Not forgotten

[Bowes Park railway station, close to Bounds Green
Piccadilly line station, morning of 8 July 2005]

Things to Come Photo Gallery mega-upload

After a gap of over two years, I've finally got round to uploading all the various Things to Come photographs acquired since January 2007. There are 46 is all, although a few are upgrades of previous poorer quality and/all magazine-sourced pictures. I've also split the Photo Gallery into four sections, as the load time was getting a bit much as a single page.

Although I've tended to concentrate on stills from missing or truncated scenes, it's surprising the details that are apparent in even the familiar parts that can be missed in a fleeting glimpse in the extant footage. My favourite is the Thompson Sub-Machine Gun - the classic gangster's weapon - leaning against the wall in the background in this shot of the Boss's bedroom (just to the left of Rudolph's crooked knee). It's a real shame Ralph Richardson didn't get to wield that in the character's death scene!

Once you know the gun is there, it can be glimpsed at the start of the scene, when Richardson flops onto the bed, but it's missing later on, when a similar camera angle is used. This is probably explained by one of the cuts made to this scene. After the Boss says, "I don’t bully. I just handled the man," there is a brief cutaway to Cabal in the "detention room" under the Town Hall, before cutting back to Roxana saying, "He’s the first real aviator that has come this way in years." The sole surviving London Films editor's cutting/continuity script documents what's missing:

502. LONG SHOT 11ft. 0frs.
The two.

BOSS: I don’t bully. I just handled the man.
ROXANA: No. You bully. And you bully too soon.
     Boss gets up and goes over to get himself a drink.
BOSS: Ah, I don’t seem able to please you today.

503. CLOSE UP 12ft. 13frs.
Boss, Roxana joins him, as they walk back to M.S.

ROXANA: Well, if you must go from one tactless thing to another. Weakening your authority, sacrificing dignity.
BOSS: Here, what’s the matter with you?
ROXANA: Oh, I saw....

504. CLOSE SHOT 33ft. 8frs.
The two.

ROXANA: There’s your head mechanic - the essential man for the job, and you can’t keep your eyes off his wife.

505. MEDIUM SHOT 33ft. 8frs.
The two, they walk to CLOSE SHOT.

ROXANA: Don’t I know you? But never mind that, I’m accustomed to over looking that sort of thing. What I’m asking you now, whether you bully or not - was it wise to take this man in this way?
BOSS: How else could I have treated him? How else?
     They sit on the bed in C.S.
ROXANA: Well look at it. He’s the first real aviator that has come this way in years. Think of what that means, my dear. You want aeroplanes don’t you? You want your aeroplanes put in order?

506. LONG SHOT 4ft. 7frs.
The two sitting on the bed. Roxana rises.

ROXANA: A really clever man could have had some of those machines up long ago...

The cuts between the surviving fragment of Shot 505 and Shot 506 is noticeably abrupt, the reason being that Roxana had even more dialogue in between, that didn't make it into the scripted version of the film:

ROXANA: Well - I've always doubted if that young man Gordon was up to the job. He's good-looking in a weak sort of way - but is he really skillful and scientific? He - fumbles. He just goes about with this girl of his - whom you think so good-looking.

This dialogue really clarifies the dynamic between the two characters, and sets the scene for Roxana effectively offering to transfer her allegiance to Cabal later on.

And the machine-gun? I would hazard a guess that when the Boss goes for his drink in Shot 502, he moves the weapon in the process.

Picture this

Although it's fairly well known that what exists now of the film Things to Come is not the entirety of what was originally planned, or even filmed, it is not so widely appreciated that some of the extant footage appears in a different order to that originally intended by scriptwriter H.G. Wells. This is particularly true of the third act of the film, set in the year 2036. In the published Film Story - essentially the shooting script from mid-1935 - following the little girl's video history lesson, part of this segment plays out thus:

(1) Oswald Cabal meets with Space Gun engineers; introduced to Maurice Passworthy
(2) "A quarter of an hour later," Cabal arranges to meet Raymond Passworthy
(3) Cabal meets Passworthy in the City Ways; they travel outside to the "Athletic Club in the hills"
(4) At the Athletic Club, Cabal and Passworthy meet Catherine Cabal and Maurice
(5) Cabal meets with his ex-wife, Rowena
(6) Theotocopulos's televised speech
(7) World audience reacts to (6)
(8) Three days after (4), Passworthy meets with Catherine and Maurice
(9) Cabal discusses the growning rebellion with "Controller of Traffic and Order" Morden Mitani
(10) Cabal meets with Passworthy, Maurice and Catherine

The surviving footage and the slightly expanded surviving editor's script, hocwever, has the following arrangement:

(1) Cabal meets with Space Gun engineers; introduced to Maurice Passworthy
(6) Theotocopulos's televised speech
(4) Cabal and Passworthy meet Catherine Cabal and Maurice
(X) Theotocopulos and followers discuss public reaction to speech
(10) Cabal meets with Passworthy, Maurice and Catherine

Most significantly, what are two different meetings between Cabal, Passworthy, and their respective children - i.e. 4. & 10 - separately by a gap of three days and a number of other events, are effectively merged together to give the impression of a single meeting, punctuated by a brief cutaway to Theotocopulos and his followers. The latter does not appear at all in the Film Story, and it feels very much like an addition to explain the changed timeline. In the original version there are at least a couple of days for the discontent to grow after the broadcast, but in the surviving footage it seems that all it takes is a few choice soundbites from the rebel artist to provoke an instant reaction, hence the need for one of his entourage to declare that his words, "have struck fire!"

It is notable that whilst in most cases the dialogue in existing footage is almost word-perfect when compared to the Film Story, the only major deviations are in the scenes involving Theotocopulos. The role was originally played by Ernest Thesiger, but Wells was so disatisfied with his performance that he personally approached Cedric Hardwicke as a replacement. Thesiger was so unaware of this that he actually turned up at the film's premiere in February 1936 with a group of friends, so clearly the change happened once all of his scenes had been shot the first time around.

When the restored Network DVD was being planned, the question was how to integrate script extracts from the missing footage in the "Virtual Extended Version" of the film, and it was decided to include as much as possible, but to retain the chronological arrangement of the extant footage, thus:

(1) Cabal meets with Space Gun engineers; introduced to Maurice Passworthy
(6) Theotocopulos's televised speech
(4) [At the Athletic Club,] Cabal and Passworthy meet Catherine Cabal and Maurice
(5) Cabal meets with his ex-wife, Rowena
(X) Theotocopulos and followers discuss public reaction to speech
(8) Three days after (4), Passworthy meets with Catherine and Maurice
(9) Cabal discusses the growning rebellion with "Controller of Traffic and Order" Morden Mitani
(10) Cabal meets with Passworthy, Maurice and Catherine

The decision to drop Cabal and Passworthy's actual first meeting and subsequent journey through the City Ways was a difficult one, but at the time what was known of the film as a whole suggested that this was one sequence that had probably not been shot, let alone included even in the rough-cut. Whereas most lost scenes are represented by production photographs proving that they were at least rehearsed, if not actually filmed, there seemed to be absolutely nothing of what was quite a convoluted journey through and then outside of the Everytown of 2036. In his 1995 book on the making of the film, Christopher Frayling suggested that the technical requirements of the Athletic Club - with its huge flexible windows and complex sporting water-chute - may have been too great. Although there was much dialogue between Cabal and Passworthy, there didn't seem to be an easy way to incorporate it into the "Virtual Extended Version" of the film on the DVD, so it was omitted.

Last week I finally got round to scanning and preparing for upload all of the almost forty additional production photographs I had acquired since the DVD was put together. These come from various sources and in a variety of formats, requiring some precision in lining up on the scanner, but still some trimming of the image electronically. It was while I was doing the latter on the still shown here - one of the iconic images from the film, frequently used to illustrate it in books, magazines, and on video or DVD covers - that something fleetingly caught my eye. I blinked, thinking "surely not," as I peered at the figures just visible along the bottom edge of the photograph. I zoomed in one in particular, the image now more pixelated, but more compelling. I grabbed the still itself and a strong magnifying glass, and the results were even more conclusive. Finally, I put the phtograph back on the scanner, homed in on the portion in question, and cranked the resolution from the usual 100 to 900 DPI:


So there he was, Oswald Cabal amongst the crowd in the City Ways, and to his right (i.e. on the left of the photograph), the almost unmistakable top of Raymond Passworthy's head! In retrospect, while I'd only recently acquired this particular still (in a job lot of seven from Australia), I wondered how I'd not spotted this detail before. A quick check of examples I have of it used elsewhere, however, showed that in all cases the bottom edge of the image had been trimmed off, so that Cabal's head was barely visible, let alone that of Passworthy.

Finally we have some evidence that Cabal and Passworthy's journey through the city was actually filmed, but it will probably take the discovery of more photographs (the actual footage is too much to hope for!) to clarify the situation. Based on the codes that appear on each still, there are at least 520 or so of them, of which I already own 91, and am aware of a further 41 - around a quarter of the total.

Another war...

As British forces withdraw from Iraq, I was reminded of a newspaper cutting I dug up a few years ago whilst researching the history of the East Yorkshire seaside town of Bridlington during the Great War, which uncovered a forgotten piece of family history. Although my father knew that two of his older brothers had served in the army during the War, neither of them spoke about. Other sources showed that one of them had remained in the UK, working on the east coast anti-aircraft defences, but his brother Herbert travelled further afield...

Bridlington Free Press, 6 Dec 1918

BAGDAD GATE LIKE
BAYLE GATE

Bridlington Man's Varied War
Experience
  H. Cooper, son of Mr. and Mrs. Cooper, Queen-street, who has been over two years in Mesopotamia, writes home and interesting letter concerning his experiences and the countries through which he has passed, including South Africa and India. In March, 1917, he describes the blowing up of a limber full of ammunition, by which 28 men and twnety mules were killed and wounded. He escaped practically unhurt, but comrades in front of him and at his side were killed. "We tried to get into the Mosque at Cpestiption [Ctesiphon], but were stopped, as they allow no one but a Mahommedan in. It was a lovely place. There are some ruins here thousands of years old." He was present at the British occupation of Bagdad, and writes: "We reached the city about 10.30 a.m., only a few hours after the Turks had flown, and found the streets filled with people, some serious, others cheering. These were dark-complexioned Jews and Arabs and fair Armenians, and the latter were the most pleased to see us." He likens the Bagdad Gate to the Bayle Gate. "I was talking to several of them and they were glad to see us." The writer gave interesting sketches of the fighting with the Turks, and of the air-fights, and states that he had an attack of fever. On one occasion

THE TURKS GOT THE RANGE
of the camp, one hundred miles north of Baghdad and five men were wounded and a number of mules killed: "I was one who helped to bury the mules. They take a big hole, as if put in a shallow one, the jackals used to scratch them up." Without the bathing in the rivers and pools life under the harsh conditions would appear to have been impossible. "Food also improved, and we got meat instead of bully, and three-quarter ration of bread issued. We improved our health over here, being able to buy eggs and fruit of all kinds off the Arabs, and we all got fatter again!" In July the heat was terrific, and there was much sickness. Soon afterwards the young soldier was taken seriously ill, and with a temperature at 105, he lost consciousness, and was unconscious for some days. He had to be sent down the river to Baghdad, where the old Turkish barracks were converted into an hospital, and ultimately to Bombay. Since then he had been in the van of the marching and fighting and had come through to victory fit and happy. At the end of his interesting diary in 1917 he said: "I have a lot to be thankful for, and I can look to the future with confidence. May the end of next year's diary be written somewhere nearer home!" Probably it has been.

Herbert's military records show that he joined up on 29 Nov 1915, at which time he was 27 years and 7 months old. Reflecting his peacetime trade, he joined the Army Service Corps at a saddler - number TS-10037 - and arrived at the Corps' base at Woolwich two days later. On 24 Oct 1916 he sailed for the Mesopotamian front, where he remain until 26 Aug 1917, when he was evacuated to India for medical reasons, as stated above. He eventually returned to the UK on 28 Dec 1918, seven weeks after the Armistice.

Myth busting

Occasionally a news story comes along that doesn't quite ring true, and for me one example was - from the start - the claim by Buster Martin to be the country's oldest worker, famously refusing to take a day off on his 100th birthday. Sequels to this included beating off a gang of muggers, making a (musical) record, writing for FHM magazine, and running the London Marathon at the age of 101. It was at the latter hurdle that things started to unravel, with Guinness World Records refusing to recognise Martin's claim to be the oldest person to complete the event, as he could not - or would not - provide proof of his date of birth.

Martin claims he was born France in 1906 and raised in a British orphanage, so while he has a certificate of naturalisation, he was no birth certificate. The expert hired by Guinness to verify his age turned up the fact that while having a Medical Card giving his year of birth as 1906, the NHS also had a record of it actually being 1913, meaning that his celebrated "100th" birthday was actually his 93rd, and that he ran the Marathon at 94, not 101. No mean feat, but not a record.

Following the Marathon debacle, The Guardian's Patrick Barkham made a commendable effort in trying to pin Martin's age down, interviewing the man himself. Barkham conceded that, "perhaps the biggest weapon in Buster's battle to prove he is 101 is that retentive mind. The most striking thing is not the wit of the remarkable stories he tells, but their precision. Buster has a mania for dates." He is entirely consistent in the ages and dates as regards his birth, his move to London, his marriage (in France, hence no marriage certificate, although his age of 14 and his bride's of 13 conflicts with French law at the time), joining the British Army and specifically the Grenadier Guards, when he left it with the rank of Regimental Sergeant Major, when he "retired" and then resumed work three months later, and so on. Martin's emphatic and consitent precision seems stronger than any solid proof, even if it is about events that can't actually be corroborated, but it may unwittingly be his downfall, via a seemingly barely significant detail mentioned in passing by Barkham:

He's sipping a pint of Newcastle Brown Ale with chunks of orange, and explains that this habit was acquired during an army training exercise in Egypt. "It was my 21st birthday. 1927."

If Martin was born in 1906, he would indeed have turned 21 in 1927, but if he was born in 1913, he would have reached that milestone age in 1934. The question, then, is whether any battalions of the Grenadier Guards were actually in Egypt in either of those years, and according to this page their deployments were as follows:

1st Bn.:
1925 London, Wellington Barracks
1927 Aldershot 1 Bde
1929 London, Tower 4 Bde
1931 Egypt
1933 England, Warley
1934 Aldershot 4 Bde
1935 Windsor 4 Bde

2nd Bn.:
1925 England, Aldershot 1 Bde
1927 London, Chelsea
1929 England, Aldershot 1 Bde
1931 London, Tower 4 Bde
1932 London, Wellington Barracks
1933 England, Windsor
1934 England, Aldershot 1 Bde
1935 London

3rd Bn.:
1924 England, Aldershot
1929 London 4 Bde
1933 Egypt
1935 England, Aldershot 1 Bde

Clearly 1927 is a non-starter, as all three battalions were in England in that year, and the same applies to 1934 for the 1st and 2nd Bns. This leaves the 3rd Bn., which was indeed in Egypt in 1934. Of course, if he was born in 1906 and was in the 1st Bn., he would have spent his 26th birthday in Egypt (1932), or - depending on the date of deployment - his 25th and/or 27th in the years either side; or if he was in the 3rd Bn., he would have turned 28 in that country (1934), or 27 and/or 29, but that would depend on his famously precise memory being completely wrong as regards one of the "significant" birthdays a person has. Or maybe he got his regiment wrong, but that seems unlikely considering its wide reporting and the absence of any other named unit.

The numbers game

I guess for anyone running a website, there must always be the occasional nagging doubt as to whether anyone is actually reading it. Luckily, the hosting service I use (Globalgold) provides access statistics, the results of which never fail to amaze me...

www.625.org.uk

This is currently running at an average of 29,145 hits per month, which resolves to 4,721 individual visits a month - 155 per day. The last full month - February 2009 (see graph) - had 26,331 hits, resolving to 4,179 visits - 149.25 per day. The following were the most popular hits in terms of entry pages, i.e. first page which visitors accessed:

463 - Top-level
327 - John Mortimer biography
243 - Nineteen Eighty-Four review, part 1
243 - Things to Come
198 - Out of the Unknown
196 - Out of the Unknown archive guide
155 - Nineteen Eighty-Four review, part 2
151 - Story Parade: The Caves of Steel review
150 - BBC Enterprises sales documentation for Out of the Unknown: Tunnel Under the World
140 - The Listener - The BBC Archives

In terms of actual pages accessed, the top 30 were:

463 - Top-level
327 - John Mortimer biography
243 - Nineteen Eighty-Four review, part 1
243 - Things to Come
198 - Out of the Unknown
196 - Out of the Unknown archive guide
187 - 625 mainpage
155 - Nineteen Eighty-Four review, part 2
151 - Story Parade: The Caves of Steel review
151 - Things to Come - Photo Gallery
150 - BBC Enterprises sales documentation for Out of the Unknown: Tunnel Under the World
140 - The Listener - The BBC Archives
114 - Things to Come - Publicity Gallery
114 - Things to Come - The Gutlohn Print
103 - Top-level (frames)
99 - Rudolph Cartier biography
97 - "British Telefantasy Began in 1963...." Part 1
95 - Kate Hardie screenography
86 - Ian Curteis biography
86 - Biographies index
86 - Things to Come - Film Story
85 - Out of the Unknown, part 2
83 - Stephen Poliakoff biography
82 - Left frameset
82 - Things to Come - Merchandise Gallery
76 - Giles Cooper biography
72 - Staraker Publishing issues
71 - Doctor Who: The Aztecs review
69 - G.F. Newman biography
68 - "British Telefantasy Began in 1963...." Part 2

The continued popularity of the biographies - particularly that of John Mortimer (which I really must update!) - are explained by the fact that someone along the line people added links to the relevant Wikipedia pages. Nineteen Eight-Four remains of interest, although it's a little sad that 36% of those who at least get look at the first part of the review don't progress to the second, while 30% don't progress to the second part of the Pre-1963 British Telefantasy article.

www.cwgcuser.org.uk:

It rather startling to realise that this site now averages 105,941 hits per month, although this resolves to a 6,259 individual visits a month - 206 per day. February 2009 (see graph) had 103,572 hits, resolving to 5,723 visits - 204.39 per day. The following were the most popular hits in terms of entry pages:

796 - The Underground at War
631 - The London Underground in Films & TV
485 - Lost in France, Day 2
352 - Lost in France, Day 6
332 - Simon of the Amethyst
295 - The Underground at War - Casualty & Fatality Analysis
328 - Lost in France, Day 5
287 - Top-level
253 - Lost in France, Day 1
447 - Personal

In terms of actual pages accessed, the top 30 were:

796 - The Underground at War
631 - The London Underground in Films & TV
485 - Lost in France, Day 2
447 - Personal
352 - Lost in France, Day 6
332 - Simon of the Amethyst
328 - Lost in France, Day 5
295 - The Underground at War - Casualty & Fatality Analysis
287 - Top-level
253 - Lost in France, Day 1
151 - Lost in France, Day 7
141 - The London Underground in Films & TV: An American Werewolf in London
133 - Lost in France, index
114 - Hidden City photo gallery
112 - Lost in France, Day 8
110 - Lost in France, Day 4
106 - Terrorist Attacks on the London Underground
104 - The Loss of H.M. Minesweeper No. 847, The Lord Airdale - 18th/19th March 1915
101 - Hidden City: South Kentish Town Tube Station
94 - The London Underground in Films & TV: Sliding Doors
82 - The London Underground in Films & TV: Adverts
81 - Hidden City: 23/24 leinster Gardens
79 - Lost in France, Day 3
78 - Shields-Con I
76 - The London Underground in Films & TV: Doctor Who: The Web of Fear
73 - The Cat-alogue
71 - The London Underground in Films & TV: Quatermass and the Pit
67 - Hidden City: Aldwych Tube Station
67 - The London Underground in Films & TV: EastEnders
67 - The London Underground in Films & TV: Lost

It's interesting that while the Hidden City index gets 114 hits, the three sub-pages collectively get 249, so clearly there are a lot of people going straight to specific sub-pages, presumably as a result of relevant web searches.

Although the London Underground at War has long been established as the most popular page on this site, there was a time when hits to it went through the roof, as the graph here shows, with the immediate and massive spike on 7 July 2005 being all to painfully apparent. Rather than the usual ~750 visits a month, it shot up to 1,700 before I hastily installed a intermediate page, and shifted the page proper and its images temporarily over to the 625.org.uk domain. This was necessary because the, due to the large number of images on the page, there was a danger of exceding my bandwidth limits for the month.

Who shall watch...?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?