Tootsie (1982)

Trumbo (2007)

Mixing Politics and 365Watch #1

I've not been mixing it much lately, so, as the blog is currently in film watching mode, I've decided to kick-start a series entitled, 'Mixing Politics and 365Watch'.

I can't guarantee that it will have the longevity of 'Mixing Footie and Politics' or the studied obscurantism of 'Mixing Pop and Politics', but I do promise irrelevance and responses of 'What the fuck is he on?'*

Inspired by the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon trivia game, the idea is that I will take a film that I watched as part of 365Watch and somehow link it to fringe left-wing politics. The more tangential the connection the better. The more obscure the politics? All the more in keeping with the blog.

Of course, such a series should start with the usual suspects. From Dustin Hoffman to the SPGB in 3 moves.

Last night I watched the 1969 movie, John and Mary, starring a buttoned-up Dustin Hoffman and an eyebrow-less Mia Farrow.

Adapted by John Mortimer, the script is based on Mervyn Jones's 1966 novel of the same name.

Mervyn Jones? Only the same Mervyn Jones who reviewed Barltrop's The Monument: the Story of the Socialist Party of Great Britain in the pages of New Statesman in 1975. (The review wasn't as hostile as you would have thought. It wasn't that glowing, either.)

Sorry, it doesn't get any better.

*'What the fuck is he on?' Lack of bastard sleep.

John and Mary (1969)