Wee Sonny MacGregor

Absolutely agree Christine. It's also an arrogance on the part of the schedulers to assume that everything has to be "modern" to attract the viewer. In the UK it's not as if room on the terrestrial channels is not available. And we know the channels hold the rights to the films. When ITVplay was recently taken off air because of allegations of telephone scams, the screen was left blank. The schedulers eventually decided to replace it with ITV2+1. How's that for imagination?

ChristineCB

Absolutely agree - except I think they only want us to believe it's their 'arrogance' when in fact it goes back to your sarcastic "how's that for imagination" comment - because it's not their arrogance - it's their laziness.

They won't hire people who know what's interesting, they won't bother 'researching' (such as reading a few on-line forums, or even a luncheon friendship with a few old extras or retired film professions), and it's too much effort to even call one of those and ask, "What would you like to see?"

It's much easier for them to fall back into the Top 40 hit lists and play the same thing everyone else does. No distinction, no differentiation, no creativity. "Easy" is their choice.

On the Plus Side, it makes a collector like me SO GLAD to have so many other options compared to them. That's MY arrogance.

batman

How about the Edgar Wallace series .... the one with the bust surrounded by smoke ... oo er

"Do you know why fattries are called fattries .... it's because they are big and people make things in them."

ChristineCB

Now they just need to start releasing more of these two Edgars on DVD.

Moor Larkin

That was a bust??

I thought it was him........ Mind you, we often only got about 400 of the 625 lines we were due.

I did notice a few cinematic "Scotland Yard Mysteries" when I was consulting my 1959 tome - The Tyburn Case and The White Cliffs Mystery - both on imdb.

I had the same sense that maybe these old police shows were 'our' Trash. There were a couple of Danzigers mentioned too. I think Christopher Lee comments somewhere on the web that he got 3 days works at £75 a day for a Danziger. (Good money of course, when my dad was probably driving buses for £10 a week in those days)

[code]http://www.flickr.com/photos/29487363@N02/sets/72157606700675506/code]

smudge

A film that must be slipped into Christine's list WOMANEATER - a tale of a vengeful tree (yes, TREE !) starring George Colouris and Vera Day. There is - what must be high up in the rankings for trashiest cinematography ever - a wonderful shot where Vera is talking to her boyfriend (who is beneath a car, doing some fixing.

The DoP opted to do the shot from a POV over Vera's shoulder - effectively making the reasonably-endowed young actress nothing more than a talking pair of boobs !

I met Vera at an autograph fair a year or so ago and we had a great laugh discussing that scene. She said she had taken her 21 year old son to see that film quite recently and was so concerned lest he should be embarrassed by the whole thing. Now it has become a great family joke...

SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

Jackdaw

Anyone mentioned DEVIL DOLL yet? That's pretty trashy, despite the presence of the lovely Miss Romain.
And for lovers of special effects I recommend THE HI-JACKERS, starring Tony Blair's father-in-law. In one spectacular scene the said hi-jackers stop a truck by setting a few miniscule "fires" in the road. Butchers pushing the boat out again!

ChristineCB

I have WOMAN EATER in our collection, and I think it deserves a rightful place in the Trashy genre. It's just terrific - however, if you do need more popcorn, are visited by door-to-door insurance salesmen, or need open-heart surgery, don't worry about missing much. The film is just as bad the second time as the first time.

Woman Eater:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051205/

DEVIL DOLL is one of those woeful mail-order purchasing mistakes where I thought I ordered this 1964 version:
Devil Doll (1964)

and I ended up with the typically bizarre Tod Browning 1936 feature instead,

The Devil-Doll (1936)

As one reviewer writes, "Tod Browning is just not drawn to ordinary people." Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan (fresh from the first two Tarzan movies). This is a pretty cool little film - Barrymore's framed and sent to prison, meets a mad scientist with a "Human Shrinking" capability, and then Barrymore escapes to test this out on his old, uh, "friends".

Boy, those 1930s themes really pressed the limits of imagination. Giant apes, teeny people, invisible men, a man pieced together, another one who sucked us dry - there were a lot of 'standards' brought out onto film in that decade. Ray guns and space ships, too. Of course, all of these had literary beginnings, but it's fun to see how many of these were brought into movies in a relatively compressed period of time.

But don't stop now... we're picking up steam just fine! I love the Scotland Yard Mysteries. I think these were kind of training grounds for the feature-length A-type Film Noirs, and these B-types helped us enjoy LAVENDER HILL MOBs even more.

WiseFilms

Eeah, one of my all-time favorite directors, I mush confess , brought two 'Sixties trash heaps to light!:

Joseph Losey's Modesty Blaise ('66) and Boom! ('68)

ChristineCB

I am ashamed to say I've never seen those, Wise. MODESTY was on last year's list of Trashy Films To Examine but after Woman Eater and a half-dozen others, the list was blown into the fireplace last August and accidentally consumed. Tsk tsk...

Tell me about BOOM sometime...

Wee Sonny MacGregor

Boom - I've erased most of it from my memory, what remains is recollection that it was truly dreadful film. The IMDB synopsis says:

"The incredibly rich writer Sissy Goforth lives alone with her servants and nurses on the top of a Mediterranean island, on which she makes her own rules. Her days consist of dictating her autobiography and begging for injections. Here comes Chris Flanders, a.k.a. the angel of death - he has the weird habit of paying visit to unfortunate ladies shortly before their death. Sissy dresses him like a Japanese warrior, and he contemplates in that outfit the waves breaking against the rocks below. The witch of Capri - a neighbour - is invited to share their dinner, a larger than life - and still moving - monster of the sea."

Elizabeth Taylor played Sissy Goforth (great name!), while Burton was Chris Flanders. Noel Coward popped up as "The Witch of Capri" Nuff said.

kelp

Steve, I see you mention "COSH BOY" this starred my hero/anti hero of the fifties James Kenney, and was Britains very first "X" rated film. It was banned in Birmingham by the Watch Committee.....my how times have changed folks!

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR...YOU MAY GET IT!

Merton Park

Good film, great Director, Lewis Gilbert and he shared the writing credit. Nothing that he was involved with could be called Trashy!!

batman

Lewis Gilbert + James Bond = Moonraker ..... trashy, I'm afraid .....

I am glad I am not the only one who thinks Cosh Boy is a great film .... James Kenney was very impressive, especially when his character broke down at the end. I was sad to see he died very young .... Kelp, do you know how?

I am also glad that I am not the only one who has a relatively obscure actor as his hero/anti-hero from the 40s/50s .... mine is Maxwell Reed. Shame they didn't make any films together.

"Do you know why fattries are called fattries .... it's because they are big and people make things in them."