such places and ‘The Good Companions’ as film records something of what life was like for the performers.  Because when the film was made, this kind of entertainment was still very popular.  All those involved in making the film would have been familiar with how variety theatre worked, the actors would have begun their working lives in itinerant repertory companies.  There must therefore be some authenticity in what we are seeing.

What the film shows us is that those who felt the urge to perform, who wanted to spend their working lives acting or singing, faced a long, hard climb.  ‘The Good Companions’ are shown living hand to mouth in seedy pubs as they travel from one provincial town to another.  They take the train between a Midlands manufacturing town and a northern mining town.  They lug around their own props and costumes and somehow or other have to find time to write routines or songs and rehearse them.  It is anything but a glamorous lifestyle. 

A Lost Empire

My viewing of ‘The Good Companions’ coincided with the much hyped launch of yet another series of a well known TV talent show.  The winner of the show gets to perform at the Royal Variety Show – one of the few live variety shows still going.  Now that we can flick between a comedy show or a music show at the touch of a button from our own front room, we don’t need to go out and see this sort of thing anymore.  The success of this TV programme shows that overall, tastes for entertainment have not changed, just the way that they are consumed.  But, I wonder, have things changed for the performers?  It would be glib to say that they have it easy these days, that young people now expect fame to be handed to them overnight and that they are not as good for not having worked their way up through a variety or repertory circuit.  But this isn’t strictly true.  It takes courage to go on one of these shows and face an audience of millions who are waiting eagerly for you to fail or make a complete tit of yourself.  Before mocking a contestant, members of this audience should ask themselves if they could stand on that stage.  No matter how much I would like to be an acclaimed writer, the very thought of reading something out in front of an audience of just a dozen people fills me with panic.  It’s much easier to just post things up here under the name of a film character, and then read any comments through my fingers. I’m sure I’ll never get anywhere! In addition to courage, serious contestants will still have put in the rehearsal time and made some study of their chosen field.

Having defended the modern route to fame though, I think I prefer the Priestley way.  It seems a more honest way to achieve fame somehow, I couldn’t begrudge any old variety star their fame and fortune in the same way that I begrudge pop muppets One Direction theirs.  As Mother would say, “They just don’t make ‘em like they used to.”

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Guinness is Good For You

The partnership of Ealing Studios and Alec Guinness is enough to make any vintage film fan come over all unnecessary.  Top of the tree has to be ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’, closely followed by ‘The Lavender Hill Mob’ – both deserving of that overused tag “classic”.  In third place is the rather less well known ‘The Man in the White Suit’ (1951).  But it is no less a film, despite being in the shadow of the other two.  The casting, led by Guinness and Joan Greenwood, is sublime and the storyline is, as always with Ealing, slightly subversive.  That’s what I like about these films, underneath the gentle fun a certain something ripples along.  You can ignore it if you wish and take the film at face value and not have your enjoyment in any way diminished.   Or you can pick up on it and spend a pleasurable half hour trying to fathom out what it is telling us about post-war Britain.

The thing that I find fascinating about ‘The Man in the White Suit’ is that it was released in 1951.  This is the same year that that now almost mythical event, the Festival of Britain, took place.  I must confess to getting myself a bit caught up in the romance that was and has been spun about this event.  From this distance it all looks marvellous – futuristic (even now), colourful, positive in outlook.  The antithesis of us today in our retro doom and gloom mood.  I love the designs associated with the Festival, from the famous Skylon to the official angular logo.  I’m not alone in viewing it all with a huge feeling of fondness either.  More than sixty years on it remains in our collective consciousness.  Which must mean that at the time, the Festival was big news.  Events were scheduled around the country to celebrate and transport was laid on to the South Bank site.  Think of the hype that surrounded the 2012 Olympics.  It must have been like that, with mentions, discussions and advertisements in every available media. Look on eBay and you will find a collector’s paradise of stamps, postcards and commemorative coins which were produced at the time.

This is why I think that, despite there being no actual mention of it, the Festival influenced the story behind ‘The Man in the White Suit.’  It’s too much of a coincidence that this film examines scientific discovery, while just a bit further down the Thames people were being invited to explore the “discovery dome.”  And so, I spent that pleasant half hour fathoming out that the storyline plays Devil’s Advocate.

The Festival was a Government initiative, planned with the hope of giving the post war recovery and the country as a whole a boost up.  It aimed to celebrate all that was good about Britain – its natural resources, illustrious history and the achievements of its people.  This included scientific achievement, the programme guide noting that “…we have done much to found and develop the sciences of chemistry and physics…the basis for most, if not all of the great material achievements of the modern world.”  It would appear that Britain was a place where scientists were understood, encouraged and appreciated, but ‘The Man in the White Suit’ tells a different story.  One of a chemist and his thwarted ambitions.  Guinness’ character, Sidney, is anything but understood, encouraged or appreciated.  He has to beg, steal and borrow to do his experiments, and when he finally discovers a formula for a cloth which repels dirt and will last forever, he is hounded around the streets of Lancashire.  There are two groups of people doing this chasing – the textile mill owners who wish to suppress the discovery in order to preserve their profits, and the trade unionist workers, who want to protect their jobs.  At one poignant moment, his old landlady pulls him up.  She is a slight, kindly little old woman (played by Edie Martin) and she makes a heartfelt plea: “What about my bit of washing?”  She fears a future where she will have no means of supplementing her meagre income.  This endless chase demonstrates how they have all gone into a blind panic.  Take a step back and you realise that this fabric is not as threatening as they all seem to think.

Guinness by Howard Taylor @aitchteee

Firstly, the no need to wash is quite ridiculous, even if the fabric does repel dirt.  Would you wear clothes that had never been washed?  I wouldn’t, especially undergarments!  This goes completely against human nature. Secondly, the trade unionists’ assumption that only one batch would ever be needed is also very blinkered.  The population grows continually.  People grow- even adults with that middle-age spread that we’re all prone to.  And then there is fashion, and our desire for a change of wardrobe now and again.  Who on earth would wear the same set of clothes their entire life?  Perhaps there would be some drop in demand.  This is what worries the mill owners who are trying to buy Sidney off.  But to succeed in business you need to go with the tide and not swim against it.  Ideally, they should be thinking about how to use the situation as a springboard to diversification.

By portraying this relationship between science and the employers and workforce, I think that ‘The Man in the White Suit’ is telling us that we should take the Festival hype with a pinch of salt.  That it’s all very well celebrating science when our business leaders and workforce refuse to move forward with it.  Science also needs imagination, and in many quarters this was lacking. History confirms that the Ealing subversives were not just weaving fiction.  Talk of a “brain drain” appears soon after the end of the war.  A document found online (UK Data Archive Study Number 6099) discusses a “Brain Drain Debate in the UK c.1950 – 1970”.  It tells us:

“Civil servants and scientific advisers within Whitehall had been aware of scientific migration as a potential problem since at least the early 1950s.”

The term “brain drain” was not adopted until the 1960s, at a time when

 “…individual scientists invoked the brain drain in their campaigns for better conditions in the UK…”  

This little exploration has confirmed what I always knew – that Ealing Studios are one of the best resources going for gauging post-war attitudes in Britain.  They should bring them back to tell 21^st Century Britain where it’s going wrong!

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Millionaires About the House

The early 1970s saw a substantial amount of the British film industry being dedicated to sitcom spin-offs.  I’ve covered many of these in this blog from ‘On the Buses’ to ‘Steptoe and Son’.  Perhaps a slightly less well known series to be given the spin-off treatment is ‘Man About The House’.  The scenario for the series and film is of a three way flat-share between two women (Paula Wilcox and Sally Thomsett) and a man (Richard O’Sullevan).  The flat forms the upper floors of a house owned by an older couple (Yootha Joyce and Brian Murphy) who later went on to have their own sitcom and film entitled ‘George and Mildred’.

As with most 1970s sitcom spin-offs, one shouldn’t tune in expecting anything akin to Olivier doing Shakespeare.  But for a late night Saturday laugh with a good dose of nostalgia, they often hit the mark.  I quite like the ‘Man About The House’ film. Primarily for Yootha as Mildred, whom, as I approach her age like a runaway rollercoaster, I find myself adopting as a role model.  Battling on in the face of adversity with a perfect coiffure and an acerbic one-liner disguising a platinum heart, she is an inspiration.  However it’s also an excellent film with which to play at “spot the seventies star bingo.” Cast members from ‘Dad’s Army’, ‘On The Buses’ and ‘It Aint Half Hot, Mum’ have walk-on parts, and there is a rather odd cameo from Spike Milligan.

Another reason to watch ‘Man About The House’ is for the street scenes of the North West London district.   Both the street signs and the appearance of Maida Vale tube station give clues to the general location of filming.  If you know this area well, no doubt it is a fascinating window on the area just prior to the re-gentrification that took place in the later 20^th Century.  The house that is occupied by the main characters is one of those north London residences that have had three lives.  Originally constructed in a neo-Georgian style at the turn of the twentieth century, these town houses were spread over three or four floors, and were occupied by well-heeled middle class families and their servants.  By the mid 20^th Century, many of the wealthier types had moved out of central London, presumably for leafy Metroland and the rural idyll – especially easy with Marylebone station being just down the road.  These houses became run down and separated into flats – as shown in this film.  As the storyline shows us, many did not survive this loss of status and were swallowed up by developers, hungry for office block foundation space.  But those who did survive had a considerable change in fortune, when their value as a sturdily built and spacious home in an envious location was recognised.

The street sign near the Roper household says Myddleton Terrace NW8.  Several websites, including reelstreets.com tells us that the townhouse row is in reality Alma Square in Maida Vale.  Another search for properties for sale in Alma Square confirms that today, these are very desirable residences indeed.  At the beginning of April 2013 I found two properties for sale here.  One – a four-bedroomed house – had just been sold at £3.5 million.  A two-bedroomed flat here was on the market for £1.5 million.  I doubt that it’s the film location pushing up the prices!  Modern day streetviews show Mercedes parked where George and Mildred’s Morris Minor once stood.  Fans of theirs will know that for their own spin-off film, they had swapped Maida Vale for a suburban new-build.  What a mistake!

http://www.reelstreets.com/index.php?option=com_films_online&task=view&id=1455