PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Sir Henry At Rawlinson End 1980

 

Sir Henry At Rawlinson End 1980 Based on Vivian Stanshall's 1978 record of the same name, screenplay by Vivian Stanshall and Steve Roberts, directed by Steve Roberts. The idea started on the John Peel radio show in 1975. You can hear some of that material on YouTube. You can watch a nice documentary on Vivian here.

Here's the plot synopsis from the Wikipedia:

The plot of Sir Henry at Rawlinson End revolves around attempts to exorcise the ghost of Humbert, the brother of drunken aristocrat Sir Henry (Trevor Howard) who was accidentally killed in a drunken duck-shooting incident whilst escaping trouserless from an illicit tryst. It transpires that Humbert's ghost will not rest until it is supplied with replacement trousers. Until then the ghost walks the corridors of Rawlinson End, often accompanied by that of Humbert's dog Gums which has repossessed its own body, now stuffed and mounted on a trolley.

Amongst the eccentric family members, mad friends and grudgingly loyal servants involved are Hubert, Henry's other (earthworm fixated) brother, the eternally knitting Aunt Florrie, the tapeworm-obsessed Mrs. E, Lady Philippa of Staines (Liz Smith), who enjoys the odd 'small' sherry and the ever-present Old Scrotum, Sir Henry's wrinkled retainer.

It's all rather mad and not for everyone. I got a few laughs out of it but at times it's dragging along with nary a gag in sight. You might like it more than me. Click the links above and find out.

Calendar Girl 1947

Calendar Girl 1947 Story by Lee Loeb, screenplay by Mary Loos, Richard Sale and Lee Loeb, directed by Allan Dwan. It was re-issued in the US under the title Star Dust And Sweet Music.

It's a romantic musical comedy set in Greenwich Village in 1900. Two friends move there, one to paint and the other to compose music. The composer falls for a lady but she's more interested in the painter. The guys both get a shot at fame and fortune with some help from the locals in the artists boarding house they move into. There are a lot of musical numbers but the singing style is of little interest to me so I fast forwarded through some of the numbers. There's some fun jokes and situations, there are some that are less so. The cast is good and the direction better. It's not a big production, Republic Pictures wasn't that big a studio, a splash of cash could have beefed up the production and would have made it stand out a bit more. You can check it out in the link in the title. You might like it well enough. I wouldn't need to see it again, not sorry I saw it.

Cash On Demand 1961

Cash On Demand 1961 Based on the 1960 teleplay The Gold Inside by Jacques Gillies, screenplay by David T Chantler and Lewis Greifer, directed by Quentin Lawrence. Quentin was mostly a TV director, he worked on several shows I've seen like William Tell, The Invisible Man, Secret Agent, The Avengers, The Baron, and many more I haven't seen. He directed a couple of the Edgar Wallace Mysteries that came out in the UK in the early 1960s and The Crawling Eye. The Edgar Wallace's are quite good, TCE is about average but still entertaining.

Peter Cushing plays the Scrooge like bank manager. He's hard on his employees and a stickler for the rules. It's two days before Christmas and, as usual, he's not planning to attend the office Christmas party. André Morell plays a bank robber with a great plan. He'd tricked his way into the bank manager's office pretending to be an inspector with the insurance company. He's caught the staff off guard and then schooled them on their mistakes. André has gathered a lot of background on the bank and the staff buy into his logical sounding story.

André puts the frighteners on Peter, forcing him to follow the plan or see his wife and child harmed. André gets Peter to pack some cases with cash and makes it out of the bank. Things start to go wrong, the staff had decided to call the insurance company only to find the real inspector is in another town that day. The insurance has called the police and they arrive after André has left. Peter is in a panic about his family and tries to convince the police that it was a mistake. That's interrupted by the arrival of more police with André in handcuffs. What a predicament for poor Peter.

I really enjoyed it, the script is good, the cast is good, the story moves along at a nice clip and there's a good ending. Can't ask for much more. You can see a copy on YouTube, link in title above, or buy the movie on DVD or Blu-ray. Worth adding to any movie collection. I'll want to see it again someday.

Outerworld 1987

Outerworld 1987 Written and directed by Philip J Cook. The movie is listed on the IMDb as Beyond The Rising Moon, it's also been released as Star Quest: Beyond The Rising Moon, Caçada Estelar, Galaxy der Zeitlosen and Más allá de la luna. Philip followed this with Invader in 1992. I gave both movies a 4 on the IMDb. I've not see his 2003 film Despiser nor any of the Malace series of web videos. 

It's a low-budget space opera that's currently playing on Amazon Prime. The lady in the poster is a cyborg that was created in a lab, her purpose is to do underhanded stuff for a big corporation. When we meet her, she's with her supervisor Moesby, he wants her to intercept a delivery and bring him the package, she's to make sure the guards are dead so there are no witnesses.

Cyborg lady has questions, why does she have to kill the guards and when will she'll be free to live her own life. He tells her she'll never be free. He's a dick and she's an emotionless killing machine with self doubts. Right then, that's the moment you know Moesby's not gonna get out of this one alive.

Instead of delivering the package to Moesby cyborg lady runs off with the delivery and hooks up with a spacer who's got a small ship. The package contains the location of an ancient alien spacecraft, it's the second alien ship that the human's have found, the first was of great value to the finder, this could be an even better payout. Cyborg lady's boss wants that ship and he sends a bunch of his agents after her. They are little match for her in a fight. Eventually the big boss chases her to the world with the alien spacecraft but even he can't beat her. Big boss and Moesby go out in a blase of glory of their own making.

Like one of my complaints on Invader, this movie is well packed with cliches. The big corp ruthlessly trying to keep it's secrets is one of my least favorite plots. I wouldn't have been so tired of that plot driver in 1987 but it's such an easy plot device that everyone has had a go on it. It's a common plot in thrillers and dramas but I don't watch those sorts of films much. The actors are all about fair for a small picture, none of them have had long careers except for Michael Mack who played Moesby.

The movie has some nice physical models but the CGI is pretty basic. It gets the job done and there are a lot of scenes with ships in space. I gave it a 4 because I thought it was somewhat ambitious in effects area. Money would have helped make it look better but that would still leave the script. Sadly, the copy that AP has looks pretty poor, like it was taken from a video tape. I wonder if the DVD is better? Not that I'm going to buy one to find out, I wouldn't need to see it again.

Science Fiction Sunday 645

 

Doctor Who 013 The Web Planet Six part serial that aired February 13 to March 20 1965. Written by Bill Strutton and directed by Richard Martin.

I watched this back in November 2012 for the first time. Here's the post. I'm still thinking it's too long a story and I'm wondering if I'm doing myself a disservice in not watching all the extras. My post reminds me that I found them as much or more entertaining than the actual episodes. Maybe once all the Blu-rays are published I'll watch the series again and listen to the extras. Right now there's 8 out of 25 seasons out. On the whole I'm enjoying the stories even if I find the Doctor annoying at times.

 

Doctor Who 014 The Crusade Four part story that aired March 27 to April 17 1965. Written by David Whitaker and directed by Douglas Camfield.

I didn't get to see this story right after The Web Planet, the library had a bit of a wait list on the Lost In Time DVD, I got it about 3 weeks later. The Crusade is a serial that has 2 of the 4 episodes missing. There are audio recordings of them both and they are on the Bill Hartnell DVD in the 2 disc Lost In Time DVD set, the other disc has surviving episodes with Patrick Troughton as The Doctor.  The other two incomplete Bill Hartnell serials are The Daleks' Masterplan and The Celestial Toymaker. Here's my post for all three stories on the disc.

Friday Night Movies 844

Crypt Of The Vampire 1964 I thought I hadn't seen this movie before but it turned out I had. Sadly, it was only a short time ago. Here's the post from November 26 2018. I'd seen the movie under the title Terror In The Crypt on a Retromedia DVD. The version we watched was the new Severin Blu-ray box set of Vincent Price films. I haven't pulled out the Retromedia DVD to see what it looks like but I'm sure the Blu-ray is head and shoulders above.

Prospect 2018 Written and directed by Zeek Earl and Chris Caldwell.

Here's a newer SF that's fairly decent. It's about a teen girl called Cee and her father Damon. They are miners of a sort. The gems they want from the forest moon of a planet are found near the surface in a gooey pod. They need careful extraction, do the wrong thing and the gem is destroyed. Damon is good at this but Cee isn't trained. Their landing pod is damaged in the landing and they aren't where they were supposed to be. They were supposed to connect up with some mercenaries who have discovered a mother lode called the Queen's Lair. There's lots of money there but the mercenaries don't know the trick of gem mining.

On the trek to meet the mercs Damon is approached by two strangers while Cee is a little ways away. She takes a chance attacking but she only wounds the leader, a guy a called Ezra, in the arm. The other stranger shoots Damon at the same time Damon shoots him. Cee runs away and Ezra puts Damon out of his wounded misery. Cee and Ezra meet up a bit later and after Cee shots him they agree to work together. They ask for help from some locals, that goes bad and so does their encounter with the mercenaries. It's touch and go for them.

I've been watching a lot of newer SF off Amazon Prime, and often, it's not so good. Dull is usually what's going on. This was a step up from the usual fare of a low budget SF picture like you'd find on the SYFY channel. A lot of them are well below average for me. Prospect has good characters and decent dialog, nice scenery, and fairly good spaceships. I might not need to buy a copy but I enjoyed watching it much more than most modern SF films.

Enid Blyton For Grown Ups by Bruno Vincent

Enid Blyton For Grown Ups by Bruno Vincent

In the fall of last year I picked up a whole lot of misc Enid Blyton books by scouring the cheap booksellers on eBay. Most of them were $3-5 with free shipping. They arrived with minimal wrapping but usually the books were in fine shape. A couple of the books I bought were in the Enid Blyton For Grown Up series. I wanted to try a couple to see if I might want to continue reading the series. I liked the first one I read and decided to order the lot. Like the other Enid Blyton's I had picked up cheaply on eBay I got most of these for the same $3-5, for some reason the last couple were harder to find on eBay and wound up costing in the $15 range.

There are 15 books in the series. Five were released in 2016, nine were released in 2017 and the last one in 2020. Even though Enid gets credit for the series on the cover the books were really written by Bruno Vincent, except for the one by Sophie Hamley. Bruno's the better writer of the two and I came to enjoy the adventures of the Famous Five in their late 20s. There's usually something odd going on and there's plenty of sarcasm. I often laughed to myself and several of the books had a gag that made me laugh out loud. Each book is based on an activity or an event in their lives, the titles give you a good idea on what's on offer. They go sober for a month, try dieting, deal with housing, Brexit and their families. I'd recommend them but if you don't know anything about the Famous Five it seems like it could be a waste of time to read them. Mostly I just wanted to post all the covers in one lump.

 

Five Give Up the Booze 2016

Five Go Gluten Free 2016

 

Five Go On A Strategy Away Day 2016

Five Go Parenting 2016

 

Five On Brexit Island 2016

Five Forget Mother's Day 2017

 

Five Lose Dad In The Garden Centre 2017

Five Get Beach Body Ready 2017

 

Five At The Office Christmas Party 2017

Five Escape Brexit Island 2017

 

Five Get Gran Online 2017

Five Get On the Property Ladder 2017

 

Five Go Bump In The Night 2017

Five Go Down Under 2017 Sophie Hamley

Five Go Absolutely Nowhere 2020

The Freakmaker 1974

The Freakmaker 1974 Written by Edward Mann and Robert D Weinbach, directed by Jack Cardiff. Originally released at The Mutations. Heavily influenced by Tod Browning's Freaks.

Donald Pleasence is a scientist who wants to merge humans with plants to create superior beings. Donald has Tom Baker, and some little people, kidnap subjects for his experiments. Tom is a heavily deformed man who co-owns a circus freak sideshow with Michael Dunn. Turns out Donald's not so good at his job and the failures that live are turned over to Tom to put on display. Donald hopes to help Tom look more normal with his science and Tom is getting impatient for something to happen. Tom's a horrible man who treats his employees poorly. He really hates them and they aren't too friendly with them either.

Things fall apart for our characters as the movie progresses and the tension builds between Tom and Donald and the sideshow people. It's a bleak tale with an appropriate ending. It's a bit pokey and tends to wander off the story with odd visual scenes. You can try it out on YouTube, the link is in the title above. It's a creepy thing with some gore and violence. It's not outstanding but it is unusual. Some of the make up is rather ludicrous, that's the movie's weakest point but it still manages to deliver an odd story that kept me interested to the end. I hadn't seen the movie since I'd first seen it in 1994 so I had forgotten what it was all about. I'd watch it again, hopefully sooner than 27 years.

Clarkson's Farm 2021

I really enjoyed Clarkson's Farm with Jeremy Clarkson on Amazon Prime. Jeremy spends a year growing crops on his Cotswolds farm.He'd already lived on the farm but the fields were being farmed by a local man who lived in the village. He retired and Jeremy took over, despite having any farming knowledge and a penchant for buying the biggest tractor.

It started airing a couple of weeks ago and there are 8 episodes about 40 mins each. Jeremy picked a really poor time to be taking over the farm, 8 weeks of rain at planting season, followed by covid and a drought.

Still, he struggles along with the help of his girlfriend Lisa Hogan, hired hand Kaleb Cooper and a handful of locals. It's a reality show that's a bit like Green Acres but with more swearing. It made me laugh, quite a bit, but I like to see Jeremy struggle with his environment.

Ozone 1993

Ozone 1993 Written by David A Wagner and JR Bookwalter, directed by JR Bookwalter. The DVD I watched was released under the title of Street Zombies. It was ma de on a $3500 budget in Akron Ohio. Ozone is a drug that mutates humans. Detective Eddie and his Mike are kidnapped by some Ozone addicts, Eddie is injected with the drug. He gets away and has some weird hallucinations. He goes looking for Mike and finds the drug dealer who makes Ozone. The head man has been taking so much Ozone he's mutated into a big ugly guy who has plans of world domination. Eddie battles it out with the Ozone in his body and the Ozone gang. There's plenty of fights and all sorts of mutants. Their make up is fairly good for not costing much of anything. That's really the most ambitious part of the movie. The basic premise is pretty standard stuff, it would have been a more interesting film with better production values and actors but it's what we got. Someone was nice enough to give me their old DVD so I could watch it. I'd even watch it again someday.