In 1982 Cliff decided it was time to bring together all his talents in one fabulous, blockbusting package. Inspired by the Steven Spielberg-directed film Jaws – where the small American community of Amity is terrorised by a 7.6 m (25 ft) long, man-eating shark – he proposed to go full auteur by writing, directing, casting, composing and even acting in a watery horror in which a small community located at Lake Windermere (in the Lake District) is terrorised by a 3.6 m (12 ft) long, man-eating… pike.
The ambitious film would require a budget far in excess of the peanuts that funded the type of films with which Cliff was more usually associated. One way of raising that, he reasoned, would be to plant the idea in the psyche of the nation. So he set out to convince people that the scenario faced by the protagonists of his screenplay could really happen – to anyone.
Cliff needed to do for the reputation of the lowly pike what Jaws author Peter Benchley had done for sharks. Generally speaking, pike grow to a maximum of 1.5 m (5 ft). Of course, it would be unpleasant to be at the wrong end of such an angry pike… if you’re a smaller fish. Most humans, though, will survive the rare nip on the big toe meted out by a pike if disturbed. But Cliff wasn’t going to let facts get in the way of a good idea. Asked in a local TV interview if his story was backed, even loosely, by evidence, he replied: ‘… the largest pike ever caught was 19 ft [5.7 m]. And pike can be dangerous, you know, there’s no two ways about it.’
As an aside, it’s worth noting that the worldwide success of Jaws served, in many ways, only to justify the wholesale destruction of all species of sharks. Benchley was horrified that his pulp thriller had such ramifications and became a vocal advocate of shark conservation. But with the best, or worst, will in the world, Cliff’s film was unlikely to impact pike stocks in any meaningful way.
The monster fish central to the film needed to be nothing short of awe-inspiring. Size mattered. Cliff needed to get the industry talking and investors opening their wallets, so he commissioned artist Charles Wyatt and submarine manufacturer George Coloquhoun (pronounced Ku-Hoon, by the way) to create two 3.6 m (12 ft) long pike models that had snapping, bone-smashing jaws and which could actually swim. Charles, who’d met Cliff by chance in a gym, recalls that ‘he commissioned me to make a sculpture of a painting of a huge pike I’d done. I didn’t really know what I was doing!’ George, meanwhile, was in charge of bringing the beasts to life. ‘We actually caught some pike and put them in a swimming pool so we could study how the fish moved.’
George’s submarine engineering skills resulted in two, fierce-looking model pike – one that was powered by an internal engine. ‘It was cutting-edge technology,’ says George. The BBC science show Tomorrow’s World agreed and ran a piece about the precursor to animatronics created in a shed in Cumbria.
As George and Charles sweated it out in the workshops, Cliff called a press conference to unveil the beast and announce a triumphant piece of casting: Joan Collins. This was quite something; La Collins was heading the Dynasty cast as the extremely glamorous vamp Alexis Carrington and the show, reaching the end of its first season, was a huge hit. Career-wise, going from the rarefied, sequined shoulder-padded world of Colorado oligarchs to being menaced by a fish in the Lake District either showed Joan’s commitment to not being typecast – or, more likely, a very generous fee. Whatever her motivation, Joan came to the shores of Lake Windermere to meet the press and show her support for the film.
Fixing an actorly gaze down at the cameras she said, ‘What is under the water has always been very, very frightening, sort of nightmarish… and people like to be scared.’
Andrew Wilson was a reporter for the local paper, the Lakeland Echo, when the media circus came to town: ‘Somebody rang me, I think from the hotel, and said “Joan is actually here.” She certainly performed brilliantly…’
The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of the pike, which refused to work on any level the moment it was placed in the water. Sensing disaster – and a good photo opportunity – Joan Collins spontaneously put her head inside the toothy jaws of the pike and gurned, glamorously, for the snappers.
It wasn’t enough to save the film, sadly. A non-functioning fish was a huge turn-off for investors and the project was, well, dead in the water.
Undoubtedly The Pike was a disaster and significant setback, yet it feels churlish to call it a failure since Cliff Tremlow’s entire purpose seemed to be to pack his life with as much incident, enthusiasm, creativity and fun as possible. The final line of his autobiography, Tuxedo Warrior, declares that ‘it is far better to be a resident on the brink of hell, than spend a lifetime in a relentless pursuit of a mythical heaven.’ The philosophy of an epic winner, surely.
BRITISH B-MONSTERS
Had The Pike been made, would it have been as fêted as Jaws, the film it was inspired by? Likely it would have been ridiculed in the newspapers that could be bothered to review it and then forgotten, like the following selection of British B-movies that were actually made. Trog (1970) is the story of an ape-man living in the Home Counties, and a film so spectacularly stupid it features a scene in which the hairy beast dances to easy-listening jazz. Gorgo (1961) is a thinly veiled Godzilla rip-off about a giant reptile that terrorises London, and was made for about a quarter of the budget of the Chewits advert. Then there’s 1954’s Devil Girl from Mars, the salacious story of a Martian she-devil and her robot sidekick rounding up the male inhabitants of a small Scottish village for a breeding programme. And who could forget Konga (aka I Was a Teenage Gorilla, 1961), the tale of a botanist’s botched experiment on a chimpanzee. Why would a plant scientist carry out experiments on primates? You’ll have to watch the film for the explanation. Although, even then, trust me, it still won’t make any sense. The results of the experiment see London (or Croydon, to be precise) being laid to waste by a stuntman in a gorilla suit. By comparison, The Pike looks like a sane investment opportunity.
TWANG!! FAILS TO HIT TARGET
In 1960, Lionel Bart forever changed the face of British musical theatre history. Oliver!, his West End adaptation of Charles Dickens’ iconic novel Oliver Twist, took the capital by storm, before finding equal success across the pond on Broadway. It was a massive achievement in every sense, not least because Bart couldn’t read or write music. Instead he came up with the melodies and lyrics in his head and then hummed them to a transcriber.
With that glittering success under his belt, Bart turned his substantial talents to another classic figure of British literature: Robin Hood. The resulting musical, Twang!!, was a burlesque parody of the fabled outlaw and his merry men, featuring silly disguises, a ‘court tart’ and a Scottish villain by the name of Roger the Ugly.
Based on the success of Oliver!, the biggest names in British comedy, including Ronnie Corbett, Bernard Bresslaw and Barbara Windsor, were itching to don green tights. What could possibly go wrong?
Much, is the answer. Bart, an erratic figure at the best of times, was enjoying his newfound celebrity. He was drinking heavily and experimenting with psychedelic drugs, which may explain some of Twang!!’s absurd plotlines. The director was Joan Littlewood, a hugely influential figure in British theatre who had triumphed earlier that decade with Oh, What a Lovely War!, but a disastrous preview in Manchester in November 1965 led to her jumping ship. Last-minute script changes only served to confuse matters more, and the show opened in disarray at London’s Shaftesbury Theatre on 20 December 1965.
At the 11th hour, Bart decided the play needed to be camper, and threw some transvestism into the mix for good measure. The conductor fainted, an electrical fault meant the house lights kept coming