comedy

Dr Strangelove review — Steve Coogan impresses but it’s oddly stolid

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Oliver Alvin Wilson, Steve Coogan and Dharmesh Patel in Dr Strangelove MANUEL HARLAN
Oliver Alvin Wilson, Steve Coogan and Dharmesh Patel in Dr Strangelove
MANUEL HARLAN

By Clive Davis

The comedian plays all four main characters with aplomb, but this reboot at the Noël Coward theatre in London could have done with more creative flourishes

At the end, as we shuffled out of the auditorium, a wickedly funny Randy Newman song, Political Science, played over the speakers. The mischievous call to set the world free by dropping nukes made an ironic coda to Vera Lynn singing We’ll Meet Again.

It also made you wish the show’s co-adaptors, Armando Iannucci and Sean Foley, had applied a few more creative flourishes to what is, all in all, a stolid remake of the classic Stanley Kubrick Cold War satire.

Don’t get me wrong: this is still a decent star vehicle for Steve Coogan, who outdoes Peter Sellers by taking on four rather than three of the main characters. As well as portraying US president Merkin Muffley, RAF Group Captain Mandrake and the sinister title character, he straps himself into the cockpit of a B-52 bomber as Major Kong, the gung-ho pilot intent on carrying out the order to lay some megatons on the evil Russkies.

It’s a reboot that will appeal most of all to Coogan fans who aren’t familiar with the film, which celebrated its 60th birthday this year. If you do know the original, it’s fun to hear some of the slivers of extra dialogue added by Iannucci and Foley after scrolling through Kubrick’s notebooks and drafts.

All the same, set designer Hildegard Bechtler’s war room is never going to look as imposing as Ken Adam’s James Bond-like screen creation. And if the scale model of the B-52, flying high over a video backdrop, gives the second half of the show an undeniable kick, the rest of the production looks cramped in the confines of the Noël Coward.

Still, Coogan handles all the roles with aplomb. His Mandrake is a bumbler with more than a hint of King Charles, and he brings an aura of playful menace to Strangelove, who, in contrast to the film’s villain, is instantly plagued by robotic tics.

How is the star manoeuvred into his many costume changes? Iannucci and Foley — who is also the director — solve that problem by inserting time-killing ploys and a presidential stand-in. It’s all a little distracting.

While I’ve often complained that video imagery sometimes seems to be pushing flesh-and-blood actors aside in the West End, this is one venture where a little more hi-tech trickery would have been welcome.

Giles Terera gives us a breezy impersonation of General Buck Turgidson, the manic hawk who cheerfully runs the numbers on a nuclear holocaust. No one could ever improve on George C Scott’s original, but if you’ve never seen the movie you’ll still be impressed.
★★★☆☆

Source: Dr Strangelove review — Steve Coogan impresses but it’s oddly stolid

‘The Hudsucker Proxy’: The Coen brothers’ Underappreciated Screwball Comedy

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The Hudsucker Proxy poster art by Nate Gonzales

Despite getting mixed reviews and being a box office flop, The Hudsucker Proxy remains a funny and intelligent entry in the Coen brothers’ filmography.

By Koraljka Suton

In 1981, three years before he and his brother Ethan made their directorial and screenwriting debut with Blood Simple, Joel Coen worked as an assistant editor on Sam Raimi’s first feature film The Evil Dead. The Coen brothers and Raimi quickly became friends and, after discovering that they share a love of 40s Hollywood comedies, the trio started working on one such script together. This creative process continued over the course of the following years, as the three filmmakers collaborated on the screenplay for Raimi’s second film Crimewave (1985) and even moved in together during the post-production of Blood Simple. But although the script for the screwball comedy The Hudsucker Proxy was finished in 1985, production would have to wait, because, as Joel himself said, the movie would be expensive and he and his brother were not as popular yet, having just made an independent film. And so, the Coens shelved it for the time being and went on to make Raising Arizona (1987), Miller’s Crossing (1990) and Barton Fink (1991).

Despite none of them becoming hits (Miller’s Crossing and Barton Fink even flopped at the box office), the latter went on to win three awards at the Cannes International Film Festival (Best Director, Best Actor and the Palme d’Or), garnered three Academy Award nominations (Best Supporting Actor, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design) and opened to much critical acclaim. All of this resulted in Joel Silver, producer of films such as Lethal Weapon (1987), Predator (1987) and Die Hard (1988), deciding to buy the shelved screenplay for Silver Pictures and pitch it at Warner Bros. With a $25 million budget thanks to several production companies backing the project and the Coens being allowed complete artistic control, The Hudsucker Proxy could finally see the light of day in 1994. And even though the gestation period was a long one, it was well worth the wait.

Unfortunately, neither critics nor viewers thought so upon the film’s initial release. The Coen brothers’ fifth feature and their most expensive film up until that point, bombed at the box office (earning only $11 million) and the reviews were largely mixed, accusing it of prioritizing style over substance. Be that as it may, The Hudsucker Proxy was in competition for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival (and lost to none other than Pulp Fiction) and would eventually go on to attain a cult following.

Because while it is true that the film is highly stylized, it in no way lacks substance. The Hudsucker Proxy opens to the scene of one Norville Barnes (played by Tim Robbins), preparing to jump from a skyscraper window on the last day of 1958. This was, in fact, the very first image that the screenwriters came up with. And from there they just had to decide on the whys and hows—why he was there to begin with and how they were going to get him down. What they did was take us back to December 1st 1958, the day Norville’s rise and subsequent fall began.

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Dr Strangelove director Sean Foley on Steve Coogan’s extraordinary performance

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By Lauren Murphy

It started with a phone call. “I thought it was a hoax,” Sean Foley says. “But in my mind’s eye I could immediately see that this could be really fun. It was one of those amazing phone calls that sometimes happen in our business, from the two producers — who basically said, ‘Do you wanna adapt and direct Dr Strangelove for the stage?’”

Foley, an experienced theatre director, writer and actor, jumped at the chance to work on the first-ever stage adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1964 film Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The Cold War satire, which stars Steve Coogan in multiple roles (originally played by Peter Sellers in the film), opened in London’s West End in October and will transfer to Dublin for a run at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in February.

“It’s an amazing story,” Foley says, nodding. “Kubrick himself called it a ‘nightmare comedy’, which is a great phrase, I think. So I was attracted to the material and the challenge of being able to stage something like that. It’s basically a comedy about the end of the world.”

 

Sean Foley in an empty theater.
Sean Foley jumped at the chance to work on the first-ever stage adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s classic
KRIS ASKEY

Foley co-adapted the script with Armando Iannucci, a man who is well versed in satirical and political fare, having created, written and directed the TV series The Thick of It and Veep, films In the Loop and The Death of Stalin, as well as co-creating (with Coogan) one of culture’s most enduring comedy characters in Alan Partridge.

“I didn’t want all the blame if it went wrong,” Foley says, laughing. “I’d known Armando for a very long time, but we’d never worked together, so I thought he’d be an absolutely perfect person to work with on the adaptation. I gave him a bell and it took him a nanosecond to say yes. It could be a poisoned chalice if you get it wrong, but I think we both felt we could bring something to it in remaking it for another medium, and in remaking it for a new audience.”

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Local Hero: Why the iconic Scottish environmental film was decades ahead of its time

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Forty years ago, Bill Forsyth’s film Local Hero warned us to consider the consequences of putting short-term gain ahead of the environment, writes Anthony Frajman.

By Anthony Frajman | June 2023

Few films have been as enduring as Local Hero. Released 40 years ago, the landmark Scottish film starring Hollywood legend Burt Lancaster put Scottish cinema on the map, launched the career of a then-unknown Peter Capaldi and showcased the nation’s incredible landscapes to the world.

Yet, the film was also remarkably prophetic. Decades before climate change was a widely discussed issue, Local Hero was one of the first contemporary films to draw attention to our impact on our environment.

Set in the fictional village of Ferness, Local Hero follows US oil executive “Mac” MacIntyre (Peter Riegert), who is sent to Scotland by his eccentric billionaire boss Felix Happer (Burt Lancaster) to buy the entire town and its surrounding areas to build an oil refinery. As he spends more time with the locals, Mac slowly falls in love with his adopted surroundings, and begins to question his role, its ethics, and his entire worldview.

Eerily relevant in our era, the climate satire shows almost no citizen standing up to the oil conglomerate. There is no environmental protection agency that steps in, no law against the oil company’s intended destruction of the land.

Alamy During his 2000 campaign for the US presidency, Vice President Al Gore told Oprah Winfrey in an interview that Local Hero was his favourite film (Credit: Alamy)
During his 2000 campaign for the US presidency, Vice President Al Gore told Oprah Winfrey in an interview that Local Hero was his favourite film (Credit: Alamy)

The film began with Chariots of Fire and The Mission producer, David Puttnam, whose films have been nominated for 26 Oscars. Puttnam had read an article in The Observer about a Scottish man’s battle against an oil giant, and was determined to make a film that addressed the unethical behaviour of oil firms and their toxic impact on natural landscapes.

Puttnam, who had been an environmentalist since the 1970s, and was president of the Council of Protection of Rural England, saw the potential for a film that directly addressed environmental issues. “I was really interested in the idea that a local accountant could sue a major, major international oil company and win on environmental grounds. I thought that was great. It was really a David and Goliath story,” Puttnam tells BBC Culture.

Puttnam had seen the debut feature of then largely unknown Scottish director Bill Forsyth, That Sinking Feeling, produced for £5,000, which he helped Forsyth sell to the BBC, and wanted to work with him. Sparked by the article he’d read, Puttnam brought the story to Forsyth, along with a proposal for a film set in Scotland dealing with ecological issues. “We hired two journalists, one on the East Coast, one on the West Coast, to give us cuttings or any other stories they had about communities being affected by a major oil company or major conglomerate coming in. And we were able to collect quite a lot of bits and pieces, and Bill then built that collage into the screenplay,” Puttnam remembers.

A hard sell

While Puttnam had produced the debut films of celebrated British directors Ridley Scott and Alan Parker, and had an eminent reputation as a producer, he struggled for years to get this unlikely Scottish film into production. “I couldn’t get much interest in it. I just found it very, very difficult getting traction,” says Puttnam.

Although he had only been able to secure half the budget for the film, that changed almost immediately when Puttnam won the Oscar for best picture for Chariots of Fire in 1982, on top of the best picture Bafta, bringing home Britain’s first best picture Oscar since 1968, when Oliver! won.

“I won the Bafta for Chariots and extraordinarily, was presented the award by Burt Lancaster. I mean, how that happened, God. But he happened to be presenting the best picture award that year. I walked back to my table and a guy called James Lee stopped me. He said, ‘If you’re still looking for money for Local Hero, you’ve got it’. And we shook hands. I went back to the table with a Bafta and the other half of the money,” Puttnam recalls.

As it happened, Puttnam and Forsyth had their eye on Lancaster to star in the film from get-go. “The first thing that Bill had said to me when he delivered the screenplay was, ‘I’d like Burt Lancaster to play Happer,” says Puttnam. While securing Lancaster was crucial for the film’s international appeal, this proved extremely difficult as the star’s salary took up half of the film’s budget. It took a year of negotiating to get him on board.

Despite considering stars such as Michael Douglas and Henry Winkler for the role of Mac, Forsyth was set on casting Peter Riegert as the oilman who experiences an awakening and succumbs to the charms of the rugged Scottish landscapes. For the key part of Oldsen, the local guide who escorts Mac around Ferness, Forsyth chose Peter Capaldi, a then fresh-faced Scottish actor just out of art school.

Another integral element of the film is the score by Scottish-born Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler, who Puttnam suggested to Forsyth. While it is regarded as a key component of the film, underscoring shots of the Scottish coastline and the Northern Lights, it almost never came about.

“I heard his (Dire Straits) album Making Movies. So, I wrote to him, I got a letter from his manager who said, ‘Oh, that’s really, really interesting’. I got Mark and Bill to meet, Bill didn’t like Mark’s music, so it was a very tense meeting. But Bill liked one track, Telegraph Road. So, I managed to have a meeting where the only track we talked about was Telegraph Road. And, in the end, they got to like each other and they got to work together,” says Puttnam.

Ahead of its time

Released to immediate acclaim, the film was a major success in the UK and in the US, going on to be honoured as one of the top 10 films of the year by the National Board of Review in New York and launching the career of future Doctor Who star and multi-Bafta winner Peter Capaldi. Forsyth – who’d garnered praise for his 1981 sleeper hit Gregory’s Girl – won a Bafta for best direction. It was hailed as “a small film to treasure, a loving, funny, understated portrait of a small Scottish town” by leading US critic Roger Ebert for The Chicago Sun-Times, while Janet Maslin wrote in a glowing review in The New York Times, “Mr Forsyth has put Scottish comedy on the map”.

While Local Hero remains arguably the finest film to have come out of Scotland, perhaps its most enduring legacy lies in its prescient caution on the environment. Fully aware that going ahead with the oil plant will irrevocably damage their village, the locals of Ferness willingly agree to sell their land, rather than oppose the corporation – bar one holdout, a dogged old man.

Well before it was echoed in the incident of the Scottish farmer who refused to sell his land to Trump when he built his golf course, Forsyth’s film implored audiences to conserve the environment, to stand up and fight for it, and to contemplate how easily it can be destroyed.

In the willingness of the residents to sell their land, Forsyth urged viewers to consider the irreversible repercussions of environmental harm. Looking back on the seminal Scottish film 40 years later, Puttnam says he believes it was prescient and is his favourite of the films he has produced: “It was certainly a good 20 years ahead of its time.”

Source: Local Hero: Why the iconic Scottish environmental film was decades ahead of its time