Samuel Beckett has a lot to answer for. I have never seen a production of any of this works, but I feel like being aware of the concepts is appreciation enough. I’m not sure I could endure an actual production of No Exit. Waiting for Guffman is as close as I intend to experience Waiting for Godot.
Beckett didn’t have anything to do directly with 1944’s They Came to a City, but it is easy to discern his influence upon it. This is seriously high-concept fare, where a handful of Brits of different ages, classes and backgrounds walk into a dark void and find themselves on a spartan set recalling Bauhaus architecture. In the distance, they spy a city. For the first half of the film, a door prevents them from reaching that metropolis. After it opens, the characters journey to that city and return to this set to discuss the merits, or lack thereof, of that place. We, on the other hand, will see fuck all of that place.
And those people are…
- A young Googie Withers, who has stopped for a drink in a bar while taking a break from her job hunt.
- Norman Shelly, a brusque, middle-aged executive, who is ultra-conservative and set in his ways.
- Fanny Rowe and Mabel Terry-Lewis are respectively, a lonely woman who appears to be entering middle age and her domineering mother.
- A wealthy, old-school-tie type played by A.E. Matthews. When we first see him, he has been boring fellow members of his country club with tales they have doubtlessly heard a hundred times. Almost all of this character’s dialogue could be replaced with stereotypical huffing and “why I never”’s.
- Representing the elderly and the working class is Ada Reeve, who enters this world by entering the pitch darkness at the back of a supply closet. I wondered what on earth compelled her to walk into the back of the closet, especially as this was apparently the end of her working day. She doesn’t appear to be incompetent, and yet I suspect she thought she was exiting the building (which I guess she did, in an expected way).
- Raymond Huntley and Renee Gold are husband and wife who had been on train when it went into a tunnel. He appears to be conservative, but is frankly sick of society’s reluctance to change. Gold, on the other hand, is terrified of any such changes.
- Rounding out the group is John Clements as a stereotypical young man who is always spouting pro-worker slogans that makes it sound like all his dialogue came from Mao’s Little Red Book. Inexplicably, Withers will fall hard for him, which I found odd, as I always thought young men who seem to be quoting that little red book verbatim rarely end up in women’s little red books of important phone numbers.
The set design we will see for roughly the remaining 90% of the film is all steps and platforms. Some aspects of these characters are made apparent at the base of the structure, with Rowe clearly being the most adventurous. It is no surprise her mother is very reticent to proceed: “What’s the use of saying we’re somewhere if we don’t know where we are?”
At different landings, there are interactions between the characters. I would say there are revelations, except these characters are deliberately drawn so thinly as to be little more than archetypes. But, oh god, how they blather on and on, usually about money, power and class. I was happy when they finally get to a door at the highest level, just so it gives them something different to talk about.
Even so, the extremity of their amazement at this door is pretty weird. Maybe the concept of the door hadn’t made it’s way to England yet. Withers, in particular, gazes lovingly at the immovable object as if it’s love at first sight: ”That door will open when it wants to open and not before.”
When it does, we see the characters cross through and descend steps on the other side. We do not see any of their adventures in the city, but only see when they return, some alone and others in pairs. The reactions to the city we never see are highly polarized, and we never get any significant details regarding what is so amazing or horrible about it. To the best I can determine from the assorted remarks, it is a very clean place, modern, unconventional and the people are regarded as very rude by the more uptight in the group. That was my takeaway when I visited Toronto, but I doubt they walked there.
In the end, some will stay in the city while others choose to return to the world they know. Since I felt no attachment to any of these people, I honestly couldn’t have cared less who chose which option. Apparently, that decision has to be made by sunset, at which time the door will close permanently. I’m just surprised nobody thought to wedge something in the open door, like a shoe, but I know metaphorical doors are supposed to be impervious to that kind of subterfuge.
This is an exceptionally dull film, and I was astonished it was directed by the otherwise solidly grounded Basil Dearden. This is also a curious misstep for Ealing Productions. An accompanying booklet describes what a disaster this was on release, with one contemporary reviewer sagely noting this is “not a film but a photographed chunk of dialogue”. It seems distributors at the time were worried about a perceived left-leaning content in the work. They shouldn’t have been concerned. This is a film which would convince approximately zero people to open their minds to communism.
The first warning sign They Came to a City will intentionally eschew traditional elements of entertainment is a statement in the opening titles that this is “with players from the original London stage production.” I bet that original play was an even bigger slog to endure, as it was the the maiden production of the People’s Entertainment Society, the kind of name where the first word automatically negates the second.
Dir: Basil Dearden
Starring…oh just read the bullet points above, you lazy bastard
Watched on BFI UK blu-ray (region B)