I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm clearly in the wrong business - I need to set myself up as one of those 'experts' the media is always quoting. To be specific, I need to set myself up as an 'intelligence expert' as, right now, with the war in Ukraine rumbling on, they are doing good business. This past week, for instance, we've had multiple outlets quoting 'top British intelligence' sources who believe that Putin is actually dead and his place taken by doubles. All sorts of non-evidence is referenced in a desperate attempt to to try and convince us all that this entirely unsubstantiated story might have some substance. The problem lies with the attribution: it is extremely unlikely that any actual serving intelligence operative would be divulging anything to the media. For one thing, it would be a dismissable offence, for another, it would lead to prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. The only way it would happen would be if it had been authorised from higher up - but it seems unlikely that anyone would be authorised to leak such an obvious load of old cobblers to the press. The same sorts of caveats apply to former intelligence workers - unless they had very recently left he business, they wouldn't have up to date information and anything they did know would still be covered by the Official Secrets Act.
Moreover, just because you once worked in some branch of intelligence, it doesn't mean that, after you leave, you continue to have contacts there. Quite the opposite - if you try to exploit any contacts for information, you will likely meet a brick wall. Back in the day, I was an intelligence analyst for the MoD for nearly a decade in the nineties - it was nothing exciting, just lots of desk work, analysing data and turning out reports that I suspect nobody read in full, if at all. I remember that when the invasion of Iraq kicked off, we were warned about the multitude of retired senior military officers who had taken up gigs as media 'intelligence experts', who would inevitably be trying their luck by ringing any number they could remember and trying to bluff information out of the unwary by using their former military rank and sounding official. Because that's the reality of these so-called 'experts' - they are chancers trading on their past, scrabbling for scraps of information they can pass off as 'intelligence'. In truth, they might just as well make it all up - most journalists, let alone the public, are in no position to test the veracity of their claims. They instead rely upon the 'expert's' supposed credentials. Which is precisely why I should be setting up shop as one of these experts: I've actually worked on the 'inside' and I know all the jargon - I can sound pretty convincing when spinning some utter fiction as real intelligence. Obviously, like anyone else who has worked in the intelligence field, I was only ever an expert on my particular, narrow, fields and, s soon as I left, everything I knew quickly became outdated. But that just doesn't seem to matter in the world of media 'experts'...
William Castle will forever be associated with the series of gimmicky shockers he produced and directed in the late fifties and early sixties, titles such as The Tingler (1959), House on Haunted Hill (1959, Homicidal (1960) and Mr Sardonicus (1961). That and his later big 'straight' horror success, Rosemary's Baby (1968), which he produced. In between these, however, were a string of less well-remembered films, mainly comedies and thrillers, which seem rarely to turn up on TV, DVD or any other media. Perhaps the most intriguing amongst them is the black comedy, Let's Kill Uncle (1966), which I recently managed to watch. Based on a 1963 novel of the same name by Rohan O'Grady, it provides Nigel Green - just off of The Ipcress File (1965) - with his first headlining role. Indeed, Green is the closest thing to a star name in the film - which only features seven character - with Mary Badham (who had previously played Scout Finch in the 1962 film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird), the only other face familiar to contemporary audiences. Let's Kill Uncle is one of those films which seems to divide audiences - some enjoy its bizarreness and sense of off-kilter fun, while others dismiss it as another cheap B-movie with no redeeming features, indeed, some even find it distasteful in its central premise. To be sure, its titular game of cat-and-mouse between the two main characters ensured that the film had no obvious audience: the two juvenile protagonists would undoubtedly make adult audiences think it was a children's film while, conversely, the darkness of the subject matter - an uncle plotting to kill his twelve year old nephew for an inheritance - would probably make most adults deem it unsuitable for children. Moreover, it doesn't fit easily into any genre, being neither outright horror film nor thriller, let alone straightforward comedy or drama.
The plot of Let's Kill Uncle is simplicity itself: twelve year old Barnaby Harrison (Pat Cardi) is orphaned after his father dies in a car accident, becoming the heir to a fortune in the process, his only living relative is his British war hero Uncle Kevin (Green), who lives on a remote island and covets the inheritance to the point that he is prepared to kill for it. When Barnaby is sent to the island to live with his uncle, (escorted by police detective Frank Travis (Robert Pickering), Uncle Kevin sets into motion his plan to kill Barnaby, but making it look like an accident. With nobody believing the boy's allegations against his uncle, (he has history as a serial liar), he realises his only hope is to kill Uncle Kevin before he can kill him. His only ally is a twelve year old girl, Chrissie (Badham), who has been sent to the island to live with her Aunt Justine (Linda Lawson) - she too becomes a target for Uncle Kevin when he realises she is aiding his nephew. While Uncle Kevin has to make his attempts at homicide look like an accident - hypnotising Barnaby to walk off a cliff in his sleep, or trying to burn both children to death in a brush fire, for instance, Barnaby and Chrissie have no such restrictions and attempt to poison Uncle Kevin with toadstools and tarantula bites, draining the fuel from his light plane to cause a crash and eventually attempting to feed him to a shark.
The various assassination attempts - by both parties - are undoubtedly what make the film distasteful to many. While an adult attempting to kill children - by some pretty extreme means - would seem bad enough, the glee with which the two children - particularly Chrissie - take to plotting and attempting murder is possibly even worse for such viewers. It directly challenges the idea of childhood innocence that films and TV of this period tended to promote, instead presenting them as scheming, ghoulish and potentially homicidal. Sure, they are acting in self-defence, but most of their attempts on Kevin's life are pretty cold-blooded, with the pair showing no reluctance to resort to deadly methods, let alone any remorse for their actions. Their antagonist, Uncle Kevin, is fascinating character - ruthless, yet charming and good humoured. He makes no secret to Barnaby of his intent to kill him, knowing that nobody will believe the boy, but also makes clear that it is nothing personal: he just wants the money. When not trying to murder him, Uncle Kevin gives the impression that he actually likes his nephew and certainly admires his attempts to turn the tables. Being and officer and a gentleman, Uncle Kevin plays his murderous game to strict rules - his house is 'Switzerland', neutral territory where Barnaby is safe, (obviously, if the boy were to die there, suspicion would immediately fall upon his uncle). Despite this, Barnaby and Chrissie, of course, have no qualms upon attempting to kill Uncle Kevin in his own home.
It has to be said that Nigel Green is excellent as Uncle Kevin, a role that gave him a chance to break away from the usual military martinet types of roles he was generally associated with. Whilst he might well be an ex-military man, Uncle Kevin is presented as being far from a martinet - he is by turns a charming host, a playful, even jovial, uncle and a determined schemer who, nonetheless, always pursues his attempts at murder with good humour. Ultimately, though, Green's enjoyable performance becomes problematic - he is the strongest character in the film and one can't help but like him, despite his murderous intent. In fact, he is arguably the only truly likeable character in the film. Barnaby, although the innocent victim of his uncle's schemes, is presented as being self-pitying, entitled, whiny and a habitual liar. His constant putting down of Chrissie, despite the fact that she is clearly far more resourceful and capable than him, quickly becomes objectionable. For her part, Chrissie, while a more easily likeable character than Barnaby, nonetheless comes across as more than slightly disturbing in her enthusiasm for devising ways to kill Uncle Kevin as the film progresses. The only other two major characters, Justine and Frank, are vapid and ineffective, seemingly existing only to provide a romantic sub-plot.
Let's Kill Uncle has other problems, most obviously the pacing. It seems to spend an age setting up the situation and establishing the characters. There are far too many talky scenes of exposition in the early part of the film, with the actual main business of the three main characters devising and executing their murder schemes delayed far too long and consequently occupying far too little of the running time. As a result, they feel too hurried for them to be suspenseful, let alone shocking. The biggest problem, though, is the ending, which is abrupt, perfunctory, unsatisfying and resolves nothing. According to Cardi, Castle actually filmed several endings, with the studio (Universal) selecting what Cardi thought was the worst. Despite having the backing of a major studio, Let's Kill Uncle still looks and feels as cheap as any of Castle's better known horror films. Indeed, aside from the subject matter, Let's Kill Uncle overall looks and feels a typical William Castle film: the limited cast, the studio-bound production (there's a single location sequence) giving it a claustrophobic feel, even when the action is supposedly taking place outside and the presence of at least one grotesque character, (the legless Ketchman, played by Ref Sanchez). In spite of this, Castle just can't seem to quite create the same atmosphere as he did on earlier films. In part this is down to the poor script structure which effectively undermines any attempts to create suspense. The use of colour also doesn't help - even some typical Castle schtick in a derelict spooky hotel just can't quite deliver, with the colour photography and associated brighter lighting depriving the sets of the shadowy menace the earlier monochrome pictures delivered.
Yet, despite all of this, I still enjoyed Let's Kill Uncle. Perhaps it was the novelty value of it being, for me, a hitherto unseen William Castle film, or maybe it was Nigel Green's darkly comedic performance, or just the dark, off-beat, subject matter, but I found it a likeable, if flawed, film. It certainly isn't the best of William Castle's films as director but, like those earlier, black and white shockers, it has his trademark feeling of playfulness as he tries to manipulate audience expectations. It also follows his usual pattern of being fashioned around a single, flamboyant and dominant performance - Vincent Price in the early horrors, Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford in some of the later thrillers, for instance. Nigel Green's performance in Let's Kill Uncle is on a par with many of these, without the actor ever feeling as if he is going too far over the top. (It is notable that Castle's less successful films tended to lack such strong central performances). Even the abrupt ending couldn't diminish my enjoyment of the film, such was the entertainment value of green's performance. Let's Kill Uncle is probably best described as a misfiring attempt at black comedy - with a better script which more fully explored its dark subject matter and better developed the plot, it might have been a minor classic.
Man's Daring was another of those US men's magazines that eventually made the transition into a full fledged pin up magazine. Indeed, it did it earlier than most, transforming into just Daring with the February 1967 issue, abandoning the lurid cover paintings in favour of photo covers at the same time. That, however, was still some way in the future when this, the May 1963 issue, hit the newsstands. Just for a change, instead of the usual cover illustrations of semi-naked and bound women being menaced and tortured by Nazis/Commies/'savages', this one has them at the mercy of juvenile delinquents (JDs). This was actually something of a recurrent themed for Man's Daring covers, which included several variations on this theme, with girls being abused variously by biker gangs, surfer gangs and the like. Here, it is illustrating 'Nympho JD's Hayloft Terror' - both title and illustration titillating the reader with implications of sadism and rape. The staples of the genre.
Another recurrent theme of the magazine and its covers is represented by the other featured story: '"TNT" Tucker's Naked Joy Girl Guerilla War Against the Nazi Torturers'. Tales of shapely female resistance fighters taking on Nazis/Japs/Commies etc, while clad only in their underwear, was a favourite subject matter for men's magazine war stories. Of course, as they are the weaker sex, they always have be led by some burly, usually shirtless, US serviceman who has somehow become trapped behind enemy lines. Obviously, the term 'Joy Girl' is a euphemism for prostitute, guaranteeing that the story will involve the hero hiding out in a brothel, where his manliness persuades the occupants to rise up against their oppressors. The cover also highlights 'It Would Take a Big Warm Blooded Man to Thaw Out the Deep Freeze Virgins of The White Hell'. I'd venture a guess that this has something to do with another of those manly guys stumbling into a town full of sex starved women in one of the remotest parts of Alaska. The rest of the story writes itself. Finally, there's the obligatory pseudo science 'real' sex report - in this case 'Ultrasonics: A Boon to a Better Sex Life'. Presumably based around the idea that if the crude vibrations from an idling bus engine can induce erections in male passengers, then ultrasonic vibrations will undoubtedly induce multiple orgasms in both men and women. It's a scientific 'fact'.
Man's Daring survived in a men's magazine format from 1959 to 1966. In its Daring incarnation, it ran from 1967 to 1975, in this softcore format, it also published a roughly quarterly series of 'specials' between 1969 and 1976. (Man's Daring shouldn't be confused with Man's Daring Adventures, which was an earlier men's magazine from a different publisher, which put of four issues 1955-56).
I was aware of the existence of Swedish action movies - the various adaptations of the 'Commander Hamilton' novels being the best known - but I wasn't previously aware of the work of Mats Helge, a sort of Scandinavian Andy Sidaris, knocking out a seemingly endless stream of low-budget action films. Animal Protector (1988), also known as Firing Squad, was often been vaunted, (not least by this trailer), as some kind of animal rights action flick, with heroic action heroes blowing things up and firing guns in defence of mistreated animals. Sort of like a militant RSPCA. In truth, it is not quite like that. The protagonists aren't launching armed raids on battery farms to liberate chickens, but rather it involves two separate groups attempting to storm an island where a rogue US colonel is running some kind of biological warfare lab which experiments on animals. On the one hand, we have the 'Animal Protectors' - a trio of hot eighties chicks - going in to save the animals, on the other, we have a pair of CIA agents (one of whom is a dead ringer for a young Kurt Russel), trying to close down the operation on behalf of the US government.
David Carradine, (who appeared in a number of Mats Helge movies), headlines an otherwise Swedish cast, playing the villainous Colonel Whitlock. It is all in English and while some of the local cast are dubbed with American or British accents, others deliver their lines in Swedish accented English - which seems odd as most of them are apparently playing US soldiers. It i sall as frenetic and messy as you'd expect, with highly variable performances, poorly written dialogue and a thumping and very loud music soundtrack. Despite the somewhat scuzzy look and sometimes tinny sound, it is actually quite competently made by the standards of low budget actioners. There's plenty of action, including a lot of hand-to-hand combat, with Carradine involved in a lot of it. Compared to some of the stuff that Carradine was involved in at this point in his career, Animal Protector is quite decent. If you like frantic, more than slightly barmy, low budget action, then you could do a lot worse than to look up Animal Protector - it's a lot more fun than many of the US equivalents that it seeks to imitate.
So, now they want us all to sing 'Sweet Caroline' in unison at street parties celebrating the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. Obviously, the correct response to this is 'fuck off'. The idea that the entire population are going to go completely ga ga next month and uncritically worship at the feet of the Royal Family is simply offensive. There are still some of us who find all this fawning over something as archaic as a hereditary monarchy quite repugnant. This is the twenty first century, for God's sake, not the middle ages. Monarchy is an anachronism which has long passed its sell by date. My late father was a fervent anti-monarchist. I remember both the Silver Jubilee in 1977 and the later Royal Wedding of Charles and Diana not for street parties, but for the fact that we went to the beach instead. We were the only kids in our street not to attend either street party. Not that this turned me into an ultra Royalist in reaction to my father. I simply developed a disinterest in Royalty, an ambivalence which saw them as a harmless anachronism. It was the Diamond Jubilee that really radicalised me - I started out ambivalent but ended up turning into my father. It was the TV coverage that really did it for me - all the deference and creeping and crawling. It made me realise that my father had undoubtedly been right - there's nothing harmless about the continued existence of our monarchy. It is used to constantly reinforce the idea that there is a correct social order in the UK and that we should all 'know our place' - a justification for the class system and the snobbery, privilege, entitlement that comes from unearned hereditary wealth. The sort of wealth that too many of our leaders enjoy and use to wield disproportionate influence
It isn't that I want to see the UK equivalent to the storming of the Winter Palace, or see the entire Royal Family executed in a cellar, you understand. I don't really have anything against them personally. But, at the very least, we need to see them radically scaled back, much like other constitutional monarchies have been in places like Norway, Denmark or the Netherlands. Get rid of all the bloody hangers on and the extended family of parasites. Moreover, we need to make them properly constitutional. I used to labour under the common misapprehension that the 'Royal Assent' required for parliamentary bills to finally pass into law was merely a formality. But this turned out not to be true - the Queen has refused assent to some legislation, namely that to do with her and her family's finances. This really must stop - it undermines the fundamental concept of the 'rule of law' which is meant to govern democratic societies - nobody gets to pick and choose which laws they observe. But hey, as, thanks to the propaganda of the right wing press and establishment, daily brainwashing the UK into believing that accident of birth is a perfectly reasonable criteria for selecting leaders, none of this is likely to happen. Instead, the best that the likes of me can do is to simply ignore all the forthcoming Jubilee bollocks. Not that it will be difficult for me - if a street party has been organised for my street, nobody has invited me. Which is par for the course - I don't get invited to barbecues, house warming parties or anything similar - which is fine by me. I like to keep myself to myself and politely avoid the neighbours wherever possible. So, with luck, I won't be hearing anyone singing 'Sweet Caroline' to the Queen, so won't have to lean out of a window and shout 'fuck off!'...
There comes a point while watching a film like The Hyena (1991), usually around half way, when I find myself asking 'why?', just why am I subjecting myself to this sort of cinematic hell? OK, perhaps 'cinematic hell' is too strong a term to describe The Hyena. But there's just something about it prevents from engaging with the movie. The Hyena comes from Joe D'Amato's late period, when he turned out a long, long string of such 'erotic thrillers' seemingly aimed at the direct-to-video/DVD and pay TV markets. It certainly isn't vintage D'Amato - not a patch on his Emanuelle films or his horror output like Absurd, all of which are entertaining in their schlocky, sleazy way - instead feeling as if he was just going through the motions. Indeed, The Hyena has a pretty much identikit thriller plot which it crawls through at a pace which makes the film feel at least twenty minutes longer than it actually is. Shot in English, it features leading actors to whom English clearly isn't their first language, leaving them stumbling over lines of dialogue which would still sound awkward if spoken by someone fluent in the language. For once, dubbing would have been merciful -for both cast and audience. Despite off of this, though, the film isn't exactly badly made - the production has a superficial glossiness to it, lighting, camerawork and editing are all done to a professional standard - yet it just never engages, The erotic bits are simply not very erotic, let alone plentiful and it is far too slow and predictable to be thrilling. A film that, in theory, should have provided some enjoyably sleazy cheap thrills, instead turned out to be an endurance test.
The Hyena was part of a double bill if seamy and scuzzy sexploitation that I decided to watch this past weekend, the other half being Mardi Gras Massacre (1983). This latter film, another entry in my gradual working through of the DPP's 'video nasty' list, turned out to be the complete opposite of the Joe D'Amato film. While The Hyena was a piece of professional film making that turned out to be a bore, Mardi Gras Massacre was a notorious ultra low budget shocker with a semi-professional cast, near non-existent plot line and minimalist script, (the fact that it was completed in 1978 but not released for another five years should tell you something about its quality),, which actually turned out to be pretty entertaining. Clearly inspired by Herchell Gordon Lewis' Bloodfeast (1963), Mardi Gras Massacre is, in effect, a vehicle for a series of gory set-pieces, featuring naked women being ritually sacrificed by evisceration. The villain, known only as 'John', is a High Priest of an ancient Aztec goddess, luring the victims to his apartment, where he ties them naked to a table in front of his altar, before doing a quick change from his business suit to his High Priest gear, complete with mask and 'bum freezer' tunic. Bearing in mind the low, low budget and the era the film was made in, the gore effects are surprisingly good, involving rubber torsos being cut open and huge handfuls of offal from the local butcher being pulled out by the handful. What's really impressive that different torsos were constructed for each victim, to match their physique, rather than just re-using a single one-size-fits-all prop. Because John wants only 'evil' girls for his sacrifices, he naturally recruits prostitutes. Prostitutes who work as strippers, (the two being synonymous in seventies sleaze cinema), thereby giving an excuse for the film to stop for various strip tease acts.
There's a sub-plot involving the cops investigating the killings, with one of them starting an affair with a potential victim, but most of the running time is devoted to gore and strip acts. The fact that it is set in New Orleans during Mardi Gras is barely evident - one dingy club interior looks much any other dingy club interior, anywhere in the world. Even though the climactic chase takes place during Mardi Gras, we see absolutely no evidence of any kind of street parades or celebrations. Mardi Gras Massacre is, surprisingly for this sort of film, well made, with good sound quality, decent editing and nice, clear cinematography from a non-wobbling camera. Even the film stock looks to be good quality, in contrast to the usual grainy and scratchy stock used to film such low budget epics.Its main problem lies with its structure which, not surprisingly, very repetitive, being centered around three sacrifices which are staged pretty much identically. Some variation here would have helped immensely, but the makers clearly though that the mere presence of such large quantities of gore (unusual in seventies movies) would be enough to keep the audience's interest. Yet, despite this and the fact that the film runs too long, Mardi Gras Massacre never felt boring. Perhaps because it was so ludicrous and honest-to-goodness sleazy, it somehow held my attention in a way The Hyena failed to do. As a sidenote, Mardi Gras Massacre, having been effectively banned in the UK by its inclusion on the 'video nasties' list, was only submitted to BBFC earlier this year. It received an uncut 18 certificate and is due a DVD/Blu Ray release next month. (I caught it on one of those dubious streaming services the government now wants regulated by OFCOM - which can only be bad news).
American Manhood, a relatively short lived men's magazine of the fifties, sported what, by today's standards, seem the most amazingly homoerotic covers. This one, from February 1953, is a particular favourite, with its bare chested, muscle bound, bazooka-firing GI. It was actually pretty typical of the magazine, (whose strap line 'The Virile Magazine' just reinforces for contemporary readers the homoeroticism), which variously featured these shirtless muscle men variously firing machine guns, loading artillery pieces and fighting sharks underwater. But one of the story titles on the cover gives a clue as to the origins of this imagery: 'You Don't Have to be a Skinny Weakling'. American Manhood was originally title Mr America, a body building magazine which, in August 1952, turned into a men's adventure title. Despite a new emphasis on fiction, it never quite lost sight of its body building origins, always featuring articles related to men's fitness.
Indeed, 'The Virile Magazine' sub-title was later dropped and replaced by 'Adventure. Sports. Physical Culture'. Oddly, at the beginning of 1953, Mr America reappeared as a separate title, running parallel with American Manhood, until the latter ceased publication and the former reverted to being a body building magazine later that year. The new Mr America, in its men's magazine guise, featured somewhat less homoerotic covers - no bared chests or unfeasible musculatures - more typical of contemporary magazines of the genre. It also sported the sub-title 'For the Man With a Future', until it's last issue in this format, when it changed to 'The Magazine With the Impact of a Hurricane'. Strangely, bearing in mind Mr America's reversion to body building content, unlike the parallel issues of American Manhood, it didn't feature any body building related content on its cover. Perhaps they thought those incredible covers on the sister magazine were doing enough to promote the dream of perfectly muscled American manhood...
Primal Rage (1988) comes from that period when a lot of Italian exploitation films were being shot in Florida. Not just exploitation films, in fact - several of Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer's action comedies were filmed there in the late seventies and eighties, along with several solo vehicles for both actors. Unlike those films, Primal Rage was one of a number of Italian exploitation pieces aimed squarely at the US market, featuring mainly American performers, but with mainly Italian crews. Originally a project for Umberto Lenzi, Primal Rage ended up being directed by Vittorio Rambaldi, son of celebrated special effects expert Carlo Rambaldi (who provided this film's effects). It is, in effect, a zombie movie without actual zombies. Instead we have a number of people on a University campus being infected with a virus from an escaped experimental baboon, which sends them into an uncontrollable rage, rampaging around gorily murdering people - like Italian movie zombies.
In some ways, it could be seen as a variation on George Romero's non-zombie zombie film The Crazies, but aimed more at a teen audience. While Primal Rage could never be accused of originality - its most surprising touch is casting B-movie action icon Bo Svenson as a research scientist - it is at least a servicable and slick looking horror film. What it lacks in depth it makes up for in incident, with a lively climax at the University's Halloween dance, with the participants masked and costumed for the occasion. Despite a bland cast, it moves along at a reasonable pace and features a typically eighties thumping metal soundtrack and features plenty of gore. It might not be ground-breaking, but it is diverting enough while it is on. Ultimately, it suffers by comparison to another Lenzi-originated Florida shot project, Nightmare Beach (1989), which features both a stronger cast and more original, not to mention quite barking mad, plot.
A shotgun marriage of two different Italian exploitation genres - sex film and cannibal film - Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977) sounds as if it should be a disaster, yet, in truth, it works surprisingly well. Directed by the prolific Joe D'Amato, the film is part of the Laura Gemser starring 'Black Emanuelle' series - not to be confused with the official Emmanuelle' series of films, (note the subtle difference in spellings of the name), starring Sylvia Kristel - which featured the globe-trotting adventures of frequently naked investigative reporter Emanuelle. That the series was already running out of steam as a pure softcore sex movie series is witnessed by the way that earlier entries had already begun to mix genres - notably D'Amato's earlier Emanuelle in America (1977), which saw the heroine investigating snuff films. Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals opens with reference to another genre as we find her working under cover in a New York psychiatric hospital, disguised as a patient, (shades of Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor). Here she witnesses a young female patient biting chunks out of the nursing staff as she is restrained, managing to photograph a strange tattoo above the girl's pubic area. Later, she learns that the patient had previously bitten off and eaten part of a nurse's breast. Enlisting the help of an anthropologist, (played by Gabriele Tinti, Gemser's real-life husband), she finds that the tattoo is a tribal symbol of a lost tribe of South American cannibals. Next thing, she and the anthropologist are heading for the Amazon to set up an expedition to find the cannibals.
Structurally, the film is effectively split into two halves, representing the two genres it straddles. The first part, particularly from the point that Gemser and Tinti arrive in South America, is predominantly a sex film, with Gemser getting off with Tinti and soaping down fellow expedition member Isabelle (Monica Zanchi). The presence of a nun in the expedition (she's traveling back to her jungle mission), raises the hope that we might also have some 'Nunsploitation' thrown in for good measure but, unusually for D'Amato, this never materialises. The second half of the movie is the cannibal film, with the sexploits of the various characters taking a back seat to to some gory human sacrifices, beheadings, disembowelments and the like. The turning point comes when Donald O'Brien's white hunter turns up in the nick of time to rescue Emanuelle from the coils of a large snake. O'Brien's character, (who is accompanied by his wife and a guide) , provides the film with a sub-plot as their real motive for joining Gemser's expedition is to locate a cache of diamonds from a plane that had crashed in cannibal country. While this section of the film does concentrate on the cannibals, it isn't devoid of sexual action, with O'Brien's wife getting all hot and bothered as she watches the guide cleaning his rifle, before dragging him off into the jungle for a damn good rogering.
To D'Amato's credit, the two halves of the film hang together very well, with the shift in tone as it turns into a cannibal picture never feeling jarring. What D'Amato understood was that the two different genres are thematically linked: both are about the objectification of women's bodies - one as sex objects, the other as, literally, pieces of meat as they are carved up. Indeed, the cannibal film arguably represents the ultimate in the objectification of women by literally reducing them to a collection of body parts. (While slasher films do something similar, the cannibal genre takes it much further. It is notable that cannibal films frequently focus on female victims and highlight the cutting off and consumption of nipples, breasts, buttocks etc, with the obvious pleasure the cannibals take in eating these body parts effectively equating cannibalism with sexual ecstasy). True to form, in Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, the victims we actually see being carved up and eaten are both female - while one male character is gruesomely tortured to death, we never see him eaten and other male characters are likewise killed by traps or spears, but apparently not eaten.
Voyeurism is the other theme that runs through the film. Whether it is Isabelle masturbating as she illicitly watches Emanuelle and the anthropologist having sex, O'Brien spying on his wife as she's serviced by their guide, the cannibals stealthily tracking the expedition or Emanuelle constantly framing everything via her camera, everybody is watching everybody else. Perhaps it is a commentary on the nature of pornography, which casts us all as voyeurs as we consume it, or even the way in which modern media constantly records our every move. Nothing, it seems, can happen unless it is being observed, no matter how intimate or horrific the moment. Emanuelle even stops to photograph a drugged and naked Isabelle being ritually raped before she and the anthropologist rescue her. Maybe D'Amato intended Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals to be a satirical commentary on exploitation itself - how we, as audiences, can't bear to look away, no matter how gruesome it all gets.
Not that I'm claiming that the film is any kind of misunderstood classic. The fact is that D'Amato (a much maligned director) made trash. But he made entertaining and usually quite well made trash, as is the case here. Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals is actually a pretty good looking film. Even if some of the jungle sequences do look as if they were shot in a local park. Which isn't surprising, as they were apparently filmed around a lake near Rome, with local Filipinos drafted in to play the cannibals. Like all cannibal films, it does play on a lot of racist stereotypes, throwing in a few additional ones for good measure, most notably that of the sexual prowess of the black stud with regard to the guide who satisfies O'Brien's wife in a way he never could. The sex movie part of it, of course, is all about fulfilling male sexual fantasies. To its credit, though, it does present us with a strong, independent and capable female lead in Gemser, who doesn't have to be rescued by a man all the time and can kick arse with the best of them. (OK, strong yet sexy and feminine women who can dominate or at least hold their own with men is also a male fantasy, but a much more acceptable one than most). Gemser, along with the rest of the main cast, gives a decent perfmance, above average for this sort of film. O'Brien is suitably creepy in his role, (unable to get it up for his wife, he instead gropes Isabelle while she's sleeping), although not quite as barnstormingly barmy as he was in Zombie Holocaust a few years later.
In the final analysis, despite being somewhat slow moving in parts, Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals represents a superior slice of cross genre exploitation. Which is all the more remarkable considering that it was, reputedly, shot in two and a half weeks. Hell, what's not to like about a film that climaxes with a naked Laura Gemser in a boat, brandishing a pump action shotgun and blowing away marauding cannibals?
Another year, another Eurovision Song Contest avoided. I'm sorry, but I've never grasped the appeal of the thing. Besides, this year there really wasn't any point as everybody knew that Ukraine was going to get the sympathy vote and win. Something which seemed to enrage a lot of people on Twitter. Apparently it 'devalues' the competition when entrants win on the basis of having been invaded by a hostile power rather than their artistic merits. Whereas, of course, the usual situation of entrants winning on the basis of purely politically motivated voting was presumably OK? I mean, since when has anybody won the Eurovision Song Contest on the basis of artistic merit? Of course, a lot of those decrying Ukraine's win were Russia's foreign legion of Putin supporters who tirelessly peddle the Kremlin line that Ukraine's government are a bunch of Nazis and that all the atrocities committed by Russian troops are just Western propaganda. While a lot of the accounts putting this stuff out are undoubtedly Russian bots, there are still a disturbing number of actual people who are happily following the official Russian line - the sort who boast about how, while their neighbours were putting up Ukrainian flags, they had 'bravely' put a Russian flag up on their house. One is left wondering just why they are doing this? Are they deluded? Do they actually believe it, in the face of all evidence? Maybe they are just hardcore conspiracy freaks and/or committed contrarians, who just have to take a different line to everyone else in order to 'prove' their intellectual superiority.
Whatever their motivation, begrudging Ukraine's victory in something as trivial as Eurovision has surely to represent a nadir for the pro-Putin brigade. But, as I said, I avoided Eurovision altogether, taking the opportunity to instead catch up with some old movies I've had on hold for a while now. Just for a change, I avoided the usual exploitation in favour of more mainstream fare. I've been meaning to rewatch The FBI Story (1959), with James Stewart, for years now. The last time I saw it, I must have been in my teens - even then I knew that it was a highly fictionalised account of the FBI's formation and work. Seeing it again brought home just how whitewashed Mervyn LeRoy's film was. Literally whitewashed, in fact, with regard to its account of the Ku Klux Klan - their only victims in the film are white journalists and Jewish families. Black people, apparently, didn't exist in this version of America, not even to be victimised and persecuted. It couldn't even get its timelines straight in its accounts of its involvement in bringing down some of most notorious criminals of the thirties: Machine Gun Kelly was one of the first, not the last, of them to be caught and Ma Barker was unarmed, rather than toting a Tommy Gun, when she was mown down in a hail of bullets. But hey, J Edgar Hoover himself was a 'special adviser' on the film, (in reality he dictated most of what was shown on screen, in order to ensure an entirely favourable impression of the FBI under his directorship), even appearing as himself, at one point arresting Alvin Karpas in person, (he didn't in reality). Overall, The FBI Story is a fascinating piece of period propaganda from an era when wanted to believe the fiction that we really were being policed by infallible, whiter-than-white, good guys.
The other movie I caught was the George Peppard-starring 1968 thrill House of Cards. Directed by John Guillerman this was another variation of the classic Thirty Nine Steps plot of an innocent man going on the run from both police and villains, having been framed for murder. In this case, the protagonist has been engaged as a tutor to the eight year old son of the widow of a prominent French General, who discovers that his employer's in laws are a bunch of fascists planning a coup. While it might not be hugely original in plot terms, the film is very well made and engaging while it is running. It features some excellent location shooting in Paris and Rome, with the action climaxing at the Colosseum. In one of those curious Hollywood conventions, the French characters are mainly played by British actors, (well, they were all foreign to US audiences), with the exception of the chief villain, who was played by Orson Welles. Despite getting third billing, Welles, in common with many of his latter day film appearances-for-hire, is only in a few scenes, although he, as ever, makes his presence felt. Despite being a pretty decent film and coming from a major studio - Universal - House of Cards seems to be one of those films which has slipped into obscurity. A curiouNot Eurovisions situation, as its production values and cast suggest that it was seen as something of a prestige production back in 1968. Ah well, with Eurovision over, it was back to seventies sleaze today: a double bill of Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977) and The Playbirds (1978).
It;s a bit different from the sort of annuals I used to get for Christmas when I was a kid - the TV21 Annual never had a cover like that, for sure. The Male Annual was published for several years in the sixties, seventies and eighties, as a supplement to the monthly men's magazine Male, printing original material. Despite being labelled an 'annual', throughout the seventies it usually published twice a year, (sometimes supplemented by a 'Best of' compilation of the monthly magazine comprised of reprints from that year). This is the second 1975 issue, published at a time when the monthly magazine was transitioning from being a traditional men's magazine to a full on sex-orientated publication with lots of nude pin ups. Consequently, this is the last issue of the annual featuring stories like 'Meet a Real "Death Wish" Vigilante' or 'The King of Sex Slavers Wore Pink Panties'. (Actually, I'm told that guys who are on the road a lot favour women's underwear as they are easier to wash in an hotel room basin and dry quickly. Apparently Cary Grant swore by them). The shift in content, however, is evident in such things as the 'Sex in the USA' special section and story titles like 'The Bordello Hall of Fame' and 'Nymphomaniacs, Love Foods, Breasts, Pornography, Perversions'. Whereas the content in traditional men's magazines merely titillated, with suggestive titles, now the emphasis on sex was blatant and obvious.
This transition in content was deemed necessary for survival by many of the remaining men's magazines as the seventies wore on. TV and comic books increasingly provided the kind of cheap thrills previously provided by the fake 'true' stories in the magazines, while low budget movies were becoming ever more explicit in their depictions of sex and violence. By the middle of 1976 the parent monthly version of Male had completed its move to more soft core content, with the May issue featuring, for the first time, a fully bared breast. The change allowed the magazine to carry on publication into the early eighties - thirty years after its first appearance in mid-1951. Male went onto a monthly publication schedule in 1953, which it maintained until the late seventies, when it began to falter, making it one of the longest running and regular of the men's magazines. The Male Annual first appeared in 1963, running until 1977, (there was a 'Best of' compilation in 1979). It seems to have started putting out multiple issues each year in 1970, with the numbering system indicating that there might have been as many as four issues that year (making it a quarterly rather than an annual). The numbering of the issues was suspect, though, with the first 1971 issue being numbered 'six', despite the previous annual having been 'eleven' and the next 'thirteen', so there could well have been only two issues in 1970, ('eight' and 'eleven'). Whatever the vagaries of the numbering system, Male Annual had a remarkably consistent run for over ten years.
My viewing enjoyment of various US streaming channels is currently being blighted by the presence of Mike Lindel in the commercial breaks. You know the guy - proprietor of 'My Pillow' and leading Trump supporter. Anyway, he has clearly bought up a lot of advertising time on these channels in order to complain about 'cancel culture' (as well as plugging his products, naturally). According to him, it has blighted the lives of millions or 'ordinary Americans' and he and his company have been 'cancelled' by the media, even banks. Of course, he never explains why he was allegedly cancelled, that he was one of the loudest voices trying to get the 2020 election result overturned and reinstate Trump as president. It wasn't so much that he was 'cancelled', rather that a lot of legitimate businesses and media outlets decided that they'd rather not be associated with his attempts to subvert American democracy - it could taint their brands and be very bad for business. But if we're to take his reprehensible ads at face value, it is all about those left wing schmucks who hate God and the American way trying to subvert him. What I find particularly offensive about the ads is the way he clasps his hands, crucifix prominently displayed on his lapel, in a gesture of fake humbleness: 'Look at me, I'm so humble, I'm so pious, it is so unfair that I'm being treated this way - all I wanted to do was try and overturn the result of a democratic election an illegally reinstate the worst US President ever!'
But is there really such a thing as 'cancel culture'? It seems to me that this case typifies the sort of misdirection being used by many on the right to try and create yet another non-existent threat to get hot under the collar about. Surely we all have the right to decide not to engage with and even ignore, others who behave in a manner we feel is unacceptable. Hasn't this always been the case? Society has always sought to ostracise those it judges to be transgressors of its rules and norms. Yet suddenly, if we choose to take this form of peaceful, non violent and non-confrontational action, we're 'bad' people because we're suppressing the views of those we ignore. Which is nonsense - nobody actually is stopping them from coming out with their bile. We're just saying that we don't have to listen, share a platform with them or even engage in any transactions with them. That's our prerogative. In some of these alleged cases of people being 'cancelled', what they're really upset about is the fact that they've publicly said something objectionable and offensive and don't like the fact that they've been called out on it. Again, it is perfectly legitimate to do so - and it hardly constitutes 'cancelling' them. Criticising yes, cancelling, no. But Mike Lindel (and his ilk) think that this just isn't fair, we shouldn't be allowed to ignore or criticise him. His words and actions shouldn't have consequences. Quite frankly, I think his actions (and continued support for the
pro-Trump conspiracy theories which seek to find a basis for over
throwing a democratically elected government), are nothing less than
treason - and the penalty for treason is death. You know how they
should execute him? Smother him with one of his bloody pillows.
I'm not sure if it is a good sign that my idea of a good evening's entertainment is watching a double bill of Killer Crocodile (1989) and Killer Crocodile 2 (1990), followed by Nightmare Beach (1989) - the line up on Pluto TV's Cult Movies channel the other evening - but that's where I seem to be these days. Man eating giant crocodiles and alligators formed a small but notable sub-genre of Italian exploitation in the eighties, with Killer Crocodile standing out for its sheer schlockiness. On the one hand doubtless inspired by Lewis Teague's Alligator (1980), Fabrizio Di Angelis' film also blatantly rips off Jaws (1976), as well as tapping in to the vogue for 'eco-horror' films, with environmental pollution being blamed for rampaging natural threats. The closest to an international star name that Killer Crocodile can muster is Van Johnson who, at that point in his career was doubtless glad of any work as by that time he was the sort of actor everyone assumed must gave 'died years ago'. The rest of the main cast - with the exception of grizzled 'Thomas Moore', actually Ennio Girolami, as crocodile hunter Joe, apparently doing an impression of Lee Van Cleef - seem to have been cast for their looks rather than their acting ability. This, combined with the usual ludicrous dialogue, poor dubbing and weak script, make for a highly entertaining low budget experience.
Yet, for all its deficiencies, Killer Crocodile does boast a rather magnificent giant mechanical crocodile in the title role. While never truly convincing, indeed it is even a little ludicrous looking in some scenes, it is quite fascinating and far more entertaining to watch than any modern CGI monster. Presumably, the cost of constructing this beast impacted the film's budget quite severely, judging by the meagre gore effects accompanying its attacks. So expensive was the creature, that it was featured in a sequel, shot back-to-back with Killer Crocodile. Actually, Killer Crocodile 2 - directed by Gianetto De Rossi, who had created the crocodile prop - gives the impression that it was shot simultaneously with its progenitor. Hero Richard Anthony Crenna and fellow survivor of the first film Thomas Moore, don't appear until more than half way through the film, indicating that they had to complete their scenes in Killer Crocodile before shooting footage for the sequel. Until their appearance, the narrative is carried by Debra Karr's lady reporter. Although even more cheaply made than the first film, the sequel does have some notable sequences - not least the eating by the croc of a boat load of nuns and schoolchildren. Both films make good use of their Dominican Republic locations, (the Dominican Republic became a popular venue for Italian exploitation film makers around this time), with lots of sequences shot jungle fringed rivers. While neither film could be described as 'good', they also aren't that badly made as exploitation films go - they do provide some decent entertainment for a few hours. Besides, I also learned something important from Killer Crocodile: that if you jam the rotating propeller of an outboard motor into the mouth of a giant crocodile, the reptile will explode. Now that's not the sort of thing that David Attenborough would ever tell you about...
I almost missed the fact that a new Dr Who had been cast yesterday, so low key was the announcement. Even the BBC News homepage, - where you'd think they'd want to highlight it - had it tucked away in the second row of stories. It's interesting that after having that special little continuity break film to announce Jodie Whittaker's casting, for the casting of the first non-white actor in the role they kept it so low key. Perhaps it is merely a reflection of the way their main target audience now consumes its news that they chose to put the announcement out on social media first. Anyway, one of the great things about Ncuti Gatwa's casting as the Doctor is that it has really flushed out the racists on social media and various Who-related message boards. Of course, many of them fall into the 'I'm not a racist, but' category, which means of course that they are white middle class bigots who don't like to offend other white middle class people who might not be bigoted. You know the sort: 'I have nothing against them, but I wouldn't want one marrying my son/daughter'. A lot of their pronouncements are clearly what they think is subtle probing to find out if other members of the community are like minded. They're the same people who complain about soap operas having plots about right-wing extremists when 'they should be focusing on things like Islamic terrorism or Asian grooming gangs'.
What's surprised me most about the reaction to Gatwa's casting, though, has been the number of homophobic comments it has provoked. Obviously, I'm not surprised that there are homophobes out there, or that they are often also racists, but simply that in this case it based purely upon a character that the actor has played. I have no idea as to Gatwa's real-life sexual orientation and, quite frankly, I don't care, that's his business, but the key thing here is that the people posting this stuff don't seem to grasp the concept of acting: that it is pretending to be something that you aren't. I mean, I knew that these bigots were ignorant, but not utterly stupid. Speaking personally, I can't say that I'm familiar with Ncuti Gatwa's work - I don't have Netflix, so I've never seen Sex Education, for which he is currently best known - but I'm sure that he'll be fine as the Doctor, having cast in the role by Russell T Davies, who has an excellent track recording for spotting and casting talented actors. Of course, what will ultimately make or beak him in the role will be the standard of the writing. As we've seen over the past few series, lackluster scripts will completely scupper a Doctor's tenure. OK, Jodie Whittaker's one note characterisation didn't help (I hated it), but with the sort of scripts she was being given, she didn't stand a chance. I'll admit that I never liked the whole gender-switch thing and felt that Whittaker was miscast, but I tried to give her a chance - but the writing was just so poor. Which is why I think that Gatwa has a much better chance of establishing himself - Russell T Davies is back as show-runner and has an excellent track record as a script writer, which, hopefully, will make all the difference.
Sir! with its exclamation mark has always sounded, to me, like a magazine for people who like corporal punishment. While never a pure spanking magazine, Sir! did have a chequered, not to mention long, history. It started in 1942 as a pin-up type magazine before, in 1945, becoming 'A Magazine for Males', (according to the new strap line), shifting more into men's magazine territory. During the fifties it sometimes seemed to stray into a scandal magazine type of format, featuring salaciously titled stories chronicling the alleged depravities of the rich and famous. By the later fifties it seemed to have settled into a more conventional men's adventure format, complete with sensational cover paintings and headlines. This issue, from December 1957, is one of the earliest in this style and looks much like any of the contemporary rival magazines from this genre. In particular, the mix of stories is typical: 'My Wife Was Captured By Apes' gives us the jungle adventure/savage wildlife vibe, with a hint of bestiality as a beautiful woman is carried off by a gorilla. Sex and violence are present with 'Tahiti, Sweet Land of No Inhibitions' and 'Escape From the Torture Stake' respectively.
'Was Von Richtofen a Sadist?' gives us the obligatory war story, with its reference to the famed German World War One flying ace, otherwise known as the 'Red Baron'. Best of all is the medical sex story (a genre popular for a time in men's magazines): 'New Scientific Test For Maleness'. Now, I could say something pithy here about possessing a penis surely being the established criteria, but then I'd be wading into the whole LGBTQ debate on terminology. Mind you, one might argue, that in this respect, Sir! was way ahead of its time by highlighting the need for new measurements of sex and gender. This men's magazine phase was relatively short-lived: by the early sixties the magazine began to revert to a pin-up format, gradually becoming more of a soft core sex-orientated magazine. In this format, it carried on until 1984. This is a typical cover from that era, (from June 1982):
I always admire the direct approach and this incarnation of Sir! leaves a potential buyer with no doubt as to what they'll be getting, from the 'Special Big Tit Issue' promise to 'How To Make Anal Intercourse Less Painful', the content is plain. The other two headlines on the cover represent variations on the sort of themes that were employed to titillate readers in the fifties and sixties: the promise of girl-on-girl action and surefire advice on seduction techniques. It is nice to know that some things never changed in the world of men's magazines.
So much has been written about this film - much of it by people who haven't seen it - that it is impossible to go into a first viewing of it - which I finally managed yesterday - without preconceptions. In the UK it became, perhaps, the quintessential 'video nasty' in the public consciousness, despite being atypical of the sort of films usually lumped together under this label. The fact is that I Spit on Your Grave (1978) isn't a horror film in the conventional sense, (although much of what occurs in it is definitely horrific), like the Italian gorefests and crude low budget shockers that found themselves refused certification by the BBFC, but rather a brutal revenge drama with a female protagonist. There are no zombies, no serial killers, no cannibals or supernatural threats, just a bunch of violent small town rapists who enjoy brutalising women. Which is probably one of the reasons the film evoked such an extreme reaction at the time of its release: by removing the distancing mechanism of employing a fantasy framework for its horrors, which removes any sense of immediate threat to the audience, it brought it all too close to home for comfort.
The principle criticism of the film centered around the lengthy gang rape scenes which take up around thirty minutes of the hundred minute or so running time. At the time of the film's release, it was claimed that these were entirely exploitative, designed to somehow titillate male audience members. In reality, these scenes are filmed in the most untitillating way possible, emphasising the violence and humiliation being visited upon the victim. They are incredibly harrowing and in no way glamourise or justify rape, instead making clear that it is about power, not sex - the perpetrators feel threatened by an intelligent, confident woman and set out to exert their 'superiority' in the basest, most violent way possible. While these scenes still seem shocking now in the way they depict rape in all its brutality, back in 1978 they would undoubtedly have had a far greater impact on audiences. Before this, films that dealt with rape and sexual assault never depicted the act, with it happening off screen - often it was passed off as being unpleasant, but without long-lasting effect, sometimes it was treated jokily, with the clear implication that victim had enjoyed the experience, or had been a semi-willing participant in the act. While many critics still consider the rape sequences in I Spit on Your Grave gratuitously lengthy and detailed, they leave the viewer in no doubt that it certainly hasn't been an enjoyable experience for the victim, rather a brutal and demeaning experience with long-lasting consequences.
The latter part of the film addresses some of these consequences as it chronicles the victim's equally brutal revenge upon her rapists. What's clear is that she has been so deeply traumatised by her ordeal that she believes taking matters into her own hands is the only way of getting justice. It could be argued that this section of the film constitutes a 'female revenge fantasy', which balances the sort of male rape fantasies that informed both earlier depictions of rape and the actions of the characters in this film's own narrative. Indeed, the woman succeeds in using a key element of the male rape fantasy - that the victim really enjoys the experience of being roughly dominated and will seek further such experiences - to entrap two of her rapists. They are easily convinced that, rather than seeking revenge, she has been humbled by her experience and has come back for more. While her killings of her rapists might be shockingly violent - hanging, castration, axe in the back and evisceration by outboard motor - they in no way match the brutality and violence of her rape ordeal. If that catalogue of murder methodologies sound as if they might have come from a slasher movie, then it is because the then nascent slasher genre was probably I Spit on Your Grave's closest relative in the horror genre. Except that, unlike the average slasher flick, here the actions of the killer are, arguably, justifiable and the victims fully deserving of their fates. In the latter respect, the film is turning that other rape fantasy excuse of the woman having been 'asking for it', on its head.
While I think that the film is quite genuine in its attempt to present rape in a more 'realistic' fashion than it had been in prior film depictions and to present a more 'feminist' approach, it still remains problematic. Bearing in mind that the film was originally inspired by writer/director Meir Zarchi's experience of helping a young rape victim and the her subsequent treatment by the police, it is surprising that the film doesn't include at least one scene of an indifferent or inadequate response by the authorities to more fully explain her resort to vigilantism. As it stands, she never even reports the rape, instead deciding immediately to take the law into her own hands. Moreover, while the victim is ultimately 'empowered' to confront her rapists, the
implication that she has to resort to similar levels of violence and
brutality as her persecutors in order to gain 'justice' arguably undermines the legitimacy of her actions and moral stance. There is also the risk that the will attract as part of its audience the very people who might identify with the rapists or get a kick out of the rape and humiliation of a woman. This, however, is a risk inherent in any creative endeavour - just look at the number of people who identified with racist, sexist bigot Alf Garnett in the sitcom 'Til Death Us Do Part, despite it being writer Johnny Speight's intent that he be seen as a figure of ridicule for his beliefs. Creators can't necessarily be held responsible for audience reaction to their creations.
The other issue to address is whether I Spit on Your Grave is actually a well made film. On its release it was dismissed as being cinematic trash, a piece of ill-made exploitation cynically trying to pass itself off as a feminist statement. The reality is that, by the standards of seventies exploitation, I Spit on Your Grave is a surprisingly well made film with decent cinematography, editing, sound quality and effective direction. Sure, it fells a little rough around the edges and its pacing is off - it runs around ten minutes too long - but it is clearly a professional piece of film-making. It also boasts some decent performances from the cast, with Camille Keaton, (who I'd only ever seen dubbed into Italian prior to this), outstanding in the lead. The portrayal of the rapists is also notable - these aren't the usual backwoods degenerate hill billies on display in many other exploitation pieces. Instead, they are characterised and played as pretty much regular guys - the ring leader, John, for instance, is happily married with two kids, while another of them is the slightly dimwitted but ultimately harmless seeming and likeable grocery store delivery boy. Certainly, the film doesn't deserve the sort of critical abuse it originally received. Its unflinching portrayal of the actuality of rape isn't easy viewing, (to be honest, I don't think that I'd want to watch it again), but it is effective - doubtless the reason for the negative reaction when it was first released.
One can't help but suspect that the hostility to the film, particularly in UK where it labelled a 'video nasty' and effectively banned for a time, was down to the fact that it portrayed some uncomfortable truths about rape and violence against women. What we should all be worried about, of course, is the fact that even more than forty years after the release of I Spit on Your Grave, women apparently still cannot safely walk home, or n a public park, alone, particularly after dark, without fearing that they are at risk from sexual assault and murder by men. Worse still, the same tired old excuses get trotted out to somehow 'justify' their treatment by claiming that they had brought it all upon themselves: 'she was asking for it,' 'she enjoyed it really', etc. Sadly, the film's underlying message, that women should be entitled to dress, speak and behave however they like, without fear of assault, seems not to have gotten through. Maybe if it hadn't been so vilified and more people had been allowed to watch it...
One of the other miracles of modern streaming TV - apart from being able to watch old US sitcoms, of course - is that films that once turned up rarely on terrestrial TV back in the day now seem to be playing constantly. The spaghetti western My Name is Nobody (1973) - which features the bizarre, once-in-a-lifetime, star pairing of Henry Fonda and Terrence Hill - I had, until a couple of years ago, seen only once, in an early nineties screening on BBC2. Then, during the first lockdown, it turned up on an on-demand service and I caught it again. Now, thanks to a live streaming service I get on Roku, I've seen it three times in as many weeks. Despite the repetition, I still enjoy it. Another spaghetti western that only used to make rare appearances on terrestrial TV was Pancho Villa (1971). I say spaghetti western, but while it was filmed in Spain, like many true spaghetti westerns, it was actually a Spanish/UK/US co-production, with no Italian participation. Anyway, it now seems to play constantly across a live streaming multi-channel Roku app I have installed. I actually watched it all the way through tonight and you know what? It actually wasn't that bad. OK, it is a completely fictionalised and hugely unhistorical account of the famed Mexican bandit-turned-revolutionary general's 1916 incursion into the US, when he and some of his bandits/revolutionaries attacked Columbus, New Mexico, but it is entertainingly done and played largely as farce. Even if it does continue an obsession on the part of film makers in casting bald actors - Telly Savalas in this instance - as the historically hairy Villa, (see also Villa Rides! (1968), with Yul Brynner in this respect).
One of the most interesting things about the film, though, is its use of some truly wonderful large scale model trains in several action sequences. These trains also turned up in the following year's Horror Express (which also used the coach interiors, redressed, from Panhco Villa), which was produced by the same team. The story that did the rounds at the time of Horror Express' release, (and persists to this day), was that the producer of both films had bought the trains from the producers of Nicholas and Alexander (1971) and built both films around them. (A variation on the story has it that they were originally built for Doctor Zhivago (1965)). Producer Bernard Gordon, however, has denied this, claiming that the models were specially built for Pancho Villa. Indeed, the fact that locomotives and rolling stock appear to conform to Spanish designs and match up to the real locos and rolling stock seen in other scenes, this claim seems to have credence - both Nicholas and Alexander and Doctor Zhivago being set in Tsarist Russia, dictating that their train models would probably be appropriate to this setting. Nevertheless, I still have my suspicions that, even on Pancho Villa, the models were second hand. Another film set during the Mexican Revolution had also been shot in Spain in 1970-71: Sergio Leone's Fistful of Dynamite (1971) (aka Duck, You Sucker!). At its climax, this film, like Pancho Villa, features a spectacular and magnificently staged head on train crash, using large scale model trains. From memory, the model trains used were certainly similar to those used in Pancho Villa, following Spanish outline so as to match up with thereal trains used in other sequences.
So, did Pancho Villa and Horror Express use model trains recycled from Fistful of Dynamite? Possibly. It isn't unusual for props to be recycled between films, (sets and scenery, as well), in order to reduce costs. Certainly, the models used in all of these films must have been built to a very large scale - in Pancho Villa their sequences are shot outside, rather than in a studio and have a level of detail that makes them appear very realistic. Which implies that they were very expensive to originally build - too expensive, perhaps, for a modestly budget production likePancho Villa to have built them from scratch? Whatever the truth, they are pretty magnificent looking and surprisingly convincing - far better than the HO or O scale model trains, (usually commercially available models) that turn up in many other low-budget movies. (See, for instance, the train sequence in 1957's The Black Scorpion, where the manufacturer's name, 'Lionel Trains', can clearly be seen on the side of the locomotive's tender - which is coupled to the loco the wrong way around). They alone, make Pancho Villa worth watching - that and the fact that Telly Savalas sings the song over the closing credits, (it really shouldn't be allowed).
I seem to have spent the bank holiday weekend watching old American sitcoms. One of the marvels of streaming TV is that, via various Roku apps, it is possible to watch various TV channels from across the pond which show nothing but old television shows. Just like the UK, nostalgia TV is big business - it gives advertisers potential access to an older age group, (middle aged saddoes like me), plus it is cheap programming with a ready made fan base. Quite a few of these sitcoms are shows that I don't remember ever airing in the UK - One Day at a Time, for instance - or which only ever screened a limited number of episodes on UK network TV - Welcome Back Kotter, which ITV showed twenty six of its ninety five episodes. Of course, a fair number of them might have turned up here, but on channels I didn't watch or couldn't receive because I didn't subscribe to Sky. A proportion, though, are based on UK formats, so have that air of familiarity about them, even though everything is different. Some are obvious versions of UK hits, like All in the Family ('Til Death Do Us Part), or Three's Company (Man About the House) and its spin-offs, (which mirrored those of the UK original, with George and Mildred becoming The Ropers and Robin's Nest turning into Three's a Crowd). While episodes from some of these ran in the UK, I came across one this evening that, to the best of my knowledge, never did: Too Close for Comfort. It took me a while to recognise this one as being a remake of Keep it in The Family, a not so well remembered ITV sitcom that had starred Robert Gillespie as a cartoonist that ran for four series. It was the situation I recognised, rather than the characters, which had undergone some changes from their UK counterparts.
As previously mentioned, these sorts of channels attract an older demographic and the commercials running in the ad breaks reflect this. They are dominated by adverts for insurance of all kinds: health,(particularly Medicare related), car, home and any other you can think of. On top of that, are all manner of ads for medical supplies, particularly allergy treatments, but also for mobility and pain relief, (hey, I've learned that Voltarol is called Voltaren in the US, but uses near identically styled adverts). In other words, exactly the same sort of ads you'd find in the average commercial break on a UK nostalgia channel, such as Taking Pictures TV, which cater to similar demographics. There are some ads, however, which seem completely alien to UK audiences and emphasise the differences in national cultures. Most startling are all the ads for charities which run children's hospitals. Obviously, charity appeals are common in the UK, but they tend to be for specific types of medical research, animal charities or overseas aid. The idea that any hospital, let alone one for children, should be run on charitable donations seems bizarre, (although, if the Tories have their way, it might yet become the norm here). Related to this are the ads for legal firms that specialise in sorting out your tax affairs - according to them, they can reduce any tax demand from the IRS so that you only have to pay a fraction of it. They give the impression that tax evasion in the US must be endemic, leading the UK viewer to conclude that this is probably why health care there is so under-funded by the state - not only do people not pay their taxes, but even when the IRS catches up with them, there's a whole legal industry dedicated to blocking them from recovering what is owed in full. All very perplexing.
