Warning: if you watch Horror Express on Halloween you may wake up the next morning to discover your entire face has transformed into a Telly Savalas album “if a picture paints a thousand words, then why can’t I paint you”?
Aka ‘Good Guys Wear Tweed’. Seriously though, is there any greater evidence that Cushing and Lee were a marvellous screen double-act than Horror Express, impossible to watch the film and not miss them both, dearly.
This dog really, really doesn’t want to be in the movie does it? In the context of the film its meant to ‘sense’ the danger posed by the creature in the crate, in reality it probably wants to get away because this mad woman is intent on plucking it like a turkey.
On the basis of revisiting this film I’m convinced that allot of the personality, and the sense of humour at work in both Horror Express and Psychomania comes from their writing duo of Arnaud d'Usseau and Julian Zimet, the pair had a real ear for witty dialogue “Monster? We're British, you know” has rightly entered into legend.
“shhh, don’t wake her up, she’s a dreadful actress”. In fairness Faith Clift isn’t too bad in a small role here, its only later when she played one of the main roles in Cataclysm (1980) that her ‘limitations’ become more obvious. I wonder what the story was with her and film producer Philip Yordan. Cataclysm comes across as a thinly veiled excuse to promote her acting, and Clift doesn’t appear to have ever acted outside of Yordan’s productions (although he goes uncredited in Horror Express, I believe Yordan did have a financial stake in the production)
To misquote Kate Bush “Faith Clift, its me, your Telly, I’ve come home”
It does seem unusual that the ‘This is Telly Savalas’ album knocked on the door of Horror Express for its cover photo, rather than going the more obvious Kojak route. Then again, that is a damn cool image, I mean Telly is holding a cigarette and a gun in the same hand ferchristsakes!!
‘If’ isn’t actually on that album, but Telly does sing Dylan on it.
‘Arranged, conducted and produced by John Cacavas’. Who seems to have been Telly’s main man in that respect, Cacavas having done soundtrack duties on both Kojak and Horror Express.
Throwing around diminutive Chinese men, whipping a monk and hitting on women, Telly sure knows how to gate-crash a party
"God made a few beautiful heads, the rest he covered with hair"- Telly Savalas
“If the world should stop revolving spinning slowly down to die, I'd spend the end with you.”
No comments:
Post a Comment