About this item
- Original lobby card measuring 8x10 inches. This lobby card is from Great Britain and was printed during the actual year the film was released in movie theaters.
- The lobby card (also known as Front of House/ FOH card in the UK) was created by the film studios to publicise the movie and was intended for display outside the movie theatre in special glass display boxes. THESE ARE NOT REPRODUCTIONS! You are looking at a truly original piece of cinema art, a genuine collector's item.
The Smashing Bird I Used to Know
| The Smashing Bird I Used to Know | |
|---|---|
 U.S. publicity poster | |
| Directed by | Robert Hartford-Davis |
| Written by | John Peacock |
| Produced by | Peter Newbrook |
| Starring | Renée Asherson Patrick Mower Dennis Waterman Madeleine Hinde Maureen Lipman |
| Cinematography | Peter Newbrook |
| Edited by | Don Deacon |
| Music by | Bobby Richards |
Production company | Titan International |
| Distributed by | American International Pictures (U.S.) |
Release date | 25 August 1969 |
Running time | 95 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The Smashing Bird I Used to Know is a 1969 British drama/sexploitation film, directed by Robert Hartford-Davis and starring Renée Asherson, Patrick Mower, Dennis Waterman, Madeleine Hinde and Maureen Lipman.[1] The film was not released in the U.S. until 1973, retitled by AIP as School for Unclaimed Girls.[2] AIP also reissued the film a year later under their shadow company United Producers Organization as Hell House Girls. It is also known as House of Unclaimed Women.[1]
As with other Hartford-Davis films, The Smashing Bird I Used to Know contains elements from different genres including psychological drama and social commentary. It is best known however as a sexploitation piece featuring nudity, attempted rape and lesbianism. The film features the first screen credit of the then 15-year-old Lesley-Anne Down in a supporting role.[3]
Plot[edit]
Nine-year-old Nicki Johnson attends a funfair with her parents. Her father takes her on a merry-go-round ride, where Nicki becomes frightened. Attempting to reach over to comfort her, her father instead falls from the ride and is crushed to death in its machinery. The tragedy leaves Nicki traumatised, particularly as in its aftermath she overhears comments suggesting that she was to blame for what happened, which leave her with a permanent sense of guilt.
Seven years on and Nicki is a troubled and confused teenager living with her mother, plagued by flashback nightmares and with an obsession with horses and riding stemming from the merry-go-round horror. Since being widowed, her mother Anne has withdrawn emotionally from her daughter and has sought consolation with a succession of younger lovers. Her latest boyfriend Harry, who Nicki detests, is a sleazy con-artist who makes his living out of latching on to wealthy older women and fleecing them financially before moving on. Nicki is left largely to her own devices and often plays truant from school, spending the time with her boyfriend Peter.
Returning home one day from a riding lesson, Nicki finds herself alone in the house with Harry. He attempts to seduce her, and when she proves resistant, taunts her with the fact that her trust fund is now in his control. A struggle ensues, during which Nicki stabs him several times, leaving him seriously injured. For her trouble, she is sent to a remand home for young women with emotional and behavioural problems.
Coming from a middle-class background, Nicki is overwhelmed by her new environment among a large group of tough, delinquent and maladjusted girls, where bullying and violence is the norm. She tries to keep a low profile to avoid being victimised, but matters improve when she strikes up an unlikely friendship with lesbian fellow inmate Sarah. Despite Sarah's fearsome reputation as one of the toughest girls on the block, she becomes Nicki's unofficial protector. As the friendship develops, Sarah reveals her more vulnerable side to Nicki and they discover that they have much in common with regard to how they ended up where they are. Sarah makes it clear that her feelings towards Nicki go beyond friendship, and a tentative intimacy develops between the pair.
Sarah and Nicki finally make the decision to abscond together rather than face the prospect of being sent to borstal. Soon after, Sarah is apprehended, but Nicki avoids capture and manages to make it to Peter's flat in the village where he works for an interior designer. The sensible Peter tries to convince her that she has done herself no favours by running away from her problems and that in the long-term it is better that she should face up to them by returning to the remand home. Nicki is initially unconvinced, but finally realises that he is right. She agrees to being driven back; but as they arrive at a bridge with a bottleneck passage, an approaching truck causes them to veer off the road and over the bridge to their deaths.
Cast[edit]
- Renée Asherson as Anne Johnson
- Dennis Waterman as Peter
- Patrick Mower as Harry Spenton
- Madeleine Hinde as Nicki Johnson
- Faith Brook as Dr. Sands
- Janina Faye as Susan
- David Lodge as Richard Johnson
- Maureen Lipman as Sarah
- Colette O'Neil as Miss Waldron
- Megs Jenkins as Matron
- Derek Fowlds as Geoffrey
- Lesley-Anne Down as Diana
- Cleo Sylvestre as Carlien
- Valerie Van Ost as Amanda
- Sheila Steafel as young woman
Production[edit]
A scene outside a cinema shows the poster for Hartford-Davis’ previous film Corruption starring Peter Cushing in the background. The village and interior designer shop where Peter works was filmed in Petworth in West Sussex.[citation needed]
Critical reception[edit]
Monthly Film Bulletin said "A preposterous blend of cheap melodrama and pat psychology, with a large slice of life after lights out in a girls remand home thrown in for good measure. Robert Hartford-Davis' bludgeoning direction combines a frenzied excess of tricksiness (monochrome filters, repeated flashbacks in negative, a ludicrous jigsaw of superimposed flash shots) with a tasteless relish for gory detail, like the recurring close-ups of poor Nicki's father's head being mangled by the iron hoof of a mechanical horse; and one is not surprised to find him working in a shot of a poster advertising his last film. The story is trite, the dialogue almost unbelievably banal, and the acting generally feeble, with the possible exception of Maureen Lipman as one of the less unlikely remand home inmates."[4]
Dennis Waterman
Dennis Waterman | |
|---|---|
 Waterman in 2012 | |
| Born | 24 February 1948 Clapham, London, England |
| Died | 8 May 2022 (aged 74) La Manga, Murcia, Spain |
| Occupation(s) | Actor, singer |
| Years active | 1960–2020 |
| Spouses |
|
| Children | 2, including Hannah |
Dennis Waterman (24 February 1948 – 8 May 2022) was an English actor and singer. He was best known for his tough-guy leading roles in television series including The Sweeney, Minder and New Tricks, singing the theme tunes of the latter two.
Waterman's acting career spanned 60 years, starting with his childhood roles in film and theatre, and adult roles in film, television and West End theatre. He was known for the range of roles he played, including drama (Up the Junction), horror (Scars of Dracula), adventure (Colditz), comedy (Fair Exchange), comedy-drama (Minder), musical (Windy City) and sport (The World Cup: A Captain's Tale). He appeared in 29 films, the last being released in 2020.[1]
Early life and education[edit]
Waterman was born on 24 February 1948,[2] as the youngest of nine children to Rose Juliana (née Saunders) and Harry Frank Waterman in Clapham,[3][4][5] south west London.. The family, which included siblings Ken, Peter, a welterweight boxing champion,[5] Stella, Norma, and Myrna, lived at 2 Elms Road, Clapham Common South Side.[3] Harry Waterman was a ticket collector for British Railways.[5] Two older sisters, Joy and Vera, had already left home by the time Dennis was born, and another brother, Allen, had died as a young child.[3]
Boxing was a big part of Waterman's childhood. His father had been an amateur boxer and made all of his sons box.[6] His older brother Ken first took Dennis boxing when he was three years old,[7] and when he was ten Dennis joined Caius Boxing Club.[6]
Waterman was educated at the Granard Primary School, a state primary school on the Ashburton Estate in Putney, southwest London, followed by Corona Stage School, an independent school at Ravenscourt Park in Hammersmith, West London.[5]
Career[edit]
1960s[edit]
Waterman's acting career began in childhood. His first role was in Night Train for Inverness (1960) and also Snowball (1960 film) with Gordon Jackson.[5] He appeared in two small stage roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1960 season.[8] In 1961, at the age of 13, he played the part of Winthrop Paroo in the Adelphi Theatre production of The Music Man.[9] A year later, he starred as William Brown in the BBC TV series William based on the Just William books of Richmal Crompton.[10] Waterman played the role of Oliver Twist in the production of the Lionel Bart musical Oliver! staged at the Mermaid Theatre, London, in the early 1960s, and appeared on the cast recording released in 1961.[11] Waterman was a series regular in the 1962 CBS comedy Fair Exchange, playing teenager Neville Finch.[12] In 1963, he took a "starring" role in the Children's Film Foundation film Go Kart Go.[13]
He later appeared in the premier of Carving a Statue, produced by Peter Wood on 17 September 1964 at the Haymarket Theatre, London. The cast consisted of: Ralph Richardson as The Father, Waterman as His Son, Barbara Ferris as The First Girl, Jane Birkin as The Second Girl and Roland Culver as Dr Parker.
Waterman was in the original cast of Saved, the play written by Edward Bond, and first produced at the Royal Court Theatre in November 1965.[14] He had a major role in the feature film version of Up the Junction (1968) in which he played Peter, boyfriend to Polly (Suzy Kendall).[15]
1970s[edit]
In the early 1970s, Waterman appeared in the BBC television series Colditz as a young Gestapo officer.[16] He played the brother of a victim of Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) in the Hammer film Scars of Dracula (1970),[17] and the boyfriend of Susan George in Fright (1971).[18] He appeared alongside Richard Harris and John Huston in a Hollywood western, Man in the Wilderness (1971).[19] He was a member of the company of actors who featured in The Sextet (1972), a BBC 2 series which included the Dennis Potter drama Follow the Yellow Brick Road,[20] and Waterman later appeared in the same dramatist's Joe's Ark (Play for Today, 1974).[21] Also in 1974, Waterman appeared in episode 4 of the second series of the comedy programme Man About the House entitled "Did You Ever Meet Rommel", in which he played a friend of Robin, a German student by the name of Franz Wasserman.[22] Waterman guest starred in a 1974 Special Branch episode entitled "Stand and Deliver"
He became a household name as DS George Carter in The Sweeney during the 1970s.[23] As well as starring as Terry McCann in Minder, Waterman sang the theme song, "I Could Be So Good for You",[10] which was a top three UK hit in 1980 and a top ten hit in Australia.[24][25] It was written by his then-wife Patricia along with Gerard Kenny. Waterman also wrote and recorded a song with George Cole: "What Are We Gonna Get For 'Er Indoors?".[10] Based on their 'Minder' characters, it reached No. 21 in the UK charts at Christmas 1983.
In 1976, Waterman released his first album, Downwind of Angels,[26] arranged and produced by Brian Bennett.[27] A single, "I Will Glide", was released from the album.[28]
In 1978, Waterman returned to the RSC to play Sackett in Bronson Howard's comedy Saratoga.[29][30]
1980s[edit]
Waterman starred in a television film made by Tyne Tees Television entitled The World Cup: A Captain's Tale (1982).[31] It was the true story of West Auckland Town F.C., a part-time side who won the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy, sometimes described as the 'First World Cup', in 1909 and 1911. Waterman played the part of Bob Jones, the club captain.[32][33] It cost £1.5 million to make, most of which was funded by Waterman. Shooting took place in the North East and in Turin in Italy.[34] Scenes were shot in County Durham pit villages and in Ashington, Northumberland, where goalposts and a grandstand were erected in a public park with a colliery headframe in the background.[35]
In 1982, Waterman starred in the musical Windy City.[36] A relatively short-lived production. The cast included Amanda Redman, with whom Waterman had an eighteen-month affair during the run of the musical and with whom he later went on to star in the TV series New Tricks.[37][38] Windy City closed after 250 performances.[39] Waterman took the lead male role in the BAFTA Award-winning BBC adaptation of Fay Weldon's The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1986).[40]
In an Australian television film, The First Kangaroos (1988), Waterman's depiction of the rugby player Albert Goldthorpe[41] drew formal complaints from Goldthorpe's granddaughter.[42]
In 1988, Waterman voiced Vernon's sidekick Toaster in the children's animated series Tube Mice, which also starred George Cole.[43]
1990s[edit]
After leaving Minder, Waterman appeared as Thomas Gynn in the comedy drama Stay Lucky (1989–93),[44] with Jan Francis and Emma Wray; self made millionaire Tony Carpenter in the sitcom On the Up (1990–92)[45] and John Neil in the mini series Circles of Deceit (1995–96).[46] Between 1997 and 1999, he appeared in series 3 and 4 of the crime drama The Knock.[47]
2000s[edit]
He was a regular cast member in every season of New Tricks, from 2003 to 2014, and also sang the theme song.[48][49] Waterman appeared on stage in Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell by Keith Waterhouse[50] and as Alfred P. Doolittle in the 2001 London revival of My Fair Lady.[51] In 2005-06 he was the voice of Walter Thompson in Churchill's Bodyguard for the 13-part TV documentary based on Thompson's journals.[52][53] Waterman narrated the reality-format television programme Bad Lads' Army and appeared in the 2009 BBC2 miniseries Moses Jones.[54][55]
2020s[edit]
In 2020, Waterman starred in the Australian drama-comedy film Never Too Late which had been filmed in Adelaide, Australia, the previous year.[56] The Minder Podcast revealed that Waterman was semi-retired and living in Spain. The podcast referred to Waterman as "a truly underrated actor" and following Waterman's death pledged to go off air for seven weeks, one for each series of Minder he had appeared in, in commemoration.[57][58] An audio tribute episode was released after seven weeks.[59] In May 2023 the show broadcast a second tribute, Revisiting Reminder.[60]
Personal life[edit]
Waterman was married four times:
- Penny Dixon (1967–1976)[61]
- Patricia Maynard (1977–1987), an actress with whom he had two daughters, one of whom, Hannah Waterman, is also an actress. Hannah is best known for playing Laura Beale in the BBC1 soap opera EastEnders, and later appeared in New Tricks alongside Waterman as his character's daughter.[61]
- Rula Lenska (1987–1998)[61]
- Pam Flint (November 2011–2022)[61]
Waterman's marriage to Lenska ended because of his violent behaviour towards her. In March 2012, he caused controversy with some comments on this issue: "It's not difficult for a woman to make a man hit her. She certainly wasn't a beaten wife, she was hit and that's different."[62][63] The interview was broadcast in full on Piers Morgan's Life Stories on ITV in May 2012.[64]
Waterman emigrated to Spain with his wife Pam in 2015 after New Tricks ended, living at a villa in La Manga, and playing golf at the La Manga Club.[65]
Waterman was banned from driving for three years in January 1991, following his second drink-driving conviction in four years.[66] He was a fan of Chelsea F.C.[67] His love of football was reflected in his being chosen to present Match of the Seventies from 1995 to 1996, a nostalgic BBC show celebrating the best football matches from the 1970s.[68]
In 2015, his friend of many years, George Cole, who had played Arthur Daley in Minder, died aged 90. Waterman delivered the eulogy at Cole's funeral on 12 August.[69]
Waterman died from lung cancer[70] at his home in La Manga, Spain on 8 May 2022 at the age of 74.[71]
In popular culture[edit]
Little Britain caricature[edit]
Waterman was caricatured by David Walliams in the radio and TV comedy series Little Britain, in sketches where he visits his agent, Jeremy Rent (played by Matt Lucas) looking for parts. Most of the jokes in these sketches feature Waterman being extremely small, with common objects being made to appear massive in comparison. The Waterman caricature is offered, but always declines, respectable parts because he is not allowed to "write the theme tune, sing the theme tune" (rendered as "write da feem toon, sing da feem toon") of the particular production.[72] This running joke is based on Waterman having sung the theme tunes for at least four of the programmes in which he starred, namely for Minder, Stay Lucky,[73] On the Up and New Tricks. In November 2006, Waterman made a guest appearance in Comic Relief Does Little Britain Live, alongside the comedy character version of himself.[74]
Bibliography[edit]
- 2000: Waterman, Dennis; and Jill Arlon. – ReMinder. – London: Hutchinson. – ISBN 978-0-09-180108-3.
Filmography[edit]
- Night Train for Inverness (1960) – Ted Lewis[75]
- Ali and the Camel (1960) – (voice)[76]
- Snowball (1960) – Mickey Donovan[76]
- Crooks Anonymous (1962) – Boy in Park[76]
- The Pirates of Blood River (1962) – Timothy Blackthorne[76]
- Go Kart Go (1963) – Jimpy
- Up the Junction (1968) – Pete
- Oh! What a Lovely War (1969)[77]
- The Smashing Bird I Used to Know (1969) – Peter[78]
- Wedding Night (1970) – Joe O'Reilly – Groom[79]
- My Lover My Son (1970) – James Anderson[80]
- A Promise of Bed (also known as This, That and the Other) (1970) – Photographer[81]
- Scars of Dracula (1970) – Simon Carlson
- Fright (1971) – Chris
- Man in the Wilderness (1971) – Lowrie
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972) – 2 of Spades[82]
- The Belstone Fox (1973) – Stephen Durno[83]
- Sweeney! (1977) – Det. Sgt. George Carter
- Sweeney 2 (1978) – Det. Sgt. George Carter
- The World Cup: A Captain's Tale (1982)
- Minder on the Orient Express (1985)[84]
- The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (TV, 1986) – Bobbo
- The First Kangaroos (1988) – Albert Goldthorpe
- Cold Justice (1989) – Father Jim[85]
- Fiddley Foodle Bird (1991)
- Vol-au-vent (1996) – Pete / Kevin[86]
- Arthur's Dyke (2001) – Derek Doubleday[87]
- Back in Business (2007) – Jarvis[88]
- Run for Your Wife (2012, Cameo role)[89]
- Never Too Late (2020) – Jeremiah Caine
Discography[edit]
Albums[edit]
| Year | Title | AUS Chart[90] | Label | Cat. No. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 | Down Wind of Angels | - | DJM | DJF 20483 |
| 1977 | Waterman | - | DJM | DJF 20513 |
| 1980 | So Good For You | 59 | EMI | EMC 3349 |
Singles[edit]
| Date | A-Side | B-Side | Label | Chart (UK)[91] | Chart (AUS)[90] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 March 1976 | "For Their Pleasure" | "You're A Part of Me" | DJM | – | – |
| 8 October 1976 | "I Will Glide" | "Snakes And Ladders" | DJM | – | – |
| 21 January 1977 | "Hooray for Curly Woolf" | "Don't Say No" | DJM | – | – |
| Sep 1977 | "It Ain't Easy" | "Rock 'N' Roll Sunshine Lady" | DJM | – | – |
| Aug 1979 | "Love's Left Me Bleeding" | "Nothing at All" | EMI | – | – |
| Oct 1980 | "I Could Be So Good for You" | "Nothing at All" | EMI | 3 | 9 |
| Jun 1980 | "Holding On to Love" | "Gone Wrong Song" | EMI | – | – |
| Jan 1981 | "Wasn't Love Strong Enough" | "Gone Wrong Song" | EMI | – | – |
| May 1981 | "Come Away with Me" | "If Only" | EMI | – | – |
| Mar 1982 | "We Don't Make Love on Sundays" | "Indian Silk" | C&D | – | – |
| Jul 1982 | "Shake the City" | "Wait Till I Get You on Your Own Tonight" | EMI | – | – |
| Dec 1983 | "What Are We Gonna Get 'Er Indoors?" | "Quids and Quavers" | EMI | 21 | – |