Articles/Interviews

talking about his likes and dislikes of today's movie's

Richard Green invites the legendary hell-raiser to air his fascinating views

FOR a man with all the hallmarks of a hell-raising devil about town, Oliver Reed displays a remarkably restrained moral attitude when it comes to the use of sex and violence on screen.

The stories of his escapades in clubs, bars, restaurants and hotels are legion and many is the pub in the Southern Counties of England that can bear witness to his exuberance.

Yet there we were, Ollie and I, lunching at Elstree Studios where he was filming Venom with Susan George, Klaus Kinski, Nicol Williamson and Sarah Miles, while he revealed a side of his nature normally hidden from public view.

Given the current spate of screen gore and acres of naked flesh, I asked him for his views on the matter, expecting quotes of the "all for it" variety. Just goes to show how wrong you can be.

"I was really the start of all this nudity at present with Alan Bates in Women In Love," he began. "I think Ken Russell manufactured an image in that film that showed that it seemed to matter how you did things, rather than just presenting them."

"Nowadays, people make love on screen in a loud manner and audiences care about the size of the woman's boobs. What you've got to do is define the film's ability to succeed."

"The advertisements for Women In Love wasn't an advertisement for the naked wrestling. With things like Caligula now, they make everything so blatantly obvious in that respect; they assume that a girl of 17 knows nothing, which is wrong."

"Promiscuity and sex in the cinema Is absolutely right. I believe In people watching blue films if It makes them happy. Because I like looking at pin-ups I'm not ashamed - along with a few enlightened people I'm not ashamed of sex - it's the ignorance of not being able to cater for people's tastes that is pornographic."

"There was all that fuss about 'The Romans In Britain' at the National Theatre - that sort of thing happened in 'Hair' years ago. We were doing it in the Sixties, so nothing's new."

"What you shouldn't do is fool people into thinking they're going to see Mickey Mouse and suddenly giving them something completely different and offensive."

"When The Devils came out, people were outraged - fainting, walking out, the lot. John Trevelyan, the censor at the time and a very sensible man, just put an 'X' on It and people knew what to expect. In the United States in those days if you allowed a naked breast it was an outrage."

"The most corrupt thing, to me, is physical violence, that I abhor. There is nothing unattractive about a naked lady or a naked man, but I object to a dagger being drawn across people's throats, and the entrails falling out. I have done a number of films involving swordplay, but there has been nothing explicit about the violence."

"Sex is enjoyed and violence is abhorred."

Having disposed of that subject, plus a bowl of leek soup and a plate of prawns, Oliver ordered bacon and eggs to follow and talked about Venom. He plays the part of Dave the chauffeur who conspires with master criminal Klaus Kinski to kidnap his employer's son.

"I was supposed to be making Tarzan with Bo Derek, but I am a member of the Screen Actors' Guild and the strike was going on and on and on," he told me. "Then I was offered this film."

"I'm doing it because I believe in driving racing cars and racing horses," he explained. No, I didn't understand it either, but hold on and it'll fall into place.

"If you're a mountaineer and you lose your grasp on the rope you lose your footing. If you're an actor and you lose sight of working, you're getting nowhere. It is only too easy to indulge in other pursuits when one could be working."

"I'm not saying this Is the brightest part I've ever played. I've come back and played a villain, and, contrary to what people think, I don't always do that. The last one I played was probably in The Triple Cross."

"Eddie Mars in The Big Sleep?" he replied to my suggestion. "He didn't do anything terrible, did he? I did that film because I wanted to work again with Michael Winner."

Our conversation was interrupted by a bout of bantering between him and his bodyguard of long standing, Reg. What's this? Reed needing a bodyguard?

"Now that I'm past 40 I find I'm too old to go around throwing punches at people, but there are still those who would like to knock me down," he admitted with a sigh.

"I said I was going to retire at 35 when I was 30. Now I'm 42 and I said I was going to retire at 40. When I was 40 I had a lot of alimony to pay and Shire horses to keep, and children at school."

"I'm not going to desert my lady, and my lady is the movies, right from Saturday morning pictures and the ushers in gold braid."

"Carol (Reed), my uncle, used to say 'Go and see bad movies because that way you will realise what's wrong with them'. If you go to all Ingmar Bergman films you don't understand the cinema. Cinema should be all exciting."

The fall-off in cinema audiences in this country troubles him, but he is confident that all will be well again.

"People sit at home watching television with granny coughing and the kids crying - nobody bothers to go out and take the lady to the cinema. But the cinema will survive."

"What better way to get out than an evening at the cinema? Even at West End prices. It's a night out. It's an opportunity for Jack the Lad to live out all his fantasies. There is a certain element of magic about the cinema."

"I'm not saying one should queue in the rain, but young people are beginning to go out again. It always used to be known as 'the business' and if we lose sight of the fact that it is a business and we're here to make money, and young people are the ones with money, we're going to fail."

"We're going to have to make films that will appeal to young people. You've got to create the right conditions to attract people to cinemas. You've got to start having bars in cinemas and worrying whether the seats are comfortable."

Entertainment is a key word for Oliver Reed, even if his ideas of entertainment are sometimes unorthodox. He recalled some of the pranks he has got up to in his time, one involving the ejection of his party from Hollywood's Beverly Wiltshire Hotel. It seems to have had something to do with a nude leaping from a birthday cake, �6,000 worth of damage and - in the thick of it - dear old Keith Moon, a close friend of his.

"I was sitting in my local In Wimbledon when I was about 18," he went on, remembering another spot of frivolity, "thinking about James Dean and Marlon Brando. A chap was sitting next to me and I tapped him on the shoulder, and when he turned round I hit him."

"Of course, I got arrested but I got the publicity in the newspapers. Something like 'Young Actor In Pub Fight'. You see, I am an actor and people expect to be entertained. A number of people have a certain image of me. Let's give them what they want... though not all the time."

Incorrigible Ollie Reed has Dr. Heckle And Mr. Hype awaiting release, a movie which he describes as "quite good".

He expounded on the role he plays.

"He has one green eye and one red one and a nose like a half-eaten carrot, but he's so sweet and gentle," he pointed out. "I had just played General Grazianl in Omar Mukhtar - Lion Of The Desert ordering people about all over the place, and someone sent me this script that was so loony and so crazy."

"It's a spoof, but what it's saying Is that because you look ugly you're not necessarily evil."

There is a certain amount of evilness, however, in Venom which features as one of its "stars" a black mamba, the most deadly snake in the world. For the uninitiated (though not the squeamish) this lovable creature is quite capable of travelling at 20 miles an hour downhill, can hit a man standing 15 feet away before the unfortunate victim can react and a 10-foot long mamba can repeatedly strike a man standing upright in the face, with its jaws open at 180 degrees.

It takes between five minutes and half-an-hour to die from a mamba bite if untreated as the nervous system is attacked, causing shock, sweating, cramps, swelling of the lips, paralysis of the throat muscles, suffocation, failure of the chest muscles and diaphragm and malfunction of the lungs. Other than that, it's quite a sweet-natured and harmless little soul.

For good measure there were five of the so-and-so's on call at the studios. Each, thank goodness, under heavy guard. Though there was a theory that one attacking Oliver Reed stood a better than even chance of suffering a severe hangover.

"Perhaps our Insurance policies protected us," mused the actor. "Or it may have had something to do with the thick sheet of glass between us and them. Actually, the crew were in far greater danger than us."

So Venom sounds like a bundle of fun and, never being one to let an opportunity slip past, Reed decided to regale his friends with a story.

"I was telling a bunch of mates in my local that on the first day's shooting I was called upon to make love to Susan George and I was agonising over whether to do it with my knickers on or off. What a dreadful thing to have to do, I told them," he grinned.

"They were looking at me as if to say 'You ----, give us half a chance.'"

Collapse of stout party. Loud guffaws all round. Is there no end to this man's mischief? Hope not.