Day 16: Film with Great Twists
My choice for this one is “One Way Pendulum” (1964) – adapted by
Michael Deeley and Peter Yates from an N. F. Simpson play, it’s essentially a
story of quiet, postwar English suburbia, sewn in seamlessly with ruptures of
surreal Heidegger fantasy. At the centre is an ordinary but odd Groomkirby
family, most of all the son (Jonathan Miller, far less talkative than in Beyond
the Fringe) who wants to teach speak-your-weight machines to sing, and his
father (a poetic, also almost mute Eric Sykes with darling powdered-grey hair),
who recreates the Old Bailey and holds a trial in his own living room. It’s a
little exhausting and unsettling to watch the nonsense unfold, and there’s a
massive unexpected twist towards the end but I chose this film for a smaller
one in the middle, when the imaginary court policeman (charming Vincent
Harding) steps in to the real world kitchen to summon Mrs. Groomkirby (Alison
Leggatt), so far seemingly the most well-adjusted. Her reaction, complete with
a mild straightening of her cardigan, is a genuine, genuine delight that
unexpectedly pulls the entire thing together. Unlike my enduring love for the
brightly off-kilter (the best thing!), I like to stay far, far away from
absurdist theatre and television, not least now, when one is stumbling ‘at a
slight angle to the universe,’ but this little-known film really was worth the
try Xo
PS When I’d written about this in the earlier incarnation of this blog,
there were lots of other fascinating things I thought about, from Aunt
Mildred’s ‘to outer space in moonlight, by rollerskates!’ to the
glorious choral ‘Hallelujahs’ interspersing the thick dialogue, from youth- and
death-anxiety (remember that dramatic British headline “Blame These 4 Men For
the Beatnik Horror”?) to Mr. Groomkirby at the end reading a book on building
homes underwater, something even
more farfetched than anyone’s attempt to escape, than anyone’s conception of an
impossibility to make possible, because (it would seem), one could do anything
if it was in a clear do-it-yourself book, alone in the universe, to more
mundanely pleasant music - each grasping so tightly (and yet oh so tenuously,
my friends) to control, with a spirit that reminds me of John Betjeman’s
beautiful long poem ‘North Coast Recollections.’ Just felt like preserving them
in this post too (you know, since the 16-page essay I wrote those years ago
hasn’t yet made it back in haha :’))
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