Talk on the wild side… Cosh Boy (1953), BFI Flipside hits 40, BFI screening and discussion

Cosh Boy is the 40^th release in the BFI’s Flipside series that has specialised in unearthing the best and the quirkiest films from often ignored corners of the British Film industry. I have nearly a complete collection because I’m weird that way but mostly because these are amongst the most un-self-conscious prime sources of post-war films, from the post-apocalyptic satire of Richard Lester’s The Bed-Sitting Room, sneaky peaks at the sleazy side with Primitive London to neo classics like Beat Girl which make up in locations what they lack in storylines.

Flipside provides the BFI’s very own indie label and it has far more freedom to release gems simply because they’re under the radar and with little digital presence. As the BFI’s Jo Botting said in the post screening discussion, the series gives a chance to provide context for these films through related short films and booklet essays. It provides nothing less than an alternative canon of domestic films that are often significant for beyond their technical merits.

The Battersea Boys

Cosh Boy may seem like a routine post war morality tale but there’s a dark side from the introduction onwards when editorial title cards express concern over the growth of youth violence and the lack of strong parenting. It reminds me of the start of Public Enemy; a film that both glorified and condemned the American Gangster. Post-war, with so many men missing, there would have been many families with sons and mothers such as those at the centre of the story.

Pretty boy James Kenney plays Roy Walsh who is all sweetness with his trusting mother, Elsie (Betty Ann Davies) a war widow who has perhaps been “too soft” on her only son. Hard to believe that Roy’s right hand man, Alfie Collins (Ian Whittaker who is interviewed in the extras!) has got away with anything through with the brilliantly brusque Hermione Baddeley as his Mum. But Roy’s the dominant personality who just happens to be a physical coward who needs Alfie to do the coshing for him before splitting their ill-gotten gains 50:50; ten bob for Alfie and 15 for him…

James Kenney

The lads get caught after one two many muggings and get put on probation with the proviso that they behave themselves and attend the local youth club. Roy plans to use it as an alibi for their continued petty crime and brings in some more gang members including an incredibly youthful Johnny Briggs as Skinny Johnson, still two decades away from Coronation Street. Briggs, like some of the other lads was born in Battersea and it’s good to see them prowling around still recognisable streets and stations. What they’d make of the new power station complex you can only guess, but Battersea has always been one of the best locations in London.

All goes to Roy’s plan until he meets Alfie’s implausibly attractive sister Rene (Joan Collins) and ends up getting her pregnant. Roy’s not being tied down by any skirt (to use his vernacular) and Rene tries to end it all in the Thames. As the pressure on him increases, Roy grasps for ever grander plans as he decides he must strike it big and move on… but can he escape the dual forces of the long arm of the law and  the firm hand of his mother’s new husband. It is very 1952 but it can only ever be so; one of the most pointless criticisms of any work of art is that it has dated: everything dates because we’re not all engaged in “timeless” activities… Cosh Boy is revealing about the time it was made and the places and the social mores of the post-war Britain; a country increasingly like our own.

Young Joan

Whilst Flipside has renewed attention to feature films such as Don Levy’s startling Herostratus – what a febrile presence Michael Gothard was -  Peter Walker’s Man of Violence (aka Moon) which turns the genre film on its head with a fine performance from Luan Peters – much under-rated and now much missed - as well as the quite brilliant Deep End from Jerzy Skolimowskiit; it has always featured a generous amount of those contextualising extras including fascinating short films that otherwise would never see the light of day.

Tonight, we saw David Bailey’s GG Passion (1966) starring Caroline Munro and Chrissie Shrimpton as two of a series of groupies for the titular popstar (Eric Swayne) who may or may not have outlived his usefulness to The Man.You can find it as one of the extras on Stranger in the House (1967) (Flipside 037) reviewed elsewhere on this blog.

Also screened was Lindsay C Vickers The Lake (1978) in which a young couple and their dog, may, or – again – may not, have been menaced by supernatural powers; it's atmospheric and disturbing especially for dog lovers. Finally we saw Al Beresford’s Dreamhouse (1983) which has a similar scenario only set in a couple’s new house: the wife is haunted by strange sounds and images, a boy riding slilently around on a chopper bike, a man running with a bloodied kitchen knife through their hall and a young man being killed in their hall. Like the best of horror, it strikes straight to our deepest insecurities in the place where we should feel safest. It's a waking nightmare but what does it all mean for the couple? The answer almost jolted me from my seat in true vintage horror style.

After this there was a discussion between some of the BFI’s prime movers for Flipside including Sam Dunn formerly Head of BFI Video Publishing (now at Indicator), Jane Giles, formerly Head of Content, who, incidentally, has written the definitive book on the Scala Cinema, Jo Botting, Curator of the National Archive and Douglas Weir Technical Manager for DVD & Bluray. Flipsiders-in-chief, William Fowler and Vic Pratt who co-authored, The Bodies Beneath – the flipside of British film and television, led the discussion and there was an overwhelming sense of pride that they’d been able to resurrect and connect so much unseen and overlooked material. Vic and William started screening some of these films in 2006 onwards and this morphed into the home media releases starting with the Bed Sitting Room and culminating in Cosh Boy – which they urge you to buy, as do I!

Eric Swayne and friends

Doug Weir, who’s worked on every Flipside release, described how some of the source material is often degraded and you get a sense of the fragility of film and how even relatively recent films may perish. I’m used to only a small portion of silent film surviving but the problem hasn’t stopped. Nighbirds (1977) was an example of an almost unknown film that had sections missing from the 35mm print and they’d cut their only print to make the trailer. They’ve had to use VHS in some cases to plug the gaps but sometimes they find films that have never been watched and so are nearly pristine.

Sam Dunn said they wanted to focus on British film and finding ways to get more and more archive films out – shorts and documentaries. There were no hard and fast rules except for re-platforming the over-looked. Jane Giles said they wanted to expand the audience for these films and to extrapolate the value of these films’ meaning – just because these are not Odd Man Out or Powell and Pressburger, doesn’t mean that there was no good in the productions. This led to challenges in rights research as well as frequent arguments about what films to choose next, treading the fine balance between interest and marketability.

Spike looks down on the BFI Flipside team

José Ramón Larraz’s Symptoms (1974) was once on the BFI’s Top Ten Most Wanted lost films and an appeal led to a broken 35mm negative being found in Belgium and the team were able to recover. The team had differences over favourites and different ideas of what should be done next; they’re still looking for The Appointment (1981) so check your sheds and lofts… which is exactly where GG Passion was found. For the rights, Jane had to liaise with Roman Polanski’s collaborator Gene Gutowski, who had produced it whilst the crew from Repulsion also worked on the film. More of those Flipside connections.

Cosh Boy is on sale on 20^th January and is great fun with superb extras – you can order it from the BFI Shop online alongwith others in this most laudable of series.

Note also that The Party's Over (1963) is unlikely to be re-issued due to rights complexities so, order it now if you haven't already got a copy!

Ian Whittaker and Hermoine Baddeley

Top guns... The Guns of Loos (1928), Stephen Horne, British Silent Film Festival

Henry Victor

This was one of those silent films that leaves you reeling – imagery, invention and performance intensity all enhanced by a score that refused to let its own power do anything other than add flavour to these already potent ingredients. Ever seen Stephen Horne accompany an uninteresting silent film? Nope, me neither - he always respects the primary source and works to bring out the best of what’s already there: like a skilled actor interpreting a Tudor text.

The Guns of Loos was a surprise to those, like me, who had never previously heard of it and, following a day of early British talkies, a step back to silence simply blew those others away. After hours of sometimes ponderous delivery, films that merely played with the novelty of sound and static actors tied by invisible strings to their microphones, we were reminded of just how powerful moving images could be in 1928.

This wasn’t the first Sinclair Hill directed film we’d seen today, that was Dark Red Roses (1929) in which a fretful sculptor, David (Stewart Rome) weighs up the option of cutting his cello-playing love rival’s hands off. The action was studio-bound and a few performances aside, Frances Doble was good as the object of the artists’ attention, it just felt slight and a little bit clunky.

Grimlaw fights for his self-worth

Not so The Guns of Loos which took a character-led view of the Battle of Loos – known with good reason as Dundee’s Flodden and the largest land battle in British military history. Some 60,000 lives were lost including many from the Dundee divisions of Scottish regiments. Stephen’s score was commissioned by The Great War Dundee Project and Dundee Contemporary Arts to help commemorate the centenary for a city which sent over 30,000 men to fight.

The story was informed by Sinclair Hill’s own wartime experience and so impressed Lloyd George that he claimed: “if I had had this film in 1916 it would have been worth a division to me.”

The Guns of Loos is about true love, redemption, comradeship, industrial relations and the movement of horse-drawn gun batteries at speed, over muddy ground. No animals were – probably – injured during the filming of this story but a number of cameramen may have required a rest-cure.

There is a love triangle between munitions factory owner John Grimlaw (Henry Victor), a young army officer Clive (Donald Macardle) and Diana Cheswick (Madeleine Carroll here in her first film and who serenely reminded me once again why my granddad Bill was such a fan…). The battle was partly lost due to a shortage of British munitions and Hill smartly ties this in with this smaller scale drama.

Time for a speech...

The film is packed full of “European” camera flourishes – this could almost be a German film… There’s a lovely sequences as the camera pans over the faces of a wedding party a pub... then swaying in grainy close-up as the groom gives a speech. As the locals gather to say farewell to those about to fight, the image movies to and fro as they sing Auld Lang Syne – with Clive and John almost pulling at Diane like a wish bone. The ground beneath is indeed shifting beyond anybody’s control and then as the line moves up screen there appears almost a mirror image below of men and horses trudging over the mud of the western front.

There are inspired shots of gun batteries being moved – a tracking shot from alongside and then some shots from underneath which convey the rough-edged energy – the images are blurred and impressionistic, a little bit Gance and something altogether more modern. The impact is visceral and unsettling – the uncertain velocities of battle.

A tip of the hat to Hill’s cinematographers: D.P. Cooper, Desmond Dickinson and Sidney Eaton.

Donald Macardle and Madeleine Carroll

The performances are universally interesting and none more so than from Henry Victor, who, held in close up for so many shots, is a revelation, spitting out his lines as he urges his factory workers on, crying in fear as he breaks down during his first action and then gradually re-building his self-worth urged on by his rival and comrade… There weren’t many heroes this complex in contemporary cinema.

Donald Macardle’s eyes are also close to tears as he looks on at Diana in the bitter-sweet adoration of the loser in love… he is decent and strong but Diana sees something great in Grimlaw, something she can help save with her huge, enigmatic frown, gentle smile and… simple excess of lovely.

Diana’s mother, Lady Cheswick, is also superbly played by Adeline Hayden Coffin who looks like she may have a crush of her own on young Clive but exudes emotional intelligence. There’s also grand support from Bobby Howes as factory worker then private, Danny and an impossibly young,  Hermione Baddeley (a hyper-Hermione: who knew such a thing existed?) as his girlfriend Mavis.

These people just feel real and Hill deserves great credit for his casting and coaching. The British war films of the period tended to be as "documentary" as possible and whilst Hill’s reconstructions are no different and are exemplary in that respect, his characters ring true.

Daniel Laidlaw on screen

Which brings us right back to Mr Horne’s score... which was, as always, laced with his trademark integrity, due diligence and lyricism carrying intrinsic warmth that elevates any hope or adds poignancy to any tragedy. Stephen was ably supported by two other players on cornet and percussion*. He also had the aid of bagpiper Daniel Laidlaw who not only fought in the battle itself but also appeared in the film. A sample of his playing was inserted in the live music… eerie and effective; if that doesn’t make you feel just a little bit Celtic then you’re English beyond all help!

We could have watched the whole show all over again even as the long day closed… Catch the film and live score if you can and here’s hoping that this one gets a DVD release.

While we’re at it, isn’t it time for The First Born and The Manxman to also be released? Two of the best British silent films with two excellent Stephen Horne soundtracks… how does that not work as a commercial proposition Mr and Ms Copyright Holder?!

You ain’t heard the last of this, mark my words, The Man!

*I didn’t catch their names but if someone could let me know I’ll update.

British infantry of the 47th (2nd London) Division advance through the gas cloud on 25 September 1915