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Post by franklinmarsh on Jan 4, 2017 13:37:01 GMT
And having the tremendous pleasure of finally getting to meet the great Dana Gillespie at one of those Westminster film fairs and finding her every bit as gracious and good humoured as you'd hope. Not all attendees at these things are. Many an illusion has been throttled there in the greedy grasping paws of a faded celebrity. But Dana Gillespie was just smashing. This was the woman whose appearance in The People That Time Forgot had once put a bunsen burner to my adolescent hormones. And how enjoyable it was to hear her swapping scurrilous stories of the late great Doug McClure. Although I didn't get to meet the divine Ms G or even stay for the An Audience With...I did see barking Hammer Wheatley adaptation The Lost Continent at the Cinema Museum, with Dana in attendance. And Psychomania at the NFT (that's BFI Southbank you Neanderthal) with Nicky Henson reminiscing.
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Post by cromagnonman on Jan 4, 2017 14:39:21 GMT
Although I didn't get to meet the divine Ms G or even stay for the An Audience With...I did see barking Hammer Wheatley adaptation The Lost Continent at the Cinema Museum, with Dana in attendance. And Psychomania at the NFT (that's BFI Southbank you Neanderthal) with Nicky Henson reminiscing. Am sweating beads of undistilled jealousy FM. This seems as good an excuse as any to remind everyone of what it is we're both so enthusiastic about, courtesy of ABC Film Review for August 1968:
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Post by franklinmarsh on Jan 4, 2017 15:08:54 GMT
Am sweating beads of undistilled jealousy FM. This seems as good an excuse as any to remind everyone of what it is we're both so enthusiastic about, courtesy of ABC Film Review for August 1968: It's an incredible film, isn't it? Even features Nigel Stock reading Dennis Wheatley's Uncharted Seas. For some reason they shoved us into the tiddly downstairs cinema. Great stuff on a boiling hot day (this was August 2016), with no air conditioning. I stood up to let some people past and found out our row of seats was nailed to a piece of wood on castors which nearly ended in disaster. There was a quiet altercation between an old codger and a child rustling a packet of crisps. Whatever you think of this stuff, it's a completely different experience watching them on a big screen with an audience. There were two splendid ladies in front of me, one of whom I'd put money on not only not having seen the film before, but also not having any idea what she'd come to see as she reacted brilliantly to anything vaguely horror on the screen. Having just thrilled to The Deadly Bees it was tops to get another helping of Suzanna Leigh. The divine Ms Gillespie did say a few words before the film, and stayed to watch it. I only gleaned such gems as she went to see it at the ABC Fulham Road when it first came out and can still remember the mirth her first appearance provoked. She thinks she must have been about 17 when she made it as she can remember passing her driving test shortly before. She remarked afterward that it was a lot better than she expected - in a corny sort of way. Good times!
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Post by cromagnonman on Jan 4, 2017 16:55:14 GMT
You're absolutely right FM about the difference in watching films in the presence of an audience than without. Only the difference isn't always so welcome. I think the main reason I don't go to the cinema more often (outside of lack of opportunity) is that it irritates the hell out of me that the second the lights go down all the &^%*£$& phones snap on making it look as if the auditorium has been invaded by a swarm of fireflies. Why do these morons go to the cinema if they aren't prepared to devote their full attention to the experience? One of these days there is going to be a example of film rage with one of these inconsiderate a*******s getting bludgeoned to death with their own phone.
But I digress: would certainly have braved such perils to see this weird and wonderful film in the presence of the delectable Ms G. One anecdote she related at the film fair related to the costume department having to work overtime to ensure that her blouse didn't fail before the tremendous strain it was under and end up giving the film a higher rating than was intended.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jan 4, 2017 21:23:04 GMT
In this context I once swapped a few letters with a former director of the firm and he related to me the following horror story. When the firm went out of business in the mid 1960s the staff were given just days to vacate the building. As a consequence more than forty years worth of contracts, file copies, unsold stock and original cover art was unceremoniously dumped into a skip in the street. He remembered salvaging a few bits of Wodehouse material but everything else in the Jenkins archive was destroyed. I still wake up screaming in the night whenever I think about it. Actually it didn't go out of business - it was bought out and became Barrie & Jenkins and, from memory, a few other things in the 60s and 70s, then was acquired by Hutchinson which was eventually bought out by Random House - the Herbert Jenkins contract registers and other things are still in the Random House archive. Stuff may well have been destroyed when these takeovers happened, but the contracts still survive. I was in touch with the Random House archivist years ago when researching R.R. Ryan, who was published by Herbert Jenkins. The biggest Jenkins' author was of course P.G. Wodehouse.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jan 4, 2017 22:34:45 GMT
Best of the year….gawd, I’m hard-pressed to remember what I was doing yesterday, let alone up to 12 months ago…… I hear you! In a bit of a rush, so I'll add to this later. Movies Streamed lots of stuff, most of which I can't remember, eg The Conjuring films, Ouija etc - most with the usual special effects-driven jump scares. Liked Train to Busan, Autopsy of Jane Doe, The Hallow, 10 Cloverfield Way and a few others. Really liked the Jo Nesbo flick, Headhunters, very amusing. TV Really liked Strange Things, Channel Zero (with the creepiest kids show ever), Preacher, etc, liked Westworld but it was a bit of a tease, watched all of Breaking Bad which was pretty amazing, a lot of Nordic stuff - The Bridge, Trapped, Midnight Sun, Follow the Money etc etc. Agree with all the positive comments on the Inside No 9 Xmas special. Books Read a lot of crime again, including a lot of John le Carre - he really is a great writer. Read Susan Hill's The Devil's Court, which is a nice read - I like all of her ghostlies - and still need to pick up her latest collection of ghost stories. Best anthology: The Moons At Your Door. Non-fiction: Chris Mikul's excellent Bizarrism (never seen such a collection of loonies), John Harrison's Hip Pocket Sleaze (finally acquired a copy of this), recent deluxe edition of A.E. Waite's The Quest for Bloods. Magazines Can't go past Ghosts and Scholars, Supernatural Tales, and Worlds of Strangeness for fiction, Paperback Fanatic for non-fiction. Comics Haunted Horror is still reprinting pre-code horror, and acquired a big comic anthology of Richard Matheson novels.
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Post by cromagnonman on Jan 4, 2017 23:13:21 GMT
In this context I once swapped a few letters with a former director of the firm and he related to me the following horror story. When the firm went out of business in the mid 1960s the staff were given just days to vacate the building. As a consequence more than forty years worth of contracts, file copies, unsold stock and original cover art was unceremoniously dumped into a skip in the street. He remembered salvaging a few bits of Wodehouse material but everything else in the Jenkins archive was destroyed. I still wake up screaming in the night whenever I think about it. Actually it didn't go out of business - it was bought out and became Barrie & Jenkins and, from memory, a few other things in the 60s and 70s, then was acquired by Hutchinson which was eventually bought out by Random House - the Herbert Jenkins contract registers and other things are still in the Random House archive. Stuff may well have been destroyed when these takeovers happened, but the contracts still survive. I was in touch with the Random House archivist years ago when researching R.R. Ryan, who was published by Herbert Jenkins. The biggest Jenkins' author was of course P.G. Wodehouse. Appreciate you putting me straight on this James. Makes sense that the contracts would be maintained if the company was taken over rather than liquidated. The old memory might be guilty there of elaborating upon the scale of the destruction. But certainly a lot of important paperwork was lost at the time. Its never been able to be ascertained exactly who the cover artist was for the Howard book for instance. And there's quite a lot of people who would desperately like to know.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jan 5, 2017 3:23:06 GMT
Appreciate you putting me straight on this James. Makes sense that the contracts would be maintained if the company was taken over rather than liquidated. The old memory might be guilty there of elaborating upon the scale of the destruction. But certainly a lot of important paperwork was lost at the time. Its never been able to be ascertained exactly who the cover artist was for the Howard book for instance. And there's quite a lot of people who would desperately like to know. [/quote] I bet you're quite right that lots of stuff was destroyed, which is awful to contemplate. I saw an episode of the Antiques Roadshow not too long ago where someone had dozens of pristine Wright & Brown dust jackets, not folded or damaged in any way - these must have come from the company, which folded in about 1970. Nothing at all survives from Wright & Brown as far as I know.
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Post by pulphack on Jan 5, 2017 6:31:23 GMT
I wouldn't be at all surprised if a lot of stuff was just junked in a takeover - I've heard terrible stories over the years, for instance, about Fleetway art and file copies being junked at every takeover and move as no-one thought it important - the contracts and finance are another matter, of course...
Somewhere on line I read a piece by Leo Cooper (famed for his military publishing and for being married to Jilly, which qualifies the poor bugger for some sort of medal in my book) who started his career working as a junior at Herbert Jenkins around the turn of the sixties. He recalls it as being fusty and old even then and was being run by the same guy who had been the manager under Jenkins and took over the reins when he died, which was about 35 years before! It was no wonder they went down via an acquisition - Wodehouse must have been keeping them afloat, and even his sales were down around that time, only picking up later in the decade. (edit - it wasn't Leo Cooper, it was Lionel Leventhal of Greenhill Books, who had a similar venture with Pen & Sword military books, and also republished some old Edgar Wallace, and similar, thrillers)
HJ was a typical library publisher in that their fiction line relied on loads of writers who were reliable and not spectacular, turning out two or more books a year. Not always great ones - James Corbett has become infamous in later years for his off-kilter approach to the thriller - but they had some pretty good ones, too - Ryan, for instance, and also Arthur Gask, who was a dentist from (I think) Brisbane. The first HJ I remember reading was Edgar Jepson's 'The Mighty Atom', from late in his career, and a bloody odd book it was too about a midget with great strength who sets off on a series of adventures. I wish I still had it, but it seems to be one of his scarcer titles (tried looking but the cheapest I could find last time I looked was £40!). Off hand, apart from Wodehouse the only name author I can place on HJ post-WWII is Hammond Innes, and to be honest I think his titles for them may even have been late thirties, early in his career. There are two odd things that set them apart for me: one is 'The Herbert Jenkins Wireless', which was a four page news sheet about their new books sent out to readers and lending libraries - I have one, stamped Boots in Nottingham, for late 1930 - I'm not certain, but I think they may have been the first publisher to be this proactive, which would make their later moribund state all the sadder. The second thing is their attempt to find another Wodehouse, which saw them publish comic novels by the likes of AA Thomson (better known as a cricket writer) and WA Darlington (for years the drama critic of the Telegraph, and author of the long-running and revived farce 'Alf's Button'), as well as - ulp - the comic novels of Sydney Horler... Anyone familiar with our Syd will be quivering at that prospect. I have one of them, so I KNOW the terrible truth... it's worth noting that Hodder clung on to him for thrillers but happily gave his comic work over to Jenkins, which says something about their respective sales and status as publishers.
Those of us of a certain age and based in the UK as kids may recall loads of those 1930's built semi-detached houses in suburbs having 'Windyridge' name plates (now all gone, of course). I read W Riley's book of the same name as I was intrigued that he named a book after a house name. It was only a few years later that I discovered this quaint if now badly dated sentimental book had been so popular that people actually named their houses after it! Which, given it's nature, was an understandable aspirational move. The book was so successful that it made Jenkins' name and fortune as a publisher before Wodehouse joined (its success may even have been why his agent placed him there). Riley wrote a load of similar books, with a vaguely Christian theme, and is now mostly forgotten although there is one university in Yorkshire - where he lived - that has an archive on him as a popular and specifically local writer. (edit - Sheffield Hallam Uni, I just checked!)
Library publishers were an odd lot - funny you mention Wright & Brown, James, as I was thinking of them after reading what CM wrote yesterday. To me, they were more reliant on the gentlemen of Amalgamated who would de-Blake their Sexton Blake novels and re-sell them, or cobble together novels of their Thriller, Detective Weekly and Union Jack serials and novellas. They had a special place in their heart for Gerald Verner/Donald Stuart, who was a serial re-cycler. Later to the game were Robert Hale, who had some bigger names in their pocket, like James Hadley Chase, but still relied on the likes of the incomprehensible John Newton Chance (aka John Lymington), who was obsessed with heat as a sexual metaphor and wrote a chapter a week, sending it in and getting a cheque back, moving seamlessly from one book to the next. I read four of his at the start of last year, and I thoroughly enjoyed them even though I had not the slightest idea what the hell he was on about!
CM - indeed, at one time there were Bindle books everywhere - HJ wrote five in all, four of which featured the name in the title - and they seemed to go to innumerable editions. They're still the easiest of his books to get online, although it was only last year that I saw some in shops for the first time in ages. I remember picking up one a couple of decades back to see what they were like, and never getting round to it. At least I have now...
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Post by jamesdoig on Jan 5, 2017 8:34:06 GMT
Thanks for the post Pulphack, interesting stuff! I can't remember if I've posted this before, but this is a list of publishers acquired by Random House and whose records are in the Random House archive:
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Post by Shrink Proof on Jan 5, 2017 9:38:31 GMT
I like the idea of a "least worst" list for 2016. Seems appropriate.
Comparatively little to report as I did less reading/watching last year. Partly that was due to spending 6 weeks in New Zealand overdosing on scenery (highly recommended, btw) and partly having my time and energy diverted into moving house (half completed - now in rented looking for a permanent place). Still, here goes...
Agree with previous comments about the "Inside No9" Xmas special. It bodes well for the upcoming third series.
For me the televisual highlight of 2016 was catching up (via DVD) with "Funland", which I'd missed back in 2005. A comedy/thriller that's black as tar. And just as sticky.
Reading-wise, I've thoroughly enjoyed "Supernatural Tales", both the blog and the magazine. Full marks to David Longhorn.
Here's wishing all Vault inmates a thoroughly horrific New Year and let's hope that 2017 comes up with the goods...
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Post by Dr Strange on Jan 5, 2017 14:21:06 GMT
BOOKS:
First place goes to Adam Nevill's collection, Some Will Not Sleep.
Best novel was John Connolly's A Time of Torment.
Also enjoyed two novels by Paul Tremblay (A Head Full of Ghosts and Disappearance at Devil's Rock), and Gemma Files' Experimental Film.
FILMS:
Deadpool; Bone Tomahawk; The VVitch; 10 Cloverfield Lane.
TV:
Ash versus The Evil Dead; Preacher.
ALBUMS:
Stiff by White Denim; A Sailor's Guide To Earth by Sturgill Simpson; Solicitor Returns by Matthew Logan Vasquez; Impossible Dream by Haley Bonar; Emotions & Math by Margaret Glaspy; Divides by The Virginmarys; Get Gone by Seratones.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2017 20:35:13 GMT
Books
The Wake; Paul Kingsnorth -- The Norman invasion of 1066 as seen from the point of view of a deluded, egotistical farmer whose sanity and world crumbles as a result of the invasion. Written in a 'shadow tongue' of olde english, this is a really interesting piece of literary ventriloquism. Kingsnorth's sort-of-sequel Beast is also worth a look.
Beastings; Benjamin Myers -- Vicious priest chases a young mute girl across the lake district, after the aforementioned girl has stolen a baby. Imagine a Pete Walker film novelised by Cormac McCarthy.
Hangsaman; Shirley Jackson -- Pity poor Natalie Waite, stifled and beginning to snap under the pressures of 'normality'. I've read and re-read a lot of Jackson's work this year. Wonderful writer.
Film
The Witch -- Genuinely odd, extremely convincing bit of folk horror.
Green Room -- Nasty, tense and violent punk rockers vs. neo-nazis flick.
High-Rise -- Ben Wheatley adapts Ballard, not wholly successfully, but the result is consistently interesting and entertaining.
The Nice Guys -- Nuts Shane Black action comedy.
Your Name -- Moving, fun body-swap anime.
Arrival -- Big budget sci-fi that marries intelligent sci-fi and a moving personal story and succeeds all the ways Christopher Nolan's Interstellar fails.
I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House -- Creepy mood piece from Anthony Perkins' son; his previous film, February, is also an excellent watch.
The Invitation -- Tense, paranoid thriller that kept me guessing all the way to the fantastic ending.
Childhood of a Leader -- Kubrickian oddity showing episodes from the childhood of a future facist leader. Beautifully shot, with an extremely melodramatic soundtrack from Scott Walker.
TV
Rick and Morty -- Both the filthiest comedy and smartest sci-fi show on TV.
Happy Valley -- UK TV writing at its finest; asks troubling questions and refuses easy answers.
Game of Thrones -- After treading water for a while, GoT cleared the decks spectacularly this season, as it finally moves into its end game.
Better Call Saul -- The excellent character study, spun off from Breaking Bad, continues.
Westworld -- A bit of a tease, but a fun, twisty ride.
The Night Of -- Never improved on its first episode, but the cast and the writing by Richard Price kept me watching.
Comics
Saga -- Still excellent.
Sex Criminals -- Probably the funniest, most subversive comic out there. So rare to see any form of fiction that deals with sex in such an honest, funny way.
Deadly Class -- Kinetic, melodramatic comic about kids at a school for assassins.
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Post by ropardoe on Jan 6, 2017 10:51:11 GMT
BooksThe Wake; Paul Kingsnorth -- The Norman invasion of 1066 as seen from the point of view of a deluded, egotistical farmer whose sanity and world crumbles as a result of the invasion. Written in a 'shadow tongue' of olde english, this is a really interesting piece of literary ventriloquism. Kingsnorth's sort-of-sequel Beast is also worth a look. TVBetter Call Saul -- The excellent character study, spun off from Breaking Bad, continues. Paul Kingsnorth is marvellous - I am totally in sympathy with his non-fiction and his philosophy (including the Dark Mountain project), but the fact that The Wake is written in "a 'shadow tongue' of olde English" has put me off it. I hate trying to read books in dialect of any sort. I might give Beast a try though, if it isn't in dialect. I agree on Better Call Saul, but - goodness me - Chuck is almost a worse villain than The Archers' Rob Tichener! Poor Jimmy!
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jan 6, 2017 14:07:49 GMT
Egad! If I'd known there was an exam coming at the end of it I'd have revised. Or at least made notes. Oh man, am I toast. Let's see; well, as I've said on more than one occasion I don't take much pleasure in anything unless its at least thirty years old and comics least of all (modern ones being incoherent unintelligible gibberish to my jaundiced old f*rt's eye). That being the case it was a real joy to belatedly discover the output of the short-lived Pacific Comics of the early 1980s. Gray Morrow's beautifully drawn Edge of Chaos was one of the most entertaining set of comics I've read in years. Eric Cleese: "Holy S**t!" Flan: "I do not know this great god of excrement you sometimes invoke". I get to the cinema so rarely that it scarcely seems worth commenting upon but anticipation regarding Batman V Superman and Captain America: Civil War did not survive the viewing experience. I hated pretty much everything about BvS (Its a spear, you throw it Kryptonian dumbass). Everything that is apart from Gal Gadot's truly wondrous Wonder Woman. I have high hopes for her movie this year. CA: CW I liked to a degree, but as a friend of mine pointed out Marvel's films are now so Disneyfied that you half expect the characters to burst into song at any moment. On the reading front: it will surprise no one who has kept track of the reviews I've posted here this year (meaning which it will surprise everyone) that John Burke's extraordinary THE DEVIL'S FOOTSTEPS remains my favourite read of the year. And I'm looking forward immensely to immersing myself in the two sequels this year. Elsewhere, all but completing my collection of the 1970/80s small press publishings of Charles Saunders has been a great satisfaction. Saunders is an extraordinarily gifted and imaginative writer and its criminal that he isn't better known and more appreciated. His Imaro books are an absolute necessity for anyone with even the slightest fondness for heroic fantasy of the Conan variety. My two most enduring memories of 2016 are being fortunate enough to attend a screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark at the Albert Hall with live orchestral accompaniament. A truly amazing experience. And having the tremendous pleasure of finally getting to meet the great Dana Gillespie at one of those Westminster film fairs and finding her every bit as gracious and good humoured as you'd hope. Not all attendees at these things are. Many an illusion has been throttled there in the greedy grasping paws of a faded celebrity. But Dana Gillespie was just smashing. This was the woman whose appearance in The People That Time Forgot had once put a bunsen burner to my adolescent hormones. And how enjoyable it was to hear her swapping scurrilous stories of the late great Doug McClure. I guess we're at about the same stage. The only modern stuff I read is by friends like Charlie, David and Paul who have supported me. This isn't arrogance, more lack of time. Last year id vote for Kitche Sink Gothic as an anthology. Loved Timeslip as a TV series and for films I thought interstellar was good but i prefered a sexploitation fest that lasted a couple of weeks. Books: the last book i will read is a 5 volume set of The plum in the Golden Vase.
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