hernebay

I have fond recollections of "Pipkins", even though I was already in my teens when it began, and in my twenties when it vanished from our screens, alas!, for ever. The early episodes featured character actor George Woodbridge as the eponymous Inigo Pipkin, but the real glory days of "Pipkins" occurred under the stewardship of Wayne Laryea, a young black British actor. The undisputed star of the show, however, was Hartley Hare, a character of extraordinary depth and complexity for a children's show. Vain, neurotic and unbelievably camp, the self-deluded Hartley (who rather resembled Frank Williams's Vicar in "Dad's Army") hopelessly held a torch for the coquettish French (!) ostrich, Octavia, who on one occasion pointedly rebuffed his advances with the immortal (and sublimely delivered) put-down: "Oh, 'Artley, you are so SMALL!"

I saw this film about three years ago, late at night after a session at the pub, so my perceptions at the time, and my recollections now, might not be exactly razor sharp. I have to say, though, that I found it strangely compelling. Arthur Howard, the much put-upon Pettigrew in the "Whack-O" TV series (which also starred the dark genius of 50s/60s British comedy, Jimmy Edwards), is in "Paradisio" a similarly likeable, self-effacing individual this time thrust bemusedly into the role of Everyman in the midst of Cold War intrigue. Michael Coy is quite right to point out the fascination of its Continental location footage, which reminds us how recent an event WW2 was at the time. The sparseness of dialogue rather contributes to the film's "ambient" quality, and the almost dream-like visual texture gently seduces the eye.

"Hurrah for buxom babes!" I say, the taste of most of us men even today, I would aver. It's probably true to say that films like "Paradisio" serve as useful benchmarks for the gradual post-war shift in sexual attitudes from repression to frankness. Seen from our perspective, as Michael Coy hints, "Paradisio" seems laughably inhibited and prim (rather like Arthur Howard himself, or at any rate his on-screen persona), but today's unflinching treatment of sexuality would not have been possible without such earlier, less candid treatments. I'd gladly watch it a second time.

Anyone unchastened by the dogmas of Political Correctness will find "The Iron Maiden" a delightful experience. Gender roles remain refreshingly undeconstructed. Michael Craig is a hero of surpassing manliness, while Anne Helm is a heroine of beguiling, if occasionally infuriating, femininity. Craig is a first-rank aircraft designer for Cecil Parker's top-flight (pun fully intended) aviation firm.

In classic "Pride and Prejudice"/"Jane Eyre" fashion, initial aversion is quickly translated into hopeless infatuation, a process much assisted by the allure deficit of Craig's hapless romantic (and business) rival, John Standing, a chinless wonder to end all chinless wonders. Pivotal to the proceedings is Anne Helm's commandeering of Craig's beloved traction engine, the eponymous Iron Maiden, which earns her a richly-deserved spanking. After this key event, even the social ambitions of her foolish mother, which favour the advances of Standing, cannot deflect the course of true love. Craig bonds spectacularly with Helm's aircraft tycoon father, and he goes on to win the Woburn traction engine rally against his other key rival, Admiral Digby Trevelyan, with the eventual assistance of the tycoon's chastened daughter.

A wonderful showcase for the talents of these two songwriting geniuses. (Is there a contemporary songwriter who merits a tribute of this kind? - I think not.) A great deal of attention will no doubt be lavished on Peter Sellers' amusing rendition of "A Hard Day's Night" in the style of Shakespeare's Richard III, but the real star of the show is British jazz organist Alan Haven (with master drummer Tony Crombie), interpreting the same song. (Haven also graced the soundtracks of "A Jolly Bad Fellow" and "The Knack"; it is gratifying to learn that his wife is a former candidate for Miss World!) Lennon and McCartney are still the benchmark for aspiring songwriters, and this show should go a long way to demonstrating why.

I haven't seen this short 1960s film for at least 10 years now, and yet I retain an intense fondness for it. Perhaps, as a Londoner born and bred (albeit in Fulham, south-west London), I savour it for its portrait of a particularly glamorous part of London (Hampstead and environs), at a particularly fashionable time (the late 1960s). (Whenever I walk around certain parts of London I feel myself to be back in the 1960s, and the Hampstead/Highgate area is one such part.) I recommend that anyone within commuting distance of London book a day (or afternoon) of walking over Hampstead Heath and adjoining area, and that anyone else within remote-control distance of a VCR record this evocative little film at the next opportunity.

Stunned by the audacity of the makers of this film, my good friend Andy and I duly presented ourselves at the local cinema on its release, just to see how awful it could be. Andy is the biggest Beatles fan I know, apart from me (we have been friends since we were both 11, 30 years ago), and on the awfulness score neither of us was disappointed. I haven't seen this film for 23 years, but time has not, alas, erased its sheer appallingness from my memory. If I may utter the ultimate words of condemnation, this film could not have been worse had it been made in the 80s! I read reviewer Morlock's appreciative review with mounting disbelief until he (?) revealed himself as a non-fan of The Beatles. It is probably pointless to deliver a sermon to the perpetrators of sacrilege, or their misguided apologists. Perhaps I shouldn't even dignify this justly-forgotten movie by reminding people of its regrettable existence. That said, I think I have a moral duty to warn Beatles fans to avoid this grotesquely misbegotten travesty like the plague. Non-fans of The Beatles are too far-gone in the ways of unrighteousness either to heed or merit such a warning.

As a committed fan of the original movie, and also of the under-rated TV series, I felt duty-bound to see Tim Burton's reinterpretation, despite the off-putting hype. What I saw can be simply and honestly summarised. Special effects (the least consideration of any cinema-goer whose IQ achieves triple figures), very good. Make-up, very good (Thade especially). Mark Wahlberg's acting, monosyllabic and wooden. Helena Bonham-Carter's acting, a little better than her usual low average. In my native England this movie carries a 12 rating (i.e. suitable for viewers of age 12 and over), which slightly over-estimates the level of intellectual maturity required. A complete absence of plot and character, but a superabundance of noise and violence. Much jumping and gratuitous aggression from the apes, considerable banality from the humans (especially Wahlberg). Given the considerable resources available to Burton we are entitled to something considerably less moronic than this flimsy, catchpenny movie, which cynically exploits brand loyalty and the reputations of director and cast. The truth is that this film will not bear scrutiny six months from now, let alone in a decade or so's time. None of this will matter. Mugs like myself have ensured that it was a box-office smash. More fool us.

If "It Ain't Half Hot Mum" has suffered acutely from Politically Correct retro-censorship, being rarely repeated (and then only the odd episode that gets past the new puritans), "Get Some In!" has been officially airbrushed out of late 70s British sitcom history. The total ban on repeats of this series means that I have not seen it since it was originally aired. Set in the 1950s, when young British men were still obliged to undergo compulsory National Service in one of the armed forces, my recollections of this series take me back, nevertheless, to the late 1970s, when such National Service seemed a dim and remote memory (to teenagers like myself, smugly ineligible). It aired in that bizarre cusp or hinge of time between decadent hippie-dom (concept albums, and rock stars in mansions) and early punk, and sought to demythologise the wizard-prang, pipe-between-the-teeth image of the RAF by showing the lowly, earthbound National Service recruits to the air force ("Though you're in the RAF, you'll never see a plane" went one line of the theme song). The recruits ("erks", if memory serves) were the standard-issue collection of heterogeneous types, running the gamut of the English class system and its miscellaneous sub-categories, most notably including the brilliant David Janson, subsequently much under-used, and the no less brilliant Robert Lindsay, in his first starring role (pre-"Citizen Smith"). Presiding over these raw recruits was the fearsome NCO, Tony Selby, a superb utility actor who had graced "The Avengers", "Ace Of Wands" and many another must-see British series of the late 60s and early 70s. With a strong cast, and what seemed at the time to be funny scripts, it is puzzling that this series has never re-aired, but perhaps it reflected too closely the PC insensitivities of the 50s. Our loss!

One of the most depressing symptoms of the phenomenon of "dumbing down" is the drastically diminished time-frame of people's imagination and empathy, which function well enough microscopically and telescopically (at a range of, say, two or three hundred years, or the day before yesterday), but which cannot make the small leap back thirty or forty years. It is surely on such grounds that Jerry Lewis's masterpiece, "The Nutty Professor", might be dismissed as "dated" or be found "unfunny". Ever since I saw this movie as a child back in the late 60s it has haunted my imagination, and taken on a mythic existence that floats free of its actual content and context. On recently viewing it again on a borrowed videocassette I was startled by the internal organisation of the movie, by its pacing, and by the fact that Kelp's odious alter-ego, Buddy Love, who dominates the movie conceptually, is actually on screen for so little of its longish running-time. Since childhood I had cherished Buddy Love for his wit, glamour and self-assurance, which contrast so strongly (and therapeutically) with the painful gaucheness of Julius Kelp. Only now, as a mature adult, do I fully appreciate just how fundamentally unlikeable he is.

It is interesting to note that his allure works better at a distance: idolised by the hipster habitues of the Purple Pit, he is viewed with deep suspicion by Stella Purdy, even as he fascinates and intrigues her. "The Nutty Professor" is as firmly located in its milieu (the United States of the early 60s) as "War And Peace" is in its (Tsarist Russia at the time of the Napoleonic Wars); therefore, talk of "datedness" is beside the point. As an exact picture of life in 2001 the film is hopeless, but as a myth or parable, with Kelp, Buddy Love, Stella, et al., as archetypes, its power is undiminished. Jerry Lewis has never been happy playing it straight, and Buddy Love is as extreme and grotesque in his way as the hapless Kelp. He is also by no means entirely free of Kelp's flaws; his clumsiness during the slow dance with Stella shows how aspects of Kelp's personality continue to permeate his, and point to the incompleteness and volatility of the metamorphosis. Even his name, opportunistically extemporised for Stella's benefit, contains a deep irony, since, in spite of his superficial popularity and supreme sexual confidence, he is essentially friendless and incapable of deep feeling. If kindly Kelp is crippled by involuted intelligence, the sybaritic, self-seeking Buddy Love is stunted by affectlessness. (I am puzzled by the IMDb reviewer who found him insufficiently monstrous.)

Buddy Love's glittering lounge suits emit a satanic glow, and Jennifer, the caged mynah-bird, is a kind of familiar to Kelp, whose Faustian alchemy effects his painfully achieved and all-too-brief transformations into this eerie nightclub singer who generally only appears after nightfall (his one diurnal appearance being a spectacularly successful bid to persuade the otherwise pompous college Principal to sanction his headlining performance at the Senior Prom). In view of their acrimonious split it is tempting to view the Buddy Love persona as an acerbic commentary on Lewis's erstwhile partner Dean Martin, but the character also contains generous helpings of Frank Sinatra, and is perhaps best seen as a broad swipe at the Rat Pack. The wider message of the film is that kindness and intelligence (which Kelp already possesses) are far more important than the kind of shallow and flashy qualities that invest Buddy Love with his powerful but limited appeal (the rapid wearing-off of Kelp's formula, whose ingestion is attended by such agonising side-effects, shows that such a persona is literally unsustainable for any length of time).

Kelp's final speech at the Prom, when his appearance as Buddy Love has been cut catastrophically short, is indeed "heart-wrenching", but as both a summing-up of the main themes of the movie and a token of Kelp's increased self-knowledge, it is indispensable. This brilliant and disturbing film uses comedy as a vehicle to explore serious questions about the nature of identity. The Kelp who wins Stella's love is a better-integrated personality than either his earlier self or the grotesque alter-ego of Buddy Love, but a note of mild cynicism (defusing any hint of sentimentality in Kelp's Prom speech) is sounded when Stella pockets two phials of the formula put on sale by Kelp's formerly timid father (to whom he had entrusted it). (He had also entrusted it, of course, to his domineering mother, but it is perhaps significant to observe that the formula presumably only works with men.)

One of the most depressing symptoms of the phenomenon of "dumbing down" is the drastically diminished time-frame of people's imagination and empathy, which function well enough microscopically and telescopically (at a range of, say, two or three hundred years, or the day before yesterday), but which cannot make the small leap back thirty or forty years. It is surely on such grounds that Jerry Lewis's masterpiece, "The Nutty Professor", might be dismissed as "dated" or be found "unfunny". Ever since I saw this movie as a child back in the late 60s it has haunted my imagination, and taken on a mythic existence that floats free of its actual content and context. On recently viewing it again on a borrowed videocassette I was startled by the internal organisation of the movie, by its pacing, and by the fact that Kelp's odious alter-ego, Buddy Love, who dominates the movie conceptually, is actually on screen for so little of its longish running-time. Since childhood I had cherished Buddy Love for his wit, glamour and self-assurance, which contrast so strongly (and therapeutically) with the painful gaucheness of Julius Kelp. Only now, as a mature adult, do I fully appreciate just how fundamentally unlikeable he is.

It is interesting to note that his allure works better at a distance: idolised by the hipster habitues of the Purple Pit, he is viewed with deep suspicion by Stella Purdy, even as he fascinates and intrigues her. "The Nutty Professor" is as firmly located in its milieu (the United States of the early 60s) as "War And Peace" is in its (Tsarist Russia at the time of the Napoleonic Wars); therefore, talk of "datedness" is beside the point. As an exact picture of life in 2001 the film is hopeless, but as a myth or parable, with Kelp, Buddy Love, Stella, et al., as archetypes, its power is undiminished. Jerry Lewis has never been happy playing it straight, and Buddy Love is as extreme and grotesque in his way as the hapless Kelp. He is also by no means entirely free of Kelp's flaws; his clumsiness during the slow dance with Stella shows how aspects of Kelp's personality continue to permeate his, and point to the incompleteness and volatility of the metamorphosis. Even his name, opportunistically extemporised for Stella's benefit, contains a deep irony, since, in spite of his superficial popularity and supreme sexual confidence, he is essentially friendless and incapable of deep feeling. If kindly Kelp is crippled by involuted intelligence, the sybaritic, self-seeking Buddy Love is stunted by affectlessness. (I am puzzled by the IMDb reviewer who found him insufficiently monstrous.)

Buddy Love's glittering lounge suits emit a satanic glow, and Jennifer, the caged mynah-bird, is a kind of familiar to Kelp, whose Faustian alchemy effects his painfully achieved and all-too-brief transformations into this eerie nightclub singer who generally only appears after nightfall (his one diurnal appearance being a spectacularly successful bid to persuade the otherwise pompous college Principal to sanction his headlining performance at the Senior Prom). In view of their acrimonious split it is tempting to view the Buddy Love persona as an acerbic commentary on Lewis's erstwhile partner Dean Martin, but the character also contains generous helpings of Frank Sinatra, and is perhaps best seen as a broad swipe at the Rat Pack. The wider message of the film is that kindness and intelligence (which Kelp already possesses) are far more important than the kind of shallow and flashy qualities that invest Buddy Love with his powerful but limited appeal (the rapid wearing-off of Kelp's formula, whose ingestion is attended by such agonising side-effects, shows that such a persona is literally unsustainable for any length of time).

Kelp's final speech at the Prom, when his appearance as Buddy Love has been cut catastrophically short, is indeed "heart-wrenching", but as both a summing-up of the main themes of the movie and a token of Kelp's increased self-knowledge, it is indispensable. This brilliant and disturbing film uses comedy as a vehicle to explore serious questions about the nature of identity. The Kelp who wins Stella's love is a better-integrated personality than either his earlier self or the grotesque alter-ego of Buddy Love, but a note of mild cynicism (defusing any hint of sentimentality in Kelp's Prom speech) is sounded when Stella pockets two phials of the formula put on sale by Kelp's formerly timid father (to whom he had entrusted it). (He had also entrusted it, of course, to his domineering mother, but it is perhaps significant to observe that the formula presumably only works with men.)

Does anyone else remember this series, which was something of a cult among my circle of teenage friends in London, England, in the late 70s? I can see from the IMDb entry that it only ran to 14 episodes, so I imagine the plug was pulled on it pretty quickly. (This often seems to be the case with shows that are too good.) I've no idea how it would hold up now, since it has never, to my knowledge, been repeated on British TV, but I have fond memories of this series. My friends and I thought that Heather Menzies was very pretty, but we were especially impressed by the android, Rem. If "Lost In Space" and "Land Of The Giants" were my preferred viewing in the late 60s, "Planet Of The Apes" and "Logan's Run" (in their TV-series manifestations) were my shows of choice in the late 70s.

Hinge and Bracket enjoy a well-deserved cult following in the UK for their extraordinary act. This consists of two quite obviously camp men pretending, with staggering verisimilitude, to be two bickering elderly spinsters who perform as a musical duo. Dame Hilda Bracket and Dr Evadne Hinge are singer and accompanist respectively, inhabiting a world of old-fashioned gentility in the fictional home-counties village of Stackton Tressell. It is difficult to convey the essence of their brilliant act, but it arises both from the tension between their creators' real and assumed identities, and that between the sexless gentility of their surroundings and the raunchy innuendo of their catty exchanges. "Dear Ladies" was an attempt to distil their stage act into a situation-comedy format. I was an avid admirer of the show when it was originally screened, but have not had the opportunity to re-view it, since it has never, to the best of my knowledge, been repeated. (I sincerely hope that the videotapes have not been wiped.) I do recall, however, that it was one of the most consistently hilarious comedy shows I have ever seen, and I would dearly love to see it again.

As a child growing up in England in the late 60s, my favourite TV show was "Lost in Space", but "Land of the Giants", which replaced it from time to time in the schedules, was only slightly less intriguing. It didn't boast a character quite so camply magnificent as Dr Zachary Smith (my lifelong hero!), but its parallel-world scenario struck me as deeply haunting and thought-provoking. All of the reviewers who berate LIS and LOTG for their creaky plots and primitive special effects are missing the point; these shows relied on a willing suspension of disbelief, and the imaginative collaboration of their audience (for the most part, children). I pity rather than envy the present generation of children, whose dreams are delivered to them ready made.

Other than the justly celebrated films of Cliff Richard and The Beatles, British pop musicals of the early 60s are not highly esteemed. They are generally seen as having been blatantly derivative at the time and hopelessly dated now. If "Summer Holiday" and "A Hard Day's Night" represent the very best of this somewhat narrow genre it is likely that "Every Day's A Holiday" would be considered - if at all - as one of the very minor also-rans. Having watched a recent repeat of this film, however, I found it highly entertaining. In essence it is a Cliff Richard film without Cliff, who is replaced, insofar as he can be, by John Leyton, a young actor-turned-pop star (and sometime Joe Meek protege). As in the Cliff films, the musical numbers are strung along a purposely lightweight romantic plotline, and both Ron Moody and Richard O'Sullivan are held over from the Cliff entourage. The cinematography, courtesy of a young Nic Roeg, makes this film a pleasure to watch, and the musical numbers, if undistinguished by the high standards of The Beatles and Cliff, are enjoyable. As in so many films of this period, the choreography - performed by an accomplished dance-troupe - betrays the unmistakable influence of "West Side Story". The likeable cast includes Mike Sarne, Grazina Frame, Liz Fraser, Nicholas Parsons, the late Michael Ripper and the late Hazel Hughes. Sarne (improbably but effectively cast as a young aristocrat-about-town, Tim) vies with the decently working-class Gerry (Leyton) for the attentions of the no less high-born Christina (Frame). Disappointingly for sociologically-minded film buffs there is only the most superficial investigation of the class issues inherent in the situation, but, of course, this is entirely as it should be in an escapist entertainment of this sort. (Indeed, in the naively optimistic mood of the mid-60s, class was starting to be perceived as not especially problematic, with an overall youth culture transcending such ancient barriers.) Unlike Gerry, who is hopelessly smitten, the vain and self-regarding (but strangely appealing) Tim casts his romantic net rather more widely, notably demonstrating - albeit with somewhat qualified success! - the "beatnik approach" to wooing. His dalliance with holiday camp manager Mr Close's (Charles Lloyd Pack) ripely sexy secretary Miss Slightly (Liz Fraser) prospers somewhat better, given her enthusiasm for sex (made evident early in the film), and her equally evident eventual inebriation. Indeed, in its rather innocent way, "Every Day's A Holiday" is pre-occupied with sex (as distinct from chaste romance) to a far greater degree than most of the youth films of the time; certainly far more than the Cliff films that it otherwise resembles. Most noteworthy among its various set pieces is a mind-bogglingly brilliant and surreal sequence featuring Freddie and the Dreamers as chefs. Nicholas Parsons plays a pretentious and overwrought TV director, first cousin, so to speak, to Victor Spinetti in "A Hard Day's Night", although from internal evidence (an allusion to Harold Macmillan during a bingo game), "Every Day's A Holiday" would seem to be the earlier of the two films. In addition to the "in-house" performers and Freddie and the Dreamers, there is a fleeting appearance by The Mojos. Despite the presence of these two bands, however, the ethos of the film is more Cliff/Shadows/Meek than Merseybeat. Highly recommended.

"A Jolly Bad Fellow" follows the exploits of a cynical middle-aged don (Leo McKern) at an Oxbridge-like university. A scientist, with a cold-bloodedly rationalist outlook, he is at odds with his other dons, a collection of fusty classicists who view him as an interloper. An accidental discovery by his dim-witted lab assistant (Dinsdale Landen) provides him with the means to neutralise those who stand in the way of the academic preferment he seeks. His long-suffering but loving wife (Maxine Audley) tries to overlook his philanderings, not least his liaison with a pretty young female research assistant (Janet Munro).

The film is a curious hybrid. Made at the very start of the swinging 60s, it is nevertheless reminiscent of the earlier Ealing films, of which it is a late example, not least "Kind Hearts and Coronets". There are, however, fleeting contemporary references (to Cliff Richard - a few months later it would have been The Beatles), and Janet Munro, in an adulterous seaside assignation, looks every inch the proto-dolly bird as she strolls along the sea-front, arm-in-arm with her ageing lover.

With a distinguished supporting cast that includes Dennis Price (as an especially pompous fellow academic), "A Jolly Bad Fellow" is at once an amusing and disturbing black comedy. Fans of John Barry will enjoy the superb soundtrack, featuring Alan Haven on organ, which stylistically prefigures that of "The Knack".

With a screenplay by the author of the play on which it is based (Terence Rattigan), "The Browning Version", although it records the manners and morals of an age and social milieu that have now vanished, remains a powerful and deeply moving film, its essential insights intact, and of continued relevance to our own time.

Arthur Crocker-Harris (Michael Redgrave) is a master at an English public school. Once a brilliant young classicist and a promising poet, he has turned into a desiccated, unfeeling and spiteful pedant, despised by his colleagues and feared by his pupils. Ill-health has prompted his early retirement, but it is apparent that his departure will go unmourned, in contrast to that of his attractive and personable young wife (Jean Kent), who is well-liked by all.

The genius of this remarkable film consists in the effortless skill with which it inverts the viewer's initial perceptions. Dismissed as outdated and irrelevant after the Angry Young Men of the mid 50s rendered his middle-class scenarios unfashionable, Rattigan was a master technician of drama, and his dialogue and pacing are faultless. Michael Redgrave was born to play the role of Crocker-Harris, to which he brings a restraint and control that render his performance all the more affecting. Asquith shows remarkable judgment in refusing to manipulate the viewer's emotions with a schmaltzy soundtrack (except for a burst of Beethoven at the end, there is no music). In the event this is unnecessary. It is a rare film that moves me to tears, but "The Browning Version" wins this distinction. Do not waste your time on the 1994 re-make.

You have to be a real killjoy not to love this splendidly silly film, a kind of bubblegum version of Romeo and Juliet. However, the film is of some historical interest, featuring footage of the Graham Bond Organisation (urged on by a cane-wielding, mortar-board-donning Reginald Beckwith!). Musical numbers of widely varying merit are interspersed among the unfolding of a mind-bogglingly lightweight romance between a Beatland boy (sometime Joe Meek protege Ian Gregory) and a Balladisle girl, as seen from the viewpoint of a visiting alien (Kenneth Connor). Perhaps this studio-bound cheapathon was UK cinema's last unabashed quota-quickie. What a contrast with John Boorman's wintry, wistful "Catch Us If You Can" (made in the same year), and yet 60s-phobes (of whom there are regrettably many) are likely to bracket the films together as throwaway musicals!