Britain's Mars

Well, that wasn't so bad. I was all set to hate "Empress of Mars", the new episode of Doctor Who, written by Mark Gatiss, whose scripts are usually thoroughly lousy. Maybe he worked hard after his episode last season, "Sleep No More", was a new low even for him. Maybe "Lie of the Land" was so bad that even a Mark Gatiss episode looks good by comparison. Or maybe Mark Gatiss was just born to write Ice Warrior stories as it was "Cold War", the other Mark Gatiss episode I didn't hate, which last featured an Ice Warrior. Mind you, there's still plenty about "Empress of Mars" that doesn't make sense.

Spoilers after the screenshot

If there was any doubt that the writing staff this season were focusing on issues of race and colonial hubris it's certainly gone now. I like the fact that it wasn't a matter of simply making all the British colonisers bad and the Ice Warriors good or vice versa. Though Catchlove (Ferdinand Kingsley) was a pretty lame villain, his motivations generally seemed to be just to do the wrong thing regardless of whether or not it made sense even for a villain. What possible reason was there to keep the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) from examining the sarcophagus? The psychic paper really let the Doctor down this time.

The movie references in the episode were funny. I enjoyed the reference to The Vikings--that is a good movie, by the way--and it was kind of funny seeing it turned about on Bill (Pearl Mackie) when she didn't recognise a reference to Robinson Crusoe. Sadly, I didn't think that was far-fetched. Having just recently read Michel Tournier's Friday for a class, a post-modern revisionist take on Daniel Defoe's original 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe, I can say a fair number of college aged students have never heard of the story.

The absurdity of turning an Ice Warrior into a domestic servant--is it a story point that doesn't make sense or is it a credibly senseless act of arrogant colonialism? Well, I guess the episode won me over because I want to say the latter. Still, I couldn't help thinking, "It's the old Ice Warrior in a china shop, isn't it?"

I loved the appearance of Alpha Centauri at the end. I think the idea must have been to bridge the cultural differences of the Ice Warriors in the Second Doctor stories with the more reasonable ones we met in the Third Doctor era. The tense political situation in the episode was even a bit reminiscent of the Peladon stories.

By far my favourite part of the episode, though, was the stuff with Missy (Michelle Gomez) at the end. I so, so want to see these two make out.

The Persistent Wall

One of the most difficult things for a privileged white person to understand is how thoroughly and in how many ways a lack of privilege affects the life of a black person in the United States. Joseph Mankiewicz's 1950 film No Way Out is an admirable endeavour to provide illumination, particularly for the year it was made. With an excellent cast, headed by Sidney Poitier in his first film role, the movie uses the film noir mode to demonstrate racism as an existential trap.

Exhausted after a day at work, Dr. Luther Brooks (Poitier) gets into bed with his wife, Cora (Mildred Joanne Smith), who affectionately muses on her husband's extraordinarily difficult journey to becoming a doctor. "'A' was your passing mark," she recalls of his experience in medical school. "Not for the others, just for you." As the film had already made clear by this point, Luther was obliged to work twice as hard as his white colleagues just to be considered adequate. Poitier was only 22 at the time but shows he was already capable of a fine performance, his Luther Brooks barely able to contain his rage at the racist rantings of a patient, a thief brought in by the cops along with his brother, both suffering from gunshot wounds.

It's easy to see that Luther's rage isn't simply in response to the irrational hatred from a man he's expected to treat but because he knows that, in this world, the word of a raving thief can tarnish the reputation of a doctor if that thief happens to be white and the doctor happens to be black.

Richard Widmark plays Ray Biddle, the thief, succeeding in making the character thoroughly repulsive. 1950 was a great year for Widmark--he starred that year in two other great films noir, Night and the City and Panic in the Streets, and his role in each film was totally different. Ray Biddle to some extent recalls Widmark's star making role as the villain Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death. But while Udo was pure, psychotic sadism, Ray is possessed of a feverish self-pity from which his pathological hatred is born. Living poor in a bad part of town all his life, like many real life racists, Ray has piled all the blame for his woes on black people.

The film takes time to explore the less obvious, systemic forms of racism, though. We see that Luther would have had no chance getting a job at the hospital if not for the strong endorsement of a respected white doctor (Stephen McNally) who has a scene with a hospital administrator where the two discuss the political benefits of having black employees--and the necessity of taking politics into consideration, further emphasising that Luther can't risk making a single mistake. When Ray's brother dies under Luther's care, for something that could happen to any doctor, Luther's whole career is thrown into jeopardy.

Linda Darnell is also in the film as the dead brother's wife from whom Luther tries to get permission to perform an autopsy to prove his innocence. She exists has a pivot point for the social commentary aspect of the film, coming from the same part of town as the brothers, the film shows her journey to overcome her own prejudice. She also plays a part in the existential drama of the film--she lives in a lousy apartment and has a bad job but she did get away from the brothers and the community they represented, showing someone can build their own identity. But the centrepiece of the film is the contrast between Luther and Ray. In some sense, it reminds me of the relationship between Toshiro Mifune's cop character in Stray Dog with the thief in that film--in a sense, the two men could probably relate to each other under different circumstances. Both were born into disadvantage and hopelessness, though one chose to fight while the other chose self-pity. The fact that Luther's disadvantage was greater and truly inescapable makes Ray seem truly despicable.

Twitter Sonnet #1001

If pelicans consort in valour's lot
Redeeming birds complain for fallen cup,
For jokes too faintly printed show a knot
Along the bottom edge ere clerks'll sup.
Expensive drifts affront the flower forge
Offending fortune, turning tubes to top
Cascading mulch immersed in mud to gorge
The mental grass where green can never stop.
In gaining realms of kicking clods and nails
A coughing hammer rots inside a cone
To keep a cat or dog from biting tails
Or anything but plastics in the zone.
A case of forks disrupts the point of prongs.
To-night a striker tunes to sparking songs.

A Comey Day

Despite he and Trump having had a "thing", James Comey didn't do Trump any favours to-day. What was the "thing" Comey quotes Trump as alluding to in one of their now infamous private conversations? Comey speculated in his testimony to-day, at the insistence of John McCain, about the "thing": "I concluded at the time, in his memory, he was searching back to our encounter at the dinner and was preparing himself to say I offered loyalty to you, you promise loyalty to me. All of a sudden, I think his memory did not happen and he pulled up short." I guess this is different from a trial where a lawyer would stand up and say, "Objection--speculative!" Speculation is fair game, it seems. It's weird how often Comey was asked to speculate, anyway.

Now, if I were to speculate about "the thing", I'd say it was Comey's announcement about investigating Clinton's e-mails shortly before election night. At the time, that was widely seen as a show of Comey's loyalty to Trump and, wouldn't you know, Clinton's e-mails were made an important part of the committee testimony to-day by Republicans who continually, awkwardly tried to steer back to the issue. Most strikingly McCain, who was so incoherent as to seem physically unwell, insisted there was a double standard simply because Comey had concluded one investigation while another was ongoing.

Of course, now it doesn't seem likely Comey was being a Trump loyalist when he made the critical announcement about the investigation of Clinton's e-mails. But everyone at the time figured he was--certainly everyone on TV. We know Trump mainly keeps himself informed on everything through cable news, much to the consternation of his National Security Advisers. So the "thing", I believe, is this narrative that Trump bought into.

For those of us who don't want the country controlled by a dimwitted creep, Comey having previously seemed to be on Trump's side may be a blessing in disguise, and I think Republicans recognise that and that's why they're trying so hard to re-write history now. Because, with these two investigations, Comey really and truly does look impartial. You can see this is what Republicans are desperately afraid of and that's why they put out the hastily assembled, bizarrely campaign-like attack ads on Comey which seem to say little more than that Comey is politically biased. And has always been biased. Well, fortunately this isn't 1984 and you can't make people forget the narrative from six months ago with a hokey piece of propaganda. At least I hope not.

The Republican loyalty to Trump is really strange at this point. There's something more to it than partisanship. With all the Republicans who came out publicly against him before the election and what, one would think, is the more attractive prospect of a Pence presidency--and the political capital to be gained from pursuing criminal charges against Trump and thereby seeming bipartisan--you'd think all the Republicans on the committee wouldn't be so lock-step. Particularly McCain who's been insulted by Trump and who has expressed words against the orange man. It makes the incoherence of his questions this morning all the more intriguing. I feel like McCain is being blackmailed somehow, if it isn't a medical issue.

Without a proper president right now, it occurred to me that the U.S. feels sort of headless. Then I thought, like The Headless Horseman--and Trump's the pumpkin.

On the Edge of a Legal Knife

I'm continuing to enjoy the subtle shifts in Kim's character on Better Call Saul. Monday's new episode also had some nice stuff in Jimmy's continued descent and Mike continues to be really boring.

Spoilers after the screenshot.

Wow, Moscow Mules for lunch? This is twenty first century Mad Men I guess.

One week, Kim (Rhea Seehorn) is explaining that all she and Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) did was tear down a sick man, the next she's telling Howard (Patrick Fabian) that all she and Jimmy did was show things for how they are. The fallout from that wonderful courtroom episode, which seems to be the centrepiece of the season, continues to bring benefits in character reaction. Kim's on such an edge she doesn't seem to know how she feels unless she has someone else's reaction to react to.

Her situation with the office she has with Jimmy is similarly ambiguous. It seems she's regretting insisting that Jimmy pay his half or they get rid of the place, but now his pride is involved so she can't cover his half. But this pushes her to take a second case, perhaps unwisely, as insurance.

Meanwhile, the descent into Saul-hood has literally resurrected Slippin' Jimmy. I wonder how much time the show's going to spend before it jump cuts to the end of Jimmy's twelve month suspension. My guess is the première of season four will be, at the very least, "Twelve month's later." It's always a pleasure watching Jimmy hustle, anyway, something I wish American Gods would emulate a bit with Mr. Wednesday. Though, it occurs to me, Saul is played by Bob Odinkirk . . .

I still don't find Nacho (Michael Mando) a very interesting character but the scene with him swapping out Hector Salamanca's (Mark Margolis) medicine was very well played, Hitchcockian with the way it ramped up tension.

American Odds

Sunday's new American Gods was like two episodes mixed together; one good and one disappointing. It all looked good, though.

Spoilers after the screenshot

In the disappointing plot, Shadow (Ricky Whittle) and Wednesday (Ian McShane) visit a town populated by gun-toting redneck stereotypes who worship Vulcan (Corbin Bernsen). In the good part, Laura (Emily Browning), Mad Sweeney (Pablo Schreiber), and Salim (Omid Abtahi) go on a road trip, looking for a friend of Sweeney's who can resurrect Laura--properly this time.

I would assume the Laura plot was written by Bryan Fuller because it, again, felt more like Dead Like Me than American Gods. I liked the discussion of Laura's dwelling on aspects of her life, this mirrored by Wednesday pulling Shadow away from her so that he can move on. But one of the three writers on the episode is a fellow named Seamus Kevin Fahey, about whom there's little information on the internet, but I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest he's Irish. He may have been brought on to write dialogue for Mad Sweeney--whoever wrote those segments, they work really well. I love Laura and Sweeney's caustic rapport and the addition of Salim as the meek fellow in the middle is a perfect way to round out the trio.

Meanwhile, in Vulcanville, the story's a bit thinner. The idea that there's a segment of the U.S. population who worship guns is certainly a fair premise but since we don't meet a single one of these worshippers there's no chance to actually explore it. Vulcan himself, despite Corbin Bernsen ably matching Ian McShane in impressively weathered visage, is a thoroughly uninteresting character. His betraying Wednesday's location to the New Gods has absolutely no weight when the New Gods had found Wednesday in just the previous episode and let him go. Even if it did have weight, Vulcan looks like a moron when he forges a god-killing weapon and hands it to Wednesday before telling him he betrayed him. I guess the upside is that this plot won't be around next week.

Twitter Sonnet #1000

A comet black for sudden coal could close
No throat upon a highway neat as night
As fraught as dawn affirmed for soothing shows
And sleepy dram for watchful claims of sight
Of substance staunched of bloodless flow, belief
Encased and opened like a flower head
A deadly draught, a treadmill to relief
But gnawing paints present the only bed
A valley blanket sewn in stories late
To hold the ink, increase the yield in gold
In softened thorns to fetch and sometimes sate
Before the quicker eye can catch a cold.
In speeding shovels air transforms to stone.
In through a needle point it shines alone.

Back to the Bang Bang and the RR

Twin Peaks took a turn for the melancholy in last night's new episode. So far it's been mainly intriguing weirdness but with last night's episode the show subtly shifted focus to the emotional state of victims.

We've now had essentially a five hour David Lynch movie and I can't believe there's more to come. I marvel at the consistency in filmmaking quality and it's so refreshing to have a show that never for a moment assumes I'm stupid.

Spoilers after the screenshot.

For instance, I liked how Lynch never cut to a close-up of the cup Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) is holding to explain how Frank (Bob Stephenson) knows that was his coffee. If Lynch didn't have final cut on these, I guarantee some busybody at some point would have said, "No, we have to make it super fucking clear for the morons at home."

I love watching Frank discover he really likes the green tea latte. Such a small, kind of adorable moment. I'm continually amazed how much attention to detail there is on the show, how Lynch just keeps putting together interesting shots. Look at this shot of the Drugged-Out Mother (Hailey Gates)--yes, that's the character's name in the credits.

At some point Lynch or his cinematographer, Peter Deming, said, we need a big red ball in the background to go with her top. Almost everything in her house is grey, red, white, or brown. Her poor kid's shirt is somehow sad and perfect.

We also have another sad moment for a kid when Cooper inexplicably sheds a tear for Sonny Jim sitting in the back of the car. Why? Because he knows the kid's father is gone, probably forever? That his father was only some kind of manufactured decoy?

Going to older children, I loved the scene in the Bang Bang Bar where the sinister guy toys with the teenage girls making eyes at him. It's so horrible--credibly horrible. Nowadays every kid on TV has to be a wiseass but you can see these girls really are kids, just getting a little excited by the guy who's breaking the rules by smoking a cigarette, and one of them, Charlotte (Grace Victoria Cox), takes a risk and immediately gets in over her head. It's both an unusually human moment and a classic Twin Peaks moment.

We finally get a scene in the RR and we finally meet Amanda Seyfried's character, Becky, apparently someone close to Shelly (Madchen Amick). Wikipedia says she's Shelly's daughter but I'm not sure we know that. It's hard to hear Becky and Shelly's conversation, maybe she called her "Mom" and I didn't hear it. My impression was that Shelly and Becky had developed a relationship somewhat like Shelly and Norma's (Peggy Lipton). Becky's last name in the credits is "Burnett", as is the guy she's with, the really skeevy looking Steven (Caleb Landry Jones) so I guess she's actually married to him. I guess he's not as bad as Leo but that's not saying much.

The RR scene is the closest to the kind of scene I might've predicted seeing in a new Twin Peaks series. It's obviously meant to resemble the scene in the pilot where Norma watches Shelly and Bobby outside in Bobby's car. How nice it is that this time Lynch was able to shoot entirely with the location RR instead of using an L.A. soundstage for the interior, allowing for that interplay between interior and exterior.

I like Amanda Seyfried, I look forward to seeing where Lynch takes her. Since Leland asked Cooper to look for his daughter, I've wondered if maybe Seyfried was going to be playing a reincarnation of Laura Palmer. With the cocaine and the bad boyfriend, or husband, she does seem Laura Palmer-ish, though she doesn't seem as self-possessed as Laura.

Age seems to have given Peggy Lipton a more elastic face and I loved how Lynch shot Becky's introduction from Norma's point of view, allowing us to discover the character alongside Norma trying to figure out the situation from a distance.

Poor Frank Truman (Robert Forster)--I guess his marriage isn't quite as bad as Becky's but I did feel bad for the guy. His wife, Doris (Candy Clark), is in the mould of Laura Dern's mother in Wild at Heart though maybe not quite as sinister. The things she's complaining about aren't really that unreasonable--she doesn't want to stand around watching a bucket all day--but her anger is dialled up way further than the occasion calls for. I love how Lynch shoots her from a low angle, raising her arms to the heavens when she says, "black mould!" with Frank Truman seeming to shrink in his chair from the opposite angle.

Poor Cooper, still hardly himself in that ugly lime green sport coat and stranded next to that statue he seems to take a liking to, providing an improbably perfect Lynchian composition even for something directed by David Lynch.

I guess I can't write about this show all day. Sunday seems too far away . . .

Wonder versus War

Striding through cynicism and hopelessness to honestly confront the age old problem of humanity's penchant for self-destruction, 2017's Wonder Woman is a wonder indeed. The philosophical conflict between strong-arm tactics and the hazards of people allowed to be free is the standard underlying story for superhero movies ever since The Dark Knight explored the idea so effectively. Wonder Woman is the first superhero film since The Dark Knight to make that struggle feel like a personal, artistic expression. There's a lot of talent at work in the film, but the lion's share of the credit must go to Patty Jenkins who, if Warner Brothers knows what's good for them, ought to be put in charge of the DCCU from now on.

I was one of the few people who thought the trailers for Wonder Woman didn't look very good. I noticed Chris Pine had a lot more lines in the trailers and they were leaning more on his charm, which made sense, I thought, since Gal Gadot was so bland in Batman v Superman. When I saw the movie, I saw that my impression was both right and wrong. The movie does lean more on Chris Pine and Gal Gadot is bland. But you know who else is bland? Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Gal Gadot is this generation's Arnold Schwarzenegger.

People have compared Wonder Woman to The Dirty Dozen and there's some truth in that but for me the apt comparison is to Terminator 2. The reason Schwarzenegger was never enough to make any further sequels in the Terminator franchise work is because Linda Hamilton and Edward Furlong were essential to the film and essential to what made Schwarzenegger's "innocent android figuring out human nature" work. Linda Hamilton in particular gives the necessary contrast of a human being who's been psychically beaten and tempered by the violence of a human world. Chris Pine doesn't give quite so raw a performance but he does give a very good one--he's charming and he's had experiences that make him reluctant to trust Diana's guileless commitment to doing the right thing.

There is some of the fish-out-of-water, innocent lamb with regular guy dynamic at work here, despite the fact that Diana has studied many books on sex (by the way, if you want a much worldier woman in a period comic book series, you should've watched Peggy Carter). There's the perspective that Diana being so inexperienced plays into a patriarchal sexual dynamic that isn't alleviated by the fact that she has superpowers since such things are so divorced from reality. On the other hand, there's a cynicism in this perspective, too, for saying that innocence has no value. That's a big part of the film's point, that Diana is a reorienting influence on Steve (Chris Pine). That neither character has all the maturity cards is to the film's credit, it's not a flaw or anti-feminist.

It's also not anti-feminist to talk about Gadot's beauty and physical performance, which is as crucial as Schwarzenegger's physicality. Jenkins knew this in making the film and delivered great work from the material she was given. When Steve wakes up on the Themyscira beach, we get these enormous close-ups of Gadot's beautiful face peering at him (us) curiously. It feels intrusive and starts to feel oddly good. The cinematography and makeup seem calculated to soften Gadot's features a great deal which becomes a stimulating paradox in the suddenness of her action scenes. Her performance has a bit more ham than in Batman v Superman--the right amount for how Jenkins uses her--her grins and head tilts are subtly strange and I always felt like I didn't get enough time to study her reaction before the camera went back to Pine. It all adds up to create maybe the best example of a goddess put to film that I've seen.

Alongside the effective otherworldliness of Diana, Jenkins ably and shrewdly assembles a group of rough edged humans with Steve's comrades at the pub whom he takes along for their journey into the horrors of World War I trenches. Jenkins gets away with a surprising amount of that horror even in this era of the "grimdark" comic book film, just enough to make Diana's walk across "No-Man's Land" (a thankfully understated joke) so heart-stoppingly beautiful.

I could point out flaws in the screenplay. The varying levels of knowledge and ignorance Diana has don't quite add up, the final philosophical arguments between characters don't quite fit into the catch-phrases they try to use, but Jenkins coordinates everything so beautifully there was never a moment I wasn't completely invested in what Diana and Steve were trying to do and I felt both of their perspectives. Jenkins delivers something that really feels like it touches on the function of an ideal for humanity when contrasted with horrible, messy reality. It's an amazing film.

Several supporting performances were good, among them Ewen Bremner and particularly David Thewlis were absolutely wonderful.

Something Like Dystopia

As I'm writing this, reports are coming through about incidents in London. I hope it's not as bad as it sounds and I hope everyone comes through the day safely.

To-day's new Doctor Who, "The Lie of the Land", was the first truly bad episode of the season. Written by Toby Whithouse, it comes off as a disjointed version of 1984 modified for current events but without the insight and intellectual process to make such an endeavour worthwhile. Mostly, like so many one off episodes of the new series, it feels like too much crammed into too short a space, but the problem hurt this episode even more then most. Still, it did have some nice elements.

Spoilers after the screenshot.

For one thing, Peter Capaldi looked really good in this episode. I don't like to tell people to smile if they don't want to, I think people should be respected for having feelings other than happiness all the time and they shouldn't be forced to present a lie. But it is true, an honest smile does somehow make people more attractive, and that goes for Capaldi, it seems. I've always liked Capaldi, before he was the Doctor and in his whole tenure as the Doctor, but this is the first time I thought, "What a handsome fellow." I really like that frosted or frayed edge coat.

This scene, where Bill (Pearl Mackie) confronts the Doctor on the propaganda he's been contributing to for the Monks, is one of the main problems in the episode. The Doctor quite convincingly explains to Bill why working with the Monks is a good idea--with a rise of fascist figures like Trump who pursue paths of destruction, having the Monks in charge doesn't sound like it's all bad. Though it doesn't seem like Trump is rounding up and locking up dissenters like the woman at the beginning of the episode--though he has certainly talked about doing it. But after the Doctor made the argument pretty well that the Monks might be a benefit to humankind, it would have been nice for him to provide the counterargument once he'd revealed it as a ruse.

Referring to the psychic manipulations of the Monks as "fake news" also ties the story to current events. Are we to interpret the works of the Monks as one side of fake news or the other? Is it Putin influencing the election or the hysteria promoted by the likes of Huffington Post? Considering the Monks are set up as taking over the world from the fascists through mental manipulation seems to suggest it's meant to be like rigid left-wing ideology, pursuing crusades of identity politics at the cost of finding common ground. Maybe it's a nice thing that the Monks can be interpreted as either one. Mostly I just would have liked something more coherent.

I'm not as sure as I used to be that the Monks are related to the Cybermen somehow. But if they're not, then what is their story? Why do they look like rotting corpses? Did Missy (Michelle Gomez) really encounter them before and, if so, where? And did she learn anything about their origins or motives?

The scenes with Missy certainly were a highlight. Michelle Gomez continues to be a revelation.

It's true, making a people love you is more effective than making them fear you. Look what it did for Bill's mother. It would've been nice if the show had developed the Monks as seductive beings, had made you understand why people might be attracted to order and safety at the cost of free will. Maybe we'll have to wait for Bill's essay.

Twitter Sonnet #999

In lonely human snows the quarry turns.
Robotic barons blast the sort for sport.
Ephemeral revenge Tetsuro learns.
He leaves to find immortal metal's port.
A ticket came in long and tapered hand.
Her yellow willow hair's adrift in black.
In boots and coat he saw then Maetel stand.
Her spinning jewel unwinds the only track.
To Mars where love dissolved before the train.
To ice where irresolution sleeps.
To libraries where conmen stalk the lane.
To empty space where shattered crystal keeps.
And endless planets show an endless need.
All aliens have more than mouths to feed.

More Corpses for More Science

The subject of the Burke and Hare murders even attracted, of all people, the poet Dylan Thomas who published a screenplay adaptation in 1953. It wasn't until 1985 it was actually turned into a film, The Doctor and the Devils, though Thomas' screenplay was given a new polish by Sir Ronald Harwood. Directed by Freddie Francis and produced by Mel Brooks, the film has some truly stunning production design but lacks the courage of The Flesh and the Fiends, unfortunately modifying Thomas' screenplay in the hopes of attracting a wider audience.

Timothy Dalton plays what is likely the most dashing incarnation of Robert Knox, here renamed Thomas Rock. The action's also moved from Edinburgh to what is apparently London for some reason, most of the characters have been made English. Burke and Hare, renamed Broom and Fallon, are still Irish though you wouldn't know it from the accent put on by Jonathan Pryce, who plays Fallon.

Otherwise such a fine actor, I don't think I've ever heard such a colossal failure to achieve an accent. He sounds Russian. He sounds even worse when contrasted with Broom, played by Stephen Rea, who of course sounds perfect.

That's Julian Sands as the romantic lead, basically the same character as the student in Flesh and the Fiends, both men have difficulty adjusting to their love for the prostitute, played by Twiggy in The Doctor and the Devils and renamed Jennie.

Twiggy doesn't seem nearly as hardened by life as Billie Whitelaw's version of the character and her reluctance to have a relationship with Sands' character comes from less clear motives. The movie splits the prostitute into two characters, giving Jennie a best friend named Alice (Nichola McAuliffe) who has a nice scene with Dalton where she thanks him for saving her brother's leg. This is a subplot resembling one from The Body Snatcher and is nice because it shows the Knox character actually putting his study to use in helping people rather than arguing on less tangible philosophical grounds.

The primary reason for the splitting of the characters is so one of them doesn't have to die. This results in a very lame, Hollywood climactic fight scene between Sands and Pryce that makes absolutely no sense.

Patrick Stewart, who himself played Knox for a BBC radio play a few years prior, is in the movie as one of the medical board in conflict with Dalton's character. The two have a very nice scene where they both present arguments over a pair of human kidneys in a jar.

The score by John Morris is nice but the best thing about the movie is by far production design. The dirty London streets are marvellously detailed with vegetable and egg stalls, colourful extras playing beggars, tinkers, prostitutes, and etcetera.

Corpses for Science

If anyone ever tells you the poor aren't good for anything, remember the story of the 19th century Doctor Robert Knox and remember the corpses of those who died in poverty can always be used for medical experiments. 1960's The Flesh and the Fiends is the second film to be based on the true story of the Burke and Hare murders, the first being the wonderful Boris Karloff and Henry Daniell 1945 film The Body Snatcher, in turn based on a story by Robert Louis Stevenson. The Flesh and the Fiends is a far less compromising film and creates a wonderfully grimy, chaotic atmosphere in 19th century Edinburgh where the wealthy medical men practice and study surrounded by a sea of ragged beggars, prostitutes, and the variously miserable unemployed.

Peter Cushing plays Knox this time, for most of the film with a more prickly demeanour than Henry Daniell before him. One of the reasons this story keeps being adapted is because it presents such a provoking dilemma, a dilemma which reflects the philosophical conflict at the time between pragmatic progress and sensitivity for the exploited underclass. Knox argues that the laws regarding what bodies may be used to advance medical science are too strict, and indeed, with such a shortage of fresh bodies it's difficult to find the necessary models with which he can instruct his students. The other side of the issue is argued by the circumstances that occur--by paying well for fresh bodies, he indirectly encourages the likes of Burke and Hare to acquire corpses that are just a little too fresh.

In this adaptation, instead of plaintively, desperately arguing the justifications for his actions like in The Body Snatcher, Cushing's version of Knox is stiff and firmly convinced of a need to maintain composure at all times. His main tactic of defence is offence and whenever he sees the men on the medical board who might chastise him for acquiring illegal corpses he shows he's well up on every minor infraction of medical ethics perpetrated by his accusers and throws them back in their faces.

George Rose plays Burke and a young Donald Pleasence, unrecognisable with a mop of dark hair, plays Hare, both actors doing a great job of making these men utterly repulsive. They inhabit a world of people at the ends of their ropes, barely surviving and getting dead drunk whenever possible. The two run a lodging house, which is where they ensnare most of their victims.

A subplot involves one of Knox's students (John Cairney) and his love affair with a prostitute, Mary Patterson (Billie Whitelaw). Patterson was one of the real life victims of Burke and Hare. The film's portrayal of the frequently topless women cavorting in dingy taverns is surprisingly unrestrained even for a relatively low budget British horror film from the time.

The relationship between the student and the prostitute helps to bring out the contrast between class attitudes. A chance encounter between the couple and Knox's niece (June Laverick) with her beaux shows the upper and lower classes were so different as to easily convince themselves they were separate species--a handy state of affairs when the better off need to exploit the less fortunate.

My review for 1945's The Body Snatcher can be found here.

My review for Medicinal Purposes, a 2004 Doctor Who audio play based on the Burke and Hare murders, can be found here.