Coming to DVD: Stormy Monday (1988)

Arrow Films will release Stormy Monday, Mike Figgis' feature-length directorial debut from 1988, in July. Accompanying the DVD will be a booklet including a new critical essay on Figgis and the film, 'Mike Figgis: Renaissance Man' written by yours truly

Be sure to order your copy!

The Bride (1985)

I love an eclectic cast me, but you perhaps know 1985's The Bride has taken things too far in its opening ten minutes which features Barry the radish off Auf Wiedersehen Pet, The Kurgan from Highlander, the girl from Flashdance, The Naked Civil Servant himself and Sting! The Bride is just one of those kind of films, littered with so much stunt casting that even the third peasant on the left is portrayed by that bloke off Metal Mickey.

For his third big screen directorial effort, Franc Roddam chose to tackle something more epic yet also more traditional than Quadrophenia, the debut he is perhaps most famous for (although he's probably most famous for devising Masterchef now thanks to TV's utter fascination with the cookery show format) with this take on Mary Shelley's Prometheus myth, which he updates for the modern day audience with a quasi-feminist slant. 

Unfortunately, the female empowerment angle is rather scuppered by the fact that he entrusts these scenes to Jennifer Beals as the titular Bride, Eva, and possibly The Worst (and certainly most arrogant) Actor In The World, Sting as her creator, Baron Frankenstein. Seriously, whoever told Sting he could act wants shooting; along with whoever told him he should have a career in music, and whoever suggested he was handsome. He's far too weak an actor to convincingly portray the mad man of science, Frankenstein, and tackles the film in the same way he'd tackle a music video - preening and posing throughout. 

Beals earned a Razzie nomination for her performance here, but that's not strictly fair. Granted she's a little more out of her depth here than she was pretending to be a welder-by-day, exotic-dancer-by-night in Flashdance, but she brings a certain naivety to the role and a blankness that actually befits a character who has no clear understanding of how she came to be in this world, and her wide haunted eyes suggest this where, all too often, the script fails her. It's unfortunate then that her storyline, which you'd presume, going off the title and both her and Sting's star billing, was the main thrust of the film is actually its weakest element; the pair wander rather mournfully and stiltedly around scenes set inside Castle Frankenstein and Bavarian high society (watched over by a countess played by 60s supermodel and Blow Up star Veruschka) with the feminist themes being clumsily handled and conveyed, beyond Anthony Higgins as Sting's mate suggesting that a more compliant female companion ought to have been the ideal. The transformation within Frankenstein from creator of Eva to abusive pursuer of her unwilling affection is poorly developed and seems to spring entirely from the fact that Beals' Eva was catching the eye of young cavalry officer Cary Elwes, alerting Sting to his inner neanderthal 'My woman, my property' attitude.

Thankfully, the other major plot in the film is much better. In the opening ten minutes, on the night of Eva's creation, Castle Frankenstein is partly destroyed by lightning which causes a fire (unfortunately killing off Timothy Spall's Paulus, an Igor-like assistant, and Quentin Crisp's Dr Zalhus - this is a real shame, Spall deserves more screen time, and indeed some actual lines, whereas Crisp could easily have been retained to take up Higgins' role whose character is barely developed beyond being a sounding board for Sting's pompous scientific and philosophical babble) from which Frankenstein's original creation, The Monster (Clancy Brown) flees from and is presumed dead. Taking to the road, he meets David Rappaport's circus dwarf, Rinaldo, who convinces him to accompany him to Budapest to join a circus run by Alexei Sayle and Phil Daniels (more eclectic casting!) and along the way he shows The Monster, whom he christens Viktor (his creator, the Baron, is called Charles in this film to avoid any confusion) kindness and compassion, as well as  a sense of self worth. 

This storyline really flies despite it perhaps being a bit sugary and diverting us from the things we normally expect from a Frankenstein film. It is helped immeasurably by Rappaport who pitches his performance just right to effectively engage our audience sympathies both for him and the previously unloved, unnamed and tormented Monster. It also helps that the circus setting is a naturally vivid and eccentric one and, shot in the sunkissed South of France, it seems Roddam is naturally in his element here, capturing the rogues gallery beautifully with Sayle, Daniels, that other Quadrophenia (and Metal Mickey!) star Gary Shail and a woman with the biggest pair of boobs I have ever seen! Each time the action moves from this plot back to Sting I must confess my interest dipped enormously. Even when we must sadly say goodbye to Rappaport's kindly dwarf, Viktor's plotline still holds some interest, with a rather lovely scene between Brown and Ken Campbell as a forest dwelling trader of baubles, bangles and beads. Eventually, the plotlines converge by way of a psychic link between both Viktor and Eva (which has sadly only been half-heartedly developed throughout the film) and a contrived, too coincidental chance meeting between the pair which ultimately leads to their reunion, and the union the Baron originally promised for them, once they've got rid of Sting that is.

There, a plot spoiler - Sting carks it. But let's face it, that's got to be good news in anyone's books, right?

Plenty (1985)

"The film is called Plenty because it describes a rise and fall. The years of austerity in the late forties are followed by the years of plenty in the mid-fifties, and it's a recurring feeling in the film that it is money that rots people. It was possible to just rise on the great bubble of wealth after the war, and that's just what the characters in the film do." ~ David Hare

I'm an admirer of David Hare's work but I feel much is lost in transferring his 1978 play Plenty from the stage to the big screen. It really isn't helped that Meryl Streep is totally miscast in the lead role; a touch of '80s Hollywood parachuted in (like the SOE operatives at the start of Fred Schepisi's adaptation) to this distinctly British affair. It is clear that she simply cannot convey the complexities required of the central character at this stage in her career and she is caught 'acting' throughout. 

Hare's story was inspired by the fact that many women involved first hand with the war found civilian life in peace time deeply unsatisfying, with divorce being especially rife. 

Streep sars as Susan Traherne who we meet as a young British courier for the SOE in Nazi-occupied France (and kudos to Schepisi for introducing his photogenic star with a striking introductory shot, her sharp long nose, high cheekbones and wide, soulful eyes being picked out by torchlight as she and her fellow operatives wait for a parachuting agent, played by Sam Neill, to land) Invigorated by the adventure of her work, but fearful of the repercussions, Susan and Neill's agent, 'Lazar' spend a passionate evening together, like ships that pass in the night, but which we shall see builds in meaning for Susan in the years to come.

After the war, Susan meets by chance Raymond Brock (Charles Dance), a diplomat at the British embassy in Brussels and the pair soon fall in love, with Brock spending his weekends at Susan's flat, which she shares with Tracey Ullman's bohemian live wire Alice, in drab post war London.

It's the stultifying nature of peacetime that makes Susan restless. She wants a child, but she no longer wants Brock. Enter spiv Mick (Sting - dreadful as always) who she chooses to be her sperm donor, without counting on Mick's growing feelings for her. Feeling trapped, Susan has a breakdown and is subsequently rescued by the return of Brock, the pair are married and he is posted to Jordan, but even that isn't satisfactory for Susan and she returns to England desperate to reconnect with her wartime experiences. She reunites with 'Lazar' and the pair try to replicate their one night of passion in a seedy seaside hotel, only to find they cannot recapture the excitement and romance of the past.

Obviously Plenty is a deeply ironic piece; the era in which, according to British PM, Macmillan, we had 'never had it so good', Susan experiences all the materialistic success but nothing speaks to her heart and we slowly come to realise that at that very heart she is actually capable of being a very cruel and bitter individual. It's a hard character to convey and Streep struggles to gain our sympathy or explore the inherent light and shade to her character with her rather soulless performance. It's not helped by Schepisi's own poor grasp on the material either. It's only positive is that it all looks rather nice, but it is quite the yawnfest which wastes an accomplished cast that includes John Gielgud, Ian McKellen and, briefly, Hugh Laurie.

Out On Blue Six : The Police

Let's get this straight. I hate Sting, he's a lute bothering knob.

But I've always had a soft spot for The Police. I don't even think it's a guilty pleasure, because I do think they did some damn good tunes - though there's something deeply iffy about an Aryan looking trio calling themselves The Police and singing music normally associated with black people when, especially at that time, the real boys in blue were extremely prejudiced towards black minorities.

Anyway, here's just a few of those good tunes

End Transmission

Brimstone and Treacle (1982)

Like Scum (1979) Brimstone and Treacle was a film born out of necessity, because both began as plays banned by the BBC in the 1970s. 

Dennis Potter's 1976 Play For Today, Brimstone and Treacle is a dark wittily camp parable that concerns itself with the theme of evil using its power for good - the exact fallout from which is left to the audience's mind as the play closes at that very point. The story concerns an enigmatic stranger calling himself Martin arriving into the lives of Mr and Mrs Bates and their disabled daughter Patricia, who has been in a vegetative state since she was the victim of a hit and run. As the plot unravels, Martin gets his feet under the table as far as Mrs Bates is concerned, but gets under the skin of Mr Bates. Meanwhile the audience is tipped the wink that Martin is more than just a conman chancer, he is in fact the devil. Unable to resist his urges, he rapes Patricia before fleeing the house. The very act of the abuse returns her to normal, allowing her to finally 'speak the truth' and reveal that it was her own father who had caused the accident and run her over after she had discovered he was having an affair. 

The director Richard Loncraine (who had previously directed Potter's Blade On The Feather for ITV) watched the original BBC play only to declare it ''bloody awful''. Convinced he could do better with a cinematic release, the production initially gained the attention of David Bowie who was desperate to play Martin aka Satan himself, a role which had previously been played with relish by the young Michael Kitchen. However by the time the film got in motion, Bowie proved sadly unavailable and the film makers went to another pop star, the Police frontman Sting. Bowie would still play a part (of sorts) in the film; his image appears as a poster on Patricia's lovingly maintained bedroom/shrine (In the original, the poster is of Mick Jagger, someone who - in one of many tongue in cheek moments - the Devil knows on sight and greets as if seeing an old, similar styled friend)  

Michael Kitchen as Martin, 1976

Sting as Martin, 1982

Denholm Elliott as Mr Bates, 1976

And again, 1982

Patricia Lawrence as Mrs Bates, 1976

Joan Plowright as Mrs Bates, 1982

Michelle Newell as Patricia, 1976

Suzanna Hamilton as Patricia, 1982

Sting had previously played in Quadrophenia and Radio On and it is said that he wanted to star here simply as an actor, but the American financiers and distributors wanted a Police album out of it. Once Potter's suggestion to rewrite the script to incorporate musical scenes a'la his Pennies From Heaven and The Singing Detective (yet to come) was vetoed, a compromise was made which allowed The Police to score the film and have Sting sing on it, as well as sing Spread A Little Happiness (Potter's choice) over the closing credits.  I have to say its a decision not to the film's favour; the moment you hear Sting's vocals over the proceedings, the moment you lose the already tenuous belief you have that the man on screen is Martin and not Sting.  

It doesn't help that Sting's performance is decidedly anodyne and is decidedly anemic in a role that requires the camp wittiness and mischief that Michael Kitchen had in spades. Never a great actor, and never going to be my favourite person either, I do nonetheless feel some sympathy for Sting as he has to share the film with Denholm Elliott, returning to the role of Mr Bates he had played on television, with an added vinegary caustic nature and a more subversive kink witnessed in scenes away from the home which were newly written to open out the film. It was Gabriel Byrne who once said ''Never work with children or animals. Or Denholm Elliott'', meaning the man was an inveterate scene, and indeed film, stealer. Coming from a fine actor like him, an amateur like Sting clearly had no chance. 

It's a shame the film wasn't made a little bit later, as one pop star I could actually see in the Martin role would be Morrissey, someone who I imagine could really convince as a character wheedling himself into the bosom of Mrs Bates with insipid pasty faced virginal 'charm' whilst rubbing Mr Bates up the wrong way and stifling his own dark ulterior motive underneath. 

But for Sting's poor performance there is an improved performance in the shape of Joan Plowright as Mrs Bates; it's a much more convincing and more serious and sympathetic turn than the one offered by Patricia Lawrence in the original, who is little more than a shrill harpy of a silly old woman. The rest of the performers are Suzanna Hamilton, an actress I really admire, in the rather empty though pivotal role of Patricia and brief appearances from Benjamin Whitrow and, in a new ending, Dudley Sutton who may be a con man about to give Martin a taste of his own medicine, or another spirit with the same intention. It's hard to ascertain really as the film doesn't really claim Martin is actually the Devil - unlike the original play.

In the end I'm inclined to agree with the author himself, Dennis Potter who claimed that the film was "definitely less successful" than the banned TV play. Ultimately whilst the film has better production values, a bigger budget and has managed to lose the air of theatricality that TV had at the time, it also has none of the aforesaid mischief nor the overwhelming and uncomfortably sweat inducing sense of claustrophobia that the original play had.

Four years after the film was released, the BBC relented and screened the Play For Today version some eleven years after it had been made (and it's available to watch in full on Youtube) It lives on, having become a staple for theatre productions up and down the country. Not bad for something that was deemed 'too much' for an audience to take in 1976 eh?