Part of Universal's post-war monster movie cycle, The Thing That Couldn't Die (1958) remains an elusive quarry that I've never been able to track down. Unusual in having a purely supernatural theme at a time when most of Universal's horror cycle was science fiction based, The Thing That Couldn't Die falls into the category of 'living head' movies. The premise is straightforward - the living severed head of a man executed for witchcraft four hundred years ago is dug up on a modern day ranch, it proceeds to possess various people as it attempts to find its headless body. Obviously, this involves the usual degree of murder and mayhem you'd expect from a B-movie of this sort. Something about the film has always intrigued me, possibly it is the low-key nature of its monster, compared with many of the more its contemporary creatures from outer space, mutated by radiation to prehistoric survivals. As can be seen from the trailer, the film contains much memorable imagery, involving a severed living head being held up by its hair to glare through windows and the like.
The film's poster repeats this imagery, featuring the head being held up by its also living headless body, to stare out of the poster, directly at the viewer. All very evocative for what is essentially a B-movie designed as a supporting feature, or perhaps the lower half of B-movie double bill, with a sixty nine minute running time and a cast made up mainly of TV actors. But it came from an era when studio produced B-movies could boast pretty decent production values (courtesy of standing sets from more prestigious studio productions) and marketing campaigns. It is possible that the movie even had some influence on late film makers, with its plot bearing a lot of resemblance to that of Paul Naschy's 1972 film Horror Rises From the Tomb. (Naschy was a big fan of classic horror films and it is quite likely that he had seen The Thing That Couldn't Die). As mentioned, I've never been able to see the entire film and I fear that it would be a disappointment if I ever did, not living up to that poster or the striking imagery from the trailer. Not that that will deter from catching it at some point.
So, did you see that video of Rishi Sunak and his motorcade the other day? You know the one - his car is accompanied by hordes of coppers on push bikes and hordes more running alongside the vehicle, huffing and puffing. It was all very bizarre and perplexing - when I worked in Whitehall, I saw the late Queen's motorcade sweep past every so often, (usually with some visiting foreign dignitary sitting alongside her), and her limousine was only ever accompanied by a couple of preceding motorcycle cops clearing junctions and a couple of Range Rovers, fore and aft, packed full of armed policemen. All I could think, watching Sunak's OTT motorcade was, couldn't all those Metropolitan Police officers have been better employed molesting women, fitting people up or shooting black people? Or maybe that's the point - this is the government's solution to a lack of public confidence in the Met in the wake of all these revelations of wrong-doing by its officers: take the worst offenders off their normal duties and assign them to protecting the Prime Minister. That way, their opportunity for raping, beating, murdering and being generally misogynistic, homophobic and racist to the public will be severely limited, with Rishi keeping his eye on them personally.
It's been a week of bizarre stuff - just the other day I saw something along the lines of 'Lesbian Visibility Week' trending on Twitter. Does this mean that there are invisible lesbians out there? Is it a lesbian thing, being invisible? I mean, if there literally were invisible lesbians out there, it would really freak out those crazy right wingers in the US - they could find themselves sharing elevators and stuff with lesbians and never know it. Which, for their mindset, would be utterly terrifying. Also bizarre has been Google's sudden decision that a trio of posts I made here fifteen years ago or so are, in fact, offensive. Resulting in that idiotic warning about 'sensitive content' now coming up before you can click through to this site. I'm still mystified as to exactly what is offensive about these particular posts that puts them above and beyond every other offensive thing I've posted here? In one case I'm assuming that it is the 'offensive' language used, while another seems to cause offence by being a spoof piece about a non-existent porn film. The third one seems to be objectional because it satirises several politicians and a religious figure, all long retired, by speculating as to what their sexual fantasies might be. The reality, of course, is that no real, living and breathing, person has been offended by any of these posts - I know from my stats that nobody has read them pretty much since they were originally published. Rather, I'm assuming that they've triggered something in Google's algorithm, (Google being Blogger's owner), resulting in the whole site being put behind a warning.
The trouble is that, even in their terms of service, Google/Blogger never really make clear exactly what they define as 'sensitive' or 'offensive' content, instead giving the usual vague guff about 'community standards'. The fact is that just about anything can be offensive to someone and Google/Blogger are hugely indiscriminate as to where lines should be drawn. Even if I just stuck to talking about films, for instance, they could arbitrarily decide that the sort of films I covered constituted 'sensitive' or 'offensive' material. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I've 'redacated' what I'm assuming are the offensive parts of those three posts, adding a note as to why this has been done. I'll resubmit them in due course, to see if it makes any difference. (I doubt that it will). Quite frankly, though, I find this nonsense very exasperating and right now I'm considering setting up shop at Wordpress.com, taking all of the archived posts here with me.
There was some seriously kinky stuff going on in the cover paintings of many pulp magazines. As a rule of thumb, the cheaper the magazine the kinkier it got, with an apex seemingly reached in the mid to late thirties. I've mentioned Dime Mystery Magazine and its lurid covers before, with their emphasis upon bound and semi naked women being variously menaced and tortured, but this edition from June 1937 is, even by that publication's standards, extraordinary. Naked women being bound to mouldering skeletons has to be one of the most blatant illustrations of necrophilia ever to grace the cover of a pulp. The one with the dangerous kink is clearly the weirdo doing the binding, (who is himself seemingly semi-naked). Weird and pretty disturbing, I can imagine this freaking out and turning on, in equal measure, punters seeing this edition on the newsstands back in 1935. Nowadays, if sold at all, it would probably merit a plain brown wrapper. I'm guessing that the cover is illustrating 'The Plague of Evil Love' by Nat Scachner, mainly on the grounds that: a) necrophiliac bondage would seem to fit the description of 'evil love' and that, b) the other lead story is by Cornell Woolrich, who specialised in dark crime thrillers, rather than the more exotic subject matter being illustrated.
Just a few years earlier (March 1935), Dime Mystery Magazine (although the title is ominously cropped to read 'Dime Mystery Maga' - a portent, perhaps, of cheapskate Donald Trump's future reign of terror?), had sported another 'high bondage' cover, this time illustrating (as the cover conveniently tells us) Arthur Leo Zagat's 'Hound of Hell:
The woman tied to an inverted crucifix is pretty much an archetypal bondage image (or so I'm told), still popular on web sites catering for that sort of thing, (again, so I'm told). Here it is put into the context of what appears to be a Satanic ritual, (the skull on the back of that guy's jacket gives the impression that he is some kind of proto Hell's Angel), doubtless intended to culminate a human sacrifice, (unless the hero crawling into the cave in the background gets there first), in order to 'justify' it and try to deflect moral crusaders who would otherwise have labelled it 'porn'. Which, of course, is the point of these covers - it is easy to forget in an age when the internet gives us access, in the comfort of our own homes, to just about any form of sexual kink you could imagine, that back in the day, covers like these, (not to mention the even more lurid interior illustrations), were the closest thing to porn the average person could get. The pulps truly were purveyors of cheap thrills. That said, the 1937 necrophilia themed cover is, even by the standards of such publications, pretty audacious.
As evinced in earlier posts, I have quite a fascination for foreign cinematic interpretations of UK history. They present an outsider's view of what we in the UK like to think is set-in-stone fact, evidence that history is far from monolithic and 'truth' is very much dependent upon where you are standing. British versions of British history are generally based upon the perspective of a 'winner', particularly with regard to wars. Unlike the French, the low countries, Poland, Greece or most of Scandinavia, (to name but a few), we didn't have to suffer the trauma of occupation by a foreign power. Nor did we have to suffer our national integrity being compromised by territorial invasions and seizures, like the USSR, for instance. Consequently, the way in which World War Two is depicted by the film industries of these countries differs significantly from the way in which it is depicted by the UK's. Likewise, Germany and Italy, being on the losing end of the war, have even more diverging cinematic depictions of the war. While the former has tended to focus on downbeat films with a strong anti-war message, the latter, in the sixties and seventies, seemed to be trying to write its own part in the war out completely, with a series of lurid action movies, often set in the desert, with the British or Americans (played by Italians) as the heroes and the Germans as the villains, with the Italians relegated to a minor supporting role (if depicted at all).
The exception, as I've discussed before, lies in Italian depictions of the Battle of El Alamein. From the British perspective, a huge victory and vital turning point of the war, for the Italians, it was a crushing defeat which saw their elite units shattered and their whole army in disarray. Consequently, their cinematic versions of the battle have the plucky Italians, facing overwhelming British forces, as the heroes, with both the British and the Germans, (who notoriously co-opted much of the Italian motorised transport for their own retreat, leaving their allies high and dry), very much the bad guys. But World War Two isn't the only bit of British history that continental film makers have produced their own versions of, with the whole Colonial era being a favourite, with various depictions of British rule in India and Africa, for instance. Going back further, the Tudor and Stuart periods, most specifically the era of pirates and privateers, has also been popular, perhaps not surprisingly, as it is a history we share with the Spanish and Portuguese, (it was their ships being sunk and captured by British pirates and privateers), giving it wide appeal. (The Anglo-Dutch wars, also from this period, neglected by British film makers, perhaps because the Dutch gave us a kicking, have been depicted in Dutch cinema, with some interesting portrayals of Charles II).
All of which brings us, finally, to the trailer above, for Seven Seas to Calais (1962), an Italian made epic about the life and times of our very own Sir Francis Drake. I remember from my childhood, that Drake, along with his contemporary Sir Walter Raleigh, was always depicted as a dashing adventurer, making far off foreign places safe for us Brits and defeating those beastly Spanish. The reality, of course, is that he was a rogue and a pirate, (a 'privateer' for part of his career courtesy of the fact that he was operating under licence from the English crown), ruthlessly and brutally exploiting the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean and Americas in the name of 'exploration'. Not that you would have learned any of this from the Lasybird book about him that I had as a child. I've recently found an English language copy of the film and I'm hoping to be able to watch it before it vanishes (as these things tend to). I'm intrigued to see how the Italians tackle Drake - straightforward hero or imperialist bastard? The film itself has several points of interest in its own right, notably an early starring role for Rod Taylor and a supporting role for 'Terence Hill', billed under his real name of Mario Girotti and the fact that it was co-director Rudolph Mate's last film. It has also been claimed by some sources that Riccardo Freda was involved in editing some of the battle sequences, although he always denied this). So hopefully, at some point, I'll be able to give a fuller assessment of this Italian interpretation of British history.
To be fair to Dominic Raab (and you don't know how much it hurts me to type those words), who has been forced to resign as Justice Secretary over allegations he bullied staff, bullying, in my experience, seem to characterise what passes for management in the Ministry of Justice. Well, the bit that I used to work in, at least. The problem was that there were far too many managers who had quite obviously been promoted far beyond their abilities and their only response when they found themselves challenged was to resort to trying to micro-manage staff and, failing that, to bully them. It was usually very low level, often passive aggressive, focusing on nit-picking, moving goal posts without warning, setting arbitrary targets and generally trying to undermine the confidence of any dissenting staff by using these new criteria to 'prove' they were under performing or, worse, incompetent. (By 'dissenting staff', I mean anyone with the audacity to pint out when these 'managers' were wrong, misapplying or misunderstanding regulations and guidelines or that the policies they were pursuing were flawed). I know, I went through it all after having it seen done to colleagues. I got the distinct impression that those of us with the longest service in our particular role (and therefore the most experience and knowledge of how the job should be done), were systematically targeted for harassment by management. Once the two colleagues with seniority over me had been forced into taking retirement, it was my turn.
I endured it all - the constant attempts to undermine my confidence, the abuse of the staff reporting system, even an attempt to apply the disciplinary process inappropriately. (This latter incident turned into a farce as, after I had returned to work after a lengthy period on sick leave - work-related stress had resulted in extreme hyper tension and type two diabetes - I faced an attempt to, in effect, dismiss me for 'gross misconduct'. The trouble was that the exact nature of the charges were never clear to either myself or my union rep. Not surprisingly, it all fell at the fist hurdle as not only had those responsible been incompetent with regard to following correct procedure, undermining their case, but they also failed to come up with anything substantive to back up their vague allegations. So it all had to be dropped). The abuse of the reporting system was interesting, (I was far from alone in suffering this), as it hinged on a radical change that had been made to the system. Basically, as one manager put it, doing your job well was no longer enough. If a manager didn't like your 'attitude', for instance, they could mark you down on your annual report. They could mark you down, in fact, for all manner of bizarre reasons - often without having to back up their allegations. (Twice, I was penalised in the reporting process for having had alleged complaints made against me - despite the fact that, prior to this, no formal complaint procedures had ever been instigated against me, nor had I ever been informed of any such complaints. Moreover, when challenged, the relevant managers were unable to substantiate details of either of these supposed complaints. Yet the penalties stood). Of course, this new policy of meaning that your actual ability to do your job was no longer the main criteria in assessing performance just made the management situation worse, as it meant that every chancer, bullshitter and sycophant saw their chance to get promoted despite their failings in their current roles and generally got promoted.
Now, I know what you are thinking: he's a disgruntled ex-employee and clearly an awkward bastard, so he would present himself as the victim, wouldn't he? Well, fair enough. I certainly wouldn't claim to be entirely blameless in all this: I had long grown tired of the job and was still doing it primarily to build up my pension credits. To be honest, toward the end I was doing only what was absolutely essential, (although that was largely a reaction to the shit I was taking from management). There were times when I probably should have kept my head down and held my counsel, but, I just can't help myself and I made clear what I thought of some policies, which generally went down like a lead balloon. I'm not claiming that I was a man more sinned against than sinning, but from where I was sitting, I was taking some unfair heat. There were times when I worked my arse off, covering other peoples' jobs as well as doing my own for extended period and was rewarded by being marked down in my annual assessments on the basis of unsubstantiated 'complaints'. I became seriously ill as a result of the stress of all this, came back to work too early and found myself embroiled in a disciplinary process. So I don't think that I'm being paranoid.
There's an interesting coda to all this. After lock down ended and I went back to the office, as we still couldn't work the streets (which was most of my job), they didn't have any actual work for me, so instead had me going over everybody's warrant lists, ensuring that the paper records tallied with what was on the IT system. Now, after all the implications that I wasn't doing enough and wasn't getting the required results, you can imagine my surprise when I found that my colleagues' clearance rates, (which, it had been implied, were superior to mine), were actually no better than mine. Their record keeping was also worse than mine, (something else I was apparently failing at), either that, or they really weren't making the visits they should have been. At which point, not surprisingly, I finally decided to call it a day and go into my current semi-retirement. It was clearly pointless carrying on as how well or poorly I did the job had obviously become irrelevant. Both my physical and mental health have improved immeasurably since I left the Ministry of Justice. While I'm sorry that various senior civil servants in the department feel that they were subjected to bullying by Domnic Raab, I can't help but feel that they really should also be looking at the management culture of their oeganisation's lower echelons and seeing the level of bullying that those lower down the pay scale - who are unable to put in the sorts of complaints that they were able to - have to endure, day in, day out.
You know, 'The Whip Mad Monster of Monte Cortino', despite being pitched as a 'true' story, sounds suspiciously like a low budget exploitation film. Probably filmed in the Philippines. Or Mexico. Indeed, I'm pretty sure that I've seen something where 'The skulls of a dozen brides decorated his jungle hacienda'. A few years earlier and he doubtless would have turned out to be a Nazi war criminal, continuing his deprivations in modern day South America while wearing a false moustache. Instead, the 'Whip Mad Monster', judging by that cover illustration at least, appears to be an overweight Mexican bandit type, complete with an ammunition belt straining to fit around his belly. Yes indeed, we're back in the wild, wild world of US men's magazines, in this case the December 1962 issue of Real Men, where pictures of a semi-naked woman strung up and being given a whipping was seen as a good way of selling a magazine.
As noted many times before, the formula for these publications rarely deviated from the staples of sex, violence and war, with only the explicitness of their covers and strap lines varying over time. By the early sixties they were becoming less and less subtle, blatantly serving up violence against women as sexual fantasy. They were, of course, simply following the times - the sixties might not yet have been swinging and full of free love, but the enthusiasm for sexual liberation was already evident. Whether it was the salacious 'inside story behind the headlines' of 'Sex in the Clip Joints', (doubtless presented as a cautionary tale for wholesome young male readers venturing into the big city for the first time), or, for the more experienced and adventurous male reader, the 'Island of the Nymphos - Paradise for the Woman Hungry Man', Real Men had the sexual revolution covered. Of course, all that sex had to balanced by some violence - against women in the cover story, or in World War Two in 'The Spy Trap They Baited With Murder', or even behind the Iron Curtain in 'I Escaped From East Berlin'. It's everything every red-blooded young male craved for in the early sixties. Best of all, it was all true, (sort of)!
Hammer's belated sequel to their version of H. Rider Haggard's She (1965) misfires on virtually every level. Ignoring Haggard's various sequels to his own novel, Hammer instead opted to bring the story into the (then) present day and substitute their own original story. It's a curious thing that stories about lost civilisations always feel somewhat more credible when they are given a period setting - the first film was set just after World War One - perhaps because, in a period when the world was still less explored, it seems slightly more plausible that explorers could still stumble upon such things. Even though the late sixties is effectively 'period' now, the fact is that by then there was little of the world left unexplored and unexploited, making the survival of a lost kingdom, hidden from the world, seem more than slightly ludicrous. The contemporary setting was doubtless a cost-cutting measure and the film's lack of budget compared to its predecessor is further underlined by the decidedly unimpressive sets used to represent Ayesha's lost city - they lack completely the sense of scale and grandeur evoked by those used in the earlier film. The cramped looking sets also seem very underpopulated this time around - extras, after all, cost money.
The plot is reasonably intriguing in its set up - whereas the first film had seen the culmination of Ayesha's search for the reincarnation her lost love Killikrates, the sequel reverses the situation with the reincarnated Killikrates noe seeking her latest reincarnation, (the original having perished at the end of the first film, just as he had gained immortality). We open, though, with a confused looking young woman who looks a bit like Ursula Andress, (Ayesha in the first film), wandering along a winding road in the South of France - after a lorry driver gives her a lift, he tries to molest her, only to be run over by his own truck when it seemingly releases its own handbrake. The girl, it transpires is suffering from strange dreams and feels compelled to make her way in the direction of Africa. The dreams are, of course, the result of Killikrates' Magi telepathically 'calling' her to the lost city. Along the way she gets passage on a millionaire's yacht and, in Africa, has a local sorcerer try to help her by, unsuccessfully, breaking the Magi's spell. Arriving in the lost city, the issue becomes that of whether she really is the reincarnation of Ayesha, or whether the Magi has hypnotised her into believing that she is, for his own nefarious purposes. At which point we shift into a variation of part of the original film's plot, which saw the then High Priest trying to discredit the would-be Killikrates in order to gain immortality for himself, with the Magi using the new 'Ayesha' to try and gain Killikrates' favour and thereby get a shot at immortality. Inevitably, it all ends with a cataclysm.
Although sold as a direct sequel to the first film, there is a disquieting sense of disconnect between She and Vengeance of She, leaving you with the feeling that the makers of the sequel hadn't actually seen the original. The character of Killikrates is all over the place for instance, with him seemingly having forgotten his previous mortal life as Leo Vincey, not to mention that he was a reluctant immortal, left waiting for the sacred flame to return so as to return his mortality. His demise also makes little sense: re-entering the flame, he ages rapidly, turning into a skeleton, then dust, despite the fact that, at best, the time of his becoming immortal and his age then would mean that his true age in 1968 would still only put him in his seventies, meaning that, logically, he should simply have turned into an old man. Moreover, the whole social structure of the lost city from the first film seems to have been forgotten. Back then there was a priesthood who dressed like Ancient Egyptians and worshipped Ayesha as a living goddess. In the sequel, we instead have the Magi, who all dress like Bedouin Arabs and indulge in some pretty generalised mysticism.
One of the original film's strongest points was its cast, headed by Ursula Andress in the title role, ably supported by Peter Cushing as Leo's fellow explorer Holly, Bernard Cribbins as his batman, Christopher Lee as the High Priest and John Richardson as Leo/Killikrates. Of these, only Richardson returns for the sequel, (although Andre Morrell, who was in the first, turns up in a different role in Vengeance of She). Andress is replaced by Hungarian actress Olinka Berova, who is very beautiful wth more than a passing resemblance to her predecessor. While she lacks Andress' sheer presence in the role, she is, nevertheless, very striking in the role, although, in reality, the script gives her little to work with, character-wise. The cast is filled out with a number of familiar faces - Colin Blakely is memorable as the millionaire whose yacht the girl hitches a ride on, but sadly doesn't last long, while George Sewell has more screen time as the sympathetic captain of the yacht. Unfortunately, the male lead is given to Edward Judd, an actor who always seemed to make any character he played dislikeable. Here is no different, with his 'hero' coming over as abrasive and utterly unsympathetic. RSC actor Derek Godfrey gives a suitably villainous turn as the Magi and John Richardson, it has to be said, is somewhat less wooden than usual. Overall, although weaker than the original's line-up, the cast of the sequel are certainly more than adequate.
A big plus point for the film lies in the location shooting in Monaco and Spain (standing in for North Africa), which helps give the impression that it has a bigger budget than it actually had. The Monte Carlo sequences capture well a sense of time and place and contrast well with the bleak beauty of the 'African' landscapes later in the film. Unfortunately, the hot and dusty realism of the rocky 'Africa' contrasts poorly with the studio sets used to represent the lost city, emphasising their lack of realism and general cheapness. While director Cliff Owen, (Perhaps best remembered now for his comedy films with the likes of Peter Sellers, Morecambe and Wise and Dick Emery, not to mention the first Steptoe and Son film adaptation), does his best to inject some pace into the film, keeping things moving along, but is confounded by an episodic script, (by Peter O'Donell of Modesty Blaise fame), that, in its middle section, degenerates into a repetitive series of chases around piles of rocks. It is clear that, content-wise, he is somewhat out of his comfort zone. All-in-all Vengeance of She is an odd, not entirely satisfying, film, with its various components not sitting together particularly well. It fails to make the most of the contrast between the modern world and the ancient civilisation of the lost city, which itself seems barely sketched in, leaving the parts of the film set in each feeling disconnected. Mario Nascimbene's jazz orientated score doesn't help much, already sounding dated for 1968 and disconcertingly modern for the lost city scenes. If you treat it as an entirely separate entity in its own right, rather than being a sequel to She, however, it comes over rather better, as a flawed, but quite entertaining while it is on, adventure film.
Cinematic badness is comparative - I was reminded of this the past weekend by a couple of the films I streamed. By any measure, the films produced by The Asylum, mainly so-called 'mockbusters' designed to cash in on the success of recent big budget releases, are quite terrible. I generally avoid them at all costs, with their cut price CGI, vaguely recognisable-from-some-old-TV-series stars, clunky scripts and terrible production values. But I bumped into one streaming on a fairly obscure livestreaming channel on Roku and, foolishly, found myself sitting through the whole bloody thing. Now, I strongly suspect that the only reason that I found it in any way bearable was because, in comparison to a film I'd sat through the day before, it seemed like a masterpiece. I'd made the mistake of streaming a movie of which I had no prior knowledge and had done no research on, purely on the basis of its title. As anyone foolish enough to have read this blog in the long term will be aware, I have a soft spot for the low budget giant ape movie Konga (1961) - one of the holy trinity of British giant monster movies of the era, along with Behemoth, The Sea Monster (1958) and Gorgo (1959). So, when I saw a movie titled Konga TNT (2020) - complete with a picture of a giant ape menacing a city skyline - on demand on a Roku channel, I just had to watch it to find out if it had any connection to the original. Boy, did I regret that - seventy three minutes of my life that I'll never get back.
There is a connection between the two films, with the credits of Konga TNT claiming that it was inspired by the 'public domain Charlton Comics character'. Now, while those comics might be in the public domain, they were actually a spin off pf the original Konga film, which, as far as I know, isn't in the public domain. Which is probably why the 2020 film goes to great lengths to create an origin story for the giant ape that is far removed from the original, involving crashed alien spaceships, although there is a mad scientist of sorts involved. Unfortunately, what unfolds is essentially a home movie that has somehow escaped into the wild. Featuring a cast of non-actors and non-existent 'special effects', including the sort of CGI I could probably produce on this laptop, the film, with its man-in-a-monkey suit monster, (although at times he is also a stuffed toy and a glove puppet), clearly sees itself as some kind of homage/parody of the original. Sadly, though, the script is just too scatter-shot to succeed, also seeking to parody, at various points, the likes of Indiana Jones, rolling news stations and disaster movies generally. Its lack of focus, not to mention its execrable acting and production values, means that Konga TNT feels far longer than its seventy three minute running time. Like all intentionally bad movies, it misses the point that the truly enjoyable bad movies were never made with the intention of being bad. The original Konga, for instance, actually boasted a reasonable budget and featured a decent enough cast by the standards of such movies of the era - its entertainment value comes from a truly bonkers script, a typically eccentric performance from Michael Gough and its pretensions of being able to stage King Kong on a B-movie budget.
Consequently, I felt more inclined to give that Asylum movie, Age of Tomorrow (2014), a chance. After all, some of the CGI wasn't too bad, the production design (particularly the space ships and space suits) was surprisingly decent, plus it boasted professional actors. Granted, most of them weren't particularly good professional actors, but it at least had a couple of recognisable faces amongst the cast, most notably Robert Picardo, who pitched his performance exactly right for this sort of movie. While the title Age of Tomorrow was clearly designed to echo the contemporaneous Tom Cruise film Edge of Tomorrow, the script takes in a number of recent science fiction blockbusters - it seemingly starts out as an Armageddon knock off, then quickly turns into an alien invasion film, knocking off the likes of War of the Worlds (2005), Starship Troopers (1997) and Independence Day (1996). Most interestingly, rather than being a true 'mockbuster' cashing in on a single film, Age of Tomorrow seems to be aimed at parodying an entire genre, namely the gung ho style of 'plucky earthmen resisting superior alien invaders at all costs' type of film. Whereas, traditionally, these sorts of films always end with humanity scoring an unlikely, against-all-odds victory, Age of Tomorrow goes for a more downbeat ending, leaving most of the main cast dead and the survivors facing a seemingly hopeless last stand against overwhelming odds. It's a brave choice for this sort of film, albeit one that leaves the viewer wondering why they bothered watching it, or even if this is a cliffhanger for a never made sequel. But the more I think about it, the more I admire the film makers' for opting for this ending, which reflects unfashionable reality: that the use of overwhelming force usually wins in these situations.
None of which to say that Age of Tomorrow is some kind of unheralded classic. It is still a crappy Asylum production chock full of bad acting, lame dialogue and bare bones production values. Like most of the studio's other productions, it is hugely derivative - yet, unlike most of those 'mockbusters', it does at least show some originality in the way it treats its borrowed elements and develops its second hand ideas. As I've said, I probably wouldn't have been so generous to Age of Tomorrow had I not subjected myself to Konga TNT the day before, a film so terrible and bereft of any redeeming features that it made me glad of any kind of enjoyable cinematic experience. The guys at The Asylum at least understand that it is pretty pointless trying to parody low budget movies that are themselves already a parody of themselves and instead focus on the pretensions of those big budget productions which really should know better.
It seems that, if I want to get the big traffic, I'm following the wrong tack completely. At least, that's the lesson I'm taking away from from encounters with various YouTube channels that keep turning up on my YouTube homepage. As I've noted before, YouTube's algorithm has some curious ideas as to what I want to see, as all manner of stuff apparently unrelated to what I've actually been watching turns up: animal videos, 'fashion'/suspected softcore porn, boating and legal videos, to name but a few. Sometimes I end up clicking on the 'Do Not Recommend This Channel in Future' Option - most specifically when it started inserting Arsenal FC videos into my feed. Recently, I've noticed that some of the channels it persists with but that I simply ignore, had started drifting away from their ostensible subject matter into the world of crackpot conspiracies. In some ways, for at least two of these channels, this shift isn't quite as illogical as it might seem. It really isn't that big a jump to go from, for example, being a health professional providing health information (and gaining prominence for doing so during a pandemic), to disseminating Covid conspiracy theories and Anti-Vaxxer misinformation. If you want to ramp up those views, that is, which for a monetised site, of course, means a potential boost in revenues. It also gets you noticed by the rest of the Covid conspiracy nutters 'community' on YouTube and guest appearances in places like Russell Brand's channel, (a Mecca for crackpots). This, in turn, drives more traffic.
The shift from making videos about exploring the lesser known bits of Britain and their history to endorsing the lunatic 'Freemen of the Land' movement might, on the face of it, seem a little more radical. But, when you think about it, it is a logical extension of a form of conservatism that seeks to reject the modern world and its rules and regulations. Plus, the cynic in me can't help but suspect, which other conspiracy demographic would be suitable to court as a potential new mass audience? The fact is that while the conspiracy crackpots might be, in terms of the real world, be a pretty small demographic, online they've found a home - they can amplify their voices disproportionately through platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, creating a reach and awareness of their lunacies impossible in the pre-internet days. It isn't so much that that they have been able to gain masses of new recruits, but rather that they are now aware of each others existence and can organise more easily. It also makes them a huge potential audience for those online creators hungry for clicks. Hence the number of these YouTubers now pandering to the conspiracists, even if that wasn't their original audience. The way, of course, was paved by the likes of the aforementioned Brand, whose career as a stand up and actor seems to have stalled badly - when was the last time he was on mainstream TV, for instance - leaving him with his YouTube channel as his main outlet. How best to build his audience there - just extend his trademark ranty style into hardcore conspiracy crackpottery and get all those crackpot hits on his videos.
The sad fact is that there is a big potential audience out there for the sort of moronic gibberish these people put out, regardless of whether they are sincere about it or just cynical grifters - the crackpots can't seem to differentiate the two. (Not that it makes any difference as to their motivation - it is all still dangerous disinformation). So, maybe I should stop taking the piss out of conspiracy fantasies (they aren't 'theories' in any proper sense of the word) and start embracing them instead? After all, it isn't as if I haven't come up with a few myself, for satirical effect, over on The Sleaze. (Although, no matter how crazy I try to make them, I always end up finding something similar, but even more insane, already in circulation). Thankfully, though, I gave up chasing the easy clicks long ago - I'd rather put out stuff I actually believe in for an audience that shares my interest, even if they are small in number.
I think that I should probably 'plead the fifth' on this one, or risk being accused of being a horrible dirty old man. But the actual article 'Should Babes be Spanked?' in this October 1949 issue of Wink doesn't concern spanking as a sexual fetish. Rather, it is about the use of corporal punishment on ladies behinds as a form of chastisement. According to the article, there is small (probably non-existent) town in Holland where spankings are handed out as legal punishment for marital transgressions. Basically, disputes are taken to the local Burgomeister, (who, if horror movies haven't lied to me, would be a ruddy faced, overweight old pervert with a huge moustache and wearing Lederhosen), who then decides who is in the wrong, the husband or the wife, with the guilty party being given a bloody good spanking by their spouse. Using a hairbrush, if necessary. Apparently the system was effective as there hadn't been a divorce in the town in twenty years. Presumably because asking for one would result in getting thrashed with a belt.
So, Wink asks of its red-blooded American male readers, do you agree with handing out spankings to your women? A significant proportion wold probably say 'No', on the grounds that spankings were too mild - they regularly gave their other halves a bloody good lamping with their fists after staggering home roaring drunk on pay day. Personally, I'd have to say that I'd be against handing out spankings as punishment. As a sexual fetish, well, I can't deny that the thought of slapping some quivering buttocks with a bare hand, (never a hair brush), has a certain erotic allure. After all, spanking is, according to the French, at least, the 'English Perversion', the favoured sexual fantasy of all true British males. But as I indicated earlier, I'm 'pleading the fifth' on the grounds that I have no wish to incriminate myself as a dirty old man. Still, if spanking women (either for chastisement or pleasure) isn't you thing, rest assured as the cover of this edition of Wink also promises the prospect of 'Love Below the Knees', a reference, I imagine, to foot fetishism.
A great title but, sadly, a somewhat disappointing biker flick. Despite the presence of William Smith - one of exploitation cinema's greatest villains (and occasional hero) - as the leader of a biker gang and the promise of vigilante Green Berets taking on vicious bikers, the film never really ignites. A large part of the problem lies with the casting of Tony Young in the lead - he makes for a bland hero who, despite supposedly being Hell-bent on vengeance after his fiancee's murder by a biker, barely seems to vary his facial expression. Moreover, despite spending a lot of time sat astride their Harleys, sporting lots of black leather and facial hair, the biker gang - the Wizards - never really seem that menacing. They spend a lot of time in scuzzy bars, waving broken bottles at interlopers, but never seem to do anything really bad. Even the death of Young's fiancee is the result of the precipitate actions of a single hot headed gang member, who doesn't have his leader's approval and consequently spends part of the film ostracised by the rest of the gang.
Young gathers together three of his Green Beret buddies to hunt down the biker gang and bring them to justice. They do this by posing as bikers themselves. Except that they ride off-road bikes rather than the Harleys and Choppers which would help them really blend into the scene. Mystifyingly, the film then makes nothing of their Special Forces skills or combat experience in the hunt. These only come into play in a surprisingly lame climax, in which the four Green Berets, having 'borrowed' some military equipment, convince the bikers that they have been surrounded and are under attack from a whole army. The film ends with the gang meekly allowing themselves to be rounded up by the four guys and herded off to face justice. Apart from these climactic sequences, the film lacks any real action of the kind one might expect from a soldiers vs bikers film: no swinging bike chains, flick knives, spanners used as clubs or gun fights, for instance.
The film was directed by the ubiquitous Lee Frost, who had also knocked out a number of underwhelming Mondo movies in the sixties, as well as several sexploitation films. Before Chrome and Hot Leather he had dabbled in other exploitation genres including westerns and Nazisploitation. His direction here is smooth but bland, never making the most of opportunities for exploitation and ultimately failing to deliver in the action stakes. The film also has a very uneven tone, with the revenge storyline suddenly punctuated by a lengthy comedic montage of the soldiers trying to learn to ride their bikes. Points of interest include the casting of singer Marvin Gaye as one of the Green Berets and a very young Cheryl Ladd in a small role and another dominant performance from William Smith. Also, there is some attempt to portray the gang and particularly its leader, Smith, sympathetically. But this is ultimately abandoned. The trailer, incidentally, is misleading in its implication that the film will include footage of the Green Berets in action in Vietnam - the 'combat' footage it uses actually comes from an early sequence which turns out to be a training exercise. Which rather sums up the film as a whole: it never really delivers the 'real thing' in terms of biker action.
Good Easter? Mine was pretty good. Not because of the (mostly) fine weather and milder temperatures, (although those helped), nor the chocolate, (thanks to Diabetes, I'm not allowed that anymore), but because I spent a bank holiday weekend doing what I haven't in a long time: watching mindless, over long films. Being part of that not-working-regularly-semi-retired cohort that the government is apparently desperate to get back into the workplace, things like bank holidays don't hold the significance they once did for me. They no longer represent the temporary oasis of calm away from a tiresome and stressful job that they once did. But I used to enjoy those bank holiday weekends, so I thought that I'd try to go back to the old format this Easter: breaking all of my normal routines completely and instead spending quality time on the sofa with the TV and some movies. I'm afraid that I went all mainstream, though, rather than indulging in an orgy of schlock. (I do the latter most of the time, so watching big budget studio pictures actually represents a novelty for me). Anyway, thanks to one of those highly suspect streaming channels I get via my Roku box, I was able to catch up with a trio of Marvel superhero movies that I'd never pay to watch at the cinema, let alone to rent or buy on DVD. So I found myself watching Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, followed by Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, (yeah, I know that I should have watched that one first as it precedes the other two chronologically, but I didn't realise the channel had it until after I'd sat through all five and a half hours of the two Avengers films).
As always, the most obvious takeaway from this experience was that I'm clearly not the target audience for these films - I don't read enough comic books and when I do, I'm not really a Marvel fan, so my grasp on exactly who all the characters are (beyond the obvious ones like Captain America and the Hulk), is tenuous, to say the least. My teenaged Great Nieces, I think, are more their intended audience, (they seem to have watched every one of them, plus all the DC movies and I give them enough graphic novels as Christmas and Birthday presents). That said, I always admire the sheer spectacle of these films, the obvious technical proficiency of those who make them and the way in which they all interlock with each other. While, as far as Hollywood studios are concerned, films have always been 'product', something carefully manufactured to be sold to consumers, the Marvel movies surely represent the ultimate in this 'commodification', with none of them being truly individual entities. Each individual film exists primarily, (so far as I can see), to either lead into another instalment (increasingly instalments of multiple threads of the overall franchise), or to encourage viewers to watch earlier imstalments in order to understand fully the current one. On top of that are all the tie-ins to the various pay TV series which, increasingly, provide the links between the films as they provide developmental arcs for existing characters or introduce new characters. The narratives behind them exists to drive sales of the wider franchise and its merchandising, rather than actually tell a story.
In the case of the films I watched over Easter, the two Avengers films not only served as sequels to the first two films in that series, but also to the two Guardians of the Galaxy films, Dr Strange, the Spiderman films, the Captain America series and the Thor series, not to forget Ironman (and probably several more that passed me by). Simultaneously, it set up sequels either on TV or in film form, for all of these (except Ironman, who pretty definitively died). Not having seen all (or even most) of the preceding films, I was consequently left having to refer to Wikipedia at some points in order to ensure that I had a firmer grasp of exactly who everyone was, how they related to each other and how they got to this point in the story. I have to say that Guardians of the Galaxy Volume Two was a far more accessible and self-contained film for the casual viewer., with its main reference points being the first film of the series, (which I had seen, but even if I hadn't, there was sufficient exposition in this sequel to establish characters and their relationships). Which underlines one of the problems with this kind of franchise, that, while initially this interlocking approach might drive sales, over time it makes the films less accessible as individual stories, making it increasingly difficult for the casual viewer to find an entry point. Not everybody welcomes the prospect of having to watch at least half a dozen other films and TV series to understand the film they are currently considering paying money to watch. To be fair, so far the Marvel franchise doesn't seem to have reached this point, helped, perhaps, by the fact that several of the better known characters (Captain America, Spiderman, Thor for instance, have name recognition beyond the films and bring their own audiences from their comic book incarnations).
While the Marvel films I watched this bank holiday weekend were, in their own way, entertaining (their sheer scale, if nothing else, is impressive), I punctuated them with a couple of visits to other, lower budgeted, non-Marvel, comic book adaptations. I'm pretty sure that I hadn't seen The Crow since its original cinema release, but it still impresses with its visuals and frenzied action sequences. Made on a lower budget than any of the Marvel films, it it probably more enjoyable and tells a self-contained story that doesn't leave you waiting for a sequel to tie up loose ends. Of course, it will always have the pall of its star's on-set death hanging over it, but if you can get past that, it is still worth watching, (especially for Goths). Wes Craven's Swamp Thing, made on a miniscule budget showed that you don't need expensive CGI to breath life into a popular comic book character: with a sympathetic director guys in rubber suits can be surprisingly entertaining. Craven had a clear affection for the source material and serves up a film that, while never taking itself too seriously, also never mocks its source material (and, by extension, its audience). Besides, any film that features Louis Jourdan and David Hess as bad guys can't be bad.
Well, it must be Easter as the background on my Roku homepage has automatically switched to a Spring-like vista of flowers fields and frolicking rabbits. If I went by the TV schedules, though, apart from BBC2's screening of King of Kings this morning, I'd have no idea that this was actually Good Friday. I know its a familiar refrain from me, but, despite not being in any way religious myself, I can't help but feel that as Easter is a religious festival, perhaps more effort should be made by the media to reflect this? Either that, or drop the pretence that we're a Christian nation and just embrace atheism whole heartedly. As a non-believer, I present to you today a post wholly unrelated to religion of any kind, (unless you count my devotion to the lower end of pop culture as a religion). This March 1958 edition of Adventure has a striking cover painting, encompassing both the 'dangerous wildlife' and 'exotic adventure' themes popular in men's magazines. It illustrates 'A Drum For a Warrior - a Novel of Terror on the Orinoco'.
But if that sounds too fraught for you, there's also a 'Challenging Article For Men', namely 'Are You a frigid Husband?' Obviously another attempt to play on the sexual insecurities of the average reader of these magazines, (although, in reality, it is doubtful that any of them would be husbands, most would likely be adolescents - and if they were married they probably wouldn't feel the need to read this sort of publication). If that isn't enough to pull you down, then you could always read about 'Katyn - Forest of Blood', clearly a recounting of the World War Two massacre of Polish soldiers by the Soviets, (which they successfully blamed n the Nazis for many years). But don't worry guys, there's relief at hand, (maybe literally), as Jayne Mansfield is here to reassure all those adolescent male readers 'I'd Rather be a Sexpot'. Thank God for that.
The Dirty Harry film series effectively set the template for the 'Rogue Cop' genre of movies, not just in its characterisation of the protagonist as a a tough, taciturn, rule breaking loner who adheres to his own code rather than the law, but also in the plot structure of such films. While all of the Dirty Harry films have an overarching main plot, whether it be the hunting of a serial killer, vigilante cops or terrorists, all of them involve Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan getting involved in various unrelated side incidents, designed to illuminate some aspect of his character and provide some additional action to keep the audience's attention. These range from his dealing with a potential jumper in Dirty Harry or breaking up an armed siege in The Enforcer, to trying to stop a guy from self immolation in The Dead Pool. The pattern is repeated in most of the 'Rogue Cop' style movies clearly inspired by Dirty Harry: even the Burt Reynolds vehicle Hustle, whose central cop character is a lot more laid back than Harry Callahan, features a similar structure, (indeed, at times it feels like the main plot is in danger of vanishing amongst these asides). The trend isn't confined to US imitations, it is also shared by European movies of the genre - just look at the seventies Jean-Paul Belmondo 'Rogue Cop' movies Peur Sur le Ville and Le Marginal. In both, Belmondo's tough, unconventional, cops spend considerable amounts of time pursuing cases other than the one providing the main plot.
They do, however, manage to integrate some these asides into the main story better than some of their US equivalents. In Peur Sur le Ville, for instance, Belmondo's insistence on chasing a suspect from his previous case allows the serial killer of the main plot to escape and kill again. The whole digression in Le Marginal, which sees Belmondo kicking in doors at a Hippie/militant squat in search of a convict's daughter ties back to the main plot as it is the price he has to pay for getting some vital information from the convict. I was put in mind of all this while watching a Wings Hauser film earlier today - Deadly Force (1983). Rather disconcertingly casting Hauser as the hero (ex cop Stoney Cooper), the film is a clear attempt to kick start a low budget Dirty Harry style franchise, (it didn't). While it tries to vary the formula slightly, (Cooper is an ex-cop fired from the LAPD for being, well, a 'Rogue Cop', rather than a serving officer and is portrayed as somewhat easier going than Harry Callahan, not mention that he has a sub-plot of trying to win back his ex-wife), from the outset it adheres to the Dirty Harry structure. Called back from New York by a friend in LA whose grand daughter has fallen victim to a serial killer, even before Cooper can get to the airport he has his first diversion, being called on to deal with a guy threatening to blow up another associate's warehouse. It carries on from there, with Hauser seemingly having to spend as much time in LA dealing with former associates, whether they be criminal or on the force, as he does with the serial killer case. All the other ingredients are there: the shouty ex-boss, the hostile former colleagues, the killer hiding behind a mask of respectability. About the only innovation is to have Hauser flash his bare arse part way through - thankfully, Eastwood never did that.
I've long argued that so-called 'fake news' originated on the back pages of British tabloids. Their sports writers and most specifically their football writers, have become well-versed in effectively fabricating stories about transfers, managerial appointments and sackings and internal club disputes, based upon the flimsiest of 'evidence' and seem, over time, to have passed these skills on to their colleagues on the political desks. The right-wing press, in particular, serve us up a daily diet of stories spun from willfully misinterpreted facts, wild speculation and down right lies. Of course, for a while the back pages became uncannily accurate with their transfer speculation - the result, as it turned out, of illegally tapping the phones and voice mails of agents and players. Now that their illegal activities have been rumbled, the sports pages are back to their old modus operandi of passing off speculation as fact. Except that now they have a new source of 'information': social media. Being, for my sins, a follower of the Spurs, the club's latest managerial turmoil has starkly illustrated the degree to which the back pages are being driven by stuff they've picked up from Twitter or wherever. On top of social media, there are also now a plethora of on-line football sites, ranging from one man fan blogs to quasi-professional publications. Regardless of their status, though, they all seem to be taken by the tabloids as purveyors of Gospel truth on football matters.
Using Tottenham's search for a new manager as an example, (as this is football story I've been paying most attention to), supposed candidates seem to come into the media frame by first being mentioned in a Tweet by someone who looks as if they might be vaguely authoritative, in which they are linked to the vacancy. This then gets picked up and amplified by the online outlets - if it gets repeated by enough of them, it is then picked up by one of the tabloids and presented as a fact that Spurs are looking at that name as a potential manager. Despite it having no basis in fact and hasn't actually come from a source either within the club, or with sound contacts there. Even better, of course, is if a pundit - one of those otherwise unemployed ex-footballers who once played for some lower half of the Premiership club - says on a talk radio show or digital TV sports show, that they think a particular manager would be 'perfect' at the club. That then gets endlessly quoted on Twitter, as if it is fact, before being repeated on the football blogs, then the tabloids. The fact that it originates with an ex-pro gives it a certain cachet, even though it is still nothing more than speculation. Hence, we had a spate of stories last week about how Burnley's Vincent Kompany was the 'shock new front runner for Spurs job'. As far as I could ascertain, the only basis for this was a pundit on a radio show saying that Kompany would be 'ideal for Spurs'. That was it - no inside information, just opinion. Now, for all I know, Spurs might be looking at Kompany, but if they are, they aren't going to discuss it publicly, so nobody outside of the club knows it for sure. The same goes for all the other managers named. Let's not forget the shambolic hunr for Mourinho's successor and all the candidates who, according to the tabloids, had humiliatingly for Spurs, turned the job down. Except, as it turned out, most of them hadn't ever been offered the job, let alone even been considered for it - it was all made up media bollocks.
You know a film is going to be a disappointment when it includes all of its main shock set pieces in its trailer. Because that's exactly what Alien 2: On Earth (1980) does here. That's right, the creature bursting out of a face, the exploding head and the decapitation are the main gore sequences and undoubtedly the best parts of the film. Indeed, I'm tempted to say that you should just watch the trailer and skip the movie, thereby saving yourself eighty one minutes or so of your life. All of these sequences come in the film's last twenty five minutes and the hour long build up to them is tortuously slow and uneventful. Poor pacing and a poorly structured plot ultimately sink this Italian Alien (1979) cash in - on top of that, it can't even muster a decent monster, instead giving us a bloody glove puppet which turns into a rubber tentacle thing and finally poorly defined mass of pulsating tentacles. Most of the action, such as it is, takes place in some pretty spectacular caverns - the best part of the film - but this is preceded by lots of wandering around beaches, bowling alleys and desert petrol stations.
Problematically, the film never properly ties together its three main threads: the return to earth of a manned space capsule which, when recovered, is found to be empty; the sudden appearance on earth of the mysterious blue stones which turn out to be alien eggs; the heroine's (played by Belinda Mayne) psychic abilities which include visions of the future. The latter feels a particularly pointless addition to the plot as her abilities are poorly defined, apart from the clairvoyance, (which is never acted upon), she also seems to have some sort of telepathic ability and is somehow able to see through the aliens' human disguises. Again, neither of these latter two abilities are ever properly utilised in the course of the film. While we're clearly supposed to assume that the missing astronauts are victims of the aliens and that the blue stones entered the atmosphere with the capsule, this is never made explicit, even though, at first, it seems as if the plot is going to be about the investigation into the missing spacemen, the film instead goes off on a tangent into the cave exploring plot. Still, the recovery of the capsule does give the film makers an excuse to pad out the running time with lots of stock footage of US Navy aircraft carriers recovering Apollo capsules.
While a lot of Italian exploitation rip offs of Hollywood blockbusters are a lot of fun, (often more so than the original), some, like Alien 2: On Earth are simply duds which an't even be said to be so bad that they are good. If you want to see an entertaining Italian Alien rip off, I'd recommend Luigi Cozzi's Alien Contamination (aka Contamination) (1980), which simultaneously rips off Lucio Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979), itself a cash in on Dawn of the Dead (1978), for many of its plot details, Unlike Alien 2: On Earth, Cozzi's film, (which, coincidentally, I also re-watched this past weekend), paces its gory set pieces well, gives us a monster which is at least bizarrely amusing and never takes itself too seriously.
