What's Happening? - Part 2 (July 2009).

Here is the second part of the 2009 updates. Don't forget....

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At this point let me mention another obscurish and offbeat website which is one of my personal favourites. The WOMWAM site is a tribute to the actresses of yesteryear with the emphasis on strong and dominating women. Why do I like this page? Well the first reason is that it is obviously a labour of love for the web author and secondly it avoids the trap of images without a theme. As someone who loves to watch silver age TV and film I really appreciate the background information about the actresses not to mention the psychology of the page which delves in to the reasons we find this genre so entertaining.  Once again don't visit the page expecting state of the art screen captures, huge JPEGs or even easily navigable pages but do visit to hear more about mostly B movie actresses and starlets and why they made such a great influence on people of that generation. I don't mean to detract from the website at all but for the people who like bigger and better images here are a few covering some of the actresses and shows from the original web site.  So feast your eyes on this collection from 60's (mostly) GWG media. (PLEASE NOTE: SINCE DRAFTING THIS PAGE WOMWAM SEEMS TO HAVE DISSAPPERED FROM THE WWW- COME BACK, YOU'RE GREAT).

Just to expand on one of the characters frequently mentioned at WOMWAM let me concentrate upon the character of Catwoman and the actresses who have played her. Everyone will now indelibly think of Michelle Pffifer or, horror of horrors, Halle Berry when the character of Catwoman (from Batman) is mentioned. Well, not everyone. For some of us the first and best Catwoman was Julie Newmar from the original campy TV series. We all knew that Batman was as much in danger of being seduced than killed by Newmar's Catwoman but she gave a whole new meaning to "slinky villainess" when she was on screen. Head to toe in a figure hugging catsuit (much sexier than Halle Berry's monstrosity) occasionally carrying a whip and with a rich sexy voice it is easy to see why Newmar WAS the catwoman. Eartha Kitt was an adequate substitute for a while when Newmar wasn't available but couldn't match her esteeemed predescessor - sad to say that since drafting this article Ms. Kitt died on Christmas Day (2008). Of course Lee Meriweather took up the mantle for the feature film, Pfieffer was an updated anti-heroine in Batman Returns and Halle? Well, at least self depracating Halle gamely went to the Golden Raspberry awards to pick up a her Worst Actress award. Ah, come on, lets just have some Catwoman pics I hear you say.

Back to Julie Newmar. As the WOMWAM author correctly points out Julie frequently got cast as a bad girl in her roles. She played a very effective baddie in 'It Takes a Thief' where she relentlessly pursues the heroes with her partner in arms determined to kill him. Newmar was missing from the Batman movie because she was filming 'McKenna's Gold'. A sprawling 'A' cast western may have seen a better career move at the time but this particular western did drag and only the very brief interludes of Newmar as a vindictive Indian squaw Hesh-Ke made the film worth watching. She also featured in 'The Maltese Bippy' an oddball film about a haunted house but most of her work continued in TV where she often played flawed characters.  She has reappeared in various roles throughout her career. In 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century' she played an evil galactic villainess but her best role (for me at least) was as the deadly hitwoman Eve in the 'Hart to Hart' episode 'Change of Hart'. Her appearance in the cheapo but enjoyable 'Oblivion' films should be noted though the villainess role was given to Musetta Vander whilst Julie Newmar played a rather insipid character called 'Kitty' who bore no relationship to her Catwoman persona at all.

Speaking of the dim distant past let me recommend a little known spy film from that era. The film 'Special Mission Lady Chaplin' probably means little except to afficiandos of obscure sixties spy films. Now thanks to the efforts of a remarkable video transfer company (Dorado Films) who lovingly restore and revamp cult films we can all see this great piece of 60's spy drama in a DVD format even if not DVD quality - it was made in the 1960's for heaven's sake. The lead actress is Daniela Bianchi who obviously learned a lot from her role in the Bond film "From Russia with Love" and the lead actor Ken Clark makes a convincing spy action hero (did his own stunts) in a low budget action film which doesn't display any low budget production values and gives us a good selection of amoral women spies.

When I started writing I didn't mean for this to descend in to a 1960's love fest but whilst it is still in my head lets discuss another 1960's spy film. I know I've mentioned it before but indulge me whilst I revisit 'Casino Royale' - not the Daniel Craig version. Why do I keep mentioning this overlong absolute mess of a film is probably a mystery to anyone who has sat through it. An alleged comedy which wanders all all the place and featuring David Niven as (one of the) Bond doesn't exactly get the pulse racing. I suppose my enjoyment of the film relates to the bevy of minor and not so minor actresses who permeate the film from beginning to end. Films featuring Ursula Andress (good, duplitious, villainess), Alexandra Bastedo (control woman for SMERSH), Daliah Lavi (voluptuous spy who flits in and out of the plot for no logical reason), Joanna Petet (Bond's daughter) and a bevy of machine gun toting henchwomen always score in my book and the only thing missing is Elke Sommer. In previous articles I've previously credited the final SMERSH Casino scenes to director Ken Russel - silly me it was directed by Val Guest. Ken is probably fuming at being associated with this garbage (or maybe he secretly wished he was involved). Easy mistake to make when 5 separate directors were responsible for this likeable farrago. As with Lady Chaplin I've just concentrated on the female stars rather than any GWG scenes.

Damn, damn, damn, why did I ever mention the name Elke Sommer. Get a name in your head and you can never forget it. I'm not going to bore everyone again about her films so no more comments just a variety of screencaps of great spy femmes from the 1960's. Actresses include Elke Sommer, Daliah Lavi, Nancy Kwan plus a few more obscure ones.

Right, that's out of the system and lets talk about Youtube. I'm sure we all go there occasionally and I know for a fact that several MPEGs I've produced over the years have turned up uncredited there.  So what is good and what is bad about Youtube. The good thing is the huge variety of GWG mateial there and there are several opportunities to find amateur productions to a very good standard.  With a bit of perserverence and research you can often find an obscure film which you could never find otherwise. What I don't like: let's face it the size and quality of FLV movies is nomally pretty rubbish. Another gripe is the persistent lack of credit for people who originally produced the clip and the wholesale uploading of copyrighted material. This may seem strange coming from someone who posts screencaps, occasional MPEGs but I do abide by "fair use" guidelines and do really think people who write, produce and act in any medium deserve credit rather than being shamelessly pirated wholesale on Youtube.  However, call me a hypocrite but here are some stills of some obscure stuff I've come across since the last update to these pages. I want to show some of the independent shorts which sometimes make their way on to Youtube.. Films include "Lobo", "El Frenetico", "Ypsilon", "Contingency" and "The Identity". Oh, one last observation about Youtube. Every film featuring a female killer seems to be labelled "Hitwoman". Mr Pedantic (i.e. me) is here to tell you the majority of them are of simple murderesses - not paid killers or assassins which the tag implies.

PART 3 IS ON ITS WAY SOON.