This week Chris Deacy is joined in the studio by Julie Wassmer to discuss the films; Rebecca, The Graduate, The Italian Job, and The Man Who Fell To Earth.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Kent Film Club, I'm Chris DC and each week I'll be joined by a guest
00:18from Kent to dive deep into the impact certain films have had on their life.
00:23Each guest will reflect on the films which have meant the most to them over the years.
00:27And every week there will be a Kent Film Trivia where we quiz you at home about a film that
00:31has a connection to the county.
00:34And now let me introduce you to my guest for this week.
00:37She is an author and TV drama writer, possibly best known for her Kent-based series, The
00:43Whitstable Pearl.
00:45She is Julie Wassmer.
00:48Welcome Julie.
00:49Hello there Chris, thank you.
00:50Lovely to meet you.
00:51Now I don't know your films in advance but as I look at the screen, ah Hitchcock's Rebecca.
00:56Why did you choose this?
00:57Well, to be honest I could have chosen any number of films that were made in the 30s
01:04and 40s because that's really where I got my love of cinema from, watching old black
01:09and white movies.
01:12When I was growing up in the East End of London, we lived in really straightened circumstances.
01:18You know, it was a very poor environment.
01:21We were in two rooms in a condemned slum and I didn't have a bedroom.
01:25So I used to sleep on a sofa in the living room.
01:28The one thing we always had was a TV.
01:32And I think that's because at that time TVs were rented, you didn't own them and you could
01:38get them.
01:39There used to be a firm called Radio Rentals that rented out radios obviously at the beginning
01:46and then TVs and everybody in the East End had a television.
01:50And on Sunday afternoons, my parents used to go down the road to the local pub, leave
01:56me at home and I would be happy as Larry watching a black and white movie.
02:01And I decided to really choose a Hitchcock movie because, well Hitchcock, he remains
02:09one of the most influential film directors of all time and he was a Brit who made it
02:13in Hollywood.
02:14Absolutely, and you know, North by Northwest is right up there as seminal films.
02:19You're right, and there are so many shades because often I don't think of Hitchcock in
02:23film noir but actually he was brilliant at film noir and Rebecca has all the gothic novel
02:29underpinnings as well.
02:31So I'm guessing it was a black and white TV in those days, in a black and white film.
02:36And are you transported back when you watch Rebecca to those days?
02:40Absolutely.
02:41It's the magic I think of Hitchcock in so many ways, you know, watching his whole catalogue
02:47of movies throughout the decades, I've noted different things and I always, whenever I
02:52re-watch one of his films, I see something new and you're absolutely right about the
02:56film noir aspect of it.
02:58It was an adaptation of course from Daphne du Maurier's famous novel Rebecca.
03:02I think Selznick, the producer, bought it for a record sum.
03:06It was $50,000 at the time, which is a huge amount of money.
03:10And that was off the back of him having the success of making Gone with the Wind in 1939.
03:17So Hitchcock, this was his first US movie and what I really respond to in Hitchcock's
03:24films is a sense of location.
03:27You know, you mentioned North by Northwest and terrific locations there.
03:32It's there in Vertigo and also in Rebecca, it's there in this ancestral home that belongs
03:39to Maxim de Winter Manderley in Cornwall.
03:43And I think he was really groundbreaking too because re-watching Rebecca recently, I began
03:49to think about the music that he uses too in films.
03:53In this film, because I watched this as a young kid, you're right too about du Maurier's
03:57novel being a kind of gothic suspense, but Hitchcock turns it into a psychological thriller
04:03and the music's there to sort of underscore all of that.
04:07You know, it's the story of this innocent young woman who's the companion to a hideous
04:12social climate and they're on the Riviera when the main character is played by Joan
04:18Fontaine and I can't give her name because she's actually an unnamed heroine in the book
04:22and in the film, but she ends up having this whirlwind relationship, a romance with Maxim
04:28de Winter who's played by Laurence Olivier and everything's going well until he takes
04:34her back to Manderley where the Joan Fontaine character, the new Mrs. de Winter really has
04:41to kind of walk in the shadow of this other woman, Rebecca, who is everything that Joan
04:48Fontaine's character isn't, worldly, sophisticated, beautiful and she finds herself just totally
04:55fish out of water really.
04:56And it's those tropes and of course Vertigo which you mentioned as you were describing
05:00that.
05:01The thing I found about Hitchcock and of course I'm thinking of Bernard Herrmann's score,
05:03not for this film but in the later ones, he never quite took himself seriously or at least
05:07because he made those cameos in films.
05:09There was also something very self-deprecating and of course he said things about actors
05:13that actors probably wouldn't have wanted to and yet his films were so complex and so
05:17serious and there's such longevity.
05:19So I always find that Hitchcock is such a complex figure.
05:23He certainly was and also he kind of became as much of a celebrity as his cast members.
05:31He used to have, I used to watch as a kid, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the TV programme
05:37that he was a star of really.
05:39He used to walk into his own silhouette didn't he at the opening.
05:43And you mentioned Bernard Herrmann with the music too and we all remember of course those
05:49sharp chords of Psycho when poor Janet Leigh is being stabbed to death in the shower.
05:55But in The Birds, it took me years before I re-watched The Birds and recognised there's
06:00actually no music in that movie at all.
06:03I hadn't ever realised but there's a kind of hyper-realism that's created by the fact
06:08that there is no music there.
06:09You're almost there in that setting with those birds and the sound effects.
06:16I just think he really was a brilliant director, an interesting character and this film stayed
06:24with me because it was scary too because when that Joan Fontaine character goes back to
06:28Mandalay, that whole sense of being haunted by the previous Mrs de Winter is underscored
06:34by the presence of the sinister housekeeper, Mrs Danvers, who was played by an Australian
06:41actress, I think she was Judith Anderson, who's obsessed with her former employer.
06:45It was all so scary.
06:47I feel we could talk about Rebecca for the whole show but okay, it's time to move on
06:51to your second chosen film, oh my goodness, another classic, you've gone for The Graduate.
06:56Yes, I mean, The Graduate I watch regularly and I never tire of The Graduate.
07:03I just think it's a breathtaking film and I've actually chosen four oldies in terms
07:11of movies and it's probably because I'm an oldie too.
07:13It's a Mike Nichols film.
07:15Mike Nichols, he directed Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Elizabeth Taylor and that
07:20was an incredible success and he too was very fearless with this because Dustin Hoffman
07:25plays 20-year-old Benjamin Braddock who's just graduated from college, he's coming
07:29back to Los Angeles to his parents' home but he's kind of suffering from this sort of existential
07:35angst, he doesn't know what he's going to do with his future and it's not until he's
07:38seduced and starts a loveless affair throughout the summer with his parents' friend Mrs Robinson
07:44that that kind of alienation is emphasised really because he can't explain to his parents
07:49about it and it's love that saves him in the end because he eventually falls in love with
07:54Mrs Robinson's daughter Elaine played by Catherine Ross.
07:57But this movie I just thought was shot so brilliantly, every single frame.
08:04And also because of course 1967, now that is arguably the year when books have been
08:08written about this that suddenly we moved into the new era or the next era of cinema
08:14because this was the era of In the Heat of the Night, Bonnie and Clyde and Mike Nichols
08:19won the Oscar but Dr Doolittle which was a throwback maybe to old Hollywood was also
08:25one of the nominees so there was just that sort of sense that the graduate here was right
08:29in the cusp of a wave because this is the 1960s, just a sense that there was a new style
08:33of filmmaking because Mike Nichols went on to make, I think at one point he was almost
08:36making a film a year and he was still going until not long before his death so a very
08:41sort of seminal moment.
08:42Is this a film that you can watch time and time again, I think you said that you've watched
08:45it recently?
08:46Yes, I have, I revisited it and you're quite right about that sort of break with the past
08:51and that's really what the story's all about too.
08:53It's about young people in 1967 when there'd been this huge cultural shift really from
08:59post-war austerity even in America to the 60s when there was so much happening in America.
09:04The civil rights movement was going on, student activism against the Vietnam War.
09:09There was this cultural break, this division between young people and the previous generation
09:15so in this film I think you can really see very clearly and Robert Surtee's photography,
09:22you know there's little moments of symbolism where there's, in Benjamin's aquarium that's
09:30in his bedroom there's a black diver amongst the fish in scuba gear, black scuba gear and
09:38the camera goes back to that figure all the time even when Benjamin's parents, Gedimi's
09:4421st birthday present, it's scuba gear and he's wearing a mask but he's completely cut
09:49off from them because all you can hear is his breathing through the mask.
09:52Every scene really is kind of shot I think from that sense of a generation that somehow
09:57seems apart from their family.
09:59And as you were saying there, Wes Anderson obviously a more recent filmmaker I think
10:03has drawn on exactly those tropes of the character going into the water and finding some sort
10:10of serenity at the very bottom because it's better to cope down there with the fish and
10:15the sharks than it is out there in the real world but it's a real rites of passage movie
10:20this isn't it?
10:21Absolutely, that's exactly what it is but it's also black comedy but it's, I mean Buck
10:27Henry was a co-writer of the film and he was a comic actor and he plays the part of the
10:33hotel receptionist when Ben goes to the hotel in order to first begin the affair with Mrs
10:38Robinson and he asks him, are you here for an affair, meaning a formal occasion that's
10:44going on.
10:45So there's an element of kind of farce almost in those hotel scenes but there's also like
10:49a thick vein of pathos and tenderness that's created throughout it with these characters
10:54and I think that's enhanced by the use of Simon and Garfunkel's music in there too,
10:58the sound of silence and I did read something that I thought was really interesting that
11:03was that Paul Simon was meant to have written several songs for the movie and they use
11:09the ones that are in the movie just as guide tracks but then he ran out of time so Mike
11:14Nicholls said to Paul Simon, what have you got and he said I've just written one called
11:18Mrs Roosevelt and he said can you change it to Mrs Robinson and that's how that remained
11:23in the film.
11:24And that's uncanny because of course it is one of those accidental moments that actually
11:29almost couldn't have happened so we would never have imagined that that song wasn't
11:33made for the film.
11:34Brilliant, well that's about all the time we have for this first half of the show, however
11:38before we go to the break we have a Kent film trivia question for you at home.
11:45Which film features Sir Mary's Marshes?
11:48Is it A. Great Expectations, B. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. or C. Suffragette?
11:53We'll reveal the answer right after this break, don't go away.
11:59Hello and welcome back to Kent Film Club.
12:09Just before the ad break we asked you at home a Kent film trivia question.
12:13Which film features Sir Mary's Marshes?
12:16I asked is it A. Great Expectations, B. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. or C. Suffragette?
12:22Now I can reveal to you that the answer was in fact A. Great Expectations, the 1946 adaptation
12:28film's opening sequence takes place on a rowboat in the marshes.
12:33Did you get the answer right?
12:35Well it is now time Julie to move on to your next chosen film and you've gone for, wow,
12:42The Italian Job.
12:44Yes, I chose The Italian Job really because, well as we all know it's a classic comedy
12:54caper, a heist movie but it features a working class hero, Charlie Croker played by Michael
13:01Kane and I am an East Ender and I was 16 when this movie came out and it was 1969 so it
13:11was shortly after England's historic and only World Cup win so there was all of that pride
13:18in football.
13:20But it was also at a time that this was swinging London, we led the world with fashion because
13:26of designers like Mary Quant, the Beatles had conquered the world with music and there
13:32was an incredible sense of, and the Harold Wilson government had come in in 64 so there
13:38was a kind of new beginning here, the working class hero was celebrated, we no longer had
13:45these posh actors, we had people like Terence Stamp and Michael Kane making it in Hollywood
13:51and it seemed like a really new, brand new era and this film celebrated all of that along
13:57with of course British car design because really alongside Michael Kane the stars of
14:04the movie was the Mini Cooper car which was involved in the historic car chase.
14:11And it's hilarious because as you were saying that I was thinking of course Noel Coward
14:15and I think Benny Hill, am I right, is also in that.
14:18So you've got a complete cross section of all the talent shall we say and I had to laugh
14:24because I could see that you'd gone for the Italian job but of course for half a moment
14:28I thought I'm sure you haven't gone for the remake that was made in the early 2000s that
14:33was panned because maybe this is a film that they should never have attempted in any way
14:38to remake.
14:39The remake did have Donald Sutherland in it who of course recently passed away but there
14:44is something seismic because Michael Kane was already of course through Zulu already
14:48becoming and Alfie as well and that beautiful film that he made with Shirley MacLaine in
14:54around the 1966 period as well so this was a sort of a real period when, and Terence
15:00Stamp as well, when British filmmaking talent was really making its mark.
15:07Absolutely there was a kind of cultural, there was a confidence I think in our culture, British
15:13culture at that time.
15:14We were just very trendy and groundbreaking.
15:17I think before that in the 50s and with rock and roll Britain had always tagged along America
15:22and suddenly roles were reversed and with this movie too, like you mentioned, what a
15:29cast, Irene Handel was in there, practically everyone from British cinema had a role at
15:34some point or another as part of this mob that had set out to steal the gold bullion
15:42that was from this armoured truck that was going around Turin.
15:48And I think as well with this film I never understood why it would want to be made again
15:56in a remake because it's very much a film of its time.
16:00I mean looking back at it now I have problems with quite a bit of it, you know in the script
16:05women are very poorly represented in it and there's a kind of patriotism that was okay
16:12then that really I find a bit jingoistic now.
16:17So I have problems with it but on its own it's magnificent and another reason that I
16:23chose it is because of the writer Troy Kennedy Martin.
16:26I didn't know for years that he was the writer of this movie but he used to live just down
16:31the road from me in Notting Hill and I always admired his work because of course he wrote
16:37Zed Cars which ran for nearly 16 years on BBC and Edge of Darkness, the anti-nuclear
16:44drama, so I was a real fan of his work and I never knew until years later that he actually
16:50penned the Italian job.
16:52And of course the other memorable thing about the film is the classic literal cliffhanger
16:58ending where the bus that contains all the bullion is dangled precariously over the Alps,
17:04over a cliff in the Alps and the ending where it remains tantalisingly out of the grasp
17:09of the criminals, you know.
17:11And it's one of those occasions where rather than spoil the film by giving away the ending
17:16that actually is the reason to see it because of course it is literally a cliffhanger ending
17:21in the most literal sense.
17:24And it was much, much later that I realised that I saw all sorts of things into that when
17:29I knew that Troy Kennedy-Martin wrote this.
17:32I thought that was very symbolic about the real wealth of the country, you know, remaining
17:36forever out of the grasp of the working classes.
17:38It was nothing to do with that.
17:39It was the producer, Michael Deeley, came up with that ending to enable a possible sequel
17:46which was never made.
17:47Although Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, as I recall, did deal with a similar trope.
17:53I mean, I'm drawing on my memory there.
17:55So there is something about that ending and of course there's the song that they sing,
18:00the self-preservation society.
18:02It is all completely, I'm sure you'd agree, just so etched in our national consciousness.
18:08Exactly.
18:09But that's really interesting that you mention that film because it sounds like such a cockney
18:13anthem could be sung from any football terrace.
18:15And it was actually written by Quincy Jones who did the soundtrack.
18:19It looks like, it really sounds like something that Chas and Dave penned, doesn't it?
18:22But it was Quincy Jones who did the soundtrack.
18:25It was really a movie of its time and had so much talent from that time.
18:29I don't often go silent, but this is one of those moments.
18:31It is time now to move on to your final chosen film and you've gone for, oh, another classic,
18:36The Man Who Fell to Earth.
18:38Yes.
18:39David Bowie.
18:40David Bowie.
18:41Yeah, absolutely.
18:42And so we've gone from 1940 to 67 to 69 and this was 76.
18:48So now I'm 23 when this came out.
18:51And of course, David Bowie is this incredible pop star.
18:56I've never really responded to too much to David Bowie's music.
19:00But I thought in here, he was just brilliant and superbly cast as this extraterrestrial
19:08alien who's come down from another planet because his own planet is suffering drought
19:13and he's left his family behind.
19:15And so he literally does fall to earth.
19:17And what he needs to do, his mission now is to amass a fortune so he can start space
19:23travel back to his planet and save everybody.
19:26And he becomes a tech giant.
19:29And the reason why I chose this, I wanted to choose a Nick Roeg film because I'm passionate
19:34about Nick Roeg's movies ever since, you know, he was a cameraman, I think, in performance.
19:39And I nearly chose Don't Look Now, but this film was written by Paul Myersberg.
19:44And Paul actually mentored me in screenplay writing in the late 80s when I got nominated
19:50to go where?
19:51To residential writing course.
19:53And he taught me the essence of screenplay writing in Show, Don't Tell.
19:59And he did that with me one afternoon when he said, you've got a scene here in your movie
20:04which is full of dialogue, it's two characters having a conversation, he said, go away and
20:09write it and don't allow them to say a word.
20:12And that advice just taught me more about screenwriting than anything else.
20:16Yeah, it's funny, isn't it?
20:18Because somebody's drawing on their experience and they just, almost like a throwaway point,
20:22but actually that was, sounds like, you know, the seeds of your own screenwriting career
20:26because that bit of advice that you've taken to heart.
20:29Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth, what I find so interesting is that because he goes for
20:33one, he starts off because he's coming down to Earth for one particular reason, which
20:38is to save his planet.
20:39But of course he becomes consumed by and transformed by Earth and of course by the
20:46end he becomes quite sort of this indolent figure who actually becomes sort of more human
20:51as he goes along and he may start off as an immortal but he becomes quite sort of drunk
20:55by the end and he doesn't have any intention of going back or he's too lethargic to go
20:59back.
21:00So there's a fascinating almost sort of, almost like Christ figure type role here but which
21:06is also kind of reversed.
21:08Yes, yes, that's really interesting that you say that because the book, the film is actually
21:14an adaptation of a book by Walter Tevis and Walter Tevis said of this particular book
21:20that it was a disguised autobiography.
21:23Walter Tevis had suffered a lot of illness, I think he had a rheumatic heart condition
21:28as a kid and had to go into a convalescent home.
21:30He was alienated from other children.
21:33There are obviously lots of parallels between the character of Thomas Newton and Tevis himself
21:38but it's a very interesting film.
21:39In this film in particular, you know, I know that Paul Myersburg and Nick Roeg had a very
21:44intellectual relationship and they liked to experiment with time and Thomas Newton, the
21:49character, can actually see what we can't and there's a brilliant scene at one point
21:53when he's driving in a car through American countryside and he looks through the car window
21:59and sees settlers, you know, American settlers from hundreds of years ago but they're actually
22:06looking at him too.
22:07They can see him.
22:08It's like parallel time.
22:10There's lots of examples of that in this movie that make you think about time and space travel.
22:16And what works is because it's got so many of those tropes that you'd expect in, for
22:19example, a superhero movie but there's a very character driven and, you know, you think
22:26of the sixth sense as well in terms of what you were saying there and this, I think, is
22:30the template for so many of those films that it deals with all of those big, vast, cosmic
22:34themes but does so, doesn't it, in a very personal way which also has an edge of the
22:41eerie, the mystery about it.
22:43Absolutely.
22:43Well, he does have a relationship with a woman in it too.
22:47I think it's played by Candy Clark, Cindy Liu.
22:52She works in a hotel and she's responsible for taking him up in the lift one day in the
22:56hotel and, of course, Thomas Newton suffers from gravitational problems and he has this
23:01terrific nosebleed and she takes care of him and she becomes, you know, the woman in his
23:06life although he's got the family on his own planet.
23:09You know, World Enterprises, which is his tech company, becomes so big, so powerful
23:14and it begins its own space programme.
23:17It's not only a rival company that goes after him but the government too and they begin
23:21experimenting on him and one of the sad things that happens at the end is, of course, they
23:26use x-ray cameras on his eyes and his special contact lenses get fused to his eyes.
23:32Incredible.
23:33Well, I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today.
23:36Many thanks to Julie Wassmer for joining us and being such a brilliant guest and many
23:40thanks to you all for tuning in.
23:42Be sure to come back and join us again at the same time next week.
23:45Until then, that's all from us.
23:47Goodbye.