The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

"Boys Own"

or

"I Have Good News and I Have Bad News"

The Second World War makes for fascinating history and fascinating reading. The convergence of warfare, technology, and the dark arts of espionage fairly boggles the mind that so much was going on in the background while foot-soldiers and pilots and sailors were slugging it out on the battlefields. The Allies would do anything to gain an advantage. Whether it was Operation Mincemeat, or Operation Crossbow, or Operation Anthropoid or "The Ladies" at Bletchley Park or Alan Turing's "computing machine" or the spies and conspirators at "Camp X", so much was done behind the scenes of "the lines" to disrupt enemy operations or lead them astray that soon the conspirators got caught up in their own chicanery. When secrets were discovered of enemy bombing runs, the information could not be used to save lives lest the enemy discover the Allies' advantage. One cannot calculate the lives that were lost...and needlessly...in order to preserve that most transitory of things, military secrets.

 

They make for good reading,* but Hollywood never seems to think that they'd make good stories unless they're blown up (and real good) to cartoonish proportions. That Operation Crossbow film is a good example of that.

 

Gus March-Phillips in the hirsute form of Henry Cavill

And so is The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Guy Ritchie's new film, which tells the story (sort of) of "Operation Postmaster" an "unofficial" British operation to disrupt the supply chain to German U-boats (or anything else) by dispatching ships that the Special Operations Executive suspected were running arms for the Germans. It was a short operation—roughly 30 minutes—where what was called The Small Scale Raiding Force, under the command of Gus March Phillips, hijacked three ships from the Spanish harbor of Fernando Po in Spanish Guinea, while the ships' officers were being thrown a party ashore (by an SOE agent). The SSRF delivered the ships to the Navy a few days later.

Lassen, March-Phillips and Hayes update a German war-ship on the floppy state of its captain.

Well, that sounds exciting enough, but the screenwriters aren't happy with that, so they invented rescues, subterfuges, feints, a honey trap, and various bloody attacks to complicate the story and make it more of an episode of "Mission: Impossible" than what actually happened, no matter the "Based on a True Story" card that starts the film. The filmmakers take it too far and not far enough—the actors hardly resemble their real-life counterparts and their fighting skills are far more athletic and balletic than the training required of what was called a "butcher and bolt" unit. And although much play is made of the crew being "'A'-Team" "mad," the SSRF has been more described as amphetamine-popping sociopaths (all in a good cause, of course).

In the movie, that's Ian Fleming in the middle and Gubbins on the right.

(Fleming wasn't even in this branch, although he did do some spy-work)

So, don't believe what you see—it's not a true story in the way its being portrayed—and I'll shut up about the discrepancies and just talk about what's there on-screen, although don't be surprised by a pervasive grumbling tone.

It seems that England is having difficulties with German U-boats patrolling the Atlantic, disrupting shipping lines and destroying relief efforts sent from the United States—which is still reluctant about entering the war with troops, despite Germany goose-stepping all the way to France. For Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Rory Kinnear, unrecognizable in make-up), this is infuriating: even if America did send troops, there's a good possibility that the troop transports would be sunk, and any aggressive action is opposed by His Majesty's Government and by the British Navy. Churchill decides to take covert action through the SOE—"Hitler is not playing by the rules and so neither are we"—to take out any boats they can find at sea and try to disrupt the German's supply lines to the U-boats.

SOE's head Brigadier Colin Gubbins (Cary Elwes), with help from his adjutant Ian Fleming (Freddie Fox) spring Gustavus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill) out of irons and tells him of their plans to sink the Duchessa d'Aosta, an Italian merchant ship docked at the port of Santa Isabel on the Spanish island of Fernando Po that reconnaissance has determined is a supply ship for the German U-boats. March-Phillips is informed that two SOE agents, the already established-in-Fernando Po Heron (Babs Olusanmokun, who has become a favorite of mine since playing the ship's doctor on "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds") and Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González, who I'm glad is there even though Marjorie Stewart had no part of the mission) are already on their way to Fernando Po by train to lay the ground-work for their operation.

March-Phillips, while taking the time to mooch booze, cigars and Fleming's lighter, is understandably skeptical ("We both know I'm not very popular with this current administration) and he warns that the troops he wants to gather for the mission are a bit unorthodox ("You won't like them...they're all mad"), and is reassured that he has discretion as the job doesn't officially exist (nor will it ever exist, seeing as they're going to be attacking a Spanish port and Spain is being obstinately neutral in the war as its Prime Minister, Franco, is obstinately a fascist).

One of his proposed team, the master planner of his outfit, Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer) is a prisoner of the Nazis, and March-Phillips and his crew—Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson, streaming's "Reacher"), Henry Hayes** (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), and explosives expert Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding)—do a side-trip rescue on the way, using their Brixham fishing trawler, Maid of Honour, as their transport.

That's a lot of set-up exposition, but one of the strengths of Richie's direction—and of the screen-writers—is that it all gets taken care of quickly, amusingly, and lets you know who's who and what's what before settling into the details and taking care of the action, which is fast, brutal, and probably far beyond what the actual team doing the mission did. Oh, they were perfectly capable of filleting a man with a knife—as happens frequently in the movie—but, the action is just too choreographed to be in any way realistic. Efficient and fast, certainly, but, once a jugular is slit, why keep stabbing?

There's also an air of pushing the "aren't we crazy" throughout, an inherent smugness that carries on throughout the movie. Usually, Cavill is the most visible culprit of this in whatever he plays, and, yes, in the film's first 45 minutes, he succumbs to that—Florence Pugh's line "What a poser..." kept coming to mind—but, eventually he settles down, stops grand-standing, and towards the end, is a welcoming commanding presence and then, towards the end, exquisitely delivers a good James Bond-ish line: "Marjorie! Over-dressed and under-dressed at the same time...as usual."

An aside: Here's an issue that irked me—The "James Bond" angle. Sure, they uncomfortably shoe-horned Ian Fleming (Bond's creator) into the narrative, then capped the movie by saying that Cavill's character, March-Phillips, was Fleming's inspiration for Bond, but I've heard others, including William Stephenson, were Fleming's model—there has been so much speculation and it's usually based solely on trying to make some correspondent's subject matter more important (or at least "buzz-worthy") than it would be without it. Fleming saw a lot of spy-craft during the war, but I think he got his main inspiration by looking in the mirror and fantasizing.

It's a good adventure flick with the added bonus that SOME of it is true, and, surprisingly, in some of the details that they don't make a point of, but it's a bit of over-kill on many levels. War is butchery, after all, and there's quite a bit of evisceration in this film. At one point, in taking over the ships, Ritchson's Anders goes through picking off crew-men, starting with bow and arrows (his specialty), then knives, then an axe, all done with a blood-thirsty glee. "Good times". But, maybe that wouldn't have been as entertaining as what the "mad" "crazy" "sociopathic" members of the SSRF really did when the took over those ships in 1942.

Those crew-men that didn't put up a fight they took prisoner, 29 in all, and turned them over to the British Navy.

The Small Scale Raiding Force—No. 62 Commando

 

Top: Maj. Gustavus March-Phillips, Geoffrey Appleyard,  Graham Hayes, Anders Lassen

Bottom: Marjorie Stewart, Major Colin 'M' Gubbins

The Target
 

* One of my most enjoyable times reading one of these histories is "The Man Called Intrepid" by William Stevenson, published in 1976, about William Stephenson. It's fascinating reading, but some of its validity has been called into question.

 

** The man's name was actually Graham Hayes, and can't think of a logical reason why they might have changed it.

Elvis & Nixon

Mr. Tiger and The Boss Man
or
We Can't Go On Together With Suspicious Minds.

One of the most requested photographs in the history of the American National Archives is also one of the most unlikely and the one of the most trivial. Yet, that image is sold by the government on T-shirts, coffee mugs, magnets, totes, and (if they set their mind to it) could probably solve the National Debt just by the merch from this one image alone. Until such a time that the Archive starts selling Trump-Steaks, probably this one image—this one weird, unsettling image—has done a lot to generating income for the U.S. Government. 

That, and Elvis stamps.

Which, by the way, is more than related. I'm talking about the not historic meeting on December 21, 1970 between Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States, and Elvis A. Presley, The King.

"The King of what?" grouses Nixon (Kevin Spacey) in the new version of the event, Elvis & Nixon (directed by Liza Johnson from a screenplay by Joey and Hanala Sagal and "farm boy" Cary Elwes). Presley is wondering that himself. He's getting heat from "'Silla," father Vernon, and the Colonel* for spending so much money on lavish Christmas gifts. When we first see him (in the form of Michael Shannon, a bit too grizzled for the role but not without its soft-spoken sympathies), he's alone, watching TV in the "television room" of Graceland, Dr. Strangelove (his favorite movie) on one screen, and the news on the others, giggling at one and becoming depressed to the point of shooting out the screen of the others.

Time to get a little air. For Presley, that usually means going out with his driver to get a maple bar, but in this case, it means going to the airport to book a flight back to LA. That's not a problem—money's not an issue and the gal at the ticket counter is only too hyper-ventilating to help—there is an issue with ID, as Elvis doesn't have any, save for a deputy badge from Shelby County, Tennessee. And then there are his guns, one in his shoulder holster and one in his boot. That gets him sent to security and a phone call is made to one of his "Memphis Mafia," Jerry Schilling (Alex Pettyfer), who is trying to make a career for himself behind the scenes in Hollywood. Schilling is a boyhood friend of Presley's, is aware of his eccentricities but also his power—"Does he have any kids?" is his question. A photo with the security head's daughters gets Elvis clearance to fly and he and Schilling meet up to talk about his real plan—to get a federal badge from the Bureau of Narcotics, which he thinks will give him carte blanche to fly whenever he wants without restrictions. He also thinks that being designated an undercover drug agent will give him freedom to deflect any questions about traveling. With the family coming down on him, freedom is on his mind. He is the King, after all...but he's not feeling very kingly at the moment.

But there is nothing more grandiose than the dreams of kings. Presley and Schilling jet off to Washington D.C. with the idea to request a badge from the President (who better?) or, barring that, from the head of the DEA. This causes a bit of a conflict with Schilling, who has to take time off work but also because he had plans later in the week to have dinner with his fiancee's family to ask for her hand in marriage. Both men on the flight have a sense of urgency to get the matter done in as timely a fashion as possible. On the plane, Presley writes a letter to Nixon requesting a meeting and consideration as an undercover narc, for the good of the country.

All true and documented. And so wildly preposterous that it really does seem like a true dream of kings. One wishes that the movie was more widely seen—it started disappearing from screens two days after it opened, probably because, really, who wants to see a movie about Nixon, and Michael Shannon is nobody's idea of a baby-faced Elvis—because it is an interesting, and funny, examination of power, perceived or otherwise. Everybody has an agenda, some more realistic than others, whether it's to curry favor by association or to just get an autograph for a family member ("The leader of the free world is taking orders from a 22 year old college student" Nixon grouses—again— at one point). Because what's the point of power—of celebrity or office—if it doesn't do some good for somebody.

There is no transcript of the meeting—Nixon hadn't started taping yet**—save for Egil "Bud" Krogh's (played by Colin Hanks) notes. So, it's mostly conjecture and projection (Here's something not in the movie—when Nixon ordered Krogh to get Schilling and Sonny West souvenir White House cuff-links, Elvis piped up "They have wives, too..."), but it's not a stretch to think both men did an uncomfortable dance around each other like the movie portrays, Elvis more comfortable with the privileges of largesse and using them, bending protocol, Nixon seeing similarities between the two as regards to the down-side of notoriety and maybe being a little swayed by Elvis' country charm and bullshit.  

And they both had kids and soft-spots for them.

So, how are the actors? Spacey's the best, most accurate portrayal of Nixon I've ever seen and his mannerisms are seared into my memory, so all the faux-Rich Little impressions in the past (including Anthony Hopkins' miserable Oscar-nominated turn in Oliver Stone's film, and Bob Gunton's burlesque in the 1997 comedy version of the events, Elvis Meets Nixon) read more like caricatures and cartoons than any semblance to a real person. The same can be said with Presley (an entire industry has been built up around impersonations of Elvis and the male Sagal of the writing team has portrayed him in the past and plays an EP-impersonator to the polite amusement of the "real one" in a scene in the film), and one can say that this is one that doesn't fall back on cliché (except for a couple of "THENkew's"). His Elvis is a bit introspective, melancholy but plays the game, and has bursts of inspiration where he knows his personality can bridge gaps genuinely, even if most of those he encounters will never see him for who he is or was, only what he has become, very much a politician in his own right. A funny, wise little film about the oddness of power.

* Born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk in The Netherlands: fun fact.

** The movie has a hilarious tagline: "On December 21st, 1970, two of America's greatest recording artists met for the first time."