The media these days seems to be full of stories about TV shows I've never watched, never even heard of in some cases, and people I've likewise never heard of and never seem to find out exactly why the media thinks that I should have heard of them. Time was that I had my finger on the pulse of popular culture, or so it seemed, I watched inordinate amounts of new TV shows and knew who everyone in them was, (the advent of the internet helped immeasurably there). But as time went on, I found that I was enjoying large amounts of it less and less. Gradually, my feeling of obligation to watch all of this stuff so as to know what my workmates and friends were talking about started to wane. Increasingly, I switched my viewing allegiances to my true love - the offbeat, the obscure, the low rent, the vintage and the weird side of the media. Which, at first, meant tracking down out of print VHS tapes and later DVDs and watching late night TV schedules for random screenings of this sort of stuff. The internet and then streaming TV has made finding this stuff far easier, but there are still gaps to be filled in my viewing experience. Of course, the downside of giving in to my passions was that I couldn't find anyone else remotely interested in the same sort of stuff to discuss it all with: strangely, exploitation films don't make for the sort of 'water cooler' discussions at work that soap operas or reality TV does. But again, the internet has helped here, bringing me into contact with kindred spirits and providing me with somewhere to write about it all.
What all of this is leading to is the question of whether this increasing detachment from current pop culture means that I'm getting old? It's a subject that's been preoccupying me somewhat of late - I've recently been referred to as 'old' by others, despite the fact that a) I'm certainly not old - I still fall well within the parameters of 'middle age', b) I don't think that I actually look old, (sure, the receding hairline doesn't help, but is balanced by the lack of greyness in most of what's left) and c) I certainly don't feel old. I guess I've reached that age where it is somewhat startling to find that it isn't just kids who regard you, in relative terms, as being 'old', but also some adults. Having said that I don't feel old, my increasing preoccupation with things past is, perhaps, part of a subconscious acknowledgement that my past is now longer than my future, (although life expectancies are increased these days and the fact that my mother is still going strong in her nineties and on my father's side, I had an aunt who lived to be a hundred and one, gives me hope of many more good years). I suppose the fact that, for a while now, I've been effectively retired from work, (thanks to a financial windfall from the endowment policy paying out when I paid off the mortgage on my house a few years ago, plus the prospect of some upcoming work pensions paying out), doesn't help with others' perceptions of my age. The fact is though, that even if I am semi-retired, (as I prefer to style my situation, as I don't rule out going back to some kind of paid work), it's an early retirement, (they used to be quite fashionable for us public sector workers). Still, enough of all this introspection - I've got another podcast to edit together for the Onsug, unless, old man that I apparently am, I fall asleep in front of the TV...
Another of Rialto's seemingly endless cycle of Edgar Wallace derived 'Krimi' movies, The Hand of Power (1968) is a relatively late entry in the series, boasting colour photography and some location shooting in swinging London. Nevertheless, it still presents the series' usual interpretation of London, (and the UK in general), as a damp and fog shrouded land populated by eccentrics, upper class nincompoops, stern matrons, cheery cockney working class types and rustics. All kept in line by laid back Scotland Yard Detective Inspectors who remain unperturbed by even the most bizarre of plot developments. Here, it is Joachim Fuchsberger's Inspector Higgins who finds himself investing the case of the 'laughing corpse', aided and abetted by a girl reporter and his incompetent, comic relief, boss Sir Arthur. Like all of the films in this series (and, indeed, many other West German productions of this period), The Hand of Power is essentially a B-movie. The stylistic inspiration for the Edgar Wallace films seems to have been the Basil Rathbone starring Sherlock Holmes programmers turned out by Universal in the forties. Although ostensibly mystery, it has strong horror elements, much like the Holmes films. Even the design of the sets and many of the studio exteriors look like they've been taken from the Universal backlot.
I caught an English dub of this one, (which looked as if somebody had videoed it direct from an actual screening of the print, but had been too close to the screen, as the right hand side of the picture kept getting cut off), on a dodgy streaming service the other day. It made for perfect late night viewing, with the murkiness of the video adding to the film's dank and fog bound atmosphere. As befits an Edgar Wallace adaptation, red herrings proliferate bizarre characters populate the plot and there's a lot of wandering around crypts and secret passages. Although clearly cheaply made as part of a production line of such films, it still contains some striking imagery, most notably the masked villain who wanders around in skeleton outfit, (recalling the Italian fumetti character Satanik), killing people with his scorpion ring, (the scorpion's tail springs up to inject poison into his victims). Director Alfred Vohrer, (a veteran of the Edgar Wallace series, who went on to direct bigger budgeted thrillers and dramas in the seventies), moves it all along at a sufficient pace that you don't really have time to worry about all of the plot's implausibilities and, in spite of all the horror trappings and brutal murders, keeps the tone quite light, with Hubert Von Meyerinck's bumbling and pompous Sir Arthur providing much of the comic relief. (Von Meyerinck returned twiec more to the series as Sir Arthur, but with Horst Tappert as Inspector Perkins replacing Fuchsberger's Inspector Higgins as the hero).
In common with most of the Rialto Edgar Wallace series, The Hand of Power is a lot of fun if you are in the right mood: a throwback to the heyday of B-movies which also provides a fascinating foreigners' perspective on then contemporary Britain and the British. The Rialto films also make for a fascinating contrast with the contemporaneous series of Edgar Wallace adaptations put out in the UK by Merton Studios, which are presented as straightforward crime dramas with an emphasis upon mundane realism, whereas the West German films play up the more bizarre elements, reveling in their hints of the supernatural. I have to say that of the two, I do find the German approach of playing them like forties horror pulp stories the more entertaining.
'I Joined the International Sex and Terror Underground'
This is either the last or the last but one issue of Man's Book Periodical from October 1973 - there might have been one further issue in 1974, but I've not been able to find any details. In contrast to many other men's magazines that managed to stagger into the seventies, Man's Book Periodical retained its traditional format to the bitter end. Sure, the story titles became more lurid, but it continued to focus on supposedly 'true' stories rather than transform into an entirely sex-orientated pin up magazine. It even retained cover paintings rather than photo covers to the end. First published in 1962, it notched up over seventy issues, publishing five or sex issues a year, but never adhering to a strict bi-monthly schedule. Having said that it resisted the shift to being entirely sex orientated, this issue, going by the stories trailed on the cover, does seem more than a little sex obsessed.
'I Joined the International Sex and Terror Underground', (which I'm assuming is the story being illustrated on the cover), begs the question as to what the application process is? Is it a subscriber only organisation? Is there an entrance exam? Do you have to be nominated by existing members and undergo some kind of initiation test, where you have to sexually torture someone with your left trouser leg rolled up? Is there a secret handshake by which fellow members identify themselves? And that's before we get to the matter pf what such an underground actually does? Is it random sex and terror, or is there a political ideology behind it? The illustration seems to imply that it has something to do with abducting jet setters, killing the guys and raping and torturing the women. But hey, if that doesn't appeal or your application was rejected, I guess that you could instead go 'Inside America's Newest Strip of Sin and Slaughter' - note that this is merely the newest such venue, implying that they were already widespread across the USA. 'Maria X's Fearful Ordeal: Buried Alive in the Crypt of Horror' sounds as if it was inspired by one of the European sex and horror films - more often than not directed by Jesus Franco - popular in the early seventies, that usually involved semi-naked women being chased around some crumbling Gothic pile by a perambulatory corpse.
Last, but not least, we have the obligatory attempt to play on the sexual inadequacies and insecurities of young American males: 'Ten Ways to Tell if You're Sexually Maladjusted'. Top of the list could be that you read magazines promoting sex terrorists and retail sex and death emporiums. That and watching continental films with undertones of necrophilia. By 1973, while this sort of content still had an audience, the format in which Man's Book Periodical presented it was looking seriously anachronistic, making its demise inevitable.
Another model railway interlude. Mainly because I foolishly spent the day trying to get my jungle of a garden under control and consequently I'm too knackered to come up with anything else. So, I thought that I'd go back to those Cemflo cement wagons I was trying to restore. Both came to me very poorly repainted and 'weathered'. This is how they looked after the paint stripper:
Interestingly, they both turned out to have originally been of the grey variety produced by Triang Hornby rather than the commoner yellow type, (the yellow on the right hand one is the remnant of my earlier attempt at repainting it by hand). Having decals for the yellow type, plus a tin of Wilko's gloss yellow enamel spray, I tried respraying them yellow. The results were mixed - the left one came out pretty well, but the right one was resistant to being repainted. Having eventually got them both into a condition I could live with, decals were applied. As can be seen, when on the track and at a normal viewing distance, they look OK, (they are the second and third, from the right, behind a genuine yellow cement wagon, forming part of a train of recently acquired cheap toy fair stock and some recently repainted and repaired wagons):
Finally, a short video of the whole train, with the cement wagons up front, being hauled by the unlikely motive power of my recently acquired Lord Nelson class, 'Lord Anson', (even toward the end of their working lives, I doubt that you'd have seen a Lord Nelson on a mixed goods train, but I just wanted another excuse to run my new loco):
Well, that's all for now. It's back to the garden tomorrow - to the untrained eye, it still looks a mess, but to the expert, it is quite clearly a work in progress...
So, the Tories are now down to blaming old movie monsters for their failures. Today it was the 'The Blob' copping the blame for Boris Johnson being investigated - again - for breaking his own lockdown rules, Suella Braverman having to accept a fine and points on her licence for a speeding offence, (apparently it absorbed the only providers of the alternative speed education courses that might have offered her a one-to-one course), not to mention forcing Dominic Raab to stand down as an MP at the next election. That's a pretty impressive tally for a monster that hasn't been seen since that 1988 remake. Perhaps tomorrow we'll have Liz Truss telling us that it was actually Godzilla that crashed the economy when he ate the Treasury. Or maybe Kwasi Kwartang will claim that it was all down the Invisible Man sneaking into his office and altering all of his calculations to balance the budget. Come to think of it, there's a rumour doing the rounds that former Chancellor Nadim Zahawi didn't pay his taxes because while he was doing his returns he was distracted by the Frankenstein Monster and the Wolfman fighting outside his window after they had been revived by a passing mad scientist. I'm sure that The Mummy will soon be getting the blame for Brexit, (Lord Frost couldn't concentrate properly on the negotiations with the EU becaise he was constantly being throttled by Kharis) and Dracula for the Tories' poor showing in the recent local elections.
Of course, you could argue that none of this has anything to do with monsters or other outside agencies. It all could be self-inflicted: nobody forced Boris Johnson t break the law, or Suella Braverman to break the speed limit, any more than anyone other than Dominic Raab was responsible for Raab behaving in a bullying manner toward his departmental officials, thereby undermining his position. Likewise, nobody other than Truss and Kwartang came up with that disastrous budget - nobody forced them to make unfunded tax cuts which everybody warned them would spook the markets. Just as Zahawi alone is responsible for his own tax returns and nobody forced Johnson and Frost to negotiate that supposedly 'oven ready' Brexit deal. But the right and their media apologists and enablers are in full denial mode: nothing is their fault. Instead of taking responsibility for own mistakes, incompetence, venality, greed and corruption, they make up mythical threats and conspiracies to blame. If it isn't some amorphous Whitehall/establishment 'Blob' consisting of civil servants, 'experts' and the like who constantly seek to frustrate them, then it is down to conspiracies by Keir Starmer to gerrymander elections by, well, allowing people to vote. Both, of course, are gross distortions of reality - the Tories are the establishment and they are the one's trying to fix elections by discouraging people to vote through the introduction of voter ID, (something actually admitted to by the unspeakable Jacob Rees-Mogg). Like all bullies and miscreants, however, they like to present as the victims, the ones being oppressed by an unfair system, despite the fact that they have been running said system since 2010. So, instead of responsibility, we get excuses about mythical monsters having eaten the Tories' homework.
Another faux sequel or, to be accurate, a faux sequel to a faux sequel. The original Beyond the Door (1974) was, of course, the US retitling of the Italian Exorcist/Rosemary's Baby cash in Chi Sei?, (originally released in the UK as The Devil Within Her, but with reissues adopting the US title). It was sufficiently successful that its US distributors acquired the rights to Mario Bava's Shock (1977) and retitled it Beyond the Door II for its US release, despite it having no connection whatsoever with the original movie. Clearly it was felt that the title had some kind of name recognition, as the US distributor of Amok Train decided to retitle it Beyond the Door III, despite it having no connection with either Shock/Beyond the Door IIor the original film. But in the world of the modern exploitation film, marketing is everything - if people have liked one film they've seen on DVD, then they are more likely to rent or buy another one marketed as a follow-up with a similar title. Which is why, fifteen years after the first Beyond the Door and twelve years after its fake sequel, another one was released direct to home video. Presumably, eighties home video releases of the previous two had sold well, so a new cash in title seemed logical. Which makes this a fairly early example of the 'in name only' sequel phenomenon, which has since become endemic in the direct-to-video and streaming markets, with disparate films now frequently being retitled so that they can be packaged as a 'series', despite having no continuing or recurring characters,directors, writers. crew or plot continuity between 'installments'. Usually, all that links them is that all follow some vague theme and, to be fair, the Beyond the Door 'series' are thematically linked. (The first and third are also linked by Ovido G Assonitis, who produced and directed the first and executive produced the third). All three films are, in one way or another, about 'possession': the first has a woman possessed by a demonic pregnancy, the second sees a child apparently possessed by the ghost of his murdered father, while the third has an entire train possessed by the devil.
That's right - a whole train gets possessed by the devil and careers, apparently unstoppable, across the Yugoslav railway network, carrying one of its passengers to to a demonic date. But we have to wait a while before we get to the train, with the first part of the film laboriously .setting up the plot. We open in Los Angeles, where a group of anthropology students are about to go on a trip to Yugoslavia, in order to observe a ritual which only takes place once in a hundred years. The focus falls upon Beverley, an introverted student of Serbian descent, whose father's family, according to her mother, comes from the very village that the students are heading for. Beverley has, as we see in an otherwise gratuitous shower scene, a large wine stain type mark on her abdomen. Unbeknownst to Beverley, while driving back from seeing her off at the airport, her mother is decapitated in a bizarre road accident. Once the party arrives in Yugoslavia, they are met by stereotypical mysterious East European Professor Andromolek, who destroys a message informing Beverley that her mother has died, before conducting the students to the remote village where the ritual is to take place. The village, naturally, is inhabited exclusively by anachronistic East European peasant weirdos, including dwarves, old crones and shifty looking blokes in rustic dress. Before they know it, the villagers are trying to burn all of the students, except for Beverley, to death by locking them into their huts before setting them ablaze. All but one of them escape, running through the countryside until all but two of them manage to board a passing train.
At which point things finally get into gear, as the train takes n a life of its own, shedding all but the two forward carriages (carrying the students) and gorily dispatching its own crew, (the driver is decapitated when the locomotive runs over him as he inspects the track, while the fireman is drawn into the firebox and burned to death). The train careens on regardless, ignoring station stops, crashing through barricades set up by the railway authorities, even smashing through another train heading toward it on the same track. All without suffering any damage. It also keeps deviating from its original route, the tracks ahead of it moving themselves to redirect the train - it even drives through a swamp in order to dispose of those two students who didn't get on the train and are now sheltering in a hut. Meanwhile, on board the train, Beverley learns that she has been marked out, (quite literally by that mark on her abdomen), as the devil's virginal bride, while the other students all start dying horrible deaths. When she is the only one left, the train stops and Professor Andromolek arrives in a horse drawn carriage to take her to her wedding night. With Beverley lying on an altar, the devil puts in an appearance, (coming up from Hell in what looks like a glass elevator), but before he can do the business, an old crone from the village does the manual virginity test on the girl. Horror of horrors! She's not a virgin any more! (Up to this point, none of the Serbian dialogue had been subtitled, but the crone's declaration is subtitled, despite this being the one point where it wasn't needed as it is obvious what she is saying). The devil is so disgusted that he kills Andromolek before gets back in his elevator. All the acolytes flee and we jump cut to Beverley at the airport about to fly back home.
In order to engineer this denouement, the film has to introduce a huge deus ex machina, in the form of a mysterious character on the train, wearing a monk's habit who, it seems, has relieved her of her virginity. This character is never properly introduced and his liaison with Beverley is never made explicit. He is only explained in a coda at the film's end, when Beverley is given an old book before getting on the plane, which has been left for her by the mysterious monk, who she glimpses, before he vanishes. Reading the book, she learns that he was Marius, an Eleventh Century monk wrongly executed for heresy, but posthumously vindicated and canonised. Clearly, he enjoys a pretty racy afterlife, his sainthood guaranteeing his place in heaven while still being allowed to return to earth and bonk imperiled mail order brides of Satan in order to save their souls. I have to say though, that I'm not sure that he could have taken her virginity: having been dead for eight hundred years or so he is obviously a ghost, so I'd question whether being shagged by his ectoplasmic member would actually count as penetrative sex as, well, there'd be no actual substance to the thing. But logic is not Beyond the Door III's strong point, as the whole script is riddled with inconsistencies. Most glaringly, if Beverley was the sole focus of the satanists' plot, then were surely easier and less conspicuous ways of luring her to that village than sending an entire party of students there, only to murder all but one of them. (Her family ties to the village alone, would have given a pretext for getting her there, surely). Instead, the cultists draw attention to themselves first by trying to kill the entire party, (whose deaths would have to have been explained to the local and US authorities), then by having a possessed train very conspicuously rampage around the countryside.
On the positive side, though, the film does feature some pretty gruesome and well staged deaths, including at least three decapitations, the skin being pulled off of someone's face and another character being torn in half. The gore effects are probably the film's strongest point. Being shot largely on location in Yugoslavia, (about eighteen months before the country descended into the brutal civil war that resulted in its eventual dissolution), with the co-operation of the local authorities the film, despite a low budget, looks well resourced, with extensive shooting on the rail network and the use of a steam hauled train. Nevertheless, while director Jeff Kwitney moves things along a reasonable pace, particularly once the students are on the train, the whole film has a roughly hewn feel about it, with little finesse being given to any of the set pieces. The bleak and wintry rural Serbian locations, however, do lend the film a certain gloomy, down beat atmosphere. The only 'name' actor in the film is Bo Svenson as the Professor, who gets to sport a goatee beard and what he thinks is a Serbian accent. The rest of the cast, particularly the students, feel interchangeable and are quite unmemorable. The biggest let down lies in the effects work used for when the train leaves its route, with some very poor miniatures work employed. The track which shifts direction is all too clearly HO gauge model railway track, (probably Lima or Rivarossi - the miniatures work was done in Rome), while the miniature train looks suspiciously like a proprietary model of the same scale, which doesn't match up particularly well with the real train.
All in all, Beyond the Door III isn't a particularly good film and will be particularly disappointing to anyone coming to it expecting a 'proper' sequel to the first film. That said, it isn't a particularly bad film either and, when considered on its own merits as a standalone film, is, while its one, a reasonably enjoyable, if not especially memorable, piece of cinematic schlock. It has some good gore effects and the train sequences are generally well handled, but it telegraphs all of its plot developments and would be twists well in advance and never develops its characters to the degree that you actually care what happens to them. Still, as a sad and obsessive completist, I'm glad that I've now finally caught up with it and can boast having seen all three films in this 'series'.
Plot-wise, Blood Bath (1966) comes on like a version of House of Wax (1953) where, instead of being a disfigured maniac behind a wax mask, the sculptor turns out to be a vampire instead. With two credited directors - Jack Hill and Stephanie Rothman - and a running time of just over an hour, it is hardly surprising that Blood Bath is more than a little confusing. Artist William Campbell, renowned for his bloody paintings of nude women, periodically turns into a vampire (with a different face) and murders young women. Not only does he use his victims as models for his paintings, but he also covers their bodies in wax to create sculptures he keeps in his studio. Throw in a sub-plot about one of his potential victims possibly being a reincarnation of his long dead lost love and a last minute intervention from beyond the grave and you have too much plot to satisfactorily fit into that short running time. The film's origins are as confusing as its story line, having its origins in an unreleased spy thriller that Roger Corman was involved in producing in Yugoslavia.
With additional footage shot in the US by Jack Hill, retaining original star William Campbell, the Yugoslavian footage was repurposed into a horror film titled Blood Bath. Unhappy with the results, Corman brought in a second director, Rothman, to reshape the film with yet more additional shooting. Her main contribution to the plot seems to have been the addition of the vampirism sub-plot. This time, Campbell wasn't available, hence the fact that, when he transforms into the vampire, he is replaced by an uncredited actor under heavy make up. This was the version eventually released, (although another version of the film, titled Track of the Vampire, was released to TV with seven minutes of extra footage to bring it to feature length). Thanks to the stop-start nature of the production, various continuity errors are present, most notably the fact that Sid Haig's facial hair changes from scene to scene. Adding to the general air of confusion, two of he actresses playing Campbell's victims look remarkably alike.
While the film might be something of a mess plot-wise, it has to be said that it looks remarkably good, with the US and Yugoslavian locations matching up surprisingly well. Moreover, despite having two directors credited, the style of the production remains reasonably consistent with both Hill and Rothman managing to create some atmospheric scenes. An oddity that, in truth, is barely a feature, (it originally went out as the bottom half of a double bill with Queen of Blood), Blood Bath is, nevertheless, an enjoyable enough watch that is too short to ever outstay its welcome.
As I've mentioned before, I'm a sucker for dinosaur movies. Especially the pre-CGI ones. Representing dinosaurs in screen prior to CGI required considerable ingenuity - the best were achieved via stop motion animation, but this was time consuming and expensive, so budget minded producers were always on the look out for cheaper ways to recreate dinosaurs on screen. Photographically enlarged lizards and other modern reptiles, often with stuck on horns, fins and frills, were probably the most popular option, if the least accurate. In reality, most of these 'dinosaurs' were actually stock footage from 1940's One Million BC, endlessly recycled through ever cheaper B-movies. Colour versions were used as late as 1960 for Irwin Allen's The Lost World and stock footage of them was then used over and over in films and TV series. Men in suits were another option - one used extensively in 1948's Unknown Island. As well as using photographically enlarged lizards (in, for once, newly filmed footage) and a man-in-a-suit to create its dinosaurs, The Land Unknown (1956) also added another method: a life size mechanical model, in this case an Elasmosaurus, (strictly speaking not a dinosaur, but a giant sea reptile of the same era). By the time of The Last Dinosaur (1977), with public knowledge about what dinosaurs really looked like much higher, either stop motion or various forms of puppets, (cousins to that mechanical Elasmosaurus), had become the norm for representing them on screen, (although, in truth, there seemed to be very few dinosaur pictures made in the seventies). This film, however, bucked the trend, opting to go the throwback route and use the man-in-a-suit method for creating its dinosaurs.
A US-Japanese co-production, The Last Dinosaur is a curious concoction that leaves one wondering exactly who the target audience was for the film. The fact that the Rankin/Bass, who specialised in animated TV series, was the US end of the production might imply that it was aimed at younger audiences, a notion reinforced by the fact that the Japanese production company Tsuburaya also focused on producing family orientated 'tokutatso' TV series. Yet the the levels of violence, the overall environmental themes of the film and the characters seem to indicate a more adult audience was intended. Even the unsubtle naming of the main character, Maxton Thrust - an over sexed alpha male millionaire white hunter, implies a more adult orientation for the production. Indeed, when we first meet Thrust, he is busy groping the breasts of a woman he is trying to impress with his hunting exploits aboard his private jet. Yet the special effects - men in dinosaur suits stamping around a miniature set, (which matches poorly with the real Japanese locations used for the actors), back projected behind the actors - are of a level you'd find in a children's film. The miraculously warm and fertile arctic valley that serves as the film's lost world is bordered by mountains that are all to obviously matte paintings, with obvious model pteranodons circling overhead on strings. Of the other dinosaurs on view, the Triceratops and the Unitherium, (incorrectly identified by a geologist character as a ceratopsian, but actually a prehistoric giant mammal that lived several million years after the dinosaurs), both of which involve two men in a suit, pantomime horse style, are actually quite effective. The last dinosaur of the title, a Tyrannosaurus, is much less effective. Not only does it vary in size throughout the film, but it is all too obviously made of rubber, fake rocks causing indentations in its head that quickly push back out again, for instance. It is never remotely convincing and consequently never truly threatening.
The plot itself certainly has potential, with a 'polar borer', used by Thrust's company to look for oil in the Arctic, discovering a lost world of prehistoric survivals, resulting in Thrust personally leading a small expedition to the valley, ostensibly to study the dinosaur. Of course, Thrust really wants to hunt and kill the beast, the ultimate challenge for the hunter and, potentially, the crowning glory of his hunting career. Naturally, the party get stranded there and alternately bicker and bond in order to survive, with Thrust's quest to kill the dinosaur becoming an obsession which threatens their chances of rescue. The problem is that the script is packed with implausibilities, (even beyond the presence of living dinosaurs). Thrust, for instance, has taken a Masai warrior with him to help track the Tyrannosaurus, yet this supposedly infallible tracker is twice taken unawares by the dinosaur. The idea that a Tyrannosaur could sneak up on anyone, let alone a top tracker and hunter, is clearly absurd. The characters, as well as being entirely unsympathetic, are also poorly drawn, with Thrust coming over as so obsessive, abrasive and borderline psychotic that it is impossible to believe that he might be capable of running a successful multi million dollar company, while the geologist hero is sanctimonious to the point of absurdity when he isn't being plain bland. The main female character, a journalist attached to expedition, is inconsistent, one moment condemning Thrust, the next trying to help him kill the dinosaur or jumping into bed with him in order to get a story. The whole thing also has a less than subtle sub-text (rammed home by the title song) that juxtaposes Thrust and the tyrannosaurus as being 'the last dinosaur', both effectively being creatures that have outlived their eras and now exist as living anachronisms.
The script doesn't help, with too many longueurs between dinosaur appearances and sudden narrative jumps that leave the viewer unsure of timescales. (There is, for instance, a sudden jump between scenes, with the characters abruptly looking more disheveled, with torn clothes and covered in filth, with a throwaway snatch of dialogue indicating that two months has passed). The tone also shifts abruptly from light-hearted scenes to some surprisingly brutal action, (including Thrust's cold blooded killing of a caveman with his home made crossbow in order to deter the rest of the tribe from harassing him and his companions - something that the otherwise sanctimonious geologist happily goes along with). Yet, despite its inadequacies, The Last Dinosaur isn't unentertaining. For one thing, Richard Boone gives a typically forceful performance as Thrust, rising above the script's poor characterisation to create the film's most memorable character. Moreover, some of the model work provided by the Japanese co-producers is of a high standard, particularly the aircraft and he scenes of the 'polar borer' entering the valley. As noted, though, others, such as the tyrannosaurus scenes, are far less successful. In the end, your enjoyment of the film will be dependent upon whether or not you can reconcile the mismatch between children's TV type special effects in key scenes with an apparently serious script aimed at adults.
Not surprisingly, the film failed to find an audience back in 1977, with US distributors passing on it, with The Last Dinosaur instead debuting, in truncated form, as a TV movie in the US. In the UK, however, it was released at its full 106 minute running time on a double bill with a shortened version of William Friedkin's Sorcerer (1977) (re-titled Wages of Fear). A truly bizarre double feature, if ever there was.
A frantic and over heated slasher movie that borders on parody, Hospital Massacre (1981) is, at least, never dull, packing a lot of gore and mayhem into its running time. Most of which can be seen in the above trailer for its German Blu Ray release, (under one of its alternative titles, X-Ray), in another case of a trailer giving away most of the best bits. As can also be told from the trailer, the film has an overly insistent and loud musical score that telegraphs every upcoming shock sequence with its emphatic cues. The film's script plays it strictly by the numbers as Barbi Benton gets stalked around a hospital by a maniac in a surgical mask, who spends a lot of time gorily dispatching other characters instead of his main target in order to keep his plot against her moving. Indeed, it is amazing just how many people he has to kill before he gets to her, to the point where you are left wondering just how many murders he can get away with in one night in one hospital before anyone starts wondering where all the medical staff have gone.
Obviously, a hospital provides all manner of opportunities to mete out death with a variety of surgical instruments including scalpels, saws and the like. When the killer has run through all those, he takes up an axe instead. The film takes the game of keeping the audience guessing as to who is behind that surgical mask to ridiculous lengths with red herrings and misdirections proliferating. Is it that shifty looking janitor, is it Hal the creepy patient who spies on naked female patients in examination rooms, could it be that humourless and stern faced surgeon who is treating Benton, or is it her ex husband who keeps mysteriously vanishing, leaving their young daughter on her own and, even when he is at home, is always playing with knives? Hardly a moment goes by without some random character in medical gear staring menacingly in Benton's direction, wielding a sharp medical instrument or just acting generally weird. Of course, as with many slasher films, the killer's motivation all goes back to a childhood trauma involving the heroine, (in this case, she tore up his Valentine's card when they were ten - he responds by killing her boyfriend and is presumably institutionalised).
It has to be said that Hospital Massacre is actually pretty well made, with decent production values, good lighting and editing and keeps up a decent pace. Enough pace, in fact, to make you forget about all of the plot implausibilities while it is running. As a horror movie it certainly delivers, with plenty of gore, inventive murders and a constant supply of scare sequences, which it forcefully shoves in your face, accompanied by strident music.. It even includes a bit of brief nudity - if you've ever had a yen to see former Hee Haw regular Benton's bare breasts, then this is the film for you. The acting performances are generally passable from a largely low profile cast, (apart from Benton, the only actor I recognised was Elizabeth Hoy as her younger self, who was a popular child actress in the eighties, most memorably as the psychopathic little girl in Bloody Birthday (1981)). The film contains some nice incidental touches, like the trio of elderly female patients sharing Benton's ward,for instance, who come on like the withes in Macbeth. It never seems to take itself too seriously, with director Boaz Davidson (who tended to specialise in comedy dramas) seemingly having his tongue firmly in his cheek. Overall, it is surprisingly good for a Cannon movie.
Not to be confused with the Jim Carrey film of the same name, The Mask (1961) is another of those films that it has taken me years to catch up with after learning of its existence, with TV screenings seemingly rare. It holds the distinction of being claimed to be Canada's first horror film, not to mention the first Canadian talkie to be marketed extensively in the US. It's other notable feature was its use of 3-D for its nightmare sequences, (which, obviously, I've only seen in 2-D). The plot is straightforward, involving an ancient tribal mask that subjects anyone wearing it to terrifying visions which drive them to murder, in order to provide human sacrifices for the pagan religion that created the artifact. Shot in black and white, its style is reminiscent of the films William Castle was still making in the US: the small cast, the rather bland, slightly minimalist and stage like sets, an often langourous, dream like, feel to even the 'real life' sections. The performances, likewise, are adequate rather than inspired. Even the musical cues are reminiscent to those used in Castle's films, particularly those scored by Von Dexter. Where the film departs from its William Castle format is in the dream sequences. Indeed, the whole films stands or falls by theses as they constitute its main shock points (and were its key selling point when released).
It has to be said that the nightmare sequences remain impressive, full of unsettling and often quite extraordinary imagery. They take place against a surreal backdrop of twisted artificial trees, sacrificial altars and robed priests, all presided over by a giant version of the titular mask. All of the characters involved in these sequences were masks that hide their faces while following their basic outlines. The only unmasked characters have horrific facial disfigurements, with eyes hanging out and the like. One particularly memorable nightmare involves one such figure punting the masked protagonist across a sea of mist in a coffin, Charon-like. Later, a sacrificial victim turns skeletal as she lies on the altar, before a chasm opens up to swallow the protagonist. The fact that these scenes were designed to be shown in 3-D is evident from the number of things, including the titular mask, that get thrust at the viewer. Yet they still retain much of their impact when shown 'flat' - they are both disconcerting and disturbing. The rest of the film that frames them, unfortunately, can't match their intensity. Indeed, one of the main problems with the 'waking' scenes is that, ultimately, very little that could be described as 'horrifying' takes place in them. The main protagonist, even under the influence of the mask, fails to murder anyone, his efforts to 'sacrifice' his receptionist being foiled. Even the climax is, well, anti-climactic, with the protagonist being caught by the police before he can strangle his fiance in a rather tame scene.
As noted before, part of the problem lies with the cast, whose performances seem too subdued for the subject matter - unlike William Castle, whose films it resembles to some degree - The Mask has no Vincent Price to help sell its brand of disturbing surrealism to an audience. The closest it gets is Paul Stevens as the psychiatrist protagonist who gets mailed the mask by one of his patients, just before they commit suicide, having been driven to madness and murder by its visions. While not as flamboyant as Price, Stevens nonetheless delivers the best performance of the film, his intensity slipping from idealism to insanity as he falls under the mask's influence. Just to reinforce the William Castle comparisons, Stevens' obsession with the idea that the mask and its visions could have psychiatric applications are reminiscent of Vincent Price's obsession with the title creature of The Tingler (1959). Sadly, this sub-plot is never explored any further than being a plot device to justify Stevens' continuing to hold onto the mask rather than give it to the police when he learns of its provenance. Likewise, his former mentor's attempts to help Stevens by allowing him to use the mask under strictly laboratory conditions also comes to nothing, once again being introduced simply as a plot device. All of which is a pity, as the film could have benefited from some stronger plot developments.
A curious thing about the film struck me while watching it: while only the dream sequences were shown in 3-D, the rest of the film frequently looks as if it were shot to be shown stereoscopically - the camera is constantly pulling back from characters, so as to frame them in foreground objects such as doorways or stairways. Overall, The Mask is a curious combination of the inspired and the bland. For every bizarre element - the unsettling visions and the mask itself, which is well realised by the film's production designers, for instance - there are twice as many underwhelming aspects - the pace, lack of plot development and uninspired sets, for example. Perhaps this was deliberate, with the blandness of the everyday sequences meant to accentuate the strangeness of the dream sequences, but ultimately it works against the film, somewhat diluting the bizarreness of the supernatural elements. Nevertheless, it remains worth seeing, for the nightmare sequences if nothing else. Of late, it has been turning up in NYX's daytime schedules fairly regularly, so it is, at last, accessible for viewing.
A quick model railway update before we get back to the business of schlocky films and associated pop culture next week. As I've still not made any progress on clearing stuff from the spare room, my layout expansion plans are still at a standstill. In the interim, I've been busy pushing forward on a couple of other projects, namely finally getting two locomotives that have been 'works in progress' for several years now finished. Unhappy with my previous repainting efforts, I stripped the Wrenn rebuilt West Country I bought painted in a fictitious blue livery back to bare metal and started again, this time with spray paints. To the left of it is an unrebuilt West Country/Battle of Britain cobbled together from various Triang and Hornby components. The body was in Southern Railway livery and the tender was unfinished black plastic. These also have been given the spray paint treatment:
Parts of the black on both locos needs retouching with a brush, then both will be ready to receive lining transfers, new numbers and nameplates before being reunited with their chassis and entering service. (The rebuilt West Country will also need to have its smoke deflectors and hand rails re-fitted, of course). In the meantime, I've several other projects in hand: there is another Wrenn rebuilt West Country having a tender built for it, (the components are nearly ready for painting and assembly), an unrebuilt West Country built from various Hornby parts is almost ready to take paint and a couple of Hornby Maunsell coaches are currently going through the paint shop.
A while ago I bought a box of Triang Hornby Mk1 coach components cheaply from eBay. The main bits I was interested in were these coach sides, comprising three brake seconds and a full brake. All badly repainted.
They are of interest to me as I have a shortage of brake coaches and a surplus of old Triang Hornby composite coaches. So I'll be using these sides (after they've been stripped and repainted green) and using them to convert four of the composite coaches into brakes. The box also contained a lot of other stuff, including two complete brake seconds, which will, without modification, form part of an inter-regional train. There are also a variety of coach interiors (which will be used in the conversions), several roofs and a complete chassis which requires a bit of work, but will eventually be used as the basis for another coach built from spare components.
All-in-all, a pretty good buy. These, along with the aforementioned locomotive projects, (not to mention an Ian Kirk CCT kit to be assembled and several wagons to be repainted), should keep me occupied for the foreseeable future. At some point, though, I really do have to get around to clearing more stuff out of that spare room...
Hollywood Detective, of which this is the March 1950 issue, had an interesting history. It started life back in 1942 as a 'hero pulp'. Titled Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective, it focused on the adventures of the eponymous character, promising a 'Bookful of Dan Turner Stories' on every cover. Published by 'Speed Publications' in this incarnation, it reprinted most of its 'Dan Turner' stories from sister publication Spicy Stories. From September 1943, though, 'Dan Turner' was dropped from the title and the magazine started publishing non-'Dan Turner' stories by other authors. I'm guessing that the story 'Any Number Can Slay' featured on the cover of this issue is a 'Dan Turner' story as it is attributed to Robert Leslie Bellam, the series' regular author. Interestingly, from December 1948, the magazine started featuring a comics section, (something that became popular in pulp magazines post-war, as they tried to broaden their audience in the face of competition from comic books). The main strip featured in this section was, unsurprisingly, 'Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective', which adapted existing stories into comic strip format.
The cover painting's style is, for the period, somewhat outdated, but consistent with the overall style adopted by the magazine from its inception. Although relatively crude and lacking in detail, it has an undoubted pulpy vigour and its use of bold colours would have made it stand out on the news stands. Hollywood Detective, in both of its formats, had a somewhat erratic publication schedule but nonetheless notched up 59 episodes before staggering to a halt with the October 1950 issue, )which also modified the title to Hollywood Detective Magazine). Its peak years were 1943-45, when it maintained a near monthly schedule, before slipping to almost bimonthly, then roughly quarterly. In 1950, however, it enjoyed a resurgence, briefly moving back to a monthly schedule for the first half of the year, before finally expiring. In common with many pulp titles of the era, it also had a UK edition, which published seven issues in 1950, mixing and matching covers and contents from various US issues.
I still maintain that the final scenes of A View to a Kill (1985) are probably the most disturbing of the entire Bond series. More so even than the bleak ending of On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) or the apparent finality of that of No Time to Die (2021). Because the sight of Q behaving like some kind of elderly Peeping Tom as he uses his official surveillance devices to catch an eyeful of Roger Moore's 007 soaping down Tanya Roberts in the shower is far more traumatic than either Diana Rigg being gunned down on her wedding day or Bond himself apparently perishing in an act of self sacrifice. But I suppose one guy of pensionable age spying on the sexual antics of another wrong-side-of-fifty dude with a significantly younger woman, pretty much sums up what the franchise had become by this time: an action series increasingly reliant upon an ageing fan base and struggling to connect with younger audiences. Not surprisingly, the film was Moore's swansong in the role, as the series performed one of its periodical resets and he gave way to a series of younger actors and a somewhat grittier style. (Although even this change in style had been prefigured by 1981's For Your Eyes Only, which had been designed to introduce a new, younger, actor to the role, before Moore agreed to continue as Bond). Thankfully, the change of leads and direction seemed to curb Q's voyeuristic tendencies.
Of course, these voyeuristic tendencies were evident before A View to a Kill - let's not forget Q using Bond's Secret Service watch to eavesdrop on him getting his rocks off with Carole Bouquet in For Your Eyes Only or his putting his zero gravity bonking of Lois Chiles on the big screen for an audience in Moonraker (1979). In Octopussy (1983), Moore's Bond wisely keeps Q close at hand during the film's denouement, (he'd already tipped Bond off to his possible activities by demonstrating his miniature cameras which broadcast live pictures to wrist watches earlier in the film). Which brings us to the other problem I have with Q's activities in the later Roger Moore Bond films - why does he keep turning up in person to do all this stuff? I mean, he's a senior MI6 officer who, thanks to his work, must be party to all manner of State secrets, surely they'd never let him out of the office? Yet there he is, piloting a hot air balloon in Octopussy pretending to be a Greek Orthodox priest (!) in For Your Eyes Only and, of course, sitting in a van spying on Bond's sex life in A View to a Kill. Has the Secret Intelligence Service's budget really been cut so severely that the likes of Q have to go out into the field because they've had to make all of their field operatives, (apart from the 00s apparently), redundant? (Further evidence of this lies in the fact that not only does Q's assistant Smithers (Jeremy Bulloch), have to go into the field with him to equip Bond in Octopussy, but he also has to double up on surveillance duties in the same film, following Louis Jourdain in a Secret Service black cab. Unfortunately the film doesn't reveal whether MI6 was so hard up by this time that he took a couple of paying fares on his way back to HQ).
Still, on the positive side, these latter day Roger Moore Bonds at least can't be accused of ageism. Indeed, they give hope to us guys of a certain age not only that it is still possible for the debonair older man to get off with unfeasibly attractive younger women, but that our libidos will remain strong enough past pensionable age to still be interested in indulging in hi-tech voyeurism. So, I'll go out and order some safari suits now...
Yeah, this is how I spend my Coronation bank holiday weekends, (OK, its the only one I've ever experienced, but if there's another one, I'll do the same thing): watching trash. And yes, I clearly have a penchant for low budget urban vigilante movies. Alley Cat (1984) undoubtedly sits several rungs of the low budget ladder lower than Ghetto Blaster (1989), that I looked at last time. It certainly doesn't have the budget to stage the sorts of action sequences that the later film boasts, but it makes up for it by working its way through just about every cliche in the urban vigilante movie genre. This time around, our vigilante is a woman - martial artist Billie (Karin Mani), who opens the film foiling an attempt by gang members to steal her car, then loses her grandmother to the same gang in a mugging gone wrong. Naturally, she wants justice, but the system can't deliver it, clogged up as it is with bent and lazy cops, inept prosecutors and biased judges. Things get complicated when she stops two gang members from raping another woman and finds herself prosecuted for having an unregistered firearm. While the two scumbags get off after the victim is intimidated into refusing to give evidence, Billie ends up in Jail for thirty days. At which point the movie lurches into women-in-prison type exploitation, complete with cell block fights and predatory lesbians. Obviously, the prison guards can't control any of it because they are part of the system and - you've guessed it - the system sucks. Out of jail and aided and abetted by a sympathetic young cop (and would be boyfriend), who is disillusioned with the system, she gets the goods on the gang and takes them all down using her martial arts skills.
Released under the banner of Film Ventures, (always a good sign for lovers of exploitation), Alley Cat was actually a Filipino production (although filmed in LA) that ran into financial difficulties and was bailed out by Film Ventures. Boasting no less than three directors, (credited collectively as 'Edward Victor' - for two of them it would be their only directorial credit), Alley Cat, while sometimes looking more than a little rough around the edges, is actually quite well put together, moving reasonably smoothly through its plot. Overall, the scuzziness of its locations adds to an air of 'shot-on-the-streets' authenticity to proceedings. The script is basic but functional, although it is less than subtle in ramming home its message - 'the system sucks' - at every available opportunity, with frequent angry monologues from the lead characters. Performances, likewise, are just about adequate for this sort of film. As already noted, the film can't muster the sorts of action sequences - car chases, explosions, gun fights - that graced the similar Ghetto Blaster, but it does feature a number of well staged fight sequences, where the heroine can show off her martial arts skills (the strongest part of her performance). Bars get trashed and bad guys get thrown off of roofs during these sequences. The fact that Alley Cat has, ostensibly, a feminist agenda underlying its vigilante plot, it is still an exploitation film made by men so can't resist including a few nude sequences - all essential to the plot, of course. All-in-all Alley Cat is pretty entertaining while it is on, although its apparent determination to include every exploitation trope it can think of - avenging angel vigilante, corrupt cops, women-in-prison, gang violence, even a cold turkey scene - tends to dilute its central message. Worth watching if, like me, you are a sucker for urban vigilantes.
OK, so I was being ill tempered and snarky about 'bad' movies last time, not all so-called 'bad' movies, but the ones which build up cultish followings and the ones which are self-conciously bad. So what did I do after that? Yeah, that's right, I went and watched a movie that many have condemned as being 'bad'. Ghetto Blaster (1989) is a direct-to-video release which treads similar ground to the likes of the Death Wish series, or even The Exterminator films, with its tale of urban vigilantism, but on a tiny budget. Is it really a 'bad' movie? Well, yes, in the sense that it is an instantly forgettable piece of cheap exploitation telling the usual ludicrous story of a mild mannered guy turning into a one-man fighting force taking on an entire army of scumbag gang members. There's nothing particularly original in Ghetto Blaster, but the fact is that it is surprisingly well made for what it is and is actually pretty entertaining while it is playing. For one thing, it musters some pretty decent actors, with Richard Hatch taking the lead. Hatch, as always, makes for a likeable leading man and his character's transformation from middle-aged store owner to full blown vigilante doesn't seem too ludicrous. R G Armstrong turns up for a few scenes as his father and Richard Jaeckel has what amounts to an extended cameo as a local cop. The rest of the cast are more typical direct-to-video performers but nonetheless are more adequate in their roles. The film's strongest point is its action sequences, which include not just the usual fist fights and gun fights, but also car chases and crashes and several explosions, all very well staged in a manner that wouldn't disgrace a bigger budgeted film.
Overall, in fact, Ghetto Blaster actually looks pretty good, making excellent use of its run down LA settings. Director Alan Stewart, (primarily an editor with only one other directorial credit), puts the film together very slickly, progressing smoothly from scene to scene and with a professional sheen which helps make it seem a far better film than t actually is. As noted, there really isn't anything especially original about Ghetto Blaster: it falls firmly into the sub-genre of vigilante movies where the mild mannered protagonist turns out to have been in Special Forces in 'Nam and suddenly erupts into action when pushed too far. (In this sense, it is also a cousin to the likes of the first Rambo film, First Blood). Of course, this is just a variation on an earlier generation of movies that saw World War Two or Korean War vets return home and find themselves disgusted that what they've apparently been fighting for is rampant crime, disrespect for the American flag and scumbag ethnic minorities terrorising good white people. (Even by the time of Ghetto Blaster, the neighbourhood gang are all stereotypical Hispanics). For the 'Nam vets, obviously, its the shock of returning home from from an unpopular war, not getting a heroes' welcome and still getting harassed by scumbags. So cleaning up the neighbourhood with extreme violence provides them with a sort of redemptive story arc.
Anyway, nothing unexpected happens in Ghetto Blaster, it is all well-telegraphed: the hero has a teenaged daughter so, guess what, that's right, she eventually gets kidnapped by the gang and he has to storm their hideout, (a deserted industrial complex, naturally), to rescue her. There's also the usual 'Romeo and Juliet' sub-plot of romance across the opposing lines as Hatch becomes involved with the sister of a gang member and a final 'twist' involving her brother that is blindingly obvious. That said, some of the methods Hatch's character uses when he starts his campaign of counter-harassment against the gang are quite amusing - razors on concealed rat traps to mangle fingers and an exploding version of the titular Ghetto Blaster, for instance. Not to mention the clown suited robbery of the proceeds gang's latest drug deal. But yeah, Ghetto Blaster is a 'bad' movie by most measures of such things, but it has plenty of redeeming features that keep it entertaining. But by knowing its own limitations and keeping the scope of its action on a reasonably small scale, it never overreaches itself to the extent that it falls over into complete ridiculousness. Best of all, it is neither as sanctimonious as the Death Wish movies, nor as humourless as The Exterminator films, both of which it is clearly ripping off.
It seems to be one of those days when Plan Nine From Outer Space is playing on every Roku channel I turn to. Well OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I do seem to keep running into toady. I have to confess that I've never understood the obsessive fascination with Ed Wood Jr's films seem to hold for some people. I mean, some of them are mildly amusing on a first viewing, but after that, their ineptitude is merely painful to watch. I suppose that it is all part of the 'Cult of the Bad Film' which indiscriminately celebrates crap with little or no regard for what makes something 'good bad' as opposed to merely 'shit'. As I've noted before, the problem I have with many of these 'classic' bad movies is that they actually have no redeeming features at all and subsequently no entertainment value whatsoever. At least Ed Wood's obvious love of films and film-making, despite having no discernible talent for it, makes his films quite admirable in their attempts to produce actual professional films in spite have having no resources or budget. There's nothing cynical about them - they aren't those horrible campy self consciously bad low budget pictures turned out by opportunists that seem to proliferate these days.
But, if nothing else, supposedly 'bad' movies provide fodder for those 'horror hosts' who clog up many Roku channels, constantly interrupting their (usually) black and white subject matter in order to make some supposedly witty comment on the action or point out just how bad it is (and, by extension, how clever they are for noticing this fact). Again, my dislike of this sort of thing is long established - I don't need to have some smart ass telling me how bad something is, or which bits I should be laughing at: I'm quite capable of judging these things for myself. The 'horror host' seems to be a uniquely American phenomena, having grown out of late night local TV there. Unfortunately, thanks to the internet and streaming TV, they are everywhere nowadays. Quite why anyone wants to dress up like a ghoul and snigger over the same pool of public domain movies week-in, week-out, is beyond me. The trouble is that they run through so much material and are so indiscriminate that, eventually, they start using movies that aren't bad, but that doesn't stop them from making their inane interruptions. I once got very annoyed at one of these idiots constantly interrupting Witchcraft (1964), trying desperately to find innuendo and double entendres in the script that simply weren't there.
Yeah, I know, I'm sounding very irritable in this post. I'm not sure why, but what the Hell, while I'm giving out unpopular opinions, here are a couple more: Ken Bruce, why are all those knobs crying into their beer about his leaving Radio Two? I always found him incredibly dull, a boring fart to be precise. I remember that when he first did the Radio Two Breakfast Show (several decades ago), he was described as being like 'Terry Wogan but without the wit'. Very accurate, in my opinion. Then there's Steve Wright, exiled from Radio Two afternoons. I'm old enough to remember him being on Radio One - I couldn't stand him then and he hasn't improved. Good riddance. Ah, that feels better!
I know that Robert Newton is considered by many to be the definitive cinematic Long John Silver and his performance in the role in the Disney Treasure Island (1950), not to mention its unofficial 1954 sequel Long John Silver, (which I actually saw first) and the subsequent TV series. He wasn't however, the first cinematic Long John Silver that I saw - my first exposure to both character and story came from seeing, as a kid, a Sunday afternoon broadcast of the 1934 MGM version starring Wallace Beery. The latter's larger-than-life, eye-rolling performance made quite an impression upon me. Even though I subsequently saw Newton's version of the character in the aforementioned Long John Silver, before I saw him in his original 1950 performance, I was exposed to yet another Sunday afternoon Long John Silver when the BBC adapted it as one of its classic serials in 1977. This time around Alfred Burke, (who had just finished his long run as Frank Marker in Public Eye), essayed the role, giving, as I recall, Newton a run for his money, (also, infamously, a raffle ticket can suposedly be seen amongst the 'Pieces of Eight' when the treasure is discovered). The reason I've been put in mind of these various portrayals of the fictional one-legged pirate is that I've just watched the 1972 version with Orson Welles in the role. Now, you'd think that this was a role ideal for Welles' talents, but, as with so many projects he was involved in, the film comes over as unsatisfying and more than a little disjointed. part of the problem lies in the fact that it was an international co-production, (produced by Harry Alan Towers), with actors of various nationalities playing the roles, all dubbed post-production into various languages for the various international versions released.
This, of course, is where the problems start, as the dubbing is of varying quality, with some voices not quite matching the characters. To complicate matters, the English language version comes in several versions, with Welles' voice dubbed by Robert Rietty in some of them. The version I saw, though, seemed to feature his own voice, (it certainly wasn't Rietty), but it quickly became clear why some distributors had him dubbed, as Welles mumbles through a lot of the dialogue with an indistinct accent, (to be fair, Welles supposedly recorded his post-production vocal performance in one night). Not only does Welles mumble, but his performance seems surprisingly subdued, despite the role offering him ample opportunity to pull out all the stops, acting wise. Perhaps it was his intent to present a lower-key version of the character, to distinguish his performance from the more flamboyant interpretations of Beery and Newton. The result, though, is to rather pull down the whole film, robbing it of most of its tension, as Welles' Silver never really seems as if he is capable of besting Captain Smollett, Trelawney and Dr Livesey. (Despite being dubbed, Rik Battaglia, Walter Slezak and Angel del Pozo,respectively in these roles, give reasonably effective performances). Confusion over the film's production abounds, while John Hough is credited as director (and confirmed as such by producer Towers), some sources credit Andrea Bianchi instead. (The latter might have directed some of Welles' scenes as the star apparently didn't get on with Hough). Whoever actually directed the film, it does look good, with lots of attractive location filming, mainly around the Spanish coast.
The film actually has an interesting history, as its script was based on one written by Welles for a previous attempt to film the novel. Indeed, some scenes were allegedly shot in Spain in 1964, with none other than Jesus Franco in the director's chair. Franco was also assisting Welles on the shooting of Chimes at Midnight in Spain at the time, (it was planned, for financial reasons, to shoot the two films simultaneously, using many of the same sets), but the two eventually fell out and the Treasure Island project never progressed. Which is a pity, as the thought of a Jess Franco directed version of the story starring Welles is quite appealing. Welles tried to resurrect the project a couple of years later, but nothing materialised. Eventually, when Harry Alan Towers decided to make a version, he brought in Welles and his script, (which was rewritten and credited to Wolf Mankowitz and 'O W Jeeves' (Orson Welles)).
I'm afraid that I wasn't able to follow-up my Easter bank holiday weekend film-watching orgy this bank holiday weekend. For one thing, I had to endure a bout of health problems last week that left me too exhausted to do much but sleep in the run-up to the weekend. I won't go into details but, at the time, it was all pretty traumatic. Then I spent a chunk of Sunday putting together another podcast for the Overnightscape Underground, while today the car needed cleaning, (its usual parking place is close to a tree, so, thanks to my reluctance to clean it during the winter, it had gone green with mould on one side and had moss growing on the window rubbers). I did, however, manage to catch up with a couple of low budget films I've been meaning to watch for a while, namely Giant From the Unknown (1958) and The Lady in Red (1979) The former is an independently produced B monster movie that does its best to look like a Universal B-horror of the same period. Indeed, it has a Universal connection in that the title monster's make-up was created by Jack Pierce, who had headed up the studio's make-up department and created the make-ups for Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the Mummy and the Wolfman, amongst others, (he was sacked in 1946 and replaced by Bud Westmore, subsequently plying his trade at a variety of low budget studios).
The monster, though, is decidedly underwhelming - a very large Spanish Conquistador who has been in suspended animation for centuries, but has been revived by a lightning strike. The script, unfortunately, is hugely confused - was the 'giant' revived during the mid movie lightening storm, in which case who or what was mutilating cattle and killing people prior to this, or was he revived earlier, in which case why was he molesting cattle? - with it taking and age for the monster to appear. Even when he does appear, he's a pretty dull monster, engaging in a few unmotivated killings before being knocked off of a bridge into a river. With a script padded out with far too much talk, Giant From the Unknown drags its way through a seventy seven minute running time that feels far longer. The Lady in Red, produced by Roger Corman's New World Pictures, by contrast, packs a lot of incident and characters into its ninety three minutes. Perhaps too much, as characters and incidents flash past, sometimes without registering properly. Thankfully nothing to do with the bad Chris de Burgh song, (what am I saying, the bad Chris de Burgh song? All of his songs are bad), The Lady in Red purports to tell the story of the 'Woman in Red' who betrayed bank robber John Dillinger to the authorities, the red dress she wore when accompanying him to a cinema allowing FBI agents to identify and kill him. Except that here the eponymous lady isn't the historical Ana Cumpanas, (a Romanian prostitute and madam), but instead the fictional Polly Franklin, a poor farmer's daughter, who escapes her violent father and engages in a series of adventures that lead her to working in Cumpanas' brothel, unwittingly marking Dillinger for death and eventually bank robbery in her own right. Here, Cumpanas, (played by Louise Fletcher and called by her alias Ana Sage), tricks Franklin (who is in love with Dillinger, but doesn't know his true identity), into wearing the red dress, so as to avoid being herself identified as Dillinger's betrayer, fearing reprisals from the underworld.
Despite being made on a very tight budget, The Lady in Red boasts excellent production values, with plenty of convincing period detail and some very well staged action sequences. The film, (scripted by John Sayles), is, in an essence, a picaresque tale, chronicling Franklin's journey from naive country girl to criminal gang leader, via series of adventures that almost constitute a compendium of exploitation themes as she variously ends up in women's prison, working as a prostitute, a gangster's moll and even, early on, involved in the battle between organised labour and organised crime. It's very entertainingly directed by Lewis Teague and includes James Horner's first credited film score. Sadly, it didn't fare too well at the box office, perhaps because it was marketed as a Dillinger film, despite the fact that he constitutes only a relatively small part of the plot, (his character not appearing until nearly two thirds into the film). I must admit that my interest in the film was partly personal, in that the title role was played by Pamela Sue Martin. Just prior to making the film, she had starred as Nancy Drew in the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries. I cannot deny that twelve or thirteen year old me had something of a crush on her as a result of seeing her in the series, (I was very disappointed when she was replaced by another actress part way through the
second series, after the character was relegated from having her own
alternating episodes to being a secondary character in the Hardy Boys
episodes). While she was subsequently in soap opera Dynasty, (she was eventually replaced in that as well, I recall), I was always intrigued by this, one of her few film leading roles. I have to say that, for those of us who remember her as Nancy Drew, her appearance in The Lady in Red is mildly startling, as she has a couple of nude scenes as well as sex scene, (to be fair, overall, she gives a very effective performance in the lead role). I'm glad that I didn't see this when it was released as I'm sure that the sight of the object of one of my crushes with her knockers out would have been too much for my adolescent libido...
