Mounds and Circles

St Trinian's: Elspeth!

2012-02-29T08:00:00.000Z

Mondo Bongo

2012-02-28T00:22:00.002Z

Lunch Hour

2012-02-27T00:00:00.017Z

'Lunch Hour’ is a film from 1961 which isn’t particularly smutty at all, but involves an ‘adult situation’, i.e. two people who aren’t married to each other meeting in a hotel room for sex.

A moment of reflection.

Written by John Mortimer and, appropriately, only an hour long, it stars Robert Stephens and Shirley Ann Field as employees at a wallpaper factory. He is a married Executive (number two to Arthur from ‘On The Buses’), and she is a young art school graduate (she went to Essex Tech) employed to paint the various designs. There is an immediate attraction between them which is consolidated around that marvellous but now defunct social ice breaker, the tea trolley.

He can’t get away in the evenings, so they use their lunch hours for their trysts, snogging in the print store, canoodling on benches, petting in cinemas, parks and galleries often under the disapproving eyes of authority figures.

Not everyone is so inhibited...

'I'm in your personal space, aren't I?'

Keep Off The Grass.

Unable to find a place to be alone the relationship remains on a fairly innocent level, i.e. unconsummated, and Stephens, tormented by unfulfilled passion, is reducing to looking into furniture showrooms and drooling at the double beds.

The Look of Longing.

Unable to stand it any longer, Stephens finds a quiet hotel and rents a room there for an hour so that they can take their adolescent love affair to an adult level - and that’s when their troubles really begin...

A slight but entertaining piece of work, it took me about thirty minutes to realise that it was supposed to be a comedy, which is not altogether a good sign. There are some clever lines, but they seem forced – obviously ‘dialogue’ rather than organic conversation - and they tend to fall rather flat. Ridiculously, Stephens, who was always rather good at comedy, is given the straight stuff and Shirley Ann Field, who was always rather wooden and inexpressive, is given the bulk of the jokes, and the film suffers as a result. The final dramatic ‘twist’ also relies on a more a more convincing characterisation than Miss Field is able to provide, so it simply doesn’t work.

If the film had been made eight or nine years later, you can imagine that it would be pure knockabout smut as the premise, basically, is a couple trying to find somewhere to have sex and constantly being caught before they can scratch the itch. As it is, it’s a diverting if not entirely successful b picture that ultimately short changes the audience in dramatic terms and in its lack of grown up content, i.e. they don’t have sex and Shirley Anne is given a rather dowdy wardrobe so we don’t even get a glimpse of stocking top or the sight of a conical ‘put your eye out’ bra. Harumph. No wonder everyone looks so fed up at the end.

Haunted Love

2012-02-26T12:00:00.000Z

Short lived (eleven issues) gothic romance title from Charlton Comics, my favourite also ran publisher.

Prince Buster

2012-02-25T00:01:00.016Z

Busted
Martin Pritchard and Ed Laxton
Mirror Books, London, 1978

Please forgive the slightly scabby condition of the cover. It was rescued from a squat party some time around 1990, which is only fitting.

Women In Love

2012-02-24T21:00:00.002Z

'Women In Love' was Ken Russell's first big cinematic success, and its rapturous critical and commercial reception gave him a licence him to develop his directorial voice (for better or worse) in a fairly comfortable and supportive environment for several years. Russell and D.H Lawrence just seem to fit together, somehow - Lawrence provides believable characters, dialogue and a narrative arc which Russell respects enough to play straight, but also lots of fervid and hyperbolically sensual scenes where Ken can go a little bit mad, whether its a naked Alan Bates rubbing himself with grass, Glenda Jacvkson being chased by cows or, perhaps most infamously of all, Bates and Ollie Reed stripping off and having an erotically charged mano a mano wrestling match.

I had to study the source novel at O, A and Degree level, so I'm not going to linger on its merits as a piece of fiction. It's pretty bloody good, though and, crucially for the late sixties audience, has a frank and daring approach to the key issues of love and sex as Lawrence uses fiction to work through the things that govern his life and both repress and liberate him. In Russell's hands, all this is conveyed subtly (yes, subtly) and rather beautifully: it's a hugely lyrical film which brilliantly conveys Lawrence's eye for the mystical amongst the commonplace - transcendental moments of love and understanding and physical passion, made all the more special by taking place in the fairly grim milieu of the industrial Midlands.

In a film about relationships the strongest love affair is a platonic one between the bohemian school inspector Rupert Birkin (Alan Bates) and the intense industrialist Gerald Crich (Oliver Reed). Both men are looking for something beyond their relationships with sisters Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen, and see in each other the potential for a friendship which will make them both whole - but they're English, of course, and nominally heterosexual, so they have no idea how to achieve this ideal, instead scrapping and rolling around in the buff in front of a fire in lieu of the spiritual connection they both crave.

It's a film full of brilliant (and brilliantly directed) performances, particularly from Reed, Bates and Glenda Jackson as the inscrutable Gudrun, just starting to come into her own as an offbeat and fantastically sexy female lead.

The film's final scenes are set in the Alps. Gerald, at the end of his relationship with Gudrun, tries to throttle her, but stops himself just in time and, instead, sets out to kill himself. He walks for miles, higher and higher up into the mountains, before meekly laying down on the snow and slowly freezing to death. It's a poignant and fascinating way to go, brilliantly realised by the slow zoom out of Ken's camera. I always wonder if Lawrence had the death of Captain Oates in mind (the book is set around the time of Captain Scott's expedition), another Edwardian gentlemen with strange passions and ideals who, all hope gone, also laid down his life in the frozen wastes.

This Week's Bizarre Masterpiece

2012-02-24T00:00:00.003Z

Salvador Dali: The Sphynx (1939)

St Trinian's: Horsefall

2012-02-23T00:00:00.003Z

Scamp

2012-02-22T00:00:00.000Z

Saint Sabby

2012-02-21T07:29:00.000Z

The Day Peace Broke Out

2012-02-21T00:00:00.003Z

In ‘The Day That Peace Broke Out’ (or Tom Good fights the Law, and the Law wins) we get an insight into Tom’s motivations in embracing self-sufficiency, as well as seeing the beginnings of a siege mentality that can erupt into violence, i.e. someone gets shot in the arse with an airgun pellet.

Someone is stealing leeks from the Good's front garden and Tom is outraged - leeks are not just vegetables, they are a vital component in their struggle to fend for themselves. To steal them is an insult, an invasion, and he intends to find the culprit and protect his homestead.

After a rather tense dinner at the Ledbetters where leek soup is coincidentally served and insinuations are made and then withdrawn (the Good-Ledbetter dynamic is fascinating, especially as they seem alternately fascinated and repelled by each other – the sexual tensions alone could form the basis for a book) Tom decides to stay up all night, trusty air pistol at his side, to try and catch the culprit in the act.

In the middle of the night, Tom sees a man grabbing a handful of leeks from the garden. Tom shouts a warning, but the man makes a bolt for it. Tom aims and fires, hittting the fleeing thief in the buttock. Justice has been served.

The next day, puffed up with success, and imagining himself as a latter day Wyatt Earp, Tom is dismayed to receive a summons for common assault. In court (under the eye of the reliably dyspepetic James Cossins), the thief is ordered to pay a fine and Tom is sentenced to be bound over for three years. Tom is so sure of his moral rights that he doesn't see this as a bit of a let off and, refusing to agree that he would not do the same again if his property was threatened, is sent to prison until he agrees to accept the sentence.

Tom spends an unhappy two days in jail ('for a place with so many people, it's ever so lonely in here' - so at least he seems to have avoided being sexually molested) until he receives a visit from a tearful Barbara and a good talking to from the eminently unprinicipled Jerry, and decides to stop being a tit, accept the judge's recommendation and just go home.

When the Good's are reunited Tom gives a little speech about how all he really wants is a castle with a drawbridge that he can pull up and forget about the rest of the world. Then he and Barbara start getting it on, so its clear what sort of leisure activities he would have on the agenda in this ideal world. The Goods always strike me as a couple with a very active and rewarding sex life, although this perception could also be down to the fact that I find Barbara Good very attractive and, in Tom's wellies, wouldn't be able to leave her alone for long, especially on those dimly lit, electricity free evenings in front of the fire.

As a coda, the leek thief returns to make his apologies and, after giving Tom the opportunity to boast about his cricketing prowess, the two become firm friends. Tom is particularly smug about the fact that the leeks were stolen out of jealousy - the thief lives in a flat in tower block and just wanted something fresh and green and real to take back to his concrete chicken coop.

Firmly established as the victor in the war of leeks and lifestyles, Tom insists that the thief takes whatever he wants from the garden from now on. Barbara, however, isn't aware of this and, seeing yet another 'theft' taking place, sets belligerent goat Geraldine upon the man.

This seems an appropriate opportunity to thank handsome polymath Dolly Dolly for our superb new 'Good Life' inspired logo. Cheers, Dave!

Confessions Of A Sex Maniac

2012-02-20T00:00:00.008Z

Columbia Pictures, makers of the classy 'Confessions' series got the arse ache about the title of 'Confessions Of A Sex Maniac' and swiftly slapped an injunction on it. Bastards. It was re-issued as 'The Man Who Couldn't Get Enough'. Hey ho.

Roger Lloyd Pack - that’s right: BLOODY TRIGGER, plays Henry, an architect trying to design a new leisure centre. Bereft of anything else to think about apart from boobs he decides to model the building on a tit, the tit. In a genius bit of thinking he tries to gawp at as many lady bumps as possible looking inspiration. The norks in question belong to a smorgasbord of 70’s beauties including Vicki Hodge, Cherri Gilham, Ava Cadell and Monika Ringwald.

Despite the film being about as sexy as watching your Gramp knock one out while watching Pan’s People on Top of the Pops, I liked it. It has those strange badly lit ‘not really having sex’ sex bits and an unusually attractive cast, with the exception of Lloyd Pack who seems to have the permanent look of a man who has a cauliflower jammed on top of his spine rather than a brain.

I rather like the Napoleon Pop Art print to the left of the topless lady in the scene above.

If you'd like to read something in a grown up newspaper, the Observer interviewed Benny Hill stalwart and ex-Private Detective, Cherri Gilham, about the film HERE.

Of Courserous, Can't You?

2012-02-19T00:00:00.023Z

Yes, yes, yes, I heart Gordon Beck. His 1967 LP 'Dr Dolittle Loves Jazz' takes nine of Leslie Bricusse's songs from the mega flop film musical and, well, jazzes 'em up, Daddio.

The most recognisable song is probably 'Talk To The Animals' and although Gordon and his friends (Kenny Baldock and Jackie Dougan, bass and drums, respectively) don't dismantle it and throw all the bits in the air a la Coltrane, they use the jaunty melody as a launchpad for some driving improvisation. Cool.

Daftula

2012-02-18T15:00:00.001Z

I've always liked how silly and unthreatening Dracula looks in this picture. Bit cramped in that coffin, too.

Mahler

2012-02-17T21:00:00.002Z

Another Friday, another Ken Russell film about a classical composer. 'Mahler' is a surprisingly free form piece of work consisting of a number of fantastic (a descriptive, not qualitive term) diversions that, very loosely, tell the story of his life.

Piss taking pumpkin.

Mahler is played by future Jesus, Robert Powell. Powell's characterisation is quite simple: Mahler is a prick. Egotistical, vain, rude, shrill, neurasthenic, ambitious, cold, selfish, sickly. But he is also a great artist, a man who puts his talent before his own well being and expects those around him to do the same. His long-suffering wife, Alma (played by the marvellous Georgina Hale with her unique clipped, drawling delivery), writes lieder, but is forced to give this up - Mahler isn't interested in her talent, as he knows his is greater, so she is left to look after the kids, transcribe his music and run around the countryside taking bells from cows necks because the tinkling distracts him.

Mrs. Mahler, the Shadow.

Russell uses a long and rather fraught train journey through Austria as a starting point for biographical episodes ranging from Mahler's boyhood with his stereotypically 'oi vey' Jewish family (these scenes are played mainly for laughs, like a sitcom based on 'Fiddler On The Roof');a fantasy sequence where his sexual jealousy over Alma (she has a young lover who is in the army)manifests itself in a nightmare where a screaming Mahler watches his scantily clad wife dance upon his glass top coffin before he is prematurely cremated by a bunch of proto-Nazis. Much is this is 'pure cinema': no dialogue, just long, sharply edited and carefully composed scenes soundtracked by Mahler's stirring music. The tone throughout is just this side of hysterical, and Ken is obviously having fun (he said that this was a 'very personal' film).

Young Gustav learns about nature, with the Lake District standing in for Austria.

Overblown Ken Russell Fantasy Sequence # 247.

View from a glass topped coffin.

Yet, for all its visual appeal and vigour, 'Mahler' is not a good film. Self-indulgent and ridiculous, childish and grotesque, it simply has too much Ken, and not enough care. Russell doesn't really do actors, he doesn't do subtle and, left to his own devices, he's a terrible show off and a pain in the arse so, unfortunately for the viewer, the production starts listing badly after about an hour before slowly sinking under the sheer weight of its hyperactive vulgarity.

Judaism is put to the sword.

For all the bluster, however, Russell manages to concludes the film with a well-played scene between Gustav and Alma that perhaps comes closest to conveying Mahler's true character and his total immersion in his art. After years of unhappy marriage, bitterness, jealousy, infidelity and the death of their daughter, Alma is deciding whether to leave Gustav and simply asks him why he doesn't love her. Mahler replies that he has always loved her, but he puts his love for her into his music, singling out a particularly beautiful passage as his artistic portrait of her - she immediately recognises that he is telling the truth and they are reconciled. Happy, joking, they go on their way together, neither knowing that Mahler has only a few days to live.

What could possibly go wrong?

'Mahler' isn't a disaster, but it is a failure. Russell is entering his 'superstar' phase, where he is able to do whatever he wants, to the detriment of his art (his next films would be the hugely successful 'Tommy' and the massively excessive 'Lisztomania'), and there are signs that his work is becoming decadent, flabby and self-obsessed. Firstly, he clumsily introduces a reference to Visconti's 'Death In Venice' (which famously used Mahler's music, but has no other concrete connection to him) and then holds the shot for ages, just to make absolutely certain that we have time to get the reference. It's neither funny nor clever - it's smartarsery for smartarsery's sake.

Secondly, Ken gives Oliver Reed a blink and you'll miss him cameo as a whistle blowing platform guard. Even in his half second of screen time, Reed over-acts, mugging and sticking his chin out. Again, it's pointless and smirking and, in microcosm, shows up one of Ken's key weaknesses as a director, his inability to curtail the worst excesses of his cast.

Finally, there is the Cosima Wagner sequence. Mahler wanted to be the director of the Viennese Opera, but it was a job barred to Jews, so he converted to Catholicism and the Opera were able to appoint him. Cosima Wagner (Liszt's daughter, Richard's widow), who had the final say, was relieved not to have to turn down the best candidate for the job. This little incident, which is redolent of the institutionalised anti-semitism of the time but was not pivotal in Mahler's life (he said his only religion was composing), is turned into a smug, appallingly acted circus turn which provides an opportunity to (poorly) parody silent films and another excuse to stir up some cheap controversy by portraying Cosima as a Nazi. It's crass, cheap and sensationalist, says absolutely nothing about anything, and is weakly and unfunnily executed - in short, Ken at his very, very worst. Misery guts Mahler would not have been impressed at all.

This Week's Bizarre Masterpiece

2012-02-17T00:00:00.008Z

Francis Danby: The Deluge (1840).

Preston, 1969

2012-02-16T00:45:00.000Z

Postcard of the old St. George's Shopping Centre in Preston. Lovely isn't it?

(Click to enlarge - go on, you know you want to)

Never Knowingly Underacted

2012-02-16T00:00:00.007Z

Perhaps it was his background as a stage actor, but Patrick Magee was never afraid to go large, even though, in close up, some of his more theatrical mannerisms seemed terrifyingly overblown. One of Beckett's favourite actors, Magee specialised in fear, and anger, and madness and tormented self-loathing - all at the same time.

St Trinian's: Nature Notes

2012-02-15T00:00:00.000Z

English Beats

2012-02-14T08:40:00.002Z

Good news book fans! Re-release information here

Run, Sammy, Run

2012-02-14T00:00:00.000Z

A recurring visual motif from 'The Small World Of Sammy Lee', a Soho set Brit Noir starring the marvellous and much missed Anthony Newley. In the end, of course, Sammy decides to stop and fight, or, at least, stop and get the shit kicked out of him.

Cool It, Carol!

2012-02-13T00:00:00.009Z

‘Cool It, Carol!’ is an uneven and uneasy mix of sex comedy and kitchen sink drama, with the seedy and unpleasant scenes far outweighing the very few laughs it contains. The work of legendary trash auteur Peter Walker, the film was made in 1969 but not released until 1972, making its Swinging London milieu seem even sleazier and more decadent.

The titular character.

The titlike character.

Carol and Joe are small town teens dreaming of the high life in London. Carol (Janet Lynn) pumps petrol at the family filling station, but a beauty contest win has convinced her that she could be a model (she is very pretty, in a slightly vacuous way). Joe (Robin Askwith) is a clasic Billy Liar type - a Butcher boy in reality, he convinces Carol that he is moving to London to be with his well-connected friends and start a job selling top of the range sportscars. Carol takes him at his word, rather forcing his arm, so they jump on the train with very little money, nowhere to live and no firm prospects whatsoever. They don't even know each other particularly well. They do, however, have some sandwiches and a private compartment, for no sooner have they boarded the train, than Joe is boarding Carol. While she eats a sandwich.

A fairly typical BR Buffet car.

Carol is experienced and has a remarkably ambivalent attitude to sex and nudity - she doesn't necessarily like it, but she 'doesn't mind' - her passivity is going to get her into trouble, over and over again (perhaps her upbringing is to blame. When she asks her father is she can go to London, he asks if her 'maidenhead' is intact. When she says 'no', he says, 'well, you might as well go, then'.)

Arriving in the smoke, their initial excitement at being where it all happens soon dissipates when they realise that, whatever is happening, they aren’t part of it, and when the few quid they have runs out they start to get desperate, leaving them open to exploitation – nude modelling follows, then impromptu prostitution, then organised prostitution with a waiting room full of old men, then stag films and high class (i.e. expensive) whoring. All of this takes about three days. Their estimated earnings over this short period are nearly £300, but they rather stupidly keep spending the money Carol grinds out on bottles of champagne and fruitless trips to the roulette wheel.

'That's it - lovely - groovy, baby, groovy'.

'It'll be five quid'.

Take a ticket and wait.

The man in the hat just likes to watch.

So, he watches.

Then tries to join in. His hat stays on, however.

On the fourth day, Carol finally gets a break as a model, and immediately starts earning about a thousand quid a day. In the evening she fucks Sheiks and MP's for even more money. It's never really explained why -she clearly doesn't have to. Joe is nominally her manager, but both he and Carol are only puppets in the moist hands of far more experienced hustlers - and their success is on the back of their temporary status as fresh meat. After a huge blow out showbiz party (Pete Murray is there!) Carol and Joe decide that they're not actually having any fun at all and jack it all in and just go back home to their old jobs, never to speak of their tumultuous week away ever again.

Back where she belongs, nozzle in hand.

Released in some theatres (you know what sort) as ‘The Dirtiest Girl I Ever Met’, ‘Cool It, Carol’ is far more pensive and gloomy than its various titles might suggest. It’s also remarkably long for a film like this, indicating that Walker had perhaps slightly higher ambitions for it than as a straightforward wham bam smutter. I'm not sure if it works as a cautionary tale - they make too much money and, although some of the scenarios are unspeakably squalid, Carol doesn't seem to be too affected by them - it's a pretty bleak, charmless film with a vacuum at its centre: Carol, who doesn't really need to cool it - she simply 'doesn't mind'.

Askwith!

I will now have a little rant about Robin Askwith, not my favourite actor. I have to say that I don’t like him particularly, perhaps unfairly, because I always felt that his brief sojourn as Britain’s most popular domestic film star demeaned us as a nation: the idea of his neanderthalic buffoonery and moronic gurning somehow personifying British society was a terrifying and unwelcome concept – at least George Formby kept his trousers on (he could also sing and play the ukulele – Askwith had no such talent). Robin’s popularity was not his fault, of course, he just enjoyed the ride, but these things have a tendency to stick in my craw forever.

'Ouch!'

Anyway, here’s my Robin Askwith anecdote: back in the late eighties, he was appearing at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester in some sex farce or other and as myself and my friends were staggering back from the Hole In The Wall pub we passed the theatre bar and saw Robin playing snooker with a couple of his mates. We ducked down beneath the window and, just as he was cueing up a shot, we jumped up and shouted ‘Robin!’ as loudly as we could. Brilliantly, he jumped out of his skin, his arms jerked wildly, the cue skidded along the baize and the white ball jumped off the table. Very Timmy Lea. We then ran away.

I Heart Gordon Beck

2012-02-12T00:00:00.033Z

Ray For Today

2012-02-11T09:00:00.000Z

'Rose for the lady?'. Ray Conniff plays it smooooooth.

The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch

2012-02-10T22:00:00.001Z

'The Insatiable Mrs Kirsch' is a short (24 minute) 'erotic' film that Ken knocked off in 1996 with the help of his then wife, ex-ballet dancer Hetty Baynes who co-wrote the script and starred as the title character.

Sweetcorn.

Eclair.

Asparagus.

The action takes place at a hotel in Whitehaven. The unnamed narrator (Simon 'Peak Practice' Shepherd, rather camp for some reason) is researching details for a novel when he becomes distracted by a mysterious woman who sits across from him in the dining room. Her table manners leaves a lot to be desired, but he finds the sight of her wet chops almost unbearably erotic.

Convinced there is a mutual attraction, he begins to stalk her, but she totally ignores him. When he sees her receive some polaroids by post he follows her to room and stands outside listening, hearing what he takes to be the hum of an enormous vibrator. To be fair, this assumption is backed up by footage of Mrs. Kirsch using a enormous vibrator and gyrating on the bed to a sax and synth porn soundtrack. Ms Baynes conveys sexual abandon by crossing her eyes and then rolling them up into her head. It's not a subtle performance, but then why would it be? Ken Russell is directing it.

Dont worry, it's lipstick on the litl'un.

I'm sure this will be a very exciting picture for some people.

Writhing.

After this, enflamed by desire, he follows her all over, determined to make a connection. But, it seems, where Mrs. K goes, her vibrator goes, as he hears it buzzing incessantly as he trails behind her. He moves into the room next to her so he can eavesdrop on her phonecalls, the dirty devil.

On one excursion, she runs up the Cerne Abbas Giant and does a little dance on his giant whitewashed ball bag. Simon Shepherd finds this really sexy.

Unable to stand it any longer, the narrator breaks cover, sends champagne and, at last, is invited to her room for a nightcap. He's just starting to get his swerve on when Mrs. K rushes into the bathroom and the buzzing sound starts up again. On her return he confronts her, only for it to be revealed that the noise is not from a vibrator at all, but a breast pump. She has had a premature baby and has been sent away to recuperate until the baby gets strong enough to leave hospital but, in the mean time, still has to express milk, often at short notice. How they laugh, even though this makes no sense, is not what we've been shown and, in fact, is vaguely offensive.

In a coda, Shepherd says that he has become Godfather to the baby, who, happily, is now five years old. He, Mrs. K and son Max appear in a lovely family photo with the insatiable Mr. Kirsch - crazy red faced Ken Russell himself.

Portrait of a happy family plus a bloke who wants to fuck Mum.

A very slight entry in the Russell canon, the idiosyncratic low budget, low key nature of 'The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch' prefigures the director's later DIY productions made at home on portable equipment with contributions from family and friends. It was later incorporated into an US smutmanteau called 'Tales Of Erotica', which was rubbish.

This Week's Bizarre Masterpiece

2012-02-10T00:00:00.003Z

Paul Nash: 'Mansions of The Dead' (1932).

Parkie

2012-02-09T00:00:00.005Z

Norman Parkinson.

St Trinian's: Fire and Brimstone

2012-02-08T00:00:00.000Z

Last Gask

2012-02-07T11:46:00.006Z

A little more digging has turned up another handful of cover designs Jerome Gask did for Faber.

Best Movie Stories, Guy Slater, 1969

Best Army Stories, Andrew Graham, 1967

A Torrent of Faces, James Blish, 1968

Winter Journey, Eva Figes, 1968.

Is that Uncle Arthur from 'Tales that Witness Madness'?

Best Stories of the South Seas, Philip Snow, 1967

Yesterday's Children, David Gerrold, 1974

Thanks to JH for reminding me that Gask was also responsible for the titles of Undermind, a Cold War alien invasion tv series that ABC broadcast in 1965. Those good folks at Network plan to release all ten episodes later this year.

In the meantime, here's a clip of the opening titles and some (ahem) slightly mannered acting. The closing titles feature a particularly nice flute piece from library and film composer Paul Lewis (Arthur & the Britons, Monty Python, Tales of the Unexpected, The Benny Hill Show, etc).

Never Knowingly Underacted

2012-02-07T00:00:00.006Z

Graham Crowden!

He’s brilliant.

Subtle? Graham Crowden laughs in the face of subtle. HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Anything even remotely good at the cinema or on telly; Graham’s been in it.

His CV reads like a Mounds & Circles wet dream: A Very Peculiar Practice, A Company Of Wolves, Britannia Hospital, Doctor Who (he turned down the role of the 4^th Doctor), Hardcore (with M&C heroine Fiona Richmond), Jabberwocky, Star Maidens, Zodiac, The Final Programme, O’ Lucky man, The Amazing Mr. Blunden, Catweazle, Jackanory - oh the list goes on…

Anyway, the picture below is of him in the Doctor Who story The Horns Of Nimon (a personal favorite).

Look at him he isn’t acting, he’s ACTING.

Secrets Of A Door To Door Salesman

2012-02-06T00:00:00.019Z

'Secrets Of A Door to Door Salesman' is an odd film - shambolic and rambling, full of knackered old jokes and hackneyed situations, but it has a gentle, benevolent humour at its core and, despite the fact that it is most definitely a smut film, it lacks the leering, occasionally unpleasant full on nature of many of its contemporaries. I won't say it's a 'feel good film', but it at least doesn't leave you feeling slightly dirty and disappointed in yourself.

David hunting for a new job.

David (Brendan Price) is a lobster fisherman in Cornwall with a cracking looking girlfriend and a very easy pace of life. When his Dad drowns at sea, Brendan sells his share in the business to his brother and heads for London to seek his fortune, stopping only to buy an antiquated japlopy and a change of underwear. He's going to need it. Soon after arriving, he finds himself esconsed in a house full of women, all of whom quite fancy having a nibble at his bait. Interestingly, though, David doesn't go through them like Timmy Lea would do, instead he makes lasting friendships with them, forming a makeshift family unit. Yes, there's the odd flash of arse, a few attempted seductions and some heavy innuendo but, given the set up, it's a fairly wholesome arrangement.

Attempted Porn Star.

The female lead in this film within a film gives a subtle, nuanced peformance.

She is also very enthusiastic.

After a brief tryout as a porn star, David gets a job as a vacuum cleaner salesman. I know what you're thinking - 'here we go'. But David doesn't shag everyone lonely housewife he meets, even when they desperately want him to, so, subsequently, doesn't really sell any vacuum cleaners. The scenario, of course, lends itself to any number of dramatic and comedic vignettes, and the film makers get as much in as they can, rarely bothering to try and move the plot forward. It may sound pretentious, but the whole thing reminds me slightly of an 18th century novel - full of incident, full of humour, but without the emphasis on narrative and 'meaning' - like 'Tristram Shandy', the diversions and discursions are what its all about, not the chronological events shown.

Sci fi dust busting solution.

Woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

The day to day struggle of the Salesman.

I just have a suitcase on the top of my wardrobe.

'What is the secret of your success with men?'.

In my experience, most smut films have several 'I beg your pardon?' moments of genuine bizarro surrealism. In this film it's a trip to a nightclub called 'Cheekee Petes' where the waitresses are topless and the guests like to go go go go go. What sort of entertainment would this sort of swinging establishment book, do you think? A turned on, hip swivelling singer? A stripper? A black woman who covers herself in unguent and fiddles with herself (see 'Escort Girls')? No, of course not, they'd hire an adolescent girl who looks like Robin Gibb and sings a maudlin song about existential loneliness that stops the party dead in its tracks.

In the end, David wins over the girl of his dreams (the au pair from Kiev with a troubled past) and they get in his vintage car and drive back to Cornwall and the slow, quiet life. It's rather moving and, in the limited syntax of the modern argot, we all feel like we've been on a real journey.

As a postscript, no look at this film would be complete without mentioning that it was slated to be the directorial debut of Oscar winning Jonathan Demme, but he fell out with the producers after filming the opening scenes and went back to America to carry on working with Roger Corman. His next film was 'Caged Heat'.

Nun Envy

2012-02-05T00:00:00.001Z

Ernie Freaks Out

2012-02-04T00:30:00.001Z

Morecambe & Wise: Hipsters

2012-02-04T00:00:00.001Z

A selection of 'now' looks from the occasionally groovy late 60s / early 70s wardrobes of dear old Morecambe & Wise.

Billion Dollar Brain

2012-02-03T21:00:00.002Z

Ken Russell's first feature film, unfunny comedy 'French Dressing' (1963), was an unqualified disaster, so he didn't get another big screen opportunity until 1967, when he was asked to direct 'Billion Dollar Brain', the third and last 60s instalment in the Michael Caine Harry Palmer series (the franchise would be briefly and shittily revived in the 1990s).

'Yes, it's Palmer. P-A-R...'

'Billion Dollar Brain' is definitely the runt of the litter when compared to 'The Ipcress File' and 'Funeral In Berlin', but it's a close-ish third and has some quirky and surprising elements that could only have been provided by crazy Ken, even if he was on his very best behaviour.

Midwinter himself, the bastard.

The plot is almost irrelevant, but is driven by self-styled General Midwinter, a crazed Texan oil billionaire who wishes to erradicate communism using a private army and some virus filled eggs stolen from the Porton Down research facility / death factory in Wiltshire. Harry Palmer, of course, has to stop the plot, get back the eggs, and try to fiddle as many expenses as he can.

Much of the filming was done in Finland.

Mlle. Dorleac.

'So, who else is coming to this long johns party?'

The mercenary fighters of the free world.

Very subdued for a Russell film (Ken admitted that he toed the line in order to prove himself, hoping to later be allowed to make his own, more personal films - a successful stratagem, as it happens), and with a tired, low key performance from star Michael Caine, 'BDB' is a fairly typical sixties espionage film: stylish, complex, slightly swinging, ultimately nonsensical.

'I'll see you lot in 28 years time'

The most Bond of the three 'anti Bond' Palmer films, the production is distinguished by its modernist sets, an attractive turn from Francoise Dorleac (Catherine Deneuve's sister, who died in a car crash before finishing all of her scenes) and, best of all, a great set piece finale that channels Eisenstein and sparks the Ken we know and love into action - Midwinter's whiteclad army are attacked as they advance across a frozen lake and are annihilated, sinking slowly and horribly beneath the ice to the stirring strains of Shostakovich. It's a brilliantly put together sequence that must have done Ken a lot of favours in Hollywood - I can hear the United Artists executives now - 'Ken Russell - finally, a British guy we can trust!'...

Jerome Gask

2012-02-03T17:03:00.003Z

I bought an old Brian Aldiss book today, because I'm partial to a bit of SF and it has a lovely cover.

The graphic designer is Jerome Gask. He did a couple of other Faber SF covers.

I didn't know Gask's name but his style had a nagging familiarity to it. A quick Google and it turned out that he was also designer of several great TV intro sequences, including The Avengers (series 1) and the sublime The Tomorrow People.

Plus The Feathered Serpent, available from our friends at Network.

I'd love to know more about Mr Gask. If anyone has any info, please leave a comment.

Ultratache

2012-02-03T00:00:00.003Z

James 'Midge' Ure.

Ray For Today

2012-02-02T00:00:00.002Z

How does the song go? 'Ooh, I hear laughter in the rain, riding on a tandem with a drunken toddler shoved in a basket on the front and the clingy woman I love'. Something like that, anyway.

Ray Conniff takes to the road in 1975.

Jazz Scene

2012-02-02T00:00:00.000Z

Never Wear Your Wellies In The House

2012-02-01T00:00:00.005Z

Never Wear Your Wellies In The House

If you want to be silent as a mouse,

Or jump as high as any little house,

You must nibble lots of cheese,

Say “Hello” to passing fleas

And never wear your wellies in the house.

Stick your neck out just as far as a giraffe,

Be eccentric and you’ll make others laugh

But except when you’re alone

When of course you’ll feel at home

You should never wear your knickers in the bath.

If you don’t want to lie awake in fear and dread,

Or have nightmares all in horrid shades of red,

Nor have your crumbs just everywhere,

Twixt your toes and in your hair,

You must never take a currant bun to bed.

If you want to be as silent as a mouse,

Or jump as high as any little house,

You must nibble lots of cheese,

Say “Hello” to passing fleas

And never wear your wellies in the house.

Tom Baker

From Never Wear Your Wellies In The House and other poems to make you laugh. (1981)

St Trinian's Boarding School For Girls

2012-01-31T19:37:00.001Z

Cartoon by Ronald Searle

She Loves Only Gold

2012-01-31T00:00:00.001Z

One of my favourite photographs: gilded sex kitten Margaret Nolan during the filming of the title sequence for 'Goldfinger'. Robert Brownjohn is the man calling the shots.

Private Road

2012-01-30T00:00:00.195Z

'Private Road' isn't really a smut film at all, it's more of an 'issue' film - but as the issue is sex, and it was released in 1971, it just about squeaks into our never ending cavalcade of sauce (if I'm honest, I'm also still recovering from last week's clip of Miss Christabel Jones).

Bruce / Peter.

Susan / Ann & some fantastic speakers.

Bruce ('Withanil & I') Robinson and Susan Penhaligon play Peter and Ann, two fresh faced lovers who, in the freewheeling spirit of the times, move in with each other against the wishes of Ann's ungroovy and slyly manipulative parents. Peter is a promising novelist and, on the strength of a publishing advance, he and Ann take a cottage in the country and have a carefree, idyllic time (these scenes may even have been the starting point for the Penrith scenes in 'Withnail', as they have a very similar feel, just slightly more romantic).

'We've come on holiday deliberately'

Young Love.

Run, rabbit, run.

On their return, things start to go wrong - Ann gets pregnant and Peter is forced to take a job writing advertising copy for a new dog dessert. One of their hippy dippy friends gets into radical politics, another becomes a heroin addict and (it is implied) steals Peter's typewriter to fund his addiction. As reality closes in, Ann, who is only in her late teens, starts feeling far too grown up and runs back to Mummy and Daddy, who promptly arrange an abortion for her.

You've had the sex, now here's the drugs.

Burglary is the new Rock & Roll.

As the film ends, Ann is living with her parents, who now expect Peter to marry her and move to a house they have bought them in the suburbs. Peter loves Ann, but isn't prepared to fall into respectability just because it is expected of him. On a whim, he and his junkie friend steal an electric typewriter from an office (shades of 'The 400 Blows') and he vows to return to writing - and to get Ann back on his own terms.

'Stick 'em up'.

'Right, you've got your typewriter, and your breakfast. Anything else you want?'
'Yes'.

'Private Road' is very much of its time, very Middle Class, very slight, but it's very good - largely improvised, free flowing, elliptically edited and with some convincing naturalistic performances from the young cast. Bruce Robinson in particular is excellent, half petulant artist, half gormless kid - and in his various improvisations he demonstrates the humour and preference for an unobvious phrase which would later come to fruition in the greatest British film of the 80s (that sounds like faint praise, but I don't mean it that way) - if the arse hadn't fallen out of the homegrown industry just as he was starting up he could have been a much bigger star.

Director Barney Platts-Mills' previous film had been cult favourite 'Bronco Bullfrog', set amongst working class youths in the East End of London, and his subsequent career has been joyfully non-conventional, including writing offbeat screenplays, directing musicals in prison and heading up lots of youth film projects. Last year, he released his first feature film for thirty years. Interesting fellow - and born in Colchester, Essex which, as any hep person knows, is where all the best people come from.

Crisp Answers

2012-01-29T00:00:00.010Z

Ray For Today

2012-01-29T00:00:00.005Z

Easy listening from one of the masters, Ray Conniff. After all, why should listening be hard?

Ray's dead now but I'd love to have got some tips from him on hair regeneration, as the contrast between his early and later barnets is quite astonishing.

Early.

Later.

There will be more pictures of Ray Conniff on this blog soon. Why? Because they're out there.

A Very Peculiar Doctor

2012-01-28T22:19:00.001Z

Andrew Davies adapted the second series of his magnificent and off-kilter TV programme A Very Peculiar Practice as a novel.

That's interesting isn't it? Not a lot of people know that, you know.
You may also be interested to know he adapted the first series too, but I don't have a copy of that.

I'm sure it's very good though.

Ginger Geezer

2012-01-28T14:45:00.001Z

Viv Stanshall

Money Shot

2012-01-28T00:00:00.003Z

The 1970 film version of 'Loot' is not entirely successful, nor is it entirely Joe Orton, as genius scriptwriters Galton & Simpson were commissioned to write the screenplay, 'opening up' the play with some additional sequences and a handful of new characters.

As the film begins, bankrobbing sociopaths and lovers Hal and Dennis are in a shooting gallery on Brighton Pier. They face a series of targets representing familiar Ortonesque figures of fun - the government, schools, the church, the army, the law - all of which they gleefully and mercilessly gun down. Only one sacred cow is spared...

Money, cash, filthy lucre...

Savage Messiah

2012-01-27T21:00:00.000Z

'Savage Messiah' is a tricky one for me. At one point, I thought it was the worst film I'd ever seen, yet I'd watch it every time it was on, as I gained a perverse enjoyment from being annoyed by it.

The story of French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brezeska, it was a film that Russell desperately wanted to make, sinking a huge amount of his own money into the production. Ken's enthusiasm for the subject explodes onto the screen in a frenzy of shouting and sledgehammer cinema: it's as subtle as a flying house brick, and as sophisticated - it makes a great artist look like a petulant twat and does very little to translate Gaudier-Brezeska's genius to the screen. Instead, he just keeps saying he's a genius, and those around him keep saying he's a genius and you're supposed to believe it, all the time thinking, well, he's just a petulant twat, isn't he? - an over excited show off adolescent layabout with a Mother complex. This isn't helped by the casting of Scott Antony in the lead role. He's awful, one of the worst actors to ever take star billing in a film (his career was short lived - there's nothing in the IMDB for him after 1974), and he just makes you want to punch him repeatedly in the face until you run out of knuckles.

Street Art.

Do sculptors really sculpt with their tongues out, like kids?

'ere, that looks like that Dame Helen Mirren.

Watch your hand on that radiator, Helen.

To be fair to Ken, he's trying to depict the creative process, one of the most difficult and mysterious things to put on screen. Christopher Logue's script is declamatory and very theatrical, and artistic inspiration is usually displayed by Gaudier-Brzeska jumping up suddenly and running around like a five year old full of Corona, yelling his artistic manifesto at passers by. The intensity of it all is further underlined by the constant circular aesthetic arguments he has with his muse / best friend / fake sister / unrequited love Sophie (Dorothy Tutin). In real life, Sophie was an intellectual who had a huge influence on Henri (he added her surname Brzeska to his own in recognition) - here she just comes across as a clinging pain in the arse.

Overawed by genius.

I suppose my feeling for this film sums up how I feel about Russell's work generally: I'm both fascinated and repelled by it. But it is very entertaining, and it's striving to say something, which is more than can be said for a lot of cinema. Ken always tried, and he tried hard: his success rate is neither here nor there.

The Art of War.

Gaudier-Brzeska was killed in France in June, 1915, another output from the mechanised death machine that was World War One. One of his last actions was to carve a Madonna and Child into the butt of a captured German rifle: creative to the end. The film ends with a posthumous exhibition of his work - the artist only lived for 24 years, but his art has had a considerably longer shelf life. If inclined, you can see a number of his works at the Tate Britain and Modern. His 'Bird Swallowing Fish' is currently on loan to the Wakefield Hepworth Museum: it's extraordinary.

Orwellian Facial

2012-01-26T00:00:00.012Z

Eric Blair.

Good Vibes

2012-01-25T00:00:00.000Z

Milt Jackson: 'Olinga'.

I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside...

2012-01-24T18:30:00.004Z

The Outer Church invokes the gnostic bomb on February 17th at Sticky Mike's Frog Bar in Brighton with a back-to-back screening of Patrick Meaney's documentary films Warren Ellis: Captured Ghosts and Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods plus live actions from Old Apparatus, Pye Corner Audio (Black Mill Tapes Vol 3 out now) and Kemper Norton. Tickets are £5 in advance, get them here.

Nymph

2012-01-24T00:00:00.003Z

Escort Girls

2012-01-23T00:00:00.008Z

It's 1972, and despite the fact that a pint of beer is only 20p, unless you're Michael Caine or a member of Slade, life is pretty much like this --

Or this --

Happily, there are alternatives --

If, of course, you want to get all lah-di-da about it, and have a few quid, you can always go to a proper Escort Agency and hire some sophisticated company for the evening.

Club DJ's don't change much, do they?

Looks comfortable.

A familiar Donovan Winter visual motif.

Donovan Winter's 1972 film 'Escort Girls' covers all the angles, including Escort Boys, showing us a series of vignettes all set on the same evening in London. All human life is here: a shy virgin who spends his Xmas bonus on a date - a sophisticated business woman who needs a hunk to help her network - a couple of Scots on a spree - the inevitable big spending Yanks (male and female) who need suitable arm candy to parade around town - and a rich, mousy girl who hires a handsome black man to outrage her stuck up, racist friends at a reunion.

Fantasy Zulu. Yes, it's John from 'The Tomorrow People' on the left.

Pretty scrappy, the film meanders around for ages before ending in a frenzy of blackmail, attempted rape, simulated rape, inter-racial sex, knees in groins and disco dancing Things go rather well for the shy virgin (David Dixon, later to star as Ford Prefect in 'Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy') who gets the night of his life for about twenty pounds - Cinzano, an Italian meal and the company of a nice and rather attractive girl who later sleeps with him because she actually likes him and doesn't mind showing him the sexy ropes.

Pay attention, mate, this is really happening.

The glamour of the 70s.

Result!

The most extraordinary sequence is provided by 'the fabulous, sensational, sexsational Christabel Jones', a pneumatic black stripper who pours champagne over her ample bosom, simulates sex with a fox fur (see also 'Get Em Off') and then falls to the floor, covers her pudenda with unguent and rubs herself to a very public climax - this whole routine takes nearly ten minutes.

So, Donovan Winter: idiosyncratic director, and a complete nutter of the first order. Well done, Sir!

Hard Truth

2012-01-22T21:12:00.001Z

St. Etienne

2012-01-22T00:00:00.015Z

The Last Chapter

2012-01-21T00:00:00.007Z

'Mmn...'

'Brilliant!'

In the John Fowles scripted short film 'The Last Chapter', pulp novelist Denholm Elliot has a lot of trouble with cheeky nymphette Susan Penhaligon, who thinks he's a misogynistic braggart and sell out. An example of his fiction is parodied in the above fantasy sequence. It's the best part, really, although fans of Miss Penhaligon might also like it when she pushes her bosoms against the window.

The Revolting Style of George Melly

2012-01-21T00:00:00.005Z

The Debussy Film

2012-01-20T21:00:00.000Z

Before 'Women In Love', Ken Russell was mostly associated with the small screen, specifically for his work on the BBC 'Monitor' programme. 'The Debussy Film' was made for 'Monitor' in 1965, and is another of Ken's idiosyncratic portraits of classical composers. It's about Claude Debussy, by the way.

Scripted by Melvyn Bragg (as was 'The Music Lovers' and many other early Russell films) and heavily influenced by Fellini, it alternates between the activities of a group of actors engaged in making a film about Debussy and sequences from the film they are making. It's all very reflexive and post modern, especially when, at one point, we start watching a play within a film within a film.

This is er...Ollie Reed.

The actor playing the actor playing Debussy is the glowering Oliver Reed, who brings intensity to the role, as well as a great deal of the wounded sensitivity he was always seemed to carry around. In real life, Debussy was a touchy, selfish bastard and a shag around who left a trail of destruction behind him, so the characterisation is spot on. The conceit of the postmodern structure allows Russell to place a great deal of the action in contemporary British settings, with a little bit of groovy swinging London action including a Kinks record, a pop art fight and a mod recreation of the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian with some nice looking dollies.

Twang!

Ouch!

Bang!

Oops!

Ratatattat!

Pop!

'Enough onomatopoia!'

Just in case you thought Russell and Bragg weren't taking it that seriously, there are a number of scenes from Debussy's life, all accompanied by Claude's fascinating music and Ken's interesting visuals. It does very well at relaying the basic facts of its subjects life without being too literal, and is greatly enhanced by the presence and narration of Vladek Sheybal, the great Polish actor with a wonderful, exacting voice and obvious intellect.

Mr. Sheybal.

An interesting piece of work. Thanks, Ken; thanks, Mel.

Cheers, Paul!

Black Leather

2012-01-20T00:00:00.000Z

Sound Angled At Your Genitals

2012-01-19T16:07:00.000Z

Grey Sigh

2012-01-19T00:00:00.000Z

Hills Has Eyes

2012-01-17T18:49:00.003Z

Gillian Hills, actress and singer, rose to fame as a teenager in the 1960s in the fabulous British film, Beat Girl and Michelangelo Antonioni's first English language picture, Blow Up.

Here she is reading a novel and wearing red plastic sunglasses in Alan Garner's 1969 adaptation of his own book The Owl Service.

Boutiques Of Swinging London

2012-01-17T00:00:00.000Z

Britannia Hospital

2012-01-16T13:24:00.000Z

Some Like It Sexy

2012-01-16T00:00:00.003Z

Donovan Winter was a a former bit part actor turned Triple Threat (Writer / Director / Producer) who managed to make a handful of exploitation films in the sixties and seventies. 'Some Like It Sexy' may be his 'Citizen Kane': I enjoyed it, anyway.

Blonde himbo Christopher Matthews plays Peter, a cockney playboy with a load of chat, a wardrobe full of groovy clothes, a way out pad, a sexy MG with lips painted on it and a little black book choc-a-bloc with eager talent of all classes, creeds, nationalities and races.

He bangs.

Mwah!

Double trouble.

Quadruple trouble.

Soul Sister.

Trippy.

Trippier.

Peter picks up all sorts - a German au pair, a model, a haughty society Madam (& her daughter), a pair of feuding twins who fancy each other, a black hippy chick singer / revolutionary, and a drugged up woman called 'Cream Puff' who he has a strobe lit scene with. He even carries around a briefcase full of little presents for his harem. Where he gets his money is uncertain, as is the full extent of his attraction, which seems...intermittent, to say the least. Most of the time, Peter seems uncertain and uncomfortable - hardly a worldly wise, uber confident Lothario able to juggle a dozen women at once. The scenes mostly have the awkwardness of a blind date - Peter kisses uncertainly and earnestly and doesn't really know what to do with his hands until, in the heat of the moment, his pale, smooth, hairless body seems to be replaced by a darker, blotchier, far more hirsute torso with a strong gluteus maximus and very busy hips.

'Some Like It Sexy' is probably the most porno like smut film we've looked at so far: the whole thing is just a series of sequences in which a man and a woman (or women) meet to have sex. In the UK version, of course, the actual sex act wasn't on the cards, so what we're left with is prologue and a nagging doubt that something isn't quite right. The 'Continental' cut was full of more explicit inserts, hence the hairy undercarriage confusion, i.e. it's a stunt arse and, briefly, a stunt cock (I'm assuming that the film makers would have negotiated a slightly reduced rate on that - it's rather underwhelming).

In another nod to our dirty and immoral European cousins, Winter also adds a scene where Playboy starlets The Collinson Twins initiate a threesome with Peter only for it to turn into a sister act. Sapphic activity is, of course, a mainstay of these films, especially as it is usually non-penetrative and, therefore, censor friendly, but between twin sisters? Really? It's hugely distasteful and just much too much for a piece of fluff like this.

In the end, there's an abrupt twist that ties up the loose ends about who Peter really is, how he lives, and how the hell a wimp like him manages to get his end away so often: he isn't actually a raver at all, he's a downtrodden butcher's boy prone to fantasising about the ladies he delivers meat to. Do you see what they did there, the clever bastards?

1969.

Lead actor Christopher Matthews had a bit of a purple patch in the late sixties, starring in this, 'Scream & Scream Again' and 'Scars Of Dracula' in quick succession. Within a few years, however, he was reduced to uncredited bit parts in 'Space 1999'. After a gap of about thirty years, he popped up in an episode of 'Rosemary & Thyme' looking much the same, i.e. anxious and slightly uncomfortable, although with a much more boring shirt. He probably shagged Felicity Kendall and Pam Ferris while on the show, or at least imagined he did.

2006.

I look forward to seeing him again in 2035, but here he is forty three years ago in a very comprehensive trailer.

Electronics Without Tears

2012-01-15T13:00:00.000Z

I bring good news for devotees of the previously unsung British Electronics genius, F.C Judd. Public Information have put together the first official compilation of Fred's groundbreaking work and you can get it here along with all the details you need (I found out more about Judd's work on my first visit than I'd learned over the last ten years on my own).

This is apparently the first instalment of a major retrospective, which is rather exciting.

Two Fish

2012-01-15T00:00:00.005Z

Dominique Guiot: Deux Poissons

From Dominique Guiot's spaced out 1978 album L'Univers De La Mer

Skinhead

2012-01-14T12:00:00.001Z

Valentino

2012-01-13T21:00:00.000Z

Ken Russell never really understood why he agreed to make 'Valentino' and, years later, he apparently watched it and asked 'what idiot made this?'. It's flat and dull and full of crap, and it totally lacks that chaotic sense of Russell's egomaniacal excess, which is probably when Ken disliked it so much. If, however, you've ever wanted to see Peter Vaughan beat up Rudolf Nuryev, then this is the film for you.

Smugly at rest.

One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, apparently.

Rudi at work.

Rudi at play.

Starting with Valentino's death at the age of 31, the narrative borrows liberally from 'Citizen Kane' and is told in flashbacks by the strong and often overbearing women that guided his life and career (except when it isn't and we have no idea who is telling the tale). The story is disjointed and fragmented, doesn't really explain who Valentino was and what he did to deserve a film biography and is shot through with the most fundamental inaccuracies.

Prison life.

Peter Vaughan being a bastard.

Biopics tend to have the rough edges smoothed off for simplicity, or are shaped to tell a more coherent story, but this one basically makes shit up - and the made up bits are the sequences that Russell seems most interested in: a wildly overblown scene in a public jail where Valentino is assaulted and molested and masturbated at by grotesques, including a toothless Dudley Sutton, then hit in the gut until he pisses himself -or the aforementioned boxing match with Peter Vaughan (playing a journalist who accused Rudy of being a homosexual) which never happened and so, therefore, could not have contributed to the peritonitis that killed Valentino. But why let the truth stand in the way of a good story? No reason at all, except that it's not a good story, it's just a load of rubbish - and Ken knows it.

King of the Powder Puffs.

'I predict a Box Office Smash!'

Miss Fliss.

The casting too is a disaster: Rudolf Nuryev can't act (although he dances quite a lot), and he's paired opposite ex-Mamas & Papas star Michelle Phillips who, no, can't act at all (happily, she doesn't sing because, frankly, she couldn't do that either). The resulting dramatic void is fatal, meaning that most of the films two hour running time feels like a particularly poor amateur dramatics production, perhaps in a prison or mental hospital. There's a decent role for Felicity Kendall, which is nice, but the rest of the cast all do their best 'Noo Yawk' accents and vainly hope for the best, but the best never comes.

The Sheik.

Russell's most expensive film to date (fuck knows how, it has the production values of a Cillit Bang advert), it was a huge flop and almost fatally derailed his career. Perhaps most ignobly for Ken, it wasn't a big, bold blow out production that he could be proud of despite its failure - it was limp and unimaginative and boring - most un-Russell-like. Ken slunk back to television and would not make another film in Hollywood for three years, and then only as a last minute replacement for another director on a film he didn't choose ( Arthur Penn and 'Altered States' respectively), but we'll come back to that at a later date.

So - 'what idiot made this?' Sorry, Ken, love, but you did.

Three Thousands Points

2012-01-12T15:00:00.000Z

Absolute Beginners

2012-01-12T11:00:00.000Z

Of Colin MacInnes's trilogy of London novels; City of Spades (1957), Absolute Beginners (1959), and Mr. Love and Justice (1960), Absolute Beginners stands head and shoulders above the others.

Written in the first person from perspective of an unnamed teenage photographer, the novel is spilt into one day per month over 4 months leading up to the narrator's nineteenth birthday. Each section is a swirling milieu of immigrant blacks, teenagers, ponces, queers and the police.

It contains some of the best named characters in fiction: Crêpe Suzette, The Fabulous Hoplite, Mr. Cool, The ex-Deb-of-Last-Year, Ed the Ted, Zesty-Boy Swift, Vendice Partners, Mannie Katz, The Misery Kid, and my personal favorite - Dido Lament.

Written in hip slang it is it’s like a snapshot of cool:

"Picture, to re-cap, the scene. There, on the wharf, stood the ex-Deb's bubble-car and M. Ponderoso's Vespa (because yes, Mickey P. really had delivered the promised goods), and a band of onlookers with complimentary tickets, and up on the bridge above us, the City citizens scurrying to and fro, the men looking like dutiful schoolkids with their brief-cases and brollies, the women as if they were hurrying to work in order to hurry home again, and out in the stream, the fract like Piccadilly circus-on-the-water, and there in the quagmire me, and this temperamental Old Vic duo. the fact is, it was rather difficult to concentrate, because the whole panorama was so splendid, with the sun hitting glass triangles off the water, and the summer with the season really in its grip, making the thought of those short, dark, cold days long ago seem just a nightmare. So we decided to break off for déjeuner. This we partook in a Thames-side caff up a lane that, thought I know the river frontage intricacies like the veins on my own two hands, I'd never discovered - but then, after all, who does know London?"

Recommended.

Queen Elizabeth

2012-01-12T00:00:00.000Z

'Age cannot wither her nor custom stale...'

The indomitable Liz Fraser pushes her chest out yet again in 'Adventures of A Private Eye' (1977).

Alfa Centauri

2012-01-11T00:00:00.000Z

Intimate Games

2012-01-09T00:00:00.026Z

'Everyone has their private, secret thoughts, and amongst these secret thoughts, difficult though it may be for you to visualise, everyone has their own sexual fantasies'.

The first few minutes of 'Intimate Games' promise much, kicking off with documentary footage of teeming London underscored by some sleazy rock disco music composed by Roger Webb and an interesting voice over from 'Britain's favourite Bulgarian' (tm), the late George Baker. We then move to a University campus where Baker, playing a Professor Gottlieb, is lecturing his students on sexual fantasy and how the pressures of modern life inhibit and repress leading to an increased reliance on pornography and sex aids to stimulate what should come naturally. He even does a little dance with a blow up doll to prove his point. At this moment, I actually thought that I might be in for a rather thoughtful film about the power of the human sexual imagination, perhaps even presented in an academic, semi-documentary fashion. I was wrong.

Takes me back to my University days.

Professor Gottlieb sets his students an assignment: to pair off and explore their own fantasies, before conducting some research with a more general audience, including their parents. The male students, an ugly, gormless lot, immediately see this as a golden ticket to fuck their study buddies but, surprisingly, things don't work out that way. In fact, things don't work out in any way you might expect - for all the pseudo-scientific jibber jabber about liberation of the mind and libido all we get is some tepid fumbling, unconvincing car sex, even less convincing soft focus lesbian sex, a charming anecdote about being raped by hundreds of Zulus, a little man (Johnny Vyvyan) dressed as a jockey and riding a fat woman and Ingmar Bergman's estranged daughter Anna sent into the throes of ecstasy by sucking a twattish permed student's dirty thumb. Cor, what a turn on.

Ah, Academia!

Fantasy cod piece.

Lesbian Leg Over.

Never give a sucker an even break.

Anna Bergman: 'How do you like me now, Dad?'

Classy.

The main problem is that the plot doesn't make the necessary connections and just gives up completely after twenty minutes and what you're left with is a ramshackle collection of 'fantasies'. This could have been a springboard to something quite surreal and unusual but it quickly becomes very boring and rather embarrassing. It's no wonder that the British have such a bad reputation in terms of sex if a few nips and some untrimmed privet are portrayed as the very limits of eroticism - there's no spanking, whipping, role play, leather, rubber, pvc - just lots of nasty polyester shirts, spotty bottoms, stupid hair and time filling shots of crappy cars going up and down the motorway on the way to nowhere.

Perhaps most pitifully of all, these dull dispatches from the forefront of the sexual revolution apparently send Professor Gottlieb into a paroxysm of unfettered lust, and he ends up going grope crazy and being carted off, a drooling, raving, damp trousered maniac. It's an appropriately rubbish ending to a disappointing experience.

What a state to get in.

There is one shot in this film which, for me, virtually sums up the British smut film industry, an elderly hand stroking a cold, pimpled arse. It's an enduring image - the unerotic and unattractive presented as a fantasy fulfilled.

Nice Lolly

2012-01-08T00:00:00.000Z

Harping On

2012-01-07T00:00:00.000Z

There's not enough harp in jazz, unless we're talking about Alice Coltrane, when there's sometimes too much. Dorothy Ashby (1932-1986) had a relatively short life, but a long career in jazz, first coming to prominence when she won the Downbeat International Jazz Critics Award in 1952: good going for a woman in a male dominated world, quite incredible for a harpist.

'Alone Together' is the title track from a lovely, melancholic LP she made with flautist / saxophonist Frank Wess in 1958. Dorothy got pretty poppy in later years, but, whatever the genre, she was always cool.

The Music Lovers

2012-01-06T22:00:00.000Z

When Ken Russell, white hot from the critical and commercial success of 'Women In Love', first pitched the idea of a film about Tchaikovsky, the Hollywood money men were less than impressed - until Ken told them it was about a homosexual who marries a nymphomaniac. The cheques books came out immediately.

'The Music Lovers' picks up on where Russell left off with his films for the BBC: it's basically an impressionistic visual essay on Tchaikovsky's music with a few biographical details thrown in for good measure. It's loud, sumptuous, exuberant, chaotic, expensive, cinematic and has a star cast of reliable actors who keep the whole enterprise from spinning out of control.

Richard Chamberlain plays Pytor Illych, and does a decent if unspectacular job. We don't really believe that he could write the 1812 Overture, of course, any more than we could believe Cornel Wilde as Chopin or Dirk Bogarde as Liszt, but Chamberlain at least looks the part when he plays the piano. An extra retrospective frisson is added to his performance by the fact that Tchaikovsky was, of course, gay, and always aware that it could ruin him at any time: a dilemma that hearthrob Chamberlain (who was eventually 'outed' in 1995) would have been horribly familiar with.

Mr. T.

Glenda Jackson plays Nina, an unbalanced and promiscuous young woman who sets her rather wonky sights on the great composer and, to her surprise, very quickly becomes his wife, an unwitting victim of his desire to 'change' and to have a wife and family of his own. It's a bad idea, of course: he can't consumate the marriage and the rejection drives Nina to other lovers, and then out of her mind. Tchaikovsky achieves fame, then apparently commits suicide at the height of his powers (by insisting on drinking unboiled water in a cholera zone); Nina ends up as the asylum shag bag.

Nina the Schemer.

Crazy as a nuthouse bike.

Glenda Jackson is brilliant as Nina, manipulative and naive, her characterisation permanently tinted with incipient mental illness. Her legendary lack of vanity comes in handy here - Nina is not a glamorous role, and she finds herself ill used and looking awful in many of her scenes. I'd like to say that her fate in the film was fictionalised for the screen, but sadly it's all true, although she actually went into a mental hospital long after her husband's death, so could not have inspired his 'Pathetique' symphony.

Nina's 'day job'.

An uncomfortable situation in cramped conditions.

'The Music Lovers' tells you pretty much all the casual observer needs to know about its subject matter, and although there's a bit of sex and bad behaviour Russell is actually pretty restrained here, perhaps mindful of not immediately alienating his new Hollywood paymasters too much. There are long scenes simply set to Tchaikovsky's work that are very lyrical and beautifully put together but don't quite display the wilder flights of imagination that would distinguish / disfigure his later work. That said, it's not all wheat fields and peasant girls, with glimpses of the 'real' unfettered Russell occasionally peeking through: the overwrought and punishing setpiece on the night train to Moscow (a honeymooning Peter and Nina get drunk and out of control, see above) and the short but grotesque scenes set in Nina's asylum that prefigure the hysteria in the convent in his next film 'The Devils'.

Tchaikovsky is haunted by his Mum's death - from cholera.

A small domestic.

RUSSELL!

Happier times.

These somewhat outre inclusions should have tipped off the studio executives to what their new pet eccentric was really capable of but, whilst the money was flowing in, they decided to turn a blind eye to it, a decision they would shortly live to regret: Ken was never a man to be trusted to be good, bless him, and he needed very little encouragement to get quickly and irrevocably out of hand. 'The Devils' and 'Savage Messiah' and, God help us, ''Lisztomania' were just around the corner...

Friday Night Ken

2012-01-06T20:00:00.000Z

As you will know, Ken Russell died on 27th November, 2011. Ken's films are hugely imaginative, wildly inventive, incredibly infuriating and absolutely unforgettable, and the fact that he was able to make them at all is a testament to a long gone time when the arts were an essential and central part of film and TV's remit, not just something to stick on a satellite channel that no-one watches.

Over the next few months, we'll take a look at Ken's work: not everything, and in no particular order, just as it occurs to me. Having seen virtually all of Ken's films before, I know it will be both a pleasure and an ordeal - he's an all or nothing kind of director. Andre Bazin described an auteur as a director who uses the camera as a pen; Ken Russell used the camera as a spray can, daubing his ideas onto the screen in garish dayglo colours, often in the shape of a huge cock and balls. Rest in peace, Ken.

Merry Christmas from Mounds and Circles

2011-12-25T01:00:00.001Z

Ernie: What's the matter?

Eric: It's that reindeer at the back - his nose is freezing.

Ernie: That's Rudolph, he's got a red nose.

Eric: He'll have a black eye if he does that again.

Merry Christmas to you all. We'll be back on January 6th, 2012 with more jazz, smut, hair, erudition and big knockers.

Andrew, Dave & Paul x

Blowin' In The Wind

2011-12-24T12:00:00.000Z

Whistle and I'll Come to You, directed by Jonathan Miller, BBC, 1968

Toot-toot

Uh-oh...

Hurdy-Gurdy Man

2011-12-24T00:00:00.000Z

Losthearts by AndrewD

Merry Xmas, Dave

2011-12-23T00:00:00.011Z

Festive greetings from Royston Vasey and Papa Lazarou.

Back For Christmas

2011-12-22T00:00:00.005Z

Back For Christmas, from Tales of the Unexpected, ITV, 1980

The look of love

The look that says "I'm going to smash your head in with a torch"

Chop chop

Sian Phillips to go

Buried under the greenhouse...

...only to be discovered by some pesky builders

Richard Johnson realises the jig's up