The Unmutual Reviews All Night Long (Prisoner/McGoohan/Portmeirion)

The Unmutual Reviews: All Night Long (DVD) Review by Brian Watson

Carlton, who seem to have rights to an awful lot of Patrick McGoohan's work, have released "All Night Long" on DVD quite recently. At GBP6.99, it had to be worth a purchase to see what PMG was up to in 1961 before "Danger Man", "Dr Syn (Alias 'The Scarecrow')" and "The Prisoner" so I spent Easter Sunday with the answerphone on and the room darkened.

OK, this is familiar ground so far. The elements of the film's opening: are a man gets into a stylish car, a blaring insistent soundtrack plays as the car weaves through the streets of London (cutaway to Big Ben), our man parks the car (he looks determined, purposeful), there is a clap of thunder and a cutaway to the storm clouds, he strides purposefully through a pair of double doors, down a corridor, through more double doors, there is a man sitting ... playing a double bass?! OK, this is black and white and the interior of a jazz club. Still, I'm not pining for Portmeirion yet.

The plot of "All Night Long", directed by Basil Dearden, is based on Shakespeare's "Othello" - a story that McGoohan revisited (but as Director) later in his career in its 1973/74 rock musical film incarnation "Catch My Soul." I've not seen that so can make no comparison, but "All Night Long", I'm pleased to say, does the storytelling very well.

It's very much like a TV play - virtually all set in the jazz club and entirely down to the actors and musicians to make it work. I can't think a lot of money went into its making, though the MU boys would have been playing for a bit more than "scale", I'll bet! McGoohan himself appears to play drums at several points and all I can say is that if he is miming, and I'm really not sure whether or not he is, he makes a damn fine job of it!

The club is hosted by Richard Attenborough's rich-boy jazz fan character Rodney and the set is considerably enlivened by the presence of some jazz greats (Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck, Tubby Hayes, John Dankworth and their bands) ripping through some pieces of the period.

This time, the Othello plot is told as a black band leader Aurelius Rex (think Duke Ellington and you'll have the idea) being encouraged by McGoohan's character Johnny Cousin(hmm!) to believe that Rex's white - and in 1961 that was still pretty controversial - wife Delia (not Desdemona, as in the original) is having an affair with the band's tour manager/saxophonist Cass, played by Keith Michell.

Johnny Cousin has a rival jazz group to Rex's and he also has big money worries, so he wants Delia to leave her husband, come back to singing, and be Johnny's vocalist.

However, jealousy is wild magic, and Johnny gets it all going on early in the film by getting Cass stoned on pot (ah, these jazz men and their wicked ways...) after which he mouths off in fine style to an agent who is played by Bernard Braden. Rex fires Cass, who is consoled in innocent style by his old friend Delia. Unfortunately, Rex sees this and the seeds of suspicion are sown.

Later, Johnny plants evidence of Cass and Delia' non-existent affair and spreads rumours around the club and then - to finally convince Rex of Delia's infidelity - he does a sneaky cut-and-paste job on a tape recording of a couple of conversations that is then played to Rex. It all looks bad, but the outcome of Johnny's plotting is not quite as he hoped.

I don't propose to give away the denouement, but it works well, and it is good to see evidence that PMG can play a strong character who is nevertheless not centre stage all the time. He is very much one among equals in this and it is good to see an ensemble cast pulling off such a good production despite fairly unremarkable camera work throughout.

The extras (so beloved of DVD releases) are here restricted to the original film trailer narrated in what seems now a rather amusing "it's awfully hip, daddi-o" style by "Darling" Dickie Attenborough's Rodney, but it gives a lot of the plot elements away so I recommend that you watch it after you've watched the story itself.

This is a very good 7 quid's worth of anyone's money and would make a good companion piece on your DVD shelving to 1957's "Hell Drivers". I look forward to getting stuck into Patrick McGoohan's even earlier work "Brand" next.

Additional info from from TUW reader Scott Wurcer: Look out for McGoohan uttering "Be seeing you" somewhere near the beginning. TUW reader Peter Preston sayd "the DVD can often be bought on ebay quite cheaply for 99p plus P&P".