I think that I'm on the verge of kicking my Facebook account into touch. I say 'think' because, these days, I can never seem to make my mind up about anything. But my sudden aversion to the social media organisation has nothing to do with its apparent inability to grasp the notion of privacy when it comes to harvesting the data of its users, or its woeful unwillingness to do anything about the amount of hate speech and propaganda being peddled through its pages. Rather, it has more to do with the fact that increasingly, people I'm friends with on there (and, indeed, know from outside of Facebook), are revealing themselves as reactionary crackpots with their increasingly cranky posts which turn up in my feed. Now, I know that I could just mute or block them, but then there would be next to nothing appearing on my feed, so I might as well just shut the whole account down. I'm aware that there is an argument that it is good to expose oneself to views differing from one's own. But that really is bollocks: I've already examined all of these 'viewpoints' and long ago rejected them as ignorant, ill-informed, reactionary, abhorrent and just plain wrong. Consequently, I don't want to hear them all over again.
The only problem with leaving Facebook is that it would undoubtedly cause me all sorts of problems when it comes to administering The Sleaze's Facebook page. That said, the page doesn't actually generate much traffic to the site - bizarrely, while people might 'like' the page or individual stories, they don't seem to actually visit them. As I've noted before, there have been times that stories have seemingly racked up enormous likes and views of the Facebook page, yet this has never been reflected in actual traffic to the site. I'm afraid that in my experience, social media platforms are greatly overrated as sources of web traffic. Ditching Facebook wouldn't be much of a loss to me, as I've never really engaged in it. Which shouldn't be surprising, as it is supposedly about building social networks and bringing people together, while I simply don't like people and do my best to avoid them. I originally only joined in order to get access to a group associated with a site I was a member of - I've subsequently tried to keep the number of 'friends' I have there to a minimum (I turn down requests from people I don't know at all from outside Facebook or, indeed, those from people I know in person - I see them for real, damn it). And now it turns out that most of them are nutters.
Some more recent acquisitions - once again, nobody else bid for them on eBay so they weren't expensive. As can be seen, this is a small collection of Trix model railway catalogues and associated publications of some vintage. On the top row are a 1964 catalogue, (note how the name is now styled simply as 'Trix' rather than 'Trix Twin Railways' of 'TTR' as on the older items, reflecting the system's move away from its three rail 'twin' trackwork to a more modern two rail set up), and an earlier, 1960/61 catalogue. Below these two are a 1958 catalogue, the 'Trix Yearbook and Catalogue' for 1954 and, most interesting of all, the 'TTR Permanent Way Manual' from 1950. The latter is a fascinating guide to operating your model railway along the lines of a real railway, with chapters on signalling, block working and the marshaling of freight trains, amongst other subjects. I can see this becoming my 'bible' for operating my own layout. Between them, these publications provide a pretty good history of Trix's evolution post war, (or British Trix, to be accurate, as it operated separately from its original German parent, Trix, going through several different ownerships post war).
The range of locomotives and rolling stock offered was pretty much unchanging throughout the fifties, having its origins pre-war. The closest it had to an actual scale representation of a real prototype was the A3 pacific (strictly speaking an A1/A10 as it represents the type in its original configuration). The two 4-4-0s, the Midland Compound and the ex-LNER Hunt class look vaguely like their prototypes but have clearly been designed to run on a standard chassis. The other locos were freelance 0-4-0 designs of both tank and tender types, (these mechanisms were also used as the basis of a couple of US outline steam locos).
This same range features in the 1958 catalogue, although, by then, they had been supplemented by some scale length tinplate coaches. Somewhen during the fifties there had been another 4-4-0 based on the existing mechanism, this time a Southern Railway Schools class. This, apparently, is incredibly rare today. But then things changed completely, within a year, these locomotive models had been swept away in favour of a whole new range of proper scale models, as reflected in the cover to the 1960/61 catalogue, which illustrates the new Warship diesel, EM2 electric and Britannia 4-6-2. There was also the Standard Class 5 (or Class V, as Trix insisted on calling it), an E2 tank engine a Drewery diesel shunter. The coaches and wagons, however, remained the old tinplate types. By 1964, there had been further expansion of the range, with a Western class diesel being added, along with new plastic bodied wagons and BR Mk1 coaches.
The wheels by now had finer scale standards, making them, in the main, capable of running on other manufacturers' track, although Trix now also produced a new range of 'universal' track, in both three and two rail, which could be used by other makers' stock. All the locomotives were also now available in either two rail or three rail versions. By 1967, the three rail track and locos had been discontinued altogether, (although the track could be special ordered and all of the locomotives could be converted to run either three or two rail). Within a few years, Trix introduced even more models, this time of the LNER A2, A3 and A4 pacifics, before finally going out of business. For a few years some of their products were available under the Lilliput brand but, by the late seventies, they had pretty much vanished. The Trix name, of course, lives on with the original German company. Interestingly, although, in effect, a separate entity, British Trix always maintained links with German Trix - the 1964 catalogue, for instance, includes models from the German company and its subsidiaries, re-wheeled to British standards.
Trix have always held a fascination for me, partly because of the way that they effectively vanished from the market before I was old enough to get into model railways. I remember their products appearing fleetingly in model shops when I was a kid, then the Lilliput models, whose appearances were even rarer in my local model shop. They were always the lesser known of the 'big three' British model railway manufacturers of the immediate post war period - they never had the prestige of Hornby Dublo (although they were more expensive) or the cheapness and availability of Triang. Their cause wasn't helped by their choice of an eccentric AC three rail system when the more popular Dublo used a DC three rail system and upstart Triang boasted two rail operation from the outset, and their inconsistent scale, preferring 3.8mm to the foot to the 4mm to the foot used by other British 00 manufacturers. They did switch to DC during the fifties but, like Dublo, focused n three rail for too long. Still, they did outlast Dublo by a good few years (the Hornby Dublo range was acquired by Lines Brothers in 1964 and combined with their existing Triang range to create Triang-Hornby). Which was only fair - they switched to two rail faster than Dublo and their new range of models was far better than anything Dublo had to offer in terms of detail and accuracy. The Standard Class V model, of which I have an example, is still a good representation of the prototype and a superb runner: smooth and very powerful, Their Mk1 coaches, of which I have a large number, bought when they were available quite cheaply, second hand, are likewise, very accurate mouldings and incredibly smooth runners.
Oh, and if you are wondering about the 'Twin' part of their original name, it was due to the fact that Trix's three rail system, in both AC and DC versions, allowed the independent running of two locomotives on the same track - somethimg impossible with either the Dublo or Triang systems.
As part of my ongoing strategy of keeping the reader(s) of this blog off-kilter, I thought I would make a sudden return to the world of model railways for today's post. What we have here is a resin cast of a Hornby Dublo/Wrenn tender top for their rebuilt West Country model. As you will doubtless recall, I've been assembling one of these models from bits acquired online, but I was still short of a tender. Consequently, it has been running with a tender borrowed from another West Country that I'm restoring. As tenders for these models, either complete or in parts, seem to be going for ludicrous prices ob eBay, I had been planning to try and modify the tender from the old Triang Battle of Britain model, as these are usually obtainable second hand for far lower prices. But then I saw this on eBay going for a fraction of the cost of the original part. While it isn't perfect and will need some work doing on it, I'm very pleased with this acquisition, which will now form the basis for the new tender.
The main question now is whether to try mounting this new body on an original Dublo/Wrenn chassis, or try using the Triang version. Again, original chassis' seem to be going for insane prices second hand. It is still possible, however, to obtain new castings of this chassis, apparently produced from the original moulds. While these aren't as cheap as the resin tender top, they are a lot cheaper than the second hand ones. So that could be the solution - a new original tender constructed from reproduction parts. Anyway, the tender top, as delivered, is seen above posed in front of 'Barnstaple' and its borrowed tender, (which itself still needs work doing on it before it is complete). You never know, I might finally be within sight of getting both of these West Country projects completed. It's been a long haul, with lots of false starts and errors on my part, but finally I seem to be getting there.
While hordes of idiots were crowding Britain's beaches in an attempt to ensure that second wave of coronavirus is a tidal wave, the Austrians have been planning to reopen their brothels as the next stage of their careful easing of lockdown. Of course, that's not something we have to consider here, as such establishments and sex workers generally, were never mentioned in the government's lockdown plans. Obviously, they were classified as key workers, essential to keeping the British end up during this crisis. Besides, there's no way that Tory politicians could do without their weekly whiplash. The fact that, during the pandemic, sex workers have probably had to wear protective gear - visors, masks, rubber gloves and so - provided an extra turn on for many of their clients. Austria isn't alone in having protected its sex workers during the pandemic because, of course, on the continent they tend to be more adult about such things and attempt to regulate their sex industries. Whereas we just like to snigger about and sweep it under the carpet.
The end result of which is that sex workers in the UK enjoy just about no protection and are consequently vulnerable to all manner of exploitation. But what the Hell, like so many other people at the bottom of the pile (so to speak) in this country, they just don't seem to matter. Anyway, in those countries where the brothels were shut down for the lockdown, one is left wondering what potential punters did instead. For some future academic, there's a study there into whether masturbation rates increased during the pandemic in these countries. Some places have already reopened their brothels, but with new safety restrictions. Greece, for instance, is now insisting that payments can only be made by credit card and that the time with clients is limited to fifteen minutes. (While, presumably, maintaining as distance of at least one metre between punter and sex worker - either that, or they both have to wear full body disposable plastic suits). Ah, those crazy continentals, eh?
When you watch as many old films and TV series as I do, you begin to recognise certain faces. Not the stars, obviously, hey have their names emblazoned at the top of the credits, but rather the supporting players. Often they are uncredited, making identifying them difficult. Nonetheless, there are some who just turn up over and over again in low budget films, sometimes performing what amounts to little more than a bit part, other times in significant supporting roles. They never became stars, instead spending their careers toiling away as character actors. Eventually, you end up admiring their versatility for the sheer variety of characters they tackle. Yet they remain largely unheralded. One such is Eugene Deckers. I doubt that nowadays more than a handful of people know his name, yet, throughout the fifties and sixties, he was a prolific performer, both in film and television. I only became aware of him relatively recently, as a result of watching episodes of the 1954 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes TV series back-to-back. Made primarily for US TV syndication, this Ronald Howard starring series was shot largely in France, which resulted in the use of a number of French actors pretending to be British in the guest roles. Often their English accents would slip and their attempts at regional British accents were often unintentionally amusing. After a while, I realised that there was one actor I assumed to be French, who just kept turning up, in a bewilderingly diverse selection of roles. According to the brief and incomplete cast listings on the closing credits, I found out that he was Eugene Deckers and had appeared in seven episodes, platying a different character each time.
These roles were usually villainous - in one episode he is a murderer who feigns blindness, in another he is an escaped convict who attempts to kill Holmes, in a particularly flamboyant turn, he plays a Russian composer suspected of murder. But perhaps his most memorable role is that of Harry Crocker, not a villain, but a rather a music hall escapologist wrongly accused of murder. He gives a colourful turn as Crocker, even attempting a cockney accent and dominating the episode. It's so different from most of his other appearances in the series that, at first, it was hard to believe that it was the same actor. Although he maintains that cockney accent quite well, speaking so fast that it is difficult, most of the time, to discern his underlying accent. Which wasn't, as I'd thought, French, but rather Belgian. As it turned out, he was a Belgian actor who had come to the UK during the war and had forged a successful stage career, before branching out into films and TV post-war. The Sherlock Holmes series clearly supplied him with a lot of work in this period. Of course, it wasn't unusual in early TV series to see the same supporting actors turning up in different roles from episode to episode. Production schedules were so tight, (according to star Ronald Howard, episodes of Sherlock Holmes were filmed in four days), that it made sense to have what was effectively a 'repertory company' of actors for the series. (It was also a practice followed by many smaller film studios, especially those turning out series. Even Hammer followed the practice - many of its films of the fifties and sixties employ the same supporting casts from movie to movie). Deckers wasn't the only actor to put in multiple appearances in the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: even Archie Duncan who regularly portrayed Inspector Lestrade would occasionally turn up playing someone different).
The interesting thing is that once you identify an actor like Deckers, you start seeing them everywhere. No sooner had I discovered his name and biography, he turned up in an early episode of The Saint which I was watching, playing a French police inspector. Deckers died in 1977, with his last film credit in 1969 and his last TV appearance in 1970, in an episode of the Charlie Drake comedy The Worker. He had worked steadily throughout the sixties - he often pops up in films playing waiters, hotel receptionists and diplomats, nearly always 'foreigners'. His biggest film role probably came in 1959, in the Kenneth More starring North West Frontier, playing the arms dealer, Peters. A clearly talented actor, Eugene Deckers was never a star. This is probably the most anyone has written about him in decades. For our purposes, he represents all of those unsung heroes of jobbing supporting actors, always unheralded, but nevertheless essential to the success of many films and TV series. We seldom know their names, but always recognise their faces. Well, now you know the name of at least one of them.
I've spent consecutive weekends watching vintage British sex comedies on double bills. Coincidentally, such films have recently put back in the spotlight by a tabloid being 'outraged' by the fact that such films are available on Amazon Prime - the usual synthetic concern for the way in which stuff like the Confessions films degrade women with their portrayal of them as sex objects, etc. Which is always a bit rich coming from a tabloid. Having sat through Adventures of a Taxi Driver and Adventures of a Plumber's Mate one Saturday and What's Up Nurse and What's Up Superdoc the next, I think I can safely say that no modern audience could possibly be depraved or corrupted by watching such films. And I sincerely doubt that anybody seeing them on their original release would have seen them as anything other than, in essence, saucy comedies of the Carry On variety, but with added bare boobs and bums. Because that's the thing with British sex comedies - they never feature that much sex and the comedy generally consists of the hoariest old gags you can think of.
But if they aren't really sexy or especially funny, what value do such cinematic artefacts have for the contemporary viewer. Well, they provide a fascinating snapshot of seventies Britain, warts and all. The two Adventures films, for instance, represent a celluloid chronicling of a a country sliding into decline. The series, (which ran to three entries, Adventures of A Private Eye - which I'd seen previously - being the middle entry), were veteran exploitation producer/director Stanley Long's attempt to cash in on the success of the Confessions films, which had made a star of Robin Askwith. They are, however, very different in texture to the rival series, which had firmly embraced the ethos of the contemporary British TV sitcom, but with the bawdiness ramped up for the big screen. Long's films, by contrast, had a far more realist feel, reflecting the grittiness of British working class life in the seventies. Many of the characters are petty criminals and even those who try and pursue the 'straight and narrow' find earning a living precarious - unlike Askwith's Timmy Lea character, the protagonists of Long's films can't just step into another job when their sexploits threaten their current employment: the dole and prison are ever present threats.
This is certainly true of Adventures of a Taxi Driver (1976), the first and most successful of the series. While certainly not devoid of crude laughs and old jokes, it lacks the sheer breeziness of the Confessions films. This, in part, is undoubtedly down to the presence of Barry Evans in the lead. Despite being a popular sitcom star, Evans ultimately lacked the gormless charisma of Robin Askwith. The general awkwardness of the latter and his difficulties in actually bedding the objects of his desire, made it easy for audiences to identify with his character and to root for him. Evans, by contrast, seems too confident and finds seducing women relatively easy, not only making him less easily likeable, but also robbing the film of much comic potential. The world Evans' character inhabits is far harsher and hard edged than the one Askwith's character exists in: everybody seems to be on the make, but the criminally inclined characters aren't, in the main, lovable rogues like Tony Booth's character in the Confessions films. While he is more of a con artist, the nearest equivalent character in Adventures of a Taxi Driver, Evans' mechanic friend, played by Robert Lindsay, turns out to be involved with armed robbers and jewellery heists. Similarly, Evans' character has a pretty grim home life, being the main breadwinner in a household presided over by his fag smoking fishwife mother (Diana Dors) and including an inept criminal of a younger brother and a spoiled and undisciplined younger sister, (all have different, absentee, fathers). A far cry from Askwith's comically dysfunctional screen family.
Interestingly, although Adventures of a Taxi Driver boasts a female writer and a much stronger than usual female cast, (as well as Dors, Judy Geeson, Adrienne Posta and Liz Fraser all make appearances), it still never really portrays women as anything other than broad stereotypes, (harridan mother, overbearing girlfriend, prostitute, criminal schemer, etc). But hey - it's a seventies sex comedy, not a slice of social realism, despite its surprisingly hard edged depiction of seventies working class life. Adventures of a Taxi Driver remains a mainly enjoyable romp, typical of its era. But if it succeeds in portraying a society that had become, effectively moribund, with traditional means of advancement - regular employment - no longer effective means of social mobility, 1978's sequel, Adventures of a Plumber's Mate, gives us a society in full decline, where criminal graft is the only hope for the working class to resolve their burgeoning problems. Evans had left the series after Taxi Driver, with Christopher Neill taking over the lead role. Evans had apparently wanted to break away from sex comedies, but ended up doing another one, the dreadful Under the Doctor, after which his acting career began to decline, punctuated by the brief success of Mind Your Language on TV. Ironically, at the time of his death, he was working as a minicab driver.
Adventures of a Plumber's Mate has a far darker feel to Taxi Driver. The villains are far more menacing and people actually do get intimidated and beaten up. Neill's over-sexed plumber is far less cheery than his Taxi-driving predecessor and throughout the film is threatened with not just losing his livelihood, but also the use of his legs if he can't pay off his gambling debts. A large part of the film is taken up with his attempts to raise the money by doing various criminal (and non-plumbing) jobs for 'Dodger', a local 'fixer', played by Willie Rushton. He also finds himself pursued by a gangster in search of a toilet seat Neill had replaced for said gangster's wife while the latter was in prison, (shagging her into the bargain, naturally). It seems that the seat had been cast from gold stolen in a heist in order to conceal it from the authorities. Unlike Adventures of a Taxi Driver, which lived up to its title by presenting the audience with a series of episodes in the life of its titular character, only loosely tied together with a plot, Plumber's Mate is far too plot bound, which restricts its scope and keeps taking it way from its central premise of a randy plumber using his job to get his end away. The Britain its plot unfolds within is shown as a society in full decline, it feels like the end of an era (which it turned out to be, with Thatcherism just around the corner), with everything, every institution, looking as if it has just run out of steam. (The intervening film, Adventures of a Private Eye, also starring Neill, has a far glossier look - it had a higher budget than the other two films - and eschews any attempts to portray its milieu in realistic terms. Financially it was the least successful of the series and, I must admit, that I found it somewhat disappointing, never really making the most of the comic potential afforded by its subject matter).
The other two films I recently watched - What's Up Nurse and What's Up Superdoc - are the work of Stanley Long's erstwhile partner-in-crime Derek Ford and stand as testament to the fact that comedy really wasn't his forte. While the first of the films, (which I had seen previously and, indeed, have already looked at in this blog), is actually amusing in a saucy seaside postcard manner, (helped by its seaside setting), most of its laughs are courtesy of its supporting cast of old comedy pros, such as Graham Stark and Peter Butterworth, who are sufficiently skilled that they can breath life into the most ancient of old medical gags, the sequel is dreadful. What's Up Superdoc is utterly joyless - despite many of the same old comedy hands being present, this time around the script is so lame that there's absolutely nothing they can do with it. The replacement of Nicholas Field in the lead role by Christopher Mitchell doesn't help. While Field might have been slumming it in a sex comedy,(he could more usually be found playing character roles in things like Lady Caroline Lamb), for Mitchell, a sex comedy was a definite step up. Best remembered for his role in TV's It Ain't Half Hot Mum, this is, as far as I know, his only lead - and you can see why: Mitchell simply lacks the charisma to carry the film. You can never believe that he is some kind of super stud, let alone a sperm donor. Not that the script gives him much of a chance, Indeed, Ford's script even fails to realise the comic potential of the role-reversal of the traditional dynamics of a sex comedy: whereas it is usually the male lead pursuing various female characters because of their desirable sexual attributes, here Mitchell finds himself pursued by just about every woman in the picture because of his prowess at producing male babies with high IQs. (Actually, it is his sperm which is so potent, rather than his lovemaking technique, making their crazed sexual assaults upon Mitchell nonsensical - all they need to do is jerk him off into a test tube).
But, in the end, the whole film is dreary - shot in what looks like the middle of winter, its locations look decidedly run down and unglamourous. The performances are dull and predictable - Harry H Corbett gives, quite possibly, the worst performance of his career, and is clearly unhappy at being reduced to appearing in this sort of thing. The only vaguely amusing things are the sight of Hughie Green calling someone a wanker and Bill Pertwee's dreadful Texas accent. Really, if you want to see Derek Ford at his best, watch the films he made with Stanley Long, things like Groupie Girl, which cast their sexploitation aspects in the mould of gritty, 'ripped from the headlines' melodramas. But to return to the manufactured tabloid outrage we started with - are these films horribly misogynistic and sexist, reducing women to crude sexual stereotypes and objectifying them as mere collections of physical sexual assets? Well, obviously, they are exploitation films which make no claim to be portraying sexual relations realistically. To be absolutely fair, they portray their male characters as stereotypes, too: priapic idiots motivated solely by the idea of sexual gratification. They are allowed no finer feelings, no subtlety. Just as they judge women on the basis of their sexual desirability, so the female characters judge these men solely on the basis of their physical love making abilities. In What's Up Superdoc, Mitchell is seen as desirable simply because of the potency of his sperm, (which also introduces another female stereotype of women ultimately being interested only in producing babies).
So, yes, I know that these films are terribly sexist by today's standards, but the fact is that they are of their era. Show me any film, of any genre, from the seventies which doesn't exhibit attitudes and assumptions on a range of issues, from sex and gender to race.which would be considered unacceptable now and I'll happily burn my collection of British sex comedies. But they are what they are and have to be viewed in context. And you know what? I enjoyed my recent Adventures in Smut and I'll happily do it all over again!
As the UK's lockdown gradually unravels in a welter of political expediency and pressure from Tory corporate donors, I've been reflecting on the things that I haven't missed during these months of lockdown. Because, after all, going in we all thought it was going to be unbearable to have to do without most shops, without sports, without fast food joints and, worst of all, the pub. Surprisingly, I haven't missed any of them. I've never really enjoyed the shopping experience, I went off of most fast food after I spent a few days working in a burger joint and the majority of sports are, for me, tedious beyond belief. But, as it turns out, I haven't even missed the only sport that I did follow: football. Its return has felt anticlimactic and left me indifferent. Indeed, I've resented the return of those sports which have so far come back -snooker, horse racing - for once again cluttering up TV schedules and absolving various channels of any obligation to provide proper programming. In truth, it is probably the return to 'normality' that their return heralds that I resent most. I've had a 'good' lockdown. I've really enjoyed the solitude, the peace and rhe quiet.
To return to the point, the most surprising thing I haven't missed is the pub. Sure, the time I've spent there has been in decline over recent years, but, pre-lockdown, it was still playing a significant part in my social life. Or so I thought. Because, without it, I haven't felt socially deprived. I've actually enjoyed having more evenings to myself - I've got a lot more done. I've realised that I really don't miss a lot of the idiots who were drinking in there - not feeling the obligation to make polite conversation with people you have nothing in common with has come as a blessed relief. When given the choice, I really do prefer my own company. I'm left pondering whether, when they finally can re-open, I'll still feel the urge to go to any pub, let alone my local? There are a couple of people there that I tend not to see anywhere else, but so far I don't feel them to be a compelling reason for me to return to old habits. As I've said here before, this lockdown has provided me with a window into a better way of life, one without the stresses and complications of so-called 'normality'. I'd love it to continue for a while longer. Mind you, with the government's apparent determination to stoke a second wave of coronavirus, we could all be back here in a couple of months.
Gorgo was one of a spate of British monster movies which appeared in the late fifties and early sixties, all clearly inspired by the success of Godzilla. While undoubtedly better than cheapskate King Kong rip off Konga, I've always felt that Gorgo was inferior to 1959's Behemoth, The Sea Monster. Not only did the latter boast a superior cast, including TV's most recent Quatermass, Andre Morrell, but it also boasted a stop motion animated monster, created, in part, by none other than Willis O'Brien, creator of King Kong. It also had Eugene Lourie - who had directed the influential US monster movie The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms - as its co-director. Yet Behemoth remains the lesser known film, perhaps because it is in colour, or perhaps because its monster seems too much like a generic dinosaur. Instead, it is Gorgo which is now remembered as the British giant monster movie.
While Behemoth was clearly inspired by Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Gorgo was more obviously a Godzilla knock off, with its obvious man-in-a-rubber-suit monster smashing its way through a miniature version of London. To be honest, these are the best scenes in the film, but you have towait a long time to get to them. That said, I remember as a child, on my first viewing of the film, being deeply unimpressed by the monster costume. Not only is it too obviously man in a lizard suit, but it was poorly designed, with unblinking eyes and a mouth that moved only stiffly. What did impress, though, were the large scale miniatures used to represent London. They really are very well done and the destruction of landmarks like Big Ben and Tower Bridge remain impressive. But aside from these sequences, most of the action is conveyed using the usual badly matched stock footage of military ships and planes firing guns and torpedoes. Moreover, the film is overly talky, full of poorly written dialogue and featuring unsympathetic leading characters. To be fair, the plot does show some originality, with the first monster to be captured turning out to be merely a juvenile, with the gigantic mother Gorgo turning up to rescue him. Aside from that, it is pretty standard stuff, albeit the novelty of featuring London rather than Tokyo being ravaged by a giant monster.
Of all the strange pronouncements made by the government with regard to the lockdown, I think my favourite has been the so called 'sex ban', with the authorities decreeing that it would be breaking te rules to have sexual relations with someone who was not a member of your household. (Although, it seems, driving to Durham and back, including a side trip to test your eyesight wasn't an infringement of the rules). The question that it begs, of course, is how on earth such an edict could ever be enforceable? Not to mention, by whom? Did somebody envisage Britain's army of busy bodies and snoopers mobilising themselves to spy on their neighbours? (To be fair, early on, there were plenty of such people willing to inform on the supposed lockdown transgressions of others, reporting them for exercising out side twice in one day, or walking to a park other than the nearest one to go for a walk). Was there a campaign of public information films planned, encouraging people to listen to their neighbours' nocturnal activities via a glass placed against the party wall? Or were the police being prepared to try and regulate the nation's sex life? After all, there were plenty of police forces prepared to go to extreme lengths to enforce the lockdown, gleefully following dog walkers with drones and threatening to inspect people's shopping in order the check that they were only buying essential items. Is it so fanciful to imagine this being extended to having drones - possibly fitted with infrared cameras - hoverig outside bedroom windows, or singles having their shopping searched for condoms and the like?
Not that the police would necessarily have to resort to using drones for sex snooping: they could just consult the local sex offenders register instead, identify the local voyeurs and peeping toms and enlist their help. I'm sure that these deviants would jump at the chance to see their work legitimised and its 'value' recognised by the authorities. I've also found myself wondering whether there were any plans to issue an official guide to more satisfactory masturbation during isolation, for the benefit of those on their own. You know the sort of thing: packed full of helpful hints and tips about how to contruct your own wanking machines from household objects. Maybe at one of the coronavirus daily updates they could have had a sex expert on hand to elaborate on this. But could there have been any circumstances under which non-same household sex would have been OK? Perhaps if it was dome at two metres distance in the open air? Now, I know what you are thinking - that's only going to work for the handful of people endowed like John Holmes. But I'm sure that the government could have issued another one of those guides, this one detailing how to mount a dildo on a two metre stick and how best to manipulate it, with additional tips about using a cock ring on a long string for women to remotely pleasure men. It could have given 'dogging' a whole new lease of life. Except that some police forces would, undoubtedly, have been busy setting up roadblocks to stop punters from making 'non-essential' car journeys to popular 'dogging; spots.
Some films are entirely of their time: they could not have been made at any other time and can only be seen in the context of those times. William Klein's French shot satire of US imperialism, Mister Freedom, is one such film. The titular character is a bullying and aggressive superhero (played by John Abbey), who works for Freedom Inc. His mission is to impose, by whatever means necessary, 'Freedom' on the populace, whether they want it or not. We first see him as a Sheriff with a Detroit-style riot raging outside his police station - in response he transforms into Mister Freedom, wearing his red, white and blue American Football uniform-style costume and toting a pair of Colt .45 automatics. Crashing through the window of an apartment, dancing on their table, he accuses the black family inside of looting, ('When you're a lootin', I'm a shootin'), before opening fire on them. We next see him arriving an office block, occupied by various US corporate behemoths and, on the top floor, Freedom Inc. There, he is instructed by Dr Freedom (Donald Pleasance) to go to France, where his counterpart Captain Formidable (an uncredited Yves Montand plays his frozen corpse) has been assassinated by the communists. It seems that the French are rejecting Freedom Inc's products and Mister Freedom will have to defeat the mysterious French Anti-Freedom (FAF) organisation, which is apparently behind student riots and other unrest.
What follows are a series of satirical set-pieces in which Mister Freedom organises his own French Freedom organisation - assisted by Formidable's widow Marie-Madelaine (Delphine Seyrig), a cross between a cheerleader and a prostitute, and the likes of M. Drugstore (Serge Gainsbourg) - confronts foes such as the Stalinist superhero Muzhik Man (Philippe Noiret) and Red China Man, (represented by a giant inflatable dragon) and attempts to bring Freedom to France through a combination consumerism, violence, terrorism and, finally, all out war. With its bizarre costumes, surreal scenarios, deliberately stilted performances and general air of feverish chaos, Mister Freedom, at times, comes over as an episode of The Monkees written and directed by a group of politics students. Even its staging is often somewhat amateurish, with the look of a student production. But the point of a film like this, particularly one of this era, is the satirical message it is trying to put over. In this respect Mister Freedom is somewhat hit-and-miss. While its central ideas are decent and more often than not both still amusing and relevant - the idea of the commodification of 'Freedom' into yet another commercial product with which to penetrate other 'markets', or the US Embassy as a huge supermarket, existing primarily to sell US corporate commodities, for instance - the execution is often less than subtle and become repetitive. Conversely, despite repetitively ramming home these ideas, the film also throws out numerous other satirical ideas which, frustratingly, it never pursues or develops.(the appearance of Jesus and Mary, for instance, representing the disconnect between actual Christian values and the 'God fearing' values of 'Freedom'). By the end of ninety five minutes, you feel as if you have been bludgeoned over the head.
But the ideas do still have some relevance and, at the time of the film's release, might well have felt entirely fresh and startling. That 'Freedom', or rather 'Freedom the American Way' has become a product used to legitimise regime change and the spread of US influence and commercial interests has been seen again and again, from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya Any other, local, version of 'Freedom' is seen as a competitor, which has to be put out of business. But it isn't just a commercial conquest, the imposition of 'Freedom' involves cultural hegemony, too: not only is Mister Freedom constantly extolling the virtues of the 'American Way', his costume, even, representing an 'alien' (to the rest of the world) cultural phenomenon - American Football - but his organisation has also tried to usurp an indigenous superhero (Super French Man - another giant inflatable) with its own militaristic creation, Captain Formidable. The film's climax, with Mister Freedom betrayed by Marie Madelaine and finally realising that, far from being loved, he is actually hated and feared, declaring war on the people and destroying half of France, currently seems disturbingly prescient. Despite this, in its execution, the film remains resolutely grounded in the late sixties.
Frequently dismissed as simply being a piece of anti-US propaganda, Mister Freedom, in truth, does exhibit some balance, with the rival factions and their figureheads - Muzhik Man and Red China Man - being shown as essentially no different to Freedom Inc and its crude attempts at indoctrination through bullying. The 'Cold War' is characterised as a tool, used by both sides, designed to terrorise populations into accepting the 'protection' of whichever 'Freedom' they are peddling. It is notable that Muzhik Man has no desire to actually destroy Mister Freedom, as he understands that the two opposing ideologies they represent cannot exist unless it is in opposition to the other. In the final analysis, Mister Freedom still makes for a fascinating watch. Its satire might now seem obvious, bludgeoning and repetitive, but seen in the context of 1968, it was innovative and daring, certainly going beyond anything seen in mainstream cinema of the era.
No, nobody is proposing to 'ban' Gavin and Stacy becuase it has a character called 'Chinese Alan', The Inbetweeners hasn't been removed from YouTube because of 'political correctness' and that episode of Fawlty Towers hasn't been removed from UKTV because it is offensive to Germans. It's all 'fake news' perpetuated by social media and stoked by the tabloids. In the case of Gavin and Stacy, this story seems to have been promoted by certain tabloids with the apparent intent to stir shit against the background of the 'Black Lives Matter' campaign. As for The Inbetweeners, those episodes have been taken down from YouTube because of streaming rights issues - Britbox now holds these rights. The Fawlty Towers case is interesting as it involves a single episode. The issue here seems to be that the BBC had edited this episode some years ago to remove the Major's use of the N-word, UKTV, however, had still been using the unedited episode. Despite John Cleese's all too predictable denunciation of the BBC for 'political correctness' today, he actually agreed to this edit.
But just why are some people getting so worked up about this sort of thing? The only stuff apparently removed from anywhere so far - Little Britain and Come Fly With Me - have simply vanished from some streaming services. They haven't been erased from history. You can still watch your DVDs of them. Or, if you don't have them on DVD, I'm sure that you can still buy the DVDs from somewhere. Sure, there is a whiff of panic, akin to the 'video nasties' scare, to this sudden reappraisal of film and TV back catalogues in the light of 'Black Lives Matter'. Just because something contains 'blackface' or similar doesn't automatically mean either that is racist or without value. The use of blackface was prevalent in films in the twenties and thirties and still seen in the forties and fifties, ('yellowface' with white actors portraying Asians was still commonplace in the sixties and there are examples even later than that), but some of these older films arguable have historic and cultural value. Not least because they give us an insight into attitudes of their eras as a reminder of how times have changed. As for things like The Mighty Boosh and the 'Spirit of Jazz' character, I can't say that it ever occurred to me that this was meant to be a blackface character. It is never clear that he is meant to be a black caricature played by a white man - he's just another surreal character amongst many in the show. Unlike, say, Little Britain, where the characters causing offence clearly are meant to be black caricatures, played by white performers blacked up. which doesn't necessarily mean that it should be banned, but it should certainly causer viewers concern.
Well, not much has happened on the model railway front. Or any other front, for that matter. I'm afraid that, this week, I've been preoccupied with other matters - that decision I can no longer put off, that alluded to last time - and consequently have had to spend a fair amount of time doing online research. More information on this front if and when it develops. There has been some progress with my jungle of a garden, thanks to the assistance of some very kind neighbours who have better tools than me and are better gardeners than me. Slowly but surely, it is being cleared. Maybe I'll start a garden railway when it is done. In the meantime, I really need to get on with the one in the spare room. As can be seen in the above photo, the only recent development is that 'Bibby Line' has finally acquired a correctly liveried tender. This was achieved by swapping the old blue-liveried tender top with a green one which, amazingly, I got for a reasonable price in an eBay auction, (they usually go for ridiculous prices).
As with all modern model railway rolling stock, carrying out the swap wasn't straightforward. Traditionally, tender tops were secured to the tender chassis with a single screw, (that is certainly the case with the Wrenn Merchant Navy, 'Clan Line', which is sitting on the next track to 'Bibby Line'), but this one required the removal of five screws and the dismantling of the whole assembly with retains the wheels in place. Of course, it all had to be done in reverse to secure the new top in place. And people wonder why I prefer the older models? I'm holding onto the old blue top until the coronavirus crisis is finally over and swapmeets can be held again - this version is rarer than the green one and can fetch higher prices, (well, on eBay there are people asking lunatic prices for them - whether they get that price is another matter). Hopefully, along with a few other surplus items, I'll be able to swap it for something else, probably spares for my old school locomotive fleet. So, that's where I am right now, trying to sift through contradictory advice as I ponder my next move.
I'm trying to avoid getting into the current furore over race. To be frank, I've got more pressing problems on the personal front to worry about. Besides, weeks of lockdown have reduced my stress levels to the lowest they have been in years, getting into arguments with racists will only get me angry, push my stress levels up and have an adverse effect on my blood pressure. But I will say this, what the current 'Black Lives Matter' protests here in the UK have revealed is the staggering level of ignorance on the part of a depressingly large number of people who just can't seem to grasp what constitutes racism. You know the ones I mean, the ones who profess not to be racist in the same breath as saying something like it is a fact that black people commit more crimes. Because they are stating a 'fact' means that they can't possibly be guilty of racism, they contend. But let's look at that 'fact' in a bit more detail, (as it is typical of these 'non racist' racist statements): in the first place, it isn't a fact. More importantly, even if it was a 'fact', it is trying to correlate a particular form of behaviour solely with a racial characteristic, implying that being black is a causal factor of criminal activity. That's racist. In reality, crime rates are linked to a whole array of factors - cultural, economic, educational etc - with economic factors most likely the biggest underlying cause. A lot of criminal activity might well be committed - often out of perceived economic necessity - by the less well off. A large proportion of the less well off might well be black, largely as the result of historical and cultural factors, (more often than not the legacy of slavery), but that isn't the causal factor - these is no genetic disposition to criminality linked to skin pigmentation.
The obsession with inanimate objects amongst these non-racist racists is another depressing revelation - they get themselves terribly worked up about the treatment of statues by protestors, as if an attack on a statue of someone is equivalent to an attack on the person themselves. It is another manifestation of our valuing of property over people, a precept which has, for too long, warped the legal code of the UK, which traditionally afforded more protection to property than persons. Bearing in mind that the statues in question are of historical figures with links to slavery or some other kind of racist legacy, these concerns also betray an inability to grasp that historical figures were, in life, complex human beings possessed of many seemingly contradictory beliefs and impulses. The usual refrain in defence of these figures goes along the lines of: 'well, he might have made his fortune from the slave trade, but he did a lot of philanthropic shit with his money, which is what the statue is celebrating'. Which seems to be based upon a notion that there is some sort of cosmic scales, upon which our deeds can be measured and if the 'good' outweighs the 'bad', then that's OK and expunges the evil. Except that it doesn't work like that - you can't weigh the lives of slaves against the number of civic buildings constructed using the proceeds from their trafficking. The latter remains wrong, regardless. It's a very medieval idea that you can somehow 'buy' your way into paradise with a few charitable contributions after a life of unadulterated sin.
Of course, right now a lot of the outrage surrounds the treatment of the statue of Winston Churchill outside parliament. To the right and the ignorant, (often the same thing), Churchill has the status of a latter day saint, based upon his wartime leadership of the UK. Unfortunately, though, history is never, if you will excuse the phrase, black and white. The fact is that while Churchill was good at the rhetoric, his interventions in military strategy were usually ill informed and unwelcome. He didn't 'win the war'. The war was won, ultimately, by the concerted efforts on the home front to support the war effort (organised largely by Labour leader and wartime Deputy PM Clement Attlee), and the efforts on the battlefield of a citizen army drawn from all over the Empire - many, many of them non-white. Ironically, of course, despite their efforts, Churchill saw such non-whites as coming from inferior races (this is well documented). He was especially dismissive of Indians., who made up a significant proportion of the army that fought in North Africa, provided pilots to Fighter Command for the defence of the UK and, of course, fought the Japanese in the Far East. So, I'm afraid, Churchill's legacy is complex and often problematic - as is that of just about any political leader. There's no doubt, he was a racist. As were most people of his background and era. Which doesn't justify it, it just makes it more understandable. That said, there is a key difference between monuments to him and those to slave traders cum philanthropists: Churchill's statue is there to memorialise a particular part of his legacy - his contribution to the Allied victory in WWII - which wasn't built upon the proceeds of slavery and to which his racial views weren't a major factor.
But my point is that people really need to stop getting worked up about his racist views being highlighted - they are a matter of historical fact and underline the fact that racism has been deeply ingrained in Britain's ruling classes and inculcated by them in the rest of the population. That racism continues to express itself through the way the law is enforced, the education system and even popular culture, (yes, Little Britainis racist, but I really don't have time to get into that right now). It apparently permeates our society to the extent that many still can't even see it. But that's enough of that. I need to get back to my own problems, (actually, not so much of a problem as a decision I can no longer put off).
A film about a virulent new virus which kills just about everyone it infects, (not to mention vertebrate animals as well), for which there is no known vaccine spreads across the world, precipitating the collapse of civilisation. Possibly not the best thing to be watching right now, but it has been thirty years, or more, since I last saw Virus (or Day of Resurrection, the literal English translation of its original Japanese title). So, I decided to give it another watch as it is currently widely available on various streaming services. Now, I have to confess, that I didn't really rate it very highly on my first viewing. I was much younger then and overly concerned with more superficial aspects of film-making, like whether the hardware on display was accurate (I was deeply unimpressed by the 'nuclear' submarine which was clearly a diesel sub of WWII vintage, not to mention the casting of Chuck Connors as a Royal Navy officer), or whether things like political and military procedure shown were factually correct. Moreover, what I saw back then wasn't the complete film. Rather, it was a severely cut down 'international' version of the film, which had nearly three quarters of an hour of footage excised, (there was an even more severely truncated version shown on US TV, missing more than an hour of footage). The end result was somewhat disjointed affair which, despite boasting some reasonably well known US actors (Glenn Ford, Robert Vaughn, George Kennedy, Bo Svenson and Henry Silva, for instance), featured some awkward and clunky dialogue and some clumsy plotting.Yet, despite all of this, there was something about Virus which has haunted me ever since that viewing. I hoped that a second viewing might pin down exactly what it was about the film which had had this effect on me.
Thankfully, the version currently available on streaming services is the original Japanese version, running over two and a half hours. It is a very different film. The excised sequences give the film a far smoother feel, not to mention filling in vital details. They also return the film's real protagonist, the Japanese scientist Dr Shuzo Yoshizumi, to a central role. In the shortened version of the film, he only becomes a significant character in the film's second half, whereas here he is clearly central to the film from the outset. But that, of course, was the 'problem' that international distributors had with the original version of Virus in the first place: despite the international cast and locations, it was actually a Japanese film, the most expensive Japanese film ever made up to that date, in fact. For a widespread international release, it was obviously decided that the best strategy would be to try and disguise the film's Japanese origins as much as possible, which meant cutting the numerous scenes in Japan (and in Japanese) from the film, pretty much in their entirety. Which resulted in a film with no real focus, as the original pivotal character - Yoshizumi - all but vanishes from the first half of the movie. It also resulted in an episodic feel to the film, as the focus switches from dramas at the White House, to an Antarctic base to a British sub and so on, with little feeling of continuity, the narrative baton being passed from one group of characters to another with little continuity between them.
The original version manages its narrative far more effectively by firmly establishing from early on part of the narrative at the Japanese Antaractic base, at which Yoshizumi is stationed, makes the shift of the action to the Antaractic later in the film feel less jarring. Likewise, the original pre-credits sequence is a flash-forward, with Yoshizumi aboard the British submarine, on a reconnaissance mission to Japan, to take air samples to see if the virus is still widespread. Not only does this firmly establish Yoshizumi as the lead character from the outset, but it also makes the subsequent introduction of the sub and its crew feel less arbitrary, as well as setting up the premise that, thanks to virulence of the virus - witnessed by the scenes of a devastated and lifeless Tokyo, its citizens reduced to skeletal corpses - humanity is now confined to the Antarctic (extremely low temperatures render the virus dormant). The missing Japanese scenes also flesh out the narrative, focusing on the human aspects of the pandemic. While the scenes concerning the pandemic in the international version are all broad brush, looking at the bigger picture of the virus' spread and impact, mainly via the attempts of the US government to deal with the crisis, the Japanese sequences focus on an individual hospital, where Yoshizumi's girlfriend works as a nurse, and the chaos which ensues as it is quickly overwhelmed by the virus' victims, with finally even the staff succumbing to it. Yoshizuma's guilt over leaving his pregnant girlfriend behind - she never wanted him to take up the Antarctic post - becomes an important theme in this version of the film, (he never knows that she lost the baby - which apparently wasn't his - due to stress brought on by dealing with the virus at the hospital).
Most significantly, the original version presents a fuller version of Yoshizuma's climactic four year walk from Washington, (where he was on an unsuccessful mission to prevent an automated nuclear exchange between the arsenals of the US and USSR which threatened the Antarctic base), to Tierra del Fuego, where the survivors of the base are now located. During this journey, as he wanders through a corpse strewn landscape, he expiates his guilt, finally reunited with the female Norwegian base member and her child. All of which isn't to say that Virus, in its original form is perfect. The film still has problems. Much of the English-language dialogue still sounds awkward, presumably the result of having been translated directly from the Japanese and the narrative still feels meandering in places. Moreover, quite a few of the plot devices do feel too obviously contrived - particularly the business of the nuclear exchange and the mission to Washington DC, which clearly exists primarily to provide the film with some kind of 'action' climax. (Although, like other more action-orientated sequences, it feels rather perfunctory in execution). Many of the numerous supporting characters also feel barely developed, many barely enjoying sufficient screen time to register on the viewer, let alone play a properly significant role in the sprawling narrative. This latter aspect is one of the film's most frustrating - it touches upon so many interesting ideas, but never seems to fully develop any of them, giving the impression that the film's makers couldn't make up their minds exactly what it was meant to be about. Starting as a disaster film, it then incorporates conspiracy thriller aspects before becoming a post-apocalyptic story, looking as if it is about to turn into an exploration of how a new society, with an imbalance of men and women, should be organised, before pushing this into the background in favour of an action climax. Just one of these strands could have made a movie in themselves, but instead they are mashed together in a rather unsatisfactory fashion.
Despite all of this,Virus, in its full form, is a mightily impressive film. Particularly impressive is its refusal to sensationalise the subject matter - the spread of the virus is shown, as noted, in broad brush terms, with the focus being on the attempts to contain and treat it, either at the macro level of the White House, or the more intimate setting of the Japanese hospital. We aren't subjected to too many harrowing scenes of individual victims suffering horrible deaths - the film's impact comes from the way in which it conveys the sheer, global, scale of the disaster. Many individual scenes are very affecting on the human level, (Yoshizuni's girlfriend's suicide alongside the young son of one of his Antarctic colleagues when they find themselves, seemingly, the last people alive in Tokyo, for instance), and collectively give the film its emotional charge. It also feels very prescient - parts of it make for uncomfortable viewing in present circumstances: the first viral outbreaks are in Italy (it consequently becomes referred to as 'Italian Flu'), for example. The inadequate response from many governments (particularly the US government) ring true. While Glenn Ford's fictional US President is more rational than his current real life counterpart, his senior general is obsessed with the idea of there having to be a tangible 'enemy' in this war, convinced that the virus is a biological weapon emanating from the USSR. (It is, in fact, a biological weapon, but one which has originated as part of a US programme). The difficulty in producing a vaccine is another aspect which rings true today, (in the film, it takes several years to produce a vaccine which can protect the survivors, an early version enabling Yoshizuni to go on his mission to Washington).
But did I identify what it was that haunted me about even the truncated version of Virus that I saw thirty odd years ago? Well, yes. What the film conveys so well (and even more so in its complete version) is the sheer fragility of human existence. I think that is what struck me most in both viewings - it is the way in which, so quickly, humanity is reduced to a vestige by an intangible enemy. All of civilisation becomes just a handful of people living in huts in an Antarctic wilderness. More than that, it conveys the trauma of those survivors, having to come to terms with the knowledge that everything and everyone that they know has ceased to exist, that there is, in truth, no world to return to beyond their freezing exile. The film puts it all over: the guilt, the grief, the despair, the feelings of utter pointlessness. There's no doubt that I liked Virus a lot better the second time around - even though the version I saw (on Popcornflix), for some reason, didn't have English sub-titles on the Japanese sequences, although I got the gist of what was going on reasonably well. Seen in its entirety, I can overlook that submarine, (in reality it was a Chilean Navy sub, originally built for the US Navy in WWII and actually plays two different boats in the film), and even Chuck Connors as as a Brit didn't jar so much. (He wisely didn't attempt any sort of accent). Even the awkward dialogue in the English language sequences didn't seem so bad - the cast does the best it can with it and the results are more than passable. The Japanese cast, even when speaking English, are uniformly good. All in all, Virus, in retrospect, is a film well worth watching and well overdue a critical reappraisal.
I found myself watching Escape From Galaxy 3 this afternoon, when it was being shown on B Movie TV. It really wasn't a good use of my time. Another Italian Star Wars cash in, this one is even more cheaply made than any of Alfonso Brescia's similar films. So cheaply made, in fact, that its special effects sequences are lifted from Starcrash, a far superior slice of Italian science fiction schlock. (Indeed, in some territories it was even marketed as Starcrash 2, despite having no connection, aside from the recycled effects footage, with Luigi Cozzi's film). The climactic battle from Starcrash is re-edited to provide Escape From Galaxy 3's opening. Which, to be frank, is the most exciting part of the film. After this, while it looks as if it is going to be some kind of chase movie, the plot quickly stalls, with the main story line apparently forgotten,until seemingly being remembered a few minutes before the end for a perfunctory climax. Not that the plot was any great shakes in the first place, recycling tropes from other (although not necessarily better) films of the same ilk.
The film opens briskly enough, with villainous Oraclon (aka 'King of the Night), played by Don Powell, and his fleet invading Galaxy 3, with the aim of deposing its planets' reigning kings and becoming its supreme ruler. First up is the peace loving King of Exalon, who refuses to surrender to Oraclon and is consequently destroyed along with his giant spaceship, but not before he has sent his daughter, Belle Star (Sherry Buchanan) and trusted aide Lithan (Fausto di Bella) on a mission to enlist the assistance of allied kings. Chased clear out of Galaxy 3, the pair find refuge on a planet in another galaxy. A planet that turns out to be Earth, but a post-apocalyptic future Earth, where what is left of the population have reverted to an agrarian lifestyle and largely abandoned technology. There follows a lengthy diversion, as Belle Star and Lithan discover the joys of a simpler way of life and we learn that they have no idea what water, love or sex are, (leaving one pondering how they reproduce). We also learn that their abstention from love and sex renders them practically immortal. Needless to say, they soon discover the joys of love, sex and water, seemingly forgetting about their mission in the process. They are finally reminded of the mission by the arrival of Orcalon, who starts shooting up the locals. Attempting to draw the villain away from the planet in their spaceship, the pair are captured. Aboard Oraclon's ship, they find that the other kings they were meant to be seeking have all been captured and deposed. But Belle Star distracts Oraclon with the power of love/sex long enough for Lithan to destroy him by shooting rays from eyes (a hitherto unmentioned ability). The kings are released and Belle Star and Lithan head back to Earth, to live as sexed up mortals.
Even at around ninety minutes, the film drags. The pacing is off and the tone uneven. While the pantomime-style villainy of Oraclon and the simplicity of the plot might suggest that the film was aimed at younger audiences, the sex and nudity indicates otherwise. There is a deeply disturbing moment when Oraclon is able to voyeuristically watch Belle Star and Lithan making love aboard their ship, before capturing them, a feat achieved via one of the many pieces of unexplained 'technology' that populate the film. The dialogue is dominated by people speaking gibberish relating to the activation of such devices, ("Prepare the uranium vapour rockets!", "Use the hyper-solar missile systems", or "Use the Megamethric Teleprobe and scan the whole Eastern galaxy! Wait! Including the Inquidissidrent Conic Tangents". The main pleasures of the film come from Don Powell's over-the-top performance as Oraclon. Not only does he dress as if he is in a seventies disco (he even has glitter in his beard), but his control room even looks like a disco, (the action is also accompanied by a disco-style soundtrack, composed by Powell). The film's cheapness is evident in the cramped sets with flimsy-looking scenery, not to mention the fact that the villain's army never seems to number more than two (non-speaking) members at a time. Not surprisingly, director Bitto Albertini hides behind a pseudonym, 'Ben Norman'. The screenwriting credit also seems to pseudonymous - what can you say about a film so bad its writer signs themself off as 'John Thomas'?
I've had a listless week. Which followed a lethargic weekend. I can't seem to focus on anything, interest eludes me. Perhaps it is the change in the weather - my lack of interest in anything mirroring the drop in temperature and lack of sunshine. Maybe I've finally got fed up with the routines of this lockdown. My sleep patterns are all over the place - which isn't helping. That's the trouble of living through a situation where you don't actually have to get up to do anything in particular - time becomes fluid and tasks can be done at any time, so schedules and routines go out of the window. That said, despite feeling that I'm not making progress on any front of my life and definitely not feeling creative, I have managed to put together a new podcast over at the Overnightscape Underground and come up with a new story for The Sleaze. So, not an entirely unproductive week.
While I have plenty of recently watched films I should be writing up here, right now, I just don't have the energy. Instead, I give you another video of my model railway. To be honest, there's nothing here we haven't seen before: 'Clan Line' is in charge of the 'Pines Express', while the electro-diesel hauls a parcels train. The notable thing is that, for the first time, everything ran smoothly enough that I could shoot it all in one take, with no derailments or other problems. I should, of course, be rewiring the layout, as I have everything I need now to institute a 'cab control' system. But, again, my recent bout of listlessness has meant that no progress has been made on any aspect of the layout this week. But at least things are running smoothly and, when I do finally do the rewiring and fix the track down permanently, it should be consistently smooth.
Another trailer for a direct-to-video movie from the late, great Cliff Twemlow. Moonstalker is about the hunt for a Beast of Exmoor type creature, with Cliff as the Fiat Panda-driving great white hunter brought in to track down the mysterious beast, (which naturally turns out to be a werewolf). The Fiat Panda was the result of a typically astute bit of budget-saving business by Twemlow, who did a deal with a local Fiat dealership to provide the car for free. Unfortunately, Cliff Twemlow films aren't always easy to get to see these days - Moonstalker is another tht I've never seen in its entirety. I've always maintained that if he had been American and working in the US, Twemlow's films would have cult status and be available on specialist DVD labels. Sadly, here in the UK, a lot of snobbery still surrounds the world of film criticism, these sorts of direct-to-video movies, in particular - still being shunned and condemned to obscurity. The fact is, that while no cinematic masterpieces, Cliff Twemlow's films, (at least, the ones I've seen), are solidly crafted pieces of low budget entertainment. He knew his audience and delivered what they wanted from a direct-to-video experience. Bearing in mind their tiny budgets and lack of resources, the level of professionalism on display is surprisingly high.
Anyway, the reason for this particular 'Random Movie Trailer' isn't quite so random as usual - I ended up thinking about Cliff Twemlow this evening while watching a film on TV. The ever excellent B-Movie TV (available via Roku) ran Into the Darkness, a relatively obscure 1986 British direct-to-video stalk and slash movie. It could almost have been a Cliff Twemlow movie. Not only was it directed by David Kent-Watson, who directed a number of Twemlow's films, but the cast also included frequent Twemlow collaborators John St Ryan and Brett Sinclair (aka Brett Paul), who also had writing credits. Mainly shot in Malta, it clearly had slightly better financing than Twemlow's films, (it was a UK/Swiss co-production), leading to a somewhat slicker look and the presence of a couple of 'name' actors, in the shape of Donald Pleasance and Ronald Lacey. (To be fair, one of Cliff Twemlow's films featured Oliver Tobias and Charles Grey, while another co-starred Fiona Fullerton). To be honest, both are featured in what are really extended cameos, with Donald Pleasance (who is clearly enjoying an expenses-paid working holiday in sunny Malta), also acting as the obligatory red-herring. While nothing out of the ordinary, Into the Darkness is a solid ninety minutes of entertainment, but like so many British direct-to-video films of its era, its largely forgotten nd unheralded in the UK. Thankfully, US based streaming channels like B-Movie TV seem happy to screen it. Which leaves me hoping that, someday, they might also see fit to stream some of Cliff Twemlow's films, (they have, after all, given a late night screening for Derek Ford's Urge to Kill, which as about as obscure as they come).
Where do we start with what's going on in the US at the moment? How about starting with what is isn't about, despite what the right would have you believe. It isn't about shadowy leftist domestic terror organisations fermenting revolution and using anti-racist protests as a cover for their activities. This narrative effectively recasts legitimate protestors as convenient dupes for these supposed radical agitators, thereby relegating the reasons for their protests to secondary status. Which, of course, is the whole point of the current exercise in which Trump, aided by the right-wing media, plays up the spectre of 'Antifa' as some kind of existential threat to the US. Nothing takes the focus off of right-wing violence and racism than building up the threat of left-wing violence by those who oppose it. The fact that 'Antifa' doesn't actually exist, that it is a myth, is neither here nor there. It is a convenient bogeyman with which to frighten the middle class voters in an election year. The fact is that there is no such organisation, there is no centralised 'Antifa' leadership issuing edicts, planning to hijack demonstrations or co-ordinating violence. At best, it is a creed, an idea, a belief that fascism should be opposed, that, if necessary, facist force should be countered with force.
The choice of 'Antifa' as a scapegoat is telling. After all, it is a contraction of 'anti-fascist'. Now, I would assume that we are all anti-fascist. Unless, of course, you are a fascist. So, when Trump declares that 'Antifa' are terrorists, he is effectively saying that anyone who is in opposition to fascism is a terrorist and, in doing so, is clearly aligning himself with the fascists. Which is problematic, as, by extension, it casts America's 'Greatest Generation' who fought the Nazis as terrorists. But none of that matters to Trump and the shadowy extreme right forces behind him. They are interested, primarily, in de-legitimising any kind of protest against the establishment. Which is why they want the media coverage of the current unrest to keep on focusing on the burning buildings and the battles between police and protestors, even though this isn't representative of what is going on across the entire country, with most protests peaceful and local police officers not intervening to prevent or disrupt them. Because the more they can focus on these negative images, the further way from the original cause of these disturbances we get: the death in custody of a black mn at the hands of a white officer employing unreasonable force. The latest in a string of such incidents, in most of which the authorities seem to collude in order to ensure that the perpetrators go unpunished. That's the real problem. A problem which isn't unique to the US.
