cinema's forgotten legends (part 12).

She was the completely naked, scarily large breasted, kissy lipped 'space vampire' alongside Mick Jaggers brother and the guy that played Sgt. Streetwise in the Eagle photo stories in the Tobe Hooper classic Lifeforce and a sexy lady with a Louise Brooks bob in Naked Tango...but whatever happened to French fancy Mathilda May?

The librarian like May. Yum.

Karima Mathilda Haim (measurements: 35C-25-35) was born on 8th February 1965 in Paris (France in Europe for any Americans reading), daughter of French playwright Victor Haim and a prima ballerina, she started her career in 'the arts' early, Winning the "Premier Prix du Conservatoire de Danse de Paris" (whatever that is) at the tender age of 16. Working primarily for the French 'arthouse' market (meaning she gets her kit off a lot), she's best known outside her native country for the aforementioned Lifeforce, Becoming Colette and the snigger-rificly titled The Tit and The Moon.

scrumptious.

Not content with being a fantastically gifted actress, May has also lent her vocal talents to top space computer game Privateer 2: The Darkening alongside Clive Owen, Jurgen Prochnow and Christoper 'Walken' and, in 1994 released a funky disco 'record', still finding the time to get married three times and have raise two kids.

French.

She's still acting with a couple of new projects slated for a 2008 release, but to her fans tho, she will always be remembered for Lifeforce.

For those unlucky enough to have never seen it, the plot goes something like this.....

The crew of the space shuttle Churchill, led by the ever so wooden Colonel Carlsen ('Steve' Railsback) has been sent to investigate an object discovered in the centre of Halley's Comet.

On arrival the crew are shocked to find a huge space ship containing hundreds of fossilized giant bats and three nude people inside big crystal blocks. They decide to take all three back to Earth with them.....bad move.

The worlds sexiest Xmas tree decorations.

Losing contact with the Churchill a rescue team is sent to rendezvous with the stricken shuttle. On docking they discover the charred remains of the crew and a destroyed ship, all that remains are the perfectly preserved space nudes.

The rescue team return to mission control with their erotic looking cargo.

That's why the lady is a (space) vamp!

The scientist team (led by silver fox Frank Finlay), are utterly confused (and probably distracted by the amount of flesh on show) by the nature of these beings and decide to keep them locked up in a warehouse. All is well till late one night, a chubby, basin headed security guard feels an uncontrollable urge to enter the room in which the nude space lady is being held.

He touches her on the shoulder, and she awakens. Standing in all her Euro-nude glory she approaches the guard and begins to suck the 'lifeforce' out of him with a killer kiss.

You would, she may.

She explosively escapes from the warehouse, leaving a trail of snogged to death corpses behind her......But that's not all, Frank discovers that within two hours of death the corpses return to 'life' hungry for kisses....the government have no choice but to bring in top Brit sex God (and star of Spooks) Peter Firth as the pube haired Colonel Caine of the SAS to track her down before London (or maybe even the world) is awash with re-animated sex starved zombies.

May today...still frisky at (nearly) fifty.

forgotten teevee legends (part one)

In the history of that great British variety tradition of cross dressing the partnership of performer Patrick Fyffe and ex-computer programmer and pianist George Logan has never been equaled.

The pair met in 1974 and almost immediately launched their act at that years Edinburgh Festival to great acclaim.

Who am I waffling on about?

The fantastic Hinge and Bracket.

The shows success led to the duo taking part in a worldwide tour before being signed up to the BBC for the first in a regular series entitled The Enchanting World of Hinge and Bracket on Radio 4 in 1978. This was followed by The Random Jottings of Hinge and Bracket and two series of Dear Ladies for BBC 2.

Beware the stare that will terrify the world!

Set in the fictional village of Stackton Tressel, the show was co-written by novelty jumpered Tory bum boy Gyles Brandreth and led to even greater super stardom now that they'd been found by TeeVee audiences. The double act had the world at their feet and their next project had to be as good if not better than anything that had gone before.....

The duo settled on a series of commercials for Croft Original Sherry.

From appearing alongside such mega stars as the robotic cowboy Yul Brynner and small ginger man Red Buttons at the Royal Variety Show to being 'directed' by the anagramtastic Placido Domingo in “Die Fledermaus” the duo never failed to hit the entertainment funnybone of a nation (and it's criminal colonies).

The much wished for
Morrissey and Marr reunion.

In the theatre they toured in “Lettice and Lovage”, whilst George Logan played Miss Marple in a tour of “Murder at the Vicarage” before Patrick Fyffe died in 2002 in a freak piano juggling accident (it would have been very difficult to tour after his death tho' but not impossible with today's special effects techniques).

cinema's forgotten legends (part nine)

He's the little man (with the old lady paunch) of Italian cinema, well regarded for such roles as 'Boy Scout in Train' in the classic Via Alle Grande (1983), the 'whistling guy' in 1979's Liquirizia and most famously as the freakish Michael in Andrea Bianchi's zombie opus Burial Ground: Nights of Terror. We can only be celebrating the life and times of...

PETER BARK

Little is know of the 56 year old Bark's early life and career except that his real name is Pietro Barcella and that he is a native of Rome. Originally he wanted to become a shopkeeper, but his lack of height made it impossible for him to see over the counter without the use of a box but the incident that made him turn his back on a life of retail was when a group of school children stole the Curly Wurly he was using as a ladder to reach the pornographic magazines on the top shelf leaving him stranded for 6 days with only a glossy picture of Anna Kanakis' breasts for company. It was seeing the beautiful star of The New Barbarians watching over him at night that convinced Bark to pursue his acting dream.

Dario Argento: The Grange Hill years.

But first he needed an English sounding stage name, he chose Peter (after his favourite musician Peter Tork of The Monkees) and Bark after the noise he would make as the other children beat him on the way to school (up to the age of 14, he was only an astounding 16" tall).
Noticed walking past a casting call for the movie Liquirizia by famed director Salvatore Samperi, the director was amazed by Bark's incredible whistling skills, writing the character of 'whistling boy' specifically for Bark.

The rest, as they say, is history.

"Aye son!"

Although his filmography consists of only four movies, Bark earned a place in horror history with his unique performance as Michael, the little boy with the bad hair in Burial Ground and, although sharing top billing with up and coming starlet Karin Well it was Bark who won the critics (and fans) appreciation for scarily accurate take on puberty, Oedipus complexes and high waist trousers.

"It's John Leslie!"

The character of Michael as originally written was a 12-year old boy, however Italy's ultra-strict child labour laws forbid the participation of children in any film featuring sex, gore and incestuous overtones (especially if the child character was indulging in both). Bianchi hatched the audacious plan of casting the then 25-year old Bark as Michael, who his make-up artists promised, could believably be transformed into a 12 year old boy.

Unfortunately this completely failed to happen.

"Touch mah titties".

Bark made one more film after Burial Ground, using the money he'd made to open a specialist 'short people friendly' hardware store in Rome which he runs to this day.