Cat Stevens - The First Cut Is The Deepest (1981)

Cat Stevens earned two ASCAP songwriting awards in consecutive years for "The First Cut is the Deepest", which has been a hit single for four different artists. "The First Cut Is the Deepest" is a 1967 song written by Cat Stevens, originally released by P.P. Arnold in the spring of 1967. Stevens' own version of the song is technically a cover, and originally appeared on his album New Masters in December 1967.

The song has been widely covered and has become a hit single for four different artists: P.P Arnold (1967), Keith Hampshire (1973), Rod Stewart (1977) and Sheryl Crow (2003).

The song concerns someone apprehensive about entering a new romantic relationship because he is still suffering from being hurt by his first love: However, the song continues:

The first cut is the deepest, Baby I know —

The first cut is the deepest

'Cause when it comes to being lucky, she's cursed

When it comes to lovin' me, she's worst

But when it comes to being loved, she's first

That's how I know

The first cut is the deepest.

I still want you by my side

Just to help me dry the tears that I've cried

'Cause I'm sure gonna give you a try

And if you want I'll try to love again

Television Weekly News - April 18th 1931

Television Weekly News began life in America back in 1931 and could probably have been America's version of Radio Times. This particular cover is actually the first cover from April 1931 and features as its cover, Greta Garbo.

The F.A. Cup on the Radio Times (1961)

I do love a good Radio Times cover from the past. This particular cover celebrates the 1961 F.A. Cup Final between Tottenham Hotspur & Leicester City.

Cloppa Castle: Episode Three - The Bruda Banger

Queen Ethelbruda is in her chariot but it is being pulled by two of the castle soldiers. As they get to the castle they are worn out and so the Queen demands they be replaced. Elbow goes to speak to the King as he is concerned that his men will be unfit to defend the castle against the Hasbeenes. Mudlin remembers a four legged animal that used to pull chariots but he does not know where to find one. He suggests that the Queen go and see Cue-ee-dee and get him to make a special machine to pull the chariot. Cue-ee-dee sets about the planning and construction of such a device. He works on into the night and all the noise keeps the castle residents awake. The noise is so bad that it keeps up the Hasbeenes as well. The leader Beosweyne is not very happy but goes off to investigate and the next morning he plans an attack on the castle. That very same morning, however, Cue-ee-dee as completed his task and presents his new chariot to the Queen. She is overjoyed and takes it out for a spin. The castle doors open just as the Hasbeenes charge with their battering ram. Well you can guess the outcome of this story.

The Picture goer - Bing Crosby

Check out these excellent front covers of crooner Bing Crosby on the Picture goer magazine from the mid 1940s to the early 1950s.

This edition dates back to 1944

Dear old Bing on a 1948 cover.

This cover dates back to 1950

With Bob Hope from 1952

Soldier Boy - Elvis Presley (1960)

March 20, 1960 - At noon Elvis, his entourage, Scotty Moore and D.J. Fontana (But not Bill Black, who never plays with Elvis again) take a charted bus to Nashville for a session at RCA's Studio B, whose recoding facilities have been upgraded with a three track machine. The are joined by all the musicians from the June 1958 session, the Jordanaires, Colonel Parker and RCA's new chief studio engineer, Bill Porter.

Elvis records six songs (In true stereo for the first time) including 'Stuck On You' 'Soldier Boy' and 'Fame And Fortune' which will be pressed and shipped within two days as an urgently need new single.

Soldier boy why feel blue
Don't you believe that she will be true
It's written in the blue
That she was meant for only you

Soldier boy tell me why do you cry
When you return she'll rush to your side
It's written in the book
That she was meant for only you

So prove your love is true
She'll be there to say "I do"
And if you go o'er sea or land
She'll make you understand

While you're gone oh try to believe
Her love for you is really for real
It's written in the book
That she was meant for only you

So prove your love is true
She'll be there to say "I do"
And if you go o'er sea or land
She'll make you understand

While you're gone oh try to believe
Her love for you is really for real
It's written in the book
That she was meant for only you.

Sons and Daughters - Episode Two

In Sydney, a young man and woman leave a restaurant in a sports car. As they are driving along, they start kissing, totally oblivious to the fact that a lorry is heading straight towards them! At the last moment, the woman notices the lorry, and her companion swerves and avoids an accident.

In Melbourne, John and Bill are at work, loading some delicate china onto a lorry, using a pulley system. At the exact moment the near-miss takes place in Sydney, John 'sees it' in his mind and lets go of the pulley, causing the china to smash to the ground. Both he and Bill are given the sack. Bill goes home and talks to Susan about what happened. He decides to return to the warehouse to plead for his job back, but Selmar says he's hired two new workers. In a fit of rage, Bill picks up a crowbar that's lying nearby, and strikes Selmar with it.

John also decides to ask for his job, but when he gets to the warehouse, he finds Selmar lying on the ground and thinks he's dead. He picks up the crowbar, then hears the police arriving and runs away. He is spotted, though.

John goes home and tells David what happened. The police turn-up, asking to speak to John, and they tell David what they think happened. David has a showdown with John in his bedroom, and appears not to believe John is telling the truth. When David leaves the bedroom, John leaps out the window. He sneaks onto the back of a lorry and makes his way to Sydney. While he's on a boat, he thinks back to when he was a little child, being taught by Fiona to remember her address. He makes his way to the address - 22, Manly Terrace - and finds Fiona still lives there. He tells her what has happened and she believes him.

Elsewhere in Sydney, the girl from the car accident turns out to be Angela Hamilton, the daughter of Patricia, and her husband, Gordon. Patricia is organising a birthday party for Angela, but Angela is not happy. She thinks something is 'wrong', but doesn't know what exactly.

Gordon and Patricia give Angela a horse for her birthday. The horse is in the grounds of their garden, and so is someone else - Wayne Hamilton - who has flown home for Angela's birthday. Patricia is less than pleased to see him.

A Kid for two Farthings - 1955

Adapted by Wolf Mankowitz from his own novel, A Kid for Two Farthings was Carol Reed's first colour production, and his last wholly British film until Oliver! some thirteen years later. It's also a very rare example of a genuine Anglo-Jewish film, partly filmed on location in Petticoat Lane in London's East End, at the heart of what was still a thriving Jewish community (whose decline would be recorded a few years later in Robert Vas' 1962 documentary (The Vanishing Street), happily coexisting cheek by jowl with more traditional East End elements.

Much of the film's fascination today comes from this background detail, the street market (the location was renamed 'Fashion Street' for the film) being packed with memorable characters: the affectionate Mrs Abramowitz (Irene Handl), blowsy fashionista Lady Ruby (Brenda de Banzie) crooked jewellery salesman Ice Berg (Sid James), finicky tailor 'Madam Rita' (Sidney Tafler) and decrepit shopkeeper Mr Kandinsky (David Kossoff).

It's in the latter's shop that young Joe (Jonathan Ashmore) sees his imagination most heavily stimulated, taking Mr Kandinsky's fables all too literally when he buys a young goat in the mistaken belief that it's a magical unicorn whose powers will transform the lives of Joe and his mother Joanna (Celia Johnson) and grant Mr Kandinsky his longed-for steam-powered trouser-press. That this ultimately fails to happen underscores one of the film's key themes: the loss of innocence that Reed had earlier explored so memorably in The Fallen Idol (1948)

Joe's adventures are counterbalanced by the equally childlike romance of Sonia (Diana Dors) and her body-building boyfriend Sam (Joe Robinson), the latter's misguided involvement with crooked wrestling promoter Blackie Isaacs (Lou Jacobi) adding a further injection of local colour. Like Joe, Sam has a specific material goal in mind, the funding of an engagement ring for Sonia, and while his ambition is somewhat more practical at base, it's also prone to fanciful idealism: the fact that Sam and Sonia have been engaged for four years hints at earlier schemes that have failed to come off.

A Kid for Two Farthings is not one of Reed's more successful films: Joe's fantasies are ultimately more cloying than cute, and neither Ashmore nor Johnson make especially convincing working-class East Enders. But Dors and Robinson are an appealingly convincing couple, and the background detail ensures that the film will last, if only as a whimsical curiosity.

THE

MONTHLY FILM BULLETIN

Published by

THE BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE

Volume 22, No.257, June 1955, page 83-4

KID FOR TWO FARTHINGS, A (1955)

In and around the Petticoat Lane establishment of Kandinsky, a philosophical old Jewish tailor with a fanciful imagination, there moves a colourful assortment of characters. There are Joanna, who boards and works with Kandinsky, and her little boy Joe, a collector of a series of pets, who wonders at the stories Kandinsky tells him about the magic powers of the unicorn; there is Sam, Kandinsky's assistant, a "muscle man" whose ambition is to become "Mr. World", and who is loved by the pretty shop girl Sonia; there is Python Macklin, a fearful and ugly wrestler who goads Sam into a fight; and so on. The life of Petticoat Lane, with its odd mixture of strange and lovable characters, goes on quite peacefully until Joe buys a young kid from a vagrant. The new pet, which Joe, because of its single horn, assumes to be a unicorn, soon begins to exercise its magic powers. Sam fights and beats the dreaded Python and is able to buy Sonia a ring; Kandinsky gets a steam presser for his tailoring establishment; there is even a hint that Joe's father, who has been abroad, may return. When the Kid dies - Joe is unlucky with his pets - Joe quickly gets a new animal, and life in Petticoat Lane goes on as before.

In A Kid for Two Farthings Carol Reed has brought to the screen Wolf Mankowitz's little fable of East End life. Its success in creating a natural and convincing atmosphere of the locality - which is essential to the story - is unfortunately marred by two miscalculations: the colour is harsh and artificial, making the locations too often look like rather indifferent sets; and neither Celia Johnson (Joanna) nor Jonathan Ashmore (the little boy) ever begin to persuade us that they belong to this particular world. (The script explains in an aside that they have only recently moved into the neighbourhood, but this hardly justifies the importation of two such Kensington voices into this milieu.) Carol Reed's direction seems somewhat ill-at-ease with a set of characters who are presented as almost uniformly pleasant and lovable; and the handling, although showing touches of bravura in staging, fails to establish a rhythm which could provide a momentum for this whimsical and, in the context of its realistic surroundings, ambitious story. Isolated sequences-a very exciting wrestling match, a macabre night pursuit of Sonia by the dreaded Python, some casual incidental shots of Petticoat Lane-come over with effect, but the sequences never really fuse into a whole. This is perhaps partly due to a disparity in the acting styles employed. David Kossoff's Kandinsky is a performance making no concessions to the demands of the film screen; Jonathan Ashmore, the little boy, fatally lacks the streak of toughness which the part demands, and this performance shows too obviously the signs of having been pieced together in the cutting room; generally, there is a lack of balance between "natural" and "character" acting. Among the smaller parts, Vera Day makes a striking impression.

---

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.

Bob Dylan - Self Portrait (All the tired Horses)

It's one of rock criticism's most famous lines: "What is this s---?" So began Greil Marcus' review of Bob Dylan's 1970 album Self Portrait. The same could be asked of the record's opening track, which consists of two lines — "All the tired horses in the sun/ How'm I supposed to get any ridin' done? Hmm" — repeated over and over again by a group of female singers for just about three minutes. The singing is hypnotic enough to lure sailors to their deaths, and the instrumentation is pleasant enough. But Dylan's no-where to be seen, obviously. So forget this song.

Record One:
1. All The Tired Horses
2. Alberta #1
3. I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know
4. Days Of '49
5. Early Mornin' Rain
6. In Search Of Little Sadie
7. Let It Be Me
8. Little Sadie
9. Woogie Boogie
10. Belle Isle
11. Living The Blues
12. Like A Rolling Stone

Record Two:
1. Copper Kettle
2. Gotta Travel On (Done Laid Around)
3. Blue Moon
4. The Boxer
5. Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)
6. Take Me As I Am
7. Take A Message To Mary
8. It Hurts Me Too
9. Minstrel Boy
10. She Belongs To Me
11. Wigwam
12. Alberta #2

Johnny and The Hurricanes - 1963 Tour

Johnny & The Hurricanes developed a following in Europe. In 1962, they played at the Star Club in Hamburg where The Beatles, then a little-known band, served as an Opening act. Johnny and the Hurricanes cut records until 1965, with "Old Smokie" (their cover of "On Top of Old Smokey"), and an original tune, "Traffic Jam", both on Big Top Records, being their last releases to chart in America. Johnny continued to tour with the Hurricanes in Europe and United States until his death. Johnny had an uncle (a realtor) in Rossford, Ohio (Johnny's home town) who owned a building on the main street and offered Johnny's first wife (Sharon Venier-Pocisk) space for an antique shop. When not on the road he helped out with the antique shop and vending machine business as payment for the store front for his first wife.

Back in 1963 Johnny & The Hurricanes undertook a successful tour of the UK with acts such as, Billy Fury, Gene Vincent and the Shadows as the Jokers.

January 1963

15 - Kilburn (Gaumont State)
16 - Alderley Edge (Regent Hall)
17 - Harrow (Granada)
18 - Birmingham (Ritz/Plaza)
19 - Leyton (Baths)
19 - Romford (Wykham Hall)
20 - Newcastle (City Hall)
21 - Bedford (Granada)
22 - Maidstone (Granada)
23 - Aylesbury (Granada)
24 - Portsmouth (Guildhall)
25 - Kingston (Granada)
26 - Slough (Adelphi)
27 - Tooting (Granada)
28 - Grantham (Granada)
29 - Bradford (St. George's Hall)
31 - Scunthorpe (Baths)

February 1963

01 - Stafford (Trentham Gardens)
02 - Nelson (Imperial)

Johnny & The Hurricanes

"Juke Box Doubles"
Brad Newman as Elvis Presley
Steve Francis as Billy Fury
Sally Green as Brenda Lee
Dev Douglas as Adam Faith
Dru Harvey as Gene Vincent
Jokers as The Shadows
Jimmy Saville (compere)

Promoter : Don Arden

60s Classics - The Power Game

The Plane Makers was a British Television series made by ATV for ITV between 1963 and 1965.

The series focused on the power struggles between the Trades Union and the management on the shop floor of an (fictional) aircraft factory, Scott Furlong Ltd, as well as the political in-fighting between the management themselves. Patrick Wymark proved particularly popular as the anit-heroic managing director John Wilder, who was almost a proto-type J.R Ewing in that he became a central character that the other characters and viewers "loved to hate". Wilder's nemesis in the boardroom was David Corbett (Alan Dobie), though he was supported by his long-suffering wife Pamela (Barbara Murray, with Ann Firbank standing in for a few episodes when Murray was unavailable), his Sales Director and confidant Don Henderson (Jack Watling) and ever-reliable secretary Miss Lingard (Norma Ronald). Their task was to manufacture and sell aircraft the Sovereign to an international market.

Lew Grade, head of ATV, reportedly found the series boring because of its factory setting. Believing that the majority of viewers would have had enough of factories after their days' work, he decided the Wilder character should be spun off into a new series. At the end of the final Plane Makers series in 1965, Scott Furlong collapsed, and Wilder's future was uncertain. He swiftly returned later that same year in The Power Game, having collected a Knighthood. Bored of being a gentleman of leisure, Wilder uses his influence with a merchant bank to become joint managing director of an established building firm, Bligh Construction. The first two series of The Power Game in 1965-6 chronicled his attempts to keep control in the face of opposition from the company's elderly founder Caswell Bligh (Clifford Evans), a stern, old-school patriarch who resents what he sees as Wilder's imposition on a family firm, and Bligh's ambitious but inexperienced son Kenneth (Peter Barkworth), who would prefer to be sole managing director, and free of his father's influence. Both Henderson and Miss Lingard were back in harness.

Wilder's private life came more to the fore in The Power Game, he has a long-running affair with a civil servant, Susan Weldon (Rosemary Leach), but is aghast when his wife Pamela also plays the field, with engineering expert Frank Hagadan (George Sewell).

The third and final series in 1969 saw Wilder free from Bligh's - but not from Bligh himself - and working for the British government as a 'roving' Foreign Office Ambassador for Trade.

Patrick Wymark died suddenly in 1970 and it was decided not to continue with the series without its most notorious and memorable character.

Sons and Daughters, love and laughter, tears of sadness and happiness

Sons and Daughters was a Logie Award winning Australian Soap Opera created by Reg Watson and produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation. It screened on the Seven Network in an early evening timeslot running from 18 January 1982 until 19 August 1987. The series commenced in Melbourne with the first three episodes screened in a 90 minute format on Monday, 18 January 1982 at 19:00. A repeat run on the Seven Network in Australia ran in October 2006 but ended in March 2007; however, beginning from July 2008, it has started up again, picking up where it left off every Thursday night at around midnight. Additionally, the Seven Network's digital channel 7TWO has begun airing the series from the very beginning starting Wednesday, 4 November 2009 every weekday at 08:30, and is currently up to airing Season 3. A DVD marking the 25th Anniversary of Sons and Daughters was released in October 2006.

Series One - Episode One

Sydney, 1962: David Palmer and his girlfriend, Patricia, turn up at a boarding house run by landlady Fiona Thompson. Patricia is heavily pregnant and gives birth in her room within the boarding house. After the birth has taken place, Fiona asks David what he wanted - a boy or a girl? He says he doesn't mind. Fiona tells him he has one of each - twins.

Patricia is not happy, though. After a week, she decides to leave David, and she takes her baby daughter with her. She leaves her son for David to look after. David decides to call him John.

Melbourne, 1982: David Palmer is now married to Beryl, and they have two children of their own - Kevin and Susan - and John is living with them. Susan is about to marry her fiance, Bill, and is trying on her wedding dress, which she shows to David. John decides to invite the whole of Victoria to the wedding, by climbing a mast and attaching a huge banner to it. However, he is caught by the police, and his antics appear on television. Kevin is also arrested, after being caught in a telephone box calling the TV station, and using different voices to say how much he enjoyed John's antics! Beryl is disappointed that both lads got into so much trouble.

When John goes to bed that night, he has a dream in which he is standing in a field, watching a beautiful girl riding a horse.

The next morning, Beryl wakes John up and tells him that he'll lose his job if he doesn't get to work soon. At work at the 'Selmar Warehouse Import-Export', he has an altercation with Bill, who is annoyed at the way John acted the previous night. The two of them knock over a load of boxes, and are caught by Sam Selmar, who tells them to get their act together, or they'll face the sack.

The initial premise for the show was a Romeo and Juliet style storyline which revolved around working-class John Palmer from Melbourne and spoilt rich girl Angela Hamilton from Sydney. They met by chance when John was on the run from the police for a murder he did not commit and they fell in love not realising that they were actually long lost twins, separated at birth 20 years earlier. Early episodes saw the pair discover the truth about their relationship and showed the problems and strains this put on their own relationships and those of their immediate families, the Hamiltons and the Palmers. Whilst on the run John was protected in Sydney by Fiona Thompson, an ex prostitute and now boarding house owner who had raised John when he was a young boy. With a new identity and now going by the name of Scott Edwards, John attempted to rebuild a new life along with Fiona's help and that of neighbour Jill Taylor.

For the Palmers life was going from bad to worse, newly wed Susan received the shock revelation that husband Bill was responsible for the murder her brother had been arrested for and young lovers Kevin and Lynn found their life turned upside down when she became pregnant despite their families best efforts to keep them apart. David and John's relationship continued to deteriorate and when David and Patricia met up again after 20 years old passions were reignited leaving Beryl fighting for her marriage.

For the Hamiltons financial worries were the least of their worries, Wayne Hamilton was involved in a near fatal car crash after his father, Gordon, kicked him out of the Dural home upon discovering he planned to buy and demolish the family's country residence at Woombai and Patricia announced to Gordon that their marriage was over and they would leave separate lives. Patricia developed into the main focus of the show with many storylines revolving around her, hence the introduction of her best friend and confident Charlie Bartlett.

End of season cliffhanger (Episode 174): At John & Angela's 21st Birthday party at the Palmer house David tries to stop Patricia from gate crashing only to be met with an unexpected admission, she has been lying all the time and David isn't the twins' father after all.

Action Man - Part Five: Vintage Action Man

And so my series on Action Man continues with Part Five. In Part Five I take look back at some of the vintage Action Man figures that have filled many a Christmas stocking!

Action Man Commandant (1974)

The Commandant uniform consisted of greatcoat, shirt, trousers, jackboots, belt, Luger pistol holster, cap, baton, map case and map and sub machine gun.

Action Man French Foreign Legion (1973)

The French Foreign. Legion uniform consists of greatcoat (sky blue at first, then more commonly dark blue) trousers, Kepi, boots, waist belt with pouches, cumberband, canteen, bayonet and scabbard, rifle.

Action Man Ski Patrol

Ski Patrol uniform consisted of white parka, white trousers, black boots, green goggles, white mittens, skis, ski poles and Equipment Manual. Shown here also wearing accessories in the form of camouflage pack, belt with pouches, snow shoes, M1 rifle (white) and helmet.

Action Man Talking Commander (1st Issue)

Talking Commander (1st issue): fatigue jacket (with medal ribbons and divisional flashes not shown), trousers, tall, black boots, black moulded beret with red shield badge, belt, black hoslter, Colt 45 Piostol.

Action Man Grenadier Guards.

Uniform consisted of: 'bearskin' hat, tunic (earlier shown that is heavier material than earlier, has more detail and more authentic blood red colour), navy trousers with red stripe, white belt with white frog, SLR Rifle with white strap, black scabbard, bayonet and lace up boots.

Action Man (British) Army Officer

Uniform consisted of: Cap with badge, jacket, shirt, tie, trousers, Sam Browne, rank stickers, baton, socks and shoes.