CLIFF TWEMLOW BOOK 2009 The Lost World of Cliff Twemlow: The King of Manchester Exploitation Movies AVAILABLE NOW from the publishers - Hotun Press ISBN 9780955625718
CLIFF TWEMLOW 14/10/1937 - 5/5/1993 (Birth certificate - see end of this page)
www.itsahotun.com - celebrating MANCUNIAN LEGENDS			PRESS CUTTINGS - CLIFF TWEMLOW

Cliff Twemlow is a Mancunian Legend. Bouncer, songwriter, author, filmmaker and actor, Cliff was known as the Man-Man-Man-Mancunian and is referred to affectionately nowadays as "The Orson Welles of Salford".

CP Lee and Andy Willis from Salford University have not only tracked down an extensive collection of very rare Twemlow films, they have also interviewed many of Cliff's family and friends for their collaborative book, published October 2009, THE LOST WORLD OF CLIFF TWEMLOW. Lee and Willis tell a truly extraordinary story of this little-known Northern renaissance man and promises the book will be richly illustrated with rare photos and screen grabs. Read more from the publisher.

THE LAUNCH OF THE CLIFF TWEMLOW BOOK will be part of the 2009 SALFORD FILM FESTIVAL - Watch out for news of this and another CLIFF film SCREENING to coincide with this event.

Meanwhile for your listening pleasure, here's a treat - it's the themetune from GBH sung by Sheila Gott

	THE LOST WORLD OF CLIFF TWEMLOW Published October 2009 - £12.99 Preorder now from the publishers
Book cover design: Nick Jackson	Above photos courtesy of (L:R) Bill Twemlow and Brian Sterling-Vete.

Here's a good friend of Cliff's, Steve Powell talking to Graham Rae (14 June 2004)

These six photos appear in Cliff's book THE TUXEDO WARRIOR

On the Vinyl Vulture site (20 Jan 2004) 'Lord Thames' wrote -

"Barry Stoller did indeed do the 'MOTD' theme, and I've heard from several sources that he is actually also guitarist Rhett Stoller, though I haven't actually had this confirmed yet.

" Stoller and Peter Reno collaborated occasionally, but they're not the same person. Reno is in fact the alias of one Cliff Twemlow, who (until his death in the early 90s) managed to pack in composing, writing novels, acting, bodybuilding and being a nightclub bouncer in Manchester. I have a copy of his straight-to-video movie 'GBH - Grievous Bodily Harm' which he wrote, directed and starred in - it has to be seen to be believed!"

The following imdb entry by Helli's Puppies provides biographical details:

Twemlow was a one time night club bouncer and avid movie fan who entered the film world via working as a stuntman. Based in the Manchester area, Twemlow came into his own by starring in a series of extremely low-budget action films mostly shot on videotape. The first, 1983's G.B.H., was a true labour of love for Twemlow in which he not only played the lead role but also produced, co-ordinated the stunts and wrote the music for all under a variety of pseudonyms. It features Twemlow as an embittered former night club bouncer called Steve Donovan a.k.a. 'The Mancunian', drawn back into the violent world of Manchester club land. This was a world Twemlow knew only too well, his autobiography published around the time of the film's video release was called 'Tuxedo Warrior: Tales of a Mancunian Bouncer'. Although boasting fine performances from such curiosities as 3-2-1 voiceover man Anthony Schaeffer and stand up comedian Jerry Harris, most of the cast were merely Twemlow's mates from the local gym and fellow stuntmen. Movie buff Cliff filled the film with references to the likes of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and did the music under the name 'John Agar'. GBH very much set the tone for Cliff Twemlow's unique blend of cinema, with impressive stunt ridden set pieces, heavy emphasis on Manchester settings and Mancunian characters plus lots of very Northern humour. The average scene in GBH involves a character referring to Donovan as 'the big hard type' to which he responds to by looking down at his trousers and remarking `I didn't realise it was showing'. For all his crude one liners Twemlow emerges as highly likeable and, in his fifties at the time, admirably refuses to exclude himself from being the butt of jokes by having characters refer to him as 'poppa' and 'a bit too old'.
A modest success GBH begat around 13 Twemlow vehicles filmed throughout the 80s and 90s. Mostly directed by David Kent-Watson they include the horror themed The Eye of Satan (1988) and a GBH sequel called Lethal Impact (1991) which was shot in Malta, Liverpool and naturally Manchester. Twemlow was also a horror novelist penning the paperbacks 'The Beast of Kane' and 'The Pike', the latter of which was meant to be made into a film starring Joan Collins which never happened. Sadly Twemlow passed away in 1993, but his two fisted legacy of action films and horror paperbacks is well worth celebrating.

Trivia - again from imdb -

Appeared as an extra in Coronation Street in the sixties.
Composed a song called `Live and Let Die' which was recorded by the singer Salena Jones. Though it was made shortly before the Paul McCartney/Bond theme of the same name, legal proceedings taken by McCartney eventually resulted in the Twemlow/Jones version being withdrawn.
His then unpublished novel 'The Dogs of Kane' was submitted to Hammer Films in the late 1970s with the prospect of them making a film out of it. The film was never made, although the book was published a few years later as `The Beasts of Kane'.
Wrote over two thousand music compositions (mostly incidental music or TV themes) under the pen name "Peter Reno".

For more on Cliff Twemlow visit Wikepedia ...Please note: Cliff's date of birth has been updated in accordance with copy birth certificate obtained 03/03/09 -

This page updated: 21 October, 2009 www.itsahotun.com - celebrating MANCUNIAN LEGENDS!