As part of Movieline's ongoing efforts to broaden the admittedly Yankeecentric scope of our entertainment coverage, we've tracked down just the man to lob over dispatches from across the pond. Please give a warm welcome to Alex Godfrey, who joins Movieline today as our Man in London. Whether you're an unabashed anglophile, a stout anti-imperialist, or just a lonesome expat craving a proper scone, we think a few moments with Alex will invariably offer you a little piece of home. Today, Alex speaks to Paul Davis, a local DJ whose Beware The Moon -- an indie doc on the making of An American Werewolf in London -- eventually found its way onto Universal's new Blu-ray re-release of the John Landis classic.
Have you ever seen Eastenders, Britain's beloved cockney soap opera? That's what life's like for us over here. We're miserable, angry alcoholics who spend our days buying vegetables on the street, and our evenings poisoning our insides in pubs. That's really all we do. All of us. Will Smith saw Eastenders recently, if Brit tabloid The Sun is to be believed, catching "like a week's worth of episodes in one" (do you not have the word 'omnibus' in America?), and was quite taken by it. "It was so real and gritty", he reportedly gushed, hinting at a somewhat sheltered existence. Then, promising what would surely be the most bizarre transatlantic TV cameo since Boy George appeared in The A-Team, Smith reportedly "begged BBC bosses for a cameo", which worked the media here into a frenzy. Well, I say frenzy. A little foaming at the mouth perhaps.
Maybe this happened. Maybe Will Smith has never seen Eastenders in his life (a report in a British tabloid doesn't always equate with what is actually happening on Planet Earth). But we don't care, because there's nothing like a bit of Hollywood glamour to brighten up our drab, worthless British lives. Go on America, flatter us, you naughty minx. We don't care if you're exploiting us, we'll take it. You recently sent George Clooney over to dazzle the peasants, and he didn't disappoint, positively hijacking the London Film Festival by starring in three of the Gala screenings and putting in a fine performance on the red carpet every time. We lap this stuff up, embracing your celebrities even when you're sick of them. You might give famous American drunk David Hasselhoff a spot on your talent shows, but do you give him his own reality series? No? We do. (Someone here even allowed him a starring role on stage in Chicago a few years back, taking the UK's tiresomely ironic fascination with the man to a whole new level.)
More interestingly (and oddly), John Landis fever is currently gripping Britain. This Friday, remastered prints of An American Werewolf In London are hitting our cinema screens. Next week, Animal House is getting the same treatment. And next month, Landis is returning to these shores to direct his first theatrical feature since 1998, a comedy about 19th century graverobbers Burke and Hare, which, with Simon Pegg and David Tennant (Doctor Who) as the leads, could be great.
John Landis gets Britain. The scene in American Werewolf's infamous Slaughtered Lamb pub is much more authentic than what goes on in Eastenders' Queen Vic; get out of the cities a bit and there are pubs like this all over the UK, old, traditional, no-frills drinking holes populated by locals who aren't famed for their warm welcomes. Further to this, Landis' London is laudably recognisable to natives and, for American Werewolf lovers of a certain age, some parts of town will be forever associated with the film. It's very hard, for instance, to wander around Tottenham Court Road tube station late at night and not be mentally transported to the scene where the wolf makes mincemeat of the businessman.
One such enthusiast is Paul Davis, a 28-year-old DJ from suburban South London who saw the film when he was three (can you say "Irresponsible parenting?"), became a lifelong fan and, in 2007, with no permission or rights, naively set about making a documentary about it. I had lunch with him last week to talk about what happened, meeting by the Eros statue in Piccadilly Circus (where American Werewolf's climactic scenes were shot) in a limp attempt to soak up the environs. Eros is one of those mystifying tourist landmarks constantly surrounded by German teenagers adorned with "I ♥ LONDON" T-shirts, and the first thing I did upon rescuing Paul was to go across the road to photograph him outside the old porno cinema in the film where tragic David meets his undead victims. Alas, the porno cinema is now a Gap store (thank you, America) at a major road-crossing, but despite the assembled throng of pedestrians, you can easily spot Paul in my photo as he's 12 feet tall.
Inspired by Mark Kermode's great Exorcist documentary The Fear Of God, and the lack of anything extensive on the making of American Werewolf, Paul started pre-production in January 2007.
"The film was shot here, and I was pretty certain 75% of the cast and crew would still be here, so I thought I'd see how far I could get", he says. "And I knew the last DVD came out in 2001, and it might be a respectable time for Universal to consider doing a double-dip."
After tracking down and interviewing a few cast and crew members, Paul managed to get a request off to Landis, and was surprised to get an e-mail back from him two days later.
"Landis said, 'I'm absolutely flattered but I have two questions: Why, and what the f**k do you expect to do with it?' I told him I wanted to put it on DVD, and he said 'But you don't own the rights!' And he put me in touch with Universal who told me they had no interest in releasing American Werewolf again and couldn't help." Fortunately, Paul later managed to meet Landis and prepared a five-minute presentation which won him over: "He liked what we'd done, but mostly he was impressed that three of us had just gone out and done this by ourselves with one camera and a laptop. And also he was also very flattered by some of the things that these people were saying about him and his film."
A few months later, with the help of Landis' rolodex and enthusiasm, Paul completed Beware The Moon after having interviewed all the major (and most of the minor) players, and after a gentle push from the director, it triumphantly found its rightful home on the recently released American Werewolf Blu-ray, which exists, Paul is convinced, as a subtle marketing push for Universal's forthcoming The Wolfman. Whatever the reason, his documentary serves as the definitive chronicle on the production, and it's great. Against all the odds, naïvete, ambition and passion won through. Allow your faith in the world to be restored, for today at least.
Tally-ho, bitches.