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Post by jjpor on Dec 27, 2008 22:44:18 GMT
So, it's Xmas time, so I've been watching Xmas movies - not movies _about_ Xmas you understand, just the oldy-but-goody sort of films they put on telly at this time of year. Yesterday, it was "Zulu" and "Bridge on the River Kwai", the latter a bona fide classic, and the former sort of moving and exciting in spite of its dodgy racism and war movie cliches (even though it isn't, technically speaking, a war movie in the sense of WW2 etc.). And today it was "Ben Hur" - a long, long wait for the undeniably classic chariot race scene - and, er, "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad".
Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to my point: the Golden Voyage, which is the one featuring that golden statue with the six arms, swordfighting a whole crew of sailors in Harryhausen-tastic stop-motion animation, stars, among other people, our very own Big Tommy B! Mr Baker plays the main baddie, a sort of vaguely Middle Eastern sorceror type; it must have been early 70s, because he looked quite young in it, but with a false beard, a lot of brown makeup to make him look, well, foreign, and a hilarious general-purpose "foreign" accent as well. In other words, pure class! I watched it with a big, stupid grin on my face, and reflected that in some strange way it was a lot like watching old Tom playing his own version of the Master.
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Post by magnusgreel on Dec 27, 2008 23:17:30 GMT
I saw "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" again recently. The first time I was unimpressed, but this time I liked it. It was written by Brian Clemens who was the main writer on the Avengers, and he was obviously having a good time with words here. The atmosphere and romance of it all are credible. I liked it when we got to see a classic Tom move outside of DW, when he's searching the temple, doesn't find what he's looking for within six seconds, gets totally frustrated, yells, and kicks over some object that was probably sacred to somebody.
Leading up to Christmas I watched Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, Life of Brian, then The Lion In Winter.
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Post by jjpor on Dec 28, 2008 0:11:17 GMT
I liked it when we got to see a classic Tom move outside of DW, when he's searching the temple, doesn't find what he's looking for within six seconds, gets totally frustrated, yells, and kicks over some object that was probably sacred to somebody. Yes, I know exactly the bit you're talking about, and it was indeed a vintage Four moment. I love the Sinbad films, along with things like Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans. They really don't make them like that any more; no amount of CGI will ever match those creepy, insectile swordfighting skeletons in Jason. I was also pleasantly surprised to see a very young Martin "The Professionals" Shaw in Golden Voyage, with an even better "foreign" accent than Tom's. I haven't seen "Jesus of Nazareth" for some time indeed - over here, they tend to show it at Easter rather than Christmas. For some reason, it's the bit with Anthony Quinn playing Caiaphas (I think) that sticks in my mind. And is it Rod Steiger as Pontius Pilate?! I _need_ to see the Lion in Winter again. My other favourite medieval film, Robin and Marian, is on sometime in the week, and I'm going to do my utmost to make sure I see it.
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Post by primsong on Dec 28, 2008 2:12:43 GMT
Good heavens, is he really in there? Now I've got to go rummage up the Golden Voyage just so I can see it with my "Baker-location-beeper" in place.
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Post by magnusgreel on Dec 29, 2008 22:10:03 GMT
Tom is also in "Mutations" with Donald Pleasance and Michael Dunn (Prof. Loveless from The Wild Wild West) from 1973 or so! He has a big hat on and looks very Doctor-like except that his face is all mutant-y.
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Post by jjpor on Dec 31, 2008 0:32:24 GMT
Another Tom sighting in a slightly dodgy 70s Brit-flick; saw him last night in "Vault of Horror", along with the likes of Curt Jurgens, the great Terry-Thomas, Denholm Eliott and the one out of Randall and Hopkirk who isn't in "Warriors' Gate" (it didn't have the Cush in, which was a major disappointment to me; I'd thought the Cush was in it.) Anyway, this was one of those anthology horror films that were sort of popular in those days, a number of short stories rather than one long one. Tom was in the last, and arguably the best, of five segments as this artist who discovers that he has the ability to paint "voodoo pictures" - if he paints a picture of something and then...does something to it, the same thing will happen to the actual object. He uses this to get terrible revenge against the snooty art critics who destroyed his career, but not, for some reason, until he has finished painting a portrait of himself...(the dolt!)
And speaking of Brian Clemens and 70s horror movies, he wrote/directed what is, for my money, the single greatest (and funniest) film Hammer ever made; "Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter" - pure genius! Swordfighting and vampires, two great tastes that taste great together ("This is God's blade, forged for your black heart!!!").
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