Film Fun Facts

Buster, Whizzer and Chips, Whoopee, Wham, Smash, you name it!

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Lew Stringer
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Re: Film Fun

Post by Lew Stringer »

I don't think the prudish attitude to the female form occurred so much in girls comics, Phoenix. I was only talking about boys comics, where IPC seemed worried that they might contribute to their readers development.

It probably never occurred to the editors that boys might sneak a look at their sisters comics. :lol:
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philcom55
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Re: Film Fun

Post by philcom55 »

I've posted it before but I love this account James Cameron gave of David Donald's editorial priorities with respect to the papers DC Thomson produced for their impressionable female readers during the 1930s:

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...It kind of makes you wonder what he thought about the depraved and godless material being published by their competitors down South! :)

- Phil Rushton

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: Film Fun

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

Phoenix: Thomsons' SUPERCATS is sometimes cited as the 'sexiest British Comic Strip---Ever!'-----and it may well be!

There's at least one modern well-known comics artist who is well-thought of regarding drawing ability, ---I won't name this person, I'm not into downing any comics artists, but they can't draw attractive young women for toffee,going by their efforts on this subject, despite their undoubted talent.

This artist is really good at almost every other subject though, the challenge in drawing a pretty face is the same as in doing great caricature---every line has to count,---and there are far fewer lines on hand drawing a pretty face----- no hiding behind endless detail or technique!

Dudley Watkins sometimes drew attractive young women, but they were very tasteful and not 'glamour girls'.

Cuddles [or Dimples, I forget which] Mum [she who blonde] was the first 'glamorous young woman' I really noticed in Thomson Comics. [around 1986/87].

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stevezodiac
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Re: Film Fun

Post by stevezodiac »

The first one I noticed was Shady Lady in The Cloak in Pow! (I think that was her name).

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philcom55
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Re: Film Fun

Post by philcom55 »

Apparently Fred Cordwell (who died in 1949) was as superstitious about any display of cleavage as he was about men with wooden legs or octopuses (octopi, octopodes?), so I guess he'd have been just as appalled by the Beverley Sisters as David Donald!

- Phil Rushton

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Re: Film Fun

Post by Lew Stringer »

stevezodiac wrote:The first one I noticed was Shady Lady in The Cloak in Pow! (I think that was her name).
Close. It was Lady Shady.
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2007/ ... cloak.html

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Re: Film Fun

Post by Phoenix »

stevezodiac wrote:The first one I noticed was Shady Lady in The Cloak in Pow! (I think that was her name).
Lew Stringer wrote:Close. It was Lady Shady.
Not to be confused, of course, with The Naughty Lady Of Shady Lane. Dean Martin's version will no doubt be hiding away somewhere in your massive recorded music collection, Steve.

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philcom55
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Re: Film Fun

Post by philcom55 »

...Ahem! :)

Trawling through the search function I notice that we've already got a perfectly good Film Fun thread that was started by Kashgar on the occasion of that title's 90th anniversary. Maybe it'd be a good idea if the current thread could be attached to the end of that one (which is what I should have done in the first place!).

Looking through those earlier posts I notice that Tony Hancock figures prominently - as befits one of the biggest stars of Film Fun's later years. In particular Kashgar points out that his comic strip career anticipated his actual film career by a couple of years, as a result of which I thought it'd be interesting to chart that process by scanning an early page in the traditional Wakefield style, followed by Reg Parlett's initial 'realistic version' from June 13th 1959.

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And to put those in some kind of context, here's an extract from Denis Gifford's 1972 magazine 50 Years of Comedy: From Handley to Hancock, along with the cover of a 1960 issue of Today celebrating Anthony Aloysius St. John Hancock's first major outing as a film star in 'The Rebel'.

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Intriguingly, Alan Clark mentions that Charlie Pease (who never actually drew Hancock) once got the chance to see the comedian at a press conference, leading him to observe "what a strange fellow he was, not a bit like his TV persona!". In this Hancock seems to have been like a lot of truly funny comedians who hide a deep seriousness behind their comic exterior.

- Phil Rushton

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Re: Film Fun

Post by AndyB »

Galton and Simpson are both still with us well into their 80s. I'll see if I can get those threads merged now.

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philcom55
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Re: Film Fun Facts

Post by philcom55 »

Thanks Andy. It's a real shame that Hancock severed his partnership with Galton and Simpson when he did as to my mind his work was never as good again. In particular his second film, 'The Punch and Judy Man', was a big disappointment after the Galton & Simpson scripted 'The Rebel'.

Here's a detail from the Today centrespread which shows Hancock in top form as he tries to become the new Jackson Pollock. Great stuff! :)

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- Phil Rushton

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stevezodiac
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Re: Film Fun

Post by stevezodiac »

Phoenix wrote:
stevezodiac wrote:The first one I noticed was Shady Lady in The Cloak in Pow! (I think that was her name).
Lew Stringer wrote:Close. It was Lady Shady.
Not to be confused, of course, with The Naughty Lady Of Shady Lane. Dean Martin's version will no doubt be hiding away somewhere in your massive recorded music collection, Steve.
Actually, no. I'm into guitar based rock and in particular sixties psychedelia and seventies punk - Dean Martin never went punk to my knowledge but I know Pat Boone released a heavy metal album in the 90s I think. I liked Dean Martin as an actor especially with the Westerns he made - despite being Italian-American he was a credible Wild West actor especially in Rio Bravo and Bandolero. Although I do have the Rio Bravo single "My Rifle, My Pony and Me" sung by Dean.

Getting back to Film Fun - I don't think I've actually watched a Martin/Lewis comedy film, they aren't available in a box set as yet.

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paul p
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Re: Film Fun

Post by paul p »

[/quote] Getting back to Film Fun - I don't think I've actually watched a Martin/Lewis comedy film, they aren't available in a box set as yet.[/quote]

I'm pretty sure I have/had a Martin/Lewis DVD box set with some of their films and I purchased it at least 5 years ago. If you havent seen them in action, I would recommend them.

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Re: Film Fun Facts

Post by Phoenix »

stevezodiac wrote:I know Pat Boone released a heavy metal album in the 90s I think.
The same Pat Boone who sang I'll Be Home, Don't Forbid Me, Love Letters In The Sand and Speedy Gonzalez? Not my Pat Boone, surely? Must be another Pat Boone! What's the world coming to?

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philcom55
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Re: Film Fun Facts

Post by philcom55 »

With the BBC currently showing the very latest incarnation of Alexander Dumas' Three (going on Four) Musketeers on Sunday nights I thought it'd be a good opportunity to highlight the more serious side of Film Fun - those picture strip adaptations of adventure films that occupied its centrespread for years before they finally expanded to take over most of the comic during its last period.

Throughout the 1950s these stories tended to be drawn by a rotating pool of artists which included C.E. Montford, Colin Merritt and Alan Philpott - the last of whom was chosen to produce a 6-part version of the then-current MGM version of the Three Musketeers in 1949. Due to their relatively short length I must admit that the majority of these features have always struck me as somewhat perfunctory affairs, in spite of the fact that the writers and artists based their work on advance screenings of the films in question. Better by far, in my opinion, was Film Fun's second adaptation of Dumas' classic: a 21-part epic that was one of the final glories of the title's declining years.

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Drawn by the brilliant South American artist Arturo de Castillo this is one of only a handful of series he produced specifically for the British market and - as one can see from these panels scanned directly from his original art - few people have ever depicted the world of Athos, Aramis, Porthos and D'Artagnan with such attention to detail or superlative flair!

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(...Not so much leather as the TV version perhaps, but what fantastic floppy hats!)

It's often said, with some justice, that Film Fun lost its identity towards the end. While there's no doubt that del Castillo's 'Three Musketeers' would have been equally at home in the pages of Buster, Valiant, Tiger or Lion (and was, in fact, reprinted in the latter title just two years later) I can't help feeling that this strip went a long way towards setting the bar for Fleetway's new breed of adventure titles throughout the following decade. Not a bad epitaph for one of Britain's most historic comics!

- Phil Rushton

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stevezodiac
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Re: Film Fun Facts

Post by stevezodiac »

Its all on youtube. Pat Boone singing Enter Sandman and Smoke On The Water and Paul Anka singing Black Hole Sun and a swing version of Smells Like Teen Spirit.

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