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Creamguide(Films) Commentaries: Lifeforce

Lifeforce

Come back to the ’80s with Chris, Craig and Jack as they watch Tobe Hooper’s splendid dance of the space vampires LIFEFORCE. Shot into space by Cannon films, join in the repetitive ridicule of Dan O’Bannon and the spotting of obscure tourism campaigns while we are treated to Aubrey Morris and Patrick Stewart: together at last! Turn on the commentary as the Cannon logo appears and try to spot the ‘brash guard.’

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[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/tv-cream/lifeforcemp3[/soundcloud]

THIS COMMENTARY IS RATED ‘A’

SPOILERS: Frank Finlay appears courtesy of the Garrick Club

Creamguide(Films) REVERSE FAQ

1. No idea
2. This was the first of his three picture deal with Cannon
3. Colin Wilson thought it was the worst film version of a novel ever made, it says here
4. The Stuntman, basically
5. No, he isn’t
6. Tom Atkins
7. Brian Marsh
8. Joe Claro
9. 80
10. Freddie and Max
11. Actually, he was a newsreader for the BBC between 1968 and 1973
12. Albert Hague, wrote four Broadway musicals and the score for ‘The Grinch Who Stole Christmas’ but not ‘Starmaker’
13. We actually meant Jack Warden. But Jack Warner works as well
14. ‘thanatology’ θanəˈtɒlədʒi/ noun: “the scientific study of death and the practices associated with it, including the study of the needs of the terminally ill and their families”
15. Top 50 dramas and it was No.16 actually, in between Six a Feet Under and Smiley’s People. But since Six a feet Under was above Smiley’s People the list is clearly a pile of shite
16. We were getting confused with the Australian films featured in the documentary feature ‘Not Quite Hollywood’ by the same guy which is also great
17. Great as Aubrey is, that was meant to be Ronald Lacey
18. 1986 – 1989
19. Still wasn’t
20. Nope
21. He isn’t
22. That was actually meant to be Johnny Sconney Gielguid. Turned out they couldn’t afford him
23. 1987 – 1994
24. No he isn’t but he was in The Mallens
25. Nope, nothing to do with him. Good play, mind
26. It might actually be Elstree
27. He was

Creamguide(Films) will return with a festive treat

11 Comments

11 Comments

  1. Darthflanflinger

    December 1, 2015 at 12:39 am

    Persian-chilli-jully-mumban is Bob Mills ‘In Bed With Medinner’ reference. Now. People. Do I get in the fucking club yet? 😉

    Great stuff! Keep it up!

  2. George White

    December 1, 2015 at 10:37 am

    The bloke, Bukovsky is Michael Gothard, Locque the speccy baddie in For Your Eyes Only, and was the sidekick in Arthur of the Britons with Oliver Tobias.
    He was also in Warlords of Atlantis.

  3. Darthflanflinger

    December 1, 2015 at 5:27 pm

    … oh and Lenny Henry co-produced ‘Neverwhere’.

  4. Jack @ TV Cream

    December 3, 2015 at 11:29 pm

    As ever, thanks gentlemen. We knew Henry Lenny was culpable for Neverwhere somehow – thanks for scratching that itch!

  5. David Smith

    December 4, 2015 at 10:11 am

    If Reverse FAQ note 10 is referring to the sitcom that Philadelphia girls Ann Bryson and Sara Crowe did, it wasn’t Freddie and Max (that was Charlotte Coleman and Anne Bancroft), it was Sometime Never 🙂

  6. Ken Shinn

    December 11, 2015 at 10:19 pm

    4 – he’s also the male lead in Turkey Shoot/Blood Camp Thatcher, and a truly grotty horror film from the Asylum called Intermedio/Dead And The Dying.

  7. Sidney Balmoral James

    September 23, 2023 at 7:08 pm

    Saw this last night for first time since about 1988, and hell’s teeth, its incredible, but not in a good way – it must be the most expensive cheapo film ever made, never losing the feel and let’s be frank, look of a crappy 1980s British film, but presumably made on a massive budget judging by the huge numbers of extras in zombie get-up, and the (admittedly pretty good) creature effects; terrible B-list cast (I regard Frank Finlay as a great actor, but he was never a big name in films, and Patrick Stewart had to wait twenty years to become a star), awful acting from Peter Firth, the sort of script that would disgrace The Archers. Mathilda May in the all-together is no compensation. Hard to believe this was released in 1985, the same year as Cocoon, and a year after The Search for Spock. Compared to them, it looks like something from about 1973.

    • George White

      September 24, 2023 at 12:02 am

      Indeed. 25 million dollars, this thing cost. I think Never Say Never Again has it beat at 35m, in terms of expensive cheapo films, or Inchon at 40 million.

      Finlay is a weird case because he was Oscar nominated for Best Supporting Actor as Iago in Olivier’s Othello, but it didn’t do his film career that much. Like Peter Firth in Equus, Ian Bannen in Flight of the Phoenix or Daniel Massey in Star!, he’s one of those high-grade British character actors you are astonished were Oscar nominated not because they were great actors (although Firth in Equus is ehhh…), but because getting an Oscar nomination didn’t seem to impact their career in any great way. Finlay got plum support roles in Cromwell, Twisted Nerve, Robbery, Inspector Clouseau and a rare Hollywood role as the Welsh but Pakistani-sounding Pennsylvania policeman in The Molly Maguires, but his only film lead afterwards is filling in for Karloff in the Deadly Bees, a cheap Amicus picture partly set at ‘Granville Television’. Casanova seems to give his career the actual fillip you’d think an Oscar nomination would, with the Musketeers film and A Bouquet of Barbed Wire, and bizarrely as the villain in Shaft in Africa, but he always seemed to be an actor who despite being a great of the stage, still regularly did thankless roles (his turn as the priest in the Wild Geese) or pap. Assault, A Study in Terror (and then reprising Lestrade in the actually brilliant pseudo-remake Murder by Decree), Neither the Sea nor the Sand, a few Italian/Spanish horrors like Ring of Darkness (also with Bannen) and Cthulhu Mansion. One thing I forgot was he played Patrick in the 1967 pilot for ITV sitcom Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width, but while John Bluthal was retained, the authentically Irish Joe Lynch took on the role for the series. So Finlay’s presence in this does mark it as a piece of British exploitation junk.

      • Sidney Balmoral James

        September 24, 2023 at 9:22 am

        Yes, you are right about Never Say Never Again – it really lacks the polish of the Eon Bonds, and I could never quite work out why, as it has Klaus Maria Braundauer and Max von Sydow, an on-the-verge of fame Kim Basinger, and Barbara Carrera is tremendous, sexy and lethal – a career best performance; solid director. There are perhaps too few decent stunt sequences (can only remember the motorbike chase) and there’s something a bit drab about the location filming (the Bahamas never looked more dreary). I don’t blame Connery, who despite showing his age, enters into it with more enthusiasm than he did Diamonds Are Forever. The massage sequence is problematic: middle age man pretends to be a masseur in order to feel up a young woman, and Basinger seems really horrified at the end, not unreasonably. As to the lack of polish, you could say the same about the 1967 Casino Royale, which was much more expensive than an Eon Bond at the time, but looks like it was made by Peter Rogers.

  8. Richardpd

    September 23, 2023 at 9:45 pm

    Dan O’Bannon was in the similarly low budget Dark Star, but usually better regarded.

    Cannon films seemed to produced quite a mixed bag of films in the 1980s, often squeezing every penny out of the budget.

    • Richardpd

      September 24, 2023 at 2:32 pm

      The script was spiced with some humour by the usually good Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, but it didn’t seem help things.

      Bond’s fight with Pat “Bomber” Roach gets quite gritty but the pay off is great!

      There are weird costuming choices, with 007 wearing dungarees without a shirt is a real fashion faux pas!

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