Golden Sunsets Redux - 60 Years of Memories - Part 4 - 1970

This time I'm focusing on a movie that was musical, educational, entertaining, odd and just a little bit scary...

1970:

The trivia:

• Author Joe Klaas alleged that aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart had actually survived her attempted flight round the world in 1937. Apparently she was captured by the Japanese, rescued and then secretly moved to New Jersey where she married and changed her identity to Irene Craigmile Bolam, a New York banker. Despite no concrete evidence to support his wild claims, the book was only pulled when Bolam sued both Klaas and his publisher.

• When a 45 foot, 8 ton sperm whale washed up on the shores of Florence, Oregon,  the authorities were concerned about the safety of curious onlookers so decided to…blow it up. Oregon Highway Division packed it full of half a ton of dynamite, stood back and…the resulting explosion threw huge chunks of whale carcass over 800 feet away. Thankfully no one was injured but at least one car was crushed as blubber rained from the sky.

• The serving of a daily “tot” of rum was a long standing Royal Navy tradition dating back over 300 years. Originally introduced to help combat scurvy, it soon became a part of naval culture. However concerns about operators of machinery being possibly intoxicated finally led to it being stopped on 31st July 1970. The last day was called "Black Tot Day" and was marked by mock funerals and sailors wearing black armbands. This day is still commemorated by…the consumption of rum.

The memory:

The Phantom Tollbooth

Billed as an "Alphabeautiful, Mathemagical Musical", this film is based on the 1961 children's book of the same name by Norton Juster (which is apparently a modern American classic, although somehow I have never read it). It's predominately famous because it was co-written, produced and directed by animation legend Chuck Jones - the man who was responsible for some of the all-time great Warner Brother "Looney Tunes" featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Wile E. Coyote. It also featured the absolute cream of animations voice talent. Famous names such as "Man of a Thousand Voices" Mel Blanc (Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester the Cat, Barney Rubble), Daws Butler (Yogi Bear, Fred Flintstone, Huckleberry Hound) Hans Conried (Captain Hook) and June Foray (Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Tweety Pie's owner, Granny). It's also notable as the last animated film by MGM.

It's unlikely many people will have seen this film in recent years  - and even less probably remember it -  so I'm going to go through the story in some fine detail. It'll help when I get to the end, so please indulge me.

Milo (played by Butch Patrick from "The Munsters") lives and goes to school in San Francisco but just seems to dawdle through life not seeing what's around him. Everything is "a big waste of time". Spending another dull afternoon in his apartment on the phone to his friend Ralph, he suddenly notices a huge red and white striped parcel in his bedroom. The label reads "For Milo, who has plenty of time". Opening it up, the parcel transforms into a talking tollbooth and before he knows what is happening, Milo is seated inside a child-sized sports car and told to pick a destination from a map. Selecting "The Castle in the Air" at random, as he drives through the tollbooth Milo finds himself transformed into a cartoon and a swirling coloured vortex deposits him onto a twisting turning road.

He is immediately accosted by Officer Short Shrift, a tiny policeman riding about on one wheel . Shrift is a proto-Judge Dredd - possessing a huge chin with his upper face hidden by a helmet. He is cop, judge and jailer - believes everyone is guilty  until proven innocent - and hands out excessive sentences for minor misdemeanours. Just like Dredd then. 

Thankfully Milo gets away and drives into the town of Expectations, where he meets the unhelpful Whether Man, who never gives a straight answer and hates to make up his mind. Continuing on the same road for what seems like hours, Milo starts to drift asleep and doesn't pay attention as he takes the wrong turn into "The Doldrums". Inside the dank caves live the amoeba-like ghostly Lethargians who never think and are happy doing anything as long as it's...nothing. They convince Milo that he should stay with them and slowly his car sinks into the mass of creatures as their comical grins turn nasty - they want to stop the boy doing anything at all - eating, sleeping or even breathing...

Milo is only saved from this fate by the arrival of Tock the watchdog (who genuinely has a huge pocket watch in his stomach) and the pair are able to escape before a tidal wave of Lethargians engulfs them. Tock explains to Milo that he is in the Kingdom of Wisdom - a land ruled by two warring brothers - King Azaz the Unabridged of Dictionopolis whose believes that words are more important than numbers, and the Mathemagician of Digitopolis, who holds the opposite view. Their refusal to agree on anything has led the kingdom into confusion and there are demons gathering in the Mountains of Ignorance just waiting to pounce.

Driving towards Dictionopolis into the town of Expectations, Milo meets the Whether Man, who never gives a straight answer and hates to make up his mind. Apparently words have lost their meaning. He really gives no clear help before rising off into the sky attached to a number of balloons. They then almost immediately come across the mad Doctor Kakofonous, who loves loud objectionable sounds. While the doctor is distracted by the terrible noise he is making, they sneak out of his larger-on-the-inside caravan and Tock grabs a vial of Laughter tonic.

Finally arriving in the city, they enter the Marketplace of Words. Caught up in a duel between the insectoids The Spelling Bee and The Humbug, which wrecks the market, they end up sentenced to the dungeons for six million years. Inside they find the no-so-wicked Which, Faintly Macabre and she tells Milo the secret history of the kingdom and how the twin princesses Rhyme and Reason were banished to the Castle in the Air after causing the feud between King Azaz and the Mathemagician. 

Summoned to an audience with the monarch, Milo convinces him that Rhyme and Reason can be rescued - and Tock and The Humbug will accompany him. Before he leaves, Azaz gives Milo a huge bag of words which contains all the ideas anyone can think of.

Beginning their quest, the trio follow the road until it is blocked by a stone doorway leading into the Numbers Mine. Above the entrance they spot The Dodecahedron (who wears twelve different faces displaying twelve different emotions). He helps Milo break down the door and inside the mine they finally meet the Mathemagician. It's clear that he is the exact double of King Azaz, just with an opposing opinion. Leading the adventurers to his highly computerised workshop, he reveals that he blames Azaz for nothing making sense anymore but when Milo makes him realise that at least the pair agree to disagree, he sends them on with their journey - but not before giving Milo a magic pencil.

Heading towards the Mountains of Ignorance, Milo, Tock and Humbug come across Chroma, who conducts the sunrises and sunsets. When Humbug eggs Milo on to have a go at directing the sunrise, it ends in disaster and the sky becomes a constant battleground between the Sun and the Moon. Running from their mistake they are stopped in their tracks by the Senses Taker, an information obsessed paper pusher who wants to remove all their senses. Tock uses the vial he took from Doctor Dischord to engulf the weasely man in fits of giggles. After all, no one can take away your sense of humour...

Climbing the mountains, they have to face a number of even more bizarre obstacles. Firstly there is the Terrible Trivium - a faceless, bowler hatted man with detached body parts. Then what sounds like a terrible monstrous creature turns out to be just a pathetic ball of fur with a loud voice - the Demon of Insincerity. Finally there is the dim-witted Gelatinous Giant - who is defeated by that unusual bag of ideas and just melts away into sludge.

Almost at the doors of the Castle in the Air, they are blocked by the hordes of the Demons of Ignorance -  which include the Horrible Hopping Hindsight, the Gorgons of Hate, Malice, the Threadbare Excuse and worst of all the Overbearing Know-It-All. Using the magic pencil and the the bag of words together, Milo forces them back, drawing every weapon he needs and loading them with physical words. The demons merge to form a giant monster but the power of the word "Truth" disperses them into their component parts. Sadly Tock's pocket watch is damaged in the battle and Milo has to leave him and Humbug behind.

Ascending the invisible steps to the Castle, Milo finally meets the Princesses and learns they were the ones who sent for him because only a boy that was so bored he would do anything would be able to rescue them. Unable to get down, Milo spies the Whether Man and uses his balloons to get back to his friends, while Rhyme and Reason transform the kingdom back to the beautiful place it once was. Tock is repaired, Officer Shrift now thinks everyone is innocent and the Doctor is  a student of harmony not discord. Even the sky is fixed.

Having saved the day, Milo gets to go home back through the tollbooth, which folds itself up and flies out of the window. With a newfound enjoyment of life and all its little pleasures, Milo discovers that only five minutes has past and Ralph is still on the phone, although... what's  that strange red and white striped box that has just turned up in *his* bedroom?...

As you can tell from the synopsis above, the story is full of irony, double entendre, puns and wordplay. It might be billed as an animated action adventure but it has a hugely educational and moral message. Not only does Milo gain a new love of learning and practically apply the things from school that he previously thought were dull, he also rediscovers a love of life. It's also a commentary on the need for common sense and for rules (without Rhyme or Reason, the Kingdom of Wisdom descends into anarchy) and about learning from ones own mistakes. But it never descends into heavy-handed preaching.

Of course the film can be compared to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" since both feature a child thrust into a world of absurd logic. The Whether Man's ramblings could be the Cheshire Cat and Officer Short Shrift's extreme justice is similar to that of the Queen of Hearts (although with more jail-time and less head chopping). The film has elements of "The Wizard of Oz", but parts (especially Chroma, the conductor of sunsets) also reminded me of the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment. from Disney's "Fantasia".

The animation is a curious mish-mash of styles. There are some classic wonderful Chuck Jones creations with the lead characters and Milo himself has those big eyes from Pepe Le Pew, Elsewhere some of the monsters seem almost half finished - just outlines with no real definition as if  they are not really there. Maybe that was deliberate. The backgrounds are also a mix of detailed buildings, half rendered shapes and abstract squiggles, perhaps representing the fluidity of the Kingdom as it flounders without any rules.

Now you might think that I've got amazing recall about a film I watched as a kid, but the truth is as part of writing this I watched it again for the first time in over thirty years - and I still found it as psychedelic and magical and entertaining as ever.  

The thing is though , I principally remember this film because as much as I enjoyed the inventive animation and the sheer artistry on display, it actually scared me enough to cause a few nights of lost sleep. The Lethargians in the green slime of the region of "The Doldrums"  - those fluid, amorphous shapes that split and reform as they ooze around their domain with a wet sucking sound? - as a child I found them terrifying. Even their song, "Don't Say There's Nothing To Do In the Doldrums" was spooky. Those evil denizens haunted my sleeping hours. I dreamt I was being sucked under the surface, their beady eyes and reedy voices laughing as they piled their sludge on top of me, trapping me forever. I remember waking up with a loud scream - convinced that I was lost in the Doldrums…

Even now all these decades later, if I have strange or unpleasant dreams, I wake myself up by shouting - much to the concern of my ever so patient wife. (oh and trust me, I do dream a *lot* - I should write a book about my weird nocturnal imaginings. The one about the roast chicken god hidden in the air ducts of a train for example…).

At the end of the day it may not be up there with the all time famous animated movies and some might find the moralising message laid on too thick, but you can't fault the imagination of the source material and the wonderful way that Chuck Jones adapted it to the big screen. It's a bit of a lost classic really. The book's author apparently hated it (especially when it was well reviewed) but for me the characters have always been part of a really strong vivid memory, and that's why it deserves a place on this list.

Honourable mentions:

• Sleeping Beauty  - Why is a Disney animated film released in 1959 mentioned in a list covering 1970 ? Well the classic fairy tale was re-released for the first time in this year - and more importantly it’s the first film I can recall going to the cinema to see. Even all these decades later, the memory is still really vivid - I can picture the location, almost recall the feel of the velour seats and the smell of the popcorn but most importantly I remember the fear I felt when faced with Maleficent in her dragon form. The purple and black scales, the glowing green eyes - it’s a beautiful yet menacing design. The rest of the film isn’t too shabby either. Sadly, like so many things from my youth, the cinema in question no longer exists - demolished to make way for flats.

• Barbapapa - Apparently inspired by candy floss ( known as “Barbe a papa” or “daddy’s beard” in France), the literary adventures of this pink blob-like character and his colourful, shape-changing family made regular appearances in my village library - and it’s one of the first series I can remember reading. The books were simple, colourful and slightly strange - perfect fodder for a young child. Four years later there was a TV series, racking up an astonishing 100 five-minute episodes across its two seasons - plus the inevitable BBC hardback annual (a perfect gift for Christmas!). Long after I can no longer remember the actual stories, the character designs have stayed with me. 

• Scrooge - There have been a million and one versions of Charles Dickens 1843 classic “A Christmas Carol” - and obviously a certain Muppet one is the best (and I’ll get to that in time) - but for me this is a close second, due to it being family favourite every year when it first started being shown on TV. Albert Finney is old Ebeneezer in an all-singing, all-dancing, all-star spectacular. Director Robert Neame gets the best out of his ensemble and the choreography is second to none - with the stand out being the Oscar-nominated “Thank You Very Much”. The musical has also had a long legacy with no less than five different stage shows starring the likes of Anthony Newley, Tommy Steele and Shane Ritchie. There’s even been a Netflix animated movie as recently as 2022, with the vocal talents of Luke Evans in the starring role. No matter the version, the songs are guaranteed to have me singing along.

• The Goodies - I adore the madcap adventures of Grahame Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie - the trio that “do anything, anytime”. Although the programme debuted in 1970, for me the golden age is really 1972 through to 1975 with episodes such as "Kitten Kong", "The Goodies and the Beanstalk", "Kung-Fu Kapers", "The Movies", "Gunfight at the OK Tearooms" and of course "Puppet Government". It was a travesty that the BBC only ever repeated selected episodes - and then rarely - and only a handful were available to buy on DVD until 2019. Having now watched them all, it’s clear than a few are very much of their time, and occasionally a bit repetitive (how many times did we need Grahame as a mad scientist?).  But in the main they were surreal, topical, absurd and just damn funny. 

• The Adventures of Rupert Bear - Just Raggety. The stuff of nightmares. What were they thinking?...

We're All Stories In the End 11 - Casualties of War

No companions. No memory. No TARDIS. But still the Doctor....

Casualties of War by Steve Emmerson

Eighth Doctor Adventures number: 38

Originally published: September 2000

Companions: None

1918. The world is at war. A terrible raging conflict that has left no one untouched.

In the North Yorkshire village of Hawkswick, it seems that the dead won't stay down. There are reports of horrifically wounded soldiers on manoeuvres in the night. Pets have gone missing, and now livestock is found slaughtered in the fields.

Suspicion naturally falls on nearby Hawkswick Hall, a psychiatric hospital for shell-shocked soldiers, where Private Daniel Corey senses a gathering evil.

As events escalate, a stranger arrives on the scene. Can this Man from the Ministry solve the mystery of Hawkswick? And can Hawkswick solve the mystery that is this Man from the Ministry?.

Another month and another Eighth Doctor novel - and another new setup for our favourite Timelord.

This time he's somehow become an amnesiac with no access to the TARDIS - but you know that really doesn’t matter. Even without his memories, at the core he is still the same person with the same inquisitiveness and passion for the unusual. His personality breaks through and his determination is clear,

Okay so the plot could probably be summarised as "golem-like dead soldier's rising from the mud to attack an innocent village, all under the thrall of an unseen psychic intelligence". So far, so Doctor Who you might think. But the novel's greatest strength is the fact that the story is told in a way that’s just so damn creepy...

There really are some atmospheric and disturbing scenes -

• The Doctor sifting through chucks of dead bodies in the middle of a field.
• The poacher discovering a tree full of the severed heads of dead animals - and then putting a bullet through his own brain when he is surrounded by the walking dead.
• A mute soldier taking out his pain and rage on a humanoid clay figure during a bizarre therapy session.
• Farmer Cromby setting his own barn on fire and watching the blazing bodies of dead soldiers crumble to earth.
• And of course the scenes in the "clay room" where Mary finds a book with Latin text and woodcuts of horrific demons - only for the door to slam shut, trapping her in the darkness and absorbing her into the ooze. It may be a slight cliché, but it's still incredibly effective.

And although the Doctor is front and centre in the story it's actually the supporting characters that really shine here. The intelligent, caring Mary Minnett and the elderly, world weary Constable Briggs are essentially pseudo-companions for the  Doctor and the story is all the better for it.

Mary's playful relationship with the mysterious "Man from the Ministry" builds nicely over the course of the novel and you almost want them to get together - and at one point the Doctor even seems to consider it. Plus while Albert Briggs might be totally out of his comfort zone here, that doesn’t stop his dogged loyalty and the care he has for his little community

If I had criticisms  - well perhaps there were a few too many trips back and forth to Banham's hospital for angry confrontations before its revealed (quite obviously) that he was the villain of the piece.

I did like that Banham used pagan "Dark Forces" to release his patients’ psychic potential and manifest the madness of the Great War - and that it ultimately was too much for him to control. But I could have done without a trip to a metaphysical netherworld where the Doctor used his strength of will to turn said Dark Forces against themselves.

Maybe I'm quibbling. Overall it's a genuinely enjoyable novel that isn’t afraid to examine the horrors of war with some psychological depth, a few good scares and some excellent descriptive prose.

We may not be in the trenches, but you can feel the mud and the stench and the terror.

Sometimes the worst horrors are close to home...

Golden Sunsets Redux - 60 Years of Memories - Part 3 - 1969

 It's time for a visit to the most famous county in children's television...

1969:

The trivia:

• There was a genuine board game called "Chug A Lug" which involved smoking, drinking beer and taking soft drugs. Activities on the cards included composing a poem about birth control, discuss the use of jelly as a lubricant and guessing the bra size of all the girls. Penalties involved running to the off license to get more beer, removing clothing or not being allowed to go to the bathroom.

• Italian company Ledragomma created a toy to allow children to bounce around like kangaroos. With a few tweaks and a name change, when it was launched in Britain the “Space Hopper” became the most popular toy in the country - at its peak selling 200,000 a year. Activities with your Space Hopper included races at Butlins holiday camps, boys holding jousting tournaments (squirting water from washing-up bottles) and girls dressing them up like fat orange dolls. 

• After more than 17 years of investigations, by the time the US Air Force closed "Project Blue Book" it had collected more than 12,000 reports of Unidentified Flying Objects. Sadly the conclusion was that most sightings were due to misidentification of conventional phenomena or aircraft, mass hysteria, hoaxes or “mental illness” - and that there was no evidence to support the existence of UFO's. 

• Meanwhile there was some small event about man landing on the Moon. It didn't get much news coverage...

The memory:

Chigley

Yes it's the third of the "Trumptonshire" trilogy after "Camberwick Green" and "Trumpton". This is the one that people remember because of *that* train song...

God how I loved all three of these stop-motion series as a child. Apart from "Playschool", they are probably my earliest memory of children's television. There's just something so quintessentially British about the little lives of all those characters, each with their own song and their own idiosyncrasies. All three shows have their own singular joys. The Trumpton fire brigade - who never get to put out a real fire. The characters rising out of the music box at the start of "Camberwick Green". The soldiers at Pippin Fort. 

But it was the sight of Brackett (no first name sadly) plodding endlessly down the bizarre, modern art covered, corridors of Winkstead Hall in search of Lord Bellborough (who was usually to be found next to a telephone, the annoying old duffer !)  that was always my favourite.

It's difficult to accurately date when I first watched Gordon Murray's era defining programmes. They were all shown so often that the repeats blur into one.  What's odd though is that I don't have any memories of thinking "Oh I've seen this one before". There is just a haze of happy memories punctuated by Brian Cant's wonderful narration. I do know that when I first went to school I used to come home for lunch sometimes and more often than not there would be an episode to watch as I ate my cheese sandwiches or beans on toast. What also made "Chigley" rather unique was that it featured guest appearances of characters from the other earlier shows. It was probably my first experience of a franchise crossover, and there was always a surge of excitement when someone like Captain Flack and his brigade put in an appearance.

Chigley was described as an industrial hamlet and it certainly was a hive of activity, with a lively wharf, family run pottery and Mr. Cresswell's biscuit factory all within a short distance of each other. Unlike the other two series, there wasn't really a hub (such as the town square) and the action moved between locations as the story dictated. What you could always guarantee was that there would be a need for a train journey and dear old Lord Bellborough would rush to put on his overalls and get Bessie out of her shed and chuffing along the tracks as quickly as possible - all to the strains of "time goes by when you're the driver of a train". He'd rope long suffering Brackett into things too, although he never seemed to do much. 

Lord B obviously had a lot of time on his hands as he didn't need much of an excuse to turn train driver (no Lady Bellborough to keep him busy I guess). Not only that but he also operated the vintage Dutch organ for the dancers at the end of the day jamboree outside the biscuit factory. Why was it such an elaborate musical device? Where did the ladies in their odd costumes come from ? (none are shown working at the factory). Why did they feel the need to celebrate their daily freedom from biscuit servitude with a polka?  No idea. Perhaps his lordship was secretly an eccentric tyrant who insisted that the workers that used his land jigged about for his sadistic pleasure. We'll never know...

Actually another thing that didn't bother the child me watching, but becomes obvious when viewed through adult eyes, is that the biscuit factory is bigger on the inside. There's just a small entrance, conveyor belt and van parking area outside, yet within there is a vast automated production line, churning out biscuits by the thousand. Perhaps most of it is underground. No wonder the workers couldn't wait for the six o'clock whistle. 

All of this nicely illustrates one of the key things about the "Trumptonshire Trilogy" - the idea of the old ways living alongside the new. The wharf and the biscuit factory, steam trains and cars, Windy Miller and Farmer Jonathan Bell - everyone gets along and has a place to fit in. It's an idyllic world drawn from multiple eras of British society.

 "Chigley" and its stablemates were a huge influence on a generation of children who grew up to be musicians, programme makers and creators in later life. Surreal rock / folk band "Half Man Half Biscuit" released "Time Flies By" and "Trumpton Riots". Lyrics in one of the songs by "Oasis" obliquely referenced faithful retainer Brackett. In Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's seminal comic book "Preacher", one depraved character sings the familiar train song as he rides naked on a bicycle - as you do. If you are 40+ years old, those images and tunes are woven tightly into your DNA.

With DVD's the default home entertainment media of choice in the early 2000s, I ended up buying a whole host of children's favourites on shiny disc. The "Trumptonshire Trilogy" was one of the first. 36 episodes of pure bliss which took me back to a time when kids TV didn't have to be about high octane action or another way of selling innocent little cherubs the latest over-priced tat - just slices of life in a quaint English county (although that one about Windy Miller getting drunk on cider....hmmm...). Maybe I'll get to show "Chigley" to my grandchildren one day  - at which point they will probably complain about its lack of 3D virtual reality interaction or some such nonsense.

I'll close off this memory with the sheer brilliance that is the Trumptonshire homage from seminal cop drama "Life On Mars". If only they could have stretched to Gene Hunt chasing down some "nonces" on a train...

Honourable mentions:

• A Feast Unknown

For most of my life I’ve loved the “pulp” heroes of the early 20th Century. Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Avenger, The Spider and many other characters beginning with “The”. Even though their original adventures were published long before I was born, as we will see, these heroes will feature large in other posts in this personal history. Science fiction author Philip Jose Farmer was also a huge fan - so much so that, even before he got to write his own Doc Savage novel, he included versions of some pulp characters in his “Wold Newton” stories. “A Feast Unknown” (and its two sequels) are slightly adjacent to that - but ’Lord Grandrith’ and ‘Doc Caliban’ are clearly Tarzan and Savage. Incredibly strong, virtually immortal, yet sexually dysfunctional, this ‘pulp erotic horror’ novel sees the two initially at loggerheads but ultimately on the same side against the evil of ‘The Nine’. But this is not before they (obviously) fight each other - with the twist being that they grapple nude while each sporting massive erections! Needless to say I’d never read a book like it!

• Pot Black

I didn't become aware of this seminal snooker tournament until I was probably around nine or ten, but the first competition was shown in 1969, hence why it's included here. Created by then BBC2 controller David Attenborough (yes that one) to make the most of the fledgling channels colour transmissions, it ran for an amazing 17 year and helped transform snooker from a minority interest into one of the most popular sports in the UK. My Dad was a huge snooker fan and the combination of  having only one television and the show being on in the winter months meant that we often watched as a family. The soothing tones of commentator Ted Lowe and the simplicity of the format (even if playing is definitely a test of real skill) resulted in me soon enjoying it as much as Dad did (one of the very few sports I can say that about). Plus of course the programme introduced the wider world to a raft of memorable players, such as Ray Reardon, Dennis Taylor, Steve Davis, Jimmy White, Cliff Thorburn, Alex Higgins...the list goes on and on.

•  Tommy by The Who

The classic rock concept album and the story of pinball savant / spiritual leader Tommy Walker has arguably become part of the UK’s musical DNA, influencing generations of artists. I think it was my brother who first got hold of a copy of the double LP sometime around 1981 and drove our parents mad by basically playing it to death. I don’t think I had much choice except to become a fan - although that was really cemented when I discovered the 1975 film directed by Ken Russell and the ‘deaf, dumb and blind kid’ became visual . Obviously “Pinball Wizard “ is the track everyone knows, but other clear standouts are “Acid Queen”, “Cousin Kevin” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It”. Then again, controversially, - even though others think it redundant and even repetitive - I have a real soft spot for the 10 minute opus that is “Underture”.

• The Italian Job

Iconic: adjective: widely known and acknowledged especially for distinctive excellence. It’s a word that’s vastly overused nowadays. But it rightly and justly can be applied to this famous heist caper. Occasionally in movies all the elements of cast, crew, plot, action, music, etc. come together to create something really, really special. There's no point me going through all the moments that have become embedded in British society in the years since. Images and phrases that are cult symbols - that some youngsters will know without even being aware of their origins. After it's release there were obvious talks of sequels and many, many ideas about how they would get out of that literal cliffhanger ending (in 2008, the Royal Society of Chemistry even held a competition for a solution). There was that unnecessary remake in 2003 (and why does Mark Wahlberg have a hand in so many bad versions of my favourite films?). I'll stick with the original thank you very much - I love everything about it. A bona fide classic.