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| "Broadsword calling Danny Boy." |
Louis Shalako
On Alistair MacLean.
I was just watching the 1979 film of Alistair MacLean’s Bear Island.
It has been said that the quality of his work was uneven. You could say that about any writer, if one compares the first thing they ever wrote against the last thing they ever wrote, along with some of the really great stuff when they were at their peak. Of course their work was variable, and so is mine and so is yours.
Author John Creasy wrote something like six hundred books, and
there are a few in there, which I have read, where one wonders how it actually
got published in the first place. Truth was, he was grinding them out relentlessly,
at the dining room table, and trying to feed a family, when the going rate for
a novel might have been a measly twenty-five pounds.
(How in the hell do you even do that? - ed.)
There is a big difference between six hundred books and twenty or thirty, that difference is the luxury of time.
I wanted to talk about Alistair MacLean due to the number of films that were adapted from his works.
First, a little background.
“In 1941, at the age of 19, MacLean was called up
to fight in the Second World War with the Royal
Navy, serving with the ranks of ordinary seaman, able seaman, and leading torpedo operator. He was first assigned
to PS Bournemouth Queen, a converted excursion ship fitted
for antiaircraft guns,
on duty off the coasts of England and Scotland. Beginning in 1943, he served
on HMS Royalist, a Dido-class
light cruiser. There, he saw action
in 1943 in the Atlantic theatre, on two Arctic convoys and escorting aircraft
carrier groups in operations
against Tirpitz, and other targets off the Norwegian coast. He took
part in Convoy PQ 17 on Royalist. In
1944, Royalist and he served in the Mediterranean
theatre, as part of the invasion
of southern France and in
helping to sink blockade runners off Crete and bombard Milos in the Aegean.” (Wiki)
Where Eagles Dare consistently ranks among the top five war adventure films of all times, and that’s pretty good company to be keeping for any writer. The Guns of Navarone is an acknowledged classic, one I have viewed many times. Force 10 from Navarone, another classic film.
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| Alistair at about twenty. |
In terms of comparisons, River of Death is quite terrible, at least in the film version. And I have read the book, in fact I used to check for new titles at our local mall book shop, way back in the days when we had time, money, and plenty of hair on the old noggin…a leather jacket and a seventeen-hair mustache, if you really want to know.
Fear is the Key, this film has one of the best car chase scenes ever. What might have been described in the book is fully brought to life in this one. MacLean loved sending things over cliffs, for example vehicles in Where Eagles Dare and Guns of Navarone, as well as Bear Island. There are probably others, and this is one reason why they’re called action-adventure stories. Oh, yeah. In Breakheart Pass, a train goes over a cliff.
He wasn't exactly messing around, when it came time for things to go off of cliffs.
H.M.S. Ulysses, his first novel, was based on his wartime experience in the Royal Navy.
This accounts for some of the naval themes, arctic themes, for example Night without End. There are lots of ships in his novels, Golden Rendezvous for example.
The list of actors that have appeared in the films is impressive. Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Donald Sutherland, Vanessa Redgrave, Harrison Ford, Robert Shaw, Rock Hudson, Charles Bronson, Christopher Lee, Patrick McGoohan, Carl Weathers, Lloyd Bridges, Anthony Hopkins, Jack Hawkins, Robert Morley, Edward Fox, Franco Nero, the list, ladies and gentlemen, goes on and on and on. Barry Newman, Ben Kingsley, John Vernon. Richard Harris and Anne Turkel, Burgess Meredith and David Janssen, John Carradine.
Robert Vaughn and Donald Pleasance and Michael Dudikoff in River of Death, just to name a few more. And I know I’ve left a few out—I had to, there’s just too many films and too many names.
Gregory Peck, David Niven, Richard Widmark, Ed Lauter, Ben Johnson, Charles Durning, Richard Crenna. Gia Scala and Irene Papas. As I said, this is a very long list.
Throw in a hundred more character actors, whose faces you might recognize, and whose names may be vaguely familiar, and you start to get the idea of just how successful Alistair MacLean actually was. Patrick Wymark and Michael Hordern, in Where Eagles Dare, for example, these actors each have very long lists of credits, starring and supporting roles, in film and theatre. Barbara Bach and Michael Byrne in Force 10 from Navarone is (or are), just one more example, then there were Mary Ure and Ingrid Pitt. Jill Ireland.
These are just a few of the ‘vapid females’ (essentially, Bond Girls), in what are called stories ‘of good Englishmen and bad Germans’. Which would appear to be an entire genre in itself, at least when a good writer gets hold of it.
It’s different for everybody of course, but when I read these books and saw the films for the first time, I was a young man, impressionable, an inveterate reader above all else. I soaked it all up like a sponge.
These are the stories that make a young man’s fancy turn towards writing a few stories of his own someday…
The books that kind of stick to your ribs, like soul food for the adventurous home-boy.
When I fantasize about my own humble bookshelves, which I do from time to time, (if only we had money!), this would be one box set I might be willing to pay money for—just for the purposes of study, scholarship, and maybe even stealing a few ideas here and there as a writer myself. Maybe even just learning a little something at the knee of a master. Or maybe it’s just some kind of an escape.
It always was, an escape.
There is nothing wrong with a little escapism, at the time we probably needed it, and there are times when we still do.
In which case, we will always have someplace to go.
I have written a critique of Where Eagles Dare, and you can read it at the link below. I describe it as ‘a series of plot holes flying in close formation’, and yet I still enjoy the film, just as much as I did the book, such a very long time ago.
MacLean figured out how to make it work for him, and perhaps that is the real lesson here. I have no idea of who the reader is, I have no idea if the lesson is relevant to you, although plenty of folks write, and plenty more dream about it just as I did. I can only hope you enjoyed reading this story.
No, ladies and gentlemen, it turns out the lesson was for me.
And why not.
I’ve always needed plenty of stimulation.
END
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| Plenty of stimulation. |
Alistair MacLean.
(Wiki)
Where Eagles Dare: A Series of Plot Holes Flying in Close Formation.
Louis Shalako has books and stories, ebooks and audiobooks, available from Google Play.
Thank you for reading. The blog is acting rather wonky today, and trying to get the text all in the same shade of black has defeated me.
#Louis
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