Torture Garden (1967)

 "Did you know that there are ways to raise the dead...?"

This is, I believe, the only one of the Amicus horror anthologies that I still had to blog until now- do let me know if I'm wrong. The format is much as we'd come to expect, though- four lurid tales of grand guignol with an overarching narrative.

What separates this film from the norm is its more than usually transatlantic cast, with Burgess Meredith chewing the scenery in the best possible way as the delightfully devilish(!) Dr Diabolo. Even the opening titles, with the background of a creepy old amusement park at night, set the scenes superbly, and the framing device does its job to perfection.

Not all the tales are equally good, but all are entertaining. The third, in which a lady's pursuit of a desirable man leads to her death at the, er, hands(?) of a jealous piano, is hilarious. The first two, concerning a black cat and the secret reason why Hollywood stars never seem to age, are nicely and evilly gothic and lurid.

Yet it's the final story, with the unusual pairing of Jack Palance and Peter Cushing, that lingers in the mind, as two men bond over a shared enthusiasm for Edgar Allan Poe. This is a delightfully effective warning of the dangers of the more toxic sides of fandom,with deliciously absurd revelations leading to a perfectly melodramatic ending.

This is grand guignol at its best.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: Tinker Tailor

“You don’t break, exactly. You just run out of stories to tell.”

Yes, I know; it’s been nothing but Stranger Things for a week. I’m afraid Mrs Llamastrangler and I have become addicted, and what we watch together isn’t dictated by the needs of the blog in the way that my solo viewing often tends to be. Fear not, though; I haven’t forgotten this, or Batman and Robin, or indeed Agents of SHIELD or other things I need to return to.

This is a dark episode about Jim Prideaux, having been caught in Brno and extensively tortured and then hung out to dry by the Circus, telling us his side of the story while striving as a prep schedule teacher while living a life of genteel poverty in a caravan. It’s a sad, bleak episode and the lack of care for someone so traumatised in the service of his country is staggering. Then again, so are many other things in that most foreign of countries, the past. It’s heavily implied that Jim and Bill Haydon were lovers at uni, but also that gay relationships are implicitly acceptable pretty much only in this context (“We were children!”) and, amazingly, that recruitment into the security services was linked into this kind of circle, back in the days when both prejudice and the law meant that any deviation from heterosexuality was seen simply as a security risk. It all just seems so long ago.

Also tragic is the other tale we here of the operation going wrong, Control being secretive, Bill Haydon taking charge and, worst of all, Control starting to forget things. But none of that can compare to Jim’s stoic description of torture, how the days went by until his inevitable cracking, and the interrogation of Karla, immediately recognisable by the mention of Smiley’s old cigarette lighter. There’s a real sense of the Circus being old, hopelessly inefficient and riddled with compromising agents, mirroring a country in decline, a snapshot of how the country felt when it elected Thatcher’s Tories in ‘79. Yet there’s also a harsh lack of care, an acceptance of casualties, in a world where all that matters is jockeying for the position of captain of the Titanic.

This episode, more than the others, is as much about mood as it is about plot, and is quite a step up. But more than anything else it’s showing us just how very long ago it was in 1969, when I was two. I feel old.

The Crown: Season 1, Episode 8- Pride & Joy

"The banger is falling apart!"

This episode was, perhaps, inevitable given the way this series is structured; a long and demanding Commonwealth tour between Liz and Phil serves as a nice contrast with her less dutiful sister Margaret, who duly makes a hash of standing in for Elizabeth during her absence. Just as interesting, though, are the deepening cracks appearing between Elizabeth and a husband who sees the farcical side of using pomp and circumstance to hide the fact that the once-mighty British Empire is slowly dying with a whimper.

We also get a nice bit of character development for the Queen Mother, too, as she disappears away to the Highlands to get away from it all, be anonymous and endear herself to us viewers in a way she hasn't so far.

This is, I think, presented as a pivotal moment for Elizabeth as Queen as she literally follows Churchill's advice to "never let the cameras see the real Elizabeth Windsor". Just as symbolic, I think, is how she charmingly intimidates a group of photographers into destroying the evidence of her row with a somewhat mardy Phil. The tour is deeply punishing, as shown by some nice directorial tricks, but Elizabeth endures it all for duty.

The ending, where the Queen bollocks Margaret and they proceed to get philosophical, is perhaps a microcosm of the whole show; it's well-made, well-acted and watchable, but it is lacking in the profundity that would make it truly great, and I suspect that is in no small part down to the subject matter.