Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind.
Speaker 2: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 2: today we're featuring an older episode of Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: This one originally published November twelfth, twenty twenty one, and
Speaker 2: this is the movie Venom, starring Oliver Reed klaus Kinski.
Speaker 2: A bunch of snakes this is in this. It's got
Speaker 2: a fun British cast, and it's snakes in an apartment
Speaker 2: building or a singular snake in an apartment building.
Speaker 1: Nicol Williamson is also in this.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's got a real fun cast for sure.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick, and it is the Serpentine Hour
Speaker 2: here on Weird House Cinema. Because today Rob am I
Speaker 2: right that this is our first snake movie.
Speaker 1: It is. I mean, we've certainly had some snakes and
Speaker 1: even killer snakes pop up in some of our Florida
Speaker 1: movies that we did, including Zat and Frogs, but Venom
Speaker 1: is going to be our first true snake movie.
Speaker 2: Now, this movie is called Venom. But no, it's not
Speaker 2: that Venom. No, it's not that other one either. It's
Speaker 2: this is Venom nineteen eighty one, the original Venom.
Speaker 1: Or well, one of the original venoms. I noticed that
Speaker 1: there are multiple films with the title Venom, so I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if this one is the true originator, but
Speaker 1: it's the one that we're talking about here today.
Speaker 2: Man, I love a good snake romp. You know, a
Speaker 2: snake movie. Really it just gets you by the gut sometimes.
Speaker 2: So I love, as we've discussed before, the campy supernatural
Speaker 2: pleasures of the Layer of the White Worm to even
Speaker 2: what I would argue is maybe the best creature feature
Speaker 2: of all time, the nineteen ninety seven Amazon snake hunt
Speaker 2: movie Anaconda, in which the cardinal rule of great snake
Speaker 2: movies is observed. And this is what I would argue.
Speaker 2: The rule is any creature movie featuring an unusually large
Speaker 2: or unusually deadly reptile must also contain at least one
Speaker 2: human actor who is more reptilian than the creature itself. Now,
Speaker 2: in the case of Anaconda, you've got your giant cgi reptile,
Speaker 2: but it is being constantly upstaged by John Voight, delivering
Speaker 2: one of the most bizarre performances I have ever seen
Speaker 2: in any movie. You know, you just look at him.
Speaker 2: You can tell his blood is room temperature. When he
Speaker 2: blinks his eyes they go horizontal, and his accent is
Speaker 2: just radioactive weirdness. He sounds like he's trying to sort
Speaker 2: of be Peter Lorie doing a like Spanish Count Dracula
Speaker 2: kind of thing, but also as a ruthless jungle poacher
Speaker 2: with a ponytail. So that movie definitely here's to the rule.
Speaker 2: But I think today's pick also observes the rule.
Speaker 1: That's right. Venom is a very interesting film in a
Speaker 1: large part because it features not one, but two notoriously
Speaker 1: difficult actors, Oliver Reid and Kloss Kinski. And there's actually
Speaker 1: another reportedly difficult actor in this as well, so you
Speaker 1: can really up that to three. But it's especially evident
Speaker 1: with Reid and Kinski based on some of the stories
Speaker 1: and the fact that they share a lot of screen
Speaker 1: time in this film, so you can imagine if they
Speaker 1: were constantly shouting at each other and almost coming to blows,
Speaker 1: it would it would have been a particularly terrible working
Speaker 1: environment for everyone on the picture.
Speaker 2: You can feel the bad vibes through the screen.
Speaker 1: Yes, Now, I mean luckily they're both playing villains, and
Speaker 1: the characters are also supposed to somewhat hate each other,
Speaker 1: so on the screen, you know, putting a setting aside
Speaker 1: anything we know about the making of and these actors themselves,
Speaker 1: you know, it ends up working. But yeah, both Kinsky
Speaker 1: and Reed were kind of larger than life figures. Both
Speaker 1: were noted hedonists in their own ways, and they were
Speaker 1: both highly talented actors whose careers were damaged by their
Speaker 1: difficult behavior. So I think it's fair to say that,
Speaker 1: you know, at the very least, they were both very
Speaker 1: problematic figures.
Speaker 2: Well, if you're talking about their personal lives, I think,
Speaker 2: especially in the case of Kinsky, that's sort of an understatement.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yeah, I feel like every time I learned
Speaker 1: something new about Kinski, I regret it. Now, you know,
Speaker 1: we're not going to focus that guess too much on
Speaker 1: their personal lives, but you know, I admit that I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have the stomach for too much of that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. But you know, some argue that Reed
Speaker 1: sort of played up this hell raiser image for the press,
Speaker 1: though there seems no denying his alcoholism and his also
Speaker 1: kind of like brute, macho demeanor. Kinsky, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: was prone to outbursts and tantrums, it seems, and seems
Speaker 1: to have suffered from mental illness. He also was apparently
Speaker 1: just reviled by many people who had to work with him,
Speaker 1: and I think Werner Herzog kind of stands apart as
Speaker 1: really the only filmmaker to have been able to work
Speaker 1: with him multiple times for a total of five different films.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me though, that Kinski played a vampire
Speaker 1: in two different Nosferato films and Reed played a werewolf
Speaker 1: in one Hammer film. So you know, to a large extent,
Speaker 1: we have vampires versus werewolves in this movie, and behind
Speaker 1: the scenes on this movie, the vampire and the werewolf
Speaker 1: really do seem like monstrous reflections of the individual energies
Speaker 1: of these two actors.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we know we're dealing with Klaus Kinski and
Speaker 2: Oliver Reed both in a snake movie. But the weird
Speaker 2: thing is it's not just a snake movie. Really. What
Speaker 2: this is is a genre hybrid. This is a realistic
Speaker 2: crime thriller plus snake.
Speaker 1: Yes, another elevator pitch on at give it is a
Speaker 1: deadly game of cat and mouse, but mostly snake.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Or home alone but with snake.
Speaker 2: All good ways of summing it up. Another way you
Speaker 2: could sum it up is bad at crime, good at
Speaker 2: dying by snake.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The bad at crime note is good. And this
Speaker 1: is one of those where those films where the criminal
Speaker 1: enterprise is perhaps not entirely well thought out and or
Speaker 1: bad and or mistakes are made that just lead to catastrophe.
Speaker 1: So it's, you know, in a way, it's more in
Speaker 1: sort of the Fargo realm of crime cinema, Like these
Speaker 1: are guys who really screw up and make mistakes that
Speaker 1: are just catastrophic for their venture.
Speaker 2: I also want to note that in terms of boo mechanics,
Speaker 2: I think there are basically two kinds of snake movies.
Speaker 2: So you could have like a big snake movie and
Speaker 2: a stealth snake movie. So big snake movies would be
Speaker 2: more like anaconda. They focus on the scale of snake
Speaker 2: in order to intimidate, and this is either by having
Speaker 2: a single very large snake or by having a large
Speaker 2: quantity of regular sized snakes. But your stealth snake movies
Speaker 2: have a snake instead that is regular sized, maybe especially deadly,
Speaker 2: but it hides in places you don't expect and pops
Speaker 2: out at you. And this is a film in the
Speaker 2: latter camp. This is a stealth snake movie. This is
Speaker 2: a movie about opening up the liquor cabinet and oops,
Speaker 2: there's a black mamba and it bits you on the face.
Speaker 2: Though it would be hilarious to try to imagine doing
Speaker 2: the same premises this movie like a realistic crime thriller
Speaker 2: involving a kidnapping plot plus snake with like a giant
Speaker 2: snake or a million snakes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess you could do a million snakes.
Speaker 1: It could be like the a million snakes are set
Speaker 1: loose in the house. I mean, isn't snakes on a
Speaker 1: plane essentially that It's like there's something else going on, right,
Speaker 1: It's not just snakes on the plane and they're like
Speaker 1: a hostage scenario or something.
Speaker 2: Can I confess something. I've never seen all of Snakes
Speaker 2: on a Plane. I started watching it and never finished it.
Speaker 1: I have to assume there's something else going on beside snakes.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think there is a perfunctory crime element,
Speaker 2: like somebody it's like a witness in a mob case
Speaker 2: or something is being transported on a plane. But I
Speaker 2: would say snakes on a plane goes big snake because
Speaker 2: the issue is there are many snakes on the plane.
Speaker 1: This film, with the single snake threat, it reminds me
Speaker 1: a lot of the Sherlock Holmes adventure, The Adventure of
Speaker 1: the Speckled Band, which concerns like a very deadly, venomous
Speaker 1: snake that is responsible for a death. And I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised if that was ultimately one of the inspirations
Speaker 1: on this story.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's got a lot of actors who
Speaker 2: were in Sherlock Holmes movies and TV series in Britain.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, Yeah, we have more than more than one
Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes connection here for sure. Well let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and jump right into the trailer.
Speaker 4: Here venom, the kidnap that became a murder, that became
Speaker 4: a siege, that became a death trap. Venom.
Speaker 5: The fear explodes, trapping their hostages and kidnappers in its grip.
Speaker 5: The panic spreads, sending an entire police force into action.
Speaker 5: But this is a terror unlike anything anyone has ever faced.
Speaker 5: And when it uncoils to strike, your blood will run cold. Venom.
Speaker 1: Whatever you feel you will fear.
Speaker 4: Venom.
Speaker 2: Dude, this is classic creature feature narration trailer, narration. I
Speaker 2: absolutely love it. What does he say, venom, the kidnap
Speaker 2: that became a murder, that became a sea, that became
Speaker 2: a death trap. Venom.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They do a really good job of selling this
Speaker 1: movie in that trailer.
Speaker 2: Uh huh. And he also says this line. I kept
Speaker 2: thinking about it. I was like, what does it mean?
Speaker 2: He says, whatever you feel you will fear. Does that
Speaker 2: mean that once you start thinking about snakes, Like anytime
Speaker 2: something touches your body, I don't know, you brush against
Speaker 2: the doorframe as you're walking through it, or I don't know,
Speaker 2: like a leaf falls on your shoulder, you're always gonna
Speaker 2: think it's a snake.
Speaker 1: I guess. So, if we're being generous, I guess that's
Speaker 1: maybe what the ad copy here is trying to say.
Speaker 2: What else would it mean? That's a weird line.
Speaker 1: Whatever you feel you will fear. I don't know, it
Speaker 1: doesn't really make much sense in the context of the film.
Speaker 2: I feel happy.
Speaker 1: Oh no, maybe it was the director of the actors.
Speaker 1: They just said like they're like, well, what's my character,
Speaker 1: what's my motivation? And the director's just I don't know,
Speaker 1: whatever you feel you'll fear, And they're like, okay, because
Speaker 1: it does seem like, for the most part, a lot
Speaker 1: of these actors were just kind of turned loose to
Speaker 1: just do their thing with the character, and there's not
Speaker 1: really necessarily a great sense of who the underlying character
Speaker 1: is supposed to be.
Speaker 2: Do you remember how did you come across this movie?
Speaker 2: What's the origin story here?
Speaker 1: I have a couple of different blu rays of just
Speaker 1: trailers from like the seventies and eighties, and I was
Speaker 1: watching a compilation and this one popped up and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, now this looks interesting.
Speaker 2: I suspected that because this is very much one where
Speaker 2: if you see the trailer, you're like, yep, okay, gotta
Speaker 2: see that one.
Speaker 1: Well, let's jump right in and talk about the various
Speaker 1: humans and the snakes involved in this film. So the
Speaker 1: director is Peers Haggard born nineteen thirty nine. Interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: Toby Hooper was going to direct this picture originally, and
Speaker 1: I think may have been working on it a little bit,
Speaker 1: but then he had to bow out for some reason.
Speaker 1: And I think they're varying accounts as to why, and
Speaker 1: then enters Haggard here, who had previously directed the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one British horror film The Blood on Satan's Claw,
Speaker 1: A Divorce, The Quartermass Conclusion, also the Peter Sellers comedy
Speaker 1: The fiendish plot of Doctor Fu Manchu, which everyone seemed
Speaker 1: to hate in nineteen eighty and did still very much
Speaker 1: hated today, seemingly with good reason. And he also directed
Speaker 1: various TV episodes. He went on to do more TV
Speaker 1: and a potentially interesting looking sci fi film, a TV
Speaker 1: film titled The Life Force Experiment in nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 1: Another interesting thing about him is he was dialogue assistant
Speaker 1: on the nineteen sixty six film blow Up.
Speaker 2: So he did the Life Force Experiment and he was
Speaker 2: He came in to direct a movie that Toby Hooper
Speaker 2: was going to direct, and Toby Hooper directed Life Force.
Speaker 1: Right. I don't know that there's any connection between Life
Speaker 1: Force and the Life Force Experiment, but certainly the names
Speaker 1: are similar. Now, this is an adaptation of a novel,
Speaker 1: it's worth stressing. The original novel, Venom, was written by
Speaker 1: Alan Scholfield, who lived nineteen thirty one through twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: a South African author who I think lived most of it,
Speaker 1: may have lived most of his life in England. I
Speaker 1: think it was like London based or something. But this
Speaker 1: book came out in nineteen seventy seven and it still
Speaker 1: seems to be in print. You can go obtain this
Speaker 1: book and read it. I've never read any of his novels,
Speaker 1: but he was quite prolific. He also wrote a nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one horror novel called Cat's Eyes under the name
Speaker 1: Lee Jordan, and it seems like he was seems like
Speaker 1: he was reasonably well regarded and often worked African history
Speaker 1: and culture into his works. Apparently best known for his
Speaker 1: McCrae and Silver novels, which were London based detective books. Now,
Speaker 1: the screenplay was written by Robert Carrington born nineteen twenty eight,
Speaker 1: who wrote such films as Wait Until Dark and Fear
Speaker 1: Is the Key, and he was active in the sixties,
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties. All right, let's move on to the actors.
Speaker 1: So our reptilian humanoid in this film is, of course Kloskinski,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twenty six through nineteen ninety one. He
Speaker 1: plays the character Jack.
Speaker 2: Mel So this is one of our main trio of criminals.
Speaker 1: Yes, I guess he's kind of the mastermind. He's supposed
Speaker 1: to be. I think we mentioned at one point that
Speaker 1: he's a member of the German Underworld. He's like a
Speaker 1: German Underworld figure, and he has of course flown in
Speaker 1: to London to mastermind the sort of I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if he's the Mastermind or not, but anyway, he's going
Speaker 1: to be one of the main operatives in this kidnapping plot. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think he's played as the Mastermind because there are
Speaker 2: a lot of scenes of him pointing a gun at
Speaker 2: Oliver Reed and being like, remember, you know you don't
Speaker 2: drink whiskey until I tell you.
Speaker 1: To, all right. So. Kinsky, of course a German born actor,
Speaker 1: perhaps best remembered today for his smoldering presence in some
Speaker 1: of Werner Herzog's best known works, such as Geary, The
Speaker 1: Wrath of God was Zek, Nosferatu, the Vampire, Fitzgeraldo and
Speaker 1: Cobra Verde. He also had a small but memorable role
Speaker 1: in Doctor Shivago in nineteen sixty five, and accounts of
Speaker 1: anyone who had to work with Kinsky they tend to
Speaker 1: revolve around two different things. His raw talent, you know
Speaker 1: that undeniably like there's something electric in a klos Kinsky performance,
Speaker 1: but also intense difficulty and displeasure of working with him.
Speaker 1: It seems to be a common theme. Herzog managed it,
Speaker 1: but also had a just legendarily explosive relationship with Kinski,
Speaker 1: and at times from you know, stuff I've watched, you know,
Speaker 1: documentaries and so forth, it seems like he was able
Speaker 1: to get his the best stuff out of Kinski by
Speaker 1: sort of manipulating him, like, for instance, wearing him out
Speaker 1: with takes. In the case of a Gira like, Kinsky
Speaker 1: has this monologue at the end of it, and Kinsky
Speaker 1: thought he needed to rage through it, and Herzog reportedly
Speaker 1: just had him do it over and over again until
Speaker 1: he was just worn out and could only deliver it
Speaker 1: at the energy that Herzog wanted. So, you know, I
Speaker 1: thought that was an insightful story about working with Kinski.
Speaker 2: It seems like he was raging a lot.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, certainly behind the scenes. So Kinsky did a
Speaker 1: number of spaghetti westerns as well, including for a few
Speaker 1: dollars more, as well as various European genre films. He
Speaker 1: played a vampire in Herzog's nineteen seventy nine nos Faratu film,
Speaker 1: as well as the nineteen eighty eight film Vampire in Venice.
Speaker 1: This was supposed to, I think be a sequel to
Speaker 1: Nosfaratu in some respects, but kinskyly refused to wear any
Speaker 1: vampire makeup for it, and so he doesn't look like
Speaker 1: Nosfatu in it per se. After a career of butting
Speaker 1: heads with various directors, he finally directed himself in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine's Paganini, which he also wrote, and this was
Speaker 1: his final film. Now a couple of interesting facts. Allegedly,
Speaker 1: Kinsky turned down the role of Major Tat and Raiders
Speaker 1: of the Lost Arc because he hated the script, and
Speaker 1: Venom is the picture he did instead.
Speaker 2: Oh, both snake centric movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And of course Ronald Lacey wound up doing
Speaker 1: the character of Major Tots, which I think he's so
Speaker 1: great in it. This is the best thing that could
Speaker 1: have happened. As for Kinsky's performance in Venom, here, I'd
Speaker 1: say what we see on the screen is very good.
Speaker 1: He's menacing, he exudes evil very much, plays to his strengths.
Speaker 1: Though there is a scene where he has to fight
Speaker 1: a rubber snake, and let's be honest, that's a tall
Speaker 1: order for any actor.
Speaker 2: I think his snake wrestled scene is a highlight of
Speaker 2: the film, especially because it turns into a gunfight with
Speaker 2: a snake.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, a lot happy. Yeah, it's a great climax.
Speaker 2: You just wouldn't think that if a snake is wrapping
Speaker 2: around you and you're trying to fight it off, the
Speaker 2: solution you would come to is trying to shoot the
Speaker 2: snake in the head with a pistol.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, it's a wonderful scene, though I think Herzog
Speaker 1: could have gotten a better, better take out of him.
Speaker 1: He just like worn him down until he got the
Speaker 1: right energy.
Speaker 2: Okay, So Kinsky is playing our lead reptilian criminal in this,
Speaker 2: but then we've also got a more brutal criminal.
Speaker 1: Right that is Dave, the chauffeur, played by Oliver Reed.
Speaker 1: Oliver Reed lived nineteen thirty eight through nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: English actor with piercing eyes. Really his as far as
Speaker 1: like eyes first acting goes, Reed was a master of this,
Speaker 1: you know, just setting there smoldering and looking at you
Speaker 1: with murder eyes. Oh.
Speaker 2: He uses the murderized in this film. Part of The
Speaker 2: problem though, is like there's really not any surprise so
Speaker 2: as the plot is revealed, because we first see Oliver Reed,
Speaker 2: I don't know, thirty seconds into the film, just acting
Speaker 2: in his capacity as a chauffeur, and he already looks
Speaker 2: like he is not just getting ready to do murders,
Speaker 2: but has already done them. He looks like he just
Speaker 2: came back in a hurry from doing murders.
Speaker 1: Yes. Absolutely, he always had a knack for playing brute,
Speaker 1: macho characters, and of course he increasingly earned a reputation
Speaker 1: for hell raising, drinking, and being difficult to work with.
Speaker 1: He had his first big leading role in the hammer
Speaker 1: film The Curse of the Werewolf from Terrence Fisher, came
Speaker 1: out in nineteen sixty one, and he landed some huge
Speaker 1: roles in such films as nineteen sixty eight's Oliver, in
Speaker 1: which he plays the villain Bill Sikes. He played Athos
Speaker 1: in Three Musketeers in seventy three and its sequel in
Speaker 1: seventy four, and he continued to do a lot of
Speaker 1: villain roles and roles in horror film. He worked with
Speaker 1: Ken Russell several times, including Women in Love and of
Speaker 1: course The Devils in which he really delivers a memorable performance.
Speaker 1: He played the god Vulcan and Terry Gilliams The Adventures
Speaker 1: of Baron Muchausen in eighty eight. Other notable roles, at
Speaker 1: least to me, include Disney's Condor Man in nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: in which he plays this the villain in this ridiculous
Speaker 1: kind of superhero James Bond kind of film, he plays
Speaker 1: the I guess he's the hero and David Cronenberg's The Brood.
Speaker 2: No, no, he is not the hero.
Speaker 1: He's not the hero. Oh no, I guess I've forgotten
Speaker 1: most of that film. He's the villain. He's the manipulating
Speaker 1: psychiatrist sort of, yeah, psychologist.
Speaker 2: He plays an unorthodox psychiatrist who has like a retreat
Speaker 2: where he leads people through these strange exercises and gets
Speaker 2: them to to sort of like turn their their psychic
Speaker 2: pain and trauma into like physical external manifestations like I
Speaker 2: don't know. He leads people through these exercises where like
Speaker 2: their pain is turned into in the case of one character,
Speaker 2: like a physical tumor, but in the case of other
Speaker 2: characters like like literal like little like beings or monsters
Speaker 2: that run around the Brude is a gross movie. Be forewarned.
Speaker 2: If you're gonna if you're gonna venture there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Samantha Egger, isn't that and I have to I
Speaker 1: have to look it up. Let's see what Oliver Reid's
Speaker 1: character's name. What was this weird Kronenbergian character, doctor Hal Raglin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not that weird as far as cronenberg names go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my memory is just that he's like a weird,
Speaker 2: sort of unethical, unorthodox psychiatrist who's doing a combination of
Speaker 2: something like you know, like scientology auditing at the alongside,
Speaker 2: like creating tulpas and stuff.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, okay, yeah, it's been been a while since
Speaker 1: I've seen that one.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: We should also mention Oliver Reid was, of course in
Speaker 1: Ridley Scott's Gladiator in two thousand and This was his
Speaker 1: final film. He died during the filming of it in Malta.
Speaker 1: I believe. Now here's a fun fact. Venom is not
Speaker 1: the only Oliver Reed snake movie. He also appeared in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three Spasms alongside Peter Fonda. And this one,
Speaker 1: Joe is a giant snake movie.
Speaker 2: Okay, big snake instead of Stealth snake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you can look up various stories about the
Speaker 1: production of Venom. Basically, yeah, Reid and Kinsky famously did
Speaker 1: not get along on the film, reportedly hated each other,
Speaker 1: and Read allegedly kept intentionally setting Kinsky off, which sounds
Speaker 1: absolutely dreadful. You know, you already have Kinsky, who is
Speaker 1: you know, has a reputation for being Satan, Yes, Satan,
Speaker 1: and you have and then you have Oliver Reed provoking
Speaker 1: Satan and like pranking Satan and you know, just to
Speaker 1: get a ryle out of him. So yeah, this sounds
Speaker 1: absolutely dreadful for everybody else on the production. That being said,
Speaker 1: much like we said with Kinsky, Read, I feel like
Speaker 1: he's good in this. I don't know. I feel like
Speaker 1: at times maybe they weren't sure exactly who this character
Speaker 1: was supposed to be. Sometimes he just seems to be
Speaker 1: like loud and abusive because he needed to do something
Speaker 1: in the scene. But also, I guess the better parts
Speaker 1: of the performance they drive home that this is a
Speaker 1: guy who yes, has signed on to be part of
Speaker 1: a kidnapping plot, but also has misgivings about it. And
Speaker 1: there are times where you see like maybe his gentler
Speaker 1: nature shine through just a little bit, as if to
Speaker 1: give you hope that he might turn good guy and
Speaker 1: strangle Klaskinsky's character, Jock Mail, though of course that doesn't
Speaker 1: come to pass. He remains a bad guy throughout. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It never really has the face turn. Yeah, mainly you
Speaker 2: get the idea that the moments where he's showing misgivings
Speaker 2: are actually just like when it would it would be
Speaker 2: bad to go to prison. I don't want that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he doesn't have a true change of heart.
Speaker 1: I will say this as well, though Reid has a
Speaker 1: wonderful mustache in this film. Often he had wonderful mustaches,
Speaker 1: and this is no exception.
Speaker 2: But actually, the star power in the movie doesn't really
Speaker 2: stop there with with the criminals, because this movie has
Speaker 2: a number of other actors who were well known and
Speaker 2: quite respected. This is something I remember. I watched the
Speaker 2: Ciskel and Ebert review of this movie, in which Ebert
Speaker 2: did not like it, but Ciskel did, and oh did
Speaker 2: he Okay, Yeah, you know, occasionally, Geene Ciskel, you could
Speaker 2: see there was like a ridiculous creature horror movie, and
Speaker 2: you could just tell he just kind of liked it
Speaker 2: and had a hard time explaining why But he just
Speaker 2: liked it. He just will like to be like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I thought Wes Craven's Shocker it was fun. You know,
Speaker 2: it was interesting. Maybe it's not interesting, but you liked it.
Speaker 2: Come on, admit you liked it. And I don't know
Speaker 2: why I'm talking like that, because he did. He recommended
Speaker 2: it on the show and he did with like. I
Speaker 2: think he also liked Rod Corman's Carnosaur and and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. So occasionally he just had a soft spot
Speaker 2: for creature films. But one thing that a lot of
Speaker 2: critics talked about was how wow, you really got an
Speaker 2: a level cast in this movie. And so the casting
Speaker 2: goes on with Sterling Hayden.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Sterling Hayden. Oftentimes it looks like he has top billing.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I don't really know how billing
Speaker 1: order it goes, especially over the decades of a film
Speaker 1: that's come out. But yeah, Sterling Hayden plays Grandpa Howard
Speaker 1: Anderson aka Grandpa Safari. That's what I kept thinking of
Speaker 1: him as. But he this is this guy was a
Speaker 1: big name.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean Sterling Hayden. He was in
Speaker 2: He was a villain in the Godfather. He plays a
Speaker 2: corrupt police chief who is helping one of the other
Speaker 2: families with their with their schemes. He gets shot in
Speaker 2: the forehead by al Pacino.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, and that that very memorable scene in the restaurant, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. But he also he also plays a great
Speaker 2: villain role in Doctor Strangelove Is. He plays General Jack
Speaker 2: d Ripper. He's the guy who initiates the sneak attack
Speaker 2: on the Soviet Union that sets off the whole chain
Speaker 2: of events on the plot because he has quite clearly
Speaker 2: consumed a lot of anti communist propaganda and lost his mind.
Speaker 2: He's the character who believes that fluorination is stealing our
Speaker 2: precious bodily fluids.
Speaker 1: He was also in Asphalt Jungle. He was in Robert
Speaker 1: Altman's The Long Goodbye Now. He lived nineteen sixteen through
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, and this was his last feature film role,
Speaker 1: but it kepped off a long career full of a
Speaker 1: lot of leading man roles, especially westerns and noir films.
Speaker 1: He is I was not prepared to enjoy his performance
Speaker 1: as much as I did, But I feel like he's
Speaker 1: a lot of fun as Grandpa Safari here in part
Speaker 1: because maybe it comes down to the fact that I
Speaker 1: do feel like most of the actors in this film
Speaker 1: were just kind of turned loose in the house, much
Speaker 1: like a wild beast and just like do whatever. And
Speaker 1: I like the strange energy he brings to this performance
Speaker 1: at times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. So the other two characters we've talked
Speaker 2: about already are criminals and bring a lot of menace.
Speaker 2: Grandpa Safari here is he's just like a big old
Speaker 2: ball of fun and he plays this character like an
Speaker 2: old rough and tumble rascal.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also, I mean he's the grandpa and the
Speaker 1: grandson is one of the main characters there. And like
Speaker 1: the grandson seems to suffer from some severe form of
Speaker 1: asthma which requires the house to be at a constant
Speaker 1: seventy five degrees and he has to have like a humidifier,
Speaker 1: and his mom seems very much of the mindset like
Speaker 1: he needs to be kept in the house. But Grandpa
Speaker 1: is like, oh, what you need, soney, I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: you a cab right across town to buy yourself a
Speaker 1: new snake. Get to do it all by yourself.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: And of course that becomes central to the plot.
Speaker 2: Now, maybe we should specify in the plot that there
Speaker 2: is a mix up. Grandpa did not buy his grandson
Speaker 2: a black bomba on purpose.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought that's where it was going, because I
Speaker 1: knew that a black mamba was going to be introduced
Speaker 1: into the house, and I was like, oh, man, Grandpa's
Speaker 1: this is a little bit reckless. But now it was
Speaker 1: supposed to be a normal like non venomous snakes, some
Speaker 1: sort of a you know, acceptable pet species. And there
Speaker 1: is a mix up.
Speaker 2: But the a list cast continues.
Speaker 1: Yes, because we've we've talked about the criminals, we also
Speaker 1: have to have a representative of law and order, and
Speaker 1: in this case we have Scotland Yards Commander William Bullock,
Speaker 1: played by Nicol Williamson, who lived nineteen thirty six through
Speaker 1: twenty eleven. I knew him best. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of listeners, a lot of viewers of films would probably
Speaker 1: know him best as Merlin in the Endlessly Shiny nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one Camelot film ex Caliber, which is a super
Speaker 1: fun performance.
Speaker 2: As I remember, I've never seen it.
Speaker 1: Oh it's good. It's very shiny, like the armor gleams
Speaker 1: like it's you know, it's reflecting the light of the sun.
Speaker 1: At all times. So it's very stylish and has a
Speaker 1: wonderful cast. He also plays a similar role in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety seven Spawn. He plays this character Cagliostro, who's kind
Speaker 1: of like, I think, basically portrayed as like a wizard
Speaker 1: character that helps Spawn, helps him fight demons, trains him
Speaker 1: or something. He's kind of his mentor character. Oh and
Speaker 1: that was his final film role.
Speaker 2: He's kind of like, what does he wear, like a
Speaker 2: cowboy hat and a coat?
Speaker 1: Kind of yeah, I remember it correctly. They wanted him
Speaker 1: to grow a beard and he's like, no, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing that, Like they wanted him to be more of
Speaker 1: a wizard. But he was a highly regarded actor on
Speaker 1: the stage and screen. Other credits include The Exorcist three,
Speaker 1: The Seven Percent Solution. He played in that he plays
Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes. This is the film adaptation of the Nicholas
Speaker 1: Meyer novel. And you know Nicholas Meyer we talked about
Speaker 1: in terms of time after time. Well, you know we
Speaker 1: mentioned that he wrote the novel The Seven Percent Solution
Speaker 1: and it was made into the Well, this was the
Speaker 1: Sherlock Oh okay, he was in So Williamson was also
Speaker 1: in Robin and Marion. He was in nineteen sixty nine's
Speaker 1: Hamlet playing Hamlet. He was in a TV movie version
Speaker 1: of of Mice and Men playing Lenny, and while very
Speaker 1: talented on both stage and screen, he was also known
Speaker 1: to be a bit erratic, was a heavy drinker later
Speaker 1: in life, and was said to be difficult to work with. So,
Speaker 1: you know, so we have Reid, we have Kinski, and
Speaker 1: we also have Williamson. Though I guess the situation is
Speaker 1: Red and Kinski were working together together, like they shared
Speaker 1: so much screen time, and for the most part, Williamson's
Speaker 1: character is just standing outside like shouting. We're not even
Speaker 1: quite shouting. It's one of those movies where where his
Speaker 1: character is using just a normal speaking voice but can
Speaker 1: be heard inside a house a good distance away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they spend a lot of There are multiple scenes
Speaker 2: where they're negotiating, like we need a car and we
Speaker 2: need money, and then he goes away, and then he
Speaker 2: has like a meeting with all his little police lieutenants,
Speaker 2: and then he comes back and they talk again about
Speaker 2: how they need a car and they need money.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'd say, well, Williamson is good in this, but
Speaker 1: there's not a lot to this particular character. He's just
Speaker 1: that sensible British cop on the scene. You know, he's
Speaker 1: our embodiment of British working class law and order.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got a nice accent in it. I mean,
Speaker 2: but this character doesn't have a whole lot to do. Now.
Speaker 2: The next character, I would say, though, brings a surprising
Speaker 2: amount of weird energy that also makes this movie come alive,
Speaker 2: and that is Sarah Miles playing the snake expert doctor
Speaker 2: Mary in Stowe. I really liked her. She had a
Speaker 2: certain kind of distracted electricity kind of coming off of
Speaker 2: her head in all of her scenes, if you know
Speaker 2: what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, she was good in this. Sarah Miles
Speaker 1: was born nineteen forty one and another connection to nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty blow Up, So Miles had actually had a major
Speaker 1: role in this adaptation of Julio Cordeesar's story Well but
Speaker 1: I can't remember the novella short story offhand Pa was
Speaker 1: adapted into this film in nineteen sixty six. Other titles
Speaker 1: on her filmography include Ryan's Daughter, Hope and Glory, White,
Speaker 1: Mischief and more.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of good scenes of her talking
Speaker 2: to the police about snakes and so, you know, Coppled.
Speaker 2: She'll just be like, I am a toxicologist, and the
Speaker 2: Copple be like, what's that poisons?
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's good. The other great performance in this, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, is our third kidnapper who The character is
Speaker 1: Louise Andrews, played by Susan George. So. George was born
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty, probably best known for playing Amy in Sam
Speaker 1: Peckinpa's straw Dogs. Other titles include Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry Mandingo,
Speaker 1: and Enter the Ninja, as well as Tintor Rhea, Killer Shark,
Speaker 1: the Sorceress starring Boris Karloff and doctor Jekyline. Mister Hyde
Speaker 1: from nineteen seventy two, a musical starring Kirk Douglass.
Speaker 2: Uh. Yeah, Susan George is good in this so yeah.
Speaker 2: Like you say, she's our third criminal in the trio.
Speaker 2: So you got Kinski, you got Oliveried, and you got
Speaker 2: Susan George and they're scheming to do this kidnapping plot
Speaker 2: to get a bunch of ransom money. Of course, the
Speaker 2: criminals in this movie are bad at crime, so they
Speaker 2: keep failing. But you can, I don't know, it's fun
Speaker 2: the way you see her like struggling with things not
Speaker 2: going their way. And she also, I gotta say, really
Speaker 2: sells a snake bite to the face death scene quite well.
Speaker 1: Yes, I would say perhaps the greatest death by snake
Speaker 1: bite scene in any motion picture. It's a tour toive
Speaker 1: force in which she used thrashes around, she cries out
Speaker 1: and basically goes just full exorcist towards the end, like
Speaker 1: all the into like wheel pose or you know, reverse
Speaker 1: crab or something.
Speaker 2: She turns blue. There's a lot of blood coming out
Speaker 2: of her mouth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's a lot of fun in passing. I'll say
Speaker 1: that the mother in this so this would be Grandpa
Speaker 1: Safari's daughter, yeah, or is it his daughter in law?
Speaker 1: I can't remember his daughter at any rate. Ruth Hopkins
Speaker 1: played by Cornelia Sharp born nineteen forty three, probably best
Speaker 1: known for Cerpico. She also appeared in the Reincarnation of
Speaker 1: Peter Proud, The Next Man opposite Sean Connery, Open Season,
Speaker 1: and of Hey, The Adventures of Pluto Nash.
Speaker 2: She's just sort of in the beginning in the end
Speaker 2: of this movie, though, because a lot of it's like
Speaker 2: she's gone and the son has been left there with
Speaker 2: Grandpa played by Sterling Hayden and that's when the crime
Speaker 2: is supposed to take place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the whole thing. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: home alone movie. It's also it's weird. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you had this experience, but I felt like this
Speaker 1: movie felt like an adaptation of like a Simpson's Treehouse
Speaker 1: of Horror episode that doesn't exist, you know, like or
Speaker 1: maybe it's just that a Treehouse of Horror episode would
Speaker 1: be perfect based on this film. You could have Grandba
Speaker 1: Simpson in there, you have Bart, and I don't know
Speaker 1: who else would be involved. Who you would cast as
Speaker 1: our kidnappers?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so I guess Snake, Oh Snake, I mean,
Speaker 2: let's see to play for Oliver Reed, you need to
Speaker 2: be sort of a cross between Snake and groundskeeper Willie.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I don't know exactly how it would work out.
Speaker 2: Was so Kinsky is sort of mister Burns, But I
Speaker 2: guess he wouldn't need the money, but I don't know
Speaker 2: he'd want it anyway. Yeah, yeah, it would work out somehow.
Speaker 2: Oh but hey, this movie also has Michael Goff in it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, in a strange role. Because Okay, so, first
Speaker 1: of all, if you're forgetting who this act is it's
Speaker 1: Alfred from Tim Burton's nineteen eighty nine Batman film and
Speaker 1: the Batman sequels through Batman Forever. He's a guy who
Speaker 1: did a lot of work prior to that, including performances
Speaker 1: in The Boys from Brazil, Satan Slave, Crucible of Horror,
Speaker 1: trog Women in Love, How, Horror of Dracula, and titles
Speaker 1: going all the way back into the nineteen forties. And
Speaker 1: in this he plays like an expert snake catcher who
Speaker 1: never does anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he shows up later in the movie. So this
Speaker 2: movie has multiple snake experts. There's the one played by
Speaker 2: Sarah Miles who is the toxicologist and you meet her
Speaker 2: early on, but then she eventually also gets taken hostage
Speaker 2: by the criminals. And then so the police after that
Speaker 2: are working with this character played by Michael Goff. But
Speaker 2: he's just got sort of like one of those snake
Speaker 2: hooks and he's standing there beside the police as they're
Speaker 2: trying to bust into the house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you keep thinking, well, he's going to be
Speaker 1: called upon for more than his expertise, but no, he's not.
Speaker 1: The fun part of this though, is his character's name
Speaker 1: is David Ball and the real David Ball, an overseer
Speaker 1: of reptiles at the London Zoo, was the snake wrangler
Speaker 1: and snake advisor on this film, so I guess Goff's
Speaker 1: character is kind of just a nod to his help
Speaker 1: with the film. I was reading about this in a
Speaker 1: New York Times article about about the snake wrangling in Venom,
Speaker 1: and it was titled in Venom, the Snake Steals the
Speaker 1: Show and it shares a number of interesting production facts.
Speaker 2: I love that there is an article in the New
Speaker 2: York Times in nineteen eighty two about Venom that is
Speaker 2: not just a review of the movie. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: our readers need more Venom content.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But it did just share some fun stuff, like
Speaker 1: apparently they shot ten hours of snake footage for the film,
Speaker 1: and of course that gets reduced down to just, you know,
Speaker 1: very little of that, just minutes of footage. They used
Speaker 1: five different actsual black mambas in the picture, so when
Speaker 1: you see black mambas striking at the camera and slithering about,
Speaker 1: it's the real thing, the real snake for the most part.
Speaker 1: They also apparently had one non venomous rat snake that
Speaker 1: they used for some scenes. They had plastic snakes made
Speaker 1: from actual casts of mambas. That's of course what Kloskinski
Speaker 1: winds up fighting at the end. And they also had
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars robot snake that apparently looked terrible,
Speaker 1: so we barely see it in the final film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the sentence in the article is something
Speaker 2: like the robot snake could rear up and open its mouth.
Speaker 2: It cost one hundred thousand dollars to make and it
Speaker 2: appears for one third of one second in the final cut.
Speaker 1: Now, according to David Ball in this article, black mambas
Speaker 1: are very high strung and they feel threatened by anything
Speaker 1: within six feet of them. They have really potent venom
Speaker 1: and they're very effective at delivering it, usually via multiple bites,
Speaker 1: which is something we see in the film. It is
Speaker 1: a very impressive snake. There's one at Zoo Atlanta and
Speaker 1: I've seen it many times. They can reach lengths of
Speaker 1: fourteen feet. Yeah, they tend to be nervous. They pack
Speaker 1: tremendous venom. It's the largest venomous snake in Africa and
Speaker 1: the second largest venomous snake in the world, right behind
Speaker 1: the King Cobra. It's not actually black but the inside
Speaker 1: of its mouth is black, and that's what it flares
Speaker 1: as a warning to anyone who makes it nervous.
Speaker 2: Now a bit of monster science on this. The movie
Speaker 2: repeatedly emphasizes that the black mamba is the most I
Speaker 2: think it actually uses the word poisonous. I think you
Speaker 2: would want to say venomous instead. But whichever one they
Speaker 2: say poisonous or venomous snake in the world, which I mean,
Speaker 2: it's difficult. There are different ways you can measure that.
Speaker 2: But just by your standard like pure LD fifty ratings
Speaker 2: of snake, venom and mice, this is not true.
Speaker 1: I should also point out, as with pretty much any snake, reptile,
Speaker 1: amphibian sort of movie, it's always worth going to californiaherbs
Speaker 1: dot com. They have a section about snake films in
Speaker 1: which they weigh in on different snakes and different films,
Speaker 1: and they have a They have an article on venom here,
Speaker 1: and basically they applaud the use of real black mambas,
Speaker 1: but they add quote oddly enough, the snake doesn't try
Speaker 1: to get out or hide as you'd expect a snake
Speaker 1: to do. All it wants to do is kill people.
Speaker 1: It just sort of hunts the people in the house. Yeah, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's one of the most ludicrous things about this movie
Speaker 1: is that, yes, I totally believe everything I've read about
Speaker 1: the black mamba being a potentially dangerous snake that you
Speaker 1: absolutely don't want running around in your house. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to, you know, go poking around haphazardly where you
Speaker 1: knew they might be. But on the other hand, I
Speaker 1: mean it's implied in this film where like, if you
Speaker 1: were to call the police and say there's a black
Speaker 1: Momba in my house, the police would just be like,
Speaker 1: we are legally declaring everyone in the house dead because
Speaker 1: there's no way you're going to survive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as you're saying, I do want to reemphasize, given
Speaker 2: what I said a minute ago, by these like LD
Speaker 2: fifty charts, it is not necessarily the most venomous snake
Speaker 2: in the world. But as you are correct that you
Speaker 2: absolutely don't want to be bitten by one. These are
Speaker 2: people do die from black mamba bites all the time.
Speaker 1: Now, we don't always mention the cinematographer on films, but
Speaker 1: on this film we have Gilbert Taylor, who lived nineteen
Speaker 1: fourteen through twenty thirteen. He was a cinematographer on such
Speaker 1: films as Star Wars, Flash, Gordon, the Omen, The Frank
Speaker 1: Langela Dracula Film, Polanski's Macbeth and Repulsion, Hitchcock's Frenzy, Doctor Strangelove,
Speaker 1: and various other titles. Did a bit of TV, including
Speaker 1: episodes of The Avengers.
Speaker 2: This movie doesn't really stand out to me in terms
Speaker 2: of a lot of cinematography choices, but though there is
Speaker 2: something that happens quite a bit, which is mambacam where
Speaker 2: you are seeing from the snake's point of view as
Speaker 2: it like crawls through heating ducts, and so yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: that's fun.
Speaker 1: Well, and then you know, we do have I guess
Speaker 1: the shots of the snake often feel very well executed.
Speaker 1: You know, at times they're basically doing the Raiders thing,
Speaker 1: I think, where they have some sort of plexiglass screen
Speaker 1: so that the snake can jump out and leap at
Speaker 1: the camera and you don't have to worry about it
Speaker 1: actually biting anyone. As for the music on this picture,
Speaker 1: it is Michael Kammon who lived nineteen forty eight through
Speaker 1: two thousand and three. We've mentioned him on the show
Speaker 1: before because he scored Free Jack and Tales from the
Speaker 1: Crypt Demon Night, as well as such movies as Highlander,
Speaker 1: Robin Hood, Prints of Thieves, Brazil Bill, The Dead Zone,
Speaker 1: Event Horizon, which he did with the orb so a
Speaker 1: known commodity in various genre films. I'd say that for me, anyway,
Speaker 1: I felt like the score in this movie was traditional.
Speaker 1: It was fine. It did everything you'd want a score
Speaker 1: to do. It helped drive home these thrilling moments and
Speaker 1: snake scares. But other than that, it's not the kind
Speaker 1: of thing I would want to seek out.
Speaker 2: I thought there was some strange choices in terms of scoring,
Speaker 2: not because the music was bad, but I thought like
Speaker 2: sort of oddly placed. Maybe we can talk about those
Speaker 2: a little bit when we break down the plot.
Speaker 1: Well, let's go ahead and get into the plot, all right.
Speaker 2: So the movie begins with a shot of a schoolhouse.
Speaker 2: Kind of a weird choice for a crime thriller plus
Speaker 2: snake movie, but I guess you know, it's about an
Speaker 2: attempted kidnapping of a rich boy, so we got to
Speaker 2: see the boy getting out of school. I guess there's
Speaker 2: an American flag flying out on the balcony in front
Speaker 2: of the school. But it is clearly in Britain, and
Speaker 2: we see a sign later saying it's the American Academy
Speaker 2: of London. So I think this is a school for
Speaker 2: American children, the children of diplomats and stuff like that
Speaker 2: in London. And so Philip is going to the school
Speaker 2: and we meet him on the stairs reading a book
Speaker 2: and his mom runs up to him saying, oh, this
Speaker 2: is the limit you'll catch cold, and he's, you know,
Speaker 2: he's clearly like, oh, I don't want to be safe.
Speaker 2: I don't want to bundle up. I want adventure. So
Speaker 2: you know, he's like, oh, mom.
Speaker 1: I will say that the actor they have playing the boy,
Speaker 1: Lance Holcombe, he was really good in this, Like he
Speaker 1: has kind of a kind of a Charlie and Chocolate
Speaker 1: factory sort of vibe to him.
Speaker 2: Okay, But so his mom takes him away to a
Speaker 2: waiting sedan where Oliver Reed is just looming nearby in
Speaker 2: a comically brutish fashion. And I love the very first
Speaker 2: time we see him. It's less than a minute into
Speaker 2: the movie. He is dressed in a formal chauffeur's uniform
Speaker 2: with a cap and everything, and even in this Guberrie outfit,
Speaker 2: he looks I mean like he often does, like he
Speaker 2: just came back in a hurry from doing a series
Speaker 2: of things that are all illegal. You know, he looks like, oh,
Speaker 2: he just ran a bunch of errands, including purchasing illegal
Speaker 2: whale gonads on the black market, and like getting into
Speaker 2: a fight, like you know, somebody looked at him wrong
Speaker 2: and he kicked them in the neck. And now he's
Speaker 2: back here to drive this kid home, do you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? Like he's got this Even apart from
Speaker 2: whatever he's acting out in the scene, he just almost
Speaker 2: always looks kind of sweaty and like he has just
Speaker 2: been caught or almost been caught doing something he wasn't
Speaker 2: supposed to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and constantly, like if he were a Dungeons and
Speaker 1: Dragon's character, it would be constantly doing intimidation checks on
Speaker 1: everybody around him. He's constantly busting out that that cold,
Speaker 1: intimidating stare.
Speaker 2: And like I said earlier, there's really no suspense about
Speaker 2: what's going to go on with this character, because as
Speaker 2: soon as the mother and son get into the car,
Speaker 2: we just see Oliver Reed looking at them in the
Speaker 2: rear view mirror with absolute murder eyes. I mean, he
Speaker 2: looks like he should be weeping blood. But then so
Speaker 2: after that we just cut to a driving scene. God
Speaker 2: to Love a driving scene at the beginning of a movie.
Speaker 2: So we're just watching the car navigate the streets of London.
Speaker 2: The title comes up and the music gets all hopeful
Speaker 2: and peppy. Do you remember this. I thought this was
Speaker 2: a weird choice because the opening music makes it sound
Speaker 2: like it's going to be a movie about a jaunty
Speaker 2: sea voyage and teamwork and friendship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it has strange energy. This was I think the
Speaker 1: point too where I really didn't know what the score
Speaker 1: was going to be, and I was still maybe holding
Speaker 1: out hope that it would be, you know, electronic or something,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, no, it's not gonna be.
Speaker 1: It's going to be very traditional.
Speaker 2: But whatever they're going for, it has a funny effect.
Speaker 2: So we get this driving scene in the beginning, Philip
Speaker 2: and his mom getting driven around London by Oliver Reed.
Speaker 2: He's just like drilling holes into them through the rear
Speaker 2: view mirror. And then the music is just rousing strings
Speaker 2: and brass. It's trying to warm your blood. And then
Speaker 2: they get home and they meet Louise, the housekeeper and
Speaker 2: she's like, ah, Young Master Phillip, two whole days off school. Ah.
Speaker 2: And of course this is Louise is played by Susan George.
Speaker 2: And so we learn a bit about the situation that
Speaker 2: these are Americans living in London, that the boy's father
Speaker 2: has been gone for a while, and that he is
Speaker 2: there with his mother, Ruth, and his grandfather. And so
Speaker 2: we learned that Ruth, the mother has to leave town soon.
Speaker 2: But Young Master Phillip wants to go see his zoo.
Speaker 2: That's what he calls it. He's like my zoo. And
Speaker 2: so what does this mean. Well, he gets up to
Speaker 2: his room and oh, my god, his bedroom is straight
Speaker 2: out of Dante's Inferno. It is like a dungeon for
Speaker 2: small animals. It is just crates and cages stacked up
Speaker 2: to the ceiling with rabbits and hamsters and god knows
Speaker 2: what else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he's definitely they're definitely overdoing it here
Speaker 1: in my opinion. But on the other hand, my son
Speaker 1: has a leopard gecko, and I know that like just
Speaker 1: having a leopard gecko that means, oh, well, you don't
Speaker 1: just have a pet leopard gecko. You also have pet
Speaker 1: crickets and some people actually go to the level of
Speaker 1: like raising their own crickets, so maybe that's part of
Speaker 1: what we're seeing here. It's like, well, he's got a
Speaker 1: bunch of snakes and so forth, Well that means he's
Speaker 1: also raising mice.
Speaker 2: Oh I didn't think about that. But so you think
Speaker 2: the mice in his room are there to feed his snakes.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe, but then again, yeah, his things
Speaker 1: like rabbits in there, so I guess it is just
Speaker 1: an extended, you know, zoological collection here and not just
Speaker 1: about feeding the animals.
Speaker 2: I keep these rabbits to feed to my pet hyena. Well, anyway,
Speaker 2: we meet Sterling Hayden, we find out he is Ruth's dad,
Speaker 2: and he's staying with them. I think because of some
Speaker 2: kind of injury. Am I right about that?
Speaker 1: I was a little foggy on this. I mean, we've
Speaker 1: learned that he's what some sort of like great explore
Speaker 1: safari type guy and a photographer. Maybe yeah, yeah, I guess. So,
Speaker 1: you know, he's kind of you know, the you know
Speaker 1: safari guy in the classic sense where he's he's studying,
Speaker 1: you know the world and probably writing about it and
Speaker 1: taking photos. But there's a sense that like his adventuring
Speaker 1: days are perhaps over right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sort of. I mean I think they're trying to
Speaker 2: give him Ernest Hemingway energy.
Speaker 1: Okay, he has enormous shotguns on the wall.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yeah, with like shells the size of soda cans.
Speaker 2: So I think these are meant for elephants or something.
Speaker 2: But so after we meet these characters, Oh, and of
Speaker 2: course Grandpa and and Ruth talk about how she's got
Speaker 2: to leave town soon, and she's worried about leaving, leaving
Speaker 2: the young boy there with him because she's like, oh,
Speaker 2: he's got asthma, but I don't know, it seems like
Speaker 2: it's gonna be fine. So so she's like, okay, I
Speaker 2: got a head out. And then things immediately start getting
Speaker 2: juicy because we start seeing the conspiracy Oliver Reed and
Speaker 2: Susan George. You know, the housekeeper Louise. When they're talking
Speaker 2: in private, she is washing Ruth's jewelry. That's interesting, washing
Speaker 2: the jewelry. I don't know if that's supposed to say
Speaker 2: something about about Ruth being really really fussy about fancy
Speaker 2: things or something, but that's what she's doing. And then
Speaker 2: they're talking about something coming up. They're plotting in secret
Speaker 2: about something, and Oliver Reed appears to be having misgivings.
Speaker 2: He's like, look, this isn't just stealing cars. If something
Speaker 2: goes wrong, they're going to lock us up and throw
Speaker 2: away the key. And he's wondering, will jack Mel come through,
Speaker 2: and Louise assures him, yes, Jackmel will come through. Now,
Speaker 2: there was a thing I note. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you noticed this, but as Ruth is leaving the house,
Speaker 2: she's giving instructions to Louise, and she's saying, Okay, while
Speaker 2: I'm out of town, the house must be kept at
Speaker 2: no less than seventy five degrees. So the heat always
Speaker 2: turned up to seventy five or higher, which I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe my senses are off, but obviously they'll be normal
Speaker 2: in the summer. But like turning the heat in the
Speaker 2: winter up to seventy five, that sounds insanely high.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I feel a little guilty if I
Speaker 1: set it for seventy, you know, And I'll feel really
Speaker 1: guilty if I'm like, that's it. I'm going up to
Speaker 1: seventy one. But even that'll be like but just for
Speaker 1: a few minutes, So I start feeling, you know, my
Speaker 1: toes again that sort of thing. Seventy five seems like
Speaker 1: it would be just like it'd be like a jungle
Speaker 1: in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because yeah, like heat or heat feels very
Speaker 2: different than natural heat. Like if it's seventy five degrees outside,
Speaker 2: that's nice weather, but if it's seventy five degrees from
Speaker 2: a heater, that's like, you know, you're going under the gates,
Speaker 2: abandon all hope you who enter here.
Speaker 1: Well, I think we see it now that I think
Speaker 1: about it, It looks like it's gas, right, So they're
Speaker 1: probably just completely dried out in there, which I guess
Speaker 1: is why we also see the reliance on the humidifiers.
Speaker 2: Oh that's right, yes, so they keep it at seventy five.
Speaker 2: But also the kid sleeps with the humidifier. The humidier.
Speaker 2: I think the idea is he's got asthma and the
Speaker 2: humidifier maybe delivering some kind of medication in the steam.
Speaker 1: M Yeah, because there is that I would say effectively
Speaker 1: creepy scene where we see that Jock Mel jumping ahead
Speaker 1: a little bit here, but where Jack Mel checks on
Speaker 1: the house that they have set up the place they
Speaker 1: want to take the boy after they kidnap him. And
Speaker 1: they have the same machinery there. Like they're intended to
Speaker 1: have like a long stay at the kidnapping house, which
Speaker 1: was creepy.
Speaker 2: Right, But of course they never get to that house
Speaker 2: because the criminals in this movie are bad at crime.
Speaker 2: So Oliver Reed takes Ruth to the airport, so the
Speaker 2: mother leaves town, and then at about eleven minutes into
Speaker 2: the movie, the two devils collide. Oliver Reed meets Jack Mel,
Speaker 2: who is klaus Kinski. They meet at the airport, they
Speaker 2: come face to face. It's clear from the very first
Speaker 2: moment that they do not like each other, but they're
Speaker 2: they're locked into this conspiracy together now.
Speaker 1: Yes, And Louise is the sensual gloe holding the whole
Speaker 1: thing together, And of course that's gonna be one of
Speaker 1: the great complicating situations of the plot is that she
Speaker 1: is the one who dies first, right.
Speaker 2: And I think it's implied that she's been having love
Speaker 2: affairs with both of them, right. Oh, And as soon
Speaker 2: as they get in the so they go off to
Speaker 2: the car, and of course Oliver Reed has a gun
Speaker 2: for Jack Mel, and he drops him off at a
Speaker 2: house in the country that they've rented ahead of time.
Speaker 2: And this is where they're going to stash the kid
Speaker 2: while they're holding him for ransom. So we get to
Speaker 2: see Jacmel going around the house pulling the curtains aside
Speaker 2: inspecting the rooms and when oh, and then Louise shows
Speaker 2: up at the house and the two of them are conspiring.
Speaker 2: So Klaus Kinsky and Susan George are, you know, checking
Speaker 2: in on how the plot is coming along, and jaq
Speaker 2: Mel says he doesn't trust the chauffeur. He says his
Speaker 2: hands sweat, which I love it. It's like, oh, he's
Speaker 2: not cool like you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, you get the sense that Kinski's character Jacmel
Speaker 1: does not sweat it off.
Speaker 2: But so jack Mel lures Sterling Hayden out of the house.
Speaker 2: I think they're trying to get They're trying to find
Speaker 2: a way to get him away so that they can
Speaker 2: take the kid. And so they lure him away by
Speaker 2: pretending to be a filmmaker who wants Grandpa's help on
Speaker 2: a film shoot in Central Africa, and he tells him
Speaker 2: to come meet for a cocktail at the Tower Hotel.
Speaker 2: But of course Grandpa goes to meet with the filmmaker,
Speaker 2: who will in fact never show up because it's Klauskinsky
Speaker 2: just pretending to be somebody else is just a ruse
Speaker 2: to get him out of the house. Meanwhile, Philip is
Speaker 2: off in a taxi to the pet shop and here
Speaker 2: is the scene where things finally really kick off, I
Speaker 2: think because he acquires his snake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, supposed to get just a normal, non venomous petsmith snake.
Speaker 1: I forget what variety was supposed to be. But there's
Speaker 1: a mix up. The black mamba that is supposed to
Speaker 1: go to what the London Zoological Society or something. It's
Speaker 1: going to end up being studied or something. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: instead goes to this boy. It's put in a box
Speaker 1: for Philip and he is taking it home on a taxi.
Speaker 2: Right, So, and then we the plot is exposed when
Speaker 2: we cut to it's the London Institute of Toxicology and
Speaker 2: that's where Sarah Miles works. So they're checking on there.
Speaker 2: She and a couple of researchers there are checking out
Speaker 2: their new live specimen of the black mamba, this would
Speaker 2: be dinderro Aspis polylepis, and they're like, this isn't the
Speaker 2: right snake at all, So something's wrong here, And on
Speaker 2: closer inspection they discover it as a harmless species of
Speaker 2: snake commonly sold as a pet, and there must have
Speaker 2: been some kind of mix up. So they quickly trace
Speaker 2: this back to I don't know why they were getting
Speaker 2: a black mamba from a London pet shop, but they were,
Speaker 2: and so they trace it back to the pet shop
Speaker 2: and they realized there must have been a mix up there,
Speaker 2: and she immediately calls the police and she's like, hello,
Speaker 2: I'm calling from the you know, the toxicology Institute, and
Speaker 2: the policeman like toxicology. That's poisons, isn't it, And she
Speaker 2: explains that there's been this mix up and some kid
Speaker 2: must have just walked out of the shop with a
Speaker 2: black mamba. And they really play up the danger of
Speaker 2: the snake. It is the most deadly thing on the planet.
Speaker 2: It might as well be a nuclear bomb.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there are moments later in the film
Speaker 1: where it's like, there's a black mamba upstairs. You should
Speaker 1: absolutely not go upstairs, Like going upstairs is just a
Speaker 1: no go. You will die if you go up there.
Speaker 2: Now. Meanwhile, the crime plot is already getting screwed up.
Speaker 2: As we said, this is a movie about criminals who
Speaker 2: are quite bad at crime. So Philip was supposed to
Speaker 2: stay home so Louise could put him in a car
Speaker 2: with Jack Mel who would kidnap him for ransom. But
Speaker 2: he didn't stay home. He went to the store to
Speaker 2: get his snake. So eventually he comes back with his
Speaker 2: snake and she's frantic and she's like, hello, I need
Speaker 2: you to get directly into a car with this man
Speaker 2: who you've never met before and is klaus Kinski. And
Speaker 2: the kid is like, no, I will not be doing that.
Speaker 2: I have to put my snake into its vivarium. So
Speaker 2: he runs inside to do that, and then Oliver Reed
Speaker 2: is there, and Oliver Reed's just angry. He's angry at
Speaker 2: this child for failing to be kidnapped.
Speaker 1: And yeah, he's just like insulting the child, which was weird.
Speaker 1: He's like, he's like he's such a brat or something,
Speaker 1: you know. It's the total outburst.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then Louise chases Young Master Philip up to
Speaker 2: his room where they open the snake box and she
Speaker 2: is just immediately bitten in the face a bunch of
Speaker 2: times by the black Mamba. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's a frightening scene too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and then the snake slithers away into the shadows. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Sterling Hayden arrives back home, so the rue I guess
Speaker 2: he's given up on waiting for the German filmmaker at
Speaker 2: the cocktail lounge. He wasn't supposed to be there, but
Speaker 2: he arrives and Philip's still there. Louise, who's been bitten
Speaker 2: on the face by the snake a bunch of times,
Speaker 2: is like, I am dying, and everybody's like, oh, you'll
Speaker 2: be fine. It's just a harmless house snake. And then
Speaker 2: all Reed just starts punching Grandpa, and Jack mal points
Speaker 2: a gun at him and is like, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: in charge. It is not time to punch Grandpa until
Speaker 2: I say it's time to punch grandpa. So they lock
Speaker 2: Sterling Hayden in the cellar, and then we see Oliver
Speaker 2: Reed loading a gun and this is the one you
Speaker 2: were talking about earlier, Like it must be an elephant
Speaker 2: gun or something because the shells are enormous. And then
Speaker 2: the badness at crime just continues, like a policeman arrives
Speaker 2: and knocks at the door. I guess because the toxicology
Speaker 2: lab figured out that this is the address of the
Speaker 2: boy who accidentally took home the super Snake, and the
Speaker 2: policeman knocks Philip shouts for help from inside the house,
Speaker 2: and then the officer opens the front door to just
Speaker 2: see this tableau of Oliver Reed holding a shotgun, klaus
Speaker 2: Kinski clutching a terrified child, Susan George with her face
Speaker 2: turning purple and she's gasping for air, and then Oliver
Speaker 2: Reed just shoots the police officer and the kid, and
Speaker 2: so like everything is screwed up now. So now they
Speaker 2: are in the house, having shot a police officer outside,
Speaker 2: and they are not going to escape to their hiding
Speaker 2: place with the kid for ransom. Now they're just in
Speaker 2: the house with the cops outside and it's a siege.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so at this point we're very much and like
Speaker 1: they say, the best laid plans of mice and men
Speaker 1: and go astray. This was not a very well laid
Speaker 1: plan and it has definitely gone astray. But this is
Speaker 1: a common feature in a lot of crime shows and
Speaker 1: crime stories. You know, it's like the heightst doesn't go
Speaker 1: as it's supposed to, and now we have to deal
Speaker 1: with the consequences of that, and then here come the police.
Speaker 1: That's going to be our next big movement in the plot.
Speaker 1: And I will say that one of the things I
Speaker 1: liked about the film that I thought made it very
Speaker 1: watchable is that it has very strong procedural bones, you know,
Speaker 1: out like what the the the the you know, poorly
Speaker 1: thought out criminal enterprise seems to be like what their
Speaker 1: plan is. And then there's a lot in the film
Speaker 1: about the police officers responding and getting advice and trying
Speaker 1: to figure out, like what is the proper strategic move
Speaker 1: to make? And it really helps to you know, drive
Speaker 1: the film along in a way that I thought was
Speaker 1: ultimately entertaining. Like I was reading Ebert's review off the film,
Speaker 1: and Ebert was like, despite all these actors, this film's boring.
Speaker 1: And I disagree. I don't think this film is ever boring.
Speaker 1: It falls short in some notable areas, but it's never boring.
Speaker 2: Oh, i'd agree, And yeah, you're right about the procedural stuff. Wait,
Speaker 2: you made this comparison off Mike. Did you say it
Speaker 2: on Mike that it's kind of like Shin Godzilla in
Speaker 2: that regard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like the Shin Godzilla of
Speaker 1: Loose Snake movies in that you know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of well, let's talk to the expert and see what
Speaker 1: they think we should do. Okay, let's talk to another expert.
Speaker 1: What did they think and and so forth.
Speaker 2: Shin Godzilla is the best movie ever made about meetings.
Speaker 2: And this is this is a very good movie about yeah,
Speaker 2: little strategy sessions where people are talking out their next plans.
Speaker 2: Oh oh, I should have mentioned after all that last
Speaker 2: stuff happens like around the you know, one third of
Speaker 2: the way into the movie, Louise dies, so, you know,
Speaker 2: they thought she'd just been bitten by this harmless house snake,
Speaker 2: but then she turns completely blue, there's blood coming out
Speaker 2: of her mouth, and she's dead. And the other crime
Speaker 2: boys are like, oh, whoops, maybe there is something bad
Speaker 2: about the snake. And and so then the the police arrive,
Speaker 2: and this is when we really meet Nicol Williamson. He arrives,
Speaker 2: he sets up outside. He's trying to do negotiations with
Speaker 2: Jack Mel. These negotiations will continue throughout the middle third
Speaker 2: of the movie. Of course, of course, klaus Kinski he
Speaker 2: wants a car and money in exchange for the kid's safety,
Speaker 2: and they're not going to get that yet. So the
Speaker 2: act to set up is complete, and from here it
Speaker 2: goes on to a lot of you know, the standard
Speaker 2: fun and games part of a creature movie, where there's
Speaker 2: a lot of mamba cam and like hunting around for
Speaker 2: the snake. They send Grandpa up to hunt for the
Speaker 2: snake and he's holding like a lamp with the shade
Speaker 2: taken off.
Speaker 1: And there are some some false positives in his search
Speaker 1: for the snake that the work pretty well on the screen.
Speaker 2: But he knows what it is because he's, you know,
Speaker 2: from all his safari experiences, he's familiar with black mambas
Speaker 2: and and the fact that they can be dangerous. So
Speaker 2: he's like, okay, we you know, we're really in trouble
Speaker 2: with this thing in the house.
Speaker 1: Mm hm.
Speaker 2: And you know, one scene I thought was pretty good
Speaker 2: was the one with Sterling Hayden hunting around for the
Speaker 2: snake in the in the empty room.
Speaker 1: I wonder if this is perhaps something that maybe worked
Speaker 1: better in the book, like if the book allowed the
Speaker 1: author more room to sort of ruminate over like tales
Speaker 1: of the mamba from from Africa that Grandpa would be
Speaker 1: familiar with, and maybe Grandpa thinking about like just how
Speaker 1: intensely dangerous the situation is like maybe it was able
Speaker 1: to drive home this idea of the mamba being such
Speaker 1: a threat in ways that the film maybe struggled to
Speaker 1: do at times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean a lot of what we know about
Speaker 2: the mamba in the movie gets filled in by these scientists,
Speaker 2: so like it around. Like, you know, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of the sort of cat and mouse games in the
Speaker 2: middle third of the movie, and somewhere like an hour
Speaker 2: in there's this meeting between Nicol Williamson and Mary and Stowe,
Speaker 2: the snake scientist, and this is where they talk about
Speaker 2: you know, he's like, how dangerous is it because she's
Speaker 2: finally gotten the information to him that there's a killer
Speaker 2: snake inside, and she says it's the most dangerous snake
Speaker 2: in the whole world. But she gives it all these
Speaker 2: sort of anthropomorphic qualities. She says, like they're very aggressive,
Speaker 2: but they tend to be a little awkward paranoid really,
Speaker 2: And she says they happen to be the fastest snake
Speaker 2: in the world. And she says unless the bite victim
Speaker 2: gets antidote immediately or anti venom immediately, mamba bites are
Speaker 2: one hundred percent fatal. But she says if you get
Speaker 2: the antidote to the venom. It's a fifty to fifty chance,
Speaker 2: provided that the victim is not allergic to it.
Speaker 1: I'll go ahead and mention again that California Herb's website
Speaker 1: reminds us that there are some some suspect mamba facts
Speaker 1: in this movie. So don't watch Venom just for your
Speaker 1: education on black mambas, go to other sources. Right.
Speaker 2: But also, I mean, it is certainly true that the
Speaker 2: black mamba is one of the more dangerous snakes on
Speaker 2: Earth in terms of interactions with humans. Like, if you
Speaker 2: see one, don't go anywhere near it. You know, that thing,
Speaker 2: it probably doesn't want anything to do with you, but
Speaker 2: you do not want to be bitten by it.
Speaker 1: Right, But can it smell crime? Does it own the night?
Speaker 1: I mean these are questionable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now there's a there's a fun scene where they
Speaker 2: send out Sarah Miiles to deliver a snake science lecture
Speaker 2: to the people in the house. So, you know, the
Speaker 2: house is besieged by cops and she just goes out
Speaker 2: in front of it to like tell them about the
Speaker 2: the mamba and its venom. So they do keep saying
Speaker 2: poisonous snake. By the way, the pedantic part of my
Speaker 2: brain couldn't let that go, and through some devious trickery,
Speaker 2: klaus Kinski eventually manages to get the snake scientist or
Speaker 2: the toxicologist doctor Stowe into the into the house by
Speaker 2: pulling a gun on her that he tricks her into
Speaker 2: thinking that she can administer an antidote to someone who
Speaker 2: has been bitten, but really it's just him pointing a
Speaker 2: gun in her face. So she's a hostage now as well.
Speaker 1: Uh, And I love how basically Jack mel is approaching
Speaker 1: this situation. It's like, what got us into this problem, kidnapping,
Speaker 1: we'll get us out of this situation more kidnapping.
Speaker 2: Right exactly. And so there's a bunch of stuff with
Speaker 2: the police scheming about maybe back entrances to the house.
Speaker 2: This I think is part of the shin Godzilla quality.
Speaker 2: You were talking about little strategy sessions where they're like
Speaker 2: consulting the building plans of the house. They're like, there
Speaker 2: used to be a back entrance, we could maybe bust
Speaker 2: through there. And then meanwhile inside the house, there's a
Speaker 2: great scene where everybody's just sitting around. It's Oliver Reed
Speaker 2: and Sarah Miles, and Oliver Reed's like, I'm thirsty. I
Speaker 2: fancy a drink, how about you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? And this is a I love this moment because
Speaker 1: Reid's character Dave, he kind of enters into this comfort
Speaker 1: zone offering the drink, and he's listing all the different
Speaker 1: liquors that are available, and he's like, we've got most things.
Speaker 1: And it puts you completely at ease because then when
Speaker 1: he opens up the drink cabinet and you find yourself
Speaker 1: just You're like, I want to see these bottles. I
Speaker 1: am curious. Maybe I'll have a drink too.
Speaker 2: Oliver he's going to make a white Russian.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But then he opens it up and what is
Speaker 1: in the liquor cabinet but the mamba.
Speaker 2: There you go. It's a snake pop out scare. It's
Speaker 2: a great snake pop out scare. I gotta say I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed it. It is and the special horror of
Speaker 2: like Oliver Reed realizes that the snake is in there
Speaker 2: with the alcohol.
Speaker 1: Yeah, at first I thought that was going to be
Speaker 1: the thing. It's almost like a Simpson's moment. I don't know,
Speaker 1: the beer is locked up with a snake. No one
Speaker 1: can get the beer now, that sort of thing. But
Speaker 1: then Yeah, there's this scene where they then pull the
Speaker 1: liquor cabinet away from the wall and we see the
Speaker 1: snake slither through like a crack in the back of
Speaker 1: the liquor cabinet into the wall.
Speaker 2: It's a duck.
Speaker 1: Did you understand this. It's a duck.
Speaker 2: It is a duct. I did not know. Well, I mean,
Speaker 2: I think I understood what I was looking at. But
Speaker 2: so it's not like built into the wall. It's a
Speaker 2: liquor cabinet that is a separate piece of furniture. It's
Speaker 2: like a chest or a wardrobe kind of thing, almost
Speaker 2: as a cabinet opens up. It's got all the liquor inside.
Speaker 2: But there is a hole in the back of it
Speaker 2: where there's a duct leading into the wall, like connecting it.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know what that was supposed
Speaker 2: to be or if that's normal. I mean, do you
Speaker 2: normally have a duct going from the wall to a
Speaker 2: separate piece of furniture containing liquor bottles.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine you would. But then again, it's necessary
Speaker 1: for this scare to work because otherwise, oh, the snake
Speaker 1: is just in the liquor cabinet now, and okay, he's
Speaker 1: in there. Now we've won. Now we can just nail
Speaker 1: the liquor cabinet shut. But no, it gets away. It's
Speaker 1: back in the walls. It goes wherever it wants to
Speaker 1: in this house.
Speaker 2: Now, So the police are scheming about ways to breach
Speaker 2: the house to get in there and save the hostages.
Speaker 2: But I think the funny thing is that ultimately the
Speaker 2: police fail in this regard, and it is the snake
Speaker 2: in fact, that defeats the criminals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the snake is ultimately the hero of the picture,
Speaker 1: dispensing with all three kidnappers and never I mean threatening,
Speaker 1: I guess, but never actually harming any of the non
Speaker 1: criminals in the picture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a lawful good snake.
Speaker 1: Can smell crime, I think.
Speaker 2: Yes. I don't know how much detail we want to
Speaker 2: go into about the particular demise of Oliver Reed or
Speaker 2: klaus Kinski's characters. Oliver Reed, they're like down in the
Speaker 2: basement and suddenly the police bust in through the wall
Speaker 2: and they're having a stand off. They're shooting at each other,
Speaker 2: but then there's a snake and the police are like
Speaker 2: snake and they have to run away and go back
Speaker 2: out the you know, the breach in the wall. It
Speaker 2: was like you were more scared of the snake than
Speaker 2: the gun.
Speaker 1: I know, it's like a xenomorph in this thing. But
Speaker 1: Reid's character Dave is shot. He's like shot on the shoulder,
Speaker 1: so he's he's heavily injured. He can't quite crawl up
Speaker 1: the stairs. And that's when the mamba comes for him.
Speaker 2: In a in a quite gratuitous scene of like Creature
Speaker 2: Revenge against Human Evil, Oliver Reed is bitten in the
Speaker 2: crotch by the snake and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it goes right up the pants leg. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: now it's just Jack Mel.
Speaker 2: Right, but I'm imagining like the writing that scene, you know,
Speaker 2: like what did that look like on the page? The
Speaker 2: snake slithers slowly up his thigh.
Speaker 1: Oliver Reid's great in this scene though he totally sells it.
Speaker 2: But then, of course the snake in the end also
Speaker 2: has to attack the one remaining criminal, Jack Mel. We
Speaker 2: see it like creeping up through curtains behind him as
Speaker 2: the music builds, and then it like it springs out
Speaker 2: and attacks him and literally, like the final conflict of
Speaker 2: the movie is is klaus Kinski wrestling a snake and
Speaker 2: engaging in a gunfight with a snake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like thrashing around in the like the living upstairs,
Speaker 1: living room or whatever it happens to be, Yeah, trying
Speaker 1: to shoot the snake's head off with his own gun.
Speaker 1: Eventually the fight goes out onto the balcony, and the
Speaker 1: whole time like it's clearly a rubber snake. It's Kinsky
Speaker 1: of battling this rubber snake. And then especially when he
Speaker 1: fires the gun, that's when the snipers start firing. The
Speaker 1: police snipers start firing. So Kinsky's character and the snake
Speaker 1: die in a hail of bullets and then fall off
Speaker 1: the balcony. And my only criticism is that the body
Speaker 1: does not become impaled on the the like the spiked
Speaker 1: fence at the bottom that I think would have been
Speaker 1: would have made it a little more perfect, But maybe
Speaker 1: they thought that would that would just be overdoing it.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think it should have ended with the snake slithering
Speaker 2: down klaus Kinski's throat and biting him from the inside.
Speaker 1: Like going right to the heart.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it coils around his heart and bites it
Speaker 2: a hundred times.
Speaker 1: But basically that's the big finish. Yeah, Now, all of
Speaker 1: the kidnappers are dead, the Black Mamba itself is dead,
Speaker 1: and everybody is safe once again. Or are they?
Speaker 2: Oh that's right, because we get a delightful stinger in
Speaker 2: which you go into the heating ducks and you see
Speaker 2: some eggs, some snake eggs up in there. I guess
Speaker 2: they're being incubated by the gas heat.
Speaker 1: Not only that they've hatched, there's like a baby mamba
Speaker 1: crawling out of one. So it's not only mamba time
Speaker 1: once more in this house, but it's also going to
Speaker 1: be like double mambas. So you know, set up for
Speaker 1: the sequel here, I guess.
Speaker 2: Is that like it's Miller time, it's Mamba time.
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I mean they could have done a sequel.
Speaker 1: I mean, they were able to make all those taken movies.
Speaker 1: It's it's I think you could come up with another
Speaker 1: scenario in which you have kidnappers or terrorists or something
Speaker 1: taking over the house.
Speaker 2: The exact same family, the exact same house, and it's
Speaker 2: two snakes this time, two snakes. Yeah, okay, who would
Speaker 2: have to play the criminals in the sequel? It would
Speaker 2: be how about Gary Busey and Robert mitcham.
Speaker 1: Ooh yeah, well was Robert Mitcham still alive at that point.
Speaker 1: I can't remember when.
Speaker 2: He died nineteen ninety seven, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: He could have done it. Sure, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I want to see like mid eighties
Speaker 1: Robert Mitcham wrestling a snake, though, I don't know I
Speaker 1: want to see that at any rate. It never came
Speaker 1: to be. We never got a sequel to Venom. But
Speaker 1: you know, like I say, I feel like it's a
Speaker 1: it is a movie that is essentially ludicrous. Like the
Speaker 1: premise at the center of this movie is he is
Speaker 1: just ridiculous. I mean, the idea that this snake is
Speaker 1: just so dangerous and wants to kill people, wants to
Speaker 1: kill criminals or anybody that gets near it. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just ultimately, I never really bought it in the film,
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm quick to give something credit if
Speaker 1: it works within the context of the film, and this
Speaker 1: never quite did that. But we still have some great
Speaker 1: snake scares, we have some fun performances, and we have
Speaker 1: this procedural energy kind of driving things along. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: you're probably wondering, well, where can I watch Venom? Well,
Speaker 1: Lucky for you, it's widely available for digital rental or purchase,
Speaker 1: and also Blue Underground put out a nice looking blu
Speaker 1: ray of it as well with restored two K transfer,
Speaker 1: so you can watch this movie yourself via those means. Also,
Speaker 1: I'll stress again the novel is out there in digital
Speaker 1: and physical form, So I would love to hear from
Speaker 1: anyone who's read the novel Venom and can chime in
Speaker 1: on it. And you might be wondering, well, I haven't
Speaker 1: read it, but could I read it and then tell
Speaker 1: robin Ja what it's all about and give my review. Yes,
Speaker 1: you can absolutely do that. I would love to have
Speaker 1: some insight into the novel that came before here.
Speaker 2: Now, wouldn't it be great if Venom was one of
Speaker 2: those films that had a novel and then a movie,
Speaker 2: and then a novelization of the movie separate from the
Speaker 2: original novel.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you see that sometimes for me, the most
Speaker 1: notable example being Francis Ford Coppola's Bromstoker's Dracula and which,
Speaker 1: of course it is an adaptation of Dracula, but there
Speaker 1: is also a novelization of the film Genius Yeah, which
Speaker 1: I aways found outrageous because it's not like Dracula. The
Speaker 1: original is an unreadable text, Like did it really need
Speaker 1: to be updated, you know, in terms of the written version?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: No, I mean so it was so it could say,
Speaker 2: you know, Jonathan Arker, who looked like the American actor
Speaker 2: Keanu Reeves, arrived in Where Does He Go? You know budhams.
Speaker 1: Oh doesn't I'll have a mustache in the original Bromstoker's Dracula.
Speaker 2: Maybe that was it in the movie or in the novel.
Speaker 1: In the novel, I don't recall.
Speaker 2: I don't recall how he's described.
Speaker 1: I could be wrong on that, but wouldn't it have
Speaker 1: been funny though? If they were like, okay, standard operating procedure,
Speaker 1: we need a novelization of this film and they assign
Speaker 1: it to somebody, And what if they just turned down
Speaker 1: a copy of Bromstoker's Dracula and they're like, it was
Speaker 1: just it was such a great adaptation, like as it
Speaker 1: just as it worked out, the novelization of the film
Speaker 1: is the original novel.
Speaker 2: That's just smart. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I didn't even realize that I had completely reproduced the
Speaker 1: original Bromstoker's Dracula. I was just adapting the film.
Speaker 2: Well, if you're gonna do it with any film. I
Speaker 2: will say the Coppola adaptation is unusually faithful to the novel,
Speaker 2: much more so than most other adaptations I can think of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also has some really fun performances in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're going to go ahead and close
Speaker 1: the liquor cabinet on this serpent, but we will be
Speaker 1: back with other episodes of Weird House Cinema. They publish
Speaker 1: every Friday in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed.
Speaker 1: We're primarily science and culture podcast, with core episodes on
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have listener mail on Mondays and
Speaker 1: artifact episodes. Those are shorties on Wednesdays.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 2: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 2: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 2: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
Speaker 2: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff
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