Iron Maiden: The Paul Di'Anno Years

I did a series of posts years back on Iron Maiden, but they were intended to be a warm-up to a planned Thirty Days of Maiden, which never actually materialized. Part of the reason it never did is because while the idea was to spend a calendar day apiece on thirty Maiden songs, I happen to have more than thirty favorites. No matter how I sliced and diced it I could not find a thirty-song set that felt comfortably definitive for even such a subjective task as “my favorite Maiden songs.” Clearly an exhaustive album-by-album approach was needed to get to the bottom of things. 

That was 2014. It took me six years to finally follow through on the below, and I needed to enlist the aid of my buddy and fellow Maiden-enthusiast Marshall Mason to get the job done properly. Marshall! Welcome to the blog and thanks for doing this with me. Tell the good folks at home how you got into Maiden and why you’re here.  

Marshall: I got into Maiden around 1988. I raided my brother's cassette collection. I didn't like heavy metal. I thought it was satanic and too heavy. But I really loved the song “Eye of the Tiger” (to this day, I say that song was quintessential metal!), and I was curious and open minded. I went through Ozzy, Anthrax, and Metallica and was not too impressed until I happened upon Powerslave. "Aces High" hooked me in right away, and by the time that break in "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" came, I was definitely a fan, and by extension, also a fan of heavy metal, because if I could find one album, surely I could find others. To this day, Powerslave is my favorite metal album and favorite Maiden album. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son was the current album at the time, and it was around then that I saw videos for “Can I Play With Madness” and “Run to the Hills” on Headbanger's Ball, a show I gravitated to specifically because of Maiden.

Bryan: I really wish they’d re-run Headbanger’s Ball. Or put out some mega-stream/collection of it all. 

Marshall: I've been developing a Headbanger's Ball playlist of songs I've owned and am purchasing, and I'm really happy with it. It feels like tuning into the show, without interruptions or commercials.

Bryan: Those playlists are absolute dynamite. I remember how rare it was to see Maiden on MTV. That changed with Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, when at least “The Evil that Men Do” and “The Clairyvoyant” were in heavy rotation. 

I too got into metal on account of my older brother, who was into all New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands, as well as Dio and Accept and pretty much all early-to-mid-80s metal. “Eye of the Tiger” was a bit of a gateway drug, totally. One minute I was singing nothing but Men At Work; the next it was Judas Priest and Sin After Sin. 

My parents like a lot of parents of that era were worried I was absorbing bad mojo from heavy metal, but I think they saw my brother was doing okay, so I had that on my side. I can’t recall a time when I didn’t know Maiden, really – they kind of just appear during my memories of being eight or nine. Maiden’s new album around this time in my life was Piece of Mind (which I had on cassette so my memory of it comes with that escalating-tone boop-de-boop-boop-BEEP that started some tapes back then.) My brother and I would draw all the album covers and singles in our room in Sprendlingen. When Powerslave came out, forget it, we were both over the moon – so much to draw/ copy on that album cover! We’d aged out of drawing in our room together by the time Somewhere in Time came out, but that cover design covered most of my textbook-covers in junior high.  

I wish I still had those sketchbooks. 

Marshall: You were a few years ahead of me. I always felt like I got in right at the tail end, and missed out on the heyday, which was disappointing. I think this is why I'm having such a midlife crisis now and going back and listening and discovering all the stuff that came before my time. I've sort of owed this to myself for a long time. Now I've got time to kill and I have nothing else I'm really interested in anymore. When COVID ends, I think I might even start going to concerts, which I rarely did before, for financial reasons.

Bryan: I gave up going to shows sometime around 2005, but I’d planned to see Kraftwerk this past summer in Chicago. I hadn’t bought any tickets, but I kept circling the idea. Alas the COVID made the decision for me. I’m sure that when people start going to shows again, it’ll be the sweeping shots of hundred thousand people crowds upping the irons in South America that ease more than a few people back into it.  

Let’s get things going with the Di’Anno years. For those unfamiliar, Paul Di’Anno was the first lead singer for Maiden, singing on their first two studio efforts. Starting with:

(1980)

Side One

Prowler

Marshall: 3/5  Always a crowd pleaser, this song is custom made for live shows.

Bryan: 4/5  Absolutely. I had access to my older brother’s albums, but the “Sanctuary” single, which also had this song on it, was one of the first I personally purchased. I remember the whole thing: getting my allowance money, getting dropped off at the Neu Isenburg Mall where he bought Number of the Beast on vinyl, and I got this one. We were always pooling our Maiden; he was very loyal to Bruce and so he never bothered getting the first two on vinyl. (Another reason it took me a few years to really get into the first two albums.) 

Anyway, I apparently bought the Dutch vinyl single, as my version has "Sanctuary" and "Prowler" on it, and I listened to that thing a hundred times. I always think of both these songs in an eight year old ownership way, as “my” songs, the ones I had outside my brother's albums.

"Sanctuary" cover. (In the words of Bobby Darin, could it be our boy's done something rash?)

Sanctuary

Bryan: 4/5  I guess I kind of covered my answer above, too. Like "Prowler" it had that whole from-the-POV-of-a-killer/deviant quality that was so edgy at the time. 

Marshall:  3/5  Another crowd pleaser. The solos on this are great. This song is so good live. They usually stop in the middle and introduce the band. Then they jump back into the song. Such a cool move, live.

Bryan:  I wish more bands did that sort of thing. I like when songs become part of their act like that, like “Running Free” is the get-the-crowd-singing song, etc. 

Remember Tomorrow

Bryan: 4/5  The fast break and then back to the other section is so quintessentially Maiden. This one foreshadows the Dickinson years. I go through the same mental process whenever I hear this one: I’m just getting a little bored with the first part when the fast part kicks in and saves it for me. 

Marshall: 3/5  Cool song. 

Running Free

Bryan: 5/5   Perfect. Every goooooooooool montage should be to this.

Marshall:  2/5   It's a fun song, but the lyrics seem uninspired, and the vocal harmonies are not very good.

Bryan:  I’m scandalized! I think the vocal harmonies are good enough for this sort of song. You know all this, I know, but for the benefit of those who don’t, the soccer fandom of the individual members of Maiden is an ongoing thing with the band. Steve Harris played for West Ham’s youth squad and was even offered a spot on Leyton Orient (if memory serves from that Mick Wall book.) There’s a Brazilian side that uses Eddie for its mascot; thousands of people in the stands unfurl a huge Eddie banner. I forget the name of them; you can see them on the Rock in Rio DVD special features, though. Anyway! This is one of my favorites.

Phantom of the Opera

Marshall: 4/5  My favorite Maiden song from this era. I love the guitar riff during the verse. I love how the vocal melody and guitar melody line up for part of the verse. I love the guitar solo. My favorite part is the breaks. The break in the middle, with the bass going first and then the guitars lining up behind that, pure genius! Dickinson does this much better live than Di'anno on this record. It really is perfect for him, having the operatic voice and all.

Bryan:  3.5/ 5  You know, that’s always been my problem with this studio version. I heard Bruce sing it first. I do like it for what it is – that’s basically my take on any Di’anno song (except “Running Free” and “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” which even though Bruce sings both well, I prefer Di’anno’s takes.) You’re totally right, though, this is vintage Maiden song construction.

Marshall: Interesting! I heard Bruce sing this first too, but for me that was a plus! I fell in love with this on the Live After Death album, so now when I hear the original, I have a greater appreciation for how good of a song it is, even if I still prefer Bruce's version. Maybe if I'd heard the original first, I wouldn't have formed such good feelings about this song in the first place.

Side Two:

Transylvania

Bryan: 4.25/5   Cinema of the mind Maiden

Marshall:  3/5  Headbanger’s delight.

Bryan:  Whenever I hear “The Shortest Straw” by Metallica – and this happened fairly recently so I was reminded of it – I picture a sort of Wayne’s World scene of my friend and I riding around in a car as teenagers, headbanging. But the only time anything like that actually happened was to this song, and it was much later, like 2002. And I was by myself.  

Strange World

Marshall:  4/5  This is a beautiful song. This is what an Iron Maiden "ballad" sounds like it. We don't get very many of these! I remember in high school when a kid played this and said it was early Maiden. I didn't believe him because it sounded so different from "Can I Play With Madness" and "Run to the Hills". I bought this album years later and discovered he was right!

Bryan: 3.5/5  I always remember it as just Side B’s “Remember Tomorrow,” just missing the fast break section, but that’s selling it short, it’s a great track. As you say some rare Maiden balladry.

Charlotte the Harlot

Marshall: 1/5   Meh. Gets a little better later when the guitar solo comes in after the mellow part in the middle.

Bryan: 3/5  This is one I never really took to. It’s grown on me a bit over the years. It’s weird because I’ve been saying some variation of this (“it’s okay”) since literally 1984, but part of my brain still expects hey, a few more listens, it might click. My older brother and all his friends were always convinced this one was one of their big league songs, which is probably why. 

Iron Maiden

Bryan: 5/5  A theme song! Perfect.

Marshall: 3/5   That riff in INSANE. The break in the middle, leading back to the riff is my favorite part.

Bryan: Tony Iommi always gets the credit for being metal’s riff master god and he certainly wrote some great ones. Nothing against him. But Maiden has just as many , if not more, and some of their riffs are so inventive in addition to being catchy that I think they deserve the appellation. 

Marshall: But wait there’s more. “Burning Ambition”. This is a B side. The intro riff on this is really brilliant. One of their better songs from this era. They should have used this instead of "Charlotte the Harlot".

Bryan: Oh man, I have not heard this in so long. Great riff indeed. As mentioned, I had the “Prowler” EP, and my brother's friend had the “Running Free" (and “Women in Uniform” but we didn’t count that at the time since it was just a cover) one. 

These days, I like that track fine, as well as the band that performed it originally, the Sky Hooks. I always think of them this time every year on account of “Horror Movie” being in perennial Halloween-mix rotation.

Final Thoughts:

Marshall: Total 30. (Avg. 3)  The production quality of this album is scarcely made up for in the quality of the songs and instrumentation. The singing is bland at best. But I often go back to this album because holy cow, some of the playing and songwriting on this album are incredible. But I have to be in the mood for something very raw sounding.

Bryan:  Total 36.25 (Avg. 4.03)  That about sums it up. I like the rawness (and the thrash-ness of the next one) as outliers in the Maiden experience. There’s a prototype-feeling, an alternate-universe feeling. They announced themselves fairly accurately, just needed the right band members to join and flesh it all out. It’s interesting to consider this in the context of what Samson (Bruce's band) or Urchin (Adrian’s) were doing at the time. 

Next:

(1981)

Bryan: That cover! Brutal. Among the most iconic images of my heavy metal youth. Let's dive in.

Side One:

The Ides of March

Marshall: 3/5  This is clearly intended as an album intro, and it works marvelously for it. When this song ends, I'm just dying for that bass line for "Wrathchild"!

Bryan: 3.5/5  Absolutely. It’s tough to score an intro/table-setter like this. It gives Judas Priest's "Electric Eye" a run for its money and segues so perfectly into:

Wrathchild

Marshall: 4/5  One of the best songs from this album.

Bryan: 4.75/ 5   Agreed. Almost as perfect a single for me as “Running Free” is as far as expressing a certain vector of Maiden excitement, 

Murders in the Rue Morgue

Marshall:  3/5  I enjoy this song a lot, but sometimes it feels unnecessarily rushed.

Bryan:  4.5/5  True. I really do love it, though. I’ve revised my score for this a few times but each time I put it lower than 4.5 I end up bumping it back up. This is another score I’ll chalk up to my brother and his friends assigning the song a certain level of importance in the early to mid 80s. 

Another Life

Bryan: 3.5/5  This one, like the album itself, has only grown on me in the years since I first borrowed my brother's vinyl. It's just a "Prowler" rewrite, though, seems more like entry-level Maiden.

Marshall:  3/5  I love the guitar riff in the intro, and love how they go back to it toward the end.

"Twilight Zone" single.

Genghis Khan

Marshall: 3/5  This song is great, it really works on this album, but boy does it feel rambunctious.

Bryan: 4/5  Essentially thrash in the middle. Very epic end to side one. Well, if the next one didn’t exist. 

Innocent Exile

Bryan: 2.25/5  I would’ve lopped this off. 

Marshall:  2/5  Not a bad song, but it doesn’t really rev my engine, aside from that bad ass intro bass line.

Side Two:

Killers

Bryan:  4.25/5  The breaks in the middle don't quite work for me, but the rest of the song is great.

Marshall:  4/5  I love this song! The intro is bad ass, it gives that lurking feeling that the song is about. Not a huge fan of Di'anno, but his singing on this is absolutely perfect. He almost sounds like a stalker! I heard Dickinson try this one live, and it's pretty weak.

Bryan: Definitely one of his signature tunes. I’ve never taken a deep dive on post-Maiden Di’Anno but the list of bands he formed and the lengths sometimes gone to remind anyone of the Maiden connection is impressive. 

Paul in later years.

Prodigal Son

Bryan: 2/5 Never cared for this one. 

Marshall:  3/5  This song feels really good until it suddenly stops for a weird riff that feels out of place.

Purgatory

Marshall:  3/5  A little rambunctious at times, but that chorus in the middle and the guitar riff during it, MAKE this song. "Pleeeease, take me away, so far away…"

Bryan:  3.75/5  Absolutely. This thrashier side of Maiden is fun. I’m glad it’s limited, but it sounds great here.

Twilight Zone

Bryan:  3.75/5  Not much to say about this one. It’s fine.  

Marshall: 3/5   Fun and upbeat song. The chorus is pretty catchy.

Drifter

Bryan:  3.25/5  I like this chorus, as well. That makes three catchy choruses in a row. Although it doesn’t feel like quite the bang that we should get at the end of a Maiden record. Not bad, though.

Marshall: 3/5  Cool song.

Final thoughts:

Bryan: Total  39.5 (Avg. 3.59)  This one is always better than I remembered, but it’s never the first one I ever reach for. (That cover, though!) Welcome to the party, producer Martin Birch. 

Marshall: Total 35. (Avg. 3.18) A huge step up on production quality from the first record. I feel like this was a proof of what they set out to do on the first album, that this is something that is here to stay, and will develop from here. That development is exactly what they deliver on the next album. So in a sense, Killers is a transitional album to the real Iron Maiden that we all know now.

~

That wraps up the Di’Anno era.  Ousted from the band for performance issues, he still has his champions, like this guy. He made an indelible contribution to the history of heavy metal by fronting the band for any period of time, in my opinion, and there are certainly worse things to have on your resume than Iron Maiden and Killers. 

The band needed a frontman, however, who’d not only show up more consistently but accommodate their growing popularity and vision. They needed someone like Bruce Dickinson, in other words. Coming next! 

Killing Castro by Lawrence Block

“Now, he was going to Cuba to get this Castro. He didn’t know who Castro was, except that he was running Cuba and somebody didn’t want him to keep on with it. He didn’t care about this. He cared about twenty grand, which meant soft living for a long time. 

Twenty grand could get you into a lot of big-breasted girls. You could drink  a lot of premium beer, sleep in a lot of silk-sheeted beds.
So what the hell.” 

Let's jump back into the Hard Case Crime Chronicles with HCC-051:

From the back cover:

There were five of them, each prepared to kill, each with his own reasons for accepting what might well be a suicide mission. The pay? $20,000 apiece. The mission? Find a way into Cuba and kill Castro.

The breathtaking thriller, originally published the year before the Cuban Missile Crisis under a pen name Lawrence Block never used before or since is the rarest of Block’s books – and still a work of chilling relevance all these years later.

We’ll get to the author in a little bit, but this was originally published in 1961, a couple of years before both Cuba and political assassination took different turns of chilling political relevance.  

Before we jump in, just a reminder on what these Hard Case Crime Chronicles post are all about: (1) they're an ongoing project where I decide which of the HCCs I've accumulated over the years are worth keeping and which I'll donate to the free libraries around my neighborhood, and (2) intended as breezy, spoiler-free fare. The right analogy, I think, is we're like passengers on the bus and each morning you see me reading a new paperback and we've struck up a friendly conversation, not a deep dive.

Still here? Excellent. 

I loved this book. It’s so sleazy. It reminded me of two of my favorite films: Sorcerer and The Killing. The former was of course based on the classic French film The Wages of Fear (1953) which was based on the book Le Salaire de la Peur (1950) by Georges Arnaud.  The Killing came out in 1956 and was based on Clean Break (1955) by Lionel White, a prolific author of oft-adapted crime books. I don’t bring any of this up to suggest some kind of cross-pollination, only that some kind of existential state of anxiety was being worked out in all these works. Killing Castro (which first saw print as the below under a pseudonym) was a relative latecomer to a well-established mood.

I’d very much like to talk about the spoiler in this one – I will consider the comments section a free zone as always so if anyone who’s read the book wants to talk about the ending, I hope to see you there – except it’s definitely one to see for yourself. That all the characters are doomed in this one is a foregone conclusion, of course; likewise, that some of them are irredeemable bastards while others have a shabby nobility is all to be expected. But how it all plays out is definitely a big surprise. 

There are intermittent sections that simply relay the events that swept Castro to power and after. Those chapters are some of the most interesting, just because the events themselves were (and remain) so interesting. My favorite of the Blackford Oakes books was probably for the same reason; the Cuban revolution and its ascension to Cold War Immortality always intrigue me. It's written with relative sympathy for all sides though of course it would be considered "rapidly anti-Castro" these days. I wonder what the author would think about the next sixty years of Cuban history?

Actually is the author still alive? I've of course heard of Lawrence Block but never read him before. Or even looked him up before. Let me do so now.

Okay, I'm back. Just the wiki but holy moley this guy has written an awful lot. And yes, still with us, eighty-two years of age. I've got at least two more Blocks in queue for this project - I think possibly even three. I'll have to look up a few interviews with the guy for next time. 

Killing Castro is a great, quick read. Brutal in spots, the proverbial bumpy ride through a shady part of town.

The Hard Case Crime Chronicles will continue 

with Losers Live Longer by Russell Atwood,

appearing sooner or later.

'Bleak and Sad from the Get-Go' (The Delta Flyers, s1 e15)

Let's have another quick look at a Voyager episode I more or less skipped during my watchthrough as a result of my grudge (since overcome) against this guy:

Ethan Phillips as Neelix.

When I first saw this one I wrote: "This episode is probably pretty good; it's not them it's me. I'm not the guy to properly evaluate this - I just can't with this guy." 

Am I the proper guy to evaluate it now? Probably still no. But I'm a fan of Neelix now, so I feel a mild obligation to re-visit all those episodes I unfairly maligned previously. And it gives me an excuse to dig up the “Jetrel” episode of The Delta Flyers and see what Robbie and Garrett had to say about it all.

(A side-note: my Monday morning tradition is to listen to the new Delta Flyers episode. This morning’s - I started working on this Monday morning - was “Tattoo” and was a hoot. I've been wanting them to get Picardo on the show and they finally did via phone.)

Anyway, back to today's revisit. The plot:

Jetrel, the man who invented the Metreon Cascade, a deadly weapon which destroyed Neelix's home on the Talaxian moon Rinax during the war between Neelix's and Jetrel's people, comes aboard Voyager claiming to seek test subjects for a treatment to a disease caused by exposure to the Cascade. It is, however, a ruse. He wants to use Voyager's transporter technology to try and rematerialize the disassociated remains of the victims of the Cascade. The experiment fails, and Neelix forgives a dying Jetrel.

Well. It's not a terrible episode, but it's still not a favorite. Ethan Phillips does some good bits here and there, and the reveal at episode's end about his own misrepresentations/ guilt is a worthy twist. But, as RDM notes (I pulled one of his quips for the title of this post) it's all a bit one-note, and the b-story doesn't really match/ mirror the A-story. Which is like Trek 101 of the Berman era. 

He also mentions another Drama 101 sort of moment when he notes how the episode deprives the audience of the "full meal" of the monomyth/ hero's journey. Most stories utilize this structure; it's what an "arc" is. (May I interject here and say I really like RDM's thoughts on drama in general? I find his insights into the biz and drama to be consistently worth listening to.) What this episode lacks is both dramaturgical story structure - something I bet even the most passive viewer recognizes as missing without even knowing the terms of the workflow - and utilization of the camera. 

The ending (again this is all riffing on RDM's comments from the episode) is a good example. Neelix's hero's journey is complete. His inner shame has been revealed, his fury re-negotiated, he's a new man, forgiven. Yet the camera stays on the guest (Jetrel) while Neelix returns and leaves. What? It's Neelix's journey, not Jetrel's! Well, it's both, but Neelix is the hero of the stroy, not to mention (duh) the actual cast member. The camera should be on him and used to show the "flip" in Neelix's journey. RDM relays something Rick Berman told him: it's motion pictures, not still life. The screen should capture movement, and the movement should tell the story. The camera is a narrator.

All this sort of talk really blows my skirt up. I like this kind of stuff a lot. Listening to artists and writers talk about the mechanics and symbolism of storytelling always fascinates me, as does anything through a sort of Joseph Campbell/monomyth lens. 

Speaking of Rick Berman, Garrett mentions here how Jetrel (James Sloyan) is basically doing a Berman impersonation throughout, either intentionally or accidentally. Interesting. 

And speaking of Sloyan, this is now my third opportunity to say "Oh hey, James Sloyan, I like that guy." He does good work everywhere he appears. Sure, like some asshole, I called him "Jason Sloyan" in my original write-up of "Jetrel" but let's not let that retcon my sincere appreciation for the actor's work, on Trek and elsewhere. 

Couple of notes from my re-watch:

- In the pre-credits sequence Tuvok refers to logic when planning his billiards shot. Is it really logic that dictates the geometry of billiards? It's logical to assume a controlled force plus trajectory/ angle will result in the desired outcome, sure, but the way he puts it is slightly... well, illogical.

- Jetrel is supposed to be Oppenheimer, I guess. I'm not sure if it's mentioned whether the Talaxians had a similar "Manhattan Project" brewing. Not that it needs to be an exact one-to-one; I mean, a sci-fi spin on a real-world moral quandary is pretty much why we're here. No problem with that, but it adds to rather subtracts from the one-note-ness. 

- Along those lines, if you want to tell this kind of story but have no intention of rising to the level of Rush's "Manhattan Project," just skip it. Make that the bar to clear, whatever your intention.

- I had as one of my notes that Ethan Phillips plays this one a little too angrily for me, but then it makes sense in the end. He's filled with shame and disgust with himself as well as trauma and rage, etc. The choice makes sense as an actor. He does some stuff with just his eyes and mouth that impressed me. Sounds kinda wrong.

- Another note that I had to change due to plot events: “I mean how many Talaxians are left for this cure to work on?” Not many, right? Jetrel's cover story is kind of flimsy. I guess he's relying on Neelix to be distracted by his own emotions. (Correctly, as it turns out.) 

- I still don’t quite get Neelix/ Kes. I was glad they talked a little about this in another episode of The Delta Flyers, but it's implied that their relationship is never consummated. So in what sense are they a couple? It's perfectly fine to have a non-sexual relationship, of course, but their dancing around certain things is confusing. Especially given her age and that whole Kes-mating-cycle episode. 

- The big monologue of horrors in the big scene between Neelix and Jetrel is the kind of thing that looks good on paper but is just too much when actually done. These sorts of things - when a character delivers the "I still smell the charred bodies..." sort of script, with slow zoom and appropriate keyboard tones - never work. 

In the comments section of my original review aforelinked, Bryant Burnette wrote something worth quoting here: "This is a good example of the series taking advantage of the conceits which are particular to it. The whole thing only works if transporter technology is unknown to the races who are involved; so it couldn't have been done on TNG unless the role of Neelix was filled out by a guest star; and then, it loses a lot of its impact. DS9 could get closer, thanks to the wormhole, but it's still got the same problem. So good on ya, Voyager! This was an example of you being quintessentially you."

Good point. And this would be an excellent list to make for Voyager: episodes that could only work in the Delta Quadrant.

I bet it would be unfortunately brief. I love Voyager, but I do wish some of its Delta-Quadrant-ness had been isolated and augmented in the mix more. 

In closing: voted dead last in my initial rankings, I'd probably move it up into the top ten now, maybe just below "Phage." 

'Look Dejected and Go to the Weed Patch' (The Delta Flyers, s2, e7)

I’ve been enjoying The Delta Flyers, the podcast Garret Wang and Robert Duncan MacNeill have been updating faithfully week-after-week for the past five months. Which on one hand is not surprising: they both certainly seem like affable company from the characters they played on Voyager, or intelligent guys from interviews over the years. But it’s not always a given that an actor will be good company in other contexts, particularly when the subject is his or her work, or a franchise to which he or she is attached, so it’s always a relief when it happens. 

Here they are both pleasant hosts and their insights into Trek, Trek Inc., storytelling, the biz, and the craft are all modestly and cogently delivered. I’m just glad they haven’t gotten sick of doing it.

This past week’s episode was devoted to: 

the seventh episode of Voyager’s second season, written by Thomas E. Szollosi and directed by Mr. Jonathan Frakes. Neelix is working out his jealousy of Tom; Tom’s working out his feelings for Kes. They crash-land on an away mission and discover a newborn dinosaur-bird-looking-thing, which activates a mutual instinct to keep it alive. Which they do until its parent returns (looking like one of the Cenobites) and, now friends, beam back to Voyager.

Ethan Phillips is a guest on the episode and is great fun. His chemistry with the guys is effortless, like they're just picking up what they were doing twenty years ago without missing a beat. The anecdotes from both the Voyager days and any back-in-the-day days are always fun on this podcast, but Ethan had some great ones. He revealed that the very first direction he ever received as an actor was “Look dejected and go to the weed patch.” This prompted McNeill to say something like it was inspiration that as an actor he never forgot and Ethan deadpans “(slight pause) I took it to heart.” I don't do it justice, it's a wonderful little bit. Still laughing about it, and my brain has filed it for something or other down the line.

Lots of great moments like that. I hope they get everyone from the cast sooner or later. Beltran's been on and I think they had a recurring guest star (apologies for no link - tough to quickly google this info) but I hope they reach out to Braga, Berman, Jeri Taylor, everyone.

Their reverie on the episode, too, made me wonder where it landed in my own rankings of season two and so I looked it up:

“I don't recall too much about this one besides being annoyed to discover I'd be spending my lunch hour with Neelix's goddamn jealousy issues. I did grade it, though, which is how I know where to place it in the countdown.”

Oh. That's right, I was unfortunately dismissive of Neelix until I don’t know, season six or so of my Voyager watch-through and there are plenty of snarky comments like that one. I feel bad about that now. This is the eternal peril of committing your snark-ass opinions to print ("print"). What do you do when you change your mind on something down the line? By the time I finally softened enough on the character to start to admire various things Ethan Phillips was doing I was practically done with the show. 

This slight will not stand, and so I plan to blog up those Neelix-centric episodes to which I previously gave short shrift. They'll all show up in this space sometime over the next few months. 

I figured I’d start with this one, since I enjoyed listening to them talk about it.

I like the general idea of two men overcoming their more violent impulses by mutually nurturing an alien infant. It’s not played for laughs or drama, and of course it all takes place between the forty-odd minute grid of episodic TV, but it all comes across warmly. A shuttlecraft hits the same kind of Berman-era storm and two characters working out some issues take refuge in a Berman-era cave. Like the one with Geordi and the Romulan, but with a dinosaur baby, and with more at stake as it's two principal cast members and not just one. I think it's McNeill who mentions during the podcast how Jonathan Frakes loves actors, so he's very attentive to things actor like to do or may need or want to avoid, etc. This is not a quality always present in a director, particularly the directors of episodic television. (So I'm told)

The performances flesh out the spirit of the title (which could be interpreted as "calving," which is kind of gross to us non-farm kids) quite well. They give birth to their friendship. And from here on out in the series Paris and Neelix are friends. So that’s nice. It's a little cheesy, I guess, but everyone involved does a good job. 

Much of the dialogue over the alien infant puzzled me though. Are reptiles really the same, planet to planet, quadrant to quadrant? Paris objects at one point to the idea of a cordazine shot. Fair enough but he says “We can’t pump it full of drugs without knowing its body chemistry.” Well – they have a working tricorder, so… they certainly do know its body chemistry. They don't know its drug interactions, sure, but that's different. I get that the alien is probably not in the database and all, but they already established some other baseline-terran-based-reptile stuff. This isn't just medical-tricorder-inconsistencies, though, here’s what I’m getting at: it’d have both added drama and seemed more Trekky to me had they gone with the cordrazine and then they had the added dramatic complication of a side effect and guilt.

Also: they lose a shuttlecraft. It's become something of a cliché to mention re: Voyager but one can't help but remark on it. Harry's talking about saving up replicator rations to make a clarinet at the beginning FFS but the ship cranks out replacement shuttlecraft on demand. I guess that's an appropriate hierarchy of demand; you wouldn't want to serve on a ship where that situation was reversed. 

I ranked it twenty-second out of twenty-six in my season two overview. I think I like it more than that on a second viewing. Let the record be corrected to reflect it is now my nineteenth or twentieth favorite episode of season two. 

Alert the media and inform the crew!

Ranking the King Movies, pt. 2

And now as continued from last time for my top twenty favorite Kings. (In case the header photo wasn't informative enough.)

20.

Maximum Overdrive

(1986)

Almost certainly a less sensible movie than many of the ones aforementioned, this one’s undergone a renewed appreciation of late. In a way that’s good. It’s as representative a slice of 80s horror as Friday the 13th, pt. 3 and was never as bad as it briefly had the reputation as being. (Like disco or Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the conventional wisdom on this one really changed somewhere over the last ten or twenty years.) In no way could it be considered a masterpiece, nor even a legit-great flick. It has, though, undeniably, a definite je-ne-sais-quois. 

Is it the premise itself? The massive amounts of destruction? The cocaine buried in the mix? The campy performances? The AC/DC? The burning toilet paper scattered across the highway? The Green Goblin? The menace of the machines? The Emilio of Estevez? Its 80s-ness? The tension between familiar-King-characters in a situation beyond the author’s control/ powers? Unknown. All of the above and then some.

All I know is, I always enjoy watching this movie, and I always say at least once to myself "Oh boy, this is terrible." It's one of those movies. I probably don't need to tell you this, but that combo can on occasion be even more fun than a movie more traditionally-made. 

19.

Riding the Bullet

(2004)

Well now, the award for Most Improved Movie in My Personal Reckoning goes to this one. I didn’t quite love this movie, but for starters, it’s really pretty to look at, something I didn’t remember at all from the first time I saw it. 

And it’s got a lot of heart. What it feels like is a personal film from Mick Garris, perhaps his ONLY personal film that I’m aware of. It works. There's a point when you're watching this where you can choose to go with it or turn it off; go with it.

Sadly I cannot find the notes I took while I was watching it. So I’ve got little specific to go on except the above. Which is a shame, as enjoying it on this 2020 King-movie-revisit was a pleasant surprise. I don't remember the original story too, too well; I tend to get it mixed up with "Nona" in my head. (See comments elsewhere about the people manning my mental file cabinets and their habit of misfiling things.) I was doing a big King Short Fiction re-read but then got off track and lost the mojo. I'll pick it up again sooner or later, but I think this movie goes its own way. One of the occasions I'm happy it did so. I look forward to watching this one again. 

18.

Graveyard Shift

(1990)

Here’s another one that seems to have only risen in prestige in the years since no one even knew it existed. 

Which is kind of funny. I mean: it’s not a good movie. But we’ve covered that – it doesn’t have to objectively be “good” to be awesome. Graveyard Shift is not awesome – let’s be clear there, too. But it is fun. At least in theory. I have to say, I recently got the special edition blu-ray and Dawn and I watched it and for the first time I thought “Well… I don’t need to see that for awhile.”

Whereas for about ten watches prior to that (all taking place over the past eight years) it was getting more and more enjoyable, each time I watched it. I’d half convinced myself it WAS a good movie and just took a little digging. And who knows? That’s true of plenty of movies, probably this one too. But, I think I may have found my plateau of enjoyment with it. If so, it was a wild ride, Graveyard Shift, and like a letter-cube settling into place on a Boggle board, I think you may have finally found your spot.

The end-credits song belongs in whatever Museum of Stephen King opens in the years to come. 

17.

The Mist

(2007)

This is an odd movie. It’s well-made and engaging enough and follows the events of the novella fairly closely. Which is good – the original story is great fun. Except it ends (literally) on a note of hope, while the movie ends on the precise opposite of hope. 

Is that the right choice to have made?

I don’t know. Works for some people. For me, had they ended it more like the novella, I’d have placed this higher. It’s the type of ending that shocks you but does it really illuminate / tie together what came before? The downer editing forces you to consider everything you’ve seen as either the “shit happens then gets worse then you die, tough titty, loser” nihilism popular with certain 21st century horror but not at all popular with me. Or the ending forces you to consider "the mist" as some kind of metaphor/ statement about… what? Depression? Despair? The audacity of hopelessness? 

Tell you the truth, I’m surprised it’s where it is on this countdown. I have a feeling when I re-do these down the road it might fall a bit. It's well-made, but I split with people on the ending. 

I have not watched the show. I kinda don't see the point of turning this into a show, I'll be honest. Perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised.

16.

The Night Flier

(1997)

Mark Pavia’s first film has a devoted cult following. And deservedly so – despite some clunky moments here and there, this is a very effective movie, with a good script, a strong (and rare lead) performance from Miguel Ferrer, as well as Julie Entwistle, who for some reason never went on to fame and glory. Why not? Clearly she had the goods. Pavia, too, (her husband incidentally). With the modest success and good reviews of Fender Bender let’s hope this guy gets more turns behind the camera, and especially more turns adapting King. I was excited a few years back when it looked like he was going to be making an anthology film out of "The Reaper's Image."

If there’s one part of this movie that fails for me on subsequent viewings, it’s the guy playing Renfield (Michael H. Moss). A good physical presence but some of the dialogue is delivered a in a sort of cosplay-Orson-Welles style. 

15. 

Secret Window

(2004)

Here’s an underappreciated movie. Although watching it for this post I was slightly impatient with it. Probably not the fault of the movie, though. Long days round here lately – by the time movie-time rolls around at night, I’m not always in the most patient frame of mind.   

Johnny Depp gives a great performance, as does John Turtorro. We're so used to great performances from those guys it's tough to appreciate, sometimes, the little subtle touches they bring to things.

Very well-made film that preserves and showcases the twist quite well. 

14. 

Needful Things

(1993)

This one is as high in the list as it is solely due to Max Von Sydow’s performance as Leland Gaunt. How delightful is he here? Pretty darn delightful. It's the type of performance that - like Tim Curry's in the It mini-series - paves over whatever potholes are in the rest of the movie. Unlike that mini-series, though, there's less to pave over here. 

The expanded version is a much better adaptation of the novel; I suppose it should be considered the director’s cut. It adds a great deal of the novel that was excised from the theatrical cut. But both versions work pretty well on account of the strong casts. It helps if you love the book, which I do.

13. 

The Mangler

(1995)

I’d never seen this one until gathering my materials together for this post. I actually kind of loved it, to my immense surprise. It was always one of those “Why and how did they ever turn this short story into a book” items in my brain. Understandably - but unfairly, as it turns out.

Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it way closer to being one than it has any business being? Absolutely. “Masterpiece” is of course subjective. It’s an easygoing and dare-I-say sumptuous remix of old school horror and Tobe Hooper’s unique approach. (I’ve discovered through reading The Truth Inside the Lie that I really don’t know Hooper’s catalog anywhere near as well as I thought I did, though, so that statement has an asterisk. ) It expands King’s original story (a silly but effective old-school-horror-in-modern-clothes effort) into something even more monstrous. It retains the old-school-horror (virgin blood, belladonna, yadda yadda) and renders the absurd premise as believable, somehow. 

I can't recall where I read it, apologies, but the film also doubles as Tobe Hooper's metaphorical assessment of his career in Hollywood. No need to even read that deeply into it to observe this, the analogs are fairly easy. (The machine = Hollywood, the family = the studio/executives, the cop = the independent director, his friend = his fans, etc.) This angle makes The Mangler not only an underappreciated King film but an unappreciated examination of 90s filmmaking in general, particularly the studio/indie dichotomy of those years.

12. 

1922 

(2017)

I’ve a feeling I may bump this one down in a few years/ after a few more watches. You heard it here first! OMG #WatchThisSpace

Until I do, this is a great and somewhat-rare treat for King fans: a meticulously faithful adaptation of the story that still feels like pure cinema rather than just a read-along-storybook, as adaptations with lots of voice-over can seem sometimes.

Most of the ones that follow, actually, follow their source material quite closely. Probably no coincidence they land where they do in our countdown. 

11. 

Stand By Me

(1986)

This one hasn’t aged well for me. But it seems to have aged like proverbial fine wine to everyone else, so I mostly keep my mouth shut. When the score is everyone five thousand and me zero, I think the issue is likely on my end and not the film's. And considering its director has two King adaptations in my top fifteen, it must be clear even to me on some level that everyone is right. 

I try to pinpoint what it is that bugs me when I re-watch this now. Is it the performances? Somewhat. Too much narration telling me how to feel? Somewhat there, too. There's a sort of forced-march-of-nostalgia going on in some places. But there's plenty of that to compare it to, nowadays, where "Forced March of Nostalgia" is practically a genre you can pick on Netflix, and Stand By Me is miles above any of that crap. 

So I guess it's not that the film hasn't aged well for me, it's that my relationship to it seems proportional to the context around me. When I was twelve it was my favorite thing ever. Then it wasn't. As a forty-six year old, I appreciate in a way I never could previously how well it did its job, even if I enjoy it less. Weird, eh? 

10. 

The Green Mile

(1999)

Here's a movie that can be reduced - like a fraction - to less flattering descriptions. Tom Hanks plus Shawshank over gospel equals box office/ syndication/ Oscar glory, or something like that. A Marxist read on the film would be something like "passion play in blackface to absolve the capitalists of their racist crimes." The Opiate-Delivery-Mechanism Gospel According to Paul Edgcomb, or perhaps according to Mister Jingles. 

But that shows the limitations of such reductive reviewing. The film works, as the novel works too. Sure you can say hey, this is just a warmed-over gospel metaphor, ("just") and maybe "problematic" to use such an overwrought term as that. It doesn't matter. That's neither the most relevant nor the most fulfilling takeaway from viewing this film. It's a great and very effective theatrical production, for one. Like Oliver Stone's JFK  * you don't have to agree with either the conclusion or intent of the story just to admire its excellence as a production.

* It's a more interesting comparison that it might seem; someone should spend some time comparing and contrasting the two films. Both deal with an apostle-to-new-truth-like change in the protagonist's lives due to an assassination, the invisible hand of the "free market" as nefarious systemic metaphor, etc. Food for a later date perhaps. 

Had the nation not had a touch of Tom Hanks fatigue in 1999, it's likely he'd have won another Oscar for this one. Shame Michael Clarke Duncan didn't win; he was nominated but Michael Caine took it home for The Cider House Rules. Which I've still yet to read, damn it. 

9. 

Gerald's Game

(2017)

The only thing wrong with this movie is the only thing wrong with the book: the epilogue. And there’s by no means wide agreement on whether there’s anything wrong with the book’s epilogue in the first place, so depending where you come down on that one, this will or won’t bother you at all. 

Beyond the ending, though, this could have so easily been a disaster in the wrong hands, and it's quite the opposite. Great stuff here, a showcase for the considerable talents of Carla Gugino, as well as Bruce Greenwood who has become a reliable go-to in recent years. Nice to see that. He needs the right TV role. Or hell: how about casting HIM as Roland? Not the first or more obvious choice, but as I tried to think of iconic roles he could bring to life, that one flashed across my mind. In retrospect, he was the only thing they got one hundred percent right with the Lens Flare reboot. 

Enough about Bruce Greenwood. It may be his character's game, but it's Carla's movie. This is a film whose reputation will only improve, I think. 

8. 

The Dark Half

(1993)

I’ve come to realize that like Tobe Hooper I don’t know George Romero’s catalog half as well as I thought I did, either. So I’m not sure where this one falls on the Greatest Romero Ever list. My guess would be third or fourth, but it should at least be in the top five/ ten conversation. 

People don’t talk about this one as much as they should, or so it seems to me. Maybe they do, what do I know what people are talking about? Maybe if I went to Stephen King dot com or the official chat forums I’d see page after glorious page of appreciation for this movie. 

I suspect it’s one I might actually bump down a bit next time I do these, but for now I can thank The Truth Inside the Lie and its deep dive on the book for turning me on to this in a way I hadn't initially appreciated. 

7. 

(tie)

Creepshow / Cat's Eye

(1982 / 1985)

These are tied for my seventh favorite King movie because I honestly can't tell which one I love more. They both got into my head and King-reckonings around the same time (6th grade, VHS) and activate the same King-positive neurons in my brain. Simply put, I adore these movies.

Of the two, Creepshow is probably the "better-made" film. It's got that faux-EC design and the whole meteor-shit business. But better-made only goes so far in a subjective race; hell, The Dark Half is better-made than Creepshow, probably, but I'll take it over The Dark Half or most other Romero. 

To honor such ambivalent passions and the thread of positivity between them, I present them here in tandem. James Woods, Leslie Nielson, Alan King, Ed Harris, EC - I was introduced to all of them for the first time in this era of repeat-watching-on-VHS via these two movies.

6. 

Dolores Claiborne

(1995)

King’s so-called feminist period lasted from 1992 to 1995, although seems to me the work before and after is pretty feminist-friendly, too. But when people say “King’s feminist period,” they mean Gerald's Game, Rose Madder, Insomnia, and this one. 

Of all the above, Dolores is my favorite, so it’s probably no surprise it’s one of my favorite King movies as well. It's fairly well-regarded among critics and audiences but somehow still feels underappreciated to me. A great film apart from being a great adaptation and one of Kathy Bates’ finest roles.

And speaking of Kathy Bates:

5. 

Misery

(1990)

Where were you the night of November 30th, 1990? I was at the Walnut Hill movie theater in Woonsocket, RI, on a first date with a girl I'd be entangled with for a few years. Kind of an ominous title for a first date, no? We should’ve went to see Three Men and a Little Lady in the theater next door, maybe things would’ve ended differently. 

I’ve had my ups and downs with this movie over the years. Loved it, then had it had bad connotations after things didn’t work down the line with the girl above, then I just kind of forgot about it for awhile. When I re-discovered it in the mid-00s at first I was critical of it then slowly began turning positive on it again. I've reread the book twice in the last ten years and each time I appreciated what they did with the movie even more. Adding the sheriff character was a good idea, as well as Frances Sternhagen. Both of whom feel like King characters even though they’re not from the book.

Kathy Bates is a hell of an actress. Her Annie Wilkes is a perfect mix of diabolical, nurturing, poignant, and off-her-meds nuts. And James Caan is great as Paul Sheldon. Hell, you don’t need me to sell the damn thing. Like the next few, a classic you can still trust after all these years.

4. 

The Shawshank Redemption

(1994)

"Sometimes it makes me sad, though, Andy being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. But still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone.
I guess I just miss my friend."

First time I saw this, I had to excuse myself and go into the bathroom and cry a little bit after I heard that, I'm not ashamed to say. Which never happened to me when reading the novella, although I read it many times before I ever saw the movie. Sometime around 2000, when the girl I'd been seeing for most of the 90s moved away. I guess the idea was she was a bird with bright feathers and I was stuck in prison. Funny how that comes back to me now, years and worlds later, and I still remember how that realization felt. Ah, the relationships of youth.

I always bring up these relationships when I review these things, but is that really so odd? I'm not reviewing these for Esquire or Sight and Sound. A lot of movies and music are tied up in our relationships. Anyway! No one should get the wrong idea. No one's lamenting anything. Not even getting older.

As with Misery or all these things you sure don't need me to sell this movie to you. It's one of those It's a Wonderful Life movies that will be aired on Thanksgiving or Easter for the next fifty to sixty years I bet. 

3. 

Carrie

(1976)

I mentioned this in my remarks about the 2013 version last time: "The time/ momentum seemed / still seems right for Carrie to be remade and replace the De Palma version now over forty years old in the collective imagination. And this wasn’t bad, really; it’s just… not that. It should’ve swung for the fences. Did it? No one gives a performance anyone is still talking about, and that’s a problem. This is the sort of movie where that needs to happen. Or perhaps its cultural moment has passed? Maybe the imagery and events of Carrie have been absorbed into the culture and collective unconscious now, blunting its ability to reflect or shock us. We have assimilated Carrie, or perhaps been assimilated by it, so we can’t react to it that way, even if done well. "

I plan to rewatch this for Halloween season viewing this year, so I hope to add some further remarks in the comments. Depending when you’re reading this (and if it even happens) this review may be expanded. For now I’ll suffice to say De Palma is a polarizing director, but I find many of his films fascinating to watch. Though not in many a year. The stuff he was doing from the mid-70s through the mid-80s fascinates me most of all. Someone at some link I no longer have wrote about how The Exorcist 2: The Heretic is not a sensible sequel to The Exorcist, but it is a sensible progression in the career of John Boorman. This is true of De Palma, here, though not the sequel aspect, of course. That's a sort of cyphr for figuring out De Palma's movies, I think, the context of what in his own work he's reacting against or moving toward or away from. Carrie can be viewed equally well on those terms, as a King adaptation, as a 70s film, or just as a horror/ coming of age movie. 

Unlike many and with all due respect, I prefer it to the book. As I do for:

2. 

The Dead Zone

(1983)

David Cronenberg is another fascinating director. A bit less polarizing than De Palma, though probably not by much. I plan/ hope to watch The Dead Zone for Halloween 2020 as well, so same sitch as above. 

Sitting alongside Cat’s Eye and Creepshow in my personal mental warehouse of Early King Fandom, this film retains all of its impact almost forty years later. Some say “now more than ever.” I’ve seen that written somewhere on this movie every few years since it came out, though. Its message is perennial, bipartisan, and poignantly conveyed through some brilliant and understated performances. (You'd never know Herbert Lom is the guy always trying to kill Inspector Clouseau from his moving performance here.) Its dreamscape of melancholy remains among the most remarkable achievements of Cronenberg’s career, a career with no shortage of remarkable achievements.

You know, I really should do a best-of Cronenberg post one day. Don’t know why I’ve never thought of this until right now. I think I’ve seen everything except Maps to the Stars.

And finally:

1. 

The Shining

(1980)

It’s hard to come up with anything to say about this movie. Hasn’t it all been said? Reviews of the film these days read more like reviews of all the arguments about it, particularly the book vs. movie/ King vs. Kubrick divide. 

I’ll try to sidestep all that as much as I can. Allow me to bullet point some things I love about this movie:

- If The Dead Zone is like a stroll through melancholy, this one is like soaking in a bath of dread. (Maybe the bath with the hacked-up lady from Room 237? Gross.) I’d never felt that from a movie before. It led, eventually, to exploring how a film could be designed to so effectively evoke such a feeling. Basically, in order to get to sleep one scared-sleepless night after watching this movie, I remember consciously thinking “someone had to put the camera in that room” and it opened up not just this movie but ALL movies to this sort of consideration. 

- Jack’s performance as Jack Torrance. It’s not for everyone. Spielberg relays on a Kubrick documentary that once he told Kubrick that Jack’s performance was a little too much for him, and Kubrick likened it to James Cagney. I don’t know Cagney’s acting style or the specific film Spielberg mentions well enough to know if that’s accurate, but it makes sense to me, generally, as Kubrick’s approach to directing Jack in this movie. 

- I like everyone’s performance in this movie, actually, from Danny Lloyd to Shelly Duvall to Scatman Crothers to the littler but so important tonally parts like Stuart Ullman (Barry Nelson) and Lloyd (Joe Turkel). They all add up to something. Part of the reason the film feels the way it does is because each performance is arranged the way it is.

- Ditto for every shot and steadicam sequence. 

- In a way these are Captain Obvious points to make. I’m describing the simple grammar of film, editing, set design, etc. But damn if it’s not all harnessed so well here. 

- All the snow. The ending. The changing of the jacket before the fish soiree. 

- The soundtrack and sound design. Taking the atonal mayhem out of the concert halls and dropping it into the multiplexes of America as accompaniment to a horror film is the sort of public school prank I can get behind.  

And finally, I love it just as a brilliant realization of the book. Many don’t, including (like any of you need me to tell you this) its author. So it goes. As for me, it’s my 2nd favorite King book, probably my favorite Kubrick movie, and here it is at the top of the charts of my favorite King movies.

~

Until next time, friends.