When you're talking about Shakespeare on film, the usual suspects are the foreign classics of Kurosawa and Kozintsev -- Kenneth Branagh and Laurence Olivier star-directing -- Leonardo di Caprio and Heath Ledger playing for the teenage market. "Joe Macbeth" I'd never even heard of.
I only went to see this picture because it was billed as a chance to see Sid James in a straight dramatic role: surely one of Britain's most ubiquitous and unsung supporting actors. Before becoming a household name identified with the "Carry On" series, he supported stars ranging from Vivian Leigh to Charlie Chaplin and Burt Lancaster, turning up in everything from "The Titfield Thunderbolt" to Nigel Kneale's "Quatermass" and a remake of "The 39 Steps" -- plus any number of other productions of the period -- but almost invariably as comic relief.
In "Joe Macbeth", however, he plays a central part in the plot as New York gangster 'Banky', whose murder is the step too far that sets his friend, colleague and newly self-elevated boss, Joe Macbeth, on the road to oblivion. The role is played absolutely straight (in an American accent throughout), and Sid James convinces as the grizzled enforcer whose loyalty is beyond question. Within the skewed morality of the film's setting, Banky, who just wants his son out of the racket, is one of the good guys; and it is with his death that Macbeth's actions tip into the indefensible, both in his own perceptions (witnessed by the appearance of 'Banky's ghost') and in ours.
With next to no idea of what to expect from the film, I was very impressed. In 1954, this must have been one of the first screenplays to make the connection between Shakespeare and film noir: the rewrite fits with uncanny accuracy. Macbeth's wife is the prototypical tough-as-nails dame whose ambition pushes her lover/dupe into waters deeper than he knows, while the ruthless wars, power struggles, family loyalties and even the banquets slip into the Mob template like a glove. Once it has been pointed out, the low budget -- night-time shooting, small number of sets, tight camera angles -- is self-evident, but virtue has been made out of necessity. Killings take place 'off-stage', telegraphed by the flat, unforgiving thud of the executioner's gun, scenes are claustrophobic, and the tension of the unseen is nail-biting.
With the exception as mentioned of Sid James (playing against type), the actors were all unknown to me, but the performances were excellent. The only uncertain note I felt was struck by Bonear Colleano, as a weak and somewhat petulant Lennie who is convincing enough as a youngster constitutionally unsuited to life in the Mob, but less so when the worm supposedly turns: Banky might have had the seniority to take over from 'Mac' when his men rebel, but his son's sudden elevation as heir-apparent by all these hardened killers leaves a credibility gap. But this may be a question of direction; in the 'banquet scene', we certainly see a Lennie who has gained the self-control to become dangerous.
Paul Douglas as Macbeth is superb, veering from bull-like power to pathos in an instant, and capturing audience sympathy as the bloody protagonist who destroys himself step by reluctant, reasonable-seeming step: when the machine-gun's bullets finally rip through his body, it can only be release. Ruth Roman shines as the wife who urges him against his visceral, slow-thinking instincts, tries to hold his crumbling empire together against the odds, and yet breaks down when she walks in on the slaughter of the innocent; the tone of their marriage is set from their first scene together, where she slaps the wilted wedding bouquet across his face after he keeps her waiting two hours at the altar, yet there is a genuine charge between them. Joe Macbeth's fall may come, in true noir style, from a doomed passion for a ruthless woman, but her ambition for their marriage is ultimately a defensive one, and neither will leave or betray the other. When she dies at his hand, it is with the intent of making a last stand at his side.
Gregoire Aslan made an impression on me as the smooth-talking /capo/ whom Mac is driven to murder and replace, and Walter Crisham as pale Angus the butler, who has seen a succession of mobsters come and go in the house by the lake and taken care never to evince too close an interest in any of them. Shakespeare's three witches are encompassed in one volume by Minerva Pious as Rosie, tarot reader and failed actress, who takes pointed pleasure in quoting lines from "Macbeth" to its namesake -- perhaps the most obvious of the many allusions to the characters and actions of the original play.
The homage is quite explicit, extending at times to close paraphrasing of the dialogue, yet it is impressively unforced. For all its echoes, the adaptation is a free one, a story and milieu in its own right and not a gimmick; it is as unafraid to make sweeping changes as it is to add ironic references back to the source text. It has touches of black comedy, of horror and of pure gangster action, shifting more or less effortlessly between them. I found it a very powerful film.
I only went to see this picture because it was billed as a chance to see Sid James in a straight dramatic role: surely one of Britain's most ubiquitous and unsung supporting actors. Before becoming a household name identified with the "Carry On" series, he supported stars ranging from Vivian Leigh to Charlie Chaplin and Burt Lancaster, turning up in everything from "The Titfield Thunderbolt" to Nigel Kneale's "Quatermass" and a remake of "The 39 Steps" -- plus any number of other productions of the period -- but almost invariably as comic relief.
In "Joe Macbeth", however, he plays a central part in the plot as New York gangster 'Banky', whose murder is the step too far that sets his friend, colleague and newly self-elevated boss, Joe Macbeth, on the road to oblivion. The role is played absolutely straight (in an American accent throughout), and Sid James convinces as the grizzled enforcer whose loyalty is beyond question. Within the skewed morality of the film's setting, Banky, who just wants his son out of the racket, is one of the good guys; and it is with his death that Macbeth's actions tip into the indefensible, both in his own perceptions (witnessed by the appearance of 'Banky's ghost') and in ours.
With next to no idea of what to expect from the film, I was very impressed. In 1954, this must have been one of the first screenplays to make the connection between Shakespeare and film noir: the rewrite fits with uncanny accuracy. Macbeth's wife is the prototypical tough-as-nails dame whose ambition pushes her lover/dupe into waters deeper than he knows, while the ruthless wars, power struggles, family loyalties and even the banquets slip into the Mob template like a glove. Once it has been pointed out, the low budget -- night-time shooting, small number of sets, tight camera angles -- is self-evident, but virtue has been made out of necessity. Killings take place 'off-stage', telegraphed by the flat, unforgiving thud of the executioner's gun, scenes are claustrophobic, and the tension of the unseen is nail-biting.
With the exception as mentioned of Sid James (playing against type), the actors were all unknown to me, but the performances were excellent. The only uncertain note I felt was struck by Bonear Colleano, as a weak and somewhat petulant Lennie who is convincing enough as a youngster constitutionally unsuited to life in the Mob, but less so when the worm supposedly turns: Banky might have had the seniority to take over from 'Mac' when his men rebel, but his son's sudden elevation as heir-apparent by all these hardened killers leaves a credibility gap. But this may be a question of direction; in the 'banquet scene', we certainly see a Lennie who has gained the self-control to become dangerous.
Paul Douglas as Macbeth is superb, veering from bull-like power to pathos in an instant, and capturing audience sympathy as the bloody protagonist who destroys himself step by reluctant, reasonable-seeming step: when the machine-gun's bullets finally rip through his body, it can only be release. Ruth Roman shines as the wife who urges him against his visceral, slow-thinking instincts, tries to hold his crumbling empire together against the odds, and yet breaks down when she walks in on the slaughter of the innocent; the tone of their marriage is set from their first scene together, where she slaps the wilted wedding bouquet across his face after he keeps her waiting two hours at the altar, yet there is a genuine charge between them. Joe Macbeth's fall may come, in true noir style, from a doomed passion for a ruthless woman, but her ambition for their marriage is ultimately a defensive one, and neither will leave or betray the other. When she dies at his hand, it is with the intent of making a last stand at his side.
Gregoire Aslan made an impression on me as the smooth-talking /capo/ whom Mac is driven to murder and replace, and Walter Crisham as pale Angus the butler, who has seen a succession of mobsters come and go in the house by the lake and taken care never to evince too close an interest in any of them. Shakespeare's three witches are encompassed in one volume by Minerva Pious as Rosie, tarot reader and failed actress, who takes pointed pleasure in quoting lines from "Macbeth" to its namesake -- perhaps the most obvious of the many allusions to the characters and actions of the original play.
The homage is quite explicit, extending at times to close paraphrasing of the dialogue, yet it is impressively unforced. For all its echoes, the adaptation is a free one, a story and milieu in its own right and not a gimmick; it is as unafraid to make sweeping changes as it is to add ironic references back to the source text. It has touches of black comedy, of horror and of pure gangster action, shifting more or less effortlessly between them. I found it a very powerful film.