Innocent

When I think back to the list of "greatest films" The Spectator magazine compiled I realise how daft the list was. I have just seen "The Night of the Hunter" again and think it, yes, a rather good thriller with some fine performances in it, but "Best film of all time"? It was directed by Charles Laughton who had never directed a film before that and didn't direct one after it (probably because it was a flop at the box office). How is it that a novice like him could direct the greatest film ever made? John Ford directed hundreds of films, some silent, before he directed the magnificent "The Searchers".
It's pretty obvious that the compilers of the list weren't film fans but the sort of people who go snootily to art houses and film societies not to the cinema as we all know it.
I have started to read "Innocent" by Scott Turow and am compoletely absorbed by it. What a fast moving thriller! It is a sequel to "Presumed Innocent" Scott's first novel back some twenty years ago which was also completely absorbing.
Which brings me to the film of "Presumed Innocent". Surely this is the best courtroom film ever made and, in my opinion, one of the best films ever made. Was it on The Spectator's list? Don't recall it being there. It was certainly a better film than "The Night of the Hunter". It was, of course, not the work of a one-off director but one who had already established himself as a skilled creative artist ("Klute" comes to mind) - Alan Pakula.
I thought "I must see that film again before I finish the sequel "Innocent" in which the same character, Rusty Spavich, is indicted for the crime of killing his wife; so I thought to go to Blockbusters, just down the road - get for about £4; then I thought "the town library with its large collection of films from all over the world". But that would be days if not weeks before etting it (tranferred to my local library) and I want it now or in a few days' time. So I then thought "Amazon". I got it for £1.30. It will arive Monday or Tuesday. Can't wait to see Greta Scacchi lead Harrison Ford into the office for.... you know what.
Well, I can't believe it: David Thomson doesn't even include "Presumed Innocent" in his famous book of the world's best films "Have You Seen".

Cops

There's an interview in The Daily Telegraph with a Stuart Diamond, a "how to get what you want" guru. You have to know what to say to people that you want something from. For example: one afternoon in New York, Diamond was pulled over for speeding; he didn't, like most people, stare bitterly at the steering wheel; instead he said: "Thank you so much, officer, for stopping me and doing your job. You probably just saved my life." The outcome? No ticket.
Brings to mind what I usually say to passengers, my wife for example, if I see a copper staring at my car or am travelling along with a police car on my tail: "If I'm stopped I shall say to him: 'Haven'y you got anything better to do with your time -like catching crooks?" I hear a "humph" from the next seat.
Also brings to mind a friend of mine who drove a Volkswagen "bug" (the best car he ever had, he said). He always drove fast. One day he was sailing along at about 50mph (or more, more likely) when he was stopped by a police car. "Do you know that this is a 40 mph limit?" the copper asked him. "My friend said: "Sorry officer, I was just slowing down." "From a 30mph limit sir?" What did my friend do? He laughed. He couldn't help himself. It was a genuine laugh not a mocking one and the policeman could see the humour in it. "Go on," he said and waved him on without charging him.
So humour also helps sometimes. But I was once told by a policeman that you might get away without a ticket from an ordinary cop by being nice to him or acting in a gentlemanly way but you won't get away with it from a traffic warden. It seems they don't have a sense of humour at all.

Tax

There's an article in this week's Spectator arguing that while most people would like to see bankers bashed because of their profligate ways with money, some of it ours, the facts are that because of the high rate of tax on the richest people, some of whom are bankers, there is a tendency for them to move to other countries and thus take their tax elsewhere, other than into the government's coffers. This may be true. The argument put by Fraser Nelson is well put. And he feels the government is making a big mistake in pandering to popular demand for .... what? Well, for revenge I suppose. "Why should they do so well after they ruined the country's finances while I'm here working my things off.... etc etc".
Michael Caine argues something else, diametrically opposed to that feeling. He says "We've got 3.5 million layabouts on benefits, and I'm 76 years old getting up at 6 a.m. to go to work to keep them."
I can see his point. I'd see it better if he wasn't an actor. But it's a valid point just the same. And it would with some justification be still valid if pit-worker Jim Bloggs (Joe Bloggs's brother) were to say it. More valid.
But where I was left cold with stupefaction was this comment from Tracey Emin: "I'm simply not willing to pay 50% tax...." She added that she might emigrate.
Is that a threat or a promise?
Does this outburst mean that she is in a top tax bracket? Does it mean that there are rich people out there paying for her stuff? It doesn't bear thinking about.

Torture

A long time ago there was a play on television by an MP, well known thwen as a writer of novels. Cannot remember his name. The play for TV concerned an MP who was against all forms of torture. The usual reasons were laid out so that one could nod sagely and agree. But the man's daughter was kidnapped and he found himself in a position where, to extract information about his daughter's whereabouts and safety from someone the police (in a foreign country where torture was a sort of way of life) had arrested, he could resort to using their trorture intruments which involved passing electric currents through the man's body. Did he? Would he still expound his views on the moral reasons of not resorting to torture? Or would he himself use the weapons he was invited to use?
He used the weapons of torture and extracted the necaessary information. His daughter was saved but his moral being was compromised.
Torture is used all over the world, even now in these enlightened days - or are they? I recall a film, The Algiers Story it may have been called, which was about the French occupation of Algiers. It was a great film but a thoroughly nasty one in many respects: there were atrocities perpetrated on both sides - suicide bombings by the Algerians, shootings at close range by them, and there was torture used by the French (one of the actors in the film who played a Colonel in the French army was the actual Colonel who had done the torturing - evidently he thought it necessary).
Janet Daley has written a superb article in The Daily Telegraph today about the use/non-use of torture. David Cameron stated, she says, that torture was wrong and that "we ought to be very clear about that"; then he added: "And I think we ought to be clear that the information we receive from torture is likely to be unrelaible."
Why the second statenment she wanted to know. "What point is there in discussing what Mr Cameron calls the 'effectiveness thing' at all?"
She goes on to discuss in depth the moral imperative questions that John Stuart Mills wrote about; but her point is already, simply, made: even if torture were to prove effective, should it be used?
It's easy to answer no to that. But you come to the MP and his daughter in the TV play where you yourself are involved emotionally. Or to a question of the man who knows where the nuclear weapon is but won't tell.: should you squeeze the information out of him or let the bomb go off? And there's President Bush and waterboarding. Should he be tried in a court of law for allowing it to go on? He maintains that heaps of important information was discovered that saved many lives. We'll never know.

Brain Washing

I can just about comprehend someone who has been brain-washed by some obscure cult following their teachings: it's quite common. Wasn't there a cult that sensible people joined in which they were told that they were going to a certain comet if they took this poison and died? And didn't they take it and die? Yes they did. When I heard that I went outside to look at the comet - Bob or some such thing it was called - and wondered how anyone in their right mind could have.... but there you are, the world is full of "culters". And, of course, the world is a-plenty with cult runners, charlatans often who take your money and sleep with your wives or your children. So I shouldn't be surprised that a young woman reads a website, gets taken in by the so-called arguments to go out there and do something drastic like knife an MP, should I? Well yes, actually I am surprised. But there, as some American politician said, "stuff happens".
But what I do not understand is the police reaction to what happened next. The young woman was tried and given a life sentence which she seemed perfectly happy to receive (that did make me wonder what planet she's on) but nothing was done to her followers inside the courtroom and afterwards outside (though I have to admit that they were kicked out of the court) who shouted abuse and threatened to kill the MP and cheer on the girl, who's life is ruined, and make the usual fuss these people do when something doesn't go the way they want it to.
Were they arrested? No they were not. Were they told to bugger off? No they were not. Will they be there next time when somebody else tries to knife an MP? Yes they will.
If I went out onto the street with a banner saying "Kill the Mayor" I'd be arrested instantly.
There seems to be one law for the non-cult followers and another for the brain-washed.