Category Archives: Film, TV, and Theatre

Film, TV, and Theatre

Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant (1999)

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Ani­ma­tion as an art form essen­tial­ly got under­way with the advent of cel­lu­loid film in 1888. Sev­er­al dif­fer­ent ani­ma­tion tech­niques were devel­oped over the ensu­ing decades includ­ing stop-motion with objects, pup­pets, clay or cut-out fig­ures, and hand-drawn or paint­ed ani­ma­tion, the lat­ter becom­ing the dom­i­nant tech­nique of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Today of course, tra­di­tion­al ani­ma­tion has been com­plete­ly usurped by com­put­er ani­ma­tion, with the trend begin­ning with 1990’s The Res­cuers Down Under, the first film to be made with a com­put­er and no cam­era. Today’s blog sub­ject, direc­tor Brad Bird’s 1999 debut film The Iron Giant, was a hybrid of tra­di­tion­al and dig­i­tal and was a fit­ting­ly fin de siè­cle mark­er of that tran­si­tion to full-on dig­i­tal-only in the ear­ly 2000s.

The film was loose­ly based on the 1968 sci­ence fic­tion nov­el The Iron Man by future Poet Lau­re­ate Ted Hugh­es, with screen­play by Tim McCan­lies and Brad Bird. The film stars the voic­es of Jen­nifer Anis­ton, Har­ry Con­nick Jr, and Christo­pher McDon­ald, with Vin Diesel pro­vid­ing the deep metal­lic grunts of the Iron Giant him­self. Set in 1957, slap bang in the mid­dle of the peri­od of Cold War para­noia in the US, the film revolves around a young boy named Hog­a­rth Hugh­es, who dis­cov­ers and befriends a giant alien robot who has crash-land­ed from space and recent­ly arrived in the for­est near Hogarth’s house in Rock­well, Maine.

When rumours of the dis­cov­ery reach the ears of fed­er­al agent Kent Mans­ley (McDon­ald), a train of events is set in play which will even­tu­al­ly bring the might of the US Army to bear on this mis­un­der­stood alien threat. Hog­a­rth, mean­while, hav­ing learnt that the giant is in fact per­fect­ly friend­ly and means no harm, teams up with beat­nik artist Dean McCop­pin (Con­nick Jr), to thwart the author­i­ties’ attempts to find and destroy the giant, whilst simul­ta­ne­ous­ly try­ing to pro­tect his moth­er (Anis­ton) from the truth of his night­ly escapades.

The ani­ma­tion in the film is exquis­ite­ly done and the voice actors con­spire with the cel­lu­loid images to cre­ate a deeply char­ac­ter­ful film. The bud­ding rela­tion­ship between the boy and the Iron Giant are at times high­ly mov­ing, whilst the machi­na­tions of the sneaky Mans­ley pro­duce as suit­able a vil­lain as any live action dra­ma could evoke. The film was nom­i­nat­ed for sev­er­al awards and since its home video releas­es and TV syn­di­ca­tion has acquired some­thing of a cult fol­low­ing, being wide­ly regard­ed as a mod­ern ani­mat­ed clas­sic. Not bad for a direc­to­r­i­al debut (Bird would lat­er be respon­si­ble for fam­i­ly favourites The Incred­i­bles [2004] and Rata­touille [2007]).

Watch The Iron Giant trail­er here:

The Iron Giant
Film, TV, and Theatre

Robert Altman’s Short Cuts (1993)

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I have just fin­ished read­ing Ray­mond Carver’s col­lec­tion of dis­qui­et­ing short sto­ries, Short Cuts, which inspired the sub­ject of today’s blog, Robert Altman’s 1993 movie of the same name. Carv­er was a mas­ter of the sub-genre of lit­er­ary fic­tion dubbed “dirty real­ism” by Amer­i­can jour­nal­ist Bill Buford. Dirty real­ism is char­ac­terised by depict­ing the seami­er side of life, with down­beat char­ac­ters suf­fer­ing from a kind of inter­nal des­per­a­tion brought about by their par­tic­u­lar life cir­cum­stances. Before full-time writ­ing, Carv­er had worked in Cal­i­for­nia in the fifties and six­ties in a vari­ety of jobs — deliv­ery man, jan­i­tor, library assis­tant, sawmill labour­er — and per­haps inter­nalised mate­r­i­al from see­ing peo­ple liv­ing lives of qui­et des­per­a­tion (to quote Hen­ry David Thore­au). His sto­ries of ordi­nary peo­ple at break­ing point inspired Robert Alt­man to make the mas­ter­piece we’re about to dis­cuss.

Filmed from a screen­play by Alt­man and Frank Barhy­dt, Short Cuts was inspired by nine of Carver’s short sto­ries (culled large­ly from his col­lec­tion Will You Please Be Qui­et, Please?, pub­lished in 1976). It was set in Los Ange­les (in con­trast to the orig­i­nal Pacif­ic North­west back­drop of Carver’s sto­ries) and traces the lives of twen­ty two prin­ci­pal char­ac­ters, loose­ly con­nect­ed to one anoth­er in one way or anoth­er. The stel­lar cast includes Matthew Modine, Julianne Moore, Jen­nifer Jason Leigh, Robert Downey Jr., Madeleine Stowe, Chris Penn, Jack Lem­mon, Frances McDor­mand, Lori Singer, Andie Mac­Dow­ell, Buck Hen­ry, Lily Tom­lin, actress and singer Annie Ross, and musi­cians Huey Lewis, Lyle Lovett, and Tom Waits.

The film begins with a fleet of heli­copters spray­ing for med­flies, which brings var­i­ous char­ac­ters togeth­er along the flight path. To this back­drop, and with the sul­try night­club jazz songs of Annie Ross as the inci­den­tal music, we see the mul­ti­ple char­ac­ters in their var­i­ous sce­nar­ios slow­ly falling apart. There is too much by way of plot to describe here, but the sto­ries play out in tan­dem and often loop back on them­selves as we see char­ac­ters famil­iar from ear­li­er scenes in the movie appear­ing in dif­fer­ent con­texts lat­er.

I called it a mas­ter­piece for good rea­son: the actors absolute­ly nail the theme of dys­func­tion. There are heart-break­ing scenes, but also mun­dane ones that nonethe­less mas­ter­ful­ly dis­play the human con­di­tion thanks to the qual­i­ty of the actors. It’s a psy­cho­log­i­cal dra­ma but a com­ic one too, and it swings from tragedy to com­e­dy and back again. It is, like Carver’s orig­i­nal sto­ries, high­ly dis­qui­et­ing but well worth the expe­ri­ence. Here is the film trail­er to whet your appetite but watch the full three hours for an extra­or­di­nary ride.

Film, TV, and Theatre

Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men (1957)

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Clas­sics night at Cot­tage Road cin­e­ma is prov­ing to be the gift that keeps on giv­ing! Just as the dust set­tles on my recent blog about Bad Day at Black Rock, this month’s fea­ture com­pelled me to write about anoth­er clas­sic from the fifties, Sid­ney Lumet’s legal dra­ma 12 Angry Men (1957). The film was Sid­ney Lumet’s direc­to­r­i­al debut, so not a bad start giv­en that it’s regard­ed by many as one of the great­est films of all time and that he was nom­i­nat­ed for Best Direc­tor at the Acad­e­my Awards (he would go on to be nom­i­nat­ed for three oth­er films, Dog Day After­noon (1975), the satir­i­cal dra­ma Net­work (1976) and the legal thriller The Ver­dict (1982)).

12 Angry Men was adapt­ed from a 1954 tele­play of the same name by Regi­nald Rose and tells the sto­ry of a jury of twelve men as they delib­er­ate over whether the teenag­er that they have just seen charged with the mur­der of his father should be con­vict­ed or acquit­ted on the basis of rea­son­able doubt. As they troop into the jurors’ room it soon becomes clear that they all regard the case as open-and-shut: the accused is clear­ly guilty. They antic­i­pate a quick unan­i­mous agree­ment to a ‘guilty’ ver­dict after which they can return to their lives. How­ev­er, when they con­duct a pre­lim­i­nary tal­ly of the jurors’ posi­tions and the ‘guilty’ votes pile in, they are some­what irri­tat­ed to find that the twelfth man, played bril­liant­ly by Hen­ry Fon­da, can­not in good con­science vote guilty. What ensues is a tour de force of psy­chodra­ma as every man is forced to ques­tion his morals, val­ues and assump­tions.

Almost the entire film is shot in the jurors’ room in which they are ensconced. It’s a hot summer’s night, the heat is sweat-induc­ing, the fan isn’t work­ing, and most of the chaps are smok­ing, and it all adds to the claus­tro­pho­bic, sti­fling ten­sion of the scene. Fonda’s char­ac­ter, Juror 8, begins to calm­ly dis­man­tle the assump­tions that his co-jurors have so read­i­ly accept­ed. He out­lines alter­na­tive fea­si­ble sce­nar­ios to the ones pressed by the pros­e­cu­tion and remains adamant that rea­son­able doubt exists. His argu­ments don’t at first find favour, but grad­u­al­ly, one by one, the oth­er jurors come around to his point of view.

There’s some great act­ing tal­ent on dis­play here, with ter­rif­ic per­for­mances from Mar­tin Bal­sam, Ed Beg­ley, Jack Klug­man, Jack War­den, and Lee J Cobb. The dia­logue is elec­tric and the cin­e­matog­ra­phy is in the real­ist style cour­tesy of Boris Kauf­man who had recent­ly won an Acad­e­my Award for On The Water­front. The cam­era work con­tributes to the claus­tro­pho­bia by grad­u­al­ly increas­ing the focal length as the film pro­gress­es, going from above eye-lev­el, wide-angle lens at the begin­ning to low­er angle, tele­pho­to lens close-ups at the end.

Let’s watch juror 3, the hot-tem­pered and most pas­sion­ate advo­cate of a ‘guilty ver­dict’, played mes­mer­iz­ing­ly by Lee J Cobb, as his defi­ance as last man stand­ing final­ly crum­bles.

Hen­ry Fon­da as Juror 8
Sid­ney Lumet

 

Film, TV, and Theatre

Spencer Tracy in Bad Day At Black Rock (1955)

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The Cot­tage Road Cin­e­ma in Head­in­g­ley is the old­est indie cin­e­ma in Leeds and has been con­tin­u­ous­ly show­ing films since 1912. As such it is regard­ed with fond­ness by much of the north Leeds com­mu­ni­ty and long may it con­tin­ue. Any­way, it has a clas­sics night every month, where view­ers can watch a series of nos­tal­gic ads and pre­views from back in the day, pri­or to set­tling back with a fair­ly-priced box of pop­corn to enjoy a clas­sic movie, select­ed for its his­tor­i­cal, cul­tur­al or aes­thet­ic sig­nif­i­cance. Last month, for exam­ple, I went to see Hitchcock’s Rear Win­dow; next month I’m tempt­ed by Irv­ing Rapper’s Now, Voy­ager; and this month I went to see the sub­ject of this blog, John Sturges’ Bad Day at Black Rock.

Bad Day at Black Rock is a 1955 Amer­i­can neo-West­ern film star­ring Spencer Tra­cy and Robert Ryan with sup­port from Wal­ter Bren­nan, Anne Fran­cis, John Eric­son, Ernest Borg­nine and Lee Mar­vin. The term “neo-West­ern” does not sig­ni­fy a west­ern movie as such, and instead implies the use of cer­tain themes and motifs redo­lent of west­erns but set in more mod­ern times (in this case, 1945). Real­ly, it’s a crime dra­ma but it con­tains the wide, open plains and desert land­scapes of the west­ern, and Spencer Tracy’s “stranger comes to town and is met with unfriend­ly sus­pi­cion” per­sona is top-draw­er Clint East­wood.

Tra­cy plays a one-armed stranger, John Macreedy, who dis­em­barks from the train that rarely stops in the iso­lat­ed desert ham­let of Black Rock and is soon put under hos­tile scruti­ny from the locals who lounge on the wood­en veran­das of the saloon and bar-and-grill and won­der who the hell this new guy is and what the hell does he want? At this point I should say that if I were har­bour­ing a dark secret – which you can be sure these Black Rock locals cer­tain­ly are — and a stranger comes to town ask­ing ques­tions, I would put on a friend­ly and coop­er­a­tive façade to deflect sus­pi­cion. This lot, how­ev­er, opt for the acute hos­til­i­ty and eva­sive­ness approach and thus come across as guilty as sin from the get-go, with Borg­nine and Mar­vin in par­tic­u­lar push­ing the enve­lope in the “I’ve clear­ly got some­thing to hide” depart­ment.

Still, Macreedy’s been ask­ing ques­tions about a cer­tain Japan­ese-Amer­i­can gen­tle­man named Komoko, but nobody seems to want to engage. Robert Ryan’s char­ac­ter Reno Smith is clear­ly in charge and holds the rest of the town in his thrall, includ­ing the inef­fec­tu­al, alco­holic sher­iff. Smith claims that Komoko was sim­ply interned dur­ing World War II but also reveals his vir­u­lent anti-Japan­ese sen­ti­ment devel­oped after Pearl Har­bor — we the audi­ence are only too aware that some­thing dodgy has gone down and not only that but Macreedy him­self needs to be in fear for his own life. Macreedy grad­u­al­ly breaks down the omer­ta of the towns­folk and begins to sep­a­rate the real cul­prits from the sim­ply scared, some of whom are inspired by Macreedy to step up. It’s a tour de force of psy­cho­log­i­cal dra­ma, with great tough-guy dia­logue and the stun­ning back­drop of the Mohave desert, and well worth my punt in ven­tur­ing out on a Wednes­day night!

Let’s watch Macreedy, despite his one arm, get­ting the bet­ter of thug Coley Trim­ble (Ernest Borg­nine), in this tense encounter.

Spencer Tra­cy and John Eric­son in Bad Day at Black Rock
Film, TV, and Theatre

Phil Cornwell and John Sessions in Stella Street (1997)

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A British TV com­e­dy series that per­haps fell under the radar a lit­tle bit (you can actu­al­ly find peo­ple who nev­er saw or heard of it), Stel­la Street was nonethe­less a great find when it began air­ing in 1997 and con­tin­ued over four series to 2001. Its some­what bizarre premise is that an ordi­nary street in sub­ur­ban Sur­biton is peo­pled by a group of big­time celebri­ties going about their lives in ordi­nary, sub­ur­ban fash­ion, but adher­ing to some well-known and exag­ger­at­ed stereo­types per­tain­ing to said celebs.

The show was con­ceived and writ­ten by John Ses­sions, Phil Corn­well and Peter Richard­son, with the main char­ac­ters played by Ses­sions and Corn­well (and Ron­ni Ancona for some episodes). The celebri­ties cho­sen to live in Stel­la Street were pre­sum­ably influ­enced by the per­form­ers’ abil­i­ty to do great impres­sions of them and whose per­sonas lent them­selves to some great send-up com­e­dy. The pro­gramme takes the form of a mock­u­men­tary with film­ing done on a hand­held cam­era and Corn­well as Michael Caine talk­ing direct­ly to the cam­era to intro­duce char­ac­ters and sit­u­a­tions (just as he does in the 1966 film Alfie).

Jack Nichol­son is por­trayed as the invet­er­ate wom­an­is­ing bad-ass of his stereo­type (or his real per­son­al­i­ty?) com­plete with bad taste Hawai­ian shirts not exact­ly suit­ed to the British cli­mate. Michael Caine is full-on Six­ties’ Michael Caine with the trade­mark lacon­ic vocal deliv­ery, shock of gin­ger hair and horn-rimmed glass­es. Roger Moore is the quin­tes­sen­tial Eng­lish gen­tle­man with impec­ca­ble man­ners, and with a lone­li­ness theme ruth­less­ly exploit­ed by Ses­sions. David Bowie is the self-effac­ing and slight­ly awk­ward super­star stay­ing true to his Brom­ley roots. Mick Jag­ger and Kei­th Richards run the local gro­cery store, Mick with mas­sive enthu­si­asm, Kei­th with time-worn, dev­il-may-care cyn­i­cism and a gleam in his eye.

Let’s enjoy a mon­tage of Corn­well and Ses­sions bring­ing these char­ac­ters to life: the may­hem of Mick and Keef’s cor­ner shop, and then a glo­ri­ous vignette of David Bowie and Roger Moore exchang­ing spec­tac­u­lar­ly mun­dane Christ­mas presents (with Roger Moore tak­ing polite­ness to the next lev­el when gift­ed an under­whelm­ing £10 book token).

Mick and Keef
Film, TV, and Theatre

Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927)

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A few months ago I went to a screen­ing of the 1920 silent hor­ror film The Cab­i­net of Dr Cali­gari at local venue the Old Woollen in Fars­ley. The film is a quin­tes­sen­tial piece of Ger­man Expres­sion­ist cin­e­ma from over a cen­tu­ry ago and a fas­ci­nat­ing insight into cel­lu­loid cre­ativ­i­ty dur­ing the era of the Weimar Repub­lic. As fun as it is, with its sto­ry of a mad hyp­no­tist induc­ing a brain­washed som­nam­bu­list to com­mit mur­ders, I want­ed to look at an even more quin­tes­sen­tial movie from the era, one that most peo­ple have come across at some point, the great 1927 sci­ence-fic­tion mas­ter­piece, Metrop­o­lis, direct­ed by Fritz Lang (1890–1976).

Lang has been cit­ed as one of the most influ­en­tial of film­mak­ers of all time, and he is cred­it­ed with pio­neer­ing both the sci-fi genre (Metrop­o­lis, Woman in the Moon) and film noir (M). He didn’t shy away from pro­duc­ing epi­cal­ly long films, either, like the 4.5 hour Dr Mabuse the Gam­bler or the two-part Die Nibelun­gen based on the epic poem Nibelun­gen­lied, but the one film that cap­tures the zeit­geist of the auteur’s work is undoubt­ed­ly Metrop­o­lis.

It was writ­ten in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Lang’s wife Thea von Har­bou and based on her 1925 nov­el of the same name. Metrop­o­lis is set in a futur­is­tic urban dystopia pre­fig­ur­ing Blade Run­ner and bring­ing to mind themes from Orwell and indeed Mary Shel­ley with its own Frankenstein’s mon­ster in the form of the sci­en­tist Rot­wang’s icon­ic robot the Maschi­nen­men­sch.

Mean­while, the film’s aes­thet­ics, with Goth­ic touch­es, draw heav­i­ly from the Bauhaus, Cubist and Futur­ist design move­ments of the time. We see a world of colos­sal sky­scrap­ers from which a wealthy elite lords it over the down-trod­den mass­es of the under­ground who toil in abject con­di­tions to keep the machines of the soci­ety run­ning.

One day a mem­ber of this elite, one Fred­er Fred­er­sen (Gus­tav Fröh­lich), has an epiphany when pre­sent­ed with what life is like for the poor, by the saint­ly Maria (Brigitte Helm, who also plays the Maschi­nen­men­sch), and the two con­spire to change the soci­ety and bring about social jus­tice. As such, it can be con­strued as a rather sim­plis­tic moral­i­ty tale, but there’s no sim­plic­i­ty in the styl­i­sa­tion and bril­liant tech­ni­cal effects, which serve to cre­ate a remark­able world, both visu­al­ly beau­ti­ful and pow­er­ful. Enjoy the the­atri­cal trail­er, below, with an excel­lent sound­track by Got­tfried Hup­pertz.

Fritz Lang
Film, TV, and Theatre

Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek (1966)

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In the last blog, I wrote about Thomas More’s Utopia and the more gen­er­al area of utopi­an fic­tion and it occurs to me that this week’s top­ic, Gene Roddenberry’s sem­i­nal TV series Star Trek, itself falls square­ly into the genre of utopi­an fic­tion, albeit a far future one in which human­i­ty, hav­ing con­quered the stars, has also con­quered those quaint old divi­sions that char­ac­terised 1960s Amer­i­ca. The Enterprise’s crew of star sailors includes a Russ­ian, a Japan­ese and a black woman and no-one bats an eye­lid because it’s the 23rd cen­tu­ry and the Cold War, Hiroshi­ma, and racial seg­re­ga­tion are all mark­ers of a dis­tant past.

Star Trek first debuted in the US on 8th Sep­tem­ber 1966 but here in the UK it wasn’t until 12th July 1969 (just eight days before the Apol­lo 11 mis­sion to the moon) that this soon-to-be-huge pop-cul­ture phe­nom­e­non began air­ing on BBC One. It must have been a few years lat­er when it came upon my radar because I have no mem­o­ry of a black-and-white ver­sion and it wasn’t until about 1974 that we got a colour tel­ly. But boy, how they cap­i­talised on that new colour medi­um: bright gold, blue and red tunics abound­ed aboard the USS Enter­prise, whilst the numer­ous plan­ets they beamed down to, and aliens they encoun­tered, were also cap­tured in glo­ri­ous tech­ni­colour.

The con­cepts were mind-blow­ing­ly imag­i­na­tive, the sound effects reas­sur­ing­ly futur­is­tic (the back­ground com­put­er chat­ter on the bridge, the sound of a com­mu­ni­ca­tor flip­ping open, the swoosh of the auto­mat­ic doors, the fir­ing pf phasers, the mech­a­nisms of the trans­porter in full beam), and the sets were…well, lim­it­ed by the peri­od shall we say, but full marks for imag­i­na­tion.

The Enter­prise, as every­one knows, was a space explo­ration star­ship on a mis­sion to “explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civil­i­sa­tions; to bold­ly go where no man has gone before”. Led by the Cap­tain James T Kirk, First Offi­cer Spock and Chief Med­ical Offi­cer Leonard “Bones” McCoy, the crew also includ­ed lieu­tenants Sulu and Uhu­ra, ensign Chekov and of course, on the engi­neer­ing deck and respon­si­ble for all things engi­neer­ing (includ­ing beam­ing, shields, di-lithi­um crys­tals, and giv­ing her as much as he dare), was Mont­gomery “Scot­ty” Scott.

It spawned an immense­ly suc­cess­ful fran­chise, of course, with some­thing like eleven spin-off TV series and numer­ous fea­ture films, but it’s the orig­i­nal series that will always be the true Star Trek to me. Their week­ly mis­sions had me rapt from the moment Kirk kicked off each episode with an excerpt from his Captain’s Log, and below, for the sake of nos­tal­gia, are the open­ing and clos­ing cred­its of this icon­ic TV series.

Kirk and Spock
Film, TV, and Theatre

The Two Ronnies’ Mastermind Sketch (1980)

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Like More­cambe and Wise before them, the com­e­dy part­ner­ship of Ron­nie Bark­er and Ron­nie Cor­bett as the Two Ron­nies was one made in heav­en. Two strik­ing­ly affa­ble guys with nat­u­ral­ly fun­ny bones, remark­able chem­istry, and an obvi­ous mutu­al deep friend­ship, the Two Ron­nies’ lega­cy has hap­pi­ly been besmirched by nei­ther time nor scan­dal. Their TV show was a huge­ly pop­u­lar fea­ture of Sat­ur­day night enter­tain­ment from 1971 to 1987 and every­one grow­ing up dur­ing this peri­od will remem­ber their shows with great fond­ness, and per­haps con­jure a men­tal pic­ture of the Ron­nies as news­read­ers, read­ing spoof news items and end­ing each show with:

Cor­bett: That’s all we’ve got time for, so it’s “Good­night” from me.

Bark­er: And it’s “Good­night” from him.

Both: Good­night!

The Ron­nies had met each oth­er back in 1963 and first appeared on tele­vi­sion togeth­er in 1966 in The Frost Report with David Frost and John Cleese. How­ev­er, their big break occurred as a result of an eleven-minute tech­ni­cal hitch at a BAFTA awards cer­e­mo­ny at the Lon­don Pal­la­di­um in 1970, in which they filled in, unpre­pared and unscript­ed, with such aplomb that two audi­ence mem­bers, Bill Cot­ton and Sir Paul Fox (the Head of Light Enter­tain­ment and the Con­troller of BBC1 respec­tive­ly), offered them a show on the BBC!

The Two Ron­nies show was filled with sketch­es, either stand­alone or fea­tur­ing recur­ring char­ac­ters, and often involv­ing clever word-play (their Four Can­dles sketch being a case in point). Many of the jokes revolved around Corbett’s lack of height, with the self-dep­re­ca­to­ry Ron­nie C deliv­er­ing many of them him­self:

Bark­er: This next part does suit Ron­nie C. right down to the ground.

Cor­bett: Mind you, that’s not far is it?”

The Ron­nies also had their own solo sec­tion: Ron­nie B usu­al­ly appear­ing as the head of some ridicu­lous­ly-named organ­i­sa­tion, and Ron­nie C deliv­er­ing a dis­cur­sive mono­logue to cam­era from his famous arm­chair. Each series also had an ongo­ing com­ic ser­i­al fea­tur­ing pri­vate detec­tives Charley Far­ley and Pig­gy Mal­one (remem­ber The Phan­tom Rasp­ber­ry Blow­er of Old Lon­don Town?), giv­ing ample scope to guests such as Diana Dors and Kate O’Mara to ham it up.

My favourite sketch though is this clas­sic from 1980, the hilar­i­ous Mas­ter­mind sketch, which you can enjoy below and then per­haps go on to read the tran­script of the revised, expand­ed (and in some places even cor­rect­ed) ver­sion which was per­formed as part of their 1983 Lon­don Pal­la­di­um res­i­den­cy.

Tran­script:

MAGNUS: And so to our final con­tender. Your name, please?

SMITHERS: Good evening.

MAGNUS: Thank you. In the first heat your cho­sen sub­ject was Answer­ing Ques­tions Before They Were Asked. This time you have cho­sen to Answer the Ques­tion Before Last each time. Is that cor­rect?

SMITHERS: Char­lie Smithers.

MAGNUS: And your time starts now. What is palaeon­tol­ogy?

SMITHERS: Yes, absolute­ly cor­rect.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What is the name of the direc­to­ry that lists mem­bers of the peer­age?

SMITHERS: A study of old fos­sils.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. Who are David Owen and Sir Geof­frey Howe?

SMITHERS: Burke’s.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What’s the dif­fer­ence between a don­key and an ass?

SMITHERS: One’s a Social Demo­c­rat, the oth­er’s a mem­ber of the Cab­i­net.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. Com­plete the quo­ta­tion, “To be or not to be…”

SMITHERS: They’re both the same.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What is Bernard Man­ning famous for?

SMITHERS: That is the ques­tion.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. Who is the present Arch­bish­op of Can­ter­bury?

SMITHERS: He’s a fat man who tells blue jokes.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What do peo­ple kneel on in church?

SMITHERS: The Most Rev­erend Robert Run­cie.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What do taran­tu­las prey on?

SMITHERS: Has­socks.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What would you use a rip­cord to pull open?

SMITHERS: Large flies.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What did Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe always claim to wear in bed?

SMITHERS: A para­chute.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What was the next new TV sta­tion to go on the air after Chan­nel Four?

SMITHERS: Chanel Num­ber Five.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What do we nor­mal­ly asso­ciate with Bed­lam?

SMITHERS: Break­fast tele­vi­sion.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What are jock­straps?

SMITHERS: Nut­cas­es.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What would a jock­ey use a stir­rup for?

SMITHERS: An ath­let­ic sup­port.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. Arthur Scargill is well known for what?

SMITHERS: He puts his foot in it.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. Who was the famous clown who made mil­lions laugh with his fun­ny hair?

SMITHERS: The leader of the minework­ers’ union.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What would a dec­o­ra­tor use meth­yl­ene chlo­rides to make?

SMITHERS: Coco.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What did Hen­ri Toulouse-Lautrec do?

SMITHERS: Paint strip­pers.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What is Dean Mar­tin famous for?

SMITHERS: Is he an artist?

MAGNUS: Yes — what kind of artist?

SMITHERS: Erm… pass.

MAGNUS: Yes, that’s near enough. What make of vehi­cle is the stan­dard Lon­don bus?

SMITHERS: A Singer.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. In 1892, Bran­don Thomas wrote a famous long-run­ning Eng­lish farce — what is it?

SMITHERS: British Ley­land.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. Com­plete the fol­low­ing quo­ta­tion about Shirley Williams: “Her heart may be in the right place but her…”

SMITHERS: “Charley’s Aunt”.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect, and you have scored 22 and no pass­es!

The Two Ron­nies
Film, TV, and Theatre

John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972)

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At my school we were encour­aged to join one or more of the many extracur­ric­u­lar clubs and soci­eties, and I recall a bewil­der­ing array of choic­es from archery to play­ing the zither (not real­ly, but it begins with Z and illus­trates the point). I chose Film Club because it didn’t involve any more effort than sit­ting in the lec­ture the­atre and watch­ing a movie, and this seemed like a fair extracur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ty to me. Some stu­dents must have been in con­trol of the actu­al film selec­tion because I can’t imag­ine any of our teach­ers sug­gest­ing 1975’s vio­lent­ly dystopi­an sci-fi flick Roller­ball (set in the then-dis­tant future of 2018) or 1972’s grit­ty and nudi­ty-con­tain­ing mob movie, Prime Cut, yet both these movies fig­ure promi­nent­ly in my Film Club mem­o­ries. Anoth­er movie that some­how made the cut was Deliv­er­ance.

Deliv­er­ance was a land­mark 1972 movie pro­duced and direct­ed by British film­mak­er John Boor­man, and chron­i­cles the sto­ry of a group of city slick­ers embark­ing on a canoe­ing adven­ture in the remote wilder­ness of north­ern Geor­gia. Burt Reynolds plays Lewis, the most sea­soned out­doors­man and leader of the group, with Jon Voight play­ing his friend Ed, and new­com­ers Ned Beat­ty and Ron­nie Cox appro­pri­ate­ly play­ing novices Bob­by and Drew. Unfor­tu­nate­ly for all con­cerned, things don’t turn out quite the way they were planned.

The film is not­ed for the music scene near the begin­ning, in which one of the vis­i­tors, Drew, plays Duel­ing Ban­jos on gui­tar with a gift­ed ban­jo-pick­ing coun­try boy, played by fif­teen-year old local Bil­ly Red­den (whose large head and almond-shaped eyes ticked the box­es for Boor­man look­ing for a char­ac­ter sug­gest­ing an “in-bred from the back woods”, with all due respect to Red­den). Red­den didn’t actu­al­ly play the ban­jo and wore a spe­cial shirt that allowed a real ban­jo play­er to hide behind him!

Duelling Ban­jos

Deliv­er­ance is also noto­ri­ous for the scene lat­er on in the movie when the adven­tur­ers are now deep in woods coun­try, and in which Bob­by and Ed encounter two shot­gun-wield­ing moun­tain men. These men turn out to be the last peo­ple you would want to meet in such a remote set­ting, and they tie Ed to a tree by his neck whilst one of them puts Bob­by through a gru­elling and humil­i­at­ing ordeal: he is com­pelled to strip down and then to “squeal like a pig” as his attack­er tor­ments him, before final­ly being raped. It’s grim view­ing, and only relieved when Reynolds’ capa­ble char­ac­ter Lewis hap­pens upon the scene and comes to the res­cue (if a lit­tle late for Bob­by) by killing the rapist with his bow and arrow and induc­ing the sec­ond hill­bil­ly to scarp­er into the woods. The rest of the film involves the pan­icked reac­tions of all con­cerned and the dra­ma of their attempts to escape back to civil­i­sa­tion (where you can safe­ly imag­ine Bob­by would be remain­ing ever after).

There is a scene in which the guys fall from their canoes whilst rid­ing a par­tic­u­lar­ly dan­ger­ous stretch of rapids. Dum­mies were used in the film­ing but hav­ing viewed the scene, Burt Reynolds request­ed to have the scene re-shot with him­self in the canoe rather than a dum­my, in the inter­ests of authen­tic­i­ty. Boor­man agreed and Reynolds pro­ceed­ed to ride the rapids, but fell out, smashed his shoul­der and head on rocks and float­ed uncon­scious down­stream, before wak­ing up with Boor­man at his bed­side. Reynolds asked “How’d it look?” and Boor­man said, “It looked like a dum­my falling over a water­fall”!

Get a flavour of the movie by watch­ing this mon­tage below.

Film, TV, and Theatre

Saturday Night Live’s More Cowbell Sketch (2000)

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The Amer­i­can late-night live tele­vi­sion sketch com­e­dy show, Sat­ur­day Night Live, has been a launch­pad for many a career since its first broad­cast in 1975. Although it’s not the sta­ple here in the UK that it clear­ly is in the States, we are very aware of its cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance and we can mar­vel at the names that have passed through the ranks of its cast: John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gil­da Rad­ner, Chevy Chase, Bill Mur­ray, Eddie Mur­phy, Bil­ly Crys­tal, Christo­pher Guest, Dana Car­vey, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Adam San­dler, Norm Mac­don­ald, Will Fer­rell, Sarah Sil­ver­man, Tina Fey…

The clas­sic sketch­es that the show has spawned over the years are as many and var­ied as its exten­sive cast list, and it’s fun to peruse Rolling Stone’s “50 Great­est Sat­ur­day Night Live Sketch­es of All Time”. My num­ber one is Rolling Stone’s num­ber nine but let’s not quib­ble: More Cow­bell is com­e­dy gold, how­ev­er you rank it. The sketch aired on 8th April 2000 and it’s safe to say that the stars aligned that night.

The sketch was writ­ten by reg­u­lar cast mem­ber Will Fer­rell who was inspired by an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music doc­u­ment­ing the band Blue Öys­ter Cult and their 1976 record­ing of their biggest hit, (Don’t Fear) The Reaper. Fer­rell reimag­ines the scene, with Christo­pher Walken as fic­tion­al leg­endary music pro­duc­er Bruce Dick­in­son, him­self as fic­tion­al cow­bell play­er Gene Fren­kle, and with oth­er SNL cast mem­bers (Chris Par­nell, Jim­my Fal­lon, Chris Kat­tan, Hor­a­tio Sanz) play­ing the real Blue Öys­ter Cult mem­bers. What fol­lowed was to go down in SNL his­to­ry.

Christo­pher Walken’s char­ac­ter intro­duces him­self as Bruce Dick­in­son (“Yes, the Bruce Dick­in­son”) and tells the band that they have “what appears to be a dyna­mite sound”. The band are in awe of him, and he doesn’t do too much to dis­pel the belief that he is indeed a leg­endary pro­duc­er: “Easy guys, I put my pants on just like the rest of you, one leg at a time…except, once my pants are on, I make gold records!”. Walken’s deliv­ery is sub­lime.

The first take seems to go well but the band stops play­ing due to being dis­tract­ed by Gene’s overzeal­ous cow­bell play­ing. Dick­in­son, to the sur­prise of most of the band, asks for “a lit­tle more cow­bell” and urges Gene to “real­ly explore the stu­dio space this time”. Gene’s exu­ber­ance in fol­low­ing instruc­tions only caus­es more dis­trac­tion and the band aborts anoth­er take, but Bruce dou­bles down on his insis­tence that “I got­ta have more cow­bell!” and the absur­di­ty con­tin­ues hilar­i­ous­ly.

The char­ac­ters, the tim­ing, and the dia­logue are all to a tee, and even the actors’ attempts to avoid corps­ing dur­ing the sketch add to the thrill — just watch Jim­my Fal­lon shov­ing his drum­sticks into his mouth to (vain­ly) cov­er his gig­gles! Enjoy the sketch (in 2 parts) below…

More Cow­bell