Reversal of Fortune

Well, it's been a week of two halves, with a decidedly crappy first half gradually giving way to something more positive.  The first part of the week was dominated by an encounter with a new underarm antiperspirant that proved  extremely painful.  Basically, I suffered an allergic reaction which left me feeling that my armpits were on fire.  It took the better of a day for the discomfort to subside, aided by repeated underarm scrubbings in an attempt to get the stuff off of my skin.  Days later, there is still some irritation - in fact, the bloody stuff has left what look like chemical burns on my inner upper arms.  Anti-septic cream helps ease the pain, though.  As does a bit of unexpected news I received yesterday.  Cast your mind back a long way and you might recall me mentioning here about how my previous employer, several months after I had left them, came back demanding money from me because, allegedly, I had been overpaid.  There was no explanation of how I'd supposedly been overpaid, (the very idea that they could overpay any of their employees on their pay rates was laughable), but I eventually found that they were claiming that I hadn't been entitled to several periods of paid leave I'd taken prior to my departure.  I disagreed, pointing out that my then line manager had signed them off, which he wouldn't have done without double checking my leave entitlement.  After much too-ing a fro-ing, threats of being taken to court, formal complaints and so on, they finally conceded that they'd never checked with said line manager and finally agreed to do so before taking any further action.  After which, I heard no more from them.

Fast forward some two and a half years - to Wednesday this week - and, out of the blue, I receive an email from the buggers.  Guess what?  It turns out that I never owed them any money as my elusive line manager, (who they tried to blame for the delay in getting back to me, as they couldn't contact him - in reality he had simply moved to a different department, the real reason for the delay, I suspect, being that the issue had been filed away and forgotten about for a couple of years), had confirmed that I was entitled to all the leave I had taken.  (Something, obviously, that they should have checked in the first place).  In fact, as it turns out, they owe me money.  Apparently, not only was I entitled to that leave I'd taken, but there were several days of my leave allowance still outstanding, as I'd never taken them before leaving and that they should have 'bought' from me when I left.  So, I'm looking forward to my small (but still significant) windfall being paid out in time for Christmas.  While my issues with my former employer have been resolved with a positive (for me) outcome, I'm still left bothered by the idea that there are probably plenty of other former employees out there being badgered for 'overpayments' they might not actually owe.  How many of them, who aren't as sure of their facts and as down right bloody minded as me, have been brow beaten into paying up money they might not owe?  Because the letters they send out are pretty aggressive, stating everything as written-in-stone fact and threatening legal action if you don't pay.  They don't give any proper explanation of their calculations or any mechanism for contesting their claims.  Moreover, as I found, they will try to ignore any correspondence from you, simply sending out more threatening form letters.  You have to stand firm and be persistent: I had to make a complaint and threaten counter legal action against them for harassment before they'd acknowledge my correspondence.

I really think that this whole issue of employers chasing ex-employees for alleged overpayments of salary needs to be looked into by someone at a higher level.  As my personal experience has demonstrated, much of it seems to be them chancing their arm and seeing if they can harass you into paying based purely on their word that you owe them money.  It's clear that their calculations are based upon the most cursory of 'checks' and that when they are forced into a proper investigation, the situation ends up being reversed.  Maybe I should be writing to my new Labour MP, (the notoriously pro-Tory local paper is still smarting from this constituency electing anything other than a Tory in its history, running all manner of rather pathetic anti-Labour stories), in the hope that, unlike his useless Tory predecessor he might raise the issue with the relevant authorities. 

It Wouldn't Get Made Nowadays...

You often hear people say of an older film or TV series, 'It wouldn't get made nowadays, as if there is some sinister organisation or official edict out there actively preventing films and TV shows that aren't 'woke' (or 'politically correct' or whatever the current right-wing buzz words are for dismissing such things as sensitivity and/or plain good taste) enough being made.  Which is to completely ignore the fact, (as those pushing the concept of the 'woke agenda' which is supposedly restricting our freedoms always do),  that such things as tastes, social mores, opinions and concepts of morality, change over time.  This, in turn, shapes popular culture, which constantly shape shifts over time.  What was considered acceptable by society at large ten, even five, years ago might not be now - and in another five years it will probably have changed again.  In truth, of course, as most films and TV series are commercial enterprises, money is the main determinant of what does and doesn't get made at any particular point in time: there's no point in investing financially in a project unlikely to find favour with a current audience.  It's the same way when TV shows are cancelled or cast members dropped for 'woke' reasons - research has shown that they have, in some way, offended a key demographic that sponsors and/or networks can't risk alienating.  Ultimately, it all comes down to the almighty dollar, rather than so called 'wokery'.

Conversely, there are some old movies and TV shows that I watch now, that I can't believe were actually made then.  A case in point was 1982's Dolly Parton- Burt Reynolds vehicle The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.  The use of the term 'Whorehouse' in the title of a major studio picture, alone, is remarkable in the early eighties, when there were still restrictions on language and an increasingly moralistic atmosphere in the US.  (Indeed, in some US states the film was promoted with 'Cat House' replacing 'Whorehouse' in the title in an attempt to avoid offending moral majorities and religious lobbies in those markets).  But the subject matter - a comedy set in a brothel with its madame as the main female character, which shows prostitution as a beneficial public service - is also quite startling for a major release of the era.  Clearly, the studios (RKO and Universal) were encouraged to produce it as it was based on a hugely successful Broadway musical of the same title, so thought that there was an audience out there for it.  The presences of Reynolds and Parton comes down to the fact that both were desperate for a hit film, with the former's career as a top line star beginning to falter and the latter wanting follow up the success of her film debut, Nine to Five.

Watching the film, which I did for the first time in its entirety last weekend, it quickly became clear that the studios hoped to ameliorate the potential offensiveness of the title and subject matter by making the film itself as bland and harmless as possible.  'There's nothing dirty going on', Dolly sings early on and she's right - we don't even get any nudity until two thirds through and even then its just some mild topless shots.  Which is the film's main problem - it sits somewhere between a 'Carry On' film and a British sex comedy, but with considerably less vulgarity or 'sauciness' than either, instead giving us a mild satire of media hypocrisy with regard to sex.  When you sit down to watch a film with 'Whorehouse' in the title, you expect lashings of both, (not to mention plenty of nudity).  Which is possibly why, although reasonably successful at the box office, Best Little Whorehouse in Texas wasn't a mega success - it just failed to deliver on the title's promise that it was going to offend the 'moral majority' lobby, (arguably the true 'woke warriors' of the era, in that they really were out to spoil everyone's fun).  The most shocking thing about the film is the presence of Jim Nabors in a film that even hints at sex and depravity.  This is one film where I think that we can safely say that 'they couldn't make that now', as nowadays audiences would demand (and get), far more raunch and offensive humour in a movie with that title.

Dark Echoes (1977)

A true obscurity, Dark Echoes (1977) is a Yugoslav horror movie, shot in Austria, in English, with an American director and international cast.  The result, perhaps not surprisingly, is an uneven mess that never settles on a tone, let alone a theme, with the script mixing in elements of ghost story, zombie film and witchcraft.  As far as its quality and production values are concerned, these were difficult to judge fairly as the version I saw was taken from a VHS with Japanese sub-titles, (for many years, this Japanese VHS was the only available version of the film).  Consequently, the picture looks fuzzy and the sound quality is variable - I'm willing to accept that these were artifacts of the video transfer rather than a reflection of the film as shot.  At times it feels like a travelogue sponsored by the Austrian tourist board as we get nice views of lakes, waterfalls, castles and other scenic landmarks.  All of which are there to pad out the film to feature length in the face of a very thin plot.  This concerns a pleasure boat captain, drowned when his vessel sank, who has returned from his watery grave to take revenge on those he holds responsible for his death.  The question which is never properly addressed is whether he is a ghost or a zombie, as he takes the very solid form of his rotting, waterlogged, corpse.  Unlike most zombies though, he isn't shambling and brainless, his spirit apparently still being very much in control of his dead body.  

An American investigator turns up to help out his old friend, the local police chief, find out whether the murders plaguing the area really are the work of a ghost/zombie.  Also involved is the local witch - a weird old biddy who presides over some fairly dull rites performed by her coven which seem yo be in the film solely to provide some gratuitous nudity.  When the witch isn't doing this, she's making all sorts of doom-laden pronouncements and predictions.  There's some underwater ghost/zombie action before a lame climax which involves a poorly staged decapitation, (the film's only real gore sequence), a mob of young villagers running to help the middle-aged heroes defeat the ghost/zombie, (a turn of events reminiscent of late fifties/early sixties AIP teen drive in horror movie) and the creature being defeated by mirrors, (he can't stand his own reflection).  The comparison to an AIP drive-in movie is apt, as the whole things seems modelled on such productions, with its combination of middlle-aged authority figures and plucky young people who turn out to be OK in the end, pulling together to defeat a hokey monster.  And the monster is hokey - it wouldn't be too bad if he had been played by a better actor, who could at least move like he was a soaking wet mouldering corpse, instead of wandering around casually, looking like a regular dude in corpse make-up.  The tone varies wildly, from ill-advised humour (usually involving the police chief's beer-drinking being interrupted by the latest ghostly goings on), to horror with various murders and people being chased by the ghost/zombie, (again, the resemblance to an AIP drive-in picture is clear).

The film is notable as being the sole directorial credit of noted stunt performer George Robotham.  Unfortunately, his direction here is flat and uninvolving, feeling more like a TV production than a feature film.  He isn't helped by a script which is far too talky, although the dialogue is clunky and poorly written, which doesn't give the actors much of a chance either.  Indeed, leading man Joel Fabiani gives the impression that he can barely keep a straight face.  Euro-exploitation favourite Karin Dor is surprisingly bland as the leading lady, seemingly unable to make anything of her character, while Alex Davion continues his descent down the cast list, (not so long before Dark Echoes, he'd had featured roles in things like Valley of the Dolls).  Not released, even in Yugoslavia, until the early eighties, Dark Echoes is, perhaps, deservedly obscure.  That said, there is something perversely enjoyable about it.  Sure, it's bad, but not offensively bad.  Despite all of its defects, it somehow holds the attention.  I certainly don't regret watching it, (although I'm not in a hurry to watch it again).

Adventures in AI

 Everyone's talking about AI these days, with half the web, it seems, taking advantage of various developers making their AI models and applications publicly accessible, to create all manner of imagery, video and text.  So, I thought that I'd join in and start conducting some AI experiments of my own, but in audio.  Actually, I was spurred into action after reading an online article about Google's NotebookLM application, which is currently free to use, while it is in development.  This is actually intended as a tool for analysing and summarising sources input to it and outputting its conclusions in several formats, such as bullet point reports, digests, etc.  You can input all manner of sources, including text documents, video files and audio files, in multiple if you choose.  As well as its written reports, it can also create an audio analysis of the sources.  But not in a straight narrative form, instead presenting it as a conversation between two AI characters, who sound disarmingly real, as does their conversation.  If I didn't know that this audio 'Deep Dive' was AI created, I'd swear that these were genuine human beings chatting.  

Naturally, I decided to test its capabilities by feeding it a story from The Sleaze, specifically 'Spanking the Monkey', which had been inspired by a BBC article about a monkey torture ring that I'd read.  The results were quite fascinating.  There is something almost surreal in hearing a satirical story, made up of invented facts and featuring completely made up characters, being discussed and dissected as if it were a real news story.  The AI seemed to have grasped the main thrust of the story, but its analysis approached it from some fairly obtuse angles, presumably because these better suited its presentation in the format of a discussion.  There were, however, some points it appeared to have become confused over, getting the name of one character wrong and subsequently skipping over the entire point of that character's sub-plot.  But at least it didn't appear to have fabricated anything in order to plug gaps created by a failure to grasp some aspects of the story, (a common complaint levelled at many of the current AI models).

My next experiment involved me inputting a post from this blog - 'Modern Movies are still Rubbish (Well, Some of Them)' - to see what the AI made of something written from a personal perspective, expressing personal opinions on a fairly esoteric subject.  Again, the results were fascinating.  The 'Deep Dive' indicated that the more personal, opinion-based nature of the piece had been recognised and it was approached as such.  It also exhibited a background knowledge of B-movies beyond the article, knowing what they were.  But it stumbled over the chronology of the films discussed and at one point, actually made something up, when it stated that David L Hewitt had paid off the lab bill for his film The Lucifer Complex!  Quite where this came from, I don't know.  I've been over the source post several times and remain mystified - the post makes clear that he lost control of the movie and somebody else bought the film from the lab and released it, (with additional footage that tried to bridge the gaps resulting from missing footage that Hewitt hadn't filmed).  The audio ends with one of the AI characters even inviting replies via social media!  

I've also been experimenting with AI voices.  Text-to-Speech (TTS) apps have been around for a long time, but the last time I used it, the voices were all somewhat metallic-sounding electronic voices, but nowadays they use far more realistic AI created voices.  Moreover, there are now TTS apps which offer a range of celebrity voices.  Now, these are usually paid services, but I found one that gives the opportunity to test voices by creating twelve second clips of text read by them.  Now, the results aren't downloadable, but, you can, of course, use Audacity (if you have it installed - other audio editing apps are available), to record any audio played on your laptop.  So, I created a series of twelve second clips, using a facsimile of Donald Trump's voice, which were actually lines from a script I'd written, recorded them, then edited them together on Audacity, to create a series of fake 'sound bites' of Trump.  While it is still obvious that these aren't real, the voice comes close to being convincing.  Getting the rhythm of Trump's speech was the biggest challenge, achieved via the punctuation of the script and some judicious editing.  Also, as with most TTS created speech, it benefited from slowing down the tempo slightly.  I also added some reverb and background crowd noises to give the impression that these are audio clips taken from a Trump (or 'Trumper', as, for legal reasons, his AI counterpart is referred to in the clips) rally.

So, what was the point of all this activity?  Well, it is my plan to produce a complete podcast using AI, probably centered around some of those NotebookLM 'Deep Dives', with an AI TTS created narrator providing a framework.  In the meantime, the B-movie 'Deep Dive' (complete with the condiment business) forms part of an upcoming podcast,which also features the 'Trump' clips, to be published soon on the Onsug.

The Crimson Circle (1960)

An early entry in Rialto's series of Krimi films derived from the works of Edgar Wallace, perhaps the main point of interest for UK viewers of The Crimson Circle (1960) lies in its portrayal of London.  Outsider's views of the UK are always fascinating, particularly when they try to recreate part of it overseas.  In the case of The Crimson Circle, Copenhagen stands in for London, which isn't quite as crazy as it sounds - with lots of establishing shots of the real London skyline and landmarks, not to mention then contemporary British built cars on the roads and road signs and adverts in English, it actually isn't that difficult to suspend disbelief and accept that the streets and buildings we see are the real thing.  After all, once you get past the instantly recognisable landmarks, the back streets and lesser thoroughfares of Northern European cities can look surprisingly similar.  The giveaway, though, is that the cars, while UK models, mainly have their steering wheels on the wrong side for British roads.  While it is true that films like this weren't really made for British audiences and would mainly be seen by people who had probably never been to London, having seen it only on TV or in films, so wouldn't notice the small details, driving on the left is one of the most characteristic (and well known) features of the UK.

Plot-wise, the film is pretty typical Edgar Wallace fare, with a shadowy criminal, (who conveniently has a distinguishing mark on his body from which he can be immediately identified), variously blackmailing and murdering prominent citizens, often using third parties to carry out his crimes.  Conveniently, he always announces his murders in advance, via a crimson circle either sent to the potential victim, or painted on trees, walls etc on their property.  Despite this, Scotland Yard, as always, is baffled, so an outside investigator is called in. Sub-plots and red herrings proliferate, with various characters turning out not to be who we thought they were, comic relief policemen bumbling around and numerous coincidences before a 'surprise' culprit is unmasked.  As always with Edgar Wallace Krimis from this period, the dramas play out in moody monochrome, with director Jurgen Roland doing a pretty good job of summoning up a suitably Gothic feel for the proceedings.  Kicking off with an intriguing opening in which a condemned man avoids execution in France when the guillotine malfunctions, the early part of the film then unfolds interestingly, setting up characters and plot, with plenty of incidents piling up in order to keep things moving, but as it reaches its middle, the film starts getting bogged down in sub-plots, slows down and loses direction - something from which it never quite recovers, despite a spirited climax and nicely framed closing shot.  While not exactly exciting, The Crimson Circle doesn't feel as plodding as some other Wallace adaptations, providing an enjoyable enough ninety minutes or so  of criminal intrigue.

Blackmail by Idiots

When you've been arsing about online as long as I have, you encounter a lot of phishing spam, scans and hacking attempts.  They go in and out of fashion - as they become well known, they become less effective and tend to fade away - been contacted by any Nigerian princes lately?  Every so often, I find myself surprised when one of the old ones suddenly reappears, apparently rediscovered by some sad little guy in a bedsit who doesn't seem to realise that those of us on the receiving end have seen it and ignored it a thousand times before.  Following the great Yahoo hack some years ago, when most of their e-mail users had their accounts and passwords exposed to hackers, who sold the details on to the bedsit boys, my Yahoo Mail account was plagued first by phishing e-mails, none of which succeeded, then a spate of those fake blackmail letters, where some saddo claims to have hacked your computer via the e-mail hack and have copies of all your porn photos, which they'll release to your contacts if you don't pay them.  All of which were also ignored.  Realising that the e-mail password ploy had played out, they changed tack to claim that they had taken control of your camera and had filmed you whacking off to online porn videos and if you didn't pay them then - well, you get the picture.  All utter bollocks, of course, but they kept on coming.  Then stopped.  For several years.  Then, recently, I've had two in quick succession.  This is the most recent one, sent to my old Yahoo Mail account:

"You're running out of time, and fast.

It's important you pay attention to this message right now. Take a minute to relax, breathe, and really dig into it. 'Cause we're about to discuss a deal between you and me, and I ain't playing games. You don't know me however I know you very well and right now, you are thinking how, right?

Well, you've been treading on thin ice with your browsing habits, scrolling through those videos and clicking on links, stumbling upon some not-so-safe sites. I placed a Malware on a porn website and you visited it to watch(know what I mean?). When you were busy watching videos, your system initiated operating as a RDP (Remote Protocol) which provided me total control over your device. I can peep at everything on your screen, flick on your camera and mic, and you wouldn't even notice. Oh, and I've got access to all your emails, contacts, and social media accounts too.

Been keeping tabs on your pathetic life for a while now. It is simply your misfortune that I came across your bad deeds. I invested in more days than I probably should have investigating into your data. Extracted quite a bit of juicy info from your system. and I've seen it all. Yeah, Yeah, I've got footage of you doing filthy things in your house (nice setup, by the way). I then developed videos and screenshots where on one side of the screen, there's the videos you were playing, and on the other half, it is you jerking off. With just a click, I can send this garbage to every single of your contacts.

Your confusion is clear, but don't expect sympathy. Frankly, I am willing to wipe the slate clean, and allow you to move on with your daily life and forget you ever existed. I will offer you two alternatives.

Option One is to turn a blind eye to this e mail. Let us see what is going to happen if you opt this option. I will send your video to all of your contacts. The video was straight fire, and I can't even fathom the embarrasement you'll endure when your colleagues, friends, and fam check it out. But hey, that's life, ain't it? Don't be playing the victim here.

Option 2 is to pay me, and be confidential about it. We will name it my "privacy tip". Now Lets discuss what happens if you pick this option. Your dirty secret remains your secret. I will wipe everything clean once you send payment. You have to make the payment through Bitcoins only. I want you to know I'm aiming for a win-win here. My promises are non-negotiable.

Transfer Amount: USD 1500

My BTC Address (without spaces): 1L3Nd5u G7ZVxXkd3S vivjZk4cr VPAKNqQA

Once you pay up, you'll sleep like a baby. I keep my word.

Important: You now have one day to make the payment and I will only accept Bitcoins (I've a unique pixel in this message, and now I know that you have read this e mail). My system will catch that Bitcoin payment and wipe out all the dirt I got on you. Don't even think about replying to this or negotiating, it's pointless. The email and wallet are custom-made for you, untraceable. If I notice that you've shared or discussed this mail with someone else, the video will instantly start getting sent to your contacts. And don't even think about turning off your phone or resetting it to factory settings. It's pointless. I don't make mistakes.

Honestly, those online tips about covering your camera aren't as useless as they seem. I am waiting for my payment.."

First up, learn to spell properly or employ a spell checker, buddy. It's a bad look to be demanding money for menaces if you come over as illiterate. Secondly, don't come over so smug - it just ensures that, in the extremely remote possibility that we ever meet physically, I'll knock your teeth out. Thirdly, even if I was inclined to pay you, it's no good trying to get me to do it via bitcoin - I'm too old to understand or have any truck with your online play money. Plus, why do you go on about my phone? Nobody watches porn on a phone - the screen resolution isn't good enough, makes the nipples all blocky. Your fake chuminess doesn't help, either, because it is patently obvious that you don't know me well. If you did and really had been spying on me for some time then you'd know that your security 'tip' about covering up the camera is redundant: I did that years ago, probably before you could eat solid food. So I'd love to see that video you supposedly have, (funny how you don't offer any screen caps as proof of its existence). Go ahead and send it to all my Yahoo contacts - some of those addresses might still be active. Several I know are dead. Quite literally dead, as a door nail, in fact. Oh, about your threat about not sharing your pathetic blackmail attempt with anyone, I think it clear what I think of that.

Which is the response that anybody receiving this sort of thing should give to the sad little boys who send them. Expose them, ridicule them, make their pathetic emails public, show them that you know their threats are bullshit. But sadly, many people still fall for this bollocks, which is why I feel it necessary to go through this rigamarole again, (I did something similar here some years ago), in the hope that anybody reading this who has received something similar won't fall for it. I also hope the little boy who sent this particular effort sees this post, (unlikely, I know, but there's a chance they're vain enough to search the web for responses to their handiwork), and realises that this sort of shit is just too old to fool anyone. It's been done to death. For God's sake, try coming up with something more original!

Curse of the Alpha Stone (1972)

It's a constant refrain of mine here that those people who profess to be aficionados of so-called 'bad movies' are unadventurous in their viewing choices.  Sure, they like to revel in how many times they've watched the movies of Ed Wood and just how hilariously bad they are, but they rarely seem to venture beyond these.  How many of them have endured the exquisite agonies of watching an Andy Milligan film?  Or sat through any of Ted V Mikels bizarre micro-budgeted features?  Very few, I suspect, mainly because while these are 'bad movies' by any critical standards, they are usually low on the laughter scale, (particularly Milligan's films), instead delivering their entertainment value in other ways.  Ultimately, it is their outlandishness, their bizareness, which mark them out as the products of a truly unique world view, which makes them perversely enjoyable.  Well, to cut to the point, this past weekend I stumbled across a movie which deserves to stand right up there as a classic of bad movie making.  Not only does it present a warped world view, it is also, unintentionally, very funny.  While The Curse of the Alpha Stone  might have an early eighties release date, it was actually shot somewhen in the seventies, (either 1972 or 1979, sources differ, but personally, on the basis of the film's look, I'd go with the earlier date), something apparent from the costumes, the grainy film quality and overall style.  To say that it had no budget would be an understatement, as no-name actors (for most of whom the film is their only credit) wander around various anonymous offices and apartments, delivering dialogue rendered even more unspeakable by poor sound quality, (the locations clearly weren't chosen for their acoustics and post-synching the soundtrack was clearly beyond the budget's reach).

But the most fascinating thing about The Curse of the Alpha Stone lies in the collision of genres it represents, resulting in a truly 'What the Fuck?' experience for the viewer as it takes one bizarre turn after another, building to a truly mind-boggling finale.  It kicks off as a mad scientist-type film, with a young University professor conducting experiments in his home lab - there are lots of shots of him taken through racks of test tubes, just to reinforce the stereotype.  Apparently he's seeking to tap the energies of the titular 'Alpha Stone', which he thinks is some kind of philosopher's stone.  He also gets naked and has slow motion sex with his wife (who lives in a different apartment), before she goes home and he returns to his experiments, in which he has found that exposure to the stone's energy can increase the size of his test animals' genitalia and increase their sex drive.  Next thing you know, he's conducting human experiments - first of all, he injects a gay drug addict he meets in a bar with a serum mage from a ground up sliver of the stone.  The result is that the dude turns rampantly heterosexual and runs around attempting to shag anything woman shaped - even a mannequin.  He quickly graduates to chasing and raping random women.  All of which dismays his now rejected boyfriend.  Next up, the professor heats up the stone, causing it to give off vapour which gets into the apartment block's ventilation system, resulting in various women coming to his apartment, tearing their clothes off and having sex with him.  Oh, his cleaning lady is also affected, pleasuring herself with her vacuum cleaner before getting her kit off and bonking the prof.  

Unfortunately for the prof, he also shags the Dean's wife when she comes under the influence of the stone, which displeases her friend, who tells all to the Dean, before she goes to remonstrate with the prof herself.  Inevitably, all he clothes fall off and he rapes her so vigourously that she dies.  The homo-turned-hetero guy is still out there raping every woman he bumps into, resulting in him also deciding to confront the prof.  But before he gets there, he bumps into the prof's wife, (who had previously been watering her plot plants naked in a purely gratuitous scene), who he drags into the apartment's laundry room and rapes amongst the washing machines and dryers.  He then turns up in the prof's apartment, finding the prof still staring in horror at the woman that he's just shagged to death, closely followed by the prof's wife, still reeling from her rape ordeal.  With things now resembling the last scene of particularly dark British bedroom farce, the gay/straight guy gets his hands on the stone, his eyes glow as he is possessed by 'Alpha', who destroys the prof via some bad special effects, before declaring that he can take any form.  At which point we cut to a shot of the now sexed-up Dean's wife walking down the street, implying she's now possessed by Alpha, or maybe it was just a random shot they had left-over and tacked on to the end of the film for want of a proper ending.

As described, the whole thing sounds as if it is some kind of zany black sex comedy - except that it is all conducted in absolute earnestness.  It seems to want to be taken a serious science fiction horror film with some fashionable sexy asides.  Which is the frustrating thing about the film: like so many low budget exploitation films, it has the germ of a promising idea, which could have been developed in a number of ways.  You could easily imagine a version which plays out like a British sex comedy, 'Confessions of a Mad Scientist', perhaps, (imagine Robin Askwith in a white coat and wearing glasses with thick black frames, saying 'Bloody Hell,Missus!' as an ape he's just turned into a beautiful woman tears his clothes off and drags him off for sex behind the cyclotron).  Equally fruitful could have been one of those US campus comedies, with bevies of cheerleaders coming under the influence of the stone, while the crusty old Dean's wife suddenly turns into a vamp.  The best serious approach might have been a Cronenberg-style body horror, with those enlarged genitalia violently bursting out of guy's trousers as they become aroused, their giant members literally splitting women in half as they are rapped by the monstrous instruments.  (Or, if it was a Troma film, the prosthetic monster penises might have mouths and faces and start hurling out sexist abuse before they go about their 'work').  Unfortunately, Curse of the Alpha Stone never settles on any particular cinematic approach, instead seeming to want to incorporate elements of soft core porn, horror and science fiction into the film, resulting in an untidy mess than can never settle on a suitable tone or style.  On the positive side, though, the movie as it stands -inept in virtually every department - is gloriously bad to the extent that it is also wonderfully entertaining.

Sex and Rockets

The question currently perplexing me is whether that set of giant mechanical arms used to catch that Space X rocket booster stage were a scaled up version of a mechanical hand that Elon Musk had developed to allow him to remotely grope women's breasts?  Because it always seems to me that the techno jerk Musk is a man deeply uncomfortable with having to deal with actual, real-life people, despite his obvious obsession with sex and procreation - something that involves human intimacy.  Sure, I know what you are going to say - that he already has multiple children by multiple women - but I suspect that turkey basters (or perhaps something more sophisticated developed in the X labs) played a part in their conception.   His discomfort with real people is there for everyone to see - why else do you think that he bought Twitter?  It's a way of interacting with people without actually having to do so in the flesh.  It's all done remotely.  Of course, having bought the app and started interacting with the masses, Musky found that real people aren't what he expected: most of them refused to recognise his self-proclaimed genius and lots of them disagreed with him.  So he drove them off the app, ensuring that he now only had to interact with the like minded and sycophantic.  But still remotely and without intimacy.  So I don't think it a stretch to speculate that in Musk-land, the preferred option for inseminating women would be to do it remotely. 

His obsession with artificial procreation is also out there for everyone to see.  Those rockets he keeps building, for instance.  What do they look like?  Huge steel penises, obviously.  What does he intend doing with them?  Fire them into space and penetrate the atmosphere of Mars, with the stated intent of 'colonising' it - an obvious euphemism for inseminating it.  That's his goal, to achieve a union with the soil of Mars and create a whole new race in his image.  Procreation on a huge scale without any need for human intimacy.  OK, I can see that you still doubt me, but trust me, the first rocket he actually sends to Mars is going to be carrying a payload of his own jism.  He's been jerking off into test tubes for years in order to gather the required 'critical mass' of jizz needed to achieve his aim.  But shagging Mars is a long-term project and in the shorter term I'm sure his aim to produce a sexbot, or seXbot, a mechanical humanoid into which he can load his own semen and send it off to impregnate woman with its advanced X-Penis.  Thanks to those brain implants he's developing, he'll be able to establish a wi-fi link with the seXbot and vicariously experience its sexual activities.  In order to recoup costs, the seXbot will doubtless be available to the public, manufactured by the thousand in the Tesla factory.  Sex/rape without intimacy thanks to advanced technology - Musk's lifelong dream.

Dead and Undeclared

Apparently, the recently deceased Alex Salmond's body has been brought back to the UK on a private jet paid for by a private individual.  Well, I hope that he's declared this hospitality through the correct channels.  Being dead is no excuse for not doing so, as it is clearly an outrage that politicians should be accepting gifts and gratuities from donors who obviously would be expecting their generosity to be reciprocated in some way and not offer a full and frank explanation to the electorate.  I fully expect the plane carrying his body to be met by a mob of reporters from the Daily Mail, Daily Express, The Sun and the Daily Telegraph, demanding answers, when it lands in Scotland.  I'll be hugely disappointed if I don't hear that they knocked his coffin to the ground as it was being taken out of the aircraft, spilling his body onto the runway as they thrust microphones in his face and demand answers about who is paying for this free trip on a luxury private jet.  because, like I say, being dead is simply not a good enough excuse for his continued refusal to answer these questions.  Where will it all end, other wise?  Will we see his coffin propped up against a wall during a Taylor Swift concert, having been gifted tickets?  Will we find that he's being buried in a designer suit donated by a wealthy Alba Party donor?  We need answers.

If the right-wing press don't pursue Salmond, dead or not, on this issue as vigourously as they have Keir Starmer over his alleged acceptance of undeclared gifts from donors, then I'll be looking to make a complaint to the press regulators.  You know, the regulators set up and run by the press themselves, rather than any of those outrageously biased independent regulators that we don't have in the UK because, well, the press wouldn't like it.  I don't care that Salmond is a corpse - and have the press investigated whether his death is merely a tax avoidance scheme? - he needs to be held to account and censured by the Scottish parliament if it is found that he's been accepting undeclared gratuities.  I don't want to hear that it's impossible because he's already been buried.  Dig the bastard up.  It's doubtless what the right-wing press want to do to Jim Callaghan, Harold Wilson and probably Clement Attlee, in order to question them on what gifts they received while in office.  (Obviously, Churchill, Eden McMillan, Douglas-Hume, Ted Heath and the sainted Maggie Thatcher are all above suspicion).  Politicians, specifically those who aren't members of the Tory Party, ho are beyond reproach, need to learn that there's no hiding place, not even the grave, for the grasping, corrupt bastards.

Naked You Die (1968)

A pre-Argento giallo from Antonio Maghreti (directing under his 'Anthony Dawson' alias), Naked You Die (1968) prefigures many of the tropes that would come to characterise the genre as it became more 'formalised' in the seventies.  Before Dario Argento started making his giallos, where the motivation for a series of stylised and bizarre murders is usually rooted in some deeply buried and terrible past crime, the most influential director of the emerging genre was probably Mario Bava, with The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) and Blood and Black Lace (1964).  Magrheti's film certainly has something of the feel of these films, but also comes over as a sort of Italian version of one of the contemporary Edgar Wallace inspired Krimi films from West Germany.  Whereas these tended to be in monochrome, with their action unfolding against a dank, grimy and darkly lit, somewhat Gothic, version of London - usually recreated in the studios and streets of West Germany - Naked You Die takes place in the sunny and colourful South of France and its colour photography displays the sort of bright and lush colour palette typical of Italian movies of the era.  While its mysterious killer preying on young women and its plot hinging on inheritances and the like seem very Edgar Wallace, the enclosed setting of an out-of-term girls' boarding school, with its limited cast of suspects, seems suggestive of the influence of Agatha Christie.

While the film's trailer is clearly trying to persuade us that Naked You Die is some kind of salacious sex thriller full of semi-naked teenage temptresses, in reality there is no nudity or explicit sex.  There are plenty of scenes of twenty five year old teenage 'schoolgirls' in their underwear, or seen from behind, from the waist up, in the shower, but that's as far as it goes.  None of the murders are sexually motivated  - it is all about money, as it turns out -indeed, one murder and another attempted murder are actually cases of mistaken identity (the killer apparently can't tell the difference between the various teenage students at the school).  Despite the relatively standard plot and criminal motivations, Magrheti's execution includes various giallo-style touches: the murders committed from the killer's perspective, who is represented by a pair of black leather glove clad hands, for instance, a body seen by a major character which then vanishes, calling into question her mental state and the murderer hiding in plain sight are all present.  The film also features the usual giallo quota of misdirection, with suspiciously acting characters all paraded before the audience as suspects, including a Peeping Tom caretaker who sees too much, (voyeurism was to become a significant recurring theme in the genre).  

While Magrheti never had the same level of visual flair as Bava or Argento, his direction was never less than professional and in Naked You Die he delivers a well shot, good looking and quite pacy film, neatly contrasting the sunny, almost idyllic, setting of the exclusive school with the bizarre and terrible events that take place against its background.  He gets the film off to an intriguing and memorable start, with an unseen assailant choking to death a woman in her bath, loading her body into a trunk, the travels of which, strapped to the roof rack of a taxi, in the guards van of a train, in a minibus meeting the train, then to the school, which sets the tone of the film - not mention establishing the scenario and some main characters via a conversation on the bus - stylishly and efficiently.  The various misdirections and plot twists are well handled, never becoming too confusing or difficult to follow.  He also gets some decent performances out of a cast that includes Mark Damon as a teacher knocking off one of his students (another common genre theme) and Michael Rennie as the investigating police inspector and Luciano Pigozzi (billed under his usual English language alias of 'Allan Collins') as the pervy caretaker.  While not exactly a classic of the genre, Naked You Die is an enjoyable late sixties giallo made with an agreeable degree of verve and style.

The Stone Killer (1973)

Back in the day, before he became involved in Cannon Films' identikit vigilante cop movies and seemingly endless Death Wish sequels, Charles Bronson was a huge star of action movies.  Re-watching The Stone Killer (1973), it was easy to see why: you knew exactly what you were getting with Bronson and he delivered every time.  Sure, he was an actor with limited range and always played the 'Charles Bronson role' - a strong, silent, character who prefers decisive action to talk or prevarication, betraying little of his inner self in his outer behaviour - but he was very good at playing that role.  Despite his limitations as an actor, he delivered what lines he was given surprisingly effectively in his distinctive voice, usually displaying a dry wit, which always made his characters curiously likeable, despite their proclivity for violence and disregard for such things as morality or subtlety.  Most of all, he had undoubted screen presence - when he's on screen, you can't take your eyes off of him.  The Stone Killer is a pretty good example of Bronson at his peak, before he became a parody of himself in those eighties Cannon productions.

Clearly inspired by the success of the Dirty Harry movies, The Stone Killer casts Bronson as one of those rogue cops so beloved by seventies film makers.  (It was pretty much obligatory around this time for every action movie star to appear in one such movie - even John Wayne got in on the act playing a superannuated rogue cop beating up hippies in McQ (1974)).  As with others of this ilk, Bronson's character isn't bent and doesn't actually take the law into his own hands, but he does push it to the limits and certainly has little regard for the rights of the perps he deals with.  To demonstrate that he's actually quite liberal, he is teamed with am openly racist and rule-breaking cop, rather startlingly played by Ralph Waite - Pa Walton himself, an actor usually associated with far gentler and avuncular roles.  The plot of The Stone Killer feels, in places, impenetrable, as hit men themselves get hit, Mafia Dons mumble on about stuff that happened forty years ago and the action ricochets between New York and LA.  But there are an abundance of extremely well-staged action set pieces, culminating in a chaotic shoot out in a multi-storey car park, to keep the viewer occupied and stop them asking too many questions about the plot.  

The film is directed by Michael Winner, who might be a deeply unfashionable director nowadays, but he fact is that, back in the seventies, he delivered a number of exceptionally well crafted action movies of this type.  The Stone Killer is a very professionally made piece of cinema - it doesn't skimp on the action, it is well shot, making excellent use of its locations, maintains a good pace and features a strong supporting cast, including the afire-mentioned Waite, Norman Fell, Paul Koslo, John Ritter, Stuart Margolin and Martin Balsam.  On top of that, it has Charles Bronson at its centre,his monument-like features and performance stoically holding it all together.  Interestingly, its source was a UK-set novel by John Gardener in which the hero's first name was Derek, rather than Lou, as it was in the film.  (On a personal side note, in 2007 Gardener dropped dead of a heart attack outside of my local branch of W H Smith - something that went pretty much unremarked upon locally at the time).  Bronson and Winner might both be out of fashion these days, but quite a bit of their work from the seventies is well worth revisiting.

The Golden Age of UFO Sightings?

So, right now, I'm watching this film on a streaming channel - it has something to do with UFOs and looks as if it was made, with no money, in the eighties (I came in partway through, so have no idea what it is).  Like all such films, its lack of budget means that it resolves into a series of scenes of people sitting around talking to each other.  The closest thing to action we ever get is somebody wandering around the woods at night.  The lack of budget also means that its alien presence has to remain vague and peripheral, which at least lends it an air of mystery.  Which set me to thinking about how much better stories about UFO sightings were in my childhood.  Now, I know that is partly because I was a child at the time, so anything like that seemed weird and unsettling, but it was also because the sightings back then were just more, well, mysterious.  It seemed that the tabloids were full of tales of motorists glimpsing strange-looking craft in their rear view mirrors, or something shiny or brightly lit in woods as they passed by on the road.  All of the sightings back then (and there seemed to be a lot, especially in the 'silly season' at the end of summer), were vague and inconclusive without much in the way of concrete evidence, giving your imagination far more room to run riot filling in the details.  Even the supposed photos taken of alien spaceships and their occupants were always satisfyingly mysterious - always out of focus and blurry, taken on grainy film stock from, seemingly, great distances.  In truth, they could have been of anything, (and probably were of hubcaps suspended on wires and the like).

These days, however, the supposed sightings always seem to be far too detailed.  Every man and his dog seems to have a tale of being abducted by aliens, then subjected to an examination that sounds suspiciously like some kind of masochistic sexual fantasy.  Too many 'contactees' nowadays seem to be on first name terms with the aliens.  Back in the day, the best you'd get in terms of aliens would be a glimpse of someone in a silver spacesuit - sometimes while they were peering through peoples' windows (another sexual fantasy, possibly).  As for physical 'evidence', well, it now turns up in abundance, whether in the form of  alleged ancient 'alien' skulls or papier mache alien corpses.  It makes me yearn for the days when the only physical 'evidence' of alien visitations would be some dubious looking circular burn marks in a field.  I grew up with what, at the time, was regarded as the 'UFO capital' of the UK - Warminster - up the road from me - but while the reported phenomena there were numerous, they never seemed to manifest themselves as anything other than mysterious lights in the sky, (the fact that Warminster is in the middle of Salisbury Plain, a major Army training area and is home to the School of Infantry obviously has no bearing on the origin of these lights).  But in those days, the UFO spotters who regularly descended on Warminster were all enthusiastic amateurs, mildly eccentric characters who would otherwise probably have been bird or plane spotters.  These days, by contrast, UFO spotting has become an industry, full of professional 'UFOlogists' who carry out 'research' into the phenomena and feature in the media.  That's the problem - now that there's money (not to mention fame) to be had in UFOs, the need for actual 'evidence' has increased in order to keep interest going.  Encounters also have to be more sensational - all the better for grabbing the attention of the media.  Consequently, all the mystery is gone.  More importantly, the fun of UFOs has gone.

(The film itself turned out to be UFO: Target Earth, from 1974, making it even older than I thought).

National Disgrace

It was with huge relief that I learned last week that the BBC's prime time interview with Boris 'The Fat Bastard' Johnson had been cancelled as that Laura Kuenssberg had 'accidentally' e-mailed him her briefing notes.  It is beyond my comprehension that the BBC would ever think that anyone would want see a man who had to resign in disgrace as Prime Minister and who was found to have lied to parliament interviewed in prime time - we'd all had enough of him long before he left office.  More than that, as a licence fee payer I object to having my licence money spent on helping that fat slob to publicise his self serving and, let's face it, completely made up memoirs.  Really, if he was happy lying to parliament then he's going to have no qualms about publishing a pack of lies, now is he?  But the past few weeks have seen the British media bending over backwards to allow this egotistical mound of blubber air time in which to try and justify his shambolic conduct in government.  Why?  We're all well aware of the facts, that his Brexit deal has been a disaster, that he and his government completely mishandled the pandemic, to the extent that people died unnecessarily and that he spent much of his time in office lining his own pockets via contributions to the costs of everything from holidays to redecorating his flat, from wealthy party donors.  The man's a national disgrace, not say embarrassment and should be consigned to the dustbin of history.

But these attempts to rehabilitate Boris Johnson - who, if it not for the existence of Liz Truss, would hold the title of Britain's worst ever prime minister - are par for the course for the UK's right-wing dominated press, so I really shouldn't be surprised.  They've spent every day since the election relentlessly trying to trash the new Labour government, launching personal attacks on its senior figures, so it seems only logical that, as a follow-up, they'd try to resurrect one of their fallen heroes.  ('If only Boris was still PM, everything would be alright').  On one level I can almost admire their ingenuity in finding a negative spin to put on every Labour policy - today, of course, it's all been about how bad for UK businesses the government's modest proposals to reinforce some workers' rights will be, (do they really think that's a line which is going to fly with most working readers/viewers who probably voted Labour because their basic rights had been so eroded by the Tories?).  As for their hand-wringing over the fact that the OAPs winter fuel allowance will no longer be universal is quite something coming from the people who happily supported the last government's failure to act to curb soaring fuel bills.  (It also ignores the fact that the value of the fuel allowance hasn't increased since it was introduced, while average pensions have risen significantly.  Plus, those 'poor' pensioners they are featuring on their front pages wailing about how they'll have to choose between food and heat would, if really that poor, still be eligible to apply for the fuel allowance as a means tested benefit.  But why print facts when you've got misinformation instead?).

While I expect this sort of nonsense from the right-wing press, it is disturbing to see the BBC get so nakedly caught up in it all.  It's not just that Johnson interview that never was, let's not forget their political correspondent Chris Mason making Sue Grey's salary public - his subsequent floundering around trying to justify it as being, somehow, in the public interest because she was earning more than the PM, was painful to watch.  As was his failure to mention that Simon Case, head of the civil service and appointed by Johnson, also earns more than the PM, as does Mason himself.  It just came over as an obvious slice of partisan reporting, deliberately aimed at derailing the new government before it had even got properly started - hardly in the spirit of the politically neutral reporting the BBC, as a public broadcaster, is meant to pursue.  Perhaps the BBC's apparent downer on the new government and its eagerness to 'hold it to account', is a reaction to the justifiable criticism that it spent fourteen years giving the Tories pretty much a free pass in that regard.  Clearly, they aren't as scared of  the possibility of a Labour government retaliating via the threat of budget cuts than they were of the Tories.  Or maybe it is because the Tories spent fourteen years packing out the BBC's senior ranks with its own supporters?  Time for a purge, perhaps?

House of Mystery (1961)

Director Vernon Sewell's fourth (and final) stab at filming the play 'L'Angoisse' by Celia de Vilyars and Pierre Mills, House of Mystery (1961) definitely falls into the programmer category.  Indeed, running at under an hour, it was originally shown in the US as part of the Kraft Mystery Theatre TV series and more recently was marketed in the UK as part of the Edgar Wallace Mysteries DVD box set, (despite not being part of that series nor being based on a Wallace story).  It has to be said that Sewell showed considerable ingenuity in his reworkings of the story.  While the first two versions, The Medium (1934) and Latin Quarter (1945) were relatively straightforward adaptations of the play, retaining its background of artists and the central twist of a body concealed within a sculpture, both Ghost Ship (1952) and House of Mystery change the settings and characters quite radically, while retaining the same basic plot.  House of Mystery, as its title implies, confines the action to a single house, with the sculptor antagonist of the original play replaced by an electrical scientist, (who, naturally, has his own lab in the shed), who decides to turn the tables after his wife and her lover try to electrocute him in his bath, via a staged 'accident'.  His revenge is to trap them in the house's living room, which he has wired up so that they don't know what is 'live' and what isn't, putting them at constant risk of electrocution.  He gives them an hour to find a way to escape, after which he'll kill  them anyway.

A simple enough plot, but it takes the film, (which only runs fifty six minutes), a seeming age to get to it.  The problem is that Sewell has chosen, this time around, to wrap it in not one, but two sets of flashbacks.  The film opens with an unnamed young couple viewing a house in the country, which is being offered very cheaply.  There, they are startled by a mysterious woman, who proceeds to explain to them why the house is priced so low and why it has been empty for several years - it's reputedly haunted.  Which takes us to the first set of flashbacks in which another couple inherit the house from a distant relative, an electrical scientist whose wife had mysteriously disappeared some years ago.  Weird phenomena start to plague them, with the wife seeing a man standing by the windows in the living room, then on the TV screen, while lights switch themselves on and off and all manner of other apparent electrical faults manifest themselves.  After ruling out any faults with the house's wiring, the couple reluctantly call in a psychic investigator who, in turn, calls in a medium.  The medium then has a series of visions - which take us into our second set of flashbacks, through which the original story, at last, unfolds.  Unfortunately, not only does the narrative structure slow things down, but it also serves to confuse - it isn't always easy to keep track of who we are currently watching or when the action is taking place. Despite the three timelines apparently taking place years apart, there is no indication of this in the film itself, with the house's decor and the characters' costumes always appearing to come from 1961.

To be fair, despite an obviously tiny budget, the film is decently enough made, although somewhat slow - thanks to that tortuous narrative structure - and drab.  In these respects, it is very much of a piece with other British programmers from the era, such as the Edgar Wallace series (with which it shared its producers):  small scale, understated and very much made with limited means.  The cast contains some soon to be familiar faces, including Nanette Newman and Ronald Hines, with Colin Gordon, who gives the film's best performance as the ghost hunter, the closest thing to a 'star' name.  Sewell does attempt a final twist in the last reel, which most viewers will have seen coming a mile off - the mysterious woman telling the story is herself the ghost of the murdered wife, whose body was walled up in the house and never found.  She is the ghost haunting the property, rather than her murderous husband.

The Mummy's Revenge (1975)

At one time or another Paul Naschy seemed to have played just about all of the classic horror monsters in his movies, so it is no surprise that he'd eventually turn his hand to portraying a reanimated Egyptian mummy.  The Mummy's Revenge (1975) came out at a time when mummy movies were deeply unfashionable - Hammer's last effort, Blood From the Mummy's Tomb (1971), didn't even feature a traditional perambulating mummy - with the sub-genre feeling played out.  In truth, mummy movies had never been as popular as those about vampires and werewolves, their obvious problems being both the monster's lack of personality and the lack of variations in storylines.  Most mummy movies, from both Universal and Hammer, had the title monster cast, essentially, as a slave, acting as an instrument of revenge against desecrators of its, or its master or mistresses, tombs, controlled by a present day High Priest of some Ancient Egyptian sect.  Along the way, it usually encounters some contemporary woman who turns out to be the reincarnation of his lost love, resulting in the mummy's loyalties being torn between her and the High Priest.  There were variations along the line, of course, but they were all minor.  Which is precisely the problem that The Mummy's Revenge runs up against: no matter how much Naschy, (in his capacity as writer, under his real name of Jacinto Molina), tries to work new twists and variations into the story, it just can't help but keeping veering toward the traditional mummy movie format.

His main innovation is to make this film's mummy, once revived, far more proactive than his predecessors.  He is very much in control of the narrative, with the contemporary High Priest, his descendant and therefore also played by Naschy, merely his facilitator, reviving him and hiding him while he carries out his plans.  Moreover, this time around, it is the priest who starts getting cold feet and having divided loyalties, rather than the mummy.  (Naschy's mummy is alaso, as far as I know, the first to actually speak since Karloff's version, back in 1932).  But the plot is still revenge-driven - this time it is personal as the mummy is that of an assassinated Pharaoh known for his cruelty and sadism, now looking to find a suitable vessel for the soul of his also murdered concubine, so that they can pick up their activities again, four thousand or so years on.  Of course, that 'vessel' turns out to be the daughter of the owner of the London museum that the Pharaoh's sarcophagus had been transported to after its rediscovery, who just happens to be the physical reincarnation of the mummy's lost love. The film is also far gorier than previous mummy movies, with Naschy in mummy mode crushing a lot of heads and lots of virgins being sacrificed.  

Overall, the film feels like a compendium of of highlights from previous mummy films: we have the late nineteenth century English setting of Hammer's The Mummy (1959), the mummy wandering around the London sewers and its tussling with British bobbies, are also borrowing from a Hammer film, this time Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964).  The Ancient Egypt opening is an obligatory part of every mummy movie, while the casting of Naschy as both mummy and modern day High Priest seems to be a nod toward the 1932 original.  The museum owner's daughter being the reincarnation of the mummy's lost love might well be an homage to Blood From the Mummy's Tomb, where the archeologist protagonist's daughter is the reincarnation of an Ancient Egyptian queen, whose mummy and sarcophagus are in his private museum in his cellar.  Ultimately, there's little that we haven't seen before.  Except that it all looks as if it was shot on an even lower budget than the latter day Universal mummy movies, ground out as programmers.  Everything about it looks and feels cheap - the Ancient Egypt scenes, in particular, feel threadbare, with everything seemingly happening inside a tent.  Even Hammer's largely studio-bound version of Ancient Egypt in The Mummy feels both more extravagant and more authentic, with director Terrance Fisher using the restrictions of Bray Studios stages to create an oppressive and claustrophobic feel that sets the tone for the whole film.  Even the use of some authentic London locations, though, doesn't help The Mummy's Revenge, with it all feeling as if it was shot somewhere just outside Madrid.

The whole thing is very flatly directed by Carlos Aured, in his fourth and last directorial collaboration with Naschy, had done far better work on both Horror Rises From the Tomb (1973) - which also features Naschy in a dual role as both an executed medieval sadist and his present day descendant - and Curse of the Devil (1973) - with Naschy again in a similar dual role.  The only sequence in The Mummy's Revenge which shows any real directorial flair is that showing Naschy's sarcophagus being entombed in darkness, gathering dust then suddenly illuminated again as a pick axe breaks through the wall of the tomb centuries later - all in a single, seemingly continuous, take.  The Mummy's Revenge is one of those films that I badly wanted to like - I've enjoyed many of Naschy's monster movies - but it just never seemed to spark into life - the plot is too plodding, the pace too slow and it looks too bland.  Even most of the acting performances feel bland, (even taking bad English dubbing into account) - Euro exploitation favourite Jack Taylor tries valiantly to make something of the hero, but never convinces as an Egyptologist who just seems ineffective.  Naschy is as fascinating as ever in his dual role, but curiously, his attempts to actually give the mummy a character, rather than just portray him as a shambling, dusty, hulk, make the character less interesting.  Stomping around, his face covered in what looks like clay, as he plots his lover's reincarnation and sacrifices virgins, he comes over like any other sadistic horror movie villain, lacking the aura of ancient menace that the traditional shuffling, bandage-clad mummy creates.  Indeed, in the hands of a decent actor, the mute and crumbling mummy can even evoke a degree of pathos - as in Christopher Lee's performance in the title role of Hammer's The Mummy, a film which, sadly The Mummy's Revenge never comes close to emulating.

(Although the release date of The Mummy's Revenge is usually given as 1975, this is apparently its Spanish re-release date, with its first screenings in Spain having been in 1973.  An English language version apparently showed on US TV in 1974.  There was also, apparently, an English language  'international' version with added nudity, but this seems never to have been released anywhere and appears to have vanished completely, with all current English versions using the original Spanish print).

Under the Weather

As I recall, the US daytime soap General Hospital once had a storyline in which the local mega-villain held the world to ransom by using his weather control machine to freeze the city it was set in with blizzards and sub-zero temperatures, threatening to do the same to the rest of the planet.  (There was also, in the early seventies, also a UK soap called General Hospital which aired in a daytime slot, but nothing that exciting ever happened in it).  It seems that in the US right now, there are people in positions of influence who seem to believe that storyline was real.  Well, Republican Congresswoman, pro-Trump fanatic and generally raving lunatic Marjorie Taylor Greene, (you know, the one who thought UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron should 'go fuck himself' and told journalist Emily Maitlis to 'just fuck off', when he challenged Greene on one of her other pet conspiracy theories about 'Jewish space lasers'), seems to think that.  Perhaps she saw those episodes as a child and thought that she was watching a documentary.  Whatever the reason, she seems to think that the recent hurricane in the US was man made, saying that 'they' control the weather.  Who this mysterious 'they' are, she didn't specify, but I think that we might hazard a guess based on her aforementioned belief in the existence of 'Jewish space lasers', which, she claimed, were being used to start wild fires in the US.  

US daytime soaps can have some pretty bizarre storylines, (General Hospital itself has also featured aliens, dead characters being reanimated and all manner of murders, spies and ghosts), some, like Dark Shadows, even end up going full on supernatural with vampires and werewolves, so I suppose that we should think ourselves lucky that Greene so far only believes in the weather control thing.  I do find it genuinely disturbing when people who are patently insane get elected as representatives at the highest level.  (The US has a particularly bad record here - not only did they elect Trump as president once but, having subsequently rejected him, now seem as if they might elect him again, despite his lunacy becoming even more obvious).  Not only does it speak poorly of the selection process that allows them to become candidates in the first place, but it also calls into question the intelligence of the electorate who voted for them, (thereby giving credence to calls from some quarters to restrict voting rights to an 'elite').  Not that we in UK have much to crow about here: the likes of Boris Johnson, (not so much a lunatic as an utterly venal and corrupt moral degenerate) and Liz Truss (definitely crazy), spring to mind.  But to get back to the original point, if 'they' really can control the weather, then I wish they'd send some better weather my way - I'm still traumatised by the abrupt ending to Summer this year.  

King Kong Escapes (1967)

I feel like I've watched a fair few King Kong movies of late, ranging from the original sequel, Son of Kong (1933) to the much more recent Godzilla vs Kong (2021) and Godzilla x Kong (2024).  Most recently, I watched King Kong Escapes (1967), one of a pair of Kong movies made under license in Japan by Toho studios.  Interestingly, it seems to have no continuity with Toho's previous Kong film, King Kong vs Godzilla (1962), giving Kong a different island home and origin story.  Indeed, this second stab at a Japanese Kong was apparently inspired by a US cartoon series, The King Kong Show (1966-69), produced by Rankin/Bass, who also have a co-production credit on the movie.  Despite this animated origin, the film also seems to take some inspiration from Irwin Allen's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) film and subsequent 1964-68 TV series: its hero is in command of a futuristic UN super-submarine that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Seaview in Voyage, the crew of which wear uniforms which look very similar to those from the US TV show.  Like the Seaview, the submarine in King Kong Escapes is on a mission of research and exploration and its commander, Commender Carl Nelson, like Admiral Nelson in Voyage, is not just a military man, but also a scientist and engineer, well versed in many subjects.  In fact, it seems that he's long been obsessed by the legendary giant ape, King Kong, being a leading authority on the subject and has even designed, but never built, a mechanical King Kong - as you do when obsessed with such things, obviously.  Little does he know, however, that his plans for robot ape have been stolen by the evil Dr Who, who used them to construct Mechani-Kong, which he intends to use to mine a rare element - 'Element X' from the arctic on behalf of an unnamed Asiatic nation that wants to use it to construct nuclear weapons.

When Mechani-Kong malfunctions, Dr Who reasons, naturally, that the ideal replacement would be the real King Kong.  By an amazing stoke of luck, Commander Nelson has just stumbled across Kong's island where, the giant ape saves one of the sub's crew - Lt Susan Watson - from a dinosaur, falling in love with her and attacking the sub when it tries to leave with her aboard, (also fighting a sea serpent along the way).  Eventually Watson appeals to Kong's reason and he returns to his island, with Nelson deciding that he should be left in peace there. But with the discovery of Kong's island becoming public, Dr Who is soon there to kidnap Kong and take him (suspended beneath a fleet of helicopters - a sequence echoed in Godzilla vs Kong) to his arctic base.  When hypnotising the ape to work for him doesn't go according to plan, Who kidnaps Susan Watson, Nelson and another officer in order to get control of the ape.  Naturally, things don't go to plan, Kong breaks out and runs amuck, Mechani-Kong is reactivated and everybody ends up in Tokyo, where the two monsters trade punches, wrecking half the city in the process.  Like most Toho monster movies of the period, King Kong Escapes is clearly orientated toward western audiences, most specifically English-speaking audiences, featuring American actors (Rhodes Reason and Linda Jo Miller) in the main sympathetic human roles.  It also casts Mie Hama, recognisable to English-speaking audiences for her recent appearance as Kissy Suzuki in the Bond film You Only Live Twice (1967).  The whole design of the submarine likewise seems intended to reassure these audiences, being very 'western' in design, clearly referencing Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (although, apart from Reason and Miller, most of the crew are played by Japanese actors).  Even that lead monster - Kong - is a US creation and the foes he faces are all suitably generic (a robot double, dinosaurs, sea serpents) rather than being obviously drawn from Japanese culture.

The end result feels, on the one hand, somewhat bland in comparison to the exotic monster menageries and plots of other Toho monster films but, on the other hand, reassuringly familiar.  What it does have is spectacle - while the final dust up between the two main monsters isn't quite on the same scale as Kong's punch up with Godzilla a few years earlier, it is, nonetheless, suitably destructive.  King Kong Escapes features some especially fine miniatures work, with the model ships and submarine particularly impressive, (you get some idea of their massive scale and detailing when Kong grapples with, first, the sub then, at the climax, Who's ship).  Mechani-Kong is, in his clanking way, quite impressive too, as are the dinosaur and sea serpent fought by Kong.  Kong himself, however, appears to use the same, less than convincing, ape suit used in King Kong versus Godzilla a few years earlier.  To its credit, unlike many other apes suits, it does get its proportions right, with the arms noticeably longer than the legs, it retains the ridiculously cartoonish face, with its unblinking eyes, seen in the earlier film.  But perhaps that face is apt, bearing in mind the film's origins in a Saturday morning TV cartoon - the film's whole look is, in fact, pleasingly reminiscent of the sort of up market science fiction comic strips, often adapted from Gerry Anderson series, we used to have in British comics in the late sixties and early seventies. 

I have to say that, overall, I enjoyed King Kong Escapes far more than I did either Godzilla vs Kong or Godzilla x Kong.  While its man-in-a-suit monsters can't hope to match the CGI effects of those far bigger budgeted recent productions, the Japanese film is far more accessible and much more easily liked, not taking itself too seriously or overloading itself with too many subplots and characters (and their 'development').  It knows that we're really there to see the monsters rampage around and battle each other - the human characters and plotting are of secondary importance and simply don't need to be especially complex.  There's no doubt, though, that the Japanese movie benefits from being a stand-alone entity, with no ongoing plot lines and character relationships from previous movies to tie up - unlike the more recent US films.  Moreover, although those modern CGI effects are very slick, they never really seem that convincing to me - I'm always aware that they have no physical existence and can never quite suspend my disbelief while watching them.  Honestly, when you have a CGI giant ape slugging it out with a CGI giant lizard, wreaking havoc in a CGI generated city, are we really that far away from a man in a monkey suit slugging it out with a man in a robot monkey suit, wreaking havoc in an intricately detailed large scale model of a city?  Both are equally artificial, but the very fact that you know the latter is physically real, lends it, if not realism, then a certain dramatic weight.   (Although, of course, neither solution, in my opinion, is as good as using stop-motion animation).

The Politics of Self Delusion

Isn't it about time that the friends, relatives and colleagues of Liz Truss staged an intervention for the former Prime Minister?  She's clearly not right, wandering around, giving talks to empty rooms and interviews to media outlets that nobody listens to, as if she was still someone of significance, filling these things with  increasingly bizarre claims and pronouncements.  The latest being that there's an 'underground transgender mafia' plotting against her and which brought down her premiership.  Presumably this is separate from that Marxist cabal including the Bank of England and the stock market she previously identified as the cause of her downfall.  Or maybe they are linked - perhaps, somewhere, there's a Venn diagram showing the intersection of the groups conspiring against Truss, which will reveal their leadership as Marxist transgender economist formerly called Bernard, but now identifying as 'Sandra', a lady truck driver from Dartford.  She has also been claiming that if she had still been PM, then the Tories would have won the last election - this, despite the fact that her forty eight hours, or whatever it was, in Number Ten had crashed the economy and driven both her and her party's popularity ratings to somewhere below those enjoyed by Jack the Ripper at the height of his Whitechapel murder spree. Not to mention that at said election, even her constituents decided that they couldn't stand her any more and voted her out as their MP.  What next?  Can we expect to see her on random street corners, possibly dressed as a chicken in a desperate attempt to attract attention, assailing random passers by with her increasingly unhinged claims?  If she was anyone other than a former Tory Prime Minister (and there are quite a few of those about these days), she'd have been sectioned months ago.  So really, somebody needs to do something - now.

But Truss isn't the only former failed Prime Minister currently plaguing the public with wild and nonsensical claims.  Right now Boris Johnson's completely made up memoirs are being serialised in the Daily Mail.  Amongst his tall tales is the story of how, during the Covid lockdown, he supposedly planned to send the SAS round to his local Superdrug pharmacy to kick down the door and seize those thousand boxes of viagra they'd refused to dispense to him on the grounds that it was a non-essential drug.  Or was it that he was going to send them to break into a warehouse in the Netherlands (a NATO ally) and steal Covid vaccines?  No, it had to be the former, as the latter is too ridiculous, even by Johnson's low standards, to be true.  If he had sent the SAS to raid the Netherlands then it would probably have been to steal sex aids, lubricants and condoms and to kidnap some prostitutes in order to keep those illegal lockdown parties at Number Ten well stocked.  Then there's his ravings about how President Macron of France was out to 'punish' him for Brexit, even going to the lengths of sneaking into the UK, donning a black balaclava and leaping out at Johnson as he walked through a dimly lit alley, swinging a baseball bat at his knees.  Obviously, the then Prime Minister wasn't skulking around a back alley in dead of night with the aim of forcing a rear entry into the home of a secret lover and his attacker wasn't her enraged husband.  ('It wasn't so much her infidelity, but rather her lack of taste and self-respect that pushed me over the edge', the husband most definitely didn't say in his own defence).  I think that I can speak for the entire nation that I can say that I look forward to more of Johnson's completely true revelations, such as the time that he saved Number Ten from a terror attack when he threw himself on top of a naked female suicide bomber on the Cabinet Room table, the muffled blast blowing his clothes off and leaving him, naked, grappling with her when the rest of the Cabinet walked in for a meeting...