Farewell Candlestick Park

I wanted to say my fond farewell to one of my favorite places to visit once or twice a year, the once home of the San Francisco Giants and soon to be final game for the San Francisco 49ers... Candlestick Park. Some people might be happy to see it go and some like me will always remember the stick for many memories with loved ones and good friends. I can't recall my first experience at Candlestick but this will be a sort of trip down memory lane (of what I can remember) with my experiences at Candlestick.

The reason I believe why my mothers side of the family loved the 49ers and Giants was because my Grandma on that side was a die hard fan. It also helped that they were living in San Francisco at the time. Fast forward some years and I was a young kid with a special present, every year my grandparents would take me and my brother (3 years my elder) to one 49er game a season. This was during the mid to late 80's and what some consider the best years of 49er dynasty.

A typical weekend we went to a game would go like this: We would spend the night on Saturday with my grandparents and leave early on Sunday morning to head out to the stadium. It is funny because as a kid I remember it seemed to take forever to get into the stadium and watch the games. My grandparents had a legendary tailgating party every time we went. If I was older I would have loved it even more. It wasn't always boring though. Some people would bring TV's and have them playing in the back of their trucks and there was always tons of food and soda around for us kids.
Sometimes my cousin Adam or  Rob would come and we would bring a football and play catch for hours on end just waiting for the game to start. As a kid these were some of my fondest memories hanging out with my brother and grandparents seeing Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Charles Haley, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott...it was heaven on earth. Candlestick was always a place of fun and excitement for me back in those days.

I also have many memories of baseball and seeing the San Francisco Giants playing. I was very elated in 2010 when the Giants won the world series but it made me sad they never were able to win it all when playing at Candlestick. One of my favorite memories of going to the stadium was with my dad. It was the mid 90's and the Giants weren't doing so well but they had a player named Matt Williams who was just killing it and hitting home run after home run. We went to a night game at random since my dad lived close to San Francisco. We ended up losing the game but my dad for some reason wanted to go back so we ended up seeing two games in a row and went the following night in the freezing cold. The funny thing is that Matt Williams fouled a ball of his foot and missed the rest of the season after that game.

In the last ten or so years I have gone to the stadium about once a year. The Giants moved out and into on of the best baseball stadiums in the majors. The 49ers had the stadium to themselves but there was talk every year about how the 49ers needed a new stadium. It didn't help that the 49ers were the laughing stock of the league from 2003-2008. I would go to a game and lucky enough they would usually win. I sort of felt I brought good luck with me to the stick. I have gone to games with my future wife, my roommate, and my best friend and we usually always had a good time. Sure the stadium was older and had parking system that was seemingly set up my cavemen (leaving the outer lots could take up to 2 hours, sometimes more) but I usually managed to have fun.

The last time I stepped into the walls of the stick was October 13, 2013. My brother wanted to take in one last game and I found it fitting that my last game at the stick would be with the person who I bonded with most at the games as a kid. We got food, shirts, and overall had a great time. Sure guys were barking like dogs for no reason but hey this was our stadium! I was also happy to say the last game I saw the 9ers won 32-20 over the Arizona Cardinals. I was invited back to the stadium after this game but felt that this was my final experience and wanted to leave it that way.

The new stadium will be nice and new (hopefully they figure out the parking and exit strategy) and while I look forward seeing a game there it won't hold the mystique that Candlestick Park did for me. My future child will never be able to say they went to see a game at Candlestick and it makes me sad. The new stadium will be for new fans, fans who will have experiences of Colin Kapernick, Vernon Davis, Navarro Bowman, and Patrick Willis.

I will always have Candlestick and the memories in my heart. Bye Candlestick Park, I will miss you.

I will leave you with what is I think the most important play ever to happen at Candlestick Park:

Book review: ROCKY HORROR writer Richard O'Brien interviewed

An extended conversation that was nearly lost forever!

Author Phil South recently unearthed the tapes from an interview with Richard O'Brien over a couple of days in 1985. He's now transcribed and published it all as a book, Wild And Untamed Thing! - The Lost Interview.

Richard O' Brien's immortality was already assured if he'd simply played Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). But he also wrote the original musical and composed all the songs. He might also be familiar as the host of TV adventure game show The Crystal Maze. Every few years I'd wonder what he was up to and he'd pop up in another cult happening, like Flash Gordon (1980) or Dark City (1998).

The fearsome Mr. Hand in Dark City

But after all this time, I still didn't know what he was actually like. He was rarely on TV, not as himself anyway, and I can't remember any extended interviews. Which makes this newly discovered interview a must read. Conducted ten years after the movie of Rocky Horror (which he continually refers to simply as "Rocky"), this two-day conversation covers his early life, his work up till then, and his philosophy on all aspects of show business. Phil fills in any gaps about anything less familiar, as well as bringing us up to date on what Richard has been up to since.

I new he was from New Zealand, but not that he'd grown up on a farm, where he also learned to ride horses. Another surprise was that I probably saw Richard on stage in London when I was eight years old, at a production of Gulliver's Travels at the Mermaid Theatre in 1969. Mike D'Abo (of Manfred Mann) was the lead, Richard in the supporting cast. All I can recall was a giant hand that scooped up Gulliver and carried him offstage!

Besides a careful and thoughtful approach to acting and writing, O'Brien is very sensitive to harsh criticism, especially on projects he's worked hard on, like the movie follow-up to Rocky Horror. Shock Treatment suffered from not having Tim Curry return to this not-quite sequel. Richard outlining the plot for an actual sequel are still tantalising though.

Unlike biographers that comb over old interviews and newspaper stories but never talk to their subject, printing what may or may not be true, here's an extensive interview that's friendly, polite enough not to go in with hard-hitting questions that could easily lead to an abrupt close. It's a conversation that goes as far as the interviewee allows, but with its honesty valuably intact.

I was expecting tales of a rock 'n' roll lifestyle from the debauched sixties and seventies, certainly exuded in Rocky Horror, but curiously Richard stresses his enjoyment, at the time, of the value of his family life and fatherhood. While Rocky Horror is a fantasy encouraging uptight heterosexuals to let their hair down and try out a few alternate sexual activities - one-night stands, gay sex, fetish wear, cross-dressing (I think that's everything), I was expecting Richard to be a character from this fantasy, rather than a twice-married father. But also, having seen snaps of his various cross-dressed and satanic alter-egos in gay magazines through the years, I know there's more to him than is presented here.

This struck me as rare to see an interview without an editorial spin and a huge headline banner of the juiciest quote. This presentation reminded me not to expect the author to pry, and of course I'd only like to hear about Richard in his own words. But still I'd love to know more about the inspiration for the many sexual identities presented in Rocky Horror. To me, it was a groundbreaking and positive representation of many alternatives (soured only by the climax). How did it all begin? 

After the interview, Phil adds a thorough update on what Richard has been up to since that time in 1985 adding an astonishing postscript on the next surprising stage in Richard's life, now that he's back living in New Zealand.

I feel I know Richard much better having read Wild and Untamed Thing, but there's still more of him to know.



Now available for Kindle in the UK and US for a silly low price...

The writer/interviewer is on Twitter as @Phil_South

ROLLERBALL (1975) - televised deadly future sport

ROLLERBALL 

(1975, USA)

Amusing ourselves to death

A globally popular, deadly, televised sport. Before The Running Man, Battle Royale and The Hunger Games. But not before the 1968 'Bread And Circuses' TV episode of the original Star Trek had pointed out that the Romans did it first, with huge amphitheatres for the public to watch wholesale slaughter in the name of entertainment. The most deadly gladiators became superstars. Star Trek gave these games a futuristic twist by having the combat televised.

Rollerball expands on that scenario, and is able to show far more violent action. The story envisages a near-future where bloodshed returns as a public spectacle, mixing roller derby and American football, with no holds barred. The players' gloves even have sharpened studs on them, to maximise damage.

For years I thought that the motivation to allow real violence on TV was to satiate any and all violent urges in society and even extinguish war. I wasn't quite sure how this mechanism would psychologically work and I don't think that this reason is given in the film. Seeing Rollerball again, paying more attention to the story between the games, a clearer reason for the game emerged...

I first saw Rollerball in 1976 because it promised action and violence. The story is focussed on the games and the violent action is actually key to the story. Even though there was a stir in the press about how violent it was going to be, no censor cuts were made and it only had an 'AA' certificate in UK cinemas (no-one under 14 admitted). The rollerball matches are bleak, violent and convincingly staged, but the details of this future society are hazy, despite taking up most of the running time. 

Even then, I'd already seen some great predictive sci-fi where the central concept could easily be sumarised. Soylent Green was about food shortages and overpopulation, The Omega Man was a post-apocalyptic world of luddite mutants... But what was the premise of Rollerball besides the ultra-violent game? There's an interesting backstory that's barely given a chance to show itself. Between games, we don't see much of the world outside of the rollerball champion's luxury homes. 

Jonathan E (James Caan) is a global star who can get access where mere mortals aren't allowed. He's not interested in the world he lives in, he just wants to find the only woman he ever loved. For information he visits the library, which no longer contains any books. The librarian reveals that all books have been scanned into a computer and summarised. From which I took that it had been quietly censored.

If you're not paying close attention to the dialogue between Jonathan E and his trainer, and some of the locker room banter (in Caan's case the dialogue is also mumbled) you won't know that the world has been taken over by a few consolidated corporations. There's just one in charge of Energy, for instance. The corporations are more important than any country and have now divided the world up among themselves. The rollerball teams don't stand for a national anthem, but a corporation anthem. The real reason there's no more war is because there are no more international boundaries.

US lobby card - showing the scale of the stadium

The world watches Multivision, a huge TV screen with three smaller screens showing alternate angles. But there's only one channel. The women Jonathan E sleeps with are provided and chosen by a corporation. Music is piped into private homes. The future is peaceful, but totally controlled. The past has been edited, presumably to extinguish any references to dissention. 

Everyone is kept amused by extreme entertainment that takes their minds off what's going on all around them. That's what the game of rollerball is about. A barbaric distraction from a world of total control and zero choice.

Films Illustrated, September 1975 splash page

I guess the diverting tactics worked on me too. I didn't care that the story didn't seem to make sense, it was all about the games. And these seem to have derailed the film as well. James Caan was reputedly more interested in playing rollerball than anything else, and they're certainly the highlight. 

Staged on an Olympic German arena that doubles (triples?) for all three stadiums in the film, the skating skills of the cast and stunt performers are superb. Each game packs more excitement than the whole of the 2002 remake. The publicity also concentrated on the game, even the rules appeared in newspapers (though this may also have been because they weren't very well explained at length in the film).

Daily Mail, September 1975 - how to play Rollerball

The two teams have to fight for ownership of a steel ball (fired at a high speed onto the arena). The player with the ball has to complete a circuit of the arena before landing it an electromagnetic goal. The players are all on rollerskates except for the motorbike riders. They're allowed to punch and kick the opposition to gain possession of the ball. If it hits the floor, it's out of play.

Daily Mail, September 8th, 1975

I'm guessing the Daily Mail complained about the film, as well as Death Race 2000 and The Sweeney on TV as examples (and causes) of an increasingly violent society. However, the paper also publicised the film with three days of double-page centrespreads (the first is above) telling the story of the film, in the lead-up to its London premiere. 

James Caan looks great on skates and a totally convincing champion of the world. But he never convinces that he could evade and outwit everything that the corporations could throw at him, when he starts to disobey. As I mentioned, Caan isn't keen to say his dialogue clearly, in stark contrast to John Houseman who appears to be over-enunciating, especially the name "Jonathan E", in an attempt to improve Caan's diction by osmosis.

Co-star Maud Adams (above) had just been a Bond Girl in The Man with The Golden Gun. Jonathan E's easygoing sidekick on his Houston team is played by John Beck, who at the time seemed destined for leading roles and stardom, but after Sky Riders, The Big Bus and Audrey Rose he was soon back to TV. 

The cinematography is clinical but covers the action impressively and there's a great use of the futuristic architecture around Munich, Germany, including the multi-cylindrical BMW building that also appears in the middle of Suspiria.

William Harrison expanded his original short story, The Rollerball Murders, into the script. What happened to it then was up to director Norman Jewison (and apparently Caan). Shame that Harrison didn't then novelise his ideas for this expanded scenario of his script. The above tie-in only contains the original short story. Though he eventually published a set of essays about his life and work in 2010 - The Rollerball Mutations. While writing this, I've learned that Harrison recently passed away, in October.

Films Illustrated advert - March, 1976

Reading through old movie magazines, the exact timing of Rollerball's release in the UK threw up a mystery. The Daily Mail and Photoplay coverage support that it premiered in London in September, 1975. But the above advert for a wider release is from March, 1976. Did Rollerball run in the West End for six months before going on general release? That's unusual. It certainly means that it was popular and made money. It was repeatedly re-released over the next few years, once on a double-bill with Death Race 2000 (below) and I saw it again when it was paired less obviously with Juggernaut. 

The key art for the Rollerball poster (at the very top) was instantly an iconic image. It was painted by Bob Peak, responsible for many other beautiful posters for great films... More examples of the poster art of Bob Peak here on Steve Lensman's site.

Rollerball is on DVD in a special edition with commentary by director Norman Jewison, pointing out how many of his predictions have since come true. The cinematography alone deserves blu-ray treatment, besides the film's cult status.

Doctor Who and the Mechanoids - the adventure on vinyl

A Dalek audio adventure among the worlds of Gerry Anderson

Fifty years since Doctor Who was first shown on TV and my earliest memories of the series are understandably hazy.

For years, I thought I remembered watching William Hartnell episodes on TV, during their original broadcast. I was always very conscious that he was the first Doctor and that Patrick Troughton was the second. But I would have been only 5 years old when 'The Tenth Planet', the last of Hartnell's episodes went out (on October 29th, 1966). Can I really remember that far back? Or was William Hartnell's incarnation so heavily reinforced in books, comics and magazines, that his face was so familiar?

I definitely have vivid memories of several Patrick Troughton episodes, particularly the Cybermats creeping around with the Cybermen, and the two Abominable Snowman stories (which is why the recent rediscovery of four more episodes of Web of Fear is so exciting). These stories went out only a year after Hartnell's departure, so did my visual memory circuits kick in between the two?

My recollections have certainly been heavily skewed by this record (above), just one of a dozens released by Century 21 Productions, mostly made up of Thunderbirds adventures, and marketed as '21 Minutes Of Adventure'. They were crammed onto the two sides of a 7-inch single, by being played at 33 1/3rd r.p.m. to get a longer running time. I'd was only four when this episode was transmitted, but I had clear images of it in my mind...

'The Daleks' was the only Doctor Who record amongst the many Stingray, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet stories. The audio was taken from the last episode of what is known as 'The Chase' storyline, (the onscreen title is 'Planet of Decision'). 

The story blurs into Gerry Anderson territory, not just because it was on sale along with so many Thunderbirds adventures. It's narrated by David Graham, a regular voice artist for Anderson, famously heard as Parker and Brains in Thunderbirds. Graham was perfect for this job having also been one of the earliest voices of the Daleks for the BBC.

It sounds even more like an Anderson episode because of the use of Barry Gray's music, several cues also heard in Thunderbirds 'The End of the Road'. This adds considerably to the dramatic atmosphere.

The Doctor, Ian, Vicki and Barbara enjoying the Mechanoid prison

The eerie voices of the Mechanoids (their early TV21 spelling) are only slightly more welcoming than the Daleks that they're running away from. The ensuing battle and the Earth people's terrifying descent from the roof of the exploding city sound more exciting because of loud explosion sound effects, that also added punch to Anderson's series. Among all of this, hearing Vicki's extended screams as she's lowered 1500 feet from a burning building was, and is, effectively distressing!

The Daleks had met their equals with the Mechanoids, far bigger robots, even less open to reason. Through this record, the Mechanoids were built up for me as a major Doctor Who monster, though this was their only TV appearance.

The story has a particularly pivotal climax in the Hartnell story arc, as the Doctor says goodbye to two of his long-standing companions, Ian and Barbara, who'd been with him since the very first episode. It's also the first episode to feature Peter Purves' regular character, Steven Taylor (above). Rather a busy 21 minutes!

Apart from the many novelisations, this was the only adventure I could vividly enjoy over and over again until the series slowly started being released on VHS in the 1980s, and then shown in its entirety on the BBC cable channel UK Gold.

When I finally saw the events of 'The Daleks' record on VHS, it looked very unfamiliar. Meaning that I must have imagined my own version while listening to it (and my memories of many subsequent dreams), mixed in with a few photographs I'd seen in comics and magazines. Doctor Who articles and adventures appeared in TV Comic, and the Daleks were a regular colour comic strip on the back page of the awesome TV21 comic - a further link with the world of Gerry Anderson. I'd known what all the characters looked like, but I'd imagined the city and how this adventure played out.

The next challenge to my early memories of watching Doctor Who will soon be the recently recovered episodes of 'Web of Fear', the Troughton story where the Yeti roamed the London Underground. An adventure I definitely remember seeing. Honest!


While the '21 Minutes of Adventure' range is still being remastered and released on CD by Fanderson, the Official Gerry Anderson Appreciation Society, the complex copyright issues will probably restrict this unique Doctor Who adventure to vinyl. (And of course, maybe YouTube...)

The release of the other Gerry Anderson Mini-Albums are an ongoing project, the CDs all available from Fanderson Sales once you've become a member.

A recent Dalek and Mechanoid collector's set

Early Doctor Who merchandise at the Moonbase Central blog.

Flashback 1976 - JAWS, ALL THE PRESIDENTS' MEN, LOGAN'S RUN...

A look at how the big movies of 1976 were released in the UK, their advertising campaigns and coverage in the movie magazines of that year...

An article about special effects in the Photoplay Film Year Book includes this shot from The Land That Time Forgot. Doug McClure and Declan Mulholland on the deck of their submarine, fighting the full-sized prop of a plesiosaurus head (with notably rubbery teeth). 

In 1976, Mulholland would shoot his scenes as the original Jabba the Hutt, walking alongside Harrison Ford, for the first Star Wars. The scene didn't make it into the film, but was reinstated for the Special Edition, with a downsized, computer-generated Jabba pasted over his performance. He can still be seen in 'making-of' before-and-after clips in documentaries and DVD extras.

What would you rather go see in January 1976, Jaws or Barry Lyndon...? Me? I saw Jaws and then went back and saw Jaws again...

This incredible cover photo impressed me so much that I still haven't seen Barry Lyndon.

Film Review, January

A Stanley Kubrick film is always an event, this one using much of the research he'd spent years working on for his aborted Napoleon project. But it's not as much of an event as a great white shark eating its way around Cape Cod. Perhaps this is why Kubrick started phoning Spielberg in the middle of the night.

Photoplay, January

Some of my favourite movies have been released on Boxing Day, despite them being far more suitable for the height of summer.

Photoplay, January

Here's Roy Scheider relaxing on Martha's Vineyard with producer Richard Zanuck, and director Steven Spielberg, before he went permanently beardy.

Much much more about Jaws here - the movie, the merchandise and a visit to the filming locations...

Photoplay, January

The Man From Hong Kong has now been rediscovered as one of the most action-packed Australian films of the stunt-heavy seventies. Packaged as James Bond meets kung-fu... down under.

Films Illustrated, March

After a year of coverage in the movie magazines, Rollerball finally gets released in the UK, certificate 'AA' (no-one under 14 admitted).

Film Review, April

James Caan again. Sam Peckinpah's trademark cross-cutting, slow-motion action sequences are the only thing I remember about The Killer Elite, one of the few of his films that made it intact to TV. The action thriller pits ninjas versus guys with guns. Guess who wins...

Film Review, April

The last Hammer horror film is one of their darkest. A low-key, straightforward depiction of Satanism, with Christopher Lee at his most evil. In their earlier adaption of a Dennis Wheatley horror novel, The Devil Rides Out, Lee played the good guy...

More about To The Devil A Daughter here...

Film Review, April

Nicolas Roeg picked David Bowie for his favourite, most unearthly-looking actor. In The Man Who Fell To Earth, Earth gets its first close encounter, before they were called close encounters...

Film Review, May

Considering everyone knew the ending (especially after seeing the poster), The Hindenburg is an interesting and dramatic theory of why the disaster happened. But I remember the climax being especially disappointing when it flicked into black-and-white, so that the 16mm newsreel could be cut in, instead of being recreated by new modelwork.

Zoiks! Films and Filming's goriest cover. A good job it wasn't in colour. Vampyres director, José Ramón Larraz recently passed away. I'm sure he was pleased to see this getting released on blu-ray though.

Films and Filming, June

Spielberg's follow-up to Jaws, was eventually called Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Here's news of it early in production, with a less confusing title.

Films and Filming, June

Films and Filming were livening up their photo-previews by presenting them with shots of the director getting involved. Above is a very tired-looking George Pan Cosmatos filming 'outbreak on a train', The Cassandra Crossing. He later directed both Rambo 2 and Cobra with Sylvester Stallone. His son Panos recently directed cult psychedelia Beyond The Black Rainbow.

Films and Filming, June

I include this shot from The Cassandra Crossing for fans of Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue - it's the star Ray Lovelock without that beard! He plays the guitar-playing boyfriend of Ann Turkel. A dangerous role, as Turkel was married to the star Richard Harris! More about The Cassandra Crossing here...

Film Review, June

The delay in releasing Rollerball meant that Roger Corman's similarly-themed Death Race 2000 rolls up only a few weeks later. It was compared to Rollerball in the British press and favourably-reviewed as being better satirically. A great script and funnier than it looks, though director Paul Bartel was unaware that the second-unit was sent out to beef up the blood and gore as well. The censor didn't fall for the jokes though, and cut the kills for cinemas, despite the 'X' certificate.

More about the wonderful Death Race 2000 here...

Film Review, June

Richard Rush (The Stuntman) directed this early 'buddy cop' movie, mixing the tough tactics of a borderline-insane detective with comedy and car chaos, years before any Lethal Weapon was drawn.

Films and Filming, July

William Girdler's Jaws-with-claws arrived in cinemas remarkably speedily after Jaws, also pre-empting the Jaws 2 attack on a helicopter by two years! Grizzly sneaked out while 'animal attack' movies could still show gore, though it plays much more like a slasher movie. Of course, we saw far less gore in the UK than the US. The uncut DVD special edition was quite an eye-opener! Grizzly is now promised on blu-ray by Scorpion in the US.

More about Grizzly here...

A bizarre collage on this cover presenting the paradox of seventies cinema - violent independent New York new wave, versus bloated unfunny Hollywood nostalgia.

Films and Filming, August

The late Karen Black cheats her way into Alfred Hitchock's gallery of blonde female stars by wearing a wig as a disguise in Family Plot. The very last Hitchcock film is a disappointing light comedy.

Films and Filming, August

Margaux Hemingway in what I think is a missing scene from Lipstick. She starred alongside her younger sister Mariel in this rape-revenge thriller opposite Chris Sarandon and Anne Bancroft.

Films and Filming, August

Director Pete Walker (Frightmare, House of the Long Shadows) shows Stephanie Beacham how to wield a knife in bloody whodunnit Schizo. Released this year on blu-ray in the US, by Redemption Video.

Films and Filming, August

Director Bob Rafelson directs Jeff Bridges in Stay Hungry, his follow-up to the acclaimed Five Easy Pieces.

Film Review, September

Director Alan Parker directs Scott Baio and Florrie Dugger in the all-child cast, gangster musical hit Bugsy Malone. His next two films will be Midnight Express and Fame...

It was fairly easy for Film Review to predict the coming hits on their preview covers, especially after the Oscar ceremony. All The President's Men won four awards that year.

Radio Times, July

If you wanted anyone to star as you in a film, in 1976, it would be Robert Redford. Journalist Bob Woodward was the lucky one, runner-up Carl Bernstein is played by Dustin Hoffman. Here the actors pose with the team they portrayed in All The President's Men.

Film Review, September

We finally get to see it in September, following the sensational news headlines and the best-selling book, written by the two journalists who cracked the case and exposed the President of the United States to be a liar. Richard Nixon's crime was to sanction government agencies to listen in on anyone's telephones. He resigned. Times have certainly changed.

Film Review, September

Producer/director Moustapha Akkad is best known by horror fans for making John Carpenter's original Halloween possible, and for producing each of the sequels. Just before all that, he'd made this epic about the birth of Islam, The Message, starring Anthony Quinn.

The Message will soon be on blu-ray from Twilight Time, along with the epic follow-up, Lion of the Desert.

Film Review, September

Here's Moustapha Akkad (on the right) with Anthony Quinn while filming The Message.

Film Review, September

These kids don't know how lucky they are, because they won a set visit to Star Wars, before anyone knew what Star Wars was.

While the dated special effects (and especially the wobbly robot) of Logan's Run was lucky to appear in cinemas before Star Wars, we were about to be starved of predictive science fiction films that had something to say.

Films and Filming, October

This photo-spread rightly shows off the extremely complex and dangerous 'Carousel' scene, with multiple stunt performers simultaneously hanging in the air on wires.

Film Review, November

Film Review, December

I can find no mention in Film Review or Photoplay of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre opening in cinemas. Yet they have no problem with the posters for Survive! and Death Weekend. To be fair, Chain Saw had an unorthodox release and wasn't co-ordinated on a national basis, but rather with individual Borough Councils!

Survive! also told a real life tale of cannibalism, when a plane crashed off-course in the Andes. It was dramatised again as Alive in 1993.

Much more about Survive! here.

Films Illustrated, December

Another rape-revenge thriller where, like Lipstick, it's the assaulted woman who takes revenge. Lipstick predated The Accused in highlighting the lack of legal support women had at the time. Death Weekend is a more straightforward thriller, but unlike Death Wish and like Lipstick, it's the woman that takes revenge. This also draws on Straw Dogs, with a home invasion and an isolated setting. All these films predate the infamous I Spit on Your Grave, a gorier, far more exploitative reworking of the premise of Death Weekend. But I bet they were jealous of the poster's tagline (above).

Still not on DVD, more about Death Weekend here...

Films Illustrated, December

Like Phantom of the Paradise, Brian De Palma's Obsession wasn't a hit, though both were received well in Britain. His next film launched his fortunes, something called Carrie. Out of all the posters I've seen for Obsession, this is my very favourite, also used on the vinyl soundtrack. Obsession boasts one of Bernard Herrmann's last soundtracks and some of De Palma's best work. It's just been released on region-free blu-ray in the UK by Arrow Video.

A decade of classic Brian De Palma films...






Previous magazine flashbacks...

Lawrence of Arabia and more from 1963

Blow Up, The Trip and more from 1967

Barbarella, Witchfinder General and more from 1968

Rosemary's Baby, When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth, Women In Love and more from 1969

M*A*S*H, Myra Breckinridge and more from 1970

The Devils, Deep End, double-bills and more from 1971

A Clockwork Orange, The Godfather and more from 1972 

The Legend of Hell House and the last of the Planet of the Apes and more from 1973

Zardoz, Westworld, The Exorcist and more from 1974

The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and more from 1975