PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Chain Of Events 1958

Chain Of Events is a good reminder that weaselly men are such a bother. The movie started as a radio play by Leo McKern, yes, the guy who played Rumpole, it's his only writing credit. The screenplay is by Patrick Brawn and Gerald Thomas is the director. Patrick would go onto be a story editor on The Avengers and he wrote 4 scripts for the series. The rest of his credits aren't material I'm familiar with. I can't say the same for Gerald Thomas, I've seen 29 of the Carry On movies he's directed as well as the Carry On Laughing episodes.

Chain Of Events isn't a comedy, it's all about the chain of events that came from a  weaselly man not buying a ticket on the bus. He gives a false name, that of a rich man who runs a newspaper, and that guy winds up in court. He blusters angrily and the court finds in favor of the bus company. A reporter knows that the rich guy has a mistress and he blabs to his gal in a pub. A weaselly reporter overhears and joins with a weaselly crook to put the bite on the rich guy. The mistress hears about it and tells her weaselly, and crooked, boyfriend about the lost lolly. The boyfriend plots to be there for the next installment. He is and a lot of coincidences plant 3 in the ground.

It's a fairly decent film, the story is pretty tight as the running time is only an hour, so it moves along briskly. I enjoyed the film, though I did think the ending was a bit too ironic with the weaselly fare man's demise. Mind you I can't say that I couldn't see that happening in real life. Those sort of delicious ironies are often enjoyed by the public. Glad to have picked this on up. I'll watch it again someday.

The Amorous Prawn 1962

A nice little comedy is The Amorous Prawn, a 1962 British film from Covent Garden Films, it's part of The British Film series from Network. Anthony Kimmins directed the movie and it would be his last. He adapted his own play and co-wrote the screenplay with Nicholas Phipps. He previously wrote and directed some films for George Formby and The Captain's Paradise with Alec Guinness.

The US title was The Playgirl And The War Minister. Isn't that an awful title? I get that the Prawn title might be confusing but that US title doesn't seem like it would attract seat fillers. The Wikipedia says the US title was trying to tie the movie to the Profumo Affair. Ministers, of any kind, shouldn't be banging those young girls. It just leads to trouble, they aren't smart enough to keep their shenanigans secret.

There's a great cast, I knew several of them: Ian Carmichael, Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker, Dennis Price, Liz Frazer and Michael Ripper. The story is pretty simple, the wife of a retiring General wants a house they just can't quite afford, they need £700 plus some moving expenses. Before the General hangs up his hat he has a mission that will take him out of the country for a couple of months. In order to make some money the wife enlists the staff of the house to turn the Military mansion into a fishing lodge for a couple of rich Americans. Things would go smoothly but it's a comedy and all sorts of trouble pops up. It's why those poor ladies are in their underwear. Eventually it all works out pretty well. It's no gut buster but I enjoyed the goings on and I'm glad to have picked it up.

Man Down Series 3

Series 3 of Man Down was even more crazy and funny than Series 1 & 2. That's saying something because those previous episodes were fuckin' hilarious. Greg Davies plays Dan, Roisin Conaty plays Jo and Mike Wozniak plays Brian. They're all at various levels of dysfunction and life is always dealing them major body blows. Stephanie Cole and Gwyneth Powell plays Greg's mother and aunt. Both are bonkers and pains in Greg's side. Guests this season include Tony Robinson, Isy Suttie, Ed Gamble, Reginald D Hunter, Steven Berkoff and Mark Hamill.

Greg Davies is the series creator and he co-writes each episode with some other writers. Greg is 6 foot 8 inches, kind of fat, and totally committed to making me laugh. He does a marvelous job with all the anger, joy, confusion and fear in Dan's life. His scripts are a nice combination of darkly subtle and wildly physical. Normally Dan seems to attract violence to his face, especially his nose, but series 3 puts a major pain in Dan's knee and kicks his face in as well. Dan often ends the episode in bandages. I watched a crappy copy of Series 3 on YouTube and was happy to see them. Wish they'd pop them out on DVD someday. I'm hoping that season 4 will turn up on YouTube. I'm betting I'll be laughing and who doesn't like that.

Miss Nymphet's Zap-In 1970

Did you know there was a nudie parody of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In? It's called Miss Nymphet's Zap-In and it came out back in 1970. It might be notable for being a parody of the TV program but the director adds a bit of interest for the title. Herschell Gordon Lewis wrote and directed the film under the name Sheldon Seymour. Sadly, Herschell is a better director than he is a gag smith and he's not that great of a director. At least there are a lot of boobies. There's nothing much else to say. I might watch it again someday, I'll keep the movie with my other Herschell Gordon Lewis films.

Monster From Green Hell 1957

I don't remember ever seeing Monster From Green Hell before. It's a 1957 giant monster movie, written by Louis Vittes and Endre Bohem, direction by Kenneth G Crane. I had heard of the writers, they worked on some decent shows in the 50s and 60.

Crane on the other hand was mostly a film editor, he only directed 4 films, When Hell Broke Loose was next and that was followed by the US scenes used in Half Human, those were followed by The Manster. An odd lot of films, huh, and all of it happened in 1957 and 1958.

The story is about a space test rocket that stays up for 40 hours and then falls into Africa. Some months later the area is plagued with suspicious animal and human death. Jim Davis plays a scientist, one of the men with the rocket, and he suspects the deaths might have something to do with his rocket. He goes off to Africa to investigate.

It's filled with what seem to be endless jungle scenes, so many in fact, they had to borrow some footage from Stanley And Livingstone. The story is fairly good, giant wasps, but the execution is weak. It was fun enough but it knows it's below average and so do I.

Crypt Of Dark Secrets 1976

Crypt Of Dark Secrets shares the disc with The Naked Witch. CODS is a 1976 voodoo nudie film set in the Louisiana swamps. Jack Weis wrote the screenplay, from a story by Irwin Blache, and directed.  An ex-Vietnam vet goes to live on an island in the bayou, the local sheriff talks him into opening a bank account, a local thief overhears the vet has money in cash at home. The robbery leaves the vet dead in the river, a local witch revives him and they get some revenge.

There's more nudity in this film than The Naked Witch but it's not a lot better, story wise. It's better filmed and there's some OK shots of the bayou. I'd watch it again but it's going to be a while.

The Naked Witch 1961

Larry Buchanan is a Texas film maker who works in the world of low-low-budgets. The Naked Witch is his third feature, it was shot in 1960, copyright 1961, released in 1964. Larry wrote and directed with Claude Alexander. Claude is also the producer. It cost 8 grand and made 80 grand in the box office and Larry got to make some more films.

A university student travels to Luckenbach Texas to study the Germans who live there. He stays at the inn, talks to people, looks around and accidentally releases a witch. The witch has some vengeance in mind, she was betrayed by the ancestor of the family that owns the inn. She kills a couple of the family before the student puts a stop to that.

There's not much story, it's lacklusterly told, and not that interesting to look at either. For a movie marketed as "an Adult picture" there's hardly any nudity and the witch's seductive dancing falls short. Some of the nudity is covered up with a black strip. Generally it just wasn't that exciting, I might never get around to it again, though I'll keep the Something Weird disc as it has another movie on it. I did like some of the Larry Buchanan commentary and there's a interview with Claude Alexander. There's some short of various quality and interest and quite a number of trailers.

Science Fiction Sunday 542

Nothing to exciting in the 6 episodes of Space: Above And Beyond today. There's a theme that runs through the series, some of the characters are genetically engineered, called In Vitroes and created in labs, they are looked down upon by humans. Two of the main characters are IVs. That's a human and a Silicate in the picture above, the Silicate is an android that was created many years earlier. The Silicates revolted, there was a war, IVs were used to fight the Silicates and the Silicates lost. Some Silicates remain, bent on killing humans they often work for the alien enemy. It's not a very nice future. Some of the episodes I watched today were better than the pilot and the first couple of episodes. Hopefully there will be a few more like that. I'll find out.

Friday Night Movies 737

Dead Ant turned out to be a whole lot of fun. Ron Carlson is the director and he co-wrote the story with Dan Sinclair and Hank Braxtan. Ron also wrote the screenplay. 

Sonic Grave, a bunch of dumb rockers, and their manager head into the desert to go to Coachella. Little does the band know that their manager has had to book them into the lesser Noachella, Coachella didn't want them. Tom Arnold is their manager, Jake Busey, Sean Austin, Natasha Blasick, Rhys Coiro are in the band and Leisha Hailey is Jake's girlfriend. They're all travelling in a Coldstream camper cross the desert. They stop and get some peyote from Michael Horse and Danny Woodburn. It's a powerful drug that comes with a warning. Don't hurt any living creature and you'll be OK. Kill something and it will come after you.

Sean takes some peyote before anyone else and he wondered into the desert. After he kills an ant, a larger ants attack him. More ants are killed and even bigger ants come out of their holes in the ground. Soon the ants are the size of cows and things seem hopeless for our rockers. A Slim Whitman style solution is worked out and the day saved. All in all it was a lot of fun and I'm putting the Blu-ray on my want list. I'll want to watch it again.

Same for the 20th episode of the first season of The Avengers. It was thought to be lost but a copy turned up in 2016. The DVD has the entire episode and it sure looks better than I would have expected. Ian Hendry and Patrick Macnee are the main stars, Ian is Doctor David Keel and Patrick is John Steed. Ian would leave after the first series. There are three intact episodes of the 26 made. There's a 20 minute chuck of a fourth also.

The 20th episode was called Tunnel Of Fear and it was written by John Kruse and directed by Don Leaver. John would work on The Saint, Strange Report, The Persuaders!, The Protectors, The Professionals among others. 

Steed and Keel investigate an escaped convict who comes to the Doctor's surgery. That leads them to a funfair in Southend. There's kidnapping, spying, a Ghost Train, dancing girls and hypnotism. Looks like a fun funfair. The episode was fairly good and I wished they had more of them.

Alan Carr - Yap, Yap, Yap! 2015

Yap, Yap, Yap! is Alan Carr's 2015 comedy tour. I got the DVD today and had a look after lunch. There's almost 90 minutes of material with Alan going on about Jack the Ripper Tours, finding love, shopping, his teeth and other stuff. I enjoyed this show as much as the others.