‘The Cane and Mr. Abel’ is a 25-minute long movie directed
by George Harrison-Marks in 1982. It is often identified as an ‘Imprint’ production although there is no evidence of
that at either the beginning or end of the movie. It was distributed through Phoenix magazine
and bookshop in the UK and it was released by CalStar in the US in 1986.
Last week I posted a Janus filmography that I’ve been
developing. I’ve been working on several
others and that effort started with an attempt to sort out the films of George
Harrison-Marks. Marks was a photographer
and film maker who made the first Janus films starting in 1976 and served as
editor of the magazine following the death of A.G. Van Okker in 1980. He left Janus in 1982 to start Kane which
eventually released 101 spanking movies under the ‘Kane International’ banner, and
Mark’s daughter and her partner released 35 more under the ‘Top Marks’ banner
after GHM’s death.
Peter Henderson describes the
beginning of Kane International in a biography of George Harrison-Marks that
appeared in The Wellred Weekly (http://www.wellredweekly.com/index.php?article=369):
Despite
a successful launch and a growing circulation Kane did not generate a substantial profit during its first year
of publication. It did, however, provide an ideal platform from which he could
promote and sell home movies again.
George concluded that,
in order to provide his customers with what they really wanted, he would have
to produce and direct the films himself. In 1984 he acquired the services of a
videographer and shot his first video, The Cane and Mr. Abel, starring
celebrity model Linzi Drew as a games mistress who nevertheless ends up on the
receiving end of a good spanking.
Another three videos
followed but financing the production costs continued to be a problem.
Fortunately, towards the end of 1985 George was offered a partnership with a
professional cinematographer he had worked with in the sixties and together
they formed Kane International which would go on to produce all future Kane CP
videos.
“The Cane and Mr. Abel” is only one of the movies that GHM produced in the
time between leaving Janus and starting Kane International and I have been
trying to trace their origins. I’ve also
been going through some of the other spanking magazines that competed with
Janus during the 1980 including ‘Phoenix’.
In an article entitled ‘The Rise & Fall of the Spanking Mag: A UK
writer's perspective” (http://www.wellredweekly.com/index.php?article=339),
Nick Urzdown describes the beginnings of Phoenix.
Following the death of
the editor of Janus, Alan Van Okker, an attempt was made at a coup by the
magazine's writers. An adult film maker named George Harrison Marks was brought
in as a stop-gap editor but he had little interest in spanking publications, or
the 'fladge' as it was referred to in the trade. The writers went off to set up
a magazine of their own which ran under the name of Phoenix for some years, but
it never reached the heights of Janus which seemed to go from strength to
strength.
These two projects recently came together when I was looking
through a copy of Phoenix 16 (probably published in 1982 or very early 1983) and I found the following ad on the last page.
‘The Cane and Mr. Abel’ opens with a teacher, Miss Margaret
Daly, played by frequent GHM collaborator Linzi Drew (Warden’s End, Slaves of
Mistress Monique, etc.) cleaning a blackboard in a classroom while she impatiently
waits for a student named Fiona. Fiona
has written a letter recounting the latest gossip about Miss Daly’s love life
but the letter has fallen into Miss Daly’s hands and now Fiona is going to pay
the price. Fiona begs for forgiveness so
Miss Daly offers her the option of six strokes of the cane in the classroom instead
of a trip to the Headmaster’s office which could lead to expulsion. Fiona agrees but continues to beg when she
learns it will be a bare bottom caning.
The caning drags on a little long, mostly due to the Fiona’s whimpering. Fiona isn’t played by a very good actress but
Drew is at her seductive best as she administers the caning.
The Headmaster, Mr. Abel, (who is not played by George
Harrison-Marks despite the frequent suggestions that he is) walks into the
classroom just as Fiona’s caning ends and he is, of course, outraged that Margaret
Daly has caned a student without his permission and he demands her resignation. She has no intention of resigning and he
flirts with him while she coyly suggests an alternative. He finally gets the message and tells her to
be in his office at 7 p.m. that evening.
The clock chimes 7 as Margaret arrives at Mr. Abel’s office dressed
in very different attire than she had been wearing in class. Mr. Abel decides that her dress should come
off before he takes her across his knee for a hand spanking. It isn’t a hard spanking but she makes a good
show of it. Eventually her panties come
off but it the punishment doesn’t go any further than that. The scene ends with Margaret and the
Headmaster moving on to other activities that are left to the viewers
imagination.
I love this movie and Linzi Drew’s performance in particular.
The punishments aren’t particularly hard but the movie is erotic and GHM’s sense of humour is evident as is
his background in ‘glamour’ photography and films.
Unfortunately, no one is making movies like this at present. I only wish I could find a better copy than I currently have. It is currently available in two parts through
the ‘Classic British Spanking’ store on Clips4Sale (http://www.clips4sale.com/studio/3907/classic-british-spanking/)
but I haven't bought it because it appears that a couple of minutes may have been edited out.
