Synopsis
Sovereign's Company is the story of a boy from an army family with a long tradition of honour and distinction, who goes to a military academy as an officer cadet and finds himself temperamentally unsuited to the life.
1970 Directed by Alan Clarke
Sovereign's Company is the story of a boy from an army family with a long tradition of honour and distinction, who goes to a military academy as an officer cadet and finds himself temperamentally unsuited to the life.
Roland Culver Gareth Forwood James Cosmo Stephen Shepherd Clive Francis James Hazeldine Oliver Cotton Larry Dann David Rowlands John Wentworth Laurence Hardy Moray Watson John Nettleton Graham Lines Raymond Adamson Lewis Wilson Norman Mann Norman Mitchell Margaret Lang Chris Cunnigham Ron Conrad Stephen Carter
Alan Clarke's career as a film-maker began in the 1960s but his career as a troublemaker began with this film, whose depiction of the prestigious Sandhurst Royal Military Academy was damning enough to cause questions to be asked in the House of Parliament. Watched now, its depiction of military training as a hotbed of violence, classism and bullying looks tame twice over. Cinematically, it's not as hard-hitting as the first half of Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (I suspect, given Kubrick's omnivorous attitude towards research, he may have seen this film and been influenced by it). In terms of the real life Clarke always wanted to capture, too, it's not as genuinely disturbing as the ongoing trials related to Deepcut Barracks.…
This is an exceptionally well made Wednesday Play from 1970 directed by the great Alan Clarke and written by veteran TV writer Don Shaw who, apart from turning in scripts for the likes of Survivors, Dangerfield and Z Cars, was also a great writer of military matters, for my money he was on a par with Charles Wood in that respect.
Sovereign's Company explores the institutional and psychological aspects of army life, focusing on the first term for a group of officer cadets at Sandhurst Royal Military Academy. Naturally they're a mixed bunch; there's a supercilious 'head prefect' style turn from Clive Francis, forever butting heads with his more free-spirited clear rival Oliver Cotton. Larry…
One of the repercussions of navigating modern life as the shitstorm it's become under covid and late capitalism is being forced to find ways to pass the time whilst fending off the urge to have political rants and meltdowns, online and offline. I decided to start sifting through the beeb archives and catch up on the Play for Today series. The preceding Wednesday Play series is a little too before the cusp for me, and of the dozen or so extant episodes I may have already seen the finest, namely Loach's Up the Junction and Cathy Come Home. There were still two Alan Clarkes as yet unseen however.
Sovereign's Company is far in advance of the playhouse archaism of the…
Based on the writer, Don Shaw's experiences at Sandhurst, Sovereign's Company centers on cadet training a military academy run on deference to the empire and her 'glory days', cruel discipline, pack-animal homosocial menace, and leather boot polishing.
The lead, Cantfield, is withdrawn and passive, often found in the back of shots, watching. Pale, slender, and watery eyed, he's scared of the other men and their braying violence, eventually goaded into proving his manhood through brutality.
I was wondering why Cantfield's actor looked familiar – he's Gareth Forwood, son of Glynis Johns and Anthony Forwood, Dirk Bogarde's manager and long-term partner. Perhaps his greatest contribution to cinema isn't his performance here but his role in the Bogarde/Mills fall-out on set of The Singer Not the Song?
Very early Alan Clarke work focused on a young man of a sensitive disposition (possibly a little gay coded) training in a strict English military academy and the mental toll it takes on him. Cantfield comes from a family of renowned army men so feels a sense of duty to follow in their footsteps, regardless of if it's right for him.
In my opinion, this is the first really good Alan Clarke and a must watch for fans of Scum as it feels like an early blueprint in a way. Not so brutal, but the same tension and power struggles of youth are there. The violent initiation game in it is reminiscent of the "Murderball" scene in Scum too.
If you're a fan of Clarke it's worth the effort to track down, although I'm not sure that it's online anywhere. I watched it via his excellent Dissent and Disruption boxset.
Available at last to watch legally after previously only being available through the grey market, this Wednesday Play focuses on a group of military cadets at Sandhurst in their first year.
Gareth Forwood plays a chap from a distinguished military family with the weight of expectation on him, but he pales against more heavyweight performances from the supercilious Clive Francis, the over-eager James Hazledine (those teeth!) and the cautiously dour Oliver Cotton. David Rowlands isn't bad either as a pompous ass who has found a 'hidey-hole' for his forbidden car.
The old grandfather reminiscing with the old guard reminded me of the Gielgud/Anderson scenes in 'Chariots of Fire', all full of privilege and patriotic bluster. Traditionalist duffers pining for the…
The power of hindsight: an early way-finder in the Clarkian canon or a work dimmed by what has come since? Both.
As noted elsewhere, whether this was a first conscious step towards a consistent style for Alan Clarke is a mute point, but it does exhibit something we came to expect: a spareness of framing and astringency of movement.
Whether it’s possible to make a thematic link to later work is tenuous given television directors wouldn’t likely be selecting their own material at this time but there is an irresistible presage to Scum a few years later regardless, and the mechanics of class is made quite clear.
The charge of the piece has however been reduced by years and years…
Didn’t look at the cast beforehand and spent ages trying to work out why I recognised a very young James Cosmo!
I barely made it through this insufferable bore. I can't think of anything duller than the minutiae of British military instruction through a prism of petty classism. Wait...I think I said the same thing about the last film in this Alan Clarke box set, 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝑻𝒉𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝑯𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝑻𝒖𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒍. Obviously, something's gotta give. I paid a mint for this set based on the strength of a few of the later films in his filmography. But these early entries are killing me. So far, I've watched several of the shorts and three of the full-length ones and I haven't been all that impressed with any of them. 𝑷𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒂'𝒔 𝑭𝒆𝒏 was okay in its artfulness but nothing I'd return to. They…
Clarke’s first major work in my view, depicting some of his pet themes of the crushing weight of patriarchal institutions, and personal alienation, with a stripped-back claustrophobic style.
Sovereign's Company is about the first term of a group of young officers at Sandhurst Military Academy. It focuses on the psychological burden, through a smart look at the institution. It greatly reminded me Lindsay Anderson's If..., though without the surreal flights of fantasy. I found the film really well-made and well-structured, but rather one-paced in the end. Alan Clarke's direction is impressive, and it is another fine early film from the new BFI box-set.
A claustrophobic drama about the students at a military academy, this plays like an upper-class counterpart to Scum, with Alan Clarke again portraying the systems of order and control that naturally form among a group of young men. The film represents a genuine leap forward in Clarke's technique as well: a couple of the wide shots suggest the startling clarity of his later work, but he also achieves much more visual intensity through his alternating close-ups here than he does in The Last Train Through Harecastle Tunnel.