14.6.09

beyond the valley of the dolls (1970)

The Carry Nations an all-girl rock band move to Hollywood to make it. Through the singers contacts they soon find success, and decadence, when they fall under the spell of the Svengali manager Z-man. Each of the three girls soon become prey to the machinations of the LA scenesters. All to a hip and happening sound track. But will they be able to claw their way out of the cesspit once they realise what they have fallen into?
Russ Meyer's big studio break and he pulls out all the stops in his energetic, imaginative, tautly edited and idiosyncratically scripted expose of the Hollywood scene. The studio reigned in Meyer's usual excesses making this a far better film for it, but even so, you name it and it happens here, all in a blink of an eye, an eye with a twinkle in it!

dateline diamonds (1965)

Lester Benson (Kenneth Cope) is the manager of the Small Faces who gets blackmailed into using his frequent trips to a pirate radio station as a way of smuggling diamonds out of the country.
A would be noir featuring safe cracking and diamond smuggling against the background of a pirate radio station. Gives lots of room to show and play a variety of groups and singers of the day, including the Small Faces, Kiki Dee and the Chantelles. But it's really a run of the mill b feature, (second billed to Doctor In Clover), that is of interest only for the inclusion of the music. If cool mod sounds in black and white appeals then give it a look, but the plot is hardly going to enthrall you. Just remember when watching this that little under six months previously Stevie Marriott was a jobbing actor trying to be a pop star (Be My Guest), now he was the real thing!

the shakedown (1960)

Augie (Terence Morgan) is released from prison, returning home to find his turf has been taken over by Gollar (Harry H Corbett). With no one and no where to go he befriends a down at heel photographer (Donald Pleasence) and sets up in business with him in a studio and model school to train young women. But he cannot help himself and he soon develops an after hours sideline in 'artistic studies' for amateurs, blackmailing some of them.
An under the radar gritty British film noir, that deserves to be better known. What you see is what you get, this is so lean it's almost anorexic, and all the better for it. A taut thriller featuring some of the best British character actors of the time and the fine features of Hazel Court.