Why Spend Your Sadness Now?
Now Playing: David Bowie--"All The Madmen"
Watching The Omega Man (1971) at long last actually made me feel dirty for some reason. The plot's fairly simple: Charlton Heston is the last human being left, fighting off mutants in a Los Angeles devastated by bacteriological warfare. I've long wanted to taste this flick, as it apparently features Chuck at his most hilariously overwrought. The first five minutes can be seen as a precis of the whole movie, but also serve as a wonderful allegory for libertarian ideology. Chuck drives around the deserted city in a series of cars, man surveying his domain--no goddamn government or taxes or other people to bother you--there's someone at a window! Chuck screeches his car to a halt and immediately opens fire with a submachine gun. It wasn't as much fun as I thought it would be, although Anthony Zerbe is one of the few people living or dead who's been able to out-overact Chuck.

It was a weekend for movies, two of which further acquainted me with the genius of Mr. Dirk Bogarde. Damn the Defiant! (1962), a fairly routine action flick set during the 1797 mass mutiny in the British navy, features Dirk as a nasty second-in-command to Alec Guinness' deceptively ineffectual captain. It was okay, I suppose--British viewers might be surprised to see a young Johnny Briggs (Mike Baldwin on "Coronation Street") as one of the callow sailors. The Servant (1963), one of those movies I'd always meant to watch but for which I never found time, was awesome. Tony (James Fox) hires Barrett (Dirk) to be his manservant. Tony's fiancee (Wendy Craig) doesn't like Barrett all that much, but Barrett manages to preserve his position. It's actually a little boring until Barrett's saucy "sister" (they're siblings, just like the White Stripes!) Vera (Sarah Miles) arrives, enlivening things exponentially. Vera, all chipmunk cheeks and somehow sexy tweed skirts, and Barrett proceed to enthrall the weak-willed, incompetent Tony in a morass of decadence. Fun, fun, fun, is all I can say--Dirk's sneer almost rivals "Johnny's" in Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor, released that same year. How's that for a double bill?