Dramatised Real Events from '68-'69

Difficult to know how really real the story as told is. We didn't see much of Hoffman/Rubin clowning around in court - for the most part they seemed respectful and compliant. We are told by his then girlfriend that the story of the female undercover cop picking up Ruben is complete fabrication (which is not to say there weren't spy-cops around). Hayden comes across as a typical liberal dumbass Menshevik, despite finally falling into line with the pre-sentencing statement.

Hoffmann, played very well by Sacha Baron Cohen, ultimately is seen as the cleverest cookie in the jar. Bobby Seale is well played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Mark Rylance as the lead defence lawyer William Kunstler was excellent.

The film didn't really make you feel how long the trial went on (6 months) or that it was avidly followed outside the courtroom - nightly TV news reports and acres of newsprint. It also didn't make it clear that all the defendants were acquitted on the main conspiracy charge and the five were only found guilty on the incitement to riot charge.

A pleasing little propaganda story

The explicit propaganda is saved until the denouement, although, as standard Hollywood fare it is deeply embedded in the whole storyline. 

It moves along at a good pace, the romance interest between Bill and Lucy is inevitable from their comedy-disastrous first meeting, when he collects her at the train station for the judge.

It is not quite clear what potential J.J.Grant sees in Bill Adams from his initial encounters with him, where Bill is more or less going through the motions of being both a lawyer and a candidate - but ultimately the judge gets him to stand on his own feet.

Released in 1943 as the US was preparing to enter the war the message at the end is pretty clear - the need to stand up for and defend the american way of life, with the incumbent mayor and his thugs standing in for the fascists and the local judge representing extreme appeasement, which has to be turned around. 

Its Not (quite) Cricket

I remember seeing this when it first came out (1978) and thinking it a bit overblown. Just watched it again (2020) after it was featured in a list of films containing an English cricket match (a short list; The Go Between from the same period is another one, also with Alan Bates in a similar role)

It now seems a bit better than I remembered despite some inconsistencies and plot holes. Alan Bates, for all his brooding lumbering around, never quite pulls off the surreal menace that the role of Crossley, the man with The Shout That Can Kill, demands.

John Hurt as Anthony the philandering cuckold composer, seems unbelievably weak in the face of Crossley's invasion of his life, but that's what the role as written demands. Tim Curry as Robert Graves (yes the real one, he really did write the story the film is based on) listens to Crossley's tale with suitable wide-eyed innocence in the hut as they are scoring the locals versus loonies cricket match at the asylum.

The cast features many well known English actors of the period, including Susannah York getting her nipples out as usual and a young Jim Broadbent ripping his kit off to prance about in his pants in the thunderstorm that terminates the match, and the film. The Devon locations are an added bonus.

All in all an entertaining 90 minutes although not a great film by any means (and there isn't that much cricket!).