The Phantom Light (1935)
10 December 2023 12:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlode"The Phantom Light" was showing at the BFI as part of their Powell & Pressburger season -- I had a vague misgiving just before I bought my ticket that I had seen/been shown an extract from this before, as part of a set of railway-related clips, but in fact the scene I was thinking of never appeared. (On second thoughts I think it may have been an early British Hitchcock film.) Completely unexpected, however, was that the film turns out to open with extended footage of the Festiniog Railway in the 1930s... presumably representing the weirdest, quaintest little piece of Welshness the film-makers could think of! I did think that the scale of the track in the opening shot suggested narrow gauge, and then an unmistakable double Fairlie pops up in shot, with the protagonist sitting in one of the tiny four-wheeled 'bug boxes'!
Another complete surprise is that the lead actress is none other than Binnie Hale, although her character contributes little to the (entirely male-driven) plot save for a succession of obviously implausible lies and the excuse to show off her legs on the lighthouse stairs in high heels and chorus-girl shorts. (Apparently this was an adaptation of a stage play, and I wonder if her character even existed in the original, because I don't think she actually has any plot function :-p )
The problem is that the various stories she comes up with are so self-evidently fake (accompanied by 'and now I'm going to tell you the *truth*...) that by the end of the film I still had absolutely no idea what she was doing there. It wasn't until I read the programme notes afterwards that I discovered that her latest tall tale (about being a 'lady tec' investigating something-or-other) was apparently supposed to be the truth, but since she tells it with every bit as much exaggeration and insincere appeal as the others and doesn't give any impression of being a credible detective, I assumed she was just being a generic plucky female sidekick :-D
The actual lead is the imperturbable middle-aged lighthouse-keeper, played by Gordon Harker, who is generally excellent in the role -- one which would probably have been reassigned to a romantic interest in any Hollywood remake (as was done with "Gaslight", whose wily retired detective was unfortunately replaced by a dashing young love-interest for the heroine). However, in a 1930s British comedy, he is allowed to out-act everyone else as the down to earth, no-nonsense Londoner amid a sea of ghost stories and improbable invaders -- apparently absolutely everyone wants a trip to the lighthouse for one reason or another, even though, as both the keeper and the harbour master insist, this is completely prohibited by Trinity House regulations. He has the rueful, disillusioned face of a Sid James, with a drooping lower lip, and is refreshingly immune to browbeating, feminine blandishments and outright bribery ("Are you a reporter?" is his suspicious retort).
Unfortunately he gets a bit sidelined towards the end of the film when the Deeply Suspect Character with his undercover radio and spurious excuse for landing at the lighthouse turns out to be a heroic naval officer in disguise (although his plans appear to be strictly off-duty family business). Sadly Ian Hunter is a pretty wooden performer compared to Harker, evidently picked primarily for his square jaw and barrel chest -- featured as he strips off to swim to shore and raise the alarm after having his radio broken and getting coshed over the head in true pulp fiction fashion :-p
Another unexpected period bonus from the film is that as a result we get to see what is presumably a genuine lifeboat launch, featuring an old-fashioned -- even for those days, just as the Victorian narrow-gauge line was a relic by the standards of the 1930s -- 'pulling and sailing' boat in action, in footage that appears to be genuine, or at least convincing, in contrast to the very obvious model shots of the endangered ship. (The film does its best with these special effects by only showing the "Mary Fern" after dark and in the fog, but they do look clearly fake.)
I'm not sure how genuine the spoken Welsh is -- not very, I suspect, as the accented characters tend to stray into what sounds more like Scottish territory to me -- but we do get to hear a fisherman singing a tuneful Welsh song on the beach! Just don't ask yourself how a trip up to Tan-y-Bwlch can possibly be a route to anywhere on the Welsh coast...
The main humour in the film, for me at least, consists in a sharp script and Harker's deadpan delivery. Herbert Lomas plays another red herring suspect, the lugubrious assistant who tries to convince everyone of the ghosts, and Reginald Tate does a good job in an almost wordless part as a young man supposed to have driven out of his wits by whatever horror took the last lighthouse keeper. "The Phantom Light" is quite good entertainment, but definitely no masterpiece -- if it were not for the name of Michael Powell as director, I don't suppose anyone would be reviving it, but it still has its moments.
Another complete surprise is that the lead actress is none other than Binnie Hale, although her character contributes little to the (entirely male-driven) plot save for a succession of obviously implausible lies and the excuse to show off her legs on the lighthouse stairs in high heels and chorus-girl shorts. (Apparently this was an adaptation of a stage play, and I wonder if her character even existed in the original, because I don't think she actually has any plot function :-p )
The problem is that the various stories she comes up with are so self-evidently fake (accompanied by 'and now I'm going to tell you the *truth*...) that by the end of the film I still had absolutely no idea what she was doing there. It wasn't until I read the programme notes afterwards that I discovered that her latest tall tale (about being a 'lady tec' investigating something-or-other) was apparently supposed to be the truth, but since she tells it with every bit as much exaggeration and insincere appeal as the others and doesn't give any impression of being a credible detective, I assumed she was just being a generic plucky female sidekick :-D
The actual lead is the imperturbable middle-aged lighthouse-keeper, played by Gordon Harker, who is generally excellent in the role -- one which would probably have been reassigned to a romantic interest in any Hollywood remake (as was done with "Gaslight", whose wily retired detective was unfortunately replaced by a dashing young love-interest for the heroine). However, in a 1930s British comedy, he is allowed to out-act everyone else as the down to earth, no-nonsense Londoner amid a sea of ghost stories and improbable invaders -- apparently absolutely everyone wants a trip to the lighthouse for one reason or another, even though, as both the keeper and the harbour master insist, this is completely prohibited by Trinity House regulations. He has the rueful, disillusioned face of a Sid James, with a drooping lower lip, and is refreshingly immune to browbeating, feminine blandishments and outright bribery ("Are you a reporter?" is his suspicious retort).
Unfortunately he gets a bit sidelined towards the end of the film when the Deeply Suspect Character with his undercover radio and spurious excuse for landing at the lighthouse turns out to be a heroic naval officer in disguise (although his plans appear to be strictly off-duty family business). Sadly Ian Hunter is a pretty wooden performer compared to Harker, evidently picked primarily for his square jaw and barrel chest -- featured as he strips off to swim to shore and raise the alarm after having his radio broken and getting coshed over the head in true pulp fiction fashion :-p
Another unexpected period bonus from the film is that as a result we get to see what is presumably a genuine lifeboat launch, featuring an old-fashioned -- even for those days, just as the Victorian narrow-gauge line was a relic by the standards of the 1930s -- 'pulling and sailing' boat in action, in footage that appears to be genuine, or at least convincing, in contrast to the very obvious model shots of the endangered ship. (The film does its best with these special effects by only showing the "Mary Fern" after dark and in the fog, but they do look clearly fake.)
I'm not sure how genuine the spoken Welsh is -- not very, I suspect, as the accented characters tend to stray into what sounds more like Scottish territory to me -- but we do get to hear a fisherman singing a tuneful Welsh song on the beach! Just don't ask yourself how a trip up to Tan-y-Bwlch can possibly be a route to anywhere on the Welsh coast...
The main humour in the film, for me at least, consists in a sharp script and Harker's deadpan delivery. Herbert Lomas plays another red herring suspect, the lugubrious assistant who tries to convince everyone of the ghosts, and Reginald Tate does a good job in an almost wordless part as a young man supposed to have driven out of his wits by whatever horror took the last lighthouse keeper. "The Phantom Light" is quite good entertainment, but definitely no masterpiece -- if it were not for the name of Michael Powell as director, I don't suppose anyone would be reviving it, but it still has its moments.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-11 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-11 02:02 am (UTC)I have to say I prefer the England engines with their big saddle-tanks and unmistakable Victorian air (even if the saddle-tanks weren't actually in the original design!)
no subject
Date: 2023-12-11 08:58 am (UTC)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0XWqhrDzJk
no subject
Date: 2023-12-11 06:53 pm (UTC)You can actually see the 'Welsh station mistress' in one of those film clips :)