Last night's movie was "For Them That Trespass"(1949), the saga of a man wrongly imprisoned for murder. The great British actor Richard Todd stars as "Herb Logan" a small time thief who hangs around the bars of London. His life becomes intertwined with two other men through a girl all three are seeing. The story begins with budding writer "Christopher Drew" (Stephen Murray) getting a poem published in the newspaper. He then writes a play which is rejected as being "flat". "You need life experience to put heart in your work", an editor tells him, so he trawls the London pubs, hoping to absorb the Cockney culture. On his first night there, he meets "Frankie Ketchen" (Rosalyn Boulter), a free spirited lass who likes her beer and men. The main man in her life is "Jim Heal", a brute who shovels coal on a train. Heal knows she's got other guys on the side but he's always gone, riding the rails, and there's nothing much he can do about it. Herb Logan likes Frankie too, though his "jobs" mean he's often on the train as well, riding up to Glasgow for robberies. This leaves Drew, the educated young writer, to take Frankie out at night, away from the bars, and lift her out of the gutter.
One night at her apartment, he shows her his poem, which he's clipped from the paper to give her. "Oh, you write such fancy words", Frankie says, blushing but impressed. 'Ere, let me put it in a place where it'll always be safe. Later, when I'm old, I can take it out and read it, and tell people I knew you before you was famous". Drew loves her and wants more. "But Frankie, you'll always know me. You see, I want to marry you". She blushes. "Oh, Kit.......marry me? But I'm just a girl from the".....just then a noise is heard. "Oh no", Frankie stammers. "It's Jim, home from a run! You'd better get out of here, Kit. He'll kill you if he finds you here". Drew climbs out a window and runs, but Heal sees him turning the corner. "So! Goin' behind me back again"?, he yells at Frankie. He becomes enraged and strangles her.
Now, you'll notice I referred to Christopher Drew as "Kit". That's the name he gave to Frankie Kitchen, the pseudonym "Kit Marlowe", a real life playwright from Shakespeare's time whose full first name was Christopher. Drew uses the false name due to lack of confidence in his talent, and figures people from the lower classes will not have heard of Marlowe. Frankie therefore knew him by that name, a fact that will become important later. Meanwhile, Jim Heal didn't know about Christopher Drew, but he was aware that Herb Logan was seeing Frankie. When questioned by the police about her murder, he identifies Logan as the man he saw that night. "He musta done it! I just come back from my job on the train and I seen him running away". A manhunt then begins for Herb Logan. The plot gets complex from here.
Logan high tails it to another part of the city. "London's big, they'll never find me", he tells a friend. "But if you didn't do it, why not turn yerself in"? "Ahh, because them coppers got a certain mentality. I'm a thief with a record. They'll believe I done it no matter what I tell 'em". Logan rents a room from a sweet girl named "Rosie" (Patricia Plunkett). When the headlines spread the news, she finds out he's wanted but decides to help him. "I swear I didn't do it, Rosie". "I believe you", she says. But Rosie's friends find out Herb is staying with her and pressure her to turn him in. Herb is then caught in a stakeout. He's tried and convicted when the real killer, Jim Heal, gives false testimony, and he's ultimately sentenced to hang. Poor happy-go-lucky Herb, a victim of evil circumstances.
Time passes. In prison, Herb tells anyone who'll listen "I didn't do it". Some of the guards believe him. The warden doesn't disbelieve. Finally, the word gets around. A petition is started by a citizen's group to ask the governor to commute Herb's sentence. The plea is successful but he doesn't get a new trial that was hoped for. He still must serve fifteen more years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Those fifteen years pass slowly. He's now in middle age. When he's released, the warden wishes him well. "Be good Herb and don't come back". "Thank you sir, I won't. In fact I'm going to prove my innocence".
Herb goes back to live with Rosie, who he's forgiven for turning him in. Meanwhile, what's happened after all that time to Christopher Drew, aka "Kit Marlowe", the writer who was seeing Frankie Ketchen? Remember, he fled just before she was murdered. Well, as the audience knows, he was at Herb Logan's trial. He sat in the gallery and said nothing as Jim Heal lied to the jury, knowing that Heal was the guilty one. He said nothing when Herb was facing execution. Drew is a coward; he's admitted as much in his diary. In the intervening years he's become famous, a successful wealthy playwright. To come forward now would destroy his career ("you let an innocent man rot in prison all that time"). Drew is content to maintain the status quo. He knows Herb's been released but figures it's all said and done. "And at least they didn't hang him after all", he rationalizes of the end result.
What Drew doesn't know is that Herb has new information and is determined to clear his name. That's all I can tell you about this epic, epic plot, but again we've been very fortunate of late to find some exceptional motion pictures, and I urge you to see "For Them That Trespass" which I give Two Huge Thumbs Up. The story has it all: crime, romance, suspense, tragedy, injustice. Richard Todd's performance is it's heart. There's a lot of Cockney Britspeak to work through, especially early on during the bar scenes, and the picture is not razor sharp (in fact it's quite soft), but let none of that stop you! This is an incredible film. The script was written by J. Lee Thompson of all people, who I always thought was an American but it turns out he was English. Thompson became famous for making macho Hollywood action movies in the 1970s, working with actors like Charles Bronson, so it's interesting that he wrote so sensitive a film as "Trespass", way back in 1949. It's very highly recommended, so see it and enjoy. ////
The previous night's picture was "Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill"(1948), one of those boy's school movies along the lines of "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" and "Dead Poet's Society". The focus here isn't on the students, however, but on the teachers and their imperious, intractable headmaster. Marius Goring, an actor we didn't know about until a year ago, shows himself to be an all-time great in his role as the priggish "Mr. Perrin", a math teacher at Banfield's College (it should be noted that the Brits have different names for their schools, as this college is what we'd call a junior high school). Mr. Perrin is fussy in the classroom, doling out after-hours assignments for boys who don't learn their equations. "You'll be staying until 4pm. Write the solution ten times and hand it in".
One day he's introduced to a new man who'll be sharing the department with him, another mathematics teacher by the name of "Mr. Traill" (David Farrar). If Mr. Perrin is by-the-books and old school in the time honored Veddy Brrrittish tradition, then Mr. Traill is down-to-earth and easygoing by comparison, though he's not above holding a boy's nose to a piece of Indian rubber on a stove as punishment for him placing it there as a prank. But he's generally well liked and is also the coach of the school's rugby team, whereas Mr. Perrin is mocked behind his back as "Pompo", i.e. Mr. Pompous by his students.
In between the two teachers is the school nurse, "Miss Isabel Lester" (Greta Gynt again). She's pretty and personable. Mr. Perrin pines for her though he's old, and even gets up the nerve to ask her on a walk, while the handsome Mr. Traill attracts her just by being present. Mr. Perrin is frustrated by Mr. Traill at every turn, though Traill means no harm. It's just that Traill is the newcomer and everyone likes him. Perrin tries lording it over Traill by using his 20 year seniority as a weapon. He hogs the staff bathroom, keeps Traill's star rugby player after school, causing him to miss practice. The two go back and forth with Perrin doing most of the sniping. Mr. Traill finds sympathy in the teachers' common room, where he discovers that most of the other men don't like Perrin either.
Then one day, he goes to the headmaster's office to ask a favor, and witnesses Mr. Perrin being denounced and threatened with his job. All Mr. Perrin did was give a boy a day's leave, to visit his soldier father. Seeing this unfair abuse by the headmaster, Mr. Traill feels sympathy for Mr. Perrin. Now he realises why the man is such a pain in the rear end. He commiserates with Mr. Perrin, but all this does is make Perrin resent him more. "Don't give me your disingenuous pity", he cries, storming off to nurse his growing hatred of Mr. Traill.
Traill sees the domineering headmaster as their common enemy, but for Perrin, his nemesis is Mr. Traill, who's not only stolen his favored students for the rugby team but is making inroads with Nurse Lester, the woman of his fanciful dreams. Poor Mr. Perrin. He'd be likeable if he wasn't such an ass. Later, after much professional skirmishing between the men, Mr. Perrin will learn, much to his dismay, that Mr. Traill has become engaged to Miss Lester. His dream of being with her is over, even though it never existed in the first place. This, coupled with the dressing down he's received from the headmaster, is enough to send Mr. Perrin over the edge. He begins to hallucinate, seeing the face of Mr. Traill everywhere. Traill is the cause of all of his problems, he's certain. Finally he sets out to do him in.
That's all I can tell you, though the story isn't over yet. In fact, it will have a heroic resolve, though you'll have to find that out for yourself. Just be glad you aren't a teacher at a British Public School in the 1930s, when the film is set. The script is based on a novel, from the real life experiences of Hugh Walpole who taught at Epsom College. I assume he is represented by the character of Mr. Traill, who wants to change the high-handed culture in the Public School system, where the boys are told to use their last names to make men of them and the teachers are at the mercurial whims of a tyrant headmaster, who can end a twenty year career over any perceived breech of his authority, no matter how insignificant. As mentioned, Marius Goring's performance as Mr. Perrin is the stuff Oscars should be made of. We're used to seeing him play nasty little Nazis or grim-faced morticians. Here, as the fussy, officious Perrin, he's doing a complete 180 and demonstrating an impressive range. Looking at his IMDB, I see he was in several Powell & Pressburger movies including "The Red Shoes", which means we saw him back in 2014 at the CSUN Cinematheque, when Professor Tim was doing the P&P retrospective. We also saw David Farrar (Mr. Traill) back then, in P&P's "The Small Back Room" as an alcoholic bomb squad expert. Farrar stands out here too, though he's playing second fiddle, theatrically speaking, to Goring.
All told, we've got yet another tremendous film. "Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill" gets - yes indeed - Two Huge Thumbs Up. I'm not just doling these out willy-nilly. Our recent movies simply are that good. This makes the second (or is it the third?) blog in a row where both movies got Two Huge Thumbs. The picture on "Mr. Perrin" is better than on "For Them That Trespass" but it's still less than razor sharp. Once again that's a minor complaint compared to the greatness of the movie. Absolutely do not miss either of the films in this blog, they're both of the highest caliber. ////
That's all I know for tonight. I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving and I send you Tons of Love as always!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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