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\u00a9 Silva Screen<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is a revision of an entry that first appeared on this blog on \u2013 appropriately \u2013 May 1st<\/sup>, 2014.\u00a0 Be warned that it\u2019s packed with spoilers about The Wicker Man<\/strong> (1973).<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Scottish-American singer and actress Annie Ross died last month at the age of 89.\u00a0 Even if she hadn\u2019t been a celebrated jazz chanteuse<\/em>, she could boast of leading a varied life.\u00a0 She worked as a child actress in the USA, became a jazz artist in Europe as an adult, became a familiar face on British TV in the late 1970s, and finally re-established herself in the USA and got citizenship there in 2001.\u00a0 She was both the sister of the well-known Scottish comedian and actor Jimmy Logan (whose performance as Archie Rice in John Osborne\u2019s The Entertainer<\/em> I was lucky enough to see at Aberdeen\u2019s His Majesty\u2019s Theatre in the mid-1980s) and the one-time lover of a rather different type of comedian, Lenny Bruce.\u00a0 And she acted in films as wildly assorted as Peter Collinson\u2019s Straight On Till Morning<\/em> (1972), Richard Lester\u2019s Superman III<\/em> (1983), Danny DeVito\u2019s Throw Momma from the Train<\/em> (1987), Robert Altman\u2019s The Player<\/em> (1992) and Short Cuts<\/em> (1993) and, yes, Frank Henenlotter\u2019s Basket Case 2<\/em> (1990) and Basket Case 3: The Progeny<\/em> (1991).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She was also tasked with the unusual job of making Britt Ekland sound Scottish in my all-time favourite horror movie, 1973\u2019s The Wicker Man<\/em>.\u00a0 Yes, whenever Ekland opens her mouth in the role of Willow Macgregor, the landlord\u2019s daughter at the portentously titled Green Man Hotel on the remote Scottish island of Summer Isle, it\u2019s not actually her Swedish-inflected tones you hear but those of Annie Ross instead.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Curiously, despite Ross\u2019s famous singing talent, she didn\u2019t<\/em> get to voice Ekland during the scene that required her character to break into song.\u00a0 At that point, supposedly, Ekland was dubbed by another singer, Rachel Verney.\u00a0 (I\u2019ve heard claims that Annie Ross did perform the song as well, but the weight of evidence seems to be against that.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Anyway, this gives me a chance to talk about the song sung in that scene, Willow\u2019s Song<\/em><\/a>, sometimes known too as How<\/em> Do.\u00a0 <\/em>The luscious Willow Macgregor sings it one night when she\u2019s trying to lure the Green Man\u2019s current guest, Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) into her room for some hanky-panky.\u00a0 Howie, a policeman sent to Summer Isle to investigate the disappearance of a local schoolgirl, is a devout Free Presbyterian and is already unimpressed at finding that everyone on the island is a practising pagan.\u00a0 His strict Christian principles prevent him from answering Willow\u2019s call.\u00a0 Just about.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a9 British Lion Films<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 14 years ago, I was working in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, whose small enclave of expatriates, mostly diplomats and aid workers, held a weekly cinema evening.\u00a0 Noticing that the next such evening fell on October 31st<\/sup>, i.e. Halloween, I dusted down my DVD of The Wicker Man<\/em> and persuaded Pyongyang\u2019s little cinema society that this would be a good time to watch a classic horror movie.\u00a0 For most of its running time, the audience seemed pleasantly bemused by the film.\u00a0 They enjoyed a good chuckle at how the pagan islanders led the stick-up-his-arse Howie on a merry dance around Summer Isle, taunting him with their innuendo-laden folk songs and their unconventional sense of public decency (e.g. organising mass couplings in the local graveyard, dancing naked through flames in the centre of stone circles).\u00a0 But the people sitting closest to me kept leaning over and whispering, \u201cIsn\u2019t this supposed to be a horror<\/em> film?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then the film\u2019s final ten minutes arrived.\u00a0 Howie discovers what the islanders have planned for him at the climax of their May Day celebrations \u2013 it involves \u2018an appointment with the wicker man\u2019 \u2013 and the room fell silent.\u00a0 The silence continued for several minutes after the film ended, broken only by the voice of a Scotswoman who worked at the British Embassy.\u00a0 She kept wailing to everyone around her, \u201cScotland isn\u2019t really like that!\u00a0 Scotland isn\u2019t really like that!\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Later, a Dutch lady whose husband headed the Red Cross and Crescent\u2019s operations in Pyongyang came over to me with big smile on her face.\u00a0 \u201cI really liked that,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cBut you know, most of the film felt like a musical<\/em> to me.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And indeed, one reason why The Wicker Man<\/em> is so special to me is its music.\u00a0 Willow\u2019s Song<\/em> is the centrepiece of its soundtrack but the film is choc-a-bloc with gorgeous and haunting folk tunes.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the lack<\/em> of music is a reason why the 2006 American remake directed by Neil Labute and starring Nicholas Cage sucks, although, to be honest, there are many reasons why it sucks.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The man responsible for the original Wicker Man<\/em>\u2019s music was New Yorker Paul Giovanni, who assembled a number of songs, some self-composed, some traditional folk songs, and performed them with the folk-rock band Magnet. \u00a0Clearly a renaissance man, Giovanni was also a playwright and actor during his career.\u00a0 Tragically, in 1990, he died from pneumonia, a complication caused by an HIV\/AIDS infection.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a9 British Lion Films<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n As well as showcasing the film\u2019s most famous song, the sequence in which Willow Macgregor sings has some notoriety because it shows her performing a nude dance as well.\u00a0 (Having withstood Willow\u2019s saucy enticements, Howie discovers later that the episode was arranged by the crafty pagan islanders to determine whether or not he\u2019s a virgin and hence suitable sacrificial material.)\u00a0 This is probably Britt Ekland\u2019s greatest cinematic moment.\u00a0 Mind you, her only other well-known major role is in The Man with the Golden Gun<\/em> (1974), so there isn\u2019t much competition.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Come to think of it, though, Ekland was pregnant during the shooting of The Wicker Man<\/em>, so it isn\u2019t her naked body that we see cavorting during the scene.\u00a0 The filmmakers hired a stripper to act as her \u2018body double\u2019 and, in at least one interview with her I\u2019ve read, Ekland has remarked cattily about the size of the double\u2019s bum.\u00a0 So with Rachel Verney (or possibly Annie Ross) doing her singing, and a stripper doing her dancing, Britt\u2019s greatest cinematic moment doesn\u2019t actually have much Britt in it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It was ignored at the time of its release but, over the years, the prestige of The Wicker Man<\/em> has grown.\u00a0 And as I’ve said, much of its mystique is due to its music.\u00a0 Willow\u2019s Song<\/em> in particular has received much attention and a number of artists have had a go at covering it.\u00a0 The most famous version<\/a> is probably that by cinematically inspired electronica band the Sneaker Pimps.\u00a0 It appears on their acclaimed 1996 album Becoming X<\/em>, for which they recruited female singer Kelli Dayton (now Kelli Ali) to do vocals.\u00a0 Afterwards, the band ungentlemanly gave Dayton the shove, claiming \u2018her voice was no longer considered suitable for their new music<\/a>\u2019.\u00a0 And has anyone heard anything of the Sneaker Pimps since then?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Thought not.\u00a0 Incidentally, if you have the right edition of Becoming X<\/em> you\u2019ll find as a bonus track a version of Gently<\/em> Johnny<\/em>, the second-best song that Paul Giovanni \/ Magnet recorded for The Wicker Man<\/em>.\u00a0 The scenes with Gently<\/em> Johnny<\/em> were chopped out of the film\u2019s original print but years later were restored to the Director\u2019s Cut of it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Sneaker Pimps\u2019 version is still recognisably the movie\u2019s Willow\u2019s Song<\/em>, although it has a lush, synthesised sheen.\u00a0 Filmmaker Eli Roth liked their take on it so much that he incorporated it into the soundtrack of his notorious 2006 \u2018torture porn\u2019 epic Hostel<\/em> \u2013 the Wicker Man<\/em> reference signifying that Something Bad is going to happen to Roth\u2019s own hapless protagonists.\u00a0 I don\u2019t find Hostel<\/em> as objectionable as other people do, but nonetheless I feel that the delicate, pleading tone of Willow\u2019s<\/em> Song<\/em> is incongruous in a movie that\u2019s basically about dumb American backpackers getting tortured to death.\u00a0 Interestingly, both The Wicker Man<\/em> and Hostel<\/em> go against the philosophy of conventional, conservative horror movies, like John Carpenter\u2019s Halloween<\/em> (1980), which holds that only characters who hang onto their virginity escape being victims, while promiscuous characters die horribly.\u00a0 In The Wicker Man<\/em>, it\u2019s the only adult virgin on the island who goes up in smoke at the end, while in Hostel<\/em>, it\u2019s the randiest backpacker who survives the carnage.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n From genius.com <\/a><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before the Sneaker Pimps\u2019 version, in 1991, indie band the Mock Turtles did a take on Willow\u2019s Song<\/em> \u2013 I haven\u2019t been able to find an online recording of it to link to \u2013 while a dozen years later soulful British rock band the Doves<\/a> attempted it too.\u00a0 Both versions are distinctive thanks to the fact that a man, not a woman, does the singing.\u00a0 The song was also covered in 2006 by Scottish folk singer Isobel Campbell<\/a> (best known for her collaborations with Mark Lanegan), who unsurprisingly took a more traditional, folky approach to it, and in 2007 by indie-dance-hip-hop group the Go! Team<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Definitely worth mentioning is a version of Willow\u2019s Song<\/em> by the eerie, theremin-loving combo Spacedog<\/a>, who decided to go for it and deconstructed\u00a0 it.\u00a0 They mixed in a sample from another classic British horror film, the \u2018power of the will\u2019 monologue delivered by actor Charles Gray while he played the villain in 1968\u2019s The Devil Rides Out<\/em>, and the results are impressively phantasmagorical.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Willow\u2019s Song<\/em> has a Wikipedia entry<\/a> that lists a dozen other versions, which isn\u2019t bad for a song that accompanies a scene in which a woman tries to seduce an older, unprepossessing man but is rebuffed, and in a film that baffled<\/a> its studio, got chopped to pieces before its release and was, initially, financially unsuccessful and critically shunned.\u00a0 Perhaps it\u2019s the strange juxtaposition of elements that makes the song memorable.\u00a0 Its sound is gorgeously ethereal and delicate but, when you listen to the lyrics, you realise it\u2019s pretty bawdy too.\u00a0 Willow promises Howie \u201ca stroke as gentle as a feather,\u201d and later boasts, \u201cHow a maid can milk a bull!\u00a0 And every stroke a bucketful.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Come to think of it, the contrasts in the song are similar to the contrasts in The Wicker Man<\/em> itself, a film packed with humour, music and cheerful lewdness but ending with a horrific act of cruelty \u2013 contrasts that have ensured the movie lives on in Britain\u2019s cinematic consciousness.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a9 British Lion Films<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a9 Silva Screen This is a revision of an entry that first appeared on this blog on \u2013 appropriately \u2013 May 1st, 2014.\u00a0 Be warned that it\u2019s packed with spoilers about The Wicker Man (1973). 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