masonp16

In a time long long ago it was decided by a American film distributor that if a British movie was to be distributed among the masses and make some money it had to have an American star in the lead role.It is still happening today and yet still people apart from Britain and probably Australia only get to see a British movie so this distributor lied all those years ago and yet we still put Americans in the lead role and in my humble opinion the movies are the worse for it.

Now take Hawk The Slayer as we have two Americans in the lead roles.Number one is Jack Palance a very well known actor who has played bad guys in numerous movies and number two is John Terry who apparently had a small part in an episode of Soap and Lou Grant before this film.All Jack Palance did was shout his way through ninety minutes of this movie and well John Terry who makes the phrase wooden acting an Oscar winning performance.

Now the film...People who go on about the special effects don't realise that British films are made on a shoestring budget as we don't have the money and we don't have deep pocket producers like the American movies have so the £50 spend on the special effects weren't really that bad...lol.

The story is quite simple and in my eyes a film is good if i don't half way through start thinking about what i am going to do later or the following day or whatever and i don't with Hawk The Slayer i just watch the film.

I Have just watched series 1,2 & 3 in a week and i enjoyed mostly series 1 & 2 but series 3 was so so bad with the worst character i think i have ever seen in a series namely one Richard France who just made me cringe every time he was on screen. I don't blame the actor if he was told to act like someone under five years old and who made Leighton seem like Albert Einstein and don't get me started on the blokes on the fish counter especially him with the beard, talk about dumb TV. I also saw the making of doc where the producer or writer whoever he was said that Trollied was the first comedy set in a supermarket well i can name two before this as there was Trippers Day & Slingers Day. I Have high hopes for series 4 now with have DCI BANKS in it and Miriam Margoyles but will miss Julie and Katie very much.

I Began watching this on a portable TV in my bedroom way back in 1982 and i had just acquired a rented vcr from radio rentals so i used to tape everything i watched being a 100% TV freak back then and i still have the six episodes that was made and have watched them each year and never get tired of watching them because the series was so good.

The person for me who made the series was George Innes who played the Professors man servant Phipps and of course Sam Waterson who was Quentin E Deverell.

The reason i think that only six episodes was ever made was because finance for the show was funded by a well known British bank and the show was never shown on prime time TV instead it was shown on Sunday afternoons which is such a pity because in my eyes it was one of the best and still is.