Fame Is the Spur

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.

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.

Howard Spring's novel covering the history of the socialist labour movement was published in 1940, three years after the death of Ramsay MacDonald, on whom the leading character is supposedly based. I think it fair to say that although it might have been 'suggested' by MacDonald's life, there are too many dissimilarities and his political career was far more impressive and influential than that of Hamer Shawcross.

In the film adaptation of 1947 Shawcross has been changed to Radshaw so as not to offend an MP with the same surname and is played by Michael Redgrave. This was a busy period for Redgrave with four films released. He was a complex and tortured man but undoubtedly one of the most brilliant and charismatic actors that this or any other country has produced. The part of Hamer is a gift to any actor and would have been of great appeal to Redgrave who was known for his Leftist beliefs. With the notable exception of Andrew Crocker-Harris, this has to be Redgrave's greatest film performance.

The very nature of fim requires compromises and here the novel has been condensed so as to focus on character types who are, shall we say 'representative'. Hamer is a man who has gone from idealistic Marxist campaigner to being very much a part of the Establishment that he originally despised. An excellent Hugh Burden is his childhood friend who cannot forgive Hamer's betrayal of his Socialist principles, whilst Bernard Miles symbolises the self-made man and unashamed capitalist. The Tory faction is depicted by the pleasant but ineffectual Lord Liskeard of David Tomlinson. Hamer's wife, who comes to represent the Suffragette element, is splendidly portrayed by Rosamund John. Her customary 'tweeness' is not apparent here and she has some fine moments.

The overall direction and pacing are exemplary and this remains arguably Mr. Boulting's most satisfying work.

The scenes involving the protesting miners are very powerful and the final scene where the aged Hamer fails to pull his Peterloo sword from its rusty scabbard is unforgettable.

Legendary Austrian cameraman Gunther Krampf has contributed a marvellous combination of Naturalist/Expressionist cinematography whilst the powerful score of John Wooldridge, taken from us at just 48, reveals his musical debt to his teacher Sibelius. The adaptation has the depth and intelligence one has come to expect from author Nigel Balchin.

The title comes appropriately from Milton, not only one of our greatest poets but of a revolutionary nature himself. Fame might be the spur but 'to scorn delights and live laborious days' is something most of us go out of our way to avoid.

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.

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.