James Kennaway – Scotland’s lost genius

James Kennaway was a brilliant, talented writer, whose career spanned best-selling novels, block-busting screenplays and Oscar-winning movies.   More than forty-odd years after his death, he remains one of Scotland’s most enigmatic and unacknowledged literary heroes.

Born in Aucherarder, Perth, in 1928, Kennaway first came to prominence with his 1956 novel ‘Tunes of Glory‘.  An instant critical and popular success, it was made into a powerful film with Alec Guinness and John Mills in 1960.

In 1962, Kennaway adapted another of his novels for the superior psychological thriller ‘The Mindbenders‘, starring Dirk Bogarde (who was just at that cross-over point in his career, from “cheesecake” to serious actor), Mary Ure, and Wendy Craig.  Later in the decade, another of Kennaway’s novel, ‘Household Ghosts’ about an incestuous relationship between brother and sister, received the big screen treatment starring Peter O’Toole and Susannah York in 1969.

Kennaway’s other books include ‘The Cost of Living Like This’, ‘Some Gorgeous Accident’ (the last published during his lifetime), and the filmic and beautiful novella, ‘Silence’.

Kennaway was an Oscar nominated screenwriter (‘Tunes of Glory‘) who also wrote the screenplays for ‘Violent Playground‘ starring Peter Cushing, David McCallum and Stanley Baker, as well as a successful adaptation of Morris West’s ‘The Shoes of the Fisherman’ and Len Deighton’s ‘The Battle of Britain‘, starring Michael Caine and Robert Shaw.

His short story ‘The Dollar Bottom’ was made into an Oscar-winning short film in 1981 with Rikki Fulton and Robert Urquhart.

Tragically, Kennaway was killed in a car crash in 1968, at the very moment he seemed destined for greater success.

A theatrical production of ‘Some Gorgeous Accident’ will be premiered at the Edinburgh Festival, this year.

Why are there no great football films?

As World Cup fever grips the planet (or at least a snivelling cold in some areas – Scotland), I wonder why there has never been a quality football (soccer) movie?

Okay, there is ‘Bend It Like Beckham‘, ‘Gregory’s Girl‘ and ‘Mike Basset England Manager‘, but these are hardly in the same league of Classic Sports Movies as John Frankenheimer‘s ‘Grand Prix‘, Martin Scorsese‘s ‘Raging Bull‘ or even Lindsay Anderson‘s ‘This Sporting Life‘.

It has been suggested that football movies can’t deliver “the one-man-battling-the-odds” as it is a team sport; but surely multiple narratives, from ‘Grand Prix‘ to more recently the social drama ‘Crash‘, can and do deliver an audience.

So, why are football films the equivalent of the novelty Christmas single?Why are there no great football movies?

For example, what was Hollywood thinking when they hedged their bets with a preposterous World War II, football, khaki and POW romp ‘Escape to Victory’?

On paper ‘Escape to Victory‘ sounds like it should have been the greatest football film ever made.  Think of it, a war movie that follows the adventures of a bunch of plucky POWs who plan to escape during a must-win game in Paris, against the German national team in 1942.  What’s not to like?

Even better, it was directed by John Huston, with a cast that included Michael Caine, Max von Sydow, er, Sylvetser Stallone, playing footie alongside legends Pele, Bobby Moore, Osvaldo Ardiles and..er, Scotland’s bewhiskered, John Wark.

It sounds perfect.  Sadly, it wasn’t.

But like the runt of the litter, ‘Escape to Victory‘ has its good points in a ‘Roy of the Rovers‘ kind of way, which, as the years pass, make it just that little bit more enjoyable and an obvious target for a possible remake.

It will never be ‘The Great Escape‘ or ‘Stalag 17‘ or even a ‘Chariots of Fire‘, but what it does do is give a startling insight into the the minds and excesses of Hollywood producers prior to the death of John Belushi.

Irn Bru’s superb new advert

Apart form being Scotland’s other National Drink, Irn Bru consistently makes some of the best and most original adverts around, even when these have been allegedly banned.

Irn Bru’s latest (above) continues in that well-honoured tradition.

Scotland, ‘Demon Seed’ and the rise of the blockbuster

There’s an oft quoted line about Scotland‘s football team how they manage to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory. It’s a line that does in many ways reflect the Scottish character, as we can often appear a nation of heroic failures, rather than an empire building super power.

Yet, this failure comes with considerable cultural ramifications, something that can be seen in Donald Cammell‘s film ‘Demon Seed‘.

Cammell was the son of the poet and writer Charles Richard Cammell, who had written the biography of Aleister Crowley. Born in Castlehill, and not Edinburgh Castle as he would later claim, the young Cammell was considered a child prodigy and by the 1960s had established himself with London’s Chelsea set as an artist, illustrator and portrait painter. By luck and connections he started writing movie scripts and soon co-directed his first, and most legendary film ‘Performance‘.

‘Performance‘, which starred Mick Jagger and James Fox, should have made Cammell a major star but the film was quickly disowned by its production company, was considered obscene, violent pornography and described by one critic as “the most completely worthless film I have seen since I began reviewing.” What should have been a victory, was an unmitigated disaster.

It took Cammell seven years to make his next movie, the sci-fi thriller, ‘Demon Seed’ – a highly provocative and intelligent film. Again, it should have established Cammell as one of the world’s great cinematic auteurs, but Fate was to play a damning role.

Based on the best-selling novel by Dean Koontz, ‘Demon Seed‘ speculated on a computer, Proteus IV, impregnating a woman to create a living hybrid of man and machine. A bit like ‘Rosemary’s Baby‘ except with a computer. Cammell had major studio backing and his star was Julie Christie, was at the height of her fame, with a series of film hits including, ‘Shampoo‘, ‘Don’t Look Now‘ and her Oscar nominated performance in ‘McCabe and Mrs Miller‘. He even had Robert Vaughn as the voice of Proteus. With such talent on board, it seemed Cammell  was destined to make a brilliant film and at last achieve the success he deserved.

But no. After years of preparation, and  just as the film was released in 1977, a new sensation swept all before it, which made ‘Demon Seed’ look cheap, dull and boring. George Lucas‘ ‘Star Wars‘ changed film, cinema, TV and the way an audience responded to entertainment for ever. As Cammell’s film disappeared, ‘Star Wars‘ conquered the world.

The failure of ‘Demon Seed‘ marked a cultural shift in cinema, the end of an era if you like, for Cammell’s movie was the last of the great, intelligent speculative science fiction films. True, there would be the occasional movie like Ridley Scott‘s ‘Bladerunner‘ or, David Cronenberg‘s ‘Videodrome‘, but cinema and its audiences demanded the sensations that ‘Star Wars’ delivered, and the sound and fury of the summer blockbuster was born.

For this reason, ‘Demon Seed‘s’ failure has been cinema’s and our loss. ‘Sex in the City 2‘ anyone?