Xtro

 

The Golden Age Of Top Of The Pops

002: The Olympic Runners

Out Of The Darkness

'Out Of The Darkness' is a surprisingly effective Children's Film Foundation mash up of 'Lost Hearts' and 'The Wickerman' set in delightful Derbyshire. It was written and directed by John Krish, an under-rated stalwart of domestic film and TV who is personally responsible for a number of iconic moments in British culture, not least of which some great documentaries and chilling public information films like 'The Finishing Line' and 'Last Minute'.

The story concerns three annoying kids on holiday who, one by one, see the ghost of a boy from the 17th century. The boy was an inhabitant of Eyam, a nearby village stricken by the black death when a contaminated roll of cloth was sent up to the local tailor from that London, causing an outbreak that eventually killed 75% of the inhabitants. Bravely, the village chose to quarantine itself and wait out its fate (this all actually happened, by the way, making Eyam is an extremely interesting place to visit). In this story, however, one young man escaped, only to be driven to his death by the terrified inhabitants of the next village. Once every hundred years, his unquiet, dirty faced spirit returns in search of redemption and a Christian burial.

Atmospheric, very occasionally hallucinatory, the film benefits by surefooted direction and by being a lot grimmer than the CFF's usual knockabout fare. The Derbyshire landscape, with its wide open spaces and dark confined places is nicely exploited, and there's a genuine sense of mild panic as the story reaches it's climax although, perhaps in order to stop any potential nightmares in its youthful audience, the film ends happily and with a big old tea party. Good stuff, and nice looking sandwiches.

Valerie Leon, Super Nurse

The frankly flipping gorgeous Valerie Leon plays a very accommodating nurse in the somewhat heavy handed 1967 Johnny Speight TV satire 'If There Weren't Any Blacks, You'd Have To Invent Them'. It's unbelievable what you used to be able to get on the NHS, isn't it?  

A Horrifying Excursion

‘Paranoiac’ is one of those stylish, squiffy supporting feature thrillers that Hammer quietly excelled at in the sixties although, sports cars and Hush Puppies modernism aside, it could just as easily have formed part of their better known Gothic cycle. It’s about a haunted house, after all, and is as morbid as hell - choc-a-bloc with murder and madness and desiccated corpses and organ playing in the dark. Oh, and darts.

It’s also about the 25 year old Oliver Reed, excellent here as the febrile Simon, a bag of neuroses in a bruiser’s body– an overgrown, over-wrought child who drinks too much, drives too fast and has a dirty, nasty, nutty secret which has driven him around the bend. He’s in good company, though, as more or less everyone in the story is absolutely barking mad – except for the hero, who is a fraud and a criminal. It’s a wonderful advertisement for country living, and a nice summary of upper class values that still rings true today.

The story, which twists and turns before skidding through a hedge and hurtling off a cliff, is competently and cleanly directed in crisp black and white by Freddie Francis, perhaps the most interesting of all Hammer helmsmen. The dénouement is a thick, fat slice of Grand Guignol, and is absolutely delicious. I must have seen this film a dozen times. I never tire of it.

Paranoiac

Derren Nesbitt, Actor

 

Derren Nesbitt is one of the great British characters, capable of creating hugely interesting characters wherever he goes, especially when it comes to bad guys. A powerful presence and scene stealer, he pinches everything that isn't nailed down in a 1964 episode of 'Gideons Way' called 'The Tin God', playing a super-confident, super-smooth psycho bastard with great hair called John 'Benny' Benson. Benson breaks out of prison in order to kill his his wife, who turned him in because she realised he was a monster - and, true to form, the bastard plans to ruthlessly uses his adoring son as bait to bring her to him. 

Dez is great - at first he's charming and funny and likeable - although clearly something of a rogue. As soon as you warm to him, however, he commits an unnecessary, furtive murder and you realise that you've fundamentally misjudged him: he's a psycho. 

Just for company, he takes a seemingly pre-pubescent John Hurt along for the ride. Then makes him drive. Then shoots him when things don't work out. Hurt looks ridiculously young (he's actually 24, which still seems ridiculously young to me given my advanced age) and hasn't yet developed his trademark voice, equal parts whine and gravel. 

The son is played by a 14 year old Michael Cashman, later to become Colin in 'Eastenders' and, since 1999, a Member of the European Parliament, although I always think of him as Terhew in 'Unman, Wittering and Zigo' for some reason.

All these older people seen when much younger gives me an idea for a new feature, but I think the title will need some work. 

Portrait Of A People

012: Neville Shannon, Engineering Works Manager

TOMTIT IS HERE

Free Download

I'm in TOMTIT, and this is our first release, nearly six minutes of electronic music and total nonsense. Try it.

Interesting Postcards

Cavendish Hotel
Eastbourne
Tel: 27401
Hotel photograph includes new Devonshire Wing.

These Britons on holiday in Britain are doing what Britons on holiday in Britain always end up doing: making the best of it. On that unforgiving beach, under the relentless scrutiny of older people in deckchairs and in the shadow of the monstrous, unsympathetic new Devonshire Wing, the adults smile and try and look like they're having the time of their lives. To their right, however, their daughter undermines their plucky efforts with a simple but eloquent gesture of abject despair.

The back of the postcard says it all.

Boxes of Tricks

A selection of marvellously un-portable training and teaching devices from the Modernist era.

Portrait Of A People

011: An NHS patient tests some 
state of the art equipment.