tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22892504068298004092024-03-18T01:21:52.286-07:00gavcrimsongavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.comBlogger402125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-57972576984996748792024-03-18T01:21:00.000-07:002024-03-18T01:21:49.394-07:00Mama (1972, Peter Cave)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRuZBRPblRd00qavSF4CRZyWneCRvg24Cz958RYgQAvmA0yVghSVtxLOksWQNt-lcPuwmDcNQWKT13bTNmwLjcs7-coGSi3OXbgKMqysZQCBV-51d4nbmtgujXpaDoHp0ER1ZQZJ-49-Xy8jjBUNdG7DHwNGlCT_xjtwiiIi9Abk8F8SWjOxrcmTl2o0U/s3560/mfront.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3560" data-original-width="2226" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRuZBRPblRd00qavSF4CRZyWneCRvg24Cz958RYgQAvmA0yVghSVtxLOksWQNt-lcPuwmDcNQWKT13bTNmwLjcs7-coGSi3OXbgKMqysZQCBV-51d4nbmtgujXpaDoHp0ER1ZQZJ-49-Xy8jjBUNdG7DHwNGlCT_xjtwiiIi9Abk8F8SWjOxrcmTl2o0U/s320/mfront.JPG" width="200" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Even Angels get the blues, and this sequel to 1971’s
Chopper finds the Hells Angels from that book at their lowest ebb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Chopper’ Harris is dead, and continuing his
run of bad luck in life, suffers the indignity of being buried in civilian
civvies at the instance of his long estranged parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“If a Hells Angel had a soul, then Chopper’s
would at that moment be screaming with anger and frustration”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Marty ‘Big M’ Gresham, the head of the
Angels, is forced to hang up his Nazi Helmet for good, having lost the respect
of his fellow Angels, and takes the walk of shame to civilian anonymity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Bored, directionless and leaderless, the remainder of
the Angels squabble amongst each other and threaten to implode as a group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s left to Elaine –Gresham’s girlfriend
who’d transferred her elegance and affections to Chopper- to pull the Hells
Angels back together and give the club its mojo back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Haunted by the death of her lover, Elaine
vows to do right by Chopper, by making the Hells Angels a more greater, feared
and powerful force than ever before...it’s what Chop would have wanted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reinventing herself by donning a one-piece
leather outfit and adopting the nickname ‘Mama’, Elaine loudly announces
herself as the new leader of the Angels by riding Chopper’s Harley into the
cafe that his former comrades frequent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The King is dead, long live the Queen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It does come as a surprise that the sequel to Chopper
makes Elaine the central character, especially as the original book gave the
impression that author Peter Cave wasn’t much of a fan of hers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, in the previous book, she was the
type of woman who gives all the others a bad name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A heartless schemer whose sex appeal caused
Chopper to go against his Angel principles and make a power grab that proved to
be his and Elaine’s downfall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Usually
when sequel novels turn a secondary character into the protagonist they are humanised,
rendered more sympathetic and relatable, but Cave goes in the opposite
direction with Mama.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reincarnating
Elaine as a tough, Angel Queen who has all the male bikers queuing up to lick
her leather boots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Given that the female
characters in Cave’s biker novels tend to be subservient girlfriends or sexual receptacles,
I did fear that the idea of a woman as head of the Angels would be a hard sell,
but it is actually one of the more convincing aspects to the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The slightest unzipping of her leather
one-piece outfit has the horny guys eating out of her hand, or failing that a
swift, hard kick in the balls silences her chauvinistic critics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At various points in the book Elaine is compared
to Lady Macbeth, Bonnie Parker, the Goddess Kali and Joan of Arc, a fighting
combination of genes if ever there was one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the original book, Chopper stood accused as being a sucker for this
hot blonde, for the sequel its Cave himself who seems to fall under Elaine’s
sexy spell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mama is a book that rarely
lets you forget that Elaine is totally naked under that leather one-piece,
attempting to get male readers hot under the collar with descriptions of ‘the
sexy feel of the cool leather against her bare flesh’ and ‘the proud swell of
her breasts, the tightness of her narrow waist and the smooth, rounded shape of
her hips and buttocks’.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Often New English Library’s choice of cover photos
felt like a random grab for the nearest photo of a ‘tearaway’ they had to hand,
but in the case of Mama, the unknown model seen on the cover in all her fag ash
Lil glory really nails the not-to-be-messed-with attitude of the
character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She IS Mama, and as well as
that iconic image also graced the cover of another NEL Biker novel ‘A Place in
Hell’ published the same year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj5okp1zDMI5A_8kVbeE4cOZpFT_i1eiyXOjalBPXjxTglrQRQklGhDMgFOfsnRhGSKxXTvZm80lyXrepkaqMsuoShtZRpnJoTK1GFYqlAuc0xyT9Z3HJ2KG6vwRH6lUp0kQ1ATusKQGczSAm2c7DyoCnahtmHc1QLmZ1XO3nM6FK0mlAkK7A7v9JGQ4U/s1540/s-l1600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1540" data-original-width="895" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj5okp1zDMI5A_8kVbeE4cOZpFT_i1eiyXOjalBPXjxTglrQRQklGhDMgFOfsnRhGSKxXTvZm80lyXrepkaqMsuoShtZRpnJoTK1GFYqlAuc0xyT9Z3HJ2KG6vwRH6lUp0kQ1ATusKQGczSAm2c7DyoCnahtmHc1QLmZ1XO3nM6FK0mlAkK7A7v9JGQ4U/s320/s-l1600.jpg" width="186" /></a></div><br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Mama leads you to wonder if Cave didn’t have a
competitive streak when it came to James ‘Richard Allen’ Moffatt’s Skinhead
novels, the chief competition to Cave’s biker books at NEL.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffatt’s 1970 book ‘Skinhead’ had kicked off
NEL’s turn towards the youthsploitation market, and Cave announced his biker
characters in Chopper by having them give an almighty beating to a gang of
skinheads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the interim, Moffatt wrote
his sequel novel ‘Suedehead’ and here Cave has Elaine assert her right to lead
the Angels by masterminding an assault on a bunch of luckless Suedeheads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s as if anyone Moffatt wrote about was
destined to get the shit kicked out of them in a Peter Cave book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The message the Cave books sent out to the
schoolyards was that those skins and suedeheads were a right bunch of pansies compared
to the Hells Angels, and it’s the likes of Chopper and Mama that all the cool
kids should be reading about.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Mama might bring back all the characters from the
first book –Nick the Greek, Irish Mick, Freaky, Danny the Deathlover- but it is
no retread that merely switches the gender of the main character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, Cave pitches Mama as a biker
variation on the ‘rise and fall of a small time hood’ gangster story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that sense, Elaine is less Lady Macbeth
and more Lady Scarface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas in the
first book the Hells Angels’ actions were mainly reckless and thrill seeking,
here Elaine attempts to build up a criminal organisation, funded by robberies,
extortion and drug dealing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A move that
causes friction between newer, younger members who merely want to have fun and
ride motorcycles, and older, more hard-bitten Angels who want to fully embody
their outlaw image.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As well as the regular gang, Mama also introduces new
biker characters, ‘Juice’ James so named for his IV drug use, Adolph named in
honour of his Aryan blonde hair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most
notable Cave gives us his first black character, Winston Oliver, who Elaine
re-names ‘Superspade’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After facing all
the prejudice you’d expect from a book written in the early 1970s, Supes
ultimately earns the respect of whitey due to a combination of motorcycle skills,
judo fighting techniques and a hatred of Pakistanis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Enough for him to be ‘initiated’ into the
Angels, thus Supes becomes the first black man in England to have the honour of
being spat at, pissed on and puked on by Hells Angels and emerge from that mess
a bona fide Hells Angel himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A fine
day for racial equality.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I’m curious how much basis in reality ‘Superspade’
had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a 1973 Man Alive documentary
about the British Hells Angels, one of their number, Mad John, complains about
the number of imitation Hells Angels clubs springing up in the UK, and mentions
having pushed a large black man from a bike, due to the man sporting fake Hells
Angels insignias.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So if we are to
believe a man called Mad John, it is possible that there were black Hells
Angels in Britain at the time, at least on an unofficial level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even so, an outsider’s glimpse into the
British Hells Angels scene of today, suggests Cave’s crystal ball was malfunctioning
when it came to his prediction here that the Hells Angels would soon become a matriarchal,
racially inclusive society.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Cave’s approach to his biker novels isn’t dissimilar
to that of a mondo movie, with a tabloidish sense of giving the public what it
wants, he cuts straight to the bizarre, sensationalist spectacles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Serving up an edited highlights reel that
trims out the mundane aspects of the Angels lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We never hear about their unglamorous day
jobs, their worldly responsibilities or interactions with family members...only
their lives on the hogs, and the kicks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Had Mama been a mondo movie, its poster would no doubt have been
plastered with ballyhoo like ‘witness the Angels’ wedding rituals’, ‘be
prepared to be shocked as an Angel shoots up’, ‘what is the shameful secret
Elaine keeps locked away in her room’, and ‘see the horrific battle between the
Angels and the Pakistanis’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the early
stages of the book, Cave maintains the stance of an impartial reporter, neither
moralising about their lifestyle, or giving the impression that he has their
backs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s only in a rare, introspective
moment in the book, where Elaine does some soul searching, that Cave seizes the
chance to let loose with what he really thinks about the Angels “they were
merely a pathetic band of failures- dropouts from a civilisation they couldn’t
cope with”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What with Cave having put distance between himself and
the people he was writing about, and seemingly broken the sexy spell that
Elaine had over him, this is significantly also the point in the book that the
Angels’ behaviour turns truly heinous and beyond the pale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much of Mama’s notoriety rightly rests on the
part of the book where the Angels decide to celebrate Christmas by terrorising
a Pakistani community centre, having become incensed at one of the Angels
having been beaten up by Pakistani men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Cave never displayed the same eagerness to mine the vein of race-hate
that James Moffatt did, but on the rare occasions that he did trespass into
Gentleman Jim Moffatt territory, there certainly wasn’t any half measures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just about every racial insult is freely
thrown about, as the Angels drink heavily, use speed and work themselves up
into a bigoted frenzy, with one of them joking that he’d have no qualms about
running over black people as “they just fill up the holes in the tarmac”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Angels then ride to Stepney, grabbing
hold of one unfortunate black youth, who is bombarded by kicks and racial expletives,
before Elaine orders him to be taken away and “turn him into curry”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite the Angels’ expectations of a full on
gang fight with Pakistani youths, the community centre is mainly populated by
kids and old people who cower in a corner as the Angels trash the centre, and
viciously beat with knuckledusters anyone ballsy enough to stand up to
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thick skinned, 1970s trash fiction
without mercy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a genuinely
harrowing, tough to read chapter, concluding with the sickening revelation that
the kid who got grabbed by the Angels outside the centre ended up being scalped
by them, and the ironic comment ‘it was a happy Christmas all round’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Echoing the sentiments of the skinheads
interviewed in the 1969 Man Alive documentary- ‘What’s the Truth about Hells
Angels and Skinheads’- who try and justify their attacks on Pakistanis by
claiming “it’s not their colour, cause we like the Jamaicans, they’re alright,
we mix with the Jamaicans”, Cave’s Hells Angels don’t seem to hate everyone
with black skin, and draw a similar line between Jamaican and Pakistani
cultures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Earlier on in the book, a
reggae number being played in a pub causes an appreciative Elaine to hustle the
Go-Go Dancers off the stage in order to dance and strip to the music herself
‘Elaine caught the beat and started to shake her hips in perfect time’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In sharp contrast, hearing Sitar music being
played at the community centre results in Elaine storming the stage to stomp all
over the musical instrument in a symbolic rejection of Pakistani culture ‘the
instrument folded up into a wreckage which would never play another note’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While them heavy boss sounds from Jamaica
brings out the proper rude girl in Elaine, the sound of Sitars unleashes her
inner Bernard Manning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is said that
the well thumbed copies of Chopper that were pasted around schoolyards in the
1970s had a tendency to always open on page 93 –which is the ‘very rude part’
of that book- but had the pages of Mama fell open anywhere between chapters 8
and 9, well... you wouldn’t have wanted to be a Pakistani kid in that school.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">On the rare occasions that Mama threatens to become a
re-write of Chopper, Cave cleverly uses the opportunity to go against expectations
set by the first book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A run to Bournemouth
initially looks to be a repeat of the Angels’ assault on Seaforth in
Chopper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, whereas their Seaforth
jaunt saw the Hells Angels victoriously terrorise the seaside town and run
rings around the police, in Bournemouth the fuzz have the upper hand and the
Angels are reduced to such petty, pathetic antics as destroying a flower bed
and strangling seagulls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bournemouth
might be a damp squib for the Angels, but Mama comes back strongly for its
finale, as Elaine plans one ‘big job’ that will get them enough money to make
the pilgrimage to the highways of America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Naturally, it doesn’t go to plan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Cave was always a safe bet when it came to doozy
endings, and Mama doesn’t disappoint, having its cake and eating it by offering
up a satisfying comeuppance for the characters who deserved it, while dishing
out a tragic, violent demise to the sole character in the book who’d developed
a moral compass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter Cave books are
unforgiving by nature.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the world of trash fiction at least, men and women
were equal in the 1970s, and Mama seems to have been every bit the success that
Chopper was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First published in March
1972, the book was reprinted in February and June 1973 and was into its fourth
edition by 1974.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elaine was very much in
demand back then. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like its predecessor,
Mama was also revived in the 1990s, when it was republished by Nigel Wingrove’s
Redemption company, whose forays into book publishing were destined to be
overshadowed by their VHS arm.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It has to be said, you truly feel alive while you’re
reading a Peter Cave book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still in his
early 30s when he wrote Mama, a constant charge of youthful energy and crass
willingness to shock runs through its pages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mama adds up to a good time with a bad girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcKfzstXyYLHs6soxB1-Zyz9nbI5yNlooBhFkSji_SsAdw4hfrL3jSRA2yrb9fHq_TMA-aZ1mxxbM6H6TmeoW5pz5n5hERT96JUx8vEL6B9SjxKXTbgLDed4ELxsjTigABNWH-37FUcI-Hc95eAifhb-jyiRTOEgNBNYk5kcjR2JUn-w5ZCPDMYiOFazI/s3585/mback.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3585" data-original-width="2193" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcKfzstXyYLHs6soxB1-Zyz9nbI5yNlooBhFkSji_SsAdw4hfrL3jSRA2yrb9fHq_TMA-aZ1mxxbM6H6TmeoW5pz5n5hERT96JUx8vEL6B9SjxKXTbgLDed4ELxsjTigABNWH-37FUcI-Hc95eAifhb-jyiRTOEgNBNYk5kcjR2JUn-w5ZCPDMYiOFazI/s320/mback.JPG" width="196" /></a></div><br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span><p></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-4284900950924412372024-03-08T23:53:00.000-08:002024-03-08T23:53:35.220-08:00Speed Freaks (1973, Peter Cave)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYwBcQZQeBPtYBUPF_tDiUoh6pPr_d8InB6XkPQl9rNHYrsgg5Bq-_RjCS_Y37DdQ9JBbJQebP2Jf4bw1IljNL-POrMySbkqm1MuPmZhIqEtLzmdkhyMaLD3PKSNUGRjUDMFiN6iX18MYokpfm5q1t3G5G_YAJehIJWQVTHYfXg-hxUtmQuvXBaX1lIBY/s3799/spcover.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3799" data-original-width="2402" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYwBcQZQeBPtYBUPF_tDiUoh6pPr_d8InB6XkPQl9rNHYrsgg5Bq-_RjCS_Y37DdQ9JBbJQebP2Jf4bw1IljNL-POrMySbkqm1MuPmZhIqEtLzmdkhyMaLD3PKSNUGRjUDMFiN6iX18MYokpfm5q1t3G5G_YAJehIJWQVTHYfXg-hxUtmQuvXBaX1lIBY/s320/spcover.JPG" width="202" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Murky Mervyn, Pig, Crapper, Eichmann.... Speed Freaks
proves that Peter Cave hadn’t lost his touch when it came to catchy names for Hells
Angels...not to mention ones for their train pulling chicks... Dodo, Fat Fanny
and Horsecollar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Written after the success of 1971’s Chopper and its
sequel Mama, Speed Freaks finds Cave reflecting on his exploitation of the British
Hells Angels, and the possible consequences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Cave later admitted that his run of biker exploitation books resulting
in him receiving phone calls from Angels, threatening him with violence,
resulting in the author going ex-directory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Cave’s protagonist here, Gerry Shipton, is a young, smug, careerist TV
director who is shooting a documentary about a pop concert, when he encounters
the British Hells Angels beating up Suedeheads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Immediately flashing on their commercial potential with the thrill
seeking public, Shipton attempts to enlist their services as the ‘stars’ of his
pop concert documentary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further playing
to their showbiz aspirations by offering the carrot on the stick proposal of a
follow on documentary all about the Hells Angels’ exploits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Speed, Sex and Sadism...the kids would love
it and the oldsters would hate it, but neither group would be able to switch
off”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Shipton might have been cast in Cave’s image, right
down to having a background in pornography, Shipton having a few ‘underground
porn films’ to his name, whilst Cave came to New English Library by way of skin-mags
like Flirt n’ Skirt, and also wrote erotic lit for NEL under the name ‘Petra
Christian’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still it’s not exactly a
flattering self-portrait, with Shipton depicted as a manipulative opportunist,
driven by ego and money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shipton gets a
taste of what he’s in for, when he brings along his new buddies to a travelling
circus, where he intends to grab footage of dare devil stunt riders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a distasteful, yet perversely funny
episode, the Hells Angels square off against freakshow performers, after one of
the bikers insults a female dwarf “reckon her old man must have used a tea
strainer for a French letter”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A quip
that you suspect even Cave thought went too far, as he quickly condemns it as a
‘weak joke’ and follows it with one of the Angels getting punched in the face
by the bearded lady “that’ll teach you, you little swine”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You don’t mess around with a bearded
lady.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While Chopper left you wondering
whether Cave didn’t have a personal grievance with the seaside town of Seaforth,
since he seemed to enjoy writing about it being trashed by Hells Angels a
little too much, here that set piece is echoed by the wholesale destruction of
the circus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After the humiliation of
being beaten up by circus workers, the Hells Angels lick their wounds, before regrouping
en masse and leading a sixty strong assault on the circus that leaves the
public and elephants running for their lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Did youngman Cave have a bad experience with circuses? and years later
seized the opportunity to cathartically write it out of his system, using the
Hells Angels as his instruments of revenge?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Power struggles are what fuels the drama in Cave’s
biker books, which also emphasize the importance of loyalty, earning respect
and brotherhood to the Angels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“He
showed class” is a phrase Cave is especially fond of bringing out, meaning to
impress other Angels, no matter what disgusting or reckless activity has to be
resorted too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Given how prized such characteristics
are in this world, it is inevitable that they’ll be retribution for transgressors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite Shipton initially winning the respect
of the Hells Angels, by holding his own in a fight with Eichmann, and being
rewarded with the sexual services of Dodo- a good natured, big-titted, train
pulling mama- cracks soon begin to show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Shipton cowardly makes his escape when the Circus workers overpower the
Angels, playing Judas by distancing himself from them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They’re nothing to do with me...I’m merely
doing my job...the TV boys asked me to make a film about them” claims Shipton...which
isn’t showing class.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Cave, through Shipton, makes a perceptive observation
that the Angels go from being ‘actors’ willing to perform for Shipton for a
chance of fame, to becoming dictatorial ‘directors’ who bully, threaten and
intimidate Shipton into dragging his camera around after them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The exploiter becomes the exploited, and vice
versa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Going one step further than
Chopper, which only had two men –‘Chopper Harris and Marty ‘Big M’ Gresham’-
battling for biker supremacy, Speed Freaks has a three way power struggle going
on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As head biker Murky Mervyn tries to
remain top of the heap, and Shipton attempts to play puppet master, a third
challenger Johnny ‘Reb’ Tucker- a movie stunt rider- casts a greedy eye in the
Hells Angels’ direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hoping to sign
several of them up to a stunt riding team, with no regard for their personal
safety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ultimately though you’re left
with the sense that the collective force of the Angels is something that can
never be controlled by one man alone, and like Frankenstein’s monster will turn
against anyone who tries to exploit it. “The essence of Angeldom was
destruction...and destruction is a two edged sword”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Speed Freaks is a far more misanthropic text than
Chopper, making you wonder if writing about these people wasn’t taking its toll
on Cave’s view of humanity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chopper
might have been able to convince you, against better judgement, to root for its
title character and give a damn about his ill-fated power grab, but there is no
such figure to latch onto here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Murky
Mervyn, Shipton, Tucker are all deceitful, self-serving assholes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This book hates everyone in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas the tragic ending of Chopper left you
thinking ‘aww...poor bastard’, here your final thought will be ‘the fuckers deserved
it’.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It’s almost as if Cave had started picking up bad
habits from the Hells Angels he was writing about, particularly when it came to
grossing out the average Joe on the street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s no surprise that his books are remembered fondest by people who
were kids back in the early 1970s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Before punk came along books like this fuelled all of their juvenile
delinquent fantasies of taking drugs, swilling beer, getting into fights, participating
in gang bangs, swearing on live TV and generally giving straight society the
fear.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoypkOJVOyQoYRgJQeb86EwufyU9IkhvnxRlEKYvUqaV0ctvFkf_xD1_syU8J8mXMAhZDsnSivM41dpN8dzHDBFgqlrc0DWBOpyiwPYDgHBWidBXZiOl8P7vCnwfWup_QeYDKvOZ2aCCX44S0iYuHSGfKZSulCeeOwF8v-0rrqXKkSDCRnpheS8xjYqW0/s3864/IMG_8883.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3864" data-original-width="2906" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoypkOJVOyQoYRgJQeb86EwufyU9IkhvnxRlEKYvUqaV0ctvFkf_xD1_syU8J8mXMAhZDsnSivM41dpN8dzHDBFgqlrc0DWBOpyiwPYDgHBWidBXZiOl8P7vCnwfWup_QeYDKvOZ2aCCX44S0iYuHSGfKZSulCeeOwF8v-0rrqXKkSDCRnpheS8xjYqW0/s320/IMG_8883.JPG" width="241" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p>If Speed Freaks was written around the time that Cave
was receiving threatening phone calls from the Hells Angels, then the man must
have had balls of steel.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Since there is no
attempt here to flatter or pacify his Angel critics in this book.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Cave evidentially wasn’t swept along by any
kind of Easy Rider type notion that these were nomadic, free spirited, rebels,
instead Cave clearly saw them as scumbags whose exploits sold allot of books. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">A strong stomach is required for Speed Freaks,
it is as if Cave was trying to top himself with each subsequent biker
book.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">There are moments in Speed Freaks
when you can practically feel Cave trying to force his fingers down the back of
your throat.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">One vomitious episode
involves Johnny Tucker being initiated into the Angels’ fold by getting pissed
on, spat on, bleed on, having the remnants of a dead cat thrown at him, and
finally being ejaculated over.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The
homoerotic implications of the latter act being slightly defused by having one
of the Mamas, Horsecollar, do the jerking.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">“Pulling them by the penises, like cattle on a lead, she lead them one
either side of Johnny’s prostrate body, where she proceeded to masturbate them
both with well practised hands”.....a woman’s work is never done!</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What with the carnage and violence being mostly played
out in the earlier part of the book, the focus of Speed Freaks then strongly turns
to the carnal side of the Hells Angels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Johnny’s girlfriend Shirley is required to pull a train in order to
grant her old man entrée into the Angels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Fortunately “insensitivity, plus a natural tendency towards nymphomania
made her an ideal choice for her peculiar role in the proceedings”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another mama, Fat Fanny, gets fucked by two
of the Angels using a wine bottle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
also discover that Hells Angels earn the right to wear RAF style red-wings on
their jackets by performing</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">cunnilingus on
a menstruating woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A fact so outrageous,
so farfetched sounding, that of course it checks out to be totally true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, if you ever hear a menstruating woman
orgasmically crying out, that sound means another angel got his wings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Attaboy, Clarence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There is something authentically dirty, authentically
rock n’ roll about Peter Cave’s biker novels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By rights the yellowed, battered copies of them that are still around should
smell of cigarettes, beer and other, less legal substances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In terms of lively writing, thoroughly sick
humour and exploitation incident, Cave is at the top of his game here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Speed Freaks is a book that veers into the
fast line, does a ton, and gives two fingers to everyone it passes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the Hells Angels themselves might put it,
Cave shows class. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnkJzR0OyaTbnL8UeEMd_-atyE92TmPMgvgvn3XVoMB5CURJ5Ea83KGbOZZODJr6nbMCqMHdPfbKK8FXQemPK9JnDuhVIWHkxxtnAJLtKxKZkB99KaleTkUZArEhAKGTENDXncwv2qmkPHMAqtLnESJEmnuoP3G9sZeJQ_jCqnaTNlwjMYXP6BHcsxabw/s3519/spback.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3519" data-original-width="2232" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnkJzR0OyaTbnL8UeEMd_-atyE92TmPMgvgvn3XVoMB5CURJ5Ea83KGbOZZODJr6nbMCqMHdPfbKK8FXQemPK9JnDuhVIWHkxxtnAJLtKxKZkB99KaleTkUZArEhAKGTENDXncwv2qmkPHMAqtLnESJEmnuoP3G9sZeJQ_jCqnaTNlwjMYXP6BHcsxabw/s320/spback.JPG" width="203" /></a></div><br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span><p></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-10358500182267042922024-03-08T22:37:00.000-08:002024-03-08T22:37:58.142-08:00Manchester Sleaze Tour 2024<p><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The sun continues to set on sleaze in Manchester, judging by my visit to the city centre earlier in the week. The Arndale book exchange is now a open three days a week affair, the sex shop on Thomas Street- near Rambos- now sells vinyl records instead. The Love Boutique on Hilton Street has weathered the storm, but the fleshpots on Tib street remain as derelict and shuttered up looking as they were when I last photographed them in 2022.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg66QVcDhGvwhaHusCjz1DD04aruCwTsHPn4abf0ZlYELNV4-GwL-8rOx3xs_hjvIMwUTYLBzEGvRx8jj4JefJY9JeF_v2A71D0l7spYGfm7xgHdDcRSwkYXPiItRF64WidRSjKLzIN3NXN-NkweNSJPS0KaDOrZeV8gR-gAQ2ypsFukwsW8Gh5WMuhBJU/s3607/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2705" data-original-width="3607" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg66QVcDhGvwhaHusCjz1DD04aruCwTsHPn4abf0ZlYELNV4-GwL-8rOx3xs_hjvIMwUTYLBzEGvRx8jj4JefJY9JeF_v2A71D0l7spYGfm7xgHdDcRSwkYXPiItRF64WidRSjKLzIN3NXN-NkweNSJPS0KaDOrZeV8gR-gAQ2ypsFukwsW8Gh5WMuhBJU/s320/1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiolymoxnkRmVHD54LVJlfxa6IvNdQ_jEt-Ulmr9JbLfA41iRHtkypLPI46-xEN6UomdQmK7KNabylnIMYa_4nDq8ccz21RQ-SznGOSZLlDCJk-cr-shzufK_kpDcx0mtqZQMHFU6UdoY53uesXeUtkC1oBXv5BNdeBeNgghED1cHnZcyWrfzXy_SkyT3s/s3092/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2319" data-original-width="3092" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiolymoxnkRmVHD54LVJlfxa6IvNdQ_jEt-Ulmr9JbLfA41iRHtkypLPI46-xEN6UomdQmK7KNabylnIMYa_4nDq8ccz21RQ-SznGOSZLlDCJk-cr-shzufK_kpDcx0mtqZQMHFU6UdoY53uesXeUtkC1oBXv5BNdeBeNgghED1cHnZcyWrfzXy_SkyT3s/s320/2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT0UUYLUffA-QGVaxYHbI29DA0ayim_vmEE0WOOJHDoIHyerG-wzD0y7uNaVVpxOi3iyRjZKu60abU1W3y20pRinXLalSQXAJ8NHuEJw5tqLMILW8YTFGo21mssb8CDMJKYnZIvw_OonnfqR6tg0wKOBZk8Up_WEk9p88h97eajtAG8lFfHdTIy3VGcZY/s2834/3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjNzU6U4ETU0ht4GIGi6GrQ52TVmpPyZEAU27Yj1Slh8BVFIqtLWiGNLG1jeEx9H8RR36pc4XX66-Xhsa9A9acyFD1ANGn7YSBapBLX-MfIUduowPiMXYm-goRLG2uc8DBXih22uGgMQ9TPcGXNXwp0dIiV1fRpmGUZ-xVBz0Hf6wo2vjRuvA9AJbZjrg/s2290/23.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2290" data-original-width="2006" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjNzU6U4ETU0ht4GIGi6GrQ52TVmpPyZEAU27Yj1Slh8BVFIqtLWiGNLG1jeEx9H8RR36pc4XX66-Xhsa9A9acyFD1ANGn7YSBapBLX-MfIUduowPiMXYm-goRLG2uc8DBXih22uGgMQ9TPcGXNXwp0dIiV1fRpmGUZ-xVBz0Hf6wo2vjRuvA9AJbZjrg/s320/23.JPG" width="280" /></a></div><br /><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span><p></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-33046600481842606752024-03-04T04:07:00.000-08:002024-03-04T04:07:43.654-08:00Chopper (1971, Peter Cave)<h1 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Now on YouTube, me, Clive and Nick marvel at Peter Cave's Chopper , the seminal 1971 biker novel, while puzzling over the comparatively lack of British biker movies and imagining a world in which Cannon made movie adaptations of Guy N Smith's crabs books.</span></b></h1><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2VGoGw_XZ1k" width="320" youtube-src-id="2VGoGw_XZ1k"></iframe></div><br /><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span><p></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-49948761258264059722024-03-04T04:04:00.000-08:002024-03-04T04:04:59.174-08:00Horsing around with Joe D'Amato<h2 style="text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Clive, Nick and me look at even more D'Amato movies.</span></h2><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/krWoeWMOI3Q" width="320" youtube-src-id="krWoeWMOI3Q"></iframe></div><br /><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span><p></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-10571548377646543522024-02-01T22:49:00.000-08:002024-02-01T22:49:33.948-08:00The Thousand and One Nights of Joe D'Amato<h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Now on YouTube: Me, Clive and Nick and embark on an epic quest to watch every single Joe D'Amato movie...who will survive and what will be left of them?</span></h2><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/klMt5ggffVQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="klMt5ggffVQ"></iframe></div><br /><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span><p></p><br style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br />gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-25433161315723750822024-01-18T00:34:00.000-08:002024-01-18T00:34:55.896-08:00Eat Them Alive (1977, Pierce Nace)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtQVV0IHuRSn2RpOnAmGXIpgbYlto6ePHdROX4dJq9LvDvVkmLhLndkAjsqLFmgYLpYXO_xBl-ap3kyVrT1h-B8kuOMrynATxvCHbLa3hW8-Zb7Zla2uAIzOxp3XIGph7mo0-B0h4MvlEnW_PUMyRr84vrzOn0FKSmFwWmPb7_qL9gk9Rih08214NbGek/s3382/1front.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3382" data-original-width="2170" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtQVV0IHuRSn2RpOnAmGXIpgbYlto6ePHdROX4dJq9LvDvVkmLhLndkAjsqLFmgYLpYXO_xBl-ap3kyVrT1h-B8kuOMrynATxvCHbLa3hW8-Zb7Zla2uAIzOxp3XIGph7mo0-B0h4MvlEnW_PUMyRr84vrzOn0FKSmFwWmPb7_qL9gk9Rih08214NbGek/s320/1front.JPG" width="205" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Ever since I started getting a taste for trash
fiction, I had people telling me that I needed to read Eat Them Alive by Pierce
Nace, that this was the ultimate bad taste book, the most nastiest, most
bloodiest, most lacking in artistic merit piece of writing ever to darken the
bookstands.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Its plot alone... a
castrated man seeks revenge on his torturers with the assistance of giant praying
mantises... screams out for your attention.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">That is one hell of a pitch for a book.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Of course, hearing about Eat Them Alive is easy,
finding a physical copy is the hard part.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Out of print in the English language since the late 1970s, the price for
a copy of Eat Them Alive has skyrocketed from the 75p it cost back then, with
copies on Ebay and Amazon currently being sold for £60, £100 and £156.72.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since the idea of selling a kidney in order
to read the book didn’t appeal, I turned to the person who’d been constantly
egging me on to read and write about Eat Them Alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After practically begging me to lend their
copy, I finally took him up on his generous offer, gave him my address to send it
to by recorded delivery (on the understanding that I send it back by recorded D
also).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I waited, and waited, and
waited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually concerned that a
highly valuable book had gotten lost in the post, I decided to get back in touch
with the grim news that I hadn’t received the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only to receive no answer, in fact I’ve never
heard from him since.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was this part of
some cruel mind game, designed to get me chomping at the bit to read this book
he’d been so luridly hyping, only to go AWOL when it came to deliver.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who can tell, for all I know the he was set
upon and devoured by giant praying mantises on the way to the post office.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The easiest way to currently ‘experience’ Eat Them
Alive is an unofficial fan-made audio book that is available on Youtube,
but...and it’s a big but...in a baffling decision the audio-book version only
transcribed 11 of the book’s 15 chapters...leaving listeners in the lurch as to
how the book ends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Essentially the
audio-book equivalent of getting a book out of the library, only to find the
last couple of pages have been torn out.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">For the longest time this book became my ‘Fly Fishing
by J.R. Hartley’, I haunted the charity and second hand bookshops of England,
hoping against hope that a stray copy might have slipped through the net at a
sane, affordable price.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world in
which books like this still sell for close to their original retail price has
however long since faded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually, I
had to stop dreaming and concede that a considerable hit to the wallet was
going to be the only way I could get to read all 15 chapters of Eat Them Alive.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By Eat Them Alive standards I did get
the book at a relatively low price.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
damage done to my wallet, being nursed slightly by the knowledge that I’d
offered far more to ‘or best offer’ Ebay sellers, who had greedily turned me
down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Imagine every
Video Nasty rolled into one, and then compressed into 158 pages...that’s Eat
Them Alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By rights this book should
have been a first time writing effort by a 13 year old boy, who’d grow up to
become a famous serial killer, causing people to look back on Eat Them Alive
and say ‘why didn’t we see the warning signs when young Pierce Nace started
writing those disgusting stories about giant praying mantises eating
people’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reality of who ‘Pierce
Nace’ actually is, happens to be one of those cases where fact is stranger than
fiction, and given that the fiction here involves a castrated man befriending a
giant praying mantis, that gives you an idea of how strange the truth is.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkEfBWWQGDElqBRCsPGrvgMWcvXK-50Vw6NHdyhRxg5jOz5yE7fVRVCNoRG5WCHTMqiVSR72mxQ_Q9xggtiJh-0BQPmZcgaQVXrvpvKBcssqA7mh-EMKGpyj1CH0cS1D2rSAkEn0Qs_gxKQKynHElMQdjPV9Xjs_s0FScJGKQXAu1wSg08R4bxsXjfh5c/s2039/2back.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2039" data-original-width="1294" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkEfBWWQGDElqBRCsPGrvgMWcvXK-50Vw6NHdyhRxg5jOz5yE7fVRVCNoRG5WCHTMqiVSR72mxQ_Q9xggtiJh-0BQPmZcgaQVXrvpvKBcssqA7mh-EMKGpyj1CH0cS1D2rSAkEn0Qs_gxKQKynHElMQdjPV9Xjs_s0FScJGKQXAu1wSg08R4bxsXjfh5c/s320/2back.JPG" width="203" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Eat Them Alive’s obsessive, driving force is Dyke
Mellis, a man without scruples... a man without stones, who has been left a
shadow of himself after being tortured and castrated by his former
friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having spent eleven long years
keeping a low profile on his adopted home of Malpelo, a Caribbean Island,
Dyke’s world is rocked by an Earthquake that releases hundreds and hundreds of
giant praying mantises upon Malpelo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the process, Dyke gets his zest for life back, and realises he gains enormous
satisfaction from watching the mantises’ torture, dismember and devour his
elderly neighbour, old Kello. “Now I’ve got something to live for...because I
love watching a man being eaten by a monster!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maybe it’s a substitute for my lost virility, I don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I know it’s a joy I thought I’d never
feel again”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Following this epiphany,
Dyke sets out on a complex plan against the men who robbed him of his
genitals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Deciding to try and capture
one of the Mantises, then attempting to turn the mantis- who he names ‘Slayer’-
into his instrument of revenge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of
this goes down in the first chapter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">One of the accusations frequently levelled at ‘animals
attack’ pulp horror is that they tend to adhere to a wash, rinse, repeat
formula... giant sized animals attack and kill a bunch of people, then they
attack and kill another bunch of people... and so on, and so on, until a deus
ex machina is discovered to curtail the beasts in the last chapter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After delivering the giant mantis carnage
upfront, however, Eat Them Alive turns into a multi-genred affair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unexpectedly taking on the appearance of a
1950s Juvenile Delinquent novel, when the focus turns to Dyke’s wayward
childhood and the events that ultimately led to him losing his manhood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As an angry, mad at the world, punk, Dyke got
into a knife fight at aged 15 with his own father, pulled the legs off small
animals and enjoyed driving nails through the hands of bankers during
robberies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the most unnerving
aspects to Eat Them Alive is how casual and matter of fact it presents such
anti-social behaviour, as if these were standard, youthful right of passages
that Pierce Nace expects us all to be able to relate to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Needless to say if you do happen to enjoy
pulling the legs off small animals and driving nails through people’s hands,
then you’re gonna love Eat Them Alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Every character is this book is irredeemably cold
blooded and without conscience, including the gang that Dyke becomes part
of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One that consists of whites Zeb
Hillburn and Kane Garrister, Native American Ryan Gaut, and ghetto firebrand
Pete Stuart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Out of all the characters
in this book Pete is the only one to hold a candle to Dyke when it comes to
being a mean bastard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How mean is Pete
Stuart? “His best leisure activity was chopping small animals to bits or maiming
children who came close to him”, Pete also was “white enough to pass but
gouging out the eyes of any man- or woman- who called him anything but
black”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pete also allows Pierce Nace to
work race-hate elements into Eat Them Alive, making Pete a character so
consumed by hatred towards non-blacks that he can barely get a sentence out
without working in his favourite racial slur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“What about it, you dumb whiteys”, “you damn whiteys can come along or
not”, “unlock the screen, old whitey”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s the first give-away that Eat Them Alive was the work of an American
author, rather than a cheeky British hack trying to pass the buck and disguise
their nationality by setting the book in the States and the Caribbean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Whitey’ tending to be a racial insult that
rarely travelled outside of America, whereas ‘honkey’ was the anti-white slur
that took off in the UK, and the one that a British author would have
gravitated towards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Having already spanned monster, Juvenile Delinquent
and race-hate genres, Eat Them Alive then finds itself travelling down the dusty
dirt road of a modern day Western.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
the gang take to the old west in search of an isolated ranch and Old Man
Shield, a crazy coot said to possess a fortune that Dyke and Co are eager to
get their amoral hands on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The gangs’
killing of Old Man Shield is excruciating and prolonged, even by Eat Them Alive
standards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In keeping with the book’s underlining
theme of violence becoming a male substitute for sex, Old Man Shield’s death
resembles a gang bang, with each of the men having their turn at beating,
stabbing and dismembering...and enjoying every second of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A turn of events initiated by sadistic Pete
“cuttin’ your guy up is half the damned fun”, and with the inexperienced Ryan
eager to learn “I never seen ears cut off. Go ahead and do it, let me see if I
like it as well”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In true Western style the bandits get away with the
loot, only for Dyke to succumb to paranoia and greed, deciding to do unto
others before they do unto him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An
attempt to make off with the money proves to be Dyke’s undoing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Caught in the act, Dyke finds himself at the
mercy of his former friends, who having developed a love of cuttin’, think
nothing of knife torturing Dyke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
unkindest cut comes... natch’ at the hands of Pete Stuart, who excitedly
hollers “I gonna cut off his nuts” ignoring Dyke’s pleading of “No, No, Don’t
cut me there, Slice off anything, but leave me that”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Eat Them Alive then anticipates the Italian cannibal
genre, as Dyke’s revenge plan takes a sideways glance at a Malpelo tribe, who
Dyke suspects are descended from cannibals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Which would explain their ritualistic habits of slicing up live racoons
with machetes, and offering freshly ripped out hearts to loved ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A romantic gesture to these uneducated, primitives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eyeing them up as a trial run for his
revenge, Dyke manages to talk to gullible tribesmen into taking their entire
families on a day out to Malpelo to meet those delightful, big green giant bugs
that of course mean them absolutely no harm whatsoever, no siree, you can trust
the white man when it comes to that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A quick, painless death is a luxury that eludes
everyone in Eat Them Alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prior to
reading Nace’s book, I’d just gotten through Blood Worm (1987) by John Halkin,
which I felt short charged the reader when it came to writing around deaths,
preferring subtle metaphors for characters meeting their maker ‘he was falling,
a long slow freefall...a rich velvet blackness’ over gory incidents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An accusation that you couldn’t aim at Eat Them
Alive, which endlessly dwells on mantises plucking out eyeballs, biting off
noses, severing limbs, yanking out intestines, severing heads, cracking skulls,
eating brains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nace’s writing never
flinches or looks away until characters are reduced to well gnawed on
bones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Deaths in Eat Them Alive inadvertently
remind you of the song ‘Brave Sir Robin’ from Monty Python and the Holy Grail,
with its lengthy </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">list of indignities that Sir Robin isn’t afraid to have done to him “</span><span style="background: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">He was not in
the least bit scared, to be mashed into a pulp. Or to have his eyes gouged out,
and his elbows broken. To have his kneecaps split, and his body burned away, and
his limbs all hacked and mangled…His head smashed in, and his heart cut out, and
his liver removed” etc etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s
exactly how characters die in Eat Them Alive.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Each
chapter of Eat Them Alive frog matches you ever further and further from
reality and deeper and deeper into the type of delirious wilderness that causes
you to question the mental stability of its author.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amongst the incidents you are unreasonably
asked to except here includes Dyke giving Slayer a paint job, painting his head
red to signify his superiority to other mantises.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dyke inventing a smelly potion that he doses
himself with, allowing him to live among the mantises who are repelled by
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dyke chaperoning nine, now subservient,
mantises around in a truck, and Dyke imagining he can read Slayer’s thoughts
and hold imaginary conversation with his mantis buddy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along the way we’re also subjected to a
relentless stream of gloriously ridiculous dialogue “remember me now, Pete? Or shall
I take off my pants and let my castration jog your memory”, “I’m going to
cripple you in a few spots and then let you watch my beast eat your woman”, not
forgetting “White man knew. White man bring villagers here for big bugs to eat”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rarely has such a cold, unfeeling,
anti-humanity book been able to generate so much laughter from its readership.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Only
towards the end of Eat Them Alive does the book suffer from repetition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The third act consisting of Dyke driving a
truck load of mantises to the abodes of his castrators, executing them with a suspenseless
ease and lack of obstruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While Eat
Them Alive admittedly gets samey around this point, Nace’s inventive, loyalty
to the gore remains a strong point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
of Dyke’s despised enemies has his nose, mouth and ears hacked off by
machete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While another is stripped and
stoned to death by Dyke, who in a near literal example of ‘An Eye for an Eye’
vengeance manages to sever the man’s penis with one of the jagged stones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s also worth sticking around for Dyke’s confrontation
with Zeb, who absolutely refuses to take the situation seriously, dismissing
Slayer as ‘a big stuffed toy’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
inconceivable to Zeb that a man he’d left naked, bleeding and castrated 11
years earlier really might hold a grudge…and isn’t just pulling his leg by
showing up on his doorstep with a giant praying mantis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even after Dyke shoots him in the shoulder
and announces his intention to turn Zeb into a sieve, Zeb still thinks the two
of them can work out their differences “Damn you, Dyke, cut it out”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’ve only opted for the cheap route and
listened to the 11 chapter audio-book, you’re missing out on Dyke getting into
blackface, plus one final opportunity for Nace’s writing to cause you to
face-palm yourself, with an out of left field plot twist that sees Eat Them
Alive do one last genre-twist into a war novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">So just
who was Pierce Nace?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trash fiction has
seen many unlikely contributors whose real identities have turned out to be far
removed from their writing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was
‘Richard Allen’ whose skinhead novels caused his youthful readership to cast
the author as a real life skin who earned extra money by writing about the
racism, hooliganism and rape he got up to in-between novels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas in reality Allen was a portly, middle
aged Canadian hack by the name of James Moffatt, who lived in Devon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then there was John Halkin, who when not
writing pulp horror like ‘Slither’ and ‘Squelch’, held political aspirations,
running as an MEP for the liberal democrat party under his real name John
Parry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even in this company though, the
real identity of Pierce Nace takes some beating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems that when it came to writing a book likely
to cause the average reader to throw up, the best man for the job was in fact a
woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The evidence as to the identity of
the person behind the ‘Pierce Nace’ nom de plume, all pointing in the direction
of Evelyn Pierce Nace, a housewife and part time secretary based out of Pampa,
Texas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nace was born Evelyn Louise
Pierce in Kansas in 1912, making her in her mid-sixties when she wrote Eat Them
Alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhJzp0ONo0VfFNk4NGih003AOkEwSo4vAnx335jA66QWdH6hHUkOwx-V0bTzjC52irdRpzCdp9_ii6aQq6t9Sf6W9qYtqsjLi_ZlWHzNB636_3WjpavbS238BD-3qYAAgC_hLCgmj49j15PUFaUliF7lvBYIdJCoFbwkx7DSdW7ZITTF_ruTWUzNEsf3Y/s609/6nace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="609" data-original-width="496" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhJzp0ONo0VfFNk4NGih003AOkEwSo4vAnx335jA66QWdH6hHUkOwx-V0bTzjC52irdRpzCdp9_ii6aQq6t9Sf6W9qYtqsjLi_ZlWHzNB636_3WjpavbS238BD-3qYAAgC_hLCgmj49j15PUFaUliF7lvBYIdJCoFbwkx7DSdW7ZITTF_ruTWUzNEsf3Y/s320/6nace.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><br /><span style="background: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Married to Delmar ‘Otis’ Nace
since 1937, her writing career began in 1939.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>While Otis was off fighting in WW2, Evelyn sold short stories to
magazines like ‘Romantic Love Stories’ and ‘Ideal Love’ a far cry from the gore
epic that would become her magnum opus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A move into detective and true crime stories saw the creation of her
‘Pierce Nace’ pen name, an amalgamation of her and her husbands’ surnames, said
to have been adopted out of fears that readers of Men’s Magazines wouldn’t
accept a broad as a writer of pulp fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Going with the times, by the late sixties, Evelyn’s writing took a racy
turn as co-author of sex-ed books like ‘A Doctor Dares You: Score Six for Sex’
(1969) and ‘Sex for Women over 40’ (1968) which tackled the taboo of sex being
‘increasingly pleasurable, even after the menopause’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The inevitable companion piece ‘Sex for Men
over 40’ (1968) offers a possible insight into the genesis of Eat Them
Alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did researching male sexual
problems and frustrations lead Evelyn down a rabbit role, one that she found
Dyke Mellis at the bottom of? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVPqhmb5EG0jJWwtRHgctL2XADmqE0bRAcALbvOsNFFkMLuG12sq58rik-1t9XWv3XJZ0v3OzmY24IMngt5hOvwU7JzBteZhGwBf3Zz1raTlf4mzQHpJJzl6eP1-wWZUj8Cqgimi2cGa7uT-3bURF4RDlJpHfPYMe4vrzrrtzuArshy6j5HEjs4wVYMsI/s2058/4sexed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2058" data-original-width="1228" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVPqhmb5EG0jJWwtRHgctL2XADmqE0bRAcALbvOsNFFkMLuG12sq58rik-1t9XWv3XJZ0v3OzmY24IMngt5hOvwU7JzBteZhGwBf3Zz1raTlf4mzQHpJJzl6eP1-wWZUj8Cqgimi2cGa7uT-3bURF4RDlJpHfPYMe4vrzrrtzuArshy6j5HEjs4wVYMsI/s320/4sexed.jpg" width="191" /></a></div><br /><span style="background: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
revelation of the author’s gender sheds a whole new, unexpected light on Eat
Them Alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever one makes of Nace’s
writing- the crude, demented style here often belies a writer enjoying nearly
four decades of being published- there can be little doubt that Evelyn Nace was
a master of disguise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is nothing
remotely feminine about Eat Them Alive, with its themes of emasculation,
revenge and male betrayal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did all those
years hiding her real identity from Men’s Magazine readers, cause Evelyn to
adopt a hard boiled, hyper masculine facade to her writing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ultimate humiliation of men in Eat Them
Alive is not the destruction of their bodies, rather its being forced into
showing their emotions in the company of other men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only when he witnesses his enemies crying,
pleading for their lives and that of their loved ones, does Dyke Mellis know
true satisfaction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even in this day and
age society still tends to hold women to higher standards than men, expecting
them to be a little more sensitive towards violence, especially violence
towards animals and children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Expectations
that are torn into dismembered chunks by Eat Them Alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The level of animal abuse in this book is off
the scale, and Eat Them Alive has no qualms about depicting babies being torn
in half by greedy mantises, nor Zeb and Kane getting all nostalgic for “when we
wacked off the ears of that kid in Dallas”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Good times, according to Zeb and Kane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Eat
Them Alive might be drowning in male castration anxiety, but Nace doesn’t let
her own gender off the hook when it comes to sexual mutilation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Slayer turns out to be quite the boob crazy
mantis, who just can’t get enough of tearing the tits off unfortunate
females.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In one depraved instance
performing mass mastectomies on tribeswomen, chopping down on their breasts
then leaving the rest for other, lesser mantises. “One by one he threw women to
the ground and tore off their sweet-tasting breasts”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For all of the evidence that points to Evelyn
Nace being the author of this book, it is still hard to get your head around
the idea that a woman wrote a book in which her male lead fantasizes about
joining praying mantises as they devour a woman’s private parts “he bent over
the girl and filled his great maw with all that stamped the body as
female.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Watching, Dyke thought, God, I
think I could eat that part myself”. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9mWoMejc7T9Sj05fZrHLzU_KzcHJO1zGt2AHwHFUY75icCBLRs02JDoldpdIYOcb-YGDpU62RiYJ6igTMhZ8oOAVkmqkpJPZnxUNk0cMW26528kntyqHajZxem-MxPus7-YWChzPta1sCwD21SQj7TNhaGQTPhnP5NXdc347kMMB6j1W2cxrBYVFFVeA/s839/5othercover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="839" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9mWoMejc7T9Sj05fZrHLzU_KzcHJO1zGt2AHwHFUY75icCBLRs02JDoldpdIYOcb-YGDpU62RiYJ6igTMhZ8oOAVkmqkpJPZnxUNk0cMW26528kntyqHajZxem-MxPus7-YWChzPta1sCwD21SQj7TNhaGQTPhnP5NXdc347kMMB6j1W2cxrBYVFFVeA/s320/5othercover.jpg" width="191" /></a></div><br /><span style="background: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Was
Nace holding up a mirror to the times she had lived through?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bloody specter of Charles Manson hangs
over scenes of Dyke and his subservient mantises breaking into the houses of
rich people, whose pleas for mercy, and offers of money, fall on deaf
ears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is also a Manson vibe about
Eat Them Alive’s attempts to give whitey the fear about angry, militant blacks,
who –quite literally in the case of Pete Stuart- want to emasculate the white
man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Given
Evelyn Nace’s apparent lack of experience in writing horror, it is possible
that the extremist elements of Eat Them Alive were purely accidental.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If she had no reference point for pulp horror,
and based Eat Them Alive off faded memories of Eisenhower-era monster movies
that must have blew through Pampa in the 1950s, it is conceivable that she
believed all horror films and books to be none stop orgies of blood and guts,
and was unaware of the envelope pushing effort she had created.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether it was through accident or design,
Eat Them Alive, like Guy N Smith’s work, succeeded in dragging creature
features of the Bert I. Gordon and AIP variety into the sicko, savage 1970s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Smith’s books, Eat Them Alive is a work
that seems destined to never translate to the big screen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its concept demanding the kind of big budget
Hollywood treatment that would also require its excessive gore to be watered
down beyond recognition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>True, in these
days of CGI, Eat Them Alive might be pulled off on a lower-budget, but let’s be
careful what we wish for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have Dario
Argento’s Dracula to remind us how shitty a CGI praying mantis can look.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx1oVPp1-KI4gbb8HPUj8UB4nd62WcTWWZo-zfy-JvkqV5kmAl1AvZwEOdnVqbdxWJS2_ZA4ff4BCgmnfWCKkm0m0MktKtXhmaJxmBieDh-LXTEPHIcZ8KVqoihZuYMG_dC2tWoFuI8RAKZge2gv8DP0_8Ti5J_VbTu8hXBRrpPQ0-7m3-bkpH_09SpK0/s1280/8argentomantis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="544" data-original-width="1280" height="136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx1oVPp1-KI4gbb8HPUj8UB4nd62WcTWWZo-zfy-JvkqV5kmAl1AvZwEOdnVqbdxWJS2_ZA4ff4BCgmnfWCKkm0m0MktKtXhmaJxmBieDh-LXTEPHIcZ8KVqoihZuYMG_dC2tWoFuI8RAKZge2gv8DP0_8Ti5J_VbTu8hXBRrpPQ0-7m3-bkpH_09SpK0/s320/8argentomantis.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="background: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16pt;">I wouldn’t wish that on ol’Slayer, and just
who would play Dyke Mellis?</span><span style="color: #202124; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16pt;">In days gone
by Klaus Kinski would have been a natural shoe-in for the role of a sexually
frustrated megalomaniac, Harvey Keitel is always good for outbursts of
self-pitying male wailing…but the only current actor who springs to mind is
Nicolas Cage.</span><span style="color: #202124; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16pt;">Dyke Mellis’ unbalanced,
blood caked, monologues are practically crying out for the Nic Cage treatment
“I think I could see Slayer swim in a sea of blood- and I could swim in it with
him, especially if it was the blood of people, of men, the four men I hate with
all my guts…I could spend my whole life seeing him eat men alive”.</span><span style="color: #202124; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16pt;">Someone needs to slip Cage a copy of Eat Them
Alive and bring him to the realization that his career so far has been but a
prelude to playing Dyke Mellis.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Nace
was to writing what Ed Wood was to filmmaking, and The Shaggs were to
music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their anti-professionalism
creating a work far more memorable than had it been entrusted to competent individuals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a disposable medium like pulp horror,
where books were written to be consumed during plane journeys or cheap foreign
holidays then forgotten about, Eat Them Alive is a keeper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once read, impossible to unread, for better
or ill, Eat Them Alive will stay with you forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its either a book you’ll take to your breast,
or regard as the biggest, most insulting, piece of shit you’ve ever laid eyes
on, there is no middle ground with Eat Them Alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One small step for female writers, one giant
leap for mantis kind, Eat Them Alive proved that a woman’s place isn’t in the
kitchen, it is being hunched over a typewriter, knocking out page after page of
people being dismembered by giant mantises.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Evelyn Pierce Nace’s lasting gift to humanity being images of Dyke
Mellis and Slayer forever swimming together in a sea of human blood.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxgH81oE7ls_z3rCG-YaVfAvclxZWKwT84ESiP8sXWfWz9y3wneY7ntLhRJsc5j2pCUAD0f6MCUU792_6mVP1zXzL93UO2lKaXUM8aOVPkhBi_yaiSoL2Pk6c-Rm1paAPH6vUriS9_-UbW01EVyE8t9uDdMXV94NH8vXmnWaVjJPHaIOoX2BhPOWk4Jrs/s555/7german.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="341" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxgH81oE7ls_z3rCG-YaVfAvclxZWKwT84ESiP8sXWfWz9y3wneY7ntLhRJsc5j2pCUAD0f6MCUU792_6mVP1zXzL93UO2lKaXUM8aOVPkhBi_yaiSoL2Pk6c-Rm1paAPH6vUriS9_-UbW01EVyE8t9uDdMXV94NH8vXmnWaVjJPHaIOoX2BhPOWk4Jrs/s320/7german.jpg" width="197" /></a></div><br /><span style="background: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span><p></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-67089309643589584812023-12-26T00:16:00.000-08:002023-12-26T00:16:46.590-08:00Don’t Open Till Christmas revisited<p><span style="font-family: Arial, "sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt;">Santas and good taste watch out as Clive, Nick and Me chat about Don't Open
Till Christmas and it's behind the scenes documentary The Making of a Horror
Film.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L9ONvyvpozI" width="320" youtube-src-id="L9ONvyvpozI"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, "sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Arial, "sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt;">As an extra Christmas
treat, here is a transcript of my prep notes for the video:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7KRjzOKfAlZBR8c88u0ouSKqs2jR-fbnpVtqa6hyQH1el7uCeoIFfq2mbtwMSbyHv8bOkWDyHy0HA6UGeMnOwdXhMWL119Vr9by94AxFDZM48zJb8hbtsnloVAAuQVDnW69AP6fbg_6QVs65ExnG3jpHq7VxxNNgmw8J1wr5pnqSyAMSVI5-RdzYisa4/s2032/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1522" data-original-width="2032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7KRjzOKfAlZBR8c88u0ouSKqs2jR-fbnpVtqa6hyQH1el7uCeoIFfq2mbtwMSbyHv8bOkWDyHy0HA6UGeMnOwdXhMWL119Vr9by94AxFDZM48zJb8hbtsnloVAAuQVDnW69AP6fbg_6QVs65ExnG3jpHq7VxxNNgmw8J1wr5pnqSyAMSVI5-RdzYisa4/s320/1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
I first encountered Don't Open Till Christmas during my VHS collecting days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had a local indoor market –long since
demolished and converted into an ASDA- called Pendlebury market which on the
Wednesday served as a flea market.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was there you'd have stalls selling videos, second-hand books and generally
junk that people didn't want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Older pre-cert
tapes were still relatively cheap in the early 1990s, I paid just two pounds
for The Magic Curse on the Hokushin label back then and two pounds for Cain’s
Cut Throats on VTC.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In those
pre-internet days you just tended to grab anything from the pre-cert era and
hope for the best.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, it wasn't
long before you learned the life lesson that not everything pre-cert was gold.
I remember picking up Frankenstein Island from Pendlebury Market for £1.75…complete
cinematic dog shit, but at least back then it didn't cost you too much to step
in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway there were these two old
guys who had a VHS stall at Pendlebury market on Wednesdays and for some reason
their nickname for me was ‘The Kung Fu Kid’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So I must have been buying a few kung fu movies from them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although I honestly can't remember having
done so, and whatever allegiance I had to martial arts movies went out of the
window when I picked up a VHS of Don't Open Till Christmas from them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the Kung Fu Kid is the nickname they came
up for me for buying too many martial arts movies from them, I shudder to
imagine what nickname was bestowed upon me when I started buying movies like Don't
Open Till Christmas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have to credit Don’t
Open Till Christmas with igniting this fascination I have for second rate
British cinema, along with a lot of the B-level crime film from the 1960s,
mostly made by an outfit called Butchers films, that were still showing up in graveyard
slots on TV at the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Films which Don't
Open Till Christmas does accidentally resemble at times, especially those scenes
of Edmund Purdom and Mark Jones doing their sleuthing in a mock-up of a
Scotland Yard office, which come across as a throwback to the Butchers and Edgar
Lustgarten cheapies from two decades earlier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I love how the UK video release of Don’t Open Till Christmas hard selled
the murder mystery angle “Scotland Yard is on the trail but every clue points
them in a different direction, the culprit is right under their nose” then on
the back cover had a still of Alan Lake murdering Belinda Mayne’s character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus revealing who the killer in the film is,
and that the main female character dies at the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did recently float the idea that this was
the biggest spoiler to ever appear on a UK video sleeve, but someone managed to
go one better by pointing out that there was a UK video release of Planet of
the Apes, that had the final image from that film on the front cover… which
does tend to give the game away a bit. Accidentally revealing who the killer
was on the back of the video cover does rather typify a production that seemed
to be ridden with disaster after disaster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>According to the credits of Don’t Open Till Christmas, this is a film
directed by Edmund Purdom, with ‘additional scenes written and directed by Al McGoohan’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However according to the late Ray Selfe, the
insider story was that the film was begun by Purdom, who made a hash of
directing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Direction of the film was
then handed over to Derek Ford who either got sacked or walked away from the
film, and Ray Selfe ended up finishing directing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More recently however Alan Birkinshaw, who like
Ford and Selfe had a background in British sex films, has fessed up to
directing parts of it, and having a hand in rewriting and recasting the film
when it ran into trouble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So the film
had four directors in all.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">According to some, Edmund
Purdom only agreed to star in the film if he could also direct it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, I'm not sure if that is completely true,
since Purdom was fairly indiscriminant about the type of films he was appearing
during this period, and never seems to have a hankering to direct any of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suppose the chance to direct may have been
a carrot on a stick incentive for Purdom to leave Rome behind and come to freeze
his ass off in London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Purdom later
claimed he'd always felt he was ‘a born director’ a view not widely shared by
the rest of humanity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite the fact
that he was a Brit, Purdom had been away in Rome and before that Hollywood for
so long that his parts of Don't Open Till Christmas have this excitable tourist
mentality when it comes to filming all of the well known London landmarks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Purdom really, really loved to film that New Scotland
Yard sign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A mentality that you also tend
to get when overseas filmmakers shot horror movies and giallos in London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where they were obviously determined to see
that the extra money it cost to film for a few days in London was all up there
on screen, and frog marched their casts around just about every London landmark
they could find.</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
On account of Don’t Open Till Christmas, Edmund Purdom did become a member of
that fairly exclusive club of actors whose one stab at film feature film
directing was a horror movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alongside
David Hess, John Saxon and Roddy McDowall, and you might also be able to
include Larry Hagman, Tony Lo Bianco and Darren McGavin…. although those three
did also direct TV show episodes as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Alan Birkinshaw later remembered “the problem with Edmund was that he
was a bit eccentric and he was also a bit of a sex maniac”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I'm not sure being a sex maniac was a
hindrance when it came to directing Don't Open Till Christmas but Purdom’s eccentricity
might have gotten the better of him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
story about Purdom and Don’t Open Till Christmas involves him directing a scene
involving a guard dog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where rather than
explaining to the dog’s handler what he wanted the dog to do, Purdom went
straight to the dog and tried to explain to the dog what it's motivation was
and what it needed to bring to the role, as if the dog could understand English.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In a later interview Purdom
claimed the only reason he had to stand down as the film's director was that Dick
Randall had been avoiding paying tax and everyone involved in this film was allegedly
being paid in cash only.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This situation
was discovered by Derek Ford, who Purdom alleged, then used this information as
a way of blackmailing his way into the director's chair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the idea of Randall not paying tax
sounds as if it could have basis in reality, as for Derek Ford’s blackmailing of
Randall, perhaps less so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Ford did go
to the extreme lengths of blackmail his way into the director’s chair why then
did he walk away from directing the film after only a couple of days?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alternatively, how did Dick Randall manage to
fire Derek Ford if Ford had that kind of leverage over him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also strikes me that if Ford was
blackmailing Randall, it would have led to a rift between the two of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas in reality Ford and Randall worked
together on at least two other occasions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_1UVlOLobDd_MMNZWY6bhGKeV2Zvs0f2oElBHydQk9hOUyjQviVfNgMwP6OyRR4o7yh96-3Rk8gFdnTJ6gn9ORVWl_rg4gxInejZr8ScimnO_EAhjNJLPk0RGvZjR0v0DUSeMTtdYMaqB8OK3PQdo2XjAV9f2yJn_OPFEWn0V7wrMwHTRpVEUGHFH2jA/s724/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="724" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_1UVlOLobDd_MMNZWY6bhGKeV2Zvs0f2oElBHydQk9hOUyjQviVfNgMwP6OyRR4o7yh96-3Rk8gFdnTJ6gn9ORVWl_rg4gxInejZr8ScimnO_EAhjNJLPk0RGvZjR0v0DUSeMTtdYMaqB8OK3PQdo2XjAV9f2yJn_OPFEWn0V7wrMwHTRpVEUGHFH2jA/s320/6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Anyway whatever the
reason, Derek Ford took over directing the movie and I think because of that,
coupled with the fact that he also wrote the film, is why there are a lot of Fordian
themes going on in this film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ford had a
consistent downer on male photographer characters, as if Derek Ford… sex
filmmaker and swinger… had the right to look down on anyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This goes back to Tony Booth’s character in Corruption,
the 1960s horror film Ford wrote with his brother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other predatory, obnoxious male photographers
show up in Ford's film ‘Suburban Wives’, the Ford scripted ‘Scream and Die’ and
Don't Open Till Christmas gave Ford the opportunity to give this stock
character of his a 1980s makeover in the form of Cliff's porn photographer pal Gerry.
For a British sex film director, Ford was always one to call out male
chauvinism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There's a scene in Ford’s film
‘The Wife Swappers’ where a husband is trying to coax his wife into some girl
on girl action for his swinger pals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Only for her to fume “animals, animals all of you… you've taken the act
of love and dirtied it” and ends up breaking up the party by ordering all the
swingers out of her home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A scenario Ford
sort of revisits here when Cliff sensitively suggests that his recently bereaved
girlfriend Kate can overcome the grief of her father's death by doing a girl on
girl porn photo shoot with a glamour model called Sharon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of which results in Kate seeing red and
sending her into “animals, animals all of you” mode.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This leads to Sharon being threatened by the
killer who runs a cut throat razor over her naked body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which I suspect might be Derek Ford bring you
one of his kinks to the movies... there's a similar scene in Diversions (1975) when
a lady Nazi touches up Heather Deeley with a switchblade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ford himself also shows up in Don’t Open Till
Christmas playing a Santa Claus at a circus, whose eyeball ends up falling out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A fairly rare in front of the camera
appearance by Ford, who by all accounts was the type of bloke who liked to
watch others rather than be the one who was being watched himself…if you know
what I mean.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz2MSkdmYPvJtQK4T9B1GYoLgJp8p4mq-wTQpBNehdbH7LRso3rYtey0KgbADFj28JjVI4u2C5N1iTuoPTcs6_T9QCRYzI_3JKIkedmU7C4ohq8zy60cC1nTSfHPuTyKMmZeTIpN7NKGgoCOKgm7ScWvvgMLjWbAhfH7MGHQbGG64MrLPzmBCazRlX0OQ/s3210/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2131" data-original-width="3210" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz2MSkdmYPvJtQK4T9B1GYoLgJp8p4mq-wTQpBNehdbH7LRso3rYtey0KgbADFj28JjVI4u2C5N1iTuoPTcs6_T9QCRYzI_3JKIkedmU7C4ohq8zy60cC1nTSfHPuTyKMmZeTIpN7NKGgoCOKgm7ScWvvgMLjWbAhfH7MGHQbGG64MrLPzmBCazRlX0OQ/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Don't Open Till
Christmas does go against the grain for an early 1980s slasher film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the accusations frequent aimed at that
genre is that you can always work out from the get go that the loud jocks and
the female bimbos are going to get theirs and the nice girl who doesn't put out
is going to be the one who defeats the mad killer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas Don't Open Till Christmas doesn't so
much rip up the rule book, rather it gives the impression that no one could be
bothered to read the rule book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this
film you can be a topless model with the morals of an alley cat and live… you
can work in a Peep show and live… you can be a porn photographer and live… and
you can try and coerce your distraught girlfriend into doing porn and live… and
yet all the decent and nice characters in this film die horribly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Say what you will about Don’t Open Till
Christmas, but it is difficult to second guess who gets to live and who dies…unless
of course you've seen the back of the UK video sleeve which gives away the
death of a major character.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Another way in which Don't
Open Till Christmas stands out from the slasher pack is that it's a very
British film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lots of London exteriors, lots
of British accents… Pat Astley who is from Blackpool is even in the film, and
how often do you get to hear the Sandgronian accent on film. I've never worked
out why, when people from Liverpool call themselves Liverpudlians, when people
from Manchester call themselves Mancunians… why people from Blackpool call
themselves Sandgronians, which makes them sound like Doctor Who villains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzE0uWaeHT42Ch22_owPLULysj0kYbQbh11o40ZuVEW2g3ILJvWT21MoR47dF2zdwN6iXcnB_r0X6WQdJ5PFjITz2bGsEoorcpGy2dCiWBda6b2Yy2lVZuw_V13mJ14AJB2W-U8NxPLJUg2t6IsqNtrNjQx6OtcqeE-7oSoAwvmbJ2hCFG3QOnSNytETo/s1376/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1006" data-original-width="1376" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzE0uWaeHT42Ch22_owPLULysj0kYbQbh11o40ZuVEW2g3ILJvWT21MoR47dF2zdwN6iXcnB_r0X6WQdJ5PFjITz2bGsEoorcpGy2dCiWBda6b2Yy2lVZuw_V13mJ14AJB2W-U8NxPLJUg2t6IsqNtrNjQx6OtcqeE-7oSoAwvmbJ2hCFG3QOnSNytETo/s320/3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Pat, like a couple of cast members had a
background in British sex films, her real name is Patricia Maynard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was her last credited acting role in a
movie, but Pat always had a second career going as an extra, doing un-credited
non-speaking roles on television.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most
famously she was the first of young Mr. Grace’s nurses in Are You Being Served…
and it's believed she continued working as a TV extra up until the early 1990s
when she stopped acting and went back to Blackpool to live amongst her fellow Sandgronians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She did resurface a few years ago as a
talking head in a documentary about Mary Millington… they got her for that on account
of a brainwave I had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one knew how to
get in touch with her but it was believed that Pat was back in Blackpool and as
Sandgronia has its own local paper ‘The Blackpool Gazette’ I suggested to them that
they should write a letter to the Gazette, asking the public if anyone knew her
present whereabouts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What ended up
happening was that the Blackpool Gazette was so interested in this story that
rather than just publish a letter they wrote an entire article about her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One that politely emphasized Pat’s
involvement in Are You Being Served and didn't bring up the porn, for fear of
scaring her off or embarrassing her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway
it did the trick and the only person who responded to the article was Pat herself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I must stress that I was only ever on the very,
very periphery of the Millington documentary and even that was a highly
unpleasant experience with warring factions of the production trying to drag me
into their conflicts and ‘creative differences’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you think Don't Open Till Christmas was a troubled
production, you should hear the story about that movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
One person who did I manage to talk to about Don’t Open Till Christmas was
Paula Meadows, who is mainly remembered for porn, but had a cameo in the movie
as a short-sighted secretary who ends up being killed and hung upside down
naked in the London dungeon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paula told me
that was horribly uncomfortable to shoot and she immediately began to feel
dizzy and nauseous from being hung upside down by her feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Derek Ford, who was a friend of hers, came to
her rescue and held her head up in between takes, but she couldn't wait to be
cut down and leave her stay at the London Dungeon behind her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paula told me she has never seen the movie “because
I had no desire to see myself as a naked corpse with blood dripping from my
throat”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At least Paula admits to
be an involved in the movie, which wasn't the case with a certain crew member
who shall remain nameless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I reached out
to this person many years ago with regards to a book project I was working on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I contacted him through the internet explaining
that I was involved with a book about British horror films from the 1980s and
would he be interested in sharing his experiences of working on Don’t Open Till
Christmas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This he seemed pleased to do,
immediately getting back to me and giving me his phone number… which seemed a
little odd given that he didn't know me from Adam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I eventually called him the number turned
out to be his office phone number, so I went through the usual rigmarole of
listening to about 10 minutes of elevator music before his secretary answered.
I explained to her my reasons for calling, at which point she put me on hold
and left me to listen to yet another 10 minutes of elevator music before this
guy eventually picked up. I politely stated that I was phoning him with regards
to writing a book about 1980s British Horror films and how he’d given me his number
to discuss Don’t Open Till Christmas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
was then followed by a few moments of silence, before he said “I can’t hear you…
speak louder”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So repeating myself, I
explained I was working on a book about British Horror Films from the 1980s, how
he’d given me his phone number in order to speak about Don’t Open Till Christmas…
at which point he cut me dead by saying “I didn't do Don't Open Till Christmas”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which immediately killed the conversation
dead, since he went into denial mode about working on the very film he’d given
me his phone number to talk about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly
forgetting that his name was still on the end credits of the film and that he'd
even been filmed working on it in the behind-the-scenes documentary that exists
on Don’t Open Till Christmas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Feeling
myself on the verge of laughing at this guy down the phone, but not wanting to
be rude, I quickly wound up the conversation by claiming “I must have got the
wrong number, sorry”. Jim Morrison was right… people are strange.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Having recently re-visited
the film for the first time in many years I was struck by how silly and funny Don’t
Open Till Christmas actually is, which I suspect comes from Dick Randall and
perhaps Alan Birkinshaw.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can never
think of Alan Birkinshaw without remembering a nickname someone wickedly came
up with for him a few years ago… Alan Clumsyhands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think it was the horror journalist Alan Jones
who first dubbed him that. Jones wrote a piece about Killer's Moon, where he
made the case for Birkinshaw being the British Ed Wood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The punch line being that if Tim Burton ever
made a biopic of Alan Birkinshaw it would be called Alan Clumsyhands…as a play
on Edward Scissorhands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don't know if Birkinshaw
really does deserve the British Ed Wood tag, his later work for Harry Alan Towers,
done when he had a bit more experience and a bit more money behind him, is quite
competent and professional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even so
certain nicknames do stick, and rightly or wrongly, Birkinshaw will always be
Alan Clumsyhands <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Years ago Dick Randall's widow offered to
give me Birkinshaw’s home phone number… no idea why, I didn't ask for it or
even bring him up in conversation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However
after my phone call with the other Don’t Open Till Christmas guy ended so badly,
I declined the offer to go a potential second round with another Don’t Open
Till Christmas crew member.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I live in
fear that if I ever met or talked to Birkinshaw, I'd put my foot in it and accidentally
call him Alan Clumsyhands. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM3F3lElwKWkJM8vNebicCDx-35962bLV0XnmdqeXKigdonQmBOzfprCIdFDCP4z86FpaRzemiH8IImA2aRw-uB15VchnQ3OHhGKXIIEfYhBoldXdLokr9ikSDXcBIS1joRILLWL73NU3XonkI9inmaDsptBWx6HOPV3qIPMHzKkUgxT3fPxJzaXBqgOY/s1911/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1911" data-original-width="1085" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM3F3lElwKWkJM8vNebicCDx-35962bLV0XnmdqeXKigdonQmBOzfprCIdFDCP4z86FpaRzemiH8IImA2aRw-uB15VchnQ3OHhGKXIIEfYhBoldXdLokr9ikSDXcBIS1joRILLWL73NU3XonkI9inmaDsptBWx6HOPV3qIPMHzKkUgxT3fPxJzaXBqgOY/s320/4.jpg" width="182" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The film which Birkinshaw's
cult reputation rests on, 1978’s Killer’s Moon has a similar trait to Don’t Open Till Christmas of containing dialogue that sounds tongue-in cheek yet is
delivered onscreen in such a straight face fashion that I think it disorientates
people and leaves them confused as to whether what they are watching is meant
to be intentionally or unintentionally funny. This is especially true of the
scenes between Alan Lake and the Peep show girl where she promises not to try
and escape from him… whilst crossing her fingers in full view!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then when she later does try and escape, finds
the door is locked and asks him to give her the key so she can get away from
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her behavior in the film makes as
much sense as what is written on her T-shirt “Ti-Ti<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Decontracte<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Diffusion No Parking”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
mystery of what that means has eluded people over the decades… is it product
placement? is it an anagram? a coded message for Russian spies? No one seems to
know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The way it is presented, black letters
on a white background and with each line of text getting smaller, makes her look
like a walking eye test.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe that is
the mystery of the t-shirt, maybe it is an eye test for masturbators to
reassure them that their visits to Soho peep booths won’t result in them
needing glasses.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqe5IHu9IwHlKObuF7rU7yxcuvmZAhVKd0360Khyl2JDYO7QBAYajLLWh581yoXGpSckrMgVyfEYc1CL6H8KXBAman1kqNe5t_-PKdoK_qIYc4VNmkcwFfQrIo0HojCv6IxTYGkD0Dm3c55-uMLrEqsV_W6jzzjOqdhaj76pn23k6bZCCPAQoUzdI8Eck/s768/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqe5IHu9IwHlKObuF7rU7yxcuvmZAhVKd0360Khyl2JDYO7QBAYajLLWh581yoXGpSckrMgVyfEYc1CL6H8KXBAman1kqNe5t_-PKdoK_qIYc4VNmkcwFfQrIo0HojCv6IxTYGkD0Dm3c55-uMLrEqsV_W6jzzjOqdhaj76pn23k6bZCCPAQoUzdI8Eck/s320/5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I do find it hard to
dislike Dick Randall, while I'm sure that money, slobbering over actresses and
dodging tax were part of his motivation, Randall was a genuine showman who liked
to give the people what they wanted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which
in this case was gore, boobs, Caroline Munro singing and a visit to the London Dungeon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paula Meadows described Randall as “a good
natured man with infectious smile who just wanted to get on and make a movie in
the simplest, cheapest way and rake in the most money possible”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the case of Don’t Open Till Christmas
though, Randall’s timing was spectacularly bad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The height of the video nasty controversy was not a great time to
release a sleazy, gory British slasher film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You can tell in the behind the scenes documentary that Dick Randall was growing
concerned that certain scenes would give him trouble with the censor and that
in Britain a film like this is regarded as a ‘nasty’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The production did have a bit of insider
information about that area, since one of the financers of the film was Des
Dolan who had been the general manager of Go video, which got into trouble for
releasing Cannibal Holocaust and SS Experiment Camp on UK video.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So Don't Open Till Christmas can lay claim to
having been partly financed on the back of video nasties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Should you ever want to put a face to the person
who released Cannibal Holocaust on UK video, Des also has an acting role as a
policeman in Don’t Open Till Christmas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Conveniently
Mark Jones keeps referring to Dolan by his first name every time Dolan is
onscreen “search the place, Des” which was apparently an in joke. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I suspect Dick Randall's
name did end up on British censor James Ferman’s shitlist, maybe not up there
as high as Michael Winner and Jess Franco but definitely a few names down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since everything Dick put out during this
period… Don't Open Till Christmas, Slaughter High and Living Doll went out cut
back then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you think about it Dick
Randall was the only person during this period who was consistently making
horror movies in Britain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All the big horror
companies like Hammer and Amicus had faded away by this point and we were
entering a time when horror itself had become a dirty word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Leading to the emergence of these unbearable
la-di-da filmmakers claiming “we haven't made a horror film, darling… it’s a
dark romance… a gothic fantasy…a psychological thriller… but don't go calling
it a horror film, darling”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don't Open Till
Christmas was the square peg in the round hole of such dishonesty and pretentiousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think it would be pushing it to call Dick
Randall the Eighties equivalent of Hammer or Amicus but he was definitely the
1980s version of Tony Tenser.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He kept a
lot of older exploitation film hacks in employment, gave breaks to younger
talent and brought a lot of entertainment to the video shelves in what was a
depressing decade for many.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For all the
mockery I give Don't Open Till Christmas, it is gentle mockery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do have a lot of time for this shambles…
some would say too much time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t Open
Till Christmas may be a shambles, but it's our shambles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Long live disreputable, ultraviolet horror
and the bottomless treasure trove of B-movie goodness that Dick Randall left
behind.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX9Ix_tlqBMORjmmlhIbYUMgnMbDK5U7lDx4ro9O-ci6x6Q9HuQ_YZoDzw1SRbVc9gTm-D0LeLqxCUlNEbqfuKsppoRUOO0oNWCK8uYov4ZeX_OKtRw_s9e7_kxKpypEqNXSdcvjybTLN73x5pFO6jAJulIHb0z0j00BikZwsvanbtbAHvWmTLrmo0xgw/s2048/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2017" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX9Ix_tlqBMORjmmlhIbYUMgnMbDK5U7lDx4ro9O-ci6x6Q9HuQ_YZoDzw1SRbVc9gTm-D0LeLqxCUlNEbqfuKsppoRUOO0oNWCK8uYov4ZeX_OKtRw_s9e7_kxKpypEqNXSdcvjybTLN73x5pFO6jAJulIHb0z0j00BikZwsvanbtbAHvWmTLrmo0xgw/s320/7.jpg" width="315" /></a></div><br /><span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-90568388139094463222023-11-24T21:26:00.000-08:002023-11-24T21:26:54.887-08:00Talking Dirty<p><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-size: 16pt;">Now up
on YouTube, I join Clive to talk dirty about The Fireworks Woman, The Divine
Obsession and Boy-Napped</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4sMtZE4rC4k" width="320" youtube-src-id="4sMtZE4rC4k"></iframe></div><br /><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-size: 16pt;">Then….me
and Clive discuss Under the Counter, the recent book about British blue movies</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SvD9USxskjM" width="320" youtube-src-id="SvD9USxskjM"></iframe></div><br /><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-15787424000929027872023-11-21T00:10:00.000-08:002023-11-21T00:10:07.082-08:00Fireworks Woman (1975)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj3fuEz3YZWGf68GzY4PRAHaRrSkkPR2vNgCHiu7wFRzYtp5MHkoTxnv-j55cy_hyphenhyphenrwNCPGcwDy6gBjcJZn4wlzDCkpMoSrVWrBX7_o5yxRNAdsYqvsLdiTlxXc313QtFmzGs2-sYxENxUyJyqLYh_PRlsxRh7RSe-0f1RcDJPh31A9DeGTa-Bcvz7gP8/s365/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="365" data-original-width="294" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj3fuEz3YZWGf68GzY4PRAHaRrSkkPR2vNgCHiu7wFRzYtp5MHkoTxnv-j55cy_hyphenhyphenrwNCPGcwDy6gBjcJZn4wlzDCkpMoSrVWrBX7_o5yxRNAdsYqvsLdiTlxXc313QtFmzGs2-sYxENxUyJyqLYh_PRlsxRh7RSe-0f1RcDJPh31A9DeGTa-Bcvz7gP8/s320/1.jpg" width="258" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Angela is ...The Fireworks Woman is a film that could
have only been made in the anything goes atmosphere of the mid-1970s and by a
person from a strict Baptist background.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This wasn’t made by just any ol’ Baptist though, director ‘Abe Snake’
was better known to the likes of you and me as Wes Craven, and made this foray
into hardcore filmmaking during a lean period in-between horror hits The Last
House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Religious repression and sexual guilt are the key themes of Fireworks
Woman, the tale of Angela, a woman who is madly in love with a man named
Peter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only problem is that Peter
also happens to be her own brother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After they both act on their sexual desire for each other, the shame of all
that hath occurred drives Peter into the priesthood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile, Angela is cast out into the
lustful wilderness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Watching on the
sidelines is Nicholas Burns, the Fireworks Man –played by Wes Craven himself- a
mysterious figure who visits their small town on an annual basis to stage
fireworks displays... and its heavily implied is the devil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the film progresses, so does the case that
the Fireworks Man is pulling Angela’s strings, and that she is his instrument
that corrupts, and brings out the perverted side of everyone she comes into contact
with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although a few of these people do,
in fairness, seem pretty perverted and corrupt to begin with.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBVKMcuLJQMV44AMTEYbzewMl0YCMmdOWNwstq5Z81XNhQlOacIIx8z1lKgbfj3fEYg5VaCUT6Ck6HXP5xT4mnemhec592sf5K45eFAQ_g8u4aa8VDy3uOPM1D4_slWedy7FKOZeXIFicqkPDuVqQ4AHW1VaJkK2OpVNeyHWCXKk-WeuXmmZ3WsNRhMjE/s768/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBVKMcuLJQMV44AMTEYbzewMl0YCMmdOWNwstq5Z81XNhQlOacIIx8z1lKgbfj3fEYg5VaCUT6Ck6HXP5xT4mnemhec592sf5K45eFAQ_g8u4aa8VDy3uOPM1D4_slWedy7FKOZeXIFicqkPDuVqQ4AHW1VaJkK2OpVNeyHWCXKk-WeuXmmZ3WsNRhMjE/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Craven’s casting of himself is one of the many unusual
factors of The Fireworks Woman, especially as Craven never strikes you as one
of those frustrated actor filmmakers, who used his movies as a means of
promoting himself as an actor.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Maybe
he’d do the occasional cameo, as in Scream and New Nightmare, but he isn’t
someone who you’d expect to show up in a significant role in one of his movies,
which he does here.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Craven actually has
screen presence too, never coming across as the weak link in what is overall a
very well acted film.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Sarah Nicolson and
Eric Edwards are partially good in challenging roles as the siblings who are
tortured by their desire for each other.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I wonder if the casting of himself as The Fireworks Man wasn’t a reflection
of where Wes Craven’s head was at during this period.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">You hear all these stories about how the
controversy over Last House on the Left had caused Craven to be ostracized in
the academic, middle class circles that he moved in, and how friends were wary
about him being around their children, once they discovered he directed Last
House.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Maybe those kind of experiences
led Craven to feel like he was the Fireworks Man, this corrupter of goodness
and innocent, and that the Fireworks Man character was a manifestation of how
Craven felt he was being perceived by others.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">He really does look the part with his Satanic beard, top hat and big
cigars, it is a shame Craven didn’t use himself as an actor more, and slightly
baffling that when he did it was in a porno that he was directing under a fake
name.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Then again, you do also find that
in the case of David Durston, who never used himself as an actor in the famous
horror films he directed, like I Drink Your Blood and Stigma, but did put
himself in a relatively important role in his pseudonymously directed hardcore
movie ‘Boy-Napped’.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMGLAr_wci01BxitypgbpRCeQ4kewh6bo7xlXDZfI9W4xGodlpAW0QaTp9KibJ-E1FTbRhN9LYS021CO6sbX3d-n7Wv0qZC-phZ9TlmF4iQFF_kD72ko1-WhKC_Z5NUF4rsRbGrdvis6LxXH-wspNtHHUVeKI8pg-sYqm-jhrlhr0UCEBhxWrBIPz7bEg/s517/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="517" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMGLAr_wci01BxitypgbpRCeQ4kewh6bo7xlXDZfI9W4xGodlpAW0QaTp9KibJ-E1FTbRhN9LYS021CO6sbX3d-n7Wv0qZC-phZ9TlmF4iQFF_kD72ko1-WhKC_Z5NUF4rsRbGrdvis6LxXH-wspNtHHUVeKI8pg-sYqm-jhrlhr0UCEBhxWrBIPz7bEg/s320/3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Considering that he is in the film as an actor,
Craven’s involvement in The Fireworks Woman went under the radar for many
years.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I think the first person to break
that story was Bill Landis in his Sleazoid Express book, way back in 2002.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Prior to that, you’d hear rumours about
Craven being involved in adult movies in a lowly capacity, but I don’t think
anyone suspected he’d directed a porno.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">One of the hundreds of questions I wished I’d asked Bill Landis when he
was still alive and kicking, was how he’d come by this information that Craven
directed The Fireworks Woman.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">All I can
think of is that for a time Bill was around Jamie Gillis, who provided Bill
with a few quotes for Bill’s Kenneth Anger biography as well as the early
issues of Metasex and the re-launched Sleazoid Express.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So I suppose that Bill, who was forever on
the prowl for Hollywood Babylon type dirt on people, could have managed to get
Craven’s name out of Gillis, as one of the more famous people who’d directed
Gillis in porn.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Gillis having appeared
briefly in the orgy scene at the end of Fireworks Woman.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Given Bill’s propensity for bullshit, there
was for a time a backlash against the idea that Craven directed the film, with
others suggesting that it was directed by Peter Locke, who went on to produce
The Hills Have Eyes, and that Craven was only on the periphery.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Over time however, the case for The Fireworks
Woman being a Craven film has grown.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Its
dark themes are befitting a horror filmmaker moonlighting in porn, and Craven
is in the movie, as is music from Last House on the Left, namely David Hess’ mournful
blues number ‘Now You’re All Alone’.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I
remember reading a few years ago, a claim that the version of Now You’re All
Alone in Fireworks Woman is either a different, or longer take than appears in
Last House on the Left.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Meaning that the
makers of Fireworks Woman would have had access to original soundtrack
recording material for Last House, rather than this being a case of someone
lifting the song from a print of Last House.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Which they wouldn’t have been able to do anyway, as the version of Now
You’re All Alone that appears on the Last House soundtrack has had sound
effects added to it, like Krug shooting the girl in the lake.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Therefore only someone directly involved in
Last House would have had access to an un-tampered with ‘Now You’re All Alone’,
minus the gunshot sound effect.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The
closest we’ve ever come to an official acknowledgement that Fireworks Woman is
a Wes Craven film is the latest Scream movie, in which a grocery store is named
‘Abe’s Snake’.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">An Easter egg reference
to the name Craven directed The Fireworks Woman under.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Recent quotes from actor Eric Edwards have
also confirmed that Craven was the director.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUaBu3yJBaWMPPh5idUAKGp9B73Co7DuwbSfqcZXTfGqehe9Mz8fJt3IvRf8E2HKMS6dr_8aYovTnAnHC755AvJUEVEmvgkDwVleam5jVjvaksZcE_rrDKl80pNiTI8y3XL9FCB3eDI65gYUabK2HH84yowF4he9DCIGiJRWeBSqgPP9s5ycVCJz7xqbo/s682/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="462" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUaBu3yJBaWMPPh5idUAKGp9B73Co7DuwbSfqcZXTfGqehe9Mz8fJt3IvRf8E2HKMS6dr_8aYovTnAnHC755AvJUEVEmvgkDwVleam5jVjvaksZcE_rrDKl80pNiTI8y3XL9FCB3eDI65gYUabK2HH84yowF4he9DCIGiJRWeBSqgPP9s5ycVCJz7xqbo/s320/4.jpg" width="217" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It does appear that the version of Fireworks Woman
currently in circulation is a cut version, the film having appeared on tape in the
early 1980s.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">A time when many adult
video companies were censoring kinky or violent material from older movies, out
of fear of negative legal attention.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Said to be missing from the current version of Fireworks Woman, is a
scene where a man has sex with a fish...I kid ye not.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">If you remember the mad fisherman character,
who rapes Angela...in the uncut version, this character is said to reappear at
the orgy scene, where he ends up sticking his dick into a fish’s mouth.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I assume it is the same dead fish he’d used
to beat up another guy earlier on in the movie...he sure got his money’s worth
out of that fish!!</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I like the idea that
there may be an elderly actor out there who can claim that the creator of A
Nightmare on Elm Street once had him stick his dick into a dead fish’s
mouth...now there’s a tale for the grandkids.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The original version of the film is also said to have contained a
urination scene, and I suspect there could be some truth there.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In the version we have there is a scene where
a sadist couple lead Angela out into the wilderness and become verbally
aggressive to her.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Then there is what
looks to be a cut, and suddenly the guy is saying “she’s been very messy” and
starts cutting off her wet looking clothes with a pair of scissors.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">A lengthy plot synopsis of the film, which
ran at the time in the December 1975 issue of Flick magazine, makes reference
to a scene where the female half of the couple forces Angela ‘to urinate into
her eager hands’.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So, could there have
been a missing scene where they force her to piss herself? something that would
tie the film in with Last House on the Left, which has its own similar ‘piss
your pants’ scene.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">One of the unnerving aspects
of The Fireworks Woman is that Craven presents the same kind of sexual violence
and humiliation that he’d depicted in Last House as ugly and horrific, here as titillation
material in an adult movie.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvABoQM-d6-uPFzg15_759ZVfO0GDvR6oZXLA8EAJwZuOHS7jhcMm-mR7nkci2yPB-FnWyPDdIAwFa2f9E8hYugoYkyxYnEgnXxV9E_H-tfdVaO9iZGXWzegI5oUZP64W2DJB5hc8EcsJyOxCg981dF1-qG7qUrHfvaBcrbM9E7YofYewIUFOaATVJ01E/s1037/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1037" data-original-width="787" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvABoQM-d6-uPFzg15_759ZVfO0GDvR6oZXLA8EAJwZuOHS7jhcMm-mR7nkci2yPB-FnWyPDdIAwFa2f9E8hYugoYkyxYnEgnXxV9E_H-tfdVaO9iZGXWzegI5oUZP64W2DJB5hc8EcsJyOxCg981dF1-qG7qUrHfvaBcrbM9E7YofYewIUFOaATVJ01E/s320/5.jpg" width="243" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Given the taboos that are broken in the version we
have, and the inherently blasphemous nature of the film, it is a surprise that
The Fireworks Woman wasn’t a bigger scandal than it was.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">At the time Screw magazine predicted that the
film ‘is headed for more harassment and confiscation than any film since Deep Throat’.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Which- fortunately for Craven’s long-term career-
didn’t actually happen.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">If anything I
see Last House on the Left as being the Deep Throat moment in Craven’s career.
Not in the sense that Last House was a pornographic film, but that the notoriety
it whipped up changed the lives of everyone involved in it...and not necessarily
for the better.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In terms of his acting
career, David Hess spent the rest of his life playing variations on Krug.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Craven himself largely ended up being
typecast as a horror film director, and Last House became a source of embarrassment
for other cast members like Jeramie Rain and Fred Lincoln.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Yet when Craven upped the ante, and strayed
even further from his Baptist roots by making a hardcore film about a priest
who is in love with his sister, it largely passed without comment and attracted
little attention until Bill Landis blew the whistle on Craven being its
director in 2002.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I wonder if in later
years, Craven had second thoughts about his endorsement of incestuous
relationships in Fireworks Woman.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The
People Under the Stairs floats the idea that boffing your sister might not be a
swell idea after all, and that path may lead you to dressing up in a gimp
outfit and blowing holes in the walls.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The Fireworks Woman and The People Under the Stairs stand as Wes
Craven’s two, contradictory, takes on close family relations.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Often when people who’d go on to have careers outside
of porn, shoot a hardcore movie early on in their career, the results can be
throwaway works, done to gain filmmaking experience or simply work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think that is the case with Wes
Craven and Fireworks Woman though, it feels like Craven was engaged and
involved with the material, and had something to say, especially about religious
repression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This and Deadly Blessing are
the two films of his that touch on his own deeply religious background, and
stare into that abyss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Twisted yet
highly compassionate, Fireworks Woman finds the influence of European art
cinema flowing through Craven’s veins, and rounds it off with a truly audacious
ending that’s sure to be a red rag to conservative and religious sensibilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I would say that The Fireworks Woman is an
important Wes Craven film, and one that shouldn’t be overlooked by people who
are interested in his body of work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You’ll probably get more out of it than you will The Hills Have Eyes
Part 2...and it is better than being slapped in the face with a fish...which
does actually happen to somebody in the film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Should the full version ever surface on Blu-Ray maybe we’ll finally find
out whether anything worse involving a fish also happens in the film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-16691146161865179952023-11-19T00:27:00.000-08:002023-11-19T00:27:22.585-08:00The Divine Obsession (1976)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtilhDT_GZH2b3Q9Iil5Jwg9C9y7UrltGeeV_G-bFvfdjaIl1aSLotIjA_5HSPwmFWjTS_2a__8pfbjH_ZwhdlZ-N5BYqwFnZbfOAj2vDzICioQUAJqBz4dEenrorLngz1CYHJ6LRkU568ktQGTZrC1koWLKWqJsopVURTbePXOXcsUOzBNfqEAeS3o0Q/s2904/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1434" data-original-width="2904" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtilhDT_GZH2b3Q9Iil5Jwg9C9y7UrltGeeV_G-bFvfdjaIl1aSLotIjA_5HSPwmFWjTS_2a__8pfbjH_ZwhdlZ-N5BYqwFnZbfOAj2vDzICioQUAJqBz4dEenrorLngz1CYHJ6LRkU568ktQGTZrC1koWLKWqJsopVURTbePXOXcsUOzBNfqEAeS3o0Q/s320/1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">An X-Rated trip to Tromaville, if you’re that sick
bastard who has ever watched a Troma movie and thought ‘what would this be like
if these people were constantly sucking and fucking for real’, The Divine
Obsession is such a film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Directed by
Lloyd Kaufman, who following his G rated comedy ‘The Battle of Love’s Return’
having failed to set the box-office alight, spent a couple of years directing
and producing hardcore under the name ‘Louis Su’.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The Divine Obsession stars porn star Julia Franklin as
porn star Julia Franklin, in what was promoted as a semi-autobiographical
account of her career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was quoted at
the time as saying “Nothing in The Divine Obsession doesn’t happen in the real
world...and that is what makes it a special film”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Make of that what you will.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Julia is a gal from Ohio, who having honed her
cocksucking skills on tutor Ted, takes off to New York to seek fame and fortune
in the adult movie biz, only to find that success and true love have a habit of
being cruelly snatched away from her...with particular emphasis on the
snatch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the outset of the film, Julia
is washed up and reduced to performing in a burlesque act with stripper pals
Patty LaRue and Peaches Goldberg.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Determined to go out with a bang, Julia decides she is going to blow her
brains out onstage “you’re going to see my head as well as my cunt”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At which point we get narrated flashbacks
explaining why her life has been so shit.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO-71DmNPfsLKJ3nZ5oSX9BvDbRgarVO3Egu_b3cLO8quEPng_f7yjW9ZS5mtu7hopSs9ASm70AEl2IUA_VgfR3SKn9aAw_eUGtEVM4JI8Cty4OSTT1en6D1PUFbEf0NRnFHh2cgn8X5VwPZbAeHlue77o9BofNXo39M42Ffe8OSVldf8zt7ecgoDPcvo/s768/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO-71DmNPfsLKJ3nZ5oSX9BvDbRgarVO3Egu_b3cLO8quEPng_f7yjW9ZS5mtu7hopSs9ASm70AEl2IUA_VgfR3SKn9aAw_eUGtEVM4JI8Cty4OSTT1en6D1PUFbEf0NRnFHh2cgn8X5VwPZbAeHlue77o9BofNXo39M42Ffe8OSVldf8zt7ecgoDPcvo/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The Divine Obsession looks to have been the most
ambitious and widely seen of Kaufman’s run of porno movies, it played in
Manhattan for six months and hit 42</span><sup>nd</sup><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> Street under the title
‘Nympho’s Divine Obsession’.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The
original title presumably being too subtle for the Deuce.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It even played theatrically in the UK, where
it was released by the notorious David Hamilton Grant, not that there was much
left for Grant to distribute once the British censor had finished with it.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The UK release version ran just 55
minutes.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Over the years Kaufman has alternated between
disowning and acknowledging his hardcore movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He used the Louis Su name on the credits of The
Divine Obsession, where its referred to as a ‘Melody Films’ presentation, and
yet on print ads and in publicity for the film he reverted back to his real
name...and those credit Kaufman as the director and Troma as the releasing
company.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Divine Obsession was a
critically well received film, with Kaufman being especially singled out for
praise, so possibly that motivated a charge of heart and why his real name
began to be associated with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>William
F. Buckley’s National Review claimed that ‘Antonioni couldn’t have done much
better’ a job of directing The Divine Obsession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">By the 1980s, when Troma became associated with a
different kind of film, the Melody films period tended to get brushed under the
carpet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1986, Bill Landis wrote a hit
piece on Troma called ‘Tromatized’ for Film Comment magazine, where Troma’s
humble beginnings in hardcore was brought up by Bill as a means to embarrass
and discredit the Troma people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhMS3wg6O-sDpHeOyJnzuBcIe08uVg8QzXxftEUfZVSLuoXxeWpApmucEGX16XqyY92u0ToaZ0y7m8-Yi1H6VrbC31F-kyj1e1QHRAzfzV1sCkaPEhMkBSKgTE_Jy8Zv3IK3IYc7AHJBxIf1MqhyphenhypheneInepTxtnnsAHixzR1mc-7RtAmpJrl-awjBe-7qdo/s1923/3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1442" data-original-width="1923" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhMS3wg6O-sDpHeOyJnzuBcIe08uVg8QzXxftEUfZVSLuoXxeWpApmucEGX16XqyY92u0ToaZ0y7m8-Yi1H6VrbC31F-kyj1e1QHRAzfzV1sCkaPEhMkBSKgTE_Jy8Zv3IK3IYc7AHJBxIf1MqhyphenhypheneInepTxtnnsAHixzR1mc-7RtAmpJrl-awjBe-7qdo/s320/3.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I
believe the back-story there was that Bill had attempted to rent a print of
‘Sugar Cookies’ from Troma and was so rude to Michael Herz’s secretary over the
phone that when Herz took over the call, he ended up threatening to punch Bill
in the face.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Which motivated this
vengeful piece on Troma by Bill, which ends with the classic Landis bitch slap
of ‘the Deuce is too good for Troma’.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">There is no mention of the hardcore movies in Kaufman’s 1998 autobiography,
but more recently he has acknowledged The Divine Obsession in an interview,
even if it doesn’t sound like he is too keen on it being put back out
there.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Apparently Michael Herz isn’t too
proud of their hardcore movies.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Kaufman
and Herz are also answerable to their wives, who are also said to be
uncomfortable with the idea of their husbands’ adult movies coming back into
circulation.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I’m not sure if Kaufman has a stone cold serious film
in him, but The Divine Obsession might be the closest he ever came to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The film does feel like it is fighting a
battle within itself over being a misery ridden hardcore roughie or the sort of
gross out comedy that Kaufman’s career would become associated with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the one hand you’ve got a character named
Mr. Koch, who everyone keeps calling Mr. Cock, and a sight gag about a man who can’t
stop pissing, yet you’ve also got the lead character becoming a cheap hooker
and pill popper, who ends up being violently raped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As well as the spectre of death that hangs
over the movie, due to it opening with the lead character threatening
suicide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Roger Watkins made a similarly
death obsessed NYC porno film called ‘Her Name Was Lisa’, which is a grim watch
but was at least consistent in its nihilism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Watkins’ personality felt very well suited to the depressive, ‘porn to
slash your wrists to’ genre, whereas here Kaufman seems less inclined towards the
Watkins’ level of black heartiness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHwTGEzQgGjb-gkwGwD7TMZ-geB4fosjeaZ4hkZtjQQNWu4K9zVGmF_pwXvggTXwa8-AjtImZXk_k5eiSGGy2ILf9Y4Pu65xGDqcIKpk2ajygjud79NcE4IL3big-OLiPbilAHo0igaH7xXDwvrZm1RJEXwnVbah_CTnzitzlWGAzNGeRmTbT8_NP7XAY/s4335/4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2989" data-original-width="4335" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHwTGEzQgGjb-gkwGwD7TMZ-geB4fosjeaZ4hkZtjQQNWu4K9zVGmF_pwXvggTXwa8-AjtImZXk_k5eiSGGy2ILf9Y4Pu65xGDqcIKpk2ajygjud79NcE4IL3big-OLiPbilAHo0igaH7xXDwvrZm1RJEXwnVbah_CTnzitzlWGAzNGeRmTbT8_NP7XAY/s320/4.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Even hardcore and Kaufman feel like uneasy bedfellows,
Kaufman’s sense of humour tends to get in the way of anything being really
erotic here.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Thinking especially of the
sex scene involving the cake and the whipped cream, where a hardcore scene descends
into a messy food fight.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This is also
true to the whipping scene with Terri Hall which if anything seems to be making
fun of S&M, and Terri’s voice goes so high in that scene that she sounds
like Olive Oil.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I know a guy, who knows
a guy who was once dildoed in the ass by Terri Hall, how’s that for name
dropping.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It should be said that this
was for a movie, she wasn’t one to just dildo random people off the street, and
she was reportedly very compassionate towards him following the filming of what
was a traumatising scene.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">For all of her
S&M screen image, it does sound like Terri was a sensitive soul at heart.</span></p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">One thing I picked up on during this watch of The
Divine Obsession, that I’ve never noticed before is that during a romantic
sequence of Julia and her boyfriend walking around a park, where she is about
to tell him about her past... a dog wanders into the background of the shot and
tries to take a shit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which surely
couldn’t have been pre-planned, yet feels like such a Lloyd Kaufman moment and
manages to perfectly sum up The Divine Obsession...it’s trying hard to be a deep
and profound movie, then a dog shows up, tries to take a shit and gets a dumb
laugh.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Saying that the ending of The Divine Obsession is
something else. While you are expecting a downbeat ending from the get go, the
film ups the ante with a twist that exceeds those expectations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we find out that rather than having led
a brief, miserable existence that ended in suicide, Julia has actually led a
long, miserable existence, and is an old lady who dies while bitterly
regretting that she didn’t shoot herself when she was young.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now that’s what you call a dark ending, and
one that goes places no latter Troma movie would surely have gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t imagine The Toxic Avenger ending with
the revelation that Melvin never became the Toxic Avenger, and that it was all
just a fantasy in the mind of a dying, elderly mop pusher who spelt his
entirely life being bullied and tormented by obnoxious teenagers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFq0ydTSzkHHJqs1wlcfyPyHtyK190Ve0let623eB8AF5x1f3MIWZ2fMIBETA4h3KwjUhp-511chhONVcOg2KoS3tOULFi88qF_2SXiihqEer-KFblvK7WDD8gbE_NDC93z2RNGHrouGq7FabAbzSXZSOfGlUWV8Gk5EzrlxboXBBe-47a3QTX9iWT1ZY/s2048/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1573" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFq0ydTSzkHHJqs1wlcfyPyHtyK190Ve0let623eB8AF5x1f3MIWZ2fMIBETA4h3KwjUhp-511chhONVcOg2KoS3tOULFi88qF_2SXiihqEer-KFblvK7WDD8gbE_NDC93z2RNGHrouGq7FabAbzSXZSOfGlUWV8Gk5EzrlxboXBBe-47a3QTX9iWT1ZY/s320/5.jpg" width="246" /></a></div><i><br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">rubbish drawing of the toxic avenger i did when i was 13</span></i><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Of course there was a period in the early 1990s where
it looked like Troma really would go mainstream, when the Toxic Avenger got
turned into a children’s cartoon.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I’ll
never forget going into my local branch of Woolworths, discovering the Toxic
Crusaders toy-line, and finding it mind blowing that an 18 certificate film
with scenes of heads being crushed, a dog being blasted with a shotgun and a
blind woman being threatened with anal rape had spawned a family friendly
cartoon with a toy-line in Woolworths.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">We never got a Divine Obsession toy-line though, I’d imagine the Julia
action figure would have come with a gun accessory so kids could re-enact Julie
shooting herself on stage, having a Terri Hall action figure would have been
cool, and of course dog shitting in the background would need its own action
figure as well.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So if any of the
boutique labels ever manage to talk Kaufman into letting them release this on Blu-ray,
there’s my pitch for what they do by way of extras...The Divine Obsession
toy-line to go along with the Toxic Crusaders ones, so that characters from
these two very different stages of Lloyd Kaufman’s career can finally co-exist
together.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Of course, if this does ever
make it to Blu-ray, we’d also have to see that dog trying to take a shit in
high-definition....maybe Kaufman’s wife does have a point after all.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkSHASZVB_sYf0-qb5CQvgUvfpdMzGxwrNBVhPBGg1YfMmgF83-M-ZhJq6t-SePsrOPyUWyMhcBdMTi-y0P4xSouxcVaVUWTZabg_vod3dxK3t5XTbDUXSBV_LOH0vWiUIAfZs1tVRJmfA5St_yafAsHypq3jaPvNaJTeh42aR1MSDTeqBFeE60BRbtgg/s2558/6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1901" data-original-width="2558" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkSHASZVB_sYf0-qb5CQvgUvfpdMzGxwrNBVhPBGg1YfMmgF83-M-ZhJq6t-SePsrOPyUWyMhcBdMTi-y0P4xSouxcVaVUWTZabg_vod3dxK3t5XTbDUXSBV_LOH0vWiUIAfZs1tVRJmfA5St_yafAsHypq3jaPvNaJTeh42aR1MSDTeqBFeE60BRbtgg/s320/6.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJJQ5hzVaIgeUGE7ydIQqjBd21tpoRV4q4vpxKNDDNuYxBwfNdPuGYc1z2Fiwv5-ZZ0d5tGIYN4Jt7oZPtJ8aFj5HmIbYkOQKY_iNIoyQ_gRknmEaoJVsxbUStHvO7WgfJ7qjBSH7spEDRf74TBJVbkfGUoD8cqMiK9wkmWuGczsY1-mLxVs2KO63d6qo/s2576/7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1932" data-original-width="2576" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJJQ5hzVaIgeUGE7ydIQqjBd21tpoRV4q4vpxKNDDNuYxBwfNdPuGYc1z2Fiwv5-ZZ0d5tGIYN4Jt7oZPtJ8aFj5HmIbYkOQKY_iNIoyQ_gRknmEaoJVsxbUStHvO7WgfJ7qjBSH7spEDRf74TBJVbkfGUoD8cqMiK9wkmWuGczsY1-mLxVs2KO63d6qo/s320/7.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-26392853559416873532023-11-06T23:29:00.000-08:002023-11-06T23:29:41.694-08:00It Hungers (2018)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbZ-nBMLoUPiNEKv9iuNEuTk_TxP-hN6gkGKRsO825PV13kLlOueqPEuz35q-Wtbcs_fcdUHgVBV8tP_3mGXNItlM9iqYwGN0M3D5F81N52mVOV4ukAGdNcy2luT9a60TfzlPFhVSDI7VmIT7WdwiHrL35o0ed4Cul8jHEj2e1S3D8cbjXlUl48s7wRjQ/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbZ-nBMLoUPiNEKv9iuNEuTk_TxP-hN6gkGKRsO825PV13kLlOueqPEuz35q-Wtbcs_fcdUHgVBV8tP_3mGXNItlM9iqYwGN0M3D5F81N52mVOV4ukAGdNcy2luT9a60TfzlPFhVSDI7VmIT7WdwiHrL35o0ed4Cul8jHEj2e1S3D8cbjXlUl48s7wRjQ/s320/1.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It Hungers has been on my radar for the last couple of
years, but until now has always remained one elusive step ahead of me.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Cursed with distribution problems, It Hungers
briefly showed up on Amazon Prime in Australia, but to date its only appearance
on physical media has been a 2019 DVD release in the Netherlands.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In theory this should have made the film
relatively easy to track down, in practice...well.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Attempting to order it from the Dutch version
of Amazon proved to be a dead end, when it turned out that they were unable to
ship copies to the UK.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Personally
reaching out to its Dutch distributor, Just Entertainment, also came to
nothing, when it transpired that due to a licensing agreement they were only
able to sell their DVD release to people based in the Netherlands or Belgium.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Fortunately this embargo on It Hungers was
recently broken, with imported copies of the Dutch DVD showing up on Amazon UK
and Ebay.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Thus enabling people outside of
Holland and Belgium to witness a badass babe being pitted against an evil assed
clown.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Don’t be put off by a title that suggests a copycat
production attempting to ride on the coattails of It Follows and the 2017 adaptation
of Stephen King’s It, It Hungers is far from just your standard killer clown
movie, and instead looks to folk horror and grindhouse cinema for
inspiration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A passion project for
singer, model, actress and ‘outright hustler’ Stormi Maya, whose X-rated
contributions to popular music includes the likes of ‘Cannabis Cunt’ and ‘Fake
Assed Titties’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It Hungers is very much
the house that Stormi built, with this entrepreneurial young lady having acted
as producer, raised the finances, found a screenwriter, cast the film, shaved
her hair, donned a wig and spent a month at an isolated shooting location cut
off from civilisation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Less a case of Stormi Maya, and more Stormi
May-Have-Had-To-Do-Everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwXLYm-vsXzhhyphenhyphen1jOD8909fcnBuigaOs-cTaq9suHESYITmaxovolLP3KrKFEbHEWXTcOdV1YfY-YLjxqc49IAwKOvoJ4PDpGFUvrUvIf-zwT3E-eHy8b4lPoMgT7-VzInFwR-C3UiVgvSG45dWEYMr9E9b4q-_acdX6BWoAWP62Yi47gA4h82t8EkONA/s1360/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1360" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwXLYm-vsXzhhyphenhyphen1jOD8909fcnBuigaOs-cTaq9suHESYITmaxovolLP3KrKFEbHEWXTcOdV1YfY-YLjxqc49IAwKOvoJ4PDpGFUvrUvIf-zwT3E-eHy8b4lPoMgT7-VzInFwR-C3UiVgvSG45dWEYMr9E9b4q-_acdX6BWoAWP62Yi47gA4h82t8EkONA/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Among the
many hats Maya wore on the production was that of lead actress, playing Rachel,
a stripper who has made off with a hundred grand of C.I.A drop money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heading deep into woodlands, with two cops on
her tail, Rachel is taken in by Pris, a nervous, unstable, child-like woman who
lives in a castle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There Pris tirelessly
serves Master Dominus, a descendant of an ancient race that existed on earth
before mankind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Master Dominus can
only survive on human flesh that has been flooded by the stress hormone
Cortisol, he and Pris summon up a demonic clown by the name of Tormentum, whose
purpose is to scare the Cortisol out of everyone.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlKiddWSGAc_v3gy4NChCuWZTooBJN4R-Q7H5iww0RGPd9m267wNouC-5mwoOJUNZ_K1VKgYB8n1b9fs8XvtX-uXQWzeWQE_RBFKkv7wDyf5keBWV_sO-f9e_IZ7vYmQ2tCxvmv-UhjSaInTakiOKD7qyMxzp7SmUm8IGd6Q1EKhdfemy6r_52iyA36lk/s1360/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1360" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlKiddWSGAc_v3gy4NChCuWZTooBJN4R-Q7H5iww0RGPd9m267wNouC-5mwoOJUNZ_K1VKgYB8n1b9fs8XvtX-uXQWzeWQE_RBFKkv7wDyf5keBWV_sO-f9e_IZ7vYmQ2tCxvmv-UhjSaInTakiOKD7qyMxzp7SmUm8IGd6Q1EKhdfemy6r_52iyA36lk/s320/3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiCTjWmQbjuCYIWkWpRPdw5vaATP-NXu3XEgbUCxiohyphenhyphenruSb-bgyuWxvSlH0nmaSLgsuRE_v-LXzquHVdyF_d_E2X4k7W0Y2Z9OzJt3XQvuOBAymMjdTNudmeTd_sgTm4xcWEOnU7U-mTi8Qi3kUh-392znHNJdjcRoKn5zoNhZP2bGLw246ghyphenhyphenUOmwHw/s1360/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1360" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiCTjWmQbjuCYIWkWpRPdw5vaATP-NXu3XEgbUCxiohyphenhyphenruSb-bgyuWxvSlH0nmaSLgsuRE_v-LXzquHVdyF_d_E2X4k7W0Y2Z9OzJt3XQvuOBAymMjdTNudmeTd_sgTm4xcWEOnU7U-mTi8Qi3kUh-392znHNJdjcRoKn5zoNhZP2bGLw246ghyphenhyphenUOmwHw/s320/4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Stormi Maya certainly looks hot stuff in her 1970s
throwback attire, which at times borders on Regina Carrol cosplay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However she frequently has the film stolen
from under her by Swedish actress Karin Brauns, whose wild,
throw-caution-to-the-wind performance as Pris fully embraces the lunacy of the
material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What with her cute Swedish
accent- I love the way she says “vegetables from the garden”- and jittery,
unstable demeanour, Brauns’ performance is akin to watching Agnetha from ABBA
impersonating Dwight Frye’s Renfield, and reveals a whole different side to Brauns’
acting ability than her comparatively reserved and straight laced performances
in ‘The Obsidian Curse’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in Deadwood’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Making it all the more sad that we’re never
going to see any further Karin Brauns performances, the actress passing away
from heart failure in 2022 at the shockingly young age of 32.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Godspeed, Karin Brauns.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBKwZbFDpodBCw1kjk3tQDHwflzcWyuz0XPYxJBoxFzxudm18DvKGXpetVYGRPJIc2GORElL4ifJ5KwditIcD1q-TsnxGanJ_OforrS-wSZlI7M1IW4REbu15dCbi-V0s9AZL2HpWeGIgaUayPPM46tHFZ6CfytAC8dKG_VLMzSOUJ1cN7QoEj-w9rosA/s1360/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1360" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBKwZbFDpodBCw1kjk3tQDHwflzcWyuz0XPYxJBoxFzxudm18DvKGXpetVYGRPJIc2GORElL4ifJ5KwditIcD1q-TsnxGanJ_OforrS-wSZlI7M1IW4REbu15dCbi-V0s9AZL2HpWeGIgaUayPPM46tHFZ6CfytAC8dKG_VLMzSOUJ1cN7QoEj-w9rosA/s320/5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibvKpkTTA4Qaa3uCFmkF2cHo6UpDV4vdbz0idXcYLWYSJiRfdHKso7tGmx6qhQlzi6RXsoxC8gNG3UMTJZC4ZiFyamV72mHupoYLHhWdTqqDI2BPftn85Sz-3g0U3An78_KCyhhQD_s9FVITkJGvYxr2t5Ju5xqiRzUywFxVGa2Aq5_1sQh7JNFqzgAdY/s1360/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1360" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibvKpkTTA4Qaa3uCFmkF2cHo6UpDV4vdbz0idXcYLWYSJiRfdHKso7tGmx6qhQlzi6RXsoxC8gNG3UMTJZC4ZiFyamV72mHupoYLHhWdTqqDI2BPftn85Sz-3g0U3An78_KCyhhQD_s9FVITkJGvYxr2t5Ju5xqiRzUywFxVGa2Aq5_1sQh7JNFqzgAdY/s320/6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In its corner It Hungers also boasts one creepy clown
in the form of Tormentum, with some fine body acting from J.D. Angstadt that
conveys the mannerisms of a creaky, convulsing corpse that has been hastily brought
back to life.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Had lady luck smiled
brighter on the film, distribution wise, then Tormentum would be the subject of
his own franchise and action figure by now.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Master Dominus, a character who spends the entirety of the movie dressed
in a suit of armour and a crow-like mask, is another strong and unique element
to It Hungers.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The mask necessitated by
the fact that Pris’ purity and selflessness produces a body odour that is particularly
offensive to Master Dominus’ race.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Dominus’ diatribes to Rachel about the outside world are straight out of
H.P. Lovecraft “one day the forest will reclaim the land and new life will grow
over every thread of evidence that these primates ever walked this earth, there
have been other creatures, far more advanced creatures that this world crushed
beneath its weight mercilessly”.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdETaJVGJvyeHSCaSz_QTnfRmkIKp3JHflJB-H_Uy-fiL1IEqy6O5S0jhInlEH-TlhrcKHYxviY1N0tXvhPCIZakPiVRF12K9UNMP5ayrGSYy1Fvu0T7mSNbpxd0amKMusWnYLfwTmCOUKRNbHm2RQfClA_CaPZzNuLdkcCvBIIMPmJLJNJVXKdvSDv1s/s1360/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1360" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdETaJVGJvyeHSCaSz_QTnfRmkIKp3JHflJB-H_Uy-fiL1IEqy6O5S0jhInlEH-TlhrcKHYxviY1N0tXvhPCIZakPiVRF12K9UNMP5ayrGSYy1Fvu0T7mSNbpxd0amKMusWnYLfwTmCOUKRNbHm2RQfClA_CaPZzNuLdkcCvBIIMPmJLJNJVXKdvSDv1s/s320/7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A quite literally Stormi production, It Hungers is a
twice orphaned film that went through two different directors, both of whom
elected to have their names taken off the final film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their work being credited to the pseudonymous
‘D.R. Vonn’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, as a film made in
the era of social media, posts by various cast and crew members have left a
virtual paper trail of who did what and when.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Film Director 1# (to reveal his real identity would be to unleash Havoc,
and may even be the Kiss of Death) was still being credited in that capacity up
until around March 2018 before his name stopped being associated with the
film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By September 2018, Film Director
2# was at the helm, before his name too disappeared from social media posts
about It Hungers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to an on-set
insider, Film Director 1# “walked away from money, that’s a big deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not sure of the reason but he hasn’t worked
with Stormi since then”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Understand that
Film Director 1# is a blue collar filmmaker with a family to support, and
wouldn’t be one to walk away from work and money without serious
justification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As it was made by two directors, at different time
periods, the quality of It Hungers does fluctuate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Exterior scenes are disappointingly bland,
bordering at times on amateurish, and therefore are unlikely to have been the
work of Film Director 1#.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since his other
horror films display an eye for the American wilderness and a talent for using
the woodlands of California to its maximum potential.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A quality that unfortunately isn’t in
evidence here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, It
Hungers ups its game once the film moves indoors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Scenes set in Master Dominus’ domain are
heads above the rest of the movie in terms of style and professionalism. One,
involving Master Dominus rolling a crystal ball down the stairs to Pris, only
for it to be intercepted by Tormentum, wouldn’t shame a Dario Argento or Mario
Bava movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">While It Hungers sounds like a ‘director for hire’ gig
for Film Director 1#, by accident or design, it still retains many of his key
themes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A distrust of authority –the two
cops on Rachel’s trail turn out to be crooked- and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>distain for a modern world that has turned its
back on culture and nature...Master Dominus is an obvious mouthpiece for Film
Director 1# in that respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A liberal
baiting insistence on female nudity is another hallmark of Film Director
1#.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At one point, Pris attempts to
breastfeed a doll, while Rachel is the subject of a long shower scene that
gives even the most horndog minded of 1980s horror film a run for its money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, Stormi Maya’s nude shower scene was evidentially
judged such a selling point that it appears twice in It Hungers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once in its proper narrative context in the
film, and also as a pre-opening credits teaser of what’s to come (in fairness
it is a scene that grabs your attention).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMsWgQlrZ8R6ZEBTKfTDJQ5UgYUJaniSkKv1IuOFQS62Jw2pCgZpJh6vWS94wgeqTqyfkRRGi-qeqBB8daJTw7u-HAzhX_-_PR7Jk_y7aHHYCn1geSkEoDt6-cDBKRA59ARUkpaDZ_pRnUb5h5I9cThyXip-p8DgXjAG4S5yfvVOBQeExsKLj1p4Gf0SY/s1360/8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1360" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMsWgQlrZ8R6ZEBTKfTDJQ5UgYUJaniSkKv1IuOFQS62Jw2pCgZpJh6vWS94wgeqTqyfkRRGi-qeqBB8daJTw7u-HAzhX_-_PR7Jk_y7aHHYCn1geSkEoDt6-cDBKRA59ARUkpaDZ_pRnUb5h5I9cThyXip-p8DgXjAG4S5yfvVOBQeExsKLj1p4Gf0SY/s320/8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzUPw8ZU1Van82cLVRGngRcjQjYixXjDYHDPTfj_iw5eB-qULjD3FVtZ0pVCUZotF57kL_J8WFbIXiJoy0gy8eGw8RNmd4j54w-0eF100mAmVylLXbKDfKX8wEckoQtJfOaNid1aeWaRTM0aqMu7j8b03OKAnKooqxTfHJifNwSbDDMB7ykuG8IAlYHmk/s1360/9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1360" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzUPw8ZU1Van82cLVRGngRcjQjYixXjDYHDPTfj_iw5eB-qULjD3FVtZ0pVCUZotF57kL_J8WFbIXiJoy0gy8eGw8RNmd4j54w-0eF100mAmVylLXbKDfKX8wEckoQtJfOaNid1aeWaRTM0aqMu7j8b03OKAnKooqxTfHJifNwSbDDMB7ykuG8IAlYHmk/s320/9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje_yUb3wrBL0AOztcpxFUDb8qxSbPy3G4AOyrzRIvBh6LC7hiWvc8hkTomAAa12VUWFD68p7cql1kn-maqh-sgoYPLl_bEPUiFlKxv9FGpC0OWOrdR5NIWit5H2WR8V87v6d9SHkMNFmFCHrY3_YEI0RELgNanEuxVOY65S0TJ6dC3nPcLa9-SilOS9w8/s1360/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1360" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje_yUb3wrBL0AOztcpxFUDb8qxSbPy3G4AOyrzRIvBh6LC7hiWvc8hkTomAAa12VUWFD68p7cql1kn-maqh-sgoYPLl_bEPUiFlKxv9FGpC0OWOrdR5NIWit5H2WR8V87v6d9SHkMNFmFCHrY3_YEI0RELgNanEuxVOY65S0TJ6dC3nPcLa9-SilOS9w8/s320/10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDgvbExOfMS50P2siMgFcl9CoeT5R-EB-nuIM94BXb0ThVuPuZAOqgLIkFdcbyARklrWyEhB1rTNxqzZceSKz5BMOMdTBF2NKYBIu3FdwVpaE4Y_k08a4uboS-orfUF-u-3hHXNLJy3a4bhVtInuYmhXNrdHFscFW0rAUq3HObER6eLCTpKgzq3tnEAAw/s1360/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1360" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDgvbExOfMS50P2siMgFcl9CoeT5R-EB-nuIM94BXb0ThVuPuZAOqgLIkFdcbyARklrWyEhB1rTNxqzZceSKz5BMOMdTBF2NKYBIu3FdwVpaE4Y_k08a4uboS-orfUF-u-3hHXNLJy3a4bhVtInuYmhXNrdHFscFW0rAUq3HObER6eLCTpKgzq3tnEAAw/s320/11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">For all the female flesh on display, and the grindhouse influences, It
Hungers remains true to Film Director 1#’s oeuvre by also having a strong sense
of morality at its core.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rachel has to carry
the burden of introducing Pris to vanity, dancing and greed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A corrupting influence that renders Pris less
smelly to Master Dominus, and with Pris no longer giving off the aroma of
purity and selflessness, she is earmarked as a potential lunch for Master
Dominus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I never wanted to eat
her...until now” admits Dominus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the
same time, Rachel is forced into becoming a better, less selfish, person, in
order to smell bad to a Lovecraftian creature, who otherwise would seek to
cannibalise her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As you should be able to tell by now, It Hungers is
one of those movie experiences that leaves you asking ‘which way is up?’ and questioning
what you are seeing with your own eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Did they really repeat the shower scene twice?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did I really see Pris impersonate a rabbit and
hop up a flight of stairs? Is there really a scene where Stormi runs backwards
in slow motion, her big boobs bouncing around all over the place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Catching the attention of a horny guy, whose
pursuit of her is slightly speeded up, a la Benny Hill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just when you think It Hungers has nothing
more to give, it goes all Hal Needham with comedy outtakes being worked into
the end credits (tip to Film Director 2#, if you plan to take your name off a
movie make sure the final product doesn’t include outtakes in which your name
is still visible on the clapperboard).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It Hungers then does something I’ve never seen another
movie do, by incorporating an interview with the lead into the end credits...as
Stormi pops up to tell you about the trials and tribulations she went through
to make the movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As well as her regret
over wearing a wig in the movie and how she is now an advocate for natural,
black hair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed Maya has since gone
on to cultivate an impressively enormous afro...suffice to say you wouldn’t
want to be sat behind Stormi Maya in a movie theatre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Under normal circumstances having the lead actress
break character and do an interview for the end credits, would be tearing up the
rules of filmmaking, but with It Hungers it feels right that a walk-through explanation
was needed for what has to be one of the most eccentric American horror films
to come along in some time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
Hungers....you are fucking nuts...and I’m glad to finally make your acquaintance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqQPkRGbE6dN7HwEPAof-dqri2KBRNXwH3jrpJ56Ex9iVhc4hzaaTH-oMTfDrNWPrgo-O9V4GJb1SN0xMdlfVNoNJvr5d584QXB5WYxHnJEeWDl89V19bhRJQSowduUrPBt8Tu5ZzmUChJJQz0ABrkWXRPa5UaqzOSa1mecB6uKdwhUc8uo6PdRq6tK80/s1360/12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1360" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqQPkRGbE6dN7HwEPAof-dqri2KBRNXwH3jrpJ56Ex9iVhc4hzaaTH-oMTfDrNWPrgo-O9V4GJb1SN0xMdlfVNoNJvr5d584QXB5WYxHnJEeWDl89V19bhRJQSowduUrPBt8Tu5ZzmUChJJQz0ABrkWXRPa5UaqzOSa1mecB6uKdwhUc8uo6PdRq6tK80/s320/12.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span><p></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-18541211481585765932023-10-05T23:20:00.002-07:002023-10-05T23:20:51.381-07:00Scuzzoid 4<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8KbKI5wsVaX161BsgL6XliG5T3DYrbCR_y-iG1UPCo9B8xUZEoD9fMEew0OrrdrjlmGJq8KOjpM94T4K6GHaiC5bdTwo37jOey7PnmLGSjm3yyDsUN8ikerT76El11E_FKm8ybMNeWmlZSZtwiZEUdQJqV0HXujo2OEcLz9WKY0bvB5UbCHXUbJbu8jo/s1007/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1007" data-original-width="777" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8KbKI5wsVaX161BsgL6XliG5T3DYrbCR_y-iG1UPCo9B8xUZEoD9fMEew0OrrdrjlmGJq8KOjpM94T4K6GHaiC5bdTwo37jOey7PnmLGSjm3yyDsUN8ikerT76El11E_FKm8ybMNeWmlZSZtwiZEUdQJqV0HXujo2OEcLz9WKY0bvB5UbCHXUbJbu8jo/s320/1.jpg" width="247" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Just a quick heads up for Scuzzoid 4#, the latest
issue of a relatively new zine on the block, which covers SOV productions and
older, grindhouse era films. Giving this a special mention as it includes a lengthy
review of my own SOV horror movie ‘Son of Psycho Meets a Gorilla’.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">As someone who usually writes about other
people’s movies, it is quite the novelty to read thoughts on my own filmmaking
efforts, and I’m flattered to find my twenty-odd year old, home movie sharing
page space with Bob Cresse films and the likes of Psyched by the 4-D Witch.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Copies can be ordered from:</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="https://unattendeddeathpublications.bigcartel.com/">https://unattendeddeathpublications.bigcartel.com/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-1174650217487505742023-09-30T00:01:00.000-07:002023-09-30T00:01:13.253-07:00Skinhead Girls (1972, James Moffatt)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDyHRPRE2tC3BAwZ4RSEi4Uc9OrNVIc6G99M2ut9FYoj_xuECyW_p8JuQpXWsU9nqUU34zaldGxDKi2um0Rr7yfSwYV9JQuklJW8KsOR9r_2tpwR2XPjOhiJ0jg4iu5XCDj5TrrCraEVQwhHd6AuDEtI2EpgxNx0u5Jha3-DluuvAi5M6bA2p4naFAa-k/s983/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="983" data-original-width="760" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDyHRPRE2tC3BAwZ4RSEi4Uc9OrNVIc6G99M2ut9FYoj_xuECyW_p8JuQpXWsU9nqUU34zaldGxDKi2um0Rr7yfSwYV9JQuklJW8KsOR9r_2tpwR2XPjOhiJ0jg4iu5XCDj5TrrCraEVQwhHd6AuDEtI2EpgxNx0u5Jha3-DluuvAi5M6bA2p4naFAa-k/s320/1.jpg" width="247" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Skinhead Girls has a reputation for being one of James
Moffatt’s more shambolic books, and it is a reputation that is well
earned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wouldn’t say this is Moffatt’s
worst book –Satan’s Slaves and Dragon Skins are much more of a chore to get
through- but you can never make a case for Skinhead Girls being a textbook
example of how to write a book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A sort
of side-sequel to Moffatt’s ‘Skinhead’ series –on account of their anti-hero
Joe Hawkins receiving a few name checks here- the title Skinhead Girls is a bit
of a misnomer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffatt’s focus is on
just one girl, Joan Kerr, and she’s only really affiliated with a skinhead gang
for a few of the early chapters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the
majority of the book, Joan is a newly re-married woman, works in a supermarket
and spends her free time as a Suedehead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then again Skinhead Girls is the type of title that sold books, rather
than the more accurate ‘Homemaker, Shop Assistant and Part Time Suedehead’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Moffatt kicks off Skinhead Girls in a
characteristically vicious mood, as Joan and her skinhead friends travel to
Brighton with the express purpose of beating up hippies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Armed and dangerous, Joan makes the trip with
a knife hidden in her bra and a tyre iron stuck up her skirt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both of which come into play when there is a
savage ruckus on Brighton Beach that sees the hippie men being kicked in the
balls and beaten over the head with the tyre iron, while the female hippies predictably
fall victim to the rape-ready skinhead men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“She didn’t give a damn what the blokes did to the hippie birds but she
did object to the way they had acted like Stallions with a king-size
urge”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The straw that breaks the
Skinhead Girl’s back comes when Joan’s skinhead husband Ian insists that the
missus participate in the rape of one of the hippie girls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The memory of ineffectual matings blasted
holes in the fabric of their relationship and she suddenly wanted to
run...anywhere...get away...escape this degenerate scene”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Skinhead Girls then makes the misstep of jumping
forward several years, and finds Joan re-married, struggling to make ends meet,
and holding down a succession of dead end jobs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Reading about Joe Hawkins, who is back in the news due to having escaped
from prison, sends Joan on a trip down memory lane to a time when she was wild
and out of control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This anecdotal
format ensures that Skinhead Girls is never dull, there’s aggro, a gang bang
and numerous eye watering descriptions of below-the-belt violence “her fingers
were shafts of burning fire, twisting, squeezing, clutching at his testicles”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If only Moffatt’s plot could grab your
attention with the same effectiveness that Joan grabs a guy by the
bollocks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately no amount of
sleaze or ball busting incidents can hide just how mundane and uninvolving
Joan’s present day circumstances are, and Moffatt was never great at feigning
sympathy with the unfulfilled working class youths that his writing became
synonymous with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finding people Moffatt
actually liked can be a needle-in-a-haystack like task in his books, but
Skinhead Girls manages to put forward at least two candidates for this
extremely exclusive club, namely Vincent Price and Edward Woodward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Price receiving a positive name check when
Joan and husband number two, Brian, go to a double-bill at the local fleapit
“Vincent Price’s in the big picture...I dig him, don’t you” asks Joan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The big Vincent Price film at the time
Moffatt was writing this would have been The Abominable Dr. Phibes, although
that bears no resemblance to the film within a book described in Skinhead Girls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it comes to the small screen, there can
only be one man for Joan, Edward Woodward in Callan, a show Moffatt does write
about here with genuine enthusiasm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Moffatt’s books weren’t known for being nice to people
though, and Skinhead Girls is yet another of his books that gives the author a
chance to bash Pakistanis, Gays, Jews, Hippies and Trade Unionists in
print.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As well as add a new group to the
Moffatt hate list, his main gripe here being with the Greek community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ferdie, the Greek owner of Joan’s local
greasy spoon cafe, exists in these pages merely to be insulted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I wasn’t in the mood for catering to bloody
foreigners who came over here and took over our Caffs” seethes Joan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that sense at least, Moffatt definitely
wasn’t into Greek.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As per usual for Moffatt, sexuality leads us into
dark, morally murky waters in Skinhead Girls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moffatt continues his troubling obsession with underage sex.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joan being yet another Moffatt heroine who
begins young- aged just 14- with Moffatt displaying no qualms about delving
into that for the purpose of intended titillation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Frequent handling had filled out her breasts
better than any bust-developing cream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Delightful nights spent behind Centrepoint flats had worked wonders for
thighs, hips, buttocks”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Characters struggling with their sexuality is another
reoccurring theme in Skinhead Girls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
of the skinheads, Colin, has an unspecified problem when it comes to ‘relaxing’
around women, but although Moffatt is adamant that Colin ‘wasn’t bloody bent’,
it is difficult to reach any other conclusion, especially with follow on lines
like “being without a bird was akin to having a priest tell a bloke he was
doomed to limbo with a bunch of queers”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Joan too initially struggles with fears that she might be gay, fleeing
from the rape of the hippie girl after she finds herself being unexpectedly
turned on by it “her mind burned as she ran...was she?...wasn’t she? The heat
of the hippie girl’s body against hers had been delectable.... ‘I’m not queer’
kept running through her mind”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later on
in the book, we get a bona fide lesbian character called...what else... Butch,
who dresses like a dandy and speaks like a luvvie “you get better looking every
day, dawling”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While Butch is paraded
around like a sideshow attraction for Moffatt’s audience, she is surprisingly a
force for good in the book, and there is none of the violent hostility Moffatt
has for gay male characters “Her ‘disease’ wasn’t one of those to make me
squirm and shy away. Providing I kept her outside grope length I felt
comfortable in her company”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For a book
that was written by a homophobic author, and was aimed at a straight male
audience, Skinhead Girls sure bangs on about the erotic appeal of Edward
Woodward allot as well “He was fabulous. A sex-pot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A real He-man” swoons Joan “God, how I’d have
done whatever he wanted me to do”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDegHfF33D95BHwxk-EFikTndXyoxuP8Z8bsn9SWgZM84UICqYXQjuebhR2iGmH6XidOijihyoXVAiWnTXXulNtWZ4TzeeQn1ohQizVSfONVqfWk_sZAqDQBjdx9JBWXomWZ70mUal30-k1x-KO4ma45KRZ6bChgs7WUh1uQktIFMOzL-y2o2HOccQq-Y/s1783/woodward%20(1).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1781" data-original-width="1783" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDegHfF33D95BHwxk-EFikTndXyoxuP8Z8bsn9SWgZM84UICqYXQjuebhR2iGmH6XidOijihyoXVAiWnTXXulNtWZ4TzeeQn1ohQizVSfONVqfWk_sZAqDQBjdx9JBWXomWZ70mUal30-k1x-KO4ma45KRZ6bChgs7WUh1uQktIFMOzL-y2o2HOccQq-Y/s320/woodward%20(1).JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Skinhead Girls marked the end of Moffatt’s association
with Laurence James, who’d been Moffatt’s editor at New English Library, as
well as a published NEL author in his own right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>James later cited Moffatt’s drinking, extreme
right wing views and unreliability as the reasons for the split, and why he
pasted the job of editing future Moffatt books onto others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After reading Skinhead Girls you can
understand why James jumped ship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
is no doubt about it, Skinhead Girls is a messy piece of work, which looks like
James was just able to salvage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book
alternates between being told in the first and third person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then there’s that confusing, unannounced time
jump early on in the book that sees Joan suddenly go from being married to a
skinhead called Ian to a suedehead called Brian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fact that Brian is virtually the same
character as Ian makes Moffatt’s decision to fast forward the story by a few
years seem even more unnecessary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
reasons known only to himself, Moffatt also sets himself the task of writing a
brand new character into just about every other chapter, giving highly detailed
back stories to people who have little bearing on the main plot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do we really need to know what appears to be
the entire life story of George, the local butcher, who after all the build up
doesn’t even turn out to be the butcher Joan chooses to shop at!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Likewise, we get nearly a whole chapter
documenting suedehead Karl’s journey from Cheltenham to London,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>only to discover that his only purpose in the
book is to show up at Joan’s local, finger her (in the rude sense) then get
kicked in the balls for his troubles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Which was hardly worth him making the journey for, nor us having to read
all about it in detail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps most
damaging of all is Skinhead Girls’ ending...or rather that is doesn’t have one,
and simply stops dead in its tracks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did
Moffatt intend to write more? It certainly feels that way, with the last
chapter hinting at a confrontation between Joan and her new neighbours, teasing
the return of Joe Hawkins, and setting up the mystery of why red smears keep
appearing on Brian’s belly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However,
whatever was on Moffatt’s mind, he failed to get it down on paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Leaving you to wonder if Moffatt’s inability
to finish Skinhead Girls was the final nail in the coffin between him and
Laurence James.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am told Moffatt did
write another Joan Kerr novel called ‘Smoothies’ in 1973, which given that it
has the potential to tie up all these loose ends is likely to be my next
destination on the Moffatt trail. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Skinhead Girls has the feel of a book that Moffatt was
making up as he went along, and sadly wasn’t getting struck by too many flashes
of inspiration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What with the majority
of the skinhead nastiness relegated to flashbacks, the rest of the book is all
rather soap opera-ish, mainly centred on Joan’s attempts at keeping potential
love rivals away from her husband, and day to day dealings with her dullard
boss and tarty female co-workers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
latter at least giving Moffatt the opportunity to lust after the type of woman
he was into, I believe the word I am searching for is....trollops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“She had big, brown eyes, jutting breasts and
buttocks like over-filled udders constantly shifting weight inside her tight skirt”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On that level, Moffatt has his moments here,
even finding a kindred spirit in Toby, one of the skinheads “he loved them big
and titty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He couldn’t content himself
with short-assed birds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The old adage
‘the bigger the better’ was the epitaph he wanted engraved on his lonely
grave”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Undoubtedly the most psychologically revealing aspect
to Skinhead Girls is how Moffatt turns himself into a secondary character in
the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Victor Carlyle’ is a chain-smoking,
heavy drinking newspaper hack, who has been fired by the majors, rejected by
paperback companies, and hopes to salvage his career by writing a series of
trashy articles about football hooligans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Remind you of anyone?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffatt
even used one of the proposed titles for Carlyle’s piece ‘Terrace Terrors’ for
one of his own books, a couple of years later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>While these meta elements to Skinhead Girls would have been lost on
audiences of the time, ‘Carlyle’ offers much insight into Moffatt’s own
character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffatt captures all of his own
lechery, racism and cynical contempt for his subject matter, as Carlyle views
writing about youth cults as his means of escaping them “only bigger and better
success stood between him and a country home far from this sickening mob”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffatt had in fact already decamped to
Sidmouth, Devon by the time of Skinhead Girls, and holding on to that exclusive
address was a strong motivating factor in him writing like a madman during this
period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be prepared to be rendered
temporarily deaf, when Moffatt loudly blows his own trumpet at one point, by
having Joan cite her two favourite books as “Richard Allen’s Skinhead and
Justice for a Dead Spy by James Moffatt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That Silas Manners was fifty times better than James Bond”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Saying that, Moffatt clearly poured his own
bitterness, pain and career frustrations into the Victor Carlyle
character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At one point Moffatt even
seems to be apologising for the poor quality of Skinhead Girls, by having
Carlyle admit to writer’s block “the harder he thought, the worse his efforts
became”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you are reading Skinhead
Girls and it ever crosses your mind what motivated a person to write books like
this, the answer can be found hidden away in its own pages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Of late, he had taken knocks to his inflated
ego.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like those novels that had been
rejected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like being fired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the moment he rode a wave’s crest with
these articles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he was bloody well
determined to keep surfing on high”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
I was a betting man, I’d wager that Moffatt secretly wished he could have used Carlyle’s
way of signing off articles, as his own author’s dedication for this book “To
all the rotten little bastards- my love”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The valuable life lesions that rotten little bastards
can take away from Skinhead Girls include... life is too short to settle for
short-assed birds, beware of Greeks bearing Full-English breakfasts, and most
vital of all for men...your balls are not safe around a woman from Plaistow. <o:p></o:p></span></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-44809893589031868582023-09-06T23:36:00.000-07:002023-09-06T23:36:55.730-07:00Under the Counter (2022, Oliver Carter)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2-F8MTicdulnCoKTsoekKBYX9oFzSS7IkDxYzjk99opYz0K0C93VcHM3jO_ZsLSN-BneL0RGCn6_CQVLqyRlZUS27dDIWYhbR2A2xui1uSJRFwqAery1pgADuz3wA0MIlwaZLwzABh07ly1pvxOJ7G_1szAS_Y2UiNa5HYF8jQmW3-8cJohJ7A3RlGfw/s1065/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2-F8MTicdulnCoKTsoekKBYX9oFzSS7IkDxYzjk99opYz0K0C93VcHM3jO_ZsLSN-BneL0RGCn6_CQVLqyRlZUS27dDIWYhbR2A2xui1uSJRFwqAery1pgADuz3wA0MIlwaZLwzABh07ly1pvxOJ7G_1szAS_Y2UiNa5HYF8jQmW3-8cJohJ7A3RlGfw/s320/1.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I highly recommend this book ‘Under the Counter – Britain’s Trade in
Hardcore Pornographic 8mm films’, which has proven to be an absolute goldmine
of information about British blue movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Beginning with the primitive b&w efforts of the 1960s and taking the
story up to the censorship axe coming down in 1984 in the form of the video
recordings act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the process Oliver
Carter’s book pieces together a gripping tale of police corruption, porn entrepreneurs,
live sex shows, taboo breaking 8mm films, obscenity trials, and leaves no stone
unturned when it comes to Soho in its sex driven heyday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Those early hardcore loops (referred to at the time, and in this book,
as ‘rollers’ ) have often left inquisitive souls, whose interest in them goes
beyond the masturbatory, to ask ‘who made these movies, and just what was their
story’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Questions that get an answer in
Under the Counter, which puts names to those anonymous filmmakers, explains how
they came to be involved in the porn trade, the difficulties faced by these
often untrained filmmakers, how the films were distributed around Soho and the
inevitable cash payments slipped to bent policeman in smoky pubs, which guaranteed
they stayed in business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The collusion
between corrupt members of the Obscene Publications Squad and the London
underworld, which allowed hardcore to flourish in Soho under their watchful
eyes, is the main theme of Under the Counter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Meaning that this book is equally at home in the true crime section as
it is in the halls of academia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it
comes to tales of criminality, there is no shortage of explosive moments in
Under the Counter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quite literally in
the case of ‘Fat’ Bill Hicks, a bookshop owner who upon being shaken down by
gangsters, responded by reaching below the counter, not for the expected wad of
cash, but for a hand grenade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then there
is the case of the unfortunate shoplifter, whose attempt to steal from a shop
belonging to ‘Godfather of Soho’ Bernie Silver, resulted in the thief being hustled
upstairs by Silver’s henchmen, hung from the ceiling then ‘stripped and cut
down his back with a bayonet’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even in
such an environment, pornographer Mike Freeman stands out as this book’s wild
card, as well as its most compelling and terrifying character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Freeman’s lifelong hatred of the law, and
devil-may-care attitude to pornography (his casting call extending to three
underage schoolgirls) gradually made him a liability in an environment where
pornographers were expected to be on cosy terms with crooked cops, and not draw
outside attention to their activities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Freeman’s inability to work within such a system resulted in him being essentially
blackballed from the dirty bookshop circuit, and if his self mythologizing is
to be believed, marked for death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Freeman comes across like British porn’s version of Bobby Beausoleil, a
man who feared nothing, and like Beausoleil ended up with blood on his
hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Infamously killing an associate in
1969 by stabbing him to death ‘in self defence’ 89 times.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">As the story moves on into the 1970s, it sees the rise of the celebrity
pornographer, with ‘membership only’ cinema owner David Waterfield and Scottish
blue filmmaker John Lindsay appearing on TV and in the media.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A far cry from their shadowy, publicity shy,
porn forefathers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both men portrayed themselves
as sexual freedom fighters and anti-censorship campaigners, the ideological opponents
of the likes of Mary Whitehouse and Lord Longford.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An image that in Waterfield’s case appears to
have been genuine, he did lend his support to several counter culture groups of
the period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas Lindsay’s claims to
be motivated by a social conscience feels a bit more contrived and
questionable.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The amount of research in this book is exemplary, there are stories told
here about the blue movie trade that I’d feared had been lost to time, and
characters brought to life who I’d only heard of passing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like the mysterious Ivor Cook and German porn
smuggler turned producer Walter ‘Charlie Brown’ Bartkowski.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Under the Counter even manages to bring new
material to the table when it comes to comparatively well documented figures
like Freeman and Lindsay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among the
many, many revelations in this book is that both are now deceased, their deaths
receiving little, if any, public acknowledgement until Under the Counter’s
publication.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Freeman passed away in June
2021, while John Lindsay died way back in 2006.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Which now explains why all attempts to track down and interview Lindsay
during the last decade have never met with any success!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Under the Counter also takes the opportunity
to correct misinformation that has been allowed to slip out about British
hardcore, providing evidence that the Mary Millington loop ‘Miss Bohrloch’
couldn’t have been made prior to the Watergate scandal (you’ll have to read the
book to find out why).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meaning that Bohrloch
likely dates from around 1972-1973, rather than the often cited 1969 or 1970
production date.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also retells the
story of the BBC’s ill-fated attempt to film John Lindsay at work- as part of
the Open University strand of programming- with more much clarity and accuracy
than the account given in Stanley Long’s autobiography.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although Long’s portrayal of Lindsay as an
untrustworthy character (Lindsay invited the BBC to Long’s penthouse and filmed
pornography there without Long’s permission) is certainly validated by this
lengthier account of the incident.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which
suggests that Lindsay mentioning about it in the newspapers is what first got
the BBC in trouble with the law, the broadcasters’ woes added to when Lindsay then
sold his side of the story to the News of the World tabloid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5tTcyrKwmvrdNoVsKtkmZIKhOmkgwY5qMs71rXGgR_c1tgjJzQ6qGGPgma5jdTdEmfA4S4NeO34X7cu3qwSeHlmgW15x2SRaRPMI5iZHHluNmZ-5V6W_g6uyOxIlFM18lLoXsOEKfVp9vRLef38GhoSvngT31Yg9cJZ2kiYipWJP4am4vabyARtDevfY/s843/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="843" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5tTcyrKwmvrdNoVsKtkmZIKhOmkgwY5qMs71rXGgR_c1tgjJzQ6qGGPgma5jdTdEmfA4S4NeO34X7cu3qwSeHlmgW15x2SRaRPMI5iZHHluNmZ-5V6W_g6uyOxIlFM18lLoXsOEKfVp9vRLef38GhoSvngT31Yg9cJZ2kiYipWJP4am4vabyARtDevfY/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i>John Lindsay (1935-2006)</i></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The appendix of this book alone –which documents
around 1000 blue movies shot in Britain from 1960 to 1980- singles out Under
the Counter as a ground breaking work in terms of film research.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Offering a tantalising glimpse into an
underbelly of the British sex film that exists beyond the pleasantries of
Confessions of a Window Cleaner and 8mm glamour films, with perverse, yet
oh-so-British titles like: The Carpet Fuckers, Prick Layers, Up Your Kilt and Vicar’s
Fantasy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In another apparent first,
Under the Counter shines a light on the comparatively small, but historically
important, gay side of British hardcore, represented by Hard Dollar Hustler
(Alan Purnell, 1977) thought to be Britain’s first feature length gay hardcore
movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As well as ‘Dial a Guy’ and ‘What
a Gay Day’ by the seemingly up for anything Mike Freeman, who for all his unsavourily
reputation did commendably refuse to take his gay movies off the market,
ignoring legal advice to the contrary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Under the Counter also wins personal approval from me for helping propagate
the bizarre legend of ‘A Schoolgirl Dreams of King Kong’. A hardcore short made
by British filmmakers for a German distributor, in which a young lady
fantasizes about being tied to King Kong’s penis, eventually causing the giant
ape to ejaculate over the New York skyline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Trust me, that one really does belong in the ‘has to be seen to be
believed’ category.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG68G9lFnWUjamQk-eX6ND54sTPozP5Wk2IO3naFzTR3O9vI0fZ1GYaHwqa_Tw5e4NS9DCph5mWfkghUtnQ9jijoi9IF9-gEqTcdhNtq0r0EUMO02PQgtLkvEspxc1BV2YdBPfzz0YmI6fooNQOTA_MkIWmve04_e8iB14OxVewXyySgkfxKdEYhfdYWk/s1024/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG68G9lFnWUjamQk-eX6ND54sTPozP5Wk2IO3naFzTR3O9vI0fZ1GYaHwqa_Tw5e4NS9DCph5mWfkghUtnQ9jijoi9IF9-gEqTcdhNtq0r0EUMO02PQgtLkvEspxc1BV2YdBPfzz0YmI6fooNQOTA_MkIWmve04_e8iB14OxVewXyySgkfxKdEYhfdYWk/s320/3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoV1shHXgkjiJMbCb7ifIR2NBn9l4oXKgq03NzL4YzC0xdi4SEZAhi41RpGecrXhFpCu8JlomC8NdjCibKviqaLn9R3MMQeWePGTGyQ9IapoeXmHZDRO4lY_51gFa4UTFWbeVa3ovZPv3_7cjXAb464Vll27RobVW8gmyFfWze75NyVl3EyottfHItvXU/s1024/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoV1shHXgkjiJMbCb7ifIR2NBn9l4oXKgq03NzL4YzC0xdi4SEZAhi41RpGecrXhFpCu8JlomC8NdjCibKviqaLn9R3MMQeWePGTGyQ9IapoeXmHZDRO4lY_51gFa4UTFWbeVa3ovZPv3_7cjXAb464Vll27RobVW8gmyFfWze75NyVl3EyottfHItvXU/s320/4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVXzKlqiI8V21wXK21B6NAJHKVqCRoeTjtHVG3tFr7QU16sHZob_vvYzZHd-s8uCSkoLq0uv3FxhIYDBh4pyXSf4tLsEN32DbicS0LxXq3EiPHEPLDWVybm7pwxXv0akyGZ5JgkjFmLHs7cmXSAryBdF2TopjHMdr_CNEqm2pb9Zk4_eiR7PmXhapn_Aw/s1024/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVXzKlqiI8V21wXK21B6NAJHKVqCRoeTjtHVG3tFr7QU16sHZob_vvYzZHd-s8uCSkoLq0uv3FxhIYDBh4pyXSf4tLsEN32DbicS0LxXq3EiPHEPLDWVybm7pwxXv0akyGZ5JgkjFmLHs7cmXSAryBdF2TopjHMdr_CNEqm2pb9Zk4_eiR7PmXhapn_Aw/s320/5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">22 year old Jennifer Eccles rides Kong's penis in 'A </span><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;">Schoolgirl</span></i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i> Dreams of King Kong' </i> </span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Under the Counter ends on a downbeat note (or upbeat note, depending on
your point of view) with the idealistic hopes of 1970s pornographers being thoroughly
crushed by the arrival of the Thatcher government and the censorship
stranglehold on the video industry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Comments from a 1986 interview with John Lindsay reveals a defeated and
deflated man compared to the one who, only a few years before, had victoriously
walked away from court claiming he had all but legalised hardcore pornography
in Britain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A second volume of Under the
Counter, restarting the story in the mid-1980s and taking it up to the modern
day, is planned, but volume one alone is a considerable achievement in the
field of British sex film archaeology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Others, from newspaper hacks to writers of speculative fiction, have
attempted to penetrate the subject of home-grown hardcore, but Under the
Counter has finally succeeded in gaining access to ‘the back room’ of this hitherto
clandestine part of British history. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-48464204127460829352023-08-30T00:31:00.001-07:002023-09-06T23:38:35.351-07:00Sorts (1973, James Moffatt)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieCSPwv2BmPAPWVa1Pigy1yFIibdbiaQMqyQ_I2-PF7eJgpqh1UiIgVq3RBVmAyvqfL_MalGuFlibEq21gu0eZUU5wfXSHp2-7TJNPta2lU8q2xZsx6AvWtOxzJlUAbpLRUTq-KQCzdtki7AWTGXXFGmsiWnxnbKSbhi_TUaGI222nOaiDc1rrGYwhFzI/s983/1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="983" data-original-width="754" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieCSPwv2BmPAPWVa1Pigy1yFIibdbiaQMqyQ_I2-PF7eJgpqh1UiIgVq3RBVmAyvqfL_MalGuFlibEq21gu0eZUU5wfXSHp2-7TJNPta2lU8q2xZsx6AvWtOxzJlUAbpLRUTq-KQCzdtki7AWTGXXFGmsiWnxnbKSbhi_TUaGI222nOaiDc1rrGYwhFzI/s320/1.jpg" width="245" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Sorts does pretty much everything, but what it’s meant
to on the tin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Canadian writer James
‘Jim’ Moffatt hit pay dirt in 1970 with the novel ‘Skinhead’ written under the
name Richard Allen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The huge success of
which caused publisher New English Library to immediately commission the hard
working writer to pen sequels and further ‘Richard Allen’ books documenting
similar youth cults.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffatt had already
covered skinhead culture from a female angle in 1972’s Skinhead Girls, and by
the time of Sorts in 1973 was drifting off topic, reducing the heroine’s
association with skinheads to mere back-story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moffatt straying from the skinhead path could produce hit and miss
results.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1975’s Dragon Skins, which has
a similarly tentative connection to skinhead culture, manages to be dull and
lifeless, despite a plot which pits ex-skinheads against a crooked kung-fu
master.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately Sorts finds
Gentleman Jim Moffatt firing on all cylinders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you can forgive Sorts the sin of having very little to do with skinhead
culture, this is a Pandora’s box in which Gentleman Jim unleashes all manner of
1970s unpleasantness, from hard drug use to police brutality, hippies being
kicked in the balls, children being kicked in the balls, murder, blackmail, a
leery look at the ‘problem’ of teenage hitchhikers, as well as Devon’s answer
to the Manson Family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sorts is actually
a rare example of New English Library underplaying the contents of a book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>NEL’s cover, featuring a dour faced skinhead
girl loitering about a doorway, suggesting a miserablist working class drama to
slit your wrists to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This, in no way
prepares you for the wild ride you’re about to be taken on, one powered by
Moffatt’s alcoholism, tabloid like sensationalism and bigotry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Step right up, Folks...but be forewarned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffatt being Moffatt, there’s more racism in
Sorts than you can shake a burning cross at.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Sorts centres around troubled youth Terry Hurdy, who
has recently gotten knocked up by randy local lad Wilf Thompson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Forced to give up their baby for adoption,
Terry finds herself tormented by reminders of Wilf and their child, the dirty
looks of her neighbours and the guilt of being a source of embarrassment to her
decent parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What did they know
about fads and the need of a young girl to express herself under a man’s
driving loins”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fact that Terry is
just 17 doesn’t cause Gentleman Jim to reign in his dirty old man tendencies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re not even out of chapter one before he
has her admiring her naked body in a mirror, a tactic he also used to ogle a
female character in 1977’s Knuckle Girls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Having honed her seductive skills during a bus ride “she smiled, teased
him by letting her duffle coat fully open. The tightness of her sweater showed
her pouting breasts to advantage”, Terry decides to take to the road and
hitchhike around the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffatt’s writing
brings to life a rarely complementary, but believably on the money, landscape of
greasy motorway cafes and monotonously samey stretches of roads, populated by vulnerable
runaways, horny truckers, and unhappily married motorists “how many of the men
would have stopped if it wasn’t for the risk of venereal disease or
blackmail”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Terry acquires a scam-sister
in Rose Clague, a fellow runaway who has taken to selling herself on the road
like a duck to water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rose is introduced
coming on to a potential trick “she was getting bored shaking her leg. It
wasn’t enough for the bloke to see her knickers under her short skirt”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Expecting a sexually inexperienced guy, Rose
is put out by his extensive sexual demands, and ends up lashing out at
pornography for giving menfolk too many ideas “he must have read every dirty
book aimed at a pervert market”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Moffatt might be willing to perv over Terry, but Rose
appears to have been more of his ‘type’, Gentleman Jim’s books displaying a
preference for the flesher, curvier woman...but having big hands evidentially
ruins the job for Moffatt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I’ve got big
tits, big arse and big hands. That’s what’s wrong with me...those big hands”
frets Rose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Big hands might be a turn
off for Gentleman Jim, but presumably come in handy when thumbing a lift on the
road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At Rose’s insistence, the two
hitchhike their way to the ‘Siddlecombe Folk Festival’ in Devon, a land of...if
not milk and honey...then “guys galore and a chance of a social security
handout” as Rose puts it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1UlHALJNjeOAsQ_pZC1Jv1dtT207E9NMULzyr88DHONp162EUsioash2RqNo81QEbnn3wsHEGzDdTo1HuNR24lcXFQ_8o5Sr3rLrCwhde4x8Mu2nePGlxUuEswmWjYWbb8_nPYYhKlit5-DVLxaMDrH0ldJmtYGw98gOgV5PXoO-ybVqTGpBbTOXAQjY/s630/2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="433" data-original-width="630" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1UlHALJNjeOAsQ_pZC1Jv1dtT207E9NMULzyr88DHONp162EUsioash2RqNo81QEbnn3wsHEGzDdTo1HuNR24lcXFQ_8o5Sr3rLrCwhde4x8Mu2nePGlxUuEswmWjYWbb8_nPYYhKlit5-DVLxaMDrH0ldJmtYGw98gOgV5PXoO-ybVqTGpBbTOXAQjY/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><i>"hey girls, fancy a ride to the Siddlecombe Folk Festival?"</i></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><i><br /></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In Moffatt books its common to find him lose interest
in the young tearaways he was meant to be writing about, and instead switch his
allegiance to characters which he would have found more relatable and
agreeable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inevitably these tend to be
older, male characters, always seen dressed in suits, who adhere to old
fashioned values, and lash out in anger at a changing world that is leaving
them behind and flashing them the ‘V’ sign in the process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The opportunity for Moffatt to jump ship
presents itself in the form of Kevin Lilly, a 52 year old ex-major, who runs an
elite, gourmet food store catering to the upper classes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lilly is a sworn enemy of the Siddlecombe
Folk Festival, and the longhairs it attracts to Devon “his entire being was
geared to destroying this ‘scum’ that blighted his Colonel Blimpish Britain”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the surface, Lilly appears to be the
perfect Moffatt protagonist, yet Moffatt resists the temptation to transform
Sorts from the Terry Hurdy story to the Kevin Lilly one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The likely reason for author putting distance
between himself and this character being that behind his fist shaking,
respectability, Lilly is also a sex beast with a taste for young hitchhikers
and a history of sexually harassing female employees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One that leaves this pillar of the community
frequently open to blackmail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, the
similarities between Lilly and Moffatt are difficult to ignore. Both are
roughly the same age, residents of Devon, publically criticise hippie culture,
and like his creator Kevin Lilly likes big butts and he cannot lie “his eyes
fastened like headlights on a cat’s eye stud on a fog bound road as the girl’s
buttocks shifted sensually under her store uniform”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did Moffatt see elements of himself in Kevin
Lilly?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two men both had their sexual
secrets to keep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffatt being primarily
known in Devon as a writer for local newspaper ‘The Sidmouth Herald’ yet had
this secondary career as ‘Richard Allen’, his Mr. Hyde, whose books regularly
required Moffatt to dream up youthful hooliganism and letch after young girls
in print.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Lilly might shake his head at the parade of hippie
blokes he sees hitchhiking along the motorway- vindictively showering one of
them with gravel as he drives by- but is more receptive to Rose and Terry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Offering the duo a lift, in spite of the fact
that Rose has big hands!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mood
quickly turns sexual with Terry barely in the car before Lilly is pawing her
thighs, causing Rose to get the scent of a rich, sexually desperate, mark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sexual bartering takes place, with Lilly
managing to talk the girls into a lay-by threesome in return for a ride to
Siddlecombe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only to seal his fate by
letting slip that he has a successful business in the town, causing the ears of
conniving Rose to stand on end.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Fellow writers in the trash fiction field, such as Guy
N. Smith, may have adopted a celebratory attitude to sex. Jumping on the
freedoms afforded by the age of permissiveness, and writing about intercourse
in lengthy and often ridiculous detail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moffatt though comes across as far more uptight and Victorian about
S-E-X.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sorts is a book that constantly
sets up sordid sexual encounters, but is a case of all sizzle, no steak, with
Moffatt sparing the blushes of his female characters by gentlemanly refusing to
go into the finer details.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is much
build up to the lay-by bacchanal, with Lilly getting hot under the collar while
trying to find a suitably discrete spot for the bunk-up, and in need of
reassurance from the girls that yes...they are going to get naked for him,
yes...both of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only for Moffatt to
write around the incident itself, allowing only hints at the unprintable
depravity that takes place in Devon lay-bys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What with even the promiscuous Rose admitting she’s not used to getting
naked with another girl, and mentions of Lilly committing “deeds not in keeping
with his wartime decorations”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwjSXFP-eI876XnvgdPcEw1QjGp_6zZHixSssVK5r4PmbL_jE9xFrgMNbzz9yk06P7vdGh-HGWybHGIR06VUOUXkZcoY3A-E8Awkr8SzONs63pu2UBQEHq1sn52NqVn5nfB02QssZTSApgW_dkhC6eMfgK0PLKBkUURZxflbwmkd62xbLj1NU8WWbyKyE/s600/3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="585" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwjSXFP-eI876XnvgdPcEw1QjGp_6zZHixSssVK5r4PmbL_jE9xFrgMNbzz9yk06P7vdGh-HGWybHGIR06VUOUXkZcoY3A-E8Awkr8SzONs63pu2UBQEHq1sn52NqVn5nfB02QssZTSApgW_dkhC6eMfgK0PLKBkUURZxflbwmkd62xbLj1NU8WWbyKyE/s320/3.jpg" width="312" /></a></div><br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Sorts offers a rare opportunity to see Moffatt write
about a place he loved, his adopted home of Devon, as opposed to the usual
council estates, high rise flats and football terraces which were the usual
settings of his youthsploitation novels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When it comes to Devon, Moffatt’s writing rises above the hack level, as
affectionate descriptions of “miniature stately homes in landscaped grounds
protecting their privacy” and “the number of classy outlets, the attachment to
‘times past’” flow off the pages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Setting Sorts so close to home however, only makes Moffatt see
red...blood red...when it comes to the folk crowd blighting his own, personal
landscape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Terry might be smitten by cosy, old fashioned Devon,
but all this long hair, pot smoking and multiculturalism rubs our headstrong
young bigot up the wrong way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sending
Terry scurrying back to cherished childhood memories of hanging around with
racist, football hooligans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Crissakes,
you lot are nothing compared to the skins. At least they bloody work for a
living” hollers Terry at the two main representatives of hippie culture in the
book, Englishman Jack White and Scotsman Jock Macauley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This being a Moffatt book, Jack and Jock turn
out to be drug addicted layabouts who live off social security handouts, like
scaring old ladies and gleefully anticipate an eventual communist takeover of
Britain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Communal living is cynically
depicted as a scam, with the two hippies insisting on Terry and Rose handing
over all their cash to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Claiming it
will all go on commune living expenses, Jack and Jock instead blow it on a pot
and heroin binge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite Terry having
trouble written over her, Jack decides to take her under his wing, reasoning
that skirt is skirt and “being stuck up there on the windy hill with Jock
didn’t satisfy his lusty nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some things
he did not experiment with and one was men”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moffatt’s unnecessary insistence that the two men aren’t gay, does lead
you to wonder why he felt the need to point that out in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The disclaimer in itself conjuring up a
mental image of Jack and Jock getting up to gay fella business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A similar, potentially revealing moment occurs
in Mod Rule (1980) where Moffatt’s main character contemplates a homophobic
attack “Joe wanted to bash the bastard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He hated queers with a virile youth’s fear of turning into one”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did Gentleman Jim have a closet in need of
liberating?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was the homophobia in his
books motivated by a deep rooted, self-hatred?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s a theory worthy of consideration, however momentarily, even if
evidence to the contrary is strong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moffatt had been married at one point, and his books come on forcefully,
nay predatorily, heterosexual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still,
Sorts is another Moffatt book whose sexual content, and writing from a female
perspective, sees the author having to erotise the male body in print.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Sweaty, broad shouldered, strong armed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The type with muscles on top of muscles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A he-lion who would brook no refusal when he
started getting down to the nitty-gritties”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Terry aside, there’s nothing in Sorts that flatters
the female of the species.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Big handed
Rose is “a little bitch! A road-screwing whore” according to Kevin Lilly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While a female employee of his, who Lilly has
been sexually harassing, decides that the blackmailing rewards of giving in to
his sexual demands outweighs the indignities, vowing she’ll “have the bastard
over a barrel for keeps”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mrs. Lilly
herself turns out to be an all fur coat and no knickers social climber, who
secretly wishes her husband dead so she can get her hands on his money and live
the life of luxury.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Moffatt’s sexual disgust at women goes off the scale
in Sorts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“One of the girls laughed,
lifted up her skirt, lowered her knickers and pee-ed” writes Moffatt of an
unnamed hippie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elsewhere the author
feels compelled to inform us that Rose prefers multi-hued knickers to white
ones “She seldom wore white these days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Too much trouble keeping them clean between trips”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the King-of-too-much-information’s <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>piece de resistance when it comes to crudity
in Sorts is the use of the term ‘flushing the loo’ as a euphemism for the
female orgasm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After Jack and Jock have
had their wicked way with Terry and Rose respectively, Rose insists on comparing
notes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Boasting that Jock flushed her
loo five times during the night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A clear
victory for Scotland over England, as Terry concedes that Jack was only capable
of flushing her loo twice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The young folk being pitted against older
establishment figures was a key theme in early 1970s British culture, you’ll
find it in Horror Hospital, House of Whipcord, The Living Dead at the Manchester
Morgue (the Arthur Kennedy character in that film could have easily written a
book like this).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sorts isn’t one to buck
a popular trend, but Moffatt treads a less well travelled path when it comes to
also pitting young people against young people. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Terry being ideologically at odds with just
about everything Jack and Jock stand for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sorts is a reminder that not every youngster in 1970s Britain was swept
along by flower power, with Terry endlessly getting in the faces of Jack and
Jock accusing them of being Longhairs!!! Scroungers!!! Communists!!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The girl can’t help it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Secretly Terry longs to be a housewife and
mother, as well as marrying a decent man who enjoys kicking hippies in the
bollocks as much as she does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is on
matters of race that Terry feels most at odds with the hippies, inflammatory
opinions that Moffatt is only to keen to put into print.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Recently, she’d almost forgotten what it was
like to be the butt of every do-gooder’s loathing for trying to keep Britain
white... if only Enoch was Prime Minister, she thought”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s James Moffatt books for you, all
subtlety and understatement. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Considering the publishing phenomenon that Moffatt’s
skinhead and related youthsploitation novels had been, it comes as a surprise
that their popularity didn’t spill over into the cinema.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>British exploitation filmmakers were always
quick to capitalise on a headline making subject, be it suburban swinging (The
Wife Swappers), wife beating (The Brute), artificial insemination (Who’s Child
Am I), the occult (Secret Rites) even a real life killer (The Black
Panther).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Youth gangs and race relations
though were hot topic subjects that UK exploitation filmmakers generally
preferred to side-step.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe the threat
of a backlash from the censors, the public and the youth gangs depicted, lead
the likes of Pete Walker, Stanley Long and Lindsay Shonteff to the conclusion
that the fucking they’d get, wasn’t worth the fucking they’d get.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were a few rare exceptions, the support
feature ‘The Contract’ (1975) offers the surreal sight of Coronation Street
actor Ken Farrington as a coke snorting, white supremacist biker, playing
Russian roulette and hurling racial expletives around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the only significant British
exploitation filmmaker to tackle race-relations in his movies was volatile maverick
Donovan Winter, whose treatment of the subject in Some Like It Sexy (1969) and
Escort Girls (1974) would lead you to believe that Winter was anti-racist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An image you’ll have shattered for you, if
you ever have the dubious honour of reading his autobiography ‘The Winter of My
Discontent’, which revealed the filmmaker to be very much Moffatt-minded.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Bad vibes abound at this point in Sorts, when will
Terry’s confrontations and bickering with the hippie guys result in violent or
sexual retaliation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffatt ups the
tension by playing the Manson card.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Had
she inadvertently walked in on a pair of Manson-painted blokes” asks Moffatt of
the reader.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a testament to just
how widely felt the shock waves were from the Manson case that they even
registered in Devon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Charles Manson was
a godsend for Moffatt, both validating his worst fears about hippies, and
spurring him on to portray them as drug-crazed psychopaths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still you suspect that when it came to
matters of race, Gentleman Jim and Charlie would have gotten along just
fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffatt sure got his money’s worth
out of Manson and his family, they provided inspiration for Moffatt’s
non-fiction expose of satanic sex cults ‘Satan’s Slaves’ (1970) published under
the name James Taylor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As well as his
1970 horror novel ‘The Naked Light’ (tagline ‘black magic slayings in the
Hollywood Hills’). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIuowf7xpSUnUNf_yTTSHnuPzAhYcBgYHAnvwtAs6mJH-7woJyBRAaYtAPiaJVXUJuHPE028E6D8hDAxbFbpDWayW-07iw1L1apQ7MTmPxUXGw6vFvbMpUxZsnhDAGUMiVUCv-IW3KWqkIu8BozyO2vdodVh6cQ_jk-ncQDlYzvLVx10Kd_doqFEr7yWI/s3701/4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3701" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIuowf7xpSUnUNf_yTTSHnuPzAhYcBgYHAnvwtAs6mJH-7woJyBRAaYtAPiaJVXUJuHPE028E6D8hDAxbFbpDWayW-07iw1L1apQ7MTmPxUXGw6vFvbMpUxZsnhDAGUMiVUCv-IW3KWqkIu8BozyO2vdodVh6cQ_jk-ncQDlYzvLVx10Kd_doqFEr7yWI/s320/4.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The Manson influence makes its presence felt in Sorts
when Jock shoots up “that’s the big ‘D’ man, Satan’s flames and that shit”
becoming a drug crazed madman who embarks on a killing spree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tripping out, Jock believes he is actually
slaying sea creatures “that’s what he’d speared a bloody mermaid, look at those
tits, god they shifted so easily, but where was her tail”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For all of the hippie hating to emerge from
Moffatt’s poisoned pen, it comes as a surprise that when the Manson family type
characters show up in Sorts, they are ‘kind of’ the good guys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jock’s murderous antics being spied upon by a
hippie commune, lead by an American draft dodger, who decides his ‘family’
should hunt Jock down and kill him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
type of behaviour that technically should win Moffatt’s approval (elsewhere in
the book he is very supportive of police brutality) but hippies were never
going to get an even break in a Moffatt novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The ‘Family’ might be doing society a favour by taking the law into
their own hands, especially as Moffatt has Jock cackling to himself that liberal
‘do-gooders’ will come to his defence if he is ever caught, but Moffatt is
always on hand to remind us that hippies are in fact evil and disgusting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The revolting highlights of the book all
belong to the family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At one point the
Manson figure name drops Jesus into the conversation, prompting a female
follower to squat and urinate on the ground, urging him to “walk on my
water”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This leads to all the commune
urinating, creating a pool of piss for the Manson figure to prove his messianic
qualities by walking on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who’d be a
hippie cult leader, eh?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A common form of
abuse in Moffatt’s books is for characters to wish others to be shit upon “shit
on her”, “shit on you”, “shit on this place”, but Sorts is the only book of his
I’ve read where this insult is put into practice. “Shitting on him” remarks one
horrified policeman of the Family’s handwork “that’s bottom of degeneracy”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s one of many moments in Moffatt’s books
which cause you to step back and ask yourself ‘how did we end up here’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A book which begins in the territory of a kitchen
sink drama, with its teenage pregnancy plot taking place under a grey slated
working class rooftop, ends up trespassing into the land of ‘I Drink Your
Blood’ with all these drug crazed hippies running around the countryside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgrZPfTaG7dogPUMuqEcWNw2RI8kALKIWP686rD5bprtfGmAfoYvuO-eBkO0aaq3exVI6LxGnYARrdcOYQgLp6UjT-cBlk-YH5UhB-q0COMoYninI_B6NRgRFe-rRqcQkROHfGzlGxeNaR-ka0LJmpTuXhgTJSgHnjiHYNkPe6mrbpVQjdz-zjxwXcbw4/s1842/5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1296" data-original-width="1842" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgrZPfTaG7dogPUMuqEcWNw2RI8kALKIWP686rD5bprtfGmAfoYvuO-eBkO0aaq3exVI6LxGnYARrdcOYQgLp6UjT-cBlk-YH5UhB-q0COMoYninI_B6NRgRFe-rRqcQkROHfGzlGxeNaR-ka0LJmpTuXhgTJSgHnjiHYNkPe6mrbpVQjdz-zjxwXcbw4/s320/5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Moffatt is noticeably reluctant to give his
Manson character a name, building up the man’s mystique by simply referring to
him as ‘the American’ and heavy handily stressing the Manson comparisons “the
Manson curse hovered upon him...the similarities were astonishing”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only towards the end of the book does Moffatt
let slip the man’s surname ‘Golightly’ a name hardly likely to strike fear into
the hearts of men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘The Golightly
Family’ sounding less like a bloodthirsty hippie cult, and more like a
forgotten TV sitcom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The last act of Sorts is an absolute shambles, but at
least it is an entertaining shambles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moffatt loses sight of Terry, reducing her to a side character, and
instead introduces us to what appears to be the entire Siddlecombe police
force.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Worse still, the fuzz here are a
rather interchangeable bunch and it becomes difficult to keep track of who’s
who.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of the force, Constable Allen only
stands out for offering Terry an olive branch back to straight society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sgt Tom Elford is another mouthpiece for
Moffatt’s anti-drug rhetoric “he wanted to vomit, to curse aloud.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To horsewhip every bastard he caught pushing
the filthy stuff” and racism “people here don’t realise what’s been happening
in England.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Half the towns belong to
Africa and India”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For a change of pace,
their chief Inspector hates famous people, losing his rag with “showbiz
personalities sporting outlandish fashions in an effort to please their
theatrical chain masters”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Sorts’ ending shows signs of being equally padded and
rushed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the police investigation
takes precedence, Moffatt pointlessly serves up police interviews with Terry
Hurdy and Jack White, presented in the manner of a transcribed Q&A session.
Which only recaps the story we already know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moffatt sets up a courtroom battle finale, with a villainous do-gooder barrister
attempting to discredit Terry by bringing up her skinhead past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only for Moffatt to realise that he’d either
reached the required page count or that the pubs were opening soon, so skims through
the trial, effectively telling the reader that it was a fairly boring affair
and they didn’t miss anything “none of the excitement associated with stage,
television, motion picture trials”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Before he hits the bar though, Gentleman Jim at least sticks around long
enough to write a heart-warming ‘reader, I married him’ ending, as well as an
epilogue in which a contemptible female character gets her comeuppance in the
form of rough, degrading sex with an uncouth lout.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus ensuring that both romantics and misogynists
walk away happy from Sorts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In his intro to the book Moffatt describes and defends
Sorts as ‘a source of reference for future students of our violent era’, and...
well here I am writing about it in 2023, so Gentleman Jim called it right in
that regards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sorts hasn’t just become a
document of the era’s violence, but also its prejudices, on account of Moffatt practicing
nearly all of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The man’s hate list
was nothing if not astronomical...he had it in for Blacks, Gays, Jews, Trade Unionists,
Hippies, religious do-gooders, the Irish, Americans, French, Germans, greyhound
dogs, the National Front (yep, he even hated the people who hated the people
who he himself hated).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not to
mention...women with big hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Taking
into account stories of his alcoholism, his reputation for being increasingly unreliable,
along with the colossal weight of bitterness, anger and bigotry he dragged
around with him, and you have to ask whether James Moffatt could have lead a
very happy life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even before the end of
chapter one he has Terry inwardly scream “God, what a bloody rotten world it
was”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Still, to give the man credit, Sorts is an
exploitation novel that truly delivers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On that level Sorts is a classic (of Sorts) successfully playing to the most
basest, violent and prejudicial instincts of a 1970s’ audience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The passing of time generally robs cultural artefacts
of their controversial status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once
verboten movies like The Exorcist, Straw Dogs and A Clockwork Orange play on TV
these days, even the Video Nasties have become gentrified and socially
acceptable now, but the Moffatt books still prowl around the cultural naughty
step like demented banshees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If anything
their shock value has only snowballed over the years, particularly when it
comes to Sorts’ attitude towards sexual harassment and race relations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is an overused expression that something
or other will ‘make you want to take a shower afterwards’, but a James Moffatt
book really will make you feel that unclean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Make sure you flush the loo afterwards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moffatt’s voice is a shriek of the mutilated, one that echoes throughout
the decades “God, what a bloody rotten world it was”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-31799065810626256902023-08-09T23:11:00.000-07:002023-08-09T23:11:03.861-07:00Claudia Jennings – An Authorized Biography<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5uh-ziHtlszb3V8VHaKR2JhdLtOcjxBfC6-YOmKLgpte5VaXVS43SWKZwvvnilPz_SYQGuE32tCzrIlJVg5X6LnhEWgBQ0i8TN2y4cFRbeQhkHRrx4Ba4iXBpu-BcD5fdzFvdpApOwibGqs1ANNvSb83RqatcvkoVT0ayS1VCBLxWakD3Ia3h8ywaVw8/s1360/claudiabook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="907" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5uh-ziHtlszb3V8VHaKR2JhdLtOcjxBfC6-YOmKLgpte5VaXVS43SWKZwvvnilPz_SYQGuE32tCzrIlJVg5X6LnhEWgBQ0i8TN2y4cFRbeQhkHRrx4Ba4iXBpu-BcD5fdzFvdpApOwibGqs1ANNvSb83RqatcvkoVT0ayS1VCBLxWakD3Ia3h8ywaVw8/s320/claudiabook.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Surprisingly this book marks the first successful attempt
at publishing a biography of Claudia Jennings, nee Mary ‘Mimi’ Eileen
Chesterton, the Playboy playmate who achieved success as a drive-in movie
actress, before tragically dying in a car crash at the young age of 29.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My feelings towards this book are similarly
to that of ‘The Sci-Fi Siren Who Dared to Love Elvis and Other Stars’, the
recent biography of Angelique Pettyjohn. In that these books’ flaws become all
the more frustrating, given that their subjects are so niche it’s unlikely
another, superior biography is likely to come along anything soon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">For what was without doubt an obsessive labour to
love, this book sure has a tendency to get distracted from its subject
matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Expect to read a book about
Claudia Jennings?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, you do get that
here, but you are also signing up for lengthy asides about the history of the
grand guignol theatre, the cultural influence of Grant Wood’s painting
‘American Gothic’, the socio-political subtext of Attack of the 50 foot Woman,
and just about everything else under the sun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Claudia Jennings- an authorized biography sets out its stall with an
overview of America as the 1960s gave way to the 1970s, a time of racial tension,
the war in Vietnam, the threat of the Soviet Union, and where a right wing
backlash against 60s liberalism would eventually put “men in power that the
vast majority of the nation would eventually regret”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of which would be appropriate if this
were a biography of Huey P. Newton, Malcolm X or a member of the MC5, but Claudia
Jennings was hardly a radical figure, and appears to have been immune from the
turbulent issues of the period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
Jennings was a political animal, then her views were never publically aired,
nor do they go recorded here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As its title implies, the book was written with the
co-operation of her family, who hold firm to the belief that appearing in
Playboy was morally beneath her, and that her acting career suffered as a
result of her association with the magazine. A cause that this book picks up
and runs with “her modest background and feelings of inadequacy were being
soothed by the unrealistic and irrational world of Hugh Hefner”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The revelation that her relationship with
Hefner quickly went from professional to sexual is greeted with the finger
pointing accusation “what went on between Mimi and Hugh Hefner is nothing less
than sexual harassment” only to contradict and retract that statement a few sentences
later with “there is nothing to suggest Mr Hefner coerced Mimi into having
sex”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are elements of the Jennings
story that don’t reflect well on Hefner, including allegations that pressure
was put on her to make return appearances in the pages of Playboy, leaving her
feeling as if she owed him and the magazine a debt for her acting career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However the book doesn’t really convince you
that he was the Svengali it is so desperately trying to paint him as.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hefner’s behaviour hardly strikes you as that
of a monster, he installed her in his mansion, gave her an entrance into a
world of fame and money –both of which she clearly craved- and offered her a
luxurious escape route from what appears to have been an increasingly troubled
home life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In one of the most
heartbreaking moments of the book, it quotes a letter she wrote to her parents
“I know I am a first-class pig, as Daddy said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I know I am no help around here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I am crying right now as I am writing this to you because I am sorry for
all the trouble I have caused.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The whole
thing was all my fault”, at which point the book cuts short her words ‘out of
respect for the privacy of the Chesterton family’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, surely the role of biographer should be
to shed light on its subject, rather than act as gatekeeper to information that
might be key to understanding her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
book might be willing to sweep anything that embarrasses the Chesterton family
under the carpet, but it doesn’t extent the same</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">courtesy
to Hefner, with the book casting its net further afield to find mud to throw at
the gates of the Playboy mansion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus
the book spends time on a lengthy retelling of the life and murder of Dorothy
Stratten, as well as engaging in what comes across as schadenfreude when it
comes to documenting the decline of the Playboy brand, the Playboy mansion, and
Hefner’s own death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None of which took
place during Jennings’ lifetime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Had she
written a letter like that to Hefner, rather than her parents, I’d be more inclined
to jump onboard the anti-Hef agenda here, but she didn’t, nor did he ever call
her a first-class pig.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When we get to the movies is when in theory this book
should take flight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead it is the
point in which Claudia Jennings- an authorized biography develops an identity
crisis, drifting away from its biographical intent and increasingly becoming a
series of film reviews and home for the author’s personal opinions of her
movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While you’d expect anyone
reading a book about Claudia Jennings to be au fait with her film career, evidentially
this book thinks otherwise, and provides very long, blow by blow, virtually
scene by scene walkthroughs of their plots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The synopsis for Unholy Rollers (1972) talking up nearly six pages
alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As for the type of film criticism
on display here, it’s not as room clearingly pretentious as Rob Craig’s books on
Ed Wood and Larry Buchanan (which share this book’s publisher) but it has its
moments, with Gator Bait (1974) praised for its ‘sub-proletarian individualist
and non-conformist’ heroine, an aspect which surprisingly wasn’t used to sell
it down at the drive-ins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For some
reason the book also feels compelled to give a potted history of exploitation
cinema, again something you’d expect anyone reading a book about Claudia Jennings
to be well versed in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s another detour
the book takes, which allows the author to give his thoughts on A Clockwork
Orange, The Last House on the Left, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Serbian
Film, Bloodsucking Freaks and other films that don’t have Claudia Jennings in
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although the author outs himself
early on in the book as a fan of horror and B-movies, citing being recommended
The Great Texas Dynamite Chase (1976) on Youtube as a motivating factor in
writing this book, the snarky and condescending tone towards such movies here
hardly supports this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Russ Meyer’s
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is trashed ‘the dialogue and acting make even
Roger Corman’s weakest efforts look like Hamlet’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As for Jennings’s own output ‘although I
adore Claudia’s films, we’re not reviewing Citizen Kane, The Godfather or
Spartacus’, he sneers before reaching the conclusion ‘I am comforted by the
fact Claudia never ventured into the darker fringes of Exploitation cinema’.
Which begs the question, why the book itself ventures into the darker fringes
of Exploitation cinema, when Jennings did not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Given the eagerness to throw accusations of sexism and exploitation at
Playboy’s door, it comes as a surprise though to find that the author is so enamoured
by Bloodsucking Freaks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Described here
as ‘a misogynistic gem’ and the subject of the confused write-up ‘it is a good
example of an exploitation film that is also a cult classic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course not all cult films are exploitation
movies, such as those by the Coen Brothers, and by the same token, not all
exploitation films are cult classics’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Got that?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ-E8ktyUDGLNqIWS8BOdoTtfgDyCQ3Lqa_1MRpQ3k6qfYCQIUjqqaeypVYKF_zReVZ2ybOtTTX6XxGzY2DCnExPrswaugC7ecgijP72wr_V54WnFWAZiYmgo50uPoNz5wQO7j0HTq6Zy1CzziYkzP4xIaT5-pWJQBmbD3WgES929dMsAvCwo9VqSXngk/s1024/gator1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="802" data-original-width="1024" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ-E8ktyUDGLNqIWS8BOdoTtfgDyCQ3Lqa_1MRpQ3k6qfYCQIUjqqaeypVYKF_zReVZ2ybOtTTX6XxGzY2DCnExPrswaugC7ecgijP72wr_V54WnFWAZiYmgo50uPoNz5wQO7j0HTq6Zy1CzziYkzP4xIaT5-pWJQBmbD3WgES929dMsAvCwo9VqSXngk/s320/gator1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXUtRFpjMzyHaX0IMbTunhSbujTC_rKAt5VDuEU975N-iGKSJjbfm1wuZXtelRfTVGs9QZ0JCPM_DjPHkR8GNKX3LHUCCdiCAooZj0pFSkO-nVakuLEOc7m_0zUJn9RzCyhsVpoppnb3vk2HbP9g_Y-J1sOEZlmCPt7v8i3Cf3mL9YZ27Y3UxHQhHtDe8/s1024/gator2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="759" data-original-width="1024" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXUtRFpjMzyHaX0IMbTunhSbujTC_rKAt5VDuEU975N-iGKSJjbfm1wuZXtelRfTVGs9QZ0JCPM_DjPHkR8GNKX3LHUCCdiCAooZj0pFSkO-nVakuLEOc7m_0zUJn9RzCyhsVpoppnb3vk2HbP9g_Y-J1sOEZlmCPt7v8i3Cf3mL9YZ27Y3UxHQhHtDe8/s320/gator2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As for the lady herself, who after all this book is
meant to be about, few have a bad word to say about Claudia Jennings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is remembered in these pages as a sweet
soul, a loyal friend, who liked to buy people presents, and is much
missed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of which is nice and
reassuring to know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However it doesn’t
make for especially compelling reading, instead giving the book the feel of an
aggressive PR exercise, designed to combat the often tawdry depiction of
Jennings in the media as an out of control party girl, who slept around
Hollywood, did lots of drugs and died young.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Trouble is, the book often comes out swinging at even the slightest bit
of criticism of her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When an early
boyfriend remembers “as soon as school ended, she moved on. She broke up with
me on the night of the prom”, the book feels the need to interject “this
statement sounds bitter, but since it’s a jilted lover’s expression, one can
comprehend that (he) wouldn’t be inclined to judge Mimi fairly”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Likewise the hint of sexual promiscuity on
her part, gets shot down with “the word is a anachronistic term for a double
standard that dishonesty shames women for multiple partners, yet idolizes men
for the same behaviour”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Jennings had few detractors, but the ones who have
spoken ill of her over the years are vilified for it here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An unnamed stuntwoman, who worked on
Deathsport (1978), is dismissed as “very jealous of Claudia, and was fairly
spiteful towards people in general”. While Deathsport director Nicholas
Niciphor is portrayed as an incompetent, bullying, nam vet who “would talk
about his days in Vietnam and speak graphically about the atrocities he
witnessed”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tensions between Jennings
and Niciphor come to a he</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ad, when he pulls her off a bike during the filming of
a scene and ‘appeared to be ready to kick or strike her’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Just to give both sides of the story, something
this book isn't prepared to do, Niciphor himself once claimed in Psychotronic
Video Magazine "she was drunk, she was 'coked' to the gills and she was
headstrong...I did in fact try to physically remove her from the bike, but I
did so for her own safety...mad as I certainly was that her drug trip was
ruining my movie, it was for her safety that I did in fact attempt to force her
off that motorcycle". It seems that when it comes to the making of
Deathsport, recollections may vary.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkiqkh3US48A1ZAJhGCuWypkcE_e4uiSzppYw3eFcP_sKzEjOVJGraRR98o3jjZ7XWNHtGuV6cL0ZTybrIiUfDH86t73U8qxVBjMuI3Jz10PEr4n0DjpD9OfCYxKz8hOHbGNhsnynhWjG5hXqDsDYXcqkir9hbxgqVW5IAzF-NpT88b-ln2XCBvIuMRyo/s2012/deathsport.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1363" data-original-width="2012" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkiqkh3US48A1ZAJhGCuWypkcE_e4uiSzppYw3eFcP_sKzEjOVJGraRR98o3jjZ7XWNHtGuV6cL0ZTybrIiUfDH86t73U8qxVBjMuI3Jz10PEr4n0DjpD9OfCYxKz8hOHbGNhsnynhWjG5hXqDsDYXcqkir9hbxgqVW5IAzF-NpT88b-ln2XCBvIuMRyo/s320/deathsport.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">At around the halfway</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> point Claudia Jennings- an
authorized biography, does manage to become unintentionally entertaining, due
to the high level of sycophancy to be found within its pages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, a biographer should be grateful to
people for lending a quote or two, but did virtually every quote in this book
need to be preceded with ‘such and such a person generously and/or graciously
shared their recollections of Claudia’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Likewise referring to people by title ‘to Ms. Peeters’ credit’, ‘Ms.
Kirkland has appeared in over 140 movies’, but the fawning highlight has to be
affording one participant the over the top introduction of ‘she is one of the
most extraordinary Americans to grace our time’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Say what you </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">will about this book,
it sure knows how roll out the red carpet for invited guests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The two notable hold-outs when it comes to
participating in this book are singer/songwriter Bobby Hart, who absence is
compensated by liberal quotes from his autobiography 'Psychedelic Bubble Gum'.
As well as the Brady Bunch's Maureen McCormick, who formed a hell raising
double act with Jennings for a while. McCormick’s autobiography comes under
fire here for "ignoring all of Claudia's virtues and instead focused on
one primary vice" and "if felt that there was a sub-current of
feminine jealousy throughout". All of which makes you want to run out and
see just what McCormick’s book says about Jennings. While mentions of their
friendship are disappointingly brief, it is actually a pretty funny, no filter account
of the craziness those two got up to. “Claudia and I became instant best
friends after discovering both of us had a great capacity for snorting coke”, “Claudia
and I got close to the movie's cinematographer Gary Graver...for a brief time,
the lucky guy shuttled between the two of us".</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">As the 1970s roll on, Jennings’ life</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> becomes one increasingly
lived in the fast lane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s a cameo
appearance from Bowie, Jennings goes on tour with the Rolling Stones, reportedly
saving Keith Richards from a drugs OD, then there’s a coke binge with James
Caan and Tony Curtis (wouldn’t you have wanted to be a fly on the wall during
THAT get-together, even if there was a possibility you’d accidentally get snorted
up a famous nasal passage).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
impression you get is that there is a true story of sex and drugs and rock
n’roll excess to be had here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book’s
aversion to going down a tabloidish route might be admirable, and I doubt any
fan of Claudia Jennings would want to read a gutter level, hatchet job. However
Claudia Jennings- an authorized biography, goes too far in the opposite direction,
leaving us with a bland echo-chamber of people queuing up to
generously/graciously remind us... ad infinitum... that Claudia Jennings was...
a sweet soul... a loyal friend... who liked to buy people presents...is much
missed, etc, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">After Jennings’ death, the book descends into
madness...a long, undisciplined, freefalling rant that rarely comes up for
breath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Randomly touching on subjects
like Russ Meyer movies, comparisons between Jennings and Cybill Shepherd, comparisons
between Jennings and silent movie stars, the author’s annoyance at what a
Deathsport crew member had written about her online ‘besides being full of
outright lies, the article is scatological and crude’, the IMDB ratings for her
movies, the initial critical response to Jodorowsky’s El Topo, a top ten list
of Claudia Jennings movies, the author’s annoyance at a fellow writer confusing
the word ‘sexpot’ with ‘sex symbol’...and so it goes on and on and on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the literature equivalent of being
locked in a room with a crazy fan who insists on pontificating about their
favourite subject until they are either rendered hoarse or you take your
chances and jump out of the nearest window.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the early 2000s, the same publisher Midnight Marquee press pulled a
blinder with ‘Tuesday’s Child’ a superb biography of British actress Imogen Hassall.
If only for Jennings’ sake, I had hoped that this might have been its equal,
but I have to be honest, this was an unholy mess of a book, and I couldn’t wait
to be done with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-59718427041282502122023-07-18T04:42:00.002-07:002023-07-18T04:42:25.451-07:00Preacherman meets Sex and Violence and Black Jesus<p><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-size: 16pt;">Clive, Nick and me discuss Preacherman (1971)
Black Jesus (1968) and Sex & Violence (1978)</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sKyzuykoztY" width="320" youtube-src-id="sKyzuykoztY"></iframe></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Since
we recorded this video, I've discovered there was also a stage version of
Preacherman, performed in New York by the Saint Bart's Players in early 1975.
At the time the Saint Bart's players were run by Joe Sutherin, who had acted in
a few of Viola's earlier New York skinflicks. It sounds like the Preacherman
play was an unhappy experience though, Sutherin was later quoted as saying
"(Viola) came to do the role he did in the movie and treated everyone very
poorly".</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5dd-AHKlC_IgN1ogjHvcDMAi2R3k6W12_ifuL2KkdBVVy5NrkXLRoj-lePoo5sp4wPJq1KxBpurvsHphHexD-sI2umlbfELuAURqPB_YdV3c0eD9us8_PXtqJR-1yuG-J8fXbQmNnbLjjdOOujyslOQloR65H2On7UY7XGE8JaCmMgt6mqHaBOSBRchw/s609/preachplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="609" height="93" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5dd-AHKlC_IgN1ogjHvcDMAi2R3k6W12_ifuL2KkdBVVy5NrkXLRoj-lePoo5sp4wPJq1KxBpurvsHphHexD-sI2umlbfELuAURqPB_YdV3c0eD9us8_PXtqJR-1yuG-J8fXbQmNnbLjjdOOujyslOQloR65H2On7UY7XGE8JaCmMgt6mqHaBOSBRchw/s320/preachplay.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-38809354213312167932023-07-14T23:21:00.000-07:002023-07-14T23:21:46.559-07:00Preacherman (1971)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7TcuLxV3iJ9c4LV42EAHCkIUDOVVkHOkas1uX33mzK7xta0su-7cAPMPeEsYLKcbWo2PgG0Dfq8f-2-C3PjFiLnEH_s--nkipEFGKVsFYtFeuw-X0qYnSRqtGOjlvHFT2bqjN--YcKhecVG1p8j5PsIcC6yn82a4nvGP9U62YV1QDNpYQ_Jomdm3rYhk/s2926/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2926" data-original-width="1924" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7TcuLxV3iJ9c4LV42EAHCkIUDOVVkHOkas1uX33mzK7xta0su-7cAPMPeEsYLKcbWo2PgG0Dfq8f-2-C3PjFiLnEH_s--nkipEFGKVsFYtFeuw-X0qYnSRqtGOjlvHFT2bqjN--YcKhecVG1p8j5PsIcC6yn82a4nvGP9U62YV1QDNpYQ_Jomdm3rYhk/s320/1.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Preacherman is the magnum opus of Albert T. Viola, a
fella who went down to North Carolina to write and direct the movie, as well as
star in it under the name Amos Huxley, which also happens to be the name of his
character in the film too.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Ol’ Amos is a
phoney circuit preacher who is out to fill his pockets with the money of other
men, and fill his bed with the wives and daughters of other men, all the while
pretending to preach the word of the lord.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">When we first meet Ol’ Amos, he already in the process of doing somebody
wrong, by making out with the Sheriff’s daughter in a hayloft.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">For that bit of loving Amos gets run out of
town and beaten up by the no good Sheriff Zero Bull, and his dim witted deputy
Leon.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Amos is down but not out, and
lands back on his feet when he is picked up at the side of the road by Judd
Crabtree, a simple farmer, who lives with his daughter Mary Lou, a little hussy
whose nympho tendencies make her an awfully popular gal with the local
boys.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">She’s the type of fallen angel
that Amos Huxley is only too happy to take under his amorous wings.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Masquerading as ‘The Angel Leroy’, Amos gets
to have his wicked way with Mary Lou on a nightly basis, while sending her
father out to stand in a field yelling ‘Leroy...Leroy...Leroy’ all night. Pretty
soon, Amos has the entire community wrapped around his little finger, and
running moonshine for him, under the pretext of raising money to build a
church.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Albert T. Viola in Preacherman is a perfect example of
what Bill Landis talks about in the Sleazoid Express book, when he points out
that exploitation films can often surprise you with performances by ‘relatively
unknown but brilliant actors’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Viola is
a force of nature in this film, an extremely confident, born performer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can well believe Viola could have
successfully pulled off this phoney preacher routine in real life, possibly
travelling around the South both swindling and seducing was a fantasy of his,
but when push came to shove he chickened out, and went for the safer option of
playing it out in a movie instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Another important character in the creation of the film was W. Henry
Smith, who also plays the one-armed Brother Henry in the film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Smith had met Albert T. Viola in New York,
where Viola had been involved in stage plays and directing skin flicks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Between them they cooked up the ambitious idea
to create a film industry in North Carolina, and formed the Preacherman Corporation,
with an idea of making movies that would play to the good ol’ boy sensibilities
of the Southern Drive-In circuit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
cast of Preacherman did include a few out of towners, including Brooklyn born Ilene
Kristen, who plays Mary Lou and is the big success of Preacherman in terms of having
had a lengthy acting career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s
some confusion over whether Viola himself was from Brooklyn or San
Antonio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In early publicity for the film
it was announced that a New York actor called Patrick McDermott, who’d played
the junkie boyfriend in ‘Joe’, had been cast in Preacherman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Evidentially, that didn’t work out as McDermott
isn’t in the film, and stayed in NYC to appear in an obscure, little known film
called The French Connection (saying that, he didn’t do much else). For the
most part however what you are seeing are local stage actors, technicians and
musicians, the financing was also kept local, with the moneymen for the film mostly
being people who owned movie theatres and drive-ins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An aspect to the production that generated
allot of good publicity in the North Carolina press, and snowballed into
goodwill for the Preacherman Corporation to succeed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In true regional filmmaking fashion,
Preacherman was mainly shot at a pig farm in Monroe, the Grover C. Baucom
farm...should you ever want to go on a Preacherman themed pilgrimage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was made in sixteen days, and reportedly didn’t
come without its fair share of off-screen drama.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s said to have rained continually for nine
days of the shoot, necessitating that several scenes be moved indoors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was also an incident when a car full of
drunken guys showed up on set and demanded to play roles in the film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As they had guns and weren’t going to take
‘no’ for an answer, the quick thinking Viola pretended to turn the camera on
them for several minutes, which apparently pacified them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rain and the hassle all turned out to be
worth it however, as Preacherman was a phenomenon at the Southern
Drive-Ins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve seen the budget for the
film quoted at around 50 to 200 thousand, and it’s said to have made around 7
million in its first year of release.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Preacherman played the Drive-Ins with a re-issue of Cottonpickin’
Chickenpickers (1967), a wacky comedy starring country music stars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also headlined a double-bill with ‘The
Body Shop’ (1973) another North Carolina production, written and directed by
J.G. ‘Pat’ Patterson, who was also the production manager on Preacherman, the
world of low-budget North Carolina filmmaking being a small one indeed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Body Shop also featured actor Bill
Simpson, who played Sheriff Zero Bull in Preacherman, as a Sheriff who is
chasing down moonshiners, providing a case for The Body Shop and Preacherman
being part of a shared cinematic universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Such was the popularity of Preacherman, that it
created a demand for a family friendly version of the film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As there have been uncut and cut versions of
the film in circulation over the years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unfortunately when Preacherman was committed to videotape, it was the
censored version...which removes all of the nudity and the swearing...that was
released on VHS in America by Paragon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The cut version was also the one released on video in the UK, and it
doesn’t look like the full version made it to tape until the mid-1990s, when
Troma released it on video.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp2nSpfmz4RS3ny0qa5kkjq9hTZ9_zMAzy2eDfYptWq8CO6jo9iFKwgqGuYBYz2-cTj7NOdutWk2Kww4rg-840I8-JxQ8kPYyXilfedclrEab1DUXT_dQm7xlixWJFn-K_Yp1pu4hl2ipuc8YCmeSy8NH1ef9Cu8-bqUZ7exXvxazow4AeZV0lztDawq4/s1324/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1324" data-original-width="730" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp2nSpfmz4RS3ny0qa5kkjq9hTZ9_zMAzy2eDfYptWq8CO6jo9iFKwgqGuYBYz2-cTj7NOdutWk2Kww4rg-840I8-JxQ8kPYyXilfedclrEab1DUXT_dQm7xlixWJFn-K_Yp1pu4hl2ipuc8YCmeSy8NH1ef9Cu8-bqUZ7exXvxazow4AeZV0lztDawq4/s320/2.jpg" width="176" /></a></div><br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Given the runaway success of Preacherman, its
surprising that the 1973 sequel ‘Preacherman Meets Widderwoman’ didn’t have the
same staying power, and has all but dropped off the face of the earth...because
if you do manage to track down the sequel, it really is just more of the same,
and doesn’t divert from the formula, they even do the ‘Angel Leroy’ routine
again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only difference between
Preacherman meets Widderwoman and its predecessor is that the sequel is a PG, with
one of the producers making a point of mentioning that it didn’t contain any
nudity, violence or profanity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which may
have caused some damage at the box-office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Such is the obscurity of Preacherman meets Widderwoman, that for years
people speculated that the sequel was never made, never released or was simply
a re-titling of the first film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only
place in the world that Preacherman meets Widderwoman was released on video was
in the UK, by a company called A.T.A.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
one of those cases where you do have to wonder just where those UK video
companies were getting hold of these movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Preacherman meets Widderwoman only had a limited release in the Southern
states of America, so how did a copy of the film end up in Surrey, which is
where A.T.A were based, and sure is a long way from North Carolina.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Viola jumped ship after Preacherman meets Widderwoman,
but W. Henry Smith kept the dream alive of creating a film industry in North
Carolina for many years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Following on
the two Preacherman films with likeminded Southern Drive-In fare ....Hot Summer
in Barefoot County (1974), Trucker’s Woman (1975), and Redneck Miller (1976).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first Preacherman and Hot Summer in
Barefoot County eventually made it out of the South when Troma picked up the
rights to those two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Preacherman
belatedly showed up on 42<sup>nd</sup> Street in January 1982, where it played
at the New Amsterdam as the co-feature to Troma’s sex comedy ‘Squeeze
Play’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Double-bill that Troma simultaneously
rolled out at theatres and drive-ins in the New York area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also played in Jersey City for a time as
the bottom half of a double-bill with Russ Meyer’s Beneath the Valley of the
Ultravixens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the Sleazoid Express book, Bill Landis talked about
how the tropical locations of Blind Rage (1978) worked a treat on an audience
watching it at a chilly grindhouse during a New York winter, and I suspect the
North Carolina locations of Preacherman may have had a similar appeal to a 42<sup>nd</sup>
street audience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re living
cramped up, New York style, drowning in sleaze, and surrounded by miserable
junkies, homeless people and streetwalkers, then the allure of the simpler
life, wide open spaces and fresh country air of North Carolina must have felt
like a world you’d be happy to get lost in for 90 minutes or so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPlmomebYAA9pE4a8eZLtzyEZvd2IKbVr9c6OXLoKPc91YTynLDAOhvsRDcAOnD7-Mwk9a6sDJQ--Q4OG9Nclzphkw_hH7_XWJWXdF_fI9gwXyFV-FOGb7xK55vNa4DzBfA_jW0vHD6i7nGad8sBp9WfMz7kviDKb4Z6yxkleBuxCGYpMcYVQcn26wh0c/s800/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="800" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPlmomebYAA9pE4a8eZLtzyEZvd2IKbVr9c6OXLoKPc91YTynLDAOhvsRDcAOnD7-Mwk9a6sDJQ--Q4OG9Nclzphkw_hH7_XWJWXdF_fI9gwXyFV-FOGb7xK55vNa4DzBfA_jW0vHD6i7nGad8sBp9WfMz7kviDKb4Z6yxkleBuxCGYpMcYVQcn26wh0c/s320/3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Although it is dominated by horndog humour and Southern
stereotypes, there is a real personality and heart to Preacherman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The irony of Amos Huxley is that he does inadvertently
enrich the lives of the people he’d set out to scam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He gives Judd back a purpose in life, the
community prospers by his restarting of the moonshine operation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite his best efforts he leads Mary Lou in
the direction of monogamy and true love, and he also deters men from having
unnatural relations with chickens...cottonpickin’ chickenfuckers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amos Huxley does accidentally do allot of
good, and that combined with Viola’s extremely likeable performances, generally
succeeds in winning over the audience, and has them rooting for Amos to get
away from the law at the end.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the Sleazoid Express book, Bill did enter a few
pieces of bad information into circulation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He claimed the film came out of Long Island, and credits it with
featuring a ‘sizzling, slutty cameo’ from Jeramie Rain, who doesn’t show up
until the sequel Preacherman meets Widderwoman, and its more than just a cameo.
She plays the Widderwoman’s daughter, the sequels’ equivalent to Mary Lou.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bill also thought the film features a last
minute appearance from Roxanne Brewer, a famous big bust model, of Russ Meyer
worthy proportions, as the mysterious ‘Lady in Red’ who helps Amos out at the
end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A role that is actually credited to
an actress called Colleen McGee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can
see where Bill was coming from, there is a resemblance between Brewer and
McGee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What leads me down the path of thinking
that they weren’t one in the same is that Roxy Brewer’s acting career was
entirely played out in LA skinflicks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Would they have flown her out to North Carolina on two separate occasions,
because the lady in red also appears in Preacherman meets Widderwoman, which
resumes the Amos Huxley story literally seconds after the first film ends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Roxy Brewer was also a famous nude model, and
surely a horny, red blooded production like Preacherman would have capitalised
on this by getting her neekid in these films, whereas the Lady in Red gets to
keep her clothes on in both Preacherman movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I suspect the idea of Roxy Brewer being in Preacherman, was just wishful
thinking on Bill’s part.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBdNFBC3dxvkCsAuRTypmzCznkIQWhT_CPVqEkxv0KjBu7WNo9-dNl-v7lf8WqE1fNVT--RIUFyszCHcZ52DSvXlIVG67ICYn8ermQeQYloCnsdahSNVPl6JHyh8kyAps4iHaoeJPqqIUg378nBV9ZAxyYBZc0347OwqmUoZbAeecoeRvdjs_uU0gseCs/s1024/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBdNFBC3dxvkCsAuRTypmzCznkIQWhT_CPVqEkxv0KjBu7WNo9-dNl-v7lf8WqE1fNVT--RIUFyszCHcZ52DSvXlIVG67ICYn8ermQeQYloCnsdahSNVPl6JHyh8kyAps4iHaoeJPqqIUg378nBV9ZAxyYBZc0347OwqmUoZbAeecoeRvdjs_uU0gseCs/s320/4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0jjIRRfkzVzezv2PoEW8sTjlrXg8mFgcGnZMTXo7GJii6XxQDpd1VII-DMvNLEfq19auRZAvu9xWTym2BFiSliGKwFNA6-8-22eH1khOMvd99tYWzUT7SRwFRFTpKj_nnjdzZyFWlaDrn_Urf77biGhP2iNGNuOb58YZNb6nEi3RInSFXAfYUrilmTxM/s1007/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1007" data-original-width="740" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0jjIRRfkzVzezv2PoEW8sTjlrXg8mFgcGnZMTXo7GJii6XxQDpd1VII-DMvNLEfq19auRZAvu9xWTym2BFiSliGKwFNA6-8-22eH1khOMvd99tYWzUT7SRwFRFTpKj_nnjdzZyFWlaDrn_Urf77biGhP2iNGNuOb58YZNb6nEi3RInSFXAfYUrilmTxM/s320/5.jpg" width="235" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><i>Colleen McGee and Roxanne Brewer</i></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As tends to be the case with any form of successful
low-budget cinema, be it kung-fu, blaxploitation or slasher movies, the major
studios eventually took notice and cashed in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There’s a convincing case that the likes of Preacherman and Hot Summer
in Barefoot County laid the railroad for Smokey and the Bandit and The Dukes of
Hazzard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s always surprised me that
the success of Preacherman didn’t open doors for Albert T. Viola acting wise,
you could imagine him bringing his Preacherman shtick to The Dukes of Hazzard
or Burt Reynolds movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead he took
a different path, and went into teaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By the end of the 1970s Viola was teaching drama at Fort Worth Country
Day School, where rumours have it that he got into hot water for hitting on
female students and may have been quested by the po-lice over allegations that
he was embezzling funds from the school. Saying that, Viola did spend over
twenty years in the independent school network, while you’d think that a
scandal would have curtailed that career... so maybe it was the Angel Leroy who
did all those bad things...and never question the habits of angels, brothers
and sisters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Personally, I would be disappointed
if there wasn’t a little bit of Amos Huxley in Albert T. Viola.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The impression you get from Preacherman, was
that he was the guy you could trust for some good time, down-home entertainment,
but perhaps not the guy you’d trust with your womenfolk and life savings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Spread the word, and spread the liquor”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOPZakoo5i4vNkHYzKdgjpwe8jyJThH0J1Y1t7xYFXjrtb3kp5S4tIl5lZQEm_rZ3P03BvFqjMgxnmE00dunS33E-jytSb4psBftyj2ixKmdcuh5pfs1KsDLjrSbopFv1clIJirnE3F3cdp4ealnWdWmJZrVcxUjGp2hDDs9k4kPBRn0WmDdQ2XV8OxHM/s1024/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOPZakoo5i4vNkHYzKdgjpwe8jyJThH0J1Y1t7xYFXjrtb3kp5S4tIl5lZQEm_rZ3P03BvFqjMgxnmE00dunS33E-jytSb4psBftyj2ixKmdcuh5pfs1KsDLjrSbopFv1clIJirnE3F3cdp4ealnWdWmJZrVcxUjGp2hDDs9k4kPBRn0WmDdQ2XV8OxHM/s320/6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs8OvY2wiply0HHS2pCktmimG4qRDfxlaoMMPYfgcV0eYB0yIdImrl2w15aYOoO-xTMjoCcS1UYeiXObv0pqHCfYL4ToHYpwUu_25bEInz8UjcdIbuKelkZLFO1wd42cSIqQXdO9YsrRnZCo6sQdyQb1ZNdav05jjphy8WwZuETXHrXGrWqqXQ-Xminuw/s1024/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs8OvY2wiply0HHS2pCktmimG4qRDfxlaoMMPYfgcV0eYB0yIdImrl2w15aYOoO-xTMjoCcS1UYeiXObv0pqHCfYL4ToHYpwUu_25bEInz8UjcdIbuKelkZLFO1wd42cSIqQXdO9YsrRnZCo6sQdyQb1ZNdav05jjphy8WwZuETXHrXGrWqqXQ-Xminuw/s320/7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p><p></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-82872733421397528932023-07-09T22:36:00.003-07:002023-07-09T22:36:46.259-07:00Sleazoid Talkin'<p> <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Nearly two hours of chatting about Bill Landis and Sleazoid Express</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EQKemhDCcp8" width="320" youtube-src-id="EQKemhDCcp8"></iframe></div><br /><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></p><br />gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-86916412105913592002023-06-23T23:49:00.000-07:002023-06-23T23:49:40.656-07:00Sleazoid Express remembered<p><span style="font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvAkJmPu87HSZ1WJpw_OFjXFeWllLM9_qbd_TRSpVtUpWMP_eNJj4jQMawxZmfw79pvz-6Wqj9YJtQYJN_4wwOwagmB9I0xsiPja--x5G--C19-b3BNL2D5wWG_-mqPtZirLvxcy2FORmfNEcarqcBSlFG6Xv1RoSdWpToOUrm-5bqlTEe2Kdx6zcfMyk/s1798/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1798" data-original-width="1474" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvAkJmPu87HSZ1WJpw_OFjXFeWllLM9_qbd_TRSpVtUpWMP_eNJj4jQMawxZmfw79pvz-6Wqj9YJtQYJN_4wwOwagmB9I0xsiPja--x5G--C19-b3BNL2D5wWG_-mqPtZirLvxcy2FORmfNEcarqcBSlFG6Xv1RoSdWpToOUrm-5bqlTEe2Kdx6zcfMyk/s320/1.JPG" width="262" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I wasn’t of the generation that experienced the
original Sleazoid Express zine firsthand, instead it was something you’d hear
about in the fanzines and pro-zines that came after it, and were influenced by
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beginning life as a newsletter,
before a page increase transformed it into one of the earliest exploitation
film zines on the block, Sleazoid Express would be name checked in the likes of
Shock Xpress, Deep Red and a book called Killing for Culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of whom would speak of it in revered
terms, building up this reputation of Sleazoid being the ultimate zine to have covered
and documented 42<sup>nd</sup> Street and the sleaze movies that played there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As well as creating this mythology about the
man behind the zine, Bill Landis, a fanatical devotee of exploitation cinema
with a fearless dedication for seeking these movies out in the most dangerous
places imaginable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1985, Landis added
to his myth by largely disappearing from public view, following one last, legendary
issue of Sleazoid called ‘Ecco- The Story of a Fake Man on 42<sup>nd</sup>
Street’, which was all about his worsening drug habit and career in porn acting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After that, no one quite knew if Bill was
alive or dead, whether he still walked the beat of his beloved 42<sup>nd</sup>
Street, or whether he’d settled down to a respectable, 9 to 5 life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only evidence people had that Bill was
still around was the fact that they’d send cheques to his old PO BOX, in the
hope that he’d mail out back issues of Sleazoid...and Bill being Bill would
cash the cheques and send them nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">At the time though, finding anything other than anecdotal
evidence of Sleazoid’s existence was nigh on impossible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t lay eyes on Bill’s writing until
1997, appropriately enough during my first and only trip to New York.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I picked up a copy of his recently published Kenneth
Anger biography, Bill’s big comeback as a writer, at the huge Virgin Megastore which
was then in Times Square.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtdZ14phoUVeSirm7xYtXgDdZZXCwBsUHZnP0DvfiOS0SqNRA1YZB6lquEF-BAQqaRmpX4Lpochcz9MAi-5Un0Dy2lmsHcZ7u3ryopljuSxoSdO36yDkelOLo7-VE0gAc-zxqPRaI2VdBC-PfI3UtCIzXH4iZnithLIyiwgCl5rvuZLYbP6eK4FVuMSCs/s1825/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1825" data-original-width="1254" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtdZ14phoUVeSirm7xYtXgDdZZXCwBsUHZnP0DvfiOS0SqNRA1YZB6lquEF-BAQqaRmpX4Lpochcz9MAi-5Un0Dy2lmsHcZ7u3ryopljuSxoSdO36yDkelOLo7-VE0gAc-zxqPRaI2VdBC-PfI3UtCIzXH4iZnithLIyiwgCl5rvuZLYbP6eK4FVuMSCs/s320/2.JPG" width="220" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">While the
focus of that book was on Anger’s life and work, there were so many references
to exploitation movies that Bill sneaked into that book....Blood Feast, The
Killing of America, Confessions of a Male Groupie, the softcore movie version
of Anger’s Hollywood Babylon. You could just tell that Bill was still carrying
a torch for those movies, one that had failed to be extinguished by the decade
plus that had gone by since Sleazoid had expired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did, but of course, use that New York trip
to check out 42<sup>nd</sup> Street itself, which by then was just a ghost
block of closed up grindhouses and porno cinemas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was like going round the ruins of Pompeii,
you’d navigate around the dusty remnants of what had once been a hedonistic,
sexually decadent society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were
small, still active, pockets of the Sleazoid Empire around in 1997.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Show World was still there, I think one or
two gay porn theatres were still open.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As well as a few cheap video shops, where the films that had once
entertained Bill on 42<sup>nd</sup> Street had migrated to VHS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was there you’d pick up the pinnacles of
Sleazoid cinema like The Love Thrill Murders, Cry Uncle, Preacherman, plus mondo
movies like Mondo Cane and Slave Trade in the World Today...all living on
through the medium of crappy quality, EP recorded tape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As for 42<sup>nd</sup> Street itself though, it
was dead and buried by 1997.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was
the period where local poets were allowed to put their gibberish on the
marquees of these closed down theatres.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was like walking into a scene from John Carpenter’s They Live, you’d
look up at these marquees and see messages like ‘openess is dangerousness’, ‘Americans
for disciplined behaviour will protect you’ and ‘never trust a man, or a beer,
from Amsterdam’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, I can make no claim
to have experienced 42<sup>nd</sup> street in its heyday, but I was around to
take a couple of photos of the funeral.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj271BmJTWaqkTUeXKAJrw0oPNAUwcl8FaByAIZwprV8_Fhko2A2LrzEfd2Y2GIVY77A3Lb6xR27JVKm--H6X8HHdyK-XnD0iJ4NR4Jgq3B1vjitP72VL0VdtjyriKVRWKDwTmJGNprcGJGFIndmd3qHhZQROs34r7U5H_oI1ij_vyqMFjn_lA5TgtlqsM/s2022/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1450" data-original-width="2022" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj271BmJTWaqkTUeXKAJrw0oPNAUwcl8FaByAIZwprV8_Fhko2A2LrzEfd2Y2GIVY77A3Lb6xR27JVKm--H6X8HHdyK-XnD0iJ4NR4Jgq3B1vjitP72VL0VdtjyriKVRWKDwTmJGNprcGJGFIndmd3qHhZQROs34r7U5H_oI1ij_vyqMFjn_lA5TgtlqsM/s320/3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7d6v6g9Tjh7EEuPpT-QxFWWsvufm-suLNCBFrZrc-QS0hzVyHFBbEa_7YRPxzftLBpnAz2Ph3VkKjsJusawUk7CSx8mlwlqPkKYI5xb0Wt2FxM2uz5xYnSl6DG1-BVL_-SwdayqzAWHDMKjndHzkaSg04XhoW4QbF-vFUmvxDVXcaZQHZ4ILjCDS_L28/s2008/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1455" data-original-width="2008" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7d6v6g9Tjh7EEuPpT-QxFWWsvufm-suLNCBFrZrc-QS0hzVyHFBbEa_7YRPxzftLBpnAz2Ph3VkKjsJusawUk7CSx8mlwlqPkKYI5xb0Wt2FxM2uz5xYnSl6DG1-BVL_-SwdayqzAWHDMKjndHzkaSg04XhoW4QbF-vFUmvxDVXcaZQHZ4ILjCDS_L28/s320/4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidwaxb8PNCazTkZbOYg8SMz8zpa7gLrqxWWvbqpNQZsOD-E5EjvHblbP8mvsi_4pHJcRF-SZNM5wm4pxi9-42vLvhguDblL0LplJw3E06SqZax9jSM_shFb6k-3gwg2uZ9acBbg1NVrKe2Cdh29vE0Eq2J4GslkLJNckDrTde_mPWyHJHzqQW4MvfyXnw/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1261" data-original-width="1600" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidwaxb8PNCazTkZbOYg8SMz8zpa7gLrqxWWvbqpNQZsOD-E5EjvHblbP8mvsi_4pHJcRF-SZNM5wm4pxi9-42vLvhguDblL0LplJw3E06SqZax9jSM_shFb6k-3gwg2uZ9acBbg1NVrKe2Cdh29vE0Eq2J4GslkLJNckDrTde_mPWyHJHzqQW4MvfyXnw/s320/5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Then, much to everyone’s surprise, Bill brought
Sleazoid Express back as a magazine in 1999, as a collaboration with his wife
Michelle Clifford.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Having missed out on
Sleazoid first time around, and having missed out on 42</span><sup>nd</sup><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> street
when it still had a pulse, there was no way I was going to lose my seat on the
second incarnation of Sleazoid Express, even if it was $15 a ticket.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">As Michelle has herself said, Bill’s writing
really does speak to you, while others just wrote about movies, he ripped the
screen open.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">After Sleazoid Express, I
never looked back, and everything else that I’d previously read about
exploitation cinema and 42</span><sup>nd</sup><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> street suddenly felt very superficial
and inauthentic in comparison.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Then,
after decades of banging the drum for the grindhouse era, the mainstream took
notice and Bill and Michelle got a deal to do a book version of Sleazoid
Express for Simon and Schuster.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The book
is the acumination of the cinematic obsessions that Bill had been writing about
since the early 1980s- the Ilsa series, race hate movies, gendertwist movies,
Andy Milligan- and by the time the book came about in 2002, he had acquired enough
knowledge and material to do a chapter on each.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">As well as access to the likes of the Olga series and the Amero-Findlay
movies, which had been largely inaccessible and impossible to see during the
original run of the Sleazoid Express zine.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The original zine had been a pioneering effort, as Bill says in the
book, one of his motivations for starting the zine was that exploitation cinema
was being ignored or reviled by mainstream film critics.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So, Bill became one of a number of important
early voices that would champion those films, all of whom came to prominence
around roughly the same time.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Sleazoid
started in June 1980, Michael Weldon started Psychotronic not long after, and
Joe Bob Briggs began his newspaper column in early 1982.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">To his credit when Joe Bob Briggs talks about
those early days, he always shares the credit with Bill when it comes to being
one of the first people to sing the praises of exploitation cinema, and see
value in it.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Joe Bob did tell me that he
never actually met Bill, but there was some correspondence between the two of
them for a while.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">He was aware of Bill’s
reputation for falling out with people, although I don’t get the impression
that those two fell out, because...well, people who got on the wrong side of Bill
tend not to voluntarily name check him in public.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In a way, this is a book that I wish Bill had written back
in the 1980s, around the same time as the Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film and
the Re:Search: Incredibly Strange films books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Both of whom were seen as groundbreaking works that guided an entire
generation in the direction of cult movies, and even helped define that
term.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas by the time Bill got his
act together and his book came out in 2002, Sleazoid Express was a little late
to the party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of its subject matter,
like the Ilsa series, Italian cannibal movies and Andy Milligan, having been a
well trodden path by that point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Saying
that, the Sleazoid Express book does often lead you, way off the beaten path,
and I’d be amazed if anyone didn’t discover new movies thanks to this book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are films here given loving coverage
that are otherwise outright ignored or have little importance attached to them
elsewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where else would you see
attention paid to The Love Butcher, Pets, Boarding House, Man Friday, The
Psychopath or The Black Room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sleazoid was
always about ignoring popular trends, and instead seeking out such offbeat, and
little known gems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book does
represent the crème de la crème that Bill discovered during his days on 42<sup>nd</sup>
street, and spares you the cinematic garbage that he had to wade through in
order to get to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The original zine
probably gives a more accurate idea of the gamble you took on 42<sup>nd</sup>
street, and recorded all the good and bad experiences he had when it came to
movie going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The timeline of the
original Sleazoid Express corresponding with the appearance of lots of generic
slasher movies and Porky’s imitations on 42<sup>nd</sup> street, where the
entertainment value of Sleazoid tended to lie in Landis’ vitriolic put downs of
those.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was none better than Bill Landis
when it came to transferring feelings of intense hatred into print.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the book however, Bill wastes little space
on what he didn’t like on 42<sup>nd</sup> street- I think the only notable
movies to get savaged in it are The Grim Reaper and Lucio Fulci’s Zombie-
instead the book seeks to capture the good times, the good films and the good
memories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Landis tended to be difficult
and misanthropic by nature, he made lots of enemies during his relatively short
life, and fell out of love with many people along the way, but he never fell
out of love with 42<sup>nd</sup> street or the movies that played there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Sleazoid book might well be the most passionate,
uncynical book about exploitation cinema ever written.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bill writes about movies like Blood Feast,
The Corpse Grinders and Ilsa- She Wolf of the SS with the type of affection and
unconditional love that your average person would only reserve for a
significant other or a cherished family member.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I think the sincerity of the Sleazoid book holds up well in that respect,
compared to what would come along a few years down the line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the 2007 movie called Grindhouse,
inspired the hacks, the plagiarists and the disingenuous element to jump on the
bandwagon and give their useless two cents worth on the subject.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t get me wrong I’m sure there are still many
genuine and well meaning exploitation movie experts out there, but there are
also lots of people who have no idea what they are talking about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People who are –in the words of Curtis
Mayfield- ‘educated fools from uneducated schools’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you see Youtube videos referring to
films that never played grindhouses as ‘grindhouse classics’, faking firsthand
knowledge of 42<sup>nd</sup> street theatres or bizarrely classifying the De
Palma film ‘Casualties of War’ as an all time great exploitation movie, you
have to worry about how clueless and ill-informed the next generation are going
to be if these are the people they are learning from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bill Landis –for all his many faults- was
there and knew what did or what didn’t play well to the 42<sup>nd</sup> street
crowd.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His was an authentic voice, with
the life qualifications to tell you what those theatres were like, what the clientele
was like, what films provoked insults and wisecracks from the audience, and
what was going on in the Men’s room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Warts n’ all details that, were it not for him, would now be lost to
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think 42<sup>nd</sup> street was
just one of those places where you really had to be there to write about it
with any creditability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bill remembered
it all, and captured it all in his writing as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiFZu32pCFt3Dfd2ZNznDh-NB0_wQx4ggpd8NzZtyvRu5SwfYjBcwjzyp8VBiNa_daq1uPD9zEnwPC_K2GVWmXNlX9BdQ8x1xc60EToMk7U8Ek98ZIyobjEMDBqheAWqwI_Mx4MMzhewZXcQCNy-PuusOs_JahBVIdLkxiNhr4_3-yoZpgKFIeKTox9IY/s800/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="468" data-original-width="800" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiFZu32pCFt3Dfd2ZNznDh-NB0_wQx4ggpd8NzZtyvRu5SwfYjBcwjzyp8VBiNa_daq1uPD9zEnwPC_K2GVWmXNlX9BdQ8x1xc60EToMk7U8Ek98ZIyobjEMDBqheAWqwI_Mx4MMzhewZXcQCNy-PuusOs_JahBVIdLkxiNhr4_3-yoZpgKFIeKTox9IY/s320/6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I will concede however that while the Sleazoid book
does embody all that was great about Bill Landis, it does also embody all that
was infuriating about him too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his
writing, Landis created an alter-ego for himself as ‘Mr Sleazoid’ a Ratso Rizzo
type character, who was streetwise, had dirt on everyone and knew New York like
the back of his hand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately like
Ratso Rizzo he wasn’t always the most trustworthy or reliable of person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This book has left an often headache inducing
legacy for people who study this period, for whom Bill leaves the task of
sorting the facts from the fiction in the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There is allot of untrue material in the Sleazoid book, some no doubt
the innocent result of Bill passing on bad info in good faith, other untruths and
lies may have been more malicious in intent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There may even be an entire movie in this book that Landis made up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This brings us to the 64 thousand dollar
Sleazoid question ‘does the movie ‘The Big Man’ actually exist?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to Landis this was a shocking,
inter-racial hardcore film made in 1974 by Robert L. Roberts, the director of
‘Sweet Savior’, and yet even with the most obscure of the obscure exploitation
movies there is usually some evidence of their existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas with The Big Man, I’ve never met anyone
who has seen it, I’ve never seen a poster, a print ad, a review...there is
nothing on this movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m very, very
happy to be proven wrong, but as the years have gone by, the more and more
suspicious I’ve grown that The Big Man never had a life outside of Landis’
imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are other instances
where Bill might have been on the right track, but his detective work was a
little off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For instance, he makes
reference to David Durston, the director of I Drink Your Blood, having made a 3-D
gay hardcore movie called Manhold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
film was, if you believe Bill, never released due to the fact that an actor in
it got a mainstream gig in the Clint Eastwood film Escape from Alcatraz.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, since this book has come out, newspaper
ads and a contemporary review of Manhold have surfaced, and debunk the idea
that this film was never released.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Several online sources also claim that the film stars Deveren
Bookwalter, best remembered as the main villain in The Enforcer, the third
Dirty Harry movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, possibly Bill got
the wrong Clint Eastwood movie, and looks to have been mistaken about Manhold
being an unreleased film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I suspect Bill’s big writing influence was Kenneth
Anger, and the Sleazoid book should be approached as the 42<sup>nd</sup> street
version of Hollywood Babylon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a
wonderfully lurid book to dip your brain into, but make sure you double-check
everything you read before repeating it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The book is borderline libellous at times, and wonderfully so, especially
when it comes to the Mondo Cane people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s
not to say the Sleazoid book didn’t manage a few scoops that turned out to be
accurate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book marked the first time
that Wes Craven had been linked to directing the hardcore movie ‘The Fireworks
Woman’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A major revelation of Bill’s at
the time, that has since begrudgingly become recognised as part of Craven’s
filmography (there was even an easter egg reference to it in the latest Scream
movie).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfPD25IlLbddY5jAcJYkE3PdcnEHny2IOa2YLbjrNtd3bCSOxtFne99sVY9opepwyK9KrsizDytG85Drj41X3LtbBM7BFjco0FwX_BflCVMOx8lHxRBH_qUj3gzE3gglNhfzKw_ITIkZpxitFsRMdKBxTJvhEXQPkiEXcYXJ9O4FwpIWcrWZfsWIa5Gw0/s768/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfPD25IlLbddY5jAcJYkE3PdcnEHny2IOa2YLbjrNtd3bCSOxtFne99sVY9opepwyK9KrsizDytG85Drj41X3LtbBM7BFjco0FwX_BflCVMOx8lHxRBH_qUj3gzE3gglNhfzKw_ITIkZpxitFsRMdKBxTJvhEXQPkiEXcYXJ9O4FwpIWcrWZfsWIa5Gw0/s320/7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Still, I’m sure many of the
subjects of the Sleazoid book were not happy with the way they are depicted in
its pages.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Roger Watkins- the director
of Last House on Dead End Street- is said to have taken offense to the
suggestion that he had once filmed mental patients without their consent, but evidentially
didn’t pursue this further, as the book was never been hit with legal
action.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Despite Bill and Michelle’s best
efforts the Sleazoid book didn’t stir up the same level of trouble for them as
the Kenneth Anger biography.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Which Anger
repeatedly tried to shut down, then when it did come out is meant to have
resulted in Anger throwing a hex in Bill’s direction and placing a death curse
on Bill.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">If Bill is to be believed, the
Anger bio also resulted in him receiving cease and desist orders from the O.T.O
(Ordo Templi Orientis), an occult organisation, whose attorney Chandler Warren
had been, according to Bill, one of the producers of ‘The Headless Eyes’.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Both Bill and Michelle had this ‘you’re either with us
or against us’ mentality when it came to old exploitation film people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could either be their biggest supporter
or their worst enemy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If filmmakers were
nice to them, and would give them the time of day, they’d be looked on
favourably in Sleazoid Express.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they
gave them the cold shoulder, or caused them problems, as was the case with Lew Mishkin
and the Troma people, Bill and Michelle would go after them in print. Then
there were the extreme cases like Kenneth Anger and Joel M Reed, both of whom I
believe, ended up regarding Bill as a out and out stalker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is evidence of this ‘with us or against
us’ attitude in the Sleazoid book’s chapter about the Amero-Findlay films,
where they clearly think the world of John Amero, who had made himself
available, and had been kind to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On
the other hand that chapter is deeply hostile to Roberta Findlay, who clearly
wouldn’t give them the time of day, and as a result has her entire filmography
outside of the Amero-Findlay films trashed as ‘boring’, ‘neurotic’, ‘beyond distasteful’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do think Bill and Michelle were often
guilty of letting their personal relationships with filmmakers, cloud their
judgement when it came to their opinions on movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQqZKGennECbHCHbqKVTuxGsayOPFcPB7yujlG4fNZ35SaFL6Y2p6qnxvGtf5GtIwUvv4TtuY7I4PMkroHzvEUQjuaqrOnp4dQkZyWJsJYarfXyhfxOOsLtnjMrh4H3GvCJzcXywymyADCpSV8tuyR9Eh0r9dydpyh67HxPflumA9Wii64Sn-jeEBHJh0/s2226/8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1806" data-original-width="2226" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQqZKGennECbHCHbqKVTuxGsayOPFcPB7yujlG4fNZ35SaFL6Y2p6qnxvGtf5GtIwUvv4TtuY7I4PMkroHzvEUQjuaqrOnp4dQkZyWJsJYarfXyhfxOOsLtnjMrh4H3GvCJzcXywymyADCpSV8tuyR9Eh0r9dydpyh67HxPflumA9Wii64Sn-jeEBHJh0/s320/8.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>the mark of Clifford</i></span></span></p>It should be said that Michelle Clifford –Mrs
Sleazoid- was a phenomenal writer herself, I can never tell where Bill’s
writing ends in the book and Michelle’s begins.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In her own way, Michelle was also a pioneer, when she began to co-write
the second incarnation of Sleazoid in 1999, there were few women writing about
exploitation films and pornography.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Unfortunately, while she shared Bill’s writing talent, she also shared
his self-destructive ability to make enemies and burn bridges.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">She went after Bill Lustig, David Gregory,
the UK publisher Headpress, those two Rialto Report people...all were on the
receiving end of the black sperm of her vengeance.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">As a result Michelle is someone who has
pretty much been erased from the history of female genre writers.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">She fought the law, and the law won.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What I think might surprise the grindhouse novice
about the Sleazoid book is what it doesn’t cover.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s no mention here of films that have
become synonymous with that era like The Evil Dead, Basket Case, Ms. 45 or
Maniac.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reason being, is that if you
go back to the original zine, Bill hated all those movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sleazoid always had that punk mindset of wanting
to spit in the face of the status quo...it wasn’t a zine that wanted to be
loved...and there can be little doubt that Bill liked to offend and
provoke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If horror nerds hated Andy
Milligan, Bill would go off and write about Andy Milligan, if horror nerds were
uncomfortable with homosexuality, Bill would write about gay porn, and all the
darlings of the horror nerds –Stephen King, Forrest J Ackerman, Paul Naschy-
would be insulted and made fun of in Sleazoid Express.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s an attitude that only grew when Bill had
a falling out with Fangoria magazine, which he’d been around in its early days
before becoming persona non grata.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
interview with Andy Milligan had caused them some problems when Lew Mishkin threatened
to sue the magazine for comments Milligan had made about him in the
interview.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What seems to have caused
Bill to get the final elbow there though, was that he had pitched the idea of
doing a feature on Toby Ross, a gay pornographer whose niche was making his
male performers look younger than they actually were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An idea that apparently outraged Fangoria
editor Bob Martin to the extent that the magazine cut all ties with Bill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Landis’ more ardent supporters simplistically
portray this as Bill being woke before woke was a thing, and championing queer
voices, only to come up against this wall of intolerance in the form of Bob
Martin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Mr Martin isn’t around to
defend himself however, we should contemplate whether he just read the room
correctly and realised that Fangoria wasn’t quite ready for gay hardcore yet,
or whether the Ross piece lead him to suspect Bill was into underage material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What has me questioning the narrative of Bob
Martin being a homophobe is his own subsequent career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Martin went on to make a cameo in ‘Geek
Maggot Bingo’, a fairly transgressive movie for someone of that mentality to be
involved in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was also a frequent collaborator
of filmmaker Frank Henenlotter, who is gay (a fact that Rick Sullivan never
tired of reminding people of in The Gore Gazette).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An unlikely association for someone who
elsewhere would apparently try to destroy another man’s career for promoting
homosexuality. Be in no doubt though that there was bad blood there, Martin is
not only meant to have blackballed Landis from Fangoria, but also attempted to
get him barred from other major publications.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the aforementioned ‘Geek Maggot Bingo’, Martin briefly shows up as a
character whose mannerisms and speaking voice have been modelled on Bill, a
fact openly acknowledged in the end credits ‘Bill Landis impersonation courteousy
(sic) of Bob Martin’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many had gotten
into feuds with Landis over the years, but Bob Martin is unique when it came to
taking his grievances with Bill to the movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx4xnJdKeBAJB7A8ANIt-_vk1dG7FetmE2D04bww70-6YnqkPpLzpAqrwd-eZx7Wp_mD04dGVkf93UGks2E-PQsPCVimNXN-PfDILekhuV-oIdRIvHzQu6MSXQmzJXUvQ01SDSw8DNJ0cPI7b_B1x8dBJzigupyR1SuFeGyI779s8sMG8xeBHgLK8hL0g/s1024/9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx4xnJdKeBAJB7A8ANIt-_vk1dG7FetmE2D04bww70-6YnqkPpLzpAqrwd-eZx7Wp_mD04dGVkf93UGks2E-PQsPCVimNXN-PfDILekhuV-oIdRIvHzQu6MSXQmzJXUvQ01SDSw8DNJ0cPI7b_B1x8dBJzigupyR1SuFeGyI779s8sMG8xeBHgLK8hL0g/s320/9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Where I think the Sleazoid book excels, and is still vital,
is coverage of movies that were around in the 2000s, but have since began to
fall through the cracks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Amero-Findlay
films, the Olga series, the Ginger series and to an extent the Ilsa
movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of which made it to DVD, but
have yet to make the jump to Blu-Ray and streaming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a result these aren’t films you tend to
see people writing about these days, and it is debatable whether anyone could
write about these films like Bill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You
don’t have to be around the Sleazoid book for long to realise that Bill’s thing
was S&M, making him the perfect audience for the Olga and Ginger movies, as
well as being receptive to the more subtle S&M bent of movies like Spider
Baby and the Brides of Blood, an aspect that would have gone over the head of
your more vanilla movie goer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh25ecVCRvjtL37S5Sp_w24HEOPxKTZMNaNqEO2BSenY9n6EIc7qMS4PBzyPtUkD9wK1uFKr0wN0jJW87P1B2eIyHOwC0JdCeqTypDLARfMNaZvvdo0X4QjVfp-66Rwy1awvsv2M_4etNxmm9vLVAasXf1QycjPmXhp5t56HDTNpZkA2yr6uQ5tTwOnxM4/s2203/10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1480" data-original-width="2203" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh25ecVCRvjtL37S5Sp_w24HEOPxKTZMNaNqEO2BSenY9n6EIc7qMS4PBzyPtUkD9wK1uFKr0wN0jJW87P1B2eIyHOwC0JdCeqTypDLARfMNaZvvdo0X4QjVfp-66Rwy1awvsv2M_4etNxmm9vLVAasXf1QycjPmXhp5t56HDTNpZkA2yr6uQ5tTwOnxM4/s320/10.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Ideally, the original run of Sleazoid Express would
get reprinted in hardback, coffee table book format, and people would be able
to experience the entire, unedited history of Sleazoid Express.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something you sadly don’t always get from the
Sleazoid book, which can’t bring itself to acknowledge that the Sleazoid zine
was a two man operation towards the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Bill had a co-author, Jimmy McDonough, who he’d fallen out with by the
time this book came along, and as a result Jimmy has been totally airbrushed
out of the history of Sleazoid in the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Very unfairly, some have even gone as far as saying that Sleazoid only achieved
greatness after Jimmy came onboard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
would say that Jimmy encouraging Bill to move the zine from just a collection
of film reviews into a more gonzo direction of being about Bill, the theatres he
flocked to, and the characters he associated with, is what made Sleazoid
special, and why its remembered.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">From my understanding, Jimmy McDonough is entirely behind
the idea of the Sleazoid zine being reprinted as a book, and there is a UK
publisher who would be willing to pull the trigger on that in a heartbeat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The problem is that they’d need the okay from
either Michelle, or Bill and Michelle’s daughter Victoria, both of whom have
met any attempt to contact them about Sleazoid with dead silence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently Fangoria have also shown an
interest in doing something Sleazoid related, have an address for Michelle and
Victoria, and sent them a care package along with an offer of business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This package was signed for, so they got it,
and know there is an interest in re-printing Bill’s work, but Fangoria never
got a response.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Given the history
between Fangoria and Sleazoid Express, I suspect Michelle got more of a kick
out of giving them the brush off than she would have from taking the
money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, the Sleazoid zine is
currently in limbo, which is a great loss to film criticism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the book put the Sleazoid name back on
the map in 2002, that was 21 years ago, and Sleazoid and Bill have since lapsed
back into obscurity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People know about Jimmy
McDonough, who has gone on to write biographies of Andy Milligan, Russ Meyer
and more recently the Ormond family, people know about Joe Bob Briggs –who has
recently made a comeback on streaming- but Bill has become the forgotten man of
exploitation film writing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The Sleazoid book then, seems destined to be his lasting
legacy. It’s far from the final world on the subject, but it’s a good enough
introduction as you’re likely to find.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Watch your wallets, stay out of the bathroom, and don’t believe
everything you read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So many of the
Sleazoid icons celebrated in this book have since passed away... Dyanne Thorne,
Audrey Campbell, HG Lewis, Don Schain, Sonny Chiba, Candice Rialson...but their
lives and stories live on in this book, as does Bill’s own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A common complaint about the Sleazoid book is
that it doesn’t really have an ending, and abruptly cuts off with a cryptic
comment from Michelle “I miss getting lost while looking for what I came
for”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe when push came to shove, Bill
and Michelle just couldn’t bring the curtains down on 42<sup>nd</sup> street,
their love for that era and that place had no ending, therefore their book has
no ending.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As much as the Sleazoid book
puts on a happy face, by claiming that the films that played 42<sup>nd</sup>
street, the lifeblood that ran through the veins of those theatres, survive and
live on through VHS and DVD, I suspect a little bit of Bill died with 42<sup>nd</sup>
street, long before the rest of him died in Chicago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps the finest eulogy for Sleazoid can be
found in Bill’s own take on Andy Milligan’s Fleshpot on 42<sup>nd</sup> Street
“a half brilliant, genuinely alienated relic of its time and its maker”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s what needs to go on the Sleazoid
headstone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgfWTi0U9TDanEgSs5a49zW8w1W_Bj6GuYEPbdR95J0Of9JH-EXiCbbnws4XWAn8kKSMik4xumVSa7w0Pjj4f3TcijMONGVHD9txAwKdccbDef7XcFFp53ZvQUCdk-403R1XkLyo975xn-Vl4cKX_P6Tdjs1qWEFnGwE275havifBIz2yaeKILb5WgadM/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1370" data-original-width="1600" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgfWTi0U9TDanEgSs5a49zW8w1W_Bj6GuYEPbdR95J0Of9JH-EXiCbbnws4XWAn8kKSMik4xumVSa7w0Pjj4f3TcijMONGVHD9txAwKdccbDef7XcFFp53ZvQUCdk-403R1XkLyo975xn-Vl4cKX_P6Tdjs1qWEFnGwE275havifBIz2yaeKILb5WgadM/s320/11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span><p></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-60479818198431045952023-04-20T22:17:00.000-07:002023-04-20T22:17:42.357-07:00Boot Boys (1973, James Moffat)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr2DHJMpo5uqxIXdvN0mAWIDOouNBu6NBOG3aDXPcgjHvBh0ncnJHUes7-LVBkbJJ5M1iZb_BpY-YKRmzEX6zUA-Y33gyKZMQaTF7HRW8F0gKdKIu6K9pgWAXbDQo1PovC_vNcqhwfofCFarsdl4xk5GJz9akvBQ6o_N_apneIP90XOAhkQvghbBHK/s413/Boot%20Boys_0000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="319" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr2DHJMpo5uqxIXdvN0mAWIDOouNBu6NBOG3aDXPcgjHvBh0ncnJHUes7-LVBkbJJ5M1iZb_BpY-YKRmzEX6zUA-Y33gyKZMQaTF7HRW8F0gKdKIu6K9pgWAXbDQo1PovC_vNcqhwfofCFarsdl4xk5GJz9akvBQ6o_N_apneIP90XOAhkQvghbBHK/s320/Boot%20Boys_0000.jpg" width="247" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Boot
Boys is –for better or ill- full blooded James Moffat, almost every page of
this book spits at you in the face.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">By
1973, Moffat aka Richard Allen was encountering the problem that the first
generation of skinheads he’d been writing about were fading from view, but the
public’s appetite for sensationalistic tales of youth at its worst was still
strong.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">His solution was to turn his
attention to the Boot Boys- an emerging youth cult that in terms of style and
fashion harkened back to the mods of the 1960s, while also being the heir
apparent to the skins’ penchant towards football hooliganism and racially
motivated violence.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Moffat
centres Boot Boys around Tom, poster boy for Boot Boys culture and head of the
gang ‘The Crackers’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffat provides
Tom, the mother of all introductions with “even his father had to admit that
Tom Walsh was a rotten bastard”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A claim
that Tom spends the rest of the book living up to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After indulging in some football grounds
thuggery, Tom quickly graduates to attacking a couple while they are having sex
in a park.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bashing the man over the head
with a pole, raping his girlfriend, and taking misogynistic satisfaction in the
knowledge that once the guy wakes up he’ll not want anything more to do with
her “the rotten little bitch would get her ass kicked and be sent
packing”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tom then turns his gang loose
on the house of a crooked black businessman, smashing his windows with rocks under
the justification that “the law being a bloody ass would not prosecute to the
extent of getting the suckers’ money back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Well, The Crackers would show them how to hurt guys like him”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
actions of Tom’s gang might have been pulled from the headlines of the day, but
Moffat also appears to have turned to vintage Hollywood gangster movies for
inspiration here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paying tribute to them
by making Tom a junkie for late night TV repeats of movies starring “Cagney, or
Raft, or Bogart, or Ladd, or Bendix, or Edward G.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The focus on ‘the rise and fall of a small
time hood’ and the power struggles within Tom’s gang, also allows Moffat’s
anti-Semitism to run riot in Boot Boys, making this an especially noxious piece
of writing, even by Moffat’s standards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Tom faces dissension in the ranks, when Benjy, a Jewish member of his
gang, apposes Tom’s plan to daub swastikas on the doors of Jewish
families.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An action that triggers a war
between Tom and Benjy, Gentile against Jew, over leadership of the gang.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The other significant Jewish character in the
book, Lenny, is in contrast, meek and pathetically subservient to Tom, despite
Tom’s hostility towards him and overt anti-Semitism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lenny acts as Moffat’s whipping boy throughout
the book, with Moffat stressing Lenny’s physical shortcoming to the point of
numbing repetition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take a drink every
time Moffat refers to Lenny as being ‘pint sized’ in this book, and you’ll end
up as shit-faced as Moffat was when he wrote this thing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Moffat’s
blustering, tabloidish approach to the material allows the author to have his
cake and eat it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rubbing the gang’s
vilest deeds in the reader’s face, whilst lashing out at do-gooders for
creating a system that offers little by way of a deterrent or punishment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of which results in Moffat getting misty
eyed for the days of Dick Turpin, when “the punishment for rape had been
drastic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do-gooders had not been popular
with the rough and tumble serfs and their effeminate masters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not like today”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While in 1977’s Knuckle Girls, Moffat pointed
to poverty and parental neglect as the reasons for its heroine’s anti-social
behavior, he appears to have been of an entirely different mindset when he
wrote this in 1973.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Boot Boys angrily
rejecting such excuses, by deliberately making Tom the product of a loving
father and an affluent household “he had a wardrobe many a Mayfair socialite
would have been proud to show off to some skinny dolly bird”….and in spite of
all that he still turned out to be a rotten bastard!!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Acting
as a breather from Tom’s antics is the parallel story of Wilf Tomlinson, a
local newspaper hack who is determined to see the gang face justice, especially
after he meets Debra Wilkinson, a young widow who has been gang raped by The
Crackers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wilf follows a familiar
pattern of Moffat’s heroes, by becoming hopelessly infatuated with the lead
female character, even though his old fashioned values means he struggles to
consummate the relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wilf also
gives Moffat himself a run for his money when it comes to insensitivity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Asking Debra questions like “Did you ever
dream about your father once you reached adolescence” and secretly admitting
that he “fought to control an urge that would have placed him in the same
category as those who had, two nights previously, seen fit to make her the
target for their disgusting lusts”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Midway
into Boot Boys the mood turns highly sexual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What with passions between Wilf and Debra boiling over, and the
confrontation between Tom and Benjy taking the form of a battle of the studs,
as they compete over which of them can satisfy the most women in
succession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along the way there is the
kind of written word laughability that only 1970s trash fiction can reach, with
Wilf pining “she was the reincarnation of Eve- a being with all the mysteries
wrapped between her fleshy, yet so firm, thighs” whilst Debra daydreams “she
knew that Wilf respected her even though he wanted to make her perform like a
common slut”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While fellow trash fiction
author Guy N. Smith preferred his female characters to be slender, and had
little time for big boobs, Moffat was of a different school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Boot Boys having a downer on the ‘skinny
dolly bird’ look, and instead lusting after the more mature, curvier woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Debra Wilkinson being the type defined by The
Kinks song ‘Don’t Forget to Dance’ as “a nice bit of old”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">However
its rape and anti-Semitism that are the twin obsessions of Boot Boys, and
Moffat can’t keep away from either for long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Tom’s gang might be depicted as irredeemably beyond-the-pale but you get
the creeping suspicion that Moffat secretly approved of, and may even have gotten
a charge out of their racism and sexual assaults.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffat does have a contradictory attitude
towards the gang throughout Boot Boys, who occasionally switch from being the scourge
of decent society to the defenders of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Like when they are vandalizing the house of the crooked black businessman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where Moffat clearly sees them as modern day
Robin Hood characters, stepping in where the law won’t, and getting justice on
behalf of hard working, law abiding citizens….y’know the sort of people the
gang are otherwise committed to raping and terrorizing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A product of its time, Boot Boys take on rape
is predictably pornographically minded, and where the victims -natch- end up
enjoying the experience “at first I was so frightened I could have died. Then,
the pleasure became intolerable”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even
in that climate however, Moffat does push this a little further than most.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It all builds up to Debra’s outrageous
admission that she’s actually grateful to her rapists. “They opened my
eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They made me see myself for what I
am- a sensualist”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of which makes a
mockery of Wilf’s desire for revenge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
would be like Death Wish ending with the daughter emerging from a catatonic
state and telling Paul Kersey that he’d wasted his time shooting all those
muggers and rapists, because, thanks to men like that, she’s gonna go off and
become a sensualist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Speaking
of fathers and daughters, there is also an underlining fixation for incest in
Moffat’s work, even if he can’t quite bring himself to break that taboo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s the daughter and stepfather/lodger
subplot in Knuckle Girls, while here we have Wilf touching a nerve by asking
Debra questions about her father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
well as Vanessa, Tom’s girlfriend, bringing up the fact that her father visits
her bedroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“He isn’t interested in
sex, thank God” she cryptically adds “I’ve heard mum pleading with him”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;">Fueled</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by boundless energy, all of it unhealthy, Boot Boys flits from maniacal set
piece to maniacal set piece like a headless chicken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book all but exhausting its juvenile
delinquent theme before the end, forcing it to search out other genres for the
grand finale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffat initially flirting
with the crime genre, as Tom’s gang get mixed up with professional criminality,
before wigging out and going all satanic panic on us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“There had been certain things he wished he
could have experienced as a child, not least of them being an association with
Aleister Crowley”, Moffat writes of Tom, who has the gang desecrate a church
and perform an orgy in the graveyard in an attempt to do Wicked Al proud.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Boot Boys is one mad, rollercoaster ride to
the dark heart of the 1970s, but with Moffat’s omnipresent anti-Semitism in the
back seat, the ‘guilt’ part does often outweigh the ‘pleasure’ here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we were to do movie compassions, I’d say
that Guy N. Smith’s books were the equivalent of The Evil Dead or The Deadly
Spawn, they’re ultra-gory but also lots of fun and unlikely to leave any troubling
aftertaste.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas Moffat’s work is
like Cannibal Holocaust or Goodbye Uncle Tom, they’re grueling and emotionally
draining experiences to get through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Toxic
as this book is now, I would say there is a valuable history lesson to be
learnt from it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inadvertently Boot Boys
does bring it home how tone deaf society once was towards sexual assault, as
well as the amount of prejudice Jewish people faced back then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These days you’d have to search dark, obscure
areas of the internet to find vitriol like Moffat’s, but back in 1973 it was
all out in the open, selling like hot cakes in bookshops and being passed
around every schoolyard in the land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Still, if you take on Boot Boys, you can come out the other side
boasting at having conquered 1970s fiction at its most crass, hateful, and
savage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be warned though, in the case of
Boot Boys the past punches hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-49522750346728572332023-04-20T22:13:00.001-07:002023-04-20T22:13:34.824-07:00A Thirst for Bamboo Guerillas<p><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: Calibri, "sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt;">Clive, Nick and Me
take a look at Bamboo Guerillas and Thirst by Guy N. Smith</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IgwnM0zZcWI" width="320" youtube-src-id="IgwnM0zZcWI"></iframe></div><br /><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: Calibri, "sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span><p></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-16001022820166047672023-04-14T23:46:00.000-07:002023-04-14T23:46:08.719-07:00Bamboo Guerillas (1977, Guy N. Smith)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKhn9V1Ld0pW4sRwJbStiqALZImJM8oThUquZfF_9oXjVd4iAnwFr6HYYH9oyIj2w-mR_Hy6tLxlsl0GJ3EQlTExC81pd2-zIZnLcZkpoN-H06lNTg2gkU-so6H6yp4aFBOCTTjE2lMIleevtJTr6kYyc3WzjVxvNauEpyGppQZgPys8CptobYBmRe/s836/coverfront.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="836" data-original-width="514" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKhn9V1Ld0pW4sRwJbStiqALZImJM8oThUquZfF_9oXjVd4iAnwFr6HYYH9oyIj2w-mR_Hy6tLxlsl0GJ3EQlTExC81pd2-zIZnLcZkpoN-H06lNTg2gkU-so6H6yp4aFBOCTTjE2lMIleevtJTr6kYyc3WzjVxvNauEpyGppQZgPys8CptobYBmRe/s320/coverfront.jpg" width="197" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Bamboo Guerillas is notorious.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Guy N.
Smith was riding high on the success of Night of the Crabs- which had been a
big hit during the sweltering hot summer of 1976- but for a change of pace
swaps crustaceans for castrations with Bamboo Guerillas, a book which captures
all the fun and frivolity of a Japanese prisoner of war camp.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Around
the same time, Smith had been writing a series of relatively respectable action
books centered around the trucking industry- ‘The Black Knights’ and ‘Hijack’-
which were published by Mews, an arm of New English Library.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The company policy appears to a been that Mews
was the imprint they'd use for sci-fi, action and war titles, while New English
Library was the home of the nasty material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Seemingly
on account of the truckers books they gave him a crack at penning a WW2 novel
without any restrictions on what he could write about… and Bamboo Guerillas is
what you get when you turn Guy N. Smith loose on the subject of World War 2
atrocities without restrictions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
company were reportedly a little taken aback with what he delivered, asked Smith
to tone it down for it to go as a Mews title, then when he refused released it
as a N.E.L, which in fairness was exactly where Bamboo Guerillas belonged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Bamboo
Guerillas takes us back to the war torn Malaysia of 1941 as Colonel Hugh Carter
aka ‘Jungle Carter’ leads his men deep into the jungle in order to team up with
Chinese bandit Li Chu.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once Jungle Carter
and his men meet Li Chu and his ragbag of Chinese and Malaysian mercenaries -the
‘bamboo guerillas’ of the title- they go about the business of liberating twenty
nurses from a Japanese prisoner of war camp.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One that is lorded over by the dreaded Colonel Siki, a depraved despot,
who is “more dangerous than any tiger that roamed the Malaysian jungles”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the outset Bamboo Guerillas resembles your
standard World War 2 novel as Jungle Carter and fellow Brits Captain Cole and
Sanders perilously hack their way through the jungle whilst smarting over the
fall of Kuala Lumpur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Looks can be
deceptive though and only a few chapters in sees Bamboo Guerillas transform into
something you definitely wouldn’t want your grandparents reading over your
shoulder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1977, when Bamboo Guerillas
was released, I'm not sure Smith's name was as synonymous with extreme horror
as it would become.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, I suppose it was
still possible that people who bypassed The Sucking Pit and Night of the Crabs
wouldn't have been aware of what they signed up for here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I'm curious at what point the penny would
have dropped for them that with Bamboo Guerillas they were being sent up sleaze
creek without a paddle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would it have
been when Carter and Cole are woken up by the sound of Sanders grunting and
shaking about in his ground sheets, then fearing he has the fever instead
discover that Sanders is merely beating himself off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently a valuable way of keeping yourself
warm in the outdoors “I learned it when I used to go mountaineering” Sanders
tells the other two “and was forced to sleep out in the open, do me a favor
though don't interrupt me again”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would the
penny drop moment have been when they are discussing forming an allegiance with
Li Chu, despite his reputation for cannibalizing his Japanese adversaries?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At which point Carter attempts to reassure
the other two that “as long as he confines his liking for human flesh to the Japs,
I'm not going to worry”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or is it when
we meet the gregariously sadistic Li Chu, who brags about how he and his men tortured
a Japanese soldier in order to see if a Japanese penis could be stretched to
the same size as other nationalities. “They will not, gentlemen, take it from
me”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Up to
this point we've had masturbation, anecdotal cannibalism and anecdotal genital
abuse, all before we have even met the villain of the piece.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>World War 2 sex maniac to end all World War 2
sex maniacs, that is Colonel Sika, who prior to his introduction in the book
has been masturbating for “virtually two whole days and nights”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sika immediately earns his reputation as a
stone cold pervert by having male prisoners stripped, tied to a barbed wire
fence, then forces them to get aroused in the company of one of the nurses, who
has been similarly stripped bare for the occasion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“This is the woman you are going to mate with…
so get yourself erect” yells one of Sika’s flunkies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once the prisoners manage to get hard though,
its curtains for them, as Japanese soldiers step in and cruelly bayonet them to
death instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Erections, or ‘protrusions’
as Smith sometimes euphemistically refers to them as, was a recurring theme in
his writing and something that has also opened his books up to sniggering and
ridicule over the years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bamboo
Guerillas captures him at arguably the height of his protrusion obsession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bamboo Guerrillas might well be the most priapic
book of the 1970s, you're never far away from someone’s erection in this book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a characteristic that practically defines
Sika who is introduced to us nursing a hard-on, caused by thinking about all
the Chinese virgins he has deflowered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sika then turns his lustful gaze and protrusion in the direction of
Sonia Barnes, a dark-haired nurse that Sika insist become his sex slave and “submit
to almost every technique of sex known in the Japanese nation”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A role Sonia reluctantly agrees to in the
hope that it will keep herself and the other nurses alive.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Bamboo
Guerrillas is riddled with below the belt insults aimed at Japanese men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What with Li Chu’s claim that not even torture
can extend the Japanese manhood to the size of other nationalities, as well as Sonia’s
observation that Colonel Sika’s physique was “little more than that of the
average European boy in his early teens”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At times it feels like Smith was pushing the idea that Japan's
involvement in World War 2 may have been motivated by penis size envy and
feelings of sexual inadequacy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A theory
that Smith only contradicts due to his obsession with Colonel Sika’s apparently
impressive erection, which “threatened to burst its way out his trousers”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elsewhere in the book, Sika “knew that the
bulge in the front of his trousers was visible to all his men but he did not
mind. It enhanced his reputation”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Based
on that evidence it doesn't sound like Sika is lacking too much in that
department, even if his torture techniques are suspiciously hung up on cutting
other nationalities down to size.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
are moments in Bamboo Guerillas when you can feel your brain trying to fight
against its natural inclination to visualize what you are reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never more so when Chan- one of Li Chu’s men-
is captured by the Japanese and ends up in Sika’s torture chamber.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There Sika quite literally breaks Chan’s balls,
before spending the rest of the night alternating between using Sonia as a
sexual receptacle and working out more ways to destroy Chan’s genitals. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
think one of the reasons Bamboo Guerrillas can take people off guard is that with
a horror, skinhead or biker paperback from that era you half-expect there to be
some sexual content.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas a World War
2 novel set in a Japanese prisoner of war camp doesn’t exactly sound like it is
going to be a non-stop orgy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When people
talk about Smith’s books they tend to claim that part of their popularity was
due to soft porn elements, this I would not challenge, but I don't know if that
description does Smith’s books justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On film and in photographic form it is easy to draw a line between softcore
and hardcore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In print it is a little more
difficult to call, but I would say that the sex in Bamboo Guerillas is closer
to hardcore than softcore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bamboo Guerillas
is a very sex driven book, with the expected action part of the narrative often
taking a backseat to Sika forcing male and female prisoners into performing
live sex shows in front of the Japanese “you have three minutes in which to
begin copulating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any man who hasn't
made it in that time will be bayoneted”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whilst tender moments arrive when Jungle Carter deliberately allows
himself and several of Li Chu’s men to be captured by the Japanese and
immediately develops romantic and sexual feelings for Jenny, one of the
captured nurses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suppose you have to
admire the lustful stamina of Jenny and Jungle Carter, despite the fact that
she has been repeatedly raped by the Japanese, despite the fact that they are
in the company of others, and despite the fact that they've been flung into a place
that smells of shit and piss, they are still all over each other like a rash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“He felt her vagina it was warm and ready and
there was no evidence of Japanese maltreatment”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can always rely on Smith to put the Guy
in gynecology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jungle Carter’s only
reservation about having sex with Jenny is that he has to do so in the company
of non British people “he did not want to lose the respect that the guerillas had
for him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it had been an all British
company it wouldn't have mattered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
these bandits were savages”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Even
though Chinese and Malaysian characters in Bamboo Guerillas are allies, the
book does still peel a suspicious eye in their direction and they are consistently
portrayed as more barbaric, disposable and cowardly than the British.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After gunning down Japanese soldiers in the
jungle, the bamboo guerillas begin gutting the bodies and impaling the heads of
dead Japanese on sticks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sickening the
British, who nevertheless decide that it's better to let them have their fun, rather
than play killjoy and risk a mutiny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later
on in the book, Jungle Carter encounters a hut full of Japanese soldiers raping
a Chinese woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However rather than
rescue her, as he has done with the Western nurses, Carter instead ops to throw
a grenade into the hut, killing all inside, on the reasoning that “she’ll
probably be glad to die after what they had done to her”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
bulk of Bamboo Guerillas’ hate though is aimed at the Japanese.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bamboo Guerillas makes ‘Men Behind the Sun’
and ‘Fist of Fury’ look like fair and even handed portrayals of Japanese people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whenever the word ‘Japanese’ is mentioned in
this book it's usually in close proximity to the word ‘bastards’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Japanese characters exist in this book purely
to sexually assault women and emasculate and murder men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So despicable are the Japanese in this book that
they seem to succeed in making actual Orientals feel racist towards Orientals,
with even the Chinese Li Chu hurling around anti-Oriental slurs “Carter declined
to remind Li Chu of his own colour”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Indeed
Smith seems to whipped himself up into such an anti Japanese state of mind
whilst writing Bamboo Guerillas that it bled on over into his next book, Killer
Crabs (1978).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The opening of that Crab
sequel initially being focused on conflict between Australian and Japanese
characters over fishing rights, with bullets and racial insults being exchanged
between the two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of which bills up
to a Bamboo Guerillas /Crabs crossover when the Japanese fishing ship comes
under attack from the crabs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently
Smith did write a sequel to Bamboo Guerillas that has never been published, and
I do wonder if rather than completely scrap the sequel novel he instead he incorporated
a few of its ideas into Killer Crabs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Towards
the end of Bamboo Guerillas the action is moving closer and closer to Australia,
which is where Killer Crabs was set, so there are story connections there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Due to the fact that the sequel has never
seen the light of day, Bamboo Guerillas stands as Smith’s only published war novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although a few of the Crabs books could, I suppose,
be perceived as war novels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This seems particularly
true of ‘Crabs on the Rampage’ (1981) which comes across as Smith’s ‘imaginary
Nazi invasion of Britain’ novel with the Crabs making strategic attacks on the
shores of Britain, and the series’ hero Cliff Davenport mostly relegated to war
room brainstorming of how to second guess the crabs’ plan of attack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of which I suppose makes King Crab,
Hitler reincarnated in crustacean form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">However,
I don't think Bamboo Guerillas had the same legs, or pincers, as Smith’s horror
material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two editions of Bamboo Guerillas
were published, both in September 1977, and that was it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike Night of the Crabs, The Sucking Pit
and The Slime Beast, this one never came back around in the 1980s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a child of the Eighties I vividly remember
seeing those on bookshelves, especially at seaside resorts, but I don't ever recall
seeing Bamboo Guerillas around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either
it didn't sell well originally, or it was too extreme to be republished or
maybe Smith had become so synonymous with horror by then that putting a
non-horror title of his back out there would have confused the public.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever the case Bamboo Guerillas has become
one of his rarer books, these days second hand copies usually fetch in the
region of £40 to £50.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did ask around
to see if his estate have plans to republish the book and apparently they do
but getting the Crabs books back out there is their number one priority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Towards the end of his life, Smith had actively
embraced the internet, and through his website was selling second-hand copies
of his books, putting out his older work in eBook form and writing new material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I believe his family are in a process of
building that business back up, although they’ve also had to cope with all the
standard upheaval caused by a parent’s death as well as the unwanted
distraction of a legal case against his former cleaner Nichola Whiffen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From what I understand, Whiffen had been
employed by him as a cleaner, then helped manage his internet affairs, but had
been stealing from him on the sly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
situation that caused much hurt, bad feelings and friction on account of her father
having been a long time friend of Smith’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After Smith’s death, she was convicted of stealing £2,400 from him, and
was ordered to do 130 hours of community service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which I get the impression his family
consider an unsatisfactory, slap on the wrist, gesture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It does sound like the last few years have
been a very difficult period for the Smith family.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">What I
find astonishing about Bamboo Guerillas and its ilk is that they never
triggered any censorious backlash, and I'm not been able to find any evidence
of these books having been banned or having to be re-released in cut versions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were quite lucky in that respect, compared
to what was happening in the British video industry around the same time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is mind-blowing to think that in a period
where grown adults were having the right to watch films like The Evil Dead and
I Spit on your Grave taken away from them, people of any age could still pick
up a copy of Bamboo Guerillas or Night of the Crabs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can only speculate that what saved these
books was that the censorious regarded the written word as a higher art form
and were of a snob, elitist mindset that… ‘these sub-moron, working class grunts
who watch video nasties all day probably don't know how to read, so we don't
need to worry about banning books’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While
the late 1970s and early 80s gets remembered as a time when movies were pushing
the envelope in terms of screen explicitness, that is nothing compared to what
books were getting away with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A good
example of the divide between how far books could go then, in contrast to
movies is the novelization of the Norman J. Warren film ‘Inseminoid’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book version contains all manner of ideas
and scenes that Warren passed on bringing to the screen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, in the book the Alien has not
one, but two giant sized penises, which it uses to rape the main female
character… something the film side steps around depicting with that ‘is it or
isn't it a dream sequence’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book
also includes lesbianism, necrophilia and a scene where the alien puts its fingers
through someone's eye sockets, pulls their head off, then later uses the head as
a kind of bowling ball.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the Warren
movie does have its fair share of unpleasant and gooey moments, I suspect you’d
be a disappointed man if you saw it on the basis of having read the book,
because the grossest aspects to the book did not survive the transition to film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m in no doubt that had Bamboo Guerillas been
done on film rather than in print, copies would have been seized in every video
shop from Lands End to John O'Groats during the video nasties furore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even the most irresponsible and reckless of
pre-cert video distributors usually attempted to cover their backs by putting
phony <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>X or 18 certificates on video
covers or disclaimers along the lines of ‘for adults only’ or ‘not for minors’ yet
there is not even anything like that on the covers of either edition of Bamboo Guerillas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Had a kid brought home a copy of Bamboo Guerillas,
I'm sure that going off the cover, parents probably thought this was no
stronger than your average copy of Eagle, Commando or G.I. Joe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Little did they know that their offspring were
reading things like “she was not willing to drop the subject even though he has
got all four fingers of his right hand inside her” and “he breathed a deep sigh
of relief that all his men had attained full erections, but he knew that this
was only the start”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">What
appears to have happened with the book equivalent of the Video Nasties is that
that market just got flooded with cheap, gratuitous, badly written books and
the British public eventually got tired of them and moved along.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suspect that had the video market been left
alone, a similar thing would have happened there, but because there was a censorious
intervention there, it resulted in the Video Nasties attaining legendary status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To this day we are still seeing even the
lesser Video Nasties brought back in deluxe, bells and whistles editions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas with their book equivalents, because
they were never taken away from us, because they didn't become the forbidden
fruit, they don't attract the same amount of reverence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The irony doesn't appear lost on Guy N. Smith
that during his lifetime everyone of his other passions ended up becoming
demonized or banned… be it indoor smoking, gun ownership or hunting… but his books
were left alone. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I'm
curious what mental image of the author you’d get from reading Bamboo Guerillas
in 1977, possibly of some grizzled old World War 2 veteran using the book as a
backwards gazing trip down memory lane to when he was fighting and fucking his way
through the jungle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas is in
reality Smith was born in 1939 and was of a generation that lived through World
War 2 but didn’t see active service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Overall
though he does a decent job of feigning first-hand knowledge of a hellish,
sweaty, leach infested jungle environment here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He does also indulge in his regular trait of offloading some of his own
DNA onto the lead character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jungle Carter,
like Smith, having a background in the banking industry, and becomes Smith’s
mouth piece on the subject.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Civilian
life is just one long monotonous existence… I worked in a bank up until 1939.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No chance to think for yourself or make
decisions.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While Smith’s grievances
with banking aren’t as loudly amplified here as they are in ‘Thirst’ (1980),
the message of Bamboo Guerillas in that respect seems to be “better to die like
a man, than live as a bank manager”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
extreme violence in Smith’s books, coupled with their perverse elements and
mean spiritedness, do conjure up negative ideas about what Guy N. Smith must have
been like in real life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which, by all
accounts, was very divorced from reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jonathan Sothcott was optioning a movie adaptation of one of Smith’s books
at one point and on account of that had met and had lunch with Smith, and Sothcott
told me that he was amazed that such a charming and gentle man came up with
these endless splatter-fests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his
autobiography- ‘Pipe Dreams’- Smith does portray his younger self as a bit of a
practical joker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He even gamely includes
a famous joke about himself… that Guy N. Smith is such a good farmer because he
spreads his own books on his land… and if you're prepared to include a joke
comparing your work to manure in your own autobiography you must have a sense
of humour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People who make fun of ‘bad’
movies and books, like to cling to the idea that the creators of the material were
oblivious to how absurd and ridiculous their output was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Smith's case though I do suspect he would
have been chuckling to himself when he wrote things like “she would become a
nun and enter a convent, a sanctuary from lusting erections and male
selfishness”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Bamboo
Guerillas is so excessive, so over-the-top that after a while the only way to relate
to it is as a black comedy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either that
or a practical joke akin to the Rolling Stones’ song ‘Cocksucker Blues’… where
the Stones deliberately recorded a song so raunchy and indecent that their label
was unable to put it out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only in Smith’s
case, New English Library took the bait and actually published Bamboo Guerillas
uncensored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s as if Smith was
suffering from the writing equivalent of tourette's syndrome but rather than
blurt out the most offensive and anti-social things he could think of, managed
to get it all down on paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A strong
stomach is required for Bamboo Guerillas, this book could even be used to test
how shock able you really are, but you do learn much about World War 2 from it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such as the fact that not even torture can
extend the size of a Japanese penis to the length of other nationalities, that
slitting someone's throat produces a sound that “could have been made by a wild
animal urinating” and that masturbation will keep you warm in the jungle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every day is a school day when you're reading
a Guy N. Smith book.</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289250406829800409.post-11895208818981337882023-04-07T00:02:00.001-07:002023-04-07T00:02:47.094-07:00Knuckle Girls (1977, James Moffat)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Kv0rcHATZxfiRVgkVXYNhCHN9yyKokhP_ArJQlwHb-HmWkNaIVkWqJXNrR0lNPw86GAfkriTk46WBB1unSKdW21YfGlUwqzTUopvvIS0Tjt-qAB7U9P1M8Xm87mHV0C7RVYYRE17ttUTz46dimMt_Ej9mvL74FU1liPU26L8zDiNj6IcjhiD9Ux8/s716/knuckebigg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="716" data-original-width="553" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Kv0rcHATZxfiRVgkVXYNhCHN9yyKokhP_ArJQlwHb-HmWkNaIVkWqJXNrR0lNPw86GAfkriTk46WBB1unSKdW21YfGlUwqzTUopvvIS0Tjt-qAB7U9P1M8Xm87mHV0C7RVYYRE17ttUTz46dimMt_Ej9mvL74FU1liPU26L8zDiNj6IcjhiD9Ux8/s320/knuckebigg.jpg" width="247" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">There's plenty of aggro and bovver going on in this female variation on James Moffat’s
usual ‘rags to borstal’ tales. Writing under the name Richard Allen, Moffat
became an unlikely poet laureate figure to many an aspiring teenage yobbo
during the 1970s.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Moffat wrote fast, and
drank faster, helping turn around the fortunes of publishing company New
English Library, particularly with his series of skinhead books like Skinhead (1970),
Skinhead Escapes (1972) and Dragon Skins (1975).</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Moffat’s
writing could be charitably described as ‘unpretentious’, or if you were inclined
to be less charitable ‘artless’.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">To give
credit where it is due though, Moffat’s cheap, trashy, violent books engaged a young,
working class audience in a way that more highly regarded literature did not.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Interviewed in ‘Skinhead Farewell’ a 1996
documentary about Moffat, teacher Barry Pateman remembered “here they were with
‘Skinhead’ reading it of their own volition, of their own interest, kids who
didn't dress like skinheads, who weren't skinheads, still found it an
enormously exciting and interesting book”.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Moffat's
ability to write about working class gang life was such that his initial fan
base even thought he must have been a skinhead himself, the reality couldn't have
been more different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Behind the Richard
Allen alias was a 50-something man of Canadian-Irish heritage with little in
common with the skinhead culture he documented, apart from a kinship with its
more intolerant, right wing elements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Read today it is difficult to see why anyone would buy into the idea of Moffat
being a young violent thug who led the kind of lifestyle he wrote about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The punk attitude that screams at you from this
book’s cover, belies the fact that the only two popular singers to get a name check
in Knuckle Girls are David Soul and Max Bygraves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffat clearly regarded kids as the scum of
the earth and the tone of his books is one of fist shaking disapproval.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time Moffat's books reveled in hooliganism,
sex and bad language, giving the fear to straight society and the older
generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffat’s intention, no doubt,
was to demonize the working class youth of the 1970s, yet in doing so he also
gave them an intimidating, outlaw image.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Which, dare I suggest, is why that demographic took his books to their
collective bosom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">You’d
certainly cross the street to avoid Moffat’s protagonist in Knuckle Girls, Ina
Murray, a brawling, queen of aggro, born in the slums of Glasgow and brought up
on the equally wrong side of the tracks in London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time we're introduced to her in the
book, Ina is already responsible for one woman crime wave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of which is anecdotally being related to Gladys
Gardiner, the do-gooding social worker who is given the difficult moral dilemma
of whether to recommend leniency or throw the book at Ina.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Given Moffat's politics there is little doubt
which side of that debate Gladys will ultimately fall on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Knuckle Girls is the last of three books Moffat
wrote dealing with female tearaways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
others being Skinhead Girls (1972) and Sorts (1973) presumably in an attempt to
exploit the lucrative subject of youthful hooliganism from all angles and
genders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffat as a writer of female
characters tends though to be an awkward fit as an iron fist in a velvet glove.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ina is the Minnie the Minx to the Dennis the
Menace characters Moffat wrote about in his skinhead books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She looks the same as them, dresses the same
as them, and thinks the same as them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
only female characteristics Moffitt gives her, tends to be weaknesses that lead
to her downfall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ina goes through a repeat
pattern of dating guys who cheat on her with more sexually attractive women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Leading the insecure, jealous Ina to take a
razor to her love rivals “she nearly had a boob less when I finished, her face looked
like it had gone through a meat grinder”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Moffat
writing from the perspective of a left leaning social worker and career woman
like Gladys, is even harder to swallow, and Knuckle Girls just doesn't convince
at all in that respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We barely get to
know Gladys before she's having doubts about rehabilitating the likes of Ina,
and debating whether to throw her career aside, in favor of getting married and
being kept by boyfriend Ray.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After a
while Moffat doesn't seem to know what to do with Gladys other than having her listen
to David Soul records at home, and admire her nakedness by the mirror “she knew
what equipment she had and liked knowing that men enjoyed her breasts, thighs, buttocks,
dark pubic hair, all of her”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even Ina is
in awe of Gladys “what firm, handable tits! and a pair of buttocks that moved,
shifted, switched, kind of bounced like a woman's buttocks should”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After leching over her in print, Moffat largely
retires Gladys in favour of a male character, probation officer Ken Gibson, who
comes in after Gladys struggles with both her conscious and ability to finish
her report on Ina.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ken Gibson is a
closest to a hero this book has and is a likely proxy for Moffat himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ken being an old-fashioned, immaculately
dressed, pipe smoker who pines for Gladys from afar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Unlike
many writers of so-called trash fiction from the era, who seemed to have given
a damn about their craft, Moffat’s books leave you with the impression that he
didn't really regard writing as anything more than a tedious, steady job…the
sort that you dispassionately clock on to at 9:00 a.m. and clock off at 5:00
p.m. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffat’s language is basic, with
little flair, and a fondness for meandering conversation designed to fill up
pages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffat's books only really come
to life when they are they are showing their vicious side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aggro was his strength.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one could write a description of a pub brawl,
the trashing of a train, and violence on the terraces quite like Moffat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These books really do put you at the
dangerous centre the action, amidst the spilt beer, shattered bones and broken
chairs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you want kicks, Ina Murray is
your gal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Throughout Knuckle Girls we
follow her and an odyssey of anti-social behavior that includes a spell in an
approved school, stabbing a man at a football match, engaging in underage sex,
kicking a child up the ass then punching its mother in the face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have to hand it to Moffat, he really
could write a character who gets under your skin, burns her way into the memory
and leaves a few lasting scars along the way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moffat's worldview was cold and unfeeling for the most part, but there
are flashes of sympathy and understanding along the way as Ina suffers under a parade
of horrid characters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A weak spineless mother,
a drunk emotionless father soon replaced by a pervy lodger turned stepfather,
and a boyfriend who beats her up after his she discovers him screwing another
girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffat might not be Ina’s number
one fan but he has a far greater grievance against her mother, who he has Ina
metaphorically put the boot in for him “poor pathetic mother, it serves you
bloody right, mother, makes you want to vomit, doesn't it, mother”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moffat also unleashes a few indignities of
his own invention at Mum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Initially
partnering her up with a drunk, abusive husband, then throwing her in the
direction of lodger Mike, whose ‘highly irregular acts’ she has to submit to,
in order to keep him from her daughter's bedroom door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the more satisfying elements of the
book is Ina turning the tables on evil sleazeball Mike.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Going from a victim of his dubiously
motivated spankings… to seeing him lose his power when confronted by the ‘Acton
Swords’ a skinhead gang… to slashing him up with a razor when he finally makes sexual
advances to her “she crouched, a she-tiger about to devour its victim”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike in real life, sexual predators get no
preferential treatment in Knuckle Girls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Had Ina ran into Jimmy Savile back then, you're in no doubt she would
have cut his cock off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is
said that one of the least desirable jobs at New English Library was editing a
James Moffat novel, because of the tons and tons of racism that would have to
be exercised to make them fit for general consumption and presumably prevent N.E.L
from possible prosecution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Given that
the versions of his books which made it into the public’s hands were pretty
racist, you do have to wonder how extreme and incendiary Moffat’s original
manuscripts must have been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Knuckle Girls
largely keeps the race hate elements at bay till towards the end, but when they
do arrive they have the impact of a well-timed sucker punch delivered with the
aid of a knuckle duster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surprisingly,
given Moffat's own Irish ancestry, the bigotry initially flares up when Ina and
the Acton Swords attempt to stir up aggro at an Irish pub by throwing around
anti-Irish slurs “they should ship the bombers back to their soggy Island”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sentiments that Moffat surely couldn't have
personally endorsed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that instance
you’d be inclined to chalk up the prejudice there as disingenuous, and Moffat playing
to a perceived, bigoted English readership.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Less easy to brush aside however are the anti-black aspects of Knuckle Girls
which register as far more heartfelt, especially as they are so randomly crowbarred
into the very end of the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Basically
we learn that Jean Turner, an adversary and love rival of Ina, hates the Acton
Swords, but then she gets to thinking about how she also hates the immigrants who
have moved in next door to her parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A chain of thought that allows Moffat the excuse to rant about the indignity
of living next door to “blacks, browns and other foreigners from the natives”
as well as the “liberals and do-gooding left wingers” who create laws to
protect such people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a hateful
diversion the book takes, which serves only to remind everyone that James Moffat
wasn't exactly overflowing with love for non-white people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Be
they white or black, English or Irish though everyone is in this book is
destined to be left a little more broken and damaged than they were at the start.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only exception being Gladys, but even
there Ina’s final thoughts in the book suggest that Gladys days of happiness,
marriage, listening to David Soul and admiring her breasts, thighs, dark pubic
hair and buttocks (that bounced like a woman’s buttocks should)…will be
short-lived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aside from the racism, Moffat
is such a poverty porn junkie, drawn to misery, urban squalor and the harsh
realities of working class life that it becomes an uphill battle to fight off
an overall feeling of depression and find entertainment value in his work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Knuckle Girls offers no hope or solution to
the social problems it comments on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Politically
Moffat might be as far removed from movies like Ken Loach's Kes (1969) as
Churchill was from Castro, but just as Winston and Fidel shared a love of big
cigars, so Knuckle Girls and Kes are united in their pessimistic belief that
the working classes are basically fucked and any attempt to reach out and
improve their lives is doomed to failure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Although if Ina was the main character in Kes she’d have probably
strangled the kestrel herself, then kicked her well-meaning teacher in the
balls.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>gavcrimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11124742425203756253noreply@blogger.com0