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Of Robots and Heroes
While we’re talking about the old-time stuff, and recuts and mashups, and harking back to this earlier post… I still have my Super-8 print of the 1942 Lewis Wilson/Douglas Croft Batman serial, which was only available as six 200 foot silent spools… back in my student days I cut them all together, put a mag…
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Monster Munch (2)
Although prolific British thriller writer Edgar Wallace has a ‘conceived by’ co-credit on the 1933 film, Merian C Cooper later denied that Wallace had any hand in the finished product. “Edgar Wallace didn’t write any of Kong,” he said, “not one bloody word.” Wallace died before production began, but in his diary mentioned completing a…
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Monster Munch
The 3-disc extended edition of Peter Jackson’s King Kong can be had for around a fiver from all kinds of places at the moment – Amazon, some of the supermarkets – which makes it a pretty good bargain. I saw it on the big screen but had no urge to pick up the DVD until…
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BUGS
I had a note this morning from Dave Young, architect of my website, to let me know that Play.com are offering all four seasons of the mid-90s action thriller series BUGS at £7.99 a pop in their New Year Sale. (I mention the website business not because it’s relevant, but because it’s cheaper to hand…
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Independent Filmmaking
This readable, likeable handbook was my bible back in the 70s when its combination of practical sense and friendly encouragement meant that it served both as craft manual and comfort read. Its user’s-view of various Super 8 cameras, wind-up 16mm Bolexes and optical printing techniques may have little-to-no application in this digital age but the…
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The Second-Marriage Wedding Present on the Other Side of the World
One of my closest friends lives in New Orleans. We’ve managed to get together no more than half a dozen times in the thirty years since we met, but that’s how some friendships can be. First we kept in touch with long letters, the occasional phone call, and the the annual exchange of bizarre Christmas…
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The Christmas of Bones
And Season’s Greetings to all.
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All Your Past Are Belong to eBay (2)
I undertook to say something about this, so I suppose I’d better… It’s the Adventures of Robin Hood annual, published by Adprint in 1961 and based on the Richard Greene TV series. It was a typical children’s annual of its era; a yearly one-off publication for the Christmas market, in large format with shiny board…
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Tony Tenser
I’m late catching up with the news, but British film producer and distributor Tony Tenser died on December 5th. I interviewed Tenser onstage twice at Manchester’s Festival of Fantastic Films, and considered it a privilege to be given the opportunity. Some obits that I’ve seen are characterising him as a producer of nudie exploitation pix…
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For All Your Academic Needs
The Alabama Pacific University Online. Accredited by the NAAUCU. “Members of the NAAUCU are institutions whose standards do not meet the overly drastic and unreasonable demands of the recognized accreditation boards.” Affiliated institutions include The Sports University of Central Kansas (“e-mail disconnected while we figure out how to teach over the internet”) and The Boston…
Hauling Like A Brooligan
Stephen Gallagher
