The Wonky Tonk woman
QUESTION
Actress Nanette Newman is credited as a vocalist on the Rolling Stones track Country Honk. How did this come about?
WHILE researching my book, Rolling Stones 69, I was baffled by the namecheck for the actress Nanette Newman on backing vocals alongside familiar names Doris Troy and Madeline Bell.
How did the wife of film mogul Bryan Forbes, and one-time co-star of Peter Sellers and Tony Hancock, end up on a Rolling Stones album?
It turns out to be a ruse. American singer Nanette Workman had moved to Britain and a contact at Olympic Studios, where the Stones were recording their Let It Bleed LP, put her name forward for backing vocals.
She didn’t have a work permit so she simply ‘borrowed’ the actress’s name and ended up on You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Country Honk and Honky Tonk Women.
Patrick Humphries, London SE24.
QUESTION
Has a film critic ever walked out of a film?
BBC film critic Mark Kermode has a policy of never walking out of a film – unless it features animal cruelty. The only film he’s walked out of was the 1993 Australian horror/comedy Bad Boy Bubby in which a cat is mistreated.
Kermode’s stand-in, Andrew Collins, walked out of the 2009 Jason Statham film Crank: High Voltage during the scene in which strippers’ silicone breast enhancements explode.
James King, who presents The Movie Show on ITV2, walked out of 2001’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider starring Angelina Jolie – and frankly, who can blame him?
Emma Cowan, Birmingham.
MICHAEL Parkinson was sitting in for Barry Norman for BBC’s Film 86 when he was asked to review Paul Verhoeven’s medieval gorefest Flesh And Blood starring Rutger Hauer.
He described why he walked out after 40 minutes: ‘During that time, I’d seen on the widescreen and in glorious colour a couple of wonderfully entertaining moments, such as two lovers plighting their troth under the corpse of a disembowelled man and the charming depiction of the birth and burial of a stillborn child. And just in case you’ve missed the point of this particular scene, the mother is later viewed walking towards camera with blood pouring down her legs.
‘Now this was bad enough, but the bozos who made this masterpiece then showed us a scene where a young virgin is raped by a group of soldiers: “Look at me as I do it,” says one soldier. “I’ll look at you because I like it,” says the girl
– at which point I decided I’ve got better things to do in my life than sit in a cinema and watch this kind of garbage.’ Ollie Wilson, High Wycombe,
Buckinghamshire.
ROGER Ebert was the best known American film critic and the first to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. He wasn’t above walking out of films, or ‘ankling’ as the Americans call it.
In 1973, he walked out of the film version of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, based on Richard Bach’s homily about self-perfection.
‘At the point when I walked out 45 minutes into the movie, the hero had learned to avoid garbage and fly high, but the film, alas, had not,’ he wrote.
He walked out of the X-rated 1979 erotic historical drama Caligula, which starred Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter O’Toole and John Gielgud, calling it ‘sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash’.
He famously walked out of 2003’s The Brown Bunny, writing that it was ‘the worst film in the history of Cannes’. This resulted in a war of words with director Vincent Gallo, who called Ebert a ‘fat pig with the physique of a slave trader’.
E. S. Smails, Barnet, Hertfordshire.
QUESTION
Before the National Trust in the UK made tourist attractions of the mansions of the nobility, what gave Elizabeth Bennet in Pride And Prejudice the right to ask for a tour of Blenheim and Pemberley?
A RISE in domestic tourism in Britain during the 18th century can be traced to improvements in transportation, increased private wealth and the outbreak of hostilities with France, which curtailed opportunities for Grand Tours.
Favourite destinations were the Lake District and the Peak District, where admiring country scenery and visiting country houses were the key attractions.
Jane Austen gives an account of such a tour in 1813’s Pride And Prejudice when Elizabeth Bennet travels to Derbyshire for three weeks with her aunt and uncle. During their tour, the party visit Blenheim Palace, Warwick Castle and Kenilworth Castle. As a result, by the time they reach Mr Darcy’s seat at Pemberley – a fictional place – Elizabeth is ‘tired of seeing great houses; after going over so many, she really had no pleasure in seeing fine carpets or satin curtains’. However, she is persuaded to make the fateful journey, where she changes her mind about Mr Darcy, by the promise of Pemberley’s ‘delightful’ gardens.
Such a visit to grand estates became increasingly common in the 18th century. Generally, you had to approach the housekeeper or gardener and, providing the party was suitably genteel and could furnish a suitable tip, they would get a tour of the house and grounds. The level of interest is reflected in the many journals and guide books available at the time. Typical volumes contained information about the house’s history, occupants, architecture, objets d’art and a description of the gardens and landscaping. A wellknown example is Benton Seeley’s Stowe: A Description Of The Magnificent House And Gardens, which had 17 editions between 1744 and 1797.
Richard Sulivan’s 1780 Observations Made During A Tour Through Parts Of England, Scotland And Wales contains accounts of visits to Wardour Castle, Fonthill, Stourhead, Longleat, Wilton, Longford Castle, Broadlands, Hackwood and Corsham.
Some destinations became crowded. In 1787, John Byng, a nephew of Admiral Byng, bemoaned having to join a party of 30 to be shown around Blenheim: ‘What a plague and fatigue!’ he exclaimed.
Visits became more organised. Visits to Blenheim in the early 19th century were scheduled every afternoon, from 3pm until 5pm, except on Sundays and public holidays.
Amy Marshall, Chesterfield, Derbyshire.
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