I’ve probably gone on about EMI Films before, the slightly ill-fated film division of the prominent record label and music publisher, but, eh, what’s one more time? In 1969, EMI bought out Associated British Picture Corporation, one of the two big players in the British industry (they made Brighton Rock (1947) and The Dam Busters (1955), amongst others), and set about an ostensibly ambitious investment in British film with British money, British, British, British, keep saying it ‘til it loses all meaning. About a decade later, however, they’d struck it big with films like The Deer Hunter and Convoy (both 1978), high budget productions designed to particularly appeal to the American market. Deigning to continue on that path, they proceeded to bet big on some massive flops, as was the style at the time;* most infamously Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), an ensemble comedy about American love affair with the road (directed by John Schlesinger, of all people) that so misjudged the national mood of Reagan’s new-fangled America as to be labelled “anti-American”, amongst other things, by the hysterical US distributor (Brown). That, suffice to say, pretty much put paid to the dream of competing with American studios on their own turf (ironically, they turned down Chariots of Fire (1981) and Gandhi (1982) during this period (Moody, pp.166)). In 1983, the reins of production were given to Verity Lambert, best remembered for her involvement in the early days of Doctor Who, seemingly based on her successes at EMI Films’ subsidiary Thames Television and its own subsidiary Euston Films; the idea being that she managed to churn out high quality product with tight budgets and schedules there, and so presumably could help with the theatrical film division’s woes. Unfortunately, the higher ups were increasingly viewing Thorn EMI’s entertainment divisions as poor relations; film and that was such frippery and they were better off focussing on their technology side. As such, it was all pretty short-lived. The board were reluctant to sign off on all that much by the time she actually got there, and the film arm was sold off in 1986. The music division stuck around, presumably due to its legacy status; EMI does stand for ‘Electrical and Musical Industries’, you know.

Well, that was a long preamble that was only tenuously relevant. The gist is that Restless Natives is one of Lambert’s films from the period when she was trying to right ship.** The big idea, aside from making things cheaper than they were in Barry Spiking’s day as chief of production, was to be more British. I assume this was considered to be part of making stuff on a tighter budget combined with the need to combat against the perception of the company within the industry as a British studio not actually interested in British film and the presumed rejuvenation of ill-gotten patriotism in the Thatcher years leading to films that were more overtly UK centric. And so here we are. Restless Natives was made for a song even by the company’s reduced standards of the day; the median budget was about £4 or 5 million; but it managed to lose money anyway, apparently failing to appeal much to anyone outside of Scotland.

The film tells the story of Will (Vincent Friell) and Ronnie (Joe Mullaney), a pair of underemployed Scottish youths living unfulfilling lives in urban Edinburgh. Disaffected and unable to find decent employment, they spot an untapped line of income; using toys and props from the joke shop where Ronnie sometimes works, they decide to take to holding up tourist coaches on the way to the Highlands. That all goes pretty well, and the two anonymous highwaymen become local heroes for taking on these damned gringos whose spending seldom sees its way to the local populace, but the government takes issue. Scotland’s current function is meant to be as one giant tourist trap, and a spate of robberies is bad for business.

So… it’s kind of an odd film for EMI to make in the year of our common era Nineteen-hundred-and-eighty-five. The company brass was increasingly risk averse and had passed on a whole bunch of stuff Lambert offered to the board, including some low budget films which later proved hits for other companies, or a company, at any rate; both My Beautiful Laundrette and Letter to Brezhnev (both 1985) were on the table at one point, but presumably were deemed too risky in their subject matter of ‘it’s the ‘80s and everything’s going to shit’, instead being picked up by the nascent Film4. Restless Natives is also pretty overtly scathing of the society that Margaret Thatcher talked about fostering an awful lot considering she also claimed it didn’t exist, but it’s in the form of a comedy, so I guess it was all right or something. The central conceit; two people on a bike find work robbing people; being as it is a parody of the infamous Norman Tebbit bit about how the unemployed should get on their bikes and look for jobs.*** This is pretty much text, by the way, with even the trailer’s voiceover getting a dig in about it.

The fact that the film does seem to be somewhat consciously aping the style of Bill Forsyth was presumably part of the appeal for the company, having dealt in an actual Forsyth film the year prior (Comfort and Joy (1984)) and perhaps smarting from the fact that Local Hero (1983) was another film that they’d let get away (Moody, pp.187), this no doubt seemed like another way to get on the Scottish whimsy wagon, such as it was, except cheaper, one assumes, as the talent involved were less established. However, Restless Natives perhaps more resembles That Sinking Feeling (1979) more than Forsyth’s subsequent more crowd-pleasing (and generally more successful) work like the aforementioned Local Hero or Gregory’s Girl (1981). That’s not exactly a bad thing, but it does suggest something slightly more biting than may have been expected. Restless Natives is perhaps more of an obvious crowd-pleaser than That Sinking Feeling, with its channelling of the malaise of the unemployed into a far more larger-than-life scheme that allows for action sequences, but it nonetheless does maintain some of that low-key discontent that permeates the earlier film. Along with that, it lays quite thickly into its Scottish setting. While That Sinking Feeling is set in Glasgow, the story doesn’t feel inherently tied to Scotland.

Restless Natives takes place in Edinburgh (well, sort of), incidentally. So that’s different. It makes a certain degree of sense; Edinburgh is perhaps more conventionally touristy than Glasgow, at least in terms of perception. One wonders why the police in Edinburgh are investigating crimes that are taking place in the Highlands, but I suppose one might overlook it as being due to Edinburgh being the tour buses’ terminus. It’s far from the biggest mystery involved with the policing side of the plot (which is obviously ‘why is Ned Beatty there?’; they explain it, but it’s pretty dubious (I assume the actual reason is a rather more cynical desire to put an American in to try and appeal to American audiences)). It ties into the recurring theme of the commodification of Scottish cultural heritage. People don’t have much interest in the Scotland of the now, it’s all about the selling the past, or a version thereof, to people with money. The lack of interest the media and holidaymakers show in the non-picture postcard ready side of Scotland is one of the key points; all this money is making its way through the country, but it’s made readily apparent that not all that much is actually seeing its way to the people who live there. History is a business, but the present is stagnant.

The plot, as I vaguely suggested earlier, has a lot of stuff that doesn’t really add up if you think about it for too long, but it has a charming flow to it anyway, riffing nicely on the history and folklore whose commodification forms the backbone of the film and playing well with the local scenery, both natural and man-made. With oddly high stakes to its low stakes, it’s all quite warm-hearted and pleasant, with nicely developed characters and gentle humour, despite the more satirical point.

Also, the music’s pretty great.

* This was the period when Heaven’s Gate (1980) pretty much singlehandedly destroyed United Artists, after all.

** I guess that might be overselling it; it’s not, after all, one of the ones where she was officially involved in the production, besides her general role as chief of production. Still, she gets a thanks credit, so there’s that.

*** To be more fair than it deserves, on the record the dried up old lich (seriously how is he still alive as I write this?) didn’t technically say that, instead what is on the record is a similarly snide and frankly even worse bit about how his father back when got on his bike and looked for work rather rioting like those people, if you catch my drift nudge nudge wink wink. I guess that last bit was more implicit, but look at the context in which he said it.