TAKE ME TO THE CLEANERS

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy - as Shelley Duvall once discovered.

On the other hand, non-stop slogging can also play havoc with your health if one isn't too careful - especially at the height of flu season. Which is most likely why the last few days in Poptique towers have been spent sniffing, sneezing and generally feeling somewhat under the weather.

It's not all bad news though - being unable to do much has afforded me the rare opportunity of vegetating in front of the TV, a once regular pleasure.

Soon realising there was small refuge in the UK daytime schedules (after welcome a half-term screening of the charming Kiki's Delivery Service)I swiftly opted for the recently arrived Hollywood Legends of Horror Collection(at least, as swiftly as a swaying, sweating, staggering mess of a man can manage to pop a disc in a drive...).

This is a great collection of art-deco deplorables, foremost amoung them the ludicrously camp The Mask of Fu Manchu, with evergreen Boris Karloff and ever-beguiling Myrna Loy. The great looking print includes a fistful of deviously ripe dialog exchanges removed from the original camera negative in the 1970s, but restored for a deleted laserdisc edition. There's no doubting its influence on the Raiders movies - the FX filled climaxes from both films being remarkably similar for a start.

The same disc also features MGM's oddball Mark of the Vampire and both have very decent commentary tracks. That's not all, though - for the divvy on the rest of this collection check out DVD Savant's review here. Highly recommended for the living and living dead alike.

So anyway, on the road to recovery today, which means back to the grindstone once again... Nonetheless, it's always nice to feel healthier and cleaner after felling like utter crap for a few days - which, stretching my already tattered credability, tenuously links to the clip below - a 1960s cinema advertisement from the legendary Richard Williams Studio.

Oh well, please yourself - I've been ill, you know...