magnus linklater, a one-time Maxwell editor, on tonight’s film about the press baron’s last days |
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Anyone who ever worked for the late Robert Maxwell will watch tonight's film with the cold chill of recognition. David Suchet has caught perfectly the thin veneer of booming geniality that Maxwell carried with him, and the brooding menace that lay beneath it.
Fear, as well as frequent moments of hilarity, were the hallmarks of the time I edited a newspaper for him, and Colin Barr, who directs this thinly fictionalised drama of his last days, conveys the sense of danger we all experienced.
There is a moment, early on, when Maxwell is interrupted at a board meeting by a provocative comment from his newly recruited finance director. The other board members freeze, shocked at this lese majeste. For a moment Maxwell stares down at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion. Then, suddenly, he |
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| From his dyed black hair to his saturnine grin, Suchet has Maxwell's appearance and mannerisms down to a T |
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relaxes. "I like it," he smiles. "You think outside the box. That's why you're here. That's why I'm here... you're not afraid of me are you?"
From his dyed black hair to his saturnine grin, Suchet has Maxwell's appearance and mannerisms to a T. But nothing, in the end, can measure up to the reality of the man. Everything about Maxwell was larger than this - more outrageous, more grotesque, more bullying, more absurd.
This is, however, more than just a caricature of the man. It portrays the insecurity behind the mask, and suggests that, as his financial empire collapsed around him, he was destroyed as much by his need for love as his failure to contain his debts.
The point at which he rejects his wife Betty - played with wonderfully understated pathos by Patricia Hodge - and gambles instead on his attractive secretary, is made the fulcrum on which his fate balances. When she turns him down, he is left with nothing.
Was it this that drove him to his watery grave? It is as good a theory as any.
Maxwell, BBC2, May 4, 9pm 
FIRST POSTED MAY 4, 2007
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