Dream A40

As a film it is brilliantly conceived and excellently directed by Lloyd Reckord and is in my opinion a masterpiece. The shocking and imaginative sequence of the fears of homosexuals before homosexuality was legal in the UK makes it, in my opinion, one of the greatest sequences on film. I will give no spoilers but the noose waiting for a roomful of gay men shocked me and frightened me. 1965 is not so far away in history, and while watching this film I wondered if such a time could return again. Thanks to the BFI this film has been saved from an unjust oblivion, and for anyone concerned with human rights it should now be seen and applauded, and no one should be put off either by the subject matter and that it is short in duration. So was ' Night and Fog ' directed by Alain Resnais. I have watched ' Dream 40 ' several times before this review and my mind circled around Kafka's ' The Trial, ' and it is as a work equal to it. Basically it is about two male lovers, and one of them played by Michael Billington is more fearful of society than his partner who wants to be more open about their relationship. I will say no more about the film but only to reiterate that it is essential viewing.

The makers of DREAM A40 had done a short about West Indians in London called TEN BOB IN WINTER a couple of years earlier. Writer-Director Lloyd Reckord (later to head the Jamaican National Theatre) was the first black man to direct a British dramatic film. TEN BOB IN WINTER had been received with enthusiasm at the London Film Festival. A round of industry personalities said "Do show us your next one!" This was not the stepping stone hoped for. Solution - make something more conspicuous?

Reckord came up with this account of the fantasy one of a pair of gay lovers has while driving on a British highway. Put together on the returns of TEN BOB IN WINTER, which the BFI had no idea what to do with as their films never had returns (exageration)along with some money from crew and well wishers, DREAM A40 achieved a professional finish not expected in the "experimental films" made there. It was the first film to attempt a so called feature dub using sixteen millimeter materials and the first film to utilise the new fast Ilford stock comparable to the Kodak materials ALPHAVILLE had just been shot on.

Filming in moving vehicles and in the then to be demolished Blackfriars Station achieves some admired passages.

After months of unpaid slog, the Reckord's new product surfaced at the next London Film Festival, where it was received with nervous silence and then all but vanished from view. It got some circulation among the "Underground" Film events of the day, without opening career paths as hoped for by the participants. Star Michael Billington did manage a long career as featured player and editor Barrie Pattison later wrote and directed the feature ZOMBIE BRIGADE FROM LIZARD GULLY.

DREAM A40 is, in a way, a freeze frame of the unfulfilled aspirations of the next generation of film makers in Britain who faced the disintegration of the country's feature product.