The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle (2005)

Douglas Henshall plays Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes in this BBC production. It begins with Doyle, sick of writing "Holmes" stories, deciding to kill off his creation. The public reaction is understandably negative, prompting a row with his publisher. Added to the mix is his own wife's worsening tuberculosis. Finally, he's got a rather pretty female fan who "understands" him.
In the middle of this personal crisis, a man appears at his door who claims to be the official biographer from Doyle's publisher. He knows a lot about Doyle's background and wants to know more. Soon his biographer is probing into every bit of sad information he can get. What are the real motiviations for this biographer?
An excellent BBC production. Any fan of the Great Detective will enjoy this examination of how and why Arthur Conan Doyle created his famous literary figure.

Lifepod (1980)

In the wake of a certain movie made by George Lucas, a lot of independent producers wanted to get into the Space Epic game. Most of them didn't have the resources to do it right, but they tried just the same. Lifepod, made in 1980, showed what people could do with a lot of enthusiasm could do on a limited budget. Someone duplicated the idea with a lot more money around 1993 as a MTV movie. But I like this one much better.
Several passengers on an exclusive interplanetary ship have found themselves in an escape lifepod after the central computer on the ship declared an emergency. The usual lifeboat cast is here: the journalist, the pretty girl, the corporate exec, the administror and the crew member. Suddenly, the space ship suddenly decides to head after the lifepod. Why? And why did the central computer declare a fake emergency to get everyone off the ship?

The Good the Bad the Ugly the Ukulele

It's a rainy day.

BAFFLED! (1973)

Most of the target audience seems to have missed Leonard Nimoy's attempt at a weekly series when this pilot premiered in 1973. Which is too bad because it's quite a decent little horror flick with all kinds of psycho sexual undertones.
Nimoy plays a race car driver who has an out-of-body experience after a bad accident. He hooks up with an English psychic and the two head off to a Gothic castle trying to prevent a murder he's witnessed in a vision. Not a bad effort to get rid of the Vulcan typecast.

Alabama's Ghost Poster

Proving once again that you can find anything on the Internet.
This is a much better picture of the poster than I reproduced in my old Fear of Darkness Zine, but it still doesn't give you the full effect of the original. This picture implies the poster was on coated stock, but I'm sure mine was on uncoated, yellow, paper.
Hard to believe I was obsessing over this movie for months in 1982. But it was an obscure film at the time with virtually no information about it. A few years later the movie popped up on one of the "Elvira Presents" VHS tapes.

Mannequin II: Mannequin on the Move!

A friend of mine gets her five minutes of stardom. You go Heather!

Fear Of Darkness -1982-2nd Issue (Highlights)

As I may have mentioned, the inspiration for this Blog was my old print Zine of the same name. I could write a book on that folly, what inspired me to do it, and how I lost my shirt on a business venture I had not a clue how to run. But a few copies of the old Zine do remain in my files and now is the time to show the kids how we used to do it in the days before every damn movie in the universe could be bit torrented.
The original Fear Of Darkness came out in the dawn of the home video tape age. Some of the editions do talk about what could be viewed on VHS and Beta. But my prime means of watching films in those distant days were movie theaters, Drive-Ins, and late-night TV. Cable was just beginning to turn into a googleplex of channels as well.
My apologies for how these old print sheets scanned. I'm still learning how to do it right. All my reproductions were done B&W. I was lucky to get a good price on green cover stock for this issue, which is why it's printed in red ink. Most of the reproductions don't do justice to the original posters (which I no longer possess). The Alabama's Ghost one was beautifully done in a variety of line colors on uncoated stock. The race car poster on the back cover was silk screened with fluorescent pink. All of these posters came out of the old Great Southern Hotel theater in Columbus, OH.