Resurrection Man (1998)

....Or Clockwork Orangeman as it could almost be called.

Resurrection Man is a 1998 film from director Marc Evans that is based on the 1994 novel of the same name by Eoin McNamee. Like that book, McNamee's screenplay takes inspiration from what is arguably the most notorious sequence of killings to occur in Northern Irish history during the Troubles. Between 1975 and 1977, several Catholic men were picked at random during the hours of darkness by an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) gang known as The Shankill Butchers. The gang earned their name because of the ferocious and brutal way they tortured, mutilated and dispatched victims who were chosen solely for their religion; cleavers, axes and butcher's knives were the tools of their trade (though they weren't above shootings and bombings in their long-running bloody sectarian campaign either) and their ringleader, described by one detective as 'a ruthless, dedicated terrorist with a sadistic streak, regarded by those who knew him well as a psychopath' was one Lenny Murphy. In 1979 eleven of the gang were given 42 life sentences totaling almost 2,000 years for 100 charges including 19 counts of murder. Murphy himself was already in prison on a lesser charge at this point and, as a result, was never convicted of murder. His violent life and sadistic reign of terror came to an end four years later in 1982 however when, pulling up at his girlfriend's home, he was shot twenty-two times by two IRA gunmen.

Centre-stage in this tale is Stuart Townsend as Victor Kelly, our thinly disguised fictional version of Murphy. A naturally good looking man, Townsend brings a degree of dark glamour and kinky, twisted romanticism to the role despite the abhorrent nature of his character, traits which are a world away from the real Murphy who went by the nickname 'Planet of the Apes' on account of his neanderthal looks. What is carried over from fact to fiction however is the theory that Murphy's murderous zeal stemmed from the fact that this great loyalist terrorist had some Catholic blood himself. This appears to stem from the fact that Murphy is a fairly uncommon name amongst Protestants but it is worth saying that is not an unusual one by any means. Whilst Murphy's commitment may well have been driven by suggestions that he himself was the thing he despised the most, a 'Fenian', the film goes one further by depicting his father as an ineffectual and weak-willed man whom many claim to be Catholic. This slur clearly weighs heavily on both Townsend's Kelly and his overbearing mother (played superbly by Brenda Fricker) who each treat the 'man of the house', their father and husband respectively (George Shane), with utter contempt and disdain. Whilst this is clearly a work of fiction and psychological conjecture (Murphy senior was actually a serving member in the UVF) it helps to bolster that other trademark of gangster movies, namely the oedipal nature of the relationship between kingpin son and his beloved mother which stretches all the way back to Cagney's White Heat, a film that the young Kelly is seen to watch in complete awe at one point. Certainly the behaviour of Fricker when Kelly's blonde haired, doe-eyed and pneumatic moll, Heather (Geraldine O'Rawle) comes round is more in keeping with a bitter love rival than a mother simply wanting the best for her child. Freud is further wheeled out in a suggestion of repressed homosexuality too; Kelly mimics oral sex with his pistol as a way to attract the attention of UVF big-hitters, McClure (Sean McGinley) and Darkie (John Hannah), and is shown to lavish much, pseudo-erotic attention on his victims during torture (he's often naked from the waist up too, presumably to spare this peacock's beloved wardrobe any bloodshed); the final deathstroke often coming to resemble a near-ejaculate like bloodletting and a significant release that leaves Kelly near-catotonically spent. It is also revealed that McClure has shown him photographs of 'English boys in bed together'. This revelation comes during a particularly outrageous, drink and drug-fuelled scene that features the pair embracing and almost kissing whilst Jerusalem plays in the Union Jack bedecked backroom of the bar, with McClure wearing an SS cap!  

It's these little moments of loyalist patriotism that actually gives the film it's sense of place. Indeed, what's interesting about Resurrection Man is how, despite its true-life inspiration, it removes itself from much of the Troubles to simply depict instead the story of a serial killer/gangster. Just take a look at the press release blurb that was subsequently used on the DVD release;

'Victor Kelly is a gangster and ruthless murderer - a 'Scarface' for his generation. He is the leader of a gang of killers known as "Resurrection Men" who target victims in a city where boundaries are marked by blood. Victor's cruelty makes him a ghastly local legend, both feared and venerated. On his trail is Ryan, a journalist, fuelled by an obsessive need to discover the truth about the "Resurrection Man" he is unaware of the risk to his own life. "Resurrection Man" is a chilling and controversial film not for the faint-hearted'

I do wonder if this seeming refusal to acknowledge the political situation inherent in the film, both in this blurb and in the film itself (only slurs of 'Taig' and 'Fenian' indicate just what is going on), has something to do with the climate the film was released in; in 1998 a tentative peace process was being delivered in Northern Ireland which eventually came to a greater fruition at the turn of the 21st century. Whatever the reasons, it works to make Resurrection Man a universal film, riffing on notions as wide-ranging as classic gangster or serial killer films, Bonnie and Clyde romance, violence-for-kicks affairs like the aforementioned A Clockwork Orange, and an almost vampiric thirst for blood. Indeed, the scenes of a malevolent, black-clad Townsend stalking the moonlit streets for victims was enough to ensure that he was subsequently cast as Anne Rice's vampire hero Lestat (previously portrayed in cinema by Tom Cruise in Interview with a Vampire) in the 2002 film, Queen of the Damned.  

I first saw Resurrection Man not long after its release, buying it on VHS. I was interested to watch it for a number of reasons; not least my interest in the Troubles, but also my appreciation of actors such as James Nesbitt, who stars here as Ryan, the journalist on Kelly's trail, and who was at the time riding high with his success in ITV's Cold Feet  - this film affording him the opportunity to move away from comedy and light drama play the kind of heavy dramatic role he has subsequently proved just as adept at - and Derek Thompson who, since 1986, is best known for playing Charlie Fairhead in Casualty, but whose career prior to this (at present) thirty-three-year role included several Troubles-related films. Thompson took a break from Casualty, then in it's eleventh year, to play the role of Herbie Ferguson, the detective investigating the brutal murders - the last original role he has played in his career as the past twenty odd years has seen him continue in the role of nurse Fairhead. There's a reunion, of sorts, between him and his old friend Brenda Fricker, who played Megan Roach in the first five years of Casualty, though they share no actual scenes on film together. Amongst the other familiar Irish faces, there's also a fine supporting turn from the great James Ellis as a veteran seen-it-all reporter and mentor to Nesbitt, though sadly he disappears from the film once the action ramps up.

I remember watching Resurrection Man at the time and thinking 'my God, but Belfast is a bleak place', so imagine my surprise when the credits rolled around to reveal that the film had actually been shot on my own doorstep, in Warrington, Liverpool and Manchester! Indeed, plenty of scenes are shot on streets I actually know, including Legh Street in Warrington, which once housed the now demolished grand Victorian bath house that proves central to the film in its latter stages, whilst its exterior is also featured specifically in a scene in which Nesbitt questions some workers from a Chinese takeaway. The location work, aided by some good cinematography (that late 90s look, before digital colour grading took hold) all help to create a grim, desolate sense of place, with the former (so resolutely not being Belfast) helping to give that sense of near-dystopic hinterland that compliments the film's refusal to be too tied down to the reality of the setting.

As you can tell, I like Resurrection Man enough to still keep returning to it twenty-one-years after its release, though it's not a masterpiece by any means. Structurally it's somewhat unsound; what may have worked well on the page struggles to make much of an impact on the screen, specifically the implication that Kelly represents the dark side of Ryan's nature he struggles to keep in check, as evinced by his drunken beating of his wife, the local casualty doctor (Zara Turner) and his overall fascination with Kelly's violence which suggests he does what Ryan can only dream of. Both men even fall for the same woman; O'Rawle's Heather. The issue here being of course that neither man is truly likeable, which can be a stumbling block for some audiences, though Ryan does at least relinquish the grip his demons has on him thanks to his experience of the unrepentant, unreconstructed Kelly and returns to his wife, in reconciliatory mood. Director Marc Evans aims for a sort of Scorsese style in his eclectic use of '70s rock music to score scenes of revelry and violence (infamously, Mud's 'Tiger Feet' is used over the savage kicking of a Catholic in Kelly's local, whilst more satisfyingly, The Walker Brothers' 'No Regrets' plays as Herbie comes to arrest Kelly, with Heather offering her lover her best Bonnie Parker smile) but the freeze frames he often employs during such music-laden sequences are distinctly Guy Ritchie, himself no stranger to the positives of a good magpie-like soundtrack. Viewed at the time, these tricks may seem like stealing but, watched now with some distance between it, it serves as an interesting museum piece of the stylings from the turn of the century British cinema.   

Produced by Andrew Eaton and executive produced by Michael Winterbottom, Resurrection Man is a dark and unprepossessingly dour and dank psychological thriller that some audiences may find hard to stomach. Whilst it's nowhere near as gratuitously violent as any number of grimy American torture-porn horrors you can name that subsequently rose to the surface in the years after its release, it often reviles simply by what is implied or what is *just about* seen or suggested, though the real root of revulsion of course stems from the fact that what you witness is based on actual events.

Yanks (1979)

It's been a while since I last saw Yanks. In my head, there's a memory of watching it on the BBC one Sunday afternoon but I can't be sure how correct that memory actually is now because, having rewatched it, some of the language is definitely post watershed. 

Nevertheless there is a BBC Sunday afternoon vibe to Yanks, John Schlesinger's film from a Colin Welland and Walter Bernstein script which explores the culture clash and sometimes uneasy relationship between billeted GI's and the locals in the rural north of England during WWII, which made it quite a fitting watch for today.

Yanks is a film not about war itself, or rather not about fighting and battles, but about relationships and the effects that war has on the home front; homesickness, loneliness, tragedy, boredom and inconvenience. It's a three stringed storyline concerning a trio of couples -  the gentle affair between the married upper class Vanessa Redgrave and American officer William Devane; Lisa Eichhorn's virginal daughter of the local postmaster whose engaged to her childhood sweetheart (a pre-Casualty Derek Thompson) away at the front, and Richard Gere's American mess sergeant whose mutual attraction blossoms into a dangerous passion; and lastly Wendy Morgan's funny and flighty clippie and Chick Vennera's loveable putz of an Army cook. 

It's fair to say that Morgan and Vennera get the shortest shrift, relegated to little more than comic relief when the script actually remembers them. They're lively enough but their roles are specifically that of 'the best friends' of the characters in our central romance; Gere and Eichhorn. Richard Gere finds the politeness, sensitivity and decency inherent in his character, but either underplays or is simply too naive to perform anything else that he ultimately robs the film of its required emotional impact. Far better is Lisa Eichhorn, an American actress and former Oxford scholar who convinced Schlesinger that she was in fact English to gain the role. She's very persuasive here and wonderfully sweet as a young girl torn between her commitment to her absent fiance and the 'exotic' soldier who has captured her heart, even if you do just want to shake her character from time to time.

I do find myself wishing that more of the film was given over to Redgrave and Devane's affair, but that longing might be more down to the fact that they are both actors with a natural charisma that can rise above the material they're working with. Devane is effortlessly cool, yet his admirable intentions in his gentlemanly courtship of Redgrave are never in doubt, whilst Redgrave positively shines in her role.

It's perhaps what appears in the background that is Yanks biggest draw; the Lancashire and Yorkshire scenery and period production design is a superb joy, as is the supporting actors who invest Welland's dry northern wit with the requisite twinkle. Eichhorn's family are a particular standout, with Tony Melody and Rachel Roberts as her postmaster and postmistress parents, with the latter having an effective line in a weary mental stability, and child actor Martin Smith as her little kid brother. 

Dear old Derek Thompson, very young-looking here, plays her ill-fated betrothed Ken with the beginnings of that 'not-looking-you-straight-in-the-eye' acting technique he is the key proponent of. It has its critics, but you know what? It actually makes his character a damn sight more enigmatic and interesting in the brief screentime he gets than Gere manages as the lead throughout. The rest of the cast of locals is filled out with familiar faces such as Emmerdale's Paula Tilbrook and Last of the Summer Wine's Joe Gladwin.

Yanks is a genteel and authentic experience throughout its 130 minute running time, only once tripping up to tackle the issue of prejudice between white and black GI's. It's an important issue and one worthy of addressing, but I do think Schlesinger muffs it a little with a cringingly obvious set up that sees the camera pick out racist at the New Years Dance long before anything actually occurs. It's the kind of glaringly obvious signposting that means what follows is less than subtle and so therefore somewhat at odds with the rest of the film.

RIP Morag Siller

News of another sad passing; Scottish actress Morag Siller passed away yesterday at the Christie Hospital, Manchester aged just 46. She was suffering from breast cancer, a cause she had been fundraising for right until the very end.

An ebullient comic performer often in demand for playing larger than life, hilarious characters, Siller had a rage of TV roles but is perhaps most famous for her performances as Marilyn Dingle in Emmerdale and in Monarch of the Glen, as Flora Kilwillie, and as 'frequent flyer' Leona, who had a crush on Derek Thompson's charge nurse Charlie in Casualty, for which she won the AOL award for Best Dramatic Performance in a TV Series in 2000.

Morag on set with Casualty co-stars Sandra Huggett and Derek Thompson

She also had roles in films such as Memphis Belle - her first role, in fact at the age of twenty - and Terence Davies' House of Mirth, as well as a prolific theatre career that included the musical Mamma Mia! and Les Miserables and most recently opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in Hamlet.

Music fans will remember her for her appearances in music videos for Morrissey (You're The One For Me, Fatty) and Holly Johnson (The Love Train) to name but a few.

RIP

Me! I'm Afraid Of Virginia Woolf (1978)

"Hopkins hated Skinner, and longed to be him"

It is that line that is probably key to Me! I'm Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, the first in the LWT series of Six Plays by Alan Bennett from 1978, as it neatly describes the issue at the heart of its hero, the painfully shy English lecturer Trevor Hopkins. 

This terribly self conscious 35 year old bachelor, played by Neville Smith, finds himself in an almost constant state of ennui and uncomfortable awkwardness with his fellow man. Like Virginia Woolf, whom he teaches at the local Polytechnic, he seems to be blindly questioning what life is (indeed he gets student Janine Duvitski - whom Bennett's third person narration describes as "a refugee from life" - to read out the dictionary definition of 'life' at one point) and has a repression that stifles and prevents him from actually feeling anything, as we witness in his unnecessary lies to a young Julie Walters in a GP's waiting room at the start of the film and, at the end in a neat example bookmarking, his entranced staring at the crying old lady in the hospital corridor. Unsatisfied and with a sense that he does not belong to the human race, that he is merely an observer as witnessed by his lack of interest in romance and his doomed relationship with yoga teacher Wendy (Carol MacReady) Hopkins is challenged by his most lively of students, the confident Dave Skinner (played by a young Derek Thompson, now familiar to TV audiences as Charlie Fairhead in Casualty; a role he has played for the past 30 years), whose intelligence and macho working class credentials, combined with his earring and trendy sheepskin, marks him out as someone radically different to Hopkins in that he can easily flout convention and feel comfortable and cocksure in his own skin.

It becomes apparent that the only way Hopkins can truly move forward and turn the corner is by developing male friendships, since his relationships with women - notably his mother, superbly played by Thora Hird, and the aforementioned Wendy - are so spectacularly ineffectual. As the title implies, he seems afraid of women in general and doesn't possess the ability or inclination to communicate effectively with them. However, as much as his envious and awestruck relationship with Skinner mirrors that of the relationship Bennett explores between equally hesitant teacher Irkin and the swaggering sixth former Dakin later in The History Boys, it isn't necessarily a clear cut homosexual one - indeed, though Bennett and Frears muddy the waters of this claim by having South Pacific's I'm In Love With A Wonderful Guy play over the credits of Smith and Thompson's smiling soft focus faces, one can draw a comparison here with Thora Hird's mother character and her inability to grasp the true meaning of a lesbian relationship. Despite the cheeky concluding soundtrack and Bennett's narration revealing Hopkins feels love for Skinner, it's open ended to consider that his fixation is purely emotional or the desire for physical intimacy. It's not intrinsically as simple as homoerotic longing; for Hopkins, Skinner represents the ability to naturally experience, feel and enjoy life - which is something that does not come easily to him at all. He wants to be him, wants to have such a seemingly carefree existence.

Repeated once in the 80s on Channel 4 (along with the other plays in the Six Plays series) this Benett piece, directed by Stephen Frears, remains unreleased to DVD. It is available to view in instalments on YouTube and it's worth it - especially for Hird and a lovely little cameo from Lancashire legend Bernard Wrigley.

To get the BBC to consider repeating some of these classic plays, please sign the petition I started here

Theme Time : Roger Webb - The Gentle Touch (and C.A.T.S Eyes by John Kongas)

The Gentle Touch was an LWT police drama series created by veteran TV writer Terence Feely that ran from 1980 to 1984 and is notable for beating the BBC's Juliet Bravo to the accolade of being the first British series to feature a female police officer as its leading character. Jill Gascoigne was the actress in question playing DI Maggie Forbes of Seven Dials police station, London.

The Gentle Touch stood apart from previous police dramas, and not just because of its female lead. It eschewed the violence and action of predecessors like The Sweeney, focusing instead on character and realistic depictions of the relevant social issues blighting Britain in the early 80s, including the difficulties a woman faced in a police force that was still ostensibly a man's world. It became a hit series which pulled in some strong ratings in the Friday and later the Saturday night slot it maintained across the four years it was broadcast. Alongside Gascoigne, who became a household name, The Gentle Touch also starred William Marlowe, Paul Moriarty and Derek 'Charlie from Casualty' Thompson as cops from Seven Dials.  

The theme tune to the series was composed by Roger Webb, a prolific composer whose credits include the themes for The Strange Report, the sitcoms George and Mildred, Love They Neighbour and Miss Jones and Son, and several films including the Cannon and Ball comedy Boys In Blue and several sexploitation flicks from the 70s like Au Pair Girls and the Derren Nesbitt directed The Amorous Milkman and Nesbitt starred Burke and Hare 

Webb also provided a speeded up version for the show too, which featured across the opening credits in later series

Once The Gentle Touch ended Gascoigne returned as Forbes in the Charlie's Angels like spin off series C.A.T.S Eyes as one of a team of Home Office employed female detectives (alongside Leslie Ash, Rosalyn Landor and later Tracy Louise Ward) based in Kent whose investigations were overseen by Rising Damp's Don Warrington. It ins't considered to be as good as The Gentle Touch and lasted three series from '85 to 1987.

As a bonus, here's the theme to that series - both the incidental and vocal version (sung by Louise Burton) - provided by John Kongas, the 70s singer/songwriter famous for hits Tokoloshe Man and He's Going To Step On You Again - later famously covered as Step On by The Happy Mondays. 

Cherry in Casualty

This is how we all fondly remember the pint sized pretty and tiny dancer herself, Cherry Gillespie of Pan's People and Ruby Flipper.

But after the TOTP dance groups disbanded, Cherry branched out into acting with roles in the Bond film Octopussy, and episodes of Bergerac, Minder and Casualty.

It was 1989 and the series 4 explosive finale of the aforementioned Casualty entitled 'Holding On' that Cherry made her appearance. She played Barbara, a vivacious young lady who was a victim of a bombing in the city centre. Wheeled in to the department, she was informed she'd have to have her hand amputated, but that didn't stop her from still flirting with Charlie, played by Derek Thompson!

Here's some screengrabs...

Theme Time : Clannad - Harry's Game

Harry's Game was a novel written by ITN reporter Gerald Seymour in 1975. I read the novel in either the late 90s or early 00s and found it a gripping read with a great insight into The Troubles. The novel concerns a British soldier, Captain Harry Brown of the SAS, going undercover in Belfast to locate the wanted IRA gunman Billy Downes, responsible for assassinating a cabinet minister outside his London home.

Seven years after the publication, Yorkshire Television adapted the novel as a three part serial screened over consecutive nights from 25th-27th October 1982. The producer of the mini series was David Cunliffe (no relation, as far as I know!) who was also responsible for what is, in my mind, one of the finest spy series ever on TV The Sandbaggers which had concluded its three series run two years prior to this (For more on that excellent series please read this previous post HERE) The link with that show doesn't end there, as Cunliffe cast Ray Lonnen (above) one of the stars of that series, as Harry. 

Playing Bily Downes was Derek Thompson. Northern Irish born, Thompson (above) is now famous for playing Charlie Fairhead in Casualty and for being the only remaining cast member from that show's formation in 1986 still involved to this day. But in the late 70s and early/mid 80s, Thompson was somewhat typecast for IRA set thrillers having appeared in plays on that subject at The National, The Long Good Friday  where he played Bob Hoskins' lieutenant, and using his native Northern Irish accent, he portrayed IRA gunmen in this, The Price and Wild Geese 2. Speaking of his time in such roles to Holby.tv Thompson reveals;

"Once in a pub with a mate in Camden, a woman came up to me just after Harry's Game was screened and said 'I've got a wee something for I'd like to say to you!' I thought that doesn't sound like a happy tone of voice and I said feel free to say it. She said 'I just hope you're fucking well proud of yourself!' and spat on me and walked off. I immediately thought that is genuine hate - she's not treating me like an actor, she's treating me like the character I was - it's delusion but a lot of television encourages that"

The thing that strikes me when I watch Harry's Game, something I first recall seeing - as an adult - on DVD/video not long after reading the book, was how much more the series focused with great sensitivity on Billy's story and the Irish point of view as opposed to that of Harry, which was found more on the printed page. The despair, futility and utter tragedy of the cause is brilliantly and poignantly conveyed throughout the series and is further enhanced bu the use of two distinctly Irish pieces. The first is a poem which closes the film. Spoken by a child actress over the last shot, the poem was written by the daughter of William Staunton, a Catholic shot dead by the IRA in 1973 on the Falls Road;

"Don't cry, Mummy said. They're not real, but Daddy was, and he's not here. Don't be bitter, Mummy said. They've hurt themselves much more. They can walk and run, Daddy can't"

The second is the reason why I'm posting today, the theme tune entitled simply Theme From Harry's Game by the Irish folk band Clannad.

The song by band member Pol Brennan was specifically written for the adaptation and is sung in the Irish language. It reached number 5 in the UK charts - the only Irish sung chart hit to date -  and number 2 in their native Irish charts in 1982. It is the main track on their album Magical Ring, released the following year and would go on to win an Ivor Novello award. The chorus "Fol lol the doh fol the day, Fol the doh fol the day" is ancient Irish mouth music. The lyrics, derived from Galway text of similar age, explain how in war and violence there are no winners, all will lose. A fitting remark about The Troubles that raged at the time.

So popular was the song, and so linked to the conflict, that ten years after Harry's Game it would feature in the 1992 IRA thriller Patriot Games (based on the novel by Tom Clancy) It features in a scene where one character is watching it play as a pop promo on TV.

So without further ado

Theme Time : Ken Freeman - Casualty

Casualty is a big favourite of mine...well that is to say it was, back when it was a medical drama and not the poxy soap opera currently masquerading under the Casualty title each week.

The original cast of Casualty, 1986

The first ten to twelve years of the show had a consistent brilliant quality exploring political and social issues from a left wing bias via the 'village pump' setting of a busy inner city A+E department. Now approaching its 27th year and with only one surviving cast member left from day one (Derek Thompson's senior nurse Charlie Fairhead, seen lurking at the rear of the photo above) the show is still popular and a concrete fixture in the Saturday night schedule, if a little anemic compared to its heyday, certainly in terms of the political/social context. 

Here's a video featuring all the titles and various arrangements to Freeman's theme that have occurred over the years

I still think Freeman's original arrangement remains by far the best one.

Breaking Glass (1980)

They don't make 'em like this any more.

No seriously they don't. Whatever happened to the band film? The semi autobiographical movie of a pop/rock star roughly playing themselves? They just don't get made now.

Breaking Glass is the 1980 film that looks at the post punk/new wave scene in London at the time. Real life new wave artiste Hazel O'Connor (using her own hits as the soundtrack of the film) plays Kate, an aspiring young singer looking for a band, management and a record deal. She gets a band including a young Jonathan Pryce as an inoffensive, sensitive heard of hearing heroin using sax player, and The Bill's Mark Wingett on bass, a manager in the shape of small time hustler with big dreams, Phil Daniels (reuniting with fellow Quadrophenia star Wingett) and during the course of the film, she gets a record deal...but the highs are soon overtaken by the lows in a film that is essentially a post punk A Star Is Born. 

There's nothing new here, it takes a standard rags to riches to rags story and adds a different flavour reflecting the music taste of the time. Indeed where the film is truly interesting is in depicting that time; It's the winter of discontent, tired Callaghan's last gasp and the horror of Maggie's breaking dawn. The film takes great pains at pointing out just what a mess we were in, referencing short supplies and industrial action. Indeed, the whole country, virtually every industry seems to be/is shown as being on strike and we're shown that petrol is low (O'Connor's Kate is working at a station in one of the early scenes that is only serving regular customers because of the short supply) It's also a deeply racist period, with the rise of youth fascism on the fringes of the punk scene. This is conveyed (occasionally a little too earnestly it must be said, though it's a hard heart who holds that against the film) with scenes of pogoing seig heiling skinheads at the band's early pub gigs and later, when they play on the back of a truck at a Rock Against Racism type event which is swiftly overcome by the NF. It's here that she witnesses the stabbing (Altamount style) of a young skinhead played by Only Fools and Horses own Mickey Pearce, an event which sets her on course for a nervous breakdown and the dissolution of the band.

It's the film's attempts at highlighting the bleak times, with the use of real inner city urban locations and the nature of the racist element to the music scene and the industrial actions that puts me in mind of the later 24 Hour Party People's scenes which focused on Joy Division.

I last saw this film about 10 years ago (just a couple of years after seeing Hazel live on the Beyond Breaking Glass tour) and on this rewatch it's still an enjoyable experience. Perhaps because I saw it long after its release, there's an extra enjoyment in spotting familiar faces who went on to bigger things; as well as those already mentioned here you'll also see Peter Hugo Daly as the band's drummer, Janine Duvitski working alongside O'Connor at the petrol station, Richard Griffiths as a sound engineer, Mark Wing Davey as a DJ, Jim Broadbent as a striking railywayman, Derek Thompson (Casualty's Charlie) as an A+R man and the legendary Ken Campbell as a pub landlord. There's even a young Jonathan Ross in the crowd scenes at the anti racism concert!

As the film is a music piece, Hazel O'Connor is planted slap bang in the middle of it and it is her acting and her music that is essentially expected to carry it. It is of course the music aspect where she utterly shines, coming into her own with the straight singing performances, both in the more low key situations and also when the band hit it big (with one massive gig where she seems to be wearing what looks like a prototype Tron outfit!) The music, all O'Connor's work, is also rather good - though it's admittedly to my taste, and certainly was so ten years back when I first saw it - and produced by the legend that is Tony Visconti. But whilst it's fair to say that O'Connor was never going to win Oscars she is by no means a poor actor;  She has great chemistry with Phil Daniels as her manager and on/off boyfriend and later with suave Jon Finch who attempts to muscle in on Daniels interests in the band, and her character is convincing and likeable which is no surprise as she's essentially playing a version of herself.

Wild Geese 2

As a kid in the 80s, roaming the video clubs and staring up at the shelves open mouthed with excitement at the ranges of rip roaring action that, if I was lucky, my parents would allow me to watch, I always thought there were three 'Wild Geese' movies; The Wild Geese, Wild Geese II and Codename: Wild Geese.

It was some years later that I realised that Codename: Wild Geese starring Lewis Collins, Lee Van Cleef, Klaus Kinski and Ernest Borgnine was an imposter in the midst, a Macaroni Combat film (ie a war movie made in Italy to the same standards of their Spaghetti Westerns, and which I've previously blogged about on here) that had no official link to the original.

And it was some years later that I realised that the only Wild Geese film worth bothering with was the original, one I had grown to adore, one that was discussed many a boozy night in glowing terms amongst old friends in The Stanley, Huyton. 

So why am I watching the turgid Wild Geese II again now? A film that despite being official has no real link to the 1978 movie (barring Edward Fox's role as Alex Faulkner, the brother of the character Allen Faulkner played by Richard Burton in the original; Burton was set to return to the role, his character less action packed this time and instead a sniper, due to the actor's own poor mobility, but he died shortly before filming commenced) Why? Because I'm a masochist and a completist, and because it can't be as bad as I remember right?

A deeply misleading poster that features Richard Burton, who isn't in it, 

over the actors who actually are!

Um, yes it can. Scott Glenn is as wooden as New Forest, Edward Fox as hammy as a butcher's best cut essentially paying lip service to his great performance in The Day Of The Jackal, and Barbara Carrera is a misguided attempt at 'totty' in a film that really doesn't require such a role - after all how many covert mercenary missions have a female TV producer tagging along? The least said about Laurence Olivier in one of his last roles as Rudolf Hess, the Geese's target to break out of Spandau, the better. Could this really be the man once proclaimed as the greatest actor in the English speaking world? Mind you, what do I know, Wolf Rudiger Hess, the son of the infamous imprisoned Nazi, claimed Olivier's performance was uncannily accurate!

Scott Glenn, being very dull

Something nasty in the shrubbery, sniper Edward Fox

The Gallagher Brothers Granddad? No it's Sir Larry!

The main fun to be had is seeing Casualty's Derek Thompson (the hero that is Charlie Fairhead) using his real accent and playing what he was at the time becoming type cast as, an IRA soldier. And even though his role is utterly pointless, he is rather good at it. Who'd have thought it of that nice nurse eh?

You'll also be able to spot Ingrid Pitt (below), Stratford Johns and Patrick Stewart (over acting terribly) in the mix too.

It's hard to believe that this film is directed by Peter Hunt, the same man who gave us the peerless Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the Cold War Berlin here is devoid of atmosphere completely failing to capitalise on the  fraught ambience of divided city at that time and the film is equally lacking in thrills of any kind. The original Wild Geese, with its engaging boozy leads of Burton, Harris, Moore and Kruger and the cream of British character actors rounding off the troop is a rip snorting Boy's Own adventure that continues to pay off and is ideal to sit back with on a cold night with a few tipples. This ill advised sequel needs more than a few drinks to make it worth while.

On the whole, it's a real shame that that surprising 70s classic has never had a fitting companion to continue its glory. Especially as Euan Lloyd was talking even up to his death of a second sequel and the US talking of a remake just a couple of years ago. I wouldn't like to see a remake, but a sequel, done right, would be interesting. It's certainly interesting to consider what a companion piece would be like now in the cinematic climate where similar films like The Expendables prosper. 

Here is the trailer for the film, voice over by Patrick Allen (who himself appeared in The Wild Geese) followed by the main theme from soundtrack by Roy Budd, composer of the original movie too.

The full film is currently available on Youtube, if you're hankering to see it and this review hasn't put you off. The selection link is available at the end of the trailer video above.