All language subtitles for The.Bed.Sitting.Room.1969.720p.BluRay.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

This lease means peace in our time.

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(LOUD EXPLOSION)

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Good evening. I mean that most sincerely.

- I am the BBC, as you can see.
- Oh!

And here was the last news.

This is the third, or is it the fourth anniversary
of the nuclear misunderstanding

which led to the Third World War,
the very shortest war in living memory,

lasting two minutes, 28 seconds,

up to and including
the signing of the peace treaty fully blotted.

The population of Britain
was reduced from 58,746,379

to the 20 survivors,
who regrouped themselves to rebuild society.

Quickly, familiar patterns of civilisation
were re-established.

Ah! You're home early tonight, Father.

But just as life was returning to normal...

(IMITATES ANIMAL SQUAWKING)

People started turning to...

(BELLOWING)

(CHUCKLING) Turning into other things.

(THUDDING)

MARTIN: What is it, darling? Chicken?

No, it's Daddy.

MOTHER: Get your hand out of my drawers!
I'm a mother!

I think I may turn into a bed sitting room.

Ah! Ah, that's probably atomic mutation.

Take three guineas, for your rent?

THE BBC: With characteristic courage
and determination,

the entire population dedicated itself
to perpetuating the British way of life.

♪ God save our gracious Queen

♪ Long live our noble Queen

♪ God save our Queen... ♪

No, no, no! We don't sing that any longer.

- You don't?
- No, we sing now that

God should save Mrs Ethel Shroake
of 393A High Street, Leytonstone.

Oh.

Of the 20 people
who are known to be left alive in England,

she stands next in line to the throne.

(THE BBC READING)

This is the instant God kit, sir.

Alley-up there.

(THE BBC READING)

Now, no, no, no!

See reason, Mildred!
Mildred, you're worse than your mother!

(THE BBC READING)

I want you to treat me
just as if I was your father.

(SCREAMING)

(THE BBC READING)

Bringing together for the first time
in living colour

the entire population of Great Britain,

in order of height.

(CRASHING)

A team of surgeons at the Woolwich Hospital

have just accomplished the world's first
successful complete body transplant.

The donor was the entire
population of South Wales.

"I am forced to ask,
have we forgotten the bomb?"

The bomb?

(STUTTERING) The bomb!

- The bomb.
- The bomb?

The bomb!

Just sign there, sir, on that line.

THE BBC: ♪ God save Mrs Ethel Shroake

CROWD: ♪ Long live Mrs Ethel Shroake ♪

- MAN: Mark it.
- Five, take one.

BRADEN: How did the American opening go?

It was $25 a head, black tie, after a gala

and started at 11:00 at night.

And I think they were all waiting for
John Lennon to play the guitar by reel three.

It had one of those nicely mixed reactions of...

Upstairs, where people could get in
fairly reasonably,

it was filled with the
ex-Oakland demonstrators.

And downstairs were the people
they were demonstrating against.

So it was busy.

I went directly from there to Munich,
which was more exciting

because the film seems to be
an opportunity to

launch a great political platform.

It's a kind of springboard that people dive
into total political attitudes.

And there was a neo-Nazi party man,

who started quite calmly
talking of how the film was insulting

the brotherhood of men in the service
and his gallant British counterparts.

And ended up in this sort of
great Nazi campaign speech,

with a whole audience of students shouting
Sieg Heil at him

and laughing and sending him up.
It got quite terrifying.

BRADEN: You were away when
they had the little fracas here, weren't you?

You mean, the one I had my mother do?

(BOTH LAUGHING)

- Yes.
- Yeah.

Uh, that was an organised bit, obviously.

I don't know what it was.
I really don't know what it was.

But reading the lines that were spoken there,
it seemed to be the local British fascist party.

It is an interesting point, though, isn't it?

Leaving aside the authorship
of the original book

and going back to, say, Beyond The Fringe,
where the boys did not an anti-war sketch,

but a send-up of the British during the war,

there is, I suppose, a certain resentment
on the part of a generation

that people who were not of that generation,
did not have the experience,

-should take it so lightly.
- Yes, I think it's a question of...

It is that sinned-upon generation, if you like,
who decides how lightly it's being taken.

We all take it very seriously.
I mean, I take the film extremely seriously

and say that any comedy is in the film
for alienation purposes

and for purposes of shocking

and making an audience uneasy.

In the fact that I...
Having just come back from America

and watched 30 or 40 hours
a week of Vietnam

sitting, flickering silently in people's
television screens and no one watching

and the mass refusal to commit,
when you look at an automobile accident

or a photograph of an automobile accident
saying, "Stop speeding."

That I feel that the best way is the
Brechtian way, and that is to laugh about it

and have the laugh turn on your face.

It seems to me to have more impact
than the general either sincere approach

of saying, "All this is horrible and I wish
that you were a three-dimensional real man

"with whom you can identify."

That to me leads you to say
there should be humanity within war.

And having the guns and the planes
and the background music and the tanks,

these are such exciting toys,

these are such convincing
pieces of entertainment

that you end up, instead of exposing war
as a sort of showbiz con trick,

you're just adding to the myth,
having another piece of glorification.

BRADEN: There's a sense, then,
if my recollection of the book is correct,

-in which you've added a dimension to it.
- We've totally destroyed the book, in fact.

I feel that the film should say,
"This film provoked by the book"

rather than "inspired" by it.

I feel that the book is condescending,
in that it implies

that if all the British working soldier
wants to do

is to go out and sleep with ladies,
that's all, you know,

and once, as long as you give him that
and his tea, it is okay.

Which I find an objectionable attitude
and I hope that the film rejects that totally.

BRADEN: That brings up
an interesting point.

You at this point become
a benevolent autocrat,

but it brings up the basic point of
what filmmakers do to books, doesn't it?

In a sense, you're now criticising a book

but once somebody sells a book
to a film company,

he has no further control, does he?

He doesn't. Many times
he quite deliberately doesn't want to.

I remember that in making the film
of The Knack,

Ann Jellicoe was offered the opportunity
to write the screenplay and refused it.

She hates the screen version of it,
and understandably.

Because when we took the play,
instead of opening it out and saying,

"Well, that scene that was in the house,
we'll now do it in the field,

"and therefore it's a film."

I asked the writer, Charles Wood,
to write a complete fantasy

based loosely on the emotions of the piece.

And he wrote a completely
unfilmable fantasy treatment

with trains going across the Forth Bridge
and coming up in the middle of Hyde Park.

Just complete madness.
And slowly, as the versions went on,

we worked our way backwards
towards the book,

saying, "This is what we need to retain.

"This is why we really wanted
to do the piece in the first place."

And all we felt on doing this
with How I Won the War,

that we wanted to retain
was the names of four characters,

the basic idea that is
the memoirs of a non-entity as a soldier

who considers himself to be a prime factor
in the winning of the war,

and one episode, and that was all that we felt
we should retain.

We felt the book, in fact, was one of those
funny books about war,

which to me are more obscene
than the serious books.

I feel that if you're using comedy
for a serious purpose

and that purpose is dedicated to the sanctity
of the individual within war,

that you are causing less disrespect
to those who have lost their lives

than The Dirty Dozen,
the John Wayne's Green Berets,

the Audie Murphy mowing down 250 men
with a machine gun,

and even Paths of Glory,

where you find that if only Kirk Douglas
had led our troops in the beginning,

we would have gone out more efficiently
and killed the Germans at the Ant Hill.

BRADEN: Did you have
the experience that I did,

of originally been impressed by Paths of Glory
and seeing it again being disappointed by it?

I was originally impressed
by the technical skill,

by which he proved to me
a very shallow and unfair argument.

To me, Paths of Glory summed up my line
in our film,

"What we want are more humane killers."

BRADEN: Yeah.
Let's hold that reel there.

WOMAN: Cut.

Five, take two.

BRADEN: During your own present
and future career,

I suppose it's fair to say that to some extent
your experience in doing commercials

before you did feature films showed itself
in some of your earlier feature films.

Yes, except I think, for the sake of accuracy,

I made my first feature film
before I started making commercials.

And I tried to do them side by side
and have been...

In fact, I just made a commercial
a couple of weeks ago

which I hope will help answer some questions
about the film I'm about to start.

BRADEN: What I'm really getting at is
that there has been, to me,

one of the outstanding things about your films

has been a sense of "I refuse to bore people",

which is something that commercials
have to take into consideration.

And the movement
and juxtaposition of cutting,

and fantasy with reality

is something that has become
almost a trademark of yours.

Except I... I don't think of it as that.

And of course, I'm subjective
and not therefore a good judge.

But I feel that it comes down to
whether I make the film primarily for myself

and yet consider myself a communicator,

in that if I were constantly thinking
in terms of expressing a subject,

I wonder whether everybody in the audience
throughout the world will understand this.

You find yourself reducing the film
to its lowest common denominator,

searching around for the stupidest man
in the world with the slowest reaction time

and showing him films 24 hours a day
and saying, "Do you understand this, Ed?"

And he says yes or no.

I feel that you have to make films
to your own metabolistic rate.

And in that way, your lifespan is short
because your audience is always 22

and you're always a year older each year.

And that one day I know I will go
into the cinema

and find myself
watching a bunch of hamsters reacting.

At the moment, I feel that my rate of reaction

is equal to what I consider the audience to be.

And I have tried desperately
not to underestimate the intelligence

and the reaction time of an audience.

BRADEN: There's a sense in which
you have being accused of

usurping, to yourself,
the prerogative of the actor,

the Zero Mostel, the Phil Silvers, in timing.

Very often by cutting to a close-up
in the middle of a scene or a speech,

you have usurped yourself
the timing of the comedy.

Yes, I think that's fair comment.

Where it works is with someone who is willing
to be adaptable to that technique.

Where it is difficult for it to work
is someone like Zero,

who is a marvellous stage performer.
But I think that there are also...

It's a little bit too easy a statement,

because in the case of Zero
we were dealing with farce,

and a very traditional three-doored farce

in which the audience always
has to remember which door

the people are supposed to come out of
because on that door rests the plot.

BRADEN: Just hold that a second.
Can you again say,

"In the case of Zero, we were
dealing with farce," and take it from there?

Because we had a lot of traffic behind that.

But in the case of Zero,

he and I worked together
on the visualisation of a farce play.

And a play which, for its complex plot,
it is necessary for the audience to remember

which of three doors
someone is lurking behind.

To that extent, the minute you go into
close-up on film, the audience has forgotten,

and therefore, to me, it's the hardest form
of visualisation of a piece of theatre.

Also with Zero, I think as a man,

his great strength to an audience

is that he is unexpectedly graceful,

that he is an elephant
moving with extreme grace.

And in order to show this on film
you would have to be in long shot all the time.

- Now, that's quite true.
- So I think

the specific of Zero is something that
we can't really talk about in terms of usurping

because I was trying to use my own technique

in exchange for what I feel that
he could not give on the screen.

BRADEN: How do you balance,
in terms of casting ideally for yourself,

the self-sufficient professional actor

against the man who will be more...

may not be quite so good an actor
but more malleable in your terms?

Well, in the case of How I Won The War,
I tried to choose a group of people

to play parts in a platoon
whose techniques of acting

were each different from the other,

so that there are in that platoon
a Shakespearian actor,

one of the foremost authorities on Beckett,
a pop star,

a man from television who is
automatically sympathetic, Roy Kinnear,

a professional technical actor, Michael
Crawford, Michael Hordern if you like,

so that you don't get the sublimation
of their acting technique

into one well-knit platoon of actors
who are playing in an ensemble way.

I felt that that would be harmful
to what we were trying to say,

in that the men in this platoon
never really got on well with each other

and never spoke to each other.

But casting generally for me is ringing up
my friends and saying, "Who's not working?"

BRADEN: (LAUGHING)
I know that feeling, too.

Especially when I'm not working.

(LAUGHING)

In terms of the future now,
do you see any changes

in your own attitudes when you're talking
about growing a year older every year?

Is there a direction in which you wish to go?

Either in the choosing of stories,
in the techniques or the kind of film?

Well, I feel that there is
a direct line in my work

from A Hard Day's Night to The Knack
to How I Won The War

to the Warner Bros. picture with Julie Christie,
which at the moment is untitled,

that we are using comedy for as serious
a purpose as it can be used.

The first two films may not seem
to be serious films to an audience

but they're very serious to me.
I took them seriously in what they were to say.

It was serious for me.

I feel that I am at the stage now,
and I may not be if I fall from grace

because we have about a buffer
of about two films that may be unsuccessful,

up until now, my last four films
have made $40 million

and so people are apt to give me
a bit of money and say,

"Go off and make it and don't really worry us."

That may change very quickly.

But I like to find a subject, an area of interest

of which I am excited and feel is important,
whether it be religion or war or something,

and then try to find a specific project
that will best express

what I want to in that.

In that I've had now four different options
on books about Jesus.

Some in modern day,
some in allegory in 1990,

one about the salt of the earth,
about the life of Jesus.

I don't know still which is the best way
to deal with a subject

which I feel to be very important.

And I won't know until I finally get
the best screenplay out of them.

BRADEN: Are you saying that you
conceive of a life of Jesus which will include

aspects of comedy?

Yes, I do. I don't think there is any subject
that cannot be dealt with in comedic terms,

provided that the comedy is being used
for a totally serious purpose

and that it's not used just gratuitously.

BRADEN: Would you take that
to the extent...

I mean, one can see where
Peter might be made a clown of?

Would you apply it to the character
of Jesus himself?

If I felt that there was

a justification for it, yes. For example,
if you were doing it in a modern allegory,

one would automatically say
of course you can.

I mean, if you say that
the modern-day Jesus is in fact

a man who climbs modern architectural
buildings by night to prove that he can do it,

or that he works in, sort of,
a cooperative bakery

turning out loaves
because they've run out of flour...

I'm sure there is a justification for it.

When you say let's deal with Jesus himself,

it depends on whether you are making a film
about the myth or about the man.

If you're making a film about Jesus
as a political figure,

then an element of comedy,
there is no reason why that shouldn't come in.

BRADEN: If... Do you find that
other directors stimulate you in any way?

I mean, do... Can you foresee, on seeing
something of Claude Lelouch's, for example,

that you might get stimulated to wanting
to go in a direction that he is now going,

but that you had not considered going
up to this point?

I think I've been influenced by every good film

and every good piece of theatre
and every good thing that's happened to me.

And certainly

if I see some staggering theatrical experience
I would be influenced by it,

but I know that within myself
there are certain areas that I cannot do

because of my nature.
I could not make Man of La Mancha

because its core is
a piece of sheer theatrical romanticism.

And I am definitely an anti-romantic.

I took the subject in this Julie Christie picture,
which is a romantic subject,

as judged by its title,
Me and the Arch Kook Petulia,

and turned it into a totally anti-romantic,
sad and rather desperate love story,

because although I found
the characters interesting,

I could finally not bring myself
to accept behaviour in romantic terms.

This was one of the troubles with Forum.

It was a basic piece
of romantic escapist farce

and I kept trying to find out
how narrow the streets were in Rome

and what conditions the slaves were in

and ended up putting two weeks' worth of food
and garbage in the streets

before we started to shoot

so that the flies and wasps would be there
for the location shooting.

BRADEN: Let's hold it there. That's fine.

What is this all about, Bernard?

BRADEN: Well, we're gonna play
a sort of association game, for a start.

And it doesn't mean that you have to say
the phrase that immediately comes to mind.

When I say a phrase, it means
what does the phrase mean to you,

for as long as you care to talk about it?

Such as, for example,
"There'll always be an England".

There always will.
Yes, of course, always will be an England.

Well, what it means in terms of...

It's a great country, a small country.
It's a different thing, you know.

BRADEN: That's what I want to know,
what you think about...

Well, I think it's got the skids under it.

I think that this national energy that every
race gets at one time or other in its being...

(SIGHS)

...finally peters out.

It's petered out. It's going down.

People... The patriotism which
keeps a country together,

all country has to have
major patriotism to make it drive, it...

I suppose the Americans were so patriotic
in 1900. It just wasn't true.

But now you get people

and the incredible scene of America
being bombarded by their own kind

inside their own House of Representatives.

So, this country doesn't want to
know about patriotism, except a few soldiers,

so it's going down, the energy's gone.

It's complicated, there's more of us,
there's less money, less initiative,

less liberty, less freedom,

therefore we're paying the
consequences of it, you know.

BRADEN: Is there a sense...
Isn't there a sense in which

that isn't so much the reason for
loss of energy,

as just the natural complexity

of a growth of so-called civilisation

in an island this size
with a population as big as it has?

Pardon?

Isn't there a sense in which this
particular situation isn't caused so much

by a loss of energy on the part of the
people, as a growth of so-called civilisation

which is so complex
that it adversely affects...

- Oh, yes. I see.
-...an island this size...

I see what you mean, Bernard. Yes, of course.

All the time, that I was talking about
this natural energy that's going on,

there is another layer of circumstances
which are coming up as the result of science,

as you say, overpopulation,
constriction, laws, all this.

This is going all the time.

It just happens to have come along
and reached a sort of a climax.

Both of these things, the decimation of energy
by constant restrictions in England,

on top of that, the fact that
they're growing a massive population...

Of course, these two together,
put together, have made for a hell of a hit.

I don't think that this...
any government can pull it out.

All... All... What's the word?

When you get rich, what do you call it?

- What?
- When you... No, when you're thriving.

- Yeah.
- All profit.

It takes a long time to run into profit,
that what I'm trying to say.

You can't... Prosperity.

- Yeah?
- It takes a long time

to become prosperous,
especially in a country.

And I don't see the next
two or three governments

are going to see us out of the wood at all.

You see, I think that
De Gaulle saw this in France.

He saw the same situation

and he thought, "Now, we've got to the stage
where's there's..."

I think there's about 406 political parties
going on at the same time,

ending up with the Poujadists,

which is a party of 36 people,
going to parliament.

Well, every Frenchman, in other words,

ever second Frenchman,
thought he was his own government.

So De Gaulle came along
and he's done good for the country.

I must admit it, he's pulled it together.
There's more reverence to it.

Paris has been brightened up.

He's knocked out a lot of pornography
and things like that.

And I was saying this a long time ago
that we might need a benign dictator.

BRADEN: A benevolent autocracy,
in other words,

-might be the answer?
- Yes.

BRADEN: What do you mean by saying
"get rid of the pornography"?

Is that a good thing to you?

I mean, what's pornography mean to you?

To me, it means things that distract me
and make me want to commit the sex act.

Now, when you're going to work
in the morning, ah, fine, sex is okay, fine.

But you got to make up your mind
when you're going to work in the morning,

are you gonna go and look at all...

Be influenced by all the pornography
you do see and stop,

say, "I won't go to work today,
I'll go and find a woman

"in some street and I'll have it off with her."

Now, you got to make up your mind,
you're gonna be that,

or you're gonna work for your living
and be fairly disciplined.

Now, we all need sex, but I don't think...

You know, it's the easiest thing
to arouse in a person. I think it's unfair.

I'm pretty ordinary when it comes to sex.

I think it's unfair to distract people

and drive them this way,
especially youngsters, you know.

Fine. That's what I think.
At the end of the day, fine, on the way homes,

put up the pornography 'cause
it's about the best time of the day to do it.

On your way to work, you're gonna think,
"I want to have it off with a woman,"

or "I'm going to go to the bank
and be a bank manager today."

It does occur to them all, you know,
under this deep,

treacly coating of homburgs and things.

- What about the phrase...
- I know a man who travels by Tube.

He leaves his car outside
where the Tube begins

and he loves all the girdle ads.

But that same man can go into Soho

-and step through a curtain...
- Today, that man is Shirley Temple.

That same man can go into Soho

and walk through a curtain
and get any pornography he wants.

I mean, the Tube is nothing compared to
what he can get if he really wants it.

Oh, I know.
We strayed away from what I'm saying.

I think De Gaulle... Mind you,
he's gone in a way that's Calvinistic almost.

He's driven it all away.

'Cause it was pretty heavy going out there.

You can still go to nude shows and all this.

BRADEN: Don't you have something
approaching an autocracy

in the present government here?

Well, we were saying that
the strictures are much greater on people.

At one time, I think laws were given to people
and now they are imposed upon people.

You have no say about it.

I don't even know what
quite goes on in Parliament.

I haven't the time to know what goes on.

So they could do quite a few things
which I don't agree with,

even though I voted Socialist this time.

BRADEN: But you're saying in effect that
that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

No, it's not a bad thing.
You know, most men are basically good.

Except that the constrictions are so great.

I gave you an example
before the show started.

I said just to get my car here,
I decimated enough energy, I suppose,

to have dug a reasonably sized hole
in the ground.

And it was all for parking this
and parking that.

And the meter I got was not a half-hour meter,
it was a quarter-of-an-hour meter.

So I didn't... I'd just been to get
some sixpences for a half-hour meter.

Some guy passed a law saying, "Ah, in this
zone, we'll have quarter-of-an-hour meters."

Well, I don't read Hansard, so I don't know
about the quarter-of-an-hour meters.

And I'm knocking it
because I think it's stuck, you know.

That could have got me into prison.
"This guy was robbing a meter."

It could happen as easily as that.

- Nothing came out.
- All right, change the subject.

"Black power".
What does that phrase mean to you?

Well, at the present moment,
black power means exactly what it means,

the desire for the black man to be
in concert as a race.

Not within the nation he lives in,
but in relation to his colour

and the species as a whole.

They want black power to be a positive force.

I think primarily because they find,
as voting in America or any other countries,

Rhodesia and South Africa have proved
that the white man can betray them.

He could even betray them in America when
things are supposed to be equal, you know.

The Statue of Liberty should be
a little browner than it is.

Well, that's how I think what it means.

There's been a suggestion that
the phrase "Black power"...

It also means being hit by a black pudding
without pre-warning.

(BOTH CHUCKLING)

BRADEN: That's true.

But there's been a suggestion that
the phrase "Black power"

was deliberately chosen to remind you and me

that we have power and take it for granted.

That white power... We say "white"

and we leave out the word "power"
but it's there.

It certainly is.

And they want to draw to our attention
that that is the case,

that we are racists,
possibly without even knowing it.

Well, we are. I think we are with knowing it.

I think it comes to light
in relationship to white man.

When the cards are down, like in South Africa,

when it came to show of
whether white man was democratic or not,

he proved conclusively he wasn't.

- Another word...
- That's roughly what we are getting at,

-saying it's white man's power.
- Yeah.

When he has to be told
which one he wants to take,

he wants to take his own power,
of course he does, yes.

I might say, there's no answers
to any of these problems.

I said to you earlier on,

"There are no answers,
there are only problems."

Yeah, well, now, wait a minute.
Suppose, for example, that Barbara Castle

eventually decides to get rid of
all parking meters

and keep your car out of London
so you have to use public transport or a taxi.

Will that not simplify your problem?

No, you know,
London would become hell then.

What I'm trying to say is
it's necessary to put these things up,

but because of these strictures
which are arising,

because of our size and numbers,
there is no answer to it.

It's the best thing she could do
under the circumstances,

to try and keep as many people out of the city.

But in doing so, there are people like myself

who want to get on with the job, you know,
and find myself

steered into a sort of a George Orwell...
A benign George Orwell world, you know.

I spent a good hour and a half today

concerned with the parking of a car
and it's only quarter to three.

BRADEN: Take your colour test now

and we'll go onto another reel as soon
as you got that. Take the lights off you...

Three, take two.

BRADEN: Next phrase.
Euthanasia. Word, euthanasia.

Well, it means the taking of life.

- You'd like me to amplify that?
- Yeah, yeah, I mean...

Euthanasia, taking of life
under jurisdiction, of course.

The only jurisdiction you make
that must be a complete contradiction

of the jurisdiction of nature,

where a thing that lives is living
and a thing that's dead is dead.

One is put on Earth to die
by natural causes, be it cancer...

War, I'd say, is almost...
Yes, I'd say war is a natural cause

in the relationship to how man lives.

But then there's terribly over... Moral principle.

You know, there are so many
conjectures about it.

Woman is lying dying of, what,
cancer of the lungs.

She might be living another five days.

This is putting the argument
at the extreme end, Bernard.

Somewhere in a laboratory in Switzerland,
a guy gets the right bacteria

that's only got to be...
He just discovers it then.

This is the extreme argument.
See, you're gonna get that far out.

And of course, you get the argument
of are you being human in killing somebody

to stop further illness?

I think, yes. Pain... Pain, yes.
If the person has no chance,

well, they do kill them.

They keep them alive
like chrysalises, you know.

They just pump them full of morphia
so they really are dead,

and they're just staying moral
to the bitter end.

The chap who does it is staying moral
by not killing them.

They're just waiting for nature
to takes its course.

If it's possible, then,
for all pain to be obliviated

and the person is not suffering and this...

You've got to take mental suffering
into consideration.

If the person knows
he's under morphia and says,

"I'm dying, aren't I, yes?"
And they say, "Yes."

Not yes, but he might know,
then this ought to be stopped as well.

I think it would be much better if he died.

But the people who can still talk a little
and breathe a little

and look at a book or something,

then they're still fulfilling the natural function
of what they're intended to be, alive.

And then of course there's this terrible thing

where a man might be a pervert,
a pervert doctor, you know.

They are around.
My own doctor, for instance, you know.

- Are you talking now about...
- My third arm went the other day.

(BRADEN LAUGHS)

That's roughly what I was saying.

What about the point where medicine,
in effect, is keeping people alive,

by intravenously feeding people
who would die otherwise?

That's what I'd considered.
I spoke of morphia as being the penultimate.

There are other ways, you know.
They give you vitamin potions,

salines which, you know,
if you've got a dying bloodstream,

they keep running it through you.

In fact, people can have blood coming in,
going around and coming out the other end

for as much as three or four, five, six months.
It's all agony.

If man was a great, wonderful, moral creature

and had the sound of Jesus in his head,

then I would be able to take, I think...
Say that we could...

We are so moral that we could take a decision
for the good of the person who's ill.

But of course it's very...

Today, we're not quite sure where
our morality lays, are we?

- No.
- Because Christians can be evil.

BRADEN: Speaking of Jesus,
how do you feel on the subject of God?

Well, most certainly I don't think that this...
Within the congestions of my mind,

and within the congestions
of the universe that I live in,

I cannot believe that in scientific terms that
I'm the result of...

My father was sort of a...

Mother was a vacuum
and my father was an explosion.

This is putting it down in scientific terms.

I feel there's a great force abroad.
It certainly is abroad.

The mere fact that I'm talking
across an empty space to you

and you have the audio capacity to hear it all,
is pretty miraculous, if you consider it.

That's to me.

You might say it was just
a sound of vibrations.

What was the question again?

- God.
- God, yes.

So, in this respect, I think
there's something abroad,

which is much bigger than us.
Most certainly there is.

Whether it's divine, I'm not quite sure.

Jesus is a fact.

Whether the story of Jesus has mutilated
down the years, I'm certain it has been,

but I think in essence the man was good
and a prophet, like Buddha.

All good men are worthwhile having,
worthwhile listening to, worthwhile imitating.

There's a sense in which...
Jesus, though, is the result of,

I would think we would both agree,
a myth, a second-hand myth.

- If you take for example...
- The virgin birth?

Well, all those things which
attempted to make him divine...

She was out the night before, you know.
I mean, she came knocking on the door

and Joseph said, "Who's there?"
She said, "The Virgin Mary."

He said, "Oh, yeah?" You know, like that.

This is gonna go great in Calvinistic states.

-(CHUCKLES) I know.
- Does this go out to the world or just here?

BRADEN: The world can hardly wait.

No, the point I'm getting at is this,

what is the difference between
Jesus and Socrates,

except that an attempt was made

to make Jesus live through
saying that he was divine?

Nobody ever said that about Socrates.

Wasn't any need to.
Socrates didn't claim to be divine.

- We have no proof that Jesus...
- He did point monotheistic...

He did discredit the known gods of Greece.

In fact, he was on his way
to being a Jesus in his own right.

I think had he lived after Jesus, he'd have
been a disciple, most certainly would have.

Mightn't Jesus, if he'd known of Socrates,
been a disciple of Socrates?

Yes, yes. Well, I think in terms of goodness,
you know, Socrates was a good man.

I think Jesus would have like him.
Of course, they'd have loved each other.

They're two greats.

When I said "loved each other",
we'd better be careful about that

'cause Socrates was a bit of a strange man,
you know, in those days.

(BOTH CHUCKLING)

Yes, well, that's true.

That's the thing about the sex life of Jesus.

How about this, they bring this man down,
say this man is...

This is the Son of God made man,
and yet he doesn't do a thing.

Mind you, I think he did. I think he scratched
his bum and whistled at the birds

and said "sod" when he dropped
a brick on his foot, you know.

He was a carpenter, he must have hit
his thumb at times, you know.

But the way they've made him as a nothing...

They've brought him to the stage recently
where they suspect him of being a queer.

I think he went out with birds.

He did it... Well, he did it rather...
Of course he did.

Nobody gave him away.
That's about it, you know.

But we only know about three years
in his life, really, don't we?

Yeah. Well, I'd like to think that the man...

Well, he is. I'm certain of it.
You get the feeling the man was great.

The mere fact of mentioning him
at this time of our lives,

2000 years after he died,
shows the impact of the man.

-"Birth control".
- You are seeing the result of birth control.

(BRADEN CHUCKLING)

It's supposed to be "I got rhythm", you know.

My mother said, "Dad, I got rhythm,"
you know, and here I am.

BRADEN: What's the difference between
rhythm and the Pill, morally?

Well, they're both attempts
to stop life being conceived, aren't they?

So, morally, one's no different from the other.
Both are the negation of nature, aren't they?

One, by being juggled very carefully
by non-married

Catholic scientists, priests in the Vatican,
think it's a natural way to go about it.

Not really, they're avoiding the issue, really.
It's daft to say it.

They will have to come round to it.

BRADEN: Let's take the issue a little further.

If you said, and you did,

that you're prepared to accept war
as part of nature,

then we arrive at a situation where,

through war, we achieve more
and more sophisticated weapons,

which leads us to a weapon which, in the end,
is alleged to be a deterrent,

which in turn, because war is a natural thing,

causes a population explosion
that the Earth cannot support in terms of food.

Where are the moral issues in that?

Well, the primitive...

Nature herself has no morality.
It has a passion but no morality.

The tiger will eat the lamb.

To us, it's poor, poor lamb, you know.

You say, is it bad for the lamb? Yes.
Is it good for the tiger? Yes.

So this is nature's morality.

We have a fresh morality now,
which is the result of the conscious mind.

Consequently, in my own morality
as a human being,

I would say that it was wrong
to decimate the world population by war.

It's cruel, it's vicious, it doesn't point the way

to man having accomplished what
he most wants to accomplish,

which is to get away from the beast in him.

So in this case, in Christian morality,
war is wrong.

By nature, it does good.
It does decimate the species.

And, as you know, nature has almost kept
a much finer balance than man has.

Man has disturbed the balance
by reason of his being able to think

and create scientific antibiotics and such like.

So now he's stuck with it, and actually war,

possibly, does help in a minute way,
but not morally.

- But isn't nature...
- I'm thinking pretty good today.

BRADEN: Yes, you are.

But isn't nature, in a sense, isn't it inherent
in nature that we do everything we do?

- Without nature, we couldn't do...
- Yes.

-...the things we've achieved.
- Yes, it is, Bernard, it is nature.

I'm here to make bread and butter.

This is a duplication of me going out to hunt
with a spear two billion years ago.

- Right?
- Mmm-hmm.

You are the elder saying to me,
"What did you catch today, son?"

- Did I promise you money for this?
- No. You promised me a dinosaur.

(BRADEN LAUGHS)

I think that's it.

I keep straying away.
Keep reminding me, Bernard.

- That's okay.
- I get so far ahead.

We'll let that reel go now
and we'll go on to the next one.

That's fine.

Mark it. Three, take three.

Don't tag off onto this just because of that
if you've got some good questions to ask.

BRADEN: No, I'm interested in the event,
taking the breathalyser test,

the events that happened
and how other people behaved.

You know, the police and how it went.
What happened?

- I'd rather not talk about it, Bernard.
- Really?

It made me... I didn't like it at all.

- Are you in favour of the breathalyser test?
- Well, I'm not for or against it,

except that it shows you how much alcohol
you got in your bloodstream.

Doesn't say if you're drunk or not, though.

I wasn't drunk, 'cause I drink wine all the time
and it doesn't affect me.

But I suppose I had two bottles.

Two and a half, three... I drink it every year,
for 25 years I've drunk wine

and I don't go under.

Some people I see just go like that.
Give them a pint of beer and they start to go.

Depends upon your resilience to the stuff,
you know.

And I enjoy the stuff, so I don't go under to it,
you know. I enjoy it.

Suppose you'd been in a position
to say to them,

which you're not under this system,

"Look, take me out in my car.
You sit beside me and let me drive it

"and decide on the basis of that..."

- What a pity!
-"...whether I'm fit to drive this car."

What a pity I didn't think of that, yes.

Well, they wouldn't do it anyway,
but do you think,

under the circumstances,
you would have been able to prove actively

that you were capable of driving
that car?

Yes, yes! Well, I was driving it.
I hadn't had an accident,

and I'd turned right into a one-way street.

As I said, I was looking for street signs.

I was dropping this lady.
I couldn't find the street signs.

This copper stopped me
and he said, "Blow this up," you know.

I knew I was nailed then, you know,

'cause as I say,
it's upon the amount of alcohol you've drunk,

not how it affects you that it rests, you know.

BRADEN: All right, let's leave it.
Now, I want to get on to the subject of women.

(CHUCKLING) I'll try and make it
a leading question.

Let's assume for a moment that

the labour Party decided, in its wisdom,

in the event of the sudden demise
of Harold Wilson,

to select Barbara Castle as Prime Minister.

How would you feel about that as a man?

Regardless of what you think
of Barbara Castle or anything,

but just the idea of a woman
being Prime Minister.

Well, I'm not...

not knocked by this,
I don't feel uncomfortable.

I've no idea what qualification she has
for being Prime Minister.

I didn't know what qualifications
Harold Wilson had for being Prime Minister.

I know what kind of a man he is now.

I don't know what kind of a woman she is,
so I'd have to wait and see.

Well, on the principles purely of...
It's really a question as to what you think,

how equal you think women are to men
in all fields.

In some respects, you find, for instance, like

on the archaeological dig that they had
at Masada, in Israel,

there were more women volunteers than men.

You often find people holding the fort

against the tide of modern bowerism
are women.

I went to Australia last year.

Henry Kendall, a poet of the period
of the late poets in England,

very fine poet,
had a little cottage which they'd saved.

And when I went to the place to visit it,
it was being run by old women of 60 and 70.

So in this respect, whereas men will take
advantage of contemporary strife

and be out-front man, you know,
with all flags going,

sometimes women are very advanced
in saving things

which men would not normally
become involved in.

BRADEN: What about their
relative competence to do so?

Given that men might decide
to get involved in that,

who would do it more competently?
Men or women, in your view?

Well, on the showing, on the scientific
showing of male against the female,

the male would do it more competently.

He will have a more competent war,
whereas a woman, I think,

might restrain from a war.

But a man can do things more competently.
Physically, of course, he can do things...

Mentally, he does, in the main.

He creates aesthetic things on a grand scale
much better than women.

But whereas women will do petit point
and tapestry much better than a man.

BRADEN: This is pretty reactionary,
coming from you.

- Me?
- Yeah, you know.

Have you ever met a woman that you
considered your mental superior?

No, I've met women who have thought
they're my mental superior, though.

They haven't been.

And they make me feel inferior
for the mere thought that...

- I'm trying to think now.
- Well...

There are women, yes, clever women,
who've been to school and universities.

When I say they have a better
absorbed knowledge than I have had,

but not a better creative knowledge.

I think I could possibly
create easier than them.

BRADEN: Do you think you could do
a better job of reporting a given situation

than, say, Rebecca West?

Yes, I think so. I think I could, yes.

Mind you, that's because I'm a writer, you see.

Do you think you could explain Socialism

more accurately than Beatrice Webb?

I don't know the history of Socialism at all
and I've never read Beatrice Webb.

And it's pretty fair she's never read me.

BRADEN: (CHUCKLING) She never had
a chance, did she?

In the field of medicine, apparently

Madame Curie was senior to her husband
in the discovery of...

-of use of radium.
- Yes.

This is, once again, a unique woman.

You can't have a unique woman "once again".
A unique woman is only one, you know.

- What I mean to say, they do occur.
- How many unique women...

They do occur.
These people who are formidable do occur.

- You're suggesting it's a kind of mutation?
- Like Boadicea.

Well, it is. It's all chemistry,
you know, Bernard. I think it's all chemistry.

BRADEN: Or would you say then
that she probably had

more male chromosomes
than she was entitled to?

I don't know about chromosomes.
I don't know. She might have had, yes.

There are some women who are female
but have a tremendous male bearing.

And they seem to be...

The more male they are,
the more aggressive they are,

the more drive they seem to have.

Of course, you're speaking in an age
when nobody's really investigated it.

I don't think they've had a count per capita

as to how brilliant women are
in relation to men.

In the mass, you can get just as many
dull men as dull women.

Most women could do
a bank manager's job for a start,

but there is a level when
the male ascendance does seem to occur,

and the female not so fast
in terms of creative ability.

BRADEN: But since men, in the same sense

that we were talking about
white and black power,

since men have always had the power
where women haven't...

He's been a brute, you see.
You can always rule by force.

This penultimately leads to
the dictatorial state.

You can rule by force
but man must become more gallant.

Even civilised people like the Greeks
in the Golden Age,

women were seconded, you know.

That's the one thing about the Greek society

which I find very hard to swallow.
That and the slave...

Using people as slaves, of course.

BRADEN: Let's take the question
of extra-marital sex

from a male and a female point of view.

There's always been
a double-standard in that.

Yes, I think it goes on all the time.
If it doesn't go on, they'd like it to go on.

BRADEN: Somebody I was talking to
the other day said,

"If a woman finds out that her husband
is unfaithful,

"I don't see any reason
why she shouldn't be unfaithful, too."

And I said, "Well, why shouldn't she be
unfaithful first?"

You can't argue with that, can you, Bernard?

- I mean, there has...
- Once again, this thing of

contemporary moralities
and the primitive at work.

BRADEN: How do you feel about the
tendency, under the last Home Secretary,

and in the House of Lords, towards what
they're calling a permissive society?

The Consenting Adults Bill, the Abortion Bill,
all these things, social legislation...

Well, it was done more as
a humanitarian thing

to alleviate the suffering of homosexuals.

I don't think it's because they agreed
that that was the right way to carry on

but the suffering and the indignity
of being isolated

because of them being born like this
was why it was done.

I think it was a humanitarian thing
rather than a moral thing, you know.

BRADEN: Somebody suggested to me
the other day that, as a matter of fact,

as he put it, that our guards,

you know, it doesn't apply
to the army, this Consenting Adults Bill.

So the moment a fellow gets into civvies,
it's all right,

but when he's in the army, he can't do it.

- Does that make any sense?
- None at all.

You can't do it on parade,
unless the lights are out.

No, I think it's reasonable, you know.
I think it's reasonable, though.

- We're nearly at the end.
- Actually, I thought they didn't do it

in uniforms or civvies.

But they're not allowed to, but if they...

I mean, you've got to take them off
in any case, you know.

(BOTH LAUGHING)

- We'll let that reel go.
- You're only allowed to do it

-when you're naked.
- And we'll do one more.

Three, take four.

- Is this the one...?
- This will go on for three years.

(BRADEN LAUGHING)

- Do you want to do that?
- I heard it running suddenly

-and I thought I'd...
- Yes.

-...do a few takes, you know what I mean.
- Nice to have on record.

We ought to pull faces. England!

America!

China! What?

(BOTH LAUGHING)

- Russia?
- Russia, um...

(BRADEN LAUGHING)

No, I can't think of one for Russia.

- Look out!
- Let's go on to...

There's a sense in which,
in terms of your basic pessimism

about the sort of government
we're going to get,

that there is at least one party
that seems to want,

although it hasn't been effective so far,
to get people involved in government again

and to get government out of Westminster
and amongst people,

and that's the Liberal Party.
What do you think of them?

Well, we can only hope that the exciting
things that they say might come true.

But all the pre-election excitement and all

goes into this terrible melting pot of reality.

These conceived ideas,
which start as dreams and then are folded into

the Socialist manifesto,

looks fine on paper
and it's really meant to work and work well.

And then you suddenly realise

that your government
doesn't really rule the country.

Example of the pound.

Here are a government who are not in control
of their own currency.

It's manipulated from outside by
unknown people who bring the pound down.

If we'd have got the army,
the navy and the air force,

we wouldn't have known who to have touched.

And one is inclined to turn to Marxism
when he said that

money has become more important
than people

and therefore, you must expect to take
second place to it.

And this is what the government had to do,
it had to take second place

to the people who had the power

to govern the pound.
And they did, as you know.

BRADEN: Do you think it'll do any good?

(STAMMERING) Well, it's...

I'm not sure whether it's like a hernia
or whether we're only wearing a truss

at the moment,
or whether it's really been sewn up.

You got to wait and see, as I say.
We can't control ourselves.

Outside of us, there are people
in charge of our national finance.

It's frightening, isn't it?
But that's the truth of the matter.

BRADEN: What does someone like you
do about it?

Do you just sit and say,

-"Oh, the hell with it" or write about it or...
- Well, I did, I...

- Why don't you join a party...
- I wrote a letter...

-...and get in and do something about it?
- Because you can't do anything about it.

If old hands like Wilson
can't do anything about it...

I think there's got be an international
coming together,

and decide that one country at least must
have the right to stabilise its own currency

and the money should not be held in
secret deposits throughout the world.

This shouldn't be allowed.
It ought to be an international law.

They'll have to do it sometime.

Supposing they manage
to bring the dollar down.

And there was a chance of it, you know.
There still is.

People are talking in the same

resilient terms in America, saying,
"Don't worry about the dollar,

"the dollar will stand firm,"
but Wilson was saying this about the pound

over the last three years and I believed him.

I said we'll stand firm
and they kept backing it up.

Well, so, what's to stop them
doing it to the dollar?

This is what I'm frightened about, that
the governments are not the people in power.

BRADEN: But why were you believing Wilson
instead of, say, Brown or Peter Jay?

I mean, why don't you take enough interest to
differentiate between these men?

Do you simply assume that because Wilson
is Prime Minister as a result of an election,

-that he is right?
- No, I don't.

I can also be wrong in my choice,
just like he can be wrong in his predictions.

We have to adhere to something,
they need some kind of loyalty,

otherwise they can't work.

And they have taken over at the most
complex time in the history of England.

If you had the Conservatives in
or the Liberals,

or if you had a government of all three,
a coalition government,

I don't think they could do...
They feel so helpless, you know, so helpless.

It's grimly sad.

I don't know what to do.
I wouldn't know what to do. I couldn't put...

All I can say is that I know that our country,
money, finances, are not run by us.

We can be manipulated from outside,

and this is really terrifying.
Honestly, what can you do?

BRADEN: When you write a letter
like the one you did to Life...

I'm writing The Times tomorrow about it,
to say how horrified I am to think

that we are controlled from outside.

And he was not wrong when he said
"the gnomes of Zurich".

He predicted pretty well
when he said that, Mr Wilson. He was right.

BRADEN: When you write a letter
like the one you did to Life,

are you in fact
hoping that it will have an effect

or are you just getting it off your chest?

Initially, it was a reply to a letter.
A chap was saying that England was good,

this and that and that and that,
and he painted a rosy picture.

And I just thought it ought to be corrected,
that's all. I didn't write to...

Of course, naturally,
anything you write is published.

If my name had have been Fred Smith,

I don't think that it would have had
the impact at all.

So, I think I'm a good person.
I don't think I'm an evil person.

I think what I was saying was true.

When I attacked England it wasn't
because I wanted to kick it downstairs,

I wanted to kick it upstairs.
I wanted to say this stuff is...

Work is crap.
This is inferior work, that's inferior.

This car I bought fell to pieces
after three days. This is wrong!

And you can't blame the designer
or the architects or the management.

The guy who does a screwdriver job badly
is to blame.

And that's what I was saying.

It does have a little effect.
I got threatened in pubs.

And hit by people.

- You got hit by somebody?
- No, no, I was threatened in a pub, though.

BRADEN: What about personalities
that are involved?

I mean, you said they're helpless,
what can they do?

Nevertheless, they keep on trying.

Of the people who are trying
within the government,

whom do you respect?
Who do you have hope for?

Who do you still believe in?

People.

Let's see, I know Michael Foot,
and I like him as a friend.

But he's... I like him because I know
something about him, personally.

I've met Mr Wilson once or twice.
I liked him, too. Yes, I did.

I think basically they're taking a terrible
caning at the moment

for not having predicted that what they said
in the future would come true.

Well, they're mortal, these men.
They're mortal,

and they are being subjected
to dissatisfaction.

Look downwards,
you'll find a lot to complain about

as well as looking upwards.

They can only go as far as the nation
will allow them to go.

That is to say, the resources that you've got,
the stability, the ingenuity in it,

the drive, the initiative, the integrity...
A lot of this is missing in this country.

I do feel that the dock strikes

and the strikes like that,
when the country is on its knees,

I think they could go on working
and still fighting for what they wanted.

And at the same time,
it also shows that the people

who allow them to stay on strike,

I'm talking to myself now,
are also in the wrong for not saying,

"All right, look, we'll allow you
so much on account

"if you go back to work for a while,
while the country's in a state."

Yes, it's just like when your house is on fire.

You expect the neighbours
who have never spoken to you for four years

to give you a bucket of water.
That's what it boils down to.

And nobody brings you a bucket of water,
you know.

They just pull a chair up these days
and then say,

"We'll enjoy the fire, if you don't mind."

That's how it goes.
There's no evil men in our government.

I think, like George Brown,
at least I know what this man is like.

I never knew what Anthony Eden was like.
I knew he was jolly decent and respectable,

but when he was out drinking and dancing,

he was always the same bloke
that was in the office.

I know what George Brown is like.
It's nice to know what he's like.

I love that, you know.

BRADEN: What do you feel
about Brown now and...

Nobody can pick a hole in him on his integrity.

They will knock him for being drunk
and doing the frug on the Queen Mary

and telling people to drop dead and shut up.
They will knock him for being outspoken.

BRADEN: Do you think all politicians
should behave naturally like Brown?

No, they should behave as they are.

- Well, that's what I meant, naturally.
- Yes, yes.

Maybe some don't drink,
but do you think they should

not separate their public selves
from their private selves?

Well, they are a public commodity.

Once you go in, it's like me.

I'm expected to smile
and sign autographs in the street.

That's what happens. That's what I am doing.
Same with them. They're not private.

They are public commodities.
They are servants.

BRADEN: Do you object to signing autographs
in the street?

I get a bit pushed off with it.

Especially when you got your wife and kids
with you and you want to go and see the zoo

and the zoo wants to see you.

BRADEN: Do you ever turn them down?

Sometimes I do.
I feel a bit awful afterwards, so, you know...

BRADEN: But do you think
someone like Brown, Wilson,

they're supposed to not turn anybody down
in that sense.

No, I was saying they're human.
I said so before, I'm human too.

In this respect, you just have to go along

the best you can under the pressure
that's exerted upon you.

And I think they're good men.
I think we've got a good man's government.

There's no class in it, it's direct, it's honest.

They've never really done anything
small and deceitful.

They've predicted things which haven't
come off, but then who hasn't, you know?

BRADEN: Cut.

MAN: Two, take one.

BRADEN: Let's just talk
about the present for a minute,

and what in effect, as I gather, you said
represents the last 18 months.

What about the new film?

Well, we've just done it, just finished it,
and it comes out in a week's time.

And I like it and I hope other people do.

I've been with it so long, 'cause...

Being with it from the writing and then doing it

and then being in on the editing
and everything else,

it seems like a lifetime spent with it.

Has it emerged roughly the way
you hoped it would from the beginning?

Almost, yes. I don't think particularly...
visually,

I don't have clear ideas about
what things will look like when I write them.

I have ideas of the general outlines
of the scenes and so on,

but I didn't really know
what it would actually look like.

I'm very pleased with how it looks
but it's nothing to do with me.

BRADEN: Do you think that...
There's a sense in which

one gathers you've virtually given up a year
and a half of offers to do other kinds of work,

to do the thing you wanted to do.

So, in a sense, there's a lot at stake
on this personally, isn't there?

Quite a lot. But I mean, it was a very
enjoyable year and a half, really, doing it.

I wouldn't have wanted to do anything else.
It wasn't that much of a sacrifice.

I wasn't a sort of lonely martyr typing away
in the name of justice and peace and the Lord.

I was doing exactly what I wanted to do.

BRADEN: I didn't mean that you had
a mission, I meant that you'd...

Now, what happens... What happens now?
Did you at any point think beyond it?

No, I don't usually think very far ahead.
I think of continuing doing...

I've been very lucky 'cause
I've been able to do, on the whole,

what I've wanted in my own time.

And I'd like to continue doing that,
both acting and writing in films and television.

Do you get yourself
into a kind of dangerous tax situation?

I mean, you have to come to terms
with practicalities in some ways.

(CHUCKLING) Well, I've been
in a very dangerous tax situation

for a very long time.

I think it may well have
brought down the pound.

But it is, I suppose, a dangerous thing.

I think, on the whole,
they tend to be quite reasonable

if you can show that for a year
you've earned nothing,

but the year before you did earn something.

Then they, especially on money
you've earned from writing,

they're willing to spread it out
over three years.

Is there any sense in which you sort of feel

a kind of balance
between family responsibility

and what you want to do?

Do you ever have this as a kind of dilemma?

Well, I think I've spent probably too much time
with my family for their own good.

I mean, I've been hanging about the house
so much and moping along

and worrying about whether
the film is going to be made and so on,

drooping up and down the stairs
in a rather desultory way.

When I've not been writing,
I can't think of anything.

I think it will be good for me
to be out of the house a great deal more.

I've never had to do so much
that I've never seen anything of my family.

I've never had to sort of go away
for six months and do a film

in Saudi Arabia or Hollywood or anywhere

and sort of choose between leaving them
and getting on with my work.

You do have a tendency to flit
in terms of media.

Yes.

The last time you and I talked at all seriously,

you said you had a sort of hankering
for the boards again.

Yes, I would like to do that, but we would...

In fact, Dudley and I were just about
to embark on doing a stage show.

But it meant spending a minimum
of six months actually doing it

for the producer to get his money back,
he said.

And that seemed rather a long time

to be doing something
which would be essentially marking time,

in that we would be doing half old material
we'd already done on television.

And if it could have been four months, say,
we would have done it

but I wouldn't like to spend six months.

I was in Beyond the Fringe for four years

and that was very enjoyable,
but I wouldn't want to do it again.

Do you think that's one of the reasons,

that four-year period, is one of the reasons
why you tend to want to move around now?

Yes, I like doing a bit of everything.

I haven't been on the stage for ages,
but I'd like to be on it for a while.

I like doing television very much.

And I like doing films.

Films... The only ones I really enjoy doing
are ones which...

Sounds as if it's been hundreds,
there's only been one,

which I really enjoyed doing,
and it's one I wrote as well.

And so, you can only do one
every 18 months or so of that kind.

Did you have a period...

A lot of people described you
as a kind of definitive amateur

in a very friendly and complimentary way,

in that you had sort of cut through
the concept of the old pro.

And there was a sense
in which Jonathan was more professional

in Beyond the Fringe as a performer
than any of the rest of you

because he's had more experience.

He had been professionally
on the stage before.

And yet, to my mind,
he's suffered in that sense,

because the three of you had a sort of...

The other three had a sort of quality of saying,
"We're just doing this for fun.

"And it's not a life work,
and we're not taking it all that seriously."

I think he was doing it just for fun as well.

The fact that he may have performed
a bit more than us beforehand

may have given you that impression,

but I think he was doing it
as much for fun as any of us were.

I'm not querying why he was doing it,
I'm saying the effect was...

I mean, when he was doing the armpit bit,

he was using professional techniques
of movement and standing,

whereas the three of you always
gave the impression

that you happened to be at that particular
point on the stage by accident...

-(LAUGHING) Yes.
-...at that point, you know.

That was caused by us being
at that part of the stage by accident, really.

I think I shall go on getting more
and more amateurish as I go on, actually.

- But when...
- I find myself unable to learn anything.

When you come to something like
having written a film...

- Yes.
-...and wanting to see it through to the end,

you have to come to terms with
other people's professionalism, don't you?

- Yes.
- Cutters, editors, directors and their desires.

Do you find yourself in any kind of dilemma
when you're working with them?

- Do you get impatient with them?
- Not really.

I've worked with...
Stanley Donen, who directed our film,

I worked with him for three months
on the script, on the final draft,

so we knew each other pretty well
before we began,

and we had worked out
what was going to be filmed.

And he, as a director,
just let us do what we wanted.

He was sort of interested to see
what we'd do with our own ghastly material

and we were interested to see
what he'd do with us,

so there wasn't any sort of conflict at all.

So each day, he hopefully would enjoy

what we'd done
from a performance point of view.

And the next day, we'd enjoy what he'd done

from how he'd filmed it and shot it
and everything else.

Did you change lines and things
from take to take?

Not very much, no.

In fact, we don't very much on television.
We do a bit.

But I'm very suspicious of people
who make films

who think up wonderful things on the set
and have...

Everybody has a wonderful time
and all the actors improvise lines

and then it's all put together
and it doesn't make any sense,

like What's New Pussycat, which is
one my least favourite films of all time.

Everybody obviously had a ball making it,
but it was rather harder to enjoy it

if you paid just seven and six
and snuck in the back to see it.

What about the sort of thing
that Claude Lelouch is developing,

of not telling one actor
what the other actor is going to say?

Does that make any sense to you?

I suppose it does.
I haven't seen any of Claude Lelouch's films,

but he might as well have a thing
where he's not gonna tell them

whether he's actually filming it or not,

or whether he's in the room or not,
or whether he's Claude Lelouch.

"Now, I don't want you to have
any pre-conceived ideas.

"I may or may not be Claude Lelouch,
you may or may not be this character,

"and you may or may not be being filmed,
but just carry on in your own time."

I don't know, I think
there's a lot to be said for a sort of

improvisatory, documentary technique
for certain kinds of subjects.

I'm not sure that it can be done
in a comedy with a story.

I mean, I'm tempted the whole time
to put in jokes of fairly abstruse...

Or else belly laughs, just very quick jokes
which have nothing to do with the story

and I think it's probably wrong to put them in.

I think they would detract from the story,

they'd have people wondering,
"What on earth's going on?"

Is this something you've learned or did you
have this feeling from the beginning?

I had the feeling from the beginning
but I tried to get away with it.

I want to keep all the jokes in,
if I think of anything which I think is funny,

I'm heartbroken to see it go

and so I struggle to keep
all irrelevant jokes in.

Oh, we're getting near the end of the reel,
are we?

Oh, good. I can chew my cough sweet.

If I've been talking in a peculiar way,
it's because I've got this strange cough sweet.

- Oh, well, that's very nice.
- Which rather cramps my speaking style.

Do we need one more reel?

- I'd like to do one more reel after this one.
- Sure.

MAN: Two, take two.

BRADEN: I'm going to let that traffic
go by, eh?

(PEOPLE CHATTERING)

Yeah, something like that.
Tell me when it's all right.

MAN: Okay.
BRADEN: Okay?

There is a thing... There's a quality you have,

which I seemed to have noted
through the years, which is

the moment a subject gets serious

in any form of conversation,
under any circumstances,

you tend to go into character of somebody

and take the point of view of some idiot,
but do a voice.

Yeah, I think I do that less now
and I'm glad I do it less.

It's a very easy way of,

if you have voices, to sort of get out
of any personal responsibility in an argument.

That's what I've used it for always.

Often, I think it's a very good way
of making points.

It's not always a sort of cop-out.

But I can often be heard talking in what
I conceive to be my own voice these days,

which is roughly similar
to the one I'm using now.

-(CHUCKLING) Yeah. It is indeed.
- I think it is, in any case.

In terms of the last five or six years,

how do you think we stand politically
in this country now

and where do you think we're going?

Well, I would hope in the next few years

that politicians will catch up
with common sense

and realise they can't go on television

and tell lies, half lies, without being found out.

And that politicians who go on television,

one Conservative, one Liberal, one labour,
and make party points,

are just boring the audience stiff
and making the public despise them.

I would hope a few of them would see
the political good sense

of being honest and straightforward.

I mean, it would be the most
politically captivating thing

for any major politician to actually
tell the truth and talk honestly to people.

Just hasn't happened up to now.

When you say "I would hope",
are you optimistic about it?

Well, not really, with the lot
we've got there at the moment.

I can't see it happening.

Wilson, for example, who is always called
this supremely excellent politician,

I think he will be in this desperate dilemma

of realising that the only way
of getting through to people is to be

honest and straightforward and tell the truth.

And he'll be so out of practice,
it'll be very tricky for him.

What about George Brown?

Well, I'm a great admirer of George Brown.
He's been right on every big issue in politics.

And his social indiscretions
I find entertaining.

I would hope that he continues

and I would hope his belief
in joining Europe and so on

is far stronger than anybody else
in the present government.

And I hope he stays, you know,
I'm a great admirer of him.

Do you think
there is any chance that he will stay?

I think yes.

You know, at the moment
he's at the Foreign Office

when everybody thought
he'd be sacked or asked to move,

but I think he's the sort of man
who changes the locks.

They say, "George, we'd like you to go",
and he'll say,

"You can't, I've got the keys,
and I'm staying there."

And you can't very well rush up and seize him
and hurl him into jail.

If he wants to stay somewhere,
I think he'll stay there quite a long time.

Or else, if he is pushed out,

I think he'll be quite a powerful figure
on the backbenches.

Do you think he could settle
into the backbenches?

(LAUGHING) I don't think he'd settle there,

but I think he'd gather
quite a following round him.

I'm sure he's much better liked
than practically any other labour politician

at this particular time.

Practically everybody we've talked to here,
including politicians,

we haven't had anybody who hasn't
expressed admiration for Brown's ability.

Most of them seem to think

that the indiscretions are going to
undo him eventually.

And one person said, "I think, probably,

"the one post in which
these indiscretions are unacceptable

"is that of the Foreign Office."

I don't agree.
I don't think that a Michael Stewart figure

who, as far as I know,
commits no indiscretions whatsoever,

was any more equipped to be
in the Foreign Office than George Brown.

I think George Brown
is probably well-liked abroad.

I'm told, it may not be true, that he is
quite well-liked by President Johnson,

who is, for my money, the most
underestimated man in the world today.

And I would bet that in, whatever it is,
three years' time,

that he would be one of the most powerful,

most reforming presidents America has had.

He's absolutely loathed by everybody.
I can't think why, it's not because...

It's because of his ways and his background

and the sort of deviousness
with which he's been connected in the past.

Can you enlarge
a little bit on why you like him or admire him?

I don't like him, I've never met him.

But he, poor soul, until very recently,

has been attempting to be like what he thinks
people would want him to be,

so this awful figure has emerged
on television, completely stiff and wooden,

appearing to sort of preach
gentle homilies to the nation.

And apparently on the box,
just about a week ago,

he actually was like he is in private,
i.e. ranting and roaring

and striding about and shaking his fist
in the air and beating his chest

and talking with great conviction
about what he seemed to care about.

I think if he does that
and goes through with his policies,

which are broadly the same social policies
as Kennedy was trying to get through,

he'll go down as a rather good president.

I don't care about his motives

for why he does want social reform
in the United States.

It may be for...
Just because he wants to retain power

and it's the politically expedient thing to do,
but I think he's one of the best people to do it.

What about his foreign policies?

Well, I think he's a bit lost there.

I have no idea what will happen.

I don't think he has
any particular foreign policies.

I think he has some good advisors,

I was reasonably in support of McNamara.

I think there are
some very intelligent people there.

I don't think of him as a sort of
aggressive warmonger or anything like that.

I think he's genuinely confused

and if he can see any way out of
any of these difficulties, he would seize it.

What are your own views as to
what should be done about Vietnam?

Well, whoever the American was who said,
"Declare a victory and get out."

You just announce to all the world
that you've won the war

and you're leaving immediately

and you're letting the South Vietnamese
Democratic government to get on with it

and they are perfectly able to
govern themselves and all is well

and Vietnam will be neutral
and it's a marvellous triumph for America.

And not to believe any communist propaganda

which may be put out
by ailing men such as Ho

and not to listen to any nonsense
put out by TASS.

We've won the war,
and it's only sporting to get out.

We don't want to grind people's faces
in the mud

and so "ta-ta, we're off", then get out.

What would happen in South Vietnam, then?

What would happen in South Vietnam?

The vast majority of the people would have
some say in a communist government.

- Which would... Yeah.
- It would be a communist government.

Well, it would have to be,
they couldn't keep on Ky or Thieu.

I think Ky and Thieu might be through but...

We've got enough money to give them
a large private account in a Swiss bank

and they can go over
and join the film stars in Lausanne.

That's where they belong.
They shouldn't be in charge of a country.

Well, then in effect, South Vietnam
would not be a neutral country.

- It would be a united...
- But Vietnam would be neutral

in similar ways to Yugoslavia.

I mean, it wouldn't be a sort of
Chinese satellite or a Russian satellite,

it would be the Vietnamese Communist State.

I should think it would take
a thoroughly independent line.

So, in fact, in that case,
the North really would have the victory.

- Oh, yes.
- Yeah. It's a very interesting idea.

It's not mine, I wish it was.

Other political figures in this country,

do you see any future Prime Ministers
in whom you would have any faith?

No, I can't see any future Prime Ministers.

Everyone's talking about Jenkins now
because he's intellectually perceptive

and has silver tea services and so on

and has a wide range of interesting friends
but I can't see him being Prime Minister.

I can't really believe

that Heath will be, but I suspect he will.

I think he will probably be Prime Minister.

What about Callaghan?

Honest Jim? I don't know why he comes in
for all this praise at the moment.

I think he made a complete mess of his job.

And it's no good saying
through no fault of his own.

It's completely through his own fault.

He then somehow emerges unscathed

because he made the one speech
in the House of Commons

which admitted some kind of guilt.

Even that wasn't very strong.

It wasn't, "We've made a complete mess
of everything and therefore I'm getting out."

It is a sort of, "Due to seasonal factors,
such as canals being closed

"and unprecedented war
and weather breaking out,

"and foot-and-mouth disease,
we've been pushed in this position."

I'm not a great admirer of him
as a political leader.

He's quite nice.

BRADEN: Hold it there.

We'll do one more reel, if we may,
'cause we're getting into something.

Two, take three.

BRADEN: Do you think Wilson
is going to last the course

until the next election as Prime Minister?

Yes, I'm sure he'll last,

unless he becomes so repelled by his own
behaviour that he falls ill.

I can't see any other reason
for his being deposed by anybody.

Unless they have to devalue again,
which I can't believe they will have to.

No, he'll be there,
but I think he will lose the election.

Who would you like to see as Prime Minister
if it were still labour?

- Still labour?
- Still labour, yeah.

I think I'd rather have Barbara Castle
than anybody.

She's got on very straightforwardly
with her job

in face of considerable press criticism
and so-called public outcry,

which was then analysed
and found to be no public outcry at all.

It's just a few drunks shouting their heads off
rather louder than anybody else.

BRADEN: How did you feel
about the breathalyser test?

I mean, what's your reaction to it?

Well, I've... It's probably not my idea but I...

I thought it was a very sensible move

but I thought the way around it was very easy,
if rather sort of incongruous.

Before you go out,

you have to supply yourself with
a little alcohol-free... Or not alcohol-free,

but lightly tinged urine sample
that you would keep in a sort of fountain pen

and when you crystals turn green,

you're then asked to do that
rather than give your blood,

you then disappear into the police closet

and emerge with this sample,
which you give to them.

And you go scot-free.

(SLURRING) Even though
you can't speak at all.

- But...
- We've had about nine of these,

that's a new one.

- That's the first one we've heard.
- I think that would actually work.

But of course as soon as anybody
knows about it, I shan't be able to...

I'm not doing it, by the way,

it's too sort of dreadful a thought,
carrying it around in your pocket.

What about the Tory Party? Do you see any...

You said you thought that labour
would probably lose the election

and that Heath would probably be
Prime Minister.

What do feel about the personalities
in the Tory Party now?

On the whole, I'm filled with horror and disgust

when they appear on the television screen
at the moment,

Because they're making
what they think is party capital

out of all kinds of issues
like Rhodesia and devaluation,

when in private,
a lot of them all talk sense about it.

And I find most of them rather horrifying.

In fact, whenever I really go off
the labour government,

I just only have to think of those faces
and those voices

from the Conservative Party
over certain issues like Rhodesia,

and I think, "Oh, well, whatever happens,
I still prefer this bungling lot to the others."

Well, Rhodesia certainly seems
to have been a bungle, in a sense.

What do you think is gonna happen
in Rhodesia in the next two, three years?

Absolutely nothing.

The one compensation is that Rhodesia

must be the most boring place

in the world to be for the...

I think, the white Rhodesians there
are eventually not so much doomed,

but eventually will be forced
to change their course.

But they have a very placid
African population.

To read the papers, you'd think...
Or to read some commentators,

you'd think they are seething on the brink
of revolution, which is very far from the truth.

I think nothing will happen
for a very long time there.

Unless there is a real outbreak
of violence in South Africa,

which again, I don't think will happen
for about 10 years

because it's so tightly controlled,
the police state.

What about the Middle East situation?
What do you think is going to happen there

as a result of the Israeli-Arabic war?

One would hope that eventually the Arabs
would recognise Israel having...

As existing, having a right to exist.

And if that happened, and the Arabs
negotiated directly with the Israelis,

some sensible borders might be drawn up

and there wouldn't be an end to it,
but it would be a beginning of an end.

But at the moment,
I can't even see that happening.

- So, in a sense, that's another stalemate.
- A complete stalemate.

I don't think the Israelis can
hold on to all the territory they've gained,

they wouldn't want to.

But if the Arabs won't even
talk directly to them

and refuse to acknowledge
they have a right to exist,

I don't see how anything
can happen there at all.

BRADEN: You think there can be any
pressures from the big powers on it

that could make it happen?

The big powers, in a way, are able to bring
greater pressure to bear on Israel

than they are on the Arabs.

I don't know what pressure you can bring
to bear on the Arabs. Not buy their oil, or...

- I mean...
- That would work, wouldn't it,

if you didn't buy their oil?

I suppose it would. I don't know enough
about it to say anything, really.

Well, let's go back to
some of the Tory personalities.

We discussed...
You discussed them generally.

What about people?
What about Maudling, for example?

(CHUCKLING) Well, again,
I'm a Maudling fan.

I always think Maudling has a very good mind.

And I think, actually,

if the Conservatives had won the election
three years ago,

that his plan of getting rid of this

800,000 monumental deficit which we had

would have worked, certainly much better
than the method chosen by the Socialists,

which was to shout about it
to all the world through megaphones

and make everybody fully aware
that the state of the economy was desperate,

and then be a little surprised when people
started to move out of sterling

and in to a more stable currency,
such as the Portuguese escudo or whatever.

Or put it in gold bars or kirby grips or anything
rather than the pound.

I think Maudling,
in the same way as past Tory governments

have coped with this sort of thing,
would have coped with it.

We'd have had a squeeze for a short time
and then another period of expansion.

We've never, I think, before
had a three-year squeeze with no results.

I think the Tory old boy net
on the international banking level

would have worked much better.

What do you feel about the Liberals?

Well, I don't feel very much about them at all.

I think... I agree with a lot of the more militant

young Liberals who seem to be representing

what the young labour supporters
should be representing.

But in a small party,
they seem to be completely split.

BRADEN: You mean people like
George Kiloh?

Yes, I think he often talks a lot of sense.

I mean, they have a dynamic aspect
of some kind.

They seem to want to do things.

But I don't think I could ever vote Liberal.

How do you feel about Jeremy?
He's reasonably young.

He's reasonably young, yes.
I don't think that's enough in his case,

being reasonably young.

I don't have any views of him at all.

He seems... He has a reputation
for being quite a wit, which I haven't seen,

because I've never met him in person,
I've only seen him on the box,

and the Liberal Party broadcasts
are as out-of-date as all the others.

It's incredible that people
can watch television

and yet in the case of political
and religious broadcasts,

remain completely out of touch
with what people can respond to.

BRADEN: If somebody offered you
the opportunity,

without committing yourself politically,

to produce a party political broadcast,
what would you do?

Well, I think I would take the ablest

and most honest member of my government,
senior member of my government,

and have him questioned very aggressively...

Well, not necessarily aggressively,
but very probingly and intelligently

by the most intelligent interviewers available.

- Who would they be?
- God knows.

I'm sure there must be some unknown
somewhere who could do it.

Not Robin Day.

I think James Mossman is a good interviewer

and he's always being shackled
as soon as he asks a rude question.

People jump on him and say,
"Oh, Prime Minister, I didn't really...

"Mr Mossman, I'm sure,
wasn't really saying that."

And poor James Mossman is saying,
"Yes, I was saying that.

"Why doesn't he answer the question,
the evasive, slimy whatever he is."

And they say, "Oh, Prime Minister..."

Anyone would think the Prime Minister was,
you know, unable to look after himself.

If he's Prime Minister, he should be able
to deal with a few questions.

Also, I think members of the public.
I'd bang them down in front of the ministers,

who, if they knew their job and were capable
of giving straightforward answers,

I think that would be the best form
of party political broadcast.

If they actually do have some policies, then
that's the best way of getting them across.

It's no good sitting there
with a glazed expression on your face

and reading off a teleprompter, and then
showing a few pictures of slums and saying,

"This is the sort of thing
we want to sweep away."

And then, "This is the sort of thing
we want to replace it with."

Swedish furniture and, you know,
more LPs and we'd all be happier.

It's dreadful.

BRADEN: Have I got time to ask
a quick question

-and get a quick answer?
- WOMAN: You have 30 seconds.

BRADEN: On the whole, are you
optimistic about the future of this country?

Do you think it's here to stay?

Yeah, I'd rather live here than anywhere else.
I'm sure of that.

It'll be the best place to live in the world.

BRADEN: Okay. Fine.

(INAUDIBLE)