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REDGRAVE EN FAMILLE
"God always has another custard pie up his sleeve"
Despite the propensity for such things in America, as a rule we don't tend to go for acting dynasties much in Blighty. So Over There they've had the Barrymores (Lionel, Ethel, John, Drew and Michael), the Hustons (John and Angelica) and they've still got the Douglases (Kirk and Michael), the Sheens (Martin, Charlie and Emilio) and of course the too-numerous-to-mention Baldwins all of whose names we're having difficulty recalling but who we can't tell apart in any case (apart from the fat one that was married to Kim Basinger, that is). There are minor exceptions to the rule such as Richard 'Juggernaut' Harris and his doppelganger son Jared 'The Public Eye' Harris and the Cusacks of course, begat by Cyril 'Juggernaut again' Cusack and his many awkwardly spelt daughters but then both of those examples are Irish and don't really count. But there is of course one major exception to the rule and that has to be The Family Redgrave, father Sir Michael, son Corin and daughters Vanessa and Lynne (there may be a couple more by the time we've got this far but we reckon four's plenty to be going on with).
The natural place to start would be with Redgrave pére at the outset but wait! What's this? Another one! News comes to us from faraway places of a certain Roy Redgrave the patriarch of the clan and star of several titles in the pre- and post-Great War period of which we know little other than their names but which include THE CHRISTIAN from 1911, THE ROAD TO RUIN of 1913 and lastly ROBBERY UNDER ARMS of 1920. Sadly info is a little slight on the Senior Richardson's contributions to these silent numbers so we'll have to - sadly - leave them be for now. On to business though and the great Sir Michael himself.
Mike gets his first credit in early (1938) Hitchcock schtick THE LADY VANISHES with the great Margaret Lockwood and the drippy Paul Lukas and not least Cecil 'upper class twits a speciality' Parker. A bold start then and a comfortable segue into the war years during which time he took part in the likes of class-struggle-at-college curio THE STARS LOOK DOWN from 1940 by which time he had overtaken Margaret Lockwood as the star, which was not bad going for a lad who was holding up the credits just two years before. By 1945 more familiar fare was calling with THE WAY TO THE STARS and the fantastic Michael 'Ealing' Balcon-produced portmanteau DEAD OF NIGHT in which he presages such better known supernatural pieces in the same vein as MAGIC with the genuinely chilling Ventriloquist's Dummy segment. Before the end of the Forties there was still time for laugh-a-minute MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA before the Fifties saw him in THE BROWNING VERSION, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, THE DAM BUSTERS (still not mentioning that dog now), an early 1984 adaptation with Donald 'perfectly' Pleasance and David 'Playschool' Kossoff, THE QUIET AMERICAN and also LAW AND ORDER. As the Sixties began to swing Mick was still in there and better than ever with classics such as THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER, THE HEROES OF TELEMARK and - for us at least - his best film, Top 100 entry THE HILL alongside Seen 'Sean Connery' Canary, Harry 'guilty' Andrews, Ian 'still sadly missed' Bannen and Roy 'blimey, it's Juggernaut again' Kinnear in which he played the ineffectual Medical Officer being stitched up by Right Bastard Sergeant Harry Andrews. He then managed to round off the '60s with a run of features that might nowadays constitute the critical achievement of the entire career of a modern nobody: OH! WHAT A LOVELY WAR!, BATTLE OF BRITAIN and GOODBYE MR CHIPS. All great stuff. By the time he had made Tsarist bobbins NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA things were winding down and Michael made little else in his last years although the above we reckon quite easily demonstrates a legacy more impressive than a whole slew of modern-day teeth-whitened botoxed cretins could scrape together if they laid their CVs end to end in large print.
Sir Michael Rednose may then have left the scene but the name was to reverberate in the picture halls of the land thanks to the sterling work of both Vanessa and little sister Lynn. Van (and we feel we can call her that) has carved a formidable niche for herself over the past few decades starting with her first film of note MORGAN: A SUITABLE CASE FOR TREATMENT with David 'I'm a reasonable man' Warner - and an enduring favourite of ours it is too. Iconic but (whisper it) not that brilliant '60s slice-of-something BLOWUP followed as did CAMELOT and her own piece of the action in OH! WHAT A LOVELY WAR. Forays abroad included films in France and Sweden (which obviously, as cultural peons, we don't know anything about) and then notoriety knocked with THE DEVILS in which a pre-moustache Ken Russell proved that he could knock out the most bizarre of gear whilst managing to gain a reputation for brilliance largely on the back of hiring Derek Jarman to conjure up for him a frankly splendid production design. Strange it is - and strange indeed is Vanessa in it - but it's as entertaining as Ken gets and provides Oliver Reed with the opportunity to turn in the best performance he ever gave. MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS and MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS are still seen reasonably on Sunday afternoons today and YANKS is always worth a look. More recently HOWARD'S END is a lasting favourite of ours for reasons we've never been sure of (although we'd obviously have loved it all the more if they'd had the foresight to call it Howard's Way and netted a considerable additional audience in the process) and latterly in the battle of the late-century disaster movies we always preferred DEEP IMPACT in which Vanessa plays the ex-wife of Maximillian 'Black Hole' Schell and resisted the urge all the while to make him take off the scarf he wore in every bloody scene. Of course, she also did the Morecambe and Wise show and was particularly brilliant on it (and so, coincidentally, did her Dad but we don't know if Lynn ever did - anyone?) proving there is nothing she can't do (except - and it has to be said - sing).
Vanessa is probably the more ubiquitous of the Reds in the world today but our real favourite remains the brilliant Lynn, if only because she once sent us an email. But apart from that there is genuine foundation for our affection based - at least - on the two entries in the Top 100 films of which she was an integral part; SMASHING TIME and THE BIG BUS. We've covered that ground once or twice already so we'll merely append the comment that Our Lynn (and we feel we can call her that) is just great in both. Lynn probably is more her father's daughter than the other since she got off to an equally quick start with none other than the film that placed the words 'bawdy' and 'romp' in the nation's consciousness, TOM JONES. Of course this was only the grassy foothill to the mountainous snow-covered peak that was Frankie Howerd line-giver GEORGY GIRL which we would happily contend is far more persuasive in the freeze-frame-of-a-moment-in-time stakes than the aforementioned Blowup. THE VIRGIN SOLDIERS, Woody Allen's EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK, brilliant NHS black as pitch satire THE NATIONAL HEALTH and more recently SHINE (with the best actor working in films today, Geoffrey 'Casanova Frankenstein' Rush) and GODS AND MONSTERS all add up to a more than creditable resume that easily holds its own within the House of Rednose.
Lastly for our purposes here comes dear Corin 'Ultraviolet' Redgrave, a man you don't see much of down Blockbuster or on the telly probably because he's always appearing in the kind of 'serious' play that takes out adverts in the supplements of The Sunday Times. Still, that's not to say he hasn't left his mark at the movies and his early jobs included A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS and - would you believe it? - OH! WHAT A LOVELY WAR (did Sir Lord Richard of Attenborough get a wholesale discount, we wonder?). Later than all this came the film we've decided to refer to from now on as BLOODY EXCALIBUR although our animosity has little to do with Corin's involvement of course and is more dependent on the general air of insufferable pomposity. Leaving that aside there is always one of our very favourite little films and one which is criminally underused, that being THE FOOL a cautionary tale of greed and corruption in Georgian Britain. Which is just brilliant.
There are of course younger Rednoses that are working all over the place turning out quality stuff but that's a little too up to date for us - awkward buggers that we are - and we dare say we'll get round to them when they remake Oh! What A Lovely War so they can get in it as well. Until then we tip the collective Creamguide (Films) hat to the greatest film dynasty of them all, the Redgraves.
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