The Contraption

I saw this long forgotten gem on the old late night cable show Night Flight, on US television back in the late 1970s. It played once or twice and that was the only place I ever saw it.

Without spoiling it all I can say is it is well done. A gentleman retires to his basement workshop and continues on a project building an unknown object. His wife continually berates the man, unseen but heard from the top of the stairs all the while. In the end, he finds his escape in "The Contraption".

Richard O'Brien was a hot commodity then as the Rocky Horror Picture Show was at perhaps it's peak here in the Midwest. Tim Curry went on to do a few albums and several more mainstream films like Clue here in the US. I owned a copy of his album Read My Lips. Susan Sarandon became quite big and Barry Bostwick made a name again with Spin City years later.

If anyone out there knows where I can beg, borrow, buy or otherwise find a copy of this short, please e-mail me. McHenryProj@Yahoo.com should get to me.

A stalwart feature on Saturday Nightmares, this seven minute short film stars Richard O'Brien, of "Rocky Horror" fame, as a man building… Something. I honestly can't talk about it much without spoiling it. I'll just say the film is all about the build-up to the climatic visual punch line and it does so fantastic.

As for the presentation, the short is very well shot. In close angles, we see the man working with his tools. A saw rushed into our eyes, wires and steel rods assembled from odd angles. The construction is intentionally show so that we aren't entirely sure what we're looking at. This short's success rides a great deal on its excellent sound design. In the heavily shadow room, all we here is a distant leaky pipe and the clanking and grinding of the man at work. This is another fantastic short and it's great that the internet and streaming video sites make it so easy now to revisit this types of film, stuff we'd otherwise would never see again.

Happily, I was able to view this award-winning short online.

A man constructs a contraption while surrounded by pitch black darkness. A musical saw wavers out a tune on the soundtrack. Contrary to one description I've read, I did not see or hear his wife berating him while he was doing this. The end might come as a surprise, but probably not. The one line of dialog at the end suggests why the contraption might have been built, but for the most part we are left wondering who the characters were and what their lives were like and why it ended this way.

I wonder what Dearden's other short films are like?

i saw this when i was about 7 or 8! it was shown before "grease" of all films! I've never forgot about it and 25 years on still remember it vividly! fans of this should check out "la cabana" a Spanish short film about a man stuck in a telephone box! its quite bizarre and pretty disturbing!!! it starts off pretty light hearted but soon turns pretty twisted and has a very twisted ending,"the contraption" also reminds me of the song "whats he building" by tom waits! its a very intriguing song about a man building something in a shed! check it out i promise you wont be disappointed! id love to see "the contraption" again but probably never will!

This almost wordless short is visually gripping. It is, effectively, a 5 minute one-man play that will leave you stunned.