January Round-Up

Percy’s Progress (1974) 

 A re-watch of the 1978 Americanized version, for which distributor Joseph Brenner added 'additional footage' including a sex scene involving a dwarf in order to justify his US title 'It's Not the Size that Counts'. The dwarf in question being none other than Luis De Jesus, a ubiquitous hardcore performer best remembered for playing Ralphus in Bloodsucking Freaks (and sporting the same goatee and afro combo in the 'new' footage here). Brenner also added a pre-credits penis transplant sequence explaining Percy's backstory and featuring an American actor hidden behind a surgical mask pretending to be the Denholm Elliott character, Sir Emmanuel Whitbread. After thawing out the new penis ("what a whopper, that’s the coldest cock I’ve ever seen") and transplanting it onto Percy the success of the operation is validated by the fact that Percy then has an enormous erection under the sheets, which Whitbread patriotically plants a British flag on.

It's difficult to say for sure, since he is hidden by a surgical mask, but the actor doubling as Denholm Elliott in this scene 'might' possibly be Gaylord St. James (the father in Last House on the Left). His attempt at a British accent is fairly diabolical; then again no more diabolical than Judy Geeson's American accent in the actual film or Alan Lake's Irish one.




I haven't seen the original British version of Percy's Progress since the BBC screened it in the early 2000s, but it looks like Brenner removed a few scenes along the way (Barry Humphries 2nd role in the film ‘Australian TV Lady’ is nowhere to be seen here) and Brenner may have redubbed a few scenes with stronger dialogue. During the scene where Ronald Fraser is watching the beauty contest on TV he chides a contestant for "flaunting her gorgeous twat" and refers to her as “a darling cunt”. Dialogue which it is hard to believe they could get away with in a mainstream British comedy in 1974. The fact that twat is pronounced the American way 'twad' makes this an especially suspicious redub. The gross, misogynistic nature of the additional material fully lives up to the mental image of Brenner given to you by Brian De Palma’s Hi, Mum! (Allen Garfield’s character in that film ‘Joe Banner’ is an obvious parody of Brenner.)

Trying to work out when, where and why Brenner reworked the film provides a distracting pastime but can't disguise the fact that in any version Percy's Progress is the kind of joyless, unfunny slog that gives British sex comedies a bad name. Positives?...well the Madeline Smith scene made me laugh, and dare I say hearing Maddie talk dirty is about as sexy as this film gets….and errmm Cyprus looks nice…oh and the Carl Wayne theme song is rather lovely, shame that it isn't long enough to sustain throughout the end credits, resulting in half of the end credits playing over complete silence. A baffling decision that Brenner didn't bother to rectify.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) 

Terrible sequels seem to be the running theme of my early 2019 viewing...Percy's Progress, The Hills Have Eyes Part 2, and now Jaws: The Revenge.

Have I still not fully recovered from the Christmas/New Year festivities or does Jaws: The Revenge actually share many plot similarities with Holiday On The Buses?...think about it, a widow (Lorraine Gary/Doris Hare) agrees to go on a chaotic family holiday, which includes her trouble making grandchild (Judith Barsi/Adam Rhodes), and where she unexpectedly falls in love with a drunken bloke (Michael Caine/Wilfrid Brambell) a relationship that causes concern for her grown up son (Lance Guest/Reg Varney) and his wisecracking best friend (Mario Van Peebles/Bob Grant), who are simultaneously being pursued by a vengeful character from the family's past (Jaws/Blakey). Also has any woman more closely resembled Facebook's default female avatar than Lorraine Gary in this film?, she should sue FB for royalties.


 

Bullseye! (1990) 

1990: the year that Michael Winner had nothing better to do with his time than film dogs having sex, in fairness I did laugh a total of six times during this film but only remember the reason for three of them the day after (the 'broken home' gag, the dog sex and the scene with the elderly Jewish guy who turns out to be a kung-fu expert). Other memorable moments include the worst exploding head special effect you're likely to see outside of Revenge of the Living Zombies and a 'death by telephone' scene unexpectedly plagiarized from Dr Phibes Rises Again.

Bullseye! came out around the same time as John Derek's Ghosts Can't Do It, and there are comparisons to be drawn. Both are crude, inappropriate, barely competent fiascos made by directors who had known success and the good life, and by this stage in their careers probably viewed filmmaking as little more than a lark for they and their famous chums to indulge in. Bullseye! does come across as a gathering of the close friends of Michael Winner, for which poor Menahem Golan was footing the bill, presumably in the hope that the teaming up of Moore and Caine would turn a profit. I tend to suspect that neither Winner or John Derek, Winner especially, really gave a flying fuck what the critics or the public made of the end result by this point, which is perhaps just as well. I also suspect that that Doberman had much more fun appearing in this film than anyone could have from watching it.

A Dog Called… Vengeance (1979) 

Gripping, edge of your seat thriller starring Jason Miller as an escaped political prisoner being relentlessly pursued across a South American dictatorship by a vicious dog belonging to a dead prison guard. Lots of sweaty, paranoid atmosphere in this, jolting violence, plus a typically committed performance by Miller in a physically grueling role (that also includes a fair amount of full frontal nudity). Should be more well known.



From Hell to the Wild West (2017)

 ...in which we learn that Jack the Ripper spoke like a heavy metal album being played backwards, wore a Leatherface type mask and escaped to the Wild West where he was pursued by a Charles Bronson lookalike, they don't teach you stuff like this in school.

Frequently feels like the director wanted to make a Texas Chainsaw Massacre rip-off (as well as the leatherface mask Jack the Ripper also likes to hang body parts up on meat hooks) but got waylaid by the sudden availability of a Wild West town setting and a Hungarian Bronson doppelgänger. It's a rather workman like production, but the mishmash of genres and the Bronson impersonator gives it some novelty value.



Watchers 2 (1990) 

Above average Roger Corman creature feature from the 1990s that proved lots of fun to revisit, Watchers 2 has chiefly lingered in my memory for all these years, less because of the film itself and more because of the circumstances in which I first saw it during the VHS era. To give a bit of back-story…My aunt had recently adopted a dog, which turned out to be a sheep dog, a breed hyperactive by nature and really meant for the outdoor lifestyle. One of the traits of this dog was to become agitated and aggressive if another dog passed by outside or even if another dog or any kind of animal for that matter appeared on television.

What a smart idea it was then to take Watchers 2 round to watch at her house, a film prominently featuring a dog and a growling monster. As you might expect every time either of them appeared onscreen this dog would become berserk and start barking and circling around the TV. It got to the point where we were just dreading the idea of anything happening in this film for fear of the dog's inevitable response. Events came to a head when both the dog and the monster appeared together onscreen, the sight and noise of which proved too much for my aunt's dog who proceeded to launch itself at the TV, head butted the screen and nearly knocked itself unconscious.
Trust me the passage of time does not erase the memory of what a dog's skull violently making contact with a TV screen sounds like. So, happy memories of Watchers 2…the film that left my aunt’s dog an emotional cripple with a sore head.

Eventually my aunt gave the dog up for adoption to a more suitable home where it hopefully led a long and happy life. The final straw came when the dog developed an unfortunate habit of urinating into her VCR machine. Which over the years I've always wondered how it managed to actually do that...remembering that VCR machines used to have those flaps where you inserted the video tapes themselves and that you had to lift up before you could get to the guts of the VCR. So how did a dog manage to simultaneously lift up the VCR flap and urinate inside it? Not even the super intelligent dog in Watchers 2 ever mastered that!!!

"Man's best friend, my ass!!!"