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401,249 | 7,743,887 | 398,106 | 10 | Are you going to Tossa ? | The one-off comedy special by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson that inspired the series ' Dawsons Weekly ' . Les wants to see the world . Turning up at a travel agents , he creates trouble by insisting he bring his bike indoors . The agent ( Frank Thornton ) is so keen to get rid of him he offers a list of package holidays - all are too expensive for Les . He only has £22 . He buys a ticket to fly to Tossa del Mar courtesy of the ' Kut-Price Holidays Ltd ' group . Les senses he is in for trouble when he turns up at Leeds Airport and finds the company's office located in a tent near the runway . Doris ( Mollie Sugden ) says the plane cannot take-off because the company has not sold enough tickets . Luckily , a few more holiday-makers turn up . Les is told he is carrying too much weight and has to leave most of his luggage behind . A van ferries the passengers to an ancient cargo plane , festooned with football graffiti . Inside the passengers are crowded together like cattle . The stewardess ( Patricia Hayes ) sells Les a raffle ticket . The lucky winner will receive a meal . The plane eventually takes off - albeit reluctantly . " For a moment there , I thought we were travelling by road ! " , says Les . His fellow passenger is ' Peregrine ' ( Roy Barrowclough ) , a gay coal-miner . As soon as they meet , he asks him : " Are you going to Tossa ? " . The passengers are told to get off when they get to the Pyrenees , as a bus will take them around the other side , where they will get back on the plane . Worse , the passengers are forced to hand over loose change for an unexpected refuelling . Les is skint and he has not even got there yet ! Bad package holidays were also the theme of the film ' Carry On Abroad ' in 1972 and the B . B . C . special ' Marty Abroad ' ( starring Marty Feldman ) in 1971 . Benny Hill also did a very good silent sketch on the same subject . Thanks to a terrific Galton / Simpson script and top-notch playing from all concerned , particularly Dawson and Barrowclough , this one is comedy gold from start to finish . Patricia Hayes is , as always , a joy to watch . Funniest moment - Les emerging from a toilet . He asks the stewardess where they are . " Over Luton ! " , she replies . " Good , I never went down well there ! " , says Les , before going back to pull the chain ! |
401,016 | 7,743,887 | 591,025 | 10 | And don't the kids just love him ! | The Goodies run a safari park with a difference - no animals . Coach-loads of tourists pay to see figures from the world of showbiz and light entertainment , such as Danny LaRue , Brian Rix , Steptoe & Son , the ' Gumbies ' from ' Monty Python's Flying Circus ' and so on . On losing their star attraction - Tony Blackburn ( ! ) - they elect to replace him with Rolf Harris . Travelling to the Australian outback , they pursue Rolf in a Land Rover and bring him down with a hypodermic dart . Back in England , the Australian Rolf is mated with the Russian Rolf to produce ( wait for it ) - Little Rolf . The diminutive Rolf becomes so popular the other celebrities grow jealous and set him ( and the other Rolfs ) free . London becomes infested by Rolf Harrises , all behaving like the rats from ' The Pied Piper Of Hamelin ' . As the crisis worsens , Her Majesty The Queen issues a challenge - stop the Rolfs in return for the hand of Prince Charles in marriage . Oh , and there are O . B . E's thrown in too . Guess who volunteers for the job ? Hilarious episode from the Goodies ' star year - 1975 . Marty Feldman and Dick Emery are glimpsed briefly in the Goodies ' safari park , courtesy of stock footage . A neat gag has Morecambe and Wise battling their on screen comedy rivals Mike and Bernie Winters . That frequent target of the Goodies ' humour - Tony Blackburn - appears for the first time in the show as himself . Note the cheer from one section of the studio audience when Tony is shot dead by a big game hunter ! But Blackburn's humiliation is nothing compared to that heaped upon poor Rolf Harris . Ironically , Rolf is still getting television work , which is more than can be said for the Goodies themselves . Asked about this show many years later , Rolf said he wasn't offended and would have participated if asked . Funniest moment - there are so many its hard to know where to begin . The Goodies ' trip to Australia is especially amusing , seeing how the first person they encounter is a convict . The finale in which the Rolf Harrises go on the rampage is as sidesplitting now as it was in 1975 . My personal favourite though is Bill showing off his collection of ' Rolf ' merchandise . As well as balloons and stickers bearing the legend " We Have Seen Little Rolf " , he has a walkie-talkie doll . Singing ' tie me kangaroo down , sport ' , it takes a couple of steps and falls off a table , its head coming off completely . An accident no doubt , but a happy one . |
400,738 | 7,743,887 | 747,130 | 10 | She thought her backside was a perfume factory ! | Five years after ' The Likely Lads ' ended , Bob and Terry were reunited for this superior sequel . Bob is now engaged to Thelma Chambers , whom he plans marrying in six weeks ' time . One evening , they are looking at slides of the Elm Lodge Housing Estate , when Bob accidentally pops in one featuring a drunken Terry Collier . Thelma thinks it an omen of things to come . Terry is back in England following a lengthy spell in the army . He and Bob visit a Soho strip club but fail to see one another . By another startling coincidence , they share the same railway carriage , but the lights go out . It is only when Bob tells this ' stranger ' the hilarious tale of how his best friend came to be in the army that Terry realises who he is with . . . The early ' 70's saw a slew of revived B . B . C . sitcoms - ' Till Death Us Do Part ' , ' Steptoe & Son ' , ' Sykes ' - and all were better than they had been before . And not only because they were now in colour . ' Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads ' worked because Clement and La Frenais had matured as writers . Ditto the cast . You don't hear Bolam and Bewes going ' eee ' or ' by the cringe ! ' anymore . Secondly , the passing of time allowed Bob and Terry to change ; the former has a well-paid job , is engaged to an attractive woman , and has the Elm Lodge Housing Estate to look forward to , while the latter is bit of a misfit , embittered at having missed out on The Permissive Society ( it did not really exist , but Terry was not to know that ) . These changes strengthened the characters , made the show even funnier . Its fair to say that the comedy came out of the characters , rather than the other way round . The dialogue here is fantastic , as are the performances . Brigit Forsyth made her debut as ' Thelma ' ( though the character had been mentioned in the earlier shows ) , and was promptly christened ' The Dreaded Thelma ' by Observer critic Clive James . Why I do not know . She may be a bit possessive , but she's not remotely fearsome . With Terry Collier hovering around in the background , any sensible woman would worry . Funniest moment - for me , its the moment when the lights go on in the carriage , and Terry snaps at Bob . " You b - - - - - d ! " . It does not look funny here , but take it from me , on screen its hilarious ! |
401,222 | 7,743,887 | 706,356 | 10 | Terror From The Past ! | An unknown object is picked up on Alpha's scanners . It is Voyager One , a space probe of Earth origin launched during the 1970's to explore the universe , conveying a message of peace and goodwill . The probe is equipped with the Queller Drive - a revolutionary form of propulsion using fast neutrons . It proved dangerous , however , resulting in the destruction of an entire community , and its creator - Dr . Ernst Queller - was forced to go into hiding . The obvious solution is to blast Voyager 1 before it can reach the Moon . But Professor Bergman objects as it contains important information . While the debate rages , a physicist named Dr . Linden steps forward and identifies himself as Dr . Queller . He brings the probe down safely , but then a new menace appears . A fleet of space ships , under the command of Aarchon , Chief Justifier of the Federated Worlds of Sidon , arrives . Voyager 1 was responsible for the destruction of two of their outer worlds , and he intends to exact revenge by destroying the race who built it . . . I do not recall seeing this Johnny Byrne-penned episode during the show's premiere run in 1975 , nor during the 1978 and 1982 repeats on H . T . V . I cannot believe it was banned - if that was the case , it is hard to see why - but my first viewing was in 1992 when it was included as part of I . T . C . ' s video releases . This strong episode boasts for once a threat created by human technology . An Earth space probe also appeared in the memorable ' Six Million Dollar Man ' episode ' Death Probe ' and its sequel ' Return Of Death Probe ' , as well as the first ' Star Trek ' movie . Jeremy Kemp plays ' Linden / Queller ' , the genius who created the Drive with good intentions , but had to go into hiding on Alpha under an assumed name because of all the destruction it has wrought . In some ways , he is reminiscent of the ' Professor Seltzman ' character from the ' Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling ' episode of ' The Prisoner ' . Kemp , as you would expect , gives a fine performance . Once some of the Alphans discover his true identity , they resent the survival of the base being put into his hands . Paul Morrow is among them , his father was one of the casualties . Like I said earlier , I had to wait nearly twenty years to view this particular episode , but luckily it was worth the wait . |
401,356 | 7,743,887 | 591,028 | 10 | Bedtime For Bill ! | Rupert Wincheater of Beechrow Products hires The Goodies to devise a new marketing campaign for an unpopular bedtime drink called ' Venom ' . They start by changing the name to the more soporific-sounding ' Snooze ' . Graeme goes further , creating a new formula which knocks out anyone who takes so much as a sip . Half the country is put to sleep , and Bill starts sleepwalking through minefields . . . The first ' Goodies ' episode to really hit the mark , ' Snooze ' is great fun , not in the least because of Roddy Maude-Roxby's turn as the hyperactive ' Rupert ' : " O . K . ? O . K . ? Fine ! Fine ! " . The actor had previously appeared in the U . S . series ' Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In ' , and was the dimwitted ' Professor Weaver ' in Michael Palin and Terry Jones ' ' The Complete & Utter History Of Britain ' . Funniest moment - the wordless opening in which Graeme rises , has breakfast and gets dressed . Definitely a major influence on Nick Park ! |
401,271 | 7,743,887 | 57,785 | 10 | You Dirty Old Man ! | One of the saddest sights I ever saw on television was Wilfrid Brambell , close to tears on ' Nationwide ' in 1982 following the sudden death of his ' Steptoe & Son ' co-star Harry H . Corbett . The pairing of these great actors , combined with some wonderful scripts by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson , made ' Steptoe ' a classic . I think viewers recognised the truthfulness of the situation ; rag and bone man Harold desperately wanted to escape from his father's domination to begin a new life on his own , but couldn't because he loved the old man too much . When searching for comedy ideas , today's writers fall into the trap of thinking : " How can I shock the public ? " . ' Steptoe ' did not set out to shock , yet did because it was so real . After a successful run in the ' 60's , it was revived in the ' 70's in colour , and these episodes are my favourites , particularly ' Divided We Stand ' in which Harold and Albert tried to lead separate lives in the same house . The word ' timeless ' is overused these days , but it definitely applies here . |
401,352 | 7,743,887 | 591,019 | 10 | Bom ! | The Goodies set up a pirate radio station - Radio Goodies - located beneath a rowing boat in the English Channel . They also set up their own Post Office ( an early example of privatisation , surely ? ) in competition with the Royal Mail . But Graeme flips and begins laying plans for a pirate bus service , as well as the British Isles being towed away by submarines . . . This terrific episode rounded off the first series of ' The Goodies ' , and broke the established pattern by having one of the regulars go mad on some new idea , to the extent of threatening the world with it . Garden is on wonderful form here as the mad dictator . No guest-stars , and all the better for it . Funniest moment - Tim and Bill chasing people whilst inside red pillar boxes ! Bit Of Pointless Trivia : ' A Walk In The Black Forest ' was a hit for Horst Jankowski in 1965 . |
401,394 | 7,743,887 | 57,765 | 10 | When Napoleon Was Dynamite ! | Open Channel D ! . I never saw ' U . N . C . L . E . ' during its ' 60's heyday , I regret to say . I came to it in 1972 , when I . T . V . broadcast the movies ( beginning with ' The Karate Killers ' ) at peak-time on Saturday evenings , followed by reruns of ' The Persuaders ! ' . My first glimpse of ' Napoleon Solo ' and ' Illya Kuryakin ' was of them in a silver sports car being chased by a squad of mini-helicopters , equipped with rocket launchers . I was hooked . For the next seven weeks , I was in secret agent heaven . These were the days before I . T . V . bought the ' James Bond ' films , so ' U . N . C . L . E . ' was the next best thing . Then I found some paperbacks in a second-hand book store , and from these learned that ' U . N . C . L . E . ' stood for ' United Network Command for Law and Enforcement ' , and was an international spy organisation whose main headquarters were in New York , cunningly concealed behind the facade of a dry cleaners . Its main adversary was ' T . H . R . U . S . H . ' - the Technological Hierachy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity ( actually , that acronym was invented by the writer David McDaniel in his superb novel ' The Dagger Affair ' . It was never used on the show ) . ' T . H . R . U . S . H . ' wanted to take over the world , and ' U . N . C . L . E . ' were out to stop them . What really made the show a big hit was the chemistry between Robert Vaughn and David McCallum . Vaughn's ' Solo ' was the extrovert , McCallum's ' Illya ' was the shy intellectual . Leo G . Carroll played their gruff boss ' Alexander Waverly ' . Each week , ' T . H . R . U . S . H . ' embarked on a new world domination project , usually with the aid of some fantastic invention - earthquake machines , tidal wave machines , invisible killer bees , mind control devices , death rays , even exploding apples ! The stars were cool , the girls were hot , the action fast , the whole thing was executed in a colourful , tongue in cheek manner that was simply delightful to watch . The show ended in 1968 . The spy craze had run its course . Whereas ' Mission : Impossible ' was able to reinvent itself as a crime show , ' U . N . C . L . E . ' simply could not follow suit . One could not imagine Napoleon and Illya hot on the trail of ' The Syndicate ' . Its equally impossible to imagine it being set in any era other than the ' 60's . The concept of an American agent working alongside a Russian was a novelty at the time . I don't think it would impress anyone today . For that reason alone , I hope nobody tries to make a movie of this show . The Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson movie ' I Spy ' was a stinker , and I would not like to see ' U . N . C . L . E . ' getting the same treatment . Let's all continue to enjoy the original ! " Close Channel D ! " . |
401,376 | 7,743,887 | 591,017 | 10 | Affluence means effluence ! | London is becoming increasingly polluted , so the Goodies try to do something about it . They go to the Ministry Of Pollution in Eastbourne . Graeme thinks the Ministry might be causing the pollution . He's right . The Minister openly admits to making the air unbreathable so he - and the Government - can grab credit when he finally puts it right . The Goodies take to the air in their flying bike , intending to create rain . Unfortunately , they use too much chemical on one cloud . As it drifts over London , it turns the city into a lush tropical paradise . . . Ahead of its time or what ? The sight of the entire British population in gas-masks , dead birds falling from the skies and glowing radioactive cattle might have amused in 1971 , but makes disturbing viewing now . Nevertheless , the episode's got more than its fair share of laughs . The late Ronnie Stevens was a familiar face in British comedy films of the ' 50's and ' 60's . Some excellent visual effects as London becomes a jungle , inhabited by people who resemble walking Christmas trees . Funniest moment - Tim putting his hand out of the window to see if it is raining , and when he pulls it back it is covered in black sludge ! Second funniest moment - a sign on the Ministry Of Pollution that reads : Conservationists Get Lost ! |
401,009 | 7,743,887 | 591,023 | 10 | God Help The Queen ! | Every year , Her Majesty The Queen attends The Royal Command Performance at The Palladium , but never sees it because the acts are so boring she falls asleep . The Goodies are put in charge of the next one . Done in the style of ' The Good Old Days ' T . V . series , The Royals are given the option of dispensing with boring acts by various means , including trapdoors , hangman's nooses , and the rack . The Royals go into showbiz for themselves , as ' The Amazing Tumbling Royals ' ( footage of them falling off horses was to have been used , but got deleted and replaced by a joke caption ) . With every bone in their bodies broken , the Royals hire the Goodies as stand-ins ; Tim as ' Her Majesty The Queen ' , Graeme as ' Princess Anne ' , Bill as ' Prince Charles ' and a tailor's dummy replacing ' Prince Philip ' . The Goodies enjoy being Royals so much they decide to stay in the job , and a rerun of The Coronation is planned at Westminster Abbey . Hearing about this , the Royals leave their sick beds and attempt to stop them . . . I can only recall a handful of occasions when Britain was an absolutely unbearable place to be - all those occasions involved the Royal Family . In 1977 , Her Majesty was celebrating her Silver Jubilee , and for what felt like months you could not pick up a paper or switch on a radio or television without being reminded of the fact . The airwaves were dominated by fawning sycophants in suits droning on about how lucky we were to have a Monarchy . Thank goodness for Johnny Rotten and ' The Sex Pistols ' ! In the street where I lived , a massive party was organised . You couldn't move for flags , overexcited children , old age pensioners weeping for joy , sausage rolls , Tizer , and strawberry jelly . Only one person was absent from this jamboree - me ! Where was I ? At home , in front of the television , watching a repeat of ' Goodies-Rule O . K . ' ! And I've never regretted it ! This programme provided a welcome antidote to the nausea of the Jubilee celebrations . Whilst not as disrespectful as the later ' Not The Nine O'Clock News ' and ' Spitting Image ' shows , it ridiculed the Royals in a way television hadn't done before ( yes , the Goodies poked fun at them in ' Tower Of London ' , but that was gentle stuff compared to this ) . The sight of a bandaged Queen and Prince Philip riding a horse and cart was considered so shocking that the episode was pulled on the night of its intended transmission - Princess Anne had gone into hospital to have a baby - and a repeat of ' 2001 & A Bit ' went out in its place . ' Royal Command ' was eventually shown , but still managed to upset rabid Monarchists . " I have yet to see a ruder programme ! " , huffed one angry ' Radio Times ' reader . Funniest moment - it doesn't involve The Queen , funnily enough . At The Palladium , ' The Brotherhood Of Man ' are trilling ' Save Your Kisses For Me ' and doing that bizarre dance whereby they stare at the soles of their feet , when four nooses are lowered , and the entire group is hanged mid-song ! Terrific stuff ! |
401,209 | 7,743,887 | 591,021 | 10 | Punkerella ! | The Goodies have formed a band called ' The Little Laddies ' . Their first attempt at a hit - ' Shiny Shoes ' - flops , partly because it is awful , but also because the group is perceived as old fashioned . Bill wants to go punk . ' The Little Laddies ' split up . Tim dates the attractive music journalist Caroline Kook , and takes her to a restaurant . But it has changed hands ; Graeme runs it now , and caters exclusively to punk rockers . Punk culture spreads like wildfire ; everyone is making their hair spiky , sticking safety pins through their noses and acting aggressively , even Michael Barrett of ' Nationwide ' and astronomer Patrick Moore get in on the act . At the Trendsetters ' Ball , punk rockers wait to see what the next youth culture trend will be . The winner will get Caroline's hand in marriage . Tim is determined to win . . . One thing television does not do anymore is to ridicule youth culture . With more and more modern comedies being aimed at the youth market , writers and producers are not going to risk offending their audience , so they put the boot into old people and ' 70's fashions instead . The last show brave enough to blow a raspberry at the young was the excellent ' Nathan Barley ' - cancelled after one season . But in 1977 , things were different . With the tabloids railing against the ' punk rock ' phenomenon , particularly in the wake of the notorious Bill Grundy ' Sex Pistols ' interview , the time was right for ' The Goodies ' to tackle the subject . It proved to be one of their most controversial episodes ever . The B . B . C . , bless ' em , still thought of ' The Goodies ' as a kids ' show , and felt ' punk rock ' an unsuitable subject for a prime-time audience ( even on B . B . C . - 2 ) . ' The Goodies ' were told to drop the idea . After much negotiating , and some script rewriting , it got made . Interestingly , it does not come out against ' punk ' , but simply shows what might happen if it were taken to extremes . The punk hospital , for instance , where patients are treated without anaesthetic , and the punk restaurant , where diners go to be sickened by the awful food . The Cinderella parody has punks sawing off their legs so as to win the hand of the lovely Caroline . Jane Asher is cast as ' Caroline Kook ' , a character based on the real-life journalist Caroline Koon , who was one of punk's first supporters . ' The Little Laddies ' were based on ' The Little Ladies ' , a fictitious girl group from the I . T . V . drama series ' Rock Follies ' . Funniest moment - Tim getting drenched in spaghetti sauce ! |
401,224 | 7,743,887 | 706,348 | 10 | Walking On The Moon | The Moon is passing through a solar system with a sun very like our own . One planet in particular - Ariel - has Earth-like conditions , so Carter blasts off in his Eagle to investigate . Strange objects launched from Ariel land on the lunar surface . Gas emerges from each , giving the Moon a breathable atmosphere . With the sun in the sky , the Alphans find they are able to leave the sterile confines of Alpha and walk about outside . Further Ariellian devices bring about rain . An Eagle carrying Sandra , Carter , Paul , and Helena is affected by a storm and crashes . Though all aboard survive they face the prospect of dying of starvation before they can be discovered . . . Not long after Year 1 was completed , Fred Freiburger was invited to make an assessment of the series . While praising the special effects , he claimed the characters were uninteresting and there was a genuine lack of humour . Well , we all know what his remedy to the ' problem ' was - bring in a shape-changing alien woman and get a previously unmentioned Alphan to try and brew his own beer . One wonders which episodes he viewed . Was ' The Last Sunset ' among them ? Presumably not . If he had seen it , he would have realised it had more characterisation than in the whole of his dismal Year 2 . The Alphans , for once , are given an alternative to their quest to find a new planet - live on the Moon itself . Their joy at finding their new ' home ' is truly heart warming . Christopher Penfold's script gives Prentis Hancock's ' Paul Morrow ' a bit more to do by having him turn into a religious maniac as the result of consuming the strange mushroom-like fungus he finds on the lunar surface . The situation with the crashed Eagle is reminiscent of the classic ' Star Trek ' episode ' The Galileo Seven ' - only without those spear-throwing primitives . The absence of guest stars worked in the story's favour , allowing for greater interaction among the regular cast . Of course the Alphans ' hope of turning the Moon into a giant holiday camp is doomed . The Ariellians only gave them this because they wanted to keep them away from their world . The final scene - in which Koenig and co . watch the sun go down for the very last time - is touching and one of the best endings of any episode of this series . |
401,576 | 7,743,887 | 562,879 | 10 | The Time Lord Who Fell To Earth ! | A swarm of fifty meteorites lands in Southern England . Poacher Sam Seeley digs one up . It pulsates and emits an unearthly trilling sound . The meteorites are not the only visitors from space that day . The Tardis lands nearby , and an ill-looking Doctor steps out , before collapsing . Meanwhile , boffin Liz Shaw is whisked away from Cambridge to a secret meeting with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart of U . N . I . T ( United Nations Intelligence Taskforce ) . The organisation was set up to protect Earth from attacks by creatures from outer space . Man's attempts at space exploration have attracted attention apparently . He tells her that on the two previous alien invasion attempts , Earth was saved by a strange man known only as ' The Doctor ' . The Doctor has been taken to a country hospital , and appears to be in a coma . His unusual physiognomy ( two hearts , no known blood group ) confound the medical staff . . . No sooner had the ' 70's begun than ' Dr . Who ' was back on our screens , this time with a new leading man ( Jon Pertwee ) and in colour ( I didn't upgrade until 1974 . hence was unable to appreciate the new show in this medium ) . Pertwee was mainly known for his comedy roles , on the radio ( ' The Navy Lark ' ) and films such as ' Carry On Cowboy ' and ' The Ladies Who Do ' , so to see him as everyone's favourite Time Lord came as quite a shock . He confounded expectations by playing the role straight , almost like an Edwardian version of James Bond , who in his frilly shirt , smoking jacket and cape made a dapper contrast to his scruffily attired predecessor , Patrick Troughton . He spends most of the first episode in bed , recovering briefly to talk to Lethbridge-Stewart . His character remained an unknown quantity right up to the end credits . As Liz Shaw , Caroline John was a radical departure from the ' Who ' girls of the past , being both intelligent and independent . She would not have seemed out of place in ' Doomwatch ' . This was Nicholas Courtney's third appearance as ' Lethbridge-Stewart ' ; we first saw him ( as a Colonel ' ) in ' The Web Of Fear ' , then promoted to ' Brigadier ' in ' The Invasion ' . He was established as a regular character in this story . Exiled to Earth , the Doctor had no place in society , and U . N . I . T . provided him with a place to work in return for his becoming their Scientific Adviser . Had the internet existed in 1970 , the ' Dr . Who ' forums of the day would doubtless have seethed with outrage over the reformatting . The thing is , it worked . The ' cosmic nomad ' format had been in place since 1963 and was in need of a temporary rest . Needless to say , within a few years , it would be revived . The villains of this story - the Autons - are glimpsed only briefly , but when revealed in all their plastic glory terrified a whole generation of British children ( myself included ) . In 2005 , Russell T . Davies resurrected ' Dr . Who ' , using the Autons in his first script - ' Rose ' . He was right to do so because the concept - animated plastic mannequins - is a frightening one even now . Due to industrial action , the first Pertwee adventure had to be shot entirely on film , another thing that worked in its favour . It came across as slicker and looking more like an adult show than a children's one , as if ' Dr . Who ' was now being made by I . T . C instead of the B . B . C . This was Robert Holmes ' third ' Who ' script , his others being ' The Krotons ' and ' The Space Pirates ' . The new format and doctor seemed to do him the power of good . ' Spearhead ' was the first of several Holmes-scripted classics . It got ' 70's ' Who ' off to a flying start . |
400,866 | 7,743,887 | 591,008 | 10 | Miaow ! | What ' The Ministry Of Silly Walks ' was to ' Monty Python ' , ' Kitten Kong ' is to ' The Goodies ' . It is quite simply the best-loved , best-remembered episode . Whenever I recommend this wonderfully crazy show to first-timers , I urge them to watch this one first because it contains all the things that made it so great . I have never seen the original version ( it went out smack in the middle of Season 2 ) alas , but it proved so successful it was remade with additional film sequences , and entered for The Golden Rose Of Montreux in 1972 . That it only won Silver makes one wonder how good the Gold winner must have been . It is impossible to imagine anything funnier than this . It starts with the Goodies opening their own veterinarian surgery - but one with a difference . Each day , they ride through London on their trandem , towing a large basket on wheels , into which people place their pets . The poor animals are thrown together ( cats and dogs , goldfish and snakes ) without any thought for their wellbeing . As the bike pedals away , the sounds of mewling , hissing , barking and growling can be heard coming from the basket . One patient in particular proves difficult to handle - a fluffy white kitten named Twinkle . Tim takes it for a walk in the park , but it drags him along behind it , eventually taking refuge in a tree . Graeme accidentally overfeeds the animal with growth serum and it expands to mammoth proportions , threatening the whole of London . The special effects may have dated , but there's no denying that the sight of Giant Twinkle , demolishing the G . P . O . Tower , is one of British television comedy's iconic moments . Even those who resist ' The Goodies ' surely cannot fail to laugh as Michael Aspel , acting as the B . B . C . ' s roving reporter , is swatted to the ground by a huge paw . One gag - two dogs singing ' Anything You Can Do , I Can Do Better ' - was recycled footage from Garden and Brooke-Taylor's ' Broaden Your Mind ' . For nearly two decades ' Kitten Kong ' held the honour of being the last ' Goodies ' to be shown on the B . B . C - going out as part of a retro T . V . festival in 1986 - until ' Winter Olympics ' was repeated in January 2006 . Funniest moment - dressed as mice , the Goodies take to the air and endeavour to inject the monster pussy with shrinking serum ! |
401,204 | 7,743,887 | 240,468 | 10 | What's Up , Chosen One ? | I watched this on Sky Movies a couple of years ago . Having never heard of Steve Oedekerk , I did not really know what to expect . An hour and a half later , I had a pain in my side from laughing too much . Steve has taken a typical kung fu movie from the ' 70's , removed the soundtrack , written and recorded a new one and digitally inserted himself into the action . He's not the first to do this ; in 1965 Woody Allen pulled the same trick with ' What's Up , Tiger Lily ' , a spoof of a dreadful Japanese Bond clone called ' The Key ' . But where that movie ran out of steam after only thirty minutes , Oedekerk keeps the momentum going by piling absurdity on top of absurdity , including a kung fu baby , a battle with a cow versed in the martial arts and the unexpected arrival of a fleet of French flying saucers . Utter nonsense , of course , but accomplished with great verve . He even manages to take the mickey out of the Hollywood practice of putting ' outtakes ' over the end credits . One of the funniest films in recent years . |
400,800 | 7,743,887 | 296,865 | 10 | I've heard of carrying the can , but this is ridiculous ! | Legendary Scottish comedian Stanley Baxter made five lavish comedy spectaculars for L . W . T . in the ' 70's , of which this was the third . It begins with Baxter's radio announcer - ' Julie Hawn ' - introducing several spoof commercials ( including clever parodies of the Milk Tray and P . G . Tips ' Mr . Shifter ' ads ) . Then we move onto classic sketches such as ' Towering Quake 75 ' , a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of The Mafia , ' Police 3 And A Half ' ( with Baxter impersonating Shaw Taylor ) , and ' Los Paranoics ' , a Latin-American singing group whose membership has mysteriously expanded to include the Scottish broadcaster Fyffe Robertson . Some items go on a bit too long , most notably ' Faith To Faith ' , but there's no denying the fact that Baxter is a brilliant impersonator and every penny of the budget is up on screen . The obligatory Hollywood musical pastiche here is ' Born To Bitch ' , with Baxter as ' Vicki Lustre ' ( based on ' Vicki Lester ' - the Judy Garland character from ' A Star Is Born ' ) ' . The music , choreography and sets are spot on . Even if you do not like old musicals ( and I don't ) you will be impressed . On the down side , there are a number of racist jokes no-one would dare make now , and the scene where Baxter ( in drag ) moves to attack Denise Coffey's pigtailed little girl with a bread knife is surprisingly graphic for a comedy show . Even so , a tremendous piece of entertainment . |
400,799 | 7,743,887 | 296,864 | 10 | In my experience , politicians don't like being sent up ! | Like Morecambe and Wise , Stanley Baxter gave up making weekly shows to concentrate on hour-long ( fifty minutes minus the commercials ) specials , usually screened in the Autumn or just before Christmas . This enabled him to ensure they were of the highest possible standard ; a good deal of thought and hard work went into their making and it shows . His second L . W . T . extravaganza contains some of his best-remembered sketches , including a hilarious parody of the period drama ' Upstairs , Downstairs ' with Baxter playing Mrs . Bridges , Rose ( Jean Marsh admired his impersonation ) and Hudson . As the series was still in production at the time , Baxter was able to film on the very same sets used in the show , most notably the kitchen and drawing room . ' Thumpalong with Reg Varnish ' sent up Reg Varney's 1973 A . T . V . show , and ' Nationwide ' enabled Baxter to display his mastery of regional accents . The ' Hollywood Canteen ' segment is one of Baxter's finest ; during World War Two , Nazi sympathising showbiz agent Willard Pringle stages a star-packed show intended to boost the morale of U . S . forces , but the songs have been rewritten so that they will now have the opposite effect , hence Jimmy Durante sings ' I'm The Guy That Joined The S . S . ' , Carmen Miranda goes ' I-I-I-I Hate Democracy ' , and Jimmy Cagney proclaims he is a ' Yankee Double-Dealer ' . Stunning choreography by Norman Maen and brilliant lyrics by Ken Hoare . This sketch ought to have closed the show , instead of simply rounding off the second act . The least successful item is ' supposing the television news was done in the style of ' The Sun ' . Anyone who has looked at I . T . N . recently will see it has become a frightening reality . A brilliant and touching number is ' Sitting On A Cloud ' in which Baxter , as Maurice Chevalier , is in Heaven , ruminating on how glad he is to be deceased . The song includes the daring lyric ' Where I used to spread my joie de vivre , now Brando spreads butter in Paree ' , a reference to the most famous scene in the notorious ' Last Tango In Paris ' . ' 2001 : A Royal Wedding Odysssy ' closes the show and while its good fun , ends the show on a full stop rather the exclamation mark it should have had . A member of the British Royal Family is to marry the Scottish singer Zena Lavaroni , and the wedding turns into an excuse for a mass public phone-in . The final scene in which the Royal Balcony descends at Buckingham Palace and a dance ensues is as disrespectful as anything later found in ' Spitting Image ' . Funny though this was at the time , its sad to watch now in the knowledge that the real Lena Zavaroni did not live to see 2001 . ' Moving Picture Show ' scooped three B . A . F . T . A . S in 1975 , for Design , Best Light Entertainment Programme and Best Light Entertainment Performance . Baxter beat out Arthur Lowe in ' Dad's Army ' , Ronnie Barker in ' Porridge ' , and Michael Crawford in ' Some Mothers Do Ave Em ' . Quite an achievement . Director / producer David Bell died in 1990 , and I . T . V . screened ' Moving Picture ' by way of a tribute . |
401,364 | 7,743,887 | 88,484 | 10 | The Elisabethan Sitcom | ' Blackadder 2 ' provoked outrage when first broadcast in the U . K . Those who'd liked the first series were extremely unhappy at the show's reformatting ; Nina Myskow , television critic of ' The News Of The World ' bestowed on Rowan Atkinson her infamous ' wally of the week ' title . Its only with the benefit of hindsight can we see now that the changes were absolutely spot-on ; Edmund becoming a sarcastic cad , Baldrick turning stupid , and the expensive film sequences dropped in favour of stronger characterisations and tighter plots . Without the likes of Brian Blessed to constantly upstage him , Atkinson was free to dominate the show . Ben Elton replaced Atkinson as Richard Curtis ' co-writer - another wise move . As the squeaky-voiced ' Queenie ' , Miranda Richardson was simply outstanding . Tom Baker played ' Captain ' Redbeard ' Rum ' in one episode , a tour-de-force of over-the-top acting . The weight of public opinion gradually swung behind ' Blackadder 2 ' - its now regarded as better than its predecessor . |
401,648 | 7,743,887 | 296,867 | 10 | Why Can't We Cancel Christmas ? | Easily the best of Stanley Baxter's legendary Christmas shows . Many items , such as ' The Last Noel ' , with Stanley as Noel Coward , went on to become much-repeated classics . ' Farewell My Cinders ' is ' Cinderella ' as it might have been written by Raymond Chandler . It contained the memorable line : " People from my past flashed before my eyes . Until they got booked for indecent exposure . " . ' The Undersea World Of Jacques Cousteau ' featured Stanley as the intrepid Gallic submariner in Brighton ! Some sketches , particularly the Jewish newsreader , are overlong while ' The Bruce Fosdyke Show ' doesn't work as well as it might , but any shortcomings are compensated by the stupendous ' Girl On The Cover ' . Stanley's Edward Everett Horton is an absolute knock-out ! It tells the story of a grotesquely obese woman called Lois Latnuk , who undergoes beauty treatments to become the cover girl for ' Harpies Bizarre ' magazine . Of course it all goes horribly wrong . Great songs , sets and choreography help to make this a tasty Yuletide treat ! |
400,961 | 7,743,887 | 617,037 | 10 | Terror & June ! | Criminologist June Wiley is in a library researching old murder cases . She is fascinated by the case of a strange man named Matakitas , hanged in 1927 for strangling women - including a librarian . He defended himself at his trial by claiming he had ' The Devil's dispensation ' . When June tries to leave , she finds she is locked in , along with librarian Sylvia Ann . Phoning the police , she discovers that it is now 1927 . Smashing the glass in a barred window , she sees old cars and people in period dress outside . While the trapped women mull over their predicament , they have another awful surprise in store - locked in with them is the madman Matakitas . . . Easily the best episode of the series . It is a stark exercise in terror ; a symphony of echoing footsteps , deep breathing , and creeping shadows . I personally find libraries unnerving places during the day , so I hate to imagine what it would be like to spend the night in one . Leon Lissek plays the serial killer , and while hardly handsome ( I've seen people scuttling around libraries who make him look like George Clooney by comparison ) he is not the sort of man you would want to be imprisoned with , anywhere . This was Michael Lindsay-Hogg's only contribution to the series , he went on to direct The Beatles ' last film ' Let It Be ' . He exerts a Hitchcockian influence over the material . Though credited to Robert Heverley , apparently an uncredited rewrite was carried out by Michael J . ( ' Somewhere In A Crowd ' ) Bird . Good performance by Vera Miles , and that final scene really delivers a jolt . |
401,571 | 7,743,887 | 88,475 | 10 | Hello ! I'm Joanna Lumley ! | Following the end of ' Not The Nine O'Clock News ' in 1982 , the team went their separate ways . Pamela Stephenson pursued a ( short-lived ) movie career , Rowan Atkinson moved into sitcoms with the sublime ' The Black Adder ' , but what of Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones ? ' Alas Smith & Jones ' kept them in the sketch show format , but unlike its predecessor was not tied to topicality ( although some items referenced issues of the day ) . Each edition commenced with the pair cracking gags before a studio audience , rather like the Morecambe and Wise Show intros . Then the sketches would get under way , along with a funny song or two , and - my favourite - the head-to-head routines . Obviously inspired by ' Not Only But Also ' , these were often beautifully written ( sometimes by Clive Anderson ) and performed . Mel would be the idiot , Griff the even bigger idiot . For instance , when discussing clothes , Griff asked : " what sort of animal is a mo ? " . Flustered , Mel wanted to know what he meant . " I've got a mohair suit ! " , replied his friend , " So what's a mo then ? " . Then , there was another item in which Mel claimed to have won the pools , and indeed he had - 50p . " I think I'll put my 50p into something . " , he bragged . " What ? " , responded Griff , sarcastically , " A cigarette machine ? " . The best one of all was when Mel reminisced about the day he lost his virginity to the woman who ran the local sweet shop , Mrs . Wilberforce . " She took me round the back to search me for orange Jubblies , and that was when it happened . Wham bam thank you ma'am ! " . Griff said , " For me , it would have been ' wham bam NO thank you mam ! " . " Everybody remembers where they were when they lost their virginity . " , said Mel , with a nostalgic sigh . " In my case . . . " , said Griff , " It happened at the same time that President Kennedy was shot ! " . Amongst the other sketches was a parody of the American T . V . movie ' Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy ' entitled ' Margaret Roberts Thatcher ' , Mel as a recording artist who adds the word ' wank ' every time he sings , a gangster send-up called ' The St . Davids Day Massacre ' , Mel as Meatloaf , belting out ' I'm A Loving Machine ' , two men in a restaurant eating their meals in the manner of babies , an Iranian version of ' Terry & June ' entitled ' Achmed & June ' , Mel as a salesman attempting to extol the virtues of a new music system without having a clue as to how it actually works , and the adventures of an inept pair of detectives called ' Inspector Bribeasy ' and ' Sergeant Porno ' ! It was outrageous , cheeky , and wicked , but it was hard to be offended as it was done so well . Smith and Jones sparked off each other wonderfully , becoming the alternative ' Laurel & Hardy ' . They got into trouble with a couple of sketches , though ; one had Mel tossing a wreath onto the Senotaph on Remembrance Sunday , another had both men kissing each other with rather more enthusiasm than was necessary . ' Alas ' proved a worthy successor to ' Not The Nine O'Clock News ' and ran ( losing the first word of the title along the way ) well into the ' 90's . In case you are puzzling over that quote , it was a catchphrase used by Griff ( and other characters too ) in the first series . At the very end of the final episode , the real Joanna Lumley appeared , and announced that she intended to sue ! |
400,987 | 7,743,887 | 1,002,509 | 10 | Back To Cafe Rene ! | According to Sam Kelly , when ' Hans Geering ' did his Nazi salute , what he said was ' tler ! ' , yet some thought it was ' clop ' or ' clip ' . Good to know things like that . I have to admit I was not the world's biggest ' Allo , Allo ' fan . I liked some of the early episodes , but when it ended after nine years ( a period considerably longer than World War 2 ) I had waved the white flag well before then . The show went out in the middle of ' the alternative comedy revolution ' , and it was not seen as cool for a twenty-something to watch , not when ' The Young Ones ' , ' Filthy , Rich & Catflap ' and ' Black Adder ' seemed so right on the pulse . I didn't even bother with the repeats . I tuned in to ' The Return Of Allo , Allo ' mainly out of curiosity . Following the pattern established by ' The Return Of The Goodies ' in 2005 , it was part-reunion special , part documentary . The war long over , Rene Artois is putting the finishing touches to his memoirs , only to be distracted by familiar faces from the past wandering into the café . The studio audience was composed of rabid ' Allo , Allo ' fans - many were in costume - and the arrival of the old favourites was greeted by thunderous applause . Jeremy Lloyd's script showed that he has not lost the ability to conjure up vulgar puns , and the cast threw themselves into the whole thing with commendable enthusiasm . Gorden Kaye , in particular , was on fine form , and it is perplexing why this talented actor is not on our screens more often . It was interesting to see the cast as themselves , particularly Arthur Bostrom , who played the British agent ' Crabtree ' , a man whose mangling of the French language rivals Inspector Clouseau's command of English . But where , I wonder , was the lovely Kim Hartman a . k . a . ' Helga ' ? And whatever became of Francesca ' Maria ' Gonshaw ? Amongst ' Allo , Allo''s celebrity fans was , surprisingly , director Ken Russell , who once dismissed the ' Carry On ' films as ' crap ' . I would have thought ' Allo , Allo ' would not have been to his taste , but there you go . T . V . critic Charlie Catchpole stated ( rather oddly ) that ' Gruber ' was ' the first openly gay character in a sitcom ' . He obviously does not remember ' Lukewarm ' from ' Porridge ' . Jan Francis , who played ' Lisa Colbert ' in ' Secret Army ' ( the inspiration for ' Allo , Allo ' ) claimed to have been unhappy when she heard about the show , but changed her mind on seeing it . A Robert Kilroy-Silk discussion programme from 1986 showed that many ( particularly war veterans ) regarded the sitcom in poor taste . But 17 million people thought otherwise . Yes , the show was riddled with racial stereotypes , but you could say the same about ' Father Ted ' . What's the difference between stupid Frenchmen and stupid Irishmen ? Funny though it was , ' The Return Of Allo , Allo ' was tinged with sadness , as many of the cast are no longer with us . Carmen Silvera , who played Rene's wife ' Edith ' , was perhaps the most noticeable absentee . As the end credits rolled , and that accordion theme played one more time , I was left with a nice , warm feeling . You don't get that from many comedies these days ( of course , it could have been caused by the hot chocolate I was drinking ! ) . I will definitely watch ' Allo , Allo ' the next time it comes round . Heck , I might get the D . V . D's tomorrow ! |
400,966 | 7,743,887 | 617,050 | 10 | The Neighbours From Hell ! | Hank and Anne Prentiss take up residence in the country . The neighbours , especially divorcée Terry Lawrence , and Luther and Helen Ames , appear to be very friendly . Perhaps a little too friendly . Luther seems to openly desire Anne , while Helen is obviously attracted to Hank . At a housewarming party , a drunken Terry confides to Anne that she and Luther once had an affair . She describes Luther as ' a man who likes to own people ' . The next morning , Anne finds Terry dead from an overdose of sleeping pills . Hank befriends Matt Dystal , an Irish scriptwriter , and learns about the fate of the last person to live at the house , Dick Parker . Like Terry he committed suicide . But not of his own free will . . . Based on a story by Charles Beaumont , a frequent contributor to ' The Twilight Zone ' , this is a cracking episode . Like ' The Beckoning Fair One ' , it centres on a couple moving into a new home only to discover evil forces at work . Here its a cult of rich pleasure seekers , who having exhausted every perverse activity imaginable have drifted into Satanism . First-rate direction by Peter Sasdy , later to direct ' Taste The Blood Of Dracula ' for Hammer . And what a cast . The late Patrick Allen plays the urbane ' Luther ' , with Adrienne Corri as ' Terry ' , Milo O'Shea as ' Matt ' , and Melissa Stribling as ' Helen ' . Seen in a minor role is Damien Thomas , later to play ' Count Karnstein ' in Hammer's ' Twins Of Evil ' . ' Hank ' is the late Robert Reed , best remembered for his role as the father in the long-running U . S . show ' The Brady Bunch ' . The opening scene - Luther and his friends enjoy their party , oblivious to the fact that a dead man hangs from the ceiling - is one of the most chilling in the entire series . |
401,384 | 7,743,887 | 185,937 | 10 | If You Go Down To The Woods Today . . . | Modern horror movies are a bad joke . Why do film makers persist on using C . G . I . monsters ? When did you last see a C . G . I . monster , for goodness sake ? Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez's ' The Blair Witch Project ' is the perfect antidote to those ludicrous ' Scream ' type movies in which nubile co-eds get slain by some idiot in a monk's habit and joke shop mask . So convincingly realistic did ' Witch ' turn out that some thought they were watching a real video diary . For me , it brought back uncomfortable memories of camping with friends in the woods and being kept awake all night by owls and other nocturnal beasts ! ' Witch ' owes a debt to those eerie ' Ghost Stories For Christmas ' made by the B . B . C . in the ' 70's , such as ' The Signalman ' . It works as much on the imagination as on the senses . The film starts slowly , then ratchets up the tension so fast that by the end you're absolutely terrified . If you like your horror movies gory and silly , don't watch . And you're planning on going camping , don't watch it the night before . |
400,965 | 7,743,887 | 617,042 | 10 | Beware The Watchers ! | William Searle is present at the launching of a new ship , covering the event for television , when the O . B . cameras pick out seemingly at random five individuals in a crowd - a mother and her little girl , a black man smoking a pipe , a young man in hippie-type clothes , and a businessman in a pinstriped suit and bowler . Searle has seen these people before ; they were bystanders at the scenes of terrible disasters . He tries to alert the man in charge of security , but his warnings go unheeded . The launching takes place . Eighteen people are killed that day when masonry collapses . Searle meets an attractive young woman named Marielle , and although happily married to Ruth , begins dating her . His psychiatrist shows him pictures of various people , and from these Searle picks out the five ' watchers ' . All were involved in a train crash some time ago ( of which Searle was a survivor ) , and furthermore , all are dead . . . The late Michael J . Bird was responsible for such fondly remembered B . B . C . drama series as ' Who Pays The Ferryman ? ' and ' The Lotus Eaters ' . He also contributed to other shows , including ' Danger Man ' and ' Secret Army ' . Here he has come up with an intriguing ghost story that manages to be devoid of clichés such as dark , cobwebbed houses , creepy music and so on . David Hedison , fresh from a four-year stint aboard submarine ' Seaview ' in ' Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea ' , takes up the leading role , and gets a chance to do some proper acting for once . The lovely Jane Asher is the mysterious ' Marielle ' . There's a hilarious scene as a television talk show ( which Hedison is hosting ) degenerates into panic when a woman in the audience shoots the guest stone dead . Jerry Springer must have been taking notes when this first aired ! |
401,007 | 7,743,887 | 36,644 | 10 | A Van Dyke is a painter , not a beard ! | I'm giving this delightful picture a rating because I think its high time someone did . It enjoys an unfair reputation as Laurel and Hardy's worst ever movie ( ' Utopia ' deserves that honour ) mainly because it recycles gags from earlier pictures . So what ? They would not be the first comics to do this . Even Chaplin occasionally copied himself . Our heroes are office cleaners at a detective agency who take a call from one Alva P . Hartley , an eccentric inventor who claims to have invented a super bomb called ' The Big Noise ' , which is capable of blowing up a city . He feels it will be of great use in the war effort and , fearing that Nazis will try and steal it , wants a pair of detectives to guard the device . As the agency is understaffed , guess who applies for the job ? Along with their other wartime pictures ' Great Guns ' and ' Air Raid Wardens ' , this was intended as a morale booster for domestic audiences , as George Formby's were in the U . K . Classic comedy this certainly is not , but I have no doubt that 1944 audiences left theatres happier than when they entered . Stan and Ollie are their usual lovable bumbling selves , and there's a refreshing absence of gooey romantic subplots and musical numbers ( apart from Stan giving a quick burst of ' Maizy Doats ' on the concertina ) of the sort which marred some of their other work . If you have not seen a Laurel and Hardy picture before , you should enjoy it more because you will have nothing to compare it with ( which is how I originally came to see it ) . Highspots include Stan and Ollie enjoying a Thanksgiving dinner where the food is made out of pills , Stan ruining a priceless work of art with white paint , Stan trying to turn off the lights in a gadget-packed bedroom , and the finale aboard a remote controlled light plane in which our heroes find themselves used as target practice by their own side . The inclusion of this picture in Harry and Michael Medved's book ' The Fifty Worst Films Of All Time ' is as bizarre as it is unwarranted . But then ' The Omen ' , ' Zabriskie Point ' , and ' The Ambushers ' are also there ( all of which I like ) so its in good company . These days Michael is best known for reviewing films from a right-wing perspective ( he regarded ' Happy Feet ' as liberal propaganda ! ) , and seems to have become something of a joke himself . Funniest moment - Stan and Ollie attempting to change into night clothes in a cramped train compartment , blissfully unaware that the bomb on their person is real . Hysterical ! |
400,952 | 7,743,887 | 75,511 | 10 | Self-Sufficiency In Surbiton | On his fortieth birthday , Tom Good ( Richard Briers ) , top draughtsman for J . J . M . ( skilled but unambitious - he has never risen above the fourth floor while his friend and colleague Jerry Leadbeatter is on the seventh ) , celebrates at home with wife Barbara ( Felicity Kendal ) . Something is troubling him . Bored with the rat race , he wants to ' break the circle ' , and work at the job of life itself . This means growing vegetables , keeping pigs and chickens , making one's own clothes , building a generator etc . Another woman would tell him to go to hell but Barbara , ever the devoted wife , is fully supportive . When Jerry ( Paul Eddington ) offers Tom a lift to work the next day , he refuses , and begins planting potatoes on the front lawn . Barbara yells out of a window that the goat will be arriving later that day . So began the hugely popular John Esmonde and Bob Larbey-scripted sitcom ' The Good Life ' , their first for the B . B . C . after years of working for L . W . T . The premise - people quitting the rat race to become self-sufficient - was not original . Sid James and Victor Spinetti did the same thing six years earlier in ' Two In Clover ' . But where ' Clover ' was set on a farm , Tom and Barbara stayed in Surbiton , bringing them into conflict with the local snobs , most notably the Goods ' fearsome neighbour Margo ( Penelope Keith ) . In fairness there was also affection between the couples ; when the Goods ' crops were deluged in a storm , the Leadbeatters graciously helped harvest them . If Esmonde and Larbey had had them at each others throats the whole time ( which logically is what should have have happened ) you would then have got ' Love Thy Neighbour Mark Two ' . Thankfully , the writers avoided sitcom clichés . As the series progressed , Margo grew in stature , often stealing the show , particularly with her ongoing war with ' Mrs . Dooms-Patterson ' ( whom we never saw ) . In ' The Windbreak War ' , she got drunk and admitted she was humourless . Less amusing though was her patronising attitude to the working classes , most notably Timothy Bateson's ' Mr . Bailey ' in the same episode . Like Alf Garnett , a section of the audience were laughing with her rather than at her . The performances were uniformly excellent ; for me Eddington's smarmy but likable ' Jerry ' was the stand-out . In one episode , Margo told him of her awful experiences at a pottery class , and he had to stuff a hankie in his mouth to stop himself laughing . In ' The Thing In The Cellar ' , his jealousy at Tom's never needing to pay another electricity bill was unmistakable ( he got his revenge at the end though ) . Felicity Kendal became an unlikely sex symbol because of this show ; it must have been those dungarees ! Reginald Marsh was also good as Tom's old boss ' Sir ' . The Queen was a ' Good Life ' fan ( and attended the recording of one episode ) , and in normal circumstances that fact alone would automatically turn me against it but for once I side with her . One person who was not was Ade Edmondson who famously ranted about it in ' The Young Ones ' . Do you think The Queen should have invited him to Buck House to take tea and watch a few episodes ? |
401,612 | 7,743,887 | 75,492 | 10 | We Are The T . P . F . , We Are The People ! | The nearest British television got to a ' Fonzie'-type character was ' Wolfie Smith ' who , in his ' Freedom For Tooting ! ' T-shirt , khaki jacket , braces , jeans and green beret , was an ineffectual rebel somehow left over from the ' 60's . He was marvellously played by the charismatic Robert Lindsay , in his first television role since ' Get Some In ! ' . Wolfie worshipped Che Guevara , and dreamt of ' the glorious day ' when the downtrodden working classes rose up as one and threw off the shackles imposed on them by their capitalist masters . Ah . If only . . . Backing him up were Buddhist Ken , sad cowboy Tucker , and psychotic Speed . Luckily , Wolfie had a most understanding girlfriend in the shape of Shirley . Unluckily , her Dad - a Tory voting security guard - didn't see Wolfie's appeal , constantly disparaging him as ' that long-haired Yeti in plimsolls ! " . It was all very funny , hardly surprising seeing as it was penned by the great John Sullivan ( his first series ) . One of the best episodes was when the T . P . F . kidnapped a man they thought to be their local M . P . , only to discover that he was the local ' Godfather ' - Harry Fenning . Cheryl Hall left after the second series , so Shirley was written out . Peter Vaughan ( who played her Dad ) left also , and the role went to Tony Steedman . Er , why ? With Shirley gone , there was no need for her Dad to be still around . Or for Wolfie to be still living in the Johnson's house that matter . Arguably the most famous episode was the final one of Season Three , in which the T . F . B . found an abandoned tank , and tried to take over the reins of power by storming Parliament . After a short prison sentence , they came back for one final series , which concluded with Wolfie and Ken going to Spain to find Shirley , only to discover that she was now happily married . ' Citizen Smith ' had a good run , and is fondly remembered . Lindsay may have done other things since , but to me he'll always be ' Wolfie ' . Sullivan's next series was ' Only Fools & Horses ' . Ever heard of it ? Remember , folks - Power To The People ! |
401,187 | 7,743,887 | 61,496 | 10 | Was Columbo On A Secret Mission To Smash Capitalism ? | Let me get one thing straight - I worshipped ' Columbo ' back in the ' 70's . Of all the ' Mystery Movie ' characters , he was the one whose exploits I most appreciated . He hailed from an era when television investigators were nearly all rich , handsome , and ridiculously over-sexed , such as George Peppard in ' Banacek ' , James Farentino in ' Cool Million ' and Robert Wagner in ' It Takes A Thief ' . Columbo came as a breath of fresh air . ' Prescription : Murder ' was the first ( you can tell by how clean his coat is ! ) - and in my view - best ' Columbo ' ever . The much-maligned Gene Barry gave one of his finest performances as the first in a long line of devious killers . I'm not going to say any more about this except for one thing - watch it . But something has always bothered me about ' Columbo ' . Why does he only go after the same sort of killers ? They're nearly always rich and famous . And admired by his wife . What does Columbo say to her when the case is closed ? " Hey , honey , you know that talk-show host / blues singer / T . V . chef you like so much , I arrested him today for homicide . He's a dead cert for Death Row . " . You never saw Columbo hounding the poor in the same way . And his dishevelled appearance - the shabby coat ( obviously worn in tribute to British Prime Minister Harold Wilson ) , those tired cigars , that clapped-out auto - he's been on the force now for forty years , so must have earned enough money to enjoy a higher standard of living by now . Watching my D . V . D . ' s recently , an idea occurred to me . What if Columbo himself really was behind the murders - the openings could be red herrings - on a one-man mission to smash capitalism by putting as many rich people behind bars as possible . Maybe the reason why we never saw Mrs . Columbo was that he too had bumped her off . No wonder Bing Crosby turned down the role ! It would explain why the show was massively popular in East European countries . Richard Levinson and William Link went on to create ' Murder She Wrote ' starring Angela Lansbury , daughter of British Labour Party leader George Lansbury ! As you may have gathered , I'm having you on . But its an interesting theory , isn't it ? |
401,289 | 7,743,887 | 129,690 | 10 | Look It Up In Your Cone-tract ! | Failed sports commentator and chat-show host Alan is sacked from ' Radio Norwich ' by his new boss , Tony Hayers , and goes berserk in a restaurant , running around with a piece of cheese . As the series develops , he tries to maintain a public profile , even though the doors are closing on him . Steve Coogan's performance is a masterclass in comedy , the sitcom format enabled him to bring out different sides to his character , such as his lap dancing fantasies . My favourite episode was ' Alan Attraction ' - lovely performance from Julia Deakin as ' Jill ' . Of the supporting cast , Sally Phillips made the biggest impact as Sophie , the giggling receptionist though Felicity Montagu gave her competition as Lynn , Alan's beleaguered P . A . The second season took Alan away from The Linton Travel Tavern , gave him a Ukrainian girlfriend , and had him living in a caravan next to a site where a house is under construction . Predictably , it wasn't as good as the first , although two episodes - ' Brave Alan ' and ' Never Say Alan Again ' - were simply outstanding . |
401,623 | 7,743,887 | 66,701 | 10 | When Moore Met Curtis | One of the great mysteries of all time is how ' Mission : Impossible ' ( a great show , yes , but well past its prime in 1971 ) managed to wipe the floor with this engaging comedy thriller from the I . T . C . stable . In all other countries it was a big hit and deservedly so . As well as the charming byplay of Mr . Curtis and Moore , it had exotic locations , intriguing scripts ( from the likes of Brian Clemens and Terry Nation ) , beautiful girls , wonderful guest-stars ( including Joan Collins , Ian Hendry , Nigel Green , Gladys Cooper , and a rare television appearance from Terry-Thomas ) , a sublime theme by John Barry and the delightful Lawrence Naismith as ' Judge Fulton ' . As Britain suffered crippling strikes , we could escape from our gloom ( when there was power ) by watching Tony and Roger each week . So massively popular was the show that as soon as it ended repeats started in peak-time , prefaced by the ' Man From U . N . C . L . E . ' movies . The one good thing to be said for its premature cancellation was it freed Moore up to play James Bond . |
401,421 | 7,743,887 | 71,043 | 10 | When The World Was Wobbly ! | For donkey's years , the 5 . 35 weekday slot on B . B . C . - 1 was occupied by a five-minute cartoon that acted as a bridge from children's television to the early evening news . Off the top my head there was ' The Magic Roundabout ' , ' Willo The Wisp ' ( lovely narration by Kenneth Williams ) , ' Captain Pugwash ' , ' Ludwig ' ( possibly the most weird show of all time ! ) , ' Noah & Nelly In Skylark ' , and , of course , ' The Wombles ' . But my personal favourite was ' Roobarb ' which began in 1974 . It was the work of the brilliant animator Bob Godfrey , and as you would expect was completely off the wall . ' Roobarb ' was the name of the show's star , a vomit-coloured dog who lived in a garden along with ' Custard ' ( a shocking pink cat who spoke alarmingly like John Major ) , and some hyperactive birds . The plots usually followed a pattern - Roobarb would have a great idea , such as trying to fly with the aid of homemade wings , manufacturing fizzy lemonade , or becoming a great musician , retire to his shed to put his idea into practice , emerge triumphantly and the whole thing would then fall apart in seconds , much to the amusement of Custard and co . It was created and written by Grange Calveley , and often approached genius levels in its humour . Lines like ' sound travels at night . . . because its cheaper ! ' could have come out of ' The Goon Show ' . Richard Briers ' narration was perfectly delivered . When I watch repeats of ' The Good Life ' , I see something of Roobarb in the character of ' Tom Good ' . Both are doers , creatures of invention , determined to do things in a different way , who carry on regardless even if things do not always work out as planned . As this was made well before computers became commonplace in animation , it betrays its humble origins most delightfully . The whole thing looks like a child's drawings come to life . Because magic marker pens were used to create the illustrations , it resulted in an endearing ' wobble ' effect , giving the show much of its charm . Only one series was made , but its popularity kept it being repeated for years . In 2005 , a sequel - ' Roobarb & Custard Too ' - appeared . Though lacking Godfrey's involvement , it still proved enjoyable ( what a good year for reviving old shows that was , with ' Dr . Who ' and ' Captain Scarlet ' also being given new leases of life ) . I still enjoy repeats , if only for the sheer daftness of it all . And I must quickly mention Johnny Hawksworth's catchy theme tune , a masterpiece by itself ! " And all the birds laughed ! " . |
400,822 | 7,743,887 | 129,696 | 10 | As Good As ' Monty Python ' , So Why Isn't It Better Known ? | Marty Feldman made such an impact in Associated-Rediffusion's ' At Last The 1948 Show ' that the B . B . C . poached both him and Tim Brooke-Taylor for this series . And what a series it turned out to be . Marty co-wrote several sketches with his ' Round The Horne ' collaborator Barry Took , others were penned by John Cleese and Graham Chapman , Michael Palin and Terry Jones , and Terry Gilliam . Many feature an ordinary setting , such as a train , a vet's or a travel agency , being disrupted by Marty ( sometimes with Tim ) in lunatic mode . The late John Junkin played various authority figures whose sanity goes out of the window after meeting Marty . In one item , Marty played a gnome who goes to his bank to see about getting a mortgage on his toadstool . Visual comedy featured prominently ; ' A Hard Day's Night ' must rank amongst the all-time greats , in which Marty's henpecked husband makes repeated nocturnal assignations with beautiful girls right under his wife's nose ! Classic stuff - and with a cool theme tune by Ken Jones to boot ! |
401,345 | 7,743,887 | 71,041 | 10 | I . T . V . ' s Best-Ever Sitcom | ' Rising Damp ' was recently repeated on I . T . V . - 1 in an afternoon slot , and some chump wrote an angry letter to ' Teletext ' , claiming that the show ' was axed due to its racist content ' . Nobody bothered to correct him . ' Rising Damp ' ran for four successful seasons in the ' 70's , only coming to an end because it had reached the end of its natural life . Yes , ' Rigsby ' is ignorant when it comes to foreign cultures , but a racist ? I think not . If he were , he'd never have tolerated Philip in his house , son of a chieftain or not . Besides , the complainant seems to have overlooked Frances De La Tour's wonderfully prissy ' Ruth ' , Don Warrington as the clever and charming Phillip , the late Richard Beckinsale as naive medical student ' Alan ' and , of course , the magnificent , much-missed Leonard Rossiter as the seedy landlord ' Rigsby ' . This superb cast , combined with the fabulous scripts by Eric Chappell , made ' Rising Damp ' a classic , one that has not diminished with age . I pity those unable to appreciate its greatness . |
401,116 | 7,743,887 | 88,541 | 10 | Here she comes , Zola Budd ! | Five years after the disappointing A . T . V . series ' Till Death ' , Alf and Else Garnett returned to the B . B . C . for ' In Sickness & In Health ' . It was Johnny Speight's best work in years , pitting Alf against the uncaring Thatcherite ' 80's . The Garnetts are now living in a cheap ground floor flat in London ( no mention is made of their time in Eastbourne ) ; Else is ill with rheumatoid arthritis and has to be pushed everywhere in a wheelchair , a situation Alf is understandably unhappy with . Dandy Nichols was ill during the making of the first series , and it shows . She died not long afterwards . The second season saw Alf , now a widower , learning to get by with a smaller pension , although this does not stop him from enjoying his beer and tobacco . A new character , Mrs . Hollingbery ( Carmel McSharry ) , was introduced to provide someone for him to argue with , along with Winston ( Eamonn Walker ) , Alf's home-help , who happens to be both black and gay . Arthur English was also brought in as Alf's drinking partner Arthur . As was the case with ' Till Death ' , Una Stubbs managed a few guest appearances as Rita , now divorced from ' that scouse git ' Mike . Patricia Hayes cropped up once or twice , as Alf's batty ex-neighbour Min , in tow with her senile , incontinent sister Gwenneth ( the sublime Irene Handl ) . My favourite new character was ' Mr . Johnson ' , excellently played by Ken Campbell , who is as bigoted as Alf in his own way . The combination of Speight's scripts and the new characters made ' In Sickness ' one of the best B . B . C . sitcoms of the mid ' 80's / early ' 90's . The final series had Alf discovering a cache of used banknotes ( loot from a ' 50's bank robbery ) in an old wardrobe , and becoming a millionaire . It wasn't as funny as the earlier shows , but it was nice to see Alf living the high life for a change - and finding fault with that too . Revivals of old sitcoms only work when the new show is as good or better than the original . ' In Sickness ' was for the most part in the former category , sometimes in the latter . |
400,745 | 7,743,887 | 129,709 | 10 | Swine That You Are ! | ' Rab C . Nesbitt ' was one of the finest B . B . C . sitcoms of the ' 90's . Like the later ' Alan Partridge ' , the character originated in a sketch show - in this case , ' Naked Video ' . Wearing a tattered suit ( with string vest ) , clutching a rolled-up newspaper , and a blood-soaked bandage round his head , the drunken philosopher from Govan delivered rants through clenched teeth which he prefaced with : " I will tell you this , boy ! " . A lot of what he said made sense though . Gregor Fisher was loathe to take on the role originally as he initially perceived it to be a stereotype , but later changed his mind . Our first sighting of ' Rab ' was a vox pop item in which he described the then-Tory Government as ' jumped-up Fascist bastards ' . He next appeared losing his rag in a D . W . P . office when the clerk refuses to give him benefit . He proved so popular he was eventually given his own show , commencing with the special ' Rab C . Nesbitt's Seasonal Greet ' . What followed was basically a comedy soap opera ; Rab was married to Mary Doll ( Elaine C . Smith ) and had two sons - Gash ( Andrew Fairlie ) and Burney ( Eric Cullen ) . Despite complaints from some English viewers about the incomprehensibility of the cast's accents , it caught on immediately . Ian Pattison's superb scripts combined elements of traditional sitcom with black comedy , such as the episode where Rab thinks he's terminally ill . Gregor Fisher was magnificent as Rab , as was the rest of the cast , particularly Elaine C . Smith as ' Mary Doll ' , Tony Roper as his sex-mad pal ' Jamesie Cotter ' , and his faithless wife ' Ella ' ( Barbara Rafferty ) . Sean Scanlon was impressive in those episodes he did as ' Shug ' . Guest-stars included the great Stanley Baxter , Jimmy Logan , Iain Cuthbertson , Rikki Fulton , and Russell Hunter . A young David Tennent made his television debut here . I must throw in a word of praise for David McNiven's splendid theme tune which caught the mood of the show so well . When Eric Cullen went to prison , ' Burney ' was replaced by cousin ' Screech ' ( David Mackay ) , but it just was not the same ( plans to reinstate the actor collapsed when he unexpectedly died during a minor operation ) . Eventually , Gash married Bridie ( Nicola Park ) and fathered a child . Given the show's immense popularity at the time , it is astonishing how few repeats there have been on B . B . C . - 2 . It is rather like ' The Goodies ' in that respect . You can stick your plastic American rubbish such as ' Friends ' , I'll take Rab every time ! |
400,817 | 7,743,887 | 71,054 | 10 | Better , Stronger , Faster ! | Colonel Steve Austin , severely crippled following a plane crash is ' rebuilt ' with bionic parts ( as Freddie Starr said at the time : " He's got everything bionic , hasn't he ? Well , almost everything ! " ) , turning him into a superman . Austin can now run at incredible speeds , see things over a long distance , and with one arm rip off safe doors and punch holes in walls ( a useful ability should one accidentally lock oneself out of the house ) . The makeover costs six million dollars ( a lot of money then . Today he would be lucky to get a bionic big toe for that amount ) . Keen to get their money's worth , the U . S . Government puts Austin to work for the O . S . I . ( Office of Strategic Intelligence ) , headed by Oscar Goldman . Each week , Austin would be sent round the world on some dangerous mission - such as assisting a Russian scientist to defect or recovering stolen microfilm - one that required the use of his extraordinary powers . Beautiful girls including Britt Ekland , Martine Beswick , Michele Carey , Jane Merrow , and Lee Majors ' then wife Farrah Fawcett cropped up an awful lot , none able to resist our hero's charms . Bits of him may have required an M . O . T . every now and then , obviously not the bits they were interested in . The villains were by and large foreign saboteurs or evil scientists out to seize power . The late Henry Jones played a robot inventor in no less than three episodes . ' Bigfoot ' showed up more than once too ; he wasn't the real Sasquatch , of course , but an android used by aliens to guard their secret base . Then there was ' Death Probe ' , a N . A . S . A . device designed to explore and study alien planets which went berserk after crash landing on Earth . All this was great fun if you , like me , was eleven years old when it started . The novel ' Cyborg ' by Martin Caidin formed the basis for the pilot . Mark Gatiss cited the opening title sequence as one of his all-time favourites . Footage of Austin's crash backed by dramatic music led to an animated version of Austin's rebirth , leading to that famous voice-over : " Gentlemen , we can rebuild him . We have the technology . . . the capability to make the world's first bionic man . Steve Austin will be that man . Better , stronger , faster ! " . We would then see him lifting weights and running like the wind , and hear Oliver Nelson's theme in all its glory . Depicting Austin running fast was a problem for the producers . Initially , they speeded up the film , but this made him look like Benny Hill , so they went to the other extreme by slowing him down . The show was a phenomenon . All over the world , playgrounds were full of children pretending to run like Austin , singing ' da da da da ' , before going home and playing with toys associated with the series . I still have the books along with an Annual . It captured the imagination of an entire generation in a way that few shows , before or since , have managed . It wasn't original , of course . The British show ' The Champions ' also featured superhuman secret agents , but was axed after one season . The timing for ' The Six Million Dollar Man ' was right because in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate it reassured American viewers that their country was still a force to be reckoned with . Parodies abounded . Les Dawson became ' The Fifty Pence Man ' on his ' Les Sez ' show , while Eric Sykes ' B . B . C . series featured an episode in which he dreamt he was bionic . As late as 1985 , Ben Elton's ' Happy Families ' featured ' The Man Who Cost A Lot ' . Though not the world's greatest actor , Lee Majors was perfect for the role of Austin ( though his dress sense occasionally left a lot to be desired . And why did he grow that cheesy moustache ? ) . Richard Anderson made Goldman a likable authority figure . He and Steve did not get along initially but then became friends . Martin Balsam played ' Dr . Rudy Wells ' in the pilot , Alan Oppenheimer replaced him , but it is Martin E . Brooks who is best remembered in the role . In a decade when science fiction was considered passe in the aftermath of the Apollo moon landings , ' The Six Million Dollar Man ' defied expectations by enjoying a solid five year run . Like many shows though , it ' jumped the shark ' - particularly when it brought in other bionic characters . I did not mind ' The Seven Million Dollar Man ' , put up with ' The Bionic Woman ' ( I rather fancied her ) , but when her spin-off started , and ' Bionic Boy ' and ' Bionic Dog ' came along I used what was left of my bionic strength to switch the television set off . There were a number of ' reunion ' movies in the ' 80's ( one of them guest starred Sandra Bullock ) , but for me the original remains the best . I still enjoy watching reruns . Scientists may perfect bionics someday , and I hope its soon so I can go bounding around the place in my checked jacket and flares , just as Steve used to do . |
401,463 | 7,743,887 | 343,861 | 10 | Oh Jeffrey . . . The Lady Is For Turning ! | If Jeffrey Archer didn't exist , some clever scriptwriter would be sure to invent him . The trouble is , no-one would believe it ! Here was a man whose lies eventually got him jailed , whereupon he reinvented himself as the victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice ! The truth certainly is stranger than fiction . Damian Green looks and sounds nothing like the real Archer , which is what makes this film so funny , unlike ' A Very Social Secretary ' which strove to depict its characters accurately . I understand why humourless Tories found it offensive , but I found it wonderful fun , a joyous romp in the manner of ' The New Statesman ' T . V . series . Besides , Steven Pacey's ' Tony Blair ' was hardly flattering to him either . Greta Scacchi's ' Margaret Thatcher ' depicted the ex-P . M . as a Mae West-style vamp . The funniest bit was when Archer did to her what the real Thatcher did to Britain for ten years ! The only wonder is why this has never been repeated . The B . B . C . bowing to ' internal pressure ' yet again ? |
401,005 | 7,743,887 | 400,143 | 10 | The Majority Are Not Always Right | One type of programme British television excelled at in the ' 70's was the one-off drama . With the likes of Jack Rosenthal , David Mercer , Colin Welland , Barrie Keefe and Howard Schuman writing these , it was no wonder they were good . ' Against The Crowd ' was an anthology of plays about society's outsiders . Penned by ' Quatermass ' creator Nigel Kneale , ' Murrain ' starred David Simeon as ' Alan Crich ' , a veterinarian surgeon who goes to a remote country village to investigate a possible outbreak of swine fever and instead finds a community living in terror of a local woman - Mrs . Clemson - who they suspect of being a witch . The poor old lady is held responsible for everything from a drought to a mysterious virus affecting the shopkeeper's son . Crich is asked by crusty old farmer Beeley ( played by Bernard Lee ) to throw a bag of soil ( upon which everyone in the village has walked ) over the woman . Needless to say , he refuses . He finds Mrs . Clemson a lonely , unhappy woman living in squalor , and offers to help out by bringing groceries . In doing so , the vet becomes the focus of the villager's blind hatred . . . The play works as a perfect allegory of modern society ; in particular , the shameful way minorities are often blamed for the world's ills . The villagers are convinced that Mrs . Clemson is a witch and nothing will budge them from this view , in the same way that immigrants are scapegoated nowadays by vote-seeking politicians . David Simeon is largely known for comedy roles in series such as ' End Of Part One ' , but here he gives an outstanding dramatic performance as ' Crich ' . I doubt whether ' Murrain ' could be made today . There's no sex , violence and swearing , and it ends on a deliberately ambiguous note . It is well written , acted and thought provoking . You will find the play as an extra on the ' Beasts ' D . V . D . and I have to say that I found it better than the series itself . Two connections with the James Bond films ; Bernard Lee , who plays ' Beeley ' , was 007's boss ' M ' , and the music was by Monty Norman , composer of ' The James Bond Theme ' . |
401,523 | 7,743,887 | 103,561 | 10 | The Descent Continues . . . | Made as a response to Channel 4's ' T . V . Heaven ' ( transmitted the previous year ) , B . B . C . - 2's ' T . V . Hell ' showcased the worst of British television . I watched my video copy again recently and what struck me was how differently it would probably be made now . For one thing , it served up whole programmes rather than piddling ( and out-of-context ) clips . We saw the pilot of the infamous Kate O'Mara ' 80's soap ' Triangle ' , and the unseen magazine programme ' Mainly For Men ' ( amusingly , Alison Graham of ' The Radio Times ' seemed to think the latter actually went out in 1969 ! ) . We did not get Zoe Ball being condescending about shows she was far too young to have seen , nor Stuart Maconie and Dominik Diamond putting the boot into a decade because they did not like ' Carry On Christmas ' , not even a peep out of Kate Thornton . We saw the people responsible for the programmes themselves , and it was interesting to hear their views as to what they think went wrong . Linked by Paul Merton and Angus Deayton , with witty contributions by Victor Lewis-Smith , ' T . V . Hell ' was terrific stuff . ' The A-Z Of T . V . Hell ' featured the infamous ' Minipops ' ( children dressed to resemble pop stars of the day ) , ' Churchill's People ' , an interminable studio-bound historical drama series based on Winston Churchill's ' A History Of The English Speaking Peoples ' , ' Sin On Saturday ' , ' The Borgias ' ( its star's mastery of English was comparable to Inspector Clouseau's grasp of French ) , actor John Grieve getting a fit of the giggles whilst reciting poetry on a Hogmanay show , The Sex Pistols swearing at Bill Grundy , a man jumping over eggs on ' Nationwide ' , ' Club X ' , and the ' Open Door ' ( a B . B . C . - 2 programme devoted to minority viewpoints ) edition starring the ' Albion Free State ' which must rank as the single most boring programme ever transmitted ( yes , worse even than ' The Great Global Warming Swindle ' ! ) . The concept is begging to be updated . I would personally include ' The Falklands Play ' ( a stunning whitewash of Thatcher ) , an edition of ' O . T . T . ' starring Chris Tarrant , which was like watching rugby fans on a drunken night out in Cardiff , ' Under Manning ' , a game show hosted by Bernard Manning ( if you can believe it ) , ' Big Brother ' , Davina McCall on ' Question Time ( she did not have a clue what she was talking about ) , Rob Brydon in ' Director's Commentary ' ( a lame spoof on D . V . D . yak tracks ) , ' Ruddy Hell ! Its Harry & Paul ! ' , ' Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway ' , the recent revival of ' Crossroads ' , ' Noel's House Party ' , Ben Elton's ' Get A Grip ! ' , and practically everything ever broadcast on B . B . C . - 3 in the name of comedy . In 1992 , the definition of bad television was those shows that took risks . In 2008 , series designed to win mammoth audiences on the main channels are the ones most likely to turn out stinkers . ' Celebrity Love Island ' anyone ? |
401,237 | 7,743,887 | 66,722 | 10 | What are we going to do with Uncle Arthur ? | I became politically aware thanks to ' Upstairs , Downstairs ' . Before I was a naive nine year old whose interests included model plane making and marbles , but the first episode turned me into a rabid activist . What brought about this transformation ? The show was the brainchild of actresses Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins . Noting the immense popularity of the B . B . C . ' s ' The Forsyte Saga ' , they thought it a good idea to do a similar show in which equal emphasis was placed on the servants below stairs . Marsh played ' Rose ' , the ever so-prim head parlour maid , with Atkins earmarked for ' Sarah ' , the cheeky Cockney girl who brings scandal and shame to the Bellamy household . Because of prior commitments , she proved unavailable , and Pauline Collins ( fresh from the first series of ' The Liver Birds ' ) had to replace her . With all due respect to Atkins , its impossible now to think of ' Sarah ' being played by anyone else . I loved how she stood up for herself , gave as good as she got . What stuck in my craw was the sight of Richard Bellamy forever pulling on a rope every time he wanted a cup of tea or something , and asking his butler Hudson ( Gordon Jackson ) to get Mrs . Bridges to put on the kettle . I remember thinking : " what's the matter with you ? Are you a cripple or something ? Make your own bloody tea ! " . I was mystified as to why this family - in addition to ambitious Tory M . P . Richard , there was his elegant wife Marjorie ( Rachel Gurney ) , their caddish son James ( Simon Williams ) and wayward daughter Elisabeth ( Nicola Pagett ) - dwelt in opulent surroundings while Hudson , Rose , Mrs . Bridges et al were living under their feet like rats . Hudson had been brainwashed into thinking this was the natural order of things . ' They are better than me ' is not an attitude I have ever really understood . My forelock has never known what it is like to be tugged ( in the days when I had a forelock , that is ) . My favourite episodes usually concerned the servants . I did not give a monkey's about James ' money troubles or The King coming to dinner or Miss Lizzie marrying an impotent poet , but was upset when scullery maid Emily ( Evin Crowley ) hung herself after being cast aside by a footman . ' I Dies From Love ' still moves me nearly forty years later . To add insult to injury , we then found out that her body had been earmarked for medical experimentation - dissection , in other words . There was no equality in those days even in death . The cast were brilliant , particularly the late Angela Baddeley as ' Mrs . Bridges ' , the Bellamy's cook . Then there was Jenny Tomasin as scullery maid ' Ruby ' , who wore a permanent look of despair at her plight . Whenever people refer to this era as ' the good old days ' , I respond with ' yes , if you happened to be rich ' . John Alderton came aboard in the second season as chauffeur ' Thomas Watkins ' , a fairly straight character to begin with , but who then evolved into a devious con-artist - witness his fleecing of the Bellamy's when a blackmailer came on the scene with Lady Marjorie's love letters to Captain Hammond . I was sorry to see the departures of both Thomas and Sarah ( they later got their own show ) , but did not miss Miss Lizzie in the slightest . Rachel Gurney also left at that time , resulting in Lady Marjorie going down on the Titanic ( funny how James Cameron never mentioned this ) . Her replacement was the tasty Meg Wynn Owen as ' Hazel Forest ' , Richard's typist . When randy old James asked her to dinner , Hudson was so appalled he was prepared to resign out of protest . Berk . Was I alone in wanting to strangle Miss Georgina Worsley ( Lesley-Anne Down ) , a vacuous deb who ran over and killed someone in her motor car , and then showed very little remorse ? One of the great things about ' Updown ' was that , as well as being top-notch drama , you got a history lesson as well . The later episodes set in The Great War were simply fabulous . One of the most moving scenes ever shown on television was when footman Edward ( Christopher Beeny ) came back from the trenches with shell-shock . The show caught on in America . Rumour has it that when Shelley Winters had to present an award for ' Best Programme ' , she ignored what was on the card , and gave it to ' Updown ' instead . When it ended in 1975 , the production team ( Sagitta ) moved to the B . B . C . , where they did the equally popular ' The Duchess Of Duke Street ' . As the result of its success , parodies appeared . ' The Two Ronnies ' did one , as did Stanley Baxter ( filmed on the same sets used in the show ! ) , the ' Carry On ' team spoofed it in two editions of ' Carry On Laughing ' , and more recently , Jimmy Perry & David Croft gave us ' You Rang Milord ? ' . Perhaps the most inane spin-off was ' Russell Harty Meets Upstairs , Downstairs ' in which the late chat-show host was seen dropping in on the residents of Eaton Place . It inspired a wag to write to ' The T . V . Times ' proposing a special edition of ' Supersonic ' in which inflatable King Edward The Seventh dolls floated gracefully around Mike Mansfield's pop star-packed studio . Nearly forty years after it first appeared , ' Updown ' remains compelling , powerful , sometimes humorous , always entertaining viewing . T . V . bosses would do well to take a long hard look at it in order to learn how to do a show of this kind . It managed to pull in big audiences without insulting anyone's intelligence . Time to finish this review . I am in need of a stiff drink and must summon the butler . |
401,270 | 7,743,887 | 77,402 | 10 | The ' Citizen Kane ' Of Zombie Movies ! | If proof were ever needed that the 1970's was the golden age of horror movies , ' Dawn Of The Dead ' is it . A decade after his groundbreaking ' Night Of The Living Dead ' , George A . Romero returned to zombies with this , arguably the greatest film of its kind . Low budget horror films were all the rage in those days . Strangely , the lack of money worked in their favour as film makers such as Cronenberg , DePalma , Carpenter , Lieberman and Hooper had to rely on their imaginations . Instead of big-name Hollywood stars , ' Dawn ' presents us with four ordinary people - one woman and three men - struggling to survive in a nightmarish world . The documentary look lends weight to the horror , as at times you feel that what you are watching is real ! Romero comes up with some stunning set pieces such as S . W . A . T . troopers invading a house full of the living dead , a zombie's head being sliced off by the rotor blades of a helicopter , and Hells Angels storming the shopping mall where our heroes are holed up . Tom Savini provided the gruesome make-up ( even Peckinpah never used so much blood ! ) and appears as one of the Hells Angels . Great soundtrack by Dario Argento and The Goblins ! One or two critics praised the movie at the time as an ' anti consumer society satire ' . To tell the truth , I did not notice this as I was too busy cowering in terror ! ' Dawn Of The Dead ' was a worldwide box-office hit whose success provoked dozens of imitations , mostly from Italy , such as Lucio Fulci's ' Zombi 2 ' ( ' Zombie Flesh Eaters ' ) . I liked the remake , but it relied too heavily on C . G . I . for my taste . The original leaves it standing . |
401,028 | 7,743,887 | 66,721 | 10 | And In A Packed Programme Tonight . . . | When Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones spoofed ' The Two Ronnies ' in a ' Not The Nine O'Clock News ' sketch entitled ' The Two Ninnies ' , it didn't work because a ) it wasn't funny and b ) it was inaccurate . Ronnie Barker's beautifully crafted song parodies did not use words like ' titty ' and ' bum ' , and never did . Smith and Jones brought out the dire ' Morons From Outer Space ' in 1985 , and can count themselves lucky they weren't on the receiving end of similar abuse from Corbett and Barker . Its twenty years since the series ended ( barring compilations ) but ' The Two Ronnies ' is still a joy to watch . These gentlemen had an unmistakable on-screen chemistry . My favourite bits were the filmed items , such as the ' Piggy Malone ' and ' Charley Farley ' serials . Some of the humour hasn't aged very well admittedly , but its stood the test of time a lot better than ' The Young Ones ' and ' Not The Nine O'Clock News ' . Must throw in a quick mention of ' Four Candles ' - has me in fits each time ! |
401,472 | 7,743,887 | 706,471 | 10 | Of all the coppers in London , why pick on me ? | On the B . B . C . ' s ' I Love The ' 70's ' , it was incorrectly stated that ' The Sweeney ' was the first violent British crime television series . Season Three of ' Special Branch ' beat it to the airwaves by two years . The earlier seasons , shot on videotape with film inserts , starred Derren Nesbitt as ' D . C . I . Jordan ' . After a gap of three years , it returned , completely reformatted and recast . Craggy George Sewell took up the main role of ' D . C . I . Alan Craven ' , a tough man in a tough world . The new-look show was the first to be made by Euston Films , an offshoot of Thames T . V . Over the next two decades , the company made some of the most successful British television shows ever - ' Minder ' , ' Danger U . X . B . ' , ' Widows ' , ' Quatermass ' , ' Reilly Ace Of Spies ' , ' The Flame Trees Of Thika ' and , of course , ' The Sweeney ' . ' A Copper Called Craven ' , written by Roger Marshall , begins with a small-time crook called Ridley ( Tony Selby ) being arrested while trying to smuggle gold watches through customs at Heathrow airport . In his defence he claims that he had bribed D . C . I . Craven to let him through . Craven is suspended from active duty in the Special Branch . His home is searched by detectives , and he is subjected to harsh interrogation at the hands of Pettiford ( Peter Jeffrey ) . To make matters worse , a large sum of money has been deposited in his bank account , so clearly someone is trying to frame him . But whom ? Craven embarks on a one-man quest to clear his name . . . You immediately know you are not watching ' Dixon Of Dock Green ' thanks to the opening titles which feature shots of London tourist landmarks inter-cut with Craven loading and firing his gun , looking at mug-shots , and watching a fan-dancer in a Soho club . As cinemas were full of films such as ' Get Carter ' , ' Sitting Target ' , and ' Villain ' , it was inevitable that television would be influenced in some way . Of course ' Special Branch ' had some way to go , the early Season Three episodes feature little by way of action , but that would change over time . Patrick Mower was brought in to play ' D . C . I . Tom Haggerty ' , a younger , brasher detective ( an ex-Flying Squad man ) often at loggerheads with Craven . Sewell is marvellous , wonderfully conveying the anger and frustration of the framed detective . Nobody likes a bent copper , least of all the police themselves . Much of Craven's background is sketched in , such as him having had a poor upbringing , which Pettiford tries to use to his advantage by making it seem like justification for corruption . Sewell is hardly Robert Redford , and this works in the show's favour by giving it an extra dimension of reality . Watching him in this it is hard to believe that only three years before he had been chasing green-skinned aliens in the sci-fi drama ' U . F . O . ' ! Peter Jeffrey likewise turns in a powerful performance as Pettiford . The actor had played villains in shows such as ' The Avengers ' and also acted in Lindsay Anderson's ' If ? ' . The scenes where he interrogates Craven are superbly written and acted , boasting a smattering of expletives that were rare for the day . Craven has a black girlfriend - Nurse Pam Sloane ( Sheila Scott-Wilkinson ) - a fact predictably used against him by his accusers . A very good piece of crime drama then , and a strong season opener . A pity the show became overshadowed by ' The Sweeney ' because it is comparable in terms of quality . And I think it has a much better theme tune ! |
400,878 | 7,743,887 | 71,060 | 10 | Oh , Eric ! | In the early ' 70's , the B . B . C . revived several hit sitcoms from the previous decade , including ' Steptoe & Son ' , ' The Likely Lads ' , ' Till Death Us Do Part ' , ' Whacko ! ' , and of course , ' Sykes ' . I . T . V . had been enjoying success with the likes of ' On The Buses ' , the ' Doctor ' series , and ' Please Sir ! ' and the B . B . C . wanted to compete . In the new medium of colour , the resurrected shows took on a new lease of life . Each week , the pounding of a drum would signal the start of a new ' Sykes ' episode . The new show was much the same as the earlier one ; he still lived in Sebastopol Terrace ( though at number 28 , not 24 ) with twin sister Hattie ( Hattie Jacques ) , and the next-door neighbour was the pompous Charles Fulbright Brown ( Richard Wattis ) . Added to the mix were Deryck Guyler ( fresh from ' Please Sir ! ' ) as a policeman with a fondness for food named ' P . C . Turnbull ' ( known to his friends as ' Korky ' ) , and Eric had an admirer in the shape of Madge from the bread shop ( Joan Sims ) who called him ' Ricky ' and kept him supplied with cakes . Korky's wife was never seen , but her reedy voice ( courtesy of Eric ) sounded not unlike that of ' Minnie Bannister ' from ' The Goon Show ' . Eric's character was that of an overgrown boy , constantly trying out new things ( such as building his own burglar alarm or redecorating ) but never quite getting the hang of them . Hat ( or ' Harriet ' as he often called her ) was like a mother figure , always telling him off but defending him when others did the same . She frequently talked to the cuckoo clock on the wall , which she called ' Peter ' . In one episode , Eric and Hattie returned from holiday only to find an old tramp ( Roy Dotrice ) had moved in and made himself at home ( Eric had left the front door open ! ) . In another , they went to a holiday camp where Eric caused chaos by refusing to get up early in the morning . Another memorable episode had him getting a job in a factory , and almost causing a strike by working too slow and then too fast ! When Eric , Hattie and Korky went caravanning , they fell out and hurled plates of porridge at one another ! Another time they bought a boat and almost got blown up by a mine left over from W . W . 2 . " Its alright ! " , said Hat : " I think its one of ours ! " . Some of the early episodes were remakes of the ' 60's shows , such as ' Sykes & A Stranger ' . The original featured Leo McKern as an ex-con who returns to honour a old childhood promise to marry Hattie . For the remake , Eric enlisted the services of his old friend from ' The Goon Show ' days Peter Sellers ( in a rare B . B . C . sitcom appearance ) . ' Sykes ' blend of visual and character driven comedy made it a big hit which ran for the remainder of the decade . Wattis sadly passed on in 1975 , and the show continued but was noticeably poorer for his absence . Joy Harington came aboard as another neighbour - Miss Rumbelow . It ended in 1979 with the appalling ' The B . B . C . Honours Sykes ' . I say appalling because it ruined the illusion that the show was not a sitcom ! In 1980 , Hattie died . The B . B . C . wanted Eric to continue alone , but he rightly declined . The chemistry between the leads had made ' Sykes ' special . Repeats have been few and far between . Network issued the 1972 series on D . V . D . in 2004 , but its ongoing dispute with the B . B . C . means we are unlikely to get more releases , and ' 2entertain ' do not seem keen to pick up the baton . A few years back , the now-defunct satellite channel ' U . K . Drama Daytime ' put on most - but not all - of the shows . They showed that ' Sykes ' still has the ability to delight and amuse in equal proportions . |
401,470 | 7,743,887 | 706,475 | 10 | How To Hijack A Building ! | Computer expert Sumner ( Geoffrey Bayldon ) suffers a nervous breakdown , and , taking a cleaning woman hostage , threatens to blow up a London office block unless his demands are met . He wants political activist Sheila Fenner ( Jumoke Debayo ) , currently on trial at the Old Bailey , freed and permitted to leave the country . D . C . I . Craven attempts to make the man see sense without success . Then an attempted rescue of the hostage goes wrong , and Sumner's finger edges closer to the detonator button . . . Written by Trevor Preston , who would later contribute to ' The Sweeney ' , this is a fine , suspenseful episode with a strong central performance by Geoffrey Bayldon as the madman . The actor is , of course , fondly remembered as ' Catweazle ' from the charming children's show of the same name . While a lone man does not seem to pose much of a threat , the fact that he is a genius makes a difference . Sumner is able to predict the counter-moves of Special Branch , and thus act against them before they actually happen . This is not a ' let's go in with all guns blazing ' story , but is played realistically by all concerned . The most exciting moment is when the cleaning woman's husband , concerned for his wife's welfare , ignores the police and tries to break into the office in which Sumner has made his base . Jumoke Debayo , who plays ' Fenner ' , was a familiar face in numerous television and theatre productions of the time , and here gets to play a pivotal role . It is never explained exactly what Fenner is standing trial for , nor indeed what views she is espousing ( Craven describes her as ' disturbed ' ) , but Sumner is sufficiently impressed to be willing to blow up half of London to see her acquitted . Interestingly , it is not Craven who brings Sumner to book , but Fenner herself by pointing out that going to jail is what she wants as that way she becomes a martyr for her cause . Crushed , Sumner meekly hands over the detonation device to Craven . Some superb location filming add to this episode's already inconsiderable strengths . |
401,527 | 7,743,887 | 71,068 | 10 | Hello , darling , its me , Edgar ! | Comic secret agents have made a comeback in recent years , with Mike Myers ' ' Austin Powers ' and Rowan Atkinson's ' Johnny English ' , and more recently Steve Carell in the big-screen version of the hit ' 60's show ' Get Smart ! ' . Back in 1974 , it was David Jason who was wearing a shoulder holster and carrying an attaché case full of documents marked ' Classified ' . ' The Top Secret Life Of Edgar Briggs ' was his first starring role in a sitcom , after years of being a supporting actor in such shows as ' Six Dates With Barker ' , the ' Doctor ' series , and ' Hark At Barker ' . Humphrey Barclay had found him working in a pier theatre in Bournemouth and was sufficiently impressed to include him alongside Michael Palin , Terry Jones and Eric Idle in the children's comedy show ' Do Not Adjust Your Set ! ' . ' T . T . S . L . O . E . B ' cast Jason as ' Edgar Briggs ' , a well-meaning but incompetent agent for the Secret Intelligence Service . Whereas John Steed wore a bowler hat , Briggs had a trilby . Whereas Napoleon Solo carried a radio pen , Briggs owned a pipe . Objects fell to bits in his hands . He read Confidential documents in bed while his wife ( Barbara Angell ) perused Woman's Own ( on one occasion it would be the other way round ) . When he tracked a pair of Russian agents to a heliport , he accidentally switched on the airport's Tannoy system , and broadcast his plans to capture them ! When he hid on a train so as to photograph a meeting between an S . I . S . man and his enemy-contact , it moved off with him aboard and took him straight to Brighton ! When he tried to organise the defection of a female Russian scientist , he took a ' short cut ' to elude his pursuers , only to wind up hopelessly lost in a car park . Yet , like ' Inspector Clouseau ' , he always seemed to come out on top at the end , much to the dismay of his colleagues . As previously mentioned , he was married . His wife Jennifer was understanding about the sort of work he did . Though they had a row once which resulted in her yelling at him from the window of their high-rise flat : " Secret Service this , Secret Service that ! You never stop thinking about the Secret Service ! " . He shouted back : " Think of the neighbours ! They're not supposed to know I'm in the Secret Service ! " . Briggs was part of a team of agents whose number included ' Coronation Street ' villain Mark Eden ( he was the psychotic Alan Bradley ) as ' Spencer ' , Michael Stainton as ' Buxton ' , and ' Doctor At Sea''s Elisabeth Counsell as the lovely ' Cathy Strong ' . They answered to ' The Commander ' , played by the late Noel Coleman . The Commander was kidnapped in one episode , leaving Briggs temporarily in charge of the S . I . S . - which naturally horrified everyone . This hilarious show was by Richard Laing and Bernard McKenna , who had written for the ' Doctor ' series . Rather than spoof Bond , it was more of a send-up of the serious spy shows such as ' Callan ' ( though it had a Bond-style theme tune ) . Furtive meetings in underground car parks , code-breaking , stolen missile plans , that kind of thing . Jason brought a lot of energy to the role , doing a lot of his own stunts , such as Briggs falling off a ladder whilst decorating his flat , and tumbling down a hill in a wastepaper bin , and were reminiscent of those to be found in the ' Pink Panther ' films . ' Briggs ' had all the ingredients to be a smash-hit . Unfortunately , it was not networked . In the London area , it was put out on Sundays at 7 . 25 P . M . where it was trounced in the ratings by the B . B . C . ' s soapy drama ' The Brothers ' . It was then moved to Fridays at 7 P . M . because I . T . V . wanted to showcase its latest American import - the T . V . version of ' Planet Of The Apes ' . Briggs never found an audience . A similar fate befell Jason's next major show : 1976's ' Lucky Feller ' . It was not until 1977 and ' A Sharp Intake Of Breath ' that he found his first successful solo vehicle . You can see the title sequence ( along with two brief excerpts in German ! ) for this series on YouTube . Unfortunately , that is all you can see . Jason will not permit his early starring shows either to be repeated or released on D . V . D . A great shame . For the moment , however , Edgar Briggs ' life will have to remain top secret . CODA : I have seen a number of episodes recently and I'm pleased to say it stands up incredibly well . |
400,995 | 7,743,887 | 675,789 | 10 | Hedges ' First Day ! | It is the first day of a new term at Fenn Street School . Bernard Hedges , a newly qualified teacher , finds himself sitting on the bus next to a young man who requests a light for his cigarette . Hedges obliges , not realising the youngster ( Eric Duffy ) is a pupil at the school . Mistakenly getting off at the depot ( which looks like the one later used in ' On The Buses ' ) , he has to run the rest of the way . Slipping in through the back gate , he faces the wrath of caretaker Norman Potter . His woes are not over ; Miss Doris Ewell admonishes him for being late , and he is given 5C - the worst class in the school - to teach . . . The seven episodes which comprised the first season of ' Please Sir ! ' were forty minutes in length , meaning that the writers had time to establish characters ( just as well as there were a lot of them ) and develop story lines . The pace was noticeably slower , in particular the staff room scene and Hedges ' first encounter with 5C . Subsequent seasons reverted to the standard sitcom length of twenty-five minute episodes . The sight of Potter lugging milk crates brought a shudder to this reviewer . I detest the sight and smell of milk first thing in the morning , and was made by my teacher Miss Eynon to drink the stuff whether I wanted it or not . Banning it was the only decent thing Thatcher ever did . Hedges wears glasses and a college scarf , giving him a passing resemblance to ' Charley Farley ' from ' The Two Ronnies ' . When he first confronts 5C , they assume him to be a push-over . Craven nicknames him ' Privet ' , and he retaliates with ' Craven Cottage ' , resulting in an outburst of exaggerated laughter . Potter seems a more menacing figure here than in later episodes , where he was regarded by teachers and pupils alike as an object of fun . He does not grovel to the headmaster either . Instead of magnifying his own abilities , Abbott does as much for Hedges , making him sound like a karate black belt . F . A . refers to his father , whom we never saw in the show . Benny Hill's sidekick Bob Todd appears briefly as a bus conductor . Funniest scene - Hedges tries to apologise to Potter for their earlier misunderstanding , but accidentally pushes him underneath a cascading flood of coal . By the episode's end , Hedges has firmly established his authority ( with a little help from a woodworm-infested desk ) , thus setting the scene for the rest of the series . |
400,960 | 7,743,887 | 363,653 | 10 | Grand Slam is Epic ! | Rather like the ' Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads ? ' episode ' No Hiding Place ' , the B . B . C . Wales comedy film ' Grand Slam ' is revived whenever there's a major sporting event , only here its rugby . You would think it would be easy to tire of , but no , each viewing is an absolute joy . It traces the exploits of a group of Welshmen as they travel to Paris for the final game in the season . And what a motley lot they are ; ' Caradog ' the undertaker , seeking a girl he loved in the war whom he knows only as ' butterfly ' , ' Mog ' , who will hit any Frenchman who dares besmirch the name of Phil Bennett ; ' Glyn ' the ' Viva Zapata ' mustachioed ladies ' man ; camp-as-a-row-of-tents boutique owner ' Maldwyn ' , and ' Will Posh ' , who hates foreign beer so much he takes along his own . Caradog finds that the bistro in which he met his butterfly woman is now a strip-club , while she has degenerated into a seedy alcoholic . His son Glyn scores with her sexy daughter Odette ( Sharon Morgan ) , who shields him from the police when they raid the place . The humour is natural , coming out of the characters themselves . The depiction of the Welsh is certainly more believable than that of say , ' The Magnificent Evans ' , which could have been set on another planet . Great performances throughout , including google-eyed Hugh Griffith as ' Caradog ' , Sion Probert as ' Maldwyn ' ( don't think they could get away with such a character now ! ) , and , of course , Windsor Davies as ' Mog ' ( next to ' It Ain't ' Alf Hot , Mum ' , this is his finest performance ) . Comic highlights include Mog's horror on realising he has to share a bed with the gay Maldwyn , the latter's attempts to explain what a bidet is for , Mog's striptease , and his walking through the Parisian streets in his underwear to get to the game . The only thing wrong with the production is that a sequel never got made . These strong characters deserved a second or even third outing . In response to the user who said you need to be Welsh in order to enjoy the film , I say no more than you need to be Irish to appreciate ' Father Ted ' . Sixty minutes of inspired comedy . And the Gren cartoons are great too ! ADDENDA : On the very day I wrote this review , Wales won the Grand Slam ! |
401,014 | 7,743,887 | 145,614 | 10 | Journey To Michael's Mad World ! | Bowler hatted men march over Westminster Bridge . Lining up firing squad fashion , they aim their umbrellas at the Union flag and shoot . It could be the opening to an ' Avengers ' caper , instead it was the prelude to one of the zaniest comedies the B . B . C . has ever made - ' Its A Square World ' . I have only seen one episode of this fondly remembered ' 60's show ( repeated in 1976 as part of a B . B . C . retrospective ) but enjoyed it enormously . The late Michael Bentine not only starred ( his ' lecture ' sketches predated those of Ronnie Barker on ' The Two Ronnies ) , but co-wrote it with John Law . As you'd expect from one of the founders of ' The Goon Show ' , the show was rich in inspired lunacy , employing animation , puppets and Visual Effects , in sketches such as ' What Goes On In A Singer's Mind ' ( little animated men running around inside a man's head ) , a B . B . C . reporter interviewing a sexy French film-star loses his composure and tries to kiss her , a Chinese junk sails up the Thames and fires at The Houses Of Parliament , the source of the Thames turns out to be a giant dripping tap , a spy disclosing stolen rocket secrets over a public phone is astonished when the box takes off like a rocket , the B . B . C . T . V . centre is attacked by cowboys and Indians and , in a later episode , is shot into space . Many believe this to have been a major influence on later flights of fancy such as ' Monty Python's Flying Circus ' and ' The Goodies ' . Anything could happen in ' Its A Square World ' and usually did . The supporting cast included ( though not all at the same time ) Clive Dunn , Ronnie Barker , Deryck Guyler , Frank Thornton and Dick Emery . Bentine later took the show to A . T . V . - resulting in the less successful ' All Square ' . After a spell on children's television , in 1977 , he tried to revive the show . A pilot entitled ' Michael Bentine's Square World ' was screened , but led to no series . Which was a pity , seeing how it was directed by the brilliant Jim Franklin . Two sketches stick out ; office workers doing acrobatics in the workplace , leaping over desks and so on and a superb World War Two sketch about witches and warlocks forming their own air force . The sight of women in pointed hats on broomsticks taking off from an airfield ' 633 Squadron'-style had to be seen to be believed ! With more and more archive television appearing on D . V . D . , given the talent involved in its making and its importance in the development of British comedy , is it too much to ask that ' Its A Square World ' be considered for release in the not-too distant future ? |
401,447 | 7,743,887 | 75,579 | 10 | Give Us A Song , Monique ! | The fact that ' Secret Army ' was spoofed by a long-running sitcom ( ' Allo , Allo ' ) does not imply it was a bad series . Far from it . It would be like saying ' Brideshead Revisited ' was awful simply because it was ( partially ) spoofed by the I . T . V . comedy ' Brass ' . ' Secret ' was a superlative drama set in wartime Belgium , concerning the exploits of the underground organisation ' Lifeline ' , whose task is to find crashed Allied airmen and then send them home to carry on the good fight against the Nazis . The leader of the organisation was , in the first series , at least , Lisa Colbert , codenamed ' Yvette ' . ' Lifeline's ' headquarters was the Cafe Candide , run by Albert Foiret . Each episode saw ' Lifeline ' pitted against the evil Kessler , marvellously played by Clifford Rose . Being a co-production with Belgium television , ' Secret Army ' was able to achieve some remarkably authentic looking wartime location footage . Amongst the female cast members Angela Richards was outstanding as ' Monique ' , and its astonishing she did not go on to enjoy the success she so richly deserved . Of the three seasons , the last was the best ; set near the end of the war it had a wonderful sense of immediacy , also because it introduced the brilliant Terrance Hardiman as ' Reinhardt ' , a truly mesmerising performance . When , in the final episode , Reinhardt is executed by his fellow Nazis , it is impossible not to feel sorry for him . Compared to modern wartime dramas such as ' P . O . W ' . and ' Island At War ' ( both full of factual inaccuracies ) , ' Secret Army ' stands head and shoulders above them all . |
401,203 | 7,743,887 | 63,869 | 10 | Here He Is , The Lad Himself , Benny Hill ! | Mention ' Benny Hill ' to most people and the first thing they'll think off is the great man himself , a lecherous grin on his face , fleeing from scantily-clad girls to the strains of ' Yakety Sax ' . Yet his Thames show , which spanned an incredible twenty years , was about far more than mere sexism . Nobody did spoofs better than Benny Hill ; when he took off ' Sale Of The Century ' starring Nicholas Parsons , for a long time afterwards it was impossible to view the real thing without laughing . He also spoofed ' Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf ? ' with himself playing both the Burton and Taylor roles , Tennessee Williams , ' I Claudius ' , French language movies , and ' The Collector ' starring Terence Stamp . So his show wasn't as crass and mindless as some would have us think . Yes , he went out of fashion in the ' 80's , but should not have been sacked . The alternative comedians who railed against Benny and helped end his career have yet to match him for sheer entertainment value . Besides , Hill did not humiliate women as much as Ben Elton did with his awful ' Maybe , Baby ' . |
401,556 | 7,743,887 | 75,572 | 10 | The ' War & Peace ' Of Television | When the American mini-series ' Roots ' debuted on B . B . C . - 1 in 1978 , I was pretty cynical . Here we go again , I thought , yet another overblown soap opera , ' Rich Man , Poor Man ' Mark Two . I do not know what compelled me to tune in for the first instalment , but am so glad I did , else I would have then missed one of the greatest series of all time . Based on the book by Alex Haley , the story begins with his ancestor Kunta Kinte ( LeVar Burton ) disobeying his father's advice by venturing beyond the perimeters of his African village to find wood with which to make a drum for his baby brother . He is caught by slave traders , who ship him back to the United States in the most appalling conditions imaginable to begin a new life as a slave called ' Toby ' . The scene where Kunta is incarcerated in chains and screams at the top of his lungs is one of the most harrowing ever broadcast , and shocks still . Making repeated escape attempts , Kunta has part of his foot chopped off . Years pass , and he marries another slave named Bell ( Madge Sinclair ) , and they have a daughter called Kizzy ( Leslie Uggams ) . She is taught to read and write by the spoilt daughter of her owner , a fact that ultimately leads to her being sold off to the disgusting Tom Moore ( Chuck Connors ) , a man who thinks nothing of having sex with his female slaves . I will leave the synopsis here . ' Roots ' is an epic that spans decades , taking in major historical events such as the American Civil War , and although grim for most of the time ends on a note of optimism for the future . It brought history to life in a way no book could ever hope to do . My knowledge of the shameful age of slavery was increased a thousandfold . With race riots having been in the news only a few years earlier , it made me think : " my God , no wonder the blacks hate us . " . It took stick from some quarters over historical accuracy . While it is true that the African village seen at the start of the series was like something out of an old ' Tarzan ' movie the sense that a monstrous injustice had been committed was there . Yes , Haley took liberties ( it is called ' artistic licence ' ) , but did not invent slavery . He did not need to because it actually happened . If nitpickers want to remain blinkered to the evils of history , that's fine by me . As long as they do not expect everyone else in the world to think the same way . John Amos as the adult ' Kunta ' , Lou Gossett Jr as ' Fiddler ' , Leslie Uggams as ' Kizzy ' , and , in particular , Ben Vereen as ' Chicken George ' were brilliant , and the show not only was viewed by the highest audience in American history ( at that time ) , but also won countless awards , including the prestigious Peabody ( which Bill O'Reilly later claimed to have won ! ) . I doubt it but hope Enoch Powell ( and those cretins who marched in support of his extreme views ) was among the millions who saw it in Britain . Interestingly , 1978 was also the year in which ' The Black & White Minstrel Show ' ( a singing / dancing variety show starring white performers in minstrel make-up ) ended after a twenty-year run . After ' Roots ' , those hand-waving ' yassuh , boss ! ' stereotypes were no longer welcome on our screens . Though repeated several times , ' Roots ' has not been seen here for years , but thankfully is on D . V . D . It should be compulsive viewing in all schools . |
400,766 | 7,743,887 | 266,170 | 10 | Jack's Country | I was staggered to see ' Out Of Town ' included in ' The 100 Greatest Moments From T . V . Hell ' , broadcast on Channel 4 in 2000 . Which numbskulls chose it , I wonder ? Probably the sort who unreservedly condemn ' Curry & Chips ' without ever having seen it . Made by the now sadly defunct ' Southern T . V . ' ( also responsible for ' How ' and ' Freewheelers ' ) , ' Out Of Town ' used to go out at Sunday at noon ( peak viewing time if you were a British farmer back in the ' 70's ) , alongside ' Farming Diary ' , adverts for pesticide and worm tablets , and a ' weather forecast for farmers and growers ' . Bearded , pipe-smoking Jack Hargreaves was a wise old sage who lived and breathed the countryside . Sitting in a mock-up study or allotment shed , he would chat to camera , conveying tremendous enthusiasm for all things country , such as rabbit skinning or the best way to catch trout , without ever once becoming boring . It came as a shock to learn he was for years controller of programmes for Southern ( but I then I also believed Johnny Morris was a real zoo keeper ) . The short films Jack introduced were simply but beautifully shot by the late Stanley Brehaut . No intrusive background music either ! I got my love of nature from watching this show . It was the sort of country programme even us townies could appreciate . I can only assume that the reason it wound up on the Channel 4 hatefest was because it did not feature bad language , violence , and gratuitous sex , unlike 99 % of most modern shows . That says more about the viewers than about the show itself . Can anyone explain to me why a lovely old man talking at length about a subject he knew and cared about should be considered a suitable candidate for T . V . Hell ? |
401,627 | 7,743,887 | 75,568 | 10 | Boffo Laughs From Mike And Terry ! | Hot on the heels of John Cleese's first post-'Python ' project ' Fawlty Towers ' came this splendid spoof of stiff-upper-lipped schoolboy adventure tales from the days when Britain had an empire . Michael Palin and Terry Jones obviously had fun writing this , as well as performing ( although Jones only appeared in one edition ) . ' Ripping Yarns ' stretched Palin's acting abilities far more than ' Python ' ; check out ' The Curse Of The Claw ' in which he played the utterly disgusting ' Uncle Jack ' ! Beautifully filmed , with wonderful period atmosphere , ' Yarns ' featured impressive guest-stars such as Denholm Elliott , Iain Cuthbertson , and John Le Mesurier . The quality of the humour varied from Pythonesque romps such as ' Tompkinson's Schooldays ' to the genteel , touching ' The Testing Of Eric Olthwaite ' . My favourite , however , was ' Murder At Moorstones Manor ' , a whodunnit so convoluted its impossible to tell who did what to whom ! Palin and Jones were wise to only make nine episodes of this gem . |
401,532 | 7,743,887 | 51,739 | 10 | Gulley's Travels | Ronald Neame is , like Lewis Gilbert , a British film maker who it seems to me has never had the credit due to him , despite producing an impressive body of work , with films such as ' The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie ' , ' The Card ' , and ' Tunes Of Glory ' to his name . ' The Horse's Mouth ' , made in 1958 , was a favourite of mine , and used to play regularly on television , but for some reason or other has not been seen anywhere in years . As soon as I discovered it was on D . V . D . , I snapped up a copy . I was a bit fearful of watching though in case my memories did not live up to the reality . I need not have worried . It is absolutely wonderful . Based on a book by Joyce Cary , it stars the brilliant Alec Guinness ( will the person who said he was not one of the world's greatest actors please tell us who they think is better ? ) as ' Gulley Jimson ' , an eccentric artist . Gulley only has to walk past a blank wall for him to be compelled to paint , and often his visions are quite remarkable . He is not a particularly pleasant man , looks as though he has not had a bath in years , is prone to borrowing money ( with no intention of returning it ) and making crank calls to the rich in an effort to secure work . In appearance , he resembles ' Albert Steptoe ' , right down to the Homburg hat . He lives on a dilapidated house boat , and when let loose in someone's home will think nothing of getting drunk and stealing valuables . If you think all this makes him sound a nasty piece of work , you would be right . But it is a tribute to Guinness that he makes this horrible man not only immensely likable but strangely lovable . The most important thing in his life is art . He uses everyone around him , such as barmaid ' Cokey ' ( Kay Walsh ) and stammering youthful admirer ' Nosey ' ( Mike Morgan ) , but they put up with him because they admire his genius . I thought artists such as Gulley were far fetched , until I read an ' Observer ' article about the late Francis Bacon . From all accounts , a brilliant man , but rather dreadful , often prone to drunkenness and openly insulting those he did not like . The plot is episodic ; with Gulley involved in one happening after another . I am not going to spoil your enjoyment with detail - watch for yourself . Suffice it to say , it is hilarious , sad and intelligent , with Gulley's observations on art being rather profound . You will feel for him as one of his pictures does not turn out as expected . " Its not the vision I had ! " , he mutters , echoing those of us who at one point or other in our lives have seen a good idea fail badly . Wonderful supporting cast , particularly Kay Walsh and Renee Houston as Gulley's first wife ' Sal ' . Mike Morgan , who plays ' Nosey ' , sadly died a week before the production ended . He was only eighteen . Guinness was in good company here . Gulley's paintings were by John Bratby , an artist with a distinctive visual style . He never used a brush , preferring instead to squirt tubes of paint onto the canvas . His eye catching pictures are just what you would expect from someone like Gulley . No music was composed specially for the film , but instead classical pieces by Prokofiev were employed , fitting it to a tee . This is a charming , quirky movie , one of a kind . Guinness wrote the script himself , as no-one wanted to make a movie about a painter . One wishes he had done more writing for the cinema . I would say without a doubt that this is his second best movie performance ever , the first being ' Colonel Nicholson ' in David Lean's ' Bridge On The River Kwai ' . If the hallmark of a good movie is that when it ends , you immediately want to see it again , then ' The Horse's Mouth ' qualifies . Be warned though - afterwards you may feel an overwhelming urge to paint the next blank wall you see . |
401,113 | 7,743,887 | 665,929 | 10 | Its Alright ! | After six excellent seasons , ' One Foot In The Grave ' finally came to an end . David Renwick could have kept it running , but decided to quit while he was ahead . Paul Merton and Hannah Gordon both guested on the final show . It opens with Margaret , now a widow , complaining that a portrait of her late husband Victor bears an uncomfortable resemblance to Alistair Sim . The story of Victor's death is told in flashback . Right the way through we see the aftermaths of various incidents , such as Victor stabbing a syringe into the naked bottom of a boy racer . Its only at the end do we get to see these incidents in all their glory , accompanied by an upbeat number from ' The Travelling Wilburys ' . It would have been easy for Renwick to have closed the show with Victor's death , and have the credits roll in silence . But even with a story as tragic as this , he finds humour . Its British comedy at its best . Such was the impact of ' Grave ' on the public that the spot where Victor was killed was strewn with floral tributes and messages of sympathy within hours . Not bad for a fictional comedy character . How mean-spirited then of I . T . V . to spoil this episode by deliberately trailing in advance the ghastly Judith Keppel's win on ' Who Wants To Be A Millionaire ' , ensuring a ratings advantage . No matter ; ' One Foot In The Grave ' will be remembered long after Chris Tarrant's shabby greedfest is forgotten . |
401,686 | 7,743,887 | 1,079,616 | 10 | If I see your cat again , I'll have his tail for a lavatory brush ! | Let me get one thing straight - this is not the B . B . C . ' s ' Born & Bred ' from a few years back , but a Thames comedy series written by Douglas Livingstone . It ran from 1978-80 and centred on the exploits of two London families - the poor Tonsleys , among them grumpy ex-music hall artiste Tommy ( the priceless Max Wall ) and the well-off Benges , headed by the ultra-snobbish Frank ( James Grout ) . I recently acquired the second series , of which this is the first episode . Marge Benge ( ' Love Thy Neighbour's Kate Williams ) is at a railway station , having walked out on dopey husband Ray ( Gorden Kaye ) . She ( literally ) bumps into an attractive young woman named Nina Farthing ( Sally Grace ) . Nina recognises Marge from an old family photo . She has come to visit Tommy , who is her real father , and whom she has not seen since she was eight . Tommy's wife Rose ( Constance Chapman ) is quite happy at having her husband's long-lost illegitimate daughter living with them . Their own daughter Iris ( Susan Tracy ) has gone on a cruise . " She always did like sailors ! " , says Rose . Meanwhile , Frank Benge is organising his grandchildren's christening as though it were a military campaign , with guests being designated code names and numbers . The new area manager of Frank's insurance agency has agreed to be the godfather ( Frank hopes he will get promotion for this ) . Everyone is naturally confused by his plans . Frank has not invited the Tonsleys . But when Rose turns up unexpectedly and begins nosing around , he has no choice but to relent . Rose goes home to tell Tommy , who is not at all pleased . He has made alternative arrangements for the christening day . Without telling his wife , he has sold their home and bought a new flat . The first Rose knows of this is when a removals van pulls up outside the front door . Horrified , she looks herself in the toilet and refuses to come out . Tommy goes off to Molly Peglar's pub with Ray , Paul Redstone ( Ian Redford ) and Stephen Benge ( Richard O'Callaghan ) , the naive young man who nearly married Iris ( and got cold feet at the altar ) . Paul is depressed at the thought of losing his individuality by being part of the Benge clan . All proceed to get legless . Angered at the absence of his son-in-law ( and most of the other invited guests too ) from the christening , Frank decides to that it should proceed regardless . More troubles ensue for Tommy when he arrives at the new flat only to find the owner ( Paul Luty ) has changed his mind about selling . Tommy orders that all his furniture be put back in his old house . This in turn brasses off the man who had bought Tommy's house - he had planned to move in that very day . Luckily Nina is on hand to administer some of her legendary ' Personal Services ' . . . Though my copy was not terribly good ( containing some iffy editing around the commercial breaks ) , I found it an absolute joy to watch . The cast are uniformly great , with Max Wall and James Grout fabulous as ' Tommy Tonsley ' and ' Frank Benge ' respectively . And though it is a large cast , no-one gets sidelined . All play their roles to perfection . A critic at the time likened this to ' Till Death Us Do Part ' but personally I found it closer in style to ' A Bit Of A Do ' . Whereas that David Nobbs-scripted show was hampered slightly by the format ( the same people meeting each week at different social functions ) that was not a problem here . The christening scene is hilarious ; as it proceeds , the drunken guests enter the church one at a time and annoy the vicar by providing explanations for their lateness . So that is one episode down . I've five more to go . I cannot wait to see them . ( If you're reading this , Tim Beddoes of ' Network ' , please push this show up in the D . V . D . release schedules a bit quicker , would you ? ) |
401,300 | 7,743,887 | 641,213 | 10 | Espionage In Greece | Of the thirty episodes of ' Suitcase ' , I would say that this is probably my favourite . Though primarily a detective show , occasionally spy stories featured , of which this is one . Dalby ( Vincent Ball ) , an oceanographer , walks away from his job just minutes before a board meeting is due to begin , taking with him a self-penned report into the viability of deep-sea farming in the Adriatic . He flies to Greece where he tries to sell the report to foreign powers . McGill is hired to persuade Dalby to return to London . But Dalby has teamed up with American agent Packard ( Rex Everhart ) , and they are making mysterious trips into the Mediterranean in a speedboat . When McGill looks round the boat , he is attacked and thrown overboard , nearly drowning . He is saved by Dalby . Dalby's theft of the report was simply a cover for a much bigger operation . The Russians are planning to build a secret submarine base , an Albanian scientist has obtained the plans , which he intends passing on to Packard . Dalby is there to verify the plans ' authenticity . But the two men have underestimated the scale of the opposition - in the area is sinister enemy agent Rudnik ( Peter Arne ) . . . Wilfred Greatorex's script has a ' Danger Man ' feel to it , effectively deglamourising espionage . There are no women in this episode ( apart from Dalby's secretary , seen fleetingly at the start ) . Everyone's motives are suspect and no-one can be trusted . Even McGill is never sure just what is going on , and the best he can do is to stay alive . Vincent Ball , who plays ' Dalby ' , is an Australian actor who lived here in the ' 60's , appearing in amongst other things the film ' Carry On Cruising ' . Peter Arne , cast as ' Rudnik ' , was a familiar British supporting actor , who made headlines when he was murdered in 1982 . Ed Bishop , later to star as ' Commander Ed Straker ' in Gerry Anderson's ' U . F . O . ' , has a small role as an American agent . Don Chaffey , the director , made more ' Danger Man ' episodes than anyone else , and also worked on ' The Prisoner ' . This was his only ' Suitcase ' outing . It is the ending which gives the episode much of its impact . Mac escapes from Greece with the plans , and on returning to London , asks a C . I . A . agent what he intends doing about Packard and Dalby ( both were captured and shipped to Albania to stand trial ) . " Plainly , McGill , we never heard of them ! " , he snaps . The callous abandonment of these men by their own side leads one to conclude that being forced out of American Intelligence was in fact a blessing in disguise for McGill . |
401,307 | 7,743,887 | 641,207 | 10 | McGill Digs Up The Past | This was the first episode of ' Man In A Suitcase ' to go out in the U . S . A . In Britain , ' Brainwash ' was chosen as the premiere story . I have no idea why this was the case . Schoolteacher Rachel Thyssen ( Angela Browne ) spots a man in a London street she recognises as her late father Harry . She gives chase , but loses him . A concerned policeman comes to her aid . Harry Thyssen was the number two man in American Intelligence , officially declared ' dead ' six years before when his plane crashed , although no body was ever found . The story leaks to the press , reaching the eyes of McGill ( Richard Bradford ) who has good reason for wanting to find Harry . He had ordered him to allow a top scientist named LaFarbe to defect to the Russians . Mac did this , only to then inadvertently trigger a major spy scandal . Harry ' died ' before he could clear McGill , hence Mac was made to resign from U . S . Intelligence . Since then he has made a living as a private detective . Harry's boss Coughlin ( Lionel Murton ) warns him not to take the matter further or else he will be deported back to the States to stand trial . Determined to clear his name , Mac enlists the aid of seedy private enquiry agent Pfeiffer ( Timothy Bateson ) who begins shadowing Rachel . He is not alone . The Russians are interested in her too . . . Written by Stanley Greenberg , this effectively establishes the back story of the ' McGill ' character , and gives Richard Bradford a good opportunity to do what he is best at - expressing anger . The revelation that LaFarbe's defection was deliberate gives him plenty to get steamed up about . Compared to the wooden acting served up by Steve Forrest in ' The Baron ' and Gene Barry in ' The Adventurer ' , it is an Olivier standard performance ! Two things about this which immediately tell you its the ' 60's - a policeman can be seen on the beat and later Rachel walks alone at night near the Thames . Freed from the constraints Patrick McGoohan had placed on ' Danger Man ' ( no kissing ) , the production team had McGill romance a succession of pretty British actresses over the course of the series , such as Jacqueline Pearce , Felicity Kendal , Rosemary Nicol , and Judy Geeson . Here it is the beautiful ( and sadly deceased ) Angela Browne as ' Rachel ' , McGill's ex-girlfriend . But what really set the show apart from its contemporaries was the level of violence . Not Peckinpah standard admittedly , but the number of vicious beatings McGill endured must have stunned viewers all the same . Pat Jackson , the episode's director , worked on both ' Danger Man ' and ' The Prisoner ' . Stuart Damon , who plays ' Williams ' ( McGill's successor ) went on to play ' Craig Stirling ' in ' The Champions ' . Other actors in smaller roles include Timothy Bateson as ' Pfeiffer ' and Dandy Nichols as McGill's landlady . There is a great climax at the Regal City football stadium ( which alas no longer exists ) in which McGill tries to decoy Russian agents to give Harry time to flee back to Southampton docks . The downbeat final scene would be the first of many in this show . ' Man In A Suitcase ' , while not exactly overflowing with gritty realism , nevertheless managed to be closer to reality than say ' The Saint ' . |
401,304 | 7,743,887 | 641,200 | 10 | I'm going to shoot you , McGill ! | ' Brainwash ' introduced British audiences to McGill , although in the States a different episode entirely - ' Man From The Dead ' - was chosen . McGill travels by train to the countryside , to meet a client named LaPorte who wants to put him on a divorce case . He is met by John ( Colin Blakely ) and they exchange friendly chat . But when Mac gets into his car , John knocks him out cold , before injecting him with a sleeping drug . When Mac awakes , he is in an unfamiliar room . The door is locked . Guards stand outside . Bars are on the windows . A young girl , Judy ( Suzan Farmer ) brings him food . McGill has recognised ' LaPorte ' as Colonel Davies , the former head of the newly independent African state of Ikwala . Davies was ousted in a coup he believes to have been backed by American Intelligence , his place taken by the academic Dr . Gwabe ( Edric Connor ) . Mac is subjected to gruelling mental and physical torture - he is made to think he is a patient about to undergo an operation , forced to watch old news reel footage of Ikwala over and over again , is repeatedly shot at by Davies , and put on trial for his life . Davies promises to let him go provided he first sign a statement disclosing the involvement of the Americans in the coup . . . This was the nearest ' Suitcase ' got to the kind of cerebral drama to be normally found in such shows as ' The Prisoner ' . The trial sequence alone in which Mac is bombarded by weird sound effects and strobing lights would not have looked out of place in that series . The plot also bears a strong resemblance to an episode of ' The Champions ' called ' The Interrogation ' written by ' Suitcase ' co-creator Dennis Spooner . Colin Blakely played the interrogator in that too . The director of this episode was Charles Crichton , an Ealing graduate whose other television credits include ' Danger Man ' , ' The Avengers ' , and ' Space : 1999 ' . Bradford said in an interview that he had McGill recite the names of the months of the year during the brainwashing so that the character could be seen to be making an attempt to keep his sanity . The late Howard Marion-Crawford , who plays ' Davies ' , was ' Dr . Petrie ' in the ' Fu Manchu ' films starring Christopher Lee . Suzan Farmer was in the Hammer film ' Dracula Prince Of Darkness ' . Blakely , a fellow Method actor , worked so well with Bradford he was brought back to play a different character in ' The Whisper ' . The climax has a wounded and exhausted McGill staggering out of Davies ' house in a half-daze . In an era when heroes such as Simon Templar and John Mannering barely got a hair out of place in a fight , it stands out as an extraordinary moment . |
401,685 | 7,743,887 | 641,225 | 10 | Which way did Donald Sutherland go ? Straight to the top ! | Like Colin Blakely , Donald Sutherland was one of the few actors to make a return appearance - as another character - in this show , his first was as drunken ' Willard ' in ' Day Of Execution ' , here he plays ' Keith Earle ' , a newly-released convict who's as mad as hell . He has served a five-year sentence for his part in a gold bullion robbery , but now he's out and wants his share of the hidden loot . His fellow robbers did not get caught , so one by one he tracks them down ( using a motorcycle as transport ) , roughs them up and kills them , rather like the Lee Marvin character in ' Point Blank ! ' ( 1967 ) . McGill's involvement starts when garage owner Eddy ( J . G . Devlin ) finds a group photo taken just before the lads pulled the job . Eddy wants Mac to find the gold first , so they can split it . But Mac is not alone in tracking Earle . Scotland Yard are interested in recovering the money too . . . Written by Francis Megahy and Bernie Coooper - also responsible for the excellent ' Brainwash ' - this is an exciting yarn , directed by Freddie Francis , a noted cinematographer who , like Jack Cardiff , switched to making films . He is best remembered for Hammer horror classics such as ' Dracula Has Risen From The Grave ' and one of my favourite Amicus anthology films ' Torture Garden ' . He found time to work in television , pitching in episodes of , amongst other things , ' The Saint ' , ' The Champions ' , and , of course , this show . The plot is hampered by a few implausibilities ; why have the robbers all stayed in England where Earle can easily find them ? And why don't any of them head for the hills when the news of Earle's attack on a detective ( Michael Hawkins ) is reported in the press ? Sutherland's delivery of lines like ' I did five years ' bird ! ' sound bizarre coming from a Canadian . Perhaps the role was written for an English actor . He gives the character a sinister laugh which might have come in handy had he guested on ' Batman ' . It feels strange to watch this now knowing that Sutherland went on to become one of the world's biggest movie stars , while Richard Bradford , who plays ' McGill ' , did not . That's show business , I suppose . The lovely Jennifer Jayne is ' Joy ' , the girlfriend of one of the robbers who harbours a guilty secret - she knows where the gold is to be found . Francis must have liked working with her ; she also appears in his ' Dr . Terrors ' House Of Horrors ' ( as does Sutherland ) ( 1964 ) and the ludicrous but enjoyable sci-fi film ' They Came From Beyond Space ' ( 1967 ) . Irish actor J . G . Devlin , who plays ' Eddy ' , was one of the two escaped convicts ( Leonard Rossiter was the other ) who invaded Oil Drum Lane in the classic ' Steptoe & Son ' episode ' The Desperate Hours ' . |
400,869 | 7,743,887 | 563,094 | 10 | We three kings of Orient are . . . | The students ' entertainment committee plan to put on a show , which naturally means strippers . But the Dean takes an interest and advises them to ' keep it clean ' . So the strippers are out . Mike sends for his brother Terry , a theatrical producer camper than a row of tents . The first people to audition are a trio of Christian Union men , who sing ' We Three Kings Of Orient Are ' despite it not being Christmas . Next up are two nurses performing ballet ( badly ) . Terry tries to get them to do a number from ' West Side Story ' instead . It does not work out . Duncan insults Terry and he storms off , hence the students are left with little option but to drag up . . . Very funny Garden / Oddie episode , with the late Barry Justice camping it up wonderfully as ' Terry Upton ' , who appears to have wandered out of Mel Brooks ' ' The Producers ' . Adam Verney returns as the ' Christian Union ' man last seen in ' Settling In ' . Here he is named as ' Kenneth ' , and would reprise the role in the second season's ' May The Best Man Win ' . A young Mike Grady plays his sidekick ' Patrick ' . Funniest moment - Collier , Evans and Briddock in drag doing a Beverley Sisters impersonation for the patients ' amusement . |
400,857 | 7,743,887 | 811,356 | 10 | The ( First ) Trial Of A Time Lord | So enamoured was I of Patrick Troughton's interpretation of the Doctor that I very nearly didn't watch the final part of ' The War Games ' . If he died , I did not want to see it . Reason prevailed , though , and I did watch . It opens with the Doctor , Jamie and Zoe fleeing in the TARDIS from the scene of ' The War Games ' adventure , materialising in various locations ( nice re-use of old footage from ' The Web Of Fear ' and ' Fury From The Deep ' ) , but the Time Lords prove too powerful ; the TARDIS is forced to land , and the Doctor put on trial . That booming voice - " Doctor , your travels are over ! " - sent a chill up my spine . Here the Doctor is forced to justify his ' cosmic nomad ' lifestyle . The ' War Lord ' is on trial too ; and the Time Lords bestow on him their harshest sentence imaginable - total non-existence . Jamie and Zoe's touching farewell , the monster flashbacks , the Doctor's attempts to remain rebellious even after the sentence has been passed - all add up to a magnificent conclusion to ' 60's ' Who ' . |
400,955 | 7,743,887 | 563,095 | 10 | Dog ! | The students attend a lecture by the eccentric Dr . Towers ( Peter Bayliss ) , an expert on hypnosis . When he requests a volunteer , Duncan steps forward . After making a fool of the doctor , he is then hypnotised for real by Mike . Duncan wakes up normal except for one thing - whenever anyone uses the word ' dog ' in his presence , he barks ! Mike tries to reverse the condition , but Duncan does not respond and goes off , wandering about St . Swithins in a hypnotic trance . His friends must find him before he does serious damage to himself . . . Robin Nedwell gets here to do some of the visual clowning he later brought to ' In Charge ' and its sequels . He is particularly good when sending up Towers . Later in 1970 , the first season of ' The Goodies ' ( scripted by Garden & Oddie ) also featured a character ( in this case , Bill Oddie's ) wandering about in a daze while his friends endeavour to rescue him . The reason though is different ; instead of hypnosis , Bill has drunk some of Grahame's cocoa ! The late Peter Bayliss is ' Dr . Towers ' . He is best remembered as Dennis Dunstable's drunken Dad in ' Please Sir ! ' and ' The Fenn Street Gang ' ( he was apparently an eccentric in real life . His answering machine contained the following message for callers : " Hello , this is Peter Bayliss ' budgie speaking . He's not at home at the moment as he's gone out to buy me some bird seed ! " . ) Funniest Moment - Dr . Towers about to stick a hypodermic needle into Duncan's arm , only to stick it in his own by mistake ! |
400,611 | 7,743,887 | 563,093 | 10 | Can You Get B . B . C . - 2 On That Thing ? | The second run of ' In The House ' was prefaced by repeats of eight episodes of the first , marking the first time the show was seen in colour . Summer break is over . Upton returns to St . Swithins , sporting the beginnings of a moustache , only to find that his friends have them too . His father has provided him with an expensive stethoscope , as well as a little blue book for making diagnoses . He doesn't have the latter for long however . Someone steals it ! A cracking episode this , signalling the series finally emerging from the movies ' shadow and establishing its own identity . Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie wrote every episode of season two ( it was a busy time for them . They had ' The Goodies ' waiting in the wings for take off later that year ) . Thankfully , Huw Evans has gone to Portsmouth on a midwifery course , meaning we are spared Martin Shaw's unconvincing Welsh accent and annoying habit of going " Wahey ! " at every opportunity . The future ' Doyle ' of CI5 was not cut out to do sitcom , and never did one again , although he briefly returned as ' Huw ' in an episode of ' Doctor At Large ' . Replacing him is future ' Yes Minister ' co-creator Jonathan Lynn as drunken Irish student ' Danny Hooley ' . Lynn's Irish accent is no better than Shaw's Welsh one , but at least he looks more at home in a comedy . Donna Reading is ' Miss Walker ' , the poor girl whose breasts he has to examine in front of Loftus and the students . ' Monty Python ' fans will remember that she played a bimbo in the ' You're No Fun Any More ' episode of Season 1 . Funniest moment - Duncan and Upton shaving off their moustaches , only for Dick and Paul to expose theirs as fakes ! |
400,756 | 7,743,887 | 563,101 | 10 | My baby has gone down the plug hole ! | Upton cannot study because his friends are too busy trying to organise a car rally . He finds himself paired with the lovely , frightfully posh ( she talks exactly like The Queen ) Fiona ( Angela Scoular ) . En route Fiona suggests they drop in on her sister Diana ( Bridget Armstrong ) and her husband Mungo ( Jonathan Cecil ) . Diana is expecting a baby . It rains so Mike and Fiona decide to stay overnight . Diana goes into labour . While Fiona and Mungo go off to fetch a doctor , Mike is left with Diana and has not got a clue what to do . . . A nice Garden & Oddie episode with some good guest stars . Bridget Armstrong , who plays Diana , was in the film ' The Amorous Prawn ' with Ian Carmichael and Cecil Parker , and would later play the wonderfully named ' Hazel Nuts ' in ' The Lost Tribe Of The Orinoco ' episode of ' The Goodies ' . Jonathan Cecil also appeared in ' The Goodies ' - as ' Arthur Minion ' in ' Charity Bounce ' . He was also in ' Dad's Army ' . Cute Angela Scoular was ' Ruby ' in the Bond film ' On Her Majesty's Secret Service ' , and a year after this went out , played fashion model ' Ophelia O'Brien ' in the last of the ' Doctor ' movies - ' Doctor In Trouble ' - in which she co-starred with future husband Leslie Phillips . Funniest moment - Upton attempting to practice midwifery by pulling a teddy bear through the back of a chair . When he tips it upside down , though , its head comes off ! |
400,631 | 7,743,887 | 641,220 | 10 | The Priest Who Never Was | Ruthless African plantation owner Marcus Spencer ( Patrick Allen ) recently gave the local natives overtime , and is now having second thoughts about paying out the extra money he promised them . His wife ( Sheila Brennan ) is an out-and-out racist who thinks they will squander the money on drink . Acting as an unofficial spokesman for the natives is Father Ignatius Loyola ( Colin Blakely ) . Spencer becomes suspicious of the man and hires McGill to investigate his background . Obtaining a Bible containing one of the father's thumb prints , Mac learns that he is in fact one Alfred Porter , a mercenary wanted all over the world for fraud and murder . He is also officially registered as dead . So what is he doing in Africa , alive and well , and masquerading as a Jesuit priest ? Colin Blakely had earlier appeared in this series as ' John ' in ' Brainwash ' , also directed by Charles Crichton . Like star Richard Bradford , he was a Method actor , and got on so well with him he was brought back . He is excellent as the repentant ex-mercenary who has had a fit of conscience and decided to help the people he was once guilty of slaughtering . Patrick Allen's ' Marcus Spencer ' ( now there's a joke name if ever I heard it ! ) is the real villain of the piece . His refusal to honour an agreement with the natives is the catalyst for the story . Written by Moris Farhi , also a writer on ' Strange Report ' , ' Out Of The Unknown ' , and ' Strange Report ' . ' The Whisper ' is full of religious symbolism ( the plot parallels St . Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus ) such as the final shot of the little African boy watching Father Loyola take to the skies ( ascending to Heaven ? ) in a helicopter . No actual location filming in Africa was done , nor was it for most of the I . T . C . shows of the time , but it does not matter . The story is strong enough to overcome this obstacle . Some nice touches of humour too , such as the Vatican representative jiving with Mac in a discotheque ! |
401,159 | 7,743,887 | 641,223 | 10 | McGill chases a million - Part 2 | The second episode opens with an ( edited ) recap of the first's climax . No ' Previously On . . . ' of the sort popular with many of today's shows . After the titles , we see McGill locked in the hold of the ship he has stowed away on . Back in London , a briefing by Michaels of his men effectively brings us up to speed . The C . I . A . boss orders them to fly to Lisbon to stake out banks . Teiko is kept under surveillance , in case Mac tries to make contact . The Captain ( Norman Rossington ) demands from Mac a further payment of $500 in addition to what he has already received . He also warns him to stay away from the crew , describing them as ' crooks ' , a comment that brings a smile to our white-haired hero's face . Some men challenge Mac to a game of poker . It ends with a fight , and Mac is wounded badly . He is smuggled off the ship in a packing crate . When it is opened , the sailors knock him out and take his money . Mac awakens and staggers towards Lisbon , determined to get the million at all costs . . . The story begun in Part 1 reaches a thrilling conclusion . Poor Mac not only has to contend with Russian and American spies but a greedy ship's captain and crew . Some solace comes his way when he meets Lucia ( Gay Hamilton ) , a woman who lives alone who helps him get better . Bradford is at his best here ; being a friend of Brando's there was a noticeable influence in his performance . The look on his face when he finally opens the deposit box is great - not one of greed , but pride on having outwitted his former employers . Anton Rodgers ' ' Max ' , though killed off in Part 1 , reappears in a dream sequence in which he holds out the palm of his hand , and it is covered in blood . If this had been a movie , the plot would probably have been filled with car chases and shoot-outs , but as a television product it is more sedate , therefore more believable . A nice moment occurs when Michaels confesses to Johnson he almost wishes McGill would find the money . That guard in the bank looks familiar - it is Ricardo ( billed as ' Richard ' ) Montez , whom would play ' Juan Cervantes ' in the L . W . T . sitcom ' Mind Your Language ' a decade later . The late Norman Rossington , cast as the ' Captain ' , is best known for comedy roles in movies such as ' Carry On Sergeant ' and ' A Hard Days Night ' . Yoko Tani's ' Teiko ' vanishes from the plot somewhat abruptly , almost as though her contract for filming had elapsed too soon . ' Bucks ' is good enough to make one wish that other two-part ' Suitcase ' episodes had been made . |
401,160 | 7,743,887 | 641,222 | 10 | McGill chases a million ! | The only two-part ' Suitcase ' adventure opens in Lisbon . Max Stein ( Anton Rodgers ) , paymaster of a network of Russian agents , is confronted by an official who accuses him of having stolen a contingency fund . There is a fight , which Stein wins . We then see him placing the money ( one million dollars ) in a deposit box in a bank . He clutches the key excitedly . Some time later , Stein is in London , hanging out with old friend McGill . While Mac rekindles a romance with Teiko ( Yoko Tani ) , Stein is being closely observed by both American and Russian spies . He is later shot by one , and before he dies tells Mac where to find the key - secreted inside a chess piece back at his flat . Mac is warned by Michaels ( Ron Randell ) of the C . I . A . not to go after the money . Every bounty hunter worth his salt will be after it . The deposit box also contains important papers both sides badly want . Of course Mac is not going to listen . He eludes his watchers and boards a ship bound for Lisbon . . . It could be the plot of a Robert Ludlum novel , couldn't it ? ' Bucks ' is excitingly done , with a fine performance from the late Anton Rodgers as the doomed ' Max ' . Richard Bradford got on well with the actor during filming and I think it shows . Some nice humour touches - a dying Max tells Mac : " I am losing a lot of alcohol ! " . There is very good continuity here too ; with mention of McGill's former superior ' Coughlin ' - whom we saw in ' Man From The Dead ' - and the C . I . A . office is the same set from that episode . Warren Stanhope , who plays agent ' Johnson ' , reprised the role for ' Web With Four Spiders ' . The late Yoko Tani appeared in the last two ' Danger Man ' stories - ' Koroshi ' and ' Shinda Shima ' . I love the idea of a Russian spy called Bert ! ( probably a codename . His real one may have been ' Bertovski ' or something like that ) . Penny Spencer - the original and best ' Sharon Eversleigh ' of ' Please Sir ! ' - is seen dancing at Mac's party . The late Mike Pratt appears briefly as a detective . Two years later , he co-starred with Kenneth Cope in the wonderful ' Randall & Hopkirk ( Deceased ) ' . Pat Jackson directed this first instalment , with Robert Tronson taking over for the second . There is no real difference in style between them . The episodes were later edited together to produce a feature film entitled ' To Chase A Million ' , which David Deal and Matt Blake's book ' The Eurospy Guide ' gave a right pasting , although by the standard of television movies it is pretty good . This review will be continued . . . |
400,778 | 7,743,887 | 563,078 | 10 | A Strip The Viewers Missed ! | The doctors - Bingham included - are excited at the prospect of new physiotherapists at St . Swithins . Loftus gives the girls a lecture on what to expect , describing Dick as a ' lanky , straw-haired , tailor's dummy ' . Bingham he ignores completely . Duncan falls for busty 18 year old Emma Livingstone . Thinking of her as a lady , he treats her accordingly , taking her to Cliff Richard concerts and keeping her away from Dick and Paul's social orbits . But at a charity fund-raising event , Duncan grows over possessive ( brawling with Paul ) and in retaliation she humiliates him by stripteasing in front of the staff . The next day , she ends the relationship , describing Duncan as ' dull ' . . . The tables are well and truly turned on Duncan in this episode . Deborah Watling , who plays ' Emma ' was ' Victoria Waterfield ' opposite Patrick Troughton's ' Dr . Who ' in the late ' 60's . Note her line : " I hate Cliff Richard ! " . The following year , she acted opposite Cliff in ' Take Me High ' ! According to an interview Robin Nedwell gave to ' The News Of The World ' years later , Deborah was to have worn ' cups ' to hide her modesty , but stunned the cast by going topless . She thought it would get a better reaction . Of course this was edited out of the television broadcast ( damn ! ) . Funniest moment - Mary and Duncan jiving on the dance floor . Helen Fraser is surely a natural for ' Strictly Come Dancing ' ! |
400,775 | 7,743,887 | 563,072 | 10 | Pollock ? That Pillock ! | Plans are drawn up to merge St . Swithins with Highcross , turning the former into a hotel , while Loftus becomes Professor of Surgery at the new hospital . Duncan and the gang endeavor to put a stop to it . They enlist the staff to make Sir John Pollock and Lord Wagstaff think St . Swithins is the worst hospital in the world ( not too difficult ! ) . The V . I . P . ' s are treated to the sight of doctors smoking and drinking in corridors , cuddling nurses , not bothering to wash after operations , running around with organs in buckets , and using patients in trolley races . But Bingham goes one step further - he tells the rugby team about the merger . Duncan must stop them before they commit murder . . . This excellent Graham Chapman and David Sherlock scripted episode got the second season of ' Charge ' off to a flying start . Henry McGee was best known for ' The Benny Hill Show ' . He turns yellow at the end , but jaundice has nothing to with it . Harold Bennett - previously seen as ' Mr . Reeves ' in ' Doctor At Large ' - played ' Lord Wagstaff ' . The dripping spleen must have put people off their dinners in 1973 . What a great week for Richard O'Sullivan fans - three days earlier , he'd been seen in the ' Its Only Money ' episode of ' Man About The House ' . Funniest moment - Duncan using his stethoscope to eavesdrop on Loftus ' office , only to be nearly deafened when Lofty bellows into it : " Get out ! " . |
401,127 | 7,743,887 | 240,285 | 10 | Eric & Ernie Plunge Into The Thames | A battered old van bearing the legend ' B . B . C . T . V . ' stops alongside the Thames Television studio at Teddington Lock , London . The rear doors open , and two figures in raincoats and flat caps are flung out . As it speeds off , they regain their composure , and are greeted by a camp-sounding producer . " Welcome to Thames ! " . The new arrivals - Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise - look at one another . " This is just like the B . B . C . ! " , says Ernie , to which Eric responds : " Only quicker ! " . Yes , after ten years , the unthinkable had happened . Morecambe and Wise had jumped ship , leaving the B . B . C . to join Thames T . V . They would not be the first comedians to do this , of course , Benny Hill took the same route a decade before . But Eric and Ernie had seemed so at home on the B . B . C . , so much a part of it , that a move to the commercial channel looked as likely as Granada surrendering production of ' Coronation Street ' to B . B . C . Wales . Indeed Eric had decisively ruled out the possibility of such a move a year before it actually happened . " There's no way we're going over to I . T . V . ! " , he had stated . The first show they did for Thames went out on 24th October 1978 . As it was their first since their record breaking Christmas Show the year before - watched by a staggering 28 million people - a lot was expected of it . Eddie Braben , their regular writer ( and arguably the man behind their greatest television triumphs ) was still under contract to the B . B . C . , hence new writers needed to be found . Or rather a pair of old ones . John Junkin and Barry Cryer had written at least one of Eric and Ernie's B . B . C . Christmas shows , and seemed the right men for the job ( like their predecessors Dick Hills and Sid Green , they made brief appearances as themselves ) . That first show contained all the familiar ingredients - songs , sketches ( including one of Ernie's legendary dreadful plays ) , and guest stars . Continuing the tradition of great British actresses appearing alongside the lads ( such as Glenda Jackson and Diana Rigg ) , Judi Dench ( before she was made a Dame ) joined the club . Donald Sinden ( then appearing as stuffy ' Robert ' in the sitcom ' Two's Company ' ) did a sketch entitled ' Butler Of The Year ' , before singing ( if that's the right word ) ' You've Either Got Or You Haven't Got Style ' . Old favourites Ann Hamilton and Peter Cushing ( still after his money ) returned . Leonard Sachs , chairman of ' The Good Old Days ' , made a fun cameo in a spoof version of ' Dr . Jekyll & Mr . Hyde ' . Amongst the musical numbers was a fabulous recreation of ' I Want To Talk Like You ' from Disney's ' Jungle Book ' with Eric and Ernie miming to the soundtrack . In short , it was every bit as good as their earlier B . B . C . shows . So why hasn't history been kinder to their Thames work ? Possibly due to massive public affection for the former . When it went out originally , what do you think B . B . C . - 1 were showing at the same time ? It was ' Morecambe & Wise At The B . B . C . ' . Yes , you read it correctly . To act as a spoiler , Bill Cotton Junior scheduled a repeat to overlap with the start of their first Thames special . The continuity announcer was even instructed to describe it as ' the best years of Morecambe & Wise ' , cattily implying that the new show would in some way be inferior . Many agreed - the Thames shows never got the high ratings as those of the B . B . C . - but even so I do not think they were anywhere near as bad as chroniclers of Morecambe and Wise's history have liked to make out . The decline in their fortunes only came about when Eric suffered a second major attack , necessitating the need for a scaling down of their act , meaning that their later work came across as tired and flat . Even Braben's return did not help matters . They really should have called it a day . Instead they ploughed on , their shows continuing until the end of 1983 . Eric died a few months later . Now that the Thames shows are available on D . V . D . , we can see that they are a lot better than they have been given credit for . Morecambe and Wise continue to bring us sunshine after all these years . |
401,681 | 7,743,887 | 576,228 | 10 | The Nightmare Sunday | The third episode of the first series of ' Fall & Rise ' begins with Reggie at Sunshine Desserts . The model for a new ice cream pagoda has been left on his desk . Unsurprisingly , he hates it . The broken window in his office still needs fixing . A call to the 24 hour maintenance man establishes that he has gone home . When Elisabeth goes to visit her mother on Sunday , Reggie asks Joan to pop round , on the pretext that ' something has come up ' . Once they are alone , he gives her a quick kiss , before apologising profusely . To his amazement , his affectionate gesture is reciprocated . Joan has waited for eight years for him to make the first move . She meekly leads Reggie upstairs to the spare room ( in a lovely touch , he reverses the picture of the Queen so that it faces the wall ) . But before they can get down to it , Reggie has the first of several visitors . . . There is something farce like about this episode . Pretty woman in a bedroom , and her would-be lover frantically trying to keep her presence secret . It is still good fun though , with Rossiter's mounting terror at the thought of being caught with Joan hilarious ( listen to how quickly the actor speaks . It is like a machine-gun in full flow , yet every word can be perfectly understood . I know of no other actor - past and present - capable of doing this ) . First visitor is Mark , Reggie's out-of-work actor son ( David Warwick ) . Mark would only appear in one other episode - ' The Memorial Service ' - before being killed off completely . With his long hair , left-wing sloganeering T-shirts , and fondness for Cockney rhyming slang , the character is neither particularly interesting nor amusing . He is also a bit of scrounger , always taking money off his parents . Perhaps David Nobbs decided he was a little too similar to Jimmy . Speaking of whom , he is here too , and yes , there's been a ' cock-up on the catering front ' . Tom is the last to arrive , smoking what Reggie describes as ' one of those revolting brier pipes ' , and uses for the first time what became his catchphrase : " I am not a something-or-other person ! " . Funniest moment - Reggie nervously awaiting Joan's arrival . Then he notices he has B . O . and goes upstairs to wash . The next time we see him , he is wearing a clean shirt . Sniffing his armpit , he exclaims : " Its getting worse ! " and goes off again . |
401,120 | 7,743,887 | 563,082 | 10 | There's something fishy going on here ! | Loftus ' quest for a knighthood continues . . . After showing a Harley Street consultant named Sir Desmond around the Research Unit , Loftus notices he has left behind his little black bag , so tells Duncan to return it . Duncan's car , with the bag inside , is taken by Paul , wishing to impress his beautiful date . Duncan thinks it has been stolen and informs the police . Finding it outside a classy restaurant , Duncan takes it back . Paul too informs the police . Patrolmen arrest Duncan and take him to the station , believing him to be a thief . He tells the Sergeant who he is . But Paul is there also , and is also calling himself ' Dr . Duncan Waring ' . . . George Layton had written a number of episodes for ' At Large ' under the alias ' Oliver Fry ' , but by the time of ' In Charge ' felt confidant enough to use his real name . Just as well because this is a cracking episode , with lots of farcical twists and turns , and a hilarious performance from Benny Hill regular Bob Todd as the befuddled Police Sergeant . Jonathan Lynn , who played ' Danny Hooley ' in Series 2 of ' In The House ' co-authored the script . Good continuity - Dr . Aziz from ' The Black & White Medical Show ' is mentioned briefly . Apparently his last act before leaving the hospital was to help Paul with his wine making ! Funniest moment - Loftus arriving at the Police Station , and announcing himself . With three doctors currently in his cells , the Sergeant looks aghast at the arrival of yet another ! |
400,996 | 7,743,887 | 563,080 | 10 | She's an old boot ! | Noticing that Bingham's mind is not on his work , Duncan asks what is wrong . Lawrence tells him that he has proposed to Mary Parsons and , to his surprise , she accepted ( mainly because no-one else wanted her ) . But that is not the main reason for his melancholia . She is up for a top medical job and fears the marriage may damage her suitability . Duncan has an idea - conceal the marriage right up until the last minute . It will take place on St . Swithin's Day ( 15th July ) , when the sight of two men in top hats and tails in the hospital will go virtually unnoticed . The big day arrives , and Duncan and Bingham dash through an operation with great speed , much to the bemusement of Loftus . On their way to the chapel , they are confronted by Dick and Paul , who assume that Duncan is marrying Mary , and want to stop it . . . Continuing the storyline begun in ' A Night With The Dead ' , this Bernard McKenna and Graham Chapman scripted episode sees the first time in the show that a major character got married . Though Waring and Bingham have not exactly been friends in the past , the former graciously agrees to being the latter's best man . In fact there are signs of genuine friendship here , something the earlier shows did not allude to . In one of the best endings of any episode , a fight breaks out between the doctors in a fountain , resulting in a group photograph outside the chapel of some very wet and bruised looking participants . Funniest moment - Bingham accidentally punching out the Chaplain ! |
401,687 | 7,743,887 | 576,217 | 10 | Reggie's Rebellion Begins | With the ' Reggie Perrin ' series starring Martin Clunes now underway on B . B . C . - 1 , I thought it might be a good time to review the first episode of the classic series starring the late , great Leonard Rossiter . Clunes has been dismissive of the old show in interviews ( why do people these days think the most effective way to promote a remake is to rubbish the original ? ) and there have been several comments on internet television forums of the ' it was good in its day , but its very dated now ' variety . I have not seen the original show in many years , not since it was last repeated on B . B . C . - 2 ( late ' 90's , I think ) . So what did I make of the first episode after all this time ? Every second of it was first-rate . The title sequence , as everyone remembers , has Reggie running along a beach , stripping off his clothes , and taking a dip , accompanied by Ronnie Hazlehurst's wonderful theme . This scene is not in the opening episode , of course , it happens much later in the run . What I found interesting was the way the episode was structured . It starts with a typical day in Reggie's life ; everything is done to order , he and Elisabeth ( Pauline Yates ) swap the same farewells each morning ( " Have a good day at the office . " . " I won't ! " ) . He walks along streets named after poets , catches the train where he finds himself sharing a compartment with hay fever sufferer Peter Cartwright ( Terence Conoley ) who never thinks to bring along tissues , and then finally , its off to ' Sunshine Desserts ' whose sign loses at least one letter a day . Reggie throws his umbrella at the hat-stand but never hits it , and notices Joan's legs as she dictates a letter . Then there is the usual encounter with the appalling Tony Webster ( Trevor Adams ) , whose favourite word is ' Great ! ' and nervous David Harris-Jones ( Bruce Bould ) , whose favourite word is ' Super ! ' , interplay with C . J . ( John Barron ) , a man whose cruelty to his employees is borderline sadistic ( farting chairs in his office no less ! ) . The second day sees Reggie developing signs of anxiety , he even manages to throw up in the middle of a tasting of a new range of exotic ice creams . On the third day the madness begins proper , and here the show takes full comic flight . I don't accept the ' dated ' argument because the themes dealt with here are timeless . People like ' Reggie ' ( trapped in hum-drum jobs ) still exist unfortunately . In the first episode of the new show , they decided not to show us what Reggie was rebelling against , and to use a popular phrase ' cut to the chase ' with him insulting people at every opportunity . In today's multi-channel world , a series needs to get to the point quickly or else the impatient audience changes channels . A great pity . Details like the streets named ' Coleridge Close ' and ' Tennyson Avenue ' are not funny in themselves , but they gave depth to what otherwise could have been a run-of-the-mill sitcom . Rossiter as ' Reggie ' is simply magnificent . Had ' Rising Damp ' not happened , this would have been the show he would today best be remembered for . Even when nothing very funny is happening , he keeps you amused . Just look at the serene expression on his face when Esther Pigeon ( Jacki Piper ) witters on about sales figures ! This was the only episode directed by its producer John Howard Davies . From then on , Gareth Gwelan assumed directorial responsibilities . Davies certainly knew how to cast . Every actor in this is perfectly chosen , even the minor characters such as Peter Cartwright . Funniest moment - Reggie is in the Italian restaurant having a three-course meal - ravioli , ravioli , and ravioli . Guess what Elisabeth has waiting for him when he gets home ? The series was off to a flying start . |
401,684 | 7,743,887 | 576,219 | 10 | Why are lions lions ? | The second episode of ' Fall & Rise ' saw Gareth Gwenlan assuming directorial responsibilities ( taking over from John Howard Davies ) and he remained with the show until its end ( and he helmed the 1996 sequel ' The Legacy Of Reginald Perrin ' ) . There is no difference between this and the previous instalment , they look like they were the work of the same man . Reggie is in bed with Elisabeth , feeling depressed because he is unable to make love to her . When the neighbours return from their ' snifter ' at the golf club , he vents his fury . Acting on his wife's advice , Reggie goes to see C . J . to ask for a month off . But he gets scared in his boss ' presence ( and anyway he is needed to supervise the new exotic ice creams project ) so backs down . C . J . gives him the afternoon off instead . Reggie's hopes for a peaceful afternoon at home are dashed when brother-in-law Jimmy ( Geoffrey Palmer ) shows up , and in what would be the start of a running gag , asks for food on the grounds that there has been a ' cock-up on the catering front ' . He even takes the fillet steak Reggie had planned on having for dinner . Linda ( the stunning Sally-Jane Spencer ) is next to invade the Perrin household , and reminds Reggie about the trip to the safari park lined up the next day . Reggie has an awful time , trapped in a car not only with Elisabeth , Linda , but her trendy husband Tom ( Tim Preece ) and their horrid children , Adam and Jocasta . Something has got to give , and does . . . This is where we first meet Major Jimmy Anderson , a scrounger of the first order , superbly played by Geoffrey Palmer . The character's habit of using clipped , militaristic phrases such as ' odd chaps women ' , ' Johnny Foreigner ' , and ' well done that man ! ' made him almost as popular as Reggie himself , and in the mid-80's , David Nobbs gave him his own spin-off series ( sort of ) in the form of Channel 4's underrated ' Fairly Secret Army ' . Tom is a wonderful example of the ' new age ' man ; he brews his own wine ( made from vegetables ) , smokes briar pipes , gives his children pretentious-sounding names , eats garlic-flavoured squid , and says nothing in his defence when Reggie brazenly insults him . He is a bit like ' Tom Good ' of ' The Good Life ' only much worse . Funniest moment - Adam announces he has just done ' biggies ' in his pants , and Tom says " That's not a good idea . old chap . It will get uncomfortable for you later on . " to which Reggie replies : " And not just for him ! " . If Adam sounds strange it is because he was dubbed by an adult performer ( a common practice in films / television in those days ) . |
400,613 | 7,743,887 | 563,123 | 10 | He called me a village idiot ! | Loftus has become even more irascible of late , bellowing insults at staff during operations , and generally making himself even more unpopular than usual . Duncan gets to the heart of the problem - Loftus and his wife are no longer speaking to one another because she refuses to buy an expensive piece of medical equipment for the hospital . Duncan and Kate have to play matchmaker to get normality resumed . . . A very good episode by Bernard McKenna , giving Ernest Clark and Joan Benhan a much wider scope to their characters , both together and with Robin Nedwell and Jacquie-Ann Carr . Loftus has never been so aggressive before or since . Molly Weir , who plays chip shop owner ' Winnie ' , would have been familiar to viewers through the advertisements she did for ' Flash ' washing powder . Funniest moment - Duncan running his boss down to Winnie , before turning and walking straight into him ! |
401,097 | 7,743,887 | 563,135 | 10 | What a hospital ! | All in a day's work for the staff at St . Swithins ; an annoying little man wants an operation even though there's nothing wrong with him , an Italian family ( all thirty of them ) with no command of English moves into Casualty , a Welshman is in grave need of physiotherapy , and to cap it all , a convicted criminal has been brought under guard to undergo a gallstone operation . The trouble starts when the trolleys get mixed up ; the Welshman winds up in the operating theatre , a corpse is left unattended in a corridor , while Mr . Melia - the convict - is placed in the morgue . . . One of the funniest of all ' Doctor ' episodes . George Layton and Jonathan Lynn's blackly comic script is packed with subplots - any one of which could have made for an adequate episode - which merge magnificently , and there's a nice twist before the final credits roll . Alison King - who plays ' Nurse Sheila Reynolds ' - looks like a female Marty Feldman and no , I do not mean that as an insult . Frank Jarvis steals the show as ' Melia ' ; the funniest moment has him waking up in the morgue . Thinking he is on a ward , he begins idly chatting to the corpses . Realising where he is , he panics ! |
401,427 | 7,743,887 | 563,109 | 10 | Its not what I expected ! | This week , I . T . V . - 1 devotes an edition of its ' Comedy Classics ' series to ' Doctor In The House ' . So now seems the right time to look back at the very first episode . London Weekend Television were on something of a lucky streak in the late ' 60's ( thanks to Head Of Comedy Frank Muir ) , having launched ' Please Sir ! ' in 1968 and ' On The Buses ' the following year , they then gave us this , loosely based on the novel by Richard Gordon ( which had formed the basis for a hit movie starring Dirk Bogarde in 1954 ) . Other ' Doctor ' movies followed , even after Bogarde's departure , in fact the series was still continuing as this went on air . ' Doctor In Trouble ' , with that old smoothie Leslie Phillips , hit British cinemas in 1970 . Because the movies were so well known , it was decided to avoid plundering them for jokes ( such as " you , what's the bleeding time ? " ) , and to change the names of the characters , hence ' Simon Sparrow ' became ' Michael Upton ' , ' Sir Lancelot Spratt ' was rechristened ' Professor Loftus ' , ' Benskin ' transmogrified into ' Dick Stuart-Clark ' ( named after a real-life Footlights member - and friend of John Cleese and Graham Chapman's - called Chris Stuart-Clark ) . Cleese and Chapman penned the opening episode , but would never collaborate on the show again . Chapman teamed up with Barry Cryer , and Cleese left , returning two years later to write some first-class episodes for ' At Large ' . This episode begins with a nervous-looking Upton arriving at St . Swithins . His father , also a surgeon , is keen for his son to continue the family tradition of working in medicine . The interview is a terrifying ordeal ; Upton is confronted with The Dean ( Ralph Michael ) and Loftus ( Ernest Clark ) who ask him irrelevant questions such as ' who is Vice President of the United States ? ' . When Upton mentions his rugby prowess , the Dean is impressed . The hospital had lost the trophy to Highcross the previous season . He qualifies , much to his own surprise . September arrives , and he finds himself in a lecture theatre sitting next to Duncan Waring ( Robin Nedwell ) . Late arrivals include ' Paul Collier ' ( George Layton ) and Dick Stuart-Clark ( Geoffrey Davies ) . The latter in particular is a cool customer , and so he should be - this is his fifth year as a first-year student . The Dean's speech , in which he spells out in detail the hospital's rules , is long and tedious . Upton and Waring are sent to Stebbins ( Michael Burrell ) to procure a frozen arm which they then must take to the dissection room . Collier , displaying the mischievous sense of humour we would see in later series , sends them instead to a maternal clinic . . . It is a good opener , effectively setting the scene and establishing the characters . The sight of Mike and Duncan wandering about the hospital corridors with a severed limb is unusually ghoulish , possibly Chapman's contribution . As Upton , the late Barry Evans is perfectly cast , being naive to the point of charming . He was younger than Bogarde had been when he did the movie , and this added gravitas to his performance . It was rare to see a sitcom in those days with such a young cast . As George Layton recently put it : " We were the ' Friends ' of our day ! " . Funniest moment - a policeman asks the students what they are carrying . They show him , and he faints ! |
401,688 | 7,743,887 | 56,189 | 10 | What you don't see you'll never miss ! | Ian Hendry shot to fame as the star of the first series of ' The Avengers ' in which he played crime busting ' Dr . David Keel ' , with Patrick Macnee as his sidekick ' John Steed ' . He then left to pursue a career in film , leaving Macnee to assume star status in the show ( which became an international hit ) . Hendry made several films , of which ' Live Now - Pay Later ' was one . In it , he played ' Albert Argyll ' , a door-to-door salesman for ' Callendar's Credit Stores ' . Slick , quick-witted , irresistible to women , this man could sell anything to anybody . As a bonus , he gets to sleep with some of his customers . Indeed early on in the film one of them , called ' Treasure ' ( June Ritchie ) turns up at the shop , demanding to see Albert . He has run out on her , leaving her to bring up a child born out of wedlock , as well making her responsible for a mass of bills . He is out on his rounds , so she vents her anger by wrecking the shop . As the film progresses , her anger subsides and she and Albert once more become an item . When he is promoted to manager , he takes her to the shop and they fool around using the goods ( Albert does a stunningly brilliant ' Charlie Chaplin ' impression at one point ) . But he bites off more than he chew , and his boss Mr . Callendar ( John Gregson ) demotes him back to salesman . Treasure goes off Albert too , leaving him alone once more . But is he downhearted ? Is he heck ? As the movie ends , he once is out and about ( he has a habit of jumping out of his van while it is still moving ) and working his charm on a new customer , called Coral ( Justine Lord ) . Another reviewer has rightly commented on the similarity between Hendry's ' Albert ' and Michael Caine's ' Alfie ' . I have always believed that Hendry deserved greater success than he ultimately got - he should have been up there with Oliver Reed and Richard Harris and Stanley Baker as a major international star . He had the talent . He just never found the right role ( like Reed and Harris he also had a terrible drink problem . My late father-in-law once told me Hendry came into his local pub one afternoon , and stood a round ) , becoming instead a supporting star , albeit a good one , appearing in ' The Hill ' ( opposite Sean Connery ) , ' Get Carter ' ( opposite Michael Caine ) , ' The Internecine Project ' ( opposite James Coburn ) and my favourite Vincent Price picture - ' Theatre Of Blood ' . In all these films he was marvellous . June Ritchie , who plays ' Treasure ' , holds the distinction of being the first topless woman in a major British film - John Schlesinger's ' A Kind Of Loving ' , also made in 1962 . She was also the second topless woman in a major British film , as she takes a bath in Albert's flat . She too was tipped for stardom , which never materialised . All British films of these period seemed to have wonderful supporting casts , and this one is no exception - Nyree Dawn Porter , Geoffrey Keen , Peter Butterworth , Bridget Armstrong , Jeannette Sterke , and an early sighting of Peter Bowles . Particularly impressive is Liz Fraser as ' Joyce Corby ' , wife of an ambitious Councillor . She is up to her neck in debt and when the bailiffs come knocking , flees from the house in terror - only to get knocked down and killed . For anyone accustomed to her bubbly roles in the ' Carry On ' series , it is quite shocking stuff . Writer Jack Trevor Story and Jay Lewis had earlier collaborated on a dire wartime comedy starring Bill Travers and Spike Milligan called ' Invasion Quartet ' , so it makes this film's quality all the more surprising . Lewis only made one more film after this - the silent comedy ' A Home Of Your Own ' with Ronnie Barker - before his death in 1969 . So this works both as a cautionary tale of the dangers of getting heavily into debt , and a comedy with charming acting from the leads . It really deserves an official D . V . D . release . |
400,708 | 7,743,887 | 563,111 | 10 | It'll go through him like boiling oil ! | Duncan panics when the £497 raised for charity by St . Swithins - and entrusted to him for safekeeping by Loftus - goes missing . Unable to find it , he , along with Dick and Andy , decides to go on a inter-hospital cross-country run , and get the money back by betting heavily on Highcross . The only thing he needs to do is ensure now that St . Swithins doesn't win . . . ' Dad's Army ' did a not-dissimilar plot , entitled ' When Did You Last See Your Money ? ' . The highlight here is , of course , the run itself , as Duncan and the gang endeavor to ' nobble ' their own side , using dirty tricks that Dick Dastardly and Muttley would have been proud of . Poor Gascoigne has been given cascara , which means he keeps dashing into the bushes every few hundred yards . Funniest moment - Stuart-Clark stepping off the coach , dressed in flat cap , pinstriped suit , and puffing on a big cigar . Loftus shrieks : " Ye Gods ! Clark , this is not a ruddy fashion parade ! " . |
401,508 | 7,743,887 | 563,118 | 10 | Did I Run Over A Cat Just Then ? | Duncan and Kate are planning a weekend trip to Paris , but two unexpected crises crop up ; firstly , Gascoigne gives the wrong treatment to the wrong patients because he cannot read Duncan's handwriting properly , and secondly , Loftus orders Duncan to fetch a kidney from a nearby hospital and bring it to St . Swithins to be used in a transplant operation . Collecting the organ , Duncan makes the mistake of letting Dick get behind the wheel of his car . The anaesthetist drives the way he practices medicine - fast . The car catches fire and the police give chase . Duncan hitches a ride with a holidaying family but they pull over to allow their son to be sick . With time running out , the doctor heads for the woods . Enter an R . A . F . helicopter . . . My favourite episode of ' Doctor On The Go ' , this harks back to the classic ' Honeymoon Special ' instalment of ' Doctor In Charge ' , most notably during the driving sequence . Dick goes through red lights , nearly kills both himself and Duncan whilst overtaking a lorry , and does a James Bond-style leap over a hill . Had there been a ' Doctor On The Go ' movie , it could have served as a fitting climax . Finally , thanks to the R . A . F . , the kidney reaches St . Swithins and Duncan and Kate go off on holiday . But there's a final unpleasant surprise in store for them . . . Great fun ! |
401,616 | 7,743,887 | 667,837 | 10 | A Traitor In The White House | Senator William Lyons Selby is the favourite to be the next President of the U . S . A . The Chinese Communists know this , and have created a perfect double using a revolutionary ' molecular plasticity ' serum . The night before the election , Selby is quietly assassinated and the double takes his place . As expected , he wins by a landslide . On entering The White House , the double starts to undermine U . S . defence and foreign policy . His daughter notices the sudden change in her father's character , as do his aides . But how do they prove he is an impostor ? The second broadcast episode of ' The Outer Limits ' is noticeably different from all others ; being more of a political thriller akin to Richard Condon's ' The Manchurian Candidate ' . The only fantasy element is the method used to turn a Chinese agent into Selby's double . Anti-Communist propaganda ? Certainly . But in 1963 the West did feel genuinely threatened by the East , and this episode caught the mood of the time . As Selby , the late Sidney Blackmer is superb , one could easily picture someone like him becoming President . The only false note struck by this chilling episode is the melodramatic finale in which the plot is exposed in the middle of a White House reception . I must mention Dominic Frontiere's eerie music , definitely a major factor in this episode's success . |
400,657 | 7,743,887 | 72,814 | 10 | Kiss Me Where It Counts ! | Timmy Lea ( Robin Askwith ) swaps his window cleaner's bucket for a microphone in this , the second of the money-spinning romps based on the novels of Christopher Wood . Sid Noggett ( Tony Booth ) signs a pop group called ' Bloater ' ( whom he renames ' Kipper ' ) , with a view to making a fortune as their manager . There's one problem - he has not heard them play . When he does , his worst fears are confirmed . They are terrible . Nevertheless , by seducing the wife of a local theatre manager ( Bob Todd ) he is able to get them a booking . Mrs . Lea ( Doris Hare ) helps out by sending along an enthusiastic crowd composed of elderly women . One of the band is accidentally injured back stage , so Timmy goes on in his place . ' Kipper ' go down a storm . Soon they are in the record studio , and appearing on the top-rated talent show ' Star Knockers ' . Fame and fortune cannot be far away surely ? With Val Guest having declined the chance to direct the follow-up , the job went to Norman Cohen , whose other credits include the movie versions of ' Till Death Us Do Part ' and ' Dad's Army ' , and ' Adolf Hitler My Part In His Downfall ' , based on Spike Milligan's war memoirs . He stayed on board for the next two pictures . Doris Hare replaced Dandy Nichols as Timmy's mum . The use of sitcom actors was a major part of the ' Confessions ' success story . It amused audiences to see ' Mrs . Butler ' from ' On The Buses ' and ' Pike ' from ' Dad's Army ' surrounded by bare bottoms and boobs . Three of the cast had previously appeared in ' Please Sir ! / The Fenn Street Gang ' - Peter Cleall , Carol Hawkins , and Richard Warwick . Two went on to sitcoms - Diane Langton in ' The Rag Trade ' and Linda Regan in ' Hi-De-Hi ' . Both were cast here as the nymphomaniac ' Climax Sisters ' . Another - Jill Gascoigne - was to be found chasing criminals a few years later in the L . W . T . series ' The Gentle Touch ' . I'm sure she is not proud of her role in this film . Peter Jones ' ' Maxie Naus ' looks suspiciously like Hughie Green of ' Opportunity Knocks ! ' . A recent television documentary appeared to suggest that the main audience for the ' Confessions ' films were old men in grubby macs . Not so . Do you know who were ? Teenagers . When ' Pop Performer ' came out , I was one of many youths loitering nervously outside the theatres where it played , fag in hand , trying to pluck up enough courage to go in and buy a ticket . The films might not have been well written or acted - no-one gave a stuff about that then - but if you were under eighteen and you'd seen a ' Confessions ' film , you were a hero to your mates . They were also great ' date ' movies . If you had been going out for a while and had not progressed beyond kissing , you took your girlfriend to a ' Confessions ' film in the hope it would act as some kind of aphrodisiac . Of course you dare not let on it was a sex farce . " Its a comedy . " , I remember telling my girl : " Bob Todd's in it . You know , him off ' Benny Hill ' " . She wasn't impressed . We saw ' Herbie Rides Again ' for the second time instead . The relationship ended soon after . Funniest moment ? Timmy making love to a girl in a record shop while Spike Milligan can be heard reciting ' In The Ning Nang Nong ' to music . |
400,908 | 7,743,887 | 563,032 | 10 | I want my red medicine ! | Paul is temporarily working at Dr . Neilson's practice . Upton agrees to cover for him one night so he can go on a date . All goes well until the police ask him to check to see whether a man they have arrested is inebriated . He calls himself Mike Upton . . . A great Graham Chapman / Bernard McKenna episode . James Hayter was known for his voice-overs for the ' Mr . Kipling ' cake commercials . ' Liz Hickel ' , the nymphomaniac receptionist , was a change of role for Patsy Rowlands , best known for ' Bless This House ' and the ' Carry On ' films . May Warden's ' Mrs . Thompson ' isn't far removed from ' Grandma ' , which she later played in the television version of ' Billy Liar ' . But the best performance comes from Tim Brooke-Taylor lookalike Gareth Forwood , as the dim-witted ' P . C . Mansell ' . Funniest moment - Mansell repeating ' You've really landed me in it this time ' ad nauseam , causing the Sergeant to wonder whether or not he may be as drunk as Collier . |
401,333 | 7,743,887 | 563,039 | 10 | I do like your leg ! | Loftus sacks Dick for making one mistake too many . Unable to get him to change his mind , Duncan resigns in protest . Out of work , he and Dick sign up as ship's doctors aboard the passenger liner M . S . Begonia . They look forward to a new life of sun , sea and . . . surgery . And being free of Loftus . But they've a shock in store . . . The title refers to the unusual nicknames given by the sailors to the medical staff ; ' Sir John ' ( Duncan ) is ' surgeon ' , ' Baby Doc ' ( Dick ) means ' junior surgeon ' . Alan Tew's theme has been given a nautical remix , and excellent it is too . ' Sea ' gets off to a splendid start with this Gail Renard / Phil Redmond scripted opener . With many of the original cast and crew having moved on , it took the opportunity to look back and remind the viewer how far the characters had come in a short space of time . Duncan's fierce defence of Stuart-Clark is proof of the bond of friendship between them . I doubt whether such a scene would have been possible in the earlier series . There's a lovely moment near the beginning where Dick and Duncan plan a surprise farewell party at St . Swithins , only to realise they're the only ones left from their student days . Collier moved on three months before , while the Binghams are bringing up triplets ( ! ) . The past is represented by a series of monochrome snapshots ( Upton is in a few ) backed up by a mellower arrangement of the theme . Even Dick sheds a tear for days gone by as the sequence ends . Before sentimentality takes over completely , we move onto a naval outfitters ' shop , where Duncan and Dick wreak havoc pretending to be Zorro and Long John Silver . Using a plot device borrowed from the film ' Doctor In Trouble ' , the new Captain is the twin brother of Loftus , enabling the role to be played by the same actor . Funniest moment - Duncan and Dick arriving at what they think is their ship , only to find it is not what they expected . Rats infest their cabin , a sewer pipe hangs over the woodworm-infested bunks , a mad sailor periodically has violent fits , and the Steward has the hots for Duncan ( a brief but funny appearance from Christopher Biggins ) . Fortunately , it turns out not to be the Begonia after all and as the episode ends , we see our heroes running across the docks , carrying a heavy-looking trunk between them . St . Swithins may have gone , but for the moment , it hardly matters . A classic episode . |
401,505 | 7,743,887 | 563,024 | 10 | Upton's Fatal Attraction ! | Its Saturday afternoon , and Upton is on call at Dr . Whiteland's practice . Dick has gone off with the lovely Tanya , but forgotten to cancel a previous date with photographic model Maxine . An angry Maxine turns up at the practice , demanding to see Dick . She bursts her way into an examination room , only to find The Minister for Inland Development naked , having turned up for an appointment one week early . Upton is confronted with a nightmare problem - Maxine is hysterical and on the point of suicide . Chasing her back to her flat , he becomes trapped when she locks the door and drops the key down her dress . . . In need of money after a failed business venture , John Cleese penned several scripts for ' Large ' , of which this was the first . There's no Pythoneseque humour on display , but the writing style he later brought to ' Fawlty Towers ' is in evidence , as seemingly unconnected plot strands - such as Lady Ashley and her teddy bears - converge at the end . Upton's boring conversation with Colonel Aystrop anticipates Basil Fawlty's meaningless exchanges with Major Gowen . Offered a drink , Aystrop replies : " No no no no yes . " . This was many years before ' The Vicar Of Dibley ' . The late , lovely Hilary Pritchard was all over television and cinema screens in the late ' 60's / early ' 70's . One film of hers - ' Under The Doctor ' - was a terrible low-budget British sex farce which starred , ironically , Barry Evans . Maureen Lipman attacks the role of the demented ' Maxine ' with relish , though why she thinks Dick worth committing suicide over is a mystery . Even so , ' Saturday Matinée ' is twenty-five minutes of expertly written and performed farce . Funniest moment - Upton tries to calm Maxine by slapping her . She retaliates in kind ! |
401,503 | 7,743,887 | 563,030 | 10 | Twice an hour ? Twice a day ! | Upton is called to the home of rich hypochondriac Mr . Medwin . Finding nothing wrong with him , he prescribes a tonic . No sooner has he returned to Dr . Whiteland's surgery than he receives a phone call informing him that Mr . Medwin has died . Medwin's family are a greedy , grasping bunch who cannot wait to get their hands on his fortune . As the will is read out , they receive a terrible shock - Mr . Medwin has bequeathed his money to his doctor . . . By ' Doctor ' standards , this is a dark episode indeed , with an elderly patient dying suddenly and Upton fearing being struck off for accidentally over prescribing medication ( the tonic contained strychnine ) . Even Dick briefly suspects Mike of ' bumping off ' Mr . Medwin . The studio audience don't sound very amused by the proceedings . Even so , its a welcome change of pace for the show . The late Jack May is well remembered as ' William E . Simms ' , the butler to Gerald Harper's ' Adam Adamant ' in the cult B . B . C . series of that name . John Nettleton was a regular in ' Yes Minister ' . Funniest moment - Upton's Bergmanesque nightmare . As Mike dashes about in slow motion across a mist covered landscape , he is menaced by the Medwin family amongst others , a sequence which pulls off the impressive feat of being both disturbing and funny . |
401,501 | 7,743,887 | 57,435 | 10 | Hancock's Masterpiece | Following the success of ' The Rebel ' in 1960 , Tony Hancock and his writers , Ray Galton and Alan Simpson , planned a follow-up . Various ideas were kicked about ( such as having Hancock go on a round-the-world cruise , or him playing a double role ) , scripts were written , but none pleased the star . Eventually , he fired Ray and Alan , and wrote the script in collaboration with poet and novelist Philip Oakes . ' The Punch & Judy Man ' was no average British comedy film , indeed its an astonishingly bitter piece , casting Hancock as ' Wally Pinner ' , a depressed , middle-aged Punch and Judy man in the English seaside town of Piltdown . His marriage to the lovely but aloof Delia is on the point of collapse , and he is looked down upon by the pompous dignitaries who run the town , such as the Mayor ( Hancock hated snobbery in real life ) . Pinner's only friend is the Sandman , a local eccentric who makes historical sculptures out of sand . Pinner is persuaded by Delia to give a show at a forthcoming dinner to commemorate 100 years of Piltdown , at which a member of the aristocracy will be present . Needless to say , it gets out of hand , degenerating into a bun-throwing fight . The film's main strength is that it does not try hard to be funny , the humour flows naturally , and even when not particularly amusing it manages to engage , such as Wally's conversation over tea with the Sandman . Only the bun fight at the end looks as though it were written in at the last minute , but its a minor criticism . Hancock gives a superb performance as the cynical ' Pinner ' , and is supported by such talented actors as Sylvia Syms , Ronald Fraser , Barbara Murray , Hugh Lloyd and . of course , John Le Mesurier . Hattie Jacques is fleetingly seen as a fortune teller . Public apathy ensured that Hancock and Oakes did not collaborate on another project . A great shame , as it is a cut above the Norman Wisdom and ' Carry On ' series of the day . Be warned , however , the D . V . D . is missing a scene where Pinner works off his rage by inserting a bunch of flowers into a ceramic pig's rectum . Presumably it was deleted to enable the D . V . D . to get a ' U ' certificate . Funniest moment - Pinner's ice cream eating contest with the little boy played by Nicholas Webb . As good as anything Chaplin ever did . |
518,043 | 8,239,592 | 77,877 | 1 | Stunningly stinky schlock | I've seen more than my fair share of malodorous cinematic stinkers , so claiming that this horrifically horrendous dud is perhaps the smelliest celluloid skunk I've ever had the grave misfortune to stumble across is say a whole lot . Things get off to an unpromising start with a lone man stranded on a remote island wandering through the woods . His meandering thoughts serve as insufferably tedious narration . The man finds a cave and ventures inside . He discovers a bunch of old computers . He watches about twenty entire minutes worth of stock footage of both World Wars , Woodstock and Vietnam . Sound exciting ? Well , trust me it sure ain't . Boring ? Most definitely . It's more boring than watching two snails copulate for five hours straight . The story proper finally kicks in and things only get worse . Much , much worse . Poor Robert Vaughn , a long way off from " The Man from U . N . C . L . E . , " portrays a drippy stuffed shirt bargain basement James Bond-style government secret agent who discovers a nefarious Nazi plot in South America to start a Fourth Reich through cloning . Cranky superior Keenan Wynn huffs and puffs his disapproval . Leo Gordon is shamefully wasted in a nothing bit part as a useless FBI chief . The ubiquitous Aldo Ray pops up as an evil Nazi rat . None other than Hitler himself ( badly played by a pitifully unconvincing actor ) turns out to be behind the whole thing . Wynn also is revealed as being in cahoots with the Nazis ( that's a big surprise - - NOT ! ) . The limp direction by Kenneth Hartford and notorious Grade Z blunder wonder supreme David L . Hewitt ( who also co-wrote the stale cookie cutter script ) , David E . Jackson's ugly , washed-out cinematography , the lethargic pacing , the infrequent and ineptly staged action scenes ( the undeniable low point occurs when Vaughn very meekly fights a clone of himself ) , William Loose's terrible droning slushy score , the crummy acting , and the dreadful tin-eared dialogue ( " I think you could do with a little less bump and a lot more grind " ) are all uniformly abominable . Naturally , this gruelingly godawful ordeal spent two years gathering dust on the shelves before it was purchased by legendary cruddy late-night TV titans Gold Key Entertainment so it could be rerun an endless amount of times at 1 : 00 a . m . in the morning much to the dismay of insomniacs the world over . This appalling atrocity comes across like a fifth-rate watered-down version of an " Ilsa " picture . The absolute pits . |
518,359 | 8,239,592 | 65,470 | 1 | Big bore is more like it | This so-dumb-it's-numbing Sasquatch cinema stinker holds the dubious honor of being possibly the first-ever American movie made about the legendary Bigfoot . Alas , it's also one of the worst-ever movies ever made about Bigfoot . A small tribe of Sasquatchs - - one giant bad male , three babbling females , and a homely , noisy " whattheheckisit ? " - type hybrid baby critter - - abduct luscious young human babes for unsavory procreative purposes . Everybody involved with this putrid turkey comes out stinking worse than filthy old socks . Bouncy , buxom blonde bombshell Joi Lansing , clad only in a skimpy pink nightie , runs shrieking through the woods with a grunting , lecherous Bigfoot in hot pursuit . Robert Mitchum's no-talent son Chris , trying to look tough with his scruffy beard and bandanna , makes for a pitifully unconvincing biker hero . John Carradine , sporting a hideously overdone Southern drawl and a juicy hamminess that could be made into a dozen cans of Spam , gives an unbearably unrestrained performance as traveling salesman Jasper B . Hawke , who wants to nab himself a Bigfoot so he can make a bundle exploiting the beast to the ninth degree . Robert Mitchum's no-talent brother John grates on the nerves with his insufferably whiny turn as Carradine's sniveling partner . Former cowboy movie star Ken Maynard came out of retirement to do a useless bit as an elderly shopkeeper . Comic actor Doodles Weaver briefly appears as a forest ranger . Such familiar B-picture faces as William Bonner , Jennifer Bishop and Russ Meyer starlet Haji ( the latter having a very bad overbleached bouffant ' do day ) pop up as members of a sickeningly wimpy chopper gang . The Bigfoot creatures are stupendously sorry-looking : With their tatty , you-can-see-the-seams brown gorilla costumes , buggy eyes and rubbery , puffed-out monkey faces , they resemble rejects from a fifth-rate carnival freakshow . There's little action , nudity , violence or excitement to speak of ( at one point Bigfoot wrestles a portly , out-of-it bear , but even this scene is so maladroitly staged that it fails to alleviate the incessant tedium ) . But there's plenty of dreadful dialogue ( " As a former student of archeology I recognize these markings as having a peculiar significance " ) . Among the other malevolent cinematic blunders to be found within this beyond bad Bigfoot bogusity are stubbornly stationary cinematography , a hopelessly dated " groovy " semi-psychedelic rock score , a draggy pace , a meandering narrative and , last and definitely least , Robert F . Slatzer's horribly ham-fisted so-called " direction . " The absolute pits . |
517,975 | 8,239,592 | 74,365 | 1 | Accursed bilge | Representing the ugly , filthy , unwashed hind end of Sasquatch cinema , this dreadful direct-to-TV hodgepodge profoundly reeks more than the allegedly malodorous mythical monster . A little boy and his yippy dog are attacked by Bigfoot in the opening scene ; this occurrence is never tied in with the rest of the flick . Next a pompous high school science teacher gives an interminable lecture about the origins and discovery of Bigfoot to his understandably disinterested class . An intense guy shows up to relate a grim story about his own nasty run-in with Sasquatch . Several years ago the intense guy was a high school teacher who with a coed student quintet in tow ventured into the wilderness to check out an ancient Indian burial ground . The expedition finds a mountain and climbs it . They uncover Sasquatch's secret subterranean tomb . They enter the tomb and run across a perfectly preserved mummified corpse . They remove the corpse , which turns out to be Bigfoot ( ! ) , from the tomb . Bigfoot awakens from his centuries of sleep and goes on the rampage . Man , is this patchwork muddle one beat movie . Don Fields ' static direction sorely lacks both finesse and energy , the performances are terribly wooden , the narration is very annoying ( Bigfoot is described as " a monster of evolution " ) , the pace lurches along at an excruciatingly sluggish clip , the story uses a confusing and disjointed flashback-ridden narrative structure with mind-deadening results , the cinematography offers a wealth of appalling mismatchings of footage shot in two separate eras , the cornball bellowing score sounds like it was lifted from some Grade Z 50's schlock creature feature , the faded color film stock is pure torture on the eyes , a stupefying surplus of extraneous filler abounds , the supposedly exciting climax is simply pitiful ( Sasquatch gets torched in a small brush fire ) , and the Bigfoot is a real letdown - - he's some short heavy-stepping schmo in a ragged bush league hair suit with a pop-eyed , inexpressive paper mache mask on his face ! The absolute pits . |
518,408 | 8,239,592 | 282,198 | 1 | Hideously cloying and sappy claptrap | A dorky animal lover father brings home a murderously cuddlesome female chimp named Tereza from his latest around the world exploits . He adopts the shrill , repulsively overaffectionate little bugger as a pet . Of course , the guy's bratty youngest son adores the foul beast , but the dude's bitchy wife and bullying older son vehemently disapprove . Things reach a full boil of sorts when a bunch of undisciplined juveniles kidnap Tereza and the previously estranged family all pull together when Tereza's absence makes the whole sickening wholesome clan realize how much they truly love her . Yep , once again the heart-tugging sappiness is showered excessively on the luckless viewer with an appalling lack of both restraint and subtlety . Further ruined by Josef Pinkava's prosy , zestless direction ( Pinkava also co-wrote the cornball script ) , plenty of tedious extraneous filler ( bicycles riding down the street , Tereza running amok in a school , assorted asinine animal antics at the zoo , a picture-taking outdoor excursion , and so on and on . . . ) , a slumberous , more slow-than-two-turtles-mating pace , Angelo Michajlov's mechanically bouncy cutesy-poo score , a rambling , barely coherent , largely uneventful narrative , stiffer-than-cardboard acting , numerous excruciatingly fumbled would-be humorous moments ( the gorilla puffing on a cigarette gag is especially lame ) , and one genuinely hair-raising scene in which the crack-voiced youngest son shriek-sings over the phone in a broken , nasal , pain-peeling quasi-soprano whine , this deservedly obscure family feature dud overall sizes up as a total worthless stinker . |
518,569 | 8,239,592 | 87,379 | 1 | Horrendous | We all know the story : Sweet little old lady ( legendary silent film actress Lillian Gish , who must have had one hell of a hefty phone bill to pay when she decided to appear in this dismal dippy dreck ) loses her dog in a New York City airport . The mangy loyal pooch makes a lengthy , laborious and perilous trek across the great big US of A in order to be reunited with his owner . En route the raggedy hound meets an assortment of pleasantly plastic generic one-note cardboard stereotypes of typically colorful American folks ( affable grandpappy , sad , lonely crippled kid , perky pregnant lady , philosophical drifter , and so on ) and has numerous misadventures with dognapers , burglars , and even a motorcyclist . WARNING : Big nasty SPOILER ahead . At the picture's heart-wrenching conclusion the rumpled rover and his old biddy owner cross paths again ( sniff , sniff , ahh , ain't that so nice and touching ? ) . Replete with pedestrian , by-the-numbers direction , a cruddy leave - no - cliché - unaccounted - for script , beauteous scenery , a sappy string score complete with faint angelic chorus , and a raft of embarrassingly cheesy guest star cameos - - Alan Hale , Jr . , Candy Clark , Jack Carter , Robert Walker , Jr . ( typecast as his usual aimless hippie wanderer ) , and , worst of all , O . J . Simpson as garrulous'n'gregarious gear-jammer Tucker the Trucker - - this flick overall sizes up as one incredibly lame , sappy and mush-headed family feature turkey that should have been put to sleep at the preliminary screen writing stage . |
518,258 | 8,239,592 | 95,922 | 1 | Just plain stinks | I have seen many an abominable slasher teenkill body count film in my lifetime , so it's saying a lot that this hideously lame'n'tame loser qualifies as perhaps the worst slice'n'dice stinker I have ever had the grace misfortune to suffer through . A demented Devil-worshiping Los Angeles police officer ( horribly overplayed to the annoyingly hammy hilt by the dorky , singularly unmenacing Bobby Ray Shafer ) stalks and bumps off six wholly unlikeable , peevish , beer-swilling jerk teens partying their empty heads off in some typically creepy abandoned house located deep in the remote woods ( boy , that's a fresh and novel premise for a horror film . . . NOT ! ) . Writer / director Wallace Potts does a simply super job of messing this putrid porker up big time : we've got nil suspense , painfully lurching pacing , grating false scares ( which include the ever-popular and irritating cat jumping out of a cupboard and startling the hell out of someone phony jolt ) , obnoxiously atrocious acting , bloodless and moronic murders ( a nightstick down the throat gag is especially execrable ) , no gratuitous sex or nudity to speak of , the flipped-out flatfoot cracks these horribly witless sub-Freddy Kruger one-liners every time he kills someone , and , naturally , there's an awesomely awful , groan-inducing and dissatisfying " he ain't dead yet " sequel set-up ending ( sadly enough , said " nobody asked for it " sequel was actually made , which only goes to show you can't keep either a bad loony fuzzball or even worse fright film series down ) . Mark ( " Blue Monkey , " " Deep Space " ) Williams did the mild , middling gore f / x . If you ever happen to catch " Psycho Cop " in your rear-view mirror or God forbid come across a copy of it for rent at your local mom'n'pop video rental outlet , by all means make as much distance as you can from both this chortling , insufferable maniacal ahole and his deplorable , no-account slasher flick series . |
518,577 | 8,239,592 | 82,440 | 1 | Bad " gas " runs out of wit early , emits noxious fumes throughout and stalls with its crummy plot , annoying characters and chaotic narrative | A simply atrocious and excruciatingly unfunny would-be frenzied over-the-top comedy done in a horrendously ham-fisted wannabe Robert Altmanesque multi-storied ensemble cast fashion . It's about the crazed pandemonium which besets a quiet , peaceful small town when the populace gets wind of an artificially created gas shortage . Director Les Rose pitches all the noisy , anarchic , off-the-wall facetious mayhem at a loud , overbearing , gratingly strident level of high-flown hysteria , staging a never-ending series of shrill mondo destructo slapstick gags with an appalling lack of skill and crack comic timing . Worse yet , Richard Wolf's sloppy , idiotic , severely witless and desperate script resorts to such cheap , groan-producing tactics as crude racial stereotypes , leering sex jokes , dumb double entendre dialogue and constant out-of-control car chases in its strained attempts at milking laughs from a basically unamusing premise , inevitably culminating in the expected last reel grand scale car chase and subsequent multiple automobile crash up which proves to be both painfully protracted and very irritating in comparable measure . Moreover , there's no insight offered herein to provide any necessary illumination on why folks would act so wretchedly in the midst of such a crisis and the allegedly pointed satire remains blunt and obvious throughout . Perhaps the film's most heinous cinematic sin is its dismal misuse of an excellent big name cast , all of whom portray broadly drawn , one-note , disgustingly grotesque caricatures and mug it up to an unbearable degree in a dire effort to inject some much-needed life into the flimsy goings-on : Sterling Hayden in one of his patented fanatical roles as the greedy , ruthless oil tycoon who secretly hordes petrol in order to jack up gas prices and make himself a bundle , Susan Anspach as a bitchy , opportunistic TV reporter who's a total terror behind the wheel ( a bad woman driver ; now that's a clever and novel joke - - NOT ! ) , the lovely , throaty-voiced Helen Shaver as a sultry , saucy hooker who services customers in the back of her custom van , the always annoyingly infantile Howie Mandel as a dorky salesman , Sandee Currie as a sweet libidinous tramp , an especially obnoxious Peter Aykroyd as Currie's over-protective karate-choppin ' jerk of a brother , and , the saddest sight to behold in this depressingly awful spectacle , a criminally wasted Donald Sutherland as Nic the Noz , a sickeningly smug and patronizing hipster disc jockey who surveys all the carnage in his helicopter and serves as the picture's murderously haughty and condescending Greek chorus . A truly pitiful and unmitigated abomination . |
518,139 | 8,239,592 | 82,519 | 1 | One of the most profoundly putrid pieces of lowbrow teen soft-core bilge to ever disgrace celluloid | This simply dreadful teen comedy sexploitation dud centers on the obnoxious , immature and unamusing antics of six seniors from Hollywood High School : the shrill , shallow and stupid little jerks make out , smoke pot , drink booze and display all the charm of a can of rancid tuna . The limp direction fails to wring a single laugh from the slight'n'senseless script . Moreover , the incredibly hateful , irritating and unappealing characters suck all the fun and joy out of this putrid picture . The usually solid Gary Graver's strangely sub-par cinematography , the grating profanity-ridden dialogue ( sample line : " We'd thought we'd feed you before we beeped you " ) , the groan-inducing no-brainer crude'n'raunchy puerile humor , Doug Goodwin's annoyingly bouncy score ( the cruddy theme song is especially unbearable ) , a dumb protracted poolside dance sequence , the painfully broad and overdrawn hammy acting from a lame no-name cast , the clumsy meandering narrative , and an insufferably ample amount of dull'n'draggy filler all sink this stinker like a 50 pound lead weight . Adding additional abject insult to already appalling injury is the fact that the DVD uses an ugly , murky , scratchy video source print . Not even the tasty abundant gratuitous female nudity can alleviate the mind-numbing rottenness of this absolutely atrocious turkey . |
518,367 | 8,239,592 | 90,582 | 1 | A most appropriately titled poverty row horror atrocity | Man , oh man , does the title for this horrendous hunk of low-budget gore-drenched horror junk aptly sum up the appalling dearth of quality to be found herein . A huge , toothy , tentacled carnivorous beast forces a dorky , peevish , totally unlikeable and unappealing wimpy teenage boy with dark sunglasses and a terribly unattractive shaggy hair cut ( the obnoxious Scott Davis ) to viciously kill a plethora of poor innocent folks so the foul thingie can ravenously devour their crunchy , scrumptious bodies . Yummy , yummy , yummy ! Everything about this shot-in-Super 8 atrocity wallows in the gutter-dwelling Amateur City dumps : we've got profoundly putrid acting , ugly , grainy , static cinematography by Richard Strait , awful ( non ) direction by Bret McCormick ( hiding behind the pseudonym Max Raven ) , a gruelingly draggy pace , Davis ' exceptionally lame stream-of-consciousness voice over commentary ( for your intense viewing displeasure Davis ' trebly mewling tenor affects a piercing nasal whine that could shatter immense sets of fine china if it was cranked up a few decibels higher ) , an excruciatingly high-pitched , melodramatic , extremely tough-on-the-ears score by Kim and Richard Davis and John Hudek , a phony-looking monster that's a really sad sight to behold , an inane opening nightmare montage which tersely sums up the entire plot and thus robs the rest of the picture of any suspense or surprises ( ! ) , and the messy , disjointed narrative is not only hard to stomach , but also difficult to follow as well . Granted , the outrageously moist and juicy make-up effects by Dark FX LTD . are suitably gruesome - - sliced open throats emit a copious jet stream of blood , a guy gets fatally whacked upside the head with a shovel , some old bat has her hand bitten off by the monster , the sniveling limp dishrag kid uses a pitchfork to feed the beast a handy helping of gleaming guts , that sort of sweet , charming , harmless stuff - - but alas are too hokey to be remotely convincing or upsetting . Early in the flick our utterly unsympathetic passive protagonist remarks , " I thought I was gonna vomit . " Yeah , I felt like puking too , buddy , primarily because this flick is so dishearteningly shoddy and ridiculous that not even a hardened bad film buff like yours truly can discern anything faintly enjoyable or entertaining about it . It's a complete , indefensible loser . |
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