The film Red Joan appealed to
me because of ongoing work which involves separating coincidences from
connections and sifting through the available information to try and find
evidence which points to truth. In this instance I decided to see the film
without reading reviews or reading on the person said to have inspired the
making of the film although the two lives are only loosely connected
The basic truth is that
the real life subject, Melita
Norwood, was a life-long communist supporter, the daughter of communist
supporting parents, who worked as a
civil servant for 40 years in a government nuclear weapon development programme
during which time she provided
information of value to Russia who regard her contribution as important as that
provided by the more famous Cambridge Spies. She worked as the personal secretary to the
Director of the programme and therefore was able to photograph and pass on the
documents and communications with which she had access. She was also married to
a communist chemistry teacher who have helped her to understand something of
the work involved.
Melita appears to have retired
about the same time Margaret Thatcher launched the most comprehensive and effect
vetting service in the world to prevent left wing activists being appointed to
any form of public funded position or job. In terms of her background she was
bright enough with the personality to be school captain at a secondary school
and to commence to study for a degree in Latin and Logic at Southampton University,
deciding to leave to commence work in London after a year. She is known to have
been part of the Woolwich spy ring where three members were arrested and
imprisoned in 1938 but she was not even interviewed.
Nor was she prosecuted
when aged 80 years, and retired, she was
identified in 1992 when a KGB archivist for
the foreign intelligence service, Vasili Mitrokhin, defected and provided the British
MI6 with files which remain classified, although some access has been given, notably to Christopher Andrew who
wrote the two editions of the 1000 page history of MI5, and published two books
on the papers The Sword and the Shields 1999 and the Battle for the Third World
in 2005. Melita was one of three British
spies whose names and roles were made public. The second was a Member of Parliament
for 20 years Raymond Fletcher also a journalist and author whose wife has denied
his participation saying he worked for MI6 and directly helped Margaret
Thatcher. Raymond Fletcher served in the British army in WW2 and afterwards in
Germany.
The most colourful of the
three was John Symonds who fled Britain after becoming suspected of corruption
when a police sergeant at New Scotland Yard. He claimed to have been framed and
went to Africa where he used his military background to train government troops
using sold off British weapons. He was
then recruited by Russia and used to gain information by seducing women who
worked in embassies He returned to Britain and was given immunity for past
deeds when cooperating in Operation Countryman. He was not believed about his
role as a male Marta Hari until he was named by Mitrokhin. He is still alive
and a film starring Daniel Craig and Jude law based on his book was planned but
then discontinued.
In the Red Joan Judi Dench
plays the 80 year old, a widow with one son who is a leading lawyer and who spends most of the film horrified by
what she discloses of former life to the
Special Branch in long flashback covering
her life story. This begins when she
meets two German Jews at Cambridge University and is groomed after joining a left
wing film society and seduced by the male.
Unlike the Norwood, Sophie Cookson portrays the young Joan as a conventional
bright academic from a middle class background passionate about the pure
science of physics and a mathematical background which leads her to being head
hunted to work as personal assistant to the director of the British nuclear
weapon project before the war ends. and where her former communist contacts learn
of her new role and try and persuade her to spy for them. She strongly opposes
this until the bomb is used on Japan.
The story follows what
happened in reality as in 1946, the McMahan Act was passed in the USA
preventing further sharing of the development programme despite British
scientists having played a major role in the Manhattan project. The irony is it
was the former German scientist Klaus Fuchs who in 1950 was found to have spent
years leaking his contribution to the Russians using the argument made by the
film that this achieved a balance of power and prevented a third world war and the
destruction of humanity.
The film has Atlee visiting the
project and agreeing to what became the successful development of the British Bomb.
The problem was that we lacked the means of effective rocket launching to
prevent any pre-emptive strike by the enemy. We were blackmailed by the
American President in 1960 into agreeing to provide the main base for the Polaris
submarines and to do so near Scotland biggest centre of population as the means
for the sharing of the rocket delivery system. The government wanted a more
isolated location, but the USA insisted on Holy Loch to ensure their service personally
had quick access to the facilities of a city. This information became available
with the release of Cabinet papers and the treating of the Holy Loch demonstrations
which I triggered and helped organise (papers of Direct Action Committee J B Priestly
Library University of Bradford) with an online index and mentioned in a
footnote Gandhi and the West Sean Scalmar).
In the film, the young Joan
begins a relationship with the project director when they go to Canada for help
with the British development. However, it is only when the project director is charged
and held in custody for being the source
of the leaks to Russia development, that his wife agrees to a divorce and they
can in theory be together again.. Joan
decides to admit her role to save him but then works out a plan to enable both
of them to leave the UK for Australia by blackmailing a gay former communist student
at Cambridge who has become a senior civil servant at the foreign office. It is
only when this man dies that the evidence against her comes to light. The film
ends with the media at her door as she attempts to explains why she did it
supported at the last moment by her son. The ending is intended to leave the
audience with sympathy for what she did.
The acting throughout is first
class and some critics dislike the direction of Trevor Nunn which avoids this
being yet another gripping spy thriller with lots of explicit sex and scandal. Nunn is more concerned about portraying
relationships and motivations in the context of the time period and in this he succeeds.
The film is pitched for an intelligent and serious audience and not for the
average cinema goers and film critics born in the last thirty years which
suggests it will not have a long run in mainstream theatres.
I also recently enjoyed the
Missing Link which uses puppets and stop motion but with the latest technology
involving 110 sets at 65 locations. The sequence on the ice bridge to Shangri
la is reported to have taken five years and has Emma Thomson as the voice of
the powerful dictator of the hidden world
There is a great cast of voices including Hugh Jackman, Stephen Fry,
David Walliams, Matt Lucas and Timothy Olyphant. The story is of a dedicated explorer in
search of living creatures from Big Foot to the Yeti which will prove to be the
missing link between animals and humans and will gain him entry into the Royal Society
where he is opposed by its President clinging to Creation in 7 days
belief. The film follows the Around the
World in 80 days in this respect and where the Royal Society president hires a
team to prevent the return of the explorer with proof. There is a huge production company involved
managed by Laika. I first became aware of this approach to film making when
seeing Kubo and the two Strings in 2016 where the voices included Ralph Fiennes.
I also enjoyed the remake of
Dumbo which upset me as child when seeing the 1941 original when Dumbo was brought by a flock of wild storks
but otherwise the basics of the story are the same with the mother elephant
declared mad and locked away and separated from her son which continues to
upset very young children today as it did then,
the impact of being regarded and exploited as a freaks and the
happy ending, in this instance taken from public entertainment back to
a natural habitat.
One of my first cousins spent
his childhood including early school in Germany immediately after the war as
his father was a regimental quartermaster in the British Army of Occupation.
His mother was traumatised by the reality of the experience, so I was
interested to see one of the few authentic accounts on film with best well
known Graham Green’s the Third Man with Joseph Cotton and Orson Wells. The Aftermath
more than lived up to my expectations but I am not surprised that that its
season of showing was short for as T S Elliot comments in his Four Quartets
humans cannot cope with too much reality.
I have no visual memory of the
original 1937 movie A Star is Born with Janet Gaynor and Frederich March, but I
do remember the 1954 version with James Mason and Judy Garland and then as Rock
and Roll artists in 1976, Kris Kristofferson and Barbara Streisand. I was not surprised
that the latest Hollywood version in 2018 with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper won
several awards. I went to Wild Rose at Bolden Cineworld on April 12 because it was a Scottish film with Julie Walters, not knowing
much else, only to discover there were
similarities with the Star is Born series but at a superior level of authenticity
because of the performances of Jessica Buckley as the Country singer, Julie Walters
as her mother and the young actors who
play her son and daughter both of whom are outstanding. I rate Wild Rose as one
of the best Scottish productions and should feature in next year’s BAFTA awards. The language is natural and the film rightly has
a 15 certificate.
I then went to see Shazam at
the Vue Gateshead using a one of the Lloyd Bank vouchers where it was being shown
on their super clean screen with the latest special sound and found the entrance
foyer in a disgusting condition after enjoying a cup of tea in the neighbouring
Tesco. Usually the foyer area, full of leather armchairs and a large screen
showing the latest trailers, is spotless but this time there was spilt popcorn everywhere
and the remains of various snacks which was cleared up by the time I had my
ticket and car park pass. I went for an entertainment experience without
expectations and came away impressed that this is best action hero film made for
families starting with children from about ten years of age.
The film centres of mixed age
range of school age adolescents living in a small children’s home managed by a
couple with the knowledge, experience and skill to treat each child as an
individual, to give them their space while bringing them into a sense of family
life where they begin to look after each other.
The most unhappy child was abandoned by his 17 year old mother at a fair
and spend his life trying to find her believing he was lost and not abandoned.
He is selected by an ancient solitary wizard to be tested to become his successor
after years if failing to find someone suitable. He is given the full range of
superpowers which he initially begins to use in order to get out school,
attract attention and money for treats and let the situation get out of
hand. Unfortunately, a previous failure
finds a way to return to the lair of the Wizard and join up with the imprisoned
dark forces there and uses these creature monsters to gain power and revenge
until he is made aware of the potential
threat from the adolescent superhero..
Thus, the age old battle
between good and evils begins where the youngster is no match until one by one
the other children realise the situation and try and help. At the end all the children
become superheroes each with their own form of power which suggests this is
only the first a series. There was a
good size audience for the film which was also enjoyed by them, overhearing the
comments as we left the auditorium. Next in 3D with be the sequel to the Avengers
Endgame.
