Sex Blood And Betamax interview 2012

 

Sex, Blood, And Betamax Tapes

Interview with Andrew Leavold by Don Jaucian, The Philippine Star 21/07/12

When the history books of Philippine cinema will finally be dusted off, rewritten and repurposed for future generations of filmgoers, the entire segment of Pinoy B-movies will probably be relegated to a mere footnote; a fleeting mention of a sprawling narrative about weird creatures, exploitation films, goons dressed up as nuns, and bionic boys shuffling around the world’s film circuit, brandishing the flag of the Filipino filmmaking industry like a leprous cousin.

What’s even more interesting is that these films actually made money and sustained the local film industry for 40 years. Filipino B-movies were in demand worldwide. Filmmakers like Eddie Romero, Gerry de Leon, and Cirio Santiago (two of whom were anointed as National Artists for Film for their more significant works) made a killing with films like Mad Doctor of Blood Island, The Big Dollhouse, and Cleopatra Wong. These films were co-productions with international producers and made with one-tenth of a budget of a regular Hollywood fare. These English-dubbed movies featured mutated humans, bionic boys, gay satanic bikers, armies of Aztec midgets, and nubile Caucasian and African-American women in bamboo cages in the middle of the jungle.

It’s this lowbrow circus freakshow of a film subculture that drew Australian film historian and filmmaker Andrew Leavold to Pinoy B movies.

What The Hell?

“I think initially the ‘What the hell?’ factor drew me to these films; the feeling that these films came out of a parallel universe where the rules of filmmaking have been turned on their heads. As I started watching more films I realized that there was definitely a style of filmmaking which was quite foreign to Western audiences but once you get used to the taste, it’s absolutely exhilarating. It would be like watching Swedish art cinema for the first time,” says Andrew.

Andrew has been going back to the Philippines (which he considers his second home) after meeting Cinemanila Film Festival director Tikoy Aguiluz in an Australian film festival he curated several years ago. This ignited his search for his personal holy grail: a two-foot-nine midget B-movie actor known as Weng Weng. He has since dedicated his life making his documentary The Search for Weng Weng, which until now remains in a thousand pieces after an Australian producer picked it up and mutated into Machete Maidens Unleashed.

Weng Weng

“For me, Weng Weng is so deeply affecting purely because it has become a personal journey,” he relates. “It acknowledges Weng Weng the human being rather than Weng Weng the karate-kicking novelty. I’m uncovering the story that no one in the Philippines seems to have done. I just found it astounding that even the guy who trained and directed him in five films didn’t even know his real name. I met the director of the first Weng Weng film, Dante Boy Pangilinan, two weeks ago. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I embraced him like a lost brother. It was a weird moment. Weird sh*t tends to happen around the Weng Weng saga because I suspect he’s sitting on my shoulder, directing from behind the scenes.”

Andrew is also deeply fond of another actor who made his name in B-movie parodies of Hollywood films, Dolphy. His perspective on the comedy king’s career brings to light an alternative track running amok with comic book heroes, secret agents, and a whole lot of kung fu films. Weng Weng and Dolphy even worked in several films together including Stariray, The Quick Brown Fox, and D’ Wild Weng Weng. Both Dolphy and Weng Weng symbolized the ordinary Filipino in movies, taking on Hollywood clichés and dipping them into a uniquely Filipino perspective. 

 

Andrew Leavold with Dolphy, 2007

Dolphy As James Batman

“In the parody films, Dolphy’s vaudeville shtick translated perfectly once he started being featured in a starring role in the 1960s. The parody speaks so much about a playful anarchy and guerilla-style tactics taking potshots at Hollywood with a distorted mirror image of what it stole. There’s James Batman, where Dolphy played James Bond and Batman at the same time. That stuff is just genius. There were other films like Adolpong Hitler, Dolfinger. Where in the world would you find films like that?” Andrew explains.

For Y’ur Height Only: In the 1981 Manila International Film Festival, Eddie Nicart’s For Y’ur Height Only, a mockery of the Western spy films, was the only film that was sold to international distributors, beating out films by Fernando Poe Jr. and Lino Brocka.

Five years ago, he had the opportunity of meeting Dolphy for The Search for Weng Weng. The King of Comedy talked about working with the diminutive hero, and his own struggle to become one of the country’s top comedians.

“These were the golden moments in The Search for Weng Weng, sitting at a dinner table with Dolphy, eating pandesal and talking about 50-60 years of being a part of Pinoy experience which I could only experience second-hand. He does comedy well and he gets what the audience wants from these kinds of films. I’ve watched about 50 films of his. I don’t understand everything, but I get it. It’s going to be tough living in a world without Dolphy,” he says.

Andrew Leavold next to export specialists Cine Suerte's van, 2008

A F*Ck You To Hollywood

Despite the ridiculousness of B movies and parodies like Dancing Master, Terror is a Man, and TNT Jackson, these are all cudgels of cinematic heritage that academics and film historians shouldn’t overlook. They might be low-grade spectacles of blood, sex, violence and slapstick catering to a lower class of audience, but these are great examples of the Filipino ingenuity in filmmaking, producing highly marketable films made with very low budgets and were distributed in drive-ins, theaters, and homes around the world. These co-productions became the training ground of Filipino filmmakers, however shoddy the resulting films were, guided by international standards that trickled into local cinema.

“Let’s talk about pulp and commercial cinema [in a way] that isn’t condescending; in ways that actually do recognize achievement,” Andrew relates. “More than anything, Weng Weng represents a ‘f*ck you’ to Hollywood; that they were able to take on Empire Strikes Back, in the West Indies in Christmas of ’82 and beat them. It is the little Pinoy guy saying we can do it on our terms even if we have to steal the James Bond idea and have a midget James Bond with a small budget and still come out a winner. I think that’s incredibly cool. These were the Filipino guys who are able to do some amazing things on their own terms and resources. They showed such ingenuity and pioneering spirit, forging distribution channels rather than piggybacking on the Hollywood dream machine.”

100 Reasons Why I Love The Philippines (In No Particular Order) Part One

100 REASONS WHY I LOVE THE PHILIPPINES #1: Howdy Pilgrims! Daniel Palisa and I outside the ruins of the Diplomat Hotel in mountainous Baguio, scene of the ultimate nuns-with-machine-guns battle in They Call Her Cleopatra Wong (1978). It was originally a Dominican monastery in the 1800s before it was a hotel, then taken over by a Faith movement, and has been in ruins for over 20 years. And there it was, after a 20 minute drive uphill: the convent from Cleopatra Wong. Scanning the mouldering rooftops, my head was filled with visions of Bobby's moustache-clad nuns falling to their deaths in slow motion. I'm sure, somewhere amidst the slime-covered fountains and bombed-out rooms there's a metaphor for the Philippines film industry somewhere...

100 REASONS WHY I LOVE THE PHILIPPINES #2: Cebu. Man I love that place. We stayed at a fantastic backpackers called Kukuk's Nest (actually more like an artist's retreat) for two days with our incredible host Maria Victoria Beltran and her zombie-filmmaker progeny Ivan Zaldarriaga, ate and drank like kings, dropped anchor off an island and lazed in pith helmet on the crystal-clear sea, tore through the Church of Santo Nino, and managed to squeeze in a "Bamboo Gods" talk at the University of San Carlos courtesy of the VERY generous and welcoming head of cinema studies Misha Anissimov. Here's what remained of the USC film geeks...thank you Cebu!!!

100 REASONS WHY I LOVE THE PHILIPPINES #3: The desert in Ilocos Norte. The north-west part of Luzon island, twelve hours drive from Manila, is the last place you'd expect sand dunes, and that's what makes the Philippines' terrain so adaptable for movies. Cirio Santiago shot most of his post-apocalypse films nearby, and here at Fort Ilocandia - looking a little greener than usual thanks to the recent typhoon - Jim Gaines Jr shows me where Teddy Chiu shot him and Cynthia Khan in the futuristic kickboxing "epic" ETERNAL FIST/FIST OF STEEL (1992). This shot was taken just one minute before we received the phone call: "Madame Imelda is waiting for you..."

100 REASONS WHY I LOVE THE PHILIPPINES #4: Cecille Baun, the Godmother of Gore and Queen of Special Effects. This humble and generous lady, pictured in her workshop with me and Daniel Palisa and one of her many burnt rubber babies, revolutionized the way effects were created for the local film industry way back in the early Seventies, then went on to such diverse projects as Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Hamburger Hill (for which she was nominated for an Academy Award), Shake Rattle And Roll, the Darna series, Raw Force, and John Sayle's recent Amigo. Needless to say, Dani and I completely ran amok in her toystore!!

100 REASONS WHY I LOVE THE PHILIPPINES #5: Dolphy. The Pinoy King of Comedy passed away July 10th after seven decades in show business; here's a photo of a screening of his parody film James Batman (1966) - in which Dolphy plays James Bond AND Batman, and often in the same shot! - we did two days later in an artists' space in Baguio. I had the honour of meeting and interviewing Dolphy back in 2007, and having watching around fifty of his films I understood the enormous outpouring of emotion at his passing; as if an precious part of the Philippines' collective consciousness has departed this world forever. Screening James Batman that night was a raw, bittersweet experience, but made that much richer by sharing it with the crazed rice wine-swilling, bongo-bopping Baguio crowd (thanks Uber Alles!). RIP Dolphy.

100 REASONS WHY I LOVE THE PHILIPPINES #6: House parties at Richard Somes'. We bring a shopping bag full of Tanduay rum and mixer, Richard cooks up half a caribou, the horror directors come on over with the old Goons, and twelve hour later... Somes (in white t-shirt) is one of the most interesting genre directors currently working in the Philippines, his latest aswang film Corazon making a killing at the local box office; Maria Rico Ilarde (second from right) is also a veteran horror guy, currently completing a Regal film about a killer fridge (!!), while Ato Bautista (right) is the more avant-garde of the three - see his genre-bending Carnivore and The Night Infinite. Daniel Palisa and I are flanked by veteran B actors - and Apocalypse Now extras! - Jim Gaines Jr (left) and Don Gordon Bell (front). Mabuhay!

100 REASONS WHY I LOVE THE PHILIPPINES #6: Wallpaper. Specifically, the wallpaper in the home of Celso Ad Castillo, one the of the greatest ever filmmakers the Philippines has ever produced - Burlesk Queen (1977) with Vilma Santos, the horror classics Kill Barbara With Panic (1974) and Maligno (1978), iconic adult films Isla (1984) with Maria Isabel Lopez and the Soft Drink Beauties' Snake Sisters (1984), and that's just a hint at an extraordinary career. Daniel Palisa and I did the pilgrimage to his family house in Laguna, just over three hours drive from Manila, and for the next six hours drank rum and brandy, and talked about movies and laughed and plotted a collaboration. Keep watching this space...

100 REASONS WHY I LOVE THE PHILIPPINES #7: Guns. It's a gun-happy culture. Even the signs at the Manila Zoo say "Please leave your handguns at the counter". So OF COURSE you're going to find a shooting range in the sub-basement of the Makati Square trip mall. There were .45s, 9mms, a .22 (pictured) that pierced armour and went off like a landmine, and a pump action shotgun that screamed "F*ck you!!!" every time you discharged an empty shell. And yes, I am still vegan.

100 REASONS WHY I LOVE THE PHILIPPINES #8: Jeepneys. Those garishly-decorated reconditioned troop carriers that clog up roads and cost less than twenty cents a trip. Cel was our driver from Laoag Airport and he agreed to be our driver for the two days in Ilocos Norte; in return he received twice his regular wage plus he came to Imelda Marcos' birthday party with us. Believe me, there's nothing classier than turning up to the Marcos mansion in a jeepney!

100 REASONS WHY I LOVE THE PHILIPPINES #9: The Kids. These are the remains of UP Diliman's ISA (Interdependent Student-Centred Activism) organization after a three hour lecture and DVD compilation of Pinoy B films, one of four campus talks I did last visit. Watching the kids lose their minds over the collected works of Weng Weng, Bobby A. Suarez and Cirio H. Santiago is a subversive joy unto itself and makes for a loose, fun, carnival-like atmosphere inside those hallowed halls of learning. Thank you Marko Yambao for inviting me, and hope to see you guys soon!

100 REASONS WHY I LOVE THE PHILIPPINES #10: Contrabidas, or screen villains. If you were making an action film in the Philippines, you too would cast veteran actor with 25 years of films under his black belt and gold medalist in Tae Kwon Do Monsour del Rosario, pictured here in his Makati City Hall office with me and Daniel Palisa, as your contrabida. Picture this: we've just handed him our script, we get the thumbs-up, and to seal the deal we head down to the police shooting range in City Hall's basement to blast away on his custom-made 45. Even by non-Tae Kwon Do standards, pure Gold.

Napoleon Doble And The Sexy Six (1966)

1966 - Napoleon Doble And The Sexy Six (LSJ Productions)

[Release date 1st June 1966; released on Philippines VCD as “Napoleon Doble”]

Director/Story Carling Marquez Screenplay Tony Camonti Producer Femy Rillo Executive Producer [uncredited] Luis San Juan Music Restie Umali

Cast Dolphy, Lourdes Medel, Lucita Soriano, Gina Laforteza, Chona Delgado, Rita Reyes, Leni Trinidad, Ponga, Miniong Alvarez, Sancho Tesalona, Bill Nino, Carlos Diaz, Charlie Mendez, Angel Casaje, Pete Andal, SOS Daredevils, Prospero Luna (Bulba), Mary Walter, Jose Garcia, Bert Martinez, Eva Marie, Rodolfo “Boy” Garcia, Aruray, Menggay, Ike Fernando, Agnes Moran, Babalu, Jeff Elechosa, Mat Lazaro, [uncredited] Tange

Review by Andrew Leavold

For connoisseurs of Pinoy parodies, the recent appearance on Filipino VCD of Dolphy's Bond-like action comedy Napoleon Doble And The Sexy Six signals an unearthing of grail-like proportions. I realize it's hard to be entirely objective about comedy, and even more so when you're removed from its host culture by time, language, and the shared experience of growing up in the shadow of Dolphy's schtick. To this pulp-addled brain at least it was worth the wait, but keep in mind I've already devoured over twenty of Dolphy's back catalogue and haven't even made a dent. If you're a casual Trash Tourist, a cursory examination of Napoleon Doble...'s discs reveals a film that looks, sounds and feels like Dolphy's James Batman, also from 1966. Actually you're not far from the mark: it's a similarly crazed surfadelic romp through appropriated Sixties pop culture, with wildly tilted camera angles, cartoon goons and go-go girls, and the omniscient Dolphy filling almost every frame – and sometimes twice! However, in order to rescue Napoleon Doble... from history's “like James Batman but not as silly” bin and place it into some kind of cultural context, there are a number of facts to consider.

Dolphy contra Dolphy! Napoleon Doble (left) comes face to face with his nemesis Elias

In a career covering an astounding 250-plus features to date, 1966 was Dolphy's peak year: starring roles in nineteen features, or almost one movie a fortnight. In Dolphy's peak period from '65-'66, Luis San Juan was writer, producer or director for seven films, including an executive producer role for LSJ Productions' Napoleon Doble. The sheer volume of Dolphy's output suggests a much larger, well-oiled machine grinding out quickly-made and comfortably generic - though certainly not inferior - product, with the Dolphy brand ensuring audience goodwill and return trade. In the '65 to '66 period, Dolphy's films were primarily “goon” parodies, or more precisely, spoofs on then-popular trends with dedicated action sequences; as a trained dancer and physical comedian, Dolphy was a natural, if unlikely, action star. In contrast to his lighter Sampaguita vehicles from the Fifties and early Sixties, Goon Comedies downplayed frothy romance and song and dance numbers in favour of relentless stunts and on-screen fist fights. In his western spoofs [1] he's eyeball-to-eyeball with a baddie in a black hat and an army of apes in stetsons; in Pambihirang Dalawa: Sa Combat (1966) it's him, Panchito and a bevy of women in long skirts against the Japanese army.

During Dolphy's busiest phase, the genre du jour was the James Bond craze. Most Western-influenced film cultures were churning out one gadget-laden spy caper after the other, and the Philippines' copycat industry was more eager than most. Following Goldfinger's worldwide release in 1964, no fewer than twenty Pinoy Bonds appeared within a manic two year cycle. And, as every popular Pinoy genre must have its parodic mirror, so too did the Bond Parodies begin in earnest, most notably from the dual Kings of Comedy: Chiquito as James Bandong or Agent 0-2-10 (“oh-two-ten” is a play on “utoten”, the Tagalog word for “farter” for “fart-face”), and Dolphy as Agent 1-2-3 (the name suggests a person's been tricked) or in variations on the “Dolpinger” theme. In Dolphy's filmography from 1965 to 1966, a minimum of fifteen features can lay claim to parodying the spy genre, or at least include elements of the Bond films [3] – and that's a considerable number of Bondian villains with goon armies at their disposal.

Opening bank heist: Dolphy shoots at himself

As Napoleon Doble, Dolphy trades in his secret agent badge for one with the NBI [4]. The film opens in wham-bam style, with Napoleon shooting it out with machine guns as his nemesis Elias (also Dolphy, much-gnarled but, under the latex buboes, still recognizable) robs a bank and makes a hasty getaway. The Thirties gangster-style car crashes and somehow Elias drags the stolen loot back to his mansion hideaway, where Girlfriend Number One (Lucita Soriano) and his trusted scientist-slash-plastic surgeon (Carlos Diaz) perform a face-changing operation – under strict orders to make him look JUST like Napoleon Doble.

Lumpy-faced Elias (top) and his new sardonic sneer

Elias, the dark Hyde to Dolphy's likeable Pinoy Everyman, is a hoot: cold, calculating slits for eyes and a sardonic smirk, and with a harem of five girlfriends on call, all top-shelf Pinoy starlets who are forced to line up and have their cocktail frocks ripped down in one of Elias' cleavage inspections! Not content with merely a Foxy Five, Elias decides to recruit a sexy Sixth, and as fate would have it, stalks the gorgeous Anna (Lourdes Mendel), a dancer at his own nightclub – and, the same girl courted by Napoleon. Anna, of course, only has eyes for the REAL Napoleon, yet Elias is undeterred, and takes her refusal to bare her cleavage as a sign she's the new Number One Girlfriend, a position jealously fought over by the Sexy Five in a messy, drunken, all-in catfight. A complicated web of mistaken identities – that old hackneyed comedic standby! - ensues, with Elias stealing NBI files while posing as Napoleon, and ends with Napoleon and Anna trapped in a cell in Elias' mansion at the mercy of a leering, power-hungry and clearly insane Elias.

The Sexy Six cattle call (top) and catfight (bottom)

Viewed as part of a much larger whole, Napoleon Doble And The Sexy Six makes perfect sense. Dolphy's individual films are elements of a much grander story arc, almost a meta-narrative spread over fifty-plus years, with its main protagonist growing older disgracefully, and his supporting cast and crew entering and leaving at will, more often than not becoming familiar parts of the background scenery. Wives, girlfriends and siblings appear, along with children and eventually grandchildren. Families are at the core of Filipino culture and is reflected in the Dolphy's own film company RVQ Productions: from its inception in 1967 and through its Glory Days into the Eighties, it was a dynastic studio dynamo for the Quizon clan, and Dolphy more than generously shared, and still shares, the limelight. The cherry-picked icons from both foreign and domestic pop culture, the interchangeable plotlines of Western spoofs and goon comedies, domestic barrio soap operas and their ilk, the recycled characters (the droopy-shouldered Ompong, the flamboyant Pacifica Falayfay), the movies, radio shows, stage performances and TV series, are all episodes of a seemingly endless variety show, with Dolphy centre stage as its amiable emcee.

Although Dolphy's Napoleon Doble presents himself to the filmic world as an undercover policeman, he's essentially Dolpinger: a government representative of the forces of Good, facing off against a Super Villain with a lair choked to the brim with Bondian gadgets (a pen, for instance, that doubles as a Ray Gun!), not to mention his very own Q on tap. Bond allusions aside, Dolphy takes characteristically low swipes at other Sixties pop icons, not least The Man From U.N.C.L.E. - Napoleon “Solo” being the obvious reference point, plus a sizeable portion from U.N.C.L.E. feature The Spy With My Face (1965). Let's not forget the Pink Panther series, notably Ponga's Kato-like Mr Tan [5], a Chinese caricature saved by Napoleon during the bank robbery, and whose housebound karate fights with Napoleon usually end up trounced by the equally chop-frenzied maid (Aruray).

Napoleon takes on both houseguest Mr Tan (Ponga) and disinterested housemaid (Aruray), Pink Panther style!

“Thrifty” is is not a surprising term for a low-budget quickie, and there are constant reminders of the budgetary shortcomings, from the use of limited locations (Elias' mansion, with its now-familiar warren of rooms, balconies and shadow-lined stairwell is put through the ringer, as is his nightclub) to its tin-can sound recording and compact, cut-to-order thrills. As rough as the seams are, however, the film never threatens to tear a hole in its pants' seat; LSJ Productions' camera crew are imaginative with their comic-strip framing and composition, not to mention weirdly effective though glaringly primitive lighting techniques, and Restie Umali's horns-and-bongos jazz score, despite its occasional Bond stings, never becomes glaringly cliched. Like most populist Pinoy films, Napoleon... trots out its regulation array of marquee-value “Special Guests” like well-rehearsed sideshow exhibits - the big-chinned Babalu (one of Dolphy's regular sidekick in his later films) makes a blink-and-he's-gone cameo as a shirtless waiter, crone-ish Menggay tries out as the Sexy Sixth (and is accused of being less than human!). It's modest yet easy money for an afternoon's work, and all are welcome faces, along with the remainder of Napoleon Doble's cast: Sancho Tessalona, Rodolfo “Boy” Garcia, Prospero Luna, the SOS Daredevils and many others, some of the hardest working actors and stuntmen in show business and equally at home in a Fernando Poe Jr or Dolphy and Chiquito flick.

Elias menaces the helpless Anna (Lourdes Mendel)

Likewise, Luis San Juan successfully balanced straight action films and “goon” or action parodies over a thirty year career as producer/writer/director – from Dolphy and Chiquito vehicles to Ramon Zamora and Rey Malonzo chop-sockeys. It's this double helix of thrall and gall, the essence of Goon combined with the sheer chutzpah of James Batman and company, that makes Napoleon Doble And The Sexy Six a satisfying Sixties pop cocktail, brimming with pure unadulterated Pinoy Pulp.

[1] Kulog At Kidlat and Keng Leon, Keng Tigre Ecu Tatakut, Keka Pa (both 1965), Da Best In Da West (1967)

[2] Sometimes listed as “Dolphinger” or “Dolfinger”

[3] Released in 1965: Dr Yes, Dolpinger, Agent Dolpinger Sa Lagim, Dolpinger Meets Pantarorong, Scarface At Al Capone: Espiya Sa Ginto, Genghis Bond: Agent 1-2-3. Released in 1966: Alyas Don Juan: Agent 1-2-3, Doble Solo (with Chiquito), Dolpong Scarface Agent 1-2-3, Dolpong Istambol, Dressed To Kill, James Batman, Napoleon Doble And The Sexy Six, Operation Butterball, Sungit Conference: Ng Pitong Dakila

[4] National Bureau of Investigation, the Philippines' police force

[5] Burt Kwouk as the karate-crazed Kato makes his debut in the second Pink Panther film, A Shot In The Dark (1964).

Dolphy interviews

Dolphy interview from People In Progress:

If he had not been an entertainer, he would have been a sailor. Mang Dolphy shares this surprising revelation wistfully, recalling his boyhood in Tondo from where he and his friends would walk to Manila Bay and watch American battleships moored there. “I have always felt an impulse to sail away on those ships,” he says softly.

Luckily for us, he stayed land-bound and gave us instead classics like Buhay Marino, where he and Panchito, both ordered to give a ship a coat of paint, cover it instead in multi-colored polka dots. Several generations of Pinoys have since been charmed by the luckless, guileless, wisecracking underdog that Mang Dolphy portrays to perfection.

Seventy-five years into the life of this legendary comedian, it would be an exercise in triteness to add to the platitudes heaped upon the more popular aspects of his life and career.

To be sure, he deserves every praise for the breadth and variety of his cinematic experience and his enduring appeal to mass audiences. He is the first comedian to win an acting award for Ang Tatay Kong Nanay (with Niño Muhlach), the first to put up his own production company (RVQ) and produce his own films, the first to play an openly gay character (Jack, in Jack and Jill with Lolita Rodriguez). The last role catapulted him to fame 50 years ago, and he has managed to stay on the crest of stardom ever since.

Perhaps it is Mang Dolphy’s awesome stature or his formal demeanor that has kept others from prying into the lesser known aspects of his career and his life. Where many have extolled his comedic genius, for example, few have bothered to ask him about his own understanding of it, and his own accounting of how it evolved.

On this rarest of opportunities, I resolve to do so, and his answers astound me with their clarity and intelligence. By his own account, Mang Dolphy was not in any way remarkable for his hilarity while growing up during the 1930s. He was solitary by nature, tormented by his asthma and a growing inferiority complex. But the boy loved to dance—he had to dance. And so he did, first on the sidewalks with fellow amateurs and enthusiasts, and later on the stage at the age of 15. The asthma left him eventually.

Post-vaudeville, the stage show was the crucible for aspiring performers. It usually consisted of song-and-dance numbers, skits and gags, all played out before live audiences. Mang Dolphy paid his dues and developed his idea of funny via the stage show, playing to tense, expectant audiences in venues like Avenue and Clover theaters in wartime Manila. From dancing during intermissions (while the stage sets were being re-arranged for the next skit), he worked his way to bit parts. He played the resident Chinese storekeeper in stage show sketches. The role was a hit, and he quickly became a mainstay.

Along with vaudeville veterans Pugo, Pugak, Patsy and Bayani Casimiro, he learned to develop comic timing, throw punch lines, improvise, follow up on jokes that fell flat. As if that weren’t stressful enough for a beginner, his performances would be interrupted now and then by air raid sirens, whereupon entertainers and audiences alike dove into the orchestra pit or under their seats as bombs fell on the city.

Mang Dolphy learned that at the height of suffering and misery, people still wanted to laugh, and in fact needed to laugh. He recalls a particular instance when the bombs hit just as a fellow performer was singing “I Want to Live.” They emerged laughing from their dugouts later, relieved, of course, that they were still alive. Laughter, he learned, could sometimes be a matter of life and death.

I asked Mang Dolphy about his own film icons, and he immediately cites Charlie Chaplin, king of silent films in Depression America. “He did not have to say anything to make you laugh,” Mang Dolphy says admiringly. Remembering old re-runs of his Sampaguita movies, I see the distinct influence: the facial expressions, the physicality of his comedy.

Thoroughly familiar with Chaplin’s films and life, Mang Dolphy expresses awe for Chaplin’s keen political sense. He cites the Chaplin feature The Great Dictator, a parody of Hitler’s quest for world domination. He notes the prescience (the film was made before World War II) and the talent with which Chaplin mocked a dangerous and controversial political figure.

I ask Mang Dolphy, then, why he does not seem to favor political jokes in his own routine. After all, he is famous for his quip about not wanting to run for office because of the possibility that he might win—a remark that is loaded with more political insight than the loftiest campaign promises of your average Pinoy politician. “Philippine politics is very different—it’s very personal,” he remarks, and adds that he can only crack jokes about politicians who are friends of his, such as Erap (former President Joseph Estrada). “The others might not find me so funny if I make fun of them,” he says with a laugh.

And so he has established other personal bottom lines for his comedy: no jokes about religion, and no jokes about other people’s physical defects. “I avoid jokes that might be hurtful to people,” he declares. “At ayoko ng bastos (I don’t like raunchy jokes),” he states categorically.

From these we get a glimpse of Mang Dolphy’s acute understanding of the Pinoy psyche and his recognition of often unarticulated cultural boundaries. He says that what is funny to the Pinoy—the masang Pinoy towards whom his comedy is directed—is self-ridicule, panunuya sa sarili. “That we can be eating tuyo (dried fish) and still find to something to laugh about.” Thus he has used humor to shed a more benign light on the often harsh circumstances that confront Pinoys.

Dolphy receiving his Best Actor award at the 1978 FAMAS Awards

As John Puruntong of the phenomenal ‘70s comedy series John en Marsha (with the late Nida Blanca), he was the Pinoy Everyman—poor, hardworking, loved by his family, respected by his neighbors but despised by his rich mother-in-law. He is the “Puruntong” in “puruntong shorts,” those loud, baggy cut-offs made of cheap fabric that are the favourite home-wear of Pinoy men. It is an indication of how indelible his imprint is on Pinoy pop culture that a piece of the standard Pinoy wardrobe has been named after a character that he brought to life.

In the top-rating sitcom Home Along the Riles, he is Mang Kevin, the philosopher by the railroad tracks.

“Television is for the masa,” he explains. “You can make them laugh by locating your comedy within their daily lives.”

Mang Dolphy has done everything, and I mean everything. His filmography is probably the most diverse among Filipino actors, spanning drama, action and even musicals.

He has done the stage, movies, television and radio. Before he turned comic superstar, he even joined zarzuelas in some far-flung provinces. He also did shows in Japan.

Still he works, busy at 75 in an industry where youth and momentary fame are the standards. And in a business run by stellar egos, he is the rare democrat, collaborating on Home Along with staff and crew. “Everyone is free to contribute an idea. Any idea might enhance the show,” he says simply. Still betraying his rigorous stage-show training, he improvises and adlibs when he spots the chance. “You have to recognize that moment when you can improve on the humor provided by the script,” he shares.

He unwinds by staying at home with his children, reading, watching TV and an occasional film. He particularly enjoys the Discovery Channel and sports programs.

The last movie he found funny was Bruce Almighty, starring Jim Carrey.

A new source of amusement for him these days is text jokes. “Some are so corny, they make me laugh,” he chuckles. Imagine Mang Dolphy snickering at text jokes. That’s a rich moment there: the King of Philippine Comedy tickled by bits of digital humor.

The image I came away with from this encounter, however, is an image from an alternative reality where Mang Dolphy is a sailor, standing on the deck of some ship, staring at the sea that he has always loved. How different would our laughing habits have been in his absence?

When people warned me that Mang Dolphy was quite reserved and saw for myself that he was so, it didn’t really surprise me. We must understand humor as something that wells up from a tranquil place where one observes the world with much accuracy. It is from that space within him that he figures out ways to keep us laughing at ourselves.