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Chance of a Lifetime
INTRODUCED BY BERNARD MILES
I don't think this scene is a particularly good example of cinema, judged from a purist angle. It is obviously far too talkie and not sufficiently visual. But it seems to me to possess one quality which many better films lack it rings true. It gives a very authentic picture of the average British workman with all his wit, v/armth, stubbornness, irritability.
We had the greatest difficulty in thinking what could possibly be the solution to this little unofficial strike. The scene went well in writing and we were quite excited about it, until the moment when Baxter's opponents start throwing the pennies, but then we suddenly realized that this would only make Baxter madder than he was before, and would therefore increase the tension rather than slacken it ! If I remember, it was Walter Greenwood who thought up the idea of having a fat girl in the canteen, on to whose ample bosom the last penny should fall. It was then easy to think of a fellowworkman urging her to dance, in order to shake the coin down to the ground inside her clothes, and thus break up the whole tension with laughter as so often happens in real life. The scene was shot in the canteen of Stanley Mills, Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, which was the parent factory of the ruined mill we took over and used as studio and location.
Apart from the few chief parts, Baxter, Kettle and the Union Officials, most of the actors in the scene were working people either from the mill or from nearby factories or the local labour exchange, all of whom were happy to spend their week-ends so congenially ! The scene in the Fitting Shop was shot in the actual Fitting Shop of Daniels Brothers, a light engineering works about a mile away from our mill, and once again people who were working in the Shop for five days a week came and spent their week-ends there as well.
The background noise was all authentic live sound, including that of a man beating a piece of iron with a club hammer, which occasionally broke through the dialogue and made the speakers