The Making of Slap Shot - a new book on the 1977 sports comedy

I've added a review of the 2011 Jonathon Jackson book to my piece on Slap Shot. Rather than spread items about the same film all around the blog, it's all been included in my 2008 review of the film.

Having just read the book and watched the blu-ray for the first time, I've updated and expanded my review... Slap Shot (1977)

Ian Hendry - the actor's first biography

An acting talent, a premature death - too typical of the time

You might know Ian Hendry from playing opposite big names like Sean Connery in The Hill (1965), Catherine Deneuve in Roman Polanski's Repulsion (both 1965) or Michael Caine in Get Carter (1971).

Ian Hendry (without sunglasses) in Get Carter

You might know him from cult, sci-fi or horror films. Astronaut training with Roy Thinnes on the Journey To The Far Side of the Sun (1969, UK title Doppelganger). Facing his destiny and his reflection in one of the Tales From The Crypt (1972). Picking a sword fight in a pub with Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter (made in 1972 but not released until 1974). Trapped with Leo McKern learning the secret of Damien: Omen II (1978). One of the teachers tangling with the Children of the Damned (1964). Because of all these roles, and more, Hendry is a familiar face, synonymous with seemingly effortless, poignant, tough performances.

Alan Badel and Ian Hendry in Children of the Damned

Perhaps he's best represented as the leader of the critics' circle that was picked off by Vincent Price in Theatre of Blood (1973). Besides standing out against an amazing cast, he also gets an amazing, bouncy sabre duel with Vincent Price.

Edward Lionheart (Vincent Price) really doesn't like bad reviews

Hendry landed far more leading roles in TV series, where he impressively racked up over five hundred episodes and TV plays. He left after the first ever season of The Avengers (1961), leaving Patrick Macnee to become the star. He quit in search of film roles, one of many turning points in his life that may not have been for the best. He met John Steed again in an early episode of The New Avengers (1976, To Catch A Rat) playing an over-the-hill secret agent.

Patrick Macnee and Ian Hendry in The Avengers

This new biography of Ian Hendry, the first ever, tells the turbulent story of the actor's life and how aspects were often reflected in his many screen roles. His increasing alcoholism becoming a large factor in his suitability for subsequent work.

But this is a fierce defence of Hendry's abilities as well as a diary of his declining health. The tragedy is that this was a familiar lifestyle of the time, so many dying prematurely because of unrecognised and largely untreated addictions. In the book, Hendry's problems are constantly compared to other alcoholics whose acting careers somehow suffered less. It's interesting for the many stories about the similar behaviour of many of his contemporaries and co-stars, who also aged visibly because of nicotine and alcohol dependency. Something all too evident now that we can review entire film careers so easily.

In Theatre of Blood as the critic paying for his scathing reviews

Much has been written about the "hellraisers" of the 1960s and 1970s, usually biased towards the actors who (somehow) managed to keep working successfully, like Richard Burton. But here is an actor with similarly destructive habits and a comparable talent who never got as big a break.

A fascinating read, highlighting his near misses and a growing sense of what might have been. This celebrates the body of work he achieved, points out much that I'd missed and sensitively narrates his increasingly disastrous private life. Hendry's painful decline is capped with an incredibly sad death that has haunted me since. A terrible way to go and a formidable warning against the glamour of hellraising.

Gabriel Hershman's extensive research was backed with an impressive roster of interviews with those who knew or worked with Hendry. A thorough filmography lists all his known appearances and throughout the book, it always notes their availability (or existence).



'Send In The Clowns - The Yo Yo Life of Ian Hendry' on sale here from AbeBooks.

Author Gabriel Hershman has his public Facebook page here. There's an interview with him about the book here on RetroSellers.

There's also a professional-looking fan website for Ian Hendry here with rare photos and YouTube links. They also have a Facebook page regularly updated with contemporary press clippings and more photos.

Book review: ROCKY HORROR writer Richard O'Brien interviewed

An extended conversation that was nearly lost forever!

Author Phil South recently unearthed the tapes from an interview with Richard O'Brien over a couple of days in 1985. He's now transcribed and published it all as a book, Wild And Untamed Thing! - The Lost Interview.

Richard O' Brien's immortality was already assured if he'd simply played Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). But he also wrote the original musical and composed all the songs. He might also be familiar as the host of TV adventure game show The Crystal Maze. Every few years I'd wonder what he was up to and he'd pop up in another cult happening, like Flash Gordon (1980) or Dark City (1998).

The fearsome Mr. Hand in Dark City

But after all this time, I still didn't know what he was actually like. He was rarely on TV, not as himself anyway, and I can't remember any extended interviews. Which makes this newly discovered interview a must read. Conducted ten years after the movie of Rocky Horror (which he continually refers to simply as "Rocky"), this two-day conversation covers his early life, his work up till then, and his philosophy on all aspects of show business. Phil fills in any gaps about anything less familiar, as well as bringing us up to date on what Richard has been up to since.

I knew he was from New Zealand, but not that he'd grown up on a farm, where he also learnt to ride horses. Another surprise was that I probably saw Richard on stage in London when I was eight years old, at a production of Gulliver's Travels at the Mermaid Theatre in 1969. Mike D'Abo (of Manfred Mann) was the lead, Richard in the supporting cast. All I can recall was a giant hand that scooped up Gulliver and carried him offstage!

Besides a careful and thoughtful approach to acting and writing, O'Brien is very sensitive to harsh criticism, especially on projects he's worked hard on, like the movie follow-up to Rocky Horror. Shock Treatment suffered from not having Tim Curry return to this not-quite sequel. Richard outlining the plot for an actual sequel are still tantalising though.

Unlike biographers that comb over old interviews and newspaper stories but never talk to their subject, printing what may or may not be true, here's an extensive interview that's friendly, polite enough not to go in with hard-hitting questions that could easily lead to an abrupt close. It's a conversation that goes as far as the interviewee allows, but with its honesty intact.

I was expecting tales of a rock 'n' roll lifestyle from the debauched sixties and seventies, certainly exuded in Rocky Horror, but curiously Richard stresses his enjoyment, at the time, of the value of his family life and fatherhood. While Rocky Horror is a fantasy encouraging uptight heterosexuals to let their hair down and try out a few alternate sexual activities - one-night stands, gay sex, fetish wear, cross-dressing (I think that's everything), I was expecting Richard to be a character from this fantasy, rather than a twice-married father. But also, having seen snaps of his various cross-dressed and satanic alter-egos in gay magazines through the years, I know there's more to him than is presented here.

This struck me as rare to see an interview without an editorial spin and a huge headline banner of the juiciest quote. This presentation reminded me not to expect the author to pry, and of course I'd only like to hear about Richard in his own words. But still I'd love to know more about the inspiration for the many sexual identities presented in Rocky Horror. To me, it was a groundbreaking and positive representation of many alternatives (soured only by the climax). How did it all begin? 

After the interview, Phil adds a thorough update on what Richard has been up to since that time in 1985 adding an astonishing postscript on the next surprising stage in Richard's life, now that he's back living in New Zealand.

I feel I know Richard much better having read Wild and Untamed Thing, but there's still more of him to know.



Now available for Kindle in the UK and US for a silly low price...

The writer/interviewer is on Twitter - @Phil_South

THE SORCERERS (1967) - a new book with the full story...

The Sorcerers (1967) is best known as the film Michael Reeves directed just before Witchfinder General (1968), and as one of Boris Karloff's last films.

Witchfinder General caused a clash with the censors, despite Reeves being friendly with the chairman of the board. The cut version was still criticised for its violence (this was before The Wild Bunch and A Clockwork Orange). It was also seen as a turning point in horror film and in British cinema, raising high hopes for Reeves' future films. But early in 1969, he accidentally died of an overdose of prescription medication.

David Pirie's excellent 1973 overview of post-war British horror films 'A Heritage of Horror' took the genre seriously and defined its auteurs, devoting a chapter to Michael Reeves. He's rightly been celebrated ever since, with several biographies of a director who only made three complete films. The brilliance of Witchfinder General compensates for the fact that The She-Beast and The Sorcerers were made on very small budgets, though all three are analysed as the body of work of an auteur.

I keep returning to The Sorcerers because it has a good cast and an intriguing story, but it's ageing badly, as was its star, Boris Karloff. Notice that the film has been demoted to DVD-R status in the USA (pictured above). But historically, The Sorcerers is important because its financial success made Witchfinder General possible. It's also a film to be studied, rather than watched. For hunting traces of future greatness from the director.

Johnny Mains' new book 'The Sorcerers' (pictured at top) aids our research with a chance to read John Burke's original script before the director rewrote it, as well as making a plain case that Burke wasn't credited accurately onscreen.

This means that 'A Heritage of Horror' unwittingly got this detail wrong and, being such a rare book on the subject, the mistake was still being repeated nearly twenty years later. For example, in the article on Witchfinder General in Cinefantastique, Aug 1991, Michael Reeves and Tom Baker are credited as writing the script for The Sorcerers, based on a novel by John Burke (the same assumption that Pirie had made). But it had never been a novel, and Burke had written much of the script, but his onscreen credit is only 'From an idea by John Burke', ('an idea' could refer to something as minor as a pub conversation).

Burke had in fact expected to be credited among the scriptwriters, just as he'd seen it printed on the front page of the shooting script. As a result, students of film would credit the ideas in Reeves' films to 'his' scripts. This error was only eventually corrected in 2003, in Benjamin Halligan's biography of Reeves.

This new book provides the proof, with reproductions of letters received by John Burke, as well as a complete reprint of his original story treatment and the version of the script before Reeves and Baker amended it. It also includes the relevant chapter of Halligan's biography to give a complete story of the making of the film.

The producers were interested in horror films made by young new talent - they'd successfully hired Roman Polanski for Repulsion. To try and focus Reeves on a possible project, he was introduced to John Burke, who had two scripts the young director was interested in.

Intriguingly, the one that didn't get made, 'The Devil's Discord', was to star Christopher Lee and Raquel Welch. When that project fell through, and Karloff agreed, Reeves reverted to Burke's other script, 'The Sorcerers'. This could actually have been a lucky break - another gothic horror with Lee could have been lost among the rest.

The Sorcerers' story was originally called 'Terror For Kicks', where a trio of scientists recruit a violent youngster to become an unwitting guinea pig for their experiment. They give him a potion that promises intoxication without a hangover. It works, but while he's under the influence, the telepathic scientists are sharing his every experience. They can also control his actions, literally living vicariously through him, without the risk of getting caught...

Script treatments can be as little as a single page, but John Burke's outline is 21 pages long. His expanded 'original story and screenplay' is 120 pages long, and even includes shot descriptions.

But Karloff wanted a more sympathetic role, so Reeves and his associate Tom Baker (not the actor) rewrote the script to accommodate him, while Burke was by then busy on a TV series. The three scientists became two, now also a husband and wife in conflict over how this new power should be used. The potion became an electronic device (a far more visual, psychedelic scene). The rewrite added more visual elements and diluted others. The level of violence and the scientists enjoying their subject having sex certainly had to be toned down to get past the censor.

Interesting to learn that Reeves' approach to The Sorcerers was influenced by another low-budget British horror that he'd seen, The Projected Man. While he was an avid moviegoer, I thought his tastes were better than that, or perhaps it was just research...

It's fascinating to see how the story evolved and how much of Burke's script made it into the final version. Besides the entire original treatment and script, there are reprints of letters received by John Burke about his fees and credit on the film, if there was any doubt about the injustice here. There's a brief word from Burke's widow, a great contextual introduction to the story by Matthew Sweet, prime trivia from Kim Newman and, touchingly, Johnny Mains' account of the discovery of the script during his friendship with the late author.

The book can be ordered here but is a limited run of 500 copies. Meanwhile, the editor is currently working on compiling the best new British horror stories of 2014! News of that can be tracked here.

(Vangelis' soundtrack to Missing and our cat Willow helped with the writing of this article. Thanks of course to Johnny Mains for giving me an advanced peek at the book.)