Exquisite Earfuls

Classic Creations

Quatermass and the Pit was broadcast live for the Beeb in 1958 and it's a glorious slice of vintage speculation that reeks of it's era and has a wonderfully British sense of understatement. Professor Quatermass, stiff lipped maverick scientist, fresh from a row at the War Office, is dragged to a building site turned archaeological dig that's unearthed a mysterious craft in a 5 million year old strata with some curious alien corpses inside. Despite the amusingly dated styling and script there's plenty of vigour in the plot and a few wisps of genuine atmosphere as the well mannered team find themselves besieged by incomprehensible forces. This is brilliant stuff but something that's probably only going to appeal to fans of retro scifi.

Frankenstein: The True Story is a reasonable, if mis-titled, TV mini-series version of the classic horror. I was expecting some sort of psychological retelling of the man-made monster but it's quite plain interweaving of the original with the sequel The Bride of... . When the naive Dr assists a demented colleague and inherits his life giving experiments his first bash slowly turns into a disaster and he's offered a second go, this time with lady bits, but it quite unsurprisingly it all ends in tears. The production is decent and the talents of James Mason and David MacCallum assist with proceedings so although I was a little disappointed with the unimaginative retelling it was still an entertaining 3hrs of vintage scifi.

Capering Chucklers

Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn are at the top of their respective games in the charming comedy thriller, Foul Play, released in 1978. The Hitchcockian plot sees Hawn unwittingly embroiled in a preposterous goulash of murder, intrigue and albinos after coming into possession of a mysterious roll of film but luckily she has laid back police detective Chase in her corner. The blend of comedy and thriller is actually not bad and played, quite wisely, with tongue firmly planted in cheek but it's the excellent performances which make this fluff into something special and the two excellent leads are joined in the fun with some brilliant turns from Burgess Meredith & Dudley Moore.

Seems like Old times sees Hawn & Chase reunite a few years later in another comedy thriller this time from the pen of Neil Simon. This time it's Chase, playing a feckless author, who finds himself caught up in a miasma of crime and misunderstanding who turns to his beautiful ex wife for help, only to discover she's now married to the District Attorney who's trying to bring him to justice. The comic pair are joined by Charles Grodin in the fun and like Foul Play manage to lift this whimsical, farce from drifting into mediocrity and though it doesn't quite match the former in pace it's still an entertaining, undemanding piece of fluff.

Buddy Cop Double Dose

Flashpoint is a 1980's thriller that reeks of it's era with dodgy music, full fat machismo and acting of spurious quality. Two disgruntled border patrolmen uncover a crashed plane, sniper rifle and a big bag of cash in the desert and soon find their good fortune has a price when their tentative investigations provoke the attention of the NSA. The two leads Kris Kristofferson and Treat Williams lazily chew their way through the hamfisted scripted and although the plot has potential it's doused by the shouty posturing, dull witted characterisations and unnecessary subplots. Wouldn't bother unless your fond of the alt-theories surrounding Dallas '63 or shit films.

A few years later and Off Limits sees Gregory Hines and Willem Dafoe offer a better expression of the buddy cop formula by playing a pair of jaded, wisecracking detectives struggling with crime in Saigon during the Vietnam war. When a prostitute turns up dead the duo find themselves hunting a serial killer amidst the chaos of the city, bumping into a sexy nun, psychotic colonel and a camp counterpoint along the way. There's plenty of action stuffed in beside the fairly formulaic thriller plot but it's the commendable performances of Hines and Dafoe which rescue the film from mediocrity and they've strong support from Fred Ward and Scott Glenn. It's not amazing, just a solid, fairly entertaining retro cop drama with a decent soundtrack.

Sounds Like

Book Arts

Lovely drawings from a 17th Century book about perspective illusions and an excellent little article on BibliOdyssey.
Fantastic illustrations by proto-scifi author Albert Robida from his 19th Century trilogy, La Vie Electrique. Courtesy of Retronaut.
Hip 50's infographics from an Anatomy textbook, via Brainpickings.

Crooked Country Trips

Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman chew lumps off each other in the sleazy 70's thriller Prime Cut. When Hackman's rural gangster refuses to pay his dues the Chicago mob send ice-cool Marvin down country to make things right. Both leads consummately trade variants of smiling menace but the wry scripting keeps things fresh and although it's pretty formulaic stuff it has a certain grubby period charm what with the lady auctions, human sausages and a Combine harvester chase scene. A solid, occasionally barmy, tale of sex trafficking and hubris that gets plenty of good stuff from Hackman and Marvin but is otherwise unremarkable.

There's far less charm in the greasy backwoods thriller Poor Pretty Eddie but it more than makes up for it by it's sheer derangement. A sultry Jazz singer gets stuck in hillbilly hell after her car breaks down and ends up in a motel run by a soused cabaret wash up and her two male companions, a giant idiot and a lusty Elvis impersonator. Unaccustomed to guests of colour her presence causes ructions and it's not long before she finds herself in serious danger after attracting the eye of the unstable young lothario, Eddie. The script is perfunctory and it looks terrible but it's quite loopy in a 70's shlock/exploitation sort of way and Shelly Winters as the mother hen provides good ham throughout. Low brow & raw, it's probably only going to appeal to trash cinema collectors.

Harrowed Souls

Robert Altman's 1972 film Images, is a twisted little chiller about madness and sanity that has more atmosphere than a dozen contemporary features. A children's author, plagued by mysterious phone calls, flees with her hubby to their country cottage only for her troubles to deepen and as she scrabbles about furiously for her missing marbles she decides to conquer her visions violently. There's a nebulous ambiguity to the film with momentary doppelgangers, missing time and jumbled identities all confidently sewn together by a stunning performance from Susannah York whose descent into madness throbs incessantly at the centre of the film.

Madness and paranoia plague another beautiful woman, Lena Hedley, in low budget chiller The Broken. After spotting her doppelganger in the streets of London our protagonist is involved in a car accident and finds herself questioning her own her sanity when other family members begin to seem a little 'different'. Though it lacks the subtlety and ambiguity of Images this is a nice little horror whose effectiveness lies on the measured yet tremulous central performance from Hedley rather than it's script which stumbles in the final third, over exerting itself explaining away it's mysteries.