{"id":15806,"date":"2021-01-26T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=15806"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:17:14","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:17:14","slug":"mock-heroics-richard-lester-in-the-70s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/mock-heroics-richard-lester-in-the-70s\/","title":{"rendered":"Mock Heroics: Richard Lester in the \u201970s"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Richard Lester closed out the 1960s \u2013 the decade that brought him fame as director of the Beatles\u2019 A Hard Day\u2019s Night<\/em> and Help!<\/em> and acclaim as recipient of the Palme d\u2019Or for The Knack\u2026 and How to Get It<\/em> \u2013 with one of his least-accessible films, 1969\u2019s The Bed Sitting Room,<\/em> based on the play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus. This brought Lester (who turned 89 this month) full-circle, since he made the leap from television to cinema one decade earlier with the sprightly romp The Running Jumping Standing Still Film<\/em>, to which Milligan contributed ideas alongside fellow Goon Show<\/em> alumnus Peter Sellers. The Bed Sitting Room<\/em>, on the other hand, felt like a dead end, set in the bleak, post-apocalyptic wasteland Great Britain has been reduced to three years after World War III. A fresh start seemed all but required \u2013 and it was presaged by a most unlikely screen hero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen a man is as old as I am, and knows himself thoroughly for what he was and is, he doesn\u2019t care much.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So writes Sir Harry Flashman, protagonist and \u201cauthor\u201d of George MacDonald Fraser\u2019s Flashman<\/em>, published the same year The Bed Sitting Room<\/em> was released, in which the long-retired soldier unashamedly describes himself as \u201ca scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a thief, a coward\u2014and, oh yes, a toady.\u201d Lester saw the novel\u2019s screen potential and optioned it, but was unable to interest a studio. In the meantime, he was approached about adapting Alexandre Dumas\u2019s The Three Musketeers<\/em> and brought Fraser on board to pen the screenplay. Intended as a roadshow release complete with intermission, the ambitious project was ultimately split into two films, with The Three Musketeers<\/em> released in 1973 and The Four Musketeers<\/em> the following year. Both were successful enough to make Lester a bankable director again, so he returned to Flashman, getting Fraser to adapt the cad\u2019s second adventure, Royal Flash<\/em>, which was deemed more feasible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus began a pattern that continued for the rest of the decade as Lester chased films centered on clear, unambiguous heroes with ones that called the very idea of heroism into question. Just as the Musketeers<\/em> begat Royal Flash<\/em>, with Malcolm McDowell\u2019s Flashman the randy counterpart to Michael York\u2019s earnest D\u2019Artagnan, so Richard Harris\u2019s no-nonsense bomb-squad leader in Juggernaut<\/em> prefigured Sean Connery’s counterinsurgency expert (in the employ of the teetering Batista regime) who learns the hard way he’s on the wrong side of history in Cuba<\/em>. Meanwhile, Robin and Marian<\/em> led to Butch and the Sundance: The Early Days<\/em>, covering how legends are born and die from opposite ends of the cycle. (The odd one out, in every sense of the word, is 1976\u2019s The Ritz<\/em>, based on the Terrence McNally farce.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf it was easy, everybody would be doing it, and then what would become of us?\u201d <\/em><\/strong>\u2013Lt. Commander Anthony Fallon, <\/strong>Juggernaut<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the hallmarks of Lester\u2019s directorial style is his attention to detail, along with his concern for the plight of ordinary people whose lives are disrupted by the heroes and villains going at each other while they\u2019re just trying to get on with their work. Virtuous as they might be, D\u2019Artagnan and his companions cause untold damage whenever and wherever they tangle with Cardinal Richelieu\u2019s guards, and Lester frequently gives voice to the disgruntled servants who have to sweep up after them. Similarly, there\u2019s a fight scene in Royal Flash<\/em> that plays out while a floor cleaner goes about her duties, blithely unconcerned about the knock-down, drag-out brawl going on around her. That kind of controlled chaos is common to all three of Lester\u2019s swashbucklers, which feature fight choreography that frequently gives way to straight-up slapstick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The performance of Lester stalwart Roy Kinnear as D\u2019Artagnan\u2019s servant also raises the level of comic relief, which gets carried over to Juggernaut<\/em>, shot by Lester during a break from post-production duties on The Four Musketeers<\/em>. Set aboard the ocean liner Britannic<\/em>, it\u2019s a microcosm of British society as its passengers and crew are held hostage by a mad bomber seeking a hefty ransom. As the tension mounts, Lester keeps the focus on the professionals, from the naval bomb-disposal team dispatched to try to defuse the situation on down to Kinnear\u2019s jovial social director, who desperately tries to keep the passengers\u2019 spirits up, but is fighting a losing battle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think you\u2019ve come too late.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>
\u201cI was afraid of that.\u201d <\/em>\u2013Captain Ramirez to Major Robert Dapes, Cuba<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professionalism is also the watchword of Sean Connery\u2019s mercenary in Cuba<\/em>, who laments the way soldiering has changed. \u201cIt\u2019s not as clean as it was,\u201d he says, but when he\u2019s challenged by a Cuban revolutionary he makes plain his willingness to \u201cfight for any elected government\u201d if the price is right. In contrast, Connery\u2019s  Robin Hood in Robin and Marian <\/em>faithfully serves Richard Harris\u2019s King Richard for two decades, following him to the Holy Land and back until the Lionheart gives out. When he and Little John return to Sherwood Forest, Robin finds they\u2019ve been immortalized in song (\u201cThey\u2019ve turned us into heroes, Johnny,\u201d he marvels) and falls back into old habits, reigniting his romance with Maid Marian and antagonizing the Sheriff of Nottingham until they\u2019re forced into a final, fatal confrontation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opposite is the case with Butch and Sundance<\/em>, which finds the outlaws teaming up for the first time, with fast-talker Butch tutoring his junior partner on the finer points of bank robbing and choosing an outlaw moniker. There\u2019s a point, however, where Butch tries staying on the right side of the law, even volunteering them for a dangerous mission to deliver a diphtheria serum to a snowed-in mining camp. \u201cHaven\u2019t you ever wanted to be a hero?\u201d he asks. \u201cHave little kids look up to you?\u201d After Butch falls ill himself, though, he tells Sundance, \u201cThe next time I say \u2018hero,\u2019 shoot me.\u201d
As it happened, this was not Lester\u2019s last word on the subject.\u00a0 He was recruited by his Musketeers<\/em> producers, Alexander and Ilya Salkind, as their go-between with director Richard Donner, who was at loggerheads with them over their sprawling, two-part Superman<\/em> film. (Sound familiar?) How Lester eventually wound up taking over the reins of Superman II<\/em> and seeing it through to completion (and sticking around for Superman III<\/em>) is a story for another decade, though. \"\"\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Beatles\u2019 favorite filmmaker spent the decade directing films like \u201cCuba,\u201d \u201cJuggernaut,\u201d and \u201cRoyal Flash\u201d \u2013 complicated contemplations of heroism, masculinity, and morality. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":463,"featured_media":15809,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399],"tags":[1422],"class_list":["post-15806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","tag-looking-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/463"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22597,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15806\/revisions\/22597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}