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.

Plays from yesterday... Play for Today, BFI Blu-ray box set

“…why resurrect Play for Today? What could today’s television industry learn from it? Looking at the seven plays in this Volume One BFI set alone, what stands out is the natural diversity of their subject matter and their brave search for originality.” Marcus Prince, TV programmer for BFI Southbank

After watching through this new set I can confirm wholeheartedly that Mr Prince is not just whistling Dixie; these plays are strikingly vibrant even after all of these years and the quality of performance and writing stands the test of time both in terms of emotional and historical resonance. For some, like myself, these plays were watched and understood as a pre-teen but they were a shared family experience and hearing my parents discussing them is one of my earliest memories of critical appreciation.

I only directly remember one of the plays, Shakespeare or Bust (1973), probably because it was one of three featuring Brian Glover, Ray Mort and Douglas Livingstone as Art, Ern and Abe, three Leeds miners in search of cultural and other adventure. But I recognise the style of the plays as well as the performers especially Alison Steadman who is joint record holder for most PFT appearances on nine, most memorably as Abigail and Candice Marie, along with Nigel Hawthorne. Here she’s an expectant mother alongside Bernard Hill (just the seven appearances) and they show exactly why they have enjoyed such long careers on their way from Rochdale here to Essex and Port Talbot as well as Arundel's Isle.

Gemma Jones in The Lie

Perhaps the most a-typical is the first play, The Lie (1970) written by Ingmar Bergman and directed by Alan Bridges as part of an international co-production entitled The Largest Theatre in the World. It is more cinematic than the others as you might expect given the writer’s day job and typical of his concerns about relationships. This was the third play in season one and features Frank Finlay and Gemma Jones as Andrew and Anna Firth a professional couple in a sterile marriage, stifled by their careers and living all too comfortably in the fug of material wellbeing. After ten years of marriage they have two children, a nanny and sleep in separate bedrooms, but their balance is about to be upset as Andrew suffers at set back in his working life and turning back to fall on home comforts, discovers there’s far less warmth there than he thought.

Anna’s career is still on track and she has a long-standing secret lover, Ellis (John Carson) who himself is married. There’s an excruciating dinner party – avocado prawn starters all round – with Anna sat next to Ellis and Andrew with Ellis’ wife. The story is full of betrayals as you might expect from the four times married Bergman, but are lies better than revelations?

Frank Findlay, a lost soul swimming in a fish bowl?

There’s a striking cameo from Joss Ackland as Anna’s brother, a writer having a nervous breakdown and wearing make-up and nail varnish as he simmers away in hospital. Is he the author’s voice; driven to nervous exhaustion by being too honest to make the compromises that enable the others’ unhappiness? I wonder what becomes of him?

In Passage to England (1975) there are more deceptions and also the first sighting of the wonderful Colin Welland, writer and actor who in ten years would hoist his Oscar a lot and declare that the British were coming. Back in the seventies the adage was that British cinema was alive and well and on television and Play for Today surely played a major part in keeping things afloat prior to the cinematic revival heralded by Chariots of Fire.

Here Welland plays Onslow, captain of a small cargo boat, the very English Morris Dancer who, along with his partner Graham (Niall Padden) get an offer they could and should refuse from a young Ugandan Asian called Anand (Tariq Yunus); a bar of gold at bargain price if they smuggle him, his cousin Pramila (June Bolton) and sick uncle Dharam (Renu Setna) to England. The play balances a serious subject with a light-heartedness that serves to wrong foot the viewer even now with a nuanced discussion of the British and their empire.

Colin Welland was born in Liverpool

Written by Leon Griffiths the story is mostly set in the Amsterdam docks which director John Mackenzie uses to atmospheric effect much as he would do in The Long Good Friday; who doesn’t love a dock-side drama?

There’s more Welland, this time as writer of altogether more earnest and needfully complex tale of post-imperial national identity with Your Man from Six Counties (1976) in which a young Catholic boy Jimmy (Joseph Reynolds) goes to stay with his Uncle in the west of Ireland after his father is killed by a loyalist bomb in Northern Ireland.

Location is again an important part of the context and it looks very much as if all the shooting was done in situ from the hills and fields to cottages and pubs of County Sligo, you can even see flat-topped Benbulbin Mountain near Drumcliff, where W.B. Yeats is buried. There’s a very fine cast backgrounded with local faces that could only ever be Irish, with Donal McCann as Uncle Danny and a young Brenda Fricker (first Irish woman to win an Oscar for My Left Foot in 1989) as his wife Mollie. Young Jimmy is like a fish out of water, a city boy in the country, carrying a pet rook once rescued by his Dad, in a cage. Irish mythology may have it that these birds symbolise the souls of the dead yet, to local farmers, they’re a menace to be shot and hung out to dry.

Donal McCann and Brenda Fricker

Danny tries his best to bring Jimmy back to life and to put his father’s violent death behind him and yet the latter’s best friend Pat (Paul Antrim), a rebel in thought if not deed, wants to encourage the boy to hero worship his “martyred” father and to follow in his footsteps more forcefully than he has ever managed. Both Danny and Pat have something to learn about the boy and Mollie acts as the play’s moral heart trying to pull them together for the lad’s sake. Welland’s script allows so much room for interpretation especially as Katie Crosson observes in her booklet essay, “No two viewpoints are identical… “ meaning that there is no single straightforward narrative: you have to make your own mind up.

‘I want to have this baby and I want to see it being born and I want to feel it being born… and if you’re not interested in helping me why don’t you just sod off.’

Mike Stott’s Our Flesh and Blood (1977) is ostensibly more straightforward but is no less a deft thought-piece on contemporary masculinity as Bernard Blincoe (Bernard Hill) has to come to terms with his wife Jan (Dame Alison Steadman – if not yet, then soon…) and her desire for a baby on her terms. Bernard views this development with trepidation and his anxiety dreams turn into reality as Jan aims for a natural birth. At the hospital he gets a nervous young doctor, a reassuringly sassy sister (Diana Davies) and an old school consultant, Richard Briers on fine form and, amidst the comedic chaos finally catches up with Jan…  

Bernard Hill and Alison Steadman (who was also born in Liverpool)

The play has a lot to say about the role of the sexes at the time, men either pompously insistent or next to useless when the waters break, but this was not yet a country in which men routinely attended childbirth or in which couples were allowed too much of an opinion about how they were to have their baby. It’s a heart-warming glimpse of the future.

Back to Brian Glover on a barge to Stratford in Shakespeare or Bust (1973) for a mix of past and future as his earnest Art looks not just for the nation’s poetic truths but also comradeship and fairness. Peter Terson’s three heroes have working class pride and sense of self but also innocence as they happily punch above their weight on this aquatic road trip. They meet dropout boat dwellers who don’t share solidarity even as they’re happy to take Art’s coin, lock-keeper’s happy to mix with the man who turned their pub into a wine bar and follow an odd couple in a very posh boat; an older man with a yachting cap (Peter Honri) and his much younger boat dressing Hélène (Katya Wyeth). Abe reckons he stands a chance and the three sup their pints barely blinking in their awe-struck appreciation of this alien glamour.

Almost nothing knocks these lads back though and Art’s enthusiasm is infectious even if Ern can’t stop missing his wife and Abe just wants the one he can’t have. They relish every new turn as passionately as their drink and in the end are rewarded with surprises against the longest odds.

Ray Mort, Brian Glover and Douglas Livingstone

Back of Beyond (1974) is an altogether more mysterious affair with Rachel Roberts absolutely superb as the sad and mysterious Olwen; a woman hiding in solitude. Desmond Davis’s play is another to use locations to good effect, this time the Brecon Beacons and Llanelli-born Roberts looks like she grew up along with these hills.

There’s more mystery with John Bowen’s A Photograph (1977) featuring the great John Stride as pompous intellectual Michael Otway and Stephanie Turner as his long-suffering schoolteacher of a wife. There’s a great essay in the booklet from series producer/booklet commissioning editor Vic Pratt and this is further proof, if any were needed of Play for Today’s insistence on making its audience think.

Rachel Roberts yn ysmygu sigarét

Most of these plays have hardly been seen since first airing and the odd repeat. There were over 200 plays in the series and whilst some were wiped by a cost-conscious BBC, most survive and these seven provide not only proof of the quality and diversity but also a mouth-watering entrée to what we can only hope will be the start of more releases and screenings.

Play for Today: Volume 1 is released on 19^th November and can be ordered direct from the BFI website now! 

There’s a trailer available here but for many this is Christmas come early.