Short Sharp Shocks

Following on from the success of the first 2 Disc compilation, the BFI have once more trawled the archive for more of the strange, unnerving and downright queasy short films that made up time on the cinema bills of years gone by.

First up, a few of ‘whodunnit’ shorts from the 1940’s under the name ‘Quiz Game’ inviting the viewer to watch the ten-minute mystery carefully and guess who committed the murder. Considering the only characters tend to be the victim, the detective and one suspicious backgrounder, they aren’t too difficult. Times were hard.

Making an early appearance, the one and only Lord Sutch, performing his ‘hit’ the comedy horror ditty ‘Jack the Ripper’ on a sparse studio set. Sutch, dressed in a full-length cape, winkle-picker shoes and carrying a huge prop knife is clearly relishing the high camp craziness of the song, which he originally recorded (where else?) at Joe Meek’s legendary Holloway Road studio. The budget for this 1961 promotional film obviously didn’t run far, as the odd wooden staircase and scaffolding poles stand in for the winding streets of Victorian Whitechapel. A bevy of doxies drape themselves around the set, touting for business, until they are dispatched by the gurning, leering Sutch, clearly in his element. Unmissable.

The first genuinely disturbing piece is ‘The Three Children’ from 1946, in which a variety of small children are seen leaving their homes to play out, attend parties and generally enjoy their young lives. The parents seem to show much confidence in their little ones, and scant regard of the dangers they might face in the world. I’m not going to tell you how it ends, as I feel that’s a shock you need to see for yourselves, but I will tell you it’s not what you think.

‘Escape from Broadmoor’ (1948) is a fairly tough drama about the ways in which a fugitive can contrive to keep a low profile, with a little help from some local dubious characters. Very much in the style of an Inspector Fabian mystery, it takes in bare, seedy lodging rooms, London’s bomb-damaged streets, psychic detective work and that old standby, the chloroform attack.

‘Mingaloo’ takes us to another favourite setting, the artist’s apartment, where a famous sculptor is working on a dog sculpture, inspired by a distressing dream he has had the night before. His assistant, a young lady with a voice so cultured, it’s doubtful many in today’s audience would understand her, is hanging on to her employer’s every word, as he invites a foreign trade delegation round to pitch for a major work. One of their number takes more than a passing interest in the young woman, and it’s not just her charming company he’s after. A contrived tale involving a higher class of sleazy night spot, drug dealers and low art, it could almost be a sub-plot for ‘The Rebel’.

‘The Face of Darkness’ (1976) opens with the snazziest titles on the disk, offering your man in the cheap seats the chance to enjoy the champagne drinking, sunbathing, fast car driving lifestyle offered by the Brent Walker Company. An occult thriller, taking place partly in the Middle Ages and partly in modern times, it has impressive performances from John Bennett as the Inquisitor of the earlier time period, and a psychiatrist of the modern age, and Lennard Pearce as self-serving politician Edward Langdon. Basically a potboiler about MP Langdon’s attempt to toughen up society with fascistic laws and the reintroduction of the death penalty, using a species of black magic to achieve his aims. Good, exciting stuff and with a twist too delicious to spoil by divulging here.

Shades of Dario Argento in giallo standout ‘The Dumb Waiter’ (1979), starring Geraldine James in one of her earliest film roles. A young woman, Sally, has had an unnerving telephone call, telling her to look out for a certain car registration number. She spots the car one night, returning home from the launderette, when she is pursued at speed in busy city streets. Reaching her home in a block of flats, she becomes aware that someone is lurking outside, and calls a friend to ask him to come over. What follows is well acted, nerve-jangling standard scenes of psychological terror, with the pursuer trying every means to get into Sally’s flat. Shinning up drainpipes, rattling windows, doors, no point of ingress is ignored, not even…yes, you’ve guessed, the titular service lift. Director/writer Robert Bierman and lead Geraldine James turn out an excellent short story, head and shoulders above the usual slasher nonsense.

Many of us have memories of the gruesome public information films that enlivened the television schedules in the 60’s and 70’s. One that will probably only be familiar to those of you in the building trade is ‘Hangman’ (1985), a grimly humorous training film aimed at improving safety on building sites by encouraging cautious work practices. Resplendent in black vest, drill jeans and executioner’s eye mask, our host invites us to a realistic game of ‘Hangman’, in which points are earned for spotting inattention of workers and unsafe scenarios on a building site. Failure to spot them all results in head, body and limbs being added to the scaffold already chalked on a van’s side. Basically, a horribly realistic series of vignettes resulting in wholesale maiming and killing of site labourers, but all in a good cause. Once seen, ‘Hangman’ is unlikely ever to be forgotten, which is exactly what it was made to achieve.

Our final offering is ‘The Mark of Lilith’ (1986), part vampire myth, part feminist polemic about the historical misidentification of women with devils, vampires and evil spirits. The vampire scenes are played with more gusto than talent, and the endless political diatribes grate, but full marks for research and imagination.

There’s a host of extras including interviews with some of the directors and image galleries.

‘Short Sharp Shocks 2 is out on Blu Ray from BFI (Flipside 41) BFIB 1431 on 25 October.

Pre-Order;
https://shop.bfi.org.uk/short-sharp-shocks-volume-two_flipside-43-2-disc-blu-ray.html

The first disc presents ‘Tales of Mystery’ from 1949, taking us back to the rather sedate world of the gentleman in his country cottage, featuring the great horror story writer Algernon Blackwood reading two excellent stories, ‘Lock Your Door’ and ‘The Reformation of St Jules’. Blackwood’s avuncular style is perfect for these engaging and mildly unsettling tales, and the viewer has surely by now settled down in a favourite armchair and has an elegantly cut glass with a generous shot of whisky in it, to enjoy these stories to the full.

The next item is also a narration, this time in character, as Stanley Baker takes on the persona of the immortal Edgar Allan Poe. Stood in his cheap lodgings, bereft of decoration save a music hall poster on the plaster-peeling walls, Baker tells the classic story of ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ by candlelight, with subtlety and quiet professionalism. The unnerving atmosphere slowly builds until the terrible climax and aftermath. The story of the survival of this gem from 1953 is told in one of the extras, and well worth listening to.

The mini-drama of ‘Death Was A Passenger’ (1958) brings together an irresistible combination of a Nazi-occupied France setting, a railway carriage about to be boarded by the Gestapo, a British spy disguised as a French peasant and a Nun who may be more than she seems. Terence Alexander plays the British spy, whose inability to speak French puts him at a distinct disadvantage in this benighted  country. After noticing his plight, the Nun subtly suggests she may be able to help him avoid an encounter with the Gestapo. This short story has more to tell and does so with a cosy ending that seemingly only British film can get away with.

 The rather literal ‘Portrait of a Matador’ from 1958 brings a little of the supernatural to our week’s holiday view of Spain, with a tale of a flighty blonde, her deep, thoughtful English artist boyfriend and a hot tempered (what else?) matador as his rival in love. A bodega or two, a few swishes of the cape, some threatening noises and a portrait which would not give the immortal Poe any sleepless nights adds up to little more than a tepid tale in an exotic setting.

Our second disc takes us into the colour age, and 1969’s ‘Twenty Nine’ a pacy item about a young man’s attempts to piece together how he spent the previous night, with whom, and why. Waking up with a monstrous hangover in someone else’s flat and clothes, our man about town Graham Baird (Alexis Kanner) rolls out of bed and is promptly sick in the bathroom. Good start. As he riffles through the clues, a phone number on a fag packet here, a memory sparked there, a mocking message in lipstick on the mirror, it slowly dawns on our curly haired cavalier that he has had a night to end all nights, trawling the bars, strip joints and flesh pots of London’s West End. Cameo appearances by the fondly remembered Justine Lord as Baird’s long-suffering ex-wife and Yootha Joyce as a call-girl (!) are both very welcome. The shots of late 60’s London life are the main attraction here, however; the streets, the clothes and the music, a slice of well-crafted psychedelia lite provided by Tuesday’s Children. You won’t want it to end but like all good things it does, with a twist that burns.

No such style or subtlety to ‘The Sex Victims’ (1973), a hound and horny tale of a lorry driver who sees a modern-day Lady Godiva in the woods. His pursuit of the cool blonde bareback rider is long and boring, even when you consider his low, lecherous motives in doing so, but the final twist is neat, and perhaps a salutary warning to gentlemen not to pursue strange, nearly-naked girls on horseback when you’re out in the country.

‘The Lake’ (1978) is a slow burn horror offering, modelled on a traditional urban legend and starring Julie Peasgood and Gene Foad. You know the set up. A young couple take their car out into the country for a picnic by a lake and they pass the obligatory old, boarded-up house where the inevitable mass murder was committed, just a few years before. An old family photograph, grisly murders and a missing culprit set the scene, but where ‘The Lake’ differs from the kind of ‘stalk and slash’ picture which was then being churned out of the USA on an industrial scale, is in the lack of gore and savagery and the avoidance of doomy chords and screechy violins; the quiet menace of the English countryside and the power of the unseen does the job instead. There’s chills a-plenty, but don’t expect a faceless killer with a machete to turn up.

Our final entry fully lives up to the ‘Short Sharp Shock’ name of this collection, which many of you will remember was the name given to a UK Government scheme to persuade young offenders away from their life of crime. The Nigel Finch directed ‘The Errand’ (1980) is named innocently enough, but quickly proves to be the story of a bloody, brutal initiative test for a young soldier. It will come as little surprise to the viewer that this searing indictment of military hierarchies and authority comes from the pen of David McGillivray, who also scripted such bitter tales as ‘House of Whipcord’, ‘The Confessional’ and ‘Schizo’. The warning, ‘Such an institution does not exist in our society…yet’ at the start of this tight, tense tale chills, but must have done so far more deeply at the time, when our lords and masters were setting up precisely the sort of places where the appalling abuse of young offenders would take place, and in most cases take decades to come to light.

There are plenty of extras on these disks, with interviews and  a 48-page booklet filled with notes, details and photos to further enlighten you.

Scenester