Reviews

When the BBC's prize-winning and audience-charming comedians Morecambe and Wise left the corporation in the late seventies, the search was on for a replacement, and by signing up Syd Little and Eddie Large, they were certainly settling for less. Although they were, in essence, two rather likable jolly jokers who wouldn't have been out of place in the theatre at the end of a seaside resort's pier or any boozy British nightclub, they were hardly a substitute for Eric and Ernie. They were scarcely even a 'proper' double act - Syd wasn't so much a straight man as a gormless stooge, whilst Eddie did poor impersonations (always of Deputy Dawg, for some reason) and attempted to sing the odd ballad. The overall effect was embarrassing rather than funny, and when this lame ruse failed they fell back - with disconcerting regularity - on such politically incorrect ploys as boxing kangaroos, 'funny foreigners' and topless girls (seen from the back only) which might have been charming in more skilled hands, but which only served to underline the desperation of this cut-price televised cabaret. Little and Large vanished from our screens back in the nineties, but they're still around and if this kind of thing is your bag, catch them at a caravan park near you.

In this 1975 Christmas special, the Goodies decide to become rock stars (art imitating life, since the team had recently cracked the pop charts with some fun novelty singles including the glam rock-tinged 'The Inbetweenies' and the silly but danceable 'Funky Gibbon') by copying the trademarks of several existing stars, taking Elton John's glasses, the Rubettes' caps and so on. Although my memories of this episode are rather hazy (it was a long time ago!), I certainly can't forget the sight of the Goodies being chased around a maze by a giant Dougal (of Magic Roundabout fame) and newsreader Michael Barratt interviewing the mute children's puppets Sooty and Sweep. Also, the show felt a bit too long. The Goodies always worked best as a half-hour miracle, leaving you wanting more, and however good the gags and stunts were, stretching the running time invariably stretched this viewer's attention span. Nonetheless, this is largely classic stuff and a DVD release wouldn't go amiss.

Nothing about this weird addition to the Hanna-Barbera canon made sense. The bears had an invisible motorbike, which they hopped on seemingly at will. As a child, I found this confusing and weird, and not very funny at all. The inside of the bears' cave was spartan and 'realistic', until buttons were pressed and it turned into an ultra-modern pad with a fridge, a TV and lavish beds. This wasn't funny either, just a bit of contrived 'hi-tech' business that now seems so embarrassingly dated, as passe as jet-pack travel and monorails. One set piece I remember was one of the bears holding a switched-on vacuum cleaner in the air, explaining "this is my solution to the pollution", before one of the keepers jammed the nozzle on his nose. But his nose didn't stretch, it turned into a spear-shaped appendage which he then used to pick up rubbish. WHAT?! The bottom line is, this series was a ragbag of surreal ideas and low-brow comedy that didn't gel, let alone make one single scrap of sense. Nobody's finest hour.

Yeesh. I usually love Kitten Natividad, but I wish she'd made the forays into harder pornography when she was younger and cuter, instead of leaving it until she looked like someone's crazy grandmother. I don't mean to sound harsh here, but when you consider Kitten made TAKIN' IT ALL OFF just four years before she made this charmless little effort, we must be talking about one catastrophically sudden loss of looks and sex appeal here. Kitten plays the leader of a gang of female bank robbers, and about halfway through, she and a male hostage indulge in an explicit scene that is frankly freakshow stuff, and it's all shot and lit so amateurishly the overall effect is to make her look worse than ever. Extremely unappealing and unerotic fare, best avoided.

Zoryna Dreams, one of the most underrated adult entertainers of all time, is a compelling reason for watching Palm Springs or Bust. If you like 'real women' with curves and striking olive-skinned good looks, then you should definitely check out the divine Ms Dreams. I really envied Randy West in the scenes he has with Zoryna, and I was a little peeved that the directors chose Joey Karson for Zoryna's major girl-on-girl scene. Whilst I don't wish to speak ill of the dead, Joey wasn't that attractive and actually bordered on the grotesque, something that could never be said of Ms Dreams. Apparently she retired not long after this film was completed, which is sad. The industry needs more Zorynas!

This film is so nasty and inept that it actually tips over the line and becomes ridiculous. The whole thing is set up to serve the set-pieces, which in this case are a bunch of poorly staged shoot-outs and Michael Winner's infamous censor-baiting gang rape. The latter seems to have upset its fair share of people, and it is very callous, but it's only a film, these are only actors, and it's worth remembering that this was very much a product of its time - when DWII came out, home video was booming, and mainstream cinema began to show a definite streak of brutal nihilism (especially in sequels, for some reason) to tempt the jaded public back into the picture-houses. So DWII seemed shocking at the time, but nowadays it seems like an extended Chris Morris sketch.

Some films are such high-smelling chunks of mouldy cheese they stay with you for years after you watch them, like buried memories of child abuse. I remember seeing this one late at night back in the eighties while I was extremely drunk, and reading these reviews brought it all flooding back to me. Think of the single worst film you've ever seen, and then think of something even worse. HEADLESS EYES isn't as bad as that, it's worse. The only high point is Bo Brundin's no-holds-barred performance as the optically-challenged lunatic. He obviously thought nobody was ever going to see this stinkbomb, so he doesn't concern himself with characterization or dramatic realism, he just lurches around talking rubbish and drooling intermittently. The opening scene reminds you why people like Rob Bottin and Rick Baker achieved cult status a few years down the line. This one has never been viewed, let alone certificated, by the British censors, and I sure envy them. Ignorance is bliss in this case.

If you were growing up in Britain in the 1970s or early 80s, then Holiday On The Buses will provide you with a very potent hit of nostalgia that will doubtless get you talking about "the good old days". It's nobody's idea of sophisticated, and the arthouse crowd should avoid it like the plague, but if you approach it with an open mind you'll probably have a good time.

It's all very predictable, of course, but it fits in nicely with a sub-genre of British comedy best described as "everything goes wrong" where it sits alongside Fawlty Towers and Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. There are plenty of minor stars on display soon, such as Grange Hill's Mr Bronson, regular Benny Hill sidekick Henry McGee, Joan from Love Thy Neighbour and the inimitable Arthur Mullard.

It's not quite Carry On, but it passes the time painlessly.

After Spike Milligan's last series with the 'Q' prefix was aired in 1980, the general consensus was that the format had gone stale, and the lousy reviews only confirmed it. The BBC still wanted Spike, who (in my opinion) was never at his best on television, so they compromised - they let him make another series with the same theme tune and mostly the same cast - but with a different name, hence 'There's A Lot Of It About'(TALOIA for short). Another wise decision was to lift some of the writing burden from old Spike, who could get away with murder if left to write all the material by himself, and two relative newcomers were brought in, Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, whose underrated ITV series 'End of Part One' and 'Whoops Apocalypse' were decades ahead of their time and paved the way for shows like Jam, Brasseye and the less well-remembered TV Squash (and the various incarnations of Victor Lewis Smith) to run rampant over all areas of presentation and format, spoofing the medium from within, often with devastating results.

Marshall and Renwick's fascination with the world of television logos and linkmen is evident from the beginning of show one, which purports to be a minority interest programme called 'Bondage', but cuts out two minutes later to show the BBC2 logo (upside down) and a sincere apology, before TALOIA begins properly. A little later, there is a brilliant, Monty Python-ish spoof of the BBC News, in which the logo collapses (the decal behind the newsreader does ditto) and the autocue fails, leaving Milligan to operate it by hand. Elsewhere in TALOIA, there are convincing spoofs of Life On Earth, Game For A Laugh, weather reports, the Epilogue, party political broadcasts, Holiday '82 and several more, all tied together with Milligan's usual hit-and-miss sketches, but to be fair this series does have a fairly good success rate, and I remember laughing at the fake obituary Milligan provides for himself, and him jumping through the screen shouting "I may be dead but I still have my pride!" from when the BBC repeated a few episodes circa 1988.

This series turned out to be Spike's last for the BBC and it's probably his best work, but still very much a cult item, and if you're likely to be offended by racial stereotypes or big women in corsets, steer well clear.

With a title like TAKIN' IT ALL OFF, you know this isn't going to be one for the arthouse crowd, right? But just in case you weren't sure, you get that amazing opening sequence where Kitten wiggles her amazing bod down a long staircase and right up to the camera, before climbing into her chauffeur-driven limo and playing with her huge boobs in the back seat. Then we get an unfunny sequence with an old drunk guy holding a conversation with a toy telephone, after that my attention wandered slightly, and it was a good ten minutes before Kitten was back on the scene, and what a scene it was! Yes fans, it's Miss Natividad in the shower, and you can guess where the camera is focused. I can't imagine any heterosexual guy NOT getting hot under the collar as she soaps and massages those fleshy twin peaks. It's a long sequence too, so be prepared. Sadly, after that, there's a lot of boring plot to sit through, and to be blunt, whenever Kitten's not on the screen this film is ghastly, so I'll cut to the chase and tell you that she has some memorable scenes near the end - and that low-cut black leotard is something you've GOT to see! Her final strip, to that stupid "swamp water liquor alligator gumbo" hillbilly song, is another show-stopper, and those bazooms seem to take on a life of their own in that black basque...we just don't see entertainers like this any more! Sadly Kitten went past her prime not long after this film came out, so this is pretty much the last decent movie she made where she looks hot and cute simultaneously, and I recommend picking it up if you spot it anywhere, but don't pay more than five, you'll kick yourself!