NAILED IT!
Despite having bought a ticket for Quentin Tarantino's new movie, I felt out of sorts and decided to veg out watching TV which is how I came to see Tarantino Presents The Swing Sixties on Movies4men and, more importantly, that night's pick, Hammerhead, a film that I had not seen since I was 13 .
Hammerhead is a British spy thriller, 'Hammerhead' being the name of the villain and the title of the first book in a series featuring the art loving adventurer Mr Hood written by Stephen Coultier under the pen name James Mayo. I first saw the movie by accident when I went to see 'No Sex Please, We're British' with my class mates for my thirteenth birthday. My parents were not wise in the ways of cinema and my Mother, who was chaperoning us, was blissfully unaware that 'Hammerhead' would be shown as a 'b' feature.
To say that 'Hammerhead' came as a shock is an understatement. Even today, the film received a rating of 15 and Tarantino noted that it was the most controversial film in his selection. All I remembered was that one scene was so scary that the even the class thug ended up holding my mother's hand.It turned out that scene was the film's opening which features a 'happening' or piece of performance art featuring the exploding or melting heads of wax work women, nude cellists and a police raid.
The rest of 'Hammerhead' is barely comprehensible. In tone the film is an Austin Powers's adventure filmed with the sensibility of an episode of the hard boiled British series 'Callan'' , although a big budget version of the Sixties TV series 'The Saint' might be the closest comparison. Anyway, the film's narrative is rambling to the point of incoherence, although not so bad as other films of its ilk such as Puppet on a Chain or the Eiger Sanction.
The film does contain a veritable whose who of British action series including the marvelously villainous Peter Vaughan as Mr Hammerhead, Patrick Cargill, David Prowse as Hammerhead's enforcer and a ride-on part for Kenneth Cope of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) as an un-named 'motorcyclist'. The female cast is also top-notch Sixties: Judy Gleeson plays a good girl mixed up in the whole mess while Diana Dors provides God tier slutty menace as Kit, the madam of a brothel.
Special mention should be made of Beverly Adams, the star of 'How to Stuff a Wild Bikini', wife of Vidal Sasoon who she met while filming 'The Torture Garden'. Adams plays Ivory, Hammerhead's reluctant squeeze and eventual doom in a clever but out of nowhere climax. Adams spends most of the movie acting as if her character were on some kind of amazing drug.
Halfway through the TV screening, Tarantino pops up to discuss why the protagonist Mr Hood let's the film down. Hood was played by Vince Edwards star of Ben Casey, but makes zero impression on the Big Screen. Tarantino gleefully points to Hood's terrible dress sense. Where Gleeson's clothes are on-trend Carnaby Street, Edward's costume is a hopelessly mis-matching blazer and trousers and, shock, a short sleeved shirt. Tarantin observed that the shirt alone made Hood look like a post office worker rather than a suave art collector and suggested there might have been many sequels if only they had cast someone like Robert Culp in the central role.
My theory is that the British production actually despised its American star. I thought this right from the moment Hood makes tea for Geeson. After a dramatic close-up on a tea bag, she dismisses dismisses tea bags as a "nasty American habit". When Geeson learns of Mr Hoods true vocation, she utterly contemptuous, "Oh God you're a spy! I was hoping you rally were an international jewelry thief".
Despite all that's wrong about 'Hammerhead' somewhere buried among the beautiful Portuguese locations, the hard core violence and the absurdly beautiful eye candy there actually is an intelligent sub-text. The film is a very Sixties celebration of bodily pleasure in the face of an up-tight establishment. Mr Hammerhead's belief that the Art establishment should not cover-up the sensual, erotic nature of female nudes chimes with the counter-culture's rejection of arid intellectualism and Establishment norms. The film underlines its message with a climax that inter-cuts a formal piano recital with another 'happening' on the beach.
Despite having bought a ticket for Quentin Tarantino's new movie, I felt out of sorts and decided to veg out watching TV which is how I came to see Tarantino Presents The Swing Sixties on Movies4men and, more importantly, that night's pick, Hammerhead, a film that I had not seen since I was 13 .
Hammerhead is a British spy thriller, 'Hammerhead' being the name of the villain and the title of the first book in a series featuring the art loving adventurer Mr Hood written by Stephen Coultier under the pen name James Mayo. I first saw the movie by accident when I went to see 'No Sex Please, We're British' with my class mates for my thirteenth birthday. My parents were not wise in the ways of cinema and my Mother, who was chaperoning us, was blissfully unaware that 'Hammerhead' would be shown as a 'b' feature.
To say that 'Hammerhead' came as a shock is an understatement. Even today, the film received a rating of 15 and Tarantino noted that it was the most controversial film in his selection. All I remembered was that one scene was so scary that the even the class thug ended up holding my mother's hand.It turned out that scene was the film's opening which features a 'happening' or piece of performance art featuring the exploding or melting heads of wax work women, nude cellists and a police raid.
The rest of 'Hammerhead' is barely comprehensible. In tone the film is an Austin Powers's adventure filmed with the sensibility of an episode of the hard boiled British series 'Callan'' , although a big budget version of the Sixties TV series 'The Saint' might be the closest comparison. Anyway, the film's narrative is rambling to the point of incoherence, although not so bad as other films of its ilk such as Puppet on a Chain or the Eiger Sanction.
The film does contain a veritable whose who of British action series including the marvelously villainous Peter Vaughan as Mr Hammerhead, Patrick Cargill, David Prowse as Hammerhead's enforcer and a ride-on part for Kenneth Cope of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) as an un-named 'motorcyclist'. The female cast is also top-notch Sixties: Judy Gleeson plays a good girl mixed up in the whole mess while Diana Dors provides God tier slutty menace as Kit, the madam of a brothel.
Special mention should be made of Beverly Adams, the star of 'How to Stuff a Wild Bikini', wife of Vidal Sasoon who she met while filming 'The Torture Garden'. Adams plays Ivory, Hammerhead's reluctant squeeze and eventual doom in a clever but out of nowhere climax. Adams spends most of the movie acting as if her character were on some kind of amazing drug.
Halfway through the TV screening, Tarantino pops up to discuss why the protagonist Mr Hood let's the film down. Hood was played by Vince Edwards star of Ben Casey, but makes zero impression on the Big Screen. Tarantino gleefully points to Hood's terrible dress sense. Where Gleeson's clothes are on-trend Carnaby Street, Edward's costume is a hopelessly mis-matching blazer and trousers and, shock, a short sleeved shirt. Tarantin observed that the shirt alone made Hood look like a post office worker rather than a suave art collector and suggested there might have been many sequels if only they had cast someone like Robert Culp in the central role.
My theory is that the British production actually despised its American star. I thought this right from the moment Hood makes tea for Geeson. After a dramatic close-up on a tea bag, she dismisses dismisses tea bags as a "nasty American habit". When Geeson learns of Mr Hoods true vocation, she utterly contemptuous, "Oh God you're a spy! I was hoping you rally were an international jewelry thief".
Despite all that's wrong about 'Hammerhead' somewhere buried among the beautiful Portuguese locations, the hard core violence and the absurdly beautiful eye candy there actually is an intelligent sub-text. The film is a very Sixties celebration of bodily pleasure in the face of an up-tight establishment. Mr Hammerhead's belief that the Art establishment should not cover-up the sensual, erotic nature of female nudes chimes with the counter-culture's rejection of arid intellectualism and Establishment norms. The film underlines its message with a climax that inter-cuts a formal piano recital with another 'happening' on the beach.