Sunday 7 August 2011

Bootsie and Snudge (1964)


Bootsie and Snudge was a television situation comedy series written, in the early days, by Barry Took and Marty Feldman, later writers were John Antrobus, Jack Rosenthal, ventriloquist Ray Alan and Harry Driver. The show featured Clive Dunn, more famous as Corporal Jones in Dad's Army, as well as Alfie Bass and Bill Fraser. Series 1-3, 5 centred around a Gentlemans club called the Imperial Club, whilst the fourth series broadcast as "Foreign Affairs" centred around a British Embassy in Bosnik. 112 half-hour episodes were made, being broadcast from 1960 to 1964 and in 1974.

The traditional Gentleman's club in Britain has long been used for comedic purposes in films, usually because of the eccentric characters with whom it can be populated, and the arcane rules. The rule of absolute silence in the reading room, notwithstanding several old men snoring under copies of The Times, is a common feature of such comedy. Memorable moments include Kenneth Connor in the film Carry On Regardless, being forced to mime "Your flies are open" to one of the members.

In the Imperial Club Bootsie and Snudge resumed their roles of snivelling skiver and bullying sergeant, with contributions from the ancient and always-bumbling dogsbody, Johnson (Clive Dunn), all under the tyrannical eye of the "Hon. Sec.", the club secretary played by Robert Dorning. The Hon. Sec.'s way of dealing with arguments was to drown out the opposition with repetitions of "Tup! Tup!", rising in volume until the other party stopped trying. Thus Bootsie's name for the character was "Ol' Tuptup".

In the early 1960s, the show was adapted into a successful strip cartoon in the British comic TV Comic.

The 1974 series sees the men reunited in a reversal of roles ten years later. Bootsie, now unemployed and living alone, has just won £1,000,000.27 on the football pools under the pseudonym 'Yilseb', devised to preserve his anonymity. Snudge is now a travelling representative of the football pools company who brings the lucky winner his cheque. As Bootsie has been using the name 'Yilseb' (Bisley spelled backwards), Snudge has no idea that the winner he is about to visit is his old friend, Bootsie. On discovering the truth, Snudge immediately gives up his job with the football pools company and appoints himself as Bootsie's pompous but subservient financial adviser.

Adam Faith - UK Tour (1960)

Back in February 1960 Pop Idol Adam Faith toured the UK along with, Emile Ford, John Barry Seven, The Avons, Mike Preston, Little Tony (Occasional dates) The Checkmates.

06 - Sheffield City Hall
07 - York (Rialto)
08 - Worksop (Regal)
09 - Doncaster (Gaumont)
11 - Halifax (Odeon)
12 - Leeds (Odeon)
13 - Bradford (St George's Hall)
14 - Hull (Cecil)
15 - Harrogate (Royal)
16 - Scunthorpe (Pavilion)
17 - Burnley (Palace)
18 - Newcastle (City Hall)
19 - Manchester (Free Trade Hall)
20 - Nottingham (Albert Hall)
21 - Kingston (Granada)
22 - Maidstone (Granada)
23 - Dartford (Granada)
24 - Bedford (Granada)
25 - Aylesbury (Granada)
26 - Kettering (Granada)
27 - Rugby (Granada)
28 - Harrow (Granada)

Elvis in New York (1955)

It's Wednesday 30th November 1955 : Elvis and the Colonel fly to New York, where they register at the Hotel Victoria on Fifty--first Street. Elvis was in New York, December 1st 1955 to meet with the Colonel and RCA executives, including president Larry Kanaga and publicity director Anne Fulchino. A photo shoot has been arranged and pictures of Elvis and the Colonel, Elvis and Steve Sholes and Elvis and fellow RCA recording artists Eddy Arnold who happened to be in New York for a session. The photo's are taken in RCA's Twenty-fourth Street studio, along with posed action shots that will be used on the back of Elvis' first album.
Colonel Parker, Eddy Arnold, Elvis and Steve Sholes.
Colonel Parker, Eddy Arnold, Elvis and Steve Sholes.

Colonel Parker, Eddy Arnold, Elvis and Steve Sholes.
Colonel Parker, Eddy Arnold, Elvis and Steve Sholes.

Eddy Arnold and Elvis Presley.
Elvis Presley and Eddy Arnold.

Elvis Presley and Steve Sholes.
Elvis Presley and Steve Scholes

Elvis Presley and Steve Sholes.
Elvis Presley and Steve Scholes.

Elvis Presley : New York : December 1, 1955.
Elvis Presley : New York : December 1, 1955.

Elvis Presley : New York : December 1, 1955.
Elvis Presley : New York : December 1, 1955.

Elvis Presley : New York : December 1, 1955.
Elvis Presley : New York : December 1, 1955.

Elvis Presley : New York : December 1, 1955.
Elvis Presley : New York : December 1, 1955.

Elvis Presley : New York : December 1, 1955.
Elvis Presley : New York : December 1, 1955.

Elvis Presley : New York : December 1, 1955.
Elvis Presley : New York : December 1, 1955.

Emmerdale Farm Gift Set


Back to the good old days of Annie Sugden. This Lone Star "Emmerdale Farm" Gift Set comprised, a Ford 7610 Tractor with trailer plus various implements - finished in red, blue and white.

The Beatles V1(1965)

The Beatles,Beatles VI - First,USA,Deleted,LP RECORD,427254
The Beatles VI: The Original 1965 US first issue 11-track mono vinyl LP on the 'rainbow rim' Capitol label with 'Mfd by Capitol' text & ASCAP credit for 'Words Of Love'.
The Beatles,Beatles VI - First,USA,Deleted,LP RECORD,427254

1. Kansas City
2. Eight Days A Week
3. You Like Me Too Much
4. Bad Boy
5. I Don't Want To Spoil The Party
6. Words Of Love
7. What You're Doing
8. Yes It Is
9. Dizzy Miss Lizzie
10. Tell Me What You See
11. Every Little Thing

Unearthly Stranger (1963)

A series of scientists working on a new techology to facilitate man's conquest of space are killed in mysterious circumstances. Suspicion falls on the wife of another scientist on the project, who may not be what she seems.
Unearthly Stranger might commence with John Neville running through a deserted Westminster to record his final warning of "The horror that is to come!", but its melodramatic opening reel belies the low-key, poignant drama that follows. John Krish's background in wartime documentaries is reflected in the deliberately flat lighting and the authentic locations. Krish would later work with the film's producer Albert Fennell on The Avengers (ITV, 1961-69), and as with Steed and Mrs Peel's best adventures,Unearthly Stranger's narrative unfolds against an seemingly mundane, instantly recognisable background. The Davidsons' home apparently hails from a contemporary glossy magazine, but the film's pivotal moment, when Julie removes the casserole dish from the oven sans gloves - a truly early 1960s detail - is played absolutely straight. Thankfully the narrative contains little in the way of special effects costing 2/6d and prefers to concentrate on the Davidsons' relationship.
In this respect, the film is as close to the German bride scenario of Frieda (d. Basil Dearden, 1947) as to 1960s science fiction, for much of the sub-text deals with the problems of integration. Gabrielle Licudi was all too often used as 'continental set decoration', but in Unearthly Stranger her relationship with Neville's Mark carries a genuine charge. The fact that Julie's cover is her Swiss-Italian nationality allows the narrative to explore the difficulties of any outsider attempting to penetrate middle-class English society; even were she not from another world, her beauty, intelligence and, especially, her accent would all serve to isolate her.
Julie's attempts to integrate with Earth - as represented by Home Counties England - grow increasingly desperate, with Reg Wyer's cinematography at its finest in the scene in which a whole primary school recoils from her. The alien army lead by Jean Marsh's Miss Ballard may be sinister, but so are the forces of the British establishment represented by Phillip Stone's Professor Lancaster and Patrick Newell's gleefully snide, reptilian security officer, Major Clarke. In that respect, Neville's warning of "the horror that is to come" is ironic; the monsters might just as easily be found within English society. It was a recurring theme in 1960s British SF - see Invasion (d. Alan Bridges, 1966) or Quatermass and the Pit (d. Roy Ward Baker, 1967) - but Unearthly Stranger explores it with distinctive simplicity in terms of a marriage in which one partner is caught between conflicting loyalties.

THE

MONTHLY FILM BULLETIN

Published by

THE BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE

Volume 30, No.358, November 1963, page 162

UNEARTHLY STRANGER (1963)

Munro, head of a team of scientists working on a formula whereby man will be able to project himself through time and space, is found dead by his secretary, Miss Ballard. Investigating the case, security major Clarke reveals that two Americans and a Russian working on the same lines have met with similar fates. Mark Davidson takes over Munro's post, and Clarke makes security inquiries into the background of Mark's bride, Julie. When Mark tells a colleague, Lancaster, that he has seen Julie sleeping with her eyes open, her pulse dead, he is taken off the top-secret assignment. Both Lancaster and Clarke discover further evidence of Julie's abnormality, but before Clarke can lock away the new formula which Mark has worked out, he and the formula are destroyed in identical circumstances to the Munro case. Julie now confesses that she is an agent from an alien planet, but that her love for Mark has overcome her allegiance. To the accompaniment of unearthly sounds, she dies in his arms. Only her negligee remains as evidence that she ever existed. Mark dashes to the Research Institute, where Miss Ballard reveals that she, too, is from Outer Space. She is about to kill Mark when Lancaster smothers her from behind with an ether mask. She breaks away and throws herself out of the window. Mark and Lancaster gaze down at the pile of clothes on the pavement - all that remains of Miss Ballard - then look up at the faces of the onlookers. They are all women, with the same unblinking, wide-open eyes as Julie and Miss Ballard.

Oddly unheralded by producers and distributors alike, Unearthly Stranger is in fact the best British SF-film since Wolf Rilla's Village of the Damned. One can pick holes in the script - the officially unqueried substitution of bricks for the corpse in Munro's coffin is one of them; but in the long run ingenuity and suspense pay off handsomely. The climax in particular is as satisfying as it is bleak. Julie's abnormality is eerily conveyed in shots of her tear-stained cheeks, furrowed as if by acid, and in little things like her imperviousness to heat as she lifts a red-hot casserole from the oven with her bare hands. An unfamiliar cast is distinguished by Patrick Newell's bluff and sinister callousness as Clarke, and by John Neville's meticulous and overwrought hero. John Krish, whose first feature this is, directs with pace, flexibility and imagination.


The Monthly Film Bulletin was published by the British Film Institute between 1934 and 1991. Initially aimed at distributors and exhibitors as well as filmgoers, it carried reviews and details of all UK film releases. In 1991, the Bulletin was absorbed by Sight and Sound magazine.

Bullitt (1968)

Bullitt was the clasic 1968 American Cop film that starred the late, great Hollywood Icon Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Vaughn. Bullitt was Directed by Peter Yates and distributed by Warner Bros. The story was adapted for the screen by Alan Trustman and Harry Kleiner, based on the 1963 novel "Mute Witness" by Robert L. Fish, a pseudonym for Robert L. Pike. Lalo Schifrin wrote the original jazz inspired score, arranged for brass and percussion. Robert Duvall has a small part as a cab driver who provides information to McQueen.

The film won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing (Frank P. Keller) and was nominated for Best Sound. Writers, Trustman and Kleiner won a 1969 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Motion Picture Screenplay. Bullitt is notable for its car chase scene through the streets of San Fransisco, regarded as one of the most influential car chase sequences in movie history.

In 2007, Bullitt was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2008 Ford produced the Mustang Bullit model for the 40th anniversary of the film. The Bullit nameplate on the steering wheel honored the movie that made the Mustang one of the most popular cars of the 1960s and 1970s. The green color was also brought back for the anniversary edition.

Ambitious politician Walter Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) is holding a Senate subcommittee hearing in San Francisco on organised crime in America. To improve his political standing, Chalmers hopes to bring down Chicago mobster Pete Ross (Vic Tayback) with the aid of key witness Johnny Ross, Pete's brother. Bullitt takes place the weekend before the hearing, from Friday night (during the opening credits) to Sunday night.

Following his theft of $2,000,000 in mob money and subsequent escape from Chicago to San Fransisco, Johnny (Felice Orlandi) is placed in the San Fransisco's Police protective custody for the weekend. Chalmers requests Lieutenant Frank Bullitt's (Steve McQueen) unit to guard him.

Bullitt, Sergeant Delgetti (Don Gordon) and Detective Carl Stanton (Carl Reindel), give Ross around-the-clock protection at the Hotel Daniels, a cheap flophouse near the Embarcadero Freeway. Late Saturday night, a pair of hitmen (Paul Genge and stunt driver Bill Hickman), burst into the room and shoot both Inspector Stanton and Ross, seriously wounding them both.

Bullitt wants to investigate who shot the pair and find the Mafia boss who ordered the hit. Upset, Chalmers attempts to shift blame on to Bullitt and the San Francisco Police Department. Ross subsequently dies of his wounds. Bullitt suppresses news of the death, asking Doctor Willard (Georg Stanford Brown) to misplace the chart and have the body placed in the morgue under a John Doe identity.

Chalmers arrives at the hospital on Sunday morning and is angered that Ross has disappeared. He is further incensed when he and his police minion Captain Baker (Norman Fell) receive no help from Bullitt. Chalmers places pressure on Bullitt to produce Ross, to no effect.

Bullitt reconstructs Ross's movements, finding his way to a hotel where he finds a woman registered under the name Dorothy Simmons (Brandy Carroll). With the hearing the next day, Bullitt suspects the dead mobster may not be who he seems. After picking up his Ford Mustang, Bullitt
is tailed by the two hitmen, resulting in a famous car chase that ultimately kills the hitmen.

Back at the police station, Bullitt is interrogated, and is given until Monday morning to follow his remaining lead. He begins to investigate Simmons, but discovers that she has been murdered. Later, Bullitt and Delgetti learn that Simmons's true identity was Dorothy Rennick, and that the murdered man that they knew as Ross may in fact be her husband, Albert, a car salesman with no police record. Bullitt requests a copy of Rennick's passport, hoping to prove this theory.

Chalmers arrives at the morgue, demanding, from Bullitt, a signed admission that Ross died while in his custody. Bullitt demurs, and when the faxed copy of the Rennicks' passport photos arrives, Chalmers is shown to have sent the police to protect the wrong man. The real Ross set n

in order to escape, then killed Rennick's wife to silence her. Chalmers later tries to smooth things over by offering Bullitt a chance to further his career, which Bullitt refuses.

Bullitt's partner discovers that the Rennicks have tickets to fly to Rome that night. They go to to the airport, where Bullitt discovers the real Johnny Ross (Pat Renella) and pursues him. A chase across the working runways of San Francisco Airport ensues (which was filmed with actual departing flights going by), with Bullitt eventually shooting and killing Ross after chasing him back into the terminal.

At the time of the film's release, the car chase scene generated a great amount of excitement. Leonard Matlin has called it a "now-classic car chase, one of the screen's all-time best." Emanuel Levy wrote in 2003 that, "Bullitt contains one of the most exciting car chases in film history, a sequence that revolutionized Hollywood's standards." In his obituary for Peter Yates, Bruce Weber wrote "Mr. Yates’s reputation probably rests most securely on “Bullitt” (1968), his first American film — and indeed, on one particular scene, an extended car chase that instantly became a classic." The editing of this scene likely won editor Frank P. Keller the the Academy Award for Best Editing.

Later, producer Philip D'Antoni filmed two more car chases for The French Connection and The Seven - Ups, both set and filmed in New York City.

Steve McQueen was an accomplished driver and drove in the close-up scenes, but contrary to myth he only drove in about 10% of the chase in the film. The stunt coordinator, Carey Loftin, hired famed stuntman and motorcycle racer Bud Ekins, and McQueen's usual stunt driver Loren Janes, to do the dangerous stunts in the Mustang. Ekins is also the stunt man who lays down his bike in front of a skidding truck during the chase (Ekins also doubled for McQueen in the sequence of The Great Escape in which McQueen's character jumps over a barbed wire fence on a motorcycle). The Mustang’s interior rear view mirror goes up and down depending on who is driving; when the mirror is up (visible) McQueen is behind the wheel, and when it is down (not visible) Ekins is driving. The black Dodge Charger was driven by Bill Hickman, who also played one of the hitmen and helped with the choreography of the chase scene. The other hitman was played by Paul Genge who had played another character who rode a Dodge off the road to his death in an episode of Perry Mason - "The Case of the Sausalito Sunrise" 2 years earlier.

Of the two Mustangs, one was scrapped after filming due to liability concerns and the surviving backup car was sold to an employee of Warner Brothers' editing department. The car changed hands several times, and Steve McQueen at one point made an unsuccessful attempt to buy it. Currently in non-working condition, the Mustang is rumored to have been kept in a barn in the Ohio River Valley by an anonymous owner.

The Ford Mustang name has been closely associated with the film. In 2001, the Ford Motor Company released the Bullitt edition Ford Mustang GT Another version of the Ford Mustang Bullitt, which is closer to resembling the original film Mustang, was released in 2008.

Steve McQueen's likeness as Frank Bullitt was used in two Ford commercials. The first was for the Europe-only 2001 Ford Puma, which featured McQueen driving the car around San Francisco before parking it in a studio apartment garage beside the film Mustang and the motorcycle from The Great Escape In a 2004 commercial for the 2005 Mustang, McQueen appears and drives the new Mustang after a man receives a field of dreams
-style epiphany and constructs a racetrack in the middle of a cornfield

The film was nominated and won several critical awards. Frank P. Keller won the Academy Award for Best Editing. The film was also nominated for Best Sound. Bullitt was also nominated for several BAFTA Film Awards, including Best Director for Peter Yates, Best Supporting Actor for Robert Vaughn, Best Cinematography for William A Fraker, Best Film Editing for Frank P. Keller and Best Sound Track. Keller also won the American Cinema Editors Eddie Award for Best Edited Feature Film. The film was awarded the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography (William A. Fraker) and the Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing - Feature Film. The film was also successful at the 1970 Laurel Awards. It won 2nd place Golden Laurel awards for Best Action Drama, Best Action Performance (Steve McQueen) and Best Female New Face (Jacqueline Bisset). In 2000, the Society of Camera Operators awarded Bullitt its "Historical Shot" award to David M. Walsh. Alan Trustman and Harry Kleiner won that year's Edgar Award for Best Mystery Screenplay. In 2001, the American Film Institute found Bullitt to be the No 36 on its list of thrillers.