Queen Kong

Director: Frank Agrama
Writer: Frank Agrama, Ron Dobrin
Producer: Keith Cavele
Cast: Robin Askwith, Rula Lenska, Valerie Leon
Year of release: 1976, no 1977, well 2001 actually
Country: UK/Italy
Reviewed from: R1 DVD (Retromedia)

Lost films. There’s always the danger that they won’t live up to expectations. For example, those few people who ever saw London After Midnight reckon that it’s not as good as the stills promise. It therefore gives me enormous pleasure to announce that Queen Kong, resurfaced after a quarter of a century on the shelf, is everything we’d hoped for. This is a consistently hilarious film: sometimes genuinely funny, sometimes unintentionally amusing, but never, ever boring.

This is, very simply, a spoof of King Kong with the sex roles reversed. Robin Askwith is drippy hippy Ray Fay, picked by stern film director Luce Habit (Rula Lenska) to star in her new film. (Bruce Cabot - Luce Habit - oh, please yourselves...) In a nice nod to the source material, Habit spots Fay stealing an apple - a toffee apple. But the theft he actually gets in trouble for is nicking an ‘original reproduction’ poster of the 1933 King Kong. You know, just in case you hadn’t twigged yet...

Habit has a crew of saucy young ladies, all kitted out in bikinis or in halter-tops and hot pants, who stow equipment aboard their ship, the Liberated Lady (one of them is future Allo Allo star Vicki Michelle, also in Virgin Witch). In one of several genuinely witty gags, the first four crates are stencilled ‘guns’, ‘gas’, ‘and’ and ‘tranquillisers’! Eventually they reach their location - Lazanga Where They Do The Konga - and explore the jungle, which switches constantly from deciduous woodland to lush tropics due to the use of extensive and obvious stock footage. On the way they pass a bundle of sub-Carry On sight gags like a billboard exhorting ‘Drink Konga Kola’ (the uncredited girl on the board is Marianne Morris from Vampyres).

In a clearing they find a matriarchal tribe, ruled over by a bikini-clad high priestess (Hammer chick Valerie Leon, whose lines are all of the “Unga bunga wonga” variety), who grab Fay and stick him inside a birthday cake atop a giant picnic table. Queen Kong appears - a woman in a suit no worse than the one Rick Baker won an Oscar for, and mixed in via some reasonable CSO and back projection - and takes Fay back into the jungle. Along the way, this ‘liberated female gorilla’ battles a tyrannosaur which is daft-looking but, to be fair, better than the dinos in many 1950s movies, and subsequently fights an equally silly pterodactyl. Habit and her girls rescue Fay, are chased by Kong, and subdue her with gas bombs.

The giant gorilla is shipped back to London (actually a ‘model village’ tourist attraction in Hampshire!) amid a montage of newspaper headlines and sound snippets; you can clearly hear a voice say “Godzilla” at one point. She is put on display at a grand fete, in front of HM the Queen (Jeanette Charles of course!) but forced to cover herself up with a chain-mail bikini. Irritated by this, and jealous of Luce Habit’s dancing with Ray Fay, the giant ape breaks loose and goes on the rampage.

After taking Fay away from the unwelcome gropings of Habit, Queen Kong climbs Big Ben (not the Post Office Tower as usually reported; incredibly, even the normally reliable Ten Years of Terror makes this mistake) where she is attacked by the RAF. In an astonishing display of cheap film-making (or is this deliberate?) the planes are Vulcan bombers in the stock footage of them taking off and the Red Arrows in the stock footage of them in flight! By the time they reach Big Ben, they’re model helicopters!

As a bungling Chief Constable (Stanley Platts: The Womaneater) calls for Queen Kong’s destruction, Fay uses a helicopter’s PA system to call for the female population to rise up and liberate themselves, and to take Queen Kong as their inspiration. Scores of women march through the streets carrying banners saying ‘QK rules OK’ and ‘Queen Kong is groovy’, and eventually the Chief Constable gives in and orders the gorilla to be shipped back home safely, where she lives in jungle happiness with Ray Fay - and Luce Habit ponders, “I wonder if they’d consider a threesome...”!

What a gloriously silly film this is. Askwith plays the whole thing like a Christmas panto and it will certainly appeal to fans of The Benny Hill Show or the Confessions of... films. It’s self-consciously cheap, even indulging in Holy Grail-esque gags like Askwith wondering what strange land the boat is nearing and Lenska commenting, “Brighton.” There are visual jokes about Jaws, The Exorcist and Airport, with Linda Hayden (Blood on Satan’s Claw) as a singing nun on a 747 knocked out of the sky by the gorilla. (“I wish that nun would shut up,” comments one passenger. “She even sang through the in-flight movie.”) There are also some astounding shots which are real Ed Wood-style, one-take-will-do corner-cutters, as actors trip over their lines: one minor character - played by 73-year-old comedy veteran Harold Berens (What a Whopper!, Straight on till Morning) - consistently says “sixty foot four gorilla” instead of “sixty-four foot gorilla.” Everyone involved seems to know this is awful and deliberately cheesy but even they can’t have imagined how cheesy it would turn out.

So why was this a lost film? Well, it was made in 1976 to take advantage of the publicity surrounding Dino De Laurentiis’ awful remake. De Laurentiis and RKO, as makers of the remake and the original King Kong, claimed copyright infringement and eventually settled out of court with Agrama (director of Dawn of the Mummy, often cited as an Italian but actually an Egyptian Jew). Agrama agreed not to distribute the film and it remained unseen until bootleg tapes started circulating in 2001. (One thing that is probably completely lost by now is a dream sequence, mentioned in Askwith’s autobiography, in which Queen Kong wishes she was the same size as Ray Fay and performs a dance routine around a house and garden.)

Queen Kong was released in Japan (theatrically!) in 2001 and is now available on R1 DVD from Fred Olen Ray’s releasing outfit Retromedia, including a trailer and a commentary of Ray interviewing Agrama. While the trailer is interesting and the widescreen transfer is better than an nth generation, full-screen bootleg tape, sad to report that the commentary is one of the worst I’ve heard. Agrama hasn’t seen the film in over 25 years and can recall little - which is understandable - but Ray hasn’t done his homework on the film and so is unable to prompt him. There are no anecdotes from shooting, and Agrama’s discussion of the film’s legal problems is swift and shallow, though he does claim - and this seems to be accurate - that the film was theatrically released in Italy in 1977.

Neither Ray nor Agrama can identify any of the actors apart from Askwith, Lenska and Leon, and neither of them knows what any of them did before or since. Agrama even makes the ludicrous claim that Lenska, a jobbing actor on stage and screen since the early 1970s and star of the 1976 smash hit series Rock Follies, was “basically a fashion model” when he cast her! Ray misidentifies Linda Hayden as Scars of Dracula’s Jenny Hanley and this mistake is repeated on the packaging which also cites Askwith as a Hammer star - though he never made a Hammer film in his life.

It’s disappointing to find that there is absolutely no background information on cast and crew and almost no information on the film, with most of the comments simply describing what is happening on screen, what is about to happen or what has just happened (the track seems to be lagging about a second behind the picture). And after about halfway the two men simply run out of things to say and very large sections of the film have no commentary at all; worse still the soundtrack level is not raised in these sections so one is left effectively watching the film with the sound turned down (though some might argue that’s the best way).

The only interesting points made are: the woman in the seat in front of Linda Hayden is Agrama’s wife; for some audience shots at ‘The Queen Kong Show’ the numbers were doubled by shooting split screen, with the same people on both sides (this is just about visible when it’s pointed out); and Agrama - who is, frankly, full of it - believes the film was shot in 1970-72. Ray sounds surprised but accepts this until ten minutes later when the film reaches the Jaws spoof and he tactfully points out that that film wasn’t released until 1975.

Disappointing commentary aside, the R1 DVD is the only legitimate way to see this amazing film (unless you can get your hands on the Japanese disc of course) and is therefore indispensable. Full marks to Fred Olen Ray for releasing this, but could-do-better on the commentary.

And I haven’t even mentioned the songs: “Burn your bra, burn your panties! Call your ma, call your aunties! Step aboard - the Liberated Lady!” Unbelievable...

MJS rating: A-

Toofani Tarzan

Director: Homi Wadia
Writers: JBH Wadia, Pandil Gnyan
Producers: JBH Wadia, Homi Wadia
Cast: John Cawas, Gulshan, Ahmed Dilavar
Year of release: 1937
Country: India
Reviewed from: UK TV screening (Channel 4)

It’s amazing the stuff that turns up on late night TV. Buried away in a ‘Bollywood Gold’ season on Channel 4 was this 65-year-old Indian Tarzan movie. And for all that one must make allowances for geographical, cultural and generational differences - this is still pretty crappy. It’s of historical interest certainly, in fact it’s fascinating, and it’s sporadically entertaining - but at 160 minutes you’ve got to be pretty determined to be entertained.

We start by seeing scientist Ramu making the breakthrough in his search for the nectar of immortality. Already we’re in murky territory: it’s not clear if this elixir actually makes people immortal or is just a powerful medicine (Ramu says, “This will save millions of lives.”); also Ramu is referred to later as Ranmick; and quite why he has set up his lab in a hut in a jungle village... who knows?

Ramu is married to Uma (Nazira - a lot of the actors have only one name) and has a young son, Leher, around whose neck he places an amulet containing the formula for the ‘nectar.’ When lions attack the village for no reason, Ramu is killed. Leher is rescued by family servant Dada and they fly off in a balloon, accompanied by their jack russell terrier Moti. Uma is left behind and goes mad.

A word here about Dada: he is the single most amazingly offensive racial stereotype I’ve ever seen on screen, a character who makes Stepin Fetchit look like a sensitive portrayal of the African-American experience. Played by ‘Dare-Devil Bonan Shroff’ (also credited as Assistant Director), Dada is Bollywood’s view of an African - one step up the evolutionary ladder from a chimpanzee. Dada lollops around, bent double, knuckles dragging on the ground, vacant expression on his face, communicating only by simian whoops and grunts. He is presented as completely subhuman and, absolutely incredibly, wears what can only be described as ‘nigger minstrel make-up’ - the full Al Jolson huge white lips and everything. Gobsmacking. He is also, incidentally, massively irritating.

Anyway, we flash forward 15 years and little Leher has grown into hunky, loincloth-clad Tarzan, played by a bodybuilder named John Cawas (credited here as ‘John Cavas [sic] (Indian Eddie Polo)’ whatever that means). He lives in a treehouse accompanied by the faithful Dada (which apparently means ‘brother’) and the Rintintin-like Moti, who is actually fourth-credited as being played by ‘Professor Motee (trainer - Omar)’.

Ramu’s father (who is never actually named) is an old man with a Colonel Sanders beard and glasses. The fact that he is clearly a young man in terrible make-up leads me to think that the same actor (Dalpat) may have played Ramu in the prologue too. He is leading an expedition to search for his lost grandson, both of whose parents died. With him is his adopted daughter Leela (Gulshan); a bounder named Biharilal (Chandrasekhar) who really is only interested in locating the nectar formula; faithful guide Dilavar (Ahmed Dilawar); and comic relief servant Bundle (Bandal) who is even more irritating than Dada. Bandal was clearly a fan of Harold Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy films, playing every scene like a cross between Lloyd and Laurel, even occasionally lifting his straw boater to do that thing with his hair.

The party sets off with a couple of dozen native bearers and are attacked by a tribe of cannibals - the chief is played by ‘Professor Buloch (Sandow)’ - who are driven off by the timely arrival of Tarzan, alerted by Moti and assisted by a herd of stampeding elephants led by Dada on a 'phant named Raja.

Biharilal spots the amulet around Tarzan’s neck, but suddenly the proceedings are interrupted by the arrival of a cackling mad woman. It’s Uma, who didn’t die after all but is still insane. She is still played by Nazira, made to look 15 years older by having heavy lines drawn on her face, and has a really tatty-looking, misshapen ‘human skull’ (papier mache by the looks of it) strapped to each arm. Confused, Tarzan runs off, speeding up even more when Biharilal takes a potshot at him.

Having made camp, and after we have suffered through a ‘comedy’ scene of Moti stealing Bundle’s food, Biharilal spots Dada and shoots at him too. Moti alerts Tarzan to his friend’s plight in true Rintintin/Lassie fashion. Later, when the slimy Biharilal is coming on to Leela in her tent, Tarzan appears, knocks him about and abducts Leela to his tree-top eyrie. Fortunately for Dada, Leela is a trained nurse and removes the bullet from his arm.

Gradually Tarzan and Leela come to understand each other and fall in love yada yada yada, same as in most Tarzan movies. (Let’s face it: Tarzan is a great character, and the Edgar Rice Burroughs novels are fantastic, but most Tarzan movies - like this one - are rubbish.) She’s swiftly decked out in a leopard skin mini-dress, and he’s rescuing her from tigers and crocodiles. The tiger fight is actually pretty exciting; it certainly looks like Cawas wrestling the beast, although Gulshan obviously was more careful and so only looks on in admiration by the miracle of back projection.

Back at camp, Dilavar sings a song, then the cannibals attack and make off with everyone, taking them to their fortified village where they worship - a 30-foot tall gorilla idol! Yes, the film-makers had clearly seen King Kong and decided to throw it into the mix. Fantastic! Meanwhile Leela is bathing ‘naked’ in a lake (her swimming costume is plainly visible), chases Moti when he cheekily runs off with her dress, then both girl and dog are captured by the cannibals. Taken to the village, they’re tied up in the same hut as their five friends.

Who can save them? Why, Professor Moti of course! The dog unties itself, jumps out the window and down a hundred-foot cliff, races off to Tarzan’s treehouse and barks out what has happened. I’ll just repeat that for emphasis: the dog doesn’t bite through the ropes, it actually unties itself!

In the village, a terrified native is picked up by the most extraordinary giant grabber thing and swung out over a pit, wherein lives the sacred gorilla himself. And it’s the worst bloody gorilla costume in the history of cinema. Big circular eyes, strange white whiskers - quite honestly, if we hadn't already seen the statue, we wouldn’t know this was supposed to be a gorilla. The native is dropped in the pit and killed by the beast, then just as Leela is about to suffer the same fate, Tarzan arrives! He fights the natives and helps the explorers all escape, while Dada and Moti are busy rescuing the native bearers tied up elsewhere in the village. A big chase ensues.

I should explain about the chases. For some reason, every chase or fight or any other sort of action scene is undercranked so that all movement is speeded up slightly. This makes the gang of cannibals chasing the explorers along the skyline look like nothing less than a 1930s episode of The Benny Hill Show. Having crossed a gorge with Tarzan’s help, our heroes are finally all safe. Now Biharilal threatens Tarzan with his gun, but Moti knocks it away. Uma appears - and Biharilal shoots her instead. The little dog leaps at the trigger-happy swine - who falls to his death over a handy cliff. The bullet has brought Uma to her senses, and before she dies she explains everything: that Tarzan is Leher, that she was Ramu’s wife, that the amulet has the nectar formula etc.

Tarzan carries his mother’s body away, and Leela elects to stay with Tarzan (and Moti and Dada) in the jungle, much to her father’s alarm. Off they go - man, woman, dog and subhuman stereotype - leaving the three remaining explorers, and their remaining bearers, to head back to civilisation on a dodgy back-projection screen behind Dilavar, singing one final song.

Well, goodness gracious me (to coin a phrase)! What a find. This is a very early Tarzan film, only a few years after Johnny Weissmuller starred in Tarzan the Ape Man, though it seems to have been influenced more by the silent versions starring Elmo Lincoln (Cawas’ appearance is certainly modelled more on Lincoln’s than Weissmuller’s). It is also completely unauthorised - there is no mention of Edgar Rice Burroughs anywhere and it is debatable whether the Wadia Brothers didn’t know about him or simply didn’t care. Maybe they thought Tarzan was a public domain legend. The sepia-tinted print shown on Channel Four was a brand new one, supposedly digitally remastered, though there were still plenty of scratches and crackles.

Jamshed Boman Homi Wadia (1901-1986) and his brother Homi Boman Wadia (b.1911) were born in Surat, Gujarat. Jamshed wrote and co-produced his first film (Vasant Leela) in 1928 and established Young United Players with his brother in 1931. Sound films took a while to make it to India and they made five silents between 1931 and 1933 starring Boman Shroff, all inspired to some extent by Douglas Fairbanks’ 1920 classic The Mark of Zorro, including Diler Daku (aka Thunderbolt, 1931) which was a straightforward (unauthorised) remake.

The Wadias were populist film-makers through and through, beloved of stunts and action. They founded Wadia Movietone in 1933 and Jamshed directed Lal-e-Yaman (aka Parviz Parizad, 1933, also with Shroff) which features a magic ring, an ape-man and a genie. In the chorus was a girl called Nadia who as ‘Fearless Nadia’ became the Wadia’s biggest star and India’s top action actress, starring in the classic Hunterwali (aka The Lady with the Whip, 1935, also starring Gulshan, Shroff and Cawas) and many other films, usually with Cawas or Shroff as the leading man. Astoundingly, Nadia wasn’t actually Indian - she was born Mary Evans in Perth, Australia in 1910 to a Welsh father and a Greek mother!

By 1942, Jamshed (who was a supporter of Communist reformer MN Roy) wanted to put more social relevance into the Wadia Movietone films, so Homi left to continue making action epics under the Basant Pictures banner. Homi married Nadia in 1961 (making her Nadia Wadia!), made his last film - his fourth version of the Ali Baba story - in 1978 and retired in 1981. Nadia died in 1996.

Any other Indian Tarzan films? Why, yes. Tarzan ki Beti (Roop K Shorey) was made in 1938, then John Guillerman’s Tarzan Goes to India/Tarzan Mera Saathi (1962) kicked off a whole subgenre: Toofani Tarzan (AR Zamindar, 1962 - I don’t know whether this was a remake of the 1937 film), Tarzan and Gorilla (Pyarelal, 1963), Tarzan aur Jadugar (Radhakant, 1963), Tarzan and Delilah (A Shamsheer, 1964), Tarzan and Captain Kishore (Jal, 1964), Tarzan aur Jalpari (Radhakant, 1964), Tarzan and King Kong (A Shamsheer, 1965 - I believe this ‘King Kong’ was actually a popular wrestler).

Then there's Tarzan and the Circus (Shiv Kumar, 1965), Tarzan Comes to Delhi/Tarzan Delhi Mein (Kedar Kapoor, 1965), Tarzan and Hercules (Mehmood, 1966), Tarzan aur Jadui Chirag (Babubhai Banjhi, 1966), Tarzan ki Mehbooba (Ram Rasila, 1966), Tarzan in Fairyland/Tarzan Paristan Mein (Sushil Gupta, 1968), and Tarzan 303 (Chandrakant, 1970). More recently there was The Adventures of Tarzan (B Subhash, 1985) and Tarzan and Cobra (Bhagwant Choudhury, 1987)

If and when Toofani Tarzan is repeated, I urge you to set the video because it's a true oddity. As a final note, the film features what may well be my favourite movie credit of all time: ‘Matte effects in co-operation with Mino the Mystic’!

MJS rating: C

Who Killed Doc Robbin?

Director: Bernard Carr
Writers: Dorothy Reid, Maurice Geraghty
Producer: Hal Roach Jr
Cast: George Zucco, some really irritating kids
Year of release: 1948
Country: USA
Reviewed from: UK festival screening (FFF 2002)

Those who complain about ‘racism’ in old movies are often interfering, know-nothing PC loons, and those who actually alter old movies to eliminate such ‘racism’ are even worse (the recent rewording of intertitles in a restoration of the 1925 Lost World is an example). That said, some films are jaw-droppingly racist in a way which cannot be excused in modern times - but their very nature means that they should very definitely not be tampered with. It’s important for people to see how casually racist even a minor kids’ film could be, reflecting the appalling state of American society only a couple of generations ago.

Who Killed Doc Robbin? is an Our Gang comedy in all but name, with five lovable (white) ragamuffins: the (male) leader, the (female) voice of reason, the boffin, the coward and the little one. Plus two black kids credited (both actors and characters) as ‘Dis and Dat’. It’s made abundantly clear that these two are not part of the gang per se.

The story starts with a doctor’s surgery exploding then cuts to a courtroom where a nurse stands accused of the doctor’s murder. The kids disrupt proceedings but under questioning (and via flashbacks) reveal that the explosion was probably caused by the trigger of a nuclear device(!) created by local repair-man/inventor ‘Fix-It’ Dan - who is promptly arrested.

Seeking to clear Dan’s name, the kids investigate the smoking remains of the surgery and find a tunnel into an ‘abandoned’ old house nearby, full of scientific equipment, caged animals (for experiments), secret doors - and ultimately a (man in a suit) gorilla. They find a dead lawyer in a cupboard who later turns out to be merely unconscious, they send their dog to the town jail to fetch Dan and the police, and in a plot far more complex than it needs to be, the ‘gorilla’ turns out to be the still-alive Doc Robbin (George Zucco: House of Frankenstein, The Mummy's Hand - though it’s actually the legendary Charles Gemora, uncredited, in the suit), who was up to no good. And Dan is exonerated of the explosion because his trigger was useless without the rest of the device.

Dis and Dat mostly run around looking scared - like Stepin Fetchit’s nephews. In a dark room they appear only as two pairs of animated eyes, and one of them turns white through an optical effect when he first encounters the gorilla. But the worst scene has the smaller one falling into a large washing machine. No, he doesn’t emerge ‘clean’ and white, though he is coated in white soapsuds. But his clothes somehow become detached, emerge separately and are put on by a chimpanzee who has broken loose. And as the chimp runs around the house everyone thinks it’s the little black kid! It’s astounding that this sort of stuff was considered perfectly fine for children even after the horrors of WW2 (when black GIs were formed into their own battalions and confined almost exclusively to non-military duties such as roadbuilding).

The casual use of a nuclear bomb as a McGuffin, three years after Hiroshima, is also astounding, and one of the kids recites a poem of his own devising in court about how “the Japs” must have “had a fit” when their city was destroyed! (It’s tastefully entitled ‘Bombs Away’ and all the grown-ups find it delightful.)

The film was reportedly retitled Sinister House in the UK and has been shown on US TV as Curly and His Gang in the Haunted Mansion (although the building in question is neither a mansion nor haunted). Director Bernard Carr had been an assistant director on Hal Roach's prehistoric epic One Million BC and had directed a previous film about the same group of kids, Curley, in 1947. There does not appear to have been a third film in the series.

This 50-minute film just about falls into the SF/horror genre by virtue of ‘Fix-It’ Dan’s atomic home technology, the gorilla-as-stock monster, and the spooky old house. It is a pain to sit through however: the cowardly white kid is particular annoying, being an even worse actor than his comrades - and that’s saying something - and having an almost ultrasonic scream. Nevertheless, anyone who thinks that America fought WW2 for democracy and freedom should be forced to watch this (or something like it) so they can see how little difference there was between Hitler’s views on race and those of Joe Q Average in post-war USA.

MJS rating: D

Thundercrack!

Director: Curt McDowell
Writer: George Kuchar
Producer: John Thomas, Charles Thomas
Cast: Marion Eaton, Ken Scudder, Melinda McDowell, Mookie Blodgett
Year of release: 1975
Country: USA
Reviewed from: UK festival screening (Far Out 2002)

This riotously funny, black and white, ‘old dark house’, hardcore sex comedy used to play regularly at the Scala in London. It has never been given a BBFC certificate but occasionally local councils are broadminded enough to allow a screening - so kudos to Leicester CC for giving Phoenix Arts permission to show a 16mm print imported from Denmark.

On a terrible, stormy night, three men and three women seek shelter at the isolated home of batty Mrs Gert Hammond, a faded Southern belle with too much make-up and a dead husband buried in the wine cellar. They change out of their soaking clothes and indulge in various sexual activities with each other or alone, while discussing where they’re going and how they might get there. Then a fourth man (writer Kuchar, who scripted only one other film but directed more than 60 from 1957 to 1986) arrives, who was transporting a horny female gorilla for a local zoo - the beast has escaped and is very dangerous unless placated with bananas.

A simple synopsis like that doesn’t begin to do justice to this unique film. It is a hardcore porn flick, yet would be just as entertaining without the hardcore shots (well, almost!). Extraordinarily, it includes not only straight sex and lesbianism, but man-on-man buggery as well, along with both male and female masturbation. One chap uses an odd-looking device which, in a post-Austin Powers world can only be described as a Swedish-made penis enlarger, and another shags a blow-up doll while sticking a dildo up his arse. What sort of audience was this aimed at?

Throughout it all there is the clearly demented Mrs Gert Hammond (Marion Eaton - also in Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat), a sort of Miss Faversham of the Southern States who clearly hasn’t spoken with another soul for years, and who constantly stresses that her husband is dead but her son “no longer exists.” She gets off on watching both men and women undress, spying on them through peepholes in a portrait of George Washington. One of the men (it’s difficult to tell which one as all display the obligatory 1970s porno hairstyle and moustache) is going to burn down his father-in-law’s corset factory; his wife died when her rubber foundation garment caught fire at a party, and he has turned to men ever since.

When Medusa the gorilla appears, it is (understandably) a man in a hairy suit, and an elephant is represented by a silhouette at the kitchen window. This is not a big budget production, something evidenced by the opening titles’ ability to spell ‘Original score’ with three ‘i’s. Several other names in the credits raise amusement among modern audiences, notably producer ‘John Thomas’, which probably means nothing to American (or Danish) audiences!

The storm and the gorilla-as-monster keep this just on the border of the horror genre - but the eventual unlocking of a mysterious door and the revelation of who/what is inside (a brief but unforgettable shot) tips it over into real Edgar Allan Poe territory. It also has some remarkable monochrome cinematography, some accomplished editing (especially of the flashbacks, some of which are shown split-screen) - both credited to director McDowell - and a fantastic ‘originial score’ which really adds to the comedy. The version shown at Far Out ran two hours; there are also 110 minute and 152 minute versions, apparently.

I can certainly see why this has such a reputation and cult following - there really is no other film even remotely like it (though comparisons can be made to Walters, Warhol and Wood). See this if you ever get the chance - but do be prepared for close-up shots of men and women enjoying themselves...

MJS rating: B+

Night of the Bloody Apes

Director: Rene Cardona
Writers: Rene Cardona, Rene Cardona Jr
Producer: Alfredo Salazar
Cast: Jose Elias Moreno, Armando Silvestre, Norma Lazareno
Country: Mexico
Year of release: 1969
Reviewed from: UK DVD (Redemption)

You know you’re watching a Mexican movie when the first five minutes consists of two people in coloured costumes and masks hurling each other around a wrestling ring. In this case the luchadoras are Lucy Ossorio (Norma Lazareno: Vengeance of the Vampire Women) and Elena Gomez (Noelia Noel: Santo and Dracula’s Treasure) who suffers a brain injury when Lucy tosses her out of the ring. Lucy is engaged to Police Lieutenant Arturo Martinez (Armando Silvestre: Santo Contra los Zombies, Wrestling Women vs the Aztec Mummy, The Batwoman - plus Don Siegel’s Two Mules for Sister Sara and episodes of Mannix and Wonder Woman!) and is understandably upset at seeing her opponent lying comatose in a hospital.

But there’s more to Night of the Bloody Apes than wrestling babes, because this my friends is an honest-to-goodness video nasty - one of the list of banned titles compiled by the Director of Public Prosecutions in 1984. Nowadays of course most of the films on that list can be bought for £4.99 down Tesco but nevertheless there is still a certain cachet to them.

The video nasties were an eclectic bunch of films and ranged from the truly nauseatingly sick to the hilariously inoffensive. This is certainly one of the sillier films on the list and it sports a plot which is best summed up as typically barking for Mexican popular cinema.

A certain Dr Krallman (Jose Elias Moreno, who played the title role in the notorious 1959 Mexican movie Santa Claus) is the physician called in to examine Elena Gomez. He has a grown-up son, Julio (variously pronounced ‘HOO-leo’ and ‘JOO-leo’ on the dubbed soundtrack) who is very ill with leukemia (pronounced, at one point, ‘loo-SEE-mia’); Julio is played by Agustin Martinez Solares who was also in Santo and Blue Demon vs Dracula and the Wolf Man. After Lucy and Elena’s wrestling bout we have another trademark of Mexican cinema (in fact, of all cheap-and-cheerful populist film-making) with a staggeringly bad day-for-night scene. As the sun beats down from the heavens, Dr Krallman and his scar-faced assistant Goyo (Carlos Lopez Moctezuma: Curse of the Crying Woman, El Hombre y la Bestia) turn off the headlights on their car and break into the local zoo.

After some shots of an orang-utan, overlaid with the sort of scary growls that orang-utans don’t make, we see Krallman put together a rifle and shoot a painfully obvious man-in-a-suit gorilla, which the two men then remove from its cage and take home.

Krallman’s plan - you may want to write this down - involves transfusing the gorilla’s blood into his son ... but, because a human heart would not be strong enough to pump gorilla blood, he has to transplant the heart too. This he does, using stock footage of a genuine human heart transplant. Rather wonderfully, the surgical close-ups show two pairs of hands at work, intercut with shots of another pair of hands holding the anaesthetic mask to Julio’s face. But long shots confirm that only Krallman and Goyo are involved - so whose are the other hands? I also love the way that Krallman tells his son he won’t leave his side for a moment then promptly leaves the room with Goyo to stick the ape carcass in a convenient incinerator.

But we all know what happens when you put a gorilla heart inside a human, don’t we, boys and girls? In possibly the most unconvincing lap dissolve in cinematic history, Julio transforms into (as the original title has it) La Horripilante Bestia Humana - and I think we can all translate that, even if we don’t speak Spanish.

The bestia in question is as muscular as a body builder and has an ugly grey, Neanderthal face with a crop of shaggy black hair. Except in occasional extreme close-ups of its eyes, when its skin turns pale brown and all the hair disappears. It’s the most mismatched pair of images since Night of the Demon.

Naturally the beast escapes through a window and goes on a rampage and this is where I think the DPP may have been shocked as there is a violent - but frankly nonsensical - rape scene. A young woman having a shower (Gina Morett) is disturbed by the beast but has time to wrap a towel around herself. He carries her, topless but with the towel strategically placed, to her bed where he proceeds to rape her - without removing either the towel or his trousers. Legend has it that a more extreme version of this film, using alternative takes of the horror and sex, was released under the does-what-it-says-on-the-tin title Horror y Sexo. But in this version, there’s not much horror and the sexo is relatively tame.

The other odd thing about this rape scene, apart from the two (possibly three) layers of cloth between the participants’ genitals, is the amount of blood that is splattered over the victim and up the wall, despite the lack of any obvious injury.

Recovering his errant boy, Krallman decides to put a human heart back in, but as the donor must be alive, he uses Elena, the luchadora from the hospital. He subsequently has to help the hospital authorities come up with an explanation of how a comatose patient could disappear from their facility. Oh, he’s a bad man. The populace, meanwhile, are blaming the spate of attacks on the gorilla that went missing from the zoo. (This is, I suppose, the origin of the title with which the film was lumbered in English-speaking markets. But let’s face it, Julio is not an ape and even if he was, there’s only one of him. Although his victims get drenched in the red stuff, he never seems to get any on either his pecs or his trousers so he’s not really bloody. It’s possible that much of the action takes place at night but, as previously mentioned, darkness is a somewhat fluid concept in this sort of movie. Another title often quoted is Gomar the Human Gorilla but I have yet to see any evidence that this is genuine.)

Unfortunately the human heart only restores Julio’s humanity temporarily and before you can say “Madre de Dios!” he has reverted to his horripilante self like a sort of low-rent Latin American Jekyll and Hyde. He leaps out of the rather hamfistedly repaired window and sets off an another rampage, this time attacking a young couple in a park. He rips the man’s head from his neck and sets about raping the woman, who wears a green 1950s-style dress and has red hair piled high in a beehive, making her look rather like the loud one out of the B-52s.

There are two great aspects to this sequence. One is that, when the woman extricates herself from the monster and runs away her hair is frizzed and her dress torn to shreds, but when she runs into a nearby shop pleading for help her dress is once more intact, her hair is piled up high and she looks ready to launch once more into the backing vocals on ‘Shiny Happy People.’ The other amusing thing is the painfully obvious interior nature of the studio set claiming to be a ‘park’, which is hammered home not only by the astroturf on which the attack takes place but most especially by the way that the energetic monstrous rape causes the astroturf to bunch up, revealing the studio floor beneath it. It’s a real Ed Wood moment.

Police Lieutenant Arturo Martinez (remember him?) is investigating all this and it all ends up... oh, I don’t know. Who cares? Night of the Bloody Apes isn’t a film you watch to find out what happens in the end, it’s a film you watch to marvel at the insane stuff that happens along the way (which includes another two wrestling bouts).

Writer/director Rene Cardona churned out more than 200 films from the 1920s to the 1980s including at least nine Santo movies plus such legendary mexploitation pictures as The Brainiac, Tom Thumb, Santa Claus and Wrestling Women vs the Aztec Mummy. He started out as an actor with roles in Mexican versions of The Count of Monte Cristo and Lady Windermere’s Fan. Cardona co-wrote this picture with his son, Rene Cardona Jr (the cause of much confusion for filmographers as he also directed about a hundred films including Night of a Thousand Cats and Tintorera - Tiger Shark). Some additional footage for this English language version was shot in the USA by Jerald Intrator (Satan in High Heels).

Composer Antonio Diaz Conde also scored The Aztec Mummy vs the Human Robot and a 1958 Mexican version of The Invisible Man. Cinematographer Raul Martinez Solares handled the camera on scores of wrestling movies and (allegedly) some episodes of the 1960s Tarzan TV series starring Ron Ely.

The history of Night of the Bloody Apes in Britain is as follows. Originally released in Mexico in 1968, it played British cinemas in 1974 with an X certificate from the BBFC and running 81 minutes after the censors’ scissors had been at it. In 1983 it was released on VHS by Iver Film Services, allegedly uncut but running only 79 minutes so more likely the cut 81 minute version losing a little running time because it was a PAL tape. This version was promptly banned as a video nasty.

In 1993 the notorious Vipco label planned a release but there is no record of a BBFC certificate. Some uncut review copies of this made it into circulation but the planned release was presumably a version still further cut. Six years later a 77-minute version (probably the intended Vipco edit) was released by Sovereign Multimedia on their Satanica label. This was given an 18 certificate by the BBFC and I remember reviewing it for SFX at the time. For some reason, the film was submitted again in 2002, in the same 77-minute version, by Film 2000 - and was again given an 18, naturally.

Redemption’s version runs 84 minutes, making it even longer than the original theatrical release although as I type this, about five weeks before the DVD comes out, there is no sign of this version on the BBFC website. But to be frank I can’t see what anyone could possibly object to. What little gore is on show here is hamfistedly edited - to the extent that it still looks cut - and is nothing more than a few brief shots of throats being ripped etc. There is that first rape scene but it’s not salacious or exploitative, just silly. And I can’t imagine there would be a problem with the heart transplant footage.

The Redemption presentation is full-frame, scratchy at reel ends and the colours are a bit intense (especially Lucy’s red costume) but to be honest, who wants a pristine version of a movie like this? The extras are... well, haphazard is the adjective that springs to mind. There are two trailers: one for Jean Rollin’s Requiem for a Vampire (with English captions but no narration or dialogue) and one for Rollin’s Les Demoniaques (with French captions but no narration or dialogue). Both of these are random collections of images which tell you nothing about the films (except that they feature nude woman and clowns) but a lot about how people cobbled together international trailers in the early 1970s. There is no trailer for Night of the Bloody Apes.

The stills gallery is simply five photos; they are shots from the film and are presented here in a small frame, taking up about a quarter of the screen - so what’s the point? You could just freeze-frame the DVD at those moments and see the same images four times as large. The ‘promo art’ has three images: the original 1983 British video sleeve; the Something Weird US video sleeve (which double-billed the film with Feast of Flesh) and an unidentified original poster which calls the film Korang - La Terrificante Bestia Umana and is more interesting than all the other extras put together. The sleeve blurb has two typos and the only quote they could find is from the plot summary on the IMDB!

Never mind the video nasty tag, Night of the Bloody Apes is bonkers Mexploitation of the highest order and for that reason is essential viewing.

MJS rating: B+

Filthy McNasty

Director: Chris Seaver
Writer: Chris Seaver
Producer: Chris Seaver
Cast: Debbie Rochon, Miss Kitty, Teen Ape
Year of release: 2002
Country: USA
Reviewed from: US DVD (Tempe)

Although Goethe doesn’t actually receive a credit, this is essentially yet another version of Faust. Nothing wrong with that - it’s one of the most powerful themes in fiction, and can always be told anew, especially when it’s done as entertainingly (and cheaply!) as this.

Low Budget Pictures is the Ronson’s Woodseal of production companies - it does exactly what it says on the tin. The demonic Filthy McNasty (or ‘Phil’ as he is called throughout, suggesting he may be related to Dilbert’s ‘Prince of Insufficient Light’) himself is quite impressively made-up (although in one profile shot you can, rather bizarrely, see in one of his eye-holes and out the other!) and played with delicious bass-voiced civility by Tim Ekkebus. He grants, via a sexually confused high school nerd, the wish of two dorkettes (Miss Kitty and, wouldn’t you know it, Debbie Rochon) to become cool, sexy babes. This they achieve by changing their clothes, removing their glasses and hair-clips, and adding a touch of lippy. What, you expected some sort of morphing sequence? This is an LBP production!

That night, the babes get on down at the cool kids’ party (and yes, as per every American high school movie ever made, not one of the ‘kids’ is under 26, except that this time the film-makers know it). Among those in attendance is Teen Ape (“as himself”), an ultra-hip, wacked-out monkey-man who is simply a white guy wearing a gorilla mask (you can see the elastic, for God’s sake!) and hairy hands. Phil is also in attendance, killing off party-goers in a variety of sexually gross ways. But the day is saved by the sudden, inexplicable appearance of an all-powerful, jive-talking old guy with Don King hair, called Bonejack, who commands Phil to leave.

Filthy McNasty makes no sense whatsoever and does so gloriously. The pace is so fast (it’s only about 45 minutes long) that one can forgive the numerous in-jokes, and it never descends into self-indulgence. And for all the paltry budget, the skill is evident in the camera-work, lighting, editing, etc. - as is the fun.

The movie is included on Tempe’s limited edition DVD of Dead and Rotting, which is a very commendable idea. For the viewer, it’s another in the list of extras, contrasting sharply with many major studio DVDs which have a trailer and ‘scene selection’ as their only extras (like advertising a car as having wheels and a windscreen!). Time was when a trip to the cinema always netted you a supporting feature, and Tempe have effectively revived that idea. Except that their main feature is already a B-movie, which I guess makes LBP’s film a C-movie (actually, it’s probably near N or M, possibly even further down the alphabet, though it’s certainly not a Z).

More pertinently, this gives the LBP crowd a chance to have their work seen by people. When I originally wrote this review I said that I wouldn't expect anyone except the film-makers' close personal friends and the Debbie Rochon fan club to even consider paying good money for something like Filthy McNasty, but the subsequent success of this and other LBP films shows how much I know!

MJS rating: B-
review originally posted before November 2004

Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies

Director: Del Lord
Writers: Jefferson Moffitt, Frank Capra
Producer: Mack Sennett
Cast: Billy Bevan, Andy Clyde, Lillian Knight, John J Richardson
Year of release: 1925
Country: USA
Reviewed from: UK video (Artsmagic) 

Wow - here’s an almost completely forgotten Mack Sennett comedy which manages to cram both science fiction and a haunted house scenario into 15 minutes! Billy Bevan stars as Hiram Case, assistant to inventor Burbank Watts (Andy Clyde) who has invented a method of powering automobiles (the ‘lizzies’ of the title) via radio waves.

Watts’ daughter Winnie (Lillian Knight) is wooed by gasoline magnate T Potter Doam (John J Richardson) who becomes furious when he is put out of business by Watts and Case refitting all the town’s cars for radio power. Of course, this is all an excuse for lots of high-jinks as apparently driverless cars career around the street, knocking people and things over in typical Mack Sennett fashion.

Interestingly, Watts also has a ‘radioscope’ - a sort of remote viewing proto-TV on which he can view this distant destruction of property.

Halfway through, we find Watts and daughter living it up at a celebratory fancy dress party, while a sound-asleep Case ‘guards’ the lab. Doam and a black assistant named Dabney White break in to cause trouble but instead find themselves ‘haunted’ by a variety of ‘ghosts’, including partygoers dressed as a devil, a skeleton, a gorilla and some big-headed monsters. Further confusion arises with Case struggling under a sheet, a parrot (also under a sheet) and Doam covered in flour. When ‘Dabney White’ gets held at gunpoint by the ‘skeleton’, he gets so frightened he collapses into a pile of soot!

The radio waves and some sound effects are animated onto the image, and a throbbing toe (when Case shoots his own foot, mistaking it for an intruder) is represented with what must be the first ever bladder prosthetic - fifty years before Rob Bottin reinvented the technique for The Howling!

Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies is also known as Bedtime Stories and was released in 1978 (presumably on super-8) as Super Power Automobiles. It was released on VHS in the UK in 1995 by Artsmagic, along with two other Sennett/Bevan/Clyde comedies, Wandering Willies and Ice Cold Cocos. The print quality is watchable, given its ancient nature, but the music is just a random selection of generic silent movie accompaniment. The film is also available, with different music and possibly a better print, on the DVD collection Slapstick Encyclopedia.

Apart from the four principal cast, there are no credits (on this print at least). However, director Del Lord later worked with the Three Stooges, including many more ‘ghost’/’horror’ comedies, while this film’s ‘scenario’ was co-written by no less than Frank Capra, who worked extensively with Sennett in the silent era. Although various sources mention the radio controlled cars, the ‘fake haunting’ section of this fun comedy seems to have escaped most people’s attention, which is a shame as it is an early example of both the SF and horror genres.

MJS rating: B+

Review originally published before November 2004

The Adventures of a Plumber in Outer Space

Director: Jan Manthey
Writer: Jan Manthey
Producer: Fred Karno, Roger Kaputnik
Cast: Vic Pratt, Diana Manthey, Marie Magnusson
Country: UK - and proud of it
Year of release: 2008
Reviewed from: Premiere screening!
Website: www.freewebs.com/adventuresofaplumberinouterspace

Gather round, children, and I will tell you of a time long ago. A time called ‘The Mid 1970s’ when the British cinema industry was all but extinct. The glory days of great comedies, thrillers, horrors and dramas had long since faded; the studios were shabby; Dean Street and Wardour Street were just two dingy thoroughfares on the less salubrious side of Oxford Street and you certainly wouldn’t want to stroll through Soho Square on your own.

What talent and money remained in the country was either working in television or farmed out to a few visiting US productions. Actual, honest-to-goodness British films were desperately few and far between. Hammer was coughing up blood (appropriate, if not healthy) and scrabbling around for co-production funds. Norman J Warren and Pete Walker were attempting to do for British horror what pictures like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had done for American fright cinema but few audiences and even fewer critics noticed them. Even the Carry Ons had gone rubbish, ditching costumes and genre spoofs for busty young women in bikinis and churning out dull, formulaic gags where they had once rejoiced in funny, formulaic gags.

Basically, there were only two types of British film making any sort of money at the rapidly wilting British box office (cinemas were being converted into bingo halls, nightclubs and supermarkets at an unprecedented rate). One was the TV spin-off, trading on the success of popular sitcoms in those pre-VHS days by giving audiences longer stories and bigger locations. The reason why there are three On the Buses feature films is because the first two made, by the standards of the day, a pot of cash. For Hammer, interestingly enough.

And the other sort of British film was the sex comedy.

Now, British sex comedies of the 1970s were a sort of ‘red rock cider’ in that they weren’t comic and there was no sex in them. They were a grim, pleasureless experience for all concerned - and audiences lapped them up.

Let us be absolutely clear here in case you have never seen one of these movies. These are not Carry Ons, not even 1970s-era, not-very-funny Carry Ons. Carry Ons were never sex comedies (except possibly Carry On Emmannuelle, about which the less said the better). Where the Carry Ons were vintage music hall, sex comedies were dingy Working Men’s Clubs. Where the Carry Ons were Donald McGill postcards, sex comedies were the cartoons in Knave. The jokes were obvious, laboured, only occasionally rising to the heights of being corny. The women were not overly glamorous and what lingerie they wore was desperately unsexy in a way that staggers belief. Not unsexy in a prudish or functional way but just cut wrong, hanging wrong, as if it was designed by someone who had never actually met a real woman - or at least, not seen one naked. In the 1970s women’s underwear wasn’t advertised on television or on billboards and was discretely kept at the back of department stores. There were no Ann Summers shops. People just accepted that this was what it looked like because blokes never saw women wearing lingerie except their wives and the dolly birds in these films.


And that was the women, some of whom were actually majorly cute. We’re talking the Geeson sisters here. But as for the blokes... well, male models they most certainly were not.

The best known and most successful sex comedies were the Confessions series starring loveable jack-the-lad Robin Askwith as loveable jack-the-lad Timothy Lea who from 1974 to 1977 was variously a window cleaner, taxi driver, pop performer and holiday camp resident (Askwith paused only briefly to star in Queen Kong which infamously attempted to meld the British sex comedy with the giant monster genre).

The second rung down from the Confessions films (and bear in mind that this was an incredibly short ladder) was occupied by the Adventures trilogy directed by Stanley Long. Barry Evans, another loveable jack-the-lad, starred as Joe North in 1976’s Adventures of a Taxi Driver and then handed the mantle onto Christopher Neil for the two follow-ups, ...Private Eye and...Plumber’s Mate, the character‘s name changing to Bob West and Sid South respectively.

These were the franchises, the ones which still have some degree of cultural currency. But there were other films in this genre: grubbier, cheaper, even less funny and definitely less sexy. I recall a few years ago staying up to catch a rare screening of The Ups and Downs of a Handyman, a film which really stripped the concept back to its bare bones as Barry Stokes bedded a succession of women (whilst keeping his underpants on, as was traditional). Yet, as I recall, it’s very simplicity made it, in places, almost erotic. There’s a three-way bath scene where it actually looks like the actors are having fun and you see considerably more flesh than was normal in such films, simply because no-one had the time or inclination to shoot or edit it properly.

And in among the romps, sometimes actually involved in them, were the stars. The aforementioned Ups and Downs (which never spawned a sequel although one was planned) featured Bob Todd, Valerie Leon and Robert Dorning. Depending on which Adventures film you watched, you could have seen some combination of Diana Dors, Harry H Corbett, Liz Fraser, Irene Handl, Ian Lavender, Jon Pertwee, Willie Rushton, Adrienne Posta, Arthur Mullard, Stephen Lewis, Christopher Biggins, Anna Quayle, Robert Lindsay, Henry McGee or Brian Wilde. While the Confessions casts included Dandy Nichols, John Le Mesurier, Bill Maynard, Linda Hayden, Joan Hickson, Bob Todd (again), Peter Jones, Windsor Davies, Irene Handl (again), Liz Fraser (again), George Layton, Ballard Berkeley, Lance Percival, John Junkin and Tony Blair’s future father-in-law Anthony Booth.

Behind the camera, talented directors like Val Guest and the aforementioned Stanley Long and talented writers like David McGillivray and Michael Armstrong toiled manfully away, bashing these things out for producers who knew they could make a couple of quid profit if they kept costs low and audience expectations high.

Hey, it was work and there wasn’t much else being made in this country at that time. From the producers’ point of view, these were names and faces that could go on posters and lobby cards. And audiences would flock to see these films, apparently forgetting quite how rubbish they were and going back for more. It must be a great sex comedy, went the reasoning, because the posters promise untold amounts of naked female flesh and it stars some of the leading players from my favourite sitcoms. It must at least be better than the last one we saw. And so tickets were purchased for a few pence - those being the days - and audiences settled down to watch unfunny, unsexy, all-British, honest-to-goodness cinematic tripe.

For the best part of fifteen years or more this entire cinematic subgenre lay forgotten. Then in the early 1990s, a few of these films started emerging on VHS, properly packaged as if they were, you know, real movies. In 1992, there was even a book published on the subject. David McGillivray - who, inbetween penning such horror hoopla as Frightmare, Schizo and Terror also found time to write the magnificently titled I’m Not Feeling Myself Tonight (featuring Brian Murphy, Rita Webb, Graham Stark and James Booth) - documented this lowliest of cinematic movements in Doing Rude Things: The History of the British Sex Films 1957-1981. I bought McGillivray’s book because, while I wasn’t massively interested in the films, I thought that no-one would ever write anything else about them so I should snap up the one and only work on the subject before the films disappeared back into obscurity.

How wrong I was. Gradually, through increased interest in British cinema of the 1970s, through the almost inevitable re-evaluation that every ‘trashy’ aspect of pop culture eventually receives, and especially through DVD releases, the humble British sex comedy has been documented in more and more detail (and in other books), finally receiving its due accord. There is pleasure to be had from these films and not just in a post-modern, ironic way. Hey, some of us like Working Men’s Club comedians, some of us were brought up on dog-eared (and worse!) copies of Knave. For those of us who have attained a certain age, the mid-1970s was a glorious time of gobstoppers, Glitter Band and girls. Bring back the 1970s, bring back the British sex comedy, it’s time to stand up and be proud of something uniquely British.

Oh sure, the Italians and French made sex comedies but their films were actually sexy and that defeated the point. The Americans made sort of overblown, big-budget sex comedies but those were sometimes actually funny and again, that missed the whole raison d’etre of these films. British sex comedies are something of which we can all be proud: they’re smutty, they’re corny, they’re cheap and cheerful and they’re ours. God save the Queen!

All of which preamble leads us, eventually, to the subject of tonight’s lecture, Jan Manthey’s sincere homage, The Adventures of a Plumber in Outer Space. Manthey loves these films - and why not? Under the aegis of mysterious producer ‘Fred Karno’, Manthey made his previous homage to the genre in 2004, a 16-minute epic entitled Can You Keep It Up with This, That and the Other for a Week? (although he has been banging out Happy Shopper cinematic fun since the early 1990s). CYKIUWTTATOFAW? (surely one of the longest film titles ever) was actually screened in Berlin as part of a Troma festival. You can find this on YouTube if you search around.

Emboldened by this success, Jan and his stock company of players and crew embarked on the comparitively snappily titled The Adventures of a Plumber in Outer Space which clocks in at just over 45 minutes and is an altogether slicker production - although not too slick of course! In fact, the very cheapness of the originals gives Manthey’s latter-day sex comedies a degree of verisimilitude, much as the legions of Blair Witch rip-offs which followed that overhyped film were able to achieve remarkably similar production values without any effort. Also Plumber is, of course, not just a return to the good old days of fine, upstanding British rubbish but also an entry in the pantheon of British science fiction films (which has come a long way since The Quatermass Xperiment!). It’s not the first sci-fi sex comedy made here either; other examples include Norman J Warren’s Spaced Out and the late 1960s curiosity Zeta One (Charles Hawtrey and Yutte Stensgaard, together at last!).

Vic Pratt returns as Robin Evans, named after the genre’s two greatest leading men. By day (and under his real name) this fine fellow actually works for a national film archive and research body which I shall not name publicly, hem hem, to maintain his anonymity. A reference to having packed in window cleaning for plumbing makes this an actual direct sequel to Can You Keep Etc.

The director’s wife Diana (who was actually pregnant at the time) plays frustrated housewife Mrs Zucker with Robert Wainwright (who played the demonic Lincoln in Harold Gasnier’s The Demon Within and had a brief role in the prologue of Bloodmyth) as her police sergeant husband who comes home early and catches his Mrs hiding a plumber under the bubbles in her bath. Time for a swift exit?

Ah but, on a distant planet, a matriarchal society is in trouble because none of the men can satisfy their ruler Queen Azizazz (saucy Swedish actress Marie Magnusson who was in the 2006 horror flick Murder Island). Her chief scientists are thin, effete Dr Defghi (Kevin James; not the American actor, not the magician) and portly, camp Hepesh (Quinn Patrick; not the mezzo-soprano) and they have identified that the most fertile man on Earth is Robin Evans. The Queen demands that this Earthman be teleported before her, especially as he carries a sceptre similar to hers - which is, of course, shaped like a plunger.

Now, a word on Robin Evans’ plunger. This isn’t just any old prop bought down the local hardware store, oh no. This is the exact same sink plunger that was used by Christopher Neil in The Adventures of a Plumber’s Mate, kept all these years by Stanley Long (possibly in a display cabinet, possibly in his bathroom, I didn’t ask). Enterprising young Mr Manthey slipped Stanley a copy of Can You Keep... when he met him at a film screening and this maestro of mucky humour has now become a sort of mentor to Jan. He even makes a cameo appearance in the film as ‘angry motorist’.

Through Stanley, Jan was introduced to Michael Armstrong, best known for writing Mark of the Devil, The Haunted House of Horror and House of Long Shadows. Armstrong wrote It Could Happen to You and also wrote (and starred in) Eskimo Nell, the legendarily recursive sex comedy which spoofed sex comedies. That film was produced by Stanley Long and directed by Martin Campbell some twenty years before he made Goldeneye. Campbell and Armstrong also collaborated on The Sex Thief, starring David Warbeck, who told me he was once considered for the role of 007.

Anyway, Michael Armstrong, though uncredited on TAOAPIOS, provided some advice and assistance on the film, not least in casting some real actors from his own acting troupe. Both Mike and Stanley were at the premiere screening where I saw this film and I spent a considerable portion of the later evening chatting with Mike (although as I was also knocking back the booze I have no real idea what we discussed).

Anyway anyway, Robin Evans is teleported to the alien world but the Zuckers are accidentally transported with him. Once there, our hapless hero is taken away by Queen Azizazz while Sgt Zucker finds himself in bed with the Queen’s lady-in-waiting, Lady Gygax (Ella Grace: Return to Ravenswood, Human Residue). Meanwhile, Mrs Zucker is able to restore the flagging libidos of Dr Defghi and Hepesh. This is the cue for much larking about in various stages of partial undress, including a battle between Robin Evans and Bok, the Queen’s champion (shaven-headed Paul Rowe, managing to look fierce and silly at the same time) and an alien wedding, before everyone somehow gets transported back to Earth for the traditional undercranked chase through the shrubbery.

Also in the cast are Smeaton Westbury as Professor Gaylord, Will Fowler as the ‘Alien Holy Man’ presiding at the wedding of Robin and Azizazz, ‘Norman Stebson’ (Grange Hill homage there!) as a Royal Guard, Jenny Hammerton, Mark Duqueno (whose association with Jan Manthey goes right back to the infamous 1990 obscurity Robot Gorilla Rampage) and someone called Pashalifi who is credited as ‘Tannoy Voice’. And, on the very sound basis that all comedy chases are required to feature gorillas, whether or not they are actually relevant to the action or plot: ‘Ethel the Ape as herself.’ Most of the cast are good, some are very good, none are notably bad. Not even Ethel the Ape.

What to make of The Adventures of a Plumber in Outer Space? Sure it’s corny but it’s an homage to corny films. Certainly it’s cheap but it’s a tribute to films that cost about £2.80 to make. If you expect a slick, polished, entertaining, professional production you will assuredly be disappointed - but this film was inspired by, and seeks to recreate for a new generation, an entire subgenre which was virtually defined by its consistent ability to disappoint audiences.

Jan Manthey and the curious Karno clan (costumes designed by Vincent De Karno, cinematography by Boris Von Karno...) have done a marvellous job in bringing the 1970s British sex comedy into the 21st century. The mannered acting, the desperately weak jokes, the half-hearted eroticism. It would be easy to classify British sex comedies as films which wanted to be porn movies when they grew up but I think that is misleading. These were films that could have been porn films but frankly were more interested in larking about, leaving that sort of thing to the continentals. It is surely no coincidence that the countries most closely associated with hardcore porn - Germany, Sweden, Denmark ... Los Angeles, even - are all places full of po-faced, miserable or serious people where a sense of humour would stick out like a pair of bloomers on a washing line.

But in Britain, the country that gave the world Benny Hill, Ben Elton, Are You Being Served?, The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club, the Krankies and the Chuckle Brothers - where we will laugh at anything - the porn film was twisted into something new, something different, something uniquely British. God bless Jan Manthey and his pals for keeping this tradition alive.

Let me stress that this is not a spoof or a parody, it does not seek to mock or sneer. There is no way that Mike Armstrong and Stanley Long would have been associated with this movie if it was like that. This is a sincere homage, a celebration of all that was great about these films and most of what was terrible about them but which audiences sat through anyway.

The threadbare wobbly sets, the Bacofoil costumes, the overdone make-up, the underpants - oh, the underpants. You can’t even buy underpants like that anymore; where did they get them? (Please don’t say Stanley Long has been holding onto those for thirty years too...) And the music is spot on too. It sounds like it was recorded using a Bontempi organ and manages to be both utterly bland and irritatingly memorable at the same time: “The advent-ures! Of a plumb-er! In out-er space, in out-er space!” Vic Pratt composed most of the songs himself although Jon Cockerell and Alan Mills also provided tunes.

If you enjoyed the films to which this paid tribute, then it goes without saying that you will love The Adventures of a Plumber in Outer Space. Quite apart from anything else, this is something very different among all the indie stuff that’s out there. It’s smashing.

It’s also only three quarters of an hour long which is an awkward running time, although it did have a screening at the Portobello Film Festival a couple of weeks after its glittering West End premiere (in a room above a pub). The festival audience were reported to be ‘confused’ which I fear will be the response of those viewers unfamiliar with the genre that this film revives.

In a way this reminded me of Grindhouse (not just because I was reading a review of that film shortly before I watched this one). Tarantino and Rodriguez were fully familiar with the films that they were homaging but many audiences were perplexed. What occurred to me - and I suggested this to Jan - was that if he had another film of similar length, similarly inspired by another typical 1970s British genre, he could combine the two. Throw in a few fake trailers and adverts (“Just 500 yards from this cinema!” - as if audiences would think, “That’s handy, we could pop in and buy a roll of carpet on the way home.”) and you would have a British answer to Grindhouse. Perhaps you could call it Fleapit.

Anyway, I wholeheartedly recommend The Adventures of a Plumber in Outer Space and I look forward to Jan Manthey’s further work as he continues to drag British independent cinema kicking and screaming into the mid-1970s. (You can find out more about Jan’s earlier films on the KinoKarno website.)

MJS rating: A-
Review originally written 13th September 2008