A Quiet Start?

Well, we've finally made it to the end of January.  Not that much happened during the month - Australia caught fire, Trump tried to start a war with Iran by assassinating one of its generals on Iraqi soil, before himself facing impeachment and a contagious virus has swept through China resulting in cities being quarantined.  So, the usual uneventful start to a new year.  I always feel that once we get the general boredom of January out of the way, the year can start properly - things can start happening and it can take shape.  But 2020 seems determined to hit the ground running, throwing curve balls at us from the off.  The most pressing question is what is going to kill us first?  A third world war instigated by Trump or the Coronavirus?  Mind you, they say that it is a virus causing all this chaos in China, but I strongly suspect that it is actually the start of the Zombie Apocalypse.  I mean, unless schlock cinema has lied to me, events in China are unfolding just as they do when you have an outbreak of the living dead: cities put on lockdown, the military imposing travel restrictions, hospitals being overwhelmed by infected victims.  Maybe there really was a virus - in those films zombie infestations are often the result of some kind of weird mutated virus.

it's all reminiscent of that supposed Ebola outbreak in parts of Africa the other year.  That was so obviously a poorly hushed up zombie outbreak.  Just look at the way so many resources were suddenly committed to it by the rest of the world.  Damn it, we all know that the rest of the world doesn't give a toss about Africa - except when its dead start rising and going on the rampage.  The UN had to intervene in order to contain it to Africa - there's no way they were going to let it spread to the wealthy nations of the globe.  But it isn't going so well in China.  Already cases are being reported in other parts of the world.  Even here in the UK.  Trust me, before you know it we're going to have troops with flame throwers incinerating huge piles of the recently dead in order to stop them from rising.  If it starts getting out of hand then we'll probably see the government authorising the nuking of northern cities in order to protect London.  That said, our privatised transport system is so chaotic that it would probably prove impossible for the zombie contagion to spread too far.  Yes indeed, that is undoubtedly what 2020 has in store for Britain: death and destruction at the hands of the living dead.  But don't worry - we've got Boris Johnson in charge.  What could possibly go wrong?

Fathom (1967)

Seen in retrospect, some films seem to perfectly embody their era.  Fathom is one such film - watching it today you can't help but feel that it has perfectly preserved a moment in time.  In contrast to many movies of its era, it doesn't try to show us the 'swinging Sixties', but rather the new prosperity of the decade, when overseas travel suddenly became a reality, not just for the jet set and independently wealthy, but also for certain section of the middle classes.  The story unfolds against a background of Brits and Americans on holiday in Spain - not on package holidays to specialised resorts, which effectively recreated parts of the UK, but with sunshine.  That was yet to come.  This was a time when even Spain seemed exotic and a trip there - now made affordable by cheap jet travel for more people than ever - seemed an adventure.  And it is all captured here, in Fathom: the unending sunshine, the hostels full of interesting young people, the whitewashed stone villages, unusual sporting activities (diving, of both the sea and sky varieties) and the adventure.  The adventure here is experienced by Raquel Welch's Fathom Haverill, an American dental technician and skydiver, who is touring Europe during her vacation as part of a US parachute display team.  She finds herself recruited by Ronald Fraser's Douglas Campbell, apparently the representative of a NATO intelligence organisation, to assist in the recovery of a lost nuclear trigger, the 'Fire Dragon'.  Also seeking the 'Fire Dragon' is Anthony Franciosa's mysterious American Peter Merriwether and sinister Armenian Serapkin (Clive Revill).

Of course, nothing is as it seems - even the film, which turns out to be a crime caper masquerading as a sub-Bondian spy film, when it is revealed that 'Fire Dragon' is actually a priceless historical artefact stolen from communist China.  Fathom has to try a figure out, via many plot convolutions, who is the thief trying to retrieve their loot and who is the detective trying to recover it on behalf of the rightful owners.  While the plot twists and turns constantly, in truth none of it is at all surprising.  Indeed, to call Fathom lightweight would be an understatement.  But the plot, of course, isn't the film's main focus - that would be Raquel Welch herself.  Fresh from playing a fur bikini-cald cavewoman in Hammer's One Million Years BC (1966), she was considered hot property at the time.  The film wastes no opportunity to highlight her assets as the script constantly finds opportunities for her to don a bikini - the camera lingering over her cleavage or zooming in on her behind, (the sequence where she evades Tom Adams' attempts to run her down with his speed boat by constantly diving under the water seems designed solely to provide shots of her backside).  The tone is set by Maurice Binder's title sequence, during which the camera lovingly lingers over Fathom's body as she lies on the ground.

Apparently made to capitalise on the popularity of the 'Modesty Blaise' comic strip, Fathom ultimately makes the same mistake in its portrayal of its titular character as the film version of Modesty Blaise (1966) does.  While the strip portrays Blaise as an independent, capable woman, who doesn't need male assistance to resolve situations, the film version of the character constantly has to be rescued by male characters, particularly her sidekick Willie.  Likewise, in Fathom the eponymous character is all too often at the mercy of events, (events instigated by male characters), forced to be reactive rather than proactive.  In too many key scenes she ends up reliant upon the intervention of male characters in order to save her.  Worst of all, both films completely undermine their female leads' independence by insisting that, by the film's end, they need a male partner.  Modesty Blaise is pretty much forced together with Willie, while Fathom, ultimately, finds herself being forced by the plot into hooking up with the obnoxious Merriwether.  Really, despite being the film's nominal male lead, Franciosa's character is smug, sexist and patronising toward Fathom.  Yet by the film's end, she finds herself more or less with him.  It seems that the film's makers are so determined to pursue the idea that even a strong independent woman needs man, it is even prepared to pair her off with the slimiest man in the picture as, it seems, any man will do.  It seems particularly inappropriate as Welch has finally proven his patronising of her to be totally misplaced.

Franciosa's character is problematic.  Presenting the lead male character as a smarmy egotist who constantly patronises the heroine is one thing, but then presenting him as the 'hero' and letting him effectively 'win' her at the climax is another.  Even when I first saw this film on TV as a child, I hated his character and willed him to fall flat on his face.  But, sadly, he doesn't.  Even in the supposedly liberated sixties, commercial film makers, it seems, just couldn't bring themselves to endorse the idea that women might not actually need men, or that audiences could accept a scenario where there are no sympathetic male characters.  The other main male characters are portrayed better, Fraser's supposed intelligence operative is plausible enough, although it is no surprise that he turns out to be the bad guy.  Richard Briers, as his sidekick, is, on the surface, his usual, over eager public school boy sitcom persona, yet he imbues the character with an underlying menace and caddishness.  Clive Revill gives a characteristically eccentric performance as Serapkin, (he could almost have stepped out of an episode of Batman), although this ultimately robs the character of any real menace.  For her part, Welch is engaging enough, despite the fact that the film doesn't require much in the way acting ability from her.

In the end, though, none of this really matters.  Fathom isn't about plot or characters - its attraction lies in the way in which captures a time and a place, a mood, even.  Douglas Slocombe's cinematography is beautiful - you can almost feel the warmth of the Spanish sun in virtually every sub drenched shot.  The languorous pace of Leslie H Martinson's (who is best remenered for directing the 1966 Batman film with Adam West )direction captures perfectly the lazy mood of a summer holiday in the sun.  A feeling further reinforced by John Dankworth's laid back musical score.  The script, by Lorenzo Semple Jr, (who had scripted the aforementioned Batman movie), is efficient, if not terribly original, and was based on an unpublished novel, 'Fathom Heavensent', by Larry Forrester, (it would have been the second in the series, after 'A Girl Named Fathom', but never saw the light of day).  Its main problem being that it is neither quite thrilling enough to succeed as a straight action thriller, nor funny enough to be a comedy thriller, falling between the two.  At one point low budget maestro Lindsay Shonteff was apparently in the frame to direct Fathom but, on the advice of his agent, opted to direct The Million Eyes of Sumuru for Harry Allan Towers, instead.  It is interesting to speculate what his version of Fathom would have been like.  Judging by his subsequent films, Shonteff seemed far more comfortable with strong female characters and would likely have played up the film's hunour and comic strip aspects. But it wasn't to be and we're left with Martinson's version of the film: an inconsequential but entertaining trifle.  If you are in the right mood, Fathom is still fun, evoking a vision of the eternal summer of the sixties, when everyone seemed to be on their holidays.

Two Litres a Day

I'm currently one and a half litres in - only another half litre to go.  I'm currently under doctor's orders to drink two litres of water a day.  Apparently, pints of beer don't count.  It has to be water.  It is all to do with my declining kidney function.  There are a variety of underlying reasons for this - it could simply be the consequence of the strain put on them by the diabetes, or it could be a side effect of the Metformin I take to counteract the diabetes.  Or, indeed, it could be down to one of the other medications I take for my blood pressure.  Then again, it could be down to dehydration.  Hence the current water consumption.  I've got to keep this up until at least April, when I have my next set of blood tests, which will show if it has had any effect.  If it hasn't, then I have to start a laborious process of trial and error, temporarily stopping each type of my current medication for a period to see if that has any effect.  That said, my Metformin dosage has already been cut, thanks to my drastically reduced blood sugar levels.  Something that my stomach is very grateful for, as the Metformin can upset it terribly.  Mind you, right now it is my bladder that needs relief, with all this water that I'm having to drink.

As you've probably guessed from this sudden reversion to updates about my health, I'm rather at a loss as to what else to write about here.  I just feel that I've run out of steam a bit.  It's not that I don't have plenty of pop culture related stuff on the boil, it is just that I don't feel quite ready to write any of it up yet.  I'm also somewhat distracted from this blog at the moment by my efforts to put together a new podcast for the Overnightscape Underground.  On top of everything else, well, it's January.  Despite the fact that it is a month which is meant to represent the idea of new beginnings and fresh starts, I generally find it difficult to actually get anything started in January.  The past, in the form of December and Christmas, hang heavily over it - memories of the festivities linger, making January seem bleaker than it really is.  I also seem to spend an inordinate amount of time just trying to stay warm every January.  Most disruptive of all, this January seems to have been one long round of medical appointments for me - luckily the outcome has been overwhelmingly positive as far as my long recovery from illness is concerned, but it has been wearying.  Still, January is finally coming to a close (as ever, it seems to go on for at least six weeks) and February beckons.  Now, I just have to somehow fit in another half a litre of water before I go to bed...

Seven Sided Suppository

Apparently, Sir Philip Pullman thinks that the new fifty pence piece, minted to 'celebrate' Brexit should be boycotted because it is grammatically incorrect, leaving out an 'Oxford comma', (although other experts are of the opinion that the comma is optional).  Now, much as I respect Sir Philip, I have to say that I disagree with him here - not because I dispute his understanding of English grammar, but because I feel that there are more fundamental reasons to boycott this coin.  mainly that it is a complete affront to decency, clearly intended to stoke the divisions already caused by Brexit.  It is effectively trying to rub the noses of those of us who voted Remain in our defeat.  Indeed, the whole idea of  'celebrating' Brexit after such a divisive campaign, characterised by lies, threats, bullying, bigotry and threats, is utterly crass.  Former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell has stated that he will refuse to accept these coins in change, requesting two twenty pence pieces and a ten pence instead.  I think that he's on the right lines here, but doesn't go far enough.

I don't think that we should just be refusing to accept these coins - we should be telling anyone tendering them to shove them up their arses.  Or, even better, that they should take these benighted fifty pence pieces back to the person responsible for them - Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid - and shove them up his arse.  He'd pretty soon finding himself suffering the kind of rectal blockage from these seven sided suppositories that no laxative would be likely to remove easily.  Ideally of course, we'd like to shove them up Boris Johnson's arse, but his lardy backside is so vast that not enough of these fifty pence pieces could be minted to fill it.  Besides, as a public school boy, he'd probably enjoy the experience- it would take him back to the dorms at Eton where, after lights out, they played their version of 'shove ha'penny', where they bet on how many gold sovereigns could be shoved up someone's arse.  Getting back to Sajid Javid's fifty pence piece blocked arse, we could explan to him how this a warning against pursuing a 'no deal' Brexit - if this blockage is painful and inconvenient, just imagine what the one's at major ports would be like if no agreement on customs checks is agreed with the EU.

Wrecking the Wrecking Crew

So, what does a movie have to do be classified as 'classic'?  I only ask because, right now on Sony Movies Classic, they are showing the Matt Helm flick, The Wrecking Crew.  I'm assuming that, in this instance, they are using the term 'classic' in the same sense are car enthusiasts do - it is old.  Well, made in 1969, which will seem old to many viewers (seems like only yesterday to me).  Indeed, that's the whole point of the channel: it is somewhere for Sony to show the older, generally pre 1990s, movies from its library.  Most are black and white pictures from the forties and fifties, but every so often something from the sixties or seventies (sometimes even the eighties) turns up in glorious colour.  Like The Wrecking Crew.  Now, I know that it is the last and the least of the Matt Helm series, but, aside from its age, there is nothing about it that could justify the description of 'classic'.  I actually watched it for the first time in years when it turned up on Movies4Men (now Sony Movies Action) last year.  I was quite shocked at how shoddy it looked.  It was made on a lower budget than the three preceding films and it showed.  James Gregory, who had previously played Helm's boss turned the film down after being offered a reduced pay cheque and was replaced by John Larch (the police chief from Dirty Harry and the police detective in Play Misty for Me).  A distinct step down in supporting cast quality.  It also skimped on the locations, rarely leaving the backlot.  Copenhagen, for instance, is an all too familiar US city standing set, redressed with vaguely continental looking road signs and populated with European cars (manly Mercedes, VW Beetles and Ford Cortinas), rather than the usual Chevrolets and Buicks.

The interior sets look equally cheap and familiar.  In fact, the whole thing has  look of a TV movie.  To be quite honest, just about any of the many ultra low budget Bond knock offs turned out by Lindsay Shonteff look better than The Wrecking Crew. They also have more coherent plots, better dialogue and more convincing leading men.  As in previous Matt Helm films, Dean Martin brings his inebriated charms to the role, to little avail.  Don't get me wrong, I like Dean Martin.  He had genuine charisma and more often than not delivered well pitched and highly entertaining performances.  But here, he isn't even trying.  Perhaps his pay cheque was reduced, too and he was appearing due to contractual obligation.  Whatever the reason, he looks completely disengaged, not to mention completely out of shape.  Consequently, he is completely unconvincing as a womanising all action secret agent.  In the fight scenes he is all too obviously overweight and middle aged, sluggishly going through the motions, (and it is all too obvious when he is being doubled by a stunt man).  But his lack of energy reflects the film as a whole, which lethargically limps through a series of poorly staged set-pieces. There are some points of interest: Bruce Lee co-ordinated some of the martial arts sequences, while his student Chuck Norris gets his first screen appearance (as a briefly glimpsed heavy).  The best performance in the film belongs to the ill-fated Sharon Tate, who makes the most of her role as a clumsy agent assisting Helm.  Although anyone who only knows Tate as a character in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will be disappointed to find that she actually didn't look like Margot Robbie, though she is very engaging.

Further Helm movies were planned, but never made.  The fact is that the film series was very much of its era, the late sixties, and by 1969 was looking tired and anachronistic.  It is hard to see how it could have continued in this format into the seventies.  Unlike the James Bond series, whose success it was trading off of, it showed no self awareness or propensity to reinvent itself to suit changing tastes and audience demands. (The Helm character was revived for a one season mid seventies TV series starring Tony Franciosa - it was a pretty much standard private eye series, with Helm no longer a secret agent but instead a PI).  I can't recall if the previous three Matt Helm movies looked quite as slipshod as this one as I haven't seen them in years, but from what I can remember, they certainly didn't look big budget.  On a final note, the books these films are derived from, written by Donald Hamilton, are quite different.  For one thing, they are deadly serious - all the movie series took were the character names, titles and the barest of plot details.  Don't let the films put you off reading them.

Celebrity Cull

Do we need to start culling celebrities?  Not just because there are so many of them these days.  Though God knows, that alone would be reason enough to start taking them down.  I mean, once upon a time you actually had to have done something to be famous.  Now all you need to do is to have been on some 'reality' show seen by three people on an obscure cable channel.  Or related to somebody who was on such a show.  They just seem to multiply these days, these so called 'celebrities'.  Because if it isn't 'reality' TV then it is those talent shows promoting people with no talent.  You know, just about every day now I see some tabloid story other about some 'celebrity' and how they are breaking up with someone, flashing their knockers/knob on the beach or having drunken antics somewhere, and ask myself, who are these people?  I've never heard of any of them.  Yet they fill column inch after column inch.  The internet is even worse - not only is it awash with with the doings of celebrities, but just by being on the web you can apparently become a celebrity.  Just set up a You Tube channel and talk bollocks and you are away.  It is getting so that they are like an infestation.

But, as I said, tat isn't the main reason why we should be considering a cull.  It is because too many of them are 'going rogue', suddenly spouting idiotic 'opinions' that they clearly think shows their intelligence, but instead reveals them as moronic reactionaries.  Just look at that that Laurence Fox - previously known for being a supporting actor on an Inspector Morse spin off, he appears on Question Time and starts trying to tell us hat racism isn't a problem as long as it isn't overt.  Next thing, he's all over the press and social media pursuing a 'war against wokeness', which is simply revealing him for the dick that he actually is. His entire fan club disappointed and disillusioned in well swoop.  Quite literally tens of people suddenly had all their illusions shattered.  But he isn't the only one - who can forget that intellectual giant Meatloaf's assertion that Greta Thunberg had been brainwashed into believing in climate change?  Clearly, they and their ilk need to be culled before they can shatter the worlds of more adoring fans.  The trouble is, though, that if we wait for them to spout idiotic bollocks before we cull them, then the damage is already done.  What we really need is some kind of early warning system, to predict the slide into crackpottery and enable action to be taken before it happens.  Years ago I worked with a bloke who thought we should have such a system to give us warning of famous women likely to suddenly come out as lesbians, so that he wouldn't have to waste time writing them fan mail.  He reckoned that we should have them monitored by spy satellites, so as to see if they were wearing comfortable shoes.  Obviously, that was just sexist, but we clearly need something similar to detect the celebrity crackpots.

But how best to carry out the cull?  Should we just gas them like badgers?  Seal them into their mansions, stick a hosepipe connected to the exhaust of a car through the letter box and rev the engine?  Or perhaps we should be more subtle: invite them to something they'd be guaranteed to turn up to, like the opening of an envelope, then, when they get there, usher them int a room and get them with the old bolt gun.  You know, the humane killer they use on cattle - straight between the eyes, they won't feel a thing.  Maybe we could have health spas that are actually death camps - what they think is a sauna is actually a gas chamber.  Mass drownings in the swimming pool, perhaps.  The ultimate solution would be to set up a fake reality show, like I'm a Celebrity, say, tell them that they have been selected to take part, then make out sure that all of the challenges are fatal.  You could even televise it - people are so ghoulish that they are bound to tune in.  Then again, rather than I'm a Celebrity, perhaps it could be patterned after Love Island and see the blokes fall prey to a murderous femme fatale and the women to a crazy sex killer of the kind found in giallo movies. I know it all sounds cruel, but believe me, it has to be done.

That Bandit Express

You ever find yourself watching something and asking yourself: why?  That's what I'm experiencing right now as I sit through Smokey and the Bandit, Part 3, which is currently showing on ITV4.  Most people don't even know this film exists (they don't know how lucky they are), damn it, it doesn't even have Burt Reynolds, (aside from a tiny cameo right at the end).  This time around Snowman (Jerry Reed) steps up to fill the Bandit's boots.  It does have Jackie Gleason as Sheriff Buford T Justice, though.  Indeed, this last desperate attempt to wring some mileage from the Smokey and the Bandit franchise was originally entitled Smokey IS the Bandit.  According to some sources, in the original version, Gleason played both Justice and the Bandit, others claim that his character merely adopted his nemesis' techniques in order to win out.  Either way, it clearly didn't work as the film was re-shot, with Reed standing in for the Bandit, instead.  Not that this helped - the film was still a flop.  So, just why am I watching it?  I guess it is down to a residual affection for the original.  Sure, I know that Smokey and the Bandit was a broad action comedy about a bunch of rednecks crashing cars, but it had Burt Reynolds.  For anybody who didn't experience the era, it is probably hard to grasp just how huge Burt was at the box office in the late seventies and early eighties. His name alone could sell a film - let's not forget that Smokey and the Bandit was only outgrossed at the box office in 1977 by Star Wars.  With his easy charm, self deprecating humour and obvious attraction for the ladies, he was a big influence on young men like myself.  (Damn it, he inspired me to grow a moustache, which had rapidly been becoming a 'gay thing', until Burt reclaimed it for straight guys).

But Smokey and the Bandit didn't just feature Burt Reynolds.  Oh no - it featured Burt driving a Trans Am!  The Pontiac Firebird has long been epitome of the US pony car for me and the Trans Am was the top option of the range: bristling with spoilers and air dams and, more often than not, sporting a big block V8 - not to mention that phoenix spread-eagled across the bonnet (sorry, hood), it still looked remarkably elegant.  The new 1977 model, (I say 'new', but in reality it was merely a face-lifted 1976, with a restyled front end), featured prominently in Smokey and the Bandit, forever cementing its place in popular culture.  In many ways it established the 1977 model as the definitive version of the Trans Am in many people's minds.  Of course, it wasn't the only Trans Am the Bandit drove: in 1980's Smokey and the Bandit II (aka Smokey and the Bandit Ride Again), he drove a 1980 Trans Am Turbo (with, as the name implies, a 4.9 litre turbo charged small block V8), but it never quite captured the public imagination in the way the 1977 Trans Am had.  Smokey and the Bandit, Part 3 also features a Trans Am.  This time it is 1983 Trans Am with full body kit - a third generation model similar to the one KITT the car was based on in Knight Rider.  But aside from showcasing another Trans Am, the film is an unworthy sequel to the first film.  The fact is that, despite its lack of sophistication, its over abundance of Good Ol' Boy stereotypes and redneck humour, Smokey and the Bandit remains an amiable film.  Largely improvised by the cast, it provides ninety six minutes of undemanding entertainment, carried along by the sheer charisma of its star.  By contrast, Part 3 just seems tired - Gleason's foul mouthed schtick, while fitfully amusing, has run out of steam and, without Reynolds' charisma, the whole thing is utterly charmless: just a roughly assembled series of unfunny skits and car chases. 

Still, to this day I have an enduring fantasy that I'm going to buy a Trans Am, (curiously, despite my liking for them, I've never owned a Firebird of any kind - the closest I've come is its Chevrolet cousin, the Camaro), put on a white stetson and stick on moustache, slap 'Bandit Express' into the Eight Track and hit the road with a screeching of tyres.  You never know, it could be my next mid life crisis.

The Wild, Wild Planet (1966)

In my search for new frontiers of schlock, I've been thinking that maybe I should start watching Italian science fiction movies.  (I also received a book on the subject as a Christmas present).  During the sixties Italian studios turned out a number of space operas (which often also worked in crime and horror themes).  While other Italian exploitation genres such as peplums, giallos, cannibal and zombie pictures and spaghetti Westerns remain popular, the space movies seem to have been largely forgotten.  So, as an introduction to this half remembered genre, I thought I'd present a Random movie Trailer devoted to a typical example of the Italian space opera.

1966's Wild, Wild Planet kicked off a quartet of films chronicling the adventures of Commander Mike Halstead of space station Gamma One.  It's Italian title translates into English literally as 'Criminals of the Galaxy', a fair summing up of its content.  Halstead (played by Tony Russel, an American actor who spent most of his movie career in Italy), finds himself tangling with a crazy criminal scientist who is kidnapping earth people (by miniaturising them) to use in his bizarre experiments.  His aim, apparently, is to create a super race with which he can conquer the earth.  Directed by the ubiquitous Antonio Margheriti (aka 'Anthony Dawson'), Wild, Wild Planet, like most Italian exploitation films of the era, looks great, all bright colours, stylish costumes and sets which look like they've sprung from the panels of a comic strip.  Indeed, it presents a very sixties vision of the future, the architecture, space suits and spaceships apparently based on science fiction magazine cover illustrations. 

A notable aspect of the film is its extensive use of miniatures.  Margheriti was something of an expert in this area, often creating the special effects for both his own films and those of other directors.  The results can be variable.  Although Margheriti's miniatures are usually of a high quality, their use can often be shaky.  As can be seen from the trailer, the space effects seem to be realised mainly by crudely suspending his models on strings, against a black back drop.  Later Margheriti directed films would often feature a better deployment his miniatures.  A pair of Lewis Collins starring action pictures from the mid eighties, Code Name Wild Geese and Commando Leopard, for instance, feature, respectively, a well staged car chase partly filmed using miniatures vehicles and the shooting down of an airliner, again using large scale miniatures.  Both sequences are actually pretty convincing.

Aside from Russel, the rest of the cast are Italian, and includes a young Franco Nero.  This and the other 'Gamma One' films were bank rolled by MGM, (explaining their superior production values), and, apparently, were originally intended to be released directly to TV in the US, (a common practice at the time with regard to foreign produced films purchased by US distributors).  In the event, Wild, Wild Planet, at least, got a theatrical release.  If nothing else, the trailer has certainly whetted my appetite for this genre.  Time will tell if I manage to get into it.  I'm still contemplating writing something about Rollin's Two Orphan Vampires and there's some more seventies British smut I'm looking at before I can fully turn my attention to Italian space operas, though.

No Thank You

You can often feel under siege in January, with all these things like 'Veganuary' or 'Dryanuary' going on.  If you choose not to participate then certain parts of the media seem determined to make you feel as if you are some kind of heretic.  Even though, in truth, the vast majority of the population aren't participating either.  I try to be polite about when being bombarded by calls upon me to go vegan or not drink alcohol for the month - I just say 'No thank you, I don't want to go vegan or teetotal' and hope that they'll then leave me alone.  But they don't.  They are relentless, implying that I'm a complete bastard as, by continuing to eat meat and drink alcohol, I'm personally responsible for climate change, domestic violence, road deaths and knife crime.  I'm not.  I'm merely exercising my right to make a choice.  I just wish that all these people wanting me to give things up would respect that choice.  I mean, I don't go around trying to persuade vegetarians to eat meat or pouring alcohol down the throats of non-drinkers.  They've made a choice and I respect that.  Moreover, I don't go around decrying fast food outlets for adding vegan products to their menus - I don't have to eat them and it makes perfect business sense for them to try and widen their appeal to minority groups.  AsI've said before, I have nothing against the likes of veganism as a lifestyle choice, but I do object when it starts becoming a political campaign, getting in my face and refusing to take 'no thank you' for an answer.

In which respect it is a bit like Brexit.  Despite the much vaunted 'leave' 'victory' in the 2016 referendum, a majority of the UK's population didn't vote in favour of leaving the EU.  Just as, despite his majority and all the trumpeting about 'Tory landslides', the majority of the electorate didn't vote for Boris Johnson.  His majority, thanks to our antiquated first-past-the-post system, is base upon winning only 45% of the vote.  But to get to a point, of sorts, what's really bugging me about Brexit right now, is the Brexit bastards' determination that our 31 January departure must be marked by some kind of celebration. Once again (and I suspect that I'm in the majority here), my response is 'No thank you'.  Yet they persist.  They want their triumph.  Let's face it, for most of the right-wing idiots who enabled Brexit, this is the only moment of 'glory' they are ever going to have in their lives.  Once the deed is dome, they will fade back into deserved obscurity.  But the rest of us shouldn't have to suffer (let alone pay for, as taxpayers) their celebration of the UK having fucked itself up the arse.  So, they can take their 'Festival of Brexit', or whatever the fuck it is meant to be, and stick it up their arses.  So there you go, a bit of politics to round off what has been a difficult week - I'm still working behind the scenes on The Sleaze to rectify recent problems.  It's slow progres, but we're getting there.

Technical Problems

Ever started something and wished you hadn't?  I've just spent my entire evening trying to sort out some problems with The Sleaze.  What should have been straightforward - updating the theme, PHP version and various plugins - quickly turned into a nightmare involving numerous 500 errors (which take the front end of the site offline).  The whole process wasn't helped by a server error at my web host, which took everything offline for nearly an hour.  The problem with the site was that something was breaking the htaccess file (causing those 500 errors) every time a plugin was updated, installed or deleted.  In what I thought was a separate problem, something else was affecting the way the back end of the site was displaying, rendering some functions inoperable and interfering in the functioning of the theme.  Over many years of using Wordpress, I've learned that these things usually come down to either a conflict between plugins or a single rogue plugin. Finding out which plugin or plugins are involved is a lengthy process of trial and error, involving deactivating the plugins and reactivating them all singly to try and ascertain which one is causing the problem.

Needless to say, it was the very last plugin I tested which turned out to be the culprit.  It was an insignificant SEO-related plugin which hadn't played a significant role in years, yet it was behind both problems, creating havoc.  Once it was deactivated, everything was back to normal.  Just like that. All so bloody frustrating.  But such are the pleasures of running one's own website.  That's one of the advantages of using such things as Blogger (as this blog does) - somebody else deals with technical problems of this kind.  The disadvantage, of course, is the lack of control you have over most aspects of the site, the restrictions which are sometimes placed upon the kind of content you can publish and the possible censorship which, consequently, might be applied.  Anyway, solving these problems over at The Sleaze have taken up my evening to the extent that I haven't been able to come up with a proper post for today.  Don't worry, I'm about to watch something called Vampire Orphans, a DVD I was given for Christmas, thereby supplying potential material for a future post.

Two Fisted Pontiff

So, this business of the Pope decking a parishioner, or whatever the Hell happened, what's that about, eh?  OK,  so, in reality, he only slapped away the hand of someone trying to touch him, but if you were to believe the press, Pope Francis might as well have punched them in the face and given them a kicking while they were down.  I don't know why the media were acting all shocked about it - after all, it isn't as if the papacy doesn't have a track record when it comes to violence.  Let's not forget the Borgias.  I know, that was centuries ago - things have changed since then and the Vatican has become devoted to peace.  Even when they have a former Hitler Youth member in charge.  But this latest outburst from the unlikely source of Pope Francis - does it have any significance?  Could it be that the Pope is becoming tired of those groupies who keep throwing themselves at him?  It's long been a problem, you know - all those old biddies desperate to touch the Pontiff in the hope having their lumbago cured, or their continence restored.  Not to mention the sex starved nuns with erotic fixations upon the Pope - shagging him would be the next best thing to bedding Jesus himself.  With this Pope - who is seen as a bit 'Rock and Roll' with his radical approach of, well, being guided by the actual teachings of Christ - it has reached epidemic proportions.  Nuns have been known to secrete themselves in his wardrobe and leap out, clad only in their wimples, when His Holiness enters his bedroom. 

But perhaps it's part of a bigger plan.  Maybe Pope Francis is planning to become the 'Two Fisted Pontiff', using his martial arts skills to fight evil.  Who knows, perhaps the person he swatted away was actually an assassin, planning to off him?  I'd imagine, though, that the Pope's strategy is further reaching than just foiling assassination attempts.  He's probably tired o the limitations of trying to fight evil through the power of prayer and doing good deeds - it's so time consuming and, at his age, he needs to see instant results.  So what better way to get them than by taking the god fight directly to the bad guys.  Now, while he could simply go out on the streets of Rome and beat up a few pimps and drug dealers, I'm willing to bet that he has bigger plans than that.  Beating up Trump, for instance.  I'm expecting him to challenge the ambulatory tub of lard to a no holds barred fist fight, with world peace as the prize.  Maybe giving the adulterer and fornicator Boris Johnson a good kicking for a follow up.  Both contests would, of course, just be warm ups for the main event: taking on the Prince of Darkness himself, Vladimir Putin.  Perhaps he could follow all this with a challenge contest against other world religious leaders in order to establish, once and for all, which faith should have global hegemony. 

A Right Royal Ruckus

You know when you see something unfolding which everyone else thinks is a big deal, but which leaves you just shrugging your shoulders?  Well, that's the way I feel about this current Royal 'crisis' with Prince Harry and his wife deciding that they want to 'step back' from being 'full time' Royals.  If I'm to believe the press this is a constitutional crisis the likes of which hasn't been seen since the abdication of Edward VIII.  This wholly spurious comparison seems to be based upon the fact that Edward VIII gave up the throne to marry an American divorcee while Prince Harry has married an American divorcee and, well, hasn't given up the throne. Indeed, as he isn't actually directly in line to the throne any more, his decision to 'opt out' really shouldn't be a big deal.  Yet we've had Royal 'summit' meetings, interventions by the Queen and the Prince of Wales and all sorts of wild speculation on the part of various Royal 'experts'.  According to the latter, this 'crisis' could lead to the end of the monarchy as we know it.  Good.  It is an anachronism which serves only to validate and legitimise our archaic system of class, privilege and patronage. 

But, of course, it is highly unlikely to derail the monarchy any time soon.  While the media might have viewed it as a crisis so severe that it knocked everything else - Iran, the fact that Australia is ablaze, Brexit - off of the front pages, the public don't seem to have shared their view.  As far as I can see, it has elicited little in the way of public discourse.  But just why does the press and, apparently, the establishment they represent, feel that this development is such a threat?  Could it be that they fear the fact that someone doesn't like this privileged royal bubble they keep telling us mortals is so wonderful and is prepared to walk away, undermines the myth they are constantly peddling?  After all, Royalty, in the UK, represents the apex of the social pyramid, the ascension of which is peddled as being the ultimate aspiration of the populace.  The higher you go, the greater your wealth, power and privilege, the happier you will be.  But Prince Harry's recent actions give the lie to this, implying that the opposite might be true, which undermines the whole basis of the class system. 

Of course, this idea of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle just walking away from being active members of the Royal family and becoming 'ordinary' people instead is just bollocks.  It isn't as if they are short of a bob or two.  I mean, they aren't likely to end up living in a two bedroom council house on an estate in Slough any time soon.  As for them becoming 'financially independent', well again, I doubt very much that we'll see either of them working in Burger King or delivering Pizzas on a moped for Just Eat. As a final thought on the subject, just why was this story promoted as a constitutional crisis presenting an existential threat to the Royal family, when Prince Andrew's  connections with an international sex offender wasn't?  Surely allegations that one of Her Majesty's sons was involved with underage sex slaves were far more damaging to the image of UK Royalty?  But hey, his alleged depravity wasn't actually challenging the very basis of our culture of privilege, but rather reinforcing it by effectively implying that if you have enough money and access to power, you can get away with anything.

Blazing Trash

I found myself watching this film in the early hours the other day.  I say 'found myself' because I'd fallen asleep on the sofa while watching TV and awoke to find this car chase playing.  As I had been watching Sony Movies Action (formerly Movies4Men), I figured that I must be in the midst of some low rent direct-to-DVD action film, a suspicion reinforced by the fact that the passenger in the cop car was Ice T.  I guessed that it must be of some vintage, as the cars involved in the chase all seemed to be nineties Ford LTDs.  But I kept thinking that thee was something familiar about that car chase.  Even though I was sure that I hadn't seen this film before - I don't make a habit of watching movie with Ice T in them - I was sure that I'd seen that car chase before.  Moreover, it just looked far too well staged to belong in a low budget action flick.  Then the chase was over and we suddenly went into the opening titles - I realised that it had been merely the pre-title sequence.  Anyway, as the titles rolled - it was called Ablaze and featured lots of actors you vaguely remembered from various TV series - I remembered where I'd seen that char chase before: it had been lifted in its entirety from the 1993 Bruce Willis film Striking Distance.  I have to admit, its use in Ablaze did feature some decent editing in replacing the original interior shots featuring Bruce Willis with new ones featuring Ice T.

A bit of research revealed that Ablaze was, indeed, a direct-to-DVD release - from 2001 - and was a notorious example of 'cut and paste' film-making, being built around footage taken from other films.  In this case, aside from the pre-title sequence (which turns out to have zero relevance to the rest of the plot) lifted from Striking Distance, the bulk of the action sequences were taken from City on Fire (1979), along with some stock footage from the old TV show Emergency!.  In fact, its whole scenario is, unsurprisingly, lifted from City on Fire, with an oil refinery fire engulfing a city.  Like the earlier film whose footage it borrows, Ablaze features corrupt city officials responsible for the fire, a threatened hospital full of overworked doctors and nurses and the heroic efforts of local firefighters to deal with the disaster.  It even apes a sub-plot from City on Fire involving a female socialite (movie actress on Ablaze) who finds herself trapped in the hospital and helps the medical staff.  The most perplexing aspect of Ablaze, though, is the participation of Ice T.  Clearly desperate for a 'name' actor to headline the film with, it seems as if the producers could only afford to hire him for a day's shooting: aside from that irrelevant opening sequence - where he is inserted into a Bruce Willis film - his cop character vanishes until the end of the film.  The rest of the film is carried by such TV and direct-to-DVD stalwarts as John Bradley, Amanda Pays, Tom Arnold and Cathy Lee Crosby.  The closest it comes to an actual 'star' name who actually plays some major part in the film is Michael Dudikoff - a long way from his heyday starring in Cannon produced action flicks - in a supporting role as a firefighter.

As I've indicated before, I'm something of a fan of these 'cut and paste' jobs and Ablaze is a modern classic of the genre.  There is a actually a certain degree of skill involved in stitching together footage from several disparate sources to make an entirely new film.  At their best, these films offer a seamless experience: if you haven't seen the movies the lifted footage came from, you'd never know the difference.  In cases like Ablaze, however, some of the stock footage is so poorly matched with the new footage that it becomes unintentionally hilarious, (in particular the collision of seventies, nineties and two thousands fashion, cars and so on as it switches between old and new footage).  I can heartily recommend Ablaze to all lovers of trash and 'cut and paste' film making.  Indeed, the film itself clearly know it is trash, with the cast barely taking it seriously and the script dropping in things like the address of a fire being that of The Munsters (1313 Mockingbird Lane).  Really, next time it is on Sony Movies Action, set the recorder - it's well worth a look.

Strange Followings

Thank God I only work four days a week these days - I couldn't do a fifth this week.  Going back to work after a break is always Hell, but it is much worse when it is post Christmas at the start of the year.  After the festivities January can feel pretty bleak.  The weather is usually shitty as well, (although this week the temperatures have been relatively mild).  But on top of all that, this week has been ridiculously hectic. Not particularly productive, but very hectic.  See, despite my resolution to focus on more meaningful postings here, already we're back to trivia.  Actually, I think I've done pretty well since the beginning of the year in terms of raising the quality of posts here.  But there should always be a place for the trivial and inconsequential.  Such as the fact that someone followed me on Twitter last week.  Now, there's nothing unusual in that, you are doubtless thinking.  But here's the thing - the notification came up that this person was following me back.  That's right - as if I had already followed them.  Except that I hadn't - I hadn't followed anyone new in an age.  Pretty weird shit, eh?  The thing is though, that when I checked the 'Following' bit of my Twitter account - there he was!  This, despite the fact that I know I hadn't followed this guy.

The funny thing is, though, that his profile does seem the sort that I would follow.  He's into giallo movies and has a podcast related to them.  Spookiest of all, this guy's profile name is derived from a seventies giallo - one that I had watched only hours before I saw the follow notification!  Weird, or what?  Is there a rational explanation for it all?  Probably.  I'm guessing that the profile must have appeared on that 'Who to Follow' panel you get on Twitter and that, somehow, I inadvertently clicked on it without realising.  Probably when I was trying to click of its 'refresh' link.  Regardless of how it has happened,  I've let my follow of him stand.  To be honest, it isn't the first time something like this has happened with my Twitter account.  Some years ago, when I first had my Nokia Lumia phone and before I'd got the hang of its screen lock, it somehow managed to open the Twitter app and like a Tweet by someone I didn't follow and whose timeline I had never looked at, all while in my pocket.  Of course, I had to 'unlike' it when I realised what had happened, which must have seemed strange to the Tweet's owner, but there you are.  Modern technology, eh?  I still use that phone although, ny mobile phone standards apparently, it is considered ancient.  But hey, I like it and it still works.  That said, it is a Windows phone and Microsoft have now discontinued support - I can't replace apps that fail as the app store is now closed.  So, reluctantly, I'm going to have to get a new phone somewhen this year.  Anyway, there you go - my first rambling and inconsequential post of the year - decade, in fact.  It felt good!

The Strange World of Planet X (1958)

The awkwardly titled The Strange World of Planet X (known by the more succinct title of The Cosmic Monsters in the US), is another of those odd low budget science fiction films turned out by small British studios during the 1950s.  Doubtless inspired by the success of Hammer's Quatermass films, which had been adapted from the highly popular BBC TV series, several of these movies were themselves adapted from TV serials.  Strange World of Planet X had started life as novel by Rene Ray, which had been adapted into a 1956 TV serial, which was then adapted into this film.  The TV series hasn't survived, so it is impossible to judge its merits in comparison to the aforementioned Quatermass serial, but it is safe to say that the film doesn't measure up to the movie adaptations of these serials.  Obviously very cheaply produced, it adopts a far more juvenile tone compared to the Quatermass stories, focusing on monsters and sensationalism rather than exploring serious science fictional concepts.

To be fair, there is some sound science at the heart of the film - the main antagonist is a reckless scientist experimenting with abnormally powerful magnetic fields, which disrupt the weather and the earth's own magnetic field, allowing a blast of cosmic radiation to penetrate these natural defences.  Which isn't that crazy or inaccurate.  But the cosmic blast causes insect life close to the scientist's lab to mutate and grow to huge proportions, as well as turning a local tramp into a scarred homicidal maniac.  Leaving aside the fact that there are physical limits to the size to which insects and other arthropods can grow, (without lungs, they rely upon air naturally flowing into their bodies via spiracles, which will only work if they remain small - if they grew larger they would suffocate as insufficient air would move into their spiracles), the giant insects are realised by means of photographically enlarged real insects combined with miniature sets and back projection.  None of it looks terribly convincing (although some of the miniature buildings are quite well done and some of the insect attacks on humans are quite graphically portrayed).

But these aren't the only side effects of the experiments - the disruptions have also attracted the attention of the inhabitants of Planet X, who send an emissary in a flying saucer to get to the bottom of it all.  This emissary takes the form of a mysterious stranger with odd facial hair, who wanders around the local town, his questions leading the Security Services to suspect that he might be an enemy spy.  After the giant insects have run amok, stopped only by military intervention, the alien is prevailed upon to put paid to the now deranged scientist's experiments by destroying his lab with his flying saucer.  Which is pretty much the entire film. Interestingly, for a film titles The Strange World of Planet X,  we never actually see, let alone visit, Planet X, therefore gaining no idea of just how strange it is, (although the only one of its inhabitants we meet, does sport a strange beard).  Like the Quatermass film adaptations, this one features an imported US lead, in this case Forrest Tucker, who appeared in a number of UK science fiction films in the late fifties.  Indeed, The Strange World of Planet X went out on a double bill in the US with the far better Trollenberg Terror (retitled The Crawling Eye), which also starred Tucker.

The Strange World of Planet X, having spent several years in TV obscurity, is now both available on DVD and is regularly aired on Talking Pictures TV.  While far from a great movie, it is a prime example of British science fiction B-movies of its era and provides a reasonably diverting 75 minutes. 

Hammering Dracula

They did again this year - did you notice?  The media effectively ended Christmas with the New Year, cutting off the last four days of the twelve day festival that constitutes Yuletide.  I know that I go on about this every year, but the way the TV schedules abruptly went back to normal on 2 January was, to be frank, fucking depressing.  It was sending a clear message: 'Fuck off back to work, plebs -you've had you bank holidays, now bugger off'.  This was backed up by all the crap in the newspapers about everyone being 'back to work' on the 2nd.  Except that they weren't.  Lots of us exercised our right to take the full twelve days of Christmas  off - which always seems to piss off the Daily Mail.  In my case, as I don't work Fridays any more, there would have been little point in going into work for one day.  Once again, the indecent haste with which a lot of people seemed to want to bundle Christmas out of the door was depressing.  But hardly surprising: once we've spent all the money in the run-up to the event, the establishment's interest in Christmas is effectively over: the holiday itself is simply an inconvenient interruption to their ability to make money.  Still, the BBC did make a slight concession to the fact that last Thursday and Friday weren't just ordinary week days, in that they showed the last two parts of their three part Dracula adaptation across the two evenings.  Clearly seen by the BBC as a prestige production, this certainly divided viewers, with many strongly liking it, others perceiving it as a major disappointment.

Personally, while I didn't love it, I didn't hate it either.  It was pretty much what I had been expecting: a reinterpretation of Bram Stoker's original in similar vein to Gatiss and Moffat's previous Sherlock Holmes reworking.  Just as the latter drew inspiration from just about every previous Sherlock Holmes TV and film interpretation that had come before, particularly the (then) contemporary set Universal Rathbone starring programmers of the 1940s, their Dracula was an amalgam of just about every previous film version of the source material, particularly the Hammer series of the fifties, sixties and seventies.  Like Sherlock, it happily played with all of the tropes of the genre in order to confound audience expectations, creating something which while it wasn't entirely faithful to the original text, was faithful in spirit.  Like the Hammer versions, it drew out the obvious sexual sub-test of the story but, unlike them, also exploring the homoerotic overtones of the text.  Unlike the earlier Sherlock, however, it kept most of the story in period, abruptly moving its narrative to contemporary Britain at the end of the second episode.  It was this sudden flash forward which seemed to cause viewers the most problems.  Yet it was entirely logical in the context of the series' homage to Hammer, mirroring their sudden shift to contemporary settings for their Dracula movies in the early seventies.  Indeed, the homage even extended to the conceit of having Dracula's Victorian nemesis, Van Helsing, replaced in the present day by a descendant played by the same actor.  (Dracula AD 1972 opens with an 1872 prologue in which, after a fight on an out of control carriage, both Christopher Lee's Count Dracula and Peter Cushing's Lawrence Van Helsing both perish.  A century later, Lee's Dracula is revived, only to find himself faced by Lorimar Van Helsing - Cushing again - a descendant of the original).

Unfortunately, Gatiss and Moffat fared little better than Hammer in trying to relocate Dracula in the modern world.  While not confining Dracula's appearances to a ruined Gothic church, as Hammer had in Dracula AD 1972, they still don't really manage to integrate him with contemporary London: at first confined to an underground medical facility, this time the Count is subsequently seen isolated from modern London - he is either in the back of a car, a penthouse or a graveyard, never really integrating with modern life, s they plump for a half hearted re-telling of the latter part of the source novel.  Indeed, Hammer arguably did better in their second contemporary set film, Satanic Rites of Dracula, where he masquerades as a property developer and sits, Mabuse like, at the centre of a web of surveillance cameras, assassins and motorcycle riding thugs.  Ultimately, though, this Dracula founders on the same problem that besets all attempts to bring the character into the modern world of science and rationalism.  While it is easy to accept Dracula's presence as a supernatural entity while he is in superstition-ridden nineteenth century Eastern Europe, or even in late Victorian London, where spiritualism and ghosts happily rubbed shoulders with science and rationality, but it is less easy to do so when he turns up in our contemporary age of scientific truths and rational explanations for all phenomena.  Our age requires explanations of his nature and that is where this Dracula comes unstuck. Moffat and Gatiss succumb to the temptation to try and explain Dracula's aversion to daylight and the cross in rational, non-religious and non-supernatural terms.  Which is all very well, but it still doesn't get around the fact that he is still a five hundred year old undead aristocrat who lives by drinking human blood.  Unless you want to go the whole hog in pseudo-scientific terms and explain his powers by way of a blood parasite, (as in Universal's 1945 outing House of Dracula), you are still left with having to accept the existence of the supernatural.

Sadly, we've never had a successful modern version of Dracula (Hammer's attempts never really cut it, while Dracula 2000 is best forgotten)  - the continued existence of this archaic supernatural figure in the contemporary world always seems to be problem.  Not that it is impossible to do contemporary vampires: AIP's two Count Yorga films in the early seventies did it pretty well, while one of the Dark Shadows film spin offs from the same era made a good stab of integrating the vampire within the world of medicine, with a scientific 'cure' for vampirism being attempted on Barnabas Collins.  Regardless of how frustrating I found this aspect of the BBC's new Dracula, there were plenty of good things in it, particularly Claes Bang in the title role, (even though he disconcertingly sounded like Pierce Brosnan).  Certainly if you were a fan of the Hammer product, there was plenty to enjoy in terms of the many nods to those films,  It even ended with a final homage to the first Hammer Dracula, with Van Helsing running down a table and leaping onto the curtains to allow in the sunlight.  It also, sort of, referenced the last Hammer film in which Lee portrayed Dracula, Satanic Rites of Dracula, with a wearied Count electing to destroy himself, although at least in that film the Count's evil extends even to ending his own extended life, as he plans to take humanity with him. But I must admit that I was most disappointed by Gatiss and Moffat's failure to acknowledge Hammer's last Dracula outing, Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires - where were the Kung Fu fights?  Surely bringing Dracula to modern London should have provided the perfect opportunity for confrontations with martial arts trained vampire hunters?

Labour Pains

As I've established at some length, I don't make New Year resolutions.  That said, I have made a sort of resolution in that I have resolved to try and get this blog back on track.   Of late, I've all too often resorted to the trivial and inconsequential in order to come up with posts.  It just seemed easier than actually putting some effort into creating something more substantive.  Also, I found myself in something of a crisis of confidence as to the sort of stuff I was posting: was there too much politics?  Too much pop culture? Too many attempts at satire?  So, I've determined to be more focused and try to achieve more of a balance between the various things I write about here.  I kicked it all off yesterday by getting back to more in depth looks at schlock movies.  Today, we're back to politics. Most specifically, the continuing fall out from that election result.  First up, let's deal with that shit bag Johnson's New Year message where he implores us to all 'be friends' regardless of where we we stand on Brexit.  Why the fuck should we?  I mean, I'm all for respecting the referendum result: the 1974 referendum, that is.  You know, the one where we voted to stay in Europe. Let's not forget that the Brexiteers never accepted that result and spent more than forty years undermining and opposing it.  So why should I and the rest of the Remainers (who constituted nearly half of those who voted) accept and/or respect the 2016 result?  It was the anti-EU b rigade who established the precedent that referendum results were for overturning - where was their respect for democracy and the 'will of the people'?

As if democracy is a one-off event anyway - if we are to follow the 'logic' of the Brexiteers then we should only ever have had one general election.  The 'will of the people' would have been established and should never be challenged.  But we accept that opinions and demographics change, as do circumstances and economic conditions, meaning that we accept that democracy needs to be a regular event.  An ongoing process, where we check on that so called 'will of the people' at regular intervals.  All of which brings us, sort of, to the ongoing inquest into Labour's spectacular failure at the recent general election and its forthcoming leadership contest.  The depressing thing is that all the little Corbyn acolytes on Twitter are still in denial at his central role in the defeat.  They are still peddling the narrative of 'St Jeremy the Martyr' - a good and virtuous man brought down by the evil lies of the media.  Which really won't do.  He isn't unique in having to endure the depredations of the right-wing press: some of us remember the treatment doled out to Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock and, more lately, Ed Milliband.  All had to endure vicious press campaigns against them.  Even Tony Blair, before it became obvious that his poll lead was solid, suffered similar treatment.  Moreover, despite what the Twatterati might try and have you believe, Corbyn didn't invent compassion, decency or left-wing radicalism. 

But if not Corbyn, then what do they think was the cause of this electoral catastrophe?  Brexit, of course. If only Labour hadn't listened to those Remainers (of which the Twatterati were part) and embraced a second referendum, (thereby disrespecting the referendum result that they themselves didn't agree with), then they wouldn't have alienated all those Brexit voting traditional Labour supporters.  Well, leaving aside the fact that Labour lost more 'Remain' voters than 'Leave' voters, Brexit did play some part in the defeat.  For one thing, it might never have happened if Corbyn himself had campaigned more enthusiastically for 'Remain' during the referendum.  More importantly, though, if we accept that many of those who voted 'Leave' in previously Labour strongholds in the North and Midlands did so as a protest at being 'left behind' by the 'metropolitan elites', (particularly those seen as surrounding Corbyn), then, yes, Brexit was a significant factor.  For it was simply a symptom of a deeper underlying malaise, whereby those Labour voters felt their support was being taken for granted by a party that wasn't actually offering them anything.  If it wants to win those voters back, then Labour has to come up with a credible economic strategy that can offer their communities some kind of regeneration.  It has to offer the possibility that it can bring jobs back to these areas.  That's what those voters want and it's what Corbyn's Labour failed to offer. 

As I've mentioned before, one of the biggest problems facing Labour is that those most enthusiastic about Corbyn - who are the most vociferous of those on Twitter - simply are not representative of the majority of Labour voters.  They simply don't understand the traditional Labour voter who, as I've also mentioned before, are, in many respects, particularly socially, relatively conservative.  But to the Twatterat, this just means that they must be a bunch of racists and bigots, which simply isn't true - it just means that they are less concerned with, say, LGBT rights, than they are with having jobs and local communities.  It is this kind of patronising attitude on the part of the Corbyn faction which helps alienate those voters.  Depressingly, though, they never seem to learn and instead want, as a new leader, a Corbyn MkII, in the form of Rebecca Long-Bailey, a Corbyn acolyte with no public profile and the charisma of a brick.  Her recent leadership pitch in The Guardian also revealed a paucity of ideas and no real geasp of why Labour failed at the last election.  Hopefully, though, good sense will prevail amongst the bulk of the party's membership and they'll vote for someone, not just with electoral credibility, but the ability to deliver policies that actually appeal to disaffected Labour supporters.

Call Him Mr Shatter (1974)

I previously covered Call Him Mr Shatter (aka They Call Him Mr Shatter or, more commonly, just Shatter) in brief as a 'Random Movie Trailer',  but, having seen the film in full again, felt it was worth looking at again in a bit more detail.  Te second of Hammer's two 1974 co-productions with Shaw Brothers of Hong Kong, Shatter has never enjoyed the cult status of its stablemate, the bizarre vampire/Kung Fu hybrid Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires.  It is, nonetheless, also a genre crossover film, trying to meld the elements of a US or European crime/spy movie with those of a Chinese martial arts picture.  It isn't a happy combination, with the finished film not offering enough of either genre to satisfy fans of either.  To be entirely fair, the film's unevenness isn't entirely down to the script's inability to successfully fuse the two different genres.  By all accounts, it had a troubled shoot, getting through two directors and three cinematographers, as well as having the original musical score (provided by Shaw Brothers) replaced at Hammer's behest.  Hammer owner Michael Carreras took over the director's reins from Monte Hellman part way through the production, after the latter was fired because the rushes he provided were considered incomprehensible and he was running behind schedule.  Carreras reportedly hated the footage already shot, feeling that it slow and unexciting.

While Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires had the virtue not only of having a single director, but also of a degree of originality and novelty in its scenario, in form Shatter harks back to the kind of B-movies Hammer was turning out in its early days.  These would often feature a second-ranked US actor in the lead, usually playing a hard-bitten private eye, cop or reporter carrying out their investigation against the backdrop of an unfamiliar (to them) UK.  Shatter, likewise, has a lower ranked US leading man - Stuart Whitman - in the title role of a hard-bitten assassin for hire, trying to unravel a life-threatening mystery against the exotic backdrop of Hong Kong.  Indeed, the plot settles down into the sort of cross and double cross format familiar from those fifties B-movies, with Shatter, in Hong Kong to collect the pay off for his latest job - the assassination of an African leader - only for his supposed employer (Anton Diffring) to deny that he had commissioned the job and refuse payment of the fee.  The rest of the film sees Shatter pursued by various factions, (including Peter Cushing's shady British government representative whose help is contingent on Shatter recovering some documents),  as he attempts to prove he wasn't acting independently and retrieve his fee.  Wherein lies the film's main problem: the whole King Fu aspect seems tacked on as an afterthought: part way through the narrative Shatter enlists the aid of Ti Lung and his martial arts skills.

Whitman's presence in the lead doesn't help: middle aged and out of shape, he makes for an unconvincing action hero.  Never the most charismatic of actors, Whitman only ever seemed to get leads in international co-productions unable to afford a top line US star.  (He is, for instance, the nominal lead of Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, but is overshadowed by the likes of Terry-Thomas, Eric Sykes, Gert Frobe, Jean-Pierre Cassel and Tony Hancock, likewise, he stars in the little seen Iranian-US action film The Invincible Six, in both cases, presumably, to satisfy US investors).  Ti Lung, one of Shaw's top stars of the perion, (along with David Chiang, who co-starred with Cushing in Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires), is forced to play second fiddle to Whitman, his screen time consequently restricted, despite the fact that he is both more charismatic and a more convincing action hero.  Indeed, his martial arts sequences are generally reasonably well done, but unfortunately, there just aren't enough of them.  Ultimately, Shatter feels completely off the pace, as uncertain and lethargic as Whitman appears in the lead.

The film ends, after a half-decent action finale, with Cushing telling Shatter that the British government can only protect him within the confines of Hong Kong and suggests that he opens a business, like a bar.  Which he is left planning to do with Ti Lung.  Now, if this makes Shatter sound like a pilot for a TV series, providing a set up for a weekly series where Whitman and Ti Lung get involved in various plots brought to their bar by the guest star of the week, then it is because it very nearly is a pilot.  Hammer had hopes of spinning the film off into a TV series, but these plans fell through when it failed to secure a US distribution deal, (it was eventually picked up by Avco-Embassy for a 1976 US release).  In many ways Shatter is symbolic of the problems faced by the UK film industry in the seventies.  As US finance and distribution deals dried up, film makers faced a stark choice: either focus of small scale productions aimed primarily at the contracting UK market (ie sexploitation movies and comedies), or try to secure international funding for hybrid projects with international appeal.  The latter course meant attempting to jump on whichever cinematic band wagon which was currently popular.  (It wasn't just smaller producers doing this - the early Roger Moore James Bond films tried to broaden their appeal by encompassing Blaxploitation (Live and Let Die) and King Fu (Man With the Golden Gun) with varying degrees of success).

Hammer tried both approaches - the two Shaw Brothers co-productions were followed by a German co-production, To The Devil a Daughter, (a Dennis Wheatley adaptation scuppered by a confused script and obviously disinterested and miscast Hollywood lead in Richard Widmark). Prior to these, Hammer had gone back to its roots with a number of adaptations of popular TV series.The most successful of these were the On The Buses films, (the first of which outgrossed Diamonds Are Forever at the UK box office in 1971).  Other TV adaptations, such as the drama Man at the Top and comedies like That's Your Funeral, Love Thy Neighbour and Nearest and Dearest were less successful.  The problem was that none of these, neither the TV spin offs nor the co-productions were particularly innovative.  Hammer's success had been built upon its trail-blazing Gothic horrors in the fifties and early sixties, but by the seventies these too seemed old hat: despite injections of sex and nudity, the were increasingly out of step with audiences.  In that, Hammer represented a microcosm of the entire British film industry of the era.  Perhaps if Shatter had been a success, it might have helped push Hammer into TV production, where its culture of turning out decent looking products on tight schedules and low budgets would have given it an advantage. But it wasn't to be and Shatter, instead, represents a last gasp by Hammer, as they desperately gambled on trying something different and came up short.