PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

James Acaster's Perfect Sounds Podcast

James Acaster wrote a book called Perfect Sound Whatever, I read it and enjoyed it, even though I wasn't that interested in the music. It's about his breakdown, part of his way to deal with it was with music, he bought over 700 albums, all of them from 2016, and he's come to the conclusion that it was the best year for music, ever. Most people don't have 700 albums, especially 700 albums from one year. He's done a podcast about his obsession and he's invited all sorts of people, mostly British comedians and musicians, to talk music. I'm not so much interested in most of the music they talk about but it's usually interesting enough. I came for the comedy and I had a laugh. There are 99 episodes and they're all just under a half an hour. You can hear them on Apple Podcasts.

Fern Brady - Power and Chaos 2021

Fern Brady 2021 show Power and Chaos on YouTube. A nice set from Scottish comedian Fern Brady.

Bill Bailey - Larks In Transit

Bill Bailey's fairly recent show Larks In Transit is up on YouTube for those that might like a bit of a laugh with their music.

Science Fiction Sunday 675

Doctor Who 0061 The Curse Of Peladon Four part story that aired January 29 to February 19 1972. Written by Brian Hayles, directed by Lennie Mayne.

The Doctor takes the Tardis on a test drive, it lands him and Jo on the side of a mountain on the planet Peladon. The local government is hosting some aliens on a official visit to discus Peladon joining their federation. There's internal troubles, the High Priest is working against the King. The Doctor is mistaken for the emissary from Earth. He immediately sets about putting things right.

I watched this in 2013 and it was about as entertaining this time. I do like the 4 and 5 part stories better than the long ones.

Doctor Who 0062 The Sea Devils Six part story that aired February 26 to April 1 1972. Written by Malcolm Hulke, directed by Michael E Briant.

The Doctor goes to visit the Master in his island prison. On the boat trip over the Doctor hears about some ships that disappeared. On the boat trip back the Doctor and Jo visit an abandoned island fort, Jo gets attacked by a Sea Devil, they are related to the Silurians from an earlier story. The Doctor checks with the Navy after that and learns about the missing ships.

In the meantime it's revealed that the Master has convinced the prison manager Colonel Trenchard to help him in building a device to control the Sea Devils. He really wants to help the Sea Devils revive their race and attack the humans. The Doctor works hard to put a stop to that but plenty of humans and amphibians died that day.

Entertaining story that's got all the usual running about and yelling. The show got some help from the Navy and it's cool hovercraft.

Murdoch Mysteries Season 14

Murdoch Mysteries Season 14 aired January to March 2021 and there are only 11 episodes this season. There were no Halloween or Christmas episodes this year.

The character's typically complicated lives get a real workout this season. Murdoch finds out he has a son, the Inspector finds his younger son is in big trouble, the black lady coroner dates a white man in a very racist society, Constable Higgins brother in law creates his own sovereign nation in Pimlico, people find out about the Inspector's black daughter, Detective Watt's is revealed to be gay at a time when it's illegal, Constable Crabtree loses his girlfriend, again.

Murdoch, Dr Ogden, the Inspector and Constable Crabtree get tricked into a deadly escape room by an insane woman who was manipulated by another of Murdoch's enemies. There seems to be a steady stream of returning characters this season. Mostly a pretty good season. I'll have to wait for the 15th season to hit Blu-ray this summer, hopefully, I've no streaming service that has it. The incomplete season is up on YouTube but the image is often too poor to watch.

Friday Night Movies 875

Prisoners Of The Ghostland 2021 Written by Aaron Hendry and Reza Sixo Safai, directed by Sion Sono.

Post apocalypse world after a nuclear waste accident. It's all stylized and noisy and colorful. The story is nothing more than Nick Cage being forced to rescue a woman for a warlord. There's plenty of staring into the middle distance and some fights. Nick gets one of his nuts blown off. Sucks to be him.

It was entertaining sometimes, dull sometimes, funny sometimes, annoying sometimes. Glad to have seen it but doubt I would pick one up.

Frankenstein's Daughter 1958 Written by H E Barrie, directed by Richard E Cunha. We watched the new Blu-ray from The Film Detective. It looks quite nice.

 

A sad old scientist works in his home lab with an assistant. Felix Maurice Locher plays the old scientist and Donald Murphy plays Oliver Frank, the assistant, who turns out to be a direct descendant of the original Dr Frankenstein. Dr Frank has a secret room off the lab and he's building his own creature. He's also experimenting with a serum that makes people ugly, he's given it to the old scientist's daughter. She escapes the house and after running about the street scaring people she returns home to pass out on her bed. She only has hazy memories of the night.

 

Sandra Knight plays the daughter and John Ashley plays her boyfriend. Wolfe Barzell plays the Igor character and Harry Wilson plays the monster. They call the monster a woman because they used a woman's brain. Sadly, the makeup man didn't know the creature was supposed to be female. There wasn't any more money to redo the make up but they did put some lipstick on the lips. Same say that Cunha saw the mask and cried. I don't blame him.

The creature gets out and terrorizes the town. The police come and things don't go well for several people. It's entertaining while being below average. I'm not sure I'll buy the FD disc, I might not want to see it that often. I'll put it on my Wishlist. Who knows.

Murdoch Mysteries Season 13

Murdoch Mysteries Season 13 aired at the end of 2019 and into 2020, the show is currently near the end of broadcasting the 15th Season. I got the Season 13 Blu-ray some time ago and finally got around to watching it. Like the previous Blu-ray sets the picture is fine. There's little by way of extras, a short Q&A with Yannick Bisson and Daniel Maslany, that was recorded from a live stream by Acorn TV. Nice enough but nothing special there really.

There are 18 episodes and they still maintain a high quality of writing, there's some good amount of mystery in the murders, some humor, some serious personal drama, scads of social commentary and a good bit of delightful wackiness.

Detective Murdoch and Doctor Ogden get stalked by a monster in the Halloween episode, George Crabtree has his new book published and goes on a book tour, Doctor Ogden gets arrested for murder, the Inspector goes on a fox hunt that starts with a dead body and Murdoch gets arrested for murder. Some of those stories deal with morality but it's not heavy handed enough to be bothersome. I enjoyed the episodes, especially the more humorous ones. I look forward to Season 14, that's up next. It's a show that I can binge several episodes in a day.

Ladies Who Do 1963

Ladies Who Do 1963 Written by Michael Pertwee and John Bignall, directed by C M Pennington-Richards. Micheal is Jon's older brother.

I watched a copy off of YouTube but I see there is a DVD available on Amazon for for $6.51. I'd pay that for a nicer copy than the one on YouTube. I did find a better copy on the Internet Archive that is complete. The YouTube video has the end cut off the film, missing a whole gag. I wondered as the video ended with out credits but I also realize some of the people who post on YouTube are total bellends.

Those are the ladies who do, that's British slang for cleaning ladies who work in commercial offices or homes. I know a fair bit of British slang but I often run into people who aren't up on the lingo. Bellend is slang for dickhead. The lady in the middle is Peggy Mount, she does for Harry H Corbett.

That's Harry H Corbett on the right, the other fellow is Jon Pertwee, his partner in real estate development. Harry's big plan is to over extend himself financially and hope that all his long shots fall into place in order to meet his obligations. Peggy overhears the pair taking about a city take over bid that's failed. After they leave she takes an unused cigar out of the trash and passes it along to Robert Morley. Peggy is his part time cook and maid.

Robert's delighted with the cigar and he's even more delighted with the bit of paper it was wrapped in. It's a telegram that talks about the deal that Harry and Jon were talking about. Long story short, Robert bets his house on a stock deal and doubles his money.

Peggy is angered by Harry's comments about the locals, she joins with Robert and 3 other gals to form a company that will invest in stocks. They'll get their tips from the trash cans of the offices they work at. They do really well and crush Harry in the process.

All pretty much good fun with a little bit of mayhem tossed in to spice things up. One of Harry's better films, glad I got to see it. I'd watch it again someday. 

The Black Six 1974

The Black Six 1974 Written by George Theakos and directed by Matt Cimber. This is the second movie on the Alpha Video disc with The Black Gestapo. Sadly it's got an even worse script. The Black Six are a motorcycle gang, all 6 characters are played by 70s NFL football players, Gene Washington, Joe "Mean Joe" Green, Eugene "Mercury" Morris, Lemuel "Lem" Barney, Willie Lanie and Carl Eller. I didn't know any of them by name except Mean Joe. In the movie Gene's brother is killed by a white supremacist motorcycle gang for dating the leader's sister. The Black Six ride to the town to find out more. They get in some fights with the white supremacists and there's a big battle at the end of the film. It was apparently filmed with the Black Six dying but people didn't like the end. The film makers edited it so poorly that you can't tell what's going on during the battle. Really, it's a stunningly bad ending. The film makers need a bit of the old bish bash bosh from Paul Naschy's flaming skull. Apply liberally to their nether regions. You can check it out on YouTube above. I gave it a generous 2 on the IMDb. It's a stinker.

The Black Gestapo 1975

The Black Gestapo 1975 Story by Lee Frost, Wes Bishop and Ronald Goldman, screenplay by Lee Frost and Wes Bishop, directed by Lee Frost. It's a hard life being poor and black in Watts, the mob lays a heavy hand on the local black businesses. The all white gangsters rape their women and beat up their men. General Ahmed has started a small group to help the locals but they aren't too effective against the mob's thugs. After getting beat up pretty badly Ahmed lets Colonel Kojah start a more militant wing to protect the locals. That backfires as Kojah goes full on cray-cray and chops a mobsters balls off. He goes full on Nazi with his black shirted military unit. Ahmed gets tossed out of the group and he fights back to take down Kojah. I get the sentiment but the execution is pretty poor. There's no money and despite all the writers the script is weak. There's plenty of physical action but it's pretty poor. I gave it a generous 4 on the IMDb. I watched the Alpha Video DVD with The Black Six as a bonus. I'm off to watch that. You can watch the movie on YouTube, see link above.