Straw Dogs

This has got a good cast too.

Susan George, who we love from Straw Dogs.

She's in the film.

James Mason.

Yeah

... and Straw Dogs a lot.

[laughs]

And I was like-

Yeah

... "This is normal." The, and I remember, like, being in high school and telling a friend, like, "Oh, yeah," like, I mean, "I watched Straw Dogs over the weekend.

It's so fucking good.

You gotta watch it." And they're like, "What's that movie about?" And I was like, "Oh, it's this." And they're like, "That doesn't sound good." And I was like, "No, no, no, it's really good.

This is the reason we watch these shows, these wholesome shows, really, because, you know, really, we would have liked to have got up on a Sunday and seen a fucking shootout or something.

Watch Straw Dogs.

We'd go up on a Sunday morning and watch Straw Dogs.

You know, that's all we wanted, but instead we had Little House on the Prairie

and fucking the Waltons.

wow.

I remember seeing Straw Dogs and Network when I was like 14, right? And I thought 14 was a little young, but like.

okay like we're all what your point is is we're all exposed to the things that change our lives in art or meaning or anything at the age we're exposed to them at and great shit is great shit no matter when you hear it

absolutely right and even if

... what was that movie you were telling me about? Uh, we, we watched it for the main, for the main show.

Oh, Straw Dogs.

Yeah, Straw Dogs.

Yeah.

[laughs] Whoo.

Yeah

... also did not care for.

[laughs] This is a better Straw Dogs.

You've got the kind of back-to-back McQueen and Peckinpah joints.

I've got the Criterion Straw Dogs.

It cost me a pretty penny, but well worth it.

And then...

Apparently it really is the world's oldest, well, America's oldest rodeo, um, that happens in Prescott, Arizona.

I don't know if it still happens, but it certainly was at the time.

Um, uh, and yeah, it was, and it was filmed that the actual, um, the actual thing, which is why you had to, um, cause apparently, I was certainly reading that because they filmed it the actual event the actual rodeo event obviously they needed to be there at a specific time when the event was on so like while this was happening like sam was also editing straw dogs at the same time um which again seems like a thing that's come up before yeah like

yeah well you've seen these the way these are coming out i mean they're back to back He's a workaholic and an alcoholic.

Episode 376 of the PJ Archive is a phone interview I did with the delightful English actress Sally Tomsit.

Sally was very successful in the 1960s and 70s, most famously playing Phyllis in the classic family film The Railway Children, Janice in the psychological thriller movie Straw Dogs, and Jo in the hit ITV sitcom Man About the House.

She also starred in adverts for products including Bovril and Crunchy Chocolate Bars.

But strangely, since the late 70s, Sally has rarely been seen on screen, though she has done occasional stage work.

I didn't have any time to have any.

I just was offered one thing after another after another, and I either did it or I didn't.

Apparently, I really, well, I didn't have to fight for it, but my agent did, which was Straw Dogs.

Oh, yes.

He seems to get the terror correct in Legend of Boggy Creek and he almost gets it correct in The Town That Dreaded Sundown, but here in The Evictors it just sadly falls flat.

The Evictors is more thriller than horror, like a very watered down Straw Dogs.

It suffers hugely from pacing and I have to say the acting from Michael Parks as Ben Watkins and Jessica Harper as Ruth do nothing to help this issue.

Michael Parks, in his attempt to capture the 1940s southern Louisiana feel, ends up just being a mumbling, hard to understand, expressionless and emotional slip of a man.

that

i'd agree Yeah, I mean, and there's a little bit of Peckinpah in there, and there's some Straw Dogs, you know? Yeah.

Where, same thing, the fucking push to the limit, it's like, it becomes the, you know, the trailer, like, push to the limit you know dustin hoffman is forced to take revenge and there you go this is just more of that reflection of those fears those anxieties um And surprisingly, it's not as much like, um, and again, you talked about this, which we don't know.

Um, I expected there to be more, more onscreen sex and more onscreen violence.