Well, I was going to try and do a quick 'Random Movie Trailer' today, but it appears that some of the films I watch are so obscure that nobody has ever uploaded a trailer for them. Anywhere. Neither of the films I was considering are substantial enough to warrant a longer piece, plus I simply don't have time to work up a longer piece, so I'm left with no planned post for today. The reason I just don't have time to write anything longer is because I've had to waste so much time trying to sort out the mess that Facebook made of my accounts earlier today. Basically, they deactivated both my account and The Sleaze's page because their 'software' had detected 'suspicious activity' which flagged them as having been hacked. Which they hadn't. They never have been. So I had to jump through hoops to get them reactivated, which Facebook made as difficult as possible. From the outset, they wouldn't let me even attempt to start the process on the laptop I actually had up and running, (my 'upstairs' laptop), forcing me to log onto my main laptop and carry out the process there. Which seems bloody stupid as I was trying to log on using a logged in Firefox browser on both, which, with every other sane and rational site, synchronises my logins across the various sites I use. But, hey, this is Facebook we're talking about. Or rather Meta, as I was reminded when I tried to access my Instagram account only to be confronted with some gibberish about 'automated activity' having been detected on the account. To which the response was 'fuck off'. Luckily, I was easily able to dismiss that shit.
But, despite having access to my accounts back, the problems continued. I now find that I'm prevented from logging in on any other device (despite these being devices I've previously 'verified' with Facebook). An attempt to log in to the app on my Android phone, for instance, resulted in being sent to a screen and told to enter the code that had been sent to my What's App number. I don't have a What's Up number. I've never used the bloody app and have no intention of doing so. In the event, the code was emailed to my verified email address. Great, I thought, we're nearly there! Oh foolish man that I am! The code was, of course, rejected. So I requested another one. It sent me the exact same code, which was again rejected as being incorrect. I then found myself trapped in a loop of requesting new codes, getting the same one, having it rejected, requesting a new - well, you get the idea. So I gave up and accepted that from now on, I can't access Facebook on my phone. But at least I got further there than I did on my other devices, where it went into a loop of simply saying there was an error and to try again, over and over. Facebook's own help pages offer no useful advice, which is hardly a surprise. They aren't in the business of actually helping their customers. The irony is that the 'suspect activity' nonsense was doubtless triggered by my earlier attempts to sort out Facebook's previous idiocy regarding The Sleaze's page, which they suddenly decided wasn't eligible for recommendations to other users anymore. Not that I was aware that they were recommending it, but it seemed concerning because it vaguely alluded to 'community standards' not being observed. Except that, on investigation, I found that their own dashboard checks show that there are no problems with the page's contents! After much arsing around and time-wasting, I came to the conclusion that it is simply down to the fact that, not unreasonably I think, I refuse to include my address and phone number on the publicly available contact information for the page! I mean, why should any reader of the page need my personal details? So they can harass me with nuisance calls and hate mail if they don't like what they read? Locate my house and throw bricks through the windows? Does Meta really think that I'm insane enough to endanger my safety by publishing such information? So, as I'm never going to put such information out there, my recommendations remain suspended. In which case Meta can just go fuck themselves.
The Visitor (1979) is a fascinating film - on the one hand its magpie approach to picking out the shiniest themes and motifs from other recent hits would seem to bracket it as a typical piece of Italian seventies exploitation, on the other, its relatively high profile cast, US location filming and relatively high budget suggest a more prestigious production. The resulting film is definitely schlock, but the higher end of schlock, dressing up its pulpy story with glossy production values. It has quite a few points of resemblance to an earlier film of producer Ovidio G Assonitis, 1976's Beyond the Door (which he also co-directed), both in plot and production terms. Both films feature extensive US location shooting and feature English language stars, in an attempt to pass them off as American productions, they also both involve demonic possessions of one kind or another. While the 1976 film was released in the immediate wake of its obvious progenitors - The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby - and offers a similar theological/supernatural explanation for its events, by 1979 Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind had set the box office alight, so The Visitor does its best to cast its possession story in science fictional terms, decking itself out in the traditional trappings of that genre: aliens, spaceships and psi powers. So we have a back story involving an ancient cosmic struggle between the evil ahape-shifting entity 'Zatteen' who was eventually imprisoned by a space commander called 'Yahweh' but escaped and fled to earth, where he was able to propagate his genes by mating with many earth women before being destroyed by the space commander. His evil genes still resurface, however, even thousands of years later and the latest manifestation of them have now been detected in an eight year old girl in Atlanta, Georgia, which is where 'Cosmic Jesus' (he's never named as such, but is an obvious Christ analogue) - played by an uncredited Franco Nero - is now sending 'The Visitor' (John Huston), a descendant of 'Yahweh' in order to deal with the situation.
Now, if this sub-Von Daniken set-up sounds bizarre (and another reflection of the film's maker's attempts to cash in on then popular trends), well, that's just the beginning and the plot takes several more left-turns into weirdness as it attempts to reference even more recent cinematic hits. Not only is the little girl exhibiting paranormal powers (shades of Carrie), but she's also a pawn in the schemes of a cabal wealthy businessmen who are acolytes of 'Zatteen' to resurrect the evil one (shades of The Omen). Their plan involves one of their number, the owner of a basketball team, to impregnate the girl's mother to create an evil boy, destined to mate with his half-sister in order to create a corporeal manifestation of 'Zatteen'. There are numerous digressions and sub-plots consequently start to proliferate - part of the cult's plot seems to involve confining the girl's mother to a wheelchair (presumably making her easier to control by constricting her movements and ability to control the child) by having her shot in an incident involving a toy given to the girl as a birthday present that turns into a real gun. A police detective, played by Glenn Ford, investigates the shooting, gets suspicious, so abruptly dies in a car accident engineered by the cult. When the mother becomes resistant to the idea of another baby, she finds herself demonically impregnated - but the impregnation is presented in terms of an alien abduction, complete with a huge Close Encounters-style glowing spaceship, inside which cult leader Mel Ferrer, playing a surgeon, surgically implants an embryo in the woman. Finding she's pregnant, she seeks help from her doctor ex-husband, improbably played by a clearly inebriated Sam Peckinpah (his obvious dubbing the result of him slurring his words and forgetting his lines), who helps her get a termination. In the meantime, a mysterious nanny (Shelley Winters) has turned up to help the mother with the girl, with whom she strikes up an immediate enmity.
After the termination, all hell breaks loose, with the kid unleashing her powers, attempting to kill her mother, the nanny turning out to be an associate of 'The Visitor', who eventually unleashes a flock of deadly doves against the cult members in scenes clearly meant to evoke The Birds. It all ends with light displays in the sky, people shooting laser beams and 'The Visitor' finally helping the girl conquer the evil in her genes and presenting her to 'Cosmic Jesus'. The whole thing barely makes sense feeling less like a coherent story than an amalgam of highlights stolen from other recent popular hits, thrown together somewhat randomly and with little regard for context. It happily raids the likes of The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby and The Omen for its demonically possessed child/satanist plot, Carrie and even The Fury for the child with paranormal powers strand and Star Wars and Close Encounters for its science fiction imagery. Despite these disparate influences, The Visitor is disconcertingly well made on a technical level, well shot and with excellent production values. But its script, with its tangled story-telling, jerkily advanced plot and unspeakable dialogue, gives the film away as a big-budgeted piece of Italian exploitation. The cast, while impressive looking, can make little headway against that script, with several, most notably Ford and Ferrer, playing what are little more than extended cameos. Despite top-billing, Huston has little to do other than wander around looking enigmatic and uttering words of cod wisdom - he's clearly there for the paycheck, (not for the first time - he lent his name to quite a few dubious internationally produced exploitation movies around this time). Lance Henricksen barely tries as the main villain - he freely admitted that he only signed up because the studio shooting was in Rome, giving him a free trip to Italy.
It has to be said, though, that The Visitor is actually quite endearing, with its entirely ripped off content and imagery and, at times, feels agreeably deranged, a film created by madmen. Director Guilio Paradisi (as 'Michael J Paradise'), better known for directing Italian comedies, manages to marshal together the film's eclectic borrowings into a slick package that, for its running time, at least, is surprisingly enjoyable, if confusing. Its possible that The Visitor might even have been influential: the more I think about it, the more convinced I've become that all of those light effects may have influenced Luigi Cozzi's The Black Cat (1989), which similarly features all manner of brightly lit video effects at its climax and is just as lunatic, borrowing themes from numerous other movies.
Hardly a day goes by now without some celebrity or other declaring that they have been 'diagnosed' (i.e., looked it up on Google or done a dodgy test via some dodgy 'consultant' for a highly dodgy fee) with some form of ADHD or autism, which is then used to 'explain' all of their aberrant behaviour. 'It turns out that I keep crashing my car because I have ADHD and can't focus'. Really, isn't a more plausible explanation is that you are simply a shit driver, with your inadequacies in this area doubtless exacerbated by the sense of entitlement your celebrity gives you? 'I'm famous, why should I get out of other peoples' way on the road? That bollard should have recognised me and swerved to avoid me!' All forms of anti-social behaviour are explained away like this. 'I groped women because I'm autistic and therefore have difficulty understanding the signals others put out - I really thought that them saying 'no' meant that they wanted me to grab their breasts and show them my penis.' Or, maybe it all comes back to that false sense of entitlement that even minor celebrity apparently brings to many individuals. But it isn't just celebrities, though, it's all manner of, mainly middle class, people who are now 'identifying' as having ADHD or autism and using it to excuse their poor behaviour, lack of success in the workplace or the failure of their relationships. Its getting to the stage where not having any of these things is becoming abnormal. Now, call me a cynic, but I can't help but feel that this explosion in dubious diagnoses is just the latest manifestation of the 'excuse' industry, whereby there's always someone out there telling you that it isn't really your fault that your life is shit and you are underachieving. No, it's all down to some external factor over which you have no control. You are excused for all of your misdemeanours and failings (and for a modest fee, we can help you compensate for your 'disability').
The more I think about, the more I've found myself leaning toward the idea that, really, these ADHD and autism 'diagnoses' are really nothing more than the liberal equivalent to the right-wing excuse that it is all the fault of immigrants. You know the spiel - if your standard of living is falling, you can't get a job, you are on an NHS waiting list or just can't get it up, it has nothing to do with the fact that you don't pay your taxes, are unemployable due to indolence, drunkenness or just being off your face on that glue you sniffed, have an unhealthy lifestyle or have no skills because you couldn't be arsed to turn up to school. No, it is all down to those bloody immigrants coming here on their rubber boats, taking our jobs, using our NHS, claiming our benefits, being given mansions to live in and sticking it to women with heir huge erections. Really, it's the same thing, only the external excuse is different. The whole ADHD/autism schtick being run today is little more than the middle class, liberal, equivalent to 'immigrants ate my homework'. Because, after all, being nice middle class people, who have probably been in further, or even higher, education and pride themselves on their tolerance toward other cultures, they can't really blame those immigrants who are, after all, just victims of the system themselves. Luckily, though, the explosion in 'experts' diagnosing stuff like ADHD in adults provides them with a new excuse, which doesn't actually blame any other poor unfortunates for their misfortunes.
Yeah, I know, I'm a terrible cynic. But look, it isn't that I'm denying the existence of ADHD or autism, but the reality is that such things usually manifest in childhood. All of these 'late blooming' supposed sufferers, using their diagnoses as excuses for bad behaviour or other failings in their lives simply serve to trivialise the conditions, making it much more difficult for those who genuinely suffer from them to get the help and support they need. Sure, you can dismiss me as a cynic, but when the celebrities start jumping aboard any health-related trend like this, I can't help but suspect ulterior, usually attention-seeking motives. I remember when the celebrity world 'discovered' depression, with hordes of them 'coming out' as depressives - for the media it was as if nobody had ever suffered from depression before a celebrity had an episode. In the long run, did it help ordinary, non-celebrity, depressives get proper treatment? No, of course not. Once the celebrity depression craze receded, it became stigmatised again and the celebrities moved on to the next affliction that could get them attention. Yeah, yeah, I'm a cynical bastard...
There used to be a time when I took the opportunity to do stuff on Bank Holiday weekends, but that was when I was doing a shitty job (which was doing its best to kill me) and they represented a much needed break from stultifying routine. These days, I just chill out and see them as a time for total relaxation. Today, for instance, I only ventured out to buy a newspaper. Upon reading said edition of The Guardian, what do I find myself confronted by? The entire G2 supplement devoted to looking forward to Autumn, that's what. For fuck's sake, I thought, it's August Bank Holiday, we've still got another week of the last of the summer months to go - to be pedantic, though, whilst meteorological summer ends on 31 August, astronomical summer won't end until 21 September, giving us another month or so of the season - and these killjoys are going on about autumn? Can't we just be allowed to enjoy what's left of summer before being forced to think about the falling leaves, not to mention temperatures and declining daylight of autumn? That's the problem nowadays - people are always looking forward to the 'next thing' rather than enjoying what's already in front of us. Or maybe it isn't the time we live in having changed rather than the fact that as I've grown older, I've learned to enjoy living in the moment. When you are young, you can fool yourself into thinking that the future is infinite and full of opportunity. When you get older, the future doesn't seem so inviting and not so bountiful. You realise that it is getting shorter all the time and that rather than racing ahead of ourselves, we need to be enjoying the here and now.
Which is why I ended up spending the afternoon on the sofa, with the back door open to let in the late summer warmth, and watched a film. To be precise, I watched It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) again - it's a quintessential Bank Holiday moved, beloved by broadcasters in my childhood because it was long enough to fill up an entire afternoon. I can't deny that I enjoy it more now than I ever did when I was young. It isn't that it has become any funnier over the years, (in truth, despite its spectacular set-pieces, it is still only mildly amusing), but that I increasingly find myself empathising with the Spencer Tracy character, the cop who, beset by domestic woes and the prospect of a crappy pension, eventually decides to abscond to Mexico with the hidden loot himself. Hell, I've been there, toiling away thanklessly in a shitty job, feeling underappreciated and put upon by poor and inept management, (luckily, my work pension and final settlement turned out to be better than I had expected, allowing me to ease into a very early semi-retirement). Many was the time that I idly thought about ways I could somehow escape from it all - even if that meant acting illegally. Getting back to Spencer Tracy, watching the film again today, I ended up identifying with his character to the extent that I decided that the ending was all wrong - the movie should have culminated with him escaping, with the money, over the border to Mexico, with a final shot of him relaxing on a Mexican beach, sipping a cocktail, before the credits rolled. But, the film was made in an era when prevailing convention dictated that characters shouldn't be seen to profit from unlawful or immoral acts. This, it instead ended, as it always does, with him in custody on the prison's hospital ward along with the rest of the cast who had caused chaos pursuing the loot. Which, despite everything, still seems unjust to me. Sure, I know that he was trying to abscond with stolen money - but it had been stolen fifteen years earlier, the thief was now dead, the company it had been stolen from had undoubtedly claimed it back on their insurance so, really, who was he harming? The taxman by not declaring it? I can't help but feel that natural justice dictates that he should have got away with it. But maybe that's just because I'm in a mellow mood because it's a Bank Holiday...
I'm a Professional Stench Packer and These Are My Top Tips for Effectively Packing the Stench From Your Own Home
With home stench packing becoming ever more popular in the UK, a former professional stench packer is drawing on his thirty years in the business to give some practical tips on domestic stench packing. With the contemporary focus on home and personal hygiene, increasing numbers of homeowners are turning to stench packing as a way of ridding their homes of unwanted personal stench. But, with the high costs of professional stench packing, many are turning to self-stench packing kits sold online, often with disastrous results. Consequently, retired stench packer Harold Farper is offering his advice on how best to safely and effectively pack the stench from their homes. Farper, whose best-selling memoirs 'Adventures of a Stench Packer's Mate' and 'Confessions of a Master Stench Packer' describe his career with some of the world's top stench packing firms, has enormous experience of large scale stench packing, including packing the stench of Trump from the White House for President Biden, when he took office.
"The biggest mistake most home stench packers make is in going for the cheapest stench packing kits available from online retailers," he told us. "The trouble with these is that provide only cardboard boxes for packing the stench into, which are completely inadequate - they'll never contain the stench for any amount of time. Indeed, they'll probably fall apart, eroded by the compacted stench, before you can even get them out of the house, putting you back to square one, stench wise." He also advises that those kits including paper bags for stench packing should be avoided at all costs. "It doesn't matter that they claim that they use think, plastic reinforced paper, such bags are completely inadequate, not to mention dangerous," he counsels. "The ziplock seals they use are not secure and can lead to serious leakages of concentrated stench that could prove fatal to pets and small children. Also, like the boxes, they aren't fireproof and any contact with a heat source could cause a large explosion."
Farper recommends that only plastic containers with sealable lids are used for domestic stench packing. "Even the ones you can buy in homeware stores will do, so long as the lid is firmly pressed on as soon as the stench has been packed - there'll be minimal seepage and you should be able to safely get them - and the stench they contain - out of your house without incident," he opines. "Obviously, they still aren't as good as the industrial grade vacuum packed containers employed professionally, but for the home stench packer they are perfectly adequate"
Farper has also condemned the use of hand cranked 'stench suckers' in these online kits. "Again, these are totally inadequate, incapable of producing the level of suction required to trap significant quantities of stench," he notes. "They are also very poorly manufactured, with a risk of friction between the moving metal parts of the mechanism, which could create sparks and a fire risk. Only last month there was a report of a devastating fire which completely gutted a flat in West London and left a woman with third degree burns." According to the stench packer, the only thing to be said for these devices are they are at least slightly more effective than some of the other devices on sale. "Things like those giant plastic scoops you are meant to wave around your house, catching the stench mid air are absolutely useless," he snorts. "It's quite obvious that these will never be able to trap significant quantities of stench - most of it isn't floating free in the air anyway, it's attached to furniture, clothes, walls and floors. On top of that, there's no way that you can successfully transfer any of the stench you do collect to a container using such an implement."
Farper recommends that only proper electrically operated stench suction devices should be used. "Small, hand held models are available for home use - these have reinforced stench collection containers inside which can easily be emptied into whatever you are packing the stench into by reversing them to blow. Obviously, they are more expensive than the manually operated devices, but still much less expensive than industrial grade machines," he says. "Although not as efficient as the types used by the professionals, they are perfectly adequate for stench packing in the average home." Farper also cautions that most amateurs don't look for stench in the right places. "It's easy to assume that the worst stench will be found in, say, the bathroom. But, in truth, bedrooms are complete stench pits - particularly after a night of sex and/or flatulence," he observes. "Living rooms can often be afflicted by excessive foot stench while kitchens are an obvious source of pungent stench - and remember, you have to extract it from actual objects, not just the air, if you want a really stench free home." He adds that you should always be sure to dispose of your packed stench only at registered local authority stench depots. Failure to do so could result in prosecution if your dumped stench is traced back to you.
Farper is convinced that following his guidelines will ensure that you are unlikely to be embarrassed in your own home by unwanted stench. "Nowadays, with people increasingly going to the gym or exercising hard, coming home sweaty and with clothes drenched in sweat, not to mention the increased flatulence caused by our high fibre diets, it's all too easy for stench to build up in our living spaces," he says. "Inflicting that stench on visitors or passers by is clearly unacceptable, so adopting sound stench packing techniques is essential."
It seems to me that there's only trouble at these hotels housing asylum seekers when these bands of neo Nazis - sorry 'concerned citizens' - turn up pretending to be locals, whip up hatred and start riots. Bearing in mind that there are far fewer of these rent-a-fascists than there are asylum seekers, then surely it would be easier to round them up and deport them. Just a thought. Anyway, in their latest 'victory' in Epping, their pretext for turning up and causing chaos was that one of the asylum seekers housed in the hotel is alleged to have molested a local child. Alleged. Not convicted. But these idiots can never wait for justice to take its course, so instead come to town with a lynch mob, declaring that if one is an alleged nonce, then they must all be. Now, if we were to follow that logic universally, then the next time a local kid is molested by a white working class pedo living on a local housing estate, the entire estate should be cleared out by a mob waving flaming torches and every house there burned to the ground. But hey, it's all about protecting the children, isn't ? Except that these bozos also oppose the Online Safety Act, which ostensibly has the same aim. I mean, if it isn't OK for British kiddies to get felt up by foreigners then it must also be wrong for them to be exposed to online pornography. Yeah, I know, I'm effectively comparing apples and pears in order to make a false equivalence. But that's exactly how the right works, so why shouldn't we start using the same tricks?
The real reason, of course, why these right wing extremists are so opposed to the Online Safety Act has nothing to do with it being a threat to 'free speech', as Nigel Farage has been bellowing about. No, that's just misdirection. Patently so, as I'm afraid that I don't see how having to verify your age when looking at pornography in any way restricts anyone's right to express their opinions. No, what they are really afraid of is that it restricts their ability to look at porn with complete anonymity. They are afraid that their data might be leaked and they'll find themselves exposed as pervs who look at the most depraved smut imaginable. But they can't come right out and say that. I mean, Nigel Farage, for instance, can hardly say that he opposes the Act because he wants to retain his right to anonymity whilst getting his daily dose of extreme Nazi-themed porn, now can he? Admitting that you enjoy watching big buttocked girls - with a large swastika tattooed on each cheek - getting thrashed by a guy dressed as an SS trooped from the waist up, but sporting suspenders and leather chaps from the waist down, isn't a good look for anyone who has ambitions of becoming Britain's first fascist prime minister. Obviously, I'm not saying that Farage is an aficionado of such stuff, or even of any other type of porn: this is just a hypothetical example and I have no proof that he does any of this stuff. But, you know, he might, mightn't he? And if he did, he wouldn't to risk it becoming public knowledge, would he? Look, I too think that the Online Safety Act is a misguided and very poorly framed piece of legislation, but at least I'm honest as to why I oppose it - it's requirement for age verification, or rather the methods employed to meet this requirement, represent a gross invasion of my privacy, not to mention the potential risk to private data. But hey, just think of the children, for God's sake.
I keep seeing this trailer for a TV documentary about 'Britain's Biggest Cocaine Dealer' who, apparently, was a bus driver, a job that allowed him to make lots of street-level contracts for distributing his shit. Mow, I'm never going to watch it because it's on a subscription channel and as everyone knows, I just can't be arsed to pay any of the big streaming platforms for content. But that trailer set me to thinking about another possible 're-imagining' of a classic TV series for the modern era, (as those aforementioned streamers are all fond of doing, usually with predictably crap results). This one's obvious: On The Buses. Yes, that seventies sitcom could be re-tooled for the twenty first century with a darker twist - Stan and Jack could be selling drugs from their bus. That's why they are always late - they are always having to make diversions to pick up new customers and drop off more smack and crack. That and the fact that they are off of their faces on their own product half the time. Cue hilarious scenes of the bus weaving down the street, with a spaced out Stan at the wheel, mounting the pavement and wiping out several people at a bus stop. The episode could continue with Stan and Jack trying to cover up their crime, loading the bodies on the bus and going off route to the middle of nowhere to bury them in unmarked graves. That's the kind of black humour they like these days, isn't it?
Obviously, Blakey is still trying to catch them out, not just with spot checks on their route, but with drug tests at the depot, as well. Which could lead to yet more hilarious scenes of Jack and Stan bribing other staff to provide them with fake blood and urine samples. It could all go wrong when Jack uses a sample from one of the 'birds' and the results come back positive for pregnancy. When Blakey gets too close to the truth, Jack and Stan could try to assassinate him with a drive by shooting from their bus, as the inspector waits at a bus stop. It could all be shot in slow motion, with Jack opening up with an Uzi from the rear platform of the bus, while Stan looses off from his .45 automatic from the cab window, the glass in the bus shelter shattering under a hail of bullets as Blakey dives for cover. Although he survives the shooting - despite being riddled with bullets - Blakey can't make a positive identification of the shooters, or even the bus, Stan and Jack having cunningly changed the route number and destination boards. Another plot could involve a rival drug crew working out the depot, culminating with a running gun battle between their two double decker buses as they career down the High Street, Stan and Jack and their rivals having packed out their respective buses with gangs, all armed to the teeth and occupying window seats. You see, this stuff practically writes itself once you've established the initial idea. Hell, you could even have a scenario where Stan's brother-in-law Arthur's new job turns out to be with the drug squad. Much hilarity ensues as Olive finds herself torn between loyalty to her brother and loyalty to Arthur. God damn it! I'm going to have to send this one off the Netflix...
For a brief period in the very early seventies Mike Raven, former DJ on both pirate radio and BBC Radio One, was pushed as a UK horror star. Raven's imposing looks and voice seemed to make him a natural for villainous roles and he had, earlier in his career, been an actor (not to mention also a dancer and flamenco guitar player). His first two roles, though, were in supporting roles - a non-speaking appearance as Count Karnstein in Hammer's Lust for a Vampire (1971) and a slightly more substantive role in Amicus' I, Monster (1971) - but his third film of 1971, Crucible of Terror, offered him top billing and something more of a central role. Produced by Peter Newbrook's Glendale Films and directed by TV director John Hooker, Crucible of Terror clearly owes something to House of Wax (1953), with its focus on a deranged sculptor quite literally transforming his subjects into sculptures. Rather than wax, though, Raven's Victor Clare works in bronze, with a striking opening scene showing him encasing a prone female model in plaster, before pouring molten bronze through an eyehole in order to create a cast of her body. After which the film flashes forward many years to an exhibit of Clare's works being staged in London by struggling art dealer John Davies (James Bolam), with the sculpture created from the cast seen in the previous scene the star attraction. It transpires, though, that the works on display are there without Clare's knowledge, having been purloined by his feckless son Michael (Ronald Lacey), who is desperate for money. When the works prove popular, though, Davies persuades Michael to introduce him to the elder Clare, with a view to organising a larger exhibition. Davies, Michael and their wives, therefore, head to Clare's home and studio in Cornwall.
Once in Cornwall, the plot begins to fall into familiar horror film patterns, with a remote, spooky old house, a crazy wife who dresses and behaves like a child, Davies' wife suffering bizarre and unsettling dreams. Inevitably, people start getting murdered by an unseen assailant, (actually, we've already had the first murder in London, as yet undiscovered, when one of Davies' patrons being killed as he caresses that bronze sculpture which he has become obsessed with). When it is mentioned in passing that Clare's previous model, the Japanese girl he turned into a sculpture earlier in the film, who apparently disappeared years ago had been leader of a cult which believed that the living could be possessed by the souls of the dead, it becomes obvious what's coming. Clare inevitably starts to fixate upon Davies' wife as his next potential model for a sculpture but, of course, she's possessed (via a kimono) by the murdered model and just as she's about to go the same way she transforms into the image of the badly burned model and shoves Clare into his own furnace. Unfortunately, the ending feels somewhat rushed and confusing in its execution, lacking the impact it should have had. The film's main weakness is a script which succeeds in being simultaneously both confusing and obvious - from early on, it is quite obvious that the spirit of that murdered model is behind all the strange goings on and that she is going to get her revenge. But the execution is confusing, with too many sub plots that never really develop into anything. Hooker's direction is competent, if not terribly inspired, although there is some good use of the glowering Cornish landscapes which help build up the sense of isolation for the characters. Some of the performances are also pretty decent, particularly Bolam and Lacey, but the film is dominated by Raven's Victor Clare, despite him being offscreen for a large part of the movie.
I recall that at one time it was very fashionable for critics to deride Raven's horror film appearances, with critics seeming to think that he was some kind of amateur interloper because of his DJ background, despite the fact that he had, earlier in his career, been an actor. But his earlier performances had been under his real name, thereby allowing hostile critics to ignore them. The truth is, though, that with his distinctive voice and looks, he had a very real screen presence, which hadn't been exploited by either Hammer or Amicus. Put centre stage, as he is here, in Crucible of Terror, playing an eccentric, egotistical and ultimately immoral character, he is actually very effective. Certainly, he is the film's main asset. Sadly, though, he was only to make one further film, Disciple of Death (1972), (directed and produced by Crucible's producer, Tom Parkinson), which fared poorly at the box office. Interestingly, in later life Raven actually did become a sculptor - in Cornwall - and had his work exhibited, (although I'm pretty sure that none of his sculptures involved murdering women). An eccentric by nature, even after death Raven defied convention, being buried in a grave he had already dug for himself. Crucible of Terror stands as probably the best film of his short cinematic career, with his performance helping to lift an otherwise unremarkable but competent low budget film slightly above the average.
I've been trying to avoid talking about politics here, for fear of becoming monotonous. Consequently, I've found myself with little to write about as politics seem to be the only thing going on right now. Politics and hypocrisy over so-called free speech. Just today, we had that Labour councillor, who made public comments to the effect that fascist thugs should have their throats cut acquitted of inciting violence. Quite right, too. Aha! yell the likes of Nigel Farage, but what about that Tory councillor's wife who got a jail sentence for tweeting that people burn down hotels housing asylum seekers? 'Two tier justice!' they bellow. Yeah, well, the obvious difference between the two cases is that, subsequent to that widely read tweet, people - the fascists, in fact that the Labour councillor was referring to - actually did go out and try to firebomb hotels housing asylum seekers. By contrast, I don't recall having heard about any fascists having their throats cut by people who heard what the councillor said. Frankly, I think that he should have been given a medal. But, of course, if I say that, I'll find myself being shouted down by outraged extreme right-wingers for inciting violence against them, even though I'm merely exercising that right to free speech they seem so keen on. Fair's fair, guys, if you can legally shout your 'Sieg Heils' and throw Hitler salutes in public without fear of prosecution, then I'm just as entitled to express my view that you should all be exterminated with extreme prejudice.
Likewise, if I expressed on social media my belief that the Putin-Trump summit in Alaska presents an unpanelled opportunity to remove the two greatest threats to world peace in one fell swoop with a well-aimed nuclear strike, then all those little Putin apologists and Trump groupies would be up in arms, trying to get me 'cancelled'. (Not that there would be any reaction to anything I posted on social media from anyone - there never is, as I'm neither important enough in the real world, nor am I one of the 'in' people who seem to be the only ones allowed to have their postings read and commented upon. Not that I'm bitter, or anything, obviously). Figures on the right are forever going on about the need to 'think the unthinkable' and 'say the unsayable' in order to ensure that their views (which they claim also to be those of the 'silent majority', who are afraid to speak out against the 'woke consensus') get a fair hearing, no matter how much the 'liberal elite' try to suppress them. Well, fine, but why do they have such a problem when we on the left do the same thing? Because I think it high time that we said what we mean: that fascists should be given a bloody good kicking whenever they rear their ugly racist heads and that petty dictators and bullies like Trump and Putin should be shot. But instead of 'thinking the unthinkable', the left instead just wrings its hands and offer mild rebukes as the likes of Trump dismantle US democracy. Partly because they adhere to outmoded notions about behaving within legal and constitutional frameworks, partly because they are afraid of the right-wing press, that gives demagogues a free ride, condemning them and labelling them as 'violent revolutionaries' or thugs. The trouble is that the right, especially once ensconced in power, don't play by fair - they don't give a toss about legal and constitutional frameworks and it is about time the left woke up and realised that. So yeah, let's kill Trump, let's kill Putin and let's string the fascists up from lampposts. Just saying.
(As ever, for the benefit of Google drones, MI5 agents, the FBI or whoever else might be triggered by some of these words and concepts, this is merely a satirical piece written for humourous effect and is not intended to incite anyone to violence. I mean, there's enough people already who want to kill the likes of Trump and Putin with requiring any encouragement from me).
I'm an Expert Trout Stretcher and These are the Basic Mistakes You Are Making When You Stretch Trout at Home
An expert is sounding the alarm about the costly mistakes people are making in the increasingly popular field of trout stretching. The cost of living crisis has made more people turn toward trout stretching as a means to make the average trout go further, but employing the wrong techniques, or even the wrong trout, could quickly spell disaster for the average home trout stretcher. Spotting the most elementary mistakes in trout stretching is vital if one is to avoid the pitfalls which could lead to a compromised trout. Bert Burkeson, a fully qualified expert trout stretcher at Trout International Corporation has shared the most common signs that your trout stretching endeavours are likely to go wrong in a new YouTube video.
"The most obvious mistake that people make is using the wrong sort of fish" he says. "You'd be amazed at how many people think that any old fish will do - 'well, they all have scales, so must be the same', they seem to think. But remember, this is trout stretching we're talking about, not salmon stretching, or halibut stretching and certainly not mackerel stretching. The other day I even saw a video on TikTok where some guy was trying to stretch a sea bass using trout stretching techniques and wondering why it wouldn't work! I ask you!"
Bert has also warned against attempting to stretch supermarket bought trout.
"Such fish are typically prepared by cutting off their heads and tails before sale, rendering them completely unsuitable," he cautions. "If a trout is to be successfully stretched, then it must be freshly caught and whole, otherwise it will have no integrity and simply tear apart during the process."
Ensuring that you use the correct equipment is also vital, says Bert.
"You should only ever attempt to stretch trout using a specially manufactured trout stretching deck which can securely hold the two ends of the fish during the process," he says. "I'm afraid that tying a piece of string to the tail, then securing the other end to a doorknob, then tying a second string around the head and securing its other end to a radiator on the opposite wall, as advocated in some instagram posts, gently pulling the door open and shut to facilitate stretching, just won't work. The fish simply won't be held securely or rigidly enough and the stretching motion will be insufficient for an even stretch."
Expanding on this point, Bert has emphasised the importance of employing the correct technique, even when using the recommended equipment.
"The biggest mistake of the novice trout stretcher is over eagerness," he opines. "They go in there impatient to get the trout stretched as quickly as possible and wonder why they end up with a torn trout. Patience is the key. Once the fish has been securely mounted on the stretching deck, it is essential that the maximum stretch is set correctly, based upon the length and girth of the fish - over-stretching will yield sub-standard results. Once this has been set, the stretching cranks need to be operated in unison and very slowly - preferably at the rate of only one-eight of an inch turn every hour for the best results. Too fast will adversely effect the flavour of the stretched trout."
Bert guarantees that following these simple guidelines will ensure success for any amateur trout stretcher - even novices.
The last of Columbia's three-film series derived from the radio show 'I Love a Mystery', (following I Love a Mystery (1945) and The Devil's Mask (1946)), The Unknown (1946), despite also being directed by Henry Levin), has a somewhat different feel to its predecessors. This time around the two investigators, Jack and Doc, don't appear until some way into the film, with the opening taken up with a lengthy flashback, apparently narrated by a dead woman, which provides the backstory for the subsequent drama. This sequence is actually very atmospheric, with family secrets exposed, an accidental death made to look like murder and a body being walled up behind a fireplace and the fall out across the years of these events. After this, we're back in the present, with Jack and Doc standing at the gates of the run down old Southern mansion which had been the venue for the flashback, with their latest client, a young woman who might be a long lost relative of the family that owns the old pile. From here, the film settles down to be one of those 'spooky old house' thrillers in the vein of the 'Cat and the Canary', with a will reading, an apparently mad sister and her two surly brothers eager to get their hands on their deceased mother's estate. There's lots of creeping around secret passages by candlelight, strange goings on in the family crypt, cries in the night and a couple of murders.
Of its kind, The Unknown is pretty well done, going through all of the tropes audiences might expect from this sort of scenario. Levin's direction is very atmospheric and, for a B-movie, the production values are solid. The film's main problem is its predictability: the main plot twist really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has seen a few other movies of this genre. Unlike its two predecessors, which had plot twists galore and fast paced action scenes, The Unknown seems, by comparison, fairly conventional and sedate. Indeed, the more langourous pace is established at the film's beginning, with the long, almost dream-like, flashback. While the pace picks up somewhat after this, the unwinding of the plot is still leisurely, with the climax, conversely feeling somewhat hurried in its tying up of various plot elements. The two detectives, played, as ever, by Jim Bannon and Barton Yarborough, often seem marginalised, with much of the plot (and its resolution) centring on their client Nina Arnold (Jeff Donnell). Doc, in particular, seems to have little to do for most of the film, other than acting as a sounding board for Jack's musings on the case. Nonetheless, The Unknown remains an enjoyable enough feature, even though it feels more like a generic mystery B-movie than an adaptation of the 'I Love a Mystery' radio series, lacking most of its characteristic bizarre plot touches which the previous two movies had embraced. Whilst spooky and atmospheric, unlike the source material and earlier films. it never really feels macabre. But at seventy one minutes, it never has time to try the patience of viewers, providing a slickly made, if predictable, entertainment.
You ever have that experience of watching a film for the first time and asking yourself, 'Why the Hell didn't I watch this before?' Well, that was my reaction when I finally got around to watching The Manitou (1978) over the weekend. I actually remember when this film was originally released - it was heavily promoted in TV spots (those were the days when cinema releases were regularly advertised in commercial breaks on British TV) - but I was too young to see it. Whilst I'm pretty sure that it turned up in a late night slot on ITV in subsequent years, I never managed to catch it then and its UK TV screenings seemed to dry up. I don't recall it having a UK VHS release while DVD/Blu Ray releases in the UK have been patchy. But, thanks to the magic of the internet and its plethora of streaming sites of dubious legality, I was finally able to watch it the other day. It has to be said that The Manitou fully lived up to its magnificent reputation as a truly lunatic cinematic experience. Clearly made to cash in on the then current cycle of Exorcist-inspired demonic possession films, in its latter third goes off completely at a tangent and starts crossing into Star Wars territory (which had just been released) with characters shooting laser beams from their hands, star fields and explosions in space. The film's eccentricity should come as no surprise, bearing in mind its pedigree: co-written and directed by exploitation specialist William Girdler (who had previously enjoyed a hit with Grizzly) and adapted from a popular novel by prolific British pulp writer Graham Masterton.
I can't claim to be overly familiar with Masterton's work and have never read the source novel, but I'm assured by those better versed in his works that most of the lunacy in the film version of The Manitou actually comes from the book. The movie is apparently a fairly close adaptation of the book, with the script only changing a few plot details, pruning a couple of sub-plots and characters and shifting the location from New York to San Francisco. Girdler's style perfectly matches his material, with the film coming over as the cinematic equivalent of the sort of pulpy, mass market paperback you might pick up from a newsstand in a station or airport in both tone and execution. Backed by Avco-Embassy, the film gives Girdler a somewhat larger budget than usual, which he deploys well in terms of production values, special effects and cast, with the film overall looking very slick, with excellent photography and sound quality. But it is still the lunatic nature of the plot that lifts The Manitou above the average level of seventies horror films. Starting with commendable briskness, we immediately meet some of our main protagonists, with Karen (Susan Strasberg) undergoing hospital tests on a mystery growth on the back of her neck, with her doctors concluding that, far from being a regular tumour, it has the charactersitics of a growing foetus. With this diagnosis, Karen does he obvious thing - she asks her former employer, fake psychic Harry Erskine (Tony Curtis) for help. After various weird incidents, including one of Harry's regular clients, an old lady, levitating her way out of his apartment and crashing down the stairwell, to her death, Harry and some paranormal investigator colleagues he consults with conclude that the rapidly growing lump on Karen's neck is the 'manitou' of a long dead Native American medicine man, (who has a real grudge against the white man - and who could blame him?), in the process of being reborn in corporeal form.
Advised by a cranky old anthropologist (Burgess Meredith) that they need to consult a living Native American medicine man, Harry persuades John Singing Rock (Micheal Ansara) to help. With Karen admitted to hospital as the lump grows, the film starts to take a left turn into absolute insanity, with the 'manitou' being born from Karen's upper back (in some surprisingly decent prosthetic effects) in the form of a malignant dwarf, Harry and John battle to contain it in her hospital room. Both John and the 'manitou' invoke other 'manitous' (or spiritual life force) in their battle, with the more powerful reborn medicine man invoking a lizard man that attacks one of the doctors and eventually freezing the entire floor of the hospital containing Karen's room. The evil medicine man eventually invokes the 'Great Old One' (Masterton's works frequently reference Lovecraft), causing the whole building to shake. Harry suggests John channels the power of the 'manitous' of the various electrical devices in the hospital (in particular the main computer) to combat the reborn medicine man (who has never before encountered such spiritual energy) and repel the 'Great Old One' who is gradually emerging into the universe via a portal. Returning to Karen's room, they now find themselves in an illusion of outer space, a vast star field, with Karen's bed and the shaman apparently floating in the void. John tries channelling the machine energy, but can't do so effectively as it is from 'white man's technology'. Luckily, Karen at this point revives and manages to channel the energy herself, sitting up in bed and engaging in a laser beam battle with the evil 'manitou', eventually destroying him and causing the portal to explode before the 'Great Old One' can emerge. At which point everything returns to normal.
As barmy as all this sounds, the fact is that, to the credit of Girdler's direction, that way out conclusion just seems to flow naturally from what has gone before. Somehow, Girdler moves the film progressively and smoothly through what starts as an Exorcist/Rosemary's Baby type rip off to ultimate near surrealism, gradually building toward the climax through an escalating series of supernatural incidents and weird occurrences. The film neatly balances itself, with sceptical Harry and his paranormal investigating colleagues spending the first part of the film trying to explain everything in rationalist terms, while the latter part mirrors this with the rationalist hospital doctors forced to accept the existence of a supernatural threat and eventually help combat it through their scientific technology. Girdler's success in maintaining audience suspension of disbelief for the endurance of the film, despite the wild stuff occurring on screen is greatly aided by the cast. Tony Curtis, despite looking as if he'd just been dredged up from a week long session in an opium den (and probably thinking for large parts of the filming that he was still trapped in a bad trip) is truly magnificent as Harry Erskine. He has the perfect degree of smarmy charm to convince as a fake psychic, donning a cloak and false moustache to fleece old ladies, but is equally convincing as a sceptical investigator, reluctantly forced to accept that the very supernatural forces he has faked and dismissed are real. By contrast, Micheal Ansara as John Singing Rock, (despite being of Syrian descent, Ansara spent a lot of his career cast as Native Americans), delivers a suitable stolid and serious performance,full of gravitas, which contrasts nicely with Curtis; flamboyance. The rest of the cast, which includes Stella Stevens, Susan Strasberg, Burgess Meredith, Ann Sothern and Paul Mantee, are all excellent as well, all resisting the temptation which afflicts many such films to play for laughs or simply phone in their performances. The special effects work throughout the film are uniformly pretty good, with the utterly lunatic climax surprisingly well executed.
Despite proving popular upon its initial release, The Manitou failed to spawn any sequels, despite the ending leaving the door open for follow ups and Graham Masterton writing a number of other novels featuring both Erskine and The Manitou. This was, perhaps, due to the death of director Girdler before the film was even released, killed in a helicopter crash at the age of thirty. The Manitou undoubtedly stands as the pinnacle of his career and a fitting epitaph, showing that he was more than capable of making the transition from low budget to mid budget movies. He makes good use of the additional resources at his disposal for The Manitou, delivering a slick-looking, fast paced piece of exploitation, packed full of incident, enjoyable performances and articulating its narrative clearly and effectively. Most of all, The Manitou is prime schlock which isn't afraid to fully embrace the inherent ludicrousness of its central premise and run with it, building to a true fever dream of a climax, but unlike its low-budget, poverty row predecessors, it executes it all with aplomb.
An obscure and largely forgotten low budget effort, The Clones (1973) has the distinction of being, probably, the first film to actually use cloning as a plot device. Unfortunately, like many low budget efforts, having established the idea of its protagonist being cloned, with his clone replacing him, it doesn't really know where to go with the idea, so quickly settles into a classic chase format, with the hero pursued by shady hitmen while trying to unravel the mystery of his clone. It finally opts to explain it all with a conspiracy to replace key scientists involved in weather control research for vaguely nefarious purposes. This device feels as if it has arbitrarily bolted onto the rest of the film in a desperate attempt to try and tie all the loose ends together. Along the way, the film pays lip service to questions of individual identity via a couple of conversations between clone and original, but ultimately shows no real interest in properly developing what is potentially most interesting idea posed by the film's scenario. The Clones is very much a film of its era, with its paranoia driven plot, high level conspiracies and downbeat ending. Stylistically too, it is very much a seventies movie, with lots of outdoor location filming, odd camera angles and even an acid trip sequence, as the cloned protagonist, having been given a dose of some drug, runs through a marsh, pursued by the shady hitmen, experiencing some mild hallucinations along the way. This sequence culminates with the inevitable (for a seventies movie) encounter with a bunch of hippie weirdos in a camper van.
The fact that the film has two credited directors - Lamar Card and Paul Hunt - might explain its somewhat uneven pace, with fast paced action sequences punctuated by slower, talkier scenes, full of expository dialogue. That said, the action sequences, particularly the climax set in an amusement park, are very well staged. Indeed, this latter sequence features some excellent camera shots from aboard the roller coaster, as one of the hitmen throws grenades and tries to gun down the good guys, while he travels around it at speed. The film's opening sequence, with the protagonist escaping an explosion at his lab, then chasing after a mysterious figure everyone thinks is him, is satisfyingly confusing and mysterious, deftly setting the paranoid tone of the rest of the movie. Whilst not exactly star-studded, the film's cast does include a number of familiar actors who deliver perfectly decent performances. Micheal Greene, while not a star name, certainly a recognisable supporting actor in many other films and TV series, does a good job as the protagonist (and his clone) attempting to navigate the nightmare scenario he finds himself in. The two hitmen are played by Otis Young and Gregory Sierra, both subsequently to become familiar faces on TV, while the main villain is effectively played by prolific character actor Stanley Adams, (possibly best remembered now for playing a talking alien carrot man in a particularly ludicrous episode of Lost in Space). All-in-all The Clones is a reasonably effective and enjoyable, if undemanding, thriller which would have benefitted from a better thought out script that did more with its central idea than to, in effect, rework spy movies like, say, The Double Man or The Spy With My Face, which confront their heroes with doppelgängers intent on usurping them in order to steal secrets or infiltrate secret projects.
Getting back to this Online Safety Act, I see that we now have that sack of shit Nigel Farage jumping on the bandwagon and claiming that said act represses free speech. Which it patently doesn't. Porn sites and some social media sites requiring age verification in no way hinders anyone's right to express their opinions = let's face it, you are hardly going to pontificate about politics or religion while talking to one of those girls on those video cam sites and there are plenty of channels other than social media available for expressing one's opinions. What it does do is impinge upon my rights as an adult to view perfectly legal content on the dubious grounds of 'child protection'. Now, I'm not saying that I actually have any desire to trawl porn sites, but the fact is that I should, as an adult, have that option without having to prove my age to some dubious third party which these sites are being forced to use, (for UK visitors, at least). As I never tire of pointing out, the primary responsibility for ensuring children don't see inappropriate content lies with their parents or guardians. It is perfectly possible for content restrictions to be set up on internet-connected devices. If you can't do that, then your ISP can impose restrictions for you at router-level. There really is no excuse for parents to wring their hands and despair about all that nasty stuff their kids can see online - if you don't like it, then do something about it yourself instead of waiting for the government to start eroding our civil liberties and endangering our personal data in the process.
Obviously, we didn't have the internet when I was a child, but we did have TV, which was that era's favourite bogeyman for allegedly exposing children to inappropriate material. It was largely scaremongering as TV (we only had three terrestrial channels back then) had a clear 'watershed', with programming of a more adult nature being shown after nine o'clock in the evening. When I was younger, that was well past my bedtime so there was no problem, but as I got older, my parents carefully vetted what I could and couldn't watch after that time, as did virtually every other kid I knew parents. I know that the internet and streaming TV are somewhat more complicated, but the ultimate power for access to them still lies with parents. The Online Safety Act - the creation and implementation of which has spanned two governments, one Tory, the other Labour - is an extraordinarily poorly framed piece of legislation. A kneejerk reaction to a problem that shouldn't really exist if people were to start taking responsibility for their own offspring, It is taking a sledge hammer to crack a nut, the result of successive government's unhealthy obsession with internet pornography and apparent belief that you are bombarded with it as soon as you log onto the web. It's like all those magazines on the top shelf of the newsagents when I was a kid: everybody knew it was there, but you didn't have to look at it.
Now look, I wouldn't want anyone to think that I was transphobic, homophobic or whatever, but you know, hasn't all this gender fluidity stuff gone too far? I mean, what with 'pronouns' and whatever, it's getting to the stage where a guy can't look at porn, let alone women generally, any more and know for sure that what he's seeing is appropriate to his own sexual proclivities. Jesus, who wants to waste valuable time jerking off over what you think is some attractive woman, developing some elaborate sexual fantasy, only to find that they are actually a bloke in drag, or transgender or whatever? If you get to the vinegar stroke before realising, then it is a waste of good jism. If you realise before, then it is still the waste of a valuable erection, (which will immediately melt in your hands with the realisation that you've become aroused over the wrong thing). Whatever happened to the good old days when you know where you stood with porn and erotica? When you knew exactly who it was exploiting? We had straight porn with women for the straight guys and gay porn for the 'other team'. It was nice and simple. Sure, there was some overlap: what heterosexual guy doesn't like to see a bit of red hot girl on girl action. I mean, it's two horny birds for the price of one and sex without the risk of seeing a penis. Now, I'm not saying that we need to repress gay and trans rights and all that, but we definitely need more clarity for the average porn user to ensure that they don't find themselves questioning their own sexual orientation because they've just realised that they've been beating off over someone of uncertain gender.
Not that I'm saying that straight guys might not be curious, maybe even fantasise a bit on occasion about this sort of stuff. They just don't want to put it into practice. I mean, those are just idle fantasies and we all have those. Indeed, even perfectly regular, conventional upright citizen types can have some pretty wild passing fantasies. So wild that if they enacted them, they might even get arrested. Which is another worry I have. With these increasing attempts to restrict and regulate what we can see, even online, I fear the next step will be to try and regulate our sexual fantasies and guys could find themselves banged up for just thinking about stuff. Because that's the next step - these bloody anti-porn nutters will start employing mind readers - a literal thought police - to detect aberrant fantasies. Say, for instance, some bloke is driving along, spots a couple of girls in school uniform and, just for a minute idly fantasises about schoolgirls. Obviously, in his fantasy, they're of legal age and, in real life, he'd never consider such a thing, but if one of these psychic censors picks it up, he could find himself labelled a peado and arrested, or at least pursued by mobs with flaming torches. This, despite the fact that he's obviously not a peado, just a bloke with a bit of a kink about school uniforms, (although, it has to be said, that fantasising about girls young enough that, even though they are over the age of consent, could still be at school, is well dodgy and highly questionable on all sorts of moral grounds). It's a bloody nightmare, isn't it? What kind of world are we living in where a man's sexual fantasies are no longer private and he can't even be sure of the true nature of the object of such fantasies?
A follow up to The Student Teachers (1973), Summer School Teachers (1975) is basically more of the same thing, albeit with a different cast, (although Dick Miller plays the school coach in both films). Indeed, while watching it, there were times when I was hard pressed to remember which of the two films I was watching, so similar many of the plot elements and scenarios in Summer School Teachers were to those in its predecessor. Following New World's established and successful 'three girls' formula, this one features three friends and newly qualified teachers from rural Iowa who go to LA to teach summer school at a high school. As before, the film then settles into an episodic format, as each of the girl's have various experiences, including posing for nude photographs, getting involved with a student and coaching a girl's football team. The football team story - through which the teachers uncover fraudulent use of school funds by the coach - and the involvement with a student - which leads to the breaking up of a car theft ring run by the chairman of the school board - provide the main ongoing plot threads.
New World regular Barbara Peeters takes the directorial reins, moving everything at sufficient pace that the viewer doesn't have too much time to worry about the plot's absurdities and her script ensures that, despite the obligatory female nudity, a strong feminist sub-text is present. The main action sequence, involving a lengthy car chase, is, bearing in mind the budget, very well staged. Of the leads, Candice Rialson, as the sports teacher organising the girls' football team, who starred in Hollywood Boulevard the following year, gives the stand out performance. The film is very much of its era - I very much doubt that any comedy film these days would get away with a plot in which a teacher enters into a relationship with a student yet is still portrayed as a sympathetic character and doesn't suffer dire consequences. *To be fair, like his classmates, the student in question appears to be at least twenty five). Like all of New World's 'three girls' pictures - whether they are about nurses, models, air hostesses or teachers - Summer School Teachers is simultaneously utterly inconsequential and smoothly enjoyable.
Apparently You Tube is the UK's most watched video source outside of the BBC. Which is interesting, as I find myself watching You Tube videos less and less. Ok, I know I'm not one of those 'young people' who, according to the media, consume all of their video content via their mobile phone and won't watch anything more than thirty seconds long, but I still find this latest non-story less than believable. In fact, I take anything in the established media about the supposed viewing habits of the 'young' with a very large pinch of salt. As regards my own You Tube viewing habits, my viewing of stuff there has been in decline for quite a while now due, in part, to several of the content makers whose stuff I enjoyed producing fewer videos and in larger part due to the fact that I find the majority of people still making content, even in the areas that interest me, superficial and seemingly interested less in their subject matter and more in promoting themselves. It's all just become far too self-obsessed, with content makers spending far too much time onscreen themselves promoting their own opinions and producing very shallow content. Sure, I know that you have to be egocentric, to a degree, in order to want to produce content, (I speak from personal experience of churning out stuff here, on The Sleaze and on Onsug), but it seems to have reached an extreme in some parts of the net, as people battle for clicks, likes and followers, seeking the remote adulation of a fickle fanbase.
But it isn't just You Tube that I feel this way about. I find myself increasingly disengaged from social media. Maybe it's my age, but I increasingly go through my various feeds and find myself asking why I'm following all these self-promoters and realising that, quite frankly, I have no interest in hearing their opinions on anything. Which sounds hypocritical, I know, as I type this in preparation to post it on a public blog, expecting random people to read it. Indeed, I find myself increasingly asking myself why I still create content and put it out there. I mean, why should anyone be remotely interested in anything I do or say? What right do I have to try and impose my opinions and ideas upon others? I always come back to the same answer: I do it because I just need to get these ideas out of my head, to stop them from rattling around in there and moulding them into satirical form is the best way to do this. Does it matter if anyone actually reads (or listens in the case of the podcasts) to any of it? In fact, the reality is that all of us are just shouting into the void these days, with search engines, especially Google, seem to be doing their best to prevent anyone from finding original web content. But that won't stop those who see platforms like You Tube as their chance to be somebody. Which is the underlying problem here: most of the trouble in the world seems to be the result of people trying to be somebody. If only they could learn to accept that they are actually nobody. There's nothing wrong in being nobody - it's what most of us are. Speaking personally, I found greater inner peace when I embraced the fact that, far from being someone special, I'm just another insignificant person living an insignificant life who will, likely, never achieve anything of significance, (not to the wider world, at least). Once you accept that you are nobody, it really takes the pressure off, you can get off that treadmill of always feeling obliged to prove your specialness to the rest of the world. If only all those characters on You Tube could grasp, as I have done, that it doesn't matter how many, if any, people consume your content, that high views and likes doesn't validate its quality, then maybe, just maybe, they'd start making some interesting content.
