My memories of this film are strong and remain so. It was a big deal in the pages of Smash Hits though its cinema release was short. Patsy Kensit was an It Girl of the time - and she's gorgeous here, totally suits the part. Her acting wasn't much chop - she had a very high pitched voice - but it doesn't matter since she's the object of desire.
More troublesome is the casting of Eddie O'Connell - a bloke who can't sing, dance or act and isn't even that good looking. I guess he's got an everyman quality... and I did hope that he and Kensit would get back together. Still, this must have annoyed every leading man in Britain when this was made.
There's fantastic stuff - the title track by David Bowie, the black and white photos of the opening credits creating a sense of time past, a colourful support cast including Bowie, Ray Davies, Steven Berkoff and Mandy Rhys Davies, consistently interesting visuals, a long opening tracking shot, a visually stunning race riot at the end.
Interesting music, lots of colours. It doesn't always work, the gags aren't terribly funny and it's not that emotionally involving (the dilemma is about "selling out" and the villains are property developers). But it's stimulating.
I should say though that I think it was madness Goldcrest sunk so much money into it. I mean the book was known but not that known. Could not this have been done cheaper? You didn't need that big house set a la The Ladies Man. You could have done a lot of it less expensively, surely?
No comments:
Post a Comment