Psychotic Cinema

Genre: British Sex Comedy

Norman Wisdom is a British comedian whose films would regularly be shown on 1970's Saturday afternoon TV – films such as Trouble in Store (1953), The Square Peg (1959) or A Stitch in Time (1963). These slapstick comedies would be punctuated with his lop-sided grin, falling over, being unable to complete a joke without bursting into laughter or shouting his trademark "MR GRIMSDALE!!!” This would be the staple Saturday afternoon diet for most 1970’s kids like me, along with Birds Eye Fish Fingers and Smash, the instant mash potato with the advertising catchphrase 'For Mash Get Smash'.
If you also had grown-up watching these Norman Wisdom films, you might be surprised – even shocked - to know that there is one film he made where you can see him dressed in the grooviest of psychedelic clothes as well as one scene of him naked from behind with the beautiful Sally Geeson. To see this, you are going to have to move further ahead in time from his 1950’s/early 60’s output to his final starring role in the 1969 film, What's Good for the Goose.
 After a rousing catchy song over the credits sung by Norman himself, we are taken to the large headquarters of a London city bank. Run with military precision, all the employers walk past the boss in single file, saying their ‘goodbyes’ whilst all wearing matching bowler hats. Timothy Bartlett (Norman Wisdom) is one of them.

Middle-aged and bored, Timothy Bartlett’s life is as predictable as his job – feed the fish, say ‘hello’ to the kids, greet his wife who is dressed in curlers. But things are about to change when Timothy’s boss has a heart-attack and tells Timothy that he must go instead of him to a banking executive's conference in the seaside town of Southport.

With his pajamas and sandwiches packed, Timothy drives off to the conference, but on the way he sees two pretty hippy chicks beside the road thumbing for a lift and so stops to pick them up. They are Nikki (Sally Geeson) and Meg (Sarah Atkinson), and it isn’t long before the two girls are teasing and flirting with the shy Timothy.

At the conference Timothy is out of his depth with the pompousness and cliqueyness of the other attendees and so goes out that evening alone. Wandering around the streets, he finds a hip-swinging nightclub and enters. The place is swinging to a psychedelic band, The Pretty Things and everyone is dressed in their finest psychedelic wardrobe. The middle-aged Timothy is out of place until he spies Nikki and joins her. In her company again he is driven to ecstasy as he freaks-out to the band and when all has finished, Nikki blatantly asks if she can return to his hotel room for some sex.

What follows is a number of gags as he tries to smuggle her into the hotel and his room. From there on a relationship begins to develop as Timothy forgets his family and his middle-age life and bursts forth with excitement for free love with Nikki.

Nikki’s friend Meg warns Timothy to not fall in love with Meg because eventually she will move on, which eventually does happen, but not before Timothy has restyled himself in the latest psychedelic outfits. All the while the attendees at the conference watch in bewilderment as this transformation with Timothy takes effect.

With Meg gone, the heart-broken Timothy calls his wife and tells her to get on a plane to join him. In next to no time he helps her to break free of her middle-aged confines and the two relive their youth with free abandonment, but will it last?

This is a good film if you can put up with the occasional lame jokes and slapstick. It stars the young Sally Geeson, who would go on to become a star during the 70’s and early 80’s. Here she is very cute, and it should be noted that there were two versions of this film. The UK version, which I saw, has Sally stripped down to her bra, and then there’s the racier European version, which has supposedly never been released in English language, where she appears topless. Also of note is some great footage of the underrated British band The Pretty Things who do some great songs in the psychedelic nightclub scenes, as well as appearing briefly, although not performing, in one party scene.

Norman Wisdom is on top form here and is great in the conference scenes where his mind is completely side-tracked by his new love before returning totally restyled in his new outfit and full of confidence. The scenes in the nightclub are great, too, when he is literally writhing with ecstasy to the psychedelic sounds and the happening young crowed around him – and this without taking any drugs. Also the scenes where he frolics with Nikki amongst the sand dunes make these scenes quite endearing. The scene in the sand dunes is repeated again when his wife joins him as the two shake off their shackles of middle-age. There are also some serious moments in this film and one thing that can be said about Norman Wisdom after watching this is that he would have made a great straight actor.

Yes, this film has it’s faults, but if you can over-look them, this is a great little film firmly set in the 60‘s love generation psyche which gives it an innocence which couldn’t be repeated now.

What's Good for the Goose (1969)

Genre: Surreal Comedy

The New York cinema projectionist (Chuck McCann) enjoys his solitary existence in his projection booth; occasionally breaking out of one of his many daydreams to cue the next reel of film. When he’s not daydreaming of being in one of the many film he’s seen, he’s looking at the photos on his wall of the Hollywood greats and impersonating their characters.


His solitude is only occasionally broken by a quick visit from his friendly usher friend (Harry Hurwitz) and they enjoy a cigarette together. The projectionist recounts to the usher a surprise meeting with a beautiful girl (Ina Balin) in the street, but he is never able to finish his story because Renaldi (Rodney Dangerfield), the manager, enters.

Renaldi is an unkind disciplinarian who makes his ushers stand to attention before giving them a verbal dressing-down. He tells the friendly usher to get out of the booth and not go back in there, but the projectionist is safe from Renaldi because of his union membership.


The projectionist returns to his daydreams where he is Captain Flash as he battles to protect the girl he had earlier met from the evil Renaldi. Renaldi has now become the arch-criminal known as The Bat.

Another friend in the cinema is the elderly Czechoslovakian candy man who is ordered by Renaldi to keep all the candies in the display case in order. The candy man tells the projectionist of his younger days in Czechoslovakia when he was a movie star in the 1930’s. He is played by Jára Kohout who was a real life Czechoslovakian film star of those times. He recounts how he was able to escape to the West dressed as a chicken.


After the cinema has closed for the evening, the projectionist walks the downtown New York streets, meets acquaintances and looks through the magazines in an adult shop – always fueling his daydreams and fantasies.

This daydreams become more a battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ as he becomes more engrossed with saving the girl from the evil clutches of The Bat. These dreams become inter-cut with real life harrowing footage of war atrocities.

As dawn breaks the projectionist returns to his ridiculously small apartment, which is plastered with movie posters. He lies down on his sofa-bed to watch the TV and gets lost in his thoughts of an advertisement for torture equipment.

At dusk, he leaves his apartment to return to the solitude of his projection booth, still fantasizing about the girl and battling the evil Renaldi The Bat.

This is a great film, especially for movie buffs as it incorporates real clips from films such as noirs, silent movies, old science fictions, and movie trailers. The clips of Captain Flash and the projectionist as a film noir character are interlaced amongst these original clips in such away that they are perfectly matched.

Chuck McCann as the projectionist is excellent at imitating the characters from the different genres, as well as his vocal imitations of the stars in the photos on the projection booth wall. McGann is a great actor, and it would be of no surprise that he has gone on to having a successful career including having his own show. With his talent for voices, he has done voice-overs for many cartoons.

One movie great Chuck McCann is excellent at mimicking is Oliver Hardy, which led to him appearing as him for the Standard Oil commercials of the 1970’s. As an avid Laurel and Hardy fan, he was one of the co-founders for the appreciation society devoted to their memory known as The Sons of the Desert.


They are all great actors in this film, but another one who stands out is Rodney Dangerfield as Renaldi / The Bat. He would go on to have a successful career as a comedian and would later discover Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Carrey, and Roseanne amongst others.

Directed by Harry Hurwitz, who would make a number of low budget, but entertaining underground films. He was a huge fan of Charles Chaplain and there is one great scene in The Projectionist where the projectionist first courts the girl on a park bench and then later walks off with her arm in arm. Chuck McCann has the movements of Chaplain done perfectly for both these scenes.


It’s not surprising when watching this that Hurwitz was a professor of film. These days with DVD and video, researching the material is so easy, but back in the early 70’s you would have to be extremely lucky to have access to such a large selection of material. Many of Hurwitz’s films have dealt with film and cinema.

The Projectionist (1971)

Genre: Nudie Musical Comedy

Schechter film studios have fallen upon hard times, and the young owner Harry Schechter struggles to keep it afloat. Gone are the glory days when the studio produced fabulous musicals and now the studio has resorted to producing porn. Harold has to desperately keep this quiet from his aged father who first started the studio.


In a ‘Eureka’ moment, the desperate Harry has an idea to make the first porno musical called Come… Come, Now. His crooked backers are enthusiastic to the idea and it finally looks as though Schechter studios will survive and everyone breaks into a song and dance routine to celebrate, but for Harry, these celebrations are short lived as his backers give him a set of demands.

First they will give him 50% of the money and loan him the other 50%. If the movie doesn’t make any money, they’ll take his studio. The second demand is that the director of the movie has to be the young nephew of one of the backers. The nephew’s name is John Smithee. For those of you who don’t know the story behind the name John Smithee, it’s a film industry inside joke, if you could call it that, that whenever a director makes a film he is unhappy with and wants to disown it he would have the name John Smithee placed on the credits instead of his own. Thirdly, the film has to be completed in two weeks.


The despondent Harry calls an audition and we have a mixture of different people try for it. One girl strips nude and demonstrates an orgasm on the floor in front of the panel; another guy who is in love with himself hits upon all the girls there; a Mexican girl sings terribly and has a boyfriend (played by Frank Doubleday who was the gang member who shoots the little girl in Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)) who thinks he’s one of the gang members in West Side Story and tells her that no one must touch her and turns up intermittently to threaten different members of the cast; there's an innocent nearly arrived wanna-be-a star girl arrives from somewhere in the Mid-west and sings really well; and finally there is Miss Mary La Rue, who is a famous actress and demands her own dressing room away from the “people”. As part of the audition, there is a song performed nude entitled “I’m Not Gay”. Needless to say, everyone is offered the part.


Next, John Smithee, the director arrives. He is a 23 year old virgin who’s very timid about sex and has very little knowledge of it. The pianist is a sleazy looking black guy wearing ray-bands and smoking a cigarette. He more or less writes the songs as they go along - and what a collection of songs they are.

Obviously things don't go according to plan, partly due to John Smithee, so to get rid of him they have to continually send him out to buy doughnuts while they shoot the film behind his back.


We are then treated to a series of short vignettes as they shoot different scenes. We have one where the male performer in a love scene with Miss Mary La Rue can’t get it up and so they have to call in a ‘stunt cock’. This guy is a real pro and spends eight hours a day with an erection performing in blue movies. There is a bizarre scene entitled “Dancing Dildos” which involves a song and dance routine where Miss Mary La Rue performs with a chorus line of naked girls and men dressed as dildos, a scene entitled “Lesbian Butch Dyke” which includes a lesbian song and dance routine, and another scene where the Mexican girl sings seductively about perversions, this is capped off with the Busby Berkeley style “Let Me Eat You” with the classic lines:

"Let 'em eat cake, but let me eat you,"

While all of this is taking place, there is a romantic relationship between Harry Schechter and his assistant, but their relationship becomes strained when Miss Mary La Rue begins to blackmail Harry and Harry is caught kissing her behind his girlfriend's back.

With only a few days to go until the film is completed, John Smithee more or less wrecks it, Miss Mary La Rue gets fired and the lead actor gets robbed and beaten outside his apartment block resulting in a huge black eye. Now it looks as though Harry will lose his studio - but then they have a plan.

This film, although low budget and with its limitations, was great fun and was a great satire about the film industry. Written and directed by Bruce Kimmel, who also played John Smithee, this movie is full of rude jokes, full frontal male and female nudity, but nothing hardcore, and bizarre song and dance routines.


Diana Canova who plays the Mexican Juanita and Cindy Williams who plays Harry’s assistant went on to make it big in their careers causing Paramount Pictures to have to put a hold on this film after it’s release. It’s a shame because even with it’s constraints it’s a fun film which even though it has nudity, doesn’t come across in a shocking way. Also, look out for a very brief cameo with a Happy Days Ron Howard saying a few words. I hasten to add that all these people kept their clothes on.

This film has actually been released as a special edition DVD.

The First Nudie Musical (1976)

Genre: Saucy British Comedy

Lurcio (Frankie Howerd) is a slave in ancient Roman Pompeii. Whilst out shopping for female slaves and other essential supplies for his master’s orgy that evening, he runs into the Roman general, Bilius (Lance Percival), causing Bilius to fall from his horse. Lurcio’s basket of supplies is knocked over in the commotion.

Lurcio picks up his supplies and returns them to the basket, but doesn’t realize he has also picked up a scroll dropped by Bilius.

Prosperus Maximus (Bill Fraser) and his beautiful wife Voluptua (Norwegian pin-up model and actress Julie Ege) are the rulers of Pompeii. Bilius was to bring them the scroll which outlines their plan to assassinate the Emperor Nero (Patrick Cargill) when he makes his visit to Pompeii in a few days time. It is up to Bilius to find the missing scroll.

Bilius' attempts to retrieve the scroll are further complicated when the scroll gets mixed up with another scroll belonging to Lurcio’s master, Ludicrus Sextus (Michael Hordern). It is not long before Lurcio and Ludicrus Sextus find out about the planned assassination attempt.

Because Ludicrus Sextus and Lurcio know too much about the plot, the conspirators decide to murder them. Meanwhile, on his arrival in Pompeii, Nero finds out about the plot and he wants revenge. Lurcio gets caught up in the middle and has to desperately play off the conspirators against Nero for the sake of his own survival.

“…And there’s an au pair if ever I saw one.”

I really enjoyed this film. If you like corny British comedies in the style of the Carry On films, then you would love this one, but compared to the Carry On films, Up Pompeii is much more risqué. It's jam packed full of sexual innuendo and really corny gags, but you can't help laughing for the sheer audaciousness of it all.

“He’d forget what sex he was if he didn’t tie a knot in it…. That is if he could find his handkerchief.”

Based on the popular British TV series of the same name, Frankie Howerd as Lurcio is great. Regularly he would stop mid-story and speak to the camera directly to inform the viewer of the story details.

The cast are all great with many familiar faces from film and British TV, including Bernard Bresslaw playing Nero's Champion wrestler Gorgo, who is pitted against the hapless Lurcio, Michael Hordern playing Lurcio’s master Ludicrus Sextus, Roy Hudd makes a brief appearance and if you are British and was a kid during the 70's, you might briefly spot Play School presenter Derek Griffiths as a slave on the treadmill in the Roman baths.

This film is packed full of female eye-candy and also a surprisingly large amount of naked flesh is on display.

Julie Ege wears an extremely revealing dress in one scene in which she unwittingly seduces a blacked-faced Lurcio. On being found out as an imposter by her guards, Lucio explains:

“I just came here to give her a ticket for the eunuch’s ball.”

If you know your history, you’ll probably guess how the film ends, although there is one surprising scene afterwards which I thought was quite clever.

Directed by Bob Kellett, who would later direct Our Miss Fred (1972), which I previously reviewed here. Up Pompeii spawned two sequels, the medieval romp Up the Chastity Belt (1971) and it’s WW1 counterpart Up the Front (1972).

This movie is great fun and shouldn’t be taken too seriously… well how could it be?

Up Pompeii (1971)

Genre: Comedy/Drama

Bradley Morahan (James Mason) is a successful artist who wants to escape the hustle and bustle of New York to work on some new paintings. This takes him to the other side of the world and Australia.

He rents a shack on a small secluded island, hoping to be cut off from everyone except for the company of his pet dog. This all changes when he meets Cora (Helen Mirren), a pretty young girl who spends her days hunting or stealing food. She is desperately trying to save the $100 so she can escape her drunk domineering grandmother and become a hairdresser in Brisbane.

Bradley models Cora in the sand and she soon finds that she has an interest in being his artist model. When Bradley offers her money, she’s more than willing and isn’t afraid to shed her clothing.

Obstacles to this happy relationship appear and it soon looks as though Bradley will not get his pictures completed and Cora will not save her money. Their relationship has to be put on hold.

This is charming movie which was beautifully filmed on Dunk Island on the Great Barrier Reef by British movie director Michael Powell (ONE OF OUR AIRCAFT ARE MISSING, PEEPING TOM) and incidentally produced by himself and James Mason.

Twenty-four year old Helen Mirren is excellent as the teenage Cora – beautiful and buxom. In the beginning she is very tom-boyish as she hunts and frolics on the beaches. It isn’t until Cora sees the paintings that she begins to re-evaluate her body and feminine beauty and this gives her a new direction in life. The scenes are very liberating as she poses naked, playing in the water during the artist’s breaks between painting.

Helen Mirren would pose nude again a few years later for another artist in Ken Russell’s Savage Messiah (1972). This was a biography on the French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.

Irish actor, Jack MacGowran, is great as Bradley’s unwanted guest, Nad. He is one of the supporting characters who bring some humor to the film, as does Harold Hopkins as Ted. He is the young boat owner who is keen to win over the affections of Carla and seems to wear the smallest pair of shorts in the Southern Hemisphere.
The underlying theme of this movie is the body. When it’s not with Cora naked, then it is Nad when he is unexpectedly caught skinny dipping or when he goes to meet the neighbor, Isabel Marley, and being first greeted by her behind as she works in the garden, or Ted’s muscular body. All the while we are surrounded by Bradley’s nude sketches of Cora. It wouldn’t be of any surprise that this was adapted from a story by the artist Norman Lindsay, who painted similar nudes.

Age of Consent has been released on DVD as a double-bill with Powell and Pressburger's earlier 1946 fantasy Stairway to Heaven aka: A Matter of Life and Death.

If you get the chance, watch Age of Consent, it's a great film about relationships and freedom.

Age of Consent (1969)

Genre: British Saucy Comedy

Forget Quentin Tarrintono’s Inglorious Basterds (2009) and watch this re-write of the Second World War.

It’s 1939 and Fred (Danny La Rue), who’s a stage actor, receives his Army conscription notice. Luckily for him because of his acting talents, he’s recruited into the Army Concert Party. In next to no time he is dressed in drag and entertaining the British troops stationed in France.

During his performance, the Germans invade and capture all the British troops and take them away as prisoners, but believing Fred is a real woman, they allow him to leave.

Walking through the French countryside, Fred meets up with a British Girl Guides leader (Lally Bowers) and her assistant (Frances de la Tour, famous for playing Miss Ruth Jones in the British sitcom Rising Damp). The stiff-upper-lipped leader tells of her strong dislike of men because they are always raping women.

Fred joins them and they take him back to meet the five girl guides in their charge. Being a British comedy, the girl guides are more like the older girls in the Saint Trinians films – busty, pig-tails and in short skirts.

Un-be known to the Girl Guide leader, the girls are helping a downed British pilot escape from the Germans. The pilot tries to seduce Fred, but soon finds out Fred is a man and is a soldier in the British Army. They team up and together with the help of the girl guides they make their way to an airstrip and hopefully their escape back to Britain.

Along the way they have various misadventures, while Fred fights off the charms of the German soldiers:

“You’re everything in a woman and a bit more.”

Danny la Rue was a famous female impersonator and was a regular in British Christmas pantomimes and appeared occasionally on TV from the 6o’s through to the 80’s. Supposedly his first appearance in drag was actually for a naval concert.

A few times in the film he reverts back to a man, which was sometimes the trademark of his shows, but through the bulk of it he plays a woman. He is amazingly good as a female impersonator and goes through a number of costume and hair changes.

Director, Bob Kellett, directed movie versions of well-known British sitcoms, such as Up Pompeii, The Alf Garnett Saga and Are You Being Served?, as well as a few episodes of Gerry Anderson’s Space 1999.

Look out for a brief appearance of Frank Thornton, famous for playing Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served?.

This is a fun movie with plenty of sexual innuendo jokes and a rousing rendition of the popular song Hitler Has Only Got One Ball.

Our Miss Fred (1972)