Nearly at the end of another year. Which means that if I watch any of those TV shows covering the turn of the year on New Year's Eve, I'll have to put up with continuity announcers and presenters patronisingly extending their sympathies to 'people on their own at this time'. For God's sake, just fuck off. I've already had to put up with this shit all over Christmas, all the faux worries about 'loneliness at Christmas' expressed by the media. Why can't they just accept that many, if not most, of us on our own at Christmas are on our own by choice. As I've chronicled here before, I gave up on family Christmases decades ago after one too many argument resulting in yet another miserable Christmas. Since making that decision, I've actually enjoyed Christmas: I can do what I bloody well like, when I like, without some miserable cousin/uncle/sibling etc moaning about it. It's all part and parcel of this country's obsession, or rather, this country's media's obsession that there is only one correct way to celebrate Christmas and if you do something different then you are a sad, miserable bastard.
Interestingly, Marks and Spencer's Christmas TV ad campaign was based around the idea that people should throw away those seasonal 'traditions' you dislike and establish your own instead, (just so long as they involve M&S products, of course). Which is basically what I've been doing for years. Anyway, it was notable the hostility it generated in some quarters. We even had that weird mad woman who purports to be a head teacher of some kind writing letters to The Times (or something like that), denouncing Marks and Spencer for undermining traditional values. (She really shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the education of children, should she?) But is it really such an outrageous idea that people should be allowed to celebrate Christmas any way they like, (so long as they don't shove it in everyone else's face as the only way to celebrate the season), and is it so strange that for some us, that involves enjoying it on our own? OK, I know that I'm some kind of weird loner, you know, the sort of person the Daily Mail always stigmatises as being a potential serial killer or terrorist, but if you aren't sufficiently at ease with yourself that you can't enjoy your own company, what does that say about you?
One of the old movies I recently caught up with was the 1966 version of Beau Geste. If ever a remake were to invoke the question 'why?' it is this one. So much has been altered both from the source novel and the previous film versions, you are left asking yourself why the makers bothered paying for the rights to the PC Wren novel and didn't just come up with their own, original, Foreign Legion film. The answer being that 'Beau Geste' is a recognisable 'brand' familiar to audiences, (at least, in the sixties it still was), who would know what they were getting. Except that this version is barely recognisable as 'Beau Geste', retaining only the basic story outline, the setting and a couple of set pieces, most notably the opening scene of the fort apparently defended by dead men, from which it flashes back to tell the rest of the story. Apart from that, every thing is different: character names are changed for no good reason, (the main character's surname isn't even 'Geste' anymore, 'Beau Geste' being a nickname in its entirety), others are omitted (there are now only two not-Geste Brothers and their American legionnaire friends are absent), nationalities are changed (the brothers are now American rather than British) and the whole backstory whereby Beau takes the blame for the apparent theft of the 'Blue Water' diamond, is cut. Indeed, there are no scenes outside of the Foreign Legion sequences - with Beau now having joined the Legion after taking the blame for his business partner's fraudulent activities, (in order to spare said partner's wife's shame - Beau being secretly in love with her). This motivation feels entirely inadequate to explain Beau's actions in joining the Legion - in the book and previous film versions, his act of sacrifice isn't self-serving, instead being about preserving his aunt's honour, not to mention the family honour, making him a noble figure.
But hey, the makers apparently decided that the original, UK set, back story, simply went on for too long and instead cut it out, substituting their own entirely perfunctory back story. All of which simply emphasises the producers' of this version of the story failure to grasp what it was actually about. Bereft of the context created by the original backstory all we have left is a pretty standard and unremarkable story of the Legion, which simply cycles through all of the cliches of the genre, (many of which were established, ironically, by the PC Wren novel and its earlier adaptations), from the sadistic training methods to the brutality of the remote desert outposts they man. Indeed, there is much emphasis placed upon the character of the sergeant, (who, like everyone else, has had his name changed and has been provided with his own backstory to 'explain' his actions - being motivated by greed, as per earlier versions, is an option that disappears with the elimination of the original backstory, which raised the possibility of Beau still being in possession of the diamond). He now becomes the standard bearer of 'honour' - trying to force the men under his command to conform to his warped notions of preserving the 'honour' and 'glory' of the Legion. Which isn't to say that this couldn't have formed the basis of a reasonably enjoyable action film. Unfortunately, the actual film is indifferently directed with no sense of period, (apparently it is set in 1906, but it might as well have been 1966) and generic-feeling action sequences that might have come out of a western, with American Indians instead of Arabs and the US Cavalry instead of the Foreign Legion. It also features a decidedly second tier cast, with Dean Stockwell's Beau never suggesting the sort of quiet nobility and sense of self sacrifice which is supposed to underpin the character. Even Telly Savalas as the sergeant fails to make much of the role, giving a subdued performance where flamboyance was required. The ending of the film even denies the title character his final act of self-sacrifice, instead allowing Beau to survive, albeit minus an arm. Which pretty much sums up how much of a travesty this version actually is.
Good Christmas? Personally, I've been on my sofa or in bed for three and a bit days. I got up on Christmas Eve coughing as if I smoked a hundred a day, (that's a reference to smoking cigarettes, for the kids out there who equate 'smoking' with 'vaping'), which I wish I had done, because then I would at least have had some enjoyment before coughing my lungs up. This subsided and by Christmas Day I was just wheezing. Oh, my sense of taste went awry, as well. I spent most of today in bed, utterly knackered. Despite this later bout of irritating and minor ill health, (something which has characterised this past year, reminding me that I'm not getting any younger). Mind you, as it turned out, today's malaise was, in part, self-inflicted, as I realised that, in the 'excitement' of Christmas Day, I'd forgotten to take some of my medication, (I'd somehow convinced myself that I had taken it - too much medicinal brandy might have played a part in this - but those calendar blister packs don't lie). Most specifically, I hadn't taken the one that keeps my heart rate and therefore my blood pressure down. Which was why when I thought my heart rate was high, even when lying in bed, I wasn't imagining things. It also explained why my knees ached when I got up after several hours lying down, (joint pain can be a sure sign of high blood pressure).
This litany of health woes doubtless makes it sound as if I had a lousy Christmas, but it was actually pretty decent. Despite feeling below par, I worked my through a lot of movies, both old and new (t me, at least), while I was crashed out on my sofa. They were a lot more entertaining than most of what was on offer on any of the main TV channels this festive season. I know that I go on about this every Christmas, but Christmas TV gets worse and worse. This year, they really had made no effort whatsoever. I'm old enough to remember when TV used to get huge viewing figures over the Christmas period and the TV channels, (yeah, I know, there were only three back then), used to pull out all of the stops. Every TV show had a Christmas special, usually with better scripts, guests and budgets than usual. It was great. OK, so I was a child and easily pleased, but it was still better than virtually anything that was on this Christmas. A point reinforced by one of the live streaming channels I get via Roku which, this Christmas, abandoned its usual schedule and instead served up three solid days of old UK TV Christmas specials and seasonally themed old movies. It was great - I watched it between the various movies I was watching. Sure, a lot of it was pretty corny by today's standards, but at least it was seasonally themed. So, the moral to all this is, well I've no idea, but there's bound to be a moral in it somewhere, because, as all those Christmas specials taught me, there always is at this time of year...
Well, here we are, only a few days left before Christmas and I'm exhausted after my various travels, shopping misadventures and a night at the pub yesterday. The likelihood that I was ever going to make a proper post today were slim before all that, but are now non-existent. Up until a few years ago, when we got this close to Christmas day itself, I used to put up a video of the various Christmas lights I'd seen around Crapchester that Yuletide season. But Covid lockdowns and the fact that I no longer have a job that takes me all over the Borough on a daily basis means that I got out of the habit. I have to say that this year I've seen some pretty good light displays but, to be frank, I just haven't been arsed to bother videoing any of them. I did think about walking around my local area on foot and catching some of the best ones on camera, but after everything I've had to do this week, I'm just too tired. So that option for an easy seasonal post isn't available either.
But the plus side of all my exhausting activities this week is that the only thing that I have to buy tomorrow is a newspaper - after that I can shut up shop, pull up the drawbridge and hunker down to enjoy my Christmas of catching up with various obscure films. I know, I do that the rest of the year, but I do it more at Christmas when I don't get so many distractions and it is accompanied by over indulgence in cheese, sausage rolls, beer, etc. If nothing vital runs out, then there's a good chance that I won't re-emerge until 27th December. So, barring my actually going out and shooting that video, this will likely be my last pre-Christmas post. In which case, it only remains to wish everyone a good Christmas, or whatever else it is you might celebrate at this time of year. OK, I'm going to crash on the sofa now...
The sheer madness of Christmas shopping kicked in with full force this week. Or so it felt. I was just trying to do my normal weekly shopping on Monday, only to find myself confronted by empty shelves at the first supermarket I visited. We're not talking seasonal items here, but regular everyday items I was trying to buy. In the end, I had to visit no less than four different supermarkets to get what I wanted. Two of them were branches of Lidl (we have three of them in Crapchester) - there seem to be marked differences in the shopping patterns of aficionados of these two branches, even amongst those in the grip of Christmas shopping madness. But what drives people to engage in this annual insanity? After all, the shops are only going to be closed for a couple of days, (in some cases, only one day, as quite a few open on Boxing Day), so panic buying seems a little over the top. That said, Christmas Day itself, of course, feels like a deadline, demanding that we all have everything in place in order to create the 'perfect' day and avid disappointment. Leaving some stuff until after the day itself feels like a failure. Because that's the thing - we're sold the concept of a 'perfect Christmas' that has to include certain ingredients - if any of them are missing, then you are a complete and utter failure. It's entirely driven by retailers' need to generate sales in order to prop up profits.
At this point, I should be telling you of how I'm superior to these blatant attempts to manipulate me during this season of goodwill. Except that this week I've found myself caught up in the madness. Yesterday, I found myself in a branch of Lidl in a different town at quarter to ten in the evening, looking for a particular item I had decided that I needed in order to complete my Christmas. (I should add that I didn't go out of town specifically to try and obtain it - I was there visiting relatives and the Lidl was on my way home, so I decided to seize the opportunity). Failing to get it there, (they'd sold out, as had a branch at home I'd tried on the way out of my own town earlier in the day. So, today, I found myself driving around three supermarkets here, (one Lidle and two Aldis) in search of the item. I eventually found it, ironically, in the Aldi where I thought that I had bought it several weeks ago. (I should explain here that I hadn't realised that this year Aldi had two versions of the product on sale and that I had unwittingly picked up the one I didn't want. I didn't realise my mistake until some time later. Instead of trying to exchange it, I gave it to someone else who liked that variety, confident that I could get a replacement of the correct type. But by the time I tried, the Christmas shopping madness was upon us). I cannot deny that getting this item became something of an obsession with me - I became unreasonably determined that I was going to correct my error, no matter how many Lidls and Aldis I had to go to and no matter where they were. It was utterly stupid and I'm sure that I wouldn't have been so obsessed had it not been Christmas and this hadn't been a seasonal item. Like I said, it is the utter madness of the season that grips us all this time of year - none of us are immune.
The headlines on the covers of fifties and sixties men's magazines, particularly on those at the lower end of the market, can appear to be random assemblages of words, designed to fit as many sensational or provocative words into one phrase. Whether they actually make any sense is another question, of course. Take this cover for the June 1966 issue of Complete Man Magazine, for instance - 'Tin Can Hero of Guadalcanal's Blood Alley' sounds, on the face of it, like complete gibberish, but packs in the key words 'Hero' 'Blood' and Guadalcanal' to suggest that it is an action packed war story. But, to be fair, if you know some US naval nomenclature, then its meaning becomes a bit clearer: 'Tin Can', as I recall, is US Navy slang for a destroyer. So it is probably safe to say that this is a stirring story naval heroism during the Pacific war, (Guadalcanal being the location of a famous battle between Japan and the US. 'Love-Lease Girls of Wild Sintown', whilst conveying the idea of some kind of sleazy sex story, is another baffling collection of key words. I've no idea what 'Love-Lease Girls' are - prostitutes procured on similar terms to the Lend-Lease agreement between the US and its allies in World War Two under which military equipment was supplied, perhaps? (To be returned intact or paid for if not destroyed at the conflict's end).
'Nightmare for a Naked Redhead' is a bit more explanatory, implying a 'woman in peril' type story, with the 'Naked' raising expectations of sexual peril in the minds of potential readers. The cover painting - somewhat cruder than those used on other men's magazines, but typical of this particular publication - illustrates 'Hell-Raising Spy in the Kremlin', another fairly generic assemblage of key words to indicate a Cold War espionage tale of another of those macho spies who fight communism by shagging every woman in sight, something backed up by the illustration. Complete Man Magazine put out eleven issues, to a somewhat erratic schedule, between 1965 and 1967. All of its issues featured these staccato story headlines that sometimes border on the meaningless and felt as if the magazine was shouting them in your face, giving the impression of a publication desperate for attention and in a hurry to get potential buyers to take it off of the newsstands. The magazine was apparently a continuation of Ken for Men, which had put out fifteen issues between 1956 and 1961 and employed similar headlines and covers, (in fact, the fourth issue was even titled Complete Man's Magazine). Complete Man Magazine continued the numbering scheme of Ken for Men, despite the four year gap between the two titles. In both incarnations it had erratic publication schedules and was generally undistinguished.
Screamtime (1983) is an anthology horror film composed of three pre-existing short films packaged together with a framing story. While the three episodes are obviously UK productions, the framing story is set and filmed in New York with American actors, presumably to make the direct-to-video release more appealing to the US market. The framing story is somewhat perfunctory, in comparison to the often elaborate frameworks that Amicus, for instance, wove around the episodes in their anthology films. Here, we simply have a couple of bone headed New Yorkers who steal three videos and go to a girlfriend's apartment to watch them. (The sole purpose of the girlfriend's presence seems to be to provide some gratuitous nudity: she's in the shower when we first meet her). The three videos they watch, of course, are the three episodes of the anthology. All three of these films, produced by Stanley Long, written by Michael Armstrong and variously directed by them, had previously been released in support of feature films, (the middle episode, for instance, had most recently served as support for the UK cinematic release of Evil Dead (1982)), and were all edited somewhat in order for the whole package to fit an approximate ninety minute run time.
The three stories themselves are of varying quality. The first, featuring a Punch and Judy man driven to madness by his wife's threats to leave him and a hostile step son, both of whom perpetually denigrate his profession as a puppeteer, is actually not bad at all. While it springs no surprises in its story of the Mr Punch doll apparently coming to life and beating people to death, while following the traditional Punch and Judy storyline, it is well executed. The actors all play it with conviction - Robin Bailey as the Punch and Judy man is suitably worn down and frayed around the edges, his apparently infinite patience concealing a true, deep-seated, passion for his work. Jonathon Morris, an actor usually seen around this time in sympathetic roles in sitcoms is also very effective, cast against type as the thoroughly nasty step son. Overall, episode has a suitably down beat atmosphere, the gloomily shot beach where Baily performs, for instance, full of foreboding and barely suppressed menace. If you've ever wanted to see noted character actor Robin Bailey go bonkers and chase a young woman around in the persona of Mr Punch, then 'That's The Way to Do It' is for you.
The second episode, 'Dreamtime', is undoubtedly the best of the three stories, featuring an apparently haunted house in which a young wife who has just moved in suffers a series of disturbing, (not to mention increasingly gory) dreams and visions. Of course, there is no record of anything approximating her visions having ever taken place at the property and even a local medium fails to detect any kind of psychic presence there. Is the wife simply mad? The episode concludes with a twist ending which, sort of, makes sense. While unable to muster even familiar TV faces like Bailey and Morris in the first episode, 'Dreamtime' nonetheless boasts some good performances from its cast who, once again, play it all with absolute sincerity. The visions themselves are generally well executed, their shock value increased by the way in which they often come out of nowhere, as the wife is performing some mundane task, then finds herself witnessing some horrendous and bloody violence. Perhaps the most disturbing of the visions is the simplest - looking out of the window she frequently sees a young boy on a bike cycling around the lawn, who, when she looks back, has vanished. As befits its title, 'Dreamtime' succeeds in creating the feel of an unsettling dream and alone is well worth watching the whole anthology for.
The final episode, 'Garden of Evil', is undoubtedly the weakest of the three, it is clearly intended to be the 'lighter', more 'comedic' episode, of a kind often found in anthology films, such the Golfing episode of Dead of Night (1945), for instance. Whereas these were usually inserted part way through the film in order to break up somewhat the grimness of the more conventionally horrific episodes and lure the audience into a false sense of security before even grimmer episodes unfolded, the decision to place 'Garden of Evil' third and last in Screamtime succeeds only in dissipating the atmosphere and momentum built up by the previous stories. While the audience might have been expecting 'That's The Way To Do It' and 'Dreamtime' to be leading up to an even more horrifying and disturbing climax, they instead get this tale of would be robbers finding the house they are targeting is guarded by fairies, gnomes and spirits. Unfortunately, garden gnomes (even when they transform into a man in a gnome suit to attack a burglar) simply aren't scary. Despite being well shot and reasonably well scripted, this episode simply fails to deliver the same sort of menacing atmosphere conjured up by the previous two entries. It probably doesn't help that the main character is played by David Van Day of 'Dollar' infamy, in his 'acting' debut. He delivers an unsurprisingly flat performance, that even the presence of Dora Bryan and Jean Anderson as the two apparently dotty old ladies who employ him as a gardener and handyman, can't compensate for. The episode's ending leads into the concluding part of the framing story, which delivers its own 'twist' ending.
It has to be said that while Screamtime doesn't at first seem a promising prospect, with its rather rough looking New York opening and framing story, it is worth persevering with. Clearly, both that framing story and the episodes themselves were shot on miniscule budgets - everything is shot on actual locations, with no studio work and production values are pretty basic, but in the first two episodes especially, this is used to advantage. The very ordinariness of the suburban British locations in those stories adds to their effectiveness, as their extraordinary events unfold in this mundane milieu. The third episode is far less successful in establishing its location - the old ladies' cottage, where most of the events take place, never feels just ordinary, leaving the various supernatural happenings seeming somehow unsurprising. Directors Armstrong and Long ,jointly credited as 'Al Beresford', both have a solid body of work in low budget exploitation films, for which I have a lot of time. Their films are more often than not intelligently scripted and imaginatively directed and two thirds of Screamtime, at least, reflect this. As a final thought, it is interesting to observes that, with slightly bigger budgets, studio shooting and better productions values, all of the three stories contained in Screamtime could easily have fitted into a seventies Amicus anthology film.
It's that time of year again, isn't it? You know what I mean - the time when we're still too far from Christmas for the newspapers to completely give up and fill their pages will festive bollocks, but instead run articles that pretend to be lifestyle advice, but are really seasonal filler. Hence, we've had The Guardian's G2 supplement reassuring us that skipping the office Christmas party won't necessarily be taken as a slight adversely effect your promotion prospects. This was followed up a few days later by a piece on how to say 'No' at this time of year in order to avoid getting stressed out by accepting too many commitments. No shit, Sherlock was my reaction. As I've chronicled here before, I spent decades not going to office Christmas parties - the very first one I ever went to put me off for life and I never attended another. Interestingly, my always polite turnings down of invitations was sometimes taken as some kind of slight against colleagues, despite my assurances that it was nothing personal, I just didn't like office functions of any kind. Luckily, however, I never had any promotion prospects so, regardless of their reactions, my 'career' was never affected.
But turning down those invitations (and they weren't always just for workplace parties - when I was working in Whitehall, I once declined the opportunity to attend a Christmas party at the US embassy in favour of going down to my local pub for a few pints with friends, instead), taught me how easy it actually is to say 'no' to work-related stuff. For quite a while I was good at it, but then seemed to lose the knack and ended up covering other peoples' jobs for no extra money, but for extra hours instead. Eventually, of course, this contributed to my stress problems which, in turn, led to a bout of serious illness and three months off work sick. When I got back to work, I started saying 'no' again in self-defence. It's surprising, though, how easy it is to say 'no' and turn stuff down once you get over the idea that we seem to have been indoctrinated with that any kind of refusal is somehow impolite and selfish. But really, it isn't. Doing stuff just because feel that you have some vague social obligation to do so is just crazy and a sure road to unhappiness. Do stuff because you want to do it, (OK, I know, there are things you either are obligated to do, like paying your taxes or not raping and/or murdering people, plus stuff it is advisable to do, like attending medical appointments and taking prescribed medications, but hopefully, that goes without saying). So, I don't need to read vaguely seasonally justified newspaper articles to tell me the virtues of saying 'no' to social events. I mean, I can't tell you happy I am since I stopped going to weddings many years ago - it's like my late father told me: 'I prefer funerals to weddings because you t least don't have to pretend to be having fun'. The wisest words he ever said to me.
The Velvet Vampire (1971) sets out to be iconoclastic: it gets off to a brisk start with a woman apparently being stalked by a biker type, but the tables are quickly turned and it becomes clear that she is the predator. A blood-sucking predator at that, as she quickly gets to work biting her victim's neck right there on the boulevard of a small town. Director Stephanie Rothman follows up this opening by eschewing most of the conventions of the vampire film that had been established up to that time, with the main action taking place not in some dank nineteenth century Gothic castle situated deep in a dark forest, but instead in a modernistic villa in the middle of a desert. Indeed, most of the action takes place under the bright glare of the desert sun, rather than in damp-ridden, rat infested catacombs. But while The Velvet Vampire sets out to be a thoroughly modern vampire film in terms of its trappings and protagonist, its narrative approach to the subject remains surprisingly traditional. Its plot sees a young couple lured to the remote desert villa of an enigmatic female artist, where they find themselves effectively held prisoner - the local garage seemingly unable to repair their broken down car - and subjected to strange dreams and eventually the predatory advances of their blood sucking hostess. All of the Gothic vampire movie tropes are there: the uncooperative locals, the taciturn man-servant, the graveyard full of their hostess' ancestors. Even the fact that the vampire can walk around in daylight is an ability established in Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'- the sunlight deprives them of most of their supernatural powers, but won't necessarily destroy them if they dress sensibly. (The vampire here eventually succumbs to the sunlight when deprived of her wide-brimmed hat and cloak).
Despite being made with obviously limited resources, The Velvet Vampire is a reasonably effective film, with Rothman setting up some memorable set pieces, from that brisk opening through to a climax on the streets of LA, where the vampire, having followed the heroine there via a tense bus ride and chase through the bus terminal, finds herself confronted by a group of crucifix wielding hippies. The whole scene, with the crucifixes grabbed from nearby craft stalls, is very much of its era. There are also some unsettling and atmospheric dream sequences suffered by the couple while at the desert villa, with their bed suddenly situated out in the desert and the husband seduced by the vampire. A ride through a ghost town also helps build up the atmosphere and tension. It has to be said, though, that between the set-pieces, the film has a tendency to sag, particularly during its middle section. It also suffers from some weak performances, particularly from the leads, which undermine the characterisations of the main protagonists. But overall, The Velvet Vampire is a pretty decent low budget horror film, with Rothman making the most of her desert locations and giving the film a somewhat more 'artistic' look that contrasts neatly with the more exploitative subject matter. It is certainly a lot more coherent and far more slickly made than her previous vampire film, Blood Bath (1966), which was created by combining footage newly shot by Rothman with footage previously shot by Jack Hill, in order to reshape an espionage film into a horror film. Velvet Vampire (along with Blood Bath) was one of a number of low budget films that Rothman directed for Roger Corman that were variously released through AIP, Trans America and New World Pictures, before she moved on to making similar films for Dimension Pictures.
While uneven, The Velvet Vampire remains an interesting film, certainly a cut above most other low budget horror films of its era. It was also reasonably innovative, coming early on in new cycle of vampire films that often featured female vampires, (Hammer's The Vampire Lovers (1970) had been released the year before), and took place in contemporary settings, (Count Yorga, Vampire (1970), for instance). Indeed, it is , arguably, far more innovative than the Count Yorga movies, which present their vampire in traditional terms and, in spite of their modern settings, confine most of their action to Gothic settings. The Velvet Vampire, by contrast, places its vampire very firmly in the 1970s and shows her as being more than capable of both fitting into and functioning effectively in the modern world.
OK, let's go through this one more time: we don't directly elect Prime Ministers in this country. In fact, we don't elect any national government office holders directly. So please, please stop going on about Sunak being an 'unelected' Prime Minister, as if this somehow undermines his legitimacy and disqualifies him from introducing any kind of contentious legislation or commenting on world events in his official capacity. All you are doing is revealing your own ignorance. I mean, really, how can you expect to be taken seriously as any kind of political commentator, analyst or activist if you don't even understand the political system you are supposedly critiquing? You do know, don't you, that we have a parliamentary democracy in the UK? That all any Prime Minister needs is to be able to command a majority - whether by outright having the most seats for their party or via a coalition - in the House of Commons? That's all it requires to give them legitimacy. In fact, constitutionally speaking, a Prime Minister doesn't actually have to be an elected member of the Commons - they could sit in the Lords, (for which there is plenty of precedence), or, technically, they don't even have to sit in parliament at all, just so long as they have sufficient support there to pass legislation and win votes of confidence. It is only convention that dictates that nowadays the Prime Minister is expected to be a sitting MP - there is still no requirement, even by convention, that any of the cabinet he or she appoints has to be an MP. (So it is no good keep banging on about Lord David Cameron being an 'unelected' Foreign Secretary, either).
Look, I'm not defending Sunak and his crowd in any way here, but the fact is that, like it or not, they are the legitimate government of the UK by virtue of he fact that they have a majority in the parliament that we elected. Because that's all that we elect in the UK - a parliament. That's why it is called a parliamentary democracy. The fact that so many people out there who seem to think that are politically savvy don't seem to grasp these basic facts is something that I find deeply depressing. Clearly, they've never studied politics, (or history, which, when taught properly, covers the evolution of the UK's political system). In truth, they've probably never had an opportunity to study politics which, in our education system, isn't taught as a separate subject in its own right until A-level - and many never reach this level. Even if they do, nowadays they are discouraged from studying anything other than maths or sciences - God forbid that people be given an understanding of our political system. They might not vote the 'right' way if they did. Now, I don't want to be one of those bores who drones on about 'how it was all better when I was a lad', but, as already mentioned, when I was at school, even at O-level, (that's GCSE for you young people), we had a history curriculum that taught us the basics of our parliamentary democracy and how it evolved. I'm not sure that students nowadays get even that - it's too 'traditional' an approach to history, apparently - judging by the gaps in the knowledge of first year A-level politics students the last time I taught any. But to bring us back around to my original point, if you are going to go into the pub or, more likely these days, onto social media and start shooting your mouth off about politics, at least have the decency to make sure that you know what you are talking about, otherwise you are just going to come off as an ignorant pillock.
Another one of those films I seem to recall turning up in ITV's late night schedules in the late seventies - when was I still deemed by my parents to be too young to be watching such material, No Blade of Grass (1970) represents an early entry in the dystopian genre that was to dominate science fiction films for much of the seventies. Derived from John Christopher's 1956 novel 'The Death of Grass', the film opens by addressing the ecological concerns - growing pollution and its detrimental effects on nature - that were prevalent in the late sixties and seventies, (and which have become even more urgent in the present day), with its montage of black smoke belching industries, clogged rives and dying wildlife, accompanied by a hectoring narration. Striking though these images might be, (not to mention depressing), they feel as if they are shoving the film's message in the audience's face in the crudest and most obvious way. But a lack of subtlety isn't the most fundamental problem with these opening shots - the real problem is that they are only tenuously linked with the film's main plot device: the emergence of a new virus which attacks and kills all species of grass, destroying the world's crops and creating the threat of a global famine. While the prologue's narration certainly implies a connection between the virus and pollution, no causal link is actually established, leaving the whole environmental themes feeling as if it has been shoe-horned into the film, in a cynical attempt to exploit contemporary concerns about pollution.
The pollution theme, though, quickly takes a back seat, as the film quickly settles down into a more action-orientated format as it chronicles one middle class family's attempts to escape the chaos and anarchy engulfing the UK as central authority collapses in the face of impending famine. Led by Nigel Davenport's eyepatch sporting civil engineer, the Custance family - his wife, teenaged daughter and family friend and would be boyfriend to the daughter - flee London and head for his brother's remote farm in a secluded Lake District valley, stopping along the way to pick up their son and his friend from their private school. As they go along they pick up various followers, most notably gun expert and borderline psychopath Pirrie and his wife. While effects of pollution on the environment still get alluded to as the protagonists encounter polluted rivers and dead livestock and wildlife on their journey North, the film's emphasis is now firmly on the fight for survival. Food riots in London, army road blocks as the government tries to restrict travel, vigilante groups protecting local communities and biker gangs all provide hazards for the travellers to overcome. The father's reaction is to become ever more ruthless himself in his mission to protect his family. Backed up by Pirrie, (but to the horror of Roger, the would be boyfriend), he cold-bloodedly guns down several soldiers at a roadblock, guns down a farmer and his wife in order to steal their food and guns and takes revenge on a group of bikers who have abducted and raped the wife and daughter. While the film attempts to make a moral distinction between the father - who, despite being ex-military professes to hate killing and justifies his actions on the basis of necessity - and Pirrie, who clearly derives pleasure from using his gun, always looking for opportunities to open fire, it also makes clear that, regardless of motivation, the results are always the same.
Its portrayal of the way in which order can quickly breakdown in such a crisis and that swift, decisive action is required of the individual in order to survive such events, is probably the film's greatest strength. Arguably, it presents too bleak a view of humanity, with people all too ready to revert to their most animalistic instincts in order to survive, but it does try and draw a distinction between those who simply seize upon such a situation in order to indulge their basest desires - the motor cycle gangs, the rioters and Pirrie, for instance - and those who try and organise for collective self preservation - the vigilantes protecting the village who take the travellers' cars and guns, the brother and his people on the farm and the father and his group, for example. The film also takes a cynical, but effective, view of governments in their response to an apocalyptic situation - despite having condemned the communist regime in China for having deployed nerve gas against its own people in attempt to reduce its population to a level that food supplies can support, the democraically elected British government subsequently has no qualms about sending the RAF to bomb Leeds in the face of food riots there. In short, it paints a grim picture of how the world might respond to a global crisis, with accepted civilised values quickly going out of the window.
But while Davenport's character, throughout the film, criticises the government for its heavy handed approach, he himself realises that once the catastrophe is upon us, personal survival relies upon throwing away his family's middle class values, along with their comfortable middle class lifestyle. Similar themes had previously been explored in AIP's Panic in Year Zero (1962), in which a family escaping a nuclear attack on LOs Angeles takes to the hills under the leadership of an increasingly ruthless and militant father (played by Ray Milland). There are many similarities between the two films, (both, incidentally, directed by actors: Ray Milland in the case of the earlier film, Cornel Wilde in the case of No Blade of Grass), with a teenaged daughter suffering rape in both and a boyfriend who has to overcome his scruples over the use of violence. No Blade of Grass, though, ups the brutality quotient considerably, with the violence and the rapes graphically portrayed - the various shootings are bloody and unpleasant, the rapes harrowing and deeply disturbing, (particularly that of the daughter, who was portrayed by a fifteen year old Lynn Frederick, which resulted in the scene being heavily edited in many prints). Little is left to the imagination. Criticised at the time of release for being merely exploitative, the graphic nature of these scenes is simply part and parcel of the film's relentless hammering home of its theme that the veneer of civilisation is, in reality, wafer thin and easily stripped away.
Which, of course, is a recurrent theme of Wilde's other films as director, with their repeated motif of the need for strong masculine leadership in the face of crisis. But whereas those other films, like Beach Red (1967), The Naked Prey (1965) and Sword of Lancelot (1963), portray central characters who, while able to set aside their civilised values in order to survive, yet still retain a core of humanity that they can reassert once the crisis has passed, No Blade of Grass feels far bleaker in its outlook. While Davenport's character might eventually succeed in leading his family to safety, there is no guarantee of any return to 'civilised values' for anyone: the world has changed irrevocably, with no prospect of a 'reset'. While the film might be highly effective in its portrayal of a catastrophic social breakdown, unusually so for its era, in fact, it still perpetuates a number of stereotypes. The portrayal of the female characters, for instance, is notable, with them being largely passive, (their 'feminine' values, doubtless, making it impossible for them to be as ruthless and relentless as is required in the post-apocalyptic world), while sexually they are either virginal and innocent (the daughter), or predatory and shameless (like Pirrie's wife). The notion that the daughter, following her rape ordeal, gravitates toward the aggressive Pirrie, believing that he can protect her and rejecting the gentler, intellectual and only reluctantly violent Roger, is also a somewhat sexist, not to mention highly dubious idea. (Indeed, the fact that a girl previously brutalised by a gang of violent and immoral men should find a similar character in any way attractive, might be seen as an attempt to argue that she actually enjoyed her ordeal to the extent that she now seeks a protector similar to her attackers).
Social class also rears its head - not only is the virginal girl nice and middle class, while the promiscuous woman is working class, but all of the class relationships portrayed in the film are similarly conventional. There is an assumption that the middle classes - being more civilised in the first place - will naturally assume leadership roles, with the working classes (who were obviously of low morals even before the collapse of civilisation), meekly following. Well, those that aren't rioting, forming gangs of motor cycle riding rapists and brigands or, in the case of the army, shooting their officers and deserting. Ordinary working class types though, like the group Davenport encounters and takes charge of, will acquiesce to the leadership of any authoritative sounding middle class type they meet along the way. (It is notable that working class man who originally leads this latter group is quickly gunned down by Pirrie when he dares to challenge Davenport's overtures of leadership). The class divide is also clear amongst the main characters: the reluctant killers, the father and Roger, are middle class professionals, while the more psychopathic Pirrie is a working class manual worker and ex-con. (One gets the impression that the girl's parent's initial objections to her relationship with Pirrie have more to do with he fact that he is working class and didn't go to the right schools, than it has the fact that he is a murderous bastard). At the film's conclusion you can't help but suspect that any new order set up on the farm by the father will be strictly along traditional class lines, with those working class types he picked up effectively reduced to serfdom.
Despite its many flaws, No Blade of Grass remains a fascinating film and is well worth watching. For one thing, although a little rough around the edges, it has excellent production values and is superbly shot. Filmed mainly on some very chilly looking Lake district locations, (it was filmed in the Spring of 1970), the frequently bloody action plays out against the ruggedly beautiful landscapes, providing an effective, if not very subtle, contrast between the destructive activities of man and the stately beauty of nature. The film is made more effective by its focus on the more personal and intimate details of the apocalypse, rather than trying to show the wider picture of martial law, mass starvation in the cities and the bombing of civilian populations. As already alluded to, subtlety isn't director Cornel Wilde's strong point, with the film's messages all to clear and hammered home relentlessly by the on screen action. That said, the action itself is extremely well staged, in particular the pitched battle with the motorcycle gang and the climactic shoot out. Ultimately, though, the sheer brutality of these sequences, while undoubtedly realistic, succeeded in alienating many critics and viewers, perhaps accounting for the fact that No Blade of Grass remains far less well known than it should be. Deeply flawed, it is nonetheless a frequently exciting and always thought-provoking film.
As the title implies, this Philippines/Hong Kong movie features the Mafia tangling with their Chinese equivalents in Hong Kong, as various factions fall out over a drugs deal. It has to be said that Cosa Nostra Asia (1974) is, plot-wise, an extremely confusing film. What should be a straightforward scenario - Mafia-Asia gangsters drug deal is constantly frustrated by undercover Interpol agent playing off one side against the other - is needlessly complicated by the inclusion of a sub-plot involving various Mafia factions plotting against each other as they jostle for control of the organisation. I say 'sub-plot' in the singular, but in reality there are multiple sub-plots emerge as the film goes on and more and more factions emerge. To be absolutely fair, the version of the film that I saw was a) dubbed into German with English sub-titles and b) ran only seventy five minutes - after watching it on a streaming channel, I found that an eighty nine minute version, with the original English soundtrack, is currently available on YouTube. This latter version is, possibly, less confusing. But I can't face watching it again so soon.
Like many martial arts action movies of the seventies, Cosa Nostra Asia has a very rough and ready feel - all choppy editing, scenes that feel as if they have been assembled in an arbitrary order and patchy production values. But in terms of its raison d'etre, the action sequences, it doesn't skimp, offering a virtually non-stop parade of furious Kung Fu fights, all of them very well staged and performed with conviction by the participants. Star Chris Mitchum is surprisingly convincing in his fight scenes - in fact he looks far more comfortable generally than he ever did in any of the US made films he appeared in around this time. While not exactly charismatic, Mitchum does provide the film with a focus for the plot and action, playing the Interpol agent stirring things up in the Far East. Also on show are Philippines martial arts star Tony Ferrer, playing one of the Mafia kingpins, who just happens to be an old school friend of Mitchum and is harbouring a secret, and Hong Kong action star Dick Chen, playing 'Dick Chen', a martial arts school owner with dodgy connections co-opted by Mitchum into helping him. Cosa Nostra Asia might not be a great picture, but if you want to watch lots of martial arts action, all set to a jaunty jazz-orientated score and with a totally bonkers climax, you could a lot worse than to watch it. Just don't try and make sense of the plot.
True Weird was a short-lived men's magazine which put out three issues between 1955 and 1956. While most regular men's magazines included a smattering of supernatural, occult or just weird themed stories, True Weird was an attempt to fill an entire magazine with them. Perhaps its publisher drew inspiration from the success of such occult orientated titles as Fate, but decided to add the twist of orientating the stories to the men's magazine market. Unfortunately, the magazine's quick demise would seem to indicate that it simply didn't find a market. Which is a pity as, judging by the cover to the first, November 1955, issue, it had some magnificently lurid sounding 'true' stories of the weird. That cover painting alone would have been worth buying the magazine for. 'Fish With Human Hands Attacked Me!' - one can't help but suspect that the author of this 'true' story had seen the recently released Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) and had decided to make the sexual undertones of the movie more explicit. The other titles quoted on the cover - 'The Man Who Lived 4,000 Years' and 'The Cane That Kept on Dancing' - sound like the sorts of story you might find in fantasy pulps of the day, albeit here presented as 'true'.
While True Weird had clearly not been a success on the newsstands, the publishers, undeterred, swiftly put out a follow-up, True Strange:
This incarnation of the magazine lasted for seven issues, published between 1957 and 1958. It's link with True Weird can be seen in its strap line: 'Incredible - Weird - And Factual', while the earlier magazine had described itself as being 'Strange..Fantastic..True'. The big difference this time around was a focus on celebrity and popular culture - an attempt to cross-pollinate the 'weird' fiction magazine with contemporary scandal mags. True Strange's approach can be seen in the June 1957 issue's cover, featuring Elvis Presley - 'Did the Devil Send Elvis Presley?', a title designed to tap into yet another market, namely the 'moral majority' types decrying the evils of rock and roll. The other titles quoted on the cover represent the regular types of subject matter found in mainstream men's magazines - 'primitive' cultures, Hitler and strange religious cults - but with a weird twist: 'The Shrunken Heads That Talk', 'The Strange Mystic Power of Hitler' and 'Snake Worship in America'. The other issues of True Strange followed a similar pattern, their covers featuring stars such as Anita Ekberg, Sophia Loren and James Dean, all headlining stories about their supposed occult or weird links, (in Dean's case, he was apparently 'speaking from beyond the grave' - one heck of an exclusive interview).
Arguably, True Weird and True Strange were ahead of their time and can perhaps be seen as precursors of the supermarket tabloids of recent times, like the Weekly World News, with their outrageous and obviously made up stories, (many focused on celebrities), presented as fact. The magazines' publishers, Weider Periodicals, tended to specialise in body building and men's fitness magazines, but also put out some other hybrid men's magazines, which combined the regular genre content with more specialised material like male fitness or outdoor sports, as well as Fury, a more straightforward men's pulp. True Weird and True Strange were an interesting, if short-lived, attempt to do something different during the peak years of the men's pulp genre, where publisher's increasingly needed to offer something 'different' to have any chance of standing out in an overcrowded market. Lovers of the weird, however, were already well catered for, either in the form of magazines like Fate, or in fictional form with the various science fiction and fantasy pulps. When it came to male adventure, however, it seems that werewolves, ghosts and fish men just couldn't complete with the sex, violence and sleaze being served up in the regular men's pulps.
I still can't past that claim from our former, unlamented, Home Secretary Suella Braverman that homelessness if a 'lifestyle choice'. I mean, what sort of twisted thought processes might lead to such a conclusion? Does she really think that people wake up one morning and decide that they are going to leave their house and go and live on the streets, instead? Are there really any cases of middle class businessmen swapping their four bedroom detached house, company car, pension scheme and wife and two kids for a park bench? Perhaps she thinks that those of no-fixed-abode are akin to those colourful tramps of yesteryear, (although I suspect that they mainly existed in books and films, rather than real life), who have opted for a life on the road, free from the rigours of everyday life, chopping wood in exchange for a meal, etc. (Mind you, I'd think that she'd have a problem with all those 'cash in hand' jobs they did, failing to pay tax on their earnings. After all, tax evasion is only for the filthy rich and multi-national corporations according to current Tory philosophy). Sadly, of course, today's homeless are mainly the victims of mental health issues, domestic abuse and economic circumstance, or, as many like to call it, government policy. It also isn't something that people willingly enter into as the result of a conscious decision: it is more often than not a long, slow descent, starting with unemployment, low wages or just general poverty, as an individual slides out of permanent housing, to temporary accommodation, through the charity of friends and families via 'sofa-surfing', to the park bench or shop doorway. There's no easy way back, either, as the lack of a permanent address makes it difficult to claim benefits, let alone secure paid employment.
But exactly what is there about modern homelessness that Braverman might think would prove attractive to anyone as a 'lifestyle choice'? The fact that if you have no home or job you don't have to pay taxes, National Insurance and the like, yet are still entitled to be treated on the NHS for the hypothermia you are likely to suffer from in the Winter? The freedom from work, social and familial ties, perhaps? The lack of responsibility for a family or the payment of rent or a mortgage? Maybe, in her mind (and those of too many of her Tory colleagues), the involuntary homeless are one and the same as those types who spend their time squatting in disused buildings, (usually on the dubious pretext that they are only trying to put to use empty spaces in the face of a lack of actual homes). Rather like those loveable vagabonds, the pre-war 'knights of the road', these squatters are predominantly middle class, with parental homes they could go back to, but choose not to, most of them working or claiming benefits, (the squat providing an address) opting instead to move from empty building to empty building, as the owners evict them. Now, that is something closer to a 'lifestyle choice', but it certainly isn't the 'lifestyle' of the homeless people whose tents Suella Braverman wanted confiscated and destroyed by the police. But hey, they're making the streets look untidy, which upsets Tory voters and we can't have that, can we? Despite Braverman's departure from government (for the second time), you can be sure that the government's attitude to homelessness won't soften. Why should they care about the homeless? One of the other consequences of not having a home is that you don't have a vote, either. Which means, with an election looming, they are of no use whatsoever to the Tories.
I found myself watching Irwin Allen's 1960 production of The Lost World yet again this weekend. The experience left me wondering just why I keep watching this film. It regularly turns up on digital channels like Talking Pictures TV and Legend - often catch the beginning or end of it as I channel surf - yet I couldn't resist watching a version I found on an obscure Roku streaming channel. As I sat through the scratchy, pan and scan and probably pirated version they were offering, punctuated every few minutes by the same ad over and over again, I was left pondering what it is that brings us back, time and again, to certain films. Because I'm sure that we all have a number of movies that we frequently re-watch, either intentionally, because we have it on DVD or Blu-Ray, or by happenstance, because it turns up on a TV channel we have access to. My own list of such films is varied, ranging from The Magnificent Seven (1960) to House of Frankenstein (1944), taking in all manner of other stuff from art house films to British sex comedies of the seventies. Some of them I watch for pure nostalgia, (House of Frankenstein, for instance, was the first classic horror movie I remember seeing as a child), while others have an emotional attachment for me, being associated with significant events in my life. Others irrationally move me to particular emotional states for no particular reason.
Nostalgia doubtless plays a part in my obsession with The Lost World - I recall first seeing it as a child, but that alone doesn't seem a good enough reason for my continued viewing of the film. In part it comes down to the fact that I'm a sucker for dinosaur films, especially those involving evolution-defying lost worlds. But The Lost World isn't even a good example of the genre. It isn't even a good adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel. I mean, it doesn't even have proper dinosaurs, just photographically enlarged lizards with rubber fins, horns and frills stuck on them. None of them look remotely like any known species of dinosaur. That said, the actual photographic effects by which they interact with the human actors are excellent. But not only does it have fake dinosaurs, but it skimps on them - a common fault of 'Lost World' adaptations, just look at the two Harry Allan Towers adaptations from the nineties - giving us only four different dino-lizards, none of which are really integral to the plot. Indeed, the whole thing feels like an exotic jungle adventure picture into which some dinosaurs have been rather arbitrarily inserted. It is as if the producers thought that a standard adventure picture was really what audiences wanted to see, rather than dinosaurs. Which, obviously, is the opposite of reality - we go to see a film called The Lost World because we want to see dinosaurs. Proper dinosaurs. Lots of proper dinosaurs. They are the film's sole raison d'etre.
Of course, the reason why the dinosaurs underwhelming and peripheral comes down to budget - those photographically enlarged lizards are cheaper and quicker to create than stop motion dinosaurs, (the only viable alternative for realistic dinosaurs in 1960). Even then, they are still going to eat up a significant chunk of budget, so their appearances are restricted. To recoup some of those costs, those dinosaur sequences inevitably end up being used as stock footage in other productions. In this regard, The Lost World came along at the right time - for years, the dinosaur footage (also photographically enlarged lizards) from One Million BC (1940) had been the go to source for prehistoric monsters for low-budget productions. But they were in black and white and by the sixties, even B-movies were mainly in colour - so the De Luxe colour lizards from the Irwin Allen film replaced them as the favoured dinosaur stock footage. Irwin Allen himself recycled this footage at least three times in episodes of his Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea series, (it helped that David Hedison starred in both The Lost World and the TV series). I'm pretty sure that it was also used in at least one episode of Allen's The Time Tunnel, while parts of the footage turn up in films like When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970), supplementing Jim Danforth's stop-motion dinosaurs. Interestingly, the set-piece dinosaur sequence from The Lost World, the fight between the lizard with a frill and plates on its back and the small crocodile with horns and a fin, is clearly modelled on a similar sequence in One Million BC, using the same camera angles and framing shots in much the same way. (Seen today, both of these sequences appear quite disturbing, with the animals tearing chunks out of each other in what, to them, was clearly a fight to the death. But, sadly, animal cruelty was common in film making back then).
Maybe it is the fact that this dinosaur footage became so familiar to me which makes me keep watching The Lost World. It is somehow reassuring and seeing it again reminds of all those other TV shows and films that it had featured in. Then again, maybe I just like cheesy old B-movies, particularly those, like The Lost World which are dressed up with an A-movie budget, cast (it stars Claude Rains, Jill St John and Michael Rennie) and production values.
December already. I know that I seem to say this every year, but this year Christmas really seems to have crept up on me. I've actually done bugger all in terms of preparations and have undoubtedly missed the last posting date for presents for relatives living overseas. Which doesn't matter as I haven't even bought said presents yet. I blame my lack of awareness of the approach of the festive season on the really lousy Christmas TV commercials we've had so far this year - they all seem far too low key to register on my consciousness. OK, so I know that there have been Christmas decorations up in the local shopping mall for weeks now, which really should have alerted me to the proximity of Yuletide, but they go up earlier every year, so I pay no attention. Not even the appearance of those huts full of traders selling over priced seasonal tat in my town centre registered on me, let alone the appearance of the rival cheese stalls and the German sausage stall. Somehow it all got past me without registering this year. I've been thinking about it a bit more today and I'm close to deciding which film I'm going to watch on Christmas Day.
As I've speculated before, my relative indifference toward Christmas these days might well be down to that fact that I'm no longer doing that lousy job from Hell that blighted my life for years. Back then the Christmas break represented an oasis of relief from the utter, seemingly unrelenting, shit. It held out the promise of a few days of time to myself, when I wasn't at work's beck and call, when I could just relax. Now, without that millstone around my neck, my stress levels have fallen virtually to zero and I feel relaxed all year around. So Christmas no longer represents a vital lifeline for me and thus passes by almost unnoticed. That's my theory, at least. Whatever he reason, I'm going to have to start doing something about it soon. The trouble is that December is also the month when all manner of other things come due and have to be dealt with - the car's MoT, for instance, which I have to get it through next week. (Next time I buy a car, I'm really going to have to make sure that its MoT comes due earlier in the year). If you've read this far, you will have realised that this is another of those days when I can't be bothered to come up with a proper post. I'm afraid that after posting about those spy movies earlier in the week, writing a new story for The Sleaze and putting together a new podcast for The Overnightscape Underground, I've somewhat run out of steam. So, here's to next week and some renewed inspiration.
