PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Dateline Diamonds 1965

Dateline Diamonds 1965 Original idea by Harold Shampan, screenplay by Tudor Gates, directed by Jeremy Summers. A British crime film set in the world of pop music.

A ex-military man is in the stealing diamonds biz, he blackmails a guy who is the manager of the Small Faces into helping him steal the diamonds and smuggle them out of the UK.

Conrad Phillips plays the Inspector who is after the diamond thief, he's got some help from a foreign inspector. The crooks use the pirate radio ship to transfer the diamonds.

The Small Faces are joined by The Chantelles, Kiki Dee and Mark Richardson. It's the performers lip-syncing to the music. Sadly it's often so poorly mixed with crowd noise it's hard to hear what's being played. The weak music only makes the below average script look worse. Not a film I'd recommend to anyone much. You can check it out on YouTube. Link above.

Be My Guest 1965

Be My Guest 1965 Story and screenplay by Lyn Fairhurst, produced and directed by Lance Comfort. A British film shot at Pinewood Studios and was released as a the B movie for the Morecambe and Wise film The Intelligence Men. It was the sequel to Live It Up! 

David  Hemmings is in a band with his mate Steve Marriott. David's parents have inherited a seaside hotel. The band helps get customers to stay at the hotel. That's pretty much the plot, the rest of the movie is filled with musical numbers by a diverse group of musicians.

It was fun and breezy. I skipped up through a few of  the musical numbers. Others might like them more.

Get Crazy 1983

Get Crazy 1983 Written by Danny Opatoshu, Henry Rosenbaum and David Taylor, directed by Allan Arkush.

I'd been sad that there hadn't been a real DVD release of Get Crazy for ages. There was a 1984 VHS release that I saw when we used to rent movies. I loved it, it remains one of my favorite movies. I watch it every so often, I'm sure I've seen it more than a dozen times. It's the kind of musical I like. All the songs are great, especially all the versions of Hoochie Koochie Man. The film's setting is a Fillmore theater like rock venue on New Years Eve. I've never watched it on New Years Eve.

I've got a copy of the VHS tape and had copied that to DVD 15 years ago. You make do. Since I don't follow the new releases anymore I was surprised to see the movie offered on both DVD and Blu-ray. I got the latter.

The movie looks nice and the Blu-ray has some good extras. There's a 75 minute documentary created by Allan using zoom interviews. It's packed with info and interviews with many of the actors and crew. That where I learned that in 2019 Kino-Lorber had come into possession of the missing film elements and sound track. They wanted to put out the DVD. It took a while to get done but the wait was worth it.

There's a commentary with Allan Arkush, director Eli Roth and film historical Daniel Kremer. That was pretty entertaining. The other extras are 3 music videos, Allan on Trailers From Hell, and something involving fan fiction that I never bothered with. Well worth it for me.

The Good Companions 1957

The Good Companions is a 1957 British musical comedy based on the 1929 novel by JB Priestly. It's been made into numerous stage and radio plays, films and TV programs since 1931. The 1957 film has a screenplay by TJ Morrison, additional dialog from John Whiting and JL Hudson, with J Lee Thompson directing.

The Dinky Doos are a musical road company fallen on hard times. Hardly anyone comes to see their shows anymore. Lucky for them, a rich lonely lady comes to their rescue. Things are rocky for a while but a star emerges and makes good.

There's a good cast in Eric Portman, Celia Johnson, Hugh Griffith, Janette Scott, John Frazer, and several more I didn't know. It's a mix of drama and music with a bit of comedy. I didn't care that much for the music but I got through with the help of the speed control. Could have been a lot worse.

Play It Cool 1962

Play It Cool is a British musical from 1962. Its directed by Michael Winner with a screenplay by Jack Henry. Billy Fury is the singer in a band who are trying to get to Spain for a band contest. They get on the plane but it gets turned back. On board is a rich guy's daughter that the press are hounding. She hooks up with the band for noisy fun at some London nightspots. There's plenty of music but it's dull stuff, man, I can't swing to it. It got fast forwarded through. I don't have time to waste on dull pop songs by people I don't know. It's a comedy but they're short on jokes, what with the music and all. I liked the characters some and that's always a good thing. I'd watch it again someday.

What A Crazy World 1963

What A Crazy World is another of the series of films that Network is putting out under their series The British Film. They also put out lots of other films and TV shows. The DVDs in The British Film series are pretty bare bones, extras wise, but they have nice transfers and good sound. Many of the films haven't had a video release before. I'm just picking them at random from Amazon UK. I'm not doing any research ahead of time.

What A Crazy World stars Joe Brown, Marty Wilde and Susan Maughan, three stars of British pop that I didn't know anything about. It's a musical so they're singing their way through the picture. The story is about Joe wanting to be a singer and song writer. He's a bit of a layabout, hanging with dodgy Marty, and ignoring his girlfriend Susan. Harry H Corbett and Avis Bunnage are Joe's parents. They get a chance to sing a bit too. Michael Ripper, a regular over at Hammer Films, plays a series of roles, the common man who's bothered by Joe and his pals.

Alan Klein wrote the play that the movie was based on, he also wrote the music and lyrics. Even though the movie came out in 1963 the songs are more like 1950s pop. They're pretty light weight, commenting on the characters life and love, but they do add to the story. Michael Carreras directed, he also co-wrote the screenplay with Alan Klein. It's filmed around London's East End. I really enjoyed the street scenes. I gave it a 6 on the IMDb, the music is the weak link. Still, well worth seeing.

Not The Messiah: He's A Very Naughty Boy 2010

I got Not The Messiah: He's A Very Naughty Boy from the library. It's a 2010 concert of music from various Monty Python productions. I kind of got bored in the middle but the end was more fun with the lumberjack song. Only 6 of the Python's appear, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Carol Cleveland, Neil Innes and Terry Gilliam. No John Cleese for some reason. Not one that I would need to buy.

Mr Toad's Wild Ride 1996

Mr Toad's Wild Ride is the Disney re-title of the 1996 British film The Wind In The Willows. Disney wanted it to tie in with the ride of the same name at Disney World. The ride closed down 2 years later. Disney sucks on this one. Terry Jones wrote the screenplay and directed the film. He's joined by three of the remaining Pythons, John Cleese, Eric Idle and Michael Palin. I read that Terry Gilliam was busy with 12 Monkeys and couldn't join them.

Terry Jones plays Mr Toad, Eric Idle plays Ratty, Steve Coogan plays Mole, Nicol Williamson plays Mr Badger, Michael Palin plays the Sun, Nigel Planer plays the Car Salesman, John Cleese plays Mr Toad's Lawyer, Julia Sawalha plays the Jailer's Daughter, Stephen Fry plays the Judge and Bernard Hill plays the Engine Driver.

It's a musical but, luckily for me, there's more mayhem than music. It was fun enough for me to get to the end and have a bit of a laugh. No big belly laughs but you can't always expect that. There's good acting, costumes and sets. There's a nice bit of collateral damage. It's a pretty and colorful looking film and there are plenty of explosions. There's acres of nice scenery and then they crash a train. As you can see, a film with a good balance of elements, is often entertaining. I'm glad I noticed this on Netflix and took a look.

Gay Purr-ee 1962

I'd seen a copy of the Gay Purr-ee comic book at DreamHaven and I didn't recognize the title. I'm pretty sure that I hadn't seen the movie before. After watching it, I think I'm right, nothing seemed familiar. It's a 1962 UPA picture with a cast of big names. It was written by Dorothy Jones and Chuck Jones with additional dialog by Ralph White. Abe Levitow is the director and he's credited with an uncredited writing credit. Abe has directed some good and bad cartoons over the years. Much of it I wouldn't want to watch again. Chuck Jones is, of course, the Bugs Bunny guy, he did some good cartoons, though not always my favorites of the Warner Brothers cartoons, and he dod some lame cartoons near the end of his career. Chuck and Abe co-directed the 1970 cartoon of The Phantom Tollbooth. Sadly, the script Chuck and company turn in for Gay Purr-ee isn't as interesting as that. Warner Brothers was the distributor for Gay Purr-ee, when they found out Chuck had been involved with the film, he was fired from Warner Brothers for breaking the exclusivity clause in his contract. It was something coming and they used the opportunity to close down the Warner Brothers Animation Department. They laid off the staff and didn't even finish the cartoon they were working on. Jones hired many of them to work at his own newly created studio.

I read it was a box office disappointment on the Wikipedia. That might explain why it wasn't around much for me to see it. I was also living in Churchill at the time of it's release. There was a likely hood that it never made it there. My brother and I were going to the movies every Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. There was only the one theater and that meant not everything got shown in town.

They cast all those singers because there's shit load of songs. They aren't the best songs but they're in the movie so I have to deal with them. The story is about a young female cat, played by Judy Garland, who is lured to Paris, by a sleazy cat, played by Paul Frees, and then sold into white slavery. At least, she'd was being groomed to be the mail-order-bride to a big fat rich guy in the US by the slimy cat played by Hermione Gingold. It's all against Judy's will. Judy's rescuer is the cat that Robert Goulet plays and Red Buttons plays his annoying sidekick. Mel Blanc, Morey Amsterdam, Joan Gardner and Julie Bennett are also in the cast.

Judy is a dim bulb of a cat and it's her own stupidity that gets her into trouble. I was glad to have gotten the movie from Netflix. I didn't find it that entertaining. I was often distracted by anything lying near me when it was going on, my phone, some dirt, a spec on the monitor, a sure sign my attention is flagging.

The animation in the film is not up to the stuff that these guys did in the 1950s. It's serviceable, and better than the Hanna Barberra productions on the TV of the time. I was glad not to have bought a copy, yet a lot of people on the IMDb sure seem to like the movie very much. They gave it a 6.9 score. Oh, well, that's show biz.

A moment of pure beauty