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Post by johnstewart on Jan 7, 2011 15:13:47 GMT
To continue; the series 1 titles seem to be different from what I recall of series 2. Douglas Gamley (DR WHO - INVASION) wrote Jazzy music for 1 which sounds sort of like a disturbing variation on 'SOME MOTHER DO 'AVE EM' ( ! ) Cracked capitals loom up with the title in white with a tunnel of graphic rectangles and lines running behind not unlike the early 'PAUL TEMPLE' titles. This is on film.
For series 2 I thought the title was made on film then chromokeyed over the studio VT action. In my minds eye this had MENACE again in capitals looming up but stylised 70s typeface. Both like the one used for Tandem books 'THONGOR OF LEMURIA' papreback novels c. 1971 as well as the one used on the poster of THE MEDUSA TOUCH (Richard Burton film). I thought the 'A' was reversed and stylised into a cartoon / phototrace snarling alsatians face with staring glowing dots for eyes. This was white on a monochrome receiver.
The music for series 2 again different I thought. It was more like the recurring two chord refrain on Tristram Carys 1960s 'OOTU' title theme; played on a Church organ. Not unlike the music that appears in 'DR WHO - REVENGE OF THE CYBERMEN'; (which is Carey Blyton).
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Post by johnstewart on Jan 7, 2011 15:17:20 GMT
So anyway - one set of repeats of series 1 but on BBC1 I think around August 1972. A friend got a book on TV ratings and found that those repeats got in the top ten of BBC viewing rating which might have prompted the second series promoted to BBC1.
The series were short - these are the titles from memory; not in the exact order; I'll amend later -
SERIES 1
THE STRAIGHT AND THE NARROW CRACK UP GOOD MORNING YESTERDAY THE INNOCENT SOMETHING CRIES OUT KILLING TIME MAN WITH A MISSION THE MILLICENT SISTERS INHERITENCE WHOS BEEN SLEEPING IN MY BED? NINE BEAN ROWS THE ELIMINATION
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Post by johnstewart on Jan 9, 2011 23:56:00 GMT
Series 2: (not in exact order)
JUDAS GOAT THE HAUNTING DELIVER US FROM EVIL PICK UP THE SITTING TENANT TOM COMFORTING WORDS VALENTINE BOYS AND GIRLS COME OUT TO PLAY THE SOLARIUM.
'Valentine' I believe starts with a happy young couple; man with briefcase arriving home from work seen through shelves in G plan style house with the wife in kitchen. He kisses her in rleaxed manner then puts down suitcase and notices a letter on the floor. So far as I recall we see him open over his shoulder and it's a Valentine card with a threatening message in it in cut out magazine letters (like the Sex Pistols LP cover). The play title may have appeared over that.
'Comforting words' a Fay Weldon piece. The synopsis describes how 'A young Mother (Michelle Dotrice) and her Baby move into a new flat; but a malignant prescence is waiting for them downstairs'. It's non specific, but might be the play someone mistook for a SHADOWS OF FEAR where they said a Witch played by Sheila Hancock menaced a Mother and her child.
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Post by johnstewart on Jan 9, 2011 23:56:38 GMT
P.S. NINE BEAN ROWS is by Hugo Charteris not Hugh Whitemore.
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Post by johnstewart on Jan 18, 2011 17:51:12 GMT
Just to add that COMFORTING WORDS and THE SOLARIUM appear to be 2 entries I have no memory of from the time. I've heard two descriptions of the latter; that it was about an adolescent boys frightening awakening from innocence; and that it was set in a creepy Victorian mansion with a solarium on the roof. presumably some kind of Sun house; and that it was 'a place of unspeakable evil'.
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Post by felixdembinski on Jan 31, 2011 17:24:13 GMT
I think that the dead of night episode, the exorcism, exists on its first transmision tape, and on a repeat tape without the title sequence. Could the repeated episodes of menace exist like this but not properly catalouged.
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Post by johnstewart on Feb 20, 2011 16:09:08 GMT
So anyway - one set of repeats of series 1 but on BBC1 I think around August 1972. A friend got a book on TV ratings and found that those repeats got in the top ten of BBC viewing rating which might have prompted the second series promoted to BBC1. The series were short - these are the titles from memory; not in the exact order; I'll amend later - SERIES 1 THE STRAIGHT AND THE NARROW CRACK UP GOOD MORNING YESTERDAY THE INNOCENT SOMETHING CRIES OUT KILLING TIME MAN WITH A MISSION THE MILLICENT SISTERS INHERITENCE WHOS BEEN SLEEPING IN MY BED? NINE BEAN ROWS THE ELIMINATION WHOS BEEN SLEEPING IN MY BED turned into a West end play by Author Martin Worth (Doomwatch, OOTU). It's very similar to a THRILLER where a girl arrives to meet a man at a deserted out of the way house and then finds a grave. Patrick Mower plyed the villain. A number of years back it was quoted that 'Patrick Mower kept copies of everything he had been in' or words to that effect. I wonder if he's got the Menace?
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Post by felixdembinski on Feb 23, 2011 21:02:26 GMT
theres a thread about this now, I hope he did keep copies.
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Post by johnstewart on Mar 1, 2011 17:13:43 GMT
theres a thread about this now, I hope he did keep copies. Yes all may be aware that was just a re paste (my exact words) of an old thread I started! To encourage original forujm material I'm continuing the Pat Mower debate on your thread as it's new! I think Paul Vanezis who is a moderator might be a good agent to approach Pat Mower about his MENACE. That play was adapted into a succesful West end play so would be topical.
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Post by A J Meredith on Jul 23, 2011 18:39:22 GMT
Sorry to be joining this thread at such a late date, but I own the scripts to the series two MENACE episodes 'The Haunting' and 'Boys and Girls Come Out to Play'. I'd be happy to fill in any inquiries regards story lines and so forth.
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Post by A J Meredith on Jul 23, 2011 18:58:11 GMT
I think that the dead of night episode, the exorcism, exists on its first transmision tape, and on a repeat tape without the title sequence. Could the repeated episodes of menace exist like this but not properly catalouged. I'm not sure if the MENACE episodes were officially junked or are just missing. I think it's probably the latter. They were early colour productions broadcast when most people didn't have colour TVs, so it would be strange to just junk them, especially as 'The Haunting' was a period piece which entailed building an extensive set. I wouldn't give up hope just yet on these. Have all Bob Monkhouse's tapes been looked through yet? He seemed to record everything and MENACE episodes were still being broadcast in 1974.
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Post by johnstewart on Jul 23, 2011 23:47:50 GMT
Sorry to be joining this thread at such a late date, but I own the scripts to the series two MENACE episodes 'The Haunting' and 'Boys and Girls Come Out to Play'. I'd be happy to fill in any inquiries regards story lines and so forth. I seemed to recall a play which featured someone like Anthony Bate as a Rector in a frock coat who moved into an old stone rectory with arched doorways. during the course of the play his Daughter and wife were menaced by a phantom presence. I thought the play ended with him sighing as it was all over and placing an arm round his wife. Then a door behind them slammed shut and we saw his shocked face turn implying the horror was to start again. I thought it was a poltergeist others thought the spectre was a Nun; (sounds a bit like 'a woman sobbing'). There are two memories of how 'Boys and Girls' ended. Someone thought there was a shot of the Father (Police Inspector); and Mother in tears superimposed over another shot. I thought the end shot was of an excavator or diggers arm coming up from either a cement mixer or building site ground with a girls hair dangling from it. The background was a flyover not unlike the Westway in London. The definite image I recall was the one used in the play preview. Belinda hears voices by night in the street outside her bedroom window and opens the window on the top floor and looks out. We see a shot of her from view outside then her point of view. The modern street had transformed and a Victorian gaslamp stood to the left on a cobbled street. A group of around six children aged 9 - 11; 3 boys and 3 girls I think danced in a circle. They were singing the tune Belinda had heard just before in a musical box in her room. She looked enchanted and leant her chin on one hand. One of the boys had a flat cap and breeches like a turn of the century mining village type. Think they were also seen playing and the boy had a hoop and stick. Suddenly the children sat down and the image faded abruptly to a modern street. Can you verify any of this? Many thanks - John.
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Post by A J Meredith on Jul 24, 2011 11:08:16 GMT
Hi John,
You're spot on remembering Anthony Bate as the Reverend Carter. However, it's interesting you should remember his 'daughter' as this turns out to be what's at the heart of the story. The play was a piece in two parts really. The first section is your archetypal ghost story. New tenants arrive at gothic house where nobody stays for long. You know the template, servants insist on leaving before dark, much younger wife (played by Marilyn Taylerson) becomes convinced house is haunted after seeing a manifestation (you're right, of a nun), but respected husband tells her to pull herself together. Seance ends with medium fleeing the house in terror. Basically, writer Ken Hughes has read Harry Price's Borley Rectory accounts and condensed all the reports over the years (by several tenants) into a few weeks. The Reverend Carter and his wife, Emma, are fictional of course and the house is called Milford Rectory here.
Watching this as a ten year old was a highly unnerving experience for me! Several images have stuck in my head to this day. Right from the start the atmosphere was one of dread as the Carters, arriving by pony and trap (it's set in 1900), see the house for the first time through the trees. Other images that remain with me include Emma returning to her bed and finding a Catholic missal left on the pillow (for reasons explained later she doesn't sleep in the same room as her husband). The servant bells ringing all by themselves, but above all else the reflection of the phantom nun in the mirror, Still gives me shivers to this day. The story progresses as a persistent Emma demands something should be done to stop the haunting. She becomes convinced the nun was murdered and her soul cast into damnation a century before by vengeful monks who discovered her trying to elope with one of their order. Anyway, the Reverend Carter gets a man from the village to dig up the cellar floor and indeed the bones of a young woman are found. Carter decides to give them a Christian burial along the lines of the traditional Church of England service, but Emma is not convinced this will work and insists her husband says a Roman Mass and Latin Prayers, which he refuses to do. Hence the hauntings continue resulting in Emma having a nervous breakdown.
This is where the whole thing becomes rather ambivalent. A psychiatrist is brought in to treat the bed ridden Emma. During his sessions with her she reveals that her marriage was never consummated and that her attraction to her husband was more as a father figure, this later leads to the declaration by Dr Weisman (the psychiatrist) to the Reverend Carter: "you have a daughter not a wife". He suggests the haunting has been manufactured in Emma's own mind as an outlet for sexual suppression. Carter agrees and says the best way to stop his wife's torment would be to move to another parish. The final scene of the play has Dr Weisman returning to Milford Rectory, now empty and abandoned by the Carters. As he walks around the house he feels a presence, and one gets the impression he is not totally convinced by his own diagnosis after all.
Hope that helps John. I'll get back to you for "Boys and Girls..." as I have to go out now.
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Post by A J Meredith on Jul 25, 2011 10:55:53 GMT
The interesting thing about 'Boys and Girls Come Out to Play' is that we see Belinda's madness (she's played by Sarah Sutton) right from it's mischievous inception all the way through to her becoming evil incarnate. At the start of the play she is just an ordinary girl (she'd popped a few pills as we learn later but there is no suggestion she had any idea of the implications). We first see her lying alone in bed. It has been her birthday and one of the gifts she's received is the music box which plays the Boys and Girls...refrain constantly. As she slips into that twilight world between wake and sleep she starts to hallucinate. Moving to the window she sees the modern close outside has been transformed into a Victorian street complete with urchins playing in the moonlight (one of them was a young Lesley Ash apparently).
When I saw this play for the one and only time I presumed it was a supernatural piece, only on reading the script did I realize it wasn't. Anyway, Belinda is excited about reviving the idea about moonlight play and talks a reluctant and weak-willed friend (Wendy) into joining her the following night. While engaging in their night time mischief they wander into the nearby park and through the bushes see a couple arguing. Wendy leaves the scene but Belinda witnesses a sort of crime of passion murder. She doesn't let on at the time but she recognises the murderer as the mother of one of her friends.
The detective investigating the murder (played by Peter Jeffrey) the following morning happens to be her father. Not only this, but Belinda, who happens to always be in the right place at the right time, over hears a conversation between her mother and father later that evening, where her father confesses he has been on the take from the criminal fraternity for some time.
In the meantime the moon light adventures of Belinda and Wendy become increasingly nasty. They torment an old man living alone and hang a cat from a tree. Later they set fire to their school. As the police net starts to tighten on them, Wendy becomes a liability and so using the information she has about the murder, Belinda involves another girl, Margie, the daughter of the murderer, into her plans. Fearing Wendy is going to spill the beans they kill her. The police mistakenly think Wendy has disappeared because she fears being questioned about the school fire. Meanwhile, an anonymous letter to the police seems to implicate to Inspector Sugden, Belinda's father, that his daughter is involved somewhere along the line.
He confronts Belinda, but now in full ice maiden mode she says: "I won't tell on you Daddy if you don't tell on me."
The penultimate scene is of Belinda and Margie overlooking a building site where concrete is being poured into a bridge pier. Belinda coldly says: "It's not London Bridge, but it will do," implying this was Wendy's final resting place.
There's nothing in the script which says the police find the body, or that Wendy's hair can be seen hanging out of the concrete mixer. But these things can always be changed at the last minute.
The final scene is back in Belinda's bedroom at night. She is watching the children outside again. "Look, there's Wendy," she cheerfully notes as a girl looks up at her. Behind her her devastated parents look silently on contemplating their shattered lives.
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Post by johnstewart on Aug 3, 2011 20:06:04 GMT
Thanks for these absolutely superb replies! The cement mixer scene is the bit I think which was on after coming in from a nearby friends house where I'd been watching it. It would be the 1974 repeat.
With boths these plays I'm mixing up the actual points of action, perhaps mistaking most striking scenes as the conclusion. I'm possibly recalling something else with the girls hair dangling. Maybe a friend recalled that and prompted my memory. It's feasible as it could easily be achieved with a wig.
Do you seem to recall as I do the later MENACE plays had different titles to the officially existing earlier ones (see YouTube for reference). I recalled a two chord church organ type theme; and stylised typeface with a snarling dog graphic incorporated into the 'A' of MENACE. Also that they were treated with some kind of CSO to enlarge and dissolve the letters.
It may well be the case that certain play series are missing rather than junked; though my research implies that at the BBC it was more important what the departments wanted to use the tapes for later than what was on them.
Producers like Mike Appleton when he was doing Old Grey Whistle Test wanted VT material held so it could be reused in end of the year specials. According to INFAX the education department specifically ordered the master tape of one 1975 series to be held without stating why.
After MENACE series 1 was repeated in 1972 records indicate that 2 of the tapes were never wiped so presumably no order to wipe them given. Most material would be held though on some form of sales copy; usually film so new programmes could be recorded on older videotapes. Someone said the George Cole entry was shelved along with other Cole appearances by a George Cole fan; though the Librarians seem to have been asked by the Drama Dept. to hold another tape showing the crime pursuit type menace that recurred through series 2 also.
Of course I was wondering if the Cole entry was not held for official resons but by a fan whether stuff like 'Girls and boys' could be shelved; or removed in a similar way. Not all the series 2 entries were repeated; and this one was repeated with its own play title (i.e. not MENACE); which got my mind ticking on this possibiltity.
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