old-bolingbroke Reviews

Stan (2006 TV Movie)

This is my friend - Mr Hardy

[7/10 · 9 June 2006]

This play had all the virtues of a small budget. It was concise, focused and small-scale; the actors did not try to do impersonations, just occasionally reminded you of little quirks of speech or mannerism, and conveyed perfectly the characters of the two leads as men and actors.

It was called 'Stan' and it was Stan who had the lines, who told the story, but I want to concentrate on the portrait of Ollie. We all know that Stan considered himself the brains of the team and was so considered by the studio and also by Ollie. Because Ollie was easy-going and unambitious, because he knew there was more to life than work, he is often seen as the fat fool who was happy to fall on his arse for enough money to fund his golf habit.

The play corrects this impression.

Stan pays tribute to Ollie's comic skills: his timing, his milking of laughs, his inventiveness.

We see Ollie persuading the disgruntled Stan of the virtues of the team they could become. He is a man who is not just a natural comic (something that I could argue Stan was not to the same extent), but someone who has comic intelligence.

It is Ollie who recognises the importance of humour even in hard times - especially in hard times and about hard times - when Stan is going through one of his periodic depressive bouts. Was it really Ollie who had the idea for 'Their first mistake'? This idea is neatly used to make a little joke out of Ollie's incapacity.

Just a word or two about their comic abilities. There is no doubt that they would have got nowhere without each other, but I believe that Ollie was an instinctively funny man, while Stan would work out how he could be funny. A bit like Steve Martin or Robin Williams today. Ollie is more like the late British comic Tommy Cooper. But that is a debate for another time.

Towards the end it is Ollie who recognises that the work has become poor. Personally, I won't watch their last films. While the ever dissatisfied Stan can't leave it, Ollie has the wisdom to walk away, in the knowledge that the best work is preserved for ever, and will be forever loved. As one who who never knew them until after their death/retirement, I can vouch for that. My own children are fans too.

The play's end is all the more moving for the touch of humour injected into it. Stan, portrayed sympathetically, for all his frustrated, over-achieving self-obsession, has to admit to himself the depth of his friendship and the debt he owes to his partner.

Twelve O'Clock High (1949)

Leadership and pride

[9/10 · 13 April 2006]

I first saw TOH about 30 years ago, and, yes, it was at a management training course. Video wasn't common then; so it was projected onto a screen, I remember, which was a bonus. I wasn't sure about management principles, but it went straight onto my ten greatest films list, where it remains. A few reasons why I think it's a great war film.

Following the intro with Dean Jagger, the action gets off to a good start with the B17 crash landing, a man staggering out to vomit, a reference to a wounded man's brain being visible and an account of Bishop's bravery. This is strong stuff for 1949.

It avoids a lot of war film clichés. There's no love interest (there's even a nod to the fact that the men weren't always faithful to their loved ones back home). There's no attempt to create a group of men who represent the breadth of society back home. You know the sort of thing - the New York cabbie, the young farm boy, the Texan, the idealistic schoolteacher, the journalist, the architect who's now bombing things that he once built. And it's about failure, it's about men destroying their bodies and their minds for something they don't understand. It reminds me of the colour-sergeant's reply to a soldier in Zulu, who asks 'Why us?'. 'Because we're 'ere, lad. Just us. Nobody else.' If I wanted to sound pretentious, I'd use the word 'existential'.

It's about leadership and is similar to Nortwest Passage. Both Spencer Tracy in that film and Peck in this are aware that they are putting on an act. One of the great scenes is Peck arriving at the base. He's sitting in the front of the car. They stop and Peck offers his driver, whom he calls 'Ernie', a smoke. He thinks for a while, then grinds out his cigarette, says, 'Right, sergeant.' His driver snaps open the rear door and Peck becomes the general. Northwest Passage again - Tracy says 'I'm not a man now, I'm an officer responsible for men. If you meet me when I'm just a man, you might have to use a little charity.' Other nice touches: the way the fur-lined RAF boots become the symbol of leadership. The way the real-life footage is dovetailed into the main action, a tribute to the war-time cameramen as much as the editor. Notice how they filmed detail like empty shells falling to the aircraft floor.

So how could a film about military leadership help a local government manager, of all people. I couldn't bust people or demote them easily, rearrange their duties with a stroke of the pen. I would have loved to set up a leper colony, but the union wouldn't let me. But Peck's stressing of the need for pride in one's group is something that can be transferred to any walk of life.