Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire

Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire is a 1987 British musical film starring Phil Daniels and Alun Armstrong. The film was directed by Alan Clarke and written by Trevor Preston. The BFI has described it as "undoubtedly the only vampire snooker musical in cinema history".[2]

Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire
DVD cover
Directed byAlan Clarke
Produced bySimon Mallin
Written byTrevor Preston
StarringPhil Daniels
Bruce Payne
Alun Armstrong
Don Henderson
Louise Gold
Music byGeorge Fenton
CinematographyClive Tickner
Edited byStephen Singleton
Distributed byITC Entertainment[1]
Release date
  • 1987 (1987)
Running time
95 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Plot

Billy the Kid is a young, up-and-coming snooker player. His manager, T.O. (The One), a compulsive gambler, falls into debt with psychopathic loanshark the Wednesday Man, who offers to cancel T.O's debt if he can arrange a 17-frame grudge snooker match between Billy and the reigning world champion Maxwell Randall (popularly known as the Green Baize Vampire).

To ensure that both players will agree to the match, T.O hires a journalist, Miss Sullivan, to stir up trouble between them. She interviews Billy and the Vampire separately, asks them leading questions intended to elicit angry responses and provoke enmity, then prints the results. The match is set.

Unknown to T.O., the Wednesday Man has hidden motives regarding the match. The sinister loanshark has engineered a clause in the game's legal documentation to the effect that the loser will agree to never play professional snooker again. Though the Vampire is close to retirement, Billy is young, and such a clause—if he loses—would greatly disadvantage him. T.O. only agrees when the Wednesday Man suggests that the Vampire will "not be at his best"; a clear insinuation that he will be bribed, or threatened. It is only later that T.O. discovers that this is a lie and that the Wednesday Man is plotting with the Vampire, hates both him and Billy, and wishes to see them suffer.

The match goes very badly for Billy, but when T.O. finally confesses, during a break, of his underhand dealings with the Wednesday Man (and the Vampire himself) he manages to pull himself together and eventually win the match.

Cast

Songs
  • "Green Stamps" – sung by Billy
  • "Poker Song" – T.O.
  • "Supersonic Sam's Cosmic Cafe" – Billy and the Cafe denizens
  • "I Bite Back" – the Vampire
  • "I'm the One" – T.O.
  • "BtKatGBV (Practice Practice Practice)" – Miss Sullivan
  • "Snooker (So Much More Than Just a Game)" – Big Jack Jay
  • "Kid to Break" – Billy and the cast
  • "Quack Quack" – the match crowd
  • "It's the Fame Game" – Billy and the cast
  • "White Lines Black Cadillac" – T.O.

References
  1. Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire company credits at The New York Times
  2. "Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire". BFI Player. Retrieved 26 November 2017.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.