The Angels, Poppy and Marilyn Monroe
The Eyesight to the Blind (ETTB) scene is where Tommy starts to go from "very surreal" to "too freaky" in the best ways possible. Few film sequences have ever accomplished such a complete parody of organized religion in this manner and ETTB is the only parody in which a major mythic Hollywood goddess is the God. This sequence in many ways was the final seal on the endless Monroe worship strata. 99% of those is on the charts and the top of the box office today will be long, long forgotten in well under fifty years time yet a glance at nearly any Uni dorm wall and Monroe's picture is on there.
Interestingly enough, ETTB in Ken Russell's film of Tommy pre-dates MTV, cable TV, the internet and even many PinUp collector conventions where Monroe is the model and the unreachable goal post. The iconic sequence has it's genesis in an earlier film script of Ken's, a follow up to The Devils called The Angels about false religion and icon worship of female starlets. He wrote it somewhere in between Savage Messiah and Tommy. The film was going to also include a critique of American race relations and themes but was deemed so "out there" (even for Ken) by Warner Brothers that they passed. When Ken and Pete T started working on the script for Tommy The Film it was amazing how much of The Angels already fit right in. Poppy was a female character modelled after Monroe combined with an Ann-Margaret style pop songstress.
Labels: Arthur Brown, Ken Russell, Marilyn Monroe, The angels, Tommy
posted by Amanda and SuperAmanda™ at
Monday, February 27, 2012
3 Comments:
Monroe..I´d say , dat what´s even more strikin dan her looks is her intelligence .It´s been said over : It sure takes intelligence to embody ´the Blonde Bimbo´ so convincingly as she did & at da same time sooo...tongue in cheek !& when highly intellectual writer Arthur Miller married M. it´s quite apparent he didn´t go for her looks in da first place , but rather for da gal wid whom he could have hilarious & interestin convos . So boobs = brains ( just look at Mansfield, Loren & thousands of others , often booed at & ridiculed , but STILL Mensa material!) So whenevva I spy a richly endowed gal in da street ,I say to meself : Now THERE goes a brainy broad !
Monroe..I´d say , dat what´s even more strikin dan her looks is her intelligence .It´s been said over : It sure takes intelligence to embody ´the Blonde Bimbo´ so convincingly as she did & at da same time sooo...tongue in cheek !& when highly intellectual writer Arthur Miller married M. it´s quite apparent he didn´t go for her looks in da first place , but rather for da gal wid whom he could have hilarious & interestin convos . So boobs = brains ( just look at Mansfield, Loren & thousands of others , often booed at & ridiculed , but STILL Mensa material!) So whenevva I spy a richly endowed gal in da street ,I say to meself : Now THERE goes a brainy broad !
interesting insight, as always Amanda.
On a side note, I thought of you watching the Oscars, during the Memorium, they showed Ken Russell. He certainly deserved recognition.
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