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HANDMADE FILMS
"I don't care! I don't give a damn! British justice is a farce and a sham!"
The British Film Industry (the UK's leading oxymoron) is a strange and mutating creature. Nowadays of course there's tonnes of Lottery cash to be put at the disposal of producers who make bad films that no-one wants to watch but in times past producers had to raise their own capital with which to make bad films no-one wanted to watch. After the collapse of British studios such as Ealing, Gainsborough, London Films, British Lion (which was most of the rest cobbled together in a British Leyland stylee) and especially, latterly, Hammer, it fell to companies such as David Puttnam's Goldcrest, Bernie's EMI and Lew's ITC to come up with the goods. And makes films they did and, would you believe it, sometimes they were quite good and occasionally even trumped those damn Yankees with the likes of ON GOLDEN POND and CHARIOTS OF FIRE. But it all managed went tits up eventually and most spectacularly with Goldcrest after the farrago of its justly slaughtered REVOLUTION. Still the 'industry' limped along after its own weary fashion until fate, in the unlikely personage of Bernard Delfont, leant a hand.
In 1979 the Monty Python team were about to embark on the second of their features, LIFE OF BRIAN. Having already captured the imagination of every catchphrase-repeating nerd on the planet with THE HOLY GRAIL (which, naturally, is our favourite) the team were about to further disturb the peace of the remainder of the sane populace with their gentle religious meanderings. However, at some point well into the production (actually, three days before shooting was to start) Bernie decided to have a shuftie at the script and was much perplexed by what he did find therein. He cast the work aside and withheld his cash from it in whereupon there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth in Python Towers, for Lo! however clever and witty they may have been verily they had not as much money as Bernie and they were right in it and knew not what to do. The lads touted the project all round Hollywood, Borehamwood, Pinewood to no avail and by the time they were showing it to the owner of a shoe shop in Cricklewood they were beginning to get a little desperate.
Anyway, it was celebrity pals to the rescue as, to cut a long story short, Eric Idle had a word with George Harrison and he had a word with his lawyer Denis O'Brien and HandMade Films was born, LIFE OF BRIAN was completed in fine style, Malcolm Muggeridge hated it so much that everyone realised it must be great and it went on to make a fortune. Hurrah!
Originally Harrison's company was to be called British Hand Made Films (since Harrison had liked the sound of the British Hand Made Paper mill at the splendidly named Wookey Hole in Somerset) but it was pointed out to him that this was a name more suited to a nationalised business in perpetual crisis. And since HandMade was nationalised it wouldn't suit, although the perpetual crisis bit might have come in handy a bit later on. But enough of the anecdotal cobblers, let's get down to bwass tacks. After LIFE OF BRIAN scooped a great truckload of cash came HandMade's next and best feature. No less an authority as the world renowned Creamguide (Films) Top 100 Films lists within its hallowed scrolls the ever-brilliant TIME BANDITS and it well deserves its place.
Still, that aside HandMade was still in the business (for a time) of making really classy films for not much cash and to further prove this they went on to THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY, MONA LISA, PRIVATES ON PARADE, THE MISSIONARY and - our favourite of the majestic post-Bandits phase - the great A PRIVATE FUNCTION. For a British film company to produce even one of these films would be a momentous achievement today, and to be fair it was then, with the cache of the company attracting the likes of Seen 'Sean Connery' Canary, Michael 'unusual stain' Caine, Bob 'Oskins, David 'suitable case for treatment' Warner, Maggie 'crème de la crème' Smith and Richard Griffiths. Momentous, indeed, but of course there's a considerable downside to HandMade so considerable that it's probably best to look away now: WATER, BULLSHOT and SHANGHAI SURPRISE sum it all up really and they're just the ones we've heard of. COLD DOG SOUP is a welcome mystery as are TRACK 29, THE LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE and FIVE CORNERS. 'Oskins vehicle THE RAGGEDY RAWNEY is worth a brief peek if you can avoid Dexter 'golden joystick' Fletcher and BELLMAN AND TRUE isn't that bad in a late-Saturday-night-in-1989-ITV-Autumn-Season-of-Films-filler kind of way.
There are also some other films really not worth mentioning at all (and that means a lot coming from us, we concede) including the rubbish HOW TO GET AHEAD IN ADVERTISING and the equally mediocre CHECKING OUT. Projects which (sadly) never made it to the screen included one by the name of TRAVELLING MEN which was to have starred Caine and Connery and be written by Friend of Creamguide (Films) Peter McDougall. But O'Brien tinkered too much (as he was wont to do) with the script and the stars buggered off and Peter poured a tin of Evo-Stick over O'Brien's car. As you do. Then of course, there's WITHNAIL AND I, surely the most overrated film of the '80s. Nobody actually went to see it when it came out first time round but then that's because nobody wanted to see it. Lionised to all get out nowadays it's developed into a full fledged cult and, so okay, it has some nice moments, but they rather tellingly tend to involve Richard Griffiths or Michael 'Private Schulz' Elphick (and while we're on the subject, one thing that's always bothered us about it as well; when they're in the pub and talking to the drunk landlord about the war, he says he was in, "Tanks! Afrika Corps!" which was surely a German division, wasn't it?). Hey-ho. At least its newfound status means that it's too expensive to be put on the telly that often.
Last of all, just as the whole house of cards came tumbling down, came NUNS ON THE RUN, a film for whom the adjective 'slight' might well have been created and a film which, although ostensibly a proper feature it manages to convey an atmosphere more akin to a particularly dry episode of Woof! We dare say Alan Bennett would describe it as 'homely'. A passable Channel 4 Sunday night's viewing if nothing else (although it got one of the ten biggest audiences in the channel's history, for some reason). And that was it. Denis O'Brien it turned out had been screwing George Harrison something terrible for years leaving him broke and no more films were made. Bad thing because it meant there was no chance of another Palin-helmed comedy like .Function or .Missionary but decidedly good thing because there was now definitely no chance of Terry Gilliam's half-planned sequel to .Bandits where the midgets were the daughters of the original Bandits, which is a rubbish idea. Although we concede it would still probably be better than BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS.
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