Telly Savalas looks at Birmingham, Aberdeen and Portsmouth
Here's three of Harold Baim's 'Quota Quickie' films from the seventies and early eighties, featuring the suave and persuasive voice-over skills of Telly Savalas, sometime TV detective hero and Bond baddie.
The most famous is his Birmingham film - perhaps because of the incongruity of his admiration for the postwar rebuilding. It's his kind of town, apparently. And what's not to adore?
Less well known are his films on Aberdeen and Portsmouth, both a little sadder than the Birmingham film. The shadow of the Blitz hangs over the Portsmouth film, and nothing much seems to happen there. A red carpet scene drags interminably.
Aberdeen - 'one of the most fascinating places in Europe' - is essentially reduced to a list of infrastructure and industry rather than a portrait of the place in any meaningful way. So brief is it that it almost feels the crew got bored and left before they'd finished.
The most famous is his Birmingham film - perhaps because of the incongruity of his admiration for the postwar rebuilding. It's his kind of town, apparently. And what's not to adore?
Less well known are his films on Aberdeen and Portsmouth, both a little sadder than the Birmingham film. The shadow of the Blitz hangs over the Portsmouth film, and nothing much seems to happen there. A red carpet scene drags interminably.
Aberdeen - 'one of the most fascinating places in Europe' - is essentially reduced to a list of infrastructure and industry rather than a portrait of the place in any meaningful way. So brief is it that it almost feels the crew got bored and left before they'd finished.
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