The Indestructible Captain Scarlet!.....

One of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's most famous series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons revolved around the exploits of Captain Scarlet,Spectrum's top agent who was killed by the Mysterons, replaced by a double which they could control and who subsequently fell off a tall building which broke the Mysterons control. Luckily, this meant that he was now indestructible — the Mysterons power of retrometabolism meant he couldn't be killed unless every atom in his body was dispersed.

(Captain Scarlet & Colonel Green)

Unusually for a children's series, the body count in the show was high — the very first episode started with Captain Black opening fire on aMysteron city and destroying it. Needless to say, the Mysterons didn't take kindly to this and, after re-creating their city, killed him and made a duplicate. Unlike the replicated version of Captain Scarlet, he had a deathly-palour and was firmly on the side of the Mysterons.

Produced directly after the immensely successful Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet ran for a series of thirty-two episodes although, unlike it's more famous sibling, it was only thirty-minutes in length. One major advance in the series was the introduction of heads on the puppets that were for the first time in propoprtion to the bodies — the solenoids used to operate the mouth having been moved down into the body

As with all the Supermarionation series, Captain Scarlet was heavily merchandised with items ranging from die-cast toys through to comics, board games and, obviously, tie-in novels. The books were released byArmada Paperbacks with three titles being issued in the space of two years. Repeats of the series in the 1990s on BBC2 led to a revived interest in the series and a number of new novelisations were produced under theYoung Corgi imprint, all of which were written by Dave Morris.

Literature

Captain Scarlet & the Mysterons: Number 1 Spectrum file - published in 1967.

Captain Scarlet finds himself locked in a battle of nerves with his deadliest enemies, the Mysterons

who have discovered the key to controlling the worlds weather! Unless Captain Scarlet can stop

them, the Mysterons will achieve their ultimate ambition - the earth's total destruction.

This novel was first published back in 1969.

After a landing on Mars by a Spectrum exploration vehicle, Earth is under attack from the Mysterons.

As Captain Scarlet and the other Spectrum agents prepare to defend the Earth against this terrible threat, they know that anything could happen. For the Mysterons have powers beyond the understanding of man — and they are determined to destroy all life on Earth! Captain Black becomes the Mysterons' pawn, and Captain Scarlet take on a vital job, escorting the World President on a dangerous journey. But can Scarlet resist the deadly power of the mysterons?

The Carry On Legacy - Carry On Screaming 1966

The Hammer horror films have much in common with the Carry On comedies. Both were made on small budgets by a regular production team and both employed a repertory of actors, making their films instantly recognisable. Among the most popular series of homegrown films shown in British cinemas throughout the 1950s and 1960s, both series were dismissed by the critical establishment for many years. When the Carry On team decided to parody the horror genre, it was perhaps inevitable that they would do it in the commercially successful mould of the Hammer films.

Carry On Screaming (d. Gerald Thomas, 1966) opens with a catchy, if particularly daft, song (Because when you're screaming / I know that you're dreaming of me / Come closer / For you bring out the monster in me), then immediately sets the mood with a shot of a creature walking through a misty wood at night. The night-time sequences are inevitably filled with fog, a cliché mocked in a scene in which Fenella Fielding is enveloped in a huge cloud after asking if the Sergeant (Harry H. Corbett, in a role clearly planned for Sidney James) minds if she smokes. The film ably captures the lurid Eastmancolor look of the Hammer films, especially with the laboratory set, which is permanently bathed in an unhealthy yellow light, in which Kenneth Williams memorably cries "Frying tonight!" as victims are plunged into a vat of bubbling wax.

The film draws on many classic chillers, including the 1930s Universalhorror films starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, but they are clearly also indebted to their later titles like Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man(US, d. Roy William Neil, 1943), which combined a number of Universal's monsters into single films. It also recalls the company's spoofs starringAbbott and Costello, especially an early scene between Corbett,Butterworth and Williams which apes the celebrated "Who's on first?" comedy routine of the American duo.

THE

MONTHLY FILM BULLETIN

Published by

THE BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE

Volume 33, No.392, September 1966, page 141

CARRY ON SCREAMING! (1966)

When his girl-friend Doris disappears in mysterious circumstances from the forest clearing in which they have been dallying, Albert Potter reports the matter to Detective Sergeant Bung and his assistant, Slobotham. Investigating several similar disappearances, Bung and Slobotham find a house near the clearing, but are unsuspicious of its very suspect owners, Dr. Watt and his vampirish sister, Valeria. Dr. Watt, a corpse who revivifies himself with electrical charges, has a pet monster called Odbodd who goes out collecting girls; Watt and Valeria then vitrify them and sell them profitably as window-dummies. Bung is given a lead by Dan, a lavatory attendant, who is promptly drowned by Odbodd in one of his own toilets; investigating the lead, Bung is sidetracked into a hectic affair with Valeria. Eventually, using Slobotham in female disguise as a decoy, Bung precipitates a showdown; but not before his own shrewish wife, Emily, has been vitrified. Albert, under the accidental influence of a potion, destroys Odbodd and another monster who has been inadvertently created from Odbodd's severed finger; Watt is attacked by a mummy he has revivified, and both of them fall into the vitrifying vat; and Doris, de-vitrified, is reunited with Albert. Bung, preferring to leave his wife in her vitrified state, takes her home along with Valeria, who will minister to his needs.

Apart from an engaging performance by Jim Dale (and some appealing squeaks from monster Odbodd Junior, alias Billy Cornelius), this is glum stuff even by Carry On standards. The regulars, Kenneth Williams in particular, seem too bored to care; Harry H. Corbett overdoes every line; and the horror clichés are rather less amusing than the straight routines in some of Hammer's early epics.

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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.

When Michael drove us Potty!

Michael Bentine's Potty time was a superbly scripted and produced show about the world of the Potty characters. Michael Bentine both wrote the shows, did the voices and even designed the Potties. Potty Time is difficult to put into words so lots of images will follow on the next pages. Those of you who do not remember this show (shown around 1973 onwards by Thames Television) will certainly remember both the music and the images of the main characters. It started originally on BBC1 as Michael Bentine Time back in 1972. The most vivid memory I have is when the Potties were visiting somewhere on mass and all you would see would be sand being thrown up in the air as their little feet hurried past. The program ran for seven seasons until 1980.

Michael Bentine also starred in and was screen writer on several films, one of which was on the other week - Sandwich Man (1966, also did screenwrite) where he played a wandering advert man called Horace Quilby. Other films include: We joined the Navy (1962), I only asked, (1958), Rentadick (1972), Raising a riot (1957), Forces' sweetheart (1953, also did screenwrite) and Down among the 'Z' men (1952).

Episode One - The Foam Fighters

Michael and the Professor are going through what appears to be the alphabetical listing of the Potty guide to Potty history. F is brought up on his occasion day. F for Foam fighters. As if by magic the Potty Foam Fighters appear. Their motto is to fight foam first and fire second. When asked what foam they are referring to, "Foam from washing machines and factories." It represents a deadly threat. The invasion of the foam began a year ago. An innocent fisherman was taken whilst at Teddington Lock. Two others, Mable and Norman out bird watching were also consumed by the expanding foam.

Things get so bad that the Foam Fighters are summoned to see the Under Secretary to the Assistant Semi Permanent Personal Private Secretary to the Third Minister without Port Folio, Department of the Environment (himself). Together the Minister and the Foam Fighters see the foam consuming the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. The fearful foam is still rising. As luck would have it a wandering tramp whiffing of something awful is nearby. The foam takes one smell of the tramp and starts to retreat. "That is it, the answer" shouts the Minister. Detergents cannot stand muck and dirt. "Have an O.B.E." he says to the tramp.

And so ends one of the greatest threats the Potties have ever been faced with.

The Boulting Brothers remembered: Lucky Jim - 1957

Kingsley Amis' best-selling novel Lucky Jim, about a junior history professor at a redbrick university, was first published in 1954. Its hero, Jim Dixon, predates such 'angry young men' as Jimmy Porter (Look Back in Anger, first performed 1956) and Joe Lampton (Room at the Top, published 1957). By the time the Boulting Brothers came to film Lucky Jim, however, the 'new wave' in British culture had made an indelible impression. Both Amis' novel and their own films, following the excellent reaction to their satirical look at army life in Private's Progress (1956), could be seen, if not wholly accurately, as a part of this breakthrough.

The Jim Dixon of the film is without doubt a rebel. Our first sight of him is lying in bed smoking, when he should be at a meeting. On the wall by his bed is a girlie pin-up; on the opposite one a drawing of his departmental head, Professor Welch, at which he is throwing darts. His methods, encouraging students to question received wisdom, bring him into conflict with his stuffy, tradition-bound seniors, who are as rooted in the past as the subject they teach: Welch at one point picks up the telephone and says, sonorously, "History speaking".

The overall impression, though, is that neither the Boultings nor Ian Carmichael, making his third appearance as their lead actor, were quite sure how far to categorise Jim as an 'angry young man'. Sometimes he seems like a breath of fresh air in an antiquated world of academic and social rituals; sometimes like a risible fish out of water. Carmichael's performance likewise veers from the breezy, if guileless, impudence of, for example, a Tom Courtenay characterisation, to his own hapless Stanley Windrush persona from Private's Progress (and later I'm All Right Jack, 1959).

As in other Boulting Brothers comedies, there is much broad humour among the jibes, including slapstick fights, drunk scenes and a chase finale. Yet the mix here is less successful than elsewhere in their work, and for once the policy of taking pot shots at both sides does not quite come off. The general inconsistency of tone may stem from the somewhat ambivalent relationship of Amis' novel to the 'new wave'. Perhaps, too, the academic environment is just too rarefied, too unrelated to a recognisable outside world, to be satirically relevant.

THE

MONTHLY FILM BULLETIN

Published by

THE BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE

Volume 24, No.286, November 1957, page 135

LUCKY JIM (1957)

Jim Dixon, junior history lecturer at a provincial university, is bored with the frustrations of his job and affronted by the atmosphere of sham culture with which Professor Welch, head of the history department, smugly surrounds himself. Visiting Welch's house for the weekend, Jim quarrels with his son Bertrand, an arrogant pseudo-intellectual; falls in love with Christine, Bertrand's fiancée; escapes with difficulty from Margaret Peel, a neurotic and clinging colleague; and further damages his relations with the Welches by burning large holes in his bedclothes with a cigarette end. Further moderately disastrous incidents follow, including the wrecking of a ceremonial university occasion and culminating in Jim's delivery of a public lecture for which he is instructed to base his text on Welch's book Merrie England. Preparing for the ordeal on whisky and tranquillisers, Jim drunkenly attempts to indicate his real contempt for this theme to the audience, then collapses on the platform. His resignation is immediately demanded. Jim is rescued, however, by Christine's industrialist uncle, who offers him a job in London; and he finally wins Christine herself from Bertrand.

Kingsley Amis's novel was a tough, funny and irascible piece of contemporary social comedy. The Boulting brothers' screen version broadens the comedy into farce, introduces a few elements of its own (a final slapstick car chase, a solemn boxer dog), and turns the whole thing into an amiable joke in the line of Private's Progress and Brothers in Law. The characters have lost contact with Redbrick reality (compare, for instance, Jim's relationship with Margaret Peel in the novel and film) and in the process the book's social satire has been jettisoned. Lucky Jim has become broader, milder and softer; from the screen version, with its thoroughly traditional humours, one would never suspect that the novel had become the symbol of a new movement in English fiction.

There are moments during the disastrous weekend at the Welches and the alcoholic defiance of the Merrie England lecture which come within striking distance of the mood of the original. Too often, though, potentially comic scenes are spoilt by faulty timing, a determination to hammer home the joke and play for an easy laugh. This also affects the performances. As Jim Dixon, Ian Carmichael remains the amiable, likeable light comedian of the other Boulting comedies; funny enough in his own right, he scarcely suggests Amis's hero. Terry-Thomas makes heavy weather of the fatuous Bertrand, a thorough-going piece of caricature; and Sharon Acker is a guileless and ingenuous heroine.

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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.

The Arabian Knights - Episode One

The Arabian Knights was a core cartoon of the Banana Splits. It was a time of magic and mystery and concerned the adventures of a group of rebels who were trying to overthrow a tyrant, free the people and bring truth and justice for all.

The Main Characters:

Prince Turhan

Princess Nida

Fariek (?) the Magician

Rasime (?) the Great

Bez - Size of a.....

Zazuum the Donkey

Bakaar the evil Sultan

Episode 1

In the very first episode the city of Baghdad was ruled by a young Prince called Turhan. His city is taken from him by the the evil Sultan Bakaar and his loyal big bad guy Vangar (spelling may be incorrect here). Turhan escapes from the city with the help of a magician called Fariek who changes them both to blue wisps of smoke. They then make their escape via a flying low table - Fariek was fresh out of carpets.

After escaping the baddy guards once more the pair find themselves in a vast cave where they are met by an unfriendly colossus called Rasime the Great. He is a huge man with elephant like strength. After first being hostile to the pair he soon becomes friends when he finds out that they are enemies of the Sultan Bakaar. All three decide to try and find Turhan's cousin Princess Nida and his Uncle the Kalif. They travel to the city on a small donkey called Zazuum. On this journey we find out that Zazuum's tail must not be pulled as he goes berserk and becomes a small tornado. They arrive at the city to find both are prisoners of the Sultan. The Princess is being sold in the market but is quickly rescued. The four find themselves trapped by guards but are rescued by a new friend called Bez. Bez has the ability to change shape into any animal. He transforms himself into an elephant and so the five escape the guards. As Zazuum tries to escape a guard grabs his tail and what a mistake that was.