England Made Me (film)

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England Made Me
"England Made Me" (1973).jpg
Original British quad poster
Directed by Peter Duffell
Written by Desmond Cory
Peter Duffell
Based onthe novel by Graham Greene
Produced by Jack Levin
Starring Peter Finch
Michael York
Hildegarde Neil
CinematographyRay Parslow
Edited byMalcolm Cooke
Music by John Scott
Production
companies
Atlantic Productions
Centralni Filmski Studio
Two World Film
Distributed by Hemdale Film Distribution (UK)
Release date
  • 18 November 1973 (1973-11-18)
Running time
102 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

England Made Me is a 1973 British drama film directed by Peter Duffell, starring Peter Finch, Michael York, Hildegarde Neil, and Michael Hordern, and based on the 1935 novel England Made Me by Graham Greene. [1] [2] The film changes the novel's setting from Sweden to Nazi Germany. Duffell explained that he changed the location due to his lack of knowledge of Sweden in the 1930s, the use of imagery the audience would recognise and the growing menace in Europe of the time. [3]

Contents

Plot

Anthony Farrant is a naive 1930s businessman who pays a visit to Germany on the way home from a business trip, and falls under the politically dubious spell of charismatic financier Erich Krogh. While Anthony was taught to value fairness and decency, in Erich's world opportunism, corruption, and decadence hold sway.

Main cast

Production

Development

The novel was one of Graham Greene's favourites among his own works: "I have a particularly soft spot for England Made Me". [4] He retained the film rights for over 30 years, hoping (according to some sources) to adapt it himself. [5] [6] Critic Philip Strick suggests that Greene, fully aware of the liberties moviemakers could take with source novels, [a] was reluctant in this case because of the book's personal nature. [6]

American producer Jack Levin approached Peter Duffell to direct in 1971, after Lars-Magnus Lindgren and Alan Schneider had proved unavailable. [8] The screenplay to be used, by Wolf Mankowitz, retained the Swedish setting but moved the action to the present day: Duffell recalled "lots of pot smoking and copulation. I really didn't reckon it at all". [8]

The script ultimately used, by Duffell and Desmond Cory, stayed in the 1930s but moved the plot from Sweden to Germany; it also removed the detail that Tony and Kate are twins. [9] Duffell admitted that "One of the key things in the novel is that it is about siblings. Yet one had seen so many disastrous attempts to do twins on the screen." [10] [b]

Pre-Production

Duffell's first choice to play Krogh was Joss Ackland (who ended up in the subsidiary role of Haller). [11] The film-makers needed a box-office draw in order to get financial backing, however, and approached Peter Finch for the part. Finch, who had appeared in an earlier Greene adaptation, The Heart of the Matter (1953), admired the novelist and accepted. [12] Even after Finch's involvement had made it financially viable, the film's budget was less than one million dollars. [13] [14]

Michael York rejected the offer to play Tony, as he had just played an Englishman in 1930s Germany in Cabaret ("it would have been just a repeat performance"), then felt he'd made "a stupid, superficial judgment" and called the producers back to accept. [11] [15] Duffell considered Susannah York for the part of Kate, but she was committed to filming Images for Robert Altman. Also unavailable was Denholm Elliott, his first choice for Minty, ultimately played by Michael Hordern. [3]

Filming

Shooting took place in Belgrade and other parts of Yugoslavia. [5] [16] [17] York as Tony makes his first appearance, embarking from a steamship, in Rijeka harbour; [14] the scene where he and Kate reunite at a French seaside resort was filmed in Opatija; [17] [18] the lakeside villa where Krogh throws a party for Nazi dignitaries was actually on the shores of Lake Bled and had been used as a residence by Josip Broz Tito. [10] [19]

Greene had based the character of Swedish financier Erik Krogh on Ivar Kreuger: [20] [9] [21] reimagined as a German, "Erich Krogh" became a "Krupp-type munitions tycoon", and during filming Finch studied William Manchester's history of the Krupp dynasty for an understanding of the story's background. [12] [22]

Critical reception

Derek Malcolm in The Guardian called the film "a careful, intelligent and very viewable film with a lot of atmosphere... If it looks like "Cabaret" without music, it is probably because Isherwood's Berlin stories had a similar sense of decay and gay despair". He commended all the main players and summed up, "it's certainly one of the most watchable British efforts on the market just now and by some way the weightiest offering of the week". [23] [c]

David Robinson, in The Times , was unsure that relocating the action to 1930s Berlin was wise – "the familiar symbols (not even excluding the obligatory cabaret and decadent party scene) remove any of the ambivalence of the novel's original atmosphere" – but singled out for praise the production values and the acting, especially Hordern's supporting performance as Minty, "flapping around in a greasy mac, and peering through a fog of smoke as he indecently mouths his worn-out fag-ends". [5]

Patrick Gibbs wrote a positive review for The Daily Telegraph , calling the film "a very polished little piece". He felt that the change of setting from Sweden to Germany was warranted by Greene's own comment, in a reissue of the novel, that the period had been overshadowed by "the rise of Hitler". Gibbs also felt that it altered the story in interesting ways: Krogh is "made considerably more sympathetic by his frauds now being worked not on investors, but on the Nazi government". [17]

In another positive review, for The Sunday Times , Derek Prouse likewise thought the transposing of the action "valid": "the locations and set dressing are a potent asset in the creation of an atmosphere of quiet menace". [24]

George Melly, reviewing for The Observer , also felt that the change in location was effective, but had reservations: "That street of Jewish shops, with its broken windows and the Star of David daubed on the walls, is fast becoming as much a cinematic cliché as the Western street, with its saloon bar, bank and Sheriff's office." Nonetheless he praised York's performance as the protagonist, even though the actor's casting evoked memories of the recent Cabaret, and concluded: "This is a worthwhile film, broadly faithful in spirit to Greene's intentions and well acted down to the smallest supporting part." [25]

The New York Times wrote of the film, "England Made Me might have worked, were Mr. Duffell and Mr. Cory less superficial movie makers. They've retained a surprising amount of the Greene plot, even a lot of original dialogue, but the story is no longer comic and rueful, just wildly melodramatic." [20]

Pauline Kael in The New Yorker thought it a lightweight adaptation of an apprentice work by Greene, but entertaining nonetheless. She found the film's nostalgic recreation of 1930s Germany paradoxically enjoyable: "You're not quite sure if it's all right to feel this way, but at times you may find yourself thinking, I'd love to be there." As well as praising the three main players, Kael wrote, "Michael Hordern gives such a marvellously flamboyant seedy performance as Minty that one wants to applaud him." [16]

Les Keyser wrote a lengthy and positive review for Literature/Film Quarterly. Whereas critics such as Rex Reed had slated Finch's performance as somnolent ("as though it were dawn and his alarm clock didn't go off"), Keyser thought it powerfully restrained: "Krogh in the film is a monomaniac, totally dehumanized by his work, and Finch's studied iciness seems perfect for the role." Keyser also praised the production values and Michael Hordern, whom he called "one of the finest character actors working in film today". [9]

Leslie Halliwell called the film a "lively, intelligent character melodrama", highlighting Duffell's direction and Finch and Hordern's performances. [26]

Greene himself attended a preview of the film in Wardour Street and wrote Duffell a note saying, "Pleased enough". [11] Although he thought it "a good little film... I liked Duffell's direction and a lot of the acting", he had reservations about the liberties taken with his novel:

Altering the scene to Nazi Germany... in a way altered the whole balance of the piece. It was based on the Match King in Sweden who was a crook. But a man who is trying to get his money illegally out of a Nazi Germany is a kind of hero, as it were. And that affects the whole picture. Krogh becomes a good character instead of the bad character he was in the book. [27]

Nonetheless, he later told The Guardian that it was one of the few screen adaptations of his books that he approved of, and had wanted Duffell, whom he called "a friend of mine", to write and direct The Honorary Consul . [28]

Film 4 called it "an underrated adaptation of Graham Greene's novel ... Although it received little attention when first released, this fascinating character study is ripe for reappraisal now, with the relationship between the two men making for quietly gripping viewing." [29]

Accolades

Tony Woollard's art direction was nominated for a British BAFTA Award. [30] [31]

Notes

  1. ↑ Greene had been particularly vocal in his contempt for the Hollywood adaptations of The Power and the Glory and The Quiet American . [7]
  2. ↑ Critic Les Keyser felt this detail reflected the obsession in Greene's early fiction with the "idea of the double, the doppelganger, the divided mind". [9]
  3. ↑ Other pictures released in Britain the same week included Godspell and Billy Wilder's Avanti! . [23] [24]

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References

  1. ↑ "England Made Me". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 26 August 2024.
  2. ↑ "BFI Database entry". BFI. Archived from the original on 14 January 2009.
  3. 1 2 Sinyard, Neil (2003). Graham Greene: A Literary Life . Houndmills; New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 155. ISBN   0-333-72986-2.
  4. ↑ Shuttleworth & Raven 1973, p. 160.
  5. 1 2 3 Robinson, David (1 June 1973). "The Greene touch in a compelling anecdote". The Times . No. 58797. p. 12.
  6. 1 2 Falk 2014, pp. 116–117.
  7. ↑ Greene 1995, p. 443.
  8. 1 2 Falk 2014, pp. 117–118.
  9. 1 2 3 4 (registration required)Keyser, Les (1974). "England Made Me". Literature/Film Quarterly. 2 (4): 363–372. JSTOR   43792844 . Retrieved 4 December 2024.
  10. 1 2 Falk 2014, p. 119.
  11. 1 2 3 Falk 2014, p. 121.
  12. 1 2 Faulkner, Trader (1980). Peter Finch: A Biography . London; Sydney: Pan. pp. 295–297. ISBN   0-330-26120-7.
  13. ↑ Falk 2014, pp. 119, 121.
  14. 1 2 York 1991, p. 246.
  15. ↑ York 1991, pp. 242–243.
  16. 1 2 Kael, Pauline (1992) [1st pub. Little, Brown 1977]. "Bloodless and Bloody". Reeling: Film Writings 1972-1975 . London; New York: Marion Boyars. pp. 203–205. ISBN   0-7145-2582-0.
  17. 1 2 3 Gibbs, Patrick (1 June 1973). "Back to pre-war Greene-land". The Daily Telegraph . No. 36712. p. 15.
  18. ↑ Falk 2014, p. 118.
  19. ↑ York 1991, p. 244.
  20. 1 2 Canby, Vincent (19 November 1973). "Film: 'England Made Me'" . The New York Times . p. 53. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  21. ↑ Sherry, Norman (1990). The Life of Graham Greene, Volume One: 1904-1939 . London: Penguin Books. pp. 484, 491. ISBN   0-14-013123-X.
  22. ↑ Dundy, Elaine (1980). Finch, Bloody Finch: A Life of Peter Finch . New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. p. 315. ISBN   0-03-041796-1.
  23. 1 2 Malcolm, Derek (1 June 1973). "The Wilder shores of love". The Guardian . p. 10.
  24. 1 2 Prouse, Derek (3 June 1973). "All the way with Wilder". The Sunday Times . No. 7825. p. 36.
  25. ↑ Melly, George (3 June 1973). "All change for Nazi Germany". The Observer . p. 35.
  26. ↑ Halliwell, Leslie (1993). Walker, John (ed.). Halliwell's Film Guide (9th ed.). London: HarperCollins. p. 374. ISBN   0-00-255349-X.
  27. ↑ Falk 2014, p. 120.
  28. ↑ Cunningham, John (19 December 1983). "Plain thoughts of an Englishman abroad". The Guardian . p. 11.
  29. ↑ "Film4 | Channel 4". www.channel4.com. Retrieved 18 February 2024.
  30. ↑ Mark Deming (2014). "England-Made-Me – Trailer – Cast – Showtimes – NYTimes.com". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times . Archived from the original on 4 November 2014.
  31. ↑ "BAFTA | Film / Art Direction | Through the Years". bafta.org. Retrieved 9 December 2024.

Bibliography

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