Victim.

"This new film may shock my nice young doctor public, but you can't go on making films just to please your fans. You can't leave all the adult films to the French, Italian and Swedes"[1]

In 1960 nearly all cases of blackmail in England and Wales were related to the victim being homosexual, regarded by some sections of the public as a disease. Back then it was still against the law, that was until the 1967 Sexual Offences Act which implemented the recommendations of the 1957 Wolfenden report which in turn recommended that homosexual behaviour between two consenting adults, over 21 and in private, should no longer be a criminal offence. These changes were brought about because of some very prominent cases involving well-known men!

 

Sylvia Syms as Farr's wife. 

Directed by Basil Dearden and produced by Michael Relph, Victim (1961) was another of the talented filmmaking pair’s ‘social problem’ movies that dealt with subjects that many other filmmakers avoided. Films like A Place to Go (1963), Violent Playground (1958) both dealt with the problems confronting youth culture and of cause Sapphire (1959) which tackled race relations which was scripted by Janet Green who also scripted Victim having became a keen supporter of homosexual reform.

 

The police question Boy Barrett (Peter McEnery) 

Dirk Bogarde was suspected to be homosexual because he lived in the same house as his business manager Anthony Forwood, but obviously the Rank Organisation that Bogarde had been contracted to for fourteen years was not happy that one of their top stars was rumoured to be in a relationship with another man and arranged for him to be seen with attractive and desirable young starlets. So when Bogarde left Rank and accepted the role of the barrister Melville Farr a successful man with a loving wife who had a secret passion and risks his career and marriage to break an extortion racket when his young friend, a wages clerk on a building site, commits suicide rather than implicate him in a blackmail scam.  It was a very brave move on his part that could of affected his career; the adulation from his female fans and worse could further have fuelled the rumours about his sexuality.

 

Farr discovers the Barrett was not the only blackmail victim. 

Although this was undoubtedly a controversial film for its time, and was initially banned in the USA for being too explicit, it is now seen as one of Bogarde’s most intelligent and tactfully performances of his career to date and although loosing some of his young fan base, not due, it was alleged, to the fact that he played a gay man but more to do with the fact that he played a character his own age, forty and greying, it enhanced his reputation and Bogarde admitted ‘that it was the wisest decision he ever made in his cinematic life’[2]. His next big break, which would place him at the very top of the league of British actors, came three years later in the first of four films he made with Joseph Losey The Servant in 1963.

 

Mavis Villiers plays Madge, a woman with knowledge of who drinks at her favourite watering hole.

It is notable that Victim was the first English language film to use the word "homosexual" and many believe that it played a significant role in both liberalising attitudes and helping to change the archaic laws dealing with same sex relationships, proving my theory that filmmaking in the right hands can change things for the better.

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[1] Dirk Bogarde quoted by Cecil Wilson Daily Mail.

[2] Snakes and Ladders. Dirk Bogarde.

Dead of Night.

The first and best remembered British portmanteau film was made at Ealing Studios, it was their first foray into the ‘horror genre’ following WW2, during which horror films had been banned from production in Britain. In 1945 Ealing was not known for ‘horror’ but more for war films and documentaries. Dead of Night (1945) produced by Michael Balcon was his first experiment in getting ready for films following the war and was held up as a showcase for the people Ealing had working for them at this time. The film was in the tradition of English ghost stories more than real horror, which was normally left to the USA to make until Hammer started producing them in the mid 1950’s.

 

Walter Craig arrives at Pilgrim Farm.

 Dead of Night is a collection of supernatural, or if you refer, ghost stories linked together with a cunningly circular narrative. The linking or framing story involves an Architect, Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) who is invited to Pilgrim Farm by its owner Eliot Foley (Roland Culver) to prepare drawings for a revamp of the property. From the moment he arrives he gets a sense of déjà vu telling the other five guests that the country house seems strangely familiar and that he recognises all the people there from a recurring nightmare! Each one of them goes on to relate their own tale of nightmarish proportions. 

 

The guests assemble to tell their stories. 

The first is the Hearse Driver, directed by Basil Dearden, whose films have included Pool of London (1951), Violent Playground (1958), Sapphire (1959), Victim (1961) and A Place to Go (1963) and based on a short story by E F Benson first published in 1906. A racing driver, Hugh Granger (Anthony Baird) suffers a serious accident. Opening the curtains of his hospital room, he is surprised to see daylight and, in the street below, a hearse. The driver looks up at him and smiles, saying "room for one more inside." Granger's doctor reassures him that it was a delusion brought on by the accident, and he recovers well. Leaving the hospital, however, he is about to board a bus when the conductor, who has the face of the hearse driver, turns to him, saying "room for one more inside." Unnerved, Granger lets the bus go. Further down the road, the bus crashes, killing all the passengers.

The next story, Christmas Party, directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, is narrated by the youngest member of the group Sally O’Hara (Sally Ann Howes).  At a friend's Christmas party, she takes part in a game of  'sardines' - a version of hide and seek. But one boy soon finds her. When the boy tries to kiss her, Sally runs into a side room. She comes upon a small child, Francis, sobbing. He tells her his half-sister wants to kill him. She comforts him, singing him to sleep. Re-joining the others, she discovers that Francis was the ghost of the murdered boy who died at the hands of his sister in 1860.

Sally O'Hara relates the Christmas Tale.

The third sequence directed by Robert Hamer, who was responsible for directing one of British best film’s It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), is a story written by John Baines called Haunted Mirror. Houseguest Joan Cortland (Googie Withers) buys her fiancé, Peter, an antique mirror for his birthday. But one evening Peter sees another room reflected in the mirror. The visions continue and he fears he is going mad. Joan forces Peter to confront the mirror with her, but this time it is even worse: Peter sees only the other room, an ornate bedroom with a log fire and four-poster bed - but no Joan. With Joan's help, Peter regains control and sees the room as normal. The wedding goes ahead and Peter loses his fear of the mirror. Visiting her mother in Chichester, Joan visits the antique shop where she bought the mirror, and learns its history. It belonged to a wealthy man, crippled in a riding accident, who became insanely jealous of his wife and finally strangled her, before slitting his throat in front of the mirror. Joan returns home to find Peter angry; he accuses her of having an affair. He tries to strangle her. In desperation, Joan smashes the mirror, breaking the spell.

 

The tale of the Haunted Mirror

Golf obsessed George and Larry, played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, better known as ‘Charters and Caldicott’ who appeared as two cricket mad Englishman in several films from 1938 -1949, are bitter rivals on the green but the best of friends off it, that is until Mary comes between them. The Golfing Story is directed by Charles Crichton, whose body of work included Hue and Cry (1947), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), Hunted (1952) and A Fish Called Wanda (1988), and is very loosely based on a story by H G Wells, this penultimate tale is told by the farm owner Eliot Foley. When Mary refuses to choose between the two men they decide to play a round, the loser agreeing to disappear for good. At the final hole, George wins, but only by cheating. Larry accepts defeat and, to George's amazement, walks calmly into the lake to his death. Larry returns as a ghost, threatening to haunt George forever, unless he gives up Mary. George reluctantly agrees but Larry has forgotten the code to return to Heaven. He is still trying to remember it on George's wedding night, as Mary waits upstairs. Desperate, George tries to help find the code but ends up disappearing himself. Larry gratefully takes his place.

 

The golf obsessed George and Larry. 

The final sequence is the most memorable. Directed by Albert Cavalcanti and again has an original story written by John Baines. Ventriloquists Dummy is narrated by the Psychiatrist Dr van Straaten who tells a story about one of his patents. Maxwell Frere is a ventriloquist who entertains audiences with a very talkative and cheeky dummy called Hugo Fitch and van Straaten describes the relationship between master and dummy that makes you question the sanity of the pair!

 

The man with true fear in his eyes!

At the end of each sequence the story diverts back to Walter Craig and Pilgrim Farm when we learn more about his reoccurring nightmare. Until the very last scene and with the credits rolling we learn our stories ultimate outcome!  Basically a chamber story about a group of people collected in a large English country house telling stories of what could be described as weird occurrences but it has an ingenious way of linking all the stories together with Dearden’s framing narrative which holds the whole film together.

The most disturbing of the stories. 

As for each individual story they do vary. The Christmas Story being the most insignificant of the five and the Golfing Story is the least effective, an absurd comedy that is a parody of English emotions. The Hearse Driver is a chilling tale that reminds us of the nearness of death. The best two are the disturbing Haunted Mirror that has a stylish plot that would be repeated in one way or another in many films.  But the best one, and most memorable, is the creepy unnerving Ventriloquists Dummy where Michael Redgrave gives the best performance of any of the actors involved as the demented ventriloquist who looses his grip on reality, a man with true fear in his eyes. The only story that is not quite in the Victorian tradition of supernatural tales, more urban and psychologically layered than the others. Again it’s a plot that will be reprised in a great many narratives that involve mystery and horror themes. Overall it manages to give us a ‘total’ movie and not just five linking stories. As it turned out this film was the template for all subsequent horror anthology movies. Truly classic British cinema.

Violent Playground.

Off all the filmmakers involved in the social problem films in the 1950’s and 1960’s there can be little doubt that the largest and most consistent body of work belongs to director Basil Dearden and producer Michael Relph.[1] These films addressed most of the main social problems of the period including race, homosexuality and youth in such films as Sapphire (1959) The Pool (1953), Victim (1961) and A Place to Go (1963).

Youth and juvenile delinquency is also the subject of Dearden’s 1958 film Violent Playground. Shot on location in Gerard Gardens in Liverpool it was inspired by the Liverpool Juvenile Officers Scheme, which was an important and successful development outside the field covered by the probation service. The scheme was designed to deal with young first time offenders who might embark on a life of crime if not dealt with in a positive way when they first came into direct contact with the Police.  It was stared in Liverpool in 1949 and after some success was adopted by all UK police forces.

Jack Truman takes his hat off to Kathy Murphy

Detective Sergeant Jack Truman (Stanley Baker Hell is a City 1960) is taken off an arson case and temporally transferred to juvenile liaison. This brings him into contact with the Murphy family, twins Mary and Patrick, who are caught stealing from a local shop, their older sister and mother figure Kathy (Anne Haywood) who supports the family and brother Johnny (David McCallum), an unemployed Teddy Boy and leader of a local gang.  When Truman first starts his new post he announces, “I don’t even like kids. I’m clumsy, I’m tactless and I’m brutal” and he is also a confirmed bachelor. But when he begins to appreciate the social problems that engulf the family i.e. bad housing, living on a working class ghetto, unemployment and family brake up, his attitude changes recognising the value of the work of the youth club and the sympathy shown by the local school headmaster to his pupils.  He also develops a romantic interest in Kathy, but it’s the seemingly wayward Johnny that’s the fly in the ointment.

 

Johnny Murphy relaxes on the Gerard Gardens Estate.

Along with his Teddy Boy friends Dearden depicts Johnny as a ‘surly and ignorant bully with no redeeming factors’ [2] associating them with mindless violence and rock and roll music. As with most of the films of that period  ‘the world of music and dance is associated with sexual desire and social or family disruption’[3] and of course violence (note the gun kept in a guitar case!) and its perceived threat to civilisation. As an account of delinquent behaviour it proves that nothing has really changed in the intervening years, admittedly we do not see Teddy Boys on the street any more but we do have the apparent danger of hoodies who as we all know form gangs and carry guns and knives!!!

The treat of violence is always there!

Nina Hibbin in her film critique written in March 1958 accused the film of not being a serious study of juvenile delinquency. Calling it a gangster film of the ‘crazy mixed up kid’ variety and stated that all its psychology and reform business is simply thrown in as a gimmick. To some extent she’s correct. The film starts out as a reforming social drama via the JOS, but does tend to drift into the realms a crime drama with the developing emphasis on the arson case that leads to a climatic ending.

The Films Location cir 1957.

Convincingly acted by a great cast, which also includes Peter Cushing as a priest, and with authentic Liverpool backgrounds it’s an interesting social commentary that in fact does show, that other than the characters attire, nothing much has really changed in 55 years?

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[1] John Hill Sex Class and Realism.

[2] Robert Murphy Sixties British Cinema

[3] John Hill Sex Class and Realism.