The Scarlet Tunic is a feature film based on a Thomas Hardy short story and shot on location in Bridport, Dorset. Directed by Stuart St Paul, myself, it marked my first time out directing a 35mm feature.

I can’t believe I have never blogged about this film, which has become a cult classic. I will be talking about it in my next round of talks on ships, starting with the Aurora pre-Christmas and post Christmas on the South American adventure.  The film was selected by Directors’ Fortnight founding artistic director Pierre-Henri Deleau for competition at the Cabourg Film Festival, where it contended for Best Director and Best Film. It achieved the same recognition at Verona’s Schermi d’Amore during the year headed by Sydney Pollack. During its festival run, The Scarlet Tunic regularly found itself competing against major studio titles such as The English Patient and Anna Karenina.

Stuart often recounts the unusual path that led him to the project. At the time, he had been in Hollywood preparing to shoot a sci-fi action thriller starring James Caan and Jean-Marc Barr. When that production went into turnaround, he returned to the UK and stepped in to direct this film for young producer Zygi Kamasa, who would later become head of Lionsgate.

 

The story is taken from a Dorset newspaper, which Hardy rewrote as a short story, a dozen or so pages. The script I was given, which was seeded from a newspaper article was a staggering 323 pages! A film equates to a page a minute, which in today’s efforts would make it a box set. I rewrote the script removing all the overly romantic parts and building a drama with a subplot and coming in at 128 pages. The original writer and I disagreed, so a Universal Pictures in-house writer, Colin Clements, came in and he got it down and then it went up, and stayed at 128 pages. It now included the young maids daughter, Dotty, which my daughter Laura Aikman played.

Now in the 21st century, the film of Laura Aikman’s parents’ surprise at her Gavin and Stacey Christmas appearance is a web favourite. This was the first time her father (directing her) watched he reduce the whole film crew to tears. She was eleven, and this was not her first movie.

#Dorset #Bridport

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