giallihaydw

Anyone know why this never gets shown anymore? I think Channel 4 had it last,and why no DVD release,i think Paramount own it...For Hemmings sake!!!

Wetherby Pond

Paramount do own it, which is presumably why it's not out - they've generally been the most sluggish of the major studios in terms of exploiting their back catalogue.

Diane Blackwell

Hi - I'm new to this forum, but amazed to see people talking about a film that I didn't think anyone else had ever heard of! Bizzarely enough, one of the actors from the film (known as Paul Aston) is a friend of mine, who admitted he had been one of the teachers in the film and said he thought it was an awful film and was glad it was never screened! But it's impossible to find - it's just a case of waiting for it to be screened on TV again. Shame, because I'd love to see what he looked like 30-odd years ago!

penfold

It was filmed at my old school...well, most of it; the cliff scenes are elsewhere, but the school interiors, the squash court, the woods, are horribly familiar. The schoolboy extras were prefects when I got there; some of the teaching staff were used as extras as well. I have a poster, but not the film itself; I didn't have a great time there, not sure I want to see it now, even after this amount of time (30 years...)
So, did any of your schoolteachers appear in sadistic horror flicks??

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

penfold

Incidentally, U,W & Z was referenced in Little Britain...the running sketch where Matt Lucas plays a crap public school teacher?? In one sketch, we join as he is just finishing taking the register......so do Unman, Wittering and Zigo (absent) now have some cult status???

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Diane Blackwell

Apparently, it does have some cult status, although it must be a pretty select cult the only people who've heard of it seem to be us!

Rob Compton

Can't say they have, penfold (least I don't think so!) But Mr Walker, one of my teachers, did have the pleasure of beating John Major at one school I attended! This was before he was PM, of course!

Do you mind saying which school you meant re U, W and Z, penfold?

rgds
Rob

penfold

A minor (i.e. crap) public school called Reading Blue Coat School, on the banks of the Thames at Sonning. Also featured in an episode of Morse, this time masquerading as a girls school, with the pupils including Liz Hurley ...but this was AFTER my sentence was over....the school has a website if you want to compare photos with memories of the film. Just don't send your kids there.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Steve Crook

Also used as a location for The Hole (2001).

Steve

penfold

So I can add Keira Knightley and Thora Birch to my fellow alumni
I really timed my school years badly, then; all my peer group looked like the Llanelli front row...mind you , so did I...I just looked at the old school website, and it's gone from being a single-sex boarding school to a co-ed day school...progress at last. I had to smile at the fulsome tributes to the recently-deceased head from my time there; we all called him Davros after his benign management skills and oratorial style...no mention of THAT in the obits...

Thanks for telling me that Steve; I just have to decide whether I want to watch The Hole now. There really were weird tunnels in that place, from the dining room to the woods for instance (why?) and although the building is late Victorian gothic, it's built on older foundations, like the house in The Stone Tape. Well, mediaeval at least...I spent a fair amount of time dodging people in the vaulted stone-built cellars

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

summerisle

Its one of my favourites too Diane. David Hemmings was a much under-rated actor. It was on BBC not all that long ago (within 5 years).

Something which baffles me is that Halliwell's Film Guide says that to find out the killer you have to watch the closing credits. But in the version I saw the killer was "unmasked" before the credits. I take it that this was the case when it originally came out but it has since been re-edited??

Any ideas?

Diane Blackwell

Good question. I'll have to ask my mate who was in it. Actually, I've never actually been able to see it yet! Have you got it then?

Diane Blackwell

Just spoke to my friend (he played Trimble, just in case you're interested!) and he said that you find out before the credits and didn't know of any other versions/re-edits of the film. However, he hadn't ever bothered looking at Halliwell's entry before, so we're both going home to tonight to have a look at it!

Darling

I'm going to have to have another dig in that video cupboard. I recorded UW&Z from the TV a few years ago and I didn't realise when I first watched it, but a very young Michael Kitchen plays one of the kids, an actor I really admire (Foyle's War is a favourite). David Hemmings was still very recognisable, unlike his astonishing transformation not too many years later.

d712

I have a DVD copy of Unman Wittering and Zigo.

I haven't seen it yet. I bought if off ebay. The seller kept quite aboout the fact that it was a pirate.