Film Lover and Collector Miles Flannigan

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Why do I collect? One, I can't imagine not collecting. I tried. My late wife, Rako, she was a sort of person who would say, if you're not using it, just sell it. And so I did. I started selling stuff at Monsterpalooza. It was only when, after she died, you know, I wanted to sort of change the house a bit. It was something that was therapeutic and I started putting frames on the walls. You know, the edge of the frames open up and you just slide new, new posters in. What I like is I have a passion for film. So everything's sort of around film. Some people have paintings on the wall and I just have film posters. My name is Miles Flanagan and I'm from originally from the UK, from York, but I'm now living in now. I've lived in LA over 30 years and I love film. I love movies and I love collecting things. Is it a disease? Is it taking me over? I don't know, but I love it. I've been collecting since probably about 10 and I still have things from the age of 10. I have so many collectibles here. This is sort of a smorgasbord of things that have meant a lot to me. I mean, it's things like, you know, the Planet of the Apes trading cards. I've got the full set, which I had when I was a kid. Um, now this I'd never heard of, but I just, it was fascinating. Here's Bo and it's Bo Derek with her own trading cards and poster. Um, but I was just thinking, so who's, who's the, who's this marketed towards? Um, and they're all just poses of her from her husband, John Derek. Um, and then you've got this, which this isn't the one that I had when I was a kid, but this is the classic Corgi yellow submarine. Um, absolutely fantastic. Um, this other car is from Jerry Anderson secret service that I had from a kid, uh, still boxed and everything. And that was, um, one of his least famous of these marionette shows. Jerry Anderson is mostly famous for stingray, uh, Thunderbirds shows like that. Um, and then, then we have this, which is from on a majesty secret service. And it's the bobsleigh, it's from the bobsleigh scene. Uh, this must be, I guess, James Bond, who's George Lazenby. And this was mine. This was mine from, I don't know, it must be about six, something like that, six or seven. And I've had it ever since. Uh, and like a lot of these collectibles, I've had a lot of them since I was a little kid. So my, uh, some got damaged and some I've replaced. Sometimes I'd sell some on it, uh, at monster palooza, regret it and buy them back again. I mean, you know, I grew up with TV. Um, a lot of people say, oh, you can only really enjoy movies, you know, when you see them in the cinema, which is true. But most of those people, if you actually talk to them, they will have seen the majority of the classics on TV. Uh, so I guess my, you know, it came from TV, but we used to go to the cinema a lot. And I do remember the first, I'm slightly confused. The first film I ever saw was either, uh, Rex Harrison's Doctor Dolittle, which was 67. Or it was Disney's Pinocchio, uh, the classic animation, uh, probably the, the, the greatest piece of animation ever made. Um, so it was one of those, both of them really impressed me, uh, and they still do today. I loved the TV movie, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. And someone recently made, uh, starring Jim Hutton, um, and Kim Darby. Someone recently, and it was remade, produced by, um, Guillermo del Toro. Uh, yeah. And someone recently made this, these little figures, which are really nicely done. But my son, when he was little, was obsessed with this film, you know, when he was about six or seven. And so what we would do is we would, uh, before there was any merch, because it was before the remake, and before the sort of resurgence of interest, uh, we made one out of clay. And this is, uh, this is the version we made together, me and my son. Which I think is pretty cool. Not many people in the UK know about this. This was The Goon Show, um, which was a radio show, uh, starring, uh, Peter Sellers, Harry Seacombe, and, um, Spike Milligan. And it's where Peter Sellers first sort of, uh, became famous. This is actually, they later did a puppet version of it called Telegoons in the early sixties. And this is one of the rare puppets of one of the characters, Eccles, who's voiced by Spike Milligan. He's really dumb. But, um, I managed to get this on eBay. And it even comes with the, with the box, which is kind of cool, which, uh, I don't know if you can see up there. It actually says Telegoons. Uh, and that's how they sent it. But it's, um, totally, uh, you know, unused. Again, it's not film, but it's, uh, it's all related to film. It's TV. Everyone's got a favorite James Bond film, and it's usually not the best Bond film. It's usually the first Bond film that they saw at the cinema. So I'd seen re-releases, but the first new Bond film I saw at the cinema was Diamonds Are Forever. So, of course, I had to buy the Diamonds Are Forever car, which you can tell it's a sticker. So it was just a regular car die cast that they, that was in the film. And they just put the sticker on the side, but anything with the logo. The big toy was, of course, the, um, moon buggy, which in the film really plays. It's, it's not a significant part of the film. You could miss that entire bit out. He just gets in it, smashes through a wall and then jumps out. Um, but as a, as a toy, it was pretty cool. I remember it was quite kind of exciting seeing it on the big screen. So everybody my age, when I was a kid, had to have one of these. It's really nice artwork as well on the sides. Like the arts. I mean, I, I, I made super eight films when I was a kid. I made gory films. I made a film that was so gory. Bloodbath, uh, psycho movie. It was called, uh, that was on regular eight. And I, I think my mom showed it to my uncle once. And he almost fainted. I always wanted to make, uh, movies. And, but I didn't know how to, cause I, you know, I came from a working class background in Yorkshire. And so eventually I, uh, I worked out that if I went to art school, I could then somehow do that through graphic design, maybe. And eventually I went to, um, well, I, uh, there was a sidetrack where, um, I did fashion for a year in London. Then I realized that was wrong. And then I did, uh, animation, film and animation at Middlesex Poly, now known as Middlesex University. Um, and that's when I, uh, I realized, well, yeah, I could do animation and that might work, move into film. And so the animation I did was mixed media. My career, when I was an animation director and doing commercials, I remember someone, um, I think I saw someone with a pullout business card. And I thought, oh, I could do one better. I wanted to have something that was fun. So it was, uh, I did a card with some of my work on one side listed. And then on the other, it was examples of some of the work. Cause I thought a business card, this was before really the internet could handle video. I remember having conversations with, uh, friends and we were saying, oh God, can you imagine if video, if the internet, if you could have feature films on the internet? And we'd be thinking, that's ridiculous. How could you have that much, you know, information streaming? It was not like late eighties, early nineties. And then I did music videos and I was, but I also, I, at the same time I was running an independent, uh, record label with my friends. Uh, Mark Godin and, but then I moved into music videos and then commercials and came over here. Uh, commercials were going really well. And I had a lot of free time. Even when I was doing the commercials, commercials were live action and animation, um, decided to do film festivals. So I set up Hollywood horror fest, Los Angeles animation festival and boobs and blood. Boobs and blood will raise money for breast cancer charity. Hollywood horror fest. We have the Vincent price award, which I work with Victoria price. And we celebrate icons of horror, like Elvira. She won it. Cassandra Peterson, um, Joe Dante, Sid Haig, John Landis, Rick Baker. Uh, and then I, I met people through the festivals and I set up an independent distribution company. Because a lot of people were getting, um, I was discovering more about indie film and about, uh, young filmmakers and old filmmakers, just, you know, indie filmmakers. So we set up a distribution company called film fest distribution. Uh, and that was because I'd heard so many terrible stories about people being, you know, treated badly and ripped off. Through that, I started another thing called Indie Film LA. And then moving on, I'm setting up a small film school. And then I have a, a Soho cinema club where we recreate the cinema going experience of the sixties and seventies. We do a full program, all on film, feature films, shorts. I get dressed up like this as a sixties, seventies style cinema manager, usherettes. We have, uh, an intermission with magic, with interaction. Cause people forget there was a lot of live interaction, uh, in cinema, uh, in the sixties and in the seventies. And so we recreate that. So when I was a kid, I just wanted to get involved in cinema. So I, uh, write to my local cinema manager. Um, we had two chains. We had the Odeon chain and the ABC, two great cinemas. Um, but the manager of the Odeon, he was, he was, uh, George Shepard. And, uh, he was a great guy and he used to invite me over. Um, and I went over and he'd give us a guided tour of this beautiful Odeon cinema, Art Deco cinema. Tell us lots of stories. And then occasionally he'd send me film posters. He couldn't send lots of film posters cause they had to return them. But if it was damaged, I always noticed he could send me them if it was slightly torn or something. I think that's when he didn't have to send them back if they were damaged, but I've still got, I've still got them here. I've still got the posters. I think that started the collection going and the interest. I mentioned the two cinema chains, you know, and you could smoke in those days in the cinema. So you could get ABC cinema matches. So this, uh, this has been saved all those years, you know, from the Odeon chain. That was, uh, your coaster for, uh, maybe for beer. Cause sometimes they had, they tried having bars for a while. These preview magazines, um, and these are all mine from when I used to go to the cinema. For some reason I decided to save them. They used to have little ads and it was sort of what's coming on next. So you could be like, Oh my God, scum's coming on. Oh, the Bermuda triangle. Um, yeah, even Jackie Chan before Jackie Chan really broke through. There was still every now and again, they were trying to push Jackie Chan. So I'd get in free to the ABC chain and, um, the pass, uh, I would get into the Odeon. And, uh, and again, you had competitions. You had articles in these free, free things for, um, what's that? That's, uh, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Leonard Nimai wins Sophia Loren. Really? When you went to the cinema, it's, uh, I, at the ABC, uh, in Saturday mornings, you would get buttons. You'd get badges. It would say in the UK and the badges would say ABC Miners. Cause it was for young kids. And so I've been collecting these, some of these, um, I've got the whole set, but only a few on display. Some are from when I was there as a kid and some I've collected later. But this whole badge thing, um, I like to bring it back. So when I do the Soho cinema club events, we have our own buttons and we do like at the ABC Miners, you'd have magicians there and the cinema manager would come out if it was your birthday. And everyone would sing happy birthday and you'd get a present. Uh, but I did, I like having buttons and badges. I like recreating that, that sort of stuff. Most stuff I collect is film related. And if it's not film related, it's like graphic design related. It's something, uh, it's usually retro, you know, it's not modern. The thing about film is film encompasses everything. You've got the film poster. You have the actual film. You have the title sequence. You have paperback tie-in, you know, model tie-ins, you know, toys, things like that. So film isn't just about film. It can lead to other things. So here we go. When I was a kid, it was the easiest thing to collect. It was like the cheapest thing to collect. And it was a paperback tie-ins. So, um, like, uh, this, this one, Hands of the Ripper. Not, it's probably one of the worst condition, uh, books in my collection, but it's, uh, it's the one that I, that I bought when I was, uh, probably about 10. Um, and they were so cheap to buy, you know, like, uh, the equivalent of like 10, 15 cents. And even when you bought them new, like this, I've had this since 1975. So I was 11 and I remember having to save up for this terrible movie. Legend of the Werewolf. The paperback, the artwork, I think is stunning. [00:13:34] Speaker ?: Yeah. [00:13:34] Speaker 1: These paperbacks, they're, um, I just think they're so cool because I wouldn't read them now. If I read one, I'd have to buy a different copy that I could actually, you know, bend the pages a lot. Although I do know how to read these without bending the spine. There's a trick to it. Um, but the artwork's wonderful. Um, and this is a, a series, really a series. It's Monarch books, but, um, it's great covers, um, for not very good people. Um, for not very good movies though. Gogo is a lot of fun. You know, it's a, you know, man in a dinosaur outfit, um, movie, uh, Britain's answer to Godzilla. Um, but what was interesting about a lot of these paperbacks is often they were written before the film was made. So they would just be given the script. And so they can tell you, um, things that didn't appear in the final movies. You get a lot more backstory. And sometimes you discover, you know, things that you didn't get from the, uh, from the actual film. Uh, but I love collecting them. I love collecting like the planet of the apes. I pretty much got all the apes films. Um, they had two different covers for beneath. Uh, and all these are from when I was a kid. I bought all these apart from that one, which is signed in a, uh, Sean, uh, got me that. When you have a smaller collection, you can curate. I don't know. Some people have their, uh, you know, Blu-rays and it's all alphabetical or in terms of actors or directors. And, but once you start playing them, taking them out of the racks or the drawers and putting them back in and you get more of them. And then, you know, like it just becomes a jumble, but I just put up posters and things that are like, that look good. They just look good. It's, it's some, some posters films. I just hate, but the posters are great. Some posters of films that I've never seen and the artwork's great. Um, it's nice when it's your favorite film. It means a lot. And the artwork is also amazing. And I've got a few of those. I mean, there's a man who fell to earth poster by Vic Fair, which is absolutely amazing. It's iconic. Uh, and surprisingly before I even knew who the artist was, you know, some of the some of my favorite posters that I'd been buying were by him. I just didn't know. Uh, like Vampire Circus, Tom Chantrell. Uh, he's famous for a lot of people for doing the British Star Wars poster, which I think is okay. I think it's great. What, what Tom was great at was, um, you know, like dinosaur movie posters. He could write the text in the, in the side of the volcano with the, the rock sticking out. He was great at that. And also he, I think the majority of his career, especially in the seventies was doing British sex comedies. And if you're in, if you're in this watching this in the States, you'll be thinking sec. Oh, is it? No, it's not. It's like, I think people going into the films were hoping it was, but it absolutely wasn't. It was usually, um, you know, really bad versions of like a Benny Hill sketch stretched out to one and a half hours, but his posters were great. I think Tom really enjoyed painting semi-naked women. Yeah. This is probably my all time favorite thing. And it's, um, the bound copies of House of Hammer. House of Hammer magazine, which was, uh, went from, uh, it was the mid seventies. Uh, Des Skin was the publisher and it would feature a comic version of one of the hammer classics. They started off with, uh, the horror of Dracula, also known as Dracula in the UK. So this is how, as a kid living in Yorkshire, where night of the living dead, where were you going to see that? It wasn't on TV. It wouldn't be screened at the local cinema, uh, but you'd read about it. And then, um, you had these absolutely beautiful covers. Look at these absolutely stunning. Um, so this was a way of, uh, keeping in touch with what was going on. I mean, the, you know, the talk about Mexican horror films. It wasn't, they weren't showing these on TV in the UK. So you wouldn't see anything like, I wouldn't see anything like this until I came to the US. But yeah, these, I have the binders. I have, uh, three binders and then it changed names. And luckily I have the binder for the name change, the halls of horror. I think it was cause hammer, uh, was no longer. Um, so they, but they still kept it going. Now monster mag was, it was published. I only discovered monster mag once it, once it had ended. Um, but I managed to get lots of, uh, all the back issues, um, when I still lived in London. And this was produced by, um, dead skin again. And it was, uh, a fold out poster magazine. So this, this would open up into a poster and say that, but it, it was, it was the early version of Fangoria. Cause it would feature all the gory stuff, um, inside, you know, you had all the gory, uh, shots. So it really was, it was, um, it was before, yeah, like this, this was the first one I ever bought. Um, number three, uh, that's, that's the poster. I remember having that on my bedroom wall and my mother thinking, oh my gosh, what the heck. But yeah, so they would show all the gory scenes. And when you saw the movie, it's a blink and it was gone. But these were, these were fantastic magazines. Um, and over the years I managed to, uh, get, I bought most of these when I still lived in London. The house of horror. I used to see this at the, um, local, uh, WH Smith, which was, uh, sort of, um, a new, a large news agent where you could get books and stationary and all sorts of things. This is all about hammer. This is the poster artwork from twins of evil. And, uh, it was a book that I must've bought when I was about 10, uh, maybe even younger. I'd save up a lot of money. What's great about it is it covers the entire history of, uh, hammer films. Um, goes through all their horror movies. I love this book. Um, a lot of these films were never made. That was never made. That was never made. Um, but the artwork is, uh, it's pretty stunning. Um, and it was just, this is a great book. And it's, uh, it, uh, encompassed all the hammer films, which some you could still see in cinemas, but most of them were just on TV. So this book really got me, um, excited about, uh, horror and about films. Um, and it's, uh, yeah, it's in my top three. Of course I have, uh, a super eight film collection. Um, not everything's in a box, but I've got, I mean, this is okay. Just grabbing two things nearby. Dawn of the dead on super eight. Um, yeah, and that's it. It's actually super eight. There you go. It's like, uh, I think it's about an hour. It's an hour long. Um, and it was dubbed, uh, from German into English. Now this is fun. We screen this at the Soho. We'll probably do that this year. Uh, so if you want to check out Soho cinema club, um, dot com, uh, this is all the planet of the eight films in 40 minutes. So planet of the apes, uh, beneath escape conquest battle 40 minutes. You can watch who wants to waste their time watching the full length versions when you can see them all in 40 minutes. Uh, because that's how they were released in small 200 foot spools. So the box would be that size and each 200 foot, uh, like eight minutes. So these are color sound and, um, it's a lot of fun. They're edited down. Uh, so in eight minutes, you're not going to see the whole film, but it's pretty incredible how well they tell the stories. Um, that's a fun one. Uh, there's also feature films. Uh, even though I'm saying that this is an edited down version, but it's nice artwork. This is a 400 foot. So this, this lasts about 60 minutes. This is land that time forgot. I've talked about different things. I'm involved in film distribution, film festivals. So if you want to check out what we do and I say we, cause there's a lot of volunteers and other people involved. Um, you can always go to, um, you can go to film freeway, uh, look up Hollywood horror fest or film freeway, Los Angeles animation festival. Or you can just go to Hollywood horror fest.com. You can also check out indie film. That's I N D I E film L a.org. That's where we showcase young filmmakers, old filmmakers, but short films. And we create community and people talk about their work and we have, uh, open Q and A's. Uh, and then there's Soho cinema club, um, which is Soho, S O H O cinema club.com. And that's, uh, that's like a hub to go to all the screenings we do on film. You can find out and sign up for a newsletter. Uh, and we're, and there's also the, um, Hollywood film school.org, which, uh, we're setting up in the near future. Um, and that's where we're going to teach people how to make films on a low budget and get them distributed. I think partly people collect as a bit of a time machine. I think it's to go back in time to a time when maybe life was easier when you're a kid. So there's nostalgia there. I do that to a certain degree. Um, but I also collect things. There are things that I collect that I didn't know I wanted until I see them. I have on my mantelpiece here, I have, um, some, uh, 1940s. I have these ashtrays with, uh, this man and woman holding bowling balls. And I just love the artwork. So I love that sort of retro artwork. So I think ultimately what I like is, um, I have a passion for film. So everything's sort of around film. Some people have paintings on the wall and I just have film posters. Show's over. Come back tomorrow. Come back tomorrow.