Good lord! What was John Huston thinking (or drinking?) when he let loose with this rambling, discursive and largely meaningless five minute diatribe on a late-1970s Oscar broadcast? He certainly sounds magnificent and is, as always, beyond charismatic. I met him in 1981 when I was sixteen years old and vividly remember thinking: ‘wow, they don’t make ’em like that anymore’. He truly came from the long-gone male-adventurer school of machismo that included Hemingway, Robert Capa, Admiral Byrd, Lindbergh and their likes. And he was known to tilt a glass or two (before breakfast sometimes) as well. Which brings me back to this speech. I can’t tell if he’s improvising here or reworking a speech he wrote but can’t entirely remember, courtesy of some backstage ‘hospitality’ prior to going on. His demonic smile at the end is worth the whole thing and the fact that he was still game to do things like this–showing up at awards ceremonies and making a bit of an ass of himself–is admirable. Apropos of my meeting Huston: one of my proudest achievements in life is being able to say that John Huston bought me my first drink. It was a Vodka Tonic. I was sixteen at the time and the location of the event was the Queen Mary, docked in Long Beach California and the scene of a weekend retrospective of Huston’s work with the great one in attendance. For the whole story, click here and listen to me spin a tale in my Hustonian way. At least I came by it honestly…