DVD & BluRay reviews; General

British cinema audiences must have been ill-prepared for ‘Look Back in Anger’ (1959), Woodfall’s debut film, adapted by Nigel Kneale from John Osborne’s play of the same name. It is a classic example of what would become known as a ‘kitchen sink drama’, with its inhabitants stuck in an emotional pressure-cooker,  with its claustrophobic, slum-like setting, and the malign and subtle external forces working on them.

‘The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner’ (1962) is a challenging story of a young man, Colin Smith (Tom Courtenay), sent to a juvenile detention centre where the regime seeks to inculcate the virtues of hard work and discipline into their young charges. From the opening shots of Colin running alone along a country lane, his character is laid bare, a rudderless youth who could, and indeed should be saved.

That Woodfall should choose to release a period romp at this point must have come as a surprise to most, but ‘Tom Jones’ (1963) has more going for it than just a routine yarn. Both the original and the director’s cut appear in this set. Adapted for screen by John Osborne from the Henry Fielding classic, and filmed in glorious colour, hot property Albert Finney stars as the foundling/protagonist/fool. Adopted by the wealthy Squire Allworthy after banishing his unmarried parents, his barber Mr Partridge and servant Jenny Jones; if Tom he feels the stigma of illegitimacy, he certainly doesn’t show it, careering through life, hunting, fighting and bedding young ladies in a frenzy of activity. His ambition to marry the aristocratic Sophie Western (Susannah York) seems impossible given his base-born origin, and Squire Western’s (Hugh Griffith) plans to get her married off to Squire Allworthy’s virtuous but dull son Blifil (David Warner), do not appeal to Sophie in any way.

5/6/18

Legend of the Witches / Secret Rites (BFI Flipside BFIB1352 No 039)

Out now, on BFI Flipside and in DVD/BluRay dual format, a collection of some fascinating late ‘60’s curios on the general theme of contemporary occultism.

First up, the title film, ‘Legend of the Witches’ (1970) an exploration of the practices of one particular, famous-coven of witches, headed by the golden couple of UK witchcraft, Alex and Maxine Sanders. Unique among the occult community of the late 60’s, the coven were happy to talk in detail about their practices, and even to perform their rituals on stage and here, on film. Opening with a night scene, naked witches dancing around a bonfire, awaiting the arrival of a young, initiate, it’s so far, so expected. The young neophyte is led blindfolded around the woods, trusting only the voice of an initiated witch, to test his mettle and trust. He is challenged, bound hand and foot, and more dancing around the bonfire follows, until he is declared a full coven member.

With the repeal of the Witchcraft Act in 1951, books and magazine articles on this esoteric subject multiplied, some serious, some more sensational, and ‘Legend of the Witches’ takes an uneasy tightrope walk between these two extremes. Letting Alex Sanders have free rein to tell the story of witchcraft’s beginnings and its modern practice ensures that there are no dissenting views from other covens or independent occultists to test the truth of his assertions, or the antiquity -  or otherwise -  of the rituals. At pains to challenge the negative stereotypes of witches accumulated thorough centuries of prejudice, Sanders’ coven then undo the good work by talking about the making of wax images to place curses on enemies, and also perform a ‘Black Mass’ for the camera. This turn out to be more Christian/Pagan cross-fertilization than any of the barbarous rites fictionalized by such writers as Dennis Wheatley. Possibly the only negative stereotype successfully challenged here is the witch as a snaggle-toothed old crone, with Sanders surrounded by his coven filled with beautiful young women.

‘Secret Rites’ (1971) is a more intimate portrait of life in a witch coven, as young hairdresser, Penny, prepares for her initiation, courtesy of Alex and Maxine Sanders. There’s no denying Sanders’ leaning, his home containing an impressive library of occult books and the dramatic paraphernalia of ritual. Interviews with him suggest an understated charisma, and perhaps modern, more cynical audiences may grin at his claim to be ‘not as other men’, but he is very much the leader here, seemingly rather at odds with the image of a mother goddess-centred religion. Back at the circle, horoscopes are cast, our young neophyte is put through symbolic tests and ordeals, and when the time is felt to be right, she is bound hand and foot, naked, and given the sexually charged five-fold kiss. The viewer wonders if our hairdresser kept her pagan faith, and what she is doing with her life, today.

‘The Witch’s Fiddle’ (1924) is bound to interest fans of early cinema, with its folk tale of a fiddler who wins a violin from a witch, and thereafter uses it to make people dance incessantly. Two fighting men forget their argument and dance, and our magic violin toting musician makes off with the miller’s daughter while her father dances himself silly.

An edition of Daniel Farson’s ‘Out of Step’ (1957) series is included, musing on the meaning of modern witchcraft (made in 1957) and interviewing the hugely knowledgeable Dr. Margaret Murray.  Dr. Murray takes the subject as seriously as you would expect a scholar to, recalling meeting a farmer’s wife who was also a witch (‘most unpleasant’) and getting letters from people who believed they had been bewitched. We are left in no doubt about her feelings on curses, her view being that earthly poison and not sorcery did the work on the victim. By stark contrast, Farson also interviews the wild haired, goblin-like Gerald Gardner, a key figure in 20th Century witchcraft. Although not professing to have special ‘powers’, Gardner does insist his work can get results, and the impish delight he shows in telling these wild tales of nude ceremonies and using wax images is both captivating and more than a little disturbing.

The languorous meditation of ‘Judgement of Albion’ (1968) is a curio, with matter of fact shots of the West End and City of London, St. Saviour’s Dock and many other locations on a typical day in London, cut and narrated with the words of William Blake. Crowds protesting contrasting with Morris dancers, bomb blasts and skyscrapers,  it’s hard not be put in mind of one of Derek Jarman’s later mythological/futuristic films set in a London we think we recognize, but perhaps not fully.       

‘Getting Straight In Notting Hill Gate’ (1970) is a true gem, a time capsule of what was then, and still is, in parts, an impoverished yet caring and close knit neighborhood of relatively fresh arrivals, all with differing ideas on how to live their lives. The shocking squalor of housing conditions in many parts of the borough is exposed here, as are the many attempts by the residents to do something about it. Playgrounds, paid for by the locals, are filled with happy children in stark contrast to the conditions they are forced to live in. An interview with ‘Release’ co-founder Caroline Coon reveals Police attitudes to the neighborhood, with drug busts a regular occurrence, and harassment of the mainly young and multi-racial population all too common. In amongst the grimness, however, there’s a beating heart of an artistic community that laid the foundations for one of London’s most vibrant boroughs, and one which, although gentrified in parts today, retains the atmosphere that brings many to it to live, work, and enjoy.   

‘Legend if The Witches / Secret Rites’ is a fascinating document of the late 60’s and early 70’s, and is a must for anyone interested in the formative years of British counterculture.

Scenester
17/11/19

BUY NOW: https://shop.bfi.org.uk/legend-of-the-witches-secret-rites-flipside-039-dual-format-edition.html

Presented in high and standard definition and with a wealth of quirky extras, Richard Lester’s anti-war picture is back and ready for reappraisal.

Dick Lester assembled a cast of well-knowns to populate this off-kilter tale of the Second World War, chief among whom was the then rising star, Michael Crawford, to play Lieutenant Goodbody. Crawford is well cast as an inept, distracted youth who somehow finds himself in charge of a platoon of misfits and eccentrics. Beatle John Lennon does adequate service as Gripweed, a Goonish soldier in the kind of NHS spectacles which would later become a trademark. Able support comes from the ever-reliable Roy Kinnear as Clapper and the usually criminally under-used Jack McGowran as Juniper.

Told in reminisce, Goodbody is bargaining with his German counterpart Odlebog (Karl Michael Vogler) for the Rhine bridge to be left intact, as he recalls the fatuous orders he has been given, and has himself given in the course of the war.  Men are sent to certain death by unconcerned Generals, safe in their London clubs, whilst bullets and shells are flying. Goodbody is ordered to lay out a cricket pitch behind enemy lines. Their long march in the desert passes like a bizarre, psychedelic tinged dream, only to end up in a minefield, a welcome oasis only steps away.

Juniper (Jack McGowran), regarded as a man ‘working his ticket’ clowns it up to surreal heights, as Clapper (Roy Kinnear) tells doubtlessly exaggerated stories about his wife’s infidelity back home. The German officers are not stereotypically cruel monsters. Indeed, in one scene, they are not looting, but returning artworks to their owners.

Satirising both war and the popular stereotypical war film, this blackly comic tale draws on surrealist and Dadaist imagery, piles absurdity on top of absurdity, has moments of squirming, uncomfortable goriness, and yet, fails to hit its target squarely. Perhaps it’s the unsympathetic way the soldiers are portrayed, the hazy, psychedelic atmosphere out of kilter with the period setting, the lack of bite to the satire, or the often incoherent storyline that hobbles the production. Whatever the problem, ‘How I Won the War’ only makes it as a footnote in the otherwise illustrious career of Dick Lester.

Pre order here:
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Released in 1988 and unavailable for over thirty years, Pet Shop Boys’ film ‘It Couldn’t Happen Here’ had a limited dual edition (DVD/BluRay) release from the British Film Institute on 15th June, which sold out in the blink of an eye. If you missed out, don’t despair, there will be a standard dual edition out on 20th July.

Released toward the end of a decade best remembered for its wildly successful bands and artists and their often-overblown promotional videos, ‘It Couldn’t Happen Here’ takes the pop video format and constructs a loose, dreamlike narrative story, favouring the British seaside in all its faded glory, rather than the beaches of Lanzarote or the Bahamas. Showcasing Pet Shop Boys hits mainly from their first two LPs, ‘Please’ and ‘Actually’, and referencing their own lyrics in the script, the vignettes of half-remembered holidays at the British seaside, and the everyday difficulties of growing up ‘other’ in a hostile world of ‘normals’ entertain, even if they lack coherence in places.

Put together in preference to the prohibitively expensive promo tour they had in mind, the film manages to keep the band’s posh boy - common boy polarity in place throughout, the only characters who are not some sort of cipher for understanding the past or the present.

Encounters with British comedy stock characters abound, from Gareth Hunt’s triple role of a curmudgeonly kiosk owner, an annoying end of the pier comic and a positively creepy ventriloquist, to Barbara Windsor’s brassy landlady, but mixed in with all this thickly sliced humour is Joss Ackland’s blind priest, reciting dramatic verse whilst shambling around town in front of an orderly crocodile of his young charges. His later attempts to recover the boys, who have all been called away by the seaside’s many temptations, provide a storyline that does more than hint at danger.

If much of this all sounds like standard nostalgic Brit fare, the mood is quickly dispelled by frequent bursts of surreal eroticism. Nuns walking at the water’s edge, their stockings and suspenders showing under their robes, and a parade of broad stereotypes, including Neil and Chris as schoolboys, taking a sneaky peek at the ‘What the Butler Saw’ machines. The boys also attend a tacky floor show, with nuns stripping to their Victorian underwear, as the priest taps his cane trying to find them. Pet Shop Boys’ songs turn up at appropriate points in the film, often illustrating the action literally, as in ‘It’s a Sin’. By contrast, and in a standout scene, Joss Ackland’s blind priest recites powerful sea shanty verses as sou’estered sailors haul a huge wooden cross up a flagpole with ropes.

The boys buy a classic bi-coloured car from a flashy spiv in a suit decked with lightbulbs and drive around until they pick up the priest, minus his glasses and more than capable of seeing. Most readers will recall the band’s Xmas/New Year No 1 single, ‘You Were Always On My Mind’, but in this scene, Ackland exploits his skills to play an other-worldly, disturbing villain, coming over like Aleister Crowley on a predatory weekend by the sea.

The film begins to sag here, although the appearance of the afore mentioned ventriloquist and his existentialist dummy makes up for some of the longeurs. Ariel gunfights, explosions and telephone box vandalism by standard hooligans are thrown into the mix, and even two zebra-faced railway men leading a real zebra onto a train don’t do much to resuscitate the story.

Approached in the right frame of mind – that is, up for some classic electronic pop and with a sense of humour in tow, ‘It Couldn’t Happen Here’ will do the job of entertaining you.  

Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26kf2nZgFGI&feature=youtu.be 
Buy Here:
https://shop.bfi.org.uk/pre-order-it-couldn-t-happen-here-standard-dual-format-edition.html

Camera and lighting work closely together to produce the sense that the house is a place of confinement, punishment, even and the strong shot through the triangular dormer window is a hint that all three men are in hell, one perhaps of their own making.

We learn that flashy Desmond has a taste for dangerous situations, particularly when it involves bringing others down to his level, and the group’s chance meeting with a delinquent sailor Barney Teale (Bobby Darin) aboard the deserted ship he works on, reveals that Barney is also someone whose tastes extend to the adventurous. Clearly an arch manipulator, he takes a fancy to Angela, taunting Joe about it, and after an edgy evening’s horseplay, Barney is found stabbed, dead.   Suspicion falls on Joe, and the damning evidence of a knife found in his possession seems to put his guilt beyond doubt. There’ only one thing for it; Angela must waken her father from his alcoholic haze and get him to defend Joe from the wrongful murder charge. A fairly standard court room drama follows, but not without its moments.

Peter Brook’s ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’ sees the ostentatious arrival of a pompous opera singer (Zero Mostel) at Heathrow Airport, complete with outlandish costumes and a prop, or real, spear that would probably not be tolerated at any of today’s air terminals. His precarious cab journey, hurtling pell-mell through London’s outer suburbs to catch the performance he’s already late for, is made all the more perilous by his attempts to get into costume whilst the ride is underway, the car driven by a long-suffering Frank Thornton. Taking a tube journey after wrecking the cab, our Wagnerian hero causes considerable disruption to the lives of passengers and operators alike, until he finally bursts into the theatre, only to discover he’s on the stage of some stereotypical Edwardian drawing room comedy. Undeterred, he tries next door, and finds himself on stage with two strippers. Our hero does finally make it to the proper theatre, and shoehorns in a few note before the grand finale. Zero mugs and overacts shamelessly in this black and white short, which may have a point to make about newcomers and their frustrations in their adopted country, somewhere below the broad slapstick surface.

Lindsay Anderson’s ‘The White Bus’ is a standout piece, written and adapted by Shelagh Delaney, in what looks temptingly like a semi-autobiographical account of a girl’s visit to her former home city. The unnamed girl’s manner is distant and detached throughout, a nod to the by-then well-established existential style. Opening in an anonymous office in London, the girl (Patricia Healey) is the last of the typing pool to pack up, and makes her way to the railway station pursued by a persistent city type, determined to chat her up. Shaking hi off, she takes a train filled with the usual crowds of commuters, day trippers and football fans, and as she reaches her destination, sees the bleak, still-bomb damaged streets of Salford. Boarding a bus, she finds herself being taken around on a corporate jolly by the Mayor (Arthur Lowe) and assorted dignitaries. In spite of its down to earth setting, the piece has a surreal quality, as our crowd of VIPs take in a trip to Manchester’s vast, domed Central Library and to an enactment of the city’s preparedness for an all-out martial attack by some future aggressor.  The girl’s dumb insouciance at this grand tour may be a hint that she is simply confirmed in her decision to leave the city of her birth.

The unsettling monochrome of ‘White Bus’ contrasts with the final part of our collection, the full colour musical piece, ‘Red and Blue’, directed by Tony Richardson. A singer, played by Vanessa Redgrave, pours out her heart in a series of melancholy, reverie-filled numbers that seem more in tune with the French chanson tradition than the then-current music scene in 1960’s Britain. We follow her journey through an airport, on board a train, singing atop an elephant in a Big Top, and in the inevitable smoky night club, in between scenes of her somewhat complicated love life. Michael York makes an appearance as a boyfriend, and Douglas Fairbanks Jnr. as a millionaire and would-be lover, and the subject of one of the more humorous pieces. The songs are well written and sophisticated tales of disappointment, unfulfilled love affairs and relationships gone wrong, but it’s a well-trodden path and perhaps this is why the film is so little known today.

Packed with highly relevant extras and, ‘Red White and Zero’ has not been available on DVD or BluRay until now, and is bound to become a collector’s item. In a form more strongly associated with horror films than tales of urban isolation and disappointment, this trio make a surprising and curious collection to remember Woodfall Films by.

https://shop.bfi.org.uk/red-white-and-zero-flipside-036-dual-format-edition.html

The story opens in Germany in 1938, and we are thrown straight into the action; a weekend in the country for the Nazi high command takes in a crazed shooting party, and as the tweed-clad megalomaniacs wipe out a large proportion of the local wildlife, a man just like them, is hiding in the undergrowth. He trains his gun on the man with the toothbrush moustache, but just as he gets ready to squeeze the trigger…

Rogue Male’s premise is, we now know, not so outrageous a fiction, as there were many such attempts to assassinate the Nazi leader. With the secret agent franchise surging ahead and tales of wartime derring-do still turning in healthy profits at the cinema and on TV in the mid 1970’s, this thick slice of tightly budgeted do-or-die adventure sits somewhere between the two genres, without getting too comfortable in either. Veteran actor Peter O’Toole plays our (naturally) upper crust huntin’ shootin’ ‘n’ fishin’ enthusiast who gets a commission from you-know-where to bump off you-know-who,  before the dratted fellow starts to make a real nuisance of himself.

Thwarted, captured and tied to a chair, Sir Robert Hunter (Peter O’Toole), our man in hunting rig, is most graphically tortured, and the scene with his face seared with pain, his nail-less fingers drenched in blood, is almost unwatchable. It sets the tone, but not the intensity of the rest of the piece, as we see our man – Hunter by name, hunter by nature -  make his escape against seemingly impossible odds. Appealing to the sporting sensibility of a lone angler, he cadges some clothes and the use of a rowing boat and off he goes, in spite of his broken ribs and his shattered nervous system.

O’Toole is never anything less than watchable in this tale of a secret agent/amateur assassin, which displays many of the clichés of the genres; the good natured, gentlemanly meetings with the spymaster, the girl from his past whose death he seeks to avenge, the louche, aristocratic lifestyle punctuated with bursts of patriotic service. Later on, our story turns into a primer for anyone wishing to disappear from view for a while, as our hero goes to ground like one of his own animal prey. His pursuer, Major Quive-Smith, an English fascist sympathiser who is keen to recruit Hunter into his clandestine organisation, is played with a mixture of old boy charm and political sang froid by John Standing. His attempts to turn our man’s convictions around to his way of thinking are doomed to failure, however. Wouldn’t be cricket, would it?  

The walking pace of the story may seem a little at odds with the subject and there are some longeurs, moments when the viewer starts to anticipate the plot for want of something to watch. The meeting between Hunter and governmental big-wig ‘The Earl’ (Alastair Sim) in a Turkish Bath raised a grin, at how easily the two could have encountered Aleister Crowley lurking under the arches, but this moment of unintentional humour is unique. The appearance of Harold Pinter as a helpful Barrister is worth looking out for.

Looking a little old-fashioned in 1976, ‘Rogue Male’ can’t seem to decide whether it’s an exploration into the mind of a seasoned hunter, or an off-kilter boy’s own adventure, but that’s not to say it isn’t without appeal. You get your fisticuffs and explosions and your stately, coach-like classic cars, and thankfully no Bond villains or, heaven help us, supercharged cars and jet packs.

This dual format pack comes with a few choice warnings from history, including film of a British fascist march (as populous as it is chilling) and Eva Braun’s home movies (horribly fascinating, if shot in a perfunctory style).

Rarely seen, this film, reportedly Peter O’Toole’s favourite from his long career, is one which could easily grow on you.

A three disc set is now available of Spike Milligan’s anarchic, surreal comedy series, with another set scheduled for 2017. Taking in the remaining episodes of Q5, and the whole of Q6 and Q7, Milligan fans can at last own the shows which have not been seen in their entirety since first broadcast, in the late 60’s through the 70s and early 80’s.

Spike’s ongoing battles with the BBC are evident; every costume, set, and piece of furniture had a label on it, like the Mad Hatter’s ‘12/6’ hatband-ticket. The constant fun-poking at the organisation’s old-fashioned establishment structure, as well as the rabidly anti-authoritarian nature of most of Spike’s humour, all made his show unmissable, but also, at times, controversial. The gleeful trampling of taboos about sex, race and religion, the three untouchable subjects in Lord Reith’s black book, was felt highly necessary in a time when many people felt they constricted people’s true thoughts and opinions, and were forcing people to be dishonest about their feelings. Cut to some of Spike’s more contentious sketches, often featuring a voluptuous model wearing very little, or Spike’s satirical use of racial slurs, and you have, to modern eyes, a recipe for disaster.

Spike was an ex-soldier who saw wartime service, cared passionately about the human race, animals and the earth itself, was brought up in India, a country he loved, and who encountered racial prejudice himself by dint of being a double foreigner on his entering the UK as a young man; Irish ancestry, Indian birth. The targets of his humour were race prejudice rather than race, hypocrisy about sex rather than sex itself, a distinction I am sure will not be lost on a modern audience. Spike’s notorious ‘Pakistani Daleks’ sketch may smart a little today due to its cultural references, but I defy anyone not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation; a tired Dalek, collapsed turban on his metal dome, returning home after a hard day at the office, having exterminated his boss. The ‘Lost Tribes of Britain’ sketch, delivered in affectionate tribute to David Attenborough, pursues the ‘Cocker-nees’ a mysterious people who inhabit ‘Lun-don’, a hazardous concrete jungle. Their superstitious belief in the great God ‘Post Box’, and his horned demon attendant, who is said to deliver messages placed in the belly of the deity, and their retreat to the ‘Underground’, to avoid the rays of the sun they fear more than anything, is brilliantly satirical, and arguably not so far from the truth.

I short, these disks are manna from heaven to Spike fans, and although the humour may have dated, and some modern viewers may even be offended by parts of it, that was perhaps the point of what Spike was doing. Send them to bed with a smile on their faces? Not likely; send them to bed thinking.

Arguably, Val’s biggest problem is the people who want to persuade her to their particular world view. A romantic optimist, Val is still looking for that Prince Charming, but they’re in short supply. Val’s bedridden mother receives a visit from the young, well-meaning local vicar Father Dyson (John Castle), but resents what she sees as his interference, continuing to berate her daughter for her lack of care and infrequent visits. Sensing he perhaps may be able to help Val with her own predicament, Dyson invites her on to a trip to Brighton, which he has organised for some of his Parish’s unruly youths.

It’s not over for Val, who has more pain and loss to cope with. Her abandonment and exploitation by Mike is just another body blow for her, and some viewers may find her greatest loss too much to take, but steeling yourself until the end will pay rewards. ‘Made’ is one of the later social realist films, in an age where the social mores common in the original cycle, and essential to their structure, had broken down or were being chipped away by degrees. The sickly sympathy the viewer may feel toward Val would not help her situation, but where the film falls down, is the lack of any hope for a way out for her. There’s no rudder to steer the anger of the audience toward a solution. She’s simply left with inadequate state social care and another failed relationship.

‘Made’ comes with the original trailer, pdf of the press book and an image gallery.

Janis’ version of ‘Banks of the Ohio’ plays out as we hear from Janis’s sister Laura, about their conventional blue collar life in Port Arthur. It seems that Janis stuck out like the proverbial floorboard nail from an early age, and we all know the fate of almost all who stick out. Kicked out of the choir, harassed for supporting integration in schools, getting into street fights and finally, perhaps most shockingly to her ‘straight’ parents, hanging out with the local beatniks, this is where Janis first demonstrates that voice, and sets herself on the track to where she wants to be. Her heartfelt version of ‘Careless Love’, then most famously sung by Odetta, is a goosebump raising, honest performance of this blues classic.

The well-known story about her High School jocks voting her the ‘ugliest man’ is trotted out once more, a charge as indefensible as it is stupid, and the picture of the unpretty tomboy who sang the blues like no other, is all but complete. Making her way to San Francisco, hooking up with the beatniks, singing whenever and wherever she could, ‘She really felt the blues’ is just one of the comments that encapsulate this new talent in her early, pre-fame years. We learn of Janis’ booze and pill fuelled lifestyle in SF, and her friends’ whip-round to get her home to Port Arthur, the last place she wanted to be.

The tale of Janis Joplin is at times exhilarating, often life affirming, sometimes depressing, and perhaps even a little predictable. The viewer might be tempted to think that Janis turned up at exactly the right time for a performer of her sort, and perhaps could not have done so at any other time. Enough of this fatalism; fact is, Janis did turn up, was a success, and is today cited as a huge inspiration to many of rock’s women.  Her 2013 star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is almost superfluous.

Those classic, unbeatable shots of 60’s London streets come at us hard and fast in an opening, extended and heart pumping car chase, which would not be bettered until shows like ‘The Sweeney’ appeared on our TVs in the 1970’s. This audacious opening scene sets the tone for a very violent, perhaps morally questionable story, inviting us to let our repugnance for their chosen profession slip a little, as it reveals the back story to this calculated heist. The method they use to rob the train is so precisely laid out, it is hard to defend the film from the charge that it is a manual for committing larceny, but that ignores the bad end that at least some of the gang come to.

The abandoned airfield hideout the gang use to count up their ill-gotten gains must have been on loan from an ‘Avengers’ episode, but there is little else in common with that masterly fantasy show here. In the claustrophobic atmosphere of the underground bunker, the gang carefully count out the bundles of cash, well over £3 millions, and divide it up between them in such a cold, professional way, the film neatly avoids becoming an ‘Italian Job’-style spoof.

Scenester

Frankie Machine, (Frank Sinatra) a recovering heroin addict, is fresh out of jail and back in his old, low-rent, low expectation neighbourhood. His ambition to be a drummer in a band is opposed by those closest to him; his sad, utterly dependent wife, Zosh (Eleanor Parker), who won’t let him practise in their miserable, bare rooms, and his old cronies at the sleazy bar he frequents, who have missed his panache at card-dealing in the big, illegal games, whilst cooling his heels in jail. One with a particular reason to miss Frankie’s charismatic presence is sharp dressed drug dealer Louie Fomorowski  (Darren McGavin, in fine form), seemingly the neighbourhood’s only successful man.

Performances range from comedic (Arnold Stang as Sparrow, the card school’s gopher, a resemblance to the cringing Ratso of the much later Midnight Cowboy) to borderline manic (Zosh’s histrionics at every suggestion of Frankie leaving their bare, depressing rooms for any reason, and her faked, wheel chair bound paralysis, the result of a genuine car crash, eulogised in her pathetic ‘Zosh’s Fatal (sic) Accident Scrapbook’) to the just plain superb (Sinatra going cold turkey, a revelation.)

Scripted by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, and directed by the UK’s king of exploitation cinema, Michael Winner, ‘West 11’ is a tense thriller set in the soot-blackened, crumbling mansions of early 60’s Notting Hill, spiced up with plenty of action and illicit amours, and making a worthy addition to Network’s DVD series, ‘The British Film’.

Ilsa’s overnight stay in Joe’s miserable flat, kept hidden from their old fashioned, faintly seaside-style landlady, is hilariously bookended by the impromptu appearance of Joe’s mother (Kathleen Harrison) whose overweening concern for her son recalls another matron of Waterhouse’s creation, Mrs Fisher, and the film’s regular use of bus termini and railway stations, and Joe’s rudderless life also recall the classic ‘Billy Liar’, in a darkly humorous way.

Marking the screen debut of Hammer star Linda Hayden, ‘Baby Love’ finds itself in the murky netherworld between social realist and exploitation filmmaking, in its portrayal of an underage temptress and her sexual manipulation of her already emotionally crippled, adopted family.

‘Luci’  (Linda Hayden), a girl who has clearly been dealt a lousy hand in life, returns one day to her dark, humble home from school, to find her mother (Diana Dors) in the bath, wrists slit, after a lifetime of booze, bad food and unsuitable men. This is not the last we see of the great Dors however, turning up later in flashback, like a crimplene phantom.

Luci’s salvation isn’t very far away, as her mother’s former lover, Luci’s natural father, Robert (Keith Barron) now a successful doctor, at last feels some sense of responsibility toward her. Taking her into his palatial home, shared with his bored, rich wife Amy (Anne Lynn) and frustrated teenage son Nick (Derek Lamden), proves disastrous for all concerned.

The simmering tension between Robert and Amy is played with subtlety, Robert all too aware that he is the educated boy of a modest background who married the unpleasant rich girl for all the business and social contacts it would bring him. Nick’s privileged only-child shyness makes him Luci’s first target, reducing him to a quivering wreck with her flaunting, teasing, and spite-filled put downs.

A measure of relief from this pressure cooker existence comes early on, in the form of a trip to ‘Merry Go Round’, to buy Luci some fashionable clothes, or at least to give her two shabby dresses a rest, and later, a night out with her adopted brother Nick to a psyche-lite night club, which must have had a particularly lax door policy to go with the rich mix of musicians, stoners and pick-up artists who populate the place. The eagle eyed among you may spot the young Bruce Robinson, writer and director of ‘Withnail and I’, in this faintly threatening scene.

A suitably lecherous cameo from Harry (Dick Emery), as their chuckling, champagne swilling neighbour with an eye for young flesh, provides a few comic moments in his laughable chat up techniques with young Luci. He needn’t have bothered; her mind is now fixed firmly on tempting her father, a cold fish at the best of times, and weak because of having neglected her for so long.

Those of you who feel that not enough taboos have been broken so far, will have a further treat in store, as Luci manages to work her way into the Sapphic affections of her convent educated adopted mother, to catastrophic effect. The scene where Amy’s tryst with Luci is discovered followed by Luci’s opportunistic self-portrayal as the innocent victim of an older woman’s manipulation, makes very uncomfortable viewing.

That Luci has the final victory is no surprise, and it may be that some viewers will have a certain sympathy for this left-behind girl, who gives her distant, self-absorbed father and his snobbish, pension-plan wife the emotional drubbing they richly deserve, no matter that they are not the only casualties here.

Penny Points to Paradise/Let’s Go Crazy NFT 27/7/09

A couple of ‘Goons’ films, in all but name, and from 1951? This can’t be right can it? Well, it can be when you have the three principals of the Goon Show in them; Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe are all in these little gems, and the films have Spike’s unmistakable stamp all over them.

For the uninitiated, or maybe just plain young, The Goon Show was a groundbreaking ‘wireless’ (radio) show in the 1950’s, that featured a cast of grotesquely drawn characters, crazy, surreal situations its scripts peppered with satire and cheeky sideswipes at the BBC, the Establishment and anything else foolish enough to get in its way, that could only have flowed from the mind of that singular comic genius, Spike Milligan. It’s half hour slot somehow managed to shoehorn in two musical interludes, in between a script that often threatened to write itself, without Spike’s permission!

Having completed work on the main feature’ Penny Points’, and with a week left of their 4 week shooting schedule, the makers decided to turn in another short; largely improvised, it was entitled ‘Let’s Go Crazy’. It is reckoned to be the first appearance on film of the great Peter Sellers, who later became successful in the classic Ealing comedy, ‘The Ladykillers’ a global phenomenon in the hugely successful ‘Pink Panther’ series, and latterly, ‘Being There’, arguably his best film role.

First up tonight is ‘Let’s Go Crazy’, basically a series of variety acts entertaining the patrons of a smart restaurant populated with stock characters, many of which dated back to Victorian comedy theatre. You have the charming singer, out with a girl he hopes to marry, serenading her at her table, the crazy waiter who cannot understand his customer’s order, a zany orchestra, the conductor in a leopard-spot robe and a silly wig, playing an out of key, slapstick tune that could have, and probably did have, its roots in the Commedia dell’arte, or more likely Spike Jones and his City Slickers. Peter Sellers does a good impression of Groucho Marx, part of the famous Marx Brothers, a troupe of brilliant comedy actors to whom Spike always paid tribute (he also never failed to cite Spike Jones et al as a major comedy influence) and although the film isn’t the most disciplined piece of light entertainment I’ve ever seen, it must have come as a welcome relief to the cinema goers in the grey, ration-bound Britain of the early 1950’s.

Film historians will probably be interested to hear that these two gems were made in the now-defunct Brighton Studios, and the main feature makes effective use of that lovely city (then a town). The ‘Penny Points’ referred to in the title are of course the football pools, statistically still the best chance you have of winning a fortune in a game of chance; then a very new way of gambling, without the unpleasant back-taste that many people felt ‘proper’ gambling had. Hyperactive Welsh singing sensation Harry Secombe plays Harry Flakers, who has recently scooped up a huge win on the pools, which he keeps in ‘white fivers’ (ask your granddad) in a suitcase. He’s come down to the South Coast for a holiday with his friend Spike Donnelly (Spike Milligan), perhaps unwisely letting the world and his wife know how much he’s won and exactly where he’s staying. The guest house he stays in every year is of course now full of gold-diggers, shysters and ne’er-do-wells, including a statuesque blonde and her tagalong friend, determined to get her hands on Harry’s fortune, and him, although only the latter if necessary to the former. Our cast of miscreants also includes Alfred Marks offering up an excellent performance as Alfred Haynes, a master forger, aided and abetted by his drudge, Digger Graves, played by another comedy face who would become much more familiar later on, in Hancock’s Half Hour, Bill Kerr. Their plan is to replace Harry’s cash with forged fivers, and then manufacture some excuse to leave the holiday home.

In between being dragged out to the theatre with Spike by his cash-hungry harpies, and chatted by a crooked insurance salesman, Harry does not know which way to turn, but some pure slapstick keeps the belly laughs coming. Cue an ancient taxi, which looks like it had failed the pre-race MOT for the 1915 Grand Prix, collapsing in a heap like a clown’s car, in a haze of black smoke and sparks. Then the Police/Forgers/Our Heroes chase around the Brighton seafront to Louis Tussaud’s waxworks; it’s pure Keystone Kops, and done with great affection. Cue Harry’s ‘shaving’ routine, a mainstay of his act for about thirty years; although rarely seen on his many ‘Stars on Sunday’ appearances. It’s a joy to watch just how much physicality there is in these performances, honed on stage over years and translated to film.

I’d be the first to agree that ‘Goon’ humour isn’t to everyone’s taste, and post-War British film tends to polarise opinion, too. My father’s generation used ’British picture’ more as a term of abuse than a reference to a particular genre of film. However, at a distance of nearly 60 years, there’s plenty captured here on celluloid for the film historian, nostalgist, Goons fan, or even just the casual viewer. Those top fellahs at the Flipside have just brought out these two pieces on the one DVD disk, on the BFI label, and I have no hesitation in recommending it to you.

As a footnote, I was pleased to run into the current President (Goon in chief?) of the long-running Goon Show Preservation Society, who kindly let me have a couple of their hugely entertaining regular newsletters. The Society can even be contacted via the steam-driven ‘world wide web’, if you’re interested-I am!

Scenester
31/8/09  

Whicker’s World & Whicker’s New World (DVD) Network Distributing 7954525 & 7954526

Out now in two 2-disc DVD box sets, classic interviews and articles by the man who surely had the best job in journalism in the 1960’s and ‘70’s, the great Alan Whicker. His hugely popular show ran from 1958 to 1994, changing from its original BBC slot to Yorkshire TV, picking up BAFTA nominations galore, with Whicker himself winning the Richard Dimbleby Award at the 1977 BAFTA’s, and picking up a CBE in 2005.

From the beginning, Whicker’s style in presentation was evident; the crisp shirts, stylish suits, neatly clipped moustache and slicked back hair, and his military bearing, all accentuating his avuncular, slightly sarcastic manner with his interviewees. An early adopter of the rising terminal, his interviews, polite, subtle and invariably conducted on the interviewees’ presumed safe home territory, were just enough to lull them into a false sense of security.

‘Let’s Have An Airport’ is a gem from the early 60’s, with Whicker handing just enough rope to the planners of Yeadon (eventually Leeds/Bradford) airport, whose  disinterest in the idea of building the airport, borders on Luddism.  ‘The Trainers’ begins with Whicker’s characteristic salty introduction about ‘good breeding’, leading us into the fascinating and secretive world of horse racing. Affable but definitely guarded, trainers have some classic lines; ‘Keep yourself in the best company and your horses in the worst and you’ll not go wrong.’ None describe themselves as being successful, and all cast doubt on whether fortunes are made out of racing. Their superstitious nature includes the dire consequences of meeting a wedding before a race, contrasting with the good fortune of meeting a funeral. Their un-showy uniform country rig makes us think they’re all earning a comfortable, but not large salary. The punishing diets and the endless hot baths the jockeys put themselves through to get below six stone in weight, shows a side of this industry which is rarely touched on elsewhere in the media.   The pocket-money wages of the apprentices is mentioned, and the viewer is left wondering exactly who the beneficiaries are of the colossal wealth generated by this enduring pastime.

Whicker upped his game in the 70’s, and his US lifestyle pieces are the stuff of legend. ‘Tender Loving Care Inc.’ finds him the only man in a rich, middle-aged white bread American woman’s health retreat. These remote, well-heeled dowagers, who show varying degrees of snobbery are ensconced in luxurious surroundings, waited on hand and foot, but instead of haute cuisine and vin fin, it’s lettuce leaves and carrot juice, with a side order of hydrotherapy and pummelling massage. Their endless gossiping perhaps makes up for a sheer lack of anything to do, and Whicker’s polite but probing questions make for some mildly amusing answers. ‘All we talk about is food and sex, and we’ve got none of it here.’ The club owner is exactly what you would expect; a woman used to populating the place with the ‘right sort’, and keeping the rest out. Perhaps too used to getting their own way, and maybe a little flattered by the attention they get from this stylish Englishman, the ladies act the part of spoilt hussifs perfectly, and a nation tuts as it devours every word.

‘Immortality Inc.’ has Whicker investigating the then very new and controversial practice of freezing the body at death, in the hope of a future resurrection. The certainty they believe in, will however be provided by science, rather than the Almighty. The faith of the adherents and future ice pops in not only a cure for whatever fatal disease carried them off, but also for the inevitable freeze damage, is presumably as strong as any religion, as the process is very expensive. Whicker tours the desert compound, with its huge tanks of liquid hydrogen simply lying about in the open air. The manager, a sharp suited type who could be an estate agent or a banker just as easily as the body farmer he is, explains in calm business tones the procedures they carry out. A full body freeze or just the head? Those choosing the latter are presumably so confident about the future, they believe that there will one day be a way to reconstruct their missing bodies.  

 ‘Micromedia Inc.’, like ‘Immortality Inc.’ might suggest some futuristic corporation straight from a David Cronenberg film, but instead reveals itself as a television station staffed and presented entirely by schoolchildren, aged 7-11 years. Their enthusiasm and dedication to professional presentation is impressive, if a little creepy, and Whicker’s questioning style does not alter one bit for these junior media moguls. Reports on nuclear power and the vagaries of the stock market mix with more light hearted material, but what is more interesting, is the route these protégés took to their small-scale fame. Making their way (with perhaps a strong shove from parents and guardians) through acting school, past the imperious child talent scouts and into faintly creepy children’s’ beauty parades, they start earning young ($50 a day for modelling) and once fame is sniffed in the air, they never stop trying. Even their conversation is adult; their fears of being drafted into the army when older, and rank admissions of being mugged for their expensive watches by other boys. The US/UK cultural divide is most apparent here, in an age when most British children were subject to Tall Poppy Syndrome, should they show worryingly precocious tendencies.

There are just a few of the half hour interviews preserved for posterity on these disks. Whicker’s award winning 1969 interview with the notorious Papa Doc, dictator of Haiti, is here, and worth the price of the disks alone. It’s a feast for the nostalgists, but for those too young to remember this exciting period, they provide a window on a world that was getting rapidly smaller, but perhaps more fascinating as it did so.