DVD/150: I DON'T WANT TO BE BORN (Peter Sasdy, 1975): The Killer Baby Film From Hell....

You know a film's bad if the title keeps changing: I DON'T WANT TO BE BORN is also called THE DEVIL WITHIN HER, THE MONSTER, IT LIVES WITHIN HER and SHARON'S BABY, the last is bizarre as there is no character called Sharon!

Some films are so truly godawful they become hilarious and boy, this is one.  There are so many wrong elements here, it's a film you need to see for yourself - I am thinking of having a viewing party!

Joan Collins - always a narcissistic performer - is at her most am-dram while Ralph Bates and Eileen Atkins share laughable Italian accents - "possessed by the Dayvel" - as her husband and nun-in-law while Donald Pleasance just looks sad, probably thinking his career is over.

Collins and Bates' baby is evil, is it because of a curse by a demonic dwarf who danced with her in a strip club ? !

Shelf or charity shop?  A film this awful is a definite keeper - worth it alone for the inclusion of a scene where Ralph Bates can't hang up his trim-phone properly - and it stayed in the film!!!

Dvd/150: The CAESARS (Derek Bennett, 1968, tv)

Eight years before the more-famous I CLAUDIUS, there had been another TV series about the Julio-Claudian dynasty of ancient Rome called THE CAESARS on Granada TV.

I don't recall ever seeing it so it was fascinating to compare the two as they both cover the same timeline.  More interested in the political than the personal, the earlier series is exceptional thanks to the dry wit and concise story-telling of Philip Mackie's scripts and it's shadowy b&w photography.

Excellent performances abound: Sonia Dresdel's Livia is an imperious battle-axe, André Morrell is remarkable as the urbanely cynical Tiberius while Freddie Jones is fine in his award-winning performance as Claudius.

The second half of the series is dominated by Ralph Bates' quicksilver, insane Caligula - interesting too to see what was permissible onscreen in 1968!

There is also a tantalising cameo from Nicola Pagett as the young scheming Messalina.

Shelf or charity shop? A keeper... especially as it features a performance from my dear friend the late and great John Normington as Caligula's secretary!