ENGLAND MADE ME

UK, 1973, 105 minutes, Colour.
Peter Finch, Michael York, Hildegard Neil, Michael Hordern, Joss Ackland, Tessa Wyatt.
Directed by Peter Duffell.

England Made Me is effective Graham Greene on the screen. It was a pity that it was released so soon after The Damned and Cabaret with which it had so much in common because these fine films were very popular and widely seen and took a lot of the impact away from this film.

Judged in its own right, it is a low-key look at a past world that has many relevant insights into our own. Originally set in Sweden, the film takes place in Hitler's Germany - 1935, and shows, with careful visual detail, this changing country. Hitler's presence is menacing throughout the film. It also shows us the world of international business, its deals, its crookedness, its crushing of persons, its destructive control.
In this setting, the naive young Englishman, so genially sure of himself and his traditions is lost and destroyed. In this setting, the obsessive love of a sister for a brother and conflicting loyalties is again destructive. The film is thus a good social drama as well as being an interesting presentation of human relationships.

Peter Finch gives one of his excellent performances as industrial magnate, Erich Krogh. It could be compared and contrasted with his fine Sunday, Bloody Sunday. Michael York is always a reliable actor. He offers a variation on his Cabaret performance. (These two actors made Lost Horizon together at the same time). Michael Hordern who can give excellent serious or comic vignettes is very accurate as a typical Greene seedy newspaperman.

1. How apt was the title for this film? In what ways had England made Anthony Farrant? What had England made Anthony?

2. The significance of the prologue, giving one of the themes of the film?

3. The prologue's look at Anthony as a person: his independence (running away,) yet his dependence on Kate (her appeal for trust), their relationship to their family? Did they change throughout the film?

4. What kind of person was Anthony and how typical of the young Englishman of the mid-30's? Work in the East, background, money, wandering, a way with girls, loving his sister, on the make - yet with some sense of his dignity, pushy but yet naive? What led to his downfall?

5. Kate - what kind of person? In her work, devotion to Krogh and his empire, ambitious and efficient, her relationship to Anthony and her possessiveness? Was she an attractive character? Why?


6. The importance of Krogh in the film - as a person: German, capitalist, anti-Nazi, personally sympathetic, relationship to Kate (his proposal and its reasons), liking for Anthony and being influenced by him; as an industrialist - his empire, the pressure on his life (business deals, Nazis), his schemes, the injustice, the ultimate impersonal relationships, violence and murder?

7. The atmosphere of Nazi Germany - the detail of the recreation and its impact in the film; the ideology and atmosphere. Hitler's influence; the violence (the bashing of the Cabaret singer); the decadence of the party; the international uncertainty; the financial and respectable world?

8. The role of F. Minty in the film - the seedy journalist (and the cleverness of Michael Hordern's performance), the newspaper world, the intrigue, the gossip, money. Minty's luck in surviving?

9. The role of Hall - henchman and adviser? How did his bashing the old father prepare for his murdering Anthony?

10. The romantic interlude - just romance, its relationship to the other loves of the principal characters? Its showing Anthony as his real self, as a catalyst for his decisions?

11. The development of the relationship between Kate and Anthony - how healthy? How possessive by Kate? Was Anthony too passive? Kate's indiscretion with information? Her being torn between career and Anthony?

12. Was the suspense of the final card-game, Anthony's death and Minty's escape well handled? How?

13. Was the end of the film satisfying (even if we do not know the outcome of Krogh's deals)?

14. Did the film offer insight into Graham Greene's world of success and failure, illusions and disillusionment?