sign in sign up
<<
Home , Alexis Kanner, Angelo Muscat, Charlie Drake, Charlie Heaton, Checkmate (The Prisoner), Creature suit

THE MAGAZINE BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION www.infinitymagazine.co.uk 6 THE MAGAZINE BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION

DOUBLE-SIDED POSTER INSIDE!

“I AM NOT A

NUMBER!”50 YEARS CELEBRATING OF

SPACECRAFT KITS PLUS: • NEWS • • CHRISTY MARIE• THE- VALLEY QUEEN OF GWANGI• CHILDREN’S • IAIN M. BANKS • SATURDAY MORNING SUPERHEROES FILM FOUNDATION AND MUCH, MUCH MORE… FUTURE SHOCK! AN ARRESTING THE HISTORY OF CONCEPT - 2000 AD ROBOCOP WRITER TAKE A TRIP IN

THE TIME TUNNEL INFINITY ISSUE 6 - £3.99

06

THE MAGAZINE BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION www.infinitymagazine.co.uk 6 THE MAGAZINE BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION

DOUBLE-SIDED POSTER INSIDE!

8 14 “I AM NOT A 38 NUMBER!”50 YEARS CELEBRATING OF THE PRISONER • SPACECRAFT KITS PLUS: • NEWS • CHRISTY MARIE• THE - COSPLAY VALLEY QUEEN OF GWANGI• CHILDREN’S • IAIN M. BANKS • SATURDAY MORNING SUPERHEROES FILM FOUNDATION AND MUCH, MUCH MORE… FUTURE SHOCK! AN ARRESTING THE HISTORY OF CONCEPT - 2000 AD ROBOCOP WRITER TAKE A TRIP IN INFINITY ISSUE 6 - £3.99

Prisoner cover art by Mark Maddox (www.maddoxplanet.com) 19

44 08: CONFESSIONS OF A CONVENTION QUEEN Pat Jankiewicz discovers how Star Wars FanGirl Christy Marie became a media phenomenon! 14: SATURDAY MORNING SUPER-HEROES Jon Abbott looks at Hanna-Barbera’s Super TV Heroes line of animated adventurers. 19: UNLOCKING THE PRISONER Don’t miss this amazing 11-page special feature on Patrick McGoohan’s cult favourite from the 1960s. 38: MODEL BEHAVIOUR Sci-fi & Modeller’s Andy Pearson indulges his weakness for spacecraft kits… 40 40: FUTURE SHOCK! John Martin talks to Paul Goodwin, director of an acclaimed documentary on the history of 2000 AD. 48 52 44: REMEMBERING MR BANKS A look back at two great authors: Iain Banks and sci-fi author Iain M. Banks. Both were the same man. 48: AN ARRESTING CONCEPT Michael Miner, the man who co-penned the script to RoboCop, on the film’s legacy and influence. 52: INTO THE TIME TUNNEL Mark Phillips travels back in time to look at ’s cult TV sci-fi show, The Time Tunnel. 56 62 56: INTO THE VALLEY OF GWANGI Howard Hughes explores the great Ray Harryhausen dinosaur film that time forgot. 60: WHO IS ON THE EDGE OF THEIR SEAT? Some of Dr Who’s cliffhangers were more successful than others, as Eugene Smith reports… 62: CHILDREN’S FILM FOUNDATION Ian Millsted takes a look at the science-fiction films of the Children’s Film Foundation.

Editor: Allan Bryce Web Master: [email protected] 06: INFINITY NEWS ROUND-UP Design & Production: Kevin Coward Website: ww.ininitymagazine.co.uk Advertisement and Subs Manager: Published by: Ghoulish Publishing Ltd, 12: YOUR LETTERS AND EMAILS Yannie Overton-Bryce 29 Cheyham Way, South Cheam, Surrey SM2 7HX. 18: THE DARK SIDE PROMO

ULISH [email protected] 30: REVIEWS

O Printed in the EU by Acorn, W. Yorkshire. Online publisher: Ghoulish Publishing Distribution: Intermedia, Unit 6 The Enterprise 47: SUBSCRIPTIONS ww.ininitymagazine.co.uk Centre, Kelvin Lane, Manor Royal, Crawley, West

GH PUBLISHING 67: NEXT ISSUE PREVIEW Advertising enquiries: Sussex RH10 9PE [email protected] © Copyright 2017 Ghoulish Publishing Ltd. INFINITY 3 ‘I AM NOT A NUMBER, I AM A FREE MAN…’

s a child of the late 1950s and early 1960s time when revolution was in the air and the freedom I remember a highlight of a boring Sunday of the individual was being called into question. Aevening being The Saint or on McGoohan himself never offered an explanation, but he the telly, in black and white on one of the two did say in a later interview that “the village” reflected channels we had to choose from back then - three the individual’s lack of freedom on many levels. “We channels when BBC2 launched in 1964. The latter was are all prisoners of this or that, many things, each in a particular favourite, chronicling the adventures of his own ‘Village’”. Top to bottom: Spaceways, The 4-Sided secret agent (Patrick McGoohan). I can still The village itself was of course in Triangle and Moon Zero Two are remember the opening narration: “Every government North , designed by architect Bertram Clough just some of the Hammer Sci-Fi has its secret service branch. America, CIA; France, Williams-Ellis who began construction on his own movies you can read about in our new book. On Sale now! Deuxième Bureau; , MI5. NATO also has its own. private peninsula on the coast of Snowdonia in 1925. A messy job? Well that’s when they usually call Today it is open to visitors and home to Festival on me or someone like me. Oh yes, my name No.6, which you can also read about in this is Drake, John Drake.” What I loved about issue. I would like to give particular thanks Danger Man was he didn’t mess about to the incredibly talented Mark Maddox with women. Young lads didn’t want to for his stunning cover art and all three of see any of that lovey-dovey stuff, and our writers who took it upon themselves neither did McGoohan - he turned down to chronicle The Prisoner’s history and the role of for precisely that modern day impact, namely Brian J. Robb, reason. Good on him, I say. Robert Fairclough and Prisoner historian Anyway, when McGoohan’s The Prisoner and researcher Rick Davy. Rick is the author made its TV debut 50 years ago, it did so with a of The Prisoner - The Essential Guide, a 36-page knockout opening sequence that effectively set up A5-sized guidebook packed with information about the rest of the show, packing an entire plot into just a the genesis, making, and legacy of the series. In full few frames. McGoohan was the mysterious Number colour throughout, it includes a full episode guide and Six, though me and my schoolmates reckoned he was many officially licensed and previously unpublished really still John Drake. We also loved the fact that photographs. Priced at only £2.99, it’s available in when he took time off to film the Hollywood bookshops and online from www.theunmutual.co.uk. he managed to slip in his famous And while we are plugging books, we also advise Prisoner catchphrase, “Be seeing you…” you not to miss our own latest spectacular volume The Prisoner ran for just seventeen episodes and entitled Hammer: The Haunted House of Horror. ended in such a surreal fashion that McGoohan, who Written by Hammer historian Denis Meikle it’s 180 was the brains behind it all, says he had to leave the pages of glossy full colour goodness for just £20 and THE DARK SIDE PROUDLY PRESENTS: country to avoid being lynched. I do recall being available right now. Okay, so Hammer didn’t do a lot of HAMMER disappointed at the time that the storyline hadn’t been sci-fi, and when you take a look at Moon Zero Two you THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF HAMMER FILMS – BY DENIS MEIKLE neatly wrapped up, but of course in retrospect it is will realise why, but Infinity readers will still love this precisely that which has made the show timeless. Fans book, advertised elsewhere in this mag. I’ll leave you just love to get together and discuss it endlessly. It was to discover its many other hidden treasures and ‘Be certainly the perfect time to make a series like this, a seeing you’ next issue. Allan Bryce.

HELP US KEEP UP TO DATE WITH WHAT YOU WANT We value every single reader and they value us, which is why we are flourishing at a time when print magazines everywhere are having a tough time. We want to encourage you all to send in your views on Infinity so we can get a lively letters section going, and if you have news of sci-fi-related conventions, movies, books etc, we will be happy to give you some publicity for them. Most importantly, THE MAGAZINE BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION please tell us what we are doing right and (perish the thought) what we are doing www.infinitymagazine.co.uk wrong! You can reach us by via: WEB: www.infinitymagazine.co.uk EMAIL: [email protected] FACEBOOK: Infinity Magazine ADDRESS: INFINITY Magazine Ghoulish Publishing Ltd 29 Cheyham Way, South Cheam, Surrey, SM2 7HX 4 INFINITY HAMMERTHE DARK SIDE PROUDLY PRESENTS: THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR

THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF HAMMER FILMS – BY DENIS MEIKLE

ORDER YOUR COPY NOW! THE DARK SIDE PROUDLY PRESENTS:

ammer - The Haunted House of Horror is our latest and possibly greatest ever Dark Side book and copies are available to buy HAMMER Hnow. You won’t want to miss this great volume to last THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR year’s best-selling volume, Amicus - The Friendly Face of Fear, because THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF HAMMER FILMS – BY DENIS MEIKLE we feel it is the deinitive history of Britain’s most famous purveyors of Gothic . Indeed it should be because it is written by Denis Meikle, a leading expert on Hammer and author of Vincent Price: The Art of Fear and Jack The Ripper: The Murders and the Movies. Exhaustively researched, this amazing book tells the full story of the rise and fall (and rise again) of Hammer, a tale that begins in 1934 when comedian and businessman William Hinds (who used the stage name Will Hammer) irst registered his company, . A year later, Hinds teamed with Spanish émigré Enrique Carreras to form distribution company Exclusive Films, and though Hammer ceased trading in 1937 they returned from the grave in the 1950s to make a host of B-movie programmers, often based on British TV and radio shows. After scoring a hit with a movie version of BBC’s The Quatermass Experiment (1955), Hammer made history with their irst full colour creature feature, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957). It was a massive success that set them on course for a proitable future in screen horror that even saw them winning the Queen’s Award to Industry in 1968. Hammer: The Haunted House of Horror traces the history of Hammer in fascinating detail, revealing the full story behind their hits and misses, with contributions from many of Hammer’s key players, including , , Oliver Reed, producers Anthony Hinds and Kenneth Hyman and studio head Michael Carreras. Denis Meikle’s book paints a colourful picture of a bygone era of ilmmmaking and brings the Hammer story right up to date with a look at their recent resurrection with the box ofice hit, The Woman In Black. Profusely illustrated in full colour throughout, with never-before-published NB. A photocopy of the order form will sufice stills, posters, lobby cards, lyers, candid photographs and unused artwork, this lavish book is an essential addition to any horror fan’s collection, so don’t delay, order today! YES, I wish to receive a copy of HAMMER - The

ORDERING THE BOOK Haunted House of Horror @ £20.00. (+ £5 p&p Hammer: The Haunted House of Horror has a limited print run and will only if ordering outside the UK. be sold through The Dark Side - for £20 a copy including p&p. Please be How many copies do you require? aware that the price per book for foreign orders is £25 to take account of the higher postage rates. Payment can be made in two ways - via PayPal to Ghoulish Publishing at I enclose my cheque/postal order for £ [email protected], or by cheque to Ghoulish Publishing to Made payable to Ghoulish Publishing Ltd. 29 Cheyham Way, South Cheam, Surrey SM2 7HX. Name: Address:

Postcode:

You can also pay online via our PayPal account: www.thedarksidemagazine.com

Name of feature THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

The Infinity team bring you the latest news on your favourite TV shows and movie franchises, including the new female and whether Arnold Schwarzenegger will be back to square up against The !

FILM NEWS Doctor and the first female iteration of the classic fantasy character since the Tom Hanks has just been signed up to star in Bios, a new sci-fi blockbuster series began back in 1963. directed by Game of Thrones helmer Miguel Sapochnik. Penned by Craig Luck Also, the BBC has announced three new additions to the cast of Doctor Who’s and Ivor Powell, the story follows a that lives on a post-apocalyptic earth. upcoming 11th season. Set to join is Bradley Walsh (Law & Order: Built to protect the life of his dying creator’s beloved dog, it learns about love, UK) as Graham, () as Ryan, and (Hollyoaks) as friendship, and the meaning of human life. Hanks will play the ailing creator. Yasmin. Walsh is rumoured to be ’s next companion. Also joining the Robert Zemeckis and Kevin Misher are producing the movie through Steven series in an unspecified recurring role is actress Sharon D Clarke (). Spielberg’s Amblin production company and shooting should begin in the Chris Chibnall (Broadchurch) will serve as the new head writer and executive first quarter of 2018. Meanwhile, Hanks will be seen on screen this December producer, taking over for Steven Moffat. “The new Doctor is going to need new in Spielberg’s The Post as former Washington Post editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee. friends,” Chibnall said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to welcome Mandip, Tosin, Hanks was recently seen in the sci-fi thriller The Circle. Director Sapochnik is best and Bradley to the Doctor Who family. They’re three of Britain’s brightest talents, known for his work on the Game of Thrones episode Battle of the Bastards, which and we can’t wait to see them dive into brand new adventures with Jodie’s Doctor. earned him an Emmy for best directing. Alongside them, we’re delighted that Sharon D Clarke is also joining the show.” As previously rumoured, Chris Chibnall is shaking up the format a bit as well. The upcoming season will feature just ten episodes instead of the usual dozen or 13, but they’ll be a bit longer at 50 minutes apiece, and the premiere will clock in at a full hour. Doctor Who will return to BBC and BBC America when “Twice Upon a Time” airs on Christmas Day, and Jodie will be on our next cover in a very fine piece of artwork by the redoubtable Peter Wallbank - to accompany a feature about changing women’s roles in Doctor Who over the entire series. See, we are not dinosaurs after all!

MORE The folk who made Stranger Things didn’t have to get the folk at Netflix to smell their cheese to get a second series. It was such a huge hit that Monkey Tennis wasn’t a replacement option (Only Alan Partridge fans will have RETURN OF THE IRON GIANT a clue what I’m on about here). Anyway, Netflix’s hit sci-fi show is Steven Spielberg’s big screen adaptation of the back with a bigger budget, and this time it’s set on Halloween in best-selling 2011 novel by Ernest Cline, Ready 1984, where several new characters feature, ready to fight the Player One, is causing quite a stir already, Demogorgon as it returns to Hawkins. Stranger Things takes its especially among fans of the cult Iron Giant cue from films and shows of the 1980s. The second season takes movie. The buzz has been fuelled by a trailer this further with the addition of Sean Astin to the cast The shown recently at San Diego Comic-Con, - who played Mikey in The Goonies - plays the love interest of in which the animated figure featured Joyce Byers, played by . prominently. The reported , played that during the Ready Player One panel at by Millie Bobby Comic-Con, Steven Spielberg declared that The Brown, is back (and Iron Giant is “a real major player” in the Ready Player is no longer bald!) One sci-fi adaptation. This is great news for fans of the after disappearing at the cult favourite movie, but not much else in terms of Iron Giant end of the last series. We don’t information was given. It would make sense that The Iron Giant is in the know if she and Mike are going movie because he too is property of Ready Player One distributor, Warner Bros, to get together, though Caleb but many fans are speculating that Ready Player One is going to be used as a McLaughlin - aka Lucas - has springboard to promote a possible Iron Giant sequel. teased he’s getting a love interest Warner released The Iron Giant in 1999 and it was deemed a box office failure of his own. by nearly everybody involved. Many blame Warner’s lack of promotion, since To refresh your memory The Iron Giant was one of Warner’s best testing movies, the highest at that time before you get started on season in 15 years, and analysts called it a victim of bad timing and a “severe miscalcu- two, series 1 starts in November lation of how to attract an audience.” Despite the poor box office standings, the 1983 when Will Byers () disappears and a girl with a shaved head movie gained widespread critical acclaim and holds a 96% fresh rating on the called Eleven escapes from a government lab. influential Rotten Tomatoes review site. Will’s friends - Mike (), Dustin () and Lucas (McLaughlin) use Eleven, who happens to have telekinetic powers, to try to track WHO’S ON NEXT Will down. Will’s brother Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) and Mike’s sister Just in case you have been in a medically induced coma for the least few months, (Natalie Dyer) then get involved after Nancy’s best friend Barb also disappears. we would like to mention the fact that Season 11 of Doctor Who is undergoing a Will’s mum Joyce (Winona Ryder) realises she can communicate with her son changing of the guard that reflects the changing through electricity and gets the town police chief world around it. Jim ( Harbour) involved in the plan to find him. As most Whovians and other genre fans It turns out there’s an alternative reality to know, Doctor Who season 11 is coming in 2018 Hawkins, which is dark, stormy and cold and has with a new showrunner and a new Doctor in the a called the Demogorgon living in it. The TARDIS. Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall will Demogorgon feeds on blood, which explains why take over as showrunner from Steven Moffat, Mike and Barb (Shannon Purser) both go missing. and Jodie Whittaker will become the Thirteenth They’re both trapped by the monster after having

6 INFINITY Name of feature an accident leaves them bleeding. Viewers also discover that Eleven was kidnapped famous faces they grew up seeing on the at birth and trained by the government to be a spy to listen in on the Russians. big screen. The evil Dr Brenner () has manipulated Eleven for her whole life Beaming in at the top of the bill and spends the series trying to get her back after she escapes. But her amazing is James Tiberius Kirk himself, actor powers mean she can kill his henchmen with her mind… , a living legend Stranger Things 2 is now available to stream on Netflix, so what are you waiting for? who also played police sergeant T.J Hooker, amongst a string of other film appearances in a career spanning seven decades. A true cultural icon, he will be charging £65 a throw for his autograph or a picture, but he’s worth it. Especially if he doesn’t sing. Also going the distance for the whole weekend is Dolph Lundgren, the Swedish actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and martial artist well known for his role as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV and He-Man in Masters of the Universe. Dolph has also recently been cast as King Nereus in the 2018 Aquaman movie. The ham factor is gonna be high folks, because ‘The Shat’ will be joined WILL ARNIE BE BACK? by ‘The Hoff,’ aka David Hasselhof, who Rather than knowing what they like, the public tend to like what they know, which once set a Guinness World Record as the is why remakes of iconic sci-fi franchises are where the money is in Hollywood most watched man on TV. Best known right now. So it comes as little surprise that studio 20th Century Fox are also as Michael Knight on Knight Rider and rebooting their Predator franchise with The Predator, possibly with Arnie back on as L.A. County Lifeguard Mitch Buchannon in the series Baywatch, the Hoff has an board! Well actually, reboot might be the wrong term for the new Predator flick army of loyal fans who will no doubt turn out in force. Save your pennies and you because director Shane Black calls it more of a continuation of the series. Black might be able to afford a photo of you and David with K.I.T.T. and Truck! wrote and acted in the first movie and is also writing this one with Fred Dekker of Also in attendance will be Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters 1 & 2), Zach Galligan RoboCop fame. He says: “As far as Fred and I are concerned, anyway, why start (Gremlins), Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers), Ian McDiarmid (Sith Lord Emperor over when you’ve all this rich mythology yet to mine?” Palpatine in Return of the Jedi), Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian in The Empire Black announced via Twitter in February 2017 that filming was officially starting Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi), Denis Lawson (Wedge Antilles, Rebel Alliance on Feb. 20 and shared an image of some of the cast, though Arnie wasn’t in the fighter pilot in all three of the original Star Wars films), Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett lineup. Schwarzenegger has certainly been approached but whether he has said in the original Star Wars trilogy) and Joonas Viljami Suotamo (a 6’10” Finnish born yes or no is at present unconfirmed. The time period for each film in the Predator pro basketball player, known for playing Chewbacca alongside Peter Mayhew in franchise has varied. Alien vs. Predator painted a picture of a millennia-old struggle Star Wars - The Force Awakens). between the two warring , while each subsequent movie was set in the ‘For The Love of the Sci-fi’ is best known for its amazing one-off prop builds, time period it was made in. The Predator will be no exception, with Black revealing: including their life-size X-wing, Scout Walker and Cantina Space Bar revealed in “this one will be set in present day.” But hopes are high for what will apparently be 2015. This year they are raising the game, with a spacecraft focus, building a the biggest budget Predator to date, due in cinemas August 2018. And let’s face t, colonial Viper from Battlestar Galactica in memory of Richard Hatch, Darth Vader’s it must be better than AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem! TIE Advanced, and the Batwing from Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman movie, along with a 30ft classic UFO spacecraft inspired by films such as Close Encounters. You won’t see these props anywhere else as they never go on tour. There will also be a collection of screen used props and exhibits from the Lord Of The Rings movies which will be housed inside a weathertop set recreation from Fellowship of the Rings. This fine collection is part of the Andy Mansion Collection. And if you’re a fan, you’ll love their massive collection of screen used props and , including the Lawmaster bike actually driven by Karl Urban on screen in the 2012 movie and many costumes worn by the cast. The exhibit also features a taxi seen on screen in the 1995 movie with Sylvester Stallone. All of these props are set against a Halls of Justice and Peach Trees set piece guarded by a dedicated Judge Dredd fan cosplay group. Sounds like an event not to be missed, so book your tickets early. The ‘For The Love of Sci-Fi’ Convention runs fro Saturday 2nd - Sunday 3rd December 2017 at the Bowlers Exhibition Centre, Longbridge Road, Trafford Park, Manchester M17 1SN.

CONVENTION NEWS The big UK convention for December is Manchester’s ‘For The Love Of Sci-Fi’, a great convention that is run for the fans, by the fans. The organisers say, they are always listening to feedback from the fans, and because they are fans too, they want to create the best convention experience possible for everyone attending. Other events focus on guests, merchandise traders, and some re-used props, but ‘For the Love of Sci-Fi’ is different. The organisers have brought some big name guests to the UK in previous years but it sounds like they have outdone themselves this time round with their most ambitious guest line-up to date, giving attendees the chance to meet and greet the

INFINITY 7 How did Star Wars FanGirl Christy Marie become a media phenomenon? Patrick Jankiewicz has the full story…

n the four decades it has I been part of pop culture, Star Wars has changed everything; merchandising, the box office, action figures and even the convention circuit, where its colourful characters have inspired normal people to adopt the look of their favourite characters and become comic con stars themselves. The beautiful doe-eyed girl glides as lithe as a cat through a crowd in The Long Beach Convention Centre with her head held high. As she moves, seemingly oblivious to the gasps and sharp intakes of breath in her wake, two nerds collide in the aisle because they have been staring at her, and a slack-jawed dealer is so distracted, he drops a long box of mint Uncanny X-Men on his own foot. Christy Marie’s slave chain dangles around her arched neck, as she sheepishly notices the commotion she’s just caused. It doesn’t hurt that she’s stunning... Or that she’s dressed in the skimpy ‘Slave Leia’ metal bikini and skirt from Return Of The Jedi. Cute girls in costume at Comic Cons are nothing new. They are one of the fun convention byproducts - it’s always a joy to see cosplayers in homemade Harley Quinn or Batgirl costumes. But that all changed when Christy Marie accidentally took it to the next level. She became so popular at conventions as Slave Leia, “Lucasfilm had me as an official Leia at a fan day event and they even made me my own Star Wars collectors card,” she smiles. “That was a thrill!” Christy is not a publicity-starved actress, model or stripper, or an atten- tion-seeking kook, so for her to create the kind of sensation she’s generated is amazing and unheard of. She is just a freckle faced Star Wars fan who goes to shows in a slave collar and chains. The winsome, 5’7” Marie’s popularity became even more evident after the conventions, when she began turning up on hundreds of Facebook pages, The Tonight Show, G4, Spike TV, SyFy Channel, Time, Newsweek, IMDB and various internet news and fan sites worldwide. Comic artists began immortalising her in their work. In short, Christy Marie became an unofficial of comic-book conventions - a Minnie Mouse whose picture you needed before the convention closed. “It’s a little weird to have this big internet following, but at the same time, I’m kind of not aware of it all,” she says shyly. “I really don’t think about it too much. It’s fun, but I don’t sit

8 INFINITY CHRISTY - COSPLAY CATWALK CUTIE

at home and Google myself or visit all of these websites, but friends will point then out to me. It’s really cool. I’m on The Syfy Channel website, they have a sidebar photo of me, and that was shocking. I can’t gauge how much or how little people have seen me, but it’s very flattering.” Christy Marie’s origin is pretty straightfor- ward. “I’m from Orange County, California and it basically started when I was growing up. I was a big fan of comic books and animation. When I was 7, my mom said, ‘You have to see Star Wars’, so we rented the movies and I watched one a night. I loved them. Then I heard about the legendary San Diego Comic Con, so I wanted to see what it was all about. I loved it! “I was a real nerd growing up. It’s true - I was was there all day! The only time I would move is a total nerd and still am. I read sci fi mags every Han Solo and we palled around together. I started when the Fire Marshall came up to me and said, month and I watch Robot Chicken! I loved Comic going to the Star Wars conventions. I went to ‘YOU! You’re creating a fire hazard, you need to Con because it was a place where I truly felt I Celebration II in Indianapolis and for Celebration move. NOW!’ It was crazy. That was the best time fit in, with people who had the same interests I III, I went as ‘Slave Leia’ for the first time.” I ever had. I never thought I would be the kind of did. I started seeing people dress up in costume. girl to create a fire hazard! Back then, Comic Con wasn’t what it is now. CREATING A FIRE HAZARD “As a nerd who was not popular in high school; There weren’t a lot of people in costume, but When she unveiled herself as Slave Leia, it had I wasn’t even a cheerleader, I was a dork, so this I thought, ‘That looks fun - they’re wearing a reaction she didn’t expect. “I always wanted is crazy. It’s my chance to be someone else, costumes and having a good time..’ to do Slave Leia, but I had to build up a couple someone outgoing and girly. In my normal “I’m a huge Star Wars fan, so I decided years of experience doing it. I was a little life, I don’t wear make-up, but when I do the to dress up as Princess Leia in her A New timid, because it’s a really risqué’ costume to conventions, I wear make-up and pretty outfits Hope outfit...Omigosh, I even wore the buns! wear. I remember worrying, ‘What’s my family and basically be a girl! I love doing that. I did that and it was incredibly fun - people gonna think?’ I didn’t want them to think I was “My mom’s a speech pathologist and my dad would ask for your picture. When I first did it, I a stripper or something. But I thought ‘I’m works for a software company. They think it’s went into the convention in normal clothes with finally gonna do it...’ and I went as Slave Leia. At really neat that I do this. Mom actually took me my costume in a backpack, like Peter Parker. I Celebration, it’s a different vibe. At Comic Con, to my first Comic Con. They love me and support changed in the bathroom and as soon as I came people like Princess Leia and Star Wars, but at whatever I’m doing. I was underage when I out, people started holding up cameras as I Celebration, it’s total Princess Leia-love. Because started, so my mom came to cons with me. They walked by. It was just a weird effect. of this, everyone wanted a picture with me. think it’s an interesting phenomenon that’s “I had a great time doing that, so next time, I “I would be in the corner holding my slave going on. They always tease and embarrass went as ‘Bespin Leia’, where she’s in the Cloud City, chain and people would come and take pictures, me about it. ‘We just saw you on TV from a wearing a reddish dress. I did that and ran into a pictures and more pictures. Before I knew it, I convention!’ It’s overwhelming to think about it. I didn’t dress up to be seen on TV, I basically dressed up because I liked the character. My Christy with Jabba the Hutt. What a parents can’t get over it.” shame that Luke Karen, Christy’s mother, notes, “Christy’s has let himself go a little. Above is J. Scott father and I have always known she has many Campbell’s artistic gifts; poise, grace, beauty and intelligence. The rendering of Christy fact that others noticed her outer beauty doesn’t as ‘Slave Leia’ surprise us at all. The fact that she chooses to display her beauty in this unique way is surprising to us, but she has fun with it. It was apparent after taking her to her first convention that she had found a new passion. We would have never guessed that the ‘force’ would be this strong with her. Perhaps it’s her destiny. Whatever she sets her mind to, she does to perfection, so we’re not surprised that she has a ‘following’. She’s certainly very special and I think we were the first to notice!”. The rest of her family has been equally vocal. “When I was talking to Kevin Smith on The Tonight

INFINITY 9 NameCHRISTY of featureMARIE

little bit, because I have the brown hair and similar body type. I think that helps. There’s something cool when a person in the costume actually resembles the character - a kind of magic happens. I never considered going as Oola, for example, because the green airbrushing seemed kind of daunting. I have a friend who loves being Oola at shows.” Some fans who pose with her get a weird gleam in their eye when they take her chain. “I have been yanked hard a couple times,” Christy Marie confesses, rolling her greenish hazel eyes. “Some people get a little aggressive, but I don’t think it’s really intentional - they just don’t realise it. I think there’s a bit of a mentality with some people when they see you posing, they kind of forget you’re a real person and treat you like a mascot! They walk up, yank my neck chain hard like a leash, take a picture and then walk away without saying anything. I’m holding my neck, thinking, ‘Wow, hi, thanks for that!’ “People assume when you dress up like this, you’ll get treated as a piece of meat, that people will be crude, lewd and rude, but that hasn’t been my experience. Sure there are comments here and there, some people are less than tactful but overall, people are very kind and sweet. Nice, unassuming type people go to comic cons, so I haven’t had any major problems. There’s been very few grabby Above: Show at Comic Con, my uncle wasn’t types, but I just let it roll off my back. I’m not Christy’s Arial even looking at the TV, but he heard gonna let one lewd comment ruin my day. gets a great reception and me and recognised my voice and character. She has a lot of personality, but a “What can I do when somebody says, ‘Oh, as she says to freaked! That made it exciting. lot of her outfits are not that attractive. She’s check out that ass’, ‘I would like THAT chained Johnny Depp: ‘’In Jamaica you can “He said ‘I had no idea why you were on cute when she wears the buns, but for me to my bed’, ‘Do those legs go all the way up?’ get a steak and TV dressed like that, but it was amazing!’ I ‘Slave Leia’ is the best of both worlds,” Christy and both men and women have asked me, kidney pie for was dressed as Padme. My family thinks it’s Marie asserts. ‘Are you wearing any underwear?’ At the £1.75, a chicken and mushroom cool. Mom always tells people, ‘She’s famous!’ “I’m portraying a character who is really same time, I am walking around a convention pie for £1.60 and I do it for the love of the character - not for strong and independent,but she’s also very half naked,” Christy Marie grins, with a world an apple pie for £2.15. In St Kitts something shallow like, ‘I’ll look really hot sexy. It’s kind of fun to explore both sides of weary shrug. and Nevis a steak in this costume.’ I hate when people walk her personality. Slave Leia has a girl next door “My outfit is pretty sturdy. It was custom and kidney pie will cost you £2. into a convention with no idea who their appeal because she’s not a character who made for me by a propmaker named Darcy But that’s the character even is. For me, it’s just because I would normally wear something like that. Ann. She took my measurements and made pie rates of the love Star Wars and I want to wear an outfit She had to be imprisoned by Jabba the Hutt this outfit. It’s really top quality. She also Caribbean” that expresses that. Sometimes I dress up as to even be put in that outfit. I think there’s made my prop chain. It’s lightweight, but very Ariel from The Little Mermaid, because I like something sexy about Jabba doing that. I also screen accurate.” Disney, too.” like the fact that she’s so strong that, even Has she ever had a ‘wardrobe malfunction’? when she’s a slave, she manages to kill Jabba. “Um yeah,” Marie admits. “I had a strap break STRONG AND INDEPENDENT Han Solo and Luke Skywalker didn’t kill Jabba on my top once at Comic Con. It’s moulded, What made her choose the Leia character the Hutt, Leia did. so when I felt it break, I grabbed just in and that costume? “I like Princess Leia “When I choose to do Princess Leia, I time. Another time, a screw fell out of my because she’s a really strong female chose a character that I felt I resembled a bottom plate. My underwear is attached to

10 INFINITY “Adam Hughes drew me with Luke and Han on a San Diego Comic Con program. It’s Carrie Fisher’s face with my pose and my body. I have the shirt of that. I posed for The Aspen character in the Fathom comic. The best part of dressing up is peoples’ reaction to you, and depicting you in artwork. That, I think, is the coolest.” Superstar comic cover artist Campbell confirms Christy is in his work. “I’m always being accused of using Christy as The Black Cat and Mary Jane Watson and there is truth to that. That’s accurate. I think I subcon- sciously draw her in my work. It makes logical sense to me. Not just in Mary Jane and Black Cat, because you can see her in my fairy tales pieces and elements of Christy in all my work. “Every artist gets their ideal feminine image in their heads and it finds its way into their work. Christy has been a dominant influential image for me in all my female my bottom plate, so if that plate goes, my characters. I thought when I met her, she underwear goes, you lose the whole thing. looks like one of my drawings! Look at my Luckily, I have double sided tape on, which cover for Ultimate Thor #1 - without a doubt, gave me a few precious second to grab. When I see in her what everyone else does and it’s that happens, I just dash to the nearest coming through in the artwork. Look at the rest room to fix it. I don’t think I have ever similarities between Christy in both Thor Girl flashed, I have always grabbed it in time. I’m and The Enchantress on that cover! You can pretty secure in my outfit. But it’s definitely a Endor dress. I also played C-3PO in that, too, Above: definitely see her.” risk you run.” because they had a C-3PO costume that It’s not only her Her internet fandom seems to be growing. phaser that is Speaking of risks, has she ever had a nobody could fit in. It was made for a guy set to stun when One website compares X Men Apocalypse stalker? “I have had a couple of extreme with straight hips, so I could get into every Christy goes actress Munn unfavourably to Christy where one bald cases of people who have gotten a little part of it but the hips, which they CG’d in man has gone Marie as Slave Leia. “Oh really,” Marie blushes too friendly. Somebody found out where later. I also did a British and before… again. “Gosh, that’s very overwhelming and I lived and came by the house,” she says. they did a couple promo shots of me as Slave flattering, but at the same time, I would never “Happily, I had friends who backed me up Leia. They had me chained to a couch with a actively participate in something like that, and neutralised the problem. There are fat guy in a speedo making Jabba sounds. It which seems to put somebody else down. some things that do disturb me and I try to was hilarious, I had to look disgusted! That I am very flattered they think that way but be careful. I don’t give out my last name or was fun. I would never wanna turn costuming into where I work and never post anything super “I was also on the cover of the Star Woids some sort of a contest, I just do it for fun. I personal on Facebook. I never wanna come DVD, a documentary about Star Wars fans saw that there’s a Christy Marie Leia site on off as cold to people, so I try to keep it light standing in line. That’s funny, because I am Flicker!(www.flickr.com/groups/christymarie/ and breezy. Maybe I’m naive, but I have faith not even in the movie! I’m in the cover, on the pool) Somebody started that and it kind of that most people out there are good.” back, on the actual disc, but I’m not in at all surprised me. That was neat, but it surprises - they just did a photo shoot of me for that. It and shocks me. BY GEORGE SHE’S GOT IT was cool when I found myself on the cover of “It’s awesome. I tutor students and one of Two of those ‘good people’ worked on her the Star Wars Insider a couple times..I never their parents recognised me. My co-workers favourite films. “I met Mark Hamill and acted, it wasn’t something I was looking to saw me on USA Today.com after a San Diego George Lucas,” she enthuses. “I was not in do, but I had fun.” Comic Con but they didn’t know I did the costume when I met Mark. He was really For her, the ultimate compliment is being ‘Slave Leia’ thing or go by ‘Christy Marie’. I awesome - he even did The Joker laugh for drawn by artists like J. Scott Campbell (who got outed at work when they Google searched me. When I met George Lucas, I was dressed she is now dating) and Adam Hughes. “I love me and found the Flicker site. I came back as Padme, in her white battle jumpsuit (From comic book artwork. I met Scott Campbell and they asked ‘Did you have a good time Attack Of The Clones) with the midriff. He’s a because I was a fan of his work and wanted at Comic Con? We saw you on USA Today.’ very quiet guy and people were coming up to to get his autograph,” she admits. “It clearly and I said ‘Yeah’, then they said, ‘We didn’t take a photo with him, and then they would didn’t hurt that I was dressed as Slave Leia. know Christy Marie was sooo famous!’ and I just walk away. “I got his autograph and walked away and thought, ‘Uh-oh, they know...’” “When we posed together, George Lucas two guys in line behind me immediately As for her perfect figure, “I work out. It looked at me and said, ‘So, what do you do asked him to draw me! He drew me right comes and goes in waves. I work out when in your real life?’ I said ‘I’m a Psychology then and there in the Slave Leia outfit. He I know that a convention is coming up,” Major’ and he laughed. That was my big did a sketch and the guys told me ‘J. Scott she smiles. “In the winter months, I just do George Lucas moment. It was very surreal Campbell drew you!’ I could not believe whatever! to meet him in person. I got to thank him it, because he is my favourite comic book The plucky girl wants to alter how fans for the impact he’s had on my life. I’m sure artist. I was so excited! I told him I loved the are seen. “There’s a negative perception of he’s heard that millions of times, but he was sketch. It was so good, despite being a quick people who dress up and go to conventions, really gracious about it. This whole Slave Leia convention sketch, you could tell it was me as but I would like to change that,” Christy Marie experience could be described as a big psych Slave Leia. declares. “We’re really good, talented people. experiment!” “People have since commissioned him I don’t like the perception that we’re sitting in Christy Marie has also appeared in TV to draw me as their Slave Leia artwork. I our basements making horrible homemade shows and fan films. “I did one of The Pink don’t think he’s ever drawn his characters to costumes. Sure, dressing up for a convention 5 movies,” she laughs. “That was fun. Amy resemble me, but I think it’s a subconscious is nerdy, but I like being nerdy. I’m just going Earhart, who plays Stacey/Pink 5, is a really thing that sneaks in because he’s gotten used to cons as my normal nerdy self. I want to funny girl, very talented. I was in The Return to drawing me, so he does a face shape that say, we’re just fans having fun - we’re not Of Pink 5, as Princess Leia in the Ewok/ resembles mine, freckles similar to mine. lonely and depraved!”

INFINITY 11 YOUR LETTERS AND EMAILS

We love Close Encounters with our readers so drop us a letter at 29 Cheyham Way, South Cheam, Surrey SM2 7HX or an e-mail at [email protected] and you have a good chance of seeing your own name in print

The Dark Side and covers many somewhere between The Man From of the films and TV shows that UNCLE and Danger Man, and meant so much to me as a recent screenings by Talking child. In particular your Pictures TV (Freeview button recent pieces on 80’s 81 where service provided ‘supermachine’ shows from a main transmitter) and the Bondian (if have shown it has stood that’s not a word then the test of time quite well I’m claiming it) epic that in this regard. was Moonraker were Amos Burke, Secret standout articles for me. The Chewitsaur on Agent could also have the rampage! As the co-host of the been filmed in colour if ‘Retrospection’ podcast we ABC had been willing to pick have covered those subjects up the additional production “We’re never going to get to the launderette with ourselves and it was fun to hear cost (around 20% more) but it that Dalek in the way!” your takes on those classics. wasn’t and so the show was filmed The ‘Supermachines’ article in in conventional black and white, not particular brought back happy memories of that this really mattered as the vast majority of Dear Infinity, evenings spent in front of the TV, enamel-rotting Americans were still viewing TV with black and The reader’s article in issue 4 on old vs new Dr Who fizzy pop in one hand and a packet of Chewitts in white sets at the time. However, as Jon rightly was interesting but missing certain points. It’s the other. And that was just last week. Anyway pointed out, it was the genuinely globe-trotting not enough to say there are good stories and bad keep up the good work and I look forward to many I Spy which put the kibosh on Amos Burke’s stories and always have been - fans more informative and entertaining issues. upgraded career. ABC could have moved Amos know this. Paul Wood, Reading. Burke, Secret Agent to another time-slot but really Yes the show is a continuation of the old but did not have anything else strong enough to go there are big differences, the format change being Ooh, Chewitts, remember them well, and that up against I Spy. The Long Hot Summer, which the most obvious. Shorter time for telling stories advert where the dinosaur ate them. Thanks for the moved nights to replace Amos Burke, Secret Agent can leave a garbled result. The themes of the kind words Paul, we will have to give your podcast after its premature demise, proved even more show have been sometimes vastly different to the (at www.retrospection.podeban.com) a listen! ineffective in combating I Spy and suffered the old - for instance, how many weddings have we same fate a few months later. seen in the new show compared to the old? How Hello Allan Bryce, Ironically, ABC ended up getting the hit spy many scenes featuring, say, washing machines? Recently, my old friend Andrew clued me in about show it wanted and somewhat on the cheap with The landscape and language of the old show - your new mag and I’ve just come across issue The Avengers, which inadvertently also put an end even when stranded on Earth - was usually power 3 on the top shelf at my local WH Smith. (Top to that other Burke’s Law spin-off, Honey West, stations, scientific establishments featuring quirky shelves in newsagents just ain’t what they used to a show seemingly doomed to failure right from scientists and professors. We never saw a housing be). Basically, it seems to be a bit like retro mag the start. Gwen Bagni and Paul Dubov changed estate or launderette. Choices but for sci-fi/spy-fi aficionados, which is the Ficklings’ original “Sam Spade in a skirt” The soap opera elements have increased in the fine by me. concept quite a bit for TV presentation and lost the new series, sometimes making it more uneven. Nice to see young Jon Abbott is still around essence of the successful series of novels in many When Clara was being picked up and dropped diligently recycling TV and film trivia with great of the episodes, notably by saddling Honey with off continuously by the Doctor to go off on an gusto. I was interested in his comments about a bargain basement Willie Garvin-type partner, adventure it was in danger of trivialising the some of the ‘Four Star’ shows. played by the uncharismatic John Ericson. They adventures, as if they were just popping down to By the end of its second season, Burke’s Law had turned it into a dog and cat show but hadn’t the shops. was running out of steam, although it continued reckoned on ABC acquiring the foremost dog and There was a subtlety that seems to have been to be popular in the UK and certainly provided cat team of John Steed and Emma Peel. ABC were lost, right down to the regenerations - now volcanic with the template to transform well aware they had a much stronger show with style eruptions, rather than a gentle, yet affecting The Avengers from offbeat the British import and did change or merger. It’s things like this, I think, the tape show into film series not renew Honey West for older viewer is responding to. A coarseness to the with sufficient broad appeal a second season, which storytelling has set in - again a necessity due to for US network viewers. is doubly ironic as Honor the brevity of shorter episodes. There’s also a lot of Now, Burke’s Law might Blackman had been first shouting when something dramatic is occurring, have got a third season if choice to take on the role which can go into self-parody. ABC hadn’t wanted a hit of Honey. I think these points and more are what the spy show of its own to rival Pleased to see your older fans are reacting to, if only instinctively. The Man From UNCLE on enthusiastic contributor They know something is different - not wrong, NBC. Unfortunately, Four Denis Meikle’s article on but different Star could only produce so The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Mark Brunton, Lincoln many hours of TV each year although I would refer him and was heavily committed to my articles in Primetime Well put, Mark, I thought that feature might inspire to producing new colour issues 12 and 13 in which some worthwhile comments from Who fans. I’ll be series The Big I reported the established keeping an eye out for those washing machines Valley, also for ABC, so a knowledge at the time from now on. compromise emerged in regarding the cinema the form of Amos Burke, features. Nothing much Dear Infinity, Secret Agent. At the time, more seems to have come I just wanted to say how much I’m enjoying your this seemed to be a fairly to light in the intervening magazine. It makes a great companion piece to decent offering, sitting decades, although

12 INFINITY Name of feature

THE SPYING GAME Andrew Keir in the But even a loose tie to the UN created a problem, as the ‘Oh, by the way - I’m cutting in.’ organisation was unwilling to see itself associated with ‘spy’ capers — (), The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: ‘The and Rolfe had to devise an acronym of his own to make sense of Hammer feature film of Vulcan Affair’ (1964) the new title. As a result, the ‘Man’ from UNCLE became an agent of f one screen genre took precedence over all others the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. And with Quatermass and the Pit in the 1960s, it was the so-called ‘spy’ fi lm. Dr No that, and the creation of a global enemy in the unfortunately-named (1962), the fi rst fi lm to be adapted from the popular THRUSH (to match Bond’s nemesis SMERSH, later SPECTRE), a whole James Bond secret agent novels of author Ian new spy mythos was inaugurated to run alongside Bond which Fleming, had been enough of a box-offi ce success to perfectly suited the episodic requirements of a network series. warrant a sequel but was still some way from being All that remained was the casting of a lead player of Bondian a phenomenon; that would come eighteen months demeanour - cool, cultured and capable. In all fairness, Hollywood had later with production company Eon’s version of novel no shortage of suitably macho types, but the air of ‘breeding’ that was number fi ve, From With Love (Dr No was actually the sixth in required of Solo was in signifi cantly shorter supply. The role demanded sequence), whose teaser trailer played in Odeons around the country someone with a more refi ned East rather than West Coast accent, and weeks before the fi lm itself, majored on a fi ght between Bond (Sean who exhibited a faintly superior attitude; consequently, the producers Connery) and Red Grant (Robert Shaw) on the Orient Express, and turned to an actor whose fi rst starring vehicle had been Roger proclaimed in big, bold type, ‘Bond is Back!’ After From Russia With Corman’s 1958 no-budget sci-fi exploitationer, Teenage Caveman! Love, and its end-credits assurance that Bond would indeed be back An inauspicious screen entrée, to be sure, but New Yorker Robert again, and in the vastly more spectacular Goldfi nger, the fl oodgates Francis Vaughn had been almost permanently guest-spotting in TV opened and everyone and his fi nancier rushed to make a secret agent/ series since 1955, had been Oscar-nominated for a supporting role spy - or more accurately, superspy - fi lm. in The Philadelphians (1959) and had more recently stood out from As television was able to move faster than the fi lm industry when it the distinctly jock-like crowd of Steve McQueen, James Coburn and came to capitalising on a trend, it should be no surprise that the fi rst Charles Bronson in the John Sturges western, The Magnifi cent Seven real competitor to Bond came from TV. (1960), as cold-eyed killer Lee. More surprising was the involvement of in what Vaughn was offered the starring role of ‘Napoleon’ Solo. Vaughn’s amounted to a direct challenge to the supremacy of his creation - patrician manner and Harvard-educated air of detachment perfectly but then the gambler in Fleming was no doubt hedging his bets. matched the public school hauteur of Bond but he lacked the hard It fell to M-G-M Television and the Arena Productions of British-born edge of the prefect that the street-bred had brought to émigré producer Norman Felton (makers of the hugely popular Dr Fleming’s character on screen, a weakness that was all-too apparent Kildare show with Richard Chamberlain) to come up with a ‘spy’ series in To Trap a Spy, when Solo sometimes seemed as non-plussed as in the mould of Bond especially tailored for the small screen, and Lee had in The Magnifi cent Seven when confronted with a situation Felton did what any potential copyist would do in order to avoid an that required both pugilism and presence of mind - the bold exterior accusation of plagiarism - he turned to ‘Bond’ himself to come up being but a front for some uncertainty beneath; this was eventually with a similar but alternative proposition. Ian Fleming suggested remedied by effectively ‘splitting’ Solo in two and providing him with ‘Solo’ as the title for both the show and its protagonist, and Felton an empathetic partner of less fastidious appearance, who could more embarked on a pilot using the unambiguous possessory credit of appreciably engage with the roughhouse aspects of the show. ‘Ian Fleming’s Solo’. The pilot was in November 1963, only a month after the UK Fleming had already used the name ‘Solo’ for a minor character release of From Russia With Love. In the original edit, Solo was much in Goldfi nger, however, which was currently underway at Pinewood as his name implied and subsequent Russian sidekick Studios, and the very thing that Felton had sought to avoid - a suit for (David McCallum) was no more than a bit-part player, UNCLE was run infringement - was suddenly in the offi ng. by a Mr Allison (American television habitué Will Kuluva), and the A compromise was soon arrived at: the character’s name could villainous organisation was WASP. be retained, but the series had to undertake a change of title. It The plot concerned the bogus assassination of an African head was writer who came up with the solution. TV’s previous of state (’s William Marshall) by chemicals magnate Andrew forays into world of secret agents had been relatively few - 1960’s Vulcan (Fritz Weaver), initiated as a ruse to enable a WASP takeover of Danger Man, with Patrick McGoohan, and 1961’s The Avengers, with his country, and it was directed by to serious Ian Hendry and Patrick Macnee, were early approximaapproximationstions of the intelligence services in action - but the ultra-chiultra-chicc Bond fi lms were how NBC saw its ‘Solo’ project evolving, and so the proposed series becabecameme instead The Man From UNCLE - the UNCLE in question being either ‘Uncle Sam’ in American vernacular or an acronym foforr a fi ctional department of the United Nations. creen Denis Meikle opens The Small ScreChannel D to examine the classic 1960s spy series, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. - which came from an idea by 007’s Bond Affair creator Ian Fleming!

24 INFINITY INFINITY 25 speculation that The Concrete Overcoat Affair, The gunning for THRUSH in my back garden, armed Five Daughters Affair and The Prince Of Darkness with a Lone Star U.N.C.L.E. Mauser cap pistol! Affair and their cinema counterparts simply had Ahhh, they were the days. alternative takes of some scenes for each of the I’ve never seen Girl From U.N.C.L.E., but am versions and some other scenes being cut down reliably informed it’s nothing to write home about. for the two-part TV format seems to have been Even so, Stephanie Powers was (and still is) a very borne out. sexy lady. The BBC used to show the Matt Helm Neil Alsop, by email. and Flint movies back in the 70’s too, but I haven’t seen them for years. I don’t know what I would Sounds very much as if you should be writing think of them now to be honest, but I wouldn’t turn features for us Neil, your knowledge of vintage TV down a chance to see them again. After all who one of his greatest eyebrow-rais- is most impressive. I am sure we will be returning doesn’t like Dean Martin and James Coburn? ing scenes ever. But yes, I to the Man From U.N.C.L.E fairly soon and I’d love Mark Phillips feature on Gerry Anderson’s Space proudly admit to having a to get a feature sorted on the TV career of Gene 1999 was a blast. My God, how I loved that series as copy of Moonraker on the Barry, a favourite of mine from his War of the a six/seven year old. My abiding memories are the DVD shelf. Worlds days. glorious theme music from season one, my green Oh and I nearly forgot Dinky Toys Eagle spaceship and the re-runs on about Quatermass and Dear Allan, Saturday mornings. No wonder men of a certain age the Pit. Great feature on Infinity magazine goes from strength to strength. go all dewy-eyed and get all nostalgic about the a memorable Hammer Wow, it’s a perfect stablemate to The Dark Side ‘decade taste forgot’. An excellent and informative film and a wonderful and another superb mag to enjoy every six weeks. piece, just too many goodies in one issue. TV production. Infinity Infinity issue 3 was a cracking read. Tristan Issue 4 has been just as successful a read is certainly touching Thompson’s Dark Star feature was extremely too. The Veronica Cartwright interview was first all bases and with enjoyable. Sadly I’ve never been a big fan of this rate, and the Rise of the Super Machines feature that same wonderful early Carpenter flick but I think it might be worth brought back many a happy memory. Best for me humour as The Dark a re-watch one of these days, even if it’s just to was Grant Peabody’s feature on The Avengers - The Side I hope that it enjoy the ‘surfin’ on the solar wind’ sequence. Honor Blackman Years as I’m enjoying repeats on goes from strength Kevin Coward’s article on The Black Hole the True Entertainment channel. to strength. brought back many happy memories of I’m also customising a second hand Thanks again for seeing this one evening at the cinema in ‘Pussy Galore’ doll into Dr Catherine Gale, an outstanding, Windsor and then playing with my Mego so, very well timed. Although I love the quality action figures. Still a fabulous movie even Steed and Mrs Peel era, I think Cathy magazine. all these years later, with some beautiful was rather overshadowed, which is Richard Buck, by special effects and indeed some very unfortunate as she’s a great character email. good acting. in her own right. An underrated sci-fi classic. Lastly the piece on 007 in Fab letter mate, I just I loved the Man from U.N.C.L.E. Space was delightful. I must hope that people don’t and ‘Spy-Fi’ features too. confess that Moonraker start to think we’re U.N.C.L.E. is still one of my was once a Bond film I making them all up - favourite TV shows of all could have lived quite but there do seem to be time and I have many fond happily without, but the a lot of folk out there memories re-watching years have mellowed like you who are loving the episode compilation me and now it’s a guilty our whole nostalgic movies on the BBC during pleasure. The late great retro vibe. And if you the summer holidays or on is having a want to show even more Friday evenings after 6.00 blast, Michael Lonsdale gratitude you can tell pm. Happy days. Attempting re-entry, the is excellent as Drax and me where you got that late, great Roger Moore Although I liked Napoleon, in Moonraker as for Holly Goodhead... I Pussy Galore doll - I’ve Ilya Kuryakin was the agree with Sir Rog that his always really wanted coolest agent ever and I always best film was The Man Who one. Don’t tell the wife, pretended I was him when I was Haunted Himself, which includes mind you…

INFINITY 13 SATURDAY MORNING SUPER

f you had never picked up a I comic-book from the start of the 1960s onward, then Han- na-Barbera’s Super TV Heroes would have confirmed all your prejudices and assumptions about comics in general. The heroes all had exaggerated muscles and booming voices, and could rustle up whatever random and vague super powers might be needed to suit the occasion. There was no backstory as to where they had come from, or why they were doing what they were doing. Marvel and DC didn’t just overshadow them, they towered over them. They wore ridiculous and impractical costumes drawn in a very basic style, and Birdman even used to pointlessly and needlessly shout “Biiirrrdmaaan!” whenever Jon Abbott looks at he flew into the sky! Hanna-Barbera’s Super TV What was that all about? To warn passing aircraft? Heroes line of animated Reaffirm his self-con- fidence? Perhaps adventurers, who were it was to all those exactly what you always people down below, pointing and asking “Is it a expected super-heroes bird? Is it a man?” Perhaps to be like… he just enjoyed his work. And yet, I love these cartoons. The sudden influx of Saturday morning super-hero adventure cartoons that flooded all three American networks in the mid-‘60s were enormous fun, competently produced, creative, colourful, and lively. And they stopped for nothing but the commercial breaks.

HERE’S JONNY! Hanna-Barbera first dabbled in the arena of adventure cartoons by producing the superlative Jonny Quest, TV’s first ever animated action show, for primetime in 1964 (the BBC aired it in Britain when it was first made, and then it disappeared for thirty years until Boomerang came along on satellite TV in the ‘90s). An artistic success sunk by its own quality (the ratings didn’t justify the expense, so it lasted just one season), it was beautifully drawn, intelligently written, and outstanding in every way. Check it out on DVD, but make sure you get the original. The cartoons Hanna-Barbera provided for Saturday morning TV were less complex, considerably more colourful, but far less substantial. Although they nicked a few ideas from Jonny, plus a fair amount of background music, there was no comparison in content. Nevertheless, you’d have to be pretty miserable and bad-tempered not to find them entertaining, albeit on a very superficial level. What did Shakespeare say? “Full of sound and

14 INFINITY UPER-HEROESWEEKEND WONDERS

fury, and signifying nothing”. Yep, that was Space Ghost and his buddies.

This article is intended to talk them up, while not unduly raising your expectations. They are what they are. I like what they are. They deserve their moment in the sun. This month, we look at the 1966-’67 season, next time the deluge, in 1967-’68.

ctually, Hanna-Barbera first got Ainto the crime-fighting business the previous year, during the 1965-’66 season, but via their more famous funny animal output. As the unexpected failure with their first of Jonny Quest (1964–’65) suggests, the two crime-fight- company had enjoyed far more success in ers, Atom Ant, off-peak syndication and Saturday mornings, whose size belied than prime-time (evenings), where 1960s his strength (episodes adults had proven fairly resistant to the opened with him working charms of animation. While Huckleberry out in a gym inside his ant-hill!) Hound, Yogi Bear, and Quick Draw McGraw were initially single season and spy spoof Secret Squirrel. Both had ironically proven a success prime-time flops. premiered on NBC in September with all age groups off-peak, Realising what side their bread was 1965, and ran in the U.K. on ITV and become something of a buttered, Hanna-Barbera continued shortly afterwards, after which pop culture phenomenon (Huck turning out funny animal shows for they also promptly disappeared and Quick Draw played in bars Saturday mornings each season, but by until the satellite explosion of and college dorms as well as the mid-‘60s, the well was running dry. multi-channels in the ‘90s. playrooms), only The Flintstones When you’re coming up with characters In America too, the novelty quickly had cracked prime-time. It’s named ‘Wally Gator’ and ‘Peter Potamus’ it’s wore off, the shows no doubt hindered by hard to believe now, but although time to move on. gratingly poor choices in voice artistes, they’ve played endlessly, Looking at current fads of the day, and unbelievably poor supporting everywhere, for the last sixty years, the company saw, like everybody else, cartoons, particularly in the case of both The Jetsons and Top Cat super-heroes and spies, and so came up Secret Squirrel.

INFINITY 15 NameJON ABBOTT of feature

than it was, to persuade CBS and DC Comics to let them produce an animated Adventures of Superman built around the talents of the radio show’s voices from the ‘40s. DC was distributor shorthand for Detective Comics, National’s first title, since it was far easier to bellow “Where are the DC’s?” across the warehouse than “Where are the National Periodical Publications?” (although referred to as DC Comics by the wholesale trade since their earliest days, the company was still stubbornly calling itself National Periodical Publications right up until the early ‘70s). While DC had nothing to lose by letting William Dozier and Lorenzo Semple do their worst (or perhaps best) to the ailing Batman, they kept a close eye and firm grip on Filmation’s Superman, bringing in their own writers to provide the stories, and, just as they had done in the ‘50s with the live-action Superman, running a very tight ship to protect their biggest seller. To be fair, Filmation did an excellent job with New Adventures of Superman, and included an equally entertaining supporting cartoon featuring Superboy, although sadly, Supergirl never made an appearance. The following year, Aquaman joined the show, which doubled in length to an hour, and other DC heroes were trialled in series of three episodes each. These were Flash, Green Lantern, The Atom, Above: Marvel or DC, WATCHING THE DETECTIVES Hawkman, the entire Justice League (without take your choice. Early in 1966, Adam West’s Batman series Batman and Wonder Woman, licensed to Super-Heroes were everywhere on ABC and Irwin Allen’s on Dozier), and the Teen Titans (without Robin, on telly back in CBS started to do in prime-time what Hanna but allowing Wonder Girl). the day! and Barbera had failed to do, and pull in both When the live-action Batman series ended, the kids and the adults, and the company - Filmation swiftly snaffled the Dynamic Duo while still staying in their Saturday morning too, and continued to produce DC super-hero comfort zone - jealously took notes. animation until Hanna-Barbera introduced Knuckling down with network chief Fred the Super-Friends format in the 1970s. All Silverman, Bill and Joe came up with… guess these bar Superboy can currently be found on what…? Batman in Space. But Space Ghost, as Region One DVD, and the three episode trials designed by the creative Alex Toth, became on both regions. a unique creation in his own right. In the meantime, however, while all this was going CARTOON MARVELS on, Silverman was also hedging his bets Not to be left out, the neophyte Marvel with Hanna-Barbera’s rivals, Lou Scheimer’s Comics, novices at the TV game, also dipped Filmation Studios. their toes into the TV cartoon business, Filmation had been on their knees and although for off-peak syndication rather facing closure when they managed, through than Saturday mornings (syndicated an elaborate charade resembling a Rockford programming, if I’m getting too technical, Files-style ‘Big Tent’ scam that made their is sold directly to individual stations or company look busier and more populated territories for any time of day scheduling,

16 INFINITY Saturday Morning Super Heroes

bunch, and without either logic or backstory the kids quickly tired of seeing the charac- ter-lite clowns do the same schtick each week. I wonder what Multi-Man will do this time? Oh yeah… multiply. And like all guys with no personality, they have a real cool car to covet! It even doubles as a speedboat and airplane! Unusually, the producers may have come to the same conclusion, as the stories became more interesting and varied as the show went on. By the time you get to the second disc on the DVD, there’s an amusing western-based episode, and an adventure in which replaces the usual narrator with a clichéd Brit. Both stories manage to fit every relevant cliché and stereotype within the six minutes allocated, and very funny they are too. Another episode sends the Impossibles into the future, and their rip-off of Batman’s Mr. Freeze is more fun than the original. Frankie Jnr. was voiced by none other than the legendary Ted Cassidy (Lurch in The Addams Family, Ruk the android in Star Trek), and far more popular with me and my mates at the time, although CBS had put their money on The Impossibles, giving rather than being part of a everyone knew the pop Above: them two cartoons per show and Frankie major network’s prime-time group were the super-heroes Frankenstein just one. But even F.J. found himself facing Jr. and The programming line-up; rather too, but as they plainly Impossibles the same tired old cackling loons and mad than being subject to sudden were, the masks seemed a premiered scientists, although later he faces a genie in September 10, cancellation, a specific number little superfluous. 1966 on CBS, H-B’s standard Arabian Nights setting and, of episodes are filmed and Premiering the same and ran for two pre-dating Scooby-Doo, an army of ghosts offered. The catch is if nobody season The Monkees seasons (“It looks like Dr. Spectro is back to haunt bites, you lose your shirt, so turned up in prime-time, us!”). So if you pick up the DVD, you might those suppliers tend to pre-sell, or The Impossibles (great bear in mind that Disc Two is the best. make cheaply, or both). name, at least), were The popularity of prime-time Batman Marvel were not so naive as Fluid Man, Multi-Man, remained high among the kids though, to let the Grantray-Lawrence and Coil Man, and they and so, after eighteen shows, while The company loose with their top all had names that Impossibles and Frankenstein Junior went sellers Spider-Man and The were, of course, self into re-runs with fellow fad-followers Atom Fantastic Four, but tentatively licensed explanatory. Fluid Man converted to water, Ant and Secret Squirrel, with the following Captain America, Iron Man, Sub-Mariner, Multi-Man split into several duplicates, season came the deluge. Hulk, and Thor to them, to be marketed and super-springy Coil Man prevented under the generic title Marvel Super-Heroes. pregnancies. Unfortunately, the threesome’s Next issue: All together now… They weren’t too thrilled when they found rather harsh-voiced adversaries were a boring “Biiirrrdmaaan!” out that the company had simply taken the comics they’d supplied as reference tools and literally animated the panels… as sparingly as possible. Despite the outrageous short-cuts, these five series (all on DVD) have acquired a nostalgic charm over the years, and can offer a fuzzy trip down memory lane if you’re forgiving about their cheapness. Like so much low-budget entertainment, they become more entertaining with age; the theme songs alone are hilarious. Back at Hanna-Barbera, Space Ghost shared his show with Dino Boy, one of the weaker of the barmy army still to come. This was exactly what it sounded like, a young boy and his pet dinosaur adventuring in a lost world type of hidden valley with a friendly caveman protector. Whereas Space Ghost and Dino Boy played it straight, the preceding show in the schedules played as comedy. Frankenstein Junior and the Impossibles featured young Buzz Conroy and his scientist dad, and a giant flying Frankenstein robot, their invention, friend, and protector. The Impossibles were a typical ‘60s-style pop group who short-changed their fans every week by interrupting their concerts to fight crime as a masked super-group with, er, exactly the same name. It was never really established whether

INFINITY 17

FROM THE PUBLISHERS OF THEName of MAGAZINE feature OF THE MACABRE AND FANTASTIC!

MAGAZINE!BEST WORLD’S SELLING PRINT HORRORTHE

Issue 188 £3.99 OFFICIAL!!!

e trust you have enjoyed this great issue of Ininity, and if so then you might HILLS care to seek out our companion title, AND CHILLS W MICHAEL The Dark Side, which has been in print for 28 BERRYMAN INTERVIEWED years now so we must be doing something right. Like Ininity, The Dark Side is a compelling and fan-friendly mix of the old and the new, and the current issue transports the reader back to the fabulous 1950s, when talented make-up man Paul Blaisdell created some of ilmdom’s most memorable monsters. We are talking about such imaginative creations as The She-Creature, Voodoo Woman, the walking tree in From Hell It Came, and the BABY bulbous-headed aliens from The Invasion of JANE BOOM WHAT EVER the Saucer Men. Some of his monsters cost just HAPPENED TO THE PSYCHOBIDDIES? $200 to put together, and his story is indeed a fascinating one. As is the story of the late, great James Whale, which we take a look at through a newly discovered collection of family heirlooms. You will also ind interviews with Hills Have Eyes star Michael Berryman and the guys behind the Hammer-oriented Peveril Publishing, as well as a look back at the projects THE MAN that Hammer never got round to ilming - a real shame because they did come up with some fantastic posters for them. WHO MADE Oh, and those who enjoyed the recent hit TV show Feud, about the rivalry between Bette MONSTERS Davis and Joan Crawford on the set of Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? THE PAUL will really enjoy our extensive look at the BLAISDELL so-called ‘Hagsploitation’ genre that sprang from STORY the success of that picture and gave work to a lot PLUS: of Hollywood aging female stars. All this and much, much more can be found JAMES WHALE, KICKSTARTING in the latest issue (188) of The Dark Side, on sale right now at all good newsagents, and probably WHERE’S HAMMER, WAYNE’S HORROR WORLD, LUCIO? a few bad ones too. And remember, if you can’t SPOT THE REVIEWS, NEWS AND MUCH MORE! ind it on the shelves we will be only too happy FULCI CAMEO! to sell you a copy from our website at www.thedarksidemagazine.com

Denis Meikle PAUL BLAISDELL - MONSTER MAKER Name of feature Top 10 Iberian Horrors The 1950s were awash in This image: monster movies, but none Former cowboy actor Ray “Crash” were quite so distinctive Corrigan in THE FRANKENSTEIN ARCHIVES Paul Blaisdell’s monster suit in It, THE MAN WHO MADE THE as those created by Paul The Terror From Blaisdell. Brian J. Robb Beyond Space Opposite: The syringe to a patient who has been tied celebrates the life alien creatures Neil Pettigrew recently spent some time with James Whale’s from Invasion of to the loor to prevent him escaping his and work of an the Saucer Men treatment. In the background, another great-great-niece Cath Lloyd. “In the other room,” she said, German, who has presumably fainted at unsung B-movie the thought of what awaits him, is carried off on a stretcher. In the black humour artist... “I have a few bits and pieces you may like to see…” of this medical scene, Cath detects a premonition of the weird science of the of Whale’s drawings and oil paintings. I felt like Indiana Jones Frankenstein creation scenes. ith the stage musical version of Mel Brooks’ discovering a horde of ancient artefacts in some long-forgotten Whale’s war experiences had a Young Frankenstein currently on at the temple. As if all that wasn’t enough, on a subsequent visit she profound impact on his later ilm career, WGarrick Theatre in London, it seems like produced a large folder which she had found in her loft: it was most apparent in the wartime settings an appropriate time to talk about James bulging with hundreds of black and white eight-by-ten stills of Journey’s End (1931), Waterloo MONSTERS Whale. Although the Brooks production is essentially a remake from and other productions, as well (1931) and (1937). MONSTERS Journey’s End, Show Boat Bridge The Road Back of Son of Frankenstein, it also contains many sequences which as more letters and documents. And in some of the stark landscapes are direct pastiches of scenes in the two ilms directed by Cath’s father had kept all this amazing archive under his bed of Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of ou may not immediately know the name, but if you have even the most cursory of Whale, Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). for forty years, having no idea what to do with it all. Before Frankenstein (1935), many people have interests in the monster B-movies of the 1950s, you’ve certainly seen the creatures Paul Over the last month, Brooks has been interviewed a number that, it had been kept by her grandmother, and before that her seen echoes of the battleields of the Blaisdell created, usually on a shoestring budget and working against the clock. of times on radio and television, and on each occasion he has great-grandmother (Whale’s favourite sister Sallie). Somme. Another amazing survivor from Often goofy and colourful (even in black and white), Blaisdell’s monsters were certainly made a special point of mentioning Whale, of whom he is an The collection is primarily made up of two parts. There is those First Wold War days is Whale’s distinctive. From ‘Beulah’, the aggressive ‘cucumber’ from It Conquered the World (1956) enormous fan. material which Whale left behind in England when he moved army identity bracelet. It is very humbling Yto the title star of The She-Creature (1956), from the evil (and hilarious) walking tree Tabanga of From Back in issue #183 of Dark Side, I wrote about my visit to the to America in 1929, entrusting it with his sister Sallie. And there to think that not only was this worn by Hell It Came (1957), to the giant-headed mini-aliens in Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), Paul Blaisdell West Midlands town of Dudley, where Whale, the legendary are many pieces which were sent over to England after Whale’s Whale, but also that this artefact has created them all. Not only that, he was also inside most of the distinctive creature suits horror ilm director, was born back in 1889. His early years there death in 1957. Additionally, there are a few other items which been in the ghastly trenches of the on screen. With next to no money, he’d bring nightmares to life and created creatures inluenced his later ilm-making, and elements of the town – Whale’s sister had collected. Somme, and then spent ifteen months long remembered by dedicated ilm fans. But the Paul Blaisdell story is also one of such as the grim hill-top ruins of Dudley Castle - can be seen in When she was young, Cath was aware that she had a in a German prisoner-of-war camp. And Hollywood’s cautionary tales… both his Frankenstein ilms. distant relative who had directed the original Frankenstein, what a thrill it was or me to wear it. Paul Blaisdell was born on 21 July 1927 in Rhode Island, and grew up in As a result of my visit to Dudley I made contact with Whale’s but she never gave it a great deal of thought, thinking that Massachusetts. During his childhood he developed his artistic talent, sketching, great-great-niece Cath Lloyd, who lives on the south coast, and he was just some obscure, long-forgotten igure of very little TREADING THE BOARDS making puppets, and building models, skills that would serve him well in later life. He I arranged to pay her a visit. I was very excited by the thought interest to anyone today. That changed one day when she was What irst leapt out at me from Cath’s graduated from Boston’s New England School of Art of actually meeting a lesh-and-blood relative of the man who twenty-three and had just started her irst job after graduating, archive was the abundance of stills of and Design (which he’d entered under the G.I. is, in my opinion, the greatest ilm director who ever lived! working for an animation company. One of the directors Whale which have never been published Bill following his 1947 Army discharge), Cath told me that she herself had never met Whale (he died was making a ilm and, needing a graveyard background for anywhere. Many of these date from the married his college sweetheart before she was born), but she recalled how her aunt used to talk some shots, decided to ‘borrow’ an image from the opening 1920s, when Whale was very active in the Jacqueline Boyle in 1952, and HAMMER HORROR: about his visits back home to Dudley. Whale appreciated the grave-robbing scene in Frankenstein. Being the new employee, theatre, sometimes directing plays and moved to Topanga Canyon, iner things in life and would turn up in a very expensive car and Cath didn’t at irst mention the family connection sometimes designing the scenery. California to take up a job with dressed immaculately. When talking about him, the aunt would “I hope no-one notices this and sues us for copyright,” the What is sometimes forgotten is that he Douglas Aircraft. always exclaim, “The suit! The handkerchief! The !” director said, half in jest. acted in a great many The Films That Never Were I knew that Cath had inherited some of Whale’s artwork, “Well, actually,” said Cath, deciding she ought to speak up, plays too, and was a and I was looking forward to seeing it. But little did I “the person who directed this was my great-great-uncle – but I familiar igure on the realise that the artwork was just the beginning… won’t tell!” West End stage. Hammer made many great ilms, but there were quite a few “In the other room,” she said, “I have a few bits and You can imagine the reaction. Cath’s work colleagues were Cath’s collection of never-published photos of Whale in make-up. The Kingdom of God, a play Above: ACTING UP, OUT OF THE SUIT! projects on their books that never actually made it to the a fraction of the funds that they had in the pieces you may like to see.” Talk about understatement. amazed to learn that she was related to James Whale, and she contains a number costume, including one very early one which is entirely forgotten today, was a James Whale In between prancing past: instead of Columbia, for example, with Karloff was surprised to learn that they had all heard of him. Not just of him as a scrufily dressed ragamufin 1927 production that ran for forty-seven during the around in monster big screen, as Sarah Appleton reports… investing 100% in a co-production deal TREASURE TROVE heard of him, but regarded him as someone important in ilm posing for a photo on a rooftop. Another performances at the Strand Theatre in shooting of costumes, Paul with Hammer, it would invest a mere There were two ancient suitcases stuffed with all history. For Cath, it was signiicant that these were people in early photo shows him as a London. As well as designing the scenery the lake scene Blaisdell half-heart- ammer was initially a purveyor 1951, and the more salacious-sounding long-time Hammer backer Eliot Hyman’s 20%, meaning that multiple sources of kinds of photos (which have never been published the ilm-making industry, and they knew and respected her bearded toff with top hat and for it, Whale had a crucial role as an aging, in Frankenstein edly pursued an of cheap black-and-white new certiicate soon became big business 7-Arts company had acquired the studio production monies were required to mount (Photo anywhere), letters, wills, scripts, contracts and other great-great-uncle’s work. From that moment, she regarded cane. half-witted Cuban living in a seedy asylum courtesy of acting career. B-movies, yet it rose to stature for exploitation ilmmakers. from Jack Warner. A renaissance for the a single ilm. At the same time, Hammer’s early as 1968, and was naturally set in Above: material. And there was a large crate containing many Whale and his oeuvre with a new-found appreciation. Whale carefully collected for old men. Whale’s acting as this tragic James Curtis) Hollywood, however, in the industry through a series When Hammer struck X-certiicate Hammer-Warners alliance was deemed to budgets had grown bigger and its ideas India, due to Anthony Hinds’ love for the The Reluctant Virgin started any theatre reviews he could igure had a profound effect on many Left: likes to pigeonhole of vividly-coloured Gothic gold with its irst full colour horror ilm, be in the wind, and a programme of ilms more spectacular, so an increasing number place. Warners’ partnership with Hammer Cath Lloyd out as The WARTIME MEMORIES ind, and took a great interest who saw it, and the collection contains holds up a ine its talent. To AIP horrors and, to this day, it remains The Curse of Frankenstein in 1957, it which included Has Risen From of scripts piled up that ultimately were was still looking promising and it had funds Bride of Newgate Jail So – what is contained in these old cases? There is far too much in what the critics had to say. many notes to Whale from people who self-portrait and its directors, the most iconic company ever to was the beginning of the company’s the Grave (1968), Frankenstein Must Be never to see the light of day. ‘trapped’ in an Indian account. The green (see right), but of her great- material to mention anything but a few of the highlights. These newspaper clippings – were impressed by it. One wrote: “Your Blaisdell was simply Top: have been associated with the horror relationship with Warner Brothers, who Destroyed (1969) and When Dinosaurs light was given to the ilm on that basis, it didn’t get great-uncle Some of the oldest items in the collection date back to around two hundred and ifty pathetic performance nearly moved me ‘the monster guy’ Creatures The genre. But while it is often mistakenly released the ilm in the US. Ruled the Earth (1970) seemed to indicate INTRIGUING CONCEPTS but The Unquenchable Thirst only made made under James Whale World Forgot any title the First World War. Whale served as a second lieutenant of of them – have all survived. to tears.” and not someone they’d consider casting in their pictures without was originally considered to have been a production One of Hollywood’s ‘Big 5’, Warners that a new day for both companies was One of the most intriguing of the it as far as a few script variants, spanning should adapt a John Dixon Carr novel the Worcester Regiment and saw action in the trenches at Many of them have been The same writer’s note throws some Opposite: a creature suit. Nonetheless, he did make a couple of appearances envisioned as company solely concerned with horror, had previously released Hammer’s X in the making. But Hyman sold Warners unmade Hammers from the late 1960s a number of years; Warners’ rupees were called The Bride of Newgate. Sangster did A portrait a science- Flanders. There are several ine photos in Cath’s collection annotated by Whale – he often light on the kind of social life led by of Whale by as himself. He played a ‘henchman’ in Corman’s Oklahoma Woman iction scenario only around a third of Hammer’s total The Unknown (1956), and it would also to the Kinney National Company after was another Dracula ilm, entitled Kali - eventually freed up and the much-needed as he was bid and considered the inished showing Whale in his army uniform. He was captured by the underlined the sentences Whale, who was openly gay at a time artist Chrissie (1955), then the undigniied role of a corpse in one of Corman’s earliest by Hammer output fell within the allusive category of handle The Abominable Snowman (1956), less than two years at the helm and many Devil Bride of Dracula. This is generally money being pulled out of the bank, script to have been one of the best that Germans and spent ifteen months in a prisoner-of-war camp which relate to his own when to be so was still illegal, albeit Harper, and fantasy outings, the weird and wonderful The Undead (1956). He was bosses, as ‘Hammer Horror’. but other afiliations beckoned after of the titles that Hammer had slated considered to have been born from the instead of being used to make the ilm. he ever wrote, but even with a pre-Bond a Part of the you can see at Holzminden. While there, he discovered he had a talent for contributions. accepted within theatrical circles. collection: a ‘near miss victim’ in Hot Rod Girl (1956), and appeared in Edward L. from this early The company had made some the worldwide success of The Curse of for production were removed from the same concept as The Unquenchable Next on the pile of unmade projects Roger Moore on board, Hammer could still staging amateur theatre. He also took up drawing cartoons, Reading these clippings has “My Dear Jimmy,” the note begins, two ancient Cahn’s Dragstrip Girl (1957), and as another unnamed ‘victim’ in the poster memorable second features during the Frankenstein and Hammer’s corporate eyes schedule as a result. Thirst of Dracula (also known as Dracula was a little-known ilm entitled The Bride not manage to put the ilm into production. including many amusing sketches of his German captors, and turned up some fascinating “Unfortunately I couldn’t sit the play out suitcases same director’s Motorcycle Gang (1957). Even in the ill-fated Voodoo 1950s - Room to Let (1950), Spaceways soon turned elsewhere in seeking American The unpredictable economic climate, - High Priest of Vampires), though there of Newgate Jail, which soon became There were a number of large-scale remarkably these have all survived and been kept in the family. pieces of information about and I came round to catch a glimpse of packed with Woman, Blaisdell turned up as a ‘drunken tavern customer’. However, and Four Sided Triangle (both 1953), to companies with whom to do business. and withdrawal of American inance, is evidence to suggest that they were transformed into The Reluctant Virgin, action adventures that similarly never still, scripts, One of the wartime cartoons is reproduced here. It is signed Whale’s early career. you, but you had, alas, gone! I had such letters and acting was clearly not to be in his future in any signiicant way (with name a few - but a change to the ratings By 1967, Hammer’s position in the saw to it that an increasing number of different projects altogether. a title that Hammer thought would be made it to the big screen, largely by Whale, who has given it the caption “How the Huns Battle For example, I certainly a pet with me – quite the nicest creature much more the notable exception of The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow, late in his system of the British Board of Film industry seemed unassailable. After a Hammer ilms simply failed to get off the Kali - Devil Bride of Dracula (sometimes irresistible. The idea had originated on the due to the budgets required for their Flu”. It depicts a queue of terriied Germans waiting to be never expected to ind a I’ve met for ages – at least since I irst career, as seen above). Censors (BBFC) had seen the ‘H’ (for decade of abstinence, it had renewed ground during the late 1960s and early referred to as Dracula and the Blood Lust schedule in 1965, when it was suggested special effects, as well as new Hammer seen by a doctor who administers an enormous hypodermic photo of Whale in black-face knew you. I want you to come and meet horror) certiicate replaced by an ‘X’ in its relationship with Warners when 1970s. US companies were investing only of Kali) began with a treatment from as to screenwriter Jimmy Sangster that he Managing Director Michael Carreras’s

The DarkSide 25 The DarkSide 43 24 The DarkSide The DarkSide 24 20 The DarkSide The DarkSide 21 Issue 188 on sale Now Full details and subscriptions can be found online at

thedarksidemagazine.com and on our Facebook page Dark Side MagazineINFINITY 18 18 The DarkSide THE PRISONER 11-PAGE SPECIAL

UNL CKING The Prisoner

For a show that consists of only 17 episodes and which left audiences baffled and angry over its final episodes, The Prisoner has built up a considerable reputation in the 50 years since it debuted. Brian J. Robb investigates…

INFINITY 19

Brian J.Robb Name of feature

atrick McGoohan was bored. He’d been playing the character of John Drake on Danger Man since 1960, on-and-off, and was beginning to tire of it. ‘I’d made (what) I thought that was an adequate amount of those,’ said McGoohan in a 1977 interview with TV Ontario host Wayne Troyer. ‘I went to (Head of producers ITC) and said that I’d like to do something else. He didn’t like that idea. He’d prefer that I’d gone on forever doing Danger Man. Anyway, I said I was going to quit.’ Grade wanted to hang onto McGoohan, whose star had risen through not only Danger Man but in Disney’s 1963 movie, Dr. Syn. The star had even turned down the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962), on moral grounds thanks to his strict Catholic upbringing. Even on Danger Man, McGoohan had insisted on no romance-of-the-week for Drake. Grade asked McGoohan what he wanted to do instead. That’s when the magic happened… McGoohan recalled a location used in ‘View from the Villa,’ the very first episode of Danger Man, back in 1959. The Welsh Italianate village of Portmeirion was a tourist attraction built over 50 years between 1925 and 1975 by eccentric architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis. ‘I thought it was an extraordinary place, architecturally and atmosphere-wise,’ said McGoohan of the unique location, ‘and should be used for something. That was two years before the concept (of The Prisoner) came to me.’ McGoohan had an outline for his proposed new show and photos of the location for Grade, but the television mogul asked for a verbal pitch. McGoohan recalled: ‘I talked for ten minutes and he stopped me and said, “I don’t understand one word you’re talking about, but how much is it going to be?” I had a budget with me, oddly enough, and I told him how much. He says, “When can you start?” I said Monday, on scripts. He says, “The money’ll be in your company’s account on Monday morning.”’ As with so many of the Gerry Anderson projects that he financed, Lew Grade was willing to take a gamble on talent, and he certainly regarded McGoohan in that category. Danger Man had been a hit in the US when the second season in 1964 (which followed after a two year gap from the first season) was revamped to hour-long episodes. That McGoohan had an outline show had made Grade’s company over $8 million in sales around the globe. Now, the star was for his proposed new show promising a follow-up. However, Lew Grade could and photos of the location never have expected what he ultimate got for his money in The Prisoner. for Grade, but the television Becoming Number 6 mogul asked for a verbal It was another Danger Man episode - the second season’s Colony Three - that provided indirect pitch. McGoohan recalled: inspiration for McGoohan’s invention of The Prisoner. Screenwriter Donald Johnson’s episode has Drake ‘I talked for ten minutes and adopt the identity of a defecting civil servant to infiltrate a model English village, complete with he stopped me and said, “I red phone boxes and London buses, where foreign agents were trained to pass as British citizens don’t understand one word in preparation for undercover work. McGoohan mixed this concept with his own position: a man you’re talking about, but how resigning from a long-running role for reasons not immediately apparent to his superiors. McGoohan much is it going to be?” initially intended to explore the plight of his ‘prisoner’ and his attempts to escape the Village (modelled after Portmeirion) in just seven episodes

20 INFINITY - that was all the creator-star felt the concept enough to recognise he needed the talents could easily sustain. of Markstein and Tomblin to bring the show McGoohan had already established his to the screen successfully. There was never own production company, Keystone Films, in any doubt in anyone’s mind, however, that 1960, and it appropriately became Everyman as star, co-creator and occasional writer Films to make The Prisoner, which was set and director, this was McGoohan’s show all to focus on the modern 20th century clash the way. Working to his outline, Tomblin between the individual and society - an issue and Markstein (who is the man behind the that had been playing on the star’s mind. desk when Number 6 angrily resigns in the McGoohan’s overriding concern was with ‘The series title sequence) drafted the teleplay individual against the establishment, the for ‘’, the episode that established the individual against bureaucracy, the individual basic set-up for the entire series. against so many laws that were all confining,’ The Village was given verisimilitude by as he told the documentary Six Into One. Markstein who was aware of Inverlair Lodge would aid McGoohan in Scotland, a facility where personnel in his quest. The Prisoner’s script-editor considered as actual or potential security risk (on the first 13 episodes) was not only an during wartime were involuntarily detained. accomplished journalist and television Director , who handled the first dramatist, but had supposedly been a two episodes, ‘Arrival’ and ‘The Chimes of Big real-life spy during the Second World War - Ben’, provided the visual panache the series though there are suggestions this could have required, shooting for six weeks in 1966 on been an urban myth started by Markstein location in Portmeirion, which with its bizarre himself. (See the book, George Markstein and assortment of distinctive buildings represented Above: the Prisoner, P&Q Media 2014 for more on both everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. Filming the that fascinating story). Chaffey went on to direct two further episodes, opening scene and title sequene Markstein had been a consultant on the ‘’ and ‘Dance of the Dead.’ of the first show, last two seasons of Danger Man, so McGoohan At MGM’s studios (which ‘Arrival’ and knew he could draw on his (real or imaginary) Tomblin had grown up opposite) equally McGoohan with ’s spycraft background to inform his new distinctive interior sets were constructed for Number Two in character, a British spy who has resigned locations such as a futuristic Control Room, ‘Checkmate’ under mysterious circumstances and who the surveillance centre of the Village, helping is then kidnapped only to be deposited in to make the series one of the most expensive the mysterious Village, apparently a holding on British television at the time, costing pen for discontented establishment figures, an average of £75,000 per episode (over $1 whether spies, civil servants, or types. million in today’s currency). The third figure instrumental in bringing A Prison for Oneself The Prisoner to the screen was producer rapped in the Village, McGoohan’s McGoohan had been persuaded by Grade and director , who’d started T‘prisoner’, known only as Number 6, to expand upon his original idea to take his career in movies as a ‘runner’ at the age makes repeated attempts to escape or the series beyond the plan for just seven of just 14 in 1944. In the 1950s, following to thwart the plans of his unknown captors, episodes. Recognising that the star would military service, Tomblin worked on a variety just as those captors attempt to extract never consent to the usual ITC show run of of classic British television series, among ‘information’ from him, mainly the reason around 26 instalments, Grade and McGoohan them The Adventures of William Tell, One for his unexplained resignation. Into this settled on a compromise of a first production Step Beyond (an American Twilight Zone-like basic set-up, the series’ writers - among them block of 13 episodes. When the series series which shot some episodes in the UK), Vincent Tilsley, Anthony Skene, McGoohan debuted on ITV on 29 September 1967 it and The Invisible Man, which featured future himself (under the name ‘Paddy Fitz’), attracted a significant audience intrigued Doctor Who companion Deborah Watling. Terence Feely, Gerald Kelsey, and Roger by the plight of Number 6. As the show went ‘I worked as First Assistant (Director) on Parkes, among others - could pour whatever on, however, the questions multiplied: who Danger Man and became very friendly with contemporary 1960s issues concerned them. was Number 6 really? Was he John Drake McGoohan,’ Tomblin recalled in a Starlog Episodes dealt with such diverse topics from Danger Man, or someone else? Who magazine interview. ‘Obviously his ambitions as democracy (‘Free For All’), drugs (‘A, B, ran the Village, and what was the purpose of went beyond acting, and mine were beyond and C’), education (‘The General’), identity it? Viewers followed the escape attempts of being a First Assistant. We formed a company (‘The Schizoid Man’), conspiracy (‘Hammer Number 6 and the repeated efforts of Village (Everyman Films) for The Prisoner, and Lew into Anvil’), and assassination plots (‘It’s controller Number 2 (played by a variety of Grade gave us the money without a word Your Funeral’). So malleable was the format, different ) to break him, but who - or being written because of Patrick’s reputation.’ later episodes encompassed both bedtime what - was Number 1? Although he was the driving force fairy tales (‘The Girl Who Was Death’) and A conventional series would set out to behind The Prisoner, McGoohan was wise Westerns (‘’). answer these questions, but like David Lynch

INFINITY 21 Brian J.Robb Jon Abbott

Patrick McGoohan and car designer Graham Nearn with one of his Lotus Sevens

Right: Number Six wanders the Village

England, there were ‘Arrival’. Having said a lot of haters of it,’ that, ‘The Girl Who McGoohan told Troyer in Was Death’ was in fact 1977. ‘(It was) a love/hate based on an unused relationship, whichever way Danger Man storyline! you look at it. Already there Since there wasn’t to be was a small cult. Now there’s a a second series, McGoohan much bigger one…’ faced a scramble to attempt Behind the scenes, the strain was to wrap up the show in something beginning to tell on those making The approaching a satisfactory manner. The Prisoner. Director Don Chaffey, who’d set result was two final episodes, both written the visual style, quit after a disagreement and directed by McGoohan, which would be with McGoohan, who was quickly becoming long remembered by those who saw them on something of a tyrant on set, so determined transmission early in 1968. was he to shape the show the way he ‘Once Upon a Time’ and ‘’ were envisioned it. Other directors were variously flights of fancy that saw Number 6 finally sacked, left willingly, or were replaced (by confront the Village authorities, embodied in McGoohan himself, under the ironic name Leo McKern’s Number 2. Almost a two-hander ‘Joseph Serf’ on ‘Many Happy Returns’ and ‘A between McGoohan and McKern, ‘Once Upon Change of Mind’). A Time’ was a psychodrama and quite a The biggest loss during the production departure from the action-adventure format, turmoil, though, was Markstein. The script which the series had been increasingly only editor and co-creator of the show had become paying lip service to. increasingly disenchanted with McGoohan, ‘Fall Out’ was even more dramatic, with the story he was telling, and with how he featuring a psychedelic trial of Number was running the production. When McGoohan 6 in which appeared as the rejected two of Markstein’s script proposals embodiment of 1960s ‘youth’, and the he left after the completion of the first block ultimate of the series’ greatest of 13 episodes. In a 1983 interview, Markstein mystery: who was Number 1? McGoohan reflected on what had gone wrong with The knew the answer he offered would be Prisoner: ‘McGoohan became a prisoner of the controversial, and so it proved. series and it’s never nice to see that happen. ‘When the last episode came out in The combination of ambition, frustration, England,’ he said in 1977, ‘it had one of the wanting to be a writer, director, actor… It did largest viewing audiences, they tell me, ever something to him that wasn’t very good and over there, because everyone wanted to know it was reflected in the series.’ who Number 1 was, because they thought it This page: in the 1990s with the ‘Who killed Laura Persuaded to extend the show beyond would be a James Bond (villain) type. When A scene from Palmer?’ mystery in the first season of Twin the initial 13 installments he’d promised, they did finally see it, there was a near-riot the show’s iconc opening, Number Peaks, Patrick McGoohan had absolutely no McGoohan was possibly running out of ideas and I was going to be lynched. I had to go into Six tries to escape intention of providing definitive answers. In by the end. Two of the last episodes were hiding in for two weeks, until things calmed from , a call sheet for ‘Dance fact, across the first few episodes the series some of the weirdest, both partially written down. They thought they’d been cheated!’ of the Dead’ and seemed to contradict itself as to how the by and directed by David Tomblin (who had Hiding under a hooded cloak, Number (inset) as Village operated, who ran it, or what it was more input now Markstein was gone). Both 1 is first seen wearing a monkey mask. the Computer for, or even where it was located. ‘Living in Harmony’ and ‘The Girl Who Was McGoohan’s Number 6 rips the mask Attendant in ‘It’s Your Funeral’ McGoohan saw this existential uncertainty Death’ are well regarded, but their fanta- off, only to reveal his own face beneath. as reflective of modern life in the 1960s. sy-driven storytelling techniques were a Just as McGoohan was Number 1 when it Frustrated viewers, however, soon lost million miles away from the likes of Danger came to making The Prisoner and running patience. ‘When it came out originally, in Man or even The Prisoner’s opening episode, Everyman Films (as Markstein discovered to

22 INFINITY Rick Davy Name of feature BE SEEING YOU… The production story for The Prisoner is almost as complicated as some of what we see on screen. Rick Davy takes us on The Prisoner’s unique production journey…

ith funding secured from Lew Number Six was referred to in the scripts) was a Grade, the team of McGoohan, label given not to the Round House, but the smaller Markstein, and Tomblin set about cottage of Prior’s Lodging, which would eventually Wpreparing The Prisoner in advance be seen as Nadia’s cottage in . of its filming dates of the end of August 1966. Grade employed Leslie Gilliat, seen McGoohan behind the loud-hailer, filming ‘Free For All’ as a “safe pair of hands”, to oversee the project as co-producer. Markstein briefed and incentivised various writers, who submitted scripts for he and McGoohan to supervise, with Markstein himself co-authoring the first episode (then titled The Arrival) with Tomblin. Patrick McGoohan’s next task was to approach those who had previously worked with him on Danger Man to ascertain if they would like to his cost), it should come as no surprise that remain working with him on his new series, or in the onscreen environment of the Village work on ITC’s other new drama, , McGoohan’s character of Number 6 should which was also in pre-production. Most, including also, ultimately, turn out to be Number 1. director of photography Brendan J Stafford, camera The identity of Number 1 had not been operator Jack Lowin, and stunt arranger Frank Early episodes set in McGoohan’s mind from the beginning, Maher, decided to stay with McGoohan. Chosen Before arriving at Portmeirion for shooting, but developed out of the necessity to find to direct the early episodes was Don Chaffey, who Anthony Skene’s script Dance of the Dead, Gerald a way to end the series. ‘It got very close to initially turned down the offer and was persuaded Kelsey’s Checkmate, Vincent Tilsley’s The Chimes the last episode and I hadn’t written it yet,’ to come on board by his daughter after she had of Big Ben, and Free for All, which McGoohan had admitted McGoohan. ‘I had to sit down this read the pilot script. written himself, were finalised. terrible day and write the last episode. I knew McGoohan’s script would be filmed second and it wasn’t going to be something out of James Behind the would cast distinguished actor in Bond, and in the back of my mind there was camera on the Number Two role, and be partly inspired by the ‘Arrival’ some parallel with the character Number 6 UK general election of earlier that year. Kelsey’s and Number 1. I didn’t even know exactly ‘til Checkmate would be filmed third, and was inspired I was about the third through the script, the by his viewing of a human chess match in Germany last script.’ and be a favourite of Markstein’s. With its dreamlike In the final shot of the series, Number 6 quality unashamedly taken from the work of Jean apparently escapes the Village and returns to Cocteau, Dance of the Dead was filmed fourth. The his London home. However, as his house door episode was originally to have had Trevor Howard opens it does so automatically and with the as the Number Two character (dressed as Jack the familiar noise made by doors in the Village Ripper rather than Peter Pan) rather than Mary (the number on the door also appears to be Morris. Last of the episodes which saw Portmeirion ‘1’). ‘We’re all prisoners,’ noted McGoohan. location shooting and form the first batch of ‘When that door opens, exactly like all the episodes was Tilsley’s. Written with very little doors in the Village, (it means) he’s got no Portmeirion Prepared brief other than that it needed to feature Rover freedom. Freedom is a myth. There’s no Producer Leslie Gilliat and production manager prominently, Australian actor Leo McKern was cast final conclusion. I was very fortunate to do Bernie Williams were sent to the series’ main location, as Number Two. something as audacious as that with no final Portmeirion, in July 1966 to undertake a recce of the conclusion to it.’ location. Armed with both stills and film cameras, the Designing The Prisoner That lack of closure, or seemingly circular pair would report back to MGM studios, principally As well as the sets, costumes and visuals were also storytelling, is one of the main reasons that the art director Jack Shampan, so that interior sets designed, with the Penny Farthing chosen as the The Prisoner lived on as a cult show, propelled could be designed to match the exteriors. Village motif by McGoohan as “an ironic symbol of into new significance when the entire series Shots were taken of various buildings and areas progress”. The striped canopies were based on the was repeated by in the mid-1980s. of Portmeirion, including its main hotel building Barton accessories beach buggy décor of the Mini Numerous home video releases since then (which in the series would become the Old People’s Mokes used in the series as Village taxis, and the have secured its place as one of the most Home), and newly built Piazza (which several Village lettering was a modified version of Albertus, enigmatic, most frustrating, and most months before was a tennis court). since referred to as Village Font. rewarding of all cult television shows. It has What is notable from this recce is the lack of shots was cast as the soothing Village voice, and Peter made its mark on pop culture, spoofed by of both the Pantheon (or Green Dome, which would Swanwick as the recurring Supervisor. ads (notably for Renault cars, among others) become Number Two’s residence) and the Round The original scripts for the early episodes feature and commemorated in documentaries. House (which would become Number Six’s cottage). several other notable differences to what we finally New viewers, who can catch the series on a The original script for Arrival referred to Number see on screen. Firstly, the other regular character, pristine blu-ray release, are still trying to Two’s house not as “the Green Dome”, but “The the Butler (portrayed throughout by the diminutive get to the bottom of the mysteries of The Georgian House” (otherwise known as Portmeirion’s Maltese actor , who would later Prisoner, 50 years on from when Patrick Unicorn cottage), and shots of this building were appear as an Oompa Loompa in the film Willy McGoohan first unleashed his creation on an taken and labelled “The Georgian House”, whereas Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) was not written unsuspecting world. “P’s House” (P standing for Prisoner, which is how as mute, and was described as “tall and athletic.”

INFINITY 23 Rick Davy

the second for the first 13 episodes, recalling that the sequence took many takes as McGoohan was moving too quickly for the focus puller to keep him in shot. The Lotus would then be seen at Buckingham Palace, Bayswater Road, Park Lane, and then Number 1 Buckingham Place, a three-storey building in Victoria, which today houses the Royal Warrant Holder’s Association, which would appear throughout the series as McGoohan’s character’s home.

Filming ‘Arrival’ A Welsh newspaper report on the fiming of the series Rover and Out The most startling difference from the original concept is with regards to the Village guardian, Rover. McGoohan had originally envisaged as being a mechanical device, which could travel at great speed on land, on the water, underwater, and climb walls. Early scripts include several other episodes as other male voices. A promotional brochure from 1967 such sequences, with Rover’s flashing blue light Portmeirion filming went well, in good weather, hypnotising victims. Such a device was designed although it ran somewhat behind. The resort and built by an external company, and transported stayed open during filming, with architect and to Portmeirion for filming. Resembling a giant owner Sir Clough Willaims-Ellis often complaining peaked cap sat atop a go-kart, it was found to be about litter. Leslie Gilliat felt that he could see totally unsuitable. “The noise from it was unholy”, what way the series was heading, and left the recalled camera operator Robert to Steven series before location filming had been completed. Ricks in 1993, and the vehicle quickly filled with Chaffey and McGoohan’s relationship had also exhaust fumes. become strained, McGoohan feeling that Chaffey’s With the series principal prop now unusable, feature film background was not best suited to the McGoohan and Williams sat outside the medium of television. Portmeirion hotel pondering what to do. The most complex sequences were those McGoohan apparently then saw a meteorological involving the chess match, with continuity a balloon floating by, and Rover Mark II was born. particular issue. A French Alouette helicopter After toying with the idea of using giant beach was made available for several days filming, with Studio days balls, property buyer Sidney Palmer contacted Robert Monks bolted to the side to achieve as With the crew returning from Portmeirion at the the air ministry and ordered supplies of balloons. much aerial footage as possible. Guest stars were beginning of October, a mock up of several areas Several thousand were used during the making accommodated in Portmeirion itself, with some of Portmeirion was created at MGM Studios in of the series. Several different techniques were cottages turned into production offices, make-up Borehamwood, with a backlot of mock-up streets used to try and control the balloon, including areas, and costume departments. and areas also available. Studio filming for these using string or fishing wire, using the downdraft early episodes continued throughout the Autumn. of helicopters, and reversing film. Its iconic roar Driven The initial cut of Dance of the Dead was disliked by was created by sound editor Wilf Thompson, who Before the crew had set off for Portmeirion, the McGoohan, who ordered the episode to be shelved. slowed down the scream of a man in a lecture first sequences to be filmed for the series were Months later, editor John S Smith would be looking hall and mixed it with a monks’ chorus played actually those for the opening sequence, on the for work, and volunteered to re-edit the episode to backwards and sound of some shotgun pellets last weekend in August 1966. These scenes mostly McGoohan’s satisfaction. rolling around inside a tyre’s inner tube. involved McGoohan driving round London in his Filming at Santa Pod raceway for the first To make them not appear too lightweight, they Lotus 7 (followed by an Austin Princess hearse). shot of the opening titles was undertaken, with were filled with a mix of water, air, and helium. Originally, McGoohan was to have driven a stuntman Jackie Cooper driving the Lotus, and This, however, did not stop some from escaping, Lotus Elan, which was also seen at that time interior sequences of the gassing were handled by and several calls to the local coastguard were in The Avengers, but upon visiting the Lotus camera operator Len Harris. made during that September as several balloons headquarters, saw a 7 in the yard and stated were blown out to sea. The first of Rover’s victims “that’s the car I want”. Three different cars was played by third assistant director Seamus were used during the making of the series. The Byrne, who recalled to Network in 2017; “One day original KAR 120C was sold to an Australian after we were breaking for lunch. Patrick McGoohan said the filming of Many Happy Returns and is was to me ‘when we come back from lunch I want to subsequently written off in a racing accident. film a villager being subdued by Rover. Can you do After a second 7 had been used for the episode that?’ I answered yes.” Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, a demonstrator model was adapted and used in the finale, Fall Out In the Village (driven on screen by Lotus’s Graham Nearn). Local extras were recruited to play the Filming that August weekend took place on brainwashed Villagers, mainly recruited from the Westminster Bridge, Old Palace Yard, Abingdon local telephone exchange by local man Jonathan Street, and Great College Street, where the car Jones, and several were given brief speaking roles. descends into Abingdon Street Car Park. However, to keep the real-life mysterious location Action then shifts to the interior of a different of the Village secret, their Welsh-accented voices car park, located underneath Hyde Park, where were dubbed by voiceover artist . McGoohan is seen striding purposefully down Rietti’s voice would also be heard in the opening a corridor, before pulling open the doors into sequence of many episodes as the Number the office, where he resigns. The office set was Music maestros Two voice informing Number Six that he wants unusually built on location, inside the car park, As studio filming for the episodes was underway, “Information, Information, Information”, and in with camera operator Robert Monks, who headed McGoohan turned to experienced composer

24 INFINITY Be Seeing You

Kenneth Griffith and Justine Lord in ‘The Girl Who Was Death’

A saloon scene from ‘Living in Harmony’

Annette Andre in ‘It’s Your Funeral’

Edwin Astley to compose the series’ theme and ). was called on incidental music. However, as he was busy on The again to direct, with cast as Number Saint, he declined the offer. was Two (although he did not appear at Portmeirion). then asked to compose and record a theme, but In one of the most challenging roles of the series, his theme was quickly rejected by McGoohan. Cargill’s emotional final scene was filmed first, on Wilfred Josephs, best known for his music for the his first day on the job. series I, Claudius, was then asked, but again his The next episode was Many Happy Returns, theme was rejected, although did make it as far as Skene’s third episode, which would again be the early edits of both Arrival and The Chimes of directed by McGoohan (under the pseudonym Big Ben (these early edits still exist today). Joseph Serf). Raft sequences were shot in the Irish Ron Grainer, who had earlier composed the Sea, with the vessel abandoned into the sea during themes for Doctor Who and Steptoe and Son, a storm. The Gun Runners’ boat was in reality was the third choice, and McGoohan also did not the Breda, owned by locals Mr and like his originally slow and melancholic tune and Mrs Beer. The boat had earlier featured as the MS demanded it be sped up and made more dramatic. Polotska in Checkmate. His final version was accepted. Patrick Cargill was cast as Thorpe “because However, Grainer was unable to record much we liked him” according to casting director Rose in the way of incidental music, so Albert Elms an effect on him and his behaviour. “We were aware Tobias Shaw, who years later would recall that the was brought on board to record music for several that he was drinking more”, recalled Eric Mival in character was not cast as the same character as episodes. His music, along with incidental music his memoirs, Cutting Edge: My Life in Film and seen in Hammer into Anvil. Many Happy Returns composed by Farnon and Josephs, would form Television (Quoit Media Limited 2017). It was during would form the last of the initial production block the basis of those early episodes, with music from the filming of the next episode, It’s Your Funeral, of thirteen episodes. Chappell’s Music Library chosen by music editors that McGoohan’s change in mood became most Bob Dearburg and Eric Mival, also added into the apparent. Director Robert Asher was criticised The Fall Out mix. Mival later referred to the series’ eclectic mix loudly on set by McGoohan in front of both the With George Markstein quitting the series at of music as being “like a patchwork quilt”. cast and crew, including actress Annette Andre, this point, taking with him his writing contacts, with whom McGoohan did not get on. Asher walked McGoohan and Tomblin asked the series’ crew to Breakdown off the set in tears, and McGoohan completed submit storyline ideas. Librarian Tony Sloman, Despite ending up as the penultimate 16th episode the episode himself. The episode was written by second assistant director John O’Connor, and music of the series, Once Upon a Time was filmed sixth, Michael Cramoy and was partly based around editor Eric Mival were among those who submitted back-to-back with McKern’s previous episode. using unseen library footage shot for the series. ideas, as was Ian Rakoff, an assistant editor, McGoohan claimed the episode was part autobio- For the next episode, , who submitted a Western storyline called Do Not graphical, and the episode would be his wife, Joan’s, McGoohan asked Roy Rossotti, a relatively Forsake Me Oh My Darling, which he based on a favourite of the series. Unable to withstand the inexperienced assistant director, to direct. He was Gene Autry comic set in a town called Harmony. pressure of filming such intense scenes, McKern sacked on his first morning, and again McGoohan Both McGoohan and Tomblin liked the idea, suffered a nervous breakdown during the making directed the episode himself. Pat Jackson was so Tomblin developed the idea further and the of the episode. “I found him in the foetal position” called back to direct the next episode after original episode eventually became Living in Harmony. recalled McGoohan years later. “I used to get very director Michael Truman became ill. Alexis Kanner was cast as the myseterios Kid depressed, I remember.” Recalled McKern on The A. B. and C. was written by Anthony Skene, who character, who had dialogue in the original script. Day the Earth Caught Fire DVD (Network, 2007). based the episode’s sequences following a walk An existing set created at MGM for the film Eye of After Once Upon a Time was completed, around the MGM sound stages and backlot, to the Devil was used as Harmony. shooting would begin on the next episode, The see if there were any useful buildings or locations To accommodate Patrick McGoohan going Schizoid Man. Directed by Pat Jackson, who would which could form the basis of an episode. Number to Hollywood to film the blockbuster Ice direct three further instalments, the episode used Two actor Colin Gordon would stay on for the Station Zebra, Vincent Tilsley was asked to split screen techniques to allow McGoohan and his following episode, The General, which would be write an episode barely featuring McGoohan. doppelganger to be seen on screen at the same directed by Peter Graham Scott, who was a last His body-swap episode, originally titled Face time. For shots where the two faces did not need minute replacement for Robert Lynn. Scott later Unknown, would be renamed Do Not Forsake to be seen, McGoohan’s series’ double and stunt recalled he heard McGoohan tell colleagues that he Me Oh My Darling. Tilsley, however, disliked the arranger Frank Maher, would play opposite the lead was chosen because “he is quick and he is cheap.” rewrites which were done to his script. actor. was cast as Number Two, and The episode was written by Lewis Griefer under the was cast as Number Six, and Zena Walker the cast as Alison, after having worked pseudonym Joshua Adam. previously unmentioned character of Janet. with McGoohan on three episodes of Danger Man. In March 1967 a skeleton second unit crew, Finally, an unused Danger Man storyline would By this time, all the cast and crew were noticing joined by Patrick McGoohan at weekends, returned be developed by Terence Feely into The Girl Who that McGoohan was not only becoming more to Portmeirion to film library shots for several was Death, with filming taking place on the MGM involved in writing, directing, and producing, he episodes, and a few short for the next episodes backlot, as well as some exterior locations close to was also not sleeping, and the series was having into production, Many Happy Returns, and first, Borehamwood, and no less than four locations

INFINITY 25 Rick Davy

Is Patrick McGoohan hailing a cab or high-fiving a policeman in Fall Out? FALL IN: Th

On Friday 29 September 2017, fifty years to the day that The Prisoner began screening in England, Portmeirion played host to a unique event celebrating Patrick McGoohan’s cult masterpiece. Robert Fairclough was there…

ntroducing the ‘Fall In’ screening of The and it’s tied in with Andrew Roberts, who Prisoner’s first episode ‘Arrival’, Patrick works for Classic and Sports Car. He’s a big IMcGoohan’s eldest daughter Catherine, Prisoner fan and wanted to do a feature on it the guest of honour, made a very telling when it was restored, and when ‘Fall In’ was observation: ‘Clough Williams-Ellis (the announced, we thought, “What better place designer of Portmeirion) and my father to present it?” were both visionaries with different artistic Throughout Thursday, the special, creativity. They both met in the middle, and enchanting union of The Prisoner and Clough’s vision and my father’s became one.’ Portmeirion could be witnessed as the In 2017, Portmeirion, a beautiful mixture Moke was parked at various sites, with of colourful, Italianate buildings on the many enthusiastic visitors asking for North Wales coast, is more closely identified photos and selfies. Later in the day, for the cricket match at the beginning of the episode than ever with its deceptively cheerful, guests for ‘Fall In’ started arriving (although two of those were stock footage sequences) fictional counterpart the Village, the prison and those who’d never visited including Eltisley in Cambridgeshire, and Meopham and in McGoohan’s surreal 17-part fantasy. In Portmeirion before were immediately Bearsted in Kent. Filming with double Frank Maher and this sinister , the residents all struck by the extraordinary nature of Justine Lord, as Sonia, took place at the Kursaal funfair in had numbers instead of names, proudly the place. The ’s Southend, and Beachy Head lighthouse, which had also displayed on a lapel badge – apart from TV consultant Dick Fiddy, conducting the appeared in Many Happy Returns, also featured. McGoohan’s character Number 6, who, in on-stage interviews, commented that he the anti-establishment zeitgeist of the time, couldn’t get the series’ theme tune out of his Conclusion refused to wear or acknowledge his. head as he walked around. With an estimated Fall Out, the final episode, was written in 36 hours by Since 2012, the iconic rebel has lent his 100,000 people coming to Portmeirion Patrick McGoohan, with script revisions also being Village title to Festival Number 6, a music and every year just because of their interest in made on set during the filming of the episode. Sets were arts festival more than happy to play up its The Prisoner, there was no better place to re-used from The Girl Who was Death (such as the cavern connection with The Prisoner. In the series’ celebrate the series’ 50th anniversary. set and the rocket), and cast members who had been anniversary year, Portmeirion’s fusion with Tim Beddows, managing director of seen in previous episodes (such as Leo McKern, who the series has been stepped up even more: a Network Distributing, the vintage TV had since Once Upon a Time cut his hair and beard for a sign by the driveway announces The Prisoner’s and film label, first saw The Prisoner as theatre role hence the shaving sequence in the episode, 50th anniversary, while another, pointing the a wide-eyed 13 year-old in 1977. The Alexis Kanner, and Kenneth Griffith) returned. Extra Roy way to Portmeirion’s car park, has a large pen- enthusiasm he felt then led, years later, to Beck, who also appeared on the see-saw in the cavern ny-farthing emblem, the mysterious insignia his company producing the first Blu-ray and was hospitalised by shrapnel from Kanner’s gun, of the Village. release of the series in 2009. Such was was asked to play the masked Number One character. Appropriately for such a magical place, the Beddows’ commitment to doing something Additional sequences were filmed on location in London blend of fact and fiction continues as you stroll equally special for The Prisoner’s 50th (without permission, which resulted in a frantic piece of through Portmeirion. Music – or muzak? – anniversary, that he booked Portmeirion’s diplomacy from new production manager Ronnie Liles), sometimes plays over the Tannoy system, which Hercules Hall – the Town Hall in the show – in November 1967. is very Village-esque, while on the lawn next two years ago for an event. Editing on Living in Harmony and Fall Out would to the central piazza, a huge, permanent chess An aspect of the celebration he was continue into 1968, with transmission only weeks away, set has been constructed to commemorate particularly passionate about was the so the final two colour episodes of Danger Man, Koroshi the human chess game, played in the same screening of episodes – in order of screening and Shinda Shima, were repeated to delay the episodes’ location in the episode ‘Checkmate’. on the day, ‘Dance of the Dead’, ‘Checkmate’ transmission by two weeks. Also present in the Portmeirion were a and ‘Arrival’ – from 35mm prints on a At the time, The Prisoner was the most expensive party from Classic and Sports Car magazine. cinema-sized screen. Attendees therefore series ever made in Britain, with McGoohan the country’s They had been inspired to visit for a had the opportunity to see big screen highest paid actor. Whilst the series would be best photoshoot with one of the original Mini projections of Portmeirion-heavy episodes in remembered for the allegorical content which McGoohan Mokes used in The Prisoner. ‘It’s here for the primary location where they were made, added, and the questions and themes it posed the viewer, the event tomorrow,’ explained the vehicle’s supplemented by related guests interviewed it is also rightly remembered as one of the best produced co-owner, Philip Caunt. ‘I’m here thanks to on-stage afterwards. series in television history. Rick Davy, who runs the Unmutual website: The screening room opened at 9am, The series’ production journey contained several he sorted it out with Network Distributing, although the schedule was so packed the happy accidents and coincidences along the way which, who’re hosting the event, for me – he was 150 members of the audience had been would they not have occurred, would have impacted on the go-to guy sending out emails and so advised to register as early as 8am. On the series success and longevity. As the 50th anniversary forth. I’ve known him for twenty years, so doing so, they were given the new the passes, it is worth remembering that a lot of hard work, it’s a small world. Rick said they’d love to 50th anniversary DVD or Blu-ray box set and creative thought, went into making The Prisoner have the Moke here, and sorted us out with – included in the very reasonable £135 what it is regarded as today. Be Seeing You! tickets and the like. It’s good for the car registration fee – as well as their own

26 INFINITY : The Prisoner at 50Robert Fairclough

Catherine McGoohan with Robert Fairclough (Photo by Alison Bett)

Left: Performing Time Is Free a live, anniversary- themed battle of wits between Big Finish’s Prisoner (Mark Elstob) and the new Number 2 (Nickolas Grace) (Photo by Wayne Cornish) Catherine McGoohan on ‘Arrival’

A unique part of the event was hearing Catherine McGoohan’s opinions about the first episode of her father’s master work: ‘You’ve gotta be able to laugh – I was laughing. Some of The Prisoner is tongue in cheek, but what is unique is that my father plays it completely serious, committed and defiant, but all this kind of comedy, or whimsy, is happening around him. ‘The music was definitely a lot to do with him: I know he was in the editing room and ‘Arrival’ also, if you notice, has a lot of pace – Lew Grade would always say dad “moved like a panther.” It’s not like a lot of shows now, where there’s a shoot-‘em-up, action, car crashes… it’s all about what was going on [in The Prisoner’s mind], what he was thinking, how he was looking at people, how he was reacting. ‘It’s remarkable that an audience stuck with it, but my father believed in the intelligence of the audience, and he knew that it was important to stimulate the thought process – but with whimsy, with comedy and with sarcasm, which was a big thing with him. ‘Dad always wanted to work with people that made him laugh and didn’t take themselves too seriously. Even though he seemed like he was serious, he liked a good laugh!’

numbered badge (in my case 120). It might her 73 years and her memories of the special globular Village guardian, in ‘Arrival’. Byrne’s Above left: run contrary to the ideals of Number 6, but atmosphere of The Prisoner’s first location day job was working with the production Portmeirion’s Pantheon, wandering around Portmeirion with a pen- shoot are clear and affectionate. team’s second unit, which had a variety of Number 2’s ny-farthing number badge pinned to my suit ‘I remember everything about the filming, duties: ‘My first memory is being with the residence the Green Dome in jacket helped strengthen the birthday frisson including the fun that we had while we weren’t original Rover, which was the go-kart machine the series, and of the real and the unreal. filming. Mary Morris and I went swimming and it not working. Once we got onto the new Jane Merrow, This feeling was further enhanced by the every morning before we started, which was Rover, a lot of what I did was figuring out how Alison in ‘The Schizoid Man’, arrival of Fenella Fielding, who in the series about 6 o’clock in the morning… I remember to move it around, using string and so on. attending Fall provided the over-keen tones of the Village having a very nice conversation with Pat, ‘I worked a lot with Roy Cannon, (a prop In (Photo by Al Samujh) tannoy announcer. Unseen in The Prisoner when the three of us were sitting outside man), who played the body on the beach in itself, ‘Fall In’ attendees had the added bonus around a table having coffee. There was also a ‘Dance of the Dead’. I also worked a lot with of being able to hear, and see, the veteran penny-farthing, which the director Don Chaffey Pat’s double, Frank Maher, filming a lot of the actress deliver Village-style announcements was trying to climb up on to, and I was helping shots where you see Pat in long shot, walking throughout the day, keeping the Villagers-for- him. Suddenly a local man came along, put it along or running… We don’t hear much about a-day informed about what was going on. against a tree and jumped on it and rode off!’ Don Chaffey now, but he was very important to The first on-stage interviews followed the Norma was joined by Seamus Byrne, a first the success of The Prisoner – he was very calm, screening of ‘Dance of the Dead.’ Actress for Prisoner events as he’s never attended one well respected and got it done. He was a good Norma West, who played the feminine or been interviewed before. A young assistant friend of Pat’s and Brendan J. Stafford’s, the ‘Observer’ to Mary Morris’s androgynous director in 1966, like a lot of The Prisoner Director of Photography.’ Number 2, took the part when she was 23. crew he took a small role in the production, Norma and Seamus’ interview was curtailed 50 years later, she looks a lot younger than memorably as the first victim of Rover, the because of over-running, but the next item on

INFINITY 27 Local Service Only Rosalie Crutchley’s taxi from ‘Checkmate’ XXXXX:and right, xxxxx Prisoner film reels and a goodie bag from the event (photo: Rob Fairclough)

Philip Caunt was happy to chat about his authentic Mini Moke, which drew approving and envious attention from attendees throughout the day. ‘Myself and Jeremy Guy saw that it was coming up for auction down at CarFest South,’ he reveals. ‘We both wanted it, but we’ve been friends for There was general agreement about the dis- twenty odd years, so we thought, “Why not go in together?” orientating nature of the production. Andre felt We didn’t view it, and when the day came, we put in a blind ‘The whole thing was strange. It was like bid for £13,000. being in another world: it was claustrophobic, a ‘The only two Mini Mokes that are left from the series are bit scary and very odd. That was the whole point the one that I restored in 1990s, which is now in Los Angeles of the series, so perhaps Patrick was quite clever with a friend of mine – that’s fully renovated with the canopy in not clueing us up too much.’ To the audience’s – and the one here today, which was found in Holland. amusement, Nesbitt used some entertainingly Because I’d restored the one in the ‘90s, I wanted to do this colourful language to describe how he felt about one as well. We had to have the patterned vinyl printed for being involved in such a confusing project. the upholstery, because it’s not available any more, and I’ve Despite her respect for McGoohan as an actor, got a seamstress to make it up exactly. You can almost see Merrow also agreed: ‘I did say to him, “Patrick, the end product, but the seamstress is still making the top what exactly is all this about?” The answer: “I part of the roof. The amount of people who’ve dropped by to don’t know.”’ say “Hi” and take a picture is very satisfying.’ An unscheduled part of the programme was the appearance of Dave Barrie and Roger Goodman, two of the founders of the original ‘Six of One’ Prisoner Appreciation Society in 1977. As Barrie rightly pointed out, such a series Danger Man (1960-62, 1964-66), guest special day was all about ‘Prisoner fellowship’, starred in ‘The Schizoid Man’. as he reflected that ‘loose-leaf sheets that The panel was particularly interesting you got mailed if you sent us four addressed because of the different opinions the three envelopes’ had moved on over 50 years, to actors expressed about The Prisoner’s leading modern outlets for appreciation of the series man, often regarded as a controversial figure. such as the comprehensive Unmutual website. Andre found McGoohan ‘very difficult to work Roger paid tribute to Judy Adamson, his with. He was very cold, very disassociated. He’s friend and another co-founder of ‘Six of One’ who a very good actor, and I would like to have had died tragically young in 1978: ‘Bearing in mind more from him, in a way. He had a habit – some that the term database didn’t really exist until actors do, not a lot – that when he was looking computers started, Judy generated a database at you, he’s not looking at you, he’s looking of hundreds, if not thousands, of ‘Six of One’ past you.’ By complete contrast, Merrow stated members, all by hand, all on filing cards, all in Above: the agenda more than made up for it. Courtesy unequivocally: ‘I loved him. I really, really loved alphabetical order, with details of whether they Dave Barrie, of the audio drama production company Big him. He was one of the most exciting actors wanted to take part in a local group.’ Judy Adamson, Ray Binns and Finish, who this year released their second I’ve ever worked with. He had an inner energy One of the first organised, and vocal, TV Roger Goodman series of full-cast ‘re-imaginings’ of The which came from inside the gut. When you fandoms in the UK, in its early days ‘Six of One’ of the ‘Six of One’ Prisoner Prisoner, the audience were treated to the worked with him you could sense that inner was instrumental in keeping The Prisoner in the Appreciation ‘minisode’ ‘Time is Free’, especially written for power. It was exciting: it was like riding on a public eye. In a fitting testament to what the Society ‘Fall In’ by producer/author Nick Briggs. big dipper.’ society achieved in terms of re-screenings and The short play was another unique The amusing and charming Nesbitt repeats, Barrie and Goodman, together with Tim experience. Inside Portmeirion’s Pantheon, immediately endeared himself to Andre and Beddows, honoured Adams’ memory with some Number 2’s residence the Green Dome in Merrow by announcing from the stage, ‘They’re well-chosen words in Portmeirion’s piazza. the series, 60 lucky people witnessed a live, still as beautiful, and as sexy, as they ever After ‘Checkmate’, there was a buzz of anniversary-themed battle of wits between were’. Then he added to the debate about anticipation in the room, as Peter Wyngarde – Big Finish’s Prisoner (Mark Elstob) and the new McGoohan’s reputation for being difficult with the camp crusader Jason King himself and the Number 2 (Nickolas Grace). The importance of a surprising revelation: ‘I was gonna be the suave Number 2 in the episode just screened the location clearly inspired both actors, and permanent Number 2… In those days, I was – was the next subject of Dick Fiddy’s gentle audience participation – taking the roles of with the Lew Grade organisation, who had interrogation. Anticipation turned to an air the Butler, Number 2’s heavies and the Village something to do with (the casting). George of concern as the elderly Wyngarde entered citizens – added to the sense of being involved Markstein, the story editor on The Prisoner, said in a wheelchair, his distinctive face hidden in something really special. to me, “We want you to do it” and Grade told behind a baseball cap and shades. He’d been Back to the screening room in Hercules me, “You’re gonna be the 2.” “The 2 what?” “The taken seriously ill earlier on, and despite being Hall, and the central interview panel of the Number 2.” “OK, fine…” Then George came back moved to hospital, had insisted on honouring day fielded three guests. Annette Andre and and said, “McGoohan won’t have you.” After his commitment to ‘Fall In’ – which required Derren Nesbitt had appeared together in the that, George commented, “I suppose we’ve now him being driven back to Portmeirion in an episode ‘It’s Your Funeral’, while Jane Merrow, a got to have a new Number 2 every week, which ambulance. Even though, for health reasons, frequent collaborator with McGoohan in his spy is gonna make a nonsense of it all.” Wyngarde’s interview was restricted to just five

28 INFINITY FALL IN: The Prisoner at 50

Author and visual with the star. He was so unhappy with it he offered effects artist Tim to buy it off the ingénue producer. Palgut, writer The Prisoner of Project: The After a screening of the anniversary set’s ‘then and Con 2017, Prisoner – The now’ location features – Portmeirion has changed Village Technical September 30, Seattle, USA Manual very little – another (yes, I’ll use the word again) unique moment arrived when Catherine McGoohan Fifty years after ‘Arrival’ was seen by TV viewers in took the stage to introduce ‘Arrival’, being re-shown England, and for the irst time ever in North America, in Portmeirion 50 years later to the exact half-hour nearly one hundred people gathered in the Village of – 7.30pm – it was irst transmitted in the UK. Seattle to enjoy a ive-hour program of entertainment, Having one of Patrick McGoohan’s family introduce education and fan fraternity in celebration of The the opening chapter of his television classic in Prisoner. At 5 pm on Saturday, the loud speaker Portmeirion, where nearly all the exterior ilming for outside the Broadway Performance Hall came to life ‘Arrival’ was done, was a truly special moment. with cheerful band music. Then, interrupted by very The sense of occasion was added to by a short familiar announcement chimes echoing across the video message from the ATV presenter Peter plaza, the enthusiastic, strong and uplifting voice of Tomlinson. A Prisoner fan himself, he’d introduced (a pre-recorded) Fenella Fielding declared: ‘Welcome, ATV Midlands’ colour repeats of the series in the good people! Welcome one and all! The day has inally 1970s, and was happy to come out of retirement arrived. The Prisoner Con opens today!’ to perform the service one last time. Furthermore, The programme began with a video retrospective Network’s archivists had unearthed contemporary about The Prisoner produced exclusively for the event adverts for the commercial breaks, for as complete and was followed by an interview with author and minutes, he was full of praise for both McGoohan and a retrospective viewing experience as possible. The artist Tim Palgut, writer of Project: The his singular brainchild: ‘(The Prisoner) was the most only other thing Network could possibly have done Prisoner – The Village Technical Manual. Next, Sophia extraordinary, original thought. Patrick should have was show ‘Arrival’ in black and white, which is how Cacciola and Micheal Epstein, of the band ‘Do Not stayed with us, he shouldn’t have gone to Hollywood, British viewers in 1967 would have seen it. Forsake Me Oh My Darling’, performed an acoustic set (although) he did OK… He was wonderful to work Earlier in the day, Catherine had unveiled a new of their Prisoner-inspired songs along with showing with, tremendously kind, retrospective, helped you bust of her father – installed watchfully opposite several of their music videos, including a scene-for- if you had a problem of any kind, and also gave you the Pantheon, appropriately enough – by the French scene homage to title sequence. the feeling that you were doing something original, sculptor Tiziano, who was also in attendance. Her The audience was then treated to a fun and and that for an actor is the most wonderful thing in genuine goodwill towards those who have continued engaging interview with actress Lucille Soong, the the world.’ Like McGoohan, Wyngarde has, in the to take an interest in her father’s work in general, ‘Flower Girl’ in ‘A, B & C’, who shared stories and past, had the reputation for being dificult, but his and The Prisoner in particular, over the years was insights about her acting career in Hong Kong, London obvious enthusiasm for making ‘Checkmate’, not to very apparent, and continued into Dick Fiddy’s inal and Los Angeles, where she currently stars in the ABC mention his bravery in the face of being very unwell, interview of the day. sitcom, Fresh Off the Boat. After a meet-and-greet earned him many new admirers. Articulate, cultured and witty, Catherine entranced with the program’s special guests, the audience The centrepiece of ‘Fall In’ was the screening of the audience with irst hand recollections of her returned to the auditorium to watch ‘Arrival’ on the the new documentary ‘In My Mind,’ partly produced father, beginning with how her perception of The big screen. Karl Funz (organiser) by Tim Beddows, and one of the extras in the 50th Prisoner has changed over the years: ‘I think dad has anniversary box set. Directed by the accomplished been quoted as saying “Even my teenage daughter ilmmaker Chris Rodley, it tells the story of his doesn’t understand what it’s about.” Of course, emotional, remembrances of a close member of ill-fated irst venture into TV production, with a 1983 that’s changed completely. I just needed to live Patrick McGoohan’s family. The signiicance of the documentary called Six into One: The Prisoner File. my life, grow up a little and come back and visit it, moment wasn’t lost on the guests during the closing Interviewed after the presentation, Rodley relected and then I, like you, looked at it and went, “Oh my roll call of thanks to everyone involved in the event. that his original commission was lawed: ‘The reason God, how did he know all this?” A lot of the ideas in A visibly moved Jane Merrow said, ‘I just want to say, I became mostly embarrassed about the original ilm The Prisoner have rubbed off on me and my sisters, thank you all very, very much for coming. If Patrick was that Channel 4 were saying, “We don’t want any in conversation, because my father lived what he were here it would be extraordinary, but I don’t voiceover, we don’t want any presenters. What we believed – this was no accident.’ think we could have had anybody better, to express want is to make a new kind of television.” The problem Fascinatingly, she elaborated: ‘I think The Prisoner him, and his words, and his feelings about this was there was all this other stuff – we had a silly went through stages with him. I think right after it show, than Catherine.’ Big Finish’s Nick Briggs was idea about a man trapped in a building, who couldn’t inished – when it wrapped – that was one of the in complete agreement: ‘I have to say, I’ve been to escape until he cracked what The Prisoner was about hardest times for him, because he and his team and many gatherings like this, and it’s the most inspiring – which for Prisoner fans probably wasn’t probably everybody involved with the series, were on such a interview I’ve ever heard, so thank you so much.’ very interesting. Channel 4 were playing with the form: creative, intense high. Producer David Tomblin, at the ‘I’d like to say one simple thing,’ said a clearly very it was all about the form, rather than trying to make end of ‘In My Mind,’ said it took him six months to get happy Catherine in conclusion. ‘If my father was here good television… We tried to do something different, over it, and I think it took my father longer than that. he would probably be speechless, but if he could he and that was kind of the mistake.’ ‘The documentary is fascinating, for me. Some would basically say: “All good wishes, God bless, be An inept ilm crew hired in McGoohan’s home people would look at my father and say, “Oh boy, true to yourself and” – the last thing he ever said town of Los Angeles added to Rodley’s problems, he’s feisty, he’s dificult, I wonder if he was like that to me – “Have fun.” So, have fun.’ Outside Hercules making the actor unsettled and angry. ‘Early on, he when he went home?” I’m gonna put it another way: Hall in the darkness of a spot-lit Portmerion, a giant screamed at me. I was reading my questions, and he I can say this now, because I’m through adolescence, image of Patrick McGoohan had been projected shouted, “I don’t want you looking at your questions! I’m now a woman and I can appreciate everything onto the side of Mermaid cottage. At the close of a Look at me! I need something to focus on: I need he taught me. Part of his behaviour came from his remarkable and enjoyable day, the combination of some eyes!” He was absolutely right. I’d never done sensitivity: he was emotionally raw most of the time, actor and village seemed to sum up not just ‘Fall In,’ that before, so it was a steep learning curve… It was because he felt things and saw things that, maybe, but The Prisoner’s continuing relationship with its a hard lesson. He expected the best, and we were all some other people didn’t see. He had the biggest spiritual home. slightly not the best.’ Disarmingly honest about his heart. You could see his soul, because he wore it on Be seeing you, indeed. (then) shortcomings, 36 years on with ‘In My Mind’ his sleeve, and I think he was Rodley has delivered perhaps the most revealing one of a kind.’ Robert Fairclough is the author of The insight into McGoohan’s mercurial personality. I can’t think of Prisoner – The Official Companion to th Starting from his problematic relationship with the a more itting e Classic TV Series (Carlton Books, 2002). actor during Six into One…’s production, Rodley’s place to have For up-to-date news and information on documentary becomes a fascinating exploration ended ‘Fall In’ ‘The Prisoner’, see the Unmutual website @ of McGoohan’s career and character, complete with than with the www.theunmutual.co.uk unseen footage of Rodley’s irst, strained interview intimate, and

INFINITY 29 LIBRARY

BLU-RAY, DVD & CINEMA

Review Ratings Allan Bryce takes a look at some of = Excellent = Good the latest sci-fi and fantasy movie = Average = Below Average and home video releases…! = Abysmal

happened to Uncle Ben, don’t even ask. Probably to watch with 2015’s smart Kevin Bacon thriller, Cop went off to sell his rice. Car. Action highlights include a superbly staged We can see straight away that Stark may have a Washington Monument rescue and the CGI-heavy point about Petey not being ready yet because, as final battle between Spidey and the Vulture, and in the comic books, things don’t always go right for while I still feel Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 is the best our young hero. Acar thief he tackles turns out to of the series, this runs it a close second and bodes be the owner of the vehicle in question, and a stolen well for future entries. AB. bike he recovers may not have actually been pinched in the first place. To add to the fun, these scenes BARB WIRE are amusingly set to the background sound of the Out Now. Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” (Hey! Ho! Let’s go!). Mediumrare. Cert: 18. When not fighting crime in his technicolor SPIDER-MAN HOMECOMING (2017) Blu-ray. underwear, Petey is just your average High School In between directing Out Now. Sony. Cert: 12. nerd, hanging out with his roly-poly best friend Ned pop videos for the (Jacob Batalon) and lusting after pretty Liz (Laura likes of Shania Twain, I’ve sort of lost track of the whole Spider-Man film Harrier), a senior who’s on the Decathlon team. Lionel Richie and Kylie franchise of late because it seems they are rebooting He also has to fend off the unwanted attention of Minogue, David Hogan it every five minutes, each time with a different actor High-school bully Flash Thompson (Tony Revolori), made this glossily playing our friendly neighbourhood webslinger. This who has been reinvented here as a geek himself, but nonsensical star one features Tom Holland in the role, a decent English a nasty one. Meanwhile, enter this movie’s super- vehicle for then-hot actor whose performance I enjoyed in the underrated villain. Michael Keaton’s Vulture is a disgruntled Baywatch star Pamela Lost City of Z. He makes a good Spidey too, so blue-collar worker who has been flogging a stolen Anderson. It was not absolutely no complaints there. cache of alien weapons on the black market. He has a big success, but This is the first of the new Spidey films located also created a flying suit which could be the one Pammy fans still have a soft spot for it, or maybe a in the ridiculously profitable Marvel cinematic left over from Keaton’s Birdman for all we known. hard one would be more accurate. universe, though faithful followers will recall that Nice to have a villain who is out to make some Hogan starts as he means to go on, with a sexy Holland’s Peter Parker first showed up on screen to money for a change rather than just take over the opening “wet strip”, in which Pam’s Barb dances in a aid The Avengers in 2016’s Captain America: Civil world as usual, and Keaton is great in the role. So strip club with her breasts hanging out of her rubber War, having been recruited back then by Tony Stark we have an interestingly geeky hero, a suitably dress, while being sprayed with water. This scene (Robert Downey Jr). Rather neatly we get to view that sinister villain, and most of the elements that made was supposedly suggested by the actress herself fracas in flashback via Petey’s smartphone recording. the original comic books so successful seem to be based on a nightmare she had in which she was being But before our boy can join The Avengers as a in place. Trouble is, the script does go overboard sprayed with champagne while performing a “nasty card-carrying member, he is advised by Stark to work on groanworthy bad jokes and at times the comic dance”. We wouldn’t call that a nightmare, luv. on being a “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man” for a element overwhelms the drama and spectacle. Based on the Dark Horse comic book, er, we mean while longer. So it’s back home to Queens, where he Generally it is a lot of fun though, smaller scale than graphic novel, Barb Wire is set in the far future of lives with his aunt May (Marisa Tomei), who has now previous Spidey adventures but deftly directed by 2017 where our Barbie girl runs a bar called the become a much younger surrogate-mom. As for what Jon Watts, who distinguished himself as a filmmaker Hammerhead, a nightclub in Steel Harbor “the last

30 INFINITY SCIENCE FICTION LIBRARY

free city” in the . She is just out to a plan to live underground until daylight returns. remake of this fun sci-fi movie, because the concept feather her own nest in the civil war that rages across Though potentially intriguing, the movie literally is outstanding even if the execution leaves a lot to the land. Believe it or not the plot has elements talks itself to death. It was filmed in Arizona by be desired! of Casablanca, though they don’t add up to a hill writer/director Paul Mayersberg, who is best known An asteroid hurtling towards Earth must be of beans, when her old flame, ex-boyfriend Axel, for having scripted the Nic Roeg movie of The Man intercepted, so Robert Horton and Richard Jaeckel comes back into her life, asking her to take a job Who Fell To Earth. Roger Corman is not known for lead a force of little Japanese people into space to helping a scientist get across the country to expose a spending a lot on his movies but he seems to have destroy it. Unfortunately when they return to their government cover up. Pammy has better threepenny scrimped even more than usual on this one. The sets space station headquarters, they bring with them a bits than Ingrid Bergman but let’s not get into a look like they might fall over if someone accidentally green slime which quickly mutates into the daftest discussion on her acting ability, or the fact that sneezes. It is also unintentionally hilarious at times, monsters ever - one-eyed rubber creatures whose her stunt doubles have a very dodgy collection of as in the scene where someone tries to assassinate flailing tentacles give out lethal electric shocks. blonde syrups between them. As bad movies go this Birney, an act that is prevented by the potential Too much time is spent on a pathetic sub-plot would make a great double bill with Paul Verhoeven’s victim picking up a crystal and shining it in the about whether ex-Bond girl Luciana Paluzzi is Showgirls and tough-talking Pam’s “Don’t... call me assassin’s eyes! Entertaining scenes like this are few still in love with ex-hubby Horton or prefers new babe” catchline just adds to the fun. Bad it may and far between, however, and we would advise you boyfriend Jaeckel, and the effects are surprisingly be, but it is not boring. Unlike those Kylie Minogue to avoid this release unless you want to witness one cheap considering this was a co-production between videos. AB of the worst sci-fi films ever made. MGM and Japanese studios. But the end result is Extras: Interview with star Sarah Douglas. Trailer. AB. undeniably entertaining, and the film remains a BAFFLED! (1973) classic example of schlocky 60s sci-fi. The completely Out Dec 19th Scorpion Releasing. Cert: N/A. (1977) Blu-ray. mad Charles Fox theme song (used on the American Out Now. Sony. Cert: 12. version of the movie only) was issued on a 45. “Open A routine television movie that was released to British the door you’ll find the secret. To find the answer is cinemas, this shot-in-England supernatural thriller was The least-known of the Monty Python movies, this to keep it. You’ll believe it when you find, something presumably meant to be the first of a series starring silly medieval fantasy was inspired by the Lewis screaming ‘cross your mind. Green slime…” Star Trek’s Leonard Nimoy as a racing driver who Carroll poem of the same name. The Jabberwocky is a This Warner Archive Blu-ray presents the movie in its suddenly develops ESP and uses his new gift to solve horrid creature that’s ripping apart wanderers foolish original ‘scope’ aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and it looks great crimes. It has a good opening scene where Nimoy is enough to take a short cut through the woods of throughout, with exceptional clarity and eye-popping in the middle of a race and suddenly has a vision he is King Bruno the Questionable (played by droll music colours. The really good news is that it is Region Free, roaring up the driveway to a country mansion instead. hall star Max Wall). Michael Palin is Dennis Cooper, but the bad news is there are no extras. AB. He is visited by , a student of psychic a meek country lad who travels into Wall’s domain phenomena, who tells him where the place is: “It’s and gets involved in some pretty surrealistic scrapes. SHIN (2016) Blu-ray. Wyndham in Devon, dear.” The place has been turned Wall has decided on a hide and seek contest to see Out Dec 4th. Manga Entertainment. Cert: 12. into a resort hotel, so they travel there to investigate who will get the chance to slay the Jabberwocky, and and meet a variety of eccentric characters. Nimoy is unfortunately for Palin, he wins. Welcome to the first Japanese Godzilla movie to be a always fun to watch but here he has been shoe-horned The effects are grandly gory in places - with the full reboot. Shin Godzilla shows what would happen into a playboy adventurer role that would have better monster gobbling its victims whole and spitting if Godzilla had attacked for the first time in modern suited his old lounge lizard Trek buddy William out their mangled skeletons. The film captures a day, and there had been no previous records of him. Shatner. Was that pink turtle neck sweater EVER in medieval atmosphere splendidly, but sadly the The resultant movie is certainly a very good one, fashion? Having said that, Hampshire and Nimoy humour is not as sharp as usual for the Python team, and it has a neat, satirical approach to the chaos that make a cute team and there’s a great supporting cast and you won’t want to watch it more than once. might ensue among the Japanese Government if a including Vera Miles and Rachel Roberts. I’m pretty Extras: New 4K digital restoration by the BFI huge monster attacked and ravaged their cities. In baffled myself how this one has merited a Blu-ray National Archive and The Film Foundation, approved fact the reactions here from Japanese officials were release after all these years, though maybe there are by director Terry Gilliam, with 5.1 surround based on the indecisive manner that real-life officials enough Spock fans out there to push it into profit. One soundtrack mix supervised by Gilliam. Audio dealt with Japan’s earthquake and subsequent for a rainy Sunday afternoon, we think. AB. commentary from 2001 featuring Gilliam and actor tsunami of recent times. Michael Palin. New documentary on the making of As usual, the powers-that-be are at odds with how NIGHTFALL (1988) Blu-ray. the film, featuring Gilliam, Palin, producer Sandy to deal with the threat. One faction wants to evacuate Out Now. Code Red. Cert: N/A. Lieberson, and actor Annette Badland. New interview Tokyo and nuke the monster, the other wants to deal with Valerie Charlton, designer of the film’s creature, with him in a less destructive, more scientific fashion. Roger Corman’s Concorde Pictures made this the Jabberwock, featuring her collection of rare The way they finally sort things out is tense and well slow-moving, pretentious sci-fi picture adapted behind-the-scenes photographs. Audio interview with done. As for Big G himself, well, he looks pretty spiffy from an story. The author was never cinematographer Terry Bedford from 1998. Selection here in a clever combination of monster suit and consulted in the making of the film, and completely of Gilliam’s storyboards and sketches • Original UK CGI, and the film has a nice old fashioned vibe in its disowned it when it was released. We can’t say we opening sequence. Trailer. AB. re-use of music from the original 50’s score. Godzilla are totally surprised. It’s set on a faraway planet with is a Japanese franchise that was purloined by the three suns where nightfall never occurs. Panic sets in THE GREEN SLIME (1969) Blu-ray. Americans, but now it’s back on home turf in the when blind seer Alexis Kanner forecasts the arrival Out Now. Warner Archive. Cert: N/A. country that really know how to do him the best. It is of this auspicious event and the planet’s inhabitants talky at times and lacking a heroic central figure, but fear that death and destruction will follow in its wake. I’ve always thought it would be a brilliant idea for Shin Godzilla is almost up there with the original in Led by astronomer David Birney they formulate someone like James Cameron to do a $100 million quality and as such is essential viewing. AB.

INFINITY 31 INFINITY REVIEWS

THE DARK TOWER WESTWORLD SEASON 1 (2017) Yes, it’s complicated to follow at times, and the Out Dec 11. Sony. Cert: 15. Out Now. Warner. Cert: 18. final episodes are real brain-frying stuff, but it rattles along at a fine old pace and you get caught up in the So it’s a quick exit to home video for this long-awaited The 1973 Westworld movie, scripted and directed by storylines of Hopkins, Thandie Newton, who plays her but fast-forgotten adaptation of Stephen King’s Michael (Jurassic Park) Crichton, was a fast-moving robot part fearlessly nude for most of the time, and Ed ambitious series of novels. The books might be and imaginative sci-fi flick set in a futuristic adult Harris, who could be channelling Yul Brynner’s 1973 complicated, but the plot of this film is simplicity theme park where visitors got the chance to live robot gunslinger, but is human and even more vicious. itself. Its hero, Jake (Tom Taylor), is a 12-year-old boy in fantasy worlds populated by robots. Richard Back at Westworld HQ, foul-mouthed, profit-hungry living in New York with his mother and unpleasant Benjamin and his pal James Brolin visited Westworld, Theresa Cullen (Sidse Babett Knudsen from Borgen) stepfather. He experiences nightmares of epic battles a town straight out of an old John Wayne movie, or is out to cause problems for everyone, and another between good and evil in a galaxy far, far away, and The Magnificent Seven, because one of the deadliest intriguing plot strand deals with the growing romance so vivid are these bad that he is able to sketch robot inhabitants was a black-clad gunslinger played between seemingly wholesome robot cowgal Delores them. They include images of an evil Man in Black and by Yul Brynner. It’s all meant to be fun, until the (Evan Rachel Wood) and besotted visitor Teddy a hero known as the Gunslinger. robots start to malfunction… (James Marsden). In fact Delores is one of the most Of course these nightmares are real, and in fairly Forty-odd years later, HBO have rebooted the important characters here and she is the one who short order our little lad discovers a teleportation storyline, only since it is HBO they have done so with finally figures out the mysteries of “the maze”, the portal in a crumbling house in Brooklyn that beams lashings of really bloody violence, oodles of titillating Holy Grail that is at the centre of the robotic search for him to this grim, post-apocalyptic planet he’s been sex and more nudity than a naturist’s convention. self-awareness. “Now I finally understand,” she says dreaming about, a place called “Mid-World” where Some of you may remember a previous series, at the end. Chances are you won’t have a clue what there are two moons in the sky. There he meets noble Beyond Westworld, made in 1980 but that only lasted she is on about, but that’s all coming up in series 2. gunslinger Roland (Idris Elba), a fast-shooting hero five episodes, whereas HBO’s proved so successful Frankly I can’t wait. AB. straight out of the old West whose weapon is made that it’s here for the long run. out of the same steel found in King Arthur’s Excalibur. The plot is basically the same as that of the BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953) Blu-ray. He also meets Roland’s arch-enemy, the mercurial, original, but being as it is a series it takes an Out Now. Warner Archive. Cert: N/A. shape shifting Walter O’Dim (Matthew McConaughey), inordinate amount of time for the robots to start mal- a bad apple who prefers to be known as “The Man in functioning en-masse. And these are state-of-the-art One of the most influential of 50s monster movies. Black, as indeed anyone named Walter would. androids rather than robots, so they get splattered Based on Ray Bradbury’s Saturday Evening Post short Walter plans to destroy a monolithic skyscraper most convincingly in their altercations with paying story, “The Foghorn,” Beast opens with an H-Bomb called the Dark Tower, and to carry out his dastardly customers. The guns the robots use only have an test conducted above the Arctic circle. The blast has plan he is kidnapping psychic children like Jake to impact on their own kind, humans can’t be harmed the unfortunate side effect of releasing a fictional harness their amplified brainwaves and blast the by them, so the guests can live out their wild west prehistoric creature called a Rhedosaurus from the tower to pieces. fantasies by being the fastest draw in town. They can glacier in which it has been entombed for millions There’s more than a touch of Star Wars about this also have sex with gorgeous saloon gals, who are up of years. Ray Harryhausen created the stop-motion misguided sci-fi western, with our young hero the for all sorts of naughtiness because, well, it’s HBO. monster marvel and some have suggested (jokingly) Luke Skywalker of the piece who eventually discovers A key part of the narrative, though you will only that the ‘Rh’ in its name are from his initials. He the force is strong within him. But where Star Wars see why later, is that this Westworld is 30 years old, called that “‘Rh’ubbish.” had an obvious target for destruction in The Death and it has gone from being a revolutionary new Anyway, the monster proceeds to make its way Star, the reason for the shattering of The Dark Tower attraction to being a bit old hat - and not a cowboy down the northeastern coast of the US to devastate is a bit vague. Apparently it stops our universe being one. Struggling to keep the visitor experience , bringing down buildings left, right ravaged by demons, but nobody can be arsed to fresh, the behind-the-scenes boffins are constantly and centre. These miniatures were apparently explain who built it in the first place, or indeed why. working to make the robots more human, as well as constructed like jigsaws, with hidden wires to pull As for how children can topple it, that’s something plotting exciting new scenarios, from bank robberies them apart. This was Harryhausen’s first solo movie they forgot to scribble on the back of the envelope to kidnappings and treasure hunts, for the human and he excels himself, particularly in the final scenes when they plotted this too, visitors to become involved in. where the creature meets its end in a Coney Island To take King’s epic, eight-novel cycle and cram it The Westworld movie centred on the experiences amusement park. The brave NYPD officer seen into a relatively short movie was not wise. It’s plain of the guests. Westworld the series is more about the helping tackle the creature at the end is a small role to see that big chunks of the narrative have hit the robots themselves, who are supposed to start every for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly’s Lee van Cleef, cutting room floor, because certain characters just day with a clean new memory but are beginning but the human actors definitely play second fiddle to come and go without explanation. Surely this should to have bad dreams about what they have really the monster here, which beat Japan’s Godzilla to the have gone the mini-series route? been through as they start to attain a new level of screen by a year. The Warner Archive disc is region Performance-wise it’s good though. Tom Chambers consciousness. Some may even have gone beyond free and looks great, though there are no extras. AB. is likeable as Jake, and Elba has enough charisma that, and as the twisty narrative progresses we to get away with delivering lines such as “He who begin to suspect that some of the robots may be THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING WOMAN (1981) shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his masquerading as guests, or maybe even working Blu-ray. Out Now. Universal. Cert: N/A. father.” McConaughey steals the show with a camp behind the scenes to create others of their kind. Chief villain straight out of a Las Vegas show and he has a suspect is actually Westworld’s machinating creator The Incredible Shrinking Man was an instant great future as an Elvis impersonator if this acting gig (), whose master plan is not revealed classic, but the law of diminishing returns kicks in doesn’t pan out. AB until the final episode. literally with this abysmal, spoofy, feminist remake.

32 INFINITY

THE PRISONER

THE MAGAZINE BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION THE MAGAZINE BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION SCIENCE FICTION LIBRARY

Comedienne Lily Tomlin is cast in the main role of devastated by nuclear war. They are then forced lives with his actions. The fog-enshrouded landscapes a normal housewife who starts to diminish in size to fight for against a race of putty-faced are most impressive, as is the fine Cinemascope after having a perfume called “Sexpot” spilled on mutants who are called “zombies.” Director Steve camerawork by Ellis W. Carter. This was planned as her. The media fall over themselves trying to exploit Barkett also stars in this amateur effort which looks a B-movie but ended up costing more than most the phenomenon, and Lily is pursued by crooks like it may have been shot over a dull weekend by A-pics of the time. On a trivia note, Brandon was out to steal the formula. There are some amusing untalented film students. In fact it was filmed in an adventurer in real life as well: he was an actual scenes. At one point Lily literally stands on top of 1978 and stayed on the shelf until the wonderful member of Adam Richard Byrd’s 1947 South Pole a soap box to lecture her husband. But the movie dawn of the VHS era gave it a place to live. expedition. 101 have done the film proud with a makes its satirical points within the first half hour, Old movies like this are what VHS was all about, pristine print in 2.35:1 scope and you even get a free and unfortunately there’s another hour to come. with people driving about in the desert firing guns poster of the film to stick on your wall! AB. Makeup artist supreme, Rick Baker, turns up in one that never run out of ammo. The iconic Sid Haig is of his better monkey suits, but that doesn’t save this Scumbag Number 1 of a rampaging biker gang and THE ALIEN DEAD (1980) Blu-ray. misguided effort. The project was originally intended our hero is so tough that he can get shot in both legs Out: Jan 9th. Bayview Entertainment. Cert: N/A. for American Werewolf in London’s John Landis, but and still skip around like the finalist in an 80s disco the studio felt his budget was too high and handed competition. Yes it is bad, but if WW3 is as much fun Strange entities from another world hitch a ride to the movie to journeyman director Joel Schumacher, as this, bring it on, I say. AB. Earth on a meteorite, crash-landing and turn kids on later to make Batman And Robin. AB. a house boat into raving zombies in this early effort ATOMIC BLONDE (2017) Blu-ray. from ‘B’ movie maestro Fred Olen Ray. These poorly THE HIDDEN (1987) Out Dec 4th Universal. Cert: 15. made-up living corpses look more like refugees from Out Now. Warner Archive. Cert: N/A a bargain basement Halloween joke shop and their A great trailer in search of a good movie. Atomic ‘victims’ just stand around looking bored while they A surprise “sleeper” hit from Jack Sholder, the Blonde is basically a gender-bender variation on amble up and munch on them. director of Alone In The Dark John Wick, with Charlize Theron as an indestructible It is set in a redneck community and there’s a lot and A Nightmare On Elm spy causing much chaos on an incomprehen- of bad country music on the soundtrack. Shot in Street 2, this great movie sible mission of just before they got Florida for less than $8,00, it’s much more awful than kicks off with a socko planning permission to take that pesky it sounds, and is chiefly of interest to film scholars action sequence wall down. because it features serial star Buster Crabbe (Flash in which a guy Based on a graphic novel entitled Gordon) in his final screen role - he was in his 70s and commits murder, The Coldest City, Atomic Blonde has died (possibly of shame) not long after steals a fast a plot so full of double and triple making this. AB. sports car and crosses that even the most ardent wipes himself fan of John le Carré might need EVE OF DESTRUCTION (1991) Blu-ray. out, Vanishing to keep a physical scorecard. All Out Dec 4th. 88 Films. Cert: 18. Point-fashion you need to know is that Charlize’s after a wild car formidable British agent Lorraine A brilliant premise comes to very little in this inter- chase through the Broughton is sent to Berlin, has some mittently exciting android-on-the-loose chiller. Renee busy streets of L.A. lesbian fun with The Mummy’s sexy Soutendijk stars as a female robot created by the It transpires that Sofia Boutella, liaises with treacherous military as an anti-terrorist tool. there’s an alien creature on local ‘facilitator’ James McAvoy, then gets She’s out on a test run when she walks right into the the loose which enters people’s into epic fights with just about everyone she middle of a bank robbery, and in the ensuing fracas bodies and then feels free to indulge its love of fast meets. These superbly choreographed punch ups are something goes wrong with her controls, setting her motors and very loud rock music. Hot on the ET’s slickly set to a soundtrack of ’80s Europop like “99 on auto-pilot. Unfortunately for mankind in general, trail is strange FBI agent Kyle MacLachlan (in a dry Luftballoons” along with a bit of Bowie and she’s been programmed with violent feminist run for his Twin Peaks persona) who is actually an “Der Kommissar.” attributes and sets out to wreak bloody revenge on intergalactic cop after the nasty, tentacled slug So if you enjoy a good action movie then Atomic anyone who has ever wronged her creator (Soutendijk creature that killed his family. He’s partnered with Blonde is for you. If, on the other hand, you want a again). Even more unfortunately, she has an atomic tough homicide cop Michael (Flashdance) Nouri, and side order of sensible plotting with that, then you’d bomb inside her that is programmed to go off within the action scenes come thick and fast as they throw be best to look elsewhere. AB. a short while. Gregory Hines is completely miscast everything they’ve got at the fleeing creature. as the counter-terrorist agent on the trail of the killer A highlight comes when the alien takes over the THE LAND UNKNOWN (1957) Dual Format. robot, and Soutendijk (a favourite of Dutch director voluptuous body of stripper Claudia Christian (of Out Now. 101 Films. Cert: PG Paul Verhoeven) seems uneasy in her American Babylon 5 fame)! A really good movie which blends debut. The climax is pretty good, but mostly this action, horror and sci-fi to near-perfection. Nice Great sets and fun special effects of the “man-in- movie is so ridiculous that it blows its chances to see it getting a Region Free release in a a-suit” variety bolster this predictable yarn about early on. good-looking print. AB. travellers discovering a lost world. Jock Mahoney On a sad note, its British-born director, Duncan heads an expedition to the Antarctic, but his Gibbins was killed in the Los Angeles fires of many THE AFTERMATH (1980) helicopter is damaged in a collision with a giant bird years back (he rushed back into his burning house to Out Now. VCI Entertainment. Cert: N/A. and comes down in a valley inhabited by creatures try to rescue his pet cat!). from the Mesozoic era. It was a doubly macabre death when you consider Three astronauts return to Earth from a long mission Also stranded there is Henry Brandon, a scientist that two of his movies were called Fire With Fire and in space to discover that the planet has been who has gone round the bend and endangers their Second Degree Burn… AB.

INFINITY 37 HOBBY KIT CRAZY HABITSMODEL BEHAVIOUR Sci-fi & Fantasy Modeller’s Andy Pearson indulges his weakness for spacecraft kits…

Above: ou may be familiar with the old A box of moral tale of the chap who buys a delights very tatty violin for a few pounds Right: Y from a junk shop only to discover A glimpse of the contents that it’s actually a Stradivarius and worth a and Flash fortune. Being an honest soul he returns to Gordon’s rocket the shop and explains the situation adding that it was worth his modest outlay just to have possession of the instrument for a short while. I enjoyed a similar situation just a few weeks ago. I was visiting one of my regular modelling haunts when the person who owns the place (let’s call him Dave, that being his name) asked my opinion on some old Lunar Models kits that he’d bought as part of a job lot. As his speciality is sculpted figures and these were spacecraft, he wanted my thoughts on whether they were worth adding to his stock. The packaging was original but somewhat stained, the contents were bagged and wrapped in US newspaper pages from 1996, but the kits were the stuff of dreams. His idea had been to re-box them and sell them for a couple of quid more than he’d paid. The three that I was able to discover any provenance for were actually worth around £250 each. One kit was a set of three Buck Rogers rockets which were, fortunately, worth considerably less, and that one I bought myself, but at least I had the chance to drool over the others, which didn’t help the appearance of the packaging one bit. My first actual acquisition was a Revell an appreciation of the actuality of space This serendipitous discovery also Moon Ship, complete with interior and crew. travel and might have impressed even the prompted this article as I though a quick I was so impressed with this that I took aforementioned Mr Yeomans who, it must be look at some of the less familiar areas of kit the finished model to show our school’s said, was a very nice bloke with an endearing collecting might be of interest. science master (I was about twelve at the touch of eccentricity. Should we ever meet, time) who was, as I recall, less enthusiastic. remind me to tell you the hovercraft story. A Generational Thing I imagine his problem was that the model I believe that the Moon Ship was later If I have a weakness (apart from the drink was somewhat short of scientific credibility released by Revell in the late 60s as part of a and the fags) it is for older spacecraft kits. as it fell into the category of (to paraphrase Space Pursuit kit set, this time representing This is certainly a generational thing as I an old song) a fire at one end and a point at a space police craft accompanied (to the had a school chum who, via his dad, had the other. station one assumes) by a space pirate ship. heaps of comics and magazines which Subsequent research indicates that this I’ve never actually seen this but, judging speculated on what real space travel would was actually the upper stage of another from the on-line illustrations, it must have be like. There were also occasional glimpses Revell spacecraft, the XSL-01 (Experimental knocked the socks off the average ten of the Disney Man in Space productions. My Space Laboratory). This was issued as the year-old. subsequent interest in the more esoteric complete ‘stack’ with boosters, fuel tanks fringes of film and TV has served to fuel that etc. with the Moon Ship being the means A Flash Bit Of Kit initial spark and I’ve also been lucky enough by which the astronauts would return to From time to time I would come across kits to get hold of models to illustrate the topic. Earth. As such, it demonstrated more of advertised in imported US film magazines

38 INFINITY Spacecraft Kits

details and no original packaging and it was Far left: Glencoe Lunar bloody expensive but now it’s mine. The Lander model in question is a resin rendering of the spaceship used in the Flash Gordon cinema Left: Disney Rocket serials which began in 1936, although the to the Moon serial’s special effects model itself had a re-issue somewhat longer history, having featured Bottom left: in an earlier movie. That was Just Imagine, Retriever which Wikipedia describes as…’a science Rocket fiction musical comedy…’. Now that must have taken some selling to the studio suits! To call the design phallic would be something of an understatement, a fact probably not lost on the producers of the sex comedy Flesh Gordon which is generally harmless fun if not, perhaps, one for the smaller kiddies. They exaggerated the shape considerably for comic effect. My model had been produced by one Herb Deeks and was an easy build which I supplemented only by adding some riveting (in the engineering sense of the word) detail. In the unlikely event that my ramblings so far have sparked your interest I would suggest a visit to www.fantastic-plastic. com which features, amongst other delights, a virtual museum filled with all manner of model-related wonders. I confess a slight bias here as the proprietor of the site, one Alan B. Ury, pulled the fat from the fire for me with one of my first model kit reviews. This was one that he had supplied to the publisher for review purposes and he then supplied me with a set of decals to replace the ones I had ruined, without shopping me to the (then) authorities. Significant names in the early production of speculative spacecraft model kits are Strombecker and Glencoe. The former produced kits such as the Disney Rocket to the Moon which was a rendering of the craft that featured within Disneyland in California, resplendent in TWA livery, from 1955-1962. The kit was later re-issued (this would become something of a pattern) by Glencoe boasting fictional Fastways corporate colours. The Lindberg Line also released their share of spaceship models, including the Moon Ship which was re-released several times under differing names including a Mars Probe. The one shown here is the Glencoe Lunar Lander version.

I venture to suggest that this design shows more than a touch of Werner von Braun’s influence in a design obviously intended to operate in the vacuum of space. Another craft influenced by his ideas was the Moon Rocket Reconnaissance Craft. This was, again, a Strombecker kit which was later released by Glencoe as a Retriever Rocket designed to intercept ships returning from missions to Mars. A feature worth noting is the protrusion below the fuselage. This is a bottle-suit: not although, pre-internet, these might as well A case in point was the UK Garage Kit something designed to facilitate trips to have been sold on Mars rather than just show held each autumn in Crewe, Cheshire. the off-license but a one man EVA vehicle, representing the means of getting there… but A couple of years ago a resin model of one which topic could lead into an interesting just occasionally something special would of the ships from a venerable movie serial discussion of space suit models if only space turn up in the flesh (or plastic or resin). appeared. There were no manufacturer’s permitted but, alas, it doesn’t.

INFINITY 39 MEGA MEMORIES

John Martin talks to Paul Goodwin (left), director of an acclaimed new documentary covering the colourful history of 2000 AD - possibly The Galaxy’s Greatest Comic!

Right: he brainchild of UK comics legend 2000 AD strip, Death Wish or Death Race or The cover of the , 2000 AD emerged from something, which had this Formula 1 driver first issue of 2000 AD, published 26 the wreckage of the controversial whose face was all mashed up and it just February 1977 and ultimately banned Action scared the shit out of me! I remember Judge in February 1977, since when such iconic Dredd being really freaky and scary, too. I characters and strips as Judge Dredd, Rogue was only a little kid (laughs). Trooper, Strontium Dog, Dr And Quinch and The Ballad Of Halo Jones have established it Those early progs were very dark, as, by the universal acclaim of sci-fi geeks weren’t they? and children of all ages, “The Galaxy’s Yeah! Flesh, The Invisible Man and all this Greatest Comic”. stuff, comics they’re aiming at eight or ten Its 40th anniversary year sees the release year old kids now don’t look anything like (by Arrow in the UK and Severin in The that! (Laughs). States) of Paul Goodwin’s compelling tribute documentary Future Shock!, which includes In the intro to Future Shock! you stress interviews with (just about) anyone who was that the comic was very much “born of / is anyone in 2000 AD history. Reversing the ever thought it would. We’ve had a theatrical its times”. roles, Paul joined me for an interview that release, we’ve had Blu-rays… I mean, Film As a grown up, I can now draw the was always going to be, in the infallible words 4 showed it, man! That was absolutely connections between what came before, of The Mighty Tharg, totally scrotnig! awesome. To us it just proved how loved and although I wasn’t exposed to it a the time. respected 2000 AD really is. Are you into the Guys like Bolland, Kev O’Neill, Bryan Talbot What’s your background Paul? comic yourself? came from the underground comics, I’m a partner in the production company not mainstream stuff at all, dealing with Stanton Media, we do music promos, When I was younger I actually owned all satire and social commentary… sex, drugs, projects, corporate stuff. That’s our bread and the early progs (= “issues”) but you know rock’n’roll with a bit of politics thrown in. Pat butter but we’ve been doing it so many years, how it is… you grow up, you think you’re Mills, on the other hand, was squarely from we just thought, c’mon, let’s do something too cool to still own comics, you move the mainstream comics world. that we really care about, that we’re invested house, you lose them. I wish I still had in and see how we go. At the very least we them all now, though! I think he was reacting against having to could have some fun. I’ve heard this story so many times! (Laughs) do stuff like Whizzer And Chips, which l’d done an ‘A’-level course in Media was driving him bonkers. Studies with the other partners, Jim Hinson What about your own relationship with Yeah, we did speak to some of the writers and Nick Harwood… Sean Hogan became the comic, Paul, as a reader and a fan? about their countercultural connections but the producer and, in his own words, “helped I was born in ’74, it would probably have it soon became apparent that Pat Mills was birth” the documentary (laughs). It all came been about 1980 or so when I first picked up the backbone of the 2000 AD story. Guys out of a pub conversation, we thought that a couple of progs, but only as “that week’s like Wagner and Grant are serious political if we’re lucky, we’d meet with a few like comic” kind of thing. The week after that people, as is Dave Bishop, and there’s quite a minds out there who might watch it, and I might have bought… I dunno, Tiger and lot of agitprop fist-waving going on in those here we are, it’s gone way further than we Speed or something. But I remember this early things. It’s subversion, isn’t it? And

40 INFINITY 2000 AD

subversion isn’t out out-and-out, on the nose political commentary by its nature.

It’s about going under the radar, isn’t it?

Yeah. I’ve read everything in 2000 AD twice - you read it once as a kid, as sci-fi adventure stories, but when you read it years later you start getting stuff, the whole idea of the Judges, the whole concept of the Megacities and the political comment that was going on. When they were teaching us about in school I could understand it because I’d been reading about it in Judge Dredd! That, I guess, is how subversion works. Obviously in the documentary we’ve that time and I remember tentatively going You had so many interviewees, upwards highlighted some of the funnier moments, e.g. into a newsagent, looking for it and dreading of 40, and so much material. I imagine Above: the Volgans assassinating a Margaret Thatcher it not even being there, thinking… the biggest problem you must have had L-r: The Future Shock! production figure on the steps of St Paul’s and obviously was keeping the documentary within team, Paul that’s right on the nose but as a rule it wasn’t, “It’s my fault!” manageable proportions. Goodwin with legendary 2000 it was generally more much insidious than (Laughs) Yeah! I didn’t even know if they were Yeah. There’s a bit of regret on account of the AD artist Brian that. I should probably say, John, that I could still publishing it but luckily they were and I people we didn’t get to talk to. We had asked Bolland and an never claim to be the biggest hardcore fan started buying it again. We wanted to give an Steve MacManus to speak to us very early but unidentified lady, and the of 2000 AD because those guys are out there objective picture of the comic from the start. unfortunately, for whatever reason, it never production team and I’ve met a lot of them. My serious comic A puff piece is no use to anyone. We wanted happened during production. Then I bumped with Karl Urban, who plays the title collecting started several years after my first to explore why it existed and how it survived, into him, in the Gents actually (laughs) at the character in the exposure to 2000 AD when I was 13 or 14 and what were some of its problems, how did it comic’s 40th Anniversary event and I told 2012 film, Dredd started to meet mates at school who were deal with them. We had heard that it came him it was nice to finally meet him and how into punk or whatever and started to open pretty close to cancellation a couple of times. much I wish he’d been in the documentary, my mind up to all sorts of subcultural stuff. A At one point ,apparently, it was a coin toss which he said he’d have enjoyed, too. So we couple of my friends were into 2000 AD and I away from getting canned. I think as early arranged a nice sit-down in which he talked remembered how awesome it was so I started as when it merged with Starlord, there was about his time as editor and that’s out as a buying it regularly. some question as which one was going to bonus feature on the Arrow Blu-ray. be absorbed by the other. Starlord was more The fact that you weren’t a card- expensive to produce and as I understand it, What about Alan Moore? I can’t imagine carrying 2000 AD fanatic from the off that was the only reason 2000 AD swallowed you didn’t try for him. probably helped you to take a step back it rather than the other way round. The thing I could be flippant and pretend we didn’t and mount a documentary that was an that we realised pretty early on was that so want him but who’s going to believe that? actual critique of the comic’s history, many of the people we spoke to, these were When we were sorting out our interviews, warts and all, rather than just bigging really huge characters, you know? he’d just had this huge public argument it up. Writers are just really interesting people with Grant Morrison across the internet. Maybe, I’ve never really thought about it that to speak to anyway, maybe because it’s such It was still very fresh and he’d made a way. I’ve bought it in bursts over the years, a solitary thing that they do, but everyone statement withdrawing himself from any have drifted away for periods but always kept we wanted to speak to seemed so happy to comment about anything other than the my eye on it. To be honest, I’ve always felt engage with us and answer all our questions. project he was working on at the time, plus that I should support it, because it had given Nobody ever shut us down about any subject, we were obviously aware that he had been me so much. I remember during the ‘90s I quite the opposite and we were thrilled that involved in some contract disputes with the lost touch with it, as a lot of people did at they were being so candid. management, back in the day. We contacted

INFINITY 41 JohnName Martin of feature

Right: him through specified channels and got a Kim Newman polite refusal, which was fine, we’d always presents the documentary known he was going to be a long shot. It was at FrightFest a shame if not a surprise and if there’s anyone out there thinking” “It’s a bit shit that they didn’t get Alan Moore”, believe me, we tried!

You mentioned Alan Moore’s contractual disputes. One of the themes that keeps coming through in the documentary is how the creatives are used and abused by the corporate types… That’s an issue in every creative industry, it’s never going to go away, is it? It’s a perennial problem. Artists have to continue creating Art because it’s what they do and who they are, while the money guys have to continue making money because that’s what they do.

It’s Page 1 Marxism, isn’t it? Those who produce versus those who own the means of production, distribution and exchange. Yeah, it’s pretty difficult to find something and spirit of the comic. Was there any screen presence. Maybe he’d put that is both critically feted and commercially bitching that got cut? somebody’s nose out of joint? expensive. You normally get one or the other. There wasn’t too much name calling and I At the BBC? Hm, I wouldn’t like to comment. But I didn’t go into this film with any set ideas, didn’t want to get into that anyway because, We didn’t interview Pat first but he was very we really learned a lot as we went and people you know, nobody comes out of that looking much a priority for us to speak to. We were a brought stuff up. I mean, what Dave Gibbons good. What did come out was that all those be- bit nervous but he invited us into his home, has to say about it is a horror story, isn’t it? hind-the-scenes tensions over the years were we spent a whole day with him and he was all justified by the fact that a) these are all really cool, so generous and so happy to talk. The one that amazed me was Kevin really super-strong personalities and b) they’re Luckily for us, we mined a huge amount of be- O’Neill hearing that one of his stories all trying to do what’s best for the comic at the hind-the-scenes stuff. He gave us everything had been so, er, influential on Richard end of the day. They’ve all got their own strong we were after, the subversion, the political Stanley’s film Hardware, then that HE visions and if those visions don’t marry up with side of his storytelling, the power struggles was going to get sued by the film’s each other, that’s where you get the tension, the money side of things, the creation of the lawyers unless he disavowed any but it was strictly about everybody wanting to comic itself - all unexpurgated. interest in it. That was just “through the do their best by the comic. In fact everyone was like that. Dave looking glass” stuff! Bishop, another former editor whom we (Laughs) Oh, it’s crazy! Once money is There are indeed so many strong travelled to Edinburgh to interview, he was involved, everyone loses their personalities in there but the one that exactly the same. We knew that he’d cover a and it just gets ridiculous. The largest part of almost bursts out of the screen is that of lot of ground for us and fill in a lot of blanks the budget for my film (and six months out of Pat Mills. I wonder if he’s as formidable because obviously, he’s literally written the my life) went on the solicitor, sitting with him in person as he comes across in the book on 2000 AD (Thrill-Power Overload) so going over everything with a fine-tooth comb. documentary? he knows where all the bodies were buried We hit a few problems in the section where (Laughs) “Formidable” is the word, isn’t it? (laughs). He’s another great guy, another we asked everybody about the influence of In 2007 the BBC had made a three part show of these huge personalities and I hope he 2000 AD on pop culture and there was a lot of called Comics Britannia, for which Armando enjoys the documentary. stuff with people saying: “Such-and-such a Iannucci did the voice over. Obviously scene out of such-and-such a film is definitely everything is comics nowadays but 10 years You must have been on tenterhooks ripped off of such-and-such a 2000 AD story”. ago, that wasn’t the case and as a comics fan, waiting for Mills verdict. I mean, he The lawyer was saying you can’t possibly I sat down to watch it and they interviewed comes across as such an ass-kicker! put your name to a documentary which Pat Mills. I’d read interviews with him before (Laughs) John, the first time he saw it was at levels such accusations against somebody but never actually heard the guy speak, I The BFI and I was sitting there, absolutely like Disney or whoever. We’ve got this small, was so excited but they gave him such short shitting myself! It wasn’t the first public independent film which was already punching shrift that I was just furious. I never forgot it, screening because we’d shown it at a few way above its weight so we said sure, take it I remember telling Sean Hogan when we were festivals in the States already but it was the out! It wasn’t a difficult decision. talking about doing the documentary that first time the British fans, all the guys from the first name on my list is Pat Mills, because the message board and the podcast, they There are different generations of 2000 they had just wasted an interview with a all mobilised and came down as well, so I contributors in there arguing about great writer, a great creator. was nervous but pleased that everybody was who’s the true custodian of the soul And somebody who has such a strong going to see it. It turns out Pat really didn’t

42 INFINITY Name of2000 feature AD like it the first time he saw it (laughs). to do and what not to do. He didn’t say anything on the evening but we There’s a line in there had to get up on stage and do a Q&A after the from Pat which I fought screening with Pat and Kevin O’Neill. He was quite for, at one point it was cagey, just shook my hand and sort of raised his under consideration for eyebrows a bit, oh shit! He saved his thoughts for cutting and I’m glad it an e-mail which we received a couple of days later, stayed in. It’s just about which was pretty strong. We spoke to him and he the last comment in the was focussed on a couple of comments that he chapter before we talk took issue with. It’s completely understandable, about the launch of 2000 he must have been quite nervous watching that AD and he expresses for the first time in front of an audience of four or regret that you have to five hundred people because the 2000 AD story retreat into something is pretty close to his own life story as well. I’d like science fiction in be the same, you’d be the same if someone had order to be able to tell made a film about your largest achievement in political stories and talk your life and you were going to see it for the first about real life. time. Fast forward to about a month later, when we invited him again to come up and do a Q&A after It was a tactical the screening at the Edinburgh Film Festival and retreat though because as he says in the doc, I’m not sure what had changed in the meantime… 2000 AD wasn’t some kind of polite middle perhaps just a more relaxed second viewing of class drippy sci-fi, it was more subversion the film. He had done a complete 180, hugging us, under a different guise. saying that he’d been wrong and now he saw what I think there’s a whole extra dimension to crafting we were doing and agreed with the way we’d put a layered story with messages in there that you it together. He was so full of praise and has gone can take or leave. Superficially, 2000 AD works on to do so much plugging in the media, he’s just fantastically well for an eight year old child but been brilliant! there were also these onion thin layers that you The film is a bit spiky, I think everyone has a could peel back as you grew older and understand bit of a go in the wheel but I didn’t want to make what the real story was something like Nemesis The up with. When you find out that people like Alex anyone look bad or feel bad, that was not our Warlock or Strontium Dog, you know? Garland were 2000 AD fans you think: “Ah, I’m intention. The same goes for Andy Diggle and Dave going to pay special attention to what they do Bishop, I think they’re cool with everything and as How much longer will the comic run? Ten next” because like it says in the documentary, far as I know everyone is happy with it. years from now, do you think we’ll be they carry a little bit of 2000 AD with them in celebrating its half century ? everything they do. That’s quite a feat, isn’t it? Featuring 40 or so Yeah, I do. It’s set in stone, it’s going nowhere. It I’d like to be able to say the same thing about strong personalities and everyone coming out of will be a sad day if 2000 AD ever does disappear myself. Before we finish, I must say something it thinking: “You did OK by me”. from the newsstands but even it if it does, it will about Arrow and what they’ve done for us, because I think they appreciate what we were trying to do. continue to be published digitally. I understand when Metrodome went down they killed it for us, We went and interviewed Disraeli in Beeston and that Rebellion barely break even on sales of the to be honest. I’m not saying it was anybody’s fault while we were packing up he said we were doing a weekly print edition, but the business model which but that ripped all of the enjoyment out of it, any great thing because it’s 40 years old already and if they’ve cleverly created is based on the sales of pride that we had in what the documentary had somebody doesn’t do it now, some of this knowledge graphic novels, digital content, the video games gone. We didn’t get into it to make loads off money and information and these stories are going to be and now, after the nearly 20 years they’ve been but we didn’t make ANY money and they had sold lost forever. A lot of people said that, everyone was publishing it, they’re going into TV production with it to TV, so there was a bit of money there. They keen to be involved in it because everyone shares a new Dredd show and I think, like we say on the fucked it up somehow, I don’t know and I can’t say that passion for the comic, you know? documentary, the comic finally has a publisher enough about how Arrow picked it up, you know, It’s an honour to talk to these guys and like I that actually gives a shit about it. they’re releasing a title that was only released a said, my only regret is that we had to stop. It’s a couple of years ago. It really says so much about shame that we didn’t get Steve Dillon, one of my So the future of 2000 AD is safe, but what what they’ve done for us and I can’t say enough favourite artists all my life, for whatever reason about your own future Paul? You’ve got this about them. that was another one which didn’t work out and documentary on your hands that’s been more now we’ve lost him so I’m never going to be able successful than you thought it would be, so That’s cool but I’m mates with the Severin to talk to him about 2000 AD or anything else… what follows on from that? guys as well, who’ve released Future Shock! such a big shame. But this is really small crew, It would have been crazy a few years ago to have on BD in The States, so maybe you’d like to self-funded and we had to draw a line somewhere. just launched straight into a feature film from say something about them, too? There are more than 40 people in it and we knew scratch but going through the experience of Yeah, of course. I think it was the 2015 Mayhem we had enough when it was time to start editing. making Future Shock has encouraged us to think Festival screening in Nottingham and after the about a feature, so we’ve actually got two things last couple of drinks, it ended up with me and Carl When I was watching and enjoying Future in the nebulous world of development at the Daft just hanging on to each other. I remember Shock! it occurred to me that there’s another moment. We’ve got plans that we’re going to crack we were crawling by that point, outside in the subject in there that would make a good subject on with. rain and Carl said: “Look, if it doesn’t work out for (shorter) documentary in its own right and with Metrodome, just give us a shout” and I took that’s the whole amazing story of Action comic Can you give us any clues about of this stuff his card. I never forgot and then when the whole and its suppression, which was almost a dry run or is it too early? Metrodome house of cards fell down, including for the whole “video nasties” saga! Sean Hogan is a writer/director in his own right Metrodome international, Sean called Carl and It truly was, and obviously people have a huge and we’re working on a short with him now, he was indeed still interested in putting it out in affection for Action. something that’s connected to another project the States. It was really weird that it all happened which it’s not my place to talk about. But we’ve at the same time and it was a bit of a split deal. A copy of the issue that got pulped went on eBay also got a script in the very early stages of Arrow would like to have had the US but we for something like two-and-a-half grand recently. development. Both of them have come from his already had this agreement with Carl that Wow, really? It was such an integral part of what warped brain (laughs). Severin would do that. It’s amazing that we’ve became 2000 AD. That had to go in there because These are the sort of things that people who’ve got Severin representing us in the US and they learned so many lessons from that about what read 2000 AD all their lives are capable of coming Arrow over here, fantastic!

INFINITY 43 Name of feature A MAN OF CULTURE

Chris Hallam takes a look back at two great authors: Iain Banks “Two years after I killed Blyth I and sci-fi author Iain murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different reasons than I’d M. Banks. Both were disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin the same man… Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That’s my score to date. Three. I haven’t killed anybody for years, amongst his best. and don’t intend to ever again. It was But more often or not, Banks just a stage I was going through.” struck gold and his novels, often featuring drunken nights out, The Wasp Factory (1984). technology and good-natured diatribes against right wing politics and organised religion, soon ensured he had a n 1984, thirty-year-old Iain Banks loyal army of fans. found himself at the centre of a Take Espedair Street (1987). Though it media furore. The source of the begins with a declaration of suicide (“Two Itrouble was Iain’s debut novel, The days ago I decided to kill myself,”), it is in Wasp Factory. The book was written fact one of Banks’ cheeriest novels, featuring from the perspective of Frank, a teenager the recollections of fictional Seventies rock living in unusual and isolated surroundings icon Dan “Weird” Weir, bassist for the equally with an eccentric ex-hippy father in Banks’ non-existent group, Frozen Gold. It is worth native Scotland. Frank’s life is undeniably reading for the lengthy anecdote about odd, spending hours on end engaged in silly the creation of Wykes’ Folly (Dan’s unusual childish campaigns: a “war” with the local Victorian home) in itself. rabbit population, for example. But that’s The Bridge (1986) meanwhile, though less not the worst of it. The “Wasp Factory” of the accessible perhaps, is often seen as Banks’ title is in fact, a gruesome construction (yes, best novel. He himself certainly thought so. involving live wasps) the superstitious Frank Whit (subtitled Isis Amongst The Unsaved) has used to predict the future. Worse still, as meanwhile depicted a young girl brought up in the novel progresses we learn Frank, as a child, a cult, making her way in 1990s Scotland. Sort killed several children. And then there’s Eric, of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt of its day Frank’s still more eccentric older brother… then? No, not really. “It’s a sick, sick world when the confidence Banks also saw two of his best 1990s novels and investment of an astute firm of publishers The Crow Road and Complicity adapted for the is justified by a work of unparalleled screen. Of the two, the 1996 TV adaptation of depravity,” wrote a reviewer in The Irish Times. The Crow Road is probably the best. The Sunday Express’s response, “the literary Notable for its brilliant opening line (“It equivalent of a video nasty,” meanwhile, at was the day my grandmother exploded,”: the least gives us some idea of the flavour of the pacemaker of the narrator’s elderly relative media reaction, at least from some quarters. WASPS, CROWS AND SPACESHIPS combusts soon after her death while she is Banks, a graduate of Stirling University who being cremated), The Crow Road (1992) is had once worked as an extra on Monty Python “The trouble with writing fiction is that it an often wonderful tale of family but with and the Holy Grail, hadn’t intended to cause has to make sense, whereas real a murder mystery element thrown in. Bill a stir and was surprised by the controversy life doesn’t.” Iain Banks. Paterson played the father who falls out with a book he (correctly) regarded as a “black the young narrator Prentice McHoan, after comedy” had generated. For many years, even if his name hadn’t been he starts to question his father’s atheism. A Thirty-three years’ later, we can see a emblazoned across the covers, Iain Banks’ strong cast also included future Doctor Who number of things. Yes, The Wasp Factory is a novels were always easy to spot in bookshops. Peter Capaldi, as the mysterious Uncle Rory. harrowing book, perhaps less so than it was Their distinctive black and white covers made While Banks had not intended his debut in 1984, but still unsettling. Secondly, it is a them stand out. But these books did not tell The Wasp Factory to cause a media furore, great novel, perhaps one of the best British the whole story of Banks’ career. he reportedly hoped Complicity (1993) about literary debuts of the late 20th century. After The Wasp Factory, Banks established a journalist with a range of addiction and We can also now see that Banks was himself as a prolific mainstream novelist. substance abuse problems would do just that. anything but a flash in the pan. While such Inevitably, his output was varied in quality. In fact - although excellent - it didn’t. Perhaps controversy over a debut novel might well have Canal Dreams (1989), an attempt at a political times had changed. overshadowed or even buried a young author’s thriller, was one of the few books Banks Banks claimed tongue in cheek, that the career, Banks would publish thirty more books himself admitted he was unsatisfied with and book was “a bit like The Wasp Factory except in the next thirty years. And, in fact, while I would argue, a few of his books around the without the happy ending and redeeming air they would have their dark moments, the turn of the millennium such as A Song of Stone of cheerfulness.” The 2000 film of the book horror of The Wasp Factory was to prove not at (1997) and Dead Air (one of the first published (sometimes billed as Retribution instead of all typical of what was to come. novels about the 2001 terror attacks) are not Complicity) did little business, however.

44 INFINITY Iain Menzies Banks

Some felt Jonny Lee Miller, the Trainspotting year to indulge his other passions, namely cars, star, then still in his twenties, was too young to sampling whiskey, attending science fiction play the lead. But by now, Iain Banks was now conventions and playing the highly addictive well established on a parallel course: as science strategy computer game, Civilisation II. fiction author Iain M. Banks. In truth, there was often little “mainstream” about Banks’ non-science fiction works, indeed some such as The Bridge, A Song of Stone and BANKS VS BANKS Transition came perilously close to crossing over into the science fiction genre. The line “Sometimes the thoughts and feelings between Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks was I had didn’t really agree with each other, sometimes blurred. so I decided I must be lots of different people inside my brain.” The Wasp Factory (1984). A MAN OF CULTURE

anks had, in fact, wanted to write science “Common misconception that; that fun is Bfiction long before he ever became a relaxing. If it is, you’re not doing it right.” published author. Indeed, he to some The Player of Games (1988). extent, started writing his “mainstream” books to establish himself as a novelist so as to The science fiction output of Iain M. Banks enable him to write the science fiction which he was overwhelmingly dominated by the Culture initially struggled to get published. A lifelong novels, Of his science fiction books only socialist, he had come to feel the Right had Against A Dark Background (a rewritten somehow managed to gain a stranglehold on version of a previously unpublished book the genre and wished to redress the balance. Banks had written in the Seventies, In time, he came to view himself as primarily a published in 1993), Feersum Endjinn science fiction author. As Iain Banks, he wrote a total of around (1994) and The Algebraist (2004) Consider Phlebas, the first science fiction fifteen non-science fiction novels and one are set outside the universe of book by Banks which appeared in 1987, the non-fiction book plus a book of poetry, the Culture. They remain his same year as Banks’ fourth non-science fiction published posthumously. The lone non-fiction most enduring legacy to the book Espedair Street. Deploying his middle book was Raw Spirit: In Search of the Perfect science fiction world. name “Menzies” to write sci-fi, there were Dram (2003), a good-natured travelogue soon as many brightly illustrated books detailing Banks’ trip around the whiskey by Iain M. Banks as there were black distilleries of Scotland, interspersed with and white ones by Iain Banks. occasional diatribes against Tony Blair, George Some people – rather like the W. Bush and the then newly unfolding Iraq War. twin policemen both played During the same thirty-year period, as by Bill Bailey in the film Iain M. Banks, he produced fourteen science Hot Fuzz - read one fiction books, two of which were short story or the other. collections. Given this impressive output, it is surprising that any critics would dare call Banks “lazy”, though occasionally, they did. Banks was, in fact, a fast worker and could produce novels relatively quickly, leaving him free During the same for most of the thirty-year period, as Iain M. Banks, he produced fourteen science iction books, two of which were short story collections. Given this impressive output, it is surprising that any critics would dare call Banks “lazy”, though occasionally, they did. ”

INFINITY 45 Name of feature

irst portrayed in Consider Phlebas, Banks had first envisaged the idea of the There were more loose ends to tie up. He Fwhere they at war with the Idrian Culture as a youth in the Sixties (he was also suggested to his friend Ken MacLeod Empire, the Culture in Banks’ words born in 1954) and even wrote early versions (who shares Banks’ affinities to Scotland, represent a form of “space socialism,” a of several of the Culture books in the late socialism and science fiction) that he utopian, highly advanced atheistic society Seventies and early Eighties pre-Wasp continue writing his Culture series. The with a relaxed attitude to death, essentially Factory days. release date of Banks’ final non-science a utopian vision of the kind of society Banks Some have argued that the epic scope of fiction book, The Quarry, which focuses would most like to have seen himself. the Culture novels (they are set over a period heavily on a cancer victim, was brought Much of the action (and there is a lot of of 1,500 years), vast range of characters and forward, in the hope (sadly not realised) that action) relates to the Culture’s interaction witty sense of humour make them the ideal he would get to see it coming out. Banks with neighbouring empires. The highly candidate to succeed Game of Thrones as though, an atheist could only hope for a readable Player of Games (1988) sees the high budget epic TV franchise for the miracle. It did not come. a Culture agent forced to subvert a 2020s. So far, however, aside from a few Iain Banks, or, if you prefer, Iain M. Banks backward, brutal regime while occasional radio adaptations of individual died in June 2013, a few days before the Look To Windward (2000) Culture works, this has not shown any sign release of The Quarry. He was 59. sees the disastrous of happening. consequences of the aftermath of an REMEMBERING MR. BANKS intervention gone wrong. THE END OF THE ROAD “I’m not arguing there are no decent people in the Tory party but they’re like “There’s an old Sysan saying that the soup sweetcorn in a turd; technically they kept of life is salty enough without adding their integrity but they’re still embedded tears to it.” Look to Windward (2000). in shit.” The Quarry (2013).

In 2013, Iain Banks was dealt a hammer surprising amount has happened in blow. He was diagnosed with terminal Athe world in the four years since Iain cancer of the gall bladder and given Banks’ death. It is easy to imagine only months to live. The news Banks reacting with amusement to the rise prompted Banks to marry his of Jeremy Corbyn or recoiling with horror long-term partner Adele at the news of Brexit or to the election of Hartley, asking her with Donald Trump. grim humour to “do What is impossible to perfectly imagine me the honour of is what he would have specifically said becoming my or written about these things. Even more widow”. impossible to imagine is the perhaps three or four books he would doubtless have produced since 2013 had he lived, or the countless others he might well have written had he lived a normal human life span, perhaps into the 2030s or even 2040s. A surprising amount We will never know. But we are at any rate left with thirty or so science fiction has happened in the world and non-science fiction books. And for these, as a character in Banks’ in the four years since Iain The Player of Games says: “My gratitude extends beyond the Banks’ death. It is easy to limits of my capacity to express it.” imagine Banks reacting with So should yours. amusement to the rise of Jeremy Corbyn or recoiling with horror at the news of Brexit or to the election of Donald Trump.”

46 INFINITY

LET US BEAM YOUR COPY TO YOUR DOOR BY SUBSCRIBING TO:

THE MAGAZINE BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION www.infinitymagazine.co.uk 6 THE MAGAZINE BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION

DOUBLE-SIDED POSTER INSIDE!

“I AM NOT A

NUMBER!”50 YEARS CELEBRATING OF THE PRISONER • SPACECRAFT KITS PLUS: • NEWS • CHRISTY MARIE• THE - COSPLAY VALLEY QUEEN OF GWANGI• CHILDREN’S • IAIN M. BANKS • SATURDAY MORNING SUPERHEROES FILM FOUNDATION AND MUCH, MUCH MORE… FUTURE SHOCK! AN ARRESTING THE HISTORY OF CONCEPT - 2000 AD ROBOCOP WRITER TAKE A TRIP IN

THE TIME TUNNEL INFINITY ISSUE 6 - £3.99

e hope you enjoyed this great issue of INFINITY, the superb SUBSCRIBE TODAY BY FILLING Wscience-fiction magazine for the discerning reader. Every issue is IN THE ORDER FORM BELOW: packed with amazing features on your favourite sci-fi movies and Should you not want to remove this page from the mag, (And why would television shows, with extensive episode guides and fascinating behind- you?) a photocopy or a simple letter request will be accepted! the-scenes information. INFINITY is different from the rest of today’s science-fiction mags in that it caters to the older reader as well as the YES, I wish to subscribe to INFINITY for 6 young sci-fi fan, and you can expect the finest of genre journalism within issues @ £22.00. *Offer open to UK Subscribers Only. its pages. INFINITY is on sale every six weeks in most major newsagents, so it will be easy enough for you to find, but why not save yourself the shoe YES, I wish to subscribe to INFINITY for 12 leather every month and get your copy of the magazine delivered to your issues at £40.00 * Offer open to UK Subscribers Only. door a few days before it even officially goes on sale? I would like my subscription to start with issue number: Better than that, if you take a subscription you will also save money too, because a 12-issue sub gets you almost £8 off over 12 issues! I enclose my cheque/postal order for £ HOW TO ORDER Made payable to Ghoulish Publishing Ltd By PayPal to Ghoulish Publishing at [email protected], or if you prefer to pay by cheque or postal order, simply send the details asked for on the form opposite together with the payment to: Name: INFINITY Magazine, Ghoulish Publishing Ltd, Address: 29 Cheyham Way, South Cheam, Surrey SM2 7HX 6-issue subscription Only £22.00 – 12 issues Only £40.00

INFINITY Overseas Subscription Rates: Postcode: Europe 6-issue subs: £42, 12 issues: £80 USA and Canada/Rest of the World: 6-issue subs: £48, 12-issue subs £90 You can also pay online via our Paypal account: www.infinitymagazine.co.uk Michael Miner is the man who co-penned the script to RoboCop. Thirty years’s later Infinity Calum Waddell catches up with the writer to talk about the film’s legacy and influence... MURPHY’S LAW

ichael Miner’s professional career includes time as the inmates were running the asylum we got away with a a director of photography and director/cameraman lot: the effects genius Phil Tippett with ED-209, Rob Bottin M of twenty music videos. But he is still perhaps best with the creation of the suit, Jon Davison was the producer known as co-writer (with Ed Neumeier) of RoboCop, in the wings who could make a penny look like a penny the iconic action story about the part man/part machine and a half through his time working with Roger Corman, we law enforcer of the future, When we got the chance to chat just had such a great time. And also being at the end of the with him recently, we first of all wanted to learn about the decade - people were sick with the farce that America was. challenges of co-writing RoboCop with someone else. Especially with Iran/ Contra and the secret dirty war in Central America that was, again, part of the Friedman architecture of It was a really good experience actually. We were close conquering the third world. friends by then and, basically, you never marry yourself and what Ed brought to the script I couldn’t and what he brought Can you talk about working with Phil Tippet to create to the script I couldn’t. We realised very early on some of the film’s groundbreaking special effects? that we had a common idea: for instance, Ed knew Phil better than I did. I was only on the RoboCop set Ed had a pretty solid first act so we sat for a couple of weeks because I was working on another film. down and started putting together a I was scheduled to be the second unit director on RoboCop speculative script in the fall and I couldn’t do that – it would be like dreaming the same of 1984. over and over again (laughs). With Phil’s creation of ED-209... I mean, wow! It was like one of those Harryhausen moments or like when people first saw . There is this sense of astonishment. We caught everyone off guard with it. An animated robot that kills people in a boardroom (laughs). There are a few films, A Clockwork Orange, Blue Velvet, Rosemary’s Baby – if you changed the hair and dresses you could release them today and people would not blink. They have not dated and RoboCop is the same - so all kudos to Phil for creating such amazing work that still stands the Being a test of time. sympathiser with Keynesian economics, We touched on the privatisation of the police - it is a crazy and thinking that idea, obviously, but even now when you watch RoboCop you Milton Friedman as a think, ‘Hey, I bet eventually they try that somewhere...’ war criminal, the hard left Oh yeah (laughs) - and all that stuff was of the time. I was sensibility probably came feeding off the protest movements and the underground from me (laughs). press. I had come up as an English and Theatre major in the late 60s and early 70s and protested the Vietnam War, I was going to ask which was my political . Friedman’s activities you about the politics of in the third and second world and then the American-backed the movie. assassination of Salvador Allende in Chile to the events in I grew up in California and watched Tiananmen Square and the Russian oligarchs, you just watch Reagan shut down universities, man. these events unfold... there was a satanic architect who was He was a 9 to 5 president when he came changing the whole surface of the planet. It was Friedman, in into the Whitehouse and then there was the Iran/ Contra my view, and RoboCop comes from that feeling of the state affair and just everything about the privatisation wave and being used for the men at the very top to get richer and richer. Milton Friedman’s assault on America and the treatment of So the fact it was a satire allowed us to create this subplot of the third world. I think all of that, all of it, horrified anyone privatisation. It allowed us to be ‘in your face’ political about who could see through the gauze and the rhetoric to what consumerism as well. And corporate integration in general: I was really happening and what he was really doing. Ed mean there is a dichotomy between the movie biz and what understood the corporate culture as well and he brought the you see in RoboCop (laughs). boardroom mentality into it - the stuff you see in RoboCop. I kept pushing for a scathing criticism of consumerism. The Although at the top of the movie world, of course, you little things such as the family playing the Nuke ‘Em game. have many conservatives. Pakistan and the loss of the nuclear weapon was a big issue I think that is a good point. Part of Mike Medavoy – because even back then. The Pentagon papers were published in Time he has money then, by definition, you might think he is a magazine if you remember. RoboCop gave us the forum to conservative. But I think he was pretty amused by what criticise this stuff - it was a very political film. he saw and he just engaged with it. Barbara Boyle was an executive who had come from New World and she also It is interesting you got away with as worked for Roger Corman and they had made a film with much you did. Paul Verhoeven, Flesh and Blood. In some ways an A big part of this was Mike Medavoy at Orion. He executive has to just throw things at the wall to had been the Head of Production at United keep things moving. Mike had a privileged Artists and when he founded Orion he relationship with people like Woody Allen took the same approach to artists - who could give him good stuff and he allowed the producer, director, I think that gave him the courage writer free reign to develop their for this type of film to be made. I own material. Orion let us go away also think he might have had this and figure out this picture. Ed decade-forward view of how things always characterises it as a film were going to change so, as a very that was made when no one was intelligent guy, he saw a lot of looking (laughs). I think, because things in RoboCop.

INFINITY 49 NameCALUM of WADDELL feature

This image and the two below: Behind the scenes shots of the victim of the bloodiest boardroom battle in film history, Paul Verheoven doing some last-minute technical adjustments to Peter Weller’s helmet, and Rob Bottin applying makeup to Emil (Paul McCrane) for his gruesome toxic waste death

in the ceiling, high school gymnasiums with swimming pools full of library books, wrecked hospitals. So if you move backwards from there, again bringing the satanic Milton Friedman into the conversation, Detroit was a city that once promoted minorities in employment, women, at the height of American industry we had the most powerful union that ever existed. And corporate America destroyed Detroit because of that. So in a way we are seeing OCP dance on the ashes of what this city once was. That was the only city we could set RoboCop in. And There is also the decline of the Detroit car that is part of the reason why people go ‘Wow, industry - RoboCop as a machine who can how did they see into the future?’ We were now do a job that indicates human beings just making it seem hypothetical... but it was are not needed anyway. I mean that is the already happening. story behind the decline of Detroit, isn’t it? The news breaks in RoboCop are also Yeah, for Ed, he connected with Robert brilliantly satirical. McNamara who ran Ford, and then went into the I wrote a script several years before RoboCop Pentagon and sold Ford-manufactured tanks which had a character with the name Dick Jones for the Vietnam War, which was a conflict he in it. In that script I had Jones call down to the fabricated. He was following that whole line. lobby and say, ‘drive the limo around the block Corporate America killed Detroit. If you’ve seen a couple of times, I don’t like getting into a hot this book, The Ruins of Detroit, a photography car.’ Already I was thinking of the cloistered book - it is really powerful. It is a five year aspect that came out even more in RoboCop. photographic project where these guys went We were touching on things with these news in and shot Detroit now. It is existentially breaks like racism. frightening: opera houses with bullet holes I mean, man, living in LA, even now it is like Johannesburg in 1988: on one side there are the whites and on the other side it is black. I The RoboCop 2 that was made is unpleasant. Ed and I had don’t think a lot of people in these Audi cars are thinking of these problems. Bill O’Reilly will say some John Wayne rules – RoboCop cannot kiss a girl, he ‘Oh that liberal Hollywood crowd’ well, yeah, there are a few. But it is called show business, cannot be seen on the phone and he cannot ly. In parts two there are plenty of businessmen and women in Hollywood too and getting a script like RoboCop and three he does all those things because we weren’t there… made is no mean feat!

50 INFINITY The Curse of RoboCop? Think that being part of a major film franchise will lead to fame and fortune? Here is the legacy of Detroit’s most famous futuristic lawmen (and woman)…

Peter Weller: Weller was pushed into something approaching superstardom following his turn in RoboCop but, from the outset, he was obviously eager to prove he was a lot more than ‘just’ a comic book superhero. As such, more po-faced roles in the monster mash (1989) and Abel Ferrara’s muddled Cat Chaser followed, whilst David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch (1991), which pulled him from planned acting duties on RoboCop 3, was widely regarded as a disaster at the time (it has since won a cult following). A return to popcorn sci-fi followed with 1995’s space-caper Screamers but it tanked. After spending some of the noughties studying for a PhD in Italian Renaissance Art History at UCLA, he won a notable part in the hit TV show 24 and has since opted out of most discussions and reunions about RoboCop. He is still an icon, obviously (see also: 1984’s The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension) - but seems to want to keep his Robo days at a distance.

Robert John Burke: Best known for starring in Richard Stanley’s 1992’s video shop staple Dust Devil, which took him out to Namibia during the Southern African country’s transition to independence and stability, Burke faded from view after his bow as Officer Murphy in 1993’s panned sequel RoboCop 3. With this said, recurring roles on the small screen - including Rescue Me, Law and Order and Gossip Girl - have won him steady work as an admired character actor. Perhaps understandably, he had little interest in taking on the role for the RoboCop television series...

Richard Eden: The third actor to take on the tin-suit was the Emmy winning Richard Eden who is also the longest lasting of all the Robo-actors. Making his debut in 1993’s inaugural television series, Eden handled himself far better than most fans might care to remember and, dare we say, even succeeded in making the part his own for a short while. Direct-to-video action flicks (such as 1996’s Public Enemies) and television guest appearances (on the likes of Earth: Final Conflict and Relic Hunter) came around after his RoboCop success and he remains busy as a producer in his native Canada. His cult appeal cemented, he gladly attended the premiere of the 2014 RoboCop remake. We would peg him as the second-best of the lot.

Page Fletcher: Poor old Page Fletcher was a little bit on the small side to aptly act out the RoboCop part, although his show, Prime Directives, was arguably the most hard-hitting of all the Murphy adventures since the 1987 offering. Since then Fletcher, who took on the title role in the Why didn’t it work out for you with the astronaut and Ed is ground control. cult television series The Hitchhiker, has largely vanished from view the sequel? I will have ten bad ideas and one good . A sci-fi convention appearance is surely forthcoming somewhere. It is kind of sad. After RoboCop they put one (laughs). Ed doesn’t like the empty Ed and I together with Oliver Stone and page. He likes to work on something that Nancy Allen: Robocop’s most respected cast name was surely we began re-writing a really bad script is already there. So we got this draft of Nancy Allen who had risen to fame and fortune thanks to her turns in about the Iran/ Contra affair. It was about RoboCop 2 and then the writer’s strike boyfriend Brian DePalma’s Carrie, Dressed to Kill and Blow Up. Also a what the CIA was doing globally at the hit. When something comes in that major presence on the wall of many a teenage boy, Allen had worked time. Our main character was an old CIA cannot be controlled by the guild or the with Spielberg on his flop comedy 1941 and appeared in the genre operative, who was going to be played by equity finance company force vigour adventure The Philadelphia Experiment. However, with the age-phobic Paul Newman, mentoring a young guy, is invoked and all contracts are voided Hollywood casting her out as she hit the big ‘four zero’ Allen would who was Charlie Sheen, in that same sort and a project can move forward. So they follow RoboCop with roles in a series of horror flicks. She took on of Platoon-type relationship. You know moved forward with a non-Guild writer, leading lady duties on Poltergeist III and (lamentably) Children of the with Oliver Stone, the film he makes over Frank Miller. Corn 666 - although it is hard to deny that she brings a spark to even and over again is the corrupted disciple. the schlockiest of material. Deserves the respect and worship of every So we went to Nicaragua, Honduras, El And what did you think of genre fan on the planet, obviously. Salvador and began to talk about what the sequel? Oliver North did and it was shaping up The RoboCop 2 that was made is Joel Kinnaman: Swedish born Joel took on the role of RoboCop for the to be quite an exciting project. At the unpleasant. Ed and I had some John 2014 remake which no one on the planet asked for and very few even same time we were being told, ‘Come Wayne rules – RoboCop cannot kiss a girl, enjoyed. Kinnaman was not bad in the role of Officer Murphy, although on we need to get RoboCop 2 going he cannot be seen on the phone and he Weller is a hard act to follow, but his statuesque and ripped physique immediately.’ I would write something cannot fly. In parts two and three he does destroyed any of the character’s vulnerability. Not that Kinnaman has for Oliver in the morning and then work all those things because we weren’t there too much to worry about - he had a prominent role in last summer’s on RoboCop 2 in the afternoon. I am (laughs). Suicide Squad and still looks set to hit the Hollywood big time if the right part comes along. INFINITY 51 TUNNEL VISION Mark Phillips travels back in time to look at Irwin Allen’s The Time Tunnel, a short-lived show that nevertheless really left its mark on pop culture…

Titanic, played ark Klemperer, the seven year-old more like a son of Hogan’s Heroes star Werner feature ilm Klemperer, walked up to his father one than a television day and deiantly announced he would episode.” MNOT be watching his father’s series on Friday nights At the time, ABC was a anymore. Mark had just seen the irst episode of The struggling, third-place network that Time Tunnel, which played opposite Hogan’s Heroes, tried to compete with CBS and NBC with and he was determined never to miss an episode. innovative programmes such as Batman. Moore, a Werner Klemperer stood there, aghast. “My ego big science iction fan, recalls, “westerns were dying was crushed,” the actor later said, but his son was and science iction was the perfect genre with which not alone in his appreciation for Irwin Allen’s latest to attract younger viewers. Irwin Allen was a brilliant science iction series. New York executives at ABC producer and he hired the best people to work for him. stood up and applauded after screening the pilot He loved special effects and that expense turned out episode and several esteemed authors, such as Robert to be The Time Tunnel’s biggest detriment. Seeing the Sheckley and Lester del Rey, wrote letters of approval show in reruns, it’s remarkable what he accomplished to producer Allen after seeing the irst segment. with limited technology and modest budgets.” Yet The Time Tunnel brought contradictions. Attendees at Cleveland’s Tricon convention in 1966 FEASIBILITY STUDY “booed” the pilot episode for what they deemed as Allen cast as Tony Newman, the “overblown spectacle,” yet hard-to-please UPI critic brash young scientist who thrusts himself into the Rick du Brow praised the series as one of the season’s experimental tunnel to prove its feasibility. Robert best shows. The humourless ‘National Association for Colbert was fellow scientist, Doug Phillips. Lee Above: Better Broadcasts,’ a watchdog for TV entertainment Meriwether, Whit Bissell and John Zaremba were James Darren that once criticized Bugs Bunny’s vegetarian diet as the cast of scientists who remained at their controls as Dr. Tony Newman, Lee “nutritionally dubious,” said Time Tunnel’s “silly and at Project Tic Toc (set in the year 1968), trying to Meriwether over-complicated plots” made it totally unsuitable for retrieve the pair from the living pages of history. as Dr. Ann MacGregor and viewers under 18. Yet the PTA enthusiastically praised During the show’s 30 episodes, Tony and Doug visited Robert Colbert the series for getting children interested in history. 1519 Mexico, helped Marie Antoinette in the French as Dr. Doug Still, Twilight Zone guru Rod Serling wasn’t impressed, Revolution (1793), saw Halley’s comet in 1910 and met Phillips labelling The Time Tunnel as “a piece of salami.” a ghost in WWI Italy (1915), among other epochs. The “We had a great deal of excitement about putting two men always ended up in historic time periods the show the air,” recalls Thomas Moore, who but since the Tunnel’s computer was controlling the served as President of ABC from 1963-1968. “It was time travellers’ journeys, it made sense its research extremely promising. That irst episode, about the database was tapping into history’s hot spots.

52 INFINITY Irwin Allen’s TV Legends

Allen developed a reputation as a penny-pincher but Moore stresses: “Irwin loved to spend money. 20th Century-Fox would call us up and cry and cry over his poor management of budgets. The studio was afraid he was going to bankrupt them.”

he irst episode made a smashing debut on ABC on September 9, 1966, ranking cut from the inal print because he couldn’t Marx visited the Time Tunnel set but refused Above: T Lee Meriweather seventh out of 90 shows in the weekly master a British accent. Respected actor Dan to do guest appearances. We once nabbed with Whit Bissell’s Nielsen ratings, with an astonishingly sizable O’Herlihy walked off the set after only one Victor Mature to do a cameo as a background Lt. Gen. Heywood 58% share, a rating that has never been day of playing Merlin the Magician. He was oficer on a Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea Kirk and John Zaremba’s Dr. matched by any other science iction series. replaced by Christopher Cary. And, unaware but generally, I had a hell of a time getting Raymond Swain “We felt, being scheduled right after that veteran character actor DeForest Kelley even ordinary, working actors to do guest The Green Hornet, The Time Tunnel had an was already co-starring in Star Trek as Dr. roles on Allen’s shows. There was a real stigma excellent opportunity for success,” recalls McCoy, there was a concerted effort to get attached to science iction at the time. Moore. As the season went on, ABC was Kelley to play Abraham Lincoln in ‘The Death “Fred Gwynne, who had just inished The more concerned over sinking duds such as Trap’ episode. Ironically, Grace Lee Whitney Munsters series, was extremely offended The Monroes, Burt Reynolds’ Hawk, David (Yeoman Rand on Star Trek) was, along with when we approached him to do a Lost in Carradine’s Shane and The Milton Berle Show, Barbara Bain (Mission: Impossible), a runner Space. He took it as an insult. Many other all languishing at the bottom of the ratings. up for ’s Dr. MacGregor role. actors felt Irwin’s shows, particularly Lost in The Time Tunnel attracted some big-name “There were many casting headaches,” Space and Land of the Giants, were beneath guests such as Michael Rennie, John Saxon, afirms casting director Larry Stewart, who them and could hurt their career. I recall Robert Walker, Victor Jory, Michael Ansara, later directed episodes of shows such as dancer Cyd Charisse backing out of a Land of Carroll O’Connor, Jim Davis and Ellen Burstyn, Bionic Woman. “Irwin Allen loved big-name the Giants, deciding at the last minute that who devoted a page of her recent autobiography stars and he wanted them to appear on his TV it wasn’t her kind of show. At Irwin’s bequest, to the bizarre incidents that occurred during the shows. The problem was, feature- ilm names Richard Basehart did a uncredited cameo in ilming of her Krakatoa episode. demanded feature-ilm salaries and we did a Lost in Space episode (‘The Derelict’)but he Dennis Hopper initially appeared as a not have the budget for that. It was terribly was adamant no one ind out.” cowardly businessman in the Titanic episode frustrating when Irwin’s friends like Red Stewart had his own actor favourites. “Rendezvous with Yesterday” but his role was Buttons, Edward G. Robinson, and Groucho “Malachi Throne and John Crawford were

INFINITY 53 Name of feature

Above: terriic. They were not household names stand there, helpless. Ann pushes her This promotional but they were wonderful actors. When we dumbfounded superiors out of the way, rips shot for the show doesn’t seem at cast the ‘Krakatoa’ episode, Walter Pidgeon several wires out of a console, jams them all staged… was considered to play the scientist but he into the dying man’s chest, then turns on the wanted too high a fee. We ended up casting electricity, successfully shocking him back to Torin Thatcher, someone we could afford. He life. And when Tony is killed by an explosion did a ine job. The fact that we got as many at the Battle of Gettysburg, her superiors marvellous actors as we did on The Time Tunnel immediately write Tony off as dead. Instead, was partly because everyone loves to dress up. a deiant Ann uses a time tunnel power surge They saw it as a history-adventure show rather to jolt Tony back to life. than science iction and unlike Voyage or Lost There were also interesting sub-plots back in Space, we didn’t have to convince them to at the tunnel – in one episode, an elderly act opposite those damned monsters.” physician plunges into a deep depression over his mandatory retirement. He is granted BUDGET RESTRAINTS permission to be sent back to 1805, to live An early complaint by viewers was that the out his life as a useful doctor. A terminally two travellers rarely went into the future. “That ill General in ‘The Last Patrol’ is sent back in “must have a likeable, believable quality,’ was due to budget,” says writer Bob Duncan. time to confront his brilliant ancestor over and at one point a young Gene Hackman was “Historical periods meant we could use a lot of why he made such a tragic military decision considered. St. Joseph recalls his friend, the stock footage from the old 20th Century Fox during the war of 1812. late playwright William Inge, breaking into movies. Irwin also hated ilming on location. Ann was bafled in ‘Death Trap’ as to why tears while watching the inal moments of the We did a story set in the 1880s and in the the tunnel kept showing Abraham Lincoln episode as Tony weeps over his dying father. dailies, you could see a jet plane lying over being assassinated in 1861 when everyone Linden Chiles got the role of Tony’s dad. Billy the Kid. They had to go back and re-shoot knew the President was murdered in 1865. “I hate television,” the actor says today. half a day’s footage. Irwin was furious!” And the technicians agonised over whether to “I’ve never owned a television set. But this Fans of The Time Tunnel included ilm star transport Tony from 13th Century Mongolia was a ine script and a wonderfully historic Jayne Mansield, Carol Burnett’s daughter in ‘Attack of the Barbarians’ after Tony timeline. James Darren and I discussed how Carrie and (a then) ten year-old Tom Hanks, declares his desire to abandon time travel to play that inal scene, where he’s cradling who years later conided to David Letterman and marry a Princess. In ‘Night of the Long his dying father in his arms. It turned that he would make “slow-motion tumbles” Knives,’ a headstrong young technician (Sam out very well.” Chiles does recall that “our onto his sofa as a boy, imitating the landings Groom) lobbies General Kirk to send him director, Bill Hale, went over schedule and so of Tony and Doug. And while the time tunnel back in time, so that he can permanently Irwin Allen took over and he was not a good couldn’t retrieve Tony and Doug, they did accompany Tony and Doug on their travels. director. Everyone was relieved when Bill accidentally pick-up outsiders like an Indian “My wife and I, frankly, found some of the came back.” from the Big Little Horn, a Trojan warrior, Col. adventures of Tony and Doug predictable The Time Tunnel was essentially an Travis from the Alamo, a frightened teenager and boring,” says Duncan, who wrote several acclaimed series – Rick du Brown of UPI from 1861 and a Devil’s island inmate who scripts with his wife, Wanda. “But you could praised the cast “for playing it straight” indignantly demanded a hot supper from the devise very ingenious story twists back at the and for its unusual premise. He couldn’t get Tic Toc staff. tunnel, although that ine supporting cast was over the magniicent sets and production In ‘Crack of Doom,’ Tony was brought back limited by all that nonsensical dialogue of values. “This show must have cost a fortune!” to the tunnel, only to ind everyone frozen in ‘time lock’ or ‘power systems go!’ every week.” he raved. Bettelou Peterson of The Detroit time. In another show, Merlin the Magician Free Press said the series was “fascinating… brought both travellers back into the tunnel, A PERSONAL CONNECTION marvelouslly fantastic sets and good but once again, everyone else was frozen. In One of the highlights for Tony and Doug was performances.” ‘End of the World,’ Tony was again brought ‘Day the Sky Fell In,’ set at Pearl Harbour, Bob Shiels of The Calgary Herald found back to the tunnel, but to his horror, he found hours before the devastating Japanese attack The Time Tunnel to be a better show than the year was 1958 and the time tunnel was in 1941. Ellis St. Joseph, who wrote the script, Star Trek, partly because of an exhilarating still under construction. had lost his own father to tragedy as a young premise where contemporary men knew of The character of Ann MacGregor (Lee boy. “I wanted to bring a personal connection the horrors of the past but heart-breakingly, Meriwether) was a breakthrough for women’s to Tony, so we knew more about his life,” says were unable to change it. roles on television. As a leading scientist, St. Joseph. Tony’s father, stationed there as Cleveland Amory of TV Guide was she had no qualms about arguing with her a naval oficer, was listed as MIA after the impressed by the sets, special effects and male superiors if she felt they were wrong. In attack, setting up a confounding mystery as premise, but said the plots “make it one of ‘End of the World,’ when a young technician to his fate. A production memo emphasised the most annoying shows we have ever seen.” suffers a heart attack, her male colleagues that whomever was cast as Tony’s father, But Clay Gowran of The Chicago Tribune

54 INFINITY Name of feature

will be back,” Allen promised a sceptical Bob Mackenzie of The Oakland Tribune. But when Moore was suddenly replaced as President of ABC in early 1968, the planned revival of The Time Tunnel was scrapped by the new network management.

TIME ENOUGH AT LAST On an appearance on American Bandstand in 1970, a fan raved to James Darren about “the great old Time Tunnel series” and asked what happened to it. Darren’s friendly smile vanished and he replied coolly, “it was cancelled.” “I don’t think Irwin ever got over its loss,” says writer Ellis St. Joseph. “He took its cancellation very personally.” Allen attempted two other time projects, a Time Travellers TV movie in 1976 (starring Sam echoed the sentiments of many critics, a second year. The network understood they Above: Groom), and a unproduced script, Time praising The Time Tunnel as Irwin Allen’s best had made a mistake by giving the series a In ‘One Way to Project, in 1982. Allen admitted to The the Moon,’ Doug show. “It is truly spectacular… Darren and bad lead-in (the sinking Green Hornet), thus and Tony escape in 1979 that The Time Colbert make an attractive pair of heroes.” leaving it open to ierce competition (that death aboard the Tunnel remained “his favourite series.” Titanic only to be However, the ratings began to slide by included Man From UNCLE, Hogan’s Heroes hurled ten years The Time Tunnel won an Emmy award mid-season and Irwin Allen demanded more and ). into their future for best special effects in 1967 and the stories set in the future, with more alien The Time Tunnel was initially renewed aboard a rocket episode ‘Raiders from Outer Space,’ about bound for the creatures from outer space and even a visit for a second year, to play Wednesdays at moon purple-skinned reptile men, was nominated from Nero’s ghost. 7:30, opposite Allen’s Lost in Space series, a for its outstanding . The The best of these fantasy stories had scheduling move that infuriated Allen. Weeks series’ music theme (and much background Robert Duvall as a traitorous time tunnel later, ABC reversed their decision, feeling music) was composed and conducted by saboteur who escapes into the tunnel and its new Legend of Custer series had a better John Williams, the legendary composer for leads Tony and Doug on a chase through chance in that time slot, and The Time Tunnel Jaws, Star Wars and Schindler’s List. The Time three time eras. The horriic ending has was squeezed out of the 1967-68 line-up. “The Tunnel also inspired later time travel shows Duvall cornered and devoured by giant Time Tunnel was very successful in reaching such as Stargate and Timeless. prehistoric bees. the 6 to 18 year olds,” says Thomas Moore. In early 2016, NBC sportscaster Bob Costas “We hated those kinds of stories,” protests “And the series was critically acclaimed. and USA Today sports columnist Christine Bob Duncan. ‘We found the alien-oriented But it did not deliver the general, national Brennan, both long-time Time Tunnel fans, shows, even the ones we were forced to audiences necessary for it to continue.” Out of took James Darren out to dinner and asked write, silly in the extreme. All it did was take 110 TV shows in the 1966-67 season, The Time him dozens of questions about their favourite away from what was once a very clever and Tunnel inished in a disappointing 76th place. episodes. unique concept. Teachers all over the country In a round-table discussion with Gene Many of The Time Tunnel’s guest stars had written to us because we were getting Roddenberry (Star Trek’s creator) and also retain fond memories of the cult show. children interested in history but when we Twilight Zone guru Rod Serling in 1967, Allen “I loved it,” says Canadian actor Don Harron, began doing outer-space material, those complained that Tunnel would have been who played Robin Hood. “Usually, I was cast letters stopped. It was very disappointing. a big hit had it “not been given such an as a villain on television because I have a “Irwin Allen was a very strange man. unfortunate time slot.” natural frown on my face but here, I was able Someone once excitedly showed him a But 60,000 letters of viewer protest, and to have some fun as the hero. James Darren newspaper story about Ed White’s 1965 The Time Tunnel’s summer reruns, which was one of the wittiest people I have ever met space walk and Irwin frowned and said, “Who “clobbered” the competition, convinced ABC and it’s a shame he didn’t do more comedy.” cares? That’s only real life!” He was totally President Tom Moore to bring the series back. And Titanic “passenger” Susan Hampshire enveloped in the ictional worlds he created.” Moore and Allen agreed the 1968-69 season says, “It was THE show to do at the time, would be an ideal re-launch date, giving Allen there was a tremendous buzz about it. It obert Colbert told The Associated Press a year to unpack the Tunnel sets from storage was a very special show and it has not been Rin February 1967 that The Time Tunnel and “re-tool” a new season with story ideas. forgotten. I still get to two or three letters a had a 50/50 chance of coming back for “The Time Tunnel was a good show and it week from fans who want an autograph!”

INFINITY 55 Howard Hughe Ray Harryhau time forg the maest feat

56 INFINITY COWBOYS VS DINOSAURS

omewhere south of the Rio Grande screenplay, with additional material by the appropriate- at the turn of the 20th Century, the ly-named Julian More. There has already been a similar di- Breckenridge Wild West Show rolls nosaur-western co-scripted by O’Brien, which used the same into town. Hardly a roaring success, TJ source material in 1956, called The Beast of Hollow Mountain, Breckenridge (Gina Golan) and her crew need a lucky break. starring Guy Madison and Patricia Medina. TJ’s former beau Tuck Kirby (James Franciscus) shows up in A US-Spanish co-production from Morningside town. He’s now working as an agent, wheeling and dealing in Productions, The Valley of Gwangi was the last film of the entertainment world, and he’s there to acquire TJ’s main Ray Harryhausen’s to feature dinosaurs and the final time attraction – a trick-jumping Arabian stallion called Omar – for his stop-motion special effects technique was termed Buffalo Bill’s show. But TJ thinks she may have struck it rich ‘Dynamation’. His next film, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad when gypsies find a miniature horse in the desert, which can (1973), starring John Phillip Law, and Caroline become their new star attraction. Tuck learns of the little Munro, billed the process on posters as Dynarama: ‘Sinbad horse and immediately recognises the potential for money, Battles the Creature of Legend in the Miracle of Dynarama’. while English professor Horace Bromley (Laurence Naismith), Dynamation was the combining of models and live-shot a palaeontologist researching his ‘Theory of the Humanoid’ images into a single shot – this enabled Jason to have evolutionary thesis in the vicinity, thinks the little horse is an a swordfight duel with skeletal warriors in perhaps Eohippus, the three-toed ‘Dawn Horse’, that should have been Harryhausen’s most famous sequence, in Jason the hes explores the extinct for 50 million years. Argonauts (1963). Harryhausen had become the pre-eminent And so begins Jim O’Connolly’s The Valley of Gwangi. Even master of stop-motion special effects and had enjoyed great hausen film that in the era of Japanese giant flying moths and three-headed success with The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Earth dragons, this is one of the strangest 1960s monster movies, vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), orgot, the last of combining a travelling circus scenario and an on-off love The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Mysterious Island (1961) the stop-motion story, with a search for a lost civilisation, a prehistoric mon- and One Million Years B.C. (1966). As well as creator of visual ster-on-the-loose and a western roundup. effects on The Valley of Gwangi, he was also the associate stro’s movies to Dubbed ‘The greatest scientific discovery of the producer, with the project to be released through age’ by the professor and ‘El Diablo’ by the Wild Warner Bros-Seven Arts. Gwangi was shot by ature dinosaurs West show, the little horse becomes a bone Erwin Hillier in 1.85:1 Technicolor and Jerome of contention. The horse was found by Moross’s score harks back to his most gypsies in a desert zone known as the famous work, the galloping theme tune Forbidden Valley and the gypsies believe to the western The Big Country (1958). the Eohippus is cursed and must be One of The Valley of Gwangi’s returned home. The professor and the strengths is the casting. On-off lovers gypsies release the horse, so everyone James Franciscus and Gila Golan make sets off after it into the desert. There a handsome couple in their stylised they stumble upon the mythical, western costumes. Richard Carlson era-defying Forbidden Valley, where was TJ’s protective ringmaster Champ they encounter a menagerie of prehistoric Connors and Laurence Naismith was well creatures, including a Pteranodon cast as the enthusiastic palaeontologist, who (identified in the film as a Pterodactyl), an when mistaken for an archaeologist corrects: Ornithomimus, a horned Styracosaurus and a “We dig deeper”. mighty Tyrannosaurus, the mythical Gwangi. Freda Jackson was also memorable, and quite intimidating The explorers have a ringside seat for combat between (especially to a younger, afternoon TV audience) as the blind the latter two creatures, and the Pteranodon attacks them, gypsy witch Tia Zorina, with her dwarf sidekick played by Jose as does Gwangi. Eventually, as Gwangi tries to follow them Burgos. Gustavo Rojo was Tuck’s competition for TJ’s affections, out of the valley, it’s buried in a rockslide and knocked and tries to frame Tuck for the Eohippus’s theft – he’s unconscious. This allows the cowboys to cart the beast back vanquished as Tuck’s love rival, when he’s eaten by Gwangi. to Villa to exhibit it as ‘Gwangi the Great’, but their star Dennis Kilbane and Mario De Barros played cowboy attraction brings more than the house down. wranglers Rowdy and Bean, while young Curtis Arden was Mexican orphan Lope, who latches onto Tuck and is genuinely TYRANNOSAURUS WRECKS distraught by Gwangi’s later demise. Franciscus, Carlson The Valley of Gwangi had an usually long gestation period. and Naismith voiced themselves in the English language Ray Harryhausen’s mentor Willis O’Brien had planned to version, while Golan, Jackson and others were redubbed. Rojo make the film years before, but the project wasn’t realised was dubbed by Robert Rietty, a familiar ‘voice’ from English before his death in 1962. Harryhausen resurrected the idea, language dub-tracks of international films in the 1960s – he using O’Brien’s story ‘Valley of the Mist’, sometimes credited voiced villain Largo in Thunderball (1965) and Tiger Tanaka in as ‘Gwangi’, as its basis. William E. Bast adapted it into a You Only Live Twice (1967).

Left: The cowboys attempt to capture Gwangi in the desert, and ( above) James Franciscus and a miniature horse

INFINITY 57 Howard Hughes

Tyrannosaurus and Styracosaurus, were filmed in the Tabernas Desert. Other locations included Cuevas de la Molineta (the caves where some scenes for Conan the Barbarian were shot), the canyon of Rambla Viciana (where a wide-mouthed cave was built for this film), Gergal and Berja. The effect of shooting in Spain makes Gwangi feel much more Spanish than Mexican, probably due to the several ‘urban’ town scenes (including two scenes in bullrings) and the presence of Andalusian gypsies and flamenco dancers. Other locations were filmed further north. The distinctively shaped landscape of the Forbidden Valley, with its unusual geology of mushroom rocks, was the Ciudad Encantada, Cuenca in Castilla-La Mancha. Also known as the Enchanted City, it remains a popular tourist attraction today and also appeared in Conan the Barbarian. The location is made to look even more otherworldly with the addition of spires of rock, via a . In Valley of Gwangi, Tuck, Champ et al pass through a crevice in a cliff wall into the valley, which through the magic of cinema transports the cast from Almeria to Cuenca. The final scenes were filmed on the city THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT streets of Cuenca, and the scene when The Valley of Gwangi was filmed in Spain, Gwangi is trapped in the burning, collapsing standing in for the Mexican borderlands. The cathedral was shot at the Catedral de Santa town the Wild West show parades through María y San Julián de Cuenca. This Roman at the beginning of the story is the city of boasts a magnificent gothic Tabernas, including the Plaza del Pueblo (for façade and entrance steps, and is used the street scenes and Gran Hotel exterior) memorably in the film. When Gwangi breaks and the local bullring. The bullring featured loose from its cage, chaos ensues and the in the film’s finale was shot in Almeria’s audience flees for shelter in the cathedral. Plaza de Toros, as Villa Rosa’s corrida, for the Gwangi follows them there and Tuck, Lope unveiling of Gwangi. Much of the spectacular and TJ are menaced by the creature in the desert footage was filmed in the province cathedral’s vaulted nave, until the building of Almeria in Andalucia, southern Spain. catches fire, spelling Gwangi’s doom. This Mediterranean setting, so familiar Above: from scores of spaghetti westerns, is as PTERRIFYING! One of Ray recognisable to retro film fans today as The presence of dinosaur-versus-dino- Harryhausen’s original sketches, and the Dell America’s Monument Valley. saur combat and flying Pterosaurs recall comic book of the film, Many exteriors were shot in the arid Harryhausen’s work on Raquel Welch’s One published in 1969 under their ‘Movie badlands of the Tabernas Desert. The sand Million Years B.C. Life-sized models were used Classics’ banner dunes, where Tuck first meets Professor for close-up sequences (for example, the Bromley and is shown some fossilised scene where Carlos wrestles with the downed Opposite: Carlos (Gustavo Rojo) horse tracks were at Cabo De Gata, on the Pteranodon), with animated models for other wrestles with a downed Mediterranean coast. The background shots. The scene where TJ dives her white Pteranodon to some scenes with dinosaurs, like the Arabian horse Omar from a raised 40-foot Pteranodon scene or the fight between the platform into a fiery water tank, was also an

58 INFINITY THE BEAST UNLEASHED The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956) was co-scripted by Willis O’Brien. It was based on his ‘dinosaurs and cowboys’ idea – known variously as ‘Gwangi’, ‘Valley of the Mist’ and ‘El Toro Estrella’ – that he’d been striving to bring to the screen for years. Set in Mexico, Hollow Mountain is for the most part the story of a Texan cattle rancher, Jimmy Ryan (Guy Madison), and his conflicts with local Mexican ranchers. Ryan’s cattle (and some people) have gone missing in the vicinity of the nearby Hollow Mountain and a mysterious swamp where superstitions abound. Patricia Medina played Sarita, who is engaged to be married to Ryan’s ranching rival Enrique Rios (Eduardo Noriega), but she’s having second thoughts. Ryan’s fearful ranch hands desert him, and the only staff he can get is Panchito (Mario Navarro), a young Mexican boy, and his alcoholic father Pancho (Pascual Garcia Peña), whose unexplained disappearance prompts a search of the swamp. For the most part, this plays like a straight western drama, but 20 minutes from the end, the cause of the cattle disappearances is revealed to be – with no explanation or elaboration whatsoever – a prehistoric Allosaurus, which is rendered hereClockwise in jittery stop-motion animation. The film was co-directedfrom above left: by Edward Nassour and Ismael Rodriguez,Carpenter and effects shot, as were the sequences featuring of the burning cathedral were also composite co-produced by Nassour and his brother William.directs Keith The Gordon in the Eohippus. In the long shots of Gwangi shots – the lower part of the screen was the stop-motion special effects shots were createdChristine, at being transported by cart across the desert exterior of Cuenca Cathedral, with a crowd of Nassour Studios on Sunset Blvd, Hollywood,Karen but Allen the at Cabo De Gata, a full-sized model of Gwangi extras looking on, while the upper part was a rest of the film was shot in Mexico. Exteriorsand Jeffwere Bridges in was built. A full-sized Gwangi head was also burning model. In the main, these effects shots filmed in Morelos (on locations later used Starmanin such, films used for the scene when Tuck binds the beast’s work very well, though the more clear and as The Magnificent Seven (1960) and Two KurtMules Russell for and Kim jaws with rope. digitised the films become on DVD and blu-ray, Sister Sara (1970), with interiors at ChurubuscoCattrall Studios, The action scenes involving the live actors the easier it is to detect and unpick their Mexico City. experience and the dinosaurs are undoubtedly the film’s effects and the processes used to create them. Shot in what is billed as ‘the New NassourBig TroubleRegiscope In Little best. Lope is carried off by the Pteranodon, The Valley of Gwangi was co-produced by Process – Animation in Depth’, Hollow MountainChina, gory is Gwangi tussles with a circus elephant and a Harryhausen and Charles H. Schneer. With surprisingly well made and picturesque. Sceneshappenings such from Prince Styracosaurus, and the film’s centrepiece is the the intricate, time-consuming effects work, as Sarita’s rendezvous with Ryan in a vastof graveyard Darkness cowboys’ capture of Gwangi in the desert. the project was in production for over 18 and a Mexican fiesta look splendid in CinemaScope.and aliens in in This extended sequence begins with months. So much so that by the time it was Unfortunately the monster lets the film down,They Live with Tuck being ambushed by the monster at a completed the studio management at Warner a plasticine look that’s less Gwangi, more Morph. As waterhole, then the riders attempt to lasso the Bros-Seven Arts had changed. The company in The Valley of Gwangi, love rivalries are settled by monster, while the Styracosaurus attacks their had only been formed in 1967 and the Kinney prehistoric intervention and the 79-minute running camp in a cave. The scenes where Gwangi is National Company bought it in 1969. Gwangi time even manages to cram in a cattle stampede. For lassoed by the cowboys were filmed by having was still released under the ‘Warner Bros-Seven the finale, the creature mauls an equally plasticine the actors and stuntmen holding onto ropes Arts’ banner in September 1969, but shortly steer, concusses Enrique and menaces Panchito in the tied to a ‘Monster stick’ in the back of a Jeep. afterwards, the ‘Seven Arts’ was dropped from swamp, until Ryan lures it to its doom by swinging on The animated Gwangi model replaced the jeep the company name. a rope, like a live-bait Tarzan, and the monster tumbles and stick in the projected effect footage, to The new owners had little confidence in into the mire. create one shot of the Tyrannosaurus being Gwangi and due to a lack of publicity, the film roped by his captors. This scene alone took failed at the box office. It was passed with an two months to complete, from filming to end A certificate by the BBFC for release in the result, and combines on location footage with UK on 15 August 1969. In the US it was rated stop-motion animation. G. It is one of Ray Harryhausen’s lesser films, The unveiling of Gwangi in Villa Rosa’s but its fans still have a great deal of affection bullring involved the curtain being raised by for it. The Valley for Gwangi seems to have a hot air balloon, an intricate sequence with enjoyed a new lease of life, via TV showings several components to the action – the arena – the BBC first screened the film on UK TV in backdrop, actors, an elephant and Gwangi. As June 1982. It’s one of those films that even if the curtain raises, the audience is greeted with you don’t know it by name, you’ll know it from the sight of the gypsy dwarf being savaged by the synopsis: the western with the dinosaur in the beast in its cage. For the finale, the shots the circus.

INFINITY 59 SOFA SO GOOD WHO CLIFFHANGERS - GOOD AND BAD

Like any popular TV serial, Doctor Who excelled at leaving its audience on a cliffhanger, ratcheting up the tension for next week’s episode. But some were more successful than others, as Eugene Smith reports…

good Doctor Who cliffhanger is a thing of beauty. It can scare, entice, bewilder or excite like Alittle else. It can leave you in almost unbearable tension as you are forced to wait a whole week for the . Or it could just have someone pointing a gun at the Doctor. So in no particular order here are 20 of the best and worst cliffhangers. Can you seen production photos of David Tennant from The tell which is which? Next Doctor. Ah, the power of television. And hope. 6) Vengeance on Varos, Part One. “And cut it…now.” Everyone else always mentions this, so I suppose I’d better. It is great though.

1) . has stolen the TARDIS, leaving the Doctor and friends with a pack of baying Futurekind. Truly jaw-dropping, this is a rare instance of a cliffhanger where you genuinely have no idea 7) The War Machines, Episode. One. how they’re going to get out alive. To maintain “Doctor Who is required…” the tension the ‘Next Time’ trailer avoids showing Just because it really, really pisses off the fanboys. the regulars, something ‘’ rather slipped up on. It’s resolved in a somewhat pat fashion, and in fact some people say the better the cliffhanger the more trite the resolution must be. Not true, see - 4) Planet of the Spiders, Part Four. The Doctor walks into a cell and points at his guards. You’d think they would have made a little more effort for Jon’s final story (no, I’m not going to say “swansong”). 8) Destiny of the Daleks, Episode One. The Daleks take Romana prisoner. It’s an odd one this. The Daleks smashing through the wall is cool, but once they’ve made their big entrance they simply screech “Do Not Move” repeatedly, despite Romana making no attempt 2) , Part One. The to go anywhere. They’ve got previous for this, Doctor and Peri are facing a firing squad. many a Dalek campaign has been lost due to their Armed with machine guns. propensity for shouting about what they’re going Who open fire... to do rather than actually doing it, like a randy Outstanding stuff. Anyone who claims that they drunk on the phone to his girlfriend. Although, the knew how it was going to be resolved is a filthy liar. one time they actually opened fire on the Doctor without warning, their guns had been disabled 3) The Stolen Earth. The Doctor starts to by the Exillon City, so maybe they’re playing regenerate. it safe to avoid looking so stupid again. Either Alright, the resolution here was a bit of a let-down. 5) Planet of the Spiders, Part Five. Bearded way, this marks the point where the production But that didn’t stop me starting to believe that men fire lightning bolts at Tommy. team realised they really, really couldn’t pull this we’d have a new Doctor next week. Despite having And he’s not even in this one! What’s going on? “surprise Dalek reveal” trick any more.

60 INFINITY on. Only 12 feet? Yet despite landing on her back 9) The End of Time, Part One. Rassillon she’s completely unharmed and climbing up that gives one hell of a motivational talk to rocket in seconds. Never mind moaning about the Time Lords. 13) The Underwater Menace, Episode One. the drowning stuff, Mary Whitehouse should have This is pretty exciting. Shame about all the crap Polly is prepared for fishification. used this in her “What if the children copy what either side of it. Terrifying because you realise there’s another they see on Doctor Who?” campaign. The show three episodes of this shit to sit through. would have been cancelled within days.

14) Dragonfire, Part One. The Doctor hangs off a cliff. Some call it “metatextual”. Some call it “self-referen- tial”. Some call it “toss”.

18) The Time of Angels. The Doctor makes a speech about traps and fires his gun. 10) , Episode Three. The Matt Smith’s wonderful performance was UNIT convoy is hit by a bomb. totally ruined in the UK by a CGI Graham In the same way that a Doctor doesn’t feel “official” Norton prancing around at the bottom of until he meets the Daleks, a companion needs the screen. After the Rose debacle, it seems their own cliffhanger to confirm their standing. that Norton is determined to appear in So it is strange that only one of the UNIT regulars Who one way or the other. Probably best to gets a cliffhanger, and it is even stranger that this 15) The Sontaran give him a cameo to avoid this sort of thing accolade was bestowed not upon the Brigadier or Experiment, Part happening again. Because one thing is clear – stalwart but Captain Yates, surely One. The story’s he will never, ever stop. the UNIT equivalent of The Tomorrow People’s monster is revealed Kenny. As if this wasn’t glory enough, the Brigadier as...a Sontaran. 19) Earthshock, even calls him “Mike”! And how does Yates repay Proving that Terry Nation didn’t have the Part One. this kindness? He condemns everyone to death monopoly on lame cliffhangers. OH MY GOD IT’S during Operation Golden Age. Terrible man. THE CYBERMEN! I was ten when Earthshock was broadcast, which meant that I had no real memories of the Cybermen. Oh, sure, I’d read about them, seen pictures, even seen the blob in a snowstorm from last year’s Carnival of Monsters repeat. So when they slammed into view I was slightly nonplussed, leading to a lifetime of envy and resentment towards those who did experience the collective 16) Daleks in . thrill. Don’t know what it’s doing on this list really. 11) Terror of the , Part One. The human Dalek hybrid is revealed. Sarah’s phone call is interrupted. Slightly spoiled by the putting Sec The obvious cliffhanger should be when Harry gets on the previous week’s cover. As if there wasn’t shot in the head with a real gun. However, what we enough already wrong with this story. get is genuinely scary, the ’s open mouth is still disturbing to this day. That DWM advert about 17) Genesis of the Daleks, Part Two. bedwetting came far, far too late. Sarah falls off the rocket straight into a freeze-frame. 12) The Face of Evil, I know this is about cliff-hangers Part Three. Huge Tom but the resolution to this 20) , Part One. The R1C plunges Baker faces shouting episode of The Fan’s towards certain doom. and screaming. Favourite Story™ really, Except we don’t get to see that. We get to see the There’s any number of really blows. We see that main cast. Sitting on a couch. What’s even more jokes to be made here, all she’s only fallen about 12 shocking is that this is by far the story’s most of which I am going to feet, so she gets up and exciting cliffhanger. rise above. starts climbing again. Hold

INFINITY 61

Ian Millsted takes a look at the science fiction films of the Children’s Film Foundation,Supersonic including and its early Saucer E.T. version of

62 INFINITY JUVENILE SCI-JINX

was always aware of the Children’s Film Foundation without ever Ihaving actually watched any of their productions as a child. I grew up in a small village and didn’t have access to Saturday morning cinema clubs, so I compensated by watching London Weekend Television’s showings of the Adam West Batman and Ron Ely in Tarzan with continuity links by the engaging Sally James. How I knew about the CFF was from a BBC programme called Screen Test, which was broadcast throughout the 1970s. For readers outside the U.K. Screen Test was a film quiz with questions of a rather dull, comprehension type but what it did offer, at a time when such things were not easily accessible, was the opportunity to see extended film clips. Among the clips from recent box office successes and old favourites were extracts from the many films of the Children’s Film Foundation. At the time I found these intriguing. They looked fun in a slightly old fashioned kind of way but I had never heard of them anywhere else. Nobody I knew went to Saturday morning pictures. I never the day through the saw anything from writings of Enid Blyton CFF shown in full on and others, albeit with television (they only added science fiction started selling films to elements. However television in the 1980s). there are a number of What were these films? things about the film For the answer to that which add value. question we have to go back The central story has to the late 1940s when film the child protagonists find and supremo J. Arthur Rank was keen to establish contact with an alien they call ensure that there were suitable films being Meba. It has been noted by a number of shown at the already numerous Saturday critics and viewers over the years that the morning children’s film clubs. Initially he Meba character seems to foreshadow E.T. the arranged for such films to be made by his Extra Terrestrial (1982) in a number of ways. own studios but from 1951 the baton was The physical appearance of the two aliens handed on to the newly formed Children’s is similar, despite the massive disparity in Film Foundation. special effects budgets, and the concept of The funding for the CFF came from the the lost alien and lonely children each adding Eady Levy which was a sales tax on cinema to the other’s lives runs strongly in both. tickets at the time, with the money being I’m not suggesting in any way that put back into the production of films in Supersonic Saucer influenced E.T. It is highly the U.K. The Children’s Film Foundation improbable that Steven Spielberg ever saw commissioned and distributed the films but this film. What we have is a coincidence, but mostly the production side was handled by an interesting one for what it tells us about existing film companies, large and small. themes that resonate with young audiences. To this day the films of the CFF go under Also of note is the central role given to the radar of most film viewers. Virtually none the girls. Although the film starts with a moving (most CFF features ran to somewhere Top: of their output is listed in print film guides know-it-all boy, Rodney, explaining to a between fifty and sixty minutes), has simple Filming Masters of Venus, which is like Halliwell’s or the Radio Times guide. friend why two girls have to stay at his home, but adequate special effects and decent shown in the main The internet movie data base () gives also a boarding school, in the holidays, this performances. picture opposite

minimal information. And yet, from the 1950s is a subtle misdirection. It is the two girls, As well as short feature films, the CFF Above: to the 1970s they were seen by millions of Sumac and Greta, who lead events. At one also made serials designed to be shown Saturday morning people and provided early work for actors point Sumac, who is not only (gasp) a girl but over consecutive weeks. One such was the matinees for children were well such as Michael Crawford and Susan George. is also (double gasp) from another continent, eight-part The Young Jacobites (1960) in attended back says to Rodney, “I know I’m not as clever as which children are transported back in in the 1950s and 1960s The Past is Another Planet you but…” and proceeds to explain what they time to the days of Bonnie Prince Charlie. The first science fiction production of the should all do next. The audience knows she’s Alongside a young Francesca Annis, sf fans Insert: The E.T.-like alien CFF was Supersonic Saucer in 1956. Its smarter, and so does everyone but Rodney. will note the key roles taken by Jeremy from Supersonic pedigree was promising, with the story Also of interest to sf fans is the presence in Bulloch (Boba Fett in the Star Wars films) and Saucer concept coming from Frank Wells, the son the cast of Donald Gray who would go on to , pre-empting his role as a young of H.G. Wells. But on the face of it the film provide the voices for Captain Black, Colonel highlander in Doctor Who. is just another in the standard kids against White and the Mysterons in Gerry Anderson’s Another serial, and perhaps the epic criminal gang story, familiar to children of Captain Scarlet. The film is a hoot. It is fast among these films, was Masters of Venus

INFINITY 63 Above: A group of school children come upon an alien from Venus in Supersonic Saucer

This image, below and opposite: A spaceship from Earth lands on Venus and encounters a race of beings that the crew begins to suspect are descended from the lost city of Atlantis in Masters of Venus

Sally Thomsett (The Railway Children) and Jack Wild (Oliver) alongside several familiar (1962). This starts as another example of character actors. children trying to foil villains but develops into a full-on interplanetary adventure with The Children of Invention the children finding themselves travelling One of the criticisms made against CFF films to Venus. I watched this with my young in the 50s and early 60s is that they seemed daughter thinking she might find it unso- to be set on an alien world where all the phisticated and a bit old hat, but she sat children spoke the Queen’s English in a posh enthralled. While some of the special effects fashion, behaved with impeccable morals fall short there is some excellent camera and were routinely smarter than any adult. work going on and the sets are well designed. As the organisation moved into the 1970s The young cast are good and include Zienia there were noticeably more regional accents Merton who later went on to work on the and working class characters. Doctor Who serial Marco Polo (1964) and Although there are more films which became a regular in Space 1999. can be loosely described as science The serial format seemed the preferred fiction the films were becoming jokier and option for CFFs science fictional output in the sf elements were being used as plot the 60s with Danny the Dragon following devices more than key storylines. This is in 1967. More space fantasy than straight demonstrated in the brace of films starring sf, and played more for laughs it features future children’s TV presenter Keith Chegwin as the son of an inventor. While some of the special effects fall short there is some In Egghead’s Robot (1970), the robot of the title is a double of the Chegwin character, excellent camera work going on and the sets are well while in The Troublesome Double (1971) his younger sister has a robot double. If the designed. The young cast are good and include Zienia budgets on these films were small it did not seem to deter some significant film makers Merton who later went on to work on the Doctor Who serial from being willing to work on them. For Egghead’s Robot the cinematography was Marco Polo (1964) and became a regular in Space 1999. done by John Coquillon between his work on Witchfinder General and Straw Dogs.

64 INFINITY An even more significant name came to ening alien helps foil the greedy schemes Children’s Film Foundation productions in of unpleasant adults. I particularly like the 1972 when famed director Michael Powell way the youngest child dismisses Kadoyng directed The Boy Who Turned Yellow. Powell with “He’s a nutter!” years before that phrase is one of the finest and most accomplished became overused. British film directors to have worked in the Children also find and befriend an alien in industry with classic films such as The Thief the well regarded The Glitterball (1977). This is of Baghdad (1940), Black Narcissus (1947), one of the most accomplished science fiction A Matter of Life and Death (1946), The Red films the CFF ever did. Plotwise it is another Shoes (1948) and many others to his name. variant on the tried and tested plot of an alien Not only did Powell direct but he also coming to Earth and finding that children encouraged his former screen writing partner accept and help it while adults seek to Emeric Pressburger to write the script. “I exploit it. However, ‘The Glitterball’ combines knew how much Emeric would have loved to humour, pathos and strong visuals to produce write for children and one day I suggested it a film which stands the test of time. to an appalled board,” is how Powell described The decision to have the alien in the form it in his autobiography, Million Dollar Movie. of a stainless steel sphere was inspired and As one might expect from this creative the model effects of the mother ship and pairing, The Boy Who Turned Yellow is an smaller craft were done by Brian Johnson eccentric and memorable film, hindered only and his colleagues after hours, but with the by a really bad wig in the second half of the agreement of Gerry Anderson, while they film. Even at the end of his career, Michael were working on Space 1999. Powell was a filmmaker ahead of his time. Although many of the films of the 70s Gadgets and gimmicks became the order were largely comedies with sf elements of the day. A football goal repeller featured there were some films in which the drama in Blinker’s Spy Spotter (1971). A formula was played straight. The Sea Children (1973) allowing people to shrink in size was behind showed underwater divers discovering a Professor Popper’s Problems in 1974. Look previously unknown world while One Hour to out for a pre-Grange Hill Todd Carty in that Zero (1976) showed two boys return to their one alongside lead actor Charlie Drake. In The town, close by a (nuclear?) power station, to Flying Sorcerer (1974) time travel is again the find it oddly deserted. focus of the story; this time to the Middle Ages. Where’s Johnny? (1974) makes use of invisibility End Credits just before the David McCallum series of The Among later productions of the CFF there Invisible Man arrived on TV screens. Clothing was still room for science fiction. Time travel endowing its wearer with super powers featured again featured in A Hitch in Time (1978). in Sammy’s Super T-Shirt (1978). This was another case of an industry veteran As well as human inventions there were coming to the CFF. The screenplay for the also more visitors from space. Kadoyng film was by T.E.B. Clarke who had previously (1972) is a fun film in which a non-threat- scripted classics such as The Lavender Hill

INFINITY 65 This image: The Boy Who Turned Yellow, directed by Michael Powell and written by Emeric Pressburger

Below: A Hitch in Time, with Patrick Troughton as Professor Wagstaff, Pheona McLellan as Fiona and Michael McVey as Paul

Mob (1951) for Ealing Films. Present in front releasing the best of those films on DVD. of the camera was former Doctor Who star Supersonic Saucer, Kadoyng and The Patrick Troughton, fresh from big budget Glitterball are all available on the single disc films The Omen (1976) and Sinbad and the collection Outer Space, while The Boy Who Eye of the Tiger (1977). This proved to be Turned Yellow and A Hitch in Time can be Troughton’s final film credit. After this he found along with the fantasy The Monster worked solidly in television. of Highgate Ponds on the Weird Adventures As late as 1984 there came Gabrielle and disc. Masters of Venus has also been the Doodleman, in which a young, wheel- released. All of these have been prepared chair-bound girl is aided by characters from with care taken over transfer to DVD and her computer games. Veteran comedy actor/ usually with detailed accompanying booklet. writer Eric Sykes was to be found among a More releases are likely to be forthcoming. cast of familiar faces, mostly from television. So while I never got to see these films as And television it was that lay behind the a child, I have found much to enjoy in them decline of the Saturday morning cinema as an adult. I’m pleased to have been able to clubs and therefore the need for product to watch them again with my daughter while be supplied by CFF. In addition the funding she is the viewing age they were intended from the Eady Levy ended in 1985. for. It’s unlikely there will ever again be The Children’s Film Foundation ceased to anything like the Children’s Film Foundation commission new productions soon after the but the films they made still exist and can be Eady Levy was cut. For some time after that enjoyed by new generations. they were active in selling their back catalogue for television broadcast. In recent years the (With particular thanks to Vic Pratt of British Film Institute has been actively involved the BFI and to Bethan Millsted for offering in preserving the catalogue of CFF films and in a nine-year old’s perspective.)

66 INFINITY z

JOIN ME AND MY ‘SHADO’ IN THE NEXT OUT-OF-THIS WORLD ISSUE OF

THE MAGAZINE BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION www.infinitymagazine.co.uk

e have another heady brew of cult TV delights awaiting ISSUE 7 - LANDING 04.01.18 you in our next amazing issue of Britain’s most Wretro-tastic sci-fi and cult TV mag. First of all we will be transporting you back to the super-groovy England of 1980, which is under extraterrestrial attack. Luckily we have the Yanks to bail us out as always in the shape of former American Air Force Colonel, astronaut, and test pilot Ed Straker (), now head of SHADO, the Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defence Organisation. Yep, we are talking Gerry Anderson’s UFO, a show that was the great puppet master’s first foray into live-action television. We’ll be looking into the making of it as well as bringing you more Captain Scarlet coverage in the form of an exclusive interview with Chris Bentley, author of Captain Scarlet: The Vault. Also lined up for next issue is a fantastic feature on Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), aka My Partner the Ghost if you saw it in the USA. The series was not a hit on its first transmission in Britain, but we all loved it back then and we love it even more today. The vintage TV fun continues with a piece on Battlestar Galactica and an appreciation of the late Terry Nation, most famous for creating those barking pepperpots, the Daleks. And in keeping with offering you the most eccentric features you will find in any British sci-fi mag we will be bringing you a nice feature on science fiction stories in girls’ comics of the 1970s. Would you believe they even had them in Bunty? Another old TV show that we loved was Man in a Suitcase (1967-1968) and in a weird way our feature on it next time round ties in with this issue’s awesome coverage of The Prisoner. When Richard Bradford’s tough American hero McGill leaves a woman’s flat in one episode she says “Be seeing you”, a phrase made famous in The Prisoner. In the next scene he is seen landing in a helicopter, supposedly in Italy. But the location is actually Portmeirion in Wales where The Prisoner was filmed. See? Stick with us and you can really impress your mates down the pub. That’s not all of course, expect something fascinating on The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, more Saturday morning cartoon super-heroes and that previously promised guide to the maddest Italian sci-fi movies of all time, as well as lots more stuff that we plan to surprise you (and ourselves) with. Make a stardate with us at your local newsagent or better still send us your subs money and we will beam the issue direct to your door!