Does *anyone* remember this?

edited August 2009 in Chit chat
Right, whilst I'm waiting for a driver to download, I thought I'd ask if anyone remembers an animated film I once saw years ago (1970s or possibly very early 1980's, when I was a kid).

It was very eerie, and was set in the Victorian/Edwardian/similar era, using anumated models (stop film photography, like Morph or Wallace and Gromit, but not as obviously plastercine, the props and stuff may have been wood/plastic etc, but painted to look real).

Anyway, the gist of it is, this rich bloke lives in a mansion with his daughter (can't remember if the wife/mother is there), and his daughter is in love with some local bloke who's poor but decent (from what I remember). The father forbids her from marrying this bloke, and locks her up so she can't see him, and she comits suicide. The
young man is devastated, the girl is (supposedly) buried (I think, but anyway, time passes, and the young man and the world carry on their lives), but the young man never gets over this girl, and one day he's walking past the mansion grounds' wall, and he sees the girl in a windows, looking out. So he climbs over the wall, breaks into
the house, and enters the girls room (I don't think this is her bedroom, I think it might be an attic or something) and she is there standing by the window. I can't remember all of the details, but it's dark (it's night, and there is no light on in the room, only the star light through the window), she's distressed to see him there, and begs him to leave, but he goes over to her and grabs her to hold her, and her hair falls off. It's a wig, because her head isn't a human head, and there is a runner on the floor, for her to move on, as she no-longer has legs. It turns out that when she commited suicide, her father, an inventor, removed her brain, and placed it in this "body", a semi-mobile thing, like a tailors dummy, which could move on a runner, and he (or his wife) had tried to make the "body" (and it's face) as much like the daughter's natural looks as possible.

Now, it ended there, and I never saw part two (part one ended at the yound man's horror of this discovery), though I've never forgotten this, as I was a kid and it really frightened me. The thing is, though, I don't know what program it was. I have a fixed memory, but I *have* to be wrong about it. When I was at primary school, in the 1970's, every so often out class would sit in front of the TV, and watch some educational programs (as I presume most schools did), and I distinctly remember that this was on a program like Words and Pictures, where they'd teach basic words, or sentence structure, or basic musical concepts or so on, and often they'd have a film (real or animated) to demonstrate some points, or just to entertain.

Anyway, I can remember watching the animated film I've described, in a classroom with my class-mates. But that can't be right, no teacher would put something that frightening on for kids to watch, so obviously I must have two seperate memories (the actual film which I *did* see (it's not my imagination, or anything), and a more generic memory of watching kids' programs at primary school) that have become mixed together inseperably, as childhood memories sometimes do.

Anyway, does anyone remember this film? It was very frightening (deliberatly so, from the visual images I can remember) and would have been broadcast (at whatever time of day, but I really doubt it was during school hours, despite the "evidence" of my memory) in 1981 or sooner (maybe 1975 onwards). The film did exist, and it was in two parts, but beyond that I can't remember anything else that could help me identify it.
Post edited by ewgf on

Comments

  • edited July 2005
    I have no idea, but I love the sound of it :D
    Oh, no. Every time you turn up something monumental and terrible happens.
    I don’t think I have the stomach for it.
    --Raziel (Legend of Kain: Soul Reaver 2)

    https://www.youtube.com/user/VincentTSFP
  • edited July 2005
    I just had a browse through the Encyclopedia of TV Science Fiction but I couldn't find anything. Do you remember anything else about it? It does sound very interesting.

    If all else fails, SFX Magazine have a section where you can ask those kind of questions. They are able to find the answer 95% of the time too.

    Necros.
  • edited July 2005
    n/m not that.

    [ This Message was edited by: beanz on 2005-07-19 05:19 ]
  • edited July 2005
    I posted on the newsgroup

    uk.media.tv.misc, and received the following reply:

    "ewgf wrote:

    [my original post, which I've just removed for space]

    YES !! I remember this too and I've been trying to remember more for
    years. Nobody I've asked remembers it, maybe they repressed it or
    something as it was so creepy.
    Anyway I "think" it was based on the story Coppelia by Hoffmann
    I agree that it was on Words and Pictures or maybe Me and You.
    I remember it having classical music that added to the general
    creepyness and since Coppellia is also an opera, would seem to fit.
    Anyway good luck tracking more info down, I'd be very interested in
    finding out more too, I'm an animator and would like to see it again to
    study, as well as the nostalgia of seeing it again."

    So maybe it was on Words and Pictures, or some such kids program (and it certainly should *not* have been...). I'll try to search on the net, and:

    http://www.futurenet.com/sfx/

    as suggest, and also:

    http://www.datafriend.com/timc/find.html

    as also suggested.

    [ This Message was edited by: ewgf on 2005-07-19 20:38 ]
  • edited July 2005
    Spooky! I can't imagine kids sitting through such a film (unless it's been made in a really disney cartoony style).
  • edited July 2005
    This post has reminded me of a cartoon I used to have years ago that has long since vanished form my collection but I can't for the life of me remember what it was called! The only things I can remember about it are from the trailer. It was set in the future and aminly in space. The main bad gut was looked kind of like Skeletor from He-man and I remember him saying that "a chess computer was the first in-organic mind to beat man..now I will be calling check mate...". I think it was about robots taking over the universe and wipeing mankind out. I also remember it having quite a long name , and the main title was gold coloured. (The trailer always kind of reminded me of the old laser disk arcade games, but etter animated!) Does anybody have ANY idea what it was called and if it's out in DVD?
  • edited August 2009
    Sorry to bump up such an old thread, but I thought that maybe someone new might recall the program?

    Over the years I've mentioned it to a few people, but apart from the bloke (girl?) on uk.media.tv.misc, I don't remember anyone else finding it familiar. I've tried Youtube and some TV sites, but with no success, and I've never found the text of Coppelia (just some ballet clips that I can't be bothered looking through), though I have found other E.T.A. Hoffman stories.

    Any ideas?

    Thanks for any answers.
  • edited August 2009
    I'll ask on badmovies for you (not saying it's a 'bad movie' but they seem to know their stuff...)
  • edited August 2009
    This really sound like something off Picture Box.

    I've had a google and there's not much reference information about what was on it, other than High level.
  • edited August 2009
    It sounds very much like Coppelia to me. At primary school, we had a radio programme called 'Time and tune' that we listened to and sang various songs from the pamphlet.

    We actually acted this out in a play, with the best looking girl acting as copellia (a teachers child :roll:, but she was pretty as well) I have little other than my memory at the moment, but I strongly remember Coppelia reading book at the window and the young suitor thinking that she was real when she was not. She was just a product of the inventer Father. I don't know the actual production you saw though unfortunately, but I often hum the'# copellia, copellia, now you can come and play' theme whilst I'm decorating or mowing the lawn lol!!
  • edited August 2009
    "a chess computer was the first in-organic mind to beat man..now I will be calling check mate...".

    I keep wanting to say "Starchaser : Legend of Orin". But I haven't watched this for years and don't think the lead baddie was inorganic...

    But it has flummoxed me now. I too can hear the line being said in my mind...didn't it start with "Years ago, ..." and then the rest of the quote??

    I hope someone gets an answer for this soon! I can't find the quote anywhere on t'internet...
  • edited August 2009
    STeaM wrote: »
    I keep wanting to say "Starchaser : Legend of Orin". But I haven't watched this for years and don't think the lead baddie was inorganic...

    But it has flummoxed me now. I too can hear the line being said in my mind...didn't it start with "Years ago, ..." and then the rest of the quote??

    I hope someone gets an answer for this soon! I can't find the quote anywhere on t'internet...

    Yes it is Starchaser, but this is a very old thread and I've since brought it on import DVD a good couple of years ago now, but thanks :D

    OK, can anybody remember this film? it was on late night C4 many, many years ago and was shown twice very quickly (withing a few weeks of each viewing) and I've never seen it since. It was a spoof film about an alien of somekind invading a cinema and it was set in the 50's. I remember a couple of bits like one scene where a guy puts his head thorugh the progector window to see what is going on and gets his head bitten or pulled off. Another scene where someone looses an eyeball, complete with "stem" and a kid finds it on a table and picks it up because he thinks it's a lolly pop. and I remember a couple of American "school kids" (mid to late 20's in true Amreican teenager film style) in a pick car making out while the alien crash lands in the background (cue a couple of "did the earth move for you" jokes). Also I remember alot of people being sick and dropping long string of snot off the balcony into and onto the people bellow.

    I remember someone asked what this film was in an issue of Darkside magazine a few years ago and they were able to give them a name for the film, but I can't find that issue any more and IMDB is not giving my much luck either. Any ideas?
  • edited August 2009
    Yes it is Starchaser, but this is a very old thread and I've since brought it on import DVD a good couple of years ago now, but thanks :D

    Oh thank Christ for that! Cheers Bob. :lol:

    I actually started to watch Starchaser about a week ago on YouTube, but only watched about 3 parts to it...I'm going to watch the rest now!
  • edited August 2009
    I fucking love Starchaser, got the DVD imported a couple of years ago.
  • edited August 2009
    I fucking love Starchaser...

    Me too...but I've got the rest of today dealings with retards at work before I can get home to finish off watching it!
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