MovieChat Forums > The Eagle Has Landed (1976) Discussion > Jean Marsh's Missing Speech

Jean Marsh's Missing Speech

posted 18 years ago by thorburn52
22 replies | jump to latest

I saw the movie 30 years ago when it first came out in the theatre and clearly remember Jean Marsh's character, Joanna Grey, explaining to Michael Caine (German Major Steiner) why she was a traitor helping the Germans.

Specifically, she wasn't really British, but a Boer from South Africa and her family was imprisoned in a concentration camp by the British 40 years earlier during the Boer War. And I think she said that her parents or sibling died in the camp or something to that effect to make it sound like her experience was really terrible and that, secretly, she hated the British. Which makes the later scene, when the parson is chewing her out once she's found out ("we invited you into our homes," etc., and "I never really thought I'd have to leave"), make more sense.

Anyway, I haven't seen the movie on DVD yet, but have seen it several times on TV and VHS. And except for maybe one occasion on television, that scene is always deleted.

Does anyone know why? (I can guess.) Also, does anyone know if the scene is included in the DVD version or the book?

[–] inspectors71 18 years ago

Wow, are you sure you aren't mixing the novel with the movie? Then again, I too saw the movie when it first came out--and many times since--and I don't remember that speech. Makes me curious, too!

"You eat guts."--Nick Devlin

[–] fritz-66 18 years ago

In the book it's not a speech but a subchapter of Chapter 2 where Higgins details her birth, childhood and adulthood, 1875 to 1944. She's in her mid '60 in the book.

I'm planning to watch the DVD tonight and will keep an eye out for the speech.

[–] inspectors71 18 years ago

There ya go!

"You eat guts."--Nick Devlin

[–] madDOOMhammer 18 years ago

It's in.

[–] axecrox 18 years ago

Her speech is in the recent DVD release floating around the UK. But the organ music accompanying the battle atthe church is cut from that version. Dunno why but this deletion ruins the whole film for me.

Strange that the authorities seem to have decided they dont mind talk of British concentration camps anymore but they do object to the use of classical music and violence (shades of one of the reasons for the uproar over the Clockwork orange again perhaps?).

[–] Hammerfanatic46 18 years ago

Gordon P. Clarkson

It was in the DVD version I have just seen.It was maybe left out in some versions as it might be seen to trivialise the Nazi Concentration Camps .People undoubtedly died in The South African Camps but they were not set up to slaughter people ,and can hardly be compared to the deliberate killing on an Industrial scale that was the Holocaust.

[–] duckfart 17 years ago

"It was in the DVD version I have just seen.It was maybe left out in some versions as it might be seen to trivialise the Nazi Concentration Camps .People undoubtedly died in The South African Camps but they were not set up to slaughter people ,and can hardly be compared to the deliberate killing on an Industrial scale that was the Holocaust. "

While the British concentration camps in Africa did not share the same 'purpose' like the Nazi ones, their conditions weren't much different. I would say 27,000 Boers dead (of which 24,000 were children. 50% of the Boer child population) well on the road to genocide.

[–] Hammerfanatic46 17 years ago

Gordon P. Clarkson

I agree entirely,I am Scottish and do not make any excuses for the British Empire as I feel we too are its victims.

I did not in any way mean to trivialise this atrocity merely to suggest a reason why it is not mentioned in some showings of the film.

[–] axecrox 17 years ago

Im sorry but i have to laugh at your response Hammerfanatic.

I laugh because I am English (of distant scottish heritage but English today) and I feel that WE are victims of the British Empire too!!

I dont know any "educated" English people who see that we as a nation benefitted from the empire more than Scotland did and none of us feel that it was "our" empire (I mean an English Empire).

I also see that modern Scotish opinion seems to be taking a kind of moral high ground over the empire as if it was nothing to do with Scotland and it was all the fault of the nasty English. That may suit Mel Gibson but i dont see the facts supporting this arguement.

Personally ive always seen it as a "British" thing and therefore not an English thing as such and not really of our doing alone. One of the reasons why i and my friends think this is because if you look at history you will see that Scottish men are disproportionately represented amoung the company Directors and Lords and ladies who effectively ran and profitted from the empire. Scottish traders led the way to exploit indigenous populations along side English traders and Scottish soldiers enthusiastically fought for Britain not England and the Union Jack (a flag that i do not identify with at all) was as common a sight in Scotland at the time as it was in England.

Practically all of the major imperial trades were dominated by Scots not English. It seems a bit rich to me to somehow cast the Scots as victims of the Empire when we both (England and Scotland) had a fair part to play in its creation and exploitation. The common people from both our nations suffered lives of poverty and oppression whilst both a few English and Scots made a hell of a lot of money.

Ive been writing about this for over an hour but it all gets very longwinded so ill start from scratch and try a different approach instead.

Would you say that England conquered Scotland??
If so when?
what is the event that signifies this?
what was the changed status to the Scottish nation and the Scottish people that resulted from this conquest?
Who within Scotland were the victims of this conquest? and how were they victimised?
Alternatively who were the Scottish victims of the British empire and how were they victimised?

Im not asking these questions simply to argue but because i am interested to know how these things are seen from a Scots point of view. I believe there are good answers to all of the questions ive asked so im just interested to understand your point of view more.

Please remember im not trying to start an England-Scotland slanging match, im just genuinely interested in your arguemments/opinions as ive never had this conversation with a Scot before.

For the record id say that Britain definitely committed crimes against the Boer Population through "their" use of concentration camps. The historical apology is that it was accidental hardships of desease and starvation but i also find this hard to believe. I think the British knew what they were doing and didnt care at all how many civilians and children died. However the same is not true of the common population of Britain once they found out what had happened.

Alex

[–] Pharaoh-in-de-Nile 17 years ago

I consider my self a Norse-Gael/North Angle(that is from a Norse-Gael Highland clan but now of Northumbria) and I have to agree that it is a bit silly when people talk of the British Empire as being 'English' when it was the upper-class (mostly Lowland Scots and Saxons (as in Southern Englanders) but they could be from all over) who benefited, all the lower-class had it reasonably bad.

I think the various English people and the Cornish have it worse than the Scots these days, as their countries do not officially exist (England is merely a part of the UK as it has no parliament and Cornwall is referred to as a county and do not get me started on how badly treated the Shetlanders and Orkneyans (Cumbria also has it badly as they are grouped as English most of the time). At least Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exist politically and are acorded rights to go with their own Ethnic Group(s) (Cymry in Wales, Albannaich (Highlanders) and Scottish Lowlanders (these are technically different Ethnic groups, the former Celtic and the latter Anglo-Saxon) in Scotland and Ulster Scots and Gaeil in Northern Ireland.
The English/Anglo-Saxons (in England), Norse (in the Orkneys and Shetlands) and the Cornish (in Cornwall) and Cumbrians (in Cumberland) are barely acknowledged as separate peoples and are certainly not treated as such.

As for 'Concentration Camps', as I have tried to explain on these boards before, they are not the same thing as the 'Death Camps' that the Nazi's used. They were actually to protect people, who at the time were classed as British Subjects, from the approaching front-line of battle, approaching Boers and more importantly the British 'Scorched Earth' policy. They were actually considered 'Humanitarian Aid' rather than prisons, however they were not run as best they could and people started to starve and die due to food shortages (much like the British soldiers that were fighting in the war). It should be noted that they ran on a pretty corrupt system in which families of Boer 'Rebels' were given less rations than those of Boers, Blacks...etc...who did not fight against the Empire.

The whole thing was a black time for the world but people do really need to read up on the issue rather than hear 'Concentration Camp' and think of 'Death Camps' or 'Labour Camps' rather than a stupid tragedy and injustice in it's own right.
"Nothings gonna change my world!"

[–] Dolemite (87) 2 years ago

Well said Alex.

[–] susean 17 years ago

The discussion of the concentration camps isn't included in the (now ancient)VHS version of the film....because I remember Michael Caine saying to Jean marsh in the original print..."that's what I can hear in your voice, a touch of Afrikaans"

PC brigade again?

BEST REGARDS
SEAN

[–] trpdean 17 years ago

when I saw it on TCM - Jean Marsh recounts to Michael Caine her family history and reason why she's anti-British - it's after he asks about the Afrikaans accent he hears in her speech.

Incidentally, I have to respond to the comment that the conditions in the camps in South Africa around 1900 were like the camps in Nazi Germany - that's madness! A couple of differences: there really wasn't any gas used to exterminate people in these kraal-type enclosures in South Africa - nor were there vast ovens to reduce the bodies to ashes. This is just ridiculous.

And these comments about the British Empire are amusing - apparently Scotland isn't part of Britain? How about Wales? Was it really an empire of that 0.1% of the British population who were upper class? Because why? Because no one could vote in the 1940s, 1930s, 1920s, 1910s, 1900s? The lower classes in Britain were all victims of the British empire? All those foods and tobacco and drinks, and fabrics from around the world - weren't enjoyed by anyone outside the ruling class? I never knew that Al Capp was smoking English grown tobacco! This is just silly stuff.

At any given time, it is true that those considering themselves to be beneficiaries of the British Empire varied - certainly the Irishmen Edward Carson and Edmund Burke felt they were among the rulers of the British Empire. Some other Irishmen apparently did not.

Certainly those living in what's now the U.S. for example felt very much happy participants in the British Empire in the 1600s and 1700s up to 1776 - thus, William Phipps, native born of Massachusetts (Sir William Phipps later after his discovery of the great treasure under the sea - his victories in Nova Scotia over the French - his assumption of the position as Governor of Massachusetts) felt he ruled.

Those native-born Indians with civil service jobs felt this very much in the 1800s and 1900s - right up to 1949. They ruled. Certainly the vast majority of Hindus in the 1850s felt very much part of the British Empire as they fought to defeat the Muslims' Sepoy Mutiny.

At varied times, the English were conquering - or the Scots were conquering - or the Welsh were conquering - or the Irish were conquering - or in America in the 1770s, the Hessians were conquering -- all on behalf of the British Empire -and sometimes against other parts of the British Empire!

[–] Mor_Oghma 17 years ago

"Incidentally, I have to respond to the comment that the conditions in the camps in South Africa around 1900 were like the camps in Nazi Germany - that's madness! A couple of differences: there really wasn't any gas used to exterminate people in these kraal-type enclosures in South Africa - nor were there vast ovens to reduce the bodies to ashes. This is just ridiculous."

Not all of the nazi concentration camps were death camps. Most were labour camps. But it doesn't matter anyway.

What matters is that people died there. Millions of people.

My uncle died in a concentration camp. We don't know how. Was it a bullet in the head? Starvation? It doesn't matter. It was a murder all the same.

Same with my grandmother's brother who died on a forced march. No ovens, no gas, simply hunger, thirst and exhaustion. Natural causes of death according to you? I say murder.

Mor

[–] leedennison 17 years ago

back to the main topic question - the new DVD is the extended version of the film which has jm speeches and the organ music in full

[–] ContinentalOp 16 years ago

"My uncle died in a concentration camp. We don't know how. Was it a bullet in the head? Starvation? It doesn't matter. It was a murder all the same."

Not really. If it was starvation it may not have been murder, as many people (loyalists and rebels) died of starvation at that point in South African history. As it was pointed out many times, the camps were actually refugee camps design to protect civilians from the hazards of the Boer war. They were NOT death camps, POW camps or labour camps.

"Jai Guru Deva, Om"

[–] inapmor 15 years ago

Just caught the movie last night on TV and the scene is there ...She explains her treachery because her sister & boer mother died in a concentration camp in south africa ...
she actually tells michael caine something like "do you think you germans invented the concentration camps?"

[–] MerchantVenturer 13 years ago

The film was shown again on British television today - this time on BBC 2, the Corporation's number two tv channel - and the bit about the concentration camps in the Boer War which provoked the character to sympathise with the Nazis was certainly left in.

I suspect too many conspiracy theories abound for those times when it's been left out - probably timing constraints for the particular slot it occupied in those instances was the reason.

[–] ridge-m-1 10 years ago

Joanna Grey explains her Boer background and the fact that it was the British, not the Nazis, that invented concentration camps in the Blu-ray cut of the film.