Bedford Falls Revisited

 

Bedford Falls Revisited

One of my seasonal favourites. Thought I would show it again just to get in the Festive mood.....

It's a wonderful film and yet, as with most works of genius it was not recognised in its own time. Perhaps its sentiment in 1946 was too nice for a world emerging from war and austerity. It has at it's root laudable themes of brooding unhappiness , selfless service to the community, heartless business and contemplation of suicide and not that many pitch battles, bombing missions, beach assaults and no notable explosions which were otherwise popular movie features of the period.  It represented a return of humanity and values that had been sacrificed or as the lead character, George Bailey, played by James Stewart remarks 'all is fair in love and war'.

I am of course referring to the Frank Capra movie of "It's a Wonderful Life"

It's a regular event in our family to watch the DVD in the run-up to Christmas. It does rank and climbs the poll every year as the best Christmas film of all time although my son still contends that Die Hard (1) would be hard to be pushed off top spot. Recently , a re-digitised and colour version was released but to really appreciate the heart warming emotions it has to be seen in original black and white. The movie does impact in all its glory on a small domestic TV screen, especially when cocooned in a duvet on the sofa and surrounded by loved ones. In the privacy of my own home I will be a bit misty eyed by about 30 minutes into the running time and completely useless and blubbering for the duration. I issue a spoiler alert at this stage but you must, if not familiar with the film, just watch it, wrapped up, with family or close friends and keep some tissues up your sleeves.

It's a rare privilege therefore, some 66 years after the release of the film, to get an opportunity to see it on the big screen in a cinema. It is something altogether different to contemplate being seen crying in a public auditorium. In my favour the screening was in a town some distance away from my home and so there was a low to acceptable risk of bumping into a friend or acquaintance. I had mentioned to colleagues and just passers by in the street, in the preceding weeks, that this was on the cards but was very careful not to divulge the location, day, date and time. I was astounded by the number of blank expressions from those with no knowledge of the film although the enthusiastic reminiscences from the majority did outweigh those poor unfortunate and unfulfilled souls.

It's a small cinema, one of the very few still surviving in a market place setting in a commuter town. The nearest multiplex would be around 20 miles away in the nearest cities which will have helped it to persist. I would willingly have paid more than the £4 admission charge which did include a glass of sherry and a micro-mince pie. Forget your deep and plushly upholstered back massaging, centrally heated and wired for sound luxury seating and just get comfortable if you can in a blue cloth wrapped bucket. Not much chance of being seduced into a sleep for the duration which is all good. I have often paid £12.50 to Odeon , Vue and Cineworld Cinemas ostensibly for a film but actually for a fitfull drift in and out of consciousness in that luxuriant heavy eyed feeling. Most blockbuster films are a mystery to me in terms of the main plot as I am only awake for the very beginning and the final chaotic few frames, usually involving silhouetted figures and a sunset.

It's an exciting moment when the lights dim and the big screen lights up into action. The quality of the film was fantastic although I may have been secretly disappointed that there were no bromide-brown blobs, dancing string-like blemishes or curses from the projection room over scorched and melting celluloid. I was immediately transported back in time as though at a small town Premiere of It's a Wonderful Life. The lack of legroom to a baby boomer like myself would not have constituted a problem to a post war audience in the UK, what with emaciation from many years of rationing, staple food deficiences and premature curvature of the legs from rickets.

It's a revelation to see the drama unfold on the big screen. Although I have seen the movie at least annually for the last decade or so the super sized images added a completely fresh dimension and it was as though I was seeing it for the first time. In close-up and at 4metres full on,  the facial expressions of James Stewart are even more magnificent and as for the lead actress, Donna Reed, well she's got a very good complexion and skin tone which is not always apparent on my Sony TV at home. There was a warning on the advertising poster of mild violence for the more sensitive in the audience. In the context of the film and it's era it was acceptable, or so it was portrayed, to slap around shop staff, throw stones at houses, verbally abuse primary school teachers, drink drive and make mad and violent love- you know the sort, fully clothed, no actual physical contact and with both feet on the ground to get past the Film Censors.

It's a therapeutic sound to hear a large group of people laugh and weep at alternate moments but generally in unison. I had just about got acclimatised to the seat when the film finished. Where had the time gone? As the audience reluctantly got up to go and in rather harsh lighting it was normal service resumed in human interaction or the lack of it. We all, me included, kept our heads down for fear of showing a weakness in our tear streamed faces. The waste bin at the exit was nearly full of damp Kleenex when I reached it and coaxed out the soggy contents of my left sleeve. A few small family groups lingered and reassured each other in quite a public display of fondness which was both nice and a bit cringey in equal proportions.

It's a funny thing but on the pavement outside, in the minus one degree of a mid December night in a Yorkshire town it felt a bit like the Bedford Falls of the film. It was not so long ago that there had been, like in the film, a run on the bank. There will be many that we know personally who feel trapped in their current lives when in their carefree youth they had magnificent plans to travel and undertake adventures. We all will have felt a degree of despair, anxiety and depression at some time. It is ultimately important , however to remind ourselves that we all contribute in some way to the lives of those around us whether through supporting our families and friends or just through a kind word or deed to a complete stranger.

It's in our power to make it a really wonderful life. Get busy.

James Bond at Christmas

 Back by popular request, I wrote this a few years ago now but in the fictional World of Bond nothing goes out of date.It revolves around a local hotel which has been advertising, amongst its seasonal events what they call a 'James Bond Christmas'. 

Here goes........

Commander Bond lay under the duvet cover. The distant sounding of church bells reminded him that this was indeed Christmas Day.

He had got in at about 9.30pm from yet another of  'M's festive gatherings. It had not been that exciting. He had returned alone. Moneypenny had gone home even earlier, after all she was an old lady and no fun. M's quiche had made him a bit bilious and the dry martini's had not been enough to quell the acidity in his stomach.

He let one go under the heavy winter tog rated bedding and casually wafted it away into the gradually increasing natural light of his flat.

What to do for Christmas Day?

He swung a leg out, feeling for the thick pile of the carpet. Pulling his heavy built form upright he found that his Onesie had ridden up during the night with some constriction of his lower abdomen. It was a legitimate reason for a prolonged scratch and re-arrangement of his undercarriage.

The flat was cold and he cursed not mastering the central heating thermostat in the twenty years and more of his occupation. He had no time for manuals. 'Q' had been kind enough to show him the settings for instantaneous hot water and radiator heating. They had been very similar to the afterburner controls on Little Nelly. A nasty and expensive quarterly gas bill had been the consequence of a degree of confusion on one occasion.

A light, healthy breakfast appealed to him. Those long sessions at the Casino in recent years had ruined his physique .He had contracted and only just recovered from a nasty virus from , he suspected, the sampled contents of a small bowl of mint imperials at the coat-check counter near the toilets in Monte Carlo.

He was disappointed by the contents of the fridge. The orange juice was 'with bits' which he had bought from M&S without checking. He infinitely preferred smooth. No yoghurt, no bran or porridge oats so he settled for a lump of cheese and half a packet of cream crackers. The Onesie successfully captured any fragments of the flaky Lancashire and biscuit crumbs in its thick, luxurious velour giving the faux tiger-skin print the appearance of a dandruff outbreak.

Living the life of a bachelor, out of the normal hours of his regimented and disciplined professional assassin duties, the living room was a tip.

He stumbled over a collection of take-away cartons,pizza boxes and discarded clothing-disappointingly all his. A pint glass full of the discarded shells of pistachio's fell and rolled across the parquet floor gradually decanting its contents. A few well place martial arts kicks cleared the rest of the debris under the DFS corner suite and Ikea wall unit. The DVD's would have to be sorted later from an unruly pile. The movie of 27 Dresses at the top caused him to pause and recall how he had enjoyed the plot and sentiment of such a well structured and acted rom-com.

As Commander Bond dragged the Dyson bagless around the room he made an instinctive check for any signs of intrusion whilst he had been at M's reception. Trip wires and carefully adhered strands of his chest hair were still in situ. It was disappointing not to be the subject of any nefarious intentions during the holiday season. How was he expected to keep his hand in?

The number of Christmas cards on the mantelpiece was well down this year. This was, he mused a combination of how convincing his manufactured death had been earlier in the year resulting in many deletions by Facebook friends and the trend amongst fellow assasins to have to kill each other.

The unsigned, oversized padded card depicting an alpine scene was definitely from that rascal Blofeld. He had a decent sense of humour under that serious visage of world dominating villainy.

The morning passed quickly. Feeling peckish after his exertions of a man's comprehension of cleaning and hoovering he chipped away at the slab of ice which had consumed his freezer compartment and recovered a couple of ready-meals which would do nicely for his Christmas dinner. The combination of Tikka Massala and Hot Pot was novel but palatable. Dessert was a bit more of a challenge but the Angel Delight was soon whisked into a firm peak that briefly and erotically reminded him of past conquests.

The controllers at the 'Licenced to Kill' desk deep in the MI5 building received a message from Bond on the restricted scrambled channel and they duly sent him the TV listings for the rest of the day . He did not expect HM The Queen to expand on their skydiving antics into the Olympic Stadium in her traditional address to the nation. He knew she had enjoyed it on an altogether private level by her whoops and screams and covert and playful cupping of his groin on the descent through the late July sky over London.

Next he knew, it was dark outside the flat. He had dozed off, sprawled across the settee, and with a dribble of spittle running down his chin, a faint essence of butterscotch discernible. Annoyingly he had missed the blockbuster film and no-one had availed him of the operational details of the i-player.

The Strictly Christmas offering thrilled him for the rest of the evening. He would never be asked to participate on the dance floor because of the intricacies of his professional lifestyle.This was a major regret.  His enjoyment of Downton Abbey had been tempered by his instinctive identification of access and escape routes in the stately home and the best place to set off a diversionary explosion for maximum mayhem amongst the sinister looking below stairs staff, all ex KGB without doubt. Lady Mary was definitely a deep cover operative, for sure.

The latter part of the day was now dragging. The invitations to a 'Christmas At Home' from a selection of gangsters, sociopaths and the criminally insane remained on his antique escritoire, opened but not responded to. A threat of menace and a long monologue about blah, blah, ransom, blah, blah, extortion, blah, blah, gold reserves and the prospect of a scorching of nether regions by a high powered laser was now of some attraction when in the past it had just been part and parcel of the job.

It was a pity that he had not forged better links with those he had collaborated with on his missions. That Felix Leiter was a personable chap but obviously had problems of self image based on his frequently radical changes in appearance and skin colour.

He poured himself a Baileys over ice (chipped flakes from the freezer compartment) and gorged himself to the point of being nauseous on the After Eights, a raffle prize at 'M's with the proceeds going to support the families of disavowed agents.

James Bond contemplated starting a diplomatic incident to alleviate his boredom. A convincing non-nuclear conflagration of the Home Counties was well within his capabilities from just the contents of his lock up garage in Twickenham.  His life story, auctioned to the tabloids would keep him in the style in which the public perceived him to exist.

In reality and out of abject loneliness he found that crying himself to sleep on Christmas night was a form of light and therapeutic relief. 

As always, he firmly believed that it would be so much better next year..........