Quietly Quitting the Nine to Five

They have a name for everything these days.  Of late there's been a lot of buzz about 'quiet quitting' - it is apparently the new trend in employment post pandemic.  Basically, it is a description for employees deciding to simply do the bare minimum in the workplace, not doing additional hours or taking on extra workload, instead just sticking as close as possible to their job description.  Supposedly it is a manifestation of an increased dissatisfaction with corporate culture, as employees, in effect, 'opt out' of all the 'high pressure' bullshit and the carrot of career progression and promotion that is frequently dangled in front of them as an incentive to flog themselves senseless at their jobs.  Clearly, I must have been a trendsetter, as I was doing this in the latter days of my last job, long before the term 'quiet quitting' was ever invented.  (In reality, the phenomenon has been well known for decades, back in the fifties there was always a distinction drawn between 'careerists', who would go the extra mile, and 'nine-to-fivers', who just wanted to do their hours, collect their pay and go back home to their real lives).  Having suffered serious illness as a result of work-related stress, (I was doing not just my own job, but simultaneously covering others due to sickness and recruitment failures, for no extra pay and certainly no thanks), I realised, after having been signed off sick for three months, that nothing was going to change.  It was clear that managers had no intention of sticking to agreements over workloads to try and keep my stress levels down, so I acted unilaterally, and declined any requests to work extra hours or cover for others - the days of unpaid overtime were over as far as I was concerned.

Inevitably, this went down like a lead balloon with management - I was well aware of the mutterings, behind my back, of 'not pulling my weight' and so on - but I wasn't breaking any rules, I was simply doing my job to the letter of my job description and no more.  With the pandemic and lock downs, I ended up back at home for several months until pushed back into the workplace (along with everyone else), despite the fact that, as most of my job was out of office activities which were still prohibited due to Covid restrictions, they had no actual work for me to do, so I ended up leaving.  Lockdown had convinced me once and for all that I was happier away from the job altogether.  I haven't looked back.  I've mostly avoided anyone I worked with back then and haven't been near the office in eighteen months at least.  Interestingly, there have been a few attempts by management to contact me over various bogus 'issues', but I've steadfastly ignored them - those people simply aren't good for my health.  The only ecxhanges I've had with my former employer since leaving have been with what passes for their HR department over a pay issue, during which I had to remind them that I was no longer their employee and therefore they needed not only to moderate their tone with me and accord me at least a modicum of courtesy, but that these days I operate to my timescale, not theirs, with regard to correspondence.  After our last exchange, they told me that they would get back to me shortly with a resolution to our dispute, (I say 'ours', but they are only ones disputing facts) - that was six months ago.  (I've no doubt that they'll finally remember about it all when it is least convenient to me).  So, right now, I'm enjoying the silence from my former employer.

Bank Holiday Nostalgia Trip

August Bank Holiday always used to be my favourite bank holiday, marking, as it usually does, the last full weekend of Summer, giving everyone an extended break to enjoy the good weather.  (OK, so, particularly when I was a kid, it always seemed to rain over the long bank holiday weekend, but it is the thought that counts).  This, despite the fact that, for the past couple of decades, I've always been on holiday anyway during the August Bank Holiday, so it didn't really make any difference to me, but I just liked the idea of there being this communal late summer experience going on across the UK.  But I have to say that since I went into this current state of semi-retirement, I've noticed this and any other Bank Holiday less and less.  When there is no work to escape from, these days off seem less significant, not only that, but not being part of the world of work, to some degree, detaches you from the 'mainstream' of life, reducing that sense of participating in communal experiences.  (Not that I was ever that attached to the 'mainstream' as it was).   So, this bank holiday almost passed me by - I even ended up doing my shopping as usual for a Monday today, (the bank holiday did mean that the supermarket was pretty much empty, which was great and it means that I'm free to enjoy the tail end of the season for the rest of the week).   

Apart from shopping, I spent a large part of the weekend back in the sixties a seventies, or at least the cinematic universe of those decades.  I've mentioned before that I've currently got access to a streaming channel exclusively showing seventies movies - yesterday it came up trumps with a showing of the 1973 Burt Reynolds private eye movie Shamus, which I hadn't seen in years.  Watching it again reinforced my memory of it being one of those films you feel should be better than it actually is.  It has a typically engaging and charismatic lead performance from Burt Reynolds and a terrific supporting cast including Dyan Cannon and Joe Santos.  It also has some great location shooting in and around early seventies New York, which really gives it a firm sense of time and place.  On top of that, it has some excellent action set pieces, all well handled by director Buzz Kulik.  Yet, it never really seems to come fully to life.  The fault seems mainly to lie with the script which, despite some snappy dialogue, never really seems to be able to properly articulate its plot - it never establishes any rhythm and feels disjointed in its development.  Which is a pity as, on paper, Shamus should have been a hugely entertaining comedy thriller.  As it is, it isn't a bad film, but it just never manages to live up to expectations.

By contrast, late on Sunday, so late, in fact, that it was probably Monday morning, I decided, for some reason, to watch It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) again. I honestly don't know what prompted this, other than I had at the back of my mind that this was one of the quintessential bank holiday movies, (it always seemed to get a TV showing over bank holiday weekends when I was a kid).  It had the advantage for TV networks of being so long that it filled up an entire afternoon.  Anyway, I ended up watching the entire two and three quarter hour long general release version, the one that is usually shown on TV, (although it is often shortened by removing the intermission and opening and closing musical overtures).  The original Cinerama version ran over three hours - the cuts made for the general release version resulting in Buster Keaton, despite being billed on the opening credits, appearing only in long shot near the end of the movie.  The truth is that it isn't really, by today's standards anyway, a particularly funny movie, but is a particular place in my affections as I've also seen it on the big screen.  When I was at school, toward the end of the school year, in June or July, we'd get taken to see a special screening of a very long film at the local Odeon, in order to fill up one of those dead days toward the end of term.  One year it was The Alamo, another it was It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.  Seeing it on the big screen allowed me to properly appreciate the sheer scale of the film's production.  It is a truly impressive production on a technical level, despite the inadequacies of the script.  One of the fascinations of watching it, of course, lies in spotting everyone who appears in it - of course, as a kid, about the only people I recognised were Terry-Thomas and Phil Silvers, but later I came to recognise all the, then, popular US TV stars in the film, as well as the various old time stars in cameos.  I did recognise two voices though: the two garage mechanics were played by Arnold Stang and Marvin Kaplan, who provided the voices, respectively, for Top Cat and Choo Choo in the Top Cat cartoons.

All in all, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World provided an enjoyably nostalgic trip into the early hours of the August Bank Holiday.  While my TV viewing of it couldn't do full justice to its scale, (as that cinema screening I saw as a kid did), the version I managed to stream was of excellent quality, with good sharp colours, (the sixties California beach side town setting of parts of the film are tremendously evocative of their era and left and indelible impression upon me).  So, that was my bank holiday weekend - a trip back to the sixties and seventies.

'The Town That Sex Built'

Let's round off the week with some classic men's magazine sleaze.  This June 1963 edition of Man's Conquest came in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which probably explains its emphasis on Cold War Commie-bashing.  Basking in the victorious glow of what was presented as a humiliating climb down by the Soviets in the face of US resolve, (in point of fact, as part of the deal to defuse the Cuban stand-off, the US also made concessions, namely the withdrawal of Jupiter missile from Turkey), it was clearly felt that the advantage had to be pushed home.  Hence the cover story about a daring escape across the Berlin Wall, (or the 'Communist "Wall of Terror"', as the caption puts it).  Of course, for the purposes of titillation, most of the escapees appear to be young women whose ordeal has left them falling out of their clothes.  But tales of the Berlin Wall weren't enough for this triumphant celebration, we also have 'The Castro Assassins' in this issue, which apparently exposes those 'Khrushcev-Castro killers' who stalk the streets of Miami. 

Presumably, these assassins were being sent to deal with all those refugees from the Castro regime in Cuba who washed up in Florida following the revolution there.  Lionised as brave anti-Communists, it is worth remembering, in the name of balance, that a not insignificant number of these emigres were actually Batista cronies who had happily colluded with US organised crime in its exploitation of Cuba under the previous regime.  In addition to these, well, gangsters, many others arrived in the US as a result of the Castro government emptying its prisons of rapists, murderers and other undesirables and allowing them to leave Cuba.  Not that such factors would justify assassins being sent to kill them.  If that ever happened.  Elsewhere in this issue, it seems to be business as usual, as we're promised a 'Sizzling Inside Look at Stag Parties, USA', plus a 'Scorching Expose of the Town That Sex Built'.  On top of that, there's the promise of 'How to Make Your Own Wine Legally, Tax Free'.  Sex, booze and commie-bashing, what more could the average American guy ask for at the height of the Cold War?

The Golden Age of the TV Movie

Ah, the seventies.  The golden age of the US made-for-TV movie.  They were a phenomena created by US TV networks in order to ensure that they had a steady supply of 'movies' to fill regular slots in their schedules.  It was a demand that, by the seventies, couldn't be met by the film industry - not only were the number of productions at Hollywood studios in decline, but the networks had also pretty much run through existing film libraries.  Moreover, with Hollywood increasingly focusing on producing big-budget films at the expense of the mid and low budget movies they had previously turned out, new films were increasingly expensive to buy TV screening rights for network showings.  The answer was for the networks to produce their own 'movies', but on TV budgets, featuring TV stars and directed by TV directors.  They were a cheap solution to the problem, with the added advantage that they could be tailored to fit specific slots, both in terms of running times and content.  I remember that, as a kid, I quickly realised that you could always tell a TV movie from a 'real' movie due to the blandness of the sets, the TV-style lighting and flat direction.  Many of them came over as cheap versions of better known films, but without the stars or panache, always skimping on the action and ultimately disappointing.  Even those with half decent scripts and plot ideas just ended up feeling somehow lacking in execution.  Many were produced for the networks by Universal's TV unit and utilised the backlot sets familiar from many of their old movies - often the most interesting aspect of a typical TV movie lay in recognising various streets and buildings from old B-movies.

I was put in mind of seventies TV movies by a streaming channel specialising in seventies movies that I've been watching.  Inevitably, to fill its schedules, it is forced to pad them out with various TV movies from the era.  They are instantly recognisable for the reasons outlined above.  Among the most interesting of the ones I've seen was Beach Patrol (1979).  Interesting because I'd never seen it before, because, like a significant number of TV movies, it was a pilot for a TV series that never materialised, but mostly because it was filmed on the same Santa Monica beach locations as Baywatch was to be some ten years later.  All the familiar locations are there - the pier, the diner, the lifeguard towers, even 'Baywatch Lifeguard Headquarters', except here the building is doubling for a police station.  Indeed, Beach Patrol tries to tap into the same sort of sun and sand feelgood ambience as Baywatch would, but with cops patrolling the beach in dune buggies, rather than with lifeguards.  Which is where the problem lay - by using cops as its protagonists, it ends up being welded too firmly to the typical seventies TV cop formula.  By basing itself around lifeguards, Baywatch allowed itself more flexibility with its storylines, which undoubtedly contributed to its longevity.  Still, as a one off, Beach Patrol was still quite entertaining, if nothing else than for the sight of a pre-Star Trek: Next Generation Johnathon Frakes playing a hip young Jewish beach cop.

Of course, the TV movie is still with us - they've just become more sophisticated.  Those bland seventies TV movies were the forerunners of both direct-to-video and cable TV movies, which, as time has gone on, have gained bigger budgets, better production values and higher profile casts, production personnel and directors.  Indeed, nowadays they are usually pretty slick looking productions, barely distinguishable from movies intended for cinematic release.  I fact, whereas in the seventies a movie being made for TV release was seen as a mark of inferiority, nowadays, TV, cable and digital releases are commonplace, even for big budget films, often occurring simultaneously with their theatrical releases.  How times have changed from those days of the humble TV movie, when they were alwats seen as second best to their cinematic cousins.

Vampirella (1996)

So, direct to video action films and Turkish superhero knock offs weren't the only low rent films I watched over the weekend.  I also endured the 1996 adaptation of the Vampirella comic book.  Yeah, I know - there was a Vampirella film?  I can see why they kept quiet about it - it really is a mess.  But then, comic book adaptations often are - part of the problem is that long-running comic characters usually go through so many re-boots and re-imaginings in order to try and keep them relevant, that film makers are always left with the problem of which version of the characters' continuity that they should use.  Vampirella has certainly been through enough revisions, (spurred on not just by longevity, but also by several changes of publisher), since she first appeared in the late sixties. This film version tries for a compromise - using a version of her original extraterrestrial origin story, but combined with elements of later versions.  While retaining some of the original supporting characters, it jettisons one of the most iconic of the original continuity's characters, omitting Pendragon altogether.  This new, bolted together cinematic continuity, trying to  mix and match elements from across the strip's history, is simply too clunky ever to succeed in producing at satisfying film.  The casting doesn't help - Talisa Soto tries her best in the title role but is miscast.  As for the villain, well, Roger Daltry is absolutely dreadful, his acting as woeful as his grasp of the politics of Brexit, his Dracula just comes over as an obnoxious cunt.  Typecast again.

An obviously low budget and scuzzy production values and poor pacing don't help, but the film's biggest handicap lies in the fact that it was 'directed' by Jim Wynorski, prolific director of low budget, direct to video, dreck.  Generally speaking, his presence in the credits of a film is generally enough to get me reaching for the off button but, due an affection for the original Vampirella strips, I gave this one a chance.  Oh God, how I wish that I hadn't!  (Wynorski, incredibly, has a Roku channel dedicated to his films which, even more incredibly, viewers are expected to pay for - they've got it the wrong way around, they'd have to pay me to watch his crappy oeuvre).  Leaving aside Wynorski's failings as a director, the Vampirella film suffers from the fact that the different versions of the comic book it tries to combine are jarringly different in style and tone.  It wasn't the first time that a film adaptation had been attempted, of course.  Back in the seventies Hammer Films had twice tried to mount productions, but both fell through for financial reasons.  Back then the continuity problems wouldn't have been so bad as the strip was still in its early days.  Indeed, the proposed casting - Caroline Munroe as Vampirella and Peter Cushing as Pendragon in the first attempt - would suggest the more whimsical tone of the early comic books was being aimed at.  Sadly though, what we eventually got was this 1996 version, which fails completely to get to grips with the character.

Turkish Delight?

Sweet Jesus!  I really do need to sop watching all these low rent movies.  It's becoming an addiction, I fear.  I mean, this last weekend not only did I find myself watching a direct to video action film starring Scott Adkins, but also a Turkish superhero film.  Now, to be fair, Scott Adkins is actually one of the better British ex-pat martial arts movie stars, (he's a decent actor who is safe to give relatively complex dialogue to), and his (mainly) direct to video starring vehicles are among the better of their kind, but I can't help but feel I'm on a slippery slope here.  (Actually, the film in question - Eliminators (2016) - was very slickly made and even mustered James Cosmo as chief villain and ex-wrestler Wade Barrett as chief henchman.  It was also novel in that Adkins, who usually plays Brits in US set films, played an American in London.  Although one has to question why an ex-federal agent in witness protection would be re-located in the UK where their accent would stick out like a sore thumb).  But Turkish superhero and fantasy movies are something else altogether - incredibly poor production values and performances, fuzzily shot on cheap grainy stock with terrible sound quality.  If the camera manages to stay pointed in roughly the direction of the action, then that's considered good direction.  The most notable thing about these movies, though, is that the laxity of Turkey's copyright laws means that they frequently feature the unlicensed use of copyrighted characters and music.

The 1973 film I watched is often referred to by 'fans' as Turkish Spiderman, as it features a character who dresses in a Spiderman-type costume (albeit with green instead of blue on the body) sporting a Spiderman symbol.  This character, however, is actually the villain, not the hero and is nowhere in the sub-titled version I saw referred to as 'Spiderman', but rather simply 'The Spider'.  That said, Captain America does feature as one of the heroes, in full costume, (minus the wings on his cowl and his shield, much in the manner the character was depicted in Republic's 1944 Captain America serial), along with famed masked Mexican wrestler and star of numerous movies, Santo.  (Not the real Santo obviously, but an unlicensed impersonator).  They rock up in Turkey to help the authorities smash a dangerous gang of international art thieves and counterfeiters led by 'The Spider'.  Much mayhem ensues.  Interestingly, 'The Spider' has none of his Marvel comics look-a-like's powers - he's just incredibly homicidal (he knifes people, strangles women in the bath and presides over the execution of a woman buried up to  her neck in sand using the spinning propeller of an outboard motor, for instance).  Oh, and he has an unexplained ability to create a duplicate of himself (in full costume) every time he is killed.  (There appears to be a limit to the number of times he can do this, as the climax sees Captain America keep killing them until no more appear).  Most of the soundtrack is pirated from John Barry's score for the then recently released Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever (1971), with a quick burst of part of William Walton's mainly unused score for The Battle of Britain (1969) over a fight sequence.  (For the record, the film is actually titled 3 Dev Adam (1973), which translates as 'Three Mighty Men)'.  

There are dozens of these Turkish knock offs out there, ripping off everything from Superman to Star Wars, taking in Rambo, Star Trek and many more along the way.  Just like the Italian exploitation film industry, Turkish film-makers in the seventies and eighties would seek to cash in on whatever the current Hollywood success was with locally made imitations, except with much lower budgets, none of the visual panache or imagination of the Italian films and no regard for copyright.  The end results are crude beyond belief, although intermittently entertaining, (mainly for their breath-taking disregard for copyright).  They are, pretty much, scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to schlock.  Which is why I find it worrying that I ended up watching one - has my need for low budget, low rent movie entertainment reached such addictive levels that normal schlock will no longer satisfy me?  Am I, like a drug addict, doomed to keep going for harder and harder stuff in a desperate search for a kick?  Where will it end? Watching marathons of Andy Milligan or Ted V Mikels films?  I mean, Jesus Franco is pretty mild compared to them, (he usually had a budget, no matter how microscopic, not to mention actual actors).  I know that, so far, it's only one Turkish superhero knock off, but I fear that it could be the beginning of a slippery slope.

The Brown Flag

So, yesterday I started out trying to write something that wasn't pop culture related, (just for a change as, after all, this isn't strictly a pop culture blog),  but ended up going on about David Hasselhoff as Nick Fury, (mainly because it was on TV at the time).  I'll try and correct that error today by prattling on a bit about my adventures on the beach and in the forest yesterday.  Actually, to be fair, I didn't do much except walk around a bit and enjoy the view.  But I have been asked whether I managed to avoid the sewage on the beach, bearing in mind that, over the past few days, there have been warnings put out about the water companies had been discharging raw sewage near many beaches on the south coast.  Luckily, the beach I visited, Lepe, wasn't one of those affected.  Although I still didn't venture into the sea - I mean, that stuff drifts.  Of course, if we had a proper warning system in this country, then, in addition to the red flag beaches fly when water conditions are dangerous, they should have a brown flag to warn of the danger of being chased up the beach by a brown trout as the tide comes in.  Anyway, I ended up spending only an hour at Lepe, not because of the threat of tidal effluent, but because their parking charges are the most extortionate on that stretch of the coast.

Moving inland, I found myself surprised by just how quiet and tranquil Pig Bush was, bearing in mind that the main Waterloo to Bournemoth railway lines runs through the middle of the area, (Beaulieu Road station is nearby).  It was only today that it occurred to me that there had been a national rail strike on yesterday, which explained why I hadn't heard any trains coming.  Which all goes to show that I should probably pay more attention to the news.  The thing is that, these days, I never have cause to travel by train, (ironic for someone who has a model railway, I suppose), so I equally have no reason to check when rail strikes are on.  I mean, time was that I had to commute to work by train, so I was keenly aware of industrial action threats and pay disputes.  Those were the times when one's resolve as a fellow trade unionist were tested - while, in principle, I support every workers right to withdraw their labour in pursuit of fair pay and working conditions, in practice, it is bloody annoying when it makes your journey to work even more Hellish than usual.  Mind you, in these days of remote working, I suppose that it might not be such a problem.  Either way, I'm glad that it isn't my problem these days.

Low Budget Marvel

I've impressed myself with the recent run of pop-culture related posts I've managed here of late.  It helps, of course, that I've been clearing a backlog of stuff I've recorded from terrestrial TV, giving me plenty of subject matter.  On top of that, I've also found a new source of schlocky movies in an obscure Roku channel that I'd somehow missed before.  The quality of their recordings is frequently extremely poor, looking like they've been taken from fifth generation duplicates of dodgy pirate VHS recordings.  Which, as everyone knows, is the best way to view such films.  Rather than watching more of this stuff, I've spent most of today on the beach and in the New Forest, which, along with a session in the pub, has left me feeling exhausted.  Consequently, I've currently only mustered the energy to start watching Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D (1998).  Yeah, that Nick Fury film, made back in the days before Marvel became a multi-billion dollar movie franchise and its characters tended to be confined to cheapjack TV movies like this one.  The best thing about it is David Hasselhoff in the title role, as writer David Goyer noted at the time, the Hoff at least seemed to understand that it was meant to be a campy, tongue-in-cheek adaptation, sporting the trademark eyepatch, constantly chomping on a cigar and hamming it up like mad.  Intended as a pilot, it never led to a series.  

The film was made around the time that Baywatch was running out of steam and Hasselhoff clearly saw it as a potential new long-term gig.  (In the event, Baywatch transmogrified into Baywatch Hawaii, running for a couple more seasons, with Hasselhoff as a much reduced presence).  As Nick Fury, Hasselhoff seems to be going out of the way with his performance to prove that he isn't Mitch Buchanan with an eyepatch.  Which he pretty much succeeds in doing, growling his way through the role with none of Buchanan's good natured geniality, instead coming on as a total bad ass.  (The closest equivalence to his Nick Fury characterisation in his previous work is probably his turn as Garthe Knight, Michael Knight's evil doppelganger in Knight Rider, which involved him growling his lines and sporting a goatee rather than an eyepatch).  The film is basically good cheesy fun and has been unfairly maligned over the years, particularly in comparison to the more recent big-budget big screen Marvel adaptations.  The fact is, though, that I find myself preferring these low-budget, smaller scale Marvel adaptations that were once the norm.  They aren't as overblown and full of distracting CGI effects, relying instead on things like plot and characterisation.  Or, in the case of the Nick Fury TV movie, a sense of its own absurdity and refusal to take itself too seriously.  Basically, they hadn't lost sight of the fact that comic book characters are meant to be fun.

Cry of the Banshee (1970)

Another Gordon Hessler-Christopher Wicking collaboration for AIP released the same year as Scream and Scream Again (1970), Cry of the Banshee sadly doesn't come up to standard of its predecessor.  Compared to the earlier film, it is simply too conventional, both in theme and structure, presenting its sub-Witchfinder General tale of witch hunting as a straightforward narrative, with none of the cross-cutting between narrative threads and stylistic flair of Scream and Scream Again.  The resemblance to Witchfinder General, (even down to the casting of that film's star, Vincent Price, in a similar role), is key here - Cry of the Banshee is entirely derivative, conceived by AIP in order to try and replicate the success of that film.  (Their collaborator on Witchfinder General, Tigon, of course made its own follow up, The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971) which, while not a commercial success, offered a fresh and original approach to its subject matter).  Consequently, Cry of the Banshee has no impetus of its own - it exists purely to rehash the most popular tropes of the earlier film - witch burnings, the persecution and torture of young women and lots of bloody violence - its only innovation is to add in an actual supernatural element which hadn't been present in Witchfinder General.  Which proves fatal to the narrative, not only removing any moral compass it might have had, but also depriving the audience of any truly sympathetic characters to identify with.  Whereas in Witchfinder General it is clear that there are no witches, only innocent victims of authority - the crimes attributed to the women persecuted by Matthew Hopkins merely being projected upon them by his own twisted psyche - in Cry of the Banshee those being persecuted by Price's character really are witches, who use their powers to wreak supernatural vengeance upon his whole family by unleashing the forces of evil.

Ultimately, this leaves the viewer feeling that, while Price and his associates are brutal bastards who probably deserve everything they get, Oona (Elizabeth Bergener) and her band of anachronistic hippies-cum-witches are equally culpable, sending Patrick Mower in the form of a werewolf, (at least, that's what the make-up looks like), to indiscriminately tear out throats.  To be absolutely fair to director Gordon Hessler, most of the film's problems pre-dated his involvement.  Although he brought in Christopher Wicking to rewrite Tim Kelly's original script, AIP executives limited the amount of changes that could be made.  On top of this, AIP decided to re-edit the film before release, re-ordering the sequence of several scenes, (the scene that opens this version of the film - Price's attack on the witch camp - originally came part way through the film, for instance).  Moreover, Wilfrid Joseph's score was replaced by a much more conventional score by Les Baxter and Terry Gilliam's disturbing title animations replaced with stills under the titles.  While the editing changes somewhat disrupt the film's narrative rhythm, the loss of the original score robs the movie of much of its period atmosphere.  The interference seems ironic in light of the fact that AIP's executives had previously fought hard to resist attempt to interfere in Scream and Scream Again by co-producer Amicus' Milton Subotsky.  Not surprisingly, Hessler considered Cry of the Banshee the least favourite of the four films he directed for AIP.  But, despite all of its problems, Cry of the Banshee does provide a lot of good unclean fun: the production values are just OK, but the various set-pieces well staged, while Price, backed up a number of familiar British TV faces, including Patrick Mower and Michael Elphick, gives a far more animated performance than he did in Scream and Scream Again.

The original, unadulterated, version of the film has been released on home video and sometimes turns up on TV, (I recall seeing it screened on ITV back in the late eighties or early nineties), and is undoubtedly better than the original release version.  Interestingly, though, recent screenings of the film by Talking Pictures TV have used that earlier cut - perhaps because it also removes all the bare breasts.  Oh yes, before I forget, a lot of people have complained about the fact that no actual banshees feature in the film, despite the title.  Nonetheless, references are made to the wailing disembodied voice of the legendary banshee by various characters, with the howling of what is at first thought to be a wild dog - it's actually a hairy and lupine Patrick Mower - likened to the 'cry of the banshee'.  So, pedants, the script does actually justify the title.

The Abductors (1972)

I finally got a chance to watch The Abductors (1972), the sequel to 1971's softcore PI movie Ginger.  Cheri Caffaro is back as frequently naked arse-kicking private detective Ginger, while the team behind the camera, including director Don Schain, is also pretty much the same as for the first movie.  What's changed is the level of professionalism: The Abductors is, in just about every way, far superior to its predecessor.  Most significantly, Caffero herself looks far more comfortable in front of the camera and, while unlikely ever to win any acting awards, delivers a much more naturalistic performance.  Moreover, her character, this time around, isn't burdened by a heavy backstory and related flashbacks to her schoolgirl gang-rape ordeal.  Consequently, Ginger is allowed to focus entirely on the business of delivering kick-ass justice to every degenerate rapist scumbag who stands between her and solving her case.  The edge of sadism which characterised a lot of her violent encounters with bad guys in the first film is also toned down somewhat for this second outing: no castrations or point blank shootings here - she instead has to be satisfied with torturing a senior villain for information using a scalding hot shower.  Elsewhere, the production values seem somewhat higher in the sequel, (although it was clearly shot on a low budget), the supporting performances better, the action sequences far more convincingly staged, with the script providing better dialogue and hanging together better, plot wise, than was the case in the original.

Indeed, the plot of The Abductors is far more straightforward than that of Ginger.  In place of the first film's relatively complicated sex, drugs and blackmail ring dominating a resort town, the sequel features a series of young cheerleaders and beauty queens being abducted in and around a small town.  With no ransom demands being made, Ginger is sent in to get to the bottom of it all.  Of course, with this being a sexploitation film, it turns out the girls are being taken by a gang that breaks and 'trains' them into becoming sex slaves for wealthy businessmen.  Obviously, the 'training' involves lots of nudity, slappings and bondage.  Naturally, when one of the girls resists, the obvious solution is to torture and rape her - the latter of which, she apparently enjoys.  Which brings us to the film's central problem, (for contemporary audiences in particular): the idea that women actually enjoy being sexually dominated and assaulted by men.  To be absolutely fair, The Abductors is somewhat less rapey than Ginger and, arguably, improves upon that film by at least not forcing its heroine to endure a rape ordeal before she finally triumphs.  This time around, Ginger is far more strongly portrayed as a strong and resourceful character, who doesn't need to be rescued at the last minute by her male colleague and can't be dominated, sexually or otherwise, by any man.  What the film does, instead, is to transfer all the violent and sexual ordeal and torture to Ginger's female sidekick, who is infiltrated into the gang's lair by allowing herself to be abducted.

While the ordeal of Carter, the sidekick, starts of violent, it quickly turns into another male rape fantasy, with the villain getting information from her by sexually stimulating her while she's tied up.  Naturally, as this a sexploitation, flick, she can't resist and even enjoys it all. Luckily, though, she's rescued in the nick of time.  Watching The Abductors, it is clear that Don Schain and his team had carefully studied audience reactions to Ginger and tailored the sequel accordingly - cutting back the violence and sadism, dialling up the eroticism and strengthening the central character.  The Abductors leaves me somewhat conflicted: while I applaud its depiction of a strong female lead resistant to male aggression, the amount of violence and rape visited upon other female characters, (all except Ginger herself are depicted as victims), is still disturbing and indicates an underlying misogyny, (though par for the course for movies of just about any genre in the seventies).  Setting aside these reservations, The Abductors stands as a well paced softcore action movie, with well staged fights and chases, efficiently directed by Schain and featuring a score by Robert G Orpin that wouldn't have been out of place in a seventies private eye TV series.  The third and final instalment in the trilogy, Girls are for Loving (1973), would see Ginger face off against a female villain in a plot that ramped up the 'James Bond' elements.

'I Fought the Mau Maus'

Every white man's worst nightmare - being assaulted a bunch of murderous 'black savages'.  That's certainly the sub-text to this cover for the December 1957 issue of Real Men.   It is a theme which recurs over and again in men's magazine covers from this period: an invariably white, 'civilised', protagonist being put in mortal danger by 'primitives'. whether they be Native Americans, African Tribesmen, South Seas cannibals or even 'beastly Japs'.  The main variation has a  white woman under threat of violence, not to mention implied sexual assault, from these 'primitives', while the white hero rushes to her rescue.  The inherent racism in such covers is invariably 'justified' by putting it into some kind of historical context that posits the  events depicted as being 'factual' - the frontier of the Old West, World War Two or the European discovery of the Americas, for instance.  In this case, the context is more contemporary, with the cover illustrating 'I Fought the Mau Maus'.  The Mau Maus, of course, being an anti-Imperialist resistance movement or vicious terrorists, according to which side of the fence you sat.

The rest of the featured stories are par for the course for a late fifties men's pulp.  'Are You Ready to Die - Tomorrow?' would, most likely, have been another Cold War scare story about the 'Red Menace' and the existensial threat it posed to the American way of life.  'I Married a Prostitute' is undoubtedly another piece of misogynistic titillation, warning men that sexually active wives were doubtless insatiable sex vixens selling themselves on the street because their men couldn't satisfy them.  The solution, probably, was that you had to show them who was boss and give them a regular dose of rough sex - or something along those lines.  (I've read too much of this stuff, haven't I?).  'Secret Agent of the Frontier' could be about either the Old West or the Northwest Frontier, both popular setting for pulp adventure stories.  'Nudism - Does it Stand For Health or Vice?' is undoubtedly the best story title featured on this cover, summing up the way in which nudism was presented in this era, with all manner of magazines and films ostensibly promoting it as being natural and healthy, while simultaneously presenting their audience with lots of views of naked people (predominantly young women), engaging in all sorts of energetic outdoor activities.  Ah, the fifties, that era when you get racism, sexism and violence all on one magazine cover - no wonder right-wingers get all misty eyed about it.

Mysteries of William Shatner

I recently found myself watching Mysteries of the Gods (1976) or, to give it its full promotional title: William Shatner's Mysteries of the Gods.  Yes indeed, this is presented as Shatner's personal exploration of the whole 'Ancient Astronauts' nonsense that was popular back in the seventies.  He gets lots of screen time, wandering around in front of radio telescopes and Saturn V rockets as he speaks to various cranks, sorry, 'experts' on the alleged phenomena.  The reality, though, is that these scenes were inserted into material from a West German pseudo-documentary derived from one of Erich von Daniken's dubious texts.  The German original was a follow up to a popular adaptation of his best known book, Chariots of the Gods? and shares that film's director, Harald Reinl, a veteran of West German westerns and Krimi films, (including a couple of entries in the sixties Dr Mabuse series).  For the English language adaptation featuring Shatner a co-director, Charles Romine, is credited.  (His only other directorial credit is for the 1968 porno film Behind Locked Doors - the trailer for which fascinates me).  Mysteries of the Gods is every bit as laughable as one might expect, rehashing the 'Ancient Astronauts' business without adding any actual evidence to back up the preposterous theory or bringing anything new to the table.  But it fascinates and entertains in the same way that 'Mondo' movies do - we know that they are fake, but they are enjoyably fake.  That said, whereas the genuine Italian 'Mondo' was usually stylishly directed and featured lush musical scores from the likes of Riz Ortolani, Reinl's direction of Mysteries of the Gods is more workman-like and features an electronic score typical of its era.

The main reason for watching Mysteries of the Gods, though, is William Shatner.  He strides around in his wide lapels and flared trousers, sporting a truly magnificent hair piece.  He is every inch 'seventies man' and, to be fair, he actually gives a very invested performance, giving the impression that this really is some kind of personal quest for truth.  His interviews with various people come over as earnest and sincere - he never seems condescending and nowhere does he give the impression that he thinks they are crackpots.  Which, seen from the perspective of 2022, simply indicates tat he is a far better actor than usually given credit for.  Because, if you have ever seen the TV series Weird or What?, that he fronted about ten years ago, or even the more recent The Unexplained,  (both of which he has production credits on and creative input into), you'd come away with the distinct impression that he is deeply sceptical about UFOs and the paranormal.  (Unless he is such a good actor that these represent the stellar performance, masking his true beliefs).  Indeed, he seemed to spend a large part of Weird or What? debunking most of the stuff that he had apparently endorsed in Mysteries of the Gods, (the crystal skulls, the supposed model of a glider from an Ancient Egyptian tomb, the 'ancient' rocks supposedly depicting humans co-existing with dinosaurs, to name but a few).  His innate sceoticism about the whole 'Ancient Astronauts' thing seems to be backed up by his comments about the Ancient Aliens TV series which he made a guest appearance on.  Perhaps he did Weird or What? as penance for Mysteries of the Gods. After all, he made the film during his 'wilderness years' between the cancellation of Star Trek and the first of the Star Trek movies.  A period when, by his own admission, he couldn't be choosy about what work he accepted.  

The bottom line here is that I actually have a lot of time for 'The Shat', built upon fond childhood memories of watching him as Captain Kirk when Star Trek was first screened in the UK.  I'm well aware that many have accused him of being a raving narcissist, (an allegation not exactly dispelled by his autobiographies about his days on Star Trek), but what the Hell - he's an actor, for God's sake, a profession where possession of an over-sized ego is prerequisite.  I've no idea whether the persona he nowadays projects in interviews or even in his presentation of stuff like Weird or What? is a result of his mellowing with age, or simply a performance, (I suspect a combination of the two), but I enjoy this genial, often self-effacing, version of a childhood hero.  Call it a willing suspension of disbelief, if you like.  So, I'll forgive him Mysteries of the Gods, (not to mention a whole shed load of seventies TV movies).

Scream and Scream Again (1970)

Another film that I haven't seen in an age, Scream and Scream Again (1970) is notable as being only one of two (I think) films to feature Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.  Indeed, this alignment of horror superstars was used as a selling point for the film.  Unfortunately, it doesn't really deploy them particularly well: Cushing's role is, in truth, simply an extended cameo and has no interaction with the other two, while Lee gets a few more scenes and, right at the end, interacts with Price, he spends most of his time on the periphery of the film.  Price has by far the most substantial role as a sinister scientist, but gives a curiously muted performance, leaving something of a vacuum at the centre of the plot.  That said, Scream and Scream Again remains an effective and entertaining film, thanks to a typically discursive script from Christopher Wicking and some excellent, very dynamic, direction from Gordon Hessler, (easily his best film), featuring lots of tracking shots, following various characters as they walk through scenes.  Wicking's script intertwines three plotlines, which initially seem unconnected - the rise to power of a brutal and ruthless military officer in an Eastern European country, a jogger hospitalised after a collapse who keeps coming out of sedation to find another limb amputated and a police investigation into a series of 'vampire murders' in which young women are brutally killed and their blood drained.  Slowly, but surely, the three plots begin to come together, with all roads leading to the clinic of the mysterious DR Browning (Price).  The conclusion explains just enough to satisfactorily wrap up the various plot strands, but leaves enough unexplained to maintain the air of disorientating mystery that pervades the film.

The film is, in fact, derived from the sixties pulp novel The Disorientated Man by Peter Saxon, ('Peter Saxon' was a 'house name' used by a number of authors contributing to things like The Sexton Blake Library and 'The Guardians' paperback series).  All of the plot elements and most of the incidents in Wicking's script are present in the novel, the difference lying in their presentation, with Wicking opting for a fragmented structure, not making obvious links between the sub-plots.  The film presents everything as a series of incidents, playing down the plot mechanics and inviting the viewer to try and piece everything together.  Hessler's direction takes its cue from Wicking's script structure, with the plots all presented in differing styles: the disappearing limbs strand is presented as pure horror, the stuff in the Eastern European dictatorship as a cold war thriller and the 'vampire killer' strand as a police procedural, with the finale turning into barmy science fiction.  The viewer is constantly bounced between the different plots and styles, constantly kept disorientated and intrigued.  The strongest element is undoubtedly the police investigation, with its long tracking shots through the squad room, overlapping dialogue and an extremely well staged car chase.  It also includes the film's two best performances, from Alfred Marks as Superintendent Bellaver, (delivering a real tour de force in the role - his presence is sorely missed when the character is killed off before the end) and Michael Gothard as Keith, the vampire killer, (a creepy and seemingly unstoppable superman who even pulls his own hand off to escape handcuffs).  Also of note is Marshall Jones as Konratz, the East European officer, who effectively ties the three plots together as the only character who interacts with Cushing, Lee and Price.

Wicking's script is also notable for what it omits from the source novel.  While the film eventually reveals that Browning's clinic is part of a global conspiracy to create a race of supermen (and women) from spare parts and place them in senior positions around the world - Jones, Lee and Price are all such constructs, while Keith was an early, unstable, creation - it never reveals exactly who originated the plot.  The book, by contrast, reveals that the bodies are being created to provide receptacles for alien intelligences, (normal human bodies being too frail to contain them), as part of a plot to take over the planet by stealth.  (I actually own a second hand copy of the novel).  According to some sources, this explanation was originally also in Wicking's script, but was cut at some point.  Whatever the truth, the more enigmatic conclusion of the finished film, with the superhuman plot still in place, despite the elimination of Browning and Jones, judged by Lee to be aberrations - being too human and angst ridden and too brutal and amoral, respectively, actually feels both more appropriate and more satisfactory.

Wonder Women (1973)

I first saw Wonder Women (1973) decades ago, in either the late seventies or early eighties, when it was shown on late night TV, probably as part of one of BBC2's 'Horror Double Bill' seasons on a Saturday night.  To be honest, I remembered next to nothing about it, other than it was a fuzzily shot low-budget effort involving a lady mad scientist creating an army of super women via organ transplants.  Significantly, it served as my introduction to the world of Philippines shot horror and  science fiction B-movies - they are a sub-genre in themselves, often featuring the same, very recognisable, local character actors in support.  Even the locations become familiar - from the jungle interiors of the islands, with their isolated villages, to the dog-eared 'glamour' of big city Manila.  I rewatched Wonder Women over the weekend and was pleasantly surprised - it actually was nowhere near as bad as my vague recollections had led me to fear it would be.  Which isn't to say that it is some kind of lost minor classic - it still had all the hallmarks of a seventies Philippines shot programmer: the scuzzy looking location photography, shaky production values, slightly tinny sound quality and highly variable performances, for instance. Moreover, Vic Diaz and Sid Haig (with hair), without whom, it often seemed, no seventies Philippines exploitation movie would be complete, both play significant roles. It also featured that other essential characteristic of the genre: the B-grade American star whose career was on a downward trajectory.  For once, it wasn't John Ashley, but rather Ross Hagen, who spent the better part of his career bouncing between various low budget movie projects, mainly westerns and biker movies, and TV guest spots.  Though Hagen wasn't the biggest name involved in Wonder Women - starring as the villain was Nancy Kwan who, only a few years before, had been co-starring with the likes of William Holden, Dick Van Dyke and Dean Martin.

Hagen plays an international insurance investigator who, with is expensive tastes and flamboyant wardrobe, comes on like a low rent James Bond, toting a sawn off shotgun instead of a Walther PPK.  He's hired to look into the disappearance of a top athlete who, along with many others, has been kidnapped by Nancy Kwan's Dr Tsu to her island and cryogenically frozen until she can harvest their organs.  A brilliant scientist as well as a super villain, she is offering the world's wealthy the chance of rejuvenation using the stolen organs.  She is also carrying out other experiments on the side, aimed at creating a race of super-beings which have resulted, on the one hand, in a cellar full of human-animal hybrid mutants and, on the other, her gang of super-babes, the 'Wonder Women' of the title, who carry out the abductions for her.  Aside from this combination of ideas lifted from various other sources, loosely melded together into a ramshackle plot, Wonder Women is notable for including a number of surprisingly well staged action sequences.  These range from the opening scenes of the 'Wonder Women' kidnapping various victims to a lengthy chase through the backstreets involving Hagen, a pedal taxi and various henchmen.  Inevitably, the climax sees one of the 'Wonder Women' falling for Hagen's shop worn charms and changing sides, the mutants escaping from the cellar and a huge conflagration involving guards, 'Wonder Women' and mutants slugging it out, while Hagen mows down numerous people with a machine gun.  Director Robert Vincent O'Neil, (who had previously worked with low-budget legend David L Hewlett and would later write and direct the first two 'Angel' films), moves it all along at a frantic pace and, while it's on, Wonder Women is hugely entertaining.

Some Reflections on Baywatch Hawaii

I seem to have spent the past few days doing nothing other than watching back-to-back episodes of Baywatch.  Why?  I hear you ask.  Well, why not?  They're all freely available via streaming channels and they make an excellent, undemanding background for when I'm working on something.  Which is what I've been using them for.  Not all day, obviously, just when I've not been out enjoying the summer.  Although only half-watching the episodes, I've absorbed enough to give myself a working grasp of the latter seasons of Baywatch, which I mostly didn't watch when it was on terrestrial TV back in the day.  In particular, I think that I now have a grip on Baywatch Hawaii, as the last two seasons were retitled, which I never saw when they were on regular TV.   An attempt to reboot the series, the problem was that they moved too far away from the original concept and just didn't feel like Baywatch any more.  Not only did they ditch the original LA County setting, but also most of the ongoing cast.  Worse, the concept changed somewhat, with Mitch setting up a lifeguard training centre in Hawaii, staffed by top international lifeguards, to train would be lifeguards the 'Baywatch way'.  Apart from Mitch, only JD, Jessie and Newman were carried over from the previous series, with Mitch often appearing peripheral to the main action and appearing less and less, to the extent that, at the end of the first season of Baywatch Hawaii, he was apparently killed off, (although he miraculously came back for the re-union TV movie, Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding).  

While David Hasselhoff remained with the show as an executive producer, the lack of his onscreen presence was telling, with none of the remaining cast being able to fill the void.  The situation wasn't helped by the fact that season two of Baywatch Hawaii saw a major turn over of cast from season one, with the new arrivals even less charismatic and likeable than their predecessors.  Perhaps the most notable thing about Baywatch Hawaii was that it provided Jason Momoa with his first leading role.  Appearing in both seasons, he proved the series most charismatic character.  (Apparently, he hated the series and doesn't like discussing it).  The Hawaiian settings, while undoubtedly beautiful, (and, doubtless, designed to promote the islands as a tourist destination), actually hinder the show overall, giving it all a languid, less urgent and dynamic feel, than the frenetic California settings had the original.  Hawaii had, of course, not been the first choice of location for a reboot - a pilot entitled Baywatch Down Under had been shot in Australia at the end of season nine of Baywatch, (and was eventually shown as a two part episode when that season was broadcast), but objections from the local community where it was filmed led to the proposed series being shelved.  The pilot was interesting, as it carried most of the then regular cast over to the new setting, (with the notable exception of JD, who ironically ended up being one of the few cast members carried over into Baywatch Hawaii)  - whether this would have continued into the proposed series, we'll never know.  Interestingly, one of the Australian lifeguard characters from Baywatch Down Under reappeared as a regular in the first season of Baywatch Hawaii).  

Quite how any Australian-set series would have proceeded isn't entirely clear from the pilot - the implication is that the US lifeguards would have remained in some kind of training capacity, as in Baywatch Hawaii.  But the differences between lifeguarding in Australia (where most lifeguards are unpaid volunteers from local surf clubs) and the US, (where there are 'retained', full time lifeguards employed by local government), are significant - perhaps too significant to have made the concept viable.  The eventual reboot had the advantage of being set in another US state, meaning there was no real clash of lifeguarding cultures.  Baywatch Hawaii is an interesting case study in rebooting a long-running and popular TV series.  For one thing, it occurred while the original was still running, being presented, at the time, as a continuation of the series, rather than a spin off or reboot.  Watching it now, it is clear that its fundamental problem was that it changed enough that it simply didn't feel like 'real' Baywatch, yet wasn't sufficiently different that it established its own identity.  When you add in a cast of new characters the existing audience have no investment in and who feel even more cliched than their predecessors and you have a sure-fire recipe for failure.  Still, it did at least manage to limp on for two seasons, a better showing than most in-series reboots.

Saucy Detective: 'Kidnapped by a Monster!'

 

A very short lived, (only five issues, all published in 1937), companion to Saucy Movie Tales and Saucy Stories, just how far the 'sauciness' extended beyond the lurid cover of Saucy Detective is unclear.  If we're to believe that cover, though, readers were being promised a wild ride. Swooning and  scantily clad  young women being carried off by various menaces was a staple for the covers of this title.  This particular one, with that gorilla abducting a half naked girl of course hints at bestiality.  Although, the fact that he is carrying a gun in his other hand suggests that the assailant will turn out to be just a man in an ape suit.  (A common conceit in B-movies of the era). At a guess, I'd say that 'John Beck' and 'Donald Hogarth' were house names - they seemed to turn out stories for all of the 'Saucy' titles.  

Changing tack completely, this has been one of those weeks where coming up with material for this blog has been difficult.  I've found myself constantly blown off course by external events, with little chance to put together any coherent thoughts. Also, I've spent the better part of the last two days out walking around various local Country Parks.  So, the distractions have been coming thick and fast, but hey, it's August, that most magical month of the year when the world feels as if it is on holiday and I tend to spend my time out enjoying the long lazy dog days of Summer.  Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

The Monk With the Whip (1967)

I caught the end of this on one of the streaming channels today, (an English dub, obviously) - the usual series of baffling revelations, unmaskings (at least two characters were revealed to be someone else in disguise), shoot outs and caged girls being menaced by crocodiles that inevitably climax this sort of film.  Another in the long-running series of Edgar Wallace inspired krimis that were turned out by Rialto during the fifties and sixties, The Monk With the Whip boiled down, (as far as I could make out), to another of those plots by someone's uncle is trying to claim an inheritance by bumping off a younger claimant, obfuscating his plans by murdering several other girls to divert attention.  Just as US made films set in England always seemed to take place a weird 'Hollywood England', unrecognisable to actual UK residents, so the German Edgar Wallace films took place in a distinctly German interpretation of England, which owed as much to Conan Doyle and Jack the ripper as it did to Wallace.  

The film was loosely based on Wallace's 'The Black Abbot', which Rialto had previously filmed in 1963, (with the same lead actor, but in a different role), and his subsequent play based on the novel, 'The Terror', which Rialto had also filmed as The Sinister Monk in 1965.  The Monk With the Whip was an altogether more flamboyant version of the story, with its title hinting at a sexual angle that simply isn't present in the film itself.  I'd take issue, though, with the the description of the whip cracking title character as a 'monk' - they actually appear to be dressed in Ku Klux Klan robes, but in red rather than white.  It's fascinating that an author who, by the sixties, had pretty much fallen from favour in his native country, having been superseded in the thriller genre by the likes of Victor Canning, Eric Ambler and Ian Fleming, was still reliable box-office in West Germany.  His writings were very influential on the German krimi genre, with adaptations of his books being supplemented by adaptations of those by his son and other films made in the style of the Wallace adaptations.  Even Sherlock Homes fell under his influence, with the German made Sherlock Homes and the Deadly Necklace (1963) being made very much in the Wallace style.  I have admit that these adaptations are something I really should get into, but showings of English language versions seem to be rare.

The Perfect Blend...

I'm not ashamed to admit that I shed a tear at the demise of Neighbours.  I know that it has long been fashionable to sneer at popular entertainment such as soaps operas, especially Australian soaps, but the fact is that Neighbours has been one of those things ever present in my life for the thirty six years it has been broadcast in the UK.  As I've mentioned here before, part of the attraction of Neighbours lay in the fact that, in contrast with domestic soaps, is its assumption that the majority of people are essentially decent human beings, that nobody is all bad.  The average episode doesn't consist of people screaming abuse at each other, plotting murder or simply being unpleasant.  While the series has always had some dubious characters among its regulars, they've rarely been out and out evil villains: Paul Robinson, for instance, might have been ruthless in business and too controlling in his personal life, he genuinely loved his family and didn't go in for using physical force.  (It is notable that the only time he came even close to being a soap 'super villain', plotting to bring down everyone he held a grudge against, it turned out that his behaviour was being caused by a brain tumour).  Lovable rogues like Lou Carpenter or fickle and narcissistic temptresses like Izzy Hoyland were more par for the course as far as dodgy characters went.  (Even local psychopath Finn Kelly was shown to be a product of forces beyond his control and, for a while, looked like he might find redemption when he lost his memory and reverted to his pre-psycho persona).

The fact is that Neighbours successfully created a fantasy world where it always seemed to be sunny, everyone wanted to be friends, where you always knew there wold be a welcome and forgiveness and redemption were always possible.  (Damn it, even Audrey and Sadie were forgiven for nearly burning down the school, actually burning down Jane's mailbox and framing Zara for it all, yo the extent that Sadie even ended up living on Ramsey Street, accepted by the neighbours).  During some very bad periods in my life, it was one of the safe places I always knew that I could escape into for twenty five minutes or so at a time.  Indeed, even during the periods when I didn't watch it, (and there were quite a few of those), just knowing that it still existed was comforting.  But now it is no more.  But at least they ended the show in such a way that we can at least still sustain our fantasies that Ramsey Street still exists and its residents are still there, carrying on their lives.  It s reassuring to feel that Karl and Susan are still welcoming wayward souls into their home and helping them turn their lives around through the redemptive power of love, or that Harold Bishop, the grandfather we all wished we had, is still dropping in for visits.  I even like the idea that Paul Robinson is still there, spinning his business schemes.  Best of all, the last few episodes brought back Mike Young (Guy Pearce himself), one of the most popular characters from the early years of the show, to buy Chloe's house and finally, hopefully, get together with his teenage love, Jane.  It's nice to think of him back there.  I know that I'm revealing myself here to be a sentimental and romantic fool, but as I've grown older, I've found that seeing happy, hopeful, endings, even in TV soaps, has grown increasingly important to me.  I need the reassurance that, regardless of how turbulent times have been, there can still be good outcomes and positive futures.  All of that said, I do have a fundamental problem with Neighbours: that theme song, specifically the the lyric about how 'good neighbours become good friends'.  The reality, I find, is that neighbours, in real life, no matter how well-meaning they might be, are simply a pain in the arse.