Favorite Oliver Reed Moment

My favourite Reed moment is him kissing Valerie Singleton in some filmed insert for (possibly) Nationwide. I seem to recall a camera tracking them from above, and Ollie waiting until they were behind a hedge and couldn't be seen before swooping on poor Val. She said something bland and polite like "Well, it's not every day you're kissed by Oliver Reed".

This is on the very outer edge of my memory, somewhere near Amersham or Uxbridge. It might not have been Val Singleton. It may not even have been Ollie Reed.

His brother's that tennis commentator, isn't he?

Ollie was a bit gorgeous in the late 60s, don't you think?

My favorite screen moments have to include his gondolier by way of a pirate getup in "The Assassination Bureau", pretty much all of the "I'll Never Forget What 'Is name", but especially the dancing scene. His first appearance in "The Girl Getters" ooh baby. The barb wire escape scene in "Sitting Target". It just doesn't get much better than that. Manly, fierce, unremorseful, charming and that scar!

dollie

Mr. Reed was (genuinely) great in The Devils.

Also I heard that he plotted the getting- dressed hidden-cam WITH The Word ppl, but that may not be true.

As someone I knew at the time wondered - just which TV genius thought 'I know, it'll be late on a Saturday night, in a dark TV studio, with a load of free booze, and a live transmission...we'll get OLIVER REED in to make sure its a serious discussion.'

(My fave After Dark: had Andrea Dworkin & Anthony Burgess on it amongst others, was hosted by Anthony Claire, think it was about sex, or maybe pornography....though there was another separate one about the porn movie industry later on. I always wonderered whether the seating arrangements were carefully planned on power/conflict basis, or whether the guests just determined it for themselves.)

I watched the *l*v*r r**d thing that was on after it and that made me laugh too. especially his brother that looked a bit like j*ffr*y *rch*r and had two bottles of alcho-pops on the sideboard behind him during his interview. one r*d, one wh*t*.

http://www.metafilter.com/74379/You-meet-a-better-class-of-people-in-pubs

http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/8938571/what-fresh-lunacy-is-this-by-robert-sellers-review/

Midway through this startling book, Robert Sellers asks himself a question with such apparent seriousness I barked with laughter: ‘Was Oliver Reed an alcoholic?’ A more pertinent enquiry would be: ‘Was the man ever capable of drawing a sober breath?’ What Fresh Lunacy is This? is the monotonous chronicle of a nasty drunk whose ‘explosions of pissed aggression’ filled every waking hour, culminating in a deranged session, while filming Castaway in 1986, when he attacked an aeroplane.

This is just the first paragraph.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Alcohol-related_deaths_in_Malta

I'm not a fan of Reed's bully behaviour, but he could be a very good actor in the right roles - his performance in 'The Devils' is phenomenal.

Reed was able to afford an Edwardian mansion near Dorking,

For a long time Reed had a life size fibreglass rhino parked outside near the road. We used to drive past it occasionally. A distant relative was briefly hired to look after Reed's horses, and confirmed that he was a drunken bully.

thank you for linking to that, ned. it's a shame roger lewis mostly reviews for right-wing shit mags, he is the v best. i genuinely lolled when i read:

When he met Gayle Hunnicut, then the wife of David Hemmings and later of Simon Jenkins, he thought he was being charming by announcing, ‘Give me a kiss, you fucking lovely Texan whore.’

He was a rub Klaus Kinki wasn't he?

Kinski..

http://locotigrero.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/klaus-kinski-oliver-reed-you-dont-touch-anybody-unless-i-say-so-venom.jpg

i can't even imagine being stuck in a room with those two and a gun. i guess it could be worse -- the room could also be full of booze, or rats, but it would be pretty bad without those things too.

they are actually in a house together with a gun and a giant killer snake (the still is from the movie Venom, which they starred in together.)
Venom was directed by Piers Haggard, who also made the far superior Blood on Satan's Claw: he took over Venom at the last minute from Tobe Hooper who was fired a couple of days into production (something that has happened to Hooper more than once...) There's a DVD commentary track by the very middle class and urbane Haggard, where he p.amusingly describes the impossibility of trying to direct these two jokers. Reed like to wind up the easily wind-uppable Kinski by calling him a 'Nazi Cunt'.

OH I love Blood on Satan's Claw! The soundtrack is wonderful too. I think if i had to pick sides while stuck in the room, I would go with Oliver Reed. Recent revelations (what ever happened to those allegations, btw?) about Kinski disqualify him for allegiance immediately.

Favourite drunk moment has to be him on short-lived late night C4 open-ended roundtable discussion show 'After Dark'. Now I'm not sure whether I actually saw this or just the clips on some TV Hell roundup.

I saw the whole thing and, really, you had to see the whole thing because he went beyond drunkenness into some sort (inadvertently hilarious) zone of brain damaged insanity

great photo

also you really can't beat Dorking as a place name (well, not by much)

Horsham matches it in some respects (Whore sham? Whore's ham?)

Just when you think The Assassination Bureau can't get any more fun, there's a sword fight inside a Zeppelin.

most of After Dark is on You Tube now of course

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XmkjGmDU3k

The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday got us through a difficult visit with the father-in-law last year. Pretty whacky and fun. Helped kill some time for sure.

Wife and I watched Lair of the White Worm and now she wants to see more Russell movies and it's so stupid that we can't watch The Devils I mean what fresh limbo is it trapped in ffs?

Also: I hope one day to see Reed's performance as Debussy in Russell's BBC biopic, it seems like dream casting to me.

we got a not terrible bootleg dvd on ebay (i think it was ebay?)

xpost

Warner Bros. still has a bug up their ass re: The Devils. They did consent to license the British theatrical cut to BFI for a Region 2 DVD-only release last year, but refused to supply the footage for the "Rape of Christ" sequence and a couple other bits from Russell's director's cut to the degree that the accompanying "Hell On Earth" doc (which contained the first public airing of those scenes) had to be re-edited without them.

There is this bootleg which has an approximation of the Director's Cut along with the unedited "Hell On Earth". My best friend, who's a major Russell nut, loaned me his copy and that disc definitely leaves something to be desired. The PQ is hit and miss: the excised scenes are of lesser print quality and a different aspect ratio than the feature, of which the print they had access to (I think they used a widescreen VHS master) wasn't in great shape to start with.

It's watchable with the right amount of salt grains, and, quibbling aside, it is a great film. I guess this is being challops-y, but I feel the film is probably better without the "Rape of Christ", which tries too hard to be outrageous but just feels silly now (and not 'good silly' like Lisztomania).

I saw it twice in the early 90s at the Neptune in Seattle (iirc)-- I wonder what cut it was bc I am not 100% certain I remember the "Rape of Christ". In any case, the movie made me weep copiously and fuck it I will buy a dodgy patchwork DVD.

Ugh. I just watched that After Dark thing on YT, and it made me feel very uncomfortable because pompous brit accent aside, Ive lately had to deal with someone who is *exactly* like that when tanked (rambles, makes no sense, gets shouty/offensive).

The Devils director's commentary with Russell, Kermode etc here FYI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYtw8qcf1NY

oh and here's Hell On Earth the channel 4 doc about The Devils from '04

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xeg1yIvalSo

http://24.media.tumblr.com/f02831c58ac7fc7f6867cc13324a6e6a/tumblr_n05cw3frAu1r4tb8lo1_500.gif

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/shelley_winters_dumped_whisky_on_oliver_reed

Playing Devil's Advocate for a moment, Winters was a bit rude at first in a 'look at me!' way with her interruptions during the first part of Reed's interview.

Cutthroat Island (1995)

Oliver Reed was originally cast as Mordechai Fingers. He was fired after getting in a bar fight and mooning at Geena Davis.