(no subject)

[moon_custafer]

There’s been a “five movies to watch if you want to understand me” meme going around on Facebook, and sovay noted it recently on Dreamwidth. I’ve begun trying to pick five – it’s tricky to select movies that I think explain something about myself, rather than ones I simply like; and then, I think one of the things about myself that I might need to convey is a sort of fragmented way of looking at things, which might be easier to get across if I could individual scenes to the list, i.e. “Jamaica Inn, but just the bit where Sir Humphrey is weirdly polite about tying up the heroine,” “Orphee, but only the scenes with Heurtebise,” or “the “Freedonia’s going to war” sequence from Duck Soup.”

 

Then there are tv shows – I was quietly, wrigglingly obsessed, for part of the early ‘nineties, with a 1976-78 low-budget Grenada tv show called The Ghosts of Motley Hall that YTV was re-running. It was the work of Richard Carpenter, better known for Robin of Sherwood, and I think part of the reason it fascinated me was that I couldn’t quite figure out who, besides myself, had been the target audience for a children’s gothic/folk-horror britcom shot on a single set (though I’ve since come to believe that sort of thing was probably quite normal for 1970s UK television). Even then, it was very specific bits that touched me – mainly the conversations between Bodkin (Arthur English) and Matt (Sean Flanagan), and perhaps the ghosts’ wry affection for Mr. Gudgin, who can’t see them.

 

So, mentioning those things, but leaving them off the official list:

 

 The Old Dark House (1932) 

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953)

Subway (1985)

Ghost in the Shell 2 – Innocence (2004)

 

For the fifth movie, I’m torn between two documentaries,both from 1965, each containing footage from older works:

 Buster Keaton Rides Again, or The Epic That Never Was.

 

 

I’m not entirely sure what this list and it’s notes say about me, except that I evidently like ghosts.

 

Comments

[ladymondegreen]

Oh wow. Now I'm trolling YouTube, because I had totally blanked the existence of The Ghosts of Motley Hall and now I vividly remember it.

My List

[palain-7.livejournal.com]

Ghost in the Shell 2 (or Akira or the first GINTS movie) and Dr. T. are definitely on my list. I'll have to rent Subway and The Old Dark House. What genre is the latter? For our fragmented way of looking at things I'd include Kubrick's "The Killing". Plus it has the very high maintenance Marie Windsor frying Elisha Cook Jr.'s brain. I have a copy in the unlikely event that you don't. For the rest of my list I'd have Scott Pilgrim vs. the World because I grew up in the real version of the Toronto portrayed therein: as, is obvious to those of us who did, did the director. Finishing off, but only if I wanted you to really know me well, is "They Might Be Giants" with George C. Scott.

Re: My List

[moon_custafer]

One of the reasons I included The Old Dark House is that it’s nominally horror, or at most horror-comedy, but there’s some other stuff going on (Laughton’s character appears to have wandered it of a Shaw play, and never seems to notice his gothic surroundings).


I’d considered They Might Be Giants for my list.

[sovay]

and then, I think one of the things about myself that I might need to convey is a sort of fragmented way of looking at things, which might be easier to get across if I could individual scenes to the list

That makes a lot of sense to me. Could I ask you for a list of significant scenes?

a 1976-78 low-budget Grenada tv show called The Ghosts of Motley Hall that YTV was re-running.

I think that was quite normal for 1970's UK television, but I am sorry I didn't see it.

[moon_custafer]

To the ‘going to war’ scene in Duck Soup, I’d add “the way Harpo’s expression changes when he sits down to play the harp” in pretty much every other Marx Brothers movie.

To the scenes in Orphee that involve Heurtebise, I’d add one short scene from an otherwise pretty cheesy 1990s Witch Mountain remake, in which one of the twins tries to question Luthor (Brad Dourif), the villain’s chauffeur, as he plays solitaire, and he eventually confides that he was a friend who “comes to me in my dreams, and teaches me things.”

What else — oh, the scene in Belle et la Bête where the Beast laps water from Belle’s cupped hands; I’ve probably mentioned that before.

Metropolis is spectacular, but the part I really love is Jehoshaphat (I think that’s his name) fumbling in shock for the door handle.

Theatre of Blood: the opening credits, and the flashback revealing how Lionheart (Vincent Price) survived his suicide attempt, in which he laughs bitterly and quotes The Tempest to the troop of homeless people who rescue him.

Heaven Can Wait: Don Ameche (can’t recall his character’s name right now)’s offscreen death, to the sound of a waltz only he and the audience can hear.

The Bride: Rinaldo (David Rappaport)’s reaction to seeing the creature’s scars where he was sewn together. He knows nothing of his friend’s origins, so he can only assume the man has been cruelly abused. He’s right, of course.

The Big Sleep Not just for the scene in the Acme Bookstore with Dorothy Malone, but for the sets in the next scene — we never meet Geiger directly, so we have to go by descriptions and by that rented cottage full of chinoiserie.




More as I think of them.

[sovay]

one short scene from an otherwise pretty cheesy 1990s Witch Mountain remake, in which one of the twins tries to question Luthor (Brad Dourif), the villain’s chauffeur, as he plays solitaire, and he eventually confides that he has a friend who “comes to me in my dreams, and teaches me things.”

I just went and tracked down that scene on YouTube because you made it sound like the sort of thing that would get my attention. I can see why you remembered it. (I assume he's one of the scattered extraterrestrial people?)

Metropolis is spectacular, but the part I really love is Jehoshaphat (I think that’s his name) fumbling in shock for the door handle.

I think it's just Josaphat—Joh Fredersen's secretary, the moment after he's fired. Barely present in the cut versions, really came into his own with the restoration. I kind of OT3'd him and Freder and Maria.

More as I think of them.

Looking forward.

[moon_custafer]

can see why you remembered it. (I assume he's one of the scattered extraterrestrial people?

Yes. By that point in the movie the audience has already seen him as the mute hermit who is his twin brother, but may not have recognized the two roles as one actor.
In a movie with a pretty good cast but some rather overwrought dialogue, Dourif has the advantage of few lines.

Hadn’t thought of a Freder/Maria/Josephat OT3, but now I’d like one.

Indirection

[palain-7.livejournal.com]

There's also, of course, the fabulous Buckaroo Banzai movie wherein everything has already happened. The President has already had an accident and is in traction. Buckaroo has already had some sort of fight with the World Crime League guy and thinks that he might be behind the current mess. The experiments with the melons are already underway. Buckaroo's relationship with his old girlfriend, whom Penny Pretty reminds him of, is already over. You only find out about almost all of the major background elements and the context of the whole movie through flashbacks and off-hand remarks.

Re: Indirection

[moon_custafer]

Not a movie, but have I ever told you about “The Roads Around Pisa?” It’s a novella in which a Danish nobleman visiting 19th-century Italy basically finds himself a supporting character in an operatically messed-up drama of arranged marriages, elopement, mistaken identities and rape, all of which he and the reader pretty much have to work out from the conversations he does witness — the only action scene he’s privy to is the interrupted duel near the end of the story. It’s sort of like “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” except he doesn’t die, and is actually rather glad to have been involved because it let him forget *his* personal problems for a few days.

Re: Indirection

[palain-7.livejournal.com]

Don't think you ever mentioned that one.

Just thought of another great indirection moment though. In "Shawn Of The Dead" Shawn's group is going down an alley and meet with another group of identical composition going the other way. Shawn's counterpart is some woman he used to know who obviously has her act together much better than he does. In fact all of the other versions of Shawn's group are obvious upgrades of his group members. You just know that Shawn's group have wandered through a corner of a Dr. Who episode and that the woman is some Companion who's leading her group off to actually save the world while Shawn and Co. are just going to stumble around.

Also the crazy last episode of "Sapphire and Steel" where they sit down and go through a list of all of the other extra-dimensional races and entities that could be behind all this. Most of them have only been vaguely hinted at and some of them are completely new but each get a couple of sentences here as they're considered.

Re: Indirection

[moon_custafer]

There were several books I read as a kid that I think were orphaned from longer series*. In one, the ragtag band of heroes, partway through the story, meet up with a previous ragtag band of heroes now famous for *their* adventure, and are shocked at how ordinary they seem.

* i.e. there’d be references to earlier storylines, or characters would get a sort of recognition prompt rather than a ground-up introduction.

Re: Indirection

[sovay]

In one, the ragtag band of heroes, partway through the story, meet up with a previous ragtag band of heroes now famous for *their* adventure, and are shocked at how ordinary they seem.

Carol Kendall's The Whisper of Glocken (1965)! Meeting the heroes of The Gammage Cup (1959). The earlier book was formative for me. There are some pieces of it now that stick weirdly for me, but I still treasure Muggles and Mingy. They are wonderful models of non-conformity that isn't as obviously counterculture as the other three outlaws.

There's one other book that continuity that I've been able to detect: The Firelings (1981). I have never run into any of her other children's novels, though, and so can't say if there are other Minnipin stories lurking out there.

Re: Indirection

[moon_custafer]

Thank you! That's the one!

Re: Indirection

[sovay]

Thank you! That's the one!

You're welcome! I worked the other way—I discovered The Gammage Cup first and didn't realize until it got a reprint that The Whisper of Glocken even existed. The Firelings I found some years after that in a used book store.

Re: Indirection

[moon_custafer]

A reviewer at the time complained it was like starting a 1940s adventure serial at the second or third episode in, but since I think that’s *exactly* the feel they were going for, the criticism is accurate but irrelevant.

[sovay]

To the scenes in Orphee that involve Heurtebise

I forgot to mention in my original comment to this post how much I love Heurtebise.

[moon_custafer]

I reread the thread from 2013 about Heurtebise and numbers stations, and all of a sudden I thought about a throwaway gag from The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death -- one of the odder Terwilliger cousins suggests that Uncle Flipping’s periodic disappearances are the work of “the Underworld,” and when someone asks: “you mean the Mafia?” she replies: “no not the Mafia, dear, The Underworld.”

Well, Uncle Flipping’s middle name *is* Hades; perhaps she’s got a point.

[sovay]

Well, Uncle Flipping’s middle name *is* Hades; perhaps she’s got a point.

It's Pinkwater. That wouldn't be the weirdest thing that happened to one of his characters.