 |
|
|
|
|
LOST FOR DECADES!
NOW DIGITALLY RE-MASTERED FROM
THE ONLY SURVIVING 35mm PRINT!
|
ALIZARIN PRODUCTIONS
present
EDWARD KALINSKI PETER HOWELL RAY ROBERTS
and DOROTHY ALISON in
"THE ERRAND"
with PHILOMENA McDONAGH BRIAN ATTREE JOHN COLLIN
TIMOTHY MORAND TOM BOWLES and MAURICE BLAKE
Executive Producers DAVID McGILLIVRAY and JOHN P. VILTON
Produced by GODFREY KIRBY Directed by NIGEL FINCH Screenplay
by DAVID McGILLIVRAY Photography PASCOE MacFARLANE
|
| |
After writing four horror films
for Pete Walker, David McGillivray argued with the cult director
and turned to theatre, TV and radio work. But in 1979, while
delirious from a typhoid and cholera injection, he formulated
a plot for a film about a dying soldier refused help by everyone
he meets. On January 25, 1980, Godfrey Kirby suggested that
he and McGillivray should shoot the movie themselves with
the aid of a mutual friend, John Vilton. The three scraped
together £6000. Since none of them felt confident enough
to direct, McGillivray recommended Nigel Finch, with whom
he had worked on radio and TV. Although Finch had made several
documentaries for the BBC series Arena, he had never
directed actors, but more importantly he was willing to work
for no money as well as investing a further £2000. Further
costs were saved because Kirby's friend, lighting cameraman
Pascoe MacFarlane, co-owned a 16mm camera, and because location
facilities were granted virtually free. The cast, however,
was paid. The actors included Edward Kalinski, who had previously
worked with McGillivray on Pete Walker's Frightmare,
and Philomena McDonagh, who was simultaneously touring in
McGillivray's play The Farndale/Murder Mystery. A small
part was taken by Alan Jones, later to become a prominent
film critic and co-curator of the Frightfest horror
film festival. The Errand was shot in fourteen days
between July and August, 1980. In April, 1981, it was taken
for cinema distribution by Columbia-EMI-Warner, which put
it on a bill with a horror film, Happy Birthday to Me,
and later the Sean Connery sci-fi Western, Outland.
At some point in the 80s, all prints of The Errand were assumed destroyed and the negative lost. In 2006 archivist
Paul Cotgrove discovered a surviving print in excellent condition.
It was digitally re-mastered and is now available for the
first time on DVD. |
| |
|
 |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
