I Start Counting (1970, David Greene, UK/ USA: Triumvirate Productions)

Wynne Kinch (Jenny Agutter) was adopted. She had been raised Catholic by her mother, but at some stage prior to seven, still old enough to know about what was happening, she was put up for adoption and taken into a loving family with two older brothers. Considerably older. Of the brothers, George (Bryan Marshall) is her favourite. And now, at the age of fourteen, Wynne's familial love is turning into a sexually driven lust and obsession. Denying that it is incest because she was adopted, Wynne feels completely justified in having sexual urges towards her thirty-two year old brother. This leads to frustration that he does not see her in that way, but merely as his younger sister.

Wynne (Jenny Agutter) wants George (Bryan Marshall) to see her as a woman

Wynne and her adoptive family live in a new high rise block in Bracknell, Berkshire. Everything around her is either white or concrete, and all of it new, yet she still yearns to spend time in their old home: a large, crumbling farmhouse on the other side of the park. It is condemned and marked for demolition, like all of the other Victorian property we see in the area. Anything not brand new, it seems, is unwanted. Wynne's mother (Madge Ryan) exclaims to her father (Billy Russell), who also lives with them, "This place is a palace compared to where we used to live." "Oh yes?" he replies, "and you name me a palace where the doorknobs keep falling off." There is something rotten at the heart of this new brutalist utopia.

This crumbling facade not only represents the forbidden love at the centre of the family, but the possibility that George may be a killer of young women. Bodies have been found in the park near their old home, and the police are seemingly without a lead. When Wynne spots scratch marks on George's back, and finds his jumper covered in blood, she begins to suspect that maybe he is the culprit. Far from putting her off, this causes her love for him to grow stronger, feeling a need to protect him. Only she truly understands him and can help him. She fantasises about George kissing her, or walking in on her in the bath. Wynne confesses her sinful thoughts to a priest during the day, and caresses herself in bed at night.

Throughout the film she becomes an amateur detective, following him around and searching for clues in his bedroom. The occasional red herring is also thrown in, such as the interest her other brother, the pill-popping Len (Gregory Phillips), shows in the grisly details as reported in the press: "You'd think if he was going to kill all these people, he'd at least rape them. It seems such a waste." He even keeps a scrapbook of press cuttings, a sure sign of any serial killer. There is also the occasional appearance of a potentially sleazy bus conductor (Simon Ward), who grabs Wynne by the wrist and tells her "Your skirt's too short." Ultimately Wynne does solve the crime, and in the process is forced to grow up and learn a few unpleasant things about life.

I Start Counting begins with a long panning shot around Wynne's bedroom, and the opening credits then roll over her morning routine. We see her open curtains, eat breakfast and get dressed. Continuing her routine, and in full close-up, Wynne pulls on her underwear, puts on a bra and gets into her school uniform, of which the skirt is short. This is one of those films which belongs in the same category as Baby Love (1968, Alastair Reid, UK: Avton Films), All The Right Noises (1971, Gerry O'Hara, UK: Trigon Productions) or Twinky (1970, Richard Donner, UK/ Italy: World Film Services), where schoolgirls are objects of sexual awakening and desire. Twinky's tagline (on the US poster, where it had been renamed Lola) was the astonishing "She's almost 16, he's almost 40." Pop music also contributed to this concept, whether it was Neil Sedaka singing in 1961 "Happy birthday sweet sixteen, Tonight's the night I've waited for, Because you're not a baby anymore," or the Rolling Stones cheerfully proclaiming "There'll be a feast if you just come upstairs, But it's no hanging matter, It's no capital crime, I can see that you're fifteen years old, No I don't want your I.D." in 1968. 

Jenny Agutter may have been seventeen, but the schoolgirl she was portraying was fourteen.
The creepy rabbit to the left plays a small part in the plot.

Wynne Kinch may have been fourteen in I Start Counting but Jenny Agutter was seventeen, eighteen by the time the film was released. This may serve as some sort of justification in shooting her dressing in such a voyeuristic fashion, or in the way the camera often looks up the miniskirt of her friend Corinne (Claire Sutcliffe), whose colourful knickers are flashed throughout the film, despite her also being fourteen. Agutter also posed for a series of blatantly sexual photos to promote the film, perhaps demonstrating just how much of a woman Wynne has become despite her young age. 1960s and 1970s culture was preoccupied with the first flowerings of sexual desire in teenage girls (and underage girls). Sadly the events of the last few years, and Operation Yewtree in particular, have taught us the dark truth behind this cultural acceptability.

According to the 1970 edition of The British Film & Television Year Book, if you had wanted to reach Jenny Agutter she could be contacted care of Denys Becher, 9A Marylebone High Street, London, W.1.

The film is adapted from Audrey Erskine Lindop's novel from 1966, and the plot feels similar to the popular, although far more graphic, schoolgirl-based Italian crime films of Massimo Dallamano: What Have You Done to Solange? (Cosa avette fatto a Solange? 1972, Italy/ West Germany: Clodio Cinematografica) and What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (La polizia chiede aiuto, 1974, Italy: Primex Italia). Perhaps Dallamano was familiar with this film, or perhaps it is coincidence, but What Have You Done to Solange? is also set in Britain, and features the murder of a schoolgirl in a park. There are also similarities to the British thriller Assault (1971, Sidney Hayers, UK: George H. Brown Productions), which again features schoolgirls being murdered in parks. This was clearly a theme which needed exploring in the early 1970s.

The Pan Books tie-in edition of The Ravine by Kendal Young, now known as Assault.

I Start Counting was directed by David Greene, who had previously directed, amongst others, The Shuttered Room (1967, UK: Seven Arts) and The Strange Affair (1968, UK: Paramount Pictures), the latter also featuring an underage relationship, this time between a schoolgirl and a policeman. David Greene had angered many people when he burned down a real historic building in Norfolk at the climax of The Shuttered Room, the full story of which can be read here. I Start Counting also features the destruction of real property, and was perhaps something Greene looked for in his films as a way of enhancing production value. He had a varied and fascinating career, working in both film and TV between Hollywood and the UK. Monthly Film Bulletin praised his direction of this film, stating it was "a coherent and accomplished piece of filmmaking."

Sadly I Start Counting was only seen in Britain in the cinema in 1970, where it played with an AA certificate from the BBFC, and then again once on TV in the 1990s, as far as I can tell. It is a compelling and well-constructed film which was also hugely significant in the career of Jenny Agutter, coming out just a month before The Railway Children (1970, Lionel Jeffries, UK: EMI Film Productions). Monthly Film Bulletin describes her performance here as "Something of a remarkable balance, poised between naïveté and delicacy to suggest a perfectly natural innocent." If you want to see this performance the only way to currently view I Start Counting is on Youtube, where it appears to have been taken from a VHS copy. It is thankfully in its correct aspect ratio, which suggests the film was released on video in the U.S. in a widescreen version, unless it was shown on TV in widescreen and this is an off air recording. Perhaps eventually this will see a restored release as part of Network's ongoing British Collection. If you have any interest in British cinema of the period, I Start Counting is well worth your attention. And just what is it she is counting? Watch the film and see if you can work it out for yourself.

Legend of the Witches (1970): A Border Films Production

By the end of the 1960s the Age of Aquarius, once filled with the optimism of a hundred thousand hippies, was going sour. The Manson murders, the Altamont Rolling Stones debacle (not forgetting Sympathy for the Devil) and the rise of Anton LaVey as a celebrity Satanist, hanging out with rock stars and Hollywood A-listers, put the Devil at the forefront of alternative culture. Hack authors like Dennis Wheatley suddenly found themselves back in print with lurid covers usually depicting goat-headed men pawing at naked women, and the idea of witchcraft for many became inextricably linked to sexual freedom. By the early 1970s, if movies and The News of the World were to be believed, the only people getting any sex were wife-swappers and devil worshippers.

Alexander Sanders and his young wife Maxine

Into this rather heady atmosphere, in a typically seedy British manner, stepped Alexander Sanders, who dubbed himself "King of the Witches". He was a Wiccan high priest and talented self-promoter and soon found himself a minor celebrity in the UK. He claimed to have used black magic for most of his life, having been taught by his grandmother, but following the disintegration of his first marriage and family problems which he credited to an abuse of his powers, he decided to use his powers for good. He became a Wiccan in the 1960s, which was well timed for the upsurge in popularity of anything to do with witches and Satanism a few years later.

In 1970 Border Films produced Legend of the Witches, a documentary directed by Malcolm Leigh, who just a year later would direct Lady Chatterley versus Fanny Hill, aka Games That Lovers Play, also for Border. The film, shot in black and white, begins with the night-time initiation rituals of a group of witches. They are all naked with the exception of the priest who wears robes, and they dance in circles around a fire. They also place a blindfold on one man and lead him through the forest, stumbling and falling until he arrives back in the circle. A voiceover, which sounds a bit like Valentine Dyall but most likely is not (sadly there is no credit to suggest who it was), intones throughout the meaning of the rituals whilst also explaining the history of witchcraft, with its pre-christian origins. 

The film is an odd mix of naked witches performing rites, including Alexander and his beautiful blonde wife Maxine, alongside images of old English churches and countryside. Monthly Film Bulletin comically described the film as featuring "a good deal of rather goose-pimply nudity." We even get a tour around the witchcraft museum in Cornwall (which sadly got flooded out several years ago). It is artfully shot for the most part, which may explain how the film got past the BBFC despite the copious full-frontal nudity from both sexes. This would have been one of the last films to be viewed by John Trevelyan, coming in just at the point when the X certificate was changed to mean suitable for over-eighteens only. The BBFC were always more lenient on films which they felt had artistic merit, although it does appear that some cuts were made at the time. Despite the nudity the film is not leering or exploitative, which is possibly surprising given its origins as a Border film. Olive Negus-Fancey is credited as producer, with Malcolm Fancey as an assistant director and his half-sister Judith Smith as editor. This was made by Border around the same time they were producing films like Not Tonight, Darling or distributing European movies such as I Am a Nymphomaniac (1971, France, Max Pecas).

One can only imagine how well this film would have been received by punters at the time. Whilst it could have been viewed in all seriousness as an in-depth documentary on a fascinating subject, it was most likely viewed by men in raincoats in basement cinemas around Soho. These posters I have found online would suggest as much.

The film can now be found in its entirety on YouTube, although rumours persist that there is a much longer cut of the film somewhere. The longest commercially available version is seventy-two minutes, which is the same as this one. If there was a longer version it must be languishing in a vault somewhere, or in Malcolm Leigh's shed. It's well worth having a look at, for a number of reasons. Like many films of this ilk, it's a glimpse into the world of our parents and grandparents that they would rather be left behind. The 1970s was a time in British cinema history when a documentary about naked witches could be found in cinemas around the country, and audiences were willing to sit through the boring bits in order to get to the naked bits. Renown Films appear to have inherited the back catalogue and original elements to many Fancey-produced movies. Their new TV channel Talking Pictures TV has screened Legend of the Witches several times, as well as dozens of other long-forgotten rarities from the Fancey vaults. I am still hoping to be able to visit and take a look in those vaults some time. 

In the meantime my research into the Fancey family continues. I have finally made contact with a member of the family who may be willing to talk about the business with me. I am optimistic that he will.

Mark of the Devil

After many years the infamous Mark of the Devil is being released uncut in the UK. Arrow Video have put it out on blu ray, and they asked me to write an essay for the booklet. I was honoured to have been asked, and the fact that I love all that censorship stuff combined with the international angle meant it was pretty much a perfect fit. It was released this week, and I'm still eagerly awaiting my copy. It's a fascinating film, as these old shockers always are. If there was ever any doubt as to the exploitation value of torturing sexy ladies, this cheesy promotional image of Udo Kier and potential victim ought to settle the question.

If you too are interested to know how the film was treated by the BBFC, simply click on the cover above and order yourself a copy! Only be warned, this is not one for the kids.

Jake West

Recently published in Intensities: The Journal of Cult Media is an interview I conducted with British film director Jake West. Of particular interest to me was the fact that he is a former student of the college where I currently teach part-time. I don't know this for definite, but I would like to claim that this is the most in-depth, career-spanning interview Jake has done. We even talked about Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes (2006).

Whilst browsing through other articles in the journal I was amused and delighted to notice that I had been referenced in a review of The Witch Who Came From the Sea (1976), which was incidentally on the Department for Public Prosecutions list of "video nasties" in 1983. My description of Baba Yaga (1973), from an article I wrote in last summer's edition of Intensities, has been used. Nice to know that at least one person out there read it. This is the first time that I know of where I have been referenced in an academic context. I guess this means there is hope for me yet.