A weird videogame idea I had - British Intelligence.

I am trying to think of things to do. I wrote a videogame, but because the video game industry is a closed shop to non-coders, pretty much. I wanted to do a sort of John Le Carré-esque video game, a sort of affectionate spoof of that Cold War "tea drinking and discussing traitors in metaphor" genre.

Hope you enjoy.

PLOT

Rostov, Soviet Union, 1979 - Jerry Craven, a British agent is staying at a hotel when he is given a phone call by an English-accented voice. He is told to leave Rostov immediately. He escapes through a forest, and is chased by dogs. He finds a cabin and meets a young woman, only to be released back and savaged by dogs.

Cut to London, 1979 - at a railway station, outside a café, Alec Calder, an ageing British spy eats his lunch from a plastic lunchbox, he unwraps an apple core in tinfoil. Inside the core is a radio. He speaks into it. On the other side of the radio is his boss, Nimrod who urges him to get to MI5.

Calder gets out on a train, and lands at Wyldwych Station. In the station key cutter and shoe repair unit, he meets Jacobs, a man in overalls who leads him at the back of the keycutter's, and we found ourselves in an underground bunker - MI5, there we meet Nimrod. He tells us Craven is missing, possibly dead but his body needs to be recovered, for he had the contents of a microfilm tattooed on his side.

The plot of the game is to find the body of Craven, begins with an arrival at a ferry in Rostov, you walk through the quiet village, where you attempt to avoid a checkpost - by either sneaking onto a bus, stealing a passport, or by climbing through and avoiding being shot. Once you get past the checkpoint, you reach Craven's hotel, then at the hotel, you meet Svetlana. You attempt to kill her, but she instead arrests you. While being driven in her van, you escape, and then scour the forests, where you have to avoid the dogs. As you look around, you find Craven's gun, and you can shoot the dogs, and the guards, while you come across Craven's body. Now, you must find a way to get the contents of the tattoo off his body. The safest bet is taking a photo, as carrying his body would arouse suspicion, even wearing a stolen guard's uniform. Once you get past the checkpoint, you meet Craven who informs you that the body isn't his but a Soviet guard he disguises as himself so he could defect. Now, you have the choice - either reveal to MI5 that Craven  is alive and that the Russians have the contents of the microfilm, kill Craven, claim the corpse of the dead man was Craven and hope the Russians weren't told or keep it secret.

When you return to London, Nimrod will (A.) be apologetic and say there's nothing you could do and tells you that he knew Craven was too clever to be killed, or (B.) tell that you are lying and force you to immediately inform him the truth, where you must tell him that Craven is alive. In this case, you are fired.

PROLOGUE.

SUBTITLE/SUPERIMPOSITION:

"Rostov, Czechoslovakia, 1979".

EXT. ROSTOV, CZECHOSLOVAKIA - EARLY EVENING, 1979.

We see a rainy brutalist Eastern Bloc city in the 70s, a grand old 19th Century hotel at the centre of a crumbling plaza of ageing, once beautiful, now battered buildings and horrible Erno Goldfinger-esque flats. This is not a realistic Eastern Bloc, but the stuff of Le Carré. For all we know, it could be Glasgow.

Rains pours down. The CAMERA swoops in and CLOSE-UPS on a window.

INT. HOTEL BEDROOM, ROSTOV, CZECHOSLOVAKIA - EARLY EVENING, 1979.

In a basic, minimalist hotel room, rain noisily pitter-pattering against the window with horrid brown wallpaper, and equally horrid orange carpet, we see a pained-looking figure sitting on a bed, in a cream roll-neck sweater and blue jacket. This is JERRY CRAVEN. He is about fifty, lived-in, close-cropped black hair, panicky-looking.

The phone rings. Jerry picks it up, quick but cautious.

JERRY CRAVEN

(whispery, quite high voice, Edinburgh aristocrat)

Er, yes?

A deep, soothing voice echoes from the other side.

LIONEL NIMROD

(OOV, suave, friendly, with a slight edge of the sinister)

Is that Jerry Craven?

JERRY CRAVEN

(relieved, still panicky)

Er, yes, er, yes of course. Nimrod?

LIONEL NIMROD

(OOV, friendly)

Yes.

JERRY CRAVEN

(worried)

What is it?

LIONEL NIMROD

(OOV, stern)

Where there is sea, there is sun.

JERRY CRAVEN

(confused)

Er...

LIONEL NIMROD

(OOV, mock-polite)

We have arranged a holiday for you, Mr. Craven.

JERRY CRAVEN

(smiling, realising)

Right, I see.

EXT. FOREST, OUTSIDE ROSTOV - NIGHT, 1979.

SUPERIMPOSITION:

"Forest, outside Rostov, Czech-Austrian border."

We see a desolate forest of dead leaf-less trees, and a 1950s BUS arrives. Jerry gets off, looking scared, accompanied by an OLD LADY in a mink coat and cat-eye spectacles. The old lady walks off in the other direction, while Jerry goes towards into the forest.

CUT TO:

Jerry is in the midst of the forest, covered in glass. Suddenly, we hear a howling dog. Jerry looks scared. The CAMERA follows him as he runs, shaky-cam style.

SUDDENLY, THE CAMERA PANS ACROSS TO:

Packs of dogs hiding in the forest, growling, ready to pounce on Jerry. Jerry runs quicker, and quicker. He can't stop now. He's too near the border.

GUARDS IN UNIFORM appear - holding dogs. The CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD, a gruff, rough, grey-bearded man in his late forties stops Jerry. Jerry gives him a passport. Then, a dog jumps onto and claws Jerry.

CUT TO:

A WIDE SHOT of the silhouetted forest at night, with Jerry's screams placed over.

CHAPTER ONE.

SUBTITLE/SUPERIMPOSITION:

"Moribund and Excreta."

INT. "ST. HILDA" underground train station, london - morning, 1979.

We see a dirty 1970s Underground Train Station. A greasy spoon café is in the station, behind a row of benches where sits ALEC CALDER, a red-haired, pudgy spy in thick black-rimmed spectacles, wearing a trenchcoat. He holds a plastic lunch box. It is empty. Alec breathes a sigh of relief.

CLOSE-UP ON:

The lunchbox as it opened up. Inside is an apple core wrapped up in tin foil and a few bread crusts from already eaten sandwiches. Alec unwraps the tinfoil. We see a transistor radio wedged into the apple core.

Alec presses the transistor and speaks into this.

ALEC CALDER

(precise, slow, educated English accent with a hint of working class rough)

Borneo calling Nimrod. Nimrod, can you hear me?

Nimrod's voice comes out of the radio.

LIONEL NIMROD

(OOV)

Yes, quick. You're late. Report to Wyldwych at once.

ALEC CALDER

(whispery)

Yes, boss.

The player controls Nimrod from this point on. You can walk towards the café, but as you near it, it shuts for lunch.

A CHEF's big bald Brian Glover-esque head pops out through the café window.

CHEF

(angry)

Spack off! We're closed!

You then walk towards the rail platform. As you reach the end, a carriage arrives and you get on board.

FADE-OUT.

INT. "WYLDWYCH" UNDERGROUND TRAIN STATION, LONDON - DAY, 1979.

FADE-IN.

You, as Alec Calder walk off the tube carriage onto Wyldwych, a similar train station but with a key-cutters and shoe-repair cubicle and a newsstand. As you walk out, the key-cutter, a small Cockney man in his sixties, in green overalls approaches. This is JACOBS.

JACOBS

(trying to be gentlemanly)

May the gentleman enquire into if his shoes are correct?

ALEC CALDER

(smiling)

Jacobs, how thoughtful.

JACOBS

(whispery, cautious)

Nimrod wants you, Alec. Follow me.

You follow Jacobs, as you walk into the back of the key-cutters, which opens up, and through a door.

FADE TO BLACK.

INT. NIMROD'S OFFICE, UNDER "WYLDWYCH" UNDERGROUND TRAIN STATION, LONDON - DAY, 1979.

We see Jacobs and Calder walking through a grey tunnel, down some steps into a large, concrete modernist office, housed in some former train sheds, a disused carriage in the background. In the office, in a traditional wooden desk and chair, is an old man in a wheelchair, hunched over to one side. This is NIMROD.

LIONEL NIMROD

(tired, old, weak)

Morning, gentlemen.

Jacobs and Calder nod.

ALEC CALDER

Good morning.

LIONEL NIMROD

Jerry Craven is missing, possibly dead, shot down by guards in Rostov, along the Austrian-Czech border. It was his mission to bring home the microfilm of plans relating to the design of a Soviet spyship. These plans need to be found before these ships are sent along the channel.

ALEC CALDER

(salutes)

Yes, sir.

LIONEL NIMROD

(stern)

We'll arrange a private flight tonight from Chadspear Airfield to the Rostov river ferry service in Austria. Smithers will give you papers.

ALEC CALDER

(smiling)

Thank you.

FADE TO BLACK.

EXT. DOCKS, ROSTOV, CZECHOSLOVAKIA - MORNING, 1979.

We see a primitive, ramshackle ferry docked at horrid-looking cold docks, by a dirty beaching. There is a car park of Ladas, Skodas, Yugos, etc. Calder walks out, in a trenchcoat and fedora hat, and dark sunglasses. The player controls him as he walks towards

Calder's inventory is activated, where his passport and papers, cameras and his guns are. You, the player then goes up to the checkpoint, a wire fence with some portakabins where some gruff looking PASS GUARDS take them.

The gates open. Beyond the gates is a horrid Eastern European version of Llandudno. You shuffle through and a bus will collect you.

VARIANT:

If you shoot the guards, they will chase you and perhaps shoot you down, and you will immediately be returned to the point you get off the ferry,and if you escape, you will go beyond.

FADE TO BLACK.

EXT. ROSTOV, CZECHOSLOVAKIA - EARLY EVENING, 1979.

We see a tramline running through a busy 1970s town square. It looks more the 1940s though, with  a few 70s cars. You, as Calder walk through a shopping arcade at the side of the large hotel where Craven was staying, down a stairway, the back entrance of the hotel.

FADE TO BLACK.

INT. HOTEL BEDROOM, ROSTOV, CZECHOSLOVAKIA - EARLY EVENING, 1979.

We see Calder walk into the hotel bedroom, where is confronted by Svetlana, a tall, icy sexy blonde woman in a black catsuit.

ALEC CALDER

(curious, quizzical)

Are you supposed to be here?

SVETLANA

(thick Czech accent)

You are Craven's friend, aren't you?

ALEC CALDER

(confused)

Yes, and you are...

SVETLANA

(friendly, cold)

Svetlana Kondolska, I was "helping" Craven.

ALEC CALDER

(angry, grinding teeth)

Where is he?

SVETLANA

(cold)

It was his choice.

ALEC CALDER

(angry)

Stop!

You then activate your inventory, and take your gun out. Before you can shoot, Svetlana stops you.

SVETLANA

(pleading)

Wait! You don't understand.

ALEC CALDER

(steely)

Where is the microfilm?

SVETLANA

(serious)

Craven had it tattooed.

ALEC CALDER

(shocked)

Tattooed?

SVETLANA

(cold)

On his backside. The contents are written on his backside.

ALEC CALDER

(angry)

Where is he?

SVETLANA

(sinister)

Where you are going.

Suddenly, SECRET POLICE burst in with guns and drag you out.

FADE TO BLACK.

INT. VAN - early evening, 1979.

You, the player/Calder is in a van, the driver in the back. You must activate the inventory, get your gun and shoot the lock on the door. The doors swing open, and you jump out into the forest below. You look around for the corpse, as guards and dogs come towards from the guard barracks/checkpoint at the point.

EXT. ROAD, FOREST, OUTSIDE ROSTOV - EARLY EVENING, 1979.

You are now lying in the forest, as the van crashes into some trees behind you. You scour around the forest, looking for the corpse, on your way towards the barracks/checkpoint. Then you come around, near a pylon, the ravaged corpse of Craven, his face torn apart, but his back in perfect condition.

You activate your inventory and take out your camera.

In a POV-style through the lens scene, you zoom in and take a photo of the back of Craven. Now, you must run about and avoid the dogs and guards in a sort of PacMan-type maze, as you go through the checkpoint.

Once you reach the checkpoint, you meet Craven, smiling, in a nice suit.

ALEC CALDER

(shocked)

It's you!

JERRY CRAVEN

(smiling, aristocratic Scottish)

You thought I was dead!

ALEC CALDER

(shocked)

But how?

JERRY CRAVEN

(smiling, light-hearted)

No, that was a guard I dressed up.

ALEC CALDER

(tough)

Why?

JERRY CRAVEN

(pleading)

I have a wife and child here. I have chosen to defect. The microfilm, well, they're only spyships. Very primitive by our standards.

VARIANT:

You now have the choice to either kill Craven with the gun from the inventory and pretend he was dead all the time, let him go and pretend he was dead, or let him go and tell MI5.

INT. NIMROD'S OFFICE, UNDER "WYLDWYCH" UNDERGROUND TRAIN STATION, LONDON - DAY, 1979.

You, as Calder are in the office.

The correct outcome is having let Craven go, and Nimrod will tell you the truth.

ALEC CALDER

(smooth)

He's alive. I let him go. He has a family and child. But I got the microfilm. They are primitive ships, though, I was told, but I'm no technocrat, so I can't tell if he was lying or not.

LIONEL NIMROD

(genial, avuncular)

Good, well, now we have the microfilm, we can now how primitive these spyships they really are. He may be alive, but he won't be any harm to us.

You/Calder walk out and smile.

VARIANT:

If you pretended Craven was dead and let him go or pretended he was dead and killed him, Nimrod will tell.

ALEC CALDER

(smooth)

He's dead. I got the microfilm.

LIONEL NIMROD

(senses you are lying)

You are lying! No matter what the outcome is, you pose a threat to security. You shall give us the microfilm, inform us of the truth and then be forced to resign immediately. 

FADE TO BLACK.

THE END.

And I'm Back! I'm Back, I'm Back, I'm Definitely Back!

Why am I back?
Because I've nothing else to do.

I'm now showcasing various spoof bits of writing here. When my podcast isn't on - soundcloud.com/george-white-70.

A short film wot I wrote.

INT. RADIO RECORDING STUDIO, BASEMENT, LONDON, NIGHT, C.1960.

In a darkened, shadowy, EXPRESSIONIST, NOIRISH RECORDING STUDIO, we see ERIC SHACKLETON, a figure coated in shadow, dressed in a slouch hat, his face obscured, speaking into a large BBC MICROPHONE the size of A MILK CARTON. He is coming to the end of the NEWS BULLETIN that he is recording.

ERIC SHACKLETON

(smooth, silken voice, posh, Received Pronunciation/BBC English, the best newsreader you can imagine)

And finally, in other news, a young boy was badly burnt while playing with fireworks in Crouch End.

CUT - STOCK FOOTAGE of THE BLITZ, LONDON being BOMBED in WORLD WAR TWO, THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN, LUFTWAFFE.

CUT - We see ERIC's face, flames superimposed over it.

FADE-OUT - We see that ERIC SHACKLETON is now scarred, his face misshapen like melted clay, scar-marks all around it. His face moves out of the darkness, or to be more accurate, the darkness moves out of his face, light filling in the gaps.

ERIC breaks down.

ERIC SHACKLETON

(sobbing, melodramatic)

That boy, he know nothing, he knows nothing of the world. I was scarred, burnt in a theatre. My first big role, in the Christmas panto. I was Prince Charming. Then a  Luftwaffe bomb struck through the ceiling and went off in my face. My skin was melted, melted! I empathise for you, boy.

ERIC SHACKLETON presses THE TAPE DECK, stopping the RECORDING.

INT. BBC OFFICE, BBC BROADCASTING HOUSE, day, c.1960.

CUT - We see in a tidy 1960s OFFICE, sitting in a large ARMCHAIR, PATRICK SOUTAR, a huge fat man, with smooth skin bar that of his head. He has bags under his eyes, a wrinkled face, tufts of grey hair on the sides of his otherwise bald pate. He holds the tape up and throws it in the bin. ALF RIDDINGTON, bearded, forty, with unruly, greying hair, relatively handsome but asexual, a bit stiff, an intellectual and a former boxer, comes in.

ALF RIDDINGTON

(genial, Northern English)

What was that, Pat?

PATRICK SOUTAR

(posh)

Nothing, Alf, just the melodramatic ramblings of Eric Shackleton.

ALF RIDDINGTON

(curious, rolls his eyes)

What's he doing now?

PATRICK SOUTAR

(laughing, hands on his shoulders, not taking it seriously)

The latest news bulletin I had him record in his music studio involved a young boy who had been burnt, and he went on again about his wartime injury, and how it ruined his career.

ALF RIDDINGTON

(slightly more serious)

So, you need me then?

PATRICK SOUTAR

(nods)

Yes, I need his address.

ALF RIDDINGTON

(surprised)

What, Shackleton's?

PATRICK SOUTAR

Yes.

ALF RIDDINGTON

Well, his studio, a girl I have as a reader on the Children's Hour that I produce, Tina, she works as a session singer for him on a series of records.

PATRICK SOUTAR

What kind of records?

ALF RIDDINGTON

(easygoing)

Sound-alike records, compilations of covers of hit songs by unknown session bands. That's what he does to keep himself sane.

PATRICK SOUTAR

(deadpan)

Sane? He fails miserably in that capacity.

ALF RIDDINGTON

(laughing)

Indeed.

PATRICK SOUTAR

So, you know?

ALF RIDDINGTON

Yes, 4233 Grice Avenue.

PATRICK SOUTAR

Thank you.

PATRICK SOUTAR nods, and leaves.

fade-out.

EXT. ENTRANCE, GATED COURTYARD, BACK STREET, LONDON, EARLY EVENING, C.1960.

CUT - We see PATRICK SOUTAR, enveloped in a too-small TRENCH-COAT and FEDORA, walking down a PROVINCIAL BACK STREET past a LARGE GATED COURTYARD.

INT. RADIO RECORDING STUDIO, BASEMENT, LONDON, NIGHT, C.1960.

CUT - We see CAROL OTTERBOURNE, an overweight peroxide blonde in her thirties, tightly packed into a leather mini-dress, her cleavage showing, in the RECORDING STUDIO chatting to ERIC SHACKLETON, wearing a sinister featureless black leather mask.

CAROL OTTERBOURNE

(vulgar, Cockney)

Oh, Eric, what is wrong with me?

ERIC SHACKLETON

(smooth)

Carol Otterbourne, you make me laugh.

CAROL OTTERBOURNE

What is it?

ERIC SHACKLETON

(cruel, rude)

I'm sorry but it is your skin.

CAROL OTTERBOURNE

(outraged)

My skin? My skin? Your skin is rotten. What's wrong with mine? It's perfect, compared to yours. This is music, not visual.

ERIC SHACKLETON

(sinister)

You see, it is a little experiment. I need smoothness.

CAROL OTTERBOURNE

(confused)

Why?

ERIC SHACKLETON

(sinister)

Nothing, just some accompanying visuals, that is all.

CAROL OTTERBOURNE

(eager)

But you want me for the recording.

ERIC SHACKLETON

(smooth)

Yes, of course.

CAROL OTTERBOURNE

(proud of herself)

See, no matter, what the Windmill might say, I never lost it.

ERIC SHACKLETON

(sinister)

You still have it.

CAROL OTTERBOURNE

(stiffly waves goodbye)

Ta-ra!

CAROL OTTERBOURNE leaves. Soon after, PATRICK SOUTAR enters.

PATRICK SOUTAR

(cold, tough)

Behave yourself, Shackleton!

ERIC SHACKLETON

(laughing, rough lines of a smile visible behind the leather mask)

Why should I?

PATRICK SOUTAR

(tough)

Your career is ruined.

ERIC SHACKLETON

(laughing)

My career? My career? My career is in its prime! It was already ruined! I recovered, didn't I?

PATRICK SOUTAR

(trying to be friendly)

Yes, but now we can't use your recording because the people who listen the news want the news not some tragic monologue of a former actor's spotlight literally being the impact of a bomb hitting on the stage!

ERIC SHACKLETON

(smoothly sinister)

Actually, to correct you, your career is ruined!

PATRICK SOUTAR

(confused, stuttering)

Mine, mine, mine?

ERIC SHACKLETON

(aiming a DART-GUN at PATRICK SOUTAR)

Yes, yours!

ERIC SHACKLETON shoots a POISONED DART from the DART-GUN and into PATRICK SOUTAR'S FORE-HEAD. SHACKLETON grabs a KNIFE, and then picks up a BLOB of pinkish-orange CLAY, and moves the clay all over the dead PATRICK SOUTAR.

ERIC SHACKLETON

(smiling)

Checkmate!

CUT - We see ERIC SHACKLETON, carefully pull the CLAY away from PATRICK SOUTAR'S CORPSE to reveal trails of SKIN hanging off it. He rips his mask off, and pushes some clay onto it, making a thin mask over his disfigured face. He then places patches of skin that form a jigsaw-face, at first rudimentary with his lips, eyes and nose visible through the tears of clay. He puts the LEATHER MASK back on. THE CORPSE is still visibly on THE FLOOR.

CUT - TINA, a nice attractive girl of nineteen, dark reddish hair in a bun, dressed in a floral dress and dirtied boots enters. She is friendly and enthusiastic.

TINA

(unsure)

Mr. Shackleton?

ERIC pushes the corpse of PATRICK SOUTAR under a table.

ERIC SHACKLETON

(taken by surprise)

Oh, Tina, we recorded.

TINA

I know, but I left my keys here.

ERIC hands TINA the keys.

ERIC SHACKLETON

Here they are!

TINA

Thanks.

ERIC bends under the TABLE, and takes his MASK OFF. He rises up, and we see that his face is perfectly restored to its normal self.

TINA

(confused)

Why were you wearing the mask?

ERIC SHACKLETON

What's wrong with the mask?

TINA

Nothing, it is just a little odd, a little creepy, you know.

ERIC SHACKLETON

It helps me focused on music.

TINA

(worried)

What's that under the table?

ERIC SHACKLETON

A dummy!

TINA

(suspicious)

It looks quite realistic.

ERIC SHACKLETON

It's for an album cover. Now go, I'm busy!

TINA rolls her eyes and leaves.

int. BBC OFFICE, BBC BROADCASTING HOUSE, day, c.1960.

CUT - NEXT MORNING. TINA rushes into ALF RIDDINGTON'S OFFICE, pretty much the same as THE OFFICE USED BY PATRICK SOUTAR.

ALF RIDDINGTON

(worried)

Tina, what is it? Is it about Pat Soutar? He's missing, you know! Did they find the body?

TINA

(sobbing, hugging ALF)

Yes, they found his body outside Shackleton's studio! Badly skinned! Oh, that Eric Shackleton is horrible!

ALF RIDDINGTON

I know!

TINA

Why does he wear a mask sometimes even though his face is perfect?

ALF RIDDINGTON

Perfect? He was horribly scarred in the war while doing panto. It ruined his career. Everyone knows that. Really?

TINA

(confused)

Really? Because he looked perfect to me.

ALF RIDDINGTON

(realizes in horror)

Oh God!

TINA

(confused)

What is it?

ALF RIDDINGTON

All the ladies used to say that he had smooth skin, and only the face was wrong! He must be using skin to  restore his handsome features, to revive his career!

TINA

Why?

ALF RIDDINGTON

A couple of years ago, there was a BBC producer named Harry Bland, who wanted to do an adaptation of the Phantom of the Opera, and he wanted Eric to play it to save makeup. He flew into a rage and Harry went missing a year later, while boating in the Isle of Man, and I think his disappearance is connected.

Suddenly, on the RADIO, we hear BREAKING GLASS and ERIC's laughter. ALF presses EJECT on his TAPE DECK in THE OFFICE. It stops. He finds in THE TAPE DECK, a CASSETTE TAPE, marked "THE CHANDELIER".

ALF RIDDINGTON

Blast, it is Eric after all!

CAROL OTTERBOURNE runs in.

ALF RIDDINGTON

(pleased to see CAROL)

What is it, Carol?

CAROL OTTERBOURNE

(worried)

I have to work full-time as a secretary here!

ALF RIDDINGTON

I know. Did that nutter Shackleton fire you?

CAROL OTTERBOURNE

He said it was because of my skin!

TINA

Thank god! He's trying to mend his face!

CAROL OTTERBOURNE

(horrified)

He's in Studio 1!

TINA and ALF RIDDINGTON are speechless.

INT. TV STUDIO, BBC BROADCASTING HOUSE, C.1960.

CUT - We see an INDOOR SET, representing a BUS STOP. There are a COUPLE of EXTRAS. In the back, we see ERIC SHACKLETON in a TRENCHCOAT and HAT, his face beginning to loosen. He looks nervous. THE DIRECTOR (a deathly-looking man with grey skin and hair, prematurely aged, smoking a pipe) clearly does not recognize him.

TINA and ALF enter.

ALF RIDDINGTON

Stop! Is Eric Shackleton here?

There is HUSHED, SHOCKED SILENCE. SHACKLETON rises from the BACKGROUND, sweating. His MASK falls to the GROUND, his disfigured features fully in view, lit by the STAGE LIGHTS.

ERIC SHACKLETON

(melodramatic, screaming)

I admit it! I can't perform! I have stage fright! You cretins, you ignored me! I hate the BBC! Tina! My love!

TINA

(offended)

Get away, you cretin!

ERIC rises to THE CENTRE OF THE STAGE. He puts his hands up.

CUT - A STAGE LIGHT LOOSENS.

CUT - THE LIGHTING RIG collapses, crushing ERIC and burning his skin.

ALF RIDDINGTON

(wry)

The stage killed him!

TINA

No!

TINA looks horrified, and puts her hand out. ALF pushes her back to stop her from going too far. ALF comforts TINA.

FADE-OUT.

THE END. 

Me and Where I Have Been

I have been back, because I have finally left school, graduated with my A-LEVELS/Leaving Cert. In the past year since I have been absent, a lot has happened. There's been the British Rubbish-changing Operation Yewtree, the stuff about Savile, Hall, Harris and other once-major luminaries in the sphere of British Rubbish that has rendered them unspeakable taboo. Matt Smith has left Doctor Who, and more revelations about JN-T have come out, about his habit of luring young Dr. Who fanboys, all in their late teens into bed, creating a sort of Homosexual Swingers Aside to the Dr. Who Appreciation Society. Richard Matheson, RIP, Richard Griffiths RIP.

Now, I am planning to either get rid of this blog, because I am too busy. Like my predecessor Matthew Coniam, I am going to be very sporadic.

Have a good summer.

Black Beauty, Towers' Masterpiece and Tenser's Too

The Tigon/Towers Black Beauty has been shown uncut in a children’s TV slot on RTE. Even the mentions of the word ‘bastard’ are left intact. It is despite its reputation as a children’s film, an exploitation movie. Produced by two titans of the genre of Wardour Street, Harry Alan Towers and Tigon’s Tony Tenser, there’s scenes of a young and slightly OTT Patrick Mower sadistically laughing as he whips horses, and German import (thanks to Towers) Uschi Glas (credited in typical euro-Anglicisation style as Ursula Glass) in bondage, having been taken from the horse by a rope looping around her and hanging her in the air before being kidnapped by rival circus men and horse-nappers, fighting fat ladies who are told to lose weight for the circus and a brief Mondo-like scene where a monkey fights a dog at a circus. Thanks to Towers, there are anachronisms. Bearded hippy-ish men with ponytails which date the film to 1971, a graveyard scene features 20^th century graves and one of those stylised Victorian funeral carriages that you only see at funerals of old people and in Eastenders. Some of the outfits seem slightly out of place, especially in an odd interlude where Beauty is abducted by the Muldoons, a band of Irish gypsies in caravans who seem to exist in 1970s’ Ireland, and results in a slapstick horse chase full of jumping over burning logs and gates and name-calling ‘blithering idiots’ to the reuse of cheering scenes of Irish travellers cheering, before the horse suddenly wanders into  what is clearly the dustbowls of Spain, where is he then shipped from Spain doubling as the English countryside to Spain doubling as Spain,  morphing into a bad Spaghetti western with ill-handled dubbing and a circus that too seems modern, before it is sold to John Nettleton from Yes, Prime Minister and Doctor Who: Ghost Light who lives in Ireland/England and has as a bratty daughter, Maria ‘Mad Mrs. Towers’ Rohm herself, who apparently broke her leg while riding, and is I think dubbed (I must ask Maria herself) and then her lover (spurned by the racist frog-hating father) brings the horse into battle, makes it a war hero in a violent but bloodless scene, then sold to one of the soldiers, then taken to a coal yard where it encounters the story’s writer Anna Sewell played by Margaret ‘Mrs. Whistler in Diamonds are Forever’ Lacey.

There seems to be about two different films being made, one by Tenser and one by Towers. Mower comes across as a slightly crazed posh hippie with his long hair and top hat, while Lester is just adequate. He’s little to do than plead to keep his horse and ride horses. I hope that the children who do catch this film will realise the charms of Towers and Tenser. I hope that they will also show other Towers family films such as White Fang, Treasure Island and Call of the Wild. They have already aired the anodyne Towers anti-seal hunting vehicle Sandy the Seal and the slow giallo exploits of And Then There Were None ’74.

Apparently, this film was directed by Born Free/A Study in Terror director James Hill, once in line to do a Doctor Who film, but I wouldn’t be surprised to think that Jess Franco (who with fellow euro-exploitation man Antonio Margheriti did ghost-directing duties on Treasure Island) helped along, with the casting of Blood of Fu Manchu’s Ricardo Palacios as a vicious Russian General.

On the whole, it is an enjoyable and yet flawed film. It seems to go from one segment to another, the only link being the horse. It takes us from the story of a boy in an English farm to a race among gypsies to a circus in Spain to an English mansion and the tale of two doomed lovers, the man who dies in battle in Spain, before the horse is forced to work in a coal yard and found by Anna Sewell. It is segmented and plot strands are forgotten. For example, it is said that Lester will see the horse again yet he never does only in the end titles, where he rides around as the credits roll to his riding. Although not the period Masterpiece it aspires to, it is fun!

Harry Alan Towers Month:: Harry's Versions

It is now Harry Alan Towers Month to commemorate the 3rd Anniversary of his death on 31st July. So, we are going to celebrate him by theorising his love of classic novels, and what would happen if he made today's bestseller adaptations.

Edgar Allan Poe’s Phantom of the Opera

Erique, a gifted opera singer and composer goes insane when a rival, Gaston Leroux steals his idea for an opera based on the story of Jekyll and Hyde, ‘The Mysterious Case of the Man and the Internal Beast’, which is a major success in Paris, and is preparing to be taken to London. He storms into Gaston’s chateau, and steals Gaston’s script, only to find chateau in flames, tricked by Gaston. Erique kills Gaston and escapes, to return to his love, Christine, but Erique is unaware that his face has been melted and has repulsed Christine into leaving him, so he is left to wander the streets for eternity, running an Edgar Allan Poe-themed grand guignol show until one day tormented by Gaston’s ghost, a raven on the ghost’s shoulder, he sinks into insanity, and finds himself tormented into reclaiming Christine. He discovers she has been reincarnated into the daughter of a theatre producer who is setting out to restage The Mysterious Case of the Man and the Internal Beast. Erique travels to London to find Christine, on holiday from New York. She hopes to perform the role of Christine, written for her previous self. Erique is love-starved and hops off Tower Bridge onto a double-decker bus to see her face, but repulses the bus driver, causing the bus to crash into the Thames. Christine, the one survivor finds herself in a London hospital, sung to by a hospital-masked Erique, disguised as a surgeon, but she knows that he has lost his singing voice. He claims only love can return it, while he cuts up various doctors and male patients in order to find a suitable male face. Gaston reappears, giving Erique the Masque of the Red Death from Poe legend to hide his deformed features. But Gaston is also tricksy, as he knows if he does not carry out his heart's desire of becoming flesh again, he will perish. He decides to possess Erique, but is grossed out by the fact his great-grandson, Raoul, a half-Latino French dance student at Julliard is dating Christine.

Erique traps Gaston in a bottle that is put in the freezing River Thames. He soon attacks a London opera house, downing the chandelier on an entire audience, resulting in splatter, but Christine is not there. He soon becomes known as the Phantom of the Opera. Raoul tells Christine that her father has planned to relocate the show to the Sydney Opera House. On the plane, Christine meets Erique, who confesses his passion and why he loves her, as he sits on the wing of a plane, staring through an open window. She thinks about it,  but ultimately cannot decide. At the Sydney Opera House, Erique slides down the roof and gives Christine some flowers.. Raoul is not happy, and tries to attack, but Erique flies out on some mechanical wings, taking down soldiers who are machine-gunning him. Christine tells her father that she can’t do the performance at Carnegie Hall, and he brings in the fat, faded Carlotta, but Christine decides maybe that Erique does love her, so she throws herself in at the last minute, whereupon Erique comes in, kills Carlotta and Raoul and grabs Christine, as he flies down. She realises that although Erique loves her, his love for her has driven him into insanity, and when they reach London to collect the bottle of Gaston, at a London dock,  where he dies, revealing his love tattoo. Christine opens the bottle and Gaston turns out to be Gaston Leroux, who goes back somehow to 1909, Paris, where he tells his new love, Christine about the Phantom and what happened to him. She says he should write a book.

Harry Alan Towers: The Puddingmaker

This is about the British God of Exploitation. More daring than Hammer, more prolific than Tenser and Tigon (with whom he co-produced Black Beauty) and more exploitative and fun than Subotsky and Amicus. His name is Harry Alan Towers. A cinematic guru of what some would call trash, but what I would call treasure. He was the master of the cinematic co-production internationally. His empire spun from up my road (literally, Ardmore Studios in Bray, Ireland is literally a mile and a half away) to South Africa and Hong Kong.

He made over a hundred pictures from the early sixties to his death, aged 88 in 2009, he made films, some classics such as the Face of Fu Manchu, which my friend and site originator Matthew Coniam calls ' his best film, The Face of Fu Manchu. For Towers, this was high class indeed, virtually indistinguishable from a sixties Hammer film, and frequently mistaken for one, with Christopher Lee as Fu and Tsai Chin as his sadistic nymphomaniac daughter Lin Tang. Pitted against them is Scotland Yard's most experienced Sherlock Holmes rip-off Nayland Smith, played by Nigel Green in the first film, Douglas Wilmer in the second and third and Richard Greene in the fourth and fifth. (Wilmer's recent autobiography dismisses the films as "preposterous twaddle" and informs us that during production Lee carried his spare change around in a sock.)' The first and third of the series, Vengeance and Face were made in Ireland, at Ardmore, and apparently my grandfather worked on them, according to a friend of his, Cos Egan, while Brides, the second was a British film made at Hammer's home, ironically-named Bray studios, while the fourth and fifth, Blood and Castle of Fu  Manchu were directed in Spain by Spanish trashmaster Jess Franco, and feature tinted stock footage of the Titanic sinking in A Night to Rememeber to convey a sinking ship, and spaghetti western-type Mexican bandits, but Vengeance and Blood do have an enforced asset, Maria Rohm, Towers' dolly-bird wife, 25 years his junior, on an exclusive contract and an regular in his early films, who'd stay with him till his death.

Of course, these are just a sample of a glittering film career yet one that could not be more filthier. In the mid-sixties, having made deals with Anglo-Amalgamated and a German company to make the Fu Manchus and a few Edgar Wallace films such as Circus of Fear, he went to AIP to make a spy spoof, Our Man in Marrakech (1966) and a bizarro Spanish white slave film with Vincent Price, House of 1000 Dolls (1967) (both in my opinion are not great, House being one of Price's worse films while with AIP, and apparently had its Spanish backing secured by having an Abe Lincoln on set, so the Spanish backers would think it was an Abraham Lincoln movie, not a white slave film) and then made a comedy film in Ireland, Rocket to the Moon (1967) which was fondly remembered by my grandad, who also worked on it, and helped launch a delibarately failed rocket launch. And then there's Shirley Eaton's Sumuru, directed by Lindsay Shonteff, a female Fu Manchu, but it is surprisingly boring.

In Ireland, he also made an adaptation of 10 Little Indians, one of many, the first (1965) has according to my friend Matthew Coniam, 'Shirley Eaton and Fabian (hilariously playing a rockstar called Mike Raven, not the Radio 1 DJ and failed horrorstar, I must note) in the cast, and switched the location to a Swiss mountain chateau; his second (1975) took a sleepwalking Herbert Lom and Richard Attenborough to the Iranian desert; his third and final (1989)tried a jungle safari setting and starred Lom again and Sylvester Stallone's brother Frank. Those who have seen this version assure us it is the worst yet, though God knows the 1975 one takes some beating. The 1966 one, despite a whodunnit break towards the end and a ghastly score, is by far the most watchable, though it has nothing on Rene Clair's masterly 1945 version, from which it unofficially borrows a couple of original plot deviations and character names.' The 75 version is very strange. To call it a giallo would be true, as it is an Italian-West German-French-UK-Spanish-Iranian co-prod with an excellent Bruno Nicolai soundtrack like many contemporary gialli and Elke Sommer strutting about looking like she has just wandered off the set of Carry On Behind, Maria Rohm constantly screaming 'Martino, Martino' her character's surname, Robert Rietty dubbing Charles Aznavour, Alberto De Mendoza, Gert Frobe and Adolfo Celi, while Ollie Reed acts bullish with Elke looking at him doe-eyed, as he confronts the judge-garbed Attenborough, and an audiotape of Orson Welles. It is boring, but occassionally shines, especially the ending, and was passed off as a poor man's Murder on the Orient Express.

The 1989 one is co-produced by Cannon, and was filmed in South Africa, as a kind of chaser/cash-in/followup to Cannon's flop Ustinov Poirot revival Appointment with Death (1988) which has the feel of a Towers film, but isn't. It also has Lom, but with Donald Pleasence as Judge Wargrave, now portrayed as a kind of bloodied slasher monster with judge's wig and cloak, ironic, as this is the man who killed Michael Myers, a bunch of South Africans, Frank Stallone as the hero, paired with a fawning blonde in a pith helmet called Sarah Maur Thorp (a regular in SA-based Towers films) as Vera, rather than Eaton or Sommer,  and is set in period, for the first time, on a train, so it clearly tries to ape Orient Express, but is directed by Alan Birkinshaw, who has gone down into British Horror Infamy for Killer's Moon (1978), but let's not talk about that, as it ain't Towers!
After the Fu Manchus, Towers became a well-known name to those in the industry. After becoming friends with Franco, he decided to chain him to the director's seat, later regretting this 'as he couldn't direct traffic', despite Christopher Lee's claims that Franco's an underrated and misued director. He made films such as the Rohm-starring Venus in Furs (1968) and 99 Women (1969), the Lee-headling Witchfinder General knockoff The Bloody Judge (1970), Eugenie (1970), where Maria Rohm teaches doll-faced cutie Marie Lljedahl with Lee narrating, thinking it is an artsy film about the Marquis De Sade, not knowing it is a softporn about De Sade with him as the guest star and Count Dracula (1970), putting Lee in his most famous role as Stoker not Hammer envisaged him, with Lom as Van Helsing, after Vincent Price could not escape his AIP contract and Rohm as Mina, with Klaus Kinski duped into playing Renfield, thinking it's not a Dracula film, as he refused to be in it initially, though he would later to be one of the few actors to play both Dracula and Renfield. It's a flawed masterpiece, let down by Franco's eccentricties of filming a British-set film in Spain, and other bad things, but there is a nice Nicolai soundtrack and it has Lee as Dracula, and it is better than Scars of Dracula, the Hammer Lee made that year, and feels more expensive than that, bizarrely, and hasn't got Dennis Waterman as the hero!

Harry then made a lacklustre Italian, London-filmed Dorian Grey with Herbert Lom, Richard Todd and Lom, and Rohm! By 1971, after a Mark Lester Black Beauty in Ireland, Towers made aa troubled Call of the Wild attacked by its star Charlton Heston, who thought Towers was mad, talked Paramount out of distributing the film, because he was still a major star but not as big as he still thought he was, and then Orson Welles' long gestating Treasure Island with half the cast of Horror Express, Rohm and Kim Burfield replacing Lester, who had jumped ship onto a rival production, Kirk Douglas' Scalawag. Welles was dubbed by Robert Rietty bizarrely, and had to be filmed waste up due to getting fatter between filming breaks (began in '64 by Franco, finished in 72 by Disney and Hammer vet John Hough, and filled in by Antonio Margheriti). Then, Towers dabbled in porn with films like Teenage Emanuelle (1976, the last acting role so far of Rohm, who retired) and then made King Solomon's Treasure with David McCallum and Pat Macnee, a Star Wars-chasing adap/sequel not based at all of Shape of Things to Come with cute robots and an evil Vader-like Jack Palance, similar to his role in Hawk the Slayer, but without a mask. After success with Klondike Fever, based on the life of Jack London, Harry paid his taxes to the US governments from the vice charges in 1961 and  moved with Maria to Canada. Then, Harry would continue a string of producing porn movies such as Black Venus, as well as Fanny Hill (1983), one of the last British-made sex comedies with Oliver Reed, Shelley Winters and Wilfrid Hyde White having it on with a girl young enough to be his great-grandddaughter!

 This after a slow period for Towers represented a new bloom in production. As he entered his sixth decade, Towers allied with Golan-Globus of Cannon to unleash more and more films. From family films like Lightning the White Stallion (1986) to Mandingo variants like Dragonard (1987, where Oliver Reed participates in an excuse to see women whipped by men in three-cornered hats), he seemed to make more movies. Reed became a fixture, appearing in everything from Skeleton Coast, a Wild Geese imitation with Ernest Borgnine, Herbie Lom (another fixture since the dawn of Towers) and Robert Vaughn to Poe adaptions and Captive Rage, another actioner. Towers also released comedies such as Oddball Hall, made in Africa with Burgess Meredith and Bill Maynard (yes, that Bill Maynard, British comedy acting legend) and DTV sequels like Howling IV, Delta Force 3, American Ninja 3 (with poor man's Chuck Norris, Michael Dudikoff, also star of Towers-produced Indiana Jones-aping Alistair McLean adap River of Death which has Vaughn and Pleasence as Nazis), the sword-and-sorcery Gor films and Warrior Queen, and Edgar Allen Poe's Buried Alive, which has seconds of John Carradine in his last role, Robert Vaughn and Pleasence ruling over a girl's orphanage in a bad wig and a couple of Robert Englund post-Freddy slashers including a rather good modern day adap of the Phantom of the Opera (1988), its semi-sequel Dance Macabre (1994) and the Stephen King adap the Mangler (1994) and Tobe Hooper's Night Terrors. Tony Curtis played a geriatric mummy in the Mummy Lives (1993), doing it seriously, but making it funnier, making me think it was a comedy. Anthony Perkins played Jekyll/Hyde/Jack the Ripper/Norman Bates in Edge of Sanity (1989), with Budapest as London, David Lodge, nylon underwear, Madonna-like Victorian prositutes and post-decimal currency. Chuck Norris appeared in the Hitman (1993). Two Lost World films were made in 1992, Michael Caine appeared in three Harry Palmer revivals that were not based on novels, so they did not need to pay Len Deighton, as Palmer was only the character's name in the films. Richard Harris made Cry, the Beloved Country (1995), and several DTV actioners and Tv movies were wheeled out including an octogenarian Jack Palance in an Isle of Man-shot Treasure Island (2000). Then, after years of still working, at his home in Canada, his wife by his side, in 2009, Harry Alan Towers died, aged 88. This was a sad day for exploitation fans. A true legend had gone, and no longer would movies have such a character among them, such a globe-trotting dealmaker. The world was a lesser place. There will be no one quite like him again, or even before.

RIP Harry!

Big changes at Eccentrica Towers

To be honest, I don't know what to say: But I am changing the focus of this blog, to  not just reflect British culture but foreign culture in Britain. With a bit of fiction, exploitation columns, humour, fun, games, film reviews and stuff! 

So, I'll be starting with the all-star classic story of a man, who you may know or may not know.