Tales Of The Unexpected: The Flypaper (1980)

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If you were a British kid of a certain age circa 1980, there was plenty of spooky material around on TV: ‘Hammer House Of Horror’, ‘Armchair Thriller’ and those Public Information films warning about stranger danger, fireworks and water.

And the occasional episode of ‘Tales Of The Unexpected’.

Based on Roald Dahl’s short-story book of the same name, it was an absolute British TV staple between 1979 and 1988 across 112 episodes of varying quality. These days it’s probably best remembered for Ron Grainer’s brilliant theme music and the dancing credits lady.

But it wasn’t especially known for truly disturbing episodes – until your correspondent came across ‘The Flypaper’ recently. Broadcast on 9 August 1980, it was based on Elizabeth Taylor’s short story of the same name (she died in 1975) and adapted rather well by Robin Chapman, who went on to write episodes of ‘Maigret’ and ‘Dalziel And Pascoe’.

It’s a tight, tense 22 minutes, shot entirely on location in Ely in Cambridgeshire – no dodgy studio stuff here. Roald obviously loved it too.

A young girl has been found dead on the outskirts of a provincial English town. Shy, sensitive, withdrawn Silva (Lorna Yabsley, who went on to appear in 1981’s ‘Day Of The Triffids’) is particularly afraid, not helped by the fact that her parents (her mother in the short story) have died in a car crash two years ago and she’s now living with her somewhat cold grandmother.

Lorna Yabsley as Silva

Meanwhile a creepy man seems to be watching her, finally cornering her on a bus with intrusive, incessant, over-familiar chatter. You can imagine many children experienced similar in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s (movingtheriver probably did too).

We won’t give away the horrible, rather bold last three minutes, which very well epitomises ‘the banality of evil’.

Suffice it to say that it tapped into a hot-button topic in 1980, with the Yorkshire Ripper still at large and lots of parental advice about not talking to strangers (tragically, our heroine does NOT talk to the weird stranger in ‘The Flypaper’…).

Director Graham Evans does an excellent job, ramping up the atmosphere and cutting back the dialogue. There are disturbing echoes of ‘The Offence’ and ‘Don’t Look Now’.

Ron Grainer supplies a nicely sludgy synth soundtrack and there’s the (initially) amusing sight of actor Pat ‘Fawlty Towers’ Keen – she played Sybil and Basil’s pushy friend in ‘The Anniversary’, but is used to much more disarming effect here.

With all the endless current talk of how far we should go to protect our children, ‘The Flypaper’ provides a cold slap in the face. Here it is, sadly with rather dodgy picture quality, if you dare…

Book Review: Stay Alive (The Life And Death Of Stuart Adamson) by Scott Rowley

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Here’s another missive from the darker side of the music industry.

Author Scott Rowley has obtained the full cooperation of Stuart Adamson’s family, friends and bandmates to tell the gripping, sometimes troubling, sometimes sad, sometimes funny story of the Big Country frontman and Skids guitarist who took his own life in 2001 after struggles with alcoholism and depression.

A brave, unsettling opening takes us right into Adamson’s head just a few days before his death. From there it’s an unflinching look at his troubled life, and Rowley finds plenty in Adamson’s background pointing to mitigating circumstances (his father was jailed in 2004 for abusing children).

‘Stay Alive’ also takes an unusual approach with fairly detailed biographical detail about all the members of The Skids and Big Country. They are a huge part of this story – Richard Jobson and Tony Butler in particular deliver strikingly candid observations on Adamson, as do several family members.

This is also very much a Scottish tale, complete with unedited dialects and much fruity language, from Adamson’s childhood in Cowdenbeath (novelist Ian Rankin went to the same school) onwards.

Adamson makes an almost immediate musical impact during the punk era with The Skids. The Strangers’ JJ Burnel takes an interest as does John Peel, calling Adamson ‘Scotland’s answer to Jimi Hendrix’. Virgin Records sign the band but indulge in various questionable business decisions; the book is extremely good on the machinations of the post-punk record industry (as is this ‘Play At Home’ documentary from 1984).

Adamson’s relationship with vocalist Jobson starts well – Adamson is particularly protective towards the singer when he finds out about his epilepsy – but the friendship becomes increasingly strained as the band gain some success.

Adamson flees The Skids and hooks up with young guitarist Bruce Watson and the hot West London rhythm section of drummer Mark Brzezicki and bassist Tony Butler (who had already played on Pretenders’ ‘Back On The Chain Gang’). It was Tony who was blown away by the musical chemistry after their first jam session, insisting that he and Mark join Big Country.

But even as the band achieve almost immediate success and create a great bond with their many fans (it’s often forgotten how popular Big Country were in the UK, enjoying 12 Top 40 singles during the decade), Adamson can’t ditch the serious drinking. More and more difficult behaviour ensues, including a disappearing act around the time of Live Aid which, to this day, Butler deems almost unforgivable.

But Adamson regroups and enjoys 14 years of sobriety after that difficult summer of 1985. A 1988 reunion leads to a bidding war between Virgin and Warners – they go with the latter, head honchos Russ Titelman and Lenny Waronker apparently marvelling at the band’s musicianship. But it all goes wrong again, Adamson jumping ship in 1989.

Big Country were one of the most musically-literate and distinctive rock bands of the 1980s, and we get plenty on just how they achieved their sound: Adamson’s first wife Sandra was a dancer, and her practice tape featured a piper named Willie Law. Adamson would often try to play along, probably the original source of the ‘bagpipe guitars’ tag that followed Big Country around.

Meanwhile Brzezicki based his style around military rudiments (his Polish father insisted that he work through a RAF drum book) and jazz/rock legends such as Billy Cobham and Lenny White.

The book is excellent on the literary sources of Adamson’s lyrics – even hardcore Big Country fans will probably be surprised how many there are. There are plenty of pertinent, poignant details about him too. A regular five-a-side player, his football friends report that his nickname was Inspector Gadget, because he always had his legs wrapped around someone.

But there’s no getting away from the fact that the last third of ‘Stay Alive’ is a gruelling portrayal of alcoholism and attendant family breakdown, as Adamson begins a new life in the US and Big Country limp on with varying degrees of success.

Still, this excellent book covers all the bases – it’s an essential read about the 1980s music scene, and also somewhat of a cautionary tale which should be read by every agent, manager and PR person.

Of course it’ll also be rather a heartbreaking book for Big Country fans. Their excellent performance of ‘King Of Emotion’ on the Channel 4 show ‘Wired’ (this writer’s first real exposure to the band) came complete with Adamson’s cheeky grin and nod to someone in the front row around 0:25. Hard to think of any other 1980s pop frontmen who were so inclined.

Author Scott Rowley discusses ‘Stay Alive’ in this podcast.

Gig Review: Thomas Dolby/Martin McAloon @ Shepherd’s Bush Empire, 21 May 2026

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As gig introductions go, it was one of the best: ‘For those who’ve never seen me live before, I’m Martin McAloon from Deacon Blue.’

Of course Martin is the brother of fellow Prefab Sprouter Paddy McAloon, and for the past five years or so he’s been playing his bro’s fantastic compositions as a solo act.

And this was a potentially exciting double bill with Thomas Dolby, Prefab producer and a fine composer/musician in his own right.

Martin’s opening gambit was the first in a long line of zingers, but he’s also an obviously excellent guitarist, firing off Paddy’s not-at-all simple chords with ease. He managed to find ways of including all the tricky stuff: ‘Faron Young’ came complete with that wacky ascending outro, while the melody of ‘Appetite’ was outlined with some nice Wes-style octaves.

On ‘Goodbye Lucille #1 (Johnny Johnny)’ he even found a way of combining the guitar melody, chords and bassline simultaneously. Meanwhile ‘Looking For Atlantis’ was a very fast shuffle ‘in the style of Elvis, with a bar of 5/4 added for all you jazzers’.

His rather ramshackle presentation is definitely part of his charm (‘I forgot my setlist, but remembered to back it up on my iPhone, but I also forgot my glasses so I can’t read it’) and it was pleasing to hear the Steve McQueen material the way Thomas Dolby may have heard it in Paddy’s bedroom all those years ago.

‘Moving The River’ was indeed moving and the fun closer ‘King Of Rock’n’Roll’ managed to incorporate ‘The Reflex’, ‘Get It On’, ‘Yellow’ and ‘It’s Only Rock’n’Roll’.

But was it good music? For this writer, the jury is still out. It’s unlikely Paddy’s songs (often taken too fast) are going to wither on the vine anytime soon. And there’s no getting away from the rather utilitarian nature of Martin’s voice – the more tender Paddy material particularly suffered.

And sometimes you yearn for a bit more colour from his guitar tones and rhythms – a gentle bossa-nova-style strum seems to be the default for the 4/4 material, with a somewhat unforgiving, bright, dry Les Paul tone. But it’s definitely worth seeing Martin live for the banter and ’80s stories.

Dolby’s set was advertised as a ‘my personal recollections of the 1980s’ with a full live band promised – somewhat of a misnomer, as it turned out. He emerged onto the stage alone, greeting the audience very quietly before settling behind his bank of synths and playing a solo rendition of ‘The Flat Earth’ complete with tinnitus-inducing TR-808, some Martin Luther King Jr. spoken words and too loud vocals – though Dolby’s voice has got richer with age.

He revealed he was born less than a mile from Shepherd’s Bush, making this his home gig, but the ‘80s vibe was blown by his second track, 2011’s underwhelming ‘Evil Twin Brother’, though it segued neatly into Sting’s ‘Bring On The Night’ with which it shares a chord sequence.

photo by Adrian Sartain

Dolby then crowbarred Gary Numan’s ‘Cars’ into ‘One Of Our Submarines’, and he paid tribute to David Bowie with a somewhat ponderous take on ‘Heroes’ complete with back projection of his personal photos taken during Live Aid, and ‘virtual’ vocals from Bowie himself.

Dolby then introduced his rhythm section for the evening: Jakko Jakszyk on guitar, Matt Hector on drums and bassist Ana Pshokina, who had pre-recorded her parts and vocals to a click track at home in Ukraine after being refused entry into the UK, and was thus now appearing via the big screen.

Here’s where the evening really went downhill. Dolby revealed that he was working on a symphony which would feature his own songs mixed with elements of other ‘iconic’ 1980s hits, and had decided to preview it here.

So ‘Flying North’ inexplicably morphed into Pink Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb’, and ‘I Love You Goodbye’ into Talking Heads’ ‘This Must Be The Place’, complete with incorrectly played guitar motif by Jakszyk.

The guitarist was also responsible for a toe-curling rendition of ‘Little Red Corvette’, and then Dolby rehashed his ‘meeting Michael Jackson’ story yet again via seriously weird take on ‘Billie Jean’, complete with some unsettling AI dialogue.

Elsewhere there were snatches of Tears For Fears, Kate Bush, Billy Idol, Smiths and Foreigner hits. Dolby had mentioned trying to distance himself from the usual ‘Rewind 1980s nostalgia’ stuff but sadly this gig failed to achieve that.

What your reviewer really wanted to hear was Dolby’s mostly excellent songs played by a really good band. Where was guitarist Kevin Armstrong when we needed him?

When Dolby eased into U2’s ‘With Or Without You’, sad to report that your correspondent couldn’t take any more. All credit to him for going ahead with the show, but arguably the concept was always a hard sell.

Here’s hoping Thomas reforms The Lost Toy People and puts together an Aliens Ate My Buick @ 40 show for 2028, but it seems unlikely…

Rosie Vela: Zazu @ 40 (And Being A Steely Dan Fan In The 1980s)

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‘Models who make records usually should not but I’ll make an exception for Rosie Vela’, began Max Bell’s four-star review of Zazu in the January 1987 edition of Q magazine.

In general, us Brits liked Zazu (peaking at #20 and going silver), the album released 40 years ago this month which reunited the Steely Dan troika of Donald Fagen, Walter Becker and Gary Katz for the first time in nearly six years.

It was weird being a Steely Dan fan during the 1980s. Your correspondent got in around 1984, obsessed with his dad’s Steely Dan Greatest Hits cassette and Aja vinyl, and by 1986 was a megafan who’d only just twigged that Gaucho had been released a full six years earlier.

We were excited when Becker produced China Crisis, but apart from The Nightfly, Fagen seemed to have gone AWOL (he later admitted that he ‘came apart like a cheap suit’ during the decade).

But imagine our surprise when Zazu was advertised in the first issue of Q magazine, and then Rosie was interviewed in issue four.

I probably bought Zazu on the strength of the ‘Magic Smile’ single around January 1987 (but have just checked and no longer own it on any format…).

Texas-born Roseanne Vela had been a first-call model in the late ‘70s and briefly appeared in Michael Cimino’s ‘Heaven’s Gate’, all the while working on her own demos. Jerry Moss at A&M loved them and enlisted Joe Jackson to produce her debut album (he subsequently pulled out).

You can read more about Vela and the background to Zazu in Anthony Robustelli’s book ‘Steely Dan FAQ’, but for our purposes: is it easy to hear why Fagen, Katz and Becker was so drawn to the project?

Not really. But the positive things first:

With her husky voice and sometimes through-composed songs with odd chord movement, she offered something completely different to other mid-‘80s female singer/songwriters.

‘Magic Smile’ still sounds great (#27 in the UK) and ‘Boxs’ is good too. It’s very surprising that ‘Fool’s Paradise’ wasn’t a single though. It sounds like the nearest thing to a hit with its synth lick reminiscent of ‘A Hazy Shade of Winter’.

Fagen plays a nice little intro to ‘Interlude’, and Becker doubles his solo on guitar, a cool touch (Becker also plays the weird little synth additions to ‘Tonto’).

But there’s lots of bad too.

Katz helms a surprisingly cold album which leads a little too heavily on Rick Derringer’s lead guitar, some non-more-‘80s snare drum sounds and way too much DX7 from Fagen. With hindsight, maybe Jackson’s more organic approach would have worked better (Becker’s better still).

‘Sunday’, ‘Taxi’, ‘2nd Emotion’ and ‘Tonto’ are totally unmemorable songs. The closing, almost-gothic title track could have been good though with some more real instruments.

In general Katz renders some superb musicians – Tony Levin, Jimmy Haslip, Jim Keltner – pretty anonymous. In some ways Zazu is the ultimate 1986 album (Robustelli compares it to Gaucho and Aja in ‘Steely Dan FAQ’ – it’s impossible to hear that).

The cover art and photo are poor too – whose idea was it to portray this gorgeous woman in black and white?

Vela did ‘Magic Smile’ on Letterman – a brave performance that didn’t quite work. The album and single completely flopped in the USA.

But of course the main thing about Zazu is that it got Becker and Fagen back together again. Next up for Fagen was the ‘Century’s End’ single and The New York Rock and Soul Revue, both interesting. Kamikiriad was just around the corner.

RIP Forgotten 80s?

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So farewell then Forgotten 80s?

It was the jewel in Absolute 80s’ crown, the radio show for last thing on Sunday nights which showcased underrated gems, lost classics and long-forgotten cult tracks from the decade.

Presented by Matthew Rudd, Forgotten 80s was also much-appreciated ‘appointment radio’ during the hell years of 2020-?.

It was definitely the only show on the dial where you’d hear underrated ‘80s acts like Love and Money, It Bites, Danny Wilson et al (it now seems pretty unlikely that ‘Jocelyn Square’, ‘Underneath Your Pillow’ or ‘Never Gonna Be The Same’ will ever again get an airing).

Amidst rumours of an investigation, Forgotten 80s has been missing from the airwaves since February – apparently without an official statement from Bauer Media – and now reportedly removed from Rayo schedules completely…

Prince: Syracuse, New York, 30 March 1985

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In these crazy times, it’s always good to hear music that ‘washes away the dust of everyday life’, to paraphrase Art Blakey.

Rewatching Prince’s 30 March 1985 Syracuse gig this week did just that. The brilliant 1984-1989 period of albums is one thing but it’s somewhat of a shock to be reminded of how fantastic the live shows were during this time, and musically streets ahead of pretty much everything 2026 can offer.

Even though by all accounts he was already tired of the Purple Rain tour by early 1985 (during the tour he had put the finishing touches to The Family’s self-titled debut, Sheila E’s Romance 1600 and Around The World In A Day), he gave nothing less than his all.

The Syracuse gig was reportedly attended by 49,000 people but wasn’t sold out. A heavily edited 78-minute cut is currently on iPlayer for UK viewers, commemorating 10 years since Prince’s death, with a lot of the weirder sexual stuff edited out.

Joni Mitchell once said Prince was not a pioneer but instead a brilliant assimilator, and here we see James Brown, Little Richard, Sly Stone, Jimi Hendrix and Carlos Santana rolled into one. The show is built for pure entertainment. There are so many notable moments:

– Prince taking off his Telecaster and chucking it 25 yards into the arms of a roadie during ‘Computer Blue’

– Wendy and Prince’s twin rhythm guitars on ‘1999’ (Wendy acquits herself superbly throughout, often playing Prince’s recorded solos note for note with some aplomb. According to Prince’s engineer Susan Rogers, he acted as a guitar mentor to Wendy, his frequent advice to her being: ‘Learn to solo, learn to solo…’)

– Mark Brown’s excellent bass throughout, absurdly trebly and showing serious funk chops

– The use of silence. This band could turn on a dime. In fact, Prince insisted on it!

– The small stage, and how close the band members are to each other. Check out the remarkable shot where the camera zooms out to show the entirety of the stadium, with a tiny stage in the background

– Bobby Z’s control of the Linn Drum machine: some serious pressure there. There’s a particularly quick sleight of hand between ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ and ‘Delirious’. But he plays ‘live’ on ‘Take Me With U’ and ‘Purple Rain’ with the Linn trigger on his snare. You’d hope Lisa Coleman and Dr Fink were wearing ear plugs during this gig though – he NEVER lays off the cymbals

– The ‘Baby I’m A Star’ finale featuring Sheila E, Eric Leeds et al is pretty remarkable, complete with audience members doing the conga around the stage

The Purple Rain tour ended on 7 April 1985. He began work on Parade just ten days later! He sat down at the drums and recorded the first four songs at Sunset Sound on 17 April 1985. Then Around The World In A Day was released on 22 April. This guy was always thinking two albums ahead.

Rolling Stone from 40 years ago this week, the 26 April 1986 edition

But reportedly it was a big shock to Prince’s management and band that he refused to tour Purple Rain outside of the USA. They wanted to milk it for all it was worth, but Prince was moving on.

And his bandmates were less than thrilled to receive a tour bonus of just $10,000 each (meanwhile Prince’s accountants informed Sheila, who had acted as the opening act on the tour, that she owed Warner Bros. $1 million…).

Perhaps the most remarkable thing of all though is that Prince would go on to make better music during the 1980s, and arguably do better live shows too…

Book Review: Every UK Hit Single (1980) by Richard West

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Authors are finding ever-more ingenious ways to explore 1980s music.

Perhaps due to the democratisation of the era via streaming services – and those services’ general lack of decent credits/info – and advent of YouTube reaction videos, there seems an increasing appetite for behind-the-scenes info.

All of which makes Richard West’s new book ‘Every UK Hit Single: 1980’ very welcome. It goes the whole hog, exploring the stories behind every charting single of 1980 in the chronological order that they entered the UK top 40.

Of course 1980 is a great place to start, a year when heavy metal was thriving and punk was morphing into the nascent Goth, synth pop and New Romantic scenes.

Disco, reggae, ska and funk were regular visitors to the charts, there was a weird doo-wop/rock’n’roll revival and ‘70s icons like Kate Bush, Bryan Ferry, Peter Gabriel and David Bowie were bringing fresh ideas to the table.

West is very well placed to write the book, an author and respected musician, and it’s a great read, a joyful hit of nostalgia. This writer devoured it in a few days.

A good example of his modus operandi is the entry on The Vapors’ memorable one-hit wonder ‘Turning Japanese’ which entered the chart on 1 March 1980. Though skirting the issue of what the song’s actually about (ugly rumours abound…), he gives a neat potted history of the band and their somewhat unlucky chart history.

He’s also excellent on 1980’s many oddities such as the doo-wop revivalists Showaddywaddy and DIY popster Jona Lewie.

It’s destined to be a useful reference book, with an index on each artist mentioned and information on artists’ singles which didn’t make the top 40 during the 1980s. And West does particularly well to avoid repetition – it’s not easy to say something new about each of, say, Bowie’s singles of 1980, but West manages it.

Of course there are pitfalls to his approach. For example, on page one, West fails to identify the songwriter of The Nolans’ ‘I’m In The Mood For Dancing’, the first question your correspondent wanted to know about that annoyingly catchy song (it’s Bob Puzey, who went on to write Hoddle and Waddle’s ‘Diamond Lights’… Ed.)

And a little more musical analysis would have been welcome now and again. And there no getting away from the fact that the book has a no-frills design, with no photos.

But it doesn’t stop ‘Every Hit Single’ from being a fun, snappy read, a great excuse to geek out on the charts of 1980. West is promising more books in the series – good news, especially as 1981 is arguably pop’s greatest ever year…

Gig Review: Chad Wackerman & The LA All-Stars @ Ronnie Scott’s, 30 March 2026

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Over his 45-year career, Chad Wackerman has become the Mr Consistency of jazz/rock drums.

Since making his name in Frank Zappa’s 1980s bands, he has contributed to the music of Allan Holdsworth, Steve Vai, Andy Summers, Francis Dunnery and many more, showcasing a flowing, highly melodic, instantly recognisable approach to the kit. You might even call him the Elvin Jones of fusion.

But it was Wackerman’s original compositions – honed over six solo albums, the latest being Quube – which took the spotlight during this hugely enjoyable sold-out gig alongside a starry lineup of bassist Jimmy Haslip, keyboard player Steve Hunt and guitarist Alex Machacek.

And yes, this was all-original music with not a standard in sight, a pretty rare occurrence for Ronnie’s (Haslip and Hunt seemed to be reading charts). Not even Tribal Tech do that when they come to town.

Holdsworth fans will twig that three of these players are closely associated with the late master guitarist who also appeared on Wackerman’s superb 1991 debut album Forty Reasons.  Though Allan wasn’t mentioned by name, his influence towered over this music (Wackerman also contributed memorable compositions to a few Holdsworth solo albums).

‘The Fifth’ thrust us into the band’s soundworld, a subtle, elegiac half-time shuffle with dark, meaty, close-interval chords and vertical harmony. Wackerman’s feel is subtly different to those of past half-time masters Omar Hakim, Kirk Covington and Peter Erskine.

Haslip embarked on a telling mid-range solo while Machacek’s whammified chords and phrasing couldn’t help but bring Holdsworth to mind, though later in the evening he revealed more distinctive aspects.

‘Holiday Insane’ and ‘Electric City’ perfectly demonstrated Wackerman’s ‘conversational’ approach to groove playing, heavy on the ride cymbal and open hi-hats, the latter also featuring a classic Hunt Rhodes solo.

Haslip excelled on the ethereal ‘Quiet Life’, his approach subtly different to fellow LA bass monster Jimmy Johnson’s from the recorded version.

Wackerman kicked off his NYC tribute ‘The City’ with a melodic solo, a mini composition in itself (Zappa’s influence?), while Hunt added vocoder to the mix and Machacek nodded to Wayne Shorter’s ‘Witch Hunt’ during his fine solo. ‘Tell Me’ stayed close to the recorded version, Machacek even at times dialling in a harmonizer.

Meanwhile ‘I Like Your Old Stuff’ – inspired by a fan’s post-concert comment – showed the heavier side of this quartet, a flowing, fast 4/4 which occasionally foregrounded a vicious bass/guitar riff. ‘All Sevens’ rounded things off with another superb Hunt feature and engaging group improvisation.

The affectionate reception given to this music seemed to thrill the ever-modest Wackerman. His brand of jazz/rock may be unfashionable – no political comment or social protest here – but he’s building a subtle and original body of work which benefits from close attention.

Francis Dunnery talks about his work with Chad here.

The Cult Movie Club: O.C. And Stiggs (1987)

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It’s an interesting pitch: Robert Altman, director of ‘The Long Goodbye’, ‘Nashville’ and ‘M*A*S*H’, does a 1980s teen movie.

And, true to form, ‘O.C. And Stiggs’ ended up as a fascinating, completely unpredictable viewing experience. It’s the ‘1941’ of teenage films.

But it was also one of the great filmmaker’s biggest flops, not helped by the fact that it inexplicably received an ‘R’ rating.

Remarkably, it was the only movie Altman made for a major studio between ‘Popeye’ in 1980 and ‘The Player’ in 1992.

Based on a series of National Lampoon magazine stories and financed by MGM, it was shot in summer 1983 (predating the first John Hughes-directed movie by almost a year) but didn’t creep out until 1987.

Presumably MGM were looking for something like ‘Porky’s’ or ‘Fast Times At Ridgemont High’, but what they got was pure Altman. In fact the film feels very much part of the 1970s rather than 1980s.

He only devotes one short paragraph to the film in the book ‘Altman On Altman’: ‘I agreed to do it because I hated teenage movies so much. I thought I’d do it as a satire of teenage movies.’

Set in Phoenix, Arizona, it concerns a couple of unhappy, smart-ass teens nicely played by Daniel Jenkins and Neill Barry who declare war on the family of finance magnate Randall Schwab for cancelling the old-age insurance of OC’s grandfather.

Inexplicably, both kids are also obsessed by the music of Nigerian bandleader/multi-instrumentalist King Sunny Ade, so we get an excellent soundtrack, a nice bit of concert footage in the style of ‘Nashville’, and a cameo from the man himself.

But mainly the movie is a pretty cutting satire of a suburban America mainly populated by Vietnam vets, self-obsessed parents, clueless teenagers and winos. And, being an Altman film, there’s also a myriad of interesting, funny details which most of the contemporary critics completely missed.

Dennis Hopper – during his full-on booze blow-out era – reprises his ‘Apocalypse Now’ role, complete with his own theme song parodying Doors’ ‘The End’ (later there’s even a silly ‘Ride Of The Valkyries’ spoof).

Other interesting cameos include Jon ‘Pretty In Pink’ Cryer making his film debut, ‘Saturday Night Live’ veteran Jane Curtin, Alan Autry reprising his role from Walter Hill’s ‘Southern Comfort’ while a teenage Cynthia ‘Sex And The City’ Dixon gets a song and dance routine. Melvin Van Peebles and Martin Mull show up too.

According to Cryer, the film was mainly improvised, with Altman encouraging long takes and free movement from the actors. It’s a joy to look at, with those beautiful, wide-angle shots a la ‘3 Women’ and ‘Nashville’, and lively, colourful production design.

A YouTube comment claims that it’s the worst movie of all time. No way. It’s not even the worst Altman movie – surely that must be ‘The Room’.

Still, obviously ‘O.C. And Stiggs’ is not the first Altman film to watch if you’re not already aware of his stuff. But if you love ‘The Player’, ‘Short Cuts’, ‘Nashville’ or ‘The Long Goodbye’, it’s well worth a look.

It’s currently available to watch for free on YouTube in very high quality.