Trollheart

Why do I love this film?

When this came out, 1974, there was at the time no real concept of humour in sci-fi, at least in films. Science-fiction movies, before the advent of Star Wars, were almost always dark, often scary affairs with marauding aliens and usually bad endings. Many portrayed the futility of believing Man was the dominant force in the galaxy, and showed us just how small and unimportant we are. Then you had the old classics, like This Island Earth, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, all that sort of thing. Sci-fi, we were taught, was serious, and not something to be taken lightly.

Then this movie came around, and for the first time ever I personally began to see that space, though hard and unforgiving a mistress certainly, was not devoid of the odd cosmic joke. The fact that this movie both takes its subject matter seriously and laughs at it too is quite a feat. Mostly it's the characters the script lampoons: the men who try to fill up their boring humdrum lives with irrelevancies in order to get through another day. No doubt when they signed up for this mission they envisaged great romance and adventure among the stars, but quickly found it to be nothing of the sort. It's lonely, it's cold, there's nothing to do and there is no way back.

This movie is also the first directorial effort of the eminent John Carpenter, who would of course go on to direct so many great horror movies, such as It and The Thing, and its story both formed the basis for the sci-fi comedy cult series Red Dwarf and for the later, far from funny space horror Alien. It's pretty much a two-man show, with Carpenter co-writing, directing, composing and playing the music and producing, while Dan O'Bannon co-writes, stars in and creates most of the special effects.

This movie would also have a huge impact on future sci-fi movies, from the aforementioned Alien to Star Wars, which would use the spinning hyperspace effect a few years later. Even the dark, doomy amd spacey music, made mostly by Carpenter on synthesisers, would find its way into Red Dwarf's first and second season.

I love the characters, flawed as they are. The portrayal of the four main characters as inherently just ordinary guys working away at their job was also quite fresh. Up to this, sci-fi protagonists had generally - with a few exceptions - been square-jawed heroes challenging the cosmos. These guys are essentially four hippies, none of whom are particularly interested in their job after twenty years doing the same thing - but where are they going to go? - and one of them maintains he's someone else entirely. A quick profile of each follows:

Lieutenant Doolittle: A man who would much rather be surfing off Malibu than exploring deep space, Doolittle has acclimated to his job by developing a single-minded fascination with, and desire to blow up planets. He doesn't particularly care where they are, he just wants to destroy them. Still, when the chips are down he proves he can still hold a philosophical argument - even with an intelligent bomb. Well, in fairness his life and the lives of everyone else depend on it. It's good to see though that he earns a kind of redemption, although the commander's plan backfires.

Sergeant Pinback: Says his real name is Bill Frugge, and tells a story of how he was mistaken for the astronaut and now finds himself in space with people he does not know, whom he doesn't like and who don't like him. He seems to be the butt of jokes, certainly the odd man out and yet when he has to he performs his duty admirably. He it is who insisted on bringing the alien creature onboard, and who inadventently kills it. He makes video diaries and complains about his treatment at the hands of the other crewmembers.

Talby (Rank, if any, unknown): Talby is a loner, spends all his time in the observation dome watching the stars. He is nevertheless the most diligent of the crew, the only one to recognise and then investigate the malfunction that leads to the bomb getting stuck in the ship's bay, and leads eventually to the destruction of the Dark Star. He is also blinded by the laser as he tries to fix it and then blown out of the airlock, where the passing Phoenix Asteroids take him with them.

Boiler: (Rank, if any, unknown): Seeming to be the lowest in rank on the ship, Boiler is like a refugee from a heavy metal concert, and spends his spare time using the ship's only weapon to shoot targets. He tries to save the ship by shooting out the bomb's holding pins but Pinback, with little faith in his marksmanship, stops him.

In the end I love this movie because it's so different, or it was for the time. It bucked the accepted trend at the time for sci-fi movies, injected dark humour for the first time into one of these types of movies, set a template for much of what was to follow and it showed us that Man is capable of fucking up even twenty parsecs from his home planet. There's a strong argument, to my mind, for the damage to the communications laser having been caused by Boiler. He has already shown he likes to shoot at things, and it doesn't matter whether he's supposed to or not. The faceplate of the door to the laser shows evidednce of some sort of burn: a shot from a laser rifle?

As a first movie for John Carpenter this hardly set the world alight or put his name up in lights, but I certainly believe it's an important and indispensable part of science-fiction canon. A cult classic that again, like Dust Devil, previously reviewed, deserves to be better known than it is.

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The Batlord

Gonna need a link.

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Trollheart

http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1497931

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

Oh wait, when was that written? Over two years ago? When your view of metal was vastly different? STFU

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Trollheart

Yeah, and even then you can see I wasn't dismissing it entirely. Might be time to have a listen for the old metal journal. Maybe...

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The Batlord

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Trollheart

First Posted in The Couch Potato, June 3 2013



Title: The odd couple
Year: 1968
Genre: Comedy
Starring: Jack Lemmon as Felix Ungar
Walter Matthau as Oscar Madison
John Fiedler as Vinnie
Herb Edelman as Murray
David Sheiner as Roy
Larry Haines as Speedy
Director: Gene Saks
Writer: Neil Simon

One of my all-time top three favourite movies, there are two words that aptly and perfectly describe why this is such a great movie: Lemmon and Matthau. One of the best double acts since Hope and Crosby, these two guaranteed - guara-an-teed! - an excellent film just by their mere presence. I've always loved Jack Lemmon as an actor, and while I can, in general, take or leave Walter Matthau on his own, when put together these two guys were just comedy gold. Even though neither did stupid pratfalls or necessarily said anything overtly funny, it's the chemisty between the two - rarely seen before or since - that truly marks them out as one of the greatest pairings of all time.

Written by Neil Simon from his play of the same name, the film was so successful that it gave birth to a whole TV series, starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, which I remember watching as a kid without even realising it was based on this movie.

Felix Ungar (Lemmon) arrives at a New York motel looking down and dishevelled, and requests a room. When asked for how long, he mutters "Not very long". He is in fact intending killing himself, having been thrown out of his house by his long-suffering wife. As he checks into his grotty room a woman on the other side bids him goodnight, and he tells her "Goodbye". He carefully places all his personal effects in an addressed envelope, but then in a master stoke of finding comedy in tragedy, in seeing something amusing in the attempts of a man to end a life he believes has nothing left to offer him, Simon has Lemmon try to remove his wedding ring. No matter how hard he tries it will not budge, and he eventually has to leave it on.

He puts the envelope, now sealed and we can see addressed to "My wife and loving children" on the dresser, and heads to the window, but fate again mocks him, as he cannot open it. Being a cheap, nasty motel the room's window is stuck, fused shut, and he cannot jump as he had originally intended. As he's struggling with the uncooperative window his back goes out, and he has to lie down, consider his next move. He decides to leave the hotel room and staggers downstairs and out into the street, his back giving him hell.

He wanders till he comes across a cafe where there is some sort of party going on. He enters and sits, watching the dancing girls and listening to the music. However, he is not to be allowed any respite, as as he knocks back his drink his neck goes, and in terrible pain he hobbles out of the party, back into the street along which he wanders till his tired feet bring him along the waterfront. He stares down at the river, thinking about throwing himself in, then looks up at the lights of a nearby building, recognising it as the one where his old friend, Oscar Madison lives.

The action switches to that building, where we see four guys sitting around a card table, bickering as men do when playing poker. One of them worries where Felix is: he's very late for their card game. They call in to Oscar (Matthau) who is in the kitchen, plundering the food. They ask him to call Felix, but he ignores them. He opens cans of beer and it shoots everywhere, to the chagrin of the guys. It doesn't seem to bother Oscar though: he's obviously something of a slob. Murray gets a call to tell the guys that Felix has gone missing; his wife doesn't know where he is. When Oscar rings her she tells him that they broke up, and the guys start to worry, especially when Frances, Felix's wife, told her he was going out to kill himself.

Meanwhile Felix, who has decided to go to the game after the stuck window thwarted his plans to see if there is an afterlife, gets caught in the lift doors as he exits, adding a sore arm now to his already sore neck and back. The guys, anxious to pretend they don't know anything about what has happened in order not to tip him over the edge, relax and act as if everything is fine. They try a little too hard though, almost ignoring him and making him even more miserable than he already is. Suddenly the card game is forgotten as Felix declares he does not want to play, and heads to the toilet. The guys, afraid he might kill himself while in there, rush after him and hear him crying in there. They don't know what to do.

When he comes back out of the toilet he tries to maintain the pretence but quickly breaks down. He goes to leave, and there follows a comic chase as his friends try to stop him doing anything silly. He manages to lock himself in one of the rooms, they break down the door and rush to the open window, fearing the worst. From behind the door comes the plaintive complaint "Oh! My back! My back!" and the door swings back to reveal Felix flattened against it, cartoon-style. When he then tells them that he took a whole bottle of pills they go into overdrive, trying to get the pills up, trying to keep him awake, considering phoning the ambulance for him, but he finally manages to tell them he already threw up.

When the lads leave, Oscar and Felix go for a walk, then end up in a cafe where Felix immediately starts displaying his weird little quirks. The air conditioner is too cold - he says he never lets his wife turn theirs on in the summer, to which Oscar remarks she must love that! - and he has an odd sinus condition that seems to affect his ears too. He starts making weird noises. I can't really describe it. It's like he's trying to clear his throat, blow his nose and suck in air all at once. Here, watch this clip:



Everyone thinks there's something wrong with him.

Felix discusses with his friend how annoying he was to live with, but Oscar invites him to move in. Felix is delighted, and says he'll be able to pitch in around the place. And indeed he does. The next week, when the guys come over for poker, it is a very different apartment they find. Everything is clean and tidy, there's cold beer - cold! - and coasters, and Felix is serving munchies from a hostess trolley. He's also fussing around like a housewife, telling the guys not to get marks on anything, frowning at the cigar smoking, and making special sandwiches. Oscar is slowly simmering like a stew coming to the boil. His voice is low and dead, and you can tell that he's waiting to explode. He tells Murray, who is a cop, he'll pay him two hundred dollars for his gun. When Roy realises that Felix has disinfected the cards he leaves, following Speedy, who has already lost patience with Felix's new cleaning regime.

In the course of an escalating argument about why Felix has to have everything just-so, he takes up a cup and goes to throw it against the wall. When he grins, shakes his head at his own impetuosity and puts it back, Oscar goads him into throwing it, telling him it'll make him feel better: he doesn't have to be so controlling all the time, let himself go. Eventually Felix does throw the cup, but a) it hits the wall without breaking (somehow) and b) he hurts his shoulder! Oscar tells him he's a hopeless case. They decide to go out, rather than end up killing each other.

In an attempt to break the monotony, draw Felix out of himself and get himself some, Oscar arranges a double date. However of course it doesn't go according to plan; Felix, who only agreed to the date after constant haranguing by Oscar, is ill-at-ease and not at all comfortable, and falls back on the only thing he can think of to keep the dying conversation going when his friend goes to get drinks: his failed marriage. and the two sisters spend the night consoling Felix, crying with him. When they then suggest that the boys come up to their room Oscar is delighted (especially as it's very hot up there and clothes may be an optional extra) but Felix does not want to go. As the girls were very taken with his roommate, Oscar doesn't think there's much point in his going alone.

Now there's a wall of silence between the two. Not a word is exchanged, but black looks are. Oscar does his best to spoil Felix's attempts at cleaning, making things dirty and untidy just as Felix gets them sorted, and Felix retaliates by switching off the TV programme Oscar is watching (this is in an era, remember, long before remote controls). Tempers finally snap when Oscar hurls a plate of linguini at the wall, and forbids Felix to clean it up. Their arguments turn violent and Oscar chases Felix up to the roof, then tells him to leave. Felix eventually agrees, but tells Oscar it is on his head, which despite the high-running tempers worries Oscar, considering what happened at the beginning of the movie.

Of course, he feels guilty afterwards and he and the guys go looking for his ex-roommate, but it turns out that he has taken refuge in the flat of the two sisters: he's fallen on his feet again!

Classic scenes

Oh where do I start? This movie has so many! Almost every scene is class, but to pick a few out:

"It's linguini, you fool!"
Just before their cold-treatment reaches fever pitch, Felix sits at the poker table with his dinner. Oscar, annoyed at Felix just having turned his ball game off on the TV, comes over and says "Get that spaghetti off my poker table!" Felix just sits there, laughing as if at some private joke, which makes Oscar even more angry. "What's so funny?" he demands, and Felix sniggers "That's not spaghetti: it's linguini, you fool!" Whereupon Oscar grabs the plate, takes it into the kitchen, flings it against the wall and declares "Now it's garbage!"

Sinuses
Already demonstrated in the attached YouTube, it's a hilarious scene which shows how neurotic Felix is, and how much of a pain he can be as he tries to clear his sinuses in a restaurant, while everyone looks on and wonders if there's something wrong with him. Felix, though, is so wrapped up in himself that he can't see the looks he's getting, and anyway, to him this is normal behaviour. He just doesn't even consider that it could be seen as odd.

"Not quite a perfect date"
The scene where Felix, left alone with the girls while Oscar fixes the drinks (seriously: how long can that take? It seems to be about ten minutes before he returns) desperately searching for conversational topics, takes out the pictures of his kids, leading to a sobbing session as he recalls his family, Cecily her own dead husband and Gwendolyn her failed relationship. Oscar breezes back in, expecting to see everyone chatting and laughing, and is confronted by a scene straight out of a wake!

"Poker was never meant to be played like this!"
Havign established himself at Oscar's home, Felix makes sure everyone at the card game has (and uses) coasters for their drinks, eats over the plates, and sprays air freshener around like it's going out of fashion. He also plugs in a dehumidifier, which one of the guys complains is "sucking all the air out of the room". When the guys realise though that he has washed the cards they're playing with, it's the final straw and the game breaks up.

"A triple play!"
I know, and want to know, nothing about baseball, but apparently a "triple play" is rare? When Oscar, commentating on a game (he's a sports writer) has a chance to see one, he is distracted by a totally unnecessary phone call from Felix, and can't believe that he's missed it!

"Looney Tunes"
When Felix is trying to take the vacuum cleaner into the kitchen, he leaves the cable strung out on the living room floor and tries to pull it after him. Oscar quite deliberately steps on it, stopping him. Looking in, Felix sees what he's at and loops the cable around his shoulder, ready to give it a hard tug. Just as he does, Oscar lifts his foot and the sudden release of pressure and his own momentum send Felix flying, and we hear the sounds of crashing, things breaking, things falling. With a satisfied grin on his face, Oscar walks off.

"What time do you call this?"
As they prepare for their big date, Oscar comes in late and Felix takes him to task, asking him why he is late and almost sobbing that his meatloaf wil be ruined. He's just like a wife, even complaining about "slaving over a meal" while Oscar makes some excuse about working late, which Felix triumphantly dismisses, saying he phoned the office and knows that Oscar was at the bar! Absolutely hilarious!

QUOTES
Murray: "Did you know Felix was once locked in the john overnight? He wrote out his entire will on half a roll of toilet paper!"

Murray: "Aren't you going to look at your cards first?"
Oscar: "What for? I'm gonna bluff anyway!"

Oscar: "I got ... um... brown sandwiches and green sandwiches. What do you want?"
Murray: "What's the green?"
Oscar: "It's either very new cheese or very old meat."

Oscar (on the phone to his five-year old from California): "Yeah, I got your letter honey thanks. It took three weeks! Next time, you ask mommy to give you a stamp." (Pause) "Yeah, I know honey, but you're not supposed to draw it on!"

Oscar: "You think you were impossible to live with? Blanche used to ask me when I wanted to eat. I'd say I don't know, I'm not hungry. Then three in the morning I'd wake her up and say now!"

Oscar: "Hello? Frances?"
Felix: "I'm not here. You haven't heard from me, you don't know where I am, I didn't call, you didn't see me and I'm not here. I am not here!"
Oscar: "Yes Frances, he's here."

Felix: "Where's your coaster?"
Roy: "What?"
Felix: "Your coaster. The little round thing you put your glass on."
Roy (considers): "I think I bet it."

Speedy (heading out the door in frustration, and thus breaking up the game) to Oscar: "You've got no-one to blame but yourself! It's your fault! You stopped him from killing himself!"

Gwendolyn: "What field of endeavour are you engaged in?"
Felix: "I write the news for television."
Gwendolyn: "Oh! Fascinating. Where do you get your ideas from?"

Felix: "You're asking to hear something I don't want to say, but if I do say it I think you oughta hear it!"
Oscar: "You got anything on your chest beside your chin you'd better get it off."
Felix: "All right then you asked for it! You're a wonderful guy Oscar! You've done verything for me! If it weren't for you I don't know what would have happened to me! You took me in here, you gave me a place to live, something to live for. I'm never going to forget you for that, Oscar! You're tops with me!"

Oscar: "Why doesn't he hear me? I know I'm talking: I recognise my voice!"

Felix: "In other words, you're throwing me out?"
Oscar: "Not in other words! Those are the perfect ones!"

Why do I love this movie?
Apart from the already-mentioned presence of both Lemmon and Matthau instantly ensuring a great film, Neil Simon's script is pure gold. The way he writes it so that one of the guys is essentially the wife, concerned about cleanliness, good food and throwing little temper fits when he doesn't get his way, making it seem as if the guys are married to each other in all but name, is what makes this movie work. There's also no hint of homosexuality at all: this is just two guys living together who begin as friends and by the end are at each other's throats. The chemistry of course between the two leads is also what makes it work. Admittedly, Tony Randall and Jack Klugman did well in the TV version, but then they really based their performances on those of the two masters here.

The Odd Couple brings to the forefront all the little niggly things we know about, but tend to overlook in our partner, whether they're a wife, live-in girfriend or roommate. All those annoying little noises. The sticky notes left in strategic places. Oscar tells Felix at one point he hates those sticky notes: "I woke to find one on my pillow: We are out of cornflakes FU. Took me three weeks to work out that "FU" stood for Felix Ungar!" The arguments, the recriminations. Things done one way because that person has always done things that way and has no wish to change, despite the fact that the other person hates doing things that way. The pure hell, in other words, of living with someone you have known but have never shared a house, room or apartment with before.

Felix is a neurotic, cleaning-obssessed, health freak who can't believe that someone would rather leave a table untidy rather than clean it up, or that a man could eat a day-old sandwich, or that people can't see the benefits of having a dehumidifier. Oscar, on the other hand, is, and let's be totally fair to him, a slob, who enjoys doing things his way. He's not prepared to change, and to be honest the way he goes on you can see why his wife threw him out. To be fair, Felix must have driven his wife mad too. These are two examples of total opposites, these men, who should never be brought into close contact with each other, for any appreciable length of time. They certainly should not even dream of living together.

But underneath it all, under the simmering resentment, the shocked anger, the disbelief and the accusations, both men are friends and at one point Oscar - tough, hard, ornery Oscar Madison - breaks down in front of Felix, begging him to leave him alone before he does something he'll regret. This rather poignant scene is then totally trumped as Felix, seeing Oscar go into the kitchen, cattily declares "Walk on the paper: I just washed the floor!" Oscar then does snap, and chases Felix out of the apartment and onto the roof.

It's a buddy movie, a cautionary tale, a comment on the relationships between two people, even of the same gender, living together. At the beginning of the film, as Oscar offers to take Felix in, he quips "Come and stay with me, Felix. I'm proposing here: what do you want, a ring?" Later he will discover how appropriate that remark is, for Felix ends up driving him as mad as any nagging wife. And of course Oscar bugs Felix too. Why can't he just eat over the plate, smoke less, clean up after himself? It's a marriage made in Hell, and pure classic comedy gold, the likes of which we're not likely to see again.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

Bout to go blind trying to read TH's new graphic masterpiece.

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Trollheart

You jest shut yer mouth there, young feller, or I'll have the sheriff throw you in a cell so ya can cool off, ya hear?

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Fer a darn tootin' long time ah done searched ... You know what? Ah'm - I mean, I'm dropping this accent. It's killing me, and as for chewing this tabaccy - I mean, tobacco --- phtooie!! That's better. Ahem.
For a very long time I searched for this movie but could never find it. I had vague recollections of having watched it sometime in the eighties on TV, and that it had been very popular in work at the time, but it was never again shown on the box. Now, thanks to the wonders of YouTube, I have it to watch again, so let's see if it holds up.

Title: Evil Roy Slade
Subgenre: Comedy
Year: 1972
Starring: John Astin, Pamela Austin. Mickey Rooney, Henry Gibson, Dom de Luise and others
Director: Jerry Parris
Writer(s): Jerry Belson, Gary Marshall

The only survivor of an Apache raid on a wagon train, “Evil” Roy Slade was passed over for adoption by the Indians and even a wolf pack: nobody wanted him, so when he grew up (we're not told how a baby survived and grew to adulthood on his own: it's a comedy film for Chrissakes!) he became the roughest, toughest, orneryiest outlaw in the west. As the movie opens there's a wanted poster with his name on it offering a ten thousand dollar bounty for his capture. It turns out most of the banks, trains and other things Roy robbed, blew up or otherwise came in contact with all belonged to one man: Nelson L. Stool (Rooney), who was the president of the Western Express Railroad, and who is trying to entice the famous lawman Marshall Bing Bell to come out of retirement and stop him. So far he has not had any luck: Slade's reputation precedes him, and Bell refuses. Slade is in the middle of robbing a bank when he meets Betsy Potter and falls instantly in love. She, despite her stand-offish manner, she is smitten too.

However she lays down an ultimatum: if Roy wants to be with her, he will have to give up his evil ways and seek an honest living. Only one problem: zero cash, and you can't start a new, honest life without some old, dishonest cash to git you going, now can you? So Roy decides to rob a stagecoach before he breaks up the gang. Flossie, however, the barmaid, is annoyed at Roy for leaving her and squeals to Stool, who sets a trap for Roy. Of course he evades it, and makes it back to Betsy with the help of a dwarf whom he calls "the toy cowboy". Uh-huh. Unfortunately she takes Slade's gun, trying to force him to see sense, and of course he's taken into custody.

Using Stool's dumb and hungry dog to chew through his ropes after he's smeared what's supposed to be his last meal on them, Roy heads off to Betsy, and they decide to run off to Boston, where Roy is not known and can start a new life. Betsy introduces him to her friend, Doctor Logan Delp, who will try to cure him of his psychopathic tendencies and turn him into a respectable man. Eventually, after a long and difficult series of sessions, Roy is ready to enter polite society. He even gets a job with her cousin Harry, working for him at his shoe store. He asks Betsy to be his mistress (she was obviously expecting something more traditional, but you can't change everything about the guy) but his downfall comes when he is entrusted with lodging the shop's takings in the bank. He tries, but snaps, and instead robs the bank, reverting to his old ways and returning to his gang.

When the news breaks of the new robbery, Stool again tries to entice Marshall Bell, this time using the lure of Betsy herself as the inducement (“If Slade were out of the picture she would be yours”) and this swings the pendulum; Bell decides he will come out of retirement after all. However instead of being the rough, tough lawman we expect, Bell is more of the singing cowboy kind, lopin' along on his horse playing his guitar (which has been specially adapted to have a rifle made into its neck) and wearing a spangly costume. He certainly loves himself, and is not shy about showing it. He romances and woos Betsy, telling her he is retired, and when Roy is told of the impending wedding, he has to stop it. Of course Bell has his deputies there, ready to take down Roy, but he doesn't realise that Roy's men have already infiltrated the wedding and are rather implausibly all dressed as bridesmaids! Roy himself is the priest. Betsy faints, and there's a Mexican standoff till Roy tricks Bell's men into raising their hands and a shooting match breaks out. Roy grabs the unconscious bride and they leg it, closely followed by a posse led by Stool and Bell. They come to a cliff and can go no further, but Roy unhooks the horse and they jump over the gorge, evading their pursuers.

Just when it looks like they're safe though, Bing Bell arrives, having taken another route. He gets the drop on Roy, but when Betsy hears that he used her she takes out a concealed gun from her garter and he is disarmed. As Slade goes to cause him the most hurt he can – shoot his precious guitar – Bell shields it and gets shot. After several hilarious choruses he finally kicks the bucket. By now the posse – or what remains of it anyway, after many men have tried and failed to jump the ravine - has arrived outside. They demand Roy surrender, and he does, but when they look again it's Betsy, dressed in Roy's clothes. They've swapped clothes, and Evil Roy Slade, the baddest badass the West has ever known, escapes dressed as a woman. What a guy!

How evil!

Even in the first few minutes of the movie we're treated to examples of what a no-goodnik Roy is. He makes a cripple dance by shooting at his feet, throws one woman in the mud, pulls another down off her horse and robs it, takes an old lady's shawl and puts in in the mud she's trying to cross, then walks over himself leaving her behind, and literally takes the shirt off one guy's back to wipe his boots! What a guy!

When he leaves Betsy, reverting to his evil ways, he even robs the baby's piggy bank!

Quotes

Stool: “You're not a coward, huh? What do you call a nephew who rode sidesaddle till he was twenty-four? What do you call a nephew who won't form a posse unless it's daytime, as he's afraid of the dark?”

Stool: “It's a message from Bing Bell!”
Nephew: “Someone at the door?”
Stool: “That's his name, stupid!”
(This becomes a recurring joke in the film, every time Bell's name is mentioned).

Snake: “Hey I know who she is! That's Miss Betsy Potter! I seen her on the front of the newspaper when she won the Miss Frontier competition!” (Tips hat) “It's an honour to rob ye, ma'am!”

Betsy: “I'm sad there's such evil in your heart.”
Roy: “In my heart, in my hands, in my eyes. And a lot in my feet. I love kickin'!”
Betsy's mother: “Betsy, don't get any ideas about trying to reform this coyote.”
Roy: “You mind if I kill your mother so we can talk in peace?”

Roy, as they're playing poker: “What ya got?”
Gang member: “I got kings, with an ace!”
Roy: “I got threes, with a gun!”
Gang member: “You win!”

Roy: “Honey, you got pierced ears?”
Flossie: “No.”
Roy: “Shut up, or you will.”

Betsy: “It would never work, Roy. I wanna help people and you wanna rob them.”
Roy: “Aw, with a little effort you could change!”

Roy (praying): “And please, dear Lord, don't let no-one sneak up and shoot me in the back while I'm shooting someone in the front. Amen.”

Roy: “I can't change. I worked a lot of hard years to get to the bottom!”
Betsy: “Oh you're always on the run!”
Roy: “I ain't always on the run!”
Snake (shouting): “Hey Roy!”
Roy: “I gotta run.”
Gang member: “There's someone comin', Evil Roy!”
Roy: “Kill him!”
Snake: “It's a woman!”
Roy: “Wound her!”

Betsy: “I love you Roy.”
Roy: “Ain't nobody ever said that to me before.”
Betsy's mother: “Move, buzzard-breath!”
Roy: “That's been said to me before!”

Roy: “Boys, as we stand here ready to rob our last stage, I want you to remember the five most important things I taught ya: Sneakin', lyin', arrogance, dirtiness and evil. Put 'em all together, they spell Slade!”

Clifford: “I got five hundred dollars for any man who'll turn on his boss!”
(All of Roy's gang desert him, save Snake).
Snake: “Don't you worry boss: I'll stay with ya!”
Roy: “Don't be an idiot! That man's offerin' you five hundred dollars! Did I not teach you anything? You get out there and betray me like the others!”

Betsy: “Let's try some arithemtic. If you had six apples and your neighbour took three of them, what would you have?”
Roy: “A dead neighbour and all six apples!”

Harry: “You're really getting the hang of this, Roy.”
Roy (feeling his neck uncomfortably): “I don't like that expression.”

Roy: “I'm tryin' honey, I'm tryin' but I just can't do it. This straight life ain't for me. It's too boring! My idea of a nine to five job is nine guys robbin' five guys!”

Betsy: “He'll be back, Mister Stool. And when he does come back, I'm dedicatin' the rest of my life to making Evil Roy Slade a good man.”
Stool: “And I'm dedicating my life to making Evil Roy Slade a dead man.”

Good scenes

As Roy and his gang hold up the bank in Willow Bend, he decides to kiss one of the prettier girls. He doesn't realise he still has his bandana on, but then removes it and kisses her. As he turns around, a somewhat less attractive girl offers herself, eyes closed and lips puckered. He replaces the bandana and duly kisses her.

Anxious to get Betsy's address, Roy searches in the bank for a pen. He finds one, attached to one of the desks, and drags the whole thing around after him as he looks for paper.

To make sure there is no ambiguity about his reply to Stool's request for him to come out of retirement and take down Slade, Marshall Bing Bell listens as his servant reads the note from the railroad boss, then, as he is reading, lights it on fire! That'll be a no, then. Later, he does the same thing to Clifford's hat as Stool's nephew arrives in Boston to again plead for his help. I love the way that for most of the movie you don't even see him, just the back of his armchair and a hand coming up to set fire to whatever displeases him.

Slade calls the blacksmith to get the horses. This turns out to be a man called Smith, who happens to be ... black!

Invited to sit down on a swinging seat by the smitten Betsy, Roy eyes the slowly swaying rope edgily. “I've seen a lot of my gang meet their maker swingin' back and forth like that!”

Determined to change him, Betsy switches Roy's gun for a Bible. He runs out using it like a gun, shouting “Pow! Pow!” Then, “Why am I shouting pow pow?” he asks himself, realising “Cause this thing ain't going pow pow!” Betsy shouts out to him “Turn to page nine, Roy!” He yells back “There'd better be a stick of dynamite on page nine!” She cries “Read what it says” and he growls “I can't read, ya dumb .... love of my life!”

As Roy and Betsy arrive at her cousin's house in Boston, they decide to hide and surprise the new arrivals. Not a good idea, as Roy shouts “Ambush!” and shoots the place up!

Roy wanders over to a cello player, tells him to “take that big fiddle from out between your legs: there's ladies present!” and makes him play it under his chin!

The scene where Doctor Delp tries to make Roy walk without his weapons for the first time ever (“I even take a bath with my guns!”) is hilarious.

Starting work at Cousin Harry's shoe shop, Slade is shown a shoe horn. “What's this?” he asks, and is told it's used to help people put their shoes on. (For you kids that don't know, it's inserted between the foot and the shoe, to allow the one to ease into the other). Intrigued, Slade goes to a guy trying on a shoe who complains it won't fit. “You need a shoe horn!” he tells the guy, and presses it menacingly against his throat. “Now you just get that shoe on!” he orders. The guy sweats, says “It's on! It's on!” Roy looks at the shoe horn with new admiration. “He heh! This thing really works!” he remarks.

His sales technique needs a little working on though. He forces a shoe box into a customer's hands, growls “Hello! Here's good shoes! Gimme money!” When another customer complains one set of shoes is too tight (Roy can't force the guy's foot in, even though he bangs and squeezes them till the guy nearly passes out) and the previous pair too loose, he has a brainwave. Hammering the customer's toe he grins “Now, that'll swell up real nice, and them loose shoes'll fit you a treat!”

One of the very best scenes. Roy, left to drop the day's takings into the bank, overcomes his natural impulses to rob the money and makes it to the bank. He deposits the money, then a moment later stops, robs the gun from a guard and says “Gimme back my money.” Then he grins. “In fact, gimme back everyone else's money too!”

As Marshall Bell's servant prepares him to re-enter the world of gunfighters, he says “Here is the weapon that won the West!” and takes out a shiny ... guitar!!! Mind you, it turns out the neck of the guitar is a rifle!

The total hilarity of seeing veiled, bearded and very tall bridesmaids! As one woman says to another “Betsy sure is pretty, but she got a lot of ugly friends!”

As everyone covers everyone else – my best man got you covered, my bridesmaids got him covered, my ushers got them covered etc – Roy gets confused trying to see who has the numerical advantage and says “Would everyone on the marshall's side please raise your hands?” And they do!

Why do I love this movie?

How could you not? It takes all the standard Western tropes and pokes fun at them. There have been comedic westerns before, but few that in my view lampoon the lifestyle of the genre so well. Not even Blazing Saddles comes close. But it's not only that: this movie has some semi-serious messages too, as discussed below. John Astin is perfect in the part, his slightly maniacal smile, his dangerously glinting eyes, the curl of his lip all working to perfectly portray a man with no morals, but who you can't help but like. Rooney is good as Stool, Roy's nemesis, and Dick Shawn, as Bing Bell (is that the door?) though he makes his entrance late in the movie, is great too, but nobody can take the limelight from Astin as Evil Roy Slade.

The movie is so quotable (as you can see above, and that wasn't everything: I had to leave some out) and yet so many people will never have even heard of it, due mostly I guess to its being a made-for-TV movie which was, to my recollection anyway, only shown once, though I must be wrong, as I remember my workmates urging me to see it when it was shown on the telly. May have originally been before my time though. It never dips into stupid parody, though the satire is sharp and on the nose, and even the love scenes, few as they are, are not cloying or sentimental. Any time Betsy and Roy are being intimate together, you get the feeling Roy could pull a gun at any time.

Much of the style of this would be used in later movies such as Airplane! And The Naked Gun; a whole new subgenre of comedy that laughed at itself and, while at least here the characters did not break the fourth wall, they definitely move a few bricks out of the way on occasion. You can see they're laughing at themselves, yet the whole thing is played pretty much with a straight face, though not as deadpan as the likes of Leslie Nielson would make popular ten years later.

Message in the movie

A few, to be sure. One being either you can't change a bad man into a good one, though that won't stop a woman trying. Another being that the good guys don't necessarily always win, especially in comedy. A further one might be that some of the western movies took themselves so seriously that it's a wonder the actors could ride horses with the pole up their arses, and this breaks all that down really well. And I guess there's also the old favourite: money don't buy you happiness but in the end love conquers all.

God bless you, Evil Roy Slade!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018