Pit of Darkness (1961, Lance Comfort, UK: Butchers Film Distributors)

Pit of Darkness opens on a bomb site somewhere in London, still a common thing in the early 1960s. A young boy spots what appears to be a body down amongst the rubble, but when he investigates he discovers the man is still alive. Richard Logan (William Franklyn) slowly comes round and realises that he has been "coshed" by some ruffians. He thanks the boy for his help and makes his way home. When he walks in his wife Julie (Moira Redmond) is shocked: Richard thinks he is only three hours late, but he has actually been missing for three weeks. He has no memory of his whereabouts and spends the next eighty minutes piecing together the mystery: the fact that he works for a company who specialise in making burglar-proof safes might have something to do with it.

Pit of Darkness came late in the career of Lance Comfort, a solid British director who specialised in supporting features, more commonly known as 'B' films. To Hammer fans he will be best known as the director of the now lost comedy The Ugly Duckling (1959) with Bernard Bresslaw, or at least if it is not lost it is a film which no one wants to let out of the Hammer vault. Pit of Darkness forms part of a sort of "Darkness" trilogy in Comfort's career, which was most likely unintentional. He previously directed Daughter of Darkness (1948), as well as the horror classic Devils of Darkness (1965) shortly before he died. Darkness is a good, go-to word to use in a film title, as it can mean different things depending on the theme of the film. In this particular case the pit of darkness in question is purely metaphorical. Admittedly Logan does wake up in a bomb site, a pit of darkness of a sort, but it is the darkness of amnesia which is he trying to claw out.

The film was released with a 'U' certificate from the British Board of Film Censors following some brief cuts. It seems to have been well received. In the December 1961 issue of Monthly Film Bulletin Pit of Darkness was summarised as having a "Complex, fanciful plot made plausible by effective writing and direction. The pace is brisk, there are some spirited fisticuffs, and there is the personality of William Franklyn - unbeatable in suggesting solid virtues behind a rakish, smooth exterior." In the excellent The British 'B' Film by Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane Pit of Darkness is compared to other Lance Comfort films, who despite the low budgets and quick turnaround generally managed to raise them above being merely formulaic: "All Comfort's films are persuasive narratives, marked by absence of sentimentality and the whiff of human reality, by a feeling for melodramatic tension and for thematic contrasts underlined by a visual style which can move into the expressive and the metaphoric." (p. 142-143)

Butcher's Film Distributors were the typical independent distribution company. It appears they were in business as distributors and occasional producers from the early 1930s, mainly with factual short films such as Strictly Vegetarian (1932, unknown) and the occasional western or thriller like Gorilla Ship (1932, Frank Strayer, US: International Film Studios). 

They were still submitting films for classification in the late 1970s, mostly of the Hot Dreams (Amore libero, 1974, Pier Ludovigo Pavoni, Italy: Aquila Cinematografica) or French Nympho (Candice Candy, 1978, Renau Pieri, France: Les Films de l'Epeé) variety. According to my 1970 copy of the The British Film and Television Year Book Butcher's were by then based on Wardour Street in Soho and the managing director was the London-born John I. Philips, of whom I'm ashamed to say I know nothing. Butcher's made around twenty feature films, mostly in the 1950s and early 1960s, perhaps the best known being the proto-slasher Cover Girl Killer (1959, Terry Bishop, UK: Butcher's Film Distributors) starring a pre-Steptoe Harry H. Corbett.

A vital point in the plot pivots on Logan's recollection of the song "My Heart is the Lover," which we hear over and over throughout the film, so it is interesting to see that the song was released in sheet music form. This is most likely the only product tie-in for Pit of Darkness. It is an enjoyable thriller featuring safe-cracking, explosions and a blonde femme fatale, played by Jacqueline Jones. When she first appeared on screen I was convinced it was Caron Gardner. The film also features performances from Anthony Booth, later to be Robin Askwith's best mate and Tony Blair's father-in-law, and a young and very beautiful Nanette Newman. 

I saw this when it was broadcast by Talking Pictures TV, the freeview channel which is connected to distributor Renown Pictures. If you are a fan of obscure British 'B' movies this is one of the best channels out there. They don't always have the best picture quality, or even the correct aspect ratio, but it is the only place you are likely to see this sort of stuff.

Terrahawks - A blast from the past

Considering how often it was reported that Gerry Anderson supposedly hated working with puppets, he worked with them an awful lot. Having made his name in the 1960s with shows such as Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds, creating a new art form along the way, he made a successful move into live action science fiction with the classic television series UFO and Space: 1999. Somehow he was persuaded to go back to puppets to produce a brand-new children’s television show in 1983: Terrahawks. It ran for three series and was very popular, enabling a new generation of children (this writer included) to discover Gerry Anderson’s incredible work for the first time.

Terrahawks tells the story of an elite force defending 21^st century Earth from a host of alien invaders, most notoriously the android clone Zelda, who with her idiotic son Yung-star is constantly attempting to either take over or destroy the planet. Thankfully amongst the Terrahawks crew are Tiger Ninestein, Mary Falconer, former pop star Kate Kestrel, Lt. Hawkeye and many spherical robots known as the Zeroids. It was a situation which ensured that every week some sort of world-threatening plot would require heroic deeds from Ninestein and his crew, accompanied by some spectacular special effects from Gerry Anderson’s team. Zelda was an odd choice for a principle villain in a children’s television series, as she is essentially a cackling old woman who looked like a cross between Tina Turner and Great Expectations’ Miss Haversham. The Zeroids were often a source of comedy in the show, particularly as their leader, Sergeant Major Zero, was voiced by Windsor Davies, whose distinctive booming Welsh tone was familiar to British audiences from popular sitcom It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.

Network are releasing Terrahawks on DVD and, for the first time, on blu ray. They do not appear to have had access to original negatives, the picture quality on the blu ray looking more like a TV broadcast than their incredibly well remastered blu ray releases of Space: 1999. Despite this it is still a fun show to see again, and one that children will still enjoy discovering. Network are putting this out in volumes of thirteen episodes each. Volume 1 was released in July, and Volume 2 is out now. The blu ray and DVD editions feature a selection of bonus features, looking at the special effects, the music and some of the early computer graphics used on the show. The documentary Terrahawks: Making the Unexpected, features behind the scenes footage shot at the legendary Bray Studios, which had once been home to Hammer Films.

Gerry Anderson was such an important figure in both television and film, and the legacy he left behind is still being enjoyed by fans. With episodes of the new show Thunderbirds Are Go bringing yet another generation of fans to his work, these new releases of Terrahawks will enable both young and old to enjoy yet more of Gerry Anderson’s intricate and entertaining creations.

You can find more details, and even buy yourself copies, here.