#CHRISTOPHERLEESATURDAYS: THROUGH THE ROUND WINDOW: RAPTOR IS COMING AND BRIAN CANT IS GONE!

#CHRISTOPHERLEESATURDAYS: Lee referred to as, "one of the best pictures I've ever been in, most delightful". 'A Feast At midnight' is surely is one of the secret gems and certainly worth watching....Headmasters, private boys school, and FOOD! Let this little morsel whet your appetite ...tell if you think so too...worth a watch?- Marcus

A NEW STUDENT at a British public school forms a secret society centered around cooking and midnight feasting with other school misfits and outcasts. . . The school's principal, is nick-named, 'RAPTOR' . .. now I wonder who could be playing that role???

AND SO UNCLE BRIAN has gone. I would doubt that few outside of the UK , who visit this site, would know the name. Brian. Brian Cant. Millions of thirty, forty and fifty year olds who grew up in the UK from the mid 1960's and up until the early 80's, will know that voice, even if the name doesn't ring bells. Cant very late in his career, played a small role in a firm favorite of the late Christopher Lee...but I doubt if many would recognise the title either...so shamefully limited was it's release in 1995.  'A Feast At Midnight' is a gem of film. Set in a private boys school, it's the stuff of dorms, headmasters, tuck shops, rugger, cricket and FEASTS at midnight...! Cant's role was a blink and you'll miss him opportunity, but I didn't miss him, or that voice. So, there we are, that is the justifying out of the way. We pay tribute to Brian Cant who played a small role in a low budget film, that got little chance to shine. The real reason why he is here, I'll come clean . . .   

CANT WAS THE VOICE and face, of one the most popular and earliest pre school morning television programmes on the BBC, 'Play School'. I missed his arrival, being too old for the show, and was otherwise busy elsewhere, when for the first time, 'Here's a house and a door, windows, one, two, three four..' were spoken over the air. I didn't come to the programme, until the show was well into its stride and my younger sister was born, I was eight years old. I missed pretty much most of my primary schooling and thought a family unit was something along the lines of a piece of kitchen furniture or the place where children who were slower were sent at school. 'Apply yourself, or YOU will end up in the unit!' No, for endless mornings, because I was not at school, my sister and I watched the half an hour of 'Play School', with Cant, Humpty, Hamble, Jemima, Big Ted and Little Ted. The songs, dance, stories and chatty lessons. 

THE KIND SMILING MAN with the gentle voice made a huge impression me, and the relationship I had with my sister. Daily, Cant showed me, how to communicate with a young child, with patience, care and gentleness. We called him, Uncle Brian. He was the nearest thing we had to compassion and understanding. In a perfect world, he would have been our favorite school teacher, Uncle, friend's Dad... or wishful thinking OUR Dad. Daily, through that flickering screen and fuzzy black and white screen, Brian Cant led the way. And for that, I say thank you. Thank you Uncle Brian. Today, you are remembered, tomorrow cherished. . . 

If you LIKE what you find posted here . . Please visit us at our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE and help Keep The Memory Alive!

The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA.

AN EVENING WITH RAY BROOKS : AS IF BY MAGIC - THE GENIUS OF MR BENN

NEWS: AN EVENING WITH RAY BROOKS : AS IF BY MAGIC – The Genius of Mr Benn!

Anyone in the UK over the age of 25 would get a flash of nostalgia when they hear Ray Brooks speak. Brooks has rarely been out of work since starting his acting career in 1959. The broadcast of the bleak and hard hitting Ken Loach Wednesday Night Play 'Cathy Come Home' in 1966, showcased Brooks as an actor of substance in the role of Reg Ward in the bleak tale of young girl, Cathy who loses her home, husband and eventually her child through the inflexibility of the British welfare system. Those of us who watched it, would find it hard to forget! Just months before families had been enjoying his appearance with Peter Cushing as David in 'Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 ad' at the local flicks!

But, it’s for voicing a short series of 13 animated shows for children that he holds a special place in the hearts and minds of most – and the inhabitant of 52 Festive Road is the focus of his new one-man show. A creation of illustrator David McKee, Mr Benn was about an ordinary man in a suit and bowler hat who embarked on extraordinary adventures every time he visited a fancy dress shop. His adventure always ended when, as if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared to bring him back to reality.

The full impact of Mr Benn – and idea for the one-man show – really hit Brooks two years ago when he was at an event marking the 100th anniversary of PETER CUSHING'S BIRTH. “We did the Dr Who film Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 AD together,” says Brooks. “I was on stage talking about the film and Peter, and the interviewer brought up Mr Benn. When I said the phrase: ‘As if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared’ the audience leapt to their feet. I thought it was quite extraordinary."

Video Clip: Peter Cushing would have been 100 on 26 May 2013. To celebrate this, Ray Brooks slices a special cake on behalf of Cushing at the Dr Who @ the Movies event at Riverside Studios. 

Ray's show An Evening With Ray Brooks: As If By Magic – The Genius of Mr Benn opened last night as a one off at The Brighton Little Theatre, Clarence Gardens, Brighton. We'll keep you posted of any further dates. Below here's a link to Ray's blog. Message him, he's a lovely chap and would be glad to hear from you.

 http://www.raybrooksbooks.com/about-ray/

TEMPTATIONS LTD PETER CUSHING: FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE (1974)

CAST:

Linking Story: Peter Cushing (Antique Store Proprietor). 1: David Warner (Edward Jeffries). 2: Ian Bannen (Christopher Lowe), Donald Pleasence (Jim), Angela Pleasence (Emily), Diana Dors (Mabel Lowe). 3: Ian Carmichael (Richard), Margaret Leighton (Madame Orlov), Nyree Dawn Porter (Suzanne). 4: Ian Ogilvy (Williams), Lesley Anne Down (Rosemary Williams) 

PRODUCTION:

Director – Kevin Connor, Screenplay – Raymond Christodolou & Robin Clarke, Based on Short Stories by Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes, Producers – Max J. Rosenberg & Milton Subotsky, Photography – Alan Hume, Music – Douglas Gamley, Special Effects – Alan Bryce, Production Design – Maurice Carter. Production Company – Amicus. 

SYNOPSIS:

An antique store proprietor promises a little ‘something extra’ with everything he sells. 1:- Edward Jeffries buys a mirror for his apartment. One evening, he has the urge to hold a seance. There he is possessed by a man in the mirror who uses Jeffries to lure girls to the apartment and sacrifice them so that he might gain physical form again. 2:- Hen-pecked husband Christopher Lowe befriends a street peddler and begin an affair with the man’s strange daughter. The daughter shows him how he can use a voodoo doll to get rid of his nagging wife. 3:- A man encounters the batty old Madame Orlov on a train who tells him he has an elemental spirit on his shoulder. When he finds himself strangling his wife, he is forced to call upon Madame Orlov’s services to exorcise the spirit. 4 A man buys an antique door and finds that it opens back into the era of Charles I.

COMMENTARY:

From Beyond the Grave was one of the best horror anthologies to come from Amicus. (See below for Amicus’s other anthologies). From Beyond the Grave was the directorial debut of Kevin Connor who would go onto become a modest name in genre cinema. This is in fact one of Kevin Connor’s best films and he demonstrates exceptional directorial style. Particularly good are the seance scenes in the first episode where Connor conducts some inventive 360^o pans with a candle that explodes between a flickering flame and a jet in the foreground. The murders in this segment are vividly staged with Connor creating some marvellously sinister images of David Warner standing about in bloodstained clothes and a wrecked apartment.

The second and third stories go for a much more tongue-in-cheek tone. The second is a veritable EC Comics tale – in fact, is a more successful EC-type story than Amicus’s two actual EC adaptations, Tales from the Crypt (1972) and The Vault of Horror (1973), were. The second episode has a particularly strong cast in weak-willed Ian Bannen; Diana Dors, who is having the time of her life playing it up as the wife; and a decidedly offbeat Donald Pleasence and his very, very weird real-life daughter Angela.

The third episode is played entirely for laughs. The exorcism scenes are a wonderfully over-the-top pyrotechnic show after which it surely seems impossible to watch The Exorcist (1973) with a straight face again. Margaret Leighton’s performance as the batty old exorcist is side-splitting.

Where in most anthologies there usually tends to be some stories that are weaker or stronger than others, this is one occasion where all four stories are equally strong. The only failing is the weak linking story, which has to contrive to introduce antique objects that have no other purpose in the episode other than to wind in the second and third stories. The linking story also contains an awkward performance from the usually great Peter Cushing.

Amicus’s other horror anthologies are:– Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1964), Torture Garden (1967), The House That Dripped Blood (1970), Asylum (1972), Tales from the Crypt (1972) and The Vault of Horror (1973). Amicus producer Milton Subotsky later adapted more short stories from British writer Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes in his horror anthology The Monster Club (1980).

From Beyond the Grave was the directorial debut of Kevin Connor who later became a genre regular. Connor next directed Amicus’s trilogy of lost world Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations, The Land That Time Forgot (1974), At the Earth’s Core (1976) and The People That Time Forgot (1977), and one original lost world film Warlords of Atlantis (1978), all starring Doug McClure; the Arabian Nights fantasy Arabian Adventure (1979); the cannibalism black comedy Motel Hell (1980); and the Japanese ghost story The House Where Evil Dwells (1982). These days Connor directs for tv, making such unexceptional true life soap opera fare as Diana: Her True Story (1993), Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story (1995), Mother Teresa: In the Name of God’s Poor (1997) and Mary, Mother of Jesus (1999). Among Connor’s genre tv fare is:- Goliath Awaits (1981), an interesting tv mini-series about a society that has survived in a sunken ship; The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1986), which brought the famous sleuth into the present-day; the Indian adventure The Mysteries of the Dark Jungle (1991); the stalker thriller Shadow of Obsession (1994); the Egyptian archaeology adventure The Seventh Scroll (1999); the Christmas fantasies Santa, Jr. (2002), A Boyfriend for Christmas (2004)and Annie Claus is Coming to Town (2011); the Hallmark adaptation of Frankenstein (2004); and Chasing Leprechauns (2012).

 

Images: Marcus Brooks

FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE: AMICUS PETER CUSHING AS THE SHOP KEEPER