FieCrier
Happily, I was able to view this award-winning short online.A man constructs a contraption while surrounded by pitch black darkness. A musical saw wavers out a tune on the soundtrack. Contrary to one description I've read, I did not see or hear his wife berating him while he was doing this. The end might come as a surprise, but probably not. The one line of dialog at the end suggests why the contraption might have been built, but for the most part we are left wondering who the characters were and what their lives were like and why it ended this way.I wonder what Dearden's other short films are like?
Sean McHenry
I saw this long forgotten gem on the old late night cable show Night Flight, on US television back in the late 1970s. It played once or twice and that was the only place I ever saw it.Without spoiling it all I can say is it is well done. A gentleman retires to his basement workshop and continues on a project building an unknown object. His wife continually berates the man, unseen but heard from the top of the stairs all the while. In the end, he finds his escape in "The Contraption".Richard O'Brien was a hot commodity then as the Rocky Horror Picture Show was at perhaps it's peak here in the Midwest. Tim Curry went on to do a few albums and several more mainstream films like Clue here in the US. I owned a copy of his album Read My Lips. Susan Sarandon became quite big and Barry Bostwick made a name again with Spin City years later.If anyone out there knows where I can beg, borrow, buy or otherwise find a copy of this short, please e-mail me. McHenryProj@Yahoo.com should get to me.
HyperPup
***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** I don't know much about who, what or why this was produced but it was cool. A small bit of drama, short (I think 15 minutes) and concise. Richard O'Brien whiles away his time at bulding a rather complex device, cutting and planing wood, drilling, bending metal pipes and such, and all for what? Well, I believe this little gem is lost in the annals of videoland, so it will probably never air again so I'll tell ya. He completes the device and we see a large and menacing mousetrap, just the right size for...him. And with that he lays himself down on the trigger and snaps his neck in the trap. Cold, chilling, and quick. I believe this was part of a group of shorts, but I cannot remember as it aired on HBO and a few other cable channels before it became completely lost to time.
RobCrus
This short film is one of my personal favorites to watch. It is well-shot, the atmosphere dingy and oppressive, and a natural tension builds as you watch "Man" (Richard "God" O'Brien) build his mysterious "Contraption". There is next to nothing to distract you, no dialogue, save a voice-over at the very end of the film, so you find yourself pulled into the world of the character for its duration.I'd recommend it to anyone, not only O'Brien fans, but to them of course, it is indeed a MUST.
AD
