Fame Is the Spur

A British drama; A story about a man from a slum in Ancoats, Manchester, England, who rises to political power, abandoning on the way, his radical views for more conservative ones. The film's title is a reference to the poet Milton's poem Lycidas, meaning all politicians deny they love popularity more than they love the people, and so, in this film, an idealistic champion of the oppressed, is himself seduced by the trappings of power and finds himself the type of politician he originally despised. Michael Redgrave gives a grand performance, showing the gradual shedding of heartfelt beliefs. The film will appeal to people who view the period between 1810 and 1946 as unjust, particularly the right of women's suffrage. Others will observe that the trappings of fame would make anyone succumb to what Milton also described as "that last infirmity of noble mind." The film plays at a pedestrian pace, but the production and direction are first-rate.

To me this has parallels to Love on The Dole .It is in other words very derivative.Featuring an idealistic politician who starts out as a political firebrand and ends up as a part of the establishment opposed to the people who put him in parliament in the first place.Michael Redgrave was really in the middle of a winning streak when he took on this part.I have to say that few films about British politics have been very exciting and this one is no exception.This film would obviously have rung a rather large bell when released in 1946 as this was the first year of a Labour administration.So one feels that this film is trying to point out the mistakes that had been made by previous Labour administrations,and in particular Ramsey MacDonald upon whom the main character was apparently based.

Ramsay MacDonald was ten years gone when Fame Is The Spur was made in which Michael Redgrave as Hamer Radshaw plays the idealistic young socialist who gradually becomes more conservative. In the end like MacDonald, Redgrave ends up co-opted by the very forces he fought against.

Years after I saw this film I read a biography of John Connally where Lyndon Johnson offered this assessment of his friend and protégé, that Connally was always impressed by those oak paneled boardrooms. So to was MacDonald, impressed by the very trappings of the society he sought to radically change when he started out.

There are several critical differences in Hamer Radshaw to MacDonald as we follow his career up to the beginning of World War II. He's contrasted with Bernard Miles whose character is based on a combination of Arthur Henderson and Ernest Bevin. He's a trade union man like Ernie Bevin, but Bevin was in the second ranks of the Labour Party movement in the early days. The positions of Henderson/Miles and MacDonald/Redgrave are reversed in regard to World War I. MacDonald voted against entering the war, never supported and took a lot of hits because of it. That stand was probably his finest hour. Henderson on the other hand was a member of first the Asquith and later the Lloyd George Coalition government.

Still Miles never forgets where he came from and why he got into politics in the first place.

By all accounts MacDonald and his wife were a happily married couple as Rosamund John and Redgrave are here. They did in fact have children, one of them Malcolm MacDonald had a distinguished career of his own. Here they are childless and Redgrave is shown taking a peerage and justifying it on the grounds that he had no heir to leave it to. Still it's a sharp contrast to the Manchester slum youth from where he started. In real life MacDonald did not go into the Lords and after this film was made future Labour Prime Ministers like Clement Atlee and Harold Wilson did go in the House Of Lords after their ministry was concluded.

The career and policies of Ramsay MacDonald is still a subject of lively debate among historians, but in Hamer Radshaw, Michael Redgrave captures a good deal of the character of MacDonald and why he did a lot of the things he did. Fame Is The Spur is a fine film and a favorite of mine among the work of Michael Redgrave.

A politician from an impoverished background's life is examined, showing the battle fought and compromises made on the way.

This film is very loosely based on the life of Ramsay MacDonald, but there are significant differences too. It examines the conflict between idealism, principles etc and political pragmatism when the nation is in a state of crisis.

When this film was made Britain had just elected its first post-war labour government, arguably the most radical of the twentieth century. Politicians and citizens alike had largely put their differences aside during the war years and the nation as a whole was straining at the leash for change to occur. This film would have struck a chord with anyone who had any interest whatsoever in politics or the future of the nation. The plot of the film follows just one strand with little in the way of plot or character development outside of that. Michael Redgrave would have been about 38 years old when the film was made; nonetheless he manages to play a range of ages/stages from a young political firebrand to an elderly member of the establishment. It is in this respect one of his finest roles.

Today it is difficult to fully appreciate its political relevance so this film is probably best appreciated as something of a period piece, one for fans of Michael Redgrave certainly.

Seven out of ten from me.

Before they started sending up British institutions The Boulting Brothers actually took them seriously so that while, in the late fifties they might have been satirising British politics, in 1947 they were looking at politics with a very straight face. "Fame is the Spur" was their screen version of Howard Spring's novel about an ambitious Labour politician who grows increasingly more right-wing as he moves up the political ladder. It begins in the late 19th century and ends somewhere around the middle of the 20th. It's a reasonably powerful film and a somewhat dark one and it's certainly not without the Boultings' customary cynicism.

As the vainglorious Labour MP, Michael Redgrave is superb and he is ably backed up by the likes of Rosamund John as his suffragette wife as well as the great Bernard Miles, Hugh Burden and Marjorie Fielding. Of course, the actual premiss of the picture is a bit far-fetched and today it would be the stuff of soap-opera but you have to consider when it was made and the audience it must have been aimed at and even at its most melodramatic, you can't say the Boultings weren't afraid to take a chance. Not the best thing they ever did but also sadly neglected.