First on this tape, Misery.
There’s a school of thought that says if you want to make a great movie, adapt a mediocre book. Jaws is probably the best example of this. It’s a potboiler of a book that made one of the greatest ever movies.
Misery is a counter-example of this idea. The book is wonderful. I got it for Christmas one year, and spent the whole of Christmas Day reading it. It’s really good, and a really good book about writing, and what it means to be a writer.
So when the movie was announced, I was dubious. And as a director, Rob Reiner seemed like an odd choice to adapt it. Not that he was a bad director, quite the opposite, I’d enjoyed every one of his previous films – including When Harry Met Sally, seen here recently.
But he’s a comedy director. Not a horror director. Would he be able to do the book justice?
The end result is brilliant. He’s helped by a screenplay from legendary screenwriter William Goldman, who also wrote The Princess Bride for him. So much of the book is inside the protagonist’s head, and is about the ‘why’ of writing, things that are hard to show on film. So the film concentrates more on the physical side on being imprisoned than the writing of the novel, which takes up a lot of the book.
Paul Sheldon (James Caan) is a writer, completing his latest novel. It’s a new novel, a departure from the books that made him famous, the series featuring the heroine Misery Chastain. His last Misery novel, soon to be published, kills off his heroine, leaving him free to write the ‘great American novel’ he’s always wanted to write.
But on the way from the lodge where he wrote his book, in a snowstorm, his car leaves the road, and he might have frozen to death, but he’s rescued.
His rescuer is Annie Wilkes, who’s also his number one fan. She says the roads are closed, so she couldn’t get him to a hospital, but it soon becomes clear that she’s keeping him there, and hasn’t told anyone else.
Kathy Bates is magnificent as Wilkes. It’s a role that could just be a frothing monster, but Bates is able to slide between doting fan, attentive carer, and vengeful monster effortlessly.
Although the film is mostly a two-hander between Cann and Bates, the anciliary characters are carefully drawn. His agent is Lauren Bacall.
The local sheriff, searching in vain for Sheldon, is played by Richard Farnsworth, who spent most of his career as a stuntman and stunt director, and who found a second career as an actor very late in life. Here, he’s married to Frances Sternhagen, another favourite actress of mine, who always makes stuff better.
There’s even a brief appearance from JT Walsh, uncredited as a State Trooper.
I love the little touches, like the picture of Liberace in Annie’s living room.
This really is a brilliant movie. The tension is sustained all the way through, punctuated by some indelible scares. The hobbling scene is the most famous, and it’s still hard to watch – I admit I closed my eyes this time. And it might be hard to believe if you’ve not read the book, but the scene in the book is much, much worse.
If the film has a flaw, it’s that Bates plays such a rounded character that in the inevitable climax when Caan has to escape, and they inevitably fight, you do feel yourself getting upset that she’s being pummelled. But it’s a small gripe. And while we’re griping small, I did prefer the book’s ending, where Sheldon escapes with the new Misery manuscript, and publishes it as his best work so far. Nobody really cares about the Great American Novel that’s in the film’s ending.
After this, recording switches to BBC1 and there’s yet another short chunk of Neighbours. Weird that there’s been so much Neighbours on these recent tapes.
Also coincidental, this bit features Kristian Schimd, seen very recently in The Tomorrow People.
There’s a rather meaty cliffhanger, as Stefan Dennis’ character is poised on a bridge, contemplating suicide. The cut from him slightly tipping forward to the jaunty Neighbours theme has never been more jarring.
There’s a trailer for The Paul Daniels Magic Show.
Then, a film that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody else talk about, ever. It’s The Boy Who Could Fly,
It’s a film I knew about for quite a while before I saw it. The theme, by Bruce Broughton, was on a compilation CD of Science Fiction themes, so the music is familiar. And I knew it was directed by Nick Castle, who had previously made the much loved (particularly by me) The Last Starfighter, so I was keen to watch it.
Bonnie Bedelia and her young family move into a new house, having recently lost their father to cancer.
She has a teenage daughter, Milly, played by Lucy Deakins.
And a younger son, Louis, played by Fred Savage off of The Wonder Years. Nick Castle had a thing for younger brothers called Louis, didn’t he?
Oh good, there’s local bullies. I really hate bullies. I’m with Captain America on this one.
Living next door is a young boy, Eric (Jay Underwood) who is autistic. He sits on his window sill and pretends to fly, something he has reputedly done since he was five, and his parents died in a plane crash.
But things take a slightly fantastical turn when she finds Eric sitting at her window, in her bedroom. Then she’s distracted briefly by younger brother Louis, and when she goes back to her room he’s back on his own window sill. It’s all one shot, suggesting that maybe, possibly, he can actually fly.
Eric’s drunken uncle Hugo is played by Fred Gwynne. He’s a nice, harmless drunk, though. Just a bit useless, not violent or angry.
Fred Savage plays a videogame, and it’s the game from The Last Starfighter.
Colleen Dewhurst plays Milly’s teacher. She’s concerned about Eric, worried that the state will take him away from his uncle, and she asks Milly to spend time with him, try to make some kind of connection with him.
If I’m honest, she’s not actually that great with him. All her efforts are based around her ‘teaching’ him to do things.
After an accident where she hits her head, he comes to her hospital room, and they actually go flying. But this is just a dream. Nevertheless, she believes Eric can fly.
Louise Fletcher appears as a hospital psychiatrist, talking to Milly about her delusions about flying.
Naturally, jeopardy arises when Eric is committed to a hospital.
Then the family dog is hit by a car and might die. Louis is terribly upset by this, and there’s a heartbreaking scene where he’s talking to Milly, and he says he might as well give up “like dad did. He didn’t even try.”
There’s a big thunderstorm. Milly thinks she sees Eric on the roof. Then he’s gone a second later. But she does find him hiding in his uncle’s attic.
Milly and Eric run from the doctors, to the school where there’s a school fair, and of course they end up on the roof. There’s only one way out, and finally we get the payoff we’ve been waiting for, as Milly and Eric fly, in front of everybody. Unlike the earlier dream sequence, most of the flying in this scene is done practically, so it looks fine. There’s some really clever wire work going on here.
After this very public demonstration, Eric flies away, and Milly and family are prodded and tested. But everyone learned an important lesson that day, and although Eric never came back, in a way, he lives in all our hearts.
I think the film slightly botches its own landing here. I get the strong feeling that the story was channelling ET, and the ending definitely reflects that. But it’s a nice enough movie, and I did cry more than once, although for me that’s not saying an awful lot.
BBC Genome: BBC One – 31st December 1992 – 13:30
After this, there’s a short cartoon, The Little Mole.
Then, the start of That’s Life Talented Pets. It opens with the oddest piece. Basically, in a pub, their three Alsatians like having soda water squirted at them. That much is cute enough. But the barman starts off this demonstration by speaking some fake gibberish ‘japanese’. He’s not Japanese himself. It’s almost literally a milkshake duck.
The tape ends during this programme.
Not many adverts on this one, but there is one for the Amstrad Mega PC – a 386 PC with a Sega Megadrive built in to it.
Adverts:
- Amstrad Mega PC
- trail: The Lookalike
- Sky News Headlines