THE PRESENCE OF PLEASENCE

It's a ridiculous five years since we last celebrated the appearance of the Donald Pleasence in a cinematic role, so let's get straight to it. 

Arthur? Arthur! (1969) gives the Worksop Wonder two rare opportunities: 1. the lead, and 2. the chance to overtly exercise his considerable gift for comedy. Donald plays Arthur, a bald Wallace-like inventor who, fed up with his tedious life and lack of success, reinvents himself as a switched on hirsute swinger who is, naturally, irresistible to the ladies.

I know it sounds promising but, sadly, it's a flat, muddled, silly film that was never released theatrically. Nevertheless, Donald's does quite a lot with what he's given, including providing some groovy go go dancing and, on a couple of occasions, stripping down to just his underpants. He is surprisingly and unnervingly buff.

THE PRESENCE OF PLEASENCE

Multiple maniacs during a powercut slasher film Alone In The Dark (1982) features dear old Donald Pleasence at his most free-wheeling and jocular, playing Dr. Leo Bain, the head psychiatrist at an asylum where treatment is a journey, a voyage of self-discovery. In his corduroy suit and Adidas trainers, Donald has obviously been touched by the psychedelic brush of hippydom, and still lives by those tenets, not least when he fills a pipe with ‘Oregon Sensimillia’ and puffs away in front of a bemused junior doctor (played by Dwight Schulz, Howling Mad Murdoch from The A-Team, ironically the sanest character in the film).

Donald plays Bain as a cuddly, enthusiastic, sensitive, supremely eccentric man: someone who could just as easily be inmate as overseer. Bain is clearly a mickey take of R.D Laing, and his nuthouse is a haven where the patients are encouraged to find their own cure – or not, it’s entirely up to them. This liberal attitude proves to be his undoing, unfortunately, as it turns out that psychotic maniacs (played by a wildly wigged Martin Landau and the always terrifying Jack Palance, amongst others) just aren't that easy going.

THE PRESENCE OF PLEASENCE

 

Donald Pleasence makes for a helpless and fearful President of the United States in John Carpenter's Escape From New York, but then has had to survive a plane crash, a series of beatings and being used as a human target by Isaac Hayes. His character isn't even given a proper name. The point is, I suppose, that sometimes the position is great, not the man. 

THE PRESENCE OF PLEASENCE

In William Klein's rambunctious pop art protest film Mister Freedom (1969), Worksop born Donald Pleasence plays Dr. Freedom, a cross between the American president, a televangelist and Baron Frankenstein. He was always good at mad authority figures, perhaps because his most prevalent characteristic is a menacing blandness: he seems innocuous, but you never really know where you are with him. Only ever seen on a flickering TV screen, here he talks passionately about democracy and liberty and decency whilst overseeing the violent overthrow and destruction of anyone who disagrees with him. Freedom, like peace, is clearly worth fighting dirty for.  

THE PRESENCE OF PLEASENCE

Up until a few years ago, hardly anyone had seen Wake In Fright since its initial release in 1971. It's a genuine rarity: a great, lost film that is actually great, rather than just lost. Donald Pleasence plays 'Doc' Tydon, a sinister drunk who dabbles in medicine and fucks anything that moves. Or doesn't move. He's too far gone to be picky. It's a great, skin crawling performance in a film that is uniquely and horribly oppressive.   

THE PRESENCE OF PLEASENCE

Warrior of The Lost World isn't much  of a film, and Donald Pleasence, as evil overlord Prossor, doesn't give much of a performance. He seems very tired, and his characterisation mainly consists of him wearing a light blue Blofeld type suit and having an artificial hand. 

Towards the end, he gets shot repeatedly, including twice in the head. Curiously, his eyes won't stop moving about, as if nobody has told him that head shots like that are usually fatal. Later on, it is revealed that the rebels actually killed a cyborg, so the extraneous eye rolling makes perfect sense. That's Donald, always at least one step ahead.