Funny how something completely innocuous can spark seemingly the most insignificant of memories. For instance, this week over at LateMag.com, there was a plug for the forthcoming release of Enzo G. Castellari’s 1980′s schlock-fest, The Bronx Warriors trilogy.
Now, Castellari isn’t a name that’ll be familiar to everyone, but for fans of the Spaghetti Western or cult Italian exploitation cinema, his is a name mentioned with a certain amount of reverence, usually in suitably hushed tones… Probably.
Okay, he made a few decent Spaghetti Westerns, including the revisionist Keoma – I’m not one to let an awful soundtrack ruin my enjoyment – but let’s not get dragged away from the original point. Today is not, after all, Enzo G. Castellari day.
It’s more these Bronx Warriors films – The Bronx Warriors, Escape From the Bronx, and The New Barbarians, in turn low-rent rip-offs of Walter Hill’s The Warriors, John Carpenter’s Escape From New York and George Miller’s Mad Max 2 – and more importantly what they signify. Well, what they signify to me.
So, with it being such a lovely day(!) and the shouty daughter otherwise engaged at mother and baby club, I decided to go for a stroll around the new estate by us. I took my camera, as I had a plan.
The estate is built on the grounds of the old St. Margaret’s mental hospital in Great Barr – or the “Great Barr Idiot Colony” as it was originally called in the less enlightened early 1900s. The buildings that made up the hospital stood alongside Great Barr Hall, a Gothic mansion that has stood in some form or other since the late 1700s. The Hall was used as part of the hospital between 1918 and 1978.
The main buildings of St. Maggies, as we’ve always known it, are completely gone, but as far as I’m aware Great Barr Hall still stands, albeit in a state of disrepair, having been partially burnt to the ground just prior to the new houses being built. Here’s an aerial map of the old hospital grounds.
My aforementioned plan was to get some snaps of the Hall.
Whilst searching for a suitable Conquest of the Planet of the Apes image to illustrate Saturday’s post regarding cult cinema, I came across this beauty. Possibly the coolest movie poster I’ve never seen.
I’m sure sitting here at 3.40 in the morning bashing out a review of some obscure progressive rock album is of little benefit to either the mind or the soul. The body? Certainly not.
But while a 3 month old shouty daughter sleeps soundly above, like a man serving a life sentence on a day release, I have to grab any opportunity I can, writing whenever and wherever. If that means being active during the psycho hours – a time traditionally favoured by murderers, burglars, the criminally insane and milkmen – so be it.
Anti-social timekeeping is nothing new to me. A night creature of sorts, I have always preferred the darkness to the light. It’s within these realms that, if confined to barracks, my first taste of many a cult movie or TV show has been savoured. You can usually tell you’re in cult territory by – amongst other things – the ungodliness of the hour, the obscurity of the title or the lowness of the budget. Another key ingredient is the often small, yet dedicated audience that the film or show will enjoy – although this is obviously impossible to gauge at the time of viewing.
It’s ironic that ITV should be showing Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones on Halloween, for I’m sure George Lucas had something horrific in mind when he wrote the screenplay for this and the other two prequels.
That there is now a generation of kids who, through the shortsightedness of ITV, will be seeing the Star Wars films for the first time in the incorrect order, is something close to a bloody great shame.
The fanboy references peppered throughout the prequels – such as Jabba’s appearance in The Phantom Menace, Jango Fett’s armour and the brief glimpse of the Death Star plans in Attack of the Clones, and the final ten minutes of Revenge of the Sith – will mean very little to anybody unfamiliar with the original trilogy.
Assuming your browser allows images you’ll have noticed this site’s banner and may be wondering what its significance is. None at all really, other than my personal love for Spaghetti Westerns. It’s a still taken from the opening scene of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, which I have photoshopped and performed various feats of jiggery-pokery upon. So long as Paramount doesn’t catch wind, it’ll remain pride of place.
The scene itself is one of the all-time classics of the genre – Jack Elam, Woody Strode, Al Mullock and Charles Bronson meet at a dusty, forsaken train station in the middle of a sunbaked nowhere – though the film itself is not my favourite.
That honour lies with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, its threeway gundown at the climax being ten-or-so minutes of cinematic perfection, unsurpassed anywhere else in film history. There are other close contenders for the title spot too. An article I wrote for LateMag.com discussing a few of my favourite Spaghetti Westerns can be found here.
A curious title for a less than curious blog, no? Maybe not, but I had to call it something.
Anyways, my name is Nick James and I’m a writer (a published one at that). I have numerous bits and bobs scattered across the length and breadth of the internet, as well as in that tried and trusted old dog, print.
I am the author of Head Full of Snow, the psychedelic and progressive rock website that’s making ripples in certain corners of my imagination, and an occasional contributor to both LateMag.com and Little White Lies. But music and film aren’t my only vices.
Gadgetry, technology and ultimately useless stuff I can ill-afford also stokes the creative fires of @jeffman – as I’m known in web circles. Why Jeffman? Why not?
Nick James is a freelance copywriter and blogger, providing web and print-based copywriting services to businesses across all industries. He also writes Head Full of Snow. To discuss your needs and receive a FREE, no obligation, estimate, get in touch today.
cult films, reminisce, sci fi, spaghetti westerns | Jeffman | 
November 7, 2009 4:15 am | 
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Nick James is a freelance copywriter and blogger, providing web and print-based copywriting services to businesses across all industries. He also writes 
