Cinema Retro's correspondent in Scotland, Brian Smith, reports on Sean Connery's appearance at a screening of his 1965 classic The Hill.
HOME, JAMES
Sir Sean Connery
returned to his beloved home city of Edinburgh
to celebrate his 78th birthday. He appeared at the Edinburgh International Book
Festival today to launch his memoirs, Being A Scot. In front of a
300-strong crowd (the event sold out within minutes of the tickets going on
sale) he discussed the book with his co-author Murray Grigor. Scotland's
First Minister, Alex Salmond, attended and after the event hosted a birthday
party for Sir Sean at Bute House, the official residence of the First Minister.
Other attendees included Sean's wife, Micheline and his brother Neil and his
wife, Eleanor.
The previous evening
Sean introduced a rare screening of his 1965 masterpiece The Hill at Edinburgh's Filmhouse
Cinema. Much to his delight,
he was welcomed on stage with the audience singing Happy Birthday. He was
interviewed by film writer, producer and director, Mark Cousins. His wife
Micheline and son Jason were also in the audience. Sean was relaxed and in good
humour as he shared his memories of making of the film as if it was yesterday.
In The Films Of
Sean Connery (Citadel Press, 1993), authors Philip Lisa and Cinema
Retro's Lee Pfeiffer describe The Hill as "arguably the
greatest film of Sean Connery's career." Although not a commercial
success, Sean's involvement grew out of his desire to move away from the James
Bond image after the release of his third Bond movie, Goldfinger, in
1964.
"I was really
trying to do something different," recalled Sean. "More testing and
original for me. The Bonds were very limiting because they were badly planned
and they ran over. So this was a very compact film."
Sean had never met
director Sidney Lumet before and admitted to being "very reluctant because
I didn't honestly believe an American would be able to handle the discipline of
the British army. I was absolutely proved wrong." Sean is keen to point at
that his relationship with Sidney Lumet is the longest he's had with any
director, and cheekily added, "Nothing sexual, mind you!" They would
later collaborate on The Anderson Tapes (1971), The Offence (1973),
Murder On The Orient Express (1974) and Family Business (1989).
"We've stayed very, very good friends," said Sean, "and my wife
and I always see him when we're in New
York."
The Hill is set in a British prison camp in the Libyan desert during World War II. Sean's character,
Trooper Joe Roberts, is sent to the stockade for disobeying orders and
assaulting a superior officer. However, recently arrived Staff Sergeant
Williams (Ian Hendry) persecutes Roberts and his cellmates (played by Ossie
Davis, Roy Kinnear, Alfred Lynch and Jack Watson) by running them up and down
an artificial hill of sand and rock in the blazing sun until they collapse from
heat exhaustion. When one of the men dies after a particularly arduous session
on the hill, Roberts rebels and eventually gains the sympathy of another staff
sergeant, played by Ian Bannen, and the medical officer played by Michael
Redgrave. The film is unrelenting in its depiction of the brutality waged
against these men. It is shot in black and white, the editing is minimal and
there is no music score.
Sean recalled,
"The concept was to shoot in black and white with a fantastic cameraman,
Ossie Morris." He pointed out that being on set was very different to the
finished film. "If you saw it being made in reality, and then you saw it
on the screen, you would say it's not the same place." Oswald Morris let a
lot of light into the camera to replicate, visually, the heat and glare of the
desert sun. The film was shot in Spain, still in uncomfortably hot desert
surroundings. Lumet's direction also called for the actors to climb the hill
for real, and in one take. This removed the necessity of editing and the use of
doubles. "Lumet had a cradle on the side of the hill with the arm on it
and the camera was following us up and down the other side, recalled Sean.
"We were all knackered."
"To be fair to
[Sidney Lumet], because he goes for the difficult stuff, perhaps the sound
suffers a bit, but you can't take away from the central core of what the movie
is and how good all the actors are - including myself!"
This week the
Edinburgh Filmhouse will also be screening Sean Connery in Sidney Lumet's The
Offence (1973), John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King (1975) and
Richard Lester's Robin And Marion (1976). Brian Smith.
Article and Connery candid photographs(C) Brian Smith, 2008. All rights reserved.
For Cinema Retro's review of The Hill DVD click here