What I cannot help wondering is how differently the second half of the film might have turned out if Howie had yielded to Willow.
The second half of the film would, of course, have not existed. It's not just that [insert obligatory spoiler notice] Howie would not have then been a workable sacrifice, but that his entire worldview would have shifted; he would have become a different character altogether. And, as a convert to the island's religion, I think he'd have fit in just fine.
At the very least, I need to buy the soundtrack. "Gently, Johnny" won't get out of my head.
Magnet's version is, of course, the finest I've heard of it, but no pristine copy exists; the soundtrack is lifted from the film, as the masters are still (yes, still!) tied up in some sort of copyright war-- which is why no official soundtrack was released until the late nineties, and the one we have now is the same as the bootleg copy I scored ten years previous to that. heh.
Tanakh's version (on Villa Claustrophobia, their best disc) is also bloody fantastic.
including scenes that have been almost certainly lost. I'll still pray for them to turn up somewhere in a canister or a shoebox in the back room of a studio.
According to jackkaraquazian, who's usually more up on these things than I am, going wisdom is that they're buried under a portion of... the M1, I believe. In any case, under a number of feet of concrete comprising a piece of a major highway. My current way around this is to drop an anonymous tip to someone in charge that Jimmy Hoffa is buried in that spot, and see if anyone takes the bait. I would quite literally give my left arm to own the full 126-minute cut.
I am entirely serious. While the boy Ash makes love for the first time with Willow upstairs, the pub-goers do not sing raucously as they did for "The Landlord's Daughter," the bawdy praise of Willow's charms that should have warned Sergeant Howie he was in no ordinary pub, but quietly, half ritual, half reminiscence, gently as Johnny in the song.
I rather assumed Howie would have simply recognized both of those as old drinking-song standards (which they are IRL, not just on Summerisle-- as is "Corn Rigs and Barley Rigs").
But aren't stigmata every martyr's dream?
But of course. A nice subtle touch of foreshadowing, that.
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The second half of the film would, of course, have not existed. It's not just that [insert obligatory spoiler notice] Howie would not have then been a workable sacrifice, but that his entire worldview would have shifted; he would have become a different character altogether. And, as a convert to the island's religion, I think he'd have fit in just fine.
At the very least, I need to buy the soundtrack. "Gently, Johnny" won't get out of my head.
Magnet's version is, of course, the finest I've heard of it, but no pristine copy exists; the soundtrack is lifted from the film, as the masters are still (yes, still!) tied up in some sort of copyright war-- which is why no official soundtrack was released until the late nineties, and the one we have now is the same as the bootleg copy I scored ten years previous to that. heh.
Tanakh's version (on Villa Claustrophobia, their best disc) is also bloody fantastic.
including scenes that have been almost certainly lost. I'll still pray for them to turn up somewhere in a canister or a shoebox in the back room of a studio.
According to
I am entirely serious. While the boy Ash makes love for the first time with Willow upstairs, the pub-goers do not sing raucously as they did for "The Landlord's Daughter," the bawdy praise of Willow's charms that should have warned Sergeant Howie he was in no ordinary pub, but quietly, half ritual, half reminiscence, gently as Johnny in the song.
I rather assumed Howie would have simply recognized both of those as old drinking-song standards (which they are IRL, not just on Summerisle-- as is "Corn Rigs and Barley Rigs").
But aren't stigmata every martyr's dream?
But of course. A nice subtle touch of foreshadowing, that.