by Donna Andrews
I will miss the incomparable Christopher Lee. Dracula. Saruman. Scaramanga. Count Dooku. Sherlock AND Mycroft Holmes (and Sir Henry Baskerville). Fu Manchu. Grigori Rasputin. The Count de Rochefort. Gormenghast's Flay. Tiresias. Terry Pratchett's Death. To study his filmography is to relive a large portion of my movie-watching history. I'd watch otherwise forgettable films for the chance of seeing and hearing him. I recall railing to friends about a BBC miniseries of Ivanhoe that I found largely disappointing—as I told the friends, when the sinister Templar Grand Mater Beaumanoir is sexier than the title character, a production of Ivanhoe is in deep trouble. Of course, Beaumanoir was played by Lee . . .the seventy-five-year-old Lee, but still.
Yes, I will miss Lee, and will probably mourn his passing by having a mini retrospective of his films. Even if I narrow it down to my favorites, that will take all summer.
So first, I plan to have another smaller retrospective, for another favorite actor: Ron Moody.
If you've ever seen the big 1968 film Oliver!, you've seen Moody as Fagan. It was the role that made his career—and then warped it a bit. He has said, “I turned down quite a few offers afterwards because I thought the people didn't come close to those I'd worked with on Oliver!—which in retrospect was a mistake."
One of the roles he declined was Dr. Who. When Patrick Troughton, the Second Doctor, left the show, Moody was offered—and turned down the role, which went to Jon Pertwee. Moody's on record as regretting that decision.
But thank goodness he didn't turn down Mel Brooks when the still relatively unknown director was casting his second movie, The Twelve Chairs.
The Twelve Chairs is based on a 1928 Russian novel. It takes place in 1927, a decade after the Russian Revolution. Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, an impoverished former member of the nobility, learns that his mother-in-law sewed all her family's jewels in the seat of one of her family's twelve dining room chairs--chairs that have now disappeared. Vorobyaninov—played by Moody—joins forces with a charming con man—Frank Langella, in his first film role—and they go searching for the chairs, which have been split up and sold in smaller sets or even individually, and are now scattered across the whole of Russia. Unfortunately, the local Russian Orthodox priest—Dom DeLuise—has also heard the mother-in-law's confession, and is competing with them to find the chairs.
Dom DeLuise is hilarious as Father Fyodor; Brooks himself has a charming minor role as one of the mother-in-law's former servants, but Langella and Moody are the main show. Langella's more famous for his serious roles, but The Twelve Chairs demonstrates that he's equally adept at humor. And Moody is a genius at physical comedy. I can still crack myself up by thinking about “the bench scene” in The Twelve Chairs. And at the end of the movie, the way Moody grips a fragment of a broken chair—one minute it makes you laugh, and the next minute it will break your heart. That's my definition of the best kind of comedy.
I'm not alone in my admiration for The Twelve Chairs. In his 1970 review of the film, Roger Ebert says: The Twelve Chairs is the sort of movie that improves upon reflection. You go in expecting to laugh a lot, because you've seen The Producers. And you do laugh a lot -- to the point, perhaps, that you miss what this new Brooks film is about. It's not going for the laughs alone. It has something to say about honor among thieves, and by the end of the film we can sense a bond between the two main characters that is even, amazingly, human. To arrive at humanity through total cynicism is a very difficult thing in a work of fiction, although it happens all the time in life. Samuel Beckett does it, somehow, and so, somehow, does Brooks.”
I think a big part of the “somehow” was casting Ron Moody.
I haven't seen Moody as often as I have Christopher Lee—I think he did more stage work than film. But he was an equally beloved part of my movie-watching history.
Rest in peace, Ron Moody. And you, too, Sir Christopher. You'll be missed.
Thanks for this wonderful post.
Posted by: Ruth Nixon | June 15, 2015 at 12:40 PM
I will miss both these actors, Donna. Did you know Sir Christopher took opera signing lessons and played in a heavy metal band? And he was good!
Posted by: Elaine Viets | June 15, 2015 at 04:38 PM