June 1st, 2004
Fillums by Hugh Leonard
His newspaper columns and literary output hint that Hugh Leonard, real and imaginary, is an avuncular raconteur. His stories of people and places, of secrets and rites of passage happen in small Irish towns or anonymous Dublin suburbs. ‘Fillums’ begins, handily enough, with a trailer. In it, an aging playwright worried about his literary reputation asks the young narrator to record the details of his life. What follows is a collection of tales centred around an area of south county Dublin called Drane (a thinly-disguised version of Leonard’s native Dalkey) during the Emergency of the 1940s.
The ludicrously named Perry Perry and his wife Babs move to Drane and quickly regret it. It’s a boring place where the only diversions are being nosy and going to the local ‘picturehouse’ to see films. The latter is run by Dermo Grace, a likeable chancer, who also runs a secret film society to show ‘banned’ films. Of course we’re not talking porn here, but films that comprised the Hollywood view of the war or were vaguely risqué. Leonard makes much of the Hayes production code and its character stereotyping, something he manages to avoid himself. Instead he wheels on (and off) a series of memorable characters and different stories.
The book has a chatty, conversational tone. Leonard urges the reader to pull up a chair and listen to his entertaining yarns. That the characters flit in and out of the pages does and doesn’t work. Some of the fleeting glimpses are enough, but several of the book’s best creations disappear after just a chapter. In ‘Breezy’, two brothers are at odds over a woman with a flyaway skirt, ‘The Good German’ introduces us to Hansy Mueller who has more than one secret to hide while ‘The Standing Ovations’ brilliantly satirises the politics of amateur dramatic societies. One of the book’s best episodes is ‘The Canon’s Bewk’ about a secret ledger filled with the locals’ secrets as told to the Canon in the confessional.
At a guess there is more than a slight chunk of autobiography here and real people like actors Michael MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards, and a cantankerous Paddy Kavanagh pass through the pages. In a dreary suburb in a time of ration, the cinema was very much the focus of activity and as Perry pronounces: “Picturehouses give people a spare life to live in case the one they have turns out to be a dud”. While the backdrop might be Hollywood films, the stories are about people’s lives and wartime shenanigans in a small town.
More anthology than novel, ‘Fillums’ is enjoyable for many reasons, not least for Leonard’s wonderful language and abundant colloquialisms. A treat - perfect fireside nostalgia for winter nights.