To accompany Alan’s wonderful Ken Russell piece, we thought we’d get our good friend Lovely Jon to select his five favourite Oliver Reed films. As one of Uncle Ken’s most celebrated collaborators, the great man doesn’t really need an introduction but here’s LJ with a couple of lines…

“As a lifelong Ollie fanatic, this was a tough call but here is my top 5 spots for this incredible character actor whose off screen binges sadly detracted from his unique thespian presence.”

5. Venom (1982/UK/Director Piers Haggard)

A total trash feast but a wholly enjoyable trash feast with Ollie as a deviant chauffeur whose involvement in a kidnapping plot to abduct a rich American boy goes spare when a deadly Black Mamba snake get loose in the laundry.  This makes the list for the priceless set piece of the deadly Mamba slithering up Ollie’s trouser leg (an excruciating denouement that had the audience screaming when I first saw this pulpy treat upon its initial release on a double bill with The Long Good Friday (!).  Euro maniac Klaus Kinski is the mastermind behind the squeeze.  Can you imagine the hostility of these two on set – the vibe must have been pure intensity.  Ollie was back for more snake nonsense in the equally ludicrous Canadian chiller Spasms.  Director Haggard needs no introduction as the visionary behind the seminal Pagan witchcraft Brit horror classic The Blood on Satan’s Claw.

4. Hannibal Brooks (1969/UK/Director Michael Winner )

An absolute childhood favourite as Ollie escorts a cute Elephant across WWII German occupied Europe to the safety of the Swiss border.  With heavy support from the quirky Michael J Pollard (you can see these two sharing a spliff or two on set) and Helmut Lohner (whose death scene creates an incredibly intense reaction from Ollie which haunts me to this day).  Lovely score from Softcore Continental giant Francis Lai.

3. Blue Blood (1973/UK/Director: Andrew Sinclair)

One of Ollie’s weirdest.  He’s a satanic cult leader posing as a pot smoking butler in a posh country mansion.  Respected darling Derek Jacobi is the master of the house under Ollie’s evil influence. This perverse nugget caused difficulties with the UK censors – try to catch the uncut deleted UK DVD to find out why.

2. Revolver (aka Blood in the Streets/1973/Italy/Director Sergio Sollima)

A simmering, intensely refined performance from the Reedster as a gruff prison warden whose wife is mysteriously kidnapped by shady criminals.  The ruse? Ollie needs to spring a petty robber from his watch and he’ll get his wife back in one piece but nothing is as it seems…..  This masterful Euro crime production from Italy was helmed by the mighty Sergio Sollima (auteur behind seminal Spaghetti’s The Big Gundown and Face to Face).  Ollie’s behaviour was reportedly outrageous towards the Italian crew – so harsh was his baiting that they planned to kill him once the production was wrapped but Sollima changed his final day of shooting to save his skin.

1. The Devils (1971/UK/Director Ken Russell)

Without question Ollie’s greatest performance as the charismatic but flawed Urbain Grandier – the outspoken priest who takes on the clergy and pays a horrible price for his womanising and free thinking ideals.  A master class of charisma, presence and icy cool (which the actor had in spades before the Whisky took over), Ollie is well served by a strong cast, crew and visionaries all at the height of their game, in particular Derek Jarman (those sets!) and the recently departed Ken Russell who took the taboo baiting register and banged it to 11 (Vanessa Redgrave’s masturbation with Grandier’s bones being a relished highlight in the anals of extreme cinema). The Devils is soon to be unleashed again in a brand new Hi Def print courtesy of the BFI but those expecting the full cut will be disappointed – Warner Brothers still refuse to open the gates for the unexpurgated version to be shown and it is a tragedy that Ken’s ravishing vision is still being withheld after all these years.  It is known that Ollie never really gave a fuck about the movies he made (they were a means to an end) but he always admired the Devils (in many ways reflecting Christopher Lee’s admiration for The Wicker Man).  Ollie we salute you!

Lovely Jon