Für König und Vaterland

"King and Country" was made 50 years after the outbreak of the First World War. At a time when most film-makers might have been expected to pay tribute to the men who fought and died in that conflict Losey, perhaps not unexpectedly, chose a different tact, This is a film about a British private on trial for cowardice when, in fact, what he was suffering from was battle fatigue. The soldier is Tom Courtney and the officer charged with defending him is Dirk Bogarde. It's a depressing, small-scale affair, (by comparison, Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" is positively an epic), very wordy and very well played by everyone. It may not be the best thing either Losey or Bogarde ever did, (though Courtney has seldom been better), but it's a bold and honorable film nevertheless. Unfortunately, the grimness of it's subject means it's seldom revived but it is worth seeking out.

The last time Britain was a major force in world cinema was in the 1960s; a documentary of a few years back on the subject was entitled 'Hollywood UK'. This was the era of the Kitchen Sink, social realism, angry young men; above all, the theatrical. And yet, ironically, the best British films of the decade were made by two Americans, Richard Lester and Joseph Losey, who largely stayed clear of the period's more typical subject matter, which, like all attempts at greater realism, now seems curiously archaic.

'King and Country', though, seems to be the Losey film that tries to belong to its era. Like 'Look Back in Anger' and 'A Taste of Honey', it is based on a play, and often seems cumbersomely theatrical. Like 'Loneliness of the long distance runner', its hero is an exploited, reluctantly transgressive working class lad played by Tom Courtenay. Like (the admittedly brilliant) 'Charge of the Light Brigade', it is a horrified, near-farcical (though humourless) look at the horrors of war, most particularly its gaping class injustices.

Private Hamp is a young volunteer soldier at Pachendaele, having served three years at the front, who is court-martialled for desertion. Increasingly terrorised by the inhuman pointlessness of trench warfare, the speedy, grisly, violent deaths of his comrades and the medieval, rat-infested conditions of his trench, he claims to have emerged dazed from one gruesome attack and decided to walk home, to England. He is defended by the archetypal British officer, Captain Hargreaves, who professes disdain for the man's cowardice, but must do his duty. He attempts to spin a defence on the grounds of madness, but the upper-crust officers have heard it all before.

This is a very nice, duly horrifying, liberal-handwringing, middle-class play. It panders to all the cliches of the Great War - the disgraceful working-class massacre, while the officers sup whiskey (Haig!) - figured in some charmingly obvious symbolism: Hargreaves throwing a dying cigarette in the mud; Hamp hysterically playing blind man's buff.

The sets are picturesquely grim, medieval, a modern inferno, as these men lie trapped in a never-ending, subterranean labyrinth, lit by hellish fires, with rats for company and the constant sound of shells and gunfire reminding them of the outside world.

The play, in a very middle-class way, is not really about the working class at all - Hamp is more of a symbol, an essence, lying in the dark, desolately playing his harmonica, a note of humanity in a score of inhumanity. He doesn't develop as a character. The play is really about Hargreaves, his realisation of the shabby inadequacy of notions like duty. He develops. This realisation sends him to drink (tastier than dying!). Like his prole subordinates, he falls in the mud, just as Hamp is said to have done; he even says to his superior 'We are all murderers'.

This is all very effective, if not much of a development of RC Sherriff's creaky 'Journey's End', filmed by James Whale in 1930. Its earnestness and verbosity may seem a little stilted in the age of 'Paths of Glory' and 'Dr. Strangelove'; we may feel that 'Blackadder goes forth' is a truer representation of the Great War. But what I have described is not the film Losey has made. He is too sophisticated and canny an intellectual for that.

The film opens with a lingering pan over one of those monumental War memorials you see all over Britain (and presumably Europe), as if to say Losey is going to question the received ideas of this statue, the human cost. But what he's really questioning is this play, and its woeful inadequacy to represent the manifold complexities of the War.

This is Brechtian filmmaking at its most subtle. We are constantly made aware of the artifice of the film, the theatrical - the stilted dialogue is spoken with deliberate stiffness; theatrical rituals are emphasised (the initial interrogation; the court scene, where actors literally tread the boards, enunciating the predictable speeches; the mirror-play put on by the hysterical soldiers and the rats; the religious ceremony; the horrible farce of the execution). Proscenium arches are made prominent, audiences observe events.

This is a play that would seek to contain, humanise, explain the Great War. This is a hopeless task, as Losey's provisional apparatus explains, 'real' photographs of harrowing detritus fading from the screen as if even these are not enough to convey the War, never mind a well-made, bourgeois play. Losey's vision may be apocalyptic - it questions the possibility of representation at all - the various tags of poetry quoted make no impact on hard men men who rattled them off when young; the Shakespearean duality of 'noble' drama commented on by 'low' comedy, effects no transcendence, no greater insight.

Losey's camerawork and composition repeatedly breaks our involvement with the drama, any wish we might have for manly sentimentality; in one remarkable scene an officer takes an Aubrey Beardsley book from the cameraman! This idea of the theatrical evidently mirrors the rigid class 'roles' played by the main characters (Hamp's father and grandfather were cobblers too; presumably Hargreaves' were always Sandhurst cadets). Losey also takes a sideswipe at the kitchen sink project, by using its tools - history has borne him out.

King & Country is directed by the American Joseph Losey and stars Tom Courtenay as a young soldier in the Great War, shell shocked and facing a court martial for desertion.

Dirk Bogarde plays the officer whose duty is to defend him, at first he seems to be reluctant in his dealings with him, viewing him as a working class imbecile and cowardly to boot. However once he gets to know him a little, Bogarde discovers that many of Courtenay's friends and comrades in his battalion have died, he takes the case more seriously especially as he will be executed if found guilty.

The film is very much a stage play but is also arch as well as having a stylistic template with actual photos of dead bodies from the Imperial War Museum. The set tries to recreate the trenches with a cold, damp, dank setting.

The film has a grim atmosphere as displayed by the foot soldiers and Courtenay is one of them, a soldier who does not realise what he has done and the trouble he is in.

The film highlights the class aspect of the war as the officers have little compassion for the lower ranked soldiers and show no mercy for those driven to despair or madness.

It is 1917, and Arthur Hamp is a volunteer Private with the British Army. After the rest of his company are killed, Hamp decides to "go for a walk," with the deluded intention of making it home to Old Blighty from Belgium on foot. He is caught and put on trial under charges of desertion. If found guilty, Hamp will surely be executed. It is up to Captain Charles Hargreaves to defend the man and prove he was a victim of shell-shock, not a coward. Will Hargreaves be able to save Hamp's life, or will the young man face the firing squad?

Directed by Joseph Losey from a screenplay by Evan Jones, and based on a play by John Wilson- which was, in turn, inspired by a J. L. Hodson novel- 'King & Country' is a devastating anti-war film up there with Stanley Kubrick's 'Paths of Glory.' A frightening depiction of the injustices faced by shell-shocked soldiers in The Great War, it boasts strong dialogue and characterisation, with a gritty narrative both engaging and affecting.

'King & Country' is not just an anti-war film, though. As Losey had done previously with 'The Servant,' the film skewers the British class-system, showcasing its inherent inequality. It portrays the officers as arrogant, aloof and detached from the reality of the war going on around them. They are also indifferent to the plight of the soldiers at their command, who are conversely shown to be loyal and compassionate, for the most part. The narrative also exposes the bias and cruelty of the military court, which disregards Hamp's mental breakdown, condemning him as a yellow traitor.

The film boasts striking black and white cinematography from Denys N. Coop, which enhances the despondent tone of proceedings. Coop uses high contrast, low angles and close-ups to accentuate the feelings and reactions of the characters, while his utilisation of low-key lighting and deep shadows heightens the tension and drama of scenes. Highly impactful, Coop's sterling work is one of the reasons 'King & Country' is so memorable.

Additionally, Richard Macdonald's atmospheric production design creates a damp and despairing environment that immerses the viewer in the harsh conditions of warfare. Macdonald uses realistic costumes, props and sets to recreate the look and feel of a rat-infested World War I trench. 'King & Country' was shot on location in a purpose-built pit near Shepperton Studios, enhancing the authenticity and intensity of the film. Furthermore, Larry Adler's haunting and melancholic score complements the narrative's mood and tone adroitly, lending the film additional power.

'King & Country stars Dirk Bogarde as Captain Hargreaves alongside Tom Courtenay as Hamp, supported by Peter Copley, Leo McKern and Barry Foster. A nuanced and sensitive actor, Bogarde never turned in a bad performance- even if he disputed that- and as Hargreaves he delivers a multifaceted masterclass. He displays the characters' arc- from cynic to compassionate crusader- astutely, while co-star Courtenay is heartbreaking as the innocent, naïve Hamp; a gentle man for whom the endless slog of war proved to be too much. Moreover, Copley and McKern are both brilliant as arrogant officers, while Foster steals his short scene as the unbiased Lieutenant Webb with ease.

A strongly acted, well-written treatise on the class system, Joseph Losey's 'King & Country' is a powerful and poignant anti-war film that ranks alongside the very best of the genre. Boasting stunning cinematography, rich production design and a stirring score, it impresses on every level. Thought-provoking and intelligently made, 'King & Country' will linger with you long after the credits have rolled. It is- if you'd pardon the pun- a film that is absolutely fit for a king; and a country.

Like the incessant rain King and Country mired in mud and military litigation is a non stop emotionally powerful film of human spirit crushed by mechanized war and the necessity to maintain order. It's a chaotic Paths of Glory closer to the front and just as unjust.

After repeated shellings and engagements with the enemy Pvt. Hamp (Tom Courtnay) is arrested trying to walk back to England from the battlefields of Europe. Put on trial for desertion he and his lawyer Captain Hargreaves (Dirk Borgarde) devise a plan to attempt to save him from the firing squad. With shelling in the distance court convenes.

A filmed play with much shot in close-up along with a smooth and unobtrusive camera movement within the claustrophobic confines of the trenches ( with some telling stills) King and Country is an unrelenting depiction of absurd sacrifice stopping only for a moment to exterminate one with those around him scheduled for the same per order to immediately move out.

Director Losey's anti war tract is one of the most sober and ultimately powerful of an era when anti-war films flourished with wild absurdities from King of Hearts to How I Won the War. His inquisitors drab bureaucrats instead of ogres his stage a rat infested quagmire instead of a chess board floor of a French Château the film resonates with a callous, hopeless and to add insult to injury clumsy rush to justice.

Bogarde's Hargreaves is measured and restrained, his pauses and glances masking incertitude brilliantly. Coutrtnay is outstanding as the born to lose Hamp. Both touching and frustrating he states his case with a warped benign logic. Leo Mc Kern's hostile doctor also register's in a gruff way.

King and Country may not match the scale of All Quiet on the Western Front or Paths of Glory but Losey's deft and tight handling within it's limited confine packs every bit as an emotional punch.