The Fruit Machine *** (1988, Emile Charles, Tony Forsyth, Robert Stephens, Robbie Coltrane, Clare Higgins, Bruce Payne) – Classic Movie Review 11,933

Director Philip Savile’s 1988 cult British film The Fruit Machine [Wonderland] is an ambitious and appealing but uneasy gay comedy thriller, with funny moments and strained drama mixing about equally, and an over-stretched fantasy element at the finish.

It is a bit of a lucky dip from talented writer Frank Clarke, who did better with Letter to Brezhnev, but it is likeable and it does sort of work.

Emile Charles and Tony Forsyth are sprightly as the Liverpool teenage boy lovers who run to Brighton after seeing a brutal gangland mob killing by Echo (Bruce Payne) at The Fruit Machine nightclub, and find themselves running from an underworld assassin and the police. They wind up with Vincent (Robert Stephens) and Eve (Clare Higgins) in Brighton’s fun park Wonderland.

Robert Stephens eats up an unsympathetic role as an ageing gay, and Robbie Coltrane is worryingly amusing in drag in the role of Annabelle at the door of the gay transvestite nightclub of the original title.

It is produced by the UK TV company Granada Productions and distributed by Vestron Video.

Future Academy Award winner Hans Zimmer writes the notable score. A 20-minute piece The Fruit Machine Suite appears on the album Hans Zimmer: The British Years. The disco dance sequence uses music from Divine and Man 2 Man, with their hit ‘Male Stripper’. The title song is produced by Stock, Aitken & Waterman and sung by Paul Lekakis.

The cast are Emile Charles as Eddie, Tony Forsyth as Michael, Robert Stephens as Vincent, Robbie Coltrane as Annabelle, Clare Higgins as Eve, Bruce Payne as Echo, Carsten Norgaard as Dolphin Man, Kim Christie as Jean, Louis Emerick as Billy, Julie Graham as Hazel, and Forbes Collins as John Schlesinger.

Emile Charles is the younger brother of actor Craig Charles (Red Dwarf and Coronation Street).

Clarke said: ‘Echo the murderer signifies HIV/ AIDS, and the dolphinarium is the sanctuary from it.’

Filming began in October 1987 on location in Liverpool, Brighton and London, including interior and main entrance scenes at the Britannia Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool. Flamingo Land in Kirby Misperton, North Yorkshire, is used for the fun park Wonderland, which became the film’s title in America, where it had a VHS release but no Region 1 DVD version.

In the UK it was released on DVD on16 July 2007 and in Germany on 9 April 2009.

Robbie Coltrane died at Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert, Falkirk, on 14 October 2022, aged 72. He is remembered for Scrubbers (1983), Krull (1983), The Supergrass (1985), Defence of the Realm (1985), Absolute Beginners (1986), Mona Lisa (1986), The Fruit Machine (1988), the James Bond films GoldenEye (1995) and The World Is Not Enough (1999), From Hell (2001), and as half-giant Rubeus Hagrid in the Harry Potter films (2001–2011).

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 11,933

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