Baltic

One of the greats - no doubt about it. From The Magnificent 7 to Once Upon A Time In The West, to - of course - The Dirty Dozen. A mean, brooding presence you wouldn't dare cross in a hurry. I was never a huge fan of the Death Wish movies, but naturally Charlie Buchinsky played the part perfectly. If ever you needed a vicious psycho who is nonetheless basically good, you could always count on Charlie.

Typically for America, despite serving as a B29 crewman in the Pacific War and receiving a Purple Heart for his (literal) pains, Buchinsky changed his name to Bronson during the McCarthy era because anyone with a 'Slavic' name (he was, in fact, Lithuanian, but such details were - and are still in some cases - irrelevant) came under immediate suspicion of harbouring Communist sympathies. The fact that he couldn't speak English until he was in his teens doubtless gave his voice that unique timbre, which seemed to epitomise the tough guy archetype.

In The Dirty Dozen, he is plucked from Death Row, where he has been since being convicted of murder, to join the crew on their mission behind enemy lines.

He married his second wife, Jill Ireland, who was previously married to David McCallum, after reportedly telling McCallum on the set of The Magnificent 7:

"I'm going to marry your wife"

And that is about as direct as you can get.



Happy New Year to all. See you in 2011.

The Long Walk

Feeling as though I've been stumbling through the Cursed Earth over the past few days, plagued by a terrible cough which just won't go away, I think I am about ready to hand in my Judge badge and turn away from the Law once and for all. Still the wretched cough hacks at me, over one week after I came down with it, and the wind blows impotently against the blackened piles of snow lining the roads while that fucking Mariah Carey song comes on again in some shop or other. The chances are that I'll pick up the paper in the morning and read that some great actor has passed away.

But then - it's just Xmas after all. Building up and building up like some poisonous boil beneath the skin, only to be lanced in a moment, sometime after 3 o'clock. It has been a filmic few days (selected highlights: Avatar [8/10]; Where The Wild Things Are [5/10]; Megamind [7/10]) if truth be told, with my out-and-about-ness severely curtailed by family visits, this cough and the persistently awful weather. I have rated above a selection of the movies I've watched recently, and was most surprised by Avatar, which I've resisted since it came out. It was a highly watchable romp with a good message and some interesting pseudo-science. Where The Wild Things Are was an intriguing experiment from some very thin source material, but it wasn't really ho-ho-ho fare.  At the cinema, Megamind was good for a laugh and had a little bit of depth in exploring the concept of good and evil in a more mature fashion than many 'adult' films.

That's 399 posts completed since I started this thing, and only one more to go for 2010.

Crocker Shit

You may have noticed the presence of a ghost on here recently. Aptly enough, this ghost is a Toffee, so congratulations to his ectoplasmic form also on a barely deserved victory at Eastlands the other evening, which I had the misfortune of watching with him. Even if I had tried to punch him, my fist would have passed right through, but I didn't even get angry. Just goes to show that we do indeed bottle it at crucial moments. Or something like that. With 27 or so shots on goal (alas, only 4 on target, which - though decent - probably explains a lot) and 11 corners to their none, you would have expected a little more than the one solitary goal and no points to show for our pains. But, them's the breaks. We need better finishers (I'm looking at you, second only to Messi, Mario Balotelli...) I suppose you could say, though Kolarov came mighty close a couple of times; Tevez had one good shot well saved; Howard enjoyed one of his better games and Phil Neville got away with playing the bloody octopus all night long. My only criticism was that there was too much hopeful belting of the ball from the edge of the area when a bit more thought and craft might have delivered a more telling blow. Oh, and Tim Cahill really is an annoying little Aussie twat.

Moving on, we're well on to the meat of the Dirty Dozen now, and with the meat, time to bring Maggot into play. Who loves ya baby? Hero of many a boy from my generation as Kojak, Telly Savalas was a top star of the silver screen. During the mid 70s, every playground in England must have echoed with the word 'Crocker'; a million lollipops were surely brandished in the faces of fat kids with curly hair, and we even had our own 'Stav' who didn't seem to mind the sobriquet too much. He was a tough guy in Kojak - though of course with a heart of gold - and his character in the Dirty Dozen surprises somewhat if, like me, you saw the two things in the wrong chronological order. A nasty, racist rapist is Maggot, well suited to the horrors of war. Which I think sets the tone nicely for the climax of the festive season.

Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas!

Do Look Now

In a varied and interesting life during which he found time to not only father Kiefer but also Kate Bush as well, it is a challenge to historians to work out exactly what Mr Sutherland was up to in WW2.

As a vital cog in the well-oiled Nazi plan to assassinate Churchill, he thrilled his Irish compatriots with his eerie ability to control dogs and amuse grave-diggers. Yet our hero also found time to impersonate high-ranking officers as a vital member of the Dirty Dozen. And then serve in Korea.

Some clue as to what drives such a man might be found in the mob riots that Mr Sutherland was caught up in during the Great Depression. His part in the horrible murder of a hugely annoying child and subsequent brush with the law may well have led to a strong desire to stare down danger in the European Theatre. We might also see the heavy cloak of guilt in consequent experiments with orgone and the presentation to Albert Einstein of a Sex-box of his own invention.

In middle-age, Donald Sutherland would taste the fruits of all his deals with the Devil, as family tragedy resulted in a series of supernatural horrors leading to his own demise at the hands of a dwarf.

The fact that he continued in movies after this is surely a testament to his professionalism.

Cleveland Brown

After a night of yet more shameful Euro racism at City's draw with the Old Lady, I thought it would be worthwhile jotting down a few words in celebration of a great black man. Where the fuck do the Italians (and Spanish for that matter) get off with the fucking monkey noises? I mean, Russia, Serbia, Croatia... Though you can't condone it in these places, you can perhaps see why the vicious meatheads have some traction, what with the history of war and totalitarian regimes, as well as the lack of exposure to any kind of multi-culturalism. But Italy? All that stuff with Paolo Di Canio. It makes the blood run cold.

So, on to our celebration.

A football player for the Cleveland Browns, Jim Brown (b. 1936 - just a year after my own father's birth) went into acting after his sporting career had ended. He was a supreme athlete, excelling at (American) football, basketball, lacrosse and running. He is often described as the greatest player in NFL history, and that's going some. He was good at rushing or something - I've not really been a fan of NFL since I was a teenager, but I can of course appreciate how talented the guy must have been to receive such an accolade.

His character in The Dirty Dozen - Robert T Jefferson - was convicted of killing a white officer in self defence, and of course is deeply disliked by Telly Savalas' racist and psychotic Maggot (I don't mean that Telly had a racist psychotic maggot for a pet. He may have done, but I don't think so).

Jim has had quite an illustrious film career, going on to appear in such movies as Ice Station Zebra, The Running Man, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Mars Attacks!, and Any Given Sunday, among many others. He was also a regular in stuff like The A Team, TJ Hooker, Highway to Heaven, CHiPs and Knight Rider and would have spent a great deal of time gracing British TV screens on Saturdays and Sundays during the 80s. In the film 100 Rifles, he was lucky enough to play in supposedly the first interracial love scene with Raquel Welch. Lucky bastard. Still going strong as some sort of adviser to the Cleveland Browns, he seems also to be still making movies, with - according to IMDb - The Sandy Creek Girls currently in production. I mean, what's not to love about a guy like that?

I'm glad Jo got the equaliser to stick it to those fascist cunts.

Samson Posey

Here we go again with Samson Posey, a 'meek' criminal who is 'sentenced to death by hanging for the accidental killing of a G.I. in a bar room brawl' (I love that. What an excellent crime). Clint was best known for his role in Cheyenne during the 1950s, one of those strange phenomena, the cowboy weekly series - like Bonanza and High Chapparal - which were all the rage once upon a time.

Today was just running around and running around. Contradictions and challenges, not a moment to myself. You know the kind of thing: struggling through the fuckers at Victoria; receiving a phone call when you finally get there telling you that the meeting's delayed by twenty minutes; sitting in a meeting, tense as a piece of cheese wire, which goes on and on and on; getting back to the office and eating a cardboard egg sandwich; traipsing back through the fuckers at Victoria; sitting in a meeting where people point their faces at you; and back through the fuckers; and then again to play pool and darts in false bonhomie. Victoria Line delayed and the phone rings when you're getting your keys out. And Payroll fucks up and doesn't release your HR fucking record so you don't get your (first) pay cheque with a week till fucking Xhristmas.

Merry Clint-mas fuckers.

Lopez Tevez

I did say that Clint Walker would be up next, but events have conspired to make me consider a change. I hope all will become clear as the post unfolds and I introduce you to Trini Lopez.



Rooney set the tone, and now it seems that there will be no way back for the precious few who can command the total control of their employers with their celebrity status. When SAF rolled over and showed his soft Glaswegian belly to the blood sucking scumbags who 'run' professional players, it was the end of the beginning. If even this famous boot throwing disciplinarian would cave in to the rapacious demands of his Scouse prima donna's handler (use of the word 'agent' in these matters should of course be studiously avoided) Paul Stretford, then everyone else is sure to follow suit.

'Oh, I miss my kids so much. It's really nothing to do with money...' Bullshit. Pure and simple.

It's always about money in the end, and everyone knows it. If Carlos was really pining for his little darlings so much, why did he piss off to Tenerife during his recent ban instead of back to BA for a paternal cuddle and distribution of expensive plushes? The highest paid player in an extremely highly paid squad, in the middle of a 5 year contract, and agitating - or at least the odious Joorabchian, with his well-known links to Cook, the Sheikh, et al, is doing so - for more at the point of a virtual gun. It stinks like Rooney's cock after a night out in Kirkby. And if anyone can make any sense of this in the middle of a global recession, I'd like to hear it. I know that loyalty counts for little these days. The mercenary element of modern football is well and truly established, and there's little that can be done to change that, but I feel sick just watching it. The average City or even Rag (yes, you heard me!) fan may as well be spat on from a great height by these fuckers as they fork out their hard-earned cash for overpriced tickets.

I said it (or at least reported someone else saying it) when the Rooney saga was in full swing, and I'll say it again about Captain Carlos:

'Get rid!'

Now, Trini Lopez. An international chart topping recording artist (If I Had A Hammer) Trini was not so successful in film. He left The Dirty Dozen early, and the script was hastily re-written to accommodate his departure. For that reason, I thought it appropriate that this post should be about him and not Clint Walker. Dirty.

Busby babe

Buoyed by not one, but two compliments on Twitter about this thing yesterday, and (by the sound of it) a real stonker from Yaya against the Hammers, I'm still carrying a warm glow and feeling ten feet tall. But the fact remains that the pressure of compiling 12 posts in a busy month is beginning to tell.

Nearly through the Back Six now, with number 5 - Tom Busby. Tom (1936-2003) was a Canadian actor who played Milo Vladek in The Dirty Dozen. Looking at some of the comments on his iMDB page, it seems that Tom was something of a character, described as 'not a saint' but nonetheless a real human being. He spent the final years of his life in the West End of Glasgow, where he shuffled off this mortal coil. His career doesn't appear to have been particularly illustrious, but I think I would have liked to have had a bevvy or two with him and listened to some of his stories.

Just like Ben Carruthers' character, Milos was sentenced to 30 years' hard labour before being picked for the suicide (well, for almost all of them anyway) mission on the bridge.

Next up, Clint Walker.

Not With A Bang

I've more or less given up now. Ben Carruthers - number 4 in the Back Six - played Glenn Gilpin, who was sentenced to 30 years' hard labour. He died of liver failure at the age of 47, and his son played drums briefly with Megadeth. That is all.

I spent much of my formative years (defined for me as between 16-35ish. Challenge this if you like) angrily railing against the current set-up of the Capitalist military-industrial complex and yearning for some kind of anarchist state.  (Apart from an early, brief, and – as I look back on it now – rather bizarre fixation with Nazism. Please don’t judge me. I was young and foolish, had grown up in a very provincial town where even now the BNP poll double the votes [3.2% against 1.6%] of the Green Party, and knew less than nothing about the world. I discovered socialism at about the same time as I discovered pot and patchouli. In any case, if you read this regularly, you’ll know that I’m as left leaning as they come, so I really don’t need to explain away my spotty 15 year-old self) This I suppose was never explored in any great detail, but rather grew out of the sense of anger and sadness at the inequalities in our world. Things just weren’t (and aren’t – let’s face it) right, and something had to be done. However, what that something was did not take shape, and did not seem in any way imminent. Now, after watching the hundreds of police queue for their free breakfast in the staff canteen this morning, as I listen to yet more helicopters hovering above, and as I keep an eye on the Guardian website for updates on the latest student protest, it all seems just that little bit more tangible.

The other night, while I was uploading a YouTube video, Twitter was keeping me up to date with the anonymous DDoS attacks on VISA, and for a moment I was very conflicted. Here was the potential for real progress at last – a sophisticated attack on one of the very pillars of the establishment in response to government efforts to stem the tide of transparency oozing out through the Wikileaks gash. The power of anonymous seemed quite stunning. Out of the blue, a major financial institution was temporarily brought to a standstill by a group of internet users. And this was a good thing. Something which I could applaud as a demonstration of activism and the ability of ordinary people (who know a fair bit about computers) to strike back.

But then a nagging doubt began to claw at the back of my mind. My cash card carries the VISA marque. I remembered the original financial meltdown as Alastair Darling announced the cash injections to save the banking system, and the genuine fear I felt at the time that it really could go tits up. I was on the verge of withdrawing the paltry sum which resided in my bank account at that time, because it all seemed terrifyingly close. Those DDoSs reminded me of that time. I began to think of those things involving VISA on which I – and those close to me – depend, and it all seemed so terribly inconvenient, so bloody scary if you like. This is obviously related to my advancing years and the fact that I have realised just how vulnerable I am, just how potentially close to a life on the street. All my youthful exuberance evaporated.

Roscoe Lever

Well, I always intended to add something extra into these Dirty Dozen posts, so that they were not simply mini bios of the actors in the film (though some of the more famous ones would surely make interesting reading) but having reached number 3 in the Back Six now with Stuart (sometimes known as Stuart W) Cooper, who played Roscoe Lever (sentenced to 20 years in prison - note the absence of the 'hard labour' element) without an idea as to how I can avoid shoehorning (or even Shoestringing) the usual bilious guff about Man City or politics or commuting into a piece about an ageing American thespian from Hoboken, New Jersey (that is one cool place name) I'm no longer so sure.

The previous post on Alan Mancini was something of a shoo-in (or a Shoestring-in) given the perhaps too obvious connections with the great Italian saviour of a city's pride, as well as the eponymous opportunities, but Stuart is proving to be a little more problematic. What's more galling is that I have placed myself behind a fence of my own creation, with this silly idea of completing 100 posts a year - 88 to be done by December - just to continue a tradition I started a couple of years ago by posting tenuously on the twelve days of Christmas theme.

I've already made a decision to revamp this thing in the new year, but am forcing myself to finish off the current crop in the style to which my loyal followers have grown accustomed (which is, with a lot of meaningless waffle) and so am gradually painting myself into a corner. Therefore, I'll try something outside the box.

This week, I laughed with my friend Charlie about Scott Parker's obvious association with the Thunderbirds. I read a particularly amusing atack on West Ham's throbbing gristly heart in the previous week's NOTW, in which the hack ripped 'skipper' apart for being a prima donna, and I have no great love for the player in any case. So Charlie and I were imagining Scotty receiving a hand job from Lady Penelope, where the usual Thunderbird trick of using a human hand for close-ups is employed. Charlie (and he is an authority on such trivia) told me that the hand used was Sylvia Anderson's, and so we extended our fantasy by having this hand the current one on the end of Sylvia's arm, all twisted and liver spotted with age as it feverishly pumps away at Scott's knob. Charlie took things a little too far I thought by introducing Avram Grant as an interloper who proceeds to stick it in Scotty's poo while Sylvia continues her work. I pointed out (perhaps a little ungraciously) that Avram's penis would undoubtedly require string to hold it up if he did indeed plan on sodomising his midfield general.

Stuart Cooper has a long history in film and theatre, which - as far as I can tell - is still a history in the making. He appears to be directing a film called Magic Man, starring Billy Zane, although it itsn't clear if there is a release date yet. Apart from the Dirty Dozen, Stuart appeared mostly in various TV series before moving into directing (again, mostly for TV movies) and producing. He also has a few writing credits, largely within the documentary field. Unlike Al Mancini, he didn't feature hugely on the British scene.

Alan Mancini

On to the second of the Back Six, and there really couldn't be a more suitable choice at the moment, combining as he does two of the great football references of the moment for any City fan - Al Mancini.

Let it roll around your palate for a while. Say it a few times. Al Mancini. The great Al Mancini. OK, he may not actually have been called Alan, but that's a minor detail. Born 1932 in Ohio, Al was a real trooper, rather more prolific than Colin Maitland, and definitely more recognisable, even to the hopeless Bing (actually, I don't wish to labour a point, but compare the two results for Al Mancini at the links [Google] here [Bing]. One brings up a good selection of images for the actor, while the other throws up a load of cats and the Manchester City manager. I will say no more...) than the Shoestring man. His character - Tassos Bravos - was, like Colin, sentenced to 20 years hard labour before being drafted into the Dirty Dozen. Needless to say, he dies defending the bridge at the end of the movie.

Al appeared in TW3 in the early 60s and had a hugely varied career, appearing in many of the staple TV programmes of my youth, such as Special Branch, UFO, Rhoda and The Protectors - to name but a few. He even did a few Jackanory slots, and towards the end of his life appeared in some big box office films like Miller's Crossing and Falling Down. He died of Alzheimer's disease shortly before his 75th birthday in London Ohio, not far from where he was born.

In short, Al was one of the greats. Even without the fabulous Alan de Carvalho stuff after the Salzburg match, I would pay homage to such a great actor. With it, there is just so much added weight to my love.

Colin

Fresh from the hilarity of the City fans chanting of my name at the Salzburg match the other night, it's time for my annual festive 12 parter to start. This year, I am writing about a great war film. Hope you enjoy it.

I used to watch Shoestring regularly. I think it was about a sleuthing DJ in Bristol. Some light research proves me correct, and adds the forgotten detail that he was a traumatised computer expert before becoming Radio West’s ‘private ear’, and the programme was possibly shown on a Sunday night, around 9 o’clock. I actually really enjoyed it at the time, but (and Dave Gorman recently mentioned this in relation to a strange episode in his life where he watched the pilot of The Six Million Dollar Man at the Cannes Film Festival. The programme, he said, just looked so terribly dated, and ended up causing much hilarity among the audience) I’m sure the same would not apply now. A regular contributor to Shoestring was The Sound Engineer, played by Colin Maitland. I had a great deal of difficulty turning up a picture of Mr Maitland via Bing image search (it’s extremely irritating to be directed towards people who are either a) Colin Maitland, but not the Colin Maitland; b) people called Maitland but not Colin; or worst of all, c) people called Colin but not Maitland!) and, although his images appear to be in short supply (fame is fickle, isn’t it?) Google demonstrated its superiority by displaying two pictures of the main man immediately. Followed by loads of people who aren’t him.

Colin was born in 1942 in Birmingham. He played perhaps the least famous member (one could perhaps say even, the least famous of the 'Back Six') of the Dirty Dozen – Seth Sawyer. All I can seem to discover about the character is that he was sentenced to 20 years hard labo(u)r. And that he dies (by means of a very specific weapon) after being shot down from a roof. It looks as if Colin’s personal life after the Dirty Dozen may have been just as much of a slog. Well, not really, but you get my drift.

Prior to his big break, he appeared as Charlie Sedgewick in Lolita (1962) and as Seaman Jones in The Bedford Incident (1965) which is a ‘highly rated Cold War submarine thriller’. I saw Lolita, didn’t particularly enjoy it, but can’t recall watching The Bedford Incident, though reading about it, I think I would like to. In neither film can I remember Colin Maitland.

It just goes to show how hard it must be to break into the big time. The Dirty Dozen was the number 1 box office film of 1967, and made a net profit of over $18,000,000 – a pretty tidy sum over 40 years ago I would imagine. How much of this money got through to someone like Colin is anyone’s guess. Probably not a huge proportion of it, but one would have thought that the part would at least look pretty good on the guy’s CV and provide him with a springboard for greater things. But it was not to be.