Of time and the city* - Gumshoe (1971)

*Rose-tinted UK regional references warning…but please bear with me.

After back-to-back viewings of the excellent Otley (now out on US DVD – details below!) and this film, my wife informed her mother and the world in general, that I clearly wanted to go live in late 1960’s Britain. This is an outrageous slur… but may well be (partly) true… I would like to poke around the market stalls in Notting Hill Gate when they held genuine bargains, sup a pint in smoky Newcastle ale houses with Michael Caine and drive a Lotus Europa round Liverpool’s exhaust-fume coated Georgian centre.

How much do we actually want to be in the movies?

The Lotus Europa was just about my favourite car growing up and it’s great to see the lovely white model featured in Gumshoe. It’s perfect for this updated noir that transposes the Maltese Falcon to Merseyside, land of my forefathers. Flashy and fast it was a brave attempt to produce a super car but was still not quite top drawer … for that you’d need an Aston Martin DB8 or an E-Type Jaguar. But we’re also not in London or New York and this is Albert Finney we’re watching and not Humphrey Bogart.


Made in 1971, when Liverpool was still someway off hitting rock-bottom, the former second city (and I know a few who claim it’s still actually first!), provides a suitably grim setting for this wise-cracking detective story. Raymond Chandler comes to Crosby…Sam Spade drinks scotch in Scotty Road, Albert Finney meets the Albert Dock - we never know when to stop do we!

Directed by Stephen Frears (his first feature) and based on a novel by local lad Neville Smith, Gumshoe tells the tale of one Eddie Gimley part-time bingo caller, comedian and wannabe private dick. Albert Finney plays Gimley with quick-firing Bogart wit and a dodgy accent – well he is from Yorkshire after all.


His disapproving brother, William, played with menace (and an even worse Scouse accent) by Frank Findlay is a successful businessman, importing and exporting all kinds of material from his dockland base. William is married to Ellen (the monumental Billie Whitelaw – what an actress!), the Lotus’ driver and former squeeze of Eddie’s. Ellen is trapped, loving both brothers and wanting the one she can’t have.

Eddie advertises his services as a private eye and unknowingly stumbles into a genuine case – hired to take out a local academic (the sublime Caroline Seymour) who is the daughter of an influential South African. So far, so confusing, as the plot runs away with itself and everything and everyone becomes connected with each other: drug smuggling, gun running, African politics all tangled up with an occult bookshop in London and fraternal betrayal…

It packs a lot into a relatively short time and, at a distance of 40 years, feels as much a period piece as the black and white classics of post war Hollywood it apes.

Finney is excellent, accent aside, and wisecracks his way believably through the chaos. He is ably supported by a great cast including Fulton Mackay as a pro hitman and Janice Rule as the ruthless schemer behind most of the mess.

Then there's Bill Dean (who lived down the road from me in the Mersey hinterland of Maghull) who basically plays himself, as Eddie’s club boss, Tommy and a host of genuine local acts performing at The Broadway, the club where Eddie works. There are also brief cameos from a young Maureen Lipman and Wendy Richard who give Eddie the chance to flirt like Bogie with two dolly-bird Bacalls.

Lotus Europa aside though, the real star for me is the city of Liverpool. I’m biased, but the site of Georgian glories such as Gambia Terrace (John Lennon lived there awhile) and a grimy Falkner Square (now whitewashed and a little like Notting Hill North), the still teeming docks and bustling business centre (where my father worked) fills me with nostalgic civic pride.

My wife’s right but I already did live there, albeit as a boy, travelling through these scenes en route to see friends and relatives or to watch football matches. To this extent, Gumshoe provides me with a glimpse of how the grown-ups saw the city. How my parents would have taken it for granted as much as Eddie does.

But Gumshoe works on its own merits and you don’t have to be a soft scouse sentimentalist to appreciate the dialogue, performances and the direction. This is a bold attempt to claim “drama” for a British city in the same way that American films do with ease. These events could happen here – you don’t have to be in LA or Chicago - and they could happen to anyone.

Ultimately the dreamer at the heart of the story becomes a man of action who ends up finding a more certain course for himself and doing some good. Isn’t that more worthwhile than a snuff of nostalgia?

Isn’t that the place were, actually, we’d all like to be?

Gumshoe has been a bit rare over the years, but is now available in decent quality DVD. I’d urge you to try it - some of the attitudes are now unfortunate but the spirit of the thing is universal. Good wins out in the unlikeliest of circumstances.

Otley, the Tom Courtney demi-classic covered elsewhere in this blog, and set a few years’ earlier in swinging London, is also now on DVD. Basic but good quality.

I’d recommend both for hopeless time-travellers, fans of English cities when grime was king and lovers of artfully witty films. Order them now sweetheart, you won’t regret it, not today and certainly not tomorrow or soon...

Norma Talmadge ...between thought and expression – Going Straight (1916)

Some silent stars live on as half-remembered shadows famous in name only, the odd still photograph and by association with others. It may only be in a routine list alongside Pickford, Gish and Bara that I first heard the name Norma Talmadge and yet she was one of the most popular stars of silent era and arguably more popular than some of the aforementioned at her peak.

This is my ignorance and as part of my ongoing mission to rediscover and reconnect, I set out to right any wrongs I may have done Ms Talmadge through omission. And, as with so much of the arts, when the deeper you go the more you can differentiate and understand…Norma is no longer just a name on a list but someone I can see had a high level of skill and a quite unique presence.

Norma Talmadge featured in hundreds of short films for the Vitagraph Company from 1910 to 1915. Then, having joined Triangle Pictures, she made longer form films of which Going Straight, made in 1916, was one of the first. Directed by Chester M. Franklin and Sidney Franklin the picture clearly shows the guiding influence of DW Griffith who oversaw a lot of the production at Triangle. There are expert intercuts and parallel scenes, close ups reminiscent of Pig Alley and the action is tightly marshalled throughout.

Talmadge is superb, acting naturalistically and given ample close ups to demonstrate her restrained playing which has more in common with Gish and Pickford than some of the more dramatic queens lof the era.

She plays Grace the wife of successful businessman, John Remington, played by Ralph Lewis. The two live in wedded bliss with their young family in one of those sizable wooden properties we brick-bound Brits envy. However, inspite of this apparent normality, both Grace and John were once part of a group of professional criminals known as the Higgins gang. Grace finds a clipping about their trial and a flashback explains their violent past.

There are some exciting action scenes as the police chase the gang down streets and over walls as shots and fists fly. There’s some great intercut close ups of the various protaganists as the chase nears its conclusion – really well directed. The police break into the gang's hideout and there’s an almighty scrap between all parties including Higgins/Remington and his second in command Jimmy Briggs, played by the excellent Eugene Pallette.

Both men are caught but Grace manages to evade capture. After John has served his time, the two decide to live an honest life and are obviously succeeding well in this. But all is threatened when John is spotted by their old cohort Briggs, who gratefully accepts John's money but refuses his help to start himself on the straight and narrow.

Briggs threatens to reveal Grace’s criminal past and John has little option but to join him on one last robbery. He goes to commit the crime with Briggs whilst Grace stays over at a well-healed friend’s house after a card party. As it turns out – in a coincidence not too uncommon at the time – Briggs and John are burgling the same house.

Whilst John works on the safe Briggs drifts upstairs to find jewels. He encounters Grace and the two struggle with one of her children being seriously injured, John comes to the rescue but Briggs escapes. Will their child survive and will Briggs succeed in gaining revenge and ruining their new life?

It is undeniably melodramatic but Talmadge is believable and understated even in the most fraught moments. She has a number of close ups that allow her to illustrate the emotional shifts in the story and she does so mostly through facial expression and without the flailing “acting arms” of some contemporaries.










She has what my father would have described as a "handsome" face and one that makes it hard to believe she could ever have been a gangster but, all the same, we accept that she was. You can understand her versatility even from this one film and see just why she won the admiration and affection of so many.










She’s another whose looks appear to be “out of time” and could have made her successful in any period of screen acting. It’s a face you enjoy watching on many levels and has a fascination and a depth that would ensure her a long career at the top.

She remained popular right up until the turn of the 30's making a couple of talking pictures. She spent months having her voice coached before making New York Nights (1929). She’s good in that film, which has some interesting ideas but not enough story or style (although there’s a teenage Harlow in there if you look hard enough!). By this point she was in her late-30s and lacking the kind of roles to help transition into both talkies and middle age, she bailed out telling her fans “I don't need you anymore and you don't need me."

There’s frustratingly little of her work widely available even though more exists than was once assumed (for more details, see the excellent Norma Talmadge Website). Going Straight is available on Grapevine DVD along with the less impressive Children in the House. It is well worth watching to see why she was such a dominant force in early Hollywood.

Pristine Jean Harlow! Bombshell (1933) Remastered

Santa bought an extra present, a little late and with a note from the customs fairy asking for some import duty but… it was most welcome none-the-less. I’ve wanted to watch Bombshell again for some time and here it now was not just on DVD but remastered to boot. Hurrah!!

Reputedly one of Jean Harlow’s best films and long unavailable save on second hand VHS or dodgy DVD, Bombshell is indeed a treat. It’s from an era when talkies became almost "shouties" such was the determination to quick fire as much dialogue as possible into the eager ears of the watching throngs. As if the density of sound had to match the impact of the images or at least to make Warner Brothers feel it had its money’s worth of microphones!

The script is very witty and knowing in its relentless spoofing of not just Hollywood but also its stars (ultimately us watchers as well). It is directed with panache by the great Victor Fleming purveyor of superior films from Fairbanks Senior to Oz and beyond.

Supposedly based on Clara Bow, the film is just as applicable to Harlow herself, especially when she's shown in film with Gable and gets called on set to do some Red Dust re-takes (the barrel scene naturally enough!).

Events mirror life and there’s certain sadness in watching her Lola Burns being abused by the studio, her publicist and her dipsomaniacal family. But Lola gives as good as she gets in spite of being heavily outnumbered.

It’s as if she knows this is the price to be paid for the satin gowns, the house and the fame. Plus ca change.

Lola’s tormentor in chief is the studio’s PR guru E.J. "Space" Hanlon, played by Lee Tracy, a man of relentless ingenuity who always has a plan to keep the ball rolling. He and Lola are in hate but the film’s too smart to take the easy way out for these two.

There’s an unresolved conflict at the heart of Bombshell and that is to do with having cakes and
wanting to eat them too: career can’t come without compromise. Given economic circumstances, maybe audiences of the time wanted their stars to be human, hard working and, above all, grateful for their success?

Lola’s father, Pops Burns (the Wizard himself: Frank Morgan) is keen to take as much credit (and on credit) as he can to help lubricate the watching of horse racing, betting and pursuit of unlikely female companions. Her brother Junior (Ted Healy), is a chip of the old sleazy block and isn’t seen sober throughout the film.

Even Lola’s girl Friday, Mac, played by a young Una Merkel, is asset stripping and borrowing her clothes: “your day off is sure brutal on your lingerie”, wisecracks her boss.

Lola’s life is lived as fast as the dialogue is delivered. She’s made up and driven through adoring crowds and a stalker, to the film lot – an office not dissimilar to that used in Sunset Boulevard… While she’s getting even more made up, Space is firing more ideas at her through the window. Then she gets the call to do those Red Dust re-takes… so far, so post-modern.


Her euro-trash boyfriend arrives, Hugo, Marquis Di Pisa Di Pisa (Ivan Lebedeff) annoying the director, (Pat O’Brien), who then gets really wound up once Pop arrives. Space manages the chaos…just.


Lola thinks she may adopt a baby and escape the mad whirl…but her Brangelina moment is wrecked by familial intrusion and a neatly scheduled scrap between O’Brien and the Marquis.

She runs away to Palm Springs where we see some rare outdoor shots. Lola goes horse riding and Jean looks so relaxed on horseback it reminds you what a sporty person she was…more at home in jodhpurs than the silken gowns she wore so well.


There's some great dialogue, again all-knowing and deliberate. Lola is romanced by the seemingly-moneyed, Gifford Middleton (Franchot Tone) who comes out with the corn: "Your hair is like a field of silver daisies. I'd like to run barefoot through your hair!"

Space fits her up in grand style but it’s only for her own good…. Lola and he are made for each other…or are they?

Ultimately, Lola ain't dumb and she tells everyone exactly what she thinks of them. She knows you need to be genuine to be a real phoney and we're sure she'll survive whatever they throw at her with good grace and some cussing'!

This remastering, as part of the centenary box set from Warners, is superb and the print looks pristine: far better than the clips I’ve seen of this film before and proper tribute to one of the greats. Harlow is so obviously having a ball in this film and you can spot the odd moment of genuine Jean as she laughs along...

This is indeed up there with the best of Harlow alongside, Dinner at Eight, Red Headed Woman and Red Dust. She was a natural comic actress with great timing and delivery – able to match the wildness of Tracy as much as Gable’s mix of smarts and sexuality. Her beauty is also an unique mix of homeliness and …stunning art deco curves, whilst her platinum hair and complexion were perfect for monochrome.

Ultimately, Jean Harlow was someone of honest likability, who seemed to be down to earth and working hard to make the most of the chances she was getting.

In the box set there are also remasters of Reckless and the Girl from Missouri and it is to be hoped that a similar process is extended to the superb Red Dust: just about the only major Harlow film not on DVD as bemoaned elsewhere on this blog.


Bombshell is available from US stores as part of the box set marking the centenary of Jean’s birth. It's worth it for the great job done on this one film alone but you can also get it on its own here.

The skill of early DeMille… The Cheat (1915)

Cecil B DeMille is one of those characters it’s hard not to have strong preconceptions about… His reputation for excess and popular film making reflects a long career encompassing many epics both secular and biblical.

He’s the touch point for grandiose and crowd pleasing… and one of Hitchcock’s favourite directors at the same time. As with every success story there’s a lot of skill underlining the reputation.

The Cheat was one of DeMille’s earliest features and, made in 1915, it demonstrates a fair amount of polish and invention. It also deals with “adult” themes in a way that is both startling and surprisingly pragmatic.

The story revolves around a hard-working financier, Richard Hardy (Frank Dean), who is married to a “butterfly” woman who is addicted to the consumption of finery as well as the attention of other men. Edith Hardy, played by Fanny Ward, enjoys a flirtatious relationship with a successful businessman from the Orient, played by the extraordinary Sessue Hayakawa. Originally Japanese, this character was subsequently changed in 1918 to the supposedly Burmese Haka Arakau, following reaction from America’s First World War allies.

As her husband slaves away, Fanny fritters away ordering expensive clothing and generally living la vida loca. Her greed gets the better of her as she decides to use $10,000 dollars of charity money to fund a speculative investment by one of her husband’s colleagues.

Naturally enough, things go awry and she borrows the money from Arakau who, not unreasonably perhaps, expects a little payment in kind… But Joan’s husband suddenly finds success and plugs the dishonest gap in her finances himself. She attempts to clear the debt with Arakau but he won’t have it and is determined to see her honour their bargain and give herself to him. He takes the iron he uses for branding his other possessions and burns a mark on Joan’s shoulder. In the ensuing melee she shoots him.

Richard arrives and immediately assumes the responsibility for the shooting. Will Joan expose the truth to save her husband? Will she finally recover her honour at the expense of her reputation?

The violence in this film is truly surprising. Arakau is relentless in his pursuit of Joan and the branding is uncomfortable viewing. She responds with equal violence and is lucky not to murder the man. Her redemption comes out of this exchange of cruelty and one can’t help but feel uncomfortable about that too. She has led herself down this particular path and the consequences are hers to bear.

Contextual perceptions aside, the portrayal of Araku is difficult to take at face value but his actions are perhaps more a reflection of his character than cultural background. In fact, the violent reaction of the courtroom crowd to the description of his assault on Joan seem more to make the point that racial tolerances were problematic at this stage. Would they have stormed the bench had this been a white man on trial?

But maybe this is giving DeMille too much credit… He certainly does deserve praise for the direction of the film which moves forward with sure-footed purpose and features much excellent camerawork. In a blind-tasting it'd be difficult to place the film as early as 1915, it looks so advanced and all this from a man in only his second full year of film making.

There is superb use of light and one can clearly see the influence on Hitchcock in the moment when Roger finds Araku silhouetted against his paper partition. The shadow is still for a moment and then slides down smearing blood on the paper to show the wounded man in most dramatic fashion.

Of the actors Hayakawa gives the strongest performance and it’s easy to see why he was such a star – good looks and poise, expressive but with enough nuance to evoke sympathetic responses from the audience (and he was certainly very popular with the ladies!).

As the Variety review said at the time " . . . the work of Sessue Hayakawa is so far above the acting of Miss Ward and Jack Dean that he really should be the star in the billing for the film."

Fanny Ward is the weakest lead and betrays her theatrical roots in over-emoting through some sequences. Frank Dean plays her husband well - he’s onto a loser with this role but he does stand up believably for his wayward wife. Dean and Ward subsequently enjoyed a long and stable marriage so there was genuine chemistry in the end!

The Cheat is available in pristine quality from Kino in a double bill with the all together more sensationalist Manslaughter… maybe more on that anon. It’s a demonstration of DeMille’s cinematic skill as he found his feet in the business and maybe, it shows him more concerned with making a point rather than making a fortune? Is The Cheat early American arthouse or just a staging post on the road to the barren lands of the blockbuster?

Not half bad... She Goes to War (1929)

You have to be a glass half full person to really enjoy She Goes to War. Originally the film ran for an hour and a half but the version available today was cut down to barely 50 minutes. Not just the intertitles have been removed but also a lot of background for the characters with the remaining focus on the action.

From the introduction it looks like this version was cobbled together in the early 1940s as American citizens were again preparing for war. They left the sound but not all of the sense intact and you have to work out what is going on from the playing and a few snatches of dialogue.

The film would presumably have been similar in structure to The Big Parade template, with the characters being established first from patriotic stirrings, conscription, the journey to France and then showing their development as they face up to the realities of the war.

Instead this version starts with the boys' send off and shifts very quickly to the front. Some of the soldiers are joined by their women who work as nurses, cooks and cleaners.

Eleanor Boardman plays Joan Morant a socialite aiming to support her beau Reggie (Edmund Burns). In a sub-plot not too apparent in this version, Joan is resented by Reggie's commanding officer, Lieutenant Tom Pike, played by John Holland, who sees their social standing as irrelevant in the circumstances of war.

Reggie proves this by succumbing to fear of the battle to come and drinking himself into a stupor. In an attempt to protect his honour, Joan takes his place as the troops march off to the fight. Initially disguised by her gasmask, Joan covers her face in dirt and tries to pass herself off as a man, just about fooling her comrade Bill, played with energy and humour by comedy veteran Al St John.

There's an horrific battle sequence as the Germans roll barrels of oil at the soldiers who are forced to retreat. The Americans take the fight back using tanks which crawl through the wall of flames as the soldiers inside are almost cooked. The enemy are almost routed but pin down the soldiers using machine gun fire.

It is here that Joan learns the full horror of battle and finds the courage that Reggie could not. Saving the day she is carried back to base by the lieutenant, more in (totally) exhausted resignation than triumph.

She Goes to War obviously had a message and by involving a female character in combat broke some ground. Directed by the estimable Henry King (director of silent classics such as Tol'able David and Stella Dallas through to many talkies including Carousel), it features some good action sequences and looks well made from the fragments that are left.

Eleanor Boardman, one year on from The Crowd, gives a typically excellent performance, in spite of the unlikely nature of the story and is well photographed by King who gives her plenty of close ups to show what she can do. It's a shame that we don't see more of her character's roots and motivations. The cast list references a number of characters from the home front who no longer feature including Joan's aunt and maid as well as Lieutenant Pike's mother and the regimental major.

There's also a great little turn from Alma Rubens who sings to the soldiers in one scene and then plays out the part of mother to one dying boy in the film's most powerful moment. Sadly this was Rubens last film and she was to soon succumb to drug addiction. She was certainly very talented from what she shows here.

This is well worth seeking out but you have to hope that the original, full-length version is still extant and will someday get released. In the meantime, the truncated version is available on Amazon or directly from Grapevine.