Ken Russell is, according to the conventional wisdom, the Baddest Boy of British Cinema. It is fashionable, among the critical and productorial élite, to deride Our Ken and treat him as a finished old madman from a bygone age. This in spite of the fact that just in the last two or three years he’s made at least four feature films. And in spite of the fact that any video shop you go into is bound to be a veritable trove of Russell films. The list of his important films is really long: The Devils, Tommy, Savage Messiah, Women in Love, The Boyfriend, Valentino. Even his bad films - principally Altered States - have pretty interesting stuff in them. And his more recent work in Salome’s Last Dance and The Lair of the White Worm show no significant dimming of Russell’s unique flair.