I mentioned a couple of months ago that I'd obtained some copies of the US Argosy magazine via eBay. They are from its men's magazine period in the late fifties and early sixties, rather than from its pulp heyday, of which the above cover, from 1937, is pretty representative, when it was published weekly. Back then it was an all-fiction publication, with a focus on action-orientated stories of any imaginable genre. From pirates to cowboys, adventure on the high seas to tales of the legion, from Viking epics to science fiction, the magazine had it all, with its covers promising two-fisted adventures in exotic locales. Of course, this was an era when exotic locales still existed, before, it seemed, that every corner of our planet, no matter how remote, had been touched by tourism. An era before TV had brought even the furthest, most inaccessible parts of the world into our living rooms. It seemed entirely possible that a mam might be able to escape his mundane life and go somewhere unexplored or unfettered by 'civilisation' and its laws in order to seek adventure.
World War Two and paper shortages put paid to the weekly schedule, with Argosy instead adopting the monthly schedule more characteristic of contemporary pulps. While the exotic adventures continued, they were joined by patriotic flag waving tales of men at war. Sometimes these happily crossed genre, with cautionary, future set, tales of the consequeces of failing to defeat the Axis:
Post-war, the venerable publication settled back into its regular role as a purveyor of cheap thrills, albeit still on a monthly schedule, serving readers stories of adventure. But the world was changing and traditional pulps found radio and TV increasingly pushing them out of the mass entertainment market. While many established titles died, Argosy adapted, switching to slick paper and moving into the men;s magazine genre. No longer an all-fiction publication, its pages were increasingly filled with supposed 'true tales of adventure' and sports orientated articles. Certainly, the issues I've obtained have a significant focus on outdoor pursuits such as hunting and fishing, not to mention cars, poker and firearms. In this format, the magazine struggled into the early seventies, but was well past its prime.
There's no denying the attraction of the earlier covers, full of pirates on the High Seas, cowboys riding the range and intrepid jungle explorers being menaced by tigers and discovering lost cities. They certainly appeal to me, perhaps more as I grow older and realise that the modern world offers none of these fantasies any more - the possibility of such adventures becomes less and less as time goes on. Not that the sort of things that went on in the pages of classic Argosy were ever that likely, but at least there was enough possibility to allow the fantasies to fly.
Apparently book sales were down 5% over the last year. Personally, I blame celebrity books. You can't go into any bookshop these days without being confronted by prominent displays of books written by celebrities. While celebrity fiction is bad enough, the ones I really object to are the celebrity non-fiction tomes, where even the vaguely famous grace us with their wit and wisdom on just about any subject that takes their fancy. Never mind that it is a subject in which they have no qualifications or expertise: nowadays, just because you are, say, a glamour model, that shouldn't bar you from giving us the benefit of your views on, say, psychotherapy. Now, most of this stuff is harmless fluff - you know the sort of things I mean: celebrity cook books or celebrity fitness guides - but there is an increasing number of these publications which are presenting themselves as serious commentaries on serious issues. Their authors, (or, at the very least, the celebrities putting their names to them), seem to think that they are telling us something profound. Ultimately, what they are promoting, regardless of subject matter, is that celebrity bestows wisdom and insight - never mind actually devoting years of study to political history, for instance: just become a celebrity radio phone in host and you can publish volumes telling us what is wrong with modern politics and how we can make everything right again.
Obviously, we shouldn't be surprised by such developments: we are living in age where he whole concept of traditional expertise is decried: 'people are tired of experts', our political leaders tell us, so to hell with them, just follow our uninformed and biased prejudices, instead, is the modern message. Add to this the fact that 'celebrity' itself is now promoted as the ultimate goal. Whereas in the past, to achieve fame, you had to have actually done something, to have proven proficient in some endeavour, be it acting, singing, science, medicine or exploring the Amazon basin, in our post-expert, post-knowledge world, you can be a celebrity simply by being on reality TV, or You Tube, or Instagram or a million other types of social media. Actual talent doesn't come into: just having the right 'look' is often sufficient. And once you have celebrity, you can start offering the rest of the world your opinions as if they were facts, Because, obviously, if you are a celebrity, your opinions are more important than those of non-celebrities - you can fill books with them and spread them to the masses.
Clearly, I have a lot of problems with celebrity books. On the most basic level, they put real experts on their subjects out of business, (although, to be fair, they undoubtedly keep a lot of ghost writers in business). But far more seriously, the opinions they peddle as fact are usually, at the least, half baked, at the worst, completely wrong. Dangerously wrong, because there are people who will take these falsehoods as fact and act upon them, potentially sending themselves and wider society, down potentially dangerous paths. Worst of all, though, is the fact that these celebrity authors actually seem to think that they are telling us something profound. Only the other evening I caught June Sarpong, (does anybody actually know what she is famous for?), telling a CGI Vladimir Putin, (really, don't ask) about her new book. Now, whilst the TV show she was on was clearly a parody of a chat show, she was still serious about trying to sell her book, earnestly telling virtual Vlad that its message was that, despite all our apparent differences, we can actually all live together in harmony - and that's a good thing. No shit Sherlock! I mean, fuck my hat, I never knew that! Really, though, that's meant to be some kind of insight into the human condition? Just watch any of the X-Men films and you'll be taught he same message, (those mutants are just like us, there are good ones and bad ones, and even the 'bad' ones are only that way because of the bigotry and cruelty directed at them by 'normal' humans), and be entertained a great deal more, (well, maybe not by some of the later ones, like X-Men: Apocalypse and X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which just retread earlier films without really adding anything new). But to get back to the point, that's the fundamental problem with celebrity books: the way in which they try to pass off ideas and concepts which have been better and more intelligently articulated in comic books and movies as something original and profound.
What the Tory leadership contest has been lacking so far is a good sex scandal. Sure, they've tried to have a bit of a drugs scandal, with the candidates all trying to outdo each other for the 'edgiest' youthful drug exploits. But this just backfired, making some of them look like utter hypocrites, rather than the slightly roguish 'characters' who were still in touch with 'youth culture'. they had obviously hoped that it would make them look. But a sex scandal, handled the right way, can often be beneficial to candidate. Just ask Bill Clinton. When I say 'sex scandal', I don't, of course, mean anything involving the police being called because of an argument so loud that it frightens and disturbs the neighbours. That simply results in the press being able to cast the candidate involved as some kind of potentially violent abuser. No, a good sex scandal, properly handled by the publicists, can enhance the candidate's standing in certain demographics. Male ones mainly. But when it comes to Tory leadership elections, that's the one that counts: middle aged, middle class males. A well staged affair between a male candidate, (obviously), and a younger attractive woman, can effectively allow all those male Tory party members to indulge their own middle aged fantasies of getting off with some 'fit bird' half their age. "If some dishevelled fat git like him can still get his end away, so canI," they think. "He's got my vote." Or perhaps the muse: "Well, he's still got lead in his pencil, eh! Good for him to still be able to stick it some young bint three times a night. He's got my vote!"
Of course, the revelation of a candidate's continued sexual prowess via a well staged affair will also appeal to even less noble sentiments among Tory members. "Well, at we know he isn't queer," some will undoubtedly say, or "I just thank God he isn't shagging blokes" - in either case, he'll get their votes. There's also always the chance that you might be able to get some of those female Tory voters on side, too, with a few well placed quotes from the 'crumpet' in the affair in a 'kiss and tell' story carefully released to selected tabloids. You know the sort of thing - "He satisfied me four times a night, seven days a week", or "There was no deficit in his endowment", or maybe even "After our nights of passion, I have no fears about him pulling out of Brexit". That's the sort of thing that could get the blue rinse brigade swooning. Obviously, any staged affair has to be well thought out - the age difference between candidate and girl, for instance, has to be carefully managed: if it is too great, there is a danger he will simply come over as a 'dirty old man' or, worse, a 'cradle snatcher'. You'd also have to consider things like how ugly the candidate is and pair him with a girl who isn't so beautiful that the whole idea of mutual attraction is utterly unfeasible. You also have to make out sure that there's nothing kinky about it - headlines about "My five in a bed drug fueled gang bang with minister" would just be counter productive. Although I suspect that hints of whippings and black leather might play well with certain sections of the Tory membership. But hey, the sex scandal boat has well and truly sailed for this Tory leadership contest. Of the two candidates left, nobody would believe Jeremy Hunt of being capable of an affair and no sane person surely even wants to think about the possibility of Boris Johnson getting naked and jiggy with it.
The question we should really be asking about Mark Field, the Tory MP suspended from his Foreign Office post after manhandling a female protestor at a Mansion House dinner, isn't whether he acted because he perceived said protestor as a threat, but whether he would have done the same thing if she had been an obvious threat. After all, it is one thing to grab a woman in an evening dress, clearly not substantive enough to conceal any kind of weapon, by the neck, quite another to tackle, say, a knife-wielding crazy terrorist with explosives tied around his waist. So, would he have thrown himself onto a suicide bomber in order to save everyone else in the room, or attempted to disarm a knife man? Or would he have hidden under a table? It's a question we should probably all ask ourselves. I suspect that most of us would either be under that table or frozen with fear and indecision. There are a few people who act decisively, or perhaps just instinctively,during such situations and meet the threat head on. I have a strong suspicion that Mr Field wouldn't be one of them. Why? Well, because the sort of person, in my experience, at least, who reacts so violently against someone who patently isn't posing a threat, is a bully rather than a hero. Their calculation as to whether to intervene or not is based upon the perceived weakness of their target in respect to themselves.
Now, I might be doing Field a disservice here, (although I doubt it). But the whole defence of his actions - that he was responding to a potential terrorist threat - sounds like an excuse cooked up later to justify actions that, on reflection, he realises were a complete overreaction to the situation. Certainly, it seems mainly to have been promulgated by the Tory supporting press and various media figures sympathetic to the right, desperate to try and bail out a Tory MP who has clearly overstepped the mark. The truth, i suspect, isn't that Field ever viewed the protestor as a threat, but rather felt outrage and indignation at the thought of some leftie pleb gatecrashing what was meant to be an exclusive event for the great and the good, (not mention right-wing). Fueled by self-righteous indignation and anger (which he clearly has trouble controlling) he lashed out violently. It is that simple. I'm sure that most of us have, under certain circumstances, also felt that rush of anger, but we've learned to control it, (usually because, when, as children, we've exhibited it, we've either been punished by parents, or been smacked back in the face by our target). The problem here is one we increasingly see with people in positions of privilege and authority - they have never learned to curb those violent, angry outbursts. They haven't had to and grow up feeling that, as they are socially superior, don't have to. Nevertheless, despite all the attempts of the media and right-wingers to tell us otherwise, they do have to curb these impulses, and when they don't, they are as accountable for thir ill judged actions as the rest of us.
Back with the TV ads as my inspirational drought continues. These are from the eighties and kick off with one of those ads for cat food featuring anthropomorphic felines. I vaguely remember 'Nine Lives' cat food, (although I didn't eat it myself). My problem with all ads of this ilk lie with the fact that no real cat I've ever encountered is as enthusiastic about cat food as the ones in these commercials are. While I haven't owned a cat in a good many years, I have enough experience of neighbours' cats scrounging for alternatives to the cat food they've just been offered at home to know that this is still true. Indeed, there was one local cat who was well known on the terrace for inviting himself into peoples' houses for meals to the extent that he apparently never actually had any meals at home, where he was only offered tinned cat food. I would especially take issue with the idea propagated by this ad that cats like rabbit-flavoured cat food: if there is one type of this stuff a cat is guaranteed to turn their noses up at, it is rabbit. (They are quite happy to catch rabbits and dump them outside he back door, though - presumably in an attempt to tell their owners what rabbit should really taste like).
TV commercials which present 'harmful gender stereotypes' are now banned from broadcast in the UK. I'm pretty sure that this rule would cover the advert for Bold washing powder, with its clear implication that a woman's expertise lies primarily in the domestic arena. Note how the mother tells her daughter that she has 'a lot to learn' - about laundry, rather than that job she's trying to get. THe wider implication being that the world of work will only be a temporary phase for her, before she gets marries, has kids and settles into doing proper 'woman's work': cooking, cleaning and doing the family's washing. There are a couple more of those 'generic' product ads often seen in the seventies and eighties in the mix, this time for milk and travel agents. While the latter is simple - basically just a photo of a sunny foreign location and the message, 'call a travel agent, any travel agent' - the one for milk is incredibly elaborate and overblown. But I suppose that by the eighties the Milk Marketing Board were taking the 'Marketing' bit of their title literally and felt that they had to 'market' a product that everybody buys as a matter of course. Perhaps milk sales were declining in the eighties, maybe more people were taking their coffee black and pouring neat vodka on their breakfast cereals instead of the white stuff. It's the only explanation I can think of for this sort of attempt to sell a staple product as some kind of lifestyle accessory: drink milk and you'll lead an exciting, risk-taking life.
Also being sold as some kind of lifestyle choice is Coalite. Now, if you don't know what Coalite is, which you might well not in our modern world of electric night storage heaters, Economy Seven and solar powered underfloor heating, it was a coke product used for indoor fires back in the day when we heated our houses by directly burning fossil fuels in a fireplace. When I was a kid, our house used to have Coalite delivered for the fire, (those were the days when the 'Coal Man' used to come round in his lorry and deliver sacks of carbon based solid fuels to your house). That house (which my mother only sold last year), was built in 1967, yet, like most houses of its era, was built from new with a coal bunker to store the solid fuels in, so prevalent was this form of heating, even in the late sixties. 'Coalite' was a brand name for the most popular coke-based 'smokeless fuel' of this types: it was lighter and cheaper than coal, burned better and, supposedly, produced fewer emissions. Interestingly, the company that made Coalite also produced a chemical similar to Agent Orange, the notorious defoliant with carcinogenic side effects used in Vietnam. Anyway, if all those noxious fumes given off by those fossil fuels gave you a headache, then there was always Hedex, another of the apparently endless parade of pain killers pushed out by pharamcuetical companies, which continues to this day. Despite the increasingly extravagant claims made for their properties, it is important to note that they are, in essence, all the same.
It's another of those days where I just can't come up with anything to post. There have been a lot of them of late. I find that I go through phases like this, when the ideas refuse to flow. This one has been more prolonged than most, which is slightly worrying. The problem isn't that nothing is happening worth writing about, but rather that there is too much, leaving me indecisive as to what to post. The biggest difficulty is that, right now, the political situation is dominating everything, resulting in a temptation to just go on about politics here. But, to be frank, me keep on ranting about the dire and depressing political situation in the UK would simply be repetitive and dull - how many different ways are there of saying that we are in the process of destroying our entire democratic process in an extreme right-wing quest for their Holy Grail of leaving the EU at any cost? Not only that, but it just isn't good for my mental health. On top of all that, I'm feeling listless and unsettled, unhappy at work, worried about friend I seem to be drifting apart from and left socially rootless by the loss of my local pub and my inability to settle anywhere else. None of this is conducive to being creative.
What I really want to be doing is getting back to posting about pop culture, nostalgia and trivia, but I just can't seem to come up with suitable ideas. Sure, there are film reviews and movie trailers I could be posting, but I want to do less in depth stuff than that, not to mention covering more varied subject matter. But nothing is currently inspiring me. Even that usually reliable stand by for inspiration, late night TV, is failing me. I mean, what has happened to late night TV is this country? We have more channels than ever, yet none of them can offer me anything better than repeats of MASH or The Waltons. Or Wheeler Dealers and The Bill, Back in the day, all manner of weird shit used to turn up late at night. Not to mention the movies - the sort of stuff that used to fill the late night schedules was amazing: wall-to-wall schlock. Quite apart from the ancient old black and white films that Channel Four used to specialise in, ITV used to show all manner of English-dubbed continental movies. It was in the middle of the night that I first sampled the delights of policiers like Le Marginal and Le Cercle Rouge, not to mention a number of dubious sex comedies whose titles I have long forgotten. Truly, the late night schedules used to be a journey of discovery.
It all started going wrong when the main commercial channels decided to start showing those bloody all night gambling shows instead of proper programming. But even after that, the advent of digital TV brought some new late night TV delights. I remember that BBC Three and BBC Four used to offer some interesting late night programming. But the former is now defunct and the latter repeating staid and earnest documentaries or endless back-to-back repeated episodes of Line of Duty or Peaky Blinders. Gone, it seems, are the days when I could stumble across a fascinating documentary about some esoteric subject, or a surprisingly entertaining low-budget drama about such things as the Wolfenden Report or the Lady Chatterley trial. Channels like Talking Pictures TV, Movies4Men, ITV 4 and even 5Spike intermittently serve up interesting late night movies, repeated old TV shows or other weird stuff, but all too often I just can't find anything to hold my attention late at night. In these days of apparently endless digital channels, couldn't we have a dedicated late night channel that starts broadcasting at, say, ten thirty in the evening and goes off air at four in the morning, serving up the sort of stuff we used to get on the overnight schedules?
So, the appeasement of the fat fascist by those who would be our next Prime Minister continues. Once again, we have Foreign Secretary Jeremy Cunt, (yeah, I know it's childish, but it apparently really pisses him off), toadying to Trump over the tub of lard's latest Tweet disparaging London Mayor Sadiq Khan, telling us that he agrees with it 'one hundred and fifty per cent'. Now, quite apart from the sickening sight of a senior British politician joining with a foreign politician in insulting the elected mayor of our capital city, this statement is problematic for other reasons. Namely that Trump's tweet was quoting the despicable Katie Hopkins, generally considered a right wing extremist who will say just about anything in the name of self-publicity, and included clearly anti-Islamic bigotry. We hear a lot from the right (not to mention those self-righteous Tory lick spittles and right wing extremist enablers the so called 'Liberals') about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, will we now hear them condemning the Tories, and most specifically Cunt, for their naked Islamaphobia? Fat chance. (On a related note, just why are so many people trying to paint Cunt as some kind of Tory moderate? Have we forgotten already his dismal and disgraceful record as Health Secretary?)
But let's look more closely at what Trump seemed to be trying to say about Sadiq Khan, namely that he is personally responsible for the spate of murders in London over the weekend. Which is a rather curious implication. After all, being some kind of vigilante, fighting street crime across the metropolis isn't actually an elected official's job - it's the police's job. And the size and scope of activities undertaken by the Metropolitan Police is dictated by its budget - which isn't dictated by the Mayor of London, but rather the Home Secretary, (currently Cunt's fellow Tory leadership hopeful, Sajid Javid). So surely, to follow the 'logic', the Home Secretary should be held personally responsible for every crime committed, not just in London, but across the whole UK, shouldn't he? In fact, if you think about it, then the sack of shit currently occupying the White House must be personally responsible for all those school massacres and other shootings they've been having in the US since he seized power, mustn't he? I'm well aware that, of late, I've become ever angrier and abusive when talking of these bastards, but I'm afraid that I've run out of patience - we're lurching toward a very dangerous political situation indeed. Damn it, we've got candidates to become leader of a minority government talking about suspending parliament to force Brexit because, God forbid, Parliament disagrees with them and they don't have a majority to counteract it! This isn't just unconstitutional and demonstrative of a willful refusal to understand how a parliamentary democracy works, but it is the kind of talk one would expect from the tinpot dictators of banana republics. Dangerous days - it is time to stand up and be counted and to start calling these fascists out for what they are.
Something different. After a seemingly endless series of posts about schlock movies and politics, I thought that I needed to get back to model railways. In part, this has been prompted by a visit to the Alresford Toy Train Show on Saturday. In addition to looking at some fascinating layouts, including a fabulous series of Playcraft displays, which included the operating road system as well as the railways, I picked up three Hornby Pullman coaches, which can be seen above. I purchased them for a very reasonable price, (certainly better than anything I'd get on eBay), and they are in excellent condition: all boxed and unmarked. If you look closely, you'll see that they are minus any names, (all Pullman first class cars had individual names), which Hornby provided as transfers, with several alternatives for each car. Obviously, being second hand, I didn't expect the transfers to be present (you can obtain third party versions quite cheaply), but, amazingly, one box still had the transfer sheet inside. I haven't tried to find out whether the transfers are still viable yet, but I'll try them when I have time.
These coaches replace two of the older Tri-ang type Pullmans I've been using as part of my 'Bournemouth Belle' formation. The older version are about an inch under length, (all Tri-ang coaches in the late fifties and early sixties were too short, but even after scale length Mk 1 coaches were introduced, the Pullmans continued to use the short version of the coach frames), while the Hornby versions, introduced in the seventies are roughly scale length. Actually, Hornby still produce a version of these coaches, although they are now marketed as part of their cheaper 'Railroad' range of products. Over the years, there have been some variations in their construction: two of mine are of the original pattern with the bogies riveted to the frame, while the other sports the later clip on type bogies. The later coach is also identifiable from the lighter paint shades used by the manufacturer.
For the time being, the three new coaches are being marshaled between two of the old Tri-ang 'shorty' type Pullman brake thirds. The discrepancy in length isn't too noticable. In time, I'll try to acquire some of the later, scale length brakes, (or maybe just one as, toward the end of its days, the 'Bournemouth Belle' would have one of the Pullman brake thirds replaced by a regular full brake coach). As for the two 'shorty' Pullman firsts, they'll be pressed into use on boat trains, whichWa often featured one or two Pullmans in their formation, (although some, like 'The Cunarder', were usually all Pullman, using the spare 'Bournemouth Belle' stock). Incidentally, if you don't know what the 'Bournemouth Belle' was, it was an all-Pullman train which allowed people to travel in style between Waterloo and Bournemouth West in the morning, returning in late afternoon. During the sixties it was usually in the charge of either a 'Merchant Navy' or a light pacific, but by 1967, its last year of service, it was increasingly to be found with Brush Type 4 diesel locomotive, (what we later called a Class 47), at its head. It finally ceased running on the electrification of the Waterloo-Bournemouth line in July 1967. Anyway, here's another photo which shows my version of the 'Bournemouth Belle' in its entirety, with a blue and grey full brake at the rear, (actually prototypical - the train was photographed with such a brake several times 1966-67), and being hauled by 'West Country' class light pacific 34023, as it heads toward Bournemouth. (OK, I know the layout is still bare boards and no scenery - you'll just have to use your imagination).
One of those would be big releases which has completely disappeared from public consciousness, remembered , if at all, only as a footnote in the late period careers of its two male leads, one aspect of The Ambassador has always puzzled me. Namely, the fact that in the credits at the end of the trailer it clearly claims to be based on the Elmore Leonard novel 52 Pick Up. Despite thi, it clearly bears no resemblance whatsoever to that novel (which I've read). Certainly, the novel contains no Ambassadors, (although the protagonist's wife has political ambitions) and the action definitely doesn't take place in Israel, (it is set in LA). The novel concerns a businessman being blackmailed by a gang over his extra-marital affair. He can't go to the police, because that would also expose the affair and compromise his wife's political campaigning. So he decides to take matters into his own hands after the gang escalate things my murdering his mistress and framing him for the murder, hoping this will put more pressure on him to pay up. Eventually he plays the gang off against each other, his wife is kidnapped and things get complicated. The only element of this alleged film adaptation that bear any resemblance to this is the blackmail element, except that it is the titular ambassador's wife who is having the illicit affair with a guy who turns out to be a leading Palestinian terrorist.
Thanks to the wonders of the worldwide web, I now have an answer to the question of why the film is accredited as an adaptation of 52 Pick Up, when it clearly isn't. Apparently, according to Elmore Leonard himself, having sold the novel's film rights to Cannon Films, producer Menachem Golan wanted him to write the screenplay, but to relocate the action in Israel. Having failed, after several drafts, to come up with a workable script, Leonard told Golan he'd have to find another writer, which he did. The accredited screen writer, Ronald M Cohen, ended up throwing out virtually everything from the novel in order to accommodate Cannon's wish to make an action-orientated film with a Middle Eastern setting. Not that it worried Leonard, as he'd already been paid. Within a couple of years, Cannon, clearly not wanting to waste the original source material they had paid for, turned out a more straightforward adaptation under the book's original title. Starring Rod Scheider and directed by John Frankenheimer, it follows the book quite closely and is far better made that The Ambassador, although it didn't fare any better at the box office.
Nowadays, The Ambassador is primarily remembered for being the last released film of Rock Hudson, (he died the following year). By the time the film was made, Hudson was long past his prime as a leading man and seeing him cast as the two-fisted, all action US Embassy Head of Security, (who takes matters into his own hands in order to deal with the blackmailing of the ambassador's wife), at this late stage in his career is rather bizarre, But it was typical Cannon Films casting - the seemed to specialise in picking up middle aged stars suffering career doldrums and starring them in unlikely action vehicles. (Most notoriously, they kick started Charles Bronson's career by starring him in a series of Death Wish sequels and similar vigilante/maverick cop movies). This policy undoubtedly also explains Robert Mitchum's presence as the ambassador himself. As the seventies had progressed, Mitchum found it ever more difficult to secure decent leading roles, too much of a 'movie star' to be cast in character roles, he found himself toiling through thrillers like The Amsterdam Affair, often with a younger co-lead to do all the action stuff, (a notable exception being Michael Winner's surprisingly good 1978 remake of The Big Sleep). Cannon tried to ring the changes with The Ambassador, by pairing him with another middle aged star to do the action stuff. It didn't work. The Ambassador is a typical Cannon production from the eighties, trying to dress up what is essentially a cheap direct-to-video style action film as something bigger by decorating it with faded star actors and a 'name' director who was similarly finding it increasingly difficult to get work: the ever pedestrian J. Lee Thomson. It flatter to deceive, but ultimately adds up to less than the sum of its parts.
I don't like office banter and all that shit you get at work about 'being one of the team' or, 'one of the lads' and all the accompanying fake bonhomie, camaraderie and associated bullshit. I was reminded of this during a conversation at work today. It was one of those instances when you realise that you are inhabiting some kind of parallel existence to work colleagues. The fact is that, once upon a time, in what seems like another life, I did work in an office where I had that kind of relationship with my then colleagues. Most of the time it was an all-male office and, although the mix of people in the office changed over time, the dynamic remained essentially the same. There was a lot of lunch time drinking, a lot of good natured 'banter', lots of practical jokes and all the other sort of stuff you'd expect. And, while it lasted, it was fun. It was the probably the best working experience I'd ever had. It was certainly a contrast to previous offices I'd worked in, where I'd always seemed to be the 'odd one out', the one who didn't quite 'fit', seen as an outsider by colleagues. Of course, the good situation couldn't last and things eventually turned sour. It was partly down to staff changes, partly down to increasing management disapproval of our 'working style', (despite those liquid lunches, we got the work done, delivering it to a high standard, but we were considered to be 'setting a bad example'). Looking back, we undoubtedly went too far at times - some of the 'banter' tipped over from being in joke bad taste to offensive.
Since then, I've avoided that sort if thing. I work in a job where I'm out of the office most of the time, working on my own, relying on nobody but myself. I like my own company. There have been times when I've had closer friendships with individual colleagues, but nothing like those halcyon days of yore. I've learned that it is pointless trying to recreate the past. What I realise now is that that previous experience was down to a particular confluence of the right mix of people being in the right place at the right time. It just happened that I found myself, at that moment, in a work environment with a group of people who were on the same 'wavelength' and with whom I had ideas and interests in common. Such coincidences are rare. Moreover, there were underlying reasons I threw myself into that particular scene: it was a distraction from the fact that I was increasingly dissatisfied with the job itself - I no longer believed in it, the people I worked for, nor the organisation I worked in. It was inevitable that it was all going to come crashing down. But here I am, finding myself once more facing this sort of talk of 'teams' and everything that goes with this. The fact that I'm perfectly happy ploughing my individual furrow, relying solely on myself, doesn't seem to count for anything. I certainly don't want to get drawn into that world of fake camaraderie I mentioned before - I see too many glimpses of it amongst some of my colleagues: all that 'banter'. (Maybe that's why I've never really got on with social media - its all 'banter'). Obviously, I'll resist any moves to try and force me to be part of the 'gang', but it gives me further impetus to review my work situation. After all, I've already decided that there's no way I can do this job until I retire, so I really have to get my arse into gear and start doing something about it.
Not to be confused with the barking mad late sixties Hammer film of the same title, (or, indeed, any other film of this title), 1951's Lost Continent is a cheap B Movie which, unusually, boasts some relatively sophisticated special effects. Sadly, they are the only sophisticated thing about the film, which takes an age to get to the titular location then, when there, does very little with it. Other than have it blow up. To be pedantic, there is no continent, lost or otherwise, featured in the film, just a cloud shrouded plateau atop an uncharted island mountain covered by a prehistoric jungle and boasting some stop motion dinosaurs. But the titular exaggeration rather sums up Lost Continent, which promises all sorts of things, exotic locations, high adventure, epic spectacle and Acquanetta, but delivers little of any of them. Acquanetta, an actress popular in the late forties for portraying 'jungle girls', only appears late on and for only a couple of scenes, for instance, despite getting special billing on the poster. As for the exotic locations, well, the whole affair is studio bound.
The reality is that the main lure of the film for audiences were the dinosaurs. They certainly were for me - I've always been a sucker for movies featuring dinosaurs. Unfortunately, you have to endure endless, virtually action-free and overly talky, footage of people on a plane, people in a jungle and people climbing a mountain to get to them. Indeed, the mountain climbing sequence seems interminable, with the characters continually crawling past the same polystyrene rocks over and over again. The only 'action' involves someone falling off of the mountain and a brief glimpse of a giant lizard (which is never mentioned again). Otherwise, they just talk. Which wouldn't be so bad if the dialogue wasn't so dull and bogged down with Cold War messages: the Commies are evil and we have to keep building dangerous nuclear weapons or they'll murder us all in our beds. It really hasn't aged well, coming over as incredibly simplistic, not to say obvious. Indeed, the whole plot is Cold War driven - the characters are searching for a lost nuclear powered missile and crash on the remote island when their aircraft's instruments go haywire. Learning from Acquanetta's native girl that something fiery had fallen from the sky onto their sacred mountain, (from which no explorer ever returns), they naturally decide to climb it. Interminably.
But they do finally reach the clouded peak, finding that it is actually a plateau covered in lush jungle, (at this point the film takes on a green tint), and hiding huge Uranium deposits, (which had, somehow, 'attracted' the rocket there). There are also dinosaurs. Very jerkily animated dinosaurs with little detail, but living dinosaurs, nonetheless. Not many mind. We see only a brontosaurus, a couple of triceratops and a scrawny looking pterodactyl. Despite what the poster might show, there are no tyrannosaurs present, or any other predatory dinosaurs, for that matter, which leaves one wondering how the eco-system there has managed to function for millions of years, with nothing to check the herbivore numbers. Those herbivores, however, seem determined to make up for this lack of predators through their insane displays of aggression. Both the sauropod and the ceratopsians take every opportunity to attack the humans. For no apparent reason other than providing some action. But no sooner have they arrived in this 'lost continent', or so it seems, our heroes find the rocket, retrieve the flight data they need, then hotfoot it back down the mountain when they find that, thanks to volcanic activity, it is about to explode. Which it does in a series of spectacular, and quite effective, model shots, as the surviving explorers escape the island on a native canoe.
Lost Continent runs only eighty three minutes, but feels much longer. There are times when you suspect that they are never going to reach that lost world on top of the mountain, and when they do, it is so late in the film that it feels like an afterthought. Of course, the reason for this is obvious: the lost world episode, with its dinosaur sequences and cataclysmic volcanic eruption, was clearly expensive to film, so these scenes had, for budgetary reasons, to be kept to a minimum. Hence the huge amounts of padding preceding them. The low budget is also reflected by the cast, with Cesar Romero (long past his pre war matinee idol days) and Acquanetta the closest things to star names. The rest of the cast is made up of mainly dependable character actors like Whit Bissel and John Hoyt. But none of them can make much headway with a script which provides them with the most basic of character stereotypes and atrocious dialogue. There are token attempts at character conflict, mainly involving Romero's tough, taciturn,red blooded American air force pilot clashing with Hoyt's typically shady seeming Russian missile scientist, suspecting the later of being up to no good. But even that comes to nothing as it is revealed that the Russian is a Jewish emigre who hates those Commies just as much as Romero and that all the shady stuff he seems to have been up to were just misunderstandings.
You know, Lost Continent was a film I badly wanted to like - if nothing else, because of the dinosaurs - but it just disappointed me at every turn. While the effects sequences, including, not just he dinosaurs, but also the plane crash and the exploding mountain, are pretty well done, especially when one takes the low budget into account, they are far and few between and surrounded by tedium. That said, the dinosaurs themselves are well below the standard of even those in King Kong, made nearly twenty years earlier, being more reminiscent of those seen in Willis O'Brien's earlier silent production of The Lost World. Most damaging, though, to the film's entertainment value, is the Cold War message its makers chose to burden it with - by the end you feel as if you have been bludgeoned over the head with its anti-Communist rhetoric, which is inserted at every opportunity. As a final observation, why is it that in films of this sort, upon finding living examples of creatures thought extinct for millions of years, the characters' first inclination is to try and shoot them?
Just when you thought that British politics couldn't get any more bizarre, the Tory leadership contest seems to have turned into some kind of contest between the candidates to establish which one of them is 'edgier' and taken the most drugs. While I can well believe that Rory Stewart once smoked opoids (I mean, just look at him - the effects clearly haven't worn off), the idea that Andrea Leadsom, possibly the most anonymous and tedious person ever to have ambitions of being Prime Minister, ever smoked a joint, is utterly ludicrous. But to top it all, we've now had the revelation that, twenty years ago, Michael Gove was a coke fiend. OK, I know, he looks like he's on drugs and just listening to what pass for his policy initiatives should be enough to convince anyone that he is under the influence, but nonetheless, the mental images conjured up by these revelations - Gove snorting cocaine from the naked breasts of teenaged prostitutes - are just too disturbing to contemplate. IN a move reminiscent of William Hague's attempts to turn his youthful drinking 'exploits' to his advantage by making himself look 'hard', instead of downplaying the drug-taking as some minor infringement while working as a journalist (Fleet Street is pretty notorious for booze and drugs), he's tried to claim his usage was hardcore. 'I'm lucky not to have done jail time', he tells interviewers. Well, not really Michael, not if you were only using. A rehabilitation programme and a suspended sentence at worst, perhaps. You'd only have risked serious jail time if you'd been dealing and/or supplying. Perhaps there's something he isn't telling us?
Of course, the speculation now centres around just how damaging to Gove's leadership campaign these drug revelations will be. The media consensus seems to be that while it probably won't unduly harm his standing with Tory MPs in the elimination rounds of the contest, (because, apparently, they're all off their faces), it could hurt him if he reaches the last two, where the entire membership if the Tory Party will be balloted. Bearing in mind that the party's rapidly declining membership are also rapidly ageing, insular and reactionary, he might well find himself punished for his 'moral turpitude'. Which would be grossly unfair. I mean, I don't even like Michael Gove, but the idea that, because of some misdemeanour twenty odd years ago, some bunch geriatric right-wingers might deem him 'morally unfit' to be Tory leader when, if he gets to this stage, his likely opponent would be Boris Johnson, is appalling. Johnson might not, (for now. at least), be facing allegations over past drug use, but he is, nevertheless, morally bankrupt. Surely his catalogue of extra-marital affairs, shagging other people's wives, links with right-wing extremists like Steve Bannon, his casual racism and record of telling bare-faced lies when employed as a journalist, should make him at least equally 'morally unfit' to lead? After all, all of this stuff isn't historical, it is ongoing. But he's Boris, isn't he? The darling of the blue rinse brigade. He's like those annoying shits you knew at school who were utter bastards and wasters, but could get away with anything because they were 'good at rugby' and therefore the games master's favourites. Anyway, I await the next revelations about the candidates as they jostle for 'edginess'. What next, Esther McVey once had cocaine blown up her arse by male prostitutes? Or perhaps Sajid Javid, who always likes to try and demonstrate his 'hardman' credentials will be telling us how he didn't take drugs, but single handedly beat up an entire inner-city drugs gang, instead.
An interesting little science fiction horror film from the team behind The Blob, 4-D Man has probably failed to claim the same sort of cult status due to its lack of megastars-to-be in the cast and a less memorable monster. But, while it doesn't boast a young Steve McQueen in the lead, it does give film debuts to Robert Lansing and Lee Merriwether, excellent performers who became TV stalwarts. Moreover, while its monster might not be as spectacular as the title menace of The Blob, it is well executed and, while the film is on, seems far more plausible. Opting for a slow build up rather than shock tactics, the title monster is a long time appearing, with quite a bit of the film's running time spent on introducing the main characters and establishing the background of internal politics at the research lab most of the plot revolves around. Indeed, it these character relationships and the office politics which drive the plot more than any of its characters quest for scientific discovery.
Scientist Robert Lansing has successfully developed and tested an apparently impenetrable material, with potential uses in the defence industry, but, being only an employee of the lab he works at, gets little of the credit. Indeed, the material itself, Cargonite, is named after his boss, the lab's owner, Dr Carson, rather than himself. At the same time, his chief assistant is pushing for his own team and projects. In addition to his professional woes, the arrival of Lansing's brother, also a scientist, creates problems in his personal life as his fiance, also one of his assistants, falls for the brother. The brother, though, also brings with his his own research pertaining to creating a '4-D state' in matter, allowing solid objects to penetrate and pass through each other. Unfortunately, the brother's irresponsibility, (his experiments had succeeded in burning down his previous lab, leaving him unemployed), has prevented him from either advancing his work, or his career.
Inevitably, out of frustration, Lansing decides to play around with his brother's equipment, unexpectedly succeeding in passing his had through a steel block. When he demonstrates this achievement to his brother, the latter points out that, this time, the amplifying equipment wasn't switched on - Lansing had created the 4-D state of his own volition. This, it seems, has to do with the amount of radiation he has absorbed during the Cargonite experiments. Lansing, still disgruntled by the lack of recognition and reward for his work, starts to use his powers for personal gain, robbing a jewellery store by passing his hand through the glass of the window and robbing a bank by walking through the wall and into the vault. Unfortunately, using these powers prematurely ages him, but he quickly finds that he can reverse this by passing his hands into other people, absorbiing their life force and prematurely ageing and killing them. In a parallel sub-plot, the jealous chief assistant has stolen the brother's notes and is trying to pass them off as his own work in order to secure funding and a research team from Carson, thereby potentially robbing Lansing for any credit on the 4-D research. Inevitably, the police, alerted by the brother, decide to hunt down Lansing, but he proves elusive, due to his abilities. Ultimately, Lansing faces his brother in a final conflagration at the lab, having already disposed of Carson and the chief assistant.
A big part of any film of this type's success is going to depend on the efficacy of its special effects and, in the case of the 4-D Man, they are surprising good. Lansing's transitioning through solid objects is both effective and subtle, in keeping with the film's whole approach, which focuses upon establishing a convincing and realistic background to its action. Indeed, its portrayal of research scientists as harassed corporate employees rather than the usual idealistic academics or government employees of most fifties science fiction movie adds a sobering dose of realism to proceeding. These scientists pursue new projects not due to a yearning to add to human knowledge, but to keep their jobs - it is the only way they can get continued funding. It is notable that the scientist in the film who does try to pursue his research for its own sake and outside of official, corporate, channels - Lansing's brother - succeeds only in destroying his lab, livelihood and reputation. Lansing, by contrast, follows the rules and achieves his objectives, but misses out on the credit and money. Although driven professionally, Lansing is otherwise passive, avoiding confrontation and failing to fight either for recognition or his relationship with his fiance. His non-corporate brother, however, although often slapdash and irresponsible in his experiments, is far more driven in pursuing both his scientific and personal objectives.
Lansing's performance in the lead role is interesting, early on he plays it so low key and laid back that he seems, at times, comatose. But as the film progresses, this approach pays off, making his transformation into the more driven, selfish and vengeful '4-D Man' all the more effective. To his credit, even as his character becomes increasingly unhinged and extreme in his actions, Lansing never quite lose sight of his humanity, allowing the audience to retain some sympathy for him right to the end. While, in the final analysis, 4-D Man tells the familiar fifties science fiction parable of how power corrupts, it does it well. It is surprisingly unsensational in its telling of the tale, focusing more on character and plot that spectacular effects and ravening monsters,but is all the better for that. There's nothing particularly innovative about Irvin Yeaworth's direction, but is highly efficient, marshaling the story's elements effectively and pushing it all along smoothly and at a reasonable pace. He deploys his special effects set-pieces sparingly, adding to their effectiveness, these outre elements contrasting nicely with the neatly ordered corporate blandness of the settings, both in the labs and the characters' homes. One curious aspect of the production, though, is the use of a jazz-orientated score, which never seems to quite sit right with the action. Nonetheless, 4-D Man is, overall, an enjoyable and surprisingly subtle piece of fifties science fiction.
Well, at least that fat fascist Trump has finally waddled off out of my country. Apparently today he was invading France. I certainly hope that someone told him that it wasn't real, just a commemoration of the real D-Day in 1944. Still, we should be thankful for Trump, or at least one of his German ancestors, for the vital contribution they made to the allied victory in Normandy. It is little remembered now that Frederick Von Trumpenhoffer, having bought himself a commission in the Wehrmacht, eventually bribing his way to the rank of General and a position on Hitler's staff. He was apparently instrumental in the latter's decision not to immediately release the reserve Panzer divisions to counter the invasion, telling Hitler that the Normandy landings were 'Fake Noooz, mein Fuhrer', and that he had been advised that only a handful of allied soldiers had been seen there. He went on to tell Hitler and other assorted generals that the reason Churchill was so down on the Nazis was because of a pre war business deal gone wrong: 'I had to sue him and he's hated me ever since - I don't blame him, but I had no choice.'
Von Trumpenhoffer later tried to deny any involvement in the Third Reich and the 'final solution' during the Nuremberg War Trials, describing the holocaust as 'Fake noooz - all part of a communist conspiracy to discredit Germany'. He also told the court that he had lost money on the concentration camps, as they had proven to be a bad investment, producing only sub-standard soap despite the resources put into them. 'There were too many illegal immigrants involved in their running', he opined. He also offered the opinion that Hitler had made a mistake in invading the Soviet Union, saying that he should have built a wall using slave labour to 'keep the filthy Slavs out'. Even after a 'guilty' verdict, Von Trumpenhoffer continued to insist that the trial had, in fact, exonerated him: 'No collusion, no extermination' he claimed, even as he walked to the gallows. His family subsequently moved to the US, Anglicising their name to 'Trump' in the process. As a curious coda to the life of Frederick Von Trumpenhoffer, it later emerged that he had been the original inspiration for Sergeant Schultz, the fat prison camp guard in Hogan's Heroes, whose catch phrase was originally going to be 'It's fake nooz, Colonel Klink, nobody has escaped'. However, it was thought not to be catchy enough and didn't sound like anything a real person would say, so was replaced by the familiar 'I see nothing!'
All fake news? Well, what the Hell, Trump started it, lying his way through his state visit to the UK. Why shouldn't we fashion a fake family history for him - it's far better than the truth of inheriting his wealth from his father and faking a successful business career.
Some old TV ads from 1978. Which means, of course, that I'm at a loss for anything else to post today. There are various old and schlocky movies I've recently watched, but I don't yet fell ready to write about them. So, today, we have these commercials. It's the usual mix of old tech that was new then, but obsolete now, the first iterations of now familiar products and the stuff that never seems to change and is still advertised today. The Faberge ad just goes to show that even in 1978, deoderant adverts were extravagant and often entirely irrelevant to the product they were publicising. Probably because they were Faberge, they felt they were too 'upmarket' to simply sell something that stops your armpits from stinking, so instead had to glamourise it all as some kind of 'experience'.
The Bic disposable razor, as advertised by Edward Woodward and son, was still a novelty back in 1978, but is now just an accepted part of male grooming. Interestingly, the design has barely changed since then - the colours differ these days and they are slightly less prone to hacking your face to bits, but essentially the same product. Of course, back then they were still considered inferior and 'downmarket' compared to traditional safety razors, as seen in the Gillette ad. Gillette were fighting back against these cheap disposables by offering two, count 'em, two blades in their razors. The trouble is, that just made it even more expensive to replace the blades. Nowadays, even disposable razors often boast twin blades, while traditional safety razors sport three or more.
The GEC sound system is another example of a sound system completely overtaken by subsequent technological advances. Cassettes? Turntables? Vinyl?!! Ariel washing detergents are still with, although now more commonly in liquid, capsule or tablet form and, along with its rivals, still advertised in much the same fashion. Remember the Daz 'doorstep challenge'? It was much the same format as this ad, 'proving' that the product could shift stains of the like no real person ever got on their shirts, better than rivals could. If you are wondering who Juliet Harmer in the Fairy soap ad is, she was an actress best known for having been in the sixties TV series Adam Adamant. Again, the basic format of someone beautiful telling us how wonderfully soft and kind to their skin the brand is, is still pretty much the standard format for soap ads. Although soap in the form of bars is becoming less common, with the liquid variety tending to be preferred nowadays. The Crest toothpaste ad features Jill Gascoigne a few years before she became a household name starring in The Gentle Touch. Crest, of course, is another brand still with us. As is Dettol, which is still advertised in pretty much the same way.
So, there you have it, another selection of commercials from an era when, by and large, you knew what was being advertised. They were also for products you might use, rather than all the dubious financial services now dominating our ad breaks. Not to mention the fact that adverts back then were actually quite entertaining.
So, its Summer at last - June marking the start of meteorological Summer. Which is good enough for me - I have no truck with those who try to claim that the early part of June is still Spring. I'm afraid that, when it comes to seasons, I'm old school: Summer is June to August, Autumn starts in September and ends with the end of November, while Winter runs from December to February, with Spring occupying March, April and May. In the northern hemisphere, at least. But it has been an inauspicious start to Summer, with Trump arriving in the UK on has state visit. Which means several days of me shouting and swearing at the TV every time the news come on and I have to see that arrogant fat fascist and his crooked family swanning around London and schmoozing with Royalty. I've already bellowed 'Nazi!' at the screen. It really isn't good for my blood pressure. But I don't know what's worse: Trump and his entourage lording it in the UK or the various UK right-wing politicians fawning over them. Damn it, we've already seen Jeremy Cunt, who is apparently the Foreign Secretary, although you'd never know it, refusing to condemn Trump's comments about Sadiq Khan. Is this what we've come to, government ministers effectively joining in with a foreign fascist in calling the elected Mayor of London a 'stone cold loser', amongst other things?
But really, here in the UK we seem to be Hell bent on following a political trajectory that can lead to only one destination: fascism. I'm beginning to despair, as people blindly idolise bone fide fascists like Nigel Farage and Boris 'The Fat Fucker' Johnson. That the latter is somehow seriously considered the potential saviour of the Tory party - which has withered from being a broad based right of centre political party with mass membership to an increasingly reactionary and insular extreme right clique - and next Prime Minister is, to be frank, terrifying. Johnson is entirely self serving, an arrogant egotist and opportunist who thinks that it is his 'manifest destiny' to be PM - never mind the fact that he has demonstrated over and over that he hasn't either the intellect or ability to do the job, let alone a coherent political philosophy. His lack of any kind of morality, as demonstrated by his private life and his involvement in a plot to beat up a journalist who had exposed the criminal activities of an associate, should also raise question marks with regard to his suitability to hold any public office. Oh yes, then there's the small matter of that upcoming court case, where he faces charges of malfeasance in public office with regard to the lies he told during the EU referendum. But you know the worst thing about Boris fucking Johnson? He's been endorsed by Trump, in yet of another of his attempts to interfere in UK domestic politics. Bearing in mind Trump's public unpopularity in the UK, that surely should destroy Johnson's prospects. But oh no, the idiots still all fawn over him - 'Oh, he's Boris, he's so comical, isn't he? ' No, he's a fascist thug and if you support him you are an idiot.
