PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Classic British Film Not On DVD

Every now and again I run into a playlist on YouTube that has something interesting gathered into a bunch. Classic British Film Not On DVD is one of those playlists. It's got 73 movies, mostly from the 1930s through the 1950s, that aren't readily available. Some came out on VHS at one time but they never made the cut to DVD. I can see why, they aren't the big draw films. I don't think I had heard of any of them but there are several that look interesting. They were snatched off of TV and saved by fans. Now you can see them.

Dracula BBC 2006

I watched this 2006 BBC version of Dracula and can't say I much liked it. It's not awful or anything like that, it's just they changed the story around so much, added people, changed their roles and deaths, that it's not the Dracula that I like. The changes didn't make the story better for me. Stewart Harcourt adapted Bram Stoker's novel and Bill Eagles was the director. It looks OK for a BBC production but I'd rather watch the 1931 Dracula with Bella or the Spanish version made at the same time, and on the same sets, as James Whale was making his version. If you haven't seen the Spanish version it's worth a look. I'd give this BBC production miss but I just saw it so now I'm stuck with it. I'm glad I didn't spend any money on seeing it.

Not Going Out Series 6

Series 6 of Not Going Out aired in April and May of 2013 and there were 8 episodes. I was sad to see Tim Vine had left the series but Lee Mack, Sally Bretton and Katy Wix soldier on as Lee Lucy and Daisy. The plots are the typical goofy things, in the first episode Lucy accidentally runs over a client's rabbit. They spend the rest of the show digging themselves a deep hole.

On a skiing trip to Eastern Europe Lee, Lucy and Daisy get stuck in a ski lift gondola with a pregnant woman about to give birth. In the third episode Lucy takes a course in counseling and Lee asks for her help to fix the rift between him and his dad. That doesn't go well. Lee tries to get Lucy to stop flirting at a business conference in the 4th episode. Lee still isn't making much headway in a possible relationship with Lucy. She sets him up with a woman in the 5th episode but it turns out she's a bit of a psychopath. An old flame of Lucy's shows up with a play and asks her to preform in it. Somehow Lee worms his way into the play only to be thrown out for causing trouble.

Lucy and Lee have to entertain Lucy's 9 year old goddaughter and Lee rents a magical act. Things go wrong and the magician takes his toys away, leaving Lee to entertain a bunch of kids with what little imagination he has. It doesn't go well, he gets locked in a box with Lucy and the kids leave. Lee's dad wins a bit at the races and he buys a boat. He invites Lee, Lucy and Daisy over to see it. It sinks. Lucky for everyone they are rescued.

There's a 2013 Christmas Special called The House that came out in December. Lee invites Lucy, her parents and Daisy to a house in the country. It was Lee's late aunt's house and it's the last time he can visit before the place is sold. It seems the place is haunted but that turns out to be Lee's dad who has brought a lady friend to the place. He was pretending to be the ghost. That still didn't explain the creepy snowman or the ghostly kid in a chair at the end of the episode.

The series continues to have well written scripts with plenty of gags and jokes. Five of the episodes were written by Lee and Daniel Peak and three were written by Lee. They have a half a dozen other writers to punch up the gags. All the actors do well at their job but Bobby Ball as Lee's dad stands out. He steals a lot of scenes when he shows up. I've got Series 7 up soon and Series 8 is running in the UK as I write this. I've been gathering them from YouTube until I get past Series 7.

The Last Leg

I got hooked on the British comedy program The Last Leg. It started as a Channel 4 nightly program covering the 2012 Summer Paralympics. It proved to be fairly popular and it continued as a weekly show. The Paralympic episodes are focused on that event. The weekly shows are more focus on British news and world events.

Host Adam Hills describes the show as "Three guys with four legs talking about the week." Adam is joined by co-hosts Josh Widdicombe and Alex Brooker. They sit on the couch and Adam sits behind a small desk. It's peppered with small props and toys depicting stories mentioned on the show. The description from Adam refers to the fact that both him and Alex are missing a foot. Josh has all his feet.

The guys have a nice bit of chatter going though Adam does most of the heavy lifting. He brings up stories and they chat about them. There's usually a guest or two. There's plenty of jokes, some videos, and some bit of swearing. I laugh out loud quite a bit.

YouTube has several Series posted as well as the 2016 Paralympics series from Rio. That series the guys were joined by Clare Balding, Katherine Ryan, Johnny Vegas and Stephen Mangan. It was obvious that the people on the show had a great time hosting the series. It's was a nice mix of comedy and sentiment. The trio interviewed a lot of the Paralympians, which was nice since Great Britain won a lot of medals. Adam had the names of all the winners engraved on his prosthetic leg. He also dyed his hair like a British flag, he said he would if Team GB won some gold.

It also reminded me that I used to enjoy Public Enemy. The show uses part of the Public Enemy song Harder Than You Think as it's theme song. I kind of stopped listening to music on the radio and buying music CDs several years before this song came out. It's still a good PE song and it got me to listen to Fear Of A Black Planet for the first time in years.

Science Fiction Sunday 430

The World Beyond seems to be a TV movie of sorts. It's from 1978 and only 48 minutes. I found a copy on YouTube but very little info on the production on the internet. There is mention of a 1977 program, called The World Of Darkness, with the same character played by Granville Van Dusen. He plays a sport journalist who died for several minutes. Now he has some sort of supernatural power. He gets a invite to go to an island to visit a man named Favor. JoBeth Williams is Favor's sister. They arrive at the island to find the brother dead and another man who dies just after he stumbles into their mist. He passes on a bit of info about what killed the brother and then he dies. The boat driver's dog is killed and soon that old guy is toast too. The beast out there killing is a golem, created by Favor, and they have to find a way to destroy it. I am wondering if they might have been pilot's for a TV show or something. It's not really SF, more horror with a touch of the supernatural. It's not as good as the IMDb's score might indicate, for some reason 30 people, out of the 103 votes cast, voted the thing a 10. That's crazy talk. It's not more than just average. Especially after 20-30 minutes of the golem howling in the night. That gets tired really fast. Sadly the copy on YouTube is pretty poor looking. The other title mentioned isn't on YouTube at all. I'm OK with that.

I thought I had seen Frankenstein's Daughter before but it's not on my watched movie list. It's a 1958 low budget film written by H E Barrie and directed by Richard E Cunha. The Wikipedia says that it was part of a package of four films that producer Marc Frederic wanted for the Drive-In market. It was on a double bill with Cunha's Missile To The Moon. He only made a half dozen films, the two previous ones were She Demons and Giant From The Unknown, and the other two were Girl In Room 13 and When Strangers Meet. I'd seen the first two and they aren't any better than FD and MTTM. FD gets a 3.8 on the IMDb and that's pretty much where I'd pin it and the rest of the Canha films I've seen. 

Frankenstein's Daughter is about a scientist, Felix Locher as Dr Morton, who works out of his basement lab. His assistant, Donald Murphy as Oliver Frank, the grandson of Victor Frankenstein, has a different agenda from Dr Morton. Oliver wants to continue his grandfather's original work on creating life. Oliver has been experimenting on the scientist's daughter, Sandra Knight as Tracy Morton, turning her into a wild beast gal who runs about the street when she's been transformed into the hairy gal above. The other picture is of the monster Oliver creates and the other guy is Dr Morton's toady Elsu, played by Wolfe Barzell. The sad thing about that monster, other than the makeup, is that it was supposed to be a female monster but no one told makeup artist Harry Thomas. He made the beast a male and when he found out there was no budget or time to make a new mask. He put lipstick on the lips and sent it along to the set. When Cunha saw the makeup, he left the set and cried. The movie didn't make me cry but now I can say I've seen it.

Friday Night Movies 621

Two science fiction movies tonight. First up one I hadn't seen before. Without Warning is a 1980 film written by this gang of four: Lyn Freeman, Daniel Grodnik, Bennett Tramer and Steve Mathis. It was directed by Greydon Clark and Dean Cundey was the director of photography. The alien's head was made for $19,000 by Rick Baker. That seemed a lot of money for the time, especially since the alien looks a lot like that guy on the left who was in Star Trek. Even the flying pancake weapons the alien throws kind of remind me of the flying pancakes from an episode of Star Trek.

There's an interesting gaggle of older stars in the thing: Jack Palance, Martin Landau, Neville Brand, Ralph Meeker (his last film), Cameron Mitchell, Larry Storch and Sue Ann Langdon. It was the first film for David Caruso and the second film for Kevin Peter Hall. Kevin played the tall alien and he later played the alien in Predator and Predator 2. He was Harry in Harry And The Hendersons. Sadly he died rather young.

Some young adults are on a trip into the woods. They get warned that hunters are out and it's dangerous by the lake. Turns out the danger isn't the human hunters, the only ones we see are Cameron Mitchell and his son, and they get killed right away. The danger is the alien hunter, he picks them off one or two at a time, with his flying pancakes, while the locals try to figure out what's going on.

The budget was low, $150K, and half that went to Jack and Martin's salary. Take off the $19k for Rick Baker and that leaves $56,000 for everything else. They shot quickly, 3 weeks, and it shows. The film goes between fairly well done scenes and poorly done scenes. I'm betting there was no money to re-shoot and that could have helped. The sound level varies, soft in one scene and harsh in another. The acting is pretty good in the oldies but not quite so great in the newer cast members. None of it's awful for the most part. All in all Greydon delivers a fairly good watchable film that I'd watch again sometime. It got Blu-ray treatment and that makes the Dean Cundey photographed film look quite good. It's about average, scoring a 5.1 on the IMDb, and that isn't that bad a thing. You can watch it on YouTube if you want. See if you like it.

Our second film was another fun alien encounter film. I Come In Peace is a 1990 Dolf Lundgren movie that is out on Blu-ray under it's original title Dark Angel. The Shout Factory Blu-ray comes with a reversible cover showing I Come In Peace on the inside. The film shows the ICIP title when played. I suspect they did that because it looks like the film was marketed under the DA title in the rest of the world. 

It's written by Jonathan Tydor and David Koepp (writing under the name of Leonard Maas Jr) and the director is Craig R Baxley. I didn't know anything about Jonathan and I haven't seen any of the 7 other films he wrote. He directed 4 films that I haven't seen. David you might know from some of the other films he wrote and directed. Check out his listing on the IMDb. It's a mixed bag but mostly above average. Craig is a third generation film maker according to the IMDb. He's was a stunt man in the 70s and 80s, working on plenty of TV and movies you've probably seen. He became a director in 1984 starting with episodes of The A-Team. He mostly works in TV, only directing 5 theatrical films, and he's still working.

An alien comes to Earth in a fiery crash that blows up a car really nicely. The alien, played by Matthias Hues, is huge and deadly. He kills and collects endorphins from the human brain to use as a drug on his planet. The bodies pile up and local cop Dolph gets given some help in the form of FBI agent Brian Benben. The reluctant partners go after what they think are human killers. They soon figure out that's something's not quite right. Especially when they find the deadly CD like killing device.

There are some super white gangsters that Dolph is after and they wind up in their own close encounter. A second alien shows up, this one is a cop and he's hunting Hues. He lets Dolph know what's going on before he kicks the bucket alien style.  Now, it's up to Dolph and Brian to toast the first alien scum's ass. You can see how here. We were all in agreement that the movie is a lot of fun and well worth seeing. It's got plenty of explosions and gun fire, some chases, some fights, and a bit of romance with Dolph and Betsy Brantley. I don't know if I need the Blu-Ray, I have a DVD already and that should do me.

30354 Hot Rod

There's a nice little poly bag at Target right now. Just a simple little Hot Rod. Only $3.49 for 38 pieces. I'm not usually interested in cars but I did like this one. I actually built it and the last couple of days I drive it around my table for a few seconds. Beats workin'.

Jonathan Creek Series 5

The 5th Series of Jonathan Creek aired back in early 2014 and there were only 3 episodes. Jonathan is played by Alan Davies and Polly is played by Sarah Alexander. Jonathan is back in the world of the theater in the first episode, first as a spectator, then helping figure out how the star got stabbed in her locked dressing room. Polly's father passes away at the start of the episode and they find a mystery in his house. They later decide to move into the house. In the second episode there's frightening things happening in the village, a strange beast, with green glowing eyes, has been seen at night in the woods. There's a mystery in a lottery number too. The third episode wraps it up with a dead guy in Jonathan and Polly's housekeeper. There's also a mystery involving a kidnapped woman. I enjoyed the episodes, I wish there were a few more. There's a recent Christmas Special, called Daemons' Roost, that I have ordered but it won't be here for a couple of weeks.

Not Going Out Series 5

Series 5 of Not Going Out aired back in April and May of 2012. There were 6 episodes and the show was averaging about 5 million viewers each week. That's averages about 19% of the watching public. Lee Mack stars as a guy called Lee. Sally Bretton is Lucy, she owns the flat that Lee sponges in. Tim Vine is Tim and Katy Wix is Daisy. It's pretty much a joke driven sitcom and there are plenty of jokes. I laughed at a bunch of them. The plots are pretty standard stuff with Lee getting in a pickle and trying to fix things up afterward. 

In the first episode Tim joins a band and enters a Battle Of The Bands Contest.  Lee's annoying shifty dad shows up to ruin the weekend in the second episode. His dad is a big ass and it's not surprising that Lee doesn't like to see him. The actor that plays Lee's Dad, Bobby Ball, is really great in the role. A camping trip turns into a nightmare when the car breaks down in the woods. Of course none of them are smart enough to have planed for that sort of thing.

Lee gets a sports massage from a prostitute that Tim sends around. That's her with Tim and Lee. How they got there is pretty dumb. This is the last series for Tim Vine, he left the show for some reason, and I miss his character. Lucy is encouraging men to check themselves for lumps in the 5th episode and finally heavy drinking leaves Lucy and Lee naked in her bed in the last episode. Neither can remember what happened.

All in all a good bunch of stories and lots of laughs. If you look you can find some of the episodes on YouTube.

The Hardy Boys Mysteries Season 3

I watched season 3 of The Hardy Boys Mysteries and it's even worse than the previous two seasons. There's no more Nancy Drew and Joe and Frank have been hired by the US Justice Department to work undercover on various cases. Joe's played by Shaun Cassidy and Frank is played by Parker Stevenson. The season only aired 10 episodes before it was cancelled, so there's that.

In the first episode, a 2 parter, Joe and Frank are in Los Angeles on vacation. Joe's met a young woman and he's asked her to marry him. Almost immediately she's killed in a hit and run accident.That whole opening segment with the main star of a show losing his love interest was cliched when it was repeated over and over on Bonanza back in the early 60s. Sadly it's still being used today.

Joe vows to get the guy but the Feds put a stop to that. The other driver is being watched by the FBI because of a robbery he was involved in two years earlier. The 1.5 Million bucks was never recovered. Joe is pissed and he starts after the guy and busts open the cop's case in 2 days. The Feds hire the brothers and their Dad Fenton Hardy, to come work with them.

The rest of the series has the guys get involved with different cases. One time they dig into strange goings on at an archeology dig for the lost city of Atlantis. Another time they help out a Russian defector. There's plenty of running about and lots of girls in bikinis. There's the odd fight and everyone seems to drive huge cars.

I'm sad that the series isn't better. I like the books and wish there was a better TV series to go with it. Disney did 2 series that appeared on The Mickey Mouse Club. They were in 19 parts of 15 minutes each. The first series was The Mystery Of The Applegate Treasure. It was released on DVD back in 2006. The second series was never out on DVD. Tommy Kirk and Tim Considine play the Hardy Boys as a bit younger than they were in the books. I watched the DVD and thoroughly enjoyed the production. You can see it in the link above. There's a Hardy Boys cartoon from the late 60s that is pretty awful, based on my seeing some bits of it on YouTube. It was aired against Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! on Saturday mornings and lost. The cartoon changed Chet Morton to Chubby Morton and gave him a screechy high pitched voice. The creators should be lined up for some Paul Naschy Skull Action.