The Bofors Gun

The Bofors Gun

1968

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Directed by Jack Gold
Screenplay by John McGrath
From the play Events While Guarding The Bofors Gun by John McGrath
Music by Carl Davis
Cinematography by Alan Hume

CAST:
Nicole Williamson – O’Rourke
Ian Holm – Flynn
David Warner – Terry “Lance Bar” Evans
Peter Vaughan – Sergeant Walker
John Thaw – Featherstone
Barry Jackson – Shone
Richard O’Callaghan – Rowe
Donald Gee – Crowley
Barbara Jefford – NAAFI girl
Gareth Forwood – Lieutenant Packering
Geoffrey Hughes – Private Samuel, cook
Lindsay Campbell- Captain Cheeseman
Glynn Edwards- Sergeant-Major West

Released UK: April 1968, USA September 1968

Note: The Bofors Gun was a Swedish-made anti-aircraft gun first designed in the 1920s and used extensively by the Allies in World War 2. It was largely obsolete by the time of the film.

The film takes place in 1954 in Germany, occupied by British troops. It’s based on a stage play from 1966, Events While Guarding The Bofors Gun. John McGrath based the play on his own experience of National Service. He was a seasoned TV writer, and wrote many episodes of Z Cars. The producers did it next after Georgy Girl. It was Jack Gold’s first feature film. A major decision was to use faces unfamiliar to the cinema public. This was very much a British 60s theme – avoid the star system.

Jack Gold: I believe that this is the type of film which lends itself to unknown faces. I think in all of us there is a little which we can identify in the film’s characters, and I believe that unfamiliar faces will help us to do this.
quoted in DVD booklet, 2012

They may have been unfamiliar on film, but three were major Royal Shakespeare Company performers … Nicole Williamson, David Warner and Ian Holm. While Williamson and Holm were new to the sceen, David Warner certainly was not … Tom Jones, Morgan- A Suitable Case For Treatment, Work is A Four Letter Word are all reviewed on this blog.

When I saw it in 1968 I was so impressed that I went to see it again the same week. I had just directed John Whiting’s Saint’s Day at university, another play involving soldiers out of control.

For British drama centred on the conscripted army, The Bofors Gun was unusual. It was serious. The British liked their National Service drama to be funny … Privates on Parade, Carry On Sergeant, Idle on Parade, The Virgin Soldiers on film, then The Army Game, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, Get Some In on TV. The Americans tended to more serious fare, though Sergeant Bilko / The Phil Silvers Show fitted the British comedy template, and was my father’s favourite TV show … like Bilko, he had been a sergeant in charge of a motor pool. Army shows remained popular. The RAF conscript sitcom Get Some In (i.e. “get some time in uniform in”) featured David Jansen who was in two of our ELT comedy videos. I still remember standing in a shopping street in Oxford where it seemed every passing taxi and bus driver, and many pedestrians, shouted the catch phrase Get some in! when they saw David. The same happened everywhere we went. I was amazed at the cheerful wave back he managed to do for the 50th time in a day.

National Service

Conscription, aka National Service, lasted in the UK from 1939 to 1960. From 1939 to 1945 was for “as long as it takes”. I write this the week of the 75th Anniversary of VE Day. My father never thought it was much to celebrate, because for him the war ended in mid 1946 when he was finally discharged.

After 1945 it was eighteen months served between ages 17 and 21, then it was changed to two years with The Korean War and The Malayan Emergency. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was wily on choosing to scrap it. National Service cost a fortune, and by 1958 CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) marches were becoming a major pressure. I don’t think it was stated quite so baldly, but there was a choice. If the UK kept nuclear weapons, we could end National Service as a large standing army would not be needed. It took the heat right out of the debate.

My generation was eight years away from being called up (the last call up date was for those born in October 1939, a rather neat choice of date). Never mind, when we were at our boy’s grammar school, we were “encouraged” (forced?) to join the CCF or Combined Cadet Force. We were warned that National Service could easily come back, and if we had completed our CCF training it would be a passport directly to office training in National Service. I still have my certificates for Basic Training, Navigation and Principles of Flight (I was in the RAF section) stored safely just in case.

Themes

My comparison with the story of the section (part of a platoon) in the film is American. Sorry to keep talking about myself, but when I did my Research MA in American Literature, the university required a short exam as well. I was given three topics and a thin exercise book. I had two weeks to research a topic. Because I loved Catch-22 (a review of the film will come), I chose the Second World War Novel … without thinking that all the books were very long. Then I could use the notes in the exercise book, and I had four hours to write an essay on the topic. I did not discover the essay title until the day of the exam, and the notebook had to be handed in with the paper. James Gould Cozzens Guard of Honor was one. Then Norman Mailer’s The Naked & The Dead springs to mind. A diverse group of individuals in terms of class, region and ethnicity are thrown together. Then the underlying theme is the failure of a liberal approach in the face of an authoritarian enemy. To defeat the enemy, they have to find a bastard even nastier and more brutal than the opposition. In The Bofors Gun, they never find that person in authority to deal with it.

American literature continued with the theme … heavier involvement in Korea, then Vietnam. We were lucky. We kept out of it after Suez in 1956. I still thank Harold Wilson for keeping us out of Biafra and Vietnam despite enormous pressure. Either would have meant a return of conscription too.

Dramatisations of British army life prefer the Malayan Emergency on the whole. Exotic location, exciting events. My old boss, John Curtin, was a conscript Sergeant in Palestine in 1947, pulling the bodies out of the King David Hotel, after the first urban terrorist attack. Lord save us from interesting times.

The Bofors Gun is set in Germany. British National Service was most likely to be dull, either in Britain or in Germany, cutting the lawn with nail scissors or painting the coal white, as the story went. Here, our section is on night guard duty. Apparently they’re guarding the area of the camp with the Bofors gun.

Gunner O’Rourke: The Bofors gun is a mighty fine thing for fighting off the hydrogen bomb.

The authority topic … The Authority & How To Impose It, if you like comes up. The contrast is Evans, terminally weak and beset with too much rationalising about the victim to act sensibly, with Sergeant Watkins. Watkins is tough enough, to be feared because he has power if he needs to resort to it, but knowing when to pass a cigarette and when not. Knowing when to turn a gentle blind eye with a wink, but nevertheless, in command.

Ranks (two meanings)

Before we get to the plot, a little vocabulary explanation on ranks. The army unit is artillery, therefore a gunner is a private, and a bombardier is a corporal. So the central character, Terry Evans (David Warner) is a lance-bombardier. A lance-corporal, a soldier with one stripe. Thus Evans is burdened with exercising authority, but without any of the privileges and separate quarters of sergeants (and in some units, full corporals).

The NAAFI (Navy Army & Air Force Institute) runs bars, restaurants, shops, cafés, clubs on British military bases.

A little more. There is Cockney rhyming slang … which spread into the army as a whole. So the young soldier, Rowe, is derided as an “Iron” (iron hoof = poof= gay). He is also accused of “having a J. Arthur” (J. Arthur Rank = wank = masturbating).

Gunner Featherstone: ‘Ere – ‘e’s ‘avin’ a crafty J Arthur!

This was one of the most foolish script decisions. The Rank Organization, headed by Sir J. Arthur Rank, was the biggest British film distributor. They declined to distribute the film because of “the language.”

The language is mild in modern terms. Bastard gets used a lot. Fart is a minced oath, i.e. substituting for a stronger word. So O’Rourke frequently states that he couldn’t give a fart while we all know an actual soldier would have said couldn’t give a fuck. This was an issue until the 70s. In The Naked and The Dead, Mailer used fug / fugging, leading to that famous Dorothy Parker quote when she met him.

Dorothy Parker: So, you’re the man who can’t spell ‘fuck.’

Nicole Williamson

Nicol Williamson was nominated for a Best Actor BAFTA for The Bofors Gun. So convincing is he as the Irishman, O’Rourke, that I was astonished to discover Nicol Williamson was Scottish. My most prized audio book is Nicol Williamson reading The Hobbit with a great range of accents and voices. In 1968 he was filming Waiting for Godot, then performing the lead in Tony Richardson’s Hamlet at The Roundhouse. In the film version, Marianne Faithfull was his co-star. He was like the character in The Bofors Gun, mercurial and potentially violent. While performing Inadmissible Evidence in 1965, he punched out the producer, one of three incidents at least where he also hit fellow actors. In 1968, he walked off stage during Hamlet announcing his retirement. He walked off TV shows. He was a drinker.

Jack Gold: Friends made me fearful when I was making my first feature film, The Bofors Gun, with Nicol Williamson. He had a reputation of a dangerous disposition combined with a staggering talent. The part of a near-psychotic squaddie was written by John McGrath with Nicol in mind. My fears were groundless. He was totally professional, exacting, volatile and provocative in his work, both with myself and with tremendous actors including David Warner, Ian Holm and John Thaw. His performance was justifiably acclaimed.
Guardian obituary, quoted in DVD booklet

Williamson didn’t get the BAFTA that year, but Ian Holm, playing his opponent, Flynn, got Best Supporting Actor.

Plot

We open with Lance-bombadier Evans (David Warner) waiting in the lobby of the officer’s mess. In the distance we can see the warm, clubby atmosphere. The captain comes out with a message for him.

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No one respects Evans’ authority

Lance-bombadier Evans has been in the army for seven months. He has been selected for officer training (his second try) which means that he will get home (which he is desperate to do) and after a few months of officer training, will spend the rest of his National Service in more comfortable quarters with better pay. We are aware that he is better-spoken, i.e. closer to RP, therefore middle class and educated. He states that his status as lance-bombardier is worth ninepence a day.

David Warner as Lance-bombardier Evans

Trouble is, first Evans has to supervise a night of guard duty with a section of six men, who will take two hour shifts in pairs, covering twelve hours (two shifts each). Their job is to guard the Bofors gun against any passing Russians or Chinese who might try to lift it over the high barbed wire fence. That is, their task is futile and unnecessary.

How very thin is Evans authority. He was recently promoted, from within the section. As he marches them out, we realize that Gunner O’Rourke (Nicol Williamson) and Gunner Featherstone (John Thaw) are taking the piss, exaggerating their shouted responses. Evans is probably the second youngest in the section, in spite of his stripe … with the four year call-up period, you could be called up at any point between 17 and 21.

L to R: Shone (Carry Jackson), O’Rourke (Nicol Williamson), Flynn (Ian Holm). On the bed is Rowe (Richard O’Callaghan)

The squad includes Rowe (Richard O’Callaghan) a West Country youth. Featherstone’s a Londoner. Flynn (Ian Holm), who is Evans only supporter, is Northern Irish Protestant. O’Rourke is Northern Irish Catholic. This is before The Troubles in Northern Ireland really took off, but predicts them. Rowe is the section victim … younger, West Country accent. He is physically and verbally bullied. Evans is totally ineffectual in stopping it. His liberal approach is stated:

Evans: Oh come on – if you trust people they don’t muck you about. It’s all these restrictions that cause the trouble.

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Featherstone (John Thaw) leading the bullying of Rowe (Richard O’Callaghan)

Gunner O’Rourke is older, twenty-nine. Is he a conscript or a regular? He has had several army prison sentences (which don’t count towards service), but even so it’s been a long time. He had three years for something he did in Palestine (the British left in 1948), three months more in prison from service in Egypt, then he was in Korea. Did regulars serve with conscripts? Whatever, Evans has no control. He foolishly tries to be friendly and sympathetic to O’Rourke. O’Rourke hits one of the men. Evans knows he should put him on a charge. He agonizes over it, worrying that given his record , O’Rourke will get a prison sentence, possibly several years. The tension throughout is that Evans really is being forced to discipline O’Rourke, but if he does so, he will need to stay and give evidence, thus losing his chance of going back to England for officer training.

Nicol Williamson as Gunner O’Rourke, John Thaw as Gunner Featherstone

O’Rourke and Featherstone operate as a pair and insist on going to the NAAFI to collect their Friday cigarette ration. Evans should stop them, but allows them to go. O’Rourke tells Featherstone that midnight will mark his 30th birthday. They go to the canteen to get drunk … a serious offence on guard duty. O’Rourke describes growing up in poverty, six in a bed, listening to his father screwing his mother in the next bed. He is a deeply violent and unstable man.

Nicol Williamson as Gunner O’Rourke, John Thaw as Gunner Featherstone

O’Rourke takes an axe to the flagpole on the parade ground, and releases the company mascot, a goat. He tries to kill himself by jumping from a window, but is so drunk that he is unhurt.

Evans is in panic. The two who are on patrol on an icy night have gone well beyond their scheduled shift and are getting stroppy. Flynn tells him he has to report them and hands him the phone.

Flynn (Ian Holm) – phone them now!

Sergeant Walker (Peter Vaughan) turns up. He is paternalistic, and has real authority … older, three stripes, regular army. He also knows how to exercise it without pushing too hard and he offers a cigaretteand tells Evans to deal with O’Rourke. Evans starts excusing O’Rourke, and Walker warns him that he will be back with the duty officer in fifteen minutes and Evans had better be in control.

Sergeant Walker (Peter Vaughan)

O’Rourke and Featherstone stagger back to the guard hut, covered in vomit. O’Rourke collapses. Flynn, Evans’ only supporter in the section, warns him that he has to report this. Flynn and O’Rourke have the Northern Irish confrontation. Evans goes into his liberal sorry-for-him talk again. The squad warn that it’s too cold to shove the drunken O’Rourke out on guard duty. But Evans shoves him out there. The Sergeant and officer return … Evans is out by the fence trying to persuade O’Rourke … Dan, he says trying to be pals, Gunner O’Rourke! roars O’Rourke.

O’Rourke: Get away from me, with your ‘hands across the sea’ and your finger up my bum.

Evans (David Warner) and O’Rourke (Nicol Williamson). B&W lobby still.

O’Rourke knows exactly why Evans lacks the nerve to discipline him, and is determined to screw things up the only way he knows, by killing himself. Evans hurries back to the guard house and is ordered to fetch O’Rourke, who we have just seen stripped to the waist, impaling himself on his bayonet. Evans starts kicking the corpse. Sergeant Walker and Lieutenant Pickering appear. Not only has Evans lost his chance, but he will be severely punished too.

Overall

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DVD, 2012

The film is a masterclass in acting from all concerned, but suffers as any kind of cinematic experience because it is clearly a wordy play set in a confined area, and more, because the entire story takes place over just a few hours at night. So it’s always dark and murky. As you can see from the stills, it’s not visually thrilling.

The DVD retains the 1.33:1 (4:3) screen aspect and the mono soundtrack is muffled at times. My viewing companion thought with the accents and sound quality it would benefit from subtitles, which it does not have.

It has a good booklet with notes by Michael Lepine.

I still like it. The acting is powerful, and the political and social undercurrents are still strong.

Comments

It has all the gripping fascination of a tussle between two wily, desperate young animals. Taut, icy direction and acting flawlessly tuned to what the writer [John McGrath, from his play Events While Guarding the Bofors Gun] has in mind bring a faultless realism … Williamson brings out the rebel’s mood brilliantly, his features, speech and behavior veering alarmingly from good-humored cynicism to anger and viciousness. Warner is just as good as the weak young man.
Variety, 1968

DAVID WARNER

Tom Jones (1963)
Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966)
Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968)
The Bofors Gun (1968)

THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …