Black Velvet Band

"It's like Oliver Twist meets Captain Bligh in a.spaghetti western," The Scotsman quotes Todd Carty. - "doing his darndest to dim your enthusiasm.for this period adventure set in South Africa."

Starring Nick Berry, shown on Christmas Eve 1997 and billed as a "blockbuster", this was carefully aimed at an audience that didn't think too much. Nick Berry's audience exactly.

If Black Velvet Band had been made as a serialised adventure series for children in the 1960s or 1970s it might now be very fondly remembered.

As it was, reviews for this featherlight affair were scathing from a media that had seen rather more of Mr Berry than it cared for by 1997.

"It was all too preposterous for words," said.the Mirror's Tony Purnell.

And I can't add to that.

Ridiculous The film moves from one outrageous comic strip encounter to another.

The storyline strays from a serious piece of history transportation to Australia to a bad Indiana Jones style fantasy.

Amy Marston who played Half Pint is as wooden as the scenery & her amateur performance is matched only by her dreadful attempt at a cockney accent.

It is a film that leaves you wondering why was it written,why was it made & why was it released.

Once i started watching it i had to carry on in case it improved however it got worse.

The actors must have been 'resting' or very well paid to make this drivel.

Three ex-Eastenders actors Todd Carty, Chris McHallem and Nick Berry along with two others plan to steal the crown jewels in Victorian England.

They are caught, get mistaken for Chartists. The authorities ensure the four men and one woman are sentenced to life to a penal colony in Australia.

Sick of tired of receiving brutal treatment and the lash in the ship transporting them. They manage to escape from the ship when it docks in Cape Town.

Despite South Africa being a vast country. Wherever they go, the pursuing soldiers seem to find them or someone grasses them up.

Also one of them never learns that his pack of cards and gambling just invites more trouble.

Billed as a western, there is an over the top shootout at the climax. The script is half baked. At one point they come across an aristocrat who is the dead ringer of a duke and he might be illegitimate son of a king.

When flicking TV channels I came across this film on Talking Pictures 15 minutes after it had started. I was sufficiently intrigued to record the remainder and then "catch up" with the start on TPTV Encore.

I found it adequate enough, though here and there I wondered if there'd been some editing before it was shown on Talking Pictures, with several jumps in the plot. These became more obvious when the action moved to South Africa, with a few scenes back in London, with communication between the two being rapid, one letter to the British Government taking just weeks to arrive. More like three months was the norm! And after they'd swum ashore the five seemed to have found some more clothes.

It was refreshing that the female lead, Louisa, was NOT portrayed as glamorous; in fact when I first saw her during the channel-flicking I wondered if she was a boy. Decades ago, Hollywood would have used a glamorous actress to play a female convict. Think Paulette Goddard in "Unconquered". (Gabriella Cirillo herself could be glamorous, to the extent of winning the Miss Italy title in South Africa a few years later.)

But if the producers avoided this trope, there were others that they did not. There were the traditional encounters with South African wildlife; after the lion, rhinoceros and elephants had appeared, I was thinking "snake next", and so it proved. And there were the immediate romances when the five reached the hospitable estate.

All the cast acquitted themselves well enough, but the vindictive Major Watson seemed rather callow for his rank. Better for him to have been a lieutenant or played by an older actor.

The ending caught me unawares. It was as if the makers had exceeded their screen time and rushed the closing scenes. And how did Mrs Tusco fare when she arrived in the vastness of South Africa to re-unite with her husband?

I really loved this when it was shown and can hardly believe it's nearly ten years ago. I expected it to be released on video shortly after as Nick Berry was a huge star at the time but it never appeared and has never as far as I know been shown again on television in the UK. Great plot about a gang of Victorian criminals(the Black Velvet Band) who plan an audacious theft of the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. However they are caught red-handed and transported to Australia for life. En route there ship stops in South Africa and they manage to escape from the ship and deep into the South African veldt pursued by a British officer and troops. My memory of the plot goes a bit awry here but they fall foul of a nasty local landowner and he either double-crosses them or has killed one of band and they seek revenge in a terrific shoot-out that would grace any great western. They then move on further into the veldt and decide to settle. Nick Berry was very good indeed and handled the action sequences well. All the other actors were good and the period setting was done very convincingly. Maybe it'll turn up one day on one of the satellite channels,if so don't miss it, if like me, you love westerns or western derivatives.