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