The 22 Festival of Fantastic Films 2011
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The 22nd Festival Of Fantastic Films 2011 July 2011 Volume 22 Issue It is vital that those members Two who want to stay at the hotel contact them now ( quoting Festival of Fantastic Films / Days Hotel Liam Earl ) as the limited Aka Manchester Conference st rd rooms we had are rapidly Centre October 21 to 23 going, and if not booked 2011 before the 1st September ( BOOKED NOT PAID ) then those free rooms will be released and subsequently Welcome to the second charged at the hotels normal nd Progress report for the 22 rates. You have been Festival being held over the warned. weekend of 21st 23rd October 2011. As previously "Monsters, John. Monsters from mentioned we are returning to the Id." Forbidden Planet (1956 Days Hotel Aka Manchester Conference Centre on Sackville Since the first report was sent Street in Manchester. out you will all have heard the very sad news about the death "I am...Drac-u-la. I bid you of Marge Edwards who was a welcome." crucial part of the Festival Dracula (1931) team – she will be sadly couple of Richard’s movies missed including Horror Hospital. ------------- Renee Glynne who has had more to do with movies and for a longer time will be a great guest so it is worth coming for her alone. ----------- One of our closest friends Norman J Warren has been attending as a regular for many R I P – Marge mmany years now, and we felt that it was We will be about time having the "Look! It's moving. It's alive. It's that he got pleasure, all alive... It's alive, it's moving, it's his name up things alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, before the considering, IT'S ALIVE!" lights for a of the return Frankenstein (1931) change – so of one of our we will be favourite doing a people after a few years of ill Norman J Warren special which health, Richard Gordon has a will include a trio of his movies new book coming out later this including Inseminoid, Satan’s year . Slave & Prey – what else could you possibly want. --------- As Robin Askwith has written ------ a forward to the book he has Most of you from outside agreed to return so it should be Manchester may not know Dr C great fun, Robin appeared in a P Lee ( yes it is Christopher – but no not that one ), he is a “The Rockabilly Rasputin” Film Historian at Salford began his enthusiasm for horror University. Chris has done films at an early age. Born in many talks in Manchester on San Fernando, in 1948, young Manchester movies both made Johnny’s penchant for the here and set here. Chris will be offbeat was soon shown when doing a special presentation to he befriended his family’s us on the movie career of Cliff hulking neighbour Tor Johnson, Twemlow. He is great to talk to wrestler and star of Ed Wood and is very knowledgeable ( his spectaculars, including Plan 9 jokes aren’t the best but you from Outer Space. can’t have everything. Johnny naturally gravitated to _________ Forrey Ackerman’s place, where he met Ed Wood, who "R-o-s-e-b-u- autographed d." the young Citizen Kane enthusiast’s "Oh, no. It wasn't the airplanes. It (1941) first edition of was Beauty killed the Beast." “Famous Of course we King Kong (1933) Monsters of already Filmland”. mentioned last PR that we have the pleasure of both Derek When Johnny formed his Fowlds & returning for a original band in 1966, they were second visit Derren Nesbitt. in competition with such up- and-coming L.A. groups as The ------------- Doors. So Johnny brought into play his trump card – an old LEGEND BY NAME... Outer Limits monster costume, bought at an auction. Johnny Legend can boast a wildly unique career as film One of the band would don the producer, director, writer, Giant Garbage Eater outfit and musician, actor, wrestling hand out fliers encouraging manager and promoter. people to attend their next gig on Sunset Strip. Johnny finally entered the film The great bearded one also industry in the early 1970s, came up with the idea of using his extensive knowledge Wrestling Extravaganzas with Rockabilly Music is mixed in of horror movies to write trailers with the bouts. However, for AIP. He also appeared as a Johnny was at the centre of one stoned hippy falling down a of oddest feuds in sporting flight of stairs in the then topical history when he defeated “shockumentary” Pot Parents Cheryl “Lightning” Russa, and Police. legendarily winning himself the A.I.W.A. World Women’s The only way was up – and Championship, after which, it back to music - so that by 1973 seems, he proclaimed himself to be a devout feminist. Johnny was at the heart of LA’s rockabilly revival. In the early '80s, Johnny was touring Europe wearing a Confederate-general’s uniform, proclaiming “The South Will Rise Again”, the mantra from Herschell Gordon Lewis’ 1964 schlocker Two Thousand Maniacs. As an actor, Johnny went on to various grim fates in horror films such as Children of the Corn III, as well as appearing in a nationwide Budweiser In 1977, Johnny had co-written commercial. He played a and produced a successful demented Country & Western record sung by one of the singer in the 1998 giant killer superstars of old time wrestling, cockroach confection Bug Freddie Blassie. Buster, seizing the opportunity to sing his unforgettable ditty “I The pair teamed up again six Itch Like a Sonofabitch”. years later when Johnny co- produced, co-directed and co- wrote the movie My Breakfast With Blassie, which also starred Andy Kauffman in what turned out to be his last film. Said to have been shot in four-and-a- half hours on a single day, it features Andy and Blassie chatting over breakfast about the kind of stuff that didn’t make it in to My Dinner With Andre – wrestling, pancakes and how to keep your hands clean. Johnny Legend has also become a key man rediscovering lost low-budget horror and exploitation moves. After seeing "Switchblade Sisters" in 1976, Johnny was so impressed that he decided that Ed Woods movie from 1956 it should have a proper national release. Johnny now runs the DVD label Legend House and continues to It took 20 years, but in June tour and perform music on 1996, Quentin Tarantino came stage all over the world. to the rescue and he and Johnny managed to gain the He promises to be an film a major theatrical and video interesting interview. release. Richard Gordon, Johnny has been back on the road with Ray Steckler's early Great news that our ever- sixties horror movie The popular guest, the renowned Incredibly Strange Creatures film producer Mr Richard Who Stopped Living and Gordon, at the age of 85, Became Mixed-up Zombies, intends to travel the 3000 miles complete with people playing from his home in New York to “live monsters” in the audience, be with us again. giving modern filmgoers a taste of the great days of monster Often asked when he would movie moments. write a book about his long and varied career, his answer has Dracula foundered before invariably been “Never”. reaching London’s West End in 1951. Richard’s ingenious solution was to persuade British producer George Minter to use Bela in a movie. The result was Mother Riley Meets the Vampire and the four-week shoot at least provided the stranded Bela and his wife Lillian with enough money to return to Hollywood. However, he has now finally relented with The Horror Hits of Richard Gordon, a book-length All that will be of particular autobiographical interview by interest to another of this year’s Tom Weaver. ( It is hoped that Tom will come over with guests – C.P. Lee, an expert on Richard but as yet NOT Mancunian Films, which confirmed ). produced all the early Old Mother Riley movies. Born in London in 1925, Richard relocated to the USA in the late 1940s, producing a The Horror Hits of Richard string of cult classics including Gordon, has a forward by The Haunted Strangler, and another of this year’s guests, Corridors of Blood, both starring Robin Askwith, who starred in Boris Karloff. His other films two of Richard’s movies, Tower include Fiend Without a Face, of Evil (1973) and Horror First Man Into Space, Devil Doll Hospital (1973). & Horror. "Can you imagine the level of a One of Richard’s odder exploits mind that watches wrestling?" was coming to the rescue of Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) Bela Lugosi, when the actor was left high and dry in Britain after his theatrical tour of Robin’s appearance in the latter film somewhat easily segued into his appearance in Carry On Girls of 1973. The Horror Hits of Richard Gordon, Robin Asquith Renee Glynne Although mostly remembered for his starring role in the 1970s Renée Glynne’s amazing “Confessions” films, there’s career has spanned over half a much more to Robin than the century of the real glory days of somewhat gormless sex- the British film industry, working machine Timmy Lee in the with some of the biggest names series of “Topless Carry-Ons in the industry. Beginning in with Bottoms”. the Scenario Department at Pinewood in 1943, within two Among his first film years she was production performances, were with secretary on Brief Encounter. internationally renowned director Lindsay Anderson on If Her next job was on Caesar in 1968 and then with Italian and Cleopatra at Denham, which starred Claude Rains and director-of-the-moment Pier Vivienne Leigh, bit involved Paolo Passolini in The Renee having tea with the Canterbury Tales.