Friday, November 05, 2010

John Burke gallery 3

Another in our occasional series of galleries featuring the novels of John Burke.

Private Potter
Pan Books G598, 1962, 158pp, 2/6. Cover by Sam Peffer
The ordeal of Private Potter.
On an island in a state of emergency, a surprise attack by British forces on a terrorist hideout. It fails, the quarry escapes and a soldier is killed—all due to the inexplicable behaviour of Private Poter.
__Was Potter a coward whose conduct warranted severe punishment?
__A madman who required hospital treatment?
__Or a Saint who was above all human judgement?
__Adult, compassionate, challenging, this novel explores a dramatic theme: the fate in a fighting army of the man who does not—who cannot—conform.

The film Private Potter is a Ben Arbeid production for MGM release, starring Tom Courtenay as Private Potter, James Maxwell as Colonel Gunyon and Mogens Wieth as Yannis. The film also stars Ralph Michael, John Graham and Ronald Frazer.
__Shot on location and at MGM Studios, Borehamwood, the film was directed by Casper Wrede from the screenplay which he wrote in collaboration with Ronald Harwood, the author of the original play.

The Magnificent Air Race
Pan Books X410, 1965, 190pp, 3/6. Cover by Glenn Steward
The year is 1910.
The Daily Post is sponsoring an international air race between London and Paris.
The prize is £10,000.
__Richard Mays and Orvil Newton, one English and one American, rivals in the air for the grand prize, and for a beautiful girl on the ground... Dubois, Ponticelli, von Hostein, Parsons, Yamamoto, McDougal... and Sir Percy Ware-Armitage, for whom no cunning trick was too low.
__Monoplanes, biplanes, triplanes, planes with wings that flapped and fell off, planes with circular bodies and rhomboidal bodies that came apart even before leaving the ground, planes driven by bicycle chains, and planes put together with string...

That Magnificent Air Race is the breakneck story of 20th Century Fox's big canvas adventure comedy Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, filmed in Todd-AO and colour with an international cast: Sarah Miles, Stuart Whitman, James Fox, Alberto Sordi, Robert Morley, Gert Frobe, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Irina Demick, Eric Sykes and Terry-Thomas. Co-starring Benny Hill, Yujiro Ishihara, Flora Robson, Red Skelton, Karl Michael Vogler, Sam Wannamaker. With Eric barker, Fred Emney, Davy Kaye, Norman Rossington, Graham Stark and Tony Hancock. Produced by Stan Margulies, directed by Ken Annakin, written by Jack Davies and Ken Annakin.

The Trap
Pan Books X519, 1966, 157pp, 3/6.
'Last night you said you wanted a wife... for a thousand dollars I can give you one today'
British Columbia, 1849—a massive country where men are dwarfed by the forests and mountains and harried by every savagery of nature, until they become savages themselves in order to survive.
__One such man was the trapper Jean La Bete. For three years he had lived and trapped alone in the wilds. Now, with hard-earned dollars he meant to buy a wife.
__But he did not bargain for taking home with him into the wilderness a girl who was mute, a shy, wild creature who hated him...

A Rank release, produced by George Brown and directed by Sidney Hayers from an original screenplay by David Osborn, starring Oliver as La Bete, Barbara Chilcott as the trader's wife and Rita Tushingham as Eve.

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