Cinema
Death of a Soldier (`18', Cannon, Haymarket)
Melbourne melodrama
Hilary Mantel
Douglas MacArthur is the closest this town's ever going to see to God,' — or so drawls one offensive Yank in Mel- bourne, 1942. That allies are not always the best of friends is a commonplace, and some years ago a soft-centred film called Yanks had the Americans offending the British; now, in this much grimmer and far more portentous film, it is their turn to offend the Australians. Not that the offic- ers in Death of a Soldier are unaware of the problem. James Coburn, as military police- man Major Dannenberg, explains to an 'One minute I'm working with the loony Left, the next Kinnock sends me down here on a holiday.' unlikely audience of clergymen and madams that he means for his boys to drink, gamble and fornicate the war away, but please, in 'controlled conditions'. 'The money we spend here,' he adds, 'will alleviate any problem that may arise.'
This is a windy, gritty Melbourne, where `old money marries old money', and sol- diers pick up women in the Eden Tea Rooms. Dance halls and bars are the scenes of rising tensions between GIs and local people. 'I'm not a foreigner, I'm an American,' Major Dannenberg protests, but clearly the American presence is a threat to Australian manhood; and womanhood too, as three girls are found strangled. Major Dannenberg must work with the local police (Bill Hunter and Maurice Fields: two good performances, but then they have the best of the script's cynical banalities).
The Americans decide that when they catch the killer they will hang him, to ingratiate themselves with the locals - whatever his state of mind, and hence without regard to whether he is fit to plead or legally responsible for his actions. The culprit, we already know, is Private Ed- ward Leonski (Reb Brown) a large, violent thickie with an unfortunate family back- ground. He is meant to have a certain childlike charm, so that we can see him as a victim, but he has been so strenuously directed that even his behaviour as he walks along the street would be enough to get him certified. Leonski kills the women because, he says, 'I wanted their voices.' Madness, especially in the cinema, is so predictable that one would think that an original folie like this would Ile worth exploring; but director Philippe Mora, who is known for his documentaries, is less concerned with the personal than with the political.
The film is 'based an a true story', yet the details seem implausible. When the Australian and American troops turn their weapons on each other, what we see is a full-scale battle, and if such an incident did take place and yet resulted in only 30 deaths, it is a pointer to the military ineptitude of both sides. The Japanese are out there somewhere, but there is no sense of threat. When Leonski wants to go out a-strangling, he is always free to do so, being impeded by no military duties what- soever.
James Coburn makes what he can of his role. He has always looked like a man who has swallowed a piano; now it seems his face has been fitted with a set of removable loose covers in a useful calico shade. He gets the worst of the script. It is difficult to be original about a court-martial scene permission to doze, sir? — but the director shows signs of getting through it with economy. Until the final speech, that is. Major Dannenberg has given no hint that he can rise above the type of advocacy suited to a case of driving without due care and attention; his muddled outburst about the nature of justice comes as a painful surprise.
Indeed, it is misplaced economy which destroys this film. It is short (93 minutes); visually, it has pace. But — oh dear — it is a film with a Message, it is a film with a Point, and it has escaped both the director, and William Nagle who wrote the screen- play, that therefore argument is required, not constant assertion, that tension is required, not just a series of nasty events. The film-makers have reportedly express- ed 'commitment' to their material, but their cause is not furthered by murder scenes which are lingeringly unpleasant and yet somehow deeply unconvincing. Nor do we need the dramatised extracts from The Ladybird Book of Execution: in other words, if we are told that a man is to be hanged, we do not have to see him marched to the trap-door, the noose put round his neck, the hood put over his head and finally his bound feet dangling. We would take the point.
The question the film raises is worth asking; what breaches of the rules, what breaches of decency, can be condoned in time of war? It is an interesting case history, an intriguing setting, and a lament- able piece of cinema. It would not be worth taking issue with it, except that the reputa- tion of the Australian cinema is so great at present, and expectations are therefore high. But this is trash in the best Holly- wood tradition.
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