THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974) - delayed, panned and banned

Looking through the movie magazines of the 1970s, several horror movie highlights of the decade are inexplicably absent. I still can't nail down an exact release date for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in London, as the most popular magazines didn't mention it at all or carry any advertising. Intrigued, I found details of the delayed and difficult cinema release and was surprised that early reviews, even in horror film magazines, were very dismissive.

Now, an acknowledged landmark horror film, here's how it was received at the time...

A box office hit, but "blatantly amateurish"

Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre opened in the US on October 1st 1974 and initially made over $30 million (its North American gross - Box Office Mojo). Spectacularly successful, from a production budget of $300,000.

Audiences had already been keen to be disgusted by The Exorcist (1973), another provocative film which split public opinion over whether the filmmakers had gone too far. But that big studio release had plenty of highly visible defenders on TV and in the press. Tiny independent low-budget horror The Texas Chain Saw Massacre had a rougher ride, again getting mixed reviews in the US and mostly bad ones in the UK.

I've not got many American magazines from the time, but even Cinefantastique (Volume 4, number 3, 1975) only gave a short four-paragraph review, calling it "blatantly amateurish" and a "stomach-churning little sickie-quickie", contrasting with two entire half issues dedicated to The Exorcist the year before. It took twelve years before Chain Saw was given a retrospective alongside their coverage of the 1986 sequel. There's a similar decade of delay in the UK, before Chain Saw was celebrated rather than demonised.

Meanwhile, fantasy film fan magazine Photon (issue 26, 1974) has a whole page review from Ron Borst. This was the first review I saw of Chain Saw in a genre magazine, and it was encouraging, "quite possibly the most terrifying brutal example of a horror film yet produced". Though Borst's review is defensive, tempered by other critics' bad reviews and his date calling it "sick and disgusting".

A two-year wait for Britain

But when could anyone see it in the UK? The case study on the BBFC website is a good starting point, but misses out the key date that I'm interested in - when did Chain Saw open to the public?

To even get a UK release, Chain Saw was submitted to the British Board of Film Censors (as it was called then) who felt it was unsuitable for release and refused it a certificate. No certificate meant that it couldn't play in cinemas with the normal national distribution - it was effectively banned. In the summer of 1975, when James Ferman took over as head of the BBFC, he screened Chain Saw for himself, but still wouldn't certify it, unable to work out how even an extensively-cut version could be released. For a lucky few, Chain Saw was screened twice, uncertified, at the London Film Festival in November 1975 at the National Film Theatre.

At least we spelt 'Chain Saw' correctly

By the end of 1976, another year later, the Greater London Council then screened a version cut by the distributor (listed as 80 mins, 30 seconds in Films and Filming, January 1977) and approved a London-only certificate 'X' (see the above poster). This set a precedent for local Borough Councils to show it anywhere in the U.K. after they'd watched it for themselves. In this unusual way, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre opened in London cinemas in December 1976, over two years after the US premiere.

A critical mauling, across the board

Now came the reviews. I've much more coverage of its reception in British magazines. The reviews were bad, one of the worst and rudest coming from the only UK horror magazine at the time! The House of Hammer ran four pages about Chain Saw in issue 2, December 1976. Writer John Fleming noting that while it was a box office phenomenon in the US, it "has ineffective special effects; no audience involvement with the non-characters; no tension; very little gore." and that readers should "avoid like the plague". There's then a detailed two-page account of almost the entire story!

This condemnation looks even stranger, when in the same magazine, the same writer reviewed another low-budget horror film based on the same events. Issue 5 (published early in 1977) has a three-page review of Deranged. Again about a cannibal, littering his remote farmhouse with bones and body parts and murdering women even more graphically than in Chain Saw. But John Fleming's review of Deranged calls it "a joy" and "amazingly believable. Whereas The Texas Chain-Saw Massacre is just plain silly." If horror fans didn't like it, there was little hope of a fair deal from the mainstream film critics.

But in the regular movie magazines, I'd still expect a more sophisticated response. In the December 1976 Films Illustrated, Susan D'Arcy observed that "the overall effect is simply nauseating. If this is meant to be entertainment, someone somewhere has a curious concept of it." I'd guess that was a very similar reaction to The Daily Mail.

Films and Filming, January 1977

Films and Filming is surprisingly lukewarm as well, with only a single page of photos (above) and an on-the-fence review. Writer Gordon Gow reckons "the subject matter...is meretricious tosh" (despite being based on an actual crime) while praising its handling of suspense.

Worse still, there's no mention of Chain Saw in the influential, wide-circulation monthly magazines Film Review or Photoplay in December 1976 or January 1977. It's not featured or mentioned and there aren't any ads, while there are full-page adverts for the London openings of Survive!, Schizo, and Death Weekend. I guess this is because it was a last-minute release, non-standard distribution, or simply too controversial. The unorthodox cinema release is also reflected by the lack of a paperback novelisation, usually an easy way to cash in and publicise a horror film.

I've read that many local councils around the U.K. approved similar special certificates for Chain Saw to be shown, but it's hard to know how many actually got to see it. Wikipedia has a quote that it ran in one London cinema for a year. As banned films go, it wasn't too hard to see. But in terms of visibility, it would have been a local phenomenon rather than a national one.

Banned on home video

In the US, the film first appeared on home video in 1982, released by Wizard Video), and in 1981 in the UK. But we stupidly, initially, didn't have any rules for the classification of videotapes. The market was open to a landslide of releases of banned and uncut horror films on all home video formats. This was another, wider chance to see the film, and enabled a new generation of horror fans... of all ages.

As more homes got video cassette recorders, and more newspapers complained about what they perceived was lurking in every local rental shop, garage and newsagent, Chain Saw was banned again when the BBFC completely refused it a home video certificate in 1985. To be fair, this time around, they also banned The Exorcist on video. Ridiculously, because now video sleeve art also needed to be approved, the word 'chainsaw' wasn't even allowed on any video sleeves (see below).

Hollywood blankety-blank Hookers

For the next fifteen years, the only way to buy it was as a fuzzy bootleg copy made from the originally-legal videotapes. Or, on tape or laserdisc from the USA and other countries. During this time, sequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 also went unreleased in UK cinemas, Cannon Films unwilling to make so many cuts to please the censors. Again home video was out of the question.

In 1998, the film was remastered for DVD in the US and fresh prints were struck for the 25th anniversary. This new transfer was shown at the London Film Festival and in Camden, again only with a Local Council certificate. The BBFC watched it again and finally, finally got it, this time around "impressed, rather than disturbed" (see the BBFC Case Study).

They granted an uncut '18' certificate for British cinemas in 1999. The first BBFC approved home video release was in, gulp, the year 2000. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre then appeared on British TV the same year, on Channel 4, a clear sign of how far behind the times the classifications had become.

Texas justice

If I really wanted to get my hands dirty, and wallow in the warped, mindsets of tabloid journalists, I'd dig through the newspapers of the time to understand better how Chain Saw was originally singled out by 'public opinion', while similar horror movies trundled through local cinemas with far fewer problems.

Looking back, I'm surprised at the snotty reaction in House of Hammer and Cinefantastique at the time of release, but suspect they were trying to reflect the public reaction as voiced in the mainstream press. Chain Saw would have had a better reaction if Fangoria had arrived earlier than 1979. The magazine was inspired by the tidal wave of slashers after Halloween and Friday the 13th, and promoted gory horror films as a respectable sub-genre. It was also immediately widely available (even in newsagents) in the UK, and I think that helped Chain Saw to be seen as an important influence. Film reviewer Kim Newman gave it the review it deserved in his popular study of horror since Night of the Living Dead, his book 'Nightmare Movies' (1984).

Prove me wrong, but it was a long ten years before Britain acknowledged The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as a classic...




The view from the BBFC - the unreleasable Chain Saw

Texas movie posters - from The Wrong side of the Art.

House of Hammer covers - from Monster Magazine Gallery - their copies are in better condition than mine!

Goal Accomplished!

In my past blogger entry  I mentioned my goal of watching 31 horror films in October, one for each day of the month. I am here to say I was able to meet my goal! Since I am not awarded anything for this goal I thought I would reward myself by writing this blog about it. I will list the movies I watched and might even include some insight along with it. And you will notice I did start the movie watching a tad before October, the season hit me a tad early and I wanted to start.

9/26 - Don't Go in the House (1979) - I am always interested in watching movies of the year I was born to see the fashion and think about how I was being birthed the year this movie was made.

9/27 - The Nail Gun Massacre (1985) - I borrowed this and the previous movie from my good friend Dennis who knows a lot more about horror then I could ever manage. This one was enjoyable especially the constant one liners after every kill.

9/28 - Shaun of the Dead (2004) - I tend to watch this one a few times I year and still find something new in it every time.

10/1 - A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - I will admit that Freddy is the only one the major slashers that still sort of creeps me out. After watching this I was remind of why. I think it had been a very long time since I last watched this movie and it plays out just as well now.

10/2 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985) - It is amazing how fast they produced these sequels in the 80's, I mean seriously a year after Nightmare we have the sequel...they must have started production the day after it was released! Anyway not nearly as well as done as the original but still has some cool moments and a lot of homoerotic subtext.

10/3 - The Monster Squad (1987) - The movie that teaches you that Wolf Man does in fact have nards. Still enjoy this movie as I was 8 when it came out and could relate to liking horror movies and wanting to be as cool as these guys.

10/4 - Ghoulies (1985) - Ghoulies seem more boring then scary in this.

10/6 - Ghoulies II (1987) - I actually preferred Ghoulies II because it doesn't suffer from the unbearably slow pacing that the original did and it has the Ghoulies take over an amusement park.

10/7 - Galaxy of Terror (1981) - I have a feeling this was somehow influenced by Alien! Still I really enjoyed this one for the gore and it was very aware what it was, pure entertainment.

10/7 - Halloween Night (2006) - I thought I would give this a try on Netflix, bad idea.

10/8 - Forbidden World (1982) - This and Galaxy of Terror were very similar and I enjoyed them both very much but I think I would say overall this one was my favorite of the two.

10/10 - Creepshow 2 (1987) - Sometimes this felt like a straight up comedy (The Hitchhiker story) but the oil slick story remains a very scary story that still works. I don't think I will ever go swimming in a lake ever again.

10/10 - The Hole (2009) - I saw this was done by Joe Dante was pretty excited (he did Gremlins and The Burbs) because I feel he is an underrated and appreciated filmmaker. This one is very enjoyable and reminds me of a Eerie Indiana episodes, but overall enjoyable clean fun that isn't afraid to tackle some adult issues.

10/11 - Student Bodies (1981) - It was hard to get through this movie, very hard. I will give them props for predating the Scary Movie franchise by 19 years.

10/15 - Friday the 13th (1980) - While watching this movie I was trying to think how cool it would be to have seen this in 1980 and how so many movies (even its own movies) would come to copy this one. The end decapitation of Mrs. Vorhees and the jump scare at the end are classic. Also really appreciate the music
in this one.

10/16 - Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) -  Another year later sequel. This time the movie isn't as new but having Jason as the killer really makes you scared. I like the hillbilly Jason before he got his mask. A worthy sequel.

10/18 - Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982) - The third movie in three years! This one I tried watching in 3D but it was hard and I had to switch back to regular viewing. I like how it takes place soon after the events of part 2. We see Jason get his iconic hockey mask and this one has some good scares, wish I could have seen it in 3D in 1982!

10/18 - The Shining (1980) - There is not much that can be said about this Kubrick masterpiece that hasn't been said already (if you don't believe me watch Room 237). I truly love the visuals in this movie more then ever.

10/19 - Pumpkinhead (1988) - I have long been meaning to watch this one, it doesn't really seem to have a big following and I can see why. Does have some great effects, thanks to being directed by Stan Winston.

10/21 - Maniac (2013) - A remake that is smart enough to change the orginal material but have the essence of it. I thought this was a creepy and well done look at a deranged man played by Elijah Wood, Frodo no!

10/22 - Halloween (1978) - What else can be said about this masterpiece of cinema? It is most likely my favorite slasher movie of all time.

10/22 - Halloween: A Cut Above the Rest (2003) - A very in depth look at the making and response to Halloween and its sequels. I found this to be well done with some interesting interviews and insights into the making of the original.

10/24 - Halloween II (1981) - Although some people bash this one I still find it interesting because it essentially is just more of Halloween. I love how it takes place right after the first one and continues that same story with no hesitation. This is the last Halloween that the Myers shape and mask look like the first movie, after this no one would come close to matching the authenticity of the original.

10/24 - Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) - After people hated Halloween III (more on this soon)  because of no Michael Myers they brought him back. I do enjoy the Halloween movies but more and more I think they should have ended with Halloween 2. I found this to be uninspired and just not the same magic as in Halloween or Halloween 2.

10/25 - Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) - If I thought 4 was bad then this is utter shit. Hard to watch and never really takes advantage of good cliff hanger from 4. Don't waste your time unless you need to see it once to complete your Halloween experience.

10/28 - Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) - I am on a the minority that think this is better then 4. I feel the movie has some good going for it and it kept me interested for most of it. Has some decent kills. Weird to see Paul Rudd in a horror flick!

10/29 - Trick'r Treat (2007) - Fresh off the news that this movie would be getting a sequel I had to pop in my bluray (first one I ever bought) and relive this anthology. Glad to see it is still entertaining and holds up well.

10/30 - Dawn of the Dead (1978) - The gore may not hold up as well as I had remembered but this is still a classic zombie movie that keep you squirming in your seat. Can't get much better the this. I watched it in honor of my father.

10/30 - The Awakening (2011) - This was another random Netflix instant watch I let my wife choose. It was a decent ghost story and they even had some good atmosphere going on here. Overall not a bad watch if you are feeling like a ghost story type of mood.

10/31 - Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) - It is a tradition for me to watch this undervalued flick. It is pure greatness and should be part of everyone's Halloween watching experience.

10/31 - The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) - THIS IS HALLOWEEN! Me and my wife finished off my 31st movie by watching a fun movie. You can sing along yet still gets you in the mood for both Halloween and Christmas.


Breakdown Time:

Movies from the 70's:  3
Movies from the 80's: 19
80's breakdown:
1980 - 2
1981 - 4
1982 - 3
1983 - 0
1984 - 1
1985 - 3
1986 - 0
1987 - 3
1988 - 2
1989 - 1
Movies from the 90's: 2
Movies from the 00's: 5
Movies from the 10's: 2

# of movies first time watched: 11
# of movies second time watched: 11
# of movies three or more times watched: 9

# of movies that are sequels: 11
# of movies that are remakes: 1
# of movies that have Halloween in their title: 8
# of movies that have Nightmare in their title: 3

Thanks for reading.

SQUIRM (1976) - my Saturday morning of crawling terror

SQUIRM

(1976, USA)

Now on blu-ray - Squirm still isn't for the squeamish

We're currently being spoilt in the UK, by Arrow Video's cult horror releases. They're not only keeping great horror films in circulation, but restoring them in high definition as well as flattering them with brand new artwork and extras.

Recently released, Squirm has never looked better, one of those low-budget independent films that I once assumed was shot on 16mm (like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) because the prints looked so grainy and beat up. But treated with care, Squirm has scrubbed up really well, now looking like a carefully-filmed 35mm. It's not even very grainy anymore, except for some of the night-time scenes.

As a fierce thunderstorm brings down a small Georgia town's electricity supply, the local population of bloodworms are forced out of the ground and into safer, dark places. They like dark and wet, but they also like to bite...

Into the chaos arrives a hapless city boy (Don Scardino), soon up to his neck in swamp water and trouble with the local sheriff. He's come to visit a young woman (Patricia Pearcy) he's sweet on, who unfortunately lives next door to the local worm farm. When 100,000 worms disappear, along with some of the townspeople, the young couple soon discover that everyone could be up to their necks in trouble...

This was an early animal attack movie of the 1970s where a whole species goes bad, rather than a single rogue shark or bear. It takes its cues from The Birds, right down to the frosty reception that the city boy gets from the over-protective mother. What sets Squirm above many in the genre is that we care for the characters, who get plenty of time to introduce themselves before the worms get nasty.

This slow start then accelerates into rapid nightmarish scenarios that still have me fetching my feet off the ground. Close-ups of these large vicious bloodworms, with their really nasty pincers, are one thing.Seeing whole seething piles of them literally squirming around still really makes me squeamish. They look nasty, they're fast and, well, really icky.

When it was released, UK films were still being trimmed of gory footage, even 'X' rated horror films. Gun shots and stabbings were all toned down, but scenes that couldn't be copied by the audience, like worm attacks, were left untouched. These made a big impact on me because the gory close-ups were left in. A clever 'burrowing' effect was devised by Rick Baker, with advice from his mentor, make-up maestro Dick Smith. Smith had used his delicate bladder effects to 'write' scarred words on the skin of the possessed girl in The Exorcist. Baker used a more complex variation of this effect in one notable shock scene in Squirm... At the time, we didn't know what we were looking at! Baker was about to move from low-budget horror into a blockbuster nightmare for his strenuous role in the King Kong remake.

I certainly looked out for director Jeff Lieberman's name after that. L.S.D. timebomb Blue Sunshine followed shortly afterwards, but many consider his backwoods slasher Just Before Dawn (coming soon to blu-ray from Code Red in the US) his best horror film. But my heart belongs to Squirm...

The Arrow blu-ray includes a great interview with the director and the star Don Scardino (now a director himself) and their adventures making the film, including wrangling 250,000 worms (eueeeecccch!). The blu-ray set also includes a DVD of everything. Like I said, the transfer makes it look like a brand new film, but it didn't even look that good in 1976, when I first saw it...

1976 was the year I first stood a good chance of getting into 'X' certificate movies, even though I was too young. You had to be 18 to get into an 'X'. At the time I was reading the only available British horror movie magazine, The House of Hammer. In issue 6 (above), there was a full-page advert (below) offering free tickets to see the brand new horror film Squirm. What had I got to lose? The price of a train ticket up to town, if I didn't get in. Squirm was released in the US in 1976 and wouldn't be released in UK cinemas for another seven months, in the summer of 1977.

House of Hammer #6 (December 1976)

December 4th, 1976, Saturday morning: I took the train up to London in my most adult-looking anorak and looked for the Rialto Cinema (below) on Coventry Street. It felt unusual to be going to a West End cinema in the morning. I remember being nervous about not getting in, but the guy on the door just laughed when I turned up, and then cheerfully waved me in. I don't think I fooled him for a minute, but he didn't really seem to care that I looked too young...

Rialto Cinema, London, 1979, courtesy of Dusashenka

Inside, the stalls weren't full and I sat fairly close to the front but away from the central aisle, sticking to the shadows in case anyone changed their minds. The organisers then got the fancy dress contestants up on stage - first prize, an original Squirm script! I think the guy dressed as a ghost with a Don Post grinning skull mask won, only to be told that they hadn't won the script to Squirm, but Satan's Slave instead. The audience groaned in sympathy. 

They also promised extra screenings around the country. On the new Arrow Video blu-ray, Kim Newman speculates that Squirm was more popular in the UK than the USA. The House of Hammer coverage certainly gave Squirm plenty of positive publicity and the movie didn't disappoint. Director Jeff Lieberman (talking at a recent retrospective, also included in the Arrow blu-ray/DVD) heard that it ran for a year in a London cinema. Perhaps it was the Rialto, at the time owned by Brent Walker, the Squirm distributors.

House of Hammer #9

Several months later, photos from the event were published in House of Hammer #9, along with their review of Squirm, finally released in July 1977. (Some of the photos can be seen here). The article points out that trailers for Death Weekend, Futureworld and Food of the Gods ran beforehand, but I've no recollection of those - perhaps I arrived late?

My next experience of Squirm was the paperback, that reminds us that the worms drive the character 'Worm-face' mad because they're burrowing into his brain... Kim Newman reminds us that this novelisation wasn't written by that Richard Curtis. Pity. It was reprinted many times, without any mention of the film, because it then slotted neatly into the animal attack horror novel genre, alongside James Herbert's The Rats and Guy N. Smith's Night of the Crabs... But this is still my favourite cover, which I think is the same as the original UK campaign.

Much much more about The House of Hammer magazine, including the esteemed artists who adapted Hammer films as comic strips, and photos from the Squirm fancy dress competition on that fateful morning - here on publisher Dez Skinn's site

The Rialto Cinema on Dusashenka's Flickr site for London cinemas.

Flashback 1975 - Disaster movies, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and the ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW...

A look at British movie magazines of 1975, in particular the adverts that nail their release dates. These magazines are still available secondhand on eBay. (These are all handheld photos from magazines no longer in publication - please don't scan books or magazines that are still in print...)

Joan Collins seemed to spend the whole decade in bed, in sex comedies (like this sequel to Alfie), and sex dramas (The Stud and The Bitch). I blame her sister...

Films and Filming, January

The whole year is dominated by big budget disaster movies. I blame Irwin Allen. 

There were three Airport sequels in the 1970s, but it was Airport 1975 that fuelled half of the jokes in Airplane! The other half were inspired by Zero Hour (1957) that starred Dana Andrews, who also appeared in Airport 1975! English author Arthur Hailey started it all by writing both the script for Zero Hour and the original Airport (1970) novel.

Amusingly, Airport 1975 was released in 1974...

Much more about Airport 1975 here.

Photoplay Film Magazine, January

Disney films were the most obvious to drag children to see, though I was often disappointed by just how 'kiddie' they were. Here's a great exception, a Jules Verne-type adventure with no children in the cast. A lost island thrown back to Viking times, volcanoes and some amazing killer whales...

More about The Island at the Top of the World here...

Photoplay Film Magazine, January

Sorry that I'm mentioning movies here that were actually released the year before, but I'm sticking to the publication 'dates' (the month printed on the magazine cover) in order to stay sane. The Man with the Golden Gun was another big Christmas movie that opened in December 1974.

Film Review, February

Rising megastar James Caan and Alan Arkin in an early 'buddy cop' movie, mixing action, comedy and edgy, violent 'rogue cop' rough justice. Director Richard Rush later made cult favourite, The Stuntman, about a megalomaniac film director.

Looking at this year's clippings, a couple of films are mentioned almost throughout the year. Some films would get pre-publicity to raise awareness (easy to do because they'd already been released in America). In the case of Earthquake, cinemas would also have had to wait for the limited number of Sensurround speakers to be heaved around the country.

Film Review, April

Can't find an exact date when Earthquake first opened in Britain, but it could have been as early as January (when Films and Filming did their photo-preview). Seems rather late that Film Review gave it this splashy article in April.

Surrey Comet, August

Even later, Earthquake is only hitting Outer London eight months after the premiere. The giant, sub-base frequency Sensurround speakers caused problems in multi-screen cinemas, as the vibrations would leak into other theatres.

Film Review, April

Onto Easter, the first of a series of lavish Agatha Christie adaptions throws their best of British cast at even the smallest roles.

Amicus Films finally admit to making children's films besides horror. Even so, there's giant monsters and a high body count in this first of three Edgar Rice Borough novels, adapted by genre fan and producer Milton Subotsky.

This issue of Film Review could barely believe the number of disaster movies opening in the coming year. But The Towering Inferno was the most spectacular of them all. It's popularity even saved lives, as high-rise buildings were forced to reinforce and improve their fire safety standards.

Film Review, April

Even though it premiered in London in January (at the Warner West End), it was still playing in five West End cinemas three months later. It would run for several weeks in our local ABC and make several re-release return visits too.

More about The Towering Inferno here.

Film Review, April

The original version of The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 was based on a bestselling novel. It must have been popular because it repeatedly played through the rest of the decade, if you wanted to make a quality thriller double-bill.

More about The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 here.    

One of my favourite issues of Films and Filming, April 1975, somehow contains photo-features for four of my fondest movie-going experiences. 

Films and Filming, April

The Rocky Horror Picture Show gets five full pages of photographs. I think they liked it.

Films and Filming, April

Flesh Gordon has to be seen to be believed. Starting life as hardcore pornography, Flesh was funnier and sexier than the huge budgeted official adaption that eventually arrived in 1980.

Films and Filming, April

I saw Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise on a double-bill with Rocky Horror. They might even have been released together as a double-bill. With songs by Paul Williams, before he did Bugsy Malone and The Muppet Movie, starring Jessica Harper before she made Suspiria, Phantom references practically every horror movie that had gone before.

More about Phantom of the Paradise here.

Films and Filming, April

Finally, the April issue of Films and Filming also previewed Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein.

Photoplay, May

This photo, published in Photoplay Film Magazine, appears to be a scene missing from Young Frankenstein.

Film Review, July

Young Frankenstein was unusual for being shot in black-and-white, as a homage to the Universal horror films of the 1930s. This made publicity photos published in colour rather a revelation. Here's Teri Garr, before she appeared in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Mel Brooks would again be scrabbling for increasingly rare black-and-white film stock when he produced The Elephant Man with David Lynch

Another example of early publicity. Roger Daltrey on the cover for Ken Russell's Tommy, months before the cinema release.

Film Review, November

An early example of a film released with stereo sound, though only in a few cinemas. I don't remember hearing stereo in a cinema before Star Wars in 1977.

Much more about Tommy here.

Photoplay, May

Director Sam Peckinpah dominated the decade. His name on a poster almost outweighed the cast - guaranteeing the toughest of tough, violent thrillers. But his drinking problem meant that he was a liability to insure for U.S. productions, and he'd often have to make his films in other countries instead. Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia was shot in Mexico, for instance.

Film Review, June

Monty Python's first original feature film, directed by the two Terrys, Gilliam and Jones, remains my favourite. I'd missed most of their TV shows because I was too young. The films were my first taste of Python. And I liked it.

Film Review, August

First written in the 1930s, the 1970s saw the start of Doc Savage's (200) pulp adventures being reprinted with all new cover art. Classic sci-fi producer George Pal bought the rights to ALL the novels and expected to start a franchise. He blamed studio interference for its failure, when they recut and redubbed the film. A shame, because Ron Ely was the perfect choice to play Doc.

More about Doc Savage - Man of Bronze here.

Norman Jewison's Rollerball first appeared on the cover of Photoplay magazine in 1974. A year later, and six months before the UK release, here it is again on the front page. 

Films Illustrated, September

Whether it ran into production problems (I've read about clashes between James Caan and the director) or whether the release was delayed because of worries about the violent content, I don't know.

Film Review, November

Another crowd-pleasing film that wouldn't stay away, Bob Clark's Black Christmas gave us an early taste of slasher movies before the phrase had been invented. I caught it a couple of times when it was later re-released in double-bills. This was the British debut.






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