Turn of the Tide

Unique film set in and around Robin Hoods Bay and Whitby. I guess you could call it a Romeo and Juliet amongst this quaint Yorkshire folk. It's nice to see that Robin Hoods Bay hasn't changed in nearly wooden ninety years.

The film itself is a little bit wooden and "ee by gum" accents of the actors can be a little bit of putting, it's a gem and enjoyable for it.

Directed by Norman Walker, our own Ed Wood, this artificial and inept drama has some good moments when the director shows locations shots of Robin Hoods Bay or Whitby, but for the most part it takes place on a cardboard cut out sea front set . Real location shots of ships at sea and fish being bought into Whitby are welcome but are little compensation for the wooden acting, in which the Kensington drawing room style of the cast overlays the Yorkshire more often in an uncomfortable hybrid of speech. The director Norman Walker moves from scene to scene at one pace, and the conflict and characterisation are simply not dealt with dramatically, so that the piece often seems like an amateur drama, where things are "champion". The best bits are usually reminiscent of the superb and ground breaking documentaries which Grierson was then producing under the aegis of the Empire Marketing Board and the music is good . Also, as an early example of combining drama with documentary footage, it deserves praise for originality, but the film as a whole is poor.

For his first venture into features, J. Arthur Rank's organization produced this movie from Leo Walmsey's novel THREE FEVERS. He assembled a cast that would become distinguished, and some fine behind-the-camera talent, including cinematographer Franz Planer.

The story is a complicated one about two competing families of fishers. There's a lot of location shooting around Whitby, and Planer took advantage for a telling mix of shots of the unforgiving sea, rustic bypaths and some strong portrait photography; the best shots are still shots of people, singly, and in three-shots that are typically rough and beautiful.

Watching this, I was reminded of Michael Powell's breakthrough movie, THE EDGE OF THE WORLD; although this one has a more conventional series of plot points, the rough, wild beauty and real world problems of its cast make this a startlingly fine movie.

Rank was so annoyed at the studio facilities at Elstree, he built Pinewood. Here was a man who understood that in order to compete, he had to offer the best product he could.

This film feels much more modern than one typically made only 6 years after the introduction of the talkies. The actors do not adopt the theatrical stances commonly found in films of this age, the sets are well detailed and much use is made of atmospheric external cinematography.

The plot involving love of a couple between two feuding families is hardly innovative and the only downside I find is the somewhat cod (excuse the pun) Yorkshire accents and use of the descriptive but cliched word "Champion"!

Few people have actually seen this title that holds a prominent position in the history of the British cinema as the film that drew J.Arthur Rank into the industry. The authentic location footage shot by the distinguished Austrian cameraman Franz Planer in exotic North Yorkshire depicting the fictional fishing village of Bramblewick repeatedly clashes with the studio exteriors depicting the village itself, the contrast heightened by the vertiginous Soviet-style cutting in the earlier scenes then all the rage in British films; although the tempo of the piece settles down eventually.

The 'foreign' interlopers the Lunns from twenty miles up the coast are the first to use new-fangled engines on their boats, while tugboats are depicted as brash new competitors during a salvage operation. The sense of a long vanished era is further reinforced by the sums of money discussed; "ten quid's ten quid remember" one character says. An almost unrecognisably young and slender Niall MacGinnis makes his debut here; he made an even longer trek soon afterwards to the Shetland island of Foula to make Michael Powell's 'Edge of the World'.