a_baron

In 1987, David Fuller raped and strangled two young women. The body of Wendy Knell was found in her Tunbridge Wells home; the body of Caroline Pierce was dumped on Romney Marsh some forty miles away.

Colin Pitchfork was arrested the same year, the first murderer apprehended by DNA profiling, but the art was in its infancy; that and regular police investigative methods drew a blank. However, although the investigation was wound down, the police never give up on a case like this, and periodic reviews led to a breakthrough decades later. Fuller was eventually arrested at his home on December 3, 2020. The police made an intensive search of his property hoping to find what exactly after more than a quarter of a century? They did find something; Fuller was one of those people who documented his life minutely.

The evidence they found was documentation that linked him to the businesses where both victims worked. They also found something else, something they were not looking for and could never have dreamed of finding, something that in its own way was even more horrific than the two murders - the industrial scale violation of the dead.

Fuller was an electrician by trade, and while working in a hospital mortuary...The reader can be spared a graphic description, but this documentary spares nothing; as well as interviews it includes video of Fuller's arrest and his questioning by the police. Don't watch it if you are of a nervous disposition or have a weak stomach.

This film has been called a fantasy, as indeed it is. It is based on a short novel by Ruth Park (1917-2010) who although a Kiwi relocated to Sydney in 1942. "Playing Beatie Bow" is set in Sydney and sees a feisty teenager transported back in time to 1873 by the magical process of coming into contact with a young girl who has transported forward in time. The novel was published in 1980 so this is a fairly contemporaneous film.

So what happens to our heroine? Lots of things, including being kidnapped with the intent of forcing her to work in a brothel, but a kick in the gonads and a prompt rescue by the menfolk of the family she initially encountered soon rectifies that. There is also a house fire caused by a veteran of the Crimean War who has lost his mind, and a few other things, including, not unnaturally, an ill-fated romance. Or maybe it isn't so ill-fated after she is transported back to modern Sydney.

All good clean fun anyway, and family friendly up to a point.

Some films are so bad they are classic, and "From Beijing With Love" is one of them. If you are of a certain vintage or a dedicated film buff, you will recognise at once that this is a parody on the James Bond franchise. To start with, the title is clearly a take off of "From Russia With Love". Then there is the soundtrack, the opening number of which has clear echoes of "The James Bond Theme". Its instantly recognisable characters include a Chinese version of Miss Moneypenny and the tech wizard Q.

Parody is one thing but our Bond character, his antics and misadventures are so over the top and the scripts so ludicrous that it is difficult not to laugh. Here, it has more in common with the kind of humour used by Leslie Nielsen in "The Naked Gun" and related films.

The plot is ridiculous and in places confusing. Our hero is called out of retirement to, ostensibly, track down the head of a tyrannosaurus which has gone missing from the skeleton. Obviously, these are important artefacts, but are they so important they warrant mass murder, and what would any thief do with the head of any kind of dinosaur? It appears though that there is treachery afoot, and as the bodies pile up, the chase intensifies. Watch this one if you must, but don't take it too seriously. As if!

At the time of writing, both the original and the excellently dubbed English version can be found on YouTube.