Film Korner - Troubled Young Men Edition

[millionreasons]

Perrier's Bounty

I'm not much interested in crime caper comedies or gangsters or Irish films (name me one film about Dublin that doesn't make it look uniformly depressing), but I am interested in Mr C Murphy, who is much too good for this movie. Poor Cillian, he only ever gets to star in small films or be a supporting actor in bigger productions. Always the sidekick, never the hero.

In this, Cillian, for reasons too boring to relate, gets involved with some burglar-cum-loan sharks and then ends up running around Dublin with his Father Jack-esque dying dad and suicidal next door neighbour/love interest whilst avoiding car clampers, dangerous dogs, two gangs of gangsters, and comparisons to Intermission.



Peacock

It turns out Cillian does get to star in American films - pity this one went straight to DVD. It has the right ingredients - star cast: Susan Sarandon, Ellen Page, Keith Carradine and a great settting: small town America's seedy underbelly. Perhaps its subject matter was too dark for the general public/studio execs.

Set in the 50s or early 60s, I thought it was going to be a tale of transvestite gaining acceptance by small town mid-America, but it was a whole lot murkier than that. Deliberately riffing off Psycho, Cillian's two characters, Emma and John, know nothing of each other's lives. They are separate entities. Emma gets up, cooks John's breakfast then goes into the bedroom to change into John who eats his breakfast and goes to work. At first Emma stays in the house, doing domestic tasks, until she starts to venture out into the world where she's befriended by Lady Mayoress Susan Sarandon and dish washer slash prostitute, Juno, who turns out to have given birth to John's son through a strange plot twist in which John's late mother forced him to have sex with Juno. The internet had the opinion that John's mother was also a cross-dresser and John's transvestism is an attempt to become his mother, rather than to invent a wife for himself. John and Emma are increasingly at cross purposes with each other: John's anger at Emma creating her own life for herself and disagreeing with John's opinions has obvious parallels in the burgeoning women's movement (especially given Mayoress Sarandon's talk about attracting modern (i.e. independent) women's votes). Emma takes revenge on John by shaving off her eyebrows (ensuring he can't shed his female attire) and goes to bizarre lengths to 'kill' him off, leaving her alone and free.

Telstar

Another film which deserved wider release: the troubling life of Joe Meek, indie producer almost 3 decades before punk took up the DIY ethos. The film starts off almost as a Carry On romp with the Tornadoes (then called the Outlaws) messin’ abaht on the stairs of 304 Holloway Road whilst shy songwriter Geoff Goddard (not played by Mathew Horne) looks on, and ends in madness, drug misuse, paranoia and murder, although the film implies that Joe Meek killed his landlady by accident rather than design.

Con O’Neill playing Meek is just great and there’s an all-star cast, well all-star if you count people who have been in TV sitcoms (Pam Ferris, Ralf Little, James Corden (surprisingly good)) and popstars played by yer actual popstars (Carl Barat, an S Club 7, that fellow from the Darkness), plus cameos by Rita Tushingham, Marcus Brickstock and (bizarrely) Jimmy Carr. Oh, and Kevin Spacey!

I didn’t know that many of the Tornadoes went onto become popstars in their own right – Chas from Chas ‘n’ Dave, Mitch Mitchell from the Jimi Hendrix experience, Ritchie Blackmore, and Clem Clattini (who has played on more British number 1 hits than anyone else). However, Meek was the second most famous person to turn down the Beatles, and he also took a wrong turn in his ceaseless promotion of Heinz, the Belouis Some* of his day. Whilst he made stunning progressive pop classics in Johnny Remember Me and Telstar, his novelty hits were poor and, already 30 in 1960, the youngest of youthquake decades, he failed to move with the times and embrace beat pop, psychedelia, garage etc. Throughout the film, he sports a quiff and DA and wears a tank top and tie whilst his assistant moves to a mop top and Carnaby St sharp suit.

It’s always terribly sad when people die before their time and I do wonder what Joe Meek would have made of synthesisers if he’d managed to live for another 10 years. Five months after his death, homosexuality was finally decriminalised and whilst people’s attitudes took longer to change, it might have at least vindicated his sexual preference to himself. And, according to the film, he was only 3 weeks away from receiving his Telstar royalties, on hold for years because of a court case. If he’d have been rich and out of the closet, he might have held onto life until he could have played one of the first Moogs.

 * see the 80s.

Great article by Jon Savage on Joe Meek