Under Exmouth Skies (Part 9)

UNDER EXMOUTH SKIES (Part 9)

Fishing for satori.

Street Art Exmouth Style (Part 6)

 STREET ART EXMOUTH STYLE (Part 6)

Daubed upon the wall of a seemingly derelict building in one of the old back streets in the heart of Exmouth, an incongruous piece of graffiti hangs in view of all who pass by. Its origin, its meaning and to what it refers has long been forgotten over the many years it's been there. It's neither a statement, a slogan or a declaration but a question, and it's precisely this that makes it so beguiling. It may well have originally been put there with but one very simple meaning but to what it alluded has long since gone leaving it now to take on any meaning that anyone cares to bestow upon it. Or even no meaning at all.

If it wasn't before, it has now become a work of art and is as much a part of Exmouth as a freckle might be on the face of a child.

Let it fade in it's own right and let it never be erased because it's street art - Exmouth style.

A Fistful Of Dynamite - James Lewis

A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE - JAMES LEWIS

It's impossible to separate James Lewis's A Fistful Of Dynamite novel from the Sergio Leone film of the same name and view it as an entity unto itself but then I don't suppose you're meant to. Lewis's book is a movie tie-in and as is the point of these kind of books they're meant to be viewed as a companion to the movie or at least as some kind of memento of it. The problem with Leone's film, however, is that it's a work of flawed genius whose grandeur casts an extremely long shadow, thus effecting how the book is read.

Set in Mexico, 1913, A Fistful Of Dynamite is a story of friendship and revolution. Juan Miranda Ibanez is a Mexican bandit in the same mould as the Eli Wallach character, Tuco, in The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. He leads his gang - comprised essentially of his children and his father - in the robbing of stagecoaches and it's just after one such robbery that he encounters John Mallory who is in the employ of a German silver mining company. Mallory is an IRA revolutionary on the run from the British army and is an explosives expert. He's loaded with dynamite and nitroglycerine, and through foul means Juan persuades him to join him in the robbery of the biggest bank outside of Mexico City.

"Hey, what's your name anyway?" asks Juan. "John" Mallory replies. "Hah, like Juan. The same name" Juan exclaims. "So what?" says Mallory. "I thought that maybe having the same name was destiny" says Juan. "You don't wanna be my partner? You don't wanna get rich? We'll be famous. Juan and John, specialists in banks. No, no, I got it: 'Johnny and Johnny!' Sounds better, more American."

The country, however, is in a state of turmoil due to the revolution going on and when they get to the bank they find the whole town over-run with Mexican soldiers. They join with the rebels who are planning an assault upon all the key positions in the town and opt for the bank as their own specific target. Mallory is fully aware, however, that the bank no longer holds any money and is being used instead as a prison for captured rebels though he keeps this information from Juan. Their raid on the bank is successful but rather than liberating it of money and gold, they liberate instead the prisoners and Juan is unwittingly hailed as a hero of the revolution.

After another battle with the Mexican army, the local leader of the rebels - a doctor by the name of Villega - is captured and under torture reveals the identities of all the supporters of the revolution who are then summarily rounded up and executed. Mallory bears witness to Villega's betrayal of the rebels but unbeknownst to him the hideaway of Juan's children and his fellow fighters has also been revealed and on returning to the hideaway with Juan discovers they have all been slaughtered. Juan heads off to seek vengeance only to be captured by the army. Mallory rescues him and whilst escaping on a train sees the tyrant governor of the town - the sworn enemy of the rebels - is a fellow passenger. Juan kills him, resulting in him once again being hailed a hero of the revolution.

In the final battle between the rebels and the Mexican army, Mallory heads off on a potentially suicidal mission; his plan being to ram a train head on into an another approaching train full of soldiers so as to take out as many of them as possible. He needs just one person to help him and though Juan volunteers, he chooses instead Villega, who at that point realises that Mallory knows of his act of betrayal.

The trains duly collide and whilst Mallory manages to jump free ahead of the collision, Villega remains on board to be killed in the ensuing explosion. As the rebels led by Juan descend upon the surviving soldiers in a final gun battle, Juan and Mallory come face-to-face again but it's for the last time as Mallory is shot in the back and dies in Juan's arms, though not before setting off another massive explosion.

The book ends with Juan looking up into the darkness and asking: "Oh, Johnny. What about me?"

Sergio Leone ends his film with the same question being asked and a freeze-frame shot of Juan (played by Rod Steiger) staring into the camera. It's a poignant and meaningful question when put into the context of the film's two main themes of friendship and revolution.

Over the course of the film (and likewise the book) Juan and Mallory's relationship develops from hostility, to curiosity, to bemusement to ultimately mutual respect. Come the end, they're even like brothers but with the death of Mallory, Juan's dream of a great bank-robbing partnership - Johnny and Johnny - dies also.

As his family has been wiped out, Juan is alone, and the only real place left for him is among the rebels in the revolution. The problem with this, however, is that Juan has all along been mightily cynical and mocking of that revolution. Never mind 'Land and liberty', Juan has only ever been interested in 'Gold and Money'. For Juan, a revolution is a pointless exercise; an endless game of cat and mouse where the land owners and the rich once ousted are simply and very quickly replaced by a new set of land owners and rich who must then be ousted themselves. On and on and so it goes, and at the end of the day all that a revolution leaves is dead poor people and a new set of rulers. This is borne out by the death of Juan's family and then underscored by the death of his friend Mallory. If Juan is an example of the kind of person a revolution is meant to help, as well as an example of a hero of that revolution, then what hope for him?

In an earlier argument with Mallory, Juan states that the only country he knows is that of him and his family. Once his family has been destroyed this obviously means that so too has his country. So what is there left to fight for? During that same argument in the film, Mallory (played by James Coburn) is reading a book and Juan lambastes the people who read books for telling poor people who can't read books that they need revolution. So the poor people make a revolution whilst the book readers continue to sit and eat and talk. But as for the poor people - they end up dead. That, to Juan, is what a revolution means. Mallory throws the book he's reading into the dirt and the camera zooms in to the cover to show its title. It's 'The Patriotism' by the Russian godfather of Anarchism, Mikhail Bakunin.

What Leone brilliantly illustrates at the start of the movie, however, is that Juan is actually conducting a revolution any way, without being spurred on by intellectuals or political leaders. The stage coach he and his family rob is bedecked in plush velvet with gold-plated handles and is populated by an American land owner and his wife, a salesman, a Mexican noble, and a priest. They're depicted as all sucking food into already overstuffed mouths and washing it down with wine; all talking disparagingly about Mexican peasantry. Juan and his children rob them of all their valuables, ravages the wife, strips them of their clothes, packs them all off in an old mule cart and commandeers the stage coach as a new home. Leone makes it very clear that this isn't just robbery that is being conducted - it's a class war.

The original name for the film was going to be Once Upon A Time... The Revolution, which is actually a much better title. Leone debunks the myth of the romance of revolution and shows it instead to be a violent, dirty and horrible affair. He entwines this with the subject of friendship, showing how it can grow but also be betrayed and destroyed. Just like a revolution.

Whilst all this makes for a very good story and a very good subject for a film, Leone's final creation is flawed and it's not the masterpiece it so nearly could have been. That particular accolade was achieved earlier with The Good, The Bad And The Ugly and then again later with Once Upon A Time In America. A lot of the blame for it being flawed must be laid at the door of Leone's American producers, and their interference with his vision and original plans. It was they who insisted on the role of Juan being played by Rod Steiger but it was a classic case of miscasting and his portrayal of a Mexican bandit is nowhere near as good as Eli Wallach's in The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. Wallach was Leone's first choice for the role but his American producers insisted on Steiger - apparently for his potential appeal to a large American audience - which was all well and good but Steiger's Mexican accent is atrocious and jars throughout the film, causing a negative effect even upon James Coburn's sterling performance. It was they also who messed about with the film's title, insisting it be called Duck You Sucker in America, A Fistful Of Dynamite in Britain, and Once Upon A Time... Revolution for some reason only in France. Presenting and publicising it as a comedy western didn't help either.

For all that, A Fistful Of Dynamite is still an exceptionally good film and as a companion to/memento of the film, the book is also very good. And as an example of how different it is as a film to so many others of the same genre, how many other western movies begin with a quote from Mao Tse-Tung: 'The revolution is not a social dinner, a literary event, a drawing or an embroidery; it cannot be done with elegance and courtesy. The revolution is an act of violence... by which one class overthrows another.'

John Serpico

Under Exmouth Skies (Part 8)

UNDER EXMOUTH SKIES (Part 8)

"And there ain't no day.
 And there ain't no night."

"Ain't nothing to see. 
Ain't nothing in sight."

"Into the white."

"Into the white... "

Into The White - The Pixies

Guilty Pleasures (Part 4)

GUILTY PLEASURES (Part 4)

All the world's a stage just as it's also a hall of mirrors. Refracting, reflecting into infinity it echoes. Exmouth is a prism of rainbow light, iridescent against the beckoning sea. And if music be the food of love, play on.

The hungry and the hunted no longer explode into rock'n'roll bands but was a time when music offered a way out from lives pre-determined by place of birth. What could a poor boy do but to play in a rock'n'roll band? Though these are the days where the mode is retro the beat still goes on. Just put your ear to the ground and listen very carefully. Like a dim, distant signal from a dying star - the beat goes on. Kids walk around with their head in the clouds. Cities burn in the summertime. And the beat goes on. From this mad ball of confusion - oh, the beat goes on.

Can you hear it? We want the world and we want it now? Can you smell it? Something burning?

But in the pubs of Exmouth and I'm sure throughout the land, the majority of bands play covers of their favourite songs or pander to what they presume the punters want. It's the 1970s all over again but without the Glam, without the glitz, and without a 1960s hangover. The new groups seem unconcerned with what there is to be learned; not turning rebellion into money let alone turning money into rebellion. But the bands play on.

Hope, however, springs eternal because cover bands are actually really strange and very weird and with weirdness comes the potential for innovation. Which brings us neatly to Dr Feelgood.

Hailing from Canvey Island, in Essex, Dr Feelgood specialised in raw R&B honed into lacerating perfection through constant gigging. Arguably they were at their prime during the early 1970s when they would play to packed crowds in pubs and clubs in and around the Greater London area, spearheading what was to be known as 'pub rock'. The energy and malevolent sense of menace they exuded was tangible and in the opinion of many were the British godfathers of punk rock. With growling, shouting vocals, singer Lee Brilleaux spat out lyrics like hateful accusations as lead guitarist Wilko Johnson chopped out riffs and hurtled around the stage propelled by an amphetamine-fueled psychosis.

Dr Feelgood are still gigging to this day although the band contains no original members, which suggests that to all intent and purpose they're a covers band though that's in no way meant to belittle them. If you're going to have a covers band then why not have one of the very best? Why not have Dr Feelgood because with them points the way to an example of endless possibility.

Dr Feelgood in the 1970s inspired by rejuvenating energy into the pub-based gig, paving the way for the youth-quake of punk rock. If these days are an echo of the 1970s then an echo of a band such as Dr Feelgood can only be a good thing if only as an example of the potential for innovation.

Turn and face the strange, as Bowie sang. Check out Dr Feelgood at the Exmouth Pavilion this month or at a town near you. At the same time, check out Oil City Confidential, the 2009 film documenting the early days of Dr Feelgood which is not only director Julian Temple's best film by far but also in my opinion one of the best films concerning music that has ever been made.

John Serpico

Modesty Blaise - Peter O'Donnell

MODESTY BLAISE - PETER O'DONNELL

I've read a few books in my time and I'm with Kingsley Amis on this one: Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise is "endlessly fascinating", and is indeed "one of the great partnerships in fiction, bearing comparison with that of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson". It can be taken that Kingsley Amis was a fan as is also Quentin Tarantino who had John Travolta's character in Pulp Fiction reading the graphic novel version throughout the film, right up to the point of him being shot dead by Bruce Willis.

O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise was an innovative and perfectly executed creation that broke the mould and smashed the template of how an action hero should be. The most obvious shift, of course, was in casting a woman in the lead role. Such a good writer was O'Donnell that in a very casual manner he was able to define various aspects of her character as to render her utterly believable. Very easily Modesty Blaise could have turned out to be merely a female version of James Bond but instead he created a fully developed, multi-dimensional, multi-faceted character with a slew of quirks, foibles, weaknesses and strengths that made her unique. In describing the way in which she dressed, played, socialised and fought as well as explaining her history, reasoning and motivation, O'Donnell painted a complete picture yet at the same time wove an air of intrigue around her that teased the reader into wanting to know more.

Though adept with all types of guns Modesty Blaise's weapon of choice was the kongo; essentially a small wooden dumb-bell that fitted neatly into her palm which she used either to knock out or to kill any opponent when fighting hand-to-hand. In addition she might also use a bow and arrow, nerve gas or even a technique called The Nailer; guaranteed even if only momentarily to stop any man in his tracks.

Her partner, Willie Garvin, was also a fully-fledged creation in his own right and could easily have been cast in the lead role in his own adventures. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed, cockney ex-degenerate; he was a weapons master par excellence though his personal preference was knives of which he always carried two. Modesty Blaise had taken him under her wing after sensing an untapped potential within him and had subsequently turned him into the most loyal and most deadly comrade-in-arms.

Together they made a perfect partnership, organising and running a world-wide crime syndicate called The Network before disbanding it to live in luxurious retirement in England. This is the point at which O'Donnell chose to start his story, with Blaise and Garvin being called out of retirement by the British Secret Service to help protect a shipment of diamonds bound for the Middle East.

During their time running The Network, friendly relationships had been maintained with Britain and cemented by the passing of information beneficial to the government. Due to her extensive knowledge of and array of contacts within Continental and Middle Eastern underworlds, Blaise is viewed as the ideal person to establish whether suspicions of a plot to steal the diamonds are true and if so, who might be behind the plot and how and when might it happen? Blaise and Garvin are pitched against a vicious crime lord called Gabriel and the resulting escapade is imaginative, inventive, fast-paced and stylishly violent.

It should be noted that O'Donnell first introduced the Modesty Blaise character as a comic strip in 1963 that was syndicated in newspapers throughout the world. The actual novel was published in 1965, basing itself on a screenplay O'Donnell had written for a film version to be directed by Joseph Losey. The film turned out to be a pop-art kitsch travesty that was so bad it was actually good. Italian actress Monica Vitti played Modesty and Terence Stamp played Garvin but stealing the film was Dirk Bogarde who played an extravagantly camp Gabriel leading a gang of blatantly gay henchmen. Needless to say, it was nothing at all like the vision O'Donnell had presented and he was none too happy with the finished result.

Even though Losey's film was in its own way peculiarly influential, it seems to have been the kiss of death upon all other attempts at getting Modesty Blaise successfully depicted in film again. There have been a couple of valiant attempts but none have come to anything which is really quite strange, particularly when compared to the James Bond franchise or even to Batman which managed to escape the Adam West 1960s version to evolve into the brooding, dark character depicted in films nowadays. Instead, it's in the books, the comic strips and even radio plays that Modesty Blaise has found her most successful homes. That's not to say, however, that O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise character has failed to be an influence upon cinema as it's very easy to recognise her in a wide variety of films from The Avengers, La Femme Nikita, Underworld, Lara Croft, and not least Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. Modesty Blaise, though, was always the original and Peter O'Donnell is deserving of much credit and respect for his innovative vision, his hyperbolic imagination, his sound grasp of femininity, and his excellent writing.

Unholy trinity: O'Donnell, Vitti, Losey

John Serpico

Under Exmouth Skies (Part 7)

UNDER EXMOUTH SKIES (Part 7)

"I drew a line, I drew a line for you."

"Oh, what a thing to do."

"And it was all yellow...."