An Accidental Studio: An essential amusement

An Accidental Studio (2019) • View trailer 

Four stars. Rated TV-PG, for no particular reason

By Derrick Bang

The British film industry was in dire straits in the early 1980s.

 

From the late 1950s through the 1970s, between 90 and 120 films had been made each year; the average Briton watched 11 per year. Only 23 films were made in 1982, and average attendance was down to 0.4.

 

Former Beatle George Harrison, center, makes a fleeting appearance in
Monty Python's Life of Brian, officially billed as "Mr. Papadopolous."

The primary culprit: corporate consolidation. The industry was controlled by just two major studios — Rank and EMI — both of which green-lit only “safe” projects. Today’s multiplicity of indie studios and production companies hadn’t yet arrived.

 

“Rank and EMI famously said no,” recalls film journalist Terry Ilott, “to almost everything that was interesting.”

 

Rescue arrived from a completely unexpected direction. Indeed, said resurrection had begun a few years earlier.

 

Bill Jones, Kim Leggatt and Ben Timlett explore the 11-year reign of George Harrison’s HandMade Films in An Accidental Studio — available via Amazon and other streaming services — a thoroughly engaging documentary that charts this brief Renaissance in British cinema. The former Beatle became a hero in his native land, lauded for having “saved” the British film industry.

 

The saga is depicted via contemporary talking heads and archival interviews with scores of the major filmmakers and stars involved: Michael Caine, Richard E. Grant, Bob Hoskins, Neil Jordan, Cathy Tyson, Brenda Vaccaro and the entire Monty Python troupe, among many others. There’s also considerable footage of Harrison, revealing him as the most quietly relaxed mogul the industry ever produced.

 

(If this documentary kindles your curiosity, you’ll also want to read Robert Sellers’ equally delightful 2013 book, Very Naughty Boys: The Amazing True Story of HandMade Films.)

 

HandMade’s origin was as cheeky as its first project. Harrison had gotten to know Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam and the other Pythons; he considered them good friends. Following the success of 1975’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the gang secured a deal with EMI to make their next project, Monty Python’s Life of Brian. With locations scouted and pre-production underway, EMI severed the arrangement just as filming was about to begin.

 

(As the Pythons collectively recall, EMI’s chairman, Bernard Delfont, “finally read the script.” And was appalled.)

Made in Dagenham: Sew fine

Made in Dagenham (2010) • View trailer for Made in Dagenham
Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity and a bit of earthy behavior
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.7.11

Her features are plain but somehow striking: a ready, cheerful smile; flinty intelligence behind the eyes; the sort of quiet integrity that inspires trust and invites shared confidences. She’s dressed plainly, in clothes that come from bargain lots, although care has been taken to make do; her appearance is by no means sloppy.

Wife, mother ... factory worker. Merely one of many women in this film’s establishing shots, and yet somehow she’s easy to spot in director Nigel Cole’s camera placement: a woman of potential importance. Featured player in our story.

While Albert (Bob Hoskins) quietly cheers from the sidelines, Rita (Sally
Hawkins, center) builds to a quiet fury after her local union representative tries
to minimize her legitimate grievances with another condescending -- but
empty -- promise to "consider the situation" at some vague point in the future.

We in the States had our Norma Rae; England had its Rita O’Grady.

Well ... sort of. Screenwriter William Ivory actually made “Rita” a fictionalized amalgam of several different people, compressing the militant activities of many into one. But the broad strokes are accurate, and the story itself is both true and a powerful reminder: Revolutions can have humble origins. All it takes is a crack in the dam, and eventually the pent-up water will break through and crumble the entire structure.

The setting is England in 1968, where Rita (Sally Hawkins) is one of 187 women employed by the British arm of the Ford Motor Company in Dagenham. Unlike their 55,000 male counterparts, who work in the automaker’s gleaming new facility, these women toil in a decrepit 1920s plant with a leaky roof and pigeons in the overhead rafters. During the summer, the stifling heat prompts them – young and old – to strip down to their frillies, out of sheer self-defense.

This causes all sorts of consternation for their easily embarrassed union representative, Albert (Bob Hoskins), who must avert his gaze whenever visiting “the floor,” accompanied by the warning call of “Man present!”

(Filming actually took place at an old Hoover factory in the small community of Merthyr Tydfil, in Wales: a plant that once employed 5,000 but was in the process of shutting down. The sad impact on the local community no doubt lent additional significance to the cast and crew, as this movie was being made.)