Tony Bollockbrain brings us the best of the new releases from the film capital of nowhere in particular.
Citizen Kong (RKO)
Orson Welles' searing verité exposé of the American media system. Robert Armstrong stars as an adventurer who visits a remote South Seas island and brings back a monster that sets New York on its ear. Also starring Fay Wray as Linda Lusardi.
Alien in Wonderland (CBS)
Also billed as The Return of the Ploughman's Lunch.
In one of the grossest moments in mainstream cinema, the scene where the white rabbit jumps out of Alice's stomach used real cream!
An American Werewolf in Paris (Paramount)
Thrill to Gene Kelly as the moon-crazed lycanthrope, Lon Chaney Jr. as Jack Buchanan and Peter Lorre as Cyd Charisse. Features that romantic Left Bank moment where Kelly slobbers all over the heroine's frock.
Cinema in pictures
Sylvester Stallone and Kathleen Turner relaxing on the set of "Noah II: Revenge of the Woodworm," a major new release due out next summer.
The Cinemagoer beats the censors! The scene that was cut out of "The Tallulah Bankhead Story" (1972)
A scene from Howard Hawks' 1937 production of "Mopsy, Flopsy and Cottontail" starring George Raft as Mummy.
Meryl Streep posing on location for her film hit "Out of Africa" (1985)
A rare moment of lyric passion in Russ Meyer's adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's "Women In Love," presently being filmed in a scout hut in Digbeth. Robert Maxwell and Clive James share this intimate scene.
High drama in the Spanish Main as Captain Eric Blood (Basil Radford) engages in bloody duel with Jasper Yellowbeard (Claudette Colbert) in Talbot Rothwell's thrilling bodice-ripper "Coo Lummee!"
Video Review
This week's reviewer is Police Inspector Arnie Nunfondler of the Queen's Own Mounted Freemasons.
I Spit In Your Gravy (1979)
An idiosyncratic portrait of the Brothers Roux. A high school convention of cuisine minceur freaks falls victim to the blood-crazed madnesses of mousses aux girolles and galettes suisses. Cissy Spacek stars as the rissole.
The Last Remake of Phillip Jenkinson (1977)
A small-scale cinematic classic starring John Hurt as an outrageously camp television magazine presenter thrown into the slough of despond after misguidedly demonstrating the techniques of French kissing on his pet kitten.
Abbott & Costello Meet Austen Chamberlain (1943)
Join our lovable clowns in a period romp as Bud is mistaken for German statesman Gustav Stressemann, a confusion compounded by Lou's quite remarkable resemblance to Lord Crewe. Adolphe Menjou, as Stanley Baldwin, lends a degree of urbanity to this knockabout farce using the Treaty of Locarno as a backdrop.
The St. Lone Ranger's Story (1937)
C.B. de Mille's classic revokation of the legend of the great saint. Forty-seven extras were injured in the filming of the Hannigan's Truss Boutique scene. Clara Bow steals many of the quieter scenes. Look for the cameo by Erich von Stroheim as Fazackerly, last of the Lancashire Giants.
The Last of the Red Hot Mongols (1957)
Yul Brynner stars as Sophie Tucker, the blood-crazed megalomaniac who ravages the whole of Asia, setting entire communities to risqué ballads. Look out for King Oliver as Vasili II, Tsar of all the Russias.
Absolute Binliners (1986)
A musical extravaganza starring Patsy Kensit, David Bowie, someone else, that bloke in the loud suit from the Club Legover advert, forty-seven extras from a C.B. de Mille picture, twelve thousand failed interviewees for the part of Pippi Lonstocking and twenty-nine thousand advertising agents in an all-singing, all-dancing, all-consuming mess set in the London of the 1970s. Don't miss Sir John Gielgud as Malcolm MacLaren and Denholm Elliott as Bill Grundy.
Blue Peter The Motion Picture (1985)
John Carpenter's homage to washing up liquid bottles and sticky back plastic. You'll never look at sensible scissors quite the same way again!
The Desert Song (1912)
The original version directed by Vasili Goncharov with Maxim Gorki as the Red Shadow. A seminal work which influenced Eisenstein's "Пять идти в Киеве" ("Five Go To Kiev"). The original score by Wally Whyton (for years supplanted by a Leonid Brezhnev and the Crickets album) is played by Andrei Sakharov on a paper and comb.
Directing By Numbers (1988)
Peter Greenaway invites us to tarry awhile in the warm glow of obfuscationist cinema. Bernard Hill stars as Rondolfo, an itinerant newt-sexer and underwater saxophonist who falls in love with Gertrude (Debbie Greenwood in a fun fur and cardboard viking helmet), a Bessarabian cat meat saleswoman and mistress of Wotan, a chartered accountant from Crewe.
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