British B Movies on BBC Four

[audrey notwhatsheusedtobe]

Bit late with this one as, as a 'season', it's almost over before it's really begun. Anyway! There was a great show on BBC4 on Saturday night called 'Truly, Madly, Cheaply', which gave an overview of the British B Movie. It was followed by a rather crap film called Psychomania, a 1970s film featuring Beryl Reid, zombie bikers and frogs. 'Truly...' is on again TONIGHT at 11.05 after what I am convinced is a brilliant film called 'Marilyn'.

'Marilyn' was described as like a kind of a low rent version of 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' in that a saucetress, Marilyn, wants her ruffian lover to bump off her boring garage-owner husband, despite the fact that he has given her (as he shouts in a violent rage) "gas fires AND electric lights in every room!" The great thing is, her masterplan is to turn his garage into a fancy cocktail bar. A plot which bizarrely succeeds for a time.

Unfortunately, due to last night's foot and ball antics, I missed 2 of the greastest looking films in this season: 'The Black Rider' (where an old man with an enormous bottom is meant to be Britain's answer to Marlon Brando) and 'Cover Girl Killer', featuring Harry H Corbett as a wig-wearing nonce. Hopefully, these will be shown again.

[jetsetwilly]

I finally watched this documentary last night, having recorded it on your recommendation, and I was so disappointed I missed the films themselves! I really wanted to see about 90% of those films - I could easily live without seeing that dodgy hitchhiker rape thing - but Marilyn looked fantastic, and Cover Girl Killer looked genuinely disturbing. There was a sort of tawdriness that was fascinating but repulsive; I think if I had actually watched Psychomania I'd have needed a bath afterwards. The best ones were the musicals; that strange rock and roll film - Rock a Hula Devils or something - with the fifty five year old teenager singing to the camera and dancing around in a cheap music shop set, and that one about the warring alien music factions with Kenneth Connor and Charlie off Casualty looked bloody amazing.