King and Country (1964)

"A proper court is concerned with law. It's a bit amateur to plead for justice..."

King & Country (1964): a lesser known Losey…

The courtroom drama — I have mixed feelings. Not so long ago, there was ITV's Crown Court: shown on something then known as 'daytime television' — popular with those fortunate enough to have no need of work: the retired, the sick, and undergraduates and other layabouts enjoying themselves at the taxpayer's expense. Before you quite rightly protest, I have a distinct recollection of a packed, smoky television room at a certain Hall of Residence servicing University College, London, gripped by the shenanigans of Play School. This was in the week before Finals. And the courtroom drama spawned those dreadful reality spin-offs, the lowest common denominator; debased — if admittedly amusing (if for thirty seconds) — entertainment for a mass audience, with a harsh be-gowned 'judge', a sort of modern-day Judge Jeffreys (aka The Voice of Reason), trying a seemingly endless procession of tattooed dimwits, like extras from Deliverance (1972) — people retarded enough to actually want to voluntarily appear on the programme. This, in turn, spawned the similar ‘studio dispute’ concept: cue American talk show host accent: “Brandi! What you don't know is that while you've been sleeping with Uncle Rick behind Darryl's back, Darryl has been dating his pony, Bonnie!” “Darryl and Bonnie! Come on In!”

‘Dirk: one of our finest film actors…’

The courtroom drama is also a useful device for writers who have run out of plot. Like in How to Murder Your Wife (1965), with Jack Lemmon and Terry-Thomas — an entertaining romp featuring one of the most stylish Manhattan townhouses yet committed to celluloid, let down by the overlong, tiresome and silly courtroom bit at the end. But when a courtroom drama is good, it's good. And there's nothing like a court martial. David Niven in Carrington V. C. (1954) immediately springs to mind, as does Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957) and Conduct Unbecoming (1954), set amongst a cavalry regiment of the British Indian Army and starring Dickie Attenborough, Trevor Howard and the Yorks, Michael and Susannah. We can also add Joseph Losey's King and Country (1964), starring Dirk Bogarde and Tom Courtenay, to this growing list. Like The Romantic Englishwoman (1975) (starring Michael Caine), King and Country is one of Losey's less well-known films, sandwiched, as it comes, between The Servant (1963) and Modesty Blaise (1966). All three films star Dirk, who also took the lead in Accident (1967) — and watching them again reminds me why film critic, Dilys Powell, quite rightly, described Bogarde as one of our finest film actors.

King & Country (1964): The Royal Artillery Memorial

King and Country is set in 1917, at the time of Passchendaele, on the Western Front, in the trenches of the First World War. The simple-minded Private Arthur Hamp (played by Tom Courtenay in a brilliant performance of honest naivety) is caught by the Military Police wandering behind the lines and tried, by court-martial, for desertion. Although it was made only two years before The Blue Max (1966), the two films, although set in the same period, could not be further apart: like chalk and cheese, as if made in a different time and place. King and Country was shot on a low-budget set at Shepperton Studios, in black and white — although being Losey, there's a terrific use of sound, with the relentless rain beating down on corrugated iron. Losey then re-edited the film with almost subliminal flash-backs; historic photographic stills, as seen in books of the time: A. J. P. Taylor's The First World War (1963) and John Masters’ Fourteen Eighteen (1965), and stills of the mean, cobbled streets of Islington.

The film opens with a contemporary sequence of Charles Sargeant Jagger's Royal Artillery Memorial in Hyde Park Corner, drowned in the noise of the London traffic, described by Losey (in 1985) as 'horrendous' and 'sentimental', which personally, I think, completely misses the point of Jagger's superb realist sculpture. That's exactly what it isn't: a memorial also popular with the men who had served at the time.

The Monocled Mutineer (1985)

For as we have discussed in my previous post on Oh! What a Lovely War! (1969), the 1960s reinterpretation of the First World War, 'Lions led by Donkeys', is, I think, very much influenced by the social upheavals of the 1960s, the breakdown of class barriers and the Vietnam conflict. And King and Country (1964), is, of course, very much a product of its time: from its Victorian fairground graphics to its photographic still of the helmeted Kaiser.

It is estimated that 306 British and Commonwealth soldiers were executed following court-martials for desertion and other capital offences during the First World War. The usual procedure, on the other hand, was to commute a death sentence. Some 3,000 soldiers were sentenced to death, but more than 90% of these sentences were later changed to other punishments. Remember, though, that this was a different time, with different values. For as late as 1923, the British Army maintained Field Punishment Number One (considered a relatively humane replacement for flogging). A man might be shackled to a gunwheel or fence for up to two hours a day and left in the driving rain, over a period which could last for up to ninety days. The punishment was often applied with the arms outstretched, hence the nickname 'crucifixion'. All this was revisited in Alan Bleasdale's The Monocled Mutineer (1985), an excellent period drama series from the BBC, which caused a political stir at the time, which we may well return to at a later time — but, I think, a work we need to add to the Blackadder/Donkeys interpretation of the First World War, now effectively dismissed by a plethora of distinguished military historians.

‘Private Hamp: honest naivety…’

King and Country, however, despite its obvious 1960s anti-war, anti-patriotic stance, is actually far more complex and subtle. Hardly black and white — apart from its sepia tint, which Losey deliberately used to emulate the photography of the Great War. The men, for all their banter and bonhomie, are portrayed as cruel, drunken bullies. Dirk, as the defending officer, Captain Hargreaves, is a masterclass in professional detachment, doing his 'duty' to defend Private Hamp to his eloquent ability: a man Hargreaves privately considers a worthless idiot and probably deserves what he gets. For the junior officers are both competent and humane, yet trapped in circumstances beyond their control; like it or not, in a nightmarish scenario with no alternatives. But, by the end of the film, Hargreaves has a sudden and dramatic conversion. If Hamp dies, then in a sense, he dies himself.

I watched Joseph Losey’s King and Country (1964) via a social media channel, which is perfectly watchable on a laptop, although it is, of course, also available on a relatively affordable DVD.

Today’s post is Film No. 111. There are two options on Luke Honey’s WEEKEND FLICKS. Cinema for Grown Ups: ‘Paid-for’ subscribers get an extra exclusive film recommendation every Friday morning, plus full access to the complete archive.

It costs £5 a month (or £50 a year) — a bargain, frankly, when you compare it to a few cups of coffee, a packet of semi-legal gaspers, or a pint of beer in the pub. ‘Free’ subscribers get access to the Sunday newsletter, plus the ‘free subscriber’ films in the archive. Either option is a good bet. And when I get my act together, I’m planning to add a spoken voiceover (mine!) for paid subscribers.

I’ll be back on Friday. We’ll be travelling back in time to the London of the mid 1970s. Nothing like a spot of armed robbery. When the villains drove getaway Jags, the toffs mingled with the criminal classes and mews-dwelling RADA educated actresses spoke proper.