Haven in the west

Paradise is at the end of a road which leads nowhere in a region which is neither a golden bay or a west coast.

The sparkling Tasman Sea.

I’m reliably informed that Westhaven is in Auckland, boasting the southern hemisphere’s largest Yacht Marina, and Whanganui is a large coastal town in Manawatu, near the mouth of New Zealand’s longest navigable waterway.

We didn’t go to either of those places, as lovely as they sound, but we did go to a Westhaven, also known as Whanganui inlet, which many people don’t seem to know exists.  Which is perhaps why it is one of the most unspoilt and breathtakingly beautiful places we’ve ever been to. It is described as being on 'the west coast of Golden Bay', a geographical anachronism like Harry Potter’s 'Platform 9 3/4' which only enhances the magic, and seclusion of the place.  One of New Zealand’s largest estuaries (roughly 13km long and 2-3km wide), it is filled by the Tasman Sea at high tide which flows rapidly through imposing heads glimpsed briefly as you take the winding drive from Pakawau. (As with any route heading North of Collingwood, don’t expect to reconnect with civilisation – you are pushing into the wild west).

The western peninsula from the other side of the inlet.
If you have bionic eyes you might just make out the lodge on the ridge line at the centre of the image.

And it was on the western head that we were lucky enough to stay, which is also a privately-owned 400 hectare peninsula, and home to Westhaven Retreat, a 4-star luxury lodge.  Anyone who knows us won’t be surprised to hear that we didn’t stay here, however - our accommodation was a much more modest cottage, adjacent to the main building.  

After the long drive we had started to wonder if we had come to right place, as I picked my way through fresh cow pats to open a farm gate, loudly serenaded by dogs before manoeuvring carefully around huge wandering cattle beasts.  As we crested the hill and the lodge came into view we weren’t left in any doubt. A unique and exquisite structure of which there will be more about later.

The lodge is designed to compliment the landscape.

“You’re kiwis, we knew you wouldn’t mind!”, explained our host about our farm encounter entrance. She also apologised for the nearby helicopter, the way most guests usually arrive, which crouched close to our cottage like a giant shiny black dragonfly. The fact that Rose scampered out to photograph it ferrying its wealthy passengers to the beach later that evening would have shown just how much we minded, it’s rare we have a helicopter in our garden.

The 'other half' leave for their beach trip.

The cottage was everything we needed but as with all things here, it’s really about the location.  I’ve loved coastlines and this part of the country for almost as long as I can remember, but Westhaven is something else again. From the top of the peninsula views of the Tasman Sea to the west and the inlet on the other side were literally jaw dropping. Paths weaving down through surreal rock formations and a nikau palm forest led to perfect sandy beaches which we literally had to ourselves. 

A mysterious wall built by a primitive tribe.
Not Skull Island, but the Westhaven nikau forest.

Rose looks back at 'our' beach.

On our second day I interviewed the 'Westhaven family' about the retreat and then Rose joined us for a tour of the facilities which I will be writing about for work.  They seemed almost as interested in us as we were in them, and this led to them inviting us to use the spa and opulent indoor swimming pool that afternoon as an anniversary present from them.

The lodge's indoor swimming pool.

The lodge itself was designed and built by the patriarch of the family, an extremely accomplished Austrian engineer whose experiences working in Asia led him to believe in the principles of Feng Shui.  And so the building is formed of three interlocked octagons (a 45 degree angle being spiritually preferable to the hard right angles of most western structures).  The interlocked building is designed to be safely flexible during a quake and the shape also resonates what Bruno referred to as the two 'landscape guardians' of their home.  Two remarkable rocky outcrops sit above the lodge, the ‘lion’ to the west and the ‘dragon’ to the north, their shapes being quite self explanatory and also echoed within the low crouching form of the lodge.  It is a beautiful building inside and out which completely fulfils its aim of harmonising with the surrounding landscape.

The lodge and cottage (tiny white blob on the lower right) photographed from the head of 'the dragon'.
The 'lion' ridge can be seen in the distance.

Rose and I both did a lot of walking (almost every track available during our short stay), and after much goading I even braved the chilly waters of the Tasman. But we also did a lot of reading - something which I’ve shamefully let slip far too much this year.  And as eager as I was to write about the experience I also left my laptop alone, and I’m glad I did. ( I met a work mate at the airport when we flew out from Wellington who all but insisted that I hand over the PC to her so she could put it in my locker until I came back to work).

(Very) amateur body surfing was unplanned,
  but the waves were persuasive enough to carry me all the way to the shore.

Quite a different experience to our Melbourne holiday last year, the combination of exercise punctuated by long blissful spells of inactivity helped us both to relax more quickly than usual.  New Zealand’s earliest sea captains knew about this hidden inlet which provided shelter and safety from westerly storms, and it certainly worked wonders for us.

We discovered this hidden corner of New Zealand almost by accident at the beginning of the year - and look forward to coming back.

A friendly Kereru followed me through the nikau forest.

Periodic Fable

Synthesised chemical elements like Rutherfordium can only be brought into being under very particular circumstances, and then only last for a fleeting period of time.  

In 1979 ITV achieved this alchemy with what was supposed to be a science fiction show to rival the BBC’s ubiquitous Doctor Who, made by their production arm ATV, and aimed at children.  But that certainly wasn’t what they got.  Author PJ Hammond was inspired to write a supernatural science fiction series after spending a night in a haunted castle and instead came up with one of the darkest, creepiest and most enigmatic shows ever to appear on television.

The still inexplicable twin casting triumph of Joanna Lumley and David McCallum, who apparently signed on immediately, was touched on last time, and by the time ITV realised what they had been given by Hammond, the programme was already something of a hit.

The first ‘assignment’ dealing with two youngsters whose parents have been taken by a nursery rhyme comes closest to betraying Sapphire and Steel’s origins as a children’s programme, but the second story pulls no punches.  Set on an abandoned railway platform it is relentlessly oppressive in atmosphere and the resolution of the crisis is only achieved at a terrible cost.

In stark contrast, once again the appearance of a Sapphire and Steel annual in 1979 indicated the original intention of the programme as a kids TV vehicle, as did a continuing comic strip in ITV’s youth magazine 'Look in'.

Nobody could claim to fully understand the programme, as was the intention, but they tuned in in their millions in Britain.  The famous ITV ten-week strike of 1979 actually worked in the programme’s favour, as the second serial was repeated in full when the channel returned to air, greatly reinforcing the programme’s viewership. The return of our favourite ‘elements who actually weren’t’ was guaranteed.  Also as discussed before, the availability of it’s stars made exactly when a little uncertain and in fact it was a full 18 months before Sapphire and Steel returned.

Silver Fox - Elements don't scrimp on hair care products

The third adventure isn’t fondly remembered but does at least introduce ‘specialist’ Silver; played in dandified fashion by David Collings who shakes up the existing dynamic between our leads.  His flirtatious rapport with Sapphire appears to provoke jealousy in her usual partner.  Steel hardly needs to be made any more grumpy, and perhaps the notable scene where he appears to snap lift cables with his bare hands and tie them in knots is his way of ‘working off steam’.  It’s the following story, dealing with a ‘faceless man’ who can inhabit any photograph ever taken which seems to be the most remembered and chilling.

This is the story I re-watched recently with friends, and despite its obvious staginess and budgetary limitations, we agreed that it’s really only the incidental music which dates this unnerving tale.  Xylophone solos and a crew member’s cough on the soundtrack are more than made up for by expert use of lighting (the sepia children would doubtless be an expensive CGI effect these days, but perfectly realised here), the charisma of our leads and the sheer freaky uneasiness provoked by the tale.  PJ Hammond seems to know exactly how to write for the show’s minuscule budget: everything shown on screen feels like the tip of the story’s iceberg, the unseen but greater mass of what is implied, but unseen, is what really scares us.

From what I’ve heard Hammond's skill was sorely missed when Sapphire and Steel returned the following year for its fifth assignment.  I say heard because I somehow missed this sub-Agatha Christie drawing room mystery written by Doctor Who scribes Don Houghton and Anthony Read - or perhaps the programme’s erratic scheduling finally defeated TVNZ and it was never shown here.

Hammond was exhausted and needed a break, but was apparently appalled when he saw what had been done to his creation in other writer’s hands.

Director Shaun O'Riorden (left) and PJ Hammond

He rallied and gave us what was to become one of the greatest conclusions of any programme - except, Assignment 6 was never intended to be a finale.  I certainly saw this one, as with most memorable TV fantasy in my childhood with my Mum, and I remember us both gasping with genuine surprise when the true nature of our heroes’ adversaries was revealed.

In the real world Sapphire and Steel had also come up against an implacable enemy, and when Central television took over ATV a slew of programmes were cancelled - this undervalued gem among them.

Hammond apparently wanted to shop his creation around to other channels in the hope of continuing. But when hoping to enlist his stars Lumley and McCallum they begged off, feeling they’d done all they could with the roles and convincing him that the show couldn’t have ended on a better, if downbeat, high.

Sapphire and Steel were unassigned but remained a cult classic through nostalgic recollections, a partial repeat on British satellite channel Bravo, and VHS and DVD releases.

Twenty years later, Big Finish Productions released three ‘seasons’ of Sapphire and Steel audio dramas, starring the mighty David Warner as Steel (McCallum was living full-time in Hollywood at this time) and Susannah Harker (Lumley didn’t want to reprise her role).

I haven’t had the pleasure of hearing these but they were apparently very popular and well-received.  Big Finish no longer have the license and don’t sell them anymore, but I live in hope of tracking down some second hand-recordings one day.

Different elements: David Warner and Susannah Harker voice Sapphire and Steel
in original audio adventures from Big Finish.

Earlier this year it Wellington-based Luther creator Neil Cross announced that he was in talks with a British Production company to revive Sapphire and Steel.  Exciting news, but to me part of the series charm was that the original series was ephemeral, only able to exist in our reality for a short time.  A brief but bright flare of brilliance in the early 1980s when Time broke through and we had to depend on two sharply dressed strangers who refused to explain themselves, and left us knowing as little about them as we did when they first appeared. 
I doubt something so determinedly cryptic could be made now, when mainstream audiences appear to need everything spelt out before moving quickly on to action and effects scenes. 

But I’m very happy to be proven wrong.

(I'm heavily indebted to the excellent Horror Etc podcast for unearthing a great deal of this information)

In their elements

“One wore a grey suit, the other wore a blue dress, and that’s as much as we knew about them.” David McCallum

It’s also said that David McCallum and Joanna Lumley had the same hair in Sapphire and Steel, just at (slightly) different lengths. That’s a very cheap shot, it’s too easy to poke fun at the fashions of a programme which premiered over 35 years ago.

It’s also a programme which has never seen a repeat on terrestrial television and steadfastly refused to explain itself even when it was on air. It remains as enigmatic as its lead characters, and although every episode is available on DVD there is very little in the way of background (or foreground) analysis beyond other people’s recollections.

I’m not going to parrot them, I’m going to bore you with my own.

The programme was made sporadically between 1979 and 1982 (apparently because of the limited availability of its high profile lead actors) and my recollection is that it’s NZ screening followed my friends and I through our college years. We loved it, of course-it was right up our street, mysterious, scary, thought-provoking. Although for some people it just seemed to be provoking. I distinctly remember my Dad giving up part way through an episode with a frustrated “What’s it about!?” I read recently that even Joanna Lumley had a spectacular sweary fit over the industrial-grade crypticness of the lines she was given to say.

I think its sheer opacity appealed to us. We quickly cottoned-on that there weren’t going to be any easy answers (or answers at all) and certainly no expensive effects (even in 1979 that magnificent title sequence was considered ‘ropey’). With Sapphire and Steel you had to set off into the night with your mind wide open; go dark or go home. The grade was rated ‘uneasy’.

But we weren’t alone, we had an Invisible Man and a new Avenger with us. They weren’t the warmest of guides, in fact Steel was generally abrasive and rude to everyone, but we all fancied the timeless Joanna Lumley and Sapphire was undoubtedly better with people. Although you always got the impression that our heroes considered having to deal with the humans cluttering the places they were sent to was the most difficult and irksome part of their ‘assignments’.

So that brings us to the nature of our two leads. Everything we’re ever told about them is in that title sequence, which is voiced with such stern authority and accompanied by such an imposing horn section that we miss the fact that it’s only compelling gibberish. Who is ‘assigning them’? Where do they come from? How do they arrive where they need to be? What’s with that blurry ‘head wear’ in the background of the opening titles? Why are half the ‘medium atomic weights’ listed not actually elements? How did this programme even get made?*

I think I must have a very literal (or unimaginative) mind because just as I never questioned that Pi really did spend all that time in a raft with a tiger, I never doubted that cold, hard McCallum was Steel and beautiful, cool Lumley was Sapphire. That is to say they weren’t code-names or designations, our stars were literally playing the physical embodiment of those substances, anthropomorphised and brought to life. It might be childishly simplistic, but makes as much sense as any other explanation (and the characters do state that they’re not human).

So, that’s our protagonists. We’re told that their enemy is Time. Rather than treating it as a medium to travel through as every other programme on TV did, here time was a force, and apparently a malevolent one which needed to be contained. Time could break through into the present if there was an anachronism present, a trigger as steel called it. Ancient Nursery Rhymes, old photographs… my parents bright orange ’70’s formica kitchen bench would have had Sapphire and steel working overtime. The creatures which roamed the corridor of time looking for ways to break through were embodied in different (and usually inexpensive) ways: a faceless man, ghostly roundhead soldiers, Joanna Lumley opening her eyes to reveal a living darkness, pitch-black contact lenses providing one of the programme’s nastiest shocks…

Dealing with these threats was equally ephemeral – no car chases, explosions or fist fights here — the effective stagey-ness of the programme was complimented by the cerebral ways Sapphire and Steel would eventually resolve the crisis and restore the status quo. I’ve always responded well to that in the figures I make my heroes, although here their victories always seemed only partial or temporary — fitting I suppose when your enemy is Time.

When the end came it was an inside job, the titular duo deceived and trapped by powerful, but notoriously unstable, transient elements. I joked that being trapped forever with Joanna Lumley couldn’t be too bad but the reality was that the very final scene, Sapphire and Steel gazing hopelessly from the window of a service station cafe as they receded into a starry eternity, was a gut punch ending which no-one who saw it ever forgot.

Well, it's a good thing we've got that chess set to pass the time...

Allegedly there were plans to release them the following season, but in an equally inexplicable move the very popular programme was dropped amid television corporate takeovers. It seems fitting that a series which began so mysteriously left us in exactly the same way.

For me the biggest enigma remains our stars. Even in 1979 I could recognise that Lumley and McCallum had cache and usually appeared in very expensive transatlantic productions. (McCallum could even still be considered a movie star). I could also see that Sapphire and Steel’s budget wouldn’t cover the coffee bill on their usual gigs. The programme was scheduled around their availability and surely spent all its money on them. But to me it seems akin to Brando doing a soap opera in his prime (or Robert de Niro doing Rocky and Bullwinkle. Oh, hang on…) How on earth did the programme makers pull off such an incredible casting coup with almost non-existent resources?

But what ever it took, it was well worth it - Lumley and McCallum completely and utterly carried Sapphire and Steel - convincing, compelling and colossally cool.

Friends and I weren’t cool at all, but loved the programme so much we gave each other our own element designations. I was a redhead, and a bit bendy, so quite naturally became ‘Copper’. Another chose ‘Carborundum’ due to a perceived abrasiveness and a third friend with legendary powers of flatulence was christened ‘Sulphur’. Difficult to imagine what kind of mission such a lacklustre team might be despatched to, although I believe we might just about have held our own against the notorious belligerent flying swansdown pillows in Assignment 3.

*I can’t help myself. I’ve recently re-watched some of the programme and done some research, so I’ll be following up soon with a more factual, behind-the-scenes post which might answer some of these questions. Possibly.

Assembly Line: Part Five - The Dread Baron

Remember that nice Mr Frankenstein from the previous film?
There is absolutely no trace of him here.

Cushing's piercing blue eyes are cold shards of ice, and everyone he meets in this film suffers from the encounter. The reality of the Baron being the true Frankenstein monster might have been implied in the past, but here it is explicit. Murder, blackmail even sexual violence seep from beneath his urbane and deceptively slight exterior and our sympathies quite naturally lie with almost everyone else in the film. 

Except, Frankenstein Must be Destroyed, again unlike the previous film, is unquestionably Cushing's show from start to finish. He gives full vent to  an utterly irredeemable and sociopathic characterisation, summed up by Thorley Walters bumbling Police Inspector (who never comes close to cornering his quarry) as  a "Mad and dangerous medical adventurer".

The sound effects do all the work in this scene...

The plot is so engaging and so well performed that we forget we're watching a Frankenstein film without a surgically created creature stumbling around - Freddie Jones' extremely sympathetic portrayal as brain transplant patient Dr Richter/Brandt hardly counts.

I have to come back again to the question of the Baron's hands, which he appears to have full use of again.  If I was to nerd logic this wildly inconsistent series into a continuous story I'd wonder about the two or three instances here where the Baron administers a slap and the poor recipient reacts as if they've been hit by a brick - at some point could he have surgically replaced his own hands, perhaps with constructions in part a little harder than flesh?

Carl and Anna are about to wish they'd never met 'Dr Victor'.

Veronica Carlson gives a well observed and tragic performance as Anna, and is really put through the wringer in this film. Being left to face the wrath of her lodgers when the Baron forces her to evict them, becoming his personal barista and then suffering like no Hammer heroine has before when a burst water main pipe in her garden exposes a corpse which she must then quickly conceal, all the while being showered in cold water and mud.

Teeth chattering so hard that she thought they might break, Carlson was rescued by Roger Moore of all people.  Filming The Saint in a neighbouring studio, he let her use his dressing room to recover: in a hot bath with a glass of brandy.

Less amusing is the scene between her and Cushing which Hammer Executive James Carreras, himself under pressure from American distributors,  insisted be included at the last minute. The Baron's assault on Anna is an entirely unnecessary excess out of character and step with the rest of the film - and as intensely reluctant as the actors were to perform the sequence they both imbue it with more conviction than it deserved. Carlson still recalls Cushing's extreme sensitivity through the whole ordeal, taking her out for a meal so they could broach how to best get through it.

Moving on from this brief scene, the film as a whole is held up as one of Hammer's best, a summation I would unhesitatingly agree with.  I think it is the best of the Frankenstein series so far, and despite being one of the later entries would recommend it as a good starting point for someone interested in dipping their toes into Hammer's pool of Kensington gore.

There are two more films to cover, (each very worthwhile in their own unique ways), but the Hammer Frankenstein cycle could have ended with distinction, and very satisfactorily, here - providing a fitting end for the wicked Baron. 

Or does it?

"...You must choose between the flames and the police, Frankenstein..."

Swiss Army Wife

You can't move around here for hammering and sawing most weekends, each month.  I live with a DIH expert - 'Does It Herself'.

The first NZ Gardener project, Dovecote by Rose, Doves by me...

At least a couple of weekends each month are becoming increasingly devoted to bouts of creativity and sometimes farcical photo shoots.

Paint and brushes are involved, but it's not me - it's my polymath spouse who this year became a regular columnist for New Zealand Gardener.  While I pedal my meagre scribblings for free she is commanding a double page colour spread in a glossy magazine each month.

Of course I'm thrilled for her, and constantly astonished by the meticulously constructed and elegantly realised carpentry projects which she appears to conjure into sturdy three dimensions directly from her mind.

I would still be drafting preliminary drawings while she is busy sawing-up lengths of timber and quickly forming the skeleton of a construction she can already vividly see in it's finished form.

If it's not obvious, this is a kind of magic to me.  I could draw you a mean dovecote or wood shelter, but probably never build one - certainly nothing so well-made and fitting so perfectly together as Rose can.

A seletion of 'Tool Belle' pages from Your Weekend

The process actually began a couple of years ago, when the Your Weekend magazine editor wanted to introduce a regular DIY column and, on the strength of articles I'd written about our recent house build, asked me if I was up to it. I had to admit that I wasn't, but I knew someone who was...

And so 'Tool Belle' was born, a two page column which ran every month for a couple of years, ending when Rose decided to bow out with a change of editors.  She felt that she'd done everything she could with Tool Belle, and the projects were taking up an increasing amount of time in the weekends and new ideas harder to come up with.

Some time afterwards, New Zealand Gardener got in touch.  Unlike Your Weekend this is a long-established monthly glossy magazine.  What drew Rose back, apart from slightly more money, was the emphasis on garden-based projects.

Like 50% of the Tool Belle articles, these projects are entirely sponsored by Resene, and so the final construction needs to be suitable for painting. They tend to be larger- scale, more complex carpentry-based assignments and so Rose has developed  relationship with the local timber merchants.

Each project has  'easy to follow' step-by-step instructions -
and most are photographed in our neighbour's beautiful (and sheltered) garden.

On accompanying her on these raw material purchasing missions, the timber yard assistants always used to direct their questions to me; dealing with a woman was somewhat outside their experience.  Those days are well and truly over now.    

In their interaction with what must appear to be a deluded, but determined, lady life-styler, their reaction who has gone from disbelief, to wry amusement, to eventual acceptance bordering on respect - now offering useful tips and recommending new tools for her to buy.

A winter planter, with chickens.

There's no doubt that these projects take up a lot of time, but I'd surmise that they are also very rewarding, and very practical.  The articles appear to be well-received as well, at least one reader having built a wood shelter for themselves.

Enough from me, here's a selection of wooden wonders (click to enlarge)...

Looking in on Classics: Part One - Tempestuous Planet

William Shakespeare invented Star Trek via one of history's best Science fiction films, and for our first Classic film night we watched the point where the Bard and Chekov met.

I was caught on the train last week with nothing to do.  For once I didn't have 'homework' and I'd left my book at home.  It was desperate, so I watched an Adam Sandler film.  Don't worry this blog is absolutely not going to be about Pixels, but rather, what my wife and I watching it led to.

Being totally unpretentious, unlike myself, Rose was quite happy to while away an hour, chuckling at the few funny parts and happy just to be entertained during a boring commute.  Whereas I, watching an ageing, expanding Sandler deadpan his way through a film which has one good idea and wastes talent like Sean Bean, Brian Cox and Michelle Monaghan unforgivably, hated myself a little bit.

I know I willingly consume more than my fair share of what many people would call utter rubbish, but I couldn't help but think that there are so many truly good films out there... if we could gain at the very least distraction from this one, wouldn't we get so much more out of making an effort to see some of the greats?

And so 'Classic Film Night' was born.  Convincing Rose that I wasn't just going to make her watch Hammer (as wonderful as that would be) we drew up simple guidelines.

The time period was to be anything before the 1990s and the chooser was to select a film which the other person hadn't seen before.

Being the one with the at-home film collection I got to go first, and knew exactly what I was going to dust off.  I couldn't remember a time that I hadn't loved 1956's Forbidden Planet - but how was it going to hold up almost sixty years after it was made?

What surprises me first of all is that on some primal level I'm still scared of the famous Monster from the Id.  What you can't see and have to imagine is always more frightening than what you are shown applies, except we glimpse enough of the embodiment of Morbius's dark side for Rose to correctly point out that it looks somewhat like the Warner Bros cartoon Tasmanian Devil.  Although the electric fence scene is literally the stuff of childhood nightmares, but it's the climax, when the audience and the characters realise that no amount of metal doors and barriers are going to keep it out which really does it for me.  

There is no where in the world to run to when the monster is your own primal and destructive impulses, actualised and powered by the entire world itself.   Even more than this, it's the sound design, the unsettling electronic score and sound effects - particularly the howling of the Krell generators and the roaring of the unstoppable beast itself.

While living in Britain we hugely enjoyed a musical called Return to the Forbidden Planet.  This took Shakespeare's The Tempest, widely acknowledged as the direct inspiration for Forbidden Planet, and then recombined it with the film itself, adding barnstorming hits from the 50s and 60s to produce a fantastic night's entertainment. 

This prepared Rose slightly for what to expect, but at times I feared the pacing of the film might lose her.  This definitely dates Forbidden Planet, as does some of the attempts at comedy relief and the extremely uncomfortable scenes involving one of the Space Cruiser crewmen attempting to take advantage of Altaira, a teenager who has never seen a man other than her own father before.  Walter Pidgeon seems to struggle with any scene requiring a display of emotion, although the implied inappropriate feelings he might have for his own daughter give his character more weight than is obvious on screen.

Nice trick, Doctor Morbius, but why are you thinking about your daughter in a minidress?

But on the plus side the immortal Robbie the Robot continues to earn his cult status and the production's ground-breaking effects and production design still turns heads even today.  But for me, the revelation was Anne Francis. 

The stars of  Forbidden Planet

I know it's tragic but I have to acknowledge that when I first saw this film I would have barely noticed her, whereas now it's difficult for me to look anywhere else.  Rose's observation that Altaira had 'sturdy thighs' alerted me to the fact that we were watching this DVD on the wrong aspect ratio, and Ms Francis' lithe figure was restored at the touch of a button.  My ageing lechery aside, she gives a genuinely good performance, working with very little and wearing about the same to give Altaira depth and conviction.  Francis went on to enjoy a very long award nominated career, and it's not difficult to see why.

The verdict for our first Classic film night was positive, Rose deciding that she enjoyed this return to the Forbidden Planet, the combination of Robby, costume design and storyline earning a pass. 

Next week is her choice, a Franco Zefferelli film which inspired her as a youngster: Brother Son, Sister Moon.

These few paragraphs are worth clicking on and reading,
written by someone who was a kid in 1956 when this film was released.

Time and Relative Dimensions of Ape

I once saw Doctor Who in a film whose plotting makes the current series look wholly unremarkable and conservative by comparison.

Doctor Who is back, and during the flurry of frenetic out-of-sequence incidents which serve as season openers these days, (yes, I've become a grumpy old fan) I found myself wistfully recalling a time when his appearance was a complete surprise.

Back when I was at school they used to show films at lunchtime - actual cinematic releases (of a certain vintage) which were usually screened over two or three consecutive days in winter.  One otherwise ordinary Monday we listened  unenthusiastically as our 4th form teacher read the morning notices, but he suddenly got my full attention with the final item that the lunchtime film was King Kong.

Already being a geek my first thought was "Which one?"  I assumed the 76 version was a safe bet, and friends and I paid our 50 cents at the door, finding seats in a surprisingly packed AV room and expecting a grubby pre-pubescent fix of Jessica Lange.

The production was in colour but opened with a model submarine passing over the camera before the unforgettable title King Kong Escapes blazed across the screen.

As I say, I was a geek and knew exactly what we were in store for, and the film didn't disappoint. 'Suit-mation' antics abounded, with karate-kicking dinosaurs, variable model effects, a giant robotic Kong and badly dubbed Japanese actors.   This was the second and final Japanese Kong film from the legendary Toho Studios, and so gloriously awful that it was actually great fun. Each lunch-time session was packed out and for the first time ever a repeat evening screening was arranged.

But my favourite part was the ripple of surprise which passed over the teenage audience when all-American hero Rhodes Reason deduces the identity of the villain behind the sub 'spy-fi' evil scheme which the vaguely ties the series of monster suit scuffles together:

"... it's that international Judas, Doctor Who"

There is an infamous quote from a producer at the BBC when having first heard the proposed title of their new science fiction series for children, stating he thought Doctor Who sounded like a Chinese restaurant.  Casual racism aside the name has perhaps always had a vaguely oriental sound (in fact, the character my or may not be named as 'Dr. Hu' in the King Kong Escapes end credits, depending upon which source you refer to).  So it's all simply a strange co-incidence, of course.

Except... distinguished character actor Hideyo Amamoto is decked out in a silver wig, occasional cape and something very like an astrakhan cap, looking for all the world like an evil eastern first Doctor.

Doctor Who (left) and Doctor Who

This film was made in 1967 and the impact of the television series and the Cushing films would have been felt, particularly in Britain where the soundtrack for King Kong Escapes was recorded.

So, a clear and present link between King Kong and Doctor Who? As wonderful as that would be, unfortunately, it seems not.

King Kong Escapes was actually based upon, of all things, an American animated children's series(the first ever to be produced in Japan) called the King Kong Show.

Running from 1966 to 1969 it was here that the character of  Dr. Who was introduced, and he looked like this:

Dr Who

The King Kong Show was heavily influenced by another British institution, down to the surname of the family who befriend the titular giant ape: Bond.  And the recurring villain with his Ernst Blofeld tendencies appears to be simply named in reference to the first screen James Bond villain: Dr No.

So, with a Roger-Moore-like eyebrow waggle, 007 wins the day again?  Perhaps, but still, looking at Mr Amamoto again you really have to wonder...

"Turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so,  hmmmm?"