‘Academic publishing, as you know, doesn’t exactly move fast. It took two years for that book of essays about Terry Worth to come out, and when it did, Roger’s was singled out as being one of the best. It was a really good piece, I could see that. This was the tragedy: when Roger could get past his obsessions and tackle something serious, he really was a good writer. A lot of it was about a Billy Wilder film called The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, which is famous for having about a third of its footage cut out before it was released. In the bits that are left, Holmes and Watson go up to Scotland and encounter the Loch Ness Monster. Roger and I watched it together one night, and I suppose that’s when we both started thinking about the Monster and what it represents. The one in this film turns out to be a fake, of course. As they so often do.
‘That was a good night. We sat up together for hours, talking about all these different Loch Ness films and trying to decide what they had in common. We noticed that the main characters usually take people’s responses to the idea of the Monster — some sense of awe, perhaps, bordering on fear — and try to make a profit out of it. That’s when he came up with this phrase, “monetizing wonder”.’ Laura paused, and shook her head with sad incredulity. ‘How long ago was that? And I’m still trying to finish the article for him. Unbelievable.’
She fell quite silent. Rachel thought that some words of encouragement might be in order. ‘It’s a good phrase anyway,’ she said. ‘You should use it as the title. But what about the other film, the German one …?’
‘Well …’ said Laura, ‘the next thing that happened was a message. A message online, out of the blue, from someone who had finally seen one of Roger’s requests for information. More than three years after he’d posted it, in fact. (Yes, that’s right — because Harry was already at nursery.) And that was how he found out the whole story of the film. And it was also the beginning of the end, for him.
‘This guy Chris had been browsing one of these film fan sites and just by chance he’d seen Roger’s old post. So he sent him a personal message …’ She paused to take another sip from her glass, but found it empty. ‘Goodness, that went quickly. Is there anything left in the bottle?’
‘Afraid not,’ said Rachel, with a regretful glance at her own glass. ‘We’ve certainly been getting through it tonight.’
‘That’s all right. I think it’s time to open another. And while I’m doing that,’ said Laura, rising effortfully to her feet, ‘you can have a look at the thread. It’s still there, on the website.’
And so, while Laura opened another bottle of Rioja and poured two more glasses, Rachel sat with the laptop on her knees and read through the exchange of messages which Roger had initiated, on the forums of a site called Britmovie.
23 October 2010 18:32
Hi Roger
Sorry for the delayed reply! I have only just discovered this site and seen your queries.
First off — I have never seen The Crystal Garden but your memory doesn’t deceive you. It was indeed shown in the ATV region one afternoon in the mid-sixties. This was certainly its only British TV screening and one of its very few public screenings anywhere in the world! I know this because my grandfather, Tom Ferris, was the man responsible.
It’s a long story and I don’t know how much information you want apart from the fact your memory is accurate. Let me know and I’ll try to fill in any gaps.
Cheers
Chris Ferris
23 October 2010 19:05
Hi Chris
This is incredible. I had given up hope of ever hearing back from anyone about this (to me) mythical film, and now you have confirmed everything I suspected! To find out that I didn’t dream or imagine it is an amazing moment for me. I am literally shaking in front of the computer as I type these words.
Please tell me every single thing you know about this film and its screening on British TV, starting at the very beginning.
Roger
24 October 2010 23:53
Chris
Are you still there?
Roger
25 October 2010 22:17
Hi Roger
Sorry to have left it a couple of days before replying. I can see you’re pretty keen to hear about this. But it’s taken me a day or two to get my thoughts together and put the facts in the right order.
So, where to start? Let’s start with the director of the film, Fred Goodman, or Friedrich Güdemann as he was known before he got out of Germany in the late 1930s. Friedrich (my grandfather could never bring himself to call him Fred) came from Magdeburg, in the East. He was a young and talented DP who had worked for several years at UFA studios. But he also had ambitions to direct, and had apparently been getting quite frustrated that no opportunities had presented themselves. The only thing he’d managed to do was a tiny little film, about 8 or 9 minutes long, which he’d made over one weekend at the country house of some friends, in the middle of winter, using their little son as the main actor. As far as I know it had no real plot to speak of (you would perhaps know more about this), just one sequence of a little boy exploring the grounds of this house, making his way through this tunnel in one of the walls and emerging into a magical landscape, a garden made entirely of crystal. That’s all there was to it, and yet the few people who saw the film said it cast an extraordinary spell on them. Including my grandad. It was a visionary piece of work, he said. At the very least, it was an amazing calling card. But Friedrich was Jewish, of course, and he’d already left it dangerously late to get out of Germany. When he did finally make his escape, he took the film with him — the only print in existence, on a single 16 mm reel. He pitched up in Paris and then a few months later managed to cross the Channel to London. This would be in ’37 or ’38. He soon got introduced to the film-making community here and found some work at Gainsborough, where he was DP on a couple of lowbrow comedies — sub-Will Hay stuff. God knows what he made of the films themselves, but I’m sure he did a good, professional job. Anyway, this was where he met my grandfather, who was designing titles for Gainsborough at the time. Friedrich asked him to do some new titles for The Crystal Garden — unpaid, that is. In his spare time. He thought it would be good to have an English-language version, and it was only the opening titles that needed changing — the film had no dialogue as far as I know. My grandad liked Friedrich and was happy to do him the favour. So the film was screened for him and he was quite bowled over, apparently. He said it was beautifully photographed, of course, because Friedrich was a very gifted guy, but the thing that made the strongest impression on him, funnily enough, was the music. There’d been no money to use an orchestra or anything like that, so once again Friedrich had called in a favour, and got a friend to write some music for it, and persuaded this soprano — it may even have been the same woman who owned the country house — to do the recording. Just her voice, I believe, and a little chamber group. Grandad often used to talk to me about this music and how beautiful it was but I never heard it myself, sadly.
Well, this has already taken longer than I thought so I’ll pack it in for now and continue the story tomorrow if I get the time.
25 October 2010 22:33
Oh God yes, I remember that music. So lovely, and so sad! Like the distillation of every lament for childhood innocence that you ever heard. How did I understand that, how did I tune in to it, when I was just five years old? Or am I projecting, looking back on my five-year-old self, my eyes riveted to that tiny black and white screen, the recording of that music (already thirty years old) drifting out of the puny speaker on our little Ekco TV set through a quagmire, a forest of pops and crackles and distortions? And the gas fire hissing in the hearth, my mum next door in the kitchen, getting dinner ready for when Dad came home. I think …