Word: guignol
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...demonstrate a new type of insulating foil, Union Carbide places a baby chicken in a small foil-lined metal box and then lowers it into a beaker of boiling water. Several long moments later, out pops the chick, frisky and unfried. The initial plunge is not exactly Grand Guignol, but it does provide a bit of a shock. A recent spot for American Motors shows a gang of men demolishing a competitor's car with sledge hammers. Who would admit to hating autos? Still, there is a certain undeniable thrill in seeing all that shiny metal crumple...
Author Portis always streaks his Grand Guignol gore with the humor that is implicit in Mattie's character and situation, although sometimes he is guilty of playing it a bit too quaintsy. Mattie's prowess as a horse trader, for example, is overdrawn to the point where character rides off into caricature toward a last stand at the credibility gap. And he finds it necessary to pad his dangerously thin tale with an overlong excursion into Rooster's gun-cocking past...
Death in this movie has a definite Grand Guignol quality. People don't just fall down and lie there with a stain on the uniform and maybe a twitch or two. They writhe and roll, gurgling and spouting the red stuff in enough quantities to make even a paratrooper throw up-which John does with emetic realism. There is also a double helping of portentous stream of consciousness on the sound track, plus some heavy-handed message mongering that is both otiose and silly. "Just you and me," observes one of the characters, lying near death in an inferno...
...playlet, for example, to a unison drumbeat of feet there is a rapid-fire recital of everything printed on a dollar bill. But the troupe is obviously happiest with horror, since that best expresses its dissent from contemporary society. Its tour de force is a 31-hour Grand Guignol saga called Frankenstein, which begins with eleven people being dragged screaming, pleading or fighting to the stage. There they are gassed, crucified, electrocuted, and garroted...
...gang of Mexican bank robbers and split the reward. As Van Cleef and Eastwood close in for the kill, bodies begin to pile up like cordwood, and enough lead is exchanged to re-equip the Egyptian army. Long before the end, the violence becomes a bit like a Grand Guignol show-raucous, incessant and absurd...