This MEME originally did the rounds way back when but I thought it'd be nice to revisit it.
"This is not about the best movies you've ever seen. Describe ten experiences watching a movie that stick in your mind as being particularly memorable - for whatever reason."
Star Wars
Still my favourite film of all time, I saw this when it first came out in the UK in early 1978, when I was 9. As I've written about before (which you can read here), I was very aware of the film and very eager to see it. We'd already tried to get into one showing but it was full, so Dad took me and my friend Claire back to Rothwell. We headed off down the Rec. to play - it was cold and there was a lot of fog - and only realised the time when we could hear Dad calling us, to go to the next showing. My main memory from that day is watching the Star Destroyer come over the camera in almost the first shot and I knew I’d never seen anything like it before in my life.
I was lucky enough to see it in the cinema a few more times - a double-bill with The Empire Strikes Back and then a triple-bill (what a marathon that was) with both Empire and Return Of The Jedi - and I also caught the special editions at the cinema too.
Even better, I got to watch the films again with Dude and it was wonderful to re-experience them through his eyes!
Dead Ringers
My friend Craig & I went to the cinema a lot in the late 80s/early 90s, alternating between the Kettering, Burton Latimer and Corby ‘theatres’. Can’t do that now, can we, Mr Odeon? I’d loved David Cronenberg’s films since watching Videodrome (which I wrote about here) and Scanners in the mid-80s, so rushed along to see this. It wasn’t a popularly held view - including me and Craig, there were only 6 people in the cinema. It’s the quietest I’ve ever heard an audience file out - all of us looked shocked and white faced - but what a brilliant film it is.
Basic Instinct
Not the greatest film ever, I know but Alison & I went out as mates on a cinema trip to The Point in Milton Keynes. We booked a double bill, watched Waynes World first and then went to get something to eat. Midway through I asked her to go out with me so therefore our first film as a couple was Verhoven’s sleazy thriller. Well, it could be worse…
The Land Before Time
Back in the late 80s, I often took my kid sister Sarah to the cinema during school holidays (video was starting to get a real grip, but we didn’t have a player, so the only place to see big Disney films was at the flicks). I picked this particular film out of the many because it vividly reminds me, every time I think of it, of the difference between kids and adults (I would have been in my late teens, Sarah around 5 or 6). One of the dinosaurs’ mothers dies, right near to the start and the kids in the audience went mental (it was quite a spectacular death if I remember rightly), laughing and shouting. I thought it was very sad and looked around, trying to see if I was alone in that and wiping away a stray tear. Turns out I wasn’t - whilst most of the kids were thoroughly enjoying themselves, most of the adults seemed to have “something in their eye”.
Whore
I went to see this at The Point, in Milton Keynes, with a friend of mine called Julie. It was my suggestion - I'd enjoyed the Ken Russell films I'd seen to that point and I liked Theresa Russell a lot. The film started. It was vile. It got worse. To date - and I’ve seen a lot of films at the cinema - this is only film I’ve ever walked out of.
Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger
1977 - my friends and I went on our own to a matinee showing of this (I assume none of our parents wanted to sit through it). The cinema was chaotic, popcorn everywhere, a lot of noise and we 8 year olds were thrilled to be there on our own. The noise quietened down during the film and I remember I liked it - a feeling no doubt helped because of the presence of Ms Lambs Navy Rum herself, Caroline Munro (who, many years later, I got to meet - as I wrote about here). A friend of mine, who’d already seen the film, kept telling me about this huge seal that came out of the ice to attack the goodies and I was, quite frankly, terrified. Then I saw it and, for the first time, realised that my imagination, on occasion, could be far more powerful than what film-makers could get on the screen.
Fatal Attraction
For our first date (I do pick them, don’t I?), I took my new girlfriend Sara to see this at the Northampton ABC - a beautiful old Art Deco theatre, complete with a balcony and organ that came out of the stage, which is now a Jesus Army Centre (thanks for that, Mr Out-Of-Town Multiplex). I enjoyed the film and, as soon as it appeared that Glenn Close was dead in the bath, I knew what was going to happen. This is why, when she leapt out of the water only to be shot by Ann Archer, I was watching the rest of the cinema-goers rather than the screen. And I swear it was as if everyone moved into the seat directly behind them, a living, screaming ripple effect. I’ve never seen anything like it since.
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
Never the biggest Star Trek fan, I don't think I'd even see Wrath Of Khan (probably my favourite of them all) when this was released but one of the tabloids offered free tickets if you queued at the nearest relevant cinema and that seemed like a good idea. The closest one to us was the Northampton ABC so me, my friend Steve and his sister spent a happy few hours in the queue, chatting to our fellow would-be patrons. We got the tickets, I enjoyed the film and later wrote an essay about the day, which won an English prize that year at school.
Raiders Of The Lost Ark Nick (who I've known since 1976 and is still my best friend) and I had a falling out during the summer of 1981. Not being friends wasn’t at all pleasant but, typically for pre-teens, as horrible as it was neither of us was going to back down (and I can’t even remember what caused us to fall out). It just so happened that, at the same time, Raiders Of The Lost Ark arrived at the cinema and nobody I knew wanted to see it - they either didn’t like spiders or snakes or ghosts. Quite by chance, our mum’s met in the high street and, whilst talking, discovered both of us wanted to see the film but didn't have anyone to go and see it with. I can’t remember now who made the first move but we made up, went to see the film and haven’t fallen out since. The irony is that now I like horror films and Nick doesn’t, yet it was me at the time who covered his eyes when the first ‘angel’ turns into a ghoul at the climax! It's a fact Nick has never let me forget.
A brilliant, stirring film, Raiders remains one of my all-time favourites.
An American Werewolf In London
I've long been a fan of the film (I wrote a retrospective on it here) and adore it but had only ever seen it at home or with friends, first on murky VHS, then on gorgeous DVD (where I finally realised the figure steaming in the night air was the original werewolf and not Jack, as I'd always thought). When a company called Luna Flix began showing open air films at Stanwick Lakes, my friend David & I jumped at the chance to go and see this, the evening of the showing coinciding with a full moon, which was terrific. The film looked gorgeous, it was great to see it under the stars and on a big screen and the whole experience was great fun (I wrote about it here).
Frenzy, Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s 52nd film as director, opened in the UK on 25th May 1972. It was produced by William Hill, written by Anthony Shaffer (from the novel by Arthur La Bern) and the director of photography was Gil Taylor. Syd Cain was the production designer, Albert Whitlock supervised the visual effects and John Jympson was the editor.
After the brutal murder of his ex-wife, down-on-his luck former RAF pilot Richard Blaney is suspected of being the ‘Neck Tie Murderer’, a vicious serial killer terrorising London. With the help of his friends, Blaney goes on the run, determined to prove his innocence.
In 1970, looking for a new project after Topaz (1969), Sir Alfred Hitchcock was given a copy of Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square by Arthur La Bern and he later told journalist Rebecca Morehouse “I was attracted by the market [scenes] and by the central figure, an Air Force man who is always a loser. Today is the day of the non-hero, isn't it?” Excited by the novel and its location, he pitched it to Lew Wasserman and Edd Henry at Universal over a lunchtime meeting and they agreed to make it, on a $2.8m budget.
Hitchcock decided it would be best to make the film in London with an all-British cast and rang playwright Anthony Shaffer, whose Sleuth was then a hit on Broadway, to ask him to adapt the novel. After Shaffer (who originally thought the call was from friends playing a joke) agreed, the two men met in New York in January 1971 to discuss the adaption, before going to London to scout locations, looking over Hyde Park, Leicester Square, Piccadilly, Oxford Street, Bayswater, Hammersmith and Covent Garden Market.
The script meetings continued throughout February and several parts of the novel were cut back, such as the court scenes, or excised altogether, such as Blaney's escape to France. In addition, Hitchcock insisted on using phrases from his childhood (spent in London), as Shaffer explained to Donald Spoto, “[he] was intractable about not modernising the dialogue of the picture, and he kept inserting antique phrases I knew would cause the British public a hearty laugh or even some annoyance.”
The downbeat ending of the book was changed to a more satisfying conclusion and Hitchcock and Shaffer added a recurring theme of food, along with biblical references to the Garden of Eden and Original Sin. The part of Chief Inspector Oxford was also enhanced and light relief added during mealtime scenes with his haute cuisine interested wife who was busy carrying out culinary experiments. Although Shaffer wrote the screenplay on his own, which was completed well before filming began, Hitchcock had a firm idea of where he wanted the story to go and co-wrote the 55-page treatment the 160-page script was based on.
Mrs Oxford (Vivien Merchant) serves up another delight for Chief Inspector Oxford (Alec McCowen)
Casting for actors and crew began in May and Hitchcock renewed some old professional acquaintances. Cinematographer Gil Taylor had been clapper-boy on Number Seventeen (1932), sound mixer Peter Handford worked on Under Capricorn (1949) and Elsie Randolph (who plays Gladys the hotel clerk) had appeared in East Of Shanghai (1931).
Hitchcock cast seasoned British actors for the other roles, recognised in the UK but relatively unknown in Hollywood at the time. Alec McCowen (Chief Inspector Oxford), Barry Foster (Bob Rusk), Billie Whitelaw (Hetty Porter), Anna Massey (Barbara Milligan), Vivien Merchant (Mrs Oxford) and Barbara Leigh-Hunt (as Brenda Blaney) from the stage were joined by TV stars Bernard Cribbens (Felix Forsythe), Michael Bates (Sergeant Spearman), Clive Swift (Johnny Porter) and Jean Marsh (Monica Barling). As he had with Psycho (1960), where Norman Bates is much older than Anthony Perkins, Hitchcock cast the much younger Jon Finch as the anti-hero Richard Blaney (who, named Blarney, is nearly fifty in the novel) though when he later openly criticised the script to journalists, Hitchcock was close to recasting - he'd wanted Michael Caine for the Rusk role but the actor turned it down (“I don’t want to be associated with the part”). Hitchcock had seen both Foster and Billie Whitelaw in Twisted Nerve (1968).
Bob Rusk (Barry Foster, on the right) helps out his old friend Richard Blaney (Jon Finch)
With regard to the look, Hitchcock told Gil Taylor he wanted “a realistic nightmare, rather than a ‘Hammer Horror’” with Covent Garden as the backdrop, referring back to a selection of Vermeer paintings. The son of a Covent Garden merchant, Hitchcock was keen to film at the market and, perhaps aware its working days were numbered (it remains a thriving tourist part of London today), to document it too.
Hitchcock’s wife, Alma, had flown to London intending to spend a few weeks in England before embarking on a European tour with their daughter Patricia and granddaughter Mary. After a weekend break to Scotland, Alma suffered a serious stroke and was treated at Claridge’s Hotel by Hitchcock’s personal physician. She recovered enough to watch dailies with her husband and Barry Foster said later that Hitchcock awaited her reaction “like a schoolboy, showing his homework to the teacher.” Alma flew home to Los Angeles in October to receive further treatment.
Hitchcock on the Thames
Filming began in the last week of July 1971 with assistant director Colin Brewer heading the second unit, as well as handling many of the first unit set-ups for Hitchcock, who was suffering badly with arthritis.
Hitchcock in Covent Garden with Gil Taylor (centre) and Colin Brewer
Filming progressed smoothly and though a lot of the exteriors were filmed around Covent Garden, plenty of other London locations were utilised including Tower Bridge and County Hall (for the opening sequence), the Coburg Hotel on Bayswater Road, Hyde Park and the London Hilton on Park Lane. Brenda Blaney’s flat is in Ennismore Gardens Mews and her matrimonial agency is at Dryden Chambers (since demolished), just off Oxford Street. Filming also took place at New Scotland Yard, Wormwood Scrubs and St Mary Abbot’s hospital and the production was granted permission to film inside the Old Bailey the first full weekend in August. The interiors were filmed at Pinewood Studios, with sets often on stand-by to serve as ‘weather cover’.
Hitchcock with Anna Massey
Hitchcock puts in his traditional cameo appearance during the opening scene at County Hall, where he’s in the middle of the crowd wearing a bowler hat. Teaser trailers showed his dummy floating in the River Thames.
The final three weeks of filming were taken up with the complex sequence on the potato truck and principal photography ended after thirteen weeks on 14th October, though the second-unit worked for another week.
The celebrated tracking shot out of Rusk's flat, which is as stunning now as it was then, was filmed using a camera dolly since the steadicam wouldn’t be invented for a couple of years. The interior was filmed at Pinewood Studios, the exterior (the edit masked by a passing porter) at 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden.
During the shoot, Hitchcock was reportedly happiest when filming around Covent Garden, a place he hadn’t visited in decades but where he’d spent time with his father. Anna Massey later said, “It’s a brutal film, but full of things Hitchcock loved - like food, and London - and it’s a very loving portrayal of Covent Garden market.”
In interview, Anthony Shaffer said, “An old chap made his way up to Hitchcock at the market...and said, ‘I remember your father here, in all this mud.’ Hitchcock was delighted, took the man for an expensive lunch and had a long talk to him about his dad.”
Hitchcock, at Pinewood Studios, works with Barry Foster (left) and Alex McCowen
The film also included this incredible Albert Whitlock matte painting of Covent Garden - the only 'live' section is the space between the green door and the truck.
Hitchcock returned to Los Angeles on 26th October and he and John Jympson created the rough cut of the film during November. The editor then flew back to London to supervise post-synching of the dialogue and Henry Mancini began work on the score.
Best known for Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961) and the Pink Panther series, Mancini had also scored The Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954) and Touch of Evil (1958). He told Catherine Scott of The Guardian, “‘Frenzy’ is very low-key picture about a neck-tie murderer, and what I have done is to just cut off the orchestra round middle C. There is none of the screeching, high, intense sounds that would be thought a little melodramatic today. It is very sparse... there's not a lot going on, but what there is will, I trust, sound pretty spooky.”
Hitchcock attended the London recording sessions in mid-December and then rejected the completed score outright. Mancini later said, “he decided that it didn’t work, [he felt] the score was macabre, which puzzled me because it was a film with many macabre things it in. It wasn't an easy decision to accept, and it was crushing when it happened...” Unlike his acrimonious split with Bernard Hermann over the rejected score for Torn Curtain (1966), relations remained amicable and Mancini mentions in his autobiography that Hitchcock sent him a case of Château Haut-Brion magnums.
Hitchcock then hired British composer Ron Goodwin, providing him with thorough instructions and notes regarding the new score. The recording sessions for this took a week, beginning Monday 31st January 1972. By mid-February, Jympson had edited in Goodwin’s score and the film was sent back to Los Angeles where small adjustments were made before the end of the month.
Due to the content - it’s the first Hitchcock film to show nudity and the sex killing was very strong for the time (it still is, to be honest) - this was the first of the director’s films to receive an ‘R’ rating in the US and an ‘X’ in the UK.
Hitchcock in Cannes
Frenzy was shown, out of competition, at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1972 where it was hailed as a “late-career masterpiece”. He’d been worried - as hard as it is to believe now, there were people at the time who believed Hitchcock was becoming irrelevant - but the critical praise buoyed him. At a screening in Paris, Francois Truffaut (a great fan and terrific director in his own right) said the Hitchcock touch was much in evidence and that the old master was “still experimenting”.
Alma, with the dummy Hitchcock head
The trailer also features Hitchcock, in amusing mood. “This,” he says, “is the scene of a horrible murder - it’s the famous wholesale fruit and vegetable market, Covent Garden. Here, you may buy the fruits of evil and the horrors of vegetables.” At that point, a foot sticks up out of a potato sack.
The London premiere was held on 25th May 1972 and critical reception was generally very good though several complained it was distasteful. One of these was Arthur La Bern who wrote, in a letter to the editor of The Times, “Sir, I wish I could share John Russell Taylor's enthusiasm for Hitchcock's distasteful film. The result on the screen is appalling.” The issue of the films graphic nature was discussed widely and both the US and UK censors had required minor cuts to the murder sequence (though Hitchcock and Shaffer had toned down the violence from the novel).
By this time, Alma had recovered sufficiently well that she was able to accompany Hitchcock on the publicity tour which lasted well into the year.
Frenzy received four Golden Globe Award nominations - Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score - but didn’t win any. It ended 1972 listed at number 33 in Variety’s “Top 50 Grossing Films of the Year” list, with a box-office take of $4.8m. On a budget of $2.8m, to date it has earned over $21m.
Happy anniversary, Frenzy. As Bob Rusk might say, “lovely...”
When I blogged about "poster magazines" before (you can read the 2019 post here and the 2020 post here), it certainly struck a chord but I was surprised to find people my age had never heard of them. So, here's a few more...
Me, in 1978, with my hero
Poster magazines were essentially A4 glossy colour magazines which folded out into a (large) A1-sized sheet. One side would be the magazine (with articles and plenty of photographs) while the reverse would be a giant poster and, depending on what you’d bought, the image might be a person, an action scene or the film poster. I had several and most kids I knew had at least one huge poster on their wall.
The possibilities were endless. Dez Skinn (before he created Starburst magazine) produced Monster Mag which featuredgory movie stills from the likes of Hammer Films and Amicus. Music was a big draw (singers and bands alike, as well as musical styles - my friend, the writer Mark Morris, remembers having punk ones on his wall). You could pick up magazines devoted to TV series like Star Trek (a whole run of them), The Six Million Dollar Man, Doctor Who, Space: 1999, The Professionals, The Hulk, Battlestar Galactica and Planet of the Apes. Film tie-in's were especially popular - if it was a blockbuster (and the 70s and 80s were full of them), there'd be a poster magazine on the newsagents shelves sooner rather than later (featuring the likes of Star Wars, Superman and James Bond). spacemonstersmag reckons the magazines died out in the 1990's, which is a shame. I still have a few in my collection (though not on the walls of my study) and think they’re great fun, another nostalgic item for film and TV fans of a certain age.
Did you have any? Which ones were on your wall?
1974
1978
1978
1978 (clearly a bumper year for Poster magazines!)
When I was a kid, a major ambition of mine was to make a feature film. Regular readers will know I'm endlessly fascinated by the behind-the-scenes process on films (especially miniatures and matte paintings) and that started in my childhood, fed by watching Clapperboard and reading Look-In. I particularly loved it when Mum & Dad let me stay up to watch Film (whatever year it was) with dear old Barry Norman.
Growing up through the 70s and 80s, video cameras were a pipe-dream and cine cameras were far more expensive than my family could afford so you can perhaps understand why this became a kind of Holy Grail for me. To try and create something visual, I ended up making various "photo-stories", which satisfied me for a while.
(for those who don't know, "photo-stories" were a staple of some boys and girls comics back in the day, replacing hand-drawn panels in a comic strip of posed stills. Girls comics used them for problem pages, whilst I remember Eagle comic featuring a strip called Doomlord, amongst others. There were also photo-novels - novelisations using film stills rather than prose - but the less said about them, probably the better).
What reminded me of all this was discovering some photographs over the weekend, of one such 'strip' I wrote.
The above picture was taken in 1981 and features my Dad, me and my school friend Geoff Burbidge. We were making a story about a bounty hunter (or in effect, a very close homage to a strip called Man Tracker from The Crunch comic, which I wrote about here). I also used this image as the cover of a novel (or, as it'd be deemed now, a long-ish short story) I wrote in 1982 called Hadley Hall Comprehensive (and which I blogged about here).
Left - Nick walks away as Geoff (in my Dad's old trilby) threatens me. Look at those clothes - Harrington jackets, jeans and trainers! What a look! Right - Nick's brother Chris (I recruited absolutely anyone who showed the slightest expression of interest!) takes aim at Nick and Geoff. Wonderfully, this shot inadvertently captured history. The billboard and waste-ground Chris & I were standing on is long gone, the new library in its place. The private house beyond the awning is now a Tesco Express store.
I never gained the means to make films of my own and so I never got the chance to enter the Clapperboard Young Filmmakers competition. I did eventually make some films on VHS, with a school friend called Matt Ratcliff, but that was much later in the 80s and into the early 90s and all of them were zero-budget horror flicks. I'll tell you about them one day.
Now, of course, everyone with a smartphone has the technology to make films but my focus has shifted to writing only (though some of my ideas do start off as me seeing them in filmic terms). Years back, however, Dude & I made several LEGO stop-motion epics and we both had a great deal of fun with that.
I wonder how things would have turned out if I'd had the technology at my disposal then that I do now?
For Your Eyes Only, the twelfth James Bond film in the official EON series (and the fifth to feature Roger Moore in the lead role), opened in the UK on 26th June 1981. It was directed by John Glen (the first in his eventual five-film run), produced by Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli and written by Richard Maibaum & Michael G. Wilson. Peter Lamont was the production designer, Derek Meddings supervised the visual effects and Bill Conti wrote the score. The film was originally planned for release in 1979 to follow The Spy Who Loved Me (it’s announced at the end of that film) but was put back to allow Moonraker to go into production.
UK quad poster
Following the outer space excess of Moonraker (which remained the series highest grossing entry until Goldeneye in 1995), producer Cubby Broccoli wanted a conscious return to the style of the earlier Bond films and, indeed, the novels of Ian Fleming. For Your Eyes Only, he decided, would be stripped back of gadgets and humour, allowing for a grittier, more realistic approach - a reboot before they were in fashion, as it were. Broccoli’s stepson, Michael G. Wilson, had been made an executive producer for Moonraker and was given more creative input in the series. He agreed with the need to get back to basics and collaborated on the screenplay with Bond veteran Richard Maibaum. The script took key elements from two of Fleming’s short stories - Risico (Kristatos and Columbo) and For Your Eyes Only (the murder of the Havelocks) - and included unused sequences from Live And Let Die (the keelhauling), Goldfinger (the Indentigraph, called the Identicast in the novel) and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (the winter sports). The macguffin of the film - the ATAC - and the villain Locque were both added by the pair.
As the script was being written, Broccoli had a major problem in that Roger Moore was undecided as to whether or not he wanted to continue. His original three-film contract took him up to The Spy Who Loved Me and following that, he negotiated contracts on a film-by-film basis. This uncertainty led to other actors being considered for the role, including Lewis Collins (then well-known as Bodie in The Professionals), Michael Billington (who played Anya’s lover in The Spy Who Loved Me) and Michael Jayston. Broccoli worked hard to persuade his friend and star to make at least one more film and Moore, helped by a substantial increase in his salary, eventually signed on, though he remained uneasy about the tougher character he was being asked to play. For my part, I think this is probably his best performance as Bond - he still has some quips but they’re toned down from the 70s excesses and his character shows a harder, more vengeful streak. His age also seems to be acknowledged, especially with the young ice skater Bibi - he rebuffs her advances by saying “You get your clothes on and I’ll buy you an ice cream.”
At work in Cortina - front left - Tony Waye (Assistant director), Bob Simmons (Action co-ordinator), Roger Moore, Cubby Broccoli, John Glen, Michael G Wilson
Further to the back-to-basics philosophy, there were several changes in the key crew. John Glen, who’d worked as editor and second unit director on a number of previous Bond films, was promoted to director. Ken Adam, the production designer, was working on Pennies From Heaven in America and when his assistant Peter Lamont was asked who he thought should replace him said “why not me?” Both Glen and Lamont decided to pull back from Adam’s trademark grand sets in favour of a more realistic design.
Of the old guard, both Desmond Llewelyn (Q) and Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny) returned but Bernard Lee, who’d played M since Dr No (1962) was hospitalised with stomach cancer and died on 16th January 1981 before he could film his scenes. As a mark of respect, the part wasn’t recast and his dialogue was split between Q, the Minister Of Defence (Geoffrey Keen) and Bill Tanner (James Villiers).
from left - Carole Bouquet, Lynn-Holly Johnson, Cassandra Harris
Carole Bouquet, who had previously auditioned for the part of Holly Goodhead in Moonraker, was chosen to play the vengeful Melina Havelock and in an interesting twist became the first Bond girl who doesn’t share a love scene with our hero until the closing credits. She is also only a year older than Lynn-Holly Johnson. Julian Glover, who’d once been shortlisted as a potential Bond prior to Live And Let Die was cast as Kristatos, whilst Chaim Topol was suggested by Broccoli’s wife Dana for Bond’s ally Columbo (and it was he who came up with the pistachios quirk). Cassandra Harris, cast as Countess Lisl, took her fiance to lunch with Broccoli and his team, the first time any of them were to meet Pierce Brosnan. Lynn-Holly Johnson, who played Bibi Dahl, was a professional ice skater Broccoli had seen and liked in the film Ice Castles (1978). Michael Gothard played Kristatos’ henchman, the hired assasin Emile Locque, who doesn’t say a single word throughout the film (though he screams as he dies). Unfortunately, the film ends with a cringeworthy sequence featuring then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (played for laughs by Janet Brown) which doesn’t sit with the tone of the film at all, dates it badly and feels like a terrible joke that should have been cut in the scripting stage. Roger Moore reportedly hated it too.
from left - Julian Glover, Topol
Since John Barry was unable to work in the UK at the time, American composer Bill Conti - best known for his work on the Rocky films - was chosen. His score, very much of its time, doesn’t really suit the film (though it’s an decent enough listen) and has dated quite badly (though I maintain that the discordant piano during the ski sequence fits the visuals perfectly). Conti also wrote the music to go with Michael Leeson’s lyrics for the title song, sung by Sheena Easton who maintains the honour of being the only singer to feature in the opening titles. The song reached number 8 in the UK charts, number 4 in the US and was nominated for the Best Song Oscar. Blondie were asked to submit a song but it was rejected - it’s available on their album The Hunter and, I think, would have worked just as well.
On a budget of $28m ($6m less than Moonraker), Bond was ready to head into the 1980s.
“We had gone as far as we could into space. We needed a change of some sort, back to the grass roots of Bond. We wanted to make the new film more of a thriller than a romp, without losing sight of what made Bond famous - its humour.”
- John Glen
Production began on 2nd September 1980 in the North Sea, filming exterior scenes with the St Georges (interiors were shot at Pinewood later, as was the explosion which was filmed in the tank on the 007 stage).
The production moved to Corfu and, on 15th September, began filming at the Villa Sylva at Kanoni, which doubled as Gonzales’ Spanish villa. On a location scout, it had been decided to use the local hills and olive groves for the chase scene between Melina’s Citroën 2CV and the Peugeot 504s driven by Gonzales’ men (Bond’s Lotus was blown up early on to show that he would be relying more on his wits than gadgets). The chase was supervised by Remy Julienne (who would work on every Bond film up to Goldeneye) and filmed over twelve days, using four 2CVs which were modified for the stunts required. The scene includes Roger Moore’s ad-lib “I love a drive in the country, don’t you?” which clearly takes Carole Bouquet by surprise and he has since stated that of all the cars he ever drove as Bond, the 2CV was his favourite.
The Citroen 2CV jumps the Peugeot in the olive groves
The crew moved to Kalambaka on the Greek mainland to shoot in and around the monastery that sits on top of a virtually sheer column of rock. Although permits had been signed and agreed, the monks who lived in the neighbouring monastery of Meteora took exception, complaining that Bond’s reputation for sex and violence was an affront and demanding filming be halted. To prevent filming, they hung laundry out of windows in an attempt to ruin the shots. Local people and the government intervened and shooting was allowed to continue, though only exteriors were used - St Cyrils monastery itself was built at Pinewood. On location, Roger Moore - who has a fear of heights - had to resort to some ‘moderate drinking’ to calm his nerves but the fall was performed by Rick Sylvester (who also did the parachute jump at the start of The Spy Who Loved Me). Derek Meddings developed a system that would dampen the sudden stop and although Sylvester was nervous - he later said “From where we were shooting you could see the local cemetery” - the stunt went without a hitch.
Bond kicks Locque's car off the cliff, the scene that concerned Roger Moore
The raid on Kristatos’ warehouse was also filmed, along with the scene where Bond kicks Locque’s car over the edge of a cliff. Roger Moore felt the scene was too cold-blooded - he said it “was Bond-like, but not Roger Moore Bond-like” (though I would argue his killing of Sandor in The Spy Who Loved Me is just as nasty) - but agreed to film it as originally written. The raid sequence also saw Topol injured, when a piece of debris hit him in the face - the scene is included in the movie, with the actor falling toward Moore.
Could that be Locque, or is it a character from Guess Who?
Returning to Pinewood in Novermber, work began on Peter Lamont’s sets at Pinewood, including the Identigraph scene with Q. On the DVD documentary, Roger Moore (a known practical joker) said he convinced Desmond Llewellyn his dialogue had been changed and handed him new sheets the continuity girl had typed up. Desmond spent his lunch-hour learning the new lines only to discover, when he got on set, that it was a joke. His response is not recorded.
The church in the pre-credits sequence was filmed at Stoke Poges, next door to the golf course from Goldfinger (1964). The sequence of Bond visiting his wife’s grave was written to provide continuity between potentially different actors, when it was still unsure if Moore would be continuing in the role.
Martin Grace hangs on over Beckton Gas Works
The helicopter sequence was filmed at the abandoned Beckton Gas Works in London (later used as a location for Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987)). Featuring some excellent stunt work - Martin Grace was hanging onto the Jet Ranger, whilst Marc Wolff was the pilot - it also included an incredible Derek Meddings foreground miniature, which used forced perspective to allow the helicopter to apparently fly into a warehouse. For footage inside the building, a full-scale mock-up was mounted on a rail, allowing Roger Moore to be filmed inside it. The bald man in the wheelchair was clearly meant to be Blofeld but ongoing legal battles with Kevin McClory meant the character couldn’t be named or properly seen. Unofficially disposing of Bond’s greatest villain down a chimney stack was Cubby Brococli’s perfect way of saying the 007 series could survive without Blofeld, who wouldn’t re-appear until Spectre in 2015.
Not-Blofeld at Beckton Gas Works (Martin Grace on the skid)
Whilst the first unit was in England, the second unit, supervised by Al Giddings, shot the underwater scenes in the Bahamas with stand-ins. Since Carole Bouquet had a sinus condition, she couldn’t film underwater so the close-ups of Bond and Melina were shot on a dry soundstage. Smoke, wind, lighting effects and dubbed on bubbles gave the illusion of the actors being submerged. Giddings also co-ordinated the logistically difficult keelhauling sequence with John Glen. The submarine scenes were filmed at Pinewood on the 007 stage tank, where Peter Lamont created two working props for the Neptune, as well as a mock-up with a fake bottom.
Filming the keelhauling sequence in the Bahamas
On 1st January 1981, the production began work at Cortina D’Ampezzo in Italy, where unusually mild weather meant no snow had fallen. Instead, they had to ship some in from nearby mountains and dump it on the city streets. Bond veteran Willy Bogner Jr led the second unit there and designed the chase sequence with Bob Simmons to surpass his work in both On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and The Spy Who Loved Me. As well as being pursued by two motorcycles with studded tyres (to film them, Bogner used skis that allowed him to go forwards or backwards), Bond is also chased on the bobsled track in a gripping and visually dynamic sequence. Unfortunately, on the last day of shooting the run, one of the stuntmen in the sled, 23 year-old Paolo Rigon, was killed after he became trapped under the bob. Although he was an accomplished cross-country skier, Roger Moore wasn’t insured for downhill skiing so Bogner stood in for him. Close-ups were filmed with Moore strapped to a sled being pulled downhill, as Bogner skied backwards operating the camera.
Locque and his men wait for Bond at the ski jump - from left, Claus (Charles Dance), Locque (Michael Gothard), Erich Kriegler (John Wyman)
Robbin Young, who played the florist, won Playboy’s “Be A James Bond Girl” where her prize was a small role and a spread in the magazine. The film also marked the last appearance by Victor Tourjanksy, the ‘Man With Glass’ from The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker.
First unit filming wrapped in February. Back at Pinewood, Derek Meddings and his team created miniatures of the St George (and blew it up), Columbo’s yacht for the approach to Kristatos’ warehouse and elements of St Cyrils (including the basket lift).
top - film still bottom - Derek Meddings with the foreground miniature exactly duplicating the real building
A member of Derek Meddings' crew at work on the St Georges miniature, just before the diver explodes (hence the miniatures of Bond and Melina)
For Your Eyes Only premiered at the Odeon, Leicester Square on 24th June 1981 before going on general release on 26th June. The premiere was attended by the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer, for the benefit of the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation. Topol suggested to Cubby Broccoli that he invite his former Bond co-producer Harry Salzman, which he did, marking the first re-union between the two men since their break up after The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).
left - Concept art for the poster by Brian Bysouth - right - raw photo of Nancy Stafford (the hand and crossbow used in the poster)
The poster, showing a woman standing with her legs spread, was designed by Bill Gold and caused a certain amount of controversy in the US - The Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times considered it unsuitable and edited out everything above the knee whilst the Pittsburgh Press painted on shorts. I thought it was very good and had a copy of it on my bedroom wall for years. The image is composite from two women Morgan Kane photographed - Joyce Bartle provides the legs (she wore her bikini bottoms the wrong way around) and former Miss Florida Nancy Stafford is the hand holding the crossbow.
Roger Moore presents Cubby Broccoli with his Irving Thalberg Award
Citroen produced a special “007” edition of the 2CV which had decorative bullet holes on the door, Corgi Toys produced die-cast models and a 007 digital watch was also available. Marvel Comics published a comic book adaption (which I read and quite enjoyed), written by Larry Hama and drawn by Howard Chaykin.
At the Oscars on 29th March 1982, Sheena Easton performed the nominated title song and Roger Moore presented Cubby Broccoli with the Irving Thalberg Honorary Award, in honour of the Bond series. The script was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay by The Writers Guild of America.
Setting a record for opening-day grosses (£14,998), it went on to made $195.3m ($509.6m adjusted for inflation) worldwide, making it the second highest grossing Bond film after Moonraker. It was the last Bond film distributed solely by United Artists, as the studio merged with MGM soon after the release.
I like the film a lot though I must admit, at the time, I wasn’t so keen (you have to remember I was 12 when this was released) because after the glorious excess of Moonraker it seemed a bit too pedestrian. But it’s not - the direction is tight, the set-pieces (especially the car chase and the submarine stuff with the St Georges) are suspenseful and well constructed and the acting is good across the board. I’m a fan, so happy 40th anniversary For Your Eyes Only.
Creature From The Black Lagoon opened in the UK on 9th December 1954, having premiered in the USA on 12th February that year. It was directed by Jack Arnold, produced by William Alland and written by Harry Essex & Arthur Ross (story by Maurice Zimm). William E. Snyder was director of photography, Ted Kent was editor, Milicent Patrick created the suit and the team of Henry Mancini, Hans J. Salter and Herman Stein wrote the score.
As a child of the 70s and 80s, I grew up without ready access to the films I often read about in magazines or books and so a lot of my exposure to early horror came if I was allowed to stay up late on a Saturday night to watch one. Then, during one summer – I think it would be been 1980 or 1981 – a lot of classic B&W chillers were shown on BBC2, after tea. Finally, I got to see Lon Chaney as The Phantom, rather than just reading about him and scaring myself silly over the pictures; finally I got to witness Boris Karloff’s superb performance as Frankenstein’s monster and finally, I got to see the creature that, for me, is the highpoint of Universal horror icons.
Assuming it was 1981, I was twelve when I first saw “Creature From The Black Lagoon” and I’ve loved it ever since. Re-visiting it recently, on DVD this time, was a wonderful opportunity to revisit an old friend.
Opening with a prologue that details the formation of earth (but, really, is just an excuse to have loads of things hurtling at the camera to fully utilise the 3D experience), this moves to the present day where a geology expedition in the Amazon uncovers a fossilised hand from the Devonian (I don’t know either) period. The expedition leader, Dr Carl Maia (Antonio Moreno) takes it to his friend, Dr David Reed (Richard Carlson), an ichthyologist and the formers girlfriend Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams). Their financial backer, Dr Mark Williams (Richard Denning), decides to fund an expedition so they sail up the Amazon in an old steamer called Rita, captained by Lucas (Nestor Paiva).
Arriving at Maia’s camp, they discover his workers dead (we, the viewer, get to see the attack, where the Gill-Man is threatened and so fights back) and decide to stay on to look for more fossils. Reed suggests that some rock formations could have been washed downriver and Lucas tells them of the “Black Lagoon”, a paradise from which no-one has returned, at the end of the tributary they are on. They set off, unaware the Gill-Man is watching them, as it’s spotted Kay and likes what he’s seen.
Once at the Lagoon, Reed and Williams go scuba-diving and pick up some samples and then, whilst they’re examining them, Kay goes for a swim and the Gill-Man stalks her, touching her feet with an almost gentle reverence. It then gets caught in the ships net but escapes, accidentally leaving behind a claw to reveal its existence.
After killing two of Lucas’ crew members, the Gill-Man is captured and locked in a cage on the Rita. It escapes and Reed decides that they should return to civilisation but the Gill-Man has other ideas and blocks the lagoon entrance with logs. As the crew attempt to move them, Williams is killed by the creature, who then abducts Kay to take back to his cave. Reed, Lucas and Maia follow, rescuing her and shooting the creature. He is last seen sinking slowly into the depths, presumed dead.
This is a terrifically entertaining film and I really enjoyed it. Ably directed by Jack Arnold (who made, amongst many others, It Came From Outer Space, Revenge Of The Creature, Tarantula, The Incredible Shrinking Man and Monster On The Campus, before moving into TV directing), this keeps up a good pace from the off, with only a couple of slower moments which mainly seem to do with the 3D experience.
The idea originated with William Alland, a close friend of Orson Welles and a member of his Mercury Theatre troupe. While at a party at Welles’ in 1941, the Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa told him about a race of mythical half-fish, half-human creatures in the Amazon River. Alland wrote up notes for “The Sea Monster”, also inspired by Beauty And The Beast and Maurice Zimm expanded these into a treatment in 1952. The script, by Harry Essex and Arthur Ross, keeps the scientific mumbo-jumbo to a minimum, though I could have done without the “Devonian period” and whilst it’s a fairly standard plot, the character interplay is sharp and bouncy.
The production design is terrific, with the main set being Rita in the lagoon and while we never see the whole area, you get the sense of the claustrophobia, which ramps up the suspense when the Gill-Man is on the prowl. The above water scenes were shot at Universal City and various locations across California as well as Florida while the second unit worked underwater at Wakulla Springs in Florida.
The acting is, on the whole, pretty good with Nestor Paiva making the most of his character’s cheerful brashness to hold the screen whenever he’s on, whilst Richard Denning seems to relish his characters nastiness. Julie Adams, the beauty to the Gill-Man’s beast, is more than just decoration, holding her own even when - at times - she’s reduced to simply being the person who screams to alert the others. As for the Gill-Man himself, the two stuntmen who played him - Ben Chapman on land, in a darker suit and Ricou Browning underwater, in a lighter suit - aren’t credited in the film, which is a shame. Chapman couldn’t sit down in the costume (and was on set for 14 hours a day) and overheated in it easily, so he often kept to the back lot lake between takes.
Mind your toes!
The underwater sequences, directed by James C Haven, are beautifully photographed, with the murky depths illuminated by shafts of sunlight that look spectacular. The film spends a good chunk of itsrunning time underwater, highlighting the differences in the worlds though some of the swim-pasts, though they probably looked great, feel like padding in 2D.
Of course, a monster movie lives or dies by the quality of its “star” and this doesn’t disappoint, introducing the Gill-Man early (well, he's plastered all over the advertising!). He even gets his own theme - some jangling horns - and the first ‘shock’ reveal of him, underwater, is still quite unnerving today.
A big element of that is the fantastic suit, though it wasn’t without its disadvantages. The visibilty in the headpiece was poor and, at one point, Chapman bashed Julie Adams’ head as he carried her into the cave. For his part, Browning had to hold his breath for long periods of time so all the air had left the suit before he could move. Designed by Milicent Patrick, though Bud Westmore took the credit, the creature’s facial features were based on a frog, hence the bulging jowls as it breathes. With scales and fins and hands like a wicket keepers gloves, the suit looks superb - on land or in water - and still holds up well when viewed now (as it should, costing $12,000 back then).
This was originally shown in 3D (the director's House Of Wax, made the previous year, was also in 3D), as was the craze at the time but I’ve never seen it in that format and some of the ‘special dimensional effects’ get a bit wearing when watched in 2D. But as a quibble, it’s very minor.
The film was successful enough that two sequels followed - Revenge Of The Creature (1955) and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956).
Creature From The Black Lagoon is a classic, giving the genre at least two highly iconographic images -the Gill-Man himself and the wonderful underwater swimming session with the lovely Julie Adams, sparkling in her white one-piece. What makes the character stronger is that, in the end, he’s a sympathetic creature -he’s only trying to protect himself and his environment from the deadly encroachment of men.
This is a cracking film and very highly recommended.
Whore
