Sleepwalker .

Previous rambles have referred to the Flipside series and the great 'lost' films released through the BFI. My latest foray into this wonderful series is a rarely seen British 'horror' film from 1984 directed and co-written by Saxon Logan called Sleepwalker. The Blu-ray/DVD release also includes some of the directors short films and a very informative interview recorded in Cape Town, South Africa in July 2013 which gives a welcome insight into the short film career of a man whose work had been neglected until recently.

 

Our four protagonists.  

The story is in the horror genre. The film opens when we enter an old rundown house, seemingly tucked away in the countryside.  We see a woman asleep having a bad dream that involves murder, blood and broken glass. A grey haired man enters the woman room and injects her with a syringe. It transpires that the women have been asleep all afternoon. The man and woman are called Marion and Alex Britain; the couple are brother and sister! Marion gets out of bed and proceeds to get dressed and make herself ready for her guests, Alec works on his computer unable to except the fact that visitors are there way, not a social animal our Alec! The storm, that has been raging since the start of our story, lashes the building. Richard Paradise and his wife Angela finally arrive having had problems locating the house. All four drive to a nearby restaurant that has only one other patron the Old Englishman (veteran actor Raymond Huntley). As the party of four begin to get a little loose tongued due to a rather large intake of alcohol the obnoxious Richard sets out to not only upset his fellow guests but also the Restaurant proprietor (Fulton Mackay) and the waiter (a role that Lindsay Anderson was to play until he was stuck in New York with a damaged ankle thereafter Michael Medwin offered his services).  After the disastrous meal our four protagonists return to the house where, because of the storm and the age of the electrics, neither the lights nor the heating are working properly. More alcohol is consumed, pornography watched on the TV and Marion flirts with Richard which disgust's Angela - Alec storms off to bed. All but Marion have gone to bed, but eventually the house beds down for the night but by the time that day breaks nothing will ever be the same again.

 

Joanna David as Angela Paradise.

Surprisingly the main male lead in this film is Bill Douglas a man probably best known for his directing and writing rather than his acting although he did start his career as an actor. I did have the privilege of see Douglas's best know work, the three films that made up his Trilogy (1972-1978) at the RBCFT in Dumfries in February 2011. Douglas had already worked with Logan on his second short Working Surface in 1979 the men had remained friends and Douglas readily agreed to appear in Logan's medium length debut feature film.

 

Bill Douglas as Alec Britain. 

Logan admits that his influences for this feature film include the movies of Dario Argento and Mario Bava and James Whale's 1932 horror film, which starred Boris Karloff, The Old Dark House, and the political satire of his mentor Lindsay Anderson. 'The later point emphasising that the film is as much political satire as horror film, if not considerably more'[1]. What Michael Brooke meant by this is that Logan's film is seen as a metaphor for Thatcher’s Britain. Logan claims that it was based on a true story of a friend who did actually sleepwalk and could be prone to violence when in this state. It's a film with atmosphere which I would readily admit comes from Logan and Michael Keenan's script and the cinematography of Nick Beeks-Sanders, who's still regularly works in Television as a camera operator.

 

Heather Page as Marion Britain. 

Are we sure that what we witness is real or unreal? But what we are sure of is the movies barely hidden political motives. The characters and the house became the embodiment of Britain in the 1980's. The name of the house is ‘Albion’, which is the oldest known name of the island of Great Britain. Each character represents something different: Marion (Heather Page) is Britain, Alec (Bill Douglas) is the wounded socialist, Robert (Nickolas Grace) the veracious businessman who thrives in the free market climate set in motion by Thatcher and her government, with Angela (Joanna David)as the British middle class who dislike what's happening but comply without barely a whimper. The highlight of this political representation is indeed the restaurant scene. 

 

The obnoxious Richard Paradise.

The only reason that Logan was able to secure funding for the film was because of the vanity of his financier who provided the £40000 required when he found out that Lindsay Anderson was to appear in the movie and that he could meet him. Because there was not enough money for production design it was filmed on location in Hampshire at a house that had became empty when its elderly resident moved in with her family after she got to old to care for her self. Both the house and its contents were loaned to the film crew for a five-day shoot. The film took six weeks to edit. The local Fire Brigade provided the rain.

Saxon Logan.

Saxon Logan was born in Rhodesia where he first saw Lindsay Anderson’s If… (1968) a movie that he rates as the biggest influence on his filmmaking.  When he left the country of his birth to work in the UK he got an interview with Lindsay who employed him to work at the Royal Court Theatre in London. This opportunity gave Logan the chance to gain a broad experience of working in different disciplines and with different people within a theatrical environment. Eventually getting his own play to direct all by the time he was nineteen. His first entry into the world of the feature film was when he was invited to assist Lindsay with the production of O Lucky Man (1973). This appointment again gave him an induction to most aspects of filmmaking, working in various departments under the guidance of Lindsay who also made it possible for Logan to join the Technicians Union. Which in turn meant he could go on to work in the industry under his own accord and made it possible for him to join the BBC as an assistant editor. But it was the suggestion from the This Sporting Life (1963) director that he should make his own films that was to change his life.

A scene from Stepping Out.

The first short film he wanted to make involved a robbery and gender sex change but he was advised that this might well be too complicated for his first attempt! Finally making a less complex film about gender reversal called Stepping Out (1977) which unfortunately did not have universal appeal but did the cinema rounds as part of a double bill with Roman Polanski's psychological thriller The Tenant (1976) a film which also had a transgender theme. He followed this with another short that turned out to be quite a large stepping-stone to his first feature film. Working Surface: A Short Study (with actors) in the 'Ways' of a Bourgeois Writer was made in 1979 and as I have said before starred Bill Douglas as the writer. He fitted the role perfectly because the character called for an actor that looked like a writer and could type. Logan also used two actresses that would feature in Sleepwalker, and Douglas's own film Comrades (1986) Joanna David and Heather Page. Working Surface was programmed with The Lacemaker (1977), a French movie that starred Isabelle Huppert, and gradually gained a lot of attention.

 

Sleepwalker open's to great acclaim at the Berlin Film Festival.

This exposure lead to Sleepwalker opening the Berlin Film Festival that year, unusual for a film of this length and was repeated throughout the festival to great acclaim - but this is Europe! When returning to the UK the film was not accepted for a release not even on the Festival circuit, in fact the film 'disappeared' sinking without a trace completely, which after its reception at Berlin was quite a surprise. Logan returned to making documentaries never venturing into feature film production again.

Fourteen years after being shelved horror critic and writer Kim Newman rediscovered the film and arranged a screening where it was very well received by the invited audience. Following this it was shown throughout the country at privately arranged screenings. Saxon Logan's film was finally accepted a very long time after it made its debut at Berlin! Logan was contacted by Sam Dunn who informed him that the BFI wanted to release the film as part of its Flipside series which brings me to where I started, infusing over a film that was never given its rightful acclaim when if was first made. So thank you again BFI for all cineastes like my self who now gets a chance to see a movie that we would not normally be able to.

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[1] Michael Brooke Sight and Sound October 2013

O Lucky Man!

‘Realism is not a matter of showing real things, but of showing how things really are’[1].                       

Lindsay Anderson and writer David Sherwin made a total of three films featuring a character called Mick Travis all played by Malcolm McDowell, but besides having the same name they are not strictly speaking the same character and the stories aren't sequential but there is similarities between them and have always been termed the Mick Travis trilogy. The first of the three was If…. (1968). Which as I have explained before was meant as a metaphor for British Society and a condemnation of authority but specifically an attack on the absurdities of the British public school system. The second film in this ‘trilogy’ is O Lucky Man! (1973) an allegory on life lived in a capitalist society and an attack on the British class system.

 

The Coffee Salesman.

The Tycoons Daughter.

After the success of If…. McDowell wanted to work with the director again and suggested that he (McDowell) write a script based on his own early experiences as a coffee salesman. Anderson pointed out that good scripts are pretty rare and challenged the actor to come up with one, which he did! Originally called Coffee Man Anderson asked Sherwin to work up a script from Malcolm McDowell’s original ideas. These adventures of a coffee salesman became what Anderson called an epic “not in the sense of Ben-Hur but in a classical poetic sense of the term’[2]. It tells the story of a young man (Travis) who uses any means to get to the ‘top’. Firstly as the afore mentioned coffee salesman who gets awarded not only the prime area of North East England but of Scotland as well. There’s a beautiful comment from Mick when he is told he has to go to Scotland, he responded that he can’t possible go because he does not have any warm clothes with him! From salesman to scientific guinea pig. Then assistant to a business tycoon, who cons him into acting as his fall guy and serving a prison sentence, converted to near saintliness, almost martyred by a crown of down and outs he is trying to help and finally reaching an understanding of life by being hit around the head with the script of O Lucky Man! by the films director!

 

British justice at work.

One of Lindsay brilliant theatrical touches is to cast the same actors in different roles including Helen Mirren, who had just finished Ken Russell’s Savage Messiah (1972) and went on to appear opposite McDowell in Caligula some six years later, who plays Patricia the tycoons wayward daughter and a casting call receptionist. Other well-known actors who have two or more parts are Sir Ralph Richardson, Rachel Roberts, and Graham Crowden and Christine Noonan who both appeared in If…. Mora Washbourne, Brian Glover and Arthur Lowe who ‘blacks up’ as Dr Munda the dictator of Zingara a brutal police state.

 

The Dictator of Zingara.

Although it may not sound like it, it is a film about the real world but one that makes its point through comedy and satire, with words and music from Alan Price reinforcing and underlining the storyline in a clever and imaginative way. It did not do that well at the box office when it was first released but its satirical brilliance has now been recognised, just re-watch it and see the relevance it has to today.

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[1] Bertolt Brecht.

[2] Lindsay Anderson DVD commentary1994.

If….

The revolutionary spirit of the sixties....

Lindsay Anderson’s most successful film was never made to cash in on the revolutionary fever of the late sixties although it was made around the same time as the Paris uprising in May 1968. In fact the idea for the film first surfaced in 1966 when Seth Holt, a British Film Director who directed feature films for Hammer Studios, brought the idea to Lindsay. The script he showed him was written by John Howlett and David Sherwin and was about their experiences of life in an English public school. The pair had been working on the script for a number of years but nobody seemed interested until they brought Crusaders, the name of the initial script, to Lindsay. Not too impressed with the original he decided to meet with the two authors and it was agreed that he along with Sherwin would collaborate and see if they could produce a less naive piece of work. The Indian born director and writer was able to include his own dire experiences of life at his old school, Cheltenham College and of society in the intervening years although he has said it was not autobiographical.  With Lindsay’s input it became a must more intimately personnel experience more in the tradition of Free Cinema, with a story written free from outside interference. When the revised script was completed it was shown to Michael Medwin and Albert Finney who had started their own production company Memorial Pictures. It was following this tie up that the title was changed to if.... 

 

....coupled with the innocence of youth.

With the help of This Sporting Life (1963) casting director Miriam Brickman the actors was chosen. Auditions took place and it was Brickman who suggested auditioning Malcolm McDowell for the main lead Mick Travis, in what was to be his debut feature film and a role that led to Stanley Kubrick casting him as Alex in Clockwork Orange (1971).  Arthur Lowe was cast because of his work in This Sporting Life, Mary McLoad and Graham Crowden were chosen because of their previous work with the director at The Royal Court Theatre. It was arranged for Polish DOP Miroslav Ondricek to return to this country from Prague to work on the film after previously working on The White Bus (1967). Union regulations stipulated that that you must have a ‘reserve’ British cameraman. This is how the award winning Chris Menges came to work on the film. As with most British movies finance was impossible to obtain from the UK but fortunately Medwin and Finney impressed Charles Bludhorn, the head of US Paramount Pictures, enough to provide the funding.

As far as the British censor was concerned the only problem seemed to be the short nude scene in the roadside cafe involving Christine Noonan and McDowell. He surprisingly allowed a glimpse of Mrs Kemp’s pubic hair as she wanders naked down the dormitory corridor but made the boys cover their private parts in the shower scene.  In Greece, under the Colonels, the entire last sequence was cut which obviously destroyed the film, with Portugal refusing to show the film at all. Out of the Communist country's it was Poland that seemed to have the biggest problem with the film.  Other countries made various cuts but the USA gave it an X certificate and passed it un-mutilated.

 

The converted cloisters of the British education system.

Popular with students and young people, even with it carrying an X certificate, it did reasonably well in this country, it was in the US, Europe and in some Communist countries that it did its best business. Lindsay maintains it is by the vitality of emotional impulse, the urgency of what needs to be said rather than star names and a big budget production, something that’s not always recognised by the British public.  

 

"You must remember gentlemen to shake my hand after I've beaten you senseless"

Although identified with the sixties the film could have been made at any time. Intentionally there were no contemporary references in the film deliberately to make it difficult to date. Partly filmed at Lindsay’s old school Cheltenham College, the film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in the 1969 Film Festival, which at the time seemed to legitimize the spirit of revolt that has swept through Europe. The film was a wonderfully scurrilous attack on the absurdities of the public school system combining an observational style with modernist techniques for example chapter headings and abrupt jumps between colour and black and white (which some have said was for economic reasons and not for art sake) and the gradual shift into a sort of fantasy, or for some, wishful thinking! The whole film is a metaphor for British society and an attack on authority, with a form of education that lead to conformity and dullness but was expected to produce our bigoted ruling classes including membership of parliament and the House of Lords, the church which has always been deemed the Tory party at prayer and of course those that commanded the armed forces and sent young men and women to war. The London Film Festival showed the film and it was nominated for a prize that was given at that time by the BFI but as Lindsay opined in 1994 'just as the British were not interested in financing the film, they were not interested in acknowledging it'

 

Mrs Kemp with her clothes on!

'The basic tensions, between hierarchy and anarchy, independence and tradition, liberty and law, are always with us'[1].  It’s a story about freedom and its romantic connotations. The world rallies as it always will, and brings its overwhelming firepower to bear on the men who say 'no'[2].  Still true to this very day. Was Mick Travis right when he said Violence and revolution are the only pure acts?[3]

The rest is up to you[4]

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[1] Taken from the preface to the published script. 1969

[2] Lindsay Anderson.

[3] Mick Travis. 1968.

[4] Lindsay Anderson. After an early screening of the film. 1969