Hi there film and gardening fans, it’s time once again to skip gaily through the archives of cinematographic delight, pausing briefly to reflect on how much better they would be with the odd strimmer, lawn mower or chainsaw thrown in for set-dressing or furthering the action.
Whether it’s Don Corleone’s death scene, played out in front of a bunch of growing tomato plants (you say tomato, I say tomato… doesn’t really work in print) or Willy Wonka showing us that being a greedy boy is going to get you intro trouble and you’ll end up being sucked up a tube and… well you know the rest.
So let’s have a look at three more pieces of super celluloid that might have been even more super with the addition of a decent petrol lawn mower or a good quality Japanese brushcutter
Spoiler alerts on all these movies. If you’ve not seen them…you should be ashamed.
The Sound Of Music – A Lapsed Nun In A Gazebo
Yes. How many times have you seen it? 20? 30? Some people spend more time watching the Sound Of Music than they do with their families, but everyone knows this iconic scene in the gazebo where Maria and the handsome, if stiff, Captain Von Trapp finally realise their burning love for each other. She sings, they kiss and everyone goes in for schnitzel with noodles. Oh and by the way, schnitzel with noodles is the worst idea for a meal ever, making even Icelandic rotting shark, pickled testicles and aeroplane sandwiches look like a look like a yummy treat at Tom Kerridges place. I mean, breaded veal escalope with noodles? Surely it can’t be one of anyone’s favourite things, let alone a lapsed nun with a fetish for making children’s clothes out of domestic soft furnishings. Could it be that it rhymes with crisp apple strudels? You betcha. Shame on you Oscar Hammerstein! Anyway, it’s a lovely enough gazebo but I seem to remember it was a bit plain and grubby and a few hanging baskets and a whizz round with a pressure washer wouldn’t go amiss. As we all know, after the Von Trapps have survived Nazis, climbing every mountain and having to listen to each other sing all the time they all live happily ever after in America. Bless.
I just heard, Quentin Tarantino is working on a sequel to of the Sound of Music…
A Still From ”The Sound Of Music 2 – Nun With A Gun’
…good luck with that one Quentin.
Rear Window – James Stewart Gets Nosy
One of Hitchcock’s finest sees photographer L.B. ‘Jeff’ Jeffries, wheelchair bound in his room being attended to by his girlfriend, the delightful Lisa played by Grace Kelly who attends to his simple needs and is very flirty, despite him being laid up with a broken leg and being very tired a lot of the time. Yes. Lisa is a girl after my own heart, she likes martinis, fashion magazines and men who sleep a lot. Jeff’s apartment looks out over a perfectly pleasant garden, but he instead busies himself with being voyeuristic and nosy about the residents in the apartments around him. Eventually, like anyone who is looking for trouble, he finds it in the flat opposite where he becomes convinced that his neighbour has killed his wife and buried her in the garden. Of course an able bodied Jeff might have popped down, whipped out a good, sturdy spade and tried digging to find out but instead a small dog goes digging in the flower bed and winds up dead. As we all know, it doesn’t matter how many people get killed in a movie, when a small dog gets it, it’s the worst thing ever. Anyway, it all sorts itself out in the end, the baddy confesses and James Stewart ends up with another broken leg and more helpings of Grace Kelly’s affection – so a happy ending all round.
The Shining – Jack Goes Ballistic.
Yes. The Shining. The only horror film to use the name of a famous race horse as a plot device. (Murder backwards?) And another classic piece of calm, understated and subtle acting from Jack Nicholson here. Yeah right. He’s actually at his bonkers, barnstorming, big as a house, brilliant best in this movie and does everything but gnaw on the furniture as his poor mind goes thermo-nuclear at the Overlook Hotel. After terrorising Shelley Duval through the bathroom door, (“Heeeeeeeres Johnny!”) he chases his clairvoyant son through the garden into the maze. At this point, I ought to remind you, he is carrying an axe, intending to do a little limbing … and not of the trees! Due to the boy’s cleverness and Jack’s total lack of marbles, he eventually freezes in the maze and becomes another ghost haunting the overlook. At least that’s how I read it. But, if he’d had the forethought to take a good, petrol driven dual-stage Snow Blower out with him, he could have cleared a path through the maze properly and got the heck out of dodge. Not that I wanted him to win or anything when I watched it for the fist time with my friends late one night, but you really can’t go out into that kind of snow without being prepared. You have been warned.
So that’s it. Three more movies with scenes in gardens and a distinct lack of 2-stroke engines. Hope you enjoyed it. See ya! Holly.
