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ROBOT GORILLA RAMPAGE
I have trouble remembering last week (or yesterday, come to that), let alone this film, that was made whole lifetimes
ago at Jan's school. I remember that it was the late eighties, and that accordingly we all dressed with appalling taste. Seeing
as there was no budget, these dreadful rags were our costumes for the film. Everybody wore horrible shirts with small pointy
collars and ghastly floral designs all over them. I even had a dreadful gold suede waistcoat that gives me the creeps when
I think about it now. It was an awful time, and it was de rigeur to have drippy long hair in the Eighties style.
Thus I remember thinking that I did not look right to play a mad scientist - my hair should have been short, and greased
back. We tried to tie back my hair for this role, but it just looked dumber than ever.
I played this role as I always play Jan's Mad Scientists (and there's usually one to be found somewhere in each of his
films). It was an energetic but third-rate cross between Boris Karloff at Columbia and Bela Lugosi at Monogram. Even then
I was King of the Hams, and marched about waving my hands and shouting in an offensive fake foreign accent. It was good to
wear a white coat. I read most of my lines straight from the script, pretending that it was a "scientific formula"
or something. I always use this technique, when I can get away with it, it's easier to do this or make something up than learning
the words, and nobody ever notices. At some point during the filming of each movie, Jan will generally get wound up by this
laziness, and demand that for the next film, I must learn the script. I always promise him that I will.
I have a distinct memory of how rubbish the "bars" were on the gorilla's cage. Just lousy thin strips of the
crummiest white paper, badly cut, not even with straight edges. Jan never seemed to even notice shortcomings of this sort,
or any sort, for that matter. He's easily pleased, which is just as well. Just shoot it before someone in authority complained,
and he was happy. The "bars" were torn virtually before they were stuck across the doorway. They were precariously
fastened with blu-tak, I seem to remember, because one of the lab technicians didn't want us to use tape in case it spoiled
the paintwork.
Another thing I remember was marvelling at the fact that Jed had a girlfriend - such things were unheard of at the time.
Generally creepy young boys like us sat alone in our bedrooms, talking about Batman, or Led Zeppelin, or The Three Stooges,
snickering virginally. Wow, a real live girl, actually appearing in a film about Robot Gorillas - it sounded like a dream
come true. Wisely, she didn't talk to any of the rest of us.
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