PIERROT IN TURQUOISE OR THE LOOKING GLASS MURDERS – REVIEWING A VERY EARLY, EXTREMELY OBSCURE, AND EXCEEDINGLY STRANGE DAVID BOWIE MINI-MOVIE MUSICAL

 

Publicity still featuring David Bowie as Cloud, from Pierrot In Turquoise Or The Looking Glass Murders (© Brian Mahoney/Scottish Television Enterprises – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

As regular Shuker In MovieLand readers will have surely discovered by now, I'm a devoted aficionado of extremely obscure, exceedingly strange movies, especially from within the fantasy film genre. I'm also a longstanding fan of the late great David Bowie's music. So imagine my delight a couple of days ago when, after long being aware of it but never having seen it (or expecting to), I finally tracked down online a truly extraordinary TV fantasy mini-movie musical dating back over 50 years that starred the Thin White Duke himself in one of his first on-screen roles! And to make things even more bizarre, I discovered it not on any Western website but instead on a Japanese one! And what is the title of this delightful discovery? Pierrot In Turquoise Or The Looking Glass Murders (to give it its full title).

Directed by Brian Mahoney, written by David Bowie and Lindsay Kemp (both of whom also star in it), and produced by Scottish Televison Enterprises who released it on the UK TV channel Scottish Television in 1970, Pierrot In Turquoise Or The Looking Glass Murders has a running time of 27 minutes, and is described in its credits as a pantomime (devised by the afore-mentioned Lindsay Kemp). Yet even given the characteristically surreal nature of pantomimes, I can honestly say that this production is fundamentally unlike any pantomime that I've ever seen or heard about!

As you may have guessed from its title, Pierrot In Turquoise (as I'll refer to it from now on for brevity) draws its inspiration from Italy's Commedia Dell'Arte theatre traditions, with three of its five characters derived directly from the latter (namely, Pierrot, Harlequin, and Columbine), but also incorporating all manner of abstruse and absurd visual and aural novelties along the way. In addition, it is categorized as a musical (albeit a short one), because it includes four Bowie songs all specially written for it, and which contain its only dialogue, in the form of their lyrics as sung by Bowie. Indeed, prior to being filmed for this 1970 Scottish Television production, Pierrot In Turquoise had existed as a mime improvisation theatre play of the same title first staged three years earlier by Bowie and Kemp. But I digress.

 

Harlequin (played by Jack Birkett), from Pierrot In Turquoise Or The Looking Glass Murders (© Brian Mahoney/Scottish Television Enterprises – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

SPOILER ALERT! Because of how very obscure and little-known this mini-movie musical is, I'm presenting a resume of its full plot below, so if you don’t wish to know about it, please read no further.

This TV version of Pierrot In Turquoise loses no time in confirming the oddness that is about to descend upon its viewers by opening with a brief scene featuring a pianist (played by Michael Garrett) who is playing his piano silently. In fact, the entire scene is completely without sound, an initially unexpected but recurrent gimmick in this very quirky mini-movie – to such an extent, moreover, that I wondered at first if the copy that I was watching online on the Japanese website (more about that site later) was faulty, with breaks in its soundtrack. Happily, however, my subsequent researches confirmed that these sequences in silence were indeed intentional.

Anyway, once the pianist has completed his soundless recital the camera pans to the right, into a relatively sparse yet ornately-adorned bedroom setting, with an as-yet-unseen Bowie singing the first of his quartet of songs. Entitled 'When I Live My Dream' (click here to watch on YouTube the scene that first features it – it also appears but with different lyrics at the movie's end), this is my favourite Pierrot In Turquoise song – a plaintive, dreaming ballad augmented perfectly by a sonorous organ keyboard accompaniment and Bowie's wistful vocals, creating for it a quasi-medieval tone.

 

Pierrot (Lindsay Kemp) in reverie, from Pierrot In Turquoise Or The Looking Glass Murders (© Brian Mahoney/Scottish Television Enterprises – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

While this song plays, we see a seriously tousle-headed Pierrot (Lindsay Kemp) lying bloomers-attired but bare-chested on his bed, the camera focusing upon his white-powdered clown's face, and especially his dark mascara-heavy eyes, as he stares listlessly into it, lost in thought or dreams. Paradoxically, however, these take the form not of anything in context to Pierrot's life but instead of photo-stills depicting this mini-movie's performers in early, pre-dress rehearsals for it, wearing their normal, 1960s/70s clothes.

When the song ends, Pierrot shakes off his reverie and walks over to his dressing table at which he sits and begins to apply even more white powder to his already heavily-powdered face, gazing into its mirror as he does so. In the meantime, and for no reason that I could discern, the pianist is now hiding underneath the piano with an alarmed look on his face, while sitting on the side of Pierrot's bed is Harlequin (Jack Birkett), absent-mindedly knitting what looks like a long thin blue scarf (no, me neither!) and wearing yellow spandex tights with more holes in them than spandex. Also seen (and heard, regrettably!) is a small yet decidedly eerie-looking Pierrot marionette with half-closed eyes and outstretched tongue, playing a violin but only producing a cacophonous series of scratchy scraping noises. I did warn you that this was a strange movie!

Eventually, the pianist stops crawling about under the piano and stands up, and Pierrot stops applying ever more powder to his thickly-caked face and also stands up, putting on a richly-decorated jacket of gold (not turquoise!) and looks at himself in a full-length looking glass – where to his surprise he sees a green/blue-frocked Columbine (Annie Stainer) peering back at him and pirouetting seductively. Cue Song #2, 'Columbine', sung by a still-unseen Bowie (click here to view on YouTube the scene from Pierrot In Turquoise featuring it).

 

Pierrot gazing at Columbine (Annie Stainer) dancing in the looking glass, from Pierrot In Turquoise Or The Looking Glass Murders (© Brian Mahoney/Scottish Television Enterprises – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

After flouncing around for a while, transfixing poor Pierrot with her wiles and guiles, Columbine gives him a last lingering look and then vanishes like a vixen in the night within the sable depths on her side of the looking glass, leaving behind a bereft Pierrot only to stand and stare – until he reaches out and discovers to his amazement that he can actually step through the looking glass. So he does.

The other side of the looking glass is a bizarre spangle-floored, black-walled world, seemingly consisting almost entirely of an admittedly plentiful supply of silver step-ladders. Perched near the top of one of these is this movie's hitherto-elusive narrator-in-song, an enigmatic elfin character named Cloud (Bowie at last!), still singing 'Columbine' and showering its title character with a handful of spangles as she dances around wearing her usual dazed, crazed expression (but nonetheless engaging in some serious twerking long before the likes of 21^st-Century twerking exponents Ying Yang Twins and Beyoncé were even born!).

The pace, and temperature, soon rises in Looking Glass Land, however, once Pierrot turns up and finds Columbine there, as they swiftly engage in some wild, passionate, but demurely fully-dressed love-making – this is early 1970s mainstream UK TV, after all!

 

Harlequin knitting his long blue scarf, from Pierrot In Turquoise Or The Looking Glass Murders (© Brian Mahoney/Scottish Television Enterprises – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Meanwhile, back in the real world (if the world in which this movie takes place can ever be called real!), Harlequin is still knitting his blue scarf (which by now has all but acquired the dimensions of Doctor Who's in his Tom Baker incarnation!). Unsurprisingly unable to deal with any more excitement of this kind, he finally takes a walk around the bedroom, cursorily examining some of its outré accoutrements, before standing in front of the looking glass and gazing into it. We don't see what he sees, but whatever it is sends him recoiling in shock, before he gingerly tests the looking glass's surface with the palms of his hands and, just like Pierrot, is able to step through it, finding himself in the very same ladder-laden Looking Glass Land. Cue Song #3, entitled 'Harlequin' (aka 'The Mirror') (click here to view on YouTube the scene from Pierrot In Turquoise featuring it), and performed by Bowie as usual.

(Incidentally, is it just me or does this particular Harlequin bear more than a passing resemblance to Rex Ingram's genie in the classic 1940 movie The Thief of Bagdad, with Sabu in title role?)

Anyway, after walking between a number of full-sized shop-window-style female mannequins, some wearing stockings but all lacking arms yet all sporting creepy Grey Alienesque eyes, who should Harlequin find there but – surprise, surprise! – Pierrot and Columbine. There they are, for all to see, lying together in exhaustion after their steamy session of rolling about and writhing around – have they no shame? To say that Harlequin is shocked and upset would be putting it mildly, because, let's not forget, in the original Commedia Dell'Arte plays, Columbine is Harlequin's true love, not Pierrot's.

 

One of the alien-eyed full-sized female mannequins encountered by Harlequin in Looking Glass Land, from Pierrot In Turquoise Or The Looking Glass Murders (© Brian Mahoney/Scottish Television Enterprises – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Just to make matters even worse, the peculiar pianist is back – this time he's lying on his back on the floor, his billowing red-lined cape giving him a very Dracula-like look, heightened by his fraught attempts to prevent a sword grasped in his hands from staking him through the heart. What – if any – relevance does this have to the rest of the picture? I have no idea – indeed, I began to suspect while watching it that perhaps this seemingly unhinged character had wandered here by mistake from some other production, because he certainly does not seem to belong to this picture's plot at all.

Back to the main storyline, and by now Columbine has recovered sufficiently to begin seducing Harlequin – she may possess a floral name, but she ain't no wallflower, as they say, that's for sure! At this point, I'm assuming that the producers must have forgotten to put some coins in their antiquarian sound system's slot meter (or wind it up!) because we are now treated to Harlequin's pursuit of Columbine in complete silence. Then, without warning, the music comes back on again – this time in the form of a fast staccato piano piece resembling the kind of background music accompanying a car chase in vintage silent comedies – as they run into a Punch and Judy-like stage set (remember, Punch and Judy also derive from the Commedia Dell'Arte). Here they perform a sprightly cod-ballet dance in front of an audience represented by old engravings of people. And guess who was playing that piano piece – yes indeed, none other than the apparently-unstaked vampire pianist, finally contributing in some coherent, relevant fashion to the proceedings!

After the audience cheer boisterously at the end of their ballet, Harlequin and Columbine reconvene to the floor where Columbine carries on with Harlequin where she left off earlier with Pierrot – what a gal! Speaking of Pierrot: unaware of what is happening with H & C, he blissfully steps back through the looking glass into his bedroom, all lit up and loved up, his heart almost bursting with happiness. His joyful mood is accompanied by the suitably jaunty strains of this movie's fourth and final song, 'Threepenny Pierrot' (click here to view on YouTube the scene from Pierrot In Turquoise featuring it), sung by Bowie but not seen doing so, because as Cloud he is lying on Pierrot's bed and conversing with him via mime.

 

Cloud and Pierrot miming about Pierrot's love for Columbine, from Pierrot In Turquoise Or The Looking Glass Murders (© Brian Mahoney/Scottish Television Enterprises – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Suddenly, Cloud gestures to Pierrot, who looks round to see Harlequin and Columbine gaily dancing into his bedroom (though not via the looking glass). At first, Pierrot is happy to see them, but then, while looking into the mirror on his dressing table as he applies still more powder to his face (what's with this make-up mania, Pierrot??), he sees H & C getting it on, and on his bed too, whose springs are squeaking in an increasingly loud, rhythmic manner – uh-oh! His face crumbles, and if a few tears – or even a flood – could somehow manage to course a way through the layers of polyfilla-like powder on his face, they would (but they can't!).

Enraged, Pierrot turns round and races over to his bed, but the lovers are gone – and so too, seemingly, are the coins in the sound system's meter again, as we are treated to yet another silent scene, in which Pierrot sinks to the floor in despair, shaking his head in grief. Yes, Pierrot, I agree – you would indeed think that the sound people would have enough coins on hand to keep their sound system operating. What? Oh…

Anyway, the scene changes and the music returns, now a stark dissonant offering, but this time the visuals are wonky, with Columbine's dancing around the step ladders in Looking Glass Land apparently filmed through a gold filter, because apart from her green dress, everything is either black or gold. Very psychedelic, but then again, it had been filmed in 1969, so what can you expect? It reminded me of some of the pseudo avant-gardish pop music videos that would start appearing a decade later on MTV in post-'Video Killed The Radio Star' times. So, as with Columbine's twerking, this oddball mini-movie musical was actually years ahead of its time, anticipating major music trends that were still far in the future.

 

The closest to turquoise that Pierrot ever gets! From Pierrot In Turquoise Or The Looking Glass Murders (© Brian Mahoney/Scottish Television Enterprises – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Returning to the bedroom, and Pierrot has recovered sufficiently by now to get dressed, wearing a loose lappet-collared confection in powder blue (not turquoise! – and Pierrot evidently has a major powder fetish!). Sitting at his dressing table, he picks up the single large yellow bloom that has been on it all through the movie, and as Columbine dances by him he offers it to her, with the pianist both seen and heard to be tinkling the ivories in the background. She stares at the flower and at Pierrot in amazement until in best Chaplinesque manner he shyly offers it to her. She tenderly accepts it from him in spite of her face exhibiting a disturbingly deranged expression. Even so, all seems to be going swimmingly well between them – and then Harlequin muscles in, literally, his brawny arms bearing a veritable flower garden of blooms, which he offers to Columbine.

To quote the title of a canzone composed by Verdi for his famous opera Rigoletto, la donna è mobile ('woman is fickle'), and none more so than the callous Columbine. Without a thought for poor Pierrot, she tosses his precious bloom away and sweeps up the splendiferous display from the arms of Harlequin. Not a wise move, Columbine!

For enough is enough as far as the by-now psychotically jealous Pierrot is concerned, who, after staggering back in horror at Columbine's ungracious, ungrateful actions, smashes Harlequin's showy blooms out of her hands, pulls a long slender epée-like sword from beyond the upper edge of the set (clever, that!), and vengefully stabs Harlequin to death with it!

 

Pierrot tempestuously seizing the large bouquet of blooms given by Harlequin to Columbine, from Pierrot In Turquoise Or The Looking Glass Murders (© Brian Mahoney/Scottish Television Enterprises – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

And when Columbine falls to the ground in shock, trying to embrace her late lover, Pierrot points the sword at her too, inciting her to flee in terror, back into Looking Glass Land. Here, Cloud sits on his step-ladder, calmly watching the grim proceedings taking place below as Pierrot pursues his petrified betrayer, chasing her hither and thither around the ladders, before finally seizing her, kissing her – and then chopping off her head! Actually, what you see is not Columbine herself being decapitated, but a dramatic substitute scene featuring one of the alien-eyed female mannequins – but it is clear that Columbine's beheading is what the mannequin's is meant to represent.

Bowie sings a version with different lyrics of his first song, 'When I Live My Dream', its words now despondent and despairing, in keeping with the final scene, in which an insane Pierrot, lying on the floor in Looking Glass Land, dies of a broken heart, clutching to his mouth the head of the mannequin, representing that of Columbine. But it's not quite over yet. The pianist walks into shot, looks down at the dead Pierrot, shakes his head, then walks back through the looking glass into Pierrot's now-deserted bedroom and sits down at the piano, where, just as it began, Pierrot In Turquoise ends with the pianist playing in total silence as the end credits roll.

What to say about this mad mini-movie? A major masterpiece or pretentious piffle, a phantasmagorical fantasy or a tour-de-force in tosh and twaddle, a spellbinding spectacle or a cryptic curiosity, an exercise in existentialism, an incomprehensible illusion – or, most likely, a complex combination of all of these interpretations, and many others too. Moreover, even though it only has two main sets – Pierrot's bedroom and Looking Glass Land – the exquisite beauty of the former's design and the spangled strangeness of the latter's instantly and lastingly imprint themselves upon the viewer's memory – a telling testimony to the flair and flamboyance gifted to this production by its very talented designer, Ken Wheatley. Oddly, however, Pierrot never wears his most famous outfit, with which he is intimately associated – his white jacket, white ruff, white trousers, and bobble-topped white hat, against which his hat's black bobble and his jacket's large black buttons yield a very distinctive contrast (NB - sometimes, his black-bobbled white hat is replaced by an all-black brimless cap). The same applies to Harlequin, not wearing the multicoloured spangled costume in which this fellow Commedia Dell'Arte character is traditionally garbed. Strange.

 

Columbine dancing in Looking Glass Land, from Pierrot In Turquoise Or The Looking Glass Murders (© Brian Mahoney/Scottish Television Enterprises – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

My verdict? I absolutely loved Pierrot In Turquoise (even though he was never actually in turquoise!), its unequivocally weird but also very wonderful visuals, its inspiration drawn from the Commedia Dell'Arte (of which I've always been a major fan), and even the spasmodically macabre, even sometimes sinister quality of its mime, its grotesque mannequins, and ghostly powder-faced Pierrot all appealed to my sense of the uncanny and unaccountable. If I'm honest, I could have done without the inane interruptions by the pianist, not to mention the senseless scenes of silence, but the latter was more than compensated for by Bowie's songs, most especially 'When I Live My Dream' which has instantly taken its place alongside my longstanding favourites from his vast catalogue of compositions, such as 'Ashes To Ashes' and 'Loving The Alien'.

How I wish that this all-but-forgotten, rarely-seen curiosity could be made readily available on DVD and/or Blu-Ray – Bowie fans would undoubtedly pounce upon it with glee, but so too, I feel, would a much wider audience, which it has long deserved but never received.  Then again: as I mentioned at the beginning of this review, I did happen to locate a copy of it purely by chance on a Japanese website, the website in question being Bilibili.com (click here to view Pierrot In Turquoise on it). So if one site has it, perhaps others do too (YouTube doesn't, I've checked!). And sure enough, as is so often the way of things, not long after discovering it on Bilibili.com I found that it was also on Vimeo (click here to view it there).

So even if Pierrot In Turquoise is never released in physical disc format, for the time being at least you have the choice of two different sites where it is available to watch legally and free of charge. So if you'd like to view this early formative Bowie appearance while you can, I recommend that you take this opportunity to do so now, without delay, and experience yet another fascinating facet of his unique, multi-talented, chameleonic character. Also well worth viewing (click here to do so) is a video uploaded onto YouTube to accompany Bowie singing his song 'After All', which doesn't actually appear in Pierrot In Turquoise, but this video consists of visual clips from it.

 

David Bowie as Cloud, singing one of his songs, from Pierrot In Turquoise Or The Looking Glass Murders (© Brian Mahoney/Scottish Television Enterprises – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

My very own Pierrot, in his traditional black and white costume, and amid some interesting company! (© Dr Karl Shuker)

 

 

My very own Harlequin, in a more traditional spangled costume, strumming his lute (© Dr Karl Shuker)

 

THE GREEN KNIGHT

 

Publicity montage poster for The Green Knight (© David Lowery/A24/Ley Line Entertainment/Sailor Bear/Bron Creative/Wild Atlantic Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Many years ago, I read and greatly enjoyed a 1950s translation into modern English by The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit author J.R.R. Tolkien of a quite lengthy yet hitherto-obscure Arthurian-inspired alliterative poem dating from the late 14^th Century that was originally untitled but is nowadays commonly known as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. (Incidentally, Tolkien's translation of this previously long-forgotten early literary work remained unpublished until 1975, two years after his death, and I still own it in paperback.) The poem is written not in the familiar London version of Middle English utilized by the likes of Geoffrey Chaucer back then, but instead in a much less accessible Midlands version utilized by its unidentified Midlands-based author, which may explain its long-overlooked status, and in this original form it is preserved in only a single now-priceless medieval manuscript held at the British Museum.

This poem tells of a gigantic and seemingly supernatural green-hued knight (deemed by some scholars to personify England's ancient Green Man symbol of fertility and rebirth), who rides his immense green steed uninvited into King Arthur's Camelot court one New Year's Eve, carrying a huge axe, and challenges whether any of Arthur's noble Knights of the Round Table is brave enough to behead him with it and subsequently journey to the legendary Green Chapel in his distant realm in order to receive the same treatment from him in a year and a day's time. Whoever wins the contest will retain the axe. Sir Gawain, Arthur's nephew, accepts this daunting challenge, but when he decapitates the Green Knight with a single mighty blow from the axe this verdant visitor does not die. Instead, he simply bends down, picks up his severed head, and then rides away, leaving the axe at Camelot after telling Gawain that if he is indeed of noble knightly stature he will honour his sworn oath, made in the presence of everyone there. The rest of the poem chronicles Gawain's subsequent quest to the Green Chapel, alluding to all manner of adventures and experiences en route (in particular his fateful meeting with a mysterious Lord, Lady, and old crone, none of whom are what they seem), and what happens to him when he finally encounters his uncanny adversary and presents the axe to him, to wield accordingly as agreed...

Several different big-screen, small-screen, and on-stage interpretations of this engrossing fantasy have been produced down through the years since Tolkien prepared his translation, including the famous 1984 movie Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, starring none other than Sean Connery in fine fettle as the Green Knight. However, on 26 April 2022 I finally watched the latest cinematic incarnation – The Green Knight. (I say 'finally', because this movie was originally due to be released into cinemas globally during 2020, when I would have definitely watched it, but this release was cancelled in the UK and various other countries due to the Covid pandemic closing cinemas for long periods of time during the lockdowns, so I waited until it became available on DVD.)

Directed and co-written for the screen by David Lowery, and released (albeit only briefly) in the USA during 2020 by A24, The Green Knight is an unexpectedly dark, sombre affair for much of its length, with its storyline taking a fair few liberties with the original medieval source material. Some of these plot departures and deviations add to the magic – such as the mystical mist-enshrouded giants briefly encountered by Gawain (played by Dev Patel), and his spooky meeting (in every sense!) with the Welsh virgin martyr St Winifred (Erin Kellyman), not featured in the original poem.

Others, conversely, do not. For instance, Gawain is accompanied for much of his journey by a fox companion (CGI-rendered) that he has befriended and which behaves in an entirely normal vulpine manner – until, that is, it suddenly begins talking to him, and in a decidedly otherworldly voice (even for a fox!), when, near the movie's climax (more about that later!), it seeks to dissuade him from completing his quest to confront the Green Knight. Yet why the fox abruptly transforms from fellow traveller into temptation personified is never explained in the film (though I did later discover its opaque meaning).

Also, at times Gawain is decidedly whining rather than winning in his attitude to what lies ahead, and behind, him during his epic foray. This is not what I'd expect from a valiant Camelot knight errant, and in turn says even less about the other ennobled Round Table residents, who unlike Gawain had baulked at taking up the Green Knight's challenge (which takes place here on Christmas Day, btw, not on New Year's Eve, and the Green Knight wears green armour instead of being without armour like he is in the poem). Having said that, it needs to be pointed out that in yet another marked change from its source material, in this movie Gawain has not actually been knighted when he embarks upon his quest, which is actively commented upon by various characters that he meets during his travels – until the Green Knight refers to him as a knight when Gawain bravely confronts him as agreed at the Green Chapel and thereby makes him one (according to traditional knight custom).

In fact, in a number of ways, especially concerning matters of honour and integrity, Gawain's role in this movie is, surprisingly, an exact opposite version to that in the poem. However, I'll avoid saying more about that here, and will instead leave viewers to see what I mean when they watch this film themselves.

Overall it has its moments for sure, and I definitely do not dislike it, far from it, but for me The Green Knight is less impressive than I'd been anticipating. Filmed in Ireland, it certainly contains enough gorgeously viridescent Emerald Isle visuals and hauntingly ethereal Celticesque music to create an ample supply of Clannad or Enya music videos, but also much supplementary content that makes little if any sense. Moreover, this sad latter situation is not helped in the slightest by a movie-long attack of the mumbles afflicting most of the cast, to the extent that I finally acquiesced to turning on subtitles. Less attention to visuals, more to vocals by the production team was definitely needed here.

Finally, after sitting through almost 2 hours to reach the dramatic climactic scene, which then turns out never to have actually happened(!), the real ending proves to be anything but an ending! In other words, if you want to discover what really happens to Gawain after meeting and submitting to the Green Knight (played by Ralph Ineson), not to mention the latter's connection to the Lord (Joel Edgerton) and Lady (Alicia Vikander) – a connection never even featured, let alone ultimately revealed, in this movie – you'll have to seek out Tolkien's translation (or various alternatives now also in existence).

All in all, it may come as no surprise to learn that a frequent criticism of this film by viewers has been that they didn't understand its plot, that it was too abstruse to follow – and if truth be told, had I not already read Tolkien's translation as well as having viewed various previous on-screen versions, I might not have done either.

Ah well, at least I did learn one useful fact from watching The Green Knight. For if its Arthurian accuracy can indeed be trusted, Gawain's name is apparently pronounced GARwin, not GaWAIN, as I had always assumed. You live and learn!

If you'd like to keep company with gallivanting Gawain and his fickle fox on their perilous if at times querulous quest for at least the length of an official movie trailer, be sure to click here to view one for The Green Knight on YouTube.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Publicity poster for The Green Knight (© David Lowery/A24/Ley Line Entertainment/Sailor Bear/Bron Creative/Wild Atlantic Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

PIN

 

Publicity poster for Pin (aka PIN) (© Sandor Stern/Image Organization/Lance Entertainment/Malofilm/Telefilm Canada/New World Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Many films feature a character who has an imaginary friend, but whereas such friends are usually invisible to everyone else, in the Canadian psychological thriller/horror movie to be reviewed here the imaginary friend is visible – only too visible, and audible, in fact!

For me, the most effective horror movies are not the ones awash with blood and gore, but rather those that get inside your head, insidiously penetrating your mind, infiltrating and then tenaciously taking residence within your thoughts, your dreams, and sometimes your nightmares too. Last night, I watched one such movie – Pin.

Directed and written by Sandor Stern, based upon Andrew Neiderman's eponymous 1981 novel, and released by New World Pictures in 1988, Pin (or PIN, as given in some sources, despite this name not being an acronym) takes to a whole new level of creepiness the perennially popular horror theme of an inanimate human simulacrum ostensibly taking on a life of its own, and a malign, controlling one at that, whether it be a ventriloquist's dummy (as in Magic, 1978, for instance), a life-sized doll (as more recently in The Boy, 2016), or something else.

In the case of Pin, the 'something else' is a life-sized anatomically-precise adult male wood/plastic medical dummy named Pin (short for Pinocchio, a name given to it by the then-young daughter of physician Dr Frank Linden (played by Terry O'Quinn), sitting in a wheelchair.

SPOILER ALERT!! I do not normally present the entire storyline of a movie when reviewing it, but in this instance I feel it necessary to do so – so if you don't want to know the plot and in particular its final, devastating  twist, read no further!!

In a very strange, unconventional family set-up, both Dr Linden and his wife Mrs Linden (Bronwen Mantel) are very cold and distant to their two children, Ursula (Cynthia Preston when Ursula reaches her teens) and her slightly older brother Leon (David Hewlett when Leon reaches his teens). Mrs Linden, moreover, is driven to manic levels by cleaning OCD, to such an extent that she refuses to allow the children to bring any potential school friends home in case they make the house dirty. So away from school Leon and Ursula remain isolated from children their own age, relying very much on each other for friendship, but in the case of Leon, he has one very special additional friend too…

Dr Linden uses Pin not only to demonstrate biology to adult patients and as a demonstration aid at medical conventions but also as a means of relaxing young patients, by using his considerable ventriloquism skills in order to enable Pin to 'talk' to them, explaining their ailments in a child-friendly manner. He even uses Pin as a surrogate to talk to Ursula and Leon when they are small (communicating with them via the dummy in a playful way that he is emotionally incapable of doing directly, as their father). Yet whereas as they grow older Ursula realizes that Pin's talking is merely ventriloquism, performed by their father, Leon continues to believe that Pin is genuinely talking to him – a first indication that Leon may have issues…

And indeed, as the years go by from childhood into adolescence Leon turns ever more to Pin, treating him as a fully-fledged friend, mastering ventriloquism until he is as adept at this cryptic art as his father is, and using it to have long conversations with Pin whenever he finds himself alone with the dummy in his father's surgery. Disturbingly, however, Leon still believes that Pin is talking to him, seemingly unaware that it is he himself, via ventriloquism, who is providing Pin with its voice (a somewhat eerie voice, incidentally, supplied by Wiseguy actor Jonathan Banks).

By the time that Leon and Ursula have reached their teens, Leon's mind has to all intents and purposes split into two autonomous portions, each with its own personality. One portion is Leon, the other portion is Pin, but no-one in his family is aware of his psychosis, until Ursula, now aged 15 and sexually promiscuous, discovers that she is pregnant. Petrified about telling her father, she confesses all to Leon, asking his advice. In reply, and to her bewilderment, Leon proposes that they go and ask Pin, and when he takes her to the dummy she watches incredulously as Leon and Pin have a conversation about her situation. She can see straight away that Leon is using ventriloquism to yield Pin's voice, just like her father did when they were children, but she can also see that Leon is not aware of what he is doing, that instead he truly believes Pin is talking to him. Traumatised, she flees the room.

Ursula has no option but to confess her pregnancy to their father, who decides to carry out the required abortion himself, and even encourages Leon to watch, for educational purposes! Speaking of which: years earlier when explaining the facts of life to Ursula and Leon after their mother had caught them giggling over a pornographic magazine, instead of telling them directly he had yet again used Pin to do so, even allowing them to check out Pin's private parts. I told you that they were a strange family! It's little wonder that Leon went off the rails, but it took their father a long time to realize just how far off the rails Leon had travelled.

One evening, however, after returning unexpectedly to his surgery to pick up some papers that he'd forgotten for a lecture that he is due to give shortly at a medical society and is already running late for, Linden is greatly shocked to discover a now late-teenage Leon there, having one of his ventriloquistic conversations with Pin. Linden realizes for the very first time that his son is mentally ill, and that his own ventriloquistic use of Pin with Leon and Ursula as children is at the core of his illness.

 

A gif showing the moment when his father catches Leon in the act of talking with Pin at the surgery (© Sandor Stern/Image Organization/Lance Entertainment/Malofilm/Telefilm Canada/New World Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Deciding not to confront Leon about this for the time being, yet determined to sever the unhealthy link between Leon and Pin with all speed, Linden simply tells him to go home, but not to let his mother sitting in their car outside see him. Then as soon as Leon is gone, Linden carries Pin to the car, where he tells his wife that he will be permanently leaving the dummy at the medical society for use in teaching purposes. However, he doesn't realize that Leon has been hiding nearby, has seen and heard everything, and is totally distraught at the thought of losing Pin, his only friend other than Ursula.

Driving erratically at high speed in an attempt to make up time and not to be too late for the faculty meeting, Linden loses control of the car when Pin in the back seat topples forward onto him, causing the car to crash. Linden and his wife are both killed, but when the police inform Leon and Ursula, Leon retrieves Pin from the wrecked car and brings the dummy back home.

Leon and Ursula now have their grand family house entirely to themselves, and can live how they choose – except, that is, for a brief period when their bossy Aunt Dorothy (Patricia Collins) arrives to take charge of them and the house, which she has always coveted. Like I say, however, Dorothy's stay is brief, thanks to Leon using Pin to quite literally frighten her to death one evening, after having drugged an unsuspecting Ursula to ensure that she sleeps through it all.

Taking a local job as a librarian to get away from the claustrophobic and downright deranged atmosphere with Leon at home, who has now taken to dressing Pin in their late father's clothes, applying latex to his plastic face to make him look more human, and even insisting that he join them at the table for meals, Ursula gains a boyfriend in the shape of college athlete Stan Fraker (John Pyper-Ferguson). Jealous, Leon tries to have relationships with women, who are sexually attracted to him because of his slim handsome looks, but he has no sexual interest in them whatsoever, and even uses Pin to scare away one persistent would-be lover, Marcia. The only woman of his own age whom he considers to be beautiful is Ursula – uh-oh…

Both Ursula's job and (especially) her boyfriend anger Leon, who feels that Ursula, who has always looked up to him, is beginning to slip out of his grasp. So. as always, Leon confides his fears to Pin, who agrees with him, which only increases his paranoia, in every sense. Consequently, being well aware of Leon's antagonism towards her job and boyfriend, one day Ursula invites Stan back to the house for a meal and for him to become better acquainted with Leon, in the hope that Leon will come to like him – but as soon as Stan arrives, holding a box of chocolates for Ursula, Leon takes the chocolates from him, telling him that Pin loves chocolates, and insists upon introducing him to Pin. To Leon's surprise and displeasure, however, Stan seems unfazed by the dummy, even talking to it (because Ursula had forewarned Stan about the Leon/Pin situation). During the evening, Leon becomes increasingly distraught and distracted by how close Ursula and Stan clearly are, but when they ask him to read some of his poetry to them, writing poetry having long been his greatest intellectual passion, Leon begins to unwind, especially when Stan appears to like it.

 

Ursula and Leon (Cyndy Preston and David Hewlett) (© Sandor Stern/Image Organization/Lance Entertainment/Malofilm/Telefilm Canada/New World Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Delighted by this unexpected turn of events, Leon goes joyfully upstairs to tell Pin, but Pin warns him not to be fooled. Sure enough, when Leon comes back down he overhears Stan and Ursula talking animatedly, with Ursula stating that she is only too well aware of Leon's mental state, having read every book on paranoid schizophrenia and suchlike in the library, but she will not allow him to be incarcerated in a mental asylum. In response, Stan retorts that even Leon's poetry is sick – and indeed, in the poem that he had read to them a little earlier that evening, its protagonist was seeking to rape his own sister. There had been indications of incestuous thoughts on Leon's part all through the movie but this is the first time that they are made readily apparent.

Leon does not betray that he knows what Ursula and Stan have said, but, goaded on by Pin, he swiftly plans his revenge, luring Stan shortly afterwards to visit him at the house while Ursula is at work in the library, on the pretext of needing Stan's help in arranging a surprise birthday party for her. After drugging Stan's drink when he arrives to render him sleepy, Leon savagely beats Stan about the head with a heavy ornament, then places his body inside a transparent zip-up suit bag before hiding it in the woodpile outside, beneath a big pile of logs. He then tries to scrub the blood off the floor inside the house where Stan had fallen – all the while following Pin's specific instructions.

When Ursula returns home that evening, however, it is clear from Leon's flustered attitude and inability to eat that all is not well, and she too is worried, not having received a call from Stan about their planned night out together. Leon tries to cover by claiming that Stan had called him instead, asking him to tell Ursula that he had to visit a sick relative, but Ursula is clearly not convinced. Suddenly, she hears a very familiar, characteristic chiming – the chime that is emitted on the hour every hour by the watch that she had recently given Stan as a birthday present.

At first, Ursula thinks that Stan is playing a joke on her, that he is hiding here inside the house. Then she finds his watch on the floor, and spots a wet patch of blood on the carpet close by. When she confronts Leon, he breaks down, falling to the ground alongside Pin sitting in its wheelchair, and putting the blame on Pin, claiming that it was all the dummy's fault. Hysterical with rage, Ursula races outside, grabs a heavy double-axe from the woodpile, races back inside, swings it over her head, then brings it crashing down as a terrified Leon screams out – and then...

The next thing that we see on screen is the police outside the Linden house, with Ursula held inside one of their cars, and a couple of police officers removing logs from the woodpile, watched by other officers and a crowd of curious onlookers. Suddenly, one of the two officers at the woodpile spots the bag containing Stan's body and then, as he begins to haul it out, he gasps in amazement – Stan is still alive!

 

Leon with Pin in its original unclothed, non-latexed state (© Sandor Stern/Image Organization/Lance Entertainment/Malofilm/Telefilm Canada/New World Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Only one final, but unforgettable scene is left to play. At some undetermined time following the above-described climax, Ursula and a now fully-recovered Stan have driven back to the Linden family house. Leaving Stan outside in the car, Ursula goes inside, meets briefly with a nurse (who refers to her as Mrs Fraker, so she and Stan are clearly married now), then walks inside one of the upstairs rooms. A figure is sitting motionless in a wheelchair at the far end of the room, staring out of a window with their back towards her.

"Hello Pin," Ursula says, but receives no response from the figure. She then states that she and Stan are going away on vacation to Cape Cod for a week, and she wonders if there is anything that Pin would like. In its unmistakable voice, Pin tells her to wind up a musical ballerina figurine, which when she was a child had been given to her by her father as a gift from Pin. It now stands next to a framed photo-portrait of Leon on a table next to where she is standing inside the room, so she winds it up and watches it as it slowly rotates on its base while the tinkling music plays. "Have you heard from Leon?" asks Pin. Striving to hold back tears and remain composed, Ursula replies that she hasn't. "I miss him a great deal," responds Pin. This time, it takes longer for Ursula to compose herself, before finally replying: "So do I".

By now, I'd seriously begun to wonder whether this riveting if decidedly weird movie had cleverly thrown me a curved ball from the word go, i.e. that Pin had genuinely been talking all along, and that every assumption I'd made about what had been happening in the story had therefore been wrong, its plot having presented a masterly performance in misdirection, in fact – but then…

Throughout their brief conversation, the camera has remained focused entirely upon Ursula, mostly upon her face. Abruptly, however, the camera now switches instantaneously from Ursula's face to that of Pin – except, of course, it isn't Pin's face or, indeed, Pin. It is Leon – totally immobile, with his face as expressionless as Pin's had always been, but it is Leon's, and Leon, nonetheless. After several seconds, his face fades to black, and the end credits start to roll.

From this dramatic closing shot, it is now evident what had happened earlier after an enraged Ursula had brought down the axe. She hadn't attacked Leon with it (she'd be in prison if she had done, not going on holiday with Stan!). Instead, she had smashed up Pin, whom she blamed for Leon's madness and all the unhappiness that had stemmed from that for both of them. But seeing his friend destroyed had been too much for Leon's already fragile grasp on reality to withstand. Incapable of bearing the loss of Pin, Leon had become Pin. The Leon portion of his mind had been absorbed entirely by the Pin portion. Only the outer physical shell of Leon remained, his mind now was Pin, which is why Ursula had addressed him as Pin. No doubt she had been advised by Leon's medical team that this is the only way that she would elicit any response from an otherwise catatonic Leon. (Incidentally, this closing scene explains the otherwise oblique opening one that I deliberately haven't mentioned here, bringing this movie's plot full circle, but I'll leave you to watch the full film in order to understand that!)

Many movies of this nature would have taken the clichéd cop-out route when bringing it to a shocking close – revealing that Pin was alive after all, that he really had been some supernatural or possessed entity. So it was a pleasant surprise that this time the movie-makers had stuck to their guns and remained faithful to everything that they had set up along the way. In particular, when he is first seen making Pin talk, close-ups of Dr Linden's face plainly show the slight movements of his lips and throat, leaving the viewer in no doubt that ventriloquism is at work. The same ploy is used when Leon is talking to Pin about Ursula's pregnancy while she is present – she even looks directly at Leon's lips and throat, and later asks him when he had learnt to do that (to which Leon denies that he'd done anything, claiming that Pin had truly spoken to them – tragic testimony to the split-personality status that his mind had assumed by now).

But the fact that Pin is not supernatural does not make his story any less terrifying – if anything, it becomes even more so, when the full extent of Leon's psychosis becomes apparent. And here I have to give great praise to the two leads, whose acting skills achieve so much in maintaining both the interest and the believability of this often macabre but thoroughly spellbinding film that in lesser hands could so easily have been trite and tasteless. Moreover, even its musical score (by Peter Manning Robinson) is both despairingly sad and captivatingly creepy! But back to the leads:

David Hewlett is mesmerizingly chilling, creating in the superficially charming but socially awkward and increasingly unhinged Leon a serious rival to Anthony Perkins's duplicitously deadly, thoroughly insane Norman Bates in Psycho, no less. And yet, having seen the emotional torments inflicted upon him throughout his childhood and adolescence by his own unequivocally odd, unfeeling parents and cruel, uncaring schoolmates, one cannot help but feel sorry for Leon, and even a degree of compassion and comprehension too when in desperate need for a friend and confidante he turns from outward influences to inward ones instead, his troubled mind focusing upon Pin and insidiously transforming him into the perfect friend. Meanwhile, almost as if she is the obverse side of the same coin as Leon (which I suppose in many ways is indeed true), Cyndy Preston's Ursula is so outward going that by adolescence she has become sexually promiscuous. Nevertheless, she is also winsomely and winningly beautiful, both physically and personally, remaining believably steadfast to her disturbed brother throughout the movie, even to – especially to – the very end, despite her terrible realization quite early on that his mind is seriously damaged.

Pin was released at a time when the horror movie fad was for supernatural shocks and scares, all garnished with lashings of gore and gallons of blood, so this sophisticated horror movie of the mind pretty much lost its way, receiving praise from those few who actually noticed it, but overlooked by the vast majority of viewers and reviewers. This is a great tragedy, because it deserved, and still deserves, far more recognition. Today, like so many other distinctive films that suffered similarly unjust fates when originally released, Pin has become something of a cult movie, and rightly so. Alfred Hitchcock, who directed the afore-mentioned Psycho, was a great believer in less is more when producing a successful thriller film, and in leaving its most shocking content to the human imagination, so I strongly suspect that he would have enjoyed Pin, which follows his example to the letter.

I freely confess that despite being a lover of strange, little-known movies, I was entirely unaware of Pin until I chanced upon a DVD of it for 50p on a market stall just over a week ago, but it was 50p very well spent, that's for sure! Moreover, you can enjoy Pin for even less than that, because if you click here, you can currently watch this entire movie free of charge, on YouTube (or here, if you want to watch a hilariously OTT trailer for it!). You can thank me later!

Finally: To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

The full cover of the official UK Cinema Club sell-thru VHS video of Pin (© Sandor Stern/Image Organization/Lance Entertainment/Malofilm/Telefilm Canada/New World Pictures/Cinema Club – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)