The Comeback

From acclaimed and heavily criticised British director Pete Walker came the 1978 movie The Comeback, a story in which a pop star plans to make a return to the industry after a bad relationship goes wrong. Starring a real life pop star Jack Jones who stars as Nick Cooper, the story to some level was close to home as Jones himself was planning a comeback album, of course his story was far different to Nick Coopers.

 

British horror of this era was somewhat tale in comparison to American and European horror, Pete Walker single handily changed this making British horror far more extreme, while this would now be welcomed it almost became the death nail for British horror with most of Walkers films becoming either heavily censored or completely banned like the movie Frightmare. The Comeback is one of Walker’s best received movies, but also the movie seen least of all of the directors work.

 

What makes The Comeback a strange offering is the casting choices for the movie, joining Jack Jones is Pamela Stephenson one time comedian now psychologist and wife of Scottish comedian Billy Connelly. David Doyle best known as Bosley from Charlie’s Angels stars as Nick Cooper’s agent, and in a fairly shocking moment exposed as a transvestite. Then Bill Owen best known as Comp from Last Of The Summer Wine  provides a sobering straight laced performance as the loving husband of Mrs. B played by regular Walker actress Sheila Keith.  Jack Palance’s daughter Holly Palance playsa most unusual role as a corpse from the movies offset; while popular novelist Peter Turner plays a bizarrely abysmal Harry, Coopers right hand man. Finally you have June Chadwick, who would later appear in the Sci-Fi spectacular V. In fairness if you are not from the UK or up on UK culture this might not mean very much to you but to put it most effectively it’s a collection of the most unlikely people gathered together for a shockingly graphic horror movie. It was a strange thing that Walker had, a certain hold over certain celebrities that he could somehow command the most unlikely people to star in his incredibly low budget movies, most of his movies are like a who’s who of British culture at that particular point in time, and here with the Comeback you get the most striking pointer to what was going on in British society.

 

Trivia put aside The Comeback begins with the estranged partner being horrendously hacked to death by a crazed old woman with a sickle. Unbeknown of the death of Gail in his penthouse on Londons Docklands, Cooper returns home from the States (his homeland) to work on his new album . Webster Jones or Webby, Cooper’s agent finds a county house mansion for Cooper to work on where he won’t be disturbed, however upon arrival he finds he is haunted by sounds and images from the past. As Cooper begins to have a mental breakdown, the roles of his careful aging housekeepers Mr & Mrs B change, but can Coopers career be stopped from falling into freefall?

 

I appreciate that the storyline might not sound the most compelling of movie offerings, but things are surprisingly better than they first seem. After a really quite shocking murder (considering this is British) things for a time slump into almost soap opera style storytelling, however as the story moves full circle it gets really quite extreme.

 

What I find most strange about the movie is the slowly rotting body of Gail that we keep seeing in quick flashes, and it’s not too long before she is joined by another body.  It’s hard to put into words the way this looks, or even to describe the impact and shocking nature the movie delivered on an unsuspecting British public.

 

It’s a strange combination of melodrama and extreme horror that to be honest I have never seen before, moving from the most horrific extremes, to kitchen sink drama at the drop of a hat. The scenes of Cooper and Linda (Stephenson) at times are almost painfully normal to watch as they sit and contemplate each other’s pasts, and Cooper shows of the sort of bizarre and totally anal sort of self possessiveness that you come to expect from medium level celebrities. The story darts about from one to the other at the drop of a hat, with the most unusual red herrings thrown in left right and centre to really keep your mind thinking in overtime.

 

I cannot pretend for a minute that in my opinion this is one of Pete Walkers finest, for me that crown will always go to Die Screaming, Marianne; but The Comeback is without a doubt one of the most unusually refreshing movies of the 1970’s. It has a sort of charm and charisma that literally puts the movie in a category all of its own that no country in the world has ever delivered something comparable. The gore is extreme, the language likewise for the movies location in time. All the while you’re getting this incredibly dark and sinister view of England in the 1970’s; and this makes the movie all the more special.

 

The cast whether good or bad in their acting add to the unique flavour of the movie, Sheila Keith plays a typically Pete Walker leading lady role as an aging woman with a secret, while the film is somehow stolen by Bill Owen’s unique secret. But of all the bizarre images that you take from the movie by far the most striking is Charlies Angels Bosley in drag, by far the most frightening (and I don’t mean that sarcastically) image to take from the film.