"6" Seventies Super T-shirts - Rollerball (1975)

What an iconic image of 70's Sci-fi.  What a powerful and iconic film that's still has so much to say all of these decades later.  I knew of Rollerball because I read Action(1) and knew that Death Game 1999(2) was a crib on the movie.  I got very excited a few years later when I discovered a handful of images in Sci-Fi Now and was most probably treated to my first viewing on a late night TV channel - It didn't disappoint.

 
There's only a handful of films that have travelled the years with me from TV to Video to DVD and Rollerball is one of them.  You get older, you view it through different eyes and it tilts and shifts and gives you something new each time.  As a youngster its the game and the violence and as an adult its the media and the politics and the power.  Well worth a look if you never have or a revisit if its been too long since you last did. All the truths are still valid and the corruptions still relevant.

But when all is said and done, very little says 70's Sci-fi to me quite so loudly as that font on that orange T-Shirt.

 

 

(1) (2)

 

And who remembers The Goodies parody of Rollerball as featured in the 1976 episode "2001 and a Bit" in which the MCC cricket team take on the Rolleregg side. No?  Oh well, it stayed with me.

 

 

  

Steve

 

(Pages 56,58 & 59)

Phase IV - Lobby Cards (1974)

Phase IV is a film I saw numerous times in my youth but which then disappeared out of the public consciousness or at least the late night TV viewing schedules.  Its a  rather stunning piece of work that stayed with me and a generation of movie viewers that have now helped to label it a cult classic, rather than the box office failure of its 1974 cinematic release.

I'm not sure of the exact years that I watched it but it must have been post 1975 and I'm fairly certain I saw it two or three times before it left our screens for good.

By way of a few facts, its the one and only feature film directed by American graphic design and filmmaker Saul Bass and stars Nigel Davenport, Lynne Frederick and Michael Murphy.  Its an Anglo American venture with the interiors shot at Pinewood Studios in England and the exterior location filming taking place in Kenya,  Although in the film it self, the action is supposed to be taking place in the Arizona desert of the United States.

In content its a film about ants, very clever ants, and something I recently described to a friend as the; 2001 of eco-sci-fi thrillers, which is fairly accurate a description if your interpretation of the source of the ants' intelligence is the same as mine.  Its also that good a film in my opinion.

I say this not simply from nostalgia and childhood memory but from a recent viewing.  Having given up waiting for it to appear back on TV or the high street DVD suppliers, I recently tracked down a German copy which can be played without the sub titles and thus enjoyed in its original mother tongue.  In fact if I'm honest I think I enjoyed it even more as an adult.

What's left to say about Phase IV apart from the fact that I would really like a new cleaned up English release with the extended even more trippy original ending having been restored to the edit.

In between writing this, I've just gone off and ordered the old paperback tie-in of the movie because I've now reminded myself that its still on my wants list.

And finally, that the film stars, as you will have noticed in the names above, the rather lovely Lynne Frederick, who we have already featured in the coverage of The Amazing Mr Blunden and who we will be looking at again, as something of a reoccurring English Rose, that much like the films she features in, deserves far more praise and credit than they are currently afforded.


Steve

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Pages 46, 61 & 62)

SCI-FI NOW (1978) Part 1

As a kid, exploring the wealth of science fiction movies that were out there, this book became my bible.

I remember finding it in a branch of W H Smiths, in Hastings during a family holiday in 1978.  It cost £1.25, which seems very reasonable now although I remember a bit of a struggle negotiating its purchase with my elder sister who was temporarily my guardian while my parents were buying something somewhere else.  Despite wanting to spend my own holiday money, my sister wasn't prepared to sanction such a large purchase without my mother's approval and lead me out the store bookless and sulking.

A short time later, while walking back down the other side of the high-street, little Steve, persuaded his mum to cross back over and return to Smiths for the desperately needed book that would return the smile to his face.  Leaving the other two thirds of the family out on the street, I lead my mum to where this life changing book could be found.  She read the front, thumbed the pages and then hesitated. 

"I think its a bit old for you." she said, most probably having just clocked Valerie Perrine's boobs on page 39.
"Its not."  I insisted
"I think it is." Adrienne Corri getting her arse cheek pawed by a clown-faced Malcolm McDowell at the top of page 34.
"Its for children its got Star Wars on the front."
"Yes. Its quite expensive."
"I've got the money."
"You'll have none left for anything else."
"I don't want anything else."
"You can't have it and we need to go."  My sister!  I thought she was outside with the others.
"Shut up. What's it got to do with you."

And at this point my mum caved and took the line of least resistance and further bickering. "OK but don't ask for anything else.  Come on.  Your dad is waiting for us."
And off to the till we went. I'm fairly sure I thanked her and I'm fairly sure my sister stared daggers and mouthed an uncomplimentary name or two but I really didn't care.  I would be spending the rest of the evening ignoring her and everybody else while I studied each and every page of this magnificent new book and made a promise to see every film in it.

....I'm almost there.  Just one left to go.


Steve