Possibly the best anti-Communist film made

Well, all right, I am not going to argue that line against anyone who comes up with a better one but The Manchurian Candidate (the 196 version with Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey and the wonderful Angela Lansbury) has to be at the very least one of the best. I am not going to talk about the plot at all. Those who have seen it will remember enough not to want to read about it and would probably prefer to see it again and those who have not seen it have a great treat ahead of them. You might never want to play solitaire again.

There are various trailers and I have chosen the one I think is the best. I don't think it gives anything away and it is a good way to restart that series of postings:

We got the red blues

It has been brought to my attention that it is rather a long time since I posted any anti-Communists films. There are many others to come but in the meantime who can resist this from Silk Stockings:

A good scene from a not so good film

It occurs to me that I have not had anything in my series of anti-Communist films for a little while. This one may be cheating a little not because the theme is not anti-Communist but because the film manged to get rid of that theme. You would not think that was possible with something like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy but they did it.

Both the book and the TV series (as well as a more recent radio series, I believe) dealt with the theme of Communist perfidy and treason in a reasonably straightforward fashion though the plot is anything but straightforward. Of all John le Carré's books this is morally the clearest and considerably better than the rest of the lamentable "Karla trilogy". On our side rough men might do bad things so that the rest of us sleep soundly but our side is infinitely preferable to theirs and traitors are contemptible.

Somehow, this message gets lost in the film, which seems to excise the Cold War from its plot and concentrates on personal matters, ignoring the different characters of the "three of them and Alleline" (a phrase that is never mentioned), making a huge mountain of the very slight homosexual theme in the book and changing the characters and stories of both Peter Gwillym and Jim Prideaux to an extraordinary degree without adding anything to the plot.

No, I did not like it, despite Gary Oldman's brilliant performance of Alec Guinness at the centre. The film was a huge wasted opportunity and at some later stage in this series we shall have to have a look at the now classic TV series.

There is, however, one magnificent scene in it: the Christmas party at the Circus, slightly spoilt by what somebody I know called a knee-trembler at the end but that does kind of fit in with the plot, Still, the rest of it is enjoyable.



    

A serious anti-Communist film

Before I turn my attention to other matters, here is another and much more serious anti-Communist film, probably the best film about East Germany, the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the system. I am, of course, talking about Das Leben Der Anderen (The Lives of Others), directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, which unexpectedly won the Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film in 2007.

This was unexpected for two reasons: the film was really very good in every way and it was anti-Communist, not an ideological position Hollywood takes these days. As I wrote at the time:

It was noted that Cate Blanchett seemed utterly stunned when she handed over the prize. This was …. Sshhh …. Whisper who dares …. An anti-Communist film.

Sadly, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has not lived up to expectations since then, having made one rather feeble film but been feted all over the world and described as highly influential for reasons that escape me. Don't you have to have a sizeable body of work before you can be called influential? Someone like Alfred Hitchcock for instance? Or produce at least one film like Citizen Kane that has had an enormous impact on other directors?

Be that as it may, The Lives of Others is an excellent film and tells a very good story of the committed Stasi officer who begins to have doubts, of the mildly but ever more strongly dissident writers and journalists, of the political and moral corruption of the East German society and other matters.

Two points are worth noting. One is that there is no particular indication in the film that either the playwright under observation, Georg Dreyman or his partner, the actress Christa-Maria Sieland are particularly brilliant artists. In fact, that one scene from Dreyman's play, performed first in a sub-Brechtian and then in a post-modernist style, indicates something less than Shakespearian talent. But that is irrelevant. Freedom is for all or should be, not just for the brilliant ones.

The second point is rather ironic and does not seem to have been picked up by reviewers or commentators. At various points Hauptman Gerd Wiesler, the hero or anti-hero of the film, decides to intervene to help the couple under his surveillance. Each intervention ends disastrously for the couple though neither Wiesler nor anyone else in the film realizes that.

Incidentally, Ulrich Mühe, who died far too young soon after the film's release and the Oscar, had been an ant-Communist activist in East Germany and had been under surveillance. He had found out that his then wife, the actress Jenny Gröllmann, a Stasi informant, as it turned out, reported on him. She denied it and there was a certain amount of feeling in Germany at the time that he ought not to  have written or spoken about it. So far as I know the truth of it all remains murky.

Back to the film. It is hard to know what to put up as there are no amusing scenes or dance routines. So I thought I would show the beginning and the end. The film starts with Wiesler interrogating a prisoner who is accused of aiding and abetting his neighbour's escape to the West. A recording of the interrogation is also used in a lecture to Stasi recruits, at least one of whom shows regrettable bourgeois tendencies of mercy and is marked as unreliable.



The ending of the film is rather different and quite moving. Georg Dreyman who had no idea that he was under surveillance finds it out from a former East German Minister. He goes away to read his files (a huge pile of them, which elicits admiration from the archivist) and realizes that certain things did not happen the way he had always believed.



A film that is very well worth seeing.

Another anti-Communist film

Well, yes, I had intended to write various pieces in this week about Greece, Sweden and Russia as well as the bizarre choice of Briton of the Year by the once august newspaper now an absolute rag, the Times. But, somehow, time has gone by and I decided to end the year with a few episodes from one of the greatest of all anti-Communist films, Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three.

First off, here is the best torture scene ever. The young man who admits to being "ein amerikanische spion" has actually been set up by the CEO of Coca Cola in West Berlin, played brilliantly by James Cagney, for various well-founded reasons, which he then regrets. But the scene with the Stasi and the subsequent appearance of the three Soviet commissars is well worth seeing.



I don't think this film is particularly well known so it is worth putting up several excerpts if only to encourage readers to seek it out. (At least one reader knows it already.)

So here is the beginning, one of the fastest moving, funniest, most brilliant beginnings to a film anyone can imagine.



Let us have one more scene. East German entertainment gets livened up as Cagney tries to trade with the Soviet commissars. And yes, the German guy's name is Piffle. Wouldn't you know it, as Cagney says on first meeting him.



Enough, already. Go and find the film.

What else can I add to the last posting of 2014? Oh yes. That Times Briton of the year, a somewhat shifty politician who has achieved nothing. The Times seems to have a very low opinion of the British people. I do not share it and I, as well as many others, resent the assumption behind that choice.

On that note, let me wish all my readers a very happy and prosperous New Year. See you next year.

Bah humbug!

It has become something of a Christmas tradition for me to grouse about Christmas classics like The Christmas Carol or It's a Wonderful Life. Well, this year I am striking out in a new direction. No Christmas fare on this blog, thank you very much. Instead, I am starting a series of excerpts from anti-Communist films. (All suggestions gratefully accepted.)

To start with, a nice easy one (believe me, they are not all like this): Peter Lorre, Jules Munshin and Joseph Buloff as the hapless commissars in Silk Stockings singing about their probable fate:


Merry Christmas!