Abducted by the Daleks (2005)

If something is around long enough, or becomes popular enough, then it will inevitably spawn a porn or sex comedy cash in.  So it is somewhat surprising that the BBC's venerable science fiction series Dr Who didn't get one until 2005's Abducted by the Daleks, clearly made to exploit the series revival that year.  Perhaps there had been previous cash ins - I can't say that I keep up with such things, although I fondly remember Katy Manning's nude photoshoot with a Dalek for a men's magazine while she was still a regular in the series back in the seventies - but if there were, they didn't create the furore that Abducted by the Daleks made at the time.  Indeed, the level of outrage in some circles created by the film seems hardly justified by what, in reality, is a crudely made skin flick, apparently made on a budget only slightly less than that of its progenitor.  But, of course, that's the point of this type of exploitation: the free publicity that can be generated by riding the coat tails of a 'legit' property to drive sales of a shoddy product that otherwise slip by unnoticed.  The thing about Abducted by the Daleks, though, is that not only is it the most basic of parodies of its source, but it doesn't even work as porn.  The sex is minimal, confined to a couple of perfunctory lesbian encounters, with the film instead presenting a parade of bare female flesh as its main titillation.  Most disappointingly, they don't even exploit the pornographic potential of the Daleks to the full - I mean, they look like a bunch of huge, knobbly self-propelled dildoes, for goodness sake.  We don't get any sucker-groping from their appendages, (nor any bottom pinching from the one with a pincer rather than a sucker).  Not to mention the fact that their ray guns bear a certain resemblance to a vibrator.

Of course, Abducted by the Daleks is part of a long tradition of taking something relatively innocuous and innocent and 'sexing it up' to produce something aimed fairly and squarely at an adult audience.  It lies in the same continuum as all those porno versions of children's fairy tales, or adaptations of children's novels - 'Alice in Wonderland' being, as I recall, a popular subject for porn adaptations.  Ultimately, I suppose, it's a variation on the male fantasy of deflowering innocent young virgins, corrupting them with sensuality.  Abducted by the Daleks is an interesting case, though, as its source material is itself not entirely innocent and has, arguably, been itself guilty of playing on male fantasies, with its succession of increasingly sexually attractive young female assistants, (not infrequently to be seen in various states of undress), who are clearly there to attract the older male viewer.  At the same time, the casting of younger actors in the title role would seem to be aimed at attracting the older female audience.  Indeed, Dr Who does seem to have stirred various erotic fantasies among fans long before Abduction of the Daleks, if we are to believe Tom Baker's autobiography, where he recalls an encounter with a female groupie in a hotel room, who leapt on him demanding 'Take me through time Doctor!'.  (Actually, it would have been funnier if she'd lunged at his genitals with an egg-whisk in one hand, a sink plunger in the other, shouting 'Fornicate!').  

Sadly though, Abduction of the Daleks never really builds on any of these underlying sexual currents in the source material, instead seeming to feel that the mere presence of the titular monsters is sufficient exploitation in itself.  Which is surprising, as the makers do appear to have more than a passing familiarity of Dr Who, with the Daleks we see apparently modelled on those seen in the sixties Amicus film adaptations in terms of colour schemes and equipment, while crew members are variously billed as 'Billy Hartnell', 'Patrick Baker' and 'Dan Skaro'.  Nonetheless, it makes no real attempt to parody the source series plot-wise, design-wise (apart from the Daleks) or character-wise.  (Doubtless, they felt that they were infringing copyright enough by using the Dalek design and name).  The plot and its execution are, even by porn parody standards, pretty idiotic - four girls are driving through some woods at night, when they hit something on the road, (an alien, as it turns out) and, naturally, investigate by wandering around the woods, which have already been established as the haunt of a murderer of young women known as the 'Serial Skinner'.  For some reason, one of them gets separated from her friends and for no good reason takes her clothes off - at which point she is transported aboard the Dalek space ship, to be examined as a specimen of humanity in order to help their invasion plans.  Pretty soon, the other two follow suit, stripping off and being abducted, while the fourth turns out to be a Dalek agent and is beamed aboard to help torture the others.  Much mayhem ensues, before the fourth girl escapes back to the woods and survives encounters with an alien hunter and the 'Serial Skinner' (who turns out to be an alien), before a 'twist' ending.

Production values are crude in the extreme - the interior of the Dalek ship has walls and doors that wobble dangerously, while in the final scene, the police station interior consists of a desk with a flashing blue light on it.  The acting is universally awful, especially the four girls, who, I strongly suspect, weren't cast on the basis of acting ability.  All have strong Eastern European accents which, unfortunately, mask much of their dialogue.  (To be fair, I'm sure it wasn't worth hearing in the first place and understanding it really isn't necessary to following the 'plot').  Actually, on further consideration, I think that the guy playing the policeman in the last scene is the worst actor in the film - he isn't from Eastern Europe so we can hear clearly every word of his poorly delivered, idiotic, dialogue. There's one interesting casting development in the film: when she teleports back to Earth, the fourth girl is suddenly played by a different actress.  This change in appearance is addressed in the film, with the girl speculating that a fault with the matter transmitted could have changed her DNA.  There has been much discussion as to why this change of actress mid-film took place, with speculation that the original actress didn't want to do the nude scenes required for her character once she was back on Earth.  Personally, I think the reason is far more obvious: a homage to Dr Who itself, where the lead actor regularly regenerates into someone else.

But Abducted by the Daleks isn't entirely bad - the scenes in the woods are surprisingly well shot and quite atmospheric, while the Dalek props, although clearly homemade, are, in their shonky way, quite impressive.  Even if they are of varying heights and too thin, not to mention that in low shots you can see their castors.  Overall, though, I can't help but feel that Abducted by the Daleks represents a missed opportunity in terms of creating Dr Who-related erotica.  If only it had been made in the seventies, I can't help but feel, it would have made a fine sex comedy with Robin Askwith as the Doctor, perhaps, and a frequently naked Linda Hayden as his assistant.  Doubtless there would have been a scene where a Dalek casing popped open to reveal a naked woman inside, ('Bloody 'Ell, missus!').  As I noted at the start, I'm only surprised that thee haven't been more examples of Dr Who porn.  I'd like to believe that during the series long hiatus in the nineties and early noughties, various former members of the production team spirited various props away from the BBC in order to produce sex films featuring dilapidated looking Cybermen and tatty Sea Devils threatening buxom young women with all manner of intergalactic sexual depravities.  Perhaps they could have established a whole new genre of porn, exploring inter-species sexual relations, with one lot of rubber suited aliens copulating with another race of rubber suited aliens in quarries.  Ultimately, I suppose, the threat of legal action over copyright would have put them off - the BBC took action over Abducted by the Daleks, forcing a title change to Abducted by the Daloids, although the title monsters remained in the film.

Plumbing the Depths

It's just as well that, so far, we've been enjoying surprisingly mild temperatures this Autumn as I still have no functioning central heating system.  I know why it isn't working - the pump isn't functioning and the hot water tank's coil is leaking - but getting someone to fix it has become a saga.  The plumber who originally looked at it, after complaining about the state of the parking locally, spurning the temporary permit I had paid the council for, at his behest, made the most cursory of initial visits, failed to actually run any basic tests to verify my diagnosis, left my house mumbling about sending me a quote.  At the time, I got the impression that I was never going to hear from him again, so unenthusiastic about the job that he seemed, so I started the task of finding a replacement.  As always seems to be the case when trying to engage the services of a plumber, people were either not answering their phones, not answering messages left for them when they didn't answer the phone or answering the phone, telling me someone would call me back, but then not actually calling back.  In the midst of this, over a week after his visit, I got a quote from the first plumber.  Out of politeness, if nothing else, I decided to at least consider his offer.  While it wasn't completely outrageous, he caveated it by saying that before he would agree to the job, I had to guarantee that he could park close to my house.  By this time I was getting desperate to get the heating situation sorted, so I actually started trying to sort out some parking arrangements, before thinking, 'fuck it, why am I doing this?' I've never had to do it before for any tradesman, nor have my neighbours.

A word of explanation is probably required here - my house is on a raised terrace with no parking possible directly outside or opposite.  The resident's parking starts halfway down the road.  Not that I park there.  I have a (increasingly expensive) permit for the car park opposite, as the resident's parking always seems to be full of cars belonging to people who don't actually live there, but are using their mate's visitor permit.  I didn't create this situation and it seems ridiculous to me that I should have a tradesperson effectively telling me that I can't have any work done at my property unless I somehow sort out the council's parking policies.  I'm sorry, but it really isn't my problem.  I know that it is fair distance to walk between the on-street parking or the car park, (I know, I have to walk it every time I go to get my car or bring anything large I've bought and driven home by car to my house), but no other tradesmen used by me or my neighbours ever seem to have had a problem - it isn't like some kind of trek across the African veldt requiring native bearers and elephants.  The long and the short of all this is that I've decided to decline the original guy's quote, even though it means more delays to getting my heating repaired - it seems clear to me, both from his initial attitude and all the nonsense about parking, that, for whatever reasons, he really doesn't want to do the job.  So, I'm back to ringing around plumbers.  Or I would be if I had the energy.  I would have started as soon as I rejected that quote, but I've had to spend a large part of the week sorting out some repeat prescriptions, which my GP practice had, as ever, been tardy in signing off and the pharmacy kept insisting that only one had been issued and that I'd collected it.  Which I hadn't.  Anyway, that turned into a time-consuming and energy sapping saga in its own right.  So, I've vowed to myself that I'll restart my search for a plumber next week - I've already done some research and identified some likely candidates who might actually answer their phones.  In the meantime, let's just hope that those temperatures stay mild.

Count Dracula (1970)

I cannot deny that I'm not an unqualified fan of Jesus Franco.  Indeed, in the past I've been pretty harsh in my judgements of some of his output.  The problem isn't just stylistic - his over use of the zoom lens, for instance - but simply that Franco was so prolific, churning out films by the dozen, with lower and lower budgets it seemed.  Inevitably, many of them were going to be crap, made simply for money.  But every so often he'd turn out a film that displayed his directorial virtues to the max - an imaginative approach to his material, a bold use of colour compositions, wild imagery and unconventional plotting and story structures, for instance.  Venus in Furs (1970) and Rio '70 (1969), made for Harry Alan Towers, are both good to look at and hugely entertaining, while Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein (1972) and The Erotic Experiences of Frankenstein (1972) are fabulously surreal takes on well worn subject matter, (the latter, in particular, pointing forward, toward Franco's increasing interest in more pornographic scenarios.  Virgin Among The Living Dead (1973), represents another enjoyably off-kilter take upon an established subject.  Indeed, this ability to approach classic horror staples from a different (and hugely idiosyncratic) perspective is probably why I found Franco's Count Dracula (1970) so disappointing.  Another film from his Harry Alan Towers period, it has the distinction of being the only non-Hammer Dracula film that Christopher Lee starred in, (he played other vampires for other companies, of course, and made numerous cameo appearances as the Count).  It was also claimed by Towers, (who scripted it under his usual pseudonym of 'Peter Welbeck'), to be the most faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel to date.

To some extent this claim to fidelity, (on which the film was sold to Christopher Lee), is justified.  Certainly, the early part of the film follows the novel more closely than most adaptations and, most importantly for Lee apparently, not only does Dracula sport a 'tache, (the first since John Carradine had played the role for Universal in the mid forties), but starts out as an old man, gradually getting younger as the film progresses and he drinks more blood.  Unfortunately, once the film leaves Dracula's castle and Transylvania, it begins to depart from the book in terms of plot and character as much as any previous version.  It doesn't help that the scenes in 'London' are clearly shot in Spain and that the dialogue is ponderous and the pace leaden.  The poor script and shaky production values are compounded by the miscasting of many of the supporting characters.  In particular, Herbert Lom's Van Helsing fails to provide Dracula with a convincing, let alone worthy, nemesis.  He is neither the wild eccentric portrayed by Anthony Hopkins in the late Coppola version of Dracula, nor the steely fanatic played by Peter Cushing in the Hammer series.  Instead of those dynamic characterisations, Lom's Van Helsing is, to be frank, a tedious bore who barely seems to have the energy to engage in dialogue with the other characters, let alone confront Dracula.  The problem is less the actor than the pedestrian script which simply offers him nothing to work with, even having him disabled by a stroke part way through, to further immobilise the character and render him even less effective.

To be fair, though, in this film Dracula himself seems curiously muted compared to his depictions elsewhere.  Certainly, Lee's performance is nowhere near as effective as those he provided in the earlier Hammer productions, where he came across as the embodiment of evil, smoothly alternating between smoothly courteous host, seductive lover and savage blood-lusting monster.  Perhaps Lee was just 'Dracula'ed' out, having made two appearances in the Hammer series, (Taste The Blood of Dracula (1969) and Scars of Dracula (1970) around the same time that he made Count Dracula), but here he seems defeated by the script.  Franco, likewise, seems defeated by the subject matter and its treatment, with the film featuring none of his trademark quirkiness or visual flair.  The script simply gives him nothing to work with, nothing to lift the subject matter beyond the level of a Gothic fairy tale.  In particular, there is simply no sex here - unlike Hammer's 1958 production, (which took many liberties with the actual plot of Stoker's novel, but retained its spirit), Count Dracula's script doesn't seem to grasp that the book is very much about sex, about Dracula's vampiric bite releasing all those staid Victorian ladies from the sexual repression imposed upon them by a patriarchal society.  (The irony being that their release is effected by another patriarchal figure in the form of Dracula).

Count Dracula isn't all bad, of course.  There are some good individual scenes, such as the mother outside of Dracula's castle, desperately pleading for the life of her baby, that has been taken by the Count's vampire brides.  Moreover, Klaus Kinski puts in a memorable turn as the insane Renfield, while Maria Rohm and Soledad Miranda do their best as Mina and Lucy, respectively.  Overall, though, the film remains a disappointment, both as a Dracula film and as a Jesus Franco film, reaching neither the heights of his very best work, nor the tatty craziness of his worst.  Thanks to Welbeck's plodding script, it instead comes over as the sort of 'tasteful' classic novel adaptation you might have seen on a Sunday teatime on the BBC in the seventies.  It all goes to show that even a director as individualistic and eccentric as Jesus Franco could be bludgeoned into mediocrity when strait-jacketed by a script that is simultaneously too reverential to its source material while also missing completely its sub-text.

Same Old, Same Old

Another day, another Prime Minister.  You have to hand it to the Tories, they really are succeeding in making a mockery of our system of parliamentary democracy.  While Rishi Sunak was, of course, quite correct in asserting that a general election isn't required to change PMs as people elect don't elect an individual as PM, but rather elect MPs to a parliament which, in turn, effectively selects a PM on the basis of who can command a majority, this mechanism is meant to ensure stability and continuity of government in the event that sitting PM has to stand down.  Indeed, in the past, when the PM has changed mid-term, it has generally been because of ill health, national emergencies or has been pre-planned.  But we've just had three Prime Minister's in quick succession as a result of forced resignations because of scandal and incompetence.  The result has been anything but stability, with little continuity of policy and, thanks to wholesale changes of cabinet ministers, no continuity of government.  Just today we had the extraordinary spectacle of someone who had resigned as Home Secretary because they had broken the ministerial code, appointed to the same post just six days later, thereby making a mockery of the idea that breaches of the ministerial code are a serious, potentially career ending matter.

Sadly, this just typified Sunak's accession to Number Ten - despite all his words about correcting the mistakes of his predecessor and steadying the economy, the reality is that all he can do is reshuffle the same old faces who have already failed to deliver.  Braverman, Gove, Raab, Williamson - they're all back, despite having resigned or been sacked by one of the two previous PMs.  Their return is symptomatic of the fact that the Tories have run out of ideas, with their current ruling ideology leaving them no room for radical change.  They can't admit that the biggest millstone around their (and the rest of the country's) necks is Brexit, because it is a policy entirely of their own creation and to do so would be to admit that they were wrong both in the concept and its execution.  So, while I agree with Sunak that, constitutionally, there is no need for another general election in order to give him, personally, a mandate to serve as Prime Minister, the fact is that this administration has clearly run its course.  It has no answers for the problems facing the UK, it simply offers more of the same.  Let's be honest, we never really came out of that first spate of 'austerity', inflicted by David Cameron - I don't recall any economic recovery, at least not one felt by ordinary people, following it.  Indeed, any faint hope of such a recovery was strangled at birth by the May/Johnson 'Hard Brexit'.  Consequently, it seems clear that it is time the electorate were given an opportunity to make a choice on the issue, via general election, regardless of whether one is due or legally required.

Docteur Justice (1975)

One of the problems faced by the makers of Jame Bond cash ins is that even when they have the budget for foreign locations, the most exotic ones have inevitably already featured prominently in a genuine Bond movie.  By 1975 and nine official Bond pictures there weren't many places left that 007 hadn't visited, which is perhaps why the makers of Docteur Justice (1975) decided to set the first half of their film in Belgium -Antwerp, Ostend and Bruges all feature prominently and remain locations in which the real James Bond still hasn't killed or sexually harassed anyone.  But, to be fair, Docteur Justice isn't quite your regular Bond knock off.  For one thing, the title character isn't a two fisted secret agent, but rather a two fisted roving World Health Organisation (WHO) doctor who also happens to be swimming champion and an expert in karate.  Moreover, rather than being sent on a specific assignment, he stumbles into a plot to rob oil tankers of their cargoes mid-ocean purely by chance, when he tries to help a fellow passenger who has been shot as they both depart a flight at Ostend.  Dr Justice, (yes, that's his actual name), is in Belgium to attend a WHO conference in Bruges, most specifically to debate with rival Dr Georges Orwell over solutions for world over population.  His arrival coincides with that of an oil tanker in Antwerp, where it is found that its tanks are full of sea water rather than oil.  The captain and crew, having no explanation, naturally come under suspicion and are arrested.  (The captain's suspicions really should have been aroused by the fact that the ship's cook, who left the ship before the discovery of the theft, was none other than Gert Frobe).  The man shot in Ostend was a member of the gang behind the theft who had tried to demand a larger share of the loot, executed as an example to anyone else tempted to try and double cross them.

The gang, of course, is led by Gert Frobe as 'Mr Max', although he defers to the unseen 'Regent' for important decisions and planning issues.  Having witnessed Dr Justice speaking to the dying man in Ostend, Max fears that the dead man might have revealed details of their next job to the medic.  Ordering Justice's capture, obviously, proves the wrong move, as it involves the good doctor in the plot, of which he actually knew nothing.  After various twists, including a gang member, seemingly undeterred by that execution, trying to extort more money from Max in exchange for Justice, who has captured, said gang member's girl friend changing sides after witnessing his murder by Max and a trip to Colombia, (actually Spain) followed by a trip on another tanker, during which the gang's modus operandi is revealed, it all culminates at the Spanish castle headquarters of the Regent.  While Docteur Justice would seem to be packing a lot of plot and incident into just over an hour and forty minutes of running time, the fact is that it still feels too long.  The most obvious problem is that the direction of Christian-Jacque, a director who tended to specialise in swashbucklers and action films, (The Black Tulip (1964) and The Saint Lies in Wait (1966), being two of his best known titles), and latterly action-oriented TV series, is here seriously off the pace.  The action sequences, while well choreographed, not only seem to be over in a flurry, but are widely spaced out, with far too much talk in between them.  One action scene, though, stands out as it seemed to be an attempt to do something Bond has never done: a land yacht chase down a beach.

Moreover, unlike an actual Bond movie, the film fails to exploit its locations to any good effect.  OK, I know that Belgium, especially Bruges, might not seem the most exciting place in the world, but I'm sure that if it had featured in a Bond movie then the makers would have used various recognisable locations to good effect in action sequences.  Only the section with Justice as a passenger on the second tanker, (where Frobe is once again the cook), makes anything of its location, providing some insight into the operations of merchant ships in the seventies.  The plot, while set up interestingly, with the mystery of how the oil was stolen from the tanker en voyage, apparently without the crew knowing, unfortunately resolves itself in pretty pedestrian fashion.  Indeed, the secret of the robbery is telegraphed early on when it is pointed out to an oil company agent travelling on the first tanker that it is twenty four hours late on arrival, yet he doesn't seem to have noticed this fact and has no explanation.  So it comes as no surprise when the gang prepares to rob the second ship that Max the cook has drugged the crew's food as they near a particular point in the voyage, with an hallucinogen which will leave them with no memory of the incident.  Of course, Dr Justice has anticipated this and has an antidote which the dead gangster's ex-girlfriend (who has hidden on the ship) administers to him so that he can foil the plot.  The whole robbery sequence is curiously pedestrian, with lots of expositional dialogue between Max and his cohorts, just to be sure that we all understand what is going on, building up to a pretty minimalist intervention by Dr Justice to put a spanner in the works.

At this point the whole plot hinges on the fact that the Regent just happens to have discovered the existence of huge underwater fuel tanks, supposedly built by the Germans to secretly refuel their U-boats during the war, at this particular spot near the Azores, into which the oil from the tankers can be transferred.  At this point the mechanics of the plan become obscure - presumably they'd have to have a tanker or tankers of their own to transfer the oil into at a later date, in order to sell it.  In which case, why didn't they simply do so directly, while the crews were drugged, rather than relying on these underwater tanks?  Something else glossed over is that fact that the crew's missing twenty four hours would have been noticed at the time - a ship's captain has to account for everything in the ship's log, this would include the fact that the delay by the oil hijackers would mean that the ship would have been out of its expected position according to its charted course.  Anyway, leaving all this aside, you might well ask just why the gang was hijacking oil cargoes in the first place, (other than for the money itself)?  Well, it is all in order to finance the Regent's masterplan to cut overpopulation by releasing a chemical into the world's water supplies which will render a large proportion of the male population sterile.  Because, of course, the Regent is really Dr Orwell, thereby neatly bringing everything full circle by tying the plot in with Dr Justice's original reason for being in Bruges.  Oh, not to forget that Orwell is Max's older brother, the fact that both characters are played by Frobe made both this and the Regent's identity all too obvious.

Actually, the best thing in the film is Frobe, who, particularly as Max, gives a typically charismatic and quirky performance.  Despite his villainy, Max is a far more interesting and likeable character than Dr Justice, who, as played by John Phillip Law, comes across as a cardboard cut-out.  Which, perhaps, isn't surprising, as the film is based on a French comic strip.  So, to be fair to Law, his performance is, arguably, pretty much in line with his character's origins and he does everything expected of a comic strip hero - he looks handsome, has a dazzling smile and is supremely confident at all times.  Moreover, he typically looks good in the action sequences, having already played a number of similar roles, (although, interestingly, one of the producers of 1973's Golden Voyage of Sinbad, in which Law starred, claimed that the actor actually wasn't that athletic and was a poor fencer).  The supporting cast includes a number of familiar faces, including Nathalie Delon as the girl who switches allegiances and Paul Naschy as one of Max's henchmen.  Despite its plot problems and poor pacing, taken on the level of a comic strip adaptation, Docteur Justice is actually quite enjoyable and, if the performances of the leads is any indication, does seem to have been intended to be taken somewhat tongue-in-cheek, a parody of these sorts of overblown action films.  I don't think that the film has ever officially been released in an English language version, either dubbed or sub-titled, explaining its relative obscurity in the English-speaking world.  (The version I saw had English sub-titles added by a third party).

'Mistress of the Dead'

 

Another striking cover image from a pulp magazine, in this case the October 1935 Dime Mystery Magazine.  Illustrating Hugh B Cave's 'Mistress of the Dead', I can't say how accurately the cover painting represents the story, with its vivid depiction of a woman being dragged up a chimney breast by a devil.  The story itself is apparently a tale of voodoo in the swamps.  The interior illustrations for it are somewhat more explicit, albeit in black and white, with a bare breasted woman being carried away by a bunch of zombies.  Titled Dime Mystery Book Magazine for its first ten issues in 1932, Dime Mystery Magazine notched up 144 issues between 1933 and 1949 and another five in 1950, under the title 15 Mystery Stories.  In its early days it was one of the first 'weird-menace' type pulps, specialising in mystery stories with horror elements and an emphasis upon young, semi-naked, women being tied up and menaced.

Over time, in line with changing tastes and the emergence of dedicated horror pulps, Dime Mystery Magazine became more of a conventional crime pulp, still with an emphasis on the weird, but with the bondage and rape overtones of the covers gradually dialed down a few notches.  But back in the early days, it was still proud to boast that it carried 'The Weirdest Stories Ever Told', with a 'Spine-Tingling Mystery-Terror Novel' in every issue.  Like many popular pulps, Dime Mystery Magazine also had both Canadian and UK reprint editions.  Of course, a dime not being slang for any kind of UK currency, the latter issues of the British edition were titles simply Mystery Magazine.  (For what it is worth, under either title it was usually sold in the UK for a shilling, which was worth twelve old pence, or a twentieth of a pound, which was presumably the UK publisher's idea of a British equivalent to a dime, (ten cents or a tenth of a dollar)).

The Crawling Hand (1963)

Look, when I watch  film entitled The Crawling Hand (1963) I expect to see plenty of crawling hand action.  While the trailer gives the impression that we're set to see a living severed hand strangling people left, right and centre, the reality is that the movie musters only five minutes or so of disembodied hands causing such mayhem over an eighty minute running time.  Which is pretty meagre return for a movie that has said hand as its title monster.  Feeling as if it should have been made in the fifties, The Crawling Hand is a pretty typical B-movie, featuring cut price effects, (the hand itself is pretty underwhelming), the regulation small town setting and the usual shady government agencies trying to keep everything under wraps.  Even its plot - an astronaut is possessed by a murderous alien force, with only his hand (and part of his lower arm) left after his capsule explodes on re-entry, with the student who finds the still living hand now possessed by the murderous force - could easily have been taken from one of the plethora of science fiction horror films that proliferated in the fifties.  But, while it might come on like one of those AIP B-movies tailored for teen audiences, (there's a beach setting, juvenile leads and even some soda shop action), even boasting Herbert L Strock, who had presided over some of those flicks, as director, The Crawling Hand was, in fact, an independent production, trying to cash in on the teen horror market.  

In its favour, though, The Crawling Hand does feature B-movie favourite Allison Heyes as its female lead, while Alan Hale Jr plays the local, befuddled, Sheriff (as he often did when not marooned on Gilligan's Island).  It also features a novel demise for its five-fingered menace: being chewed up by local cats, (although it 'lives' to crawl another day, although, thankfully, no sequel was forthcoming).  But, as I said, there just isn't enough hand action (so to speak), with most of the plot focused either on space scientists either arguing or conducting bumbling clandestine investigations, or the activities of the alien possessed student, (you can tell he's possessed by the fact that he suddenly starts sporting lots of black make up around his eyes).  Unusually for this sort of film, its anti-hero is allowed some kind of redemption once free of the hand's influence - we last see him in hospital, apparently forgiven for all the assaults and attempted murders, joking with the Sheriff and the scientists.  Even his girlfriend now seems OK with him.  The Crawling Hand is another of those movies which is quite fun, in its own crude and derivative way, while it is on, but which ultimately offers nothing particularly new or memorable.

Right Out of Their Minds

Wow! Is this really what we've come to - the Home Secretary standing up in the Commons screeching away like some Twitter crazy about 'coaltions of chaos' led by 'Labour, Guardian reading tofu-eating wokerati', as she defends new measures which will allow the arrest of people who might be thinking of organising disruptive protests.  Not actually protesting, you understand.  Just thinking about it.  As for that 'coalition of chaos', (which, presumably, is a sub-set of the 'Anti-Growth Coalition'), well, I'm both a Labour Party member and a Guardian reader, but I've never eaten tofu in my life and I'm only 'woke' in the sense that I don't like Nazis, so am I in or out?  It feels like we're going down the same path as the Trunpist extremists in the States, with government and their media cronies trying to redefine anyone who stands against extremists and oppressors as bad,as somehow being against 'free speech' and 'liberty', implying therefore that those they oppose must be the good guys, even if they are neo-Nazis in all but name.  Just look at the demonisation of 'Antifa', (actually as non-existent as a centrally organised body as Al Qeada was), labelling them 'domestic terrorists' while the only violence actually being carried out was by Nazis and their ilk against protestors.  (But because they were the 'good' guys standing up to those beastly terrorists protesting against them, they were generally able to get away with murder.

But obviously we want all these restrictions on our ability to protest and suppression of our right to free speech, (all in the name of protecting the right of free speech on the part of Nazis, Brexiteers and the rights of those multinational corporations seeking to exploit the environment, our lack of rights as workers, our health care system, etc), otherwise we wouldn't have given the Tories that eighty seat majority at the election, (despite them getting only 43% of the vote).  Besides, suppressing the freedom of expression of moaners and critics has never been more important - negativity about the  havoc wreaked on the UK economy by the Tories is what's pulling this country down.  It's downright unpatriotic - don't people know that it was necessary to destroy the UK in order to save it?  People have just got to brace themselves and rally behind Prime Minister Liz Truss - until the Tories can find a competent replacement.  Yes indeed, that fabled 'unity candidate' who can bring the party and the country back together again in order to ensure the continuation of Tory government.  Where such a person can be found is the question, though.  Should the Tories set out on some kind of Holy Grail quest, looking for the right wing loon with the sacred birthmark, or whatever?  Or will it be plan B?  The synthesis of a new leader by stitching together the best bits of various existing Tory MPs, Frankenstein-style?  Or have they already tried that, with Therese Coffey as the result?

Fact Free Reporting

You'd think, living as we do in this age of technological marvels, where the world's accumulated knowledge is apparently at our fingertips, thanks to the internet, that the verification of media stories, rumours and the like would be straightforward.  Especially for press outlets.  But apparently not.  Just today I found myself reading a story from a Welsh online newspaper about how one of those self-styled 'urban explorers' had 'discovered' a rusting steam locomotive in some woods in East Anglia.  The story played up the 'mystery' aspect of how it came to be there, with the 'explorer' giving the usual bollocks about how, whilst locals know tat it is there, they don't know why, or how it got there.  Of course, he's not going to divulge the exact location in order to protect his 'discovery'.  A cursory online check would have provided both him and the paper with all the answers they needed.  I didn't even need to do that - a model railway forum  lurk around pointed me to all the relevant links.  The fact is that the locomotive has been 'discovered' several times - the land it rests on is part of a farm owned by a guy who runs a local steam fair.  He took the locomotive - a nineteen fifties built Finnish freight locomotive - on loan from its owner several years ago with the aim of restoring it to working order and running it on a specially built track during his annual steam fair.  Clearly, this didn't work out.  As for what a Finnish locomotive is doing in the UK in the first place, well it was one of a number of them imported here twenty odd years ago, reportedly for use as exhibits in a theme park.  When this fell through, they found themselves being moved around in search of new homes.  The problem is that Finnish railways are to five foot gauge instead of standard gauge.  Their broad gauge makes it pretty much impossible to convert them to run on standard gauge, ruling out their use on any UK preservation line.

As I say, this particular loco seems to be 'discovered' at regular intervals, each time generating a new and completely unresearched story claiming it to be a 'mystery'.  I'm only surprised that it hasn't yet featured on one of those fatuous You Tube videos about the 'Ten Most Amazing Abandoned Trains' type that you often come across.  These are entirely devoid of facts or research, cobbling together vaguely relevant video clips.  I did sit through one in which several of the 'abandoned' locomotives most obviously weren't - crew and exhaust fumes could be observed on several.  The most idiotic example they gave, though, came from the UK, highlighting a mail train 'abandoned' in sidings, complete with 'locomotive', which they identify as a 'Class 44'.  Well, for one thing, it isn't a locomotive, but an unpowered driving trailer which would have allowed the train to be reversed into terminal platforms without the loco being run around the train.  On top of that, the 'Class 44' is a long extinct 'pilot scheme' locomotive (although examples of its very similar Class 45 and Class 46 cousins still exist), which looked nothing like the driving trailer.  Finally, the most cursory search of the web would have told them that this train was one of a number made redundant when its owner lost the contract to operate Royal Mail trains.  They were placed into storage, in the hope of leasing them for some other roles, where they have remained for the past decade or so.  Sadly, this lack of basic research online is commonplace and not confined to railway-related topics.  While the You Tube video I mentioned is arguably an amateur production, where such a lack of fact checking might be forgivable, (although, personally, I think it is still unforgivable), the articles about the 'lost' locomotive have all been in supposedly 'professional' press outlets, where some degree of verification is surely mandatory.  As I said, in an age when so much information is readily accessible, without even having to get off the sofa, such a lack of standards is lamentable and is indicative of the lack of professional standards that prevail in much of what passes for journalism these days.

Mystery on Monster Island (1981)

Another of those semi-obscure Jules Verne adaptations whose existence I was aware of, but had never seen, Mystery on Monster Island (1981) - aka Monster Island - finally turned up on an extremely obscure streaming channel the other night.  Despite headlining two UK actors in Terrence Stamp and Peter Cushing, I'm not sure that this film ever had a UK release in any format.  The first thing to note is that it isn't (despite what many others have erroneously claimed) an adaptation of 'Mysterious Island', even if the title and content, (an island full of monsters and pirate treasure) invites such a conclusion.  Rather, it is based upon a lesser known Verne title which is usually translated into English as 'Godfrey Morgan: A Californian Mystery' (1882).  Up to a point, the film is a relatively faithful adaptation, in that it involves the titular character (renamed Jeff Morgan in the film)who, having set sail with his tutor in search of adventure before getting married, finds himself (with the tutor) shipwrecked on an island, where he encounters cannibals and saves an African man from them, before eventually being rescued by his fiance's uncle.  Where it departs from the novel is in having the island populated by various monsters, inserting a  a beautiful female castaway into the action and having the uncle's business rival turn up with a gang wearing what look like Ninja outfits , searching for some lost pirate treasure.  The final twist, which sees the uncle revealing that he had arranged the fake shipwreck, (it was his ship that Morgan had been travelling on), the fake monsters, the cannibals and the African (all actors) not to mention a volcanic explosion in order to give the boy an adventure, is actually taken from the book.  Only his business rival's incursion and the castaway (who is revealed as being in cahoots with the villain)were unplanned.  (In the book, obviously there were no monsters and the business rival doesn't turn up in person, instead releasing several non-indigenous predators to the island in revenge for the uncle having outbid him for ownership of it at an auction).

Bearing in mind that the film was clearly aimed at younger audiences, it isn't at all badly made and generally entertaining, if around fifteen minutes too long.  Director Juan Piquer Simon, (who would later direct the US-Spanish slasher/giallo hybrid Pieces (1982)), had form for this sort of movie, having been behind an earlier Verne adaptation, Where Time Began (1977), loosely based on 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth', also featuring various monsters and an international cast, (headed by Kenneth More), which was likewise quite enjoyable.  Like that earlier film, the monsters in Mystery on Monster Island are a mixture of men in suits, (sometimes photographically enlarged) and mechanical puppets, most of their appearances being reasonably effective, if not quite on a par with those seen in Where Time Began.  While Cushing and Stamp are top-billed, playing the uncle and his rival respectively, the reality is that their roles extend to little more than extended cameos, with Cushing giving his familiar kindly eccentric performance and Stamp providing a smoothly villainous presence. Likewise, continental exploitation favourites Paul Naschy, Frank Brana and Luis Barboo make blink and you'll miss them appearances.  In reality, the bulk of the action is carried by Ian Sera and David Hatton as the Morgan and his tutor.  While Sera makes for a pretty bland hero, he at least handles the action scenes reasonably well.  Hatton's character, however, with his constant prissiness and bitching, quickly become tiresome.  Interestingly, although apparently confronting each other on the beach at the film's climax, it looks as if Cushing and Stamp's scenes were shot separately. If you watch carefully, you will see that they are never in shot together.  Indeed, the only other main cast characters Stamp interacts with are Cushing's Chinese firework expert and the female castaway.  Before the beach confrontation, his character has spent his entire time on the island with his face covered and the actor's voice over dubbed.  The Chinese character, incidentally, highlights one of the film's problems - even by 1981 standards it relies far too much on racial stereotypes, with the Chinaman - who speaks like an awful British sitcom parody of a Chinese person - being particularly offensive.

While the source novel (whose original French title translated literally into English as 'School for Robinsons'), was a 'Robinsonade' and was both homage to and parody of Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe', the film retains this aspect while also parodying, to some extent, 'Mysterious Island' and its movie adaptations.  Not just in the insertion of monsters and pirates into the action, nor in the existence of a mysterious benefactor who keeps providing the castaways with tools, (the uncle in Monster Island, Captain Nemo in 'Mysterious Island'), but also in some of the technological devices they are able to construct using local materials.  At one point, for instance, Morgan and co are able to build a dart firing 'Gatling gun' from bamboo.  Consequently, the film is, in a curious way, one of the more 'authentic' Verne adaptations out there, (barring monsters, of course), although the thing it most reminded me of were the series of Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations produced by Amicus in the seventies, (one of which, At the Earth's Core, had co-starred Cushing), which also featured lots of man-in-a-suit monsters.   On its own level - as essentially a children's film, rather like those aforementioned Amicus movies - Mystery on Monster Island actually provides a reasonably entertaining experience, even if its attempts at humour ultimately grate and its pace flags too often. 

Can You Guess Who's Burning Yet?

So, Channel Four are 'courting controversy' again, are they?  Well, according to the print media they are with their plans for a show hosted by Jimmy Carr in which viewers can vote whether to burn a painting by Hitler, a painting by Rolf Harris or a painting by Picasso.  I'm not entirely sure where the controversy lies - in having tax dodger Jimmy Carr present the show, perhaps?  Personally, I think it obvious which one they should burn: Picasso has obvious artistic merit, while the Hitler work is of historical significance because of the artist, leaving the Rolf Harris for burning as it has neither historical significance nor artistic merit.  I mean, I remember seeing him do those paintings on kids' TV when I was a child - even then I knew they were shit.  Now, obviously, those that survive have only novelty value because thy were painted by a convicted sex offender.  To be honest, though, I don't think this TV show goes far enough - quite frankly, they should be burning Rolf Harris himself.  OK, I know that burning the artist rather than their work would, in this case, be an unfair contest as both Picasso and Hitler are already dead, (or is Hitler dead? conspiracy nuts are saying right now), but that's not the point.  This sort of show is about one thing - satisfying public bloodlust.  It's revenge-by-proxy.  We all know that the Picasso is just in there to tease the idea that high art might be destroyed at the whim of the contemptuous unwashed masses.  In reality, it is about re-enacting Britain's victory over the bosch bastards in World War Two and exacting revenge on Rolf Harris for being a nonce and, worse, having tainted our cherished memories of childhood innocence by forever linking them with sexual abuse.  All via burning their paintings.

But, as noted, short of locating Hitler's body, digging it up and burning him all over again, in his case the art burning is as close as we can get to re-iterating the triumph of British values.  (Not that there isn't precedent for this sort of thing, those sick Royalist psychopaths dug up Cromwell's body after the restoration and beheaded it, apparently disappointed that he escaped their wrath by dying).  Rolf Harris, however, is still with us, so why not burn him in person?  Preferably atop a funeral pyre of his paintings, didgeridoos, wobble boards and stylophones.  Ironically, the very tabloids currently tut-tutting over this Channel Four show would doubtless embrace the idea of immolating Rolf Harris whole heartedly: 'Burn a pedo today and win a week's holiday in Ibiza'.  Because they are very much into the concept of satisfying the public lust for revenge (which they've been instrumental in whipping up) against transgressors like sex offenders, immigrants, benefits claimants and single mothers.  To Hell with justice when you can have a good lynching instead, (besides, all those judges are 'enemies of the people' in thrall to Marxist ideology, determined to hand out soft sentences to criminals, so fuck the courts).  Which is why Channel Four need to rejig their show - ditch Picasso, the average vengeance lusting bigot won't ever have heard of him and as for Hitler, well, most would only vaguely know who he was and those who knew for sure would probably be admirers of his 'strong leadership'.  Instead have a Gary Glitter record and maybe a recording of Stuart Hall presenting It's a Knockout.  Have the contest be to destroy one of these artifacts and their progenitors.  Noe that would get the viewers in - although I'm sure that even with that super-pedo line up Rolf Harris would win hands down.  The only thing that could top it would be if they could dig up Jimmy Savile and somehow reanimate his corpse in order to kill him again.

Honeymoon Horror (1982)

 I've been having another of those viewing experiences where, every time I tune into particular Roku channel, the same bloody film is showing, albeit at a different point each time.  The channel in question is 'American Horrors Classic', the other 'American Horrors' channel, recently set up by Hart D Fisher to extend his brand.  You'd hope that with double the number of channels, you'd now have double the selection of films, but it seems that the same number of movies are now simply being spread over two channels.  That said, I don't recall having seen this particular film, Honeymoon Horror (1982), having ever shown up on the original channel.  Even when see, in brief segments while channel hopping and out of order, it has to be said that Honeymoon Horror is a truly dreadful film. It's another example of low budget regional film making by a bunch of local film makers, in this case in Texas.  Featuring a no-name cast of non-actors, (presumably friends of the producers), it is a truly generic slasher movie.  It has all the tropes present: a remote location, in this case an island housing an hotel specialising in honeymooners, the usual group of victims, (honeymooners and some random co-ed girls), dark secrets, an obvious red-herring suspect, axe murders and a killer who turns out to be that guy who supposedly burned to death in the prologue.  Oh, not to to forget the bumbling local law enforcement.  

Actually, the scenes with the sheriff and his deputies were added later, presumably to bring the running time up to feature length, and seem to be intended as comic relief.  Relief from what, I'm not sure.  Certainly not the gore and horror, which are pretty mild.  Nor the suspense, which is pretty much non-existent, (characters just seem to stand around, waiting to be murdered).  Perhaps they are there to distract from the script and acting, (although these added scenes feature equally inane dialogue and hammy performances), the worst of which is the 'English' maid who talks as if she had just wandered in from a Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes film: 'Lawks a'mercy! Fair gives me the willies, it does', she utters, or words to that effect.  (It is worth noting that the film has a contemporary US setting, rather than Victorian Whitechapel).  It's a relief when she's the first character to fall victim to the killer.  Truly, this film is an endurance test, regardless of how you watch it - in short segments as I did, or in one go, straight through).  Yet, it does occupy a significant place in horror film history, in that it was one of the first movies to be picked up by a major distributor for a direct-to-video release.  Sony bought it and released it on VHS in 1982, subsequently making a significant profit from rentals.  The fact that Honeymoon Horror was only ever released on VHS for rental and never on DVD reinforces my suspicion that much of the film content on both 'American Horrors' channels consists of Hart D Fisher's personal VHS collection, which itself consists of second or third generation VHS dupes, so crappy are their quality.  If that sounds like a rebuke or criticism, it really isn't - as I've noted before, the only way to watch these films is in this condition.  It's part of their charm and I remain a fan of Fisher's Roku channels for providing this authentic retro viewing experience.  Even something as awful as Honeymoon Horror has a certain mesmeric hold upon me thanks to its sheer VHS era crappiness - the low budget stuff turned out these days just looks too slick to be truly entertaining in the same way.

Nasty Plumbing

How I wish that I could be feeling cold through choice, because I can't afford the fuel bills.  Instead, I'm sat here feeling the chill because of a broken down central heating system and the apparent impossibility of finding a competent plumber or heating engineer in Crapchester who is able and/or willing to fix it.  It isn't as if I don't know what the problems are: the pump isn't working, (it is getting power in response to the timer and thermostats, implying that something is jamming it or that there's a fault with some component on its circuit board), while there's an ongoing problem with the hot water cylinder - from the symptoms I'd guess that the coil is leaking.  See, I've even done the analytics for them!  Anyway, I got someone to actually look at it last week.  Even then, he wouldn't come out until I managed to get a temporary parking permit for him, which cost me money, then told me that he'd parked in a nearby car park instead, as he couldn't get his vehicle into any of the available spaces on the street.  He then proceeded to try and dispute all the symptoms of my inoperable hot water system, (without actually running any simple tests to verify or dismiss my conclusions), before telling me that everything was probably at fault - cylinder, pump, zone valve and they should all just be replaced.  He left hurriedly - I think that my scepticism showed too clearly on my face - mumbling that he'd give me a quote.  I thought to myself as he left, 'I'm never going to hear from him again, am I?' - so far, I've been proven right.

I got the distinct impression that he couldn't wait to get out of my house.  Perhaps it was my personal hygiene - although I bathe or shower regularly, (thanks to the immersion heater in the tank, I can still get hot water).  Maybe he didn't like the state of the place, although I had tidied up and vacuumed all the floors.  Personally, I suspect that he didn't like my DVD collection, which is currently housed in several plastic crates in the living room, awaiting the erection of some new and, I suspect, entirely mythical shelves that I keep planning.  Anyway, I realised after the plumber had gone that some of my 'video nasties' - most notably Cannibal Holocaust - were face up in one the crates.  Possibly not the best impression to give visitors, but hey, if they judge people on what they watch, then that's their problem.  The long and the short of this is that I'm back to square one when it comes to getting my heating fixed.  Over the past few days I've made a few desultory attempts myself to at least get the pump going again, to no avail.  Although I think that I've established to my own satisfaction that the three-way valve and actuator are still functioning correctly.  I've got the number of a firm of heating engineers that a friend has used in the past, but they are from out of town and may not be willing to travel this far - it will probably cost me extra if they do - but I'm holding onto them as a reserve option.  So, in the meantime, I'll be spending my evenings huddling around my modest electric fire and wearing extra layers of clothing while I trawl through the lower depths of Crapchester's plumbers and heating engineers, (there are already a few ruled out due to the crap work they've done in the past).  This time though, if I do manage to get anyone out, I'll make out sure that all my 'video nasties' are at the bottom of the crate.

Still More From Baywatch Nights

What seems like an eternity ago, I started working my way through Season Two of Baywatch Nights, the season where the Baywatch private eye spin off went completely bonkers and started featuring aliens, vampires and werewolves.  I managed to write up my impressions of the first four episodes here before the project stalled.  Actually, it didn't stall completely.  I did manage to watch the next four episodes, but never got around to writing about them.  The problem was that none of these episodes was especially memorable, all featuring confusing, poorly developed plots and a paucity of budget that kept the action to a minimum.  Nevertheless, as I'm determined to get back to wading my way through the series, I thought that I'd offer a brief overview of episodes five to eight.  They get off to a poor start with 'Circle of Fear'  a tale of witchcraft and black magic which gets off to a good start with black masses and the like in the woods, but then settles into a pretty routine story involving ancient magical tomes and curses.  Most of the action, such as it is, revolves around Ryan's apartment as she finds herself beset by all sorts of supernatural manifestations.  The problem is that none of them are very interesting and, ultimately, nothing really happens.

Episode six, 'The Cabin', at least has the distinction of being the barmiest episode yet, with Mitch and Ryan visiting a remote cabin in the woods and finding that it contains a number of portals through time and space, depositing them, individually, into dangerous situations in the past.  They find themselves facing crazy killers and the like in the nineteenth century.  Unfortunately, the episode lets itself down by concluding with one of those 'it was all a dream' endings.  The ultimate in cop outs.  The seventh episode, 'Curse of the Mirrored Box' is a tale of voodoo, full of mildly racist stereotypes which seems to have drawn most of its actual knowledge of voodoo from watching Live and Let Die (1973).  As with 'Circle of Fear', the story is less than gripping, poorly executed and, in places, virtually incomprehensible.  The final confrontation between Mitch and the local voodoo High Priest is, to put it mildly, anti-climactic.  Episode eight, 'Last Breath', is somewhat more intriguing, offering a cross over with regular Baywatch as Mitch and Ryan investigate the disappearances of several lifeguards whilst they are carrying out rescues.  The third of these involves Donna - at last given something to do - being pulled out sea by her float line, before vanishing beneath the waves.  Griff also makes a reappearance, helping Mitch out with some underwater investigation and getting shut in the boot of a submerged car for his troubles. 

The episode is notable for not having a non-supernatural resolution.  It turns out that the three missing life guards have been kidnapped by a guy whose brother and parents died when the car he was driving went into the sea - lifeguards saved him but not his family.  He now wants to re-enact the crash, with the kidnapped lifeguards standing in for his family so that, this time, he can die with them and assuage his survivor's guilt.  Despite the lack of a supernatural element, the episode is actually far more atmospherically shot than most of the supernatural episodes, with  a real sense of unease pervading the proceedings.  This run of weak episodes underlines the fundamental problem afflicting Baywatch Nights - that its budget could never match its ambitions.  With its lack of resources dictating that elaborate special effects were out of the series' reach, most of the supernatural goings on can only manifest themselves obliquely.  Consequently, its - mainly derivative - story lines could only ever end up as damp squibs.  Even when it attempted something relatively original - 'The Cabin - that didn't require much in the way of special effects, it doesn't have the courage of its convictions and undermines it with that cop out ending.  Hopefully, going forward, things will improve as this batch of episodes were, on the whole, too threadbare in terms of writing, ideas and production values to even raise the barminess to enjoyable levels.

Eagles Over London (1969)

Eagles Over London (1969) has a certain notoriety in the UK for its somewhat idiosyncratic treatment of three key events in Britain's World War Two experience, namely Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain and The Blitz.  An Italian war movie shot largely in Spain, Eagles Over London was clearly seeking to capitalise upon the release of the big budget British war epic The Battle of Britain (1969).  Indeed, it even uses some of the props left over from that film;s production, (It, too, was partly shot in Spain).  Which, incidentally, results in one of Eagles Over London's most celebrated  gaffes - the RAF appear to be flying Messerschmitt 109s.  This was the result of the production using a number of full size non-flying replica 109s, (or, to be accurate, Spanish manufactured Hispano HA-1112s, a licence built 109 derivative), which had been used for scenes portraying Luftwaffe planes on the ground, having their engines started and taxiing.  That they are the replicas is evident from the fact that they have three bladed propellers - the  real HA-1112s had four bladed props - and that you never actually see them taking off , (the film instead switches to archive footage of Spitfires taking off).  Just to top off this inversion of historical fact, when in combat, the 'RAF' fighters are attacked by Spitfires with Swastikas on their tails.  

The film is full of such bizarre - to British audiences, at least - sights.  Many are the result of filming in Spain - what appears to be the rock of Gibraltar, for instance, is visible from the beach at Dunkirk.  Large parts of Southern England look positively tropical - soldiers even eat bananas, which, even by 1940, were pretty much unavailable in the UK.  I've visited Portsmouth on numerous occasions, but somehow missed both the palm trees and that range of mountains sitting inland of the port.  Even when actual London locations are used for establishing shots, anachronisms abound: the Post Office Tower (as it was then called), can clearly be seen on the 1940 skyline behind a character, despite not being built until the mid-sixties, for example.  Eagles Over London's grasp of history is also shaky, conflating the Battle of Britain and The Blitz - in reality the latter was the result of the Luftwaffe's failure to gain air superiority over the UK during the former, dictating that their bombing offensive would have to be carried out by night from thereon.  Moreover, the Germans talk as if they have little idea of how radar works, despite the fact that they too had radar in 1940, (albeit not as advanced as its British equivalent).  Then there are the anachronistic weapons: bazookas and Sten guns at Dunkirk, despite neither appearing in the British inventory until at1941-42.  

The list of such anachronisms and inaccuracies goes on and, while they are amusing to observe, to judge the film on them is to miss the point.  Eagles Over London might be depicting a version of British history, but isn't intended for British audiences.  The historical background is only there to provide what, for Continental audiences, is a slightly more 'exotic' and unfamiliar setting for a war movie.  The reality is that, outside of the UK, the Battle of Britain simply isn't seen as a crucial, defining point of the war, (it was for us obviously, but most of the rest of Europe was preoccupied with other events).  The London (and Britain) it presents is the same fantasy version, filtered through films, post cards and literature, that is shown in other Continental films.  The wartime capital depicted in Eagles Over London is a close relative of Jack the Ripper's, Sherlock Holmes' or Edgar Wallace's London depicted in numerous Italian, Spanish, French and German films and TV series.  It is a fictional construct, based not upon experience of the real thing, but rather upon pulp fiction and Penny Dreadfuls.  

Likewise, the film itself isn't really a film about Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, but rather a standard Italian war movie utilising these events as a plot device and elaborate window dressing.  Most of the Italian war genre seems to involve a small group of soldiers sent on a perilous mission behind enemy lines.  Eagles Over London is no different, the novel element being that, this time, the soldiers are a group of German saboteurs using the identities of dead British servicemen on a mission to destroy Britain's radar network in order to allow the Luftwaffe to win the Battle of Britain, (they are able to enter the UK by infiltrating the British troops being evacuated from Dunkirk).  Most of the film involves the cat-and-mouse game they play with a determined British officer who suspects their existence, in order to evade capture.  Unfortunately, the film has trouble keeping up the plot's momentum over its entire length.  Consequently, it pads it out with a sub plot involving the Germans having to murder more British servicemen in order to be able to keep changing their identities and thereby stay one step ahead of the authorities, the adventures of a Free French fighter squadron and a tedious love triangle involving the hero, a WAAF and an Air Commodore, (who happens to be in charge of the radar defences).  Eventually, these plot strands do intersect.

So, although aiming to cash in on The Battle of Britain, Eagles Over London makes no attempt to actually imitate that film.  Instead of a detailed recreation of an actual event, with a fragmented, episodic, story told through an ensemble cast, it substitutes a pretty conventional action adventure story told in linear fashion through a limited cast of characters.  In this respect, it is at least reasonably successful.  Its approach is dictated, at least in part, by its lack of resources compared to the British made film.  It certainly can't match that film's cavalcade of stars, instead boasting the more modest talents of Van Johnson and Frederic Stafford.  More tellingly, it can't match The Battle of Britain's period detail and elaborate recreation of the air battles and dog fights, using real aircraft.  Eagles Over London's aerial sequences are a major let down, mixing model work with stock footage, their lack of realism underlined by the fact that the cockpit mock ups used for close ups of the pilots bear no resemblance to any of the aircraft seen, (moreover, the same cockpits are used for both RAF and Luftwaffe planes).  The Dunkirk sequences, however, anachronistic equipment aside, are impressively staged, involving large numbers of extras, aircraft strafing the beaches and lots of explosions.  

Ultimately though, just as The Battle of Britain's fragmentary story telling, switching between disparate characters and locations, robs it of much momentum and makes it difficult for audiences to get to know, let alone identify with, most of the characters, Eagles Over London's simpler storytelling approach is stymied by a disjointed script with too many sub-plots.  Although the film never really seems to find a rhythm, Enzo G. Castellari's direction is fitfully interesting, displaying a penchant for unusual camera angles and quirky framing of shots, (the final scene at a station is filmed via a tannoy loudspeaker, for instance), but it isn't enough to raise the film above the average.  While from a British standpoint the film is amusing and quite enjoyable for all the wrong reasons, it leaves us with the question as to whether historically set films actually have any duty to be historically accurate?  At what point do the inaccuracies and anachronisms undermine its legitimacy as entertainment, let alone art?  As noted, films like this are aimed at an audience who, frankly, don't care if it is accurate - it isn't their history it is mangling.  Which, of course, is the crux of the question - we all get very proprietorial about our history, believing that the way it was taught to us in school is the only way it can be interpreted. which is why some people get so worked up about concepts, for example, such as history from black or female perspectives.  Never mind that here in the UK we have form for falsifying and mythologising our own history in fiction, (just watch any film about Robin Hood, the English Civil War or World War Two, let alone all those Imperialist fantasies set in Africa and India, which also mangle someone else's history at the same time).  We just don't like it when the foreigners do the same thing.

As a footnote, the air combat and Dunkirk sequences from Eagles Over London were later re-used in a later Italian produced war epic, From Hell to Victory (1979), which featured an 'all star' international cast, including George Peppard and George Hamilton.

Time Walker (1982)

I first saw Time Walker (1982) when ITV showed it in a late night slot somewhen in the eighties.  I remember that I found it mildly amusing in a schlocky way.  I caught up with it again via streaming channel a couple of years ago, then saw it again last night on another steaming service.  These last two viewings haven't changed my opinion of the film.  It represents an attempt to meld a traditional mummy movie with the whole 'ancient astronaut' nonsense, doubtless to try and capitalise upon the popularity of science fiction movies which followed the releases of Star Wars (1977) and Close Encounters (1978) and the boom in direct-to-video low budget horror films.  Unfortunately, it simply isn't gory enough to satisfy hardcore horror fans, nor does it have the sort of budget and special effects to really appeal to fans of the contemporary science fiction cycle of films.  That said, however, it is nowhere near as bad as many critics have made out.  Despite its many inadequacies, it does at least manage a reasonable pace and incorporates a fair amount of 'mummy' action.  The 'mummy', of course, turning out to be an ancient alien who had come to earth in ancient Egyptian times and his mayhem the results of his attempts to regain the crystals he needs to complete his teleportation device and return home.

The university setting makes it feel a little like one of the 1940s Universal mummy movies - The Mummy's Ghost (1944) in particular.  It also provides opportunities for some gratuitous nudity with female students being spied on as they take their tops off.  The whole sub-plot involving campus politics is somewhat ludicrous and tends to slow down the action - it's clearly just there to pad out the running time.  Ben Murphy in the lead - an unlikely archeologist if ever there was - is, as ever, an amiable presence, but pretty much sleep walks his way through the film.  The movie is notable, though, for reuniting Austin Stoker and Darwin Joston, stars of John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), as a doctor and a cop, respectively.  Overall, Tom Kennedy's direction is less than inspired and, not surprisingly, Time Walker remained his only directorial credit.  The film ends on a cliffhanger, with the caption 'To Be Continued...'  It never was.  Not a great film, but also not a really terrible one, Time Walker is an inoffensive entertainment that starts reasonably intriguingly, but quickly loses focus and spends too much time on sub plots before anything really happens.  Still, there are worse ways to spend eighty three minutes.

Tanked Up

 

Well, I haven't posted anything model railway related for a while, so here are a couple of pictures of my most recent acquisitions: a pair of TTA type tanker wagons.  Like most of my recent acquisitions, these were bought cheaply from a trader's bargain bin at a local Toy and Model Train Fair - the prices there are far more reasonable than anything you'll find on eBay, plus no postage and packing.  These two Hornby items date from the early seventies and have the very' plasticky' finish typical of their basic rolling stock of that era.  These wagons were often found in train sets in a variety of liveries.  Obviously, these are Shell, but there were also, as I recall, red Texaco and Green BP versions.  All of these liveries were, for these wagons, as far as  I know, fictitious.  While in pre-nationalisation days tanker wagons might have carried colourful private owners liveries, under British Railways there were only two basic liveries: black for those carrying heavy oil products, diesel, for instance and silver or light grey for lighter oil products, such as petroleum.  The logo of the oil compabny whose products there carrying was carried on their sides, but usually obscured by grime and oil.  As the real wagons these were based on first appeared in the sixties, there's no chance that they wore any other livery.

As noted, these were the basic versions of these wagons, Hornby also produced, in its 'Silver Seal' range a more detailed version which had access ladders, (although, on the real wagons, these were often removed for safety reasons) and a more realistic grey paint finish with, as I recall, Shell logos on the side.  Versions of these wagons are still marketed by Hornby.  As can be seen from the second picture, these type of tanker is somewhat larger than the older design, to which they are coupled.  Of the four tankers visible in this photo only one, the silver wagon (orginally an Esso tanker, one of the first I ever owned, received as a Christmas present back in the eighties, but it lost its stick on logos years ago), is close to carrying an authentic colour scheme.  Indeed, the majority of the tankers making up my tanker train (and yes, I know there should be a barrier wagon between the tankers and the brake van), still wear non-authentic liveries for the period it is meant to be running in.  I might, at some point, get around to remedying this, (a respray into black or gray being about the simplest paint job there is - reproduction logo stickers are also available), but it isn't a priority right now - I have too many other projects in various stages of completion at the moment to contemplate starting another.  Anyway, those visits to the monthly Model Train Fair are helping me to build up my freight stock very cheaply right now, with most needing either no attention or only minimal repairs.