Late Night Napoleon

Since domestic life is currently a bit unpredictable (as a result of the Contesse being engaged pretty much full-time getting her mother settled in a new home, in another town - a story for another time - in the pub, for preference), I've been watching DVDs late in the evenings for the last week or two.

A few days ago I watched Scott Ridley's super The Duellists for the umpteenth time - always a delight. Knowing the end of the story actually makes for a more relaxed experience. I haven't watched it quite as many times as Bondarchuk's Waterloo, I believe, but it must be getting close.

I've also taken the opportunity to revisit some other Napoleonic titles - some that I've promised myself I would get back to, and a couple that I may never have watched before - at least I didn't remember much of them. [Three upsides of failing memory are (1) no repeats on TV; (2) you make new friends every day; (3) no repeats on TV.]

A couple of nights ago I watched Sacha Guitry's rather quirky Napoleon from 1955. My viewing experience was a little hampered by my having the only edition I could afford - this has dubbed English dialogue, and it is (I think) a Korean-manufactured version which is so heavily compressed that the picture quality is nostalgically reminiscent of those pirated video tapes we used to watch in the last century - or somebody watched them - your grannie will tell you.

Sacha Guitry hosts The Talleyrand Show

The story is threaded together by the rather interesting idea of having the scenes from Napoleon's life narrated (at a social evening) by an elderly Talleyrand (played by Guitry himself). Once you've got used to the strangely detached dubbed speech, and - in my case - the fuzzy pictures, it goes along quite well. Good show at the Coronation - very snazzy. Battle scenes were hampered by lack of resources, but they were mostly cameo shots of a victorious flag, or similar. One major hiccup for me was that they use two different actors for Napoleon, Daniel Gélin as young NB, and Raymond Pellegrin as an older imposter later on. They do not look remotely similar. They even make a feature of the changeover - young, slim Napoleon sits down for a haircut, and after it everyone remarks that he looks completely different. Yes - he does. Never since the glorious Plan 9 from Outer Space has there been such a show-stopping continuity failure.

Before and after that haircut

One thing that I was struck by was the scene where the marshals confront Napoleon and ask him to abdicate - this looks, and plays, so like the similar scene at the start of Waterloo that I would guess Bondarchuk was very familiar with the earlier movie. Anyway, overall I rather enjoyed it - I wouldn't mind a better-restored copy, but I might well watch it again. I mean - Jean Gabin as Lannes - Yves Montand as Lefebvre - you have to watch it again, don't you?

Last night I watched Abel Gance's Austerlitz from 1960. No complaints about the picture quality here - superbly restored, and the original film was very heavy on the composition and photography - no expense spared, beautifully filmed, and the Coronation in this film blows Guitry's (which certainly wasn't bad) out of the water. The visual side of things is hardly impaired by the presence of Claudia Cardinale, Lesley Caron and numerous other delectable ladies in the roles of Napoleon's assorted sisters and mistresses - and we even get Anna Moffo singing, which was an unexpected treat. Yes - all that is splendid - sumptuous, in fact.

Claudia is Pauline - and she'll punch your nose quick as look at you

I have to admit at this point that one problem for me was the dialogue. I read French pretty well, but my understanding of spoken French is helped greatly if there is a teacher at the front, writing it down in chalk on the board. So I am a subtitles man. English subtitles, of course, if they have them (many French films do not), but I can manage well enough with French subtitles - you know, for the hard of hearing (pardon?). This DVD is advertised as having just French subtitles, but they only kick in when Kutuzov and his chums are speaking Russian, or when Pitt and Fox and those other rascals are speaking what I can only assume was supposed to be English. The rest of the time I was left to flounder on, picking up the gist of what was going on. In fact, it wasn't too bad - I sort of managed, though I might have some difficulty explaining exactly why Napoleon was so offended by what Pauline said at the soirée after about an hour.

The film lasts almost 3 hours, which is a little gruelling if you are struggling with the lingo, but it went well enough for me to list it for another viewing fairly soon. The role of Napoleon is played by Pierre Mondy, who is basically a comedy actor - he seems to have been chosen because he was short, and because he produces a number of fantastic, bravura tantrums; this is the most vase-throwing, screaming Napoleon I have seen - is this what he was like? Should we be glad that Gance never made a biopic about Hitler?

The military stuff. Hmm. One has to rise above the petty outrage of their using the wrong belt-buckles or sword knots (or whatever). They did a brave job of putting on the battles, though the instantaneous cuts between outdoors and very-obvious-sets-in-a-very-big-hall jar a bit at times. Given the inevitable difficulty of staging a massed battle with a limited number of extras (Bondarchuk, remember, did not have this problem with Waterloo), it's quite spectacular, but I really didn't understand much of what was going on. I must watch it again, if only for the actual Austerlitz bit at the end. The director was obviously very taken with shots of formless crowds of cavalry racing across the fields, usually with a marshal galloping about 200 yards in front, waving his sabre (this may be why there were so many openings for promotion). There is relatively little infantry action.

I confess that I am not completely clear on all this. At one point Lannes (I think) is leading some charging cavalry (which includes the Chasseurs à Cheval of the Guard), and he clashes with the enemy, and then Murat (with some more charging cavalry, also including the Guard Chasseurs) appears on his left, and things are going swimmingly. Meanwhile, Soult, who is itching to get involved, is sent by Napoleon, with very explicit instructions where to advance and so on. As far as I could see, Soult was then leading another cavalry charge. I'll suspend judgement on this until I've watched it again.

The French won, of course, but the biggest surprise for me came at the end. Having spent the day galloping around sunlit fields, the defeated enemy were suddenly retreating through a winter scene - snowfields - and (unwisely) opted to retreat over a frozen lake. You'll never credit this, but the French artillery put some cannonballs through the ice, and - yes, that's right - there was much spectacular footage of limber teams and foot soldiers falling through the ice. Good heavens, I hear you gasp. [Discuss] 

This all started because I had intended to re-run the French TV mini-series of Napoleon (that's right - the one with Dupardieu and all that lot), which has been sitting waiting for me for a couple of years - I'll get to it, but in the meantime I'm rather enjoying being distracted.

Albert up the Alps

One serious commitment, of course, is that I need to make a decent attempt at watching the re-issue of Gance's 1927 classic, Napoleon (great title), for which I now have the greatly enhanced 2016 edition, with fabby music score by Carl Davis, wonderful digital restoration, lots of extra material somebody found somewhere - what's not to love? Also the magnificently smouldering Albert Dieudonné as the ectomorphic (and apparently quite tall) young Napoleon - this is compulsive viewing, except...

Well, to be ignorant about it, I need drugs to get through it. It weighs in at 5-and-a-half hours and it was, of course, a silent film, so that the acting is a bit extreme throughout. In fact, you get the hang of that, and Davis' score helps greatly with the silent bit - quick example: at one point young Rouget de Lisle is stood up before the Revolutionary crowd, and the scene becomes a complete tour de force as the whole place joins in fervent singing of his new hit, La Marseillaise. Quite how this scene would have worked in the silent version is a point of interest, but of course the new musical score fills it out nicely.

The problem, for me, is that Gance was obviously obsessed with the possibility of making very long scenes, in this virtually unlimited-scope sortie in what was still a new and largely experimental medium. Some of these scenes almost seem to have been left to run, in the hope that they eventually become interesting, or maybe in hope that the relatively unsophisticated cinema audiences of the day might eventually get the idea of what was happening. I can, of course, accept all this for what it is, though 15 minutes into the snowfight at Napoleon's school I was definitely getting twitchy. No - I will make a proper effort at watching the whole thing - I need to check the diary for a consecutive run of evenings, and give it a go. If Napoleon could conquer most of Europe, I'm certain I can get through a damn movie.

A couple of trivia items - there is a cameo appearance by Beethoven in both Gance's 1927 film and Guitry's 1955 one; and Orson Welles, apart from playing Fat Louis XVIII in Waterloo, also appears as Hudson Lowe (boo, hiss) in the Guitry movie, and as Robert Fulton, the American inventor, who appears in Gance's 1960 effort, trying to interest Napoleon in his ideas on steam-powered warships - this all rather earlier than Trafalgar.

[You will gather that I am not an expert in this field. I know so little, in fact, that I even talk about "films", in the plural, rather than "film", in the approved singular.]

Hooptedoodle #253 - One for the Film Buffs

I was looking for old pictures of the area where I live, and - quite by chance - I came across this:

[Good grief, Foy, now what? You cancel the Siege of Newcastle, claim force majeur, and now you're fiddling around with... what, exactly?]

Well, actually, I have to explain that this is a photo of Brigitte Bardot (you probably worked that bit out), but it's taken on the beach behind my house - right here on the farm. This is quite a shock - I've grown used to thinking about General Monck and Robert L Stevenson and a few other notables having been around here, and I can cope with having a previously unknown castle within 600 yards of my house, but I never once thought of Brigitte. Well - not in that context.

It seems that in 1966 she was involved in a film titled A Coeur Joie (released in the US as Two Weeks in September), and this film was shot at a variety of places I know well, including Edinburgh Zoo (apparently), Dirleton and (ta-da!) our own Seacliff Beach, as seen here. These pictures also show her co-star, Laurent Terzieff, and blooming cold they look, September or no.

I was gently intrigued. I had a quick look around for reviews of the film, and to see if it is still available (only, you understand, because I wish to see some shots of our beach...), and found that the film is still available in French, without subtitles. There are some Region 1 editions of the English language version, but clips I've seen on YouTube suggest that the dubbing and reshooting with English dialogue is a thing of major embarrassment. So the French version seems a far better bet. However, reviews I've seen also suggest that this may be among the worst films ever made. Thus I am - how do you say? - put off a bit.

This shot shows, in the background, the end of the path by which we walk to our beach.
I never thought of La Bardot sitting there. The slope and the terrain vary from year to
year, depending how much of the beach is left in place by the Spring tides. Obviously
they had a fair amount of sand in 1966, but sometimes it's quite stony. I have to add that
the Contesse Foy's mother fell rather spectacularly at this very spot some years ago; fortunately
she did not injure herself, but we still treasure the memory...

Given a free choice, I would prefer not to watch Brigitte in an embarrassing movie. Not that I am a fan, of course, but because of my love of the art.

Anyone have any views on this minor classic of French cinema? It really doesn't matter - yesterday I didn't even know that a film goddess had once walked among our sandhills, so I can forget all about it quite easily. But, there again...

Wails of Torpor - non-review

Within the last year or two I've started picking up cheap DVDs of old war movies - I've thoroughly enjoyed Sink the Bismarck, Bridge over the River Kwai, The Desert Fox and a pile of others - some I'd seen before, back in the day, some are new to me - just the thing on odd rainy afternoons, or on the 3am insomnia shift when the depression bites. I can accept them and enjoy them for what they are, with all their dated values and outmoded politics.

I still have a few that I keep an eye open for - Battle of the Bulge (the one with Robert Shaw) is on my list, but I also get occasional recommendations from friends, or people whose taste I know to be about on a par (good or bad) with my own. Someone very kindly sent me an Amazon voucher for Christmas, so I took the opportunity to buy a few things I would not otherwise have treated myself to. I bought the new, 4-disc set of Abel Gance's Napoleon (1927?) - digitally restored, includes a pile of additional material which had become detached from the original movie, and a new musical soundtrack (derivative, but very good) by Carl Davis. At 8½ hours (or whatever it is) it still requires a major commitment in coffee and devotion, but I have started on the first disc, and have given up and determined that I shall start it again very soon when I am more relaxed.

To make up the package (and benefit from shipping savings) I got a few other things - notably Cross of Iron (which was recommended by a mate and which stars James Coburn as the famous blogger, Sgt Steiner - the film is OK - I'll watch that again, too, but mostly for Coburn) and Wheels of Terror, aka The Misfit Brigade, which was also recommended, and which might just be the worst film I've ever seen.

Wheels of Terror was made in 1987, I think (certainly the haircuts would confirm it was around that time), and it is based on one of the many works of Sven Hassel, a Dane who served in the German army in WW2. Now there may be a great many Hassel fans out there - all due respect to you all, I was never one. I recall WH Smith and station bookshops everywhere stocking best-selling pulp paperbooks by Hassel, all very popular, all with lurid covers, and all, reportedly, crammed with extreme violence and sweary words. I never bought or read any - not a matter of snobbery or prejudice - I seem to have been very busy in those days, and books of sweary words were not a high priority.

Anyway, I read the description of the DVD version of Wheels of Terror, shrugged, and decided it was probably worth £2.45 or whatever it was, if only to fill the gap in my education and see what all the fuss had been about.

Wow. The whole thing is buried under a lot of anachronistic American slang and mannerisms, the German soldiers behave like a comedy version of the US Marines (lots of "Yes - SUH!" in unison). The story line is silly, and pretty much irrelevant anyway, the bangs are bigger and brighter than you would credit, and the dialogue is something else. I kept finding myself shaking my head, and reminding myself, not only that someone had actually written this crap, but also had thought fit to include it in the movie. The acting is unbelievable in more than one sense, but in the end it is not so much bad as unnecessary - presentable actors such as David Carradine and Oliver Reed (not sure if Reed actually speaks, come to think of it) offer up their lines in very obvious disbelief - perhaps hoping it will all be over soon.

Maybe the style has dated - maybe they were trying to cash in on Hassel's success, or on the takings of some other film they wished this could have been. I was, you will have gathered, disappointed. I'm relieved that I did not read any of the books when they were around, but it's always a shame when you revisit some faintly naughty indulgence and find it was not worth the bus fare.

Why am I writing this up? Not sure, really - maybe it fits into a recurrent theme of nostalgia not being what it used to be - maybe it is just a public-service warning for non-Hassel-fans to avoid this film at all costs. It is without a single redeeming feature (though the unit markings on the tanks may be accurate - I wouldn't know) - you would be far better spending an hour and a half sweeping up leaves, or washing the car.

Big Brown Lumps - The Star-Fort (1)

Yesterday I finished off the first phase of building-varnishing and got the bits of the Battleground star-fort deflashed and scrubbed up, and applied the first two coats of brown base colour. The picture shows the situation after the second coat - some pinholes still be be touched in, but this is much better than the state after the first coat, which looked like a join-the-dots exercise (the paint being the dots, by the way).

A long way to go, but it is shaping up nicely. The idea is that it should be capable of being an outwork for a Napoleonic fort (e.g Fort Ragusa), or a half-section could be a hornwork of some sort, but also it can serve as a sconce for the ECW (it may not be strictly authentic for this last role, but I'm happy with it, so please do not look askance at my sconce...).

So the plan is: final brown base-coat touch-in to lose the pinholes, then drybrushing with mid grey, baseboard green, medium khaki and a very light breath of light khaki to make everything dusty - followed, of course, by two coats of matt varnish - this is a heavy beggar, and is going to get bumped a bit. After all that I can tidy away all the debris and paraphernalia and get the dining room ready for the Battle of Boldon Hill on Wednesday. Oh yes - my fort pieces are now in very nice new plastic storage boxes, so a load of old broken cardboard boxes can go away for recycling. There's another planet saved.

Speaking of which...

Last night we had an excellent take-away Indian meal from our friend Mohammed's restaurant in the village, and, unusually for us, afterwards we got the log stove blazing, and managed to prise my son away from his computer for long enough for us all to watch his new DVD of The Martian.

Matt Damon visits - erm - Jordan, in fact

Wow - what an excellent film - enjoyed it thoroughly. If it has a faint weakness of plot, I might suggest that the second half of the story is relentlessly and obviously heading for a happy ending, but the spectacle is more than consolation, and the scientific threads hang together well enough to gratify elderly viewers who cherish delusions of understanding these things (a very little bit). I am not a film "buff" in any sense at all, but I understand that it is now necessary always to attach references to previous work by the cast and crew, so I shall list a few personal fave contributors, with a very partial wargamer's view of what they have done before (i.e. what I've seen and enjoyed). Director is Ridley Scott (The Duellists - has to be), and the cast includes Matt Damon (Saving Private Ryan), Jeff Daniels (Gettysburg) and Sean Bean (anything but Sharpe).

I was pleased to be reminded that Bean, is, after all, an excellent actor when he isn't slouching around being rugged.

By the way, I speak with some little authority on the film industry since, apart from being not quite related to Christopher Plummer (previous reference to private joke), I also used to have a relative who claimed to have appeared as a bush in the Dunsinane scene from Polanski's Macbeth, so I'm quite an insider really - please notify Hello! magazine that I am up for the odd interview if the money's right.

War in the Air (BBC)

Since I may be the only man in Northern Europe who failed to see the superb lunar eclipse the other night, I am keeping a low profile. I meant to watch it - I had the blinds wide open on the roof windows, the conditions were crystal clear (we have no light pollution at all here), the moon was big and perfectly placed, I had my camera standing by - and I fell asleep before the eclipse started. Oh well.

To change the subject, about 10 miles from here is the village of Athelstaneford, which is noted for a piece of (debated) history. It seems that in 832AD there was an invading force from Northumbria up here, possibly commanded by a chap named Athelstan (not the king of the Angles who lived in East Anglia, he would have been 5 years old...), and a battle took place near the village whose name now commemorates the visiting commander. On the morning of the battle, the king of the Picts, Oengus II, saw a St Andrews cross (saltire) in the blue sky, and knew that he couldn't be beaten. Subsequently, the blue and white saltire was adopted as the Scottish flag. The story might just possibly be mythical, of course, but there is a little museum behind the church in Athelstaneford dedicated to this tradition, so at least the Visit Scotland people believe in it.

Nowadays, of course, we would just assume that old Oengus had simply seen a couple of aeroplane trails - as exemplified by the photo at the top of this post, taken by the Contesse over Asda's car park at Dunbar, around 7:30am today. Combination of humidity level, still air and the right number of planes - not an uncommon sight, but still worth a look, I think. Less of a saltire, more tartan?

In a very roundabout way, this gets me to the BBC's famous series of films on WW2 aerial warfare, War in the Air, which I bought on DVD recently and have started working my way through. They are really very good - the series was made in 1954, so the emphasis is very much on what a jolly good, heroic show the RAF put on (no complaints about that), which is probably why this series has been repeated on TV much less frequently than the Thames TV World at War series, for example, which was made some 20 years later, and which gives a more rounded view of the history.

The quality of the newsreel and other archive film is remarkable - so much so that I have occasionally got sidetracked trying to spot the joins between the dramatised bits and the original film. Maybe there are not so many joins - I guess a lot of documentary film was made during the war which required people to play, or voice-over, some of the parts - maybe they even played themselves. There are scenes involving dialogue which are set in the full operations room, with girls moving markers around the giant map with the long poles - I doubt if the BBC had the budget or the scope to reconstruct a complete ops room, and the scenes involving streets full of smoking rubble look obviously authentic - these must be original contemporary films which required people to speak, I suppose. Some of the acting is certainly hamfisted enough to have been done by amateurs (real people?), though it does seem unlikely that we would have a film archive of a meeting during which someone announced that he had invented radar.

Whatever, I enjoyed an episode involving some excellent Coastal Command material last night. I promise not to get sidetracked, but I have been fishing around, trying to find out more about the making of the series. It is interesting to surmise which bits are

(1) original wartime action archives

(2) scripted wartime documentary films, involving written dialogue

(3) scenes shot specifically for the BBC series

There's some fine, vintage stereotyping in the voices - all officers have nice, plummy accents, and the occasional fireman or groundcrew will be a Cockney. There is also a slightly crazed German voice which explains what the enemy were trying to do. Again, I have to emphasise that there is some superb archive material, including a great deal that I have never seen before (not that I am any kind of expert, of course).

Really very good - a worthwhile addition to my DVD collection.

*********

Late edit:

Jimmy "One a Day" Rankin

My good friend (and musical associate) Ian lives in Portobello, Edinburgh. Ian is an enthusiastic amateur pilot, and he recently told me a tale of a former resident of his home. Ian bought this house, which came up for sale opposite his mother's home in about 1985, and his mother remembered a previous resident, a Mrs Rankin, whose son grew up to be Sq/Ldr "Jimmy" Rankin, who served at Biggin Hill and elsewhere during WW2. He flew with the Fleet Air Arm and with 92 Squadron of Fighter Command, and he had 17 confirmed kills. At one period his success rate was such that he was known as "One a Day" Rankin. There is also a story that for a while he was stationed at Drem, in East Lothian (very close to Athelstaneford, in fact), and he used to fly over his mother's house to signal that things were OK. This story may, of course, be up there with Oengus and his blue-sky visions - I have no idea.

Hooptedoodle #193 - Koyaanisqatsi

Today was Saturday, and tonight we had an excellent takeaway meal, from the Bengali restaurant in the village, and afterwards my son said, "Shall we watch a film?", which is what often happens after a takeaway on a Saturday.

After some discussion, it transpired that the Contesse had stuff to do, and chose not to watch a film, but was happy that my son and I should do so. We have little to watch that is new, at the moment, so the standard process requires that we choose a film we have seen before.

Eventually we chose Koyaanisqatsi, which we have both seen many times. Since I have some advantages in the time dimension, I can claim to have seen it more often than my son. In fact I have a long history with this movie - I first saw it in the cinema (1982? - I was going to say "can it be so long ago?", but when I see the clothes and the technology and - strangely - the spectacles, it becomes obvious...), then I owned a VHS tape of it, and now I have it on DVD. I must have watched it on some pretty dodgy TVs over the years, I guess. My first wife hated it - I think she felt that it somehow summed up some characteristics of mine with which she had never come to terms. One has to respect these things - water under the bridge; she was almost certainly correct - she was mostly interested in shopping for clothes and staying in expensive Italian hotels, and thus my tastes often appeared strange to her.

So why do I love this film? - no idea. I am not particularly proud of loving it. I accept that it is very dated now, that it is not a particularly smart film to like, that the eco-political themes and imagery are unsubtle and sometimes actually kind of dumb, but it is a trip, man. I like to sit and stare at the screen and think "Wow!" for 90 minutes, or whatever it is. My long-deceased former roadie and lifestyle guru, Rab the Fab, reckoned that it was right up there with 2001 - A Space Odyssey for watching while under the influence of LSD, an experience I would not rush to try, though 3 glasses of Spanish red wine did no harm this evening. Dumb or not, I still find the wackily hypnotic Philip Glass score very effective, I still laugh like a drain at the scene which alternates speeded-up footage of customers on the escalators in the New York subway with a clip of a machine making frankfurter sausages; also, we still play the game where you have to spot the first signs of life in the film, and then the first evidence of mankind.

At the end, we always feel we should discuss what we have seen, but it never gets very profound. Maybe the film is not really subtle enough to generate much debate. Maybe it is just a trip, man. I have never retained any lasting conclusions other than that I would not choose to live in a city in the USA - at least not in 1982. I'll watch it again next year - I'll look forward to it.

Here is the final scene, which seems to me to depict man attempting (unsuccessfully, on this occasion) to carry his stupidity, waste and ugliness beyond the confines of his own planet...

The Pride and the Passion (1957)

I was reminded by a post on Stryker's splendid blog of my appreciation of CS Forester's two novels of Napoleonic land warfare in the Peninsular War - Death to the French and The Gun - and of the travesty of a film version of The Gun which staggered into cinemas in 1957, under the title The Pride and the Passion.

It would be possible to devote a very long criticism to this film, highlighting the complete lack of respect to both history and Forester's fine book, the awful characterisations and accents, the unrelenting flood of moronic national stereotypes and, especially, the spectacular switch of the plot to replace one of the guerrilla leaders with Sophia Loren; I shall rise above all this, and I merely offer a couple of glimpses, for those who have not seen this epic and for those who, like me, have seen it but may not be able to believe how bad it was.

Behind the impressive branding this was, as you will observe, a joint production by the Reader's Digest and Miss Bentham's class at Beaconsfield Primary School, but it cannot be faulted on expense or dedication to tasteless excess. Here is the assault on Avila, which is stirring stuff, though you may feel that the French could have been a bit more businesslike about the defence. I recall that my cousin and I, after we had seen it, were not surprised that poor old Sophia was wounded in the chest, since, if only from the point of view of proportional surface area, that seemed a very high probability. Shame, though.

Whatever else the French could have done better, I certainly hope they executed the uniform consultant - and you've seen nothing - wait till you see the cavalry. I was tempted to see how cheaply I could get a DVD of this film, but I haven't found one cheap enough yet. I shall continue to keep an eye open. In the meantime, perhaps you would join me in a quiet salute to the real CS Forester.

Callan - any good? - any opinions?

Short and rather pathetic request for help...

I have been offered (at a very cheap price) two new, shrink-wrapped box sets of DVDs which between them cover series 1 and 2 of the old Callan TV show (in monochrome, including the original pilot programme A Magnum for Schneider) and series 3 and 4 (by which time the programmes were filmed in colour).

Apart from the legendary wargaming scenes (which I do not believe I have ever seen, even on YouTube), I feel that this is probably a worthwhile buy at the price anyway, as a piece of vintage TV.

Problem is that I probably saw maybe two of the original shows (they date from a period when I mostly didn't own a TV), and I have found on recent nostalgia trips that vintage TV was often embarrassingly poor. So I am torn - half of me says "Yeah! - Callan! - great", and the other half says "but what do I know about Callan? - I never saw it - I have no opinion".

Anyone out there a Callan fan? - would you recommend the series? (it is very cheap).

In Odd Moments

I've been very busy recently, so time to involve myself in hobby activities has been infrequent, and - more to the point - unpredictable. Such moments as have presented themselves have been happily spent making the most of two recent purchases.

The artillery of the dastardly Parliamentarians prepare to fire on the home of the Laceys

Firstly, I was very pleased to obtain a good, secondhand set of DVDs of the 1980s BBC ECW historical drama series, By the Sword Divided. The set (of 8 discs) includes both series; thus far I have got most of the way through the first series, and jolly good it is too. I neither watched nor heard about the original transmission, so it is all new to me. The 1983 date is apparent in the 4:3 picture aspect  and the modest approach to special effects (night-time scenes are pretty much invisible!), but it has the advantage to me that, with a couple of notable exceptions, the cast are mostly unfamiliar (since I never watched Holby City...) and the production is modern enough for me not to be distracted by its shortcomings.

The one stand-out performance is Julian Glover, always a fine actor, as Sir Martin Lacey, a Royalist landowner, but the whole show rings true and is convincing. It also demonstrates a keen awareness of the history and the military aspects (from which I learned quite a bit - which I had not expected), and it comes as no surprise that the historical advisor was Brigadier Peter Young. The slight downside, of course, is that the Brigadier's personal points of bias come through along with his undoubted wisdom, so the Parliamentarian side get the benefit of very little doubt, for example. I also found that the moments when the cast stand and recite historical events to each other, as contextual background disguised as family chatter, were the least convincing of the whole production, but they do tie things together nicely.

I am a bit nervous to note that Sir Martin was killed in last night's instalment, so I am hoping the series does not dip in his absence. I shall continue to work my way through the remaining discs - this series is pretty expensive to get hold of - I was lucky to get a bargain set - but is very highly recommended if you are interested in the period. Michael had informed me that you can watch it on YouTube, which is terrific, but sadly is not practicable at my local broadband speed.

Second bit of shopping was a copy of Blücher, Sam Mustafa's long-awaited grand tactical cousin for Lasalle, in his Honour series of horse and musket rules. I haven't got very far into this yet, but it looks very interesting indeed. One thing that surprises me a little is that it is the logical replacement for Mustafa's Grande Armée rules, yet some of the most cunning, trademark devices from that earlier rule set have been dropped. There are other, newer innovations, of course, but familiarity with the earlier set gives an intriguing insight into the background.

Anyway, I haven't got very far into it yet, so will carry on reading as time permits.

The Adventures of General Reel (or Rile)

It takes me a while to build up to these things; for some time I’ve been aware of the Pen & Sword series of Napoleonic DVDs, but I was rather put off by some unenthusiastic customer reviews on Amazon. Eventually, I had a careful think about the matter (prompted by a reduction in price, I admit) – if we are sensible about such things, I am not looking for a piece of great art, and I have previously bought and enjoyed the Pegasus series of ECW films (notwithstanding their cheerful, home-movie quality and the guy in the dodgy fake whiskers playing Charles I), so I decided to order some up.

I bought all four of the Waterloo Collection volumes, plus the newer one about Salamanca. Thus far I have watched the first two of the Waterloo items, and I am very pleased with them – I found no trace of the sound problems which came in for such harsh criticism on Amazon from Napoleon Fan, of Hants, UK, and quickly got into the feel of the presentation. This is not the History Channel – thank God – we do not get constant reminders (in case we have forgotten in the previous 10 seconds) that “he is now in great danger – if a bullet hits him in the head he could be deaded” – and the pace and style are fine. I warmed to the affable chaps (all professional battlefield guides, apparently) who walked us around the various locations and described the action sensibly and in a manner calculated to enable us to get a good feel for how the battle developed. I felt, whilst watching, that a film presentation can have definite advantages over actually being there; that is not to say that I would not like to go there, but watching the film gives a valuable overview and covers more ground more quickly than a walking tour could, for example. All right – go there, but watch the films first.

All very positive then – provided you approach this in the right spirit, I would recommend these films wholeheartedly (this is based only on having watched the first two, of course) – they are intelligently done and very informative – well, I found them so. A few minor themes occurred to me on the way:

(1) the film makers have gone to a lot of trouble to correct the traditional British downplaying of the role played by the Dutch-Belgian and German troops in the Waterloo campaign, which is welcome.

(2) the many inserted clips of re-enactors add colour and a lot of authenticity, but most of the participants, strangely, seem unable to stand up straight, never mind march convincingly. A real sergeant would have given them all a right shouting-at. I’m sure the buttons and lace are correct, but it would be nice if they looked like soldiers, too, rather than like self-conscious office workers dressed up. That may have been a very elderly thing to say – I’ll think about that.

(3) the presenters’ grasp of French pronunciation is so universally, well, crap, that at first I almost thought it must be a joke. I have no wish to appear precious about this, but if I were making a film about a battle involving a lot of people and places with French names (to show on the telly, like), I think I would have taken a little more trouble to get the hang of this – especially if I claimed to make my living at battlefield tours, and thus, presumably, to travel in Belgium a lot. It is not even up to the WW1 soldiers’ “san-fairy-anne” standard – at least that was a phonetic approximation. No, this is a literal, schoolboy reading of French words, mispronounced with the most English of English accents, avoiding all traces of any (embarrassing?) foreign-sounding inflection. Did they coach them specially? Did they agree this strange assault on the French tongue, as a matter of policy, before they started? Interesting. Poor old General Reille is referred to by a number of versions of his name – none even slightly correct. In the general flow of things, General Drouet d’Erlon morphs into General Drouot, who I believe was a different bloke altogether. Not to worry – it grates a bit, but I got used to it.

Not put off by any of this, I look forward to watching Part 3 tonight. Very good on a dark evening, with a glass of something.

Reading further, I see that the same team have produced a further two titles on the Peninsular War, one being a history of the 95^th Rifles and one entitled The Keys to Spain, which I believe is a discussion of fortresses and sieges. I am intrigued to see that these are available only in the American NTSC format (that’s “Never the Same Color”, I am told) and are Region 1, so will not play on European TV equipment. Somewhere in my library of software I’m sure I have something which will convert video files into other formats, so I must look further in to this. Maybe they are available in a more UK-friendly format, and I just missed them.

Anyway, if you’re prepared to approach them in the right spirit, these DVDs would make a nice little stocking filler. God – is it that time already?

Christmas Prize Competition 2013

As you see, young Bonaparte is not looking very festive, despite his fancy party hat. What do you think the message in the cracker said? Send it to me as a comment to this post (which I won’t publish), or email it to the address in my Blogger profile. The sender of the entry which I find most amusing will win a couple of Napoleonic DVDs – one is Ridley Scott’s noted “The Duellists”, featuring Harvey Keitel and David Carradine, the other is the more recent “Lines of Wellington”*, starring John Malkovich. These are both Region 2 – please note – so if you are outside Europe please check that they will play on your equipment.

Please get entries to me by 3^rd January – I’ll publish results shortly after that date. If you wish to have a shot but are not interested in the prize, please say so and I’ll pick a separate List B winner – for glory only.

The splendid artwork for this year’s competition was very kindly contributed by a good friend of mine, the award winning cartoonist and caricaturist PaK, whose work appears in Private Eye, Reader's Digest, The Oldie and elsewhere. PaK’s website is very entertaining and you can link to it here – he is always delighted to get commissions for caricatures and custom greeting cards.


* Late Edit: the only version of "Lines of Wellington" which is currently available is not (as advertised by Amazon) in English. I got my copies from Germany and from Austria. The language choices are a little confusing - it is a Portuguese production, and it's very nicely done, if you can handle Malkovich as Wellington; the Portuguese speak Portuguese, the French speak French and the English speak English, and the narration is in Portuguese. Subtitles are available in a choice of Dutch or French - if you don't understand Dutch but have some French, switch on the French subtitles and you'll be fine. It's an enjoyable film, and the dialogue is not complex. Authentic uniforms on the 1st Cacadores...

Christmas Prize Quiz – The Judgement

This is a day earlier than I meant to publish the results, but hits on the Quiz post have just about stopped now – I haven’t had any fresh entries for a while – and I won’t have any blogging time for a few days, since we have visitors staying over Christmas.

The Quiz...

Well now – interesting. Thanks very much to all who sent in an entry, and also to those who thought about it but didn’t send one.

I received a total of 18 submissions, of which 13 were correct. Google has to take a lot of the credit, naturally, but that is the way things work now, and some good thinking went into the searches. Very well done, everyone [thank you, Miss].

There is a faint clue in the fact that my Blogger profile lists Vacances de Monsieur Hulot first among my favourite films - I’ve always loved Tati’s earlier films.

The answers, then are:

(1) It’s a bronze statue of Jacques Tati, in character as the sacred Monsieur Hulot.

(2) It is on the beach at St-Marc-sur-Mer, near St Nazaire, in Brittany (France). St Marc is where most of the film was shot in 1951.

(3) With so many direct hits, the deciding section had to be the description of how you solved it, and some appropriate reaction. This was all very entertaining – thanks for entering into the spirit of my silly quiz. On first instinct I thought Gary should have got extra points for having actually been there, but on second thought that rather discriminated against non-Europeans. I awarded extra points to entrants who ventured some original observation over and above a cut-&-paste from Wikipedia. In the end it was a very close call, but overall I found Fabrizio’s story the most amusing, and he also had the good taste to send a link to a very fine picture of a statue of President Reagan, which had suffered a sad dommage at Newport Beach – this was one of the better finds on Google from “leaning statue beach”.

Result: Fabrizio wins by a very short head from Steve, Gary and Pjotr, but there were lots of great efforts. Thanks, again, very much. I’ll email Fabrizio to get his address so I can send the prize parcel. Pjotr, you get a special runner-up prize because it was so close and because yours was the only entry which included a complete untruth – I’ll be in touch.  

Here’s another couple of pictures I took on that same day in 2008 at St Marc, to give a context. I was surprised how many people found an answer on Google, but was also surprised that so few knew of Monsieur Hulot – I guess you are all too young!

The most intriguing wrong entry was from Hannibal(?), who was certain it was the promenade at Tenby (Wales), and thought the figure might be a mime artist. Well, he sort of was. To remind us (primarily myself) what this was all about, here’s a little clip from Vacances.

Which leaves me only to offer a Christmas wish to everyone. I re-read what I said last year, and I think it still sums up my sentiments on the subject, so the message is the same as before:

I wish everyone, whatever your religion or political standpoint, a peaceful and comforting Christmas, and - to anyone who reads this blog - all the very best to you and yours in the New Year, and thanks for your company.

Hooptedoodle #57a - Plan 9 from Outer Space

Following my reference to The Forbidden Planet in a recent post, I had an interesting exchange of emails with Prof De Vries, who reminded me of some of his other favourite sci-fi memories. In particular, he sent me a link to a clip of what he describes as "the worst bits from the lumpiest film ever made" - Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Sounds irresistible, I know. For all devoted fans of Ed Wood's wonderful "movie disaster", here it is. Enjoy.

Prof De Vries assures me they don't make them like this any more. I hope he's right.

Hooptedoodle #40a – Napoleon’s Last Words

Definitely not tonight, Josephine

Well, with thanks to super-sleuth Metal Detector, I revisited the death-bed scene in the Clavier film, this time with the Danish subtitles switched on. I still can’t make out what he says but, according to the subtitles, he says “Helvedet... Arméen...”, which Google Translate reckons means something like “Hell... army...”, which might be a nice reference to Jean Lanne’s earlier dying words, in which he maintained that he was going to Hell, because that is what happens to people like him, and that he would meet Napoleon there.

I was sort of comfortable with that, but I find that a more official record of Napoleon’s last words says that he said “tête d’armée...” and then “Josephine...”. I guess he just mumbled, and no-one really knows. Please feel free to make up your own version. That is my own Last Word on the subject.

In the wider world of last words and epitaphs, there are some great classics, of course. Two of my personal favourites are Spike Milligan’s proposed epitaph, “I TOLD YOU I WAS ILL”, and the reported last words of Buddy Rich, the noted jazz drummer and psychopath – as he went in for his final (unsuccessful) heart operation, he was asked if he was allergic to anything, and replied “Country & Western music”.

Hooptedoodle #40 - The Maxims of Ernie's Dad

Now this really is a silly one. I had another go at trying to hear what Napoleon's last words are in the Christian Clavier film, and I still can't make it out. For a moment I thought how weird it would be if he said "Rosebud", and then I remembered Ernie's dad. The connection is, at best, tenuous - all right - there is no connection - it's just something to do with the humour implicit in trying to find deep philosophical meaning in something which is actually meaningless. Analysts of Beatles' lyrics used to excel in this field.

My old friend Ernie - alas no longer with us - was Welsh, and his dad was a fearsome ex-miner with a devotion to Chapel and to strong drink. When Ernie left home at 16 to become a naval cadet, his father made one of the longest speeches of his life. He said, "Always remember to trust in the Lord, Ernie, and never forget that what you keep in your pocket will strike no sparks".

Ernie promised that he would remember it, and for years afterwards he wondered what on earth it meant. When his dad became old and infirm and went into a nursing home, Ernie went to visit him, and decided to ask him about it. His dad said, "Did I say that? Can't remember anything about it - it makes no sense at all to me", and the subject was never mentioned again. Having fretted about it for years, Ernie was understandably disappointed.

If you were hoping that, in spite of everything, there might be some point to this story, you have my apologies.

History as Farce [3] – And It All Ended in Tears

And I knew it would. The first slightly uncomfortable moment came when the Imperial Headquarters were making themselves at home in Moscow. I was a bit worried about Napoleon riding his horse up the stairs, but the real shock came when someone burst into the room, shouting that Moscow was in flames, and when they drew the curtains back, sure enough, the whole city was an inferno. You'd think they'd have got some inkling of this a little earlier, but never mind - it was a great shot. The way home from Russia, of course, is very harrowing indeed - in fact this worked better than most of the film, since small groups of wretched stragglers looked more appropriate in this context. Then Napoleon is terribly rude to Metternich, who has come to Paris to tell him that it is all very well for him to declare peace, but the Allies would like to insist on a few conditions, and the subsequent unpleasantness of 1813 blends seamlessly into 1814 without any mention of Leipzig or anything significant like that. Next minute Paris surrenders and we're off to Elba. I am personally pleased to note that the surrender is blamed on brother Joseph, not on Marmont, for a refreshing change.

According to Gallo's script (apparently), Napoleon's decision to return to France is primarily triggered by his learning of Josephine's death, which seems a surprisingly oblique piece of whimsy, and when he gets there he is intercepted by the 5eme Ligne, commanded in person by Marshal Ney - an OOB which only ever existed in the screenplay for the Bondarchuk movie - I believe that in reality Ney turned up some days later. Waterloo is pretty much what you'd expect - a brave effort with sparse resources - but there is a strange moment when Grouchy has his classic argument with Gerard about whether their detached force should march towards the sound of battle. I’ve always envisaged this force plugging along muddy roads, but the artistic director prefers to have them arranged scenically around the countryside as though they were already in battle. Also, because of the obvious manpower shortages, battalions are seen marching about very smartly in what looks like about 33:1 figure scale - the units are 6 men wide by about 5 deep. It looks like a wargame played with real men - like giant chess.

There are some interesting bits while Napoleon considers a series of mad schemes to go to America (to become a scientist), to be smuggled through the British blockade in a barrel (which he rejects as inappropriate for the Emperor of the French) or to give himself up to the English and request a nice house near London with a few rose bushes. Of course, it's all baloney, and he ends up in St Helena, trying hard to re-establish some credibility as a nice guy. Hudson-Lowe, the governor, is brilliantly cast - the perfect Wicked Stepfather. As Napoleon's health worsens he has a series of flashbacks about his days at the military academy, where he was told that he would never amount to anything, and - infuriatingly - in his death-bed scene I didn't hear his last words, so will have to watch that bit again.

The scrolling text at the end explains that his ashes were eventually returned to France, where he now rests in Paris, and the splendid shot of Napoleon's tomb brought me a bit of a personal lump in the throat, since this is the exact spot where my grandfather introduced me to Napoleon and his adventures when I was 12 or so - and compromised the rest of my life! There is a family story that, years earlier, my grandfather, who moved to Paris in his early twenties, took his own father to the Invalides and the old man, who had a proverbially blunt turn of phrase, pondered the tomb for a while, and said, "Well, they certainly didn't want the bugger to get out of that again, did they?"

And on that note of appropriate bathos I shall leave Napoleon to the tender mercies of history, but I thought I'd mention a couple of points that came up in my reading this week - in the Campagnes du Capitaine Marcel, and in the autobiographical account of the Peninsular War by Lemonnier-Delafosse, I found two separate references to organisation of voltigeurs at brigade level, which I was pleased about because I have my wargames armies organised in this way, so all supportive evidence is welcome! Marcel was captain in charge of the voltigeur company of the 3rd battalion of the 69e Ligne, in the VI Corps in Spain, and he refers to a major of the 6e Leger who commanded the combined light troops of his brigade in action. Lemonnier-Delafosse was captain of the 4th chasseur company of the 1st battalion of the 31e Leger (who were, as it happens, Piedmontese) who were part of Ferrey's Division at Salamanca, which formed the reserve and covered the retreat of the French army - he describes the combined "battalions" of voltigeurs from each brigade being sent out en tirailleur to skirmish, with excellent effect.

That'll do nicely.

History as Farce [2] - Eylau, Tilsit, Spain...

Never buy a used car from this man, or any of his relatives

Very pleased to get back to the DVD of the French TV mini-series of the pantomime history of the Napoleonic Wars. Last night there were a lot of dealings with the Tsar (seems a nice man, but there's going to be real trouble over Poland, I think), and the Spanish royal family (despicable - Ferdinand VII even speaks with his mouth full, which is a dreadful thing to witness - at least as horrifying as the battle scenes). And then Murat and half a dozen cavalrymen rode through Spain setting fire to thatched cottages - thatched cottages being one of the things Spain is famous for, of course. Tilsit was excellent - much embracing by Napoleon and Alexander on the barge, while the extras of both armies stood on the shore and shouted "Hurrah" on the count of three.

Throughout, the infertility of Josephine and the very apparent fertility of Maria Valewska and a number of other spectacular young ladies kept us all gripped, and Fouché and Talleyrand skulked around and explained the subplots - boo, hiss! About an hour into my session last night, Jean Lannes died, and in his death scene made a very impressive speech about his love for the Emperor, and his fears concerning the long term implications of His Majesty's foreign policy. All authentically quoted from Max Gallo's novel. At this point I was starting to doze off, but I'll be getting back to it to see what happens next.

Napoleon is definitely not a man to trust too much - I'm beginning to have real misgivings about him - but he is certainly more trustworthy than his immediate family, especially that Mme Murat. Very entertaining - I would not recommend it as educational material, but it's excellent fun throughout. The interior sets are really stunning - at one point Talleyrand is summoned to Napoleon's study, which is about the same size as the Parc des Princes, and has to look around to find him. Maybe 25mm scale buildings would not be oversized on the tabletop after all?

More soon.