Fortunately for Malcolm McDowell, the Greek god type of
film star so popular in the twenties and thirties is now out of date. Malcolm
does not lay any claim to being handsome in the conventional sense -as, for
example, were the young Robert Taylor and Tyrone Power - but he has plenty of
character, and it is this that makes you remember his face long after you have
forgotten a vacuous Adonis you once saw. His highly intriguing feature
registered themselves on cinema audiences when he appeared as the rebel
schoolboy in Lindsay Anderson's if....
It was his first starring role in a film
and he had come a long way to get it. Notwithstanding
his Scottish name, Malcolm is a Yorkshireman born in Leeds, and he was educated
at a public school very similar to the one we saw in If... Traditionally, Monday
is usually regarded as washing day, but at Malcolm's school it appears to have
been whacking day for he tells me that he was beaten every Monday night for the
first 18 months of his school career. He harbors no resentment for this rough
treatment, indeed he eventually became head boy and captain of both the rugger
and cricket teams.
Sad to relate, however, Malcolm was no great shakes
scholastically, and when McDowell senior had spent a considerable sum on his
son's education he felt that enough was enough and that Malcolm had better find
himself a job. Like many a star before him, he tried various jobs without
exactly hitting the jackpot, although he did at last show some flair as a sales
representative for an American coffee firm. Then came the next paternal
explosion when our hero, out of the blue, announced that he had just about had
enough of selling coffee and had accepted an £8-a-week job in repertory. 'Don't
be a bloody fool,' expostulated his despairing father, but Malcolm, true to the
eternal actor-type, went right ahead and soon discovered that he had to work a
great deal harder for much less money than he had been previously getting.
'It was good fun and great experience,' Malcolm told me,
'but I couldn't help feeling sorry for the poor holidaymakers who had to pay to
see an inexperienced actor painfully learning his trade. I was in Shanklin in
the Isle of Wight for four months and the company asked me to go with them to
Torquay for the winter season which I did.'
He decided at length that he'd had enough of rep and came
to London to try his luck in the metropolis. His luck made a dismal start and at
one point he was reduced to selling his camera - a 21st birthday present - to
make ends meet. 'I'd never been able to afford to buy a film for it anyway,' he
says. He managed a walking-on part with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and had
his first lucky break when he landed the part of Eric Porter's son in 'Iron
Johnny' on television. Malcolm freely admits that while his tenure at the RSC
did him a lot of good, he was not exactly happy there and decided to leave.
'I was out of work for three months and had to take on a
job as messenger boy for a firm of solicitors, but after a time I began to get
small parts in television and in time the parts got bigger and bigger. I went to
the Royal Court Theatre to play Sebastian in 'Twelfth Night'. Rehearsals began
on New Year's Day 1968 - an easy date to remember - and while I was working at
the Royal Court I had a call from Lindsay Anderson. I went to see him, read for
him, and we talked. But on leaving him I thought that would be that, because he
had seen an awful lot of young actors while looking for someone to fill the role
of Mick in If... But the next fortnight was agony,' Malcolm went on. 'Even
though you think you haven't a chance you still keep hoping. My spirits rose a
bit higher when I did a second audition for Anderson. Then one night, as the
curtain came down at the Royal Court, I had a phone call from Lindsay to say the
part was mine. I was ecstatic!'
Well we all know what happened to if... at the box office,
and the wild critical acclaim it evoked everywhere. The film received the
accolade of greatness when it carried off the most coveted international award -
the Grand Prix of the Cannes Film Festival. It was after his success in this
movie that Malcolm began to receive scripts, but he has always been very careful
what to choose.
'The fact that I have turned down so many scripts does not
mean that I am big-headed - far from it,' he emphasized to me. 'I'm not just
after the money, ready to take on anything so long as the lolly’s there. I
have to be interested in the character I'm playing if I'm to do justice to it.
That's why I wait for exciting roles to turn up such as I have in The Raging
Moon, Figures In A Landscape and the film I'm doing now, A Clockwork Orange.'
This latest film is directed by Stanley Kubrick who made 2001: A Space Odyssey,
and is also set in the future with Malcolm in conflict with a new social order.
'What about the part of Bruce you play in The Raging Moon
(Long Ago Tomorrow in the US - Alex)?' I asked.
'I received the script from producer Bruce Cohn Curtis and
I was immediately fascinated by the character of Bruce in the story,' he
replied. 'I suppose the part appealed to the rebel in me as did that of Mick in
If... It's great to play a part where you can cock a snook at the world.'
'But during much of the film you're confined to a
wheelchair,' I put in. 'Surely there's not much scope there for rebellion?'
'Bruce is a rebel against petty authority. He's a North of
England bolshie lad like me,' said Malcolm firmly. 'When he becomes a paraplegic
he doesn't change his attitude - you don't find him becoming a humble pathetic
invalid. Two other considerations made me eager to play the role,' he added.
'First because I should have the opportunity of playing opposite Nanette Newman,
an exciting experience I have very much enjoyed. The second was that the film
was to be directed by Nanette's husband, Bryan Forbes, whose previous films are
a sufficient guarantee to an actor that he will get first class direction.'
'And as the Forbes children, Sarah and Emma, have tiny
parts in the film, you should be on good terms with the whole family?'
Malcolm laughed. 'if you say that the Forbes family and I
are friends for life you won't be far wrong,' he said.
© ABC Film Review April 1971
Archived 2001-08 Alex D. Thrawn for www.MalcolmMcDowell.net