Hove Doctor Who 'Helped 50 Patients to Die' Arrested

Harold Shipman 'helped people to die' as well...It will be interesting to see whether this Hove doctor is sentenced.

Courtesy of The Argus

Dr Michael Irwin paid £1,500 for Raymond Cutkelvin to have a lethal dose of the sleeping aid nembutal in the Swiss clinic Dignitas. The 78-year-old claims he helped around 50 people to die during his 40-year career as a GP.

He said that many doctors help patients to die by supplying them with higher doses of diamorphine and sedatives. Dr Irwin, of Cromwell Road, Hove, was arrested by police in London in July and is on bail until September 23.

Mr Cutkelvin, 58, from Hackney in London, was suffering from an inoperable tumour of the pancreas and requested to be taken to the Zurich clinic with his partner Alan Rees-Cutkelvin, 57.

Dr Irvin said: “I met Raymond and gave him £1,500, around a third of the total cost needed for him to got to Dignitas. I went with him and Alan and some family, we all had a last dinner together. The next morning we went to the clinic and arranged to have Raymond's favourite Mo Town music played so he could have his last dance with his niece to Diana Ross. It was surreal but beautiful. He sat down drank a sherry glass of nembutal and made a face because of the bitter taste. Within half an hour he was dead.”

The group travelled to Switzerland in February 2007, but were not arrested at the time. However after the story was highlighted recently by the media Mr Rees-Cutkelvin was arrested in July. Dr Irwin was so furious he called for police to arrest him too, which they did, a week later.

He said: “I gave financial support, moral support and advice. I consider myself equally involved.” Dr Irwin said it is common for doctors to increase the painkillers and sedatives of patients who are dying. He added that he could openly remember discussing the case of a Polish patient with terminal stomach cancer when he was a house physician at a North London hospital in 1956. He would have been in his mid twenties at the time.

He said: “In those days you could openly discuss it with the ward sister and the consultants and we agreed to keep on doubling the morphine every day.” During his career the Hove-based doctor said he helped patients in the United States and in South East Asia to die this way.

A survey of nearly 900 doctors by Professor Clive Seale from St Bartholomew's Hospital in London showed one in six people who are dying are given “terminal sedation” - meaning they are given so many painkillers and sedatives they die.

The shocking figures also revealed an estimated 1,000 people make a secret arrangement with their doctors to be given a lethal injection and 2000 are given one without their consent.

Dr Irwin said: “It's a total hypocrisy – if people have money they can pay to go abroad and have it done legally. The nembutal kills them over the space of half an hour. If they don't have money doctors give them a liberal amount of painkillers and sedatives and they die over the course of weeks. Most people in hospital die that way and there are no inquests into those kinds of deaths.”

Dr Irvin was struck off the medical register by the General Medical Council in 2005 after he admitted a willingness to supply his farmer friend Patrick Kneen with the necessary sleeping pills to help him die.

Mr Kneen never took the pills as he slipped into a coma before Dr Irwin could “treat” him but the GMC still found him guilty of serious professional misconduct and said his actions were irresponsible. Dr Irwin said he has no regrets about what happened. He said: “I'm just sorry for Patrick we got there too late.”

When he was arrested over Mr Cutkelvin's death he went to police with no lawyer and handed over his bank statement showing the direct transaction from his account to Dignitas. Adding: “I have nothing to hide – I want to make this a big issue.”

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “Two men have been arrested in connection with the investigation, a 78-year-old man and a 57-year-old man. They were both arrested on suspicion of aiding a suicide and have been bailed to attend an East London police station on a date later in September.”

Eyes Wide Shut

I have finally completed my overview of Stanley Kubrick's feature-length filmography. While Fear and Desire is a borderline atrocious glorified student film, his final effort, Eyes Wide Shut (1999), is a beautiful piece of work. Although flawed and occasionally hard to swallow, it's an engrossing film that manages to remain entertaining through its lengthy run-time.

Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) is a New York City Doctor living a comfortable life with his pretty wife Alice (Nicole Kidman). Though Harford is more than happy to flirt with pretty girls on his downtime, he is shocked - shocked! - when his wife expresses her own sexual yearnings. An unlikely series of events leads Bill to an encounter with a teenaged prostitute (Vinessa Shaw), and through his musician friend Nick Nightingale (Todd Field) winds up a masquerade ball/orgy full of powerful people. Afterwards, Harford finds himself possibly involved in a murder mystery (or two), seemingly stalked by the orgy's participants.

It must be said off the bat: Eyes Wide Shut's story is largely lacking. Based on the novel "Traumnovelle" by Arthur Schnitzler, it imparts Victorian sensibilities and views of sexuality onto the modern day. Thus, it takes a huge suspension of disbelief to buy that Bill could be so bewildered by his wife's sexual longings; especially someone as pretty and openly sensual as Alice. However, Kubrick manages to dodge this shortcoming by focusing the film elsewhere: on Bill's reaction to his wife's sexuality, and his own vulnerabilities.

Kubrick already showed a keen interest in the male sexual ego in Lolita (and Dr. Strangelove, in a more perverse, oblique way), and that is the focus of Eyes Wide Shut. It comes close to Hitchcock's Vertigo as one of the most interesting explorations of the male sexual ego and society's double-standards towards sexuality. Working girl-turned-housewife Alice is tormented by merely desiring sexuality; Bill, however, is affected even more strongly, not by his own flirtations with pretty girls, but by his wife's mental infidelity. When a routine housecall leads to a bizarre odyssey in the New York night, Bill finds the shoe on the other foot; he is merely a voyeur, and yet his exploits have the affect of actual adultery. The mirror between their "imagined" infidelities is brilliantly done; neither actually does anything wrong but both feel horrible regardless. The movie turns into a quasi-thriller after the orgy scene, with an unconvincing exposition scene involving Bill's industrialist friend (Sydney Pollack in actor mode) but remains interesting until the end due to Kubrick's sure direction and handling.

Kubrick's direction is beyond brilliant. His slow, langorous pace suits the film perfectly; though some material is arguably superfluous, not a frame of film seems wasted. He shows his usual eye for set design and excellent camera work. The orgy scene is too bizarre to be erotic, but the gorgeous costumes and art direction make it a fascinating sight to behold regardless. The film is closer to 2001 than Barry Lyndon; weaknesses in story aside, the gorgeous, rivetting direction makes it something truly engrossing. As usual, his use of classical and "found" music is exceptional - with Jocelyn Pook contributing some fine original music as well.

Tom Cruise gives a fine performance as Bill. It's not an all-time great performance but it's arguably the high point of Cruise's career; under Kubrick's direction Cruise's pretty boy star persona becomes something rivetting. Nicole Kidman is quite good although her character is unfortunately backgrounded for most of the film. The supporting cast is rather nondescript, however.

Eyes Wide Shut is a fitting capper on the career of a legendary director. For better or worse, it epitomizes everything in Kubrick's repertoire, and creates an original, mesmerizing (if occasionally frustrating) final work.

I Do So Love a Good Wedding!

I've been at the Presbytery today doing the accounts of St Mary Magdalen's...an ongoing struggle! I just let a family in who wanted to do some flower arranging for a wedding of their son tomorrow. They had so many gladioli that I asked the groom if Morrissey was attending. He replied, "No, but Martin Rossiter is, because I'm in his band."

How exciting! It turns out that the groom is in a band with Martin Rossiter of 90's Britpop band Gene. I'm not sure whether Gene are still going but the groom is in a new band with Martin. I met Martin at a bar a few years ago and he kept turning up in places like Waitrose and Robert Dyas. Because I had told him that I was a massive fan of Gene, especially in my University days, I think that he began to imagine I was stalking him. Hopefully, I'll grab a moment to chat with him after Mass tomorrow, where he will probably think I am still stalking him. He's happily married now also. I'm going to ask him if he'd come and watch my band play at Brighton Live in October. We got ourselves a gig...we had to pay £5 for the pleasure, because we're not the kind of band you would actually pay to perform. Total amateurs but we do try hard!

Gene were often slagged off in the music press for wearing their Smiths devotion too much on their sleeves. Martin Rossiter even had the English camp flamboyance of Morrissey down to a tee, had a haircut like Morrissey and sounded, at times, rather like Morrissey on vocals. Still, when I was 18 I used to play this song to death at my Mum and Dads house. I don't think I ever did get to see them live, but there we go.

Anyway, I was so pleased to meet another Smiths fan, who also is in a band with Martin Rossiter, that I offered to serve at Mass for the happy couple on their wedding day. I do so love a good wedding! Apparently the groom's mother, though known as Madeleine was actually baptised Mary Magdalen! How apt is that!? And the groom is marrying a Polish lady. Thank God for those Poles!

Cherie Blair in Public Opposition to Church Teaching Shock!

"Yes, Tony. If we continue to publicy defy the Holy See, we will grown in popularity and one day, yes one day, all of this will be ours. Behold, our disciples already gather around us."

Fr Ray of St Mary Magdalen fame has picked up on In Hoc Signo Vinces blog, which picked up an article from the Times Online website, in which Cherie Blair has publicly, once more, defied Church teaching on contraception, because motherhood basically stops women from advancing in their careers. So many women have missed out on earning loads of money like she has because they have been unable to put off mothering children until they are no longer fertile. Cherie offers the World these pearls of wisdom.

"I feel that if you look at what progress women have made in the world one of the reasons they have been able to make progress is because they have been able to control their fertility."

Cherie. Take as an example of 'progress' the Blessed Mother of God, the Virgin Mary. After all, like all 'devout' Catholics you pray to her at Mass every Sunday. If Motherhood was good enough for the Blessed Virgin Mary, who accepted graciously the honour of being the Mother of God, when asked by the Archangel Gabriel, then why is the vocation to Motherhood now being presented by you, as something that undermines a woman's career. Believe me, lady, if the Blessed Virgin had responded to the question posed by the Archangel Gabriel by saying, "Oh blast. This has come at a really bad time! You see, I really had my heart set on being a lawyer and earning a fat pile of cash out of litigation and surrounding myself with houses and the odd yacht. Could you come back in 10 years time after I've done my law training? I am the handmaid of the Lord but the Lord will understand my personal ambitions, won't he?"...then you would not have been given the great Grace of being a Catholic, and neither would I.

“I personally don’t think there is anything wrong with that, and indeed without that being able to control I wouldn’t have been able to achieve the things that I’ve been able to do."

Now I don't doubt that Cherie does some stirling work with people who need their human rights defending and all credit to the girl. I admire her ability to overlook the faults of her husband who, quite incredibly, has made himself one of the most universally hated figures of the 21st century...and look, the century only just really got started! Quite an achievement, really! However, Cherie's work with those who need their human rights defending should not be overshadowed by the fact that she has also raised a family. Not only has she raised about 5 presumably wonderful, healthy and doubtless successful-to-be children, but she has done this while still defending human rights victims.

What we do not seem to hear from Cherie, however, is how wonderful she thinks motherhood is. We hear a lot about how great it is having a high-flying career in law and being the wife of a powerful former Prime Minister, but come on, Cherie...How much joy have your children brought you? Hasn't raising a family been wonderful, if at times difficult? Have you nothing good to say about the vocation of Motherhood? It certainly appears that the World is being presented with a vision of life which rejects outright the benefits, both societally and personally of being mothers and fathers. I know it must be awfully exciting hanging out with aging, tired, botox-faced, has-been popstars on yachts, but hasn't being a mother been quite exciting as well?

“I think it’s a really important issue and personally I would prefer it if the Catholic Church took a more positive attitude towards contraception because I think there’s a lot of difference between preventing a life coming about and actually extinguishing a life when it has come about.”

Now, there is a difference, but Cherie dear, the Church is trying to tackle a culture which the previous Pope John Paul II described as the 'Culture of Death'. You know the one, the one who told your husband not to rain bombs on Baghdad, but who your husband ignored, just like he ignores the current Pontiff when he speaks infallibly from the Throne of St Peter. The culture of contraception is the flip-side or even the embryo of the culture of abortion and human sterility. The use of artificial contraception means that a couple are saying, 'No' to new life.

The reasons for this may be many and varied. It may be because they are too poor to have another child, it may be because there is no support for the family, it may be that there are a myriad reasons why having a child right now is not a great thing in human terms. But the idea that the pursuit of money, status and worldly success is the fundamental reason not to bring new life into the World is frankly, in the light of the Holy Gospel, both laughable and lamentable, because a couple that are saying 'No' to new life through artificial contraception are far more likely to say 'No' to life if a child is conceived as an 'accident'. You may have given birth to your unplanned child and good on you, but, couples who contracept habitually and who are not practising natural family planning are more likely to abort should something go 'wrong' and a new life be conceived because their minds and hearts were not prepared for the eventuality.

And so the Church in Her great wisdom teaches that healthy Catholic couples are open to life because it means they are open to God and His design, His creation. It means that the couple welcome the new life as God's gift, rejoicing saying, "God has given us a child...again!" instead of saying, "Holy s**t! I'm pregnant! What the **** are we going to do?!"

Now, this teaching may be hard, but the Church, as described in Pope Paul VI's prophetic encyclical, Humane Vitae, is fully aware of the weaknesses of the Laity, our temptations and our failures to live fully in accordance to God's Most Holy Will. As St Paul says, something along the lines of, "I see those things that are good that I do not do, and those things which I hate, I do." Cherie, darling, that is why Christ in His Generosity gave the Church the Sacrament of Reconciliation, because we are sinners in need of God's forgiveness. Only with the help of God's Grace can we even think of living in accordance with His Most Holy Will. These treasures of Graces in the Church are given to the Faithful to enrich human lives with the generous love of God, nourish human families, forgive sins, obtain for us salvation and try with God's help to live in His Love. I hope and pray, lady, that you and your misguided not-the-messiah-but-a-very-naughty-boy husband one day understand this essential truth of the Catholic Faith. Get thee to a confessional! God knows I need to go myself! As for the Blairs, who are they worshipping? God or...

Building Fund: Fundraising Ideas

1. Car Wash. Stand at Western Road traffic lights with a bucket and a sponge in your hand and wash cars that stop at red. Ask for a donation from the driver. In true Christian charity, insult them vociferously if they refuse to pay up. If you can dress up like the ladies in the picture, then all the better, as it will bring in more cash. It doesn't matter if people call you a squeegee merchant. All that matters is the Building Fund. If you have a copy of the 70's disco classic, 'Car Wash' playing on a battery-powered stereo then all the better.



2. Apple Chutney. You know that apple chutney your Grandma makes every year, that you and all your friends love. Well, this stuff is dynamite and will sell by the truckload. Obtain by stealth the 'secret family recipe' and sell it at an inflated price outside your parish Church. Almost overnight, you will have halved the amount needed by your parish Building Restoration Fund.



3. Poker Night! Consider yourself as a bit of a Robert DeNiro, or even a Sharon Stone? Well, you could be! Organise a parish poker night and invite people from inside and outside the parish to attend. Entry fee is £5 for a night of fun and vice with potential winnings for the lucky victors. Potential winnings that is, because you know, having watched the films, that all the best casinos take the winners of large amounts outside and give them a hiding if they leave with the loot. In true Christian charity, ensure that there are no winners but the building fund and watch the stakes get higher! Draw upon quotes from other gangster films such as Scarface and tell people, with white powder on your nose, in no uncertain terms, "Don't f*** with me!", preferably after you've laid down your full house.



4. Spiritual Healing! Yes, you heard me! Everybody knows that spiritual healing is a load of tripe made up by a bunch of charlatans to get money out of people who feel a bit queer and emotional. Why let those quacks take all the money when your parish has over a hundred new agers just ready to fleece the public with dodgy 'energy field' practises which make people feel relaxed afterwards, primarily because you got them to lie down for a while, and which make them come back a week later because they're not feeling very relaxed again. This really is a strong area to get £50 out of some poor sucker who is feeling under the weather. I mean, what about massage? You may not be a qualified masseur/euse, but you know the basics! Advertise in the local Friday-Ad and charge a bucket for a rub down. In order to make yourself appear more authentic, buy a cucumber from Tescos and get some pebbles from Brighton beach to put on your 'patient's' back as they lay on their front! Quids in! Tell other people about the healing colour of orange, giving them each an orange. To each of them say, "Your future looks bright...Yes, your future looks orange. Orange is the colour of healing." Read the palms of other patients and tell them that they're all going to become Catholic...if you say it enough times, embed the idea in their subconscious...and pray for them, then maybe they will!



5. Penitents in Stocks! If there is one thing every parish Church has, it is penitent sinners, since the Church is the hospital of sinners. There should, therefore be ample volunteers for 'Penitents in Stocks'! Take your penitents down to Churchhill Square with your stocks and rack 'em up. While the public have plenty of time for seeing young offenders doing community service in orange bibs, the old lust for watching grown men and women doing public penance while thinking, "I'm glad I'm not like him/her!" is due a revival. The mob will at first be localised to your church parishioners, who momentarily forget the Lord's compassionate treatment of the adultress from the Gospels, but the hysteria will soon sweep up believers and non-believers alike in cacophonic spite and derision at the sins of the redeemed. Charge £5 per viewing. Everyone's a winner! The penitent is able to expiate his past sins and seek the public humiliation for which his soul so longs, while the mob will be happy to feast upon the sins of the poor soul. Believe me, the coffers of the Building Fund will be overflowing with £5 notes before you can say, "Ah God! Be merciful to me, a sinner!" I'll go first...Anyone else? Anyone?



6. Chatlines! Ah, so many lonely chaps and chapesses out there looking for friendship, fun and 'more'. Why not cater to the temporal and spiritual needs of the masses by setting up parish chatlines with all the proceeds going to the Building Fund. Gay chatlines, straight chatlines, bi chatlines, lesbian chatlines...the market is out there just waiting! No matter what the chatline, you can use the opportunity to make money for the Building Fund, while bringing more unsuspecting callers to the Catholic Faith, even though they called the number advertised as 'XXX Hot Gay Chat', telling them that that service is currently unavailable, but that they have, fortunately got through to the 'Immaculate Heart of Mary Chatline' and this call could really change their lives. Whatever you do, don't tell them you are wearing slippers, an old knitted jumper and that you are listening to the Very Best of Perry Como.



7. Shoe Shiner. Ah the good old days, when businessmen could have their shoes shined by an honest working class citizen in a suit, who would always know his station and wish you a good day. He was also a 'man of the street' who could give police inspectors vital information on the latest movements of the criminal underworld for an extra couple of bob. Bring the good old days back by setting up some shoe polishing equipment outside Brighton station. You've got the cap, you've got the mock cockney accent, you've got the polish, so now shine the shoes of the good working people of Brighton, even if the recession is causing the working population to decrease steadily and progressively every day. For the sandal wearing hippy community of Brighton you can use this on the hard skin of men and women for whom washing is an annual event.



Believe me, this implement works! I used it the other day and it actually feels like I have brand new feet!



8. Soda Bread. Making bread is hard isn't it? That's what I thought until I popped out of the house the other day and my mum had my girlfriend making soda bread in the space of an hour! Here's the recipe. Sell it around the clock outside your parish church and watch the cash flow in. This stuff will sell like, err, hot, err, bread. Here is the recipe.

The Mystery of the Liturgy...and Liturgical Misery!

At the weekend I drove up and picked up my Polish ladyfriend from West London. With her family we attended Mass at a nearby parish. We arrived late and I was visibly irritated that we had arrived after the Gospel, insisting (apparently incorrectly) that we had in fact missed Mass. I can be known to exaggerate when I am pissed off. When we arrived, the Priest was giving the homily. I believe that at the time when we walked in, the Priest was talking about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. An important theme, one that Priests need to proclaim 'in season and out of season'.

I was surprised, therefore, that having heard from the pulpit, the Priest's correct assertion that God is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, that the liturgy seemed to reflect this so poorly. The liturgy reminded me of old Baptist services which I attended prior to my conversion to the One True Faith. Baptists do their thing, I guess, because they don't believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Yet we are still doing their thing even though we do...or at least profess that we do.

I know that often I take it for granted that we are lucky at St Mary Magdalen's to have a Priest who really makes an effort to ensure that the liturgy reflects the great Mystery of the Mass. The Latin which we sing at Mass, the reverence which he treats the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the effort he goes to in order to preach that the Mass is the holiest thing this side of Heaven, are all about directing his parishioners to a deeper understanding of Who is present every time Mass is offered. It is meant to be Heavenly. Literally!

Yet at the parish Church I attended on Sunday in London, even though the Priest had reflected on the Real Presence, the liturgy seemed to undermine the entire Mass. From the guitar strumming, mic'd up man singing 'Give Me Joy in My Heart', to the two lay Eucharistic Ministers, one man, one a young lady who distributed Communion (not just the Chalice, but the Host also), to the end of the Mass when the Priest thanked the congregation for 'joining in during our Mass', appeared to demystify the entire Mass. "There are three of us giving Communion," said the Priest, "it doesn't matter which one of us you receive it from". This was an unfortunate turn of phrase because again it cheapens and demystifies Who is truly present in Holy Communion. In other words, "It doesn't matter who you receive Communion from because..." The inference is that Communion is not what he had in his homily said it was. If he truly believed that Holy Communion was the Body and Blood, Soul, Divinity and Humanity of Christ then he would know that the Priest has been ordained to consecrate and administer Holy Communion and apart, perhaps, from exceptional circumstances it is the Priest who does it. The other inference is that either the dignity of the Priesthood has been cheapened or there are in fact three Priests on the Sanctuary.

Not only did it demystify the Mass, but looking around wearily at the parishioners singing 'Give Me Joy in My Heart', it infantilised the Mass, forcing grown adults to sing what essentially is a children's song. I don't know. I know that this is a story across the country and that many people are in fact happy with the trends, which we all know started long ago, but which continue. Later, over the course of the weekend, I heard on Radio 4 a wonderful programme called Soul Music on the composition, 'Miserere Mei' by Allegri, about how the Vatican tried desperately to keep the piece within the walls of the Holy See, because it is almost miraculous in its beauty and transendence. It was their gem. It was only because a 12-year-old Mozart memorised it and wrote it down later on a piece of paper that it ever got out of the walls of the Eternal City.

Music that reflects the liturgy. That is what Popes down the ages have yearned for and when they have discovered it, they themselves have championed it. Beauty and transcendence are what those Priests faithful to the Benedictine 'reform of the reform' project wish to see in the Mass. They seek to ensure that the Mass is all about Him, rather than all about us. Again, it would appear that various clergy, for the Laity can hardly be blamed for this trend, are more interested in 'our Mass' than the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Believe me, it was woeful and I hope and pray you never have to sit through it. Thank God for the Priests who truly believe in the Real Presence!

Zulu Dawn

Zulu Dawn is the follow-up to Cy Enfield’s 1964 classic Zulu, widely (and rightfully) regarded as one of the best war films of all time (which we ought to get around to sooner or later). This 1979 effort, directed by journeyman Rodger Hickox, is very much an answer to the unapologetic heroics of the previous film – focusing on the British military disaster as Isandlwana, where 4,000 British soldiers were slain by Zulu warriors the morning of the brave stand at Rorke’s Drift. However, the movie just doesn’t click, despite an interesting story and the best efforts of a distinguished cast.

1879. With tensions between British South Africa and King Cetshawayo (Simon Sabela)'s Zulu nation rising to a pitch, High Commissioner Sir Henry Bartle-Frere (John Mills) authorizes his military commander, Lord Chelmsford (Peter O'Toole), to launch an excursion into Zululand, despite London's express orders to the contrary. Chelmsford's army moves into Zululand, foolishly assuming victory is theirs for the taking, and generally treating the invasion like a holiday. Cesthawayo, however, has the advantage of terrain, intelligence, and overwhelming numbers - and when he finally decides to strike, a disastrous slaughter results.

Zulu, a depiction of the Battle of Rorke's Drift, was a straightforward celebration of military heroism. It can hardly be called a flag-waving propaganda film, but it made no bones about its celebration of British soldiers overcoming impossible odds. Zulu Dawn, a seventeen-years-later "prequel", feels curiously like Tony Richardson's Charge of the Light Brigade from 1968 - a revisionist look at a subject previously celebrated as a glorious imperial victory. Like Richardson's film, the movie's politics mark it as a product of its post-Vietnam, post-colonial era; politics aside, it is a pale shadow of its predecessor.

The movie’s anti-war posturing is obnoxiously heavy-handed. The British officers are portrayed, predictably, as arrogant, thick-headed upper class gits cheerfully leading their men to the slaughter, much as Charge of the Light Brigade, Gallipoli, and innumerable other anti-war films, with the Brit soldiers bumptious fools, while the Natal Native troops and the Zulus themselves are portrayed in a patronizingly positive light. Such a view may have credence in this particular instance, but for all the film’s claims of realism, its analysis of the Zulu War and its leaders amounts to cartoonish cynicism. The most obnoxious moment occurs when Cecil Bartle-Frere (John Mills), the British Governor of Natal, muses with Chelmsford that he hopes they will find a “final solution” to the Zulu question.

The movie's biggest flaw, however, are its surprisingly cheap technical aspects. The colors are dim and washed-out, the direction decidedly undistinguished, and the general look and feel of the film is that of a TV movie. Elmer Bernstein's score is okay but it lacks the rousing brilliance of John Barry's work for the original. Fortunately, the film excells at its battle scenes; the awe-inspiring sight of the impossible huge Zulu army, moving like a beast roused from slumber, is one of the most impressive pre-battle spectacles. And the disastrous fight at Isandlwana itself is a wonderfully desperate, confused affair, shown in all its gory detail. There is no glory to be had from the carnage, only ignominious defeat.

The all-star cast is badly used, given weak cipher characters to work with. Surprisingly, Burt Lancaster is the only star to emerge unscathed, despite a dodgy Irish accent; he’s the only one with any real sense of energy or emotion in his performance. Peter O’Toole plays Chelmsford as the stereotyped, gormless and arrogant British officer, with Nigel Davenport and Denholm Elliot not much better as his doomed subordinates. John Mills provides a typically stiff cameo as Bartle-Frere. Bob Hoskins and David Bradley have some nice scenes as a British Sergeant and his green trooper, which recall some of the character dynamics of the original Zulu.

Zulu Dawn is a well-intentioned film, but like so many other "revisionist" takes on imperial history, it goes too far the other way. Regardless, the movie is mostly worth watching as a footnote to its predecessor, lacking that film's wonderful, economic drama and retaining only the fine battle scenes.