Breaking the silence… The Wit and Wisdom of A.A. Milne, BFI, with Bryony Dixon and Neil Brand

 

C. Aubrey Smith’s famous explorer John Brice has an abnormally large “bump” on his head enabling him to discover the Equator and the North Pole with greater facility than the common man (or woman) and so it is with me and locating the Southbank after so many months away. This was not my first cinema of the pandemic but it *was* the first silent screening with live accompaniment since March 2020… and, what a way to break the silence with BFI Curator Bryony Dixon providing expert introduction and Neil Brand accompanying with all the contextual flourish and narrative instinct you would expect.

 

As with the best silent screenings, you leave the twenty first century schizoid experience behind you and pattern recognise your way back into the streets and suburbs of your greatgrandparents' or grandparents’ age, all too familiar Edwardian streets in SW20, West Wimbledon* or mock-classical town houses in Kensington or Westbourne Grove, even the St John’s Wood to Kilburn area where Alan Alexander Milne was brought up. The buildings are probably still there, but the people who live inside them have changed a lot but almost all of them would be familiar with the works of Milne that followed this early and short flurry of film activity.

 

He was involved with writing four stories filmed in 1920 for the company Minerva Films, founded in 1920 by the actor Leslie Howard with his friend and story editor Adrian Brunel. The company’s board of directors included C. Aubrey Smith, Nigel Playfair and A. A. Milne whilst one of the company's investors was H. G. Wells. This was the English intelligencia playing with the new media and, whilst the results in Milne’s case were commercially disappointing, the two films screened today were very well made, charmingly well written, played and skilfully directed by Brunel.

 

C Aubrey Smith a few decades earlier...

The first was The Bump (1920) featuring C. Aubrey Smith as the famous explorer mentioned above. Smith was 57 and the film makes great play of his cragginess with a sequence notating the origins of the scars on his face, a shark bite here and a lions’ claw there; he’s explored the world and has the autographs left by every predator he’s met.

 

Brice’s reputation is legend and in one well upholstered parlour, young Lilliam Montrevor (Faith Celli) is fascinated by his daring and manly pursuits. Her almost-beau, Freddy (Douglas Marshall) compares poorly as he can only dance and have a good time, he’s never explored or risked more than shoe leather. Lilliam, Freddy and her parents head off for a dance on Freddy’s scooter, the most unmanly transport they can imagine.

I’ve met a man at last!

Faith Celli from 1917

At the ball, among the effete fancy dress strides the imposing dress suit of Mr Brice and having go shot of Freddy after his seventh proposal (that month!), Lilliam proceeds to introduce herself and hilariously relives his tall tales of the north pole (wrapping herself up) and the equator (fanning herself) and even his discovery of the Piebald Gorilla who is seen relating his own version of events back in Africa.

Milne’s humour is very Oxbridge, even from this remove, and his title cards are witty in that knowing ironic way we’ve seen from the Fringe and beyond. Lilliam invites Brice round for tea at their house in, wait for it… Stuccoway Terrace and a romance seems on the cards.

But then a strange thing happens and the fearless explorer has to strike out on his own for this expedition and in unfamiliar territory, he asks for help from local natives all of whom seem to lead him further away… still, we do get to see even more wonderful London backdrops. Will Lilliam finally see Freddy and will Brice overcome the discombobulations of the city streets. It’s like a jungle out there…

 

Faint heart, never wonne faire laydee

Off in pursuit... Gif from https://lesliehowardsteiner.blogspot.com

The second film featured young Leslie Howard in Bookworms (1920) another witty tale of love and adventure this time transporting a knight and fair maiden to Edwardian semi-detached suburbs. We find said maiden, Miranda (Pauline Johnson) reading The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith in her guardian’s study. She lives with her Uncle Josiah (Jeff Barlow) and her Aunt Priscilla (Henrietta Watson) who employ a “tame dragon” (Mrs. R. Podevin) as Miranda’s guardian.

All is peaceful until one day Richard (Howard) a listless young man wakes up after his usual lie in to spy the neighbour of his dreams across the road. From that moment on he is a man on a mission, revitalised by romance and the need to meet this object of his affection but, every attempt to arrange an introduction is blocked by the Dragon or, in the case of his attempt to call for a Salvation Army collection, the family maid.

Pauline Johnsom a good few years later

He soon learns Miranda’s daily routine and follows her to the library every day only to find that dragon always between him and the goal. And then, then he has an idea. He will leave a note in the book she collects and simply wait for her response. Sounds fool proof doesn’t it, but the trouble with library books is that everybody reads them. A carefully orchestrated chaos ensues that leads to a surprising but satisfying ending. Just as you’d expect.

Neil Brand brought his experience and passion to the accompaniment as a man you could see thoroughly enjoying afternoon tea with Milne, Brunel and Howard. Can a sense of humour be expressed through music? It surely can and Mr Brand demonstrated this fact emphatically. It was so good to see and hear him and Bryony Dixon performing a show, tell and play again.

Before the two half-hour shorts, we were also shown the first film Lotte Reiniger made in England, illustrating Milne’s poem The King’s Breakfast (1937). As with all her work you soon forget you’re watching shadow puppets and get lost in the story and not least the certainty that butter is indeed better on toast than marmalade.

The author

This was an absolute treat and all the rarer for being on the BFI’s own 35mm prints. Here’s to many more such screenings as theatrical life cautiously resumes and we edge forward. The BFI still has social distancing in place, mask wearing for screenings and reduced capacity making the experience feel safe and risk managed in a way that is not always the case in some other sectors. AA Milne may have been a humorous man but he served in the Great War and was injured at the Battle of the Somme, he could spot a phoney like Brice and perhaps generals without method or even a cause.

 

Anyway, I thank the BFI for their hospitality, their diligence and their exceptional content delivery!

 

See you soon.

PS Bryony also mentioned that her colleague Jo Botting has a book in the works about Adrian Brunel, one to watch out for!

* Credit to Twitter user @OokpikUK who spotted the location as Pendarves Road in SW20, West Wimbledon. Richard's house is on the right and Miranda's on the left.

This is literally fifty metres from where I used to live in Lambton Road, Raynes Park/West Wimbledon... no wonder it felt familiar!!

Trainspotting… The Wrecker (1929)

My Uncle Duncan was a classical musician who played for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and in his spare time he used to make working replicas of locomotives, reducing down his hand-crafted components from the original blueprints in the best equipped back-garden shed in South Liverpool. On a trip to ride behind one of these contraptions I was amazed at the amount of power generated by the steam engine.

When even a scaled down loco lets off steam the result is highly kinetic…  multiply that by a factor of twenty and I can imagine the impact of a real locomotive and can understand why the producers of The Wrecker wanted to crash an actual engine rather than use a model: they wanted to show the full force and to scare an audience of regular passengers with the vision of a spectacular disaster.

An unnaturally-quiet Waterloo...

Southern Railways collaborated fully with the film-makers and whilst they wanted to show the grace and power of their service they also wanted to show its superiority to their rivals on the road. Ignore the fact that their trains were being bounced off their lines by a lone madman but just appreciate the benefits of the “Flying Welshman”: much faster than a road coach and providing a far smoother  journey… That is, unless it met with a large object deliberately left on the rails.

There was in fact only one staged crash in the film but it was used to represent three attacks. Twenty two cameras were positioned around the crash site and a truck laden down with concrete was set in the train’s path along with sufficient measures to ensure the train headed off the rails and didn’t just carry on – a runaway train with no Denzil Washington to stop it…

The effort was more than worth it, especially in the second viewing of the crash and after the coaches were set on fire and the actors were able to scramble over the safer sections. The scene was shot on a Saturday and, amazingly, the line was re-open for business by Monday (match that Network Rail!).

The film was an Anglo-German production, directed by an experienced Hungarian Géza von Bolváry. It was based on the successful play by Arnold Ridley (yes, writer of The Ghost Train and much later the man who was Private Godfrey) and Bernard Merivale but – from its timing – appears to be a truncated version oftheir story. The narrative would suggest as much as the plot is stripped down to the bare essentials – did they assume the audience knew the story that well?  Surely not in Germany?

Joseph Striker, Benita Hume and Winter Hall

The end result lacks a bit of logical exposition and believability especially in the lengths the Wrecker is prepared to go in order to ensure the supremacy of road transport but it's still a thrilling ride.

The railway shots are splendid, not just of the crash but of the day-to-day routine of track, station and locomotion. There are some superb shots achieved through placing a camera on a platform to the side of one locomotive – brave camera work! – and then again when the camera moves seamlessly from an exterior  shot of moving train carriages to the inside of the carriage – never seen that before!

A stunning shot: the camera pans from outside the train to the party in the carriage...

On the people side, Carlyle Blackwell throws pantomime shapes as the barely disguised villain of the piece, Ambrose Barney – a man who works for the railway but has set up the Kyle Coach Company to take their business… with a little murderous help. Head of the railway Sir Gerald Bartlett (Winter Hall) takes an age to spot the viper in his nest and then is rather swifty bumped off by a sniper’s rifleshot.

Carlyle Blackwell - boo!

Joseph Striker plays “Lucky” Roger Doyle who does indeed appear to be the beneficiary of considerable good fortune especially in so quickly gaining the affection of Sir Gerald’s secretary Mary (Benita Hume – who acts most of the rest off the screen as the plucky amateur sleuth).

There’s also a good turn from Pauline Johnson as triple agent Beryl Matchley without whom the Wrecker might never get caught in spite of massively compelling circumstantial evidence!

Joseph Striker - hurrah!

The tone is slightly conflicted:  35 passengers get killed in one crash and yet the film insists on trying to lighten the mood through the hapless antics of useless private detective Rameses Ratchett (Leonard Thompson) who has a running battle with with Hitchcock favourite, Gordon Harker, as one of the rail company’s men. Whilst this is very British it makes for odd viewing – people are dying and we don’t really care if Rameses’s car won’t start or whether it can manage to travel a key five miles without incident.

Harker and Thompson - ha!

Reservations aside, the drama is multi-tracked as events ramp up to the finish with the race on to prevent the worst outrage of all and then chase down the Wrecker before he kills himself and many more…

Benita Hulme - cor!

I watched the restored version which comes with a new musical score from Neil Brand who combines synthesisers and pianos to great effect: sound-tracking so many classic locos must have been a dream come true – their very movement an invitation to sound. There’s also a re-created spoken section as an incriminating phonograph cylinder is played back. The Wrecker was shot as both sound and silent from that period when picture houses didn’t always have the modern kit.

The DVD is available from Strike Force Entertainment who normally specialise in travel heritage programmes and which explains the main market for this film. But, whether you just like steam trains or cutting-edge late silent cinematography, the film is very rewarding.

You can buy the DVD from Cherry Red Records -SFE's distribution partners - and it comes with a nifty set of extras including an abridged home movie version as well as a fascinating featurette in which Mr Brand discusses the score. Our Duncan would have loved it!

A SECR F1 Class locomotive No. A148 (I think?)