Reviews

Well I won't give the ending away folks, but you will see it coming a MILE OFF!!

Stanley Baker, in his last film performance, plays a tired, jaded under manager in a bank he's worked at for the past ten thousand years. He longs to escape the futile tedium of work, but is, on the surface at least resigned (and apparently content) to working out his days in a gold fishbowl office where his superiors can see him but he can't see them.

'I'm poor and broke' he sighs as he neatly summarises his attitude to 'work'. If we all have to do it (as most of us sadly do) we might as well acquire as much financial gain as we can. Very early on, it's clear that Baker's character is already painfully aware that he has gone as far as he is going to go, and that alternative action is required if he is not to give way to perpetual professional atrophy.

So, in comes Britt (can't think where they got that foreign sounding name or accent from, eh chaps). I disagree with some who say that Andress can't act. True, her range is limited, but so were those of luminaries like Bogart, so I feel it's a little unfair to admonish her professional credentials in this way. Also, let's not deny that there are worse things to clock within the cinematic pantheon that Andress's 'undress', and there's plenty of that here. I make this point from a purely 'cinematic' perspective, you understand.

True, the characters are all pretty unlikeable, Warner's in particular, yet it's interesting to see him turn from repellent upper class knob into Baker's whipping boy, mysteriously travelling up and down the country for no apparent reason. (What was THAT all about?) His gesture of defiance towards the end just comes across as toothless, when it's obvious to all who the real winner of the piece is going to be....

Anyway, not bad as it goes, but far from perfect. I always love films for this era (1969-72), just for the 'feel' of the piece, and the washed out yet oddly warm feel of the print itself. As one other reviewer said, there are still traces of 'swinging' London to be found here (in the feel of the film and knowing it was made in 1970), whereas by 1972, that eponymous decade had cinema well and truly contained within it's er' 'distinctive' sartorial grip. We're on the cusp here folks, and all the better for it.

Worth watching, but don't expect to remember it tomorrow.

Well, what can anyone say about this little gem! I saw it first in 1982 aged 15, and only last week came across it again.

Superlatives cannot describe this absolute, genuine classic - strong narrative, humour and a myriad of peachy one liners delivered by a posse of 'actors' who take the 'method' to its logical conclusion and genuinely look like they are enjoying themselves. There are times, my friends, when the delivery is so good you feel like you're almost in the room.

Unlike many films of this ilk, Babyface has a strong story with a fantastic twist you don't see coming till the Nutcracker's identity is finally revealed. I won't spoil it for you folks, but you'll be clinging on for dear life once you finally find out.

After a series of adventures and one serious er 'misdemeanour' our hero, Dan, finds himself at the Training Camp run by the redoubtable 'Champ' - a pint sized madam who makes Atilla the Hun look like a Red Cross volunteer. She reads Dan the Riot Act before introducing him to a small coterie of high achieving yet libidinous females who, over the course of the next ninety minutes, shag him senseless. That's about it, but watch out for the Nutcracker folks. She's heavy, really freaky....

The 'Citizen Kane' of adult entertainment, and not a zither in sight.

One of those odd moments in time where it's just as scary later. It's old fear, folks. Many years ago they used to have Public Information Films on TV. This concept will mean nothing to anyone born after 1975, but to those of us unfortunate enough to have been lucid enough to understand what was going on in the mid 70s, everyone will remember their personal er, 'favourite'. Mine is my business.

The point is this - it's old fear. If you watch them with a clean slate, you wouldn't be affected. You'd laugh them off. This, however, you wouldn't. The sister of that Tory knob who masterfully pronounced Kevin Kline's fully made up name in 'A Fish Called Wanda' comes upstairs and....well you know the deal don't you? You watch it in 1978. You watch it in 2004. The reaction is the same, regardless of if you've seen it before. As an exercise, I tried it on someone younger. They were affected just the same way. Oh yes.

If you are are genuinely interested and have an inquiring mind, look it up...if you dare.

My abiding memory is of some chap incarcerated in his living room, ringing into some radio show and having something nasty getting nearer and nearer...and nearer. You never saw anything, but then again you never had to.

Even the word 'beasts' takes us all back there doesn't it? I try and be objective. I saw this in late 1976, and never since. I was 9 years old, hardly capable of critical reasoning. Yet, across the gulf of time, images and thought processes immeasurably superior to adulthood come back to you.

I'd like to watch it now, provided it don't ruin it.

I have read partisan levels of division on this notorious short. I will add my view to the debate.

The 'success' of the piece, if that's what garners acclaim or opprobrium depending on your perspective, is for me in the images that linger long after the film itself finishes. Most films finish and you think, just.....nothing. Nothing stays with you - nothing comes back to you, it's just THERE. Here however, for me, odd moments return to the mind's eye and can have an unsettling effect, as if the director (shackled now to being a 'cultural' stereotype of the highest order who will polarise opinion faster than you can say Melvyn Bragg) knew that these few images were what would remain, and this only - the beach and the claustrophobic room. It's appealing to childhood fears - there's someone there at the door who will help you. There's someone there...you're OK, or are you? You're on the beach. You notice it, you feign ignorance, you know, you fear, you think it's after someone else. No, it's after you. It could be Hemingway, couldn't it?

I think this is the real essence of horror. No horror film will be bedecked with 90 minutes or so of abject terror, that's not the idea. The zeitgeist is in what stays after, weeks, months, sometimes years after, moments when you have to relieve yourself in the night, walk downstairs in the dark, conjuring up some half baked idea that there's someone/thing 'in the room' - at moments like this, which, let's face it we all have and are now trying to deny, images of Hordern on the beach, with that THING behind him, will leave you wondering if it will come closer, and, more worryingly, if it will come for YOU, my friends....

Of course everyone knows this film is largely unavailable, and pretty much anyone who has see it (in the UK at least), in the past 20 years has done so without the benefit of the remastering/extras etc that would probably be on a conventional DVD. Imagine what that disc would be like folks!

"Liking the Beatles" is to me anachronistic. Most people either love them or hate them. I doubt many really fall into the latter category, with plenty like me in the former.

Watching this, you wonder just how long the magic would, or could have gone on. Reading the book "The Beatles Get Back disaster" gives some insight, because it shows that they were running through stuff like 'Every Night' that later appeared on solo albums. So for me the most interesting this is - how would these songs have sounded if they had been Beatles songs? Pretty much all of the initial solo work is lauded in equally stellar terms as 'Abbey Road', 'white album' etc, and it's only when there was no one around with sufficient gravitas to hit the quality control button ('Sometime in New York City' anyone?) that things began to slide. Even then, there is masses of stuff (even from Ringo) that's still way up there, especially from the 1970s.

'Let it be' is I suppose a sad film, in a way. I would imagine McCartney was sad to see that there was nothing he could do to keep them interested, and certainly comes across as patronising and bossy. Being feted by hangers on isn't what any of them wanted - Paul just wanted John's attention, and looks quite indifferent to anyone else, apart from Ringo who he clearly loves. Their piano duet is a joy to behold. Interesting to see how different he is with George on the bonus disc of the Beatles Anthology, yet GH still exhibits a wariness that hides lots of stuff I daresay will never now be known.

The key thing of course is the music. I daresay there are thousand if not millions of people who would like to have been walking down Savile Row that day. The interviews are also revealing 'we grew up with them, they belong to us' etc, plus the hilarious 'you don't get much for free these days' makes you realise just how human this band actually was. They had everything, and while I would have loved to go and buy their never recorded collective oeuvre from 1970 on, it's probably best I can't. No one would have wanted a Beatles album to be a part of musical inflation - too much music chasing too little demand. Imagine a Beatles single competing with Donny Osmond, David Cassidy or er, Paper Lace? I don't think so.

They weren't meant for the 70s, as this film illustrates. Sooner or later you implode, if you're this famous and everyone wants so much from you. Look at a film from 1969, then look at one from 1974 - flowery, chintzy, all greasy and horrible. The 60s had EDGE, credibility, dignity, and so did the Fab Four, God bless 'em. I think they probably passed. We will not see their like again.

I wish, like in 'Spinal Tap', there was a voting system here that went up to 11 for stuff like this.

I shamelessly admit I'm one of those sad, innumerable anoraks who knows every word of this film, and would readily bore the pants about it off anyone willing to listen. Still, I make no apologies, and you don't see people going around quoting French and Saunders, do you? If there is such a thing as a perfect film, this is it. Of course, it's all been said on here before, over and over, about how good this is, so I will aim for a slightly different approach.

To really appreciate the absolutely impeccable comic timing these men exude, watch the expression on Chapman's face a split second before he is 'thwown to the floor' a second time. There is a look of absolute incomprehension/fear/comic despair that I would love to have on a poster were one to exist. I would never tire of looking at it. Also, when Chapman starts saying "Thamson the Thadchuthees Thtrangler' etc to the restive crowd at the end, they know EXACTLY when to make them start laughing. Listen to it, it's EXACTLY right. Awesome.

Of course, the script itself is faultless, but I'm not one of those blind Python acolytes who says everything they ever did worked or stood the test of time; the 'Lumberjack Song' certainly doesn't stand repeated listening, and now sounds cringe worthy if people sing it in homage. I thought that when Palin did it in Himalaya recently; he sounded almost embarrassed by it.

But enough nit picking. When you do comedy, at this sort of prodigious rate, it won't all work. To me, the only bit I didn't really like was the Spaceship section, but this is redeemed by the three word response uttered by the chap who sees Brian walk away unscathed. So much of it does work, it's beyond criticism.

Sublime, and if you haven't seen it, you've settled for second best without knowing it.

It really does beggar belief to think that the channel that originally commissioned this is now showing 'Celebrity Love Island'. This says more about the intellectually vapid times we live in than almost anything else around. I wish I had been an adult in 1967, so I could have explored what else was out there from that time.

Whole books have been written about this so I'll keep it brief. You can watch this as entertainment; it WILL keep your interest if you have anything like a brain. It will not if you find anything beyond 'Coronation Street' too taxing/boring/challenging etc.

You can watch it as allegory; this will be particularly effective if you are at heart a non conformist who can see the incremental suppression of the individual being undertaken by stealth all around us with no one doing anything about it (identity cards, CCTV everywhere, the rabid tabloid press the contemporary equivalent of the 'Tally Ho', the blind, unknowing, uncaring, pliable mass of 'villagers' watching Big Brother) etc. The ideas expressed here would have seemed fanciful in 1967. The worrying thing is that things can only get worse.

Or you can just see it as pioneering TV; something different from people prepared to push the envelope.

I see it as all three. Be seeing you.

The grandaddy of 'incarceration' films - this is one of the best, oft copied but never bettered.

I liked it because it's so damn British. The one liners are legion; you all know what they are and where, but among a stellar list 'Mecca, Archer' rises just above and never fails to have me in fits. The way Goodyear looks at the Governor just after this great outburst is also revealing; as is the look of satisfaction on Archer's face when he finally succeeds in riling the 'religious maniac'.

Of course, there's a serious message in here; expedited best in the conversation between Archer and Mr Duke over 'coffee'. Analysing the situation, as Archer attempts to do, will simply not be tolerated and is interpreted as dissent by a man who embodies the 'system' and is intellectually and emotionally unequipped to deal with his own, and the State's ultimate failure to deliver.

Like true class acts, this film works on several levels; it's a no nonsense drama bedecked with Taj Mahal one liners everyone loves, yet it also works on a deeper level; you cannot punitively 'correct' all offenders with violence and cruelty. You are not corrected, you are merely broken, as Davis and Toyne are. If you're not broken, you run amok, but the point is you're not 'cured'.

When this film was on TV in 1983, just after Channel Four started broadcasting, they edited the notorious potting shed sequence to such an extent that the heinous act committed was virtually excised, thereby diluting the dramatic effect to virtually zero. Interestingly enough, they also edited out the bit where Mr Greaves ignores Davis' second press of the bell. Why? Presumably because they feared the ire of the State at the highlighting of its inadequacies? I suppose they can be forgiven, Channel Four was new then after all, but it's quite revealing nonetheless.

If I'm home alone, I quote this film as I'm wandering around the house. I don't quite know why. It's all about the importance of individuality, standing up for yourself and not just 'accepting' things. That's probably the reason. Now, where's your tool?

I urge anyone with even the vaguest interest in the unusual or esoteric to search this out and watch it. I saw the film as a 16 year old in 1983, and recently pounced on the long awaited DVD release.

This film was so powerful, even back then, that I felt what Ellen Burstyn described as 'old fear' when I loaded the DVD. For over twenty years these images, and the famous picture of Browning with the cast, have made my blood run cold. The deft handling of the final sequence alone, qualifies this film as the celluloid equivalent of a nightmare.

Some of you will not want to have this feeling evoked, and watching the vast majority of today's so called 'horror' films, where everything is displayed, subtlety is eschewed, and no thought is given to any lasting effects on the viewer, you will avoid it.

Essentially, the essence of 'fear' could be described as any distortion of what we know as humanity, or humanness. Horror films that do their job best are the ones that take the human form and modify it in such a way as to make it different, but immediately recognisable. We would not be scared of Frankenstein's monster, if he didn't look essentially 'human' but with a twist. The thing that comes out of John Hurt in 'Alien' unsettles because a human is involved. This film is unique not only because it is bereft of studio trickery and comes from a bygone age when there was far more opportunity to push the envelope than there is today, with formulaic nonsense everywhere and the over riding desire for commercialism and cinematic capitalism. No folks, it works because it takes our preconceived and deep seated views of the human body and turns them on their head.

Some time ago advertisers caught on to this deep seated fear we all have. There was an advertisement on British TV of a teenage girls's face talking to camera. You saw it and felt unsettled, simply because her eyes were marginally too far apart, her ears were too far back and her mouth was too wide. I can't recall what was being marketed but it had a profoundly unsettling effect on the viewer. Of course, that was a computer simulated attempt to sell a product, which made it 'OK'. This of course, is real. These people are real and live lives just as we do. We feel uneasy looking at them simply because they are outside the realms of physiological aestheticism.

If I could have met anyone from the movies, I'd pick Browning every time. True, his work can be clumsy and stagy, (remember this was the thirties folks) but at best his films light up with an almost diabolical grace.