The Letters of Noel Coward
Page 45
And their Beethoven and Each are really far worse than their bite
Let's be meek to them and turn the other cheek to them And try to bring out their latent sense of fun Let's give them full air parity And treat the rats with charity But don't let's be beastly to the Hun
When he returned to America at the end of 1943 he had to sing the song at the president's request after dinner at the White House.
Meanwhile, back in England the song gained another influential fan. Duff Cooper, now chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, wrote to Noël:
Treasury Chambers
Whitehall, S.W.i.
8.7.43.
My dear Noël,
Yesterday morning I had occasion to call on the Prime Minister who was in bed when he received me and had little time to give to the business with which I was concerned. This time was curtailed by his reading to me your song about being kind to the Germans. He read parts of it twice and almost improvised a tune for it. If you have a spare copy I should love to possess it, for I despair of hearing you sing it unless we can arrange a party before you go, which should not be impossible. If I was still Minister of Information, I should insist upon it being broadcast nightly because its message is one that is much needed by all the silly, sloppy sentimental shits who form such a formidable section of fellow countrymen.
Yours ever
Duff
Churchill, too, developed a taste for the song, to go with a postprandial cigar, and at Chequers, the official country residence of British prime ministers, Noël was obliged to sing it until he was hoarse.
The only people who actively disliked the song were officials of the BBC. When it was broadcast the evening before Noël's departure for the Middle East and it was realized that the word “bloody” had been heard over the airwaves for the first time, the corporation issued a hasty apology and promptly banned the song for the duration. They totally failed to appreciate the irony of the sentiments being expressed—a fact that was ironic in itself.
Noël's draft of “Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans.” The BBC banned the song as being almost treasonable. Churchill resurrected it and made Noël sing it at dinner parties until he was hoarse
When Noël was made aware of all this, he was coming to the end of his Middle East tour. In his Diary he reflected ruefully: “I am willing to admit that, as a nation, we have never been especially good at recognizing satire, but the satire of ‘Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans’ was surely not all that subtle. I must be more careful in future and double dot my I's and treble cross my t's.”
But all of this was small beer compared to the international incident that arose earlier over another Coward song. The first summit meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt was to create the Atlantic Charter. At one point the two men were heard arguing loudly. The topic? Which verse preceded which other verse in Coward's “Mad Dogs and Englishmen.” Each of them was adamant that he was right, and Churchill later asked Noël to adjudicate. Noël said that he hated to admit it but the president was right. The prime minister hunched himself deeper into his chair, glared at the messenger, and grunted, “Britain can take it!”
Noël found the same spirit wherever he went, and he tried to convey it to Jack Wilson in America:
July 18th 1941
Dear Jack,
Since I have been back I have naturally discussed my future activities with all the big shots who are still whirling about in the usual flurry of bureaucratic frustration … After much careful thought and discussion with Lorn and Gladys, I have come to the conclusion that the only way for me to avoid further frustration and heartbreak in the future is to utilise my own talents which puts me on a plane beyond the reach of governmental intrigue and destructiveness. I can never begin to tell you how much it means to me to be back in this country again and, apart from wanting to see Mum and you and Natasha, I honestly can't bear the thought of leaving it again—except for very brief periods—till the end of the War. The muddle and confusion and irritation is almost as bad as ever but the ordinary people are so magnificent that with all the discomforts and food rationing and cigarette shortage and blackouts I want to be with them.
The other day I went to a certain very badly blitzed coastal town [Plymouth]. The behaviour of the people in the midst of such appalling devastation was beyond praise and beyond gallantry. They were genuinely cheerful and philosophic and I never heard anyone even grumble. In the evenings between 7:30 and 9:30 there is a band on the front and the whole of the town, or what is left of it, come out and dance in the sunlight. The girls put on their bright coloured frocks and dance with the sailors and marines and soldiers. The fact that they were dancing on the exact site of a certain historic game [Sir Francis Drake's 1588 game of bowls as the Spanish Armada approached] added a little extra English nostalgia to what was one of the most touching and moving scenes I have ever seen.
Travelling in England nowadays, from the point of view of pre-War comfort, is absolute hell and yet more enjoyable than it ever was before. A few minutes after you have settled yourself in your first class carriage it fills up immediately with sailors and soldiers and wives and children. The trains are mostly all jammed, there are hardly any porters and you fight your way in and out of a restaurant car where you are lucky if you get a very nasty bit of rabbit and some floury potatoes. But what is so wonderful is that a good time is had by all and no one is even remotely disagreeable. Then of course there are the jokes … such an unending series of really good jokes; blitz jokes, evacuee jokes, fire-watching jokes, etc. Even Arthur Macrae's joke of going to a “friend's house for cocktails and hearing awful screams and commotion inside. Then his host opened the door looking very white and upset and said: ‘I'm afraid the cocktail party is off, dear, my friend has just been up for his medical exam and has passed A.i.’” Arthur is in the R.A.F., Alan [Webb] is a disgruntled lance-corporal in the Sappers, Cole [Lesley] in the R.A.F. in Ireland, merry as a grig when home on leave. Our own little coterie whirls around on its own axis. Winifred gives elaborate picnic parties in the Park on summer evenings and we all sit around on the grass and have dressed crab and sausage rolls and a great deal of gin.
I am immersed in a campaign of writing topical songs. This country has been sadly deficient in war songs and I think it is high time that people abroad should take a lighter view than Miss [Deanna] Durbin did when she sang “They'll Always Be an England” with tears rolling down her face as though she were bitterly depressed at the thought. I have written one of the best songs of my life called “London Pride”. Binnie is doing it in the Leslie Henson revue and Gracie Fields is taking it back to Canada with her. I have also done a Home Guard song which is a satire on the Ministry of Supply. This is already a success. I broadcast both last week. I will send you the records as soon as possible. In addition to those I have done 2 more, one called “Imagine the Duchess's Feelings when Her Youngest Son went Red” and the other “There Have Been Songs in England,” which is a ballad for Gracie. It seems to me that by doing this sort of thing I am helping what I really mind about in the best way I can. You do see, don't you, why I don't want to go away? I am no longer angry with the Hollywood actors for not coming back but profoundly sorry for them for they are missing something quite indescribable.
THEN CAME THE FILM …
Soon after the opening of Blithe Spirit Noël received a three-man delegation at the Savoy. One of them was Filippo del Guidice, who ran a film production company called Two Cities; the other was producer Anthony Havelock-Allan, whom Noël had met in the early 1920s; and the third was Charles Thorpe of Columbia Pictures. Their proposition was a simple one.
They wanted Noël to make a war propaganda film. He could make anything he liked and would have complete control. His reaction was less than enthusiastic. His only real previous experience in film had been as an actor in The Scoundrel, in 1935, and he had rejected various overtures since. He told them he would think about it and give them an answer in a week's time.
&nb
sp; The week turned out to be fortuitous. The following day he had arranged to dine with the Mountbattens, and over dinner Lord Louis recounted the story of the sinking off Crete, back in May, of his cornmand, the HMS Kelly, There and then Noël knew he had the story for his film.
Lord Louis (1900-1979) and Lady Edwina (1901-1960) Mountbatten. Friends of Noël's since the 1920s and now, in 1947, appointed the last viceroy and vicereine to India before its independence.
In his July 18 letter to Jack Wilson, he is full of enthusiasm:
Everybody is very amiable and plans get formulated for me to do this and that but what I really want to do is to do a film for the Navy. Columbia are mad for me to do it and would give me complete control of everything, even Executives … I think I have got an idea … this, of course, may necessitate me going to sea for a bit to re-absorb a little Naval atmosphere. The Admiralty have already asked me to do this on their own. If the idea materialises I shall apply to come to America for three weeks or a month in mid-September in order to help you with Blithe Spirit but only if I can have my return ticket clutched in my hand and the dates all set to start the picture on my return. This I think can be managed. I hope you approve of all these strange revolutionary schemes.
Dicky's story of the Battle of Crete is one of the most heroic and agonising epics I have ever heard, although he is quite unconscious of it.
Noël pulled every diplomatic string he could. Duff Cooper was no longer minister of information but was happy to lobby his successor, Brendan Bracken:
From the
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Dorchester Hotel
1st July 1941
My dear Brendan,
Noël Coward came to see me this morning.
He is engaged on a film which in my opinion is of the very highest propaganda value. This film has the strongest and most enthusiastic support of the Admiralty and he is being assisted in the production of it by Lord Louis Mountbatten. He wants to go out to the United States for a very short visit in October in order to confer further with Lord Louis concerning the script of the film in order that all the technical details may be correct. He will also during this visit assist at the final stages of the production of his Blithe Spirit, which has been such an enormous success in London. This play, also, in my opinion, has a very high propaganda value, because, although it is in no way connected with the war, it shows the high spirits of British people after two years of fighting and their ability to produce and appreciate works of art.
Further, Noël Coward has written certain patriotic songs, which have already had great success over here and which should be sung throughout the United States, where they have been too inclined to sing nostalgic melodies regretting the loss of Paris, Venice and Vienna. His songs are about London, and his presence for a few weeks in America would contribute towards their popularity.
I therefore think that the Ministry of Information should on these three grounds do what may be possible to secure him priority for this visit, which could not last more than three weeks, as he would be obliged to return in order to get on with the production of the naval film, to which I have alluded above.
I told him I would give you my views, for what they were worth, and I hope that they may have some influence on your decision.
Yours ever,
DUFF
As part of his preparation, Noël called on an old naval acquaintance and was invited to travel during August with the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow and the shore installations at Plymouth.
There was another plus to his visit to Plymouth. It was Michael Redgrave (1908-1985), who would play an intermittent part in Noël's life. They had met in the mid-1930s, when Redgrave was just starting his acting career, and there seems to have been an immediate and mutual attraction. Redgrave himself—father of Vanessa, Corin, and Lynn, a latter-day acting dynasty—was bisexual, and it seems clear that at the time the war broke out he and Noël were having an affair. His wife, Rachel Kempson, told Noël years later how upset she had been when Redgrave spent his last night before reporting for service duty with Noël instead of with her.
Ordinary Seaman Michael Redgrave and his wife, Rachel Kempson.
In July of 1941 Redgrave enlisted in the navy as an Ordinary Seaman, and from time to time his and Noël's paths would cross. That summer he had asked Noël for some material to sing at a ship's concert, and Noël provided him with one of his new war-related songs, “Won't You Please Oblige Us with a Bren Gun? (Or the Home Guard Might as Well Go Home).” Redgrave had slavishly learned the song, when he received a cable from Noël about the lines in the lyric: “Colonel McNamara who / Was in Calcutta in ninety-two, / Emerged from his retirement for the war.” The cable read:
PLEASE CHANGE MCNAMARA TO MONTMORENCY STOP THERE IS A REAL AND VERY ANGRY MCNAMARA IN THE WAR OFFICE.
•
IN NOVEMBER, Redgrave is writing to Noël that a weekend they had spent in New York was “a wild and wonderful dream.” Despite his determination to play an active role in the war, Redgrave found his efforts frustrated by a recurrent injury, and he had more than ample time for introspection.
25 January, 1942
I am still in the old ship, waiting for the doctor to discharge me for my crooked arm, which hasn't been right since ammunitioning ship in October. I trek off to hospital each morning. The new X-rays have been sent to some specialist for his opinion. I bide all this with fretful patience because I don't want to have to tour Richard III for the rest of my unnatural days. I have therefore plenty of opportunity to ruminate over my not altogether happy leave and cloudy future. I have amongst other things been bearing in mind your strictures, and especially what you said about wasting time on silly people. It is perfectly true that I do. I have tried to think why and I suppose that it is a chronic inferiority complex combining with bloody laziness. You needn't have been quite so abusive about it, because my colossal vanity is readily pierced and quite capable of being put on one side for a time. Besides, invective may sharpen your darts, but it does make you aim wildly. However, I forgive the invective, knowing that you can't help that any more than I can help being a cow on occasions. It is not for nothing that each of your plays contains a slanging match. As an object lesson, when I was feeling at my lowest, who should be on the train but Ivor [Novello] and his entourage, and God put a lot of snow about to spin out the journey to 12 hours, and rub the lesson in. It was impossible to avoid that and almost as impossible to avoid The Dancing Years [the musical Ivor was touring] and supper afterwards. However, I made up for that by hearing Myra Hess play a Mozart and a Brahms Concerto (No. 2) and by taking her out to supper last night. We sat four hours over it and I didn't go dreamy once (!) Dame Myra finally became deliriously giggly but she said she doesn't mind that even with a concert today, since she has given up the vanity of playing without music.
While we are on the subject I will say that, much as I appreciate and will apply the lesson, I shall I know remain ridiculously impressionable to the end of my days. I shall be wary of politics—a lesson well learnt I think—but I shall go on falling for people until I fall into my grave … just as I fell in turn for … Edith Evans, Michel St. Denis and N.C., including a mixed bunch of blokes whom I have admired and who have influenced and shaped my life. Who knows? Perhaps it is to some extent this falling for people, a tendency which prevents me from growing up, which also makes me such an actor as I am. I can't say that it is, but it may be. And you can't say that it isn't.
As the abused but perspicacious Thornton [Wilder] says: when we are in love with someone it is not so much that we idealise their good qualities but rationalize their defects …
You may have better means of knowing whether officers are or are not urgently needed. But I am in a better position to know from all the candidates here and in barracks that nothing drastic is done to get the right men speedily. In my own case, as a last straw, I was asked yesterday if I would like to forego my commission temporarily and take up special sea duti
es speaking German!
It is a question of waste. I try to make the best of the inevitable waste of my only real talent, but I cannot abide this stupid waste of my good-will, energy and cheerfulness. I could accept the conditions of this life and the temporary loss of all that I love best until, like thousands of other men in this country, I know that good use is not being made of me and I am going to take this opportunity, if I can, to do something useful. Let no one say that they are sticking it, so why shouldn't I? The majority would be glad to do anything worthwhile, and have no chance.
You have so often said that you looked forward to us being friends always. I would like that. Please forgive my behaviour while on leave and, if possible, forget it. I was pretty unhappy and worried about a number of things. (First Vanessa was ill then Corin; Rachel far from well. And I had a bloody awful row with my mother two nights before our ding-dong and I may say that in that case it was not my fault at all. And you will understand that it was pretty shattering to find that with the new draft nothing I have done so far will count at all.) I had looked forward to it so much that I was almost ill with excitement, and the anti-climax was pretty devastating to the sensitive dreamer type.
I don't expect you to answer this, as you are I know very busy and I imagine, when you have time to be, very sore.
Good luck to the film. You know how much I shall be thinking of it and of you.
M.
By November of that same year, Ordinary Seaman Redgrave, M., was ordinary civilian Michael Redgrave. He and Noël remained friends and occasional colleagues for the rest of Noël's life.
•
MEANWHILE, ON-SHORE PRESS and interdepartmental arguments were raging about the making of the film. Despite Duff Cooper's intervention, Brendan Bracken tried to stop it on the grounds that it would tie up too many valuable film facilities. That, at least, was his public pose. In reality, it's more likely that he shared Fleet Street's conviction that Noël was an unsuitable person to portray a heroic naval figure. Fortunately, there were powerful voices that endorsed the project and could sway the opinions of others.