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Post by noose on Sept 16, 2011 8:09:17 GMT
Pulps, I've just moved to Devon, so your Crossroads book is in a box. All boxes are in storage, but come the end of the month when I finally move into the new house - I'll post it!
Jx
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Post by pulphack on Sept 16, 2011 8:13:21 GMT
thanks johnny. dem gave me the first in the series, so i am sated for now. it goves me something to look forward to!
hope the move went well. nice part of the world you're in now.
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Post by noose on Sept 16, 2011 8:21:37 GMT
Went as well as can be expected....  We had a fucking idiot of a removals man - instead of bringing a proper lorry like he said he would, he brought two smaller trucks - and we ended up having to leave a sofa, table, all my plants and a few tools behind as they just wouldn't fit. All the books and paintings made it in one piece though. |
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Post by dem on Sept 16, 2011 22:11:02 GMT
while i'm at it, as i can't find the thread despite looking - a kind of vault dyslexia, perhaps - Lord P! sue lloyd of crossroads and corruption fame - indeed, she is superb in the latter, but to me she'll always be dyed blonde and David Hunter's second wife Barbara, a romance novelist. incidentally, she and ronnie (david hunter, The Projected Man) allengot on so well that they ended up married in the real world, and she nursed him through his terminal cancer. this despite him being gay prior to marrying her. a truely crossroads twist to life. (not that his sexuality actually matters, it just seems so very crossie moving into real life) and finally... those who mock might do well to note that the crossroads carers trust - set up by ATV initially after a storyline concerning a downs syndrome girl* and there to provide respite care for carers and their loved ones - is still going strong, 23 years after the original series went down. is there another soap that has ever done anything so practical? *played by a genuine downs syndrome actor, too. and eastenders thinks it's so radical... This is indeed very commendable, pulps. if Wiki is to believed, there is also a slightly murkier side to Crossroads including a BIG Virgin Witch connection which might be worth looking into. |
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Post by pulphack on Sept 17, 2011 6:36:30 GMT
oh aye, peter ling and hazel adair were jobbing hackswho would try their hand at anything. hazel had previously been in film production with sometime wrestling commentator kent walton (it's not fixed, as his catchphrase went) and had produced some dubious films of a mondo and sleaze nature ( as close as yo could get in the UK). with the good mr ling she was resposible for compact, a soap about a magazine in an-about-to-swing london - which featured one ronnie allen - and while crossie was in business she and ling produced and wrote several movies like Virgin Witch and Keep It Up Downstairs. there are a few softcore 70's films she's responsible for, but without reaching for my Simon Sheridan i can't recall titles offhand.
bloody funny mix, the altruistic crossroads trust and keep it up downstais, but so very british when you consider mr gladstone and his ilk.
incidentally, wiki on malcom hulke (who died at only 55!) doesn't mention crossie but was obviously written by a dr who fan. what catches the eye is that he is well known amongst older who fans for putting loads of background detail in his novelisations of his scripts and fleshing out backstory - which is the thing that struck me about his crossroads books. rather than just simply novelise, he seemed to feel thathe should approach it as a 'proper' novel in the sense that he wanted it to have an extra dimension.
and he has a tv award for writing namedafter him, so highly was he thought of... another one like mr burke, who is an unsung hero... and es turner... at least we remember them!
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Post by dem on Sept 17, 2011 7:37:46 GMT
i can think of at least one more Crossroads/ smut connection: Sue Lloyd appeared in notorious Brit Sex comedy The Ups & Down Of A Handyman, put simply one of the most disturbing fillums it has ever been my dubious privilege ... etc. And there seems to have been some deal going with the mighty Everest Books. Not only did they publish the Malcolm Hulke Crossroads paperbacks but tie-ins for both the aforementioned ... Handyman and Keep It Downstairs (as by John Sealey and Elton Hawke respectively, both 1976) |
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Post by pulphack on Sept 17, 2011 8:12:47 GMT
so did hazel have her fingers in this grubby pie as well? worth trying to look into. hadn't been to that thread for ages... god, what a wonderful array of tat. the older i get, the more i realise that 'literature' is pish, and the only thing that really tells you anything about what life is like now and was then is the trash. sift through the rubbish and you find out all the secrets.
i have a horrible feeling i'm going to set out to collect the set...
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Post by pulphack on Sept 17, 2011 8:28:16 GMT
the briefest google reveals little except that it brings you back here to reveal that hazel was the pseudonymous author of some of those novelisations (god, we're good on here!). very little seems to be out there on everest or hazel other than what we've pieced together (incidentally, wasn't she also klaus vogel for virgin witch?). however, there is a heaven... www.crossroadsmotel.co.uk |
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Post by dem on Sept 17, 2011 9:45:00 GMT
according to cult film journo M. J. Simpson, who commendably makes it his business to know such things, 'Klaus Vogel' was AKA Crossroads producer Beryl Vertue, and Virgin Witch was likely a one-off; "this script (and her own novelization of it) seem to be her only professional writing credits - and she keeps very quiet about them!" and there was me, hoping we'd reached the nadir with 'Allo, 'Allo" ... |
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Post by andydecker on Sept 17, 2011 10:01:42 GMT
Soo ... I gather from all this that Crossroads was an awful soap opera which ran for decades? And it spawned the usual novelisations. But the real question is: is Virgin Witch a good trash-movie or a boring one?  |
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Post by dem on Sept 17, 2011 19:23:04 GMT
Just read Martin Jones article Heavy Scent: The Shame Of Virgin Witch in the forthcoming issue of Bedabbled and, sure enough, along with a splendid critique of the film, he goes into the various Crossroads/ Virgin Witch/ bad sex comedy connections, so it would be fairer if we draw a veil over that aspect for the time being, at least 'til after the Zardoz Pulp fair when the magazine will have been out for a few weeks. But the real question is: is Virgin Witch a good trash-movie or a boring one? can't help you with that one - yet. Recently snagged a suitably seedy print but only managed twenty minutes before switching to something equally deadly - just wasn't in the right mood for it. |
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Post by Johnlprobert on Sept 17, 2011 19:48:02 GMT
Soo ... I gather from all this that Crossroads was an awful soap opera which ran for decades? And it spawned the usual novelisations. But the real question is: is Virgin Witch a good trash-movie or a boring one? I have to say I can't really recommend it, and I've owned it on VHS and DVD. It's been a long time since I braved it but if I do at any point in the future I promise it'll get a write up! |
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Post by franklinmarsh on Sept 17, 2011 20:52:59 GMT
Here's one I prepared earlier -
A montage of naked women, a knife plunging downward, a woman screaming…that’s the credit sequence of Virgin Witch and if you’ve seen that, you’ve more or less seen the film itself.
Christine (Ann Michelle) and her sister Betty (her sister Vicki) leave home to escape strict parents and after a harrowing journey of several yards are picked up by a flash Johnny in a red convertible sports car, the property of his pretend girlfriend, singing sensation Abby Darke. The girls get a lift to that no longer swingin’ London and, worried that some unscrupulous perve might slobber all over the sisters before he gets a chance, Johnny puts them up with his mum. A comedy interlude with dodgy cards in a newsagents (Pussy for sale – ask for kitty) and a magazine rack outside (featuring Penthouse – appropriate as this whole fillum is little more than an early 70s jazz mag come to life – with occult undertones) where Christine discovers Nova – a mag with an ad for a modelling agency. Betty buzzes off home to be mauled by Johnny whilst Chris enters the seedy, sultry , Sapphic Sybil’s world. Quickly stripping off (the first of many such occasions) for Syb’s tape measure (36-24-I missed the last one) Christine (now dubbed Christina for modelling purposes) then hears a fake phone call in which she gathers Syb needs a model for the weekend. Christina thrusts herself forward, gets the job (surprise!) and hurries home to save Betty from Johnny’s probing fingers, lips and drool, and inviting the sceptical sis on the photoshoot at (ahem ) Wychwold.
Syb drives the girls down to an idyllic English village and they all end up at a large house which contains Pete (a photographer), Gerald (a doctor of ‘literature’ and High Priest of the local coven) and a pseudo-Satanic chapel. There ensues much Christina nudity, Pete attempting congress with her to Syb’s other bus rage, Betty panicking at every person in the neighbourhood from the genuinely menacing housekeeper (Mark Steel’s mum) to the most non-threatening milkman in Britain, a cheery, tweedy shotgun-toting Colonel type and a mysterious horsewoman.
The party then get together for an evening meal – going completely against the grain they dress for dinner! Just like posh people used to - yes, even Christina.
40 minutes in and things are just starting to veer towards the expected witchcraft when unfortunately we’re back with Johnny in a rubbish nightclub to allow Abby to belt out a less than sensational song. The nightclub manager tips him the wink about Syb (“She’s as lez as they come!”), and, panic-stricken that Betty might stray to the other side, the two-bob playboy sets about tracking the sisters’ weekend whereabouts.
Pipe-smoking Gerald has noticed that Christina has natural powers – the ability to mind-control her sis via weird stares and odd echoing voice-overs, and could make a good witch. He and High Priestess Syb decide to initiate her as it just happens to be Lammas.
Smut fiends get their money’s worth at the following Sabbat as unlike The Witches and The Devil Rides Out ,these black magic practitioners are more News Of The World than Dennis Wheatley and can’t wait to shuck their robes and get jiggy with Christina, and headbang and prance nude in the Young Generation stylee to interminable drum solos.
Can Johnny save Betty? Will Christina usurp Syb’s (oo-er) position? Do we care as long as the cast keep losing their attire?
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Post by Johnlprobert on Sept 18, 2011 8:27:02 GMT
Sterling work, Mr Marsh! On the basis of you detailed synopsis I really don't need to see this one again... ...or do I? |
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Post by dem on Sept 18, 2011 8:37:34 GMT
Franklin, you complete and utter rotter! will have to watch it through now, even though I'll be constantly checking back to make sure you weren't talking about another film entirely. * not sure i understood "Pete attempting congress with her to Syb’s other bus rage?"* Incidentally, praise where praise is due. Have been a bit horrible about them in the past but Redemption came up with a neat cover for their video reissue. |
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