Letter from Nick Sinclair:  Ken Russell introduces French Dressing

8/29/08

Ken Russell himself introduced French Dressing in an open air screening from 8pm Friday August 22nd 2008 as part of Herne Bay's festival. It was a really good night. Ken gave a very typical Ken Russell introduction talking about the nudist beach and the belly dancer from the film he met earlier in the day who promised a private show. The film itself brought a fairly good turnout, mostly Herne Bay people - quite a few teenagers!

It was amazing to finally see it on the big screen, apart from the fact it seemed really slow to me running at 24 frames per second! Our TV version is 25fps, slightly faster, making James' and the high voice major strangely off.

The event organizers were very welcoming to me in the end after not being interested in some sort of display/gallery. I had to run about the park trying to find the right person but got there in the end. Also had a long chat with Ken, he was surprised to hear that James had passed away along with everyone else actually! However he mentioned that he had met his good friend earlier in the month who was Alita Naughton's boyfriend at the time and she is very well living in the US.

I presented the archive and my newly framed original poster to his wife and the man himself, and totally plugged the hell out of your website. They were very impressed and promised to check your site out. Ken also promises to support a retail DVD release which I'm now pursuing (having finally found the film's owner).

I'll let you know any further updates, in the mean time keep up the good work

Best Wishes,
Nicholas Sinclair,
Slaphead Media LLC.