1990s European Satellite Channels - SAT1, RTL, RAI Uno, TV5

Circa the 90's would it possibly be RTL4? or one of the RTL channels?
you used to get some soft-core porn until about 2am after that it got scrambled. Later days you got free view around midnight and when the adult-like movies started it cut out a few mins into the movie.

There was some english adult'ish soft core channels that sprung up around then with a (then) famous
actress (if you can call her that) called Jo Guest (female) Blonde shortish hair with brown eyes. She use
to host shows where she for a second or two used to always flash her bits.

Also there was some really crappy crappy eurotrash like show only worse where there was two women
one of them used to act like a lesbian that sometimes went topless that used to host some adult show that
was really pathetic with all this sort of false and awkward flirting going on between hosts and guests.

Really cringe worthy but at the time as a horny teenage you took what you got!!!

In our household at the time some how we managed to get a PCB board with an IC on it that de-scrambled all the Sky/Astra channels at the time but the
Daddy used to child lock any of the risky channels until we (my brother and myslelf) discovered it was only 1234 as a PIN.

~B

I remember those German channels on the Sky network, there were loads of German channels for some reason in relation to other European countries. There was one channel that when normal.programming ended would run a drivers pov film of a train passing through scenic Alpen type landscape.

The Maharaja's Daughter (1994) - Bruce Boxleitner falls in love in Canada with Indian doctor Hunter Tylo (who is not Indian, well she's not from India, but she is apparently has Cherokee blood), massive hair and a bindi transforming her into a secretive maharani with an American accent. Burt Young plays a thankfully phony Indian mystic (considering other Italian actors play Indians, I wasn't so sure). A strange cross between imperialist adventure and erotic thriller.

The Seventh Scroll (1999) Silvio Berlusconi-produced Wilbur Smith adaptation. Begins with Art Malik narrating about his Pharaoh Edmund Purdom (typecast 45 years on from The Egyptian). The Ancient Egyptian bits are very tacky. Written by director Kevin Connor, Alan "Bullshot" Shearman, and Italian vet Sergio Donati. There's a backwards baseball capped idiot archaeologist. Villainous Roy Scheider and his dubbed blonde lady sidekick joke about videogames, while a giant CGI snake eats a peasant. Don Warrington is a mad Colonel. Eventually, something about Art Malik being an immortal wizard and lots of bad CGI allegedly done in Dublin by one Lightstream Ltd. Also features an Egyptian orphan named Hapi, played by Jeffrey Licon - star of Nickelodeon Latino dramedy The Brothers Garcia. A special kind of terrible.

Murder In The Convent (1998) - Modern day Cadfael with Mario Adorf. A twat's version of Umberto Eco via Quiet As A Nun. Includes a badly CGIed burning nun.

Blood Ties (1986) - OTT Mafia melodrama with Brad Davis, Joe Spinell, Michael V. Gazzo and Maria Conchita Alonso. I previously tried to watch The Octopus (1984), the RAI crime opus that people rave about, but I found that staid. This isn't good, but there's a very Italian camp charm to it. Gazzo is allowed to be this huge grotesque.


L'Ombra Nera Del Vesuvio (1987) - RAI/Steno Camorra saga - cheap, lacks the gloss of later Italian miniseries. Watched half, then gave up. Gangster sagas the bread and butter of Italian TV.

Vendetta - Secrets Of A Mafia Bride (1991) - Berlusconi/Mediaset Mafia saga with Eric Roberts, Burt Young, Nick Mancuso, Victor Argo, Antonio Sabato, Billy Barty and Eli Wallach. Begins with a young girl's communion (I think, she's in the white dress - but she looks more suited to making her confirmation - she's closer to thirteen than eight) ruined when her father is killed by a bunch of gangsters firing machine guns from a yellow cab. One of these thugs is Eric Roberts, with a ponytail. He then goes to visit a boxing trainer played by Burt Young (typecasting ahoy). Billy Barty plays a compere. Some black chanteuse sings the theme to Mondo Cane, then there's a a massacre. Time passes, and little Nancy is now Sports Illustrated model Carol Alt, Eric has a mullet, and it becomes somewhere between the Godfather Part III (which is really just an Italian miniseries) and a romance novel. Alt isn't a good actress. She's attractive, a bit gawky, but that adds to her charm, but she is kind of awkward. She's quite tall and lanky, and she's supposed to be this ethereal tragic victim, but she's not exactly graceful. There's a bit where she dresses up in a ginger wig, and there's something of the Barbara Knox about her. And then there's a ridiculous striptease assassination with a dog. There's a wedding party with a Busby Berkeley dance sequence, Egyptian servants serving a giant pot of pasta and then after the wedding, Nancy becomes a nun and sees her daughter. A sequel followed in 1993. Wallach, Young and Alt returning, with shooting in Canada, Michael Ontkean joining, and Lisa Jakub from Mrs. Doubtfire as the daughter. It's unmemorable, but clearly the convent use hair dye. Alt's now ginger.

Excellent Cadavers (1999) - HBO-coproduced Italian TV movie with Andy Luotto, Pierfrancesco Favino and F. Murray Abraham - like a lot of old school Italian crime films, lots of tall men with moustaches in little cars solving not very engrossing murders.


Il Tesoro di Damasco (1998) - Franco Nero and Ben Gazzara in a Raiders-ish political thriller about a mystical black tablet found in the Middle East. Sensationalist Bull**** that doesn't excite.

Seagull Island (1981) - ITC-RAI giallo with Jeremy Brett, Prunella Ransome, Nicky Henson and Pamela Salem. Music by Tony Hatch rather than the De Angelis Brothers. Brett plays a cad. Very mediocre. Also featuring Eurocult regulars Peter Boom, Paul Mueller, Sherry Buchanan and Gabriele Tinti.

Marco Polo (1982) feels rather too in thrall to capturing the mood and feel of Shogun, but it has yellowfaced Leonard Nimoy and Patrick Mower as a monk, and some dodgy dubbing. And Denholm Elliott with a topknot. From what I have seen.

Christopher Columbus (1985) -RAI-Lorimar nonsense with Gabriel Byrne, Oliver Reed and some tribesmen who look like they come from a cannibal film (the Riz Ortolani soundtrack doesn't help). Byrne looks either like an elderly Dublin widow or a disgraced bishop. And sometimes Jim Dale. Jack Watson (who seems to have done a lot of these RAI stuff - presumably a break from HTV or Granada) plays a craggy monk.

Deserto di Fuoco (1997) - Mediaset/Titanus coproduction with Anthony "yes, my dad's Alain" Delon as an orphan found in the middle of a helicopter crash (cameo from Franco Nero as the dad), and found by sheik Giuliano Gemma. Peopled with other ageing Euro-stars - Claudia Cardinale, Vittorio Gassman, Jean Sorel,, Fabio Testi, Virna Lisi, and helmed by good old Enzo G. Castellari, it's preposterous - it's seemingly pre-20th century Arab world located in the present day, in a hi-tech 90s of satellite TV and sports cars. Makes no sense, and is wearing - endless cliched melodrama told so earnestly - but fascinating. The Italians seem obsessed with exotic desert landscape, Arabs and Indians - in portrayals that are romanticised and could be considered by some as dated. And yes, they are, which makes these productions even more astonishing.

Mia liebe meines lebens (1998) - Irish-Italian soaper with some bird of Fair City as an Irish supermodel, Claudia Cardinale as her mammy (less convincingly Irish than she was in Once Upon A Time in The West), Kevin "Herman the violent butler" Flood as Daddy (named Torton), and John Savage. Lots of lilting Oirish music.

Azzuro Profondo (1993) Franco Nero again in a mostly boring but at times melodramatic Big Blue/Free Willy cash-in.

Beyond Justice (1992) - Rutger Hauer in a Trimark cutdown of a Mediaset Arab fantasy where he is hired by Carol Alt to rescue her son who has been kidnapped by sheik grandad Omar Sharif. Full of men in fezzes, casual racism and Elliott Gould with a moustache, plus Kabir Bedi, and a Morricone soundtrack. Written by Luigi Montefiori, alias video nasty hard man George Eastman. An American private school full of supposedly WASPy boys who look like they grew up in a pizza parlour in Naples sets the scene. Operatic wailing soundtracks every scene, regardless of tone. It's a mess going from Arab spectacle to arguing with Elliott Gould in an Italian designer's idea of an American office - a huge Bogie poster over a wall. A tonal mess.

Mysteries of the Dark Jungle (1991) - Like Sandokan and Secret of the Sahara, adapted from stories by Emilio Salgari. Featuring Gabrielle Anwar as the daughter of British military bod Stacy Keach (doing a credible RP), mechanical toys, an Indian fantasyland full of spiked helmeted soldiers, brought to you by RAI-TF1-TVE-ORF-ZDF, with John Rhys-Davies, Virna Lisi, Anthony Calf, Kabir Bedi, regular Bollywood WASP/muscular Leonard Rossiter-alike Bob Christo playing an albino thuggee, Bollywood actor Mac Mohan and Derrick "Gupte/Father Fernandez" Branche. The hero is Eldorado/Playdays star Amerjit Deu. There is adventure, but much of it is painfully slow traveloguery. Frank Middlemass and John Sharp turn up, uncredited.



Scarlett (1994) - Its credits have bad drawings of the cast, including Joanne Whalley-Kilmer and Tim Dalton as Scarlett and Rhett, Stephen "paedo" Collins, Sean Bean, Gary Raymond (of Jason and the Argonauts AND stints in series as varied as The Rat Patrol, Omega Factor and Coronation Street), Jean Smart, Tina "Sharon" Kellegher, Rosaleen Linehan, Ronald Pickup, Dorothy Tutin, Sara Crowe, Holby City's Rakie Ayola, Peter Eyre "and Ann-Margrock" (sorry, it's a cartoon version of Ann-Margret - so it's Ann-Margrock). It's tripe, but it was filmed mostly near where I live, and Berlusconi coproduced it with Hallmark and Sky, and ORF. It's an Irish-British-American-Italian-German -Austrian-Spanish-French coproduction. Also, Tina Kellegher looks like she walked off the set of the Snapper. It's basically the Time-Travelling Adventures of Sharon Curley/Rabbitte, and the theme is Love Hurts recorded by Nazareth with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. Sadly, John Fraser, Charles Gray, Mark "Majorca - one of my favourite places - Times Square, the Statue of Liberty*" Lambert (I'm referencing an Irish ad campaign), Ruth McCabe (alongside Colm Meaney and Kellegher, another member of the Curley clan), and and Donald Pickering, despite getting prominent end credits don't get cartoon credits. And neither does David Kelly, despite having one of the most caricturable faces, with lots of spirit in there. He is fourth-last billed in his episode, below Mick Lally, Owen Roe (now in Fair City) and Rudolph Walker, who plays a slave. I'm pretty sure they shoot at Glencree, same locations as the Manions of America. Gielgud also appears, because the old knight would do anything by this stage of his career. Over ninety and willing to do it for free. An expensive backlot set built in front of Kilruddery. Anita Reeves plays a character called "Maureen O'Hara". Bruce Boa and Garrick Hagon appear in the first part, billed over Hollywood's leading African American stuntman, Bob Minor.

La Nouvelle Malles Des Indes (1982) - A much more exciting Indian adventure, a German-French-Italian saga from Christian Jaque (the Legend of Frenchie King). Initially begins in fake England before moving through Europe and eventually to India. Bob Christo pops up again. The likes of Umberto Raho, Paul Muller, Franco Ressel and Geoffrey Copleston turn up. It takes a bit to go, Nice soundtrack too. Has men in knotted handkerchiefs warning people, lovely location footage, and in the end our heroes find a new trade route. The series is light hearted but isn't played too OTT. There's a KKK-type cult, "Teenage Emanuelle" Annie Belle, escapes through Spanish snowcaps and Venice and then meetings with comedy Arabs and dragging up in burqas in Egypt. It's a big tasty Europudding.
Italian TV would be full of big-budget miniseries filled with ageing stars, made invariably by faded directors who had one churned out cannibal movies and gialli and westerns and action pictures in the glory days of the Italian filone.