Kingpin

Every so often in life you stumble across a little gem..............a hugely enjoyable piece of entertainment that you just didn't even know existed. Ok,ok, I don't know where I have been since 1996 when the Farrelly brothers comedy film, Kingpin was released. I have seen Something About Mary, by the same writers, and found it amusing in parts. But Kingpin is much better. It is crude and rude, even tasteless and disgusting in places. Definitely for an adult audience, though in fairness young teens will enjoy some of the bowling scenes and the vulgarity will largely pass them by.

Unlike many comedy films, Kingpin has an interesting story line and well developed characterisation. Roy Munson, played by Woody Harrelson, is a talented ten pin bowler as a child and fulfills his promise as a hot prospect by defeating Ernie 'Big Ern' McCracken (Bill Murray), in the State final. McCracken is a slippery, devious character whose nastiness to Munson culminates in the pair hustling local bowlers after tricking them with a ' two drunks' routine. One con too many leads to Munson being fed to the ball-return by a furious group of deceived players, resulting in his bowling hand being chopped off. McCracken does a runner and Munson blames him for the fact that his sporting career is over and that his right arm now also comprises of a hook and a rubber hand.

The film moves on to present day and Munson is a mess; he has a drink problem, lives in squalor and has a truly horrific landlady (Lin Shaye) to whom he always owes rent. He thinks his luck has changed when he meets Ishmael Boorg (Randy Quaid), a good bowler and a member of the Amish community. Munson wants Ishmael to turn pro but he refuses and has no interest due to his cultural upbringing, until it turns out that his village has a financial problem. It coincides with a bowling tournament in Reno for a million dollars - winner takes all. So Ishmael agrees to give it a go to save his community.

It soon becomes apparent that Ishmael is a good bowler but not that good, despite all the coaching Munson gives him. The pair resort to hustling and fall foul of a dangerous gangster who is not against cheating himself, using his sex tease of a girlfriend, Claudia (Vanessa Angel), to put off opponents just as they are about to bowl.When the gangster loses to Ishmael he hits Claudia but then discovers the pair had no money to gamble with in the first place.They manage a quick escape and are joined by the girl, who spots a money making opportunity. Soon Claudia is using her sexuality to distract Ishmael's rivals and they are quickly raking in some cash.

The film rolls on towards it's climax............the Reno tournament. McCracken, predictably, returns to the scene, and is hot favourite to scoop the prize. Old resentments flare in Munson, but disaster follows when Ishmael breaks his hand hitting the wall (the punch was aimed at McCracken). So Roy 'Rubber Man' Munson has no option but to take his place. Everyone expects McCracken to make the final but not Munson - 'the one time rising star who disappeared'. But Munson wins his matches one by one, setting up the inevitable grand final. McCracken, with his sequined shirts and disastrous hair style puts on a great slime-ball performance and beats a despairing Munson to the prize. It looks like we are heading for a sad ending ; Munson still broke and back in his seedy house, Ishmael returning to his bankrupt township and ready to explain to his family about the debauchery he has fallen into, and Claudia gone ( first with McCracken whom she had earlier, it turns out , had a sexual relationship with , then back to her gangster boyfriend).

The humour in Kingpin is grubby but very very funny. The plot is so well worked and developed , the film easily gets away with some hard-core gags. It turns out a procession of laughs almost all the way through. As you might expect the rubber hand is well used. The innocence of Ishmael and his total naivety to the ways of hot Claudia is a constant source of amusement.There is a great scene involving Claudia's nipples at the freezer (use your imagination) which was an attempt to put him off his game. It had absolutely no effect on him. Ishmael does however soon learn some worldly ways of his own, taking up a job as a drag stripper at one point. Munson shows how useless he is whilst living in the Amish town. He milks a bull and drinks the contents of the bucket !! Then he is asked to remove the shoes off the horses. He cuts their feet off !! There is a great laughter scene where a horse , having lost a few inches in height can no longer quite see over it's stable gate. Perhaps the most appalling moment in Kingpin involves Munson's landlady, a grotesque woman with whom he has to have sex to pay his rent. Don't ask me to explain but the scene is fantastically funny, maybe it was her in bed smoking a cigarette with him chucking up continuously in the background after they had finished.

All the actors put in great performances. Bill Murray kind of steals the show with his portrayal of McCracken in the final showdown. The character is as dislikeable as you could imagine. Woody Harrelson is a lovable rogue as Munson and puts in a great performance. Randy Quaid is very believable as Ishmael and had the perfect, almost child like, facial expressions. The two women, Vanessa Angel and Lin Shaye both left erotic marks on the male audience, though for entirely different reasons.

Thankfully, the ending does turn out happy. Claudia turns up at Munson's place. She has cash, which she has robbed from the gangster. Munson has even better news. A condom company likes 'Rubber Man' and has paid him half a million dollars to promote their products. There is of course only one place the money can go, to Ishmael and his family, which Munson and Claudia deliver before driving off into the sunset together.

I had no intention of watching this movie.................but I just could not leave it once it had started. Not sure why it has taken eleven years to enter my life but it sure was worth it.

Carry On Follow That Camel

It is Bank Holiday Monday and for a change it is raining. So, with nothing better to do I sat down to watch Carry On Follow That Camel. It was the fourteenth film in the series and released in 1967. Missing were stalwarts such as Barbara Windsor, Hattie Jaques and Sid James (suffering from heart problems). In an attempt to bolster popularity, and especially in America, a big star was brought in as a one-off in the series, namely Phil Silvers in the role of Sgt Nocker. It is reputed that Silvers earned more money for his appearance than any other actor had in previous Carry On films, until the fee was equalled by Elke Sommer in Carry On Behind. But a host of other regulars were present :
Jim Dale ( Bertram Oliphant 'Bo' West), Kenneth Williams (Commandant Burger), Bernard Bresslaw (Sheikh Abdul Abulbul - leader of the Riffs), Charles Hawtrey (Captain Le Pice), Peter Butterworth (Simpson), and Joan Sims (ZigZig). The film also featured two of the loveliest Carry On girls ever - Angela Douglas (Lady Jane Ponsonby) and Anita Harris (Corktip).

'Bo' West is a typical upper class English gentleman, who, after wrongly losing both his honour and his love (the delicious Lady Jane) during a cricket match, runs away broken-hearted with his batman, Simpson, and joins the Foreign Legion. Not realising his class will count for nothing he gets a short sharp lesson from Sgt Nocker on his arrival in the desert. There is a great scene where, having banged on the fort doors with his cricket bat, 'Bo' and Simpson are then blasted by cannon fire as the doors open. When the dust settles, all that remains are four smokin' boots ! Soon, however, the position of the Englishmen improves. The sole reason for this is that they know Nocker to be a fraud. Whilst the Commandant thinks Nocker is a brave soldier who has fought off the local insurgents, the Riffs, 'Bo' and Simpson know the truth. He was shacked up with local cafe owner ZigZig all the time. They use this knowledge to their advantage and thereafter get a relatively easy life from Nocker, including an introduction to the sexy and tempting belly-dancer Corktip. Meantime Lady Jane discovers the truth over the cricket match argument and leaves England to find her lover. On her arrival in the foreign land she discovers she knows Commandant Burger but is then drugged and tricked by Sheikh Abdul who wants her to be her 13th wife. The remainder of the film is largely made up of 'Bo', Simpson and Nocker saving Lady Jane from the clutches of Abdul and concludes with a battle between the Foreign Legion and the Riffs, which the outnumbered elite French army wins with the aid of glue (in which the Riffs get stuck) and reinforcements (mustered by Le Pice). There is a great scene with Simpson bowling gun-powdered coconuts to 'Bo' who smashes them over the fort walls with his cricket bat.

Such is the influence of the Phil Silvers character in this film, some of the other regulars, especially Charles Hawtrey and Joan Sims, are left with relatively minor roles. Even Kenneth Williams has little room to display his comic genius. The Nocker character played by Silvers bears many a striking similarity to his more famous role, Sgt Bilko, in that he is conniving and lazy. Many of the jokes involving Nocker work nicely enough but it is probable that in 1967, Silvers was difficult to accept in the Carry On format. It worked fine for me today, but I can imagine it not working all those years ago. He did not feature in any subsequent Carry On films.

There are some funny moments in Carry On Follow That Camel. This idea of an English snob adapting to army life is well used in the film, with 'Bo' asking Simpson to run him a bath and later dressing him.When Nocker cynically asks them to join the rest of the unit on parade if they really wouldn't mind, 'Bo' says he will but only after breakfast, adding 'where exactly is the restaurant?' Early on in the film a large pair of knickers are raised up a flagpole with Le Pice announcing they look like spring flowers - ''early bloomers''. Hawtrey's other funny piece involves him improving morale amongst the legionnaires. He has them building sand-castles which ends in a riot. Probably the best moment from Commandant Burger comes with his telling of an old Arab saying - ' there's plenty of old fiddles played on a sand dune'. Nocker had two gems. Firstly to 'Bo' - 'Ah Egypt. The land of the fairies'. ' Don't you mean Pharaohs?' asks 'Bo' . ' I know what I mean' Nocker replies firmly. Secondly to Corktip - ' How about a performance of the two veils' ? 'Don't you mean seven veils?' she asks. 'Why bother with preliminaries' he replies. A running joke early on involves Lady Jane. She leaves England as an innocent girl but is accosted three times before she reaches her destination - on the train, the boat and on reaching a hotel. Each time the blinds are drawn to darken the room, with Lady Jane on each separate occasion saying ' what an odd way to punch my ticket' / 'what an odd way to check my port-hole' / 'what an odd way to see if my accommodation is satisfactory'. The film does manage to create a feeling of extreme heat and dri-ness, remarkable given it was shot on location on Camber Sands in Sussex. On a visit to an oasis the soldiers find it dry and empty, apart from a giant plughole and plug on a chain !!

The final scenes are back in England at a cricket match. 'Bo' has married Lady Jane. They have had a baby, which is in a pram. When the camera zooms in, the child has the face of the Commandant !! Nocker turns up. His bags are being carried by Corktip. Finally Sheikh Abdul bowls to 'Bo'. The cricket ball explodes. Abdul shouts ' Owzat ? ' to which 'Bo' replies ' Not out'.

After the film ended this morning, the rain stopped and the sun came out. An empty hour and a half well spent.

Carry On..........The Most

It's been a few weeks since I posted a blog that is a list. I love lists and I also love Carry On films so I hereby combine the two.

In an idle moment , I wondered who, from that amazing cast of comedy legends, had appeared in the most Carry On films. On researching the subject I found it easy enough to get my answer though there is a slight contradiction as to how many films there actually were. The 'problem' film was That's Carry On from 1977. There is no doubt it was a film but was actually released as a support feature to a Richard Harris pic called Golden Rendezvous. It was a compilation Carry On starring Kenneth Williams and Barbara Windsor only. They were in a projectionist's room selecting 'the best bits' from the Carry On's made up until then. I have therefore not counted it in my appearance figures that follow.

So, there were in total 30 Carry On films made, starting in 1958 with Carry On Sergeant and ending in 1992 with Carry On Columbus. Before I list the top 10 Carry On stars by their number of films, it is worth noting a few people who did not make the list. There are some comedy actors who you would automatically think were always in the Carry On's but actually only made a few. Try Frankie Howerd (2), June Whitfield (4), Terry Scott (7). Yes I was surprised at that. Alternatively, I was also surprised that the great Patsy Rowlands made as many as 9, Jack Douglas and Julian Holloway 8, Valerie Leon 6 and Jon Pertwee and Leslie Phillips 4 each ( I would have guessed fewer ). The real shock was Barbara Windsor with a relatively low 9. She first appeared in 1964 in Carry On Spying and finished ten years later with Carry On Dick , leaving 'because she thought they had gone beyond the innocent sauciness which initially drew her to the series'. It was also the last Carry On featuring Sid James. The three stars pictured are, from top to bottom, Peter Gilmore, Valerie Leon and Julian Holloway.

The Top Ten then, was :

10th Peter Gilmore 11 films (nearly all minor roles)

9th Jim Dale 11 films

8th= Hattie Jacques 14 films

8th= Bernard Bresslaw 14 films

6th Peter Butterworth 16 films

5th Kenneth Connor 17 films

4th Sid James 19 films

3rd Charles Hawtrey 23 films

2nd Joan Sims 24 films

1st Kenneth Williams 25 films

Jerry Lewis - The Typewriter

Jerry Lewis - Typewriter - video powered by Metacafe

Many of the things that have made me laugh over the years will have been British. However, I still have vivid memories of American humour from watching television in the late sixties and early seventies and in particular Saturday morning viewing. The highlight of Saturday was in fact Grandstand as I was sports mad. That programme started between midday and twelve thirty with first item normally Football Focus with Sam Leitch. But immediately before this, the BBC would show American black and white comedy films such as Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplain. I can also remember 'movie seasons'. The Marx Brothers, Bob Hope, Abbott and Costello all had time on the Beeb on a Saturday morning. And the one who cracked me up most.................Jerry Lewis.

As indeed he still does today. I found these clips recently and think they are hilarious. It is the same joke of course but with one glaring difference! The first clip dates from the early/mid fifties and is therefore before my time. It comes from The Colgate Comedy Hour which was an American variety show on the NBC network. It was hosted by various entertainers including Lewis and his stage partner at the time, Dean Martin.The show was a huge success in America (and yes the Colgate part of the title was that Colgate..............as in toothpaste - they were the shows sponsors).The joke was then re-worked by Lewis in 1963 in the Paramount film Who's Minding The Store? and it is this version I remember. Lewis played the role of Norman Phiffier, a rather worthless guy who is unwittingly in love with the heiress of a wealthy department store. Future mother in law sets out to disgrace him by setting him up in jobs she knows he will fail in. In the clip, Jerry is paying a visit to the store's Personnel Department.

Jerry Lewis's film output in the 50's and 60's was prolific (with Dean Martin until 1956 then on his own after an acrimonious splitting of the double act which led to the pair not talking to one another again until the 1980's). His style was magnificent slapstick. It was highly chaotic, zany and , I guess, infuriating to those who did not like it. His facial clowning was without equal and it gave him the ability to make just about any situation funny. It was easy to get tired just watching him for a short while as he was high energy from start to finish. His characters were often nerdy ( although he is silent in both these clips, believe me he had a wonderful nerdy voice when he needed to use it), accident prone, sad and vulnerable. His popularity in Britain had largely fizzled out by the start of the 80's and I can't remember the last time I watched a Jerry Lewis film on UK TV. He has remained in the limelight in America to this day largely due to his charity work which he began in the early 50's. In 1966 he hosted a national telethon on Labor Day and in 2005 did the same again for the 40th time! Next birthday he will be 81 years old.

Wendy Richard - Life Before Pauline

I understand Wendy Richard has recently left the soap EastEnders, after a long stint playing Pauline Fowler. I am not altogether sure of the circumstances of this departure either on or off screen. Forgive me as I am not a follower of this programme, though I have I suppose flirted with it on and off a few times over the years. What little I do know is that the character of Pauline was rather dark not to say depressing , probably in keeping with the show in general. The Wendy Richard I want to talk about is altogether different.

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Any comedy addict from the 70's will remember Wendy for numerous appearances in sit-coms and films. Her most famous role was of course Shirley Brahms in Are You Being Served ? which ran for 69 episodes between 1972 and 1985. She continued playing the character in the spin off series Grace and Favour which lasted for 12 shows in 1992 and 1993. I will blog AYBS another time. It was the more minor roles I wanted to remember today because Wendy does seem to pop up in loads of comedy episodes. She was, without doubt, a good looking girl, and her parts ( or maybe I should say her roles ) were normally sexy and flirty. Although born on Teeside her accent was a Cockney screech. She appeared in The Likely Lads in 1965, an early episode of Up Pompeii in 1970 (where she played Soppia in The Ides of March), Please Sir ! (1971), On The Buses (1971) and in the feature film of the same name also in '71. I was watching this film just the other day and there she was .................only for a minute or so in a scene where her smalls are wrongly taken from a launderette by Stan Butler who then manages to offload them onto 'Blakey' just as the police arrive ! In 1972 she popped up in Bless This House and then in four separate episodes of Dad's Army between 1970 and 1973 (in which she played two totally different women - one being Shirley, Private Joe Walker's girlfriend). Add to these two Carry On films - Carry On Matron in 1972 where she played Miss Willing and the next year Carry On Girls as the fantastically named Ida Downs ! She had earlier appeared in a fifty minute special entitled Carry On Christmas Again (1970) and the film Doctor In Clover (1966).

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Although none of these were significant roles by comparison with Miss Brahms , Wendy Richard was nevertheless a well known actress prior to Are You Being Served ? hitting our screens. I certainly remember Not On Your Nellie which starred the great Hylda Baker as a pub landlady. Wendy was her busty barmaid. I also remember vaguely a sitcom called Both Ends Meet in which Wendy played a character called Maude. It was from 1972 and set in a sausage factory. The main star was Dora Bryan. Two series were made and the second one was renamed Dora. I am not sure if this programme was shown nationwide or not, it was made by Anglia TV so was definitely shown in my neck of the woods. Wendy Richard also appeared in Spooners Patch though I don't remember her in it. I do however have a vague memory of the programme. It was a police comedy , rather feisty and controversial (it was written by Johnny Speight and Ray Galton post Till Death Us Do Part) and starred Ronald Fraser as Inspector Spooner. Her two remaining comedy shows I am afraid are a complete blank to me. Hugh and I from 1962-1966 was before my time (the main stars were Hugh Lloyd and Terry Scott) and Hogg's Back (1975) which was a children's comedy starring Derek Royle ( who you may not know but was in fact to later play 'the corpse' in that famous Fawlty episode).

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Wendy Richard was once quoted as saying ' I think I'm employed because of my funny voice. It's like cracked glass'. I think it fair to say her attraction laid wholly elsewhere. Upon landing the Pauline Fowler role she said it was a challenge and that she could not go on playing dolly birds forever. I for one will always remember the Wendy Richard of the 70's and 80's.