rolls, bentleys and daimlers

I saw a Rolls Royce today driving to Leeds. It brought back a flood of memories I must say.

When I was a kid I loved prestige cars, which you saw now and then in Sixties and early Seventies Britain.

Basically there were three top marque saloons around back then over here: Rolls Royce, Bentley and Daimler. I seem to recall seeing all three far more than I do now. Could that be true?

I'm not including Mercs, Astons and Jags for despite being luxury cars they just weren't flash enough for me to be classed as prestige saloons and the preserve of just the super rich like the top three.

Rollers were easy to spot and still are. The front grille and the Spirit of Ecstasy were dead giveaways. Bentleys were less so and all I can recall is the Capital B with the swept tail. Daimlers I can't remember at all.

I may have had all three in die-cast but I'm just not sure. I certainly had a toy Rolls by Dinky or Corgi. I think I had a plastic friction drive Rolls too by Telsalda or someone like that. Were the other two marques released as toy cars?

What were the differences between the three in terms of prestige? Was there a pecking order? Who drove what in the upper echelons? I honestly don't know.

Have you ever driven one of these cars readers? Whats it like?

hannibal lecter's larousse

This weekend reader Steve P cracked the Professor Roney book mystery with this Larousse Encyclopedia of Prehistoric and Ancient Art.

It made me think of another Larousse in the movies.

In Red Dragon, part of the Silence of the Lambs franchise, Ed Norton is mooching round Hannibal Lecter's study when he spots a large cook book. 

Thumbing through it he finds an asterisked entry for Ris de Veau and discovers Lecter's writing above it, a single but very telling word, Sweetbreads.

Norton's fate is sealed as he realises too late the true identity of his fell advisor, Hannibal Lector.

Lecter's cook book is an early French edition of Larousse Gastronomique.

In a strange twist of Lecter serendipity I ended up with a copy of this book myself when my Nephew was having a clear out! 

Out of morbid curiosity I looked up Ris de Veau!  I needn't have worried, my English edition published by those wizards at Paul Hamlyn in 1961 doesn't include Ris de Veau, just an entry for Sweetbreads and the word Ris after it, together with the recipe.

I think I would have feinted if someone had handwritten sweetbreads above it!

Were Larousse books the go-to tomes for movie makers or what? 

Any more books in movies readers?

Right, time for a nice Chianti and some fava beans.

Around the Blog in 80 Toys

A Jules Verne inspired Kinder Surprise toy, of Fogg's famous hot air balloon. Part of a series of three individual toys, the second one being the Nautilus, which ive flagged up previously.

disney's moon base

Moon base from Disneyland "Flight to the Moon" ride in the 1960's.

Rob Godwin

[2015 email archive]

chevrolet astro 1 model kit anyone?

Here's a pic of the model kit box for the Chevrolet Astro 1 kindly sent in by reader Mark J.

I had the superb die-cast version of this toy in the Sixties but never saw the model.

Did you?

Postscript

Ive got the little Corgi Whizzwheels version, but the kit was probably a japan only release. Lovely car!

In Aldi, no-one can hear you shop

Hot on the heels of Woodsys fabulous prop shot in Quatermass, a recent screening of Alien:Covenant appears to show that old Ridley is shopping down market for his FX. In a scene towards the end, one of the crew deposits a distress beacon on the ground, which I spotted as two car warning lights stuck together with a cylinder on top. I picked one of these up in Aldi a few months back for a couple of quid, not because its magnetic, has several flash sequences and extra bright lighted LEDs which cycle around, but because it was cheap and looked cool! Looks like the Alien crew thought so too!

quatermass and the pot

Further to Scoop's interesting Quatermass reboot post and continuing my regular dose of Hammer Horrors I caught the original and unlikely to be bettered Quatermass and the Pit movie on You Tube.

Rather than a serious dissection of this Sci-Fi sixties classic [there's enough dissection in the film itself!] I will simply point out a couple of props that caught my eye.

First up was a coffee cup! When Professor Quatermass visits Dr. Roney's lab Roney pours coffee for him into a brown striped mug. There's also a similar striped milk jug. You can see this crockery in the screenshot below bottom left.

I had to look twice! I have that very set languishing in my loft!

The second prop is more of a mystery. 

When Quatermass visit's Roney's lab later in the film, when the Locust Martians are being examined, Roney flicks through a large book to find a famous picture of a horned devil.

I have the picture in a couple of books of my own from the Sixties. Its a cave painting called The Sorcerer.

The book Roney finds it in is one I haven't got and one I can't identify.

Can you?

Its pictured below in an awful screenshot but its the only one I could create from the French version of the film on the Daily Motion website.

Held in Roney's hands, it appears to have a red front cover featuring a face or an object.

Ideas?

POSTSCRIPT!

Eagle-eyed reader Steve P has cracked the mystery of Roney's book! Steve says its the Larousse Encyclopeadia of Prehistoric and Ancient Art and I reckon its bang on! Cheers Steve!

QUATERMASS REBOOT

As some of you may know, this Quatermass reboot was talked about last year, and apart from a few snippets I haven't heard any news on how it's progressing. I'd certainly be interested in seeing it.

Assuming it's going ahead, I'm hoping that it's a got a cast more visually convincing to me  than the
2005 BBC 4 remake of The Quatermass Experiment which starred a youthful looking 39 year old Jason Flemyng as Prof. Bernard Quatermass , a 34 year old David Tennant as Doctor Gordon Briscoe, and the versatile Mark Gattiss, (who, when he's not writing them, appears in just about every cult thing these days),was also 39 at the time. All, I hasten to add, are fine actors and highly successful, and I'm certainly not criticising their respective performances, but to my mind everyone just appeared too young to me.

It's worth noting that Andrew Keir who played Quatermass in Hammer's Quatermass and The Pit was a more convincing 40 year old when that was made in 1967.