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DavidKMatthews
Reviews
The Internecine Project (1974)
Fun but flawed - deserves a superior remake
Having seen this movie only once before, in the late 1980s, I looked forward to seeing if it held up as well as I perceived it as a youngster. Frankly, it doesn't really. There are solid performances all round, with Ian Hendry taking the honours for his turn as the nervy Alex. But the cast's abilities are ultimately hindered by the script. For example Lee Grant has no material with which to improve upon the cliched, weak woman created by so many male scriptwriters of the era. (Did nobody in showbusiness back then watch The Avengers??!!) Meanwhile Bert Parsons' (Harry Andrews) misogyny is too cheesily scripted - his attitude needed subtlety and some backstory to be understandable and believable.
Nonetheless the audience is drawn in to Elliot's (James Coburn) diabolical scheme but the flaws of the movie's central idea become quickly obvious. His small network of mutually-unaquainted spies are clearly amateurs and, as such, hardly people you would rely upon to act as competent "Black Op" executors, with the cool detachment and efficiency to adhere to the strictly prescribed schedule under stressful conditions, let alone commit their first exterminations. They accept their deadly assignments without suggesting that Elliot himself would be better suited to carry out the killings. In partial fairness, though, we do see Alex start to "bottle out" during his own murderous mission.
The killings themselves are nicely staged - and the "mechanics" of this is essentially the film's best aspect and "USP". However, other than relying on Ian Hendry's usual superb acting abilities, there's little sense of tension, much less suspense. The "mechanics" are rather too, well, "mechanical"!
The shortcomings are lifted somewhat by Roy Budd's laudable score which, perhaps inevitably, is similar to his work on Get Carter.
The twist in the denouement is delicious and we cheer Elliot's final scene. It also leaves a chilling aftertaste, which may have been intentional by the writers. As Elliot drops the deadly "weapon" at the feet of a gathering crowd of onlookers, it could so easily have been picked up by one of them... a la the real world Salisbury Novichok outrage of 2018.
Overall, then, The Internecine Project is enjoyably frivolous - ironically somewhat akin to the aforementioned The Avengers. And as a fan of that show, my score is probably more generous than this movie deserves. If it fails, it's because it was clearly intended as a "serious", albeit slightly outlandish, work. It presents us with a movie very much of its era (though thankfully without the usual appalling clothing fashions!) - in both positive and negative senses. I am not generally disposed to remaking movies but there is a nub of a great, intriguing idea here, which could so easily be refined and improved upon.
Chalk and Cheese (1977)
Started well but quickly declined into third-rate class war dom-com
This review is based on the regular episodes only as the original 1977 pilot, "Spasms", is not readily available.
Other than a couple of repeat runs on the UK GOLD channel many years ago, the "dusty archives" status of this sitcom is largely deserved... which is a shame given its strong opening episode. Sharply scripted, mostly genuinely funny and with a tremendous performance by Michael Crawford (successfully shaking off his Frank Spencer persona), it showed much promise...
However from the second episode onwards it slid into the substandard domestic comedy genre that peppered the output of the London ITV regions, Thames and London Weekend, throughout the 1970s. While Michael Crawford could be relied upon to "carry" a show single-handed, writer Alex Shearer promptly forgot that the other actors need at least some of the humorous dialogue to stir up effective "conflict" to propel the comedy. To the contrary, Robin Hawdon's Roger Scott essentially becomes a straight-man "feed" for his nemesis, while the actors portraying the wives are particularly badly served, each fulfilling a "little woman stuck in kitchen drudgery" role. Hardly progressive!
Accepting that Crawford's character, David Finn, is intended as the show's central character, the scripts needed to maintain his wit and idiosyncracies of the opening episode. Instead he becomes increasingly shallow, unlikeable and one-dimensional. Even anti-establishment characters need to have some redeeming qualities and raison d'etre. Beyond the first episode, the only attempt to provide characterisation was the ludicrous plot device in which Finn is given a job at Scott's company as a limousine chauffeur, despite him clearly being a constant danger to other road users. Finn was neither a hero nor anti-hero.
Meanwhile Scott behaves in ways to simply suit each episode's weak plot, rather than to aid any character development.
Ironically Thames Television's own contemporary "layabout" series 'Shelley' had none of these shortcomings; the eponymous protagonist in that show being imbued with valid reasons for "rebelling" and his weekly tussles with "authority" saw him rightly outwit it with clever subtlety.
'Chalk and Cheese' appears to be Alex Shearer's first television work and, as such, Thames should have provided him with assistance from a more experienced writer. It's not in any way an unpleasant viewing experience but it remains a series produced on the verge of the 1980s yet, opening episode aside, firmly stuck with the comedic attributes of the previous decade.
Project U.F.O. (1978)
Disappointingly dull plots and dated production values
I so much wanted to enjoy this series again, having not seen it since its original UK transmission in the late 1970s. Sad to report, then, that it proved hugely disappointing...
An odd choice of premise given that the real-life Project Blue Book had been closed ten years previously and, if not officially discredited, had certainly faced serious challenges over its motivations and probity. In partial fairness, though, some episodes in the series depict the public accusing the team of a cover-up.
In general the stories are played out terribly slowly - often padded out with ponderous, purposeless shots of characters walking or driving past the camera or exterior shots of a helicopter. In the second season these were supplemented by "banter" scenes between our heroes which lacked any humour and did nothing to further the plot. In each episode scenes of the UFO's arrival are repeated a number of times in order to hit the standard 48-minute runtime. Cut out all the "waffle" and you'd probably trim ten minutes from each episode without losing any of the plot.
The acting from the two leads starts out as rather "stiff" and characterless but they improve slightly over the course of the the first season. Aldine King, as Gatlin's secretary, is awfully underused but much more interesting to watch!
William Jordan (as Gatlin) disappeared after the first season - presumably abducted by aliens. He was replaced by Edward Winter (as Capt Ben Ryan), leading to a more of a "spark" between the two lead characters. The second year saw production improvements such as more modern-sounding incidental music and sound effects and more "dynamic" camerawork.
The visual special effects are quite well realised in some episodes, taking into account the era the show was produced. That said, some camera focusing was poorly directed as it presents no impression of depth-of-field, rendering the use of small models rather obvious. And presumably the FX sucked up most of the budget as many of the visitors' ships in the first season emitted sounds that had been taken straight from 'Star Trek', produced a decade before.
It's difficult to recommend any particular episodes as they are all fairly consistent in plot.
The show is very rarely seen these days (in the UK I gather it was last broadcast by The SciFi Channel in the mid-1990s). But this isn't surprising and it's certainly no "lost classic". Overall this pedestrian work has little more than curiosity value - and did well to last its 26 episodes.