Royal Fail

Why has it taken the Royal Mail four working days to move a small package from Bristol to Swindon?  Moreover, why was it sent to Swindon when it is meant to be being delivered to me, here in Crapchester?  I ordered something from a shop in Cheltenham via eBay last Thursday.  They dispatched it to me, via Royal Mail's 48 hour delivery service on Friday, with an estimated delivery date of Monday.  According to the tracking, it arrived at the Bristol Mail Centre on Saturday - and there it stayed until Thursday afternoon, when it was sent to Swindon Mail Centre - an hour or so drive from Bristol down the M4.  There is still no sign of it actually being delivered to me.  Clearly, Royal Mail's idea of 48 hours differs radically from everyone else's.  I've got another item bought via eBay in transit as well - it was posted yesterday, so God knows where it is now or when I'll receive it.  On top of that, they still haven't delivered my new parking permit, which was posted locally early this week.  The old permit expires on Sunday.  I hate to say it, but since they've been privatised, Royal Mail have become an absolute joke.  I don't blame the staff - there don't seem to be enough of them, anyway - but rather what appears to be poor management.  I mean, management doesn't come poorer than taking the better part of a week to move a 48 hour delivery between two depots, neither of which is close to its delivery point.  

But that's the kind of week I've had.  The frustrations with the postal service were just part of the stuff plaguing me this week.  I've also had spats with both the pharmacy and my GP practice.  The former gave me the wrong prescription, a repeat of the one I'd picked up nearly two weeks earlier instead of the most recently requested repeat prescription.  The root cause of this turned out to be because the latter had not approved the repeat prescription because they had decided, for the first time in four years, that they required a blood test before repeating it.  Unfortunately, they haven't actually bothered to tell me this, I gleaned it from the receptionist - the only person in a deserted waiting room in what appeared to be a deserted surgery - but still haven't actually received a formal request for a blood sample from any of the medical staff.  I was told to come back the next day and somebody might do something, or might not.  I haven't been back since.  I ran out of the medication in question - one of which I wasn't supposed to skip unless under medical supervision - last weekend.  Nobody has been in touch to check if I'm OK.  I actually am OK - my blood pressure seems to be standing steady, despite the lack of these two drugs.  I'll go back to the surgery after Easter and see if somebody will explain to me exactly what it they want.  Like the Royal Mail, a service that was, when I first started using it, good, has been rendered utterly inadequate by what amounts to privatisation.  My surgery merged with two others and was then run by the US healthcare company Operose - staff levels fell, service levels plummeting at the same time.  It has since changed hands, but the poor service levels continue - their communication skills, in particular, seem to have gone into terminal decline.  Sadly, this seems to be a fairly average week in the UK these days, a country with a dysfunctional government, rivers full of shit and shambolic, under funded and understaffed public services.

Three Supermen in the Jungle (1970)

The third in the Italian film series that started with Three Fantastic Supermen (1967), Three Supermen in the Jungle (1970) pretty much adheres to the, by then, established format.  While the line up of the titular trio seemed ever changing, it always consisted of a pair of daring thieves, one handsome and cool, the other a manic mute, with suits that give them superpowers, being coerced by a law-enforcement agent - who also wears one of those suits - into carrying out some kind of official mission.  Here, the representative of the law is Brad Harris, the handsome thief is George Martin and the mute one is Sal Borgese, (these two had both been in the previous entry - where Martin had played the cop role - and Borgese was to become a pretty much constant presence in the films).  The suits themselves look like red one-piece underwear with capes and give their wearers protection against all kinds of projectiles, from arrows to bullets, (but not, in this film, bazookas).  They also allow the supermen to leap to great heights or jump down from tall buildings without injury.

This time the trio are sent to Africa to try and gain control of a uranium mine before the Soviets can.  The film's structure is very episodic, (before they can even start the mission, Harris has to break the other two out of a Middle Eastern jail, where they are facing the death penalty), encompassing just about every B-movie cliche about Africa that can be thought of - cannibals, white jungle goddesses, comically foolish natives, they're all there.  All that's missing is black face - thankfully real black actors are employed to portray the natives.  It's all played for broad comedy, with lots of slapstick - mainly provided by Borgese - and comic book fights.  Femi Benoussi, fresh from playing a similar role in Tarzana, the Jungle Girl, is on hand as the jungle queen, although here she keeps her top on.  It's all very inconsequential but, if you are in the right mood, mildly amusing in places.  It was followed up with a visit to the old west, courtesy of a time machine, in the next entry, Three Supermen of the West (1973), a trip to Hong Kong in Supermen Against the Orient (1974), before taking on the mob in Three Supermen Against the Godfather (1979), a Turkish co-production, then a final outing in South America in Three Supermen in Santa Domingo (1986).  Borgese provided the continuing thread in the series - portraying the zany mute one in all of them, (albeit with varying character names).  In addition to the seven main entries in the series, (Three Supermen in Tokyo (1968) being the second), there were also a couple of Turkish knock offs (which didn't feature Borgese).

Tough Guys (1974)

Tough Guys (1974) is another of those films I watched on a whim, going into it with no knowledge of the movie nor any expectations for it, yet ended up being pleasantly surprised. It tsolurned out to be an Italian made blaxploitation film, with its exteriors shot on location in Chicago and boasting a strong cast.  It also has one of those set-ups that sound like a parody - two-fisted ex con priest teams up with disgraced ex-cop to investigate a series of murders apparently connected to a bank robbery - but which actually works pretty well.  It helps that the two-fisted priest is played by Lino Ventura, (an Italian actor who starred in a lot of French films - Tough Guys was co-financed with French money), while the cop is portrayed by none other than Isaac Hayes, making his acting debut.  Their main antagonist throughout the film is Joe 'Snake', played by Fred Williamson, fresh off of the two 'Black Ceasar' films.  In truth, despite Williamson's top billing, his is actually a supporting role and he he enjoys minimal screen time.  

The centre of the film is the odd ball buddy pairing of Ventura and Hayes, which proves surprisingly effective, with the characterisations going against the usual stereotypes - here it's the priest who is the rule-breaker, quick with his fists, while Haye's ex-cop is more methodical and thoughtful in his approach to the case.  It helps that both leads have considerable screen presence: Ventura, who was usually cast as a tough cop or a gangster, cuts an imposing and convincingly physical figure, while Haye's softly spoken former cop, while no less physically imposing, brings real charisma to his down on his luck, but resourceful, character.  The role reversal of priest and cop - the former being headstrong and unconventional, toting a Tommy gun at one point, the latter more of a restraining influence - even extends to the priest having a superior continually calling him up on his conduct.  But instead of the usual irascible Irish police captain admonishing a maverick cop, we have an Irish bishop regularly reminding the rogue minister of his priestly duties and obligations. 

As directed by Spaghetti western veteran Duccio Tessari, Tough Guys flies by in a flurry of fist fights, gun fights and car chases, played out against a backdrop of run-down neighbourhoods, grimy back alleys and deserted industrial facilities.   It's all nicely photographed, has great production values, the action set pieces are well staged and it moves fast enough to gloss over the various absurdities of the plot and confusing story developments and delivers an enjoyable exploitation experience, helped greatly by Hayes' musical score.  In addition to the three leads, the film also features a strong supporting cast, including William Berger as a police captain antagonistic to Hayes' character, while Paula Kelly is the girlfriend of Williamson's former second in command, who was mixed up in the robbery.  Noted Italian comedian Luciano Salce plays the Bishop, (suitably dubbed with an Irish accent).  While Tough Guys might, superficially, be a blaxploitation film, it only plays lip service to that genre's usual conventions.  There is none of the social commentary or racial politics that would frequently be included in US made blaxploitation crime and gangster pictures.  Which is hardly surprising as, as far as the Italians were concerned, Blaxploitation was simply a another popular English language genre they could rip off, like westerns or war films.  So Tough Guys is essentially an action orientated crime movie in which various of the main cast happen to be black.

'I Stole a Nazi Plane!'

Argosy, as noted previously, was once one of the premier all-fiction pulps, dating back to the 1880s, when it had started as The Golden Argosy, a children's fiction paper.  By the sixties, however, under the ownership of Popular Publications, it had become more a men's magazine, mixing fiction with sensational 'true' stories.  But it still liked to present itself as an 'upmarket' men's magazine, including amongst its non-fiction profiles of celebrities and other public figures and - as in this issue - exposes of contemporary scandals (in this case the involvement of serving Denver police officers with a burglary ring).  It also included photo features, ('Wild Women of the West -Then and Now') and had a strong emphasis on outdoor sports (this issue - from April 1962 - has a special fishing supplement, other issues featured articles on hunting and shooting).

Of course, despite wanting be seen as a cut above other men's magazines, Argosy still included its share of war and sex stories alongside the gangsters and tales of daring adventure.  It also featured a 'Book Bonus', a condensed novel, in this issue being 'Music to Die By',  a detective story by Frank Kane, featuring his private eye character Johnny Liddell.  Interestingly, the 'Book Bonus' is printed on coarse paper similar to that used in pulps, whereas the rest of the magazine is printed on more expensive 'slick' paper, (indeed, the publisher's went to great lengths to ensure that Argosy was always publicly referred to as a 'slick' rather than a 'pulp', thereby emphasising its relative respectability.  At this point in its history Argosy was still enjoying excellent circulation figures, selling over a million copies per issue.  These figures continued into the early seventies, but after another change of publisher, it folded in 1978, (there have been subsequent attempts to revive it, but none have been sustained).

The Big Switch (1968)

I remember when, back in the day, I first got interested in horror films, Pete Walker's films tended to be given short shrift in the literature then available.  His horror films were vilified, much in the way that the later so called 'video nasties' would be, as being crude, sensationalist and artistically worthless.  Walker himself was dismissed as some kind of talentless hack.  Of course, his films were virtually impossible to see at the time I was reading about them: these were pre-VHS days when, if you hadn't caught a film on its initial cinema release, then you had to wait for it to get a TV showing.  Not that there was any chance of a Pete Walker film turning up on the BBC or ITV back then.  So, it was impossible to judge the films for yourself.  But times change and most of his films are widely available on DVD, Blu-Ray and streaming services.  Many of them have even turned up on Talking Pictures TV.  Consequently, I found that not only were some of his films actually quite interesting in terms of their approaches and subject matter, but also that Walker was a pretty competent director.  Sure, they aren't exactly polished productions, generally being shot on low budgets, but they are very professionally put together.  They actually look and feel like proper films.  What marks them out from many other contemporary British exploitation films is Walker's eye for the sleazy - at their best, his films capture the faded seediness of seventies Britain's underbelly of dodgy clubs, strip joints and after hours drinking establishments.

This is especially true of Walker's non-horror films, (that was the other great revelation to me when I could finally start watching his output: he also made sex comedies, thrillers and action films).  The Big Switch (1968) was his second film and first feature and aspires to be a gritty thriller.  Set against the backdrop of an incredibly seedy looking Soho and a Wintry out-of-season Brighton, (it even snows during the climax), it concerns a low-rent playboy framed for murder then blackmailed by a sleazy club owner into participating in dodgy scheme.  While, at first, it seems like this scheme is going to involve participating in porn shoots with a similarly coerced girl, it turns out to be an identity theft plot, with an ex-pat criminal and his wife vying to return to the UK by stealing the faces (via plastic surgery) and identities of the protagonist and the girl.  The plot is full of holes and really doesn't stand up to scrutiny, (the revelation that the murder wasn't real and had been staged makes no sense whatsoever, for instance).  The acting from a decidedly lower tier cast is generally pretty terrible, with stilted delivery of stilted dialogue.  Indeed, the film encompasses most of the problems inherent to Walker's early work: he seems to have no actual feel for the characters, presenting all of them unsympathetically, giving the audience little idea of their motivations and inner workings.  This situation would be rectified when he later started working with writers like Alfred Shaughnessy, Murray Smith and David McGillivray, (the latter of whom has written extensively and amusingly about his experiences of working with Walker).  They provided him with scripts featuring better developed characters, better dialogue and quirkier plots.

But while The Big Switch might have many shortcomings, it presents a vivid picture of a not-so swinging sixties - all crappy clip joints, bored prostitutes and downmarket would be gangsters.  You get the distinct feeling that this what it was really like in the UK in 1968 - less swinging and free love, more sleazy opportunism.  The tone is set by the Patrick Allen's deadpan (and uncredited) opening narration: "This, as you may or may not know, is London - headquarters of devaluation, socialism, and the permissive society".  While the causal link between the three is never explained, I like the idea that one of the world's largest cities could be characterised by these three, apparently random, things.  (In point of fact, socialism is, more often than not, surprisingly conservative in nature, making it an unlikely cause of the 'permissive society' - almost as unlikely a cause as the devaluation of the pound).  Walker moves the film along at a reasonable pace, driving it toward a live;y and reasonable effective finale on a closed-for-the-Winter Brighton pier, culminating in a shoot out on the ghost train.  The closest thing to a star name in the film is Virginia Wetherell, who appeared in a number of exploitation films in the late sixties and early seventies, including Tigon's Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968) and Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971) for Hammer.  Otherwise, it's the usual collection of minor British characters that Walker tended to favour in order to fill out his casts.  Of these, Jack Allen puts in a notable performance as the main character's boss, who turns out to be a villain and who goes absolutely bonkers during the film's climax.

So, while The Big Switch might not be Walker's best work, by a long way, it still makes for an enjoyably seedy experience.  If nothing else, it's portrait of an England long gone is worth watching - half empty (by today's standards) A-roads, 'luxury' flats that look decidedly dowdy and filled with cheap furniture and decor and a depressing-looking out-of-season Brighton, (it most certainly isn't gay in any sense of he word).  It's the 'swinging sixties' at their crappiest.

'The Bird Man's Final Gamble'

Another edition of British men's magazine Wide World from my modest collection.  As is usual for this late era in the publication's history, this July 1962 edition sports a striking cover painting, in this case illustrating the story 'The Bird Man's Final Gamble'.  As the title implies, the story chronicles the various attempts of (real life) French aviator's attempts to achieve 'free flight' using various wing designs, - rather like mini hang gliders - after jumping out of aircraft at altitude.  Like a surprising number of stories in Wide World around this time, it has a pretty grim outcome.  Spoiler alert here - after some initial success, the 'bird man' eventually perishes when his final design fails in flight.  Still, it's outcome is pretty much in line with the issue's other aviation based story - a history of Japanese Kamikaze pilots in World War Two.  

Elsewhere in the issue, it's business as usual, with tales of treasure hunts, tiger hunts and man hunts.  Plus, a harrowing tale of survival at sea and a profile of the British army's Gurkhas.  As ever, there's a story that seems designed to demonstrate the superiority of 'civilised' whites over black Africans: the Rhodesia-based  'Child Brides of the Rain God', a tale of human sacrifices and occult rituals.  Even this late in the day, the British imperialist line - that British rule of its colonies was beneficial to the locals - was being adhered to, not just in Wide World, but also in other UK based popular publications.  The Empire might have been on its last legs but, just like modern day politicians, there was a desire to believe that it was leaving behind some kind of benign 'legacy'.

Stirring Up Apathy

You know, I felt like writing something profound today, but I just couldn't think of anything.  Not that I've written anything particularly profound in the past.  At least, I don't think that I have.  Unfortunately, it hasn't been a day conducive to creativity.  I found myself lapsing back into bad habits today, devoid of motivation I spent far too long in bed.  Consequently, I achieved very little, with most of my plans abandoned.  It doesn't help that my exercise regime - a fancy term for my daily walks - has been sidelined as the result of a recurrence of a pulled leg muscle.  Having pulled it a few weeks ago, I managed to persevere with the walks and thought that it had healed, but I had to pull up last week when it seemed to have returned.  Again, I continued walking on it, but yesterday it was so painful that I decided that there was no way I could walk any distance on it today.  I was also discouraged from trying to resolve a long-standing plumbing problem as it would have involved some protracted kneeling on the affected leg.  Hopefully, it will have improved by tomorrow and I can, at least, tackle that plumbing issue.  But I'm still disappointed that my default response to a set back was to retreat back to bed.  Clearly, I haven't rehabilitated myself from bad habits as sufficiently as I'd hoped.  

Then again, apathy seems to be endemic these days - nobody seems to have the energy or the will to do anything.  Doubtless it is down to the fact that we are currently in limbo, with a failing government stumbling toward an inevitable general election, its only objective, seemingly, being to postpone that election foe as long as possible in the vain hope that its poll standings will improve.  All it can do is react to events in the desperate hope it can capture the public mood and claw back some support.  Unfortunately, the only 'mood' it ever seems to notice is that of the extreme right.  The interesting thing is that while we might feel that we've finally hit a nadir, of sorts, with the state of the country, in truth, things haven't really changed that much in the past decade.  I recently finished reading Johnathan Coe's 2014 novel 'Number 11' and was struck by how the Britain he portrays seems quite familiar - a cabal of the super rich control, or rather are, the establishment and run the country entirely for their own benefit, facilitated by the Tory government.  Inequality increases daily, public services are deliberately run-down, people can't afford to heat their homes with many reliant on food banks while the rich get richer, aided by rampant tax avoidance while anything that can't be assigned a monetary value is discarded - we've been putting up with this for at least the last decade.  Why?  Have things like reality TV, a media obsession with 'celebrity' culture and social media really diverted people's attention from reality that much and for so long?  I really don't know, but there's no doubt that the right's grip on media ownership really hasn't helped.  That and, for much of the period, a weak political opposition that regularly played into their hands.  (Sorry Cult of Corbyn, but you and your man helped facilitate the parade of increasingly venal and inadequate Tory Prime Ministers we've had to endure).  Still, surely it can't last much longer, can it?

Mr No Legs (1978)

For many people, I'm sure, finding themselves watching a film called Mr No Legs (1978) on a fairly obscure streaming channel whose output seems to consist entirely of pirated material, (frequently pirated from other pirate outlets audacious enough to 'watermark' their illicit copies of copyrighted material), would be cause to re-evaluate their lives.  What the Hell am I doing?  How did I get to this?  would be the questions they'd most likely ask.  But for me, it's just another regular night in front of the TV.  As I've noted before, this sort of stuff - usually sourced from fuzzy-looking fifth generation video duplicates - holds a fascination for me.  That said, not just any old crappy film will do: over the years I've fund that there are limits to what I find watchable.  Most contemporary direct-to-video  ultra low budget home movies masquerading as exploitation (which seem all too common these days), are, I find just abut unwatchable they tend to be made by people who've seen too many genuine low budget movies and think that making them is easy.  They also seem to think that being 'ironic' in their approach can make up for the fact that they clearly have no originality or talent whatsoever.  On the other hand, I increasingly find contemporary big budget studio product difficult to watch - too much CGI, not enough characterisation, story or even entertainment value.  Between these two extremes lie a huge swathe of 'stuff' that I'll happily watch, ranging from scuzzily shot seventies B-movies, through often slick-looking exploitation flicks to older-style mainstream movies.

Mr No Legs falls into this category - it's a no-budget, Florida-shot, crime movie which seems to have been intended as a vehicle to launch the acting career of wrestler Ron Slinker.  It has to be said that, as an actor, Slinker is a great wrestler, lacking any real screen presence or charisma.  But that doesn't matter as there's a surprisingly decent supporting cast, headed by the great Richard Jaeckel (an actor as prolific as Cameron Mitchell or William Smith, but who, somehow, seemed to retain more mainstream acceptability than either of them), who pretty much carries the film, breezing through it all, pretty much tongue in cheek.  John Agar (who claimed never to have been paid for his role), is on hand as a bent cop, Lloyd Bochner as a drug kingpin, Luke Halpin (former child star of Flipper) is a dope pusher while Ron Howard's dad Rance lurks around as the low-rent henchman of the main henchman.  The film's main gimmick is Bochner's main enforcer, the titular character who, despite having no legs, has a double-barrelled shotgun concealed in each arm of his wheelchair.  Played by legless martial arts expert Ted Vollrath, when not using his guns, 'Mr No Legs' gives several demonstrations of legless taekwondo.  For a scuzzy, Florida-shot, seventies no budget B-movie, Mr No Legs has a lot of pretty well staged action sequences, including an elaborately (but economically) staged car chase that takes up the last twenty minutes or so of the film.  Which, perhaps, shouldn't be surprising, as it was directed by Ricou Browning (who was the original Creature From the Black Lagoon), a veteran director of second units on bigger budget films, who had also directed the 'Flipper' films, (explaining the presence here of Halpin and Rance Howard).  He makes the most of the film's lack of production resources (it looks as if most of the budget went into that car chase), shooting against some decrepit and run down locations to give the film a suitably seedy look.

Coming after a weekend when I took in a couple of recent 'blockbusters', neither of which felt particularly satisfactory, Mr No Legs came as a real relief.  Utterly unpretentious and unsophisticated, it delivered ninety minutes of straightforward entertainment.  You can't really ask for much more than that.

Black Belt Jones (1974)

To round off this week's various musings on the subject of Blaxploitation movies, here's the trailer for Black Belt Jones (1974), part of the Blaxploitation/Kung Fu crossover sub-genre that became popular in the mid-seventies.  Black Belt Jones is mainly of interest because it reunites star Jim Kelly with director Robert Clouse - Kelly having had a supporting role in the Clouse-directed Bruce Lee movie Enter the Dragon (1973).  Clouse's films, regardless of budget, often have a rather rough and ready feel about them, lacking a certain slickness.  Interestingly, Black Belt Jones actually has a far smoother feel about it than usual, despite a fairly modest budget.  Kelly stars as the eponymous Kung Fu ass-kicker for hire, initially called in to protect a local dojo owner against local, Mafia backed, gangsters trying to repossess the building by force.  While he's too late to save the dojo owner, he is able to help out his kick ass daughter who actually owns the business.  He also works with the cops to bring down the local Mafia.  

While it's neither top-notch Blaxploitation nor Kung Fu action movie, Black Belt Jones is still pretty entertaining, with plenty of well-staged action.  There's nothing especially original in it, but it runs through the usual cliches smoothly and enjoyably.  While Kelly, although looking impressive, isn't the strongest of leading men, he's well supported by a cast that includes Scatman Crothers and Gloria Hendry, who gives a strong performance as the daughter.  It was popular enough to spawn a 1976 sequel, Hot Potato, once again starring Kelly as Black Belt Jones, but with Oscar Williams taking over as director.  Both films were distributed by Warner Bros rather than AIP, the studio usually associated with Blaxploitation, Warner having had enjoyed some success with the 'mainstream' Blaxploitation movie Up Town Saturday Night (1974), that had starred Sidney Poitier.

Black Caesar (1973) and Hell Up in Harlem (1973)

Getting back to Blaxploitation films, along with the well budgeted, star studded studio produced Blaxploitation cash in Up Town Saturday Night (1974), I also caught a couple of real entries in the genre last weekend.  One of the interesting things about Blaxploitation films was that, although aimed at black audiences and featuring black casts, behind the cameras there were often white directors and crews.  This was born of necessity, as, particularly in the early seventies, there simply weren't that many black directors, cinematographers, etc, working in Hollywood.  There weren't even that many black stuntmen - Shaft (1971), for instance, although actually boasting a black director in Gordon Parks, was forced to use a number of white stuntmen in black face for a number of action sequences.  But are these white-directed Blaxploitation films any less 'black' than those with black directors?  Could white film-makers genuinely grasp the whole black experience and translate it onto film?  Of course, the reality of most Blaxploitation films is - as the genre's name implies - that they are primarily exploitation films, covering genres such as crime, vengeance, private eye movies, action and even westerns.  The stories they tell tend to be pretty formulaic, given a black 'spin' by their casting and settings.  While there might be some social commentary thrown in and references to racism and race relations in the US, the primary focus was on exploitation staples like sex and violence.  So, not surprisingly, the directors assigned to them were generally genre specialists, like Jack Hill, Robert Clouse or Jack Arnold, who happened to be white.

All of which brings us, by a roundabout route, to Black Caesar (1973) and Hell Up in Harlem (1973), a pair of black gangster films directed by exploitation great Larry Cohen.  The first is a classic example of how to successfully fuse together a traditional genre format - the rise and fall of a crime lord - with social and racial commentary.  Fred Williamson puts in a dominant performance as the titular character as, over a near twenty year period, he rises from being a shoe shine boy running errands for the Italian mob, to the head of a powerful black crime empire taking on both corrupt city officials and the Mafia.  In terms of the story itself, there are no real surprises, but the execution is raw and gritty, with sequences shot on the streets of Harlem, lots of brutal violence and a genuine feeling of anger, driven by the main character's sense of injustice and egotism - a mix that inevitably leads to his downfall.  There are a number of memorable scenes as Williamson turns the tables on the white officials and gangsters who have put him down for so long, culminating in his 'blacking up' of the face of the bent police chief whose shoes he had once shined, forcing the cop to shine his boots.  Williamson is backed up by good performances from the supporting cast, that includes two of the star's of the same year's Bond film, Live and Let Die: Gloria Hendry and Julius Harris.  The latter, in particular, cast against type, gives a memorable performance as Williamson's absentee father, who, although initially seeking to reconnect with him, rejects his son's lifestyle in disgust.

Black Caesar turned out to be a big hit on its initial release, inevitably resulting in AIP wanting a sequel.  The problem was that the film's climax seemed pretty conclusive, with a wounded Williamson retreating back to the rubble of his now demolished old neighbourhood, only to fall prey to the new generation of young black delinquents now hanging out there.  Cohen's solution was a variation on the way in which old cinema serials would often resolve an apparently apocalyptic episode ending by replaying the footage at the beginning of the next episode, but revealing that we hadn't seen everything, revealing new footage (or even re-framing the existing footage) to reveal that our heroes had made their daring escape before their car/plane.boat/house crashed and/or exploded in flames.  So the opening of Hell Up in Harlem gives us a condensed version of the climax of Black Caesar, but inserts a scene of Williamson phoning someone before he staggers back to his old neighbourhood,  It also omits the attack by the gang of youths.  Instead, he is now found by his father, whom he had phoned in the inserted footage, who is able to contact some gang members who are still loyal to Williamson who, in turn, get him to a hospital.  

After this relatively ingenious opening, which doesn't compromise the previous movie's ending too much, the film settles down to be a pretty conventional tale of Willianson clawing back his empire, before falling foul of a subordinate who tries to take over the operation.  While there are plenty of action scenes and a lot of it still looks gritty and raw, it feels far more like a regular Blaxploitation piece than its predecessor - the sense of anger and drive just aren't there.  Moreover, in order for its plot to work, it has to completely change the character of Williamson's father - whereas in Black Caesar he had been disowned by his son (who was quite prepared to kill him for his treatment of his mother) and had rejected Williamson's life style, now he not only helps his son, but fully embraces the gangster life-style, becoming Williamson's right-hand man.  While this results in Julius Harris playing a more typical character, swanning around in fur coats and flamboyant dress, meting out violent retribution, it is still very jarring.  Equally jarring is the way in which Hell Up in Harlem seems to lose track of its own and its predecessor's timeline.  The end of Black Caesar clearly sets the date of Williamson's downfall as being in 1972, yet the second film, despite picking up where it left off, seems to span several years of action, (there's even a caption reading 'Two Years Later' at one point), meaning that its action must span into at least 1974 - the future as far as its release date is concerned!

Nevertheless, Hell Up in Harlem remains a highly entertaining film - it just lacks the depth and sheer rawness of its progenitor.  It stands as a good example of the law of diminishing returns when it comes to sequels - if the elements that made the first film successful can't be varied enough for it to seem original, yet reassuringly familiar, then its impact will be severely lessened.

Little Shoppe of Horrors Issue 13

Another battered copy of the excellent Little Shoppe of Horrors, this time Issue 13.  As is evident from the cover, this edition focuses on the making of Hammer's Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1968), one of their biggest grossing Gothic horrors.  Also included are in depth articles on its follow ups, Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969) and Scars of Dracula (1970).  Along with all the regular features, there's also a tribute to Michael Carreras, producer, director, writer and former owner of Hammer Films, who had died in 1994.  This included contributions from the likes of Christopher Wicking, Anthony Hinds and Val Guest.  The main articles include interviews with star Christopher Lee, producer Aida Young, composer James Bernard, director (of Scars of Dracula) Roy Ward Baker and many of the cast members of the three films.  All pretty impressive for what is, in essence, a fan publication, (albeit a very sophisticated and professionally produced one).

I vaguely recollect buying this particular edition from a bookshop in the States, when I was there on a work trip, (certainly the price tag still evident on the cover seems to imply that this was the case).  As I noted last time that I featured an issue of Little Shoppe of Horrors here, it really is essential reading if you have any serious interest in British horror movies in general and more specifically the output of Hammer Films, (later issues cover the output of other producers like Amicus and Tigon).  Speaking personally, I really should make the effort to obtain some more up to date issues.  (It's available in the UK via various specialist outlets).  

Up Town Saturday Night (1974)

I was back on the Blaxploitation this past weekend, catching up with a few more classics of the genre.  While most Blaxploitation movies were essentially low budget productions distributed by the likes of AIP, the genre's success at the box office meant that the bigger studios would inevitably want to get in on the act.  Likewise, established black stars who would probably not  be seen dead in an AIP production, also wanted in on the action.  Hence we got movies like Up Town Saturday Night (1974), directed by and starring Sidney Poitier, from Warner Brothers.  Boasting a bigger budget than any regular Blaxploitation movie could muster and featuring just about every 'mainstream' black star of the era - including Bill Cosby, Harry Belafonte, Flip Wilson, Richard Pryor and Roscoe Lee Browne - it pitches itself as a free-wheeling comedy.  Unfortunately, it never really seems to spark into life.  The scenario and situations should be amusing and entertaining, but somehow they just fall short every time, leaving the whole affair feeling anti-climactic.  It starts reasonably well, with average working class guys Poitier and Cosby deciding, behind their wives' backs, to visit an exclusive night club cum casino, cum brothel, one Saturday night.  Unfortunately, the night they manage to gain entry under false pretences - they have a fake letter of introduction claiming that they are visiting diamond dealers - is the night that the joint is robbed by an armed gang.  As if losing his wallet isn't bad enough, Poitier subsequently realises that a winning lottery ticket was in said wallet.  The rest of the film concerns his and Cosby's attempts to recover the wallet while keeping their illicit escapade secret from wives and friends.

Unfortunately, after this the film fails to shift up a gear, with its episodic format preventing any real pace or tension to build up.  Of the series of what are, in essence, sketches that follow, only the encounter with Richard Pryor's con man posing as private detective 'Sharp Eyes' Washington, manages to muster any real amusement.  The other episodes, involving variously Roscoe Lee Browne's senator, Harry Belafonte's gangster and Flip Wilson's preacher, are all underwhelming.  The climax, at a church social outing, where Cosby and Poitier have conned Belafonte and his rival Calvin Lockhart (who carried out the robbery) into exchanging the proceeds of the heist, falls horribly flat, with not even a final car chase managing to generate much excitement.  Ultimately, Up Town Saturday Night's problem is that it tries to play it too safe.  While it clearly wants to cash in on the Blaxploitation band wagon, it also wants to be seen as more 'upmarket' and 'sophisticated'.  So, rather than follow any established Blaxploitation formula, whether that be black crime movies, horror movies or action films, it seems to want to model itself on mainstream comedy formats like It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World, (I probably left a couple of 'Mads' out there).  While it does make reference to the Blaxploitation genre in its gangster characters, who are clear caricatures of the same sort of characters portrayed in that genre, overall Up Town Saturday Night seems to want to portrays black people in a more 'positive' light.  The price its pays for this is to sacrifice the social commentary and often ferocious critriques of racism found in true Blaxploitation films, exchanging them for blandness.  Nonetheless, Up Town Saturday Night was successful enough to spawn two 'sequels', also starring Poitier and Cosby, in Let's Do It Again (1976) and A Piece of the Action (1979).

Zombie Lake (1981)

I've mentioned Zombie Lake (1981) before - it is often cited as one of the worst, if not the worst, zombie movies ever made.  Jesus Franco was originally attached as director, but dropped out and was replaced at the last minute by Jean Rollin, who found himself directing a movie with zero budget from a script he hadn't seen before starting shooting.  Not that he did actually direct most of the film - by his own admission, his disinterest in the project was such that he left much of the actual direction to his assistant, Julian de Lasema, (the final film was credited to 'J A Lazer', a joint pseudonym).  All of which begs the question of just why Rollin would agree to direct a film passed on by Jesus Franco on the basis that the budget was too low, in the first place?  Apparently he did it as a favour to the producers, later admitting that if he had seen the script beforehand, he would never have committed to the film.  But is it really that bad?  It has to be said that Zombie Lake is an incredibly shoddy looking film - its paucity of budget evident in every scene.  The very film stock that it is shot on looks bleached out and scratchy, while the sound quality is atrocious.  The musical score is utterly undistinguished and generic sounding, while the acting generally matches the script in being inadequate and underwhelming.  The closest thing to a 'star' in evidence is Jess Franco favourite Howard Vernon - who can usually be relied upon to give a memorable performance in a B-movie, but here looks as if he could barely be bothered to turn up.  

The film's scenario certainly had possibilities - during World War Two a group of German soldiers are ambushed and killed by a village's local resistance fighters, their bodies dumped in a lake, post war they return from their watery grave to wreak revenge - but the script does little to develop them.  It instead gets bogged down a lengthy flashback chronicling how the Germans first arrived there in the middle of an economically staged air raid, (no planes are seen - only a series very small explosions representing bombs), with the token good one saving a local girl, before getting her pregnant.  Next thing we know, they've been sent to fight on the Eastern front courtesy of stock footage from another cheap B-movie, before returning to the village, where the 'good German' finds the girl dying after having given birth to their daughter.  Then he's shot and killed along with the other soldiers.  To be absolutely fair, while this feels like a desperate attempt to pad the film out to feature length, the business about the 'good German' having a daughter in the village does establish what later becomes an important plot point.  Because when he comes back from the dead, he naturally seeks out his little girl who, incredibly bonds with him.  Now, I can't deny that, initially,this sub-plot confused me as I had assumed that the 'present day' parts of the film were taking place in 1981, so couldn't understand why his daughter was still only ten years or so old.  But, apparently, it is only meant to be a decade or so since the massacre of the soldiers.  Unfortunately, the budget is too low to actually establish that fact - all the vehicles look contemporary to the eighties, there are no details in terms of props, costumes or even dialogue to suggest that we're meant to be in the mid fifties.

Rollin and Lasema's response to the film's complete lack pf resources seems to have been to emphasise the sheer ludicrousness of the project, abandoning any notions of logic or realism.  Hordes of naked young women seem to keep turning up to bathe in the lake, culminating in a minibus full of female basket ball players pulling up, stripping off and jumping into the water to be fatally molested by green faced Nazi zombies, (many complete with coal scuttle helmets still strapped to their heads).  The village itself seems inhabited by French rustic stereotypes, who appear unperturbed by the bodies that keep piling up, (they seem to end up dumped, unceremoniously, outside the Mayor's house rather than taken to a mortuary).  Even when a topless woman comes running into the local bar, hysterically screaming about Nazi zombies, they barely seem to react.  The police seem equally uninterested, sending down a pair of detectives, (one portrayed by Rollin himself), who quickly fall victim to the zombies.  At which point the Mayor (Vernon) decides that they are going to have to deal with the problem themselves - 'They've declared war on the village', he observes.  Which is where that little girl comes back into the plot - she's persuaded to use her dead father to lure them all to the old mill, where the villagers incinerate them, (by a stroke of luck, one of them owns a flamethrower, as one might, which he repairs in the nick of time).  The scenes involving the child and her zombie Nazi dad and her agonising over whether to betray him and allow his destruction along with the other zombie, should have been poignant.  Unfortunately, the girl playing her is such an awful actress, (she was the daughter of one of the producers - she's also dubbed into English by an equally bad actress), as is the actor playing the zombie, that these scenes end up having no emotional impact whatsoever.

Yet, in spite of all of this, it is impossible to really dislike Zombie Lake.  In its ramshackle, utterly insane way, it is surprisingly entertaining.  Certainly, it is far more enjoyable than the Nazi zombie film that Jesus Franco did make: Oasis of the Zombies.  The zombies themselves are an absolute hoot, staggering around, green faced, stiff legged, waving their arms in front of them like Bela Lugosi in Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943), gurning maniacally all the while.  Quite how they ever catch any of their victims is a mystery - they seem to rely upon them falling over, or standing and  screaming instead of trying to run away.  The underwater scenes, with various naked women being pulled under by Nazi zombies, should have been atmospheric, had they not been so obviously shot in a swimming pool.  There are times, however, when it teeters on the edge of the surreal, conjuring up some of the dream like quality that characterises much of Rollin's best work.  Other Rollin touches include several lengthy dialogue free sequences and the fact tat the zombies seem vampiric, drinking their victims' blood rather than eating their flesh.  It isn't surprising, though, that Rollin disowned the film.  The following year he turned out his own, distinctive take on the zombie genre with The Living Dead Girl (1982), a far more satisfying film that, interestingly, picks up on the theme of love transcending mere mortality, alluded to in Zombie Lake with the little girl's relationship with her living dead father, but gives it a far better and more affecting treatment.  In the final analysis, if you want to see an effective treatment of the theme of underwater Nazi zombies, then try Shockwaves (1977),  but if you'd prefer an excursion into micro-budgeted lunacy, then Zombie Lake is the film for you.

Fanthorpe's Quarterly Digest of the Paranormal

Another obscurity dug out of my modest collection of old magazines.  Fanthorpe's Quarterly Digest of the Paranormal, as the title implies, was a small circulation, subscription only, publication trading on the name of the Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe, clergyman and former prolific pulp novelist, who had gained wider popularity presenting the Fortean TV television series. (I should add here that I never actually subscribed to the magazine - the first issue was a promotional giveaway as I recall).  The Rev himself is listed as an 'editorial consultant', with the publication actually being edited by Philip Carr.  Quite obviously a semi-professional publication, Fanthorpe's was clearly intended to cash in on the popularity of Fortean Times, covering much the same ground as that celebrated 'crackpot nutrag', (as it was once described by its then stablemate, Viz Comic). 

Fanthorpe's was, if anything, even more crackpot that Fortean Times.  Certainly the contents of this first issue give the impression that they were items that even the latter publication had passed on.  They cover the full spectrum of the most popular paranormal subjects: ghosts, apparitions, life after death, electronic voice phenomena, UFOs and aliens.  The Loch Ness Monster also gets a brief look-in, so cryptozoology can be included, too.  Fanthorpe's ran to at least eight issues (that I'm aware of), with this first issue dated Autumn 2001.  Barely remembered now, even in 2001 Fanthorpe's seemed something of a curiosity, an attempt to break into a narrow niche already dominated (in the UK) by Fortean Times.  With its low production values and reliance upon subscriptions, it was always unlikely to succeed, in spite of the iconic Lionel Fanthorpe's endorsement.

Don't You Believe It...

There are times when the press seem to conspire to convince us that the UK population is made up predominantly of foaming at the mouth right-wing bigots and racists. Just recently, for instance, in the wake of  'Thirty Pee' Lee Anderson's inflammatory comments about the Mayor of London being under the influence of 'Muslim extremists', losing him the Tory whip, we had various 'vox pop' interviews with supposedly average voters in 'Red Wall' seats telling us how he definitely represented their views.  The intent was clear, to make those of us not consumed by blind hate think that we're out of step, that 'average', 'ordinary' people are obsessed with immigration, foreign extremists plotting to take over the UK and ridiculous 'wokery'.  It all dovetails neatly with the Prime Minister's recent attempts to re-define 'extremist' by demonising protesters - while his immediate reference might have been those currently protesting for peace in Gaza, the wider intent was clear: to link the concept of public protests with that of extremism.  If you go out on the streets and protest then you must have extreme views on the subject of the protest and therefore be an extremist.  (Except, of course, if you are foaming at the mouth right wing loons protesting about lockdown, vaccinations, 'fifteen minute cities' or other crackpot conspiracies - they're not extremists, just 'concerned citizens').  The overall message is clear - if you aren't a reactionary and anti-everything decent, then tough, you've already lost, so you might as well give up and don't even bother voting.

But if one looks at the reality of the current political and media landscape, then one discerns a somewhat different story.  Most obviously, the Tories are, according to the polls, facing a catastrophic slump in support.  Indeed, the further right they move and the more they cosy up to the foaming at the mouth right wing nutter brigade, the further their support falls.  Then there's the news today that Talk TV, one of those 'news' channels that pumps out right-wing bile and is seemingly staffed by serving Tory MPs, is, in effect, closing down as a an actual TV station and moving online due to a lack viewers.  While its rival, GB News, might still be going, it is still running at a huge loss (like many of these enterprises, it is bankrolled by ex-pat multi millionaires who don't want to live in the UK or pay tax here, but still want to try and influence public opinion and legislation), and keeps shedding 'talent' at quite a rate, (mainly because they keep coming out with stuff so offensive that even OFCOM can't ignore it).  So, it would seem that we aren't actually a nation of bigots and that support for the right-wing loonies is actually pretty low.  Despite what the largely right-wing controlled media would have us believe.  Of course, my views on how this minority of extremist fruitcakes should be dealt with are well known in these parts: put them up against a wall and shoot them.  Believe me, the spectre of summary execution would soon make them think twice about expressing their vile views.  It also has the advantage of creating British jobs - just think of all the bricks needed for those walls, not to mention the bricklayers needed to erect them, not to mention the boost for the arms industry with all the bullets required, while those firing squads will certainly reduce the ranks of the unemployed.

Death Cheaters (1976)

A slice of early 'Ozsploitation', Brian Trenchard-Smith's Death Cheaters (1976) was a follow up to his popular Australia/Hong Kong martial arts action thriller The Man From Hong Kong (1975).  While it is fast moving and action packed as the earlier film, Death Cheaters is far less successful as a film and was far less successful at the box office.  The film's biggest problem lies in its meandering and episodic plot.  While the basic concept is simple - a pair of stuntmen are recruited by the Australian government to carry out a secret mission in Thailand - it takes an age to get to what audiences doubtless expected to be the main focus of the story.  The mission itself - a raid on an industrial complex to steal some secret papers held by a shady industrial magnate - is crammed into the last fifteen minutes or so.  There are a few sequences prior to this devoted to the protagonists' training at a government camp, but the rest of the film is mainly filled with their various stunt activities as they shoot a series of TV ads for various products - one is a public safety film so involves one of them being hit by a car, the other set on fire etc.  

It's not that these scenes aren't well executed and enjoyable, it is just that they feel like padding and frustrate the viewer expecting a full blown action thriller along the lines of The Man From Hong Kong.  For too much of the film's running time, it doesn't actually feel as if it is actually going anywhere.  It's loose structure is probably down to the fact that it was conceived as a pilot for a TV series that could be released to cinemas as a self contained feature film.  No series, however, was ever picked up, but the various episodes in the film are clearly there to establish the type of action potential buyers could hope to see on a weekly basis, while not nailing the concept down too firmly to a specific format.  As well as the various stunt sequences, there is quite a bit else to enjoy about Death Cheaters.  While the two leads, John Hargreaves and Grant Page (an internationally renowned stuntman), might not be exactly star names, they make for charismatic and likeable heroes, wisecracking their way through a variety of situations.  Veteran Australian character actor Noel Ferrier gives a characteristically enjoyable and quirky performance as the 'man from the ministry', while various other stalwarts of Australian TV and film, such as Vincent Ball, Wallas Eaton and Christ Heywood, pop up in supporting roles.  Trenchard-Smith's direction is, as ever, highly efficient, with the film playing to his strength of being able to co-ordinate and shoot complex and lengthy action sequences with absolute clarity, while not losing any pace.  Despite being played for laughs, Death Cheaters is still packed full of exciting car chases, fights and explosions.  The climactic mission is actually extremely well staged, despite feeling rushed - it really needed to have started earlier in the narrative.  Despite being a relatively minor entry in the 'Ozsploitation' genre (and Trenchard-Smith's canon), Death Cheaters is still well worth watching.

Catch Up TV

Increasingly, I find that there are huge swathes of popular culture that, despite apparently being huge when they were on, completely passed me by at the time.  In particular there seem to be so many TV shows that were 'must watch' years ago, which I've never seen and never felt culturally deprived that I never saw them.  Every so often, I'll stumble across a re-run of one on an obscure digital channel, recognise it as something that was all the rage back in the day, watch it and shrug.  Not because they are rubbish, but rather because, at this point in time, it is hard to fathom just why they were once so big.  It's a reminder that context can be so important: what seemed new, innovative, daring or unconventional ten years ago might well seem utterly commonplace now.  Anyway, to get to the point of this particular set of ramblings, the other day, while flicking through the various Freeview channels - it was during the recent 'interruption' to my broadband service, so I was without streaming schlock via Roku - looking for something to watch, I stumbled across an episode of Modern Family.  I vaguely recalled it as being a sitcom that was very 'must watch' for the Channel 4 demographic some years ago, (actually a lot of years ago when I looked it up).  In truth, my main awareness of it was via several mildly disparaging references to it in episodes of Family Guy.

I have to say the main thing I took away from watching a couple of episodes was that I finally understood all of the references in that  episode of Family Guy where Peter wants the show to win an Emmy award, so has it emulate various Emmy-winning shows, starting with him swapping Lois for a hot, younger, Hispanic woman.  Because that's one of the main strands of  Modern Family.  Finally watching episodes of Modern Dad I could, sort of, see why it was popular at the time, but I couldn't help but feel that it was just an update of Married With Children.  I mean, coming in cold, it looked to me as if Al Bundy had finally become a successful businessman after ditching Peg and shacking up with that hot Hispanic chick, while his daughter Kellie had become slightly less dumb, married and become a controlling mother, while his son Bud had turned gay and married an effeminate James Cordon lookalike.  (In the Family Guy version the gay couple are Stewie in a fake beard and Brian - 'I've got the beard, that means you're the lady one Brian').  OK maybe I'm misreading it - after all, there was no toilet in evidence, a lack of crude innuendos and Ted McGinley wasn't living next door.  But you get the gist of what I'm saying - in truth there is nothing new under the sun.  When it comes to sitcoms, the trappings and tome might vary over time, but the basic format stays pretty much the same.