Bind fast his corky arms

We’re always looking to share what spambots like to call “great information” here at Shadowplay. Recently, while watching THE BROTHERS (a 1947 British melodrama) with Fiona and Marvelous Mary, I took note of an exciting new way to SLAY YOUR ENEMIES, and I’m passing it on in hopes that it may prove efficacious.

If my instructions aren’t clear, by all means See The Film for a demonstration.

1) Subdue Your Enemy. Any method is allowable, but he ideally should remain conscious or be capable of regaining consciousness with the application of Cold Water (of which much more later).

2) Bind Your Enemy hand and foot, but with Great Quantities of Cork under each arm. Buoyancy is essential to this method of dispatch.

3) Secure via string or twine, a hat to the head of the prospective victim. Secure to the hat or bonnet a large fish. This will henceforth be known as the Fish Hat.

3) Set the unhappy fellow to bobbing in the nearest lake or ocean. You need to be sufficiently close to the sea to allow for Large Sea Birds. Some Large Sea Bird (a goose is fine), espying the glittering Fish Hat, is sure to dive down for a ready meal, and its Mighty Beak will pierce the unhappy fellow’s skull and effect his destruction.

This method has the Great Moral Advantage that you will not be in any way culpable for the demise of your enemy, who will owe his fractured skull solely to the action of the Large Sea Bird. Heaven is satisfied, Nature’s will is done.

THE BROTHERS does feature more of interest than the novel method of murder outlined above — as a rare foray North for the British film industry, it follows in the footsteps of Michael Powell’s THE EDGE OF THE WORLD. Fortunately, Marvelous Mary is pretty expert on the culture and history of the Scottish islands, so she was able to keep us straight on the film’s numerous inaccuracies.  Patricia Roc plays a young girl sent from the orphanage to work as servant in a croft where there is no woman, only two sons and an elderly father. Firstly, no crofter could  afford a servant (unless maybe she’s to be unpaid, an indentured slave, in which case you’d think the film would make this clear), and secondly, there are no Catholics on Skye, and for some reason the islanders are all characterised as Catholic. Maybe the filmmakers felt that was safer, since religion is a pretty ineffectual force in this film, where it’s not positively destructive, so putting the blame on a minority religion was less likely to offend anybody who mattered. In fact, sects like the Wee Frees (the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland) are as eccentric and intolerant as any branch of Catholicism, so might have served just as well. Certain customs, like taking a newly deceased man’s body on a long haul around the island while the women, forbidden attendance at the funeral, wait at home, are quite accurate to this sect, rather than to Catholicism. Lars Von Trier’s BREAKING THE WAVES gives as accurate a portrait of the austere and loveless feeling of this faith.

The menfolk in Roc’s new household consist of Duncan Macrae (WHISKY GALORE) and Maxwell Reed (the first Mr Joan Collins, whose Scottish accent is little better than his Danish one in DAYBREAK), with the estimable Finlay Currie as patriarch. Roc’s supposed sex appeal soon leads the family to infighting and injury by heart attack and conger eel. It’s hard to understand, although the filmmakers supply their demure actress with an unlikely low-cut wardrobe and a nude swim (in extreme long-shot, but still quite an eye-opener for 1947!). Roc declined a body double (or else wasn’t offered) and treated herself to a whisky afterwards.

The film also features Scots comic Will Fyffe, who recounts a tale of the selkie (merfolk who transform from seal to human). He’s a delightful presence, but sadly this was his last movie. After undergoing an operation, he was resting up in a hotel in St Andrews, was overcome by dizziness, and fell out the window.

In spite of its quirky moments and interesting milieu, the film doesn’t quite gel as a story, and Roc does her best but has little of the siren about her. Even a more wide-eyed and innocent effect could have worked. David MacDonald directs rather flatly, but does raise his game for a couple of sinister moments, notably this one, featuring John Laurie, the World’s Most Scottish Man ~

Director David MacDonald, an actual Scot from Helensburgh (Deborah Kerr’s birthplace), reached his apogee with this film, before the disastrous THE BAD LORD BYRON wrecked his career, leading to the Shadowplay favourite DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS…

Thanks to Guy Budziak.

The Brothers [DVD] [1947]

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