DON'T FORGET THE SILLY WAY WE MET [237]

This is a transcript for the latest video:

Hello there, so yes, this is another video about “Manos: The Hands of Fate,” but not one that is here to tell you how bad it is.

You may have already chosen to watch based on the film’s notoriety as one of the worst films of all time, either seeking confirmation of this, or to enjoy that consensus being recounted one more time, about how the film’s conception was based on a bet, how the camera could only record thirty-five seconds of film at a time, and how John Reynolds played Torgo with this satyr legs on the wrong way round, giving him massive knees.

This is not that video, as it has been done too many times: I am interested in how easy it is to use the film to tell that story.

When making a video about a film, you must make sure your work does not infringe another person’s copyright. If you are reviewing a film, you cannot simply recount the story – not only would your video be derivative, someone could choose to watch your work instead. This is why you simply can’t claim “fair use” for review purposes, or use long passages without changing their context.

With “Manos: The Hands of Fate,” you have none of these concerns, as the film is considered to be in the public domain. I can do what I want – show the whole film, cut it into bits, rearrange the scenes, or show it upside down, and I won’t need to worry about any repercussions.

However, note that I said “considered.” Under American copyright law, “Manos” is in the public domain because there is no copyright notice included on the film, regardless of whether the producers applied for copyright or not – the same is true of “Night of the Living Dead.” “Charade,” the comedy mystery starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, is in the public domain because Universal forgot to add the word “copyright” to their notice, or a “c” in a small circle. This rule was removed from 1978 to protect unpublished or unregistered works made from that year on.

However, just as you can’t reuse the music from “Charade” without permission, the script of “Manos” is copyrighted, so you can’t remake the film word for word. Likewise, the restored Blu-ray edition of “Manos,” using the original negative, is a copyrighted work, hence why I am using a version that appears to have been stored in a ditch. A copyright application is pending on the phrase “Manos: The Hands of Fate,” placed by the son of the scriptwriter.

For the record, I would like to make a video delving into the film of “Myra Breckinridge,” so if 20^th Century Studios or Disney are listening, please reply to my request to use footage for the video. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said I will be calling it the worst film ever made.

Thanks for watching, as ever the nostalgia culture crisis continues at [www.leighspence.net].

WHERE ARE YOU COMING FROM [236]

Finding out the band you have become a fan of does not exist is both frustrating and rare. Two music videos and one album exist, but no singles were released, few articles were written about them, apparently no interviews were taken, and no Wikipedia page has been made. And yet, “Dog Police,” by Dog Police, has become a cult classic album, rereleased twice in the last ten years, and the title track’s video is known widely, nearly spawning a TV show.

But there is no Dog Police, not at first. Understanding what it was, and how it came to be, involved joining many dots, but it made my new-found love of their songs even greater.

Starting with “Dog Police,” the video from the song, album and band of the same, we have a novelty song about someone’s girlfriend being wanted by the Dog Police, using a New Wave sound and temperament similar to Devo and The B52s. Taking place in a club, it features the band both as themselves on stage, and as the Dog Police, with trenchcoats, fedoras and prosthetic dog faces. 

Perhaps the lyrics are not meant to make much sense, but the bass and synthesisers hook you along towards the explosive sound of the chorus, punctuated by barking in time: “Dog Police, where are you coming from / Dog Police, nobody knows who you are!” These lines are adapted from the “Spider-Man” segments from the children’s TV show “The Electric Company,” but are performed like a bombastic, sped-up version of the “Dragnet” theme. It is infectious, strange, unforgettable, and nightmare fuel to the wrong people. This video would be later optioned by NBC for a possible TV series, with one pilot film, again featuring people in dressed as dogs, notoriously featuring actors Adam Sandler and Jeremy Piven before anyone knew who they were.

Underneath this video on YouTube was another Dog Police video, “1-800,” satirising mail order ads and the products they sell, using a phone as an instrument through playing the DMTF dialling tones. While not parodying a song, both the video and song play more like a Weird Al Yankovic piece. Both “1-800” and “Dog Police” feel like they come from an alternate universe where satirical songs became the norm, like John Lennon imagined when writing “Taxman” and “Paperback Writer.” 

Then there is the “Dog Police” album. Alongside the title track and “1-800,” there is a heavy, pessimistic dirge titled “Positive Reinforcement,” while a vocoded robot sings “Happy,” and a woman fronts “I’m Butch.” The band plays with their surroundings and expectations in both “Music and “In The Studio,” while they attempt to become Manhattan Transfer with “Are You Middle Class Enough?” The last track is a frantic, bouncy anthem named “Reproduce,” with lines that cut to the chase extremely fast, becoming my favourite song of the lot: 

“Don’t be despaired / There isn’t time enough / Why we are here / Is very simple stuff / Why are we doing / What we are doing? / Are we wooing / Only for screwing? / We’re only here to reproduce! / That seems to be our only use.”

What I get from the “Dog Police” album is how the band is very forceful and fast, having mastered their instruments: there are intricate bass and piano lines, with not a single note out of place. They will sound the same if they played live. The lyrics are very cynical and sarcastic, flippant to the point of providing accidental insight: a refrain to “Music” is “stick it in your ear,” reducing all music to product to be consumed, but also becoming a rallying call to do just that.

There is an infectious energy to Dog Police that attracted me immediately – it reminds me of Paul D. Millar, a Texas-based artist who records as Slugbug, similarly providing satirical songs in a New Wave mould through albums like “Truck Month” and “Pointless Journey,” which are available on the music streaming site Bandcamp [link]. 

However, like vaporwave, another genre found in abundance on Bandcamp, Dog Police almost comes across as a found object with no clear origin. With no easily obtainable evidence about its source, or about what happened after it was made, it appears to have just, well, appeared.

According to the database site discogs.com, the “Dog Police” album was released in 1982 on the Music Masters Ltd label, but I have also heard it was produced and distributed privately in 1985. The songs are written by Tony Thomas, Tom Lonardo and Sam Shoup, who also produced the album with engineer Andy Black, but the band used pseudonyms – “Clark Radio” on keyboards, “Random Ax” playing guitar, bass and trumpet, and “Squeek Owens” on drums. “Butchie Cox” and “The Rocks” also help with vocals. However, we know that Thomas, Leonardo and Shoup are “Clark,” “Squeek” and “Random,” because they appear in the videos. All three are classically-trained musicians, have worked both in commercial music and arrangers and session musicians for other artists. They have been part of the jazz music scene in Memphis, Tennessee for over forty years as The Tony Thomas Trio, releasing the albums “LST,” “Progreso” and “Melodious Funk”. Were they trying a new direction?

Original album cover

You then have the videos: “Dog Police” was played on MTV, but not as part of a playlist, instead submitted in 1984 to a competition run by “The Basement Tapes,” a monthly half-hour showcase for unsigned acts, and it later played on the variety magazine show “Night Flight” on the USA Network. The video for “1-800” may have also featured on “The Basement Tapes,” but did appear in 1984 on Weird Al Yankovic’s MTV show “Al TV,” blending with the parodies played around it. 

One reason the video for “Dog Police” is remarkable is its quality. While the low-grade video and computer special effects in “1-800” is more typical for “The Basement Tapes,” “Dog Police” is shot on 16mm film by director Joe Mulherin and cinematographer Larry McConkey, later to become an accomplished Steadicam operator on major films like “Goodfellas,” “The Silence of the Lambs,” “World War Z” and “12 Years a Slave.” If so much effort was spent entering a competition, you start believing this cynical band were actually aiming for the big time.

Did Dog Police just go back to being The Tony Thomas Trio when their New Wave direction didn’t work out? Was it an elaborate joke by musicians more accomplished than was demanded of them? Was it the remains of something else that never appeared? Was it another person’s idea, or even a dare? The “Dog Police” album has been released on vinyl in 2009 and 2019, and are available on iTunes and Amazon, so someone must be collecting royalties from the intrigue generated by the videos, while being wary of saying anything that might ruin the fun.

Fortunately, after days of looking for evidence, I came across episode 18 of “Contraption: The Drummers’ Podcast” [link], released in February 2020, which interviewed Tom Leonardo. Thirty-eight minutes into the detailed discussion of Leonardo’s career and influences, Dog Police is discussed: “some things never go away,” he says. The Tony Thomas Trio were attempting to record an album, being charged for studio time by engineers that were not really paying attention. In a spare moment, they were riffing an improvised chorus for what became “Dog Police,” using the “Spider-Man” lyrics. The engineer asked what they were playing, and the band said it was a little thing they were working on. The engineer asked if they could record it, right there and then. After taking ninety minutes to write more throwaway lyrics, they recorded the song. The next day, their producer asked the band if they had any more songs like “Dog Police” to record – the studio costs would be paid for them. The further songs dashed off by the band were based on observations they had at the time about themselves and the world around them, but they were of their time, particularly in terms of the music – Stewart Copeland, drummer for The Police, was noted as a comparison, along with local Memphis punk bands with frantic drummers.

In the end, Dog Police was not a means to forge a career, but was a one-time opportunity, meant to last as long as the songs took to write and record, and no longer. Perhaps the videos were as well, but the time and effort spent on them makes you feel this was a more serious endeavour than it really was, no matter what anyone says. Few moments in time last this long.

2009 reissue album cover

I’M OK, YOU’RE SO-SO [235]

Everyone has seen Tom & Jerry – EVERYONE has seen Tom & Jerry. If you noticed that not all Tom & Jerry cartons look alike, did you care? Would you send a death threat to the director if you didn’t like how their particular Tom & Jerry cartoons were done, and why would I ask that if this hadn’t already happened?

One hundred and sixty-one “Tom & Jerry” cartoons were made from 1940 to 1967, directed by William Hanna & Joseph Barbera (1940-58), Gene Deitch (1961-62), and Chuck Jones (1963-67). Naturally, the Hanna & Barbera era is what people will imagine first when they see the characters, and it is their chase template everyone has tried to match with each new film or series.

As a child, we had a Tom & Jerry video cassette at home that presented a number of shorts in random order – mostly Hanna & Barbera-directed ones, but with some Deitch and Jones cartoons thrown in. They were not ordered by year or director, just one cartoon after the other. Much later, I would buy all the shorts on DVD, this time arranged in order of release, and you could see what happened over time: the shorts became progressively less detailed and more stylised until they stopped (Hanna & Barbera), then they became funky and weird (Deitch), then turned into Road Runner mark two (Jones). 

I was surprised to discover the general consensus is that Deitch’s cartoons, which I like for their funkiness, are the worst, with articles and videos online agreeing this is the case. I am doubtful those writing these will have seen or grown up with them, as all of Deitch’s shorts only became available on DVD in the US in 2015 – I bought mine ten years earlier, their having long remained in circulation in the UK on home video and television. If I hadn’t preferred them, I would still be more used to seeing them against the others.

Gene Deitch had been commissioned to make thirteen new “Tom & Jerry” shorts after “Munro,” a short animation about a four-year-old boy accidentally drafted into the US Army, had won an Academy Award for Animated Short Film – Tom & Jerry had done this seven times by this point. Because MGM had disbanded their cartoon unit in 1957, and had been re-releasing old films, Deitch’s shorts were produced at Rembrandt Films in Prague, (at the time still) Czechoslovakia, where Deitch had relocated to produce “Munro,” and had decided to stay. 

However, the budget constraints that smoothed out detail and simplified backgrounds in the latter Hanna & Barbera shorts, limitations the duo continued to work with in television, would also be imposed on Deitch: where “Tom & Jerry” cartoons had cost up to $50,000 per 6-10 minute short, with $1,000 going to composer Scott Bradley each time, Deitch would have only a $10,000 budget per cartoon. What is more, Deitch’s Czech collaborators had not seen “Tom & Jerry,” leading Deitch to do much of the writing and key animation poses in addition to directing.

Tom & Jerry were drawn as they had been previously, and the theme tune remained the same, but the rest was brand new. Instead of constantly running around a house, the locations changed – a haunted castle, ancient Greece, a tropical island, the Wild West, outer space. Only the title characters remain – no Spike and Tyke, no Nibbles or Quacker – and other characters like they come from a different series entirely. Any previous friendship or comradery between Tom & Jerry were gone, replaced with a tit-for-tat, David and Goliath struggle. The gags have a different sensibility - Tom is forced to drink a bottle of cola, taking on the shape of a bottle; Tom prepares to spit watermelon seeds at jerry, so his face becomes the shape of a cannon; when Jerry’s blood pressure is monitored, he inflates. Tom is whacked more than before, often from his owner or another person after something Jerry has done, or because he is simply there. The action itself is less fluid, becoming jerkier and more manic. There are no real stories, each being a succession of scenes until an end is decided. As stated in a voiceover in “The Tom & Jerry Cartoon Kit,” featuring the most impressionistic backgrounds of all the shorts, by using none, “the result may not make sense, but will last long enough for you to be comfortably seated before the feature begins.”

What probably led to the death threat Deitch apparently received was how clearly there were different decisions being made – the music was written for mood and not action, the gags weren’t the same, and Tom & Jerry still looked like someone else drew them. Deitch admitted in 2017 that they could have been better animated, and truer to the original cartoons, but the inexperience of his team, and the low budget, meant only so much could be achieved. 

However, Deitch was a cartoonist more in the modern mould – he served an apprenticeship at UPA, pioneers of a modernist limited animation style seen in “Gerald McBoing Boing” and “Mr Magoo,” and would later create Tom Terrific and Clint Cobbler when later at Terrytoons. As previously stated, Deitch had won an Oscar, and the sort of production he would make could have been anticipated - if he didn’t think the job was for him, he could have said no. On the part of MGM, they had the most financially successful cartoons of 1961-62, beating Warner Bros. for the first time. 

The death of Gene Deitch in April 2020 led to “Tom & Jerry” being the most remarked-upon work of his career, bypassing his feature film “Alice of Wonderland in Paris” (1966), his episodes of the “Popeye” and “Krazy Kat” TV series, and a twelve-minute adaptation of a book made to meet a deadline on film rights, meant never to be seen but now posted on YouTube when rediscovered in 2012 – “The Hobbit.”

MGM contracted Chuck Jones to continue producing “Tom & Jerry” in 1963, the producer that signed Deitch having left. I guess that Jones is more of a known quantity through the Looney Tuines and Merrie Melodies series, but he redesigned Tom & Jerry entirely, their dynamic is different again, the gags are different again, the music is scored differently... and everything else that was said about Gene Deitch’s version.

WELCOME TO THE CHEAP SEATS [234]

Art: Tony (Twitter @vorratony)

With pandemic overturning routine, my listening habits have changed. Working at home, I started putting on a podcast in the background. Now furloughed, it continues to keep me company, but I don’t have to pause it to answer the phone – what is safe for work changes with where you’re working.

The “CheapShow” podcast [link], has been made by and starring Paul Gannon and Eli Silverman, respectively a radio producer and a club DJ / actor, since it began in 2015, stand-up comedian Ash Frith also appearing occasionally. Taken at face value, it is the celebratory mix of trash culture and body horror that pushes taste for the perfect laugh. Once the offended have stopped listening, the “economy comedy podcast” becomes a fun exploration of the charity shops, bargain bins, flea markets and car boot sales of Great Britain, bringing you intriguing, nostalgic and detestable items that fell through the cracks of popular culture – one man’s trash is literally another man’s treasure.

Once you have listened as much as I have – “CheapShow” is approaching two hundred episodes, at 60-90 minutes each, sometimes longer – it becomes a melange of banter, surreal world building, improvised sketches with characters created from out of nowhere, and a slamming together of language that would make Ludwig Wittgenstein think again, all supported by a strong fanbase helping to feed the show back into the culture through their own tie-in merchandise. “CheapShow” is “a chive-filled yoghurt poultice of destiny” like no other, having “blown the goose” years ago on being your standard podcast fare. 

In episode 16, from early 2016, in reply to a remark about eating a scab for research purposes, Eli delineated himself and Paul as characters: “I’m meant to be the disgusting little troll, and you’re meant to be the hapless twat.” This was back when “CheapShow” had more items per episode, and the two former stand-up comedians had not yet delved into the wider pool of scatological humour, even if the very first episode involved asking a guest to choose if they could live without their penis or their tongue. By episode 49 the following year, Paul expressed concerns that the show had become reductive through “the curse of nonsense,” after a sketch involving Hula Hoops, but he followed this by imagining a field of death involving zombie scarecrows and dogs, trained to eat chip fat, would attack Gary Glitter and Rolf Harris – a heated discussion over noodles, and a vinyl single about sex change chickens, also formed part of the same episode. Your average “CheapShow” episode should feel like its hosts are continually engaging in telling the “Aristocrats” joke, without either of them admitting they are keeping this going until they remember the punchline.

While “CheapShow” has its “economy comedy” concept, its execution answers a key question when creating new media: what it is an excuse for? The podcast Ricky Gervais did for “The Guardian” put his and Stephen Merchant’s names first, but was an excuse to introduce the funnier Karl Pilkington; “Cheers” is a sitcom set in a bar, but is an excuse to present one-act plays centred on character development, and “Leigh Spence is Dancing with the Gatekeepers” is a series of articles and videos about various subjects, but is an excuse for me to dive into something interesting and write about it. The concept of “CheapShow” is an excuse to spin a conversation into flights of fancy madness, but the concept still directs the podcast. In a time when anyone you’ve ever heard of has a podcast, you need more than your name in the title for anyone to truly care.

I came across “CheapShow” via the work of Stuart Ashen [whose YouTube channel I discussed here: link], and “Barshens,” the comedy show made with the cook Barry Lewis, on which Paul and Eli worked as producer and co-star respectively. “Barshens” is a great example of making “timeless” content on through comedy quizzes and games, and the only YouTube channel I have seen formally end, instead of just petering out. “CheapShow” segments that also appeared on “Barshens” included “The Price of Shite,” guessing the price of items bought in charity shops, and “Off Brand Brand Off,” a blind taste-test of own-brand or knock-off food items versus the originals, while the frequent playing of board games benefitted from the existence of “Gannon’s Golden Games.”

The first episode of “CheapShow” I heard was episode 140, featuring Ashen as a guest, but I was not prepared for the onslaught: the feature-film length allows for all avenues to be explored, from arguing over how to start a show, followed by a sojourn (or tranche) into the DJ Mike Read, and Paul telling Eli to “wait my hurry,” the latest in a long line of non-sequiturs that left the two “treading on thin water,” to use an earlier one. This was followed by tasting dill pickle-flavoured crisps, a smell-based board game, and a cursed story tape from a listener’s grandfather, known only as “Derek,” bringing the house down with the attempted revelation that a child was Irish – I matched the wall of laughter that followed that as yes, we all heard that. If something makes you laugh until you cry, you keep hold of it.

What I came to like the most was the hosts’ use of language, and their eye for the obscure and ephemeral. Sure, everyone likes noodles and “Ghostbusters,” but without “CheapShow,” I wouldn’t know about the Winkie badge, comedian Roy Jay (“Spook!”), Wendy Carlos’s demented version of “What’s New Pussycat,” the life of John Meggot, and the comedian Mike Reid’s bizarre song “Freezing Cold in 89 Twoso,” which took an Italian song of gibberish made to sound like English... and sang it in English. The “Silverman’s Platter” feature, drawing upon Eli’s collection of random vinyl, has been an education, filling in gaps in my knowledge, to the extent that I may have to start seeking out some of the songs they have played, especially as they may never appear on CD or to stream online.

But the language... I rarely swear, and only do so here where needed, but I don’t routinely try to bend language, creating new words from sounds, or bashing words together. Creating its own words to use alongside the established language is something I’ve seen work only in “CheapShow” and “Red Dwarf.” I have used some of Paul’s accidental uses of words here, but this is added to Eli’s use of sounds, like the sibilance of scribbles, scrubbles, scruffage, scrummage, spoff, spooge and spunk, and teaching Paul how to use the phrase “spoff my josh off” – this later became used in a mash-up of Rick Astley songs. Upon Eli’s commenting on his odd choice of words, Paul said “helipad.”  

Then there is the language that creates life. In the most recent episode at the time of writing (number 176, “Zoltan Sucks”), Eli said, “we don’t have a character called Regina, do we? There should be a character, and she should be called Regina Fatata.” This was dismissed by Paul as “the same collection of stupid sounds that come out of your mouth.” Like Inch Man and Storytime Granddad, the character was ill-advised this time around, but characters created on the spur of a choice of words, and driven by the attitude captured with those words, plays to Paul & Eli’s strengths in improvisation – characters like Squishy Jim, Madam Ladyplops, Bobby Bollocks, Richard Brandoff, Uncle Grumbly, Leaky Ken, Precum John, Teen Yeti and in-show knock-off Adolescent Sasquatch, not to mention Paul’s shadow, Jimmy Biscuits. My observation is that the less a character says their name to assert their existence, the longer they last. 

“CheapShow” displays confidence in letting characters, sketches and situations be created and played out during the show, with Paul & Eli periodically “step out of the podcast” to make sure their heads are together, things other productions would edit out in an attempt to sound more professional, or to remove what they hadn’t attended. This has added to the enjoyment of listening back through the mountain of previous episodes, recognising the moments when long-running features like “Silverman’s Platter” and “The Sauce Report” either found their names, or arose without warning, meanwhile witnessing how the show's animosity towards Noel Edmonds, something that doesn't need explanation, came from his legally distinguishable quiz show sitcom hybrid "Cheap Cheap Cheap."

“CheapShow” has also branched out from user-generated content, through the corporeal “Tales from the Shop Floor,” to sending items into the show, and into officially unofficial merchandise – “The Unofficial CheapShow Magazine” [link] has had nine issues so far, and T-shirts and stickers have been created out of various moments from the show [link] – slips of the tongue have become T-shirts to the extent that “That’s a T-shirt” has itself become a T-shirt. 

These are things that you expect far larger TV and radio shows to have, but I can’t think of any unofficial fan-created items that are endorsed and promoted as effectively official work – it must have happened to something from “The Simpsons,” as there has been enough of it.

For me, “CheapShow” is the “Goon Show” of podcasts: the content may be cheap, but when distinctiveness and originality is free, it’s worth a try – satisfaction will soonly come.

GOODNESS GRACIOUS, GREAT BALLS OF FIRE [233]

“Nine hundred years after the Great Nuke. The world man created, he destroyed. Out of the darkness and ignorance of the radioactive rubble emerged a new order... and the world was woggos." (in old speak that means - Crazy!)”

Sometimes, these films just end up finding you. What is the plot of “America 3000”? “In 2890, 900 years after a nuclear apocalypse, warriors Korvis and Gruss stage raids to free men enslaved by the powerful women now ruling Earth.” How lovely does that sound, especially for a film released in the same year, 1986, as the original novel of “The Handmaid’s Tale”?

There is the extra layer of slime in knowing this film was released by Cannon. They had already employed the writer and director of “America 3000,” David Engelbach, to write the script of “Death Wish II” – he later co-wrote the story for the Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling debacle “Over the Top.” It is quite possible that Cannon were making “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace” at this point too, so “America 3000” may have received some of its budget, as Cannon tried to juggle its various B-movie productions.

Once I actually started watching the film, it appears that “post-apocalyptic” means something that resembles a mix of a medieval village, “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” and “The Flintstones” – the music, formed of your typical 1986 rock guitar and keyboards, sticks the film firmly into the past.

It should be made clear that Korvus and Gruss are that bit more intelligent than the enslaved men in “America 3000” because they found, as teenagers, a Ladybird-type book of ABCs, and a top hat. This appears to have been enough to elevate them away from the “machos,” or slaves, and the “toys,” who had their tongues cut out. It looks like a futuristic equivalent of Nadsat or Newspeak was attempted, but not explained, so you will find yourself listening to characters while thinking you missed something earlier, the last time your attention wandered.

I wish I could tell you why the world in the film is the way it is: we know about the “Mericans” and the “Commies,” a “Prezzydent” that will come back to lead them, and the “Great Nuke,” but why a feudal society, based on superiority of gender, with little other knowledge of what the previous world was like, has come about is completely beyond me. You hope this is a pocket of weirdness in the desert (possibly Arizona, but actually filmed in Israel), with life carrying on as normal elsewhere. It is not clear why the women, led by a “tiara” named Frisco, have full hair and make-up styling, other than as “war paint.” 

It is not clear why a ten-minute sequence of brutal conflict is resolved by Korvis and Frisco making kissing in front of everyone else, as everyone discovers this is what they should have been doing all along – I refuse to believe all the women and all the men are straight. It is also not clear why there is a sasquatch-like thing called Aargh the Awful, playing with an air raid siren, and holding a boombox. Finally, for me, it is not clear how a nuclear bunker would survive intact after nine hundred years, with the electricity working, and how the D-sized batteries that must have been in the boombox Korvis found had not leaked in that time.

“America 3000” is a typical example of a cheap film made by Cannon in the 1980s. The bizarre antics on screen did detract from realising the picture was released in 1.33:1 Academy ratio – presumably, all the anamorphic widescreen lenses Cannon owned were being used by “Superman IV.” The actor playing Korvis, Chuck Wagner, thankfully still has a career in musical theatre, in “Beauty and the Beast” and “Les Misérables.” For a futuristic film, “America 3000” is really only of historical interest, but it is online, if you really want to find it.

YOU’RE THE DEVIL IN DISGUISE [232]

Something feels a bit “adult Famous Five” about “The Devil Rides Out,” its main characters being a group that have been friends for years. Dennis Wheatley’s original 1934 novel is the second in a series of eleven to feature the group, led Duc de Richleau, played here by Christopher Lee. Not all of them deal with supernatural themes, although the last, “Gateway to Hell,” definitely did - it was released in 1970, two years after Hammer Film Productions released their version of “The Devil Rides Out.” Furthermore, Dennis Wheatley’s writing led him to become an authority on Satanism, despite having complete disdain for it, becoming a member of the Ghost Club, founded in London in 1862 to investigate and research the paranormal.

“The Devil Rides Out” begins with one friend acting strangely, having fallen in with a cult and its charismatic leader. The others must use black magic to fight the cult leader, who will face divine retribution for summoning the angel of death. It is a rollicking good adventure, almost a cautionary tale – film censorship issues over the occult were an obstruction to the film’s production for some time – and is told in a very adult and straightforward manner, with themes of brainwashing and possible child murder, by one of the demons summoned, coming into the mix. No wonder the characters literally thank God when all is over.

Christopher Lee is having the time of his life in one of his favourite roles, possibly because he was playing the hero, and not the monster, although I am not clear on why he knows so much magic himself. This time, evil is entirely human, through Charles Gray as Mocata, leading a ritual on Salisbury Plain, then infiltrating a family home – “I shall not be back... but something will.”

Hammer films have a very particular look, and for one set in the 1920s, its gothic trademark is all over the production, adding in a goat-headed devil and a giant tarantula. Aside from Christopher Lee, many actors in this film will be seen later: Paul Eddington, later seen in TV sitcoms “The Good Life” and “Yes, Minister,” plays the sceptic Richard Eaton, on whom the Duc de Richleau stakes their friendship in requesting Richard to stay within a chalk circle to bring a demon forward; Charles Gray, pre-Blofeld here, will also be found in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “Shock Treatment”; and Patrick Mower, playing Simon Aron, the friend that gets pulled into the cult, has appeared in the soap opera “Emmerdale” since 2000.

“The Devil Rides Out” has a reputation as one of the great Hammer horror films, and is a cult favourite, but the definitive book of the company, “The Hammer Vault,” said it flopped upon release? How could it? It had the stars, the horror, and certainly the writing – the script is by Richard Matheson, of “I Am Legend,” “Duel,” and a number of short stories and “Twilight Zone” episodes. However, what was a co-production with an American company, Seven Arts (owners of Warner Bros. at the time) did not translate to success in the US: Paramount had its own occult hit film in the same year, “Rosemary’s Baby.” Christopher Lee’s big film in 1968 turned out to be, well, “Dracula Has Risen from the Grave.”

YOU RESCUE ME, I RESCUE YOU [231]

So, how are your New Year’s resolutions going?

To all those that declared that 2020 was going to be “their” year, it feels natural to write it off as a false start, and skip to 2021. Twelve days were “lost” when the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar, in Europe, in 1582 – we could do it again! Australia could have Christmas in winter!

Addressing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the cause of coronavirus disease 2 (COVID-19), has taken time because I believed doing so would not be helpful. Realising I needed to do it for myself, concerns over tone, and point of view, melted away. We all need hope, but we have our own hopes.

I understand the characterisation of the fight against coronavirus as a war, because of our collective memory of the last national emergency on this scale, mobilising an entire country against a common enemy, even if the Queen saying “we’ll meet again” at the end of her special broadcast made me think of “Dr. Strangelove.” 

But this enemy has no strategy, forcing sacrifices in routine not seen even during the Second World War, for our bodies are under attack, not our homes. (I know it didn’t stop Donald Trump calling coronavirus “a brilliant enemy... genius... hidden, but very smart,” but his words surprise no-one anymore.) Coronavirus may not be a plague, or a pox, but my mind headed there. Reading the diary of Samuel Pepys from late 1665, recounting the figures from the weekly bill of mortality, and hoping the impending frost will flush out the plague from London, is not far from our hourly news bulletins and talks of an “exit strategy.”

My exit strategy from coronavirus is set – having studiously followed Government advice to stay at home, leaving only for exercise or to buy essentials, I’ve had time to think. I needed a haircut before the UK was locked down, and it is now my priority - it’s weighing my head down. I will then head to a restaurant, most likely Five Guys – my burger toppings are “all the way,” with no ketchup. I fixed on these two actions as the signs of a return to normality, and decided not to question them further.

Once these are done, I can assess how my actions will change, just as everyone adjusts to new realities. The short version of the rebuilding of London after the Great Plague, followed by the Great Fire, was that a competition was held to devise a new layout for the city, but abandoned with the need to start rebuilding quickly... but the closed sewers, wider streets and installation of pavements to separate the public from the road ensured lessons were learnt just as fast.

In April 2020, we cannot yet say what we will change, but when a respirator can be conceived, designed, and approved for medical use within days, innovation caused by necessity will outstrip wish lists and ideology – see Brexit for further details. I have made attempts to order a contactless debit card, with cash being accepted in fewer shops, and have made changes at home to continue working. At the same time, internet networks will be strengthened to take a shift to working online that may eventually stay. Virtual or phone-based GP appointments, formerly a compromise, are mostly the only option right now, but more people are ready to accommodate them. Some shops that have adopted a delivery-only model during the crisis may continue in this manner without reopening their physical location. More consideration is going to be given to ideas previously dismissed as inconceivable, like a universal basic income, due to emergency measures like the Government-paid furlough in the UK. It would be a mistake to expect things to go back to normal – at least, not straight away.

There are also things that never change. Mobile phone masts have been attacked in the UK over the misplaced belief that the electromagnetic waves generated by 5G mobile signals make changes to people’s bodies, that will make them more susceptible to coronavirus. However, this conspiracy theory, itself spread by 5G being adopted first in more densely populated cities, ignores the fact that those frequencies use capacity vacated by digital television, so not only did these waves already exist, they were being used to broadcast “You’ve Been Framed!”

Meanwhile, as people stay at home, television increasingly resembles the YouTube series of “Leigh Spence is Dancing with the Gatekeepers.” My tips for making your video calls look better are very simple: sit or stand back from the camera, have the lens at your eye level, instead of looking down or up at your device, and use cool white lightbulbs at home instead of warm ones. My only extras are an external microphone and green screen, and you don’t need either of those.

I won’t go as far as saying “we’ll meet again,” but I look forward to saying “Happy New Year” again.