Hirondelles et amazones

Although no one would accuse this film of being great art, it is a delightful, wholesome and reasonably accurate (albeit simplified) rendition of Arthur Ransome's wonderful book. It is nearly impossible these days to find any movies where the children are kind to one another, the parents are loving and the adventures are free of violence. If you love sailing, old boats, and a pleasant easygoing story, Swallows and Amazons isn't a bad choice. It is one of our family favorites.

I read the Swallows and Amazon books about 40 years ago, but waited until now to see the film! I felt the film perfectly captures the quaint atmosphere of the books and the times in which they were set. The film may not be to modern taste, but it must be considered as a faithful rendition of the original writing, and viewed in that light. Not for the unsophisticated viewer.

When this arrived, I'd finished reading all the Swallows and Amazons novels just a few months before. I'd also just seen the TV productions of the two Coots books (click on my name for that review) and read Roger Wardale's "In Search of Swallows & Amazons" which interpolates a fair amount of biographical data into a photographic search for the real Lakeland sites in which the fictions take place.

Much about this 1974 theatrical film is right, and two things -- both casting issues -- grievously wrong. Judging from Wardale's photos and Ransome's descriptions, the lake lands, Wildcat and Comorant Islands, and especially the two landing sites on Wildcat look perfect or nearly. Also right: the two boats of the title swishing across the lake with the camera set low so that the distances and land masses appear as they might in a child's eye. I like that tacking, so important throughout the series, happens clearly and instructively without anyone ever stopping to explain it, whether Roger running otherwise bizarre switchbacks up a lazily sloping lawn, or John doing a hundred-count to tack in the dark. (Believe me it's clear when you see, especially if you know any of the books.) John and Susan, the one groping toward becoming a natural leader, the other painstakingly matronly yet able to break in an instant into a child's sprint, seem well cast and anchor the group. Able seaman Titty's the best cast. She has the most active imagination in the group, always seems more actively and willingly to believe, while the two older children have to work just a little at pretending. Roger, to me, looks a little two Alfred E. Newman, but does no real harm to the film.

The most horribly miscast is Nancy, the older Amazon. Though a bare year older in the books, here she towers over the others. I think she's at least as tall as the other miscast character, her uncle "Captain Flint," and even has a figure with which she could pass for eighteen or twenty. But worse than that, she's not wild enough. Not until the very end does she utter a single grudgingly weak "Shiver me timbers," or if she did before they were too limp to notice. She seems nearly as "native" as the Swallow's mother, while she should have been a driving force, the most vivid pretender, or equal at least to Titty. I'm not sure how to describe to who haven't read. Maybe the closest I can come is Charles Shultz's Peppermint Patty but with a lot more confidence. Reading, I always heard Nancy's "Shiver me timbers" as raucous as a parrot's cry.

Bird-faced actor Ronald Fraser's Uncle Jim, or "Captain Flint," looks like a fifty-year-old petty magistrate. He could never sincerely belong with these kids against the Natives. He IS a native, irredeemably. (Natives are adults, shore people, or in general anyone not in on the frame of mind out of which the term Native comes.) Ransome's Captain Flint is fat and knowledgeable, playful but seldom or never silly. Ronald Fraser condescends in a way that's anathema not just to the real fictional Flint but to Ransome.

But please take the good of all I've said, and do see this film.

I read all the Arthur Ransome books as a child, and re-read them recently as an adult, but until today had not seen this film.

It's well filmed, with only minor plot adaptations (although large chunks are missed out), and the scenery and period details are especially well done. The boats look good!

The chunks missed out from the original story do give the film a slightly "chopped" feeling - it's difficult sometimes to work out how the characters got where they are.

The acting lets the film down a bit, I think. The best of the Swallows is Titty by quite a long way - Susan is OK, but nothing special, and the boys are both awful - the worst kind of declamatory child acting. The Amazons are pretty good, but as they feature less in the book the bad acting of John and Roger really does spoil the film a bit. Odd that of these actors, John seems to have gone on to have the best career!

The thing which the film lacks most, perhaps inevitably, is the narrative. Watching the film made me realize just how the skillful prose of the books draws you into another world - something the film doesn't quite manage.

Yes, pretty wooden acting from the children, but I think that was pretty common 34 years ago! However, it's still a good film.

Regarding the likelihood of any parent allowing their children to do what the Walkers did, even at the time - my uncle aged 14 was allowed to take his two younger brothers (10 and 8) overnight camping in a very similar boat on the Solent in 1926 - a far more dangerous place to sail! They were all "not duffers, didn't drown".

I think the film still appeals to younger kids. I took my god-daughter and a friend (8 and 6) to the island in a small dinghy with tan sails, and we lit a fire at the camp ground and filled a kettle from the lake, just as the Walkers do in the film. That was in 2005, and they loved it!