Showing posts with label 1957. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1957. Show all posts

February 21, 2021

OBSERVATION: High Tide at Noon - The Simon Breck Character - Book vs. Movie

In April 2020 I posted a review of the 1957 Rank film "High Tide at Noon".  I admitted that it wasn't totally my type of movie, and only watched it for Patrick McGoohan, who played the character of Simon Breck.

Now, many female McGoohan fans absolutely LOVE him in this film, if not for his bad-boy character, then for his youthful looks.  

It is also one of the very few times he kissed a woman on-screen (though I still argue we don't see any lip contact... but I digress...).  In fact, there is speculation that Simon actually rapes the main character, Joanna MacKenzie, played by Betta St. John.  In the interviews released on the DVD "In My Mind", McGoohan even states he "practically rapes" the girl in the film.

The first scene it could have happened during is when Joanna meets Simon in the old abandoned house.  At first she lets him kiss her, then things get more "serious" and she suddenly changes her mind.  Joanna runs away and Simon watches her go.

The other time it could have happened is when Simon visits the same house, now fixed up and Joanna's home, after her husband Alec has died.  Simon thinks he again has a chance to "win" Joanna, who hates him and tries to get him to go away.  Things start to get heated, when the scene just plain ends.

Next, we see Joanna run to her parent's house and Nils heads to the Breck household to settle things.  Simon implies he isn't looking for trouble with Nils, who goes for him anyway.  They make for the docks, get into their fishing boats, and Simon disappears into the night.  Nils shouts out to him that he'll kill him if he ever returns to the island.

So, what happened at Joanna's house after we, the audience, left?  Did Simon indeed rape her, like so many viewers think?

I decided to find out once and for all.  How?  Easy.  Look at the original book.

"High Tide at Noon" was written in 1944 by Elisabeth Ogilvie and actually based on the island of Criehaven/Ragged Island, Maine, where her family vacationed.

I readily admit I can't STAND reading non-fiction, so reading the entire story would be a chore.  Instead, I logged onto Archive.org and borrowed the book.  I did a search for "Simon" to narrow the pages down a bit.  What I discovered was a bit surprising!

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Firstly, in the film, Joanna's family name is MacKenzie .  In the book, it is Bennett.  Simon Breck's family name isn't Breck in the book, it is Bird.  His physical description is very similar to that of McGoohan himself at the time, other than the "smoky gray eyes":

"He had a thin, tanned face and flat cheeks slanting to a lean chin... his red hair was like copper with the sun on it, and he was slight and narrow hipped in his snug dungarees". 

The scene where Simon and Joanna speak for the first time by his boat is almost exactly like the book.  More time has passed since they last spoke in the book than in the film, though.  Simon also implies that he prefers girls who haven’t been around the block a few times.

The scene where Joanna meets Simon at the abandoned house is also mostly the same, BUT with some important exceptions, one being Simon's touching her breast to see if her heart is also racing.  That would be a no-no on 1957 movie screens. In the film, he instead says "so's yours... I bet...".

But one big difference is how Simon reacts to Joanna suddenly wanting him to stop making love to her.  He had been rather nice to her up to that point, just like in the film.  Simon says "you gotta learn some time", and she runs away.  But in the book, he starts to get mad.  He gives her 5 minutes to think about it and basically implies she better give in to him.  She doesn't, and runs away.  In the movie, he almost seems to find it all humorous.  In the book, he's mad as Hell.  She lead him on by being coy by his boat, agreed to meet him that night, allowed him to hold and kiss her, and then suddenly "pulls the salt water business" on him:

"I'll give you five minutes to get the hell over it, and then you'll listen to reason. I don't let anybody fool with me, lady. Sooner or later, they pay up".

In the film, we get the impression Joanna hates Simon just for the passes he has made to her.  Anything he or his family may have done to the MacKenzies seems secondary.  Simon is a sort of pest, not much else.

But in the book, it is far more complicated and intense.  Joanna's family basically owns the island, and the Birds are looked down upon as "trash".  It is part of the reason Simon takes her physical rejection of him to the point of utter hatred.  She has become "uppity", as he says in the film.  Did she lead him on then reject him because she thinks she is better than anyone from the Breck (Bird) family?

Simon gets his hands (and lips) on her way more in the book, even after she spurns him.  And she hates it more as well.  He is nastier, dirtier, meaner. 

The scene at the dance, which ends in a melee, is almost exactly like the book.

But the next one, in the now fixed up house, after Alec's death, is far more "meaty" in the book.  The fact he has Alec's IOU for her house is more important.  Also more important is the Breck family's tampering of other fishermen's gear, and Simon's interactions with Nils.  

In the film, Simon is run off the island for good by Nils just after the scene with Joanna at the house.  He hasn't even had a chance to find out about Alec's IOU.  In the book, time passes before Simon leaves the island, and he isn't exactly chased by Nils, though Nils is indeed waiting at the Bird house to "settle" things with him.  In time, the family does indeed pay Alec's debt to Simon (via a lawyer).

There are other differences between the book and film, such as Joanna having a baby after Alec dies.  I didn't look much at sections not dealing with the Simon character.  So curious viewers of the film will have to read those themselves.  

But now we know... Simon did NOT rape Joanna in either the film or book "High Tide at Noon".  

... UNLESS that is exactly WHY the last scene in Joanna's house ends the way it does, and WHY Nils runs Simon off the island right away.  

Sticking to the book would have made the film even longer, and given McGoohan, a young newcomer to the Big Screen, a far meatier and more important role.  In hindsight, a real missed opportunity.  We all know he could play mean, nasty, and angry.  All the kissing and pawing may have been an issue but he managed to get through it all during those Rank years.  And the fact the character Joanna had the same name as his real life wife, Joan... well... every little bit helps!

In the end, it all comes down to the old argument:  THE BOOK or THE MOVIE!



April 3, 2020

REVIEW: High Tide at Noon (1957)

High Tide at Noon (1957) 

The film begins with Joanna MacKenzie (Betta St. John) arriving by boat on a seemingly deserted island in Nova Scotia. She wanders around the empty buildings, frightened by a clock chiming in a house. She runs outside and begins to think about the past.

(CUE FLASHBACK…)

We now see a supposedly younger, happier Joanna landing on the island yet again, but it now is teeming with activity from the lobster fishing trade. Her family owns most of the island, and she has returned from school to again live in the family’s house with her mother, father, and brothers.
The Breck family is introduced to the audience as scheming “trash”, always looking for trouble. Despite this, Joanna gives Simon Breck (Patrick McGoohan) some flirty attention, but regrets it when he asks her to meet her that night at an abandoned house (“the old Graham place”). He proceeds to kiss her, then tries to go further and Joanna manages to escape to the safety of her brothers and Nils (Michael Craig), who are playing pool. Nils walks her home and is the only one who knows about what happened.

At a local dance, Simon again makes advances, and an all out fistfight begins. Joanna escapes and stands at the docks alone, thinking. She accidentally overhears her brother Charles talking to his girlfriend, Matille, realizing the girl is pregnant. She later has a heart-to-heart with her brother, who ends up marrying Matille while he is on the mainland selling the family lobster-catch. Their parents are not pleased.

Nils tells Joanna that he’s wanted to propose marriage to her for a long time, but she tells him she isn’t in love with him, and Nils is crushed.

One rainy day a handsome stranger arrives on the island. His name is Alec (William Sylvester), grandson of Sandy Graham, and he intends on taking over her old house. As time goes by, Joanna and Alec fall for each other, and get married. They fix up the house and make it a home, but married life becomes less than happy due to a lack of lobsters in Alec’s traps, and his gambling habit.

One reason the MacKenzie family is also not catching lobsters is someone is cutting the ropes which connect the wooden traps to each lobsterman’s buoys. The Breck family is given a stern talking to by the elder MacKenzie.

After one particular poker game with the same Brecks, Alec comes home and swears to Joanna he will no longer gamble, and will work as hard as he can to earn money and be a good husband. In time, their bills start to get paid, and things begin looking brighter.

Things start to change yet again one night when Alec drowns in a boating accident. Then, one by one, friends and family members move to the mainland where fishing is better.

One rainy night, Simon goes to Joanna’s house, and in so many words tells her now that she isn’t married anymore, he intends on calling in Alec’s I.O.U.’s, which add up to $600. Since she has no money, the house may end up his. He then begins telling Joanne she really wants him, and next thing the audience sees is her running into the family house, crying. Nils goes after Simon, who gets into a boat and speeds off into the sea. Nils can’t catch up, and yells to him he’ll kill Simon if he ever sets foot on the island again.

The lobster business continues to be threatened for locals, and Nils tries one more time to get Joanna to say “yes” to marriage. She again refuses him, and leaves the island. She then realizes she may have made a huge mistake.

Finally, even Joanna and her parents have to leave the island.

We then return to the beginning again, with Joanna on the deserted island. But someone is on the beach… Nils…

Oh, and he says the lobsters are back.

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This film was entered into the 1957 Cannes Film Festival, and a look around the ‘net will turn up a few photos of Rank actors Betta St. John, June Laverick, Anne Heywood, and Patrick McGoohan at the event. There is also a very brief film clip from a Pathe newsreel. No doubt more images exist in collections.

I’m a female who doesn’t like love stories, so I had to force myself to watch this one (yes, once again, because Mr. McGoohan was in it). But I figured the fact it was entered at Cannes would mean it was an excellent film regardless.

Wellp… I wasn’t impressed. In fact, I thought it was downright boring.

Most of the acting was ok, though I have to confess McGoohan’s treatment of Simon would have been more believable had he not tried to sound (North) American. I already knew ahead of time his character was a louse, so I was prepared for his very un-John Drake-like behavior. Still… I had to chuckle and raise an eyebrow (or two) when he had Betta St.John in a clinch!

There were lots of actual outdoor scenes, with only a few obvious-fakey outdoor ones. I was surprised to find behind the scenes photos online showing the sets used.  Perhaps those scenes would have been more obvious to me had I watched an actual DVD on a TV and not a web-sourced copy on an old tablet.  But all in all the film has an OK look to it, though there were no beautiful seas or sunsets, or rolling fields, etc to help elevate it to a higher caliber.

Plot wise, again, I don’t like love stories. So I’ll try not to be too harsh.

Firstly, Simon seems to have already had a go at trying to kiss Joanne in the past. He’s still intent on getting her all for himself. When she arrives on the island after school is over, and he talks to her for the first time, the fact he specifically asks how old she is should have been a wee-bit of a hint that she should RUN. But NO, instead she basically flirts with him, and stupidly goes ahead and meets him at the abandoned Graham house! Then she lets him kiss her! DUH! Like he isn’t going to try to go further? The girl comes across as stupid, not innocent.

The fact she spurns Nils is also a stupid move. Then she marries Alec, not already knowing he likes to gamble? I guess a longer courtship was called for. Though things do work out and they seem to be in love.

The idea of her brother getting a woman pregnant was a bit racy for the era. When she goes into labor, we never do find out much about the result, other than Charles and their father make up.

Too many vague points here and there ruin the believe-ability of the plot.

We never get much explanation as to just what happened to cause the boating accident that killed Alec, other than at least one of the MacKenzie brothers blames himself, and alcohol may have been involved.

Did Simon actually rape Joanna? If so, all that happens is Nils yelling at him as he escapes via boat? A family full of brothers and we hear nothing else about retribution?

And what about that official who seems to be part of the reason the lobstering on the island is going to die? Why can they catch more off the mainland? Are there regulations or something?

And WHY is Nils on the beach at the very end? Is THAT why Joanna came back in the first place?  And if the lobsters are back... is he happier about THAT or seeing Joanna???

I guess I would not tell someone to stay away from the film, just don’t expect a lot of action or ground-breaking dialogue or camera work.

If you'd prefer not to watch this film as a lowish quality online copy, it was available as a Region 2 (non-US) DVD (EAN: 5060105724800)

The old family clock... about to trigger a movie-long flashback

The Breck family... nothing but trouble...

The MacKenzie family

Charles has got hitched on the mainland... he "had to"

A stranger named Alec lands on the island

Joanne marries Alec

An empty money box

Simon visits the widow-MacKenzie... he's calling in Alec's gambling debts, and is not happy about being rejected by her yet again

Nils in the Breck house, about to get revenge on Simon, do "don't mean to fight you... if that's what you want"

More bad news for the lobstermen...

Nils tries one more time to get Joanne to marry him

Leaving the island... best not to look back

"The lobsters are back!" and we are back to the present day once more