A fairly forgotten film from Corruption and Incense for the Damned man Robert Hartford-Davis, The Smashing Bird I Used to Know certainly sees the director trying to cover all the exploitation bases here. Its part horror film, part portrait of a cracked piece of jailbait, part women in prison film, with unlikely origins in a piece of Hollywood Babylon type gossip. While the script is officially credited to Hammer writer John Peacock (Straight on Till Morning, To the Devil A Daughter) it would appear Derek Ford also had an uncredited hand in writing this. In Ford and Hartford-Davis 'torn from today's headlines' manner the storyline is a play on the Stompanato murder case from the late Fifties, in which Lana Turner's daughter stabbed her mothers gangster boyfriend Johnny Stompanato to death, claiming self-defense. The story given a Sixties make-over and anglicized features Patrick Mower in the Stompanato role, here "Harry Spenton", a gigolo with hordes of elderly female admirers who welcome him with open cheque book. His latest mark, Anne Johnson (Renee Asherson, made up to look like Turner), is being romanced into buying him a launderette, which he thinks will make him his millions (ok, its an unusual scheme). While at the same time Harry has an amorous eye towards her school age daughter, played by Madeline Hinde from Incense for the Damned. Presumably Del Boy Ford and Hartford-Davis were thinking of a reprise of their jailbait theme from The Yellow Teddybears, but the very un-school age looking Hinde isn't very convincing in her school uniform, and when a character remarks she is "late for school", its temping to quip "yeah, by about six years". Poor Hinde is also plagued by psychedelic flashbacks to her fathers death (a freak accident on a fairground ride) and to use money/terminology of the time isn't a full shilling. As Mower (who to be honest isn't very good here) finds out when he tries it on with her and get stabbed for his troubles. As a result Hinde is sent to the sort of women's dentition centre where prisoners are allowed to dance to pop music in mini-skirts and inmates include a black hooker, a pregnant teenage girl, and a young Maureen Lipman as a tough lesbian. Actually Lipman's not bad, and perhaps sensing she was one of the better actresses they had, the script deserves credit for making her character a bit more three dimensional than just your standard bullying prison lesbian stereotype, how often do you hear that said about WIP films?
The Smashing Bird I Used to Know seems to equally represent what is captivating/infuriating about Hartford-Davis as a filmmaker. Like Incense for the Damned, much of it is filmed in a journeyman ITC episode fashion, but now and again comes up with sequences that explode like a firecracker. A punch up between Hinde's boyfriend and his sleazy, would be rapist friend for instance, and the climax which maybe a huge cop-out in narrative terms but is still a spectacular set piece. It does tend to be the sleazier incidents that animate Hartford-Davis the most however, an almighty catfight between the women is played for all its worth, with topless extras drafted in for good measure, as the "treatment" dished out to one of the girls who is stripped, dragged into a shower and beaten with brooms. The central stabbing of Mower, which happens early on in the film but gets flashbacked to several times, comes across almost like a gender reverse of the infamous European version murder scene in Corruption. With Mower and scantily-clad Hinde throwing each other around a room, a quick flash of a knife later and suddenly we have "The Blood Splattered Mower". As with the murders in his horror films, Hartford-Davis uses lots of manic hand held camera work for the scene to suggest hysteria, like a more professional take on Andy Milligan's "swirl camera" effect. It honestly looks like Hartford-Davis directed it while having a seizure (he was by all accounts actually prone to having on-set panic attacks). The supporting cast who generally provoke a response of "isn't that a young " include Dennis Waterman, Derek Fowlds, Leslie-Ann Down, plus Corruption's Valerie Van Ost (who gets to keep her head this time) and David Lodge as the dead dad, well, you know Hartford-Davis had to put Dave Lodge in there somewhere. In a self-congratulatory moment, Hartford Davis even has Mower meeting one of his girlfriends outside a cinema showing Corruption. The original British title seems a bit misleading though, suggesting a swinging Sixties romp a la Smashing Time, or perhaps to the really naïve/literal minded audience member a film about ornithology. The American title was "School for Unclaimed Girls" which at least nails one aspect of the film, as well clueing audiences up to its exploitation content, with the film's fixations with the younger set, lesbianism and cat fights this is certainly a case of 'hornythology' than ornithology (sorry, that was a dreadful pun!) . Pity that Hartford-Davis' most colourful and lurid works like this and Corruption appear to be in distribution limbo, leaving him to be represented on DVD by Gonks Go Beat, and compromised releases of The Fiend and Incense for the Damned. The poor man must be rolling in his grave.
The Smashing Bird I Used to Know seems to equally represent what is captivating/infuriating about Hartford-Davis as a filmmaker. Like Incense for the Damned, much of it is filmed in a journeyman ITC episode fashion, but now and again comes up with sequences that explode like a firecracker. A punch up between Hinde's boyfriend and his sleazy, would be rapist friend for instance, and the climax which maybe a huge cop-out in narrative terms but is still a spectacular set piece. It does tend to be the sleazier incidents that animate Hartford-Davis the most however, an almighty catfight between the women is played for all its worth, with topless extras drafted in for good measure, as the "treatment" dished out to one of the girls who is stripped, dragged into a shower and beaten with brooms. The central stabbing of Mower, which happens early on in the film but gets flashbacked to several times, comes across almost like a gender reverse of the infamous European version murder scene in Corruption. With Mower and scantily-clad Hinde throwing each other around a room, a quick flash of a knife later and suddenly we have "The Blood Splattered Mower". As with the murders in his horror films, Hartford-Davis uses lots of manic hand held camera work for the scene to suggest hysteria, like a more professional take on Andy Milligan's "swirl camera" effect. It honestly looks like Hartford-Davis directed it while having a seizure (he was by all accounts actually prone to having on-set panic attacks). The supporting cast who generally provoke a response of "isn't that a young " include Dennis Waterman, Derek Fowlds, Leslie-Ann Down, plus Corruption's Valerie Van Ost (who gets to keep her head this time) and David Lodge as the dead dad, well, you know Hartford-Davis had to put Dave Lodge in there somewhere. In a self-congratulatory moment, Hartford Davis even has Mower meeting one of his girlfriends outside a cinema showing Corruption. The original British title seems a bit misleading though, suggesting a swinging Sixties romp a la Smashing Time, or perhaps to the really naïve/literal minded audience member a film about ornithology. The American title was "School for Unclaimed Girls" which at least nails one aspect of the film, as well clueing audiences up to its exploitation content, with the film's fixations with the younger set, lesbianism and cat fights this is certainly a case of 'hornythology' than ornithology (sorry, that was a dreadful pun!) . Pity that Hartford-Davis' most colourful and lurid works like this and Corruption appear to be in distribution limbo, leaving him to be represented on DVD by Gonks Go Beat, and compromised releases of The Fiend and Incense for the Damned. The poor man must be rolling in his grave.