Favourites in Five: Jason Figgis

 

I started a brand new series of blogs a couple of weeks ago, asking some of my favourite people to write in about the five most important influences on their lives from the world of theatre, film and television. You can read Sarah Miller Walters' wonderful blog here , actress Judy Matheson's super piece is here and blogger, author and Sid James fan Stuart Ball's blog is here

Today it's the turn of film director, Jason Figgis.

ROBERT MITCHUM 

Robert Mitchum was a towering figure in Hollywood and I don’t just mean his 6’2” frame carrying a 48 inch chest. He was feared by movie moguls and loved by women, as well as men. His loose style was effortless and even gave him pause to answer a reporter who enquired of his acting style with the humorous retort : “With and without a horse”. Mitchum was a tough guy onscreen but off, an intellectual - his need to be the consummate professional powering his approach to his roles that saw him look for meaning in everything he did. He joked that he would be happy to paint houses if they paid him the same crazy money but Mitchum was merely making light of a profession he was passionate about. Legend has it that he was so upset by the mogul Howard Hughes insistence on reshooting a feature film three times that he roughed up two security guards; locked himself into the set and proceeded to tear the entire construction apart; watched on the sidelines by a bewildered and highly amused cast and crew. Such was his talent as an actor that while shooting the superb Cape Fear for Gregory Peck’s production company, Peck himself sidled up to Mitchum to assure him that he was not in the least bit upset that his co-star was stealing every scene out from under him. Peck knew that in Mitchum he had cast the most charismatic actor to play the most charismatic and terrifying antagonist opposite his genial lawyer. The film was a smash critical hit for Mitchum and Co. and continued a career trajectory that had begun in the 1940s with film noir and would reach further critical heights with such powerful thrillers as The Yakuza and The Friends of Eddie Coyle. For me Robert Mitchum was the consummate actor. He was a physical powerhouse with a face that was etched with deep insight into the human condition. He believed that he had three expressions; looking right, looking left and looking straight ahead but Mitchum was in fact one of the most underrated actors of the 20th century. 

 

NICOLAS ROEG 

One of my earliest memories of film (and one of the most influential) was witnessing Jenny Agutter carry her onscreen brother (in fact Nicolas Roeg’s own son) across the broiling sands of the Australian bush. This was memorable for two reasons: My older brother Danny had starred with Agutter in a “Troubles” story set in Belfast called A War of Children and secondly, the power of Roeg’s scope as a visionary director. The film was, of course, Walkabout - a highly controversial tale of child abandonment and awakening (not least because of the teenage Agutter’s many scenes of sometimes full frontal nudity). Agutter went on to star, weeks later, in the children’s classic The Railway Children for actor/ director Lionel Jefferies. She was so tanned from her months in Australia, that she needed to be constantly “paled” down for her scenes set in a cold Yorkshire landscape. The dialogue in Walkabout was sparse but the imagery was rich and full of beautiful and terrifying things. To cap it all, one of John Barry’s most haunting scores was utilised to great effect. I looked for more of Roeg’s work and discovered his sublime cinematography for John Schlesinger’s Far From the Madding Crowd and his next great work, Don’t Look Now which starred Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie in two tour de force performances that garnered much critical acclaim. Everything that Roeg has touched is tuned to such artistic perfection that no matter what the genre, he has made it his own. 

 

STANLEY KUBRICK 

When Kubrick released a feature film - it was an event, not only in Hollywood, but in my house. Like Roeg, Kubrick was the consummate artist and even though others produced his work, he held such a powerful grip on every area of creativity within the filmmaking process, that he can, without doubt, be considered an auteur. He attacked a new genre each time he made a picture and in doing so, seemed to have the uncanny ability to redefine that genre. He was also obsessed with perfection of performance. One of my favourite anecdotes concerned Tom Cruise on the set of the excellent Eyes Wide Shut. Cruise had walked through a door approximately 50 times and when he questioned Kubrick’s rationale, the great master responded: “But, don’t you want to get it right”. That pretty much summed up Stanley Kubrick’s obsession; he always wanted to get it right and, he always did.

 

MICHAEL CAINE 

I had the good fortune to spend a few nights alone at Ian Fleming’s former home near Reading and was struck with the awesome grandeur of the surroundings. One particular room, with walls adorned with photographs of Fleming with many other famous faces, I found to be a very eerie place. It was if Mr. Fleming was still present and was curious about I, the unknown interloper. When Michael Caine stood before his spy-ring boss in the superb The Ipcress File, thanking him for a much needed raise as he could now afford the latest grill that he had been looking at, Caine redefined Ian Fleming’s idea of what a spy should be. Harry Palmer (as portrayed by Michael Caine) was practically the antithesis of Fleming’s Bond. He was an intellectual first and much more interested in cooking than breaking apart the latest nest of potential national security threats. The film proved to be a success as both types of physical and intellectual alphas were accepted by the film-going public. It certainly didn’t harm the success of the film that Caine was an unconventionally beautiful, blonde, 6’2” presence. Something that set Caine apart from his contemporary leading men though was his ability to inhabit any role that he was cast in. He could play the intellectual spy, the philandering Eastend boy, the Nazi soldier, the upperclass English officer or even, the thug. He was also one of the first of the English New Wave to realise that less was more. He allowed his hooded eyes to do the talking and they spoke volumes. With a single tear misting one of those peepers, a nation of women and men gulped back their own begrudging emotion. They weren’t expecting how so little could produce so much. Even though Caine has continued his great successes in Hollywood, I believe the 60’s and 70’s in British film were his defining decades with such films as Zulu, Alfie, The Italian Job and of course, what I consider his best film, Mike Hodges’ Get Carter. The latter I watch at least twice a year, relishing such lines as “You’re a big man, but you’re out of shape. With me, it’s a full time job” (I paraphrase as best I can but ... you get the message). 

M. R. JAMES 

The English ghost story in its present short form can be attributed to the realist terrors that flowed from the fountain pen of the erudite scholar Montague Rhodes James. He wrote ghost stories to entertain his fellows and students across the dark hours of a winter’s evening as Christmas approached and soon found a much broader audience - and indeed a publisher, who was more than happy to promote the safe terrors of the Victorian/Edwardian ghost story. What set James apart from his contemporaries was his ability to interweave realist scholarly narrative with the more salacious elements of the paranormal. We believed the journey that our hero was on, we believed his quest and his translations of ancient Latin texts, so that when the horror was visited upon him, we believed that too. My introduction to his work was courtesy of the BBC and Lawrence Gordon Clark’s exemplary adaptations of his stories for a season of Ghost Stories for Christmas, throughout the 1970s. It was a bigger thrill for me and my brothers than the prospect of Santa Claus, as we huddled with pillows on a cold Dublin Christmas Eve, while the very austere BBC announcer introduced us to yet another spine tingling adaptation of the master’s work. Since then, I have of course read all of his works, and their impression has never been even slightly lessened by the regular revisits to his landscapes of the macabre. If you haven’t picked up a collection as of yet, I urge you to hold off no longer. 


Thank you so much to Jason for taking the time to write such a thoughtful, fascinating piece for the blog. You can follow Jason on Twitter and find out more about his career in film here


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Whatever Happened To ... Susan Stephen?

 

This is part of an occasional series of blogs looking at the lives and careers of some of the lesser known yet still valuable supporting actors who graced the Carry On films over the years. Today I am going to write about the actress Susan Stephen.

Susan Stephen only appeared in one Carry On, the second in the long-running series Carry On Nurse. Nurse was filmed at the end of 1958 and released the following year. While Susan received star billing for Nurse, by the late 1950s her promising film career was on the wane. She would be retired from the industry less than four years after Nurse hit cinema screens. Susan played Nurse Georgie Axwell in the film, forming an effective and cheeky double act with series legend Joan Sims (in her first Carry On). Susan gives an effective, bright and sparky performance in the film working well with Sims, Kenneth Williams and Wilfred Hyde White amongst others. She also features in the film's now classic ending involving Hattie Jacques' Matron, Hyde White and a daffodil!

Given the natural performance Susan Stephen gives in Nurse it is somewhat surprising she didn't return for more films with the gang. So what else do we know about Stephen's career?

 

Susan Stephen was born in London in July 1931. She took an interest in acting and performing at a young age and roles soon followed once she had trained at drama school. She made an early impact in the 1952 film comedy His Excellency, starring as Peggy Harrison opposite Eric Portman, Helen Cherry and Cecil Parker. She would work with Parker again two years later in what would be her biggest film success, playing opposite Dirk Bogarde in the sparkling comedy For Better For Worse.

For Better For Worse, released in 1954, was J Lee Thompson's adaptation of the hugely successful Arthur Watkyn play which had run for over 500 performances in the West End in the early 1950s. The original play had starred Leslie Phillips and Geraldine McEwan. The film version saw popular matinee idol Dirk Bogarde take over Leslie's part. The film centres on young married couple Tony and Anne setting up home together and features a delightfully colourful cast of characters played by reliable actors such as Cecil Parker, Eileen Herlie, Athene Seyler, Dennis Price, Thora Hird and one Mr Sidney James. The film performed well at the box office and also led to a lasting friendship between its two stars. Bogarde and Stephen kept in touch over the years and she often went to stay with him at his home in France.

Other film roles for Susan included playing Bicky alongside Richard Attenborough in the 1952 comedy Father's Doing Fine; Penny in the 1953 war film The Red Beret, starring Alan Ladd; the Jack Buchanan comedy As Long As They're Happy in 1955 (which also featured Joan Sims) and The Barretts of Wimpole Street in 1957 which saw Susan act with the likes of Jennifer Jones, Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna and John Gielgud. 

Interestingly, Susan's last ever film role also has a Carry On connection. In 1962 she played Susan in the comedy Three Spare Wives. This film, directed by Ernest Morris, co-starred Robin Hunter (future husband of Amanda Barrie) and was originally a play by future Carry On scribe Talbot Rothwell.

Susan was married twice, first of all to fellow actor Lawrence Ward between 1952 and 1956. Her marriage to Ward ended in divorce. The following year she married film director Nicolas Roeg with whom she had four children and a relationship of twenty years. They divorced in 1977 citing his busy career directing films such as Don't Look Now, Walkabout and The Man Who Fell To Earth as a reason for them not spending enough time together. They remained firm friends and often spent Christmas together as a family. 

 

Susan's marriage to Roeg led to her reducing her acting career until she decided to retire in 1962. By the early 1960s she was appearing in B Movies produced by the infamous Danzinger Production Company, notorious for turning out films in a matter of days. Instead, Susan Stephen turned her attentions to raising her family and living a quiet life away from the spotlight. Sadly Susan passed away at the age of 68 in 2000.

If you know anything more about the life and career of Susan Stephen, please do get in touch with me either through the Get In Touch form on the blog or by emailing me directly at carryonfan15@gmail.com  

To finish, here's a delightful if rather twee British Pathe feature on a young Susan Stephen and her first husband Lawrence. I'm afraid you'll have to sit through the first section on some random woman's mysterious "cheese labeling business" in order to get to it but it's worth it (!) Although presenting their domestic arrangements in a typically 1950s way, it's still a lovely watch:

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