"Tell you what, there's a quiz show about wallpaper going begging. How soon can we expect you?" "Erm...phooooof. When do Hedgehogs stop hibernating?" "Hang on... Maureen, when do Hedgehogs stop hibernating? No, that's bats... Uh-huh? Really? Sometime in Spring, we think. Probably."
Oh, for christ's sake.
Geoffrey Perkins, quiet and unassuming. The great facilitator. The man who simply by doing his job, gently, with care and infinite wisdom, caused many of us to laugh longer and harder than we probably deserve...no longer with us. And in such a stupid, pointless way. Mown down in an idiotic road accident.
Without Geoffrey Perkins, you wouldn't have had your lives brightened by The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. No Father Ted. No Harry Enfield. The Fast Show. Radio Active, KYTV, Saturday/Friday Live, Spitting Image... Happiness, Big Train, tons of others, he was in there, shaping them. Making sure they were right.
I never met Geoffrey Perkins, but I'll miss him. Not only for what he gave us (which is surely more than enough for one lifetime) but for what we can't have any more - that is, exciting, innovative, and above all *funny* Comedy shows. You know. The ones you laugh at. Loudly, inordinately and with a total lack of self-consciousness.
Thank you, Mr Perkins. You'll be remembered long after your time. We'll make sure of that.
It was commented by my blogging compatriot that he's been doing most of the actual posting on here.
Well, I've got a couple of things in mind that I'm working on, but in the meantime, here's this.
No idea of the origin of this, but I've now had this "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" knock-off rattling around my head for the past three days. It's now your turn to suffer.
Julius Carry died on Tuesday. And if no other news service is going to carry the story, I bloody well will.
Another genre favourite bites the dust. This has been a horrible year for losing those people you just love to see turn up even in the smallest of roles. As one of those lunatics who actually thought "The Adventures of Brisco County Jr" had a better chance than its stablemate "The X-Files", and as one who has been persistently impressed by Julius's ability as Lord Bowler to steal the show right out from under Bruce Campbell's nose (and believe me, there's very few people who can do that)... this news saddens me terribly. That's him in the pic above, standing just behind Kelly Rutherford at her most winsome, and managing to somehow maintain his composure despite the lovable John Astin grinning like a loon right next to him.
As is my wont, I'm off to watch an episode of Brisco by way of tribute. "Socrates' Sister", I think - featuring the rather marvellous moment in which Bowler attempts to sneak up on the villain of the week by pretending to be a log...
I'm currently reading Richard Schickel's biography of D.W Griffith.
Griffith's a tricky subject for people nowadays. The first thing he calls to mind is "Birth of a Nation" (well, that's what he used to mean to me). The second thing is the grandiose folly of "Intolerance". After that? You're lucky if he's remembered at all. "Broken Blossoms"? "America"? "Abraham Lincoln"? When was the last time you saw Channel 4 (or anyone) devote an afternoon to one of that little lot?
And this is unfortunate, as the man Chaplin called "The Father Of Us All" had a career that was quite frankly fascinating. He pretty much discovered Mary Pickford whose vaulting ambition led her to become not only the biggest star of her day, but pretty much the biggest star full stop. Lillian Gish got her start with him, as did Mack Sennett. Lionel Barrymore worked for him, as did W.C Fields in the characteristically bizarre "Sally of the Sawdust". Even if he didn't invent cross-cutting, the iris-in, close-ups and long-shots, he was the first to really come to terms with them and turn cinema into something more than a nickel curiosity.
From a shaky on-screen start (you can see him acting - barely - in "Rescued From The Eagles Nest" - he had a solid stage career behind him by the time he grudgingly turned to cinema), he slowly shifted his focus - first as a scenarist, then finally as a director. And he took to it like a duck to water.
In the years 1909 - 1913, he directed some 450 one-reelers for the Biograph company. That's 450. And a large proportion of them survive, astonishingly. Thanks to the joys of region 1 dvd's and YouTube (hint - one-reelers are the perfect length to sneak in under YouTube's 15 minute limit), I've been able to illustrate my reading with a large proportion of Griffith's Biograph works (over a hundred of them, actually).
His social comment films veer from absolutely stunning ("A Corner in Wheat" is angry in all the right places, with shots framed to resemble classical paintings) to extremely odd ("For His Son" features a venal Doctor marketing a new drink with added Cocaine called "Dopakoke" - I kid you not).
"The Painted Lady" features what is still one of the most convincing portrayals of madness I think I've ever seen on screen, "The Musketeers of Pig Alley" develops a familiar motif into what is often referred to as the first Gangster film (it isn't - Griffith himself had dipped into that well before), with scenes shot in genuine New York slums, and "The Redskin's View" shows the White Man to be a greedy, opportunistic mob at the best of times while the Indian is portrayed as noble and long-suffering. Funny how people forget that when they're hammering him for the likes of "His Trust" (and to be fair, the minstrelsy in that is horrid - I've never seen so much badly applied blackface, and the idea that the faithful gentleman of colour will be rewarded for serving the White Man).
"The Female of the Species" is grippingly nasty up until the final two minutes or so (three women lost in the desert lose their grip on civilisation until finally they are saved by their discovery of an Indian baby lying in the arms of his dead mother, and their natural womanhood reasserts itself. Ugh.)
"The House With Closed Shutters" examines a case of Cowardice in the American Civil War (a favourite Griffith preoccuaption - see "The Hessian Renegade", "In The Border States", "His Trust"/"His Trust Fulfilled", and many many others, leading right up to "Birth..."
Most of the time Griffith's heart is in the right place - and more often than not it's also on his sleeve. He's increasingly sentimental, given to floweriness, and at all times, even in his minor works - fascinating.
And then there's this.
from 1909, this three minute insanity was intended as a replacement for the old magic lantern slide. Mission accomplished I think. Put it this way, I never expected this to conclude the way it does...
Watch out also for the way the characters on the film within the film slowly become frustrated by the fact that the audience isn't watching them (and they're all played by the same people - how very wonderful). And also watch out for Mack Sennet and his glorious false nose - can't miss him, he's the one in the very loud suit. The woman dressed in white is Griffith's wife of the time, Linda Arvitson, I think. Also lurking in the cast is the mellifluously named Florence Lawrence, and Flora Finch is the one who suffers a fate worse than death in the final seconds.
Do enjoy. They must have been putting something in the water in 1909.
One of the things I have a strange obsession for is songs recorded by TV and Radio stars. Some of them really should know better, and some of them are strangely wonderful. Falling into the latter category is this little treasure, which I found in a car booter years ago. It was raining. You can tell by the state of the sleeve.
Ripped in all its pristine, ragged glory from vinyl by yours truly, I give you Ronnie Corbett's foray into the singles charts, the rumbustious "Fanny". Written by Herbie "bassline on Walk on the Wild Side" Flowers (at least, I think it is, to judge by the credits), it hit number not-very-much-at-all with a bullet in 1974. Ronnie performed it on Top of the Pops in November of that year, a clip which I fear is now lost. A shame.
