Tell me about Cliff Twemlow

[Sebastian Cobb]

I don't know anything about the man but saw this trailer about a documentary about him being screened soon and it looks right up my street since I loved the Canon Inc and Ozploitation documentaries.

So does anyone know anything about him? Seen any of his films?

The comments in the YT video say that Sevrin might be re-releasing some of them soon. Although the trailer also suggests he shot most of them on video so I guess they can't be tarted up/upscaled too much.

[steveh]

Don't think I've knowingly watched any of his films but the reviews of this have made me want to see the doc. A lot of stuff apparently never got completed but maybe enough remains to do one of those big box sets like the Michael J. Murphy one.

He also had a career making a ton of production music - the end theme to Crown Court is his. His usual director, David Kent-Watson, I think also engineered some of the Buzzcocks' early tracks as well as working on Coronation St where he met Twemlow.

More:
https://headstuff.org/entertainment/film/mancunian-man-the-legendary-life-of-cliff-twemlow-a-touching-tribute-to-a-cult-hero/
https://deadline.com/2023/08/mancunian-man-the-legendary-life-of-cliff-twemlow-review-tribute-to-a-cult-movie-maverick-1235529240/

[another Mr. Lizard]

I've seen a lot of his work and have seen this excellent documentary twice. Director Jake West has remarked that at q&a sessions around the country, audience members have wondered whether the film was a spoof, so unlikely are the details of Cliff's life. I interviewed one of Cliff's associates, Paul Flanagan, at a late-night screening of Predator: The Quietue aka Moonstalker a couple of years ago and was pleased to catch up with him again earlier this month. Cliff was multi-talented, actor, novelist, composer, nightclub bouncer, and one of the handful of people whose ambitious home movies made it onto video rental shop shelves. Severin are releasing a box set very soon, which will include several movies, a CD, Jake's documentary, and more.

[PinkNoise]

I only became aware of Twemlow because his film GBH appeared on the "extended" Video Nasties list and started to be included in books and round-ups of the genre.

More interesting is the film that *didn't* happen - the movie version of his book The Pike, which was at one point was meant to star Joan Collins. There's a clip floating around of the animatronic prop Pike being demonstrated, culled from Tomorrow's World or some other local news type programme, but can I find it right now? No I can not.

https://www.nwemail.co.uk/features/16424725.nostalgia-man-eating-pike-hollywood-star-promote-lakeland-movie/

[PinkNoise]

Ah, here we go. Kieran Prendiville meets The Pike on Tomorrow's World:

[Goldentony]

exciting and worrying that Severin have got both a Twemlow set and a fuck off huge Bruce Lee lookalikes set coming up around the same time, not sure who I love more TBH

[waste of chops]

Saw Mancunian Man last night and really enjoyed it. In the post-film Q&A they said the documentary is getting a UK Blu-Ray release, plus one or two of Twemlow's films (GBH was mentioned) but BBFC certification costs mean they can't afford to release more than that. The Severin boxset will apparently be region-free for those that want to import though.