The Creeping Flesh (1973)

 "That is why I shall have to employ someone for whom eythics have no significance..."

This is (SPOILERS, even if I remain vague) a film which relies entirely on a last minute twist, upon which all relies and about which I;m not going to be able to say much. I'm not generally strict on spoilers but this is literally a last minute revelation which raises a poor to average film, based on seemingly silly concepts, to a film based on a script which actually has some merit.

Not that the production can be much faulted: Freddie Francis directs and Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee star in a horror film, not actually by either Hammer nor Amicus, yet which evokes both. The question is not whether or not the film is well made; it's about to what extent the last minute twist redeems what has until then been a ho-hum film.

There, I suppose, feminist subtexts here, about how feminine expressions of sexuality are seen, in quite horrifying scenes involving mother and daughter, about how expressions of female sexuality are seen firstly as invitations to rape and, upon resistance, as insanity.

The poster decives in that the skeleton, while impressive-looking, is not seen moving until a brief, dramatic scene at the end of the film. Yet there is an interesting feminist subtext here in a script which takes its time to reveal what is really going on while appering really quite silly for most of its length. It's alsoa film in which awidowed Cushing is made to mourn his late wife.

This is an interesting curiosity, perhaps. But the last minute twist does not save it from mediocrity.

The Prisoner: Free for All

"Very good technique. Where did you get him?

"The Civil Service. He adapted immediately."

I know it's been a while since the last episode. Fear not; I spent a week not watching stuff while I applied for a promotion at work (fingers crossed!) and blogged only a couple of things I'd prepared earlier since that time, and afterwards I focused on current telly first. Fear not, The Prisoner will continue until the end.

Anyway, this is clearly a Very Important Episode, as Patrick McGoohan both writes (under a pseudonym) and directs. It’s also one with a very obvious subtext. It’s election time in the Village and Number Two (Eric Portman this time) decides that this time for once, he should be opposed, and Number Six accepts the challenge, not entirely seriously, using his candidacy as an excuse to goad the council, who are essentially a rubber stamp, giving a rather magnificent speech. At first, he’s the candidate of freedom, but he’s soon brainwashed, in a delightful scene with a former civil servant. So we have the prospect of someone with ideals standing for office and immediately abandoning those ideals in favour of the vested interests of the status quo. Of course, this would never happen in reality.

Before the election Number Six finally finds a place where he can get a proper drink (hallelujah) where he finds Number Two, who in private (a rare situation) is just as jaded with the Village as he is. Number Six wins by a landslide, but turns out to have no actual power and is beaten up, while the foreign maid-cum-spy who has been with him all episode turns out to be the new Number Two. It’s a superb indictment of the perceived impotence of the democratic process and, while I’m not at all in favour of “they’re all the same” apathy, especially in the current age of populism, Trump, Brexit and other dangerous nonsense, this has some considerable bite.

All this happens amongst lots and lots of splendidly disorienting surrealism, dreamlike, druggy, and utterly 1967. It’s a truly excellent episode.