Tell them England hath taken me

[sovay]

Pimpernel Smith (1941), directed by and starring Leslie Howard in one of his last roles, is an extraordinary film. Patches of it fit oddly, but so much of it is numinous, it qualifies as a propaganda film only if one allows the same of Powell and Pressburger's A Canterbury Tale (1943), with which it might not make a bad double feature. —Then I ran across Matt Staggs' call for smart heroes, with the result that I never finished this paragraph and instead spammed Jeff VanderMeer's blog with Leslie Howard. Read there for the hero as intellectual. But I mean it about the strangeness, the ritual quality of the last scene between Horatio Smith and Reichminister von Graum in film noir shadows and a mask of streetlight:

"We shall make a German empire of the world! . . . Why do I talk to you? You are a dead man."

"May a dead man say a few words to you, for your enlightenment? You will never rule the world, because you are doomed. All of you who have demoralized and corrupted a nation are doomed. Tonight you will take the first step along a dark road from which there is no turning back. You will have to go on and on, from one madness to another, leaving behind you a wilderness of misery and hatred, and still you will have to go on—because you will find no horizon, and see no dawn, until at last you are lost and destroyed. You are doomed, captain of murderers, and one day, sooner or later, you will remember my words."

This is more than an effort by a freedom fighter to distract or unsettle the man who holds him at gunpoint; it goes beyond any stiff upper lip: it is hieratic, potent as an oracle. Smith will disappear in the seconds when von Graum's back is turned, leaving behind him only a ghost of cigarette smoke and a whisper out of the dark: "I'll be back . . . We'll all be back." But this is no comfortable re-enactment of settled history. The film is set in 1939, made in 1940—Britain is under the Blitz, America is not yet even in the war; there are no hindsight assurances. So it must be prophecy (and I hope to God someone has studied all the strata of selves in this film, Howard as Smith as Pimpernel, his war efforts on and off screen, all the ways in which he and his character shift in and out of diagesis), sympathetic magic, summoning. Imago. And Howard's ghost is still speaking out of that dark.

I am going to write to Criterion. I should not have needed interlibrary loan to fetch this film on staticky tape from St. Louis. The same goes for Major Barbara (also 1941), which I watched with my father this afternoon. Gabriel Pascal and George Bernard Shaw seem to have been a charmed combination—as I prefer the 1938 Pygmalion to any other version I know, I may like this film even better than the production I saw and fell in love with at Brandeis in 2000. It's opened out some from the playscript, but not to its detriment; and whether it's the atmosphere of wartime or the particular interaction of personalities, it's weirder, spikier than I remember, starting out a comedy of manners and ending up on the borders of science fiction. Rex Harrison, Wendy Hiller, Robert Morley (and I was personally gladdened by the presence of Robert Newton, whom I discovered a few weeks ago in Jamaica Inn (1939) and who along with Emlyn Williams went promptly into my character-actor pantheon),* a bit part by Stanley Holloway, and cinematography by David Lean that I wanted to hang on my wall. And a library copy that someone had clearly left in the car one hot afternoon, so the sound kept wobbling in and out regardless of characters' voices or background effects; we finally cranked it up to eleven and I corked my ears with Kleenex against the louder passages. This is a little silly. If Armageddon can get a Criterion release (thank you, xterminal, I think), then for the love of language so can Leslie Howard and George Bernard Shaw.

I will talk tomorrow about The Fall (2006), which ericmvan and I saw last night at the Kendall Square Cinema, and which gets storytelling right. In the meantime, I have some letters to write. And photographs to sort. And stories I owe people. And . . .

*In that alternate universe where Powell and Pressburger's A Wizard of Earthsea came out the year I was born, Robert Newton played Heathcliff opposite Merle Oberon. Stop the world, I want to get off and visit a video store.

Comments

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

Now I have to see when Turner Classic Movies will rerun Pimpernel Smith. Even though I love Leslie Howard, I keep putting that movie aside "to see later."

A Canterbury Tale, that I *did* record off TCM; it's lovely.

Armageddon was released by Criterion? *universe ends*

Edited to add: My roommate says the Armageddon release is in keeping with Criterion's current push to release "definitive" editions of cheesy SF movies. He won't consider that the universe has ended until Criterion releases the definitive version of Transformers.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Criterion's current push to release "definitive" editions of cheesy SF movies.

Good grief. I hope they at least have the decency to release a definitive edition of The Ice Pirates. Honest cheesiness that never was meant to be aught but cheesy deserves some respect, I think.

[sovay]

Now I have to see when Turner Classic Movies will rerun Pimpernel Smith. Even though I love Leslie Howard, I keep putting that movie aside "to see later."

Not any time in the near future. Believe me, I've been watching for months.

A Canterbury Tale, that I *did* record off TCM; it's lovely.

It's one of my favorite anythings—movies, books, pieces of music; art. I blame TCM for my Powell and Pressburger craze.

He won't consider that the universe has ended until Criterion releases the definitive version of Transformers.

You're just trying to melt my brain, aren't you?

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

I'll pass on your last comment to my roomie, who will no doubt say something like "My work here is done."

[sovay]

I'll pass on your last comment to my roomie, who will no doubt say something like "My work here is done."

Glad to have been of service . . .