ABC Film Review – Jun 1959
Spotlight on Dirk Bogarde
by John Key
I COULD not have chosen a more exciting time to talk to Dirk Bogarde than on the eve of his departure to Hollywood. Not only was he agog with anticipation at this, his first visit to the Movie Mecca to play the most spectacular role of his life, but he had just completed what looks like being a thriller of exceptional tension and power, and was also receiving tremendous acclaim from critics and public for his last film.
I resolved, therefore, to obtain his views on all three, beginning with The Doctor’s Dilemma, fresh in our memories.
“It was the best part I’ve ever had,” he said, “and the most exciting film I’ve ever made. And it had the most wonderful chemistry.” “Chemistry?”
“The constituents of production: de Grunwald producing, Asquith directing, Robert Krasker at the camera; and I’ve never worked with a cast of such heroic proportions. And the world’s best scriptwriter, of course: Mr. Shaw.”
“How did you get the part?” I asked. “Had you always wanted to do it?”
“No, it was pure chance. We were ready to start shooting Lawrence Of Arabia last year, you may remember. When Lawrence was cancelled, de Grunwald whipped in The Doctor’s Dilemma, and I stayed on for the role of the artist.”
“No more news of making the Lawrence film, I suppose ?”
“I’m afraid not. I was terribly disappointed when it was abandoned. It would have cost an enormous sum, of course. We don’t seem to have that sort of money in England.”
I invited Dirk to offer a comment on his co-star, Leslie Caron.
“She was my first really international co-star. She’s frightfully good; tremendously disciplined; very exciting to work with.”
“And now, in Libel, you are working with another ‘big name’ from over the Atlantic – Olivia de Havilland. What do you think of her?”
“Absolutely enchanting. Wonderfully professional. Never fluffs; never dries up; never late; never holds up the shooting. She and Leslie know their jobs from A to Z, every detail of production, their own lighting, everything. And they work damned hard! Not like some of our girls.”
In the film Libel Dirk plays an English nobleman, married (to Olivia de Havilland), back from the war and suffering from loss of memory.
“It is a ‘who is it?’ rather than a ‘who done it?'” explained Dirk.
“Wasn’t it a famous stage play of the ‘thirties?”
“Yes, it had a long run. Ronald Colman was going to do the film, but he died, as you know.”
“Tell me, is there something unique about this film, for you I mean? Something you’ve never done before?”.
“It is unique in that I am playing my own age for the first time.”
And in order to make him look his age they had to emphasise a few lines and touch his hair with grey, for Dirk is 39. Hitherto, looking himself in his films, he has played parts ten years younger. There’s an appeal in his eyes, a frank youthfulness of smile, a charming insouciance of manner and a slimness of figure, that ridicule the very thought of thirty-nine.
“This film is also unique for me,” continued Dirk, “because I play a dual role-the right man and the imposter. I might add that I have never played in a mystery melodrama before. A good half is trial scene.”
Libel also has in its cast . Robert Morley, Paul Massie (so brilliant in his first film, Orders To Kill, and voted the most promising new- comer of 1958 by the British Film Academy). The film was made by The Doctor’s Dilemma team: Messrs. de Grunwald, Asquith and Krasker.
“Would you rather act in the more serious films like these and The Wind Cannot Read and Campbell’s Kingdom than in, say, the Doctor series?”
“I like to mix them. The Doctor films were great fun to play. Simon Sparrow is a light relief between the dramatic stuff. I enjoy him once in a while. Like having an ice cream sundae, you don’t want too much of it. We do the Doctor at intervals, ageing Sparrow a little each time. He’s becoming more serious, though he never was really involved in the slapstick.”
“Shall you make another ?”
“One more, next year probably. I shall then become a surgeon.”
And now, this being the eve of his journey in search of international fame, I was eager to have his impressions on the film in which he was going to play Franz Liszt, pianist of prodigious virtuosity, composer of the famous Hungarian Rhapsodies, Liebestraumes and other passionate works, man of violent emotions, adored by Europe’s loveliest women, worshipped by a million “fans.” It sounded a plum of a part, but practically unplayable, I’d have thought.
“Aren’t you scared at the prospect?” I asked him.
“Not in the least,” he replied, calmly and confidently. “Liszt is within my range. I’m looking forward to it enormously. I’m only terrified at the technical aspect of playing the piano.”
“Can you play?”
“A little, but that won’t be enough for Liszt, will it! I shall spend my first month or so practising the actual music I’ll be seen playing in the picture. The sound-track will be recorded by the Cuban pianist Jorge Bolet, one of the finest Liszt exponents in the world. They also tell me I shall have an orchestra of 185 players!”
“I remember you played the piano once before on the screen. It was in one of the Somerset Maugham stories… what was it called?”
“‘The Alien Corn’ in the film Quartet. Ten, eleven years ago. Lord! I’m an old man.”
“Wasn’t Eileen Joyce doing the sound-track on that occasion?”
“Yes, she coached me for it. Liszt is a splendid opportunity for me, demanding displays of arrogance, sentimentality, humour, rage (we never get enough of that, I think). It will be a marathon performance, I can promise you. The first script was as thick as the London A to K Telephone Directory, but I can’t see the film running five hours. It will be cut, considerably. We shall make it in America, Italy, Austria, Germany. I’m tremendously excited at the thought of playing in Vienna and Munich, where Liszt himself played. All frightfully romantic! You know what he was with the ladies! We cannot possibly include even a quarter of them. I must be content with a Hungarian Countess and a Russian Princess, I believe. Teenagers, by the way, are going to love it. Liszt was anything but square… when you think of the fans he had following him everywhere!”
Franz Liszt, like Dirk Bogarde, could count his fans in millions. Women used to mob him at his concerts; kiss his hands; snip locks of hair (he wore it conveniently down to his shoulders); fight each other to tear off his gloves (“one of his ‘gimmicks,'” said Dirk, “he only took them off to play the piano”); carry little bottles in which to tip the dregs of his tea and coffee; snap up his cigarette ends… to mention but a few of their idolatrous displays.
“You’re in for the time of your life,” I told Dirk.
“Just what I’ve been waiting for,” he smiled.
