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Reviews
The Owl Service (1969)
'Lost' but not a classic
Having enjoyed Children of the Stones recently I bought this expecting great things of another (supposed) classic of spooky children's (or young adult's) TV drama. I have to report that I was sorely disappointed.
Somehow, despite having a very limited number of locations and cast or, in fact, anything very much happening for long periods the story is still extremely difficult to follow. The direction is uneven; plot lines tail off and are never explained or resolved and the acting is often inept sometimes verging on the pantomimic. The decision not to even show one of the main characters (Margaret I wonder if Mat Lucas and David Walliams were taking notes?) just adds to the general confusion.
This is a real shame because the storyline has great potential and there are odd flashes of brilliance. You just feel the whole thing could have been much more effectively and concisely told in half the time and that the necessity of padding it out over eight episodes left even those involved unsure as to what the hell was going on.
I can only put it down to the inexperience of Peter Plummer and Alan Garner in writing and directing TV drama. Both of them were also probably too close to the material to be able to see what a tangled mess they were creating.
On the plus side, the title sequence is great; Gillian Hills is wonderfully sexy and her relationship with Michael Holden is touching and occasionally quite erotic. Francis Wallis as Roger, on the other hand, is such a moaning prig it's impossible to feel any sympathy for him at all.
View as a weird late '60s TV curio just don't expect a satisfying dramatic experience.
Crossplot (1969)
Cheap and cheerful 60s fluff
Crossplot is an energetic yet disjointed blend of Hitchcockian romantic thriller, slapstick caper and spy thriller action gimmickry which must have looked pretty hackneyed by 1969 but now just about holds up on period charm value.
For fans of the genre there is fun to be had in ticking off the 60s tropes as they come: cheesy crooning theme tune? Yep. Psychedelic op art graphics? Yep. Characters dressing up in Victorian/Edwardian costumes? Yep. Military marching bands, unconvincing hippies, minis driven over cliffs and exploding? Yep, yep and thrice yep.
Made in 1968, the film manages to refract, despite its general frothiness, some of the darker events of the era the Grosvenor Square riot, troubles in post-colonial Africa, political assassinations but never takes itself seriously for a moment. Which is just as well given the general absurdity of the storyline.
Moore plays a dashing advertising executive (shades of Cary Grant in North by Northwest) caught up in the plotting of a sinister international organisation bent on creating disorder and chaos so as to sweep aside 'decadent democracy'. Martha Hyer is the Hitchcock blonde (and obligatory token American) whilst Claudie Lange, an Italian who made few English language films, is the feisty (and hungry) Hungarian model who the sinister types are pursuing.
It was the first project Moore worked on after completing his last series of The Saint and many of the personnel involved were veterans of that long running show. Unfortunately, it's quite apparent that the budget wasn't much in excess of an average Saint episode and the film is generally compromised by a lack of adequate location filming. A notable exception being the helicopter chase sequence which is well choreographed and distinguished by some great stunt flying.
After 6 years as The Saint, Moore could play suave, wry and debonair in his sleep but here he moderates his unflappable Templar persona with a bit of 'confused everyman' and some comedy pratfalls. At the end, the spectre of his ironic 70s Bond (still some 4 years away) looms as he beds the girl, frowns at the camera and coyly pulls the sheets up.
Incidentally, for a truly revelatory demonstration of Moore's range as an actor from the gap years between Templar and Bond check out 'The Man Who Haunted Himself'.
For some, however, this film will be chiefly of interest for the appearance of Alexis Kanner as the aristocratic leader of the protest movement Marchers for Peace. Kanner was cast off the back of his memorable appearances in the last episodes of Patrick McGoohan's uber 60s TV meisterwerk The Prisoner. Here he plays a variant of his rebellious youth, No. 48 but, besides a spirited fight with our man Rog, and a bit of trademark methody eccentricity he isn't really given much to do and exits the picture before the final reel.
Other appearances of note: Gabrielle Drake, sister of the tragic folk bard and soon to be Lieutenant Gay Ellis of UFO, as one of Moore's staff. Francis voice of Captain Scarlet Matthews is one of the leading baddies (and suffers death by unconvincing back projection). Bernard 'M' Lee is wheeled out to lend a bit of James Bond class to the proceedings. Dudley Sutton uses his psycho-baby features to unsettle Claudie Lange and the forever hangdog David Battley plays a confused groom whose wedding is disrupted by Moore and co. with, you guessed it, hilarious consequences.
If, like me, you enjoy this kind of thing, Crossplot is now available on DVD in the UK (an undistinguished but generally acceptable transfer) for around a fiver. There are probably more productive ways you could spend 90 minutes of your life but, as one hippy character memorably utters, "what's time, man?"
Beasts (1976)
Knecessary Kneale
I agree with zoothorn's review to the extent that 'Baby' is, by some distance, the scariest and most disturbing of the six and 'Murrain' kind of a Straw Dogs/Wicker Man hybrid with Jarvis Cocker as a grumpy James Herriott is the most satisfying dramatically. Probably not uncoincidentally, these episodes also have the most location filming.
However, I don't believe this is grounds to entirely dismiss the other episodes in the series. 'The Dummy' is, I think, a successful blend of satire and horror (although with Hammer and the rest of the British film industry on its last legs in 1976 it must have seemed a bit belated). Special Offer has the great premise of Carrie transferred to a tacky British supermarket. Also a fine central performance from an unfeasibly young Pauline Quirke and, despite ATV's limited budgets, very effective FX no shoestring in evidence anywhere in fact.
On the other hand, 'What Big Eyes' ends up rather short changing the viewer and, despite its skillful escalation of tension,'Barty's Party' has been, I agree, somewhat overrated. The concept is too derivative of Hitchcock and James Herbert and doesn't really evoke any wider significance for the unfolding horrors.
Finally, I can see why 'Buddyboy' is so well-remembered as it must be one of the weirdest pieces of drama I've ever seen on British TV. I can only assume Kneale's remit to make each episode as distinct as possible eventually propelled him down this bizarre blind alley, but trying to extract chills out of a storyline involving a telepathic dolphin (which we never actually see) was always going to be tricky. The most disturbing thing here is the close-up of Martin Shaw's sleazy porn cinema manager 'on the job' you may never see Judge John Deed in the same light again.
So, yes, by modern standards, these episodes are slowly paced, wordy and cheap. They were made at a time when TV drama was still largely derived from theatrical models and, at their worst, they are marred by OTT acting, lengthy expository dialogue and the constrictions of the set-bound productions. At their best, however, the acting is tremendous, character's and plot lines are given room to breathe, suspense is built gradually and the sheer ordinariness of the videotaped, studio-lit environments (and almost complete lack of a musical soundtrack) actually increases their creepy power.
I think it is salutary to remind ourselves that there was a time when TV producers had faith in audiences to sit down and engage with an hour's worth of challenging, original drama broken by only one ad break. In these hyper-stimulated, mayfly attention span times, that makes this series a strange and oddly compelling beast indeed and, IMHO, this DVD release should not be dismissed as a mere footnote to Kneale's better known work.