Arbuthnot’s early work

The sun on their helms. A tantalising example of Arbuthnot’s early work. Long thought lost. Knights. The clatter of horses’ hooves under the postern gate. Lovingly filmed in black and white. Found on a shelf in Australia. This was seven years before his great novel. Nothing remains in his papers. The BBC have a copy of the contract. The lead actor was paid 200 guineas. Another age.

He knocked it off in an afternoon, smoking cigarettes at his typewriter. One guesses what he said to his then wife when he came down to tea in Teddington where he was living at the time. Journeyman work. 

They came through the stone gate, the sun on their helms. How long did it take to film this sequence? It looks authentic. This is how it must have been. Something seen on a Sunday afternoon then forgotten. Noteworthy because of the name of the writer. Struggling with dialogue. A story of medieval betrayal and disinheritance. Robert of Normandy, landing in England, trying to get back his crown. Some of Arbuthnot’s later themes are evident in the script. 

The shadow is taking shape. They drank coffee and ate sandwiches between takes. There was generous location catering. Paid for out of the licence fee. The stone arch was real in one shot – they used Corfe Castle – in the next a plywood and plaster construction put together by carpenters at Television Centre.

The sort of thing they teach at RADA. How to fight with swords on horseback without falling off.

Looking at the world through heavy glasses and a cloud of cigarette smoke. It helped him concentrate. Sometimes the words just out of reach came close enough to catch. This was about the time his affair with a leading actress began.

Playing their bare shoulders in bed scene.

Aiming for psychological depth. Trying to get away from the old Hollywood rubbish.

The horses rode through the stone gate. Their hooves clattered on the cobbles. A triumph of the foley man’s art. A clatter of clip-clopping. The Americans were enthusiastic, some of the actors had been seen before. They ate it up like cake.

They weren’t riding the same horses when they came through the gate. It wasn’t practical to bring them to London. The hero’s horse had a white blaze on his forehead.

The roan had a crude daub of whitewash on his nose as he rode past the camera. The technicians assured them he’d only be on screen for a couple of seconds.

“Watney’s dray-horses, trying to break into show business.”

The quality of the sound had changed.

He was entering his Marxist phase. As the decade progressed the angrier he got. It helped him connect with girl students when he was teaching. Not that there wasn’t reason to be cross. Having been tricked out of nuclear war the Americans decided to discharge their omnipotence on Vietnam. If they couldn’t destroy the world at least they’d make a mess of one country.

Loosely based on a novel by Molnar.

Showing the inert television audience how far they’d come since they were ruled by the grunt and clatter of rival swordsmiths.

There is some acting. The lead actor in a tense two-shot with his intended. Handsome, tousled, blond. He is in the grip of suppressed emotion, going away to war. Her wimple quivers. Would he ever return? Nowadays we look up in Wikipedia to see how this particular challenge to the throne played out. The name is unfamiliar. He didn’t become king. Had to make do with the Vexin.

It was all lamentable, regrettable, mad. The scene where he is hewn down in the forest is particularly horrific. Rough warriors. All the same…

The hero staggered bleeding towards the camera / screen.

“Succour! Succour! For mercy’s sake, succour!”

It was fiercely real.

The town serfs rose up.

He went to a nightclub in a sports car and failed to get off with Chrissie Shrimpton. She crossed her legs in a miniskirt, sitting on a bar-stool and declined to frug with him. Her face looking back at him impassive. So cool.

“I’m going to be on the cover of Radio Times. Silly really. It only costs ninepence.”

She preferred Mick Jagger’s brother Chris. He smoked Marlboro Lights or whatever beautiful people smoked at the time. We’ll have to get those details right in time for the remake.

He had to ring his agent.

When he got back she was gone. They are both still alive. Neither remembers.

Major Blennington-Smythe, the security wallah, was reassured the author was Swiss and repaired to the bar.

“As long as he’s not a card-carrying what’s-it. Damned thirsty work keeping an eye on these BBC types.”

The rights man grumbled, “Why can’t you stick to Sir Walter Scott?”

They ended up paying a nominal copyright fee to a theatre trust in West Germany which seemed to own the rights to the book.

Though Arbuthnot had been fairly free in his adaptation.

How strange it should have survived because someone neglected to destroy it. They used film for all the outdoor sequences then they had to be transferred to videotape in line with the agreements of the time, to rule out the possibility of a cinema release.

A copy of a copy of a copy.

If it’s worth making it’s worth keeping.

The BBC is unsure about releasing the footage. It is one episode from a series. Even the script is lost. There is a complete absence of diversity. The women are shown as passive. There have been anxious meetings. It can’t be shown.

The whole thing belongs to another age.

20 August 2020

© Roger Howe 2020