A Carol Reed tri-umph

I broke away from inputting books into my new Library database to watch three Carol Reed films over three nights. Although I have watched his most famous output - The Third Man (1949), which has been called the greatest film of the 20th century - I had not seen any of these three. Reed was the illegitimate son of the famous theatre actor and theatre manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree.

Sir Carol Reed (1906-1976)

Born in 1906, he was educated at the King's School, Canterbury. His career began to develop with The Stars Look Down (1940). He made his most highly regarded films just after the Second World War. He was only the second British film director to be knighted (1952) for his craft; the first being Sir Alexander Korda (1942).

  

                     1947                                         1948                                         1952

Odd Man Out - set in Belfast (although the city is never named) - is the story of Johnny McQueen, the leader of an illegal organisation (The IRA) who shoots a man dead during a raid. On the run, himself badly injured, Johnny hides in a variety of down-and-out places. Reed, unlike Hitchcock, much preferred to be out on location and he uses the city's derelict and seedy backdrops to excellent effect. James Mason is compelling as Johnnie. Kathleen Ryan plays his long-suffering girlfriend (the Irish actress herself was to have a chequered career, dying aged only 63) and there are strong supporting roles from a mainly Irish cast. Robert Newton gives his usual over-the-top cameo as Lukey, a crazed artist who desires to paint the death in Johnnie's eyes. The ending is rather stylized - almost Christ-like - but the film keeps it grip on you and deservedly won the 1st BAFTA  Award for the Best British Film of the year.

The Fallen Idol also won the same BAFTA for the following year. It tells the story through the eyes of seven year-old Philippe and (although, apparently, the boy had the attention span of a gold fish) Carol Reed exhibits his known skill of getting the best out of a child actor - this time one with no previous acting experience. Ralph Richardson, as the butler who has seemingly murdered his housekeeper wife, brings intelligence and under-stated realism to his role. It was interesting to catch Jack Hawkins, Geoffrey Keen and James Hayter in bit-parts. Reed had parted company with J. Arthur Rank (whom James Mason, apparently, was not keen on) and was now productively linked with Sir Alexander Korda (Producer) and Graham Greene (writer).

The Man Between perhaps is unfairly compared to The Third Man. Reed collaborated again with James Mason - a world weary Ivo Kern, who has retained more decency than Harry Lime could ever muster. His love for the young English schoolteacher Claire Bloom leads him to try one last misguided trip across the Berlin east-west divide (no Wall yet). As with post-war Vienna, Reed ensures all the misery of a bombed-out city is shown in stark realism. But no concert zither as the sound track!

The Special Features with each DVD are a bonus: a James Mason 1972 interview with The Fallen Idol; interviews with the young boy (as a 70+ year-old) Robert Henrey and Assistant Director Guy Hamilton with The Fallen Idol; and an interview with Claire Bloom on The Man Between.

I must watch The Third Man again soon - for the umpteenth time.

1949

Mind Your Language with 'The Spectator'

I look forward to Fridays (not just because I was a teacher) but because, usually The Spectator lands in the post box. I find, nearly all, the contributors well worth reading - both those who agree and those who disagree with my views. Whether it's Bruce Anderson on 'Drink'; Tanya Gold on 'Food'; Taki's High Life, Jeremy Clark's Low Life or Melissa Kite's Real Life, I am usually entertained and feel the better for the read. The cartoons can make me chuckle, too. My blind spots are The Turf, Bridge and Chess.

25 July 2020

I must admit, I don't always read in depth Dot Wordsworth's Mind Your Language slot, but usually skim through the piece. This week's (25th July 2020), I found particularly interesting as I had no idea of the origins of the word cancel.

The cancel culture wants to obliterate people who do, or more often say, the wrong thing (for example, that there are such things as women) or even pronounce a taboo word. Taboo words have long been with us. The taboo word fuck was not even included in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Yet today the dictionary prints far worse words.
...In the 19th century, railway tickets were cancelled by clipping; indeed a scissor-like punch was known as a pair of ticket cancels. Postage stamps, the other glories of the Victorian era, were cancelled, often with Maltese crosses. But cancel originally meant to cross out writing using a lattice of pen lines. This is because in Latin cancelli meant 'bars of lattice-work'. On an ancient Roman basilica (a non-religious place of public assembly and a court of justice), these lattice bars marked off the part where the judges sat. The screened-off part later gave the name to the chancel in a church...
Not many people knew all this; I certainly didn't!

Two Nineteenth Century Welsh Idylls/Ideals 1896/1897

I have moved from Scotland - and the Mendips - to Wales, to read two books of the 1890s which, at first sight, appear to be modelled on the kailyard stories of MacLaren and others. The first novel is by Alfred Thomas - In the Land of the Harp and Feathers: A series of Welsh Village Idylls (H. R. Allenson, 1896).

    

First edition - 1896

The tale is a straightforward one, set in the South Wales village of Wengroes (White Cross), where the narrator, Ivor Meredith, has been appointed as schoolmaster. My work was the parent of my difficulty. The worthy villagers looked upon me as ranking next to old Mr. Jeffers, the Calvinistic Independent Minister of Wengroes Chapel - for was it not in the "vestry" of the little chapel that I daily met my scholars face to face?...there was the Rector of the parish, of course; but he didn't count. Whereas old Mr. Jeffers bowed reverently to the Rector every time they passed, the latter, like the priest of old, "passed by on the other side" with never a nod of recognition. Ivor lodges with Gomer and Gwenny Shinkin (Jenkins), who refuse to take money for the bed and board (Ivor sends payment "from a friend" regularly). Gomer works down the Pit, responsible for checking the safety of the props.

The village, and the novel, revolves around the Chapel - the stern doctrines of Calvinism impregnated every fibre of their being, and they really endeavoured to conduct themselves in strict accordance with their rigid creed... they not only believed in the merits of the blood of a personal Saviour, but also that there was a Judgement to come, in which they would have to give an account of the deeds done in the body. The cottage prayer meetings were an institution integral to Wales at the time, being held in even the poorest member's cottage. They were far from being merely Sunday-go-to-Meeting events; it requires grit to be a Calvinist Christian. As Alfred Thomas writes, the first necessity of a sincere people must always be a Religion. Sincerity breeds a desire for truth, and not only the Truth but the whole Truth. One is encouraged in this through the Sunday School, the great Training College of Wales; Ivor Meredith was the Secretary of the Wengroes Sunday School.

The chapters are quite short and they often concentrate on a particular villager - old Mari Walby, who is found dead by her family Bible, waiting for the Prayer Meeting to be held in her tumble-down cottage ; Griffy John, the trader, who is ruined due to the Repeal of the Corn Laws in January 1846, as a result of his buying up of a mass of English grain on behalf of his fellow villagers just prior to the flood of cheaper (and better) grain from the USA. Much later on, he gets his reward with a brand-new emporium built through an unknown well-wisher (Gomer Shinkin in fact); Lewis Hopkin, the 60-year-old reprobate who finds "religion" and becomes a model citizen. Above all, the story centres on Gomer Shinkin, who is left a considerable sum by an old school friend whom he saved from shipwreck when both had gone to sea as lads. The latter dies in Australia and leaves his wealth to Gomer, who spends it on rebuilding the Chapel and other good deeds. The novel ends with his death, during the very service which re-opened the building. As Alfred Thomas avers: Love is the currency which prompts the noble actions of the honest poor, and not gold.

Of course, there are elements of the Scottish kailyard stories here; there is even a kindly old doctor, Dr. Llywelyn, at hand. But the tales are rarely of the cloying kind and there are few 'purple patches'. Thomas has no time for the Chartists, commenting on the November 1839 March on Newport, that  the leaders of the mob succeeded only in making both themselves and their cause ridiculous and contemptible. But he is not blind to the hard, cruel, selfish, and avaricious world beyond Wengroes. There was hard work, and plenty of it at Wengroes, but slavery did not exist there. It is only in the towns they manufacture slaves. All in all, the book seems a pretty accurate and empathetic tale.

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There has been a long gap between this blog and the one above - the longest in my short blogging career! The reason? A marvellous internet own-Library database has been set up for me by my son:    https://www.libib.com/library/home . It allows you to enter up to 5,000 books - with an illustration of the front cover or, if too boring or dark, the title page. You put in title, author, publisher, date of publication, number of pages, type (e.g. Scottish Nineteenth Century; Poetry; Biography). Absolutely 'spot on' for my needs. Although I have just over 8,000 books, this includes paperbacks and pamphlets - most of which I don't want to record. It is unlikely that I will enter my 400+ Oxford World's Classics volumes or my John Buchan Collection either. As of today (26th July) I have just reached 565 books; slow going, but I want to do it properly and scanning takes time.

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As for the second Welsh book, a clue lies in the title - "Ideals" rather than "Idylls".

  

First edition - 1897

Once again, the story revolves round the chapel and the pit. There is also a Gomer - Gomer Williams, a young miner who desperately wants to train for the Non-conformist Ministry. His progress through the book is almost saint-like, on occasions too much so, when the purple passages overwhelm the 21st century reader and the heavenly trumpets sound at the end when Gomer became in the years that followed the acknowledged prince of the Welsh pulpit, shook the astonished land with his matchless eloquence, and kindled in the heart of the people loftiest inspirations and ideals that shall never die.

Twice, Gomer rescues colleagues in pit disasters; once he saves his arch enemy (who wanted the same girl), in a raging tempest on the brink of a cliff. The author argues, in his Preface, that it is the main purpose of the following pages to pourtray [sic] customs and traditions, struggles and aspirations, ideals and idylls, in a typical centre of Welsh village life. Well, it certainly beats Ambridge or Emmerdale! Garth-y-coed has "the king", John Tudor, who gives his life to save Gomer down the pit; Dai Hopkin the Bard; Raymond the Eccentric; Tom Jones the Atheist; the joint mine owners and their families - Mr Wynne, his evil son Ned; Mr Pennant and his unscrupulous and arch-snob wife, who refuses to sanction Gomer's relationship with her daughter Lucy.   Then there is Gomer's widowed mother whose face was sweeter and whose heart was purer for the touch of early sorrow...deeply religious, but her religion was as natural as the song of the skylark; and his sister Annie, who adores him. The old Minister, Rev. Paul Hughes, guides Gomer through the 'valley of the shadow' successfully; Mr. Pennant comes to see Gomer as the ideal for his daughter and surreptitiously supports their love (and Gomer's fees to go to Brasdir Training College), but dies before the end of the tale. 

Throughout the book there is this love story; in fact, two love stories. The first, that of childhood sweetheart Gwen Richards, brought up by her sorrowing father John, a prosperous tradesman, and living at Bryn Villa. Gomer never knows, until a dying confession by Gwen (in fact, she recovers and leaves the area with her father!) of her deep love for him. The successful love is that of Gomer and Lucy Pennant; a triumph of Dissent over the Establishment; of a miner from Garth-y-coed over the snobbery of some of the household at Plas Newydd. Gomer's I had rather remain in the coal-pit all the days of my life than be faithless to the truth and his powerful preaching wins him the heart and soul of Lucy: The splendid impressiveness and enthusiasm of a Welsh Non-conformist service came upon her with the accentuated force of virgin freshness. Its grand spontaneity, its sublimity of inspiration, its concentrated force of spiritual power, the resistless rush of its mighty enthusiasms, and the almost ecstatic intensity of its worship were to her like the unveiling of a new spiritual realm. Neither the sober culture of the Anglican church at Penyrafon nor Lucy could withstand it.

This is a powerful book, redolent of its time; the author absolutely gives his all to conveying his message. There is little humour - in the Chapter "A Ghost Mystery and its Solution" and a trifle at the Eisteddfod at Penyrafon at the end of the tale, where Gomer (of course) is Chaired as the Bard. The contemporary novels of Ian Maclaren and other Scots writers rarely hit the intensity of John Thomas. The Ideals are writ large, even Mrs Pennant's for her belief in class distinction. I am glad I read the book even if (perhaps, because?) its fervour seemed to record long-ago ideals and ways of life. Now the pits are gone and the chapels have been knocked down or converted into private homes or garages. Is life the better for this? I somehow doubt it.

'The Cottagers of Glenburnie' (1808) by Elizabeth Hamilton

Elizabeth Hamilton (1756-1816) was born in Belfast to a Scottish merchant and an Irish mother. Her father died while she was still a baby and she was sent to live with her aunt and uncle who owned a farm near Stirling. Attending a day school from the age of eight, her formal education finished in her early teens. She was a voracious reader, particularly of moral and educational philosophy.

She lived in London for a time and later in Edinburgh. In 1804, she was awarded a pension from King George III for her contribution to religion and virtue. She became a well-known and respected author, her portrait being painted by Sir Henry Raeburn. She died in Harrogate in 1816.

     

First edition - Manners and Miller 1808

Hamilton's novel, The Cottagers of Glenburnie, tells the story of a retired servant, Mrs Mason, who returns to Scotland in 1788 to stay with Mr Stewart of Gowan-brae and his two daughters, Bell and Mary. The first five chapters (to page 115) mainly consist of Mason telling her hosts the story of her life. The reader quickly understands why the author was given an award for promulgating religion and virtue. She responds to Mary Stewart's wish for a friend like her: And have you not a friend, a guide, and a supporter, in Him who called you to these trials of your virtue? Consider my dear young lady, it is your Heavenly Father who has set the task, - perform it as unto Him, and when you have to encounter opposition, or injustice, you will no longer find them intolerable.  Two pages on, she is in full flow: My mother taught me the only true road to obedience, in the love and fear of  God... Throughout the book Mrs Mason dispenses such bon mots and many who met her, let alone the 'modern' reader, would probably find her intolerable! She may have come up against other, more worldly - and unpleasant - servants and demanding mistresses, but she always won through. One feels that when Mrs Mason approached the Pearly Gates, she would be moved to the front of the queue.

The reader arrives at the village of Glenburnie, with Mr Stewart and Mrs Mason, on page 132. She is to lodge with her cousin Mrs MacClarty and her unruly family. The motto for this farmer's wife, in fact most of the village, is cou'dn be fashed. The standard of the MacClarty house and garden is appalling - dirty and unhygienic. The elder MacClarty daughter was morose and sullen, the younger stupid and insensible. Their usual answer is: I'll no be at the fash...

Mrs MacClarty and her daughters

There is a humorous description of Mrs Mason's room and, particularly, her bed: her pillow was full of new but still damp feathers, which were consequently full of the animal oil, which, when it becomes rancid, sends forth an intolerable effluvia. Mrs Mason tries, unsuccessfully to persuade the mother that discipline and correction leads to positive results. but perhaps I interfere too far. Well, yes! She tries again: believe me, cousin, habits of neatness, and of activity, and of attention, have a greater effect upon the temper and disposition than most people are aware of. Later she says to herself: Surely I must be of some use to the children of these good people. They are ill brought up, but they do not seem deficient in understanding; and if I can once convince them of the advantage they will derive from listening to my advice, I may make a lasting impression on the minds. Not on the MacClarty family, even with the tragic death of the farmer. Hoots, says Mrs MacCarty, my bairns are just like other people... Moreover, the goodwife has a point when she says: Ilka place has just its ain gait and ye needna think that ever we'll learn yours. And indeed to be plain wi' you, cusin, I think you have our many fykes (fussing over trifles). It's no good Mrs Mason rejoining, this fear of being fashed is the great bar to all improvement.

 Interspersed throughout the tale are paeons to the good Lord and his beneficence: Let the poor then praise Thee...let the lowly in heart rejoice in thy salvation, and so on. Chapter XVII has a particularly over-the-top purple passage about the Almighty, which occurs when Mrs Mason returns to Glenburnie: Yes, all the works of God are good and beautiful: all the designs on Providence must terminate in producing happiness and joy.  Well not for the MacClarty family or for Methodists. She castigates the latter as enthusiasts who persuade converts that a state of grace is enough, giving as an example another servant, Sally, whose divine raptures were quoted by some of these pious visionaries, as a proof of saintship.(pp. 103-4). In this, later Chapter, she returns to the charge: I have seen so much malignity, so much self-conceit, and presumption, among these professors of evangelical righteousness, that I should suppose their doctrines were at war with the pure morality of the Gospel...I am convinced that much might have been done to stop the progress of methodism, by setting forth, in strong and lively terms, the sin and danger of exalting any one point of the christian doctrine, so as to make it pre-eminent, to the disparagement of the other Gospel truths, and to the exclusion of the gospel virtues. She sees Methodist zeal in making converts as based on pride.

Hamilton had already written Letters on Education (1801) and Letters on the Elementary Principles of Education (1801), and running through her novel is the vital importance of a good education (not just in the three R's and crafts but in sound morals and correct worship of God). This reaches its height in the penultimate Chapter XVIII, Hints concerning the Duties of a Schoolmaster. They are more than just Hints! Between Mr Gourlay, the local Minister, and Mr Morison, appointed schoolmaster of Glenburnie on Mrs Mason's advice, the school becomes a magnet for parents far and wide. With the additional (financial) support of Mr and Mary Stewart and young Lord Longlands (whom Mrs Mason had saved from a fire as a three year-old), the buildings and surroundings are totally reconstituted and the boys and girls, after some struggles, transformed into model pupils. Mr Morison's first object being to train his pupils to habits of order and subordination, not by means of terror, but by a firmness which is not incompatible with kindness and affection. Mrs Mason eventually retires from supervising the girls, taking possession of a pretty cottage on Lord Longlands' estate. In that sweet retreat she tranquilly spent the last days of a useful life... Hear! Hear! 

PS: I liked the reference to Glasgow: Glenburnie women exclaim Glasgow, by a' accounts, is an unco place for wuckedness: but than wha can wonder, whar there's sae mony factories.

Ian Campbell is not kind to Hamilton or to her creation Mrs Mason: an instrument of didactic instruction dull beyond words, insensitive to her environment, and incapable of doing more than transmitting received ideas to her pupils. Campbell regards Hamilton's picture of Scotland as crude and static and compares her unfavourably with Sir Walter Scott and John Galt.