Water Movie 1985
Manases Blakemore
Water is a 1985 British comedy film directed by Dick Clement and starring Michael Caine. It was scripted by Clement and Ian La Frenais. The plot spoofs elements of the comedies Carlton-Browne of the F.O. (1958) and Passport to Pimlico (1948) and the then-recent invasions of the Falkland Islands and Grenada. Caine plays Baxter Thwaites, a Governor who has 'gone native' (similar to his role in The Honorary Consul), and Billy Connolly as local biracial activist Delgado, supported by the last performance of Leonard Rossiter, as Sir Malcolm Leveridge, and one of the last performances of Fulton Mackay.
The story is set in the fictional Caribbean island and British colony of Cascara. Widely ignored by the British Government, media, and general public, local Governor Baxter Thwaites is having an easy life in his small and peaceful colony. That peace is disturbed when an abandoned oil rig starts delivering water - at the standard of the finest table water brands (and laxative companies, as it contains a substance that makes you "shit like clockwork"). Different parties, including Downing Street, the Cascara Liberation Front, the White House, French bottled water producers, and Cuban guerrillas take interest in the future of the island and threaten to destroy the cosy way of life enjoyed by the island's inhabitants.
The film was one of three movies that HandMade Films intended to shoot in 1984, the others being A Private Function and a comedy from John MacKenzie, The Travelling Man (which ultimately would not be made). It was written by the experienced comedy duo Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement, who had just made Bullshot (1983) for HandMade.[2] "I guess it was like an Ealing film," said Clement, "but it was not a conscious effort to recreate that style. I can see the analogies with something like Passport to Pimlico."[3]
Le Frenais and Clement had made a television pilot in the US with Bill Persky who came up with the idea of a fictional British colony in the Caribbean which sought independence. The three of them wrote a screenplay which Persky wanted to direct (he had made the film Serial (1980)) but they were unable to raise finance. Then when Clement and Le Frenais made Bullshot for Handmade they showed the script to Denis O'Brien, head of the studio. "It was Denis who absolutely loved the script and really responded to it and said, 'Let's do it'," said Clement.[4] The fictional island of Cascara, which was the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia, is a play on Cascara, a plant which has laxative properties because in the film a re-opened oil well is discovered to produce mineral water with a 'slight laxative effect'. After Clement and Le Frenais wrote another draft of the script, they sent it to Michael Caine, who loved it and wanted to be in the film. Clement says, "We were thrilled because we knew that meant we would get the film made, and suddenly it was a go project."[4]
Denis O'Brien liked to use members of Monty Python in HandMade films and offered the role of Sir Malcolm Leveridge to John Cleese. Cleese read the script and turned it down; Leonard Rossiter played the role instead, in what turned out to be Rossiter's last film.[5]
At the time Billy Connolly was an emerging comedian, much admired by Denis O'Brien. "They were always trying to put him into a movie because Denis was convinced that Billy Connolly was the funniest man in Britain," said Clement. "He was way ahead of the pack there." O'Brien insisted that Connolly be in Bullshot and Water. "He was actually cast before anybody else," said Clement.[6]
Billy Connolly later recalled the making of the movie. "We went to Heathrow to fly out, and fly out we did. Not knowing that - there were no mobile phones then of course - they were racing up to tell us not to go. That the money had fallen through. But by the time the plane landed in Saint Lucia, they'd got the money again!"[7]
The movie started filming in May 1984. The same month A Private Function also went into production and people who worked on that film felt their budget was sacrificed in order to fund Water.[8]
Shooting took place mostly on Saint Lucia. There were few filmmaking facilities so items had to be shipped there by sea. Studio work was done at Shepperton Studios in London and the oil rig scenes were shot in Devon.
Connolly said Caine "taught me so much, about how to be generous to other actors. We were climbing up a hill and we were being filmed from the top. Suddenly he went, oh! My leg! And he spoiled a whole take. So they said we're doing it again, and he whispered to me 'next time, move further to the right, they can't see you'. He was lovely."[7]
George Harrison normally did not get too involved in production of HandMade's films. However, he helped out on Water by appearing in the concert at the end and getting his friends Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Jon Lord and Ray Cooper to appear. "George was very leery of appearing in his own company's movies," says Clement, "that was a big help to the film. We called in a few favours and, obviously, the Harrison connection didn't hurt. We hoped that scene would be a big selling tool for the movie... didn't work out that way but it was a good idea."[10]
The Singing Rebel's Band consists of Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Ray Cooper, Jon Lord, Mike Moran, Chris Stainton and Ringo Starr, with backing singers Jenny Bogle and Anastasia Rodriguez.[12] It spoofs The Concert for Bangladesh organised by Harrison in 1971.
The film premiered in London in January 1985. It was briefly in the top ten box office listing - along with A Private Function - but soon dropped out. It failed to recoup its costs and could not find an American distributor. When it was released there in April 1986 it failed at the box office there too.[3]
The film received a mixed review in the New York Times, which read in part "The folks who packaged this put-on operated on the theory that a lot of eccentric people doing nutty things produce hilarity. The ingredient missing from the fitfully amusing conglomeration of characters is a character for the whole. In kidding everything, the movie leaves us uncertain about whether anything is being seriously kidded."[13]
The Los Angeles Times called it "so refreshingly funny that you're tempted to forgive its tendency to run dry in its last half-hour... boasts some of the wittiest lines heard on screen since A Private Function."[14]
I'm happier with Bullshot than I am with Water. I think Water just misses. I feel it's not quite connecting in the right way. I look back on it and I'm fairly uncomfortable. For me I always did have a problem with fictional countries or places, I always like things rooted a little bit more in reality. I have a feeling that kind of thing works perhaps in fiction, but I always find that film is a very literal medium, you've got to sell stuff on the screen and I think it was larger than life in a way that isn't quite comfortable on screen and I don't think I pulled it off... And again in hindsight as much as I love Billy Connolly I think a black guy in that part would have been better. I think that would've helped the credibility of making it a Caribbean island.[15]
Michael Palin later said the financial failure of the film "was a bit of a turning point in HandMade Films, that Water was such a disaster and yet so much money was put into it. Somehow the luck ran out because judgement up to that time had been pretty good."[3]
Water is a 1985 British comedy movie directed by Dick Clement who with his fellow screenwriter Ian La Frenais set the film as a farce on the behavior of British colonists and "natives", as well as the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada and the 1982 Falklands War. The fictional British colony of Cascara, a small Caribbean island, ruled by Baxter Thwaites is treated indifferently by the Empire, and London is even considering plans to clear the island and turn it into a nuclear repository. However, when a U.S. oil company restarts its old production facilities for the sole purpose of filming a commercial, aromatic and digestive mineral water is accidentally unearthed from the abandoned oil well. The discovery of the water attracts many interest groups to the island who are interested in the expected profits. In addition, there is a two-man rebel group on the island that seeks Cascara's independence from Great Britain. Diplomatic chaos is the result, which becomes more and more confusing for all parties.
U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina was established in 1942. In 1982, the Marine Corps discovered specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the drinking water provided by two of the eight water treatment plants on base.
Water from the Tarawa Terrace water treatment plant was primarily contaminated by PCE (perchloroethylene or tetrachloroethylene). The source of the contamination was the waste disposal practices at ABC One-Hour Cleaners, an off-base dry cleaning firm. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) used a data analysis and modeling approach to reconstruct historical contaminant concentrations. Using these approaches, ATSDR estimated that PCE concentrations exceeded the current EPA maximum contaminant level of 5 ppb in drinking water from the Tarawa Terrace water treatment plant for 346 months during November 1957-February 1987. The most contaminated wells were shut down in February 1985.
Water from the Hadnot Point water treatment plant was contaminated primarily by TCE (trichloroethylene). Other contaminants in the drinking water included PCE and benzene and TCE degradation products trans-1,2-DCE (t-1,2-dichloroethylene) and vinyl chloride. Supply wells were contaminated by multiple sources: leaking underground storage tanks, industrial area spills, and waste disposal sites. ATSDR modeled the contamination and estimated that at least one VOC exceeded its current EPA maximum contaminant level in drinking water during August 1953 and January 1985.
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