John McEnery was an English actor and writer. He played the clerk Bartleby in the 1970 film version of Melville’s Bartleby.
You can scroll to 3:06 to hear McEnery utter the immortal words: “I would prefer not to.”
Tag Archives: RIP
RIP Bibi Andersson (1935 – 2019)
Bibi Andersson was a Swedish actress known for films such as The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957) and Persona (1966).
Dick Cavett: “It’s always said that Ingmar Berman [sitting next to her] understands women. Would you say that’s true?”
Bibi Andersson [hesitating, then nodding]: “Eeehh yes.”
RIP Seymour Cassel (1935 – 2019)
Seymour Cassel was an American actor known for his many collaborations with John Cassavetes.
Above is the full version of Minnie and Moskowitz (1971). It’s quite a wonderful film, reminiscent of the film Harold and Maude (1971), which also deals with an unlikely romance.
RIP Larry Cohen (1941 – 2019)
Larry Cohen was an American film director and screenwriter.
He is best known as a B-movie auteur of horror and science-fiction films such as It’s Alive (1974), God Told Me To(1976), Q (1982), Special Effects (1984) and The Stuff (1985), which were full of satirical social commentary.
Later in his career, he concentrated mainly on screenwriting, most successfully with the very cleverPhone Booth (2002).
RIP Andre Williams (1936 – 2019)
Andre Williams was an American musician best known for the hit records “Jail Bait,” “Greasy Chicken,” “Bacon Fat” (1956) and “Cadillac Jack” (1966).
He was also the co-author of the R&B hit “Shake a Tail Feather”.
Surprisingly, his track “Bacon Fat” can also be found on the DJ Mix album How to Kill the DJ Part 2 (2004).
RIP Dick Dale (1937 – 2019)
Dick Dale was an American guitarist best-known for his 1962 arrangement of the Eastern Mediterranean classic “Misirlou“, the use of which in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction gained him a new audience.
“Miserlou” was originally a hit for Jan August in 1946 …
… but is believed to be first recorded in 1927.
RIP Hal Blaine (1929 – 2019)
Hal Blaine was an American drummer.
Some of the more notable records he played on include the Ronettes’ single “Be My Baby” (1963) and the Beach Boys’ album Pet Sounds (1966).
Of his solo work, Psychedelic Percussion (1967) [above] is of note.
RIP Keith Flint (1969 – 2019)
Keith Flint was an English vocalist and dancer associated with the electronic dance act The Prodigy.
He contributed to “Out of Space” (1992) which sampled the classic reggae track “Chase the Devil” (1976) by Max Romeo, which was produced by Lee Scratch Perry.
That track featured the Afrofuturist lines “I’m gonna send him to outa space, to find another race.”
RIP Bruno Ganz (1941 – 2019)
Bruno Ganz was was an internationally renowned Swiss actor.
He collaborated with filmmakers Werner Herzog (Nosferatu the Vampyre, 1979), Éric Rohmer (The Marquise of O, 1976), Francis Ford Coppola (Youth Without Youth, 2007), Wim Wenders (The American Friend, 1977 and Wings of Desire, 1987) and Jonathan Demme (The Manchurian Candidate, 2004).
Ganz was internationally lauded for portraying Adolf Hitler in the film Downfall (2004).
For the occasion, I watched Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)of which the German version is online. Ganz plays Jonathan Harker, Count Dracula is played by a heavily breathing, almost panting Klaus Kinski.
Pay special attention to the beauty of Isabelle Adjani; the opening sequence of the Mummies of Guanajuato; the film score by Krautrock outfit Popol Vuh and Richard Wagner’s prelude to Das Rheingold, Charles Gounod’s “Sanctus” from Messe solennelle à Sainte Cécile and traditional Georgian folk song Tsintskaro; and the frantic mad scenes by Roland Topor.
The film is wonderful. It’s an hommage to the 1922 version by F. W. Murnau.
Here is the original film.
RIP Dick Miller (1928 – 2019)
The Little Shop of Horrors
Dick Miller was an American actor (Gremlins, The Little Shop of Horrors, Death Race 2000) known for his films with Roger Corman. He later appeared in the films of directors who began their careers with Corman, including James Cameron and Joe Dante.
He was, in the words of Cult Movie Stars (1991) a “scene-stealer in low-budget horror films”.
Above is the enormously amusing film The Little Shop of Horrors (1960, above) in which Miller plays a carnation-eating (“I’m crazy about kosher flowers”) regular customer of the florist in which the film is set.
Minute 34:48 has Jack Nicholson come in as a masochistic client to the dentist. That scene was later done by [1] with Steve Martin as the dentist and Bill Murray as the client.
I’ve seen quite some films with mister Miller, all entertaining, unassuming and unpretentious.