Go back to the 1980s and discover the extraordinary true story of Cliff Twemlow! You’ve never heard of him… but poly | dG1fSlJ3VkZNdWNBOVE
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 Who are you? What's your name?
00:03 I'd never heard of him before.
00:07 No Cliff, I didn't know who he was. I knew nothing.
00:12 The guy could do everything.
00:13 A polymath, musician, screenwriter, actor, athlete, bodybuilder,
00:19 pulp fiction novelist. Anything he sets his mind to do, he'd go off and do it.
00:24 He had this driving creativity, nothing could stop him.
00:27 You couldn't help but like him.
00:28 And I'm going to be where the action is.
00:30 Cliff Tremlow was a nightclub bouncer.
00:33 Who do you expect? Charles Bronson?
00:35 He was a head doorman, very humble.
00:37 If there was any trouble he could certainly take care of it, I think.
00:40 And he wrote a kind of bouncer's philosophy called Tuxedo Warrior.
00:45 Somebody suggested it would make a good film.
00:47 And they asked Cliff if he wanted to go along for the ride.
00:50 After he did Tuxedo Warrior, he wanted to do films his own way.
00:54 Cliff realised that there was a fabulous potential market for VHS.
00:59 Why not shoot it on video? It's a real big innovation.
01:03 Cliff's ambition was really to make Manchester the Hollywood of the North.
01:07 Okay, let's do it.
01:09 It was a very interesting story of a kind of mini film industry
01:14 that existed for roughly a ten year period.
01:17 It was all about trying to make a film with no money.
01:20 Yes, that's right.
01:21 Action!
01:23 It was utter chaos.
01:25 I don't think anyone really knew what they were doing.
01:29 It was fun times.
01:30 He did what everybody would want to do during the 80s.
01:33 It was wild.
01:37 Blood for the screaming.
01:40 I had no idea I was involved in a video master.
01:43 No.
01:44 On one of the fight scenes, the cameraman got stabbed in the hand.
01:47 Setback after setback.
01:49 A deadly pike in a lake in the north of England.
01:52 The pike didn't work.
01:53 This damn fish.
01:55 It broke down.
01:56 Then it got worse and worse.
01:58 I'm talking like, Kray-style gangsters.
02:00 A lot of guys with guns.
02:02 They basically arrested us.
02:04 They lost all the money for the film overnight.
02:06 So there's always a cycle of boom and bust in Cliff's life.
02:10 The films are the greatest type of exploitation film.
02:14 You laugh at them.
02:15 You laugh with them.
02:17 You laugh with them.
02:19 But they're also entertaining.
02:21 They're brilliant.
02:22 You couldn't get more larger than Life's done for Cliff Trenwell.
02:25 Guy was a legend.
02:27 The Orson Welles of sulphur.
02:29 I didn't know.
02:35 I hadn't got a clue.
02:36 - Good luck. - Thank you.
02:38 (whooshing)