I can’t imagine a magazine title like this today – the very name ‘Sub Standard’ would just have no appeal I would have thought.

However thinking about it, back in 1950 that description probably covered films, only a year or two old, that had been on General Release and now were issued on 16 mm reels – probably to be shown at smaller cinemas or Village Halls.

As we all remember, at that time films were very popular – after all there was little else – television had barely got going then

This really is a fascinating magazine – the more I read the more interesting it gets..

In 1950 quite a lot of smaller 16mm commerical kinemas were popping up all over the country and this article in the magazine concentrates on two that had recently opened in July of that year – one at Sandy Bedfordshire and One at Lavenham in Suffolk

ABOVE – The Auditorium at Sandy, Bedfordshire

ABOVE Inside the Ideal Cinema in Lavenham, Suffolk

ABOVE – More releases that year – not many I know though

ABOVE Lana Morris at the opening of the Albany Cinema, in Sandy along with John Blye and Mr M.H.Whitworth.

John Blythe and Lana Morris represented The Rank Organisation at the opening of the Albany – and Rank also supplied the film ‘Trottie True’ to be shown that night – this would be on the 16 mm format and would be in Technicolor. The film was only a couple of years old then.

Mr A H Whitworth was a very keen 16 mm Cinema enthusiast very much behind the Sandy Cinema Project – he had his own equipment and had been someone who travelled around showing these feature films at Village and Town Halls around that area. He had made a superb job of equipping the Albany and must have been a very proud man on this occasion. Credit due to him

These pictures were taken after Treasure Island when they were back in Hollywood and maybe two to three years later

Walt Disney and Bobby Driscoll

Walt Disney and Bobby Driscoll

One of Bobby’s notable roles was as Peter Pan in 1953. Although he was approaching his teen years, he was perfect as Peter Pan in Walt Disney’s eyes, as Peter Pan would have been the same age.

Bobby had many qualities that matched Pete Pan. Although a fictional character from our childhood and means a lot to a whole generation.

Despite Peter Pan being his most successful role, his career quickly declined after this.

Not long after this film, he was dropped from his contract at Disney and left jobless. Bobby could no longer play the cute and charming little boy. He moved schools, started going by the name Robert, and started a new life.

A new life that was heavily influenced by drugs.

He did pick up a few more roles here and there, but away from Walt Disney he didn’t seem to have much appeal to other studios

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In 1966, Hammer studios gave the world its cave-girl classic One Million Years B.C., which featured fur bikini-clad girls, including Raquel Welch and Martine Beswick

The next year they also made ‘Prehistoric Women’ ( Slave Girls), a jungle adventure which saw Martine Beswick back again this time once again playing a wildcat with a nasty streak.

The plot doesn’t make a lot of sense (how exactly the “legend of the white rhinoceros” is tied to the rest of the story is never made clear), Michael Latimer is a bland lead and the pace is padded with lots of tribal dancing.

Written and directed by Michael Carreras, ‘Prehistoric Women’ is technically one of Hammer’s weakest efforts. However, it is also one of those rare films that manages to be entertaining thanks to its awfulness.

Michael Latimer plays David Marchand, a jungle guide who is taken captive by savage, white rhinoceros worshipping natives who intend to sacrifice him to their god. Just as he is about to be killed, David touches their sacred rhino statue, which freezes time and opens a doorway into a kingdom where a tribe of girls, led by the heartless Queen Kari (Beswick), have enslaved a different tribe of other girls

After falling for a slave girl named Saria (Edina Ronay), David vows to help the women overthrow their oppressors, a task made all the more difficult when he is clapped in irons for spurning Kari’s sexual advance

Then film includes loads of native song and dance numbers to pad out the action (including a solo routine from Martine Beswick, the occasional cat-fight, a jungle battle, and a surprise ending that makes no sense whatsoever.

The film is sheer nonsense from start to finish – but it is also great fun

Despite its American retitling, Prehistoric Women, Michael Carreras’ Slave Girls doesn’t really belong to that run of cavemen films that Hammer Films made around the same time (One Million Years B.C. (1966), When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1969) and Creatures the World Forgot (1971)). It’s more of a “lost world” story with an adventurer stumbling across a society secreted away in the heart of Africa and it’s a pretty awful one to boot.

It had been decided that in order to save money Hammer would shoot the whole thing on sound stages at Elstree Studios. One Million Years B.C. had cost Hammer a small fortune by their standards so sets and costumes were recycled and where the prehistorics set sail for exotic climes like the Canary Islands and Namibia, Slave Girls stayed studio bound. Art director Robert Jones does his best, even going so far as building a waterfall set.

I personally thought that the studio sets were pretty impressive and very colourful

In the UK ‘Slave Girls’ was first released on a double bill with one of Hammer’s  The Devil Rides Out (1968) 

A film entitled ‘Prehistoric Women’ was released in 1950 – a Cinecolor Production – showing at the above cinema in Amsterdam

Earlier than this in 1950 we had a similarly titled film – apparently ‘Prehistoric Women’ was put out in the USA on a Double Bill with ‘Man Beast’ itself an Ultra Cheap Production.

This still I took from the Newsreel footage of the event – I was so interested to see ‘Brigadoon’ advertised – a Show and a Film I really like, maybe because where I worked a lot of years ago, some of the girls from the Offices were in a local production of this. It was big news for us at the time – although a good few years after this film came out

The world premiere of ‘The Dam Busters’: an Associated British picture, was held at The Empire Theatre, Leicester Square… Monday, May 16th 1955

A wonderful story – about a village in Scotland that only comes to life for one day in a hundred years. Two travellers from the USA come across this village – the village of BRIGADOON – and one of the men Gene Kelly falls in love with one of the villagers Cyd Charisse but he soon realises that she will never be able to leave the village and so he must stay there forever.

Brigadoon was a Broadway musical that ran for over 12,000 performances both in the United States and England. In 1954 it was made into a movie musical starring Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, Cyd Charisse, and Virginia Bosler.

As far as musicals go what made Brigadoon interesting was that the storyline was unique.

MGM decided to make the film in the studios which meant enormous studio sets of the Scottish Highlands. The film is and Colour and Cinemascope Scotland looked magnificent – as it always does !!!