Weirdhouse Cinema: Venom (1981)

In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe wrestle with their first full-blown snake movie: 1981’s “Venom.” It stars Oliver Reed, Klaus Kinski and a live black mamba snake from the London Zoo. Film historians still debate which was the more difficult actor of the three.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My
Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is
Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it is the
Serpentine our here on Weird House Cinema. Because today, Rob

(00:23):
am I right that this is our first snake movie.
It is. I mean, we've we've certainly had some snakes
and even killer snakes pop up in some of our
Florida movies that we did, including z and Frogs. But
Venom is going to be our first true snake movie. Now,
this movie is called Venom, but no, it's not that Venom. No,

(00:44):
it's not that other one either. It's this is Venom
nineteen eighty one, the original Venom, or well, one of
the original Venoms. I noticed that they are multiple films
with the title Venom, so I'm not sure if this
one is the true originator, but it's the one that
we're talking about here today. Man. I love a good
snake romp uh. You know, a snake movie really it

(01:06):
just gets you by the guts sometimes. So I love,
as we've discussed before, the the camp uh Supernatural Pleasures
of the Layer of the White Worm um to to
even what I would argue is maybe the best creature
feature of all time, the n Amazon snake hunt movie Anacondah,

(01:26):
in which the cardinal rule of great snake movies is observed.
And this is what I would argue. The rule is
any creature movie featuring an unusually large or unusually deadly
reptile must also contain at least one human actor who
is more reptilian than the creature itself. Now, in the
case of Anaconda, the You've got your giant c g

(01:48):
I reptile, but it is being constantly upstaged by John
Voight delivering one of the most bizarre performances I have
ever seen in any movie. Uh. You know, you just
at him. You can tell his blood is room temperature.
When he blinks his eyes they go horizontal. Uh and uh.
And his accent is just radioactive weirdness. He sounds like

(02:09):
he's trying to sort of be Peter Lorie doing a
like Spanish Count Dracula kind of thing, but also as
a ruthless jungle poacher with a ponytail. So that movie
definitely adheres to the rule. But I think today's pick
also observes the rule. That's right. Venom is very interesting

(02:30):
film in a large part because it features not one,
but two notoriously difficult actors, Oliver Read and Klass Kinsky.
Um uh and and there's actually another reportedly difficult actor
in this as well. Uh So you can really up
that to three. But it's especially evident with Reid and

(02:51):
Kinsky based on some of the stories and the fact
that they share a lot of screen time in this film.
Um So, you can imagine if they were constantly shouting
at each other, uh and almost coming to blows, it
would it would have been a particularly terrible working environment
for everyone on the picture. You can feel the bad
vibes through the screen. Yes, Now, I mean luckily they're

(03:12):
both playing villains and the characters are also supposed to
somewhat hate each other, so on the screen, uh, you know,
putting a setting aside anything we know about the making
of and these these actors themselves, you know, it ends
up working. But yeah, both Kinski and Read were kind
of larger than life figures. Both were noted hedonist in
their own ways, and they were they were both highly

(03:33):
talented actors whose careers were damaged by their difficult behavior.
So I think it's fair to say that, you know,
at the very least, they were both very problematic figures. Well,
if you're talking about their personal lives, I think, especially
in the case of Kinsky, that's sort of an understatement.
Oh yes, yeah, I feel like every time I learned
something new about Kinsky, I I regret it. Now. You know,

(03:54):
we're not going to focus that guess too much on
their personal lives. But you know, I admit that I
don't necessarily have the stomach for too much of that
sort of thing. But in know, some argue that read
sort of played up this hell raiser image for the press,
though there seems no denying his his alcoholism and is
also kind of like brute, macho demeanor. Um. Kinsky, on

(04:14):
the other hand, was prone to two outbursts and tantrums,
it seems, and seems to have suffered from mental illness. Um.
He also was apparently just reviled by many people who
had to work with him, and I think Werner Herzog
kind of stands apart is really the only filmmaker to
have been able to work with him multiple times for
a total of five different films. It's interesting to me, though,

(04:37):
that that Kinski played a vampire in two different nons
Ferato films um and Read played a werewolf in one
Hammer film. So, um, you know, in to a large extent,
we have vampires versus werewolves, um in this movie and
behind the scenes on this movie. Um, the vampire and
the werewolf really do seem like monstrous reflections of the

(05:00):
individual energies of these two actors. Okay, so we know
we're dealing with Klaus Kinski and Oliver Read both in
a snake movie. But the weird thing is, it's not
just a snake movie. Really. What this is is a
a genre hybrid. This is a realistic crime thriller plus snake. Yes,

(05:22):
another elevator pitch on that give it is a deadly
game of cat and mouse but mostly snake. Yeah, or
home alone but with Snake. All all good ways of
summing it up. Another way you could sum it up
is bad at crime, good at dying by Snake. Yeah.
The bad at crime note is is good. And this
is one of those where those films where the criminal

(05:46):
enterprise is perhaps not entirely well thought out and or
bad or and or mistakes are made um that just
lead to catastrophe. So it's it's uh, you know, in
a way, it's more in sort of the Fargo realm
of of crime cinema, like these are guys who really
screw up and uh and and and make mistakes that

(06:06):
are just catastrophic for their venture. I also want to
note that in terms of of boom mechanics, uh, I
think there are basically two kinds of snake movies. So
you could have like a big snake movie and a
stealth snake movie. So big snake movies would be more
like anaconda. They focus on the scale of snake in

(06:27):
order to intimidate, and this is either by having a
single very large snake or by having a large quantity
of regular sized snakes. But your stealth snake movies have
a snake instead that is regular sized, maybe especially deadly,
but it hides in places you don't expect and pops
out at you. And this is a film in the

(06:47):
latter camp. This is a stealth snake movie. This is
a movie about opening up the liquor cabinet and oops,
there's a black mamba and it bits you on the face.
Though it would be hilarious to try to imagine doing
the same premise, is this movie, like a realistic crime
thriller involving a kidnapping plot plus snake with like a
giant snake or a million snakes. Yeah, I mean, I

(07:11):
guess you could do a million snakes. It could be
like the million snakes are set loose in the house.
I mean, isn't snakes on a plane essentially that It's
like there's something else going on, right, It's not just
snakes on the plane. Isn't there like a hostage scenario
or something? Can I confess something? I've never seen all
of Snakes on a plane. I started watching it and

(07:31):
never finished it. I have to assume there's something else
going on besides snakes. So yeah, I think there's I
think there is a perfunctory crime element, like somebody it's
like a witness in a mob case, or something is
being transported on a plane. But I would say snakes
on a plane goes big snake because the issue is
there are many snakes on the plane. This film, with

(07:52):
the with the single snake um threat, it reminds me
a lot of the Sherlock Holmes adventure UM the Adventure
of the Speckled Band, which concerns like a very deadly
venomous snake that is responsible for a death, and I
wouldn't be surprised if that was ultimately one of the
inspirations on this story. Well, I think it's got a
lot of actors who were in Sherlock Holmes movies and

(08:15):
TV series in Britain. Right, Yeah, Yeah, we have more
than more than one Sherlock Holmes connection here for sure.
Well let's go ahead and jump right into the trailer here.
Venom the kidnap that became a murder, that became a siege,
that became a death trap. Venom. The fear explodes, trapping

(08:41):
bath hostages and kidnappers in his grip. The panic spreads,
sending an entire police force into action. But this is
a terror unlike anything anyone has ever faced, and when
it uncoils to strike, your blood will run cold. Venom,
whatever you feel, you will cheer m dude. This is

(09:13):
classic creature feature narration trailer narration. I absolutely love it.
What does he say? Venom the kidnap that became a murderer,
that became a siege, that became a death trap venom. Yeah,
they do a really good job to sell on this
new in that trailer. Uh, huh and uh. What he
also says this line? I kept thinking about it was like,

(09:34):
what does it mean? He says, whatever you feel you
will fear. Does that mean that once you start thinking
about snakes, like anytime something touches your body, I don't know,
you brush against the door frame as you're walking through it,
or I don't know, like a leaf falls on your shoulder,
You're always going to think it's a snake. I guess

(09:55):
so if we're being generous, I guess that that's maybe
what the ad copy here is trying to say. What what
what else would it mean? That's a weird line. Whatever
you feel you will fear? I don't know. It doesn't
really make much sense within the context of the film,
like yeah, I feel happy. Oh no, maybe it was
the director of the The actors they just said like

(10:19):
they're like, well, what's my character, what's my motivation? And
the director says, I don't know, whatever you feel you'll fear. Uh,
And they're like okay, because it does seem like, for
the most part, a lot of these actors were just
kind of turned loose to just do their their thing
with the character. Uh. And there's not really necessarily a
great sense of who the underlying character is supposed to be.

(10:39):
Do you remember how did you come across this movie? What? What?
What's the origin story here? Um? I have a couple
of different Blu rays of just trailers from like the
seventies and eighties, and I was watching a compilation and
this one popped up and I was like, oh, now
this this looks interesting. I suspected that because this is
very much one. If you see the trailer, you're like, yep, okay,

(11:02):
I gotta see that one. Well, let's jump right in
and talk about the various humans and the snakes involved
in this film. So the director is Piers Haggard born
nineteen thirty nine. Interestingly enough, Toby Hooper was going to
direct this picture originally, and I think may have been
working on it a little bit, but then he had

(11:23):
to bow out for some reason, and I think they're
varying accounts as to why. Uh. And then enters Haggard here,
who had previously directed the one British horror film The
Blood on Satan's Claw, a Divorce, the Quartermass Conclusion, also
the Peter Seller's comedy the Fiendish plot of Dr Fu Manchu,
which which everyone seemed to Hate in nineteen eighty and

(11:45):
it's still very much hated today, uh, seemingly with good reason.
And he also directed various TV episodes. He went on
to do more TV and potentially interesting looking sci fi
um uh film TV film titled The Life Force Experiment
in nineteen. Another interesting thing about him is he was

(12:05):
dialogue assistant on the nineteen sixty six film blow Up,
so he did the Life Force Experiment and he was
he came in to direct a movie that Toby Hooper
was going to direct, and Toby Hooper directed Life Force. Right.
I don't know that there's any connection between Life Force
and the Life Force Experiment, but uh, certainly the names

(12:25):
are similar. Now, this is an adaptation of a novel.
It's worth stressing. Um. The original novel, Venom was written
by Alan Schullfield, who lived nineteen thirty one through two
thousand seventeen, a South African author who I think lived
most of it, may have lived most of his life
in England. I think he was like, you know, London

(12:46):
based or something. But this book came out in nineteen
seventy seven and it still seems to be in print.
You can you can go obtain this book and read it. Uh.
I've never read any of his novels, but he was
quite prolific. He also one horror novel called Cat's Eyes
under the name Lee Jordan's and it seems like he
was simply he was reasonably well regarded and often worked

(13:09):
African history and culture into his works. Um apparently best
known for his McCrae and Silver novels, which were London
based detective books. Now, the screenplay was written by Robert
Carrington born eight who wrote such films as Wait Until
Dark and Fear Is the Key, and he was active
in the sixties, seventies and eighties. All right, let's move

(13:31):
on to the actors. So um, our reptilian humanoid h
in this film is of course Klaus Kinski m who
lived nine through one. He plays the character Jack mel So.
This is one of our main trio of criminals. Yes,
I guess he's kind of the mastermind. Um, he's uh,

(13:54):
he's supposed to be. I think we've we've mentioned at
one point that he's a member of the German under Underworld.
He's like a German Underworld figure and he has of
course flown in to London to uh to mastermind this
sort of. I'm not sure if he's the mastermind or not,
but anyway, he's going to be one of the main
operatives in this kidnapping plot. Uh yeah, I think he's

(14:17):
played as the mastermind because there are a lot of
scenes of him pointing a gun at Oliver Read and
being like, remember, you know you you don't drink whiskey
until I tell you to, alright. So Kinsky, of course,
the German born actor, perhaps best remembered today for his
smoldering presence and some of Werner Herzog's best known works
such as Geary, The Wrath of God, woyzeck Um, nos Ferrato,

(14:41):
The Vampire, Fitzgeraldo, and Cobra Verde. He also had a
small but memorable role in Dr Shivago In and accounts
of anyone who had to work with Kinsky, they tend
to run evolve around two different things. His raw talent,
you know that, undeniably like there's something electric in a
Klaus Kinsky performance, but also intense difficulty and displeasure of

(15:05):
working with him. It seems to be a common theme.
Um Herzog managed it, but also had a just legendarily
explosive relationship with Kinsky and at times, uh from from
you know stuff I've watched documentaries and so forth, it
seems like he was able to get his the best
stuff out of Kinsky by uh by sort of manipulating

(15:27):
him like, for instance, um, wearing him out with takes.
In the case of a gear a like a Kinsky
has this monologue at the end of it, and Kinsky
thought he needed to rage through it, and Herzog reportedly
just had him do it over and over again until
he was just worn out and could only deliver it
at the energy that Herzog wanted. Um. So, uh, you know,

(15:49):
I thought I was an insightful story about about working
with Kinsky. It seems like he was raging a lot. Yes, yes, um,
certainly behind the scenes. Uh so. Kinsky did a number
of spaghetti westerns as well, including for a few dollars More,
as well as various European genre films. He played a

(16:10):
vampire in Herzog's nineteen seventy nine Nosferatu film, as well
as the nineteen eighty eight film Vampire in Venice. This
was supposed to, I think be a sequel to nos
Ferrato in some respects, but um, Kinski reportedly refused to
wear any any vampire makeup for it, and so he
doesn't look like nos Ferrato in it per se. After
a career of butting heads with various directors, he finally

(16:32):
directed himself in nineteen nine Paganini, which he also wrote,
and this was his final film. Now a couple of
interesting facts. Um Allegedly, Kinsky turned down the role of
Major Taught in Raiders of the Lost Arc because he
hated the script. Uh, and Venom is the picture he
did instead. Oh, both snake centric movies. Yeah. Yeah, And

(16:57):
of course Ronald Lacey wound up doing the character of
Major Todd, which I think he's so great in it.
This is the best thing that could have happened. As
for Kinsky's performance in Venom, here, I'd say he's he
what we see on the screen is is very good.
He's menacing, he exudes evil very much. Plays to his strengths.
Though there is a scene where he has to fight
a rubber snake, and let's be honest, that's a tall

(17:20):
order for any actor. I think his snake wrestling scene
is is a highlight of the film, especially because it
turns into a gunfight with a snake. Yes, yeah, a lot. Hap. Yeah,
that's a it's a it's a great climax. You just
wouldn't think that if a snake is wrapping around you
and you're trying to fight it off, the the solution
you would come to is trying to shoot the snake

(17:41):
in the head with the pistol. Right, Yeah, it's it's
a wonderful scene, though, I'm I think Herzog could have
gotten a better, better take out of him. He was
just like warn him down until he got the right energy. Okay,
So Kinsky is playing our our like lead reptilian criminal
in this, but then we've also got a a more
brutal criminal, right that is Dave, the chauffeur played by

(18:05):
Oliver Read. Oliver re lived through English actor with piercing eyes.
Really his as far as like eyes first acting goes um.
Read was a master of this. You know, he's just
setting there smoldering and looking at you with murder eyes.
Oh he uses the murder eyes in this. Part of
the problem though, is like there's there's really not any

(18:27):
surprise so as the plot has revealed because we first
see all of a Read, I don't know, thirty seconds
into the film, just acting in his capacity as a chauffeur,
and he already looks like he is not just getting
ready to do murders, but has already done them. He
looks like he just came back in a hurry from
doing murders. Yes, absolutely, Um. He always had a knack

(18:50):
for playing brute, macho characters. UH and of course he
increasingly earned a reputation for hell raising, drinking, and being
difficult to work with. He had his first big leading
role in the Hammer film Um The Curse of the
Werewolf from Terence Fisher from UH came out in ninety one,
and he landed some huge roles in such films as
nineteen sixty eight Oliver and which he plays the villain

(19:13):
Bill Sykes. He played Athos and Three Musketeers in seventy
three and its sequel in seventy four, and he continued
to do a lot of villain roles and roles in
horror films. He worked with Ken Russell several times, including
Women in Love and of course The Devil's in which
he really delivers a memorable performance. He played the god
Vulcan and Terry Gilliams The Adventures of Baron Muchausen and

(19:37):
other notable roles at least to me include Disney's Condor
Man in one, in which he plays this the villain
in this ridiculous kind of superhero James Bond kind of film. Uh,
he plays the I guess he's the hero, and David
Cronenberg's The Brood is not the hero. He's not the hero.

(19:58):
I guess I've forgotten most of that film. He's the villain.
Is a manipulating psychiatrist sort of. Yeah. He plays an
unorthodox psychiatrist who has like a retreat where he leads
people through these strange exercises and gets them to um
uh to sort of like turn their their their psychic
pain and trauma into like physical external manifestations. So like,

(20:24):
I don't know, he leads people through these exercises where
like their pain is turned into in the case of
one character, like a physical tumor, but in the case
of other characters like like literal like little like beings
or monsters that run around. The Brood is a gross movie.
Before warned if you're gonna if you're gonna venture there. Yeah,
Samantha Egger is in that and I have to I

(20:45):
have to look it up. Let's see what Oliver Reads
character's name. What was his weird cronenbergie and character Dr
hal Raglan not not that weird as far as cronenberg
names go. Yeah, my memory is just that he's like
a weird, sort of unethical orthodox psychiatrist who's doing a
combination of something like you know, like scientology auditing at

(21:06):
the alongside, like creating tulpas and stuff. Okay, it's been
been a while, so I've seen that one. Oh, we
should also mention. Oliver Read was, of course in Ridley
Scott's Gladiator in two thousand and This was his final film.
He died during the filming of it in Malta, I believe.
Now here's the fun fact. Venom is not the only
Oliver Read snake movie. He also appeared in nine three

(21:29):
Spasms alongside Peter Fonda. And this one Joe is a
giant snake movie. Okay, big snake instead of stealth snake. Yeah,
so um that you can look up. Various stories about
the production of Venom. Basically, Read and Kinsky famously did
not get along on the film, reportedly hated each other,

(21:50):
and Read allegedly kept intentionally setting Kinsky off. Um. Which
sounds absolutely dreadful. You know, you already have Kinsky, who
is you know, has a reputation for being Satan, Yes, Satan,
and then you have and then you have Oliver Read
provoking Satan and like, uh, pranking Satan and you know,
just to get a rial out of him. So yeah,

(22:11):
this sounds absolutely dreadful for everybody else in the production.
That being said, much like we said with Kinsky Read,
I feel like he's good in this. I don't know,
I feel like at times maybe they weren't sure exactly
who this character was supposed to be. Sometimes he just
seems to be like loud and abusive because he needed
to do something in the scene. Um. But but also

(22:31):
I guess the better parts of the performance they drive
home that this is a guy who yes, has signed
on to be part of a kidnapping plot, but also
has misgivings about it. And there are times where you
see like, maybe, um, his gentler nature shine through just
a little bit, as if to give you hope that
he might turn good guy and strangle Kloskinski's character Jock

(22:55):
mel Uh, though of course that doesn't come to pass.
He remains a bad guy throughout, never really has the
face turn. Uh. Mainly you get the idea that the
moments where he's showing misgivings are actually just like when
it would it would be bad to go to prison.
I don't want that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he doesn't have
a true change of heart. I will say this as well, though,

(23:16):
um Reid has a wonderful mustache in this film. Often
often he had wonderful mustaches and uh, and this is
no exception. But actually the star power in the movie
doesn't really stop there with with the criminals, because this

(23:37):
movie has a number of other actors who are well
known and uh and quite respected that. This is something
I remember. I watched the Ciskele and Hibert review of
this movie in which Hubert did not like it, but
Ciskell did, and he, you know, occasionally, Jeane Ciskele, you
could see there was like a ridiculous creature horror movie

(23:58):
and you could just tell he just kind of liked
it and had a hard time explaining why, but he
just liked it, and he just will like, yeah, yeah,
I thought Wes Craven's Shocker it was fun. You know,
it was interesting. Maybe it's not interesting, but you liked it.
Come on, admit you liked it, um and he I
don't know why I'm talking like that, because he did.
He recommended it on the show, Um and he did

(24:21):
with like I think he also liked Roger Corman's Carnosaur
and and stuff like that. So occasionally he just had
a soft spot for creature films. But one thing that
a lot of critics talked about was how wow, you
really got an a level cast in this movie. And
so the casting goes on with Sterling Hayden. Yeah, Sterling Hayden.
Oftentimes it looks like he has top billing. I don't

(24:43):
know why. I don't really know how billing order goes
and especially over the decades of a film that's come out.
But yeah, Sterling Hayden plays a Grandpa Howard Anderson, Hey
k Grandpa Safari. That's what I kept thinking of him as. UM.
But he this is this was guy was a big name.
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean Sterling Hayden. He was in Uh.

(25:03):
He was a villain in the Godfather. He plays a
a corrupt police chief who is helping one of the
other families with their with their schemes. He gets shot
in the forehead by al Pacino. Oh yes, and that
that very memorable scene in the restaurant, right, yeah, yeah.
But he also he also plays a great villain role

(25:24):
in Doctor Strange Love. He is that he plays General
Jack d Ripper. He's the guy who initiates the uh,
the sneak attack on the Soviet Union that sets off
the whole chain of events on the plot because he
has quite clearly consumed a lot of anti communist propaganda
and lost his mind. He's the character who believes that
Fluora Nation is stealing our precious bodily fluids. Um. He

(25:48):
was also in Asphalt Jungle. He was in Robert Altman's
The Long Goodbye Now. He lived nineteen sixteen through six
and this was his last feature film role, but it
kept off a long career full of a lot of
leading man roles, especially westerns and noir films. Um he is.
I was not prepared to enjoy his performance as much

(26:09):
as I did, but I feel like he he's a
lot of fun as Grandpa Safari here in part because
maybe it comes down to the fact that I do
feel like most of the actors in this film, we're
just kind of turned loose in the house, much like
a wild beast and just like do whatever. And I
like the strange energy he brings to this performance at times.

(26:29):
I yeah, I agree. So the other two characters we've
talked about already are are criminals and and uh and
bring a lot of menace. Uh. Grandpa Safari here is
he's just like a big old ball of fun. He
plays this character like a uh an old rough and
tumble rascal. Yeah, and also I mean he's he's the
grandpa and the grandson is one of the main characters there.

(26:52):
And like the grandsons, seems to suffer from some severe
form of asthma which requires the house to be at
a constant seventy five degrees and he has to have
like a committed fire. And his mom seems very much
of the mindset like he needs to be kept in
the house. But Grandpa was like, Oh, what you need Sonday,
I'm gonna get you a cab right across town to
buy yourself a new snake. Get to do it all
by yourself. And of course that becomes central to the plot. Now,

(27:15):
maybe we should specify in the plot that there is
a mix up. Grandpa did not buy his grandson a
black bomba on purpose. Yeah, I thought that's where it
was going because I knew that a black mamba was
going to be introduced into the house and I was like, oh, man,
Grandpa's this is a bit reckless. But now it was
supposed to be a normal, like non venomous snake, some
sort of acceptable pet species, and there is a mix up,

(27:38):
but the a list cast continues. Yes, because we've we've
talked about the criminals, we also have to have a
representative of law and order, and in this case we
have Scotland Yards Commander William Bullock, played by Nicole Williamson,
who lived nineteen thirty six through two thousand and eleven.
I knew him best, and I think that a lot
of a lot of listeners, a lot of viewers of

(28:00):
films would probably know him best as Merlin in the
endlessly Shiny Camelot film ex Caliber, which is a super
fun performance. As I remember, I've never seen it. Oh,
it's it's good. It's very shiny, like the armor gleams
um like it's you know, it's reflecting the light of

(28:21):
the sun at all times. So it's very stylish and
has a wonderful cast. He also plays a similar role
in Spawn. Uh. He plays this character Cagliostro, who's kind
of like I think, basically portrayed as like a wizard
character that helps spawn. Um helps him fight demons, trains
him or something. He's kind of his mentor character and

(28:42):
that was his final film role. He's kind of like,
what does he wear, like a cowboy hat and a coat?
Kind of yeah, I remember correctly they wanted him to
grow a beard and he's like, no, I'm not doing that.
Like they wanted him to be more of a wizard.
But he was a highly regard an actor um on
the stage and screen. Other credits include The Exorcist three. Uh,

(29:06):
The Seven Percent Solution. He played in that. He played
Sherlock Holmes. This is the film adaptation of the Nicholas
Meyer novel. Uh. And uh, you know Nicholas Meyer we
talked about in terms of time after time. Uh. Well,
you know we mentioned that he wrote the novel The
Seven Percent Solution and it was made into the film. Well,
this was the Sherlock he was in. So Williamson was

(29:27):
also in Robin and Marion. He was in ninety nine
Hamlet playing Hamlet. He was in a TV movie version
of of Mice and men playing Lenny, and while very
talented on both stage and screen, he was also known
to be a bit erratic, was a heavy drinker later
in life, and was said to be difficult to work with. So, uh,

(29:50):
so you know we have so, we have Read, we
have Kinsky, and we also have Williamson, though I guess
the situation is Read and Kinsky. We're working together together,
like they shared so much screen time, and for the
most part, Williamson's character is just standing outside like shouting.
We're not even quite shouting. It's one of those movies
where where his character is using just a normal speaking

(30:11):
voice but can be heard inside a house a good
distance away. Yeah, they spend a lot of uh. There
are multiple scenes where they're negotiating like, uh, we need
a car and we need money, and then he goes
away and then he has like a meeting with all
his little police lieutenants, and then he comes back and
they talk again about how they need a car and
they need money. Yeah. I'd say, well, Williamson is good

(30:35):
in this, but there's not a lot to this particular character.
He's just that sensible British cop on the scene. You know,
he's our he's our embodiment of British working class law
and order. Yeah, he's got a he's got a nice
accent in it. I mean, but this character doesn't have
a whole lot to do. Now. The next character, I
would say, though, brings a surprising amount of weird energy

(30:57):
that also makes this movie come alive, and that is
Sarah Miles playing the snake expert Dr Marion Stow. I
really liked her. She she had a certain um uh,
kind of distracted electricity kind of coming off of her
head in all of her scenes, if you know what
I mean. Yeah, yeah, she was good in this um uh.

(31:18):
Sarah Miles was born one and another connection to nineteen
sixty six blow Up, So Miles had actually had a
major role in uh in this adaptation of Julio Cortazar's
story Uh. I can't remember the Novello short story offhand,
um that has adapted into this film in nineteen sixty six.

(31:39):
Other titles on her filmography include Ryan's Daughter, Hope and
Glory White, Mischief and more. There are a lot of
good scenes of her talking to the police about snakes
and so, you know, Coppled, She'll just be like, I
am a toxicologist in the and the copp will be like,
what's that poisons? Yeah, she's she's good. Uh. The other

(32:02):
great performance in this, in my opinion, is our third kidnapper.
Um who the character is uh Louise Andrews, played by
Susan George. Uh So. George was born nineteen fifty, probably
best known for playing Amy in Sam Peck and Pose
straw Dogs. Other titles include Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry Man, Dingo,

(32:24):
and Enter the Ninja, as well as uh Tintorea, Killer Shark,
The Sorceress starring Boris Coral Karloff and Dr Jacqueline mr
Hyde from nineteen seventy two, a musical starring Kirk Douglas. Yes,
Susan George is good in this, she's so. Yeah. Like
you said, she's our third criminal in the trio. So
you got Kinsky, you got Oliver Reed, and you've got

(32:46):
Susan George and they're scheming to do this kidnapping plot
to get a bunch of ransom money. Uh. Of course
the criminals in this movie are bad at crime, so
they keep failing. But you can Uh, I don't know.
It's fun the way you see her, like st uggling
with things not going their way and she also, I
gotta say, really sells a snake bite to the face
death scene quite well. Yes, I would say, uh, perhaps

(33:09):
the greatest death by snake bite scene in any motion picture.
It's a tour de force in which she she used
thrashes around, she cries out and basically goes just full
exorcist towards the end, like you know, all the way
into the into like wheel pose or you know, a
reverse crab or something. She turns blue. There's a lot
of blood coming out of her mouth. Yeah, so she's

(33:32):
she she's a lot of fun um in passing. I'll
say that the mother in this so this would be
Grandpa Safari's um daughter or is it his daughter in law?
I can't remember at any rate. Ruth Hopkins played by
Cornelia Sharp, probably best known for Serpico Uh. She also
appeared in the Reincarnation of Peter Proud, The Next Man

(33:55):
opposite Sean Connery, Open Season, and Hey, The Adventures of
Blue Oh Nash. She's just sort of in the beginning
and the end of this movie, though, because a lot
of it's like she's gone and the sun has been
left there with Grandpa played by Sterling Hayden and that's
when the crime is supposed to take place. Yeah, I
mean the whole thing. It's it's kind of a home

(34:16):
alone movie. It's also it's it's weird. I don't know
if you had this experience, but I felt like this
movie felt like an adaptation of like a Simpsons Treehouse
of Horror episode that doesn't exist, you know, like, or
maybe it's just that a Treehouse of Horror episode would
be perfect based on this film. You could have Grahanamba
Simpson in there, you have have Bart and uh, I

(34:40):
don't know who else would would be involved? Who you
would cast as our our kidnappers? Oh? Yes, so I
guess kis Snake? Oh Snake, I mean, let's see to
play for Oliver Read, he would need to be sort
of a cross between Snake and groundskeeper Willie. Um. Oh yeah,
I don't know exactly how would work out? Was so

(35:00):
Ski is sort of Mr Burns, But I guess he
wouldn't need the money, but I don't know he'd want
it anyway. Um yeah, yeah, it would work out somehow.
Oh but hey, this movie also has Michael Goff in it.
Oh yeah, in a strange role because Okay, so So,

(35:20):
first of all, if you're forgetting who this actor is, uh,
it's it's Alfred from Tim Burton Batman film and the
Batman sequels through Batman Forever. Um. He's a guy who
did a lot of work prior to that, including performances
in The Boys from Brazil, Satan's Slave, Crucible of Horror,
trog Women in Love, How, Horror of Dracula, and titles

(35:42):
going all the way back into the nineteen forties. And
in this he plays what like an expert snake catcher
who never does anything. Yeah, he he shows up later
in the movie. So this movie has multiple snake experts.
There's the one played by Sarah miles Um who is
the toxicologiston and you meet her early on, but then
she eventually also gets taken hostage by the criminals. And

(36:05):
then so the police after that are working with this
character played by Michael Goff. But he he's just got
sort of like one of those snake hooks and he's
standing there beside the police as they're like trying to
bust into the house. Yeah, and you you keep thinking, well,
he's going to be called upon for more than his expertise,
but no, he's not Uh. The fun part of this, though,
is his character's name is David Ball, and the real

(36:29):
David Ball, an overseer of reptiles at the London Zoo,
was the snake wrangler and snake advisor on this film.
So I guess Golf's character is kind of just a
nod uh to his his help with the film. I
was reading about this in a New York Times article
about um about the snake wrangling in Venom, and it
was titled In Venom, the Snake Steals the Show and

(36:52):
it shares a number of interesting production facts. I love
that there is an article in the New York Times
in night eighty two about Venom that is not just
a review of the movie. It's like, yeah, our readers
need more Venom content. Yeah, but it did just here
some fun stuff, like apparently they shot ten hours of

(37:13):
snake footage for the film, and of course that gets
you know, reduced down to just you know, very little
of that, just minutes of footage. Um, they used five
different actual black mambas in the picture, So when you
see black mamba's striking at the camera and and slithering about,
it's the real thing. That's that's the real snake um

(37:34):
for the most part. They also apparently had one non
venomous rat snake that they used for some scenes. They
had plastic snakes made from actual casts of of mamba's
that's of course with Klaskinski winds up fighting at the end.
And they also had a hundred thousand dollar robots snake
that apparently looked terrible, so we barely see it in

(37:54):
the final film. Yeah. I think the sentence in the
article is something like the robot snake could ear up
and open its mouth. It cost a hundred thousand dollars
to make, and it appears for one third of one
second in the final cut. Now, according to u uh
to David Ball in this article, black mambas are very
high strung and they feel threatened by anything within six

(38:15):
ft of them. They have really potent venom and they're
very effective at delivering it, usually via multiple bites, which
is something we see in the film. Uh and and
it's it is a very impressive snake. There's one at
Zoo Atlanta and I've seen it many times. They can
they can reach lengths of fourteen feet. Yeah, they tend
to be nervous. They packed tremendous venom. It's the largest

(38:36):
venomous snake in Africa and the second largest venomous snake
in the world, right behind the keen cobra. It's not
actually black, but the inside of its mouth is black
and that's what it flares as a warning to, you know,
anyone who makes it nervous. Now a bit of monster
science on this. The the the movie repeatedly emphasizes that

(38:58):
the black Mamba is the most I think it actually
uses the word poisonous I think you would want to
say venomous instead. But whichever one they say poisonous or
venomous snake in the world, which uh, I mean, it's
difficultly there are different ways you can measure that, but
just by your standard like pure LD fifty ratings of
snake venom and mice, this is not true. I should

(39:20):
also point out, as with pretty much any snake, reptile,
amphibian sort of movie, it's always worth going to California
herbs dot com. They have a section about snake films
and which they weigh in on different on different snakes
and different films, and they have a they have an
article on um on on venom here and uh. Basically

(39:41):
they applaud the use of real black bombas and that
they add quote oddly enough, the snake doesn't try to
get out or hide as you'd expect a snake to do.
All it wants to do is kill people. It sort
of hunts the people in the house. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah.
It's one of the most alluded Chris things about this
movie is that, yes, I I totally believe everything I've

(40:04):
read about the black Mamba being a potentially dangerous snake
that you absolutely don't want running around in your house. Um,
you wouldn't want to, you know, go poking around haphazardly
where you knew they might be. But on the other hand,
I mean it's implied in this film where like if
you were to call the police and say there's a
black Momba in my house, the police would just be like,

(40:26):
we are legally declaring everyone in the house dead because
there's no way you're going to survive. Yes, So, though,
as you're saying, I do want to re emphasize, given
what I said a minute ago, by these like LD
fifty charts, that is not necessarily the most venomous snake
in the world. But as you are correct that you
absolutely don't want to be bitten by one. These are

(40:47):
people do die from black mamba bites all the time. Now,
we always mentioned the cinematographer on films, but on this
film we have Gilbert Taylor, who lived nineteen fourteen through UM.

(41:09):
He was the cinematographer on such films as Star Wars, Flash, Gordon,
the Omen, The Frank Angela Dracula Film, Polanski's Macbeth and Repulsion,
Hitchcock's Frenzy, Doctor Strange Love, in various other titles. UM.
He also did a bit of TV, including episodes of
The Avengers. This movie doesn't really stand out to me
in in terms of a lot of cinematography choices. Uh,

(41:32):
but though there is something that happens quite a bit,
which is mamba cam where you are seeing from the
snake's point of view. Is it like crawls through heating ducks?
And uh and so yeah, okay, that's fun. Well, and
then you know, we do have I guess the shots
of the snake often feel very well executed. Uh. You know,

(41:52):
at times they're basically doing the Raiders thing I think
where they have some sort of plexiglass screen so that
the snake can can jump out, can leap at the
camera and you don't have to worry about it actually
biting anyone. As for the music on this picture, it
is Michael Common, who lived through two thousand and three.

(42:13):
We've mentioned him on the show before because he scored
Free Jack and Tales from the Crypt Demon Night, as
well as such movies as Highlander, Robin Hood, Prints of Thieves, Brazil,
The Dead Zone, Event Horizon, which he did with the
orb uh so uh, a known commodity in various genre films.
I'd say that the for me, anyway, I felt like

(42:35):
the score in this movie was was traditional. It was fine.
It did everything you want a score to do. It helped,
you know, drive home these thrilling moments and uh and
snake scares. But other than that, it's not the kind
of thing I would want to seek out. I thought
there were some strange choices in terms of scoring, not
because the music was bad, but I thought like sort
of oddly placed. Maybe we can talk about those a

(42:57):
little bit when we break down the plot. Well, let's
go ahead and get into the plot, all right. So
the movie begins with a shot of a schoolhouse. Kind
of a weird choice for a crime thriller. Plus Snake movie.
But uh, I guess you know it's about an attempted
kidnapping of a rich boy, so we we gotta see
the boy getting out of school. I guess there's an
American flag flying out on the balcony in front of

(43:19):
the school, but it's clearly in Britain. And we see
a sign later saying it's the American Academy of London.
So I think this is a school for American children,
the children of diplomats and stuff like that, uh, in London.
And so Philip is going to the school and we
meet him on the stairs reading a book and his
mom runs up to him saying, oh, this is the

(43:41):
limit you'll catch cold, and he's you know, he's clearly like, oh,
I don't want to be safe. I don't want to
bundle up. I want adventure. So you know, he's like, oh, mom,
I will say that the actor they have playing the boy,
um Lance Holcom. Uh. He was really good in this,
Like he has kind of a kind of a Charlie
and Chocolate factory sort of vibe to him. Okay, But

(44:03):
so his mom takes him away to a waiting sedan
where Oliver Reed is just looming nearby in a comically
brutish fashion, And I love the very first time we
see him, it's less than a minute into the movie.
He is dressed in a formal chauffeur's uniform with a
cap and everything. And even in this goobery outfit, he looks,

(44:25):
I mean like he often does, like he just came
back in a hurry from doing a series of things
that are all illegal. Um, you know, he looks like, oh,
he just ran a bunch of errands, including purchasing illegal
whale gonads on the black market, and like getting into
a fight, like you know, somebody looked at him wrong
and he kicked them in the neck. And now he's

(44:46):
back here to drive this kid home, do you know
what I mean? Like he's got this. Even apart from
whatever he's acting out in the scene, he just almost
always looks kind of sweaty and like he has just
been caught or almost been haught to doing something he
wasn't supposed to. Yeah, and constantly like if he were
a Dungeons and Dragon's character, it would be constantly doing

(45:07):
intimidation checks on everybody around him. He is constantly busting
out that that cold intimidating stare, and like I said earlier,
there's really no suspense about what's going to go on
with this character, because as soon as the mother and
son get into the car, we just see Oliver Read
looking at them in the rear view mirror with absolute

(45:27):
murder eyes. I mean, he looks like he should be
weeping blood. But then so after that we just cut
to a driving scene. Gotta love a driving scene at
the beginning of a movie. So we're just watching the
car navigate the streets of London. The title comes up
and the music gets all hopeful and Peppie, do you
remember this? I thought this was a weird choice because

(45:48):
the opening music makes it sound like it's going to
be a movie about a jaunty sea voyage and teamwork
and friendship. Yeah, it has. It has strange energy. This
was I think the point to where I really didn't
know what the score was going to be, and I
was still maybe holding out hope that it would be, um,
you know, electronic or something, and I was like, oh, no,
it's it's not gonna be it's gonna be very traditional.

(46:08):
But whatever they're going for, it has a funny effect.
So we get this driving scene at the beginning, Philip
and his mom getting driven around London by all of
a read he's just like drilling holes into them through
the rear view mirror. And then the music is just
rousing strings and brass. It's trying to warm your blood.
And then they get home and they meet Louise, the housekeeper,

(46:29):
and and she's like, ah, young Master Philip, two whole
days off school A. And of course this is Louise
is played by Susan George. And so we we learned
a bit about the situation that these are Americans living
in London, that the boy's father has been gone for
a while, and that he is there with his mother, Ruth,
and his grandfather. And so we learned that Ruth, the

(46:51):
mother has to leave town soon. But Young Master Philip
wants to go see his zoo. That's what he calls it.
He's like my zoo. And so what does this mean. Well,
he gets up to his room and oh my god,
his bedroom is straight out of Dante's Inferno. It's is
like a dungeon for small animals. It is just crates

(47:12):
and cages stacked up to the ceiling with rabbits and
hamsters and and god knows what else. Yeah, I mean
he's definitely they're definitely overdoing it here in my opinion.
But on the other hand, uh, my son has a
leopard gecko, and I know that like just having a
leopard gecko that means, oh, well, you don't just have
a pet leopard gecko. You also have pet crickets. And

(47:35):
some people actually go to the level of like raising
their own crickets. So maybe that's part of what we're
seeing here. It's like, well, he's got a bunch of
snakes and so forth, Well that means he's also raising mice.
Oh I didn't think about that. But so you think
the mice in his room are there to feed his snakes? Uh?
I don't know. Maybe, but then again, yeah, he has
things like rabbits in there, so um, I guess it

(47:57):
is just an extended uh you know, zool logical collection
here and not just about feeding the animals. I keep
these rabbits to feed to my pet hyena. Well, anyway,
we meet Sterling Hayden, we find out he is Ruth's dad,
and he's staying with him. I think because of some
kind of injury. Am I am I right about that? Um?

(48:17):
I was a little foggy on this. Um. I mean
we we've we've learned that he's let some sort of
like great explorer safari type guy. Yeah, and a photographer.
Yeah yeah, I guess. So you know, he's kind of
you know the uh, you know safari guy in the
classic sense where he's he's studying uh you know the

(48:37):
world and probably writing about it and taking photos. But
there's a sense that like his adventuring days or perhaps
over right, yeah, sort of. I mean I think they're
trying to give him earnest hemingway energy. Okay, he has
enormous shotguns on the wall, yes, yes, uh yeah, with
like shells the size of soda cans, and so I

(48:58):
think these are meant for l offense or something. Um.
But so after we meet these characters, oh and and
of course, uh, Grandpa and and Ruth talk about how
she's got to leave town soon, and she's worried about
leaving leaving the young boy there with him because she's like, oh,
he's got asthma. Um, but I don't know, it seems
like it's gonna be fine. So so she's like, Okay,

(49:20):
I gotta head out, um. And then things immediately start
getting juicy because we start seeing the conspiracy. Oliver Read
and Susan George, you know, the housekeeper Louise, when they're
talking in private, Um, she is washing Ruth's jewelry. That's interesting,
washing the jewelry. I don't know if that's supposed to
say something about about Ruth being really really fussy about

(49:43):
fancy things or something. Um, but that's what she's doing.
And then, uh, they're talking about something coming up. They're
they're plotting in secret about something, and Oliver Read appears
to be having misgivings. He's like, look, this isn't just
stealing cars. If something goes wrong, they're going to lock
us up in throw away the key and uh, and
he's wondering, will Jack Mell come through, and Louise assures

(50:07):
him yes, Jack Mell will come through. Now, there was
a thing I noted. I don't know if you noticed this,
but as Ruth is leaving the house, she's giving instructions
to Louise and she's saying, Okay, while I'm out of town,
the house must be kept at no less than seventy
five degrees. So he always turned up to seventy five
or higher. Um, which I don't know. Maybe my senses

(50:30):
are off, but obviously they'd be normal in the summer.
But like turning the heat in the winter up to
seventy five, that sounds insanely high. Yeah, I mean I
feel a little guilty if I said, I said it
for seventy you know. Uh, And I feel really guilty
if I'm like, that's it, I'm going up to seventy one.
But even that'll be like but just for a few minutes,
just so I so I start feeling my you know,

(50:50):
my toes again that sort of thing. Seventy five seems
like it would be just like it would be like
a jungle in there. Yeah. Yeah, because yeah, like heat
or heat feels very very different than natural heat. Like
if it's seventy five degrees outside, that's nice weather, but
if it's seventy five degrees from a heater or that's like,
you know, you're going under the gates abandoned. I'll hope
you who enter here. Well, I think we see don't

(51:12):
now that I think about it. It looks like it's gas, right,
so they're probably just completely dried out in there, which
I guess is why we also see the reliance on
the humidifiers. Oh that's right, yes, so they keep it
at seventy five. But also the kid sleeps with the humidifier.
The humidifier, I think the idea is he's got asthma
and the humidifier maybe delivering some kind of medication in
the steam. Yeah, because there is that, I would say,

(51:34):
effectively creepy scene where we see that Jock Mel jumping
ahead a little bit here, but where Jock Mel checks
on the house that they have set up the place
they want to take the boy after they kidnap him,
and they have the same machinery. They're like, they're intended
to have like a long stay at the kidnapping house,
which which was creepy, right, But of course they never

(51:55):
get to that house because the criminals in this movie
are bad at crime. Uh So, Oliver Read takes Ruth
to the airport so the mother leaves town, and then
at about eleven minutes into the movie, the two devils collide.
Oliver Read meets Jack Mel, who is klaus Kinski. They
meet at the airport. They come face to face. It's
clear from the very first moment that they do not

(52:17):
like each other, but they're they're locked into this conspiracy
together now, yes, And Louise is the sensual glue holding
the whole thing together. Um, And of course that's gonna
be one of the great complicating um situations in the plot,
is that she is the one who dies first, right,
and I think it's implied that she's been having love
affairs with both of them, right. Oh. And as soon

(52:38):
as they get in the so they go off to
the car and and of course Oliver Reid has a
gun for Jack mel and he drops him off at
a house in the country that they've rented ahead of time,
and this is where they're gonna stash the kid while
they're holding him for ransom. So we get to see
Jack Mell going around the house, pulling the curtains aside,
inspecting the rooms and uh and when oh, and then

(52:59):
Louis he shows up at the house and the two
of them are conspiring. So klaus Kinski and Susan George are,
you know, checking in on how the plot is coming along,
and and Jack Mell says he doesn't trust the chauffeur.
He says his hands sweat, which I love. It's like, oh,
he's not cool like you. Yeah, yeah, you get the

(53:20):
sense that Kinski's character jack Nell, does not sweat at all.
But so jack Mell lures Sterling Hayden out of the house.
I think that they're trying to get there, trying to
find a way to get him away so that they
can take the kid. And so they lure him away
by pretending to be a filmmaker who wants Grandpa's help
on on a film shoot in Central Africa, and he

(53:42):
tells him to come meet for a cocktail at the
Tower Hotel. But of course Grandpa goes to meet with
the filmmaker who will in fact never show up because
it's Klaus Kinsky just pretending to be somebody else, is
just a ruse to get him out of the house. Meanwhile,
Philip is often a taxi to the pet show up,
and here is the scene where things finally really kick off,

(54:03):
I think because he acquires his snake. Yeah, supposed to
get just a normal non venomous pet snat snake. I
forget what variety was supposed to be, but there's a
mix up. The black mamba that is supposed to go
to what the London Zoological Society or something. Um, it's
gonna end up being studied or something. Yeah, it instead
goes to this boy. It's put in a box for

(54:25):
Philip and he has taken it home on a taxi. Right,
So and then we we the plot is exposed when
we cut to it's the London Institute of Toxicology and
that's where where Sarah Miles works. So they're checking on
their She and a couple of researchers there are checking
out their new live specimen of of the black mamba.
This this would be Dendaro Aspis poly lepis and they're like,

(54:49):
this isn't the right snake at all, so something's wrong
here and uh. And on closer inspection they discover it
as a harmless species of snake commonly sold as a
pet and there must have been some kind of mix up.
So they quickly trace this back to I don't know
why they were getting a black mamba from a London
pet shop, but they were, and so they trace it

(55:12):
back to the pet shop and they realized there must
have been a mix up there and she immediately calls
the police and she's like, hello, I'm calling from you know,
the Toxicology Institute, and the policeman is like toxicology. That's poisons,
isn't it. And she explains that there's been this mix
up and some kid must have just walked out of
the shop with a black mamba. And they really play

(55:33):
up the danger of the snake. It is the most
deadly thing on the planet. It might as well be
a nuclear bomb. Yeah, I mean there are moments later
in the film where it's like, there's a black mamba upstairs.
You should absolutely not go upstairs. Like going upstairs, there's
just a no go. You will die if you go
up there. Now. Meanwhile, the crime plot is already getting
screwed up. As we said, this is a movie about

(55:54):
criminals who are quite bad at crime. So Philip was
supposed to stay home so louis Is could put him
in a car with Jack Mel who would kidnap him
for ransom. But he didn't stay home. He went to
the store to get his snake. So eventually he comes
back with his snake and she is frantic and she's like, hello,
I need you to get directly into a car with

(56:15):
this man who you've never met before and is klaus
Kinski and the and the kid is like, uh no,
I will not be doing that. I have to put
my snake into its vivarium. So he runs inside to
do that, and then Oliver Read is there, and Oliver
Read is just angry. He's angry at this child for
failing to be kidnapped. Uh. And then he's just like

(56:36):
insulting the child, which which was weird. He's like, he's
like he's such a brat or something, you know. It's
like the total outburst. Yeah, and then Louise chases Young
Master Philip up to his room where they opened the
snake box and she is just immediately bitten in the
face a bunch of times by the black mamba. Frightening
scene to yeah, yeah, and then the snake slithers away

(56:59):
into the shadows. Meanwhile, Sterling Hayden arrives back home so
the route. I guess he's given up on waiting for
the German filmmaker at the at the cocktail lounge. He
wasn't supposed to be there, but he arrives and Philip
still there. Louise, who has been bitten on the face
by the snake a bunch of times, is like, I
am dying and everybody's like, ah, you'll be fine. It's

(57:20):
just a harmless house snake, and then Oliver Reed just
starts punching Grandpa and Jack Mell points a gun at
him and is like, you know, I'm in charge. It
is not time to punch Grandpa until I say it's
time to punch grandpa. So they lock Sterling Hayden in
the cellar, and then we see Oliver Read loading a
gun and this is the one you were talking about earlier,

(57:41):
Like it must be an elephant gun or something because
the shells are enormous. And then the badness at crime
just continues, like a policeman arrives and knocks at the door,
I guess because the toxicology lab uh figured out that
this is the address of the boy who accidentally took
home the super snake, and the policeman Knox Philip, shouts

(58:02):
for help from inside the house, and then the officer
opens the front door to just see this tableau of
of Oliver Reed holding a shotgun, klaus Kinski clutching a
terrified child, Susan George with her face turning purple and
she's gasping for air. And then Oliver Reed just shoots
the police officer and the kid in and so like

(58:24):
everything is screwed up. Now, so now they are in
the house, having shot a police officer outside, and they
are not going to escape to their hiding place with
with the kid for ransom. Now they're just in the
house with the cops outside, and it's a siege. Yeah.

(58:47):
So at this point we're very much and like they say,
the best laid plans of mice and men, uh, and
so you know, and go stray. This was not a
very well laid plan and it has definitely gone astray. Uh.
But but this is a common feature in a lot
of crime shows and crime stories. You know. It's like
the the heighst doesn't go as as it's supposed to,

(59:07):
and now we have to deal with the consequences of that,
and then here come the police. That's gonna be our
next big movement in the plot. And I will say
that one of the things I liked about the film
that I thought made it very watchable is that it
has very strong procedural bones. You know, Um, you're laying
out like what the the the the the you know,
poorly thought out criminal enterprise, uh, seems to be like

(59:29):
what their plan is. And then there's a lot in
the film about the police officers responding and getting advice
and trying to figure out like what is the proper
strategic move to make? And it really helps to you know,
drive the film along, you know, in a way that
I thought was ultimately entertaining. Like I was reading Ebert's
review of the film, and Ebert was like, despite all

(59:52):
these actors, this film is boring. And I disagree. I
don't think this film is ever boring. It falls short
in some notable areas, but um, but it's never boring. Oh,
i'd agree, And yeah, you're right about the procedural step. Wait,
you made this comparison off Mike. Did you say it
on Mike that it's kind of like Shin Godzilla in
that regard. Yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of like the

(01:00:12):
Shin Godzilla of Loose Snake movies. Uh, in that you know,
there's a lot of well, let's talk to the expert
and see what they think we should do. Okay, let's
talk to another expert. What did they think? And uh
and so forth. Shin Godzilla is the best movie ever
made about meetings, and uh, this is this is a
very good movie about Yeah, a little little strategy sessions

(01:00:33):
where people are talking out their next plans. Oh oh,
I should have mentioned after all that last stuff happens
like around the you know, the one third of the
way into the movie, Louise dies, so you know, they
thought she'd just been bitten by this harmless house snake,
but then she turns completely blue. There's blood coming out
of her mouth and she's dead. And the other crime

(01:00:54):
boys are like, oh, whoops, maybe there is something bad
about the snake and uh. And so then the police
arrive and this is when we really meet Nicole Williamson.
He arrives, he sets up outside, he's trying to do
negotiations with Jack mell uh. These negotiations will continue for
throughout the middle third of the movie. Of course, of course,

(01:01:15):
klaus Kinsky he wants a car and money in exchange
for the kids safety, and they're not going to get
that yet. So the Act two set up is complete,
and from here it goes on to a lot of
you know, the standard fun and game as part of
a creature movie, where there's a lot of mamba cam
and like hunting around for the snake. There. They send
Grandpa up to to hunt for the snake and he's
holding like a lamp with the shade taken off, and

(01:01:37):
there's some some some false positives in his search for
the snake that worked pretty well on the screen. But
he knows what it is because he's, uh, you know,
from all his safari experiences, he's familiar with black mambas
and and the fact that they can be dangerous. So
he's like, Okay, well, you know, we're we're really in
trouble with this thing in the house. And you know,

(01:01:58):
one scene I thought was pretty good was the one
with Sterling Hayden hunting around for the snake in the
in the empty room. I wonder if this is perhaps
something that maybe worked better in the book, Like if
the book allowed the author more room to sort of
ruminate over like tales of the mamba from from Africa
that Grandpa would be familiar with, and maybe Grandpa thinking

(01:02:19):
about like just how intensely dangerous the situation is. Like
maybe it was able to drive home this idea of
the momba being such a threat in ways that the
film may be struggled to do at times. Yeah, I
mean a lot of what we know about the mamba
in the movie gets filled in by the scientists, so
like it around like you know, there's a lot of

(01:02:40):
the sort of cat and mouse games in the middle
third of the movie, and somewhere like an hour in
there's this meeting between Nicol Williamson and uh and Marian Stow,
the snake scientist, and this is where they talk about
you know, He's like, how dangerous is it because she's
finally gotten the information to him that there's a killer
snake inside and uh and she says it's most dangerous

(01:03:00):
snake in the whole world. Uh and she but she
gives it all these sort of anthropomorphic qualities. She says,
like they're they're very aggressive, but they tend to be
a little awkward, paranoid really um. And she says they
happen to be the fastest snake in the world. And
she says unless the bite victim gets antidote immediately or

(01:03:20):
anti venom immediately, mamba bites are one fatal. But she says,
if you get the antidote to the venom, it's a
fifty fifty chance, provided that the victim is not allergic
to it. I'll go ahead and mention again that California
Herb's website reminds us that there are some some some
suspect mamba facts in this movie, So don't watch Venom. Uh,

(01:03:43):
just for your education on black mambas, go to other sources. Right.
But also, I mean, it is certainly true that the
black mamba is one of the more dangerous snakes on
Earth in terms of interactions with humans. Like, if you
see one, don't go anywhere near it. You know, that thing,
It probably doesn't want anything to do with you, but
you do not want to be bitten by it? Right?
But can it smell crime? Does it own the night? Um?

(01:04:05):
I mean these are these are questionable. Yeah. Now there's
a there's a fun scene where they send out Sarah
Miles to deliver a snake science lecture to the people
in the house. So, you know, the house is besieged
by cops and she just goes out in front of
it to like tell them about the mamba and it's venom.
So they do keep saying poisonous snake. By the way,

(01:04:27):
the pedantic part of my brain couldn't let that go. Uh,
And through some devious trickery, klaus Kinski eventually manages to
get the snakes scientist or the the toxicologist Dr Stowe
into the into the house by pulling a gun on her.
Um Uh. He tricks her into thinking that she can
administer an antidote to someone who has been bitten. But

(01:04:49):
really it's just him pointing a gun in her face.
So she's a hostage and now as well. Uh. And
I love how basically Jack Mell is approaching this situation.
It's like, what got us into this problem kidnapping? Love,
We'll get us out of this situation more kidnapping, right exactly. Um.
And so there's a bunch of stuff with the police
scheming about maybe back entrances to the house. This I

(01:05:12):
think is part of the shin Godzilla quality. You were
talking about little strategy sessions where they're like consulting the
building plans of the house. They're like, there used to
be a back entrance, we can maybe bust through there. Uh.
And then meanwhile inside the house, there's a great scene
where everybody's just sitting around. It's it's Oliver Read and
Sarah Miles and Oliver Reid's like, I'm thirsty. I fancy
a drink? How about you? Yeah? And uh, this is

(01:05:34):
I love this moment because um Read's character Dave, he
kind of enters into this comfort zone offering the drink,
and he's listing all the different liquors that are available,
and he's like, we've got most things. Um, and uh.
It puts you completely at ease because then when he
opens up the drink cabinet and you find yourself just
you know, like, well, I want to see these bottles. Umm,

(01:05:55):
I am curious. Maybe I'll have a drink too. Oliver
He's gonna make a white Russian. Yeah, But then he
opens it up and what is in the liquor cabinet
but the mamba there you go. It's it's a snake
pop out scare. It's a great snake pop out scare.
I gotta say, I really enjoyed it. And the special
horror of like Oliver Reed realizes that the snake is

(01:06:17):
in there with the alcohol. Yeah, and at first I
thought that was gonna be the thing. It's almost like
a Simpsons moment, like, oh no, the beer is locked
up with the snake. No one can get the beer now, uh,
that sort of thing. But then yeah, there's this scene
where they then pull the liquor cabinet away from the
wall and we see the snake slither through like a
crack in the back of the liquor cabinet into the wall.

(01:06:39):
It's a duck. Did you understand this? There is a duct.
I did not know. Well, I mean I think I
understood what I was looking at. But it's so it's
not like built into the wall. It's a liquor cabinet
that is a separate piece of furniture. It's like a
chest or a wardrobe kind of thing, almost as a
cabinet opens up. It's got all the liquor inside. But
there is a hole in the back of it where

(01:07:00):
there's a duct leading into the wall, like connecting it.
I don't know. I don't know what that was supposed
to be or if that's normal. I mean, do you
normally have a duct going from the wall to a
separate piece of furniture containing liquor bottles? I can't imagine
you would. But then again, it's necessary for this scare
to work because otherwise the snake is just stuck in

(01:07:23):
the liquor cabinet. Now and okay, he's in there, and
now now we've won. Now we can just nail the
liquor cabinet shut. But now it gets away. It's back
in the walls. It goes wherever it wants to in
this house. Now, so the police are scheming about ways
to breach the house to get in there and and
save the hostages. But I think the funny thing is
that ultimately the police fail in this regard, and it

(01:07:45):
is the snake in fact, that defeats the criminals. Yeah,
the snake is ultimately the hero of the picture, dispensing
with all three kidnappers. Uh. And and never I mean threatening,
I guess, but never actually harming any of the non
criminals in the picture. Yeah, it's a lawful good snake
can smell crime, I think. Yes. I don't know how

(01:08:07):
much detail we want to go into about the particular
demise of Oliver read or klaus Kinski's characters Oliver Reed. Uh.
He they're like down in the basement and suddenly the
police bust in through the wall and uh, and they're
having a standoff. They're shooting at each other, but then
there's a snake and the police are like snake and

(01:08:27):
they have to run away and go back out the broke,
you know, the breach in the wall. It was like
you were more scared of the snake than the gun.
I know. It's like a xenomorph in this thing. But
but h Reid's character Dave is shot. He's like shot
in the shoulder, so he's he's heavily injured. He can't
quite crawl up the stairs. And that's when the mamba

(01:08:49):
comes for him. In a In a quite gratuitous scene
of like creature revenge against human evil, Oliver Reed is
bitten in the crotch by the snake and and goes
right up the pants leg. And now I'm just Jock
mel right, but I'm imagining, like the writing that scene,
it was you know, like what did that look like
on the page? The snake slither slowly up his thigh.

(01:09:13):
Oliver Read's great in this scene though he totally sells it.
But then of course the snake in the end also
has to attack the one remaining criminal, Jock mel Uh.
We see it like creeping up through curtains behind him
as the music builds, and then it's like it springs
out and attacks him and and literally like the final
conflict of the movie is is klaus Kinsky wrestling a

(01:09:34):
snake and engaging in a gunfight with a snake. Yeah,
like thrashing around in the like the living upstairs, living
room or whatever it happens to be. Um. Yeah, trying
to shoot the snake's head off with his own gun. Um.
Eventually the fight goes out onto the balcony, and the
whole time like it's clearly a rubber snake. It's Kinsky
battling this rubber snake. And then especially when he fires

(01:09:57):
the gun, that's when the snipers start firing. The police
snipers start firing, So Kinsky's character and the snake die
in a hail of bullets and then fall off the balcony. Um.
And uh, my only criticism is that the body does
not become impaled on the like the spiked fence at
the bottom that I think would have been would have

(01:10:18):
made it a little more perfect. But maybe they thought
that would that would just be overdoing it. I don't know.
I thought it should have ended with the snake slithering
down klaus Kinski's throat and biting him from the inside,
like going right to the heart. Yeah. Yeah, coils around
his heart and bites at a hundred times. But basically
that's the big finish. Um. Yeah. That now all of

(01:10:40):
the kidnappers are dead, the Black Bomba itself is dead,
and everybody is safe once again? Or are they? Oh
that's right, because we get a delightful stinger in which
you go into the heating ducks and you see some
some eggs, some snake eggs up in there. I guess
they're being incubated by the by the gas heat. Not

(01:11:02):
only that they've hatched, there's like a baby mamba crawling
out of one. So it's it's not only mamba time
once more in this uh in this house, but it's
also going to be like double mamba's. Uh so, you know,
set up for the sequel here, I guess is that
like it's Miller time, it's Mamba time. Yeah, yeah, I
mean they could have done a sequel. I mean they

(01:11:23):
were able to make all those um taken movies. It's
it's I think you could come up with another scenario
in which you have kidnappers or terrorists or something to
kind of taking over the house, the exact same family,
the exact same house, and it's two snakes this time
two snakes. Yeah, okay, who would have to play the
criminals in the sequel? It would be how about how

(01:11:45):
about Gary Busey and Robert Mitchum who yeah, was well
was Robert Mitchum still alive at that point. I can't
remember when he died. Okay, yeah, he could have done it. Sure. Um,
I don't know. I don't know if I want to
see like mid eighties Robert Mitchum wrestling a snake, though,
I don't know I want to see that at any rate.

(01:12:07):
It never came to be. We never got a sequel
to Venom. Uh. But you know, like I said, I
feel like it's a it is a movie that is
essentially ludicrous. Like the premise at the center of this
movie is he is just ridiculous. I mean, the idea
that this snake is just so dangerous and wants to
kill people, wants to kill criminals or you know, or
anybody that gets near it. Um, you know, it's just ultimately,

(01:12:31):
I never I never really bought it in the film,
you know. Uh, Like I'm quick to give something credit
if it works within the context of the film, and
this never quite did that. But we still have some
great snake scares. Uh, we have some fun performances, and
we have this procedural energy kind of driving things along.
All right, Well, you're probably wondering, well, where can I

(01:12:52):
watch Venom? Well, Lucky for you. It's widely available for
digital rental or purchase, and also Blue Underground put out
a nice looking blu ray of it as well with
restored two K transfer um, so you can you can
watch this movie yourself via those means. Also, I'll stress
again the novel is out there in digital and physical form.

(01:13:13):
So uh. I would love to hear from anyone who's
read the novel Venom and can chime in on it.
And you might be wondering, well, I haven't read it,
but could I read it and then tell Robin Joe
what it's all about and give my review. Yes, you
can absolutely do that. I would love to have some
insight into the novel that came before here. Now wouldn't
it be great if Venom was one of those films

(01:13:34):
that had a novel and then a movie and then
a novelization of the movie separate from the original novel.
Oh yeah, you see that sometimes for me, the most
notable example being um Francis Ford Coppola's Brown Stoker's Dracula
and which, of course it is an adaptation of Dracula,
but there is also a novelization of the film Genius Yeah,

(01:13:56):
which I al was found outrageous because it's not like Dracula.
The original is an unreadable text, like did it really
need to be updated? Uh? You know, in terms of
the written version, I don't know. Uh no, I mean
so it was so it could say, uh, you know,
Jonathan Arker, who looked like the American actor Keanu Reeves

(01:14:17):
arrived in Where Does He Go? I don't you know, Oh,
doesn't Dracula have a mustache in the original bron Stokers Dracula.
Maybe that was it in the movie or in the novel.
In the novel, I don't recall. I don't recall how
it described. I could be wrong on that, but wouldn't
it have been funny though? If they were like, okay,

(01:14:37):
standard operating procedure, we need a novelization of this film
and they assign it to somebody, and what if they
just turned in a copy of bron Stokers Dracula and
they're like, it was just it was such a great adaptation,
like as it just as it worked out, the novelization
of the film is the original novel. That's just smart. Yeah.
I didn't even realize that I had completely reproduced the

(01:14:59):
original brom Stoker's Dracula. I was just adapting the film. Well,
if you're gonna do it with any film, I would
say the Coppola adaptation is unusually faithful to the novel,
much more so than, uh, than most other adaptations I
can think of. Yeah, and I also have some really
fun performances in it. Yeah. All right, Well, we're gonna

(01:15:19):
go ahead and close the liquor cabinet on this serpent,
but we will be back with other episodes of Weird
House Cinema. They publish every Friday. In the Stuff to
Blow Your Mind podcast feed were primarily science and culture podcast,
with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have listener
mail on Mondays and artifact episodes those their shorties on Wednesdays.

(01:15:41):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
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(01:16:03):
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