Begun in ’64 by Robert Hartford-Davis, who’d directed girlschool perv-up The Yellow Teddybears and 18th century horror The Black Torment for Compton Films, with Lawrence of Arabia cinematographer Peter Newbrook. First out of the traps was Gonks Go Beat, the legendarily silly pop fluff in which Kenneth Connor comes to Earth to settle differences between rock ‘n’ rollers (represented by Ginger Baker) and balladeers (Lulu), with Terry Scott as the Prime Minister. Then came delightful Michael Bentine silent comedy short The Sandwich Man. Less delightful was reform school lesbian titillater School for Unclaimed Girls, aka The Smashing Bird I Used to Know. More grisly still was Corruption, in which Peter Cushing murders women to save his wife’s badly-burnt face, written by – oh, look! – Donald and Derek Ford. Worst of all was the incompetent Incense for the Damned, in which Oxford don Patrick Mower sets off for Greece at Peter Cushing’s behest to research a perverted vampire cult, Edward Woodward does a quick lecture, and Patrick Macnee gives chase on a donkey.
Enoch Sneed
July 25, 2014 at 5:16 pm
DO keep up TV Cream! ‘The Sandwich Man’ was neither silent, nor a short. Surely you remember it from the Saturday 3pm slot on BBC2?