Thinking of Julie Ege, we might see her slinking behind that futuristic pinball machine in 'The Final Programme' or biting David Chiang in 'The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires' or playing opposite Frankie Howerd in 'Up Pompeii' or Leslie Philips in 'Not Now Darling' and 'The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins'. She was more than an actress, she was a presence. Her glamour lit up the screen so vividly that you sometimes walked out away from a film with an afterglow. There are plenty of good actresses in the world, but the quality that Julie Ege brought to those appearances and occasional leads was important enough to have her image in every piece of publicity. In fact, many who might have been too young to see all those 'X' certificates (British 'X' including all the relatively mild horror films of the time), knew her best from her film stills.
My experience with 'The Mutations' began with the stills in 'World of Horror' magazine, a short lived title created at a time there were relatively few British horror themes magazines. I didn't see the film until it played at the legendary Scala cinema at some point in the 80s. The style and tone of the film was so unique and dark. There is a scene with a deformed Tom Baker and a prostitute that remains one of my favourite depressing moments in any film (and there have been a few). But the great nature photography by Ken Middleham with mushrooms sprouting like alien creatures, the truly amazing actors working as 'freaks', the great make-up on Tom Baker (later to be the most iconic Dr Who), and obviously Donald Pleasance as the mad doctor, all contributed to the dazzling style of Jack Cardiff and the photography of Paul Beeson.
I should mention the music by Basil Kirchin, for many of us, Kirchin is one of the great musical geniuses of the last century. A truly experimental composer whose work occasionally veered into the slightly crazier end of experimentalism or into the purest musical forms of jazz and soundtrack music. His 'Abstractions of the Industrial North', a selection of strange tracks, many of which seemed to be the kind of music you'd find in incidental music, is one of the great albums (it has been uploaded to RU-vid). His music for 'The Mutations', 'The Abominable Dr Phibes', 'The Strange Affair' and the jazzy background music for 'Primitive London' are all the stuff of legend, worth listening to whether you have seen the films or not. I have only included a few seconds here for obvious reasons.
Julie Ege's career in movies was a relatively short but notable one. She returned to Norway to train as a nurse and worked as such in a hospital even after being diagnosed with the breast cancer that was eventually to take her life. Like many who worked in the horror and comedy films of the early 70s she was, apparently, quite surprised that her work was significant enough for her to still have fans who had been born after her career as an actress and model was behind her.
Ege said that she most enjoyed working in comedy and, even though The Mutations is the film I am blabbering on about the most, her comic roles were probably the ones she made her own. She was able to play the comedy of glamour best in Ray Cooney's star studded farce, 'Not Now Darling' and, perhaps most famously, in 'Up Pompeii'. I think she also excels in 'The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins', the sin being Leslie Phillip's gluttony (he can't wait to get his hands on something sweet in his bureau drawer) and also in the less seen 'sex comedy' 'Rentadick' (whose title is nowhere near as vulgar as our American cousins might assume being that it refers to private investigator). Although she did appear nude in two or three films (or maybe four or five), she always objected to the idea that she was someone who always appeared naked. She allegedly turned down the role of Sister Hyde in 'Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde' because of the nudity. I think it's more to the point that during this period, people were growing more liberated about the idea of nudity.
Contents
0:00 - The Mutations
0:51 - Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires and Creatures the World Forgot
1:05 - The Mutations and The Final Programme
1:32 - Rentadick and The Mutations
1:56 - The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins Titles and Rentadick
2:38 - Every Home Should Have One and The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins and Rentadick
3:02 - Craze and Rentadick and The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins
3:23 - Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires and Every Home Should Have One and Rentadick
3:28 - Not Now Darling and Up Pompeii
3:37 - Every Home Should Have One
3:50 - Up Pompeii and Rentadick
4:02 - Every Home Should Have One and Rentadick
4:14 - Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires
#julieege #hammer #hammerhorror #hammerglamour #britishhorror #britishcomedy #themutations #sexcomedies #ジュリーエーギ
Music: Hey Girl by Topher Mohr and Alex Elena
10 июл 2024
