There was a young chappie named Trinder
Who was very near burned to a cinder
Escaping the flame
He undraped a young dame
But she wouldn’t give in so he chinned ‘er.
OK, none of the above is true, but Tommy Trinder does get incinerated in Ealing drama THE BELLS GO DOWN, and he did have a prominent chin, in the Jack Hulbert mould.
Trinder, cheeky chappie, a once-popular entertainer from whose spell Britain long ago awakened. This is no great loss, however. He’s quite annoying. I can overlook reports of him being a shit to work with, but he’s a bit of a shit to watch also. Still, a few of his films may be of interest. I keep failing to watch CHAMPAGNE CHARLIE, directed by Alberto Cavalcanti of all people. Because who better to celebrate the history of the English music hall than a queer Brazilian artist with a training in law and architecture? This season or blogathon or whatever it is ought to force me to rectify that gap in my viewing, but instead I found myself gazing upon FIDDLERS THREE.
I should probably have started with SAILORS THREE, which teams TT’s prognathous jaw with Claude Hulbert (also long faced) and Michael Wilding, who both have a bit of charm. Walter Forde, a skilled specialist in British comedies (eg THE GHOST TRAIN) and a music hall man himself, directed that one. FIDDLERS THREE reworks the trio to include Diana Decker as a pert WAC, and Sonnie Hale — a crumpled gurner who somehow was Mr. Jessie Matthews. Jessie was an East End cockney pretending to be posh, while he was a toff from Kensington essaying a mockney accent. I guess they met in the middle.
The plot of this one drew me, though — a thunderstorm at Stonehenge at midnight on midsummer’s night transports two sailors and a WAC back in time to Roman Britain. Imported to Rome they tangle with Nero and Poppaia. Scotsman Harry Watt directed this nonsense — clearly inspired by ROMAN SCANDALS, which it directly references (“We’ve had a visitor from your century before, a Mr. Eddie Cantor”), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court before that, and anticipating the Roman farce and anachronisms of CARRY ON CLEO and Up Pompeii. We get lavish sets with clever matte paintings — the establishing shot is VERY reminiscent of the one in Keaton’s THREE AGES (comparison below, Keaton on the right).
The songs, some of them extremely smutty, feature lyrical contributions from Robert Hamer, previously an editor for Trinder and Formby and a coming man at the time. Notoriously somewhat depraved, he gives us a number called “Sweet Fanny Adams,” a barely-double entendre every enlightened adult would have got as a euphemism for “sweet fuck-all.” Frequent Hitchcock collaborator Angus MacPhail (I think Hitch must have just LIKED him because I can’t convince myself that he was really very good) co-scripts with Diana Morgan, known at Ealing as “the Welsh bitch” — Ealing could be a pretty toxic boys’ club.
Francis L. Sullivan is Nero, perfect (he must’ve gotten flashbacks to his role in the unfinished Von Sternberg I CLAUDIUS), and Frances Day is Poppaea, quite an interesting actor it seems — she was Anthony Eden’s mistress (before he was p.m.) and threw herself at nonagenarian George Bernard Shaw. Trinder describes Poppaea as “the original glamour girl,” and that was Day’s nickname too.
She’s assisted by the mighty Elisabeth Welch, who also gets a song.
It’s full of oddball ’40s references to Wee Georgie Wood and No Orchids for Miss Blandish which ought to baffle most modern viewers (I’m different), and which climax with Trinder dragging up as a big-chinned Carmen Miranda, which is admittedly pretty hysterical. He’s enjoying himself so, so much. Trinder was famous for his egotism and self-promotion, which was only partly a bit. I guess it’s the same with Trump or Shatner — you can make a joke out of your arrogance, while still holding tight to it. But comedy comes from weakness, and Tommy is too much the ubermensch here.
Make sure you watch up to the instrumental break and dance.
Trinder is surprisingly heroic in this — there would be ample opportunities to display comic cowardice, but he’s having none of it. He does look like a leading man, but distorted by a funhouse mirror. The comedy is derived from wisecracking, dragging up, and anachronism. All of which are fine, but don’t result in a very strong persona for Tommy.
Surprisingly, the film doesn’t opt for an it-was-all-a-dream ending, continuing to insist that lightning bolts cause time travel, as in BACK TO THE FUTURE, and that Stonehenge is a big time machine, but it fizzles out at the end anyway. There’s some mild peril with a christians-lions rematch at the climax, but our heroes don’t have anything to accomplish in the past except surviving, so the thing’s flimsiness catches up with it.
Ealing made intermittent attempts to use Trinder in straight dramas, but this doesn’t seem to work — he sticks out like a sore chin in BELLS GO DOWN and I can’t imagine him working better in Australian pioneer drama BITTER SPRINGS. CHAMPAGNE CHARLIE will be the test…
FIDDLERS THREE stars Tommy Turk; La Mome; Victor; Philip Nosseross; Jean Farlow; Mrs Wu; Baroness Athona; The White Rabbit; One-Round; and Lord Scrumptious.
VERDICT: Tommy Trinder seems to have been awful irl. Onscreen his tendency towards smarm undercuts his apparently impressive affinity with live audiences. Sonnie Hale has no particular redeeming qualities.
shadowplay 