Blake's 7

1980

Blake's 7: Sarcophagus (Season 3 Episode 9)

Blake's 7: 3x10 - Ultraworld (Season 3 Episode 10)

"Blake's 7 ran between 1978-81, which isn't much of a run frankly, but in those few seasons it managed to establish itself as the ultimate British cult SF series. Forget Dr Who and The Tomorrow People and even Quatermass, this was Britain's real answer to Star Trek.

What was particularly extraordinary is that the appeal was largely political. Blake's Seven were a small group of guerrillas fighting a vast dictatorial system with whatever tools are at their disposal. Which means that in the modern world they would be targeted under George W Bush's so-called war against so-called terrorism, but back then, in more enlightened times, we saw them as being part of the human struggle against tyranny. Also impressive was the sheer pointlessness of their campaign: the tiny pin-prick actions they staged did little to sabotage the operations of the Evil Empire, and didn't even work as armed propaganda. If they were going to have any real impact as freedom fighters, Blake and his group would have done better to study some theory before lashing out."

www.trashfiction.co.uk/blakes7.html



Related

Blake's 7

The Damned Don't Cry

 

Visage, 1982

Of Human Bondage

Directed by John Cromwell, 1934

Based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham (1915)

Starring Bette Davis and Leslie Howard

A young man finds himself attracted to a cold and unfeeling waitress who may ultimately destroy them both.

Recommended

The updated 1964 remake, set in the swinging sixties, starring Kim Novak and Laurence Harvey, is even better...

Of Human Bondage (1964) 1/2

Of Human Bondage (1964) 2/2

Directed by Ken Hughes

Script by Bryan Forbes

and more digestible...

 

"The third screen adaptation of Somerset Maugham's novel about the destructiveness of sexual obsession."

 

A medical student becomes obsessed with his faithless lover.

Kim's Mildred is quite different. She's much more of an enchantress.

Laura

Directed by Otto Preminger, 1944

Starring Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, Judith Anderson, Grant Mitchell

"A haunting film noir that is about a police detective investigating the murder of a mysterious, beautiful young woman."

~ Link ~

I shall never forget the weekend Laura died...



Storyline: Detective Mark McPherson investigates the killing of Laura, found dead on her apartment floor before the movie starts. McPherson builds a mental picture of the dead girl from the suspects whom he interviews. He is helped by the striking painting of the late lamented Laura hanging on her apartment wall. But who would have wanted to kill a girl with whom every man she met seemed to fall in love? To make matters worse, McPherson finds himself falling under her spell too. Then one night, halfway through his investigations, something seriously bizarre happens to make him re-think the whole case...

"The troubling premise of the film is that homicide detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) is seduced by the portrait and aura of murder victim Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney). As he investigates and interviews the scoundrels, charlatans, and egomaniacs of New York society with whom Laura surrounded herself, McPherson the blue-collar outsider is lured in by their universal testimony as to Laura’s decency, charm, and intelligence. Caught up in this unseemly passion, he begins to see his investigation as a battle for the dead woman's soul. It's a short step from this chaste fascination to jealousy:  McPherson starts to believe that in solving her murder he can also save Laura from the taint of her lovers, the penniless Southern cad Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price) and the narcissistic columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb). McPherson, in a way, is carrying on a more than usually fraught courtship, with a dead woman." - Ben Parker.