The Morehead The Merrier: Hobbit-Forming Movies.

"The road goes ever on and on,
Down from my door where it began.
Now far ahead the road has gone,
And I must follow if I can."

Little Dougie took me on Peter Jackson's new amusement park thrill-ride the other da--- What, Dougie? Oh. Dougie tells me it wasn't a ride, just a movie called The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, but since we saw it in 48 frames-per-second 3-D, it looked so real, I thought I was there. Probably just as well I wasn't. That place is more dangerous than passing out at one of Lionel Atwill's parties.

Anyway, I really loved it. At the end of the three hours, I wanted three more hours.

Did you know I was in The Lord of the Rings? I was, but I was cut from the theatrical release version, and from the extended DVD edition, and from the still-upcoming, super-extended, hyper-long, extra-inclusive Red, White and Blu-Ray DVD version which is 24 hours long. "I just have no room to shove you in." Peter told me, although that's not what I said to him on a certain moonlit night in Aukland, when Peter fell prey to my charms, and I to his. Hobbit sex can be wild!

"Tallulah Morehead" in Tolkien's Elvish writing.

I was originally cast as Gàlæƒêllåthéöñ, the elvin camp-follower. I am appointed by Elrond (Played by the same actor who impersonated me in his drag act in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. He worshipped me!) to accompany the Fellowship of the Ring, assisting the fellows with their Male Needs along the road. Here I am seen accepting the charge of the Ring-Bearer. (Everybody on the set talked this way.)

Speaking of rings, I think at one time or another I was married to every one of these guys.

So in the original cut that no one ever saw (Except one film editor, who begged for the boon of being blinded afterwards. After seeing my performance, he preferred losing his eyes, to their ever seeing lesser sights. The tributes a star receives are strange indeed. I sent him a sweet note on an autographed picture, but he never wrote back), I am the tenth member of the fellowship, with tender scenes of relieving each member's member, easing their burdens by taking their loads from them at the end of each day, caressing Gandalf's magic staff (You could probe a Balrog with that rod! Look at the all the virgin boys at their computers, reading that, and typing "LOL, LOL" instead of laughing), restoring Aragorn's "Broken" sword, role-playing as Legolas's personal quiver, being probed for information by the Horn of Boromir, and two minutes each for three of the hobbits, and then half an hour for Sam Gamgee. Little Sean is a plump hottie.

Well, the Moria, the merrier.

"What about Gimli the Dwarf?" a few of you virgin fanboys with no life ask. Please! Do I look desperate enough to have sex with a dwarf? I'm only 115, not 1115. Remember the dialogue in the extended DVD version of The Two Towers, when Gimli admits that dwarf women look exactly like dwarf men, and Aragorn adds "It's the beards."? Get a clue boys; Gimli is a GIRL! Frankly, when I order a gimlet, I expect something a lot more appetizing to be delivered than John Rhys-Davies on his knees. Besides, I was playing an elf. Elves loathe dwarves!

However, I may break my rule for Kili in The Hobbit. Hubba! Hubba! Look at those eyes!

Neither Grumpy nor Dopey ever had me mentally undressing them, especially in 48 fps and 3-D. Kili, you slay me!
You should see him when he's using the power of The One Cockring.

I hope this picture of Kili is a still from part 2 or 3, because THIS would fully justify 48 fps 3-D!

And while Kili was the hottest dwarf, he wasn't the only hot dwarf. Richard Amitage's Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain, was pretty tasty too. He was certainly a hell of lot different than Hans Conried was in the role back in the 1977 Rankin-Bass animated version of The Hobbit.

Oh Thorin, you slay me.

But I'm being fickle. You see, back when I was on The Road to Mordor (The weirdest Bob Hope-Bing Crosby movie ever made) I met HIM! My one great love, the man I felt sure was to be my next, perhaps my final, husband. My dear, darling, passionate Gollum!

So much trouble just to lose some bling.

Sméagol, Sméagol, my so very precious little ring-bearer. How well I recall our nights of passion out on the Dead Marshes, and shaking our booties all night long in Mordor's hottest night spots. (We never missed "Wet-T-Shirt Night" at Orodruin. Even now, the aroma of Damp Orc makes me damp too.) He may have only worn a ragged little loincloth (Giving one freer access), but underneath it lurked his own, special Barad-Dûr, a Dark Tower that was truly his precious. Bear in mind, he wore Sauron's ring around that magnificent unit for 500 years. It was magic! What a man, or whatever the hell he was! But, perhaps like all great love affairs must be, ours was not to last. Too soon the shoot was through, and Gollum was off to "other projects," and not returning my calls. And then, every shot of me was removed from the film. (Peter's exact words were "I want every last trace of that filthy woman, even her stench, scrubbed out of my movie! And from my hands! My God, My God, I can still smell her on my hands!!!!" Sadly, he was, like so many before him, intimidated by my magnificence on film, and cut my role rather than risk himself being lost in my corona. Poor, envious man. And it's not like I scarred his son for life. The boy was okay with it.)

"The Tallugonath." Peter Jackson had my giant statues at the entrance to Gondor CGI'd out. So petty. This is what is called a "Big star."

Meanwhile a sort of dishy British actor named Andy Sirkis began giving me odd looks on the lot, and avoiding me off set. What was his problem, I ask you? Sure he's cute, but I never really even met him. Why does he act like three of my ex-husbands? If he were gay, instead of a husband and father, I'd be certain he is an ex-husband of mine. Might he be one of my handful of straight ex-husbands? Andy? Were we ever married?

And then Gollum, my Gollum, vanished. It was like he dropped off a cliff into a volcano. (He always was a loner.) Gollum, Where are you? I pine for you. I weep unnumbered tears. Sméagol, you are forever my one, my true --- Precious! Your Gàlæƒêllåthéöñ waits ever, yearning for you, as I sail on to Valinor.

But here he was back on the screen in 3-D, having his precious ring stolen by Dr. Watson. Will Sherlock Holmes still solve "The Case of the Missing Ring of Power" when he realizes it was Watson who stole it? Gollum and Watson's scene together near the end of the film is one of the highlights, which is ironic since it's set in a dark cave.

JRR and I, a match made in Beleriand.

It was interesting to see lovely Cate Blancette basically playing me. It's not widely known, but I inspired J.R.R. Tolkien to create the Lady Galadriel. Reuel looked at me and said, "A lady thousands of years old, still beautiful, but, instead of a drunken slut, she's a magical elvin queen! It will work!" Ah Reuelly, you big, curmudgeonly, Ludditish lug. When you thrust your magical talisman deep into my fiery Crack of Doom, You showed me what Fantasy is all about! You were my favorite Bad Hobbit.

How big a Tolkien geek is Little Dougie? Well, this is the title page of his hardcover edition of The Return of the King. The signatures are, clockwise from the upper-left corner: Sala Baker who played Sauron in the prologue of Fellowship of the Ring, Chief Hobbit Peter Jackson, screenwriters Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh, some old guy no one's ever heard of called "Sir Ian McKellen," and darling little Sean Astin, whose mother was Helen Keller and whose dad was Gomez Addams. I'm told it's rare for Gandalf and Sauron to sign the same parchment.

Little Dougie has actually read all those Tolkien books. Sometimes he has strange ideas about what constitues "fun." What did he think of this new Hobbit movie? I asked him, though I forget why. He said: "I was a wreck. Just as, 12 years ago, when I saw Fellowship of the Ring the first time, and started crying when Gandalf rode into a Hobbiton that seemed pulled out my brain from when I read the books, this time out, the first notes of Howard Shore's familiar music gave me goosebumps, and when Hobbiton came on in 48 fps and 3-D, so it was even more real than last time, boom, the tears started flowing again, and recurred periodically throughout the picture. (Who cries to see Gollum again? Me.) Do you know what a hassle it is to wipe trears from your eyes when you're wearing TWO sets of glasses?"

Pathetic, isn't he?

Peter Jackson has not released any pictures of how Smaug will look in the second film yet. This painting of Bilbo and Smaug was painted by Tolkien himself.

Benedict Cumberbatch, that wonderful actor who plays the real Sherlock Holmes, not that fake Sherlock impersonator on CBS, plays Smaug, and gets a solo, full-screen credit, which is odd, because Smaug never speaks in this film, and I doubt that the CGI visuals of Smaug (Of which we get only teasing glimpses), were Benedict doing a motion-capture performance of Smaug's tail in flight, so why is he credited in the movie at all? Orlando Bloom will be in part 2 next year, but is not in part 1, and he doesn't pop up in the credits. Cumberbatch must have a hell of an agent to get him billing, great billing, on a movie he isn't in.

Larry, Moe and Shemp camping.

Another very surprising set of guest stars were The Three Stooges as the trolls who turn to stone. I thought they were dead. They were fun, but it would have been better if they'd had Curly instead of Shemp. (Joe Besser felt the money wasn't enough to justify resurrection.)

The barrell scene isn't in part 1.

48 fps 3-D is a hell of a way to see a movie. Most movies are in 24 fps 2-D. When I began in films back in 1915, before I was born, they were silent, 16 fps and 1-D. I do not understand the folks, many of them critics, bitching about the movie looking "too real". This "Fantasy films should look unreal" idea escapes me. Ray Harryhausen, whom most of you know I adore, always bitches about CGI looking "too real," and gives that party line, but there I figured it was just him being defensive. As I said in My Lush Life, Ray made movies back when special effects were supposed to look fake.

I go to see a movie about Middle-Earth to see and "visit" that made-up magical place in the books, and want it made to look as real as possible. When a burning pine cone shot out of the screen into the audience and I involuntarily blinked to protect my eyes from the embers, despite wearing 3-D glasses, so my eyes were well protected, I knew it was working really, really well.

A wizard, a dwarf and an elf walk into The Prancng Pony...

It was nice to have a friend in the movie, in my case, my friend Barry Humphries, The Funniest Man in the World. Barry plays, brilliantly, the Great Goblin, and wears an outfit and make-up almost as grotesque as he does when playing his character Sir Les Patterson. And Barry even gets a song, appetizingly titled "The Torture Song." Shouldn't that song be in Les Misérables? Barry, as usual, was so much funnier than everyone else in the picture that they killed his character off towards the end, just so he won't also steal the other two movies as well. Sir Ian McKellen slices his belly open. I've known jealous co-stars who would do anything to sabatoge my performances in the past, but Sir Ian takes it to a new level.

Barry Humphries as The Great Goblin.

Barry Humphries as Sir Les Patterson.

The 7th Doctor Who, Sylvester McCoy, walks off with a goodly portion of the middle of the film. Well, not "walks off," more like rides off on a bunny-sled. He plays Radagast the Brown, yet another wizard, and one who must have been considered a bit odd even back in his undergraduate days at Hogwarts.

There is almost no truth to the rumor that Sylvester McCoy hopped in his Tardis and flew back to Middle-Earth solely to get away from Little Dougie. Daleks might also have been involved.

Little Dougie has never been to Middle-Earth, or even New Zealand, despite having relatives who live there just to get away from him. But as you can see, he hangs with the residents anyway. You saw his Sir Ian "Gandalf" signature above, and that shot up there with Radagast, and look below, there he is with Saruman and with the Great Goblin. He told me that, in person, the 3-D effect is a little blurry. They look far more real in the movie. After all, Reality is not 48 fps.

A great goblin and poses with Barry Humphries. BTW, that large yellow book Barry is holding is the manuscript of my autobiography, My Lush Life, which is dedicated to him.
You know why Dracula/Fu Manchu/Saruman looks so much younger here than in the movie? Meeting Little Dougie was so terrifying to him that it aged him over night.

The fact is that the movie, no matter what the New York Times says, is great fun from beginning to end, and when you're hurtling through the goblin's caverns in 3-D that looks more real than your date does, it's exciting, gorgeous, funny, and joyful. If only Kili had some nude scenes, it would be the perfect entertainment. (Why is there no gay porn in 48 fps 3-D?) Snow White took one look at Thorin and Kili, went out, dug up the corpse of Walt Disney, and yelled at it. Who can blame her? Have yourself some fun and go see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. It will cheer you up after Les Misérables makes you miserable. Cheers, darlings.