Monday 27 July 2015

Musique Concrète in What A Whopper! (1961)


Mr Slate is unimpressed with musique concrete

Adam Faith and musique concrète don't appear in the same sentence too often, do they? You read it here first (probably) - ha-ha. When Clive Dunn as Mr Slate comes to serve an eviction order he gets more than he bargained for, including an eyeful from the artist played by Charles Hawtrey (!), whom he later accuses of being a beatnik. That's funny enough, but we laughed out loud when he encountered the resident would-be Donald Judd. Turns out the sound recordist proves essential to the cause of faking a Lock Ness Monster appearance. As you know, strictly speaking musique concrète was not 'electronic music' to start with, but we'll let them off. If you can't endure the whole clip (it's worth it for Hawtrey as the artist) Mr Slate encounters musique concrète at 4.50.

2 comments:

  1. Ah yes found this one on Youtube a while back (whilst searching for Terry Nation linked stuff) and was also tickled by the Musique Concrete. Just about made it to the end of the film to see Adam listening to himself on the radio.

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