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Mr. Forbush and the Penguins

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1971 British film by Roy Boulting

Mr. Forbush and the Penguins
Directed byRoy Boulting (uncredited)
Al Viola
Antarctica sequences
Arne Sucksdorff
Written byAnthony Shaffer
Based onnovel by Graham Billing
Produced byHenry Trettin
StarringJohn Hurt
Hayley Mills
CinematographyEdward Scaife
Edited byBernard Gribble
Music byJohn Addison
Production
companies		EMI Films
PGL Productions
Distributed byBritish Lion Films
Release date
  • December 1971 (1971-12) (UK)
Running time101 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£638,842

Mr. Forbush and the Penguins (also known as Cry of the Penguins) is a 1971 British comedy drama film, directed by Arne Sucksdorff, Alfred Viola and Roy Boulting. It stars John Hurt, Hayley Mills, Dudley Sutton and Tony Britton. It is based on the 1965 novel Forbush and the Penguins by Graham Billing.

Plot

A brilliant biology student, Richard Forbush, is sent to Antarctica for six months to study a penguin colony. At first he does it mostly to impress a girl he is chasing, Tara. He stays in Shackleton's Hut with his only links to the outside world being a two-way radio to contact the navy who occasionally visit to deliver supplies and take his letters and tape recordings to Tara.

He is challenged mentally by skuas preying on the penguins' eggs and chicks and he builds a catapult to try to fight them although he is meant to observe and not interfere with nature. He is reminded of this by his failure to get rid of the skuas.

By the end of his expedition, Forbush is a changed man with a totally new outlook on life.

Cast

Production

Development

The film was based on a 1965 novel by Graham Billing, who had worked for the New Zealand Antarctic Division.

The film was a co-production between EMI Films, PGL Productions and British Lion Films. It was part of the initial slate of movies greenlit by Bryan Forbes who had been appointed head of EMI. Forbes announced it in August 1969 as part of a slate of fifteen films.

Director Al Viola had won awards for his commercials and this would be his feature film debut - the same for producer Henry Trettin.

The novel was adapted by playwright Anthony Schaffer, doing his first script. Swedish filmmaker Arne Sucksdorff was hired to shoot footage in Antarctica. The original stars were John Hurt and Susan Fleetwood.

Forbes later described the film as a "calculated risk" with an "intriguing script" and "formidable logistical problems... Admittedly a far cry from The Sound of Music, but positively different and worth attempting."

Shooting

Filming started 4 November 1969 at Palmer Peninsula in Antarctica. Fifteen technicians, including the producer Henry Trettin and director Al Viola, plus John Hurt, travelled to Antarctica and stayed for eight weeks living at Esperanza Base. It was the first movie to be shot on that continent. This was followed by studio work at Elstree Studios. By March 1970 it was reported that filming was expected to finish soon.

According to Forbes, penguin footage shot by Arne Sucksdorff on location in Antarctica did not cut smoothly into scenes involving humans shot in the studio. He says the Boulting Brothers and Launder and Gilliat, then on the Board of British Lion "were adamant that drastic changes had to be made. They insisted that the director be replaced together with the leading lady and that the Boultings take over the rescripting and reshooting with Hayley Mills, then Roy Boulting’s wife, recast as the female lead. I felt that such drastic surgery was bound to make matters worse at such a late and critical stage but I was outvoted and landed with the unhappy task of conveying these decisions to those concerned." Filmink later argued " it boggles the mind that" Forbes "allowed someone as green as Al Viola to direct Forbush which involved having to match footage with scenes shot in Antarctica."

Viola was replaced by Roy Boulting and Susan Fleetwood by Hayley Mills. John Hurt was angry at this and Bryan Forbes of EMI had to spend an entire evening persuading him not to quit.

Filming involving Hayley Mills took place in November 1970 at Shepperton Studios.

Schaffer, the screenwriter, recalled it as "a fairly chaotic movie which had the young John Hurt capering about the Atlantic slinging rocks at Skuas with a Roman balista, in a vain attempt to protect penguins' eggs from their deprivations. I'm not sure that it all added up, though my younger daughter assures me... it's her favourite film of mine." He added that the female lead "was replaced after the first rough assembly and it was the only film I know of in which a stage direction was delivered as spoken dialogue. It didn't matter. No one noticed - which should generally tell you something about the respect accorded the screen writer's craft."

Sidney Gilliat then on the board of British Lion called the film "a terrible hodgepodge" and felt Bryan Forbes "made a great mistake putting Hurt in it instead of Crawford."

Reception

Box office

The film failed to recoup its considerable cost.

Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote:

In the introduction to Forbush and the Penguins, its author Graham Billing claimed that it was "the first serious novel to come out of Antarctica". The film, as it has emerged from EMI, has managed not only to banish all seriousness but also to minimise the relevance of the Antarctic setting – this despite some fine, hard-edged location photography by Edward Scaife, and the drama of the wild-life sequences compiled by Arne Sucksdorff. Of course, the novel has been through a few mutations on its way to the screen: the original version of the film, completed by Al Viola and featuring Forbush alone with his terror in the face of the cruelty of life and death in the Antarctic, has been pruned and supplemented by entirely new framing material, set in London and shot by an uncredited Roy Boulting. This new footage inserts Hayley Mills and that weariest of old pop moralities, the futility of the promiscuous life, even bringing the point – and Forbush – confidently home with a final clinch on the London rooftops. Before being subjected to this inexplicable attack of double-think, the film conceivably held some interest. The surviving Antarctic material features some realistically gruelling action; but the central character is now reduced to the abbreviated, caricatured motions of a clown, comic and tragic by unconvincing turns.

The Guardian said the film "isn't as bad as we'd been led to believe, though there's a pretty grotty first half hour to sit through."

The Evening Standard called it "a comfortably old fashioned comedy in the Ealing tradition" in which the lead character was "a stale bore".

Filmink called it "a spectacularly charmless movie in which Mills is wasted, only worth watching for its location photography. Hayley is charming in her few scenes and the film would’ve been better if she’d played the lead – she would have been more at home with the material than the actual star, John Hurt."

References

  1. Moody, Paul (2018). EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema. Palgrave MacMillan. p. 75.
  2. Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 361 gives figure as £625,113 up from original budget of £564,725
  3. "Mr. Forbush and the Penguins". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 26 December 2023.
  4. Books of The Times: The Man Who Loved Penguins By ORVILLE PRESCOTT. New York Times 18 Mar 1966: 37.
  5. In the Picture Sight and Sound; London Vol. 38, Iss. 4, (Fall 1969): 181.
  6. Day-Lewis, Sean (13 August 1969). "British finance backs plans for 15 new films". The Daily Telegraph. p. 17.
  7. Cooper, Rod (7 March 1970). "Forbush finds fulfilment with web-footed waiters". Kine Weekly. p. 14.
  8. ^ THE WICKER MAN AND OTHERS Shaffer, Anthony. Sight and Sound; London Vol. 5, Iss. 8, (Aug 1, 1995): 28.
  9. Forbes p 107
  10. Nichols Meets Jules Feiffer: Mike Nichols By A. H. WEILER. New York Times 26 Oct 1969: D17.
  11. Samson, Hugh (24 May 1970). "Intrepid 'Frobush' Crew Invades Penguin Privacy". Hartford Courant. p. 141.
  12. "Screen chance for newcomer Susan". Runcorn Weekly News. 19 March 1970. p. 11.
  13. Forbes, Bryan (1993). A Divided Life:Memoirs. p. 221.
  14. Bryan Forbes, p 221-222
  15. "Rivals Collaborate". Evening Standard. 14 November 1970. p. 6.
  16. Fowler, Roy; Haines, Taffy (15 May 1990). "Interview with Sidney Gilliat" (PDF). British Entertainment History Project. p. 194.
  17. Walker, Alexander, Hollywood England, Harrap and Stein, 1974 p433-434
  18. "Mr. Forbush and the Penguins". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 39 (456): 11. 1 January 1972 – via ProQuest.
  19. BOND IS FOREVER Malcolm, Derek. The Guardian 30 Dec 1971: 8.
  20. Walker, Alexander (23 December 1971). "Laughs galore in a cold climate". Evening Standard. p. 2.
  21. Vagg, Stephen (10 October 2021). "Cold Streaks: The Studio Stewardship of Bryan Forbes at EMI". Filmink.

External links

Anthony Shaffer
Films written
Plays
Novels
Adaptations
Films directed by the Boulting brothers
Together
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Films directed by Arne Sucksdorff
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