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I very nearly passed over this, thinking it was a whimsical Australian yodelling musical starring Frank Ifield. How wrong could I be! And what a gem I would have missed!
It’s a cracking post-war speedway drama, set like ‘Brighton Rock’ set safely in the distant bad old days before the war.
A roll-call of all the old favourites: Bill Own (riding without a helmet in a cloth cap!), Sid James, both wonderfully hard-bitten, Thora Hird,
Dirk Bogarde does his best but is hopelessly miscast in the Arthur Seaton role, as an aspiring young racer who works in a light bulb factory. Not that he ever lacked pluck but he would never risk disfiguring his matinee star looks or get his hands dirty. A bit too Little Lord Fauntleroy for that.
(I would never have dared suggest such a thing while he was still alive. Brilliant actor, though he undoubtedly was, he could also be a fearsome, vicious old queen at times.)
But, to be fair, there weren’t any genuine, or at least convincing, working-class actors then. There still aren’t that many now, for that matter. Dirk is hopelessly officer class, through and through, never an enlisted man.
(Dickie Attenborough is one of the very few British stars who ever convinced in such a proletarian roles, which only goes to prove what a brilliant actor he was. A true gentleman, as well, who would have taken criticism with a smile, quite unlike Mr. Bogarde, one feels.)
Brilliant documentary footage and location shooting in south London.
Even a rare bit of politics is sneaked in, as someone goes off to join the International Brigade and, no doubt, as they always do in films, die in Spain.
It borrows most of the themes (or tropes, as they are now called) of the classic fight picture.
The riders are treated with the adulation pop stars would later enjoy, with untold wealth and groupies, to turn their heads.
There’s a rather touching community spirit with the crowd dubbed singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ (hence the title) and ‘Ilkley Moore bar t’at’.
Brilliant action photography, for the time, with the bare minimum of obtrusive back-projection that can mar so many old films, and make them laughably unbelievable to a modern, unforgiving audience raised on more polished and sophisticated special effects.
The storyline is so well-worn, (after all, it is rather old, you know) that it has become a cliché, but it has a timeless, tragic inevitability that makes it almost too upsetting to watch at times. I obviously can’t elaborate without ruining the plot and incurring the dire wrath of the spoiler police.
And that’s only the first act.
After a montage (including newsreel of Hitler and Mussolini) to show Bill’s whirlwind international fame, Dirk now sports a bow-tie and a dodgy ‘tache and looks as if he’s on the way to becoming a thoroughly disreputable character, which is far more in Dirk’s line. He was always hopeless with thoroughly decent sorts and excelled at the disturbing and perverted. I’m not suggesting for one moment that he was either of those things, just that such roles were his forte. I wouldn’t put it past him to don jackboots and a swastika armband and lead a Nazi speed-way team before the film is over. I’ll stop there and let you order it straight away.
The is a real gem on so many different levels. A good, involving plot set in an unfamiliar environment that offers a rare and un-patronising look at those further down the social scale, and a precious document of pre-war working-class life, as opposed to the usual middle and upper class cricket, rowing, boating, shooting, sports car and horse-racing world we usually see. Must see.
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