I remember an inebriated hack giving me some lofty advice about working for the Daily Telegraph in the summer of 1998. "See here," he said, "you can't burst into the office like you're Charles Bronson or Bruce Willis." The poor deluded fool. I pointed out to the Oxford man that Charles Bronson had played a tough guy reporter in two films of low merit (St. Ives in 1976 and Messenger of Death in 1988).
As for Bruce Willis, one of the most annoying screen actors of the modern age, he played Peter Fallow in the lame brained film adaptation of Tom Wolfe's Eighties novel Bonfire of the Vanities. But that character, based on the infamous English hack Anthony Haden-Guest, was more of an old school yellow type (I.E. a drunk), and is not the sort to ape in the modern age of journalism in which the professional news gatherer subsists.
 |
Bronson deals with a letter from a reader in St. Ives. |
Like fuck. What's wrong with getting smashed on the job, taking long lunches and sexually harassing the posh secretaries called Daisy? It's standard at the Spectator (allegedly). Well, it used to be. Nowadays everyone's a jobsworth twat. However, I was so glad for those words of caution from the Telegraph man back in 1998. I immediately revisited St. Ives and Messenger of Death to prep for life as a hack. In St. Ives Bronson plays an ex-crime reporter who is pals with all the cops (because he is a two-fisted hack) and respected by all the villains (because he is a stand up guy). Not only that, Bronson gets to outsmart John Houseman, the poshest American in American history, and bed Jacqueline Bisset before sending her down the river (she was a femme fatale).
In Messenger of Death, Bronson plays a veteran newspaper reporter out to write a scoop and bust some corporate killers. The 66 year old also kicks a heavy in the teeth and shows no mercy for a "bastard child killer". Watching Bronson juggle deadlines for "the Denver Tribune," and add to the bodycount for the opening lead of the TV news, made me think of all the other fictional hacks of Hollywood. My life doesn't imitate art, you see, it tends to imitate bad movies and old TV shows that nobody much likes or remembers. But how many of these screen caricatures matches up to the real McCoy? Not that many. Nonetheless, here's a rundown of my favorite role models.
I wish the prick from the Telegraph had come to the Odeon on Ken High Street with me in 1999 to watch Clint Eastwood as a gung-ho reporter in True Crime. Clint plays a chain-smoking, hard-drinking, womanizing, over-the-hill, newspaperman who is out to clear the name of an innocent African-American chap on Death Row. Why Clint's character decides to do this is a complete mystery. It's like he's bored and needs some kicks in his life. "Spare me the horseshit, kid," he growls at the black dude in his cell, "did you do it?" The man in the slammer is taken aback. Where was Clint when the Man sent him down? "It wasn't my story," says Dirty Byline. Righting wrongs on a whim and socking it to the system; forget old school vs new school, Clint is everything that a hack should be.
Unfortunately, "Chuck Tatum," my favorite hack on film, is probably the worst role model for a news gatherer. Seedy, self-seeking, womanizing, mendacious, Kirk Douglas' turn in Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole, is a powder keg. Tatum's a disgraced big city hack, a "thousand dollar a day newspaperman" who will do anything to get another scoop in the national Press. I first watched it, aged 17, when I was working for the Old Man at Punch magazine in 1987. The first thing that got me was Douglas' snazzy 1950s wardrobe of cowboy belts and zoot suit trousers. When I mentioned watching it to Dad and Michael Heath the next day at the office on Tudor Street, they both poo-pooed it -- but Douglas' wild intensity, and scheming ways, had already left a big impression.
But that wasn't the first ink stained blot on the psyche. Some years earlier, in 1984, I was watching Laura, the Otto Preminger movie from 1944, and was struck by the camp absurdity of Waldo Lydecker, a newspaper critic who writes his column in the bathtub (see above). Lydecker's full of himself and full of great lines. "I don't use a pen," he tells Dana Andrews police detective, "I write with a goose quill dipped in venom." There's a great scene where Laura (Gene Tierney) gets nicked by the fuzz at a swanky cocktail party. "Don't worry, Laura," he shouts out from the crowd of onlookers. "I have my column. My friends. My influence." This is the great thing about being a newspaperman or a columnist: no one with any smarts will fuck with you for fear of getting shredded by you in the Press.
Rebels and crime busting hacks out to rock the foundations of the nation state always feature in movies. One of my favorites, apart from Humphey Bogart in Deadline USA, is Tank Malling from 1989. Played by cockney actor Ray Winstone, John "the Tank" Malling is a crusading tabloid reporter who has been fitted up for perjury by London hoods and corrupt Old Bill (cops). Disgraced after a prison sentence, Malling returns to journalism with a scoop about grisly murders in Soho being committed by high ranking members of the British establishment.
 |
"I'm a top reporter and the little people out there deserve to know the troof." |
What I love about this silly film is Ray Winstone's character. Tank Malling is a bitter, violent, sexist, drunken, cockney wanker and there is a great scene with him effing and blinding at a posh Henley Regatta type function. Though the film got a lot of hype in the UK tabloids ("brutal and stunning... a considerable achievement" hailed the Sun), it had a small release and pretty much sank without trace.
 |
Ray Winstone (left) gets mullered in Tank Malling (1989) |
There are some memorable scenes. Ray Winstone saying "I'm a top reporter" despite looking (and acting) like a football hooligan. And, being a former ABA champ, Winstone gets to show off his tight boxing skills including a dust-up with former light-heavyweight world champ John Conteh. Amanda Donohoe co-stars as a high-class hooker... Yes, true to her 1980s acting form, Ms. Donohoe gets her kit off for a spot of hanky-pank with Tank (phwoar!)
Another great hack on film is "Johnny Barrett" from Sam Fuller's 1963 potboiler Shock Corridor. Loosely based on the real-life exploits of Nellie Bly, Barrett (played by Peter Breck) feigns insanity to get himself committed into a mental asylum to solve the murder of a patient and win the Pulitzer Prize. This was something that I did, for real, in the real world, three years ago in Atlanta. I very nearly didn't get out of the snake pit and the wife and the National Union of Journalists had to come to the rescue. I didn't win a Pulitzer Prize. I didn't solve any murder or go mad like Johnny Barrett. But I'm willing to do almost anything to get to the "truth" of something.
 |
On the job aged 17 for Punch (1987) |
No comments:
Post a Comment