Vampyres/Wildcats of St.Trinans CD release

Following on from their CD release of James Kenelm Clarke’s scores for his Fiona Richmond films, Vocalion are set to release a CD of Clarke’s scores for Jose Larraz’s horror classic Vampyres (1974) and Frank Launder’s rather less well regarded The Wildcats of St. Trinian’s (1980). Bringing together -on CD at least- the exploits of blood sucking bi-sexual vampires and overaged naughty schoolgirls

Publicity Blurb:

This Vocalion release contains the first ever commercial issue of James Clarke’s scores for the films ‘The Wildcats of St. Trinian’s’ (1980) and ‘Vampyres’ (1974). Both soundtracks blend funk and jazz with orchestral scoring and feature the talents of many of Britain’s leading session musicians of the 1970s, including Alan Parker (guitar), Les Hurdle and Frank Clarke (bass guitar), Harold Fisher and Chris Karan (drums), John Taylor and Alan Hawkshaw (keyboards) plus the musical direction of Frank Barber (‘Wildcats’) and Syd Dale (‘Vampyres’). Highlights from the ‘Wildcats’ score include the sophisticated, Fender Rhodes led disco-funk of Girls’ Disco, the easy listening grooves of Swimming Sequence, the cheeky charm of Harry’s Strut (Flash Harry) and Work Apace, the latter an absolutely gorgeous reworking of Malcolm Arnold’s St. Trinian’s School Song. 1974’s ‘Vampyres’ is probably best described as ‘erotic horror’, a torrid tale of two modern-day bisexual female vampires whose bloodlust is matched only by their voracious sexual appetite. James Clarke’s score evokes an atmosphere of unease, menace and dark, sexual tension, perfectly in keeping with the film itself. These qualities are particularly in evidence in Main Titles, blending driving rhythms with Alan Parker’s horrific ‘fuzz’ guitar, and The Legend of the House and The Big Woodland, each of which feature, in parts, intimate harmonies tinged with a sense of foreboding. Stalking is in the best tradition of horror movie music, opening with a ‘stab’ chord and punctuated throughout by the razor-sharp sound of Alan Parker’s ‘fuzz’ guitar, ominous timpani rolls and creepy, tremulando strings. Bisexual female vampires and their prey have never been better depicted in music! The accompanying booklet contains insightful liner notes written by James Clarke and Oliver Lomax, plus rare film stills and original film poster artwork. Remastered from the original analogue stereo tapes. First time on CD.


http://www.duttonvocalion.co.uk/proddetail.asp?prod=CDSML8464

Suzy Mandel’s 1977 Spotlight Entry.

Suzy’s 1977 entry in Spotlight. Obviously don’t bother ringing the number now though, its 32 years out of date!!!

West End Jungle repeat

Just a quick heads up that there is a repeat airing of West End Jungle, this Friday Night/Saturday Morning on BBC4 (2:00am-2:50am)

Cliff Twemlow Book Write-Up

Received my copy of the Cliff Twemlow book last Thursday (not even a postal strike it seems can stop Cliff), so I’d imagine pre-orders are being sent out this week.
The authors have done a tremendous job of locating Cliff’s key collaborators for the book, as well as all of Cliff’s films, ranging from the ones that had Pre-Cert video releases (GBH, Tuxedo Warrior) to rarer, seeming unreleased ones like Target Eve Island and The Ibiza Connection, to near impossible to locate items such as 1986’s Harrising Moments, an aborted TV comedy vehicle for GBH supporting player Jerry Harris, which sounds like the Twemlow equivalent of Andy Milligan’s Red Rooster and features Twemlow regular Steve Powell in drag, and Cliff himself in a nappy. More intriguing is mention of 1988’s Moonstalker a.k.a. Predator, which I’d only heard of by title before, but here is given the full synopsis/write up treatment which reveals it to be Cliff’s take on “Beast of Exmoor” story, seemingly mixed in with elements of An American Werewolf in London.

The book argues a good case for Twemlow being an unacknowledged low-budget maverick, who against considerable odds, such as the fact that the British film industry was going down the pan at the time, managed to set up his own B-movie universe in 1980s Manchester, channeling all his creative and physical energy into making film after film that would see him and his collaborators shoot in locations as diverse as politically shaky 1980s Grenada to an off-season scout camp in Worsley. The book’s revelation that Twemlow saw little profits from his later films, in fact he seems to have lost money on a few of them, makes his dedication even more impressive, and its a testament to his character that his reparatory company came back for film after film, despite some of them having moved on to bigger things. Not to mention the fact that -judging by what the book has to say- a few cuts and bruises were guaranteed on a Cliff Twemlow set. The casting of a panther for The Eye of Satan, predictably resulted in some chaos on set, while the unfortunate actor playing the alien in Firestar: First Contact was the subject of a (literally) ball-busting accident.














(Japanese VHS release of Firestar:First Contact)

Access to Twemlow’s brother and son also allows the authors to expand on Cliff’s own 1980 autobiography The Tuxedo Warrior, as well as contradict it, a peculiar discovery made during the writing of the book is that while most celebrities choose to take a year or two off their age, Twemlow actually added five years to his life for his autobiography, a secret he kept up in his personal life, to the degree that even his gravestone bears an incorrect date of birth. Previously thought to have been in this late fifties/early sixties at the time of his death, the book reveals Twemlow was only 55 when he died. His early death, while seemingly unavoidable due to his lifestyle, seems even more tragic given several quotes suggest him to have been something of a visionary, accurately predicting back in the 1990s that films would be watched on and made for computers in the future, how sad then that his early death prevented him from bringing his particular brand of filmmaking into the internet age.

The book isn’t able to clear up the mystery over the murky release history of the Twemlow films, with hard to confirm or deny rumours that the films were the subject of overseas video releases and TV broadcasts, but still manages to bring some new nuggets of information to the table. I’d never heard before for instance, of the different versions of Twemlow’s final film, the rape/revenge shocker Bad Weekend, nor the three alternative versions of Tuxedo Warrior released on UK video in the 1980s.

With many of the films discussed still obscure and tricky to track down (hence the “Lost World of”) its particularly satisfying to see Cliff and his films getting the full length book treatment, unpretentious, entertaining and clearly a labour of love, the book is certainly in the spirit of Cliff’s films, and despite revealing his real age, something you suspect the great man would heartily approve of.

Cliff Twemlow - book launch and film screening

To tie-in with the publication of “The Lost World of Cliff Twemlow”, there will be a special launch party for the book this November as part of the Salford Film Festival, as well as a screening of one of Cliff’s films (details TBC.)

The Launch/screening takes place at 2pm on Sunday 22nd of November, at The King’s Arms on Bloom Street in Salford. The launch is open to all and reservations to attend can be made by emailing: tickets@hotunpress.com

See this site http://www.hotunpress.com/booklaunch.html for more information about the book launch, and here for details about the book http://www.hotunpress.com/
They also have some Cliff badges for sale!!!

Askwith in Benidorm

According to this weeks TV Times, “The Ask” has a role in the third series of ITV’s Benidorm

“...Benidorm continues to attract big stars, with Tim Healy, Keith Barron, Sheridan Smith and Seventies icon Robin Askwith all making guest appearances in this series, and Una Stubbs playing hen-pecked Martin’s mum”

Ok, so its likely to be just a one episode role, but c’mon its a step up from appearing in Richard Driscoll films.

3 More By Harrison Marks

Reviews of three more of Harrison Marks’ short films, recently transferred from 8mm to DVD by yours truly….


The Casting Couch (1970)


The Casting Couch is one of the earliest of Marks’ Maximus productions, which were advertised in Continental Film Review magazine from October 1969, and throughout 1970. The Casting Couch sees Marks’ skinny, anorexic looking male lead from “The Ecstasy of Oral Love” playing a randy photographer who when not using his studio as a love nest is whisking his models away for more of the same at “Ye Olde Halfway Inn”. In the twist ending the photographer is shocked to spot one of his earlier conquests checking into the Halfway Inn for a dirty weekend of her own, with an old codger for company (played in an exaggerated fashion by a young actor wearing a beard and using a cane.) The early Maximus productions are somewhat unique among Marks’ films for having settings and characters reappear from film to film, with Ye Olde Halfway Inn used for more malarkey in Marks’ 8mm film Halfway Inn (starring The Collinson Twins), and the fake old codger and his dolly bird companion making bare-assed return appearances in “Cue for Two” which, in case you were wondering, centers around a nude snooker game.




With full disclosure from the female cast, simulated sex and blowjobs, The Casting Couch illustrates just how far Marks was pushing the boundaries, compared to the simple striptease films he was making a few years earlier, and sees GHM actively playing up the sort of casting couch scenarios he had tried to distance himself from in the mid-sixties. The Maximus adverts in Continental Film Review abruptly ended in October 1970, when Marks got in trouble with the law and was charged with sending obscene materials through the post resulting in an obscenity trial in 1971.



















Santa’s Coming (197?)


Undaunted by having his collar felt over his new type of production, Marks continued to turn out Maximus films into the 70s, including this X-rated yuletide story, made circa 1974. Santa’s Coming concerns a lonely housewife, whose Christmas presents from her husband all turn out to be sex aids, including a vibrator and -in a self-referencing touch- a copy of Marks’ 1967 biography “The Naked Truth About Harrison Marks”. Obviously unimpressed by her buzzing new friend and Marks collection of tall tales, she retires to the bedroom to bounce about on her bed in frustration, unaware that her home is being broken into by a burglar (Short Jack Gold), who is conspicuously dressed as Santa Claus!! As you might expect, when this immoral Santa spots a nude woman in bed, thoughts of ransacking the place are all cast aside, as are his clothes and fake beard. In a twist straight out of a Confessions or Adventures film, her husband arrives home drunk, forcing Short Jack Gold to hide under the bed until hubby passes out, before making his escape through the window, minus the loot, but in good enough sprits to offer a wink and a thumbs up to the audience, worthy of any Robin Askwith or Barry Evans character.















































Randy Toole - In Person (197?)


From the groovy early 70s, “Randy Toole -in Person” is Marks’ spin on the groupie phenomenon, which had also provided material for the Derek Ford/Stanley Long team with Groupie Girl, and Lindsay Shonteff with Permissive. Randy Toole, played by an actor recognizable from the Clyda Rosen loop “Femmes Cherchent Bon-Baiseurs”, is a famous rock star who, so a newspaper headline tells us, has just received an ovation at the London palladium, and is now hiding out at his townhouse and working on his new album. While his entourage try to keep Randy’s adoring fan base- all two of them- at bay, a pair of groupies manage to break into Randy’s house, while one gets collared in the kitchen by Randy’s West Indian assistant and has to make do with shagging him on the kitchen floor, and other groupie manages to meet her pop idol and ends up receiving more than just his John Hancock!!



In the films comedy punch line the two groupies decide to immortalize the occasion by taking a nude snapshot of a passed out Randy and his assistant, and then send it to a tabloid who publishes it on their cover the next day with the headline “Randy Toole appears naked in the West End”.

Randy Toole in Person, was also filmed in a hardcore version for the German market called “Autograph Hunter”, with a couple of cast changes, including a different Randy Toole in the lead, and Clyda Rosen cast as one of the Groupies. Present in both versions is ex-bodybuilder, Marks regular and current day reported missing person, Howard “Vanderhorn” Nelson, in a non-sex role as Randy’s Roadie. A role Howard plays behind dark glasses in the softcore version, and required a further blond wig to play the part again in the hard version, since generally you find the more explicit the film, the more elaborate Vanderhorn’s disguises become, but as per usual The Horn’s “built like a brick shithouse” physique tends to give the game away.