Old career in a new town... Brannigan (1975), BFI Blu-ray out now!

My mother-in-law is Dr Sylvia Hardy, noted scholar, a past secretary of the HG Wells Society, and an academic with a string of qualifications in English as well as Film. She can run rings around me on James Joyce, post-structuralism and literature – she recalls every book she’s read in outstanding detail – and, since she was a small girl watching films in Weymouth’s picture houses, she’s loved John Wayne. Despite Wayne’s politics and his attitudes to women and minorities, a whole list of things they would have argued about, he’s still one of the great stars for her.

 

She even likes Brannigan, a British-made film that allows Duke to carry off a tough-guy role at 68 although she feels he’s perhaps missing a horse… and it’s true, there is something charming about this film perhaps because we know his next film was Rooster Cogburn and we know he’s near the end but also because his persona is intact. He’s helped, of course, by a great supporting cast as well as superb backdrops of London: Brannigan is a real time-capsule film that takes in everything from Tower Bridge to the Garrick and RAC Clubs via Park Lane, Battersea and Piccadilly.

 

 

Mr Wayne

Directed by Douglas Hickox, Brannigan afforded Wayne the chance to ape the Clint Eastwood style (he had turned down Dirty Harry only to regret it) and allows a fresh twist by transporting his unchanging cowboy act to Blighty: a horse-wrangler out of water as it were... There are repeated moments in the film which play on this from attempts to get Brannigan to not carry his gun and to follow native procedures. There’s also a nice running contest between the character and his British counterpart, Commander Sir Charles Swann (Richard Attenborough) which plays up every known cliché about the “special relationship”.

 

Brannigan’s assigned liaison officer, Detective Sergeant Jennifer Thatcher (the marvellous Judy Geeson) quotes her father in saying that there’s only three things wrong with “yanks”: “over-paid, over-sexed and over here…” But you know mutual respect won’t be far behind and, age-appropriate at that, here Wayne is more of an uncle figure being three times Geeson’s age.

 

It’s entertaining and undemanding fun and very well put together. There’s also a fine example of a hard-top e-type Jaguar and you can’t say further than that for men of a certain age, especially with Morris Minors, River 800s and so many classic cars on view.

Judy Geeson

Lieutenant James Brannigan is a Chicago cop who has his own way of doing thing but (you guessed it…) he gets results. He’s tracking down one particularly nasty crime lord, Ben Larkin (John Vernon, a tad "Larger than life" here...), who has been caught trying to flee to England. Somewhat against his will – and to the audience’s delight – Duke… sorry, Brannigan is sent to bring him back. Somehow, we sense that it’s not going to be quite that simple… and the old dog’s unconventional methods will be all the more so in London Town.

 

Brannigan arrives and is treated like a red-hot cinder by the locals as Swann and his number two, Insp. Michael Traven (John Stride – who was excellent in the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead I saw a few years later…in Manchester), struggle to reign him in. Miss Thatcher is altogether more understanding and there’s an under-current of fatherly affection between her and the old grump. But where did they get that second name from? The “Milk Snatcher” was a shadow cabinet minister at the time…

 

Meanwhile the plot has really kicked in. A hit man is assigned to off Brannigan by Larkin’s team led by Mel Fields (Mel Ferrer) – he’s Gorman (Daniel Pilon) the nastiest in the business but at least he drives that e-type. Then Larkin is kidnapped from his health club by two Brit gangsters played by Charlie-the-Handle (played by The Genius, James Booth!) and Drexel (Del Henney) whose aim is to hold him to ransom.

John Vernon

 

So now Brannigan has to help the Limeys save face as well as catch his man. The first attempt to snag the kidnappers fails as they extract the money from a drop in Piccadilly by drilling a hole beneath a post box.They seem to be one step ahead of the local Plod, but not Brannigan of course.

 

There are some lively police-procedurals as Brannigan and co set about scaring the truth out of the likes of Brian Glover and Tony Booth (Cherie’s dad) not to mention the far less threatening Tony Robinson – “look kids it’s Baldric!”, “Who?”, “Er… the guy out of Time Team!”, “Oh yeah…”

 

There’s also - of course - a classic bar brawl at a pub in Leadenhall Market in which Attenborough joins Wayne in slugging it out on that violent but harmless way of every good-humoured scrap since The Quiet Man: glassing with a smile and mutually respectful manliness all round. Personally I've only ever turned the other cheek - all my fighting has been outside of the pub, but it's a strange cinematic ritual of male bonding even now.

 

Sir Richard Attenborough

Then there’s a car chase which is very well executed and shows off some of the highlights of central London including Tower Bridge over which the cars fly as the draw bridge lifts higher. Famously Telly Savalas made an advertorial about Birmingham at around this time saying how good it was, "my kinda town!" and, in its way, Brannigan shows the love for London as well as the legend around whom the script and action was so carefully constructed. 

 

All the while Brannigan’s hit-man gets closer and closer to the kill, narrowly avoiding nailing Miss Thatcher as the dead-eyed cop reacts just in time to put him off. Predictable it may be but the plot is well constructed as the main elements race to a satisfying conclusion as the double-crossing crosses over itself in the inevitable deserted offices of decaying docklands (probably now the home of gastro pubs and luxury flats).

 

Wayne still convinces and went on to make Rooster Cogburn next, his best late period film and he met Kathryn Hepburn for the first time in London during filming and this is how she became involved in that classic. When I was younger, I was less generous to his attempts to stay in the game but this was all he knew from being an extra in silent films in the late twenties, he worked for over 50 years in cinema.

 

Duke explains modern badness to the limeys

Apart from featuring so much British talent living their best life acting with Wayne, cameos from Don Henderson and Lesley Anne Down among others, the film is worth watching for the cars and the streets of 1974. There’s an article on the BFI website looking at the locations then and now and it’s truly fascinating to watch the city in high resolution almost 50 years ago. It’s changed, we’ve changed… and yet, in some ways, it and we haven't. 

 

A couple of years later, The Squeeze showed a sleazier and more authentic side to London’s criminal classes, followed by others, but Brannigan helped keep the British crime flick alive at a time of struggle.

The booklet cover says it all!

This BFI Blu-ray is presented with the usual high-quality extras:

 

·         Presented in High Definition

·         Audio commentary by Steve Mitchell and critic Nathaniel Thompson (2017)

·         A Duke Out of Water (2023, 37 mins): reminiscences from the people who made Brannigan.

·         Frank Henson on Brannigan (2021, 4 mins): the veteran stuntman looks back on doubling the Duke.

·         Take It to the Bridge (1905-1956, 23 mins): historical glimpses of the Thames, Tower Bridge and other Brannigan locations.

·         A Policeman’s Lot (1896-1973, 35 mins): a copper’s clutch of films concerning crimefighters and crooks, proceeding from the very earliest days of cinema towards the Brannigan era.

·         The Guardian Interview: Richard Attenborough (1983, 89 mins, audio only): the award-winning actor and director, and John Wayne’s Brannigan co-star, reflects upon his illustrious career.

·         An extensive selection of location photographs, featuring cast and crew.

·         Original trailer

·         Illustrated booklet with new essays by Johnny Mains and John Oliver, notes on the special features and credits.

 

You can order the set direct from the BFI Shop and if you’re quick you’ll get the limited edition of 2,000 which includes the fascinating essay booklet.

Buster’s big break… Three Ages (1923), out now on Eureka Blu-ray

 

Buster Keaton’s first starring role in a feature film was in The Saphead (1920) but this was the first feature he directed – with the aid of Eddie Cline – and co-wrote with Clyde Bruckman, Jean C. Havez and Joseph Mitchell. This brand-new Eureka Blu-ray release celebrates Three Ages’ centenary and proves that, from the get-go, he was a Master of Cinema.

In his illuminating commentary film historian and writer David Kalat talks about Keaton’s enduring influence and you only have to look at Tom Cruise’s jump in Mission Impossible Fallout which mirrors Buster’s missed jump from building to building in the final stages of this film. Both filmmakers kept the fails in and revised the story around them, Buster laid up for three weeks and Cruise nursing a broken ankle. These physical risks add extra appeal gaining our admiration and fascination; Buster’s dangerous leaps still have hearts in mouths.

But, as Kalat points out, so many of the gags in this film have been recycled by lesser comics and the man himself. This was the first time I’d seen the full film and I could spot the most influential gags, but it’s still laugh out loud funny, especially with the family watching.

The Talmadge Connection: Talking of families, it’s impossible to discuss Keaton at this stage without referencing his producer, Joseph M. Schenck’s wife and sister-in-law… Keaton married Schenck’s wife Norma Talmadge’s sister Natalie in 1921. In 1921 Keaton was still putting his career in place and so was not quite the match Mama Talmadge wanted for her middle daughter and famously she put him down as “…not an actor, just a comedian…” so, there’s a real sense of biography running through the film in terms of the main protagonists trying to impress the parents of the girls they want to marry.

Natalie and Norma’s younger sister Constance was famously in DW Griffith’s Intolerance (1916) – one of the best things in it for my money – and it’s hard to know if this played any part in Keaton selecting that epic to spoof. Intolerance is a multi-generational epic across four different time periods and so, for his first film, Keaton narrows that down to just the Three Ages, all reflecting the eternal themes of love… or in this case, the many slips on the rocky road to marriage.

Thus, we have three broadly similar stories in which our hero, Buster, tries to convince the parents of his love that he is the one who should marry her ahead of his brutish rival. For the lead Keaton inherited Margaret Leahy, a young Irish actress who had won a competition judged in London by Norma Talmadge and Schenck, to feature in their new film, Within the Law (1923). After a day on set, director Frank Lloyd decided she couldn’t act and they had to weasel out of the contract by paying her to watch that film being made before starring with Buster in his film. It was to prove to be her only film and her inabilities added weeks to the film’s production as the directors tried to film the right expressions on her face.

Margaret Leahy in Ancient Rome

Wallace Beery plays Buster’s eternal competition – towering over the five feet four-inch comic; with Lillian Lawrence as the mother and Joe Roberts a most fearsome father, even taller than Beery.

We begin in The Stone Age… somewhere near Bedrock perhaps, with beefy Beery’s attempts to woo Margaret interrupted by our hero arriving on the back of a brontosaurus. Keaton said that his dinosaur-riding introduction was inspired by Winsor McCay's Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) whilst the animation was put together by Out of the Inkwell’s Max Fleischer and these were the two people that sprang to mind when his plasticine version enters the screen riding on the head of a stone-age brontosaurus... History is history here in spite of what so called “experts” might say and Raquel Welch would later confirm that all the scientists were wrong in the ground-breaking documentary One Million Years BC (1966).

Our second period is Imperial Rome where Buster faces off against the higher-ranking Roman soldier and there’s a chariot race with some difference as wheels are replaced with skis and Buster uses dogs to charge to victory after an unlikely snowfall…

Finally, there’s a section filmed in modern times with an opening shot of the contemporary New York skyline even though, as with the rest of the film, the locations are shot in California, with John Bengtson’s essay showing that many still exist.

Buster trias to negotiate with Bid Daddy and Beery Rubble

There’s a gag-filled speakeasy routine in which Virginia Fox really highlights Leahy’s limitations in her expressiveness and skill in supporting the ever-improvisational Keaton. Despite her acting, Leahy wrote despatches to the Daily Sketch in the UK and she did wonders for the UK box office by describing Keaton’s abilities, his work ethic and his skill.

The three strands are inter-woven throughout and the narrative is smooth. Legend has it that film was planned as three shorts that could be released separately in the event that the feature failed. David Kalat disagrees saying it is clearly a planned, cohesive feature film with comedy that escalates through the feature, paced differently to a two-reeler. The much longer Intolerance was cut down into three digestible chunks… so does this legend just pick up this?

Whatever the truth, Three Ages remains eminently watchable and with a comedy that has stood the test into a fourth age of the internet, social media and clownish politicians. Buster is still cool and still surprising… old stoneface was, in fact, one of the most honest and humane of comedians. That never gets old.

This new set is the film’s UK debut on Blu-ray, from a restoration completed in 2022 by the Cohen Film Collection.

·         Limited Edition slipcase (First Print Run of 2000 copies only)

·         1080p presentation on Blu-ray from a new restoration by the Cohen Film Collection

·         Reconstructed original intertitles.

·         Brand new audio commentary by film historian and writer David Kalat

·         This Side of Impossible – brand new video essay by David Cairns

·         Under the Flat Hat – brand new video essay by Fiona Watson

·         The Six Ages of Comedy – brand new featurette based on an essay by Keaton

·         Brand new interview with Ian Lavender

·         Man’s Genesis (1912) short by D.W. Griffith that is parodied in Three Ages

·         Video essay on the film’s locations by John Bengtson

·         Archival recordings of Keaton

·         PLUS: A collectors booklet featuring new writing by Philip Kemp and Imogen Sara Smith

 

Fiona Watson’s video essay on Keaton ponders the possibility that he was on the Autistic spectrum with a form of ADHD. Fiona is neuro-atypical herself and makes an interesting case especially for those of us with this condition in the family. Ultimately, as she concludes, to be able to make so many wonderful films in the way that this self-taught and self-made man did, required an extraordinary mind.

It’s a wonderful film and an essential acquisition, you can order the limited-edition version direct from the Eureka site using this here link!

The One Rōnin… Castle of Wind and Clouds (1928), with Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius, Silent Film Days Bonn 2023

A terrible plot is forged around a castle in the south. Good and loyal subjects already fell under the hand of the devils…

Another journey of discovery and a startling film produced by the director of A Page of Madness (1926), Teinosuke Kinugasa, and directed by Toko (aka Fujie) Yamazaki making this the first Japanese silent I’ve seen directed by a woman. Castle… aka Fûun jôshi was made for Kinugasa, part of the Shimogamo studio, it’s a stylish jidai geki, a Japanese period drama involving a samurai clan in this case one poisoned by treachery in which a lone warrior must put honour above his own interests and loyalty to authority above love all and, of course, he must fight.

Almost as soon as the cameras started rolling, the genre made it to screen in Kōchiyama to Nao-zamurai (1916) and was well established by the twenties, flourishing later with classics such as The 47 Ronin (1941), Rashomon (1950) and Seven Samurai (1954). It’s the Japanese equivalent of the western or chivalric tale, honour and duty aligned to bravery, love and combat skill… lone heroes making a difference. The highpoint of any such film is the action but also the moral force painful decisions made in the name of duty something we all relate to.

The film begins and ends with similar shots of a man on horseback, riding down/up the same spiral path from the land beyond all with a gorgeous pink tint. It’s a young man, Shinhachi (Chojiro Hayashi), who has returned home from years of training in the capital, to the land he grew up in and his head is filled with lyrical thoughts of the land, the light and his beautiful fiancée Chigusa (Akiko Chihaya) who has pledged to wait as long as it takes, lonely and sad, until you come back…

Chojiro Hayashi

He is met by his elder brother Einoshin (Sôroku Kazama) and informed that “storm and turmoil await” as the clan is being poisoned by their treacherous uncle, Sannosuke (Ippei Soma). Hayashi, later Kazuo Hasegawa, was just twenty and at the start of a huge film career stretching over 300 films from 1927 to 1968. Here his persona is that of a bidanshi, an androgynous youth – literally “beautiful boy” – in a tradition that stretches way back into Japanese literature and is very “gender” as my daughter might say as this guy can fight; a peacock with a dazzling blade (make of that what you will…).

By contrast Sannosuke is a gurning mask of evil superbly pantomimed by Soma who pulls the eye with dark, almost comic malevolence but whilst these characterisations may seem black and white there’s more graduated tints around the head of the clan, Lord Hachiya Teruaki (Keinosuke Sawada as Myoichiro Ozawa), a tyrant and yet with a sense of fairness all his own. He is unaware of the machinations against him, distracted by orgies and festivities, revelling in lust and luxury.

If you really love her, kill your rival and she will return to your arms…

Akiko Chihaya

Shinhachi is reunited with his sweetheart but in the Lord’s court where he has taken her as one of his concubines… Sannosuke immediately tries to take advantage of the young man’s despair, urging him to kill their leader and take his love back. Shinhachi is however, steadfast and not the hot-headed young samurai Sannosuke hopes, warrior he is though and calm in the midst of conflict and hand to hand combat: I am willing to give my life for our Lord and our clan. The long, poetic intertitles are perhaps a reflection of the benshi-style narration that would have accompanied the film’s original screenings.

Angered by Shinhachi’s unyielding loyalty, Sannosuke arranges for a group of assassins to despatch him but things do not work out as he planned as the young man holds them off before being joined by another martial arts expert from the clan Nikaido Juppeita (Shinkuro Masamune) who, after helping despatch the assassins in a set piece fight that wouldn’t look out of place in many a later film, warns him of the escalating danger. 

Meanwhile our young hero’s brother Einoshin’s illness is getting worse as Shinhachi goes home to see him and his mother (Yoshie Nakagawa). This film’s all heart as well as action and the emotional sacrifices to be made only heighten the dramatic impact of the core messages about discipline and loyalty.

They're outnumbered one-to-nine...

My body is the sacrifice of my desperate love. But my soul is always with you.

Shinhachi plays the flute outside of Chigusa’s quarters and his love hears him… the two exchange words of resigned longing… Then walking in the grounds, he encounters a group of assassins who have tried to kill the Lord, he fights them off using his flute and superior technique but the next day is accused of being one of them by the Lord’s guards and asked to prove his innocence or commit hara-kiri. To protect the family’s honour and buy his brother time, Einoshin kills himself, certain f his brother’s innocence and pleading for him to always stay loyal to their Lord.

You spiteful bandits, meet my martial art! Be ready.

This the scene is set for more superbly choreographed battles as Shinhachi fights for his love, his honour and his clan as the full extent of Sannosuke’s plan are revealed and well, you just have to see it all for yourself. The direction is flowing and the sense of place so well maintained with cinematography from Eiji [Eiichi] Tsuburaya who went on to have a huge career including the development of special effects, he was co-creator of the Godzilla and Ultraman franchises, and some 300 films.

Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius have martial, musical discipline of their own and armed with flute, piano and a multitude of objects to hit, played along with the action and the emotion. Ninjas of silent film accompaniment, you hear them when they want you too but are otherwise seamlessly invisible within the whole experience of a screening, loyal, as Shinhachi to the Prince, to the art on screen. They played a blinder and I really hope to see this film and their music in the UK sometime.

Another special discovery courtesy of Bonn. As I said, next year it’s a date!

Shinkuro Masamune

Ippei Soma

Chojiro Hayashi, Yoshie Nakagawa and Sôroku Kazama

Keinosuke Sawada

Akiko Chihaya

Spiderwoman... The Cave of the Silken Web (1927), with Richard Seidhoff and Frank Bockius, Silent Film Days Bonn 2023

 

Long ago, well before these days of superhero fatigue, it was perfectly reasonable to expect a film involving a league of spider-powered witches to take on a monk and his gang of animal heroes. At least in China, in 1927, where this uncanny adventure was no doubt a huge hit. This was not the China we know of course, a diverse country still carrying vestiges of imperial rule and split across territories years before the communist party take over.

 

The Cave of the Silken Web (Pan si dong) (1927) – or 西遊記-盤絲洞; 西游记-盘丝洞 if you want to be precise… was based on the classic story, The Journey to the West, which relates a monk’s pilgrimage to India during the Yang Dynasty (618-907, our time). As with other cultures, the early films tended to call upon the literary, artistic and performance heritage and China was clearly no different with this startling and entertaining mix of action, adventure and comedy; there’s a reason this story was so popular and it contains a magical melange of religion, sexy witches and, erm, magic all illustrated by an impressively choreographed cast.

 

The real delight here is the performance styles which combine the pantomimed exaggerations you’d expect from Western cinema but also the natural emoting you find too; just because you’re a spider-woman or a cannibal mage doesn’t mean to say you can’t act naturally and whilst there’s a joking knowingness there’s also a delicious matter of factness that infects these characters who only want what they want. I mean, is eating monks really so wrong?

Xia Peizhen  and Yin Mingzhu

 

The film was based on Journey to the West, a Chinese novel written in the 16th century during the Ming Dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng'en. Apparently, this it is one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature and predates the novel form in Britain, we’d have to wait for Richardson and Fielding for that although we were very good at plays at this stage. For folk of my age, another one of the great four novels is the 14th-century book Water Margin which was made into a very successful television series in Japan and dubbed by the great Burt Kwouk for UK presentation. The style is very similar, rapid action, mysticism and lots of humour.

 

Very little survives from Chinese cinema of this vintage and indeed this film was considered lost until a copy was found in the Norwegian National Library and restored with both Chinese and the Norwegian intertitles which add extra Scandinavian flavours. The first reel is lost as is a section in which our hero takes a bath possibly with the company of the spier women… guess we’ll just have to use our imaginations. It feels intact and something like a miracle, popping off the screen with so much style and energy.

 

The film was directed by Dan Duyu who directed some 30 films from 1922 to 1952 and who was married to the film’s leading spider woman, Yin Mingzhu. They ended up in Hong Kong and their daughter, Judy Dan, ended up in Hollywood with a bit part in The King and I and leading roles in War is Hell, Stagecoach to Dancers’ Rock and others. Yin Mingzhu has a story of her own though and she was already famous and married to a Frenchman, when she met Duyu, playing a part in elevating him to success. She had acted in the theatre and was also involved in the finance and production of films with the Shanghai Shadow Play Company (love that title!) and the Shanghai Talkie Company, both doing exactly what it says on the tin.

Jiang Meikang surrounded by his new pals...

Her character certainly shines through in this film as the leader of the seven spider women who interrupt a monk, Xuanzang (Jiang Meikang) on a pilgrimage to India where he has been tasked by the Emperor, “the Son of Heaven himself”, to collect sacred texts. He is accompanied on his quest by three disciples, the clever and mischievous Monkey (Wu Wenchao), the lazy and glutinous Pigsy (Zhou Hongquan) and Sandy (Dan Erchun) a river spirit, plus a fourth character - the Dragon prince - who has taken the form of a white horse (a white horse) in order to carry the holy man. All have been given their roles in order to atone for their misdeeds, and their wayward ways have hardly left them.

 

It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten a monk, let me at him!

 

Xuanzang leaves his companions to beg for food and is called into their cave by the beautiful women, who are very keen to offer the monk their hospitality whatever that may entail… they fuss over the starving priest but when one of them (Xia Peizhen aka second spider spirit) goes into their kitchen she instructs are rather oily and over-excited imp who instantly knows the aim is to eat Xuanzang and thereby give themselves a taste of his spirit and possibly immortality. Takes all sorts.

 

By this time the monk’s companions are beginning to get suspicious and Pigsy goes off to investigate. Meanwhile, back in the cave the women offer the Monk meat which he cannot eat as he’s as vegetarian as he is holy and then persuade him to take a bath before deciding to join him in an unexpected twist. All thoughts of early seventies British sex comedy-style splashing about are quickly dashed though as the focus switches to Pigsy as he forces his way into find his master. He’s quickly trapped in a spider web as the action speeds up.

Don't let this man cook for you...

The scene shifts to a man in white, the thousand-year-old centipede spirit (He Rongzhu) who is with a younger Yellow Flower Daoist spirit (Chen Baoqi) reading magical texts; they look harmless enough but will soon join the attempted feast in the cave. Meanwhile manic Monkey enters the cave, transforms himself into one of the spider women and frees Pigsy, as the women try to get the Monk drunk – nothing seems to work on him not even the unseen mixed bathing…

 

The Spider Queen decides to marry the Monk and goes off to invite the man in white and others to her wedding whilst Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy are visited by Guanyin who tells them they need The True Flame and The Three Virtues to stand a chance against the demons. But is it too late as the wedding begins, with dozens of magical guests and The Dance of the Demons of Carnality begins with the Monk in the position of sexual prey normally reserved for women in Western scenarios.

 

There’s such a light touch to the direction and the fight scenes are so well put together, Monkey vs the Queen in a sword fight, the greasy cook and his huge metal mallet versus Pigsy and his rake and then all Hell breaking loose… The costumes and make up are exceptional and the performers presenting as relaxed and naturalistic in the context of this comedic pantomime. Maybe this was the spirit that the authorities wanted to suppress rather than the end product itself.

Wu Wenchao is the cheeky Monkey

Richard Seidhoff and Frank Bockius had so much fun with this, Franks’ percussive variety and energy reflecting the extremes of violence and drama whilst Richard weaved some delicious lines over the sweet and sour storyline.

 

This was another screening from Bonn and one of the biggest surprises of the week… the shock of the old! We wish there were more but what there is enough to illustrate how vivid Chinese cinema was at this period. A visual feast and an imaginative riot!

 

Xia Peizhen