One of the standout Black Widows is Elmo, played by William O'Connell. He utters the immortal line "Them's Black Widows" in the restaurant where Lynn is telling Philo and Orville a classic Tank Murdoch story.
There are a few reasons that Elmo stands out. First off, his face shows in a subtle way that he's about ten years past his prime. His hair is thinning and his face is fairly wrinkled.
He's also over-confident. He is extremely anxious to get into fights but never even comes close to winning one of them. In the restaurant, after he's lured Philo into a fight by buying a beer for his girlfriend and trying to intimidate him, he immediately regrets it.
He wears the fanciest pants of any Black Widow. They are very tight with a line going down the outside of the thigh. They highlight his slender frame, making his bravado even more comical.
O'Connell got a tremendous amount of TV work during the 1960s, appearing in episodes of the Twilight Zone, Gunsmoke, Petticoat Junction, and Rawhide where it's possible he met Eastwood. If he didn't meet him then, they surely met during the filming of Paint Your Wagon, for which O'Connell played Horace Tabor.
He also appeared in one episode of Star Trek as Thelev (pictured above in chainmail). In the episode, Spock's father is implicated in the murder of a diplomat, but Thelev turns out to be the sabateur secretly communicated to an enemy vessel and wreaking havoc until Kirk outsmarts the enemies and Thelev commits suicide.
During the 1970s, O'Connell worked with Eastwood on more than one project. In High Plains Drifter, he played a barber, and in Outlaw Josey Wales, he played Sim Carstairs, a ferryman who could sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic and Dixie with equal enthusiasm. In this role, he perfected the confident and terrified snake whose greed outweighs any misgivings he might have for putting himself in harm's way.
In Every Which Way But Loose, one of Elmo's strangest choices is to run after Philo's truck after the rest of the Widows have been beaten down and are fleeing. Elmo catches up with the truck and tries to enter the camper on the back only to be kissed on the mouth on the Clyde. I wonder what Elmo's plan was in that moment. Perhaps he planned on stowing away in the back until he had the element of surprise on his side. Or maybe he planned on trying to take over the truck and run it off the road. Whatever his plan, his audaciousness was true to his character, and once again he discovered that he was in over his head.
An excellent rundown of a storied career. True, that it is Elmo that I am most interested in. But I believe that O'Connel's other roles were a lead-up to his Mona Lisa.
ReplyDeleteNot to get into an area that could have me beaten to do death with a four-on-the-floor shifter, but I think that a "thing" for bikers is to not think too far into the future. I think that's one of Elmo's things. He, like Indiana Jones, doesn't have a plan. But, unlike Indy, lacks a certain je nas c'est quois that allows success.
Now, that I think about it for a while, do you think that William is related to star of stage and screen, Jerry O'Connell? I know that they are not father and son, but as Jerry was probably born in the mid-70s, he could be a grandson of William. Perhaps that's where he learned the moves to woo Rebecca Romijn?
ReplyDelete