Film
COMEDY E upsets the pompous THE PETER congregation by being SELLERS kind to immigrants and 5 the poorrAs the (Optimum Classic DVD Commun'ty rebe's' 8. rather tagged-on twnst
retail) 0”. _ _ _ _ - -<- ---- - r-~-—~—- ending awaits. While his greatest achievements were still to arrive, these post-Goons period pieces showed that Sellers could command ' I a scene like no other British comic actor of his time. even in movies whose comedy was light and the satire forced. (Brian Donaldson)
Master or monster? Idol
or idiot? Genius or maEfialigTo jackass? The debate still (U) 85min
simmers upon which (Network ovo retail) side Peter Sellers' DO.
legacy should fall, but it . would be a shame if his ‘ reel life was tainted by his clear failings as a husband or father. Just prior to him becoming Dr Strangelove and Inspector Clouseau. Sellers was a staple of the late SOs/early 608 British comedy movie scene. Three of those affairs are slapped together into one box here alongside a pointless clips compilation, The Very Best of Peter Sellers.
The Boulting brothers' I’m All Right Jack is a gentle mocking of business practices and a strident attack upon trade unions. Still, Sellers puts up a stirring performance as the stony-faced shop steward Fred Kite. Only Two Can Play is notable for acting as a mirror of Sellers' life in 1962. Being mean and moody towards his wife and kids. he lolled around in t the arms of others; here. it's with Mai Zetterling as he attempts to find meaning in his dull Welsh librarian life. Sidney Gilliat's movie adaptation of the Kingsley Amis novel hints at the darker aspects of Sellers' world and at the more complex roles that would soon be his.
In his next collaboration with the Boultings, Heavens Abovel, he plays a radical Brummie vicar who is accidentally assigned to a parish and
Loud
When that British television institution The Avengers was cancelled after an eight-year run in 1969. its star Patrick Macnee found himself typecast as debonair secret agent John Steed. Thus. a year later Macnee played a thinly disguised Steed. gentleman thief. Dudley Jerico. in this television pilot that failed to produce an ongoing senes.
Co-scripted by Avengers writer Philip Levene and David T Chantler (who penned the George Reeves Superman shows) and directed by another
Avengers alumni. the ‘ Edinburgh-born Sidney Hayers. it's pretty lame stuff that exhibits none of the knowing humour nor swinging cool of its Steed and Peel predecessor. But. for those with a retro bent, Mr Jerico does boast curiosity and kitsch value, not least in the groovy title song belted out by Lulu and the sunny Malta location, where all the girls wear bikinis. the men roll- neck sweaters. Minimal
®°Cleor ~
extras include a couple of old television chat show interviews with Macnee. (Miles Fielder)
COMEDY DRAMA ONE DAY IN EUROPE
(15) 95min (Peccadillo Pictures DVD retail) 0”
Tenuously linked by the fact that they all occur on the same day as a Champion's League Final match between Turkey's Galatasaray and Spain's Deportivo La Coruna (a fictional match. probably devised to fit the locations the filmmakers wished to use). this four- story anthology still offers a rich and occasionally amusing trip around Europe.
Each story follows a tourist or traveller who has been robbed in a foreign location. so we have an English woman in Moscow. a German in Istanbul, and so on. Encounters with unfriendly policemen seem to be a recurring theme in this situation. and the slightly oppressed feeling of the victims is as well captured as the scenery of each city. German writer and director Hannes Stohr and his cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister re-imagine this feeling of being dislocated in a crowd well, at the same time managing to evocatively play on the differences between continental nations and their people. Minimal extras. (David Pollock)
CULT
JESS FRANCO DOUBLE BILL VOL. 2
(1 8) 160min
(Tartan DVD retail) O.”
Much beloved Of a certain breed of semi-
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a couple, framed for
HORROR
THE ULTIMATE HAMMER BOX SET (18) 1973min
(Optimum Classic DVD retail) COO.
That the words ‘Hammer’ and ‘horror’ are synonymous is testament to the British production company’s significance in cinema history and to the enduring appeal of the films it produced. Although Hammer Film Productions Ltd had been making films since 1935, when it was founded by comedian/businessman Will Hinds (whose stage name was Will Hammer), the company didn’t begin to build its modern day reputation until Hinds’ son Anthony inherited his father’s share of the business. Impressed by the 1953 BBC production of Nigel Kneale’s science fiction thriller The Quatermass Experiment, Anthony Hinds had Hammer produce a film version two years later, and, following its success, the company began to make the horror films for which it is best known. ‘Hammer horror’, the phrase which coined the company’s filmmaking style, was shaped by the talent who made the films - directors such as Terence Fisher and Freddie Francis, actors Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing - but the ethos behind their essence was Hinds’. Although he wrote a number of the films under the name John Elder, it was Hinds’ business acumen that led to Hammer producing films that were literary (exploiting out of copyright characters and stories) and at once gory (taking advantage of the dawn of the X certificate age) and atmospheric (it being cheaper to turn on a smoke machine than build a set).
By the mid-19705, the end of lucrative distribution deals with Hollywood studios and the saturation of the horror market with ever more lurid films was the death knell of Hammer horror. But these 21 films remind us of the company’s glory days. That said, the collection represents only a smattering, and not even the best, of Hammer’s horror output. Still, there are some gems: The Nanny, starring newly reincarnated scream queen Bette Davis, never before released on DVD; the Cornwall-set B-movie, Plague of Zombies; Quatermass and the Pit; and the Dennis Wheatley adaptation The Devil Rides Out. Significant extras include commentaries and interviews with Christopher Lee and other Hammer alumni and a feature length documentary. (Miles Fielder)
grasping relatives (including Lina Romay. Franco‘s wife) are pursued around a country house by a death-masked killer to a slightly incongruous saxophone soundtrack. In each case. characterisations are secondary to graphic set-pieces framed by Franco's luridly zooming lens. although a dark morality beats at the centre of each bleak tale. Extras included deleted and alternative scenes. (David Pollock)
ironic movie geek i (Ouentin Tarantino's a ‘ big fan, and Franco was
a quoted influence on
Kill Bill). the Spanish l auteur's many dozens of films since the sixties
can be characterised by their low budget. blunt sexual imagery. and g
settings.
The first of the two films in this good-value thrill-seekers double disc collection is Devil's Island Lovers (1974), which places a young
murder by the titular hellhole's corrupt governor, in prison.
In the second film, 1976's Night of the Assassins. a group of
ALL DVDS WERE REVIEWED ON A SYSTEM SUPPLIED AND INSTALLED BY LOUD 8: CLEAR
i1 '» ‘rll' ‘v‘si Elli Hill.
42 THE LIST 19 Oct—2 Nov