House On Straw Hill

‘House On Straw Hill’ has either an illustrious history or a terrible reputation, depending on how you look at these things. It was the only British film on the 1984 list of banned video nasties, mainly because of its fairly explicit mix of sex (some consensual, some not) and violence (some consensual, some not). Made in 1975, it exists in any number of different versions, and under several different titles, although a more or less definitive version has recently been released on Digital Versatile Disc.

The always odd Udo Keir plays Paul Martin, a successful author who rents a remote cottage in Essex in order to work on his second book.  He has an on-off relationship with porn star Fiona Richmond, i.e. he gets on, then off, then sends her packing. Their ‘love’ scenes have a rough and ready quality that makes them seem more explicit than they really are, but then some of that might be due to him putting on latex gloves every time they get it on.  

Paul hires a secretary over the phone to help type up his masterpiece and is delighted when she turns out to be Linda Hayden, who brings her usual blend of jailbait precocity to the role, and forgets to bring a bra. Linda is a compulsive masturbator and, when she is caught fiddling with herself in a field by a couple of bicycle riding 'youths' (including an already balding Karl ‘Brush Strokes’ Howman), an unpleasant rape scene (is there any other type?) ensues.  This young woman is not quite the pushover she seems, however, as the yokels who assault her find out to their cost.

The last half hour explodes in a frenzy of rough sex and sharp knives and a soap opera plot twist which makes enough sense to validate all the huffing, puffing and intimate touching  that has gone before. Unlike the BBFC, I wouldn’t describe the film as nasty, rather as an adult psychodrama that occasionally gets a little too adult for comfort: if Ingmar Bergman had made it, it would have been hailed as a masterpiece (it’s worth remembering that Bergman’s film ‘The Virgin Spring’ was the inspiration for ‘Last House on The Left’). Probably.

I enjoyed the rural setting (it was filmed near Chelmsford, the furthest extent of 'my' Essex), and the scene where Keir drives a brakeless Morris Minor into a pond. I liked Linda Hayden, who always does an excellent sexy psycho, and I was intrigued by Fiona Richmond’s lissom body and bricklayer’s face. Most of all I enjoyed hearing extracts from the book Paul is working on, which sounds like it’s going to be truly fucking awful.

Music lovers will be pleased to hear that the film has a rather good soundtrack, but you needn't take my word for it as my friend and colleague Fearlono has made a custom soundtrack for it that you can download at his smashing website Cottage of Electric Hell. One thing: you will need to pretend to be an adult to gain entry, as there are grown up themes and some sexual swear words.  

Baby Love

'Baby Love' centres around the familiar plot device of a stranger who enters a supposedly perfect household and shags (or is shagged by) everyone, subsequently exposing how damn dysfunctional they all are behind the smiles and soft focus. 



Lucy is a fifteen year old strumpet in training who is suddenly orphaned when her sluttish mother (Diana Dors) kills herself. Mum's last wish was that Lucy go to live with Keith Barron, one of her few old flames to have actually done well for himself. Lucy's arrival throws the house into turmoil, not least because she has been trained to exploit her sexuality at every opportunity, and spends most of her time flirting, walking around in her bra and letting seedy strangers feel her up at the pictures. After a while, however, Lucy begins to long to be part of the family, only to find that the family rather like her as she is - a sex object that they can project their hetero and homo sexual fantasies onto.

'Baby Love' simply wouldn't get made today, if only for the fact that frequently nude star Linda Hayden was only fifteen years old at the time of filming. This role propelled her into a career in which she almost exclusively played, for want of a better term,  jailbait. In the various retrospective interviews I've seen with her she seems remarkably well-adjusted and good humoured about her ten years as a baby faced slut but, as she went out with Robin Askwith for a number of years, her critical faculties may be slightly impaired.

Some interesting guest stars in this, by the way - the aforementioned Diana Dors, right on the cusp of turning from pneumatic blonde bombshell to frowsy Earth Mother, and, in a small but sleazy role, dirty old Dick Emery.

The ghost of Diana Dors.



'Ooh, you are awful', etc.

Bloody Hell

What do these randomly selected band of Dickensian grotesques and cheeky urchins know about blood? Nothing. One bloke in a bowler hat even thinks that you can keep it for up to a year! Surely everyone knows it only lasts three weeks, which is why it is used immediately, and why the NHS needs so much of it. So, do as the gingerbread man made flesh says: ring the Blood Transfusion Service and GIVE BLOODY BLOOD.

F*** Me, It's Freddie!

FMIF as Harry Field's Dad in 'Who Killed Harry Field?', a 1991 episode of 'Inspector Morse'. If you're wondering who did kill Harry Field, you'll have to watch the show, but, believe me, he definitely had it coming.  Freddie gives a great performance, by the way, but then that's Freddie's stock in trade, isn't it? He's a great hero of mine, and it feels good to be paying tribute to him again.

Lifeforce

'Lifeforce' is a mostly enjoyable adaptation of Colin Wilson's classic novel 'Space Vampires'. In it, a space shuttle mission is interrupted by the discovery of a huge, seemingly abandoned space craft of alien origin. When the crew board the hulk, they discover hundreds of dead space bats and three naked humanoids in a state of suspended animation. Their genitals are thoughtfully obscured but the sole female (Mathilda May) is very beautiful indeed and has perfect breasts, and we are allowed full sight of these, which is a fatal mistake as they become pretty much all we can see and, when they disappear about forty five minutes in, all we can think about is when we will see them again. Indeed, if I close my eyes I can see them now *closes eyes*

As it goes on, the film becomes less interesting and slightly chaotic, especially in the semi-hysterical finale in which vampirism  has infected London and is driving people to barbaric acts of public unrest, and our uninspiring American hero (Steve Railsback) has to strip off and kiss the sexy naked vampire lady a lot in order purely to get her into a position where he can stab her with a special anti gorgeous bloodsucker sword, killing her, saving the world, but sacrificing himself. Good, the man's an idiot.

There are some excellent actors in the cast (Jerome Willis, Frank Finlay, Patrick Stewart, the superb Aubrey Morris), although Peter Firth is miscast as a tough SAS officer. There was also clearly some money spent on the production, and the special effects are generally very good if rather derivative of both 'Alien' and 'Raiders Of The Lost Ark'. There's even a promising plot line about the vampires having visited Earth on a cyclical basis for centuries but this doesn't really develop into anything interesting. Ultimately, however, all of those positive points are totally irrelevant in the scheme of things: this film is all about the ancient space vampire's stupendously attractive chest and the rest, a mysterious celestial body well worth getting bitten on the neck for.

Thinking about it, perhaps not the best film to come back with. I don't want you thinking I've had some sort of breakdown and am now obsessed with knockers, especially as a couple of next week's posts are about Linda Hayden.

From Just This Side Of Midnight

I don’t know whether recent allegations about Cliff Richard are true. My only response is that it wouldn’t surprise me, not because I have reason to particularly suspect him but because, in a world where Rolf Harris has been unmasked as a serial sex offender, I now lack the capacity to be shocked by further revelations. Anyway, Cliff fascinates me, and always has done, so I thought I’d look at some of his occasionally very odd oeuvre, today arriving in 1979, already twenty one years into his seemingly endless career.  

Here, Cliff is searching for a green light. He’s been looking for it all night. It’s one of his sleaziest records, ably complemented here by the addition of Hot Gossip in this performance from a 1979 episode of ‘The Kenny Everett Video Show’.

Cliff appears to be lost in a sensuous reverie but, ever the innovator, has clearly worked closely with choreographer Arlene Phillips to invent dogging. The torch wielding, goggle wearing, balaclava clad dancers bring an additional sinister note to the balefully lit proceedings. Cliff, clad all in black, is both victim and voyeur. He’s found half a dozen green lights tonight, and, one way or another, he is going to get fucked.

It's good to be back.

I Had No Luck With Her

To kick off, here's a screenshot from a recently repeated episode of 'Top of The Pops' originally broadcast in 1980. It features the backing singers for a performance of Jona Lewie's quirky electro pop hit 'You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties'. 

Left hand lady is the much missed Kirsty MacColl, of course, but I have been unable to identify her co-worker. This task has been made harder by the fact that neither of them actually sang on the record, they were just in the vicinity when needed for the telly. They really remind me of the girls I used to like as a young man: attractive, feisty, not interested.  

The British Esperantist

This is Issue 6 of The British Esperantist, the 'mix tape of books' that I have been working on since I left The Island a year ago. It's been pretty successful and, now I have returned, I would like to suggest that you purchase a copy if you can as it is not only very entertaining, it is also informative and really cheap. This issue's contents include: Hawkwind; Ben Weber, International Ventriloquist; William Blake's horoscope; trouser trends and lots, lots more.

More details here --

The British Esperantist 6 

Don't linger, though, they generally aren't around for very long. Thank you for your attention.

Island News

It's been nearly a year since I last posted here, and I still miss the place. There's no point fighting it so, I'm going to come back. Might take the opportunity for a bit of a reboot and to revisit some classics. Just give me a few days to break the news to my other blog.

Derry Good Plus

It’s impossible for me to think about Northern Ireland for any length of time without hearing the wonderful music of The Undertones in my head. One of my favourite groups of all time, ever, The Undertones did that supremely difficult thing of mixing pop tunes with crunching rock music: hard coated, soft centred stuff filled with life and energy and joy and excitement. I’ve been in a few bands in my time and tried to emulate this confection, and haven’t even got close.

If you want to know what being young feels like at its best, listen to the joyous ‘Here Comes The Summer’ – if you want to know what it feels like at its worst, then listen to ‘Teenage Kicks’, a timeless razor sharp pop song filled with yearning. The Undertones simply wrote great songs, seemingly artless, almost naïve things that, nevertheless, were full of emotion and profundity. They were clever, too – and funny - they called the opening track on their second album ‘More Songs About Chocolate & Girls’, after all.

All the best group’s progress, of course, and, with each release, The Undertones’ sound evolved into something more subtle and considered. Their songs became more complex and layered, and began to be about things other than chocolate and girls, quite often the situation in Northern Ireland. The band never became self-indulgent, but they did become slightly self-conscious, and their later records try a little too hard to be diverse. Surprised by their success and the sort of lifestyle it afforded them, the band lost their unity too soon, and split up (initially) in 1983.

It’s hard (and slightly pointless) to try and pick out The Undertones finest moment from their marvellous back catalogue but, if pushed, I would nominate the astonishing garage rock of ‘You’ve Got My Number (Why Don’t You Use It?)’, a jet propelled pop art vignette fuelled by hooks and oomph, as played by brilliant yobs in half mast trousers.    

 

Feargal's red polo neck and shooting jacket combo remains the outfit I'd like to be buried in.

Harry's Game

After ‘The Sandbaggers’ hasty conclusion, the likeable and capable Ray Lonnen starred in the critically acclaimed and hugely downbeat ‘Harry’s Game’, a programme about 'The Troubles' (a euphemism which seems a bit like calling World War One 'the big tiff') originally broadcast in 1982.

The programme begins with the ruthless assassination of a British cabinet minister by an IRA hitman (played by Derek Thompson, in-between ‘The Long Good Friday’ and his never ending stint in ‘Casualty’). The government can’t let this very public act stand, of course, so they send army officer and undercover specialist Harry Brown (Lonnen) to Belfast to track down Thompson - not to arrest him, not to bring him to justice - but to kill him, publicly, so everyone knows that the powers that be pay their debts. 

Brown was born in Northern Ireland, so it’s a homecoming of sorts for him and he can (almost) do the accent. He is also recovering from a complete nervous breakdown and doesn’t seem to care whether he lives or dies. He does, however, understand the rules of ‘the game’: in war, an eye for an eye is everything, no matter how futile it might be. 

Thompson’s IRA man is a much more reluctant player. He does what he is told, even though he hates it, and retains a core of unpredictable humanity (he loves his family; he can be kind; he refuses to kill a child). Brown is more detached, a hollow man who does what he has been trained to do because it is the only thing he really understands. He has a wife, a family, but he doesn’t give them a second thought, refusing to withdraw time and time again in order to see out the game. For what it’s worth, the end result is a pointless draw, leaving both players dead in the street like so much human rubbish.      

In hindsight, the Northern Ireland war seems incredible, unbelievable, impossible: if it wasn’t for the dead and the disappeared and the ongoing repercussions for those left behind, we might even be able to dismiss it as a terrible nightmare we once had. Neither side emerges with any credit: the British overlords are shown as arrogant and spiteful, men who believe the Irish are savages who need to be beaten into submission – the enlisted men are brutish and thick – and happy to wield the whip. 

The IRA treat each other like shit, motivating their soldiers with the threat of further violence. The men portrayed here are not comrades, or proud, principled revolutionaries, these are desperate, violent men who will do anything to further their cause, so much so that they terrify the people they are fighting for to the extent that they would rather commit suicide than cross them. It’s an appalling, depressing mess.

The production was (understandably) filmed not in Belfast but in a condemned part of Leeds and, yes, the accents are all over the place, but it has an enormous power in that it conveys an almost surreal situation (as seen from the relative safety of mainland Britain*) in sharp, horrible relief. At the centre of it, Harry Brown drifts around the streets, always under scrutiny, waiting to kill or to be killed, delaying the inevitable by an ill-fated liaison with a local widow. It’s a tragic, haunting programme, and one that makes you feel vaguely ashamed.

*England wasn’t unscathed, of course. I can remember armed troops on the streets and hearing the dull boom of the car bomb that blew a soldier’s legs off  a mile away, but then I lived in a garrison town, so the IRA brought the war to us. I can’t imagine how terrible life in Belfast must have been.

The Sandbaggers

What can one say about ‘The Sandbaggers’ that can adequately describe what a superlative programme it is? My friend and colleague, Fearlono, once called it ‘televisual heroin’, which comes very close, but still doesn’t convey all of its intelligent but savage genius.

Lasting three series from 1978 to 1980, ‘The Sandbaggers’ is about the British secret service. There are no James Bond type characters, no nights at the casino, no pointed bon mots, no arched eyebrows, no super villains with mountain retreats or space stations; nobody has sex. Instead, an agent dies in agony in a crummy bedsit in Poland, lying alone in his own mess with a bullet in his spine; an intelligence chief who has been passing secrets to the Russians apologises profusely to a colleague and then bites down on a cyanide capsule; the department head has his own fiancée assassinated rather than risk her giving away national secrets. It’s a tough, supremely unsentimental show – and utterly compelling.

The cast is superb, but Roy Marsden dominates as intelligence chief Neil Burnside. Burnside is a man possessed, willing to cut any corner, ignore any order, make any deal to achieve his goal. He drinks only coke and coffee and almost never goes home. His top man is Willie Kane (Ray Lonnen), an easy going, likeable guy who just happens to be a world class undercover man and assassin.  Kane is not a hero, and he hates violence, but he is supremely good at his job, even if he knows the best case scenario for his prospects is an obscure retirement on a pittance of a pension.

These spies are very much part of the Civil Service, and their work is complicated by departmental squabbling, uncomprehending superiors, complicated approval processes and penny pinching (they are allowed to fly to missions first class, to keep them fresh; coming back they are crammed into the cheap seats). Most of the time, their assignments, which are enormously dangerous, seem to be almost meaningless outside of the framework of the Cold War, a deadly comedy of manners; much of their work revolves around favours owed to other intelligence agencies. If they are caught they will be either imprisoned or put against a wall and shot and the UK government will deny all knowledge of them. Only now and again do we really feel that the missions matter, the rest is simply part of a chess game where half of the board is obscured.   

      

Halfway through the third series, creator and writer (and alleged former spy) Ian Mackintosh’s light aircraft disappeared somewhere in Alaska. No trace of him or the plane has ever been found. Writers were called in to complete the series (Mackintosh had already written the final episode), and the producers decided to call it a day without Mackintosh, leaving the narrative arc unresolved. It’s a real shame, as it’s an incredible series that could have gone on twisting and turning for years.