Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs (15)
March 7
6.30pm
The Bluecoat
Tickets Here
Laura Brown on Stuart Cooper’s version of David Halliwell’s prescient take on toxic masulinity
It’s quite famously known that George Harrison (yes that one) was a champion of film. In fact, Harrison’s credits from a career as a producer, post-Beatles, include what are probably some of your favourites, The Life of Brian, Nuns on the Run, Withnail and I, Time Bandits and The Long Good Friday.
Little Malcolm and his Struggle Against the Eunuchs is his first though. Financed by the money he made through Yellow Submarine, the film, starring John Hurt, is an adaptation of David Halliwell’s play. Stuart Cooper’s film won the Silver Bear in Berlin when it was released.The story, an expelled art student declares himself, and his ragtag bag of followers, as being at war against the Eunarchy, uniting as the Party of Dynamic Erection in a means to challenge his impotence and frustration. Hurt starred in the play on stage, Harrison saw it, the story, as they say, was written in the stars.
The film looks great as well, all the ingredients of a great British cult classic. John Alcott, Stanley Kubrick’s cinematographer, was on the crew – three years after he’d worked on A Clockwork Orange and the year before he work on Barry Lyndon.
The movie is a strange one though, on the surface of it, for the peace-loving Beatle to be associated with. Amidst our period of #MeToo, our awareness of toxic masculinity and, yes, the tendency of hard line activists to slip into a fascist-lite agenda of proving one’s loyalty, Little Malcolm might feel like a very 2019 film.
Indeed, 2019 has more than a little in common with 1974, the year the film was made. Political turmoil resulting in a coalition, the economy in a downward spiral. In ‘65, the year the play was written, the country is a rapidly changing one, politically and socially. Churchill died, marking for many the end of an era and the start of the next. Harold Wilson’s Labour government had come into power the year before.
Modernisation, the start, the seedlings of individualism of soap box politics, that one man and his views could make a difference. Student revolt and occupations were sweeping art schools, along with powerful activism. Views being spouted might be, sometimes, ridiculous, but there’s a hubris. And hubris is always ripe to be mocked. Harrison, at the forefront of this cultural modernisation, as one of the Fab Four, might well have liked a tale that skewered this modernity and some of the pomposity that must have run alongside it.
Little Malcolm can be funny but it can also be chilling. Malcolm Scrawdyke is expelled from art college and his devoted followers Wick and Irwin (John McEnery and Raymond Platt) join his Party along with their friend, Nipple (played by David Warner and a rather nifty duffle coat) who is slightly less enthusiastic, but goes along with it.
Malcolm’s would be girlfriend Ann, played beautifully by Rosalind Ayres, dances around at the edge of the battle Scrawdyke is fighting with an unseen foe (society, on the face of it but let’s be honest himself) until she is at the centre of it.
Some of the lefty movements of the period seem familiar here but in truth politics of all shades gets a good skewering. All the chants of Hail Scrawdyke, the show trials, the demands for loyalty, while they suggest a bigger picture, a sense of belief and purpose, all Little Malcolm wants is revenge. And the lust for revenge often ends in violence. No spoilers here but toxic masculinity isn’t pretty and it rarely sees all people as equal. It’s about an angry young man using politics as a foil. It’s about a sad man, who feels he has no power, struggling to find an identity. The fights over the exact shade of corduroy tell us as much about these young men as the demands for loyalty do. According to Mike Leigh, David Halliwell’s original title for the play was “One Long Wank”. Yeah, I can see that.
And John Hurt is brilliant, verbose, ferocious, furious and ridiculous. And when he needs to be, very threatening.
Why did this film get lost for 40 years? As dark as it gets it’s funny and in our period of time where binary arguments are rife, and where you can hear “you’re either for us or against us” several times before your breakfast coffee, Little Malcolm is of its time, ahead of its time and ideal for now.
Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs (15)
March 7
6.30pm
The Bluecoat
Tickets Here