Flaming Celluloid
SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 394 Report by Richard Usborne
There is a film currently being shown in London entitled I was a Teenage Werewolf. Allowing, that certain
words such as teenage,' 'fiesh,"Eve,"night,"bride,"breakfast,"passion,' etc., are incan- cecefrt,conpetitors were invited to devise a list of five titles which should most incite production companies to commission stories and produce films to match them. •
tillOisTs of pseudonyms requested by competitors is week. I've enjoyed myself hugely, and at least half of the offerings the Editor wouldn't let me nt if I tried. (Though almost none was too ,..o totally hot for a sin-smiting Sunday paper.) It was interesting, and possibly salutary, to examine m Y 'dirty' mind and see how many words do have incandescent under- or over-tones to me, pre- sumably to you and conceivably to the moguls s.,,,`" Cinema world. 'Women is Sex, men ain't,' IT a New York editor. True or false? Discuss. t'.1 Saturday Sadie' a more incandescent film title ° 'Monday Marilyn'?, If so, why? Is 'Airstrip better than 'Airport Hostess'? If so, why? Is Brighton more incandescent than Hove?
Certain titles (e.g., The Lips of Passion Cry out' H. A. C. Evans) seem to me permissible as translations from the Finnish; good Cameo/ Curzon stuff, but not strictly on the beam as I set it. I've quoted some of them, but I marked Weill low for prizes. I marked high titles that ,,re amusing and possible (G. J. Blundell, with ,Desert of Desire,' Love Among the Lagoons,' had Autumn' and 'Temptation in Tangier,' amusing), a good list, but they were more possible than ,./1.1u,sing). More amusing than possible were onsn. Patten's 'Zombie and Son,' of Eden,' a„'',,e 'The Bust,' Here to Maternity' i'nm„„it he Constant Nympho,' and C. G. Crill's 'moo Legs Under the Sea.' But can I judge possibility and impossibility? I would have ought 'Getting Gertie's Garter' a title .that no Producer would have touched, and I submit that the Editor of the Spectator would have refused jo print it. But it is the title of a well-known and, 11 its day, well-loved play. 'Lust,' it seems to me, would have been possible as, may indeed have been, a title for a Jannings/Stroheim / Ufa job of the early 1930s. But I'd be too shy to leave it in
list here. I was particularly intrigued by the
W s a Teenage Werewolf title because it seemed to me to have all the shape of a good Spectator Competition parody of a Sunday paper feature article, combining madness with satire. And yet it is in fact a film. (Has anyone seen it? I wouldn't dare go, lest in performance muddled and muddied the pure, precious evocations of its name.) In this competition Desmond Skirrow's 'I Whipped a Communist Monk' had almost everything but credibility, too.
Try these on your mental screens : 'Innocence Dies in the Jungle' (Kim), 'Mate of Frankenstein, 'Fill my Pillow with Stardust' (Goodwill), 'The Bride Breakfasted Alone,' She Married a Monster' (Jebronius), 'I Was Confidentiart. Camera,' The Bare and the Brutal' (V. H.), The Devil Wears Black Silk Stockings,' Tonight is the Bride's' (H. A. C Evans), 'Passion Wagon' (E. E. Hughes-Hughes), 'Delinquent in Ermine,' 'Cannibal Bride' (J. E. Cherry), 'Eve Had No Bridesmaids' (S. J. A.), 'Harem Honeymoon' (M. Douglas), `Space Fleet Call-Girl' (Broom Lynne), 'Vassals of Venus' (J. M. Davies), 'Sin Was My Gaoler' (Dan Hazlewood), 'Teach Me Tonight,' I Gave My Girlhood,' Delinquent Nymph' (Cymraes), 'Mink Coats and Modesty,' 'Statistics in Eden' (J. A. C. Morrison), 'Break- fast in Capri,' Bride of Dracula,"She Wore a Sarong' (M. S. Fleming), 'A Bride for Breakfast' (W. G. Daish), 'Breakfast with a Stranger,' 'Passion Taboo' (Isla Ferguson), 'Nothing under my Mink,' I am a Moon-Maniac' (Granville Garley), 'Lola and the Leopard-Man' (R. Ken- nard Davis), 'I Took a Vampire Lover,' Teenage Body Upstairs' (Nancy Gunter), `Maneater for the FBI,' Hire-Purchase Passion' (David Butler), 'Two Adams, One Eve,' Teenager in the Casbah' (Douglas Hawson), 'Shroud for a Bride,' Bed and No Breakfast' (J. Aitken), 'Nymph Without Nylons,' He Stole Her Everything,' Model by Moonlight,' Teenagers of the Harem' (Gloria Prince), 'Hey Nonny, NO!' Carmen by Moon- light,' She Knew Nothing About It' (Sir-Patrick Laird), `Godiva of the Gutters,' Shared Bride,' `Soiled,' Daughters in Dishonour' (J. A. Lindon), 'Death Knocks the Rock,' 42 or Bust I' (C. E. Durant), 'Feeling the Squeeze,' My Angel Lost her Ankle-Sock' (Marion Lea), 'Night is a Teen- ager,' Eve Without Adam,"Passi on for Break- fast' (S. Nathanielsz), 'Devils in Draped Jackets,' `A Venus Among the Mormons,' No Curtains for a Bet,' Double Exposure,' Delinquent in the Dark' (R. A. McKenzie, in more than one list), Tut on Your Nightgown,' Night's Candles are All Out' (Vera Telfer), 'Bride of Quatermass' (Russell Edwards), 'I Married a Teenage Vam- pire,"Frankenstein's Honey-noon' (Julian Allan), 'Passion Flowers in the Night' (Nan Wishart), 'I Was a Drive-In Dracula, • `Dragstrip Doctor' (Robert Muller), 'Death on the Divan,' Soho Sinner' (Helen Macgregor), 'Dragnet of Desire' (R. H. R. Church), 'He Stayed for Breakfast,' 'The Pretty Ones Don't Last' (W. Stewart), 'Honeymoon for Three' (James Fidgen and others), 'Eve in Briefs' (Apex), 'Born in Stalag Luft III' (D. R. Peddy), 'Bikini Girl' (V. R. Ormerod).
First prize of three guineas to Cinna for a steady list of likelies : 'Bride of the Vampire,' `Child-Wife,' Daughter of the Beast,' Seventeen' and 'You're Never Too Young.' Second prize of two guineas to D. J. Morrison for these four : 'Flesh of the Forbidden Doll,' The Young Have Sold Their Shame,' Sinners of the Seccet Streets' and 'The Lips of the Damned Taste Sweet.' Third prize (one guinea) to C. W. V. Wordsworth, whose three lists contained these : 'Don't Forget Your Toothbrush,' 'Bluebeard's Junior M iss,"Knicker- bocker Blonde,' 'Hammock in the Palms, 'The Martians Have a Word for It,' Poisoned Pillows' and 'No Frills on My Nightgown.'
Copyright in these titles, by the way, belongs to their concocters, and film producers who pre- tend they've had them for years, waiting for the right stars, will be heavily jumped on from Gower Street.
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