The non-conformist… Bartleby (1970)

I confess that I was in the mood for a more ebullient film and confused this with Alan Bates’ Butley (1974) but once you start watching John McEnery’s turn as the almost impenetrable Bartleby it’s hard to look away. This film is as emotionally intelligent as they come and provides a puzzle for the audience and performers alike with a character who behaves in ways that are often painful to watch and which speak to our insecurities and the instinctive need to not only respond in kind to others’ prompting but to conform in most of what we do. Society expects and there’s a good adaptive instinct behind that but to every rule there must be an exception and, perhaps the main character is one of those accidents of nature that leads nowhere or somewhere depending on your point of view.

The film is an adaptation of the short story Bartleby, the Scrivener; A Story of Wall-street (1853) written by Herman Melville apparently in reaction to the disappointing sales of Moby Dick and Pierre, his preceding novel. As such it’s source story of possibly about depression and alienation, but updated and relocated to London, by director Anthony Friedman who co-scripted with Rodney Carr-Smith, its meaning is less hard to pin down. The main character is withdrawn and, in being so, pulls in his employer, an accountant played by the masterly Paul Scofield whose commercial concerns are replaced by an enigmatic concern for the other’s well-being even as he exasperates and frustrates him.

John McEnery

The film also provides something of a city symphony with extensive locations showing the London of 1970 and there is much fun to be had in spotting streets and buildings that are familiar and yet long changed, this is an aftertaste of a city we all take for granted and yet which never gives us pause for breath. Bartleby is first seen on a train heading into Euston where he puts his luggage into a locker and after a tube journey – Northern Line? - emerges into the bright London light and immediately looks out of place in the concrete jungle as commuters mill around the temporary walkways around London Bridge.

Bartleby is looking for work and we see flashbacks of his previous position in a Post Office sorting office as he trudges the streets, a look of vague dissatisfaction and wariness indicating a troubled past and a troubling present. McEnery manages to convey everything and almost nothing and whilst depression may have been on the script there’s a ringing familiarity with Asperger’s and autism speaking as a member of an autistic family. Diagnoses were rarer in 1970 but today we’re seeing what was 1% of the population on the spectrum steadily growing through better diagnosis – it’s a cliché but neurotypicality is a broad spectrum in itself as is the atypical ASD person; it’s not a monolithic condition and every single person has supposedly contraindicating “spikes”.

McEnery’s Bartleby presents in similar ways one of which is that he always tells the truth no matter how inconvenient that is; he doesn’t mean to be difficult, he is just saying how he feels at that particular point. What he faces is a monumental absence of sympathy and even the concern of his fellow workers doesn’t go anywhere deep enough to make a connection.

The Office (1970)

Bartleby passes the test to get a job as a clerk at the accountancy firm run by Scofield’s accountant and, despite his odd refusal to discuss anything other than what he has written on his application, he clearly knows how to keep books and, naturally, we all assume this will be the beginning of his “fitting in”. Everyone masks their true feelings in the workplace to some extent, I’ve passed psychometric tests I shouldn’t have and we all know what behaviours are expected (unless you work for GB News…). The anticipation of our hero doing the same is quickly vanished by his polite refusal to fit in with his co-workers, Tucker (Colin Jeavons), Dickinson (Tony Parkin), Miss Borwn the secretary (Rosalind Elliot), office lad (the mighty Robin Askwith) and even the tea lady, Hilda (Hope Jackman) who try but are politely rebuffed.

Then Bartleby startles the head accountant by refusing to do a task - I don't feel I can. Just at the moment - this sets the older man back and he tries again, still patiently asking what he means only to be told that his clerk would prefer not to explain. The next morning Bartleby offers the same explanation and the mantra of I prefer not to becomes more frequent even as he continues with some tasks and not others.

In between these moments of escalating conflict, the young man wanders the city, looking on in fascination at the old Starling murmuration in Leicester Square and emblem of a tight knit “society” all the birds flying in close formation, never colliding and swooping down on the insects that are their reward for joint enterprise…

John and Paul

The Accountant’s friend, played by Thorley Walters, asks him why he doesn’t just sack Bartleby but he is determined to try and help the man. He tries all reasoning and, even when he discovers that Bartleby is sleeping in the office overnight, can’t bring himself to refuse him another chance. The Accountant becomes the focus as the narrative darkens and we are all Paul Scofield as his movable force meets this irresistible object.

Dusty Verdict: It’s a truly fascinating contest with both Scofield and McEnery leaving everything on the pitch and leaving the viewer with plenty of take-aways. What the film lacks in action it makes for with questions and the locations only serve to remind us that this is the capital we still walk and that, by and large, we still must walk the same talk.

Why would someone take the hard way out? Perhaps there are some like Bartleby who simply have to. It’s not a preference but something, perhaps the only thing, they cannot say no to.

  

 

Chiswell Street between the Barbican and Moorgate

 

Grimsby Street off Brick Lane

Hungerford Bridge heading north

Piccadilly - definitely Let it be...

This and above St Alphage Highwalk near Moorgate

Rupert Street heading south from Soho

 

 

 

Hey, rock 'n roll… Three for All (1975)

 

Pop moved so fast in the 1970s, it was blink and you missed it for top trends and so many became so much Disc and Music Echo chip paper once the consensus had moved on. From T-rex, Slade and Sweet to tailenders like the Rollers in a little over 2-3 years, Glam Rock was a sparkling flash in the pop-pan but it is long overdue a more widespread re-evaluation as one of the great British musical movements. People like Jon Robb have argued that it was nothing less than the precursor of punk, a bridge between post-Beatles depression, blues and progressive rock to punk, some of the main players having already been in rootsy rock formations.

 

Cinematically the moment was pretty much missed, with even Slade in Flame (1975), coming just after the parade had passed and perhaps the less said about Never to Young (1975) the better although it features some good Mud action and the Glitter Band (without you-know-who). The same could also be said of Three for All which is a slightly jarring cultural relic, still full of energy and harder-edged Glam from Billy Beethoven (oh yes) led by future Rainbow front man Graham Bonnet who also wrote the songs. It’s a mix of Y viva Espana, the huge trend of Spanish holiday making, and the Billy B’s attempts to make it as a Cowboys and Indian glam rock band which would have been released just after the mascara and glitter had been replaced by tartan. Pop in general had just run out of steam by 1975, waiting for something, anything to happen… cue 1976, The Ramones, Sex Pistols and punk’s first single, New Rose by The Damned with dozens of bands punching through without the major record company marketing seen in this film.

Boys in the band: Robert, Graham, Paul and Christopher

 

Three for All has an anarchy of its own though and is produced by the team that brought us Eskimo Nell, with writer Michael Armstrong (who also cameos) and director Martin Campbell marshalling the chaos for this free-running farce which features a dozen high-profile cameos as well as a strong central cast. Campbell has had a highly successful career but it’s a long way from Torremolinos to the Planet Oa, home of the Green Lantern Corps but he’s made the journey having directed the early DC film after many hits on big and small screen, particularly with the ground-breaking Edge of Darkness, simply one of the finest television series of the Eighties and beyond.

 

Here the brief is simpler as we encounter three young women who are wandering through London traffic as the credits roll, on their way home to greet their boyfriends and to plan their holidays. There’s the vivacious Diane (Adrienne Posta), impulsive and ambitious with ideas slightly beyond her grasp, Pet (Cheryl Hall) more down to earth but still given to flights of fancy and Shelley (Lesley North), the quiet and possibly the most reliable one.

 

Their beaus form the majority of Billy Beethoven, Pet’s Tom (Robert Lindsay, who was married to Hall) is the drummer, Shelley’s Gary (Paul Nicholas) is on backing vocals and bass, whilst Diane’s Kook (Graham Bonnet, also dating his cinematic girlfriend at the time) is the vocalist. The odd man out is Ricky the guitarist (Christopher Neil) but three’s company, four’s a crowd. The band are managed by the long-sufferable "Jet" Bone (Richard Beckinsale) who has singularly failed to get the boys to the next level and they’re just about out of goodwill.

 

Hey Rock 'n Roll! Showaddywaddy

We do get to see them supporting Showaddywaddy, glam second-wavers who still look and sound a lot of fun performing The Party off their debut. The Billys(?) badly need an image as strong as the lads from Leicester and they also need a break which, as luck would have it, is just arriving as Jet has entered them into a competition run by marketer, Eddie Boyes (played with relentless energy by George Baker) who, with his assistant Harry (Simon Williams keeping some order), contact Jet to make their offer for the winners: an all expenses tour of Spain to promote it as a holiday destination – as if that was necessary in the golden era of the package tour. The only stipulations being that they dress up as glitter cowboys and Indian and leave their girls behind.

 

The girls are distraught and tearfully wave off their lads at the airport along with Ricky’s mum, played with effortless sauce and consequence by national treasure Diana Dors who fair makes Eddie’s eyes boggle as she sorts her hair, revealing just how well she fills the band’s t-shirt.

 

Back home the girls, led by Diane, decide to take matters into their own hands and book tickets to follow the lads to Spain. Kicking work into touch they set off on a coach where Diane meets an odd psychiatrist Dr Sparks (Jonathan Adams  ) who has written some very odd books and they first experience the lovably English of Ben and Rhoda (Arthur Mullard and Sheila Bernette). At the airport there’s a smashing short cameo from Hattie Jacques as a security officer along with Liz Fraser and David Kossoff as a mysterious couple… You wonder if Campbell and Armstrong just asked everyone to improvise?

 

The eternal Richard Beckinsale and George Baker

Arriving at their hotel in sunny Spain, “Torre” already lined up like a thin city of tower blocks against the Mediterranean, they catch the eye of an older gentlemen, Mr Gibbons (the genius, John Le Mesurier) viewing them with apparent suspicion. He demurs in the way that only John Le Mesurier can demure… such a class act.

 

OK, needless to say all does not go to plan – is there a plan? – as the band starts generating success on their relentless gigs across Spain and the girls just can’t keep out of mischief even when it’s not of their own making… Shelley has her purse stolen and is chased by a mob through the streets to be intercepted by a Spanish Policeman called Carlo (Ian Lavender) with Diane’s dodgy Spanglish making matters far worse until Uncle Arthur, Mr Gibbons stages the first of many interventions.

 

It's a riot of seventies silliness but the actors play their hearts out and there’s plenty of time for more high-impact cameos from Roy Kinnear as Hounslow Joe, Dandy Nichols, Anna Quayle and even Edward Woodward as an unlikely Road sweeper… maybe he was under-cover from another film?

 

Uncle Arthur... sorry, John Le Mesurier

Dusty Verdict: I can’t help myself with these films, there’s so much context and connection with the period and directors, writers and performers on professional journeys stopping off for this moment of commercial opportunity. I was thirteen when the film came out so maybe it’s on the cusp between my appreciation of glam-rock and the charts too? By this stage I was getting into Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, far more serious than The Slade and Sweet… maybe I was the one moving too fast?

 

It also memorialises the Spanish holiday experience for the millions of Brits who hit the sunny sands in the seventies. I didn’t make it down there until the late 80s and by then there were plenty of pubs offering traditional fare like fish and chips and bangers and mash, with plenty of Hounslow Joes watching Eastenders on satellite TV too. A hotter home from home.

 

Looking at the dodgy copy on YouTube and other streaming sources, Three for All is an enjoyable time capsule, it’s not available on official DVD – there’s a two-fer with That’s Your Funeral on Amazon for £73! – but I’m pretty sure there’s enough of us out there to support a proper digital transfer.

 

You can also buy the original soundtrack LP on Discogs for a song… Graham Bonnet’s compositions may pull in a few Rainbow fans. Probably the worst cover of any album ever but it's fun!!