Originally Posted by Joe Fraguela

Originally Posted by Mr Flash

Sullivan likes his horses, so I’d imagine all those scenes were done at his insistence. He even named a racehorse after Playbirds actress Suzy Mandel, despite the fact that the horse in question was a male. A recent episode of BBC’s Hustle, featured an obnoxious porn millionaire with a penchant for racehorses, a coincidence, or maybe not?

Watched SWEET BEAT (1958) last night, promoted as a rock and roll musical its more a “young girl from the sticks, comes to the big city and finds its not all its cracked up to be” yarn. Young girl in question being Bonnie Martyn, who gets her first taste of fame by winning a Butlin’s beauty contest. Bonnie however feels “like a joint of meat in a butcher shop window” flashing her legs to bored campers, and has aspirations beyond Butlins. Just as well then that her prize includes train tickets for her and her boyfriend Bill to go to London and record a single. Cue Bonnie and Bill watching lots of acts performing in the recording studio, all lifelessly filmed. There she also meets slick, sweet talking American record producer Dave, who manages to drive a wedge between Bonnie and dumb, slack-jawed Bill and takes her off to New York. Predictably his promises of stardom don’t really come true though he does take her to Times Square to see some more musical acts (the American acts and New York location shots all look suspiciously like stock footage). Dave eventually tries it on with her “alright, I’m a heel, you dumb broad”, Bonnie being a good British girl slaps him around the face, and gets the first plane home. Acting, directing and editing are on the primitive level of a nudist camp film or a skin flick, only here with that raison d’etre never materializing. William Mishkin, the film’s American distributor, must have obviously thought the same since he cut in unrelated striptease sequences for the American release and re-titled the film “The Amorous Sex”.
Not very good to be honest, its of minor interest as an early British attempt to emulate an American exploitation film, as well as a snapshot of the pre-Beatles music scene. You can tell from the American acts that rock and roll is coming, but the British acts are very rooted in war era crooning. DVD from “Hepsville Films” a dodgy American public domain outfit, whose company logo is bizarrely the old 1990s logo of our own Bravo satellite channel (remember the one with the fanfare music and floodlit tower). The cheeky swines.

Originally Posted by Joe Fraguela

Last night I watched I Want What I Want from 1971 starring Anne Heywood, Harry Andrews, Jill Bennett, Michael Coles, Virginia Stride and Paul Rogers. One of the first films to deal with the issue of trans-sexualism. Anne Heywood's performance as the tragic Roy-Wendy is absolutely brilliant. Roy's problem is that he is physically a man but feels like a woman. He is at odds with his army type old father, played by Harry Andrews who thinks that all of Roy's problems can be cured by bringing back National Service. There follows a horrible scene in which Harry Andrews returns back home late one night, with his mistress, or old faithfull as Roy calls her, played by Jill Melford. They find Roy in full make up and wearing one of his dead mother's dresses. They have a terrible argument, where Roy's dad hits him across the face. Roy then runs away and goes to stay at a boarding house where he beings to train himself for the life of a woman, learning how to walk in high heels, growing his hair, sticking false eye lashes etc. He now has become Wendy and starts to live life as a woman and arrives at a boarding house, owed by Jill Bennett & Philip Bond who are both teachers. Also living in the house is a fellow teacher Frank played by Michael Coles who starts to take an interest in Wendy. Wendy isn't prepared for the psychological problems that will occur, however, she does visit a doctor played by Paul Rogers who is very kind and sympathetic and suggests she waits another year before having the operation. Wendy then decides to leave on hearing this Frank goes to her bedroom, where the shocking truth comes out when Frank finds out Wendy is really a man. I won't describe what happens next, suffice to say Wendy wakes up in a hospital bed one year later, the operation has been a success and she is now officially recognised as a woman. The performances throughout the film are superb, Anne Heywood's performance is brilliant and how she did not win a BAFTA is beyond me. Other notable performances include Paul Rogers as the kind sympathetic doctor, Michael Coles and Virginia Stride who plays Shirley, Roy's warm but bewildered sister. An enjoyable film.

Originally Posted by stevie boy

I remember seeing this film as part of a double bill with Staircase(burton & Harrison), intersting film. I still cannot believe that Harry Andrews was homosexual that was one of the most surprising things that I had ever heard. Not judging or anything like that but it is completely at odds with his screen persona. Also Nigel Green was another.

Originally Posted by Harbottle