Go along to any commercial cinema in West Yorkshire and the chances are that on most days of the week the film showing will have originated in the United States. North Country Pictures, a small independent company based in West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester, can only be congratulated for having the perseverence to get their new film, the Jealous God, made and into the region's cinemas. It is also to their credit that the film has been given its first showing in Elland - the first premiere in the 93-year old history of the town's Rex Cinema.  | | This was the first film premiere in the Rex's 93 years! |
Certainly the premiere was something of an event for the town. On what would have normally been a quiet afternoon people lined the road outside the cinema, Coronation Street, to greet members of the cast including Denise Welch, a "resident" of a similarly named street across the Pennines. Others hung out of their windows, not quite sure what was going on, to see the line of vintage cars bringing the celebrities to the Rex. Quite a few passersby seemed surprised that anything like this could ever happen in Elland. Several people had come along because they had loaned their car, or even their house, to the filmmakers. And, of course, spotting familiar places is one of the joys of going to see a movie made around here. For me it was a scene filmed in the Rex itself, Keighley Railway Station, the old road above Marsden and that double-decker bus I keep seeing, which for some unaccountable reason still wears the livery of the long-gone Halifax Corporation. And, of course, we can feel a bit clever if we spot what we think is an anachronism. Why did the producers choose to stage what I took to be a Catholic funeral outside Heptonstall's octagonal Methodist church?  | | Jason Merells and Denise Welch arrive at The Rex. This car also starred in the film! |
But what of the film itself? It certainly does not set out to be a another bit of British whimsy. Based on a novel by Bradford author John Braine, Steven Woodcock's film is a deliberate homage to what came to be called New Wave cinema. In the late 1950s and early 1960s films like Saturday Night And Sunday Morning and A Kind Of Loving, usually book adaptations, seemed to bring a new sort of realism to the big screen. More often than not they did focus on frustrated, if not "angry" young men and they may even have shown the odd kitchen-sink along the way. One of the most successful of these films was Room At The Top, based on John Braine's first and most famous novel, and starring Laurence Harvey as Joe Lampton. Born in 1922, John Braine was working as a librarian in Bingley when he wrote Room At The Top. Being confined to bed in a sanatorium because he had TB had given Braine a chance to try his hand at writing and eventually he was able to leave both Bradford and librarianship behind him. How many people read John Braine today? A straw poll around the office suggests he is now completely forgotten. But it is impossible to talk about The Jealous God without asking if Braine's view of the world has anything to say to 21st century filmgoers.  | | Marcia Warren gives a very good performance as Vincent's mother. |
It is Yorkshire in the 1960s and Vincent (Jason Merrells, aged 30, is a teacher in a Roman Catholic school and he still lives at home with his mother. He hasn't ruled out the possibility that he might yet train as a priest. Then he meets Laura (Mairead Carty), the new librarian and falls in love but then he finds out Laura is divorced. Along the way he becomes briefly entangled with his sister-in-law Maureen (Denise Welch). Like Joe Lampton Vince eventually realises he can't have everything but by that time the life of another man has been destroyed... There must have been some point in the 1960s when young women stopped wearing headscarves but it was certainly after the time this film is set. There is no trace of the Beatles on the soundtrack and Habitat furniture has yet to make its mark. If this film looks dowdy to younger members of the audience it's because it does successfully evoke the period - Britain was on the point of changing from post-war austerity to a time when people had more money to spend and change seemed to be in the air. The stifling of feelings is echoed in the very design of the film, particularly in the way catholicism is depicted - the camera lingers on the statues and the crucifixes in Vince's house. But is this just the background to the real issue, the relationship between men and women? At one point Vince seems to be the victim of the women around him, especially his own over-bearing mother who wants him to become a priest, but at the end of the film he realises he has caused the death of another man. This same incident brings his mother (a very good performance by Marcia Warren) together and somehow Vince seems to be the one left out in the cold. We realise that Vincent's mother is not the monster we had thought, but in the film's last line she talks about the "cold breath" of a "stepmother." As the closing credits roll we do not immediately step back into the world of 2005 because, after all, this is the Rex and there is Dr Arnold Loxam on the organ playing the National Anthem.
Chris Verguson The Yorkshire Charity Premiere (in support of Overgate Hospice, Elland) of The Jealous god took place at the Rex Cinema on Wednesday, September 7th, 2005.
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