Snakes on Film

Albert’s helpful pet viper, Adolphe, saves the day in this comedy set on Devil’s Island, but he does all of his dirty work — extinguishing the lives of the two villains — off-screen. In fact, we never actually see Adolphe: all his screen time is spent inside his cage, which makes identifying him a moot point. He’s described as “a little snake, about this big,” and “all different colours like a pretty bracelet,” which sounds more like a coral snake than a viper, insofar as French Guyanese snakes are concerned, but there it is. But a snake with a taste for music? “Vipers are very musical reptiles; they’re much more musical than people think,” says Jules (played by Peter Ustinov). I suppose: snakes are as deaf as Beethoven.

Admit it: you’ve been waiting for this one. Much has already been written about the snakes behind Snakes on a Plane, and the questionable snake behaviour and biology has been debunked elsewhere; I wrote something shortly after I saw the film myself. The key points:

1. The real, live snakes were harmless and handled by stunt doubles or extras; the venomous snakes were either computer generated or shot in isolation.
2. The real snakes were common pet-store varieties; I spotted Corn Snakes (Elaphe guttata) and several kinds of Common Kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula) and Milk Snake (Lampropeltis triangulum), for example.
3. The aggressive snake behaviour was attributed to pheromones sprayed on leis, which is creative nonsense. Pheromones will make snakes horny at best, and no one pheromone would have the same effect across so many different species.
4. The movie correctly points out that snakes aren’t normally that aggressive, hence the pheromone plot device.
5. The computer-generated snakes were larger than nature — and faster. No matter how pissed, most snakes don’t move that fast. Except maybe mambas (Dendroaspis) and coachwhips (Masticophis), and I didn’t see any of those.
6. Antivenom is easier to find than that.
7. Snakes are illegal to keep in Hawaii.
8. Pythons never eat fully grown adult males. Well, hardly ever. Yappy little dogs? Total python food. (At least I can hope.)

I must confess that The Lady Eve is one of my favourite movies, and it’s not just because the romantic male lead played by Henry Fonda is a herpetologist. (Two words: Eugene Pallette.) It’s a wonderful and cinematically significant romantic comedy by Preston Sturges. You really should see it.

In the opening scene, Charles Pike and his bodyguard Muggsy are leaving the Amazon with “Emma”, a “rare type of Brazilian glass snake” that mysteriously can be fed “just a couple of flies, a sip of milk and perhaps a pigeon’s egg on Sundays.” (An impossible snake diet.) Emma’s Latin name is given as Columbrina marzditzia, but Emma is in fact played by a Western Longnose Snake (Rhinocheilus lecontei lecontei). Rarely kept in captivity nowadays, but quite a gentle species, and one readily found in southern California.

Later, once Pike has returned home, he asks his butler whether he’s seen a Crotalus colubrinus. (“With pink spots,” Muggsy adds.) “I rejoice to say that I have not, sir,” the butler replies, walking away — with what appears to be a Corn Snake (Elaphe guttata) wrapped around his ankle. Crotalus colubrinus is not only imaginary, it’s an oxymoron if you know your Linnaean binomials.

There must not be enough snakes in Britain, because J. K. Rowling was apparently unaware of two key snake facts when she wrote the early scene with Harry and the snake — a Burmese Python (Python molurus bivittatus) in the movie, a Boa Constrictor (Boa constrictor) in the book. Namely, that snakes have neither eyelids nor ears, which makes it difficult for this one to be winking at and listening to our man Harry. I’ll grant a lot for a fantasy story, mind. I mean, it’s not like owls are smart enough to be trained in postal service either.