Sometime you sit down and watch something and the whole time your watching it your mouth's open in constant bewilderment and bemusement. This is one of those programmes. I suspect it could only have been made when it was made in the free thinking psychedelic let's try anything mid sixties. It starts as a seemingly fairly ordinary kitchen sink drama and then suddenly there's singing in the background oh it's a musical how quaint! Then there's other voices real people's voices describing an old gas works oh it's a documentary how interesting! and that's basically how it continues mixing the three. The songs are sometimes of a Broadway musical type describing the characters and what they're doing and sometimes they're straight pop songs as you would hear at that time. Most of them aren't bad and some are quite catchy. It is strange and bizarre it is funny it is political it is very watchable and there is an elephant.
3 Reviews
Why Save When You Can Spend?
lchadbou-326-2659210 May 2021
These lyrics come from one of the striking Brecht style musical numbers that grace this remarkable mid 6Os British teleplay, one of the more unusual specimens from an especially fruitful period for a younger Ken Loach, at the BBC.
The entire comedy plot (one of the few films from the usually serious and often grim Loach that can be described as funny) fits the mold of what critic Robin Wood described, in his analysis of the screwball romances of Howard Hawks, as "the lure of irresponsibility" A husband prepared to put the down payment of 400 pounds on a home for his wife and daughter is missing several financial documents (no great loss, the house is a disaster) and decides to pamper the little girl he favors by treating her to a spending spree in the posh West End topped off by a tour of a zoo and the purchase of an elephant (the poor animal is later abandoned when as darkness falls father and daughter join a band of groovy disco dancing youth on a river cruise.) The kind of class critique that runs through the entire oeuvre of the director manifests itself in the writing of the shopping scenes, featuring a salesman and a pretentious watch,which spoof the snooty rich the way a film from around the same time, Schlesinger's Darling, memorably did.
Also memorable is the long passage where father and daughter navigate a tedious footpath to the house through an ugly gasworks complex and a desolate abandoned area that could be the setting for a Beckett play.
This little known Tv feature is indeed a rich concoction and it leaves a disturbing aftertaste.
The entire comedy plot (one of the few films from the usually serious and often grim Loach that can be described as funny) fits the mold of what critic Robin Wood described, in his analysis of the screwball romances of Howard Hawks, as "the lure of irresponsibility" A husband prepared to put the down payment of 400 pounds on a home for his wife and daughter is missing several financial documents (no great loss, the house is a disaster) and decides to pamper the little girl he favors by treating her to a spending spree in the posh West End topped off by a tour of a zoo and the purchase of an elephant (the poor animal is later abandoned when as darkness falls father and daughter join a band of groovy disco dancing youth on a river cruise.) The kind of class critique that runs through the entire oeuvre of the director manifests itself in the writing of the shopping scenes, featuring a salesman and a pretentious watch,which spoof the snooty rich the way a film from around the same time, Schlesinger's Darling, memorably did.
Also memorable is the long passage where father and daughter navigate a tedious footpath to the house through an ugly gasworks complex and a desolate abandoned area that could be the setting for a Beckett play.
This little known Tv feature is indeed a rich concoction and it leaves a disturbing aftertaste.
The closest Ken Loach ever got to arthouse cinema
dr_clarke_29 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
'The End of Arthur's Marriage' is an episode of The Wednesday Play written by poet Christopher Logue, and a rare foray into fantasy and surrealism for director Ken Loach. The play stars Ken Jones as Arthur, who's wife Mavis' father gives them £400, a small fortune by their standards. They agree to use it to put down a deposit on a house, but Arthur soon develops different ideas, and goes a spending spree with his daughter Emmy, with unfortunate consequences for his marriage...
The episode is completely unlike anything else Loach has directed, and by divorcing his directing style from his tendency towards social realism, it takes his skills behind the camera out of their usual context. The result demonstrates his technical abilities (albeit on a small budget) to great effect, right from the opening multi-angle dance sequence (interspersed with close-ups of the disapproving face and Mavis' father). There are various types of shots (including hand-held and tracking shots, POV shots, long shots and close-ups), camera-angles and edits used throughout. It also blends studio and location filming, as well as some stock footage and even a real elephant. There's a complicated musical number that eventually ends up on a boat near the end, and Loach handles it with aplomb. The whole episode is the closest that Loach ever got to art-house cinema, and against all the odds it just about works.
The surrealism and whimsy of 'The End of Arthur's Marriage' is ultimately a product of Logue's eccentric scripting. Logue pokes fun at the absurdities of (then) modern life, likening department stories to temples, and suggesting that becoming a homeowner is the highest level of British civilisation. The watch salesman's song beautifully encapsulates the power of marketing. The nearest it comes to Ken Loach's usual fare is via implied pot-shots at working class people who aspire to be middle-class suburbanites (indeed, it has been interpreted as a story about the lure of responsibility - faced with the possibility of buying a house, Arthur fritters the money away instead and seems to have great fun in the process). But if it is trying to make a point, it does so with tongue decidedly in cheek.
There's a voice-over, plus musical numbers (including songs played over the action that sometimes contribute to the story, but mostly don't), scenes that have no apparent connection to the narrative, and flashbacks, also largely unconnected to the main story. There are brief scenes that provide glimpses into the lives of entirely incidental characters. At one point, whilst Arthur and Emmy explore a disused gasworks site, a (resolutely dull) interview with one of its employees plays over the top. A trip to the zoo turns into a musical sequence involving stock footage wildlife photography, which then morphs into a recreation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. At times, the fourth wall is broken, and at one point, the film crew collides with that of a news reporter interviewing members of the public, a scene that features Loach having a cameo as himself. There is also, notably for a BBC program broadcast in 1965, brief nudity.
The cast is great, especially Jones, who appeared in some of Loach's other work for the BBC but in far more serious roles. He's very convincing as "dreamer" Arthur and handles the often deadpan comic dialogue very naturalistically. There's a hilarious scene when Edward de Souza's Mr. Thurloe has a sudden, passionate rant about how awful his life, his wife and his son are to Arthur, and begs him to buy the house they are all viewing at the same time so that he can't. Later, Dickie Owen's Keeper Bent gets a priceless deadpan monologue that concludes with him volunteering the information that he is a self-confessed bastard, as he takes Arthur and Emmy to meet Kim Peacock's cantankerous, misanthropic zoo Governor.
'The End of Arthur's Marriage' is good fun and it's often very funny. It ends abruptly, as indeed does Arthur's marriage: with Arthur and Emmy returning home, Arthur admits that he's spent all of Mavis' dad's money, and is turned away from his own front door. As the credits role, we hear Mavis and her parents discussing Arthur's deficiencies. It's a witty ending to a strange but often very funny piece of television that both serves as a reminder of how versatile The Wednesday Play and demonstrates Ken Loach's directing talents even when faced with a project that is unusual by his standards.
The surrealism and whimsy of 'The End of Arthur's Marriage' is ultimately a product of Logue's eccentric scripting. Logue pokes fun at the absurdities of (then) modern life, likening department stories to temples, and suggesting that becoming a homeowner is the highest level of British civilisation. The watch salesman's song beautifully encapsulates the power of marketing. The nearest it comes to Ken Loach's usual fare is via implied pot-shots at working class people who aspire to be middle-class suburbanites (indeed, it has been interpreted as a story about the lure of responsibility - faced with the possibility of buying a house, Arthur fritters the money away instead and seems to have great fun in the process). But if it is trying to make a point, it does so with tongue decidedly in cheek.
There's a voice-over, plus musical numbers (including songs played over the action that sometimes contribute to the story, but mostly don't), scenes that have no apparent connection to the narrative, and flashbacks, also largely unconnected to the main story. There are brief scenes that provide glimpses into the lives of entirely incidental characters. At one point, whilst Arthur and Emmy explore a disused gasworks site, a (resolutely dull) interview with one of its employees plays over the top. A trip to the zoo turns into a musical sequence involving stock footage wildlife photography, which then morphs into a recreation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. At times, the fourth wall is broken, and at one point, the film crew collides with that of a news reporter interviewing members of the public, a scene that features Loach having a cameo as himself. There is also, notably for a BBC program broadcast in 1965, brief nudity.
The cast is great, especially Jones, who appeared in some of Loach's other work for the BBC but in far more serious roles. He's very convincing as "dreamer" Arthur and handles the often deadpan comic dialogue very naturalistically. There's a hilarious scene when Edward de Souza's Mr. Thurloe has a sudden, passionate rant about how awful his life, his wife and his son are to Arthur, and begs him to buy the house they are all viewing at the same time so that he can't. Later, Dickie Owen's Keeper Bent gets a priceless deadpan monologue that concludes with him volunteering the information that he is a self-confessed bastard, as he takes Arthur and Emmy to meet Kim Peacock's cantankerous, misanthropic zoo Governor.
'The End of Arthur's Marriage' is good fun and it's often very funny. It ends abruptly, as indeed does Arthur's marriage: with Arthur and Emmy returning home, Arthur admits that he's spent all of Mavis' dad's money, and is turned away from his own front door. As the credits role, we hear Mavis and her parents discussing Arthur's deficiencies. It's a witty ending to a strange but often very funny piece of television that both serves as a reminder of how versatile The Wednesday Play and demonstrates Ken Loach's directing talents even when faced with a project that is unusual by his standards.
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