s-allport

Space 1999 big budget British series of the mid seventies it was originally a UFO(an earlier and far superior series) second series which failed to see the light of day.However when UFO was cancelled Gerry Anderson turned the idea into space 1999 which was far less dark and tense than UFO ever was,but the problems soon began to appear bad stories ,bad science, lack of characterization, plot development and no humor at all placed space 1999 into poor/junk science fiction.The proof? people "duck" on Alpha when things nearly hit the moon highly trained staff fall over as a "human barometer" to death/bad situations , banal reactions/scripts to situations/plots, wildly implausible reactions to incredible events poor plot developments I could go on and on.So what about the merits? wonderful(for the time) special effects great model work ,way above average productions values which considering the very large budgets/Andersons technical teams should come as no real shock( some of the shows have all these and more which place them above full fledged science fiction films with higher budgets) yet another great theme tune from Barry Gray just one more of his in a long long line of themes and some interesting ideas which were rarely ever developed or thought through enough.And yet despite all of its faults(did I mention some very very poor acting almost wooden) it was a show that in the mid seventies which filled a void on British TV as really there was only Dr who which was another story of course on the box,and so despite all of its drawbacks those of use who saw it on its first run remember with some affection even though its quite hard to watch it now in the cold light of day,if you are new to it watch and make your own judgment but remember to overlook its faults because if you cant you will struggle to watch all 48 episodes( strangely enough a third series was in the early pre production stage when poor sales and the fact that Lew Grade who was the money man behind virtually all of Andersons stuff, spent a fortune on"raise the titanic" which bombed at the box office causing him to say it would have been cheaper to lower the ocean and also to cancel the series due to lack of funds now who know maybe it might have worked better or perhaps not we will never know) cheers

One of the very best British horror/sc fi films ever made,Hammer films had a strong feeling for Nigel Kneales works indeed the previous two Quatermass outings on TV had provided the basis for the first two Hammer films made with Brian Donlevy(an actor who Kneale hated for his limited acting skills).So some 10 years after the excellent Andre Morell had starred as the good Professor(who had of course already made several Hammer films )Hammer brought "Quatermass and the pit" to the big screen,using Andrew " I was in Dr who" Keir in the lead role,this was a much more understanding ,thoughfull,restrained and fully fleshed out Quatermass than Donlevy could ever hope to be(pleasing kneale far more);The budget of 450 grand or so was quite large by Hammer standards and this can be seen in a polished production with reasonable production standards(apart from fairly basic special effects undertaken by Bowie films).The film is generally thought of as the most faithful of the 3 large screen adaptations of the TV originals and was of course the first in colour,the casting of Juilan Glover ,Barbera Shelly ( another of the hammer rep company stalwarts) etc is spot on and all the cast add depth to the film in whatever role they play.The film itself is well paced and well structured with thoughtful ideas/concepts and is still thought provoking today.This is to be expected as Kneale dealt with interesting ideas/concepts through his long career( see "The wine of India", "The stone tapes" " "The year of the sex Olympics " etc).I recommend this film to all who enjoy good scripts/ideas of a horror/fantasy/sc fi feel without having to rely on over the top gore/special effects to provide a chilling concept,although the film itself did not provide Hammer with the return it was hoping for watch and enjoy(interestingly Kneale did submit a further script for Hammer for a 4th Quatermass film which they rejected,however this was the basis for the 4th outing on TV in 1979 with sir John Mills which so far has yet to be turned into a large screen outing,and Keir did play quatermass one last time on the radio in " the quatermass memoirs for radio 3 in 1996)

Wonderful example of a great British series John Thaw was a fine actor who always brought truth and a high emotional content to the screen,Dennis Waterman is well Dennis Waterman but a capable enough actor to play the sidekick.The film itself is of course a child of its time yes the wallpaper/clothes/cars are all horribly dated as are the simple "moral" attitude's towards women :smoking:drinking etc,but lets remember the "hard men" around in those days were just that "hard men" and they existed on both sides of the fence.Its also got to be remembered that this was a spin off film and that the budget was never going to be high and frankly it did not need to be high as this story does not demand it,perhaps the film does "sag" a little in places and the Malta shoot added very little to the plot,the body count/violence is pushed up but then I guess thats what producers/film makers thought that freed of the shackle's of television you had to go down this path.What the film does have going for it are good to excellent actors who knew there stuff, writers in the shape of the kennedy Martins who also knew how to pitch/sell the police plots in a " tight" structure manner,and the capturing of a time and place IE 70s London which no longer exist.So overlook the pacing the plot holes and the 70s morality and enjoy the snappy patter kipper ties(now you know you had one when you younger) and the Ford motors but above all John Thaw who was one of the uks finest actors in any medium or in Regans way' get your trousers on Tinkerbell your nicked