Little Malcolm and his Struggle against the Eunuchs

1974: 109 mins. Director: Stuart Cooper – presented at Bfi: 25^th February 2010 by ‘Flipside.’

Notes on ‘Flipside.’

This is where cult film fans in London get their fetish satisfied. In it’s own words on the Bfi website…. ‘the Flipside is (also) a popular monthly screening slot at BFI Southbank dedicated to seeking out film and TV that is weird, wonderful, offbeat, unseen, outrageous and downright unlikely.’ Occasionally, the films are not available on DVD as with this example, but often is the case that they are available on the Bfi website. Check out what’s on offer on http://www.bfi.org.uk/flipside.html – really worth a visit for lost movie gems.

And on to the movie…an unexpected treat was the fact that Mike Leigh was in the audience as well as the icon John Hurt. The film was originally a stage play, starring Hurt in the title role of Malcolm Scrawdyke at the Garrick Theatre in London’s West End back in the sixties with Mike Leigh as director. So both men were there to comment and take note as to how the piece had aged. Leigh was infinitely more comfortable than Hurt who acknowledged the difficulty in the piece as cinema, noting as he is wont to do nowadays that this would not be made in todays big budget/no budget climate. It also has to be said, and Hurt did say, that the heavy dialogue, small cast and tiny number of set pieces, make this a happier theatrical outing.

Malcolm Scrawdyke is a failure: having been kicked out of art school he pulls the attention, and for the most part, devotion of three other dropouts (Wick, Irwin and Nipple), who between them are The Party of Dynamic Erection (complete with phallic banner and magazine ‘Muckshifter’). Even to the only party members – their raison d’etre is a shade vague “what do we do when we get in power?” asks one of the revolutionaries to the leader. Their platform is not quite clear – other than to kidnap their perceived enemy and never seen nemesis, ‘Allard.’ The ‘revolution’ starts with this act – which is mocked out to hilarious effect. A disused car, boxes and elaborate dialogue play their constituent parts in the story that we know will never become reality. There is never any doubt as to the acute delusional quality of Malcolm and the boredom of his fellow party activists. This never comes across as sad though but as a reminder as to what little alternative there is to do with disappointment with yourself other than externalise it.

The ineffectiveness of all of the characters is matched by the over blown bluster with which they carry themselves reminiscent of Billy Liar and Walter Mitty. Nipple (brilliantly portrayed by David Warner), recalls an encounter with a woman that was no more than an after party drunken squeeze but is put across to listeners as a deeply rich and exotic encounter. The infamous ‘corduroy jacket’ sequence that takes place between Nipple and Malcolm acts as a humorous precursor to a far more sinister interchange when Malcolm conducts a trial with Nipple being tried and condemned for ‘treason.’ Nipple now sees the whole of Malcolm’s politick as ‘mad’ – which it is. Ann, a fellow student and focus of Malcolm’s sexual frustration and inertia sees the business of Allard’s kidnap as ‘difficult.’

Allard is the unseen nemesis – but Ann is present in all three acts of the drama. At the beginning Malcolm regards the prospect of having Ann as the real conquest. This is no more likely to happen though than the much talked about kidnap: both conquering Ann and kidnapping Allard present themselves as insurmountably unachievable. Ann’s knowledge of Malcolm’s shortcomings “you’re the biggest virgin outside of a convent”, results in a horrific sequence (Ann gets a beating), followed by a verbal hammering come character assassination of Malcolm from one of his ‘party.’ The game is up. Malcolm, his plans, ideals and anger are transparently shallow.

As Hurt rightly points out at the Q&A, whilst the play (originally ten hours long) does not work in a modern cinematic context, the character of Malcolm Scrawdyke is readily transferable. Malcolm is evident in the kitchen sinkers of the 1960’s, in the Angry Young Man films of the same era (think of festering idealist Jimmy Porter) and of the character Citizen Smith played in the seventies on British television for years by Robert Lindsay, both characters militant, bolshy and Trotskyite. It serves as no wonder that George Harrison (Beatle and film buff) loved and financially backed ‘Little Malcolm’ – Richard E. Grant’s Withnail in Withnail & I, was an angry idealistic and very verbose slacker of much the same mould as Malcolm. Hand Made Films – the production company started by Harrison to give us Python’s Life of Brian, breathed life into Malcolm in 1974 and Withnail in the 1980s. The need to characterise a bored, inertly impotent and troubled individual is unlikely to go away.

Rumour has it that Little Malcolm is about to get a DVD release. Should this be the case, there’s a good chance that a new generation of film buffs will find this odd but engrossing gem a worthy piece to include in their home library. Festering, impotent idealists everywhere need take note: Little Malcolm heavily articulated and revealed your condition first.

Gail Spencer