| Author | Message | ||
     Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I'm not one, but those who are may like to know that his infamous Richard Strauss film is presently on YouTube. Given the questionable copyright status, I won't provide a link (and nobody else should). | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Didn't Ken Russell cast his own daughter in the title role of Whore? I can't get my head round the kind of family dynamic there must be for a guy to film his daughter in explicit nude scenes - and for her to let him - even if she was an adult at the time. He was also apparently a cameraman in the making of this film as well - which adds to the wierdness. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
No. The two aren't related, Weber. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
That's good. Who the hell told me they were father and daughter? It's creeped me out for years now. Thanx for setting me straight. It just leaves Asia and Dario Argento in that category now then. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.255.44 |
I loved THE DEVILS. I think it's the only Russell film I've seen so far.... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Ken Russell is a true maverick who despite his own best attempts to scupper his directorial career actually made two brilliant genre films: 'The Devils' & 'Altered States'. However, he also made these genre turkeys: 'Crimes Of Passion', 'Gothic' & 'The Lair Of The White Worm'. As I see it the guy has no understanding of "quality control". | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.255.44 |
Ah, i saw ALTERED STATES then too. And GOTHIC. Those are both forgettable, imho - but not THE DEVILS. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.155.105.158 |
'The Lair Of The White Worm'. Is GREAT! gcw | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Is that the one where Amanda Donohoe wears THAT strap-on and at one point bites off a boy scout's dangly bits in a hot-tub? That scene - and the opening chapter of Philip Jose Farmer's Image of the Beast - put me off oral sex for years when I was a teenager. I wonder who'll be first with the obvious punchline | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.155.105.158 |
yup. gcw | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.202.210.68 |
GCW - I LOVE Lair of the White Worm! And The Devils, and Crimes of Passion, and his Delius movie with Max Adrian. Ken's OK. Quite mad, but a good boy. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.155.105.158 |
Ken's movies ARE Ken! Some are Brill for being brill (The Devils, Altered States, Women In Love..) Others are bollocks -but GREAT BIG SILLY BAWDY,NAUGHTY,NUNS N'SUSPENDERS bollocks! I love the guy, long may he run. gcw | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.155.105.158 |
PS.. Catherine Oxenburg is/was a fair non-entity as an actress, but the memory of her bound in white bra & panties suspended above a cave mouth while an enormous penis (sorry 'wyrm'!) threatens her virginity has...er... Stayed with me. gcw...  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.228.52 |
Others are bollocks -but GREAT BIG SILLY BAWDY,NAUGHTY,NUNS N'SUSPENDERS bollocks! Pardon me for interpreting, Gcw, but... are you sure you're not thinking of Russ Meyer? | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.202.210.68 |
Russ Meyer isn't a patch on our Ken. GCW - apparently Ms Oxenburg was the only member of the cast who gave Russell any trouble. "She lost her hand warmer in the cave and it was most distressing for the poor girl" he quipped in an interview. I imagine he enjoyed hanging her over that pit more than anyone! I've seen Lair of the White Worm on the big screen more times than is strictly healthy you know, including once at a Ken Russell retrospective. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.155.105.158 |
That film is so over the top it's practically in orbit! Hugh Grant in a RAF uniform...Molested by suspender-ed lovelies. Genius. gcw | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 129.11.76.229 |
Well, I recently enjoyed Russell's LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER. Restrained by the remit of the BBC, perhaps. Rich and compelling. | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I remember being driven berserk by a TV interview with someone from the British Board of Film Classification (probably 'Censors' in those days) on the subject of THE DEVILS. This prat, whose name has now been rightly forgotten, remained po-faced throughout as he described how they'd attempted 'to save' THE DEVILS by doing some extensive editing before allowing it an X-certificate. I appreciate that they probably thought they were acting with the best intentions, but at which film school did the BBFC learn their film-editing skills? Which supernatural deity informed them that this three seconds of explicit nudity was okay for the adult population of Britain to be exposed to, but this other three seconds wasn't? It's no wonder if took so long for the director's cut of THE DEVILS to actually get a wide public viewing. I'm not even sure if the original version is available on DVD today. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
In the early 1960s, David Lean requested a chat with the BBFC. He asked why they had cut a scene from his recent film in which a married couple, in nightclothes, talked to each other while in bed in the morning (the conversation was not about sex). The censor told him that while, to him as director, the scene featured a married couple sharing a bed, the audience were seeing two actors who were not married to each other sharing a bed. | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
There was also the case, Joel, of the BBFC chap who didn't actually like films and always had something else he wanted to do, so he would only view them if he could do it two at a time - both at the same time, with two screens. I kid you not. In addition, there was supposedly an arch feminist who had a real downer on anything she considered to be downgrading to women (regardless of the context it was presented in), and, even more astonishingly, a former army officer who would never let a movie pass if it showed the armed forces in a bad light. In the words of Ken Russell himself: "Who actually are these people? Who gave them their job? Can I apply?" | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.47.10.77 |
Hey - Joel. Would it have got though if they had one foot on the floor. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 62.40.62.189 |
The censors ordered that some of the torture from THE DEVILS be cut down, but then said it was more violent with less torture. Watching '70s British telly, all the married couples are in twin beds - except Eric and Ernie! | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
My favourite moment in THE DEVILS is still the bit where the pompous Mother Superior, outraged by something the young heroine has said, snarls that she's a bitch, then drags her hand through the bars of the cell and sinks her teeth into it. Cracking moment. | ||
| Giancarlo (Giancarlo) Username: Giancarlo Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 85.116.228.3 |
What about "THE MUSIC LOVERS" and "WOMEN IN LOVE"? Wasn't the latter an adaptation from D.H. Lawrence? Or wasn't Ken Russell the director?...and the one about the famous sculptor, I can't remember his name, nor the movie title, Dorothy Tutin playing in it? I have only dim memories.... | ||
| Giancarlo (Giancarlo) Username: Giancarlo Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 85.116.228.3 |
I have just now remembered the French sculptor, Henri Gaudier, and the movie's title, "SAVAGE MESSIAH". | ||
| Giancarlo (Giancarlo) Username: Giancarlo Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 85.116.228.3 |
Another bit of Ken Russell..."CHINA BLUE", Kathleen Turner and Anthony Perkins playing, the latter in the role of a Psycho-like character. I hope this to be the last of my memory tatters... | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
SAVAGE MESSIAH is chiefly memorable to me - I'm ashamed to admit - for the scene in the country house hall, where two chaps are blathering away about art and the military, and a young and very buxom Helen Mirren follows them round, listening to every word with deep interest. Needless to say, they are fully dressed but she is only earing a pair of high-heeled sandals. Sorry - it's too early in the day for reminiscences of that sort. | ||
| Mark West (Mark_west) Username: Mark_west Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.39.177.173 |
I loved "Lair Of The White Worm" and watched "Crimes Of Passion" because I had a thing about Kathleen Turner - was probably too young to watch it, on reflection. As it stands, "Whore" is the only film I've ever walked out halfway through at a cinema. Similar to Weber's comment, but in a differnet vein, as someone with sisters, I always found it odd that Spike Lee used his sister in "Mo Better Blues", where she has a love-scene with Denzel Washington. Strange dynamic there. And a bit off-topic too, sorry about that. | ||
| Giancarlo (Giancarlo) Username: Giancarlo Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 85.116.228.3 |
One very week point (though maybe original in itself) about LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM is the snake-woman being enticed out of her den by "enchanting" music played on loudspeakers. I don't know if that's faithful to Stoker's story but, as far as I know, snakes are deaf, they are "hypnotized" by the flute's motions. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
A very week point? It had you thinking about it for seven days afterwards? | ||
| Giancarlo (Giancarlo) Username: Giancarlo Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 85.116.228.3 |
No, I saw the mistake immediately, only the movie was so moot I had almost forgotten about it... By the way, what do you mean "seven days afterwards?" Afterward what, please? | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
It were a joke - a week, seven days... | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Just playing with the fact you used the wrong spelling of weak/week | ||
| Giancarlo (Giancarlo) Username: Giancarlo Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 85.116.228.3 |
It's all right, Weber! My mistake! |