King and Country **** (1964, Dirk Bogarde, Tom Courtenay, Leo McKern, Barry Foster) – Classic Movie Review 2532

Director Joseph Losey’s 1964 film stars Tom Courtenay as Private Hamp, a slightly dim, uncomprehending First World War soldier who walks shell shocked away from the rat-infested Passchendaele trenches and is arrested for desertion.

[Spoiler alert] In the second of his four distinguished collaborations with Losey, Dirk Bogarde also stars as Captain Hargreaves, a liberal-thinking officer who defends him. But Hamp is found guilty and executed, and the officer has the agonising, ironic task of having to finish him off.

Leo McKern and Barry Foster also star as Captain O’Sullivan and Lieutenant Webb, giving their usual reliable performances. Also in the cast are James Villiers (Captain Midgley), Peter Copley (Colonel), Barry Justice (Lieutenant Prescott), Vivian Matalon (the padre), Jeremy Spenser (Private Sparrow), James Hunter, Keith Buckley, Jonah Seymour, Larry Taylor, Richard Arthure and David Cook.

Losey’s film is a riveting anti-war drama based on John Wilson’s Sixties play Hamp and James Lansdale Hodson’s novel. The quality cast provides the kind of bravura acting it needs, and Bogarde is especially touching as the counsel torn between compassion and his feelings of superiority as he tries to save deserter Courtenay.

It is not very cinematic or filmic considering that it is a Losey movie, often giving the impression of being a filmed play – which it is. But it remains moving, significant and always timely. With the futility of war carefully explored, it does bear comparison with Stanley Kubrick’s similarly themed Paths of Glory.

Ah, the days when a major movie could cost £80,000! But even so it still didn’t make a profit. The public rejected its seriousness and tragic nature, and it soon disappeared.

Courtenay won the Best Actor award at the 1964 Venice Film Festival, where the film was nominated for the Golden Lion. The film was nominated for four 1965 Bafta awards, including Best British Film, Best British Actor (Courtenay), Best British Cinematography black and white (Denys N Coop), and Best British Art Direction black and white (Richard Macdonald). Contrary to the DVD cover, it did not win the award for Best Picture.

Wilson’s Sixties play Hamp was originally performed at the Edinburgh International Festival with a cast that included Leonard Rossiter, John Hurt and Richard Briers.

Between 1914 and 1924, more than 3,000 British soldiers were court martialled and sentenced to death for offences ranging from sleeping on duty and cowardice to desertion, murder, mutiny and treason.

Despite his mysterious disappearance around 1966, Jeremy Spenser  (born 16 July 1937) is confirmed to be still alive and well in 2015. Other than Courtenay, he is one of the few survivors of the film 50 years on.

The films in the Losey and Bogarde quadilogy are The Servant (1963), King and Country (1964), Modesty Blaise (1966) and Accident (1967).

Wilson’s Sixties play Hamp is coming to London for the first time in half a century as For King and Country. To mark the centenary of the end of World War One, Dilated Theatre Company will be performing the play at Southwark Playhouse from 28 June 2018 to 21 July.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2532

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