Category: Culture

‘Films like Bugsy Malone used to help make better people and a better society. Will this lost art return?’

The BBC used to generally live up to its mission to ‘inform, educate and entertain’.  Alas no more, BBC Remain as it was often referred to during the battle to achieve Brexit, has a view and you either agree with them or you’re considered beyond the pale.

It’s not just the BBC, I happened upon Jurassic World Dominion, the latest in the Jurassic Park movie franchise, whilst on a flight recently.  The movie was fine, but not very good and far from great.  Partly this represents the tiredness of the franchise but partly it’s held back by the recent Hollywood need to have one dimensional bad guys (who are always involved in the corporate world), and the constant signposting of the hero’s characteristics.  It’s good to have heroes that differ from the norm, just also make them interesting multi flavoured characters.  Make them heroes, because of what they do, not who they are.  The real crime of the movie in my opinion is the final scene, explaining how all life (across species and across time) will and must get along.  Anyone who has had a pet cat and seen how they can play with and devourer their catch before you can stop them.  Knows that it’s simply not the case that all life gets along.

I watched this movie to see people fighting a Tyrannosaurus rex, I watched it to see Velociraptors hunt down their prey.  Above all else I watched it for some escapism, to fill a dull flight.  I certainly didn’t watch it to be lectured too.  Those in media used to know how to do this.  They used to be able to provide an entertaining program whilst still fulfilling any moral obligation they felt.  Exhibit A for this would be the 70s classic, Bugsy Malone.

Here is a movie that managed to tell a story, provide multi-dimensional characters (Fat Sam being both a gangster and a good man, and Bugsy himself) and tell a love story with nothing even remotely inappropriate happening.  It gave us classic singalong songs, entertaining adults and children alike, and in the finale told us ‘We could be the best at being’ good guys’.  All of this acted by children.

Now perhaps this is an unfair comparison.  Bugsy, was an exceptionally good film.  But, The Omen, Logans Run, Rocky, All The Presidents Men, and The Eagle Has Landed (all released the same year as Bugsy, 1976), are great movies, that managed to entertain and tell great strong stories.  That same year Quincy, George and Mildred, The Muppet Show, Happy Days. The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, Mash, Columbo, Open All Hours, and I, Claudius were on the TV.  Bugsy was not an isolated case.

What happened?  How did we go from a movie that taught a work ethic (So You Wanna Be a Boxer, Down and Out), to not give up on your dreams no matter the setbacks (Tomorrow, Ordinary Fool), and to take pride in your success (Fat Sam’s Grand Slam, Bad Guys).  To end up with Disney betting its Marvel shop on SHE-HULK?

In 2022 we saw, Lightyear, Moonfall, and Amsterdam fail.  At the same time Top Gun: Maverick cleaned up at the box office by providing a simple narrative of good guys v bad guys, we didn’t all need, as it turns out, an extra lecture.  Tallulah was not nearly as one dimensional as her line “Listen honey, if I didn’t look this good, you wouldn’t give me the time of day” suggests.  She just wasn’t a movie character whose lines ignored reality and gave in to the Woke mindset to the point of losing all meaning.

Let’s hope we start to see movies and programs that once again value entertainment, even with a little education, over lecturing and hectoring.  I’ve written before how The Daily Wire is trying to provide some of this, however we need more.  The simple message to Hollywood was encapsulated by the Bugsy Malone gangs words “You could have been anything that you wanted to be”, do better “And it’s not too late to change, I’d be delighted {if you were to} to give it some thought”.

Image By Amazon, Tekijänoikeuslain 25 §, https://fi.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1354172

By Mike Swadling

Misery loves company they say, so on the 30^th December last year I made a point of telling a few people the day was the 40^th anniversary of the first broadcast of ‘Allo ‘Allo!  This knowledge having made me feel rather old, was only fair, to share.  The show broadcast for 10 years, was a comedy set in German occupied France in WW2 and followed René Artois, a café owner and his escapades with the resistance, the Germans, the waitresses, shot down airmen, and his family.

Even if you don’t remember the show, you are bound to know many of its catch phrases that have made it into the lexicon.  “Listen very carefully, I will say this only once” is a critical start to any sentence giving instructions, just as “It is I, LeClerc!” is a necessary statement to break cover for any master of disguise.  I would advise reader discretion when saying “You stupid woman”, but get it right and it could be a “Good moaning” for you.  Beyond the great catchphrases and innuendo, what ‘Allo ‘Allo! really epitomised was being the last great show before the break between the post war world where grim reality had governed people’s lives, and the post-cold war world where feelings reign supreme.  

I, like many, grew up in a house with parents who had lived through rationing and where no food went to waist.  Most people I knew didn’t have double glazing, few had central heating.  We spent much of the winter dashing to the one room with heating, something modern Net Zero policies are reintroducing for many.  Most adults knew something about how hard life could be, and even in the free world we lived under the existential threat of nuclear war and the aggression of the Soviet Union.  Except for when someone close to them had died, I don’t remember any of the adults in my life thinking they should talk about their feelings; they were simply too busy getting on with life.

Around the same time as the 40^th anniversary of ‘Allo ‘Allo!’s debut, stories of how Prince Harry ended up wearing a Nazi uniform were circulating.  I don’t have an opinion (or very much care) why Prince Harry or anyone at the party was wearing any particular outfit, but it did make me think how, how we treat evil has changed.  In the hullabaloo around Prince Harry’s costume, I couldn’t help but think of my memory of watching ‘Allo ‘Allo! with a mix of family members.  Some had been evacuees, one had evacuees stay in their home, another had their young children evacuated from them, and one had literally fought Nazis.  All laughed heartily at the comedic Germans on the screen.  Of course, many of the actors had also served during the war.

We once knew how to deal with those we disliked, through mockery.  We weren’t offended by Kenny Everett dressed as Hitler, or Dick Emery as a German Army officer.  No one was triggered by Hogan’s Heroes or Monty Python Communist Quiz sketch.  No safe space was needed from Comrade Dad (a much-overlooked comedy starring George Cole, set in Londongrad, the capital of the USSR-GB).  These comedy shows didn’t need to protect us from images of evil.  Instead, the post war world (and before with Chaplin in The Great Dictator) knew the best defence against the twin evils of National and International Socialism was mockery and ridicule.

40 years ago, the BBC could make good comedy.  Comedy that knew how we could mock our own sloppiness and arrogance (the British Airmen, and the Police Officer), the Germans officialdom (Colonel Kurt von Strohm, Lieutenant Hubert Gruber, and Herr Flick of the Gestapo), whilst admiring the French (especially the waitresses, Yvette Carte-Blanche and Maria Recamier).  We knew that consenting adults might be pulled together in stressful situations (or frankly any situation), and deal with a little smut and inuendo, but alas no more.  It would take greater smuggling skills to get such a comedy out of the BBC these days than it took to hide The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies. If you want to be reminded of some of the best bits of the show here’s a good place to start. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtQxugFYQqs If you think you’re at risk of being offended, maybe still give it a go, and remember those that fought Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy, used to laugh at it.

Images details Alloallotitle – ‘Allo ‘Allo! – Wikipedia