When seeds of malice and deceit are planted, only the worst kind of garden, watered by blood and tears, will bloom. The Ancient Greeks knew this, as did the Bard himself when he wrote his early 1600’s play, Othello. (Which in turn was based on “The Moorish Captain,” a 1565 short story written by Cinthio, an Italian writer and poet. Art, much like an onion and that one book in the Bible that is a series of “begetting,” is a never ending string of inspiration, revisions and occasional outright thievery.) When it comes to this story being adapted for the Silver Screen, most are at least familiar with the 1952 adaptation directed by and starring Orson Welles or the 1995 film starring Laurence Fishburne and Kenneth Branagh. There is one film out of the number of various versions that tends to get left out of the fold, unjustifiably. A film that, while it could have only been born out of the late 60’s /early 70’s, has retained the timelessness of Cinthio and Shakespeare’s tragedy. The film in question? 1974’s Catch My Soul.
 

 
Patrick McGoohan, who is better known for his acting work on the classic 60’s TV show The Prisoner (as well as Howard Hughes’ favorite film ever, Ice Station Zebra), directed Catch My Soul, a modern-day musical reworking of the famous tale. Starring legendary folk singer/Woodstock juggernaut Richie Havens as Othello, whom instead of being a general for the Venetian army, is now a man of God baptizing a ragtag group of boho-commune types. There’s the apple of his eye, the meekly boyish Desdemona (a very young Season Hubley) and his righthand man, Cassio (musician Tony Joe White), a former boozer who has found redemption through Christ and Othello himself. But there’s a snake in the land of pure love and spirituality in the form of Iago (Lance Legault), who, along with some help from his wife Amelia (the eternally inimitable Susan Tyrell), plots and plants assorted seeds for Othello’s hellish downfall.
 

 
Catch My Soul manages to nail all the things that were right about some of its cinematic peers (ie. Norman Jewison’s Jesus Christ Superstar or David Greene’s Godspell, both of which came out the year before) and mercifully escapes a number of their flaws. Thanks to McGoohan’s able direction, writer Jack Good’s script and the impeccable camerawork by Conrad L. Hall, the film never slips into any dated hippie-dippy cliches and retains the gravitas of the original source material. Even better, the religious angle is heavy but without claw-hammering the audience. Catch My Soul is interesting for many reasons and this is one of the strongest ones. It is a tale of sadness, loss of faith, love punctured and spirituality without becoming a full blown “religious” film. Which is one of the things that undoubtedly hurt the film’s chances of success during its initial theatrical release. Not religious enough for the hardcore fundamentalist crowd and too strange for the rest. A modern-day musical re-telling of Shakespeare’s Othello with a spiritual tint starring Richie Havens and Susan Tyrell is a film that in a just world should sound immediately appealing to most, but this existence’s version of justice is about as moth-eaten and flimsy as ¾ of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s work.
 

 
In further injustice, Catch My Soul never even warranted a home video release via VHS, Beta, Laserdisc or DVD. That is, until very recently, via Etiquette Pictures and their beautifully remastered Blu-ray release. (See? Some things do right themselves out… you just may have to wait a few decades for the scales to balance.)

The music is solid, which is a no-brainer given that, in addition to Havens and White (who had a big hit in ‘68 with “Polk Salad Annie”), the film also features such noted musicians as Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, as well as Billy Joe Royal (of “Down in the Boondocks” fame). Interestingly enough, it is Legault who does the lion’s share of the singing and he not only brings it vocally, but makes for one of the most manic and intense Iagos in recent memory. He plays Iago as if the man himself is literally the Devil. Charismatic even when covered in sweat and dirt and soot and frightening as the awareness that the only demon living in Iago’s fevered, poxed soul is the one in his mind, Legault is stellar. For a man who got his start as a stunt double for Elvis, later on starred in The A-Team and worked as a lounge singer, where is his documentary? Someone needs to plant that seed and soon.
 
Continues after the jump…

Susan Tyrrell in a scene from Fat City.
 
Susan Tyrrell always brought a unique and offbeat magic to movies she starred in…even the ones that sucked. Her film credits read like the index for a book on cult films. From Andy Warhol’s Bad to Marco Ferreri’s Tales Of Ordinary Madness and Richard Elfman’s Forbidden Zone, Tyrrell could ignite flicks that strained to be weird with flashes of her eccentric brilliance, often salvaging otherwise unwatchable pieces of crap.

Tyrrell’s free and fearless spirit was a rare thing in the increasingly uptight world of commercial cinema. And when she had a good role in a good movie she could create something great. Her performance as Oma in John Huston’s Fat City is absolutely heartbreaking, an embodiment of the dark night of a woman’s soul, and deservedly garnered her a Oscar nomination in 1973.

Tyrrell suffered from a rare blood disease, thrombocythemia, and lost both of legs in 2000. But despite the handicap, she continued to take on some small film roles, including an appearance in the Felliniesque Masked and Anonymous starring Bob Dylan.

I’m a loner. I don’t like beautiful people, but I find beauty in the grotesque. And in the sweet soul inside someone who has been able to get through their life without being a rat’s ass. Such people should be collected, should be swept up immediately and kept in a box of broken people. I’ve collected people my whole life. Sometimes it ends badly, but it’s absolutely never on my part. Because I know how fabulous I am. You’re just going to have to take my word for it - I’m an incredible person. I do good deeds, and I love people, but the only way I can do these things is to stay apart. Because you can just stand so much. But the people who you meet in your life, who cross your path, the ones who are decent, should be collected.” Susan Tyrrell.

Tyrrell died this past Sunday. She was 67 and living in Austin. Details of her death have yet to be released.

Here’s a clip from 1982’s Forbidden Zone, featuring a delightfully demented Tyrrell as Queen Doris of the Sixth Dimension.
 

 
“Necron 99 has destroyed himself!”  With all the talk of Avatar these days, I find it curious that no one’s made note of that other Avatar (and not the Airbender).  It’s the good magician Avatar from Ralph Bakshi‘s animated, post-apocalyptic science fiction/fantasy, Wizards. 

And like the Cameron film, Wizards offers up an epic battle between the forces of nature and technology.  On the side of nature, there’s Avatar with his good magic and hot fairy sidekick.  On the side of technology, there’s Avatar’s bad-ass but anorexic-looking twin brother, Blackwolf, who’s just discovered the amazingly persuasive powers of Nazi propaganda.  And for fans of Richard Elfman’s Forbidden Zone (who of you out there in DM-land isn’t?!), actress Susan “Queen Mona” Tyrell provides the narration.

Bakshi’s Wizards came out in ‘77, after Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic, and a year before his own take on Lord Of The Rings.  I’ve seen that later film just once.  I’ve watched Wizards nearly a dozen times.  Part I follows, with links to the entire film below:

 
Wizards Part II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII