Glenn Walker is a writer who knows pop culture. He loves, hates, and lives pop culture. He knows too freaking much about pop culture, and here's where he talks about it all: movies, music, comics, television, and the rest... Welcome to Hell.
Friday we lost Roderick George Toombs to cardiac arrest at the age of 61. For much of his life however, and throughout his professional wrestling career, he was Rowdy Roddy Piper, frequently a villain and heel, but still beloved by audiences.
I know this is going to sound odd coming from the co-host of a podcast that is sometimes focused on wrestling, but I've never seen Rowdy Roddy Piper wrestle. What I have seen however is Roddy Piper act. And I'm not talking about Hell Comes to Frogtown, 'dance of the three snakes,' indeed! I'm talking about 1988's They Live.
They Live was an amazingly cool scifi flick from James Carpenter (script, direction, and wonderfully contagious score) with a surprisingly simple premise that could have been a rocking "Twilight Zone" episode. The people who run the world, the upper class, are all aliens who keep the humans down. And only special sunglasses allow humans to see who's who. Piper's character gets hold of a pair of these glasses and hilarity ensues.
In They Live, Roddy Piper plays a nameless drifter of few words who carries the movie, the story, and his character almost completely with facial expressions, gestures, and now legendary catchphrases. It is an acting tour de force inside a simple scifi action flick.
And the seemingly endless street fight scene (some offensive language, below) between Piper and Keith David to get to latter to put on a pair of those magic sunglasses... that's just pure brilliance, and that's what I'll remember Roddy Piper for. I'll miss you, man.
A Video Review of The Thing from Another World (1951)
Copyright 2003 Glenn Walker
Up until the crazed John Carpenter 1982 remake this sci-fi classic was known as The Thing. It was changed to its original full title to differentiate from its much different modern counterpart. That is to see there’s nothing wrong with the John Carpenter version, it’s just different. Comparing the two would be like comparing Humphrey Bogart’s Desperate Hours with Mickey Rourke’s. It will only make your head explode.
This original Thing based on the award-winning short story "Who Goes There?" by sci-fi writer John W. Campbell Jr. is as I said a classic. Credited as being directed by producer Howard Hawkes’ assistant Christian Nyby it is generally believed to have really been directed by Hawkes. After all in the 1950s no real director would have anything to do with trash like science fiction. The skill of the direction is a dead giveaway.
A military base in the Arctic staffed with a cast that will become stereotype for sci-fi and horror soon enough is plagued by a giant killer carrot that lives on blood. Trust me, it’s much cooler than it sounds. We have the military man, the scientist, the reporter, and the woman, covering all the bases. Kenneth Tobey, Douglas Spencer and Margaret Sheridan are excellent, as is James Arness in an early role as the title monster.
This movie is from a wonderful school of sci-fi horror films, like the original The Haunting and Curse of the Demon where the less you show the better. The thrust of this one isn’t to jump out at you or gross you out it’s the paranoia of who can you trust. The Thing could be anybody, could be anywhere, what happens next? Very Cold War, very cool.
And of course, always remember… "Watch the skies."
