Colour
There’s something quite terrifying about Tommy Steele’s
teeth. They loom out of his face at you, seeming to lurk and then leap forward,
far further than could humanly be possible. They’re floating white obelisks which
will hide in the dark determined to gnash at you when your weakest moment
arrives. They are not just too big for his mouth, they’re too big for his head,
too big for his entire flipping body. They are horrifying teeth, monstrous
teeth, the kind of teeth great white sharks would be intimidated by. I have
written a lot of horror in my time, but I can think of no more terrifying image
than Tommy Steele’s teeth in 3D cinemascope. Can you imagine those giant, shiny
whites thirty foot high and reaching out to you? It’s the kind of sight which
would make the toughest strong man wet himself with fear.
Equally there’s something quite terrifying about the being known as Cliff Richard. It’s the fact that he’s so perky and smiling, and yet so absolutely sexless. He should have – as the first British rock star – been a figure of snarling, rebellious, unfettered libido. Instead he was a eunuch type character who maiden aunts thought would be quite nice for cuddle. Of course we mock him for having sung ‘Bachelor Boy’ and then never marrying. But I think we should take it more seriously than just a joke. I think Cliff Richard has taken the word ‘bachelor’ and absolutely ruined it. Back in the day your ‘confirmed bachelor’ was a swinging and happening ladies’ man, a proto Don Draper. Now it’s a euphemism for a man who is a bit creepy and odd, but – hey – is okay with that. Thanks a lot, Sir Cliff. And it’s amazing how early in his career this happened, how young a man he was when he truly embraced this oddball image. Here he is in 1964, totally anodyne and as unthreatening as a corner table. Elvis is similarly declared to be neutered post-Army, but this is the same year he had ‘Viva Las Vegas’ (with ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘The Great Gatsby’ not long behind him). Cliff however is already your granny’s favourite, and not a very discerning granny at that.
Here we have an oddball children’s film which shows how utterly irrelevant these original British rock stars had become in the mid-sixties. All the cool kids are screaming at The Beatles and The Stones, while Tommy and Cliff sing to their younger brothers and sisters while idly remembering how nice it was to have testicles. Cliff is the eponymous Bonfire Bill, the man who brings bonfires to all communities every November the fifth. He’s a spectral and other worldly being, but one with boyish charm and a great singing voice. We get to watch him sing songs like ‘Party Every Year’ and ‘November the Fifth – The Day for Fire’ which are every bit as boring and pedestrian as those titles suggest. More impressively, he performs Peggy Lee’s ‘Fever’ with so little heat it wouldn’t even singe the thinnest slice of bacon. On the other side is Tommy Steele as Councilman Ciljoy, wearing a grimace which has served him well in dozens of revivals of ‘The Christmas Carol’. He's a sour-faced misery who doesn’t want bonfires in his town this year, thank you very much, and so bans them.
I think we all know who will win this battle of the out of time 50s’ singers though.
What’s truly depressing about this film is not how toothless (and it is quite a feat to make a toothless film starring Tommy Steele) and sexless these pop stars were by 1964, but how this film exists having torn the guts out of its own setting. There is no mention of Guy Fawkes, there is no mention of the actual roots of bonfire night. That is a story which involves oppression and brutality, one which ends with hanging, drawing and quartering. All of those details are ignored. Instead we get bonfire night as the gift of this impish Easter Bunny-eque character, albeit one with less sex-drive than any rabbit ever born. It’s a dispiriting watch, and the audience can only wish that the chief antagonist – instead of just glowering – would make good use of those teeth and eat Cliff instead.
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