battle – The Magnificent 60s

Alfred the Great (1969) ****

The Prince Who Wanted To Be A Priest. The King Who Didn’t Want To Fight. The Husband Who Raped His Wife.

Not exactly taglines in the grand tradition of Gladiator (1999), but a succinct analysis of a Film That Wanted To Be A Roadshow. This is almost an anti-epic, a down-n-dirty historical movie far removed from El Cid (1961), Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). And one element that has to be taken into consideration when making a historical picture set in Britain in AD 871, if you are aiming for realism, is the rain. The battles in the three movies mentioned, as with virtually every historical movie of the decade, took place in bright sunshine on hard ground, not in the rain on mud-soaked fields. Director Clive Donner lacks the genius of an Akira Kurosawa who turned rain into a glorious image in Seven Samurai (1954) or even Ridley Scott whose first battle in Gladiator took place in a snowstorm. But he does make a battleground reflect the grim reality.

Alfred (David Hemmings) was fifth in line to the throne – and just to a small region of England called Wessex – and as was common practice all set, quite happily, for a career in the priesthood. So it was not surprising, envisioning religion as a mark of civilization, and the priesthood guaranteeing an education, that he was loathe to become a warrior just because his brother King Ethelred (Alan Dobie) was a useless leader. The price of taking on the warrior’s mantle and, after his brother’s death, of ascending to the throne is that Alfred must not only cast away his priestly ambition but his chastity in order to get married to unify rival kingdoms and produce an heir. So there’s a good deal of the religious quandary of El Cid and the sexual ambivalence of Lawrence of Arabia.

So repelled by what he is forced to do, that on his wedding night Alfred rapes new wife Aelhswith (Prunella Ransome) and when the marauding Vikings win a decisive battle and the price of peace is the wife taken in hostage Alfred offers no great protestation. So Alfred is hardly an appealing character. His wife hates him so much that she conceals her pregnancy from him. If you were an Englishman you might well prefer the straightforward lustful Viking leader Guthrun (Michael York) whose men are not restrained by Christianity – “it’s a strange religion,” he mulls, “ that wars with everything your flesh and your blood cries out for” – who makes a better fist of wooing Aelswith, whom he could as easily rape, than Alfred.

Eventually, of course, Alfred gets it together, rallies a bunch of outlaws and steals back wife and son (now four years old). However, there is no romantic reunion. Instead, he plans to imprison her for life, “the whore shall rot in silence.” Nonetheless, Alfred has acquired some tactical skills, adopting the old Roman infantry tactic of forming his troops up in a phalanx behind a wall of shields. His battlefield address is to promise ordinary people a set of laws that will give them equality with the wealthy and powerful.

Given there are no castles and this is indeed the Dark Ages as far as costume and interior design is concerned and that therefore the camera cannot, for respite, be turned onto some glorious image, Clive Donner (Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, 1968) concentrates on character rather than scenery. There are a couple of inspired touches. For a start, in permitting various characters to offer prayers to God, he introduces a number of soliloquies which take us to the heart of troubled souls, and then he does a clever split-screen number to effect a transition. You can’t blame him for British weather and the battles are well-staged. He does show the courage of his convictions in making the film concentrate on conflicted character rather than going along the easier heroic route of underdog rallying people to a cause.

David Hemmings (Blow-Up, 1966) is both the film’s strength and weakness. He is excellent at capturing the torment, the soul divided, and the inherent arrogance as well as the preference for peace instead of war. But in terms of his leadership skills he is on a par with Orlando Bloom in Kingdom of Heaven (2005). That part was originally intended for Russell Crowe and Peter O’Toole was first choice for Alfred and you can’t help thinking both would have been a substantial improvement. On the other hand, Alfred was just 22 when he became king and for someone intent on the priesthood there would be no need for him to develop his physique or political skills. So this is a far cry from your typical Hollywood hero and in that regard the casting makes perfect sense and Hemmings a bold actor to take on such an unlikeable character.

Prunella Ransome (Man in the Wilderness, 1971) does well in her first leading role, suggesting both vulnerability and independence and while virtually imprisoned by both Alfred and Guthrun remaining principled. Michael York (Justine, 1969) was a definite rising star at this point and plays the Viking with considerably more gusto than his tendency towards passive characters would suggest.

There’s virtually a legion of excellent supporting players in Colin Blakely (The Vengeance of She, 1968), Alan Dobie (The Comedy Man, 1964), Ian McKellen (Lords of the Rings and X-Men), Peter Vaughan (A Twist of Sand, 1968), Vivien Merchant (Accident, 1967), Barry Evans (Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, 1968), Sinead Cusack (Hoffman, 1970), Christopher Timothy (All Creatures Great and Small, 1978-1990) and Robin Askwith (Confessions of a Window Cleaner, 1974).

Oscar-winner James R. Webb (How the West Was Won, 1963) was an improbable name to be attached to a British screenplay. But this was a pet project he had been trying to get made since 1964. Ken Taylor (Web of Evidence, 1959) was brought in to lend a hand.

Not being a student of English history but familiar with the ways of the movie business, I am sure the picture has many historical inaccuracies, but it does present one of the most complex individuals ever to feature in a historical film of the period, when audiences preferred their heroes more black-and-white. So it is a significant achievement in the canon.

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) *****

Thankfully devoid of the empty triumphalism that marred In Harm’s Way (1965) and Pearl Harbor (2001) and the gritty backs against the wall heroism and snatching some kind of victory from the jaws of defeat of The Alamo (1960) and Zulu (1964), and with a documentary-style approach much more acceptable these days than then, there is an immense amount to appreciate and absorb in this last-gasp 70mm roadshow from a financially flailing Twentieth Century Fox.

Shorn, too, of the traditional all-star cast bar Jason Robards (Hour of the Gun, 1967) – who might not count – nor the regiment of rising talent stuffed into such epics in the hope one might catch the eye and float to the top. And there’s no room to ram in a distracting romance such as in the previous and future films focusing on the military disaster. Instead, stuffed with dependable supporting players like Martin Balsam (Harlow, 1965), E.G. Marshall (The Chase, 1966) and James Whitmore (The Split, 1968) stops audience rubber-necking in its tracks, unlike producer Darryl F. Zanuck’s previous The Longest Day (1962), in favor of forensic analysis of what went wrong in the defence and what went so brilliant right in the attack.

Like most of the best war epics – The Longest Day, Battle of the Bulge (1965), taking an even-handed approach in presenting both sides of the battle, except here you could argue considerably more time is spent with the Japanese, beginning with the opening credits where the camera floats in and around a giant battleship. Despite the sudden attack which went against all the traditions of war – a timing error apparently – the Japanese are presented as honorable and even arguing against going to war as well as worrying about the consequences of poking the tiger.

And there is none of the endless owing and scraping and not attempting to rise above your station in the traditional Western-view of the Japanese. Here, from the outset, superior officers are questioned possibly in manner that would be permitted among the opposing forces.

The first half is given up to the superb organisation of the attack, including the bold use of using aerial torpedoes – proven to work by the British in an earlier assault on a harbor without the apparent depth of water required – and contrasting it with the general U.S. ineptness, bureaucracy, interdepartmental battles and overall lack of preparation even though several personnel believed an attack imminent. The Yanks had even broken the Japanese codes so could easily have taken heed of obvious omens, had working radar on site though its employment was handicapped by being limited to three hours a day and initially lacking a means of communicating findings. Someone had even worked out that the Japanese would need six aircraft carriers to mount an attack and that the ideal time would be early morning on a weekend, someone even predicting an attack down to the exact time except a week out.

Of course, the U.S. at this point was not at war and so could be excused switching off in the evening or being uncontactable in the morning because they were still out carousing from the night before or sedately riding a horse. While there is a growing sense of alarm, the chain of command is woefully stretched often in the wrong direction and at one point stops before it reaches the President.

Fearful of sabotage, the Americans shift planes away from the perimeter of airfields smack bang into the runway where they can be more easily destroyed. Perhaps the greatest irony is that in shifting the U.S. fleet from its home base in San Diego, the Americans made such an attack possible.

When it gets under way, the battle scenes are superb, especially given none of the CGI Pearl Harbor could call upon, and yet with the U.S. aircraft carriers by luck still at sea failed to deliver a killer blow for the Japanese.

It’s handled superbly by director Richard Fleischer (The Boston Strangler, 1968), Kinju Fukasaku (Battle Royale, 2000) and Toshio Masuda (The Zero Fighter, 1962). The American flaws are dramatized rather than being dealt with by info-dump. Larry Forester (Fathom, 1967) and long-time Akira Kurosawa confederates Hideo Oguni (Ikiru, 1952) and Ryuzo Kikushima (Yojimbo, 1961) fashioned a sharp screenplay from mountains of material.

Long rumored to be a box office flop it turned out to have made a decent profit, albeit not in the U.S.

The documentary approach adds immensely to the movie and it remains one of the all-time greats precisely because of the lack of artificial drama.

The Battle at Lake Changjin II / Water Gate Bridge (2022) **** – Seen at the Cinema

A raw visceral cinematic experience. After defeating superior American forces at Lake Changjin at the start of the Korean War, Chinese soldiers must prevent their retreat – and the arrival of reinforcements – by blowing up the Watergate Bridge in a blizzard. The bitter winter conditions, making it impossible to see more than a few yards ahead as the troops cross a mountain, freeze their weapons, compass and radio batteries. The assault is uphill over exposed ground.

This is non-stop battle told from the perspective of the grunts. Exposition regarding characters is minimal. That first hour or so in most Hollywood war movies where little happens except to build tension between participants and explore romantic elements is eliminated here. It’s all battle, beginning, middle and end, with no respite, brutal, bloody, horrific. The Americans have tanks, flamethrowers and airpower, the Chinese don’t, so they are strafed, burned and blown up.

Setting aside politics and propaganda, and the questions of historical accuracy that haunt all war pictures, this is the most extraordinary on-the-ground combat as the Chinese seek to employ various strategies against another superior force, knowing U.S. reinforcements are on their way, and the defending Americans seek to suck them into a trap. The fighting is intense, sacrifice the order of the day.

Best performances are delivered by brothers Wu Qiangli (Wu Jing), commander of the seventh company, and the undisciplined Wu Wanli (Jackson Lee) who grows up during battle. While emotions are necessarily reined in, no time for showboating here, intensity of feelings are still revealed, several wordless scenes between disparate characters show everything with just the eyes. As with all war pictures, comradeship under fire is all that matters, the connections between the band of brothers no less applicable here than when William Shakespeare invented the phrase.

Like the best war films, strategy is vital. Here, the Chinese employ a variety of diversionary tactics while attempting to destroy key American positions, the HQ, the pump room. There are some brilliant battlefield observations. The Chinese work out the Americans have positioned their forces twenty meters apart because in between are their military supplies, so these are also targeted via mortar rounds. But basically it is scrapping for position inch by inch.

And this is not a film devoid of irony. Using captured American weapons, the Chinese, unable to read English, fire an ineffective piece of artillery against a tank. Seizing the HQ, the Chinese, unable to speak English, ask for the commanding office while the Americans, unable to speak Chinese and intent on surrender, respond they are unarmed, the matter resolved by an explosion. A flamethrower burning to death a wounded soldier melts the ice sufficiently for his companion to slide downhill to safety. And there are rare bursts of humour, one soldier preferring to chew “plastic” – captured chewing gum – in preference to beans so frozen they could chip your teeth.

This is as much a picture about the effect of war, and special effects show the impact of not just the destructive power but the energy imparted by exploding bombs, the part played in dismembering soldiers by the metal and stone of the defences, the flamethrowers that turn men from walking one minute to charred skeletons the next.

There are occasional cuts to the American high command, General Douglas Macarthur (James Filbird) attempts to persuade President Truman (Ben Z. Orenstein) to use the atom bomb. The Americans are not shown as idiots and there’s no upbraiding of their society and there is, among the carnage, at least one American hero in Bradley Bixler (Rudy van Gelderen). And there’s none of the bombastic or poetic influence of Apocalypse Now (1979) or The Thin Red Line (1998), no attempt to glamorize war, except of course that for the victors victory is always unforgettable. But the cost here is easily measured, the mortality rate enormous, at least two-thirds of the attackers died in the assault and in one company, out of 137 men involved, only one man was left standing.

I never saw the first film so I’ve no idea how this compares, but generally that movie got poor reviews, I guess as much to do with political stances as anything else. I suspect this picture will get as derisory a stack of reviews and, without taking sides, that would be unfair from a cinematic perspective because this is a wholly immersive encounter, with some brilliant action direction and stunning visuals in the main by Tsui Hark (The Taking of Tiger Mountain, 2104) with some assistance from the uncredited Kaige Chen (Farewell My Concubine, 1993) and Dante Lam (The Stool Pigeon, 2010).

This is what comes of being an inveterate moviegoer and on those weeks when you have seen virtually everything else worthwhile on offer and still want to go to a movie, you end up seeing anything. Usually, this turns out to be some bedraggled horror picture or a lame rom-com like Marry Me (2022) but occasionally it means that you stumble across something exceptional.