Moviedrome

The Wicker Man was written by Anthony Shaffer, the author of Sleuth. Cinefantastique called it, rather optimistically, the Citizen Kane of horror films. Its British director was Robin Hardy, who formerly specialised in television commercials. It has a cult reputation despite the fact that most of those who rate it very highly have not seen the original version. It was initially 102 minutes long, but the owners of the film decided that it would be much better if they cut 15 minutes and put it out as the second half of a double bill. (This was back in the days when you used to get two films for the price of one.) So they cut it down to 87 minutes and, in 1973, released it on a double bill with Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now. As the years went by and the film’s cult reputation grew, attempts were made to restore the missing portions, but most of the original negative had gone missing. Apparently it had ended up in the pylons that support the M4 motorway. The ‘original version’ has now been partly restored for television. However, there’s one principal scene still missing, an early sequence in which Edward Woodward, who plays a Scottish police officer, is introduced, and we’re told he’s engaged to be married and has not yet ‘known a woman’. This is worth bearing in mind as you enjoy the pagan delights of The Wicker Man, which include Lindsay Kemp, the mime artist, Christopher Lee without his cape, and Britt Ekland dubbed in Scottish.

‘Electra Glide’ is the name of a full-dress Harley Davidson motorcycle that was manufactured in the United States. A few years back, all motorcycle cops over there used to ride Harleys, but in the 1970s, the Harley Davidson MC Corporation fell upon hard times, and now most American cops ride Japanese bikes, which they call 'rice burners’. No matter – this is a fairy story about the last honest motorcycle cop in Monument Valley. Monument Valley is on the Navaho Indian Reservation in northern Arizona – a sacred place. John Ford discovered it and shot his westerns there; nowadays, they use it to shoot car commercials. Electra Glide in Blue was directed by an American, James William Guercio, formerly the manager of the mellow rock band Chicago. It stars Robert Blake, who is the same height as Alan Ladd to the quarter inch. It was filmed by Conrad Hall who also shot Fat City. Today Conrad Hall shoots bank commercials in Monument Valley. The film is an interesting one. It’s sort of the cops’ response to Easy Rider, particularly at the end. It was also very influenced by a gay film, Scorpio Rising, directed by Kenneth Anger. Guercio never made another film after Electra Glide In Blue; he retired to a ranch in Colorado and was not seen again. A pity, because this is a good film, especially if you like motorcycles.

Diva is just the sort of film that American movie critics love: big on style and short on substance. And, of course, because it’s French. It’s the kind of film that gets called ‘scintillating’, or 'fabulous, frothy fun’. It doesn’t, however, have any real passion, nor any acting worthy of note. It doesn’t have a theme or any real direction, but what it does have is art direction. It’s the only film I’ve ever seen where a whole sequence has been designed around a packet of cigarettes–the colour of the walls, the set decoration, the costumes, everything exists to complement a packet of Gitanes. It’s an art director’s film and the name of the art director is Hilton Mocconnico. Hilton’s film is, I guess, what you’d call a New Wave film. It’s a post-punk, hyper-modern, ultra-realist sort of subject. It’s fresh and shiny, like one of those glum-looking models that stare out at you from the pages of The Face. It also features musical selections from the noted opera La Wally–une de mes favorites. A lot of people like Diva, which became an instant cult when it opened.