Joe (I liked Barry Sadler) Fernbacher, Creem, 11/78
Okay. Let’s hit bottom line on this right off: Richard Burton is the only human being on this planet who can say the word “crotch” with eloquence and style. Remember his eventually-to-be-famous scene in the never-really-famous The Longest Day, in which he made audiences writhe in their popcorn boxes by simply describing a wound of wounds? “Ak Ak caught me, split me from knee to CROTCH...Medic came along (pause) He’d lost his kit on the beach... (pause) he pinned it together with safety pins.” Eekk, squirm ’n’ eekk again. It was at this point in time that Richard Burton took his first steps into the murky glee of grotesquery.
Only thing is, he’s way behind the field, which already includes the likes of Peter Cushing (the eternal Frankenstein), Chris Lee (the best Prince of Darkness ever), and Vincent Price (the ghoul’s ghoul). The way Burton’s going lately it’s obvious he’s trying to set himself up as the Vincent Price of the 80s. Never gonna happen, though. Price is the godhead of gore and he knows it, his audience knows it, and besides he keeps at it with a deep-seeded joy born and bred out of the terror realized when a little kid comprehends the fact that no, Dr. Phibes cannot be destroyed.
Actually Price is so good at what he does he can even outdo Burton on the Shakespeare scene, especially when it comes to doing the Bard on the silver screen. Burton did a movie about frontier actor Edwin Booth, the brother of John Wilkes (who was played by John Derek who was ACTUALLY married to Ursula Andress) called Prince of Players, which concerned itself with America’s first big-time Shakespearean actor. So Burton had his big chance to take over the international championship of Willie the Shake talk, and he did himself proud with the role. Only thing is that lotsa years later Vincent Price ambles along and deals out a tight little effort called Theater of Blood, about a Shakespearean actor who is driven out a window by critics and then returns completely demented and proceeds to wipe out those critics one by one. Vinnie does all these great scenes from Willie the Shake as he’s wasting his enemies. The movie was sublime and Price was unreal.
Now Burton’s lurking about trying to worm his way into the action. Only things is he’s a little late to get gory, just like he’s a little late to be entering the pop music biz. But he’s trying and maybe someday he’ll do a movie with Price, winner take all.
Bringing us finally to Burton’s initial lapse into pophoodery with these sidereal guys from the Moodies, closely akin to the Moonies, but a shade more evocative, in a venture aptly emblazoned, War Of The Worlds a musical conception, or should we get critical right away and say a musical misconception of Orson and H.G. Welles’ famous tale of interplanetary shenanigans and parochial-angst.
The first mistake that’s made on the LP is that they take the story back to its original setting, England, and herein lies the major fault in the original work: England is simply too subdued for this kind of cosmic raid. The setting has always worked better in the US (e.g. the Halloween broadcasts heard yearly as each city gets its chance at Martian dominance and submission, the award winning movie version, etc.) simply because the people in the States are more likely to wallow in the necessary hysterics to make such an invasion plausible; England is too sedate (though a version of this starring Johnny Rotten could be very interesting).
Secondly, if they’re gonna get anybody to do narration for this piece it has to be Orson Welles, his recorded version of that famous Halloween show is shattering, and maybe with his sonorous ear, the necessary texture between story and music might’ve been attained. As it stands the music gets in the way of the narration and the narration gets in the way of the music; even the tricky ending can’t save this effort. Simply put, it comes across like a Moody Blues album with a bad case of blueballs.
Two spots do however show signs of life. “The Red Weed,” though quite long, does sustain and maintain a certain invocation of destruction, and “Dead London” might give a couple of punks a giggle with its assured images of rubble and ruin. Of course, if this starts a trend and we get musical editions of Godzilla vs. Ghidrah or The Mysterians then this project has served an important purpose thereby insuring itself of a small niche in the Museum of Wam Bama Lamma-Womp Bam Boom...
War (good segueway just like on Lou Grant): the best movies—war: the most influential emotion in man’s history—war: it couldn’t kill Richard Conte—war: it did kill the Duke—war: that third person delight of all peace grunts—war: the ultimate plaything of a bored, deviant culture—war: brought to you by Don Kirshner, Clive Davis and now, Herb Alpert. Would you believe a musical rendition of the Civil War starring Waylon Jennings, Eric Clapton and Bernie Leadon...No? Would you believe...
White Mansions is a fragmented disassembled look into the race hatred surrounding the American Civil War—a cheerful topic, one worthy of two-record sets, instead we only get one record and a lavish booklet, which is more polished than the LP. Yet, even with all the startling black ’n’ white photography this “concept” just doesn’t come to grips with the grim realities of that vicious little firefight.
Waylon Jennings is sufficiently Robert Mitchumish to make it through this without any visible scars. He plays the Drifter, a sort of Melmouth the Wanderer character who oversees the whole shebang, and his one solid musical moment (and really the only good musical moment of this whole mish-mash) is a song called “Dixie, Now You’re Gone.” Jennings still isn’t as good as he was in Nashville Rebel but then again could anyone ever attain that kind of style more than once in a lifetime?
Eric Clapton can just about be made out on some cuts, which is just as well; he’s used to hiding during embarrassing moments, at the preview performance of the Plastic Ono Band he hid behind his amps all night. Why Bernie Leadon is here is anyone’s guess.
White Mansions is an ambitious outing that fails because it tries to encompass too much in too short a time, whereas War Of The Worlds is an effort doomed to yawndom because it encompasses too little in too long a time. There is definitely a confusion of space ’n’ time between these two potentially good records, so when you guys straighten it all out give a call. I’ll be playing backgammon in the Twilight Zone, trying to get the Stars ’n’ Stripes on my black ’n’ white TV to go color at sign off time. War: never mind and much later.
Get your own Free Home Page