gordyboy9
He Punched The Highlights Out Of Her Hair.
yeah get what your meaning now,theres that many remakes these days its hard to keep up,then again maybe there is no such thing as a remake.
J
j*e*t
Guest
The Swedish film Picassos Äventyr (1978) is a comedy loosely based on the life of Pablo Picasso. It has a fairly sparse multilingual dialogue but most of the comedy is visual. The English version's narration is by Bernard Cribbins as Gertrude Stein, and she appears in a couple of scenes with Wilfred Brambell as Alice B. Toklas (brilliant casting!). Very amusing and interesting, parodying many of Picasso's associates and some other historical figures. There are surreal moments, and it pokes fun at the commercialisation of art. If you hate Monty Python or you take modern art very seriously, it might not appeal to you. It's on YouTube as Picasso's Abenteuer - the sound of the download isn't perfect but still enjoyable.
gashonthenail
You will own nothing and you will be happy...
Went to see The Holdovers the other day. Maybe I set the bar a bit high for this movie? I was hoping it was going to be something like as good as Sideways, also directed by Alexander Payne, and also starring Paul Giamatti, which is a bit of a classic. But it wasn't in that same league unfortunately. Enjoyable, but nothing special. Don't want to say much more in case anyone is planning to see it at the cinema as it is in theatres in the UK as we speak.
Lucifer Sam
الموت لأمريكا
On the recommendation of gordyboy9, I watched The Society of the Snow (2023). It was decent, if overlong and a bit emo at times. I will add to gordyboy's review by saying that not only is the plane crash sequence masterful and visceral, but the vistas are haunting. The resort to Donner party means involves a lot of soul-searching and moral theologizing among these young rugby players. It's curious the way humans deal with taboos. We'll give anguished consideration to the thought of eating someone who's already dead through no fault of our own (and for our survival, no less) but zero squeamishness when it comes to the deliberate torture and slaughter of the innocent animals raised for merely for our gustatory pleasure.
Looking up the director, I noticed his first film was The Orphanage (2007). I enjoyed that one. It looks like after it, he lurched heavily into big-budget disaster and monster movies.
Requiescant
You Should Not Go To Them, Let Them Come To You...
'Novyy Vavilon'(1929)
The trouble with being a bit of a film geek, especially one who seeks out the more bizarre and the more left-field cinema, is that it is very easy to become jaded with what's on offer either at the cinema, or on any streaming or physical platform. And then I saw 'Novyy Vavilon' aka 'The New Babylon'(or even 'Das Neue Babylon' as it was titled on the German DVD I have of it).
In 1929 Hollywood was embracing Talking Pictures as the new art form, seemingly unaware that the first examples of this new hoopla were brain crushingly awful! Terrible stagy melodramas with static camerawork and even more static performers.
Whilst Europe may not have grasped the 'Talkie' mantle yet, it continued to work within the Silent framework and was creating works of startling creativity e.g., lush, opulent adult(as in 'grown-up') dramas such as G.W. Pabst's 'Pandora's Box', or the dizzying works of Russian master Sergei Eisenstein.
Or indeed 'The New Babylon' by Russian directors Leonid Trauberg and Grigori Kozinstev....
'The New Babylon' tells the true tale of the Paris Commune of 1871, a Government led by the people for the people, formed from an uneasy alliance between the Marxists and the Anarchists. The film is set at the time of the Franco-Prussian war during which France suffered some devastating losses. This led to the gap between the rich and the poor not only become wider, but becoming glaringly obvious.
The Proletariat, refusing to take the barbaric working and living conditions anymore, rise up against the fat-cats who have sunk in to a cesspool of decadence, debauchery and debasement, and take control of the city.
Building a Socialist Government within the Commune of Paris, the workers(or Communards as they were now known) tried to quickly set up a manifesto of workers rights. Perhaps what they should have been doing was preparing for the onslaught of the Prussian army which was now heading towards the beleaguered capital. Acting in conjunction with it's invading aggressor, the Versailles government declared all Communards as enemies of the state and joined in the re-taking of the city. The Communards; men, women and children, were marched in their thousands to Versailles to await judgement, many facing public execution.
The film itself is a dizzying and dazzling swirl of images, and a masterpiece of subjective editing. Early scenes depicting the decadence enjoyed by the land owners and factory owners are utterly mindbending. A fat slobbering Champagne quaffing drunk sits in the foreground whilst all around there's a whirling sense of utter debauchery, often resembling moving Escher puzzles.
The rise of the Socialist Government is filmed like the Eisenstein montages of 'Strike!' or 'October', and there's a general sense of pulsating empathy that rivals ANY propaganda from any country.
The battle scenes are extraordinary and, possibly, were an influence on directors as varied as William Wellman or Sergio Leone. The scene in which the Communards are named in a torrential rainstorm is surely mirrored in Leone's 'A Fistful Of Dynamite', a movie which also deals with Marxist Revolution.
The final image of graffiti declaring the power of 'the Commune' leaves no-one in any doubt of the film makers objectives.
No, there's no getting away from it, the whole movie is an allegory of the Russian Revolution, showing it's viewers not only how a Socialist society can exist but also how to avoid the same fate as the Parisian Communards by being prepared to take arms against any aggressor.
Because of the film's politics, it obviously remained unseen for many years outside of the Soviet Union. And while many may obviously disagree with those politics, there can be no doubting the skills of the film makers involved. This is a staggering film; one which careers along at a frightening pace(belying the myth that Silent Movies are turgidly slow), and is full of breathtaking sequences that, as far as I am concerned, have never been equalled.
It may not have been to easy to see the movie in the West for many years(I had to acquire a German DVD to get a chance to see it), it is now on Youtube, in full and with English subtitles, so for anyone with an interest in Silent Movies, or for those interested in Political Cinema, or even for any film geek who just wants to see something a bit different.....this is HIGHLY recommended!
Vive La Revolucion!!
The trouble with being a bit of a film geek, especially one who seeks out the more bizarre and the more left-field cinema, is that it is very easy to become jaded with what's on offer either at the cinema, or on any streaming or physical platform. And then I saw 'Novyy Vavilon' aka 'The New Babylon'(or even 'Das Neue Babylon' as it was titled on the German DVD I have of it).
In 1929 Hollywood was embracing Talking Pictures as the new art form, seemingly unaware that the first examples of this new hoopla were brain crushingly awful! Terrible stagy melodramas with static camerawork and even more static performers.
Whilst Europe may not have grasped the 'Talkie' mantle yet, it continued to work within the Silent framework and was creating works of startling creativity e.g., lush, opulent adult(as in 'grown-up') dramas such as G.W. Pabst's 'Pandora's Box', or the dizzying works of Russian master Sergei Eisenstein.
Or indeed 'The New Babylon' by Russian directors Leonid Trauberg and Grigori Kozinstev....
'The New Babylon' tells the true tale of the Paris Commune of 1871, a Government led by the people for the people, formed from an uneasy alliance between the Marxists and the Anarchists. The film is set at the time of the Franco-Prussian war during which France suffered some devastating losses. This led to the gap between the rich and the poor not only become wider, but becoming glaringly obvious.
The Proletariat, refusing to take the barbaric working and living conditions anymore, rise up against the fat-cats who have sunk in to a cesspool of decadence, debauchery and debasement, and take control of the city.
Building a Socialist Government within the Commune of Paris, the workers(or Communards as they were now known) tried to quickly set up a manifesto of workers rights. Perhaps what they should have been doing was preparing for the onslaught of the Prussian army which was now heading towards the beleaguered capital. Acting in conjunction with it's invading aggressor, the Versailles government declared all Communards as enemies of the state and joined in the re-taking of the city. The Communards; men, women and children, were marched in their thousands to Versailles to await judgement, many facing public execution.
The film itself is a dizzying and dazzling swirl of images, and a masterpiece of subjective editing. Early scenes depicting the decadence enjoyed by the land owners and factory owners are utterly mindbending. A fat slobbering Champagne quaffing drunk sits in the foreground whilst all around there's a whirling sense of utter debauchery, often resembling moving Escher puzzles.
The rise of the Socialist Government is filmed like the Eisenstein montages of 'Strike!' or 'October', and there's a general sense of pulsating empathy that rivals ANY propaganda from any country.
The battle scenes are extraordinary and, possibly, were an influence on directors as varied as William Wellman or Sergio Leone. The scene in which the Communards are named in a torrential rainstorm is surely mirrored in Leone's 'A Fistful Of Dynamite', a movie which also deals with Marxist Revolution.
The final image of graffiti declaring the power of 'the Commune' leaves no-one in any doubt of the film makers objectives.
No, there's no getting away from it, the whole movie is an allegory of the Russian Revolution, showing it's viewers not only how a Socialist society can exist but also how to avoid the same fate as the Parisian Communards by being prepared to take arms against any aggressor.
Because of the film's politics, it obviously remained unseen for many years outside of the Soviet Union. And while many may obviously disagree with those politics, there can be no doubting the skills of the film makers involved. This is a staggering film; one which careers along at a frightening pace(belying the myth that Silent Movies are turgidly slow), and is full of breathtaking sequences that, as far as I am concerned, have never been equalled.
It may not have been to easy to see the movie in the West for many years(I had to acquire a German DVD to get a chance to see it), it is now on Youtube, in full and with English subtitles, so for anyone with an interest in Silent Movies, or for those interested in Political Cinema, or even for any film geek who just wants to see something a bit different.....this is HIGHLY recommended!
Vive La Revolucion!!
Who Rattled Your Cage
Active Member
Watched this a couple of nights ago on the BFI player. Took out a two-week trial subscription, instantly cancelled after it. Thoroughly enjoyed the doc. Spent some good nights at the Scala in the late 80s/early 90s. Miss the place.
gashonthenail
You will own nothing and you will be happy...
All of Us Strangers.
Beautiful and haunting portrayal of grief and loss and how ghosts from the past can stop us living in the present. The 4 central performances are excellent. Emotional and very moving. Paul Mescal is about to star in the follow up to Gladiator - and is almost certainly heading to be one of the biggest film stars on the planet.
Beautiful and haunting portrayal of grief and loss and how ghosts from the past can stop us living in the present. The 4 central performances are excellent. Emotional and very moving. Paul Mescal is about to star in the follow up to Gladiator - and is almost certainly heading to be one of the biggest film stars on the planet.
BrokenFrame
Well-Known Member
Extraction 2.
Mostly guns and killing, but cool action scenes. Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) tries to save an imprisoned family. Turn off your brain through most of it and enjoy.
Mostly guns and killing, but cool action scenes. Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) tries to save an imprisoned family. Turn off your brain through most of it and enjoy.
goinghome
you must not tamper with arrangements
The Killing of Sister George (1968)
Based on the 1964 play by Frank Marcus as adapted into the film directed by Robert Aldrich. It's on one of Morrissey's earlier lists of film recommendations.
A brash radio actress who lives with a younger woman and drinks a lot learns she may be axed from her job. It has a real feel to it, and people have speculated who of several possibilities it could have been inspired by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_of_Sister_George
A couple of steamy scenes led to panicked chops and changes in the censor's office
https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/bbfc-files-killing-sister-george.
For me, overwrought at times and longer than necessary but complex colourful characters and their shifting fortunes held interest.
Oh, and also featured is a scene where a ten-ton truck crashes
Based on the 1964 play by Frank Marcus as adapted into the film directed by Robert Aldrich. It's on one of Morrissey's earlier lists of film recommendations.
A brash radio actress who lives with a younger woman and drinks a lot learns she may be axed from her job. It has a real feel to it, and people have speculated who of several possibilities it could have been inspired by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_of_Sister_George
A couple of steamy scenes led to panicked chops and changes in the censor's office
https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/bbfc-files-killing-sister-george.
For me, overwrought at times and longer than necessary but complex colourful characters and their shifting fortunes held interest.
Oh, and also featured is a scene where a ten-ton truck crashes
Requiescant
You Should Not Go To Them, Let Them Come To You...
'Johnny Go Home'(1975)
...or the strange case of Morrissey, Bannockburn, and the Dilly Boys!
In 1975, well respected documentarian John Willis decided to turn his eye to the ever increasing number of runaway youths descending on London. The film follows Maggie, an English girl who's been in London a fair bit and is already hardened by life on the street. Then we see 12(yes, TWELVE!!) year old Tommy arrive from Glasgow in what looks like his Dad's best suit, already smoking like a chimney.
Tommy, like many runaway boys, is drawn to Pennyland, a slot machine amusement arcade in Piccadilly. Here he falls in with the gang that frequent the arcade and who have learned that by prostituting themselves, they can pay the rent and food. Deviants call them 'the Meat Rack'("On the rack I was easy meat and a reasonably good buy"), the lads refer to themselves as the Dilly Boys. At around the 18 minute mark in the film you can see the whole gang showing off and preening. Are they just playing for the camera, or are they grabbing a chance for a huge advert for their 'wares'. It turns out the boys are 'housed' by serial paedophile Roger Gleaves, a horrible human being, self proclaimed 'Bishop Of Piccadilly' and 'Bishop Of The Medway', using a false religious facade to hide his ulterior motives, he ran a religious commune which was simply a front for a paedophile ring. This man makes Jimmy Savile, Lord Mountbatten, and Cyril Smith look like monastic choirboys.
Then, during the filming, something rather unexpected and unpleasant occurs. One of the Dilly Boys, known as Billy Two-Tone, is murdered in a particularly horrifying manner. Billy Two-Tone, so called not because of the Punk/Ska movement still some years off, but because of his two-tone Bowie-ish haircut, is Billy McPhee a teenager who ran away from a small Scottish town called Bannockburn. Yes, Bannockburn....my hometown!!
(These photos are of Tommy, I didn't think it very respectful to post images of Billy)
When the documentary was shown, I was in Primary school and FAR too young to watch it, though some of my classmates did claim to have seen it. You could tell those who had from those who only claimed they had. Those who were lying bragged about being tough enough to watch this grim adult show, while those who HAD genuinely seen it were a tad muted and a bit scared looking. The whole class was talking about it, as was the whole school, as was the whole town. Most people knew Billy, or knew of him, or knew his family. This is a small town, actually at that time it was more of a village than a town. Everyone knew EVERYONE. The one moment that everyone seemed fascinated by was the scene around 1hr26mins of Billy's funeral in Bannockburn cemetery. People we knew were on TV!!! This was a big deal at the time, these were the days before camcorders and videophones, so to see our townsfolk on the screen was revelatory.
Even though, as I said, I didn't see the documentary at the time, descriptions of what happened to Billy clung to me like old tobacco smoke. I used to have nightmares because of some of the things I'd heard about. It's well known that Billy was dumped in a ditch like a bag of rubbish. When out walking in the countryside around Bannockburn, there are, or were, a lot of ditches, and I used to run past them in case there was a body dumped in them. Another detail about Billy being made to eat paper(?!) haunted my childish mind, and I can still all these years later see the images from my nightmares.
The three men responsible for Billy's death were given life sentences. They had been associates of Roger Gleaves who escaped punishment this time, but would eventually spend time in prison, his 'religious' pretences often reducing his sentences. Insanely, once when he was released from prison he was housed directly across from a Primary School. This can only illicit one three word phrase...For...f***'s...Sake!!!
Morrissey has acknowledged 'Johnny Go Home' as an inspiration for 'Piccadilly Palare', and listening again to it now, the song takes on a much different, darker hue. The longer, unreleased version with the repeated coda, "No Dad, I won't be home tomorrah'', now sounds a lot more sinister. Will the protagonist not be home because of his new found freedom, or because he's on borrowed time?
Morrissey would have been 15 or 16 when this was aired and he has spoken of his own desire to flee the drudgery of Manchester for the 'glamour' of Piccadilly, but maybe this documentary changed his mind.
Coincidentally, Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and solo fame, also wrote a song inspired by the documentary. He too would have been around 15 or 16 and may also have harboured desires to flee Liverpool before seeing this horror unfold.
It seems really odd that two artists, born within a year of each other, both from the north of England would write a song, both released in 1991, inspired by the same documentary.
Holly's song is called 'Penny Arcade', and the lyrics are absolutely beautiful. The song however is not! Terrible, clanging early 90s production, and Holly's vocals, usually a thing of wonder, here sound like he's straining to evacuate a troublesome stool! He should have done it as a piano ballad to match its lyrical beauty.
As I watched the documentary for the first time(just this week), the horror really hit me. I can understand why the whole of Bannockburn seems to have suppressed this bad memory. I posted a link to the film on the Bannockburn Town Facebook page, and it got taken down after less than 20 minutes even though a few people had commented on it positively. A couple said they remembered the film, others that they remembered Billy.
When I saw the funeral scene, I got chills in my stomach like I have never experienced before, seeing people now long dead move and speak, was like looking at an entire village of ghosts, and not in the jovial Brigadoonish sense! Not only was it strange to see the town's old minister sermonise, but in the truly haunting scene where a group of young boys stare at Billy's coffin, the boy second left in the maroon jersey is someone I worked beside for a short time at my first ever job.
I tried to find some follow ups on the story; unfortunately there never was a 'where are they now' documentary years later to let us know what happened to Tommy and Maggie(maybe it's for the best that we don't know!).
Maggie appears to have dropped off the radar altogether, so who knows what fate befell her. News on Tommy seems rather contradictory; one story claims he remained with Roger Gleaves, acting as an 'altar boy' in his repugnant commune, and telling people that Gleaves was a really nice person who looked after him. Sounds like Tommy may have been groomed to within an inch of his life, both literally and metaphorically. Another story said that he returned to Glasgow and was working as a gardener. Let's hope that's true.
The weekend following the documentary's broadcast, a journalist from The Observer newspaper came up to Bannockburn to see for himself why Billy would run away from our town. He described Bannockburn as some poverty ridden, squalor bestrewn, post apocalyptic wasteland, bereft of any future or promise. Utter bullshit mate!! And you know it!!
Of course Bannockburn is now famous for Braveheart/Robert The Bruce/William Wallace and guys with blue painted faces bellowing "FREEEEEEDOOOOOOMMMMM!!!" But once it was infamous for all the wrong reasons!
So next time you listen to 'Piccadilly Palare', think of Tommy, Maggie, and of Billy Two-Tone.
This is the link to the film. Please be warned, it is NOT a pleasant watch. It gave me nightmares as child, and I don't want to inflict them on you nice people
These are the rather wonderful lyrics to Holly Johnson's sadly disappointing song:
Penny Arcade
Don’t go to the penny arcade
Don’t waste the money that your mother’s made
Don’t waste your life, just use your mind
Play with me, leave the game behind
Game over, you’re my high score
I need you more, I like your smile
Move the joystick quick
You’ve got poise, personality, love what you do for me
In the penny arcade the deals we made
Our innocence the price we paid
From Piccadilly to the Strand
We plied out trade in Playland
Johnny go home, get on the train
Pack you bags and move on again
Don’t sell your love, don’t play around
With the low life in this town (That’s right)
What can we hope for, what can we do
We’re ordinary people too
Trained to drink and watch the game
Weekend over, work again
In the penny arcade the deals we made
Our innocence the price we paid
From Piccadilly to the Strand
We plied out trade in Playland
The streets they said were paved with gold
Are lined with souls that someone sold
Cheap love in alleyways
The pimp and needle never pays, never pays
See a movie with a friend
Watch the credits until the end
As cameras roll across your mind
Watch the stars in space and time
Time to wake up, work the streets
Bright lights and naked heat
Hang around street corners
Watch the world go by
In the penny arcade the deals we made
Our innocence the price we paid
From Piccadilly to the Strand
we plied out trade in Playland
(In the penny arcade)
(From Piccadilly to the Strand)
We plied out trade in Playland
And this is 'Piccadilly Palare' with the coda:
...or the strange case of Morrissey, Bannockburn, and the Dilly Boys!
In 1975, well respected documentarian John Willis decided to turn his eye to the ever increasing number of runaway youths descending on London. The film follows Maggie, an English girl who's been in London a fair bit and is already hardened by life on the street. Then we see 12(yes, TWELVE!!) year old Tommy arrive from Glasgow in what looks like his Dad's best suit, already smoking like a chimney.
Tommy, like many runaway boys, is drawn to Pennyland, a slot machine amusement arcade in Piccadilly. Here he falls in with the gang that frequent the arcade and who have learned that by prostituting themselves, they can pay the rent and food. Deviants call them 'the Meat Rack'("On the rack I was easy meat and a reasonably good buy"), the lads refer to themselves as the Dilly Boys. At around the 18 minute mark in the film you can see the whole gang showing off and preening. Are they just playing for the camera, or are they grabbing a chance for a huge advert for their 'wares'. It turns out the boys are 'housed' by serial paedophile Roger Gleaves, a horrible human being, self proclaimed 'Bishop Of Piccadilly' and 'Bishop Of The Medway', using a false religious facade to hide his ulterior motives, he ran a religious commune which was simply a front for a paedophile ring. This man makes Jimmy Savile, Lord Mountbatten, and Cyril Smith look like monastic choirboys.
Then, during the filming, something rather unexpected and unpleasant occurs. One of the Dilly Boys, known as Billy Two-Tone, is murdered in a particularly horrifying manner. Billy Two-Tone, so called not because of the Punk/Ska movement still some years off, but because of his two-tone Bowie-ish haircut, is Billy McPhee a teenager who ran away from a small Scottish town called Bannockburn. Yes, Bannockburn....my hometown!!
(These photos are of Tommy, I didn't think it very respectful to post images of Billy)
When the documentary was shown, I was in Primary school and FAR too young to watch it, though some of my classmates did claim to have seen it. You could tell those who had from those who only claimed they had. Those who were lying bragged about being tough enough to watch this grim adult show, while those who HAD genuinely seen it were a tad muted and a bit scared looking. The whole class was talking about it, as was the whole school, as was the whole town. Most people knew Billy, or knew of him, or knew his family. This is a small town, actually at that time it was more of a village than a town. Everyone knew EVERYONE. The one moment that everyone seemed fascinated by was the scene around 1hr26mins of Billy's funeral in Bannockburn cemetery. People we knew were on TV!!! This was a big deal at the time, these were the days before camcorders and videophones, so to see our townsfolk on the screen was revelatory.
Even though, as I said, I didn't see the documentary at the time, descriptions of what happened to Billy clung to me like old tobacco smoke. I used to have nightmares because of some of the things I'd heard about. It's well known that Billy was dumped in a ditch like a bag of rubbish. When out walking in the countryside around Bannockburn, there are, or were, a lot of ditches, and I used to run past them in case there was a body dumped in them. Another detail about Billy being made to eat paper(?!) haunted my childish mind, and I can still all these years later see the images from my nightmares.
The three men responsible for Billy's death were given life sentences. They had been associates of Roger Gleaves who escaped punishment this time, but would eventually spend time in prison, his 'religious' pretences often reducing his sentences. Insanely, once when he was released from prison he was housed directly across from a Primary School. This can only illicit one three word phrase...For...f***'s...Sake!!!
Morrissey has acknowledged 'Johnny Go Home' as an inspiration for 'Piccadilly Palare', and listening again to it now, the song takes on a much different, darker hue. The longer, unreleased version with the repeated coda, "No Dad, I won't be home tomorrah'', now sounds a lot more sinister. Will the protagonist not be home because of his new found freedom, or because he's on borrowed time?
Morrissey would have been 15 or 16 when this was aired and he has spoken of his own desire to flee the drudgery of Manchester for the 'glamour' of Piccadilly, but maybe this documentary changed his mind.
Coincidentally, Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and solo fame, also wrote a song inspired by the documentary. He too would have been around 15 or 16 and may also have harboured desires to flee Liverpool before seeing this horror unfold.
It seems really odd that two artists, born within a year of each other, both from the north of England would write a song, both released in 1991, inspired by the same documentary.
Holly's song is called 'Penny Arcade', and the lyrics are absolutely beautiful. The song however is not! Terrible, clanging early 90s production, and Holly's vocals, usually a thing of wonder, here sound like he's straining to evacuate a troublesome stool! He should have done it as a piano ballad to match its lyrical beauty.
As I watched the documentary for the first time(just this week), the horror really hit me. I can understand why the whole of Bannockburn seems to have suppressed this bad memory. I posted a link to the film on the Bannockburn Town Facebook page, and it got taken down after less than 20 minutes even though a few people had commented on it positively. A couple said they remembered the film, others that they remembered Billy.
When I saw the funeral scene, I got chills in my stomach like I have never experienced before, seeing people now long dead move and speak, was like looking at an entire village of ghosts, and not in the jovial Brigadoonish sense! Not only was it strange to see the town's old minister sermonise, but in the truly haunting scene where a group of young boys stare at Billy's coffin, the boy second left in the maroon jersey is someone I worked beside for a short time at my first ever job.
I tried to find some follow ups on the story; unfortunately there never was a 'where are they now' documentary years later to let us know what happened to Tommy and Maggie(maybe it's for the best that we don't know!).
Maggie appears to have dropped off the radar altogether, so who knows what fate befell her. News on Tommy seems rather contradictory; one story claims he remained with Roger Gleaves, acting as an 'altar boy' in his repugnant commune, and telling people that Gleaves was a really nice person who looked after him. Sounds like Tommy may have been groomed to within an inch of his life, both literally and metaphorically. Another story said that he returned to Glasgow and was working as a gardener. Let's hope that's true.
The weekend following the documentary's broadcast, a journalist from The Observer newspaper came up to Bannockburn to see for himself why Billy would run away from our town. He described Bannockburn as some poverty ridden, squalor bestrewn, post apocalyptic wasteland, bereft of any future or promise. Utter bullshit mate!! And you know it!!
Of course Bannockburn is now famous for Braveheart/Robert The Bruce/William Wallace and guys with blue painted faces bellowing "FREEEEEEDOOOOOOMMMMM!!!" But once it was infamous for all the wrong reasons!
So next time you listen to 'Piccadilly Palare', think of Tommy, Maggie, and of Billy Two-Tone.
This is the link to the film. Please be warned, it is NOT a pleasant watch. It gave me nightmares as child, and I don't want to inflict them on you nice people
These are the rather wonderful lyrics to Holly Johnson's sadly disappointing song:
Penny Arcade
Don’t go to the penny arcade
Don’t waste the money that your mother’s made
Don’t waste your life, just use your mind
Play with me, leave the game behind
Game over, you’re my high score
I need you more, I like your smile
Move the joystick quick
You’ve got poise, personality, love what you do for me
In the penny arcade the deals we made
Our innocence the price we paid
From Piccadilly to the Strand
We plied out trade in Playland
Johnny go home, get on the train
Pack you bags and move on again
Don’t sell your love, don’t play around
With the low life in this town (That’s right)
What can we hope for, what can we do
We’re ordinary people too
Trained to drink and watch the game
Weekend over, work again
In the penny arcade the deals we made
Our innocence the price we paid
From Piccadilly to the Strand
We plied out trade in Playland
The streets they said were paved with gold
Are lined with souls that someone sold
Cheap love in alleyways
The pimp and needle never pays, never pays
See a movie with a friend
Watch the credits until the end
As cameras roll across your mind
Watch the stars in space and time
Time to wake up, work the streets
Bright lights and naked heat
Hang around street corners
Watch the world go by
In the penny arcade the deals we made
Our innocence the price we paid
From Piccadilly to the Strand
we plied out trade in Playland
(In the penny arcade)
(From Piccadilly to the Strand)
We plied out trade in Playland
And this is 'Piccadilly Palare' with the coda:
Last edited:
Malarkey
no pasarán 🌹
'Johnny Go Home'(1975)
...or the strange case of Morrissey, Bannockburn, and the Dilly Boys!
In 1975, well respected documentarian John Willis decided to turn his eye to the ever increasing number of runaway youths descending on London. The film follows Maggie, an English girl who's been in London a fair bit and is already hardened by life on the street. Then we see 12(yes, TWELVE!!) year old Tommy arrive from Glasgow in what looks like his Dad's best suit, already smoking like a chimney.
View attachment 101549
Tommy, like many runaway boys, is drawn to Pennyland, a slot machine amusement arcade in Piccadilly. Here he falls in with the gang that frequent the arcade and who have learned that by prostituting themselves, they can pay the rent and food. Deviants call them 'the Meat Rack'("On the rack I was easy meat and a reasonably good buy"), the lads refer to themselves as the Dilly Boys. At around the 18 minute mark in the film you can see the whole gang showing off and preening. Are they just playing for the camera, or are they grabbing a chance for a huge advert for their 'wares'. It turns out the boys are 'housed' by serial paedophile Roger Gleaves, a horrible human being, self proclaimed 'Bishop Of Piccadilly' and 'Bishop Of The Medway', using a false religious facade to hide his ulterior motives, he ran a religious commune which was simply a front for a paedophile ring. This man makes Jimmy Savile, Lord Mountbatten, and Cyril Smith look like monastic choirboys.
Then, during the filming, something rather unexpected and unpleasant occurs. One of the Dilly Boys, known as Billy Two-Tone, is murdered in a particularly horrifying manner. Billy Two-Tone, so called not because of the Punk/Ska movement still some years off, but because of his two-tone Bowie-ish haircut, is Billy McPhee a teenager who ran away from a small Scottish town called Bannockburn. Yes, Bannockburn....my hometown!!
View attachment 101548
(These photos are of Tommy, I didn't think it very respectful to post images of Billy)
When the documentary was shown, I was in Primary school and FAR too young to watch it, though some of my classmates did claim to have seen it. You could tell those who had from those who only claimed they had. Those who were lying bragged about being tough enough to watch this grim adult show, while those who HAD genuinely seen it were a tad muted and a bit scared looking. The whole class was talking about it, as was the whole school, as was the whole town. Most people knew Billy, or knew of him, or knew his family. This is a small town, actually at that time it was more of a village than a town. Everyone knew EVERYONE. The one moment that everyone seemed fascinated by was the scene around 1hr26mins of Billy's funeral in Bannockburn cemetery. People we knew were on TV!!! This was a big deal at the time, these were the days before camcorders and videophones, so to see our townsfolk on the screen was revelatory.
Even though, as I said, I didn't see the documentary at the time, descriptions of what happened to Billy clung to me like old tobacco smoke. I used to have nightmares because of some of the things I'd heard about. It's well known that Billy was dumped in a ditch like a bag of rubbish. When out walking in the countryside around Bannockburn, there are, or were, a lot of ditches, and I used to run past them in case there was a body dumped in them. Another detail about Billy being made to eat paper(?!) haunted my childish mind, and I can still all these years later see the images from my nightmares.
The three men responsible for Billy's death were given life sentences. They had been associates of Roger Gleaves who escaped punishment this time, but would eventually spend time in prison, his 'religious' pretences often reducing his sentences. Insanely, once when he was released from prison he was housed directly across from a Primary School. This can only illicit one three word phrase...For...f***'s...Sake!!!
Morrissey has acknowledged 'Johnny Go Home' as an inspiration for 'Piccaddilly Palare', and listening again to it now, the song takes on a much different, darker hue. The longer, unreleased version with the repeated coda, "No Dad, I won't be home tomorrah'', now sounds a lot more sinister. Will the protagonist not be home because of his new found freedom, or because he's on borrowed time?
Morrissey would have been 15 or 16 when this was aired and he has spoken of his own desire to flee the drudgery of Manchester for the 'glamour' of Piccadilly, but maybe this documentary changed his mind.
Coincidentally, Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and solo fame, also wrote a song inspired by the documentary. He too would have been around 15 or 16 and may also have harboured desires to flee Liverpool before seeing this horror unfold.
It seems really odd that two artists, born within a year of each other, both from the north of England would write a song, both released in 1991, inspired by the same documentary.
Holly's song is called 'Penny Arcade', and the lyrics are absolutely beautiful. The song however is not! Terrible, clanging early 90s production, and Holly's vocals, usually a thing of wonder, here sound like he's straining to evacuate a troublesome stool! He should have done it as a piano ballad to match its lyrical beauty.
As I watched the documentary for the first time(just this week), the horror really hit me. I can understand why the whole of Bannockburn seems to have suppressed this bad memory. I posted a link to the film on the Bannockburn Town Facebook page, and it got taken down after less than 20 minutes even though a few people had commented on it positively. A couple said they remembered the film, others that they remembered Billy.
When I saw the funeral scene, I got chills in my stomach like I have never experienced before, seeing people now long dead move and speak, was like looking at an entire village of ghosts, and not in the jovial Brigadoonish sense! Not only was it strange to see the town's old minister sermonise, but in the truly haunting scene where a group of young boys stare at Billy's coffin, the boy second left in the maroon jersey is someone I worked beside for a short time at my first ever job.
I tried to find some follow ups on the story; unfortunately there never was a 'where are they now' documentary years later to let us know what happened to Tommy and Maggie(maybe it's for the best that we don't know!).
Maggie appears to have dropped off the radar altogether, so who knows what fate befell her. News on Tommy seems rather contradictory; one story claims he remained with Roger Gleaves, acting as an 'altar boy' in his repugnant commune, and telling people that Gleaves was a really nice person who looked after him. Sounds like Tommy may have been groomed to within an inch of his life, both literally and metaphorically. Another story said that he returned to Glasgow and was working as a gardener. Let's hope that's true.
The weekend following the documentary's broadcast, a journalist from The Observer newspaper came up to Bannockburn to see for himself why Billy would run away from our town. He described Bannockburn as some poverty ridden, squalor bestrewn, post apocalyptic wasteland, bereft of any future or promise. Utter bullshit mate!! And you know it!!
Of course Bannockburn is now famous for Braveheart/Robert The Bruce/William Wallace and guys with blue painted faces bellowing "FREEEEEEDOOOOOOMMMMM!!!" But once it was infamous for all the wrong reasons!
So next time you listen to 'Piccadilly Palare', think of Tommy, Maggie, and of Billy Two-Tone.
This the link to the film. Please be warned, it is NOT a pleasant watch. It gave me nightmares as child, and I don't want to inflict them on you nice people
These are the rather wonderful lyrics to Holly Johnson's sadly disappointing song:
Penny Arcade
Don’t go to the penny arcade
Don’t waste the money that your mother’s made
Don’t waste your life, just use your mind
Play with me, leave the game behind
Game over, you’re my high score
I need you more, I like your smile
Move the joystick quick
You’ve got poise, personality, love what you do for me
In the penny arcade the deals we made
Our innocence the price we paid
From Piccadilly to the Strand
We plied out trade in Playland
Johnny go home, get on the train
Pack you bags and move on again
Don’t sell your love, don’t play around
With the low life in this town (That’s right)
What can we hope for, what can we do
We’re ordinary people too
Trained to drink and watch the game
Weekend over, work again
In the penny arcade the deals we made
Our innocence the price we paid
From Piccadilly to the Strand
We plied out trade in Playland
The streets they said were paved with gold
Are lined with souls that someone sold
Cheap love in alleyways
The pimp and needle never pays, never pays
See a movie with a friend
Watch the credits until the end
As cameras roll across your mind
Watch the stars in space and time
Time to wake up, work the streets
Bright lights and naked heat
Hang around street corners
Watch the world go by
In the penny arcade the deals we made
Our innocence the price we paid
From Piccadilly to the Strand
we plied out trade in Playland
(In the penny arcade)
(From Piccadilly to the Strand)
We plied out trade in Playland
And this is 'Piccadilly Palare' with the coda:
It would be interesting to know which bits of the documentary stayed with Holly & Morrissey. Not having YouTube to check might make images & lines kind of knaw away in writer's heads until they had to do something with it.
At least a few older writers claim having to recapture things made them more creative.
Requiescant
You Should Not Go To Them, Let Them Come To You...
It's hard to say for sure.
Holly clearly name checks the film in his lyrics, but the song seems more based on the books 'The Pennyland Murders' and 'Dilly Boys'. Though his lyrics are more connected to the film than Morrissey's.
'Piccadilly Palare' doesn't really mention anything from the film, other than the camaraderie of the rent boys. Morrissey did mention the documentary when being interviewed around the time of the single's release. He gave the impression it soiled the glamorous idea he had of London, and Piccadilly in particular.
I think if a documentary of that power was shown today, it would be up on YouTube in no time, people would watch and re-watch it, create memes, condense it in to a TikTok video etc etc, and it's power would be diluted greatly. A single viewing, it would appear, lingers and affects the viewer on a much deeper level.
Last edited:
goinghome
you must not tamper with arrangements
'Johnny Go Home'(1975)
...or the strange case of Morrissey, Bannockburn, and the Dilly Boys!
In 1975, well respected documentarian John Willis decided to turn his eye to the ever increasing number of runaway youths descending on London. The film follows Maggie, an English girl who's been in London a fair bit and is already hardened by life on the street. Then we see 12(yes, TWELVE!!) year old Tommy arrive from Glasgow in what looks like his Dad's best suit, already smoking like a chimney.
View attachment 101549
Tommy, like many runaway boys, is drawn to Pennyland, a slot machine amusement arcade in Piccadilly. Here he falls in with the gang that frequent the arcade and who have learned that by prostituting themselves, they can pay the rent and food. Deviants call them 'the Meat Rack'("On the rack I was easy meat and a reasonably good buy"), the lads refer to themselves as the Dilly Boys. At around the 18 minute mark in the film you can see the whole gang showing off and preening. Are they just playing for the camera, or are they grabbing a chance for a huge advert for their 'wares'. It turns out the boys are 'housed' by serial paedophile Roger Gleaves, a horrible human being, self proclaimed 'Bishop Of Piccadilly' and 'Bishop Of The Medway', using a false religious facade to hide his ulterior motives, he ran a religious commune which was simply a front for a paedophile ring. This man makes Jimmy Savile, Lord Mountbatten, and Cyril Smith look like monastic choirboys.
Then, during the filming, something rather unexpected and unpleasant occurs. One of the Dilly Boys, known as Billy Two-Tone, is murdered in a particularly horrifying manner. Billy Two-Tone, so called not because of the Punk/Ska movement still some years off, but because of his two-tone Bowie-ish haircut, is Billy McPhee a teenager who ran away from a small Scottish town called Bannockburn. Yes, Bannockburn....my hometown!!
View attachment 101548
(These photos are of Tommy, I didn't think it very respectful to post images of Billy)
When the documentary was shown, I was in Primary school and FAR too young to watch it, though some of my classmates did claim to have seen it. You could tell those who had from those who only claimed they had. Those who were lying bragged about being tough enough to watch this grim adult show, while those who HAD genuinely seen it were a tad muted and a bit scared looking. The whole class was talking about it, as was the whole school, as was the whole town. Most people knew Billy, or knew of him, or knew his family. This is a small town, actually at that time it was more of a village than a town. Everyone knew EVERYONE. The one moment that everyone seemed fascinated by was the scene around 1hr26mins of Billy's funeral in Bannockburn cemetery. People we knew were on TV!!! This was a big deal at the time, these were the days before camcorders and videophones, so to see our townsfolk on the screen was revelatory.
Even though, as I said, I didn't see the documentary at the time, descriptions of what happened to Billy clung to me like old tobacco smoke. I used to have nightmares because of some of the things I'd heard about. It's well known that Billy was dumped in a ditch like a bag of rubbish. When out walking in the countryside around Bannockburn, there are, or were, a lot of ditches, and I used to run past them in case there was a body dumped in them. Another detail about Billy being made to eat paper(?!) haunted my childish mind, and I can still all these years later see the images from my nightmares.
The three men responsible for Billy's death were given life sentences. They had been associates of Roger Gleaves who escaped punishment this time, but would eventually spend time in prison, his 'religious' pretences often reducing his sentences. Insanely, once when he was released from prison he was housed directly across from a Primary School. This can only illicit one three word phrase...For...f***'s...Sake!!!
Morrissey has acknowledged 'Johnny Go Home' as an inspiration for 'Piccadilly Palare', and listening again to it now, the song takes on a much different, darker hue. The longer, unreleased version with the repeated coda, "No Dad, I won't be home tomorrah'', now sounds a lot more sinister. Will the protagonist not be home because of his new found freedom, or because he's on borrowed time?
Morrissey would have been 15 or 16 when this was aired and he has spoken of his own desire to flee the drudgery of Manchester for the 'glamour' of Piccadilly, but maybe this documentary changed his mind.
Coincidentally, Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and solo fame, also wrote a song inspired by the documentary. He too would have been around 15 or 16 and may also have harboured desires to flee Liverpool before seeing this horror unfold.
It seems really odd that two artists, born within a year of each other, both from the north of England would write a song, both released in 1991, inspired by the same documentary.
Holly's song is called 'Penny Arcade', and the lyrics are absolutely beautiful. The song however is not! Terrible, clanging early 90s production, and Holly's vocals, usually a thing of wonder, here sound like he's straining to evacuate a troublesome stool! He should have done it as a piano ballad to match its lyrical beauty.
As I watched the documentary for the first time(just this week), the horror really hit me. I can understand why the whole of Bannockburn seems to have suppressed this bad memory. I posted a link to the film on the Bannockburn Town Facebook page, and it got taken down after less than 20 minutes even though a few people had commented on it positively. A couple said they remembered the film, others that they remembered Billy.
When I saw the funeral scene, I got chills in my stomach like I have never experienced before, seeing people now long dead move and speak, was like looking at an entire village of ghosts, and not in the jovial Brigadoonish sense! Not only was it strange to see the town's old minister sermonise, but in the truly haunting scene where a group of young boys stare at Billy's coffin, the boy second left in the maroon jersey is someone I worked beside for a short time at my first ever job.
I tried to find some follow ups on the story; unfortunately there never was a 'where are they now' documentary years later to let us know what happened to Tommy and Maggie(maybe it's for the best that we don't know!).
Maggie appears to have dropped off the radar altogether, so who knows what fate befell her. News on Tommy seems rather contradictory; one story claims he remained with Roger Gleaves, acting as an 'altar boy' in his repugnant commune, and telling people that Gleaves was a really nice person who looked after him. Sounds like Tommy may have been groomed to within an inch of his life, both literally and metaphorically. Another story said that he returned to Glasgow and was working as a gardener. Let's hope that's true.
The weekend following the documentary's broadcast, a journalist from The Observer newspaper came up to Bannockburn to see for himself why Billy would run away from our town. He described Bannockburn as some poverty ridden, squalor bestrewn, post apocalyptic wasteland, bereft of any future or promise. Utter bullshit mate!! And you know it!!
Of course Bannockburn is now famous for Braveheart/Robert The Bruce/William Wallace and guys with blue painted faces bellowing "FREEEEEEDOOOOOOMMMMM!!!" But once it was infamous for all the wrong reasons!
So next time you listen to 'Piccadilly Palare', think of Tommy, Maggie, and of Billy Two-Tone.
This is the link to the film. Please be warned, it is NOT a pleasant watch. It gave me nightmares as child, and I don't want to inflict them on you nice people
These are the rather wonderful lyrics to Holly Johnson's sadly disappointing song:
Penny Arcade
Don’t go to the penny arcade
Don’t waste the money that your mother’s made
Don’t waste your life, just use your mind
Play with me, leave the game behind
Game over, you’re my high score
I need you more, I like your smile
Move the joystick quick
You’ve got poise, personality, love what you do for me
In the penny arcade the deals we made
Our innocence the price we paid
From Piccadilly to the Strand
We plied out trade in Playland
Johnny go home, get on the train
Pack you bags and move on again
Don’t sell your love, don’t play around
With the low life in this town (That’s right)
What can we hope for, what can we do
We’re ordinary people too
Trained to drink and watch the game
Weekend over, work again
In the penny arcade the deals we made
Our innocence the price we paid
From Piccadilly to the Strand
We plied out trade in Playland
The streets they said were paved with gold
Are lined with souls that someone sold
Cheap love in alleyways
The pimp and needle never pays, never pays
See a movie with a friend
Watch the credits until the end
As cameras roll across your mind
Watch the stars in space and time
Time to wake up, work the streets
Bright lights and naked heat
Hang around street corners
Watch the world go by
In the penny arcade the deals we made
Our innocence the price we paid
From Piccadilly to the Strand
we plied out trade in Playland
(In the penny arcade)
(From Piccadilly to the Strand)
We plied out trade in Playland
And this is 'Piccadilly Palare' with the coda:
Now that's what I call a review!
Thanks for including the two songs as mentioned. John Willis was a very talented guy who had a long career in broadcasting.
Interview: John Willis
John Willis made his name with ground-breaking documentaries, and after overseeing a tumultuous period at the BBC, Mentorn's creative director tells James Silver why he's glad to get back to making programmes.
The way he broke in to TV in the late 60s was by making a music video for what turned out to be a number 1 hit song by Thunderclap Newman, Something in the Air -
gashonthenail
You will own nothing and you will be happy...
'Johnny Go Home'(1975)
...or the strange case of Morrissey, Bannockburn, and the Dilly Boys!
In 1975, well respected documentarian John Willis decided to turn his eye to the ever increasing number of runaway youths descending on London. The film follows Maggie, an English girl who's been in London a fair bit and is already hardened by life on the street. Then we see 12(yes, TWELVE!!) year old Tommy arrive from Glasgow in what looks like his Dad's best suit, already smoking like a chimney.
View attachment 101549
Tommy, like many runaway boys, is drawn to Pennyland, a slot machine amusement arcade in Piccadilly. Here he falls in with the gang that frequent the arcade and who have learned that by prostituting themselves, they can pay the rent and food. Deviants call them 'the Meat Rack'("On the rack I was easy meat and a reasonably good buy"), the lads refer to themselves as the Dilly Boys. At around the 18 minute mark in the film you can see the whole gang showing off and preening. Are they just playing for the camera, or are they grabbing a chance for a huge advert for their 'wares'. It turns out the boys are 'housed' by serial paedophile Roger Gleaves, a horrible human being, self proclaimed 'Bishop Of Piccadilly' and 'Bishop Of The Medway', using a false religious facade to hide his ulterior motives, he ran a religious commune which was simply a front for a paedophile ring. This man makes Jimmy Savile, Lord Mountbatten, and Cyril Smith look like monastic choirboys.
Then, during the filming, something rather unexpected and unpleasant occurs. One of the Dilly Boys, known as Billy Two-Tone, is murdered in a particularly horrifying manner. Billy Two-Tone, so called not because of the Punk/Ska movement still some years off, but because of his two-tone Bowie-ish haircut, is Billy McPhee a teenager who ran away from a small Scottish town called Bannockburn. Yes, Bannockburn....my hometown!!
View attachment 101548
(These photos are of Tommy, I didn't think it very respectful to post images of Billy)
When the documentary was shown, I was in Primary school and FAR too young to watch it, though some of my classmates did claim to have seen it. You could tell those who had from those who only claimed they had. Those who were lying bragged about being tough enough to watch this grim adult show, while those who HAD genuinely seen it were a tad muted and a bit scared looking. The whole class was talking about it, as was the whole school, as was the whole town. Most people knew Billy, or knew of him, or knew his family. This is a small town, actually at that time it was more of a village than a town. Everyone knew EVERYONE. The one moment that everyone seemed fascinated by was the scene around 1hr26mins of Billy's funeral in Bannockburn cemetery. People we knew were on TV!!! This was a big deal at the time, these were the days before camcorders and videophones, so to see our townsfolk on the screen was revelatory.
Even though, as I said, I didn't see the documentary at the time, descriptions of what happened to Billy clung to me like old tobacco smoke. I used to have nightmares because of some of the things I'd heard about. It's well known that Billy was dumped in a ditch like a bag of rubbish. When out walking in the countryside around Bannockburn, there are, or were, a lot of ditches, and I used to run past them in case there was a body dumped in them. Another detail about Billy being made to eat paper(?!) haunted my childish mind, and I can still all these years later see the images from my nightmares.
The three men responsible for Billy's death were given life sentences. They had been associates of Roger Gleaves who escaped punishment this time, but would eventually spend time in prison, his 'religious' pretences often reducing his sentences. Insanely, once when he was released from prison he was housed directly across from a Primary School. This can only illicit one three word phrase...For...f***'s...Sake!!!
Morrissey has acknowledged 'Johnny Go Home' as an inspiration for 'Piccadilly Palare', and listening again to it now, the song takes on a much different, darker hue. The longer, unreleased version with the repeated coda, "No Dad, I won't be home tomorrah'', now sounds a lot more sinister. Will the protagonist not be home because of his new found freedom, or because he's on borrowed time?
Morrissey would have been 15 or 16 when this was aired and he has spoken of his own desire to flee the drudgery of Manchester for the 'glamour' of Piccadilly, but maybe this documentary changed his mind.
Coincidentally, Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and solo fame, also wrote a song inspired by the documentary. He too would have been around 15 or 16 and may also have harboured desires to flee Liverpool before seeing this horror unfold.
It seems really odd that two artists, born within a year of each other, both from the north of England would write a song, both released in 1991, inspired by the same documentary.
Holly's song is called 'Penny Arcade', and the lyrics are absolutely beautiful. The song however is not! Terrible, clanging early 90s production, and Holly's vocals, usually a thing of wonder, here sound like he's straining to evacuate a troublesome stool! He should have done it as a piano ballad to match its lyrical beauty.
As I watched the documentary for the first time(just this week), the horror really hit me. I can understand why the whole of Bannockburn seems to have suppressed this bad memory. I posted a link to the film on the Bannockburn Town Facebook page, and it got taken down after less than 20 minutes even though a few people had commented on it positively. A couple said they remembered the film, others that they remembered Billy.
When I saw the funeral scene, I got chills in my stomach like I have never experienced before, seeing people now long dead move and speak, was like looking at an entire village of ghosts, and not in the jovial Brigadoonish sense! Not only was it strange to see the town's old minister sermonise, but in the truly haunting scene where a group of young boys stare at Billy's coffin, the boy second left in the maroon jersey is someone I worked beside for a short time at my first ever job.
I tried to find some follow ups on the story; unfortunately there never was a 'where are they now' documentary years later to let us know what happened to Tommy and Maggie(maybe it's for the best that we don't know!).
Maggie appears to have dropped off the radar altogether, so who knows what fate befell her. News on Tommy seems rather contradictory; one story claims he remained with Roger Gleaves, acting as an 'altar boy' in his repugnant commune, and telling people that Gleaves was a really nice person who looked after him. Sounds like Tommy may have been groomed to within an inch of his life, both literally and metaphorically. Another story said that he returned to Glasgow and was working as a gardener. Let's hope that's true.
The weekend following the documentary's broadcast, a journalist from The Observer newspaper came up to Bannockburn to see for himself why Billy would run away from our town. He described Bannockburn as some poverty ridden, squalor bestrewn, post apocalyptic wasteland, bereft of any future or promise. Utter bullshit mate!! And you know it!!
Of course Bannockburn is now famous for Braveheart/Robert The Bruce/William Wallace and guys with blue painted faces bellowing "FREEEEEEDOOOOOOMMMMM!!!" But once it was infamous for all the wrong reasons!
So next time you listen to 'Piccadilly Palare', think of Tommy, Maggie, and of Billy Two-Tone.
This is the link to the film. Please be warned, it is NOT a pleasant watch. It gave me nightmares as child, and I don't want to inflict them on you nice people
These are the rather wonderful lyrics to Holly Johnson's sadly disappointing song:
Penny Arcade
Don’t go to the penny arcade
Don’t waste the money that your mother’s made
Don’t waste your life, just use your mind
Play with me, leave the game behind
Game over, you’re my high score
I need you more, I like your smile
Move the joystick quick
You’ve got poise, personality, love what you do for me
In the penny arcade the deals we made
Our innocence the price we paid
From Piccadilly to the Strand
We plied out trade in Playland
Johnny go home, get on the train
Pack you bags and move on again
Don’t sell your love, don’t play around
With the low life in this town (That’s right)
What can we hope for, what can we do
We’re ordinary people too
Trained to drink and watch the game
Weekend over, work again
In the penny arcade the deals we made
Our innocence the price we paid
From Piccadilly to the Strand
We plied out trade in Playland
The streets they said were paved with gold
Are lined with souls that someone sold
Cheap love in alleyways
The pimp and needle never pays, never pays
See a movie with a friend
Watch the credits until the end
As cameras roll across your mind
Watch the stars in space and time
Time to wake up, work the streets
Bright lights and naked heat
Hang around street corners
Watch the world go by
In the penny arcade the deals we made
Our innocence the price we paid
From Piccadilly to the Strand
we plied out trade in Playland
(In the penny arcade)
(From Piccadilly to the Strand)
We plied out trade in Playland
And this is 'Piccadilly Palare' with the coda:
Thanks for sharing that. Harrowing viewing indeed. I take it the Fine Young Cannibal's song was also in reference to that documentary?
The first part of the documentary in particular has a remarkable cinéma vérité style.
It made me think about one of the best examples of Brazilian cinema - Pixote (1980). It is available on Youtube although adult viewing protected so I won't post the link. Directed by the great Hector Babenco. It is one of those films that you watch and you never forget. Sad, tragic, and incredibly powerful. I believe Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, and Nick Cave all rate it as one of the best films ever made. Babenco used real street kids to play the parts to make the film almost feel like a documentary - and the street kid who played the title character was later killed by the police. A common occurrence for street kids in Brazil.
How society treats its children is a theme that comes up again and again in art and music and cinema. And Morrissey is no exception, from the first Smiths album onwards it has been a recurrent theme. And, of course, it is the theme of Bonfire of Teenagers, which we all hope is about to be released in 2024, all being well.
O
Orange Crush
Guest
2042, apparently.
Requiescant
You Should Not Go To Them, Let Them Come To You...
I was going to include the FYC song 'Johnny Come Home', but other than the title's play on the documentary's own title, the lyrics don't seem to match what happens in the film. The verses are from the parents point of view, and the chorus lyrics "What is wrong, in my life, that I must get drunk every night', don't really tie in with the films narrative. Roland Gift is approximately the same age as Morrissey and Holly, so almost certainly would have seen it.
A song I really should have included was Shane MacGowan's 'The Old Main Drag', which has similar themes to both 'Piccadilly Palare' and 'Penny Arcade', but is actually FAR more explicit and pessimistic. Again, Shane would have been around a similar age, but he lived in London so may have been writing from first hand experience of Piccadilly.
"When I first came to London I was only sixteen
With a fiver in my pocket and my ole dancing bag
I went down to the dilly to check out the scene
And I soon ended up on the old main drag
There the he-males and the she-males paraded in style
And the old man with the money would flash you a smile
In the dark of an alley you'd work for a fiver
For a swift one off the wrist down on the old main drag
In the cold winter nights the old town it was chill
But there were boys in the cafes who'd give you cheap pills
If you didn't have the money you'd cajole or you'd beg
There was always lots of tuinol on the old main drag
One evening as I was lying down by Leicester square
I was picked up by the coppers and kicked in the balls
Between the metal doors at vine street I was beaten and mauled
And they ruined my good looks for the old main drag
In the tube station the old ones who were on the way out
Would dribble and vomit and grovel and shout
And the coppers would come along and push them about
And I wished I could escape from the old main drag
And now I'm lying here I've had too much booze
I've been shat on and spat on and raped and abused
I know that I am dying and I wish I could beg
For some money to take me from the old main drag"
'Pixote' was much beloved of Nick Cave who not only dedicated his album 'The Good Son' to Fernando Ramos da Silva(the young man killed), but also his song on that album 'Foi Na Cruz' is a cover of a song that is heard sung a cappela style in the film. The Brazilian film 'City Of God' also deals with street children and the tragic fates they almost all encounter. An amazing film!
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Requiescant
You Should Not Go To Them, Let Them Come To You...
Now that's what I call a review!
Thanks for including the two songs as mentioned. John Willis was a very talented guy who had a long career in broadcasting.
Interview: John Willis
John Willis made his name with ground-breaking documentaries, and after overseeing a tumultuous period at the BBC, Mentorn's creative director tells James Silver why he's glad to get back to making programmes.www.theguardian.com
The way he broke in to TV in the late 60s was by making a music video for what turned out to be a number 1 hit song by Thunderclap Newman, Something in the Air -
Thanks for the kind words.
John Willis did indeed make some other fantastic documentaries, some very powerful stuff indeed. He was pretty unflinching, I'm not entirely sure we needed to see the body in the ditch, or indeed the body on the mortuary slab, but it hammers the film into your head, and makes it pretty difficult to shake off.
Thunderclap Newman....one hit wonder Number one. Always wonder why that happens? Did NOBODY want to hear their next release, or were all their follow ups terrible? The paradox of one-off success!
gashonthenail
You will own nothing and you will be happy...
Yes, The Old Main Drag definitely touches on similar themes, and is almost unbearably sad. With Piccadilly Palare, Morrissey made something much more 'pop' and upbeat. Apart from that last line - in which case I'm doomed.
JerryCan
Well-Known Member
I seem to remember being a bit disappointed with the bit in Autobiography when M seemed to just avoid going into detail on PP. I'd wondered if he didn't want to go into the uncertainty of his backing production team/band at the time. Your background info on this groundbreaking doc helps explain it being avoided.
Requiescant
You Should Not Go To Them, Let Them Come To You...
Yeah, this would have been when he was working with Langer & Winstanley, and was friends with Suggs(who, of course cameos on PP). There's a definite Madness vibe to the track which counteracts the tale of doomed rent boys. But then Madness applied their jaunty Pop Music to tales of stress related illness, teenage pregnancy/abortion, family's non-acceptance of mixed race relationships, petty crime, unemployment and depression. And it scores Morrissey a Top 20 hit. Something that seems unlikely now, even with safer fare.
