Notes on 'Night of the Big Heat' (1967)

Patrick Allen, Sarah Lawson and Jane Merrow 

in Night of the Big Heat (1967)

 

"If this heat goes on like this, it could very well drive us all insane."

 

 

I.

 

Night of the Big Heat (dir. by Terence Fisher, 1967) [1] is not the greatest sci-fi horror movie ever made, but it does contain what, in my view, is one of the hottest on-screen love affairs between Jeff Callum (played by Patrick Allen, who, for many of my generation, was the voice of reliable male authority in the 1960s and '70s) [2] and Angela Roberts (played by Jane Merrow, who, for many of my generation, was an embodiment of feminine allure in the same period) [3]. 

 

In fact, the two nominal male stars of the film - Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing - and their battle against frankly ludicrous-looking alien invaders, hardly excites any interest at all and one wonders if Fisher ever considered requesting that Messrs. Lee and Cushing step aside, so that he might rework the entire film as a steamy romance starring Allen, Roberts, and Sarah Lawson; the latter playing Jeff's slightly dowdy and sightly dim wife Frankie (and who, amusingly, also happened to be Allen's wife in real life) [4].      

 

At any rate, it's the love triangle formed between Callum, his mistress, and his Mrs. that interests me here ...

 

 

II. 

 

Jeff and Frankie Callum run a pub called The Swan, on the tiny remote island of Fara, off the British coast [5]. When not pulling pints, Callum is a professional novelist in search of a reliable secretary. Unfortunately, the attractive young woman who arrives to take up the post wishes to do more than take a letter or type up his latest manuscript.

 

It turns out, in fact, that Angela Roberts is Jeff's former mistress and she has come to the island hoping to lure him away from his wife, or at least cause as much trouble as possible for a man who fled the mainland in order to escape her amorous clutches.  

 

Angela is the sort of sultry young woman for whom many men would give up red meat if that allowed them to catch a glimpse of her in a bra. Fortunately, despite it being the middle of winter, Fara is experiencing a mysterious and intense heat wave [6] and so Angela regularly has her blouse unbuttoned. She's also the kind of girl who knows how to make sweating sexy and raise male temperatures whatever the weather outside.    

 

That, of course, does not excuse the attempt to rape her by car mechanic Tinker Mason (played by Kenneth Cope) [7], but it does explain why Callum finds it so hard to resist Angela's charms; there are at least two occasions in the movie when he passionately kisses her - once on the beach and once in the study - despite insisting that he doesn't want to experience her special brand of madness again and threatening at one point to break her neck should his wife ever find out about their affair. 

Young, beautiful, and sexually attractive she may be, but Angela is not a very nice kettle of fish; in one particularly nasty scene she cruelly toys with Frankie's feelings, confessing she's Jeff's mistress (thus confirming the older woman's fears and suspicions), only then to snigger and retract the statement which she passes off as merely an expression of ill-temper [8].

 

Whether Frankie believes the woman she later describes as a selfish bitch isn't quite clear. But, having accepted Angela's explanation, she then witnesses the younger woman held tight in her husband's arms and enjoying what British people call a snog (see image below). Confronting her husband about his infidelity later on, Callum denies he loves Angela, insisting he was driven purely by lust and that the latter is nothing but a common slut.   

 

Anyway, for those who care, the film ends with a heavy downpour of rain and that finishes off the aliens: hurrah! for the Great British weather. 

 

Callum, Frankie, and Angela, however, all survived the night of the Big Heat and, once things cooled down, they presumably looked for a way to resolve their relationship issues. Who knows, perhaps Miss Roberts decided to stay on the island and Callum somehow managed to convince his wife that a ménage à trois just might work ...

 

 

A moment of shared passion for the illicit lovers and one 

of extreme awkwardness, to say the least, for a loyal wife.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The film was based on a 1959 novel of the same name by John Lymington. It was released in the United States in 1971 as Island of the Burning Damned. To watch the trailer to Night of the Big Heat, click here. To watch the film in full: click here. 

 

[2] Patrick Allen (1927-2006) made regular appearances in many of the ITC shows that I loved as a child and still like to watch now, including The Baron, The Avengers, and UFO. Even many who would be unfamiliar with his name might recognise his face - and would almost certainly know his distinctive voice, if only because he narrated the UK Government's Protect and Survive public information campaign, as sampled by Frankie Goes to Hollywood in their 1984 anti-war song 'Two Tribes' (ZTT Records). Allen also narrated the first series of Blackadder (1983) and voiced numerous TV commercials.     

      

[3] Jane Merrow (born Jane Josephine Meirowsky, in 1941, to an English mother and German-Jewish father) also had roles in many of the great British TV series, including Danger Man, The Saint, and The Prisoner. She was also considered as a possible replacement for Diana Rigg in The Avengers,  although the role eventually went to Linda Thorson. After moving to the US in the early 1970s, she went on to guest star in many hit American shows too, including Mission:Impossible, Police Woman, The Six Million Dollar Man, Hart to Hart, and The Incredible Hulk. One can find out much more via her website: click here. 

    

[4] Happily, the fictional affair in Night of the Big Heat had no effect on their marriage and they stayed together until Patrick's death in 2006. Sarah Lawson is perhaps best known for her role as Marie Eaton in The Devil Rides Out (dir. Terence Fisher, 1968), also starring Christopher Lee (and it might also be noted that the actor Leon Greene (playing Rex Van Ryn) had his voice dubbed by Patrick Allen). 

 

[5] Fara is a small island in Orkney, Scotland. It has been uninhabited since the 1960s. I'm not sure if this is the island on which the story is meant to be set, or if the filmmakers simply borrowed the name. 

[6] According to the scientist played by Christopher Lee (Prof. Godfrey Hanson), the heat is of extraterrestrial origin; for Fara is the site of an alien invasion and these jellyfish-like beings seem to emit outrageously high levels of body heat - enough to cause anyone getting too close to spontaneously combust (if the head-splitting noise they also make doesn't prove fatal first).

[7] Fortunately, Angela is able to fight him off (hitting him over the head with a metal ashtray) and he is vapourised when fleeing from the scene of the sexual assault straight into the path of an alien. 

 

[8] This powerful scene between Frankie and Angela begins at 31 mins into the film and ends at 33:10. 

 

 

On the Haunting Beauty of Sue Lloyd

Sue Lloyd (1939 - 2011)

 

'The dead they do not die - they seduce from beyond the grave ...'

I. 

 

I mentioned in a recent post written in memory of Brigit Forsyth [1], that, as I get older, I find my desire is increasingly tied to nostalgia and has effectively become a type of spectrophilia - i.e., sexual attraction to ghosts, or, as in my case, the haunting images of dead actresses from the 1960s and '70s (the decades in which I was born and grew up). 

 

One such actress of whom I particularly fond at the moment is Sue Lloyd, who guest starred in many much loved English TV shows during this period, including The Saint (1964 and '67), The Avengers (1965), Department S (1969), Randal and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1970), The Persuaders! (1971), and The Sweeney (1976) [2].

 

Lloyd also regularly appeared as secret agent Cordelia Winfield, alongside Steve Forrest in the British television series The Baron (1965-66), but is perhaps best remembered today for her long-running role as as Barbara Hunter (née Brady) in the British soap opera Crossroads [3].

 

 

II. 

 

Although Lloyd had studied dance as a child and, in 1953, won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School at Sadler's Wells Theatre, she unfortunately grew just a little too tall (5' 8") to play a swan princess. And so she became a model - even appearing once on the cover of Vogue - and a showgirl, before embarking on an acting career. 

 

Lloyd did also star in a number of films - including alongside Michael Caine in The Ipcress File (1965), Peter Cushing in the cult horror Corruption (1968), and Joan Collins in The Stud (1978) - but I'm not much of a cinephile and really only care (here at least) about her TV work.  

 

But what is it I like so much about Miss Lloyd, I hear you ask ... Well, simply put, she exuded the kind of dazzling beauty and sexual sophistication of the older woman which excited me as an adolescent and continues to work its magic some 50 years later ...

 

As Simon Farquhar writes in his obituary for the star who died in 2011 (aged 72):

 

"There was always something of the ghost of a fading Hollywood glamour queen possessing Sue Lloyd [...] With half-closed eyes, cigarette gravel voice and elegant, haughty poise, she brought an air of smouldering decadence and feline allure to often decidedly mundane productions, as if a world-weary Lauren Bacall was deeming to cross the Atlantic and play with the little people for a while." [4]    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the post entitled 'Whatever Happened to the Likely Lasses?' (2 Dec 2023): click here. 

 

[2] Unlike some other actors, Lloyd was delighted at the cult status much of her television work had acquired, and she happily contributed interviews and commentaries to subsequent DVD releases and responded to fan requests.

 

[3] Lloyd was in Crossroads from 1979 to 1985, so this slightly falls outside the period that interests me and is not really a genre of show that I particularly care for. 

[4] Simon Farquhar, writing in The Independent (30 Oct 2011): click here.

My Name is Victor Frankenstein

Peter Cushing as Victor Frankenstein in  

The Curse of Frankenstein, dir. Terence Fisher, 

(Hammer Films, 1957) [1]

 

 

Although I have never read Mary Shelley's famous novel [2], I am of course familiar with the story of Victor Frankenstein and his monstrous creation [3] and, indeed, have always had an affinity for this noble and unorthodox young scientist - part thanatologist, part alchemist [4] - obsessed with generating new life from dead material.

 

For far from being the prototypical mad scientific genius, as portrayed in numerous cinematic adaptations of the novel, Frankenstein is actually a tragic figure, driven by a beautiful obsession.

 

And if, when things don't quite turn out as planned and he inadvertently endangers his own life and those of his family and friends, he comes to bitterly regret his unnatural experiments, nevertheless one has to admire him for challenging the judgement of God in the manner of a modern Prometheus.

 

But the primary reason I identify with Frankenstein - apart from his intelligence, curiosity about the world, and refusal to be bound by laws and conventions, is because I essentially use his technique as a writer. 

 

That is to say, I cut up dead bodies of text and stitch stolen ideas together in a diabolical manner. My creativity lies - if anywhere - in then being able to provide the electric spark or lightning flash of inspiration which makes the assembled piece of intertextual fiction-theory breathe with new life [5].

 

This might not make me an original [6] talent - any more than Frankenstein's work made him a god - but it does produce some interesting results, does require a certain degree of skill and hard work, and does make me, in a sense, both an artist and alchemist. 

 

  

Notes

 

[1] Readers might be interested to know that Frankenstein's first appearance on screen was in a silent short film released in 1910, dir. J. Searle Dawley, and starring Augustus Phillips as the good doctor and Charles Ogle as the Monster. 

      This was followed in 1931 by the famous Universal version of the tale, dir. James Whale, starring Colin Clive in the role of Frankenstein, opposite Boris Karloff as the Monster. Both actors reprised their roles in the 1935 sequel, Bride of Frankenstein (also dir. by James Whale).

      As much as I love Clive's portrayal, I have a particular soft spot for Peter Cushing's performance in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), opposite Christopher Lee as the Creature, which is why I've used his image here. Cushing went on to star as Frankenstein in five more films for Hammer, subtly revealing different aspects of the character in each.

 

[2] I'm referring of course to Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), written by Mary Shelley (whilst only eighteen years of age). 

 

[3] For those who aren't familiar with Shelley's figure of Victor Frankenstein, here's a brief character description and story outline:

 

According to the 1831 edition, Victor was born in Naples, but he describes his distinguished ancestry as Genevese.

      As a youth, he was intrigued by the works of famous alchemists such as Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus and longed to discover the so-called philosopher's stone; a mythical substance that could transmute base metals, such as lead, into gold and which was also an elixir of life, promising physical rejuvenation and immortality. 

      Later, however, Victor abandons alchemy for mathematics, which, he thinks, provides a more secure foundation upon which to base an understanding of the world. However, whilst at University in Bavaria, Frankenstein rediscovers his love for chemistry - this time in its modern form - and he makes a number of significant scientific discoveries; including discoveries about the bio-chemical nature of life, which enable him to animate non-living material. This research culminates in his creation of a being resembling man, but whom he comes to regard as a mixture of creature and demon.

     Rejecting the responsibility to care for his creation, the monster decides to seek revenge upon his maker; he murders Frankenstein's youngest brother, his best friend, and strangles Victor's bride, Elizabeth, on their wedding night. 

      Feeling that he has nothing left to live for, Frankenstein vows to destroy the creature and pursues the latter all the way to the North Pole, where he, Victor, eventully dies. Somewhat surprisingly, the monster is so overcome with sorrow and guilt, that he decides to commit suicide, before then disappearing into the frozen Arctic night.    

 

[4] One is tempted to also think of Victor Frankenstein as a Romatic poet, particularly as Mary's lover at the time of writing - and soon to be husband - Percy Shelley, inspired the character; for not only did the latter sometimes use the pen name of Victor, but, whilst a student at Eton, Shelley had conducted chemical experiments involving electricity. His rooms at Oxford were also filled with strange scientific equipment.  

 

 [5] It's been pointed out to me that my understanding of Frankenstein's monster as pieced together from body parts taken from numerous stolen corpses and reanimated by the use of electricity, owes more to the movies than Shelley's novel. In the latter, apparently, Frankenstein discovers the secret principle of life and it's this that allows him to painstakingly develop a method to vitalise inanimate matter, though the actual process is left rather vague. Neverthless, Frankenstein does assemble body parts, so I think my comparison stands and there's no need to split hairs, Maria.        

 

[6] Along with authenticity, originality is one of the concepts I despise the most: I don't care if my posts on Torpedo the Ark lack originality. And besides, as the Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith once wrote in The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), we can "pardon the want of originality, in consideration of the exquisite talent with which the borrowed materials are wrought up into the new form". 

      Or, as Roland Barthes would argue, the post-as-text is not expressive of an author's unique being. It's explainable only through other words drawn from a pre-given, internalised dictionary. Every new post is therefore, in some sense, already a copy of a copy of a copy whose origin is forever lost and meaning infinitely deferred. 

      To put that another way, if, as I do, you accept the idea of intertextualité, then questions of authorship and originality go out of the window and Síomón Solomon is right to claim in his brilliant study, Hölderlin's Poltergeists (2020), that every piece of writing is already a translation at some level and the author, whilst masquerading as a unified subject, is actually a multiple assemblage - like Frankenstein's monster - who speaks with many tongues (some of which are forked).