Campbell’s Kingdom.

In-between the Ralph Thomas directed and Betty Box produced movies Doctor at Large (1957) and Tale of Two Cities (1958) Dirk Bogarde played Scotsman Bruce Campbell in a British adventure film Campbell’s Kingdom (1957). Campbell had been told he has only six months to live; he has an unnamed terminal disease. Following this devastating piece of news he then finds out that he has inherited a small valley in the Canadian Rocky Mountains known as Campbell’s Kingdom from his grandfather. Before the old man died in suspicious circumstances he was convinced that his land had a rich vain of oil beneath it. But when Bruce arrives from England he discovers that the land is to be flooded on completion of a nearby dam, which means he only has a short time to determine if his grandfather was correct and save the valley. The dam is being built by a corrupt construction contractor Owen Morgan (a menacing Stanley Baker) who will stop at nothing to finish the dam even if it means resorting to dirty tricks to stop Campbell proving that there is oil on his land and therefore preventing the flooding of the valley.

 

Bruce Campbell as portrayed by Dirk Bogarde.

Assisting Bogarde in his quest is Barbara Murray who plays the daughter of old man Campbell’s crooked partner, who had swindled the locals out of their savings, and Bruce’s love interest Jean Lucas. Michael Craig plays the geologist Boy Bladen. James Robertson Justice, with a dubious Scottish accent, play’s a drilling contractor whose willing to risk every thing on Bladen geology results, the ones that Owen Morgan has been suspected of tampering with!

 

Some of the supporting stars including Sid James.

Set in the Alberta, the movie was shot in the Italian Dolomites and at the Pinewood Studios in England. The movie was seen at the time as an attempt to emulate Hollywood’s western genre action films but most critics of the period did not think it succeeded. Returning to it now it turns out to be a very satisfying watch. It was based on a cracking old fashioned adventure yarn written by Hammond Innes in 1952 and adapted by Robin Estridge. With a great cast and an exciting climax its well worth 102 minutes of your time. Another significant release from Network.

  

The Doctors Dilemma.

Dirk Bogarde, who puts in a fine performance and ‘brings much needed breath of life to the film’[1], is the best thing about the Anatole de Grunwald adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s 1906 play, The Doctors Dilemma (1958). In it he plays Louis Dubedat an artist of genius but, there's always a but, under his handsomely outward charm is an unpleasant and cruel scoundrel, a bigamist who currently shares his artist garret with his second wife Jennifer Dubedat played by the French actress Leslie Caron. The crux of Shaw’s story involves the recently knighted Sir Colenso Rideon (John Robinson) a recognised expert in his field, who must allocate the final place on his long waiting list for an operation to cure consumption. Will it be the hard working, honest and decent Doctor Blenkinsopp (Michael Gwynn) or the afore mentioned artist? Rideon’s decision is not an easy one as he has become infatuated with the lovely Jennifer Dubedat and bearing in mind whomever he leaves off his list will certainly die! With the unsolicited help of his three rich and empty-headed medical colleges played by Robert Morley, Felix Aylmer and Alastair Sim, Rideon he has to reach a decision and quickly! 

 

Will it be Louis Dubedat who is saved?

I’m not a great admirer of George Bernard Shaw’s verbal wit and I found this adaptation, really no more than a ‘photographed’ play, dry and considerably talky. This pompous costume melodrama seemed out dated even for 1958! The original director was to be Alexander Mackendrick but following disagreements with the films producer’s was replaced by Anthony Asquith, who worked with Bogarde in Libel the year after. Made for the American Studio MGM, who financed and distributed the film, at Borehamwood in Hertfordshire England the filmed flopped in the UK, doing much better in the US. The problem was that the British public felt cheated when they realised that the film was not one of Bogarde’s ‘Doctor’ films ‘they don’t want to pay good money to watch (Bogarde) croaking about TB in an attic’[2] Unsurprisingly the movie has since slid into obscurity – probably for Bogarde completest only?  

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[1] Nina Hibbin Daily Worker.

[2] John Davis.

A Tale of Two Cities.

Written in 1859 and originally published in weekly instalments between April 1859 and November 1859 Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities was set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution and depicts how when the French proletariat got sick of the way aristocracy was treating them they decided that the best response was to execute the lot of them by chopping off their heads using the guillotine! Dickens story set out the social parallels between Paris and London but unfortunately the British did not have the use of the guillotine and to this day are still putting up with the shite served up by their rich overlords.

 

The handsome Sydney Carlton. 

Following four silent film adaptations of Dickens story the first talky was in 1935 directed by Jack Conway and starred Ronald Colman and Elizabeth Allan and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1980 there was a TV adaptation that starred Chris Sarandon, Peter Cushing, Alice Krige and Billie Whitelaw. But between the two we had A Tale of Two Cities made at Pinewood in 1958. Directed by Ralph Thomas and produced by Betty E Box. The Rank Organisation movie starred Dirk Bogarde as Sydney Carlton with Dorothy Tutin as Lucie Manette.

 

Stephan Murray, Dorothy Tutin, Bogarde and Athene Seyler.

This is affectively a love story set against the storming of the Bastille with Bogarde's character making the ultimate sacrifice for the girl he loves so that she can live happily ever after with his look-alike rival. Some critics have commended Bogarde's performance as his best to date, which is not surprising as most of his career changing performances, other than Hunted (1952) came after A Tale Of Two Cities. Mine you the 38 year old actor did look extremely handsome as Carlton, a young lawyer who hates himself and seems to have a death wish slowly killing himself by consuming large quantities of alcohol! Dorothy Tutin (Savage Messiah 1972) does not have to put much effort into her role but there are some stand out performances further down the pecking order including Donald Pleasance as an unctuous spy, Christopher Lee as a sadistic aristocrat and Rosalie Crutchley as a sort of Madame guillotine character who gets a lot of pleasure arranging for the aristocracy to meet there deserved end. Also in attendance among the host of British actors is Cecil Parker as a banker, Athene Seyler as Tutin’s over protective companion and Stephan Murray as Tutin’s father - whose speedy recovery from 18 years in the Bastille is something to be marvelled at!

 

Rosalie Crutchley as 'Madame Guillotine'

Made completely in a studio does not help to make this the most realistic ‘revolutionary’ film you have ever watched with some scenes so underplayed that the excitement is completely non-existent. But is does pick up in the second half, which is probably more to do with the first half being so soporific and certainly is not a stand out movie in the career of one of Britain's greatest actors.

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.