Film You May have Missed (#12)

Thunder Road (1958)

There was a whole genre of American films in the 1950’s dedicated to cars and particularly hot-rods. With titles like ‘Hot Rod Girl’, ‘Hot Rod Gang’, ‘Dragstrip Girl’, ‘The Cool Hot Rod’ they were cheaply made, badly acted and inevitably had teenagers depicted by 30-year-old actors and directed by 50-year-old West Coast studio men.

Not strictly a hot-rod movie but like them, Thunder Road, has fast cars, an outlaw mentality, bad-boy goodies and lawmen baddies, but, above all, it has Robert Mitchum the Hollywood star who didn’t hide behind studio lawyers when he was caught smoking weed and did his time at the County Farm. Unlike the hot-rod movies, this was bloody good.

Mitchum plays a moonshine runner whose job it is to drive a souped-up Ford filled with illegal booze faster and further than any officer from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, but this is a three-way contest with the Mob trying to muscle in on the booze trade.

                                                            Mitchum and real-life son, Jim

Deep down though Mitchum’s character knows there’s no future in Moonshining and tries to convince his younger brother (played by Mitchum’s son Jim) that he’d be better off joining the Army, while fully aware that he himself can never give up the thrill of the chase.

It was based on a story by Robert Mitchum, produced by him and the theme song was both written and performed by him. Bob’s other son, Chris, also had a small, uncredited, part in the film.

Book You May Have Missed (#12)

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco (2005)

The plot centres on a middle-aged Italian man who loses all memory of his past and returns to his old family home to try to recover his lost childhood and youth. A shocking discovery causes him to suddenly remember everything about his life in great detail except the face of his first true love. (The under-dressed lady on the front cover is not his lost love but American dancer Josephine Baker who scandalised Europe in the 1920's)

The book is heavily illustrated with popular cultural artifacts (book jackets, comic strips, record covers and other printed ephemera) from the inter-War years of Fascist Italy – the time of the man’s childhood and youth.

Umberto Eco is probably best known for writing the medieval murder mystery ‘The Name of the Rose’. He was a professor at Bologna University, a critic, a philosopher and all round egg-head who enjoyed ‘low culture’ as well as the study of symbolism. He died at the age of 84 in February 2016.

Film You May Have Missed (#11)

Mad Monster Party (1967)

A stop-motion –musical-comedy animated feature created by Harvey Kurtzman who founded the great comic/magazine ‘Mad’ back in the early 1950’s. 

The film features the voice of Boris Karloff (or William Henry Pratt as he was christened in East Dulwich) and Phyllis Diller (American comedienne) in a story that tells of a gathering of monsters (Dracula, The Invisible Man, The Werewolf, The Mummy, The Monster, Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde etc.) called by Baron Frankenstein (Karloff) to announce his retirement and his successor.

Phyllis Diller does the voice of the Monster’s Mate, Gale Garnett plays Francesca but all the other voices are done by Allen Swift, including a Peter Lorre impersonation that is spot-on. Swift was an actor but worked mainly as a voice artist during a career that lasted from 1947 to 2002.

 

The creatures are designed by the legendary cartoonist Jack Davis who, as well as working on Mad Magazine for many years, also did quite a few movie posters (‘It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World’, ‘The Russians are Coming The Russians are Coming’, ‘The Producers’, ‘Bananas’ etc.), comic strips, advertising copy, book covers, Time and Life Magazine covers, record covers etc.

The poster shown above is not by Jack Davis but by famous ‘fantasy’ artist Frank Frazetta. Quite how he got involved I don’t know.

‘Mad Monster Party’ is good fun for all the family (from 8 to 80).

Book You May Have Missed (#11)

A Metropolitan Murder by Lee Jackson (2004)

Lee Jackson (aka L M Jackson) is an authority on Victorian London and its social history. He has published several non-fiction books on the subject as well as novels set in the era. He also maintains an associated website and blog (www.victorianlondon.org)

‘A Metropolitan Murder’ is the 1^st in a trilogy of novels featuring Police Inspector Decimus Webb who, in this volume, investigates the murder of a woman on an underground train of the newly opened Metropolitan Line. This puts the period of the book to be around the second half of the 1860’s. 

It is very well written and really brings to life London in the mid-nineteenth century, with believable characters who help the plot along at a good pace. Not a deep read but enjoyable.

If you fancy reading this, or the other two in the series (‘The Welfare Of The Dead’ and ‘The Last Pleasure Garden’) please ignore the poor reviews on Amazon and make your own mind up.

Film You May have Missed (#10)

Hell Drivers (1957)

I love old black and white British films. I was brought up on them; going to the local flea pit every Friday night to watch a programme that included a main feature, a cartoon, a newsreel, some trailers and a supporting feature film. It was this latter, usually a black and white crime film, which was often more enjoyable than the main film. Watching them now fifty or more years later it’s like taking a peek into the past. Location shots of re-developed places. Studio sets of small working-class homes that remind me of my childhood.

Anyway, enough of the misty-eyed nostalgia. ‘Hell Drivers’ stars Stanley Baker as an ex-prisoner trying to go straight by getting a job as a driver for a gravel haulage firm and comes up against Patrick McGoohan as the mad bad Irishman who will do anything to keep his record number of ‘runs’ a day intact. There are fights, love interest, crashes, pathos and lorries; what more could you want?

 

                                               Lorries!                           Connery, James, McGoohan and Baker

The cast of this film is like a who’s who of 1950’s/60’s British actors - Herbert Lom (‘Human Jungle’ TV series and Pink Panther films), Peggy Cummins (‘Curse of the Demon’), William Hartnell (‘Brighton Rock’, ‘Dr Who’, ‘The Army Game’ TV series), Sid James (Carry On films, ‘The Lavender Hill Mob’, ‘Bless this House’ TV series), Jill Ireland (‘Robbery Under Arms’, ‘Death Wish II’, married to Charles Bronson), Alfie Bass (‘The Army Game’ TV series, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, ‘The Bespoke Overcoat’), Gordon Jackson (‘The Ipcress File’, ‘The Professionals’ TV series, ‘The Great Escape’), David McCallum (‘A Night to Remember’, ‘The Great Escape’, ‘The Man From Uncle’ TV series, ‘NCIS’ TV series) and some bloke called Sean Connery.

My only bug-bear with ‘Hell Drivers’ is the use of speeded-up shots of the lorries. The top speed of a fully laden 5 tonner would probably have been about 40mph which wouldn’t have looked all that exciting even on the bends, so they under-cranked the camera and, hey presto, Baker and McGoohan are barrelling along at 80 or more. It’s just that they appear to have the road holding of an F1 racing car on the corners.

If you are into old films, especially 1930,s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s British fare then you could do worse than take a look at TalkingPicturesTV (Freeview channel 81, Sky 343, Freesat 306 or Youview 81). It’s both a goldmine and a cesspit of old films. You might catch a gem (‘Hell Drivers’) or a film that you are only watching to catch a glimpse of the Graham Bond Organisation but even that can’t keep you from switching off (the unbelievably dire ‘Gonks Go Beat’).

Book You May Have Missed (#10)

The Book of Dave by Will Self  (2006)

Full title: The Book of Dave: A Revelation of the Recent Past and the Distant Future

A great book by the living master of the English language – Will Self. One of the ‘easier’ books (e.g. ‘How the Dead Live’, ‘Dorian’ and ‘My Idea of Fun’) by this some times impenetrable writer (e.g. ’Dr Mukti and Other Tales of Woe’, ‘Umbrella’ and ‘Shark’).

It is set in both the recent past and the far future and tells the story of Dave Rudman, a London cabbie, whose marriage fails so he writes a book, intended to be read by his son, which lays out his philosophy of life and how to survive it. The parts of the story which are set in the future deal with a post-apocalyptic flooded England in which ‘The Book of Dave’ has become the basis for a repressive and misogynous religion that rules the lives of the population of the Island of Ham.

Self has invented a language for the future inhabitants based on the slang and common usage that would have been employed by Dave Rudman when writing his book. It can take a little getting used to, but is great fun once you do.

Film You May Have Missed (#9)

Micmacs (2009)

From the French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet who brought you the wonderful ‘Delicatessen’, ‘Amelie’, ‘City of Lost Children’ and, oddly, ‘Alien: Resurrection’. 

The story concerns video store owner Bazil who is wounded by a stray bullet during a streetfight. The bullet cannot be removed and he is told he may live for years or suddenly die at any time. He decides to take revenge on the manufacturer of the bullet, who happens to also be the maker of the landmine that killed his father. He meets up with a bizarre bunch of junkyard people who help him. 

It’s like the ‘A-Team’ as seen in a dream after far too much cheese. 

Great off-the-wall black comedy and so fast and visually complex that it deserves more than one viewing.

Fun Fact: The director reckons the full French title ‘Mic Macs à Tire-Larigot’ translates into English as ‘Non-stop Shenanigans’