Unfinished Pre-Roundtable Business
The monster suits will be along next time… and I think you’ll be very pleased with them when they arrive. But for now:
Dead Man’s Eyes (1944), in which Edward Fielding has it brought forcefully to his attention that making someone a bequest of your body-parts is a terrible idea…
The Ghost Train (1941), in which not even screenwriter Val Guest thinks the star comedian is funny…
Old Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (1952), in which Arthur Lucan further underscores the dreadfulness of Arthur Askey by being less unfunny than him despite appearing in the teeth-clenchingly awful swan-song of the world’s worst drag act…
On the Beach (1959), which is actually good if you can get beyond all the goddamned “Waltzing Matilda”…
and…
The Return of Dracula (1958), in which Paul Landers and Pat Fielder do Salem’s Lot twenty years before Stephen King.
El Santo is the obssessed lunatic behind 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.« Dark and Terrible Frog-Related Secrets
Comments
Comment from lyzard
Time: May 12, 2008, 5:02 pm
Yes, The Ghost Train is one weird fricking movie, isn’t it? You don’t see too many films that go to such effort to get the headlining star the hell out of the way. Or so justifiably.
Comment from Matthew Fudge
Time: May 13, 2008, 8:23 am
Old Mother Riley Meets the Vampire - so the gist of your review is that old men in drag isn’t inherently funny? I can see that you didn’t grow up in England (or Australia, hello Dame Edna) where it’s an article of light-entertainment-faith that this is pretty much comedy gold. Luckily most of this pratfalling-lame innuendo-slapstick -music hall speil had died off before my time, though just enough of it survived onto television in my childhood to give me shivers.
Comment from lyzard
Time: May 13, 2008, 8:08 pm
Although the somewhat redeeming culmination is the Blackadder episode “Major Star”, which has it both ways by decrying the tradition as vehemently as you, and then giving us Hugh Laurie in drag. (And I hope you’re not going to try and tell me THAT’S not funny.)
(I would also argue that Dame Edna is coming from a different mind-set.)
Comment from Matthew Fudge
Time: May 14, 2008, 6:12 am
Hugh Laurie in drag, defintiely funny. I wonder what his ‘House’ audience would think of all that 80s tomfoolery?
Comment from Baron Scarpia
Time: May 14, 2008, 7:25 am
Personally I’m just thinking of Tony Robinson in drag from that episode - memorably described by Blackadder as ‘a badger wrapped in a curtain’.
Comment from Matthew Fudge
Time: May 14, 2008, 9:15 am
Actually considering the kicking that Arthur Askey gets in the Ghost Train review, the whole thing is pretty much a sledgehammer to brit comedy of a certain age. Have you ever watched something from your parents or grandparents generation and said to yourself ‘this is not even vaguely funny, in fact it’s awful.’ only to find that it was the most popular comedy for fifteen years. I don;t reckon most of you have ever seen ‘It Ain’t Half Hot Mum’ but if you have, you’ll know exactly what I mean.
Comment from lyzard
Time: May 14, 2008, 4:53 pm
I have. I’m also old enough - just - to remember The Black And White Minstrel Show. So remember people, next time your parents start shaking their heads over the entertainment of *your* generation….
And aside from Hugh and Tony, Blackadder also gave us recurring instances of the rarer female-to-male drag. Dear “Bob”!
Comment from hman
Time: May 12, 2008, 7:24 am
Despite never having seen “Return of Dracula”, I remember my brother describing “Love at First Bite” to me, but forgetting the title. Looking at my old Leonard Maltin book, I came across this title and for some time thought that they were the same. Oh, how I was young and ignorant.