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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.
| The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971) | Next |
| Writers: James Whiton, William Goldstein / Director: Robert Fuest / Producers: Ronald S. Dunas, Louis M. Heyward | |
| Type: Horror | Running Time: 91 mins |
| Set in 1920s England where police are baffled by a series of grisly and elaborate murders. All of the victims are in the medical profession and the police eventually realise that they all worked at one time for a Dr Vesalius. Although Vesalius has had many doctors working for him over the years he is able to establish that the only things that the dead men have in common is that 4 years previously they had assisted him with an unsuccessful radical resection operation on a woman called Victoria Phibes. Her husband too died in a car crash as he raced to the hospital to be by her side.
At the scene of the latest murder an amulet was left seemingly by accident and the police consult a jeweller who says it is part of a set of 10 showing Hebrew symbols connected to the ten curses visited upon the pharaohs before Exodus. Each curse is specific in nature and are placed in a certain order:- Boils, bats, frogs, blood, rats, hail, beasts, locusts, death of first born, darkness. The murders thus far have been in this order with the deaths pertaining to the curse-type. The police can therefore deduce the identities of future victims and the manner in which they will be marked for death. But even with the prospective victims under protection the killer still manages to get through and horribly kill them. The culprit is revealed to be the husband Dr Anton Phibes who didn't die after all. Instead he was horribly mutilated and scarred and now lives a solitary existence with a beautiful mute woman and worshipping the memory and image of his dead wife. He is unable to speak but has used his mastery of acoustics to recreate his voice mechanically. In his cold calculating madness he considers the doctors who operated on his wife to be responsible for her death and has decided to take a fitting vengeance on them for their crimes. As the police close in on Phibes he escapes into an underground chamber where he drinks embalming fluid and lays himself down beside the body of his preserved dead wife and goes undetected by the police. | |
| Links: The story of Dr Phibes continues in a sequel called Dr Phibes Rises Again (1972). | |
| Starring: | Vincent Price (Dr Anton Phibes), Peter Jeffrey (as Inspector Trout), Joseph Cotten (as Dr Vesalius) |
| Featuring: | Virginia North (as Vulnavia, Phibes' mute assistant), John Cater (as Waverley, police boss) |
| Familiar Faces: | Terry-Thomas, John Laurie |
| Starlets: | Caroline Munro (as Phibes' late wife in photos and as a body) |
| Absolution (1978) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Anthony Shaffer / Director: Anthony Page / Producers: Danny O'Donovan, Elliott Kastner | |
| Type: Thriller | Running Time: 91 mins |
| SPECIAL SPOILER WARNING FOR VARIOUS TWISTS IN THIS TALE
Set in the present day at a catholic boys boarding school. Father Goddard is both the Latin and the religious knowledge master at the school. He has his eye on a bright boy in his class of sixth-formers called Benjamin Stanfield whom he thinks with the correct guidance could one day make a fine priest. Another less-gifted boy is named Arthur Dyson who has a crippled leg and wears a brace. Goddard is often short with Dyson in class for the ill-thought out theories he advances and does not give him the same latitude to express himself that he gives others like Stanfield who is quite clearly the teacher's pet who can do no wrong. But although Goddard picks on Arthur he intends it as a means of building his character and has no actual dislike for the boy. Arthur tries his best to be friends with Ben ingratiating himself whenever possible and Ben tolerates him to a certain extent but finds Arthur's pestering manner to be a wretched nuisance sometimes. In one religious knowledge lesson Goddard explains to the class the adjuncts of confessionals which as catholic boys they are all used to taking - from the purposes of the mesh screen which preserves the anonymity of the penitent, to how the priest is absolutely forbidden to reveal any information he hears even if it is a serious crime being confessed. On a cross-country run in the adjoining woodland the boys come across a homeless wanderer who has set up his awning and made a camp for himself. His name is Blakey and most of the boys give him a wide berth but Ben stops to talk and finds him an interesting character. After that he makes regular visits to Blakey's camp as he listens to the man's fascinating stories and they become friends. But when Father Goddard finds out about these trips into the woods he forbids Ben to visit the layabout Blakey anymore. Ben has no choice but to promise although he is quite clearly not happy that Goddard has taken this attitude on something he considers quite harmless. He defiantly continues to see Blakey anyway and tells him how Goddard has banned him from coming anymore. Blakey half-jokingly says he should get back at Goddard by making up some wild things in confession about what the two of them supposedly get up to. Ben thinks this is an excellent idea and goes back to school and takes a confession with Goddard telling him about the sexual couplings he engages in with Blakey. Goddard is absolutely appalled at his star pupil's words but goes through the due process of confessional. The only thing he can do is send the constabulary to tell Blakey to move on - and they give him a good beating while doing so. Ben lets the other boys including Arthur in on his joke and at his next confession Ben tearfully tells Goddard that he saw Blakey again and they rowed when the layabout thought it was Ben who had told the police about him and Ben says that in his anger he picked up a rock and hit Blakey until he was dead. He says he buried the body and tells Goddard where it is if he wants to check. Goddard is devastated by this and goes to the location and digs and finds - a scarecrow. The boys are watching him from the trees and he hears sniggers and Goddard realises he has had a filthy practical joke played upon him. Back at school he gives Ben a stern lecture on his abuse of the sacrament and says he has a good mind to recommend his expulsion but when the boy breaks down in tears saying he just wanted to get back at him for treating him badly by forbidding him to see Blakey, Goddard relents and gives him a more lenient punishment. Although later Ben tells the other boys he was just pretending to cry. Next day Goddard is taking confessions in his booth and he is surprised when his next penitent tells him it is he, Ben, again - whispering his new confession that this time it is not a joke and he really has killed Blakey. Goddard is naturally sceptical and tells him to wait while he goes to check and is dumbstruck to find this time it is true - the dead body of Blakey is in the grave. Goddard is angry and confused but cannot do anything about it. He returns to the booth and the boy tells him how he enjoyed killing Blakey and wants to kill again especially that weak clumsy cripple Dyson who is always following him around and won't take a hint and leave him in peace. In classes later Ben just smiles sweetly at him as if goading the priest with his ineffectualness to do anything about it. When Arthur Dyson goes missing Father Goddard fears the worst and tries to talk to Ben outside of confession but the boy just denies any knowledge of any murders and claims to have no idea what the priest is talking about it. Back in the booth the whispering tones of Ben apologises to Goddard for denying things outside of confession but he had to protect himself because the priest would not have been bound by any secrecy vows. He tells Goddard that he has now killed Dyson too and buried him in the woods. Goddard cannot believe the depravity of the boy and is starting to have a nervous breakdown with the torment of having to keep these wicked crimes to himself. He rushes out to the woods and digs around and uncovers the legs of the body around which Dyson's leg brace is arranged and knows the ghastly story to be true. Then Ben turns up in the clearing asking with sweet and apparent all-inncoence what Goddard is up to - with this Goddard loses all reason at the foul evil that this boy has perpetrated without seeming to show any kind of remorse and furiously, and with all his strength, swings at him with the blade of his spade embedding it in his skull killing the boy instantly. Goddard goes back to the chapel to pray for forgiveness at what he has done. And then Arthur Dyson walks in alive and well! Goddard is non-plussed because he saw the boy dead in the grave. But Dyson snidely tells him he saw what he was expecting to see. He reveals that it was actually he, Dyson, who killed and buried Blakey. It was then he, Dyson, who made all those whispered confessions in Ben's name mimicking his voice. And the second body which was supposedly his own? - that was Blakey's body again which Arthur moved and fitted with his spare leg brace. Ben had no inkling of what was going on which is why he acted so innocently and denied everything outside of confession - he only made the practical joke scarecrow confession and nothing else. Dyson tells Goddard he did it because he wanted to teach the priest a lesson for the constant shabby dismissive way he always treats him in class - always humiliating and belittling him for no good reason. And so now Dyson tells him with contempt he can either go the police and spend the rest of his days locked up for Ben's murder or kill himself and spend eternity in hell. And as Dyson leaves whistling a happy tune, Father Goddard stands before the altar shouting out his pained agony of what has befallen him. | |
| Starring: | Richard Burton (as Father Goddard), Dominic Guard (as Benjamin Stanfield), Dai Bradley (as Arthur Dyson), Billy Connolly (as Blakey) |
| Featuring: | Andrew Keir (as Headmaster), Sharon Duce (as Louella, Blakey's girlfriend), Brian Glover (as Policeman) |
| Writer: Harold Pinter / Director: Joseph Losey / Producers: Joseph Losey, Norman Priggen | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 101 mins |
| Stephen is a 40-something lecturer in philosophy at a top university. One of his star pupils is the aristocratic William and another is an attractive Austrian girl called Anna. William is going out with Anna although Stephen also finds her quite attractive and likes spending time with her. He invites her and William down to his country house for Sunday lunch to meet his wife Rosalind and their two young children. Unexpectedly one of Stephen's friends and fellow lecturers Charley also turns up having invited himself.
They spend a pleasant day but have so much to drink that the visitors all stay the night. A week or so passes and when returning from a business trip in London Stephen comes home to what he expects to be an empty house (while Rosalind is also away visiting friends) but finds Charley has been making use of it to sleep with Anna! His friend is having an affair with the very student he quite fancies himself but has not found the necessary courage to do anything about. William knows nothing of this and invites Stephen to one of his aristocratic parties where he is announcing his engagement to Anna. Charley cannot believe she is marrying William because he has left his wife because of his love for her. At the party William says he would like to come and see Stephen at his home later that night to discuss something - he will bring Anna and she can sleep in a spare room while they talk. That night outside Stephen's house there is the sound of a speeding car and then a crash. Stephen rushes out and finds William and Anna's car overturned. Anna is drunk and was driving and William is dead. Stephen gets Anna out and takes her back to his house and hides her upstairs and then calls the police about the accident without mentioning Anna's involvement. Stephen makes a fumbled attempt to take advantage of Anna in her distressed state but comes to his senses. Next day he sneaks her back to her dormitory building and she packs and leaves despite Charley's attempts to ask her to stay. | |
| Comment: The film is structured so that we see the accident first and then the events that led towards it followed by the events that come after. However we don't see the actual crash (only hear it) and don't really discover what caused it or what it was that William wanted to come and see Stephen about in the middle of the night that couldn’t have waited until a better time. | |
| Starring: | Dirk Bogarde (as Stephen, university professor), Stanley Baker (as Charley, university professor, Stephen's friend), Vivien Merchant (as Rosalind, Stephen's wife), Jacqueline Sassard (as Anna, Austrian student), Michael York (as William, Aristocratic student) |
| Featuring: | Delphine Seyrig (as Francesca, woman Stephen once had an affair with), Alexander Knox (as College Provost), Ann Firbank (as Laura, Charley's wife), Terence Rigby (as Detective), Harold Pinter (as TV Executive) |
| NOTES: | |
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From the novel of the same name by Nicholas Mosley |
| The Adding Machine (1969) | Previous Next |
| Writer/Director/Producer: Jerome Epstein | |
| Type: Fantasy Drama | Running Time: 90 mins |
| Set in 1930s Manhattan, New York. Mr Zero is a world-weary middle-aged man who has been in the same dead-end accountancy job for nearly 25 years. At home his wife, Mrs Zero, is forever nagging and needling him about his failure to advance his position and he has long since given up responding to her never-ending disparaging remarks. For Mr Zero home life is a drag.
In his job at Smithers Department Store he works in the accountancy department with a younger female clerk called Daisy Devore. Together they total up the receipts which she reads out and he adds up. They are very workmanlike but have a tension between them that is revealed in their inner thoughts which veers from loathing to yearning but is never openly spoken and neither knows the other holds anything but tolerated contempt for them. One day after work the company chairman Mr Smithers comes to see Mr Zero. It is the anniversary day of Zero's 25th year of service and the first time Mr Smithers has ever spoken to him. Zero thinks he is at last going to get a much overdue promotion but instead he finds he is getting the sack - the store has decided to move with the times and buy an adding machine to increase efficiency and since any office junior can operate it, Mr Zero's services are no longer required. Mr Zero snaps at this devastating news and kills Mr Smithers with a bill file. Zero is arrested, found guilty and sentenced to death. Whilst waiting on death row he meets another condemned prisoner Mr Shurdlu - a troubled young man cosseted by his devoutly religious mother into following the faith until one day a mania overcame him and he murdered her. Mr Shurdlu is the first to be executed and Mr Zero several days later. After his death Mr Zero is surprised to find himself in some sort of funfair full of people enjoying themselves. Mr Zero cannot understand it for surely he would have been bound for hell for his sins - but this is nothing at all like he would have expected. He meets Mr Shurdlu again who has been there a while. Shurdlu finds it most maddening as it contradicts all his religious beliefs - he had expected burning hellfire and unspeakable torment but instead he had been told to come here until he "understood". In this utopian land everything is free in shops and there are idyllic beaches to relax upon. Whilst on a deserted beach Mr Zero sees a woman coming towards him - it is Daisy his former co-worker. She too is dead - she tells Mr Zero that she secretly loved him and was so upset about his execution that she killed herself and now finds herself here. Mr Zero is staggered because he had a secret passion for her as well which fear of rejection had prevented him from expressing whilst alive. They become a couple and fall in love in the idyllic paradise land making up for all the wasted years. Mr Zero continues to wonder why they are in this place and not the "other". He discovers that it is not just himself, Daisy and Shurdlu who are sinners, but that everyone here committed unspeakable crimes during life. Mr Zero becomes so repelled at sharing the land with so many bad people that he splits up with Daisy and takes a "job" in an office working alone with an adding machine. He works non-stop 24 hours a day for the next 30 years without aging until the company boss tells him his time here is up and it is time for him to return to Earth. Zero is thoroughly confused because he thought he would be here forever and so the boss explains that a soul is a commodity that cannot be wasted. Bad souls are sent to this place to be "washed" before being recycled and sent back to Earth to be used again for a newborn babe. Each soul is reused millions of time in this way although it never recollects any of its former lives. Zero is told his class of soul is never destined to amount to anything much which depresses Zero and so the boss sends his spirit back to Earth with some precious company - Hope - which is personified in Zero's mind as a vision of Daisy as he begins a new life-cycle. | |
| Starring: | Milo O'Shea (as Mr Zero), Phyllis Diller (as Mrs Zero), Billie Whitelaw (as Daisy Devore), Julian Glover (as Mr Shrudlu, condemned prisoner) |
| Featuring: | Sydney Chaplin (as Lieutenant Charles, man in charge of the idyllic land), Raymond Huntley (as Smithers, Mr Zero's company chairman), Phil Brown, Libby Morris, Hugh McDermott and Paddie O'Neil (as Mrs Zero's friends) |
| Familiar Faces: | Mike Reid (as Prison Yard guard, [one-line cameo]) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the play of the same name by Elmer Rice |
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Although set in America it is a British film with British actors who all adopt American accents in their roles |
| The Adolescents (1975) | Previous Next |
| Writers: Pedro Masó, Santiago Moncada / Director: Pedro Masó / Producer: (none shown) | |
| Type: European / Drama | Running Time: 99 mins |
| Ana Aguia is a young Spanish girl who lives with her parents who run a Spanish hotel. Ana is naturally shy and retiring and when the summer season is over Ana's father decides it will be good for her to broaden her horizons and attend a private boarding school in England. Ana is not thrilled with the idea as she would much prefer to remain at home but her father insists that she needs to experience more of the world.
She is enrolled in the exclusive Regent School for Girls in the country which upholds high standards of discipline. Girls are not allowed to leave the premises at weekends unless they are granted special permission by Miss Stella Larsen the 30-something housemistress who seems very prim and proper and unlikely to be very accommodating in that area. Ana meets the other girls in her dormitory including Carla and Rosalind who have a devil-may-care attitude to the rules and enjoy breaking any prohibitions, including smoking, sweets and men. Ana is very straight-laced and taciturnly views the other girls' scandalous activities with quiet acceptance but clearly has no intention of or inclination to follow their example. The other girls think she is a bit odd and find her an easy target for teasing and playing pranks upon and Ana feels very lonely. Carla and Rosalind bemoan the fact that they cannot get away at the weekend to London. Ana knows some people in London who were guests at her hotel in Spain and receives an invitation to visit them - and so in a gesture of friendship she invites Carla and Rosalind along too. Miss Larsen is unexpectedly agreeable to this arrangement and gives them all permission. Once in London Carla and Rosalind change into their civvies and go clubbing leaving staid Ana, whom they cannot persuade to join them, to do some sightseeing still dressed in her school uniform - they arrange to meet up with her later in a pub. Later on at the pub when they all meet up, the two wayward girls have picked up a couple of young men - a cockney DJ called Jimmy and a black American street musician called Joe. Their friend Carlos is a photographer who has been let down by a model and Carla agrees to take her place. They all go back to Carlos's studio and Carla poses topless and simulates sensuous sex with Joe while Carlos snaps away. Ana stands on the sidelines viewing the proceedings with reserved incredulity at such liberated behaviour. Joe then tries it on with Ana but she panics and struggles to fend off his attempts to paw at her and eventually Jimmy steps in to stop his friend when it becomes clear that Ana is really upset about it. Jimmy drives Ana home in his expensive sportscar apologising for his friend's over-exuberance. They stop off for a bite to eat and get talking and Jimmy is generally quite charming towards her. He warns her to be careful in London and tells her she shouldn't really trust anyone - not even himself, although Ana finds his openness deserving of some trust and warms to him. Carlos takes the photos of Carla to his publisher Mr Hanson who regards them as nothing particularly special and not worth much payment - but when he sees prim-looking Ana standing in the background of some shots he tells Carlos that she IS special-looking and naked pictures of her would be worth a lot more. Back at school Ana is still upset but cheers up a few days later when Jimmy comes to visit her and Miss Larsen unexpectedly allows them some time together. Jimmy invites Ana on a date in London and Miss Larsen again surprises by agreeing to it. Ana and Jimmy spend the day in London sightseeing and getting to know each other and Ana becomes much more relaxed in his company feeling she has at last found someone in whom she can put her faith. As the evening rolls on they go back to Jimmy's apartment and Ana feels comfortable enough to willingly have sex with him. However it is a set-up in which Jimmy is fully complicit - in the next room through a two-way mirror and with hidden camera equipment Carlos is taking the photographs they need - in what is quite clearly an oft-repeated seduction ploy. Ana returns to school happy and oblivious to how she has been used. Carlos sells the photos and they are published in a European porn magazine with Ana on the front cover. Although Jimmy has done the same thing countless times to other girls he has begun to have a crisis of conscience over duping Ana so callously because he had actually really liked her. We then discover his real lover and organiser of the sexploitation ring is none other than Miss Larsen from Ana's school who has been using her position to grant likely girls special permission to go to London to be drawn in by her accomplices' seductive ways. Plain-seeming Ana had been allowed to go to London merely as a way of getting Carla and Rosalind ensnared and so Miss Larsen was somewhat surprised by the unexpected appetite for pictures of Ana - so made hasty arrangements to facilitate the demand. The first batch of Ana-pics proved very popular and the publisher wants more so Miss Larsen tells Jimmy to invite Ana out again for a repeat performance. But Jimmy refuses and quits the operation disgusted and ashamed at himself for what he has done for the easy money he craves. So Miss Larsen tells Joe to take Jimmy's place. Joe lures Ana to the apartment on the pretext that Jimmy will be there. Once inside Joe proceeds to rip off her clothes and rape her whilst Carlos snaps away. Ana struggles vainly but can do nothing to stop it. Meanwhile Jimmy realises what is happening and speeds to the rescue but he is too late and finds Ana sobbing at her ordeal and the two men gone. Jimmy is furious and goes to Carlos' studio and confronts his former accomplices and they have a massive fight. The police arrive to deal with the disturbance and find the pornographic material that Carlos keeps. Jimmy freely gives a confession and all three of them and Miss Larsen are arrested. Ana, Carla and Rosalind are expelled from the school for being a blemish on its good name. | |
| Starring: | Anthony Andrews (as Jimmy Carson), Koo Stark (as Ana Aguia), Susan Player (as Carla, schoolgirl), Victoria Vera (as Rosalind, schoolgirl), Maria Perschy (as Miss Stella Larsen, housemistress), Eduardo Bea (as ?Carlos Borrera, photographer), Trevor Thomas (as Joe Graves, accomplice) |
| Featuring: | Cristina Galbó (as Mother Hen, school's head girl), Jack Taylor, Víctor Petit, Eduardo Fajardo (?[possibly Ana's father]), Queta Claver (?[possibly Ana's mother]), Isabel Mª Pérez, Beatriz Galbó (as unnamed schoolgirl), Adolfo Alises, Judith Nelmes, Patricia Mason, Arthur Howard (as ?School headmaster), Mónica Ulloa |
| NOTES: | |
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The cast list does not contain character names - so other than Anthony Andrews and Koo Stark it is not certain which is which. I have determined some by comparison with on-line photos and by credits prominence for others (indicated by a ?). Any others remaining are listed above without character names. |
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Koo Stark receives an "introducing" credit |
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This Spanish film is reviewed here because it was set in London and starred Anthony Andrews and Koo Stark. Most of the other actors were Spanish. The version reviewed carried the English title and credits (job titles, etc) and was spoken in English although some of the non-English actors sounded dubbed. The original Spanish title is Las Adolescentes. |
| Writer: Stephen D Frances, Aubrey Cash / Director/Producer: Stanley Long | |
| Type: Sex Comedy | Running Time: 84 mins |
| Plumber Sid South is in debt to his bookies to the sum of £900 and they are leaning on him to pay up. He wants to do honest work but knows it will not pay well enough quickly enough and so goes to a crime broker (like a job centre for crime jobs that need doing!) who gives him some dodgy work that will utilise his skills for a good pay-off - although needless to say things go wrong. And naturally during the course of his honest and dishonest work he has encounters with various women who invariably lose their clothes somehow. | |
| Starring: | Christopher Neil (as Sid South) |
| Featuring: | Arthur Mullard, Anna Quayle, Elaine Paige, Richard Caldicot, Peter Cleall, Leon Greene |
| Star-Turns: | Stephen Lewis, William Rushton Christopher Biggins |
| Starlets: | Nina West, Prudence Drage, Lindy Benson, Angela Daniels, Christine Donna, Teresa Wood, Pat Astley, Claire Davenport, And:- Suzy Mandel, Tessa Skola, Linda Hartley, Vicki Scott (as Tennis Girls) |
| NOTES: | |
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Although the Tennis Girls are listed in the credits as 1st to 4th Tennis Girl separately - this is not particularly helpful because it does not indicate what criteria they are being ordered by - perhaps the order they are seen on screen, or the order they first speak in, or just some completely random order. Suzy Mandel is easily recognisable, Vicky Scott has been identified by comparison to other movies but the other two have not appeared in anything else to determine who is who (and since one of them remains fully dressed throughout it's not possible to give a general indication of nudity that could cover both) |
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Linda Hartley who is one of the Tennis Girls is not the same Linda Hartley who appeared in Australian soap Neighbours as Kerry Bishop (1989-90). According to the Internet Movie Database her birth date was in 1967 which would have made her about 11 when this film was made - so unless that Date of Birth is very wrong then the IMDB entry which shows this sex-comedy as the Neighbours' Linda Hartley's first film is incorrect. (Last checked: October 2005) |
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Elaine Paige is shown as playing "Daisy" in the end-credits, yet throughout her scenes she is referred to as "Susie". |
| Writer: Michael Armstrong / Director: Stanley Long / Producer: Peter and Stanley Long | |
| Type: Sex Comedy | Running Time: 92 mins |
| Bob West is an inexperienced Private Detective and while his boss is away for a few days he is visited by a young recently widowed lady client who asks him to try and retrieve some compromising photos of her that would prove she is not a virgin - because her rich elderly husband stipulated in his will that she could only inherit if that were the case. | |
| Comment: Unlike some such films this plot occupies the whole film rather than being a series of mini-cases. There are a couple of "diversions" to allow for mini-interludes to the main story but the central plot drives the whole thing. | |
| Starring: | Christopher Neil (as Bob), Suzy Kendall (as the lady client) |
| Featuring: | Harry H. Corbett, Liz Fraser, Anna Quayle, Ian Lavender, Veronica Doran, William Rushton, Adrienne Posta |
| Familiar Faces: | Nicholas Young (from The Tomorrow People), Peter Moran (young ginger-haired boy playing the son of Angela Scoular - he went on to play Pogo Patterson in Grange Hill) |
| Star-Turns: | Jon Pertwee, Diana Dors, Irene Handl, Julian Orchard |
| Starlets: | Hilary Pritchard, Angela Scoular, Linda Regan, Linda Cunningham, Theresa Wood, Nicola Austin, Maria, Mireille Allonville |
| Also: | (Cameo) Shaw Taylor (seen in passing - no dialogue) |
| NOTES: | |
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Christopher Neil receives an "introducing" credit and he also sings the theme tune. |
| Writer: Suzanne Mercer / Director: Stanley Long / Producer: Peter and Stanley Long | |
| Type: Sex Comedy | Running Time: 81 mins |
| Joe North is a London blackcab driver trying to make a decent living. He has an eye for the ladies and his job gives him ample opportunities to meet women although his whining fiancée is none too keen. A conventional plot to tail the film sees him get caught up in a jewellery robbery when the thieves use his cab for their getaway. | |
| Starring: | Barry Evans (as Joe), Judy Geeson |
| Featuring: | Adrienne Posta, Diana Dors, Robert Lindsay, Henry McGee |
| Star-Turns: | Liz Fraser, Ian Lavender, Stephen Lewis, Brian Wilde |
| Starlets: | Jane Hayden, Angela Scoular, Gloria Walker, Anna Bergman, Prudence Drage, Sue Vanner, Rachel Dix |
| NOTES: | |
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Adrienne Posta sings the theme song |
| Writers: Bruce Beresford, Barry Humphries / Director: Bruce Beresford / Producer: Phillip Adams | |
| Type: Australian / Comedy | Running Time: 100 mins |
| Barry McKenzie is a raucous Australian who wants nothing more from life than a good beer down at the bar with his like-minded mates. So when Barry's father dies and makes it a condition of receiving his $2000 bequest that Barry travel to England to impart the intellectual and cultural traditions of the family, Barry is none too keen as he has a low opinion of Poms (British people). But he agrees to go and his Aunt Edna decides to come with him to visit some friends and family over there.
Once in London Barry's opinion is not altered as every Pom he meets seems to be trying to fleece him. In a pub he is approached by an advertising executive called Groove Courtney who thinks he would be ideal for a series of print ads for a brand of cigarettes. Barry goes along to do the work and meets a young actress called Caroline with whom he arranges a further date. Although Barry brags about his success with women and has a confident enough manner, in actual fact he is rather shy when it comes to being alone with women and has never actually done the deed. He goes back to Caroline's flat but because of his nervous reticence fails with her. Next Barry accompanies Edna as she pays a visit to the home of Mr and Mrs Gort. The Gort's cannot stand Aussie's but think Barry may be rich and wish to marry off their unattractive daughter. But the whole family reveal themselves to be decidedly loopy and Barry hightails it. He hitches a lift back to London in the van of a hippy pop group called The Disciples. He sings them an Australian ditty he knows and they decide they want to steal his material and so they trick him into signing over all rights to his songs. And then they take him to a nightclub and get him to sing some more which they record. A pop promoter attending wants to sign Barry up and a fight breaks out between his thugs and the hippies. Barry is injured and taken to a hospital where he is treated as a mental patient - but he causes so much trouble they decide it's easier to release him. Edna has been asked by one of her friends to check up on her daughter Lesley who has not been in contact recently. Lesley is a cross-dresser who enjoys the company of women who all dress as men. She and Barry were childhood friends and they go out together to discuss old times and while out they bump into her ex-husband Dominic who is a TV producer and he asks Barry if he will take part in a live TV show he is making about Australian culture. Barry agrees and is interviewed by Joan Bakewell who tries to belittle his lack of sophistication and he ends up flashing his manhood at the camera live on air. Edna and Barry decide they've seen enough of England and return home to Australia although Barry admits in a funny sort of way he was just starting to like the Poms. | |
| Comment: It is a fairly episodic sort of film with no real overarching plot to carry it. | |
| Starring: | Barry Crocker (as Barry McKenzie), Barry Humphries (as Aunt Edna Everage; and Hoot the hippy band leader; and a psychiatrist), Mary Anne Severne (as Lesley) |
| Featuring: | Dennis Price (as Mr Gort, Sarah's father), Avice Landone (as Mrs Gort, Sarah's mother), Jenny Tomasin (as Sarah Gort), Julie Covington (as Blanche, hippy chick), Christopher Malcolm (as Sean, hippy band member), Peter Cook (as Dominic, Lesley's ex-husband), Paul Bertram (as Curly, Barry's Australian mate), Dick Bentley (as Detective), Judith Furse (as Claude, Lesley's 'butch' friend), Margo Lloyd (as Mrs McKenzie, Barry's mother) |
| Familiar Faces: | Spike Milligan (as Hotel Landlord), William Rushton (as Pom on aeroplane), Joan Bakewell (as Herself, TV presenter) |
| Starlets: | Maria O'Brien (as Caroline, actress) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the Barry McKenzie comic strip written by Barry Humphries with drawings by Nicholas Garland as published in "Private Eye" from an idea by Peter Cook. |
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Barry and his Aunt Edna made another screen appearance in a follow-up film called Barry McKenzie Holds His Own (1974). |
| Africa - Texas Style (1967) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Andy White / Director/Producer: Andrew Marton | |
| Type: Western | Running Time: 104 mins |
| Texan cowboy Jim Sinclair and his Americanised Indian friend John Henry are traditional cattlemen - but in modern-day Texas their skills are not in such all-year-round demand as would once have been the case. So they accept a six-week job on a Kenyan game reserve owned by a British ranch owner called Buck Hayes. Hayes is a conservationist who believes that it is important to domesticate stocks of wild animals for breeding purposes to prevent their extinction. He has employed the two cattlemen to use their rodeo skills to rope and herd all manner of native species for his corral - including zebra, eland, antelope, wildebeest, buffalo and gazelle. He is concerned that the overgrazing of cattle is turning the pastures into desert land and there is a need to switch from cattle to game ranching to counteract the problem. Hayes knows it won't be easy convincing the friendly local Masai natives of this since their livelihood depends on cattle and they consider their animals to be their wealth. Also unconvinced is Hayes' South African ranch neighbour Karl Bekker who thinks Hayes is a menace whose foolish ideals could bring in disease carried by these wild animals that could wipe out his own cattle stock. He vows to thwart Hayes' efforts any way he can.
Sinclair and Henry are unused to the Kenyan animals but soon find the same lassoing techniques they employ back in Texas with buffalo work just fine here too and they are soon filling up Hayes' corrals with animals. Although the captured beasts fight hard to avoid capture, once they are penned and fed they soon become quite tame. Also in the area is an Englishwoman called Fay Carter who is working amongst the Masai tribe as a nurse and ecologist whilst she studies their culture. She is engaged to her companion Dr Hugo Copp and at first takes a dislike to the pushy American cowboy Sinclair who has taken a shine to her. But as the days and weeks go on she begins to become attracted to him also and a romance develops. Sinclair is a big hit with the Masai as he buys them food for a feast and impresses them with his sharp shooting skills. Bekker tries various tactics to ruin things for Hayes but to no avail. And so as the two cowboys' six week job draws to a close and the friendly Masai hold a party in honour of their new found friends, Bekker uses this opportunity to sneak into Hayes' temporarily deserted ranch and open the corral gates releasing all the wild animals so painstakingly captured. When Sinclair sees the animals have been released he rushes back alone to try and round them up - but he gets himself lost and wounded in the plains and a massive search has to be undertaken to find him. Eventually Sinclair has a battle of wits with a rhino which he eventually wins and captures the beast with his roping skills. Although it looks as though all their hard work has been undone by Bekker they soon find that the captured animals have become so used to their pampered captivity that they have returned to congregate nearby and are easy to herd back into the pens. It is time to go but Sinclair finds he has enjoyed his time so much and has found love with Fay that he decides to stay in Kenya and continue to work for Hayes and naturally his faithful friend Henry remains too. | |
| Starring: | Hugh O'Brian (as Jim Sinclair), Tom Nardini (as John Henry), John Mills (as Wing Commander Howard 'Buck' Hayes), Nigel Green (as Karl Bekker, rival rancher), Adrienne Corri (as Fay Carter) |
| Featuring: | Ronald Howard (as Dr Hugo Copp, Fay's fiancé), Charles Malinda (as Sampson, young black boy), Honey Wamala (Mr Oyondi, Kenyan game commissioner) |
| Familiar Faces: | Hayley Mills (Chatty blonde girl arriving in Kenya on same plane as Sinclair and Henry, daughter of Embassy official, uncredited brief appearance - she never appears again even though it seemed at the time that she was probably being introduced for some forthcoming relevance to the upcoming story) |
| NOTES: | |
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Charles Malinda receives an "introducing" credit. He played an ambitions young black boy called Sampson employed by Bekker who had dreams of going to America and was keen to befriend Sinclair hoping he'd take him back to Texas with him at the end of his trip. |
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This film spun-off into the American TV adventure series "Cowboy In Africa" which ran for one season of 26 episodes starting in September 1967. The character names remained the same although all but one actor was recast. Chuck Connors took on the lead role of Jim Sinclair as he continued his adventures in Kenya; his sidekick John Henry continued to be played by Tom Nardini; Ronald Howard switched roles and became Wing Commander Hayes; and Samson was played by Gerald Edwards. There was no sign of anyone playing Fay Carter. |
| Age of Consent (1969) | Previous Next |
| Novel: Norman Lindsay / Writer: Peter Yeldham / Director: Michael Powell / Producers: Michael Powell, James Mason | |
| Type: Australian / Drama | Running Time: 95 mins |
| Bradley Morahan is a middle-aged artist living in New York. His work is celebrated but he feels stifled and unfulfilled working alone from a studio all day long with inspiration hard to come by. He decides to get away from it all and take a break without any art equipment back in his native Australia. He is a celebrity in Brisbane and everyone wants to meet him which is not what he was after so he decides to go and live on an isolated offshore island where only a handful of other people live.
He used to frequent the island many years ago and owns a shack that he finds in a rather dilapidated state and his first task is to spruce it up with some brighter colours. He is quite keen to keep himself to himself and avoid unnecessary contact with the small number of other residents - but then he meets a beautiful young girl who lives on the island - her name is Cora Ryan and she lives with her cantankerous old grandmother. Cora makes a living by snorkelling for seafood and then selling her produce to a shop on the mainland. Her mother is dead and father unknown and she has to look after her crotchety grandmother to keep her in groceries and gin. She desperately wants to get off the island for good and head for the bright lights and is putting aside any money she can save up until she has Aus$100 which she feels will be enough to get started in Brisbane and become a hairdresser. She also petty steals as a way of making extra money that her grandmother won't know about. Brad warns her of the dangers of that course of action for if caught she would be sent to a girls' home and then she would never fulfil her ambitions. He tells her if she promises to stop stealing then he will help her out and she agrees. He finds her appealing and charming company and she seems interested in his work and he suggests he could pay her to pose for him to give her some extra cash. He has no art materials with him but he makes a sand sculpture of her in a prone pose - although the result is of a nude she was clothed when she posed. He feels newly inspired by her and goes to the mainland shop to order some art materials to work with - whilst there he helps her push up the price that the skinflint shopkeeper pays for her seafood catches. While they are off-island the grandmother sees the sand sculpture and believes her granddaughter has posed in the nude and there is something funny going on. When Cora gets back to her shack she takes the opportunity to appraise herself and try out modelling poses - her grandmother catches her tarting herself up and beats her with her stick and calls her unpleasant names, telling her she is underage and the new man must be a perv who would be locked up if the law were to hear of it. Cora has had enough of her grandmother's drunken tirades and finally stands up to her telling her she will no longer be treated as a child. Cora is now the physically stronger one and it is clear who needs who the more. Just as Brad is beginning to get his inspiration going again his tranquillity is interrupted by an unwelcome visitor. His friend Nat Kelly turns up, down on his luck, begging for a place to stay for a while. Brad finds the time frustrating as he cannot get on with his work or see Cora whom he is missing terribly. When at last Nat leaves the island Brad feels a great weight is lifted and he and his muse Cora enthusiastically start their work again. She poses for him in the manner of a sea nymph standing topless in the water holding a spear and he feels it is his best most inspired work ever. Meanwhile the grandmother finds Cora's hidden stash of cash and jumps to the conclusion that she has been prostituting herself with Brad and he has been paying her for sex. When Cora discovers her money has gone she confronts her grandmother and they struggle for possession of the money bag and the grandmother accidentally falls down an embankment and breaks her neck and dies. The police chief happens to be on the island and is quite happy that it was all accidental. Cora is relieved to be free of her unpleasant grandmother at last. She rushes back to be with Brad whom she is starting to love but becomes despondent when it seems all he wants to do carry on with the painting. She tells him that it seems he's only interested in her as a model - but he tells her she's wrong - he feels alive once more because of her, she has given him back his eyes and enabled him to see the wonders around him once again. She asks him pointedly in that case what is he going to do about it - and with that heavy hint they fall into each others arms and frolic happily in the sea seemingly with the start of a beautiful romance blooming. THE END | |
| Starring: | James Mason (as Bradley Morahan), Helen Mirren (as Cora Ryan), Neva Carr-Glyn (as Grandma Ryan) |
| Featuring: | Jack MacGowran (as Nat Kelly, Bradley's friend), Andonia Katsaros (as Miss Isabel Marley, neighbour on island), Michael Boddy (as Police Chief), Harold Hopkins (as Ted Farrell, boatman), Slim De Grey (as Mainland Shopkeeper) |
| Starlets: | Clarissa Kaye (as Meg, Bradley's Brisbane lover) |
| NOTES: | |
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Cora's age is never mentioned. Her grandmother keeps saying she's underage but it's not clear what the "proper" age should be that she's supposedly "under" - be that 16, 18, 21 or whatever. Helen Mirren's own age at the time is no help since she was 24 or so. |
| Age of Innocence (1977) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Ratch Wallace / Director: Alan Bridges / Producers: Deanne Judson, George Willoughby | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 96 mins |
| Set in the 1930s in Canada in a small town community dominated by a top boy's boarding school. Henry Buchanan is a science teacher from England who has recently joined the school. Henry has outspoken views concerning his abhorrence of war and voices his fears that the world is heading towards another major conflict. His views are not welcomed in the town whose citizens have bad memories of losing good men who went off to fight alongside the British in a war that was not their own. We learn during the movie that Henry was a conscientious objector during the 1914-1918 war who was imprisoned for his stance but later released to perform medical duties on the front line on the understanding that he wouldn’t have to bear arms.
Henry feels like an outsider in town but is made to feel more welcome by a rich divorcee called Mrs Boswell who lives her life in a less conventional fashion entertaining gentleman visitors and having affairs. The headmaster's 20-year-old daughter Clarissa returns to Canada after spending a year away in New York and her local beau Ralph is keen to take up with her where they left off. But Clarissa has had her outlook expanded and realises the small town life is no longer for her. She finds Henry quite fascinating and presents him with opportunities to seduce her although at first he thinks she is too young for him and inadvertently hurts her feelings. Meanwhile Ralph is feeling rejected by her lack of loving attention towards him and sees Henry as an unwelcome rival. At a social function Clarissa tells Ralph it is over between them. Ralph sees Henry leave to drive Mrs Boswell home and then he gets drunk and broods. Henry drops Mrs Boswell off and returns to his room at the school where he finds Clarissa waiting for him. She convinces him that she is serious and not too young and spends the whole night with him as they become lovers. Meanwhile Ralph has become so angered by Henry's appropriation of Clarissa's affection that later on that evening he heads out to Mrs Boswell's house (where he thinks Henry is) and demands to see him. He pushes Mrs Boswell roughly around when she says he's not there and she slips and her head goes through a window causing a fatal neck injury. In panic Ralph turns to his father for help who tells him that if he wants to stay out of prison he must deflect the blame. So when the local constable starts investigating Mrs Boswell's death Ralph says that he saw Henry driving away at around the time that the coroner has estimated her time of death. Henry is accused of causing the death and even though he knows he did not do it he cannot explain that he was with Clarissa for fear of ruining her reputation. But when Clarissa learns of the predicament she is not so concerned and immediately volunteers the information that clears him causing the constable to re-examine the testimony given by Ralph. Clarissa's father is not pleased however and tells Henry he must leave immediately. Because Clarissa is underage she is practical enough to know she cannot go with him because her father would send the police to bring her back - but they make plans that when she reaches the age of 21 in a few months she will leave to join up with him again. He knows he will wait for her but he questions whether she will have the fortitude to wait for him - and as he leaves town she is left crying because she finds she did not know the answer. | |
| Starring: | David Warner (as Henry Buchanan), Honor Blackman (as Mrs Boswell, rich Canadian divorcee), Trudy Young (as Clarissa, headmaster's daughter) |
| Featuring: | Tim Henry (as Ralph McKinnon, Clarissa's beau), Cec Linder (as Dr Hogarth, headmaster), Lois Maxwell (as Mrs Hogarth, headmaster's wife), Joey Davidson (as Sam Carter, pupil in Henry's class), Robert Hawkins (as Lloyd, Ralph's friend), Jon Granik (as Mr Carter, Sam's father and school governor), John Friesen (as Constable), Michael Tait (as Mr McKinnon, Ralph's father), Michael Reynolds (as Helmut Smith, teacher), John Swindells (as Griffen, gentleman caller friend of Mrs Boswell) |
| Writer: Bill Naughton (based on his own play) / Director/Producer: Lewis Gilbert | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 108 mins |
| Alfie Elkins is a cockney Londoner whose approach to life is arrogantly self-centred in his relationships with women whom he treats as if they were things and refers to all women as "it" rather than "she". Despite this he is immensely successful with women who find his calm and confident demeanour to be a strong appeal. He makes women happy and has a life philosophy of not causing anyone any unnecessary unhappiness - but he cannot feel or express strong emotions of love in return and prefers to be a casual user of women who rarely stays in any one relationship for very long. He is not callous though and shows concern and loyalty when women in his life need his help although he feels awkward and uncomfortable at such times. He clearly has an inner soft spot which he is reluctant to show and steers clear of making commitments which will end the advantages he sees in his gallivanting style of life.
As the story unfolds we see Alfie in a sort of relationship with a stand-by girlfriend called Gilda who adores Alfie and is always disappointed he doesn't show her long term commitment. But despite this she prefers to stay with him rather than go with another suitor called Humphrey who has a puppy love for her but knows he will always be second choice to Alfie. Gilda becomes pregnant by Alfie and he is supportive to certain extents - he doesn't insist she get rid of it and tells her it is up to her. She decides to go through with her pregnancy and has their baby son whom she calls Charlie. Alfie becomes very fond of the boy over the first year or so but will not make home with Gilda and sees her only at the weekends - she is in a quandary since she really wants the boy to have a proper father and so she eventually chooses dependability over love and decides to accept Humphrey's offer of marriage and his willingness to take on her son as his own. Alfie takes a job as a limousine driver and picks up a young hitchhiker who briefly lives with him but he treats her with such disregard while she tries her best to please him domestically that she eventually walks out on him. Then a past fling with a married lady called Lily catches up when she has fallen pregnant by him and because her husband is in a TB sanatorium she couldn't possibly tell him it was he who was the father - so she asks for Alfie's help in arranging for a back-street abortionist. The doctor carries out the procedure at Alfie's flat and when Alfie sees the aborted foetus it deeply affects him and moves him to tears. He also sees Gilda and Humphrey out and about with their own new baby child and his own son Charlie all together as a happy family unit and looks with introspective lament at them knowing that he could have been part of that if he was a different sort of person. He decides to cheer himself up with an older American lady he has a relationship with and pays her an unannounced visit with a kind of feeling that maybe she is someone he could settle down with - but he discovers her with another man and when he asks her what this other man has got over him she tells him the new man is younger. With these various knocks to his ego brought about largely by his own lifestyle choices he contemplates his current stage in life and whether he has made the best decisions and questions "What's it all about?" | |
| Starring: | Michael Caine (as Alfie Elkins), Julia Foster (as Gilda, Alfie's girlfriend), Jane Asher (as Annie, hitchhiker), Vivien Merchant (as Lily, married woman who gets abortion) |
| Featuring: | Shelley Winters (as Ruby, American lady), Millicent Martin (as Siddie, married lady), Shirley Anne Field (as Carla, nurse at TB sanatorium), Eleanor Bron (as The Doctor, diagnosing Alfie's illness), Denholm Elliott (as The Abortionist), Alfie Bass (as Harry Clamacraft, TB patient, Lily's husband), Graham Stark (as Humphrey, Gilda's suitor), Murray Melvin (as Nat, Alfie's friend) |
| Familiar Faces: | (uncredited roles) Tony Selby (Lorry driver), Queenie Watts (pub singer) |
| NOTES: | |
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There was sequel to this film called Alfie Darling (1975) although it does not feel much like a sequel because the lead character is played in such a different way. In that film Alfie Elkins is played by Alan Price and has a Northern accent rather than a London one and that Alfie does not have the same sense of style. His job in that film is a long distance lorry driver which it would be hard to imagine Michael Caine's Alfie contemplating. |
| Alfie Darling (1975) | Previous Next |
| Book: Bill Naughton / Writer/Director: Ken Hughes / Producer: Dugald Rankin | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 97 mins |
| Alfie Elkins is a long distance lorry driver making regular deliveries to the continent in a 32-tonner truck with his co-driving cab-mate friend Bakey. Alfie is a serial womaniser and has many regular local women aligned on his various routes who are always delighted to see him when he stops off to see them for some sex. Bakey is used to his friend's addictive excesses and has developed a resigned air of acceptance whenever Alfie wants to take a diversion to see a regular or pursue a new bird that takes his fancy.
On their latest delivery to Rouen, they have just dropped off a girl hitchhiker whom Alfie has been getting friendly with in the cab bunks, when Alfie's head is turned by a beautiful blonde haired woman overtaking them in a red sports car and he good-naturedly honks and toots her but she doesn't play the game and they eventually lose her. After an overnight stopover where he renews his acquaintance with the wife of a French café owner they head back home and on the Normandy Ferry he spots the sporty blonde again and seizes the opportunity to chat her up. Her name is Abby and she tells him she works for Travel World magazine but she politely displays her lack of interest in him resenting his obvious view of her as a bird to be chatted up and laid and he gets no further with her. Bakey is philosophical and although he has never known Alfie to fail with a girl before he tells him he can't win them all - but Alfie has a different view and considers this girl to be something rather special and makes a bet with Bakey that he'll get this girl in the end - even if it takes a whole week! Back in London Alfie has many women on call all of whom are quite aware that they are not the only one and to not expect any emotional attachment from him. One of his regulars is a married woman called Fay who welcomes his company while her husband is away on trips to Birmingham and needs him to provide the physical side of things that her husband is lacking in. A new week starts and Alfie decides to begin his pursuit of Abby's favour. He feigns a back-injury to get a couple of days off work and finds the offices where Abby's magazine is published. It turns out that she is the editor and an important and busy woman and although he turns on the charm she continues to brush him off - she is fairly tolerant of his continual persistence and lets him down lightly claiming her busy schedule doesn't allow her any time and gives him examples of her appointments over the next few days each time he suggests a day for a date and he eventually leaves thwarted by her resistance. But Alfie now knows her appointments for the next few days and he turns up while she is out-and-about organising a photo-shoot and she finally mellows and relents to a date and takes him back to her apartment. They go to bed together to have sex but unaccountably he cannot perform. He doesn't know what's wrong with him and likens it to being a cripple - he gets angry and immediately gets dressed to leave and Abby feels hurt that Alfie can find no use for her company other than to have sex with - she tells him she doesn't normally do this sort of thing and after he has been pursuing her so relentlessly he has now made her feel like an only-good-for-one-thing whore. Alfie goes to see Fay to test himself out and is vigorously able once again and he can't figure what has made the difference. Explaining his problem to Fay she suggests that maybe he loves this girl - he thinks she is being ridiculous but she tells him he is so fixed in his way of life that he doesn't know the difference between love and lust. After considering this Alfie meets up with Abby again to apologise for his previous behaviour and she agrees to meet up with him again. This time he romances her properly with conversation and dinner and he says something to her that he's never said to a girl before - he tells her he loves her. She tells him she loves him back and behind the laddish exterior he is actually the most romantic and sentimental man she's ever met. Their whirlwind romance results in a marriage proposal and they make plans to get married as soon as she gets back from her next quick assignment in Rome. She flies off from Heathrow and he arranges to pick her up on her return the next morning when they will get married. In a dizzy-world of his own and possibly truly happy for the first time in his life, Alfie eagerly looks forward to her return and the next morning drives to the airport to meet her. But he hasn't been listening to the news since Abby left the day before and when he turns on his car radio he hears that there was a tragic plane crash yesterday - and as the details of the flight are read out in the bulletin he slowly realises with growing trepidation that the plane that crashed was Abby's outward bound flight to Rome that went down in Maidstone 20 minutes after take-off - there were no survivors. He drives to Maidstone to visit the wreckage and feels empty as he sobs in despair at his loss. The End. | |
| Starring: | Alan Price (as Alfie Elkins), Jill Townsend (as Abby Summers), Paul Copley (as Bakey) |
| Featuring: | Joan Collins (as Fay, married woman), Sheila White (as Norma, London girlfriend), Rula Lenska (as Louise, French café waitress), Roger Lumont (as Pierre, Louise's husband), Hannah Gordon (as Dora) Annie Ross (as Claire, Alfie's neighbour) |
| Familiar Faces: | Brian Wilde (as Doctor), Patsy Kensit (as Penny, Dora's daughter) |
| Starlets: | Vicki Michelle (as Hitchhiker), Minah Bird (as Gloria, Bakey's fiancée), Jenny Hanley (as Abby's Receptionist), Rosalind Elliot (as Abby's Secretary), Jennifer Guy (as a party guest) |
| NOTES: | |
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Although considered a sequel to Alfie (1966) the character in this film has only negligible similarities to Michael Caine's character. It is obviously intended as a sequel in that the character in both films is named "Alfie Elkins", they are both serial womanisers, and both are based on books by Bill Naughton. But whilst the original Alfie was a Londoner, this one has a regional accent (Leeds?) and has taken up a profession that it would have been hard to picture the original Alfie considering. This character actually seems to owe more to Robin Askwith's Timothy Lea than Michael Caine's Alfie - in fact if the character had been given a different name and the film called "Confessions of a Long Distance Lorry-Driver" instead I don't think anyone would have even noticed any similarities to the Alfie film. So while it may be an adaptation of a book sequel it is not really a "proper" sequel to the original film although it works well enough as a stand-alone film despite that. It's strange that they didn't cast a similar actor in the role to at least match Caine's accent - whether this was because the original Alfie film did it "wrong" and this film was correcting that, or some other reason I don't know - one has to assume that Naughton was consistent in his books so one or the other of the two films must have been askew in its casting. |
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Patsy Kensit appeared in a cameo role playing Hannah Gordon's 7-year-old daughter. Her surname was spelt "Kensitt" in the credits. |
| All Coppers Are ... (1972) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Allan Prior / Director: Sidney Hayers / Producer: George H. Brown | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 84 mins |
| Joe, Barry and Sue meet at a mutual friends wedding reception party. Joe is a young hard-working London police constable married for a year and with a six-month old baby daughter - it is an era when policeman are thought of with suspicion and mistrust and he prefers not to advertise his "shameful" profession when off-duty. Barry is a petty crook with an easy going air who is hoping to hit a big score by hi-jacking a lorry consignment of tobacco from a warehouse and selling it to a local fence - he has carefully worked out the factory routine and knows precisely when to strike. Sue is a young woman who has had no luck with the men she meets - she always seems to fall in with the wrong sort who end up being crooks or a con-men and she would like to meet a nice normal man for a change.
The three of them meet up at the wedding and both men are attracted to Sue and they go off on a mini-soiree by themselves. Joe and Sue seem most attracted to one another and Barry is happy to stand aside - but they all seem to hit it off quite well knowing nothing about each others personal circumstances. Joe finds an excuse to slope off early from the reception and he and Sue go back to her flat and sleep together - she says that she thinks Barry might be a bit dodgy because she can tell the sort and she hopes that Joe is not like that. He doesn't tell her he is a policeman probably for fear that she'll think that is even worse than being a crook. It's not long though before Sue discovers he is married and a policeman and so she takes up with Barry instead and starts living with him. Barry tells her she should have nothing more to do with Joe - being a policeman he would be trouble for Barry which is his underlying reason for the warning - although Sue feels most aggrieved at Joe because he didn't tell her he was married - she still kind of likes him. And Barry's jovial air soon fades once they are a couple and she finds he has a harder side and realises she has yet again fallen in with the wrong sort of man. It is soon the day of Barry's planned solo tobacco heist and in the early daylight hours Barry has entered the factory and demanded the lorry keys at gunpoint from the driver. That same morning Joe is walking home in his police uniform after coming off a demanding night shift and spots the tobacco factory gates open which is unusual at such an early hour. Joe sees a man get into a lorry and stops him to ask what's going on. The man gets out abandoning his haul and Joe is shocked to see it is Barry who then makes a run for it. Joe gives chase and in-panic Barry turns and fires the two rounds of his shotgun directly into Joe's stomach - they look at each other in stunned silence at what has just happened and then Barry turns and makes his getaway. Joe seems mortally wounded and with his dying efforts sounds the alarm. And we are left watching Barry running away through the streets to the sound of police radio reports indicating the extensive efforts being brought into motion to catch him. The End. | |
| Comment: From watching the film it's not quite clear what the proper title of it is supposed to be. At the beginning the title is not seen as a caption but as a piece of graffiti on a wall saying "All Coppers Are" with the final word not filled in - then at the end of the film the graffiti wall is seen again with the word "bastards" added. | |
| Starring: | Martin Potter (as Joe, policeman), Julia Foster (as Sue), Nicky Henson (as Barry, crook) |
| Featuring: | Wendy Alnutt (as Peg, Joe's wife), Sandra Dorne (as Sue's mother), Glynn Edwards (as Jock, fella of Sue's mother), Ian Hendry (as Sonny Wade, fence), Carmel McSharry (Mrs Briggs, Barry's landlady), David Essex (as Ronnie Briggs, landlady's son), Robin Askwith (as Simmy, petty thief), Eddie Byrne (as barman), Queenie Watts (as barman's wife) |
| Starlets: | Nicola Davies (as Bride at wedding) |
| Writers: Jane Gaskell, Hugh Whitemore / Director: Christopher Morahan / Producer: Leon Clore | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 94 mins |
| Ginger is a jack-the-lad window cleaner who is always looking for opportunities to pull a tasty bird. He lives in a run-down tenement in the room next to his best friend Dwyer. He and Dwyer are "plonkers" which means they share everything including their women, whom they freely pass on or deflect for the other if something better comes along.
While out at the pub with his latest bird called Babette, he spots another cracker of a girl called Jill out with her mate Carole. He starts to chat to her - much to the annoyance of Babette who soon drags him onto the dance floor and by the time they return the other two girls have left. Ginger quickly passes Babette on to Dwyer and sets about trying to find Jill again by looking out for her while on his window cleaning rounds. He eventually spots her mate Carole coming out of her workplace and decides his best approach to Jill would be via her. So he goes out on a date with Carole and through her meets up with Jill again and starts going out with her. Jill is in a different class to his normal sorts - she is shy and inexperienced and relies on him for guidance and consequently he finds it hard to take the normal liberties he would with a girl he's dating. Ginger believes he has found that special girl whom he plans upon treating with proper respect and consideration and certainly not one to share around with Dwyer. Jill lives with her widowed mother who is somewhat stuffy and formal towards Ginger, only grudgingly accepting him as her daughter's boyfriend. When they go to a party at a house Ginger is minding for a friend of his, Ginger asks Dwyer to look after Jill while he goes to sort out some rowdy guests and when he returns he finds that Dwyer has bedded Jill. Dwyer apologises not realising she was that "special" one he'd talked about and thought he'd wanted her taken off his hands. Jill had been confused thinking that it was expected of her since Ginger had spoken to her of his plonking. Jill becomes pregnant after this and Ginger offers to do the decent thing and marry her - they don't tell Dwyer the expectant baby is his. They marry and Ginger moves in to live with Jill and her mother because they haven't enough to get a nice place of their own and Jill doesn't want to live somewhere squalid. The mother makes the most of Ginger being around and feigns poor health so he'll wait on her in the months leading up to the birth. Jill has her baby and reminds Ginger how grateful she is for taking her on with another man's baby and how much she loves him. She promises to economise so that they can afford their own place as soon as possible and she seems really keen to make a good go of their marriage. While Jill is still convalescing in hospital Ginger seems to come to a realisation of what he's letting himself in for and gets blindingly drunk. He goes home to Jill's mother's place and she scolds him for getting drunk and coming home late - he gets annoyed with her and pushes her down onto the couch and he suddenly sees in her eyes a needful look of loneliness and desire and proceeds to make love to her. Next morning mother is full of frisky good cheer and keen to do him little favours. When Jill arrives home with the baby she doesn't understand what's going on with her mother's change of attitude towards Ginger who seems to prefer mother's pampering and has hardly noticed she's back. With the reality of a baby and married life now squarely with him Ginger goes out to a café to contemplate things - he spots a pretty waitress and starts chatting her up, slipping neatly back into his old ways. THE END | |
| Comment: There are some other plots elements that play out which mainly involve Ginger's sister and her wayward husband when they move into the big house that Ginger is minding for a hospitalised old-timer mate of his - but in the final analysis they don't impact heavily on the main romance plot so I've not attempted to weave them in to the above summary. The closing stages of the movie from the birth of the baby onwards seem a bit rushed and don't appear as well thought out or presented as the set-up making it a bit hard to make a clear rationalisation of the latter events. | |
| Starring: | Victor Henry (as Ginger), Susan George(as Jill), Jack Shepherd (as Dwyer), Clare Kelly (as Jill's Mother) |
| Featuring: | Anna Cropper (as Sis, Ginger's sister Cicely), Harry Towb (as Issur, Cicely's husband), Vanessa Forsyth (as Carole, Jill's friend), Jasmina Hamzavi (as Babette, Ginger's date), Terence de Marney (as Old Gunge, old man in hospital whose house Ginger is looking after) |
| Starlets: | Nita Lorraine (as Jocasta, Issur's girlfriend), Deirdre Costello (as Girl that Ginger takes off Dwyer's hands), Gwendolyn Watts (as young housewife on Ginger's window cleaning rounds), Christine Pryor (as Cafe waitress) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel by Jane Gaskell |
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The word "Plonker" is defined by Ginger (when Jill asks him) as "someone who shares his crumpet with his mates" (I've assumed the spelling). The term has of course gone on to have a different meaning (thanks to the 1980s sitcom Only Fools And Horses) as someone who does something stupid. It therefore makes it a bit retrospectively odd to hear the two friends in this movie freely referring to themselves with this term. |
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The title of the movie doesn't really have much of a bearing on the story as a whole. It is presumably drawn from the moment Ginger first meets Jill - he drops some loose change in a pub and while he's picking it up under a table he sees some black stockinged legs which he likes the look of and when he checks out the wearer he sees Jill for the first time and instantly takes a liking. |
| All the Right Noises (1969) | Previous Next |
| Writer/Director: Gerry O'Hara / Producers: John Quested, Si Litvinoff | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 85 mins |
| Len Lewin is a 32-year-old electrician who specialises in providing lighting services to film soundstages and theatre productions. Len lives in a flat where he is happily married with two young children. His wife Joy is an actress, although now with the children to look after she only finds time to fit in the occasional acting job doing commercials.
Len is offered a few weeks work at a London theatre to cover until the end of the West End run of a touring musical. Len is very friendly and personable and he gets talking to a bubbly young supporting actress in the company called Val. After the evening's performance he finds her waiting outside for a date who has failed to show and in the spirit of good-natured chivalry he offers to see her safely home. They go to a pub first for a drink and enjoy each others company immensely. Len is the perfect gentleman with his amiable conversation and Val is a powerhouse of openly happy energy, vitality and enthusiasm for her chosen career. She chats away with a charming and effervescent quality that it is impossible not to like as they engage in playful banter throughout the evening and on the subsequent tube train journey to her home town of Uxbridge where she lives with her parents. Walking across the park towards her house Len finds he has become so enchanted by her, and she enamoured of him, that they start kissing and end up having sex outside on the grass under the cover of darkness. Len gets home late and feels very guilty about what he's done because he loves his wife - but Val had been such a compelling young woman it just seemed to happen. Next day there is an afternoon performance of the show and Len is flabbergasted to see Val turn up in a school uniform! She tells him she is in stage school and has to come straight from classes when there is a matinee. She looks so much younger dressed like this and he asks her age and she shamefacedly admits she is a month shy of her sixteenth birthday. She apologises for not telling him before but she doesn't feel that young and thinks she has fallen in love with him. He tells her that because of her age what happened cannot happen again. But despite himself Len continues to see her socially because they both find each others company so entertaining and when the London leg of the tour ends he signs on for the next three weeks of the tour in Manchester and Liverpool so they can spend more time with one another. Len being away from home on a theatre tour is not so unusual and Joy decides to use the opportunity to pick up some work herself and accepts a job on a commercial in Majorca that is expected to last well over a week - leaving the children with her mother. The musical's tour goes well and with performances in the evening Len and Val are able to spend the daytimes together taking in the sights and having fun like a young and carefree courting couple. They are in separate lodgings and so the opportunity to really be together isn't available. But between weeks when the tour moves locations they travel back to London to spend one night together in Len's flat while he knows his wife is away filming in Spain. They sleep together but without having sex and next morning are very lucky because Joy's job has finished earlier than expected and she returns home only a few minutes after Val has left (going first so they are not seen together by neighbours). Len explains his unexpected presence by telling Joy he came back home for a day because he was bored with his lodgings and wanted a brief change of scenery. She suspects nothing and is just happy to see him. The next week in Liverpool Len and Val continue with their happy-go-lucky daytime companionship - but then Val tells him she has started to feel sick in the mornings and thinks she may be pregnant from that one and only time in the park on the night they met. He tells her he'll make some arrangements and she can quietly go off for a few days and have a termination. But it turns out to be a false alarm and she has her period very late. As the three-week tour comes to a close they both begin to realise that without a legitimate reason for them to easily meet their relationship cannot go on. Len still loves his wife and Val is just too young for him. She wishes he could have come into her life five years later instead as he seems the perfect man - but she is happy with her memories and he will always be the template against which she judges the boys and men that she subsequently meets. Len goes home to his unsuspecting wife and resumes his normal life. Joy finds a hair ribbon in the flat which is not hers and briefly wonders what may have gone on that day when Len returned to the flat but prudently decides to say nothing. | |
| Starring: | Tom Bell (as Len Lewin), Olivia Hussey (as Val), Judy Carne (as Joy Lewin, Len's wife) |
| Featuring: | Robert Keegan (as Len's father), John Standing (as Nigel, friend of Len and Joy), Lesley-Ann Down (as Laura, actress in musical) |
| Familiar Faces: | Yootha Joyce (as Mrs Bird, landlady, small role), Rudolph Walker (as TV Studio labourer, cameo) |
| Starlets: | Chrissie Shrimpton (as Waitress, very brief cameo) |
| Alvin Purple (1973) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Alan Hopgood / Director/Producer: Tim Burstall | |
| Type: Australian / Sex Comedy | Running Time: 92 mins |
| Alvin Purple has a problem - women find him irresistible. As a schoolboy he was plagued by the girls in his class who would fight over him and chase him home and even his schoolmaster's wife initiates an affair with him. As he grows older he finds it hard to hold down a steady job because of his problem - one job he tries is installing water beds but the women customers just throw themselves at him. Wherever he goes he can't help thinking about sex - he even sees clothed women naked in his imagination and wants it all to stop so he can have a normal life
So he visits a psychiatrist called Dr Liz Sort for some treatment. She is young and eager to help but finds herself strangely drawn to him herself. So her male colleague Dr McBurney takes over Alvin's case and tells him that there is absolutely nothing wrong with him - his behaviour is quite normal for a man of his age and all that he requires is some vocational guidance. So McBurney employs Alvin to act as his sexual therapist. He sends some of his troubled women patients along to Alvin who provides them with a sexual service to work out their frustrations and needs. But Liz finds out about this arrangement and in jealousy leaks the story to the media. The press coverage of McBurney's unorthodox treatment practices creates a public scandal and he is exposed as a fraud and charlatan who was never really a psychiatrist at all - in fact his real motives had been to secretly film Alvin's "sessions" and sell them for vast sums of money as blue movies to stag parties. Alvin is depicted as a modern day Casanova and is put on trial for his part in the deception but is cleared when it is proven he was not aware of McBurney's real motives and was sleeping with the women patients with what he believed the best intentions. After escaping from an angry mob of husbands of those women he "treated" he finally gets a job as a gardener in a nunnery where he can be free of insatiable women. | |
| Links: There was a sequel to this film called Alvin Rides Again (1974). Graeme Blundell also reprised his role in a 1976 TV series entitled "Alvin Purple" which lasted for 13 x 30 minute episodes; and again in a lesser capacity in a 1984 film called Melvin, Son of Alvin which was about his son. | |
| Starring: | Graeme Blundell (as Alvin Purple), Penne Hackforth-Jones (as Dr. Liz Sort) |
| Featuring: | Jill Forster (as Mrs. Horwood, the teacher's wife), Alan Finney (as Spike Dooley, Alvin's friend), Ellie Maclure (as Tina), George Whaley (as Dr. McBurney), Noel Ferrier (as The Judge) |
| Starlets: | Abigail, Lynette Curran, Christine Amor, Dina Mann, Jenny Hagen, Kris McQuade, Shara Berriman, Jacki Weaver, Eileen Chapman, Jan Friedl, Barbara Taylor, Anne Pendlebury, Debbie Nankervis, Elke Neidhart, Clare Balmford, Sally Conabere |
| Alvin Rides Again (1974) | Previous Next |
| aka: Foreplay the Prequel | |
| Writer: Alan Hopgood / Directors: David Bilcock, Robin Copping / Producer: Tim Burstall | |
| Type: Australian / Sex Comedy | Running Time: 87 mins |
| Following on from the events of the first film, Alvin Purple is still finding it hard to hold down a permanent job. He gets some temporary work as a window cleaner, taxi driver and an office cleaner but all his efforts are scuppered by women who unaccountably find him irresistible and give their all to him which he finds hard to resist and consequently gets sacked.
He cannot understand his continued misfortune and decides to go up North with his friend Spike to get away from it all. On the way their car breaks down and they hitch a lift from a coach carrying a women's cricketing team. The Luthor Hall Old Girls cricket team are playing against a men's team and when they look like losing Alvin and Spike help them out by dressing up as women and playing for them. This wins them a bet they had on the match and they take their winnings to a casino to play the tables. At the casino they meet a visiting US gangster called Balls McGee who by an amazing coincidence looks just like Alvin. When Balls is accidentally shot and killed his henchmen force Alvin to pose as Balls to conduct a deal with a local crime gangster Fingers. Fingers plans to rob the casino safe and Alvin (as Balls) and Spike find themselves caught up in it all and the machinations between the criminal factions and they end up fleeing for their lives chased by various maniacal crime bosses out for revenge. | |
| Links: This was a sequel to the film Alvin Purple (1973). Graeme Blundell also reprised his role in a 1976 TV series entitled "Alvin Purple" which lasted for 13 x 30 minute episodes; and again in a lesser capacity in a 1984 film called Melvin, Son of Alvin which was about his son. | |
| Starring: | Graeme Blundell (as Alvin Purple and Balls McGee), Alan Finney (Spike Dooley) |
| Featuring: | Gus Mercurio (as Jake, a hoodlum), Nat Levison (as Harry, a hoodlum) Jeff Ashby (as German gangster) Frank Thring (as Fingers), Noel Ferrier (as Gangster Boss) |
| Starlets: | Chantal Contouri, Judy Stevenson, Briony Behets, Candy Raymond, Abigail, Arna-Maria Winchester, Kris McQuade, Joy Thompson, Penne Hackforth-Jones, Debbie Nankervis, Dina Mann, Clare Balmford |
| Writer/Director: Lionel Jeffries / Producer: Barry Levinson | |
| Type: Ghost Story | Running Time: 94 mins |
| In 1918 the Allen family have fallen on hard times and are forced to sell their London town house and move into a small downbeat flat in Camden. The family consists of Mrs Allen and her two children, young teenager Lucy and her younger brother Jamie. Times look like they will be hard until a mysterious stranger comes to their door one snowy winter's day with an unsolicited job offer for Mrs Allen. His name is Mr Blunden and he tells them he represents a firm of solicitors who have in their custodianship a large property in Buckinghamshire and wish to offer Mrs Allen the job of caretaker. As well as a salary she and the children would have the rent-free occupancy of an adjacent cottage. Mr Blunden advises them that the villagers will tell tales of the place being haunted.
Mrs Allen accepts the position and she and her two children move to their new cottage near Langley Park mansion. The grand house has been unlived in for many years and is in a sad, neglected state. Next day Lucy and Jamie are in the garden when they see materialising out of the mist two children of similar ages to themselves. At first they think they are seeing ghosts but the newcomers are real to the touch. Their names are Sara and Georgie Latimer and they too are brother and sister and have a fantastic tale to tell. They lived in this mansion exactly 100 years ago in 1818 when it was a vibrant and lived-in home. Their parents had recently died and they were placed under the joint guardianship of their Uncle Bertie and (in absentia) the family solicitor Mr Blunden. Bertie proved to be a bad apple and sold off many family heirlooms to pay for his own exorbitant tastes. Then Bertie fell for and married a ditzy showgirl called Bella and she and her money-grabbing opportunistic mother Mrs Wickens came to live with them at Langley Park. But Bertie soon has bad news for his greedy new mother-in-law when he reveals that he does not have access to the bulk of the family wealth because that is locked up in trust for young Georgie until he becomes twenty-one. Unless Georgie were to die prior to that in which case it would go to Bertie. So the heartless Mrs Wickens decides the two Latimer children must be done away with. The pair of them overhear the adults plotting the use of slow insidious methods of keeping them undernourished and cold so they will grow feverish and perish. The children try writing to their other guardian Mr Blunden in London for his help saying they will run away if he doesn't do something for them - but Blunden is too busy and doesn’t take them seriously and instead exposes their concerns to Mrs Wickens as childish foolishness making escape then impossible. Then one night some mystery writing appears on their windows telling them to go to the library and they follow a trail which leads them to an old parchment describing an arcane recipe that when consumed will allow the drinker to travel through time. Sara and Georgie gather the ingredients and drink it and now here they are here 100 years in their future asking for the help of Lucy and Jamie. The 1818 children tell Lucy and Jamie the ingredients so they can concoct their own version of the potion. Lucy and Jamie find out that Sara and Georgie are destined to die the very next day in their past-time in a house fire. Their own Mr Blunden is the ghost of the 1818 version who is trying to redeem his past mistake of ignoring the children's plea for help and he has guided events to this point. Lucy and Jamie drink the potion and follow the other two back into past and it soon becomes clear that Mrs Wickens has grown tired of the slow-game and has drugged the children into sleep in their bedroom and has had a fire started in the rooms below to burn them to death. As things progress the 1918 children manage to help alter events so that the 1818 children are saved. They are aided by Thomas, a gardener's boy who is sweet on Sara, who was also destined to die while trying vainly to save them from the fire - but now he too survives. When Lucy and Jamie return to their own era things have altered and the 1818 children's graves are no longer there. Then unexpected news arrives from the London solicitors - some old paperwork has been uncovered which reveals that the Latimer family are actually direct descendants of the last owners of this house and so it is actually Mrs Allen's property along with a £500 annual income. Their ancestors were Sara and Thomas who had later become husband and wife and so the people that Lucy and Georgie had gone back in time to save had become their own great grandparents. | |
| Comment: If the whereabouts of the Allen father was mentioned I missed it but given the date it was set it is quite possible he was a soldier killed in action in the First World War. Something that did appear to go without direct explanation is who was behind the writing on the window that led the 1818 children to find the magic recipe in the library. One assumes it must have been Mr Blunden but I don't think this was specifically stated. | |
| Starring: | Laurence Naismith (as Mr Blunden), Dorothy Alison (as Mrs Allen), Lynne Frederick (as Lucy Allen), Garry Miller (as Jamie Allen), Rosalyn Landor (as Sara Latimer), Marc Granger (as Georgie Latimer) |
| Featuring: | Diana Dors (as Mrs Wickens, Bella's mother), James Villiers (as Uncle Bertie), Madeline Smith (as Bella, Bertie's wife), Stuart Lock (as Thomas), Deddie Davies (as Meakin, Maidservant), Graham Crowden (as Mr Clutterbuck), solicitor), Erik Chitty (as Mr Claverton, solicitor) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel The Ghosts by Antonia Barber. |
| Writer/Director: John Landis / Producer: George Folsey Jr | |
| Type: Horror | Running Time: 90 mins |
| Two happy go-lucky American students named David Kessler and Jack Goodman are on a three month hiking holiday around Europe and are currently taking in the North of England. Keeping to the roads that wind through the desolate moorlands they come to a small village called East Proctor. It is a foul evening and so they stop off at the pub - but the locals are not very welcoming and seem keen to see the two lads gone - although after they have departed some amongst them express their unease at letting the lads go out by themselves on the night of a full moon. The lads brave the bad weather but make the mistake of wandering over the moorlands instead of keeping to the road. They soon start hearing the noise of a wolf howling and realise they are being stalked by some sort of wild animal. Jack is suddenly attacked and killed by a hideous wolf-like man-creature and David runs for his life. The werewolf chases and wounds him but he is saved from further savaging by some of the locals who had a change of heart and shoot the beast dead before it has a chance to attack again. Just before he passes out from his injuries David sees the wolf laying dead but it is now a man.
David lays unconscious for three weeks and when he awakens he finds he has been transferred to a London hospital under the care of Dr Hirsch and Nurse Alex Price. The story the medical staff were told by the locals was that their patient was attacked by an escaped lunatic who had first killed his friend Jack. David's waking recollections of a giant wolfman are dismissed as being a bad dream by the doctors and David isn't too sure himself now. Left alone in his private hospital room David is visited by his dead friend Jack Goodman who explains that although dead his spirit is still trapped on Earth until the bloodline of the werewolf that killed him is destroyed. And unfortunately David has now inherited the werewolf curse through the injuries it inflicted on him. Jack urges David to kill himself before the night of the next full moon due in a week's time - David is really not sure if he is still dreaming or going mad and doesn't seriously believe what he's been told. David and Nurse Alex feel an enormous attraction and when he is discharged she offers him a place to stay at her house. They soon become lovers. Meanwhile Dr Hirsch travels up to East Proctor to look into some inconsistencies in the story told to him of how David came by his injuries and finds the locals very unwilling to help but discovers enough to believe David's werewolf story. Alex is at work on a nightshift and David has been left to his own devices - it is the night of the next full moon and as it gets dark David begins to uncontrollably change into a werewolf. The wolf roams London on a killing spree and David wakes up naked the next morning in a zoo completely unaware of how he got there or what happened to him the previous night. Dr Hirsch has told Alex about his discoveries and when she cannot contact him on the phone they get very worried. David eventually makes his way back to her place and appears to be back to normal. Dr Hirsch wants Alex to bring him to the hospital for tests but on the way David reads the newspaper reports of the wild animal murders the previous night and realises it must have been him and the werewolf curse is true. The period of the full moon lasts several days and so he knows it will happen again that evening and he panics and tries to hide himself away in a dark cinema. But the darkness does not help and the cinema is populated by the undead victims of his murder spree all urging him to kill himself so they can be free. He changes into the wolf again and emerges out into the busy London streets causing panic and mayhem. Eventually he is cornered down an alleyway by police. Alex braves it and goes in alone to try and reason with the beast and attempt to reach the part of it that is David. At first she appears to be having some success in calming it down but then it springs to attack her and a police marksman shoots him dead. | |
| Starring: | David Naughton (as David Kessler), Jenny Agutter (as Nurse Alex Price), Griffin Dunne (as Jack Goodman), John Woodvine (Dr Hirsch) |
| Featuring: | Lila Kaye (as East Proctor Barmaid), David Schofield (as East Proctor local), Brian Glover (as East Proctor local), Don McKillop (Inspector Villiers), Paul Kember (Sergeant McManus), Anne-Marie Davies (as Nurse Susan Gallagher) |
| Familiar Faces: | Rik Mayall (as East Proctor local, non-speaking part) |
| Starlets: | Nina Carter (as Naughty Nina, NOTW TV Advert), Linzi Drew (Actress in porno film showing at cinema) |
| Writers: Denis Cannan, Roland Kibbee / Director: Terence Young / Producer: Marcel Hellman | |
| Type: Period Drama | Running Time: 123 mins |
| Set in the 1600s/1700s. As a young orphan girl Moll Flanders was taken from her orphanage to work in the household of the local mayor. She is well treated and enjoys the benefits of a good education alongside the mayor's own children and is considered in many respects as one of his family - aside from her domestic duties. Moll works hard but harbours a secret ambition to better herself and to one day be a rich noble lady herself.
Moll flowers into young womanhood within the mayor's household and eventually the older son and she become lovers. She believes him to be serious and they discuss marriage which to her would be an immense elevation up the social ladder. However he shows himself for a cad and suggests she accept the proposal of his younger brother Nathan who is a bit of a fool but is also sweet on her. She hurriedly marries Nathan in the mistaken belief that she may be with-child following her union with the elder brother - but Nathan proves himself to be an inadequate drunken imbecile whom she has no love for despite the raising of her position. When Nathan dies in a horse-carriage accident she becomes a widow but the family cast her out making sure she gains nothing from his will. Now impoverished Moll seeks employment in town and gains a position as a ladies maid to Lady Blystone who can offer no wage other than board and keep due to her own dire financial position. Still dressed in mourning Moll is sent on ahead to London with Lady Blystone's belongings. She shares a carriage with a middle-aged banker called William with whom she strikes up an agreeable conversation on the long journey. A masked highwayman holds up their carriage and her quick thinking saves the banker some of his more valuable items as she exploits the highwayman's unexpected chivalry towards her widowhood. The highwayman's name is Jemmy who is a gentleman fallen on hard times and forced into a life of crime. Amongst the belongings he and his associate Squint took from the coach is a hatbox belonging to Lady Blystone. Jemmy wrongly assumes that Moll was this lady in question and fancies that she may be his route back into polite society if he were able to woo and marry her. So after a suitable amount of time he calls upon Lady Blystone's residence in London posing as a rich sea captain called Meredith. Although only a maid Moll often has run of the house and permission to use her ladyship's clothing and so she has no difficulty maintaining her role as Lady Blystone once she realises that that is whom this handsome gentleman believes her to be - marriage to such an important seaman would be a boon to her status and her quest to become a proper noblewoman and she is sure that her charms will win his favour even if he eventually discovers she is not the Lady he believes. So the two of them conduct themselves in their assumed roles as they engage in a courtship each believing the other to be genuine and both hoping to gain elevated social status by an eventual marriage. Even though the chemistry between them is genuine, when the truth of their positions become revealed Jemmy feels bitterly betrayed and storms off to resume his life of crime after having spent money he could ill-afford in hiring the necessary grandiose accoutrements his characterisation needed to fool her into thinking he was of the same standing as she. Moving on and Lady Blystone dismisses Moll after finding her cavorting with her husband even though Moll was actually trying to fend off his amorous advances. Cast out on her own once again Moll turns to the friendly banker she met on the coach journey and finds him recuperating after an illness. He is in need of companionship and she of support and so she agrees to marry him. She likes him a lot but finds the bedroom duties with him to be loathsome and without the passion that she craves. Some time passes and then she sees Jemmy ride by and she impulsively leaves to follow him and abandons the banker and her secure life with him. She fails to catch up with Jemmy and now destitute she falls into a life of crime until she is eventually caught and sent to Newgate prison to await hanging. Jemmy, Squint and a couple of the villainous associates she has made friends with in her criminal dealings are also there, as is Lady Blystone's husband whose debts have landed him in prison - all with similar death sentences that are due to be carried out soon. However when the prison facilities are inspected by council officials, Moll thinks her luck has changed because amongst the representatives is William the banker in his other role of an alderman - but unfortunately when William sees his missing wife in prison he faints and dies of shock. All seems lost until shortly afterwards Moll is called to the governor's office where Lady Blystone awaits her with a proposition. As the banker's wife and his only heir Moll has inherited his vast fortune and can buy herself out of her death sentence and have it commuted to transportation to America. Lady Blystone has brokered this deal with the prison governor provided Moll also pay for her husband's release. Moll agrees and also secures the release of Jemmy, Squint and the other acquaintances from her sojourn into the criminal fraternity. They are all put on a ship bound for America to start a new life. Moll and Jemmy get married (as themselves) and Jemmy is delighted that he has now after all married a rich lady with whom he is genuinely in love. | |
| Starring: | Kim Novak (as Moll Flanders), Richard Johnson (as Jemmy), Leo McKern (as Squint, Jemmy's accomplice), Angela Lansbury (as Lady Blystone, debt-ridden noble lady) , George Sanders (as William, The Banker), Lilli Palmer (as Dutchy, Jemmy's mistress and fencer of his ill-gotten gains), Peter Butterworth (as Grunt, Dutchy's assistant) |
| Featuring: | Vittorio De Sica (as The Count, Lady Blystone's husband), Cecil Parker (as The Mayor, takes young orphan Moll in as family maid), Barbara Couper (as The Mayor's wife), Daniel Massey (as Mayor's Elder Son), Derren Nesbitt (as Mayor's Younger Son, Nathan), Hugh Griffith (as Newgate Prison Governor) |
| Familiar Faces: | (small roles) Richard Wattis (Jeweller), David Lodge (Ship's captain), Bernard Lee (Landlord), Desmond Llewelyn (Jailer), Dandy Nichols (Orphanage Superintendent, prologue only) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel by Daniel Defoe. |
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Opening caption reads "This story is presented as a warning to all young girls whose vanity prevails over their virtue". |
| The Amorous Milkman (1974) | Previous Next |
| Writer/Director/Producer: Derren Nesbitt | |
| Type: Sex Comedy | Running Time: 86 mins |
| Davey is a milkman for D.N. Dairies. He lives by himself in a dingy bedsit and gets up at the crack of dawn every morning to do his rounds. His rounds must take ages because he stops at most houses for a chat. At one house he meets young Janice in her bath towel feeding her cat (leading to a string of inane "pussy" jokes that even Mrs Slocombe would have blushed at). They arrange to go out on a date that evening and afterwards go back to his flat where due to some misunderstandings she believes he has proposed to her and he being nice doesn't correct her. She tells her parents and makes it all official.
Davey goes to a pub to meet his friend Sandy and he is introduced to Diana and he double dates her with Sandy and his girlfriend Joan - at the end of the evening he takes Diana back to his place and declares his love for her and says he wants to marry her. So that's two girls he's now "engaged" to. Davey then goes to a party and meets a girl called Margo. He gets drunk and they go upstairs to have sex. Next morning she is so happy because he proposed to her - although he can remember none of it. So that's three girls now. Back on his milk round he delivers to a middle-aged woman who wants to prove to herself whether she is still attractive. She makes advances towards Davey which he declines - she falls down and as he is helping her up her husband returns catching them in what looks like a compromising situation in the kitchen - so she tells her husband that Davey has indecently assaulted her. Davey is arrested and charged with the assault which briefly she increases to rape until medical tests on him show he didn't do that - so it's reduced back to indecent assault with a trial coming in a few days. The positive side effect of this is that Margo and Janice break off their engagements to him for being a pervert. He goes to visit the woman he really wants, Diana, to explain what really happened. But she already has a boyfriend in the shape of a possessive gangland villain and he has Davey viciously beaten up. At the end he has his moment in court all beaten and bruised looking and is acquitted. But at the end clingy Margo forgives him and says she still wants to marry him. | |
| Comment: The film seems to veer from one type to another with little consistency. Early on it attempts to be a comedy with strings of smutty innuendo-laden conversations which really don't work at all well. It tries to move into straight romantic drama at times in his scenes with Julie Ege (who plays her part like she really doesn't want to be there making it very hard to understand what Davey sees in her). Finally it moves into something darker when he is accused of rape and then gets beaten up - resulting in very nasty and upsetting looking injuries to his face. So all-in-all not an especially good effort. Donna Reading as the bubbly naïve Janice is probably the best thing about it. The most amusing scene is when she and Davey go to the cinema and are watching an Italian arty film with a long sex-scene which he is really interested in - but she keeps commenting on what she thinks of the curtains or what a mess they are making of the sheets. | |
| Starring: | Brendan Price (Davey as the Milkman) |
| Featuring: | Julie Ege (as Diana), Donna Reading (as Janice), Nancie Wait (as Margo), Diana Dors (as the Housewife), Bill Fraser (as her husband), Alan Lake (as Sandy) |
| Familiar Faces: | Roy Kinnear, Anthony Sharp, Arnold Ridley, Janet Webb |
| Starlets: | Jennifer Westbrook (as Joan), Marianne Morris |
| NOTES: | |
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The Internet Movie Database has Diane Keen listed as appearing in an uncredited role as "Joan" (last Checked Oct 2005). However she was not in the film at all - the role of "Joan" was in fact played by Jennifer Westbrook who is inadvertantly omitted from the end credits although her name is shown during the opening title sequence. |
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Marianne Morris was playing the uncredited role of "Dora", a brief non-speaking cameo when Davey is recalling some former girlfriends - recognised from her starring role in the same year's Vampyres. The other girlfriend in the same flashback sequence was named as "Sally" but she has not been recognised. |
| Writer: Roger Marshall / Director: Roy Ward Baker / Producers: Max J. Rosenberg, Milton Subotsky | |
| Type: Horror | Running Time: 90 mins |
| It is 1795 and happy young virgin bride-to-be Catherine has come to live at her new husband Charles' ancestral home of Fengriffen - but soon after arriving, her joy is shattered as she starts to have nightmarish visions of an eyeless man's face and other strange happenings - but no one else can see these manifestations although Catherine gets the distinct impression that there is something everyone else knows that they are unwilling or even afraid to tell her about. Catherine feels drawn to a portrait of Charles' grandfather Henry Fengriffen around which the worst of her visions seem to occur.
On the night of their wedding while Charles is in another room getting changed Catherine is attacked and raped in her bed by the hideous eyeless man who has a stumped right hand - she cries out, but by the time Charles reaches her there is no sign of any intruder and no one can accept her story is true. Next day when Catherine visits the family graveyard to look at the tomb of Henry she sees a man who resembles her spectral attacker. She finds out he is Silas the woodsman who lives on the Fengriffen land under a special dispensation - but he is sighted and is not missing any hands although he does have a distinctive red blotchy birthmark on his right cheek shared by the spectre. Catherine soon discovers she is pregnant and then over the next few days a number of deaths occur - all of people who were about to tell Catherine something of the legends surrounding the secretive Fengriffen family history. Her supernatural visions continue unabated and in torment she slashes Henry's portrait. Charles worries about his wife's sanity and sends for a doctor from London called Dr Pope who is an expert in the new science of psychology. Dr Pope has no belief in the paranormal and seeks to find a rational medical explanation to Catherine's concerns - to gain a better understanding he asks Charles to tell him about the family legends surrounding Henry Fengriffen that seem to be at the centre of Catherine's anxiety. FLASHBACK: Fifty years beforehand Henry was the lord of the manor. He used Fengriffen House for regular debauched parties and on one such occasion he and his drunken cronies visited the cottage of the local woodsman and Henry rapes his new young wife claiming some ancient right. When the woodsman (who is the grandfather of Silas and looks identical) tries to protect his wife Henry gets enraged at his defiance and chops off his right hand as punishment. The woodsman then issues a curse on Henry's family that the next virgin bride to come to the house of Fengriffen will be violated as his own wife has been and death shall befall any who try to prevent it. Once sober Henry tried to offer restitution to the woodsman by gifting his family perpetual rights to live on the land but his gesture made no difference to the woodsman's hatred of him. Charles tells Dr Pope that Catherine is the first virgin bride since those days as his own mother had been a previously married widow. Whilst these revelations were being made Catherine had been at the door and heard the details of the curse that she has become victim to - in desperation she tries to stab the unborn baby within her belly but the supernatural forces stop her and the pregnancy continues to full term. When the baby arrives it is a boy and is blemished with the red facial birthmark of the Silas line and Dr Pope has to accept that the supernatural curse has come true. Catherine reluctantly takes the baby but her face shows her last vestiges of sanity fading. | |
| Comment: The ending is a bit vague and inconclusive as to just what Catherine's state of mind is supposed to be. She appears to be going mad although she must recover eventually because she narrates the opening moments of the film in a reminiscent way from some point in the future describing her arrival at Fengriffen. | |
| Starring: | Peter Cushing (as Dr Pope), Stephanie Beacham (Catherine Fengriffen), Ian Ogilvy (Charles Fengriffen) |
| Featuring: | Herbert Lom (as Henry Fengriffen, flashbacks), Patrick Magee (as Dr Whittle), Geoffrey Whitehead (as Silas), Rosalie Crutchley (Mrs Luke, housekeeper), Sally Harrison (as Sarah, Silas' wife in flashback), Janet Key (as Bridget, a maid) |
| Starlets: | Kay Adrian, Vic Chapman, Hilary Martin, Beth Owen, Toni Sinclair, Elsa Smith, Gloria Walker (all probably flashback scene party revellers) |
| Writers: Brian Clemens, Terry Nation / Director: Robert Fuest / Producers: Albert Fennell, Brian Clemens | |
| Type: Thriller | Running Time: 94 mins |
| Jane and Cathy are two young English nurses on a cycling holiday in France. Jane is keen to journey far each day keeping to their original planned itinerary but Cathy is becoming fed up and would like to stay a bit longer in places. At a café Cathy spots a handsome stranger and takes his photo and thinks maybe she could get talking to him but Jane insists it is time to continue on down the long stretch of road through the French countryside along which they are currently journeying.
After travelling some further distance Cathy wants to rest and they stop on the grass curb to a woodland area to sunbathe. After what Jane considers a sufficient rest she insists they really must get moving if they want to make their next stopover before nightfall but Cathy is languid to her concern and just wants to stay and doze - they row and Jane tells her friend to go on without her if she's so desperate. Hoping being left alone might rouse her disquiet Jane does just that and cycles off alone down the road and then waits at the next café in the hope that Cathy will soon follow. After a time when Cathy does not show up Jane returns but there is no sign of her or her bicycle. All she finds is Cathy's camera on the ground. Then the handsome man stops on his scooter and offers to help. His name is Paul and once she has explained the situation he pockets the camera and tells her to leave her bike and get on his scooter and he'll take her back to the previous town in case Cathy doubled back. When she is not there Paul gives her back the camera and says she should wait here while he goes back alone to the woodland area and has another thorough look. While waiting Jane meets a woman who tells her about a murder that happened in these parts three years ago of a young female tourist travelling alone. It was quite a scandal at the time and no one was ever caught. Then Jane notices that the film has been removed from the camera that Paul gave back to her. The woman gives Jane a lift back to the woods to pick up her bike. There she meets up with Paul again who says he took the film as evidence and that he is a policeman with the Surete who was originally involved with the investigation of the victim from three years ago. But his story doesn't add up and he admits he was not with the official investigation but just on holiday. He says he has found something he wants her to identify and leads her deep into the woods. But she begins to become suspicious of him and runs away and finds the house of a Gendarme to whom she tells the whole story. The Gendarme goes looking in the woods while Jane waits at his house. Paul spots the man arrive and hides and the officer finds nothing and goes off searching in another direction. Paul finds his way to the Gendarme's place and shouts out that he's found something and she must come and look. Jane no longer trusts him one bit and can't believe a word he says all of which sounds like a ruse to get her to show herself. She barricades herself in but he breaks the door down and she becomes terrified that he is going to try to kill her. She runs out into a trailer park and hides in one of the abandoned caravans as Paul starts a systematic search and seems frantic to locate her. Then Jane makes the gruesome discovery of the dead body of her friend Cathy in the caravan she is hiding in. She rushes out in terror and Paul gives chase but she hides and strikes him senseless with a rock as he comes round the corner at her. The Gendarme then returns and she runs relieved into his safe arms telling him what she has discovered - but then she becomes aware that rather than just providing a comforting embrace his hands are feeling her up in a suggestive manner and she realises that it is he who is the villain of the piece. The Gendarme wrestles her to the ground and rips at her clothing as he starts to rape and strangle her. She is rescued by Paul who has come round and clobbers the Gendarme with a stick and all is well. | |
| Comment: The twist ending is a surprise but it is a little unfair on the viewer since Paul had been behaving ridiculously suspiciously all along which when looked upon in a new retrospective light of him being quite innocent makes very little sense as to why he was so secretive and furtive not just towards Jane but even when the viewer is watching him while he is alone hiding and skulking around in a very guilty sort of way. | |
| Starring: | Pamela Franklin (as Jane), Michele Dotrice (as Cathy), Sandor Elès (as Paul Salmon) |
| Featuring: | John Nettleton (as Gendarme), Clare Kelly (as English woman, Schoolmistress), Hana-Maria Pravda (as Madame Lassal, café owner), Claude Bertrand (as Lassal, café owner's husband) |
| Writers: François Truffaut, Jean Gruault / Director: François Truffaut / Executive Producer: Marcel Berbert | |
| Type: European/ Romantic Drama | Running Time: 124 mins |
| Set in the early 1900s. Claude Roc is a young Parisian man with a love of art who whilst recuperating after injuring a leg in an accident is introduced to the English daughter of his mother's childhood friend. Her name is Anne Brown and she is a budding sculptress who is in Paris to look around the galleries. Anne and Claude get on well and she suggests he come back with her to Britain for a holiday where he can meet her sister Muriel with whom she feels he will get along. Muriel suffers from a weakness of the eyes brought about by too much candlelit book reading and like Claude is also recuperating.
The Brown family live in a cottage in a small Welsh coastal village. Claude, Muriel and Anne all take to each other as firm friends and spend the rest of the holiday engaging in outdoor pursuits and artistic discussions because all three of them are well educated and the girls both speak fluent French. The relationship they share is like that of siblings and nothing romantic develops although of the two Muriel is the one Claude favours. But he cannot voice his feelings of interest in her hampered by the customs of the period in which romantic overtures must be strictly verbal in nature and one cannot idly touch a woman without good reason. Claude's visit is open-ended and as time wears on Mrs Brown begins to become concerned that her daughters' reputations may begin to suffer with a single man known to be living in their home who has no romantic intentions on either daughter - so she has him move out and live in a neighbour's house for the remainder of his stay. He writes down his feelings for Muriel in a letter expressing his great love for her and proposing marriage - but her reply is disappointing for she feels they are too much like brother and sister and she doesn't want to give him false hope. But she later amends her rash words to a distinct "maybe" given more time. Claude's mother, Mrs Roc, arrives from France so that the two mothers can decide what to do that's best for their respective children. They propose that Claude and Muriel should part company for one whole year without contact and if at the end of that time Claude still feels the same way and Muriel wishes to marry him then both mothers will give their approval. Claude returns to Paris and takes up a job as an art critic. He soon has reason to meet other women and go out on dates and after six months he has to write to Muriel saying that he has realised he is not right for her and hopes this relieves her from the burden of her decision but will always remain her friend and brother. Muriel is heartbroken when she gets his letter for she had been regretting her earlier hasty rejection of him and has been realising how much she did love him and wants to marry him. She goes to pieces and vows she will never marry. It is four years later and Anne is in Paris again to open a studio to work from as a sculptress. She and Claude meet up and share again that same friendship they first found and they start an open sexual affair both free to see others. Anne briefly has a fling with a mountain climber but breaks off their relationship unexpectedly. Later Muriel is visiting her sister in Paris and meets with Claude again - they instantly feel the former attraction and Claude cannot believe how much seeing her again has affected him and realises he still loves her and she him. But when Anne admits to her sister that she and Claude have been having an affair Muriel falls to pieces again and returns to Wales. And Claude also sinks into despair and spends many days in bed. It is now seven years since his Welsh holiday and Claude receives word through a friend that Anne has died of tuberculosis in Wales and her illness was the reason she never married her mountain climber lover. Muriel is on her way to Belgium via Calais to take up a teaching post and Claude goes to meet her. They book into a hotel overnight and have their first sexual encounter in which she loses her virginity to him. But afterwards she tells him she did it for him because he wanted it but they are now two different people and their love is dead and she must move on to her new direction in life. She leaves as a more happy and confident woman now complete and unafraid of life. | |
| Starring: | Jean-Pierre Léaud (as Claude Roc), Kika Markham (as Anne Brown), Stacey Tendeter (as Muriel Brown) |
| Featuring: | Sylvia Marriott (as Mrs Brown), Marie Mansart (as Madame Roc), Philippe Léotard (as Diurka, a friend of Claude and Anne), Marie Iracane (as Madame Roc's maid) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel Deux anglaises et le continent by Henri-Pierre Roché |
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This is a French film with the title of Les Deux anglaises et le continent. The film is mainly in French but with some passages in English when the British characters are speaking amongst themselves. The version reviewed was in original language with English subtitles when French is spoken. It has been reviewed here because of the obvious British connection and in particular the involvement of British actress Kika Markham. |
| The Appointment (1981) | Previous Next |
| Writer/Director: Lindsey C. Vickers / Producer: Tom Sachs | |
| Type: Chiller | Running Time: 85 mins |
| (Prologue) Three years ago a 12-year-old schoolgirl called Sandy Freemont who was musically gifted mysteriously disappeared while taking a short cut through some woods. The police never found a body or any clue to her whereabouts and in response a fence was put across the woods to prevent its use as an access way.
(Present day) Joanne Fowler is a 14-year-old schoolgirl from the same school as Sandy and is also a musician. She is talented and clever but is a bit of a loner and often sits by the railings to the woods talking to something near the ground (that we don't see). She is devoted to her father for whom she would do anything to impress and the next day is the culmination of all her hard practice with a school concert that she is looking forward to her father attending. But that evening her father Ian has some bad news:- a work colleague has had to take time off to care for his sick wife and Ian has been forced to step in and deputise in an important meeting in another city and he will be away from home for her music recital. He is dreading telling Joanne because he knows she doesn't take disappointment well and sure enough she greets the news with a sullen despondency accusing him of not loving her anymore. She eventually goes to bed defeated by his intransigence and the failure of her usual tactics of emotional blackmail. That night Ian has a restless time and is haunted by visions of being stalked by three Doberman dogs and then having a fatal accident on the road trip to his appointment. Unknown to him his wife Dianna has been having the exact same unnerving nightmare about him. In the garage some otherworldly activity seems to be going on around his car with the headlamps turning on by themselves and brake fluid valves becoming loosened. Ian makes an early start the next morning and initially has an uneventful journey but when he has to double back because he left his watch in a phone box he finds his brakes have failed and has an accident just like it played out in his nightmare and he goes over a precipice and dies. And as the film ends we see an unconcerned looking Joanne sitting by the fence to the woods and see now that she is talking to the Doberman dogs. | |
| Comment: A lot of odd events occur that are never really explained. The suggestion is obviously that Joanne is somehow controlling some malevolent force or it is working to please her for some reason and so it helped do away with her father who had let her down. The death of the first schoolgirl is never explained either but perhaps she had been more talented and was standing in the way of Joanne's musical advancement? A lot of the tension sequences are very long and drawn out with seemingly fairly ordinary things only made to seem spooky by the use of mood music. | |
| Starring: | Edward Woodward (as Ian Fowler), Jane Merrow (as Dianna Fowler, wife), Samantha Weysom (as Joanne, daughter) |
| Featuring: | John Judd (as Mark, mechanic friend of Ian), Auriol Goldingham (as Sandy Freemont, schoolgirl in prologue) |
| NOTES: | |
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Samantha Weysom receives an "introducing" credit |
| Ascendancy (1982) | Previous Next |
| Writers: Edward Bennett, Nigel Gearing / Director: Edward Bennett / Producer: Penny Clark | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 81 mins |
| Set in Ireland in 1920 amid the religious hatred between Protestant and Catholic communities. Connie Wintour is a young English woman who was psychologically traumatised by the death of her dear brother Harry who was killed during the Great War (WW1). She has lost the use of her right arm and is prone to being uncommunicative and unresponsive at times although of late her condition appears to be improving and she has a degree of independence from her nurse. She lives in a grand country house owned by her father Mr Wintour who is a big shipbuilding employer in the area.
Mr Wintour is having serious industrial relations problems with his workers as the different religious groups amongst them refuse to work alongside each other and Mr Wintour's decision to sack one group to dispel the problem causes more anger which stirs up rioting and violence in the streets. The British army are present to keep order and when Mr Wintour's life is threatened an army unit station themselves on his land to keep him protected. Connie's doctor attempts hypnosis on her and under suggestion she is perfectly able to move her numb arm and her condition is considered psychosomatic. Her most communicative moments are in letters she writes to her dead brother (snatches of which we hear her narrating). Connie meets the lieutenant in charge of the detail at her house and displays her naïve ignorance about the political situation not being able to understand what they are doing and why people are fighting and she had a similar lack of understanding of why her brother had to go to war and die in a struggle that wasn't his concern. She says she can see the same look in the lieutenant's eyes of being involved in a war he doesn't believe in. He tells her this isn't a war in Ireland and they are here to keep the peace and he tells her she is a poor sick girl for not understanding what's going on around her. This rebuke sends her fleeing from the house and she witnesses the fighting in the street and sees death and brutality first hand - when she returns to the house she has relapsed and is in an almost catatonic state and needs to be spoon fed although her nurse thinks she might be faking. The lieutenant is being discharged and offers to take her away from Ireland to recover back in England but she fails to comprehend what he is offering her and as we leave the story she has regressed to a state where she needs to be force fed with a tube. | |
| Starring: | Julie Covington (as Connie Wintour), John Phillips (Mr Wintour, Connie's father), Ian Charleson (as Lieutenant Ryder) |
| Featuring: | Susan Engel (as Connie's Nurse), Philip Locke and Kieran Montague (as Connie's doctors), Rynagh O'Grady and Philomena McDonagh (as Connie's personal maids) |
| Familiar Faces: | Jeremy Sinden (as a British officer) |
| The Asphyx (1973) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Brian Comport / Director: Peter Newbrook / Producer: John Brittany | |
| Type: Chiller | Running Time: 82 mins |
| It is 1875 and Sir Hugo Cunningham has just brought home his young bride-to-be Anna Wheatley to meet his family which consist of his grown up children Clive and Christina and adopted son Giles. Sir Hugo is an immensely rich inventor with twin interests of photography and psychical research. He and others in his research society have taken photographs of people as they are about to die and have noticed a dark smudge on the prints that are common to all regardless of the equipment used or the photographer who took the picture. Sir Hugo theorises that the photos have captured the soul leaving the body.
Sir Hugo has invented a moving pictures camera and on a family day out by a lake he is taking some moving images of his son Clive and fiancée Anna as they are boating when an accident occurs and both Clive and Anna drown. Once the shock of his double-loss has abated Hugo views the film and notices the same dark shape that appears on stills - but rather than leaving a body as he had thought, the moving images show that it actually enters it. Sir Hugo experiments further and decides to film a public hanging. He has developed a light booster device to illuminate the subject - this is powered by water dripping onto phosphorus crystals which creates an intense blue light that is focussed forward onto the subject like a spotlight. But as the hanging begins the spotlight reveals and traps within its glare a wailing banshee-like creature that cannot seem to pass through to the condemned man until Hugo switches off the light at which point the hanged man dies. Sir Hugo tells his adopted son Giles that he believes the creature they saw was called an Asphyx - a being spoken of in Greek mythology that seeks out the dying and manifests itself - each living creature has their own Asphyx that reunites with them at death. Sir Hugo realises that his light booster trapped the Asphyx and so if the creature were to remain trapped the intended host would never be able to die and be henceforth an immortal. He persuades Giles to help him try it out on himself. By electrocuting himself to near-death Hugo's Asphyx is summoned and Giles traps the being within a specially designed chamber that is forever bathed in phosphorous glow. After a few tests they determine that Hugo is indeed now immortal and cannot be killed. His trapped Asphyx is locked away in a combination-controlled vault and Hugo gives Giles instructions that he must never reveal to him what that combination is if he should ever ask for it and be tempted to end his immortality. Next Hugo wishes to make his daughter and Giles immortal too. They start with Christina and put her under a guillotine for it is necessary for her to believe she is about to die for the Asphyx to be summoned - but things go badly wrong when the booster light fails and she is really beheaded and dies. Giles is grief stricken for he was in love with Christina and they were planning to marry. Hugo too is devastated and asks Giles for the combination so he can release his Asphyx and die - but Giles tells Hugo that first he wishes to be immortalised himself so that he can have an eternity to feel his guilt. He gives Hugo a sealed letter containing the vault combination should anything go wrong. But Giles has no intention of becoming immortal and has rigged himself a gas chamber to summon his Asphyx and when it is full of gas he lights a match and blows himself up. Sir Hugo is now devastated that all his children are dead due to his meddling with the dark forces of nature and takes the sealed letter so he can at last end it all for himself - but then he recalls Giles words about needing to live an eternity with the guilt to properly expunge it and he burns the envelope without opening it. Epilogue: Time moves on 100 years into the modern day to show that Sir Hugo is still alive, albeit with a time-ravaged decrepit face - but still unable to die whatever measures he attempts to try and achieve death. | |
| Starring: | Robert Stephens (as Sir Hugo Cunningham), Robert Powell (as Giles Cunningham, adopted son), Jane Lapotaire (as Christina Cunningham, daughter) |
| Featuring: | Ralph Arliss (Clive Cunningham, son), Fiona Walker (as Anna Wheatley, Hugo's fiancée), Alex Scott (as Sir Edward Barrett, Hugo's psychical society colleague), Terry Scully (as Pauper, test subject) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on an original idea by Christina and Laurence Beers. |
| Writer/Producer: Michael Relph / Director: Basil Dearden | |
| Type: Comedy Thriller | Running Time: 104 mins |
| Set in 1914 prior to the start of the Great War. Miss Sonya Winter is a liberated young woman who aspires to become a journalist which is a very male preserve and she is consequently met with no encouragement. Sonya has stumbled upon a story that she has researched and hopes to receive a commission from a top London newspaper to pursue her investigation. The story she has uncovered is the existence of a secretive organisation called The Assassination Bureau Limited that has made a lucrative business out of murder and she has discovered how to get into contact with them to arrange a "commission". Eventually she finds one newspaper proprietor called Lord Bostwick who shows interest and is willing to hire her if she keeps him personally updated upon her ongoing progress.
Sonya makes contact with the Bureau through coded words in a small-ads column and is received by the Bureau's chairman Ivan Dragomiloff for a consultation. He tells her that his Bureau is an international endeavour with skilled agents from all over the world. He insists on maintaining the underlying principle of their founder that the target of any hit is someone who deserves to die. When he asks who Sonya wants killed she astounds him by giving him his own name as the target. Rather than dismissing her proposal he is intrigued at the prospect. He sees it as a way of testing his organisation to find out if his worldwide network of agents are good enough to kill him or if he can kill them first - so he accepts her commission. Ivan tells his international board members (who are also the local assassins in each territory) what has to be done. The Bureau's vice-chairman is revealed to be none other than newspaper proprietor Lord Bostwick who we learn has allowed Sonya to investigate the Bureau because he has secret ambitions to take it over and sees this as a perfect way to eliminate the moralistic chairman. Under Lord Bostwick's chairmanship things would be different - he views the Bureau as a powerful political tool that he would use for his own ends in the tumultuous political climate that is developing across Europe - but cannot show his hand until Ivan is out of the way. Ivan begins his tour of Europe to test each of his agents as they attempt to assassinate him and he in turn kill them. Sonya doggedly trails him until at last he allows her to be his companion on the trip. Unknown to him Sonya keeps Lord Bostwick apprised of her movements unaware of Bostwick's ulterior motives and how useful he is finding her travel reports which he passes onto the other agents. Ivan comes out the victor in a number of murder attempts. One of these botched efforts accidentally kills a man called Archduke Ferdinand instead which sparks a political fury that threatens to send Europe into an all-out war. Sonya and Ivan's various shared dices-with-death gradually draw them closer together until they eventually become romantic. Ivan learns of Lord Bostwick's secret agenda and Sonya is angered at being used by the newspaperman and so agrees to help Ivan draw his rival out. To do this Ivan makes it seem as though the next attempt on his life in Venice has succeeded and Bostwick arrives thinking he is now in charge. The crown heads of Europe are gathering for the Archduke's funeral and are planning secret peace talks in a nearby castle. Bostwick plans to murder them all with a massive bomb dropped from a Zeppelin. Ivan sneaks aboard hoping to find a way to stop them. Bostwick's plan almost works but his anger is his downfall when he shoots at Ivan and the Zeppelin explodes in midair. Ivan just manages to get out in a small escape balloon before the main craft is engulfed in flames. He is decorated as a hero for saving the royal lives which Sonya finds a bit ironic considering his normal line of work. | |
| Starring: | Oliver Reed (as Ivan Dragomiloff), Diana Rigg (as Sonya Winter), Telly Savalas (as Lord Bostwick, vice-chairman) |
| Featuring: | (Bureau Members) Curt Jürgens (as General von Pinck, German agent), Philippe Noiret (as Monsieur Lucoville, French agent), Warren Mitchell (as Herr Weiss, Swiss agent), Clive Revill (as Cesare Spado, Austrian agent), Kenneth Griffith (as Monsieur Popescu, Rumanian agent) Vernon Dobtcheff (as Baron Muntzof, Lord Bostwick's aide), Annabella Incontrera (as Eleanora, wife of Cesare Spado), Beryl Reid (as Madame Otero, brothel Madame), Jess Conrad (as Angelo, Eleanora's lover) |
| Familiar Faces: | Roger Delgado (Minor Bureau Member), Frank Thornton (assassination victim, non-speaking cameo), Peter Bowles (Brothel customer, cameo) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel The Assassination Bureau Limited by Jack London and Robert Fish |
| Writer: John Kruse / Director: Sidney Hayers / Producer: George H. Brown | |
| Type: Crime Drama | Running Time: 84 mins |
| Prologue: After school one day teenage schoolgirl Tessa Hurst is walking home as normal through the wooded common bordering the school when she is attacked and raped by a man underneath an electricity pylon. We do not see the man's identity. End of prologue.
It is two months later and the police are no closer to capturing the culprit with no leads to go on. Tessa went into a shell following her ordeal and is in a stuporous unresponsive state being cared for in a psychiatric hospital by Doctor Greg Lomax. Back at school the headmistress Mrs Sandford has made the common out of bounds and all girls must be accounted for and driven home until the maniac is caught. But one afternoon a girl called Susan Miller breaks regulations and takes a shortcut across the common to make a date with a boyfriend - on the way she is assaulted and murdered. Schoolteacher Julie West is driving some other girls home when they realise that Susan is missing and they drive down the common lane looking for her. It is getting dark and in her rear car lights Julie thinks she sees a man crouching over something - she goes to look and finds Susan's body. The police investigation led by Detective Chief Superintendent Velyan intensifies into a murder hunt with Julie as the prime witness. Julie is an art teacher and so with the help of a local newspaper reporter she devises a plan that she will pretend to be about to draw a good likeness of the killer which will be billed as being forthcoming in the mid-week edition of the local newspaper. The plan is to lure the killer into making an attack on her to prevent her providing this sketch and the police will step in and arrest him. Things don't go quite so smoothly and Julie is attacked but the killer gets away - the one thing Julie noticed while he was trying to strangle her was he was very clinical as if he knew where her pressure points were - so maybe someone with medical knowledge. Doctor Greg Lomax decides that since the first assault victim Tessa saw the face of her attacker their best course of action will be to try and rouse her from her listless torpor and he proposes using Sodium Pentothal on her. The hospital principal John Bartell finds out his plans and offers his own private surgery which backs onto the common as the place to carry out the treatment. Julie is nominated as Tessa's guardian and brings her to Bartell's home. Greg goes to collect the drug from the hospital dispensary but is told it has gone missing and an arrangement has been made with a local chemist to provide some more. When Greg goes to the chemists he finds it is booby-trapped and is caught in an explosion although he is not killed. Back at the surgery with Greg unaccountably delayed Bartell says they must carry on without him and mysteriously (to us) he has some Sodium Pentothal (although Julie is unaware there was ever an issue with it disappearing). We then see Bartell mixing the drug with something else. Julie wants to wait for Greg since Tessa is his patient but Bartell is becoming belligerent and determined to proceed regardless of her objections. Julie suddenly realises that he is the attacker and is intending to kill Tessa as the only proper witness. Julie tries to stop him but Bartell attacks her. Tessa sees the assault and is roused from her unresponsive state and flees in fear out of the back door and onto the common. Julie gets away from Bartell and rushes out the front to alert the police guard. When they return Bartell has gone having followed Tessa into the woods. Tessa has made her way to the pylon where her original assault took place and Bartell catches up to her and begins to attack her once again - strangling her with a perverse display of sexual pleasure. But before he has time to kill her the police are heard arriving in force and with nowhere to run Bartell climbs the pylon where he is electrocuted. | |
| Comment: The viewer does not know who the killer is until just before Julie figures it out - but the film presents several men as being suspicious in nature and possible candidates:- chief of these is Mrs Sandford's husband who has a very lecherous eye when it comes to the teenage schoolgirls at his wife's school where he works as a caretaker/administrator. Even Greg is given a few doubt-raising incidents with his motives at times unclear to the viewer - and the eventual real culprit John Bartell is seen looking vaguely suspicious a few times. | |
| Starring: | Suzy Kendall (as Julie West, Frank Finlay (as DCS Velyan), James Laurenson (as Greg Lomax), Freddie Jones (as Denning, newspaper reporter) |
| Featuring: | Dilys Hamlett (as Mrs. Sanford, headmistress), Tony Beckley (as Leslie Sanford, headmistresses husband), Lesley-Anne Down (as Tessa Hurst, first assault victim), Anthony Ainley (as Mr Bartell, hospital principal), James Cosmo (as DS Beale), Patrick Jordan (DS Milton) |
| Familiar Faces: | Allan Cuthbertson (as Coroner), David Essex (as Man in Chemist Shop, cameo role) |
| Starlets: | Anabel Littledale (as Susan Miller, schoolgirl), Siobhan Quinlan (as Jenny Greenaway, schoolgirl), Janet Lynn (as Schoolgirl in Library) |
| NOTES: | |
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Lesley-Anne Down and James Laurenson both receive "introducing" credits. |
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Based on the novel The Ravine by Kendal Young. |
| The Assignment (1977) | Previous Next |
| Writers: Mats Arehn, Ingemar Ejve, Lars-Magnus Jansson / Director: Mats Arehn / Producer: Ingemar Ejve | |
| Type: European / Drama | Running Time: 90 mins |
| Swedish industrial interests are being threatened by the civil unrest in a province of a South American country in which Sweden has strong mining investment. Erik Dalgren is a Swedish administrator who is sent to the province to become the new Provincial Resident with an assignment to establish a dialogue between the guerrilla forces of the Liberation Front and the military governance.
The previous Resident had been assassinated by the Liberation Front and so Erik is given special police protection by local police Kaptain Behounek to prevent the same happening to him. Erik is provided with a secretary called Danica Rodriguez who is local to the province. As Erik attempts to arrange the seemingly impossible task he has been set he begins to understand that the unrest and mayhem attributed to the Liberation Front may actually be being initiated by the federal police under the orders of the military governor Gami for his own political ends - and that the Liberation Front only act to counteract the terror tactics of the police. Danica has close contacts with the Front and they deny killing his predecessor and claim it was an internal affair carried out by the police to prevent him issuing a proclamation favouring the Front's interests. Eventually Erik manages to win some compromises from the police and gain the trust of the Front's leader and so the two factions agree to the proposed conference to discuss the future of how the two sides might manage to co-exist more peacefully. But it is a trap by the police and the leaders of the Front are arrested and executed. Erik is told his work is done and he realises he has been used by politically ambitious men to flush out the rebel leadership and achieve this result for them. | |
| Starring: | Christopher Plummer (as Kaptain Behounek), Thomas Hellberg (Erik Dalgren), Carolyn Seymour (as Danica Rodriguez, Erik's secretary) |
| Featuring: | Fernando Rey (as Roberto Bidara, influential local man), Per Oscarsson (as Sixto, leader of Liberation front), Walter Gotell (as Frankenheimer, Erik's bodyguard), Rosette Graboi (as Fransisca Larrinaga, daughter of Erik's murdered predecessor), Gabor Vernon (as General Gami, military governor) |
| Familiar Faces: | David Swift, Sandor Elès |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on a novel by Per Wahlöö. |
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This Swedish made English language film is reviewed here because of the involvement of British actress Carolyn Seymour in the cast. Its Swedish title is Uppdraget. |
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The country in which the story takes place never seems to be specifically stated. Whether this is kept intentionally vague or if it's because it was thought to be so obvious it wasn't necessary to mention it, I'm not sure. It has a present day setting and has the characteristic look of a South American country. The only place name I heard mentioned was Santa Rosa which is a city in central Argentina so I can only assume it's set there although I am not familiar with quite what influence Sweden was supposed to have in such a country as to be able to install their own local provincial governor. |
| Writer: Robert Bloch / Director: Roy Ward Baker / Producers: Max J. Rosenberg, Milton Subotsky | |
| Type: Horror / Anthology | Running Time: 88 mins |
| A young doctor called Dr Martin has arrived at the Dunsmoor Asylum for the Incurably Insane to be interviewed for the position of senior Houseman. He is expecting to see the Asylum's director Dr B. Starr, but instead meets Starr's associate Dr Rutherford who explains that unfortunately Dr Starr has been struck down by madness himself and has taken on a new personality complete with a false life-story. Dr Starr is now one of the four patients currently at the institute and Rutherford suggests a test to Dr Martin that he meet all four and listen to them tell the stories that led them to be committed to this place and see if he can tell the three genuine ones from the purely invented one of Dr Starr. Rutherford offers no clues and will not even reveal if Starr is man or woman. Quite (in)conveniently all the patients' names begin with the letter B so there is no clue there either. Dr Martin goes to the confinement rooms and meets the orderly Max Reynolds who introduces him to the four patients in turn who each tell their story ...
Story 1 - Frozen Fear Bonnie (the patient) tells of her affair with a middle-aged man called Walter who has agreed to murder his wife so he can be with Bonnie. Walter kills his wife and dismembers her body with an axe wrapping all the parts in brown paper and putting them in a freezer along with a voodoo charm bracelet she always wears. He then rings Bonnie and tells her to come round because he has done the deed - then he hears a noise from the freezer and when he checks it out he is throttled by some arms that reach from within. When Bonnie arrives she finds Walter dead and is then terrorised by all the disconnected limbs that attack her and when one latches onto her face she uses the axe to chop it away causing herself extensive scarring - which (back into the framing story) we see she still has - this experience is what sent her mad. Story 2 - The Weird Taylor Bruno (the patient) is a tailor whose small business is visited by a strange man called Mr Smith who wants him to make a suit to a very strictly laid down criteria. Mr Smith supplies the material and the design pattern and stipulates that Bruno must only work on the job between midnight and 5am because of Mr Smith's superstitions. When Bruno has finished the suit he takes it to Mr Smith's house and discovers the customer has no money to pay - Smith has spent his vast fortune on supernatural studies and procurement of an ancient and unique book describing a suit that will re-animate the dead and he intends to clothe his dead son in the fabric to bring him back to life. The men argue and Bruno keeps the suit because of non-payment and back at his shop his wife uses it to dress a window dummy - this dummy then comes to life and attacks Bruno sending him mad. Story 3 - Lucy Comes To Stay Barbara (the patient) has just returned home from a spell in hospital for a mental disorder and her brother is looking after her while she recuperates. Barbara is visited by her best friend Lucy who reminds her that she owns this house and her brother is probably trying to get her committed so he can have it. Lucy tells Barbara to get some rest and leave everything to her and she will sort out the problem. When Barbara awakes she finds her brother has been stabbed to death. But no one will believe her that it was Lucy who did it - and she is committed. And (back into the framing story) Barbara says why don't they ask Lucy themselves because she is here and points to her own reflection in the mirror. Story 4 - Manikins of Horror This story is different in that there is no flashback and it is essentially part of the "framing" story with the events occurring in the present:- Byron (the patient) shows Dr Martin how he has created a robot doll that he can use to transfer his consciousness into. Dr Martin decides he has seen enough and goes back to see Dr Rutherford to say he refuses to participate in the test because he doesn't think the patients are being properly cared for with no attempt to cure them. While they are talking Byron's manikin gets up onto the table and stabs Rutherford to death and in horror Martin tramples the manikin underfoot to stop it. Dr Martin rushes back to the patient's room and finds that Byron is dead - his body crushed to death. He tells Reynolds the orderly that it was Byron whom he suspected of being Dr Starr. But then discovers he was wrong as the orderly strangles him to death revealing it is he, Reynolds, who was the mad Dr Starr all along. | |
| Featuring: | (Framing Story and Story 4) Robert Powell (as Dr Martin, applicant), Patrick Magee (as Dr Rutherford, asylum associate), Geoffrey Bayldon (as Max Reynolds, asylum orderly) (Story 1) Barbara Parkins (as Bonnie, patient), Richard Todd (as Walter, Bonnie's lover), Sylvia Syms (as Ruth, Walter's wife) (Story 2) Barry Morse (as Bruno, patient, tailor), Peter Cushing (as Mr Smith, customer), Ann Firbank (as Anna, Bruno's wife), John Franklyn-Robbins (as Rent Collector) (Story 3) Charlotte Rampling (as Barbara, patient), Britt Ekland (as Lucy), James Villiers (as George, Barbara's brother), Megs Jenkins (as Miss Higgins, nurse) (Story 4) Herbert Lom (as Byron, patient) |
| At the Earth's Core (1976) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Milton Subotsky / Director: Kevin Connor / Producer: John Dark | |
| Type: Adventure | Running Time: 83 mins |
| An elderly Victorian inventor named Dr Abner Perry has designed an innovative new drilling machine that has been built with the financial backing of one of his rich ex-students David Innes. The High Calibration Cylindrical Digging device is a two-man vehicle with a spinning drill head and rocket powered thrusters that has been nicknamed the Mole. Abner and David are at the controls for the first test which will bore through the side of a Welsh hillside. The crowds gather to watch the much-publicised spectacle and give them a cheering send-off as The Mole is launched into the hillside from a 45°gantry.
The drill-bit cuts easily into the rock and the whole craft soon disappears into the mountainside for what is anticipated to a fairly short trial run. But the device vastly exceeds Abner's expectations and cuts through the rock too fast and he finds he cannot stop it. It continues downwards unchecked passing unstoppably through the Earth's upper and lower mantles then into the scorchingly hot outer core and finally comes to a halt at the Earth's inner core in an unexpectedly temperate and habitable hollow zone. David and Abner disembark their vehicle and find themselves in a dense jungle full of exotic and fearsome creatures. The sky above is the dome of a giant natural cavern many miles high with the light provided by the magma roof. The travellers are captured by a race of pig-nosed bipeds called Sagoths. (Fortunately) the tribespeople speak English and explain to the Victorians that this is the land of Pellucidar - it is ruled by evil creatures called the Mayhar who use the obedient Sagoths as foot soldiers to gather slave workers from amongst the human tribes that live in the jungles. The journey to the city is through a catacomb of tunnels in the rocks and the young male slaves including David are put to work in the mines. Their job is to shore up the defences against the ever-encroaching lava which threatens to undermine the city's foundations if not kept at bay. Abner is put to work in the city's archives as a librarian. The Mayhar are giant bird-like creatures who mesmerise their slaves with strong telepathic signals. They also use slaves as food and David is appalled by their butchery as they swoop down and seize mesmerised victims in their inner sanctum arena area. David decides he must put a stop to all this evil suffering and manages to get away and back into the jungle. He meets a tribesman called Ra and manages to persuade him and leaders of rival tribes to join together to mount an organised attack on the city to free the slaves and destroy the powerbase of the evil Mayhar. The attack focuses on the central weaknesses of the city - a lava gate that holds back the main lava flow; and an incubation chamber in which Mayhar eggs hatch. The Mayhar silently coordinate their forces of Sagoths with telepathic signals but they are overwhelmed by the aggressive determination of the rebellious humans. The Mayhar are all killed and with the city's defences breached the lava flows unchecked and the city explodes in a fiery inferno from which the newly allied tribespeople and the freed slaves only just get away in time. Abner and David are hailed as heroes for liberating the Pellucidarian humans from their enslavement. David and Abner reboard their Mole machine and return home to their surface world. | |
| Comment: A side-issue plot is that one of the captured slaves is a beautiful girl called Dia who is a princess to her people - she and David are attracted to one another, but he commits a faux pas and inadvertently rejects her attempt at seduction with his restrained Victorian chivalry and politeness and she runs off offended. Later David wins her respect back when he has to save her from a rival chieftain who wants her for himself - it is also through this victory that the other tribes regard David as a great warrior whom they are willing to follow into battle. At the end of the film Pellucidarian custom dictates that Dia belongs to David and he wants her to return to the surface world with him - but she decides she must remain with her people and they sorrowfully part. | |
| Starring: | Doug McClure (as David Innes), Peter Cushing (as Dr Abner Perry) |
| Featuring: | Cy Grant (as Ra, tribesman), Caroline Munro (as Princess Dia), Godfrey James (as Ghak, old wise tribesman) Sean Lynch (as Hoojah, sly untrustworthy tribesman), Michael Crane (as Jubal, rival tribe leader) |
| Familiar Faces: | Keith Barron (as Dowsett, journalist at Mole send off, [small role]) |
| Starlets: | Andee Cromarty (as Victim at Mayhar arena) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on the novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs |
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The same production company (Amicus) also filmed two other adaptations of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "lost world" type books either side of this film:- The Land That Time Forgot (1975) and The People That Time Forgot (1977). Those other two stories were related to one another and also starred Doug McClure and directed by Kevin Connor - however those were not related in any way to this middle film either by characters or plot-setting. |
| Writer: Herman Hoffman / Director: Paul Wendkos / Producer: John C. Champion | |
| Type: War Drama | Running Time: 86 mins |
| Second World War drama. Canadian Major James Wilson on assignment with the British Army is still reeling from the failure of a daring assault mission he commanded which resulted in the loss of most of his 500 strong force, when another of his audaciously risky schemes is given the green light by military commanders. At La Plage on the French coast the Germans have built a massive dockyard to service their ships and the destruction of this establishment would be a tremendous setback for them. The area is heavily fortified and impregnable to a conventional landing assault but Wilson's plan is to pack a ship with high explosives and ram the quayside and blow the place sky-high. His plan is code-named Operation Mad Dog.
Wilson rigorously trains the naval personal who will be providing combat support to make an advanced stealthy landing and eliminate some of the coastal gun emplacements so that the bomb ship won't be sunk before it reaches its target. Unfortunately military resources are severely stretched and Wilson has to make do with antiquated equipment and colleagues who are less than convinced that the operation has any chance of succeeding. The operation gets underway on an old Naval minesweeper and fortunately they manage to get most of the way across the channel unchallenged because the German base commander is convinced they are just another routine minesweeping patrol that will turn back before it gets into range - like others before it. By the time the Naval base realises the vessel is not turning back the British commandos have already landed and have begun attacking and disabling gun positions which enables the minesweeper to get through and ram the docks. The crew have five minutes to get clear before the timer detonates the explosives but unfortunately a lucky enemy volley hits the wheelhouse and the timer mechanism is damaged so Major Wilson has to stay behind and sacrifice himself to detonate the bomb manually. The mission is successful and the base destroyed and enemy personnel are captured or killed by the British commandos. | |
| Starring: | Lloyd Bridges (as Major James Wilson), Andrew Keir (as Captain Owen Franklin, skipper of minesweeper), Mark Eden (as Lt. Cmdr Donald Kimberly, Wilson's second-in-command) |
| Featuring: | Sue Lloyd (as Sue, Major Wilson's wife), Maurice Denham (as Sir Frederick Grafton, rear admiral at British HQ), Glyn Owen (as Lt. Forrester, officer on the minesweeper), Howard Pays (as Lt. Graham, commando), Walter Gotell (as Van Horst, German base commander), John Welsh (as Admiral Lord Cansley, Admiral of the fleet at British HQ), Ernest Clark (as A.V.M. Woodbridge, RAF commander at British HQ), Dick Haydon (as Pringle, young naval rating on mineweeper) |
| NOTES: | |
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Based on a story by John C. Champion |
| Au Pair Girls (1972) | Previous Next |
| Writer: Val Guest, David Adnopez / Director: Val Guest / Producer: Guido Coen | |
| Type: Sex Comedy | Running Time: 81 mins |
| Four foreign Au Pair girls arrive in England and have various different experiences with the families they have been assigned to stay with. A Danish girl gets wet a lot before she even gets to her destination; A Swedish girl meets a rich oil sheikh on her first evening out; A German girl is taken out by her family's daughter and meets her pop star idol; and a Chinese girl stays with a titled family who's grown up son is emotionally undeveloped and childlike. | |
| Starring: | Astrid Frank (Swedish), Gabrielle Drake (Danish), Me Me Lay (Chinese), Nancie Wait (German), Richard O'Sullivan |
| Featuring: | Trevor Bannister, Johnny Briggs, Daphne Anderson, Geoffrey Bayldon, Julian Barnes |
| Familiar Faces: | Harold Bennett |
| Star-Turns: | John Le Mesurier |
| Starlets: | Lyn Yeldham, Christine Donna, Marcia Fox, Carole Catkin |
| NOTES: | |
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Nancie Wait receives an "introducing" credit |
| Writer: R. Prawer Jhabvala / Director: James Ivory / Producer: Ismail Merchant | |
| Type: Drama | Running Time: 55 mins |
| Every year in London an Indian noblewoman has a reunion with an ageing Englishman called Cyril who used to work for her royal father as his Private Secretary at their palace in India. Papa and Cyril were friends and he and the princess reminisce happily about the good old days as they watch old movie footage of state occasions that Papa was involved in.
Cyril and the princess have a warm affection for one another and now that Cyril is a historian she would like him to write a book about those days and has gathered some new material to view that might help him. But there are painful memories of Papa's downfall when he was set-up and disgraced by blackmailers in a honeytrap and his international reputation scandalised. And Cyril remains ashamed he did not stand up for his friend at the time and doesn't feel able to write about it. | |
| Comment: The whole film consists of Cyril and the Princess having a conversation in her London apartment while watching movie footage. The archive film is genuine vintage black and white and colour clips of real miscellaneous events which their commentary ties together as if they are all part of her father's glory days. | |
| Starring: | James Mason (as Cyril), Madhur Jaffrey (as The Princess) |
| Play: Samuel Taylor / Writers: I.A.L. Diamond, Billy Wilder / Director/Producer: Billy Wilder | |
| Type: American / Romantic Comedy | Running Time: 138 mins |
| Busy American business executive Wendell Armbruster, Jr is travelling to Italy to collect the body of his recently deceased father who has died in a motorcar accident while on holiday. Wendell is in a hurry and only has a couple of days to complete the arrangements in time for the funeral set for next Tuesday back home in Baltimore - today is Saturday. He becomes increasingly frustrated with the laid back, no-hurry attitude of the locals as he makes his way to the small town of Iscia and the hotel that his father was staying at. On the journey he meets an attractive young English woman who seems to know who he is and makes attempts to start a conversation but he assumes her to be a tourist and pays her little heed as he remains focussed on drafting the eulogy he will read at the funeral.
The manager of the Grand Hotel Excelsior is Carlo Carlucci and he greets Wendell expressing his sorrow and telling him what a great and popular man his father had been at the hotel which somewhat goes against Wendell's perception of how people normally viewed his once high-flying father. The revelations keep coming as Wendell discovers his father did not die alone but was in the car with a woman. Then he finds out that the English woman is also at the same hotel and that she is here for the same reason as he - it was her mother who died alongside Wendell's father. Her name is Pamela Piggott and Wendell immediately assumes the worst that her mother was some money-grabbing short term fling - but to his amazement Pamela tells him that the couple had been lovers for 10 years and had been coming to this same hotel every year for a month together. Carlo confirms all this saying that they had been the perfect loving couple and the staff all adored them and knew all their favourite regular habits and customs by heart. As the weekend develops Wendell and Pamela join up to organise their parents' repatriation to their respective countries although the red-tape is so convoluted and local officialdom creaks along at such a snail's pace that they have plenty of time to spend together. And either by accident or design they find themselves re-enacting the various activities and customs that their parents so loved and they begin to fall in love with each other in the way their parents did. Finally with the red tape still holding things up Wendell at last realises his father had found true happiness here with Pamela's mother and he agrees with Pamela's suggestion that their parents should be buried together locally in a nearby plot side-by-side. As the grieving couple's time together comes to end they have fallen in love themselves and agree to meet up next year and keep their parents' traditions going. | |
| Starring: | Jack Lemmon (as Wendell Armbruster, Jr), Juliet Mills (as Pamela Piggott), Clive Revill (as Carlo Carlucci, hotel manager) |
| Featuring: | Edward Andrews (as J.J. Blodgett), Gianfranco Barra (as Bruno, valet), Giselda Castrini (as Anna, maid) |
| NOTES: | |
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The title of the film comes from the Italian word that corresponds to "come in" when someone knocks on your door and asks for permission to enter. |
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This American film has been reviewed here because of the involvement of English actress Juliet Mills in the cast. |
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