F*** Me, It's Freddie!

FMIF as a twitchy but immaculately dressed reporter in 'Assault' (1971).

Thanks to the legendary Freddie Jones for holding the fort. We'll be back open for business tomorrow. See you then.

Best Tasted Cold?

'Revenge' is pretty tough going. It all takes place in the aftermath of that most heinous of crimes, the abduction, rape and murder of a child and, not surprisingly, this hangs over the film like a dark pall of cloying, choking black smoke.

When the chief suspect is released without charge, the bereaved family take the law into their own hands - they kidnap the man, beat him up, and tie him to a chair in a pub cellar. They haven't the nerve to kill him, however, so, as time passes, the insidious presence of the man begins to pull the family apart, especially when he is able to start sowing seeds of doubt about his guilt...

Beefy James Booth plays the father, Joan Collins the new stepmother who has a simmering, dangerous relationship with her grown up stepson. The most difficult part is that of the suspected molester / murderer, played here with sleazy, wheedling aplomb by Kenneth Griffith. Griffith, with his milk bottle specs, bad teeth and flasher mac, is a loathsome creature, a stereotypical kiddie fiddler - if you can be certain that he is the murderer, that is - if not, he could just be another sad, lonely misfit in ill-fitting, badly made 70's clothes.

A film that raises some interesting questions, 'Revenge' is downbeat and deadly serious. The world it portrays reminds me of 'The Offence', a shadowy, terrifying place where justice and injustice are hard to tell apart, where pleasures are warm beer, sixty Embassy Number One's a day and Joan Collins in her bra and pants, where violence is contagious, and the overwhelming desire to smash something or someone into atoms is both a symptom of the disease and the cure.

Produced by 'Carry On' mogul Peter Rogers, perhaps this grim offering was (along with 'Assault') his way of getting as far away as possible from the franchise that paid his mortgage. If it was, it worked: unless you have a very odd sense of humour, you'd have to look forever with an electron microscope to locate a thin smile here, let alone a titter or a hyuk yuk yuk.

Revenge

Towering Terror

'Circus of Horrors' is one of those fantastically over the top Anglo-Amalgated horror films that so disgusted the Establishment and titillated audiences in the late fifties and early sixties with their relentless sex, perversity and sadism. This one is about an insane plastic surgeon who uses the anonymity and mobility of a big top show to continue his (actually pretty successful) experiments, pausing now and again to knock off people who might blow his cover. 

Fifty years on, it's more circus than horrors, more schlock than shock, although the acts (supplied, of course, by Billy Smart) are excellent, there are some very attractive ladies, an enjoyably manic performance from Anton Diffring and an interesting shared subtext with 'Peeping Tom' (another Anglo release in the same year) - that hideous disfigurement can be a bit of a turn on.

Here's the trailer. Sadly it doesn't really feature the stuffed bear that sees off Donald Pleasence, or indeed the man in a gorilla suit who causes a lot of problems for Anton Diffring, but don't let that put you off - it's very informative in all other respects. 

Circus of Horrors

Burn, Witch, Burn

I'm generally of the opinion that if Peter Wyngarde is in something, then it surely must be, ipso flipping facto, great. Sometimes, as with 'Night Of The Eagle' ('Burn, Witch, Burn' in the US), that theory does actually stand up to closer scrutiny.

Peter plays Norman Taylor, a successful psychology professor and star of a prestigious college somewhere leafy and posh. Taylor’s specialist subject is what a lot of rubbish the supernatural is, so imagine his distaste when he finds out that his wife, Tansy, is a witch. Disgusted, he forces her to burn all of her magical charms and talismans, never stopping to wonder why they’re emitting sparks and puffs of glittery smoke. When a picture of Norman accidentally falls into the flames, it sets off a chain of inexplicable events, ranging from a near fatal car crash to an accusation of rape, and putting them both in mortal danger. In order to save his wife (and himself), Norman will not only have to recognise the power of the occult world, but to participate in its magic and ritual…

‘Night Of The Eagle’ is a cracking film: full of atmosphere, economical and believable, and with several sequences that rank with the best British horror has to offer.  The script, by genius American writers Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson is excellent, and the idea that that bastion of respectability, an exclusive college, should actually be a hotbed of sorcery aided social climbing is quite brilliant. All the wives are at it, burning effigies and pinning charms to their hapless husbands, hoping that burning some hair and nail will scupper their rival’s chances of promotion, and propel their spouses to the top.    

As for Peter Wyngarde -  he’s great – cocksure and arrogant at first, then increasingly panicked and desperate. It’s such a shame that he only ever made six (!) films (and one of those was ‘Flash Gordon’, where he had his face covered the whole time), as he could have done so much more: Dracula, Caligula, James Bond – the mind boggles at the possibilities.

Night Of The Eagle

Panic, Fear, Terror

'Assault' blots its copy book immediately by featuring a very young looking Lesley Ann Down being chased and then sexually molested by an unseen, gloved presence. It's not a particularly explicit sequence, but it's a pretty sleazy way to open a film.

One of the few British productions that could easily fit into the giallo genre, 'Assault' is fairly slow moving and perhaps chucks in one red herring too many, but it has some great sequences and tries hard - and the cast is phenomenal: Suzy Kendall, Frank Finlay, Tony Beckley, Anthony Ainley, David Essex and Freddie Jones.

Assault