Only For Lunatics

Public

...and talk about how even now, the extent of her abuse by MGM is so often downplayed. You see things like "She had a tough time on The Wizard of Oz" as if it were simply hard work for her. I actually thought about that post ages ago. But then I went down a rabbit hole, as is all too easy to do online. I'm not a massive film person as most of you know, and so things like the fine details of how Alfred Hitchcock abused Tippi Hedren and wrecked her career were at least partly new to me. But then, while doing something else altogether, I happened across a detail that led me down a second and very disturbing rabbit hole.

I was reading about Elvis, and specifically his hit "All Shook Up", and in that article it says: "Future Last House on the Left actor David Hess, using the stage name David Hill, was the first to record the song". Now, I enjoy digging out original versions of songs that became more famous as covers, so that caught my eye. Wikipedia being the time sink that it is, I found myself clicking on David Hess's name to read about him -- when I saw he wrote music too, I was mostly curious about whether he'd written any hits (yes -- "Speedy Gonzales"). But that's where things started to get unpleasant.

Deep in the article on Hess, in the section about his part in the early Wes Craven horror movie The Last House on the Left, was this line: "A Method actor, he famously threatened to attack costar Sandra Peabody to get a more genuine reaction from her." That was it, nothing else. I didn't know this at all. It wasn't "famously" to me. I could easily have shrugged and passed on at that point -- but there was a citation for a 2000 book about the making of the movie, by a guy named David A. Szulkin. I didn't have the book (why would I?) and I would probably have left it there, except for one of those weird coincidences. Because a few days later, I saw that same book in a second-hand bookshop.

I didn't buy it -- it was too expensive and being sold as a collectible. But I remembered the Hess story and was curious, and I thought I'd see if this book had anything about it. I flicked through it to find Sandra Peabody's words. (I later discovered this is the only interview she has ever given about the film in all the 53 years since its release.) I was expecting the usual stuff about how the set was a mess, they had no budget, and a light-hearted recollection of the incident -- things like how Hess would wave a rubber knife around manically, she still giggled to remember it, it was a fun memory for commentary tracks and convention panels, you know how these things go.

No. Not this time.

And that led me down a second rabbit hole, the disturbing one I mentioned up top. Specifically, one about conditions during filming of The Last House on the Left back in 1972. As is probably already evident, I've never seen that movie. I nearly did once, back when I was young and stupid(er) and was at that time of life when you want to see shocking things just because, but something came up and I never did. Since then I've seen clips and stills as part of things like general documentaries about the evolution of the horror genre and in YouTube discussions of similar. I'm not a fan of slasher movies in general, but I can find background information interesting even regarding genres I don't follow.

Anyway, I read one article and then another, and another. I looked at Reddit posts and Twitter threads. I perused retrospective articles. I watched a few of the shorter YouTube videos about how the film was made. And one thing became more and more clear to me: this was way, way beyond "just how it was in the Seventies". Sandra Peabody had suffered for real during the making of this movie. I was relieved to discover that she'd since ended up in a different career and made a success of it, but I was not at all relieved when I got to the details of how she'd been mistreated on set. They were horrifying.

I've gone on for way too long already, and I'm getting upset, so I'm going to put the details of why I will never, ever watch the full film -- and why it needs a huge flashing asterisk every time it's blithely celebrated as a cult classic -- in another post. That'll probably be in two or three days, as I'm busy tomorrow and in any case I'd like to write about something more pleasant in between. But, suffice it to say, David Hess is (well, was; he died in 2011) one of the very few actors I truly despise as a person. And that is pretty much entirely because of Sandra Peabody's treatment while they were making The Last House on the Left.

Public


215/365: Shakespeare Inn, Bridgnorth
Click for a larger, sharper image
I was in Bridgnorth today, which isn't far but which I hadn't had cause to visit in a while. As usual, most of what I did was boring stuff, but in between the showers I did allow myself a bit of walking around the town. Here's the Shakespeare Inn, on the edge of the town centre and one of Bridgnorth's best known pubs. It was built in 1792 by Joule's Brewery. On the lamps by the front door and the hanging sign on the right-hand wall you can see Joules' red cross trademark. Since this pre-dates the symbol's modern use for the Red Cross, they have the right to continue to use it commercially – although they are forbidden from using it on a white dray, as that would count as impersonating an ambulance!

Public

Zack Polanski has won the ballot, with a big majority (over 80%) but a fairly poor turnout (about a third). That would seem to cement the direction of the Greens now as an explicitly radical left-wing party, closer to the Corbyn/Sultana vehicle than anything else. We'll see what happens, but in this part of the world -- where they have an MP in North Herefordshire -- I think they're quite likely to lose a lot of ground. The Greens around here are much more the traditional kind, moderate and localist, who will share the anger about river pollution and might even back water nationalisation on the grounds the current companies have failed. What they won't be receptive to is "Smash the bosses!" class war-style narratives. They'll also be actively put off by too much talking about Palestine -- not because they "love Israel" as the siller social media types have it, but because they believe environmentalism should be the issue for the party, not necessarily wider issues of social justice.

The Lib Dems are surprisingly weak in North Herefordshire -- they lost their deposit at the general election -- which means an obvious alternative home for these voters is less likely than perhaps you'd imagine it to be. Traditionally people in those areas have been moderate, old-fashioned Conservatives -- but that version of the Tories has been more or less destroyed by its own national leadership. Who now is a centrist Green voter who sees climate change as a huge issue but doesn't consider themselves a left-winger to vote for? The answer to that question -- whether they stay in a party that's set to be radical in ways that they really are not, or whether they look elsewhere -- is likely to have quite a bearing on politics in the Marches.

Public


213: All Saints Church, Wribbenhall
Click for a larger, sharper image
Yes, thank you Mr Holder, that's quite enough of that for now. But indeed: there were mince pies on the shelves in Sainsbury's this afternoon. I am really, really not ready for that on 1st September! Fortunately the major Christmas invasion has not yet begun, thanks in part to the growth of Halloween junk over the last decade or so. My photo today has nothing to do with that, except insofar as being a Christian church pretty much requires some kind of link with Christmas! This is All Saints in Wribbenhall. It's actually right in the inner suburban part of eastern Bewdley, even if it doesn't look like it from this angle.

Public


212/365: Pride Union Flags, Bewdley
Click for a larger, sharper image
A nice antidote to the hijacking of my national flag(s) for unsavoury purposes by the hard and far right. This flat above a pub in the middle of Bewdley has decided to make a real show of its flags. Except that these are Pride Union Flags! Considering the particular bigotries of many of the people misusing my actual national flags, this seems like a nice antidote! I don't think the pub itself (the Real Ale Tavern) underneath is involved, but I'm not really sure as it's not a pub I go into. Don't be deceived by the nice sunny weather -- it absolutely hammered down for a while later on!