Tell Everyone - King Kong is Here!

Movie theatre poster advertising the showing of  

King Kong (RKO Radio Pictures, 1933)

  

I.

 

Whether informing the punk aesthetic as conceived by Malcolm McLaren [1] or the radical feminist theory produced by Virginie Despentes to challenge traditional expectations around sex and gender [2], there is no disputing that King Kong is one of the greatest of all cinematic monsters and that the 1933 film directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack is forever locked into our cultural imagination. 

 

 

II. 

 

Apparently, Cooper would have been quite happy to have simply made a movie about a giant gorilla struggling against prehistoric lizards on a long-lost island. The screenwriters, however, had other ideas and persuaded him to lean into the classic Beauty and the Beast motif. 

 

Thus it is that the film opens with an Arabian proverb (fabricated by Cooper):

 

And lo! The Beast looked upon the face of Beauty, and it stayed its hand from killing. And from that day, it was as one dead.  

 

And thus it is the film ends with the famous final line spoken by Carl Denham (played by Robert Armstrong) after Kong is mortally wounded by machine gun fire and plummets from atop the Empire State Building to the ground a thousand feet below: 

 

It wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.   

 

 

III. 

 

And that fatal beauty was the struggling actress Ann Darrow, played by 24-year-old Canadian Fay Wray - cast only when Blonde Bombshell Jean Harlow became contractually unavailable for the part. 

 

The iconic role as Kong's human love interest - for which Wray was paid the sum of $10,000 - made her a star. And after she died in 2004, aged 96, the lights of the Empire State Building were dimmed for 15 minutes in her memory.  

 

Before filming, Cooper teased Wray that she would work with the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood. She optimistically envisioned Cary Grant or Clark Gable, before discovering it was Kong. This is amusingly echoed in the film when director Carl Denham recruits Ann Darrow to his new project, promising her the thrill of a lifetime. 

 

Initially, Wray regarded her role as just another acting job and felt the movie relied too heavily on her screaming [3]. She wondered why people made such a big deal out of a film that wasn't exactly Shakespeare. However, Wray eventually embraced her role in King Kong and came to appreciate the film's majesty.  

 

Finally, we might note that Wray - a natural brunette - wore a blonde wig for her role as Ann Darrow; the producers insisting that her character needed to be blonde in order to create a stark visual contrast against the dark fur of the giant ape. 

 

The natives of Skull Island refer to her as the golden woman - a detail that directly invites discussion of the movie's complex racial politics ... [4] 

 

 

IV.

 

Many modern critics and scholars interpret King Kong as a tale that reflects the racial politics of the period, playing on anxieties about black masculinity and fears of interracial relationships. 

 

And it is certainly difficult to watch Kong shackled in chains, transported to America, and exploited for profit without seeing reflections of the transatlantic slave trade. Similarly, the film's depiction of the dark-skinned natives of Skull Island as primitive and savage, also aligns with 1930s colonial attitudes and racist tropes that Hollywood was only too happy to tap into. 

 

Yet Cooper always maintained that he didn't consciously conceive of Kong as a racial symbol and simply wanted to make an exciting adventure film about a giant ape. And while an artist's intent doesn't completely erase the subconscious cultural anxieties baked into their work, reducing Kong to a singular metaphor is intellectually lazy. 

 

It may not be Shakespeare, but King Kong is a far cry from the crude exploitation films of the era like Ingagi (1930) [5]. 

  

V. 

 

King Kong premiered in New York City on 2 March, 1933, to rave reviews. 

 

Praise was particularly directed towards Willis H. O'Brien for his groundbreaking special effects [6], and Max Steiner for his impressionistic musical score inspired by Debussy and Ravel, with pioneering use of the Wagnerian leitmotif. 

 

During its initial run, the film earned a profit of $650,000 (around $16.7 million today), but it has continued to rake in the dollars ever since: what we might call cash from King Kong's chaos.  

 

Because the film was made before the strict enforcement of the Hays Code began in 1934, the original cut was able to get away with things that would later be deemed morally unacceptable. 

 

However, censors got to work to ensure that when the film was re-released, several scenes were either edited or cut altogether - including ones in which King Kong carefully undresses Ann Darrow [7] and deliberately kills people who get in his way or annoy him (either by biting them in half or crushing them underfoot).       

 

Interestingly, the censors in Nazi Germany were even more outraged by King Kong, describing the film as a violation of German race feeling. However, they changed their tune once it was discovered that the Führer loved the film and the ban on the film was lifted [8]. 

 

 

VI. 

 

As indicated at the beginning of this post, King Kong quickly achieved the status of cultural icon and modern myth [9]. A figure loved by everyone - including European intellectuals ...

 

The Surrealists in particular were huge fans, regarding Kong as a supreme manifestation of irrational desire disrupting the boring and repetitive nature of civilised modern life. They also favourably viewed Kong's obsessive, doomed devotion to Ann Darrow as a primal expression of l'amour fou.

 

In his seminal essay À propos de King Kong, Surrealist critic Jean Ferry meticulously catalogued the film's many absurdities. But, rather than condemning them as flaws, he argued that these logical glitches enhanced the experience of watching the film by investing it with a violent, oneiric power. 

 

M. Ferry also emphasised the film's monstrous eroticism and the poetic character of Kong's on-screen presence - not to mention his uncanny ability to seemingly change size [10].  

 

 

VII.

 

By the 1960s and '70s, King Kong's public image had shifted from a terrifying monster to a campy cult figure used almost exclusively for comic relief. Satirised, spoofed, and parodied from pillar to post, he even made a cameo appearance in the Beatles' Yellow Submarine (1968). 

 

If that isn't depressing enough, it was during this time that academics also began to take an interest in Kong - subjecting him to endless critical analysis. One Kongophile, Mitchell Prettyplace, even produced a definitive 18-volume study that was referenced by Thomas Pynchon in his 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow. 

 

Thankfully, in 1978 McLaren and Westwood gave King Kong back something of his old outrageousness by restoring his phallic glory [11].  

 

  

His heart's still pumping, his blood's still running 

King Kong, the king is here! [12]

 

 

Notes 

 

[1] See the post 'Go Ape Crazy' (28 Sept 2026).

 

[2] See the post 'Reflections on King Kong Theory' (29 Sept 2026). 

 

[3] A real trooper, not only did Wray spend an uncomfortably extended period of time sitting in a tree while filming King Kong, but she provided all of her character's screams in a single recording session - resulting in her being unable to speak for several days afterwards. 

 

[4] The political (and sexual) politics of King Kong have undergone extensive analysis, so I'll only touch briefly on these aspects here. However, readers who wish to know more are encouraged to see the essay by Stefanie Affeldt titled 'Exterminating the Brute: Sexism and Racism in King Kong', in Simianization: Apes, Gender, Class, and Race, ed. Wulf D. Hund, Charles W. Mills, and Silvia Sebastiani (Lit Verlag, 2015), pp. 139-169.

 

[5] Directed by William S. Campbell, Ingagi (1930) was a highly successful exploitation film masquerading as a documentary about gorilla-worshipping women in the Belgian Congo. It established the highly lucrative Hollywood formula of putting pretty girls in peril alongside gorillas. RKO likely greenlit King Kong to capitalize on the film's massive box-office success. 

 

[6] Roger Ebert hits the nail on the head when he writes that "in the very artificiality of some of the special effects, there is a creepiness that isn't there in today's slick, flawless, computer-aided images" and that these ensure King Kong has something ageless and primeval about it. See the four-star review of King Kong (3 Feb 2002) on rogerebert.com 

 

[7] Interestingly, one scholar argues that when Kong partially undresses Ann, touching her body and sniffing her clothes, it initiates her into the natural world and should not be seen as a sexual act. See Cynthia Marie Erb, Tracking King Kong: A Hollywood Icon in World Culture (Wayne State University Press, 2009), p. 112. 

 

[8] Although it is a widely reported claim that Hitler was spellbound by King Kong, historians debate whether this is more popular myth than verifiable fact. 

      For while several contemporary accounts from people within his inner circle confirm the Führer was a Hollywood film fan who enjoyed watching movies nearly every night - and while the Nazi newspaper Der Angriff published a very positive review of King Kong (in predictably racialised terms), the historian Bill Niven points out that there is no official record definitively proving Hitler ever saw it. See his book, Hitler and Film: The Führer's Hidden Passion (Yale University Press, 2018). 

 

[9] This needs to be qualified somewhat: Kong's transformation from a famous movie monster into a true cultural phenomenon accelerated after the film's 1952 theatrical re-release. Following its final cinema outing in 1956, RKO sold the television rights, introducing Kong to a massive new generation of small-screen viewers. 

 

[10] Ferry published the review under his real name, Jean Lévy, in Minotaure No. 5 (May 1934). An English translation can be found in The Shadow and Its Shadow, ed. and trans by Paul Hammond (City Lights Books, 2000), pp. 161-165.

 

[11] Again, see the post 'Go Ape Crazy' (28 Sept 2026).       

 

[12] Lyrics by Malcolm McLaren for the Bow Wow Wow track 'King Kong', on the album See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! (RCA Records, 1981).  

 

 

Bonus: click here to watch the original trailer to King Kong (1933) on YouTube. 

 

 

Love Kills (Or Sometimes Just Lies Limp): Sid and Nancy 40 Years On

Sid & Nancy (dir. Alex Cox, 1986) 

An official theatrical film poster

 

 

I. 

 

Sid and Nancy - also known by the working title Love Kills [1] - was released 40 years ago. 

 

It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 14 May 1986 and was first shown in London at the Limelight Club on 20 July, before going on general release in UK cinemas the following month.

 

It's a biopic directed by Alex Cox, who co-wrote the script with Abbe Wool, starring Gary Oldman as the Sex Pistol Sid Vicious and American actress Chloe Webb as his punk paramour Nancy Spungen [2]. 

 

 

II. 

 

Oldman is a talented and versatile actor - not one of my favourites, though I don't dislike seeing him on screen - but his initial decision to turn down the role of Vicious (not once, but twice) was one I wish he'd stuck by. 

 

For one thing, he was already 27 when filming took place in 1985, which makes him too old to play a character who died aged 21. Also, by his own admission, he had zero interest in Vicious and punk subculture, wasn't a fan of the Sex Pistols, and found the entire story surrounding Sid and Nancy banal. 

 

Ultimately, Oldman only accepted the role at the urging of his agent and after learning that he was being offered a £35,000 fee to star in the movie [3]. 

 

However, to be fair, he did throw himself into the part with all his characteristic intensity once he agreed terms. Amusingly, he lost so much weight in such a short period in order to play Vicious that he was briefly hospitalised with malnutrition [4]. And at least Oldman came from a relatively working-class background, unlike posho actor Louis Partridge who played Vicious in Danny Boyle's ludicrous six-part mini-series Pistol in 2022 [5].  

 

Oldman - who went on to become an Academy Award-winning Hollywood actor - now rarely mentions Sid and Nancy and casually dismisses his own performance in the film.  

 

 

III. 

If Oldman, at 27, was just a tad past it to play Sid, Chloe Webb, pushing 30 when she took on the role of Nancy - who died aged 20 - was way over the hill (certainly by punk standards). 

 

So again, whilst she does a reasonable job, I think it would have been better - or at least more daring - to have cast 20-year-old Courtney Love in the role - one for which she submitted a video audition and was genuinely passionate about. 

 

Cox was deeply impressed by Love's youthful enthusiasm - and her acting ability - but eventually caved in to pressure from the film's financial backers and investors who insisted on a more experienced actress in the role. 

 

He did, however, create and write the minor supporting character of Gretchen for Love (a fictional New York junkie friend of the punk couple) so she could still be part of the project and this marked her debut feature film appearance (several years before she formed the band Hole and met Kurt Cobain).      

 

 

IV. 

 

Although Sid and Nancy failed to recoup its production budget at the box office, the film was received positively by most critics [6] and has since developed a cult following. Strangely, however, it is rarely shown on British TV and I don't think I've seen it other than at the cinema back in August 1986 - when I was less than impressed, as this diary entry makes clear:

 

Sophie and I woke up late. After lunch, we set off on a nice sunny day to King's Road. Boring! Nothing (and no one) caught my eye. From Chelsea to Kensington Market and Hyper Hyper. Still found nothing to excite. Everything seems to have stagnated. But perhaps that's a good thing - a precursor to a change of some kind. Or maybe not.   

      Got to Leicester Square at five-ish. Had something to eat in Pizzaland and then went to the cinema. It had been my intention not to see Sid & Nancy, but felt a strange obligation to do so - and Sophie had bought the tickets. The two main parts were well-acted, so kudos to Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb. Other cast members were less convincing - particularly David Hayman as Malcolm and Andrew Schofield as Rotten. 

      Ultimately, I came away asking myself what was the point of such a film other than to echo the 'Just Say No' anti-drugs campaign? The only thing worse than the ridiculous ending of the film was Joe Strummer's soundtrack. [7]

 

As I say, I don't think I've since re-watched the film - though I'd very much be interested to do so, one day, just to find out if it's as bad as I remember it. 

  

 

Notes

 

[1] Director Alex Cox used the title Love Kills throughout the writing and development process. Why this title was dropped (or relegated to the status of a subtitle) in favour of the more prosaic Sid and Nancy, I don't know, but one suspects there was probably external pressure to do so coming from the film's producers (particularly after a letter was received from a party claiming to own the title 'Love Kills' and threatening legal action).

      Clearly, it must have been a decision made late on, because by then Joe Strummer (formerly of The Clash) had already written the film's title track and 'Love Kills' was released as a single from the film's soundtrack in July 1986. Fans of Strummer will doubtless disagree, but it's a shit track and, personally, I much prefer the song written by Dee Dee Ramone also called 'Love Kills' and also dealing with the tragic story of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. This track can be found on the Ramones album Animal Boy (Sire Records, 1986). 

 

[2] For my own take on these star-crossed lovers, see the post titled 'I'll Put a Knife Right in You' (30 Dec 2020). For a rather more personal take on the story of Sid Vicious see 'Sweet Sixteen' (8 Feb 2022). And for a longer post in memory of Ms Spungen, see 'The Last of the Groupies' (26 April 2022).   

  

[3] I know there will be readers thinking that £35,000 doesn't sound like a lot of money, but it was considered a significant sum to pay a young and relatively unknown theatre actor at the time. Oldman has since revealed in interviews that he was only earning around £80 a week working with the Royal Court Theatre at the time - and that was in a good week (sometimes his income would fall to half that). Thus, for Oldman, £35,000 was a small fortune - one that allowed the purchase of a modest flat in London. 

      Readers need to also remember that Sid and Nancy was an independent British film - not a big-budget Hollywood movie. Total production costs were only around £2.7 million.   

 

[4] For those who might want to know the secret of such dramatic weight loss, apparently the knack is to live on a diet of nothing but steamed fish and lots of melon. 

 

[5] Don't get me started on Pistol ... See the post 'The Great Rock 'n' Roll Castration' (30 Mar 2021). 

[6] Roger Ebert, for example, gave Sid and Nancy full marks in his review (25 Oct 1986). He concludes that Alex Cox has all the makings of a great director: "He and his actors pull off the neat trick of creating a movie full of noise and fury, and telling a meticulous story right in the middle of it." The review can be found on rogerebert.com  

      Thirty years later, Peter Bradshaw writing in The Guardian (4 Aug 2016) was equally enthusiastic, insisting that Sid and Nancy is a "welcome corrective to bland punk nostalgia" and calling it "Alex Cox's Beckettian masterpiece about those two prisoners of futility" and undiagnosed dysfunction.  

 

[7] This is an edited and slightly revised entry in The Von Hell Diaries (Sat 23 August, 1986). 

 

 

Bonus 1: the original trailer to Sid and Nancy (1986) - enhanced version by HD Retro Trailers.  

 

Bonus 2: the trailer for the 30th anniversary Blu-ray edition of Sid and Nancy (Studiocanal, 2016). 

 

 

Three More Cool Cats: CC, Room 8, and Henri, le Chat Noir

Three Cool Cats: CC, Room 8, and Henri, le Chat Noir

 

 

Opening Remarks 

 

Some cats have so captured human affection that they've secured a place in the cultural imagination and achieved a degree of fame bordering on celebrity. To illustrate this, I recently discussed the cases of Félicette the Space Cat, Casper the Commuting Cat, and Oscar the Therapy Cat: click here.

 

Here, at the request of several cat-loving readers, are three further examples drawn from the modern period that particularly interest or amuse ...

 

 

CC (Copy Cat)

 

Just as many people know the name of Laika, the Soviet space dog, but are unfamiliar with the French cat Félicette, so it is that whilst most have heard of Dolly the Sheep, very few are acquainted with a shorthaired, brown and white tabby cat called CC - an initialism standing for either Copy Cat or Carbon Copy, depending on who you ask - even though she holds the distinction of being the world's first cloned pet, born in Texas, in 2001 [1]. 

Whilst figures ranging from Jean Baudrillard to Adam Gibson have expressed reservations about cloning as a technique - Doesn't anybody die anymore? - I'm pleased to say that CC appeared to be a happy, healthy cat who, in September 2001, gave birth to four genetically unique kittens (one of whom was, sadly, stillborn), fathered naturally by another lab cat, named Smokey, before dying peacefully, aged 18, in March 2020. 

 

 

Room 8 (The School Cat)

 

If asked to identify my favourite type of cat, then I would have to say one that comes from out of the blue; i.e., not a breed, but either a fateful event in and of themselves, or the herald of such - a kind of feline angel with whiskers rather than wings.

 

My little black cat is one such creature, who just turned up one day and decided to stay ... And so was an American pussy who came to be known as Room 8 ...

 

Room 8 wandered into a classroom at Elysian Heights Elementary School in Echo Park, California, in 1952 and decided he was henceforth going to live there during the school year; vacationing for the summer months, but always returning when classes resumed in the Fall. 

 

This happy (somewhat unusual) arrangement continued without interruption until the mid-1960s. 

 

Eventually, the news media discovered what was happening and they would send reporters and film crews to await the cat's return. This resulted in him receiving fan mail (up to a 100 letters a day) and becoming the subject of both a documentary film and a children's book. 

When age, sickness, and injury began to take a toll - he was hurt in a fight when older and suffered from feline pneumonia - Room 8 was taken in by a kind family living close to the school.

 

When he died, in August 1968, thought to be aged around 21, his obituary in the LA Times ran to three columns and was accompanied with a photograph. Past and present students at the school raised funds for his gravestone and CC was laid to rest at the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park in Calabasas, California. 

 

Finally, for those who find such details fascinating, Room 8's paw prints can be found immortalized in cement on the pavement outside Elysian Heights. 

 

 

Henry aka Henri, le Chat Noir 

 

Technically, Henri, le Chat Noir is a fictional cat created by the human William Braden, who wrote and directed a short series of films posted online that explored the existential musings of the former. 

 

But Henri was portrayed by a real (longhaired black and white) cat, Henry, belonging to Braden's mother, so I think it's legitimate to comment on his case here, particularly as videos featuring Henri have been viewed millions of times and received critical acclaim, making him one of the world's best-known and most celebrated cats.

 

Braden began his project whilst a student at the Seattle Film Institute. He was inspired by the American perception of French films as pretentious and self-absorbed. The first short, Henri (2007), was written, filmed and edited in eleven days. 

 

The second film, Henri 2: Paw de Deux didn't follow on YouTube until five years later in 2012, but it won the Golden Kitty Award for Best Cat Video On The Internet at the Walker Art Center's Internet Cat Video Festival. Critic Roger Ebert also declared Henri 2: Paw de Deux the 'best internet cat video ever made' [2].

 

Many sequels followed between 2012 and 2018 - seventeen short films in all. In the final film, Henri announced his retirement and thanked all his fans around the world for their support. 

 

During this period, two books were also published: Henri, le Chat Noir: The Existential Musings of an Angst-Filled Cat (2013) and Reflections on Human Folly (2016), both written (obviously) by Braden, but one likes to think with Henry's approval.  

 

I think my favourite description of Henri was provided by a journalist at The Huffington Post who wrote that he was 'like a feline Serge Gainsbourg, just without the singing, or the alcoholism, or the public scandal' [3].

 

It's actually a little disapointing to discover that in real life Henry was, according to Braden, a good natured and happy cat who never suffered a single moment of existential crisis and had nothing in common with the brooding character Henri he portrayed on film. 

 

In December 2020, Braden announced that Henry had been euthanized at the age of 17 because of a debilitating deterioration of his spine ... C'est la vie! as he fictional French self might shrug.      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] CC was genetically identical to Rainbow, the male cat who donated the genetic material. But the cats looked different because coat patterns and other features can be determined in the womb. Her surrogate mother was named Allie.  

 

[2] Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, (31 Aug 2012). 

 

[3] Written in a Huffington Post review (27 June 2012) of Henri 3: Le Vet (2012). 

Reflections on The Blue Lagoon

A sensual story of natural love ...

Having briefly served as a ship's doctor - a role which took him to various exotic locations in the South Pacific - the Irishman Henry De Vere Stacpoole decided to become a full-time writer.

In 1908, he struck gold with The Blue Lagoon - a romance novel about two children marooned on a lush tropical island who discover the joys of coming of age (nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean, say no more).

The work has been adapted for film many times over the years; firstly in 1923, and then, more famously and with the addition of sound, in Frank Launder's 1949 version, starring Jean Simmons and Donald Houston as the incestuous teen lovers living their paradisal existence in naked innocence.

Perhaps the most notorious cinematic version, however, is that directed by Randal Kleiser (1980), starring 14-year-old Brooke Shields and 18-year-old Christopher Atkins. The film contains full-frontal nudity and fairly explicit sexual content,* which perhaps explains its huge commercial success and the fact that it has lodged itself within both the popular and pornographic imagination.

The critics, of course, hated it - and I can't say I blame them. As Roger Ebert points out, The Blue Lagoon could have been an interesting tale of wilderness survival, or a thrilling adventure epic, but it's neither; worse, it even fails as a work of soft-core porn, although that's how the movie was teasingly (and deceptively) sold to the viewing public.

At best, we can say that by offering us a glimpse of underage sex wrapped in primitive purity and moral sentiment, the filmmakers got away with something that they would very likely not get away with today. But, ultimately, as lovely as the young actors are to look at, I'd sooner go swimming with the Creature from the Black Lagoon than sit through this movie again ...      

* Note: Shields was, of course, already notorious for her performance (aged 12) as a child prostitute in the movie Pretty Baby (dir. Louis Malle, 1978). However, whilst in The Blue Lagoon Shields performed many topless scenes with her hair glued to her breasts, all of her fully nude scenes were performed by a body double, Kathy Troutt; an actress, model, deep sea diver, and dolphin trainer, known to her many fans around the world as Australia's Original Teenage Mermaid. For his part, Atkins gamely performed his own nude scenes and posed for Playgirl in 1982 on the back of his new found fame, much to the delight of his mostly female (and gay) fan base.

On The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and Its Critics

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly by Billy Perkins

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach in the title roles respectively is, according to Quentin Tarantino, the greatest film ever made.

He's not alone in this assessment; many people love it and name it as the purest example of cinematic art brought to a moment of absolute perfection thanks not only to the performances of the three stars and the directorial skills of Leone, but also the magnificent photography by Tonino Delli Colli and the famous score composed by Ennio Morricone.

It's surprising, therefore, to discover that upon its release it was met not with universal acclaim, but, on the contrary, fairly widespread hostility and critical disdain. Not only was the violence found objectionable, but the length of the film led some to label it dull and interminable. Meanwhile, the fact that it was an Italian re-imagining of a classically American art form - a so-called spaghetti western - led even Roger Ebert in his original review to deduct a star purely on the grounds that, as such, it could not be art.  

It was Italian-born Renata Adler, however, who really took against the movie in her New York Times review from 1968, dismissing it as "the most expensive, pious and repellent movie in the history of its peculiar genre". This is particularly disappointing coming as it does from the pen of a woman with a background in philosophy and comparative literature.

Disappointing too is the review of Pauline Kael in The New Yorker, published two months after that by Adler. Kael - described by some as the most influential film critic of her generation - called the film, garish, gruesome and stupid. She particularly objected to what she perceived as the mindless sadism and fascistic nihilism of the film in which all noble and heroic elements of the traditional (American) western have either been omitted or spat upon. 

What this demonstrates, I suppose, is that even very smart, very well-educated critics can sometimes get things very wrong; particularly when confronted with the genuinely New (i.e. that which comes to us from the future and shatters the past). 

One recalls in closing Woody Allen's remark about Kael to the effect that she has everything a film critic needs except judgement: 'She has great passion, terrific wit, wonderful writing style, huge knowledge of film history, but too often what she chooses to extol or fails to see is very surprising.'

Who Killed Bambi?

Gentle pretty thing / Who only had one spring 

You bravely faced the world / Ready for anything

Whilst it's true that Steve Jones in his role as an amateur detective is only interested in finding Malcolm and piecing together the clues that might explain where it all went wrong for him and his fellow band members (tragically so, in the case of Sid Vicious), there is, nevertheless, another question at the heart of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle which transforms the movie from an amusingly mythologized history of the Sex Pistols into a profound murder mystery and morality tale: with one big shout we all cry out - who killed Bambi?

It is, of course, a rhetorical question: when McLaren screams it into the faces of the assembled reporters at Henley Airfield, he's not expecting an answer. And neither is he simply giving reference to an off-screen incident involving the shooting of a deer by a decadent rock star, although, clearly, this scene - which belongs to the originally proposed film to be directed by Russ Meyer - is a non-too-subtle visual metaphor.   

So what, if anything, do we learn from Lesson 10 of the Swindle?

That innocence is easily lost? That it's a good thing to be disillusioned and believe only in the ruins of belief? That we should never trust a hippie? That the spirit of punk will never die; or that Johnny Rotten was a collaborator and that big business will always find a way to assimilate and market youthful rebellion? It's probably a (qualified) yes to all of these ...


Note: The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, directed by Julian Temple, was released in cinemas in 1980; probably you can now find it on YouTube, or elsewhere online. Those old punks and film-buffs who are particularly interested, might like to read the script written for Who Killed Bambi? by Roger Ebert, which he has kindly made available on his website: http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/who-killed-bambi-a-screenplay