WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
I usually save an actor’s film credits for the end, but Debbie Harry playing a character called Blondie in Unmade Beds sent me down a little “wait… is that where the band name came from?” moment. Spoiler: it’s not. I didn’t get to grow up with Blondie in their punk‑era heyday, but my parents did — and luckily for me, they made sure I grew up with the music anyway.
Videodrome
So, I discussed this film a few years back when covering its director, David Cronenberg and at the time I said I didn’t understand it. Now, this is my second watching, and I think it’s supposed to be a commentary on the effect television has on people and the almost obsession people have with it, along with our fascination with sex but then I wondered if I was overthinking it. Debbie plays the sadomasochistic character of Nicki, a lover of our lead character Max, who chooses to audition for Videodrome – a snuff torture show – and because of this she is no longer a constant character in the film. Instead, she appears to Max several times in sexual hallucinations that seem to be caused by the watching of Videodrome itself, almost turning her into a weapon against him. In keeping with the weird Cronenberg style, Debbie’s penultimate scene involves James Woods, who plays Max, whipping a television as she makes orgasmic sounds. I actually wondered the first time I watched this if Nicki was ever real, if the whole film had been a hallucination – considering he sees the first Videodrome stream before appearing on the talk show with her.
Deuces Wild
It might just be me, but the description of this film made me think it would be a gritty, non-musical version of West Side Story. I guess I’m not far wrong with the relationship that builds between Bobby and Annie as well the rivalry between the Deuces and the Vipers. I thought at first that Debbie Harry played the mother of Jimmy “Pockets” and Annie however I second-guessed myself, wondering if she would have been cast as such a small character. I was right of course; however, I only figured it out by searching the character name of their mother. When I say she’s a small character, she appears in very few scenes, early when being verbally abused by her son Jimmy but then not again until just over an hour into the film, absent-mindedly singing Christmas Carols. When I say singing, I know some of you will say it means this film no longer counts but honestly seconds. Normally, I would have an issue covering a film where the actor I’m looking at is only in it for a small amount of time but, this film is so good – that I honestly didn’t care. Especially with the unexpected star-studded cast.
Try Seventeen
Originally, I was going to cover this pretty weird film from the 70s but Debbie began singing in French after around an hour in. Hence the switch to this coming-of-age film. Debbie plays the flirty, older lady of the antiques store, Ma Mabley, who gets a little handsy with Jones on first meeting. I didn’t have seeing Debbie Harry in a lilac leotard on my Bingo card for this film. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure at first if Ma turning up was a fantasy of his and the fact that it made it look like everyone could hear her fooled me even more! I’ll say this though it’s definitely not the type of character I was expecting. I was a little let down, and this is why this paragraph is so short, that we don’t actually see her again after that scene as I felt like that they could have developed her character into more of a mother figure to Jones considering that his own mother isn’t one.
Honorary Mentions
The film referenced at the very beginning of this article, Unmade Beds, was Debbie Harry’s first credited acting role back in 1976. 2 years later, she appeared in The Foreigner for all of a couple of moments. It seems many of her acting roles, outside of those referenced above, involved singing somewhere along the line, Hairspray and Satisfaction to name two, which is a shame because I felt she was a pretty good actress without having to bring that into her characters.
