Wot, No DVD?

dgolder | Features | 07/04/2010 14:26pm
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30 SF and fantasy TV shows and films that have criminally never found their way onto DVD

1984

TV DRAMA * 1954
The BBC dramatisation of George Orwell’s dystopian novel was one of the most controversial TV programmes of its time. It was brought to the screen by producer Rudolph Cartier and screenwriter Nigel Kneale, who teamed up successfully the year before on the first of the Quatermass serials. A young Peter Cushing is superb as the beleaguered Winston Smith, with Andre Morell (later to play Quatermass) as his tormenter O’Brien.
Kneale had the good sense to remain pretty faithful to the novel – which didn’t please some. Many viewers complained about the horrific content of the Room 101 sequence (especially since it was shown on a Sunday), The Daily Express claimed that a viewer died of shock, and questions were raised in the Commons.

1984 was broadcast live, but fortunately the BBC had the foresight to make a telerecording of the second performance, which still exists in the archives. If someone released that on shiny disc it’d be double-plus-good.

1990

TV SERIES * 1977-1978

As you can probably guess from the title, this ’70s series, which aired on BBC Two, isn’t far removed from George Orwell’s 1984, and is another vision of a dystopian near-future.

It’s set in a totalitarian Britain where every aspect of everyday life is rigidly controlled by bureaucrats. Food is rationed; permits are required for any kind of travel; dissenters are sent to “rehabilitation centres” for mind-altering drug therapy. Edward Woodward played the hero of the piece, Jim Kyle, a dissident-friendly journalist working for one of the UK’s three surviving newspapers, forever in danger of falling foul of the oppressive Public Control Department.

1990 fitted the pessimistic mood of the times perfectly, but many of its concerns – electronic surveillance, immigration, compulsory ID cards – are even more topical today. Which makes it doubly annoying that none of the 16 episodes have ever been repeated or released on video. Will someone please stick ’em out on DVD?

BLOOD AND ROSES

FILM * 1960

Sheridan le Fanu’s 1872 novella Carmilla has been adapted several times – most famously as Hammer’s The Vampire Lovers, which kick-started a trilogy of lesbian vampire movies for the British studio. This adaptation is less well known.

The man responsible was Roger Vadim, best known for helming Barbarella, and for being jammy enough to marry not only Brigitte Bardot and Jane Fonda but also this film’s star, the stunning Annette Vadim (née Strøyberg). Updating Le Fanu’s tale of a young woman who becomes the victim of a female vampire to modern-day Italy, it’s a gothic horror with an arthouse flavour, beautifully shot by cinematographer Claude Renoir, with an undercurrent of eroticism and a melancholy, harp-heavy score. The highlight is a surreal dream sequence, shot in black and white, which features a woman swimming up outside some windows, and a bizarre operating room scene.

It’s never been released on home video here in the UK, and the NTSC VHS release was of the dubbed American version, which had scenes cut and new material added. So it’s crying out for a proper DVD release of the original European version. How about it, Paramount?

BRIMSTONE

TV SERIES * 1998-1999

Yet another American TV show cancelled before its time, this supernatural drama was more cerebral than most, but only lasted 13 episodes before the axe fell.
New York cop Ezekiel Stone (Peter Horton) was sent to Hell for murdering the man who raped his wife. 15 years after his death, 113 spirits break out of Hell, and the Devil charges Stone with tracking them down. His reward if he returns them all? A second chance at life.

Brimstone had a strong cast (with Smallville’s Lionel Luthor – John Glover – particularly impressive as the teasing Devil), a rich vein of dark humour, and some neat ideas: the super-powered escapees (who originate from many time periods) can only be returned to Hell by piercing their eyes, and Stone is covered in tattoos of the missing souls, which disappear when they’re returned. For some reason, Reaper nicked most of its ideas, and turned it into a comedy.

THE CHANGES

TV SERIES * 1975

With fuel shortages, terrorism and soaring unemployment, mid-’70s Britain was a fertile breeding ground for post-apocalyptic drama. Like Terry Nation’s Survivors, this BBC children’s serial showed the total collapse of civilisation.

A weird noise causes people to turn against technology, smashing everything from cars to toasters; even  words like “electricity” and “car” become taboo. In the chaos, quiet 14 year-old Nicky Gore is separated from her parents. Over ten episodes she joins up with a group of Sikhs, is accused of witchcraft, and ultimately discovers the cause of it all in a cavern: a strange force “deep in the roots of everything”.

Loosely adapted from a book trilogy by Peter Dickinson, this thoughtful series still stands up well. It makes extensive use of location work (its young star never set foot in a studio), its environmentalist message was ahead of its time, and its treatment of the Sikh characters – neither patronised nor exoticised – is deeply impressive for a show from the era of insulting sitcoms like Mind Your Language.

I CRIMINALI DELLA GALASSIA

FILM * 1965

Probably better known by its wholly appropriate American title, The Wild, Wild Planet, this bonkers Italian SF flick (the title translates as Criminals Of The Galaxy) was directed by the ultra-prolific Italian director Antonio Margheriti, perhaps best known for 1980’s Cannibal Apocalypse. A young Franco Nero (later to achieve fame starring in spaghetti western Django) has a small role.

The plot concerns a scientist obsessed with eugenics, who’s kidnapped hundreds of people in order to conduct experiments on them in his secret asteroid lab – experiments designed to create a master-race. The lackeys who snatch people on his behalf work in pairs: women with beehive hairstyles create a distraction, while four-armed, bald-headed robots in long leather coats and sunglasses shrink their victims to the size of Barbie dolls! Space commander Mike Halstead investigates after his squeeze goes AWOL.

Featuring psychedelic effects, swinging mod fashions, spaceships on strings that’d make Ed Wood blush with shame, and repeated use of the choice insult “you helium-headed idiot!”, this unintentionally hilarious movie is something of a camp classic.