Wife steered me towards this 1973 public safety film from the Central Office Of Information: which the government closed down at the end of last week.
Some of its films were highly memorable – though not always for the right reasons – Dark And Lonely Water offered priceless comedy value, even at the time.
“Sensible children… I have no power over them” mutters The Spirit Of Dark And Lonely Water from beneath his dark and lonely hood.
“Oi luk, vair’s samwam en va wor-ahh!” comments Hordriss The Confuser on YouTube. ” I remember when nearly every child in documentaries or public service announcements had an estuary accent which could strip paint from steel.”
But some of the COI’s intentionally funny films were genuinely hilarious, and put their point across all the more effectively. 1945′s “Coughs & Sneezes” was an alltime favourite…
Comedy value? Are you shitting me? The dark water one – along with the lad electrocuted for retrieving his frisbee and the barefoot lad about to run on to a broken bottle on the beach – were the basis of nightmares for us young uns in the 70s!
There is a DVD compilation of them called Charlie Says issued by the excellent Network. It’s really creepy, a long film of 30 second non sequitur scenes where you know something awful will happen in 20 seconds time, like a David Lynch nightmare in 70s Britain directed by Soviet propaganda film makers.
Even Alvin Stardust’s ‘you must be out of your tiny minds’ green cross code was unsettling. He was weirdly unsmiling for a pop star and I’d readily run into the road and chance it amongst the Allegros to get away from him.