Theatre of Death (1967)

"But I didn't scream..."

I was expecting this to be a rollicking Hammer-style horror B Movie, with all the fun that implies. After all, it's a Grand Guignol-themed and horror-coded film in which Christopher Lee receives top billing. Instead... well, this is a deadly serious and rather clever Grand Guignol whodunit with a rather clever and impressive plot full of twists and turns. The direction is surprisingly ambitious with lots of hand held camerawork, and both Julian Glover and Christopher Lee really shine.

Lee, despite his billing, is not the star here. But he's a compelling, fascinating character, a genius. Philippe Darvas is the greatest of all duirectors of Grand Guignol, yet he's also a deeply controlling human being who can be as cruel as he is charismatic. Glover is the true leading man and carries the film throughout, with the two female leads being relative unknowns.

It is, perhaps, mildly disappointing that the film is set in Paris yet visually it doesn't feel like it. Yet the film is carried by the two main performances, the direction, and the devilishly clever plot, in which clues arew laid throughout and paid off satisfyingly, one by one, as the film reaches its climax.

This film may, I suspect, displease many as it isn't the type of film it appears to be. On its own terms, though, I found it most enjoyable and in no way deserving of the obscurity into which it seems to have fallen.

The Sweeney: Queen's Pawn

 "I'm not a gentleman. And I don't like losing."

Oh, I like this episode: hard boiled and clever. It's a simple premise: arch robber Johnny Lyon gets off at court and Regan is given free rein to bring him in by any means necessary, working on his two associates playing clever, amoral mind games- this is personal, and Regan will do absolutely anything. He's a moral man, in a way, but the ends justify the means.

Yes, like other episodes, this is policing from another era, and it's fascinating seeing the nation as it was half a century ago, shortly before I was born. The social mores, the gender roles, the conventions are all subtly different. But the scene where Johnny (Tony Selby is superb here as Regan's ever-more-desperate prey) loses at chess to his lawyer (a typically suave Julian Glover) in a fool's mate serves as a microcosm for the entire episode which consists of Regan playing ten dimensional chess. Even the title is a clever pun- it;s just a matter of which of Johnny's cronies will end as Regan's pawn, and turn queen's evidence.#

The twist at the end is shocking... and Regan's fault. But this is a hard world. One fascinating to watch, if not to live in. And Regan's bosses... such cynical ***s. This is good telly.

The Alphabet Murders (1965)

 "A A, eh?"

This is, I believe, by the creative team behind the Miss Marple films starring Margaret Rutherford who, indeed, gets an odd little cameo here. I'm told they're very good films, if apparently not particularly faithful to the novels. I intend to give them a chance. That is, despite the fact that this film is utterly unwatchable.

I'm not at all surprised that Agatha Christie herself loathed this film. It is rather difficult not to. I can't remember the novel (The ABC Murders)- it's been at least thirty years or more since the one and only time I read it. I read many, many of Mrs Christie's works in early puberty but rather went off her by my mid-teens. Still, I've no doubt that this is a far from faithful adaptation, not least because it scarcely pretends to be a whodunit. It is, rather, an embarrassingly unfunny attempt at "comedy".

It's trying to be a farce. A good farce is, of course, a very clever thing indeed. This is not. The cast, from the awful Tony Randall, surely the worst ever Hercule Poirot, with his ever-shifting accent, in one of the most cringeworthy leading roles ever, to a shockingly awful Robert Morley as an unrecognisable Captain Hastings, is either bloody awful or quite sensibly phoning it in for the money as there's no point doing otherwise for a script like this.

We get unfunny "comedy" setvpieces, one after another, and soooo much smoking.We get Anita Ekberg playing, well, the kind of tall blonde unattainable woman she invariably plays. We get a bit of psychological mumbo-jumbo. And we have a very unfunny conclusion in a train. And at no point is any of it remotely entertaining.

Be warned: ninety minutes of your one and only life are far too precious to waste on this drivel.

Quatermass and the Pit (1967)

 “You realise what you’re implying? That we owe our human condition to the intervention of insects?”

I thought, after all this time, that I'd better get roumd to the last of Hammer's cinematic adaptations of Nigel Kneale's Quatermass serials. This, an adaptation of the best of the three serials, is entirely unlike- and better than- the previous two, both of which were among the earliest Hammer horrors in the early '50s, to the extent that their right to that label may seem somewhat tenuous. But this is 1967, the very height of Hammer Horror...and much more clearly a horror film.

The film does not, of course, match the TV original in quality, necessarily truncated though it is. Much is excused, including Quatermass’ concluding monologue, although the script, by Kneale himself, is a superbly done adaptation. The story is one of mood, theme and character rather than cinematic visuals, but the cinematic medium allows for the building of a feeling of dread towards the end, and a much more visual ending.

Andrew Keir, although good, is no Andre Morell, but both Barbara Shelley and Julian Glover are first rate, and James Donald slowly grew on me. More so than the excellence of the cast, though, the film works superbly well as an old school horror film built on suspense and ideas rather than spectacle, keeping the subtext but moving things in a different direction from the original. And it really, really works.

This, I think, is absolutely one of the finest Hammers.

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."

"That's putting it mildly, 007."

This is very odd for a Bond film. There's nothing awful about it but it's oddly small scale and unambiguous, lacking in glamour, wit and oomph while remaining competent. Still, I suppose it's a natural and predictable reaction to the excesses of Moonraker.

The opening titles are perhaps the oddest thing- it's nice to see Tracy hasn't been forgotten as Bond leaves flowers at her grave, but Blofeld is bizarrely back in a very silly sequence that rather undermines the character.

(Oh, and Tracy's gravestone makes it explicit that she died in 1969, the year she died on screen. Stating this nakedly may be increasingly wise as the years go on!)

The ending is awkward, too. After two films that end with Bond and the Bond girl in question being seen shagging on screen and a gloriously terrible sex-related pun, this time we get a ridiculous skit with a parrot and Margaret Thatcher. There's a distinct lack of polish to this script. Even the set pieces are less dramatic than usual, although I liked the extended riff on the Winter Onympics.

Still, the Greek locations are good, as is Julian Glover as the bizarrely small scale baddie. It's off to see Charles Dance in such a tiny part, though. And it's the '89s now- Moonraker was just two years ago, but the cars and the fashions make that seem a long time ago. This is a decade that suits Bond aesthetically so much more.

One nice touch is the refusal yet to recast the part of M after Bernard Lee's demise shortly before filming his scripted scenes. But overall this is a film which makes no huge missteps but is strangely lacking in ambition. It may not be the worst Bond film but it's certainly the most forgettable so far.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

"Indiana? We called the dog Indiana!"

And so we come to the last and easily the best of the original trilogy. And, given the high quality of the other two films, that's a bloody big achievement.

So why is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade so bloody good? Well, it's partly because they've clearly thought long and hard about what worked best in the other two films, and they've rightly decided that Raiders of the Lost Ark is worth mining for the good stuff. So Marcus is back. So is Sallah. So, most importantly, are the Nazis. You've got to have Nazis.

There's also an outstanding cast. Ice tagged a few below, but there wasn't room for the likes of Alexei Sayle, Vernon Dobtceff, an uncredited Michael Sheard as Hitler or even River Phoenix as the young Indy. But the real casting coup is, of course, the ever-charismatic Sean Connery as Dr Henry Jones, Senior. Connery is simply excellent here. So good, in fact, that he even condescends to not sound like he's from Edinburgh for once.

Said opening sequence, with young Indy and the train full of circus animals, is superb, and not only because it reminds me of the contemporary 8 bit computer game. It even attempts to explain the origin of Indy's fear of snakes, but it wisely doesn't reveal too much about his mysterious father who, indeed, is held back until just the right moment.

The plot itself is very Raiders of the Lost Ark without being in any way too slavishly similar. And what can outdo the Ark of the Covenant but the Holy Grail? 

As per the previous film we get a series of outstanding set pieces- I love the airship- but the outstanding chemistry between Harrison Ford and Connery adds so much more. Connery is having great fun with a superb character and his presence pushes Ford to ever greater heights: this is one of the most entertaining cinematic double acts ever. 

And then we come to the climax. The "invisible" bridge falls just short of the supernatural, but Donovan's gruesome death at imbibing the false Grail is delightfully gruesome, and the whole climax is deeply satisfying which, er, sounds a bit ruder than intended.

Possibly one of the greatest adventure films ever. Personally I dread to think just how many times I've seen it.

Blake's 7: Breakdown

“I’m finished. Staying with you requires a degree of stupidity of which I no longer feel capable.”

These obviously painted starscapes that we keep seeing at the beginnings of most episodes are starting to feel normal by now, but they really date the programme for me. I’m also starting to realise just how brown Blake’s 7 looks.

Gan’s the centre of attention this episode, even though David Jackson spends most of it just lying down and doing nothing. It’s also another interesting opportunity to look at the theories put forth in Liberation, that Gan was a sex offender. Certainly, his sudden violence against Jenna at the start would be consistent with this, but he’s just as violent towards everyone else.

Clearly something’s wrong with his limiter, and the scenes in the sickbay are so tense that for some reason they’re on film. Everyone knows that Gan is in serious trouble, something has gone badly wrong with his limiter, and that he urgently needs a neurosurgeon. Blake states at this point that “The limiter is supposed to cut in when stress drives him to the point where he might kill”, which doesn’t sound too consistent with the sex offender theory.

It seems the nearest neurosurgeon is to be found at a space laboratory called XK-72, which had been noted by Avon as a possible bolthole if life aboard the Liberator was to become too dangerous. (Like it isn’t as dangerous as it could possibly be anyway…). Apparently this laboratory specialises in weaponry and that old Terry Nation favourite, “space medicine.” There’s just one problem; Zen insists that the quickest route crosses a “prohibited space zone”. He won’t say what the danger is, but he refuses to fly through it and flies off into a sulk until the end of the episode. It becomes clear that something out there is affecting the Liberator…

In the sickbay there’s an interesting scene in which Gan calmly persuades Cally to release hi, and promptly goes on a rampage. This manipulative behaviour is most interesting; Kayn later refers to Gan as a “psychopath”. He hasn’t been seen behaving like this before- it this part of his personality, like the violence, normally inhibited by his limiter?

The ship is heading into a “gravitational vortex”, which would presumably be a black hole. Can it really be plausible that this wouldn’t be known about? It seems to lie in-between fairly important and well-used areas of space, after all. At least someone would have noticed all the ships which mysteriously disappeared.

Blake eventually decides the best thing to do it to head, at full speed, right for the centre. Er, ok. I’m sure this is scientifically rigorous. Anyway, for some reason they manage to survive. I think perhaps we should not think too hard about this. After all, Terry Nation clearly didn’t.

More interesting is what looks like a complete breakdown in relations between Blake and Avon (one of the reasons for the title?) as Avon, dismayed by Blake’s increasing recklessness, says that he can no longer stay. There’s a real frostiness between the two of them for the rest of the episode.

The Liberator finally reaches XK-72, which appears to have a population of just three. We have the officious but decent Farren, the brilliant but obnoxious Professor Kayn, played rather brilliantly by Julian Glover, and Kayn’s underling. Kayn agrees to perform the operation, mainly to annoy Farren, but seems to have a worryingly high regard for the Federation. It’s not long before he realises who Blake and co actually are, and promptly tips off the nearest Federation base.

Avon, meanwhile, looks as though he’s going to stay behind on XK-72; he spills the beans to Farren, and offers him the secret of teleportation in return for being allowed to stay. It looks as though it’s going to happen…

Kayn really is a bit of a git. He deliberately delays the start of his operation on Gan so the Federation have time to get there. News of this reaches XK-72, but it looks as though Avon is still going to stay; he’s been guaranteed that the Federation won’t be told. He just needs to return and collect a few things…

The crew of the Liberator end up forcing Kayn to perform his operation at gunpoint, with Blake threatening to destroy his hands if he refuses to co-operate. We finish with the now-traditional altercation with Federation pursuit ships. XK-72 ends up destroyed by a bolt from one of the pursuit ships, yet more collateral damage from Blake’s actions. Avon won’t be going anywhere. But surely something has now changed between him and Blake? It’ll be interesting to see whether this is followed up.

I had to raise an eyebrow at the line where Blake takes over the navigational duties with the words “I’ll handle this, Jenna- you can help Gan.” The Liberator is not exactly a feminist paradise, then. We finish with a Hanna Barbera cartoon-style forced laugh, with Gan safely back to his usual lobotomised self.

Doctor Who: City of Death

Part One

“Do you mean an alien’s trying to steal the Mona Lisa?”

“It’s a very pretty painting.”

For these cash-strapped times we begin with some shockingly excellent modelwork far superior to anything we’ve seen recently. And then, no less un-shoestringly, we’re in Paris, 1979. Just after leaving Skaro. Courtesy of the Randomiser for both landings. Er, yes…

Of course, this story is flawless in every way (well, there’s one piffling little thing in a later episode, but that can wait) so I’m having to try very hard not to spend the whole review gushing and quoting bits of funny dialogue or people might assume I’m the sort of person who does that in conversation, which simply wouldn’t do. So I’ll not quote any of the dialogue from the Eiffel Tower in an attempt to ration myself. It’s all fab though. And so, unusually, is Dudley Simpson’s incidental music. 

I realise what was going on off screen, but for me there’s absolutely no doubt that what we see here on screen is the Doctor and Romana obviously being a couple. The doctor’s clearly been dancing. Look at all the holding hands and the body language as they frolic amongst Notre Dame, the Place de la Concorde, and the Louvre. Oh, and Paris is very pretty by the way.

What’s that Romana just said? “Braxiatel Collection”? Pah! we’ll be heating no more of that, I’m sure.

There’s some nice directing from Michael Hayes, not at all harmed by the location- I love the shot through the postcard rack with the postcard removed. Through all these scenes Duggan is following our heroes, but within minutes settles down to the companion role for our two Doctors.

Interesting cliffhanger- we’ve established from the talk of playing games that the Countess is aware she’s basically just Scarlioni’s beard, but she doesn’t know the half of it…

Part Two

“What I don’t understand is why a man who’s got six Mona Lisas wants to go to all the trouble of stealing a seventh.”

Oh dear, the scene where the Doctor, Romana and Duggan are brought before the Countess and the Count is so damn quotable that I could spend the whole of the next page just quoting from it. But I’ll restrict myself to “My dear, no one could be as stupid as he seems”. Julian Glover is utterly perfect in the way he delivers his lines. It helps that he’s clearly loving it. Even the fact that the room is designed to fit a concept of what’s classy that, er, may have dated just a little, doesn’t detract from this perfect scene.

There’s a nice in-joke after our heroes are locked in the cellar where the Doctor asks Duggan if he’s like to “stay on as my scientific advisor?”, but that’s enough quotage for now. Honest. Other great stuff includes the Count’s lecture on how the Mona Lisa is going to be stolen, Duggan hitting people and the unravelling of the plot. 

Best of all though is the cliffhanger- I love the way Peter Halliday’s mercenary says of Captain Tancredi “He’ll be here instantly”- nicely postmodern, that- and it’s Scarlioni…

Part Three

“You know what I don’t understand?”

“I expect so.”

Hmmm, so the Jagaroth ship exploded 400 million years ago, not, say, 4.6 billion, and we’ll be given this figure again and again. I shall pretend this isn’t happening though as I insist this story is perfect in all ways.

I love Scarlioni / Tancredi’s “I think it’s time we conducted this conversation more formally” before calling for the thumbscrews- but I’m quoting again. Just one more; “When you work for the Borgias, you’ll believe anything!” The Mona Lisa plot becomes clear- Scarlioni is getting Leonardo to paint a further six of them in 1505 so that once he’s stolen the one in the Louvre in 1979 he’ll have seven of them, one each for every potential buyer. Except that the Doctor has just written “This is a fake” on all of them in felt tip. Brilliant!

Meanwhile, we have the Romana / Duggan team-up. Twice Romana sneaks into a building and twice Duggan smashes through a window! Once we’re back to Scarlioni, though, we get my only problem with this story- Scarlioni’s splintered selves being responsible for the pyramids, fire, the wheel and the mapping of the heavens. I don’t like it when it’s implied that humans aren’t clever enough to do all those things so aliens must have done them. Still, one gripe ain’t bad.

There’s something a bit peculiar about this episode though- in the scene where the Doctor walks into the café to enquire about Romana and Duggan, with the television in the background showing (in English, apparently!) the news of the Mona Lisa being stolen, there’s a man at the bar, who appears in no other scene, and says “I’ll see you, eh?” as he takes his leave. This looks very much like a cameo to me- not Douglas Adams, surely?

Part Four

“On the contrary, Doctor, you’re going to help me.”

“I am?”

“You are indeed. And if you do not, it will be so much the worse for you, for this young lady and for several other people I could mention if I happened to have the Paris telephone directory on my person.”

Poor professor! Interesting conversation between Scarlioni and Romana afterwards, though. It’s here that it strikes me what a mind-blowingly paradoxical concept it is to have splinters of Scaroth scattered through time- the later splinters must have their personal timelines altered many times by the earlier ones.

The professor’s death is followed by that of the Countess (I rather liked her). There follows a race against time in which we get to see some of the bits of Paris we missed out on in Part One such as the Arc de Triomphe and, er, some taxis. But just at the point the Doctor and co, anxious to travel back and stop Scaroth, reach the TARDIS, we get another fab scene with Eleanor Bron and yer actual John Cleese. This is roughly the last point where the possibility of this story being ranked anything less than the top spot so far disappeared utterly. Even the fact that prehistoric Earth features an obvious matte painting doesn’t detract from anything.

And the ending is perfect. Duggan’s punch saves the day! The Doctor has arranged for one of the Moma Lisas with “This is a fake!” written on it in felt tip to be hung in the Louvre, but that’s fine because it’s what it looks like that matters. Wow.

Well, that was stonkingly good, perfect, genius. 5/5, obviously. The best story so far, easily. For the first time in 13 years we have a story that’s actually better than The Massacre. I’m still reeling from how good it was. There’s a reason for my policy of rationing my viewings of this story to avoid diluting the pleasure of each viewing!

Doctor Who: The Crusade

The Lion

"I have a hopeful heart and, which is better, a lucky king."


I'm watching this on a combo of the video release and Loose Cannon, so the first thing I see is the nice little intro by William Russell. He looks very young and sprightly for his age.

This is the paciest start yet; no TARDIs intro scene. The TARDISeers step right into a forest (once again the pokiness of Lime Grove is cleverly obscured) and straight into trouble. Ian, and even more excellently the Doctor, are thrust into swordfights while Barbara is kidnapped within seconds- is this a record? The greatness of the dialogue is established very early: "A king at liberty may give commands. A captured one obeys them."

The Doctor's very naughty in this episode, what with the blatant thieving. Still, I love the way Hartnell plays it.

This is a very strong first episode, and the dialogue appeals hugely to a Shakespeare obsessive like myself. Nice referencing of Arabian Nights by Barbara- the show's still fulfilling its educational remit.

The Knight of Jaffa

"By my father's name, you have wit, old man."


"Your heart calls for England, Richard!" says Joanna. Of course, in reality he didn't give a damn about the place, but I'll let that pass as frankly this is great. Also, Richard's "This bloodletting must stop!" is a bit rich coming from him but, again, the historical inaccuracies aren't bothering me as I'm too preoccupied with the general excellence of everything.

Nice to see Bernard Kay again, playing Saladin. And also nice to see that the Saracens are as blessed with exalted dialogue as the English Normans. Also interesting to see that Walter Randall, who was frankly rubbish in The Aztecs, seems to be doing a much better job as El Akir.

The Doctor's managing to get out of stealing the clothes last episode is most amusing, and once again most excellently played by Hartnell.

Once again, Barbara's in dire peril, and of an unusually dark and adult kind, to boot. But once again she's irrepressible, and tries to escape. Yay!

The Wheel of Fortune

"There's something new in you, yet something older than the sky itself."

Vicki doesn't exactly look like a boy here, but of course, along with the style of the dialogue, this merely signals that, just as The Romans was a farce, this story is in the style of Elizabethan theatre.

Interestingly, we get our first bit of characterisation for Vicki since The Rescue; she says to the Doctor "You wouldn't go off and leave me, would you?". We're reminded of how rootless and vulnerable she is, perhaps even over-dependent. Still, there's no denying by this point that Vicki has a much more superficial characterisation than even Susan did, great as Maureen O'Brien's performance is.

Barbara gets a horrible dilemma as Haroun gives her a knife to kill Saliya and herself if necessary- this is a horrible dilemma, but fantastic drama, and once again Jacqueline Hill shows us what an excellent actress she is.

The debate at court over Richard's plan to marry Joanna to Saphadin is another dramatic, well-written, well-acted and, as we shall see, pivotal scene. The dialogue between the Doctor and the Earl of Leicester sparkles, although the Doctor is a bit gratuitously insulting: "You stupid butcher! Can you think of nothing else but killing, hmm?" Leicester replies with a wonderful line; "When you men of eloquence have stunned each other with your words, we, the soldiers, have to face it out." The Doctor's in an awkward position, though: he's sworn to tell Joanna of her brother's plans for her, and has now found out, but he's damned if he tells her and damned if he doesn't. And, it must be said, from a contemporary perspective it's unsettling to see the Doctor supporting what is in effect a forced marriage, even set against the potential cost to countless lives. Cue excellence from Jean Marsh.

We only see Sir Ian in a single film sequence. By now, I've become a seasoned veteran at spotting cast holidays.

In the event it's Leicester, not the Doctor, who tells Joanna of Richard's plans, but it doesn't matter- through his rash promise to Joanna he ends up alienating both parties.

The ending is quite disturbingly dark: "The only pleasure left for you is death. And death is very far away".

The Warlords

"I must see Jerusalem. I must."


El Akir is extremely sadistic, disturbing, and, surprisingly, reasonably well acted by Walter Randall of all people. Ibrahim, meanwhile, is merely an annoying stereotype, and this is the fault of actor Tutte Lemkow rather than the script. Still, Sir Ian faces a gruesome fate, being slowly eaten by ants.

King Richard, in conversation with the Doctor and Vicki, turns out to be cleverer than we might have supposed; he knows of Leicester's duplicity but needs him for the upcoming war. This conversation has an interesting postscript as the Doctor states that "history must take its course". It seems this story sides with The Aztecs and The Reign of Terror in The Great Changing History Debate, and they're all going to team up to give The Romans a good kicking.

Nice that Haroun's daughter Maimuna turns out to be one of the women who saves Barbara in the harem- the plot threads are all very neatly tied up.

The way the story ends, with Sir Ian's quick thinking allowing our heroes to return to the Ship, is most amusing. Nice little Billy-fluff at the end; "Oh, my good woman! Why don't you go and have a cup of... tea or something?"

Ooh, we end with another cliffhanger!


Overall, it was quite fitting that the... challenge... that was The Web Planet should be followed by the best story so far not to have been written by John Lucarotti. Quite sublime, its main fault being that, almost uniquely, for a four part story it seemed too short.