Classic Film Review: Millions Like Us (1943)

Millions Like Us focuses on Celia Crowson (Patricia Roc), the put-upon housekeeper of her father, sister and sister-in-law who is called up to work in a factory during the war. At least, that's what the film turns out to be about. At the beginning it's difficult to tell. In a bid to make the film appeal to the widest audience (the 'millions' like them), it has a rather haphazard beginning, with no real guidance on who the main character's supposed to be. Two of these characters, Tom (John Boxer) and Elsie (Valentine Dunn), are barely mentioned again. There is some consistency with Celia's father, Jim (Moore Marriott, who I enjoyed greatly in his brief appearance in The History of Mr Polly (1949)), and her sister, Phyllis (Joy Shelton), but the amount of screen time they have in the first portion of the film is no way matched in the second.

Celia meets new pilot Fred (Gordon Jackson) when he's touring the factory that helps make the components in the fighter planes he uses. To say that this romance is a fundamental part of the plot it takes some time to emerge but there are some amusing scenes of awkward dialogue when it does. There is also a subplot of a romance between factory foreman, Charlie (Eric Portman) and hoity-toity worker, Jenny (Anne Crawford), which works far better as a subplot than any of the family scenes. In addition, there's the marvellous Megs Jenkins (also of The History of Mr Polly and Indiscreet (1958)) who I can't fail to enjoy in any role. As Gwen she lightens up some of the drearier, intentional and otherwise, moments of the film and was certainly my highlight.

Perhaps the problem with Millions Like Us is that it was a film about war made during the war. The propaganda scenes are numerous and it stifles what could have been an interesting story with tangents that in no way add to the narrative as a whole. It was developed in a way to please the war office and their recruitment rather than as a story in its own right. With a few adjustments this could've been a good film but it ended up being a mediocre piece of propaganda with a couple of plus points. The failure to foreground the protagonist didn't help one bit.

Blogging NaNoWriMo 2012: Planning Failure

By this time I was supposed to have at least half of my novel planned. I was supposed to sit back, content to know that for the first two weeks I wasn't going to crash and burn because I knew where I was going. So much for that idea.

I have two chapters planned. Two. Given that my chapters generally come in between 2000 and 2500 words that's...not a lot planned. And, considering that my chapters will alternate viewpoints in this one I only have one chapter per viewpoint. Not ready. Really not ready.

In my defence, it has been a rather odd week. Writing 14000 words on another project over five days may have taken the wind out of my NaNo sails a little, not to mention the fact that I've been duelling with my PhD this week in more spectacular terms than usual. I could continue making excuses but it's not even making me feel better at this point so I'll stop. What matters is that I fix the problem. Today I have the weekly torture session (sorry, meal) with my grandmother, who delighted me the other morning by waking me up in the early hours with an 'urgent' phone call (I told her it couldn't be urgent while it was still dark outside - I was right in that case). Tomorrow I may be attending the Leeds kick-off party. This depends on whether I can drag myself out of bed and whether I chicken out at the last minute, both real obstacles. On Tuesday I have a supervisor meeting in Sheffield and on Wednesday I think I'll still be recovering from that. And on Thursday, apart from the whole starting NaNo thing, I have a careers seminar in Sheffield. It's not looking altogether positive but I knew that when I first signed up this year.

I've either got to quit or get on with it. And I'm stubborn. So I guess I know what I'm doing.

Classic Film Review: The Hindenburg (1975)

The Hindenburg focuses on the 1937 disaster when a Zeppelin exploded at it was coming in to land after a trip from Germany to America. Though the cause of the disaster has never been conclusively proven, this film takes the lead of earlier books and highlights the sabotage theory. Of course, this is the most film-friendly of all theories and, really, is the only one suitable to a film of this length. The sabotage plot keeps the audience watching, making the piece more than a long preamble into a large explosion.

The film focuses on Colonel Franz Ritter (George C. Scott) who tries to track down the saboteur before the airship reaches America. There are many suspects, due to the political climate of the day, but the one he focuses on is Boerth (William Atherton), a crew member with a suspect woman in his life. I feel that the scriptwriters missed a trick with the representation of Boerth - if the purpose of the narrative was to keep us guessing about the identity of the saboteur then they failed with several long looks between Boerth and his lover before the flight. The audience is taken out of any investigative plot when the smarter thing to do may have been to have simply to have the viewer floating along with Ritter and following his path step by step.

George C. Scott is one of the best things about this film. He injects humanity into what could have been a very cardboard character and his scenes opposite Anne Bancroft (as the Countess) sparkle. Some of Bancroft's scenes without Scott seem laboured but that's due to a combination of factors, not least the fact that she was partly a fictional creation and that the dialogue often dipped below an acceptable level. This affected much of the cast - using a strange amalgamation of fact and fiction constrained some of the actors and, I suspect, the scriptwriters.

The star of the film is undoubtedly the airship itself. Stunningly recreated, the interior feels both expansive and claustrophobic as it crosses the Atlantic. The final scenes are a combination of real-life footage taken on the day and film footage featuring the characters we've come to know on the journey. As a consequence of using the real-life footage, the final minutes of the film switch to black and white. This is slightly jarring at first but done for understandable reasons. The explosion and crash scenes are the most absorbing of the film, wonderfully edited together to give a coherent look at the actual disaster.

The film ends with the voice-over of Herbert Morrison who was covering the landing of the ship and ended up giving a live eye-witness account of the disaster as it happened. This, combined with a partial breakdown of the dead, serves to make the last few minutes sobering. Unusually for me, I allowed the credits to run until the end, still in a state of shock. Although this film is sensationalistic and the theory it conveys is far-fetched, the actual crash still retains the horror of the event. Worth watching simply for the last fifteen minutes but not a terrible film overall.

Surprising Myself

I've mentioned several times about a first draft I've been battling with since about March (here and here). I'd abandoned it the last time around 36k when I realised I needed to concentrate on other things and couldn't justify the time it would take to plot the next sections, let alone write them. Well, on Friday I decided to open the document whilst watching Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows Pt2 and see what happened. It turned out quite a lot.

Two thousand words on Friday, over three and a half thousand on Saturday (in the midst of what turned out to be a hellish night of babysitting), over two thousand on Sunday, thirteen hundred on Monday and then last night I churned out five and a half thousand words to bring the whole thing to an end. It put my first draft word count at 50,855 words which is fairly standard for my first drafts. They always bulk up dramatically during the second draft.

I'm not quite sure what happened in the last five days. Actually, there are a few possible reasons. Firstly, to say I'm running away from my PhD at the moment would be an understatement. I'm trying and trying but not getting very far, spending most of my days glaring at my computer screen and contemplating a sudden change of profession. No wonder that my 'evening' work has taken over in my head. And, secondly, I'm grown up enough to know that my PhD isn't the only thing I'm trying to escape from. I suppose now I've finished this draft I'll have to stop procrastinating and deal with stuff. Though, may I say, hanging around with my characters is much more enjoyable than the real world at the moment.

So this first draft will be printed and stuck in a clear folder with the other four novels I have in various states of revision (yes, I'm a little psychotic about how I store them, it has to be a clear folder for reasons I don't even know). I do have a slight reservation though - I'm taking part in NaNoWriMo again this year and I hope I haven't burnt myself out of words in the last few days.

Oh, and there is the other issue of my traffic light system: I've completed an amber task while the two red ones are still outstanding. So outstanding that they're somewhere in the North Sea and I'm running towards Cornwall. Can't help thinking I'm doing this productivity thing wrong...

Classic Film Review: The Towering Inferno (1974)

This famous disaster film probably needs no introduction: an exceedingly large building catches fire putting lots of people in grave danger. The Towering Inferno alternates between epic spectacle and mediocre characterisation and dialogue - with a few exceptions.

Because of the scale of this disaster we're introduced briefly to numerous people. Chief amongst them is architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) whose effective but costly plans for the building have been ignored in favour of cheaper options by Jim Duncan (William Holden) and his son-in-law Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain). Doug is also embroiled in a secret love affair with Susan (Faye Dunaway) but they're not the only ones keeping secrets - Danny Bigelow (Robert Wagner) has been sleeping with his secretary Lorrie (Susan Flannery) and they've decided to turn the phones off for a little peace and quiet while conman resident Harlee Claiborne (Fred Astaire) has been planning to work his magic on Lisolette (Jennifer Jones) but when disaster strikes she's worried about saving the children of a deaf woman who she fears hasn't heard the alarm go off. There are many other characters we're introduced to during the course of the film but the most important of those unmentioned so far is Chief Mike O'Hallorhan (Steve McQueen) who has to coordinate the rescue attempts and an increasingly volatile situation.

It's difficult to care about most of the characters in this film because we're only fleetingly introduced to them. At one point I was more bothered about a cat being saved than most of the humans. Unsurprisingly, one of those I had most affection for was the conman played by Fred Astaire - he added a little charm to the opening sections and proved that even if he was past his dancing days he could still make a walk look musical. His love interest, Lisolette, is the character I think the audience takes to most. Her efforts to save a pair of children then combat her own fears to try and get to safety provide some of the most tension-ridden moments of the film. Because, although the spectacle of disaster films can enjoyable, tension must come out of caring for characters and what happens to them. That wasn't present far too often in this film.

On a visual level, The Towering Inferno is a joy to watch. It fails on an emotional level with some terrible dialogue and bizarre decisions to move the plot along. The set-up feels as though it takes too long, especially given that the time doesn't really endear the 'important' characters to the audience, and then the time between the fire starting and actually taking hold is also too long. In the midst of this there was supposed to be character tension but that really didn't work for me. Nevertheless, I enjoyed watching this as a disaster film with some excellent stunts and moments, although it isn't one I'll be eager to revisit in the future - if I do it'll be purely for Fred Astaire and Jennifer Jones (and the cat).

Blogging NaNoWriMo 2012: Trying Something New

So my idea this year is one which has been percolating for a good few months. But it is a little of a departure for me. While it still has a love story at the heart of it, it's mainlyan ensemble story. Thirteen mini character profiles is far beyond my usual core cast. Last year I had seven characters who I considered central to the story (though, in true NaNo fashion, another one became very important halfway through when I realised my tension was slipping). Thirteen is a new high for me and I'm a little concerned about whether I can juggle them properly. But - and there's always a but - the numbers are necessary for this story.

I've moved out of my comfort zone of the city into a village. That shift is also necessary for this particular story to work. Altering the character dynamic is going to be tricky but I'm lucky in one respect - I found myself writing character tensions into my profiles. I particularly like my vicar's wife, Celia, and her sworn enemy, Joyce. I can't wait to see how that's going to play out.

That's the fun of NaNo - I really have no idea how it'll all work out. I know the big overarching plot but the impact on the villagers? No idea as yet. I don't even know if my love story will succeed. Though I do have some serious issues giving characters unhappy endings, one of my current projects will definitely have that since there's no way love can survive. I've no idea where this will leave my NaNo project but I suppose I'll find out when I get there. If I get there. No, when I get there. Certainly can't go into this with my pessimistic head on.

So my characters are assembled. That's phase one of making NaNo a plausible prospect complete. Next: plan my first few chapters. Possibly more than a few. Preparation is everything this year.

Classic Film Review: Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

Anatomy of a Murder stars James Stewart as Paul Biegler, a lawyer defending Lieutenant Manion (Ben Gazzara) who killed the man accused of raping his wife, Laura (Lee Remick). Working alongside Biegler are his good friend and associate Parnell Emmett McCarthy (Arthur O'Connell) and his secretary Maida Rutledge (Eve Arden). Using the defence of temporary insanity, Biegler tries to untie the knots of secrecy around the murderer and his victim.

This film feels very authentic. Something which adds to this authenticity is the casting of real-life lawyer Joseph N. Welch as Judge Weaver. The tension in this one builds solely from the courtroom scenes - there are no flashbacks of the rape or murder leaving the viewer trying to separate the truth from the lies. Stewart excels as Biegler but, really, all the cast are brilliant, right down to the little dog who becomes important in the trial. There is a definite rapport between Stewart and O'Connell, something which adds a subplot to a film which is very heavy on occasion. I can understand why it may have caused offence on first release in 1959 - a pivotal point in the trial is an undergarment which is discussed in open court. In addition, there are other details about the rape revealed which make uncomfortable viewing now, never mind in 1959.

I wasn't wholly convinced by the performance of Lee Remick as Laura, although it did add to the doubt around the whole situation. There were moments of real intensity such as when she recounts to Biegler the details of the rape but a couple of her scenes feel too false in such a realistic film. This was the straightest role I've seen Eve Arden in to date and she was fantastic, providing a couple of laughs to ease the tension as the film progressed - I particularly liked Maida's comment that Biegler couldn't sack her until he'd paid her. Arden really was excellent but, then, I haven't found a performance of hers I didn't like. This one was just a little more serious than some of the others, proving that she wasn't simply a wise-cracker.

Although a little long at 160 minutes, Anatomy of a Murder is a psychological triumph. Watch out for the cameo by Duke Ellington who also provides the soundtrack because, of course, Paul Biegler is a jazz-loving lawyer. There are some memorable specific scenes in this one but perhaps the extended courtroom drama is memorable all on its own.