A Double Bill from 1966

Ah, those were the days when distributors tried to tempt audiences into cinemas during holiday times with double bills of second ranked pictures, neither of which would lead a programme on its own.  This 'Exciting All 'U' Warner-Pathe Holiday Attraction!' from Christmas 1966 was clearly designed to lure younger audiences into the cinema over the festive season, either to get away from family festivities or sent there by parents eager to get rid of squabbling kids over the Christmas holidays.  It brings together two 'exotic' (and distinctly non-festive) action-adventure movies based on popular literary characters: Tarzan and Fu Manchu.  Both are essentially B-movies but, as was the practice during the fifties, distributors would often release such films in double bills instead of a more expensive A-picture and supporting programme.  It certainly gave audiences the impression that they were getting their money's worth.

I've seen both of these films many times on TV and I must admit that it would never have occurred to me to put them together in a double bill.  I have to confess that I'm not really a big fan of Tarzan movies but, as a kid, I watched most of them on TV.  Tarzan and the Valley of Gold was, as I recall, one of the last of the cycle of Tarzan films produced by Sy Weintraub during the fifties and sixties, and the first with Mike Henry, (he had been preceded in the role by Gordon Scott and Jock Mahoney).  It was one of three films with Henry shot back-to-back in Brazil, which felt like pilots for the late sixties Tarzan TV series.  Which, in effect, they were: Henry was originally slated to play the lead in the TV series but, after being bitten by the chimp sidekick, sued Weintraub and was replaced by Ron Ely in the series.  The one thing I clearly remember about Tarzan and the Valley of Gold is that Henry seems to come on more like James Bond than Tarzan, with lots of globe-trotting in a safari suit.

Brides of Fu Manchu is probably the more interesting of the two films, being one of the notorious Harry Allan Towers' series of Sax Rohmer adaptations starring Christopher Lee in 'oriental' make up to portray the titular character.  It's somewhat surprising to see that it only carried a 'U' certificate during its initial release as even the 'mild' version used for its UK release (and subsequent TV screenings), focuses on the horrific aspects of the story and features lots of cleavage and torturing of women.  ('Stronger' versions featuring topless scenes were made for overseas markets).  This was the second in Towers' Fu Manchu series, after this the quality of the films would rapidly decline, in line with their budgets.  Brides, however, is still a handsome-looking production, shot, in part, at the former Hammer studios at Bray, with a decent amount of action and half decent script.

The sixties were a different age in terms of cinema going, as the existence of this sort of double bill testifies.  You certainly got more for your money - while programmes were certainly shorter than in previous decades, with newsreels, short films and cartoons gradually disappearing during the course of the decade, you at least still got two movies on the bill, whether an A picture and support feature or a double feature of this sort.  Moreover, programmes were continuous - you could go in at any point and stay in auditorium as long as you liked in order to catch up with the bits you had missed.  (Indeed, my first ever cinema going experience was being taken to see The Jungle Book by my parents at the local Odeon.  We came in about fifteen minutes into the main feature, but were able to watch it to then end, watch the support feature, then watch the first fifteen  minutes of the next showing of Jungle Book).  I recall that well into the seventies new releases usually ran with a supporting feature - by then usually an older film which had already had its first run rather than a dedicated B-movie. (I remember Doc Savage - Man of Bronze, which had already had a couple of TV outings, turning up as support for Warlords of Atlantis, for instance).   Seasonal re releases of movies packaged into double features was also fairly common: Spy Who Loved Me went out on a double bill with Pink Panther Strikes Again in the Summer of 1978, for instance, while I remember seeing newly struck prints of Jason and the Argonauts and Mysterious Island on a Summer double bill, not to mention a pairing of Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein and Silent Movie.  Sadly, nowadays we have to pay a small fortune to watch a programme consisting of a single film accompanied by half and hour of adverts and trailers, which never feels like value for money.