I remember reading an review of Lair of the White Worm that said:

By the time he wrote Lair of the White, Bram Stoker's mental capacities were severely affected by syphilis. Ken Russell has no such excuse.

This is typical of the sort of pannings he received from critics. LotWW isn't the greatest film ever but it's certainly worth a viewing. It stars (a virtually then unknown) Hugh Grant and Amanda Donahoe (ooozing sex appeal)..is littered with serpent/phallic references and even has Russells (almost obligatory) naked nuns. It bears very little resemblance to Stoker's original story anyway.

Russell also directed Michael Caine as spy Harry Palmer in 'The Billion Dollar Brain' which is a really good 'sub-Bond' spy thriller.
Also 'Crimes of Passion' starring Kathleen Turner and Anthony Perkins. Turners plays a successful business woman who moonlights as a hooker 'just for the fun of it'. Perkins is a porn obsessed street preacher trying to 'save' her. She's never looked sexier and he's never been pervier!! Great film.

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Here ya go!


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devils-DVD-...S/dp/B000QB4FJA

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Oh jeez yeah I can't believe I forgot Crimes of Passion, Kathleen Turner in that white Lousie Brooks wig! I agree Perkins was at his creepy best.

I love this: By the time he wrote Lair of the White, Bram Stoker's mental capacities were severely affected by syphilis. Ken Russell has no such excuse.

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I can remember leaving the cinema after seeing The Devils and feeling totally numb. Those were the Ken Russell/Fellini years.

Oh, forgot to mention that he filmed Women in Love just up the road from where I live, at a place called Elvaston Castle. Used to be able to look through a window into the room where the nude wrestling was filmed [but I think the window's boarded up now]. They still had highland cattle there recently, and we used to take the children to feed the ducks on the lake. A lot of local kids were extras; I belive they were 'paid' in ice cream.

Actor Harry Morgan died today at age 96. Most people remember him as Col. Potter in the MASH television series, but I remember him from great films like Inherit the Wind, The Ox-bow Incident, and lots of great Westerns.

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Deeply saddened by the news of the death of Monkees front man, Davey Jones, at the age of 66.

I was a huge Monkees fan as a kid and even went to see them when they did a 30 year anniversary reunion tour back in '96 at Wembley Arena. Obviously they were better known for their music than their (one) film but HEAD is one of my all time favourite films...and with that in mind I'd like to post this..

RIP Davey Jones

Daddy's Song

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I loved the Monkey's back in the day and never missed the TV show and I still enjoy it when I hear one of their songs come on the radio.

66 is far too young to die.

RIP Davy Jones

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RIP Andy Griffith

Everybody remembers him on The Andy Griffith Show, but he was pretty great in A Face in the Crowd too.

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He was brilliant in A Face in The Crowd. If he would have stuck to drama it is hard to imagine what else he could have accomplished.

“A Face In The Crowd” sketches the story of Lonesome Rhodes, a half-drunk drifter who lucks into a local radio slot and rises quickly, gaining and losing a vast national following in the process. Budd Schulberg’s screenplay is meant to be a cautionary tale about the power of TV, then a young medium of unknown potential, to rouse rabble and inflame the emotions. And it is that, sure. But what you really remember about the picture, what gives it a visceral force that’s undiluted a half-century later, isn’t its preachy moralism (however on the mark its preachy moralism may have been). It’s the ferocity of Griffin, then 31 and largely unproven as a dramatic actor. Griffith as Rhodes absolutely demolishes everything in his path, whether he’s charming or blustering or, as in the scene below with Patricia Neal, uncapping his monstrous ego and letting the demons out to play. Griffith leaves co-stars Neal and Walter Matthau (in the role of Ineffectual Well-Intentioned Liberal) in the dust.

This was a star turn for the ages, and if it’s been even partially forgotten (there are still people who can’t believe Griffith ever played a dramatic lead at all) that’s a testament to Griffith’s longevity and the staying power of his longtime TV character, Andy Taylor, who was in every way possible the anti-Rhodes. If you want to blow a baby boomer’s mind this week (or anybody who hasn't seen it) — and, while you’re at it, pay tribute to an actor who lived long but never again tapped those same dark fevers in his soul — sit him down and screen “A Face In The Crowd".

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