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SPOILER WARNING
The reviews on this page are typically of the type that
describe the plot in detail. So if you don't want to know then best avoid looking.
| Writer/Director: Werner Nekes | |
| Type: Odd | Running Time: 89 mins |
| This film has no overall plot or any real comprehensible theme. It consists of a series of starkly staged dramatic pieces and experimental film inserts. The writing credits indicate it is based on Homer's poem The Odyssey, James Joyce's novel Ulysses and Neil Oram's play The Warp. But quite what the connections are gets rather lost in its sheer dullness. On-screen captions split the film up into 18 chapters - and within each chapter are between 1 and 6 unrelated pieces with each chapter lasting anywhere between 1 and 12 minutes. Chapters have headings like "Telemach"; "Kalypso"; "Nestor" An example of an 8-minute chapter called "Proteus" has dramatic pieces with:- "Two men talking about art; a man doing a stand-up and piano stage show; two men talking about Lord Byron; a man arguing with an official about an entry visa; three men around a table talking about Chinese poetry; a man getting a massage - overlaid with men talking across a table." An example of an experimental film piece in a different chapter has a man outdoors doing some surveying work but he is filmed twice so the second image of him overlays the first but not exactly - that's basically it. Don't get the wrong impression that these are meant to be comedy sketches - they are just dull and bizarre dramatic sketches with seemingly no point to them. | |
| Featuring: | Jim Broadbent, Ken Campbell, Suzan Crowley, Neil Cunningham, Bob Flag, Joolia Cappleman, Richard Howard, Annie Hulley, John Joyce, Werner Nekes, Bunny Reed, Simon Watkins |
| Also: | (other female cast) Tabea Blumenschein, Wanda Goodenufski, Sarah Antill, Maria Moustaka, Jacqueline da Costa, Anabel Temple, Dore O. |
| NOTES: | |
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This is a West German production but mentioned here because of the participation of many British actors. It is largely spoken in English with a few bits in German. |
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The credits are about as incoherent as the film with all the actors names written as one long paragraph on a single caption page in tiny hand-written longhand so as to render it all but unreadable. Fortunately someone has previously deciphered them or obtained some alternate source of information because they are listed on the Internet Movie Database and when you know what is supposed to be written there it's possible to just about recognise some of the names as word-patterns - but they remain otherwise unreadable to properly verify the list. |
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There is some female nudity in some of the pieces but quite who out of the list of participants is seen performing in these parts is very hard to say. |
| The Uncanny (1977) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Michel Parry / Director: Denis Héroux / Producers: Claude Héroux, René Dupont | |
| Type: Anthology / Horror | Running Time: 85 mins |
| Wilbur Gray is an author who specialises in writing books that uncover fantastical unsuspected theories about unexplained events. He has just completed the research on his latest book and the implications of his discovery have made him very nervous and jumpy. He takes his manuscript to his publisher Frank Richards who is very sceptical and asks him to talk him through the details of three of his case studies ...
Case 1 - London 1912 Elderly Miss Malkin has decided to change her will to disinherit her ungrateful nephew Michael and leave her fortune to her dozens of beloved cats instead. The maid Janet overhears her new arrangement and tells Michael with whom she is having a relationship. Michael persuades Janet to steal the new will from the safe. But Miss Malkin catches Janet in the act and Janet has to kill the old woman when she threatens to call the police. But before Janet can destroy the new will the cats turn on her and eventually kill her after subjecting her to several days of terror. Days later Michael and the police find the two bodies which have been half-eaten by the cats. Michael sees the new will and tries to destroy it but the cats kill him as well. (It is believed the cats became murderous because they were so hungry). Case 2 - Quebec Province 1975 Newly orphaned youngster Lucy comes to live with her aunt Joan's family. She brings her beloved pet cat Wellington, much to Aunt Joan's annoyance because she dislikes cats. Joan's own daughter Angela is a bit older than Lucy and mercilessly bullies her believing it's not fair that Lucy is allowed to have a cat when she is not. Lucy's mother was into witchcraft and the distressed girl uses her old books to cast a spell that shrinks Angela to mouse size so that Wellington can terrorise her instead. Then Lucy steps on little-Angela and squashes her dead like a bug. (Angela's disappearance is never solved). Case 3 - Hollywood 1936 Valentine De'ath is movie actor in horror films. His wife is the leading lady but she is tragically killed when a medieval torture stunt goes wrong. In fact Valentine had rigged the accident so that he could replace his wife with his new young mistress Edina in both the film and his personal life. At home Valentine tries to get rid of his wife's cat Scat but the cat proves elusive and a battle of wills commences. The cat seems to haunt Valentine who becomes obsessed with its destruction until eventually whether by accident or design the cat's actions cause the death of Edina and Valentine. (The deaths go unexplained). Back in the present - Wilbur's conclusion is that the common factor in all these unsolved cases is the cats. Wilbur adamantly believes that man has been fooled by these seemingly aloof and innocent creatures who are welcomed into homes as pets where they listen and observe without really being noticed. It is Wilbur's postulation that cats are the true masters who always get their way in the end with patience, cunning and guile. Wilbur leaves his documents with Richards to read and on his way home he is attacked and killed by a mob of cats (evidently to make sure he doesn't reveal to the world the secret truth he has discovered). And back at Richards' house the publisher decides it's all nonsense and puts the manuscript on the fire under the watchful gaze of his own pet cat whom Richards dotes upon. | |
| Starring: | (frame) Peter Cushing (as Wilbur Gray), Ray Milland (as Frank Richards) (Case 1) Susan Penhaligon (as Janet), Joan Greenwood (as Miss Malkin), Simon Williams (as Michael) (Case 2) Katrina Holden (as Lucy), Chloe Franks (as Angela Blake), Alexandra Stewart (as Mrs Blake, Angela's mother) (Case 3) Donald Pleasence (as Valentine De'ath), Samantha Eggar (as Edina Hamilton), John Vernon (as Pomeroy, film producer) |
| Featuring: | Roland Culver (as Solicitor, Case 1), Donald Pilon (as Mr Blake, Angela's father, Case 2), Renée Girard (as Child welfare official, Case 2), Catherine Bégin (as Madeleine, Valentine's wife, Case 3), Jean LeClerc (as Bruce Barrington, film director, Case 3), Sean McCann (as Inspector, Case 3) |
| Under Milk Wood (1972) | Previous Next |
| Play: Dylan Thomas / Writer/Director: Andrew Sinclair / Executive Producers: Jules Buck, Hugh French | |
| Type: Comedy | Running Time: 88 mins |
| Glimpses into the lives of the idiosyncratic inhabitants of a small Welsh harbour town are seen as two strangers wander aimlessly around the town lyrically enthusing about what they see (in poetic voiceover). | |
| Comment: This work probably comes across better when read on the page because as a film it is very dull indeed. There is no story to follow - it is just full of tiny peeks into the lives of the strange village folk, most of whom have amusingly apt names for their personality or profession. But with a cast of over 60 names most of them appear for what in any other film would be a cameo role only. Richard Burton is the stranger who wanders around with no apparent purpose - he never speaks on-camera but provides regular voiceover descriptions of the goings-on. The only other main character is Peter O'Toole as a blind retired sea captain who listens to the world going by from his open window recognising the distinctive sounds all the different townsfolk make. | |
| Starring: | Richard Burton (as The Stranger), Peter O'Toole (as Captain Cat), Ryan Davies (as The Stranger's friend) |
| Featuring: | Glynis Johns, Victor Spinetti, Siân Phillips, Michael Forrest, Meg Wynn Owen, Talfryn Thomas, Ann Beach, Ruth Madoc, David Jason, Glynn Edwards, Angharad Rees, Susan Penhaligon |
| Star-Turns: | Elizabeth Taylor (brief appearance only) |
| Under the Doctor (1976) | Previous Next |
| Writer/Producer: Ron Bareham / Director: Gerry Poulson | |
| Type: Comedy / Anthology | Running Time: 81 mins |
| A psychiatrist has consultations with three different women patients who tell him about their sexual experiences which all feature someone who looks like him.
First Patient: A young woman tells of sexual shenanigans with a boss in his office while she is being interviewed. Second Patient: A Lady tells of a fling with her butler - and in a secondary tale she relates her fantasy of past-times in which two men are duelling over her. Third Patient: A wife tells of how she tries to spice up her husband's interest in her. | |
| Starring: | Barry Evans (as the Doctor), Penny Spencer (first patient), Hilary Pritchard (second patient), Liz Fraser (third patient) |
| Featuring: | Jonathan Cecil, Peter Cleall (the Butler), Elizabeth Counsell |
| Underworld (1985) | Previous Next |
| Story: Barker / Writers: Clive Barker, James Caplin / Director: George Pavlou / Producer: Don Hawkins, Kevin Attew | |
| Type: Thriller | Running Time: 87 mins |
| A young high-class prostitute called Nicole is abducted from her house by some masked intruders whose faces are covered because underneath they have grotesque deformities. This leads to a retired operative called Roy Bain being recalled by his former crime boss Hugo Motherskille who now claims to be working legitimately as an industrialist. Although Bain is reluctant to resume his former line of work, Nicole is a former friend of his and Motherskille uses this connection to persuade him to apply his considerable skills in trying and find her.
Bain checks the girl's bedroom and discovers a vial of white powder beneath her pillow - he follows a lead to a Doctor Savary but meets with a dead end when the doctor refuses to discuss the matter. Meanwhile we see Nicole has been captured by a group of people who all have facial abnormalities and among them is a scientist called Nygaard. They are all addicted to a drug they call "White Man" which gives one a euphoric feeling and provides incredible dreams but has the side effect of over time creating gruesome deformities. Nicole is also an addict and Nygaard is running tests on her to try and establish why she is uniquely immune to the ravages that the others have all fallen victim to. Bain sneaks into Savary's office at night and finds a file explaining more about the drug. Savary catches him at it and holds him at gunpoint while he explains that the drug called Lactrus Iozinine which he invented is powerfully hallucinogenic but is also highly addictive and has unpredictable side effects. By the time this deficiency was identified it was too late for those already addicted and they are now totally reliant on him for more supplies. He was obsessed by the prostitute Nicole who had the ability to make dreams seem real and so he made her an addict so she would become dependant on him but curiously she remained untouched by the side effects. Savary intends to now inject Bain to make him reliant on him too but Bain manages to get away. Bain sees one of the "creatures" flee down a manhole and follows discovering that they live underground - he is soon captured by the other Underworlders who are not pleased that their lair has been discovered - but Nicole speaks up for him and prevents him from harm although he remains as their prisoner. One of Motherskille's flunkeys called Fluke who was following Bain reports back to his boss that the lair has been found. Motherskille had not been interested in Nicole and had wanted Bain to find the Underworlders' lair for him so he could annihilate them. The Underworlders are running out of the drug and they go to Savary to get some more - but Motherskille's men are laying in wait to ambush them and a gunfight ensues. Bain manages to free himself and joins the fight on the side of the Underworlders. Motherskille and his villains are eventually all killed including Savary within whom Nicole induces a dream so powerful that it causes him to self-combust. Bain wants her to come with him back to the surface but she tells him her work here has only just begun and with one surviving Underworlder she takes her leave and returns into the maze of tunnels and Bain returns alone to the surface. | |
| Starring: | Larry Lamb (as Roy Bain), Denholm Elliott (as Doctor Savary), Steven Berkoff (as Hugo Motherskille), Nicola Cowper (as Nicole), Paul Bown (as Nygaard, Underworlder) |
| Featuring: | Art Malik (as Fluke, Motherskille's flunky), Brian Croucher (as Darling, Motherskille's flunky), Ingrid Pitt (as Pepperdine, Madame), Irina Brook (as Bianca, prostitute) (Underworlders) Miranda Richardson (as Oriel), Gary Olsen (as Red Dog), Philip Davis (as Lawrence Tyack), Paul Mari (as Dudu) |
| NOTES: | |
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It's a Thriller tinged with minor Horror/Sci-Fi elements but not enough to fairly categorise it within either of those two genres |
| Universal Soldier (1971) | Previous Next |
| Writer/Director: Cy Endfield / Producers: Frederick Schwartz, Donald Factor | |
| Type: Thriller | Running Time: 86 mins |
| Ryker is a military consultant who in his recent past has worked as a mercenary in war torn trouble spots around the world and has seen a lot of action. Two years ago he retired from the profession but has been lured back for another job with the promise of a large pay-day by an exiled black African leader called Mbote living in the UK who wants to arm the revolutionaries in his county. Ryker's task will be to advise on the weaponry to buy and then go out and train Mbote's men in their use with his team of white mercenaries including his good friend Jesse Jones.
Ryker completes the first part of his job as they visit the UK's largest arms manufacturer and purchase guns and military equipment. As for the export licence Mbote says he has that "in hand" and the lorry loads of arms are driven to the docks awaiting shipment. But the experience of being around and testing weaponry again has brought back deep scarred memories for Ryker and reminded him just why he retired in the first place - he no longer has the stomach for the butchery of war and the horrors that he's seen done on innocents in the pursuit of a war leader's political aims. So without telling anyone his plans Ryker departs the scene and rents a small suburban flat in London determined to live a normal life. He goes to a party with his landlady and there he meets a young girl called Chrissie and they start a relationship in which he begins to be content and happy and seems to have found the sort of life that he really wants. But his friend Jesse has no idea what's happened to him and is having problems with Mbote's people - they are demanding Ryker complete on the deal he agreed to and won't tolerate any excuses. Jesse manages to track down Ryker's whereabouts and warns him that Mbote's men will be able to do the same if he doesn't show up for a meeting the next day when the arms shipments are ready to leave. So that night Ryker and Jesse take pre-emptive action and hijack the lorries from the docks and hold them to ransom to firmly indicate to Mbote that they are no longer interested in dealing with him. Mbote "buys" back the arms for a ransom and the two friends depart. But Mbote's men have tracked them down and later as they are walking by a roadside a limousine pulls up and two shots are fired at them. (This is the final moment and the shots are heard over a freeze frame of the two men and then the end credits roll - so it is not clear if they are hit/killed or not). | |
| Starring: | George Lazenby (as Ryker), Benito Carruthers (as Jesse Jones) |
| Featuring: | Rudolph Walker (as Mbote, African leader), Robin Hunter (as Freddie Bradshaw, Ryker's team), Julian Barnes (as Temple Smith, eager young recruit to Ryker's team), Edward Judd (as Ben Rawlings, arms dealer), Germaine Greer (as Clara Bowden, landlady), Cy Endfield (as Derek Bowden, landlady's husband), Chrissie Shrimpton (as Chrissie?, uncredited but significant part) |
| Familiar Faces: | Lynda Baron (as Woman at party, Chrissie's mother, uncredited non-speaking bit part) |
| Starlets: | Maggie Wright (as Rawling's Secretary) |
| NOTES: | |
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The important role of "Chrissie" is uncredited even though she has a largish role in the latter part of the film and much more than some other next-to-nothing roles that do get credited. IMDB shows an uncredited part played by Chrissie Shrimpton although does not indicate a character name for her - so with the coincidence (?) of first names matching that is perhaps her. |
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Author and women's rights campaigner Germaine Greer appears, not as herself, but in an acting role as Ryker's landlady. |
| Writer: Simon Raven / Director: John Mackenzie / Producer: Gareth Wigan | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 101 mins |
| John Ebony is a young married man who has decided to change careers and become a schoolteacher. His first position is at the Chantry Boys Boarding School where he is filling in for the remainder of the current term following the tragic death of a schoolmaster called Mr Pellam. The school is situated near the sea and Mr Pellam had accidentally fallen down the cliff while out hill walking.
John moves into a nearby cottage with his wife Silvia as he prepares to take over Pellam's class of fifth form boys which he is told is one of the most difficult in the school. John is determined to make a good impression and bring them to order. However whilst being superficially good-mannered, the boys display a staunch group solidarity when he tries to lay down any new rules or punishments. Their defiance takes a sinister turn when they tell John that if he doesn't do things their way he will suffer a similar fate to the late Mr Pellam whom they claim to have murdered. John thinks they are making it up and are just wickedly exploiting an unfortunate accident to try and spook him - but the boys supply sufficient detail that he starts to believe them and he falls into line with how they want the lessons to be conducted along with other such requirements such as putting bets on for them at the bookmakers. However he is just playing along whilst he tries to find out who the ringleader was. He attempts to put pressure on individuals into telling him more but he finds it impossible to penetrate their inscrutability. When he is told by the headmaster that his contract won't be extended into the next term he decides they are not worth it and gives up on the boys completely letting them run riot during lessons as he reads his newspaper and refuses to do their errands. The boys decide to teach him a lesson by threatening his wife and they put her through a terrifying ordeal with the horrifying prospect of a gang rape which she only narrowly averts. Only one boy called Wittering seems appalled at what was being contemplated. He is the weakest boy in the class who is a bit backward academically and subject to bullying by the other boys. The next day Wittering has gone missing and the remaining boys appeal to John to help them find him. John is furious at them for what they put his wife through but they seem to be so dolefully desperate for his help and full of concern that Wittering will tell someone about Pellam's murder that John agrees to help them search because he still wants to learn the truth of whose idea the murder was. Wittering's body is found at the foot of the cliffs with a suicide note explaining that it was he who had proposed the idea to kill the strict and sarcastic Mr Pellam. He did this as a way of impressing his classmates and gaining their respect and although they all carried it out he takes full responsibility for giving them the idea to do it. This is where the film ends with John finding that knowing who suggested the murder has actually gained him no greater understanding of what actually made them do it. | |
| Starring: | David Hemmings (as John Ebony), Carolyn Seymour (as Silvia Ebony, John's wife), Anthony Haygarth (as Cary Farthingale, schoolmaster) |
| Featuring: | Douglas Wilmer (as Headmaster), David Jackson (as Clackworth, schoolmaster) (Lower 5b class members) David Auker (as Aggeridge), Michael Kitchen (as Bungabine), Nicholas Hoye (as Cloistermouth), James Wardroper (as Lipstrob), Michael Cashman (as Terhew), Colin Barrie (as Wittering) |
| NOTES: | |
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This film was based on the first part of a trilogy of TV plays by Giles Cooper about the teacher John Ebony in the BBC's Theatre 625 series. Broadcast over three succesive weeks in June/July 1965, these were: Unman, Wittering and Zigo, Seek Her Out and The Long House . They starred Peter Blythe as John Ebony. I don't have any information on what the other stories were about (or whether it was one long 3-part story that the film wholly adapted). |
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There were sixteen credited Class 5b pupils - only the more prominent ones are listed above. Of those 16 only two names stand out as going on to become well known names:- David Auker and Michael Kitchen. |
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The title of the film comes from the final three names read out on the class register - although there seems to be no especially good reason to title the film like that as there is no particular prominence for those characters. In fact "Zigo" is never even seen as he is always on sick leave although this never becomes an important plot point. |
| Up Jumped a Swagman (1965) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Lewis Greifer / Director: Christopher Miles / Producer: Andrew Mitchell | |
| Type: Comedy / Music | Running Time: 85 mins |
| Dave Kelly is a clean-cut Australian singer who arrives in England on a passenger liner hoping to make it big. He also has ambitions to meet and marry the famous poster model Melissa who is "Everybody's Dream Girl". His first task is to find an agent and he goes to the offices of Wilkinson, Doherty and Lever telling them he would like to become a rich and successful entertainer. Dave sings for Mr Lever who assesses his pop star potential using an array of scientific measuring gadgets and a teenage girl whose level of scream is a vital indicator. The results show that Dave's singing was passable but he needs to come up with a new sound. Mr Lever tells Dave he will call him if something comes up.
While he is waiting for the call Dave looks for somewhere to live. He finds a letting agent called Harry King who tasks his beautiful daughter Patsy with showing Dave around the possible accommodation flats in his portfolio. Unknown to his daughter, Harry is criminally inclined and he and his associates are preparing for a robbery. One of King's empty properties is situated above a jeweller's shop and while it is closed on a Saturday their plan is to break into it from the floor above and steal £2million pounds worth of diamonds from the safe. But just as they are ready to begin they realise that Pasty has let that very flat to Dave Kelly. And Dave is staying in all day so he won't miss any calls from Mr Lever. King thinks fast and tells his daughter to persuade Dave to go out with her and see the sights. And big-hearted King tells Dave he will flat-sit for him and take any phone messages. Dave and Patsy enjoy a pleasant afternoon out together and a romantic association develops. The only thing coming between them is Dave's highly motivated ambition to be a star which for him is more important than any other consideration. Meanwhile King and his men break through the floorboards into the shop below and start trying to crack the safe. Dave and Patsy come back before they are finished and to get rid of them again King pretends Dave's agent Mr Lever called and offered Dave a gig at a rich debutante's coming out ball (which he had just read about in the newspaper). Dave rushes to attend and discovers the debutante is none other than dream girl Melissa Smythe-Fury. Because Dave is not expected he is considered a gatecrasher and made to wash the dishes but afterwards he dances with Melissa. Unfortunately he finds her to be very toffee-nosed with no interest in him whatsoever. Back at the shop Dave and his gang eventually find out the safe contained only an old library book and the shopkeeper always took his entire stock home with him every night. Then it gets surreal:- Dave returns home and finds the hole in his floor. He climbs down and is arrested by the police as a suspect. He runs for it and is shot and wounded. He then staggers into a house which turns out to be a court presided over by Mr Lever. Dave is accused of being arrogantly self-centred without a single redeeming feature - although Dave claims that isn't true because he's got good teeth. Dave is found guilty and when asked if he has anything to say before sentence is passed he sings a song. He is sent to prison until he gets a message from Pasty and he is let out and they get married. Dave is now a member of the King family and he leads a market singsong of Waltzing Matilda as the film ends. | |
| Starring: | Frank Ifield (as Dave Kelly), Annette Andre (as Patsy King), Ronald Radd (as Harry King, Patsy's father), Richard Wattis (as Bob Lever, agent) |
| Featuring: | Suzy Kendall (as Melissa Smythe-Fury), Donal Donnelly (as Bockeye, gang member) |
| Familiar Faces: | Gerald Harper (as Publicity Man) |
| Starlets: | Caron Gardner (as Lever's secretary) |
| NOTES: | |
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Suzy Kendall receives an "introducing" credit |
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A "Swagman" is an Australian who travels carrying all his personal belongings with him |
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The film is mainly a vehicle for singing star Frank Ifield to show off his talents. As Dave, he breaks out into song every five minutes or so - usually for no reason at all. |
| Up Pompeii (1971) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Sid Colin / Director: Bob Kellett / Producer: Ned Sherrin | |
| Type: Sitcom Spin-off | Running Time: 86 mins |
| Lurcio is a slave in ancient Pompeii of 79AD who works in the household of Senator Ludicrus Sextus and his wife Ammonia. As the story begins Lurcio is at the market purchasing supplies for Ludicrus' orgy that evening when he has a run in with a newly arrived Roman centurion called Captain Bilius and certain belongings of the two men get mixed up. When Lurcio gets back to his kitchens he finds a scroll amongst his shopping and puts it to one side not knowing what it is.
Bilius is an emissary of Emperor Nero but is secretly plotting against him and meets with his ally, the pro-consul of Pompeii Prosperus Maximus. Bilius says he has a scroll containing a list of 100 important Romans who will support a revolt and proclaim Maximus as the new emperor once Nero is dead. But as Bilius gets out his scroll it turns out instead to be a cucumber! Bilius realises what happened and organises a hunt for the slave he bumped into in the market who must have the scroll which if it were to fall into the wrong hands would make all the conspirators' lives forfeit. Meanwhile Lurcio's master Ludicrous is to give an important speech at the senate and before leaving he comes to the kitchens to talk to his slave and puts down the scroll containing his speech and then inadvertently takes the unopened Bilius' scroll instead when he departs. Bilius soon tracks Lurcio down and recovers his scroll until he realises it is the wrong one. He hopes to get it back from Ludicrous but the senator has already read it and realises there is a conspiracy afoot involving the pro-consul. Ludicrous visits Maximus to insist he resign but the pro-consul has anticipated this move and has asked his glamorous wife to seduce Ludicrous when he arrives so that Maximus can catch them "at it" and kill Ludicrous on the pretext of protecting his wife's honour. But Lurcio has discovered this plan to kill his master and substitutes himself at the critical moment and the angry Maximus throws him into prison slated for execution. Emperor Nero arrives at Pompeii and for some entertainment suggests that Maximus pit a fighter against his ferocious champion, Gorgo. Not wishing to anger Nero by beating him Maximus selects the weedy condemned slave Lurcio to fight on his behalf. But against the odds Lurcio wins and becomes Nero's new champion. Nero sends Lurcio to some steam baths to pre-emptively assassinate Maximus whom he knows is plotting his downfall. At the same time Lurcio is told to assassinate Nero by Maximus on pain of death if he refuses. And both parties plan that their henchmen should murder Lurcio as a political assassin once he has done the deed. But the henchmen end up accidentally killing each other in the hazy obscurity of the steam room. Finally as Ludicrous is about to expose Maximus in a senate speech the nearby mount Vesuvius erupts and everyone in Pompeii is killed forever frozen by death in their final actions as witnessed many centuries later when a tour guide is showing some visitors around the historical site. | |
| Starring: | Frankie Howerd (as Lurcio), Michael Hordern (as Ludicrus Sextus), Barbara Murray (as Ammonia), Patrick Cargill (as Emporer Nero), Lance Percival (as Captain Bilius), Bill Fraser (as Prosperus Maximus) |
| Featuring: | Julie Ege (as Voluptua, Maximus wife), Rita Webb (as Cassandra, soothsayer), Bernard Bresslaw (as Gorgo, Nero's champion), Adrienne Posta (as Scrubba, kitchen slave), Madeline Smith (as Erotica, Ludicrus' daughter), Royce Mills (as Nausius, Ludicrus' son), Laraine Humphrys (as Flavia, Nausius' girlfriend) |
| Familiar Faces: | Roy Hudd, Kenneth Cranham, Derek Griffiths, David Prowse |
| Starlets: | Veronica Clifford, Gaye Brown, Irlin Hall (and in uncredited minor parts:-) Ann Collins, Lynn Marshall, Patsy Snell, Sally Douglas, Laura Marshall, Valerie Stanton, Nicola Austin, Corinne Skinner-Carter, Carol Hawkins, Sammie Winmill |
| NOTES: | |
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This was a film spin-off from the 1969-70 BBC sitcom of the same name which ran for 14 episodes. Two sequels followed this film starring Frankie Howerd as essentially the same character but set in different eras:- Up the Chastity Belt (1971) and Up the Front (1972). |
| Up the Chastity Belt (1971) | Previous Next |
| Writers: Sid Colin, Ray Galton, Alan Simpson / Director: Bob Kellett / Producers: Ned Sherrin, Terry Glinwood | |
| Type: Sitcom Spin-off | Running Time: 90 mins |
| In the middle of the 12th century a baby boy is born to good Queen Anne. But a wicked and ambitious baron called Sir Braggart de Bombast opposes the succession and quickly orders the baby be taken from its nurse and abandoned in the forest to die. However the queen unexpectedly has twins and the baron is unable to repeat the deed with the second child. This baby grows up the become King Richard I known as the Lionheart. The forsaken baby did not die however and was found by a sow pig who sustained him until he was found and adopted into the household of Sir Coward De Custard where he was named Lurkalot. No one, not even himself, knew his royal origins and Lurkalot grew up to be a serf in Sir Coward's castle.
It is now 40 years later in 1197. King Richard is away in the Holy Lands fighting in the Crusades where he has been ever since he turned from boy to man. Lurkalot remains a lowly servant whose background remains a mystery to him. Lurkalot has an inventive mind and one of his most useful and marketable inventions is a line of chastity belts worn by women to ensure they remain chaste while their menfolk are away at the Crusades. Sir Coward allows Lurkalot certain latitude because the income from his products is the only thing that keeps the castle going. But even that is not enough and Sir Coward is in a financial pickle. Sir Braggart wants to buy Sir Coward's castle and land to increase his own power and influence but Sir Coward proudly refuses to sell. The two noblemen then come to blows over the matter of their respective royal allegiances - Coward is loyal to absent King Richard, but Braggart is a supporter of the king's upstart brother Prince John. A joust is held between their respective champions to settle a matter of honour and although Sir Coward's champion Lurkalot is victorious using his new invention of a magnet, Sir Braggart claims victory because Lurkalot was an ineligible competitor not being of noble birth. Sir Braggart takes possession of Sir Coward's beautiful daughter Lobelia for his letch, but before she is handed over Lurkalot makes sure she is fitted with his most impregnable chastity belt for which he has the only key. When Sir Braggart finds out how he has been fettered he lays siege to Castle Coward to get the key from Lurkalot. But the wily serf uses his new invention of flying wings to soar over the soldiers and escape. Lurkalot decides he must go to the Holy Land and persuade King Richard to return and restore order. But when he arrives in the hot desert land he discovers the reason why the Crusades are so popular with noblemen. The Saracen leader Saladin has set up a paradise centre where every vice imaginable can be satisfied. The brave English knights live it up in a pleasure den of wine and women whilst sending back to England made-up reports of all the fierce fighting that is going on. Lurkalot finds King Richard and is struck by how similar in appearance are he and the king. He tries to tell the king how important it is he return immediately to England. But the king is an ardent hedonist who has been enjoying the pleasures of the flesh for the last twenty years and has no desire to return to England whilst an inexhaustible supply of pretty girls are on hand. Lurkalot decides he must do something drastic to frustrate Richard's complacent contentment, so he manufactures a batch of his impregnable chastity belts and gets all the harem women to wear them. With his fun sequestered King Richard reluctantly agrees to accompany Lurkalot back to England. But it is slow going because Richard cannot resist gallivanting with all the local European lasses along the way and in Germany their journey comes to a lusty halt when Richard finds an irresistible fräulein and stymies Lurkalot's efforts to move on. Richard tells Lurkalot that since they look uncannily alike Lurkalot should go back to England alone and pretend to be him if he thinks it is so important for the king to return. So Lurkalot assumes Richard's identity and accoutrements and arrives back in England full of grandiose expectations of welcome. But unfortunately Richard has been away so long no one remembers what he looks like and no one believes Lurkalot is the king. Instead he is accused of being a witch and put to the flame in a burning. Fortunately he is rescued by the famous outlaw Robin Hood and his Merrie Men. Robin Hood and his men are not the indomitable men of legend but a fay assortment more interested in their immaculate appearances than rough and tumble activities - although they occasionally practice a bit of do-gooding on the side. Robin agrees to help Lurkalot take back Castle Coward from the evil Sir Braggart who has still not managed to overcome Lobelia's chastity belt despite engaging countless locksmiths. Lurkalot is joined by the exiled Sir Coward and together they manage to sneak into the castle and get to Lurkalot's laboratory. Whilst seeking inspiration on how to open the portcullis for Robin's men to storm the castle, Lurkalot accidentally invents gunpowder. This wondrous powder proves decisive in achieving victory over the evil baron who finally reveals to Lurkalot the truth about his royal heritage and that he is the king's older twin brother. Order is established and the real King Richard returns after his fräulein's angry husband arrived back home in Germany and Richard was forced to flee. King Richard bestows a knighthood on Lurkalot and awards himself the hand of fair Lobelia. On their wedding night Lobelia regrets she is still wearing the unconquerable chastity belt. But all is well because King Richard is actually Lurkalot and he has the key. The real King Richard was happy to secretly exchange places with his brother, who is in any event the rightful king, so he can return to the Holy Land and continue having fun. | |
| Starring: | Frankie Howerd (as Lurkalot and Richard the Lionheart), Graham Crowden (as Sir Coward de Custard, Lurkalot's master), Anna Quayle (as Lady Ashfodel, Sir Coward's wife), Bill Fraser (as Sir Braggart de Bombast, evil baron), Anne Aston (as Lobelia, Sir Coward's daughter), Royce Mills (as Knotweed, Sir Coward's son), Eartha Kitt (as Scheherazade, King Richard's fancy), Hugh Paddick (as Robin Hood, effeminate leader of the Merrie Men) |
| Featuring: | Lance Percival (as Holy Land Reporter), Derek Griffiths (as Saladin, Holy Land revelry organiser), Roy Hudd (as Nick the Pick, incompetent locksmith), Dave Prowse (as Sir Grumbell de Grunt, Sir Braggart's champion), Judy Huxtable (as Gretel, German fräulein), Iain Cuthbertson (as Teutonic Knight, Greta's husband), Rita Webb (as Maid Marian) Familiar Faces: Christopher Timothy (as Vendor at Joust), Frank Thornton (as Master of Ceremonies at Joust), Norman Beaton (as Blacksmith) |
| Starlets: | Patricia Quinn (as Young Market Wife), Veronica Clifford (as Winnie the Pooh, busty and lusty overweight woman), Nora Wipp and Niko Laski (as Belly Dancers), Sammie Winmill (as Waitress in Holy Land hospitality tent), Seretta Wilson (as Serving Wench in Sherwood tavern) |
| NOTES: | |
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Anne Aston receives an "introducing" credit |
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This film is a follow-up to Up Pompeii (1971) although it uses a different historical era for the (ostensibly same) character to engage with. There was a further follow-up Up The Front (1972) set in a different era again. |
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Although classified here as a "Sitcom Spin-Off", that is not strictly speaking completely accurate - "Comedy" would probably be the more appropriate genre if taken in isolation. However since it is a follow-up to a film that WAS a sitcom spin-off it seems to make more sense to classify this one in the same way. |
| Up the Front (1972) | Previous Next |
| Writers: Sid Colin, Eddie Braben / Director: Bob Kellett / Producers: Ned Sherrin, Terry Glinwood | |
| Type: Sitcom Spin-off | Running Time: 85 mins |
| It is 1914 and Lurk is an underfootman in the household of Lord and Lady Twithampton. Lurk comes from a long line of cowards and he is disliked and picked upon by the butler Groping who lives up to his name by his pursuit of the glamorous young maid Fanny.
When war is declared Lurk is determined not to enlist even though Fanny shows her displeasure at his brazen cowardice. When Lurk goes to an entertainment show featuring a somewhat sozzled stage hypnotist he is picked from the audience as a reluctant volunteer and is made to believe he is incredibly brave re-enacting the personas of great war leaders. At the end of the act the hypnotist collapses before he can remove the hypnotic suggestion and Lurk is left with a great patriotic urge to "Save England" and he immediately enlists. Lurk arrives in France with great heroic ambitions but these are initially quelled when his Sergeant Major turns out to be Groper who continues his grudge against Lurk by giving him the most menial jobs he can find. Groper then stations Lurk in the low life-expectancy post of a lookout in No Man's Land. While on duty Lurk is contacted by a British spy called Nigel Phipps-Fortescue who has just stolen the secret German battle plans and needs Lurk's help to get them back to Army HQ. Together they flee into a nearby town hotly pursued by German troops who want the plans back. They hide in a tattoo parlour and to save the plans from re-capture Nigel tattoos a copy onto Lurk's backside and then sends him on alone to contact the British General. Lurk has great difficulties convincing the General's men that he needs to see him and then gets waylaid by the beautiful German spy Mata Hari who has been ordered by German intelligence officer Von Gutz to discover what he knows. He outwits her and eventually manages to see the General and show him the plans and Lurk is promoted for his bravery. | |
| Starring: | Frankie Howerd (as Lurk), Bill Fraser (as Mr Groping, Butler and Sgt Major), Zsa Zsa Gabor (as Mata Hari), Jonathan Cecil (as Nigel Phipps-Fortescue), Madeline Smith (as Fanny, Maid and Nurse) |
| Featuring: | Lance Percival (as Von Gutz, German intelligence officer), Robert Coote (as General Burke), Stanley Holloway (as Stage Hypnotist), Kenneth Fortescue (as General Burke's aide), Dora Bryan (as Cora Crumpington, singer/dancer), William Mervyn and Linda Gray (as Lord and Lady Twithampton), Percy Herbert (as Corporal Lovechild), David Battley (as Army Cook), Hermione Baddeley (as Brothel Madame) |
| Familiar Faces: | Bob Hoskins (as Recruiting Sergeant), Derek Griffiths (as Cabaret Knife Thrower) |
| Starlets: | Patricia Quinn (as Mata Hari's maid), Bozena (as Brothel Girl), Leena Skoog (as Nurse), Nicola Rowley (as French Girl) Toni Palmer, Delia Sainsbury, Lesley Anderson, Judy Gridley, Maggie Vincent and Wendy Lukins (as Cabaret dancing girls) |
| NOTES: | |
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Additional script material by: Roy Tuvey & Maurice Sellar and Peter Vincent & Bob Hedley |
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This film is a second follow-up to Up Pompeii (1971) although like its predecessor Up the Chastity Belt (1971) it uses a different historical era for the (ostensibly same) character to engage with. This film does not utilise the device of having Frankie Howerd continually addressing the camera directly which worked so well in the first two films. |
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Although classified here as a "Sitcom Spin-Off", that is not strictly speaking completely accurate - "Comedy" would probably be the more appropriate genre if taken in isolation. However since it is a second follow-up to a film that WAS a sitcom spin-off it seems to make more sense to classify this one in the same way. |
| Up the Junction (1968) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Roger Smith / Director: Peter Collinson / Producers: Anthony Havelock-Allan, John Brabourne | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 112 mins |
| Polly Dean is a young woman from the rich side of London who has decided that she wants nothing to do with the privileged lifestyle she was brought up in and wants instead to live an "ordinary" life. She goes to Battersea and gets a job in a sweet packing factory where she finds the no-holds barred gossip and banter among the working class women workers a delight. Her cultured accent immediately marks her out as someone out of place and her co-workers find it hard to figure out what she could possibly be doing here. But she does make some friends in two sisters called Rube and Sylvie who show her the ropes and accept her into their circle of friends.
Polly decides to move to the area and gets a small flat and buys some furniture from a second hand shop where she meets Peter the shopkeeper's assistant who helps take her purchases home. He is a pleasant and genuine young man with a nice, easygoing manner and when he tentatively asks her out, fully expecting her to decline since he realises she's way out of his league, she accepts. She shows off her new apartment to Rube and Sylvie and they can hardly believe how dingy it is - even they live better than that although they try to be polite. She goes out with Peter, but rather than let him take her somewhere up in town she just wants to wander around the streets looking at the views which she thinks are beautiful but he just sees as dirty rows of old houses that no one really wants to live in. She explains to him she wants to be happy with the simple things in life with no pre-decided life all set out for her in advance by rich parents. She finds the lives of the rich hypocritical and disgusting and no longer wants any part of it and from now on will spend only what she earns. Their relationship progresses and they become more serious and Peter asks Polly away for the weekend. He wants to impress her and hires an expensive sports car and takes her to the finest hotel and restaurant and really pampers her although she tells him she'd much rather have kept things cheap and simple. They spend the night together and declare their love for each other. Next morning they have a row when they discuss marriage and although delighted by the prospect she tells him he would have to get a better job if they did. He finds her comments strange because he knows she must have money behind her and when they are married she can stop this pretending and they can go and live somewhere nice. But she tells him she means it about wanting to live an ordinary life - it is not some sort of game she's playing and she has no wish to live like a parasite or to marry one - she believes money destroys people and she wants no part of it. He just cannot understand her attitude because the lifestyle she has turned her back on is the very thing he aspires to - there is no suggestion that he's a money-grabbing opportunist but he wants to be comfortable enough to take the sweat out of life and move away from the slums of London. He thinks she is selfish to do nothing with her money when she could be spending it to help people and make them happy. He storms out and drives off in the sports car. On the way home he is stopped by the police for speeding and it turns out he stole the car and did not hire it after all. He is given six months in prison for motor theft. Polly attends court for she still loves him and after he is sentenced she asks him why he did it for she'd have much rather have gone by bus - and he tells her that that's her trouble - and we leave the story as she is crying, watching the prison van taking him away. | |
| Starring: | Suzy Kendall (as Polly Dean), Dennis Waterman (as Peter Connors), Adrienne Posta (as Rube Macarthy), Maureen Lipman (as Sylvie Macarthy) |
| Featuring: | Liz Fraser (as Mrs Macarthy, Rube and Sylvie's mother), Michael Gothard (as Terry, Rube's boyfriend), Hylda Baker (as Winny Harp, back-street abortionist), Alfie Bass (as Charlie, Peter's boss), Michael Robbins (as Figgins, sweet factory boss) |
| Familiar Faces: | Susan George (as Joyce, factory girl - small role), Billy Murray (as Ray, pub friend of Terry), Larry Martyn (as Fruit and Veg stall trader - as Larry Martin) |
| NOTES: | |
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Adapted from a book by Nell Dunn. |
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The film is based on the BBC play of the same name which was broadcast in The Wednesday Play slot in November 1965. All the parts were recast for the film. |
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The "junction" of the title comes from Clapham Junction railway station which is near Battersea where the story is set. |
| aka: Confessions of an Odd-Job Man | |
| Writer: Derrick Slater, John Sealey / Director: John Sealey / Producer: Kenneth F Rowles | |
| Type: Sex Comedy | Running Time: 85 mins |
| Bob and his wife move to a small country village where he sets himself up as a handyman and soon starts to get lots of jobs from bored housewives and randy daughters and Bob finds the whole town seems to be sex mad although that doesn't stop him joining in at first. But when he stops providing the extra services the housewives conspire to sully his reputation so he can be dealt with by the local constabulary. | |
| Comment: In most sex-comedy type films, encountering the easily undressed female is considered quite normal and routine by the lead actor, but in this film he himself begins to think the general sex-obsessed behaviour in the town is rather odd. In the closing scene it goes all "Benny Hill" with the hero being chased around outdoors by lots of speeded-up topless/scantily-clad women - all that's missing is the music. | |
| Starring: | Barry Stokes (as Bob), Penny Meredith (as his wife) |
| Featuring: | Bob Todd, Chic Murray, Sue Lloyd |
| Familiar Faces: | Harold Bennett |
| Starlets: | Gay Soper, Valerie Leon, Helli Louise, Julia Bond, Jeannie Collings, Alexandra Dane, Ava Cadell, Nita Lorraine, Olivia Syson, Jannette Carrol |
| Writers: Ken Russell, Mardik Martin / Director: Ken Russell / Producers: Irwin Winkler, Robert Chartoff | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 122 mins |
| Set in the United States starting at about 1919. Rudolph Valentino had come to the United States as an Italian immigrant with ambitions of becoming a landscape gardener after getting the necessary diplomas. However his handsome good looks and skill at dancing made him ideal in the role of a ballroom gigolo working at establishments where matronly women paid to dance with and be flattered by a good-looking young man.
Rulpolph Valentino (Rudi) falls in love with a young woman called Bianca De Saulles who had been an immigrant like himself and they want to get married. Unfortunately she is already married to a powerful and violent man called Jack De Saulles who is insanely jealous if she talks to other men although he himself has many mistresses. Rudi tries to help her get proof of his infidelity so she can sue him for divorce. But Jack sends his hoodlums round to beat Rudi up and show his conniving wife that she cannot hope to defy him. Bianca is so distraught that she shoots Jack dead. Rudi loses his job over the ensuing scandal and moves on to work in a dance hall cabaret act where he and his female-impersonating male partner perform a comic dance routine where "she" is an intentionally poor dancer. It is at one of these performances that Rudi meets Jean Acker who is a starlet in the newfangled movie business. She tells Rudi how she was plucked from obscurity and now lives a champagne lifestyle for acting in movies where they can't even hear your voice. The glitz and glamour appeal to Rudi's sense of showmanship. Jean and Rudi get married and she introduces him to the movie business and he gets a few small parts in some films at an independent studio. The marriage proves a disaster and the couple soon go their separate ways but Rudi's screen performances come to the attention of June Mathis who is a producer at a big Hollywood studio. She recognises his potential and offers him a contract. Valentino quickly becomes a huge star of romantic melodramas with women everywhere idolising his smouldering screen presence. Rudi is not grandiose about his success and is just placidly grateful to be doing something he likes. But then he meets and falls in love with set designer Natasha Rambova who pushes him to become more ambitious. She thinks he is wasting his talent working for a studio and should have a greater say in his own films. Rudi therefore asks the studio head for a huge pay rise and script approval. This is steadfastly refused so Rudi and Natasha walk out and refuse to work. The studio boss in turn refuses to release Rudi from his contract and takes out an injunction to prevent him acting for anyone but him. So Rudi and Natasha take an enforced break from the business intending to wait until the contract has expired. But after a year living a carefree lifestyle out of the limelight, their money is running low. Rudi is also concerned that perhaps the public will have forgotten him. So he and Natasha start making personal appearances in music halls where they perform a dance act which does not break the injunction because he is not acting. The tour is a massive success because everyone wants to see the great Valentino in the flesh. The publicity convinces the studio head to ask Valentino to return to work giving him and Natasha the pay rise and script approval they demanded. When the contract ends Rudi and Natasha decide not to renew but instead enter into negotiations with United Artists. The famous studio wants to sign up Rudi but make it absolutely clear they do not want Natasha in any capacity because it is perceived she is a disrupting influence. For the sake of his career Rudi and Natasha agree to split up and go their separate ways. It is now 1926 and Valentino's movie career continues to be successful. But now in his early 30s he has started to have some health problems with a stomach pain. Also he has been getting some bad press with one reporter mocking his aloof air and questioning his masculinity. Rudi takes great exception to this and publicly demands to fight the journalist in a boxing ring and prove he is a real man. The said journalist is not fit enough but another called Rory O'Neil takes up the challenge. Unfortunately O'Neil is an ex-navy heavyweight champion who takes great relish in the prospect of humbling such a pretentious upstart. Valentino is not a fighter and cannot throw a proper punch and in the first two rounds he is roundly thrashed as O'Neil treats him like a punching bag. The bout only lasts that long because O'Neil is holding back to make it last by playing up to the baying crowd who are thoroughly enjoying the humiliating rout. But then in the third round Rudi lets rip with a last gasp effort and catches O'Neil with a lucky pile driver. O'Neil is stunned and goes down for the count and unexpectedly Valentino is the winner. The crowd cheer him, as if they had known all along that he would win in the end, and he is their hero again. O'Neil expresses no hard feelings and instead challenges Rudi to a rematch in the pub to see who can down the most shots of liquor. And again Rudi wins but only after imbibing an excessive amount of alcohol. He staggers home with his body suffering from the punishing beating and the alcohol abuse. His stomach complaint flares up and he collapses and dies. He was only 31 years old. | |
| Comment: The film is structured around Valentino's funeral with his life story told in flashbacks as various mourners recollect their associations with him. | |
| Starring: | Rudolf Nureyev (as Rudolph Valentino), Michelle Phillips (as Natasha Rambova, Rudi's girlfriend), Felicity Kendal (as June Mathis, movie producer), Seymour Cassel (as George Ullman, Rudi's manager) |
| Featuring: | Leslie Caron (as Alla Nazimova, flamboyant movie actress), Peter Vaughan (as Rory O'Neil, boxing reporter), June Bolton (as Bianca De Saulles, Rudi's girlfriend), Carol Kane (as Jean Acker, Rudi's wife), Huntz Hall (as Jesse Lasky, studio boss), Linda Thorson (as Billie Streeter, dance hall owner), Penelope Milford (as Lorna Sinclair, Rudi's co-star), David de Keyser (as Joseph Schenck, United Artists executive), Alfred Marks (as Richard Rowland, June's associate), Anton Diffring (as Baron Long, cabaret producer), Jennie Linden (as Agnes Ayres), William Hootkins (as Mr Fatty, extrovert comedian), Don Fellows (as George Melford, studio producer) |
| Familiar Faces: | Dudley Sutton (as Willie, Rudi's cellmate) |
| Starlets: | Carolyne Argyle, Debbie Ash, Georgina Hale (as Mr Fatty's girlfriends, [Uncredited]) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the book Valentino, an Intimate Exposé of the Sheik by Brad Steiger and Chaw Mank |
| The Valley of Gwangi (1969) | Previous Next |
| Writer: William E. Bast / Director: Jim O'Connolly / Producer: Charles H. Schneer | |
| Type: American / Adventure | Running Time: 91 mins |
| In Mexico in the early 1900s TJ Breckenridge is the female star and owner of a touring Wild West show which combines rodeo with circus acts. But the popularity of the galas is waning and TJ knows she needs something new to pull in the crowds and fortuitously she has been gifted a miniature wonder that might just achieve that ...
Elsewhere Tuck Kirby, TJ's former partner and lover who walked out on her some years ago to pursue other opportunities, is heading back her way. He is returning to try and persuade TJ to sell out and settle down with him. On the way Tuck meets an English palaeontologist called Professor Horace Bromley who is conducting research in the desert area. He shows Tuck a fossilised footprint he has found that was made by an extinct Eohippus. The Eohippus, or Dawn Horse, was a miniature one-foot high horse, the ancestor of the modern horse which died out 50 million years ago. TJ is angry with Tuck at first for deserting her but his charm soon works its magic on her and she welcomes him back. She shows him her new acquisition which one of her employees found at the mouth of the Forbidden Valley in the desert a few miles away, although the exact location is unknown. It is a miniature horse and Tuck realises straight away that it must be an Eohippus which the English professor was recently telling him about - but this one is very much alive! Tuck brings the professor in to examine it and the Englishman shows great excitement at the kudos he will gain for this amazing scientific discovery. The professor wants to take it away and study it, but to his chagrin TJ refuses because she plans to use it in her show as a crowd-pleasing wonder. Meanwhile a superstitious old gypsy woman warns of terrible calamity if the creature is not returned to where it belongs. The professor reasons to himself that where there is one Eohippus there must be others so in an act of cunning he tells the gypsy woman where the Eohippus is kept knowing that she will steal it to return it home. He then plans to follow her and find the location of the Forbidden Valley and capture others of its kind. That way, he rationalises, TJ can have her attraction and he can have his specimen and everyone will be happy. The old woman and her kin steal the Eohippus and ride out into the desert. The professor follows pleased that his ruse seems to be working. Tuck realises what is going on and gives chases followed shortly afterwards by TJ and her men who believe Tuck has betrayed them and helped the professor steal their attraction. At the mouth of a valley the gypsies release the Eohippus back into the wild and it scampers off. The other parties arrive and begin efforts to recapture it. They find their way to a narrow crevice through a rock wall and on the other side find an undiscovered valley where all manner of strange and thought-to-be extinct prehistoric creatures roam. One particularly fearsome creature is the gigantic carnivorous Allosaur whom the gypsies call Gwangi. The cowboys realise that if they could capture it the creature would eclipse the appeal of the tiny horse and be the greatest attraction ever exhibited. They use all their corralling skills to try and bring the beast under their control. But its belligerence and strength prove too much and they have to flee for their lives. However the Gwangi chases them as they exit through the narrow fissure and using brute strength forces its way through. But this activity dislodges some large boulders which fall onto the beast and render it unconscious. The cowboys seize their chance and transport the Gwangi back to their rodeo arena. They lock the creature in a large metal cage and begin making preparations for the public unveiling of their astounding new attraction. They ignore the gypsy woman's warnings that the Gwangi is an evil creature. The public's interest in seeing the Gwangi is huge and TJ knows she is onto a money-spinner. Tuck is disappointed that TJ has rejected his appeal to sell out while she's doing well. As the big moment of the unveiling approaches one of the Gypsy woman's men sneaks into the cage and releases the restraining bolts. As the veil around the cage is removed to the audience's awed gasps, Gwangi becomes enraged and breaks out of the cage - the professor is crushed to death by the falling bars. Gwangi rampages around the arena as the crowd flee in utter panic. Gwangi chases the people out into the town square and into the cathedral where they thought they would be safe. Tuck manages to trap it in the cathedral as the people rush out of the rear exit. A fire is started and takes hold and Gwangi is caught in it, roaring its fury at the painful flames it cannot defeat. The crowds gather outside as they watch their cathedral burn down and hear the agonised death roars of the Gwangi as it eventually succumbs to the inferno. | |
| Starring: | James Franciscus (as Tuck Kirby), Gila Golan (as T.J. Breckenridge), Laurence Naismith (as Professor Horace Bromley, English palaeontologist) |
| Featuring: | Curtis Arden (as Lope, young Mexican boy), Richard Carlson (as Champ Connors, ringmaster), Freda Jackson (as Tia Zorina, old blind gypsy woman), Gustavo Rojo (as Carlos dos Orsos, rodeo worker) |
| NOTES: | |
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Additional material by Julian More. The director's name was credited as James O'Connolly |
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Curtis Arden receives an "introducing" credit |
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This American film is reviewed here mainly because it was had the same Charles H. Schneer-Ray Harryhausen production team as a series of other fantasy type features which had a more clear-cut British involvement, such as the two 1970s Sinbad movies and Clash of the Titans from 1981. It was directed by Jim O'Connelly who also made a number of UK films reviewed on these pages. The one British actor involved was Laurence Naismith. |
| aka: Old Dracula | |
| Writer: Jeremy Lloyd / Director: Clive Donner / Producer: Jack H Wiener | |
| Type: Comedy Horror | Running Time: 84 mins |
| In the present day Castle Dracula in Transylvania is run as a tourist attraction hotel with the guests being offered themed dinners with a tour guide Dracula as their host. To the public at large Dracula is a legend and no one knows if he ever really existed - but he does exist and the real Count Dracula is the one behind the scenes running the whole enterprise and cashing in on his own name. His faithful human butler Maltravers acts as the tour-Dracula and they employ actresses to be the vampire waitresses. However Dracula has set up this tourist "trap" with one specific purpose in mind - he is desperately searching for someone with the rarest blood group in the world which can be used to provide the catalyst that will re-energise his beloved wife Vampira who has been in an undead coma for the past fifty years after drinking some poisoned peasant blood. Guests are routinely drugged and during their sleep have some blood extracted and analysed for that elusive group before they leave - remaining completely unaware of what happened to them.
The next guests expected at the castle are a party from Playboy magazine UK whose award winning article writer, Marc Williams, is doing a feature on the Dracula legend. He has brought along four models to photograph - there are three white models and one who is black. After dinner the models retire to bed and fall into a drugged sleep. Dracula and his servant take blood samples and when they analyse them they find they have at last found that elusive match! As long as the special blood catalyst is present then any other blood type will do to bulk-out the quantity and so all the samples taken are combined and used to give Vampira a transfusion. The process seems to be working and Dracula's wife awakens from her long slumber - but then a strange thing happens and her white skin turns black. Dracula is appalled at this development and can't imagine what people would think - although Vampira herself kind of likes it and thinks it suits her. Maltravers speculates it may be like mixing colours in the wash and the "black" blood contained in the batch has somehow affected her pigmentation. They know the special blood did not come from the black model but due to a label mix-up Dracula and Maltravers aren't sure which of the three white girls the special blood came from - and now the models have returned to England. So Dracula, Vampira and Maltravers head off to London in pursuit to get more samples and discover which of them had the special blood. They are then anticipating that if they give Vampira another transfusion to clean out her system she will turn back to her normal colour. Once in England Dracula rents a suitably gothic mansion and invites Marc Williams to visit knowing that he will have access to all the models. He hypnotises Marc into acting as his agent and commands him to take blood samples whenever he hears the codeword "Vampira". Marc then has dates with the models and in a trance is forced to extract blood from them for analysis. After a time Marc begins to become suspicious that he is under some from of control and tries to fight it but Dracula exerts his will forcing him to obey. Things culminate at a Playboy party where the final model to be tested is present and she is confirmed to be the match after the first two girls' results were negative. Dracula mixes the white-only blood up and gives Vampira another transfusion - but it doesn't work as expected - instead she stays black and feels such a surge of need that she bites into her husband's neck. This has an unforeseen effect on him as he too turns into a black person. Dracula is most embarrassed by this and decides to head back to Transylvania as quickly as possible before he is seen. | |
| Comment: This film probably doesn't get shown these days because of the racist implications that having black skin is something to be embarrassed about even though it is only David Niven's Dracula character who has this view - which is a shame because other than that it is a perfectly agreeable film. | |
| Starring: | David Niven (as Count Dracula), Teresa Graves (as Countess Vampira), Peter Bayliss (as Maltravers, Dracula's manservant), Nicky Henson (as Marc Williams, writer) |
| Featuring: | Jennie Linden (as Angela, Photographer's assistant), Bernard Bresslaw (as Playboy UK publisher), Linda Hayden (as Helga, Tour actress at Dracula's castle), Christopher Sandford (as the Photographer) (The Playmate Models) Cathie Shirriff (as Nancy), Andrea Allan (as Eve), Veronica Carlson (as Ritva), Minah Bird (as Rose) |
| Familiar Faces: | Frank Thornton (Letting Agent), Aimi MacDonald and Patrick Newell (Couple in the adjoining Hotel Room to Dracula), Kenneth Cranham (Mugger) |
| Starlets: | Carol Cleveland (as Mugger's victim), Luan Peters (as Publisher's Secretary), Marcia Fox (as Air Hostess), Hoima MacDonald, Nicola Austine and Penny Irving (as Playboy Bunnies) |
| Vampire Circus (1972) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Judson Kinberg / Director: Robert Young / Producer: Wilbur Stark | |
| Type: Horror | Running Time: 83 mins |
| In the village of Stetl in a European country during the nineteenth century the villagers live in fear of the mysterious Count Mitterhaus who resides in his fortified castle nearby. Several villagers' children have gone missing and although the Count is suspected they are unwilling to confront him afraid of the supernatural legends that surround him. But when a schoolteacher called Albert Mueller spots his own wife Anna leading a young innocent little girl into the castle he cannot understand what she is doing and assumes she must be under some unholy influence. He bands together the villagers and persuades them that they should at last take some action against the evil Count and save both his wife and the young girl Jenny. They enter the castle and soon discover Jenny dead from a vampire's bite - but Anna is in the Count's bedchamber as his willing lover. Count Mitterhaus is a vampire and Anna is his human concubine who has been luring innocent victims for him to feed upon. The villager's angrily attack the Count determined to rid themselves of his evil - they fight hard but the Count is supernaturally strong and cannot be harmed by conventional means - several villagers die but eventually the Count is subdued with a stake to his heart. As the Count lays dying he issues a curse on the assembled head villagers declaring that their children will suffer - that at some point in the future their offspring will die to restore his life. Anna is dragged from the castle and flogged for her treachery and the castle is set ablaze. Anna pulls free, and grieving for her lover she runs back into the burning castle and drags his body down into the cellar caves and into his coffin where in his dying moments he tells her to find his cousin Emil who will know what to do. She departs down an underground passageway and escapes to carry out his dying wishes...
Fifteen years later the same village is in the grip of an unknown plague that has caused the neighbouring villages to forcibly blockade access in or out to maintain it in quarantine. The head villagers are at a loss to know what to do and morale is very low. Then a circus troupe arrives in town mysteriously breaking the cordon without any difficulty. The circus is named "The Circus of Nights" and is run by an unnamed Gypsy Woman whose right hand man is Emil. He is secretly a vampire and has the ability to transmute into a black panther. Other circus performers are also vampires and they have arrived to put into motion the curse of Emil's cousin Mitterhaus from fifteen years previously. The village folk are delighted at first with the distraction that the entertainment of the circus brings to their miserable situation. But when children of some of the elder villagers go missing and are found dead memories of the Count's curse come flooding back. The villagers band together once more to destroy the circus vampires and attempt to prevent the Count's resurrection from being fulfilled. But the situation is too far gone and the Count is reborn - but only temporarily as he is finally destroyed for good while still in a weakened state. | |
| Comment: Although not made as clear as it should have been it seems that the Gypsy Woman is meant to be an older Anna (played by a different actress). The only plot weakness here is that the entire story is building towards the resurrection of the Count but when he is reborn he is killed again remarkably quickly and with apparent ease making him seem a lot less formidable and fearful an enemy than we are made to think. | |
| Starring: | Adrienne Corri (as Gypsy Woman), Thorley Walters (as the Burgermeister), Laurence Payne (as Professor Albert Mueller), Anthony Corlan (as Emil) |
| Featuring: | Richard Owens (as Dr Kersh), John Moulder-Brown (as Anton, son of Kersh), Lynne Frederick (as Dora, daughter of Albert Mueller), Robert Tayman (as Count Mitterhaus), Domini Blythe (as Anna Mueller), Christina Paul (as Rosa, Burgermeister's daughter), Robin Sachs and Lalla Ward (as Heinrich and Helga, twin circus gymnasts), Skip Martin (as Michael, clown), Elizabeth Seal, Robin Hunter, John Bown, Mary Wimbush, Sibylla Kay (as other villagers) |
| Familiar Faces: | David Prowse (as Strongman) |
| Starlets: | Serena |
| NOTES: | |
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Serena and her male counterpart Milovan both receive "introducing" credits. They are a circus couple doing a performance dance act in which she is painted with animal markings and he tames her. They are announced as "Weber and Serena" and their end credit character billing is as "The Webers" - they have no dialogue or part in the film other than during their dance performance sequence. |
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The director is credited as Robert William Young. |
| The Vampire Lovers (1970) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Tudor Gates / Director: Roy Ward Baker / Producers: Harry Fine, Michael Style | |
| Type: Horror | Running Time: 91 mins |
| Set in the early 1800s in a European country. General Von Spielsdorf is holding a grand celebratory ball for his young niece's birthday when some newcomers to the area arrive to introduce themselves. They are a Countess and her daughter Marcilla and are warmly welcomed. The Countess then receives an urgent message and is called away to visit a sick relative and she asks if she could impose upon the General to allow Marcilla to stay with him whilst she is away. The General agrees knowing that the young woman would be good company for his niece Laura. Over the days that follow the two young women make friends and become close - but then Laura begins to get ill, becoming tired and listless. The doctor can do nothing for her and after a couple of days she simply dies for no good reason, although the doctor discovers two odd puncture marks above her left breast. The General is grief stricken and goes away intent on finding some answers to his niece's sudden decline.
Nearby live the rich Morton family, they had been at the General's ball as well but had left the party early and so never met Marcilla - but they are all very sad at the death of Laura. Roger Morton lives with daughter Emma and the girl's governess Mademoiselle Perrodot. While out riding Roger Morton comes across a matronly damsel in distress whose stagecoach has had a mishap. The lady is travelling with her niece and because of the delay she asks if her charge could possibly stay with Morton whilst she continues on alone to visit a sick relative and Morton agrees thinking it would be excellent company for Emma. Her niece is called Carmilla (when we see her on screen we know she is Marcilla, although none of the Morton household know of her involvement in the nearby events at the General's house). Morton soon has to depart on business to Vienna and whilst he is away a similar pattern of events play out in this household as seen before and the mysteriously enigmatic Carmilla becomes good friends with Emma making overtures of something more than just friends when opportunity presents itself although Emma is too naïve to understand her close intimate contact is anything other than special friendship. Emma becomes listless during the day and her governess becomes increasingly concerned as to her well-being. Emma has strange puncture marks above her left breast which Carmilla explains away to the Governess as being made by a broach - but the Governess is only partly convinced and so Carmilla weaves her alluring spell on the woman who feels compelled to follow her to her room where a romantic liaison ensues. After this the Governess is a changed woman - she is no longer concerned about Emma's wellbeing and puts obstacles in the path of the worried butler Renton who thinks they should send for the Doctor. But Renton is anxious enough to go against the Governess' instructions and send for the doctor anyway. With suspicions of a vampiric predator around because of several mysterious deaths in the area, the doctor puts a crucifix around Emma's neck and has her room garnished with garlic flowers - Renton is given instructions by the doctor to make sure these safeguards are kept in place. Then on his way home the suspicious doctor is attacked by Carmilla and her vampiric nature is openly seen displayed (if there was any doubt) as she kills him with a bite to his neck before he can report anything of his findings in the village. Back at the house again Carmilla is thwarted from entering Emma's room by the defensive measures but she needs the girl to snack upon to satiate her cravings. Then Renton makes a fatal mistake when he confides in Carmilla that he thinks the Governess might be a vampire because of the way she has been trying to undermine the precautions made to keep Emma safe. Carmilla extorts her powers of mesmeric seduction over him and in her thrall he removes the charms for her and then she kills him. Roger Morton returns from his business trip and, terrified at his daughter's weak condition, he heads to the village to try and find the doctor (not knowing he is dead). On the way he meets the General who has just returned from his time away and has with him a man he found who knows all about the dangers of this area. His name is Baron Hartog and he has a story to tell ... (His story - some of which is seen in the film's prologue) Several years beforehand back in 1794 Baron Hartog's sister Isabella had been killed by a vampire of the Karnstein clan. The Karnsteins were a family who were evil both in life and in un-death and Hartog is determined to avenge his sister's death. He goes to the Karnstein castle where the vampires sleep buried in their coffins to occasionally rise when they need sustenance. He finds each coffin and stakes the occupants as they sleep. He only misses one whose tomb he could not locate and he was too overwrought by the horror of it all to continue searching any longer. So now Morton, the General and the Baron return to the castle to complete the task. They search around and in an overgrown area find the missed tomb bearing the name of Mircalla Karnstein (1527 - 1545) and when they see her portrait both local men recognise her as the woman they recently allowed into their homes to befriend their young ones. However they discover that the tomb is empty of the actual coffin which has evidently been hidden elsewhere. Back at the Morton house Carmilla has become thwarted in her efforts to further feed from Emma by a local estate manager Carl Ebhardt (who was the beau of Laura) and she decides to give up and return to her coffin since she is reasonably sated as she has recently fed from the Governess whom she has just killed. Back at the castle the three men see her come back and discover the hidden location of her coffin and the General proceeds to stake her sleeping form and then beheads her to finally destroy her evil menace. | |
| Comments: The date setting is a rough guestimate based on the date of Baron Hartog's sister's death shown in the prologue as 1794 on her obituary card. Baron Hartog appears later in the film to help wrap things up and a few years must have undoubtedly passed although it's not clear just how many.
A peripheral character seen in the film whom I wasn't able to weave into the above plot description is a mysterious man in black who is often seen observing events from the distance and is himself shown to be a vampire - although the exact nature of his identity or his role in the affairs is not clear and at the end he remains alive and undiscovered. Also seemingly unresolved is just who the Countess was - was she another vampire - or perhaps she was another woman in the thrall of Marcella/Carmilla? | |
| Starring: | Ingrid Pitt (as Marcilla and Carmilla), Peter Cushing (as The General), George Cole (as Roger Morton), Madeline Smith (as Emma Morton), Kate O'Mara (as The Governess) |
| Featuring: | Jon Finch (as Carl Ebhardt), Pippa Steele (as Laura), Ferdy Mayne (as the Doctor), Douglas Wilmer (as Baron Hartog), Dawn Addams (as The Countess), Harvey Hall (as Renton, Morton butler), Janet Key (as Gretchin, Morton maid), Shelagh Wilcocks (as General's Housekeeper), John Forbes-Robertson (as Man in Black) |
| Starlets: | Kirsten Betts (as Vampire in prologue), Joanna Shelley (as victim), Olga James (as victim), Vicki Woolf |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the story Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu written in 1871. Another film which bases itself on this same original story is the Spanish film The Blood Spattered Bride (1972) although beyond the name of the villainess and her vampirish seduction of a young woman there is no big similarity between the stories told. |
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The story of the Karnstein family and the mysterious vampire dressed in black continues in two sequels to this film. These are:- Lust For a Vampire (1971) which shows the efforts of the man in black (revealed to be Count Karnstein) to resurrect the spirit of Marcilla. And then Twins of Evil (1971) in which a later Count Karnstein becomes a vampire when Marcilla is briefly resurrected. |
| Writer: D. Daubeney / Director: Joseph Larraz / Producer: Brian Smedley-Aston | |
| Type: Horror | Running Time: 87 mins |
| Fran and Miriam are two beautiful vampires who live together in a large isolated gothic mansion in the country. They entrap their male victims by waiting on a roadside hitching a lift and asking to be driven back to their mansion where they invite the man in with them under the promise of a good time. They have sex with the man (and each other) and then feast on the man's blood killing him in the process. The latest prey is Ted who picks up Fran and goes home with her but Fran has decided to play it differently with him and keeps him alive night after night feeding on him while he is in a dazed state but not killing him. During the day he has opportunities to leave but finds himself drawn back to the place to find out more about her.
Camped in their caravan nearby are John and Harriet, a married couple who see various comings and goings at the mansion and Harriet becomes intensely curious as to what the women are up to after earlier passing them on the roadside trying to hitch a lift - a curiosity that has fatal consequences for the couple as the Vampyres go on a climatic killing rampage after Ted escapes. | |
| Starring: | Marianne Morris (as Fran), Anulka Dziubinska (as Miriam), Murray Brown (as Ted) |
| Featuring: | Brian Deacon and Sally Faulkner (as the Caravaners), Michael Byrne and Karl Lanchbury (as two other victims) |
| Starlets: | Margaret Heald |
| NOTES: | |
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Marianne Morris and Anulka Dziubinska both receive "introducing" credits. Anulka Dziubinska is credited simply as "Anulka" |
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The two women are not traditional movie vampires because they have no trouble being out and about during the daylight. They do sometimes sleep in a dank cellar during the day but not in coffins. It's hinted that they might not have reflections when Ted finds a mirror that is papered over for reasons he doesn't understand - but this feature is never seen demonstrated on screen. Their origin is not the usual vampire thing either and is sort of explained at the end when an estate agent describing the mansion to prospective buyers tells of a legend of two unidentified women who were found murdered inside and are said to have haunted the place. This ties in with the pre-credits sequence when the two women are gunned down by an intruder while they are canoodling together on their bed. Although how from this they became "vampires" is not explained. |
| The Vault of Horror (1973) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Milton Subotsky / Director: Roy Ward Baker / Producers: Max J Rosenberg, Milton Subotsky | |
| Type: Horror / Anthology | Running Time: 83 mins |
| Five men get into an elevator at separate floors on their way down to the ground floor of an office building - but the lift oddly bypasses the ground floor and goes to the basement where they get out and find food and refreshments laid out. The lift doors close and there is no recall button so they decide to wait it out and make the best of it until someone comes for them and soon get around to telling one another about some strange dreams they've each recently had. Their dreams are the stories we then see ...
Story 1 - Midnight Mess Harold Rogers is searching for his sister Donna whom he has not seen for a long time. He hires a private detective whom he promptly strangles to death once he has discovered her address. He goes to her village and finds everyone is strangely afraid of the approaching dark. He knocks on his sister's door and she tells him that there are killers who roam at night. Then he tells her the reason for his visit - their father died four weeks beforehand and she is the sole-named heir - for as long as she lives! - and he proceeds to stab her to death. It is now dark outside and he goes to a nearby restaurant which seems to be doing a bustling trade despite the locals' supposed fear. But the menu is strange in that all the items are blood related and then in the mirror he sees that he is the only person in the packed dining room who has a reflection. His sister then walks in still alive and they all reveal themselves as vampires as they proceed to have him for dinner. Story 2 - The Neat Job Ageing Arthur Critchit has taken a new young wife called Eleanor to share in all the fortune and luxury he has accumulated in his life. Arthur is an obsessively neat and tidy person and needs everything to be in the right place and although she tries her best Eleanor finds it very hard to conform to the rigid system of order he has come to live by over the years and she keeps getting things wrong. When he comes home one day to find that her clumsiness has ruined the meticulous arrangements in his workroom she snaps and kills him with a hammer. But she preserves him as he would want to be by placing all his body parts in separate jars all neatly labelled and placed on a shelf. Story 3 - This Trick'll Kill You Sebastian is a stage magician who is holidaying in India with his wife Inez who is also his stage assistant and together they are looking for new ideas for their act. They are watching a fakir and his daughter perform street magic and Sebastian takes great pleasure in exposing his "magic" as mere trickery in front of the assembled crowd. Sebastian prides himself in his ability to work out how any trick is done and so he is intrigued when later on he sees the daughter performing an Indian rope trick which even though she lets him examine it closely he cannot fathom the secret of. He offers to buy the secret of the trick from her but she refuses saying it a magic rope that has been handed down through the generations. So Sebastian tricks her into coming to his hotel room on the ruse of demonstrating the trick to Inez who he says is ill in bed - then he kills the young woman and tries the trick himself. He plays the music that she played and the rope rises and Inez practices climbing up it - but at the top she screams and vanishes and then the rope takes of a life of its own and attacks and kills Sebastian. And in the market place the Fakir and his still-alive daughter carry on their act having taken revenge on Sebastian for earlier humiliating them. Story 4 - Bargain In Death Maitland has devised an insurance scam with his friend Alex. Maitland takes a drug that will slow down his metabolism so much it will fool any doctor into believing him to be dead of a sudden heart attack. The plan is that soon after he is buried Alex will dig him up and together they will share the Life Assurance money. But Maitland plans to double cross Alex by killing him after the money has been collected - and Alex intends to double cross Maitland by not even digging him up. Meanwhile two medical students are bemoaning the fact that they have so little chance to practice on real dead bodies that they decide to get one themselves. Maitland is now underground buried in his coffin wondering what is taking Alex so long when at last he is dug up - it is not Alex though, but the two students, and they get a nasty shock when the "corpse" sits up gasping for air. But the gravedigger they have hired responds by slicing Maitland's head off with his shovel. Story 5 - Drawn and Quartered A painter called Moore has gone to live in seclusion on the island of Haiti after his artwork was strongly condemned by an art critic and considered worthless by a gallery owner. He is shocked therefore to discover that his art is now selling for record amounts back in London. He realises he has been conned by three people he trusted - the critic, art dealer and a friend called Lawrence Diltant who had bought up his work from him at rock bottom prices before he emigrated. Moore decides to have his revenge and visits a voodoo witch doctor and buys some magic to give his painting hand special powers and upon his return to London he paints portraits of the three men. He then defaces them and the men suffer similar injuries to those he has depicted for them. But Moore has also completed a self-portrait with his special painting hand and when that gets accidentally damaged a nasty death befalls him. Back to framing sequence - The lift doors open again onto a graveyard and the men file out and we learn that this storytelling is a regular occurrence that these dead men are compelled throughout all eternity to repeat - every night retelling the terrible things they did while they were alive. | |
| Starring: | The first named in each story is the lead who also appears in the framing sequence (Story 1) Daniel Massey (as Harold Roger), Anna Massey (as Donna, his sister), Michael Pratt (as Private Detective) (story 2) Terry-Thomas (as Arthur Critchit), Glynis Johns (as Eleanor, his new wife) (story 3) Curt Jürgens (as Sebastian), Dawn Addams (as Inez, his wife), Jasmina Hilton (as Indian Girl) (story 4) Michael Craig (as Maitland), Edward Judd (as Alex), Robin Nedwell (as Tom, student), Geoffrey Davies (as Jerry, student) (story 5) Tom Baker (as Moore), Denholm Elliott (as Lawrence Diltant), Terence Alexander (as Fenton Breedley, Art Critic), John Witty (as Arthur Gaskill, Gallery Owner) |
| Familiar Faces: | Arthur Mullard (Gravedigger, story 4) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on stories written by William M Gaines and Al Feldstein as originally published by Gaines in the Comic magazines The Vault of Horror and Tales From the Crypt |
| Writer: Peter Welbeck / Director: Jeremy Summers / Producer: Harry Alan Towers | |
| Type: Adventure | Running Time: 87 mins |
| Set in the 1920s(?). In China, Fu Manchu and his daughter Lin Tang return to their ancestral homeland in the Northern Province of Kwang-su. Once ensconced in his palace Fu Manchu begins plotting his vengeance on the man who is forever thwarting his plans - Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard. To do this he sends his agents to kidnap a world-renowned plastic surgeon called Dr Lieberson and his daughter Maria. By means of the threat of harm to Maria, the doctor is forced to operate on a hypnotised prisoner and change his features into an exact double of Nayland Smith.
Meanwhile Nayland Smith himself has just helped found an international organisation of police chiefs called INTERPOL with which to combat the growing threat of world-wide criminal networks. After this he goes on a well-earned holiday to Ireland with his good friend Dr Petrie. Whilst on holiday Fu Manchu's men make the switch - kidnapping the real Smith and leaving the double in his stead. The impostor is gaunt, silent and Petrie thinks his friend has been struck down by a sudden illness that has turned him into a virtual living zombie so he quickly takes him home. Once home in England the fake Smith murders the household maid and is arrested. Smith's great reputation is publicly ruined - he is put on trial for murder, found guilty, and condemned to death by hanging in four weeks time. The real Smith has been crated up and shipped to China to be delivered to Fu Manchu's palace so that the criminal mastermind can revel in his vengeance by murdering his adversary, the real Smith, at the same time as the double is executed. Meanwhile Smith's loyal police chief friends (still unaware of the switch) plan a mission to Fu Manchu's palace believing that their colleague's massive fall from grace is the work of the evil Chinese criminal and hope to find evidence that will exonerate Smith and save him from the hangman's noose. Journey times to the remote Chinese province are long and by the time they arrive it is only a few hours until the execution. They infiltrate the palace and join up with the real Smith who has managed to free himself from a cell and begin to organise his own escape attempt. In London the fake Smith is executed and Fu Manchu calls for the real Smith to be brought before him. But unknown to Fu Manchu the guards accompanying Smith are now Smith's associates and they turn the tables on the criminal. A dynamite truck is set alight in the ensuing battle and the heroes flee leaving Fu Manchu and his daughter in stunned shock at the sudden downturn of events. The palace explodes and no one knows if Fu Manchu survived or not but Nayland Smith has the feeling that the world shall hear from him again. (We don't see Smith return to England and clear his name but must assume that once he explains what happened his reputation is quickly restored in time for the next film). {Comment] There is a secondary interwoven plot in which the major criminal organisations of the world decide to unite and ask Fu Manchu to be their leader if he can help them defeat the threat posed by the world's law enforcement agencies. This dovetails into the specific plot to discredit Nayland Smith but doesn't expand much beyond the basic premise. Fu Manchu's extended plan was to repeat the same replacement-double tactic with all of the world's major police chiefs until they were all discredited and confidence in law enforcement was eroded so much that the criminal gangs could operate more freely. | |
| Starring: | Christopher Lee (as Fu Manchu), Douglas Wilmer (as Nayland Smith), Howard Marion Crawford (as Dr Petrie, Smith's friend), Tsai Chin (as Lin Tang, daughter of Fu Manchu) |
| Featuring: | Noel Trevarthen (as Mark Weston, FBI representative in INTERPOL), Tony Ferrer (as Inspector Ramos, Shanghai police chief), Horst Frank (as Rudy Moss, representative of criminal underworld gangs), Maria Rohm (as Ingrid Swenson, Rudy's girlfriend), Wolfgang Kieling (as Dr Lieberson, surgeon), Suzanne Roquette (as Maria, Dr Lieberson's daughter), Peter Carsten (as Kurt Heller, nightclub owner in Shanghai), Mona Chong (as Jasmin Fu-Cheng, Nayland Smith's maidservant) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the characters created by Sax Rohmer |
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This was the third in a series of five 1960's Fu Manchu films starring Christopher Lee. Each also featured Tsai Chin as his daughter and Howard Marion Crawford as Dr Petrie the friend of Fu Manchu's greatest opponent Nayland Smith. The role of Smith himself was played by three different actors - Nigel Green played him in the first film, next Douglas Wilmer for two films and then Richard Greene for the final two. The sequence of the five films were as follows:- The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966), The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967), The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968), The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969). |
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In this film Nayland Smith's full name is revealed as being "Dennis Nayland Smith". I'm a little unclear therefore if "Nayland" is part of his surname or his preferred Christian name. |
| The Vengeance of She (1968) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Peter O'Donnell / Director: Cliff Owen / Producer: Aida Young | |
| Type: Adventure | Running Time: 97 mins |
| A beautiful young girl called Carol swims out to a private yacht about to weigh anchor and stows-away. The vessel is owned by George Carter who is holidaying with his wife Sheila and their friend Philip. When they discover Carol they are well on their way to their next destination and too late to turn back so she is treated as a guest. Carol is unable or unwilling to explain why she is there and Philip in particular finds her intriguing. At night Carol has bad dreams and calls out a name "Ayesha". Philip hears her and she tells him that in her dreams people call her this but she doesn't know what it means.
Still on route George receives a radio telegram with some disturbing news which causes him to change his destination. As the boat steers away Carol is racked with severe head pains and implores George to turn back to the original heading and when he refuses she jumps into the sea. George dives in to save her but his strenuous efforts give rise to a heart attack and he dies. With Carol safely back on board the boat heads to the nearest port at North Africa for an inquest. Elsewhere in a secret society of ancient scholars called the Maji we see how the destiny of the woman called Carol is being manipulated from afar. They believe her to be the reincarnation of their once-queen Ayesha, and her former lover Killikrates wants her back. Killikrates is immortal - he was made undying by the eternal flame that burns only once in a lifetime - at the same time as the once-immortal Ayesha perished in the same flames. His adviser Men-Hari is adept at mind control powers and has been influencing Carol from afar - using pain to guide her direction so she will find her way to them when she follows the route that causes her least discomfort. Killikrates intends to make Ayesha immortal once again and has promised he will do the same for Men-Hari if he succeeds in bringing Ayesha to him - but the time of the flame approaches soon with the correct alignment of the stars and they anxiously await Ayesha's arrival. Another adviser named Za-Tor is suspicious of Men-Hari's true motives and believes he has a secret agenda of his own to take control once he gains immortality. After the shipmates have reached port Carol heads off on her own into the desert. When Philip finds her gone he follows fearing for her life or her sanity. Eventually, after some run-ins with Arab slave traders they are reunited and Carol's unwavering course leads them to a hidden pass within a mountain that comes out into a temple of the lost city of Kuma where time and tradition has stood still and the people dress like ancient Romans. Carol is welcomed as Ayesha and treated as royalty and taken to see Killikrates whilst Philip is shut away in imprisoned luxury. The mind powers of Men-Hari still influence Carol and she raises little objections to the assertions of her true identity. As the moment of the flame's renewal draws close Za-Tor speaks with Philip about his concerns and Philip advises him to organise an uprising amongst his people who fear the return of Ayesha who is remembered as a ruthless ruler, and Za-Tor fears even more the immortality of Men-Hari whom he believes will try and take over the world. Philip is released by a female servant jealous of the returning Ayesha as she has her own secret love for Killikrates, and he goes looking for Carol. Killikrates takes Carol to a hidden chamber as the starlight hits the mystical crystal from which the eternal flame springs. They must wait for the flame to turn cold and then Carol can walk through it to become immortal. The flame's powers have some rules:- the person must enter of their own volition and with the consent of another immortal, and the only way an existing immortal can die is to enter the flame a second time. Philip finds them and tries to talk Carol out of it - he plants doubt in her mind that cause her to waver and Killikrates tells Men-Hari to walk her through the flame giving himself immortality too. This is what Men-Hari wanted all along and has been building to this point. Za-Tor tells Killikrates that Carol is not the true Ayesha and Men-Hari has found someone who resembles her using his mind powers to make it appear she was SHE so that he could gain immortality with Killikrates' consent. Devastated at this deception Killikrates rescinds his permission to Men-Hari and tells Carol and Philip they are free to leave. Then after a fight in which Men-Hari and Za-Tor are both mortally wounded, Killikrates feeling unfulfilled without his true Queen Ayesha walks the eternal flame once more to end his lonely existence. A dying Za-Tor then calls on the flame to destroy the accursed city whose people have taken the dark path and it obeys bringing the temple crumbling to the ground with Carol and Philip only just managing to escape in time. | |
| Comment: A sequel to She (1965) in which Ayesha was played by Ursula Andress. Olinka Berova takes over the role in this film and does have a general resemblance to Andress and is obviously supposed to be an exact likeness as far as the other characters are concerned - because when some explanatory events from the first film are shown they are re-enacted with Berova in the Andress role. John Richardson reprises his role as the mortal man Leo Vincey who was made into the immortal Killikrates by Ayesha as she inadvertently sacrificed her own immortal life at the end of the first film. | |
| Starring: | Edward Judd (as Philip), Olinka Berova (as Carol/Ayesha), John Richardson (as Killikrates), Derek Godfrey (as Men-Hari) |
| Featuring: | George Sewell (as Harry Walker, boat captain), Colin Blakely (as George Carter, boat owner), Jill Melford (as Sheila Carter, George's wife), Noel Willman (as Za-Tor) |
| Starlets: | Danièle Noël, Christine Pockett |
| Writer: Robert Carrington / Director: Piers Haggard / Producer: Martin Bregman | |
| Type: Thriller | Running Time: 88 mins |
| Philip Hopkins is a 10-year-old American boy living in a London townhouse with his mother Ruth and grandfather Howard who was an ex-big game hunter. They are well-off and have a live-in maid called Louise and a chauffeur called Dave. Philip is asthmatic and the house is centrally heated to keep the temperature at a constant 75°F which is also ideal for some of the exotic pets Philip keeps. Ruth is going away to Rome for a visit with her husband and is leaving Philip in the care of Howard and Louise.
However Louise is not the innocent and trustworthy employee she seems and she is in league with her German boyfriend Jacques Müller waiting for the right opportunity to carry out a plan. She has recruited the gruff and brutish chauffeur Dave with sexual favours and the three of them are now ready to act. Their plan is to abduct Philip and receive a ransom for his safe return. With Ruth now away the ideal time to put their plan into operation has arrived. The intention is that Jacques will pose as a taxi-driver to take Philip on a treat and instead take him to their pre-prepared safe house. But unexpectedly Philip leaves on an errand of his own to pick up an African house-snake from a nearby exotic pet importer. The shopkeeper's short-sighted wife is on duty and gives Philip his boxed-up order. Meanwhile at the London Institute of Toxicology Dr Marion Stowe is expecting a dangerous Black Mamba snake to study but instead her delivery turns out to be a harmless African house-snake. She contacts the importer and it is soon clear there has been a mix-up. Dr Stowe contacts the police to tell them that a young boy has taken delivery of the most deadly and ferocious snake in the world. Its venom can kill in minutes if no anti-toxin is on hand. Philip returns home and an agitated Louise tries to persuade him to get into Jacques' taxi but the boy is insistent that he must unpack his new snake and put it in its warm serpentarium first. Louise reluctantly agrees and to hurry him up she helps him open the snake's travel box. The deadly Black Mamba leaps out and attacks her injecting her with its lethal venom and then scurries away. Louise quickly feels weak and goes into spasms and soon dies. Jacques and Dave have come into the house to see what is going on and Dave arms himself with a shotgun. Then there is a knock at the door which Dave answers. It is a policeman following up the report of the mixed up snakes but Dave panics thinking the police know about the kidnapping and shoots the policeman in the chest killing him. Jacques is appalled that Dave's impetuous stupidity has placed them in a much more serious situation than they were planning - but he is prepared to use his hostages to negotiate their escape. The police soon arrive and cordon off the street and Commander William Bulloch takes charge. Jacques tells him they want a fast car and lots of money. Dr Stowe arrives on the scene and briefs Bulloch on the situation with the mamba. Bulloch has no choice but to inform the kidnappers of the danger the snake poses to them and their hostages. The Black Mamba is an aggressively ferocious snake that attacks without reason and its venom is deadly. Dr Stowe has a quantity of anti-venom and Jacques tricks her into coming into the house to treat Louise not mentioning she is already dead. Once inside he takes Dr Stowe hostage as well. The mamba has found a comfortable environment in the central heating ducts through which it can make its way to any room in the house. Jacques sends Howard to try to catch it with his safari skills but Howard fails to locate it. Dr Stowe mentions that if they were to turn off the sweltering central heating the snake might naturally go to sleep. Dave is sent to the basement to switch it off but the mamba is there and it attacks him and he dies. Bulloch has stationed snipers on the opposite building to try to take the kidnappers out if the opportunity arises. Jacques ups the stakes by seemingly cutting off one of Dr Stowe's fingers and throwing it out to Bulloch telling him more will follow if their demands are not quickly met (in fact it is a finger from dead Louise although this isn't revealed to Bulloch or the viewer for some time). Whilst Jacques is speaking at the window the stalking mamba attacks him and Jacques is drawn into a battle for his life as he tries to kill the powerful serpent by whipping it around the room. Jacques eventually gets it into a position where he can shoot the mamba's head off with his handgun but in doing so he has become exposed to the police sniper's sights and he is shot dead in a hail of gunfire. All the kidnappers and the snake are dead and the danger is seemingly over with Philip, Howard and Dr Stowe unharmed. Philip's mother Ruth returns and it looks as though life can return to normal. But unbeknown to anyone the black mamba had laid an egg in the warm ventilation ducts and now it has started to hatch ... | |
| Comments: The final moments set up the possibility of a sequel although none were ever made. | |
| Starring: | Klaus Kinski (as Jacques Müller, gang leader), Oliver Reed (as Dave Averconnelly, chauffeur), Nicol Williamson (as Commander William Bulloch, police), Sarah Miles (as Dr Marion Stowe, snake expert), Sterling Hayden (as Howard Anderson, Philip's grandfather), Susan George (as Louise Andrews, maid), Lance Holcomb (as Philip Hopkins, young boy), Cornelia Sharpe (as Ruth Hopkins, Philip's mother) |
| Featuring: | Mike Gwilym (as DC Dan Spencer), Paul Williamson (as DS Glazer), Michael Gough (as David Ball, reptile expert, [small role]), Hugh Lloyd (as Taxi Driver), Rita Webb (as Mrs Loewenthal, pet shop woman), Edward Hardwicke (as Lord Dunning, Bulloch's superior), Katherine Wilkinson (as Susan Stowe, Dr Stowe's teenage daughter), John Forbes-Robertson (as Sgt Nash, murdered policeman), Maurice Colbourne (as Sampson, policeman in control van), Moti Makan (as Mr Mukerjee, Dr Stowe's assistant) |
| Familiar Faces: | Eric Richard (as Airline Clerk) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel by Alan Scholefield |
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Lance Holcomb receives an "introducing" credit |
| aka: Spider's Venom; The Legend of Spider Forest | |
| Writers: Donald Ford, Derek Ford / Director: Peter Sykes / Producers: Michael Pearson, Kenneth F. Rowles | |
| Type: Horror | Running Time: 83 mins |
| Paul Greville is an artist painting scenic views in the German countryside. He meets an oddly shy girl who lives in the forest and notices she has a large dark scar on her left shoulder that resembles a spider. Back at his village lodgings the innkeeper tells him that the girl is legend amongst the simple local people and thought not to exist.
Paul meets an elder villager called Herr Huber and his daughter Ellen who seduces him and appears to be trying to find out more about him and the work he has done. At night Paul sees the mysterious girl outside his window and follows her - but he comes across the body of a man who had in his possession a famous painting by Bosch which had been thought lost in the war. The innkeeper tells him that many paintings went missing from the church during the war. Paul visits Huber at his home who tells him about a breed of spiders that inhabit the forest which are immune to all known insecticides and act like parasites drawing their sustenance from human blood. The people believe the mysterious girl is a spider goddess who can control the spiders. Paul meets the mystery girl properly and finds she is called Anna and lives in a house in the forest with her guardian. He falls in love with her. Paul finds himself the target for attacks by Herr Huber's men led by his daughter Ellen and he and Anna flee to her house where he discovers a laboratory in which her father has been extracting the venom of the spiders to create a nerve gas. Anna's perceived menace has been cultivated by the plotters to keep the simple folk out of the forest but she is not involved in anything nefarious herself. A fire destroys the lab and burns down Anna's house but she runs in to be with her father and Paul cannot save her. | |
| Comment: The ending of this film is very rushed and muddled and it is somewhat unclear what is supposed to be going on. | |
| Starring: | Simon Brent (as Paul Greville), Neda Arneric (as Anna, the mystery girl), Sheila Allen (as Ellen Huber) |
| Featuring: | Gerard Heinz (as Herr Huber), Gertan Klauber (Kurt, innkeeper) |
| NOTES: | |
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The version reviewed carried the Spider's Venom title. |
| Victor Frankenstein (1977) | Previous Next |
| aka: Terror of Frankenstein | |
| Writers: Yvonne and Calvin Floyd / Director/Producer: Calvin Floyd | |
| Type: Horror | Running Time: 91 mins |
| This is a literary adaptation of the classic novel by Mary Shelley. It begins in the 1820s on an ice flow in the Artic where an ice-stranded schooner takes aboard a lone wanderer called Victor Frankenstein who is near to death from the exposure and tells the captain of the fantastic tale that led him here.
It began a few years before in Geneva when the academically bright Victor went off to university full of ambition to solve the mystery of life. He experimented on a recently deceased cadaver to try and revive it with the use of electrical power harnessed from a storm. His efforts are met with a resounding success and the corpse comes back to life. Faced with this reality Victor suddenly becomes appalled at his own handiwork and rejects the creature realising what an abomination against nature he has created. He leaves it to fend for itself as he is taken home to be with his family who are concerned about his state of mind. The creature is a reasonably normal looking man with some facial scarring but possesses a full intelligence and ability to talk - but wherever he goes he is met by fear, rejection and hatred with no one willing to accept him into their community. He feels immense anger towards his creator Victor and heads off to his family home to seek his revenge. He kills Victor's young brother and tells Victor that he will do the same for the rest of his family if he does not create for him a female companion. Victor starts to comply but then reconsiders that he does not want to be responsible for spawning a new race of monsters of indeterminate ethics who might wish to destroy humanity. The creature therefore vows to carry out its threat. On the night of Victor's wedding to his childhood sweetheart Elizabeth, despite Victor's precautions, the creature gets into the house and murders her. The creature tells Victor that he is now satisfied with his revenge and that he is now headed to the ends of the Earth to live alone. For Victor this is no longer good enough and he vows to track him down and kill him. This quest eventually leads him to the Arctic where the story began and as he lays weak on the ship the creature comes to see him for one final time. Victor's heart gives out and he dies and the creature heads off into the desolate wilderness wishing to also die so that he will be a monster no more. | |
| Comment: The only visual criticism is that the "Monster" is not all that frightening looking and so whilst one can perfectly accept Victor's hatred of it knowing as he does the nature of its unholy origins, it is harder to understand why he is so universally reviled by everyone else he meets. The creature has the appearance of a normal man with a slightly scarred face - he is capable of rational conversation and is only violent when angered by unjust treatment. So the reason for the instinctive hatred of him is not readily obvious when he could just as easily be a poor unfortunate who has been in an accident that has left him scarred. | |
| Starring: | Leon Vitali (as Victor Frankenstein), Per Oscarsson (as The Monster), Nicholas Clay (as Henry Clerval, Victor's friend), Stacey Dorning (as Elizabeth, Victor's fiancée) |
| Featuring: | Olof Bergström (as Victor's Father), Jan Ohlsson (as William, Victor's young brother), Mathias Henriksson (as Captain Walton, Arctic ship), David Byrne (as Felix, woodland family husband), Jacinta Martín (as Agatha, Felix's wife), Harry Brogan (as Blind Man, Felix's father), Archie O'Sullivan (as Professor K.A. Waldheim, at Victor's university) |
| NOTES: | |
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This is a Swedish and Irish co-production. The title on the version reviewed was Terror of Frankenstein |
| The Viking Queen (1967) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Clarke Reynolds / Director: Don Chaffey / Producer: John Temple-Smith | |
| Type: Historical Drama | Running Time: 87 mins |
| Set in the early years of Anno Domini when Britain was under Roman occupation. The many small kingdoms of Britain were placed under the rule of a handful of Roman governor-generals each overseeing several kingdoms and in command of legions of battle-weary soldiers who despised the inclement climate. The Roman Emperor Nero issued instructions that his governors should be as accommodating as possible to the wishes of the local kings to avoid rebellion. One such kingdom was Iceni where the ageing and dying king had written a will that his land shall be jointly owned by Nero and the king's heir. Governor Justinian is temperate and agrees to honour the will to the letter imposing Roman rule in a tolerant and flexible manner. His headstrong first centurion Octavian is at odds with his commander's approach and feels that the might of the Roman sword should rule supreme and hold no quarter to these ignorant peasant people.
The old king passes the throne onto his daughter Salina whom he feels best able to take his place even though she is not the natural heir. The kingdom is still dominated by the druid religion despite all practice of this having been forbidden by the Romans. Salina has forsaken that old religion but others in her family still hold it devout. The chief druid Maelgan is particularly loathe to relinquish his power and influence and hopes to turn events so that the Romans can be driven out. Over the coming months Governor Justinian and Queen Salina fall in love and decide they wish to marry but there is little enthusiasm for this idea from their respective advisers. Also Justinian's fair-minded policy of taxing the rich more and the poor less angers the rich merchants and brings about a desire to have Justinian replaced. So Octavian and a merchant called Osiris plot together to turn events to their mutual advantage. Osiris has Maelgan organise a druid uprising in far off Anglesey forcing Justinian, who has jurisdiction, to leave Iceni to take command of the Roman response. Meanwhile Octavian, left in charge of Iceni, begins running the kingdom with the uncompromising iron fist he has always advocated. He restores the former tax policy rescinding all of Justinian's reforms. He also ceases to honour the terms of the old king's will and has Queen Salina publicly flogged when she tries to stand up to him. This action however has the effect of creating hatred towards the Romans where previously there had been grudging acceptance and thus fuels a mass rebellion. Queen Salina bears armour and sword and leads her people against Octavian and in an ambush of his convoy captures him and prepares him for execution on the next full moon according to the druid way. Justinian receives word of this and although he despairs of Octavian's ruthless hard-line attitudes which have precipitated these events he cannot ignore the flagrant insurrection of Roman law. He heads back to Iceni hoping to calm matters down but it has gone too far and a full-scale battle ensues. Although the Britons fight with fury and determination the superior Roman weaponry proves decisive and Justinian regrettably has to order that Queen Salina, whom he loves, is arrested to be taken to Rome for trial. But the Queen knows that this will mean she will end up as a slave and takes her own life rather than suffer that indignity. | |
| Starring: | Don Murray (as Justinian), Carita (as Queen Salina), Donald Houston (as Maelgan, chief druid), Andrew Keir (as Octavian, Roman centurion), Patrick Troughton (as Tristram, Salina's loyal servant) |
| Featuring: | Adrienne Corri (as Beatrice, Salina's elder sister), Nicola Pagett (as Talia, Salina's younger sister), Niall MacGinnis (as Tiberion, notary of Rome), Wilfrid Lawson (as King Priam, Salina's father), Percy Herbert (as Catus, Roman soldier), Sean Caffrey (as Fergus, son of Tristram) |
| Starlets: | Nita Lorraine (as Nubian Girl Slave) |
| NOTES: | |
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Carita receives an "introducing" credit |
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Although it uses different names this story seems to essentially be based on the story of Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, who died in AD62 after leading an unsuccessful revolt against the Romans |
| Writers: Stirling Silliphant, Wolf Rilla, George Barclay / Director: Wolf Rilla / Producer: Ronald Kinnoch | |
| Type: Sci-Fi | Running Time: 74 mins |
| Army Major Alan Bernard is talking on the phone to his brother-in-law Professor Gordon Zellaby who lives in the village of Midwich. When things suddenly fall silent at Zellaby's end and Alan is unable to get any sort of reply from any Midwich numbers he becomes concerned and drives down to investigate. (As the camera looks around the village for us we see that everyone has mysteriously collapsed with no warning in the middle of whatever they were doing). When Major Bernard reaches the outskirts of the village he discovers that there is a kind of boundary point surrounding the village inside of which any living thing immediately passes out.
This situation lasts for several hours and then suddenly it is lifted as swiftly as it began and all the villagers come around with seemingly no adverse affects. But after a few months it becomes clear that all the village women of childbearing age have become pregnant, including Professor Zellaby's wife Anthea. The babies are all born within a short time of each other and as they grow up they mature much faster than normal children and show signs of high intelligence. They seem to share a group mind and once something is learned by one they all know it. They are able to read the thoughts and intentions of the "normal" humans and have the ability to control their actions and force them to commit suicide. The children behave politely towards their "parents" but show no signs of emotion or love. They are feared by the villagers who are wary of angering them and becoming victim to their eerie mind powers. The military are aware of a similar group of children who were born in Russia on the same day and the authorities there eventually felt it was necessary to deal with them by blanket bombing their entire hometown in order to kill them. Professor Zellaby hopes that they will not have to act so drastically over here and can teach their children a set of moral values that will enable their huge intellects to be of use to all mankind - he persuades the government to allow him time to study the children more. The boy born to the professor's wife is called David and is the leader of the children. Because of this they allow Professor Zellaby a special status as their teacher as they live together in the schoolhouse while they learn and grow until they are ready to disperse into the wider world. The children are aware of what happened to the Russian children and tell Zellaby they will not allow that to happen to them - they will survive no matter what the cost. The professor realises he has misjudged the situation and there is no choice but to kill them - but now any military attempts to act against them will be detected and prevented by remote mind powers before it is started. So the professor decides he must act alone and he prepares a bomb which he puts in his briefcase on a short timer. He then blanks his mind and concentrates as hard as he can on a brick wall blocking out thoughts of anything else. When he enters the schoolroom the children realise he is deliberately keeping something important hidden and they surround his desk breaking away at his mind. The imagined brick wall slowly cracks and crumbles as it yields to their unrelenting power - but as the children at last reveal the image of the bomb behind the professor's mental wall it is too late and the briefcase explodes killing all the children and the professor. As the schoolhouse burns there is a visual depiction of the children's disembodied glowing eyes seeming to fly away from the destroyed building as if to suggest that some part of their quintessence survives. | |
| Starring: | George Sanders (as Professor Gordon Zellaby), Barbara Shelley (as Anthea Zellaby, professor's wife), Michael Gwynn (as Major Alan Bernard), Martin Stephens (as David, Zellaby's "son") |
| Featuring: | Laurence Naismith (as Village doctor), Bernard Archard (as Village vicar), Peter Vaughan (as Village policeman), John Phillips (as General Leighton, Major Bernard's superior) |
| Familiar Faces: | Richard Vernon (as Home Secretary) |
| NOTES: | |
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Made in Black and White |
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Based on the novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham. |
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There was a sequel to this film called Children of the Damned (1963) which continued the same theme but with a completely different set of characters. |
| Writers: Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais / Director: Michael Tuchner / Producers: Alan Ladd Jr, Jay Kanter | |
| Type: Crime Drama | Running Time: 93 mins |
| Vic Dakin is a violent London gangster who runs a protection racket with the local night-clubs. He rewards loyalty but comes down hard on anyone who is suspected of talking to the police. He has a sadistic streak and enjoys personally dishing out beatings to anyone he suspects of disloyalty. He is also a homosexual and he likes to rough his partners up as a prelude to sex. His one tender spot is his elderly mother whom he dotes upon and couldn't be kinder or more considerate towards.
A night-club owner hoping for a small reward gives Dakin some information he has heard about a disgruntled employee at a nearby factory who is willing to supply details of his company's wage delivery. Dakin and his gang (his "firm") check out the route and the prospects of a hold-up and things seem favourable. The factory is on the patch of another gangster called Frank Fletcher so Dakin brings him in on the job as well and Fletcher involves his brother-in-law Edgar Lowis who suffers from gastric ulcers. The robbery of the wage couriers on route from bank to factory is successful although goes less smoothly than hoped and Fletcher is injured. But they get away with the money and once at a safer point decide they should split up to appear less conspicuous - Dakin and his henchman make off on foot and Fletcher and Lowis continue on with the haul with arrangements made to rendezvous and divide the cash later on. But the police investigating the robbery find clues that lead them to Fletcher and he and Lowis are soon arrested. The money is not recovered as the pair of them had managed to hide it somewhere safe. Dakin realises he will be arrested soon so he sends for a former-partner of his called Wolfe Lissner. Wolfe has distanced himself from Dakin to go it alone as a small-time con man but Dakin still wields a strong intimidating influence over him and he has little choice but to agree to manufacture a strong alibi for Dakin for the time of the robbery. Wolfe has previously provided girls for an MP he knows called Gerald Draycott who frequents a certain type of party at a mutual friend's home in the country for which Draycott is always very grateful. Wolfe supplies him with a new girl but this time secretly photographs their bedroom activities. He then confronts Draycott with the evidence and threatens to expose his shameful proclivities unless he provides Vic Dakin with an alibi. Dakin is arrested on suspicion of involvement in the wage robbery but has to be released when no less than Gerald Draycott MP tells the police that the man was with him at the time. Once released Dakin is determined to get to Fletcher or Lowis to divulge the location of the unrecovered money. The night-club owner from earlier gives Dakin a new snippet he has overheard from a punter that Edgar Lowis is to be transferred to a hospital for an operation. What Dakin doesn't know is that the night-club owner is now working as a police informant and has been told to pass on this information. Posing as doctors Dakin's men enter the hospital and abduct Lowis from under the police's very noses not realising that security had intentionally been kept minimal. When Dakin has been informed of the successful capture he and Wolfe drive to an abandoned factory where his men have taken Lowis and Dakin beats the location of the money out of the man. They go to that location but the police have been tailing them and they are all arrested although Dakin in his utter contempt for the police and the judiciary has delusions that no jury will ever convict him for fear of his reputation for reprisal violence. | |
| Starring: | Richard Burton (as Vic Dakin), Ian McShane (as Wolfe Lissner), Nigel Davenport (as Bob Matthews, Detective Inspector), T.P. McKenna (as Frank Fletcher), Joss Ackland (as Edgar Lowis), Colin Welland (as Tom Binney, Detective) |
| Featuring: | Donald Sinden (as Gerald Draycott MP), Tony Selby (as Duncan, Dakin's henchman), John Hallam (as Terry, Dakin's henchman), Fiona Lewis (as Venetia, Wolfe's girlfriend), Cathleen Nesbitt (as Mrs Dakin, Vic's elderly mother), Wendy Hutchinson (as Mrs Lowis) |
| Familiar Faces: | James Cossins (as Disgruntled wages clerk), Clive Francis (as Wolfe's Marquis friend), Michael Robbins (as Casino Manager) |
| Starlets: | Elizabeth Knight (as Patti, girl used to blackmail MP), Sheila White (Veronica, cameo passer-by during robbery), Cheryl Hall (as Judy, cameo passer-by during robbery), Bonita Thomas (as Strip Dancer) |
| NOTES: | |
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Screenplay based on an adaptation by Al Lettieri of a novel titled The Burden of Proof by James Barlow. |
| The Violent Enemy (1968) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Edmund Ward / Director: Don Sharp / Producer: Wilfred Eades | |
| Type: Thriller | Running Time: 88 mins |
| Irishman Sean Rogan is an IRA member serving a term in an English prison for crimes committed while acting in pursuit of his political beliefs. He is an explosives expert and by day he is put to work mining rocks from a quarry. Sean has done eight years of a fifteen-year sentence but is expectant of an imminent early remission for good behaviour. But then a message is conveyed to him via unofficial channels from his good friend and mentor Colum O'More that his remission is going to be declined. Sean is appalled at the prospect of another seven years of incarceration. Colum's message also indicated that if Sean can make it out of the prison then a fast car will be waiting for him every night at 7:30pm at a set rendezvous point.
Sean's specialist skill as an IRA operative was his ability to successfully infiltrate secure facilities to make political statements with explosives. He puts that expertise to use in reverse by working out a way of escaping using some explosives he managed to purloin from the quarry site. He makes it out and finds the car waiting for him as promised. It is driven by Hannah Costello who is Colum's secretary and sympathetic to the cause. She hands him over to two English mercenaries called Austin and Fletcher whom Colum has hired to get Sean out of England and back to Ireland. Undercover of being Austin's chauffeur Sean makes it onto the ferry and returns to Ireland. He is delighted to be reunited with Colum and pleased to be free at last. In Ireland he cannot be extradited back to England for political crimes and he has decided to give up the struggle and settle down. However the fiercely patriotic Colum has other ideas and tells Sean that he needs him to do one last job for him in return for organising his escape route. Colum warns that it would be easy to have Sean delivered to the police in Northern Ireland from where he can be extradited to complete his sentence. Sean feels he therefore has little choice but to cooperate. Colum wants to reignite the struggle for Irish independence by making a big political statement. Nearby is an important electronics factory that Colum feels is betraying the nation by working on contracts for the British army. He wants Sean to infiltrate the security there and plant a bomb that will destroy their control mechanisms and put the plant out of commission for a long time. He has hired Austin and Fletcher who have expressed willingness to help even though they are not IRA members. Sean goes to the site to check out the locale and notices a weakness in the way the plant receives its electricity from a sub-station on the lip of an escarpment. A carefully placed explosive charge on the escarpment face will cause the sub-station to slip and cut power enabling the infiltrators to get in and plant some timed explosives in the control area. Meanwhile Inspector Sullivan of the Irish police is suspicious of why Rogan is here. He speaks to Colum wondering what was so urgent that Rogan needed to escape only a few months away from his remission which would have been forthcoming because Sullivan saw the release papers. Colum gives nothing away but is privately devastated because he was told the news of the refused remission by Austin and Fletcher and was passing on what he thought was correct information. Colum wonders why the two Englishmen lied to him. The operation begins and the escarpment explosive successfully outages the power. Rogan and the two English mercenaries cut their way in to the factory whilst the guards are all off investigating the sub-station explosion. The trio enter the unmanned control area and Rogan tells them where to plant the explosives for the maximum effect. But when the English pair start placing the explosives against the wrong wall Rogan realises they have another agenda entirely. The plant also has a vault that holds vast quantities of cash and Austin and Fletcher have planned all along to steal that and have no interest in political struggles. But they had needed Rogan's unique expertise to gain entry and that is why they lied about the remission so that he would be provoked to escape. They knock Rogan out so that he will be found at the scene and the IRA will be blamed for the robbery - then they make their escape. They head for the coast where they plan to hire a boat and travel back to England with the stolen money. Fortunately Rogan quickly comes around and makes his exit before the guards return. Rogan does not think of himself as a criminal and wants no part in common larceny and also knows he could be arrested and extradited for non-political crimes. He sends Hannah to fetch Inspector Sullivan while he follows after the pair of criminals to try and catch them before they leave the country. Fletcher and Austin hire a trawlerman's boat although they have to wait a few hours for the tide to turn. This gives Rogan time to find them and as the trawler is making its way out of the harbour he intercepts it with a small bomb-laden rowing boat timed to explode. The trawler is sunk and the villains have to swim for it and are arrested when Inspector Sullivan arrives. Rogan is also arrested but Sullivan believes he will only get a suspended sentence for catching the crooks and helping to recover the money. | |
| Starring: | Tom Bell (as Sean Rogan), Ed Begley (as Colum O'More), Susan Hampshire (as Hannah Costello), Noel Purcell (as John Michael Leary, bar owner), Jon Laurimore (as Austin), Michael Standing (as Fletcher) |
| Featuring: | Philip O'Flynn (as Inspector Sullivan, Irish police), Catherine Finn (as Bridget, Leary's wife), Owen Sullivan (as Geraghty, Sean's former IRA partner now against violence) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel A Candle for the Dead by Jack Higgins |
| Novel: D.H. Lawrence / Writer: Alan Plater / Director: Christopher Miles / Producer: Kenneth Harper | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 90 mins |
| In the 1920s sisters Yvette and Lucille return home from a French finishing school as young ladies ready to start adult life. Home is in the North of England in a small rural community where they are the daughters of the local Rector. They live in the rectory with their brother's sister Cissie and her husband Fred, and their grandmother.
Lucille is content to fit in with the rural way of life and soon finds a job. But Yvette is discontented, she finds living here in sleepy Colgrave a dreary prospect with no likelihood of excitement or joy. Things that the family enjoy contentment with, like sitting around the hearth of an evening, she finds unbearable and the family have no understanding of why she is always being so contrary. Her mother abandoned her father, and therefore the entire family, many years before by divorcing him and is held in such disgrace that her name is forbidden to be mentioned. But Yvette begins to understand what she must have felt like and shares her mother's urge for excitement which she knows she will never find here where nothing ever happens. She feels she may need to fall in love but there is no one amongst the local lads that give her that special feeling. A group of friends take Yvette and Lucille on a day out. Leo Wetherell has a motor car and he takes them for a spin down the country roads. They stop to admire the magnificent dam which has been built to hold a water reservoir upstream from them where some workers are carrying out some routine maintenance. Next they come across a Gypsy encampment and stop so the girls can have their fortunes told by the Gypsy wife. While waiting her turn Yvette can't help but be intrigued by the ruggedly handsome Gypsy man whose piercingly penetrating eyes bore into her like she's the only woman he desires and she feels an immense sense of attraction towards him. Next day the Gypsy man comes round to the Rectory to sell some of his produce and he confirms their unspoken attraction by saying she should come back to his encampment alone soon. The next day she cycles over and while alone with him in his wagon as she washes her hands after a campfire side meal she feels an electrifying pull towards him and they almost kiss but are broken from it by the arrival of some new neighbours. The newcomers are Mrs Fawcett and Major Eastwood who are a couple - although Mrs Fawcett is still married and awaiting a divorce from her rich husband. She is friendly and perennially cheerful and the couple are clearly very much in love. They take to Yvette who finds them a fascinating pair who have done what they want against the will of society. They have rented a nearby cottage to live together and Yvette takes to visiting them regularly - for to her they are the only "normal" people she knows whose company she really enjoys. But as far as her stodgy family are concerned they are monstrous inhuman pariahs who are living in sin and are therefore considered shameful outcasts from society. The rector finds her association with them disgraceful and tells her she's like a mad stray dog who has to sniff around indecent people because no decent folk will have her. She knows her father will never understand her because he finds her too like his own wife of whom he will never speak. The film approaches its conclusion when one day Yvette is left alone in the house to mind grandmother while the rest of the family are out at work or socialising. She idly walks the grounds and looks down into the stream. She cannot understand why suddenly the current flow seems to increase and the level curiously and noticeably rises, but then she hears the Gypsy man galloping towards her on his horse shouting out an urgent call for her to run. The nearby dam has burst and a destructive tidal surge of water is fast approaching which she hadn't noticed. The Gypsy takes charge and gets her into the Rectory and upstairs to safety as the water surges through the downstairs rooms causing horrendous damage and destruction in its wake and demolishing the wooden staircase mere moments after they'd climbed it. They are unable to save the grandmother. The house is sturdy and the water not powerful enough to flatten it but the flood waters take many hours to recede and Yvette and the Gypsy, who had been soaked through, undress and get into a bed to keep warm and they share a tender night of sexual passion. Next morning Yvette awakes and finds he has gone. The waters have receded and her cut-off family have come back desperately hoping she is safe and are immensely relieved when they find she is well. But as she climbs down a ladder they are astonished that she barely acknowledges them and instead walks past them and gets into a car with Mrs Fawcett and Major Eastwood and drives off with them on their way to pastures new. The End. | |
| Starring: | Joanna Shimkus (as Yvette), Franco Nero (as The Gypsy), Maurice Denham (as The Rector, Yvette's father), Honor Blackman (as Mrs Fawcett), Mark Burns (as Major Eastwood) |
| Featuring: | Kay Walsh (as Aunt Cissie, Rector's sister), Harriett Harper (as Lucille, Yvette's sister), Norman Bird (as Uncle Fred, Cissie's husband), Fay Compton (as Grandma), Jeremy Bulloch (as Leo Wetherell), Ray Holder (as Bob, Leo's friend), Margo Andrew (as Ella, Leo and Bob's friend), Janet Chappell (as Mary the maid) |
| Starlets: | Imogen Hassall (as The Gypsy's Wife) |
| The Virgin Soldiers (1969) | Previous Next |
| Writer: John Hopkins / Director: John Dexter / Producers: Leslie Gilliat, Ned Sherrin | |
| Type: War Drama | Running Time: 90 mins |
| Set in Singapore in 1951 in an army camp where a group of conscripted men are undertaking their two year period of national service. Amongst them is Private Brigg who in civilian life is a desk clerk in Kilburn and is not happy at being stuck out here without any girls and with the distinct possibility of being killed before he has a chance to really make his mark as a man. He and his buddies frequent the local town bar where oriental prostitutes are willing to oblige but Brigg hankers after a proper relationship with a homegrown girl.
Phillipa Raskin is the daughter of the company sergeant major who lives in the fenced-off marriage quarters which is off-limits to the men. Phillipa hates the camp life which prevents her having a normal life for a girl of her age and despises her father's job that means she is forced to live here. She has a low opinion of young soldiers who are forever pestering her for dates and she refuses to participate in camp activities such as dances in which the men let their hair down and dance with the small number of servicewomen and officers wives in the area. Phillipa's father is frustrated by his daughter's attitude and wishes he could order her around as he can his men. When she once again refuses to attend the next dance evening he tries to imply there is a rumour going around that she is a lesbian and she reacts strongly to that and decides she'll show him. And after making a token appearance at the dance she leaves and impulsively sleeps with Sergeant Driscoll to whom she loses her virginity. Moving on:- when the locals begin to riot Brigg volunteers to protect the married quarters and takes Phillipa and her mother into the surrounding jungle to hide out from the bandits and overnight the two young people find comfort together while the mother sleeps off her exhaustion. After the immediate danger of civil disturbance has passed the conscripts are transferred by train to a safer place to continue their training and administrative duties. On route they are accompanied by Sgt Wellbeloved who boasts of his military jungle prowess and his bravery in the face of danger. When the train is ambushed and crashes on the track sabotaged by jungle bandits the men find themselves pinned down by enemy forces firing from the jungle. Sgt Driscoll takes command and organises a response as the inexperienced British soldiers fire back to hold their position against overwhelming odds. Sgt Wellbeloved turns out to be a coward and hides away in the train toilet. Private Brigg sees some of his squaddie friends around him die and becomes too paralysed with fright to fight back and wanders off into the jungle fortunately avoiding any enemy forces. Daylight comes and still wandering around in a state of shock Brigg finds himself further down the train line where he flags down another troop train and warns them of the ambush - the commander of those troops immediately heads for the attack area and with the arrival of these reinforcements the bandits flee and the soldiers in Brigg's company who are still stoically defending their position are saved. Sgt Driscoll realises that Brigg deserted in the face of danger but lets his cowardice pass since he ended up saving them by bring back reinforcements - but he is not so understanding with Wellbeloved whom he beats to a pulp for his cowardice. When the two year period of service is at last over the men pack their kit bags happy and ready to resume their normal lives back home while remembering those of their squad-mates who did not make it - and we see them leaving the compound in the troop lorry. | |
| Starring: | Hywel Bennett (Private Brigg), Lynn Redgrave (as Phillipa Raskin), Nigel Davenport (as Sgt Driscoll) |
| Featuring: | Nigel Patrick (as R.S.M. Raskin), Rachel Kempson (as Mrs Raskin), Jack Shepherd (as Sgt Wellbeloved), Michael Gwynn (as Colonel Bromley-Pickering), Tsai Chin (as Juicy Lucy, local prostitute), Christopher Timothy (as Corporal Brook), Geoffrey Hughes (as Private Lantry), Roy Holder (as Private Fenwick), Wayne Sleep (as Private Villiers) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel by Leslie Thomas. Other writing credits:- adapted by John McGrath; additional dialogue by Ian La Frenais. |
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There was a sequel to this film called Stand Up Virgin Soldiers (1977) which carries on directly from where this film ends and shows the happily departing squaddies finding themselves recalled to camp before they get very far because the grave situation in the area has caused the British government to issue an order to extend national service by a further six months. Only Nigel Davenport resumed his original role in the sequel. The main role of Private Brigg was taken over by Robin Askwith. Private Jacob who is Brigg's best friend played by George Layton in the sequel is only a minor peripheral character in this first film who barely gets a look in. |
| Virgin Witch (1972) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Klaus Vogel / Director: Ray Austin / Producer: Ralph Solomons | |
| Type: Horror | Running Time: 85 mins |
| Christine and Betty are sisters who have just left home and are looking for jobs. Elder sister Christine applies at a modelling agency and meets with immediate success and the agent, Sybil Waite, invites her to a country retreat to shoot some test pictures. But Sybil has ulterior motives both by her lesbian tendencies and in her capacity as a high priestess in a white witch coven for which she recruits young girls to be initiated by the high priest.
Christine, with her sister Betty in tow, stays at the country mansion (named Wychwold) where they are told about the witching traditions. Betty is appalled but Christine is fascinated and wants to know more and even asks if she can become a witch herself. She discovers she has a natural affinity and inherent ability which eclipses that of Sybil and she uses this power to take over the coven and make herself high priestess and decides to use her sister Betty to be her first virgin initiant. | |
| Comment: Ann Michelle and Vicki Michelle who play the sisters are real life sisters although not twins. Ann demonstrates a much greater acting ability in this film and has a real presence and star quality about her whereas Vicki is merely adequate. Ann went on to have the more sizeable movie career in British horror and erotic drama-type films during the 1970s, always impressing. Although ironically it is her sister Vicki who is the best remembered today for her regular roles in long-running 80s BBC sitcom 'Allo 'Allo and drama series Howard's Way. | |
| Starring: | Ann Michelle (as Christine), Vicki Michelle (as Betty), Patricia Haines (as Sybil Waite), Neil Hallett (as Gerald Amberly, the high priest) |
| Featuring: | Keith Buckley, James Chase |
| Starlets: | Paula Wright, Helen Downing, Maria Coyne, Prudence Drage |
| NOTES: | |
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Ann and Vicki Michelle both receive "introducing" credits although Ann had been in a film called Psychomania the previous year. Ann Michelle's first name is shown as "Ann" in the opening credits and as "Anne" in the closing credits. |
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When watching this film it appeared to me by their looks and tone of their relationship that Christine was the elder more sophisticated sister and Betty the younger one who defers to and is led by Christine. Perhaps it is never actually stated who is the elder and I was making an assumption because upon checking the sisters' birth dates it appears that Vicki is the elder by a couple of years. |
| Writers: George Kirgo, Robert Enders / Director: Kevin Billington / Producer: Robert Enders | |
| Type: Chiller | Running Time: 86 mins |
| Special Spoiler Alert for twist ending
(prologue) Robert and Claire are a couple with a young 6-year-old son called David. Whilst on a boating holiday on a river they moor near a weir and while the couple have a bit of quality time together below decks they let David go off and play. Later on David is nowhere to be found and after a desperate and frantic search in the local surrounds and by the river patrol it is assumed he must have fallen in the water and drowned. Some unspecified amount of time later (possibly several years) Robert and Claire are travelling by car on a cold foggy evening to spend time together at an old isolated house in the country that she inherited. Claire floundered in her grief following David's death - wracked with guilt she was driven to attempt suicide and was eventually committed to a hospital for psychiatric help. She is now better and has just been discharged from hospital and this trip is an attempt at a renewal of their strained relationship. The car journey is difficult because of the dense fog and hazardous with the oncoming traffic hard to see resulting in several close calls. Eventually they have decided it would be safer to walk and they arrive at the house on foot with most of their luggage left behind in the car. The house is large, cold, and empty with no power and no running water and Robert lights the fireplace to help keep them warm. After a short time there Claire begins to hear strange chuckles and eventually clear voices coming from nowhere. Robert can hear nothing and begins to fear she is losing her mind again. He becomes angry with her and their relationship becomes ever more strained but since they cannot leave due to the fog and onset of darkness they have to make the most of it and spend the night. Claire has a problem being intimate with Robert because she is forever reminded of what they were doing on that boat when their son went missing. As the night progresses the voices continue and then Claire begins to see people too - a family group of a mother and her two children - dressed in period clothing, ghosts of a bygone era - although they are oblivious to her as they continue their play and merriment. As morning approaches Robert starts to see and hear the family as well and realises Claire has been telling the truth all along. They decide to leave the haunted house as quickly as possible and Robert goes to fetch the car now that it is daylight and the fog has lifted. Left alone with the ghosts Claire shouts at them infuriated and suddenly they hear her - but think she is a ghost haunting them. Claire then runs out of the house and through the woods after Robert and finds him standing at the roadside looking at the wreck of a car. Inside the car they see their own dead bodies. They come to the realisation that in the fog the previous night they did have an accident and died in the crash and have been ghosts ever since without even knowing. | |
| Comment: The bulk of the film is staged much like a play being a two-hander taking place in the single set of the downstairs reception hall area of the old house. The only other locations are the prologue by the river, the car journey in the fog, and the final scenes of car wreck discovery. | |
| Starring: | David Hemmings (as Robert), Gayle Hunnicutt (as Claire) |
| Featuring: | Ghost family:- Lynn Farleigh (Mother), Eva Griffiths (girl), Russell Lewis (boy) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on a play by Richard Lortz. |
| Voyage of the Damned (1976) | Previous Next |
| Writers: Steve Shagan, David Butler / Director: Stuart Rosenberg / Producer: Robert Fryer | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 151 mins |
| In May 1939 a few months prior to the eventual start of World War II a passenger liner full of 937 oppressed German Jews are allowed to leave Germany to start a new life in South America. Their exile is called a humanitarian gesture of goodwill by the Nazi authorities but secretly the German High Command have a different agenda.
The Jewish refuges are mostly of privileged backgrounds who were until lately highly respected members of society and consider themselves patriotic Germans and are very sad to be forced to leave their homeland - but most are relieved to be getting away from the madness that has en-seized their country's political leaders. The cruise of the SS St Louis is conducted with every luxury afforded as the passengers live it up and look forward to their new lives and new beginnings until such time as the turmoil ends and they can safely return home. However as the liner arrives at its destination of Havana in Cuba it becomes clear that things are not going according to plan. The Cuban authorities claim that the passengers' landing visas are not valid and refuse to take them - leaving the passengers to wait it out on board the liner moored in the harbour whilst frantic negotiations take place. But no bribe nor incentive seems enough to persuade a change of heart and the ship is forced to return. Other nearby countries including America refuse to take them for fear of getting involved in the political wrangling and appearing to take sides This is what the Nazi's secret propaganda agenda was - to show the world that no one else wants the hated Jews either and the only option is to take them back. The liner begins its voyage back to Europe and a reception in Germany that the Jewish passengers are in dread fear. They plead with the captain to take them somewhere else and even threaten mutiny or mass suicide if he doesn't help them. The (non-Jewish) captain has every sympathy for the plight of his passengers but cannot be seen to be defying his orders under the watchful eye of the Nazi party representative on board. So he has secretly devised a plan whereby he will fake an emergency aboard ship off the coast of England that will necessitate the abandonment of the ship in lifeboats. However just as he is about to implement his plan word comes through on the radio that several European countries including England, Belgium, France and Holland have agreed to lend assistance and accept a share of the passengers. The passengers celebrate in relief at their salvation. | |
| Comment: The film is not a war thriller and it is fairly "soapy" at times as we peek into the lives of several groups of passengers during their long voyage.
The film is based on a true incident. And as the closing captions tell us - two months after the end of their voyage the war began and ultimately only the passengers who went to England were the lucky ones. Of the original 937 passengers over 600 still ended up dying in concentration camps as the various counties of mainland Europe succumbed to the Nazis. | |
| Featuring: | (Selected "Name" cast) (some passengers) Faye Dunaway, Oskar Werner, Lee Grant, Sam Wanamaker, Lynne Frederick, Julie Harris, Maria Schell, Jonathan Pryce, Georgina Hale (Some Crew) Max von Sydow (as The Captain), Malcolm McDowell (as The Steward), Helmut Griem (as Nazi Party representative), Keith Barron (as The Purser), Donald Houston (as Doctor), Don Henderson (as Engineering Officer) (In Cuba) Orson Welles, James Mason, Katharine Ross, Victor Spinetti, Bernard Hepton (Germans) Denholm Elliott, Leonard Rossiter |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the book of the same name by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts |
| Walk a Crooked Path (1969) | Previous Next |
| Writer/Director: John Brason / Associate Producer: Derek Horne | |
| Type: Crime Drama | Running Time: 82 mins |
| John Hemming is a middle-aged senior housemaster at a boys' public school. It is a post he has held for seventeen years after being repeatedly passed over for the headmastership by less experienced candidates. This has just happened again and John's lack of ambition for the top job is a contentious issue with his wife Elizabeth who feels socially humiliated every time it happens. Elizabeth remembers with fond affection her late father who was a high-achiever and made lots of money which now provides Elizabeth with an independent income. By comparison she considers her husband a failure and she finds herself unable to understand what is going on in his head - he sometimes seems lost in a private world in which he holds a dark secret that she is not sure she even wants to know about. Her disappointment with John has led her to bouts of depression and alcoholism.
At school Mr Hemming is popular and fair and seems to have a fatherly affection for his sixth form boys. One pupil he is giving special attention to is Philip Dreeper whom he has invited back to his home to go over his coursework. Alone together in his study John quietly slips Dreeper a sizable quantity of cash which is knowingly accepted by the lad without comment. With that transaction made Hemming suggests they go for an evening walk through the woods ... Next thing we see is Dreeper returning to his dorm room in a terrible physical and emotional state after clearly having undergone some terrible ordeal. Dreeper goes to the headmaster and makes an accusation of assault against Mr Hemming. Dreeper claims that Hemming set upon him in the woods and tried to wrestle him to the ground and he only managed to get away after a struggle. Hemming flatly denies the charge and accuses Dreeper of being an unmitigated liar who must have inflicted the injuries on himself to cause trouble. The money that changed hands is not mentioned. At home Hemming's wife Elizabeth hears about the allegations and her world comes crashing down even further. Her worst fears about her husband's inclinations are confirmed to her and she enters a pit of despair at the shame and ruin this scandal will bring upon them and how everyone will gloat at her misfortune. She has already been drinking over the failed promotion and this mess sends her over the edge. She gets into her car and drives down a country lane at recklessly fast speeds until she crashes and dies. Subsequently Dreeper decides to drop his allegations against Mr Hemming saying he would prefer to forget all about it and get on with his life. John Hemming decides to retire early now he has his wife's income to support him. After the funeral is over Dreeper comes to see Hemming once more. The ex-schoolmaster hands over another wad of cash. This money is a second and final payment to Dreeper for a job well done. Hemming had paid Dreeper to make up the allegations against him because he knew it would drive his wife to suicidal shame. He did it because he was having an affair with another woman but now he is free he realises he no longer loves her and they end their relationship. Instead Hemming realises he craves the company of Dreeper and asks him to come away with him on a holiday. But the mercenarily-minded Dreeper just laughs in his face at the idea and leaves Hemming alone and lonely with his thoughts. | |
| Starring: | Tenniel Evans (as John Hemming), Faith Brook (as Elizabeth Hemming, John's wife), Clive Endersby (as Philip Dreeper, sixth former), Peter Copley (as Arnold Oberon, headmaster), Christopher Coll (as Bill Coleman, sportsmaster), Patricia Haines (as Nancy Coleman, Bill's wife), Georgina Simpson (as Elaine, Hemmings' housemaid) |
| Featuring: | Margery Mason (as Aunt Mildred, Hemmings' housekeeper, Elaine's aunt), Georgina Cookson (as Imogen Dreeper, Philip's mother), Paul Dawkins (as Inspector Southern) |
| Familiar Faces: | Robert Powell (as Sixth former in Dreeper's dorm, [small role]) |
| NOTES: | |
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Clive Endersby receives an "introducing" credit |
| Writer: Dale Wasserman / Director: John Huston / Producer: as Carter De Haven | |
| Type: Historical Drama | Running Time: 86 mins |
| Set in France in the Middle Ages during the Hundred Years War between France and England (1337–1453). Peace-loving university student Heron of Foix is leaving war-ravaged Paris to head for the coast and see the sea for the first time. His journey turns out to be very eventful ...
All around are signs of the war. Properties have been taken over by soldiers leaving the peasants feeling very aggrieved. Heron is neither peasant nor nobleman and he feels that the class struggle does not involve him although he has more akin with the nobles. He begs an overnight stay at the château of the king's intendant Pierre of St Jean. There he meets Pierre's daughter Lady Claudia. She is taken by his poetic sensibilities and she agrees to be his patroness for his trip and in whose honour he can journey and think of when he needs inspiration. Heron continues on his way meeting some pilgrims whom he considers joining until he discovers that their extreme pious beliefs include a requirement to give up ones manhood to the knife. Next he chances upon a troupe of travelling entertainers. They tell him that the peasants have started revolting and are taking over castles and killing the nobles. When Heron hears that Lady Claudia's castle is one of those attacked he rushes back with all haste. He finds everyone dead except for Claudia who was given sanctuary in a monastery. She is devastated by the death of her father and asks Heron to escort her across the country to the estate of her only remaining family at Loris They take to the road virtually penniless and after a few adventures make it to her cousin Robert of Loris' estate. The peasants have not attacked Loris yet and Claudia finds out that this is because Robert's father sympathises with the peasants and he and Robert are planning to join their struggle against the aristocracy. Claudia is appalled that her uncle would support the people who killed her father and she and Heron leave immediately. They sleep rough and are captured by a band of peasants who intend to toy with them until they are fortunately rescued by a company of mounted knights on a peasant-hunt. The knight-leader invites Claudia and Heron to join them as they set out to liberate a château from peasant hands. The horseback knights are merciless in their decimation of the peasant hordes who have neither the weaponry nor the training to fight back effectively. Heron is forced to kill a young peasant boy to save his own life and is sickened by his actions and what his association with Claudia has forced him into - he wants to leave. By this time Claudia and Heron have fallen deeply in love and despite him being of a lower class than herself she chooses to go with him rather than stay with the knights. They return to Loris which at first is deserted until Robert returns exhausted after a long series of battles in which his father was killed. Then some knights come to execute Robert as a traitorous renegade. Robert is killed and the young sweethearts Claudia and Heron slip quietly away. They continue their trek and seek sanctuary in an abbey, but find the privation regime difficult to bear as they are kept in separate wings. Then overnight all the monks and nuns disappear having fled from an impending danger. Claudia and Heron are left alone together with the run of the abbey. They decide to stay knowing that the country is descending into a state that neither can live with. They enjoy their time together and await the arrival of the peasant mobs who proceed to burn the monastery. The young lovers hug each other bravely and await whatever is to befall them, together and unafraid. THE END | |
| Starring: | Anjelica Huston (as Lady Claudia), Assaf Dayan (as Heron of Foix) |
| Featuring: | Anthony Corlan (as Robert of Loris, Claudia's cousin), John Huston (as Robert the Elder, Claudia's uncle, Robert's father), John Hallam (as Sir Meles of Bohemia, knight), Robert Lang (as Pious pilgrim leader), Guy Deghy (as The Priest, giving Claudia sanctuary), Michael Gough (as Mad Monk, pimping ex-nun prostitutes), George Murcell (as The Captain, soldier leader), Anthony Nicholls (as Father Superior, in monastery), Joseph O'Connor (as Pierre of St Jean, Claudia's father), Eileen Murphy (as Gypsy Girl, with entertainers) |
| Familiar Faces: | Melvyn Hayes (as Entertainer), Nicholas Smith (as Pilgrim) |
| NOTES: | |
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Adaptation by Hans Koningsberger, based on his own novel |
| Novel: James Vance Marshall / Writer: Edward Bond / Director: Nicolas Roeg / Producer: Si Litvinoff | |
| Type: Adventure | Running Time: 100 mins |
| The father of an English family living in Australia takes his teenage daughter and young son on a trip far into the desert outback for what the children think is a picnic. But the father's business has suffered a serious setback and he is planning to kill himself after first shooting his children. The daughter and son manage to flee for cover as he starts shooting and he gives up on trying to kill them and just shoots himself after blowing up the car leaving the children stranded.
The girl takes charge of her brother and decides to try walking back to civilisation. The boy is about 10-years-old and the girl about 16 and she allows her brother to think it's a bit of an adventure game to keep his spirits up. They have little or no survival knowledge and soon flounder in the heat as they wander aimlessly around in their school uniforms. They are saved from immediate death when they meet a teenage aborigine boy who is on a customary rite of passage to his adulthood in which he is cast out from his tribe to survive alone for several months in the outback land. He shows them how to find water and hunts for food using his skills. They do not understand each other's languages but he takes them in hand as they communicate through gestures. The teenage girl feels an uneasy sense of attraction to his virtually naked and lithe body and the aborigine boy seems intrigued by her too. But there is no direct acknowledgement between the two of this forbidden attraction. The aborigine boy leads them around for days from the desert into more lush regions where the three of them form a sort of family unit having fun and surviving as they make their way back to a populated area. They eventually get to an old, long abandoned farm and stay there overnight. The aborigine boy paints himself up with tribal markings and begins a dance outside the house directed towards the girl. She does not understand its meaning or decides to pretend she does not, but he is clearly making some sort of mating overture trying to impress her in a courtship ritual. He dances long into the night and seems very disheartened when he gets no counter response from her. Next morning they find the aborigine boy has hanged himself from a tree evidently feeling some sense of extreme inadequacy for failing to woo her. She has no tears for him and appears quite detached about his death even though she and her brother would have perished if not for his help. They find they are near a main road and they follow it and eventually make their way back to civilisation. | |
| Starring: | Jenny Agutter (as the teenage girl), Lucien John (as her younger brother), David Gumpilil (as the aborigine boy) |
| Also: | Other minor parts played by: John Meillon, Robert McDara, Pete Carver, John Illingsworth, Hilary Bamberger, Barry Donnelly, Noelene Brown, Carlo Manchini |
| NOTES: | |
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Opening caption: "In Australia when an Aborigine man-child reaches sixteen, he is sent out into the land. For months he must live from it. Sleep on it. Eat of its fruit and flesh. Stay alive. Even if it means killing his fellow creatures. The Aborigines call it the Walkabout. This is the story of a Walkabout." |
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The three main characters are not given names in the film. |
| The Walking Stick (1970) | Previous Next |
| Writer: George Bluestone / Director: Eric Till / Producer: Alan Ladd Jr | |
| Type: Drama / Crime Drama | Running Time: 97 mins |
| Deborah Dainton is a woman in her early thirties who works as an antiques assessor at a large London auction house called Whittington's. She suffered polio as a child and has a crippled leg which means she has to walk with the aid of a stick. Her disability has given her an insecurity about her eligibility as a romantic prospect for men and consequently chooses to distance herself from social gatherings. She reluctantly agrees to attend a party organised by her sister Sarah where she meets a young artist called Leigh Hartley who gives her a lot of attention. He asks her out although she declines - but over the days that follow his persistence mellows her and she eventually agrees to go out with him on a date. A romance gradually develops as she begins to trust and care for him and she moves in to his riverside studio apartment. Deborah has ambitions to open up her own antique shop and Leigh is keen to get involved as well. They view some shop premises but realise that the prices are way beyond their current means.
Then Leigh tells Deborah he has been given an opportunity to make some quick money from someone who is willing to pay for some information about the security arrangements at her workplace. A gang is planning to burgle the auction house's safe of its jewellery collection and wants some inside information - she balks at that idea until Leigh tells her that he has decided to help with the robbery and because she loves him she feels trapped into providing the information to increase his chances of not being caught. Once she has made the first step of providing the specifics of alarm systems and security procedures she is drawn into helping them further by hiding in the offices after lockdown and opening the back door for the gang to gain entry. The robbery proceeds and is successful but afterwards she begins to find out that some of the things Leigh told her about his life are untrue and she discovers that he knew where she worked before he ever met her. She realises she was targeted by the gang and Leigh was an active member all along and groomed her as an inside contact. She wrestles with her conscience and writes a confession and seals it in an envelope addressed to the investigating officer at Scotland Yard. When she next sees Leigh he tells her he is sincere about his relationship with her and although it might have started in the way she has guessed it has developed into true love for him. He tells her he still wants to set up that antiques shop with her as they has planned. But Deborah can no longer bring herself to trust him, remaining unsure if he is just trying to further draw her deeper into another dodgy scheme. He strenuously denies this and tells her he does genuinely love her - but it is no good and they part company. And in the final moments of the film we see her posting her confession letter. | |
| Starring: | Samantha Eggar (as Deborah Dainton), David Hemmings (as Leigh Hartley) |
| Featuring: | (Deborah's family) Phyllis Calvert (as Erica Dainton, mother), Ferdy Mayne (as Douglas Dainton, father), Francesca Annis (as Arabella Dainton, sister), Bridget Turner (as Sarah Dainton, sister), David Savile (as David Talbot, Sarah's boyfriend) (Gang) Emlyn Williams (as Jack Foil, leader), Dudley Sutton (Ted Sandymount, electrical expert), John Woodvine (as Bertie Irons, explosives expert) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel by Winston Graham. |
| The War Lover (1962) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Howard Koch / Director: Philip Leacock / Producer: Arthur Hornblow Jr | |
| Type: War Drama | Running Time: 101 mins |
| Set in England on an American Airbase during the Second World War. It is 1943 and USAF Captain Buzz Rickson is the pilot of a B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber. He is one of the best pilots in the squadron and seems to have an innate instinct for flying and bringing his aircraft and crew safely back to base after each raid. His passions in life are war and women and nothing else seems to matter to him. He relishes the thrill of flying into danger and bombing the enemy to smithereens so much that he hopes the war will never end. First Lieutenant Ed 'Bo' Bolland is his friend and co-pilot whose motivations are vastly different. Bo is counting the days until his tour of duty is over and he can return home to the States. He believes in the necessity of what they are doing but has no love for it. Buzz's commanding officers often chastise him for his bouts of reckless grandstanding and hot-headed disregard of failsafe orders, but they have to acknowledge that he is the best pilot they have. Buzz is a risk taker and always supremely confident he can beat the odds and win through in anything - whether that be in war ... or love.
So when Buzz and Bo are at a locally organised dance event and meet an attractive young Englishwoman called Daphne Caldwell whom they both fancy, Buzz assumes it will be him she prefers. Daphne is an academic doing secret defence work at nearby Cambridge. She chats to both of the Americans but it is the more level-headed Bo she prefers and they arrange to go out again. Buzz is a bit irritated by his rare failure to be top dog and his pride is wounded. Daphne and Bo go out on a date and she confesses that she found Buzz too dangerous because he reminded her of a boyfriend she'd loved who had been killed in action. He too had liked the idea of fighting more than the cause he had been fighting for. Buzz begins behaving petulantly and takes an irrational dislike to their navigator Lynch for no good reason. Lynch is transferred to another aircrew and on its next mission that aircraft is downed and Lynch is killed. Buzz feels no remorse that their friend has died as a result of his decision and he and Bo fall out. Bo and Daphne continue to see each other and begin to fall in love. Buzz tries to muscle in, but Daphne makes it clear to him that it is Bo that she loves. Their next mission is to be the final one in their current tour. Bo is delighted about this, whereas Buzz has decided he will remain for as long as the war lasts. This sortie is their most dangerous yet and will involve a thousand heavy bombers encroaching deep into German territory to destroy an oil refinery. The outward journey goes well for Buzz's crew and they drop their payload on the target - but on the way back they are hit by enemy fire and some of the crew are killed. The aircraft suffers damage and begins losing altitude as they cross the North Sea towards England. Buzz is confident he can keep the aircraft in the air for long enough to make it to land. But Bo isn't so sure and tells Buzz they should radio for Air Sea Rescue and eject into the sea on their parachutes. Thus the surviving crew all bailout except for Buzz who remains in the cockpit in the utter conviction that he will be able to nurse the aircraft to land. But Buzz's efforts are not quite enough and the dying plane fails to respond sufficiently to his expert handling. The plane crashes into a cliff face on England's coast and Buzz dies instantly in a fiery explosion. The rest of the crew watch with sadness and are then picked up by the rescue service. Bo later tells Daphne that it was the way Buzz would have wanted to go. | |
| Starring: | Steve McQueen (as Captain Buzz Rickson), Robert Wagner (as 1st Lt Ed 'Bo' Bolland, co-pilot), Shirley Anne Field (as Daphne Caldwell) |
| Featuring: | (Some of the crew) Gary Cockrell (as 2nd Lt Marty Lynch, navigator), Michael Crawford (as Sgt. Junior Sailen, ball turret gunner, [playing an American]), Bill Edwards (as 2nd Lt. Max Brindt, navigator) Jerry Stovin (as Colonel Emmet, group commander), Edward Bishop (as Colonel Vogt, base officer), Richard Leech (as Major Murika), Bernard Braden (as Flight Surgeon Randall), Sean Kelly (as Captain Woodman), Charles De Temple (as Captain Braddock), Neil McCallum (as Sully, base soldier), Arthur Hewlett (as Vicar on train) |
| Starlets: | Justine Lord (as Street Girl), Louise Dunn (as Hazel, pub landlady's daughter) |
| NOTES: | |
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Made in Black and White |
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From the novel by John Hersey |
| A War of Children (1972) | Previous Next |
| Writer: James Costigan / Director/Producer: George Schaefer | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 74 mins |
| Set in present day Belfast, Northern Ireland (1972) during the escalating troubles between the catholic and protestant communities while occupying British troops patrol the streets trying to keep the peace. The catholic Tomelty family and protestant McCullum family have been friends for the past three years and meet up every Sunday for days out. Neither family are militant and don't let religion get in the way of their friendship. Both husbands are into pigeon racing and their two young sons Donal and Reggie are best friends. Lately however the families have been finding it hard to meet up as attitudes of hatred are becoming more entrenched and they fear being ostracised by their own neighbours if it became known they were socialising with people from the other community. Wife Nora Tomelty strongly believes in living peacefully and respecting each other's views and prefers to ignore the bigotry around her and her husband Frank is a easy-going man with no interest in getting involved in any hard-line movements.
Teenage daughter Maureen Tomelty is being wooed by a cockney British private called Reg Hogg. They are forced to keep their relationship secret as the catholic based IRA have vowed to rid their country of occupying British troops by whatever means possible and catholic women fraternising with British soldiers are considered traitors. When her parents Nora and Frank find out they are content to let her continue providing her relationship is kept discrete and low-key. As inter-faith bad feeling intensifies meetings between the Tomelty's and McCullum's become impossible and Nora misses her best friend Meg McCullum. Nora defies the bigoted upholders of the religious divide and goes round to see Meg. Nora wants Meg to join her in a small women's movement intent on trying to get the two sides to reach agreement through reason rather than violence and hatred. But Meg is too scared to join her and suggests they stop seeing each other for their own mutual safety. Then one day in the middle of the night British soldiers burst into the Tomelty home and arrest Frank on suspicion of being involved with the IRA and place him in detention. Nora knows he is innocent and the activists have spread false rumours against him as a way of getting back at her for trying to be conciliatory and friendly towards protestants. This turns Nora from easygoing pacifist into a hardnosed supporter overnight as she seeks to protect her family from further retribution - she forbids Donal to have any contact with Robbie and especially tells Maureen to cut off all contact with Reg. But as the time moves on Maureen and Reg continue to meet and eventually find a discreet room to rent for a night of passion together. They are found out by the local women and Maureen is hauled out onto the streets to be tarred and feathered for consorting with the enemy - the group is led by her mother who shows no mercy or compassion for her daughter and views her with disgust. The catholic women's group find out that their detained men are being transferred to another internment centre by the army and they form a roadblock to try and stop it and liberate their men. The army are in a quandary because they cannot shoot at the woman and children pelting them with stones. Donal climbs up onto the armoured truck and a young soldier rifle butts him down and this unfortunately kills him. Nora is so radicalised with hatred that rather than show grief at her son's death she seizes on the incident as a way to score a political point as she vows to carry the boy's body into town to show the world what the British army do to children. Maureen watches in horror at the goings on and manages to sneak a word with her still even-minded father Frank in the prison van whilst it is being delayed. Frank tells her he doesn't think it'll ever change here and advises her to get out - to leave Ireland with Reg and find a place where people are not out to murder each other all the time in Jesus' name. As the story ends Nora is heading into town with her women and Reg and Maureen are driving away. | |
| Starring: | (Tomelty Family) Vivien Merchant (as Nora, wife), John Ronane (as Frank, husband), Jenny Agutter (as Maureen, daughter), Danny Figgis (as Donal, son) Anthony Andrews (as Reg Hogg, British soldier) (McCullum Family) Aideen O'Kelly (as Meg, wife), Oliver Maguire (as Ian, husband), David Meredith (as Robbie, son) |
| Featuring: | Patrick Dawson (as Seamus Lynch, young IRA member) |
| Warlords of Atlantis (1978) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Brian Hayles / Director: Kevin Connor / Producer: John Dark | |
| Type: Adventure | Running Time: 92 mins |
| In 1896 a small research clipper called Texas Rose is engaged in a scientific expedition in the Bermuda seas on behalf of the Royal Society. Professor Aitken and his scientist son Charles have a hypothesis about a legendary underwater city in this area and wish to explore the ocean bed for proof. This will be achieved using a revolutionary submersible observatory developed by American inventor Greg Collinson who will helm it.
Greg and Charles descend in the two-man diving bell and rapidly find a large gold statue which is winched back up to the surface vessel. Soon the diving bell and its two occupants find themselves assailed by a sea monster and the submersible becomes uncontrollably drawn into an underwater cave system. Meanwhile on the surface the Texas Rose is attacked by a giant octopus which grabs the captain and three crew and pulls them down into the murky depths. The six of them emerge in a new unknown land inside a vast illuminated air-filled undersea cavern where they are almost immediately taken into custody by the denizens of this unexpectedly habitable environment. Their captor is called Atmir and he is accompanied by masked soldiers called Warlords. Atmir explains that they are in Atlantis which is split into a number of cities each of which has its own function and class of resident citizen ranging from the most privileged in one to the lowly workers in another. Charles is separated from the his fellow prisoners and taken to the city for the elite citizens. The others are taken to the city of Troi which is for the ordinary worker classes. The workers are former surface dwellers who have been kidnapped from ships down the years and brought here as prisoners. They can never return to the surface because in order to properly breathe the changed atmospheric mix they have been surgically altered. Newcomers can cope unaltered for a few days but must soon be adapted for long-term survival. Greg meets a beautiful girl prisoner called Delphine who has grown from a young child into a woman in captivity here. Her father was the captain of the Marie Celeste. Greg and the crew make plans to escape before it is too late but need to rescue Charles first. The scientist Charles has been segregated because the elite Atlanteans perceive that he has a superior mind to the others which can be employed more usefully in academic endeavour. Charles is told that the Atlanteans were originally an advanced race from the planet Mars. Hundreds of thousands of years ago they left their dying world in a spaceship bound for the stars - but a comet disrupted their course and instead they splash-landed into they oceans of nearby Earth and became trapped on the primitive planet. They lacked the industry to rebuild their advanced technology for the necessary repairs and so they set about influencing the evolutionary destiny of Earth's most promising primitive indigenous lifeform - the humans. They began secretly manipulating events from afar with the long-term aim of promoting the development of science and technology waiting for the day when the humans become advanced enough to create the neutron drives the Atlanteans need to return to the stars. The Atlanteans have found that the best way to stimulate innovation is to foster conflicts between nations and they foresee that their grand scheme is now bearing very promising fruit. They expect that the forthcoming 20th century will be one of great advancement in the midst of extensive periods of conflict With the aid of Delphine, Greg and the crew manage to sneak into the elite city and rescue Charles. They manage to overcome the attempts of the Atlantean warriors, and a variety of horrendously mutated creatures, to stop them. They eventually make it to the diving bell and escape back to the surface. Delphine cannot go with them because her respiratory system has been converted to function in the Atlantean atmosphere. Once back on the Texas Rose the captain and crew become greedy and decide they want the gold statue for themselves and are prepared to kill or abandon Greg and the scientists to possess it. But then the giant octopus returns to retrieve the statue and scuttle the ship. The captain is killed but the others escape in a lifeboat. | |
| Starring: | Doug McClure (as Greg Collinson), Peter Gilmore (as Charles Aitken), Shane Rimmer (as Captain Daniels), Lea Brodie (as Delphine, Atlantean prisoner) (Crew) Hal Galili (as Grogan), John Ratzenberger (as Fenn), Derry Power (as Jacko) |
| Featuring: | Donald Bisset (as Professor Aitken, Charles father), Robert Brown (as Briggs, Delphine's father), Cyd Charisse (as Atsil, Atlantean inquisitor on council of elite), Daniel Massey (as Atraxon, Atlantean Imperator on supreme council), Ashley Knight (as Sandy, cabin boy) |
| NOTES: | |
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Lea Brodie receives an "introducing" credit. However she was previously known as Lea Dregorn under which name she had previously received an "introducing" credit for the film The Lifetaker (1975). |
| Writer: Brian Clemens / Director: John Hough / Producer: Ron Miller | |
| Type: Ghost Story | Running Time: 79 mins |
| An American family with a British father move to England and rent a large mansion in the country from an old woman called Mrs Aylwood who herself lives alone in an adjacent cottage. The family consist of mother Helen, father Paul and their two daughters, teenager Jan and her younger sister Ellie.
The secluded mansion borders some woods and Jan immediately gets an eerie feeling of being watched and has a strange vision in a mirror of a blindfolded girl. Ellie too is affected and hears voices and both daughters are clearly sensitive to something mysterious in the area. When they get a puppy Ellie names it Nerak because a voice told her too. Nerak is "Karen" spelt backwards and Karen was the name of Mrs Aylwood's daughter who 30 years ago went missing in a mystery that has never been solved. Jan manages to piece together what went on 30 years ago. Karen had been a teenager who with three friends, Mary, Tom and John, had been playing in a disused chapel in the woods enacting a mock-demonic ceremony to initiate a blindfolded Karen into their gang as test of her courage. The time of the ceromony was purposely chosen because a forecast lunar eclipse added to the atmospheric significance of the ritual. During the ceremony a storm was raging and lightning hit the belfry and with a blinding flash of light the massive bell crashed down on to the platform that Karen was standing upon. However when the debris was cleared no trace of her body could be found. To this day, the horror of those events still haunt the three friends who all still live in the area. Ellie becomes prone to sleepwalking and in her trance-like state leaves cryptic messages saying that she needs to be saved and that the event must be repeated before it is too late. Jan thinks they are somehow messages from Karen whose ghost is haunting them and wants them to do something to release her - but Jan cannot figure out what it is. When Jan finds out a solar eclipse is due she realises that the messages are telling her the action must be taken during that time. Jan manages to persuade the three former friends to return to the chapel and re-enact the ceremony in which Jan will stand in as Karen. The ceremony begins and Ellie becomes possessed by the spirit who explains that it is an entity from a planet in another dimension who was accidentally transferred here 30 years ago by the celestial configurations and swapped places with Karen just before the bell fell. Conditions are now right for the process to be reversed. And as the ritual continues the blinding flash reoccurs and the entity vanishes and is replaced by Karen who is still a young girl unchanged by the passage of 30 years. Her mother welcomes her back in a tearful reunion. | |
| Starring: | Bette Davis (as Mrs Aylwood) (Curtis Family) Lynn-Holly Johnson (as Jan), Carroll Baker (as Helen, mother), David McCallum (as Paul, father), Kyle Richards (Ellie, younger sister) |
| Featuring: | (Karen's friends as adults) Ian Bannen (as John Keller, reclusive squire), Richard Pasco (as Tom Colley, hermit), Frances Cuka (as Mary Fleming, farmer's wife) Benedict Taylor (as Mike Fleming, Mary's son), Eleanor Summerfield (as Mrs Thayer, estate agent), Georgina Hale (as Young Mrs Aylwood, in flashback), Katharine Levy (as Karen Aylwood) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel A Watcher in the Woods by Florence Engel Randall |
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Although the final denouement gives the story a sci-fi twist, it is probably nearer to the mark to class it as a ghost story |
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There are several versions of this film with different endings. The version reviewed ends as described. |
| The Water Babies (1978) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Michael Robson / Director: Lionel Jeffries / Producer: Peter Shaw | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 90 mins |
| In 1850, poor young orphan Tom is forced to work for his keep in the employ of a fearsome rogue called Mr Saul Grimes who treats Tom meanly. The unscrupulous Mr Grimes and his partner Mr Masterman are travelling chimney sweeps and Tom's job is to scurry up the chimneys and clean them out. Grimes and Masterman are also crooks and when they are employed to clean out the many chimneys of a stately home in Yorkshire called Harthoven Hall they make plans to pinch the valuables as well. Good-natured Tom is reluctant to be part of their thieving but there is nothing he can do about it and must do as he is told.
The housekeeper Mrs Grimes lets them in and they begin work. Whilst Tom is climbing up the maze of chimneys, Grimes starts bagging all the valuable ornaments he can and hands them out to Masterman through a window who hides them under some bushes for later retrieval. Meanwhile Tom gets lost in the chimneys and comes down the wrong chute into the bedroom of a young girl. Her name is Elly and is very pretty - she is the ward of kindly Sir John and Lady Harriet who own the mansion. She and Tom are about the same age and quickly make friends as they chat. Tom tells her he is an orphan who never knew his parents and he doesn't even have a surname. Then the alarm is raised when someone notices items missing. Grimes acts all innocent and points the finger of blame at Tom accusing him of betraying his trust. Tom runs away in panic because the penalty for thieving is the rope. Sir John Harthoven is a Justice of the Peace and he becomes determined to hunt Tom down and bring the young scoundrel to justice. Tom runs into the woods afraid for his life chased by Sir John and his groundsman Sladd. Tom comes to the edge of a raging river with treacherous rapids. Sir John warns him not to jump because it is a deadly current but Tom is cornered and is left with no choice but to leap in and chance his luck. He disappears under the water and is not seen again. Elly catches up with Sir John and tells him that Tom was innocent and Sir John feels terrible at hounding a poor boy to his death. But Tom is not dead - instead he finds himself swept out to sea and uncannily able to breathe underwater. At the bottom of the sea he finds all the marine creatures can talk and he asks them how he can get back up to the surface. He is told that the only ones who can help him are the Water Babies far out to sea. Tom makes some undersea friends in the shape of a lobster, seahorse and swordfish who agree to travel with him on his quest. And after some eventful encounters he finds the Water Babies. They are playful seachildren whose sole purpose is to play and have innocent fun. Tom is welcomed and discovers to his amazement that he was once a Water Baby himself who somehow made it to the surface. He wants to return to the surface to be with his special new friend Elly but is told the only being who can permit that is the mighty Kraken, lord of the ocean. That night whilst Tom sleeps in the Water Babies' land an evil undersea tyrant called Killer Shark abducts all the Water Babies and imprisons them in his shark castle. Tom knows he must help them and so he decides he must go and ask the mighty Kraken for his assistance. Tom travels to the Kraken's lair and is given cryptic responses that are difficult to fathom. But with the Kraken's approval Tom and his aquatic friends mount an assault on the Killer Shark's castle and manage to free the Water Babies. As a reward for his bravery the Kraken provides Tom with the means of returning to the surface world. Tom resurfaces in a pond near Harthoven Hall and starts to make his way to the mansion. But immediately he falls back into the clutches of Grimes and Masterman who have returned to try and get the valuables again. At night-time Grimes makes Tom climb in through a small window and open the front door for them. But Tom knocks things over and the household wakes up and Grimes and Masterman are caught in the act and arrested. Tom's name is cleared and everyone is so happy he is still alive. He is cleaned up and because he is an orphan with no home to go to he is invited by Sir John to become one of the family and he accepts. He tries to tell the family about his undersea adventures and they think it to be a very inventive fairy story but of course know it cannot be true. Later Tom takes Elly to the pond and his undersea friends talk to him and Elly knows it was all true. | |
| Comment: Mrs Tripp the housekeeper is some kind of magical being with links to the Water Babies and throughout Tom's travels he sees her in different guises and she gives him secret help. One of her other guises was Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby although this is just a minor character in the film. | |
| Starring: | Tommy Pender (as Tom, young sweep), James Mason (as Mr Saul Grimes, crook), Bernard Cribbins (as Mr Masterman, Grimes' associate), Samantha Gates (as Elly, young girl whom Tom befriends), Billie Whitelaw (as Mrs Tripp, Sir John's housekeeper, [and other cameo guises]) |
| Featuring: | David Tomlinson (as Sir John Harthoven, justice of the peace, Elly's guardian), Joan Greenwood (as Lady Harriet, Sir John's wife), Paul Luty (as Sladd, Sir John's groundkeeper) Cartoon character voices: James Mason (Killer Shark), Bernard Cribbins (Eel), Jon Pertwee, Olive Gregg, Lance Percival, David Jason, Cass Allan, Liz Proud, Una Stubbs |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel by Charles Kingsley |
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Tommy Pender and Samantha Gates both receive "introducing" credits |
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The undersea sequences are done as a cartoon with an animated version of Tom. These parts are comedic in nature with some songs - whereas the live action parts are done as realistic straight drama. |
| Writers: Keith Waterhouse, Willis Hall / Director: Michael Winner / Producer: Daniel M. Angel | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 89 mins |
| Joe Beckett is a young man whose life seems to have stalled. He just drifts lazily between jobs and relationships without forming any strong commitments or laying down strong roots. He has just walked out on his latest job after being criticised for poor timekeeping, and his party-loving girlfriend Ilsa is too embracing of the permissive society for him to keep up with. Joe rents a bedsit apartment and is several weeks behind on his payments and on the verge of being evicted.
In the pub Joe meets an older man called Richard Dyce who lends a sympathetic ear to Joe's low ebb. Dyce has a commanding air and a gift for spinning a convincing yarn. He presents himself as a successful businessman but is actually a sponger who uses his guile to avoid spending much of his own money. Dyce is somewhat short on funds and over the coming days he has Joe followed to assess his suitability for a desperate moneymaking plan he has cooked up. Dyce eventually decides that Joe might be sufficiently despondent to agree and so he puts forward his proposal. Dyce has a rich aunt from whom he stands to inherit a fortune and what he wants Joe to do is go to her mansion in Hampshire and kill her whilst making it appear to have been a bungled burglary. Joe has no link to the lady and so the police will have no reason to suspect him. Dyce gives Joe a gun and detailed instructions of how to get to the property unseen. Joe decides to go along with it and breaks into the mansion but finds he cannot go through with it and kill a defenceless old lady in her sleep. He decides to leave but unfortunately the aunt is awake and confronts him. In a struggle she falls down the stairs and dies - Joe quickly leaves not realising that something incriminating has dropped from his pocket. Back in London a professional grass who is acquainted with Joe reads the news story about Dyce's aunt and the mystery "clue" and knowing that Joe and Dyce are recent associates he deduces the truth and tells all to the police for the reward money. Dyce is arrested and Joe decides to give himself up before he is captured. | |
| Starring: | Alfred Lynch (as Joe Beckett), Eric Portman (as Richard Dyce), Kathleen Breck (as Ilsa Barnes, Joe's girlfriend), Diana Dors (as Georgia, Joe's friend) |
| Featuring: | Kathleen Harrison (as Mrs Beckett, Joe's mother), Finlay Currie (as Mr Gash, elderly neighbour, Freda Jackson (as Mrs Hartley, Joe's landlady), Harold Lang (as Silent, professional squealer), Marie Ney (as Mildred Dyce, Richard's aunt), Patrick Wymark (as Father Hogan, Joe's priest) |
| Familiar Faces: | Brian Wilde (as Speaker at political rally) |
| NOTES: | |
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Made in Black and White |
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Based on The Furnished Room by Laura del Rivo |
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West 11 is the London postal district that Joe lives in |
| West End Jungle (1961) | Previous Next |
| Writer: (none listed) / Director: Arnold Louis Miller / Producers: Stanley A. Long, Arnold Louis Miller | |
| Type: Documentary | Running Time: 51 mins |
| A documentary about the state of prostitution in the capital city in the early 1960s. In London prior to 1959 the streets were awash with thousands of prostitutes who brazenly paraded themselves wherever they could to attract business. London garnered a grubby reputation and certain districts became no-go areas for respectable men and women for fear of harassment or scandal. The prostitutes operated with little fear of the law because the maximum penalty available was a 40 shilling (£2) fine. This fine was thought of more as a licence to ply their trade rather than a deterrent for there were too many of them for any one individual to be arrested very often.
However all of that unconscionable behaviour changed when in August 1959 the Street Offences Act was introduced. This carried with it heavy fines and jail sentences and resulted in an almost overnight cleansing of the streets. But what of the women who formerly worked the streets as prostitutes and the men who wanted to make use of their services? What were they to do? New members-only nightclubs soon opened featuring dancing girls willing to undress in front of men. And clip joints became popular where men could go to enjoy the company of pretty girls acting as hostesses, not realising or caring that the price of their company was overpriced beverages. The girls employed in these establishments were often starry-eyed innocents from the sticks who came to London looking to find fame and fortune in the big city but becoming caught up instead in a life of vice. Some girls advertised their services as photographer's models knowing that the men who hired them were not really interested in photography and just wanted to see them naked. High-class call girls were in demand and company bosses used them to succour deals with their business contacts. The gullible businessmen became easily enamoured by the glamorous company, attention and flattery of a beautiful woman - not realising that they were opening themselves up to future blackmail when it came time for contract renewal. Other recreations available for the frustrated businessman included massage parlours which offered a façade of respectability while providing certain peripheral indulgences for an additional fee. So it seems that although the streets may have been cleared, the underlying infestation remains ever-present under many other scurrilous guises. | |
| Featuring: | David Gell (Narrator), Tom Bowman (Male Voices), Heather Russell (Female Voices) (Other cast members) Terry James, Peter Baker, Andria Lawrence, Dennis Cleary, David Grey, Marcel De Villier, Margaret Trace, George McGrath, Mavis Hoffman, Pamela Rees, Roy Denton, Lawrence Hepworth, Marilyn Ridge, Janette Rousell, Laura Thurlow, Desmond Newley, Tom McAuley, Valerie Drew, Nicholas Tannar, Jan Williams, Nat Mills, Vicky Woolf, Minoosh Fabinah, Kathleen Grace, Roy Stephens, Michael Lee |
| NOTES: | |
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Made in Black and White |
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Although pitching itself as a documentary the scenes are all acted "reconstructions" and a full cast are listed at the end although it does not indicate who played which parts. The actors are not actually heard to speak on the soundtrack and the story is told by a moralistic narrator and a couple of overdubbing voice artistes supplying any dialogue needed. |
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There is some nudity in a couple of sequences showing bare breasted dancers (wearing tassels) but none in any of the sequences involving the actors. |
| Writer: Roger Marshall / Director: Bill Bain / Producers: Max J. Rosenberg, Milton Subotsky | |
| Type: Chiller | Running Time: 85 mins / 92 mins |
| Johnnie Tallent lives with his elderly 78-year-old grandmother and appears to her to be the very model of a devoted and caring grandson who provides her with much-needed company now that she is house-bound. 22-year-old John has been living with Gran for ten years since the death of her husband - but John's charming demeanour towards her hides a growing impatience to get his hands on the fairly sizeable amount of money that he will eventually inherit. She has a heart condition but her medication keeps her fit and able around the house and she shows no signs of any imminent decline and her doctor happily tells Johnnie not to worry for as long as she avoids excitement she'll be around for a long time yet - which for Johnnie is not good news. John has a girlfriend called Jill Standish whom he has to meet in secret when he goes out because Gran disapproves of her. Jill is a clever and scheming young girl whose interest has been drawn to the high-life and luxury she could enjoy with Johnnie's money and she has devised a long-term strategy for John to employ to do away with Gran.
As part of the plan Johnnie has been slowly introducing into his conversations with Gran his fears about a growing social movement called "Youth Power" who, he tells her, actively despise old people and the way they selfishly use up valuable resources and live alone in large houses that several younger people could be better using. As he describes it they are a secretive organisation of like-minded people who are gathering information on the elderly. Johnnie says he has become a member but only so he can keep tabs on their shocking activities and protect Gran although he tells her she's OK because they are only going after the over-80s. To increase her anxiety, John cuts innocuous articles from the newspapers and when she asks what he has removed he tells her he is trying to protect her from the upsetting developments being reported giving her made-up sketchy details of what the article is supposed to have said. And if a genuine accident involving the elderly is reported he gravely tells her that Youth Power have started taking action. Jill phones Gran posing as a mysterious census girl asking her questions about her age and how many rooms there are in her house to heighten her paranoia. Johnnie helps cement it by acting increasingly alarmed on her behalf as he tells her with mounting trepidation that he has just heard that Youth Power have lowered their tolerated age from 80 down to 75 and Gran would now be considered a legitimate target but he promises to do his best to keep her safe. Jill has contacts in the student fraternity and she has arranged for the route of the student rag march to pass down Gran's street. They are a harmless bunch of young people who will be out enjoying themselves - but they will be loud, boisterous and numerous and would seem to someone who is sufficiently primed to be a horde of violent youths on an angry protest. On the day of the march John tells Gran he has just heard that Youth Power are coming today doing a sweep of the area - overnight he has painted some graffiti on a fence opposite their house declaring "Out With The Oldies" which she sees from her window and he tells her he has seen similar sentiments daubed everywhere. Then the noise of the student marchers is heard with their exuberance sounding very threatening in the context that Gran believes - and outside Jill starts knocking on the door and smashing windows to represent the baying hoards trying to get in as John pretends to be trying to repel them while Gran is shut in the kitchen for her own safety only able to hear the noise. After the students have passed on by John goes into the kitchen fully prepared to tell her he managed to fend them off this time if she is still OK - but his smile broadens into delight when he sees that their plan has worked - she has had a heart attack and died with a look of sheer terror frozen on her face. Now they are rid of Gran, Jill moves in with John and they make plans to get married as soon as John has control of the estate. But when they go to the solicitor there is a nasty surprise in store. Gran has recently drawn up a codicil to her will stating that her loving grandson John can remain tenant in her house and receive the income from her investments whilst he is single but the ownership will remain in trust under control of the solicitor executor until he is married at which point he will become the owner - as long as the woman he marries is not Jill Standish! Gran had clearly recognised the money grabbing type that Jill represented which was why she took an instant dislike to her and made these efforts to safeguard her grandson from her. John and Jill are very angry as the income is insufficient for two people to live on and they had hoped never to have to work again. John starts suggesting wild ill-thought out ideas to get around the codicil but Jill's keen mind immediately points out the flaws. Instead Jill suggests her own idea - the will amendment says nothing about how long he needs to be married for so she tells John he should find someone to marry and then dump her once he's inherited the money. John goes out and meets a girl that Jill points out to him as a good candidate but then Jill starts to get intensely jealous feeling insecure about her position and suggesting to Johnnie that he's enjoying it too much - he says he can hardly get a girl to marry him by showing no interest in her - but she isn't listening and lunges at him with a knife after he slaps her to quieten down her hysteria. She only wings him but he loses control of his own anger and picks up another knife and stabs her in the belly. Realising what he has done he goes upstairs to get some towels to stem the blood but when he returns she has managed to crawl out of the house and into the street implicating him to passer-bys as she dies. And as we leave the story the police are heard knocking on John's door to come and get him for murder. | |
| Starring: | Paul Nicholas (as Johnnie Tallent), Vanessa Howard (as Jill Standish), Mona Washbourne (as Alice Tallent, Gran) |
| Featuring: | Peter Copley (as Solicitor), Peter Jeffrey (as Doctor), George A. Cooper (as Jill's boss) |
| Starlets: | Angela Down, Patricia Fuller |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel The Ruthless Ones by Laurence Moody. |
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A 92-minute version has also been seen which adds a few additional scenes. |
| Writers: Vernon P. Becker, Barry Downes / Director/Producer: Vernon P. Becker | |
| Type: Sex Comedy / European | Running Time: 81 mins |
| In Victorian England young Jack Armstrong is firmly entrenched within the rigidity of proper behaviour that his parents impose on him and they are so incredibly formal to each other that he sometimes wonders how he was ever conceived. He is given books to study on every subject going except on that one topic that is beginning to interest him greatly - that of the opposite sex. His father confiscates some rude photos Jack comes by and his mother makes him wear boxing gloves in bed to prevent any self-gratification. He is sternly lectured that his life will be ruined unless he represses all sexual desires.
Some years later in his final year at Cambridge Jack's parents unexpectedly die and leave him with only a modest inheritance meaning he must get a job as a lawyer. The one thing of value left to him was the services of a deaf butler called Samson. Amongst his father's papers Jack is astonished to find what appears to be love letters and when he visits the lady in question it turns out she is a brothel Madame called Helena. She fondly remembers his father for his strong sexual appetite and when she finds out Jack is still a virgin she immediately institutes a training regime for him with the brothel girls to teach him all about the art of lovemaking. Now that Jack has experienced sex he yearns for love and while visiting an art gallery he spots the woman of his dreams. She is named Alice Faversham and she is a proper lady always escorted by a chaperone. He tries to talk to her but she refuses to converse with a gentleman without a formal introduction. He finds out where she lives and showers her with flowers and invitations but she replies to none of them. Finally he receives an invitation from her to attend a prayer recital held by her mother and father who are pillars of Victorian morality. He cannot get time alone with her and so invites her on a picnic but she is always chaperoned. He is of course the perfect gentleman towards her at all times but is inwardly yearning for her whilst remaining forever restrained by the bounds of society and proper conduct of which she is a staunch advocate. Eventually Jack pawns most of his belongings to buy a ring and propose to her but she has bad news as she has just accepted the proposal of a gentleman that her father has picked for her as being most suitable - a man with title, money and a mansion - even though he is over 60 years old - Jack in his disappointment forgets himself and comments that he does not know how she would be able to bear to sleep with him - she finds this comment a most obscene outburst and demands he leave. Jack unexpectedly becomes rich when an uncle dies leaving him everything and there is more good news for him when Alice's elderly intended snuffs it on a wild stag night at the brothel on the night before the wedding leaving Alice a free woman once more. He asks Madame Helena for some tips on how to woo Alice properly and Helena tells him that what Alice needs is to be properly "educated", he should forget he's a respectable gentleman and teach her who's boss and he would soon find that under her cool exterior there was a passionate woman bursting to get out - he should get her alone and do something bold, daring and even beastly towards her. With this advice in mind Jack buys a town house which is going cheap because it used to be a madhouse - but its padded soundproof rooms suit Jack's purposes perfectly for the devilish plan he has devised. He spends the next few months converting an upstairs room into a comfortably furnished lounge room which he can use as a photographic studio but laced with hidden mechanisms which will come into play when he gets Alice alone in there. He calls the room "The Snuggery" to make it sound warm and welcoming. He then invites Alice round to tea although she is still accompanied by either her sister or maid each time. Eventually after many weeks she finally comes alone and using a ruse Jack manages to persuade her to come into The Snuggery. But once in there he locks the door and soon reveals his wicked intentions to violate her virtue. He tells her she has amused herself with his heart for long enough so he will now do likewise with her body. She is outraged and demands he let her leave but he tells her the room is soundproof and only Samson is in the house anyway and he is deaf. He suggests she submit quietly but she insists she'll fight him all the way and he'll not enjoy a moment. She dodges round the room trying to evade his clutches - but she is ensnared by one of his hidden mechanisms and is soon standing helpless with her arms tied by leather straps. He tries to undo her garments but cannot fathom the complications of her corsetry and it soon becomes clear that she has secretly decided she might as well make the most of this for she craftily tells him how to undo it by pleading with him not to do certain important things. Eventually he has her naked and wheels out a tickling machine to amuse her into submission and this gets her into such a state that she passes out with pleasure. He carries her over to the couch but she was only feigning and secretly picks the door key from his pocket. But as she is laying there on the couch supposedly unconscious and helpless Jack has a change of heart and voices his realisation of just how beastly he is being and can't go through with it - and she opens her eyes and tells him with irritation that after all this indignity she's been put through in the end he's proved to be a timid rabbit. This slur spurs him on and he has sex with her on the couch in a marathon session. At the end of it he is exhausted but content to have achieved his objective and he dresses and wonders why she is not getting dressed too for she is now free to leave. Then as he tries to open the door he realises the key is missing from his pocket. She shows him she has it and wonders where on earth he could be going as she hasn't finished with him yet. He is puzzled because it was he who had her - but she tells him she allowed him to and did he really he think he could do anything to her she didn't want him to - and right now she wants him... again! He tries to escape her clutches but fails realising that he has unleashed a monster upon himself. They get married soon after and Jack ruminates that he often wonders who entrapped who that afternoon in The Snuggery. | |
| Comment: There is a kind of subplot which seems to unnecessarily confuse matters in that Jack The Ripper is hiding in secret passages behind the walls of the old madhouse and observing some of the goings on through a peephole - but this adds very little to the plot. | |
| Starring: | Ole Søltoft (as Jack Armstrong), Sue Longhurst (as Alice Faversham) |
| Featuring: | Charlie Elvegård (as Samson the butler), Malou Cartwright (as Fanny, Alice's maid), Martin Ljung/Martin Young (as Jack the Ripper), Steven Lund (as young Jack), Barbro Hiort af Ornäs/Barbara Hart (as Jack's mother), Egil Holmsen/Gil Holmes (as Jack's father), Tina Möller-Monell/Tina Monell (as Marion, Alice's sister) |
| Star-Turns: | Diana Dors (as Helena, brothel Madame) |
| Starlets: | Berit Agedahl, Inger Sundh, Vivi Rau, Marie-Louise Fors (as Brothel Girls) |
| NOTES: | |
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This is a Swedish production with an original title of Champagnegalopp. It has a number of alternate English titles and the one shown above for this entry is the one on the version reviewed. It is listed here because it is made in English and co-stars UK sex-comedy stalwart Sue Longhurst |
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Even though it is a Swedish production, in the context of the English version there is actually no reason to refer to the butler as being Swedish because they are all playing members of English society in Victorian London. |
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Malou Cartwright is Alice's maid and chaperone companion and is referred to as "Fanny" throughout. However the end credits incorrectly name her as "Penny". |
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The names of the Brothel girls shown above are taken from the Internet Movie Database - they are not shown in the end credits (of the English version). The IMDB probably contains the original Swedish credits because as well as missing off the brothel girls names, the English credits show anglicised versions of some of the actors names playing the bit parts. Where different these are dually shown above with the Swedish name/English name - taken from IMDB and the end credits respectively. |
| aka: Girl Trouble | |
| Writers: Christopher Gilmore, Menahem Golan, Norman Wisdom / Director: Menahem Golan / Producer: Tony Tenser | |
| Type: Comedy | Running Time: 102 mins |
| Timothy Bartlett is a hard working somewhat officious assistant bank manager in his mid-50s. His home life has become routine and although he and his wife still love each other the fun and romance has gone from their marriage.
On the eve of an important banker's conference in Southport the bank's manager falls ill and Timothy is sent in his place. Driving down to the coast he picks up two girl hitchhikers:- Nikki and Meg - or to be more precise they rather barge in on him while he's stopped at a petrol station - but he takes them along anyway. They are both playful and funny and although he tries to maintain a dignified air befitting his position he is secretly charmed by Nikki in particular and when the journey is over he feels a bit sorry to see them go. That evening at the hotel after dinner feeling at a loss for something to do he decides to visit some clubs hoping for the vague chance that he might bump into the girls. And eventually he does and Nikki invites him to join her group of friends. He feels like a fish out of water in his smart dinner suit amongst all the casually dressed youngsters but she drags him on to the dance floor and he eventually finds the groove in his own unique way. Nikki is a fun-loving outgoing girl and assumes Timothy will want to take her back to his hotel for sex and, totally smitten with her, he realises he wants to when she suggests it. He has a tough job smuggling her into his hotel room which maintains a no lady-visitors rule but once he does they spend a happy night together. At his conference meeting the next day he can't concentrate on anything except memories of her the night before. So he excuses himself from the meeting claiming a headache and spends the whole day with her at the beach and the funfair having the greatest most fun day of his life as he re-captures his lost youth with a beautiful young girl. Next day he buys himself some casual clothes and has more time with Nikki followed by a romantic dinner and another night of passion and the next day at the conference he arrives in causal hippy-clothes to everyone else's amazement and gives an impressive speech with new found vigour and confidence. He realises he has fallen in love with Nikki and despite the warnings of her friend Meg that he shouldn't take her so seriously as she is only after a fun time he goes round to her flat again and is devastated to find her in bed with a male student. He storms out hurt and rejected. He then decides to call his wife and asks her to come to Southport to visit him. She arrives and with her he replicates the perfect day he had with Nikki with his new found youthful spirit and although it's not quite the same she manages to keep up with his boundless energy and he realises he doesn't need Nikki anymore as he can have just as much fun with his wife if he makes the effort. | |
| Comment: A very good film that's touching and funny and very unfairly berated as being a low-point in Norman Wisdom's career. It's a good solid well-told film with Wisdom on fine acting form and the then newcomer Sally Geeson charming and delightful as Nikki. | |
| Starring: | Norman Wisdom (as Timothy Bartlett), Sally Geeson (as Nikki), Sally Bazely (as Margaret Bartlett, Timothy's wife) |
| Featuring: | Sarah Atkinson (as Meg, Nikki's friend), Derek Francis, Terence Alexander, David Lodge |
| Starlets: | Hilary Pritchard |
| NOTES: | |
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Sally Geeson receives an "introducing" credit. |
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Norman Wisdom sings the theme song. |
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There are two versions of this film. The one reviewed here is the UK print which is a "tame" version - but there is also a continental version where Sally Geeson played the same bedroom scenes topless. Comparison with screenshots from that much rarer version show that the scenes were identical except that in one she is wearing a white bra and the other not - and in another scene has a blanket fully covering herself in the tame version but down to her waist in the continental version. The UK version contains only one scene that retains some minor topless nudity when Sally Geeson is taking a bath. |
| What's New Pussycat (1965) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Woody Allen / Director: Clive Donner / Producer: Charles K. Feldman | |
| Type: Comedy | Running Time: 104 mins |
| Set in France in the present day (1965). Michael James is addicted to women. Ever since he was a teenage schoolboy, women have found him irresistible and he is such a sensualist that he cannot help but partake of the pleasures they freely offer. Now in his early thirties he is the editor of a glossy fashion magazine so is constantly in the company of beautiful women all of which he finds mouth-wateringly desirable. But his inability to control his cravings is seriously affecting his relationship with his fiancée Carole Werner.
In desperation Michael visits erratic psychoanalyst Dr Fritz Fassbender, who only wishes that he himself had such a "problem", but he agrees to try and help and books Michael into his group therapy course. Michael's willpower is tested when an American stripper called Liz Bien falls for him and he finds it impossible to resist because he cannot bear to upset or disappoint beautiful women, all of whom he refers to affectionately as "pussycat". Michael attends Dr Fassbender's group therapy session to try and talk out his problem. Fassbender is unrequitedly in love with one of the female patients. Her name is Renee Lefebvre and despite her being a promiscuous nymphomaniac Dr Fassbender still cannot get her to take any interest in him. Naturally she finds Michael very appealing and is soon worming her way into his affections and before he knows it Michael has agreed to go away with her for the weekend to Château Chantelle where Michael has an assignment to review the hotel for his magazine. Michael's fiancée Carole knows what Michael is like but decides it is make-or-break time and he must settle down and end his philandering or there is no future for them. Michael resolves to make a concerted effort and calls Renee to cancel their upcoming planned assignation. Michael still has to visit the Château but now he intends to go alone. Renee however decides that if she cannot go with Michael she will go with someone else. Carole still does not quite trust Michael and thinks he may be meeting a woman so she decides to follow him a few hours behind. While Michael is driving to the hotel, a sexy woman parachutist called Rita, floating off course, lands directly into his open-top car and he agrees to take her to the Château so she can freshen up and make a phone call in his room. But once there Rita comes over all seductive sending Michael into a conflict of anxiety between his natural inclinations to enjoy beautiful women and his sincere promise to Carole. He leaves the room in a hurry to be away from the temptation only to find to his mystification that the hotel seems to be packed with everyone he knows, including Liz (who seems to think she is Michael's girlfriend), Renee (with her new boyfriend) and Carole's parents (whom Michael wants to avoid at all costs). Dr Fassbender is also there in pursuit of his heart's desire Renee hoping that she will give him a chance to be close to her. Fassbender's jealous wife Anna (dressed as Boadicea from an opera recital) also arrives suspecting her husband of carrying on. Matters are complicated further when Renee's jealous husband turns up wanting to smash anyone who would get fresh with his wife. Events spiral out of control for Michael and when Carole arrives he cannot keep her from finding out about all the women who seem to her to be there at his behest. Then the gendarmes arrive on suspicion that an orgy is taking place because of all the bedroom hopping and there is a slapstick chase ending as everyone tries to get away. When the excitement is over, Michael manages to convince Carole that he is a changed man and didn't arrange to meet anyone at the Château. So they get married - but when Michael starts flirting with the honeymoon hotel receptionist, Carole wonders whether he has really changed. | |
| Starring: | Peter O'Toole (as Michael James), Peter Sellers (as Dr Fritz Fassbender, Michael's psychoanalyst), Romy Schneider (as Carole Werner, Michael's fiancée), Capucine (as Renee Lefebvre, Fritz's promiscuous patient), Paula Prentiss (as Liz Bien, American stripper), Woody Allen (as Victor Shakapopulis, friend of Michael), Ursula Andress (as Rita, sexy parachutist) |
| Featuring: | Edra Gale (as Anna Fassbender, Fritz's wife), Katrin Schaake (as Jacqueline, Victor's girlfriend), Jess Hahn and Eleonor Hirt (as Mr and Mrs Werner, Carole's parents), Jean Paredes (as Marcel, Renee's jealous husband), Jacques Balutin (as Etienne, hotel concierge) |
| Familiar Faces: | Richard Burton (as Man in Strip Club, [passing cameo greeting Michael]) |
| Starlets: | Sabine Sun (as Sexy Nurse), Nicole Karen (as Tempest O'Brien, Victor's chess partner), Barbara Somers (as Miss Marks, schoolboy Michael's first crush), Marion Conrad and Maggie Wright (as Stripteasers, [with no nudity]) |
| NOTES: | |
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Woody Allen receives an "introducing" credit |
| What's Up Nurse! (1977) | Previous Next |
| Writer/Director: Derek Ford / Producer: Michael L Green | |
| Type: Sex Comedy | Running Time: 77 mins |
| Dr Robert Todd is travelling on a train to take up his position as the new intern at Banham-on-Sea General Hospital. He gets chatting to a pretty girl who, when she finds he is a doctor, takes him to the toilet cubicle to demonstrate her embarrassing sexual problem. This results in them becoming stuck together in an embarrassing way and they are rushed to casualty at his new hospital. Dr Ogden, the chief doctor, is angry that his intern hasn't shown up yet and then furious when he discovers that the intern-in-question Todd has become his latest patient, and then beside himself when he realises that the girl involved is his own daughter Olivia. Thus begins a pattern of events in which Todd gets himself into scrapes and finds himself rushed to casualty to be treated by Ogden. One such incident involving his glamorous landlady Helen with whom he has a sexual misadventure on her boat and ends up with mild concussion.
Todd also treats patients himself - all of whom have odd complaints. One man has a jam jar stuck in an embarrassing place; another patient believes he has swallowed a frog and the staff normally give him a frog-dissolving pill (sugar) to keep him happy until the next time. But Todd decides to pretend to operate and extract the frog and show the patient it has been removed - this necessitates Todd going out into the countryside to actually catch a frog and in so doing accidentally comes across some girl nudists playing ball and falls foul of their "anti-peeper" patrol causing another trip to casualty. The most bizarre patient scenario is a dopey gay man who actually has severe constipation, but believes he is pregnant - he passes out during an enema treatment and while he is unconscious a chimp, that is being treated in the next cubicle, finds its way into his bed - and when the man wakes up and finds the chimp with him he believes it to be his new born baby! Later on Todd travels to Ostend with Olivia to pick up a boat as a favour to his landlady and her boyfriend not realising he is transporting illegal immigrants. When he and Olivia successfully have sex on the voyage back she lets off distress flares by way of celebration and the coastguard arrive and arrest him. In police custody he is apparently the only doctor who can treat a sick patient so he is released handcuffed to a policeman and has to do his examination with the policeman's hand constantly getting in the way - and then he has to operate on another patient with a similar handicap. Eventually he and Olivia make their getaway but have an accident with some cement and get married while joined together in a slab of concrete. Once released from this they eventually have their honeymoon on a fairground carousel because Olivia has discovered she can only have sex while on the move. | |
| Comments: An attempt at a sex comedy which succeeds to some extent although the jokes and patient problems are sometimes a bit too smutty. Andrew Sachs puts in a good cameo performance as a pushy and aggressive Italian waiter who won't take no for an answer and bullies his customers into ordering things they didn't want. | |
| Starring: | Nicholas Field (as Dr Todd) |
| Featuring: | John Le Mesurier (as Dr Ogden), Felicity Devonshire (as Olivia), Graham Stark, Kate Williams, Bill Pertwee, Peter Butterworth, Jack Douglas |
| Familiar Faces: | Michael Cronin |
| Star-Turns: | Andrew Sachs (Italian Waiter), Cardew Robinson, Frank Williams, Anna Karen |
| Starlets: | Angela Grant (Landlady), Barbara Mitchell, Julia Bond, Elisabeth Day, Kate Harper, Zoe Hendry, And:- Dawn Dodkin, Ingrid Leon, Val Penny, Lisa Taylor, Janet Marsden, Charon Martan (as the girl nudists) |
| NOTES: | |
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There was a sequel to this film called What's Up Superdoc! (1978) - although besides the lead character having the same name there is no real continuity between the two. |
| What's Up Superdoc! (1978) | Previous Next |
| Writer/Director: Derek Ford / Producer: Michael L Green | |
| Type: Sex Comedy | Running Time: 89 mins |
| Dr Robert Todd is a family GP who one day gets a visit from an attractive female doctor called Annabel Leith who works at the Artificial Insemination Donor Services (AIDS) clinic. She tells Todd about their most celebrated donor #1169X whose sperm has resulted in 837 male babies all of outstandingly high IQ. She then tells him that this donor is in fact Todd himself from when he took part in a donor programme at medical school. Only trouble is they have run out of sample and would like some more as his remarkable sperm count has made #1169X a legend amongst clinics up and down the country.
He agrees to supply more sample partly because he fancies Annabel and hopes he'll be able to see more of her. At the clinic the receptionist goes wild with lust when she discovers which donor he is and she is promptly sacked - but in revenge she leaks his identity to the press. Todd's surgery is then besieged by women clamouring for his seed and he has to be rescued by the police. He hides out in a hotel and Annabel who feels rather responsible for his predicament supplies him with a bodyguard to keep women away from him - he comes in the shape of a retired sergeant major who takes his job very seriously and institutes a fitness and training regime for Todd to keep his mind on other things. One evening Todd visits a strip club but a stripper recognises him and he has to flee. He escapes out of the window and into the room of a prostitute - they discuss terms and have sex but then she pays him because she knew who he was all along. Todd then goes on a TV talk show where the host is strangely reluctant to use any terminology that might offend the family audience but then lets loose with a string of expletives live on air when Todd becomes uncooperative. Todd is then kidnapped from the studios by some thugs whose Texan boss wants Todd to provide a special "service" for his daughter. When Todd refuses he sets about sending beautiful naked women his way in the hope that a sample might be obtained. Later on an Italian Mafia gangster gets in on the act hoping to take Todd on tour supplying his seed around the world - but luckily he is rescued in the nick of time by the Sergeant Major and Annabel. | |
| Comment: This is a "sequel" to What's Up Nurse! (1977) - although other than the lead character's name there is nothing else similar. He is played by a different actor, works as a GP instead of at a hospital and also there is no trace or mention of the woman he married at the end of the first film. So it's easier to think of this as a separate standalone film which is actually somewhat better than Nurse. The jokes aren't as crude and it has a single driving plot rather than a series of mini-escapades. Also Julia Goodman as Annabel adds a touch of highly watchable acting class to the proceedings. Hughie Green plays an obnoxious TV host and achieves that aim fairly well but probably didn't do himself any favours as the impression might be that he was playing himself and when he lets loose with repeated use of the W-word it does jar a bit on the tone of the movie. | |
| Starring: | Christopher Mitchell (as Dr Todd), Julia Goodman (as Annabel), Harry H. Corbett (as Sergeant Major) |
| Featuring: | Bill Pertwee, Beth Porter, Sheila Steafel, Marianne Stone, Melvyn Hayes |
| Star-Turns: | Hughie Green (as a talk show host) |
| Starlets: | Angie Grant, Julie Kirk, Nova Llewellyn, Maria Harper, Sue Upton, Lisa Taylor, Fay Hillier, Alison Begg, Mary Millington, Vicki Scott, Anna Bergman, Nicola Austin |
| NOTES: | |
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Christopher Mitchell was one of the stars of It Aint Half Hot Mum (the soldier that Sergeant Major Williams favoured because he thought he might be his son). |
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Bill Pertwee and Angela Grant were also in What's Up Nurse! but as different characters. |
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The clinic's abbreviation (AIDS) comes from a time before those letters came to stand for something more pernicious. |
| Writer/Director: Val Guest / Producer: Aida Young | |
| Type: Adventure | Running Time: approx 94 mins |
| On primitive Earth a tribe of humans who worship the sun are preparing to offer their sun god the lives of three young blonde women when suddenly a fierce wind begins and disrupts the ceremony. In the confusion one of the women called Sanna escapes her certain death by jumping into the sea and is swept away and is most fortunately rescued by some fishermen from another tribe. When the storm is over a new light is in the sky which the primitive people don't understand and think is some sort of punishment for failing to provide the required sacrifice. They see Sanna was rescued and the tribe's leader Kingsor mounts an expedition to bring her back.
Sanna's rescuers do not worship the sun in the same way but are also wary and fearful of the new astronomical body which seems to be getting larger over time. Sanna is allowed to live in their tribe situated on the coast in a region populated by many types of dinosaurs which the humans fear but also hunt for food. The lead fisherman who rescued Sanna is a handsome young man called Tara and Sanna and he feel a bond of attraction. Tara starts to pay her special attention and this makes Tara's current mate Ayak jealous and so she takes the opportunity to cast blame on sun-worshipping Sanna for the new light in the sky. Sanna foresees the danger she is in and flees the area just as the men from her own tribe arrive searching for her. The two tribes team up and co-operate to locate Sanna whose death they believe will solve the sky problems. Sanna manages to elude the hunters who find evidence that makes them believe she has perished inside a predatory carnivorous plant. Actually Sanna spends the night asleep inside a large broken dinosaur egg. Next morning the dinosaur mother comes back to her nest and finding Sanna inside the broken shell believes the woman to be her child and treats her as a member of the family. Sanna finds that the mother dinosaur offers her a degree of protection and will follow her instructions. Meanwhile Tara refuses to believe Sanna is dead and continues to search and eventually finds her and they become a couple. But they are spotted by a scouting hunter and the tribe renew their efforts to capture Sanna who manages to escape with help from her "pet" dinosaur. However Tara is captured and is set to be put to death for his disloyalty. But then on the beach something odd and frightening happens that has never occurred before - the tide goes out! And in the distance a vast tidal wave is seen approaching which sends the tribe fleeing for their lives leaving Tara tied up and helpless. Sanna returns to the beach and frees Tara and together with two others who forget their differences in the danger make to the sea in a fishing raft and brave the oncoming wave. The four of them come through the danger and look up into the sky and see the new body has settled and become a new fixed feature of their nightly skies and something new for the people to worship. | |
| Comment: If it isn't clear from the above summary, the new celestial object is the arrival of the Moon into orbit around the Earth. Obviously such events did not really occur during the time of man on Earth - nor did man co-exist with dinosaurs. So it's very much a fantasised vision of prehistoric events. The people speak their own primitive language and so there is no understandable dialogue except for an opening English narration by Patrick Allen (who also has a role in the film). Therefore the film is intended to be followed by visuals alone. Other than Tara (the leading man) it is somewhat difficult to tell the male characters apart who all have similar black beards whereas the women are far more distinctive. | |
| Starring: | Robin Hawdon (as Tara),Victoria Vetri (as Sanna), Patrick Allen (as Kingsor, Tribal Leader) |
| Featuring: | Drewe Henley, Sean Caffrey, Patrick Holt |
| Starlets: | Magda Konopka, Imogen Hassall, Jan Rossini, Carol-Anne Hawkins, Maria O'Brien |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on a treatment by J.G. Ballard |
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The version reviewed was an edited daytime TV version with nudity removed and this lasted 91 minutes - the removed scenes involving nudity have been seen separately which last about 3 minutes - hence the above approximation of running time. |
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This is the second of three "primitive man" films made by Hammer although there are no continuing characters or situations that link them. The first film was One Million Years B.C. (1966) and the next one was Creatures the World Forgot (1971). |
| Writer: Alistair MacLean (based on his own novel) / Director: Etienne Périer / Producer: Elliott Kastner | |
| Type: Thriller | Running Time: 89 mins |
| Philip Calvert is a British Secret Agent who has been given the job of investigating the recent hijack of a number of ships carrying gold bullion. What is particularly strange is that the container ships have vanished without trace. A radio transmitter is planted on the next likely ship to be targeted and although this device is quickly discovered and disabled by the hijackers it helps pinpoint a general area of Scottish coastline near Tor Bay that seems worth further investigation.
Calvert and his technical friend Roy Hunslett cruise the area in a research vessel posing as marine biologists as they look for clues. Also in the area is the luxury vessel of rich philanthropist Sir Anthony Skouras and his new wife Charlotte following the recent death of his first wife Anna. Calvert's suspicions fall upon him and his associate Lavorsky and when Charlotte escapes and seeks sanctuary on Calvert's vessel claiming her husband's brutality it seems more certain he is not the kind-hearted benefactor everyone thought he was. Calvert's probing brings out opposition willing to kill to protect their secrets and he only just escapes death several times. Hunslett is not so fortunate and is killed. Calvert is joined on the research vessel by his boss Arthur Cranford-Jones and together they work out that the missing vessels have been deliberately sunk in a deep loch and the gold bullion is being retrieved by divers and taken to a cavernous dock under a nearby island castle that has been taken over by the villains. Calvert breaks in and discovers that prisoners are being held hostage to ensure cooperation including Sir Anthony's first wife Anna whose captivity has been forcing the millionaire to finance the operation against his will. It is really Lavorski who is the criminal mastermind and Charlotte is actually his wife who has been feeding back information from Calvert's vessel to keep the criminals informed of his progress. Calvert and Cranford-Jones mount a two-pronged operation set to begin at midnight (eight bells) and storm the castle killing all the villains and rescuing the hostages. Calvert allows Charlotte to go free. | |
| Starring: | Anthony Hopkins (as Philip Calvert), Robert Morley (as Arthur Carnford-Jones, Calvert's boss), Nathalie Delon (as Charlotte), Corin Redgrave (as Hunslett, Calvert's partner) |
| Featuring: | Jack Hawkins (as Sir Anthony Skouras), Ferdy Mayne (as Lavorski, Skouras' associate), Maurice Roëves (as Lieutenant Williams, helicopter pilot), Wendy Allnutt (as Sue Kirkside, young woman at Island castle), Leon Collins (as Tim Hutchinson, shark hunter) |
| Where Eagles Dare (1968) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Alistair MacLean / Director: Brian G. Hutton / Producer: Elliott Kastner | |
| Type: War Drama | Running Time: 148 mins |
| In the latter period of the Second World War a crisis develops when an important American general called George Carnaby is captured when his plane is downed over Southern Bavaria while travelling to an important summit meeting.
The British respond with immediate action and Major Jonathan Smith is appointed leader of a mission to rescue the general. Intelligence officer Colonel Turner informs Smith that Carnaby is the planning coordinator for the second front and it is vital he be rescued before the Germans have time to question him about what he knows and discover the Allies carefully formulated plans. Carnaby is being held in the impregnable Castle of Eagles situated on an alpine peak which is only accessible via cable car. Smith is joined on his mission by six British commandos and an American ranger called Lieutenant Schaffer. They parachute onto the snowy Bavarian hills on the outskirts of the training garrison town situated at the foot of the castle's mountain. Some of Smith's team are mysteriously killed and Smith suspects one of his team to be a traitor. The team blend in by posing as German trainees and start to make preparations in the town for their incursion into the castle - but their mission is almost immediately compromised when German security conduct a sweep supposedly looking for runaways. Smith takes this as proof that there is a traitor high up in British intelligence that has fed the information through that a team of British agents are in the area. They are arrested but Smith and Schaffer manage to subsequently overpower their escorts and escape - the three remaining team members are taken up to the castle as prisoners. Smith and Schaffer manage to infiltrate the castle by riding atop the cable car. They are helped by another secret team member called Mary Ellison who went in ahead undercover and managed to secure a domestic job at the castle Once inside Smith and Schaffer discover a meeting taking place in the main hall with Carnaby and the castle commandant Kramer along with the three British officers all of whom are claiming to be German spies. Smith then bursts in and announces that he too is a German double agent - he offers proof which seems to satisfy Kramer. Smith expresses his disbelief that the three British officers are really part of a German spy network and challenges them to prove themselves by writing down a list of names of their contacts. Once the lists are complete Smith reveals that he is in fact not a spy and all his "proof" had been carefully planted well in advance. His real mission objective was to obtain these lists of names. General Carnaby is not the real general but a double and the whole crash-landing had been staged so that the British would have an excuse to send in a team of commandos including suspected traitors to weed out the names of their collaborators. Smith and Schaffer then break back out of the castle with Carnaby and Mary. They utilize explosive charges that they had pre-planted to create mayhem amongst their pursuers. Smith radios back to London to report that their mission has been successful and he has the list of names. A plane is sent to pick them up and Colonel Turner is aboard to congratulate them. He checks the list of names and seems satisfied. But then Smith reveals his final shock disclosure - he has worked out that the high-profile traitor is none other than Turner himself. Turner had appointed Smith to the mission because he believed the intelligence about Smith being a double-agent and included as many known German agents on the team as possible to ensure it failed. Smith had suspected this and that was why he took along the American Schaffer as the only squad member he could definitely trust because he was not embedded in the British establishment. The success of the mission had taken Turner by surprise and he came out on the recovery plane to meet them to make sure his name was not on the list. With his allegiances exposed Turner opts to jump from the plane without a parachute rather than face being tried for treason. | |
| Starring: | Richard Burton (as Major Jonathan Smith, mission leader), Clint Eastwood (as Lt. Morris Schaffer, American ranger), Mary Ure (as Mary Elison, secret team member), Patrick Wymark (as Colonel Wyatt Turner, at HQ), Michael Hordern (as Admiral Rolland, at HQ) |
| Featuring: | Donald Houston (as Captain James Christiansen, squad member), Peter Barkworth (as Edward Berkeley, squad member), William Squire (as Captain Philip Thomas, squad member), Robert Beatty (as General George Carnaby, captured VIP), Ingrid Pitt (as Heidi, tavern wench who helps allied team) (Germans) Anton Diffring (as Castle commandant), Ferdy Mayne (as General Rosemeyer), Derren Nesbitt (as Gestapo security chief), Victor Beaumont (as Colonel Weissner, SS) |
| Writer: Peter Marcus / Director/Producer: Gerry Levy | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 59 mins |
| Four drunken boisterous lads on a night out break into a magic shop and create havoc trying out all the tricks. The meek owner, Emilio, discovers them and they become bullysome and menacingly aggressive towards him. They ignore his warnings not to touch one of his special sideshow exhibits which is a pinball-like football game in which the contestant has to get balls past cardboard cut-out defenders with oversized heads. The lads play the game too violently and break off the players' heads.
The lads then demand that Emilio put on a magic show for them and he agrees to demonstrate his special cabinet from which he can make things vanish. Using inanimate objects he puts on a melodramatic show of summoning up demonic forces to make his disintegration chamber work. The lads are impressed by the showmanship and cannot work out how Emilio did the trick. Emilio challenges them to try the cabinet out for themselves and he will make them vanish in the same way. The first lad volunteers full of bravado expecting to easily be able to expose how the trick was done. But after he has vanished and the others cannot find him they become concerned. Two more decide to enter the cabinet and allow Emilio to do the same to them so they can discover the trick's secret and find their friend. But they too vanish without trace and the final lad panics and runs from the shop in terror. Emilio laughs at their foolishness and continues about his business. In the final shot we see the broken football game has magically repaired itself but the damaged players' faces have been replaced by photo-replicas of the three "disintegrated" lads. | |
| Starring: | Warren Mitchell (as Emilio Dinelli, the Magician) (The lads) John Malcolm (as Mickey), Ray Armstrong (as Ginger), John Challis (as Tim), Christopher Robbie (as Kip) |
| NOTES: | |
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Made in Black and White |
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The version reviewed was incomplete with only the final 35 minutes seen. IMDB shows it lasting for 59 minutes. However anything missed must have been preamble and the heart of the story from when they first break into the magic shop was all seen. The credits and film length are taken from IMDB and unconfirmed from the reviewed film. |
| Writer: Michael Pittock / Director: John Gilling / Producer: James Ward | |
| Type: Action | Running Time: 85 mins |
| A scientist has created a revolutionary light metal alloy called Spurrium that efficiently absorbs radiation - a thin slice of which has the same absorption characteristics previously only obtainable with thick and heavy lead casing. This has made small mobile nuclear reactors practicable propositions and the first of these has been installed in a Dakota aircraft for a test flight. The Spurrium alloy is of great interest to enemy powers and a determined effort is made to hijack the plane in mid-flight and fly it to Russia. The RAF are forced to shoot the aircraft down to prevent it falling into enemy hands.
Top British agent Charles Vine is assigned the task of making sure the Spurrium formula remains secure. The Russians have engaged the services of a criminal consortium in Britain called International Exports. It is run by a man named Angel whose special agent Seraph he has tasked with getting hold of a sample of the new metal. Seraph discovers where the metal is being manufactured and using false identification papers manages to obtain a sample. Seraph is later killed and Vine manages to recover the stolen sample. Angel is put under pressure by the Russians to deliver the promised "goods" and so he and his gang make an all out ruthless effort to seize the second prototype aircraft from Birley Airfield. Angel and his pilot manage to commandeer the aircraft and plan to fly it away to a secret destination. Charles Vine is on hand and manages to jump aboard just before they take-off and has a mid-flight fight out with Angel. Vine manages to kill the enemy agent and regain control of the aircraft just in time before the order to scramble the warplanes to shoot it down has to be given. | |
| Starring: | Tom Adams (as Charles Vine), Michael Ripper (as Angel, enemy leader), Tim Barrett (as Seraph, Angel's agent) |
| Featuring: | John Arnatt (as Rockwell, Charles Vine's boss), Dawn Addams (as Flight Officer Felicity 'Fiz' Moonlight) , Joe Baker (as Minister), Michael Ward (as Michael, Angel's safe-cracker), Maurice Browning (as Cherub, Angel's associate), Ronald Leigh-Hunt (as Thursby), Marcus Hammond (as Group Captain O'Neil) |
| Familiar Faces: | Sid James (as Mortuary Attendant, [one scene; credited as Sidney James]), Wilfrid Brambell (as Train Station Guard, [one scene]), James Ellis (as Flight Lt. Fotheringham, test pilot on first prototype) |
| Starlets: | Suzan Farmer (as Caron, girl on train), Maggie Kimberley (as Jacqueline, Vine's girlfriend in bedroom scene), Barbara French (as Secretary), Heidi Erich (as Carruthers, girl guard working for Angel), Sue Donovan (as Celia), Julie Martin (as Verity) |
| NOTES: | |
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This film was the second of three featuring the character of Charles Vine. All of them starred Tom Adams - but with a different director at the helm each time. The first was another UK produced film called Licensed to Kill (1965) and the third one was made in Spain and called O.K. Yevtushenko (1968) (aka Somebody's Stolen Our Russian Spy). Original director Lindsay Shonteff later made three more super-secret agent films featuring a similar named agent (Charles Bind). The first of these was No. 1 of the Secret Service (1977) starring Nicky Henson in the leading role; next was Licensed to Love and Kill (1979) starring Gareth Hunt; and finally Number One Gun (1990) starring Michael Howe. |
| Where the Spies Are (1965) | Previous Next |
| Writers: Wolf Mankowitz, Val Guest / Director: Val Guest / Producers: Val Guest, Steven Pallos | |
| Type: Spy Drama | Running Time: 108 mins |
| In Beirut a British agent called Peter Rosser is abducted and killed after attempting to send a telegram to MI6's London HQ revealing a plot he has uncovered. In London, MI6 boss MacGillivray is at a loss to understand what has happened to his agent or what he might have been about to send them. With no other trained agents available in Lebanon he consults his list of civilians who have provided assistance to the agency in the past. There is an imminent medical conference in Beirut and so the ideal candidate to journey there with a plausible cover story seems to be a Dr Jason Love who helped the section during the war but has had no training in the spycraft field.
MacGillivray approaches Dr Love who thinks the idea of spying laughable but is persuaded to lend a hand with a sufficient incentive of being given a rare classic car which is his passion. Love does not take the cloak and dagger stuff particularly seriously treating it all as a bit of a joke as he is given codewords and gadgets. He just intends to do the seemingly straightforward task of locating the missing Rosser and then treat the rest of the trip as a holiday. His first stopover is in Madrid where he is to make contact with an agent who will give him further instructions. He is delighted to find his contact is a beautiful French girl called Vikki who works as a model. Love is most indiscreet telling her all about his mission as if he's on a boys' own adventure. He wants to see more of her but she tells him he must continue and gives him the tickets for his onward plane to Beirut. But after she has left Love decides it doesn't matter if he's a bit late so he gets his ticket changed to a later flight so he can see more of Vikki. But when the plane he was supposed to be on tragically blows up shortly after takeoff he realises how amazingly lucky he's been and decides to get on with the job. Once in Beirut he cannot find Rosser and searches his hotel room. There he meets another British agent called Parkington who has come from Singapore to make his own unofficial investigation into his friend Rosser's disappearance. Parkington believes the plane explosion was not an accident but an attempt to kill Dr Love to prevent him finding something out - Dr Love is appalled that so many people died because of him. The pair of them team up and by utilising Parkington's spycraft training and Love's natural resourcefulness they discover that Rosser is dead and that he had uncovered a Russian backed plot to assassinate the country's Prince and in the political upheaval the plotters would seize British oil interests by renationalising them. Parkington is killed leaving Love on his own - but he manages to foil the assassination plot. Afterwards, however, the Russian's capture him believing him to be a British master spy with invaluable secret knowledge and take him on a diplomatic plane headed back for Russia to be tortured and questioned. Nikki is on the plane as well and it turns out she is a double agent although she has pangs of conscience about her part in things. The plane is tricked into landing in Canada to help in an SOS medical evacuation and Vikki helps Love escape by shooting her Russian boss although she is killed herself in the exchange of fire. Doctor Love is picked up by the Canadians with his mission successfully accomplished. | |
| Comment: Although the casting of David Niven in the lead might give the impression that this is a comedy spy spoof it is in fact played as a fairly straight secret agent drama. | |
| Starring: | David Niven (as Dr Jason Love), Nigel Davenport (as Parkington, British spy), Françoise Dorléac (as Vikki, model and enemy agent), John Le Mesurier (as MacGillivray, MI6 boss) |
| Featuring: | Noel Harrison (as Jackson, MacGillivray's assistant), Paul Stassino (as Simmias, enemy agent), Ronald Radd (as Stanilaus, enemy boss), Eric Pohlmann (as Farouk, helpful mechanic), Cyril Cusack (as Peter Rosser, missing agent) |
| Familiar Faces: | Geoffrey Bayldon (as Lecturer, MI6 defector, one-scene only) |
| NOTES: | |
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Additional scenes by James Leasor, adapted from his novel Passport to C????? (could not read final word on screen). |
| Where's Jack? (1969) | Previous Next |
| Writers: Rafe and David Newhouse / Director: James Clavell / Producer: Stanley Baker | |
| Type: Period Drama | Running Time: 114 mins |
| Set in London 1724. Jack Sheppard is a humble locksmith's apprentice from a poor family who knows his place and doesn’t expect much from life. Justice in the city is meted out by the cold-hearted Jonathan Wild, dubbed "The Thief-Taker of London", who ruthlessly upholds the rule of law making him a feared and despised man amongst the commonfolk. When Jack's older brother Tom is caught stealing and sentenced to hang, Jack deferentially approaches Wild in a tavern and asks him to spare his brother's life. Jack holds little expectation that this ruthless and unfeeling man will show any mercy to a lowly nobody such as his brother and so is taken aback when the Thief-Taker agrees to spare Tom's life if Jack helps him with something.
Jack is taken to an underground lair where he is astonished to discover that the lawman carries on a double-life as a fencer of stolen property and moneylender. Wild lends out money to the poor at high rates of interest and makes them pay it back by bringing him stolen valuables for which he strikes off a fraction of each items worth from their debts. He has built up a veritable treasure hoard of valuable items in his domain in which he is treated like a king. To spare Tom from the hangman Wild wants Jack to make use of his locksmith skills to break into a stately home and steal a valuable tiara. Jack is no thief but agrees to do it for the sake of his brother. He is given the assistance of two other criminals called Blueskin and Leatherchest who later become his friends. When Tom has successfully delivered the tiara to Wild he thinks his family worries are over. But Wild has double-crossed him and whilst Tom has indeed been spared the noose as promised he is instead deported to a harsh penal colony in America - never to be seen again. Jack decides to get even with Wild and raids his lair and cleans out all his treasures. Wild is furious at this defiant act and knows Jack was responsible but has no proof so instead he plants the tiara which he still possesses in Jack's rooms and then sends the constables to arrest him for its theft. Jack is imprisoned awaiting hanging as he is shut away in a dungeon cell in the formidable and inescapable Newgate Prison. But Jack refuses to be beaten and believes there is always a way out of any situation if one is clever and skilful enough to find it. He scrutinises his dungeon tapping the walls and discovers a hollow behind one wall leading to a chimney flue through which he escapes. He becomes the first man ever to do so and he builds himself a reputation among the commonfolk as someone special who has outsmarted the Thief-Taker. Wild is determined not to be bested but has been unable to recapture Jack who has now become a gentleman highwayman whom the ladies find quite charming as they hand over their valuables. Jack has a sweetheart called Bess and so Wild decides to get at him through her. He takes Bess into custody on a trumped up charge and the chivalrous and noble Jack gives himself up to save her. Jack is thrown back into a different cell in Newgate. This time he discovers a way to get into the sewers and manages to escape again creating for himself an even stronger reputation. The King and the Lord Chancellor get involved and decide to give the Thief-Taker one last chance to capture this guttersnipe who is making a mockery of justice and giving the people an unwelcome folk hero to cheer their spirits. They decide to lay a trap by passing word that the king has laid a bet with the Chancellor that this audacious Jack Sheppard could probably steal the Chancellor's chain of office if he tried. Bess and Jack have made plans to leave England and start a new life in America (the New World) but this royal challenge tempts Jack. He knows full well it is a trap but cannot resist pitting his wits against the odds and believes he can beat whatever precautions they have put in place to ensnare him. And pull it off he does - Jack successfully gets away with the chain of office despite all the protective measures taken - but then the Thief-Taker has one last card to play. He has captured Jack's friends Blueskin and Leatherchest who were waiting for Jack outside the Chancellor's mansion and forces Jack to give himself up lest they be immediately hanged - and the ever-loyal Jack does so. Back in prison and this time in heavy chains and watched by guards round the clock there is no chance of escape. The day of his execution arrives and as Jack is driven through the streets to the public gallows he is cheered by the crowds who adore him whilst the Thief-Taker is booed in hatred. Some of Jack's friends secretly have a plan to try and save him which relies heavily on luck and timing. The hanging method is by hoist and strangulation (rather than by drop and neck-break) and so after Jack has been hanged and appears dead his friends rush over to cut down and steal his body which is quickly taken to a surgeon who revives him. A substituted dead body is shrouded and placed in a coffin and returned to the Thief-Taker's men for burial. The Thief-Taker although unhappy with the body seizure is persuaded by his guard captain (who is secretly sympathetic to the people's outpourings) that the actions were just an impulsive response to immense grief and he remains satisfied that Jack is at last dead. The grieving Bess is told Jack is still alive and they have a happy reunion. The film ends there and although we don't discover what happens to them after that it can probably be assumed that they must then go off together to the New World and start a fresh life as they had earlier intended. | |
| Comment: Despite what one might possibly presume upon seeing Tommy Steele's name heading the cast, this is not a light-hearted jape - but a gritty, straight-played affair. | |
| Starring: | Tommy Steele (as Jack Sheppard), Stanley Baker (as Jonathan Wild, Thief-Taker of London), Fiona Lewis (as Bess, Jack's sweetheart) |
| Featuring: | Dudley Foster (as Blueskin, Jack's criminal friend), Noel Purcell (as Leatherchest, Blueskin's mute strongman companion), Sue Lloyd (as Lady Darlington, high -society lady), John Hallam (as Guard Captain), Michael Elphick (as Hogarth, Jack's supporter in rescue bid), Howard Goorney (as Surgeon, in Jack's rescue bid), Alan Badel (as The Lord Chancellor), Harold Kasket (as King George I), Leon Lissek (as Deeley, Wild's oily henchman), Jack Woolgar (as Mr Woods, Jack's locksmith boss), George Woodbridge (as Hangman), William Marlowe (as Tom Sheppard, Jack's brother) |
| Familiar Faces: | Cardew Robinson (Lord Mayor, crowd scene cameo) |
| Writer/Director: Joseph Larraz / Producer: Sam Lomberg | |
| Type: Chiller | Running Time: 90 mins |
| Tulia is a young fashion model just starting her career and while working with a photographer in a studio they are visited by a woman called Sara. They get talking and Sara invites Tulia for a weekend away at her country cottage where she lives with her nephew Theo who is a keen photographer himself and would be delighted to take some shots for her portfolio.
Sara tells Tulia that Theo is a very sensitive young man and not actually her nephew but she looks after him. Sara's cottage is situated in an isolated location near some woods where Theo likes to go walking. Tulia thinks the place is lovely although in the woods and by the picturesque lake she picks up some strange vibes which give her an uneasy sense of foreboding. Sara mentions an Irish girl called Rhonda who spent some time with them recently - reminders of Rhonda are everywhere in the cottage and Sara thinks it was a shame she left so suddenly. Tulia gets the feeling there is some big mystery surrounding Rhonda's disappearance but she isn't clear why because Theo doesn't want to talk about it. It soon becomes clear (to the viewer) that Sara and Theo have licentious ulterior motives for inviting Tulia. They talk in a complicit way about how they will conspire to take advantage of their guest. Theo does not think she will be quite as good as Rhonda but with some suitable coaxing they might get some kicks out of her. That evening they all have a lot to drink and play cards which turns into strip poker which Tulia ends up losing. Theo's role is to seduce Tulia and then bring her to bed with Sara where the older woman can enjoy some lesbian petting with the girl - and then have sex with her "nephew" after he has been fully aroused by the younger woman - Tulia finds the other two's coupling a little odd even though she knows they are not an actual aunt and nephew. Next day Theo takes Tulia to the woods with a friend of his called Tom who proceeds to molest and virtually rape her while Theo takes pictures and then makes off as if they are abandoning her naked. However at the end of her ordeal Theo just tells her he was doing it for the pictures so her terrified reactions would appear genuine. Tulia decides to leave but before she goes she cannot resist having a look in Theo's darkroom (even though he specifically told her it was off-limits to anyone but himself). In there she finds photographs of Rhonda that show she went through the same sort of "rape" experience that she did. We then see a flashback:- Rhonda is actually willingly having sex with Tom and is knowingly "simulating" the rape for the benefit of Theo's camera. But then Tom holds her down and produces a knife to force her cooperation as they bring in a tramp to make sexual use of her which she has not in any way consented to and feels sickened by. When the tramp has gone she argues with Tom and he stabs her (possibly accidentally - but maybe not) and he and Theo dispose of her body in the lake. Theo then tells Sara that Rhonda left and he saw her off himself at the bus stop. Although Tulia cannot have determined all these events from the photos in the darkroom she perhaps instinctively links it all to that foreboding sense of evil she felt when she was near the lake. She turns to go but Theo has discovered her snooping and it is clear that he intends to kill her for her curiosity to cover his own tracks - he believes he has a special awareness that allows him to relish in another's suffering. Tulia runs out into the woods but Theo eventually catches her and stabs her to death. THE END (well not quite - there follows a full screen still of Tulia with some dialogue of some unseen policemen played over it talking about having arrested Theo for the murders). | |
| Comments: That clumsy bit at the end with the policemen talking must have been an afterthought which maybe the makers were compelled to add to show that Theo didn't get away with it and that had been the only way to do it without filming new material. One assumes however that the filmmakers' original intention was to end with the murder and give no indication whether Theo is ever brought to justice. | |
| Starring: | Karl Lanchbury (as Theo), Vivian Neves (as Tulia), Pia Andersson (as Sara) |
| Featuring: | Johanna Hegger (as Rhonda), Andrew Grant (as Tom) |
| NOTES: | |
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Joseph Larraz (aka José Ramón Larraz) was credited as J R Larrath |
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Based on an idea by Sam Lomberg |
| The Whisperers (1967) | Previous Next |
| Writer/ Director: Bryan Forbes / Producer: Michael Laughlin | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 101 mins |
| Mrs Margaret Ross is a 76-year-old woman who lives alone in a run-down ground floor flat. She becomes easily confused and is slipping into senility and thinks she hears voices in her flat that are not really there.
Mrs Ross is living on the breadline and needs to claim benefit from the National Assistance Board (NAB). To keep her pride she maintains to the NAB clerk that she is merely waiting for a large inheritance to come through from her lawyers and then she'll be able to support herself - the clerk kindly humours her and it is no longer clear whether or not she even knows that it's not true. Mrs Ross has a regular routine to her days which consist of a visit to the library to keep warm and then attending church services where they give out free soup to the congregation afterwards - and then back home to her cold flat. One day her grown-up criminally-inclined roguish son Charlie makes a rare and unexpected visit which confuses her as she struggles at first to remember who he is. He claims to want to fetch something from her spare room but actually he secretly hides a package he brought with him - and then he leaves. Some time later when Mrs Ross is having a tidy up she comes across the hidden package and doesn't know what it is - she opens it and inside are large wads of banknotes. Mrs Ross is flabbergasted and believes it to be her inheritance at last come through (although in truth it is the proceeds from a robbery for which Charlie has now been captured and imprisoned). She proudly tells the NAB man that she'll no longer needs his money and keeps a large amount of it in her purse which she shows off to prove her story. But then she falls prey to a woman called Mrs Noonan who suddenly behaves as her best friend taking her to the pub for drinks and generally tiring her out and confusing her until she falls asleep. She then steals her money and with help from her husband leaves her asleep in the street all night. Mrs Ross consequently catches pneumonia and spends a long time in hospital until she recovers. With no one to look after Mrs Ross at home the NAB contacts her estranged husband Archie Ross. He is several years younger than she is and had long ago left her. He is currently serving time in prison for petty crime but is offered an early release if he goes to live with her and support her - and he agrees. Mrs Ross remembers Archie and accepts him back into her life but she has lapsed into her private world and has no conversation for him and Archie becomes easily bored. He starts to gamble and gets a driving job with a crooked bookmaker. When the bookmaker is ambushed by rivals Archie is left with a briefcase full of money and takes off leaving Mrs Ross on her own once again. She quickly falls back into her normal routine with only the unheard "voices" for company. | |
| Starring: | Edith Evans (as Mrs Margaret Ross), Eric Portman (as Archie Ross, her estranged husband) |
| Featuring: | Gerald Sim (as Mr Conrad, National Assistance Board), Nanette Newman and Harry Baird (as Couple who live in flat above Mrs Ross), Avis Bunnage (as Mrs Bella Noonan, woman who steals from Mrs Ross), Michael Robbins (as Mr Noonan), Ronald Fraser (as Charlie, Mrs Ross's criminal son), Max Bacon (as Mr Fish, betting office boss), Robert Russell (as Andy, Mr Fish's employee at betting office), Robin Bailey (as Psychiatrist), Margaret Tyzack (as Hospital Almoner) |
| Familiar Faces: | Leonard Rossiter (as National Assistance Board Officer) |
| Starlets: | Penny Spencer (as Mavis, Mrs Noonan's daughter), Clare Kelly (as Prostitute) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on a novel by Robert Nicolson |
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Made in Black and White |
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The "Whisperers" of the title are unheard voices that Mrs Ross thinks she is hearing near the start of the film (although we don't hear anything) - however beyond conveying that she is becoming senile it is not an important feature of overall plot. |
| The White Bus (1967) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Shelagh Delaney / Director: Lindsay Anderson / Associate Producer: Michael Deeley | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 45 mins |
| A young woman who works in a typing pool job she finds really boring leaves work and heads for home. Once in her home city she wanders around and decides to catch a white open-top tourist bus giving visitors a guided tour of the city. Today's passengers include the mayor giving an official tour of the city's amenities to some VIPs.
The tour takes in the busy working factories of the city's industrial heartland of which the mayor is justly proud. The tour continues with visits to the city's leisure and training facilities including schools, parks and museums. Finally there is a demonstration of a civil defence drill. The tour ends and the woman walks away and continues her journey home as if nothing had happened (was she just daydreaming the tour?). | |
| Starring: | Arthur Lowe (as Mayor), Patricia Healey (as Young Woman), Julie Perry (as Conductress on White Bus) |
| Featuring: | Stephen Moore (as Commuter/Businessman), John Sharp (as Mayor's Mace Bearer), Victor Henry, Fanny Carby |
| Familiar Faces: | Barry Evans (Man in alleyway with girl, [uncredited cameo]) |
| NOTES: | |
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Patricia Healey receives an "introducing" credit |
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The film is predominantly in Black and White although there are a smattering of brief colour sequences (5-10 seconds or so each time). |
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The particular city they are touring never seems to be specified in the film although it was filmed in Manchester and no doubt the landmarks would be familiar to those who know them. |
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The credits show an "Antony Hopkins" was in the cast. He has been identified on IMDB as "Brechtian" which is a name for a German poetry reader. The performer in question was briefly seen during a theatre visit on the tour but seen at too great a distance to tell whether it was the well known Anthony Hopkins or not (given the different spelling of his first name). |
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The film is one part of a trilogy of shorts each made by a different director - the title sequence of this film indicate it to be the second. There are no cast crossovers between the films and probably no linked story elements (although as yet neither of the other two have been reviewed to confirm this). The other two were Red and Blue (1967) directed by Tony Richardson, and Ride of the Valkyrie (1967) directed by Peter Brook. |
| White Cargo (1973) | Previous Next |
| Writers: Ray Selfe, David McGillivray / Director: Ray Selfe / Producer: Negus-Fancey | |
| Type: Comedy | Running Time: 62 mins / 74 mins |
| Albert Toddy is a scruffy unemployed dreamer with an overactive imagination and has regular daydreams of himself as a suave sophisticated adventurer. He receives a complimentary ticket to a theatre club in Soho and decides to go along but once he gets in it turns out to be a strip club. While watching the stripper Albert sees a young woman being bothered backstage by a large powerful looking man and he rushes to her assistance overpowering the man and rescuing the girl - BUT NOT REALLY. He is not a coward and he uses his fantasy as a blueprint of what to do but as always things don't go so smoothly in real life and he proves ineffectual against the thug and he and the girl are summarily ejected after Albert gets a beating for his interference.
The girl is called Stella who is a dancer at the club who was caught going through the club owner Dudley Fox's desk. She takes the bruised and beaten Albert back to her apartment to treat him where she tells him she was searching Fox's office because she was concerned about the plight of a number of other showgirls who have all unaccountably gone missing whilst working at Fox's club. She shows Albert an address book she appropriated from Fox's office although they are unable to read it as it is in Arabic. Then while Albert is getting changed in her bedroom Stella is abducted by two intruders. Albert is left with the address book and decides to try and get a translation. For this he comes into contact with two bumbling Special Branch operatives Chumley and Fosdyke who have been keeping watch on the strip club and have been following Albert around. Albert makes his way to the address he obtained in the translation and discovers it is a mansion owned by Dudley Fox. Albert sneaks inside and finds Stella and the other missing showgirls chained up in the basement where they are due to be shipped off to an Arabian oil state as slaves. Albert daydreams a magnificent heroic rescue where he improvises a daring plan to overcome all the villains in the house. But when in reality he tries to execute the plan it all goes miserably wrong and he is also captured. The next day the prisoners are all transported to a dockside warehouse ready for shipment and Albert gets another chance to play hero but although his super-spy persona manages to once-again defeat the foes with ease the same flawless strategy proves useless in real life. But this time he bumbles his way through it and often by luck more than judgement manages to overpower the villains. Stella turns out to be an undercover policewoman and the ineffectual special branch operatives also show up to lend a hand and in gratitude Albert is given a job as a desk constable at the local police station. | |
| Starring: | David Jason (as Albert Toddey), Imogen Hassall (as Stella Lindsay), Hugh Lloyd (as Chumley), Tim Barrett (as Fosdyke) |
| Featuring: | Raymond Cross (as Dudley Fox), Sue Bond (as Desiree, showgirl), Dave Prowse (as Harry, Fox's right-hand man) |
| Starlets: | Bozena, Viviene Stokes, Deirdre Lindsay, Kirstie Pooley, Jacqueline Hurst (as kidnapped showgirls) |
| NOTES: | |
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There are known to be a 62 minute and a 74 minute version of this film. The one reviewed here was the longer one. What is cut in the shorter one is not known. |
| White Fire (1984) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Edward John Francis / Director: Jean-Marie Pallardy / Producers: Jean-Marie Pallardy, Alan G. Rainer | |
| Type: Thriller | Running Time: 79 mins |
| Bo Donnelly and his sister Ingrid are diamond smugglers. She works at a diamond mine as the Boss's assistant and smuggles jewels out for Bo to sell. In a disused cavern an old miner finds a raw diamond bigger than a rugby ball embedded in the rock - when he touches it his hands burn. He reports his find to the company Boss and then takes the Boss and his assistant Ingrid to see it. Once the boss knows the location he murders the miner. The diamond was thought to be legend and has the name "White Fire". Boss plans with Ingrid to retrieve the diamond but really is plotting behind her back with a gang of crooks led by a woman called Sophia. But Sophia is plotting herself and plans to kidnap Ingrid who is the only one besides Boss who knows the location of the White Fire. However Ingrid is inadvertently killed by a poison dart in the abduction attempt.
Devastated by the loss of his sister Bo visits a bar and meets a woman called Olga who quite by chance has a similar look to his sister Ingrid. Bo and his partner Sam then offer Olga $50,000 to undergo plastic surgery to have her face changed to match Ingrid and then impersonate Ingrid so the crooks will believe she is still alive and she can resume her dealings with Boss. The surgery is achieved flawlessly. But Olga was being pursued by a man named Noah whose boss had some unfinished business with her and he tracks her down to the plastic surgeon and finds out about her face change. In the climax three groups converge on the cavern containing White Fire:- the Boss and Sophia and their men wait outside the cave to ambush Bo and Ingrid/Olga and their men after they retrieve the diamond; whilst Noah and his men are there to catch Olga. Massive gunfights ensue and eventually the radioactive diamond blows up! The Boss is killed in the firefight and Noah agrees to let Olga go and say that she died in return for some diamonds. | |
| Comments: An oddly plotted film - in the opening pre-credits sequence we see an event from twenty years before when the siblings were children fleeing through a forest with their parents hotly pursued by soldiers with the parents eventually being killed but the children escaping - which is fine at first, but once the film is complete and you realise there is no subsequent follow-through on these events to explain them or make them significant in the main plot, it is rendered irrelevant (which is why I couldn't work it into the above plot summary). They are just a brother and sister who work together - that's all you need to know for the purposes of the story. Then bizarrely half-way through the film the sister gets killed only to be replaced by a similar looking actress who undergoes plastic surgery to make her into an exact replica of the sister (and subsequently played by the first actress once again) - plot-wise this does not really add anything useful to the story which couldn't have been done in a more conventional way. And can diamonds become radioactive - and would they explode? Don't know.
The Boss did have a name but I didn't catch it properly - sounded something like "Neilmad" but he doesn't appear to be credited so I couldn't be sure - so I just call him "Boss" in the above summary. | |
| Starring: | Robert Ginty (as Bo Donnelly), Belinda Mayne (as Ingrid, and Olga/Ingrid after plastic surgery) |
| Featuring: | Fred Williamson (as Noah), Jess Hahn (as Sam), Mirella Banti (as Sophia), Diana Goodman (as Olga, before plastic surgery) |
| Who Dares Wins (1982) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Reginald Rose / Director: Ian Sharp / Producer: Euan Lloyd | |
| Type: Thriller | Running Time: 119 mins |
| SAS soldier Captain Peter Skellern is discharged from service when he loses control during field training and subjects some new recruits to a particularly brutal form of torture exercise. Meanwhile the security services are becoming concerned about the activities of a radical anti nuclear bombs peace organisation called The Peoples Lobby whose inner core are believed to be planning a major incident - but the nature of the outrage is as yet unknown.
Needless to say Peter Skellern's ignominious departure from the service was part a pre-planned operation so he can infiltrate the Peoples Lobby under the truthful seeming guise of a malcontent ex-SAS soldier. Peter makes contact with an American woman called Frankie Leith, believed to be the ringleader, and uses his charm to gain her trust as he pretends to share her extreme viewpoints. She believes his unique knowledge of SAS tactics will come in useful in the operation they have planned. Her co-conspirators are not so keen to bring in an outsider and even though his dismissal story checks out they have him discretely followed. Peter becomes Frankie's lover and moves in with her as the radicals prepare for their operation. Peter is seen making somewhat suspicious contacts around the city which lead Frankie's people to have his wife held hostage to ensure his good behaviour - although Peter insists it is not necessary since he is squarely on their side and intends to help in any way he can. The terrorists' plan swings into operation as they pose as US military concert party personnel to enter the American Embassy on the night of the ambassador's dinner reception for high ranking American and British dignitaries - including the British Foreign Secretary and the US Secretary of State. Once the building is secure Frankie issues demands that a nuclear bomb be dropped on the Holy Loch submarine base in southern Scotland to show everyone just how devastating a blast can be so the world will be appalled and demand immediate multilateral disarmaments of such devices - failure to comply within 18 hours will result in the deaths of all the VIPs. Once the British secret service know the nature of the threat posed by the group the SAS swing into action while facile negotiations are carried out to give an impression of consideration and deliberation to the demands. Peter manages to make a coded contact with the army and at a prearranged time he makes his move inside by securing the safety of the VIPs to coincide with the assault from outside. The SAS storm the building and all the terrorists are killed and elsewhere another SAS unit rescues Peter's wife from her kidnappers. | |
| Starring: | Lewis Collins (as Captain Peter Skellen), Judy Davis (as Frankie Leith), John Duttine (as Rod Walker, terrorist), Richard Widmark (as US Secretary of State Arthur Currie), Edward Woodward (as Commander Powell, hostage negotiator) |
| Featuring: | Rosalind Lloyd (as Jenny Skellen, Peter's wife), Ingrid Pitt (as Helga, terrorist), Robert Webber (as General Ira Potter, head of US Strategic Air Command), Maurice Röeves (as Major Steele, SAS), Tony Doyle (as Colonel Hadley, SAS), Bob Sherman (as Captain Hagen, US Rangers, training with SAS) |
| Familiar Faces: | Patrick Allen (as Police Commissioner, cameo) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on an original story by George Markstein |
| Writer: John Gould / Director: Jack Gold / Producer: Barry Levinson | |
| Type: American / Thriller | Running Time: 88 mins |
| An eminent American scientist called Lucas Martino who heads a major research project is involved in a serious car accident on the East German border as his car crashes over into the other side. The Russians save his life but tell the Americans they cannot return him for six months while he recuperates.
Six months later when he is handed back to the Americans he is unrecognisable - his head and body have been reconstructed using extensive metal components making him appear more like a robot than a man. But a man remains inside and that man says he is Dr Lucas Martino. FBI investigator Sean Rogers has severe doubts because he knows that throughout the six month period Martino has been in the charge of head KGB spy trainer Colonel Azarin. Agent Rogers has to consider the serious possibility that an impostor has been trained to replace Martino, or if it is Martino that he may have been brainwashed. However Rogers finds it impossible to catch the man out in details of Martino's personal life no matter how trivial an item and it seems increasingly likely that it is the real Martino - but Rogers cannot shake his concerns and pass Martino security-fit to return to work until he is absolutely certain because he knows how thorough a man like Azarin would be in preparing a spy. Martino gets frustrated with all the continual questioning as all he wants to do is get back on with his life's work at Project Neptune. It is a project he began in college days with a friend called Frank Heywood who was almost (but not quite) as clever as Martino and who divided his scientific studies with political ambitions. Heywood worked alongside Martino at Neptune for a time until his political views made him a security risk and he was thrown off the project - and he has subsequently died. Eventually Martino gets fed up with waiting around and decides to go back and live on his parents old farm where he grew up as a boy until the authorities make up their minds about him. Throughout the above we also see narratively correlating flashbacks to Martino's time in Russian hands. We see:- him survive the life saving operation under the care of Dr Kothu using extensive cybernetic grafts; Colonel Azarin questioning him in minute detail about his childhood and early life in order to test his memory following his trauma ; and Azarin deciding to train up an agent to take Martino's place using the extensive background details obtained. The agent in question is Frank Heywood - not dead after all but defected to Russia and ideally suited because he already has a working knowledge of Martino's early life and is almost as knowledgeable about the Neptune project that he could go back to work there with a level of understanding similar to Martino's and not arouse suspicion - but then be able to pass back secrets. Heywood reluctantly agrees to undergo a radical surgical operation to change his appearance to match the current robotic look of Martino. (So now as we return to the present we are privy to the seeming fact that Martino is an impostor after all). Rogers is put under pressure by the authorities to pass Martino security-fit since he has not been able to prove otherwise. The project desperately needs him back at work and they reason that if he turns out not to be the great man he will soon show himself up with an inability to understand his own complex theorems. So Rogers' doubts are overruled and he is ordered to tell Martino that he can return to work. Therefore despite his reservations Rogers visits Martino on the farm and delivers the good news that the scientist can now resume his work at Project Neptune. Then we return to the flashback and discover that Frank Heywood did not survive the trauma of his operation. He could not face life looking like a machine man and died, whereas Martino had survived that same shock because he truly wanted to live no matter what. Therefore Azarin has no choice but to return the real Lucas Martino to the Americans. (So in the final moments we learn that it is and has always been the genuine Martino all along). But after tasting the simple rural life of his boyhood again Martino's perspective on life has changed - he has discovered an inner contentment working the land in peace and solitude and has decided he no longer feels the need to return to work and he respectfully declines. He had been Lucas Martino all this time but now he is not Lucas Martino - any more. | |
| Starring: | Elliott Gould (as FBI Agent Sean Rogers), Trevor Howard (as Colonel Azarin), Joseph Bova (as Lucas Martino) |
| Featuring: | John Stewart (as Frank Heywood, Martino's friend and colleague, and later a Russian defector), Ed Grover (as Finchley, FBI boss), John Lehne (as Haller, State Department official), James Noble (as General Deptford, American military), Alexander Allerson (as Dr Kothu, Russian cybernetics expert treating Martino, in flashbacks), Michael Lombard (as Dr Besser, from Project Neptune), Kay Tornborg (as Edith, Martino's girlfriend, in flashbacks), Joy Garrett (as Barbara, restaurant worker, in flashbacks) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel by Algis Budrys |
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Although this film is shown as being a UK production there is nothing really in story location, cast or plot to mark it out as seeming to be in any way British - nor was it filmed in the UK (that was done in Germany and Miami). Trevor Howard is in it (playing a Russian) - although a major Hollywood-ised Brit in an American film wouldn't normally be sufficient reason alone to review a film for this site - however since it has been done and it is a fairly obscure film it's included here. |
| Writers: Robert Blees, James Sangster / Director: Curtis Harrington / Producers: Samuel Z. Arkoff, James H. Nicholson | |
| Type: Chiller | Running Time: 91 mins |
| Set in 1920s England. Mrs Rosie Forrest is a rich American widow who used to have a glamorous and happy life, but following the tragic accidental death of her young daughter Katharine she withdrew herself from society to live in seclusion in her large house. Mrs Forrest was so upset by her daughter's death that she hid her body in a secret nursery room in the attic. She regularly visits her daughter's body to sing lullabies seemingly oblivious to the state of her daughter's now mummified remains lying in the pretty cot. Publicly Katharine was reported missing, but the police never found out what happened to her and now nearly a decade later it remains a mystery.
Mrs Forrest's only companions are her servants Albie and Clarine who know nothing of the attic room or the terrible secret it contains. Mrs Forrest employs the services of a local clairvoyant called Mr Benton who has the power to manifest the spirits of the dead. She regularly finds joy and comfort in hearing her daughter's voice speak to her and pays Mr Benton handsomely for his services. She is unaware that Mr Benton is in collusion with Albie who gets his girlfriend Clarine to speak in a little girl's voice that wafts in a ghostly fashion down the dumb waiter shaft. Mrs Forrest has a great love of children and every Christmas she opens her house up for the festive period for ten children from the local orphanage to come and stay and enjoy a special time. Miss Henley who is in charge of the Home for Orphaned and Destitute Children annually selects the ten most well-behaved children for the special treat. A visit to Mrs Forrest's house for her annual Christmas party is considered a great privilege and all the children hope to be selected. Christopher and Katy Coombes are a well-bred brother and sister who have been having a glum time after being orphaned. But Christopher is considered to be a troublemaker because he makes up tall tales - and so they are not selected. The ten children arrive at Mrs Forrest's mansion on Christmas Eve for a big party. Mrs Forrest has a cheerily radiant spirit as she takes genuine pleasure in the delight of the children as they enjoy the type of fun which their unfortunate situations normally deny them. Mrs Forrest has an infectious gaiety and insists the children call her Auntie Roo. Unbeknown to anyone at the orphanage Christopher and Katy had stowed away in the boot of the car wanting to know what they were missing. When they are discovered Mrs Forrest is not angry but welcomes them into the celebrations as well. She is struck by Katy's slight resemblance to her dead daughter Katharine. The children go to bed that night excited about Christmas day tomorrow and what presents Santa will bring them. That night Christopher hears some singing and goes to investigate. It appears to be coming from the dumbwaiter shaft and so he climb in and winches himself up and looks into the attic nursery where he sees Auntie Roo with a horrific looking dead body of a child which she is packing away in a coffin. He rushes back to his bed convinced Mrs Forrest is a witch. Next day is Christmas day and Auntie Roo has made sure all the children have wonderful presents to open. She pays special attention to Katy and lets her have a big teddy that used to belong to Katharine. Katy likes Auntie Roo and trusts her completely. When it is time to go home Katy is nowhere to be seen and Auntie Roo laughs it off saying she is probably just hiding and she'll send her along when she shows up. Christopher wants to wait for his sister but he is not allowed to and no one believes his tall tale of a secret room in the attic with a dead body. Christopher is reminded of the Hansel and Gretel story and thinks Auntie Roo is going to fatten Katy up to eat her. When Katy doesn't show up Christopher absconds from the orphanage and sneaks into Mrs Forrest's house at night. He makes his way to the secret room and finds Katy playing quite happily with some toys thinking that Mrs Forrest has adopted her. But she trusts her older brother when he tells her Auntie Roo is actually a bad person. Mrs Forrest has now found out how she has been deceived by Albie and Clarine and has sacked them both so she is now the only one in the house. She catches the brother and sister trying to escape and locks them up. By day she keeps Katy prisoner to force Christopher to help her with household chores in the kitchen and ensure he does not try to escape. In Mrs Forrest's growingly unhinged delusions brought about by her inconsolable grief, she believes she is looking after the children's best interests with loving kindness and generosity, but her intimidating way of ensuring their cooperation only frightens them. Christopher manages to trick Auntie Roo into leaving the kitchen so he can get the keys to unlock the doors. But Auntie Roo catches them and locks them in the pantry. Christopher is still convinced that Auntie Roo is planning to eat them and so he tells Katy to start calling her "mummy" to appeal to her maternal instincts and get her to open the door. Once free they push Auntie Roo into the pantry and lock her in and then start a fire in front of the door to prevent her escaping. The fire takes hold and soon the whole house becomes ablaze. Mrs Forrest is trapped in the inferno with no way of escaping and dies. Christopher and Katy grab some of Mrs Forrest's jewels and hide them in the big teddy as they flee the burning house having defeated the horrible witch woman. Publicly the fire is considered a dreadful tragedy for a such kind and generous woman and the children never say what really went on in the house. They know that with Auntie Roo's jewels, which will never be missed, they have enough wealth to never go hungry again. | |
| Starring: | Shelley Winters (as Rosie Forrest aka Auntie Roo), Mark Lester (as Christopher Coombes), Chloe Franks (as Katy Coombes), Michael Gothard (as Albie, Mrs Forrest's butler) |
| Featuring: | Ralph Richardson (as Mr Benton, clairvoyant), Lionel Jeffries (as Inspector Willoughby), Rosalie Crutchley (as Miss Henley, orphanage principal), Judy Cornwell (as Clarine, Mrs Forrest's cook/maid), Hugh Griffith (Mr Harrison, meat man), Pat Heywood (as Doctor Mason, orphanage doctor), Marianne Stone (as Miss Wilcox, orphanage matron), Charlotte Sayce (as Katharine, Mrs Forrest's daughter in flashback) |
| NOTES: | |
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Original screen story by David Osborn, additional dialogue Gavin Lambert |
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Chloe Franks receives an "introducing" credit although she had already appeared in smaller roles in some earlier films by this point. The ages of the children are not mentioned. Mark Lester was about 13 which is a good assumption for his characters' age, but Chloe Franks looks much younger than her real age which was about 12 at the time. |
| Whose Child Am I? (1974) | Previous Next |
| aka: Feelings | |
| Writer: James Stevens / Director: Lawrence Britten / Producer: Jesse & Carol Vogel | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 89 mins |
| Barbara and Paul Martin are having trouble conceiving. They undergo tests which reveal him to be sterile although she is perfectly fertile. They try artificial insemination which fails to work. Barbara privately consuls an expert who advises her that natural fertilisation with a sperm donor is likely to be more successful. This involves her having sex with a volunteer donor directly. She and the donor Michael have sex several times both at the clinic and privately at his flat and eventually she falls pregnant. Husband Paul is delighted but thinks the pregnancy happened via normal artificial insemination methods. Eventually baby Harriet is born. Several years pass and a rich uncle dies leaving young Harriet a sizeable bequest to be administered solely by her father. Former donor Michael hears of this and institutes legal proceedings claiming that as the biological father he should be the one to administer the estate. A legal battle ensues.
Intermixed with this are some subplots:- Helen, a lab technician at the fertilisation clinic, is going out and sleeping with a much older man. Helen's mother had undergone artificial insemination to have her (by more approved means!) but had accidentally seen the donor. And when she meets Helen's older man-friend realises that he is that donor and Helen is sleeping with her own father; Another subplot involves a lesbian couple who want to have a baby; And another is about a pregnant white woman to whom the fertilisation clinic believe they might have accidentally given the sperm of a black man. | |
| Comment: The main story carries the film for the first half until the birth of Harriet and then the remainder of that story shares screen time with the three other subplots that are introduced. | |
| Starring: | Kate O'Mara (as Barbara Martin) , Paul Freeman (Paul Martin), Bob Sherman (as Michael) |
| Featuring: | Edward Judd (as Dr Benson), Frances Kearney (as Helen Randall), Ronan O'Casey (as John Roberts, Helen's older boyfriend), Melissa Stribling (as Helen's mother), Beth Porter (as Mrs Lustig, sperm mix-up case), Diane Fletcher (Renate, in lesbian couple), Felicity Devonshire (as Carrie, in lesbian couple) |
| Starlets: | Sally Faulkner, Rikki Howard |
| NOTES: | |
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Although this is a British film populated by British actors and the outdoor shots clearly reveal it being set in the UK, all the actors (Kate O'Mara, Paul Freeman, etc) speak with mock American accents which is somewhat disconcerting. |
| The Wicked Lady (1983) | Previous Next |
| Writers: Leslie Arliss, Michael Winner / Director: Michael Winner / Producers: Yoram Globus, Menahem Golan | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 94 mins |
| In 17th century England, Caroline is happily engaged to wealthy landowner Sir Ralph Skelton. She invites her sister Barbara, whom she has not seen for some time, to be her Maid of Honour. Barbara duly arrives for the big day but becomes so enamoured of Ralph herself, and he of she, that they themselves fall in love and Barbara manages to hijack the wedding and become the bride herself - relegating her sister to the Maid of Honour role. Luckily Caroline is fairly accepting of the situation and stays around after the wedding to be a companion to her sister who is now Lady Skelton. But Barbara soon realises she has made a dreadful mistake - for even during the wedding reception she met another man called Kit Locksby whom she would have dearly loved to marry instead - but by then it was too late. She is no longer in love with Ralph so she opens up a spare room in the manor house and declares that they will have separate bedrooms. Barbara is intrigued to find that the spare room has a secret passage that leads to the outdoors.
Ralph's sister Henrietta comes for a visit and they all play cards - Barbara loses heavily, but determined to chance her luck one further time she impulsively wagers all the losses against her ruby broach - a special heirloom from her late mother - on one cut of the cards - and she loses it! Henrietta jokes that she will have to be careful on her way home lest the notorious highwayman Captain Jackson holds up her carriage and attempts to steal it. This throwaway comment gives Barbara an idea on how to get her broach back and she dresses herself up as a masked highwayman and uses her bedroom's secret passage to leave the house and proceeds to hold up Henrietta's carriage and steal back her broach. It all goes to plan and Barbara finds the experience thrilling and decides to carry on the illicit activity with some "proper" hold-ups. This becomes a nightly activity for Barbara until inevitably she crosses paths with the real highwayman Captain Jackson who is angered that a rival is on his patch. He gives chase but when he finds she is a woman they come to an agreement to work together and they also become lovers - although he sees her face he has no idea who she really is. Jackson's one golden rule is "no killings" because once murder has been committed then capture means the hangman's noose. Barbara hears that a consignment of gold is being transported by wagon and she and Jackson hold it up - but during their escape she shoots and kills a man while aiming for his horse. The authorities assume it was Jackson and he becomes a wanted murderer. Meanwhile at home the elderly family butler Hogarth has become wise to Barbara's nocturnal activities and tells her she must cease otherwise he will have to tell Ralph. For weeks Barbara puts on a show of being a dutiful lady of the house to ensure Hogarth's silence whilst secretly poisoning him slowly to give an outward appearance of onsetting poor health. Eventually Ralph realises what she is doing and she has to smother him to death with a pillow. Free again to go out she heads off to town to be with her lover Jackson only to find him in bed with another woman. Feeling betrayed she tips the authorities off to his whereabouts and he is captured. At the day of his hanging a riot develops as Jackson's girlfriend has a catfight with Barbara which allows Jackson to be freed by his friends - but not before Jackson spots the Skelton crest on her coach and realises who she is. Later that day he visits her for revenge but after taking out his frustrations on her they decide to continue working together. Barbara has decided to kill Ralph under guise of a robbery to be free of him and be able to marry someone she really loves - but Jackson wants no part of it and so Barbara shoots and kills him. Then during the hold-up a soldier wings her and she rides off mortally wounded just managing to get back to her bedchamber where her dark shameful secret identity is revealed to her family just before she dies. | |
| Starring: | Faye Dunaway (as Lady Barbara Skelton), Denholm Elliott (as Sir Ralph Skelton), Glynis Barber (as Caroline), Alan Bates (as Captain Jackson), John Gielgud (as Hogarth, the butler) |
| Featuring: | Prunella Scales (Lady Henrietta Kingsclere), Oliver Tobias (as Kit Locksby), Joan Hickson (as Aunt Agatha), Marina Sirtis (as Jackson's Girlfriend) |
| Starlets: | Fiona McArthur, Judi Maynard, Lucy Hornak, Francine Morgan (as four Bridesmaids), Louise English, Elaine Ashley (as two Servants), Guinevere John, Celia Imrie, Teresa Codling, Lisa Mulidore |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton by Magdalen King-Hall. |
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Glynis Barber's nudity is very probably a body double. |
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There are four bridesmaids collectively listed in the credits and two of them are seen topless. Lucy Hornak has been identified as one of these by means of a separate appearance in the Bond movie Never Say Never Again from the same year. Fiona McArthur appeared as a maid in a 1990 episode of "Poirot" and has been visually matched as being the other topless bridesmaid from that appearance. Of the other two, Judi Maynard has been seen in 1992's Natural Lies and was certainly one of the bridesmaids not seen topless. Francine Morgan has not been visually checked from any other source but must, by elimination, be the other bridesmaid who is also not seen topless. |
| The Wicker Man (1973) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Anthony Shaffer / Director: Robin Hardy / Producer: Peter Snell | |
| Type: Chiller | Running Time: 84 mins (standard version) |
| A police sergeant from the West Highland constabulary called Neil Howie flies himself out via seaplane to the remote and isolated Scottish island of Summerisle. He has received an anonymous letter addressed directly to him expressing concerns about a young girl called Rowan Morrison who has not been seen for several months. The letter included a photograph of the girl but when he shows it around the island-folk claim to have never heard of her or seen her before - even the woman whom the letter cites as her mother does not know who she is.
He decides to stay overnight and takes a room at the Green Man Inn run by Alder MacGregor and his daughter Willow. Sgt Howie is a deeply religious man taking his Christian faith seriously and he is engaged to be married. That night he is tortured by a sweet seductive song from the next room sung by Willow with a clear invite to join her but he just manages to resist with supreme effort. Howie is struck by the overt sexual behaviour of the townsfolk - from lewd songs in the pub to some public copulation on the village green that he observed the previous evening and he wonders what sort of people these are to behave so degenerately. Next day he visits the local school and is astonished to hear young children being taught about phallic allusions in the upcoming May Day celebrations and he accuses the teacher Miss Rose of impropriety towards the young which she defends by telling him they are simply being taught to celebrate the regenerative forces of nature. Mindful of his main task in hand he asks Miss Rose and the children if they know the missing girl Rowan which they all disavow - but with his suspicions growing he checks the register and finds Rowan's name listed. Miss Rose then admits she knows her and she is dead - but the island people think of death differently believing that when a life is over the soul returns to the surroundings. This is the philosophy of life on this island and Howie is appalled that the Christian religion is no longer practised or taught and considers that the young are being corrupted by these heathen beliefs. Howie finds the place where Rowan is said to be buried but he must first visit the laird of the island Lord Summerisle to seek his consent as a Justice of The Peace to exhume the body so that it can be taken back to the mainland for a post-mortem examination. Somewhat against Howie's expectations Lord Summerisle readily gives his permission. When Howie queries the religious teachings on the island Summerisle tells him that the origins of this go back to 1868 when an ancestor of his arrived on this island to find the people poor and undernourished because the island soil was unsuitable for fertile growth. This ancestor was a gifted biologist and thinker who found the environment perfect for a new strain of fruit he had developed - he got the locals working for him by motivating them with a pseudo-religion - and with the success of the harvest the community flourished. The villagers took this as a sign and abandoned the old religions and embraced the new pagan ways. Howie returns to the graveyard and exhumes the remains but finds inside not the body of a girl but of a march hare. Furious that he has been tricked by more duplicity he redoubles his efforts. He finds photographic evidence that the previous year's harvest had been a particularly poor one and upon researching the background to the upcoming May Day traditions discovers that it was once used to offer sacrifice to please the gods into making the next harvest a bountiful one - this at one time included human sacrifices! Howie makes the intuitive connection that Rowan is not dead at all but is being held captive and will be sacrificed at the following day's May Day festival. Next day Howie puts on a masked costume and joins the parade incognito. When the marchers get to the beach, as Howie predicted, Rowan is brought out hands tied. He rushes out to free her and she seems pleased to be saved and leads him through a cave tunnel up to the cliff-top. But the villagers are waiting - and Rowan is not the one they were waiting for! Lord Summerisle tells Howie that it is he, not Rowan, who is to be the sacrifice and that he was lured to the island and has been manipulated ever since to bring him to this point. The villagers believe that an adult sacrifice will be all the more potent to the gods especially one invested with the authority of a king such as a policeman possesses. Behind them is a giant figure of a man constructed of wicker to form a cage. Howie is placed inside and the construct is set alight - Howie appeals in vain to their humanity but they are set in their beliefs that his sacrifice will save their community and they sing their joyous praise as they watch him burn to death within the wicker man and all Howie can do is pray to his own god and find comfort in his own Christian beliefs. | |
| Director's Cut: The above summary describes the events as presented in the "standard" version of the movie. But there is also a longer version lasting 99 minutes which was the originally intended version of the movie before it was cut down to the 84 minutes which then became the officially released standard version. An extra scene in the longer version comes right at the start and shows us some of Sgt Howie's life on the mainland including the moment he receives the letter from the island. One major restructuring done in the shorter edit is to make it appear that Howie stayed only one night on the island. But in the full-length version he actually stays two nights. The seductive dance that Willow performs on the night of his arrival originally takes place on the second night and was moved from later in the film to much earlier in the standard version. Also in another new sequence Christopher Lee makes an earlier first appearance in a scene on the first night. The end-credits were not remade in the edit and consequently there are a number of characters who only appear in the additional scenes although they are credited in the standard version. There are no additional nude scenes in the full version although Willow's nude dance sequence is about 50 seconds longer. | |
| Starring: | Edward Woodward (as Sgt Neil Howie), Christopher Lee (as Lord Summerisle) |
| Featuring: | Diane Cilento (as Miss Rose), Britt Ekland (as Willow), Lindsay Kemp (as Alder MacGregor, Willow's father), Ingrid Pitt (as Librarian), Geraldine Cowper (as Rowan Morrison) |
| Starlets: | Lorraine Peters, Barbara Ann Brown |
| The Wife Swappers (1970) | Previous Next |
| Writers: Derek Ford, Stanley Long / Director: Derek Ford / Producer: Stanley Long | |
| Type: Documentary | Running Time: 82 mins |
| A documentary dealing with an emerging aspect of modern 1970s life:- Wife Swapping. It includes dramatic scenes, interviews with people associated with it, and expert analysis by a psychiatrist. The documentary attempts to explain the phenomena and give an understanding of what goes on and some of the pitfalls to avoid | |
| Comment: I'm not entirely sure if it was intended as a serious documentary at the time or just as a reason to have some sexy scenes. The interview pieces seem genuine enough and the interviewer seems to question the participants quite hard at times asking some awkward and pertinent questions - so maybe it was serious although the topic seems almost comical nowadays. (Interview subjects were a man who runs a contact magazine; and a swinger turned prostitute; as well as stopping people in the street and asking for their opinions). The psychiatrist seems to be genuine and probably not an actor - after each dramatic sequence he discusses them as case studies direct to camera like he's presenting an Open University course on the subject. The dramatic sequences are pitched as being "reconstructions" with the main female participant narrating in voiceover what is going on and why she became involved. The reconstructions involve various types of Wife Swapping parties and dare games as new wives are initiated into the activities and at the end turns full circle with a wife rebelling against the idea and quitting but in the process losing her circle of friends. | |
| Featuring: | Fiona Fraser, Valerie St. John, James Donnelly, Denys Hawthorne, Bunty Garland |
| Starlets: | Joan Hayward, Sandra Satchwith |
| The Wilby Conspiracy (1975) | Previous Next |
| Writers: Rod Amateau, Harold Nebenzal / Director: Ralph Nelson / Producer: Martin Baum | |
| Type: Thriller | Running Time: 105 mins |
| Set in South Africa in the present day (1975). Shack Twala is a Bantu South African who has spent the last five years in Robbin Island penitentiary after he was captured trying to flee the country. Shack was an important member of the Black Congress Party and new laws recently passed by parliament have re-designated his political struggles to be acts of terrorism. He has been brought to the Cape Town Supreme Court to be tried under those new charges. His defence lawyer is Rina Van Niekirk who argues that the new laws cannot be applied retrospectively. Unexpectedly the prosecution caves in and drops their charges and Shack is suddenly a free man. Rina is congratulated by her new boyfriend Jim Keogh who is a mining engineer from England. Jim accompanies them as Rina drives Shack to get his identity papers which are an essential part of everyday living in the police state of South Africa where blacks are considered contemptible second class citizens by the prejudiced ruling white classes.
However they are stopped on their way by an identity checking police patrol who insist on enforcing the strict letter of the law and arrest Shack for having no papers. One of the lawmen hits Rina for her effrontery when she tries to mitigate for Shack's unavoidable temporary lawbreaking. Jim is outraged and punches the officer back and the three of them get away. Jim wants to go to the police headquarters to report the officer's actions but Rina knows that in the authorities' eyes the policeman would have been doing nothing wrong and instead it is now Jim and Shack who will be prosecuted for assaulting police officers and evading arrest which is punishable with a five year prison sentence. Their only option is to go to Johannesburg where Shack has some friends who can get them out of the country. The two men, in an uneasy friendship, set off in a car for the 900-mile roadtrip to the capital city where Shack has a contact who can arrange to smuggle them out to a safe country. This is what he had been attempting to do five years previously when he was caught although his party chairman Dava Wilby managed to get away. Wilby's escape was a major setback for Major Horn of the South African Bureau of State Police who had wanted him safely locked away where he could cause no further mischief. Major Horn is a passionate believer in the supremacy of the white man over the black and wields his many state powers with harsh efficiency to make sure that dominance is maintained. His mission is to stamp out the menace of black radicals wanting self-rule before their infective ideology spreads amongst the submissive masses who outnumber the whites substantially. On their journey Shack and Jim have a few encounters with the police but are never arrested and they cannot believe their luck. When Jim and Shack get to Johannesburg Shack goes to meet his contact Dr Anil Mukerjee who is an Indian dentist sympathetic to their cause. Jim follows and overhears them talk about a secret stash of diamonds and Jim realises he hasn't been told the whole story. Shack has not been sure that Jim can be entirely trusted but now they need his expertise. The diamonds were intended to fund the Black Congress party to make them strong but when Shack was previously captured Anil hid them to prevent the authorities getting them. Shack now wants them back to take with him when he reunites with Wilby across the border. Jim discovers a tracker device on their car and realises that Major Horn has known where they are at all times. It seems clear to Jim that Major Horn has allowed them to get away unhindered in order to discover the location of the diamonds. They get rid of the tracker and hope that will shake Horn off. Using Jim's expertise the men manage to recover the diamonds from a deep sinkhole into which Anil had thrown them. They know that Horn's men will have all border crossing points well guarded so the only way to avoid capture is to get out by air. Jim and Shack meet up with Rina who manages to coerce her ex-husband Blane to fly them out of the country in his private light aircraft to a secret location across the border where Wilby has set up a camp of his supporters. Upon their arrival Wilby greets Shack warmly and thanks Jim and Rina for their help. But then some army trucks roll up and Major Horn and a squad of fully armed men arrive to arrest Wilby. Horn has no interest in Shack or Jim and instead thanks them for their valuable help in leading him to the traitorous Wilby whose trial for incitement to treason and other terrorist related charges will help hit home to the blacks that they can never hope to win. Shack offers Horn the diamonds in exchange for Wilby arguing that without them Wilby lacks the financial means to stage any revolution and is therefore no threat. Horn scornfully scatters the diamonds onto the ground revealing that his men recovered the real diamonds years ago from the shaft mere hours after they observed Anil drop them there. They were replaced by worthless paste diamonds. Horn calls for his helicopter and boards with his prisoner. But Shack is so incensed at being used to betray his friend that he rushes the helicopter and hangs onto the landing struts. Other tribesmen join him and together their weight stops the helicopter from taking off. They overpower Horn and kill his men and release Wilby. Jim takes over and Horn surrenders his weapon realising he has no chance. But he smugly tells Jim that his government will want him back and will exchange him for prisoners - and when they do he will return and will get his revenge. Jim believes him and knows that a man so set in his misguided ways will never listen to reason or take his losses stoically, so Jim takes a gun and shoots Horn dead as the only way to deal with men like that. THE END | |
| Starring: | Sidney Poitier (as Shack Twala), Michael Caine (as Jim Keogh), Nicol Williamson (as Major Horn, South African Bureau of State Security), Prunella Gee (as Rina Van Niekirk, Shack's defence lawyer) |
| Featuring: | Saeed Jaffrey (as Dr Anil Mukerjee, Indian Dentist), Persis Khambatta (as Dr Persis Ray, dentist's colleague), Ryk De Gooyer (as Van Heerden, Horn's associate), Rutger Hauer (as Blane Van Niekirk, Rina's estranged husband), Patrick Allen (as District commissioner, [small role]), Joe De Graft (as Wilby Dava, exiled chairman of the Black Congress Party) |
| Writer: Mordecai Richler / Director: Ralph Thomas / Producer: Betty E. Box | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 109 mins |
| Harry Brown is a student attending Kilminster University studying history. Harry comes from a working class background but was fortunate to win a scholarship which pays for his fees. Harry is popular with his fellow students and has no pretensions or class prejudices because he never looks down on anybody and is always quick to come to the defence of minorities being picked upon. Harry's roommate in the halls of residence is shy Phil Corbett who finds it hard to mix in social groups and is considered an irritating oddball by most of Harry's group of friends, most of whom come from rich and privileged backgrounds. But Harry likes Phil and abhors the way others dismiss him as a non-entity and so, at Harry's insistence, Phil is tolerated as one of the group. Phil is very grateful to Harry for this and almost idolises him.
Harry's girlfriend is fellow student Josie Stevens, although she cannot tell whether he is serious about her or whether it's a casual fling. Either way she knows she loves him and just wishes he felt the same about her. Harry's tutor is Professor George Chown who has a much younger wife called Virginia. The professor is a snob and dislikes Harry with his working class roots and so it irks him that Harry is his brightest student whose thinking is more original than he himself could ever achieve.
It is well known that Virginia has affairs with the male students but the professor turns a blind eye knowing she is never seriously going to leave him. When Harry meets Virginia at a party at the professor's house she sets her sights upon him and Harry finds it impossible to resist. They have an affair and Harry thinks it is true love and wants her to come away with him because he can tell she is not happy in her marriage. Virginia knows this to be true but knows her husband will never grant her a divorce. He needs a wife for his job, but has no inclination to satisfy her in the bedroom department, so grants her tacit leave to purge her desires as she sees fit. But the process always ends up making her feel empty inside when the boy starts getting serious and she has to end it and move on, as Harry soon discovers. The student rag week is approaching and ideas are being sought for a stunt. Harry tries to forget his disappointment about Virginia by suggesting he could climb the outside of the old university tower and hoist the rag week flag on the mast. The crumbling old stone tower rises up some 100ft and is strictly out of bounds but Harry is sure he can make it safely up and down. However it needs two climbers working in cooperation and none of his friends believe the risk is worth it and think he is mad to even consider such a dangerous stunt. Harry is about to give up on the idea when Phil says he will do it. Phil feels he owes so much to Harry for including him in things, that he wants to repay that kindness by helping him out. Harry tries to talk Phil out of it but Phil is determined and so after midnight they start their treacherous climb. Using no ropes or safety equipment they make it to the turret and Harry successfully erects the flag. By now they have attracted a crowd of onlookers as well as the police and fire brigade. But no one can do anything to help as the two young men start their descent of the imposing edifice. The climb down is harder than the ascent and part way down Phil loses his footing. Harry grabs him but cannot hold him and Phil plunges 80ft to his death. Harry is devastated that his foolhardiness has led to such tragedy. The inquest returns a verdict of accidental death but although Harry is not charged with anything the coroner has scathing comments. His disgraceful irresponsibility at undertaking such a reckless venture has had consequences that he will have to live with for the rest of his life. Phil's parents are charitable people and rather than being angry with Harry they instead thank him for being Phil's friend. Harry finds this the hardest of all to take. The university convenes a disciplinary board and find Harry to have conducted himself in a way that demonstrates he is unappreciative of the privileges he has been granted through his scholarship. Ironically Professor Chown is the only one that speaks up for him citing his exemplary work and promising academic potential. Nevertheless, despite this endorsement Harry is asked to leave the university forthwith. Harry is a broken man and says his muted final farewells to his friends and heads off to catch a coach home. Josie wants to go with him but Harry feels an inner grief that he does not want to share and he goes alone. | |
| Starring: | Ian McShane (as Harry Brown), Virginia Maskell (as Virginia Chown), Paul Rogers (as Professor George Chown), Samantha Eggar (as Josie Stevens, Harry's girlfriend), Katherine Woodville (as Sarah Phillips, snooty student), David Sumner (as John Agincourt, Sarah's boyfriend), John Hurt (as Phil Corbett, Harry's roommate) |
| Featuring: | John Standing (as Arthur), Johnny Briggs (as Dai Hawkins, Welsh student), Johnny Sekka (as Reggie, black student), Jeremy Brett (as Andrew Gilby, cocksure student, has 1st affair with Veronica), Charles Kay (as Edgar Tibbs, lecturer), John Barrie and Megs Jenkins (as Mr and Mrs Corbett, Phil's parents) |
| Starlets: | Denise Coffey and Marianne Stone (as Jane and Clara, frumpy pickups), Jane Merrow (as Rag week beauty queen, [uncredited]) |
| NOTES: | |
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Made in Black and White |
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From the play "The Tinker" by Laurence Doble and Robert Sloman |
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Ian McShane receives an "introducing" credit |
| The Wild Geese (1978) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Reginald Rose / Director: Andrew V. McLaglen / Producer: Euan Lloyd | |
| Type: Action | Running Time: 129 mins |
| Colonel Allen Faulkner is a mercenary soldier who has been flown into England clandestinely for a meeting with some top officials. In the past Faulkner has had a good track record for conducting successful operations in Africa and a situation has now developed in an African state which only an unofficial unit of men can remedy.
Faulkner is told that two years ago the state of Zimbalee was taken over in a military coup by General Endofa with the help of a neighbouring state who cooperated by kidnapping its President Julius Limbani during an official visit. Endofa was subsequently told that Limbani was dead. But now he has discovered that the ex-president is actually still alive in incarceration and the general fears what would happen if the ex-leader should ever be released and rise to power once more. So he has made a deal with his neighbours to grant them oil concessions in return for Limbani whom he will then personally execute. Unfortunately these oil concessions currently belong to a British oil firm and its chairman Sir Edward Matherson is not pleased at having them stolen away. Matherson is willing to finance a mercenary force to enter the country and rescue Limbani so that his firm will hold a stronger hand in negotiations with the general. Matherson is willing to pay well and let Colonel Faulkner plan the operation and recruit the personnel as he sees fit. It is ten years since Colonel Faulkner last conducted an operation and he proceeds to band together a group of men that he has worked with before who have proved themselves highly capable. Faulkner's first appointment is gallivanting playboy Shawn Flynn who is delighted to be seeing some more action and escape from a spot of bother he is currently in with the local mafia. The other key recruit is master tactician Rafer Janders whose skills are vital in preparing a plan of action. Janders has become a family man and so needs a lot of persuading to return to his old life. The ranks are filled with men who are now getting on a bit in years but are keen to recapture the excitement of going into action. The fifty men spend several weeks being trained and getting into shape waiting for the go-ahead when Limbani is moved to a border crossing point for the handover. When that time comes the mercenary force is flown over the region and parachuted in. They then split up into two groups. Falkner's team assault the unsuspecting border garrison and effortlessly take Limbani. They then head for the airfield which Flynn's team have taken over. There they radio for the plane to land and fly them out. The operation has gone incredibly smoothly with no hitches or casualties on their side and now they are virtually home free. But as the transport plane comes into land its pilot receives a radio message which orders him to abandon them and the plane takes off again without its passengers. The mercenaries are stranded in the middle of a hostile country with only fifty men against the forces that General Endofa can deploy to eliminate them. Colonel Faulkner realises they have been double-crossed by Matherson who must have made a new deal with Endofa and thrown them to the wolves in order to save himself their completion fee. With little in the way of options they decide to head south towards the villages of Limbani's people where they might find support for rescuing their leader. On the way they are hit by air attacks and encounter enemy units and many of their number are killed. The survivors make it to Limbani's village where a missionary priest tells them of a decrepit but working Dakota transport plane on a disused airfield near an abandoned mineworks a few miles away. They head towards it under heavy fire from enemy troops and get the plane going. Limbani is badly wounded and Janders is killed at the last moment as the plane is about to take off. Faulkner and Flynn and a small handful of survivors make it out of the country to safety although Limbani dies of his wounds making the whole operation a complete waste. Some time later back in London, Faulkner pays a late night clandestine visit to Sir Edward Matherson's residence. At gunpoint Faulkner forces Matherson to empty his safe to pay his debts which will go to the widows and orphans that his treacherous greed caused. Matherson realises that Faulkner wants to kill him and offers him more money to pay him off. But revenge is sweet for Faulkner and he declines that arrangement and shoots Matherson dead. | |
| Starring: | (Mercenaries) Richard Burton (as Colonel Allen Faulkner), Roger Moore (as Lt Shawn Fynn), Richard Harris (as Capt Rafer Janders), Hardy Krüger (as Lt Pieter Coetze), Jack Watson (as RSM Sandy Young) Stewart Granger (as Sir Edward Matherson, merchant banker financing the operation) |
| Featuring: | (other Mercenaries) John Kani (as Sgt. Jesse Blake), Kenneth Griffith (as Medical Orderly Arthur Witty), Ronald Fraser (as Sgt Jock McTaggart), Ian Yule (as Sgt Tosh Donaldson) Winston Ntshona (as President Julius Limbani, deposed leader), Barry Foster (as Thomas Balfour, Matheson's liaison officer), Frank Finlay (as Father Geoghagen, missionary), Patrick Allen (as Rushton, government adviser), David Ladd (as Sonny Martin, American mafia), Jeff Corey (as Mr Martin, Sonny's uncle), Paul Spurrier (as Emile, Janders' young son) |
| Starlets: | Rosalind Lloyd (as Heather, casino dealer girlfriend of Flynn), Valerie Leon (as Casiono dealer), Jeannie Collings (as Sonny's girlfriend, [non-speaking bit-part, credited as Joanna Collings]), Anna Bergman (as Sonny's Girlfriend, [non-speaking bit-part]), Suzanne Danielle (Girl at party, [uncredited walk-on bit-part]) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel The Wild Geese by Daniel Carney |
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The title comes about because the mercenaries' call sign was "Wild Goose" |
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There was a follow-up film called Wild Geese II (1985). It had a different cast and a different set of characters linked to the first film by one of them (Edward Fox) being Colonel Allen Faulkner's brother. |
| Writer/Director: Frank Launder / Producer: E.M. Smedley-Aston | |
| Type: Comedy | Running Time: 87 mins |
| The St Trinian's pupils action committee decide they have had enough of being pushed around and decide to set up a Trade Union for British Schoolgirls so they can go on strike to force changes. They ask their trusted confidant Flash Harry for advice and he says it will only be effective and get noticed if all the schools in the country are involved.
So the 4th-6th formers start a programme of infiltration of other schools forming action cells and signing up new members. Flash Harry says they must get the posh schools too so they intercept one girl called Angela going to Highdown Ladies college and substitute one of their own girls in her place and then keep Angela prisoner at St Trinian's. The Union becomes fully subscribed and the girls take action - at Highdown the St Trinian's substitute creates such mayhem that she is expelled and this gives the Union the pretext to call an all-out strike of British schoolgirls. Unfortunately Angela is actually a princess daughter of an important prince from a middle-eastern oil producing country and the authorities are desperate to get her back as well as put a stop to the strike action. The Government Ministry for Female Education gets involved although no one there cares for the assignment because the very name of St Trinian's strikes dread into all those who work there. A couple of them are sent to infiltrate the school but are quickly repelled with their dignity not intact. In desperation the minister calls on the leader of Left-Action Democratic Students Union (L.A.D.S.) and suggests they try and merge with the Schoolgirls Union and take it over and in return they get 200,000 new members. The L.A.D.S. boys target the St Trinian's sixth form girls wooing them and inviting them to a dance with the object of getting a signature to transfer control. But the St Trinian's fourth and fifth formers are having none of it and disgusted at their boy-crazy turncoat "sisters" they storm the party and scupper the minister's plan. Due to the involvement of an undercover detective posing as a teacher the Princess is returned but the minister ultimately decides the only way to end the strike action is to give into all the girls' demands which includes some demeaning domestic duties for him and his staff. | |
| Comment: This latter day St Trinian's film is rarely seen. Whenever TV runs a season of St Trinian's films this one is never included. One might think this is because it is a sleazy, seedy cash-in soft-porn effort bastardising the good name of the series. But far from it - it is actually a perfectly adequate entry into the series which is much in keeping with the type of stories the 50s and 60s films are known for. In fact it's even possible that in 1980 it might have been considered a bit dated - but now a couple of decades on this hardly matters and it can be taken on its own merits regardless of when it was made. There is no strong language and only a very minor bit of nudity when a teacher and a sixth former's bottoms are seem when they go skinny dipping in the sea to have a race. As far as I can tell it is an "official" film in that it makes good and liberal use of the glorious St Trinian's theme tune by Malcolm Arnold. | |
| Starring: | Sheila Hancock (as Olga Vandemeer, St Trinian's headmistress), Michael Hordern (as Sir Charles Hackforth, government minister), Joe Melia (as Flash Harry) |
| Featuring: | Thorley Walters, Rodney Bewes, Deborah Norton (as Ministry people), Maureen Lipman (as Katy Higgs, Private Detective), Julia McKenzie (as Miss Dormancott, Highdown headmistress), Veronica Quilligan (as Lizzie Strutton, lead St Trinian's girl), Luan Peters (as Miss Poppy Adams, St Trinian's games mistress) |
| Familiar Faces: | Hilda Braid, Ballard Berkeley |
| Starlets: | Lisa Vanderpump, Debbie Linden (as St Trinian's Sixth formers), Gloria Brittain |
| NOTES: | |
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This is a belated fifth St Trinian's film. The previous four were:- The Belles of St. Trinian's (1954), Blue Murder at St. Trinian's (1957), The Pure Hell of St. Trinian's (1960) and The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery (1966). |
| Wish You Were Here (1987) | Previous Next |
| Writer/Director: David Leland / Producer: Sarah Radclyffe | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 88 mins |
| In a south coast seaside town in the late 1940s Lynda Mansell is a teenager whose rebellious attitude is at odds with the austere times. She has a sunny disposition but is wilful with a bright-line in artful backchat and entirely unmindful of her language. Her widowed father Hubert despairs at her behaviour which causes her to stand out as a constant source of embarrassment to him. Now Lynda is older she is beginning to discover a liking for boys and has a frank liberated attitude to chat-up rituals that undermine regular conventions of social courtship. She is sensible and always makes the lads she dates take precautions - however the young lads are always in such a rush and Lynda finds things a bit unsatisfactory. She loves the attention that her exhibitionist tendencies bring her but it makes her father fear for her sanity and he takes her to a psychiatrist to try and find out why she has no normal inhibitions. The specialist believes that the trauma of her mother's early death when Lynda was 11 may be at the root of Lynda's problems but her father cannot afford the treatment which would be required to continue - so he just decides to let things run their course hoping that maybe she'll grow out of it.
One of Hubert's friends called Eric is a sleazy creep in his 50s who works as a cinema projectionist. He has a liking for young girls and sets out to opportunistically seduce Lynda. Although Lynda finds Eric repellent she eventually lets him have sex with her because as a more experienced man he is likely to take the proper amount of time with her to do it properly. He declines to use protection however claiming it is not necessary because he knows what he's doing. Lynda's father finds out what she's been doing and lets her know how disappointed he is in her. So she leaves home and goes to stay with Eric in his seedy little apartment. But she hates it there and soon leaves to go and work as a waitress in some tearooms and share a flat with a girlfriend. She discovers she is pregnant by Eric but refuses to go back to him even when he begs her. Her aunt advises her that as an unmarried girl she should have the baby terminated at a back street abortionist or certainly have it adopted as soon as it is born. But true to her individualistic unconventional self, Lynda decides to have the baby and keep it and she takes great delight in wheeling her baby proudly around town in her breezy confident manner caring not two-hoots what anyone may think. THE END | |
| Starring: | Emily Lloyd (as Lynda Mansell), Geoffrey Hutchings (as Hubert Mansell, Lynda's father), Tom Bell (as Eric, sleazy creep), Jesse Birdsall (as Dave, bus company worker) |
| Featuring: | Chloe Leland (as Margaret, Lynda's younger sister), Geoffrey Durham (as Lynda's uncle), Sheila Kelley (as Lynda's aunt), Heathcote Williams (as Psychiatrist), Kim McDermott (as Vickie, Lynda's waitress friend at tearooms), Susan Skipper (as Lynda's Mother, in flashback), Charlotte Ball (as Younger Lynda, in flashback) |
| Witchcraft (1964) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Harry Spalding / Director: Don Sharp / Producers: Robert Lippert, Jack Parsons | |
| Type: Horror | Running Time: 79 mins |
| Set in the present day (1964). Bill Lanier runs a building development company that has won permission to build on the site of an old graveyard. The cemetery has not been in use for 150 years but was once the burial site of the Whitlock family for over 800 years. Their descendant Morgan Whitlock raised strong objections to the development and refused to countenance relocating the graves. Therefore the bulldozers have been sent in by Lanier's headstrong partner Myles Forrester who is fed up with the project being delayed by one stubborn agitator. The heavy machinery churns the earth and coffins are exposed. One of the coffins disturbed is that of Vanessa Whitlock who died in 1630.
The Laniers and Whitlocks have a natural enmity that stretches back to the 1600s when the Whitlocks were big landowners in the area. The Laniers arrived and had the Whitlock family accused of witchcraft including Vanessa Whitlock who was condemned to death by being buried alive. The Whitlocks were driven out of their home and the Laniers moved in and there they remain to this day. The current Lanier family have no antipathy towards the Whitlocks but Morgan Whitlock is full of rage and vows to keep the feud going until the Lanier family is destroyed. Whitlock's niece Amy is going out with Bill's younger brother Todd but they keep it secret because of Whitlock's hostility to Todd's family. Amy lives alone with her uncle and is scared of doing anything to defy him. In the graveyard that night the remains of Vanessa Whitlock recorporealise and she walks once more with revenge in her heart. She was indeed a witch in the 1600s as were other members of her family. That tradition continues to this day and Morgan Whitlock is leader of the current coven. Amy is not involved although Whitlock intends to soon induct her whether she wants to or not. Soon after Vanessa's resurrection mysterious deaths begin to occur. Myles Forrester is drowned in his bath and Bill's Aunt Helen drives her car off a cliff for no reason. The police arrest Morgan Whitlock as a suspect on circumstantial evidence and Amy comes to stay with the Laniers so she doesn't have to be by herself. Bill and Todd go on a business trip to London and only just manage to avert a fatal disaster themselves. Bill realises that some power can take over their minds and make them see things that are not there. Back at the house that night Bill's wife Jill observes Amy going into the family crypt. Jill follows and sees a coven holding a satanic ritual in which Amy has been initiated into the sect by the force of her uncle's will. Jill is captured and tied to an altar stone where she is left ready to be a sacrifice for a special Sabbath day ceremony the next night When Bill and Todd return the next day they cannot find Jill and frantically search. That evening Bill's elderly grandmother Malvina manages to indicate where Jill went and the two men search the crypt. They find Jill but then the coven arrive for their ceremony in which they will exult the return of Vanessa Whitlock as their High Priestess. Bill and Jill escape but Todd sees that Amy is amongst them and stays to try and save her. Whitlock decides Todd will make as good a sacrifice as the absconded Jill to honour Vanessa. Amy refuses to harm Todd when so instructed by her uncle and pushes over a burning cauldron in defiance. Vanessa's robes catch fire and she burns to death in a manner that destroys a witch forever. The fire takes hold and since the crypt is beneath the main house the entire building catches alight. Todd tries to save Amy but the fire is too intense and she dies along with Morgan Whitlock. The Laniers are safe but have to stand and watch helplessly as their house burns to the ground. | |
| Starring: | Jack Hedley (as Bill Lanier), Jill Dixon (as Tracy Lanier, Bill's wife), Viola Keats (as Helen Lanier, Bill's aunt), David Weston (as Todd Lanier, Bill's younger brother), Lon Chaney (as Morgan Whitlock), Diane Clare (as Amy Whitlock, Morgan's niece), Marie Ney (as Malvina Lanier, Bill's grandmother) |
| Featuring: | Victor Brooks (as Inspector Baldwin, detective), Barry Linehan (as Myles Forrester, Bill's business partner), Yvette Rees (as Vanessa Whitlock, resurrected witch), Marianne Stone (as Forrester's Secretary), John Dunbar (as Doctor), Hilda Fennemore (as Nurse) |
| NOTES: | |
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Made in Black and White |
| The Witches (1966) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Nigel Kneale / Director: Cyril Frankel / Producer: Anthony Nelson Keys | |
| Type: Horror | Running Time: 87 mins |
| Gwen Mayfield is a teacher who has recently returned from a mission school in Africa after having a bad experience with the local superstitious natives. She suffered a breakdown after a terrifying experience at the hands of a witch doctor but has now recovered. She is delighted to be accepted as the new headmistress at a small school run by rich brother and sister Alan and Stephanie Bax in the village of Heddaby.
Alan is a bit of an eccentric who likes dressing up as a vicar although there is no church in the village other than an old abandoned one that is half in ruins. Elder sister Stephanie is the more dominant presence and a famous article writer well known for her forthright and informed views. Gwen's class at school contains children of all ages - the elder of the girls is 14-year-old Linda Rigg just flowering into womanhood. She is inseparable from her boy friend of a similar age called Ronnie Dowsett. Gwen sees this as quite normal for children their age although she gets the impression from some townspeople that the relationship is not approved of. Linda lives with her grandmother who is especially disapproving. Granny Rigg is considered by some to be a witch able to put curses on people and so when Ronnie falls sick and goes into a coma there is talk of it being Granny Rigg's doing using magic to protect her young granddaughter. After a few days Ronnie recovers and is taken away by his mother to live elsewhere. Gwen knows Mrs Dowsett visited Granny Rigg the previous day and wonders to herself that perhaps if there is anything to this witchcraft theory then maybe the two women came to an arrangement whereby Ronnie would be allowed to recover if he was taken away. Ronnie's father stays behind - he has lived in this village all his life and doesn't see why they should have to leave - and after a bout of drinking he declares he is going to see Granny and have it out with her. Next day Mr Dowsett is found dead in the duck pond and Gwen thinks he was deliberately drowned when she sees lots of barefooted footprints in the muddy edges. Gwen wonders why the townspeople would go to so much trouble to protect the purity of one young girl until she suddenly has a troubled thought - perhaps Linda is being kept virginal for some kind of black magic ceremony requiring a virgin sacrifice! But before Gwen can investigate her suspicions she is hit by a relapse of the condition she experienced following her African ordeal and is taken to a nursing home suffering memory loss. She spends some time in care and when she is sufficiently better the doctor, who is a friend of the Bax's, recommends she spend some time recuperating in Cornwall. But Gwen gives the medical staff the slip and makes her way back to the village and to the Bax residence. Stephanie is delighted to see her again and invites her to stay while she recovers. The latest news is that during Gwen's absence young Linda has gone missing. Looking from her bedroom window at night Gwen sees many of the townspeople making their way to the ruined church and Gwen follows - there she sees a congregation performing some sort of black magic ritual and the high priestess leading them is Stephanie! She is the powerful witch who has the townspeople in her thrall. Stephanie takes Gwen back to the house and explains her intentions which she believes are for the greater good. Stephanie considers herself a learned person who uses her wisdom and understanding for the benefit of mankind in the ideas she puts forward in her articles. Although not yet elderly she is getting on a bit and knows how much she could go on to achieve if only she had a second lifetime to live with which to capitalise upon her current lifetime's accumulated wisdom and experience. To this end she has unearthed a rite in an ancient 14th century book which describes how a virgin of exactly 14 years and 9 months can be sacrificed and her skin be worn to give the seeker a new life. Powerful dark forces are involved and the text warns that no blood other than the victim's must be spilled at the ceremony lest the power be turned upon the seeker. Linda has now reached the required age and the ritual is to take place that night. Gwen is allowed to witness the ceremony for which the townspeople have been driven into a frenzy of excitement by Stephanie's occult incantations. An entranced Linda is brought forward to be sacrificed with a ceremonial dagger and the local butcher stands ready to skin her. But as Stephanie raises the dagger to strike Gwen remembers the ancient text's dire warning and rushes forward taking the butcher's knife and cuts her own arm spilling blood onto Stephanie's robes. This is in defiance of the set rites and Stephanie screams and falls to the ground dead. Linda recovers and without the powerful witch's influence the townspeople come to their senses and return to their normal lives. | |
| Starring: | Joan Fontaine (as Gwen Mayfield), Kay Walsh (as Stephanie Bax), Alec McCowen (as Alan Bax) |
| Featuring: | Leonard Rossiter (as Dr Wallis), Ingrid Brett (as Linda Rigg), Michele Dotrice (as Valerie Creek, grocer's daughter), Ann Bell (as Sally Benson, schoolteacher), Martin Stephens (as Ronnie Dowsett), John Collin (as Mr Dowsett, his father), Carmel McSharry (as Mrs Dowsett, his mother), Shelagh Fraser (as Mrs Creek, Valerie's mother), Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies (as Granny Rigg), Duncan Lamont (as Bob Curd, butcher) |
| Familiar Faces: | Bryan Marshall (man at ceremony), Rudolph Walker (scared African man working in mission hut with Gwen during prologue) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel The Devil's Own by Peter Curtis. |
| Witchfinder General (1968) | Previous Next |
| aka: Matthew Hopkins - Witchfinder General | |
| Writers: Tom Baker, Reeves / Director: Michael Reeves / Producers: Louis M. Heyward, Arnold Miller, Philip Waddilove | |
| Type: Horror | Running Time: 82 mins |
| England in 1645 is in a state of civil war between King Charles' royalists and Oliver Cromwell's parliamentary party. Law and order has broken down and local town magistrates wield the power to indulge their personal whims of justice. Amid this atmosphere unscrupulous men emerge who seek to take advantage of the simple folks powerful superstitious beliefs - men like Matthew Hopkins working with parliamentary decree to tighten up lawlessness and eliminate witchcraft. Hopkins preys on the innocent creating a climate of heightened fear as he roams the country following up leads on reported witchery often fuelled by local jealousies or vindictiveness. He extracts confessions by torture or intimidation or relies on false testimony and hangs or burns the culprits receiving payment from the local magistrate for each one.
Amid this background the main story involves Richard Marshall, a cavalier in Cromwell's roundheads. He takes leave to propose to the love of his life Sara Lowes seeking the duly given consent of her uncle John Lowes. Later back on duty he receives word that the witchfinder has visited that area and John Lowes has been executed for witchery. Marshall returns vowing bloody revenge on Hopkins and his sadistic companion John Stearne - a threat which Hopkins takes seriously - and he and Stearne decide to have Marshall accused of witchcraft to rid themselves of him. Finding someone to falsely accuse Marshall proves no problem and they duly capture him and Sara - using her torture to try and get him to confess - since being seen to follow due process of the law is still important to Hopkins. Marshall's cavalier friends help free him and he exacts his revenge on Hopkins, beating him to death. | |
| Starring: | Vincent Price (as Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder), Ian Ogilvy (as Richard Marshall), Hilary Dwyer (as Sara Lowes) Robert Russell (as John Stearne, Hopkins' henchman) |
| Featuring: | Rupert Davies (as John Lowes, Sara's uncle), Nicky Henson (as Trooper Robert Swallow), Patrick Wymark (as Oliver Cromwell) |
| Familiar Faces: | Tony Selby, Wilfrid Brambell |
| Starlets: | Maggie Kimberly, Maggie Nolan, Sally Douglas, Donna Reading |
| NOTES: | |
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Hilary Dwyer receives an "introducing" credit. |
| Women in Love (1969) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Larry Kramer / Director: Ken Russell / Producers: Larry Kramer, Martin Rosen | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 124 mins |
| In the early 1900s, two sisters Gudrun and Ursula Brangwen are both schoolteachers on the fringes of the social upper class. Together they dream of and contemplate the merits of marriage and social advancement. Rupert Birkin is a school inspector who is an intellectual with a profound take on the meaning of love - he is friends with Gerald Crich, a rich and intense mine owner who provides work for the area and owns a vast estate.
The four of them meet up at a garden party held on the Crich estate and they settle into relationships:- Rupert and Ursula form one couple and Gerald and Gudrun as the other. Together and separately they try to discover and define their feelings and what love means to each of them. This concludes with a skiing holiday in which the more ardently passionate affair of Gerald and Gudrun burns itself out whilst the more leisurely and contemplatively sensuous relationship of Rupert and Ursula seems to persist even though she finds some of his ideas about the nature of love a bit hard to accept. | |
| Comment: It's a very talky film with not all that much plotwise to comment on - in places it does get a bit dull. | |
| Starring: | Alan Bates (as Rupert Birkin), Oliver Reed (as Gerald Crich), Glenda Jackson (as Gudrun Brangwen), Jennie Linden (as Ursula Brangwen) |
| Featuring: | Eleanor Bron (as Hermione Roddice, Rupert's girlfriend), Alan Webb (as Thomas Crich, Gerald's father), Catherine Willmer (as Mrs Crich, Gerald's mother), Vladek Sheybal (as Loerke, man on skiing holiday), Sarah Nicholls (as Winifred Crich, Gerald's young sister), Sharon Gurney (as Laura Crich, Gerald's married sister), Christopher Gable (as Tibby Lupton, Laura's husband), Michael Gough and Norma Shebbeare (as Mr and Mrs Brangwen, Gudrun and Ursula's parents, cameo roles) |
| Starlets: | Nike Arrighi (as Contessa) |
| NOTES: | |
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From the novel by D.H. Lawrence |
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Events from earlier in the teenage life of Jennie Linden's character Ursula are told in a subsequent film adaptation of The Rainbow (1988) which was also directed by Ken Russell. In that film Ursula is played by Sammi Davis and although her younger sister Gudrun also features she is very much a minor character. Glenda Jackson appears again in the later film playing a different character (the sisters' mother). Although filmed in reverse the books were originally written in a chronological order. |
| Wonderful Life (1964) | Previous Next |
| Writers: Peter Myers, Ronald Cass / Director: Sidney J. Furie / Producer: Kenneth Harper | |
| Type: Musical / Drama | Running Time: 109 mins |
| Johnnie and his mates, Jerry and Edward, are stewards on a cruise liner from which they and their four-man music-combo friends (The Shadows) are cast adrift in a lifeboat for causing a ship-wide power blackout with their music amplifier. They reach one of the Canary Islands where they are effectively stranded because of being blacklisted from ever working on a ship again. They decide their only option is to somehow earn enough money to buy passage home. They meet a photographer called Miguel who tells them that pickers are needed in a banana plantation out in the desert.
They head off in search of the plantation until they spot a young woman on top of a runaway camel shouting for help. Johnnie springs into action and heroically brings the camel under control. But he soon finds out he has made a big mistake because the camel incident was a scene from a movie which he has messed up. The movie director's name is Lloyd Davis and he is very displeased to have his shot ruined. The leading man Douglas Leslie was supposed to stop the camel but he has developed an irrational fear of danger and can no longer do anything risky. Johnnie sees an opportunity and suggests himself to work as a stuntman to do all the dangerous stuff for Leslie. Davis agrees and Johnnie even manages to wangle jobs for his friends providing refreshments for cast and crew. The pretty girl on the camel is an actress called Jenny Taylor who is the film's leading lady but she is glum because the director is always criticising her for her poor performances and she has lost all confidence in her abilities. Jenny has never worked on a film before and is only used to working in stage musicals. Jenny and Johnnie hit it off and together with the script girl, Barbara Tate, they form a little clique of friends on the set. Lloyd Davis is an old-time director, who was once a big name, but his star has faded and he knows that this swashbuckler film is his last opportunity to re-establish his credentials. But the script is very old hat and his leading lady is lifeless. Davis is pleased with his action sequences but knows the dialogue scenes are falling flat. The gang of friends find a spare camera and secretly film Jenny improvising a scene with Johnnie and in the footage she is radiant - but only when she does not know she is being filmed. So Johnnie and his friends decide to make a film of their own with Jenny as its unknowing star in scenes that they contrive to involve her in alongside Johnnie dressed as the leading man. They then secretly film footage of Lloyd Davis's action scene setups concentrating on shots of Johnnie when he is doubling for Douglas Leslie. Lloyd Davis finds out that the pals are piggybacking his setups to film their own stuff and forbids them use of any company equipment. But they borrow an old movie camera from Miguel and carry on regardless. Jenny and Johnnie have been getting close and seem to be falling in love with each other. Then Jenny finds out how Johnnie has been deceiving her into unwittingly starring in his film and she thinks he has only been pretending to like her. Johnnie persuades her he really cares for her and she agrees to complete the filming of his scenes. She reveals that her surname isn't really "Taylor" and that she is actually Lloyd Davis's daughter and that is the reason he has been so hard on her which in turn has inhibited her from giving a natural performance - but under Johnnie's direction she is able to give the performance she wanted. When the pals view their finished film they are really disappointed. The scenes with Jenny in are great but the action stuff is poor and amateurish looking because the nature of the secret filming meant the camera had been too poorly positioned to capture the full scope of it. Meanwhile Lloyd Davis watches his finished film too and whilst his action sequences are magnificent set pieces, all the scenes with Jenny in are an unfortunate let down. Lloyd Davis and Johnnie come to an agreement and decide to combine their footage using the best from each. Lloyd's action sequences and Johnnie's dialogue scenes involving Jenny. The only difficulty is that Douglas Leslie is the star of Lloyd's footage whilst Johnnie is the leading man in his own footage. So they film some additional footage to explain that the two men are brothers and mesh the two together. Lloyd is pleased with the re-assembled film and gives Johnnie a co-director credit in recognition of his effort and in acknowledgment that he will soon be his son-in-law because Johnnie and Jenny plan to marry. The film is a sensation at its premiere, with the blend of Johnnie's youthful style and Lloyd's seasoned experience proving a winning combination | |
| Starring: | Cliff Richard (as Johnnie), Susan Hampshire (as Jenny Taylor, actress), Walter Slezak (as Lloyd Davis, movie director), Melvyn Hayes (as Jerry, Johnnie's friend), Richard O'Sullivan (as Edward, Johnnie's brainy friend), Una Stubbs (as Barbara Tate, script girl) |
| Featuring: | Derek Bond (as Douglas Leslie, film's leading man), Joe Cuby (as Miguel, local photographer), Gerald Harper (in multiple cameo roles) Hank B. Marvin, Bruce Welch, Brian Bennett and John Rostill (as Johnnie's music-combo friends, [The Shadows]) |
| Wonderwall (1968) | Previous Next |
| Writer: G Cain / Director: Joe Massot / Producer: Andrew Braunsberg | |
| Type: Comedy | Running Time: 74 mins |
| Professor Oscar Collins is an absent-minded research scientist who studies microbes in his laboratory. He becomes so focussed on his studies that he needs to use cue cards to remind him to do daily routine domestic tasks that he is otherwise sure to forget. Even at home in his apartment he immerses himself fully in his private hobby of entomology and has little interaction with other people.
When his new neighbour holds a loud party he throws a book at the adjoining wall in annoyance and this dislodges a display cabinet which reveals a hole into the neighbouring apartment. With curiosity he looks through and sees his neighbour - a young woman called Penny. Penny works as a fashion model and the professor becomes fascinated by her life - her partying ways and swinging psychedelic lifestyle is beyond his comprehension. He becomes intrigued to learn everything he can about her behaviour patterns and activities and he begins to study her through the peephole as he would a laboratory specimen. He even drills new holes in other parts of the wall so that he can observe what she does in the other rooms of her apartment - both when she is alone and other times when her boyfriend is with her - later he installs microphones so he can also hear conversations. The professor becomes obsessed by his new project and takes time off work so that he can focus on this sole task which he has come to think of as an important experiment for the benefit of mankind. Over the days and weeks that follow the professor witnesses some highs and lows in Penny's life and he starts to have surreal daydreams about her which feature himself as a heroic figure in her life with supreme control over her environment - although actually he has never even spoken to her. Penny is on the verge of a big break in the modelling world when she learns she is pregnant and she becomes terribly depressed that it will ruin her career. She takes an overdose of sleeping pills and turns on the gas unlit to kill herself unaware that the professor is watching. The professor raises the alarm and Penny's life is saved and the professor makes the newspapers for being the unlikely hero who saves a promising fashion model from death. The professor returns to work but even though his study of Penny is now over, images of her still pervade his thoughts. | |
| Starring: | Jack MacGowran (as Professor Oscar Collins), Jane Birkin (as Penny Lane) |
| Featuring: | Irene Handl (as Mrs Peurofoy, professor's charwoman), Richard Wattis (as Perkins, science lab co-worker), Iain Quarrier (as Penny's boyfriend) |
| NOTES: | |
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Original story by Gérard Brach |
| Writer: Jeremy Brooks / Director: Peter Hall / Producer: Thomas Clyde | |
| Type: Comedy | Running Time: 86 mins |
| Set a few years in the future (of 1968) in the sprawling municipal of DICE located at the throbbing heart of England. DICE (Domestic Industries Community Estate) is a fully-planned society in which every industrial process is fully automated requiring no human intervention. However job quota regulations are such that everyone must be employed and so all the inhabitants are required to work about half-an-hour a day on full pay with the rest of the time available for their own leisure. The menial jobs they do are totally unnecessary and mostly involve sitting watching a production line go by with no involvement by them required.
Valentine (Val) Brose is a man who has no time for any of that nonsense being too self-absorbed in his own interests - his current obsession is the horticultural growth of Mexican mushrooms in his basement. However he is having no success because he cannot provide conditions that are warm and steamy enough to suit them. His girlfriend is Betty Dorrick who wishes he would get a job so they could settle down and get married - she reads the situations vacant to him and one such job on offer is that of a nighttime Auxiliary Attendant at the fully automated power plant. This job rouses Val's interest because he figures that the plant's boiler room would be a suitably steamy environment into which he could re-locate his disappointingly unresponsive mushroom crop. Val visits the DICE headquarters building called Centrepoint to apply for the job. He has a hopeless ineptitude with machinery with an uncanny knack of breaking anything he tries to use. The Managing Director Mr Price finds him exasperating and wishes he didn't have to employ him but the personnel manager Mrs Murray reminds her boss they have an obligation to meet and the power plant job seems safe enough as all it involves is sweeping up. The duties of the completely contrived quota-filling job involve nothing else but Val having to nightly sweep out the restroom hut that has been built specially for the sweeper to rest in after completing his work sweeping the hut. The hut is constructed within the plant area but Val is not required to do any sweeping work outside of his designated duties. He smuggles in his mushroom growing crates and positions them near the boilers but when they do not seem to be delivering the correct amount of steam he thinks nothing of adjusting valves and dials until he achieves the ideal conditions he is after. Now that he has a job Val and Betty are able to quickly get married although Betty is soon dismayed to find that for their honeymoon he has chosen to take her to live in the power plant. Val is also causing anxiety for the personnel manager Mrs Murray who is becoming increasingly stressed that Val wants to work longer hours than his shift requires and even wants to work at the weekends (which is unheard of) - she becomes a blubbering and incoherent wreck trying to reason with Val to work shorter hours and she calls Mr Price to come and help her. And furthermore the power plant control room manager has noticed some anomalous readings on his normally uneventful board which have built up as a result of Val's adjustments causing alarms to sound. All these people meet up in the power plant looking for Val who is oblivious to all the havoc he has created with his only concern being his delight that his mushrooms have now grown. When he nibbles at one he notices it gives him a strange feeling of light-headedness and he persuades all the people angry at him to also try some. They too feel elated as the mushrooms' hallucinogenic qualities dally with their senses. No one cares any longer about their various grouses with Val as they fool around abandoning all their cares and inhibitions and when the power plant manager shuts down the generator and all the lights in the city go off everyone applauds in delight. All around the plant machinery, the mushrooms have started to grow in every nook and cranny with more than enough to keep everyone happy for ages. The newlyweds leave them to it and head off into the countryside as Val says he's had enough of mushrooms now as they've proved too easy to grow in the end and he needs a new challenge. | |
| Starring: | David Warner (as Valentine Brose), Cilla Black (as Betty Dorrick, his girlfriend), David Waller (as Mr Price, Managing Director of DICE), Elizabeth Spriggs (as Mrs Murray, Personnel Manager) |
| Featuring: | Zia Mohyeddin (as Dr Aly Narayana, power plant control room technician), Jan Holden (as Mrs Price, wife of MD), John Steiner (as Anthony, on DICE management board), Derek Royle (as Briggs, Powerplant guard), Alan Howard (as Reverend Mort), Tony Church (as Mr Arkwright, Price's aide) |
| NOTES: | |
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Adapted from the play "EH?" by Henry Livings |
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Cilla Black appears in a straight acting role - not as a singer of any sort (although she does sing the theme tune) |
| Writer: Jackie Collins / Director: Robert Young / Producers: Malcolm Fancey, Oscar S. Lerman | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 102 mins |
| David Cooper is an advertising executive whose latest campaign for a beauty soap features his mistress Claudia Parker. Claudia is a young ambitious model/actress who will sleep with anyone who can advance her prospects. David's wife Linda is strongly suspicious of David's affairs but without direct evidence prefers to turn a blind eye.
At the launch of David's new television ad campaign Linda meets young pop star Gem Gemini who is singing the jingle and she is taken by his charming manner and attentiveness towards her although she declines his various offers to meet again because she is married. Claudia meets film producer Conrad Lee who promises her a part in his movie but makes it clear that certain sexual favours will be required first which is not something she has a problem with. At another party Linda sees David and Claudia having sex in a side room and confronted with direct evidence of his infidelity she kicks David out of the family home. She then decides to take up Gem Gemini's offer and they become lovers. Claudia meanwhile is having to submit herself to humiliating degrading sex acts with Conrad not realising he is just stringing her along with no intention of helping her acting career. David tries to celebrate his freedom from his wife with a string of prostitutes but can't seem to perform. On the television news he hears a showbiz story about Gem Gemini and his new partner Linda. Enraged by this David goes to the venue where Gem is singing live and shoots him dead on stage. The End. | |
| Starring: | Anthony Franciosa (as David Cooper), Carroll Baker (as Linda Cooper), Sherrie Lee Cronn (as Claudia Parker), Paul Nicholas (as Gem Gemini) |
| Featuring: | Anthony Steel (as Conrad Lee), Gareth Hunt, Georgina Hale, Jean Gilpin |
| Starlets: | Moira Downie, Alison Elliott, Susie Silvey, Stephanie Marrian, Penny Kendall, Lindy Benson, Vida, Christine Donna, Pat Astley, Nicki Austin, Adele Neatrour, Nova Llewellyn, Helli Louise |
| NOTES: | |
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Sherrie Lee Cronn receives an "introducing" credit. |
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Bonnie Tyler sings the theme tune in-vision to camera during opening titles. |
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The "Vida" in this film is placed on porn-star Vida Garman's credits on IMDB (Last checked: Jan 2006). But her porn film career seems to start in about 1991 and according to the stated DOB would have been just 13 in 1979. So this "Vida" is someone different. |
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The director is credited as Robert William Young |
| The Wrong Box (1966) | Previous Next |
| Writers: Larry Gelbart, Burt Shevelove / Director/Producer: Bryan Forbes | |
| Type: Comedy | Running Time: 101 mins |
| In the early 1900s a special trust fund known as a tontine is created for the twenty young sons of the extended Finsbury family into which each parent places £1000. The tontine is a long-term lottery scheme in which the original £20,000 and any growth will be inherited by whichever boy is the last surviving. In the years that go by the various participating cousins and brothers grow up into men and gradually begin to die through war or accident until we reach the present day (1966) when only two remain alive. They are brothers Masterman and Joseph Finsbury and are both now in their twilight years. Masterman lives in London with his earnest but naïve-minded nephew Michael. Masterman is sickly and on the verge of death and asks that Joseph be sent for. Joseph lives in Bournemouth with his two nephews Morris and John. The two nephews are determined that they will benefit from the tontine via their uncle and shield him from any possible harm so that he will outlive his brother. They are delighted when they receive the telegraph announcing Masterman's imminent demise and sense victory in their sights.
But their train to London crashes while Joseph is visiting the toilet cubicle and in the aftermath the nephews think Uncle Joseph has been killed when they see a mutilated body wearing his coat. What they don't know is that a stranger had stolen Joseph's coat and it is the thief's body they have found. Morris and John are determined to keep the death secret until Masterman has died so they can claim Joseph died afterwards. They crate up the body and send it to Joseph's London address which is next door to Masterman's. Their eventual intention is to make it seem Joseph fell down the stairs in shock upon hearing of his brother's death and so sustained his fatal injuries. At Joseph's London address lives Julia Finsbury who is Joseph's ward and she is secretly in love with her "cousin" Michael next-door and he vice-versa. Meanwhile, following the train crash, Joseph makes his own way to London and stays at his club. Masterman is in financial difficulties and has had to sell all his valuables. One buyer was not satisfied with a statue she bought and sends it back in a crate. Unfortunately that crate and the one with the dead body arrive on the same freight train and get delivered to the wrong addresses which adds to the upcoming confusion. It turns out that Masterman is not ill at all and has sent for Joseph so he can kill him and win the tontine to solve his money worries. Further farcical twists and turns ensue as circumstances contrive to make it seem that Masterman has died and Morris and John arrange a rush funeral for their uncle Joseph whose body they cannot now produce because they (unaccountably) have a statue instead. They manage to convince the solicitor that Joseph is dead with a bogus death certificate and get hold of the money which has accumulated to be worth £111,000. But Michael realises what has happened and gives chase in a slapstick finale in funeral hearses. In the end both uncles prove themselves to be still very much alive and Joseph decides that neither of them should have the money and it should go instead to his ward Julia and her soon-to-be-husband Michael. The scheming cousins Morris and John are left with nothing. | |
| Comment: There are many twists and turns to this comedy farce that are too numerous to try and cram into the above description and keep it relatively coherent - but hopefully the essence of the story comes across. | |
| Starring: | (Last two tontine survivors) John Mills (as Masterman Finsbury), Ralph Richardson (as Joseph Finsbury) (also) Michael Caine (as Michael Finsbury, Masterman's nephew), Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (as Morris and John Finsbury, Joseph's nephews), Nanette Newman (as Julia Finsbury, Joseph's ward), Wilfrid Lawson (as Peacock, Masterman's elderly butler) Star-turns: Peter Sellers (as Doctor Pratt, corrupt doctor, [one scene]), Tony Hancock (as Detective, [smallish role near end of film]) |
| Familiar Faces: | John Junkin (as Train Driver), John Le Mesurier (as Dr Slattery, Masterman's doctor) (cameo death scenes in prologue sequences) Jeremy Lloyd, James Villiers, Graham Stark, Nicholas Parsons, Leonard Rossiter |
| NOTES: | |
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Suggested by the novel of the same name by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne |
| Wuthering Heights (1970) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Patrick Tilley / Director: Robert Fuest / Producers: Samuel Z. Arkoff, James H. Nicholson | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 104 mins |
| Set in rural Yorkshire in the 1800s. The Earnshaw family live at a farm called "Wuthering Heights" which provides a modest income although they are not rich. Mr and Mrs Earnshaw live there with their two children Cathy and Hindley and their young maid Nellie. One day Mr Earnshaw unexpectedly brings home a waif he found on a trip to Liverpool and announces that the boy is to come and live with them. The boy is a scruffy urchin called Heathcliff with a grim solemnity that seems to put most people ill at ease. Hindley takes an instant dislike to Heathcliff especially when it seems his father favours the newcomer over him. Cathy however feels strong empathy with Heathcliff which binds them together in a strong friendship.
Two years later Mrs Earnshaw dies and Mr Earnshaw becomes a peevish man with no purpose left in life. Bitter Hindley still resents Heathcliff's presence in the family and so to make amends Mr Earnshaw agrees to send his son off to college to get a good education. Cathy and Heathcliff are now in their teenage years with their bond of friendship growing ever closer as they visit their favourite place upon the moors by the black rocks. With no mother figure to guide her Cathy has become like a feral child with no regard to ladylike manner. Heathcliff has a brooding rage that only Cathy can calm. As Cathy and Heathcliff approach young adulthood Mr Earnshaw passes peacefully away. And then it is time for Hindley to return from college after many years away to assume his position of master of Wuthering Heights. Hindley is a changed man with a confidence and strength about him, but none of the compassion that distinguished his father. Hindley has brought with him a wife called Frances and one of Hindley's first changes is relegate Heathcliff's position in the household to that of a servant for which he must earn his keep. Hindley never misses an opportunity to make life as difficult as possible for Heathcliff. Heathcliff is seething with hatred for Hindley and doesn't want to stay but Cathy makes him vow that he will never leave her and Heathcliff makes that promise to her providing she never turns against him. Cathy hurts herself during some tomfoolery with Heathcliff on the mansion estate of the rich Linton family. The Lintons take scruffy Cathy in while she recuperates and Mrs Linton takes it upon herself to instruct Cathy in the etiquette expected of a lady. Cathy responds well to the guidance and soon knows how to behave like a proper lady and wear fine clothes. The Linton's son Edgar especially enjoys Cathy's company and it is clear he wants to pursue a relationship. When Cathy returns home to Wuthering Heights many weeks later she is a completely changed woman. She is looking forward to seeing Heathcliff, but although he is the same as he ever was. she suddenly finds that his dirty unkempt appearance is off-putting compared to what she has become accustomed with the Lintons. Heathcliff is hurt by her unguarded reaction and cannot face her for a time. Cathy tries to make amends but she is struggling with conflicting feelings between her old and new sensibilities. Hindley's wife dies in childbirth and the grief hits Hindley hard. He quickly descends into a lifestyle of drinking and gambling and Wuthering Height becomes a den of debauchery that no decent folk will visit. Cathy continues to visit the Lintons and eventually Edgar proposes marriage. Cathy dearly loves Heathcliff in a way she can love no other, but she voices her concern to her maid Nellie that Heathcliff isn't the sort of man anyone would marry. Heathcliff overhears this and feels rejected and leaves Wuthering Heights for good. Cathy is bereft because Heathcliff is her soulmate whom she cannot bear to be without. Some years pass and Cathy has married Edgar. Hindley is still unable to rise from his morose having gambled of imbibed away nearly all his money. Then Heathcliff returns unexpectedly. But no longer is he the uncouth scruff of old, instead he has the manners and mode of a respectable gentleman. His change in fortune remains unexplained but he is now someone who cannot be lightly dismissed. Heathcliff has an objective to get even with Hindley for the years of mistreatment at his hands. He enacts sociability with Hindley as if all bad feeling is forgotten and joins in with Hindley's card games. Heathcliff manages to clean Hindley out and in the process secures the deeds of ownership to Wuthering Heights. He allows Hindley to remain as a tenant as a reminder of how their situations have altered. Next Heathcliff seeks to resume his friendship with Cathy. He is disappointed to discover she is married to Edgar but believes that now he has returned she will come back to him. They meet secretly and still have a physical need for each other which cannot be constrained. Cathy is bitter that Heathcliff left and she was forced to marry Edgar and Heathcliff tells her he yearned to return but thought she didn't want him. Cathy regrettably knows her duty is to be loyal to her husband who has become a barrister. Edgar dislikes Heathcliff and does his utmost to prevent Cathy seeing him knowing of her long-standing devotion to him. Edgar's sister Isabella gets a crush on the new rugged Heathcliff and she falls under his spell. Heathcliff uses her for his physical needs but doesn't love her. The two of them get married and move into Wuthering Heights but Isabella finds herself treated harshly like a servant. Edgar has no sympathy for his sister's plight because of her association with Heathcliff. Cathy falls pregnant but Edgar is suspicious of whether the child will be his or Heathcliff's. Cathy is very weak over the winter and remains bedridden. Next spring her condition has not improved and with the baby's arrival imminent, it is not expected she will survive childbirth. Heathcliff makes a final visit to her bedside whilst Edgar is away and they plaintively hug each other with the regret of the lost opportunity for the life together that should have been theirs. Cathy dies in labour and Heathcliff feels an immense rage overcome him as he cries his hurt on the moors for his lost love. He watches Cathy's funeral from afar knowing he is not welcome. In his sorrow he begins losing his mind and thinks he sees Cathy beckoning him. He follows her over the moors never quite being able to catch up to her. The vision of her leads him to Wuthering Heights where Hindley is waiting with a shotgun. Hindley shoots Heathcliff square in the chest in blame for all the ills that have befallen him over the last several years. Mortally wounded Heathcliff drags himself back to the black rocks to die where he is joined by the ethereal Cathy. As spirits they appear as they used to look when they were happy and carefree in their youth as they run off over the moors together forever at last. | |
| Starring: | Anna Calder-Marshall (as Cathy Earnshaw), Timothy Dalton (as Heathcliff), Julian Glover (as Hindley Earnshaw, Cathy's elder brother), Ian Ogilvy (as Edgar Linton, marries Cathy), Hilary Dwyer (as Isabella Linton, marries Heathcliff), Judy Cornwell (as Nellie, the Earnshaw's maid) |
| Featuring: | Harry Andrews (as Mr Earnshaw, Cathy's father), James Cossins and Pamela Brown (as Mr and Mrs Linton, Edgar and Isabella's parents), Rosalie Crutchley (as Mrs Earnshaw, Cathy's mother), Morag Hood (as Frances Earnshaw, Hindley's wife), Aubrey Woods (as Joseph, chief hand at Wuthering Heights), Hugh Griffith (as Dr Kenneth, local doctor), Peter Sallis (as Mr Shielders, local vicar) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel by Emily Brontë |
| X The Unknown (1956) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Jimmy Sangster / Director: Leslie Norman / Producer: Anthony Hinds | |
| Type: Sci-Fi | Running Time: 76 mins |
| In Scotland, the army are in a sand and gravel pit training their men with the use of Geiger counters to locate radioactive samples when suddenly a large ground fissure opens with a fiery explosion. The man nearest the blast suffers massive radiation burns and dies. Chief scientist Dr Adam Royston of the nearby Atomic Energy Establishment is called in to investigate but can find no lingering radiation traces at the site.
Subsequently there are reports of more horrific deaths although these often appear to be incidental to the proximity of nearby radiation sources which are all left completely drained of their radioactivity. The confined spaces that the intruder manages to enter suggests it can change shape and Royston puts forward a theory that they are dealing with a primordial life entity that normally lives in the bowels of the earth in a molten superheated form. But seismic disturbances have brought it to the surface where it has been forced to roam and find sustenance in radioactive samples. But it is composed of little more than mud and there is no conventional way of killing it. Royston knows that as its hunger grows the creature will seek out sustenance from larger radiation sources, such as power stations, causing death and destruction in its wake as it traverses the land on its unstoppable journey. And each time it feeds, the radiation energy it absorbs will make it grow larger and ever more dangerous. Their only hope is that because they know it returns to the fissure after each feed they can set a trap. In his spare time Royston had been working on a small prototype of a device that can drain the radiation from an element. He has had some success with minute samples in laboratory conditions but it is unknown whether it will work with larger objects. A large-scale version is hurriedly constructed and placed in position beside the fissure. Then a strong sample of radiation is used as bait to lure the slime creature out of the fissure. When it emerges the device is switched on and as hoped the radioactive life essence of the mud creature is completely neutralised and it dies. | |
| Starring: | Dean Jagger (as Dr Adam Royston, chief scientist), Leo McKern (as Inspector McGill, Internal Security police, Atomic Energy Commission), Edward Chapman (as John Elliott, Administrative head of lab operations), William Lucas (as Peter Elliott, Admin officer at Atomic Centre who wants to be scientist, son of John Elliott) |
| Featuring: | John Harvey (as Major Cartwright, senior army officer), Michael Ripper (as Sgt Harry Grimsdyke, soldier), Peter Hammond (as Lt. Bannerman, army), Michael Brook (as Willie Harding, attacked schoolboy), Jameson Clark (as Jack Harding, Willie's father), Jane Aird (as Vi Harding, Willie's mother), Anthony Newley (as LCpl. Webb, [small role]), Ian McNaughton (as Haggis, soldier), Norman Macowan (as Old Tom, reprobate tramp), Neil Hallett (as Unwin, radiographer attacked by monster), Robert Bruce (as Dr Kelly, caring for Willie) |
| Familiar Faces: | Kenneth Cope (as Sapper Lansing, eager soldier who dies first), Fraser Hines (as Ian Osborn, schoolboy friend of Willie) |
| Starlets: | Marianne Brauns (as Zena, Nurse canoodling with radiographer when monster attacks) |
| NOTES: | |
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Made in Black and White |
| Writers: Iain Cassie, Robert Smith / Director: Harry Bromley Davenport / Producer: Mark Forstater | |
| Type: Horror | Running Time: 82 mins |
| Tony Phillips is a young boy who is haunted by bad memories of a time three years beforehand when his father Sam went missing while the family were staying at their holiday cottage. Sam's wife Rachel was not there at the time and is under the impression that Sam simply abandoned them and she thinks Tony's wild stories of bright lights in the sky and abductions are the boy's way of rationalising his much-loved father's desertion of them. Tony now lives in a town house apartment with his mother and her new lover Joe and their French au-pair Analise. Sam has made no contact with them since he went missing.
Elsewhere we see a series of bright lights in the sky followed shortly afterwards by a young couple being killed by some sort of monster; and later a woman living alone in a cottage is also attacked by the monster which clamps a tentacle over her mouth and pumps an alien substance into her. Her belly very quickly swells and from within her emerges a fully grown man who is the spitting image of Sam Phillips. This "new" Sam establishes contact with his family and Tony is delighted to see him although Rachel is less enthusiastic because she has now moved on with her life. Sam cannot account for himself over the last three years and says he remembers nothing since he went missing. But when alone with his son, Sam confides that he is different now - he was taken to another world and was altered so that he could live there and he has now come back for Tony. Sam gives his some a fatherly embrace and bites into his shoulder injecting him with an alien substance. After this Tony begins to exhibit special powers of telekinesis and is able to make his toy action figures become real and follow his commands. Meanwhile Rachel takes Sam to the holiday cottage in the hope that the familiar surroundings might trigger his memories. Tony is left in the care of Analise and while playing hide and seek with her he uses his animised clown to overpower her and then transfers alien matter into her belly. This causes her to become shrouded in a cocoon and turn into a living factory for alien egg creation. Tony then leaves things to develop and goes out to find Joe. At the cottage Rachel finds out Sam is no longer human and she has to flee for her life. She is saved by her boyfriend Joe who has driven down with Tony after becoming concerned about her - although Joe soon falls victim to the Sam creature himself. Rachel follows the source of a bright light she notices in the woods and sees the alien-that-was-Sam taking a willing Tony into a spaceship which then takes off. Rachel is unable to do anything and returns home to her apartment only to find it filled with strange fluid filled spheres made of gluttonous transparent material and containing a throbbing bio-mass - she curiously picks one up and the bio-matter springs out and clamps over her mouth injecting her with alien matter. THE END | |
| Comments: It's not particularly clear why the film has the title it does although it is obviously meant to convey "extra-terrestrial" in some way - but that particular form of abbreviation styling is not spoken or explained in the film at all. | |
| Starring: | Philip Sayer (as Sam Phillips), Bernice Stegers (as Rachel Phillips), Danny Brainin (as Joe Daniels), Maryam d'Abo (as Analise Mercier), Simon Nash (as Tony Phillips) |
| Featuring: | Anna Wing (as Mrs Goodman, downstairs neighbour), David Cardy (as Michael, Analise's boyfriend), Peter Mandell (as Toy Clown, made living by Tony's power) |
| Starlets: | Katherine Best (as Jane, girlfriend in car, monster's victim), Susie Silvey (as Woman in Cottage, monster's victim), Vanya Seager (as Paula, photographic model) |
| NOTES: | |
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Maryam d'Abo and Simon Nash both receive "introducing" credits. |
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(other writing credits) Additional dialogue by Jo Ann Kaplan. Based on an original screenplay by Michel Parry and Harry Bromley Davenport. |
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There are two different ending versions to this film. In the "unhappy" ending (as per the version reviewed here) Rachel finds the eggs and is attacked when one of then starts to hatch. In the "happy" ending she returns home and finds her home full of multiple doubles of her son (presumably from the eggs which have already hatched). |
| Writers: Donald and Derek Ford / Director/Producer: Robert Hartford-Davis | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 85 mins |
| Set in the present day (1963) at the Peterbridge New Town Grammar School for Girls. Anne Mason is a conscientious young science teacher who teaches biology to a class of 16-year-olds. A few of the girls have taken to wearing yellow teddy bear badges on their blazers which seems to be a harmless enough vogue.
However the girls are not as innocent about sex as their parents and teachers would hope and suppose. They are into beatnik music and keen to go out with boys at dancing establishments and many feel under pressure to have sex and treat it as a rite of passage that ushers in their womanhood - they wear yellow teddy bears as a secret sign to indicate if they are no longer a virgin which earns a girl new respect among her classmates. Linda Donaghue is one such girl who has had many boyfriends including her latest, a cocky window cleaner called 'Kinky' Carson who is also lead singer in a beatnik group. Now, however, Linda has become pregnant and does not know who to turn to for help. She confides in an older friend called June Wilson who works as a prostitute and maintains friendships with the older schoolgirls so that they will come to her private parties where stripping sex games often ensue. June cautions Linda of the social stigma associated with having a baby whilst unmarried and says she will arrange for an abortion but hints that Linda may have to repay the cost of this with "favours" later on. At school Miss Mason discovers the significance of the yellow teddy bears and is shocked that the loss of ones virginity is considered a matter of boastful display - she gives her class a concerned lecture on how they should not treat sex so lightly and how it is meant be a wonderful thing with a man you love and not just a way of having cheap thrills. Linda's father finds out about his daughter's pregnancy and is furious. In his anger he decides she will not have the back-street abortion - she should not be allowed to get away with her crime so easily and having a child will serve her as a rightful punishment. Mr Donaghue also makes a formal complaint to the school, blaming them for teaching the sexual aspects of biology and putting ideas into his daughter's head. In view of this complaint the school governors convene a meeting to discuss it. Miss Mason is called to the meeting to explain her reasons for covering inappropriate topics in her lessons. She tries to explain to the older establishment figures that young people today are bombarded with adult images in advertising and films and become keen to experiment with sex themselves. Miss Mason puts across her view that rather than ignore this change in societal attitudes they should be educating the girls about responsible birth control as opposed to just telling them not to do it until they are married. However the governors believe that such instruction would simply hasten the onrush of promiscuity. They cannot see why they should change society so radically just to suit the needs of young people. In the end the meeting becomes judgmental upon Miss Mason's conduct and suitability as a teacher of teenage girls and she sees the way it is going and quits before she is fired. | |
| Starring: | Jacqueline Ellis (as Anne Mason, biology teacher) (schoolgirls) Annette Whiteley (as Linda Donaghue), Georgina Patterson (as Pat Lang), Anne Kettle (as Sally Marshall), Margaret Vieler (as Marsha), Lesley Dudley (as Joan, schoolgirl) Jill Adams (as June Wilson, Linda's older friend), Victor Brooks and Noel Dyson (as George and Muriel Donaghue, Linda's parents) |
| Featuring: | Iain Gregory (as Kenneth 'Kinky' Carson, Linda's boyfriend and lead singer of "The Embers"), John Bonney (as Paul Brimmer, Anne's fiancé) (School Governors) Raymond Huntley (as Harry Halburton), Harriette Johns (as Lady Gregg) Ruth Kettlewell (as Mrs Seymour), Hilary Mason (as Miss Fletch), Micheline Patton (as Mrs Broome, headmistress) Richard Bebb and Ann Castle (as Frank and Eileen Lang, Pat's parents), Douglas Sheldon (as Mike Griffin, Pat's boyfriend), Norman Mitchell (as Larry, older lorry driver), Earle Green (as Cliff, younger lorry driver), Shirley Cameron (as Gloria, waitress in transport café), Julie Martin (as Liz, young gossiping teacher), Bernadette Milnes (as Sheila, young gossiping teacher) |
| Starlets: | Caron Gardner, Paula Gordon (as girls at June's party) |
| NOTES: | |
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Made in Black and White |
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The musical group "The Embers" receive an "introducing" credit |
| Yellowbeard (1983) | Previous Next |
| Writers: Graham Chapman, Peter Cook, Bernard McKenna / Director: Mel Damski / Producer: Carter De Haven | |
| Type: Comedy / Adventure | Running Time: 95 mins |
| Yellowbeard is a notorious pirate captain with no moral scruples or self-restraint who is feared by friends and foes alike for his fearless uncompromising aggression. In 1687 while at the peak of his adventures he steals the treasure of greedy Spanish despot El Nebuloso. He buried the treasure in a secret location to which he made a map and went home to England for some ribald carousing with womenfolk. Shortly afterward he was captured and sent to prison for twenty years.
Twenty years later Yellowbeard has nearly completed his sentence but has refused to reveal the location of the treasure. He is looking forward to setting sail once more on the seven seas to recover his booty. His former first mate Moon has a grudge against Yellowbeard and is determined to find where the treasure is buried and get it himself. On the day before his release a woman called Betty who thinks of herself as his wife visits Yellowbeard to tell him he has a 20-year-old son called Dan conceived just before he was arrested. Yellowbeard is disappointed to hear that Dan is a studious young man and has none of his father's amoral traits. The Royal Navy's head of Secret Service, Commander Clement, is disappointed that twenty years of hard labour have not broken Yellowbeard into revealing the location of his treasure. He formulates a plan to enrage Yellowbeard into precipitate action. On the day of his release Clement informs Yellowbeard that his sentence has been reviewed and has been considered too lenient so it has been increased indefinitely. As predicted this is intolerable to the pirate and he finds a way to escape. This is what Clement wanted and he plans to follow Yellowbeard wherever he sets sail. Yellowbeard returns home to Betty's house to retrieve the map he hid there. Betty tells him she found it and had it tattooed onto the head of her new babe Dan. Yellowbeard is reluctantly forced to meet Dan whom he finds unpalatably nice and recruit him for his trip. Dan is delighted to at last meet his father and wants to do whatever he can to help. Dan's stepfather Lord Percy Lambourn and his botanist friend Dr Gilpin also decide to join the treasure hunt. Lambourn has booked passage on a vessel but unfortunately at the quayside himself, Gilpin and Dan are press-ganged to join the naval vessel of Captain Hughes. Yellowbeard secretly stows away on the vessel and no one knows he is there. Also on board the vessel as a crewman is Moon who knows that Dan is Yellowbeard's son and is searching for the treasure. So Moon engineers a mutiny and installs Dan as the new captain to make it easy for him to lead them to the fortune. Dan and his friends have no idea how they are being manipulated. The map on Dan's head leads them to a tropical island which is now home to the fortress of tyrannical Spanish despot El Nebuloso and his lackey El Segundo. El Nebuloso is intrigued that the son of Yellowbeard has come to his island looking for his father's treasure and he is determined to get it himself. El Nebuloso captures Dan and prepares to torture him. Then Yellowbeard makes his presence known and fights El Nebuloso's men with a berserker's rage which is unstoppable. Yellowbeard is the one man that El Nebuloso truly fears and he is soon killed. Yellowbeard leads Dan and his friends to the secret spot and they dig up the trove of buried treasure. Yellowbeard has come to admire his son's courage, but to truly be a man he must do the one thing that Yellowbeard respects - brutal betrayal. As they hug Yellowbeard angles a knife so that he stabs himself making it seem as if Dan did it in an act of treachery. Yellowbeard appears to die happy knowing his son is worthy of his name. Then Commander Clement catches up to them and arrests Lord Lambourn and Dr Gilpin and takes possession of the treasure. Dan manages to evade capture and dead Yellowbeard is left where he is. On the voyage home Clements' vessel is boarded by a pair of pirates who take over the vessel and release the prisoners. It is Dan and his not-really-dead father Yellowbeard who have teamed up - and now they have a vessel they intend to continue in the pirate tradition. | |
| Starring: | Graham Chapman (as Captain Yellowbeard), Peter Cook (as Lord Percy Lambourn, Dan's stepfather), Michael Hordern (as Dr Gilpin, botanist), Martin Hewitt (as Dan, Yellowbeard's scholarly son), Madeline Kahn (as Mrs Beard, Dan's mother and Yellowbeard's wife), Peter Boyle (as Moon, Yellowbeard's enemy), Tommy Chong (as El Nebuloso, Spanish despot), Richard 'Cheech' Marin (as El Segundo, El Nebuloso's lackey) |
| Featuring: | Marty Feldman (as Gilbert, Moon's cohort), Eric Idle (as Commander Clement, Royal Navy), James Mason (as Captain Hughes, naval captain), John Cleese (as Harvey 'Blind' Pew, blind man with super sensitive hearing), Stacey Nelkin (as Triola, El Nebuloso's daughter), Kenneth Mars (as Mr Crisp, Captain Hughes' bosun AND Verdugo, El Nebuloso's cardinal), Nigel Planer (as Mansell, Clement's friend), Peter Bull (as Queen Anne), Susannah York (as Lady Churchill, Queen Anne's lady-in-waiting), Beryl Reid (as Lady Lambourn, Lord Percy's wife), Ferdinand Mayne (as Mr Beamish, officer on Clement's frigate) |
| Familiar Faces: | Spike Milligan (as Flunkie, Queen Anne's herald), David Bowie (as The Shark, crewman on Clement's frigate, [uncredited cameo]) |
| Starlets: | Greta Blackburn (as Mister Prostitute, officer on Hughes' ship who is really a woman), Gillian Eaton (as Rosie, prostitute being smuggled onto the ship) |
| The Yes Girls (1971) | Previous Next |
| aka: Take Some Girls | |
| Writer: Martin Gilman / Director: Lindsay Shonteff / Producer: Michael Elam | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 83 mins |
| Maria Carter is a young woman in her later teenage years who is resident in an approved school (a state-run school for delinquents) in Northumberland. She is desperate to escape and is prepared to use her well-developed body to secure favours. She persuades the old gardener to leave a gate open for her and she gets away and heads for London.
In London Maria has no friends, contacts, or money and starts out badly when she is caught shoplifting for some new clothes to wear. The manager is intent on calling the police but with her sunny disposition and ability to come over as innocently naïve (or is it real?) he soon realises that he can secure payment from her in other ways. Maria has no concerns about providing sex for men in return for other favours but is not predatory or scheming about it - she just shrugs her shoulders and does it. At a café Maria meets a girl her own age called Angela who says she is an actress and is a bit standoffish at first when Maria starts chatting to her and asking her if she knows any places to stay. Angela shares a flat with a girl called Caron and in truth they are both unemployed and have a pervy landlord who is always after them for rent and has made it clear they can pay in other ways which neither of them are inclined to do. So Angela shrewdly calculates that if she lets Maria become their new flatmate they can use her to deflect the landlord's interest. Maria moves in with Angela and Caron unaware of what they have arranged with the landlord and on rent day the two new girls make themselves scarce leaving Maria to find out when the expectant landlord arrives. Maria cottons on fast and with her usual unconcerned gaiety gives the landlord what he wants and does not feel at all aggrieved with Angela and Caron for setting her up since she wants to pay her way. After that they all become best friends with no hidden agendas. Aspiring actress Angela gets an audition for a role in a film with a small production company called Ritzy Film Productions. She gets a shortlist call back and Maria and Caron go with her for moral support. But when the producer Jack Shulton sees Maria he decides to cast her instead and Angela and Caron get consolation supporting parts. Although Shulton exaggerates the project to get the girls interested, in fact what he is making is a cheap sexploitation movie called Flesh In The Fields and the three girls are the only stars. He promises exotic location work after an initial two weeks of filming in cold and windy off-season Broadstairs - although actually that is going to be the only location. Shulton's watchwords are cheapness and penny-pinching and the production suffers - although because the director King Reiter is well-respected the girls think it is all very arty and they put up with the budget conscious conditions. But Reiter has been forced to compromise his artistic integrity and cannot make the film he wants with the meagre budget on offer. At the end of the shoot which is plagued with unexposed cheap film and negatives being scratched in cheap camera equipment, a finished movie is cobbled together and the girls attend the premiere in Brighton. It is in black and white and full of jump-cuts due to bad frames and has been rendered totally incomprehensible - but the girls think this is because it is high-brow and arty. The critics are also fooled and think it was deliberately made to look cheap and hail it a masterpiece. Shulton gets interest from Hollywood studios to use Maria in their next pictures and offer him vast fees for her services and he quickly signs Maria up on a personal contract for a small fraction of this. Maria is delighted and promises to take her two friends along for the ride. The End. | |
| Comment: There is a small side-plot early on when Maria first gets to London (and the reason she went there) in which Maria hires a private detective to find her mother who abandoned her to the social system when she was a baby. Maria is full of hope and excitement at finding her mother but when she does finds her mother really does not want to know. This side-plot doesn't ultimately impact much on the main plot however. | |
| Starring: | Sue Bond (as Maria Carter), Sally Muggeridge (as Angela), Felicity Oliver (as Caron), Ray Chiarella (as Jack Shulton, film producer), Jack May (as King Reiter, film director) |
| Featuring: | Jack Smethurst (as Sam Hed, private detective), Fred Hugh (as Landlord), Anthony Jacobs (as Clothes shop manager) (Film production staff) Neville Barber (as Production Manager), Tony Edwards (as Cameraman), Dennis Adams (as Writer) Denise Stafford (as Mrs Carter, Maria's mother), Tony Lenon (as Gardener at approved school) |
| Starlets: | Linda Dean, Barbara May (as Maria's friends at Approved School) Louisa Livingstone, Jane Spearing, Tony Lee (as Extras on film shoot) Greta Nelson, Susan Shaw (as Auditionees for film) Ann Nicole (as Shop Assistant), Mary Howard (as Shulton's Secretary) |
| NOTES: | |
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The version reviewed carried the title Take Some Girls with the subheading The Story of a High Class Film |
| Young Cassidy (1965) | Previous Next |
| Writer: John Whiting / Director: Jack Cardiff / Producers: Robert D. Graff, Robert Emmett Ginna | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 107 mins |
| Set in Dublin, Ireland starting in the early 1900s. A young man called John Cassidy works hard to help support his impoverished family by doing labouring jobs. He lives with his mother and various siblings. Cassidy's main passion is for words and he reads all he can and writes down his own thoughts each evening. He has a friend called Mick Mullen who persuades him to join the fledgling Irish Citizen Army whose ambitious aim is to drive the occupying English forces out of Ireland. Cassidy's role is to write stirring propaganda literature to distribute at rally's. However the well-meaning recruits are badly organised and the leaders seem more interested in obtaining smart uniforms than waging a serious opposition. Cassidy soon decides to leave figuring they are not going to make any serious impact on the English. The ICA mount a riot but this is quickly quelled and the malcontents are rounded up.
Cassidy meets a young woman called Nora who runs a bookshop and they begin a relationship. Cassidy begins to get articles printed in newspapers and eventually has a book about the Irish Citizen Army published. He has a bad period when his mother dies after which he moves in with Mick and begins work on a play called The Shadow of a Gunman which after several rewrites is accepted by Dublin's Abbey Theatre. The theatre owners, Lady Gregory and WB Yeats, realise that Cassidy's work is special and is saying something important about the political situation in Ireland. Yeats (who is himself a well-regarded and Nobel Prize winning playwright) nurtures Cassidy as a great emerging talent and encourages him to write more. Cassidy's bold and challenging writing about Irish society is hard for audiences to take and criticisms are sometimes scathing - but Yeats and Nora help Cassidy overcome these discouragements. A few years later when his play The Plough and the Stars opens, the audience riot finding the subject matter too raw to accept. Yeats knows that Cassidy has outgrown his small playhouse and is destined to become one of the greats of literature and all of the world's theatre houses now belong to him and his prodigious talent. With this endorsement Cassidy decides to leave Ireland. He wants to marry his sweetheart Nora and have her come with him on the his life-journey - but although Nora dearly loves him she knows she is just a simple girl who would not be able to adapt to the lofty world of fame he is destined for and she does not want him to limit himself for her sake. So she declines and Cassidy leaves Ireland alone to find his place in the world. | |
| Comment: This film depicts the early life of the real playwright Sean O'Casey (1880-1964) who was a highly regarded Irish playwright. It is not clear why the film changes his name but the other factual content (such as the names of the plays he wrote) seem to tally. The above description reflects a broad sweep of what goes on in the film rather than a potted-biography of the actual playwright's life. The film does not signpost any dates and the lead actor Rod Taylor looks the same throughout so it is not clear how young he is supposed to be when the film begins. Time moves on during the film considerably but the only anchor is the opening date of his first play which is seen on a billboard poster (April 9th 1923). The end of the film shows Cassidy leaving Ireland which would have been 1926 when the real O'Casey left for England. O'Casey went on to have a distinguished career writing many more plays over the next few decades. | |
| Starring: | Rod Taylor (as John Cassidy), Maggie Smith (as Nora, bookshop assistant who becomes John's sweetheart), Phillip O'Flynn (as Mick Mullen, John's militant friend), Flora Robson (as Mrs Cassidy, John's mother), Michael Redgrave (as W.B. Yeats, co-owner of Abbey Theatre), Edith Evans (as Lady Gregory, co-owner of Abbey Theatre) |
| Featuring: | Julie Christie (as Daisy Battles, young prostitute, [smallish role despite being second-billed]), Jack MacGowran (as Archie, actor brother of John), Siân Phillips (as Ella, John's sister-in-law), T.P. McKenna (as Tom, soldier brother of John), Pauline Delany (as Bessie Ballynoy, flirty apartment neighbour) |
| NOTES: | |
• |
Based on Mirror in My House the autobiography of Sean O'Casey |
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The film was begun by director John Ford but had to be taken over by Jack Cardiff when Ford fell ill. Cardiff is credited as sole director although it is above-title billed as "A John Ford Film". |
| aka: Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear | |
| Writer: Chris Columbus / Director: Barry Levinson / Producer: Mark Johnson | |
| Type: Adventure | Running Time: 109 mins |
| In Victorian London a timid teenage boy called John Watson starts at a new school mid-term due to family circumstance. It is a boarding school for boys and he is roomed with a pupil named Sherlock Holmes who is very popular and has made quite a name for himself. Holmes has the uncanny ability to deduce information from the tiniest of clues that would evade most people's notice and he immediately makes an impression on young Watson.
Although it is a boys school there is one girl living on the grounds. Her name is Elizabeth Hardy and she and Holmes are good friends. She lives with her uncle Rupert T Waxflatter who is a retired-teacher but has been given leave to live on the premises. Waxflatter is an eccentric inventor and he and Holmes get along famously. Waxflatter's latest interest is building a flying machine with which he has had a modicum of success and is currently refining. Holmes is a grade A student and much admired by his form master Professor Rathe who teaches him fencing as a discipline that requires total concentration and where emotional responses can be one's downfall. Holmes becomes intrigued by newspaper reports of a number of bizarre deaths that have been ruled as suicide. Holmes sees a pattern and thinks the incidents are linked. He tries to tell the local junior detective Lestrade but the man is pompous and refuses to take a schoolboy seriously even though Holmes tries to tell him it could be his making. Then a jealous rival of Holmes frames him for cheating in his exams and Holmes is expelled in disgrace. Holmes is preparing to leave school when his mentor Waxflatter is killed in the same puzzling manner as the other men and the only clue found is a dropped blowpipe with unique carvings. Holmes enlists the assistance of Watson and Elizabeth to help him get to the bottom of the mystery. They find out that all the murdered men once knew each other as members of an Egyptian archaeological expedition that discovered a new pyramid containing the bodies of five Egyptian princesses. The men brought the relics back to England, but the Egyptian locals objected to the desecration and swore revenge. Their favoured method of killing was with a blow dart dipped in a poison that produced hallucinations so real that the victim killed themselves to escape. It is clear that some descendants of those Egyptians have now decided to carry out that revenge. Holmes and his friends follow more clues to a large warehouse. Inside they find a huge wooden pyramid within which they see some cult worshipers carrying out a grisly ritual in which a young woman is mummified alive inside a sarcophagus filled with molten gold. The cultists are kidnapping girls to replace the five princesses taken from the Egyptian pyramid. So far they have abducted and killed four girls. Back at the school Elizabeth is captured by the school matron Mrs Dribb who turns out to be a cultist in the Order of Rame Tep - her brother and high priest is none other than Professor Rathe. They have been biding their time in their undercover roles for years preparing for this time when they can at last fulfil their responsibilities to their ancestors. The two of them take Elizabeth off to the pyramid temple to be used as their fifth and final victim. Holmes and Elizabeth have by now fallen in love with each other and he is desperate to save her. So to get to the scene in time Holmes and Watson follow by air in Waxflatter's flying machine that he perfected before he was killed. They arrive at the pyramid to find Elizabeth being prepared for her grisly fate. Working together the two boys disrupt proceedings and stage a daring rescue which results in the structural collapse of the pyramid destroying Rathe's carefully administered plans. Elizabeth is safe but then Holmes has to confront Professor Rathe who is livid at the youngster's interference. He shoots at Holmes, but in an act of selfless bravery Elizabeth interjects herself and takes the bullet. Holmes is filled with hatred towards Rathe and they duel with sabres. Rathe has always been victorious when they have sparred in the gym. This time the fight is deadly with no quarter given. Rathe toys with Holmes whose emotional fury is disadvantaging him. But as the fight moves onto a frozen lake, Holmes gets a lucky break when the ice cracks and Rathe falls underneath. Holmes cannot save him and it seems Rathe must surely be dead. Holmes returns to the mortally wounded Elizabeth who dies in his arms after they have exchanged words of eternal devotion. Holmes cries inconsolably at her death. Junior detective Lestrade comes on the scene belatedly following up on some of Holmes' information and takes the credit for solving the mystery which puts him in line for promotion. The adventure has been the making of Watson and he feels much more confident about himself as he prepares to follow his ambition to become a doctor. Holmes leaves the college and the two new friends part company. Watson has a feeling that many years from now they might meet again. Epilogue: We see a man travelling to a far off land to be alone. It is Professor Rathe who somehow survived his icy fate. He takes a lodgings where he will plot and scheme for many years until he is ready to take his revenge on Sherlock Holmes. He changes his name and signs himself in as "Moriarty"! | |
| Starring: | Nicholas Rowe (as Sherlock Holmes), Alan Cox (as John Watson), Sophie Ward (as Elizabeth Hardy), Anthony Higgins (as Professor Rathe, head teacher), Susan Fleetwood (as Mrs Dribb, school matron, Nigel Stock (as Rupert T Waxflatter, Elizabeth's uncle) |
| Featuring: | Freddie Jones (as Cragwitch, old friend of Waxflatter), Roger Ashton-Griffiths (as Lestrade, detective), Earl Rhodes (as Dudley, schoolboy adversary of Holmes), Patrick Newell (as Bentley Bobster, prologue victim), Donald Eccles (as Reverend Duncan Nesbitt, second victim), Nadim Sawalha (as Egyptian Tavern Owner), Michael Hordern (Narrator, [as older Watson]) |
| Young Winston (1972) | Previous Next |
| Writer/Producer: Carl Foreman / Director: Richard Attenborough | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 136 mins |
| Young Winston Churchill (born 1874) is the son of Lord Randolph Churchill and his American wife Lady Jennie. His father is a politician and his mother is dedicated to helping her husband fulfil his ambitions to rise to the very top. Consequently Winston feels neglected and this feeling is augmented when he is 7 and packed off to a harsh boarding school. Winston has a tough time and struggles academically finding examinations particularly difficult.
His father rises to become Chancellor of the Exchequer but then later resigns on a matter of high principal when he feels the government is spending too much on the military. His political career is effectively over and his former friends shun him. By now Winston is aged 13 and due to his poor academic record his father decides his only course is to join the army. Winston finds the entrance exams to Sandhurst difficult and only makes sufficient grade to become a cavalryman. When his father dies young at the age of 46 of a degenerative brain disease Winston decides to buckle down and achieve something to vindicate his father's memory. Winston has discovered he has a talent for writing and becomes an army correspondent while attached to a unit in a war in India. Despite his status as an onlooker he nevertheless becomes involved in the fighting and is mentioned in despatches for an act of bravery. He returns to England and decides to run for parliament as candidate for Oldham but is beaten in the election. He therefore goes to South Africa to work as a correspondent reporting on the Boer war. His newspaper reports make his a well-known name. He is then captured and becomes a POW in Pretoria and subsequently escapes and goes on the run and his exploits become a worldwide news story giving him a celebrity status. When he returns to England he once again runs for parliament and this time he wins the seat and become a Conservative MP. He builds up a reputation for making well-reasoned speeches. After a year (and 15 years after his father's resignation on the same issue) Winston makes a speech revisiting his father's strong held views about Britain's over-militarisation even though he knows it will make an enemy out of the Prime Minister Lord Salisbury. His speech about Britain's responsibility as a moral force who should not pursue warfare is well argued but unwelcome. He is good friends with the leader of the Liberal party Lloyd George who tells him that his party will always welcome him should the Conservative party turn against him. This is about where the film ends in the very early 1900s with Winston in his mid-20s and does not explore any more of the ups-and-downs of his long distinguished career to come. | |
| Starring: | Simon Ward (as Winston Churchill), Robert Shaw (as Lord Randolph Churchill, his father), Anne Bancroft (as Lady Jennie Churchill, his mother) |
| Featuring: | (other parts, some fairly brief) Ian Holm (as George E. Buckle, newspaper editor), Anthony Hopkins (as David Lloyd George, Liberal party leader), Patrick Magee (as General Bindon Blood, in India), Edward Woodward (as Captain Aylmer Haldane, in South Africa), John Mills (as General Herbert Kitchener, [small role]), Laurence Naismith (as Lord Salisbury, Prime Minister), Pat Heywood (as Womany, Young Churchill's nanny), Basil Dignam (as Joseph Chamberlain), Robert Hardy (as Headmaster, at Churchill's age 7 school), Dinsdale Landen (as Capt Weaver), Julian Holloway (as Capt. Baker), Thorley Walters (as Major Finn), Maurice Roëves (as Sergeant Major Brockie, South African POW), James Cossins (as Barnsby, POW), John Woodvine (as John Howard, mine manager in South Africa), Jeremy Child (as Joseph Chamberlain's son), Russell Lewis (Winston, Aged 7) |
| Starlets: | Jane Seymour (as Pamela Plowden, [cameo bit-part]), Pippa Steel (as Clementine Hozier, [cameo non-speaking]) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on My Early Life, A Roving Commission by Winston Churchill |
| Writers: Max Ehrlich, Frank De Felitta / Director: Michael Campus / Producer: Thomas F. Madigan | |
| Type: Sci-Fi | Running Time: 94 mins |
| Set some way off in the future in the 21st century, by which time many parts of the Earth are deemed uninhabitable and mankind lives in a series of insular societies ruled over by the World Federation Council. The scant habitable regions have resulted in severe human overpopulation which has become so concerning that the World Council has had no choice but to issue a shocking edict. To preserve precious resources there must be no new babies born for thirty years to give the population a chance to naturally reduce. Any couple flouting these laws and attempting to have a baby in secret faces immediate execution.
Eight years goes by with no new babies born and a culture has developed to think of pregnancy as a wicked and evil thing that is universally reviled. After having sex with their husbands women must expose themselves to special rays that destroy any life that may have been conceived. To satisfy a husband and wife's need for a child, realistic doll babies and toddlers with computer-controlled responses have been developed that mothers can look after. Russ and Carol McNeil and their neighbours George and Edna Borden work together in a museum as demonstrators showing other citizens what life was like in the bygone era of the 1970s where irresponsible lifestyles and political instabilities led to the unforgiving world of today. The museum contains archaic objects like motor cars and shows what extinct animal species such as cats and rabbits once looked like. Carol is feeling a sense of great incompleteness at not being permitted to have a child and knows that when the Zero Birth Edict ends in twenty-two years time she will be too old. The knowledge that she will never have a baby of her own torments her and she cannot bring herself to love a lifeless doll. She knows the extreme dangers of trying to have a baby and has seen other desperate couples executed for that most heinous crime. Transgressors are taken to Execution Square and the mother, father and baby are placed in a small airtight dome where they suffocate to death within twelve hours which is supposed to give them time to reflect on their evil ways before they die. Other citizens are actively encouraged to inform on any suspected transgressors with the promise of precious extra ration vouchers. But none of this deters Carol and so one night after sex with Russ she fails to use her termination ray machine hence allowing herself to fall pregnant. That in itself is not a crime because accidents can happen, but once a woman knows she is pregnant it is her duty to report to medical facilities for a termination procedure. A few months later when Carol tells Russ she is pregnant he cannot believe she has been so reckless. But he loves her and is prepared to help her in any way he can. Together they prepare a disused basement where Carol spends the next five months whilst Russ carries on with his normal life telling everyone else that Carol has unexpectedly left him. When Carol is ready to give birth there is no one that the couple can call upon or trust to help, so Russ has to deliver the illicit baby himself. They have a baby boy and Carol is very happy. But she is also sad because she knows that he can never be seen in public because it would be known by his age that he was born after the edict. Carol "returns" to Russ and they purchase a doll baby to use as cover for caring for their real baby. But Carol becomes careless and her neighbour Edna sees the baby. However rather than inform Edna thinks it is wonderful because she so wants a baby of her own too but does not dare. Edna and her husband George ask that they might share the baby and help look after it. Carol and Russ are reluctant but have no choice but to agree. As the weeks pass on, Edna and George become more possessive and start demanding greater and greater access until they eventually tell Carol and Russ that they want to keep the baby full-time or else they will inform on them. Carol and Russ have no intention of letting that happen but are left with no choice but to seem to agree. So they hand the baby over and then start to make alternative plans that require preparation. They discover that an old underground sewer system passes under Execution Square and so they begin stocking the tunnels with everything they will need. Then they return to Edna and George and demand their baby back. The other couple are furious and carry out their threat to inform. Russ and Carol and their baby are arrested and taken to Execution Square and placed in the opaque dome. Once inside Russ gets out some tools he has secreted in his boots and digs a hole down to the sewer system. They know that they have nearly twelve hours before their absence is discovered whilst they are supposedly suffocating to death. Underground they use an inflatable raft to float down the old sewer and travel many miles out of the city boundary and into open countryside. There are numerous radiation warning signs and indications that a terrible catastrophe befell the land, but the family ignore any possible dangers and carry on into the wilderness where they intend to live out their lives as a normal family. | |
| Starring: | Oliver Reed (as Russ McNeil), Geraldine Chaplin (as Carol McNeil), Don Gordon (as George Borden), Diane Cilento (as Edna Borden) |
| Featuring: | David Markham (as Dr Herrick, sympathetic ex-doctor friend of Carol), Sheila Reid (as Mary, Dr Herrick's daughter), Bill Nagy (as The President of the Society), Aubrey Woods (as Dr Mallory, Carol's Telescreen doctor), Annelise Gabold and Sam Maisen (as Mother and Father in Baby Shop), Wayne John Rhodda (as Telescreen Salesman), Ditte Maria (as Telescreen Operator), Birgitte Federspiel (as Telescreen Psychiatrist) |
| NOTES: | |
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Z.P.G. stands for Zero Population Growth |
| aka: The Swordsman | |
| Writer: Ellis Hugh Brody / Director: Lindsay Shonteff / Producers: Lindsay Shonteff, Elizabeth Gray | |
| Type: Thriller | Running Time: 87 mins |
| Set in the present day, the film opens with a duel taking place between two master swordsmen who embrace the skills of a bygone era. Reynaud Duval and his rival and former friend Alex Zendor are fighting as if to the death. Duval wins and when Zendor begs for mercy Duval spares him and tells him he must leave the country and never return. Reynaud has an arrogant confidence in his abilities and possesses a charismatic flair that he can use if he so chooses but underneath he has a black heart. He runs his own fencing school but is impatient to inherit his father, Christian Duval's, vast wealth and even though he stands to inherit half he wants it all sharing none with his younger brother Korel. Reynaud forces his wheelchair bound father to sign a new will made over to just himself and then skewers him with his rapier and takes for himself the jade pendant his father always wore as the symbol of head of the family. He then leaves a note supposedly from Zendor claiming it was a revenge killing and that Korel will be next.
Korel arrives home from boarding school for his father's funeral and Reynaud tells him that he was cut out of the will because he was adopted and not a true son of Christian. Korel is astonished by this news and decides to hire a private detective to find his real father. Enter Harriet Zapper, Private Detective and her Chinese assistant Hock who get on with checking adoption agencies but draw a blank with their initial inquiries. Changing the will is not enough for Reynaud however and he wants Korel disposed of as he remains concerned that whilst alive the will could be contested. He sets his girlfriend, Guy Champion, the task of killing him with her crossbow skills but making it look like a rapier attack so that Zendor can be blamed again. After Korel is wounded in a failed attempt on his life Harriet Zapper arranges for him to be put in protective custody whilst she follows a lead to France with some information about Korel's early life. Reynaud is becoming concerned with Harriet's progress and sends Guy off to destroy some incriminating records in France and then kill Harriet. Guy manages to destroy the records in the public records office but is not able to best Harriet and is herself killed. Harriet locates a man called Raberlay who was once Christian Duval's valet when he lived in France. Raberlay tells her that in fact it was Reynaud who was the adopted son and Korel was Christian's true son - this is the information that Reynaud wanted kept suppressed. Raberlay holds an envelope that was to be opened in the event of Christian's death which he gives to Harriet. This contains a map to the location of a buried box which an attached note says contains proof of his two sons' parentage and his real will. Harriet sends Hock to find and dig up the box but he is discovered by Reynaud and killed - the box contained a note saying the key to a safe deposit box was embedded in the jade pendant that Christian always wore - the same one that Reynaud now wears which he took from his father's body. Harriet arrives and proves to be a master swordswoman herself disposing of six of Reynaud's best fencing school students before having a showdown with Reynaud himself. Harriet wins through and the key is revealed when the pendant is smashed and Harriet hands it over to Korel with her job completed. | |
| Starring: | Linda Marlowe (as Harriet Zapper), Alan Lake (Reynaud Duval), Jason Kemp (as Korel Duval), Edina Ronay (as Guy Champion, Reynaud's girlfriend), Tony Then (as Hock, Zapper's assistant) |
| Featuring: | Noel Johnson (as Christian Duval, Reynaud's father), Peter Halliday (as Raberlay) |
| NOTES: | |
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Jason Kemp receives an "introducing" credit. |
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The only nudity in this film is a breasts close-up of Edina Romay's character when Alan Lake use his swordplay skills to cut her top off - but it's an obvious cut-away body double insert. |
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This is a follow up film to Big Zapper (1973) in which Harriet Zapper was first introduced. |
| Writer/Director/Producer: John Boorman | |
| Type: Sci-Fi | Running Time: 101 mins |
| In the far future of 2293, Earth civilisation has broken down and the people now live a basic unsophisticated barbarian existence, surviving off the land, uneducated and warlike. Many centuries beforehand one group of farsighted scientists seeing the great unrest approaching shut themselves away from the outside world inside an impenetrable area they called the vortex - their greatest scientist discovered the secret of immortally and they built a powerful computer called the Tabernacle to control it - they saved for posterity all of mankind's scientific and literary knowledge and its greatest artworks - and finally they erased from their minds the secret of the Tabernacle's construction so they would never be able to destroy it - these people call themselves the Eternals.
Now centuries later the Eternals have learnt everything there is too learn and for most of them their existence is a drudge. They cannot die, they do not age except artificially as an imposed punishment for crimes and misdemeanours. Those who rebel are punished with eternal old age and senility and are called Renegades. Another group of Eternals have become so bored with the tedium of their existence that they have shut-off their minds and live in a trance-like state and are called the Apathetics. The small group of remaining true Eternals have strong psychic abilities and commune with each other in meditatory psychic states. They no longer have sex because there is no need for children - if any Eternal is killed accidentally or by their own hand the Tabernacle simply restores them. One Eternal called Arthur Frayn has the task of managing the tribes of Brutals (as the Eternals call them) on the outside world. He does this by appearing to them as a god called Zardoz whom the people worship and obey. He travels to the Brutal's land in a flying giant stone statue of Zardoz's head and bellows out his instructions from within. Because he is not always there he has selected a special group of Brutals called the Exterminators whom he has armed to keep order amongst their own people which they do with an iron ruthlessness - the Exterminators have been selectively bred by Arthur/Zardoz for higher intelligence and strength and their leader is a man called Zed. Much of the above is back story that gets revealed as the film progresses. But as the film actually begins Zed has stowed away inside the giant Zardoz head as it was collecting the grain harvest that the Brutals are tasked by their god with growing. As Zed arrives in the Eternals land they are curious about him and frightened too not knowing how he came to be here. Some want to kill him immediately, others prefer to study him. So Eternal May is given three weeks to study him before he is put to death. But Zed has planned this infiltration because he wants to learn the truth - in his own land he found an abandoned library - he taught himself how to read and educated himself - when he came to one particular book it changed his total outlook and he realised the god Zardoz was a sham - the book was The Wizard of Oz - a book about a man who tries to control his people with a loud booming voice from behind a frightening mask - and Zed realises this is exactly what is being done to them even down to using the title (wiZARD of OZ) for the god's name. Zed gains the trust of some Eternals who would welcome a release from their life which has become a prison for them. They transfer all their knowledge to Zed's genetically superior brain and he works out how to destroy the Tabernacle. With the computer destroyed the "sentence" of immortality is lifted - Zed's Exterminators are able to enter the vortex and they set about massacring everyone which is joyfully welcomed with blessed thanks by the victims. Those that survive go on to have ordinary life-spans growing old and dying normally. | |
| Starring: | Sean Connery (as Zed), Charlotte Rampling (as Consuella, Eternal), Sara Kestelman (as May, Eternal), John Alderton (as Friend, Renegade Eternal) |
| Featuring: | Sally Anne Newton (as Avalow, Eternal), Niall Buggy (Arthur Frayn/Zardoz, Eternal), Jessica Swift (as Apathetic Eternal) |
| A Zed & Two Noughts (1985) | Previous Next |
| Writer/Director: Peter Greenaway / Producers: Peter Sainsbury, Kees Kasander | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 111 mins |
| The wives of two zoologist brothers die in a car driven by a woman called Alba Bewick when it crashes due to being hit by a swan. The grieving brothers, Oswald and Oliver Deuce, become obsessed by the nature of decay after death and begin a programme of studies on dead animals using time-elapsed photography.
Alba lost a leg in the accident and as she convalesces she is visited by the brothers and has affairs with both of them separately and together. Her somewhat Machiavellian doctor convinces her that she should have her other leg amputated as well to help with her balance and symmetry - his ulterior reason seems to be to make her less attractive to the brothers although this plan completely fails and their sexual interest continues eventually resulting in her becoming pregnant. The brothers reveal to Alba that they are actually twins who were once conjoined and they are now considering an operation to reconnect themselves to each other (although eventually they don't get around to having this done). The brothers' experiments become too obsessive and their employees deny them further use of the zoo facilities. So the brothers set up their continued studies privately. Once Alba's baby is born she decides she is now is ready to die and wants to end her own life. She offers the brothers her body to be photographed in their decomposition studies but after she has died her family veto the idea. So the brothers decide instead to photograph themselves decaying for the furtherance of science. They set up their automatic photographic equipment outdoors in a remote location by a river and then lay side by side to die after giving each other lethal injections. But their sacrifice is completely in vain because overnight the site is overrun by snails which causes the electrical power to fuse leaving their final unattended experiment to continue unrecorded. | |
| Comment: The film is a very disjointed affair lacking in normal narrative focus and hence makes it difficult to become particularly engaged or involved with it. | |
| Starring: | Andréa Ferréol (as Alba Bewick), Brian Deacon (as Oswald Deuce), Eric Deacon (as Oliver Deuce) |
| Featuring: | Frances Barber (as Venus de Milo, seamstress and animal storyteller), Gerard Thoolen (as Van Meegeren, Alba's surgeon), Guusje van Tilborgh (as Caterina Bolnes, Van Meegeren's associate), Jim Davidson (as Zookeeper [Yes, this is the stand-up comedian in an acting role]), Agnès Brulet (as Beta Bewick, Alba's young daughter), Joss Ackland, Ken Campbell |
| Familiar Faces: | Geoffrey Palmer (as Zoo owner) |
| NOTES: | |
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The odd title is simply an elucidation of how to spell "Zoo". |
| Zee and Co (1972) | Previous Next |
| aka: X, Y and Zee | |
| Writer: Edna O'Brien / Director: Brian G. Hutton / Producers: Jay Kanter, Alan Ladd Jr | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 103 mins |
| Robert and Zee Blakeley are a married couple who have been together for some years and now have a turbulent relationship which veers from occasional moments when they recapture the old affection they once felt, to heated arguments which usually stem from Robert's open infidelity. Zee is well aware that her husband has casual flings but they never last and he always comes back to her and so she copes with it.
At a party they both attend Zee sees Robert zero-in on an attractive woman called Stella who is a widowed dress designer with two young boys. Robert charms Stella and they arrange to go out on a date and they begin an affair. Zee can see that this woman is different from the others and Robert is getting more serious about her - so she decides she will intervene. The new woman has an air of serenity about her that Zee finds sickening but recognises that Stella's sad vulnerable temperament might seduce her husband and make this woman more than a passing fancy for him. She befriends Stella and playacts like a best friend revealing silly girly secrets that Stella responds to in kind. Zee discovers through this that Stella was once expelled from her school but does not manage to find out quite why. As Robert and Stella get more serious Zee does what she can to make it difficult for the couple to have any privacy and goes out of her way to spoil their arrangements for romantic get togethers. Robert knows what his wife is up to but she is such a strong exuberant personality that he has no way of stopping her. He makes it clear to her how infuriating he is finding her games but his irritation is a sign of success for her. Stella is often on the verge of tears, fearful that they are never going to get any peace to be happy with Robert's wife forever spoiling their arrangements - and she begins to wonder if it's all worth it - which is of course what Zee would have been hoping for. Robert and Stella lease an apartment so they can live together without Zee's interference and Robert has one final night at his family home before moving out. He and Zee have a few melancholy moments as they share reminiscences of when they were happy together and it seems she has at last resigned herself to accept the new situation. She gets a bit drunk and they go to bed in their separate bedrooms. The next morning Robert finds his wife in the bath after having cut her wrists in a suicide attempt. He calls an ambulance and she is saved. The compassionate Stella visits Zee in hospital and it seems the aggrieved wife has come to terms with the break up of her marriage and is now being realistic about it as they have a heartfelt chat about their feelings and inner emotions and Zee speculates that under different circumstances they could have been the best of friends. During this exchange of confidences Stella, taken in by Zee's sincerity, reveals that she was expelled from her convent school for kissing a nun. Zee is still being duplicitous and secretly finds this titbit extremely illuminating. When Zee is better she comes to visit Stella and continues her best friends act. Zee has realised that a little girl would not be expelled for innocently kissing a nun and so Stella must have been a somewhat older girl at the time and motivated by latent urges that might still be within her. Zee uses her own feminine wiles to come on to Stella to test her theory and (although unseen on screen) it is clear they have some sort of lesbian dalliance as Zee manages to reawaken those buried urges. And when Robert comes home to the apartment he realises this too and discovers that he has lost his mistress to his own wife as Zee's cunning wins out. | |
| Starring: | Elizabeth Taylor (as Zee Blakeley), Michael Caine (as Robert Blakeley), Susannah York (as Stella) |
| Featuring: | Margaret Leighton (as Gladys, a society friend), John Standing (as Gordon, gay friend of Zee's), Mary Larkin (as Rita, Robert's personal assistant at work), Michael Cashman (as Gavin, Stella's young assistant at her boutique) |
| NOTES: | |
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The version reviewed carried the US title of X, Y and Zee |
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Elizabeth Taylor's indicated nudity occurs when Michael Caine is pulling her character out of a bath following a suicide attempt - it is rear nudity which is seen and is almost certainly a body double. |
| Writers: Arthur Rowe, Donald Churchill / Director: Etienne Perier / Producer: Owen Crump | |
| Type: War Drama | Running Time: 97 mins |
| In 1915 during the First World War Londoners are being terrorised by bombing raids conducted by German airships called Zeppelins. These massive dirigibles named after their inventor Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin fly high above the clouds at 9000 feet dropping their bombs from beyond the altitude range of British attack planes. They levitate by means of a cylindrical framework of hydrogen-filled gas cells under which hangs a pod housing engines and crew.
The British are helpless against this threat and are working hard to create countermeasures. The Zeppelins have an inherent weakness in the flammable gas they use to provide lift but conventional bullets are not capable of igniting it - so special incendiary bullets are being developed. Also a new design of aircraft is under construction capable of achieving the same high altitude as the Zeppelins. However the British realise this effort might be in vain when they learn that a new generation of Zeppelin craft is being built capable of attaining even greater altitudes. The British consider it vital to learn more about the specifications of the new design and they have just the man in mind to discover that for them. Geoffrey Richter-Douglas is a lieutenant in the British army. His German family moved to Scotland when he was a child but he still has family ties to German aristocracy including the Zeppelin family and the scientist called Professor Altschul who has developed the Zeppelin idea into its current form. Geoffrey is patriotically British but agrees to undertake the mission and pretend to defect to Germany. Geoffrey's return to the fatherland is accepted by the German authorities and he is welcomed back into society. His local knowledge of Britain is considered invaluable and he is asked to meet with Major Tauntler and Colonel Hirsh who test him with some seemingly innocuous questions about various Scottish landmarks about which he is somewhat of an expert. This includes Balcoven Castle which unbeknown to Geoffrey is of specific interest to the Germans. Geoffrey is shown the new Zeppelin codenamed LZ36 and invited to be a passenger for its maiden test flight. Professor Altschul is on board along with his wife and research assistant Erika who views Geoffrey with a degree of suspicion. Professor Altschul is a peace-loving man who is somewhat dismayed that his achievements are being put to use as weapons of war and clings to the hope that it will prove so decisive that the British will be forced to capitulate and end the fighting. The test flight goes well and they are about to return to base when Major Tauntler reveals he has special orders to take command. The maiden flight has now become a secret war mission. They are going to fly to Scotland and storm Balcoven castle where the British have stored all their valuable documents and art treasures for the duration of the war. The Germans intend to confiscate these articles and believe that this will be a devastating blow to British morale. Geoffrey has been brought aboard in order to help them sight-navigate their way to the destination. They stop off en route to take on munitions and commandoes. Geoffrey is obliged to do as he is asked and direct the LZ36 to its target. The German commandoes storm the castle taking its guards by surprise and start plundering the valuables. Geoffrey manages to get to the guardhouse and phone a warning message to the British military and an army unit is despatched. A pitched battle begins forcing the Germans to retreat back to the airship without their booty. Geoffrey attempts to destroy the LZ36 on the ground with a flare gun but he has been wounded and cannot manage it. The surviving Germans escape in the Zeppelin although bullet holes have punctured some of the gas cells thus reducing its performance. The wounded Geoffrey's treachery is not discovered and he is taken on board too as the Germans make a hasty take off. The British despatch a squadron of aircraft to attack the LZ36 in the air and their strafing runs kill many on board and cause significant damage but does not destroy it. The Zeppelin escapes out of their range but it has suffered too much damage to remain airworthy and crashes into the sea off the coast of Holland. Geoffrey and Erika are amongst the few survivors and they escape to the shore just as the Zeppelin explodes in a ball of flame. Holland is a neutral country and they are interned to sit out the remainder of the war. | |
| Starring: | Michael York (as Geoffrey von Richter-Douglas), Peter Carsten (as Major Tauntler, German), Anton Diffring (as Colonel Johann Hirsch, German intelligence), Marius Goring (as Professor Christian Altschul, airship developer), Elke Sommer (as Dr Ericka Altschul, Professor's wife), Andrew Keir (as Von Gorian, LZ36 captain) |
| Featuring: | Alexandra Stewart (as Stephanie, German spy), William Marlowe (as Commander Anderson, British), Richard Hurndall (as Admiral Blinker Hall, British Chief of Naval Intelligence), Rupert Davies (as Captain Whitney, British) |
| Familiar Faces: | Gary Waldhorn (as LZ36 navigator), Frazer Hines (as LZ36 radio operator), Ray Lonnen (as British guard at Castle), Michael Robbins (as Sergeant giving lecture on Zeppelins) |
| aka: Alien Women; The Love Factor | |
| Writers: Cort and Alistair McKenzie / Director: Michael Cort / Producer: George Maynard | |
| Type: Comedy / Sci-Fi | Running Time: 82 mins |
| James Word is a secret agent working for Department 5. He is visited by Ann Olsen, his bosses new secretary, who wants to know all about his most recent mission. After a bit of feminine persuasion he tells her a fantastical tale about a race of women called the Agvians...
They live in another dimension without men and have some special powers and fighting skills. Their numbers are made up by Earthwomen who have been kidnapped and converted and are led by Zeta their queen. A rogue agent of Department 5 called Major Bourdon knows about them and wants to discover more so he sends his henchman Swyne to find out who the next woman to be kidnapped is likely to be. She is a stripper called Edwina and Bourdon recruits her giving her a homing device to swallow so that the Angvian base can be traced when she gets kidnapped. Meanwhile Bourdon has captured an Angvian girl of his own and tortures her for information. Later he captures another Angvian girl and uses her as sport in a fox and hounds chase and Zeta sends her fighters to Earth to rescue her and Bourdon is defeated. | |
| Comment: Although Major Bourdon is painted as the villain and his methods of extracting information might be somewhat extreme (he tortures a topless Carol Hawkins on a medieval rack) he only seems to want to find out more about a race of potentially dangerous Earth enemies.
James Word is telling Ann the story although his involvement in the affair seems very minor - he seems to spend most of the time in his apartment with a woman and when he does get assigned to look into the matter by his boss he wanders around the woods during the final stand-off but doesn't get particularly involved. At the end (back in the linking narrative) it transpires that Ann is another Angvian girl who has been sent to find out how much is known about her race and when it turns out to be quite a lot she kidnaps James to serve the race of women as a pampered stud. | |
| Starring: | James Robertson Justice (as Major Bourdon), Charles Hawtrey (as Henchman Swyne), Robin Hawdon (as James Word), Yutte Stensgaard (as Ann Olsen) |
| Featuring: | Anna Gaël, Dawn Addams (as Queen Zeta), Wendy Lingham (as Edwina) |
| Starlets: | Valerie Leon, Carol Hawkins (credited as Carolanne Hawkins), Yolande Del Mar, Brigitte Skay, Also: (as Angvian Girls) Juliet Adams, Gillian Aldam, Tasma Bereton, Kirsten Betts, Hani Borelle, Rina Brown, Fay Browning, Belinda Caren, Yvonne Castelle, Charleine, Jenny Field, Angie Grant, Gilly Grant, Caroline Johnson, Helen Jones, Sandra Kirwan, Linda Lawson, Jenny Le Fre, Olga Linden, Nita Lorraine, Trudi Nielson, Janet Pearce, Angela Pitt, Donna Reading, Vikki Richards, Christine Rigg, Birthe Sector, Erika Simmonds, Countessa Veronica, Jennifer Watts, Jeannette Wild (Many or maybe even all of these are seen topless but only a few are individually recognisable from other films and it's impossible to keep track of them from scene to scene as they are all dressed very similarly with identical hairstyles) |
| NOTES: | |
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The opening section has some bizarrely slow-paced padding as Ann and James play a game of strip poker that lasts for over 10 minutes with the sole plot purpose that when she wins she can decide what to do next - which is get him to tell her about the mission. |
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There is a scene when James is entering his headquarters that seems straight out of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. The building's lifts are voice operated and also speak and this one is having a bad day and is in a grumpy mood complaining in a mechanical monotone voice about its lot in life and how people never say thank you when they use its services and halfway up goes on its tea break - and is actually quite an amusing scene. A cross between Marvin and the personality doors from HHGTTG - although of course this film came first. |
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"Fortunately" for the special effect budget the women's special powers are incredibly cheap to reproduce - they point their hand at someone and there is a whooshing sound and the person falls over - no ray beams, smoke, or flashes of light required. |
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The Angvian's favoured fighting attire is wearing next to nothing - some briefs and a few bits of rope slung around their necks and down their fronts is what it amounts to with their breasts entirely bare but for a small circular coverings over their nipples. Seventies Carry On dolly-bird favourite Valerie Leon is the fighting leader and looks suitably impressive in her only known topless role (unless one is being picky because they cover up their nipples). |
| aka: Zombie Flesh Eaters | |
| Writer: Elisa Briganti / Director: Lucio Fulci / Producers: Ugo Tucci, Fabrizio De Angelis | |
| Type: European / Horror | Running Time: 91 mins |
| When a yacht is seen drifting in New York harbour a patrol boat is sent to investigate. The yacht seems abandoned with a smell of decay aboard - then one of the officers is suddenly attacked by a crazed ashen-skinned maniac who jumps out of a cupboard and kills him with a savage bite into his throat. His partner shoots the lunatic who falls into the water. The patrol officer's dead body is taken to the city morgue where the pathologist begins his examination. Unseen the dead man's hands move exhibiting a sign of life ...
The yacht belongs to the father of Anne Bowles who says she hasn’t heard from her father for several months since he went on a sailing trip to the Antilles. The police impound the yacht but Anne sneaks aboard at night where she meets up with a British journalist called Peter West who works for a New York newspaper. He is investigating the story of the drifting boat which he believes may have more to it than meets the eye. They find a letter aboard the yacht in which Anne's father writes of a terrible disease he contracted on the island of Matul. Anne and Peter agree to team up to find her father and they fly out to St Thomas Island in the West Indies. There they find a holidaying couple called Brian and Susan who own a pleasure yacht and who agree to give them transport to the island. The island is hard to find because it is not listed on any charts and on the way they suffer a shark attack which damages the yacht's drive shaft. They arrive at the tiny island of Matul hoping to find a repair shop. The island is supposed to be inhabited but it seems unusually deserted. Eventually they meet up with an English doctor called David Menard who runs the small local hospital. Menard is trying to cope with an extreme crisis that has developed on the island. A disease epidemic has arisen which always proves fatal - but after death the body of the victim rises and becomes a mindless lumbering killer whose only purpose is to eat human flesh and infect more victims with the plague. The only way to stop them is by destroying their heads. Dr Menard is convinced there must be some medical explanation for the condition although try as he might he cannot find a cure. He does not believe the local superstitions which say that voodoo magic is the cause. Most of the islanders are dead or have fled leaving just himself and a few assistants to care for their remaining patients. Menard asks the foursome to go and check on his wife Paola in their house several miles away. They find her being eaten by zombies and they flee when the zombies turn on them. On the way back their borrowed car breaks down and they have to continue on foot. But as they pass an ancient graveyard of 16th century conquistadors, the long-dead Spaniards begin to emerge from the ground and attack. Susan is killed and the others make it back to the field hospital. The wooden shed-like hospital building comes under siege by hoards of lumbering zombies with an insatiable need to kill and eat the humans inside. The besieged humans barricade the doors and prepare to fight with guns and kerosene bombs. But then recently dead patients inside the building also return to life and start attacking and Menard and Brian are bitten by a zombie in the relentless onslaught of the undead. Fires take hold and the hospital building becomes an inferno. Anne and Peter have to make a run for it taking the injured Brian with them. They make it back to the yacht and set out for sea limping along slowly due to the still damaged drive shaft. They lock Brian in the bilge knowing he will turn into a zombie but hoping that if they have a live specimen the authorities will believe their story and perhaps be able to develop an antidote. But then they turn on the radio and start hearing terrifying reports. Zombies are attacking all over America in overwhelming numbers and a state of national emergency has been declared. While they were away the contagion spread via the dead harbour patrolman and has become an unstoppable epidemic. THE END | |
| Starring: | Ian McCulloch (as Peter West, journalist), Richard Johnson (as Dr David Menard, scientist on island), Tisa Farrow (as Anne Bowles), Al Cliver (as Brian Hull, yacht owner), Auretta Gay (as Susan Barrett, girlfriend of Brian) |
| Featuring: | Olga Karlatos (as Paola Menard, David's wife), Stefania D'Amario (as Dr Menard's Nurse) |
| NOTES: | |
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This Italian film is reviewed here because of the starring roles for British actors Ian McCulloch and Richard Johnson. The title on the version reviewed was simply Zombie and was an English dub. Other English titles it has been known by over the years in various edited forms are: Island of the Flesh-Eaters; Island of the Living Dead; Zombie Flesh Eaters. |
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The film was called "Zombi 2" to unofficially connect it to George A. Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" (1978) which had been renamed "Zombi" in some territories. There was a "Zombi 3" also directed by Lucio Fulci in 1988 but that had no British actor involvement or any of the same characters and so there are no plans to review it here. |
| Zorba the Greek (1964) | Previous Next |
| Writer/Director/Producer: Michael Cacoyannis | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 136 mins |
| An English writer called Basil is travelling to Crete to open up a disused mine left to him by his late father. Basil is very reserved and finds it hard to empathise with others. On the journey he meets a Greek labourer called Alexis Zorba who inveigles his way into the Englishman's company with his persistent enthusiasm and eagerness to help. Basil takes a liking to the gregarious character whose local knowledge will be invaluable and employs his services.
Basil and Zorba arrive in the small Cretan village near the mine to a jubilant welcome from the peasant folk because the mine will provide then with much needed jobs. The duo are invited to stay at the house belonging to Madame Hortense. She is an aging former French showgirl whose glory days are behind her and has bouts of maudlin sentiment as she reminisces upon her youth while fighting ailing health. Zorba is very fond of her and does all he can to bolster her fragile confidence. Zorba is capable of great compassion and sensitivity towards the feelings of others, a facility for which Basil knows himself to be sorely lacking. The mine entrance bores into the foot of a steep forested hill. The mine has been out of action for so long the wooden support beams are unsafe and need replacing. Basil gives Zorba a couple of months to devise a solution to the problem of how to safely get lumber down the side of the mountain. Zorba eventually comes up with the idea of using an overhead cable system to slide the felled tree trunks down to the foot of the small mountain. Zorba heads off to the city to buy materials needed and writes letters back to Basil to report progress. Hortense is feeling very low without Zorba around to cheer her up and so Basil pretends that Zorba has said some nice things about her in his letters. Basil's eagerness to boost her happiness ends with him rashly saying that Zorba is planning to propose to her which elates Hortense and she starts making preparations. When Zorba returns he is displeased that Basil has been so impulsive but knows he cannot hurt Hortense's feelings by letting her down. So he graciously proceeds with the ceremony and does all he can to make her happy. Zorba begins construction on the gantry posts for conveying the logs down the steep hill on a cable slide. Meanwhile Hortense's state of health has deteriorated and it is clear she is soon going to die. Zorba stays by her bedside and provides her with comfort. When she dies he is happy she passed away with a feeling of being loved. The cable system is finished and the first logs are ready to be sent down. But unfortunately the angle of descent is too steep and the logs career down at dangerously high speeds and the gantries collapse and the whole idea is a write-off. Basil decides that he has given the endeavour as long as he can to prove workable and now it is time to call it a day and return to England. He is sorry to be leaving Zorba who has become a friend whom he doesn’t blame for the failure. Zorba's zest has taught Basil a thing or two about how to enjoy life to its fullest and overcome some of his natural reticence. | |
| Starring: | Anthony Quinn (as Alexis Zorba), Alan Bates (as Basil), Lila Kedrova (as Madame Hortense) |
| Featuring: | Irene Papas (as Young widow) |
| NOTES: | |
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Made in black and white |
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From the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis |
| Writers: Cy Endfield, Anthony Storey / Director: Douglas Hickox / Producer: Nate Kohn | |
| Type: Historical Drama | Running Time: 111 mins |
| In January 1879 in the South African republic of Natal the British have conquered and occupied part of the land which has been wholly claimed as part of the British Empire and its peoples considered subjects of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. The aristocratic elite of polite British society live in uneasy proximity to the native Zulu tribes who occupy the land on the other side of Buffalo river. An understanding has been formed that the two cultures will tolerate the others presence provided the river border is respected and neither side tries to attack the other.
However a decree comes from Queen Victoria that the savage nature of the Zulu, who live by bloodthirsty laws and customs abhorrent to civilised society, cannot be tolerated amongst those that are now considered British subjects. The Zulu king Cetshwayo is issued with an ultimatum that his people must change their ways and respect British sovereignty and its codes of behaviour. The king forthrightly declines to accede to this impudence and is much more concerned with his peoples gathering their harvest for the year - but he restates his commitment to respect the land the British currently occupy. The British contingent of military forces commanded by Lord Chelmsford are concerned that the Zulus may attack with their vastly superior forces reputed to number 30,000 or more in contrast to the British numbers of just a few thousand. So the decision is made that the only way to defend against the threat they pose is to attack pre-emptively - confident that superior long-range weaponry can easily overcome an enemy fighting with spears and shields. Thus Britain declares war on the Zulu people. The British send their infantry regiments across the river and into Zululand and set up camp at Rorke's drift at the foot of a mountain. The precise disposition of the Zulu forces is not known and so Lord Chelmsford splits his forces to guard against all possible directions believing he can easily outsmart the crude intelligence of the natives. But although not as well equipped as the British, the Zulus are far from stupid and employ very shrewd battle tactics to feed false intelligence which leads their overconfident enemy into spreading its already inferior forces too thinly. When the main battle comes the Zulu impi warriors swarm over the mountain in their seemingly never-ending thousands. The mere thousand or so British defending at Isandlwana fire their rifles and cannon into their midst killing many hundreds but barely denting the onrush. Soon the British are overwhelmed and forced to engage in hand-to-hand combat to which the Zulu impi are far better suited and the British line becomes disorganised and forced to fight in retreat. Eventually all the British soldiers are massacred and Lord Chelmsford later returns from his scouting expedition to view the carnage resulting from his foolhardy excursion which has resulted in the greatest defeat of a modern army at the hands of native people in history. | |
| Starring: | Peter O'Toole (as Lord Chelmsford, overall commander of British forces), Burt Lancaster (as Colonel Durnford, officer who has some doubts over tactics) |
| Featuring: | (The remainder of the roles were on the whole of a short cameo nature with their characters only popping in for short intervals) Here are a selection of the best known names: Simon Ward, Denholm Elliott, Peter Vaughan, James Faulkner, Christopher Cazenove, Bob Hoskins, Nigel Davenport, Michael Jayston, Ronald Pickup, Ronald Lacey, Chris Chittell, John Mills, Freddie Jones, Anna Calder-Marshall |
| NOTES: | |
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The events of this movie precede those in the movie Zulu (1964) which dealt with a further engagement between British and Zulu forces a short time later precipitated by the events told here. The two films feature different sets of characters and are not really sequel/prequel other than historically. |
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