The big news items of the past week, to judge from the comments of my Facebook friends, was the choice of actor Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor Who. I’m fairly unmoved myself, as I stopped watching that series around the time of the Great Hiatus (though I’ve seen most of older episodes). I don’t trust the new production team; the people who produce it are prominent promoters of the Gay Movement, as Torchwood demonstrates.
But the name Peter Capaldi rang a bell. Couldn’t place it at first. Then I remembered. He played Johnny Oldsen, the geeky young Scots linguist, in one of my very favorite movies, Local Hero. It was, I am informed, his first major movie role.
Capaldi (right) with fisherman Alan Mowat in “Local Hero.”
Local Hero is a Bill Forsyth movie. Forsyth was a rising star back in the early ‘80s. He made several well-received comedies about the lives of urban young people in Scotland. His success got him the opportunity to work with Warner Brothers, and so he wrote and directed what I consider his best film (though Anthony Sacramone prefers Gregory’s Girl. What does he know?)
The main character in Local Hero is “Mac” MacIntyre (Peter Riegert), who works for Knox Oil, a major corporation in Houston. His life is all about communications at a distance (“I’m really a telex man”) and shallow or broken relationships close at hand. He gets chosen to go to Scotland and negotiate the purchase of an entire fishing village, along with its bay and adjacent acreage, for a refinery and storage facility, because he has a Scottish name – even though he’s actually of Hungarian descent. Admitted to the other-worldly Presence of his boss, Mr. Happer (Burt Lancaster) he finds that the old man doesn’t actually care much about the acquisition at all, but is insistent that he keep his eyes on the sky – his real dream is to discover a comet he can name after himself. Continue reading 'Who' is a hero