A cross between Biggles, Tintin, the Famous Five and Fitzcarraldo

George Weeks posted the link to this the other day, saying:

I love the BBC Archive YouTube channel. So much footage to enjoy. This one is possibly my favourite: The Trans-African Hovercraft Expedition of 1969-70. It's a cross between Biggles, Tintin, Famous Five and Fitzcarraldo.

And he was right.

This film was shot in Francophone Africa, and though I know from a recent rabbit hole that British Africa had all but crumbled by 1962 when Sammy Going South was released, but it's still tempting to place hovercraft beside flying boats and airships as new means of transport that promised to make it possible to maintain the Empire but fell short.

Like Sammy Going South, the film also makes clear the importance of the Muslim faith to Central Africa. And there are thoughtful interludes on slavery and colour that would still be impressive today.

Sammy Going South and the morality of employing child actors

The director of Trouble at Townsend wasn't the only one to have problems with a child star being too well fed. I've read accounts of both Carol Reed and Andrei Tarkovsky making the same complaint.

But Alexander Mackendrick's account (from Wikpedia, with no source given) of the making of Sammy Going South suggests that Fergus McClelland didn't just get too well fed but too happy.

"He was a lean, hard, little boy. Tough as old nails ... a really strong character. He had the hunted look of an abused child, which in some ways he was. He came from a disturbed home; his parents were getting divorced and there were problems. So he was the perfect casting. 

"But when he went out to Africa, he started having the time of his life. The unit adored him and, to my dismay, started to feed him ... he put on weight and there was no way I could stop it. So, instead of this hunted and abused child, who’s supposed to be starving and neurotic, you had a sturdy, stocky, well fed little character. A good actor, but the physique betrayed itself."

McClelland talked about his experience of making the film in an interview with Matthew Sweet for BBC Radio 4's The Film Programme in 2010 – it begins at 24:14 – confirming much of what Mackendrick said. 

Fascinating as child actors can be, it's hard to escape the feeling that there's something inherently exploitative about their employment.

Mackendrick made the film for Michael Balcon's Bryanston Film's – Balcon had been his boss at Ealing Studios. Mark Duguid has suggested:

Balcon saw the story as a heartwarming tale of a young innocent's triumph over adversity, against the fantastic scenery of the African continent. Characteristically, Mackendrick's understanding was altogether darker: he saw it as "the inward odyssey of a deeply disturbed child, who destroys everybody he comes up against".

Mackendrick's attempt to satisfy these two interpretations is probably the reason the film doesn't quite succeed.

A motif Mackendrick's was innocent characters who caused chaos and destruction – think of Mrs Wilberforce in The Ladykillers – so it's no surprise he was attracted to W.T. Canaway's original novel. Ironically, you could say the book managed to strike the balance between his and Balcon's ambitions that the film failed to find.

The original cut produced by Mackendrick was severely trimmed before release, and cut again for the US market. There it was given the ludicrous title A Boy Ten Feet Tall, apparently because it was feared white audiences would assume a film called Sammy Going South was about a black boy and stay away.

Sammy Going South is worth watching for its rare reference to the Suez Crisis in British films or novels and for about the last treatment in a film of British colonial Africa. Sammy's parents are killed in a British raid on Port Said, and he sets out to walk to the only other relative he knows, who lives in Durban in South Africa.

And Fergus McClelland's Sammy makes a credible and winning protagonist, even if Mackendrick was right to despair that he looks healthier and happier as his trek goes on.

Chartwell Dutiro: Mahororo

The opening of Chartwell Dutiro's obituary on Afropop Worldwide:

Chartwell Dutiro has joined the ancestors. More than a brilliant Zimbabwean mbira player and a pillar of Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited during their rise to international fame in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, Chartwell was a musical visionary with a deep and abiding fidelity to the Shona tradition in which he was raised, and a wry, witty cosmopolitanism that made him a singularly effective ambassador to the world.

Shorayi Dutiro’s journey began in a Kaganda village in the Bindura region of then-Southern Rhodesia. According to his passport, he was born on Dec. 26, 1957, but he was never certain of the accuracy, given the cavalier attitude of colonial Rhodesian authorities toward the residents of rural communities. 

He often told the story of how a white doctor, not his parents, decided to call him Chartwell, after Winston Churchill’s summer home. Only years later when he actually visited the place did Chartwell learn that this was the derivation of his name. Nevertheless, the name Chartwell has always appeared on his official documents.

And Wikipedia takes up the story:

As a teenager Chartwell moved to the capital, Harare, and became saxophonist with the Salvation Army band. A little later, in 1986, he joined the world-famous band Thomas Mapfumo & the Blacks Unlimited. Touring the world for eight years with that band, he was their arranger, mbira player and saxophonist. From 1994 until his death in 2019, Chartwell based himself in Britain where he continued to teach and play mbira.

Chartwell had academic qualifications in music, including a degree in Ethnomusicology from SOAS in London where he also taught for many years.

The Joy of Six 1462

"America has become a place where it is no longer entirely safe to speak freely. Where criticizing the Government can get you into trouble, perhaps even cause you to be fired from your job, or deported. Where engaging in public protest can get you arrested. Where every day you wake up with a clenching stomach, wondering what new Government outrage has happened overnight." Alexandra Hall Hall on living in the US today.

Thomas Lockwood says Robert Jenrick's Newark constituency "is now is now a live laboratory test for the future of the British right – and for the fragmentation and reinvention of British politics".

Zoe Crowther talks to Imran Ahmed, the British-born campaigner against online hate who is threatened with deportation from the US. He fears the "tendrils of Big Tech" have already reached Westminster.

Foluke Ifejola Adebisi reflections on the life and death of Patrice Lumumba. "We often decry our current African leaders, their incompetence, corruption, complete lack of willingness to stand up for the good of their countries or their people. But while we decry them – and we must do that with all that we have – let us not forget that we sometimes had leaders who gave their all to the struggle. Their blood, their lives, their spirit, their souls. Let us not forget what happened to them." 

"This myth of 'boy books' does real harm. It narrows reading down to one-dimensional stories built around aggression or dominance. The overwhelming message boys receive is that reading is fine, as long as it reinforces orthodox masculinity and does not ask you to feel too much or think too deeply." Louis Provis on the wrong way to encourage boys to read.

"Hayley Mills was quickly growing out of her childhood film roles and this was an ideal production that helped transition her into more mature teen roles." Silver Scenes celebrates The Moon-Spinners (1964).