Caroline Munro and David Hasselhoff promoting STARCRASH

 

Just discovered this photo on The Grindhouse Sleaze & 80s VHS Trash Facebook Group.

I know absolutely nothing about where this originally came from other than that after years of obsessing over Starcrash this is the first time I have come across this image.

Given that this was obviously a well stage promo event for the film, I suspect that there must be other similar material out there somewhere.

Caroline Munro's musical career

This article was first previously published on my now defunct Hammer Glamour website. For this blog post I have only made slight modifications. At the time it was the only overview online about her musical career but since it got posted Karl Sherlock's Numa Records - The Formative Years has added a great section on Caroline Munro with info and record scans that far FAR surpasses mine though I was able to also help him out with the scans and tracks for Caroline's Convention Demo Tape. Definitely do check them out for a more complete overview of this part of Caroline's career. In actual fact just by reviewing their pages for today's updates was I even made aware of Munro's husband/wife collaborations with Judd Hamilton in the 1970s!


At the time of writing the first version of this article YouTube wasn't even around. Nowadays, however, exploring her musical career has never been easier and I dropped most of the scans I had posted (and long lost again in Cyberspace) for YouTube clips.


This article is probably a bit past its sell-by date but blogging about Caroline Munro's music videos made me recall it and bring it out of the cupboard.


Throughout her career, Caroline Munro repeatedly tried to break into the music business. In actual fact, prior to ever getting into modelling or acting and while still at school at the age of 16, she recorded a cover version of Tar and Cement together with Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce of Cream and Steve Howes of Yes as backing musicians. For a good while that single has been something of a Holy Grail for Munro Collectors as it was quite difficult to trace and also proved expensive enough due to her now famous fellow musicians involved in it at the start of their own careers but nothing stays obscure for too long these days and it has since found its way to YouTube and elsewhere. It’s a cheerful ditty tune that will keep you humming throughout the day and quite possibly the best song she has ever recorded.



In the subsequent years she became quite successful as a model and poster girl for Lamb’s Navy Rum and also started a promising acting career. She also appeared as the cover girl on some albums. In 1972 e.g. she appeared as an archer in Robin Hood gear on the front and back cover of Hot Hits 11. She also appeared on the cover of a Top of the Pops sleeve. Some more cover appearances have since been posted on Karl Sherlock's tribute (even though I don't think the Europa Hitparade is Munro).

In 1971 Caroline Munro did not just appear as a cover girl but in actual fact was also the subject of a song herself! For his first solo album "One Year" Colin Blunstone, lead singer of The Zombies, wrote a song called Caroline Goodbye about the breakup of their relationship.



Caroline’s most famous recording was Gary Numan’s production Pump Me Up. The single was released in 1984 and also featured Numan on keyboards and backing vocals. It’s recorded in typical Numan style, i.e. her voice is completely drowned in some monotonous synthesiser sounds and it's hard to understand what she's singing.

The B-Side, The Picture, is actually much better. In that song she sounds very much Blondie’ish.





Caroline was so serious about trying to get a break as a pop star that she even accepted a singing cameo in Don’t Open ‘Til Christmas in 1984 and co-wrote the song Warrior of Love. Little did she know that her one-day shot was turned into a "starring" role for her on the film’s posters thanks to the producers’ savvy marketing tactics.



Over the next couple of years, Caroline made only a handful of films and concentrated more on her family and raising her young kids. In the second half of the 1990s she rekindled her career by starting to run her own fan club. Again very keen on making it as a singer, she produced a private tape with excerpts of Warrior of Love, the very Country & Westernish Everything I Need and Numan’s Pump Me Up. On that tape she also spoke and introduced the songs and excerpts. The tape was distributed around "The Monster Model Fest ‘96" in Framingham, Massachusetts.

Shortly later she teamed up with fellow musician Gary Wilson and – under the name of Wilson Munro – recorded a CD with cover versions of Let It Be Me, Everlasting Love and Cruisin’, a tune written by Wilson's cousin Clive Wilson and Brian Hodgson, two long standing session musicians. Clive played the guitars on that CD as well and was also involved in Christopher Lee's recordings of It's Now Or Never and Wanderin' Star. The tunes on the Wilson Munro CD are easy enough to listen to, but unfortunately Wilson’s voice is stronger than Caroline’s and she often comes across as little more than a prominent backing musician. The CD was sold via her Official Fan Club.

Her most successful recording was actually not a musical tune, but rather an audio CD for Big Finish’s Dr Who Adventure Omega, released in 2003! Though at times hard to follow for someone not too familiar with the good Doctor, this CD is nonetheless a Must for Caroline Munro Fans as this is by far the best acting she ever did. It’s hard to believe that this is the lady who was dubbed in most of her important roles. Caroline really takes very well to the audio medium and I would sure love to hear more from her in that kind of production. Her voice is amazing: soothing, sexy, ironic, stern, whatever it needs to be. And to think that she was worried about the production because of her dyslexia is unbelievable. Her performance is nothing short but a revelation. The CD is still available from Amazon UK.

Caroline Munro in new music video

An article in the Clacton Gazette informed me that Clacton's very own country singer Gary Curtis has just recorded a new charity single, Life is for the Living, featuring Caroline Munro in its accompanying video.

Gary Curtis is also known as Gary Wilson and a while back as "Wilson Munro" the two of them together had already recorded a 3-song CD. In actual fact the photo of them at about the 01:30 mark shows a promotional picture of them in younger years from that very CD release.

Can't say that this will ever be in the Top 100 of my favourite songs ever but it's good to see Caroline again in a music video.



Of course this is not the first time that we see her in a music video. The 1982 video for Adam Ant's debut single as a solo musician, Goody Two Shoes, featured Caroline Munro as a stern and stuck up member of the press corps who literally lets her hair down for the musician.

Also look out for veteran comedian Graham Stark as the butler.



Less famous than Goody Two Shoes is Meat Loaf's If You Really Want To, probably the only one of his classic songs that didn't become hugely succesful. But what a video and what a chance for Caroline to shine for the first and only time ever as a....

Ah well, don't want to ruin the surprise for those of you who may never have watched that video before.



Though she has over the years recorded a number of songs - Mental reminder that I need to transfer my old Discography article over from my now-defunct Hammer Glamour site – Caroline has never really recorded a proper music video for any of her songs. The closest she came to it is this clip of her cameo appearance from Don't Open Till Christmas singing Warrior of Love.

Great promo reel for DRACULA A.D. 1972

Caroline Munro On the Buses

I had only ever watched Mutiny on the Buses and given that this comedy trilogy was Hammer's financially most profitable venture – Did someone say they didn't successfully try new ways in the 1970s? - was always somewhat ashamed that I had missed out on watching all three productions so when I discovered a cheapo set of those flicks in town (a steal at just €2.50) I had to splash out and dedicate the weekend to a journey back into a time when birds were crumpet and men were henpicked.

Well, what can I say? If you can stomach this kind of comedy these movies aren't all that bad. They sure aren't the worst of their kind but I wouldn't exactly call them examples of comical genius either.

What fascinated me most of all, however, was finally being able to see Caroline Munro's first appearance in a Hammer movie.

Hang on, I hear you say. Wasn't her first role in Dracula A.D. 1972 to be followed by the seminal Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter?

Sure.... Legend has it that James Carreras discovered her on one of her Lamb's Navy Rum billboards and straight away decided to offer her a contract.

Just where, however, did he see her billboard? Could it have been here?

Yes, watch the original On the Buses and you can clearly spot her a couple of times on a giant billboard right next to the bus depot.

Wanna see more proof?

So unless someone supplies me with evidence to the contrary I will remain convinced that constant exposure to her image during the filming of this comedy left him unable to resist her charms and compelled him to cast her in somewhat meatier roles and Hammer history was made.

Don't bother looking for her in Mutiny and Holiday on the Buses. By the time these were shot, her billboard had already been replaced.

How to say “De curse of de hound is on you!” in Italian…

Okay, so now I've seen The Old Dark House (thanks, Holger!) and Shadow of the Cat (thanks again, Holger!) it really feels like I'm starting to get somewhere filling the gaps in my Hammer education.
I've also been dipping my first nervous toe into the waters of New Hammer, emboldened by the rather good trailers for The Woman In Black.
I'd been intending to post about all of these things, but the fact is I've also just seen Star Crash for the first time (damn you, Holger!!!) and I'm still recovering. My wife is feeding me hot soup and mopping my brow, and I'm wondering what I did with myself during the 38 years I spent before getting round to seeing it.
Someone remind me: what was the point of all those films that don't have Caroline in that outfit in them, again? This, surely, is what the movies are all about.

I once went to a film memorabilia fair where Caroline was appearing, but found myself - uncharacteristically, I must say - too nervous to approach her. Had I seen Star Crash at that time, I probably wouldn't have even had the courage to enter the building.

Anyway, while I'm still pondering the merits of The Old Dark House and The Resident, here is a little something that recently caught my eye.

I've known this picture all my life; for some reason my father possessed a set of the books, which were designed to accompany a BBC tv series on learning Italian. But the book gives no indication of who the sharp-looking cappuccino drinking girl is on the cover, and I never realised until I recently picked up second hand copies of the tie-in LP records.
As you probably know, it's Marla Landi, known best to we as the Spanish hellcat loose on Dartmoor in The Hound of the Baskervilles but in reality, of course, an Italian. Marla presented the series, but sadly, hers is not one of the female voices on the LP, so I still don't know what she sounds like in her native tongue. And one (but only one, oddly) of the three LP covers misnames her as 'Maria'. But she looks fabulous in her coffee bar clobber. I love the barnet, and the pointy shoes.
Now I just need to see her hosting Play School...

The Munro Mystique/Caroline Munro Newsletter #4 (1983)

The Munro Mystique/Caroline Munro Newsletter #3 (1982)

The Munro Mystique/Caroline Munro Newsletter #2 (1981)