My local pub has only been reopened for a couple of weeks and alreadyI'm being anti-social. You see, te problem with the old place being open for business again is that all the old faces are back, including, sadly, some colossal pub bores. The sort who aren't content merely to bore you, but to try and argue with you about anything under the sun, regardless of whether they know anything about the subject or not. Their ignorance is no barrier to them being right and you being wrong. Curiously enough, I don't go to the pub for confrontations and arguments - I get enough of those at work. So I prefer to avoid these kinds of characters. Even if that means being incredibly anti-social and ignoring groups of people I know. Which is the situation I found myself in the other week. Actually, there was a bit more to it than just the presence of bores among a group I knew. This particular group of former regulars had deserted the pub years ago, during the reign of terror that was Deke (not his real name, but close enough) to go and drink in another pub just outside of town. They were always so smug about the supposed superiority of their new 'local', (except that it wasn't local for any of them, it was miles away and inconvenient to get to), but every time we had a new landlord at my local, they'd condescend to come back a couple of times. (Of course, during the latest closure of my local, they couldn't be smug, as theirs was run by the same landlord and it closed at the same time, leaving them without a pub as well, much to my satisfaction).
Anyway, right on cue, they turned up at my local the other week, expecting me to join them. Except that I didn't. For one thing they were sitting out in the garden - I'm afraid that the allure of pub gardens has always eluded me, especially after dark. So I stayed inside. There was a perfunctory attempt to speak to me, but I made the cardinal mistake of talking about me, rather than them, (which I didn't think unreasonable as I was asked what I'd been doing lately - always a stupid question, I mean, what else do any of us do other than exist?). But the main thing keeping me inside was the fact that not only had this group brought their own resident pub bore with them, but they had also been joined in the garden by our own resident bore. Which meant, of course, that there would be no conversation, as such, going on, just two competing monologues, both devoted to telling everyone how they were wrong about everything. Not only do I not go to the pub for arguments and confrontations, I don't go to be talked at, either. Especially talked at in stereo. So, I stayed in the lounge bar, had a pleasant chat with the barmaid and read a bit of the newspaper I hadn't previously had a chance to peruse, all accompanied by a couple of pints. All rather pleasant and not at all boring. I fear that my anti-social behaviour might have been taken personally, as I haven't heard from any of them since. The thing is, though, that I don't care. I think that we all know that they are only trying to sneak back into the old local because the new landlord of their pub is proposing things like Drum'n'Base nights, (he seems to think this will attract new customers to a village pub mainly frequented by locals with an average age of seventy three), rather than because they actually like the place or its loyal customers like me. Besides, I'm perversely proud of having been so anti-social, it was quite a return to form on my part!
After the exertions of last week, I'm afraid we're kicking the week off quietly with a brief 'Random Movie Trailer'. Writing about Brutes and Savages has left me in the mood for more Mondo. Real Mondo, of the Italian variety. While Jacopetti and Prosperi might have been the pioneers of the genre, other film makers were equally prolific, most notably the Castiglioni brothers, who turned out five films between 1969 and 1982, kicking off with Secret Africa. While Jacopetti and Prosperi's films tended to be globe-trotting affairs, in their search for the weird, wonderful and shocking, the Castiglionis focuse their efforts entirely upon the so called 'dark continent'. Whether they were inspired by the success of Jacopetti and Prosperi's epic Mondo Africa Addio, I don't know - that film certainly showed that Africa was a rich source of the kind of material beloved by the genre. Moreover, as Africa Addio had shown, the uphraval and instability that followed the colonial withdrawal from many African states provided the sort of environment in which Mondo movie makers could thrive.
Unfortunately, these five films are currently next to impossible to obtain on DVD in English for affordable prices. This trailer for the first of them, however, gives a taste of what to expect. It's all there - the gory animal killings, the 'primitive' rituals, the promise of sexual rites, poverty, disease and a focus on jiggling bare breasts. Indeed, the trailer keeps on cutting back to those breasts, but, like National Geographic, they are there for purely informational and educational purposes. While it might be entirely exploitative in its treatment of its subjects, it is striking how similar some of the imagery, even in this trailer, of a poverty-stricken continent, are to that which we were to see in subsequent news reports on the famines blighting various African states in the eighties. The continent's problems were there all along, it just seems that back in the sixties and seventies the only people chronicling them for mass media were Mondo filmmakers. While they might have been exploiting the troubles of the continent for the purposes of entertainment, at least they can't be accused of promoting any kind of 'white saviour syndrome', as many of the charity efforts still operating today have done. Africa, it seems, is always being exploited, one way or another.
This past week has all fused together into one long heat haze. Dehydrated by day and sleep deprived by night, on account of this unnatural heat, I, like everyone else, have been left exhausted. But don't worry - man made climate change is just a myth, it's all part of a natural rhythm the earth's climate goes through every few thousand years. Bollocks. If I hear anyone trotting that cobblers out again after this last week, I'm liable to throttle them. But, weather notwithstanding, this has been a pretty good week here at Sleaze Diary, with three pretty substantive posts. After what feels like weeks of having no inspiration, I seem to have hit a creative streak again. So much so that I was tempted not to write anything today - how could I follow those three earlier posts? But, as in other areas of my life, I like to stay regular. So here we are. Of course, the elephant in the room which has gone unmentioned all week is Boris Johnson in Downing Street. The fact is, though, that political developments have been just too depressing to think about, let alone write about. Consequently, I've been avoiding the news, although I have taken a look at the make up of the new cabinet. What can I say? All the shit bags who were sacked or resigned in disgrace because of their reprehensible antics are back: Esther McVey, Priti Patel, Gavin Williamson, even Grant Shapps. That's right Grant Shapps. Well, Johnson's certainly got the cream of the crap there, hasn't he?
Just as depressing has been watching all the middle class pseudo lefties on social media going into a frenzy over the week's political events, trying to apportion blame for Johnson's ascension. It's the media's fault. It's the fault of Have I Got News For You for having him as either panellist or guest host so many times - it 'normalised' and legitimised him. Or it's the fault of those evil 'centrists' (they've finally accepted that the term 'Blairite' is now meaningless) for criticising that nice Mr Corbyn, thereby undermining his stunning effectiveness in opposing the forces of fascism in the UK. Personally, I lay the blame for the rise of right-wing populists like Johnson on this whole 'anti-politics' movement which has been raging since the Iraq war, whipped up by the press and bought into by supporters of left and right alike, which rejected professional mainstream politicians as being corrupt and self-serving. That's worked out well, hasn't it? On the one hand, we now have a cabinet of hard right-wingers and an ineffective opposition led by another 'anti-politics' figure who quite clearly isn't up to the job. Corbyn's inability to make decisions on issues as crucial as anti-Semitism and Brexit has left the Labour Party vulnerable and floundering. Politics is a fight, whether he likes it or not. Right now, it's a stand up, bare knuckle street fight, but Corbyn and his ilk continually shy away from the fight by refusing to engage in proper politics, handing the extreme right victory by default.
When a film's titles open with the legend 'The Arthur Davis Expedition in', the casual viewer might expect to see some light hearted vehicle for a prog rock band. Perhaps even a surreal animated feature in the vein of Yellow Submarine, featuring animated cartoon versions of the eponymous band involved in psychedelic adventures. Sadly, though, 'The Arthur Davis Expedition' wasn't a rival to the 'Alan Parsons Project', but rather another fake artifact in a would be Mondo movie full of all too obvious fakery. Far from being some kind of scientific expedition engaged in serious anthropological studies, the 'Expedition' is actually an exploitation film crew fronted by Arthur Davis himself. To be fair, Davis was a real person, not, as you might assume from watching Brutes and Savages, some down on his luck actor with an extensive wardrobe of seventies safari suits, badly impersonating some kind of fearless explorer. In fact, Davis was a well known exhibitor and distributor of exploitation films, particularly in the Far East. Not satisfied with just distributing other people's pictures, Davis eventually decided to make his own exploitation films, settling on the Mondo genre for his first, as he reasoned that these films were easy to make, requiring neither cast nor name director to sell them to their intended audience.
The result was Brutes and Savages, a supposed serious examination of the cultures of 'primitive' tribes in South America and Africa. Well, depending upon which version you saw - the film was originally presented in two versions: a ninety four minute cut which focused on the South American footage, and a ten minute longer cut using some of the African footage. Eventually, a hundred and seven minute version would be released on video, featuring a twenty eight minute opening section set in Africa, followed by a re-edited version of the South American footage - this is the version I've seen and so will form the basis for my comments here. According to Davis, the African sequences were shot in Sudan, near the border with Uganda. The problem is that it just doesn't look like any part of Africa ever committed to film. Indeed, the viewer is left strongly suspecting that it was actually filmed in Florida, with local extras running around in loin cloths pretending to be African tribesmen - a suspicion reinforced by the fact that at the start of it, Davis converses with the local 'Chief' in English. None of the rituals shown are remotely convincing and the 'fight to the death' over the Chief's daughter is anything but, with both participants alive and well at the end. The least convincing part of this section of the film is the infamous 'crocodile' attack which occurs during a supposed 'coming of age' ritual which involves three young tribesman having to safely cross a crocodile infested river in order to achieve manhood. The crocodile is obviously rubber and its attacks are clearly filmed in a pool, (probably Davis' swimming pool), and are poorly (not to mention obviously) intercut with scenes filmed on an actual river. It all culminates with the fake crocodile swimming off with a rubber head in its jaws, while some equally fake severed limbs float past.
After this farrago of face painted African natives, (it is never adequately explained how they make or otherwise obtain the paint), bare breasted women and a prurient focus on the sex lives of the Africans, the action moves to South America. These scenes at least have the virtue of having been actually filmed in Bolivia and Peru, but most of the footage is, nevertheless, as fake as the African scenes in terms of their depictions of native rituals. Once again, there is a voyeuristic interest in the sexual activities of the film's subjects and a relentless focus on animal cruelty, whether it be in the form of alleged ritual sacrifices of turtles and llamas or a long sequence of various wild predators attacking and devouring their prey. These are all chronicled in stomach churning detail, something which helped Brutes and Savages become a Section Three 'Video Nasty' in the UK. Incredible statements are made: 'adult crocodiles grow up to fifty feet in length'; 'we are about to see the world's largest collection of erotic pottery' - made by a people whose 'only leisure activity was sex' (and pottery, presumably). Astoundingly, a character introduced to us originally as some kind of expert on the local tribes is later revealed to also be a top brain surgeon - which is a stroke of luck as he is able to operate on a man seriously injured during the traditional annual stone throwing contest between two remote villages. Cue lots of stock footage of some very gory brain surgery. Moving from the ludicrous to the ridiculous, the film winds up with some more animal cruelty: a ceremony involving locals simulating sex with llamas.
Most of this footage, we are repeatedly told, has been shot surreptitiously, using concealed cameras with telephoto lenses. Yet it clearly hasn't. Many of the shots are in close up, or are of interiors which could only be filmed with the camera in close proximity and clearly visible to the participants. This whole pretence becomes most ridiculous during the 'turtle wedding' sequence, where are told that the local chief has forbidden its filming, so the secret long range cameras were instead used. Except that the shots are clearly elaborately staged, with cutaways, over-the-shoulder shots and other shots which require quite complex camera set ups. The killing of the turtle, if you can bear to watch, is filmed in close up. The whole sequence culminates with the new bride and her husband about to engage in sex in a hammock, in a shot clearly filmed inside their hut. What makes this obvious fakery surprising is the fact that the film's set up goes to such great lengths to try and establish its authenticity: quite apart from the zoom lens nonsense and the 'Arthur Davis Expedition' conceit, the opening titles also claim that the whole enterprise has been endorsed by the (non-existent) 'Institute of Primitive Arts and Cultures'. It underlines the fact that Davis clearly had no real understanding of true Mondo movies and was contemptuous of their audiences.
Indeed, the main thing that Brutes and Savages achieves is to underline the true genius of Gauliatero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi, fathers of the Mondo genre. Davis' film simply cannot bear comparison with films like Jacopetti and Prosperi's original two Mondo Cane films, or their Women of the World and Africa Addio. Nor, indeed, can it be compared to later, lesser Italian Mondo movies like Scattini's Sweden: Heaven and Hell or Climati and Morra's 'Savage' trilogy. From the outset, the genuine Italian Mondo succeeded in establishing a certain documentary-style air of 'detachment', maintaining a (fake) sense of distance and objectivity with regard to the film makers and their subjects. Although, as a viewer, you might suspect that some of the sequences are faked, you can never quite be sure (unless you recognise a supposedly 'real' person as an actor, as in one part of the 'Savage' trilogy). At worst, you might suspect that a scene has been 're-staged' for the benefit of the film-makers, but that the rituals and ceremonies it is showing are probably genuine. In Brutes and Savages, by contrast, it is all too obvious that everything is being faked for the cameras. Something underlined by the frequent on screen interpolations of Davis himself, clad in a variety of outfits he clearly thinks scream 'explorer', but which, in actuality look incredibly camp, (early on he wears what appears to be a pink safari suit (although it might just be a quirk of the film's colour processing) while interacting with the African tribes people. His constant appearances also rob the film of any sense of 'distance' or objectivity.
The Italian Mondos also succeed in lulling their audience into a kind of suspension of disbelief while they are running: even though we know that what we are seeing is expolitative of its subjects and being presented largely for the purposes of shock, sensationalism and titillation, part of us is carried along with the pretence that there is some kind of serious anthropological purpose behind it all. To be fair, a few Mondo films, most notably Africa Addio, do seem to have some serious purpose behind them, (albeit presented in sensational terms). This is entirely absent from Brutes and Savages - its trappings of seriousness are so feeble that nobody is fooled for a moment into thinking that it is anything other than crude exploitation. And crude it is - Davis clearly had no conception of how successful Mondos were structured, with their jumps from sequence to sequence, (sometimes the sequences would be thematically linked, sometimes they were arranged to provide jarring contrasts, usually between 'primitive' and 'civilised' worlds, sometimes a light-hearted segment would follow something more harrowing in order to leaven the mood), providing a rhythm to the narrative and building to a conclusion which, more often than not, brings us back to the film's original thesis. It all seems to progress naturally and logically. Davis' film, by contrast, simply feels like a catalogue of atrocities, piling shock sequence upon shock sequence without regard for structure. The Italian films even manage to make their, frequent, scenes of animal cruelty seem,.if not justifiable, at least more acceptable within their own contexts by framing them in such a way as to make them illustrative of some part of their overarching thesis. In Africa Addio, for instance, the lengthy and harrowing sequences of wild animal culls are 'justified' as an example of the changing face of the continent from Imperialist playground to self-sufficient, self ruled states which required more land for agriculture in order to support their populations.
Another vital ingredient of the classic Mondo movie is the musical score, the best of which help manipulate the viewer's reactions to segments, emphasising and accentuating the on screen action and carrying the audience into each new sequence. Interestingly, Brutes and Savages boasts a score by the great Riz Ortolani, who provided magnificent soundtracks for most of the original Jacopetti/Prosperi Mondo movies. Here, however, he seems to show his contempt for what unfolds on screen by providing an electronically driven funked up disco score, which simply underlines the ludicrousness of what's on screen. Consequently, we are treated, for example, to scenes of African native women dancing to disco beats. Clearly hoping to add some gravitas to proceedings, Davis employed Richard Johnson, (whose acting career was in something of a trough), to provide the narration. Presumably, Edmund Purdom, the usual choice for English language versions of Italian Mondos, was unavailable, (or worse, thought that Brutes and Savages was beneath even him). Unfortunately, Johnson's narration (which he sensibly ensured went uncredited) is insipid in comparison to the sneery, sceptical, tones of Purdom, (who claimed that he never bothered watching the on screen images as he read the script).
Now, I know that I've been savagely brutal in my treatment of Brutes and Savages, but that isn't to say that, on some levels, it isn't an entertaining film. Just not in the ways its makers intended. The animal and brain surgery sequences aside, the whole thing is more than mildly hilarious, playing out like some kind of surreal parody of a travelogue, as the bizarre figure of Davis wanders around in search of pornographic pottery and secret sexual rituals. None of the 'facts' presented in the narration have actually been fact checked, while what we see sometimes contradicts the narration, (villagers described as 'miserable' are all happily smiling for the cameras, for instance). But if you want to see a real Mondo, then watch Mondo Cane or Africa Addio, or any of the 'Savage' trilogy, or just about any of the Italian made Mondos of the sixties. They are both more rewarding and far more professionally made.
Advertising goes through phases. Not satisfied with trying to sell us regular products to meet normal, existing needs, once they feel that a particular niche is saturated with products, they'll invent a new need for a 'new' version of the niche's products. I'm sure everyone remembers when they started marketing all manner of fabric conditioners and fresheners for laundry - some went in the washing machine, some were sprayed on the clothes either before or after washing, some were applied before you ironed your clothes. Every base was covered, to the extent that it seemed the market was saturated to the point that there was no room new products. Sales had been maximized. Something new was needed, something that would meet some hitherto unrecognised laundry-related need. So they started telling us that our ironing stank. We were suddenly bombarded with adverts involving people doing their ironing, then sniffing the air, looking around for the source of the offending smell, before homing in on their laundry, sniffing it and grimacing grotesquely. It was all presented as if everyone knew about this 'problem' and accepted the need for new anti-ironing stink sprays to be applied before ironing. The fact is that nobody sniffs their newly ironed clothes which, if they've just been washed, won't stink.
More recently, it's our washing machines which have allegedly stunk, requiring the purchase of all manner of specialised products to eliminate this. Lately there's been a badly dubbed advert (with some truly shocking lip syncing) telling us how much filth the drums of our washing machines accumulate, (thereby causing that stink), but if you use their detergent to do your washing, then it will stop this vile build up. All bollocks. Right now, the big sell is incontinence. That's right - according to advertisers the nation's women are in the grip of an outbreak of incontinence. They are wetting themselves left, right and centre. It's an epidemic. The key thing here is, of course, that these campaigns are aimed solely at women. Having exhausted the possibilities for advertising every regular type of female hygiene products, the marketers have decided that a new need has had to be identified and a whole range of new products, from pads to incontinence pants, are now being aggressively pushed in TV adverts. (As an aside, it wasn't so long ago that feminine hygiene products were taboo in TV advertising terms - if you were male, sanitary towels were the stuff of mythology - women apparently didn't have periods in TV ad land. Now, not only do they have periods, but they regularly piss themselves. While I'd like to think that this represents advances in the way women are treated by the media and represent the dawning of more enlightened attitudes, but in truth, it has been driven by the needs of commerce).
But to get back to the incontinence, all of the current campaigns present it as a natural possible consequence of motherhood, although the strategies they use to sell their specific products vary somewhat. Some of the ads, most specifically the ones for incontinence underwear, are squarely aimed at making women believe they can still be attractive to the opposite sex, despite suffering from incontinence. I'm particularly thinking about the one with the young mother getting dressed and musing about the changes brought by motherhood. The whole thing is clearly an excuse for the advertisers to show us an attractive young woman in her underwear, pointing out that her breasts are bigger as the result of being a mother, with the incontinence added almost as an afterthought. The whole ad feels dangerously close to voyeurism and one can't help but feel that the ad is aimed as much at men as it is at women, ('don't worry if your other half pisses herself - she's still sexy'). Other ads, primarily those for absorbent pads ('turns pee into odourless gel'), present their products as lifestyle enhancing, particularly as they are so thin they are unobtrusive. As I say, these ads are suddenly everywhere, giving the impression that Britain's women have been hit by a sudden epidemic of incontinence. One wonders what the next advertising phenomenon will be?
The obvious one would surely be incontinence products for men, After all, it isn't just a female problem. The trouble, of course, is that the causes of male incontinence are nowhere near as worthy as that of most female incontinence: motherhood. Most blokes piss themselves as a result of alcohol abuse. And we're not just talking about a bit of 'leakage' when laughing or sneezing. Instead it is usually full on pissing yourself before you can get to the bathroom, or wetting the bed after drinking ten pints. (To be fair, diabetes can also be a cause of male incontinence - I speak from personal experience here. Before being diagnosed and prescribed medication, I had a few close calls, I can tell you). There's no doubt that, when drinking, there's a threshold a man's bladder reaches in terms of pints, after which the floodgates open. (Another aside, years ago a colleague was going out with a physiotherapist - he eventually married her - who used to get sent these catalogues full of dodgy looking medical equipment. Naturally, said colleague used to bring them into the office where we'd have a good laugh at them. Anyway, my favourite amongst this equipment were the 'discreet' incontinence aids which consisted of two plastic bags, one strapped to each leg, which were attached to the sufferer's penis with a catheter. I always thought that you could look really hard and impressive by wearing such a contraption to the pub - you could down pint after pint without having to go for a piss. Other drinkers would think you had a bladder of iron. It would be a bit difficult walking out at closing time, with two bags full of urine strapped to legs, sloshing around, but a price worth paying, I feel). With men, the incontinence often isn't confined to wetting yourself - there's also the risk of 'following through' when breaking wind after drinking especially gassy beer, (particularly if it was followed with kebabs or Indian cuisine). I just don't see anyone advertising men's rubber incontinence pants guaranteed to stop the shit from staining the furniture or trickling down your legs any time soon...
I'm back on the business of adapting films from books. Last time (for now). I promise. Anyway, it's one thing to adapt a well-known novel into a film, quite another when it is what is essentially a piece of pulp fiction being adapted into a movie. On the one hand, the source is unlikely to have as many die hard fans as a piece of 'legitimate' literature, allowing more leeway in the process of adaptation, on the other, pulpy novels are more likely to be 'cinematic' in the first place, making the process of adaptation more straightforward. There is, not surprisingly, a specific case study I have in mind when it comes to this sort of thing: a 1974 Vincent Price movie called Madhouse. This film was based on a novel titled Devilday by Angus Hall, published in the late sixties. The book was one of those mass market genre paperbacks that publishers like NEL, Badger and Sphere used to turn out by the dozen. Generally running only around 30-40,000 words, they were usual quick, undemanding reads, often parts of series written under house names by a variety of authors. Devilday, however, was a standalone and Angus Hall wasn't a pseudonym. I know little of the author, other than the fact that in the late sixties and early seventies he turned out several paperbacks in a variety of genres. Another novel, Deathday (not linked to Devilday, despite the title), was adapted by the BBC as part of the last series of Out of the Unknown. An adaptation Hall so disliked that, for many years, he could be found on any message board discussing Out of the Unknown denouncing both the series and the BBC in general.
What he thought of Madhouse, though, I have no idea. After his reaction to the other adaptation, I would have expected him to be even more vociferous about this one. But then again, Madhouse doesn't get much discussed anywhere. And maybe Amicus and AIP paid him more for the film rights to Devilday than the BBC had for Deathday. To say that the film strays somewhat radically from the source novel is putting it mildly. That said, you can, however, still recognise Madhouse as an adaptation of Devilday, albeit a loose one. You can see why the film makers were attracted to the novel as the basis for a Vincent Price vehicle - its central character is a washed up American star of a series of macabre movies who comes to the UK after a sex and murder scandal in the US, to make a TV series based on the films. Naturally, all kinds of mayhem, including sex fueled occult rituals and murders follow him. One of the pleasures of the book to those of us who grew up in the South of England is that the local ITV franchise the main character is contracted by to make the TV series - the fictional South Coast TV - is clearly inspired by the real local franchise, Southern TV. Indeed, the novel paints a vivid picture of the rickety nature of the early days of the smaller ITV franchises and the vicious internal politics and back-biting as the 'talent' tried to climb the greasy pole of broadcasting.
Unfortunately, the film abandons all of this. The most radical change being the complete elimination of the book's first person narrator, an over ambitious and not particularly likeable junior reporter charged with keeping the main character, Paul Toombes (in both book and film), out of trouble, something he resents, seeing it as a distraction from his attempts to use South Coast TV as a stepping stone to Thames TV and the bright lights of London. His cynical narration of the story as it unfolds is one of the novel's most distinctive features and our entire view of Toombes is from his jaded perspective, raising the possibility, early on, that the actor might not, in reality, be the monster we're lead to believe that he is. The portrayal of Toombes is another major point of divergence between book and novel: the literary Toombes is overweight, short tempered, with clear drug and alcohol problems and often speaks and behaves like a cheap hoodlum, yet still mysteriously attractive to women. By contrast, the movie Toombes, as played by Vincent Price, is a far sleeker, more refined character, well spoken and sophisticated, despite the fact that his career is on the decline. These changes are understandable - the film is, after all, a vehicle for Vincent Price, meaning that the lead character had to be reshaped to accommodate his screen image and talents. Likewise, the book's narrative structure would have inserted a second lead character into the action, a narrator who, arguably, is rendered superfluous any way by the nature of film as a visual medium - it doesn't need descriptions of situations and characters when it can show them.
But the film adaptation makes even more radical changes, altering the whole nature of the plot. Whereas the book firmly concentrates on the narrator's attempts to prove Toombes' involvement in a series of macabre events which unfold in tandem with the growing popularity of his TV series, the film instead focuses on attempts by parties unknown to drive Toombes mad (he suffered a mental breakdown before coming to the UK), by framing him for various murders which are being committed by someone dressed like his character, 'Dr Death' (Madhouse was actually filmed under the title The Revenge of Dr Death, although the character in the book is called 'Dr Dis'). Which, obviously, changes the central character from enigmatic probable villain to more sympathetic probable victim. Again, this doubtless had to do with the casting of Price and a decision to try and vary his character from the more obviously sinister and villainous characters. like Dr Phibes, he had recently been portraying. To accommodate these plot changes, the film elevates a minor character from the book, Toombes' scriptwriter Herbert Flay, played by Peter Cushing to status of main villain, as he is revealed to be the driving force behind the plot against Toombes, jealous that Toombes has received all the credit for 'Dr Death', a character that Flay created. Consequently, in order to destroy Toombes, Flay 'becomes' him in the guise of 'Dr Death'.
What all of these alterations succeed in doing, however, is to transform a fascinating and surprisingly well written and slightly unusual horror pot-boiler into a fairly ordinary Vincent Price vehicle. The most significant casualty of the transformation is the book's central conceit that Toombes believes that he is the reincarnation of an ancient mystic and that he he has had many lives over the centuries and will have many more in the future. This belief he uses as justification for all of his actions, contending that nothing he does in this life matters, as he is already 'chosen' and will have many more existences which, overall, form part of a greater scheme. A complex idea - too complex, perhaps, for a seventies B horror movie. So, instead, it is ditched in favour of a conventional revenge plot. Not that Madhouse doesn't create some memorable ideas of its own: at the climax Toombes, having apparently already died, literally steps out of a cinema screen to confront Flay and the movie's end Toombes returns Flay's compliments by 'becoming' him after killing the writer, applying make up until he looks like Cushing. In the end, though, despite some decent visuals and enjoyable performances, Madhouse descends into a welter of confusing chases, killings and identity swaps. To be fair, the fault lies less with the script than it does with the interference of producer Milton Subotsky. According to director Jim Clarke (better known as an editor), Subotsky 'bulldozed his way into the editing room' and cut several major sequences, claiming that were either too talky or simply that they bored him. The result was a film which becomes incoherent in its second half. Whether the movie as filmed by Clarke would have been any better is something we'll never know, but one can't help but feel that a greater fidelity to its source might have resulted in a more distinctive and interesting film.
Instead of complaining about the weird-looking cgi fur used to try and make various well known performers look like felines in the newly released trailer for the film version of Cats, shouldn't people really be asking why none of them are played by actual cats? I mean, I'd hoped that the days of human actors putting on fur suits and fake ears in order to pretend to be animals were long behind us - it's on a par with white actors 'blacking up': not just insulting to actual animal performers, but depriving talented cats and the like of work. I'm sure that there are hundreds of cats out there who were more than capable of playing the roles of, well, cats in Cats. But were they given a chance? Were any of them asked to audition, even? Of course not. It's pure discrimination. 'Those cats can't act', they undoubtedly said. 'Those cats can't sing or dance, either', they undoubtedly also said. But did they actually give them a chance? I've seen real cats display some pretty fancy footwork, (usually when they've trodden on a hot plate), and they certainly have a set of lungs on them - their wailing when they want to be let in is no more discordant than, say, Ronan Keating, (and he still gets work). They're also pretty accomplished actors: I've lost count of the number of times I've asked a cat whether it has been fed (even though I know it has) and it responded with a very convincing negative mew and pitiful look.
Yet still they don't get the work. It is grossly unfair - are other animals treated this way when they are portrayed on screen. Do westerns have two blokes in a pantomime horse costume instead of real horses? Is Lassie portrayed by a bloke in a furry suit saying 'woof'? I think not. But they make a whole film about cats but don't cast a single real feline. Bloody typical. But do people get upset about it? No, they instead focus on trivialities. It's the same with that live action remake of The Little Mermaid - lots of people getting obsessed over the fact that a non-white performer has been cast in the title role and insisting that it is somehow not 'authentic', when what they should be up in arms about the fact that they didn't cast an actual mermaid. There is no way that anyone, regardless of race, creed or colour, with two legs instead of a fish tail should be playing that role. It's a bloody outrage. It's no good saying that mermaids are mythical creatures - that's what Hollywood used to say about black people in order to justify casting white actors with soot on their faces. Damn it, even dwarfs get a better deal from Hollywood - you never see tall blokes on their knees playing those roles, they always get in the real thing, (OK, sometimes they use children with stick on beards). And dwarfs are just as mythical mermaids. I think. But to get back to the point, we really need to start a campaign to have Cats reshot with, well cats.
We were talking about film adaptations of books before I decided to go on a digression about Trump's racism, it's a subject I'd like to return to. We've already seen how the makers of the film version of World War Z by deciding to change the action from the retrospective narrative of the book, instead bringing the action into the present, ended up compromising the film's narrative structure. Their decision to try and retain the source novel's central narrative device of a UN investigator liking together the various historical reports of the zombie apocalypse, but to bring it all into the present and make this character an actor in these events rather than an observer of them, resulted in a poorly paced, disjointed and uneven narrative. The obvious question which arises from this is why, if the structure of the book was considered so uncinematic, did the film makers buy the rights in the first place? But, of course, the film rights of novels are optioned for all manner of reasons, none of them to do with their literary worth. Hitchcock, famously, would often option novels on the basis of a single scene which appealed to him and set his cinematic imagination running, (this was certainly the case with his last completed film, Family Plot, based on Victor Canning's novel The Rainbird Pattern). Sometimes a novel is optioned for purely legal reasons - it might have a plot or central idea sufficiently similar to a film project under development that a studio decides that it needs to protect itself from possible allegations of plagiarism.
More often than not, though, books get optioned simply because they had been best sellers and their titles have name recognition for potential audiences. Whether they can be transformed into viable screenplays is another matter. Sometimes, particularly when a novel uses narrative devices which don't translate neatly into film, substitute cinematic equivalents have to be found and plots and narratives restructured to provide the sort of linear narrative demanded by film. Hence, the film adaptation of James Ellroy's LA Confidential streamlines the novel's complex narrative, rearranging events (the film's climactic motel shoot out, for instance, comes at the beginning of the novel and involves different protagonists) and radically reducing the number of sub-plots, eliminating several of the book's major characters in the process. That said, it is still recognisably the same story.
An even more radical transformation from page to screen is in evidence in the film version of Len Deighton's The Ipcress File. The original text, with its unnamed first person narrator, facsimile memos, elliptical plotting and chronicling of the bureaucratic minutiae of a government intelligence department, was never going to be ideal film fodder. So the film adaptation simply dumped most of the detail, gave the lead character a name, instituted a linear, simplified, version of the novel's plot and wrote out several characters. Some of the changes - the relocation of the book's overseas sequences in London, in much modified form - were dictated by budgetary restrictions. The main character's suspicion of authority and generally anti-establishment attitude, conveyed via his first person narration in the novel, is instead communicated in the film by giving him a completely different back story and reducing his status within the intelligence organisation, replacing his well founded and reasoned scepticism with plain insolence. Likewise, other complex characters, most notably Dalby and Ross, were considerably simplified, to make them more easily identifiable stereotypes. Nevertheless, like LA Confidential, The Ipcress File is still identifiably the same story as the novel. Just told differently, in a more cinematic fashion.
While both LA Confidential and The Ipcress File ultimately became commercially and critically successful films, both extremely well made and very stylish, there's no doubt that in both cases, compared to their source novels, they feel somewhat lightweight. Although the extensive changes made during their transition from page to screen resulted in pacy, enjoyable films with excellent visual style, good story-telling and well staged action set-pieces, it also leaves them lacking a certain degree of substance. Shorn of the serial killer sub-plot, involving the son of a Walt Disney-like figure, and the cover up involving senior LAPD officers, the conspiracy underlying the remaining plot lines in the film version of LA Confidential ultimately feels slightly lacking. Moreover, the removal of the racial elements from the plot likewise deprive the film of much of the novel's political edge. Similarly, the plot of the film adaptation of Ipcress File seems too obvious, with the real villain standing out a mile. One of the pleasures of the novel was the way it succeeded in keeping its plot mechanics hidden from view, screened by a wealth of detail and incident, not all of it obviously linked to any plot development. Also, by making Dalby such a martinet, quite unlike the cultured character of the book, the film telegraphs its villain too obviously. It also makes the mistake of making his rival Ross an efficient, albeit obnoxious, intelligence operative, rather than the incompetent buffoon of the novel, thereby undermining some of the lead character's status as the smartest, most efficient, character, (despite his shambling appearance and demeanour, in the book at least).
But the fact is that literature and cinema are two completely different media - what works in one won't work in the other. Moreover, audience expectations in the two are quite different. The dense plotting and complex characterisations of novels like LA Confidential and The Ipcress File would simply be a turn off for the sort of mass audiences films must appeal to in order to enjoy financial success. What the average cinema audience expects is a sleek visual experience,smoothly plotted and neatly packaged into a running time of two hours or less. Which is what these two adaptations deliver, while still retaining the essence of their source material. While those of us familiar with the source material might lament the simplifications necessary for their transition to the screen, most viewers will never have read the books and are only interested in being entertained in cinematic terms. Long experience has taught me that one has to accept film adaptations and their source material to be separate entities, which have to be judged on their own merits rather than in comparison to each other. The film versions of both LA Confidential and The Ipcress File succeed as movies by capturing something of the spirit of their sources without either attempting to slavishly ape them, or by fundamentally altering them. Which is where, in my opinion, World War Z ran into trouble: it wanted to have its cake and eat it by retaining something of the source material's structure, while fundamentally altering its premise - the resulting fim never quite manages to reconcile these two aims.
Just why do much of the mainstream media find it so hard to call a racist a racist? Even here in the UK, many news outlets, notably the BBC, have seemingly been reluctant to actually call Trump's recent, utterly disgraceful tweets out for what they are: racist. Instead they use phrases such as 'racially charged' or, worse, describe them as tweets that 'have been described as racist'. Yes, they have been described as racist because they are racist - Trump tells four female members of Congress - all of whom are US citizens - that they should 'go home'. Are his apologists asking us to believe that it is merely coincidental that they are all women of colour? Of course not - otherwise he wouldn't be telling them to 'go home'. Their ethnic origins are clearly being used as a basis to characterise them as not really being American. This isn't even implicit racism, it is quite explicit. As we know in the UK, the whole 'go home' business is inextricably linked with far right racists like the unlamented BNP and National Front. So why are so many people, particularly in the media, finding it so difficult to call Trump a racist? It isn't as if he doesn't have form: characterising Mexicans as rapists and murderers, describing African countries as 'shitholes'. It's really easy - just repeat after me: 'Trump. Is. A. Racist.' There, that wasn't so hard, was it?
But hey, the fat boy himself has told us he isn't racist. So that's OK then. In fact, according to him, it is those uppity non-white women who are being racist. In fact, anyone who says he is is racist, is, in fact racist. It's undoubtedly all fake news. It's all from the bullies' play book - you deal out some abuse, then play the victim when your targets respond. The worst thing is the way so much of the media seem willing to go along with him, apparently in the name of 'balance': 'he's said something blatantly racist, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and report more of his racst remarks defending himself.' But it has ever been thus - Trump makes misogynistic comments (grab 'em by the pussy') but isn't called out as a misogynist by the mainstream media. Having got away with that, he's now pushing the boundaries again, this time seeing how far he can go with racist remarks. And the media reaction, or lack thereof, is encouraging him. But, to be fair, the Us public are just as much to blame - there should be general outrage that such a blatant racist is currently occupying the White House. Really America, what does this piece of shit have to do to prove to you that he is unfit to hold the office of President, that he is an utter embarrassment to your country? Repeat after me: 'Trump. Is. A, Racist'...
So, did you enjoy that wonderful weekend of sport? All culminating in a Sunday dominated by three of the most tedious excuses for sport ever devised by man: tennis, cricket and Formula One. It was non-stop non-excitement. I thought that I'd just put that out there, to reassure anyone else left unmoved by it all that they are not alone. It isn't that I've got a downer on sports - just the boring ones. Which are actually most of them. Especially when they are wall-to-wall on our TV screens. I particularly object when the BBC shows Wimbledon simultaneously on its two main channels in prime time - is this what I pay my licence fee for? (When the Wimbledon Women's Singles finals lasted less than our, it left the BBC with a quandary - for a while they thought that they might actually have to show some proper programming, but they managed to find some tennis still being played somewhere in Wimbledon to fill up a few more hours). As you have undoubtedly gathered, I wasn't watching the sport over the weekend. So what, I hear you ask, was I doing instead? Well, nothing energetic, as my recent lack of sleep thanks to several overly warm nights, although I did put the car through its MoT (it passed), which is always slightly stressful. Other than that, I've been spending some quality time on my sofa catching up with various films I've recorded over the past few weeks. The two stand outs this weekend were a Pete Walker would be shocker, Schizo, and the far more recent Brad Pitt zombie epic World War Z.
The latter film is of interest as another example of a property, in this case a novel, being bought by a studio which has no clear idea of how to translate it into another medium. The attraction of the source material was obvious: a critically acclaimed and best-selling novel about zombies, which are, of course, the current movie monster de jour, thanks to the ongoing success of things like The Walking Dead. The problem, however, is that the novel World War Z doesn't feature a conventional linear narrative, instead presenting a series of fictional reports and reminiscences of a past zombie apocalypse, as collected by a UN investigator trying to compile a history of these past events. Which, in cinematic terms, for a zombie film at least, would be a non-starter. Which meant that a whole new narrative structure had to be constructed by the film's makers, which is where all of the movie's problems stem from. Most crucially, they move the plot's events into the present, so that they are no longer recollections being experienced at a distance by the protagonist, but rather an ongoing story line being experienced in real time by the characters. The end result is a hugely episodic plot, with the action moving jerkily from set-piece to set-piece, as action sequences jostle uncomfortably with expository dialogue and situations.
The film's need for a conventional linear narrative means that everything has to be thrown at the audience simultaneously - back story, action spectacle, exposition come so thick and fast that there is little room for character development and the plot's driving mechanism of the lead character trying to find the origin of the global zombie outbreak and a possible way to combat it, never seems to really take flight. It seems to much of an obvious device to move the main character through a series of widely dispersed locations, with the resolution feeling almost arbitrary and too reliant upon luck. The whole structure of World War Z is reminiscent of a classic Bond movie, with its constant globe-trotting, action set-pieces and encounters with various groups of characters who either help or hinder the hero. (which might not be entirely coincidental, as it shares its director with Bond movie Quantum of Solace). Unfortunately, it moves so abruptly from set-piece to set-piece that we never really get to know any of these characters before they are either killed or simply left behind as the plot moves on. In the case of the climactic sequence at the Welsh WHO lab, we never even learn the names of the supporting characters - they are all billed in the credits as 'WHO doctor'. It also doesn't help that the zombies themselves are presented as a such anonymous monsters, diluting any sense of menace they might present. Which isn't to say that World War Z isn't an enjoyable couple of hours - it is actually very well made, with many of the individual set-pieces effectively and excitingly presented. There are also some very good acting performances, even though many of the supporting cast are short-changed by the episodic script which just doesn't give them sufficient screen time to create characters we can care about. In the final analysis, the movie's biggest problem is that it simply doesn't hold together as a whole, throwing incident and exposition at the audience which, in its source material, were carefully built up as an analysis of historical events, but here are presented as a frenzied, and sometimes near incomprehensible, stream of currently developing narrative.
Somewhere, I have this horror thriller from the final days of Universal's B-movie unit on DVD. With their classic monsters pretty much played out, Universal spent the tail end of its B-movie production turning out cheaply made cod horror pictures which utilised existing sets and the studio's roster of supporting players. Most ran around the hour mark and quite a few, like She-Wolf of London, were directed by Jean Yarbrough, a journeyman director who never gained the cult status of, say, Roy William Neill, but nonetheless turned out efficiently made programmers on limited budgets. She-Wolf typically, for these type of films, contantly hints at the supernatural (particularly in the title), but is, in fact, a thriller with some horror overtones, rather than a full blown horror picture.
These late period Universal B pictures frequently borrowed heavily from earlier productions. Not only does She-Wolf take half of its titke from an earlier, more prestigious, Universal production, Werewolf of London, but its plot is somewhat reminiscent of the Rathbone/Bruce Sherlock Holmes film The Scarlet Claw, (directed, incidentally, by the aforementioned Roy William Neill). A series of 'werewolf' murders, in which the victims' throats are torn out, are terrorising late Victorian London. The killings centre on a park, near which lies the Allenby mansion, where young Phyllis Allenby lives with her aunt and cousin. Allenby is engaged to solicitor Lansfield, with the spate of killings coinciding with the build up to the wedding. Allenby fears that she may be culprit, a victim of the 'Allenby Curse' of lycanthropy. Naturally, the culprit turns out to be the aunt, who is trying to drive Phyllis mad and prevent her marriage in order that she and her daughter would inherit the mansion. Rather than turn into a 'wolf woman', the aunt uses a gardening implement to murder and mutilate her victims, (as did the killer in the Holmes film).
While featuring a number of atmospheric scenes and considerable suspense, She Wolf of London is ultimately a disappointment, with its non-supernatural denouement leaving the audience feeling cheated after all that build up. Even though the idea of the 'Allenby Curse' seems to borrow from the 1943 Twentieth Century Fox werewolf picture The Undying Monster, unlike that film, She-Wolf doesn't have the decency to provide even a briefly glimpsed werewolf transformation at its climax. Still, it is a surprisingly handsome looking B-movie, benefiting from the studio production values and standing sets at Universal, (it certainly looks a lot classier than either House of Horrors or The Brute Man, which Yarbrough also directed for Universal around the same time). It also features several familiar faces: leading lady June Lockhart would go on to be Mrs Robinson in Lost in Space, Dennis Hoey once more gets to play Inspector Lestrade in all but name and amongst the uniformed 'Bobbies' is none other than James Finlayson, one time nemesis of Laurel and Hardy ('Doooh!'). To confuse matters, during the 1990s the title was resurrected for an unconnected HTV and MCA (Universal's then parent company) co-production: the short-lived She-Wolf of London TV series, (which, to confuse matters even further, changed its title to Love and Curses part way through).
I seem to have run out of steam again. It's happening a lot these days. I just seem to be stuck in a rut creatively where I can't come up with anything new or worthwhile to write about. To be fair, I seem to be in a rut generally. The other day I realised that when I'm online I seem to keep visiting the same old sites and forums, endlessly checking for updates. I mean, the web effectively gives you access to the whole world via your PC, laptop or phone, yet there I was, just monotonously travelling the same old roads in ever decreasing circles. I suspect that I'm not alone in this. Anyway, in response to this realisation, I decided to go back in my browser history, to the 'six months and older' section to see if I've always been this boring - I was sure that there wa a time when my web browsing was more varied. Well, I certainly found myself venturing off of the beaten track - from old issues of 'Meccano Magazine' to a database of photographs of warships, (I was able to see pictures of every member of the Royal Navy's 'Battle' class destroyers built 1944-46, complete with potted histories of most of them - some survived into the mid-1970s, although most spent most of their careers as part of the reserve fleet).
Most interestingly, I stumbled back into site which attempted to explain the various colour film processes such as Technicolor, Eastmancolor and DeLuxe, for instance. I'm afraid that a lot of it was far too technical for me, although I think that I can now vaguely grasp the difference between 'additive' and 'subtractive' colour systems, (the former uses prismatic lenses and/or coloured filters on the camera and/or projector to add colour to film shot on black and white negative stock, the latter system uses a variety of methods including cementing prints of different colours together, or using dye transfers to produce colour film using specialised negative stock). This site, in turn, led me to research a 1928 part-sound movie (it had a music and sound effects track, but used inter-titles for dialogue) called The Viking, which had been the first film shot in Technicolor's 'System 3' two colour dye transfer process. In the course of this, I learned that the 1926 Ben Hur had been filmed with some sequences in the earlier Technicolor System Two Subtractive Two Colour Cemented Print process. Among these colour sequences was a topless sequence which was cut from US prints, but survives in overseas versions. In researching the 1928 The Viking, I also found that there was a 1931 film of the same title. Whereas the earlier film was actually about the historical Vikings, the later one was a about a ship called The Viking and has a certain notoriety because an explosion on said ship during filming killed a large number of the film crew (including one of the producers) ad, intriguingly, a stowaway. I subsequently found myself wandering to various other web pages stemming from these subjects. All-in-all, a fascinating and rewarding experience and a timely reminder that there is more to the web than the handful I sites I regularly look at.
Some semblance of normality is returning to my life - my local pub has re-opened. It is surprising what a difference it makes, knowing that there's regular watering hole within a few minutes walk, where one can enjoy a pint in peace. The new landlord thankfully seems to be set on restoring the pub to being a proper local. Which is a relief. As is the fact that the new landlord at least has a track record in running pubs, bars and hotels, which means that he might stand a chance. For a while I had real fears that the lease would be bought by a local coke head who had been sniffing around the property ever since it had become clear that the previous landlord was in trouble. Thankfully, either he couldn't muster the cash or the pub company had done some kind of background checks and decided that he wasn't the sort of individual they wanted running one of their pubs. I suspect the latter, as I believe that he had a viewing of the pub while it was closed, but didn't subsequently get the lease. Quite apart from his drug use (which, mixed with all the alcohol he drinks, makes him extremely aggressive), he was, for a while, barred from every pub in the district, via 'Pub Watch'.
But that's the problem - you never know who is going to take over as landlord of your local. While we've had a lucky escape, not every pub-goer is so lucky. A few years ago, another local pub, after a period of closure, had its lease bought by a bloke, ostensibly for his wife to run. Well, she did manage it, but the reality, apparently, was that he was using her business as a front to launder drug money. The place was closed again for a while and has subsequently been run directly by the pubco via a manager. But even if a new landlord doesn't turn out to be a coke head or a money launderer, there is always the danger that they'll come in determined to change everything about the pub. We've had experience of that at my local: the oft-mentioned Deke, (not his real name, but close enough), who decided that he didn't like the existing clientele, so set about driving out the established local trade his predecessors had spent years cultivating, in the hope of attracting a younger, 'with it' crowd and trying to restyle the place into a 'rock pub'. Needless to say, it didn't work and ended in disaster. Anyway, it all underlines the perils faced by those of us who enjoy traditional pubs - our drinking experience is constantly at the mercy of forces beyond control. But, for now, it seems that those of us drinking at my local have dodged a bullet and normal service can be resumed. For now.
I think that the main thing to come out of last week is that I really need to do more three day weeks. If I could square it financially, I'd happily knock another day off of my current working week. But, unfortunately, the bastards just don't pay me enough to make anything less than my current four day week financially viable. Of course, what I need to do is find another job which pays well enough that only working it for three days a week would pay me the same as I earn now. Either that or win the lottery. Or discover a lost painting by an old master in the attic which I can sell for a fortune. (Actually, that sort of thing does sometimes happen: the late author and editor Kyril Bonfiglioli famously discovered a lost painting - by Tintoretto, I think - which turned out to be worth so much that he was able to give up his day job as an editor and focus on the writing, instead). Unfortunately, there's nothing but insulation and a water tank in my attic. Then again, I could suddenly come into a vast inheritance from a hitherto unknown relative. (Again, this sort of thing does sometimes occur in real life: twice I've known work colleagues receive life-changing amounts of money this way. In one case, my ex-boss found that he was the sole living heir to wealthy great uncle he'd never met, in the other, a colleague's aunt died naming him and his brother as her heirs - it turned out that she owned shares worth half a million quid, or so). Even if such a relative turned up (their toes), it would have to be a bloody big inheritance as, inevitably, my various siblings would also be named as heirs.
Anyway, lottery wins, old paintings and wealthy deceased relatives are certainly not going to turn up, (I haven't played the lottery in years, I probably wouldn't recognise a valuable painting if I saw it and all of my relatives are accounted for and none are wealthy), so we come back to a change of job. It is, I know, something I keep coming back to with monotonous regularity, but it has been pushed back to the forefront of my mind of late for a variety of reasons. Most pressingly, by the state of my trousers. You see, the zip broke in my regular work trousers today - which is an omen. To understand my somewhat off-kilter reasoning, we have to go back to when I first went back to work following my illness last year. As, at that point, I had no idea of how long I'd stick back at the job, whether I'd find it too much, or might even be forced out by management, I made the decision not to renew any of the shirts or trousers I regularly wear for work as they wore out. Well, over the past fifteen months or so, I've come down to four work shirts and one pair of trousers as the rest wore out. Now, the number of surviving shirts currently corresponds to the number of days a week I work, so no problem. But the trousers - well, when I got down to the last surviving pair, I jokingly told myself that when they finally gave up the ghost, I'd take it as a sign that it was time for me to leave my current job and seek pastures new. Well, now it has happened, and you know what? It doesn't seem such a foolish idea at all. Perhaps it is time that I started getting serious about moving on.
I keep meaning to watch more Al Adamson movies. Damn it, everyone should watch more Al Adamson movies. But until I get around to doing so, we'll just have to make do with this trailer for Adamson's seminal sixties biker flick, Satan's Sadists. In the true spirit of schlock, the movie throws together a number of exploitable subjects which were in the headlines at the time - biker gangs, drugs, sex crimes, the permissive society and even the Vietnam war (the protagonist is a recently discharged Vietnam vet) - to form a typically feverish concoction. An interesting cast includes Russ Tamblyn ('in his greatest role since West Side Story') cast against his usual type of light leading man in family orientated films, playing the vicious and deranged gang leader Anchor, Western veterans Scott Brady and Robert Dix, B-movie favourite Kent Taylor, future schlock movie director John 'Bud' Cardos and Adamson's sometime wife, Regina Carrol.
Interestingly, bearing in mind the film's theme of a charismatic, but crazy, gang leader who inspires his followers to join him in murdering various innocent, mainly female, victims, it was mainly shot at the Spahn Movie Ranch in California during 1968, while the Manson 'family' were still in residence there. As with most Adamson movies, Satan's Sadists was generally condemned by critics upon its release, complaining about its violence and apparent delight in the sadistic scenes it portrayed. Such reviews were, of course, guaranteed to act as a recommendation for schlock movie audiences. Distributor Independent-International Pictures played safe, releasing the film regionally, territory by territory, rather than engaging in an expensive general release. It remains one of Al Adamson's best known titles, enjoying several re-releases and multiple DVD releases.
I took the day off from work today and went down to the New Forest. I decided that, for once, I'd actually take advantage of a spell of good weather and take a day out to enjoy the sun. I'm glad I did. In order to maximise my time not sitting in a car, I decided not to go all the way to the coast, which, taking into account today's traffic, could have added anything up to an hour to my journey time. Instead, I opted to take a lengthy walk around the Millybridge enclosure, before a quick trip to Boldrewood. You know, in those hours I spent in the Forest, I felt more alive than I have for weeks slogging away at work. Sure, I only do four days a week these days, but I'm so knackered by Thursday evening that I often end up sleeping large parts of Friday away. Even though work contrived to pile enough stress on in just three days this week, (including forcing a late finish on me on Wednesday, sometimes I think they actively conspire to sabotage my days off), I did manage to crawl out of bed today to try and make the most of my day off.
Anyway, today's trip confirmed my belief in the restorative powers of nature. After a few hours exposed to the natural world in all its glory I've been left feeling relaxed and mellow. The stress has ebbed away along with all my cares and worries - for the time being, at least. The best thing about the great outdoors is the way in which the pace of everything slows down. Everything today is too frenetic - everything has to be done yesterday, there's no time to breath, let alone think or just enjoy life. And that isn't just work - it is the same everywhere: we're constantly being urged to buy things, or watch things, to keep up with whatever we're told is the 'latest thing', to keep abreast of the unsleeping news cycle, which grinds out 'news stories' relentlessly. But today, none of that mattered, I could just take my time about everything and move at my own pace. Of course, it helped that it was a beautiful sunny day - nature often doesn't seem quite as great when it is pouring with rain and freezing cold. But today was the sort of Summer day which could only be fully appreciated out of doors, as far from urban working life as possible. And I've still got tomorrow and the rest of the weekend to go to wind down even more.
So, the BBC's top ten of its highest paid 'talent' now includes three women - apparently we are meant to think that this is a 'good thing'. I can't help but feel that the fact that the BBC seems to think that this somehow represents a blow for gender pay equality simply highlights just how completely out of touch with reality that media types are. It is on a par with the way in which last year's annual revelations of top talent pay at the Beeb was spun as being some kind of debate about gender pay equality because, back then, there weren't any women in the top ten. Which, of course, was entirely irrelevant - all that I saw was a lot of people being overpaid - their gender was neither here nor there. As with today's announcement, it is simply an attempt to divert attention away from the fact that there are a significant number of 'entertainers' out there being obscenely overpaid. That, surely, should be the real debate here: how we value various professions in our society in terms of the way in which we reward them for their work. Is it right, for instance, that someone who presents a radio programme is valued, in terms of pay, more than, say, a nurse, who saves lives and generally contributes to the well being of the community? You might argue that the radio presenter reaches millions on a daily basis and that their presenting and entertainment skills enriches the lives of all of these people, contributing to their well-being and that the rarity of such skills justifies their wages.
More broadly, there needs to be a proper debate as to whether, at a time when food banks are proliferating and more people are slipping below the poverty line, that we can justify the huge pay packets of those at the top in any profession. Because it isn't just broadcasting where people are being obscenely overpaid: banking, commerce, professional sports and a plethora of other occupations now seem to feature hordes of vastly overpaid individuals. Can this be right while, simultaneously, ordinary employees are increasingly being forced into zero hours style contracts, effectively transforming them into casual workers, with all the uncertainty and lack of safeguards that entails? While low wages, irregular work patterns and job insecurity become the norm for large segments of the workforce, can we really justify the continued payment of huge wages to a minority? But that isn't the debate those who control the news want us to have, which is why the issue of 'top pay' is constantly reframed in other terms. Except that many of us aren't fooled. Moreover, when the economy inevitably takes a hit after Brexit and things start getting even worse for even more people, then it will become increasingly difficult to divert their attention from the huge disparity in wages between an elite at the top who keep getting rich regardless, and the vast majority, who just keep getting poorer.
I didn't go to Glastonbury. I've never been to Glastonbury (the festival, at least) and have no desire to attend the festival. I never have. I've plenty of friends who have attended and enjoyed it, and other festivals, over the years, but I'm afraid that festivals were never part of my youth. They never appealed to me. They never will. Which is all fair enough -I don't begrudge my friends' enjoyment of such things or, indeed, that of anyone else who likes them. Yet the media seem to see Glastonbury as one of those things that everyone wants to see - to not attend it or watch it is an act of cultural deprivation. I'm not just talking about the wall-to-wall coverage on the BBC over the weekend, but also today's Guardian, whose journalists seem to think that every middle aged Guardian reader's fantasies involve trying to rekindle their youths by attending the festival. You know, I really could do without the whole of the G2 supplement being taken up with this sort of bollocks. Like I said, Glastonbury was never a youthful ambition of mine, but more than that, I really don't need recaps of something I wasn't interested in continually shoved in my face for days afterward. I'm not the only one, it seems. I happened to hear a bit of Radio One this afternoon, where they seemed to be intent upon reliving the whole weekend, even though it was less than twenty four hours ago, and a surprising number of listeners were voicing opinions similar to mine. And they were all of the age group that is meant to be interested in Glastonbury.
But this isn't some kind of 'grumpy old man' rant about the preponderance of 'youth culture' in the media. What bothers me is this idea that 'Fear of Missing Out' is a real thing - that there are just so many amazing things gong on out there that people are in perpetual danger of missing them and that it is the media's mission to keep us up to date about it all so that we don't feel left out. At least, this seems to be the idea that grips media types. The type of people who do spend their time keeping up with all this stuff, who spend their time telling us how this TV series or that currently showing on some obscure streaming service is the next big 'must see' thing. The problem is that they assume that everyone who works outside of the media (ie, the majority of us) are just as interested in these things. I don't think we are, I'm certainly not. We don't spend our time fearing that we've missed out on something because we don't have the right subscription to have seen, say, Game of Thrones. It's only a TV series, for God's sake. Your life won't be fundamentally changed whether you saw it or not.
I don't think I've seen any of the 'must see' TV series of recent years. Even when they've been on free-to-air TV. I find that my time is otherwise occupied. (I have seen some episodes of a couple of those streaming series when they turned up on free-to-view channels - they were OKish, but I'm afraid they simply didn't grip me enough to want to watch more). Yet the media persist in bombarding us with the latest 'news' about whatever the 'big thing' du jour is, whether it be a TV drama or a reality TV show like Love Island. It's relentless. No matter how hard I try, I can't escape it. I end up knowing things about Love Island contestants even though I've never seen it. I just wish the media would grasp the fact that anyone interested in these 'events' have already seen them or, in the case of Glastonbury, either been there or watched the live TV coverage. It's got to the stage where I dread this events as they roll around, not because I dislike them, but because I know that the media is going to keep shoving them down my throat for weeks afterward. Look, you don't need to keep on telling the rest of us about them - we really don't feel that we missed out as we weren't actually interested in the first place.
