Scottish Film: an informed and irreverent guide for movie-lovers 

Scottish Films, Mark Furse, Luath Press, £16.99.

Reviewed by Andrew Martin

There was a time of course when home and library shelves were lined with useful and heavy reference books filled with painstakingly researched lists of films which provided the only real access we had to details of cinema in general. Within those, we hoped to find Scottish films. Times have changed. 

Now we live in a world where the phone is in the pocket or on the table at all times – facts can be verified in the midst of conversations with smarty-pants friends, and there’s no need to visit an old-fashioned guardian of knowledge like a librarian. The databases are out there ready to be raided. 

So, it is a bold move of Mark Furse to devote a considerable amount of time and energy to this sort of venture. As it turns out there’s still life left in the old pictures book. And – impressively – he actually seems to have watched the films! 

Mark Furse’s Scottish Films is unquestionably a very good read – “informed and irreverent” it says in the subtitle, and it certainly is. It is in a reassuringly comfortable format, not too big, not too small, with a decent array of black and white photographs, and a thistle on the cover along with the popcorn and the cola.

What is a Scottish film?

We get a chronological listing of Scottish films, each rated for their “Scottishness”, a top 100 listing – plus a worst 10. The author makes his rules for inclusion clear – simply explained, a film set almost entirely in Scotland, and more than 70 minutes long. Feature length documentaries are included too – that’s why Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands is a surprise no. 23 in the best list.

The author’s definition of what is Scottish means some surprises too. The Scottish accented juvenile stars of The Kidnappers – one of my childhood favourites from 1953 – actually won Oscars. This film has Scottish actors playing Scottish characters and is filmed on location in Scotland – but oh yes set in Nova Scotia! That’s why it is out.

The 427 films are presented in date order, so the first entry is the 1917 version of Kidnapped, followed by the other versions, right up to the 1970s, then we are back to the silent era. 

This is the approach throughout. It takes us down some long cinematic paths, so for example, all the Loch Ness monster or Mary Stuart pictures come together like a short but interesting specialist essay. I Know Where I’m Going! therefore appears not chronologically in 1945 but before the 1937 entries, following two other Michael Powell pictures. Got it? The index will take you directly to the page you want. 

Perhaps I should declare my own interests now. At the end of the 1990s I attempted what I called a “selected” Scottish filmography and an account of Scottishness on the big screen for inclusion in my book Going to the Pictures: Scottish Memories of Cinema. I was less rigorous than Mark Furse I am sure and relied on those who had gone before on the printed page rather than the internet. 

My own enthusiasm is for early cinema and the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood, and I have researched early depictions of Scotland and the careers of the actors and directors with a real or imagined connection to this country. 

To put in my ticket’s worth, I admire Mark Furse’s epic scale achievement, but it does seem to me that the older early Scottish films are a bit neglected, but then I would say that, I am a fan of the old films. 

Starting in 1917 with Kidnapped is misleading. Cinema was nearly twenty years old by then and films with a Scottish dramatic content had been around for a decade or so. There are no entries for the home-grown historically important Scottish pictures like the 1911 Rob Roy, or The Harp King or Football Daft. Admittedly like most of silent cinema, these are long-lost films but well-covered by the press and the trade at the time. 

There could be more Macbeth, Scott titles, more Barrie, more kailyard, all filmed with Scottish trappings and major actors and widely seen around the world. 

I was however very interested to read an extended account of a 1919 Sessue Hayakawa vehicle that was new to me – The Man Beneath, set in Edinburgh. Across the page is Mary Pickford in The Pride of the Clan. The most famous woman in the world in 1917 appears in a film bursting with tartan and dancing and ancient standing stones and a supposed Scottish atmosphere. Just think how many audiences all around the world saw this version of Scotland. 

The missing silent films are significant for me as they give an idea of how widely Scotland was presented to the world, but I accept that the intended readership for this ambitious and lively book may be more interested in reminders of the films they actually saw in cinemas over the last forty years, rather than the films their great grandparents may or may not have enjoyed at their local Regal. 

A valuable and brave book in the age of the internet

My quibbles on listings aside, this is a great read, a pleasure to dip into, a very accessible and entertaining account of a large and complicated subject. 

Mark Furse has done a fine job in describing the essence of Scottish cinema – mostly familiar titles, the ones we really made an effort to go and see in a real picture house, before the sofa days of streaming. It is good to read his informed and entertaining views on old pals or foes like Gregory’s Girl (“some elements may be uncomfortable”), Braveheart (“simply obnoxious”) and Trainspotting (“pace, humour, and horror”)

I liked his spot-on account of the “weird trip” which is The Ballad of Tam Lin, for example, filmed in part up Moffat Water in 1969. I know. I was there, hoping to spot Ava Gardner. As he rightly says it deserves to be on a double bill with The Wicker Man. 

He has also spent some significant time bringing together little-known films that definitely deserve to be included. Many are from Europe and are new to me – who knew there was a version of Hogg’s Justified Sinner for example? This student of Scottish literature on screen certainly missed that. He is to be applauded for searching out so many recent titles. 

I think his entries work remarkably well, long enough to provide useful and interesting information in a canny blend of quotes and personal remarks. 

Fans are all experts – or think we are, so it takes some nerve and bravery to name a top 100 of Scottish films. I happen to heartily agree with his no. 1 – the great Powell and Pressburger romance I Know Where I’m Going! – how pleased those original talents would have been – but inevitably, some rankings may jar or spark lively debate. Furse knows this and welcomes it. 

And as for the worst list – I am a little sad that The Brothers, that location filmed Skye melodrama earns eighth place there – is it so much worse than Devil Girl from Mars? Once seen neither will be forgotten, and admittedly Furse concedes that The Brothers may be so bad it is good …

Brigadoon is absent from the top 100. Is the lurex-threaded tartan all too much? Yet Furse says “I have sat in the GFT on a dreich Sunday afternoon … enjoying almost every minute.” I think I may have been in that audience too, and as I say if ever asked, I will settle for Kelly and Charisse dancing in that very fake but exquisite setting over many another “serious” Scottish picture. 

Och, here is my very last wee grouse. I am not sure why Katharine Hepburn who has the lead in two major Scottish roles in the 1930s should have her name spelled incorrectly (though consistently) throughout. That’s the sort of thing that irritates online but surely is avoidable in print, and in a second edition? 

I enjoyed revisiting some favourites, some half-familiar films, enjoyed learning about others, and relished especially the author’s comments based on obvious knowledge and enthusiasm. At times I wished he had written a personal cinema-going memoir. Perhaps that is for another day. 

Scottish Films is a valuable and up to date reference book – but more than that it is an entertaining and informative read too. I can imagine many film fans will pass many a pleasant evening with these pages, revisiting the cinema-going of their distant and recent past and perhaps planning a series of encore screenings.