Uncut, September 2004

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Stephen Dalton

IT’S BEEN FETED as the last spaghetti western, and damned as the final pathetic death spasms of punk rock. To some it’s the postmodern cult masterpiece that patented most of Tarantino’s riffs half a decade before Reservoir Dogs, to others a stunningly incoherent home movie of a million-dollar piss-up in the Spanish desert. Almost 20 years later, director Alex Cox’s sprawling gonzo-punk black comedy Straight To Hell still fiercely divides opinion even among those who starred in it.

“Straight To Shit’s what I call it’ Kathy Burke tells Uncut. “Bollocks.A great laugh, but that’s what the film looked like —‘look at us lot having a laugh But it was fantastic, sitting up on a mountain with Elvis Costello.”

Speaking to Uncut in the late ‘90s, Joe Strummer took a different view. «A cinematic triumph,” argued the late Clash frontman. “The film’s a bit rough to watch, but what a fucking great time we had! The Pogues, me and Elvis Costello out in the desert — absolutely unbelievable. The stuff they cut out of that film — there’s a shot of Cait O’Riordan, Elvis Costello’s tied in a chair and she’s slapping nine bells of hell out of him! And they cut that out of the movie!”

More than 15 years later, Cox is unrepentant about the booze-fuelled rock’n’roll romp that almost killed his career after the acclaimed Repo Man (1984) and Sid & Nancy(1986). “A good spaghetti western should be chaotic, demented and hard to follow,” the Scouse director insists today. “It wouldn’t be a spaghetti western otherwise, would it?”

CHAOTIC AND DEMENTED doesn’t even begin to describe Straight To Hell. Opening with a bungled assassination, it follows three renegade hit men (Strummer, Sy Richardson and Dick Rude) and their mouthy moll (Courtney Love) as they lie low in a one-horse desert town ruled by the savage McMahon gang — played, in an inspired piece of casting, by punk-folk ruffnecks The Pogues. The two groups establish an uneasy truce, but simmering sexual tension and interference by an American oil tycoon (Dennis Hopper) eventually ignites an orgy of carnage that wipes out most of the cast. Along the way there are homages to Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah, plus moments of Buñuel-esque surrealism, all laced with random torture and cruelty. And, erm, did we mention it’s a comedy?

Named after a track on The Clash’s combat Rock album, Straight To Hell was scripted in three days flat by Strummer, Cox and Dick Rude, Cox’s former LA film-school buddy and Repo Man collaborator. Rude even incorporated scenes from his unfilmed sequel to Repo Man, called Beer Run, into the new screenplay. But the opening image of three bungling hit men was born from a boozy night that Strummer and the film-makers spent together at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1986.

«We were a pretty sorry sight:’ Rude recalls for Uncut. “None of us had a place to stay and Alex was being put up by the festival organisers because Sid & Nancy was there, so we all just crashed out in this one room. There really was no oxygen left in the room in the morning so we all woke up gasping for air amongst the fumes of our drunken sweat, and of course took our hangovers out into the street.”

Cox recruited his cast from the punks comedians, indie filmmakers and rock-star wannabes he knew in London, New York and LA. Kathy Burke, Elvis Costello, Dennis Hopper, Grace Jones, Jim Jarmusch — how many movies before or since can boast such a bizarre guest list of left-field stars? But perhaps the most eccentric casting choice was a chubby-Cheeked unknown called Courtney Love, making her debut in a leading role years before Nirvana and superstar junkie fame. Cox recalls Love as highly ambitious, focused and hard-working. But Rude is less diplomatic about the motives for casting her. “She had a loud, obnoxious voice and a personality to match,” he says. “Alex and I cast her because I think she was the most obnoxious woman we could think of, and we really wanted this kind of nagging, whining, loud, trampy chick to play that role. It was a no-brainer.”

STRAIGHT TO HELL was shot in Tabernas, a cod-Mexican ghost town near Almeria in southern Spain’s desert badlands. It had been built back in the early ‘70s for the Charles Bronson western Chino (aka Valdez The Halfbreed). Strummer, ‘Method’ acting his role, spent several nights sleeping on the set. By the time Spider Stacy flew in with his fellow Pogues, Strummer seemed to be suffering from sunstroke. “Joe got there a few days ahead of us,” Stacy tells Uncut today. “He was sleeping in a wrecked car out on the set. He really got into the whole thing. When we arrived, we were sitting in the hotel lobby. I had my whistle with me and started playing 'Danny Boy'. Joe just started sobbing and sprawled himself out with his head in my lap: 'Don't stop! Don't stop!' He suddenly went all Irish. 'Best fucking foot soldier in the world, the Irish Tommy!'... '

With temperatures topping 110°F, the desert shoot was appallingly uncomfortable. To maintain the film's S&M subtext, Cox employed "sex and cruelty consultant" Martin Taylor to fill the background scenes with torture, whipping and lynching. For an extra twist of sadism, Cox doused several cast members in sugary water to help attract flies.

"It was gruelling," says Stacy. "But it would've been a cop-out if we'd made things easy for ourselves. The heat, the set, the flies — and the Mariachi costumes we were wearing were really tightly buttoned. If you wanted to go to the loo it was a nightmare."

But Dick Rude plays down any bad memories. "I don't think I was ever uncomfortable," he says. "You have to understand I was like a pig in shit. I was 23 years old and I had the opportunity to write out my fantasy, then go and play that out in the desert with people whose work and music I admired."

Despite the army of famous musicians, winos and junkies on set, Rude insists the making of Straight To Hell was relatively free of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.

"I didn't notice a whole lot of drug-taking going on, but what happens behind closed doors is nobody's business," he says, diplomatically. "There was a whole lot of drinking going on, that's for certain. But not usually during the filming— more at the end of the day."

Cox agrees: "There was probably quite a bit of sex going on. Everybody drank wine and was stoned, but I imagine it was a lot less druggy than any Hollywood film. Nobody was on coke, nobody was on speed, there was no heroin. There was an innocent out-of-it-ness compared to a studio film."

Come on, Spider. Surely it was four weeks of sun, shooting up and shagging? "Ah, well, that sort of thing happened all the time anyway," shrugs Stacy. "There was just a lot of drinking done, sitting in glaring sunlight, which is a stupid thing to do. And also they had this cheap wine that seemed to be everywhere, which was consumed liberally. And it was horrible."

WITH A NON-STOP, all-night carnival taking place on the plaza next to the hotel for most of the shoot, it was inevitable that Straight To Hell would be soaked in booze. Shane MacGowan was inspired to write much of The Pogues' 1987 album If I Should Fall From Grace With God on set, including the heavily Spanish-influenced "Fiesta", but he was a reluctant movie star "Shane was negative before he even left," recalls Stacy. "But we'd just done another gruelling European tour and all he wanted to do was rest."

On balance, Cox concedes, the Pogues frontman would rather have been drinking than acting. "Shane was incapable of doing the same thing twice," the director laughs. "He's a poet rather than an actor. Elvis Costello is a serious actor —he pays attention and comes up with ideas, so it was interesting, the complete difference, the two extremes. Shane was more like —Why bother? Why am I even here?"'

But everyone snapped in to professional mode when Dennis Hopper arrived for his one day of filming. Even hell-raising, counterculture rock gods know when they are outgunned.

"He came for a day," recalls Cox. "Everybody was incredibly excited. And everybody came on set that day to watch him."

Stacey admits: "I was a bit in awe of him. I was being a complete wanker, really, because I was watching him to see a true professional at work, learning my craft! Ha, Ha! The offers haven't come flooding in. Perhaps I chose the wrong vehicle."



Remaining text and scanner-error corrections to come...

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Uncut, No. 88, September 2004


Stephen Dalton recaps Straight To Hell.


Chris Roberts notes the Rhino reissues of Almost Blue, Goodbye Cruel World and Kojak Variety.

Images

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Cover and photos.

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Page scans.


Elvis Costello

Fifth phase of two-disc reissue series

Chris Roberts

Almost Blue4-star reviews4-star reviews4-star reviews4-star reviews
Goodbye Cruel World4-star reviews4-star reviews4-star reviews4-star reviews
Kojak Variety3-star reviews3-star reviews3-star reviews

2004-09-00 Uncut clipping.jpg

Literate punk Costello's country makeover, Almost Blue, sat awkwardly with new wave fans in '81, but it's proven durable, with "Sweet Dreams," "Good Year For The Roses" and "I'm Your Toy" (aka "Hot Burrito #2") sounding as warm and nasty as ever. No less than 27 tracks grace the bonus disc, including a previously unreleased duet with Johnny Cash ("We Oughtta Be Ashamed") recorded at Nick Lowe's house, and four live cuts. Goodbye Cruel World is of-its-time (1984) Langer/Winstanley pop ("The Only Flame In Town", "I Wanna Be Loved"), with 26 bonus tracks: lives, demos, a Specials cover, a "Baby It's You" duet with Lowe. Kojak Variety from '95 was a covers frenzy (Motown, Dylan, Kinks), and the 20 new extras include Springsteen's "Brilliant Disguise" and Cilla's "Step Inside Love."

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