Shelley Winters @ 100: Pete's Dragon (1977)
Tuesday, August 18, 2020 at 5:00PM Concluding our Shelley Winter's Centennial party, here's new contributor Baby Clyde...
My film obsession started around the age of 12 when I somehow acquired my first "Encyclopedia of Movie Stars". It changed my life. I spent literally hours pouring over it, utterly entranced by the legends of the Golden Age of Hollywood. I remember it introduced me to the likes of Luise Rainier and John Garfield who I had never heard of before, but mostly I remember being totally confused by the entry on Shelley Winters.
Who was the glamourous woman who had been a sex bomb and serious actress before going on to win two Oscars and how was she in any way related to the harridan who had been the stuff of my childhood nightmares? Whilst I understood that actors played different roles, I don’t think I’d quite grasped at that point just how different they could be and how the same woman could go from this...
to this in just 30 years.
You see my introduction to Old Hollywood stars had been through the Disney musical Pete’s Dragon (1977) starring amongst others Mickey Rooney, Red Buttons and an unrecognizable Shelley Winters. It’s strange that I probably knew who these three stars were long before I knew Bette Davis, Clark Gable or Judy Garland. They have all been superstars to me since the age of 5. I was surprised that Buttons had won an Oscar for a dramatic role and that Rooney had been a star since he was a kid, but it was Winters transformation that blew my mind.
Set in turn of the century New England, Pete's Dragon tells the story of orphan boy Pete and his adventures with the cartoon dragon Elliot. They arrive in the small fishing village of Passamaquoddy and high jinks ensue as they try to hide Elliot from the increasingly suspicious townsfolk. They also have to escape the clutches of the Gogan clan who had previously bought Pete to work on their farm and the devilish proprietors of a travelling medicine show that want to capture the dragon and use his parts for their dubious cures. It’s fantastic.
Shelley plays the matriarch of the evil farming family and totally stole the show for baby Baby Clyde. Whilst I loved the film as a whole (still do) Winters absolutely terrified me. Following on from the likes of Bloody Mama, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? and Cleopatra Jones by this point Shelley was deep into her grotesque period. Throwing any vanity out of the windows she had revolting teeth, a warty complexion, filthy hair and no reservations at all about diving headfirst into mud, being covered in oil or dunked in water. Whilst her appearance was hideous enough it was her manner that properly scared me.
Introduced in the very first scene as the domineering Lena Gogan she leads her husband and two bumbling sons through the woods at night searching for the runaway Pete, determined to force him back to slave labour on the farm. In the opening number they sweetly sing that if he comes home with them, he will enjoy The Happiest Home In These Hills. As asides to the audience and each other they admit all the terrible things they will actually inflict on him when captured. Whilst promises of fishing trips and visits to church are proffered Shelley takes great pleasure in exclaiming that what she really wants to do is……..
Beat him, heat him, eat him for dessert,
Roast him gently so the flames won't hurt
It was something to do with the deceit that scared me so much. The way her voice went from sounding so sweet and inviting while she admitted her true intentions. This was of course the 1970’s. I can’t imagine any children’s film these days allowing a character to humorously declare they’re going stab or drown a child in their care. Times have changed.
I have no idea where I first saw this film. Of course, back them you couldn’t just log in to a streaming service of grab a DVD of the shelf to watch. You couldn’t even rent the video cassette. Presumably I was taken to see it at the cinema as an extremely young child or maybe it was on TV a couple of years later.
Either way it wasn’t the film itself that engendered such a love for the whole enterprise but the soundtrack album that my twin brother and I proudly owned on vinyl (I still own it today. It’s currently playing very loudly). Along with ABBA’s Greatest Hits Vol. 2, Boney M’s Nightflight to Venus and the legendary Sesame Street Fever album this was the soundtrack to my childhood. My brother and I played it in our bedroom on repeat. There are some great songs. Rooney uses all of his seasoned Vaudeville tricks to put over the drunk comedy number I Saw A Dragon, Buttons and Jim Dale Passamashloddy is a tongue twisting delight and Helen Reddy as the films heroine (With absolutely no attempt at an American accent) gets the big, emotional Oscar nominated ballad Candle On The Water, but it’s Shelley I remember most clearly.
When I told my brother I would be writing about Pete’s Dragon he immediately burst into song and we spent the next ten minutes gushing over the genius which is Bill of Sale. Having disappeared for an hour in the middle of the film the Gogan family return near the end to demand that Pete’s is handed over to them. Waving around the paperwork which proves she paid $50 for him Shelley hilariously insists ‘That boy is our property just like the family cow’ a line that has made us laugh for the last 40 years.
They fail of course. Up against a resolute Reddy, who refuses to comply, the family are left floundering in the bay when Elliot sinks their boat. Ridiculous as this may sound, I consider this to be one of the greatest musical numbers in movie history. I doubt a single week has gone by since I first heard it that I haven’t at some point found myself humming the tune.
This may not be the actual high point of Shelley Winter career but it’s certainly my favourite. Of course, I soon went on to discover her in other things. I’m sure The Poseidon Adventure would have been one of the first and once my Oscar obsession kicked in the likes of A Double Life, A Place In the Sun and The Diary of Anne Frank showed her in a completely different light. By the 90’s I was overjoyed to see her in Roseanne and The Portrait of A Lady but nothing she did before of after over a 60 year career and more than 100 films will ever change the way I look at her. For me she will always been the old crone chasing me through the woods in my 5 year old dreams, threatening to tie my screamin' to a railroad track.
Thank you for attending TFE's Shelley Winters Centennial!
Nathaniel on The Starlet in A Double Life (1947)
Eric on The Pro in Lolita (1962)
Nathaniel on The Champ in A Patch of Blue (1965)
Claudio on The Actor's Actor Bloody Mama (1970)
Baby Clyde on The Old Crone Pete's Dragon (1977)
Glenn Dunks on The Memoirist "Shelley II" (1989)
Reader Comments (12)
Holy shit, I never knew that was Shelley Winters in that role. She was great in it as I do love that film as I grew up on it.
Lovely tribute. Warm personal reflection. Thank you
I saw this in the theatre on its original release and liked it but I was just about to enter my teens so it didn't scare me as much as it sounds like it did you. I haven't seen it in many years but I do remember Shelley going all out to look as bad as possible.
I know that Helen Reddy's part was initially offered to Julie Andrews who declined and it doesn't really seem right for her anyway. Helen does just fine though she's hardly the actress Julie is.
Enjoyed reading your reverie. Love hearing how different films affected people.
The Gogan family is so extra. It was such a choice to have them... constantly caked in filth, basically. Shelley used to scare me in this one too, and it really is more extreme than either of her horror roles around this time.
Mind. Blown. How did I never connect this childhood favorite with her? Great write-up sir, so fun and such a trip down memory lane. Time to rewatch the original now. Thank you for making my week that much better.
Thanks so much for sharing your memories. I'm old enough to remember obsessing about Pete's Dragon as well, knowing all the words (and mimicking Jim Dale's gurning) through Every Little Piece. It's a testament to Shelley's great skill as a performer that she knows exactly what is required for the role and just commits. It's not high art but still tremendously fun.
Man I loved this movie as a kid. I used to watch and rewatch the Candle on the Water sequence.
Not sure how he knew but Nathaniel used a picture of the EXACT encyclopedia that I owned as a kid to illustrate this story. I remember the picture on the front because I couldn't work out who the guy on the bottom right next to Babs was. I'd never seen Charlie Chaplin out of Little Tramp drag before.
At one point I got Vanessa Redgrave to sign it for me after standing outside the stage door of a play she was in but lost the whole book somewhere along the line. Have repeatedly asked my mum to find it in the attic but she insists it's not there. I never would have thrown it away. I'll have to get up there myself at Christmas.
I get it. My first exposure to Bette Davis is from Return From Witch Mountain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUpwvcqafV0
What impostor Nathaniel or just some other guy named Nathaniel said. Return from Witch Mountain was so formative for 70s babies ;)
I'm just some other guy named Nathaniel. :-) Great work with this website, Rogers! I used to watch Return From Witch Mountain a lot in the 80s on The Disney Channel, along with Beyond Witch Mountain, featuring little Tracey Gold!
Love love love this movie. Helen Reddy is my idol. Great songs. Shelley kills it.
I Am Woman is coming.