|
Post by dem bones on Nov 20, 2015 18:42:55 GMT
It's a really interesting mix of programming, Dem. It's nice to see the CFF productions getting a screening plus there seem to be a fair few rarely seen b-movies, not to mention the Blackwood tales, classic TV series and the rest, and I have never even heard of that UK SF film from 1913--let's hope they can keep it up. Caught this earlier. A ghost story, no less, coming in at around the 20 minute mark. Repeated Friday 27th Nov at 07:35. Would love to make a compilation of this stuff to see the bride and me through Chr*stm*s D*y.
|
|
|
Post by ripper on Nov 21, 2015 9:27:09 GMT
Looking forward to the Blackwood tale being shown today at 1320. It's great to see such obscure stuff being shown but also a sad reminder of how much is no longer in existence.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Nov 21, 2015 15:00:29 GMT
Looking forward to the Blackwood tale being shown today at 1320. It's great to see such obscure stuff being shown but also a sad reminder of how much is no longer in existence. Just watched The Reformation of St. Jules. Blackwood's laid back delivery must be murder on the hard of hearing, but rewards the effort. He sure looked like he was enjoying that cigarette. Mike Ashley puts it best in his introduction to The Magic Mirror: Lost Supernatural and Mystery Stories. "After the war, with the return of television, Blackwood established himself as a regular broadcaster relating his Saturday Night Story. These were never scripted but only mentally rehearsed on his way to the studio. As a result they were broadcast spontaneously, just as if he was bringing the audience into his conversation at the fireside. This knack, combined with his rather spooky appearance - a weather-beaten, highly wrinkled, gaunt visage - made him extremely popular." Algernon Blackwood - The Magic Mirror: Lost Supernatural and Mystery Stories: Selected and Introduced by Mike Ashley (Equation, 1989) Mike Ashley - Introduction
The Early Years A Mysterious House The Kit-Bag The Laying Of A Red Haired Ghost The Message Of The Clock The Singular Death Of Morton La Mauvaise Riche The Soldier's Visitor The Memory Of Beauty Onanonanon
The Novels First Flight (From Jimbo) The Vision Of The Winds (From The Education Of Uncle Paul) The Call Of The Urwelt (From The Centaur) The Summoning (From Julius LeVallon)
Radio Talks The Blackmailers The Wig Kings Evidence Lock Your Door Five Strange Stories: The Texas Farm Disappearance The Holy Man Pistol Against a Ghost Japanese Literary Cocktail The Curate And The Stockbroker
Later Stories At A Mayflower Luncheon The Man-Eater By Proxy The Voice (aka The Reformation of St. Jules) The Magic Mirror Roman Remains Wishful Thinking
Bibliography and Acknowledgements.
|
|
|
Post by ripper on Nov 21, 2015 16:32:23 GMT
If it is the case that Blackwood was telling those tales unscripted then that is rather impressive. He had to pace the stories so they fitted into that 15 minute slot just right, which I can appreciate would not be easy. He was also getting on a bit at the time--80 back in 1949 was a decent age. Can't imagine him being allowed to smoke that ciggie on telly now. I hope Talking Pictures has more goodies like this to screen in the coming months.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Nov 21, 2015 20:58:05 GMT
I hope Talking Pictures has more goodies like this to screen in the coming months. They are making quite a big deal out of their forthcoming screening of Can You Keep It Up For A Week! Did you catch A Message From Mars? Really sweet, quite the surreal viewing experience (in particular, the rescue from a house fire), and the film was in better nick than the Burke's Law I caught on same channel.
|
|
|
Post by ripper on Nov 22, 2015 16:51:32 GMT
I was pleasantly surprised by 'A Message from Mars' and it did, indeed, have a surreal feel to it. I would love to know the last time it was screened on UK TV prior to Talking Pictures.
I saw that 'Can you keep it up for a Week' was going to be shown. Perhaps there will be more 70s UK sex comedies on the horizon.
I notice there is a cinema short being shown tonight at 2120 called 'Where has poor Mickey Gone?' and starring the late Warren Mitchell. I am not sure if it is a supernatural tale as I haven't been able to find out too much about it but it sounds interesting.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Nov 23, 2015 18:49:26 GMT
Last night's Talking Pictures treat was a minor supernatural gem, Where Has Poor Mickey Gone (1964), starring the late Warren Mitchell as a stage magician who teaches four teenage hoodlums the error of their ways when they break into his shop. It's repeated this coming Saturday, Nov. 28th at 22:25 pm. Fans of table football should enjoy it!
|
|
|
Post by ripper on Nov 23, 2015 20:14:13 GMT
I recorded 'Where has Poor Mickey Gone' so have the pleasure of watching it later tonight. Glad to hear that it did, indeed, have a supernatural theme--the description on Talking Pictures was a bit vague so I wasn't sure.
|
|
|
Post by peeedeel on Nov 26, 2015 8:09:05 GMT
Blimey! I checked out the Talking Pictures Channel (Freeview 81) earlier, and guess who was on? Only that Algernon Blackwood, sat in a comfy armchair, narrating Lock Your Door "his gothic story, from the series A Strange Experience (1949)." Nothing much by way of action - he eventually gets up to stretch his legs - but much appreciated all the same. Put him in a smoking jacket and he would make for an ideal Gregory Pendennis, albeit a sane, composed and unusually sober version. Further investigation reveals Lock Your Door will be repeated on Wed 25 Nov at 17:35. Before that, on Saturday 21st we have Algernon reading The Reformation of St Jules (13:20 pm). Also on Talking Pictures (am sure somebody inquired after this, but can't find the post) Haunters of the Deep, 1984. "Mystery. Directed by Andrew Bogle. CFF. A ghostly tale of greed and spooks when an old Cornish tin mine is reopened by an American mining company." Repeated Tue 24th Nov. 19.10 Struth - I'd always assumed that none of these Blackwood appearances still existed! A quick Google search indicates that only two are extant, but that's two more than I expected. Pity there doesn't seem to be any way to access them via this particular channel from this part of the world, but with a bit of effort and VPN'ing I might be able to see them via the BFI Player ....... Anyway, thanks for the heads up, Dem. I live in hope of the early 1960s Blackwood TV adaptations, featuring John Laurie as the Great Man, someday being unearthed. Having grown up watching his delivery of various eerie stories as Private Frazer on "Dad's Army" ("They werrre all MAD, ye know!"), I reckon he would have been excellent in the role. Mark
|
|
|
Post by peeedeel on Nov 26, 2015 8:16:22 GMT
Creepy, dour, John Laurie (as Algernon Blackwood) introduced the show each week. The shrill shriek of an owl, then Laurie half in shadow, speaking softly, confidentially to each and every one of us. Wednesday night’s “Tales of Mystery” materialised on our TV screen. Laurie would roll the whites of his eyes, glancing to right then to left, and you would feel yourself isolated and strangely at risk as this sinister show began.
The very first episode was the spooky “Terror of the Twins” which starred Malcolm Russell as Sir George Fletton; John Kidd and Aimee Delamain co-starred. Sir George wanted but one thing in life, he craved a male heir, but with the birth of twin boys to his wife, Sir George’s desire turns to hatred and madness.
“The Promise”, the second show in this macabre circus, concerned a student of Edinburgh University named Marriott who is visited by a friend not seen for some years. The friend looks close to starvation, and Marriott feeds him and lets him sleep. But all is not as it seems. An old promise will come back to haunt poor Marriott. Dinsdale Landon and Derrick Sherwin starred.
“The Man who was Milligan” starred a young Harry H Corbett (pre-Steptoe & Son) and Joan Newell. Harry H was the young man who sensed the mysterious Chinese picture on his wall had come to life. The boat with its solitary occupant moved in the darkness. Eventually the boat had two occupants.
“The Tradition” – who having heard them could ever forget the terrible sound of those horse’s hooves clattering on cobbled stones? (“It’s only the mail van, dear…”) Michael Aldridge and Ann Castle listened in horror as the pale horse came for their fever racked son. But the boy recovered and the horse returned for another, unsuspecting rider.
“Accessory before the fact” - Martin stumbles into a supernatural trap at the crossroads; the young traveler’s encounter with a tramp unfolds into a nightmare where nothing is as it seems. Charles Morgan and John Glyn-Jones starred.
There were three episodes in particular that haunt me still, all these long years later, each introduced as usual by Laurie who wore darkness like some mysterious cloak of menace. His brooding presence overshadowed everything.
“Confession” – A wounded man returned from the front during the Great War, slightly shell shocked, alone, walks through a thick London fog (It is late and he’s missed the last train). All looks strange and unusual. He hears a sound. Beside him appears a dead comrade who accompanies him. One minute he’s there, then he’s gone, only to return seconds later. Silent, expressionless, unsettling. Ultimate the man, Paul Maxwell, meets a young woman, Petra Davies and offers to escort her safely home (foolish, foolish man, thinks the viewer).
At the time of viewing this episode, it was particularly relevant as we’d recently had some dreadful fogs, real pea-soupers where you became lost at the drop of a hat, where sound was muffled to an almost unnatural silence, and where people became simply shapes that shifted in the grey fog, insubstantial as ghosts.
“The empty sleeve” – a musician, Isidore Hyman’s desire for the small Strad (Guarnerius, I know in the original story. But I’m sure in the TV episode it was a Stradivarius?) owned by a couple of violin collectors (brothers), leads to diabolical pacts when he declares he would give his soul to own it. One of the collectors, John Gilmer disturbed a black cat in the room where the violin is kept. He lashed out with a whip (a Turkish sword in the original story)taken from the wall almost severing one of the cat’s front legs. And, of course, when Hyman makes a reappearance his arm is missing, the end of the empty sleeve of his dinner tucked neatly in his pocket. This episode starred Walter Hudd, Hugh Burden and Paul Rogers. It was exceptionally powerful and disturbing. Especially the scene where Hyman frenetically plays the violin, his face positively demonical to observe.
“Ancient Sorceries” was certainly the stuff of nightmares! A young man, a tourist travelling by train, is persuaded to alight in a small remote French hill town. A bad mistake to make. Eerie from those first opening seconds the story takes our young hero into a spider’s web of secrets and ancient mysteries. Michael Bates starred with Jacques Cey and Selma Vaz Dias (whose eyes transposed into those of a cat ended the episode and haunted me for weeks after).
But enough, enough. Who today is interested in these old gems? They certainly don’t make television dramas like these any more. These were creations, interpretations, emotional depictions of the ethereal and supernatural, with good actors and script writers. Today we are content with the third rate, the plastic over the gold. The effect.
Where on television today could you watch anything as subtle as “Chinese Magic” (Helen Lindsay, Peter Williams and Hugh Burden)? Or the conversations between the reporter Williams and the murderer “Max Hensig” with its disturbing after echoes?
Answer: You can’t, and you won’t.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Nov 26, 2015 22:36:00 GMT
As with the lost M. R. James broadcasts, to say nothing of Algernon Blackwood's various TV readings, these sound utterly unmissable. Thank you for providing the annotated episode guide, peeldeel. Off the back of the two A Strange Experience, am revisiting Mike Ashley's anthology of Blackwood's The Magic Mirror. Don't know why it didn't work for me on initial encounter!
|
|
|
Post by mcannon on Nov 28, 2015 5:48:13 GMT
As with the lost M. R. James broadcasts, to say nothing of Algernon Blackwood's various TV readings, these sound utterly unmissable. Thank you for providing the annotated episode guide, peeldeel. Off the back of the two A Strange Experience, am revisiting Mike Ashley's anthology of Blackwood's The Magic Mirror. Don't know why it didn't work for me on initial encounter! While I still haven't managed to track down copies of the recent Blackwood TV broadcasts, I found that YouTube _does_ have a recording of one of his radio broadcasts - a 1948 reading by him of "Pistol Against a Ghost": www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5j75B5JQ0IMark (very much looking forward to the cheeriness of the Advent Calendar!)
|
|
|
Post by ripper on Nov 28, 2015 11:12:30 GMT
Just looking at the 'Tales of Mystery' entry on IMDB. Only 2 reviews but both give it top marks. A great shame that the series is now apparently lost.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Nov 28, 2015 11:14:40 GMT
While I still haven't managed to track down copies of the recent Blackwood TV broadcasts, I found that YouTube _does_ have a recording of one of his radio broadcasts - a 1948 reading by him of "Pistol Against a Ghost": www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5j75B5JQ0IMark (very much looking forward to the cheeriness of the Advent Calendar!) Just wish I had some way of recording the two broadcasts and accidentally uploading them. Talking Pictures is one quirky channel, that's for sure. They've been promoting their forthcoming screenings of The Beast In The Cellar and Can You Keep It Up For A week? as though they were the last word in box office gold!
|
|
|
Post by mcannon on Nov 28, 2015 22:42:52 GMT
/quote]Just wish I had some way of recording the two broadcasts and accidentally uploading them. Talking Pictures is one quirky channel, that's for sure. They've been promoting their forthcoming screenings of The Beast In The Cellar and Can You Keep It Up For A week? as though they were the last word in box office gold! [/quote] You mean that they _aren't_?!? I figure that someone will accidentally upload the Blackwood shows eventually to some site. It seems to happen with everything these days - people are just so careless........ Mark
|
|