Blackout (1978)…did the power fail?

Blackout (1978)

Sadism on the Loose

‘Holy power cut, Batman!’ Boy Wonder would cry before the crime-fighting duo Whap! and Kapow! the villains into submission. Blackout (1978) doesn’t have Batman or Robin, but it does have phlegmatic super- cop, Dan Evans, defending the citizens of Gotham.

Blackout is billed as a thriller and also a black comedy, but manifests more like a low-rent exploitation-disaster movie.  The chaos of New York City’s 1977 blackout provides the opportunity for four deranged criminals to escape police custody and go on to terrorise a swanky Manhattan apartment block. Rape, murder, arson and robbery ensue.

The opening scene is an ominous shot of electricity pylons shrouded by threatening storm clouds, the foreboding heightened by a menacing sound track. An aerial shot of the Empire State building with a bleak weather report leaves us in no doubt as to what is coming. The camera cuts to a busy street scene and follows our hero (Jim Mitchum, son of Robert) chasing a purse-snatcher. He is relentless in the pursuit, and would have caught the thief if it wasn’t for a pesky clothes rail that appears at just the wrong moment. Inevitably, he gets tangled up in the shirts.

“At power grid HQ the control panel, which is larger than the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, is ablaze with red and amber warning lights.”

We then witness our felons being bundled into a Department of Corrections van to be taken to another secure unit. The two escorting officers, one of whom appears to have borrowed his moustache from Leather Man in the Village People, are tetchy when told they need to wait for another offender, domestic terrorist, Christie (Robert Carradine). He promptly arrives by helicopter, having been diverted from JKF due to media attention. It’s not clear why the helicopter can’t fly him directly to his destination, but why let common sense get in the way of the plot? The cops push him into the truck and set off. Thunder and lightning is now crackling and flashing dangerously. At power grid HQ the control panel, which is larger than the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, is ablaze with red and amber warning lights; prompting us to grip the side of the sofa in trepidation of the impending disaster.

Biker Mayhem and Road Carnage

In what has to be the most random and avoidable road accident in the history of cinema, two bikers appear, seemingly having taken a wrong turn from the set of Dawn of the Dead. Although the road is utterly deserted, the road hogs careen in front of the van causing it to swerve and crash into a flimsy plywood shack. The prisoners break out unscathed to find both police officers embedded in the windscreen. By donning the dead men’s uniforms, the motley crew are able to trick the security guard of a nearby apartment complex into letting them in. They immediately kill him and, with Christie as ringleader, commence their reign of terror.

Blackout (1978)

 On his way to clock-in for the nightshift, Evans spots the wreckage and hops inside for a peek. His night nosedives further when a woman appears on her balcony, screaming for help. Flashlight in hand, he leaves a couple of bystanders in charge of the scene and hotfoots it into the apartment building.

Gun Shots and Burning Rubber

The plot then meanders around the building for a while, with Evans handcuffing one of the gang to a toilet pan. Tricked by Christie, he is overpowered by the baddies who tie him up with wire connected to a speedily rigged contraption – ready to be electrocuted when the power is returned. All that’s missing is an Acme Corporation stick of dynamite. Will our hero be rescued in the nick of time? Or will it be a crispy end?

Jim Mitchum as Dan Evans in Blackout

Unsurprisingly, Evans escapes; rescued by…? Didn’t see that one comin’ did ya?  One by one the perps are offed until Christie is the last man standing. Finally the power comes on, in terms of the action, and a car chase almost on par with The French Connection speeds off. After some good sound effects in a dimly lit underground car park, Christie inexplicitly drives into a wall, causing the car to explode. As he tries to escape his trench coat catches fire and Evans watches him burn to death.

Robert Carradine in Blackout

As with many b-movies, the plot flaws and so-bad-it’s-good vibe provide the entertainment in Blackout. Sadly the power did kinda fail here, and the most shocking aspect was the bad driving (resulting in deadly crashes). For anyone who loves 1970s New York, it delivers on grittiness, with cool cars and kitsch apartments. For everyone else, it may be more washout than blackout.

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Why You Should Take A Trip Into The Wardrobe

 

“…flashing lights will take you to another world…and the answers you’re looking for may just be found in the inner wardrobes of your mind…”

 

The Vibes, 1980s trash garage band. Inner Wardrobes of Your Mind

 

The Psychedelic World of The Vibes

The Vibes’ EP ‘Inner Wardrobe of Your Mind’ is a mind-bending, almost synaesthetic, voyage into another dimension. I recall one sunny autumn afternoon bunking off college with my best mate. We were in my bedroom, waiting for the mushie-tea we’d choked down to kick in. The red and purple and white of the EP label was spinning in a carnivalesque haze on my hi-fi turntable. I was about to do a hand-trail test, convinced the mushies weren’t working, but then did a quick double take on the album cover. The words were undulating, the frazzled bloke’s hair was pulsing and his eyebrows were twitching. I glanced at my mate, but she was too engrossed in smoking a Superking to notice. Back to the cover. It was still hoaching and writhing like a maggot infestation. The deranged bloke on the cover was now nodding and squinting at me. Had he been in the wardrobe? Was that what you look like before you go in or when you come out? What was he trying to tell me?

“This could be the answer you’re looking for…”

I was desperate to know, and allowed myself to merge into the purple and red.

 I sat cross-legged on my bedroom carpet, lost in an unhinged world for an hour, five minutes, a year – how long did it take my mate to smoke that fag? I reached over to switch the light bulb off, it was way too bright. But, despite my attempts, the damn thing stayed on. Frustrated, I turned my attention back to the wardrobe, desperate to see inside and learn its secrets. And all the while the bloke’s hair was pulsing and his eyebrows twitching. Jesus Christ, that wardrobe was a dark place and didn’t offer any hint to its cavernous possibilities. And then, in what seemed like half an eyebrow twitch, the purple and red spewed me out. Side Red had finished and I had to get up and flip the record over to Side Purple.

 

The Vibes, Inner Wardrobes of Your Mind

 

Trash is Glorious

If you like your rock ‘n’ roll to spit out a screechin’ and howlin’ explosion of energy, you’re in luck. Punk-trash-garage meets psychedelic-tripped-out rockabilly, this is one helluva trip through your mind’s inner wardrobes. Mine are still leaning precariously to one side with both doors hanging off. The Vibes emerged from the same swamplands as The Sting-Rays and Thee Milkshakes, and have the welts and bruises from the Cramps’ stiletto heels all over them.

There are only four tracks on this EP, and the hallucinatory overtones add to its intensity. Side Red includes ‘I Hear Noises (extended trip version)’ and ‘I’m In Pittsburgh (And It’s Rain’in)’. The latter is a more menacing and urgent cover of The Outcasts’ 1965 garage track. Side Purple brings us ‘Hasil Adkins In My Head’, and ‘Scratch My Back’. For those of you unfamiliar with Hasil Adkins, he was known as the ‘godfather of psychobilly’, and his suitably weird and filthy lyrics were a major influence on the Cramps, who covered ‘She Said’.

 

 

Everyone Needs a Wardrobe

‘Yer awfy quiet,’ my mate said, grinding the dowt into the saucer-come-ashtray, ‘let’s get out of here.’ We wandered up to the local post office, where we stood outside for an unknown period of time, trying to get it together to go in and buy a 1st class stamp.

Like bioluminescent fireflies, The Vibes’ lifespan was short. They formed in 1983, but by 1986 they had all but self-immolated.  Although they had several 12” and 7” releases, they only produced one studio album ‘What’s Inside?’ in 1985. Several members went on to form The Purple Things, and Lloyd Tripp moved to America where he still performs as Lloyd Tripp and the Zipguns.

 ‘Inner Wardrobes of Your Mind’ is a bit like The Vibes themselves – it tears through your head like a crazed and hellacious rockin’ twister and then, all too quickly, it’s over. It might be a short ride, but a journey into the wardrobe “could be the answer you’re looking for”.

Check out our 1980s page for more groovy stuff to watch/read/listen to.

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Banned Book Club

Join Our Banned Book Club!

book burning

Greetings Power Cutters!

I’ll be honest, I have only recently discovered #BannedBooksWeek, and was surprised to discover it’s been around since 1982! But I did some digging and found that book banning goes back centuries, and the reasons are all too familiar. John Milton’s Aeropagitica, written in 1644 and banned until 1695, was a passionate defence of free speech and critique of censorship. Milton was a bit of a rebel politically, and a royal proclamation was issued in 1660 calling for the suppression and burning of two of his previous works. Almost 400 years later, the irony continues as academics and writers advocating for free speech follow the same fate, having their work censored or banned. It might have given Milton a degree of satisfaction in knowing his work was banned for posing a threat to the establishment. However, some books are banned for the most ridiculous reasons.

3 Craziest Book Bans

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell – banned by the South African Government during the Apartheid era because of the word ‘Black’ in the title.

Little Red Riding Hood – was banned in 1990 by two Californian school boards because Red had a bottle of wine in her basket.

Tarzan series by Edgar Rice Burroughs – California again. Banned because Tarzan and Jane were cavorting out of wedlock in the treetops.

Leave Agatha Christie Alone! Don’t Mess With Ian Fleming!

Books shouldn’t be banned and they shouldn’t be retrospectively censored. All art is a reflection of a moment in time, which is inextricably fixed in its identity. Attempts to alter a book will only destroy its balance and essence. Books written now are products of this world and this life, and play a vital part in deconstructing society for us. Future attempts to carve them into something more aligned with our descendants’ way of thinking would miss the point entirely.

Banned Book Club

last exit to brooklyn

With this in mind, what better time to launch our Banned Book Club than the end of Banned Books Week? Every month we’ll be reading a banned book from the 20th century. Get in touch if you have any suggestions.

We’re going to kick things off with Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964) by Hubert Selby Jr. Like any good book club, we’d love to know what your thoughts are. Do you love it, hate it, DNF? Here are some Banned Book Club questions to consider:

What scene has stuck with you the most?

What did you think of the writing?

Should it have been banned?

If you are keen to read more cult classics from the 1960s, check out our mini-guide to essential music, books and movies of the decade.

If you have enjoyed reading this post, please support us to keep our Banned Book Club going.

The Best Literary Magazine Title Ever – Courtesy Of The 1970s

Welcome Power Cutters!!

We’re kicking off this first blog post by getting down to Power Cut business – why call a literary magazine Power Cut? The zine is a tribute to all things 20th century and one of the first names bandied about was Flying Saucers and PVC Pants, an attempt to capture the essence of the 1950s and 1970s. But FS&PVCP was hardly catchy and had about as much ring to it as a phone in a 1980s slasher movie. So it was back to the drawing board for a moniker that could connect the past to the current zeitgeist without sliding into nostalgia-naffness.

Enter the 70s

Whoever said the 70s was the decade that style forgot clearly had no sense of style themselves. We should be thanking the 70s for giving us Kojak, the Sex Pistols, Bruce Lee films, and tie-dye. Kids fuelled on Findus Crispy Pancakes and Cremola Foam happily bounded the streets on Space Hoppers, while adults remained indoors puffing on Silk Cut and drinking endless cups of tea. Everyone was happy. But the national psyche was also shaped by darker forces – the power cut.

Lights Go Out…

Between 1972 and 1974 power cuts and blackouts were imposed on the nation following a series of coal miners’ strikes. People were encouraged to only heat one room and keep non-essential lights switched off. [The latter has since been readily adopted as standard practice by dads across the country. This is often accompanied by the refrain, ‘It’s like Blackpool illuminations in here!’ as they plunge their teenage offspring into ambient and existential darkness.]

Miners also picketed power stations in an attempt to restrict coal supply. This prompted Prime Minister Edward Heath to impose a Three-Day Week as a way to conserve stocks. The restrictions kicked off on 1st January 1974, and ironically ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ by Slade was number 1 in the charts. ‘Dreary Xmas Everybody’, might have been more apt.

The Times They Are Not A-Changing

Other than essential services, all businesses had to limit their use of electricity to the Three-Day Week. This led to bizarre scenarios of pubs opening by candlelight, and barbers administering buzzcuts in the street. Hundreds of factory production lines ground to a halt and thousands found themselves turfed onto the dole. Even Santa Claus found himself out of a job that year. Panic buying led to empty shelves in supermarkets as people stockpiled essential goods. The country was in a state of emergency.

Welcome to Fear City

Fast forward to July 1977. The New York City blackouts were not caused by political conflict or poor government policy but by lightning strikes. Although the power outage only lasted between 13-14 July, it occurred when the city was experiencing harsh economic problems and the Son of Sam was prowling the streets.

Prior to the blackouts, New York City had been on the brink of bankruptcy. To save money essential services had been slashed, prompting the fire and police unions to distribute pamphlets with the headline ‘Welcome to Fear City’ to tourists. It was a stunt intended to pressure the city mayor against further job cuts. The chaos of a blackout, for a city already simmering in anger and fear, was enough to spark a state of disorder and looting. This period spawned cult movies such as ‘The Warriors’, and despite Giuliani’s gentrification of the city in the 90s, New York still labours under the legacy of this post-apocalyptic vision.

Can’t Beat the Stench of Burning Lard

So why name a literary magazine after all this grief and aggro?  Like all good writing, the term ‘power cut’ can be interpreted at different levels, literally and symbolically. I see it as symbolic of the spirit and resilience shown in these challenging situations and the creativity that sprung from them. In the winter of 1973, the people of Britain had to come up with ingenious ways to conquer the boredom, to make cash last that bit longer, and to get a short back and sides or a feather cut. Entrepreneurialism thrived; in response to the inevitable candle shortage, butchers began selling lard on string as an alternative. However, the stench and smoke from burning lard were so overpowering that a tear gas attack may have been more enjoyable. 

Colonel Mustard is Guilty

By Johannes Østby – https://www.flickr.com

Lastly, in terms of fiction writing, you couldn’t ask for a more dramatic setting than a power cut. All kinds of Noir-ish goings-on can be thought up around a blackout. An epic Stephen King-esque horror could unfold or a Hitchcock-like psychological exploration into the protagonist’s fear of the dark. Colonel Mustard could even kill Professor Plum in the courtyard with the revolver, out his mind on burning lard fumes.

My view is that fiction should always be slightly subversive, or at least shining a crooked light into the shadows of current orthodoxy. Unsurprisingly, the theme of our first issue will be power cuts, so get ready for the lights to go out and all manner of weirdness and mayhem to unfold.

Ready to get going? Check out our essential Tool Kit, a mini guide to cult classics for each decade. Why not start in the 1930s and follow the pop culture journey? Alternatively, go straight to the 1990s and trace back to see where the inspiration for all your favourites came from.

If you’d like to support our retrograde obsession, we’d be chuffed if you bought us a cup of tea.