W C Fields and Me (1976)

Back in the US' bicentennial year, Universal Pictures decided to contribute to the celebrations with a pair of biopics of some of its best remembered stars.  Both Gable and Lombard (1976) and WC Fields and Me (1976) were critically panned and failed to find audiences.  Both have subsequently become very difficult to see.   The WC Fields movie for instance, I recall turning up only once on UK terrestrial TV, only a couple of years after its release, as part of BBC2's Christmas schedules.  I finally caught up with it again over the weekend and was able to confirm it as being a deeply problematic movie.  At the heart of its problems lies the question of exactly what the function of biographical films actually is?  Should they be faithful depictions of the subject's lives, a sort of moving waxwork museum whisking the audience through an entire lifetime compressed into two hours or less?  Or should they focus on some key event or relationship seen as a defining moment of the subject's life?  Or should they eschew strict historical accuracy in favour of creating a story that fictionalises some events and characters in order to try and gain some insight into the real character of the subject?  WC Fields and Me opts for the latter approach, but whether it actually offers any insights into the comic's character is questionable, despite a bravura central performance from Rod Steiger in the title role.  

The film is ostensibly based upon the memoir of the same name written by Fields' one time mistress, Carlotta Monti, (played by Valerie Perrine in the film), who was close to him during the last fourteen years of his life.  (In truth, the film uses virtually nothing from Monti's book).  The subjective nature of source material is the script's excuse for injecting so much fictional detail into the film - Perrine's opening narration telling us that all she knew of Fields' life before they met was what he told her - and Fields, notoriously, liked to fabricate his past, relating different versions of it at different times to different people.  The film, however, diverges from any of these accounts, coming up with a pre-Hollywood backstory for Fields which has him left destitute by a crooked accountant, travelling to California in a rickety second hand car with his midget sidekick, with whom he runs a wax museum before finally being offered movie roles.  In reality, while bad investments made by a financial advisor did cost Fields $50,000, he travelled to California in his own, brand new Lincoln, with $350,000 of his fortune intact, (he was already a top-billed comic in the Ziegfeld Follies in New York and had previously enjoyed international success with his original juggling act).  He certainly didn't run a wax museum and while he had at least one midget friend - a fellow performer from the Follies - he didn't go to California or go into business with him.  This entirely fictional version of the pre-Hollywood Fields is doubtless intended to provide an explanation for his subsequent miserliness and general insecurity regarding money and relationships - a more easily explained substitute for his much more complicated childhood relationship with his father.

Even when the film gets into Fields' Hollywood career and relationship with Monti, it still insists upon fabricating incidents and characters and completely loses track of the chronology of the latter phase  of Fields' life and career.  His reconciliation with his son, for instance, happened in 1938 not, as the film depicts, shortly before his death in 1946.  Of course, the film's version of events plays more conveniently into the script's determination to portray Fields as the stereotypical movie depiction of comedians as being essential unhappy and troubled individuals, their characters shaped by bitterness at past failed relationships.  But the reality was that Fields, on a personal level, spent the last few years of his life in a much more peaceful place, reconciled both with his estranged son and the estranged wife he never divorced (which was why he could never marry Monti).  Most bizarrely, the film fails to properly get to grips with the collapse, revival and collapse again of his movie career.  It completely fumbles the key part of his film career when, becoming ever more erratic as a result of his drinking, Fields was dropped by Paramount, then revived his popularity on radio to the extent that Universal gave him a contract which allowed him greater creative control over his projects.  But the old problems raised their heads again and he found himself dropped by Universal, subsequently being confined to cameo roles in a handful of films, rehashing old routines, and radio appearances.  This omission is particularly mystifying bearing in mind that not only did Universal produce WC Fields and Me, but two of Fields' best remembered and icon movies  - My Little Chickadee and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break - were made for the studio.

Yet, despite the ramshackle and inauthentic script and the distracting false nose he wears throughout, Rod Steiger still contrives to put together a dominant and compelling performance as Fields, eliciting, particularly toward the end of the movie, a great deal of poignancy for the character.  Whether this performance actually represents the real WC Fields, however, whether it truly gives any insight into character, is highly questionable.  The whole film seems based upon the notion that Fields' onstage persona was simply an extension of his real character, that in real life he was also a curmudgeonly, tight fisted, con-artist.  While he certainly liked to play up to his screen character and was, undoubtedly, an alcoholic, there is also plenty of anecdotal evidence of the real Fields being a far more complicated character, often generous, sensitive and kindly.  But little of this is in evidence in the film version of WC Fields and Me.  Steiger tries hard to go beyond simply providing an impersonation of Fields, but the script, ultimately, simply doesn't give him enough to work with and you come way from the film feeling that you've not really learned anything about the real Fields.  Worse still, as several critics at the time of the movie's release noted, it fails to capture the essence of his comic genius - anyone who watched it not knowing who Fields was would be hard pressed to grasp just why he was funny and considered one of his era's greatest screen comedians.

Making Excuses for Nigel

When, oh when, are large sections of Britain's media going to stop making excuses for Nigel Fartage?  Remember when all those people he went to school with came forward with their stories of how he had racially abused them and taunted others with anti-Semitic taunts?  What was the response of  the likes of the Daily Hate?  'Oh well, he was young and didn't know what he was doing', or 'It was a long time ago and he's changed now', or even ''They were just harmless jokes that were misconstrued'.  None of them actually condemned him for having been a racist bastard - not even when he couldn't categorically deny that he had ever made any of the remarks ascribed to him.  Indeed, his non-denial denials were, to those of us not in thrall to the extreme right, the surest sign that he was guilty as sin.  Yet the right-wing press remained silent. Or, worse, tried to give the impression that he was the victim, being smeared with outrageous allegations.  Fast forward to this week and we have more revelations about Fartage, namely that he's been endorsing fascists and repeating fascist and racist slogans in messages vai his Cameo account.  Again, the reaction of too much of the media has been to try and paint him as a victim, exploited by these right wing extremists into unwittingly repeating their slogans - which they then edit into their own videos - and endorsing thugs with convictions for violence.  Oh, poor Nigel!  None of them seem to want to address the elephant in the room here - that surely if someone who aspires to lead their country can be so easily duped, then doesn't that call into questions his credentials to be considered a serious politician?

Obviously, we shouldn't be surprised by any of this, the right-wing press in the UK have always loved a right wing politician advocating a tough line of immigrants and foreigners.  Let's not forget that back in the thirties the Daily Mail had Hitler as their 'Man of the Year'.  But, to be fair, it isn't just the right wing media who are guilty of giving Fartage an easy ride.  Large swathes of the media seem quite unwilling to address the wider issues that both the schoolboy racism allegations and the Cameo business raise.  In the case of the former, it is conveniently dismissed as 'unfounded' allegations (although, as noted, Fartage hasn't actually denied them), with the rider that many people do and say things as youths they wouldn't espouse as adults.  Except that most people guilty of youthful racism don't go on to found and lead a series of political parties based on extremist anti-immigration platforms.  As for the Cameo stuff, not only does it - if we accept at face value the explanation that he is an innocent victim of nasty neo-Nazis duping him - call into question Fartage's judgement, but also his motivations.  Again, we have someone who aspires to lead the country filming videos for fans, for money, when he should be conducting his duties as an MP.  Let's face it, if this was Keir Starmer or Kemi Badenoch doing this, then they would, rightly, be pilloried and their commitment to their positions called into question.  But, like Boris Johnson, Fartage seems to get a free pass.  We've gone from 'Oh, it's just Boris!' as a response to every outrage committed by Johnson, to 'Oh, it's only Nigel!' as a response to every piece of evidence that points to Fartage's links to extremist politics.

Of course, what these two have in common, apart from carefully curated buffoonery, is their utter venality, their willingness to do pretty much anything for money.   Just why people cannot seem to see that Fartage is nothing but a grifter is beyond me.  What more evidence do they need?  Not only is he happily debasing himself and his office by basically recording any message for absolutely anybody on Cameo, just so long as they pay him, but let's not forget that Reform UK isn't really a political party:  it is a limited company owned by Fartage!  Think on that before you give Reform financial contributions or membership fees.  The fact that Fartage so assiduously crawls and fawns to Trump should be another red flag - grifters of a feather flock together, after all.  

The Black Sleep (1956)

Despite being made as late as 1956, when nuclear bombs, mutants created by radiation and flying saucers were all the rage for B-movie topics, The Black Sleep is very traditional horror film, harking back to the Universal, or even Monogram, features of the forties.  Which shouldn't be surprising, as it is effectively a vehicle for a number of horror stars from that era and is directed by Reginald LeBorg, who had toiled away in Universal's B-unit, mostly working on horror movies (despite being a specialist in musicals), during the forties.  Set in nineteenth century England, the plot involves mad scientist Dr Cadman (Basil Rathbone) using his drug (derived from the Orient), 'The Black Sleep', which can make a subject appear dead, rescue a former colleague, wrongly convicted of murder, from the gallows.  Back at Cadman's creepy old remote ancestral home, the revived medic is expected to assist Cadman in his brain surgery experiments.  Obviously, these haven't been going well, resulting in a cellar full of failed subjects, including another former doctor (Lon Chaney), transformed into a violent brute and assorted other lunatics including John Carradine and Tor Johnson.  Bela Lugosi turns up as Cadman's mute butler.

Cadman's experiments are all part of his attempts to revive his wife from a comatose state and inevitably end in disaster, as the inmates of the cellar escape and eventually kill him.  Along the way it is revealed that it was Cadman and his gypsy henchman (Akim Tamaroff), who were behind the condemned medic's framing for murder.  To be fair, this independently made film is actually not at all badly put together, easily on a par, production-wise, with the better forties Universal B horrors.  Unfortunately, though, it offers nothing new in terms of ideas and provides only meagre scares.  That said, it is fun to see the likes of Rathbone, Lugosi, Chaney and Carradine together in a horror film again, although, in reality, Carradine's role is little more than a cameo, Chaney is reduced to playing an imbecile and poor Bela has no dialogue whatsoever, (due largely to the state of his health - this was his last completed film role before his death that same year).  Rathbone, however, pulls out all the stops in a suitably hammy performance as Cadman.  LeBorg's direction does its best to inject some style into proceedings, but the film is all too often bogged down by a talky script, full of too much exposition.  Still, for completists, we do get to see two titans of low budget exploitation, Lon Chaney and Tor Johnson, fight to the death.  

Len Deighton Remembered

Another one of those odd incidents of synchronicity we sometimes encounter:  I just started one of my periodic re-rereadings of favourite early Len Deighton novels last night and I wake up today to the news that he had died.  Now, there are those who would try to read something into this coincidence, prattling on about how 'the Universe' or 'fate' was trying to tell me something.  But the fact is that it is hardly surprising:  Deighton remains a popular writer whose works I re-read every so often (and still enjoy), but he was 97 years old, so the odds of his passing coinciding with me reading one of his novels were actually pretty low.  Anyway, the Deighton novel I'm re-reading at the moment is his second, 'Horse Under Water' (1963), which is less well known than the other three books in the sequence involving his unnamed agent, (called 'Harry Palmer' in film adaptations), because, unlike the others, it was never filmed.  (There is an argument that his fifth novel, 'An Expensive Place to Die' is also part of the sequence. But there are significant differences from the earlier novels and Deighton himself once admitted that while it had started out as another sequel, while writing it he made sufficient changes to turn it into a standalone novel featuring a nameless protagonist who was similar to the hero of the previous books, but wasn't actually him).  It is, nonetheless, a highly enjoyable novel in its own right.

But what is it about those early Deighton novels that keeps bringing me back to them?  I know that all the obituaries for Deighton keep coming back to the fact that the distinguishing feature of his novels was that his protagonists were, in contrast to the likes of public school educated James Bond, essentially working class.  More often than not the only grammar school boys in the midst of echelons of Old Etonians from privileged backgrounds.  While that does chime with many of my own personal experiences, the thing about the novels which really rang true for me was that they recognised the fact that the UK's intelligence services were basically an extension of the civil service and, as such, were bastions of bureaucracy.  The amount of form filling his protagonists have to go through, the amount of time they have to expend on getting legitimate expenses claims paid and the seemingly endless committees required to decide anything, echoes my own experiences in the civil service, both as an intelligence analyst at the MoD and in other, more regular, roles.  The attention to detail - the grotty offices with frayed carpets, faded paintwork, obsolete furniture and inadequate heating - was admirable and highly accurate, even thirty tears on, when I worked in Whitehall.  Indeed, I remember how 'The IPCRESS File' endeared itself to me with its descriptions of the War Office Building's (where I worked for several years) 'long lavatory-like corridors'.   On top of all of this, these early novels evoke brilliantly the sheer essence of their era - a grimy early to mid-sixties London, caked in soot thanks to the prevalence of coal fuelled home heating and steam locomotives still working into London termini, where the pre war world of traditional pubs and street markets jostles shoulders with coffee bars and supermarkets and the emerging youth culture.  It taps into all my childhood, early seventies, memories of visiting relatives in London - the run down Georgian houses sub-divided into flats or converted into cheap hotels for travellers to and from Heathrow, it's all there.  Most importantly, of course, Deighton's books remain a great read, clever, witty and authentic feeling, with sharp characterisations and some still pertinent observations on politics, class and society in general.

The Revenge of Dr X (1970)

As with all the best bad z-grade movies, a degree of confusion surrounds The Revenge of Dr X (1970).  For one thing, I sat down to watch this thinking that it had been made in the Philippines.  After all, not only did the streaming channel where I watch it list it as such, but the opening credits seemed to confirm this, crediting direction to Eddie Romero, a prolific producer and director of Philippines horror movies.  But it quickly became apparent that it was actually a US-Japanese co-production, with cast and locations from both countries.  To add to the confusion, there was no 'Dr X' in the film and nobody was actually taking revenge on anyone else.  In reality, The Revenge of Dr X was actually originally titled Venus Flytrap and directed by Norman Earl Thompson.  The Philippines 'connection' actually derives from the fact that when the film was released to video, the only available print was allegedly missing its opening credits, so the distributor added a new title and the credits from Eddie Romero's Mad Doctor of Blood Island, which he presumably had to hand.  Just to add to the confusion, some sources have also, wrongly, credited direction to Kenneth G Crane, who had directed another US/Japanese monster movie, The Manster (1959).  Watching The Revenge of Dr X, I was left feeling that it might have been a whole lot more entertaining if it had been shot in the Philippines by Eddie Romero and starring the likes of John Ashley and Vic Diaz.

As it stands, though, The Revenge of Dr X is basically a rather clunkily made mad scientist film, with shaky production values and performances.  The plot involves a stressed out NASA scientist taking up a Japanese colleague's offer to unwind at the latter's family's former hotel in Japan, but becoming obsessed with a Venus fly trap plant he finds in Florida while waiting for his broken down car to be fixed.  Once in Japan, assisted by the Japanese colleague's lady scientist cousin, he starts experimenting with the plant, eventually cross breeding it with a native Japanese carnivorous marine species to create a humanoid shaped monster.  The detail of this process incorporates as many exploitable elements and horror movie tropes as it possibly can:  the former hotel has a hunchbacked gardener who plays the organ, the creature is animated by being lifted up on a cradle during a thunder storm to use the electricity from the lightning, the marine plant is found for the scientist by a group of topless girl divers (to ensure some gratuitous nudity) and so on.  Some of this detail is utterly ludicrous - why, for instance, does the scientist have to use lightning when the hotel is clearly connected to mains electricity?  The monster itself is utterly ludicrous looking, initially having its feet planted in a flower pot and with arms that end in fly trap heads.  Obviously, it eats flesh and eventually uproots itself and becomes ambulatory, preying on the local villagers.  

A major problem for the film - aside from poor production values and unspeakable dialogue - lies in the performances of the main players.  Leading lady Ako Kami had never acted before and is clearly ill at ease speaking English, (if the dialogue provided by the script can be described as English), while leading man James Craig, who had been a popular leading man, mainly in Westerns, in the 1940s, shouts his way through his performance.  Indeed, Craig's shouty performance undermines the notion that the scientist is gradually losing his sanity, as he seems to spend the entire film bad temperedly shouting at everyone, even when he is meant to be stressed, but still sane.  His volume and behaviour don't change even as he starts making a monster.  The only clue to his incipient madness being his increasing habit of delivering aggrieved monologues to his monster as to how underappreciated his scientific genius has been.  He's especially annoyed that his theories that animals evolved from plants was dismissed by colleagues. (which is hardly surprising as it flies in the face of scientific fact and he's a rocket scientist, not an evolutionary biologist).  Still, Craig was nearing the end of his acting career - he gave up a couple of years later and went into real estate - so it isn't surprising that he just seems to not care here.  The film inevitably ends with him wandering the slopes of the local volcano, a goat in his arms, trying to lure out his escaped monster.  Inevitably, they both go over the edge of the volcano's crater, (but the goat escapes).  Which brings us back to The Manster, which also ended with its monster falling into a Japanese volcano.  

While The Revenge of Dr X is a truly awful film, like many schlock movies, it has that fever dream quality which makes it quite fascinating to watch.  The monster alone is bizarre and ludicrous looking enough to make the film worth watching, but when combined with Craig's ranting monologues when he is on screen with it, it becomes quite compelling.  

Top Shelf Memories

Could we be about to see a renaissance of traditional porno mags?  I only ask because it seems to me that it is getting ever more difficult to just casually browse porn online, what with all these dodgy age checks and requests for ever-increasing amounts of personal information for verification.  Which is a pity, as online porn was one of the great technological innovations brought to us by the advent of the worldwide web.  No longer did young people have to be furtive about porn, perving over the women's' lingerie section of your mum's Marshal Ward mail order catalogue, or watching The Sweeney or Play for Today in hope of a flash of side-boob, or even straining your neck to glimpse the covers of the magazines on the top shelf of the newsagent. No, you could get it all served up, for free, in the privacy of your own bedroom.  Not just the run-of-the-mill page-three-of-the-tabloid stuff either, but just about every imaginable bizarre variation you could think of.  Young people had never had it so good.  I only wish that I'd had such a home education in smut when I was a teenager.  I'd have been able to avoid all the guilt the trauma of trying to see naked women through off-line means.

But now, of course, they are trying to cut off this lifeline to our depraved pubescent population.  For their own protection, allegedly.  Which is why I can foresee a comeback for traditional top shelf jazz mags.  Because the only ID or age verification you'd need to get your hands on this stuff would be a false moustache and maybe a dodgy fake bus pass claiming that you were really thirty six.  For those without the financial wherewithall to actually buy the magazines, maybe we could see a revival of the traditional 'porn exchange' of my youth:  the hedge at the edge of the playing fields.  That's right, back in the day hedges in parks and recreation grounds seemed to be just chock full of discarded porno mags.  Free for anyone to look at or even take home.  Not just hedges, actually.  I remember once ducking into a deer hide whilst walking through some woods in the country and stumbling over a stash of adult magazines.  Not just regular ones, but spanking themed stuff like 'Janus'.  (Which left me wondering just what the punishment for trespass or illegal hunting was there).   So yeah, let's bring that top shelf back for the kids! 

It Only Happened if it Was on TV...

It seems that nowadays nobody believes anything until they've seen it on TV.  Not as a news item, that is, but seen it dramatised with familiar actors playing all of the main participants.  Take the Post Office scandal, for instance, when all those sub-postmasters were wrongly accused of stealing from the Post Office - some even going to jail - due to a fault with an IT system.  That story ran for years in the news media, with numerous campaigns to try and get justice for the wrongly accused, but nothing happened and the public just seemed to give a collective shrug of resignation.  But as soon as was turned into a TV drama, it was a different story, with the public clamouring for justice.  It seems that seeing Toby Jones playing a victim and chief campaigner being harassed by the Post Office was more evocative than reading about it happening to the real person that he was playing.  That's the key: the participants in news stories are just ordinary people, unknown to the general public who just can't identify or empathise with them.  But replace them in a drama about the story with recognisable TV faces the public knows and loves, then they become outraged at the injustice.  Hence, we now have a Channel Four drama about the water companies dumping shit in our rivers featuring the likes of Jason Watkins and people are suddenly talking about the issue.  Although you'd think that shitting in the rivers was enough an issue in itself to mobilise the public.  

But it isn't just members of the public who now have to be portrayed in a TV drama by well known actors in order to get people engaged with their stories.  Right now, we're being promised a drama about the downfall of newsreader Huw Edwards, with Edwards played by Martin Clunes.  Bearing in mind that this story played out for real, with huge headlines, quite recently, you'd have thought that people really wouldn't need to see it played out as a drama with the star of Men Behaving Badly.  What detail or insight could such a pantomime possibly highlight that we hadn't already been exposed to for real?  But, of course, the real thing didn't count as it had Huw Edwards appearing as himself and he couldn't possibly play himself as well as Martin Clunes could.  So, I guess that people won't really appreciate just how monstrous the Trump regime is, despite living through it (twice, in fact - they had one dose, kicked him out, then re-elected him, having apparently suffered mass amnesia), until they see the TV drama about it a few years down the line, with a padded up Robert De Niro as Trump, Al Pacino as Bernie Sanders and Anthony Hopkins as Joe Biden.  Of course, if they had made it directly after his first term, then the people of the US would of said 'Wow! That guy's a dangerous psycho, unfit to hold office, Thank God all his secret depravities have been exposed over six hour long episodes!' and his second term would never have happened.  Such is the power of TV.

Distractions

Another of those days where I'm left without a clue what to post about.  I'm sure that, yesterday, I had a vague idea as to what I was going to say today, but I've had a lot of distractions since then.  I'll doubtless remember at some point and it will become a future post.  But for now, I'm contemplating the fact that my back aches - I've had a niggling back injury for a couple of weeks now, the result of farting around up a ladder trying to replace a strip light - and my neck also now aches, not in sympathy with my back, but thanks to having slept awkwardly.  Which is another thing, my sleep patterns of late have been more disturbed than usual - I finally managed to piece together eight hours of sleep overnight for the first time in what seems like weeks.  But like I said, I've had a lot of distractions lately.  I've had a lot of problems with the domains I have registered, for instance, with DNS settings mysteriously changing and the email forwarding on one domain suddenly not working, resulting in me not getting email from my bank, amongst other organisations I used it with.  As the current registrar was clearly not interested in resolving the issues, (they'd already had my money for renewing the domains), I decided to test the water in terms of transferring the domains to a new registrar by moving the email-related one first.  Due largely to my own incompetence, this turned out to be a more protracted and frustrating operation than I had hoped for.  Still, it's sorted now and the email address is fully functional again.

With that up and running at a new registrar, I'll maybe start contemplating moving my other domain there, the one that I use for The Sleaze and therefore can't really afford to have any glitches with.  Still, I at least had a more positive distraction from posting here today, as it was this month's local Toy and Model Train Fair, where I picked up my usual amount of tatty model railway equipment and books at minimal cost.  This time around I walked out the proud owner of a couple of those Ferry Van models Lima used to sell back in the eighties.  They are very basic and HO rather than 00 scale, but these are at least fitted with Tri-ang style couplings and will be useful for 'bulking out' freight trains, (using cheaper, less detailed wagons between the newer, better detailed wagons is a good way of creating long goods trains at low cost - you only tend to notice the wagons at the front and back of the train, so that's why you marshal the higher quality stock front and back of the train, with the tattier stuff in-between).  Another major distraction throughout the winter have been the intermittent appearances in my living room of a mouse.  I say a mouse, but I'm pretty sure that there have been at least two mice at different times - in the earlier appearances it looked black, more recently, it has been brown.  

Anyway, I've contemplated various anti-mouse measures, but I don't actually want to hurt it/them.  I almost bought a humane mouse trap, but their appearances declined, lulling me into a false sense of security.  Then the brown one started appearing again.  At which point I contemplated borrowing a local cat and getting it to walk around the living room - the scent of a predator is sometimes enough to deter mice.  Then I remembered that the last time I did that, many, many years ago, the cat in question decided that this was an open invitation for him to come into my house whenever he pleased - I frequently found myself ambushed at the front door as I came home from work.  While I was actually quite fond of that particular cat, it isn't an experience I want to repeat.  But the problem seems to have gone way for now, with no mouse sightings for over a week.  Which might mean that my chasing the brown furred bugger with an air freshener aerosol the last couple of times he appeared has scared him enough to cease and desist.  Or, it could mean that he's simply gotten smarter and now makes out sure that I'm not in the living room when he appears.  Either way, for now, at least, it's saving me the expense of buying that mousetrap.

The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer(1970)

It's always tempting to think that all of the developments we see around us, be they in society, technology or politics, for instance, are brand new and unique to our current age.  Yet, surprisingly often, we are jolted by some artefact from the past which reminds us that, in truth, there is nothing new under the sun.  Quite recently, for example, I finally watched the Peter cook-starring The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)  all the way through, (I'd previously seen parts of it during its infrequent TV airings).  What struck me about the film was just how relevant to today that much of the film's story feels.  In essence, the film chronicles the rise of the titular Rimmer, an efficiency advisor to a run down advertising firm, first to the top of firm, which he modernises and turns into the UK's leading agency, then through politics, eventually becoming Prime Minister.  His methods are frequently cynical and dishonest, sometimes criminal, (he becomes PM after he ensures that this predecessor suffers a fatal 'accident).  Whilst they way in which he gets his agency to fake and massage its polling data in order to manipulate public opinion are clearly relevant to today's world, it is the political sections of the film that seem most contemporary.  Rimmer engineers his political rise through the practice of what we would now call 'populist' politics, presenting simplistic, but popular, 'solutions' to complex issues like immigration.

Indeed, the immigration thread of the movie, where he persuades the Tory Party to allow a right-wing old fogey of an MP to publicly air his extremist views on the issue, then disown and fire him, in order to whip up anti-immigrant sentiments, which they can then exploit at the forthcoming general election, echoes the Tory Party's real-life courting of the anti-immigration lobby in recent years, trying to capitalise on the racist agenda popularised by the likes of Nigel Farage.  It also echoes the way in which the Tories had similarly courted the anti-EU sentiment whipped up by the extreme right in order to secure electoral victory by promising an EU membership referendum, (which then backfired on them when our idiotic electorate voted to 'Leave').  In fact, referenda feature prominently in the film, with Rimmer making good on his promises to make the country more democratic by holding a referendum on every issue, thereby 'giving power back to the people'.  He knows, of course, that people will rapidly tire of being expected to have opinions on every obscure issue, allowing him to walk back the policy and institute a more autocratic form of  government in order to lift this 'burden' of decision making from the public.  

In many ways a prescient film - even the right-wing Tory MP's anti-immigration speech - which relies on citing an obviously false case of immigrants harassing an old lady 'locked in a lavatory' of the sort run nowadays by the right-wing media and championed by populist politicians and racists - seems startlingly contemporary.  Which begs the question, of course, of why The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer isn't better known and more widely referenced in current political and cultural discourse?  The fact is that the film was something of a flop on its release, mauled by critics and failing to find an audience.  Not because its message wasn't pertinent, even then, so much as the fact that, as a satirical comedy, it is somewhat hit-and-miss.  More miss, than hit, in truth.  In too many scenes the gags simply don't seem to land on target, missing their mark by varying degrees.  What should be laugh out loud funny is all too often merely mildly amusing.  A languid pace and a leading character is (deliberately) too bland to be either truly likeable or dislikeable doesn't help.  Too much of the satire of then contemporary political figures also tend to fall flat, the comedic blows never quite landing cleanly enough.  Perhaps fatally, the film's release was delayed until after the 1970 General Election, ensuring that its impact was minimised.  Nevertheless, seen today, what stands out still is the eerily accurate prediction of the direction of British politics, to our current lowest-common-denominator race to the bottom by our leaders in terms of policy, as they chase a mythical 'populist' vote and shape their policies via focus groups and polls rather than by principles. 

Hamasutra - the Art of Sex and Terror

So, just what is the 'Hamasutra'?  It's a word that sprang into my mind the other day for no good reason.  As they sometimes do.  The 'Hamas' bit suggests a connection to the militant Palestinian group of the same name.  You know, the one that is frequently dismissed by politicians as being a terrorist group, yet still enjoys the support of Palestinians in Gaza, despite the Israelis having used its presence there as an excuse for their destruction of the region and its people.  My best guess is that the 'Hamasutra' is some kind of sacred text which, like the similar sounding 'Kamasutra' is concerned with the arts of love and sex.  Except that, with Hamas allegedly being a terrorist organisation, maybe it is a guide to the best way to combine violent terrorism with sex.  Which is quite possibly why we've never heard of it - I mean, a text which advises people on how best to get off while killing Jews (the most likely targets of Palestinian terrorism) would be sure to be suppressed by the Israeli government.  Indeed, maybe that's what the whole bombing and invasion of Gaza was really about, (because, you know, we live in an age where nothing can actually be about what it ostensibly and most obviously is about).  Despite having thought that they had successfully seized and destroyed every known copy of the 'Hamasutra' since the creation of Israel, they'd gotten word that surviving copies had surfaced in Gaza and were inspiring a whole new generation of Palestinian would-be terrorists with its promises of achieving peak orgasm via violence.

But what would the practicalities be of such a philosophy of sexual fulfilment through violent terrorism?  Would it, at its simplest, involve jerking off whilst gunning down some IDF personnel?  Timing your lovemaking to coincide with the detonation of the bomb that you had made and planted on a bus, perhaps?  (With advice to book a hotel room as close to the detonation point as possible so that you don't just get the thrill of hearing it as you reach a climax, but also feeling the shockwaves vibrate through your bodies).  Could it be about actually being able to carry out an assassination whilst having sex?  The art of being able to sight a sniper rifle on a target while in the 'sixty nine' position?  Or firing a rocket launcher while being 'pegged'?  I mean, that would require some incredible calmness techniques in order to keep your aim steady while being porked up the chutney.  Of course, it might be that the actual physical sex act isn't the focus of the 'Hamasutra' but instead the sacred text is about training oneself mentally and physically to be able to develop a physical sexual response to committing an act of violent terror.   Just the pulling of that trigger or the setting off of that bomb would induce an orgasmic experience taking the terrorist to heights of sexual ecstasy unknown to the non-violent.  Moreover, thanks to the discipline that the text teaches, the only sign that the terrorist is experiencing such sexual highs would be a slight curling of the lip, or maybe even just a slow blink.  Whatever the truth, it's all a terrifying prospect: clearly, every copy of the 'Hamasutra' must be seized and burned!