Adrian Smith
Entries from September 2012
By Adrian Smith
(The following review refers to the UK region 2 release)
When
I was young I was given a local newspaper that had been printed the day I was
born. I grew up in Wolverhampton, and the big news a decade earlier had been the trial of Donald
Neilson, the self-styled Black Panther. He was a local who had had graduated
from house break-ins, through armed robbery and finally to kidnap and
multiple-murder. He was obsessed with the military (he had fought in Kenya as
part of the British suppression of the Mau-Mau uprising), and made his wife and
daughter act out scenes of warfare whilst he took photos. He was already a
wanted man following some botched post office robberies, but it was the
kidnapping of Lesley Whittle, a seventeen year old heiress, and the subsequent
ransom demands that really propelled him into the public eye. The Britain of
the 1970s was one of strikes, cutbacks and unemployment. Prospects were bleak,
and here was one man who had taken matters into his own hands. He was a meticulous
planner and he truly believed himself to be a master criminal. The reality was
very different. He was an inept bungler, incapable of making anything more than
a meagre haul from his robberies. If there hadn't been so much death at his
hands he would almost be a comic figure, more Pink Panther than Black Panther.
It was a devastating combination of Neilson's mishandling of events, press
interference and a West Midlands police force ill-equipped to deal with the
situation that culminated in his murdering the girl he had kidnapped and locked
up in a storm drain. Neilson was only caught two months later by coincidence
rather than a concerted effort on the part of the police.
These
tragic events were still very fresh in the public memory when Ian Merrick's film
The Black Panther was released in 1977. With a script by Michael
Armstrong (a director in his own right) based solely on police reports, written
statements, trial transcripts and other direct source material, the film sticks
to the facts of the case. It was shot in many of the actual locations used,
including Dudley Zoo and Bathpool Park in Kidsgrove, Stoke on Trent. This gives
the film a documentary feel, that it truly was ripped from the headlines.
Neilson was played by Donald Sumpter, known mainly for his TV work, but seen
most recently in the remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Long
sections of The Black Panther have no dialogue and it plays like a
silent film, with Sumpter communicating Neilson's emotions purely visually. It
is an incredible performance in what must have been a difficult role to embody
given his notoriety at that time. Sadly for those concerned, the public did not
take to the film. It's release was controversial and many cinemas around the UK
refused to screen it. Given the film's implicit accusation that the press were
partly to blame for Whittle's tragic death, it is perhaps unsurprising that
they took a particular dislike to it as well.
Thankfully,
due to the continuing efforts of the British Film Institute to rescue films from
obscurity, The Black Panther has been restored and made available on
both DVD and Blu- ray for a new audience to appraise. The picture and sound are
excellent, although the package is a little light on extras. The only feature
of note is Recluse (1978), a thirty minute film also based on a true
life murder case. It stars Maurice Denham and is accompanied by some location
scouting footage. As usual with these Flipside releases, the main information
comes in a booklet crammed with essays and notes from both Ian Merrick and
Michael Armstrong amongst others.
The Black Panther is another release
from the BFI Flipside Range that comes highly recommended, and demonstrates
once again that the label is currently one of the most interesting and eclectic
today and fully deserve your support!
By Adrian Smith
(Headpress,
Paperback, £13.99)
288
Pages, ISBN#139781900486811
by
Adrian Smith
Ever
since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in Ford's Theatre, the world, and
Americans in particular, have had a fascination with conspiracy theories. One
of the earliest conspiracy films was The Man in the Barn by Jacques
Tourneur in 1937, which explores the possibility that John Wilkes Booth was not
working alone on that fateful night in 1865. The Lincoln Conspiracy from
1977 also explores similar plot lines, suggesting that Booth was not killed in
a barn ten days later but escaped, in part aided by certain men on Capitol
Hill. Some of the most explored and widely accepted conspiracy theories are
those surrounding the assassination of President John Kennedy in 1963. Most
people now accept the idea that there was no lone gunman, but theories vary
widely as to what exactly did happen on that November afternoon. The official
version of events were challenged almost immediately by horror schlock-meister
Larry Buchanan in 1964 with The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald. Burt
Lancaster starred in Executive Action in 1973, a film which suggests
that the killing was planned by the CIA and big industry, and most famously of
all, Oliver Stone became forever associated with conspiracies and paranoia when
he directed JFK in 1991, a film which ensured that nobody knew who they
could trust any more.
'Conspiracy
Cinema' does not merely focus its attention on Hollywood, however. David Ray
Carter has spent literally hundreds of hours scouring the internet for the best
and the worst conspiracy films available. There are a lot of filmmakers out
there using the web to distribute their films and promulgate their theories on
dozens of fascinating subjects, such as alien abductions, the moon landings and
assassinations, including those mentioned and Martin Luther King Jr, Robert
Kennedy and (allegedly) Princess Diana. There are many fascinating films out
there dedicated to the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001,
with proposals ranging from the plausible to the preposterous. However, these
subjects are relatively small fry when compared with those films that deal with
the bigger picture: The New World Order and The Illuminati. Do you think you
are in control of your own life? If these guys are to be believed, think again.
Carter
presents the films in themed chapters with a summary and some information on
the filmmakers concerned. He also summarises the “official†version of events
alongside the main conspiracies before going into the films themselves. This
means you get a great overview of all the main ideas, and the book makes an
excellent reference to this unknown cinematic corner of the internet. Most of
the films he refers to can be found online for free, although be warned: some
of them can be up to four hours in length. Filmmaking skills vary also, with
some being little more than someone talking to the camera from the comfort of
their front room (or bunker). As professional equipment has become more
affordable some of the films have become sophisticated, using all the latest
tools available to get their messages across.
'Conspiracy
Cinema' is a fascinating read, even if you remain sceptical as to the beliefs
presented. Carter himself is sceptical of a great deal of the films he's seen.
As such he makes an entertaining and authoritative guide through the murky and
contradictory world of the conspiracy theory.
You
can order the book here:
http://www.headpress.com/ShowProduct.aspx?ID=107
Note: this review pertains to the British Region 2 DVD edition
By Adrian Smith
Although
best known for his work as both a writer, director and producer with Hammer
Films, Jimmy Sangster actually relocated to Hollywood during the early 1970s,
where he worked very successfully in both film and television. Whilst there he
wrote a supernatural script set in a run- down hospital in downtown Detroit.
Much to his chagrin, the script was altered to more closely resemble the Hammer
movies that were, to him at least, ancient history. Although keeping the
American protagonists, events were manipulated to allow the story instead to
take place in an English country estate featuring a collection of stereotypical
butlers, chauffeurs and curtseying maids. The film is essentially Agatha
Christie meets Dennis Wheatley through the filter of Dario Argento.
Katharine
Ross is Maggie, a successful American designer who receives a mysterious
invitation to work in England. Accompanied by her handsome lover Pete (a
youthful and impressively moustachioed Sam Elliott), they jet off to a grey,
dull English world of narrow country lanes and chirpy market stall holders.
Following a minor motorcycle accident they find themselves guests of the
aristocratic Jason Mountolive, who conveniently lives in the kind of stately
home that Americans seem to think all the English live in. What they don't
realise until it becomes too late is that their arrival there was no accident.
When other guests begin to arrive, all successful in their respective fields,
it becomes clear that diabolical dealings are underway, and they may be lucky
to escape with their lives, or their souls.
The Legacy is perhaps best remembered now for
being the film that Ross and Elliott first met on, and subsequently married. It
is a peculiar film, mixing cosy drawing room talk with spectacularly violent
and gory deaths. Richard Marquand had to be influenced by Argento's Suspiria,
released just one year before. Maggie suspects she is descending into madness,
feeling that she is losing her grip on reality. And when people like The Who's
Roger Daltry and former Bond villain Charles Gray turn up only to suffer
spectacularly, she realises that she may be to blame. Could it be something to
do with a sixteenth-century witch, with whose portrait she bears an uncanny
resemblance?
Although
the plot makes very little sense, The Legacy is a very entertaining film.
Ross and Elliott show genuine chemistry (perhaps unsurprisingly) as the
innocent couple around whom the sinister events unfold. The house becomes a
character itself as the camera glides around its oak-panelled hallways,
revealing hidden doors, tapestries, archaic ornaments and an increasingly
anachronistic collection of 1970s furniture. Although mostly shot on location
at Loseley Park House in Surrey, parts of it were also shot at Bray Studios,
the spiritual home of Hammer films.
The Legacy in some ways represents the end of
an era. By the tail end of the 1970s the money to make films in Britain was
running out, and companies like Hammer had gasped their last breath, and
Marquand was courted by George Lucas to direct the last part of his Star
Wars trilogy. It is well worth taking a look at, and this new DVD from
Odeon Entertainment presents an excellent widescreen print. A booklet with background information is the only
significant extra, which is a pity. It would be good to hear how Katharine Ross
and Sam Elliott look back on the film now, and perhaps a word or two from Roger
Daltrey on his dramatic, fish-based demise.
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