This is the last issue of Whisper, from June 1973. The publication dated all the way back to 1946, when it was published in a pulp style format, complete with cover paintings and offering the 'inside story' on Hollywood, celebrities and then current news stories, (the more salacious, the better). Not so much a 'scandal rag' like Confidential and its clones, but more of a gossip paper. In late 1953 it switched to a tabloid format, with photo covers, much in the style of the scandal mags but, as ever, offering a milder form of gossip and 'inside stories'. By the seventies the style had become somewhat more lurid, but the content, by and large, stayed much the same. The resulting publication somewhat resembled a toned down version of a men's magazine, minus the lurid war and sex stories.
This final issue is firmly fixated on movie celebrities, flaunting the names of Doris Day, Micheal Caine, Charles Bronson and Peter Sellers on the cover. Of these, only the Doris Day story looks to be styled as some kind of sensational expose: 'The Black Men in Doris Day's Life'. It's interesting that, as late as 1973, it is clearly playing on the idea of miscegenation, (as the racists would call it), as something still scandalous and outrageous enough to sell copies. A couple of the non-celebrity headlines look like men's magazine cast offs: 'What in Hell's Happening to Marriage', hinting at all manner of tales of infidelity, swinging, threesomes, wife-swapping and the like, and 'The Vitamin E Rip Off', which sounds like the sort of bogus health story the men's magazines were fond of. As for Charles Bronson's declaration that 'I'd Never Play a Nude Role', well, I think that we should all be thankful for that.
I had another of those moments this weekend when I realised that I hadn't been watching enough honest-to-goodness smut lately. It's all very well indulging myself with other exploitation genres, or even mainstream movies, but every so often the true lover of schlock has to have a dose of smut. Luckily, I had on hand some of the finest smut available to a Briton: I'd recorded all four Confessions films when they'd recently been given outings on Talking Pictures TV and still hadn't got around to watching them. I'd actually intended to watch them in a marathon on my birthday, but in the event was too knackered having been deprived of sleep by noisy neighbours, (as explained in an earlier post). So, I sat down at the weekend to watch them but, in the event only managed to get through he first two as I had a few other things on. I did, however, greatly enjoyed Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1974) and Confessions of a Pop Performer (1975). The former is definitely the superior of the two, enjoying the advantage of freshness and novelty that most series first entries have. Despite having seen it before, I was surprised at how little of it I remembered in detail, so the gags, corny though they might be, still made me snicker. The movie's biggest asset lay with its cast of British comedy veterans, who gave the whole thing a degree of classiness. The sheer charisma of star Robin Askwith, of course, was key to keeping the film moving and maintaining audience engagement. Already a familiar face in British exploitation films and TV, Confessions of a Window Cleaner catapulted Askwith to fame, making him a star - of sex comedies, at least.
The secret of the film's success lay with Askwith's portrayal of protagonist Timmy Lea as a slightly gormless, utterly hapless average bloke who, for all his sexual fantasies, when he finally gets an opportunity with a real woman, proves to be a fumbling, nervous and more often than not, slightly scared, lover. In other words, someone that most male viewers could more easily identify with than the usual sorts of athletic he-men potraying screen lovers. Likewise, female audiences could more easily relate their own experiences with men to Askwith's character than to the erotic fantasies usually played out on screen. Simplicity of concept also helps: randy but inexperienced window cleaner is 'mentored' by boss and brother-in-law Sid (Anthony Booth) in properly 'satisfying' his customers - mainly lonely and unfulfilled housewives left at home all day while their husbands are at work. All of the sex scenes flow naturally and logically, as a consequence, so never feel contrived or forced. Lea's ever cheery first person narration, regardless of what disaster's have befallen him, provide the perfect accompaniment. Which is one of the reasons the sequels don't feel as fresh or spontaneous - there has to be a degree of contrivance and plot convolutions in order to set up the new scenario. Confessions of a Pop Performer manages this rather better than the later films, opening with Timmy and Sid still pursuing the window cleaning. While Sid's interest in managing a pop group (who happen to be performing at the pub where his wife works), seems somewhat arbitrary and reliant on coincidence, the plot does allow the window cleaning gig to have a bearing on the subsequent plot development, with one of Sid's clients being the wife of a pop impresario.
Thanks to backing from Columbia's UK offices, the Confessions films, despite their low budgets, boasted excellent production values and looked great, beautifully capturing Britain in the mid-seventies. Perhaps this is why I have such an affection for them - it was the decade of my childhood, my formative years as a grew into a teenager and it is marvelously nostalgic to be transported back to that pre-internet, pre-mobile phone era, when we only had three TV channels and even video recorders were unheard of. Hanging around red brick built main suburban shopping streets full of store like Woolworths and Radio Rentals and populated with Vauxhall Vivas, Ford Escorts and Austin Maxis were my Saturday afternoons back then. It all seemed so much simpler back then - an impression re-inforced by the films' themes of pulling birds by being a cheeky and mildly charming. But isn't just the ambience of seventies Britain that is preserved in these films, but also the social attitudes: it's difficult to argue with those who point out the relentless sexism of these movies, with their almost obsessive objectification of women as simply sexual playthings. Then again, a closer watching of them reveals that the women portrayed are frequently less than submissive, they are often, particularly where nervous and naive Askwith is concerned, far more proactive in initiating sex, but rarely in a predatory way. The stereotypes aren't quite as clearly defined as those who would dismiss these films would like to believe. Moreover, the sex itself is never portrayed as anything glamourous, taking place not in luxury hotel rooms or on yachts and private beaches, but rather in the back bedrooms of suburban semis, or even cupboards and storerooms. It is frequently fumbling and all too quickly over, with the participants in considerable discomfort - particularly Timmy Lea, who suffers such indignities as burning his bare bum on a hot radiation in Pop Performer, for instance.
It's all too easy to dismiss these films (and, by extension, all other British sex comedies of the era), as crude and sexist but I honestly believe that they still constitute an important piece of British popular culture. They belong to a long and rich tradition of vulgar and raucous comedy, (stretching all the way back to the Romans and even ancient Athens - just read the surviving plays of Greek humorist Aristophanes for some the best ever fart and knob gags), which celebrates the scatalogical and pokes fun at our sexual hang ups and anxieties, while also offering a bit of mild titillation along the way. Sure, the gags are hoary, but no more so than the average Carry On film - another British cinematic institution once dismissed but now rehabilitated. I'm sorry, but the sight of Rita Webb as a battle axe of a mother looking for her daughter in Pop Performer asking 'Has anyone seen my fanny?', (which elicits the reply from Askwith of 'Blimey, I saw the Curse of Frankenstein and that was bad enough'), still makes me laugh. God, I'm unsophisticated and easily amused, aren't I? Anyway, I look forward to catching up with the other two films later in the week.
The English-language versions of Japanese monster movies prepared by US distributors hold a certain fascination for me. Rather than simply overdubbing the existing film, these versions represent quite a creative endeavour in their right, incorporating newly shot scenes with US actors and often a considerable re-editing and re-shaping of the original footage. In the case of this, the first of Daiei's 'Gamera' franchise, it also involved both a change of title and even the spelling of the title monster's name. The original version's title translates into English as Gamera, the Giant Monster, the US version not only changes the title, but also adds an extra 'm' into Gamera's name, (supposedly to stop audiences from mistaking it for 'camera'). The new scenes not only make the film more US-centric but also provide US audiences with some familiar faces, particularly B-movie favourites Brian Donlevy and Albert Dekker, along with TV character actor Dick O'Neill. Their scenes, which are mainly set in conference rooms and military control rooms serve mainly as exposition for the benefit of US audiences, explaining plot points and keeping the story moving along. There is, however, one scene clearly intended to be comic relief, featuring an increasingly ill-tempered debate between two 'experts' as to the existence of Gamera. ('Dr Contrare' in this scene is played by Allan Oppenheim, whose voice will be familiar to anyone who grew up watching seventies TV cartoon series).
Gamera, of course, was the 'other' Japanese giant monster played by a man in a suit, created by Daei as a rival to Toho's hugely popular Godzilla and its many sequels and spin offs. A giant prehistoric turtle, Gamera never felt as menacing as Godzilla and the films seemed to be made on a much lower budget than the Toho films, featuring far less convincing miniatures work and often clunky special effects. Moreover, from the outset they seemed firmly aimed at a juvenile audience, always featuring child protagonists, unlike the Toho films which, while sometimes veering toward the juvenile, seemed, ostensibly, always to be aimed at a primarily adult audience. Despite the studio having no real faith in Gamera, the budget not even running to colour photography, this first film proved popular enough to spawn seven sequels between 1966 and 1980 and a second cycle of four films between 1995 and 2006, (all in colour). This first entry is enjoyable enough, although clearly derivative of Godzilla and other contemporary monster movies. In spite of the low budget and sometimes shaky effects work, some of the scenes of Gamera rampaging around, destroying cities and industrial facilities are effective, if not terribly realistic. The best scenes are probably the early sequences set in the Arctic, when Gamera is awakened by a nuclear blast and bursts out of the ice - the miniatures work here, particularly the sinking of the Japanese research ship, is pretty decent, if not quite on a par with the Toho product.
From October 1963, the only known issue of Man's Courage, an incredibly obscure US men's magazine about which I can find little, not even a publisher's name. The cover of what should have been a launch issue, but also became the last issue, certainly goes for broke in setting out the publication's stall in terms of tone and content. The cover painting embodies all the staples of the genre: imperiled semi-naked and bound woman, implications of rape,uniformed, gun-toting white saviour and casual racism, (those sex mad foreign devils ravishing 'our' women again). The story it illustrates rams home these the themes: 'How the Foreign Legion Smashed the White Brothel in the Casbah!' The clear implication being that if the women involved hadn't been white, then the Foreign Legion would probably have been patronising it rather than raiding it. The other stories given cover strap lines cover all of the regulation men's magazine topics: prostitution, Nazis, women at war and animal attacks.
Whoever came up with these strap lines certainly liked their alliteration: 'We Clobbered the Car Hop Call Girl Racket1' and 'The Bull Ring Blood Bath of the Betrayed Matador' would certainly catch the eye of the casual newsstand browser. 'There Were Only 12 of Us - Against 5000 Nazi Beasts' is also attention grabbing with its promise of desperate war heroics and beastly Nazi atrocities, while 'Commander Caldwell's Suicide Squad of Fantastic Frogwomen' (three alliterations in one tittle), promises the prospect of more of those gun and knife toting underwear clad women warriors sexily slaughtering Nazis, Japs or Commies, (delete as applicable). With the magazine packing so much sensational sounding stuff into the debut issue, it is fair to ask why it apparently didn't sell sufficient copies to get to a second issue. The key doubtless lies in the date of publication: by 1963 it was still a crowded market for men's magazines despite the format having probably passed its peak popularity. Increasingly, rival titles were shifting their format to become more conventional pin up style softcore porn magazines, with less fiction and more emphasis upon sex. Man's Courage, it seems, despite a bravado first issue, sinply came too late to the party.
I really don't have the energy to try and write anything too complicated today. For one thing, I've been having increasing problems in actually sleeping at night. Which isn't necessarily a problem, as these days I can sleep during the day, (although these seriously disrupted sleep patterns bring their own problems). Except that today, I couldn't, due to the racket being made by the idiots supposedly renovating a house down the terrace. From well before nine o'clock this morning, it sounded as if they were throwing stuff into the garden and smashing it up - all as loudly as possible. (I didn't go out to see what was actually going on as I feared that I'd end up shouting and arguing with the anti-social bastards, which wouldn't have been good for my blood pressure). This went on all morning, preventing me from catching up with my sleep - I did eventually catch a couple of hours this afternoon, but I was left feeling completely shattered. The other reason for my posting lethargy is the fact that today was my birthday. Not that I bother celebrating it as such - I'm too old for that - but it is a day when I'm as idle as possible. Unfortunately, due to the events already described, I was unable even to enjoy my customary celebratory idleness. I was too tired even to settle down to watch a series of low rent exploitation films, (my favourite way of idling away my birthday).
Despite the advancing years, I still don't feel particularly aged. Mind you, others seem to think differently: yesterday I had through my letterbox another invitation to sell my house and move to a new, totally anonymous, retirement flat. Worse still, it was accompanied by another piece of junk mail about planning my funeral. For fuck's sake - I haven't even started drawing a pension yet! I've still got some way to go yet before I qualify as an OAP. (Although I do have a couple of work pensions from previous jobs which will start paying out next year). A couple of weeks ago I had one of those jarring experiences where someone younger seemed to think that I was old and confused and in need of their assistance, (I wasn't, I was merely trying to shake all of the junk mail out of a copy of The Guardian in Tesco, before I bought it). I refrained from telling them to 'fuck off you patronising cunt' and simply stared them out, instead. I really don't know where they were coming from - I don't look particularly old. Sure, my hair is thinned with more grey encroaching these days, but they couldn't have judged me from that as I was wearing a hat at the time. Unfortunately, though, the young have this idea that anyone more than a couple of years older than them is Methuselah. Teenage girls are the worst - I once overheard one describing me as an 'old person' simply because I wasn't walking as quickly as them. (One thing age does teach one, I've found, is to slow down a bit and actually enjoy the world around you). Obviously, all of this has left me deeply taumatised to the extent that I'll have to retreat to the parlour, put on my dressing gown and slippers and settle down with a hot cup of cocoa to watch an episode of Midsomer Murders...
I think that I first became aware of this film many, many years ago when I read its entry in The Science Fiction Movie Handbook by Alan Frank. While I recall that his synopsis was fairly neutral, as was customary, Frank included a selection of brief quotes from other reviewers. The typically sour and perfunctory one from Cinefantastique has always stuck in my memory: 'Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's just another worthless dud from Spain.' (In case you didn't know, Cinefantastique was a glorified fanzine that reviewed science fiction and fantasy films - I don't recall them ever giving anything other than the sort of pithy, mean-spirited assessment quoted to any contemporary film. They also included in every issue a patronising guide for all us ignorant and unwashed plebs as to how their title should be pronounced. Pretentious bastards). This critique is actually leaves one wondering what the unnamed reviewer was expecting from a cheap European rip-off of Superman? The fact is that Supersonic Man, for all of its inadequacies (and it has many), has some interesting points. Most notably, it addresses the problem fundamental to the whole Superman mythos - why does nobody recognise Superman as being Clarke Kent without his glasses? Most superheroes at least wear a mask when in their heroic mode, but not the son of Krypton, he relies on the flimsiest of disguises. Supersonic Man, by contrast, takes the Captain Marvel approach, (the original Fawcett Comics version, not the Marvel imposter who hijacked the name), by having the super-powered protagonist and his everyday alter-ego be completely different characters, played by two different actors, (as in both the 1941 Republic movie serial adaptation and the more recent DC Shazam! film).
Moreover, the human alter-ego, for once, isn't some meek and mild-mannered reporter or a twelve year old boy. Instead he is a two-fisted private eye, played by Italian actor Antonio Cantafora, (under his frequent English language alias of 'Micheal Colby'), sporting a moustache, presumably to emphasise that he isn't impersonating Terrence Hill, (which he did in several films, to Paul Smith's erstatz Bud Spencer). His superhero persona is a blue skinned, masked and muscle-bound alien called Kronos (aka 'Supersonic Man', although the opening titles call him simply 'Sonic Man'), played by Jose Luis Ayestaran, (billed as 'Richard Yesteran'), who had previously portrayed Tarzan in a couple of Spanish films. The private eye transitions into the superhero by incanting something along the lines of 'May the Great Force of the galaxy be with me' (shades of Star Wars) into a wrist-watch like device. Which simply underlines the fact that while the movie itself might have been made to cash in on the release of the 1978 Superman movie, its scenario owes more to Captain Marvel than the Man of Steel. Which is somewhat ironic, considering that DC comics took Fawcett to court in the fifties in order to suppress the rival character, (before, even more ironically, licensing him from Fawcett in the seventies). Indeed, Captain Marvel seems to have had a lasting influence upon foreign filmmakers when it comes to superhero films - in Turkish cinema, both Killink's nemesis 'The Flying Man' (a thinly disguised Superman) and the titular hero of the eighties Turkish Superman film, have to say 'Shazam!' to turn into their superhero personas. Also, both are given their powers and magic word by a mystical elder - a wizard in the case of 'The Flying Man' and Jor-El(!) in the case of Turkish Superman.
Supersonic Man, though, seems to take its inspiration less, perhaps, from the comic book Captain Marvel, than it does from the aforementioned cinema serial adaptation. It plays out very much like a serial, with hero (in private eye form) being frequently captured by the bad guys, but always managing to somehow find a way to transform into Kronos just before he drowns or is shot. When he isn't being captured and imperiled, it is the female lead being kidnapped or menaced by killer robots. The robot which features prominently in the film, variously firing missiles from its head or shooting flames from its body, is a magnificent creation, looking exactly like the sort of mechanical contraption that used to clank through the chapters of many cinema serials. The plot, also, feels like it was lifted from a classic serial, revolving, as it does, around a scientist being kidnapped by a supervillain who wants to use his research to increase the power of his laser weapon, with which he intends to hold the world to ransom. In order to coerce the scientist's co-operation, the villain sends his minions out to kidnap the scientist's daughter, who ends up engaging the services of the private eye, not realising that he is also Supersonic Man. The film's makers seemed determined to rip off as many then popular film hits as possible: as well as trying to cash in on Superman and invoking both Star Wars and Close Encounters, (as well as 'The Force' reference, Kronos is seen at the start flying down to earth from a UFO), its villain has his headquarters inside a volcano, just like Blofeld in You Only Live Twice (1967) and blasts off into space for a final confrontation with Kronos, like Drax in Moonraker (1979).
Director Juan Piquer Simon was something of a specialist in this sort of fantasy film and handles the various elements reasonably well, moving the action along relatively smoothly and quickly, without the chases, captures, escapes and recaptures becoming too repetitive. But, as with his other fantasy films, one can't help but wonder exactly what audience the film was aimed at - while the tough guy, barroom brawling private eye alter ego might suggest a more adult audience, the amount of comic relief, be it the drunkard who keeps turning up, or the various incompetent henchmen, would seem to suggest a more juvenile target audience. While Simon does his best with the material, he is constantly hampered by hugely variable production values. A lot of the film just looks cheap, with its cardboard (albeit very entertaining) robot and the obviously plywood road roller that Kronos picks up effortlessly at one point, (the filming angle also betrays that it is basically a 'flat', with no depth). By contrast, the villain's high tech lair is pretty well realised. The special effects are also hugely variable, with things like laser blasts and the space sequences quite well done, considering the low budget. The title character's flying sequences are also variable, with reasonably effective back projection, (using actual New York cityscapes), combined with some all too obvious miniatures work.
The cast are, in the main, adequate for this sort of film. Yesteran is suitably imposing as Supersonic Man, but Cantafora isn't really convincing as a tough guy - even with that moustache. He is simply too slight physically to pull off that sort of role - it isn't that he was incapable of the sort of athleticism required for action roles, as seen in his Terrence Hill impersonating films, just that he was neither physically imposing enough, nor mean enough. (This wasn't his only superhero movie though, he had also been one of the eponymous Supermen Against The Orient (1973), part of the popular Italian 'Three Supermen' cycle of films). He was always far better playing good-natured or even weak characters, often in comedic roles. The real star of the film though, is Cameron Mitchell as the villain, Even hampered by being dubbed with an English accent in the English language version, he delivers the sort of slightly camp, utterly maniacal and scenery chewing performance this sort of role requires. His crew of sidekicks include Spanish exploitation favourites Frank Brana and Luis Barboo.
So, is Supersonic Man a worthless dud? Well, it was never going to win any awards for originality or technical achievement, but it is a reasonably well constructed and packaged piece of exploitation. A B-movie, to be sure, but, for the eighty eight minutes it is on, reasonably entertaining, (although not always in the way its makers intended). It also does try to ring some interesting changes with regard to the usual superhero tropes, which sets it apart from most other Superman clones from the era. Certainly, it is a better film than the contemporaneous Italian Puma Man (1980), even though that film appeared to have a bigger budget, or the Turkish Superman, for that matter. To dismiss it simply as a 'worthless dud' is simply lazy criticism on he part of someone who had clearly not taken the trouble either to properly watch Supersonic Man or put in its proper context.
The funny thing about bad movies is that while many of the films I like would undoubtedly be classed as 'bad', there are still some bad movies that, to me, are simply bad. It's like I was saying about The Nightmare Never Ends (1980) the other day, it is most definitely a bad movie, personally I can find nothing in it which might redeem it to the extent that I could like it. Damn it, I continue to champion various Al Adamson films that everyone else seems too think are utter trash and I'm happy to recommend Derek Ford's micro budgeted last gasp The Urge to Kill (1989) to everyone I know. (Hell, what's not to like about a film that stars UFO's Peter Gordeno as a groovy London swinging music producer menaced by a crazy computer that manifests itself as a green-painted naked woman?) So why couldn't I take to The Nightmare Never Ends? Possibly the fact that it seems to take itself far too seriously and thinks that it has something 'important' to say about the nature of evil is a factor, not to mention that it is far too long. Perhaps it is simply because it is so poorly written and directed that it even seemed to defeat an experienced B-movie performer like Cameron Mitchell, who can usually be relied upon to deliver suitably eccentric performances in this sort of film. Indeed, this is probably one of its biggest crimes in my eyes - I'm a big fan of Cameron Mitchell, who was actually a very good actor, but, for financial reasons, made a lot of very bad movies. But he always seemed to know just how to pitch his performances in these films, often providing an oasis of classy entertainment in some otherwise excruciatingly bad movies.
Worst of all, though, is the fact that The Nightmare Never Ends, for all of its incompetence and incoherence, never manages to summon the flair to hit the heights of sheer lunacy that mark out the truly great and enjoyable bad movies. The best of such movies have the feel of a fever dream about them - they leave a lingering feeling that you might actually have simply imagined them, they are so bizarre in some aspect. Sadly, The Nightmare Never Ends never comes even close to this level, despite its insertion of various seemingly random elements - their sheer randomness being the problem as the barmiest and most enjoyable b-movies and exploitation flicks follow their own internal and utterly deluded logic, making every insane development feel both lunatic, yet somehow logical. But The Nightmare Never Ends, perhaps because of having three different directors (all, apparently directing from different scripts), never manages to be anything other than halting and disjointed. But hey, it is always easy to criticise low budget movies like this - it can be something of a turkey shoot, in fact. Which is why I try to avoid writing about such movies that I really don't like. Although I sometimes make exceptions for the likes of The Nightmare Never Ends or Honeymoon Horror, which often seem to be showing on every dodgy streaming channel I tune into, driving me to distraction. In truth, we should reserve our ire and ridicule for those bigger budgeted, mainstream movies which, despite having all the advantages that low budget film makers lack, still turn out to be utter, irredeemable, shite. Just now, for example, Talking Pictures TV was giving a rare outing to the 1974 David Niven horror 'comedy' Vampira - a glossy looking film chock full of familiar faces and with talented people behind the camera, it is not only bloody awful, but also offensive. Films like that are fully deserving of our contempt.
Some films become a Holy Grail of sorts. Not necessarily because they are outstanding pieces of cinematic art, but simply because they are unavailable. For me, one of my 'Holy Grails' was Never Take Sweets From a Stranger (1960). It was a film that I read about when I first became seriously interested in the world of horror and exploitation films,several decades ago. It intrigued me because its critical and box office failure on its release apparently put Hammer Films off of producing serious, 'message' pictures for good, resulting in them doubling down on their production of horror films and TV spin offs. It also interested me because of its subject matter - child sexual abuse which, at the time, would have been pretty much unheard of in any film, let alone one produced by a noted exploitation studio like Hammer. But it was impossible to judge the film because, after its initial release, it had seemingly vanished from sight. I don't recall any UK TV outings or even home video releases. Naturally, this simply piqued my interest even more, especially as, from the nineties onward, the film started to receive a favourable critical reassessment. Finally, thanks to Talking Pictures TV, I was able to catch up with Never Take Sweets From a Stranger, (although they actually show the slightly edited US release print carrying the title Never Take Candy From a Stranger). I have to say that it didn't disappoint me and I was left surprised by just how frank and direct it was, for a film of its era, in its approach to its subject matter.
Interestingly, it uses a Canadian setting (although filmed in the UK), presumably so as not to make domestic audiences feel too uneasy by setting its tale of small town secrets too close to home. Despite having originally been released in 1960, the events depicted feel uncomfortably contemporary, with the film's overriding theme being of how wealth and power can subvert the law and effectively 'normalise' deviant behaviour when it is being committed by an individual with connections to those with influence. The film, commendably, wastes no time in getting to the point of its subject matter, with the newly appointed school principal and his wife learning from their nine year old daughter that the elderly patriarch of the town's first family - who own the local saw mill, the town's biggest employer and who generously endow the local school and charities - had invited her and her friend into his house and had them dance naked for him in exchange for candy. They are disturbed when their concerns are downplayed by the police and other leading citizens, who try to shrug it off simply as the old man being eccentric, but essentially harmless, despite the fact that everyone know about his interest in little girls, but remain silent because of his social standing and his family's wealth. When the parents decide to press on with a complaint, they find themselves ranged against the old man's son, who pressurises witnesses into silence and eventually has his lawyer browbeat the daughter in court to the extent that her parents are forced to withdraw the case. The old man goes free, but cannot contain his predilection for little girls, leading to tragedy.
As I say, it all feels disturbingly familiar in the light of the more recent revelations in the UK as to the long histories of sexual abuse perpetrated by celebrities like Jimmy Savile, who used their positions of trust to access victims, then their wealth and connections to stymie police investigations. Savile, in particular, was always dismissed as simply a harmless eccentric - 'Oh, it's just Jimmy' being the typical response to complaints about him. Never Take Sweets From a Stranger had the misfortune to be released at a time when audiences simply weren't prepared to accept that such things were a reality. Child sexual abuse was generally swept under the carpet, with perpetrators generally being institutionalised by their families (if they could afford it), rather than being dealt with by police and courts, (indeed, in the film, the old man's family have previously had him 'treated' at a private mental health clinic). When one considers that this was an era when films could barely acknowledge the existence of rape and when they did, more often than not portrayed it in terms that implicated culpability on the part of the victim, it seems incredible that Never Take Sweets From a Stranger ever got made, particularly by a company like Hammer. It benefits from crisp, matter-of-fact monochrome direction from Cyril Frankel and a capable cast, lead by Patrick Allen and Gwen Watford as the parents, Felix Aylmer as the old man and Bill Nagy as his son. They are ably assisted by Niall McGinnis as the old man's attorney, Michael Gwynn as he prosecutor and Robert Arden as the other girl's father. Janina Faye, best remembered now for playing the young girl in Day of the Triffids (1962), also gives an excellent performance as the daughter, subtly suggesting the underlying trauma she has suffered as a result of her disturbing experience.
All-in-all, I'm glad to have finally caught up with this personal cinematic 'Holy Grail'. I'm even happier that it didn't disappoint, instead exceeding my expectations for a film with such a sensitive theme made in that era. Never Take Sweets From a Stranger fully deserves the critical reassessment it has enjoyed in more recent times.
This is another of those irredeemably bad films that I just keep running into on streaming channels: The Nightmare Never Ends (1980). The title is apt as the film seems to drag on interminably and the first time I watched it I ended up pleading with it to end. I'm wiser now - if I run into it, I immediately switch channels. It actually exists in a number of different edits under various titles, including Cataclysm and Satan's Supper. There's even a version cut down to under thirty minutes which forms part of the anthology film Night Train to Terror (1985) - this variant also includes 'improved' special effects. But what is so terrible about The Nightmare Never Ends? Well, for a start, it is barely coherent. The plot, (if one can all it that - it feels more like a loosely connected series of events), concerns a wealthy playboy type who is apparently immortal, having been pictured at various evil events in the past. He is recognised by an ancient Holocaust survivor as the Nazi officer who murdered his parents, although he seems not to have aged a day since the event. He also appears - again, as a brutal Nazi - in the dreams of a heart surgeon whose husband has coincidentally written a book 'proving' that God is dead. Who is this mystery man? Has he sold his soul to the devil? Is he the devil himself, (he seems to have a cloven hoof for a foot in one scene)? We never really know as the film answers none of our questions, instead piling sub-plot upon sub-plot and never properly resolving any of them, instead killing off the various protagonists as it seems their sub-plot might be in danger of explaining something.
The old Jewish dude looks like he's going to be a significant character but, as it turns out, his only function is to introduce his buddy a police detective, (played by a bored-looking Cameron Mitchell, who puts the absolute minimum effort into his performance), who starts investigating after the old guy is mysteriously killed. Then there's the surgeon and her dreams - she actually lasts the course until the end of the film, which is more than her husband does.as he falls victim to the Nazi/devil/playboy, although his wife barely seems to notice. Oh, not to forget her nephew and his girlfriend, who also get involved. Then, just when you think there can't be any more major characters to be introduced, up pops homeless priest Pupini who, it seems, has been hunting for the Nazi/devil/playboy. Unfortunately, he is incredibly ineffective, before being abruptly killed off by the Nazi/devil/playboy's hitherto unknown (and never seen after) henchwoman, (who dresses as a nun, but is apparently a demon of some kind). But hey, he'd served his purpose of padding out the running time a bit more. Indeed, much of the film feels like padding to try and get it to feature length, with its proliferating characters and sub-plots. Every time it flags, something else is thrown in: a disco scene, a hypnotist and a voodoo priest, to name but a few. Unfortunately, while this all sounds like it should be fun, it isn't, as the whole thing is so badly put together.
The presence of three credited directors, (none of whom, one comes to suspect, had ever seen a movie, let alone made one, before), fuels the suspicion that this actually started out as a short, or was an incomplete project, for which additional footage was filmed until it was brought up to feature length. The script is credited to Philip Yordan, once hailed as a talented script writer until it emerged that several of the most celebrated scripts for which he was credited had actually been written by black-listed writers for whom he had acted as a front. Most of the scripts which can be fully accredited to Yordan are far less impressive and in the latter part of his career seemed mainly to be for low budget, low rent productions like The Nightmare Never Ends. Despite the three directors, it has to be said that the film does have a consistent look and feel: it is truly horrible looking, with poor production values, murky photography and bad lighting. The cast are as terrible as the script, reading their lines in a monotone, (except when they are shouting them). Even low budget veterans like Cameron Mitchell and Marc Lawrence (who inexplicably plays two roles - the old man and Mitchell's police sidekick), can't make any headway with the material they are given. The film almost redeems itself with a lunatic climax in an operating theatre, but by that time most viewers would have long lost patience with the whole thing.
This last weekend we learned that there seem to be a lot of people out there who seem to believe that Independence Day was a documentary. Mention the term 'UFO', even when used in its purest sense of meaning airborne objects whose nature and origin have not yet been established, and social media suddenly fills up with every crank, kook and weirdo out there, banging on about how they are vindicated in their delusions that there has been a worldwide cover-up of alien contacts. The US Air Force's shooting down of three so called 'UFOs' (actually most likely balloons, probably from China), however, poses some problems for the UFO crazies. Most obviously, the very fact that these objects were so easily brought down using conventional Air-to Air missiles rather goes against all their claims that supposed alien spaceships are incredibly fast and nonrecoverable, even capable of 'dematerialising'. If they were that high tech, then I'm pretty sure that conventional warplanes wouldn't be able to catch them, let alone destroy them. So the UFO nuts have to resort to their tried and trusted fall back position: that these recent 'UFOs' are evidence of a 'false flag' operation by the US government to fake an alien threat so as to create a world government - really a front for the UN, WEF, Bilderberg Group or whoever the current object of their paranoia is - in order to defend against them. This particular 'theory' has the advantage of pulling in all manner of other crazy conspiracy freaks, mostly from the extreme right.
Then again, they speculate, these recent incidents could just be a distraction from, well, whatever it is those God damned liberal commie pinko bed-wetting bastards want to distract us all from at the moment. Be it the war in Ukraine, the toxic train crash in Ohio, the fact that Joe Biden died years ago and his embalmed corpse is currently running the US as a puppet whose strings literally are being pulled by the WEF/UN etc, or the fact that there's a secret trans plot to turn America's men gay through exposure to gender neutral pronouns. Who knows? Perhaps it is all a plot to discredit the whole UFO community by deploying obviously fake UFOs to be shot down, thereby enabling the government to dismiss all UFO sightings as surveillance balloons? If you'd been looking at Twitter any time over the past couple of days, you'd have some or even all of this nonsense. All accompanied by the sort of deliberate misinterpretation of known facts, outright fabrications and scientific illiteracy we've come to expect from these cranks. As it is has become increasingly obvious even to the most irresponsible outposts of the media that the objects shot down by the USAF were of terrestrial origin, (something obvious to most of us from the get go), the UFO community has had to start deploying some of its 'big guns' to try and save face. That charlatan (in my opinion) Nick Pope, for instance, has been doing the media rounds dampening down the alien expectations, telling everyone that the 'UFOs' were probably not extraterrestrial in origin. No shit, Nick. But hey, if nothing else, we've learned that here in the UK, at least, our skies are safe, with Rishi Sunak assuring us that the RAF are ready to shoot down any Chinese spy balloons straying into our airspace. Not that they are ever likely to trouble us as, thanks to thirteen years of Tory governments, the UK has sweet FA worth spying on.
Teenage Monster (aka Meteor Man) (1958) is part of that small group of films comprising the science fiction/horror/western crossover sub-genre, which include Billy the Kid Versus Dracula and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (both 1966). You can see the attraction to film-makers: the use of standing western sets, costumes, props and locations meant considerable budget savings. Moreover, the familiarity of the setting would probably make audiences more receptive to the fantastical elements, while the juxtaposition of such elements with the historic setting would give the whole production a bizarre touch and provide a novel marketing angle. It has to be said, however, that very few of these films actually worked that well, with the supernatural/science fiction and western elements stubbornly refusing to mix. Not even the more recent, big budgeted Cowboys and Aliens (2011) failed to set the box office on fire. There are exceptions: the sixties TV series The Wild, Wild West successfully mixed steampunk-style science fiction with a Western setting, while there have been a number of movies which have drawn upon Native American supernatural elements rather than the Gothic tradition, with some success. Getting back to Teenage Monster, it is possibly the most basic representative of this sub-genre, its science fiction elements are minimal, existing solely to provide an excuse for having the title monster wandering around the Old West.
In time honoured fashion, one of those mysterious meteorites falls to earth, killing a gold miner and burning his young son. Not surprisingly, the son mutates into a mumbling hairy simpleton, who wanders around killing people. He is protected by his mother, who keeps him out of sight of the local townsfolk by having him work the mine. Eventually, his sporadic killings attract too much attention, so she moves with him to a house closer to the town, where she hopes she can tame his animalistic urges. Things are complicated when a local girl stumbles on their secret and tries to blackmail the mother who, instead, persuades her to be her son's paid companion, to try and help humanise him. Naturally, the son falls for the girl, who proceeds to use him for her own purposes, killing an unwelcome suitor for her. The Sheriff, (who has the hots for the mother), gets suspicious, the monster turns against the girl and we get a mini-King Kong scenario with the beast taking her to the top of a mesa - then throwing her to her death before being gunned down by the Sheriff and his Deputy. It's all very small scale and clearly hastily shot on a tiny budget, with no major special effects to speak of and some very generic hairy make-up for the monster. The film was produced and directed by Jacques R Marquette to provide a co-feature for another film his company had produced, The Brain From Planet Arous (1958).
It gives some idea of how poor Teenage Monster is that it makes The Brain From Planet Arous look good - and Brain From Planet Arous is pretty bad. Nevertheless, despite being a bad movie, the latter at least has a suitably bizarre concept and some quite entertainingly created giant interstellar brains with eyes floating around. It also has a couple of decent B-movie stars in John Agar and Robert Fuller, whereas Teenage Monster can muster only the always welcome presence of Anne Gwynne, (who had starred in a number of horror B-movies, including House of Frankenstein (1944), in the forties), as the monster's mother. The film's biggest problem is that it never properly exploits either its science fiction or its Western elements - the monster could just as easily been a regular psychopath and the setting could just as well have been the present day. Ultimately, it just comes over as bland but, at just over an hour in length, it is at least relatively painless. Shot under the title The Monster on the Hill, the release title of Teenage Monster was clearly an attempt to cash in on the popularity of films like I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957) and tap into the teen drive-in market.
Look, I'm sorry, I really wanted to write something interesting and pop-culture related today but, instead, I'm going to have a moan. I've spent a large part of my week trying to deal with a plumbing problem. I know, I know, after the saga of my heating system problems last Autumn, I thought that it had all been sorted and I wouldn't have to think about it again for a long time. But no, now a pipe has sprung a leak, or rather, to be precise, a soldered joint on the pipe feeding the hot water cylinder's heating coil has sprung a leak. Irritatingly, even though the leak is in the airing cupboard and awkwardly placed, it should be possible for me to carry out a repair, even if only temporary until I can get the plumber in - if I could obtain the right materials. What I needed was a particular type of repair putty made by Evo-Stik, which can be applied while the pipes are still wet and leaking. I've used it in the past and even managed to find what was left of my last stick of it which, after more than a decade, has hardened beyond use. It's still made and supposedly widely available - except that it is out of stock everywhere in Crapchester and seems to be in short supply elsewhere, as are alternatives made by other manufacturers. I could try and buy it online, but at vastly inflated prices. So, why is there a sudden shortage of something that is actually a pretty basic tool for home repairs, (not just for sealing leaking pipes, but also for repairing ceramics, wood and even as a pretty powerful adhesive)?
I'm sure that if I enquired about it, I'd be given the explanation of the present moment - it's all down to the war in Ukraine. Although, as far as I'm aware, none of the constituents come exclusively from Ukraine, (although sunflower oil apparently does, if I'm to believe the reasons given for sunflower spread suddenly becoming unavailable). Either that or it will be vaguely ascribed to 'supply chain problems', (which really means Brexit-related import delays - but we're not allowed to say that as the benefits of Brexit are, apparently, beyond question). These shortages of random items is becoming endemic in the UK, it seems and nobody in authority wants to acknowledge it, let alone address the issue. So, for now, I'm going to have to find a different approach to solving my problem. Consequently, I've isolated the hot water system, (I'm back to using the back-up immersion heater to get hot water), which has allowed the coil to drain itself into a bucket. With it now dry and drip free, I'm going to attempt to use a different type of putty, which requires a dry surface for application, to seal the joint. In fact, I intend to use two types of sealant - once the putty has hardened I intend covering it and the joint with another two part sealing epoxy I've acquired. If it stops the leak when I put the hot water system back on line, I might also add a layer of waterproof repair tape, just to make sure (although this seems to be in short supply as well). With any luck, that will hold it for a while, until it is convenient to get a plumber in.
I was watching a Randolph Scott western, The Tall T (1957), the other day, I had it on mainly as background, while I did something else, when a line of dialogue suddenly gave me a start. 'Had me a quiet woman once,' says Henry Silva's Chink,following up an observation that Mrs Mims (Maureen O'Sullivan) was 'so quiet you'd hardly know she was around'. The same dialogue, word for word, was familiar to me from Return of the Seven (1966), where it is Warren Oates' Colbee who speaks them in relation to Petra (Elisa Montes). In The Tall T, Chink then goes on to tell how the woman in question was down Sonora way and is amazed that Billy Jack (Skip Homeier) went there once but didn't go back, pointing out that there were 'ten head of women' for every man in Sonora. He should know as he'd romanced half of them and would have done the other half if he hadn't pulled a muscle in his leg. Again, in Return of the Seven, the dialogue proceeds identically, except that it is Virgilio Teixeira's Delgado who hadn't been back to Sonora. In both films the conversation is ended by a character telling the ladies' man that he 'talks too much'. What's fascinating is how the whole tone of the exchange differs between the two films. In The Tall T, as spoken by the thuggish and brutal Chink, it comes over as sleazy and sinister, the boast of a sexual predator. By contrast, in Return of the Seven, the same words are spoken by Colbee, a laid back and easy going gun fighter and come over as playful, a tall story told more as a joke than to impress anyone. The subtleties of characterisation completely transform the dialogue from sinister bragging to good humoured male banter.
The obvious question, of course, is why the same dialogue appears in two different films, nine years apart, with, at first sight, no obvious connection. But the connection is there: it lies in Burt Kennedy, who wrote The Tall T and directed The Return of the Seven. The script for The Return of the Seven, though, is accredited to Larry Cohen, rather than Kennedy. I recall, however, an interview with Cohen in which he explained that he was asked to cut a large section from the middle of his original script, in order to speed the film up and keep its running time down to around ninety minutes (the released version ran ninety five minutes). As this piece of dialogue lifted from The Tall T comes around the middle of the released film, it is entirely possible that Kennedy inserted it himself, cannibalising his earlier script, so as to 'smooth over' the cuts in the original script. It helps develop a couple of the supporting characters and leads into that film's Frank (Claude Akins), a taciturn and withdrawn gun fighter,explaining his tragic back story, which engages audience sympathy with him. Of course, Kennedy had a track record of re-using dialogue that he obviously liked, from film-to-film. Randolph Scott's observation in The Tall T that 'There are some things a man can't ride around', for instance, also turns up in Ride Lonesome, Six Black Horses and Support Your Local Gunfighter, as well as The Return of the Seven. It's always quite startling when you suddenly recognise a piece of dialogue in a film that isn't a direct remake of another film you've seen, or that hasn't itself been remade into another movie you've previously seen. But scripts are reworked and recycled more often than we realise, a prime example being another western, Powder River (1953), which has whole scenes lifted intact and practically word-for-word from Frontier Marshal (1939) and My Darling Clementine (1946). This being the result of the fact that Twentieth Century Fox produced all three, with the first two being derived from Stuart N Lake's biography of Wyatt Earp, which they still owned the rights to, (it is even credited as being 'based on' in Powder River), so in order to produce a cost effective vehicle for Rory Calhoun, they cobbled together a new film recycled from parts of the earlier adaptations.
Apparently, Liz Truss doesn't want to be Prime Minister again. Which is a stroke of luck as neither does anyone else. Even saying this demonstrates a staggering degree of hubris on the part of someone whose utter incompetence and unfitness for the job resulted in her becoming Britain's shortest serving Prime Minister. The very notion, after the economic chaos she instigated, that there might be any chance of her getting another chance at the job is ludicrous. But then, of course, the very idea of her becoming Prime Minister in the first place seemed ludicrous until it actually happened. All those ridiculous puff pieces the right-wing press started running about her, bigging her up as a potential PM, despite her lack of actual achievements in ministerial office, when it started to become obvious that Johnson's days in Number Ten were numbered, seemed simply to be the usual right-wing wet dreams. But it turned out to be the start of a concerted campaign to get a candidate vacuous and malleable enough to carry their crackpot extremist free market economic agenda into power. So, I was reluctant to completely dismiss the similar puff pieces appearing in the press late last week trumpeting as to how Truss was planning a 'comeback' and how it would cause problems for Sunak. Even the BBC's Laura Kuensberg got in on the act, (mainly because she had an interview with Truss on her TV show). As it turned out, though, the promised 'comeback' simply turned out to be Truss whining on about how she wasn't given a chance and how her plans were derailed by the left-wing economic establishment. Indeed, those well known Marxists at the Treasury, Bank of England and securities markets.
Surely her backers must have grasped by now that reviving the corpse of Liz Truss is futile? In both political terms and public opinion she is a busted flush - she played her hand and got called out. But then again, Boris Johnson still has his fanatical backers who seem to regard him as the once-and-future-king, despite the fact that he left office in disgrace, the architect of his own downfall, and has spent his time since further alienating the electorate with his money-grubbing and self-aggrandising antics. But even if their supporters can't resurrect the careers of either of these two, there still seems to be an endless supply of horrendous right-wing reactionary Tory MPs out there ready to take their places if the opportunity arises. Where do they all come from? I've often idly thought that perhaps they are the result of a radioactive meteorite having fallen in the Tory heartlands some fifty or sixty years ago, causing horrible and grotesque mutations in the surrounding population. Much in the manner of H P Lovecraft's 'The Colour Out of Space'. Maybe we've reached the stage where the mutations are no longer physical, but instead psychological, the strange radiations of the meteorite twisting the minds of newly born Tory children, imprinting cruelty, madness and a complete lack of empathy into them. Which, in turn, drives them toward extreme right wing politics and economics. More recently, I've found myself speculating that perhaps the meteorite was found by crazed libertarians and removed to London, where it is now housed in the labyrinthine cellars beneath 55 Tufton Street, its evil radiations pulsing their way up through the floors into the various crazy right-wing think tanks housed there. I have no doubt that it is attended by robed acolytes, who regularly descend into the cellars and worship it as a deity. Then again, I could well be completely wrong and all those Tory MPs are just naturally bastards.
Originally titled simply G-Men, this pulp was an attempt to cash in on the US public's fascination with the then new and novel FBI, ('G-Men' being a popular nickname for FBI agents, after 'Machine Gun' Kelly had reportedly shouted 'Don't shoot G-Men' when he was arrested by armed FBI men). When this interest began to fade, the title changed to G-Men Detective and it became more of a standard crime pulp. This is the Winter 1945 issue, (the magazine started monthly, went bi-monthly with the title change, then went quarterly and staggered to its end in 1953 with a highly erratic schedule), sporting another of those wonderful covers featuring death embodied as a living skeleton. I think that it is a fair bet that the cover painting is illustrating 'Death Blacks Out' by Henry Kuttner. Kuttner was a prolific and well respected writer for the pulps, producing stories across multiple genres, although nowadays he is probably best remembered for his science fiction stories.
The other featured story on the cover is 'One Thousand Suspects' by Norman A Daniels, who, of course, was the creator of The Black Bat for G-Man Detective's sister pulp Black Book Detective. The Black Bat has often been cited as an inspiration for the Batman comic strip, (there are certainly a number of similarities, including the costume). While the Black Bat might have inspired Batman, another character created by Daniels, The Phantom Detective,(who appeared in his own eponymous pulp, also published by Thrilling) was a straightforward knock off of The Shadow. Like Kuttner, Daniels was a prolific writer for the pulps, particularly those published by Thrilling Publications, which put out a vast array of magazines, covering every genre. 'One Thousand Suspects' is one of a long-running series of stories about 'Dan Fowler' that appeared in G-Men Detective, mainly written by Daniels. Indeed, his last appearance under Daniels' authorship was in the penultimate issue of the magazine in 1952, (although the character also appeared in the final issue in 1953, under the authorship of Richard Foster, the pen name of Kendall Foster Crossen, another prolific pulp writer).
In total, G-Men ans G-men Detective put out, between them, 112 issues between 1935 and 1953.
My latest acquisition: sixteen vintage editions of Railway Modeller magazine, a selection of issues covering 1959 to 1965. Having spent most of the evening perusing them, I have to say that railway modelling was a lot more fun back then. At least, that's the way it seems to me. The availability of ready-to-run equipment, from locos and rolling stock to accessories like buildings and scenic materials was much more limited than it is today, meaning that you had to come up with a lot of stuff yourself, be it by building kits, modifying proprietary items or by scratch-building, which was half the enjoyment of the hobby. Moreover, this meant that most of the layouts you saw in the magazine didn't have that sheen of realism and professionalism that they all have now - you felt that they were made by people with your skill level. Nowadays, a lot of the layouts you see in the magazines seem to set standards that, for the majority of us, are impossible to achieve. The same applies to the rolling stock on display - nowadays there is a vast array of (often prohibitively expensive for most of use) super-detailed models of even the most obscure prototypes available, which look fabulous. But back in the era of these magazines, both ready-to-run and kit-built stock has that pleasing (to me), slightly chunky and coarse appearance. Of course, it is important to bear in mind that back then, most of the commercially based model railways were considered, primarily, to be toys, whereas now they are marketed as scale models.
The type of layouts seen in the magazines has also changed over the decades. I was pleased to see that the majority of layouts seen in the pages of these old magazines placed an emphasis upon operation rather than detailed realism. Scenics were often basic, track plans based around getting the maximum of running into the available space, often with multiple stations so that trains went to and from places. This is in contrast to the modern trend of simpler track layouts, usually with a single station and an emphasis upon scenery. These layouts look fabulous and obviously involve incredible effort and skill on the part of their constructors, but look to me as if they might well be a bit boring to operate for any length of time. As a proviso, I should add that nowadays model railway magazines do seem to focus upon exhibition layouts which are designed to be displayed publicly rather than the sort of layout that lives permanently in the spare room or attic. Undoubtedly, the fact that I started looking at model railway magazines in the seventies, (often older back issues in my local library) has influenced my particular preferences model railway-wise: most of my rolling stock is from the sixties, seventies or eighties and my ultimate aim is to build a layout on which I can carry out vaguely realistic train operations, (but with the facility to just run trains around if I feel like it). Just like those layouts in these old Railway Modellers. Don't get me wrong - I've nothing against those modern super-detailed models and fantastically detailed layouts. I really admire the people who build those layouts and run those models on them and enjoy seeing them at exhibitions. It is just that I like the robustness, simplicity and reliability of the models of my childhood.
As an interesting footnote, the span of these magazines effectively chart the rise and fall of Tri-ang's version of TT gauge: TT3. This was an attempt to launch a new, smaller model railway system, 3mm to the foot running on 12mm gauge track, alongside their established 00 system (which used 4mm to the foot models and 16.5mm track). As can be seen from the early issues, there was a lot of interest, with lots of articles on converting and modifying models and lots of track plans and layouts featured. But Tri-ang abandoned TT3 in the mid-sixties as interest waned, something reflected in the gradual decline of TT3 related articles in the Railway Modeller. Fast forward to the present and we have Hornby, (who, despite the name, are the direct descendant of Tri-ang, the latter's owners, Lines Brothers, having bought Hornby Dublo from Meccano in the mid-sixties), currently in the middle of launching a new version of TT, TT 120. It will be interesting to see whether, this time, they stick with it and succeed in establishing the gauge in the UK, (it has always had a following and commercial support on the continent).
