Have a Butcher's

COVER GIRL KILLER (1959)
THE NIGHT CALLER (1965)

Steptoe and gun: Harry H. Corbett's speech as "The Man" - "surely sex and horror are the new gods in this polluted world of so-called entertainment" - is paraphrased in Frankie Goes to Hollywood's 1984 hit 'Two Tribes.'

WRITTEN and directed by Terry Bishop, and distributed by Britain's low-budget specialists Butcher's, the hour-long COVER GIRL KILLER is a bygone gem. It was made at the same time as PEEPING TOM, Michael Powell's serial killer movie which was a permanent detriment to his career. Cinemagoers could not accept a film so far away from Powell's partnership with Emeric Pressburger, topically covering the growth in seedy under-the-counter merchandise. Somehow such business seems more acceptable in the world of the B picture, and this beguiling Walton Studios piece was a clear inspiration for the 1970s Mary Millington vehicle THE PLAYBIRDS. 

Using a disguise of pebble glasses and ill-fitting toupee, The Man (Harry H. Corbett) is killing models featured on the cover of pin-up paper Wow! ("not for people who can read") in an attempt "to give man back his dignity." In between drinking endless cups of coffee, Inspector Brunner (Victor Brooks), Archaeologist-cum-publisher John Mason (Spencer Teakle) and showgirl girlfriend June Rawson (Felicity Young) plan to spring a trap. It's all flesh and violence free, but depicts the consequences beyond the girls themselves: a husband and father of separate victims both left grieving for females they could not control. Before his comedic persona took over, Corbett's creepy Soho bogeyman is eloquent and calculating ("I assure you miss, your nudity means nothing to me") as he variously poses as advertising executives and TV producers to snare his prey.

Aka THE NIGHT CALLER FROM OUTER SPACE and BLOOD BEAST FROM OUTER SPACE, THE NIGHT CALLER is a bizarre addition to Britain's monochrome SF/horror epics.

Also distributed by Butcher's was one of the weirdest pictures in the annals of British horror: THE NIGHT CALLER. Directed by John Gilling just before his Hammer "Cornish Classics" PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES and THE REPTILE, this is actually two genres in one. We start with scientists Dr Morley (Maurice Denham), Dr Jack Costain (John Saxon) and Ann Barlow (Patricia Haines) examining a small orb which has descended from the sky ("guided down with fantastic accuracy ... inhuman accuracy!"), complete with a geiger-counter equipped military (headed by John Carson). After forty minutes of science babble the film shifts to a much darker tone, as the sphere transports a shadowy alien with a rubbery claw from Jupiter's third moon, who kidnaps nubile Earth women for repopulation.

These abductions are carried out with a plot device similar to that of COVER GIRL KILLER; this agenda driven alien - named Medra - opens a small business (Orion Enterprises) and lures breeding stock by placing a classified ad in Bikini Girl magazine. The creaking narrative is further undermined by Medra's final speech, promising that all victims will not be harmed (tell this to Ann, who has been slashed and strangled in a sleazy second-hand bookstore). Based on a novel by Frank Crisp and scripted by TOWER OF EVIL helmsman Jim O'Connolly, it is all barking mad, the notion of an alien invader needing to advertise in a jazz mag rather than using scientific superiority is fittingly delirious. Yet the excellent cast keep things watchable, including a priceless scene with Warren Mitchell and Marianne Stowe as worried parents.

"I'm Fiona ... Fly Me!"

HARDCORE (1977)

Based on her 1976 book Fiona, HARDCORE charts the rise of Fiona Richmond, the "frankly sensational adventures of a liberated lady."

MAKE no illusions, there is no hardcore in James Kenelm Clarke's fictionalised sex odyssey of Fiona Richmond. A mockumentary before the term was coined, the model/non-actress turned writer - portrayed by Richmond herself - recounts her carnal exploits to an acquaintance at her publisher's South of France whitewashed villa in 80 tidy minutes. These encounters include her chemistry teacher (who pockets her panties), becoming a member of the mile high club, and frollicking at the back of a moving mixed vegetables delivery van with John Hamill. With its above average production values and beautiful cinematography by Mike Molloy, HARDCORE is the Rolls Royce of British sex comedies, and actually achieves some laugh-out-loud moments. With the opportunity to film in the heatwave of 1976, even the British locations have a welcoming sheen.

Particularly unsettling when viewed today is the scene at the chemistry lab, where the then 31-year-old in school uniform receives her "punishment." Throughout, Richmond plays herself with a wilful abandon that attempts to hide her stilted style, and thankfully she has a parade of seasoned performers for support: Ronald Fraser as the Soho impresario who first employs Fiona (she strips off, puts a vase of flowers over his head and punches him to get his attention) and Victor Spinetti as the proprietor of Men Only (both characters interpretations of Richmond's lover Paul Raymond). On the peripheral, Harry H. Corbett manages to be hilarious in his split-second cameo as Art, and for trivia hounds, an early scene shows Kenelm Clarke's 1974 movie GOT IT MADE playing on television, which featured future DOCTOR WHO Romana Lalla Ward. The picture caused a furore as it was later edited - incorporating sex scenes that the cast had no knowledge - and reissued as SWEET VIRGIN. When Raymond's Club International published photos of the hardcore action alleging Ward was a participant featured, the actress successfully sued.

Richmond with Paul Raymond, the uncredited financier of the picture. Raymond ensures that his businesses are on show, such as his Revuebar, the Windmill and Whitehall theatres, and the Men Only offices.

Released in the United States as FIONA, the only facts the project brings to the table is that Richmond is indeed the daughter of an vicar, was once an air stewardess, and that she earned her stripes as a columnist for Men Only. The rest is cloaked in her persona as a free-spirited 70s sex goddess, who was regularly seen along the streets of Soho in her yellow E-type Jaguar (a gift from Raymond). Alongside her writing "career," Richmond was the headliner in a succession of Raymond-sponsored West End stage shows and revues before screen roles beckoned, and when the cinematic sex market tired at the end of the 70s, Fiona achieved some kind of respectability on TV game shows such as CELEBRITY SQUARES and BLANKETY BLANK. Although Richmond's popularity pre-dated Mary Millington, the draw of Fiona waned upon the arrival of the fresh, sexual liberation qualities of Millington. The tall brunette became overshadowed by the short blonde, with punters preferring Mary's girl-next-door demeanour to Fiona's more remote sophistication.

Carry On Hammer

CARRY ON SCREAMING! (1966)

Delicious Fenella Fielding as Valeria Watt and delirious Kenneth Williams as her zombie mad scientist brother Orlando. 

AS British as you can get, the CARRY ON series spanned twenty years with hardly a pause for breath. In the process they became a national institution, evolving from typical 1950s comedy fare into the motion picture equivalent of a seaside postcard - saucy, lewd but underlying inoffensive. Each entry featured a well-defined character that rarely altered from film to film: Sid James generally headed the cast as the lecherous old devil, Bernard Bresslaw was his gormless side-kick, Kenneth Williams the camp authority figure, Charles Hawtrey the effeminate chap brimming with enthusiasm, and either Kenneth Conner or Jim Dale as the likeable bumbler. From a female perspective, Barbara Windsor was the sex kitten, and Joan Sim played James' long-suffering wife/girlfriend.

Part of the charm was the strange fantasy world that they created; where else could Windsor be constantly presented as the most desirable woman in the world, and what other set of films would have Bresslaw and Peter Butterworth in drag be mistaken for real woman? By the early 1970s, not only did the CARRY ON's keep reviving the same "ideas," they were already popular on television, which itself was churning out re-treads. Considering the fact that audiences could sit and enjoy the same joke over and over in the comfort of their own home, its hardly surprising that the films began to decline in popularity. With the parody of Just Jaekin's French 1974 soft-core hit CARRY ON EMMANNUELLE in 1978, the initial run came to an inglorious end, failing to adapt to the changing tastes of audiences and film distributors - a similar downfall to Hammer.

Pop art reworking of the CARRY ON SCREAMING! poster by bespoke graphics company Art & Hue.

In fact, Hammer had much in common with the CARRY ON’s; both were made on small budgets by a regular production team, both employed a repertory of actors, and the films were dismissed by the critical establishment for many years. CARRY ON SCREAMING! opens with a suitably daft song, then immediately sets the mood with a shot of a creature walking through a misty wood. The night-time sequences are inevitably filled with fog, a cliché mocked in a scene in which Valeria (Fenella Fielding) is enveloped in a huge cloud after asking if the Sergeant (Harry H. Corbett) minds she smokes. The film ably captures the lurid Eastmancolor look of Hammer, especially with the laboratory set, in which Watt (Kenneth Williams) memorably cries "frying tonight!" as victims are plunged into a vat of bubbling wax. Aided by Oddbod (Tom Clegg) and Oddbod Junior (Billy Cornelius), Watt kidnaps young women - virgins, for some reason - and vitrifies them, to be sold as store dummies.

The standout performance belongs to the graceful Fielding as the voluptuous Valeria, a worthy companion to Vampira, Elvira and Morticia Addams, but with one striking difference: Valeria wears a blindingly scarlet dress instead of the traditional vampire black. Williams also relishes his role as Watt - animated by regular juicing of electricity - and comes across as a fusion of Peter Cushing and Ernest Thesiger.