King and Country

Another of the people who was honored in the 2025 edition of Summer Under the Stars is British actor Tom Courtenay. A couple of British movies that I hadn't seen before got airings, giving me a good chance to record some new-to-me stuff. One of those movies is King and Country.

The movie opens with Courtenay, as Pvt. Arthur Hamp, lying on a bed playing his harmonica, with a man just outside the room. The scene switches to reveal all of this is taking place in one of the World War I trenches, which are a profoundly brutal and uncomfortable place to be stuck: there's no place for the water to drain, and there are rats and lice everywhere. Then we see a Captain Hargreaves (Dirk Bogarde) talking to another officer about Hamp. Apparently he's on trial for his life, and at the court-martial it's going to be Hargreaves defending him.

Hargreaves is in these trenches in order to meet Hamp and talk to him, in the hopes of getting evidence to mitigate the sentence if it's not possible to get Hamp declared not guilty. This is also an excellent chance to provide some exposition and the back story to Hamp's character. Before enlisting for the war, he didn't have much of a home life, either growing up, or then once he got married. His wife having left him, that might be part of the reason Hamp enlisted. But all of the men Hamp first met at the same time he enlisted and whom fhe first served with are all long since killed in action in the war.

So maybe that's why Hamp just got up one day and started walking, possibly with the hope of getting back to London to see his mother. But it's also fairly obvious to anybody higher up that you can't just having the enlisted men doing this willy-nilly of their own volition. That's no way to run an army, especially not during a time of war. The higher brass understandably see this as desertion, and the penalty for desertion has to be death in order to discourage everybody else from trying to pursue the same course Hamp is stands accused of having done.

Hargreaves is defending Hamp, but a lot of the other enlisted men rather cynically believe that the point of a man like Hargreaves is less to give Hamp the best defense possible, but more to make everything look like it's all been done legitimately and on the up-and-up, even though in their minds the verdict and sentence have already been decided.

Eventually the court-martial itself begins, and it's clear that Hargreaves is going to go for a defense of shell shock. But the doctor, Capt. O'Sullivan (Leo McKern), does his best to dispute that, while there's a question of whether Pvt. Hamp even cares any more whether he lives or dies. The trial leads to the inevitable verdict....

King and Country is based on a novel turned into a stage play and looks a lot like it's based on a play. To be fair, however, it's not like the material needs to be opened up beyond the confines of a stage play. One thing director Joseph Losey does, however, is to use scene transitions that are photographs of the actual carnage from the Great War. This is very effective. But what is even more effective is the outstanding acting performances. This is some of Courtenay's best work, up there with The Dresser.

I'm glad I saw this one, even as brutal as it is. If you get the chance to see it, make it a point to do so.

Time Without Pity

TCM ran a morning and afternoon of the films of actress Ann Todd some time back. One that I watched just before it expired from my DVR so that I could write up a review of it here was Time Without Pity.

Todd isn't the star here; that would be Michael Redgrave, although we don't see him in the opening scene. Instead, that pre-credits scene is of an older man killing a young woman named Jennie Cole. Then, after the opening credits, we see a plane landing in the UK after a transatlantic flight. Getting off is David Graham (Michael Redgrave). He's an alcoholic who has been away in Canada in some sort of in-patient treatment, which must have taken quite a long time since David missed not just that murder. David's adult son Alec (Alec Macowan) was accused of the murder of that young girl, found guilty, and sentenced to hang, with the execution being the day after Dad arrived back in Britain. We also learn that Dad's alcoholism has been going on long enough that his son doesn't care about his father, and is perfectly willing to be executed even though we know he's not guilty. Dad is convinced his son couldn't have done such a thing, and plans on proving his son's innocence.

The first person David tries to talk to is Agnes Cole (Joan Plowright), the sister of the murder victim. Agnes is a showgirl, and is convinced that Alec must be guilty. Or, at least, that's what she has David believe with the way she's screaming at him and doesn't want to talk to him at all.

Alec, having been forced to spend a lot of time away from his father, became friends with the Stanford family, specificall with the son Brian. Brian's adoptive father Robert (Leo McKern) is a wealthy automobile manufacturer, and it was in the Stanford house that the murder took place. Alec, you see, spent a lot of time there what with his father being away, and was the boyfriend of the murder victim. David doesn't let on who he is when he visits the Stanfords, (Ann Tood plays Mrs. Stanford), and Dad doesn't seem to recognize David, although the son Brian does and doesn't tell his father that David is using a false identity to visit the Stanfords.

David continues to try to find clues, all with a metaphorical clock constantly ticking down the hours until the scheduled execution. It seems ridiculous that this tyro should be able to solve the mystery when the police haven't been able to, even if we already know who the killer is since we see his face in the opening scene. It also seems ridiculous that the trial went the way it must have gone, but then we wouldn't have had a movie if these things hadn't happened.

Time Without Pity is another of those movies where I can see why somebody like Michael Redgrave would want to take the lead. The idea of having to try to prove somebody's innocence against an extremely tight deadline makes for a potentially really interesting story, as we've seen in great movies like Saboteur. Here, however, it seemed to me like it would be so unlikely for the legal system to screw up this badly, to the extent that it makes the movie not work all that well for me. Still, everybody tries, but can't quite overcome the script flaws.

The Boy With Green Hair

Next up on the list of movies that's been on my DVR and that is about to get another airing on TCM is The Boy With Green Hair. Its next airing is tomorrow, November 8, at 3:30 PM. With that in mind, I made the point as usual of watching it so that I could do the post here just in time for the airing.

The movie starts off at a police station, where a bald boy has been found, claiming to have a story nobody will believe, which is why the authorities have brought in a child psychologist, Dr. Evans (Robert Ryan in a small role) to try to get the kid named Peter (Dean Stockwell) to talk. Once again, as you might guess, this is going to lead to a flashback as to why the kid has no hair and why he's run away.

Peter is an orphan who has been shuttled around from one aunt and uncle to another; who knows how many of them he has. But for whatever reason, none of them were able to take care of him, so he wound up in the care of one last relative, Gramp (Pat O'Brian). Gramp -- if he even is the kid's real grandfather although that ultimately doesn't matter to the plot -- is a retired actor now living out his days in a small town. It's the years just following World War II, when people are afraid of the new atomic bomb. Peter, as an orphan, doesn't fit in in his new home, getting teased by the kids and nearly panicking when he overhears some of the adults talking about the threat of war.

Gramp tries to soothe Peter by telling him that there's a surprise awaiting Peter the next morning. Peter does get a surprise, but it's not what Gramp might have had planned. Peter takes a bath the next morning, and as he's drying off his hair, takes the towel off to discover -- he has green hair! Well, duh, how do you think the movie got its title. Needless to say, this is a shock for him, and the question of how his hair suddenly turned green is a reasonable one. So Gramp takes Peter to the doctor, who is unable to determine any reason from the medicine he knows why Peter's hair should have turned green. The adults are shocked, although one girl at least claims it's super.

That is, until word spreads around among the adults. Some of them think that perhaps he got it from the milk he drinks, which makes no sense because wouldn't other people have green hair too then? Perhaps it's a disease, but one that's contagious. So pretty soon, nobody wants to be around Peter for fear they too might wind up with the same green hair. Peter, as a result, runs away from Gramp and into the forest, where he comes upon a Brigadoon-like place. Except that this place is inhabited by children who are all war orphans like Peter. They tell him that he's been given the green hair so that perhaps people will pay attention to him as he tells them how bad war is.

Nope, not going to work. Frankly, now that Peter has a message he's insufferable as well as being a misfit, which leads him to make the difficult decision to shave off his hair in the fact that it will grow back in its original color. Of course, we knew this was going to happen or else how would have little Peter have been found the way he is at the beginning of the movie.

If there's a problem with The Boy With Green Hair, it's that the message is nothing if not unsubtle. We get the point already. Perhaps the reason for this is that it's based on a short story, in which case trying to draw it out to feature length might have caused the problems. It doesn't help that the characters aren't the most appealing. Robert Ryan has nothing to do, so any of the movie's problems aren't his fault. Dean Stockwell is being asked to play a kid who has good reason to be morose and run away, so it's not really his fault either. Pat O'Brien goes for the Barry Fitzgerald Irish shtick at times, which comes across here as mildly obnoxious. And of course most of the rest of the characters are being asked to be mean to this poor kid.

It's not so much that The Boy With Green Hair is a bad movie, however, as much as it is material that it can be a bit hard to make palatable. So definitely watch and judge for yourself on this one.

The Go-Between

I think I'm down to one last movie that I recorded during the spring airings of Two for One on TCM that's getting its second showing during the autum re-run of the series. This time, the guest co-host is director Todd Haynes, and the first movie he selected is The Go-Between, airing tonight at 8:00 PM.

The movie flashes back and forth between time periods, which I found rather confusing as there were cars that looked like they were from at least the 1930s if not later, while other scenes had what looked like Edwardian fashion and a relatively young character who had a visible war wound from the Boer War. In fact, a reading of the synopsis suggests that the main action takes place around 1900, while the "50 years later" portions are presumably set in the early 1950s as the film is based on a book first published in 1953.

Leo Colston (Dominic Guard), is an adolescent boy who is being raised by a single mother after the death of his father. She's apparently been scrimping and saving, as Leo is able to go to a boarding school together with a much wealthier kid, Marcus Maudsley. Indeed, Marcus has invited Leo to visit his family over the summer as they live in one of those great country houses in Norfolk. Marcus has a sister of marriageable age, Marian (Julie Christie), and the hope is that she'll marry the class-suitable Viscount Trimingham (Edward Fox). Leo sees Marian, and as he's just entering puberty and is beginning to think of girls in a way he doesn't quite understand, he naturally develops a crush on Marian.

For Leo and Marcus, the summer is setting up to be a series of adventures, such as going for a swim in the lake and finding that Ted Burgess (Alan Bates), the farmer who lives across the lake, is already swimming. Apparently they can't swim together because of those class differences, and Marcus is almost snotty about making certain the proper class relationships are upheld. In any case, the adventures come to a screeching halt when Marcus comes down with a case of the measles, forcing him to be quarantined.

Leo, being left by himself, tries to make his own adventures, with one being jumping down a haystack on Burgess' farm. Unfortunately, Leo hits an axe at the base of the haystack, cutting himself badly enough to need first aid. Ted treats Leo, in exchange for Leo's taking a letter back to Marian for her eyes only. Leo would also like Ted to teach him about sex, although this being the early 20th century, it's not phrased quite so directly.

Leo gives Marian Ted's letter, and she actually writes back to Ted, having Leo deliver the letter thanks to those class differences and Marian not being able to be seen having any business with Ted. That, and the fact that she eventually gets officially engaged to Trimingham. Leo discovers that Marian and Ted are writing love letters to each other, and that only makes things worse.

The Go-Between has an interesting premise, although I have to say that I felt the movie was extremely slowly paced. It also doesn't help how the action from time to time comes to the present day. The cinematography is well done and the Norfolk locations scenes are lovely to look at. Also, the cast does a good acting job. But overall, the script (ah, it's Harold Pinter again, back after having made a royal mess of Accident) makes The Go-Between an aggravating movie to watch.

Guilty Finger

I've mentioned on several occasions how it was not uncommon for British producers in the 1950s to bring over an American star and make a movie that, with the American star, could be more easily sold to American distributors. I've found that a lot of these movies are interesting, if somewhat flawed. An excellent example of this is Finger of Guilt.

Richard Basehart plays Reggie Wilson, who at the start of the movie is seeing a doctor because he thinks he might be losing his mind. Flash back to what happened that brought Reggie to this doctor in the first place. Reggie was a film editor in Hollywood who had to move to England after a scandal that fairly obviously should have been blacklisting, especially considering that Finger of Guilt was directed by one blacklisted American (Joseph Losey) and written by another (Howard Koch). But since this is the mid-1950s and the British producers presumably don't believe that they could openly discuss the blacklist and get an American distributor, the scandal involves romance with another man's wife.

Anyways, Reggie came to a studio in London, and under the tutelage of producer Ben Case (Roger Livesey) became an executive producer himself, while marrying Ben's daughter Lesley (Faith Brook). Ben and Reggie are locked in a struggle with each other and with the money men backing the film over whether the latest project, "Eclipse", should be filmed in one particular way or another. The movie even has an American star in the form of Kay Wallace (Constance Cummings), who had a thing for Reggie back in the day.

And then Reggie starts getting bizarre letters from some woman, Evelyn Stewart (Mary Murphy), who claims to know Reggie, and who claims to have had a torrid affair with him, one that she can prove. And it looks like she's willing to blackmail him over it. The reason I say those letters are bizarre is that Reggie has no memory of ever having seen Evelyn.

This all gets distressing enough that Reggie decides to investigate. The letters have a Newcastle postmark, so he and Lesley go up there to continue their investigation. Eventually Reggie does find Evelyn, and as a way of trying to get to the bottom of the matter, the two go to the local police station where Reggie is seriously thinking about pressing charges. Lesley, for some reason, goes somewhere else to wait for Reggie. The matter with the police is inconclusive, and when Evelyn runs into Reggie that evening, she convinces him to go to the pub with her. Why he does so makes no sense to me. Of course, Lesley sees this and it convinces her that her husband is a no-goodnik.

Unfortunately, Reggie's going into the pub is the beginning of a long denouement that just doesn't make any sense in terms of the plot or character motivations. There's the makings of a good mystery in the movie, but it feels as though Howard Koch didn't know how to resolve it and came up with a thoroughly unrealistic resolution.

All of the players do their best with the sub-par material that they're given. And it's always fun to see the inner workings of a studio put on film. But the pieces of Finger of Guilt, when put together, just don't quite add up.