THE NEW AVENGERS: 'THE MIDAS TOUCH'

 

A photo-still depicting Midas in his 'Masque of the Red Death'-lookalike costume from The Midas Touch episode of The New Avengers (© Brian Clemens/Albert Fennell/Robert Fuest/The Avengers (Film and TV) Enterprises Ltd/London Weekend – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Imagine a young man inoculated with every deadly disease known to humanity in a manner ensuring that he himself is immune to all of them and shows no outward sign of being such a horrific carrier, but also ensuring that anyone who touches or is touched by his bare skin is fated to die within minutes – of everything, suffering from and killed by all of the countless diseases with which the young man has been inoculated.

Imagine, still further, that the diabolical germ-warfare scientist responsible for this heinous feat, a Professor Turner (played by David Swift), is hiring the young man out to the highest bidder, to use him for whatever dreadful, murderous purpose the bidder chooses. In return, Turner is paid in gold – lots and lots of gold, to which he is totally addicted, like a small-screen Auric Goldfinger. The young man therefore serves not only as a veritable Grim Reaper, with his touch of death, but also as a veritable King Midas, with his deadly touch creating gold, literally, for Turner.

Little wonder, then, that Turner has dubbed the young man Midas. And now a princess is about to become the next unsuspecting victim of Midas and Turner – unless Steed, Gambit, and Purdy can stop them!

Yes indeed, this episode – 'The Midas Touch', directed by Robert Fuest – is my all-time favourite from the mid-1970s, 2-series British secret agent TV show The New Avengers, created by Brian Clemens and Albert Fennell, constituting an official direct sequel to the very popular 1960s show The Avengers, creatwd by Sydney Newman, with Patrick MacNee starring as the archetypal super-suave British secret agent John Steed in both of them, but ably assisted in this new incarnation by Purdy (Joanna Lumley) and Gambit (Gareth Hunt).

I watched 'The Midas Touch' on 28 August 2023, for the first time since it was originally screened almost 50 years ago, and it was just as good as I'd remembered. Here's Midas (played by Gilles Millinaire) in his usual form (below) and in his 'Masque of the Red Death'-lookalike costume (above). Vincent Price would have approved, I'm sure.

Click here to watch an excerpt from this episode's opening scene in which Midas makes his deadly debut at a costume party, dressed as the Red Death (inspred by the famous Edgar Allan Poe short story), to plunge his hands into the punch bowl from which all of the guests are innocently imbibing its now-lethal contents.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Midas in his usual form ((© Brian Clemens/Albert Fennell/The Avengers (Film and TV) Enterprises Ltd/London Weekend – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

 

A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

 

Publicity poster for A.I. Artificial Intelligence (© Steven Spielberg/DreamWorks Pictures/Amblin Entertainment/Stanley Kubrick Productions/Warner Bros Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial basis for educational/review purposes only)

My movie watch on 4 January 2024 was one of the most delightful, engrossing, and achingly poignant futuristic sci fi films that I have viewed for a very long time. Namely, A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

Directed by Steven Spielberg, released in 2001 by Warners Bros Pictures, and including collaborations with Stanley Kubrick, A.I. Artificial Intelligence is set in the 22nd Century. It stars in mesmerising form (as Spielberg's first and only choice for this role) a young Haley Joel Osment (he of "I see dead people" fame from The Sixth Sense, released 2 years previously) as robot boy David, the first in a major new android (aka Mecha) lineage – a humanoid robot that can truly love, created by computer genius Prof. Allen Hobby (William Hurt).

The movie intentionally plays out like a sci fi version of Pinocchio, having been loosely based upon a 1969 Pinocchio-inspired short story 'Supertoys Last All Summer Long', written by sci fi maestro Brian Aldiss. (Interestingly, this short story's film rights had originally been acquired by Stanley Kubrick, way back in the 1970s, but after failing to achieve success in its cinematic production he finally passed it over in 1995 to Spielberg, who began working on it in earnest following Kubrick's death in 1999, and dedicated the finished movie to him.)

For after hearing his human adoptive mother Monica Swinton (Frances O'Connor) read the famous Carlo Collodi story Pinocchio to her real-life son Martin, David blindly believes the story to be true.

Consequently, after subsequently being abandoned by his mother once jealous Martin is fully recovered fron a near-fatal ailment and causes all manner of problems for him, and accompanied by loyal and self-aware Teddy, Martin's unwanted robot teddy bear (voiced by Jack Angel), David sets out to locate the Blue Fairy. During his quest, he encounters a law-fleeing gigolo android named Joe (Jude Law, providing some much-needed lightness to this movie's sometimes almost overpowering pathos).

Joe helps David look for the Blue Fairy, whom David fervently hopes will transform him into a real boy, because he believes that his mother will then love him like she loves Martin. And indeed, after being assisted by Joe and a holographic answer engine named Dr Know (voiced by Robin Williams), David does find the Blue Fairy, after a fashion – thanks to a race of immensely-advanced Mechas known as the Specialists (one of whom is voiced by Ben Kingsley).

They discover him and Teddy frozen in ice two thousand years later, long after humans have died out during a new Ice Age (so much for global warming!), and not only successfully revive them but also recreate from David's memories an interactive version of the Blue Fairy (voiced by Meryl Streep).

Moreover, these Specialists are even able to restore David's mother to life, albeit for just a single day, after cloning her from her DNA (preserved in a strand of her hair that David had clipped back when he and Teddy had lived with her, and which Teddy had kept safe ever since). Now, during this most precious day back with his temporarily-restored mother, David enjoys with her the only birthday party he has ever known, and just as the day is ending his mother tells him that she has always loved him, thus giving him the assurance that he has always yearned for, and enabling him to be finally content. Then she slips into eternal sleep, and David, for the very first time, also falls asleep, journeying at last to the land where dreams are born.

To say that I found this closing scene moving would be the understatement of the millennium, but it also brought back some very precious memories, borne sweetly upon the haunting music score of this movie, composed by the indefatigable John Williams (who received an Oscar nomination for it). A.I. Artificial Intelligence is an enchanting film that I shall long remember, and for all the right reasons.

Tomorrow is the eleventh anniversary of my own dear mother's passing, so it seemed a very appropriate, fitting time for me to present this particular movie review of mine. God bless you, little Mom, how I wish with all my heart that you were still here with me, even if it were only for 24 hours – how I would cherish those precious hours with you, forever.

If you wish to experience a very special preview of the cinematic magic and wonder awaiting you in A.I. Artificial Intelligence, be sure to click here to watch a trailer for this movie on YouTube.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

My mother, Mary Shuker (© Dr Karl Shuker)

 

 

POST #300 - MY THIRD, FULLY-UPDATED, ALL-TIME TOP REVIEWS LISTING ON SHUKER IN MOVIELAND

Following a tradition begun with my 100^th Shuker In MovieLand blog post (of 6 December 2020), when I listed what was at that time this blog's all-time top 10 movie/TV reviews as measured by reader hit counts (click here to access it), and continued with my 200^th blog post (of 13 January 2022), when I presented an updated top 10 listing (click here to access it), I am now, with this, my 300^th blog post (of 5 June 2023), presenting the very latest listing. But this time, for added interest and because of the considerable quantity of movies plus TV shows now reviewed on my blog, I am presenting not merely a top 10 but rather a top 20.

As in the earlier two, each of this third listing's 20 movie/TV reviews is presented as a clickable link, together with its original publication date on my blog, so that you can access it directly from this page to read in full if you so wish. Also, where applicable, each movie's position in my previous, second listing is given here in blue brackets. So here it is:

#1        The Lost Continent (4 April 2021) (#1)

#2       Ron Stryker's Motorbike and the Lightning Tree – Revisiting Follyfoot ((16 February 2022)

#3       Oliver in the Overworld/Little Big Time (15 February 2022)

#4       9 (2 March 2022)

#5        Horns (28 February 2022)

#6       Rumble Fish (28 April 2022)

#7        Rock 'N' Roll Cowboys (6 March 2022)

#8       The Prisoner (7 May 2022)

#9       Chander Pahar (aka Mountain of the Moon) (4 June 2022)

#10     From Selkies to Space Vampires (14 April 2021) (#2)

#11      Shadow of Death (aka Destroyer) (1 May 2021) (#3)

#12      Fade To Black (30 March 2022)

#13      Rock 'N' Roll High School (14 February 2022)

#14      Angels and Panthers and Yetis, Oh My! (25 April 2022)

#15      Land of Doom (aka Raiders of Death) (19 March 2022)

#16      The Singer Not The Song (12 February 2022)

#17      Carmen Jones (30 April 2021) (#4)

#18     Wish Dragon (11 June 2022)

#19      Mune: Guardian of the Moon (26 May 2022)

#20     The Sin Eater (aka The Order) (30 May 2022)

Only two movies from my second top 10 listing back in mid-January 2022 retain a place in this latest, third one, indicating that newer movie entries swiftly draw interest away from older ones. But of these two exceptions to that apparent rule, The Lost Continent retains not only a place in this new listing but also the very same place as before – i.e. right at the top, at #1, and via an appreciably higher hit count than even the entry directly below it at #2, let alone all of the other 18 in this top 20 listing. Why this relatively obscure, unremarkable horror/monster movie should have attracted such considerable interest from readers is a complete mystery to me, but it's an interest that shows no sign of waning. Indeed, if Shuker In MovieLand stays in existence long enough to reach a 400^th blog post and thus the compilation of a fourth top 10 or 20 listing, it wouldn't surprise me at all to find that The Lost Continent is still residing tenaciously at its summit.

Equally odd is that the majority of the movie reviews contained in this top 20 were  all posted within a very narrow period of time, spanning a mere 4 months, from 12 February 2022 to 11 June 2022 inclusive. So why were these specific reviews, and/or that particular time period, so inordinately, disproportionately effective in attracting high readership counts? Again, I have no idea.

Moreover, as with the two previous listings, I see no patterns or trends emerging as to which genres are represented in this latest one, nor the proportions of such representations. Indeed, the only aspect of this entire listing exercise that I feel certain about is that when it comes to movies and viewers' movie tastes, nothing is ever certain!

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR

 

My official DVD of The Boy With Green Hair (© Joseph Losey/RKO Radio Pictures/Odeon Entertainment/The Hollywood Studio Collection – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

One of my all-time favourite songs is the haunting, otherworldly ballad 'Nature Boy', originally (and most famously) recorded in 1948 by Nat King Cole, and by numerous other singers since then, including the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Peggy Lee, David Bowie, Tony Bennett, and Lady Gaga, to name but a few. My own personal favourite rendition is that of Argentinian-born American balladeer Dick Haymes, again released in 1948, but which he sang a cappella, accompanied only by a choir (The Song Spinners), thereby heightening this ethereal song's wistful, dreamy ambience, and which can be listened to on YouTube by clicking here. However, I only recently discovered that 'Nature Boy' had also been sung by a choir over the main titles (as well as appearing thereafter in instrumental snatches throughout) for a very unusual yet nowadays largely-forgotten 1940s fantasy movie, which I duly purchased in DVD format and watched on 18 October 2022. Its title? The Boy With Green Hair.

SPOILER ALERT – If you don't want to know this movie's plot, read no further!

Directed by Joseph Losey, based upon a story by Betzi Beaton, and released in Technicolor by RKO Radio Pictures in 1948, The Boy With Green Hair is set in an American backwater town just prior to the USA's entry into WW2. It begins with a small shaven-headed boy (played by a young Dean Stockwell) sitting in a police station but refusing to answer questions, or even to speak, to the police who picked him up earlier that evening wandering alone, clearly distressed but physically unharmed. However, Dr Evans (Robert Ryan), a child psychiatrist called in by the police, succeeds in gaining the runaway boy's trust, as a result of which he relates to Ryan an extraordinary, ostensibly highly improbable story but which he claims is the true history of his life right up to the present.

The boy's name is Peter Fry, who for quite some time now has been living first with one set of relatives, and then with another, and another, and another (he apparently has a very big family!), but unable to settle down with any of them, because he greatly misses his parents who have journeyed to London in order to help care for children orphaned there as a result of the Blitz. What Peter doesn't realize at this time, however, is that he too is a war orphan – his parents have been killed by German air-bombing attacks while in London (which is why he is being looked after by relatives, albeit not for long by any of them). Peter carries a sealed letter to give to each set of relatives who take him in, whose contents are unknown to him, but which include confirmation of his orphan status plus a letter from his father written before leaving for London, with instructions that it is not to be opened by Peter until he is 16 years old.

Eventually Peter finds himself taken in by a kindly elderly Irish widower (Pat O'Brien) who encourages Peter to call him Gramps (though it is never confirmed whether he really is Peter's grandfather). In Peter's eyes, Gramps is a famous actor, but in reality he is merely a singing waiter able to perform some elementary magic tricks from his long-bygone days in small-time vaudeville. Nevertheless, he and Peter hit it off, Peter warming to Gramps's gentle, cheerful, patient nature, and he even enrolls in the local school, where his class is taught by another kind soul, Miss Brand (Barbara Hale). All seems finally to be going well for Peter, until when putting up some posters at his school that are advertising the plight of war orphans, he and his fellow classmates are shocked to discover that one of the orphans pictured on one of the posters is Peter himself! This is when Peter finally discovers the tragic truth about his parents, which fills him with grief.

Gramps has often brightened Peter's days with funny little surprises to make him laugh and cheer him up, so that evening he promises grieving Peter another surprise the next morning – but the surprise is not what either of them expect. It has long been said that grief can sometimes turn a person's hair grey or even white overnight, but what happens to Peter's overnight is even more dramatic. After waking up in the morning and washing himself, including his hair, Peter looks in the mirror – and is shocked to discover that his hair, hitherto a typical, unremarkable shade of brown, is now bright green! He is even more shocked, however, when, assuming this to be Gramps's surprise, he confronts Gramps, only to find that his surprise is simply a magician's trick hankerchief, and that Gramps is just as shocked by Peter's green hair as Peter is! Worse still, when Gramps takes Peter to the local physician, Dr Knudson (Samuel S. Hinds), the bemused doctor has no answer either as to its cause or cure, or as to when, if ever, it will revert to its normal brown shade.

In the days that follow, Peter is teased and jeered unmercifully by his schoolmates regarding his green hair, while the town's adults stare at him in open-mouthed amazement, gossiping and speculating as the cause of his aberrant affliction. Moreover, it's not long before wild, baseless accusations begin to fly, with various people claiming that it must be due to something in the local milkman's milk, or in the scalp lotions used by the local hairdresser, and parents start telling their children not to go near Peter in case whatever has changed his hair's colour is contagious. Gramps and Miss Brand do their best to quell such unfounded fears, but finally Peter's will snaps and he runs away into the nearby woods, hating his hair and falling to the ground in a flood of tears.

Then, seemingly in a vision, the other orphans pictured in the posters that he'd helped put up at school appear before Peter, and tell him that he can put to good use the individuality conferred upon him by his green hair – by preaching to everyone in his town that peace and reconciliation offer the only way to prevent warfare from causing more children to suffer, and ultimately destroying the world. They tell him that because such words are being spoken by someone as instantly memorable as he is (courtesy of his green hair), Peter can make a big and very positive difference wherever he goes, as his message will be remembered.

The orphans then disappear, but Peter has been inspired by them, returning to the town and doing exactly what they urged him to, voicing their pacifist message to everyone there. Unfortunately, however, this is not enough to silence the chatter and dispel the suspicions regarding the cause of his green hair. Accordingly, after narrowly escaping the clutches of a band of schoolboys armed with scissors to cut it all off, Peter is confronted by the milkman and hairdresser, who demand that his hair be removed before they go out of business due to all the bad gossip aimed at them. Gramps tries to defend him, but finally concedes that it may be for the best, for everyone, so Peter reluctantly agrees. But after his hair is completely shaved off, he feels so distraught that he runs away, wandering aimlessly until found and taken to the station by the police, thus bringing the movie's story full circle.

After listening to his story, Dr Ryan takes Peter into the police station's waiting room, where an anxious Gramps is sitting with Miss Brand and Dr Knudson. Gramps tells Peter how sorry he is that he didn't support him and insist that he keep his hair, then he opens the letter written to Peter by his late father, reckoning that Peter is already old enough to hear its contents. In the letter, his father counsels Peter that some things are worth dying for, and to remind people of this if they should forget. Reconciled, Peter and Gramps return home together, singing a favourite song, and bringing the film to a close – which means that what colour Peter's hair is when it regrows remains forever a mystery. Does it stay green, or does it revert to its normal, less controversial brown hue? After all, as a certain frog once sang, it's not easy being green!

All in all, The Boy With Green Hair is a somewhat curious mixture of winsome small-town whimsy and quaint offbeat quirkiness, with an anti-war message that, however laudable it may be, somehow seems rather awkwardly shoe-horned into the plot rather than easing into it in a more comfortable, realistic manner. Having said that, this is an undeniably appealing movie, which also includes a second, more direct message, about treating those who are different with compassion and consideration, not contempt and condemnation. Young Stockwell (aged 12 at that time) gives an assured performance that readily foreshadowed his later, adult successes on both the big and small screens. And the strains of 'Nature Boy' running through it are obviously, and in every sense, in harmony with the concept of a mysterious green-haired boy preaching peace and love. I very much enjoyed this allegorical fantasy, one that greatly deserves a revival of interest and attention, especially in these present troubled, warring times.

Finally, just in case you were wondering – Stockwell's hair wasn't dyed green for the green-haired scenes, he wore a green wig instead. Just one problem – he was allergic to it, so much so that he actually became ill as a result!

And if you'd like to view the pivotal scene from The Boy With Green Hair in which Peter makes his startling discovery, be sure to click here to watch it on YouTube, or here to watch an official trailer for this magical, mystical movie.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

OLIVER IN THE OVERWORLD / LITTLE BIG TIME – SEEKING A LOST TV SHOW FROM MY CHILDHOOD

 

Publicity photograph from the second Oliver in the Overworld serial, and depicting (left to right) Graham Haberfield as the Undercog, Peter Birrell as Oliver the Grandfather Clock, and Freddie Garrity as himself (© Graham Attwood/Southern TV/CBS – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Today's Shuker In Movieland blog post features another trip across the border from MovieLand into TVLand, but presents less of a review and more of an investigation.

For I am trying to uncover as much information as I can concerning a fantastic, fascinating kids' TV programme that I absolutely adored as a child but of which, tragically, not a single episode is currently known for certain to exist. The progamme in question is Oliver in the Overworld.

Oliver in the Overworld began life as a serial that was included as just a short segment within each of the 13 25-minute episodes of the second series of a British children's TV show entitled Little Big Time, screened in 1970. However, it proved so popular that in the third Little Big Time series, screened in 1971, all 13 25-minute episodes were devoted entirely to a new Oliver in the Overworld serial, with no other content at all. Conversely, it did not feature at all in either the first or the fourth series of Little Big Time, screened in 1968/69 and 1973 respectively. Now, having set the scene, here is what I have discovered about Oliver in the Overworld so far.

Produced by Southern TV, one of the many local ITV stations that existed back in 1968 when Little Big Time began, the latter show was a zany affair starring the madcap and famously bespectacled British pop singer Freddy Garrity – given to high singing notes and even higher leaps into the air when energetically fronting his formerly highly-successful but recently-disbanded Manchester beat/pop band Freddie and the Dreamers.

 

Freddie and the Dreamers (Freddie is saluting), 1964 (no copyright)

Freddie's friendly, exuberant personality (he was even affectionately dubbed 'the clown prince of pop' back in the day) made him an ideal choice to present a children's show like Little Big Time, brimming with crazy games, silly songs, all manner of variety acts, slapstick sketches, and much more – including an ongoing weekly segment entitled Oliver in the Overworld. This was a quite weird but also very wonderful fantasy-themed serial that centred upon Freddie as the only human in a bizarre realm of living machines, the Overworld. Freddie was accompanied on his adventures there by his friendly but exceedingly forgetful grandfather clock, named Oliver, played by the Dreamers' former bassist, Peter Birrell (who was often confused with a popular lookalike British inventor/presenter from that same time period named Wilf Lunn).

Reminiscent of other on-screen fantasies that feature a single human amidst a world of strange, surreal characters, such as the various movie versions of The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, Oliver in the Overworld was brought vividly to life with studio sets that were very striking and colourful, and the Overworld characters encountered by Freddie and Oliver were even more so. Giving the show extra zest was the fact that it was filmed live in front of an audience made up entirely of children.

By featuring merely as a short segment within each weekly episode of Little Big Time, the plot of the first Oliver in the Overworld serial was less complex and detailed than that of the second serial (which as noted earlier was a full 25-minute episode each week). Basically, Freddie was woken up one night by a highly distressed Oliver, who had lost his memory, and needed to visit the Clockwork King who ruled the Overworld, the hidden land of living machines, in order to obtain a new one. The Overworld is situated on the roof of our world, which is painted blue to disguise it as sky, but when they arrive they find that the Clockwork King has problems of his own. This is due to someone having stolen the royal central heater's matches and the royal metronome's ding, thereby leaving him bereft of both heat and music.

Moreover, after examining Oliver, the king informs him that it's not his memory that is at fault, rather it's the fact that he is missing an undercog, without which his memory cannot function properly. But where can one be found, and who has stolen the royal heater's matches and the royal metronome ding? Once again, an undercog is at the heart of the problem, but not just any undercog – no indeed. In fact, the culprit is none other than THE Undercog, the most villainous villain in the whole of the Overworld, aided and abetted by his two heinous henchmen – Spanner in the Works, and Spoke in the Wheel (Oliver in the Overworld featured some fantastic punning names for its characters!). Somehow, Freddie and Oliver have to right the Undercog's wicked wrongs if they are ever to fix Oliver's memory and restore heat and music to the Clockwork King's palace – but that's not going to be easy…

 

Advertisement for the first Oliver in the Overworld LP album (© Albert Hammond/Mike Hazlewood/John Burgess/Shair Music Ltd/Star Line/Regal/EMI Records/Southern TV – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

A host of catchy songs also feature, sung by Freddie and various of the characters, which were written specially for this first Oliver in the Overworld serial by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood (Hazlewood also served as the serial's narrator), and were also sung along to with great gusto by the children in the audience (who had presumably learnt them during rehearsals). Indeed, these proved so popular that they spawned the release of an official Oliver in the Overworld soundtrack LP album containing many of them.

Furthermore, the most famous one, 'Gimme Dat Ding', recalling the tragic tale of the royal metronome's stolen ding, was released in 1970 as a single by British novelty duo The Pipkins (Tony Burroughs and Roger Greenaway), and actually reached #6 in the UK singles chart, and even #9 in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart! (Click here to listen to it on YouTube.)

As noted earlier, due to the great popularity and success of the Oliver in the Overworld serial segments within the second series of Little Big Time, the third series of it, screened the following year, was given over entirely to a new Oliver in the Overworld serial. This featured another set of specially-written songs by Hammond and Hazlewood, and a second LP soundtrack album containing many of them. Although I can remember little of the first Oliver in the Overworld serial and its songs (other than 'Gimme Dat Ding'), I can remember the second one and its songs very well. My three favourite songs from it were (and still are) 'The Little Girl Who Never Cried', 'Don't Underestimate the Undercog', and 'The Song of the Hungry Drains' (we used to sing the Hungry Drains song all the time at school!) – and if you click their titles here, you can listen to them on YouTube. Nowadays both of the Oliver in the Overworld soundtrack LPs are highly collectable and therefore very costly to purchase, which means  that I was exceptionally lucky to find – and buy – a near-mint example of the second one at a car-boot sale here in England about 15 years ago for just 50p!

There was also an Oliver in the OverWorld Annual, and no doubt some of these much sought-after books are still out there somewhere too, but I have yet to see even a photograph of one, let alone a copy. Nevertheless, I live in hope, and keep my eyes peeled at car boot sales, charity shops, and bric-a-brac fairs, just in case!

 

High Pipe, Chief of the Hungry Drains (© Graham Attwood/Southern TV/CBS – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

In this second Oliver in the Overworld serial, Freddie and Oliver (Peter Birrell again) return to the magical land of living machines in order to attend its greatest annual celebration, Inspiration Day, only to discover that whereas the formerly villainous Undercog (Graham Haberfield, also playing Jerry Booth in Coronation Street back then) is now a reformed character, the Clockwork King (Philip Ray), his daughter Princess Necessity (Debbie Bowen), and the entire Overworld are imperiled by a dastardly and immensely rich criminal mastermind – the Mighty Dictaphone (David King), assisted by the equally malign Grim Gramophone (Blake Butler). Additional, rare photographs depicting some of these characters can be found here, on the Little Big Time page at Nostalgia Central's website.

Also on the scene are the untrustworthy Belle Telephones (The Satin Bells), an attractive but amoral singing trio who may be easy on the eye and tuneful to the ear but have no scruples whatsoever if the chance to earn some ready cash is readily offered to them. Nor should we forget High Pipe (Gordon Clyde), Chief of the (ever-) Hungry Drains – another formidable adversary definitely not to be underestimated, or overlooked.

Freddie and Oliver, however, aided by the Undercog and also the Deferential Gearbox (another superb punning name!), have no option but to confront all of these fearsome foes and more, because they find themselves plunged headlong into a desperate search for the Clockwork King's stolen Royal Wind Up Key. For without it, he will be unable to wind himself up each morning, and if he can't wind himself up, he can't function as king – indeed, he can’t function at all!

And guess who is responsible for this all-important key having been stolen? Let's just say that if Freddie and Oliver can't track it down and return it to the Clockwork King before Inspiration Day, there will be a new Overworld ruler – the Mighty Dictaphone!

 

The Mighty Dictaphone – flanked to the left by the Undercog, and to the right by the Grim Gramophone in obsequious attendance (© Graham Attwood/Southern TV/CBS – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Interestingly, in spring 2017 a UK touring stage version of Oliver in the Overworld was performed by the Krazy Kat Theatre, in which Freddie is a small deaf child who visits the land of living machines with Oliver his grandfather clock, and has all kinds of thrilling adventures there. Created by multi-award-winning artistic director Kinny Gardner, and featuring wonderful puppetry, dancing, and songs, this was the first new stage musical in which sign language was fully integrated (click here to view a short trailer for it on YouTube).

As I'm sure Freddie Garrity would have been very happy to have known had he still been with us (sadly, he passed away in 2006), this magical story from the early 1970s is clearly far from forgotten even today – which is just as well, because…

At this point in one of my Shuker In MovieLand blog posts, I would normally point you in the direction of trailers or clips from the movie or TV show under review that are available to watch on YouTube, but here is the great tragedy enveloping Oliver in the Overworld, as well as Little Big Time in its entirety. As previously mentioned, they were filmed live, and back in those days live shows were often not recorded, meaning that they were not preserved for future viewings. Also back in those days, even many shows that were recorded were subsequently wiped and recorded over with new programmes, because video tapes at that time were extremely expensive, as well as very bulky, making it far more economically sound simply to reuse tapes rather than to keep purchasing new ones, and storing used ones whose contents may never be watched again anyway (or at least that is what TV bosses mistakenly thought back then). And so, for one or both of these reasons, not a single episode of Oliver in the Overworld (or Little Big Time) is known to exist today.

Having said that, a remarkable find was made only a few years ago. If you click here, you can currently view on YouTube a very precious, presently unique 8-minute video recording, posted there on 14 November 2017 by a member of the last iteration of Freddie and the Dreamers, under the YT user name Bubble TV. Its first half consists of a series of brief excerpts from the second Oliver in the Overworld serial, linked together in what may have been an advertising show reel created to sell the show to the USA. And its second half is a section from a TV show in which English presenter Fred Dinenage is chatting to Freddie Garrity about Oliver in the Overworld, which is again interspersed with short clips. Moreover, these even include a brief but moving snippet from the very end of the last segment in the first Oliver in the Overworld serial, in which Freddie is so overcome with emotion while singing the song 'I'll Come Back And See You Again' to the children in the audience that he is unable to continue singing and has to duck out of camera range for a few moments in order to compose himself.

 

The soundtrack LP album from the second Oliver in the Overworld serial (© Albert Hammond/Mike Hazlewood/Graham Attwood/Southern TV/CBS – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

During my researches when preparing this Shuker In MovieLand blog article, I read that someone while watching it on TV at home had apparently recorded the whole of that final episode from the first Oliver in the Overworld serial (and which is apparently where that clip of Freddie singing the serial's closing song originates) – by the simple yet effective expedient of pointing a home cine-camera at their TV screen while the episode played (for the most part, videocassette recorders had yet to appear on the scene back then). Home cine-cameras were very popular gadgets back as far as the early 1970s, so who knows – if one person did that, perhaps others did too. Among collections of old home movies there just may be some footage of favourite TV shows recorded in this same manner, and which might conceivably include Little Big Time and Oliver in the Overworld.

I have also read about someone who used to tape the episodes of the second Oliver in the Overworld serial on audiocassettes, but sadly they were apparently mislaid 30-odd years ago during a house move. Yet if somehow those ostensibly lost cassette recordings, or others like them, have actually been saved or salvaged somewhere, at least the complete soundtracks to those episodes, i.e. including not just the songs (already preserved on the LP albums) but also the full dialogue (currently lost), will have survived.

Consequently, readers, if you still own any home recordings that you may have made of TV programmes dating from the early 1970s, whether they are video or audio, now that you are aware of Oliver in the Overworld and Little Big Time it might well be worth your time checking through them – you may be the proud and very fortunate possessors of immensely significant, archive-worthy footage that could resurrect fascinating TV programmes like these from small-screen oblivion!

And if you do think you have any such items, or any additional information concerning Oliver in the Overworld, please let me know – I'd greatly welcome any details!

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film/TV reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Freddie Garrity (1936-2006) (public domain)