Cooking Price-Wise (1971)

 

"Even More Entertaining Than You Might Expect"

And that's a lot down to some excellent extras on this, the BFI's Blu-ray release of Vincent Price's cookery show, broadcast on ITV in the early 1970s, often on a weekday at around 4pm just before children's programming kicked in. 

Shot at a rate of about one a day, the format was simple: Vincent Price, in a mock-1970s studio fitted kitchen, takes the viewer through recipes that at the time would have seemed immensely exotic. One wonders how many husbands came home looking forward to fish and chips or shepherd's pie only to be presented with Moroccan lamb and a cucumber crocodile. One also wonders what the reaction might have been.

There are six episodes here, each with a central theme  - lamb, cheese, bacon, and so on, with the first reserved for the potato. Try watching it and not feeling the urge to repeat Mr Price's pronunciation of that particular vegetable. We also get a brief history of some of the ingredients used, along with rather charming line drawings, and the recipes get summed up at the end so have pen and paper ready.

Extras include commentary tracks on three episodes (potatoes, bacon and cheese) from three different pairs of commentators. Vic Pratt and William Fowler - The 'Bodies Beneath' Boys - on potatoes, Lisa Kerrigan and Josephine Botting on bacon and Jenny Hammerton and Peter Fuller on cheese. It's an excellent idea as everyone comes at the subject matter from different angles. Pratt and Fowler discuss the ins and outs of this kind of TV broadcasting of the period, and I do hope Jenny and Peter succeed in their search for the saucepans used on the show.

Jenny Hammerton returns for two featurettes - Monster Munch (24 minutes) in which she takes you through some of Vincent Price's recipes, and Kitchenfinder General (21 minutes) in which she talks to Vic Pratt about Price and his love of food. Price's culinary predilections are also discussed by his daughter Victoria Price in Until We Eat Again (18 minutes).

Finally, the BFI once again offers up a cornucopia of curios from its film vaults with a batch of interesting short subjects, not all of them complete (or at least the comedy How to Cook a Cabbage does come to a rather abrupt end). These include a selection of films made by the Orwellian-sounding Ministry of Food, Tea Making Tips from 1941 and a culinary train journey on the Centenary Express from 1980. 

To some this release may seem a little odd while others (and especially fans of Vincent Price and the Flipside series in general) will completely understand why it's been brought out. All I'll say in summary is that it's a release that's packed with stuff, such that if you have any interest in the subject matter this is a must buy.

COOKING PRICE-WISE is out from the BFI in their Flipside series on Monday 25th November 2024

Bagpuss (1974)

"189 Minutes of Nostalgic Delight"

For those who grew up in the 1970s it might come as something of a surprise to learn that there are only 13 episodes of Bagpuss, and now Fabulous Films are releasing the lot on Blu-ray and DVD with a bunch of extras.

What? I hear you cry. Does early 1970s stop motion kids' animation shot on 16mm in a barn by two blokes (Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin) who did absolutely everything apart from a couple of the voices warrant the Blu-ray treatment? Well surprisingly enough Blu-ray really does make a difference, and if you've ever fancied revisiting the show this is the set to do it with.

For those few (and BAGPUSS really is a famous piece of TV, at least here in the UK) who are unfamiliar with the show, it's set in a nebulous sepia-tinted world (Postgate wanted it to have a 'timeless Edwardian feel') where a little girl called Emily (Firmin's daughter) owns a shop that, in the way of children's programmes of the period, doesn't actually sell anything.

What it does contain is lost objects, which Emily has found and brought home to Bagpuss, the saggy old cloth cat who sleeps in the shop window. Despite being constructed from pink and white wool (in reality he was meant to be marmalade but something went wrong during the dyeing process) Emily merely has to say a few magic words (which some reading this will likely be able to repeat now) to cause Bagpuss to wake up. 

And when Bagpuss wakes up, all his friends wake up, too. These friends consist of a weird jumble of characters typical of other Postgate-Firmin productions, in this case including a wooden woodpecker apparently inspired by Bertrand Russell (Professor Yaffle) and a toad (Gabriel) based on a character from the long-running radio soap The Archers.

Each 14 minute episode then consists of a story built around the object that has been brought in. There's often a song, and the mixture of folk music, fairy tale, and the comforting environment in which this all takes place has all likely contributed to Bagpuss' longevity.

Extras on Fabulous Films' disc include 10 minutes of Peter Firmin at Home With Bagpuss, The Story of Smallfilms (24 minutes) and the sequence from the BAFTA Children's Awards when Peter Firmin was given a special presentation. There's some duplication amongst the extras but fans will be delighted to see some of the original puppets and props, backdrops from shows like Ivor the Engine, and if you're a fan of Gabriel they even show you how he was worked. All superbly lovely stuff. 

BAGPUSS is out on DVD and Blu-ray from Fabulous Films on Monday 9th October 2023

Tales of Unease (1970)

Mention the phrase 'classic British anthology horror TV show' and titles like Thriller, Ghost Stories For Christmas, and Hammer House of Horror will come to mind. But there's also a number of other series out there, ones that often only lasted a handful of episodes and which have remained unseen since their original broadcast. 

One such show is TALES OF UNEASE, produced by ITV's London Weekend Television unit and lasting seven episodes. The title was taken from the Pan anthology series of the same name edited by John Burke and which lasted three volumes. Two of the seven stories broadcast were adapted from stories that appeared in the books (Michael Cornish's Superstitious Ignorance and Jack Griffith's The Black Goddess). Now Network have released TALES OF UNEASE on DVD the question remains - has it been worth the wait?

If you're a fan of the old Pan & Fontana paperback anthologies of the 1970s you'll probably appreciates the short but disturbing title sequence, featuring as it does a crudely fashioned wax head with one eye that emulates the covers of those old books. As for the stories the best, and the one that most evokes the feel of the newer stories that made it into those old anthologies, is Bad Bad Jo-Jo by James Leo Herlihy. Roy Dotrice plays a very successful and even camper and cattier writer whose success is based on the creation of a monstrous psychopathic killer and the old lady who controls him. He is visited by two fans who like to dress up as their favourite characters and want to 'play' with their creator, resulting in a decent, tense bit of studio-bound TV.

Other stories include John Burke's Calculated Nightmare, in which a computerised building is programmed to trap the two men responsible for a series of planned redundancies, Michael Hastings' Ride, Ride in which Susan George plays a ghost who spells death for a motorcyclist, and Superstitious Ignorance in which appallingly Bright Young Things Jeremy Clyde and Tessa Wyatt plan to buy a rotting old house only to find they may never leave. 

Comedy horror arrives in the form of Richardson Morgan's The Old Banger in which an abandoned car slowly makes its way back to its owners, while a writer's neglected wife locks him in his study in Andrea Newman's It's Too Late Now. Finally, miners have to deal with a cave-in in the Rhondda of 1932 in the Black Goddess.

If you're a fan of 1970s TV you'll want to have these. The transfers look as if they are mostly taken from tape transfers of 16mm film and you can see a thumb print at the bottom of the frame for most of one story. But it's classic TV and if you want more stuff that's in the vein of Brian Clemens' Thriller then you won't be disappointed. No extras were provided for review. Here's a trailer: 

TALES OF UNEASE is out from Network on DVD now

The Owl Service (1969)

I'll start this review of Network's new Blu-ray release of THE OWL SERVICE by admitting that, before I read Alan Garner's source novel or finally caught up with this TV version on DVD, I assumed it was about a WICKER MAN-style pagan religion that worshipped owls and had its own church where it conducted its services. Maybe I was alone in this but if not, and if you've never heard of this, the service in question is actually a set of dinner plates with intricate owl patterns on them that are discovered in an attic. 

The plates are discovered by teenagers Alison (Gillian Hills), and Gwyn (Michael Holden), and soon Alison's new stepbrother Roger (Francis Wallis) is involved as well as the reconstruction of the owl pattern as a paper model sets in motion the resurrection of an ancient love triangle with the three seemingly condemned to repeat it.

The original legend can be found in The Mabinogion, a collection of Welsh myths first put together around the 12th century. You might want to read that and / or Alan Garner's source novel first, because the TV adaptation of THE OWL SERVICE, even though it's eight episodes long and was broadcast on a Sunday teatime, doesn't exactly spoon feed its audience. Hints are dropped here are there and some of the clues flash so briefly on screen its hard to believe this was shown in an era when you couldn't rewind to check things. 

That said, THE OWL SERVICE (book and TV show) is a mature, considered and extremely intelligent piece of work that has rightly acquired the status of a classic. If you've never watched it then Network's new Blu-ray looks better than their previous DVD release, plus you get commentary tracks from Tim Worthington on four of the episodes, and two interviews with Alan Garner (conducted in1968 and 1980) as extra.

And now to my minor quibble, which also extends to Network's Blu-ray of THE INTRUDER, both of which have some real issues with bad subtitling. At times it's non-existent, claiming dialogue is unintelligible when it actually isn't, and at other times getting the transcription completely wrong. I was happy to ignore this until episode eight of THE OWL SERVICE where, at a crucial point during the climax a character says "By Damn!" and the subtitles render it as "Boy dumb," which changes the meaning of the scene. This just after a sequence where. the subtitles trail off into "...(speaks Welsh)..." when a character is very definitely speaking English but just has a slightly stronger Welsh accent. Mild swearing in THE INTRUDER, eg "Damn" gets transcribed as 'unintelligible' and there are other mistakes in there too. I guess the take home message unfortunately is that if you're hard of hearing you may want to watch these with someone who can tell you when the subtitles are wrong. Otherwise these releases are excellent. Here's a trailer. Without subtitles:

Alan Garner's THE OWL SERVICE is getting a Blu-ray release from Network (networkonair.com) on Monday 17th October 2022

The Intruder (1972)

"More Classic Stuff From Network"

"You don't decide if you've written a children's book. The publisher does that," says author John Rowe Townsend in one of the extras on Network's new Blu-ray of the Granada Television adaptation of his source novel. Originally broadcast in the ITV Sunday Teatime slot over eight weeks in 1972, THE INTRUDER is a curious, bleak, and occasionally challenging work. Producer-director Peter Plummer had previously been responsible for the even more complex THE OWL SERVICE so presumably Granada were happy to let him tackle something else that would give families plenty to discuss over their cups of tea and Mr Kipling's farmhouse cake to divert them from the prospect of school / work the next day.

Arnold Haithwaite (James Bate) is a young man working as a sand pilot in a remote coastal town in the north of England. His job is to guide tourists across a treacherous stretch of intermittently-dry land to a small off shore island, and ensure they get back safely before the tide comes in. There's a fair bit of talk about how 'every sand pilot has lost a few' which makes you wonder quite why this fairly unremarkable destination is so popular given the death rate.

At the beginning of episode one Arnold meets a strange man (Milton Johns) who claims that he is the real Arnold Haithwaite. Thus is set in motion a story in which young Arnold is to discover he's not who he has always believed himself to be. 

A bleak and compelling mystery, THE INTRUDER isn't supernatural by any stretch of the imagination but it does have a strange atmosphere, created both by the location, and by the variety of characters with whom Arnold interacts. These include two young women who show interest in him - posh Jane (Sheila Ruskin who went on to appear in Blake's 7 and the Dr Who story The Keeper of Traken) who lives at the manor house and has a drippy boyfriend (Barry Stokes of Norman J Warren's PREY) whom she finds frustrating and unsatisfying, and not so posh Norma (Maggie Don) who works at the house as a maid. Arnold's 'father' refuses to be drawn on the young man's past and seems to ally himself with the Milton Johns character who also appears to be poisoning him. 

         Catherine Lacey (THE MUMMY'S SHROUD, THE SORCERERS) might have all the answers but is confoundingly cryptic. Everything builds to a massive storm (and well-executed flood of the island) in episode eight but what's most interesting about THE INTRUDER is how little resolution the ending provides for most of its characters, revealing most of them to be self-obsessed and in at least one case rather pathetic. Don't be expecting a conventional happy ending with this one.

THE INTRUDER was shot entirely on 16mm film and Network's HD transfer makes it look better than it ever must have on TV. Extras include commentaries on four of the episodes (1,3,6 and 8) from writer Tim Worthington. Writers' Gallery is a 20 minute episode from a 1970s TV series that looks as if it profiled a different author each week, in this case John Rowe Townsend talking about his work to Brian Trueman. Remembering Ravenglass is 21 minutes of actor Simon Fisher-Turner (Peter in the show) reminiscing about the location shooting of THE INTRUDER in Ravenglass in Cumberland. Finally you get a gallery of 47 images from the programme. Here's the trailer:

THE INTRUDER is out from Network (as an exclusive - order at networkonair.com) on Blu-ray on Monday 17th October 2022

Eurotrash (1993 - 2004)

 

"A Great Big Package of Brightly Coloured Trashy Nostalgia"

By 1990 Channel 4 had worked out that, rather than a subtitled art film or even something with a little red triangle in the top right hand corner to indicate 'special discretion advised', what the post-pub Friday night crowd really wanted more than anything was brightly coloured soundbite-sized doses of lurid and frequently titillating material. Initially this was achieved with Charlie Parsons' frequently embarrassing 'The Word'. A couple of years later the rather better made, slightly more tasteful and infinitely more entertaining Eurotrash hit the screens.

Conceived by Peter Stuart, who oversaw the show during its entire run, and hosted by Antoine De Caunes (already known to UK audiences for the BBC2 series Rapido) and French fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier (who departed after the sixth series), Eurotrash was ostensibly a cultural magazine programme highlighting the more outré (ie entertaining) aspects of European culture. It lasted for eleven years and now it can be revisited in all its brightly coloured, brain-frying, taste-challenging glory as Network releases the entire run in a single, massive box set.

Watching it now, it's surprising to realise that, amongst the pieces on a man dressed as a smurf trying to get thrown out of Disneyland, the disastrous BBC TV soap 'Eldorado' scene recreators club and pubic hairdressers, you also get interviews with Paul Verhoeven (talking about BASIC INSTINCT and his next exciting and secret project which of course turned out to be SHOWGIRLS), Sylvia Kristel and Kim Newman talking about the EMMANUELLE films, a 22 year old Charlotte Gainsbourg  talking about THE CEMENT GARDEN, and Tinto Brass waxing lyrical on the female bottom. There are also decent pieces on Tom Of Finland, the Leningrad Cowboys and a well-observed piece on 'How to Watch a Jean-Luc Godard Film' followed by a profile of the late director's quite unbelievable KING LEAR. 

Of course it doesn't take long for the show to give the audience what it really wants, including regular appearances by bizarre personalities like Lolo Ferrari and Belgian singer Eddy Wally, regular items like 'Sit On Me' and stories on curious eccentrics like the man who hires out his buttocks to use as a bicycle stand.

Network's box set consists of 20 discs covering all 16 series. Not all were provided for review and it's not clear if the specials are included. There are no extras. 

Network are releasing the Eurotrash Box Set on DVD and on Digital on Monday 26th September 2022

Play For Today Volume One (1970 - 1977)

 

"Fantastic. Let's Have More"

Play For Today, late and very much lamented by many, was a series of original single dramas made and shown by the BBC from 1970 to 1984. Around 300 of them were made over this time, and they covered a wide range of social and political issues using a wide variety of storytelling styles. Play for Today could be angry and biting one week, gentle and wistful another, and hilariously funny another. You never knew what you were going to get, which for many was part of its appeal. Peppered into the mix time to time was horror like John Bowen's Robin Redbreast (reviewed elsewhere on here) or A Photograph (included in this set) or Vampires (hopefully to be included on a future release).

The BFI are releasing seven Play For Todays in a box set, along with original scripts and an excellent detailed book with essays on each story that gives added context in terms of the socio-cultural attitudes of the time (for those who aren't old enough to have been there!). So without any further ado, here's what you get:

Disc 1

The Lie (1970)

Written by Ingmar Bergman (translated by Paul Britten Austin) and directed by Alan Bridges, best known to readers here for 1966 low budget British SF classic INVASION, The Lie tells the story of a disintegrating marriage. Gemma Jones (wearing a wig that only John Waters' regular makeup man Van Smith could possibly love) and Frank Finlay play the professional couple who sleep in separate beds, lead separate lives and even have separate lovers, with everything coming crashing down about their ears during a climax that has Finlay hacking through a door with an axe to get at his faithless wife. Did Stanley Kubrick see this? Probably. 

Despite its UK setting there's a very European feel to the locations, and especially to the kinds of houses people live in. Posh dinner parties are held with guests standing talking on balconies more suited to the Mediterranean than the obviously awful freezing weather.

It's a typically Bergmanesque tale of gloom and misery with a fascinating cast of familiar faces including Richard O'Sullivan, Jennifer Daniel, John Carson and Joss Ackland. If those eerie violins in the soundtrack seem familiar that's because it's by BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW's Marc Wilkinson. 

Shakespeare or Bust (1972)

Three miners (Brian Glover, Ray Mort and Douglas Livingstone) from Leeds go on a pilgrimage to Stratford on Avon with the intention of seeing Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra, travelling by canal barge to get there. On the way they meet a variety of colourful characters, pursue a gorgeous woman they spot on another boat (Katya Wyeth familiar to readers here from Hammer Films and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE) and getting involved in a number of shenanigans before finally reaching their destination, which comes complete with guest appearances by Richard Johnson (best known here for ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS) and Janet Suzman. Utterly charming, this was one of three plays to feature the same three characters and it makes one hope the BFI release 'The Fishing Party' and 'Three for the Fancy' in future sets. 

Disc 2

Back of Beyond (1974)

Desmond Davis (CLASH OF THE TITANS) directs this tale of lonely Olwen (Rachel Roberts) living an hermetic lifestyle in her tumbledown farm in Wales. She makes an unlikely friend in the form of teenaged Rachel (Lynne Jones) whose parents would prefer if she didn't bother with the 'old woman'. 

A fascinating time capsule of a time now long gone, with beautiful location photography in and around Hay-on-Wye and boasting an excellent, melancholy and slightly sinister music score from John Addison, Julia Jones' Back of Beyond (the fourth and last of her Play For Todays) is an unexpected delight. Filmed at what looks like the height of summer the story constantly feels as if it's about to develop into kind of folk horror tale that ITV children's show Shadows was doing so well at around the same time. It never quite does, even though people refer to Olwen as a witch and it's obvious she wants to pass on what she owns to Rachel, whose parents seem to have their own mysterious reasons for shunning the woman. 

A Passage to England (1975)

Anand (Tariq Yunus) lives in Amsterdam with his sick uncle (Renu Setna) and his cousin Pramila (Emily Bolton). He needs to get his uncle to the UK for treatment but they have no passports. He asks Onslow (Colin Welland) if Onslow and his small crew will take them on Onslow's boat. In exchange Anand will sell Onslow one of the gold bars his uncle has converted his savings into for a knock down price in cash. As Onslow remortages his boat, a plan starts to form that maybe he could keep the gold and the money and get in with the immigration authorities in England. But who is double crossing whom?

This one's written by Leon Griffiths (Minder) and directed by John MacKenzie (THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY and APACHES) who gives this caper a slightly gritty edge that helps build the suspense as to what is actually going to happen. Frequent Pete Walker collaborator Stanley Myers provides the score. 

Disc 3

Your Man From Six Counties (1976)

This one's written by Colin Welland and set in contemporary Ireland. Young Jimmy (Joseph Reynolds) witnesses his father blown up in a Belfast pub bombing and moves to Ireland to live with his Uncle Danny (Donal McCann) and Aunt Mollie (a pre-Oscar-winning Brenda Fricker). But the tensions Jimmy left behind in Northern Ireland are still very much present in the tiny village he finds himself living in, and he ends up becoming the focus of many of them. 

Like Back of Beyond, Your Man From Six Counties has beautiful scenery as the backdrop to its considerably more political story. Carl Davis provides the melancholy music score for this one. 

Our Flesh and Blood (1977)

Jan (Alison Steadman from Abigail's Party and a vast amount of other TV) is expecting a baby with husband Bernard (Bernard Hill, best known to one generation for Boys From the Blackstuff and another for LORD OF THE RINGS). Jan wants a 'natural birth' (still a novel concept in 1977) and Bernard wants to support her, despite his boss and colleague treating Jan's pregnancy as a mistake on Bernard's part, refusing to reschedule interviews and suggesting a sports car might be a better investment than a child. Richard Briers (best known to one generation for The Good Life and another, rather wonderfully, for COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES) is the icy head of the maternity ward, embodying what were perceived as the attitudes and principles of late 1970s medicine, urging Jan to take the drugs and wanting Bernard to leave because 'fathers just get in the way'. 

Disc 4

A Photograph (1977)

Michael (John Stride), a media personality "for the intelligentsia" who reviews the arts for the BBC is sent a photograph of two girls sitting outside a caravan. His wife Gillian (Stephanie Turner) is convinced he is having an affair and there's the implication that it isn't the first. There's the suggestion he is up to something he shouldn't be, and it's obvious all is not too happy at home. To placate his wife Michael goes on a search for the caravan but only horror waits him at the end of his journey.

Written by John Bowen (Robin Redbreast and The Ice House amongst others), A Photograph builds slowly and almost imperceptibly to a full-on horror climax that feels as if Pete Walker might have directed it. To say any more would be to spoil the surprises but this is a splendid 72 minutes of television that gradually tightens the knot on its lead character with plenty for the viewer to think about afterwards. 

    As mentioned above, extras on the discs are limited to the scripts but the real bonus here is the detailed book that accompanies the set and provides detailed essays on each film. Thank you BFI. Let's have some more of these. 

PLAY FOR TODAY Volume One is out on Blu-ray in a four disc set from the BFI on Monday 16th November 2020