Book Reviews

“Brevity is the soul of wit.” A review of Wayne Cresser’s The Book of Norman

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By Fred Shaw

In “Happiness is a Warm Gun (Summer 1969),” Norman and his brother Murray are learning the ropes of marksmanship at a Boy Scout camp with Tiger Darling, a former Marine, providing instruction.  The power dynamic on the shooting range plays as imagined with macho tension provided by Tiger sporting “paratrooper pants and dark shades” in conflict with Norman who aligns himself more with the older boys wearing “tousled hair longer than dad would ever allow…dark shades, like the ones he’d seen in recent pictures of John Lennon…they were from a town called Cohasset, and he figured that place had to be right next to Coolsville.”

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Author Jonathan Melville: My trip behind the scenes of classic movie Local Hero

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Superfan Jonathan Melville takes an in-depth look at the legendary Scottish comedy-drama movie as it’s 40th anniversary approaches

By Jonathan Melville

“It’s not a high-concept movie, there’s actually no story there really. It’s what happens in between the story that’s important.” The words of filmmaker Bill Forsyth, spoken to me on a rainy night in Mallaig in 2013 after a screening of the then 30-year-old Local Hero, lodged in my mind and refused to budge.

Fast forward a decade and I’ve just finished writing a book examining the evolution of the concept that would go on to become one of Scotland’s best-loved exports, adored around the globe and with famous fans including Top Gun: Maverick producer Jerry Bruckheimer. The key word here is ‘evolution’, as the idea for the film that follows Texan oilman “Mac” MacIntyre (Peter Riegert), sent to buy the Scottish village of Ferness so that it can be turned into an oil refinery, took various twists and turns that I felt deserved documenting as the 40th anniversary approaches.

It’s tricky to pinpoint a single moment that could be said to be the birth of Local Hero, though one could plump for a chance meeting between writer-director Bill Forsyth and David Puttnam, producer of the future Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire, in a Soho tobacconist’s shop in 1980. The pair had first met a year earlier when Forsyth, fresh from the success of his first zero-budget Scottish film, That Sinking Feeling, tried to interest Puttnam in producing Gregory’s Girl, only for the producer to turn him down and leave the young Scot to find the funding himself.

When their paths crossed again, Puttnam had the kernel of an idea set against the backdrop of the Scottish oil industry, which had hit the headlines in the early ’70s when oil was found 100 miles northeast of Shetland’s capital, Lerwick. News of the deal secured by Shetland Islands Council, which ensured special funds were set up for the benefit of the area’s residents, sparked Puttnam’s interest. It led him to pitch the idea to Forsyth, who initially thought that a Scottish hotelier would be the local hero of the title, out-negotiating the oil company in a series of thrilling sequences. He soon jettisoned the thriller aspects, upped the comedy quotient, kept the title and focused on an American oil man.

Most fans are aware that Local Hero’s original ending was hastily reworked at the insistence of nervous studio executives who feared leaving audiences on a downbeat note. But it was only once I spoke to members of the cast and crew, starting with Forsyth in 2013, and read early drafts of the script that I realised how much wasn’t yet known.

Riegert explained just how much he wanted to secure the role over other contenders Michael Douglas and Henry Winkler. John Gordon-Sinclair (rogue motorcyclist Ricky) told how he and Peter Capaldi (Danny Oldsen) rehearsed beach landings between takes in the spring of 1982, fearful they’d be called up to fight in the Falklands War. I also heard how Chariots of Fire winning an Oscar led to skyrocketing fees for filming in empty fields.

Then there were the deleted scenes revealed in Forsyth’s hand-annotated early scripts, each one filmed and then discarded for time or logic reasons. With a longer sequence set in the mist after Mac and Danny hit poor Trudy, more discussion about mermaids than ended up in the finished film, an extremely dark moment on the beach, and Mac and Oldsen keeping their mission secret from the locals, there was  more to the film than I’d ever imagined.

There’s no single thing that makes Local Hero my favourite Scottish film, just a seemingly effortless blend of humour, casting and locations that, as the book hopefully shows, weren’t entirely effortless. Bill Forsyth doesn’t shy away from raising complex issues, pointing out the bad things happening around Mac and the villagers who are willing to see their livelihoods and homes destroyed in exchange for a few million pounds, but he does it in a way that isn’t heavy-handed and still leaves space for magical moments.

On a pilgrimage to Pennan [where the film was shot] earlier this year I was impressed by how little had changed, though there are now fewer residents and more holiday homes. Locals are proud of their place in film history, but they don’t fetishise the past and they’re happy to welcome surf enthusiasts and tourists as long as they’re allowed some space for themselves.

If it’s what happens between the story that’s important in Local Hero, then my hope is that this book will reveal what happened in between those moments to ensure a classic was made over the course of a few months in 1982. With any luck, fans will view the film with fresh eyes the next time they visit Ferness.

Local Hero: Making a Scottish Classic by Jonathan Melville

Local Hero: Making a Scottish Classic by Jonathan Melville is out now (Polaris, £17.99). You can buy from The Big Issue shop on Bookshop.org, which helps to support The Big Issue and independent bookshops.

Source: Author Jonathan Melville: My trip behind the scenes of classic movie Local Hero – The Big Issue

You Terrible Cult!

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Author Colin Bacon discusses “Vivian and I,” his 2010 book on Vivian Mackerrell – the inspiration for Withnail and I

Vivian Mackerrell grew up in Nottingham and was a jobbing actor in the sixties and seventies. He played ‘Fourth Tramp’ in a BBC play and had a bit part in a film about a doll that came to life. Then he retreated back to Notts to work for Paul Smith, eventually becoming a pub legend and dying of throat cancer in 1995. So why has Colin Bacon written his autobiography [sic]? Well, he was also Bruce Robinson’s flatmate in the late sixties and the inspiration for the iconic Withnail and I…

Researching your book was a little more difficult than you imagined…
Initially I was shot down when I contacted the director Bruce Robinson because he’d said all he wanted to say about Withnail and I and had moved on. When I said I was thinking of calling the book In Search of Withnail he became a bit touchy and said ‘I’d rather you didn’t do that’, which took the wind out of my sails a little bit. So initially it was a knock in the teeth but after that everyone I spoke to was incredibly helpful because they all loved Vivian.

Do you think Withnail and I has been a millstone around his neck?
He’s had an active creative life through books and films, and wants people to recognise other things he’s done. But he loved Viv. He definitely had great affection for him, so I don’t think there’s any jealousy. I suspect he’s just fed up with being misquoted and people wanting more from the character than he’s prepared to give. Robinson didn’t make any money from the film and funded the last part of the film himself because of various complications. He nearly walked out on the first day of filming because the producer – who’d worked with the Monty Python crew – had his own view of how Withnail should be portrayed. So I guess to see something like this take off after all of the problems and then become a cult classic without financial benefit – I think he sold the rights – must have been frustrating.

Let’s clear up some of the enduring myths that surround the film. Did the flat exist?
Yes, it was based on the Camden flat on Albert Street, which was owned by their classmate David Dundas, who wrote the score for the film. It’s a pretty accurate portrayal from what I can gather; a typical student flat of the time in bohemian London, with some very wealthy people hanging around pretending that they had nothing! They had all of this wonderful furniture and works of art but were living in absolute squalor, surviving off beans and covering themselves in Deep Heat to keep themselves warm – and of course drinking good wine. Both Viv and Bruce developed a taste for good wine as students.

Did the lighter fuel episode really happen?
Apparently so. I spoke to someone who said they were present when it occurred. Certain people have suggested that Vivian’s throat cancer could be attributable to this.

And the Camberwell Carrot?
I didn’t necessarily know it by that name, but people used to roll fantastic joints shaped like television aerials, and great long ones you’d give yourself a hernia trying to toke on. Rolling joints like the Camberwell Carrot was a typical sixties pastime.

Richard E Grant’s remit for the role was a ‘lying, mendacious, utterly charming, old darling’. Is that an accurate reflection of Vivian?
By the time I met Viv, he’d mellowed a lot. He certainly had his opinions, but I never witnessed him being as nasty as the Richard E Grant character. He was quite a Thatcherite, though; he’d see homeless people and say they should be nuked. But he wasn’t embittered, just overly dramatic. Withnail and I had loads of Vivian in it, but the extreme version. He isn’t the character. There’s a bit of artistic licence. And the one thing Bruce Robinson warned me about was that I couldn’t claim that anything said in the film was ever uttered by Vivian or else he’d issue a writ. He’s adamant that Viv didn’t say these things, although he stated in a revised screenplay of the film that although; “there isn’t a line of Viv’s in Withnail, his horrible wine-stained tongue may as well have spoken every word.” Viv at one point suggested he’d helped him write the screenplay, but I don’t think he did. I’m sure that’s just Viv being a bit extreme in the pub one evening.

How did you meet Vivian?
I’d meet him whenever I used to come back to Nottingham to see friends, after moving down to the West Country in the seventies. Nottingham had become a lot trendier during this time. The
emphasis had shifted from the Playhouse Bar – which used to be the place to be seen in the sixties – to the Lace Market. We’d drink in Jaceys, Brownes, The Carter Club – places like that.

So was he the kind of person who would sell an arse to get a weekend away, or even a free drink?
He wouldn’t need to do anything for a free drink; he was such a lovely bloke that people would buy them for him anyway. He just talked to people and had them in raptures with his asides. If he had someone to drink with, he was happy. Once they couldn’t drink anymore, he’d find someone else. Because he lived on Cecil Street he’d hang about mostly in Lenton, at The Grove. They loved him and I guess they saw him as this eccentric guy and would buy him drinks.

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