My first horror movie books - early looks at the genre

There are now books, magazines and websites about every aspect of horror movies. But when I was first getting into horror movies in the early 1970s, there were only a handful of books on the subject. These were also among the earliest to take the genre seriously. With limited pocket money, I had to wait to own these hardback reference books when Christmas or a birthday rolled around. I could save up for the paperbacks.

While I re-read them all, I'd often look at the photographs. They helped put most of these films on my 'must see' list. I fixated on them, trying to imagine what the films were going to be like. This sometimes lead to disappointment, the same way that lobby cards and posters outside the cinema often hyped up elements that weren't actually in the film. I'm obviously very fond of these few volumes for giving me my horror education, but they hold their value - many of their photos haven't reappeared in other publications, making them still worth a look. Remember that much publicity material for colour movies were only ever in black and white. The lack of colour photos for colour films reflects this. From their publishing dates, it looks like the mid-1970s saw a steady trickle of new books, as well as reprints of the few existing titles on the subject.

At the time, I ignored some of the weightier books which were only available in (expensive) hardbacks, aimed at academic use. With the accent on text and analysis and far fewer photos, I passed on The Haunted Screen (silent horror in Germany) and An Illustrated History of the Horror Film (1967, Carlos Clarens). Though I know many horror fans started off with those groundbreaking works. For me, it was the following editions that started me off...

A Pictorial History of Horror Movies

by Denis Gifford

My very first guide to horror films was this large-format hardback first published in 1973. A well-researched history starting with the earliest silent short films of Melies, ending just before The Exorcist. The ilustrations were as important as the text - I think I've memorised all the captions. It includes rare photos from Hollywood, British and even Japanese horror films - this was my first glimpse of Horror of Malformed Men. There are a few full page glossy colour pages with a fantastic shot of Dr Phibes sitting at his organ, a Bela Lugosi poster for The Mystery of the Marie Celeste. and poster art of Claude Rains (before the mask) from Phantom of the Opera.

Horror Movies

by Alan Frank

Concentrating on the (then) modern decades of the 1960s and 1970s, Horror Movies was another large hardback that offered more photos and more colour. The striking cover photograph is from Dr Terror's House of Horrors. Like many overviews of the genre, it's mainly a stream of themed plot synopses and reviews, rather than analysis. Also, these British books pay as much, if not more attention to horror from the UK. The photos are what's important, including two more great full-page colour Dr Terror publicity shots inside.

Horror in the Cinema by Ivan Butler

An affordable pocket-sized 1970 reprint of this early 1967 guide, has a more international view of the genre. It includes a choice checklist of must-see horrors, whetting my appetite for Onibaba and Kwaidan. It includes chapters on the Roger corman Poe cycle, and Roman Polanski's early films, championing the importance of Repulsion to psychological horror.

The House of Horror

A medium-sized paperback dedicated to Hammer Films, with more photos than text. Little more than synopses for all of Hammer's horror films up till then (indeed the studio stopped production soon after). Great photos, including a fair amount of female nudity and some spectacular glossy colour reprints of some explicit posters (including Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde) several of which never even got filmed.

Classics of the Horror Film by William K. Everson

A large weighty 1974 hardback, dedicated mainly to vintage American horror. Everson makes personal, authoritative choices, dedicating a chapter to each of his favourites. Again this is illustrated with rare black and white stills, special attention given to silent movies like Faust. His addition of a chapter on newer movies like The Exorcist looks like a grudging afterthought. He highlights some very weak entries like Dr Cyclops and Murder By The Clock - they may have their moments but I doubt they're in anyone else's top tens. He also nominates London After Midnight without having seen it (it was already lost by then).

Everson followed up with 'More Classics of the Horror Film' in 1986, including a look at recently rediscovered classics, informing many of us of the alternate Spanish version of Dracula (1931) and the colour prints of Doctor X and Mystery of the Wax Museum.

Horror & Fantasy in the Cinema by Tom Hutchinson

By now I was getting new books just for the photos. This one at least included more sci-fi movies (which were also getting more specialist coverage). Some of the colour pages include a beautiful full-page hand-coloured publicity photo of Fredric March as both Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. There's a also brutal b/w shot of Peter Cushing cutting up a topless victim from the 'continental version' of Corruption, a version I'm still waiting to see.

Monsters and Vampires

by Alan Frank

Obviously Alan Frank's Horror Movies sold well, and lead to this 1976 photo-heavy volume. With a spectacular still from Dracula Has Risen From the Grave on the cover and a gruesome portrait from Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell on the back, of the monster with dirty rags stuffed into his empty eye sockets! Like Horror Movies, this has great-looking stills, but many are from very poor movies like The Frozen Dead, Doctor Blood's Coffin and The Mutations. Compensated for by some rare glossy colour shots of a green Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein.

Movie Monsters

by Denis Gifford

Lastly, three books I found in the local library. This one divided all the existing Movie Monsters into categories. It was an expensive small-format hardback (1969), before being reprinted in paperback (1974). The whole volume is printed on heavy, glossy paper adding extra quality to all the black and white stills, again biased towards classic Hollywood. Gifford also compiled a similar volume called Science Fiction Film.

A Heritage of Horror

by David Pirie

This book focused my admiration for British horror movies, with intelligent analysis and categorisations. The links Pirie makes between Night of the Demon and Night of the Eagle, the 'Sadian trilogy' of Peeping Tom, Horrors of the Black Museum and Circus of Horrors, are hard to forget or deny. He includes a chapter on Amicus films and centres his predictions on the future of British horror on the work of Michael Reeves (which indeed happened for a while) including a lovely still of Reeves on location with Vincent Price. The dramatic black and white photographs are carefully chosen, with an unforgettable shot of a zombie pushing its way out of a grave (from Plague of the Zombies). The exhaustive appendix, listing his choice of British horror films, gave me something else to aim for. There are hardback and paperback editions (from 1973) with the above cover art. A Heritage of Horror was widely admired for many decades, though very hard to acquire. I think it would have been far more influential had it been republished more often. When it was finally reprinted in 2007, Pirie took his chance to update it. But I think his key observations were considerably diluted by the new material. I'd recommend you try and hunt down the original.

Movie Magic by John Brosnan

Special effects are a key ingredient for horror, sci-fi and disaster movies. The late John Brosnan left no genre unturned as he enthusiastically produced this overview of the key special effects techniques in use before Star Wars. This is a fascinating and entertaining overview on early (non-digital) visual effects. I loved this book. After Movie Magic (the hardback edition is pictured), behind-the-scenes articles in Cinefantastique magazine thankfully became more technically interested in visual and make-up effects (before Fangoria and Cinefex took over in 1979). 




Before any of the above, one of the only sources was American Cinematographer, which of course only covered Hollywood films. The magazine began its spectacular run all the way back in 1920! The 1970s saw a revolution in the horror genre, where realism replaced gothic, chain saws replaced poisoned teacups, and the boy next door was a more likely threat than a Romanian count. By the end of the decade, the success of new horror and slasher movies had given rise to internationally sucessful and available horror movie magazines. The drought was over. But when I've dug them all out, I'll take a similar look at my earliest horror movie magazines. Unlike the USA, in mid-1970's London, Famous Monsters of Filmland was hard to find...

BARBARELLA (1968) the Ultimate Guide - Part 4: Missing and Alternate Scenes!

Over the years, I've seen references to different versions of Barbarella. But while there is little hard evidence, some of these photos provide tasty clues to the Barbarella you don't see in the final film...

ALTERNATE TITLE SEQUENCE

The only existing alternate scene that I know of is the other title sequence. Over the same shots of Barbarella's zero-gravity striptease, there were differently animated titles that covered up more of Jane Fonda's nakedness. Originally the US version had less nudity, but the current DVD master uses the more revealing version.



ALPHA 7 SPACE-DOCK

This lobby card presents a puzzle. Barbarella is in the costume she wears at the start of the story, for leaving Earth's orbit and travelling to Planet 16. But through the main window, above her piloting controls, is someone standing outside! This looks like an unknown character, in costume in a specially-built set. This looks too complex to be just a publicity photograph.

An oxygen atmosphere outside the spaceship infers that Alpha 7 is docked. Certainly the film begins rather abruptly, with no idea of where Barbarella has just come from, or why she needs to enter her spaceship left drifting in space. I'm guessing this isn't on Earth.

The only other character in this part of the story is a voice on the radio that clears her to leave the solar system. A voice from the 'Base'. My best guess is that Barbarella docks into a space base (to refuel?) before departing. Perhaps the budget wouldn't stretch to the required modelwork. Perhaps the docking was too rude!

THE OTHER DILDANO

A very funny scene with Dildano, played by a young David Hemmings (below), is memorable for the hand-to-hand sex scene and his secret hideaway full of broken gadgets. But who is this character from the same scene (above)?

Here are more photos from the same scene, when it was first shot with a different actor. The scene originally had an Italian actor in an entirely different costume. The other notable difference is that Fonda is naked for the hand-to-hand sex scene.

Here's Dildano presenting Barbarella with the secret key.

Looks like Dildano got more amorous in this version.

A pair of publicity photographs taken during this alternate scene.

SHARING A BED WITH THE GREAT TYRANT

A scene rumoured to have been left in the international version, but too saucy for America, was a love scene with the Black Queen (Anita Pallenberg). The following photos hint at how the scene looked. Despite being used in various lobby cards, I've not confirmed that this ever reached any finished version of the film.

These shots, show the protective bubble has formed around the bed, placing it in the story after the Mathmos has engulfed them. In the film, you can briefly see Barbarella pushing the Queen away from her, on Durand Durand's viewscreen.

PUBLICITY SHOTS?

Publicity shots and press photos could be posed on any available set. Often looking nothing like what was actually filmed. But they can also taken while a scene is in progress. All we can do is make an educated guess.

Pygar in the Queen's bed inside the Mathmos?

Barbarella saluting. When she salutes the Earth President in the film, Barbarella is naked and facing the President on the viewscreen of the statue, here behind her.
So who is she saluting? Is this just a rehearsal?

Pygar kissing the Queen - this doesn't happen in the film, and you'll also notice that she is wearing his wings! Presumably an example of using props to stage a publicity shot. Lastly, a publicity photo that gives us a rare look at Barbarella in the sunlight.
There are no exterior shots in the film.

Elsewhere in The Ultimate Guide to Barbarella...

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: The movie's Cast and Characters
Part 3: Barbarella's many costumes

Part 5: The movie's set designs

BATMAN (1966-1968) - TV still not on DVD

BATMAN
(1966-1968, TV, USA)

120 TV Episodes? Wholly absent, Batman!

At a time when almost every TV show is now on DVD, it's amazing that Batman isn't. One of the funniest, most imaginative and influential shows of the 1960s. This is priceless, must-have TV, with outrageous plots, impossible detective work, Bat-villains, Bat-gadgets, Bat-bloody-everything and knockdown Bat-fights guaranteed in every episode.

I love all aspects of Batman - the newer darker, brooding visions of Batman, the animated adventures, the under-rated Batman Beyond of the future... but that doesn't diminish my love for this much less serious incarnation. The three Batman seasons are top of my DVD wishlist, TV or film. This classic series was more carefully made than many movies of the time, with wittier scripts, more way-out design and better cast lists! Many movies have unsuccessfully tried to copy it's tongue-in-cheek style, when spoofing comic characters, but I don't even think Flash Gordon (1980) is nearly as good, despite using the same scriptwriter, Lorenzo Semple Jr.

Like the best Pixar movies, the series appealed to all ages. The straight-faced heroics and fast pace was exciting for children, the tongue-in-cheek humour and pop culture style amused the adults and all important teens. Thankfully, Batman avoided being laden with a laugh-track. As a child, I thought I was getting a serious comic-book adaptation! Batman's hardware and Batcave certainly looked good enough.


The Batmobile with flames firing out the back, together with the huge Batcave still look highly desirable. I've sat in both... well possibly it was a replica car. And all that's left of the Batcave is the outside entrance, filmed in Bronson Canyon, L.A. Inside the Batcave, every piece of equipment had a large sign, no matter how long-winded - a straight-faced gag that pre-empted the comedy likes of Airplane.


Adam West as Batman nailed the fine line between Bat-heroics and bellylaughs in the classic first story, when he battled The Riddler. Striding alone into a nightclub (Robin isn't allowed in, being underage), Batman discreetly orders a glass of milk at the bar, not wanting to "attract attention". The success of his character is the reason Adam West is now a regular character in Family Guy.

The accuracy of the expert casting extends to all the regular characters. Burt Ward as Robin is just a fantastic foil for West. With Madge Blake (Singing In The Rain) as Aunt Harriet installed in the Wayne Mansion to make the household look less suspiciously men-only, which paradoxically wasn't a problem in a boys comic. Neil Hamilton started off playing Commissioner Gordon completely straight, despite all the hijinks. Stafford Repp is gracelessly slow as Chief O'Hara - one of the many Irish policemen in this very sunny Gotham City. Alan Napier (Isle of the Dead) sets a high standard as an intelligent, resourceful and impeccably-mannered Alfred the butler. Season three introduced Yvonne Craig (In Like Flint) as the perky Bat-girl, riding around on a purple frilly Bat-Bike. All three Bat-stars have subsequently written biographies.


The casting of Batman's guest villains defined many of their characterisations for decades to come - for instance Jim Carrey owes much to Frank Gorshin's original Riddler. Besides the weekly guest Bat-villains were many celebrity cameos like Sammy Davis Jr as well as from other TV shows. Special mentions to Burgess Meredith (Rocky) as The Penguin, David Wayne (The Andromeda Strain) as The Mad Hatter, George Sanders as the first Mr Freeze, Eartha Kitt as Catwoman (above), Liberace (!) in a convincing dual role as Chandell (an example of villainy created just for the TV show), and especially Victor Buono (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane) as King Tut.

I read a story recently that the series was inspired by Hugh Hefner re-running an old Batman serial at the Playboy Mansion where a Fox executive was sufficiently inspired by how well it went down. The cliffhanger format from the serials was then used to close the first episode in every two-part story. Robin dangling helplessly over a pit of tigers or crocodiles, Batman being squeezed by two walls of spikes, Bruce Wayne helplessly strapped to a gurney as it speeds down a hill road towards a cliff edge... These became famously and inventively ridiculous, built up by William Dozier's unique voice-overs - "Tune in next week, Bat-fans. Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel!"). For more about the 1940s Batman serials, look here.


This is all a world away from the modern presentation of Batman. Tim Burton's 1989 reboot had to work hard to distance itself from the show's long-running comedy reputation. But it was a logical approach in the 1960s. Comics were just for kids and heavily policed for violence, forcing Batman into space with the harmlessly weird Batmite, friendly pet Bathound and surreal (rather than scary) villains like Mr Mxyzptlk. Superheroes were taken less seriously in sixties mainstream, always presented as comedies or self-aware spoofs, rarely as successfully as Batman. Modesty Blaise was treated like pulp, Barbarella spoofed itself... Later The Hulk and Spiderman TV shows aimed for something more serious, but without a movie budget. Batman's production team tried to spin-off with The Green Hornet, but the heroics didn't work without the humour. However it produced a famous crossover story, where Green Hornet and Kato meet Batman and Robin. Sounds greater when you know that Bruce Lee played Kato.

Presumably there's been a problem preventing this series from ever hitting home video - it was absent from VHS and now DVD. The primary-coloured sets and costumes, carefully shot on 35mm, make it a fantasy wish of mine as a Blu-Ray set, even with 120 half-hour episodes. But surely there's a stack of money to be made if the problems are sorted out. This DC Comic character's TV debut was produced by 20th Century Fox Television, the current movie franchise is Warner Bros. Batman must be caught in legal limbo somewhere in the middle.


The show span off a movie, confusingly called Batman, made in 1966 during the show's first season. The film is proof of the popularity of Adam West's Batman and has always been available on every video format, up to and including Blu-Ray. No one's going to confuse West's tights with black kevlar, but the same name doesn't help it standout in listings or shelves.


In the movie, Batman faced off against Joker, Riddler, Penguin and Catwoman. It introduced the Batcopter, Batbike and Batboat, as well as Batman's legendary encounters with a shark and a bomb. But there's now a generation under the impression that this is all that Adam West's Batman ever did. If you like the movie, there's a lot more where that came from.


The series can now only be seen on TV, if you're lucky, at the mercy of modern scheduling, which now cuts down programmes of this vintage - ad breaks are much longer than they were in the 1960s. Besides running time cuts, there are sometimes jumpy film splices between scenes (TV stations used to broadcast off film, cutting the prints to suit their own ad breaks). Through the years some scenes can go missing because of seasonal references (like Santa Claus turning up) or censorship (Robin being eaten by a giant clam). Not to mention the end voiceover being butchered because the next episode is rarely coming up "next week" any more.


All in all, trying to enjoy a full-length, unblemished episode on TV has been difficult for decades. In the last three complete showings on British TV, each one has been cut around in different ways. I'd like to see it uncut again please. It should also look as good as Paramount's beautiful classic Star Trek Blu-Ray sets, made in the same era.

We want Bat-DVDs! 60 hours of the most fondly remembered, vividly colourful, tongue-in-cheekily written TV shows ever. In the meantime, it's the bootleggers that are making the money...

More about the awesome 1966 Batmobile...

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971) - James Bond in Las Vegas

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
(1971, UK)

Sean Connery bows out of the Bond series

In the first ten years, the James Bond film series was unlike any other - more action-packed, more stylish, more violent, more sexy. They set the trend in the 1960s - countless other movies and TV shows tried to copy the format and the style. (Conversely, in the 1970s, the Bonds seemed to follow trends - blaxploitation, kung-fu, Star Wars...).

When I started movie-going at the end of the 1960s, it was a confusing time to start following Bond. The first three movies that I saw on first release had three different actors playing 007: the only George Lazenby (On Her Majesty's Secret Service), the 'last' Sean Connery (Diamonds Are Forever), and then the first Roger Moore (Live and Let Die). At the same time, it took me years to catch all the previous Connery Bonds on re-release.

Years before TV could afford to show them, all the Bond films kept being re-released, sometimes in double-bills - one ticket for two two-hour movies! They commanded multiple viewings years before home video arrived. But like the Planet of the Apes films, I couldn't possibly see them in the correct order, only as and when they appeared in local cinemas. I saw Diamonds are Forever in early 1972, at the impressionable age of ten, when I still took the stories at face value. When 007 is being cremated alive, I could see no way out. I thought he'd die for sure. The horrifying scene was later echoed in Scrooged.

The series had just taken a knock. On Her Majesty's Secret Service had been an unusual Bond movie - it stuck to the novel, avoided using gadgets, and had a uniquely dramatic story of Bond falling in love! It had been perceived as a failure, mainly due to the lack of Sean Connery. Diamonds Are Forever marked Connery's triumphant return and threw gadgets back in to the mix. Playing it safe, the script threw away most of Ian Fleming's novel and resorted to a retread of Thunderball.


Bond is called in to follow a series of murders connected to an international 'pipeline' of diamond smuggling. The trail leads him to Tiffany Case (Jill St John) in Amsterdam and together they fly to Las Vegas where the crimes change from grand larceny into global blackmail.

Another angle to keep audiences extra-happy is to inject an unusual amount of humour, paving the way for Roger Moore's style of Bond. Besides most of the main characters playing for laughs, there's even a comedy sheriff - a dry run for the Sheriff Culpepper in Live and Let Die. The script is certainly witty, carefully ensuring that even the scene changes are ironic.


The highlights of the film include the most complex car chase in the series so far, as Bond steers a red Ford Mustang in rings around (and over) the police along the old Vegas strip (in Fremont Street). There's a sillier chase, that I loved as a kid, that was obviously designed to make me buy a diecast copy of the unwieldy Moon Buggy (a must-have boy-toy bestseller that year). Both chases show up American cars as being overly heavy and unable to take corners without skidding or crashing.


There are some punishing and realistic fight scenes for Connery. One is filmed entirely in a small elevator, echoing the inventiveness and brutality of his showdown in a cramped train carriage in From Russia With Love. A later scene, where he tackles two female gymnasts, is cited as a main influence on Ridley Scott's filming of Pris' attack on Deckard in Blade Runner.


But by the end, the faked exploding helicopters and useless machine-guns start to look lazy. The use of an actual oil rig as a location sounds like a good idea but turns out to be low on exciting possibilities. It felt like an anticlimax compared to Blofeld's hollow volcano in You Only Live Twice. An oil rig doesn't look like a Ken Adam design classic either. My instinct is that the second-unit action was below the usual standard.


The use of endless locations make the film. Las Vegas and the Nevada desert looked like another planet. Never ever thought I'd get to see it first hand. When I finally visited Vegas, I made a point of seeking out some 'Diamonds' locations. The casinos visible in the car chase scene. The alleyway off Fremont Street where Bond tips his car onto two wheels. Circus Circus casino where trapeze artists used to swing high above the slot machines and, happily, where a water balloon stall still stood, where Tiffany Case once squirted. We also visited the Hilton, used as Willard Whyte's 'home' (the extra tower was painted in on top, the glass exterior lifts were actually those outside the Landmark Hotel). Haven't yet found Whyte's spectacular country lodge, which looked like a Ken Adam set, but was in fact a real location nearby! Adam designed a most outrageous Vegas hotel suite, complete with a totally impractical glass bed, lined with a goldfish tank.


Starring opposite Connery is my favourite incarnation of his arch-enemy Blofeld. Played by Charles Gray, he's perfect as an evil supercriminal who actually could win. Gray and his superb voice gained another kind of immortality as the stony-faced Narrator in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and he'd previously personified satanic evil as Mocata in Hammer's superb The Devil Rides Out.


While Diana Rigg had been a formidable partner for Bond, the producers threw subtlety to the wind and shamelessly amped up the jiggle factor here. Jill St John is good at comedy, but gets to sport a parade of ultra-jiggly costumes. In a fight, she's one of the most useless Bond girls - I mean, who throws a trifle? Natalie's younger sister Lana Wood also seems to have been cast for her formidable assets.


Blofeld gets two killer sidekicks this time around, Mr Wynt and Mr Kidd, who are lovers like their characters in the novel. Crispin's dad, Bruce Glover, does well not to make his gay hitman too swishy, unlike much TV comedy of the time. It's not often you get to see gay men holding hands in a mainstream movie either.


Despite mostly being shot in the US, there's only one black actor who gets a speaking part - a fact not compensated for until the next film, Live and Let Die. Adding insult to injury, there's also a scene where a young black woman transforms into a gorilla. What were they thinking?

There's a belting theme tune from Shirley Bassey and the John Barry soundtrack confirms this an authentic Bond film from start to finish, helping soothe over the cracks in the story. A wonderful remastered and expanded CD soundtrack was recently released.


Diamonds Are Forever is available as a two-disc DVD special edition, with plenty o'extras, including some rare deleted scenes that explain some of the plot holes and continuity errors, and reveals Sammy Davis Jr's cameo. Presumably, once it's given the frame-by-frame restoration treatment, it will presumably get the Blu-Ray treatment too.


An original theatrical trailer is here on YouTube, with moderate spoilers...

A few of the movie locations for Diamonds Are Forever.

Taking the Kool-Aid: three horrifying visions of Jonestown

You want horror? Maybe this is too much...

Real horror, actual horror, is deeply upsetting. It would be wrong if it wasn't. But it's misleading that we describe ourselves as 'horror fans'. Perhaps this is why strangers treat us more cautiously. Perhaps they are worried that we might enjoy the horror of actual tragedies. Of course, what we mean is supernatural horror, fictional slashers, impossible monsters... rather than the extremes of actual suffering. I just want to warn you that this story shouldn't be treated lightly.

I've seen many documentaries and recreations of tragic events, but this one proved to be powerfully depressing. It wasn't simply that hundreds of people died, it was that they'd taken their own lives, all at the same time, because they were told to. One Sunday morning, late in 1978, I saw photographs of dead bodies, possibly for the first time. In a news magazine there were pages of colour photographs of the aftermath of Jonestown. If I'd seen photos like that before, they hadn't been in colour. Hundreds of people face down in mud. I still remember the brightly coloured t-shirts, the fact that there were children as well as adults, and I mistakenly assumed that the victims were South American.

I recently decided to learn more about the Jonestown 'massacre', prompted by the showing of a recent documentary on TV. I'd not considered the movie versions, assuming they were exploitation flicks. Curiosity now compelled me to see how the events were depicted and exploited. This is the type of incident that gets described as 'something out of a horror movie' and inevitably leads to one being made. But these dramatisations beg the question - is this really the way it happened? Were they actually made into horror films?

The first to be released was Guyana: Crime of the Century (also called Cult of the Damned) and was sold as horror. The events then appeared as a TV mini-series in 1980, Guyana Tragedy. From the cover art, I thought this was also exploitation, but the cast and the writing credentials are quite impressive. More recently in 2006, was a new documentary titled Jonestown. Interviews with survivors, relatives and eye-witnesses to the life and works of Jim Jones. I've watched all three.

GUYANA: CRIME OF THE CENTURY

a.k.a. Cult of the Damned

(1979, Spain/Panama/Mexico)

Dull recreation that eventually packs a punch

There's a fine line between exploitation, and drama based on real events. The timing of this film and the TV movie both seemed far too soon to be at all respectful. In terms of accuracy they both appear realistic, but the exaggerated accent on torture and gunplay places Cult of the Damned firmly in the category of exploitation.

The fateful events at Jonestown climaxed in November 1978. As the news reports began, the scriptwriters must have started taking notes. The first finished version of this film, 110 minutes long, premiered only 10 months after the event! Their knowledge of the facts would have been limited, while investigations was still in progress. To cover themselves, they resorted to fictitious character names, even calling the Guyana encampment 'Johnsontown'! 

This was directed by Rene Cardona Jr. Unsurprisingly, he was the scriptwriter on another true-life dramatisation - based on the story of the Andes air crash that resulted in cannibalism, Survive was also sold as horror. The result here is mostly lacking in drama or tension, even when you know what's going to happen. The first 90 minutes are very dull - the director only seems to take an interest whenever there's violence, like the opening scene with the splashiest onscreen pistol suicide I've seen.

It follows the events from Jones' church in San Francisco onwards. Stuart Whitman plays Jim Jones as an unconvincing bible-basher, no more enthusiastic than the average TV evangelist. Given such a meaty role, Whitman does very little with it. Yvonne De Carlo (The Munsters) and Bradford Dillman (Bug!) take their roles more seriously as Jones' colleagues. Gene Barry (The War of the Worlds) plays the congressman who visits 'Johnsontown', unwittingly triggering the fateful final events. Not a bad supporting cast, considering.

I can't say what's inaccurate about this version, but it's very noticeably a community of white people who travel down to Guyana, when in reality there was a majority of African-Americans. The jungle scenes are convincing to look at, right down to the look of the buildings and the chilling sign set up behind Jones' throne. It read 'Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it' (see the screengrab at top). The film relishes in showing a few torture scenes and makes the most of any shootings, filmed with a handheld camera, as if the victims were being chased at close quarters. 

The climax is simply staged but horrific, the most extended depiction of the events in the three versions I watched. But it succeeded at being the most powerful, possibly because I watched this first. It ends leaving many loose ends, with even the demise of many central characters not mentioned at all. Cult of the Damned also describes incidents not mentioned in the TV movie or the documentary. Is this because they never happened? One scene has the congressman's delegation demanding entry into a large warehouse, only to discover it's an overcrowded, under-equipped hospital. A turning point as they realise that 'Johnsontown' has serious problems...

VCI have released the film on DVD from a soft-looking transfer, letterboxed widescreen, with a muffled English-language audio track. This is the longest version of the film that was made. I think it's the original length cut that was released in Mexico. It was then re-edited and shortened for a US release.

GUYANA TRAGEDY: THE JIM JONES STORY

(1980, TV, USA)

An impressive and accurate dramatisation

Three months after the US release of Cult of the Damned, came an impressive mini-series (shown as two back-to-back TV movies, I believe). The script was by Ernest Tidyman (The French Connection, Shaft), using the real names of characters and locations.

The research was partly based on a book and the news reports from The Washington Post. Many of the dramatised incidents are also described in the 2006 documentary, Jonestown - a testament to the accuracy of the research. Unlike the linear narrative of Cult of the Damned, Guyana Tragedy starts with Jim Jones in Jonestown, on his throne, haunted by memories of his lifetime.

With a three hour total running time, this story goes all the way back to his childhood. As Jones successfully built up a congregation in a rundown Indianapolis neighbourhood, he faced open and violent racial prejudice when he refused to restrict who was welcome in his church. His enormous success lead to a string of grateful property donations which built up his funds for a series of idealistic projects, centred around and communal living. He first set up an alternate society in the redwood forests of California, before moving to San Francisco. 

Jones starts off as an inspirational figure, an outspoken socialist, and a challenger of racism. But ends up as a paranoid, power-mad dictator, over-reliant on drugs, punishing and sexually abusing members of his congregation. Whenever a scandal breaks publicly, he runs away, ending up in the South American jungle in a specially built community. When Jones believes the authorities are closing in, he simply talks his followers into the abyss. His ranting is based on an actual recording made at the time.

The climax is more dramatically staged than Cult of the Damned, with an impassioned eleventh hour challenge to Jones' decision. Powers Boothe (Southern Comfort, Frailty, Sin City, 24) rightfully won an Emmy for his performance as Jim Jones, though at the time he wondered if he'd ever work again.

Levar Burton (Roots, Star Trek: The Next Generation) plays one of the congregation, as does Irene Cara (the same year as the movie Fame). Angela Cartwright (in the same year as Alien) plays Jones' wife. Brad Dourif (Alien Resurrection, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) plays his attendant doctor, Diana Scarwid (Psycho III) plays the doctor's wife. There's also Ned Beatty, Randy Quaid, Meg Foster (early Cagney and Lacey), and a very brief appearance from James Earl Jones.

I was glad to see Rosalind Cash - she was one of the highlights in The Omega Man, who I'd always hoped would get far more work after playing such a strong and impressive role. It's good to see her in another high-profile role.

The quality of the cast demonstrates what a major TV event this was, but the DVD makes it look like grindhouse that's not worth restoring. Hopefully such a major drama as this exists in better shape than this DVD from VCI. The soft image is the least of its problems. There are constant jumps and film faults. Missing frames, film damage, video faults and poor audio. This would look bad on VHS.

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JONESTOWN: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PEOPLES TEMPLE

(2006, USA)

Eyewitness accounts of Jim Jones' life and death

I thought this documentary would contradict the old dramatisations, but it told many of the same stories as the TV movie. At least here there are interviews with many of the people who knew Jones at every stage of his life, even when he was a child. I was surprised that there were survivors of Jonestown. 

There are still insights and surprises about Jones' life, not least his abuses of both his power and his parishioners. It details each of his projects, all of which he ends up running away from until there was nowhere else to run. The final mass suicide being described by eyewitnesses losing their entire families is of course both shocking and moving. 

With a tragedy of this scale, I'm still struggling to understand how it could happen. The documentary gives valuable clues. For instance, Jones kept his followers sleep-deprived, and successfully isolated them from each other, even their own family. This infers he'd discovered (or, I'm guessing, borrowed) some efficient methods for keeping his followers faithful. Failing that, there were armed guards who patrolled the compound, supposedly to keep danger out...

The documentary is of course the most reliable and accessible way into the story, but I felt that both the dramatisations made more of an impact in the final scenes. I had to see it all to believe it could happen. However he convinced them, the fact remains that the majority of victims willingly drank poison, which was mixed in with a fruit drink. Today, the reference to "taking the Kool-Aid" are Jim Jones' only legacy. A rather flippant catchphrase derived from a truly horrendous event.

Jonestown the documentary is widely available (there's a trailer here on the UK site for Artefact Films) but I was surprised at how poorly treated the Emmy award-winning TV series looked on DVD. It's a powerful film with an excellent cast that still deserves an audience. There are several different DVDs out there. I hope that they are all better than the one (from VCI) that I saw (pictured above).

I previously compared documentaries to dramatisations of the Charles Manson murders and the 1972 Andes plane crash that inspired Survive! and Alive. 

(Update April 2012: while the "taking the Kool-Aid" phrase was still being used on TV and in the political arena at the time of writing this, I've only just learned that the victims were actually drinking Flavor-Aid on that fateful day, a product similar to Kool-Aid.)