More Gough

By pop­u­lar demand, from The Horse’s Mouth, Ronald Neame, 1958. 

In Konga, John Lemont,1961. A friend reminded me that when we were kids, I did this Michael Gough “imper­son­a­tion” that sub­sisted of put­ting on a plummy British accent and say­ing, “I say, Konga, put me down.” In fact in the rather not-very-good giant-ape rethink (“Hilarious”—The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film) Gough’s Dr. Decker reacts rather more frantic­ally to being picked up by the title anim­al. Rewatchers of the pic­ture will be rewar­ded by the com­plete integ­rity he insists on bring­ing to his per­form­ance. He should have got­ten an award for Best Interaction With A Completely Unconvincing Special Effect. 

Another friend reminds me of Gough’s immor­tal lines, “Yes, Jason, it’s an oper­a­tion. A simple oper­a­tion,” from the immor­tal 1973 Horror Hospital, a pic­ture it took me a rather uncon­scion­ably long time to get a bead on; see­ing it for the first time in my teens, I took it for mere, albeit excit­ing, schlock, not under­stand­ing that it was in fact an elab­or­ate piss-take for some time. When I did, Gough’s per­form­ance, a hil­ari­ously com­pel­ling par­ody of a char­ac­ter he’d played “for real” count­less times, became even more impressive.

I think The Legend of Hell House, also 1973, was the first pic­ture fea­tur­ing Gough that I saw the­at­ric­ally. A dis­con­cert­ing big-screen intro­duc­tion, as he’s made up to look like an embalmed cada­ver and his lips don’t move when he “speaks.”

He did indeed loom very large in my cine­mat­ic firmament.