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Shameless self-promotion – over on Ao3 I’ve been posting A Grand Romp, a series of vignettes featuring Highlander: The Series recurring guest character Hugh Fitzcairn. The latest chapter is threatening to turn into an actual story, though I can’t promise anything either way.
Stayed home New Year’s Eve and rewatched a couple of favourites on Youtube: Jamaica Inn (1939), which was even kinkier than I remember. The first time I watched this it was for Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara and, look, bondage isn’t normally my thing but the creepily gentle flair with which the villainous Squire Pengallan (Laughton) binds and gags Mary Yellen (O’Hara) is… well it makes it a bit less surprising when in the final scene she pleads for his life on the grounds of insanity (just before he goes out in spectacular Disney-villain fashion while roaring to the crowd “Tell your children how the Great Age ended! Make way for Pengallan!” No wonder his butler, left alone in the movie's last shot, can still hear his voice.)
This time I was watching for Robert Newton but even before he shows up there’s Leslie Banks and also Emlyn Williams and then midway through the first act I found myself thinking that even by Gothic thriller standards, somebody involved in this production had had a serious thing for rope. I’m not even sure it was Hitchcock, who reportedly made this movie purely as a contractual obligation and didn’t even bother with his usual cameo appearance.
In the evening I rewatched Get Crazy (1983). If you’ve never heard of this movie, sovay’s description will provided you with all the enticement you need. I’d forgotten the Tarzan fantasy sequences; and that Electric Larry (some Tumblerites may recognize him as “the Hat Man” who appears in Benadryl-fuelled hallucinations to those who owe him money) appears more than once, and that he’s a near-literal deus ex machina who resolves at least three of the movie’s plot threads by spiking the green-room’s water cooler. I’d forgotten that the remaining plot thread is resolved by the taxi carrying Auden (Lou Reed) getting into a collision with Colin Beverley (Ed Begley, Jr)’s limo, allowing Willy (Gail Edwards) a chance to escape and phone Neil (Daniel Stern) with a warning about the bomb.
I remembered Reggie (Malcolm MacDowell) escaping the groupie jenga-tower, but I’d forgotten this intercuts with Toad’s extended drum solo that involves the chicken kind of drumsticks and banging cymbals with his head. I also hadn’t noticed that Toad was played by John Densmore of the Doors. I think I did remember that Reggie’s line to Toad, “Rock’n’roll is going to be fun again,” is profoundly sincere and ecstatic, even if he says it in a toilet stall while out of his mind on extraterrestrial LSD. It’s an encouraging start to a new year.
Stayed home New Year’s Eve and rewatched a couple of favourites on Youtube: Jamaica Inn (1939), which was even kinkier than I remember. The first time I watched this it was for Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara and, look, bondage isn’t normally my thing but the creepily gentle flair with which the villainous Squire Pengallan (Laughton) binds and gags Mary Yellen (O’Hara) is… well it makes it a bit less surprising when in the final scene she pleads for his life on the grounds of insanity (just before he goes out in spectacular Disney-villain fashion while roaring to the crowd “Tell your children how the Great Age ended! Make way for Pengallan!” No wonder his butler, left alone in the movie's last shot, can still hear his voice.)
This time I was watching for Robert Newton but even before he shows up there’s Leslie Banks and also Emlyn Williams and then midway through the first act I found myself thinking that even by Gothic thriller standards, somebody involved in this production had had a serious thing for rope. I’m not even sure it was Hitchcock, who reportedly made this movie purely as a contractual obligation and didn’t even bother with his usual cameo appearance.
In the evening I rewatched Get Crazy (1983). If you’ve never heard of this movie, sovay’s description will provided you with all the enticement you need. I’d forgotten the Tarzan fantasy sequences; and that Electric Larry (some Tumblerites may recognize him as “the Hat Man” who appears in Benadryl-fuelled hallucinations to those who owe him money) appears more than once, and that he’s a near-literal deus ex machina who resolves at least three of the movie’s plot threads by spiking the green-room’s water cooler. I’d forgotten that the remaining plot thread is resolved by the taxi carrying Auden (Lou Reed) getting into a collision with Colin Beverley (Ed Begley, Jr)’s limo, allowing Willy (Gail Edwards) a chance to escape and phone Neil (Daniel Stern) with a warning about the bomb.
I remembered Reggie (Malcolm MacDowell) escaping the groupie jenga-tower, but I’d forgotten this intercuts with Toad’s extended drum solo that involves the chicken kind of drumsticks and banging cymbals with his head. I also hadn’t noticed that Toad was played by John Densmore of the Doors. I think I did remember that Reggie’s line to Toad, “Rock’n’roll is going to be fun again,” is profoundly sincere and ecstatic, even if he says it in a toilet stall while out of his mind on extraterrestrial LSD. It’s an encouraging start to a new year.
