When Dirk Dared

Tucked away in the early morning TV schedules, I came across a film called ‘Victim’. I looked it up, not having heard of it before, and discovered a fascinating piece of history. ‘Victim’ was made in 1961 and stars Dirk Bogarde.  Apparently his taking this part was a big risk, which in itself tells us something about the climate of the day and encapsulates the film’s theme.  Basically, this is a film about homosexuality among men, and the reasons why it should be decriminalised and accepted as part of society.  This film was made at a time when love between two men was still a crime punishable by prison in a legal sense and ostracism and hate in general.  Things were slowly beginning to change, obviously the arguments were in full force before final decriminalisation in 1967. Acts such as this one have a tendency to rumble on for a few years before going through parliament.  Also, I think that the fact that Bogarde took the part shows that he thought that there was some possibility that his career and livelihood wouldn’t be totally destroyed.  Did he detect a thaw in the air?

Defiant Dirk drawn by @aitchteee

 I realise that things are still not perfect for gay men out there.  Coincidentally, on the same day that I watched ‘Victim’ I was browsing on Twitter and I saw a post from the Reverend Richard Coles. He put up a photograph of a letter that he had received. This letter was from a person who firmly believes that there is far too much of this sort of thing and soon everyone will be gay and there will be no more babies being born.  Or something.  They were of the school of thought that being gay is catching. Anyway it just shows that there are still people out there with distinctly old fashioned attitudes.  And they might be in a position to discriminate in any number of ways.  As a female I can understand that there will be the occasional meetings with people whose outlook is stuck in a chauvinistic time warp. But at least now we all have the law on our side, and discrimination and victimisation can be fought.  It is alright to speak out when we are affected by these issues. To watch ‘Victim’ is to see how far we have moved on, and to view historical documentation showing how homosexuality as a criminal offence impacted society.

The story begins with a handsome young lad called Boy Barrett who is in a panic and on the run from the police. He tries repeatedly to contact eminent barrister Farr (Bogarde) who continually brushes him off. It transpires that the two men have had a fleeting lovelorn relationship and that they were photographed in Farr’s car. This photograph was deliberately taken by a blackmailer and has been used to coerce Boy into stealing money from his workplace.  The police have now been called in and he is keen to keep the man he loves' name out of it.  He is picked up and taken to the station where he is interviewed by a liberal minded detective and his puritan assistant.  The detective has an idea why Boy has stolen the money and tries to coax the truth out of him. He refuses to speak, and when he is sent back to his cell he hangs himself.

When Farr finds out about the death of Boy he is filled with remorse – he thought that he wanted to blackmail him when he only wanted to protect his good name.  He sets out to find the blackmailers and tracks down others who are also being targeted. These men include a hairdresser; old and tired after four stints in prison because of his sexual “misdemeanours”.  Dennis Price plays an actor reminiscent of Noel Coward who is very keen to protect his image and must live life in the closet.  Farr himself is married and has battled against his true feelings. In this way we are presented with a whole string of victims. A young man dies, as does the older hairdresser, both having been denied the chance to live a full life. Men battle their perceived demons and one of them takes a wife in an attempt to look respectable to society. This also wrecks her chances of a happy life.  The film presents to us the sheer waste of life that this law and the attitudes behind it are responsible for.   It is a waste of public resources too, as an otherwise law abiding man has spent months of his life in prison, while police spend hours chasing blackmailers who thrive on this law. ‘Victim’ presents the pragmatic arguments for abolishing the law as well as showing sympathy for those caught out by it.  It demonstrates to us how life was before and why it needed to change – a fascinating peep into the transition phase of Britain from an uptight conservative society to the more liberal one that we know today.

***

The History Usherette's Second Seat Third Row is now available as an Amazon Kindle download for 77p.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Usherettes-Second-Seat-Third-ebook/dp/B00N2OVGM2

Interlude Three

Here’s the next installment in my mini series of short stories inspired by the lives of my favourite film stars:

Miranda

I think it was the year after we were married. We took our holiday on the Riviera that year.  The English Riviera that is, we don’t like abroad, Harold and I.  It all seems like so much fuss and when you get there it’s all dicky tummies and sunstroke.  And besides, it wasn’t so common to venture abroad back then.  Most people in our circles had two weeks on the south coast and we were no different.  We stayed in a rather nice hotel on the cliff top, a little bit away from everyone else.  I do wish that I could remember its name.  There was a gravel drive and the place was screened from the road with rhododendron bushes and fir trees. Harold and I had the feeling that we were joining a very select group of people by staying there. 

The hotel had its own swimming pool, an outdoor one.  They had planted a line of trees to act as a windbreak so it was sheltered from the sea breezes.  Quite a little suntrap – perfectly planned.  Residents had full use of it within daylight hours and I intended to make the most of it.  I had always been a swimmer, as a girl I had won one or two cups.  But after marriage and then the children…the annual holiday became the only opportunity I ever got to get in the water. But even when the children were young I had to supervise them at the same time.  I had no chance of getting any serious swimming under my belt. Harold you see is quite the opposite from me in this respect.  He isn’t exactly scared of water (or so he assures me) but he never learned to swim as a child and he has spent the rest of his life avoiding large expanses of the stuff.  Even now that we are older and the children grown up he is the one with the big hat and the book, sat as far up the beach as possible, while I thrash about in the waves.

So when we settled into this hotel, I made it my mission to seek out the pool and see if it lived up to my expectations.  It wasn’t big, but there was enough of it to get some momentum into a length.  I resolved to do some serious swimming every morning while Harold lazed around in bed with his ever-present novel.  The very next morning, the first full day of our holiday, I was at the pool for 8.00am.  As I had hoped, I was the first one there.  I dived in, the water was shockingly cold but I kicked off and moved my limbs so that the newly worked muscles sent heat to the rest of my body.  By my third length I was warm, I could positively feel the blood pumping around my system.  It was wonderful to feel that again. After a while I paused at the deep end and pushed myself downwards in a luxurious stretch.  It was at that moment that a pair of legs walked across my line of vision.  I felt so disappointed that I was about to share my morning swim.  The legs were old, quite flabby around the thigh and though I tried not to stare I noticed a paunched belly hanging over them, clad in a garish swimsuit. My disappointment deepened.  My new swimming companion looked like one of those who doggy paddles her way across the width of the pool.  There’s always one when you’re on holiday, continually thwarting those of us who wish to do some real exercise.   She lowered herself in, made some sort of exclamation about the cold and launched herself off.

I began to make my way back down the length of the pool, rather determined to show this newcomer what was what. But to my delight I found that I had misjudged her.  That was the moment when I learned my lesson about books and their covers and all that.  We crossed in the middle of the pool and if it weren’t for that garish outfit I would have thought that someone else had sneaked into the water without me noticing.  She had soon overtaken me without so much as a splash.  I thought then that she was mermaid like, which turned out to be quite a coincidence.  After a few more lengths I paused again for another stretch at the deep end.  In fact the cold water had given me a little cramp.  Until that point the mermaid and I had been swimming in a companionable silence, but now she joined me and began to chat.  As soon as she uttered her first word to me I recognised who she was. Harold likes his films as well as his books and I have seen so many of her efforts on the screen.  She told me that I looked familiar to her, and wondered if I frequented the Hampstead Ladies pool.  I told her that I had never been there, that I lived in Letchworth so it was just a little too far to go.  We concluded that I must just look like one of her fellow Hampstead swimmers and she went on to describe the merits of her favourite pool.  That was all that we talked about – the swimming.  I was perhaps a little star-struck and I didn’t acknowledge that I knew who she was.  But as she turned and continued with her lengths I said to myself ‘I simply cannot wait to see the look on Harold’s face when I tell him that Margaret Rutherford is in the hotel and likes to take a swim every morning.’ I contemplated saying to her that she and Glynis Johns should have swapped roles in that mermaid film, Miranda.  But I didn’t.   I expect they say that to her all the time at Hampstead.  

Harold was indeed dumfounded by my news and he nearly took up swimming on the spot!  Eventually, he decided that a better plan would be to seat himself in a wicker chair near to the pool entrance with his reading matter.  Being a little bit bolder than I am, he managed to persuade her to autograph his book.  So that is why we can never part with this battered old Len Deighton novel. Harold always regrets that he wasn’t reading an Agatha Christie at the time.  That would have been better, wouldn’t it?

Bomb Sights Part 2: The Revenge

A few months ago I published a blog post about the Ealing classic ‘Hue and Cry’.  I observed how this film is an excellent way to grasp the scale of the damage done to London by the Blitz.   Read it again here

 http://historyusherette.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/bomb-sights.html

More recently I watched the 1954 film ‘8 O’Clock Walk’; a fantastic drama starring the sadly recently departed Richard Attenborough as a man accused of murdering a child.  The plot of the film is linked into a blitz bomb site in north London.  Attenborough’s character is the last person to be seen with the murdered girl, while leading her onto the bomb site to look for a lost doll.  We therefore get a clear view of what a bomb site looks like after a good decade of neglect, and learn other snippets of information as the film goes on.  For example it is clear to see how quickly nature has reclaimed the land, and as the accused’s clothes are tested for pollen, we are given a list of the plants that were usually found on these sites e.g. Rosebay Willowherb.  We are also given an overview of how the sites became integrated into the local geography.  This one has become a short cut for shoppers and a playground for children. It is clear that bomb sites were not held in reverence as a marker of the war or of those who died there.  They seem to have been simply accepted as a new piece of open space. You might think that tales of ghosts would abound, but no-one seems frightened to use the area at all.

1950s Attenborough by @aitchteee

 While gleaning this information, I began to consider how bomb sites became a part of our culture for a while.  As I discussed in my ‘Hue and Cry’ post, it took a long time for them all to be redeveloped – decades in fact.  During that time they sometimes became important aspects of film plots – such as in ‘Hue and Cry’ (as a playground/meeting place) and ‘8 O’ Clock Walk’ (as a murder scene).  Perhaps one of the first films to utilise these places was the 1944 film ‘A Canterbury Tale’, where Powell and Pressburger use an image of a bombed out Canterbury with a defiant cathedral rising out of the rubble. This is highly symbolic as each of the main characters arrive in Canterbury to find that despite the war creating huge upheaval in their lives, the things that they held most dear have survived. Another film to make a more direct use of a bombsite is ‘the 1949 Ealing film ‘Passport to Pimlico’, where a blast from an unexploded bomb reveals long lost Burgundian treasure.  I’m sure that there must be other films from the 1940s and 1950s which use these areas of waste ground either for plot or atmosphere.   Their influence went on through the ensuing decades too.  John Boorman’s ‘Hope and Glory’ (1987) reflects back to a childhood growing up on bombsites.  I also recently read an excellent novel entitled ‘A Commonplace Killing’ (Sian Busby, 2013) where a body is found among the 1940s rubble by playing children.  I too have a long term writing project on the go which involves a redeveloped piece of blitzed land.

It’s perhaps rather ghoulish but these places have captured our imagination – from playing children to filmmakers. I wonder how long their legends will live on there, now that they have at last disappeared from sight.

My new book  - ‘The History Usherette’s Second Seat Third Row’ is available to download from Amazon now. This is based in a south London cinema which succumbs to a doodlebug attack in August 1944.  Its final showing is ‘A Canterbury Tale’ and a series of tales examines how the film affects those watching.  Here’s an extract:

“Come and get under the counter!” the old man yelled out as he ducked himself underneath the cash register.  Bob joined him among the cobwebs and piles of unsaleable books.  He knocked a mouldy pile of Shakespeares to the floor as the impact was felt, perhaps a mile or so away.

“That was a near one.” The old man eased his joints into a standing position and began to assess the ceiling and the shelves for any damage. Bob restacked the Shakespeares and brushed a cobweb off his uniform.

“Thanks for the shelter.  That kind of thing must be setting your nerves on edge.  Don’t you get any kind of warning siren?”

“Usually yes, but sometimes one gets through before they can do anything about it. We’re all starting to listen out for them all the time now, without even thinking about it. Anyway, no sign of any damage this time.  We live to read another day.”

“Well, good luck.” Bob touched his cap and left the bookshop.  A thought occurred to him that people may be in need of help where the rocket had landed.  Perhaps he ought to go and see what he could do. He followed the sound of the ringing bells and walked towards the column of smoke the continued to rise up, funnelling debris down onto the top of his cap. London seemed determined to send him back to the base covered in filth. 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Usherettes-Second-Seat-Third-ebook/dp/B00N2OVGM2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409170118&sr=1-1&keywords=the+history+usherette%27s+second+seat+third+row

The History Usherette's Second Seat Third Row

Now available as an Amazon Kindle book - The History Usherette's Second Seat, Third Row:

August 1944. Filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger send their new film out to entertain British audiences. ‘A Canterbury Tale’ is a balm for the temples of the war weary. A land girl and a pair of soldiers – one British, one American – wrestle a pastoral mystery in the ripe fields of Kent. History is laid out to show that all this death and destruction is temporary and that our land’s wounds will heal. 

Of course, every member of the audience will react differently. People will choose the scene from the tapestry before them that speaks loudest to them and they will focus on this. Meanwhile outside, the doodlebugs rain down on a tired and dusty land. 

The Second Seat, Third Row at the Regal Cinema, South London, plays host to a handful of the film’s audience. What does the film mean to them? Their stories are drawn out: 

• The Teacher’s Tale – Miriam rails against Americans 
• The GI’s Tale – Bob finds out what war means for the British first hand 
• The Usherette’s Tale – Kay uncovers the seedy side of life 
• The Manager’s Tale – William escapes his unsatisfactory existence 
• The Porter’s Tale – Dora considers the future 
• The Corporal’s Tale – Albert is searching for his past 

Read these 1940s tales here. 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Usherettes-Second-Seat-Third-ebook/dp/B00N2OVGM2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409170118&sr=1-1&keywords=the+history+usherette%27s+second+seat+third+row

The Separated Submariner

‘We Dive at Dawn’ (1943) is a naval war film in the same vein as ‘In Which We Serve’.  Again, it stars John Mills, although this time he is the Captain rather than the Cockney tar, which does show that the great Sir John did have a good range.  But it does at times seem that he single handedly won World War Two for us.

Mills’ co-star in this flick is Eric Portman, whom I am quite fond of.  There’s something a bit unusual about him that I can’t quite fathom out.  His northern accent sometimes seems forced, despite his being a Halifax boy. But he was undoubtedly a good actor and I enjoy watching him.  He is the hero of ‘We Dive at Dawn’, his fluency in the German language saving his submarine and all the men aboard.  He plays Germans well, as demonstrated in Powell and Pressburger’s ‘The 49^th Parallel’.  This is something that adds to his unusual allure. To regularly play Germans and show a fluency in the language during the war years must have taken guts. I feel sure that he must have taken some flack for it – we all know that there are people out there who confuse what they see on the screen with reality.  And this would have been even more pronounced in the war years, a less media savvy age full of fear and suspicion.  I really wish I knew more about Portman’s life off screen in these times.

The hero that Portman portrays is flawed.  He is human.  His relationships with others are difficult and he has marital problems.  When he has some shore leave, he returns home to find that his wife and son have gone to live with another man at the chip shop. Rather than maintain the standard British stiff upper lip he gets hopelessly drunk and confronts his wife – badly.  He is not the only member of the crew to have difficulties in this area of life.  One colleague is relieved to have his wedding cancelled and struggles to commit, while John Mills’ Captain is obviously stringing along an oblivious group of women.  This just demonstrates the well known facts about what war and the associated long term separations did to couples, as proven by the peaking of divorce rates during the demob period. But the ending of ‘We Dive at Dawn’ threw up an interesting historical question.  The submarine has been feared missing and its crew perished.  So when they finally return to port there is an emotional welcome home from those that had previously forsaken their husband/fiancé.  They have been given a second chance at life, and are given a second go at their relationships too.   I wondered how much this happy ending was poetic licence/morale boosting and how much it reflected reality? How many divorces didn’t happen because a near death experience resulted in changed hearts? There will be no statistics to help us with this one.  Perhaps there were as many reunions of this sort as there were divorces – some permanent, some temporary.  Like seeking the real Mr Portman, we can only watch the screen and surmise. 

Hello Sailor. Portman by @aitchteee

Coming Soon:

I will be publishing a new book shortly.  This will be called 'The History Usherette's Second Seat Third Row.' It is set in London in 1944 and takes a look at an imaginary audience for another Portman film 'A Canterbury Tale'.

Keep watching my Twitter feed @agathadascoyne and watch out for it on Amazon Kindle.

Powell & Press Button A

‘I Know Where I’m Going’ (1945) is classic Powell and Pressburger.  I have seen it many times before but when it last had an airing on television I sat down with the deliberate intention of finding a new post for this blog.  It didn’t come easily.  As I tweeted at the time in frustration, Powell and Pressburger are so otherworldly that the history of the everyday is elusive in their hands.  I put it to the back of my mind, admitting defeat at the hands of the masters, feeling disappointed at not being able to voice my appreciation of the film.  Then I saw a documentary about telephone boxes and it clicked.  I thought back to the scene in the film where Roger Livesey and Wendy Hiller’s characters (Torquil and Joan) attempt to use a telephone box that has been unfortunately placed next to a waterfall.  This scene seems almost inconsequential, just a small part of the plot.  Yet I remembered it clearly.  I wondered if it had more to say than met the eye.

Wendy Hillier by @aitchteee

Powell and Pressburger are not shy of metaphor, and I began to think that this scene had a deeper point.   Joan is on a journey.  She is desperate to move forwards to a wonderful future that is almost within her grasp.  Like the express train that she has travelled on to Scotland, she aims straight and fast with the minimum of stops. Nothing will stand in her way – she will not listen to others or stop to take on board those who do not have a part to play.  The unfortunately placed telephone box emphasises the point by holding up her journey.  All that she hears is the gushing of money coming her way. We see that it will ultimately run through her fingers and wash away any trace of herself, and it destroys her ability to hear the information that she needs to give sustenance to her being.   

Telephone boxes are in danger of disappearing from our landscape – hence the documentary.  It is a shame that these iconic pieces of mini architecture must go.  I wondered how Joan would be portrayed in a modern day film and concluded that she would be a businesswoman, trying to get to an island to meet a recluse and close a deal with them.  She would be continually clamped to a mobile phone and lap top and this time the scene would be her trying in vain to find a signal – except near the waterfall.  Powell and Pressburger might take a shot at the over-communication that exists in our society.  I often think that in some ways it was better when we had to put more effort into communication.  We had to walk to the (thoughtfully placed) telephone box or handwrite a letter, buy a stamp and put it in the post box.  We had to squeeze everything onto a sheet of paper or get our message across before the pips went.  More thought went into it. True communication is about putting an effort into what you say and how you say it.

It is a measure of Powell and Pressburger’s genius that their films still provoke such thoughts 70 years on.

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https://www.etsy.com/shop/TayloredArtPrints

Interlude Two

This interlude was inspired by Joyce Grenfell’s war diaries.

Dear Miss Grenfell

I hope you don’t mind me writing to you like this after all this time.  It’s a good few years since we met, but we had such a good talk then that I felt sure you’d remember me.  What with that and my injuries.  I wasn’t easy on the eye.  I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror for months after I got blasted.

Just to remind you – it was 1944 in Italy.  You came to the hospital to sing for us.  I was so excited to see you because I knew of your work before the war.  Just to know that you were coming was such a tonic.  I expect a lot of the men told you that, but it is true. A real lady from dear old London, with a beautifully clear voice coming to sing just for us.  We were like boys waiting for our birthday to come.  You didn’t let us down either, Miss Grenfell. A lovely mix of songs - some to remind us of home and some to make us smile.  The chap in the bed next to me couldn’t smile so he had to make do with shedding a couple of tears instead. He assured me in his funny way afterwards that these were tears of joy, and I believe him.  When you had finished singing, you came around and chatted to us and spent a great deal of time on this.  Some of those Ensa types flew in and flew straight back out again with barely a word for us.  But you gave us all of your attention that evening.  Then you saw me and settled down next to my bed for a good few minutes.  I can’t tell you how much that perked me up.  Not just that I got special attention from you, but also because you didn’t show any disgust at how I looked.  If the singing job ever packs up, nursing is the job for you, dear Miss G!  We had a very intimate chat, and I just couldn’t help but pour my worries out to you.  I told you that I was worried about how my wife would take to me when she finally saw me again.  I had night terrors where she abandoned me for someone who hadn’t had half his face blown off.  You didn’t fob me off, tell me that I didn’t look that bad like one or two of the younger nurses did.  But you told me truth that I was grateful for.  You told me that if my wife was a decent woman who truly loved me then my injuries would make no difference.  Otherwise, you said, perhaps I would do well to find another wife anyway!  Common sense of course, but I hadn’t got much of that left and I am so grateful to you for showing me the way to go.

Well, now I’m all demobbed and the hospitals have done what they can. Thanks to a couple of decent surgeons things don’t look too bad.  But I wanted to share with you the joy I did find back home.  My Doris has been the angel that I hoped she would be and we managed to pick up where we left off, just about.  Not only that, we have a baby.  I hoped and hoped for a little girl so we could name her Joyce.  This time it was a boy though and we have called him Norman.  But I won’t stop until there is a girl!  I’ll let you know when little Joyce arrives.

Thank you.

Your servant,

Robert Davis.