Tag Archives: Ron Moody

The Strange Case Of The End Of Civilization As We Know It (1977, directed by Joseph McGrath)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

It should have been so much funnier.

After someone is obviously meant to be Henry Kissinger (played by Ron Moody) is assassinated when he loses his diary and extends the wrong greeting to a welcoming party in the Middle East, someone claiming to be a direct descendant of the infamous Prof. Moriarty sends a letter to the U.S. President (Joss Ackland) taking responsibility and claiming that it’s the first step in a plan to control the world.

Who better to stop the descendant of Moriarty than the descendant of Moriarty’s greatest enemy?  Arthur Sherlock Holmes (John Cleese) operates out of Baker Street with Dr. Watson (Arthur Lowe), who is bionic, and their housekeeper, Miss Hudson (Connie Booth).  Holmes solution to bringing out Moriarty is to host a gathering of the world’s greatest detectives and to dare Moriarty to try to take them out with one fell swoop.  Soon, everyone from Sam Spade to Columbo to McCloud is showing up at Baker Street.

This is a joke-a-minute comedy.  The jokes that work are funny but, unfortunately, there aren’t many of them.  Some bits, like Joss Ackland’s impersonation of Gerald Ford, start off well and then go on for too long.  Other bits, like the famous TV detectives showing up at Baker Street, have potential but fail due to poor execution.  Unfortunately, much of the humor is just not that clever to begin with, which is not something that anyone would expect from a script co-written by John Cleese.  As an actor, John Cleese is funny but underused, playing Sherlock Holmes as being an even denser version of Basil Fawlty.  Arthur Lowe’s comedic befuddlement is consistently amusing but I wish the script has done more with the idea of him being bionic.  Connie Booth is both funny and sexy and the best reason to watch this misfire.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Highway to Heaven 1.8 “A Divine Madness”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, things get a bit silly on the highway.

Episode 1.8 “A Divine Madness”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on November 7th, 1984)

Oh, this episode.

Years ago, a ruthless land developer named Arthur Krock (Ron Moody) built a castle for his beloved wife.  Tragically, his wife passed away and Arthur had a nervous breakdown.  Now, he spends all of his time in his castle and he believes that he actually is King Arthur.  He says that he’s waiting for the return of his Guinevere.  Only Marian (Helen Kleeb), his loyal maid, has remained with him over the years.  He, of course, calls her Maid Marian even though that’s a Robin Hood reference and not anything from the Arthurian legends.

Though the elder Arthur Krock is still the head of his company, the day-to-day business is handled by his son, Arthur Krock, Jr. (played by a young and beardless Jonathan Frakes).  Bitter over his unhappy childhood, Arthur, Jr. is just as ruthless as his father once was.  Arthur, Jr. has a 12 million dollar deal to force a woman named Gwen (Jean Allison) off of her land and he’s determined to get it done, even if it means displacing all of the dogs that she and her veterinarian son (Scott Stevenson) look after.

Arthur, Sr.’s daughter, Linda (Ellen Maxted), hires two new handyman and you can probably already guess that they’re going to be Jonathan and Mark.  Working around the castle, Jonathan arranges for Arthur, Sr. to meet Gwen.  When Arthur, Sr. discovers that Gwen is short for Gweneviere, he announces that she can stay on her land.  Arthur, Jr. goes to court to get his father declared incompetent.

Can you guess what happens?  Well, if you think that Arthur, Sr. hires Jonathan to be his lawyer and then announces in court that he has not been the father that he should have been …. you’re absolutely correct!

When people talk about Highway to Heaven being a campy or cheesy show, it’s usually episodes like this that they’re talking about.  Unabashedly sentimental in its approach, this episode suffers from the fact that Arthur, Jr. has a point.  Arthur, Sr. is clearly mentally ill and allowing him to run the company is totally unfair to his employees and the people who have invested in his business.  Just because Arthur, Jr. isn’t particularly likable, that doesn’t make him incorrect.  If the episode had merely portrayed Arthur, Sr. as an eccentric who didn’t want to have to deal with the pain of the real world, that would be one thing.  But this episode has Arthur, Sr. living in a literal castle, sitting on an actual throne, and referring to his son as being Lancelot.  It’s all just a bit too much and Ron Moody’s over-the-top performance doesn’t particularly help.  To the show’s credit, it does eventually acknowledge that Arthur, Sr. needs some help but still, the whole thing just feels a bit …. well, silly.

Next week, Jonathan and Mark help a movie star become a better father!  Hopefully, he doesn’t think that he’s Prester John or Robin Hood or anyone like that.

Rocky Marciano Is Dead (1976, directed by Graham Evans)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Harry Marcus (Ron Moody) was once a welterweight boxing champion but that was a long time ago.  Now, Harry is an old man who lives in small London apartment.  His daughter (Yvonne Bonnamy) visits him weekly.  Sometimes, he talks to Sonny (Jeffrey Kissoon), the squatter who is living in the abandoned apartment next to his.  Harry still likes to go back to his old gym and relive the glory days of both boxing and England.  Harry feels that those days are long gone but after he witnesses Sonny fight off a group of muggers, Harry becomes convinced that Sonny could be the next great boxer.

Harry wants to train Sonny but Sonny and his wife (Lesley Dunlop) both think boxing is barbaric.  It’s not until Harry explains that, historically, boxing has been used by the oppressed and marginalized to pull themselves out of poverty that Sonny steps into the ring.  Sonny has the talent but does Harry still have the connections to get Sonny a fight?

Rocky Marciano Is Dead was aired as a part of the BBC’s Play For Today anthology series.  It aired at the same time that Rocky was first setting box office records in the States.  Harry has a lot in common with Mickey Goldmill, the trainer played by Burgess Meredith in the first three Rocky films.  Like Mickey, he’s a former boxer who is trying to make a champ out of someone who is not sure if he has what it takes.  Rocky took place in the slums of Philadelphia while Rocky Marciano Is Dead takes place in a London that is full of abandoned buildings, gangs, and angry graffiti.  This is the London that, one year later, would inspire Johnny Rotten to sing that there was “no future in England’s dreaming.”  Not surprisingly, Rocky Marciano Is Dead is a much darker and cynical look at boxing than Rocky.  Harry is trying to recapture a past that may have never existed.

Along with providing a look at London on the cusp of the Punk Revolution, Rocky Marciano Is Dead is an acting showcase for Ron Moody.  Moody is in almost every scene, as Harry goes from being bitter to hopeful to disillusioned.  Moody makes it clear that Harry sees Sonny as something more than just a good boxer.  To Harry, Sonny is a chance to return to the time when both England and boxing were great.  If he can make Sonny a champ, Harry will be a champ too.  Harry’s mistake is not considering that Sonny might have plans of his own.  Moody was a born performer, as effective on television as in film.  He was also a perennial contender for the role of the Doctor on Doctor Who.  He was even offered the part in 1969 but turned it down, a move that he always said he regretted.  After a long career full of memorable performances in dramas, comedies, and musicals, he died in 2015 at the age of 91.  He gives a good performance in Rocky Marciano Is Dead, making Harry into something more than just an angry old man.

Rocky Marciano Is Dead can be viewed on YouTube.

Music Video of the Day: It’s A Sin by The Pet Shop Boys (1987, directed by Derek Jarman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

For all the analysis that has been dedicated to this song and Neil Tennant’s reasons for writing it, Tennant himself has said that the song itself isn’t as a serious as everyone makes it out to be.  As he explained it in a 2009 interview with Andrew Sullivan:

“People took it really seriously; the song was written in about 15 minutes, and was intended as a camp joke and it wasn’t something I consciously took very seriously. Sometimes I wonder if there was more to it then I thought at the time. But the local parish priest in Newcastle delivered a sermon on it, and reflected on how the Church changed from the promise of a ghastly hell to the message of love.”

Not surprisingly, the video is full of religious imagery, along with representations of the seven deadly sins.  In the video, Tennant’s fellow Pet Shop Boy, Chris Lowe, plays Tennant’s jailer while the judge is played by the distinguished British actor Ron Moody.  An Oscar nominee for playing Fagin in 1968’s Oliver!, Ron Moody also came very close to being cast as the Third Doctor on Doctor Who.  Though the role was offered to him, Moody turned it down to focus on his film career.  Instead, Moody’s friend, Jon Pertwee, received the role and Moody would often later say that the decision to turn down Doctor Who was one of his biggest mistakes.

This video was directed by Derek Jarman, the experimental British director who is perhaps best known for his adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II.  A political activist and a pioneer in the British gay rights movement, Jarman would sadly pass away just seven years after directing the video but he left behind a body of work that continues to be influential to this day.  Along with directing Laurence Olivier in his final performance (in War Requiem), Jarman is also often credited with having “discovered” Tilda Swinton.

It’s A Sin was one of the Pet Shops Boys’s biggest hits.  Would it have been a hit without this video?  Probably.  But the video definitely didn’t hurt.

Enjoy!