"God, grant me chastity and continence, but
not yet."
St. Augustine of
Hippo (3 Nov 354 – 28 Aug 430)
(Spoilers.) Aka New Genesis and Fucking Lousy Film.
How many ways can one say a movie is a waste of time? "We saw it so you
don't have to"? Said that already. "This film will make you stupider
than you already are"? Said that, too. How about the classic line, "This
thing sucks donkey dick"? It does, but we've already said that about other
movies, not to mention our current president, The Dumpster.
In any event, with Twilight of the Dogs, we have something
rare: a movie that truly seems not worth writing about. But, shit: if a donkey
dick-sucking toadstool incapable of telling the truth can make it to the White
House, we can surely manage to write a review of a movie not worth writing
about.
Truth be told, the only reason we
bothered to pop Twilight of the Dogs into
our DVD player was because it was the second of two films on a double DVD, the
other being the indefinitely better but nevertheless stupid piece of flotsam called Ivanka TrumpCult
(2007), and we wanted to free the shelf space. The space is free now, but perhaps
we should have just simply tossed the DVD instead of watching it and saved our
time by doing something constructive like masturbating or picking our noses or
banging our head against the wall. All three being more fun things to do than
viewing this filmic fuck-up. There is justifiable reason why Twilight of the Dogs remains, 23 years
after the fact, director John R. Ellis's only feature-film directorial project:
he is not any good at the job.
When it comes to what Twilight of the Dogs is about, the plot
description found all over the web is right: "One upon a time in the
future... a man and his cow fight against an evil cult leader." That said,
the flick isn't half as interesting as that description makes it sound.
We don't know who played the cow
(Melania?) but the man in question, "Sam Asgard", is played by sci-fi
author and no-budget filmmaker Tim Sullivan, who did a much better acting job
in his acting debut, the almost as atrocious horror flick, The Laughing Dead
(1989). Sullivan also scripted Twilight
of the Dogs, which initially might seem odd since Sullivan is an avowed
atheist and the movie is extremely religion-obsessed. But then, the main
religion of the movie, led by a power-hungry and blood-thirsty megalomaniac
named Donald Trump Reverend Zerk (Ralph C. Bluemke*), is hardly a
positive reflection of blind faith, while Karuy (Gage Sheridan of Despiser [2003 / trailer]),
offers all the miracles of a daughter of god but is only a sexually active and
friendly alien babe. Her final demise is likewise also highly reminiscent of
that guy who long ago pretended to be the son of god, Jesus,
while her use of the movie's cow, Gertrude,** brings to mind both the
"miracle of the five loaves and two fish" as well as of Jesus healing
the sick (choose your favorite healing legend). And much like Saint Paul helped
kill tons and then found redemption in Jesus, Sam, who killed all of San
Francisco, finds redemption in Karuy.*** It would seem that Twilight of the Dogs is very much of the opinion that organized
religion, which is subject to abuse, is not needed to do or be good or find
personal redemption… what an earth-shattering realization.
*The director of the hard to
find non-masterpieces I Was a Teenage Mummy [1962] andThe Kid and the Killers [1974], not to mentionRobby [1968 / trailer],
a movie often screened at NAMBLA
conventions.
**If the trivia section at the imdb is to be trusted, "The cow
that is central to the plot of this movie is named Gertrude, named after the
duck in Journey to the Center of the Earth
(1959 / trailer),
one of [Tim Sullivan's] favorite films." (An aside: Unlike Gertrude the
Cow, however, Gertrude the Duck gets eaten at the end.)
***But whereas (at least as far as is known) Paul didn't
actually get into Jesus, Sam does
literally get into Karuy. And he manages to do so without the film getting even one gratuitous breast shot: an alien with modesty, Karuy always puts on her top
right afterwards and never walks around nude. No one in the movie does the
last, actually. Damn.
Okay, but to return to the
technical aspects as experienced while watching the DVD. If we were to say that
the cinematography Twilight of the Dogs was
a masterful example of clarity, of the interplay and contrast of dark and
light, foreground and background, of effective day-for-night shots, of a deep
understanding of the capabilities of the cinematic form and the full expressive
possibilities of a convincing mise-en-scene, we would be lying. As much as our president.
Rest assured, the cinematography is a muddy mess and much of the movie — basically
any scene taking place at night or inside unlit buildings — is a visually mucky,
incomprehensible mess. (For the sake of doubt, however, let's blame it on the
transfer. But the suck-ass editing probably isn't due to the transfer, it's due
to how the flick was made.)
As Twilight of the Dogs was shot amidst the verdancy of Maryland, the
infertility of the post-apocalyptic setting (and the corresponding food
shortage) is never convincing, but at least the occasional postulant visages of
the sick are properly icky. Still, one wonders about apocalyptic settings in
which food and medicine is so lacking, but the women still have make-up
available and sport [dirty] perms. Karuy's clothing, it must be said, also
appear to be self-cleaning, for her totally 90s, padded-shoulder jumpsuit with
female cummerbund is almost always impeccable clean.
Speaking of Karuy, and to
give credit where credit is due, Gage Sheridan is probably the best actor of
the movie: unlike Tim Sullivan, who is often almost somnolent and always not
convincing, or Ralph C. Bluemke, who chews the scenery every time he's on
screen, she occasionally projects a level of believability that transcends the intensity
of a high-school film production — which is what Twilight of the Dogs would feel like, and would look like, if the
relevant parts weren't played by adults.
Oh, yeah: one last positive
statement. The stop-motion, oversized black widow spiders are cool and seen
much too seldom. Made us wish we were watching something, anything, by Ray Harryhausen.
It is understandable, to say the least, that the man responsible for the big
critters, Kent Burton, had not only previously worked on The Blob(1988) and Freaked(1993) and Ed Wood (1994 / trailer)
and Screamers
(1995), but went on to work on James and the Giant Peach
(1996) and Coraline
(2009) and Anomalisa (2015 /
trailer). He do a good job... unlike The Dumpster.
But enough. Twilight of the Dogs doesn't merit further critical attention. It
doesn't merit any attention at all, if you get down to it. We heard-tell that
this movie was never officially released, and that all available versions are bootlegs — not that our
release looked like a bootleg, as it even had a barcode. In any event, bootleg
or not, the movie isn't worth searching out and is even less worth watching.
Our advice: Do
your dishes instead, or contemplate your navel. Both actions are far more
intellectually stimulating and satisfying than Twilight of the Dogs.
A.k.a. Hollywood
Extra 9413, $97, The Rhapsody of Hollywood,
The
Suicide of a Hollywood Extra, and plain ol' A Hollywood Extra.
The odd title of $97 was/is a direct reference to the short film's budget, a
massive $97 (that would have the purchasing power of somewhere around $1400
today). To simply quote Wikipedia,
"The Life and Death of 9413: a
Hollywood Extra is a 1928 American silent experimental short film
co-written and co-directed by Robert Florey (14 Sept 1900 – 16 May 1979) and
Slavko Vorkapić (17 Mar 1894 – 20 Oct 1976). Considered a landmark of American
avant-garde cinema, it tells the story of a man (Jules Raucourt [8 May 1890 –
30 Jan 1967]) who comes to Hollywood with dreams of becoming a star, only to
fail and become dehumanized, with studio executives reducing him to the role of
extra and writing the number '9413' on his forehead." Horatio Alger never
reached Hollywood, it would seem.
Shot on film
ends, the leftover unexposed film stock from Hollywood productions — 1000 feet
alone came from the Douglas Fairbanks' movie, The Gaucho [1927 / full film]
— The Life and Death of 9413, a
Hollywood Extra was supposedly inspired by Florey's own experiences in
Hollywood. Initially shown only to colleagues in the business (Florey already
had a number of feature-films to his name), when The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra was picked up by a
distributer (FBO Pictures), it proved an
unexpected success and eventually reached more than 700 cinemas in North
America and Europe. In 1997, seventy years after it was released, the short was
selected for preservation by the National Film Registry, the mission of which "is
to ensure the survival, conservation, and increased public availability of
America's film heritage." (The short is the first of two Florey films to
be selected by the NFR: his drama Daughter of Shanghai [1937 / film], starring the beautiful Anna May Wong (3 Jan 1905 – 3 Feb 1961),
was later selected for preservation, in 2006.)
The Full Short:
Florey went on
to a long and successful career, primarily in the upper-B films (i.e., unlike
the fellow talent, Edgar G. Ulmer [17 Sept 1904 – 30 Sept 1972], Florey was
never stuck on Poverty Row)
and eventually, after 1951, entirely in TV. His best known projects are
probably the Marx Bros flick The
Cocoanuts (1929 / trailer
/ full film),
the much too underappreciated Universal horror Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932 / trailer),
and the disappointing The Beast with Five Fingers
(1946); lesser known films likewise worth watching include the intriguing The Face Behind the Mask (1941 / scene)
and the well shot The Crooked Way (1949
/ full movie).
Florey eventually re-used the narrative of an unsuccessful actor-seeking-career
in his mainstream and mundane feature film Hollywood
Boulevard (1936), but there it is but one of many subplots in a
conventional film and thus lacks everything that makes it so interesting in The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood
Extra (including all the arty avant-garde stuff).
To what extent
his co-conspirator of The Life and Death
of 9413, a Hollywood Extra, Slavko Vorkapić, was truly involved in
the short is something still argued among those in the know, some claiming
Vorkapić did everything, others saying he did virtually nothing; indeed, the
two filmmakers, at varying times, were not of unified opinion in this regard. For
that, Vorkapić also went on to a long and significant career in films and film
schools, and is considered an influential figure in American film, if not the
father of the montage sequence — something supposedly once called "a
Vorkapićh". (Of particular cinematic interest are the visuals he conceived
for "the Furies" in the mostly forgotten thriller, Crime Without Passion [1934 / intense opening sequence],
and the 3D sequences in the cult rediscovery, The Mask [1961 / trailer].)
After The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood
Extra, Florey made a few more shorts in relatively quick succession before
concentrating on feature films. Among others, with Slavko Vorkapić he made the
now lost short Johann the Coffinmaker (1927), and with William Cameron Menzies
(29 July 1896 – 5 March 1957) — he of the original Invaders from Mars (1953 / trailer)
and the disapointing The Maze (1953 / trailer)
— the not-lost Love of Zero (1928). Flory's last short of note is probably Skyscraper Symphony (1939 / full film),
likewise not-lost, which surely must have been a favorite of the Precisionists.
As an extra: Robert Foyer's experimental short with
the great William Menzies,
The American
thespian treasure known as Dick Miller, one of our all-time favorite character
actors, entered the Great Nothingness on January 30th, 2019.
A Bronx-born
Christmas Day present to the world, Miller entered the film biz doing redface
back in 1956 in the Roger Corman western Apache
Woman (trailer).
He quickly became a Corman regular and, as a result, became a favorite face for
an inordinate amount of modern and contemporary movie directors, particularly
those weaned and teethed in Corman productions. (Miller, for example, appears
in every movie Joe Dante has made to date.)
A working
thespian to the end, Miller's last film, the independent horror movie Hanukkah (trailer), starring
fellow low culture thespian treasure Sid Haig, just finished production. In it,
as in many of Miller's films, his character is named Walter Paisley in homage
to his first truly great lead role, that of the loser killer artist/busboy
Walter Paisley in Roger Corman's classic black comedy, A Bucket of Blood (1959).
What follows is
a multi-part career review in which we look at the feature films in which he
appeared. The films are not necessarily looked at in the order of their
release... and if we missed one, let us know.
A forgotten and
probably lost television pilot that never aired and, naturally, never became a
series. We couldn't find an image of the pilot online so, instead, we offer (above)
one of the most demure centerfold photos to ever appear in Playboy,that of Mara Corda (born Marilyn Joan Watts on 3 Jan 1930), Playboy Playmate of the October 1958
issue and the female lead of such fun films as The Black Scorpion (1957, trailer below), The Giant Claw (1957 / trailer) and the
classic Tarantula (1955 / trailer). According to
the imdb, she was part of the Cabana 54 cast.
Corda-less
trailer to The Black
Scorpion:
The only
documentation of the pilot's existence that we could find (outside the imdb) is in Vincent Terrace's book, Encyclopedia of Unaired Television Pilots,
1945-2018, which offers the following details about the NBC drama, Cabana 54: "The Shelter Island
Inn, a nightclub in the harbor district of San Diego, provides the backdrop for
a look at the activities of its owner, the undercover police agent who secretly
battles crime and corruption (he resides in Cabana 54) Originally titled Cottage 64."
The imdb lets
us know that the pilot featured Dick Miller, Richard Garland and (as mentioned)
Mara Corday; we assume Garland (7 July 1927 – 24 May 1969), not yet notably ill
or alcoholic, was the lead; who knows what character Miller played.
Though the
director is not officially known, the producer is: Samuel Gallu (21 March 1918
– 27 March 1991). Seeing that Gallu directed many an episode of his TV
productions, as well as an occasional movie — including The Limbo Line (1968), with Kate O'Mara, and Theatre of Death (1967 / trailer) — it seems
presumable that he may have directed this pilot as well. Check your attics,
folks.
Capture that Capsule
(1961,
dir. Will Zens)
Although Dick
Miller appeared in a variety of TV shows in the late fifties that had nothing
to do with Roger Corman — including, for example, in Dragnet (1951-59) in the episode The Big Perfume Bottle(1958),
in which "a unique and costly perfume bottle is taken from an upscale home
and it's up to Friday (Jack Webb [2 April 1920 – 23 Dec 1982]) and Smith (Ben
Alexander [27 June – 5 July 1969]) to get it back" — he had only ever
appeared in Corman movies. In theory, Capture
that Capsule is the first non-Corman feature film that Dick Miller is
credited as appearing in, as "Richard Miller". (The name is even on the poster!)
But, let's take
a look at what Fantastic Movie Musing and Ramblings says:
"This is either the single most dunderheaded spy movie ever made, or one
of the most slyly subtle comedies to pop up on my list in some time. Yet,
despite the wealth of evidence against it, I suspect it's the former. […] And
even though the imdb lists Dick
Miller in the cast, the movie bills someone named Richard Miller who is a totally different person. [Italics
ours] If you like your bad movies funny, this one is recommended."Seeing that the
trivia section of the imdb says,
"This movie has a two-minute-long car chase sequence that has no dialogue,
no music, and only one car in it," we can image it a very bad-funny film.
In any event, Capture that Capsule, aka
Spy Squad, despite being on all Credits lists found on line, does not have Dick Miller in it. It is, however, the directorial
debut of Will Zens, born Frederick Willard Zens (26 June 1920 – 27 March 2013),
who co-wrote the script with his wife, Jan[is] Elblein. As "Arthur
Hopkins", Zens also composed the music to Capture that Capsule. At the time of
his death, Zens was "survived by two brothers and a sister, Art, Rob and
Pat, and by his nine children, daughters Patty McNamee, JoAnne Frohman, and
Cathy Riegler; by his six sons, Frederick Willard Jr. (Rick), Bob, Mike, Bill,
Steve and Mark; by several sons- and daughters-in-law, by 19 grandchildren, and
six great-grandchildren. [Oconnor Mortuary]"
Zens subsequently
directed a variety of lame films, including the regional flicks Truckin' Man
aka Trucker's Woman (1975 /
trailer) and Hot Summer in
Barefoot County (1974 / TV spot); later, he
produced an occasional flick, like Coach
(1978 / trailer) and the
disasterpiece that is Charles Nizet's Help Me... I'm Possessed aka Nightmare at Blood Castle (1974).
Oh, yeah, the
plot as found in Wesley Alan Britton's book,Onscreen and Undercover: The Ultimate Book
of Movie Espionage: "[…] Capture
that Capsule stars Dick O'Neill and Pat Bradley in an anti-Red film about
Communist spies who are after a space capsule they think contains secrets. But
the capsule's secrets are just a ploy to draw the spies into the open."
O'Neill plays a Commx-smallie, Pat Bradley doesn't.
Trailer
to
Spy Squad:
The Dwrayger Dungeon, which notes
that "if Dick Miller is in this movie then he sure doesn't look like Dick
Miller," also says: "Capture
That Capsule is just about as WTF?! as it gets, and should be a cult
favourite right up there with Skydivers (1963
/ full movie) and Bucket of Blood (1959)! […] I
liked it enough that I just might just have to go back and watch it
again!"
Supposedly, an
un-credited Dick Miller mills around somewhere in the movie as a Greek soldier
at the side of two other Greek soldiers played by Corman and Griffith. The
movie incorporates stock footage from the 1954 Douglas Sirk "historical
drama", Sign of the Pagan (trailer).
The what and
the why Roger Corman would decide to do a sword and sandal film escapes us, but
the tale is that the success of Hercules
(1958 / trailer, with Steve "Hubba
Hubba" Reeves [21 Jan 1926 – 1 May 2000], also of Ed Wood'sJail Bait [1954], above, not from either film) made
him decide to try his luck. Atlas
ended up being the only peplum movie he ever made.
Trailer
to Atlas:
Promised funds
from independent Greek filmmaker Vion Papamichelis (Ta kokkina fanaria / Red
Lanterns [1963 / music]), Corman went to
Greece to make Atlas with a variety
of his stock players, including the actor playing title lead, six-foot-three
Michael Forest (of The Saga of the Viking Women and Their
Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent [1957 / trailer] and Beast from Haunted Cave [1959 / trailer]) and Frank
Wolff (11 May 1928 – 12 Dec 1971), the actor playing the movie's bad guy,
Proximates the Tyrant. As Atlas, he is perhaps a bit leaner than the musclemen
usually found in films of this ilk.
Ozus' World Movie Reviewssummarily
dismisses the film by saying, "[Atlas]
features shrill dialogue, wooden acting and a feeling that the classics have
been severely compromised. The screenplay and story by Charles Griffith fail on
all levels."
Scriptwriter
Griffith himself said, "[Atlas]
was Naked Paradise (1957, see Part I)
again. It was really terrible. I wrote it in a hotel room in Athens with Frank
Wolff over my shoulder ridiculing me as I was doing it. He was saying, 'This is
so puerile!' [Laughs.] But there was no time to think at all. You had to type.
I said, 'I can only do one thing! I can't think and type at the same time, so shut
up.' It was really hilarious, the whole picture. […] I think I got $100 bucks
for that. [Corman] picked up a girl in Berlin and she* was the script girl,
wardrobe and props – all kinds of things. I became associate producer because I
was there. He really made this with his own money. I found out we couldn't
shoot in the locations we picked, so we had to bribe guards at the gates to let
us into all these antiquities. It was hilarious. But it did make its money
back. [Senses of Cinema]"
*That,
it seems likely, would have been Barbara Comeau Bojonell (25
April 1936 – 4 March 2010).
The plot, from The Ryder: "Atlas
stars Michael Forest as the title character, an Olympic wrestler/philosophy
student recruited by the evil Praximedes, Tyrant of Seronikos (Frank Wolff), to
fight the champion of neighboring kingdom Thenis, which is ruled by wise old
Telektos (Andreas Filippides, helping to fill the quota of Green actors in the
film). Atlas takes some convincing, though, which is why Praximedes throws his
ex-lover, high priestess Candia (Barboura Morris), at him. When the film gets
to the battle scenes, they're staged very poorly and edited most chaotically to
cover for the shortage of extras. […]"
Scene Stealers points out,
"In Greek mythology, Atlas was a primordial being that pre-dated Zeus and
his godly brood, and was such a relevant figure within Greek culture that his
etymological reverberations can still be felt today (Atlantic Ocean, a road
atlas, etc.). In Greek myth, Zeus punished Atlas for his defiance following the
war against the Olympians, where Atlas and his fellow Titans lost control of the
universe. Although most of the Titans were confined to Tartarus (a sort of Beta
version of Hell) after the Olympians took over, Atlas was granted special
punishment, and was forced to stand on the western edge of the world and hold
Uranus on his shoulders, thereby keeping the universe in balance. The 1961 Roger
Corman film, Atlas,
[…] there's a big dispute about whether the Atlas character in this film,
played by Michael Forest, was even the proper Atlas of Greek myth.
Corman's film didn't deal with any of the drama surrounding the Titan revolt or
Atlas' eventual punishment, and instead told a different story about a city
under siege and a Thunderdome-style fight to settle the issue. Thing of it is,
even though Michael Forest was a terrible actor, and the low-budget production
values were laughable, the Atlas character in this film was an ass-kicking,
courageous, well-loved figure who eventually won the day for the good
guys."
Frank Wollf,
who plays the bad guy of the movie, Praximedes, started his career with bit
parts in several Roger Corman films, most notably The Wasp Woman (1959), I Mobster (1959) and Ski Troop Attack (1960 / trailer). He remained
in Europe after Atlas and achieved a notable career. Working with directors
such as Sergio Leone (Once Upon a Time
in the West [1968 / trailer]), Sergio
Corbucci (The Great Silence [1968]),
Radley Metzger (The Licorice Quartet
[1970 / trailer below]), Enzo G. Castellari (Kill Them All and Come Back Alone [1968 / trailer] and Cold Eyes of Fear [1971 / trailer]). Unluckily,
he also suffered from depression, so despite his continued success he killed
himself in his room at the Hilton Hotel in Rome in December, 1971.
Trailer
to Radley Metzger's The Licorice
Quartet:
The
Premature Burial
(1962,
dir. Roger Corman)
Dick Miller
plays a grave robber named Mole. The movie, the third of a total of eight
movies Corman was to direct that were based (or at least inspired) by the
public domain works of Edgar Allan Poe (19 Jan 1809 – 7 Oct 1849).
"Poe's
original story, published in 1844, is less a straightforward work of fiction
and more a catalogue of obsession, its unnamed narrator listing the various
incidents in which men and women have been buried alive. As with many of his
other Poe adaptations, Corman uses this as the springboard for a gothic shaggy
dog story, with [Ray] Milland's Guy Carrell driven to extreme ends to conquer
his fear of premature burial. [We Are Cult]"
Here, the tale
was adapted for the screen by Charles Beaumont (2 Jan 1929 – 21 Feb 1967)
and Ray Russell (4 Sept 1924 – 15 March 1999). Ray Russell also wrote William
Castle's Mr. Sardonicus. (1961 / trailer), which was
based on a short story of his own previously published in Playboy, and also scripted the decidedly underappreciated kiddy black
comedy, Terrence Fischer's The Horror of
It All (1964 / music number below). The great Charles Beaumont (born
Charles Leroy Nutt), one of the most influential scriptwriters of the original Twilight Zone (1959-64), also scripted
movies such as The Masque of Red Death (1964) and The Intruder (1962). He
died an early and tragic death: "He suffered from a degenerative aging
disease which gave him, at age 38, the appearance of a centenarian. It has been
speculated that he was suffering simultaneously from Pick's Disease and
early-onset Alzheimer's Disease. A busy and prolific writer for most of his adult
life, he found it virtually impossible to work in his last three years,
although friends sometimes completed work for him without credit. [imdb]"
Pat
Boone sings in
Terrence
Fischer's The Horror of It All:
"Probably
the least of Roger Corman's cycle of Poe movies, The Premature Burial suffers because of its casting; Corman wanted
Vincent Price for the lead — and Price was in all the other seven of the movies
in the series — but because of an attempted split from AIP, Price's contract
was locked up. So he went with Oscar winner Ray Milland (3 Jan 1907 – 10 March
1986), who had been in Billy Wilder's The
Lost Weekend (1945 / trailer), but whose
career had not particularly soared. Of course, Milland is not a bad actor...
just wrong for the role of Guy Carrell, a 'med student' (in his fifties), who
fears falling into a cataleptic state and being buried alive, as he believes
his father was. He's married to pretty Emily (Hazel Court [10 Feb 1926 – 15
April 2008] of Devil Girl from Mars
[1954 / trailer]), but they
don't go on their honeymoon or do much of anything because of his obsession.
Instead, he works on an elaborate tomb that's riddled with secret escape
routes. Because the story was so short, Corman's movie relies on lots of moody,
trippy nightmare sequences as well as a bit of moping. [Combustible Celluloid]"
"The Premature Burialmay lack the stylistic visual
flare we see in some of the later [Corman Poe] movies (The Masque of the Red Death, its
cinematographer a very young Nicholas Roeg, is a particular stand-out), but it
remains an engaging gothic melodrama, and after a fairly slow build-up, its
last act sees the film become a Grand
Guignol revenge tragedy. [We Are Cult]"
"After
striking gold at American International Pictures with a pair of Vincent
Price-starring Poe adaptations, producer-director Roger Corman
decided to go independent for his third Poe outing with a new leading man, Ray
Milland. […] What resulted here was one of the darkest and most subdued entries
in the series, a paranoid character study with a particularly grim twist ending
and a haunting visual aesthetic loaded with craggy trees and endless banks of
fog. […] This definitely isn't a film for newcomers to
the Poe films, who should experience the theatrics of Vincent Price first
before diving into this more challenging and austere production.
There's quite a bit to savor here including a literate screenplay by Charles
Beaumont […] and a terrific music score by Ronald Stein, stepping in for series
regular Les Baxter and offering some of the best music in the AIP catalog.
However, the show is really stolen here by English-born Court, who was already
a horror vet from films like The Man Who
Could Cheat Death (1959 / trailer) and The Curse of Frankenstein (1963). She
turns on the glamour here and makes for a compelling main character, with
demands placed upon her that might have made other actresses balk. [Mondo Digital]"
A.k.a. The Stranger, I Hate Your Guts, and Shame.
Multiple sites online list this Corman movie as a project involving Dick
Miller. But none say in what manner — and we don't remember seeing him anywhere
on screen when saw the movie. But for the benefit of a doubt, we list the movie
here as a "maybe". Click on the linked title above to read what we
had to say about The Intruder, a true rarity of Corman's oeuvre in that it is full out 100% "message
movie"... and lost money when released.
"If
nothing else, X! (which is the actual, on-screen title of the movie) has
long stood as a gem in Corman's crown, and with good reason — it proves itself
to be a minor masterpiece in terms of low-budget filmmaking, as well as being good
science-fiction. [The Bad Movie Report]"
It's one of a wasted life's favorite Corman movies
also. Sure it's cheesy and dated at a few points, but it is also engrossing and
depressing and ends with one of the most downer scenes ever and with a killer
final line of dialogue as icing on the cake. (Perhaps our memory is faulty, but
we seriously remember him screaming the legendary final line that everyone,
including Corman — contrary to what Nick Garris says in his Trailer from Hell commentary below — says
was never filmed.)
As for Dick
Miller: blink and you might miss him. Alongside Jonathon Haze, he heckles the
great Mentallo.
The poster
ain't to shabby, either: "The poster forX: The Man with X-Ray Eyes
raises more questions about X than it probably intended. For instance, why is
he using his new-found powers to look through women's bodies to their bones?
Better yet, why the heck is he checking out that monkey? That's weird even for
a Roger Corman movie. (Topless Robot]"
Definitely more interesting than the watered-down version used for the Golden
Key comic book tie-in.
Based on a
story by Ray Russell, he wrote the screenplay with Robert Dillon, who went to
pen the script a few beach party flicks, including our favorite, Muscle Beach Party (1964 / trailer). Rumor has it
that a remake of The Man with X-Ray Eyes
is in development hellin Hollywood…
perhaps they'll write into a scene the golden oldie from Bauhaus, The Man with X-Ray Eyes?
Bauhaus
sings The Man with
X-Ray Eyes:
At All Movie, Bruce Eder
has the plot: "Dr. James Xavier (Ray Milland of Frogs [1972 / trailer]) is a
brilliant but unorthodox researcher whose work with human sight has yielded an
experimental chemical that may vastly increase the range of what we can see.
Despite the misgivings and warnings of the two people closest to him, Dr. Diane
Fairfax (Diana Van Der Vlis [9 June 1935 – 22 Oct 2001]) and Dr. Sam Brant (Harold
J. Stone [3 March 1913 – 18 Nov 2005] of The
Seven Minutes [1971 / trailer] and The Wrong Man [1956 / trailer]), he uses it
on himself and finds that he is able to look inside the human body in
real-time. This gives him the ability to save the life of a patient in surgery,
but in the process, he offends a top physician (John Hoyt [5 Oct 1904 – 15 Sept
1991] of Attack of the Puppet People
[1958 / trailer], Two on a Guillotine [1965 / trailer], Curse of the Undead [1959 / trailer] and so much
more) and calls his own judgment into question. He won't stop or even slow his
experiments, however, and when Sam is accidentally killed trying to stop him,
he is forced to flee. Soon he is living the life of a hunted man, and is
protected and exploited by Crane (Don Rickles [8 May 1926 – 6 April 2017] of Innocent Blood [1992 / trailer]), a larcenous
carny-man who sets him up as a 'healer' on skid row, taking peoples' pennies
while Xavier makes his diagnoses. After getting away from Crane, Xavier is
found by Diane, who joins him on the run, and by now his own worst nature is
coming to the surface. They head to Las Vegas, where his ability to see through
objects allows him to win at most of the games in front of him, but he is
discovered because of the attention that his 'streak' draws to him. Pursued out
of town, he heads out to the desert, and by now his ability to see transcends
the boundaries of earthly space, leading him to a terrible quandary and a
hideous solution to his plight, inspired by an encounter with a preacher."
"In
probably the only light-hearted sequence in the entire film, Dr. Xavier and
Diane attend a groovy 60s party and after a cute girl asks Dr Xavier to dance
we get a funny sequence where we see that he can see through everyone's clothes
as they dance. […] Ray Milland brings so much intensity to his role as James
Xavier and it's really one of his best performances. The direction by Roger
Corman is so sharply executed. He is continuously finding new imaginative ways
to move the camera and add FX shots to keep the viewer engrossed in the story
going on. This film was made in 1963 on a very low budget without any of
today's modern CGI and it still stands up extremely well. [Grindhouse Cinema Database]"
The
Man with the X-Ray Eyes, oddly enough, was originally released as a
double feature with one of the truly fun and stylish cheap B&W semi-classic
horrors produced by Corman, Francis Ford Coppola's (now public domain) Dementia 13 (1963), starring William Campbell. Dementia 13 was rather pointlessly
remade in 2017 as a body counter with too many subplots, but while hardly as fun
as the original it works well enough in its own digitally sterile, way (trailer).
The current
list of folks who did some directing on this classic bad flick includes Roger
Corman, Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Hale, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill, Dennis Jakob
and Jack Nicholson — it would not be surprising if more names were eventually
added to the list. Dick Miller has a main role, and was later — we're talking
decades here – even brought back by Corman to shoot some new bracketing scenes
to establish an overseas copyright; in doing so, the main narrative becomes an
extended flashback.
Click on the
linked title above or here to go to our
review of a public domain movie that we don't actually find all that good, but
for some reason is always fondly remembered…
When ignoring
all the television productions Dick Miller had already taken part in, and
keeping in mind that the "Richard Miller" found in Will Zens'
laughable no-budget anti-commie trash disasterpiece Capture that Capsule is not the
Dick Miller, then this movie here must be credited as the first feature film
NOT directed by Roger Corman to have Dick Miller in the cast. Miller plays the
important role of "Cop #1" in this beach party flick produced by Gene
"I'm Roger's Brother" Corman and distributed by Paramount Pictures.
"The
running gag [in Beach Ball]
involving Mr. Wolf (James Wellman ) is that he keeps getting caught up in all
the fun fun fun, or else is dosed with nitrous oxide, and always ends up in
some mildly compromising position in the morning, being frowned at by cops! The
cops in this case are one guy I didn't recognize, and the great Dick Miller! Ha
ha, he's as terrific as ever here, taking it smooth and easy and grinning as if
stoned! [Ha ha, it's Burl!]"
Trailer
to
Beach Ball:
Beach
Ball was directed by Lennie Weinrib (April 29, 1935 – June 28, 2006),
a man better known as a voice actor, though he can be found physically acting
in Tales of Terror (1962 / trailer) and Good Times (1966). Beach Ball is one of the three
directorial projects, all beach party films, that Weinrib ever directed; the
other two being Wild Wild Winter [1966, see further below] and Out
of Sight [1966 / trailer].
The musical
acts appearing in Beach Ball are The
Supremes, The Four Seasons, The Rightous Brothers, The Hondells and The Walker
Brothers…. and a band that only exists to drive the plot of the movie, The
Wigglers!
From
the movie:
The
Supremes do Surfer Boy:
Also: "The
film is of no small interest to sixties custom car fans. It features an
exceptionally rare appearance by the famous Silhouette, completed in 1963 by
legendary builder Bill Cushenbery. The bubble-domed car was stolen in
Bakersfield, California in 1983 and has never been found. [imdb]"
The plot:
"To obtain the money, Dick (Edd Byrnes of Reform School Girls [1957 / trailer] and Mankillers [1987 / scene
from a Russian VHS]) tells Susan (Chris Noel), the beautiful but bookish credit
union manager of the college they attend, that he needs a sum to continue his
research in African tribal rhythms. In fact, he and The Wigglers have dropped
out of school and are enjoying life among the surfers and hot rodders at
Malibu. Susan and college finance committee members Deborah (Gail Gilmore aka
Gail Gerber [4 Oct 1937 – 2 March 2014] of Village
of the Giants [1965 / trailer]), Augusta
(Mikki Jamison [13 Nov 1942 – 10 June 2013]*) and Samantha (Brenda Benet [14
Aug 1945 – 7 April 1982]*) uncover the scam and tear up the cheque, but
The Wigglers play a Long Beach (California) custom-car show in drag
and win first prize. Meanwhile, Susan and her girlfriends decide to make
it their mission to bring The Wigglers back to the halls of academia, so they shed
their conservative look and pose as free-spirited beach chicks. Of course, The
Wigglers instantly fall for them. [Nostalgia Central]"
*Tragic
death notations: Retired actress cum real estate agent Mikki Jamison died on 10
June 2013 around 4:00 p.m. in I-da-ho' when the car she was driving crossed over
to the other side of the center line and ran head-on into an on-coming pickup
truck. Brenda Benet, depressed due to personal tragedies, shot herself in the
head in her bathroom on 7 April 1982.
From
the movie: Dick Miller…
and
then The Supremes doing
Beach Ball:
In his book Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First
Wave, 1959–1969, amidst the ten pages he gives the movie, author Thomas
Lisanti writes: "Despite the drubbing it got from the critics and some
beach movie fans, Beach Party is
arguably the breeziest and most enjoyable of the Beach Party [1963 / trailer] clones. It is
also the most blatant ripoff, throwing in everything from surfing, sky diving
and hot rodding to a battle-of-the-bands contest and the guys in drag to match
the zaniness of the AIP beach movies. […] As for the cast, unlike Annette
Funicello [22 Oct 1942 – 8 April 2013] in the Beach Party movies or Noreen Corcoran [20 Oct 1943 – 15 Jan 2016] in
The Girls on the Beach [1965 / see
further below], perky Chris Noel [photo below not from the film] and the other
girls are not afraid to show off their shapely figures in very revealing
bikinis. Pretty blonde Anna Lavelle in particular dons the skimpiest swimsuits
and has some funny moments as the guys' addled-brained beach groupie Polly. The
movie boasts perhaps the most curvaceous set of lead actresses in any surf
movie from the decade. For boy watchers, the guys sport nice physiques,
particularly handsome Robert Logan and blonde Aron Kincaid [15 June 1940
– 6 Jan 2011 of Creature of Destruction
(1967 / full movie)], who gives a
droll performance as ladies' man Jack. Edd Byrnes is definitely too long in the
tooth to make a believable collage guy but he does look good in his swim
trunks."
Two years later, the pulchritudinous Chris Noel was in the unjustly forgotten motorcycle exploiter The Glory Stompers (1967), an over-the-top piece of flotsam that needs
rediscovery.
Trailer to
The Glory
Stompers:
Classic Film is less
enamored by the movie, saying: "The best thing about Beach Ball is that the plot
doesn't get in the way of the music. Plus, it's fun watching Byrnes trying
to act super cool. When a girl asks him to leave the dance floor so they
can chat, he quips: 'Don't bug me, baby. I'm in orbit.'"
Ski
Party
(1965,
dir. Alan Rafkin)
Dick Miller,
uncredited, appears as a taxi driver in yet another movie produced by Gene
"I'm Roger's Brother" Corman, this time for A.I.P.
Basically:
beach blanket bingo goes ski log bingo in this toothless but stupidly entertaining
"teen" riff of Some Like It
Hot (1959 / trailer), but without
gangsters. (By the end of the movie, logically enough, everyone is back at the
beach.) Within the timeline of the nine A.I.P. beach party movies, some see it
this one as the fifth, but seeing that neither Frankie Avalon nor Annette Funicello
play their regular characters of that series, Ski Party is more of a one-off A.I.P "ski bingo" flick
aimed at the same audience.
Trailer
to
Ski Party:
Ski
Party is the first official feature film screenwriter credit for Robert Kaufman (22 March 1931 – 21 Nov
1991), who later wrote Freebie and the
Bean (1974 / trailer) and The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington (1977 / trailer). Director Alan Rafkin (23 July 1928
– 6 Aug 2001) is remembered today as one of the most prolific sitcom directors
of all time; somehow, he also found the time do an occasional inconsequential
movie like this one. The mandatory music acts of the movie are The Hondells,
Lesley Gore (2 May 1946 – 16 Feb 2015), and the great James Brown (3 May
1933 – 25 Dec 2006) & The Famous Flames, but others of the cast sing
songs, too.
In Ski Party, Leslie Gore actually sang a
fluffy little song entitled Sunshine,
Lollipops and Rainbows, but we prefer to present a different song of hers.
Leslie
Gore singing
You Don't Own
Me:
In the book Bikini, Surfing & Beach Party Movies,
Terry Rowan offers the following detailed but at times extremely grammatically
questionable plot description: "Todd Armstrong (Frankie Avalon) and Craig
Gamble (Dwayne Hickman) are California college undergraduates who
unsuccessfully date pretty co-eds Linda Hughes (Deborah Walley [12 Aug 1941 – 10
May 2001], of The Ghost in the Invisible
Bikini [1966 / trailer],
The Bubble [1966/ trailer]
and The Severed Arm [1973 / trailer])
and Barbara Norris (Yvonne "Batgirl" Craig [16 May 1937 – 17 Aug 2015]).
The arrogant, athletic classmate Freddie (Aron Kincaid), who has no problems in
getting a girl and as president of the Ski Club, organizes a midterm vacation
trip to ski country […]. Although they know nothing about skiing, Todd and
Craig follow on the trip to learn the secret of Freddie's technique. Once at
the lodge, they pose as frumpy, non-threatening young English gals, Jane and
Nora who have terrible accents. When not interrupted by a mysterious ice-skating,
yodeling polar bear, or toying with psychologically-imbalanced and
lederhosen-clad lodge manager Mr. Pevney (Robert Q. Lewis [25 April 1920 – 11
Dec 1991], also seen somewhere in Everything
You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask [1972 / trailer]),
they observe the girls in their group up close, to learn how to succeed with
women, and figure out how they have gone wrong. The gorgeous curvy Swedish ski
instructor Nita (Bobbie Shaw Chance of The
Devil and Leroy Bassett [1973 / full film])
gets in the mix of things with Todd. Somehow, after all this fun, they end up
back at Todd's parent's beachfront house, happily together again."
Over at All Movie, Hal Erickson
comments: "Ski Party is
essentially a beach-party flick with snow and capri pants replacing the surf
and bikinis. […] And boy, are Avalon and Hickman a sight in lipstick and high
heels. Avalon's usual vis-a-vis Annette Funicello has a mere guest role here
[as the boys' desirable but modestly dressed biology tutor, Professor Sonya
Roberts], allowing Deborah Walley and Yvonne Craig (below) to supply the pulchritude.
All that's really missing are the usual Beach
Party guest stars: Robert Q. Lewis is hardly a fair exchange for Buster
Keaton (4 Oct 1895 – 1 Feb 1966) and Don Rickles."
Oddly enough,
when Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman teamed up again later that same year for
Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine
(1965 / trailer), they switched their character names: Frankie became
"Craig Gamble" and Dwayne became "Todd Armstrong".
One
might think, "amazingly enough, Dell Comics published a comic book
adaptation of the movie", but Dell published a lot of odd one-shot film
tie-ins back in the sixties. What is amazing, though, is the terrible way Avalon's head is glued to the body in the cover composite.
Filmed mostly
at Sun Valley, in the state
of I da ho' 2 show U a good time.
The
Girls on the Beach
(1965,
dir. William N. Witney)
Over at Ha ha, it's Burt!, Burt says
with a belly laugh: "Dick Miller, who sure does appear in a lot of the
movies I review, ha ha, plays a character with an inexplicable hate for the
Beatles! 'I wish they'd go back to where they came from,' he grouses!
'England?' asks Leo, but Dick shouts 'No, under a rock!' But too bad Dick,
because everyone else in the movie loves those boys from Liverpool, and that
love figures prominently in the plot, or at least in what this picture offers
up in place of a plot, ha ha!" Dick, by the way, despite his lines, is
un-credited as the First Waiter. Ditto the case with the Second Waiter, which
was played by Leo Gordon (2 Dec 1922 – 26 Dec 2000), who years previously
scripted a little film known as Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959).
Trailer to
The
Girls on the Beach:
Scriptwriter
Sam Locke (17 Jan 1917 – 18 Sept 1998), credited as "David Malcolm",
is the same Sam that wrote that other Paramount released beach-blanket-bingo
clone, Beach Ball (1965), but this
time the guy who shouted through the director's megaphone was altmeisterWilliam N. Witney (15 May 1915 –
17 March 2002). According to Wikipedia, "Quentin
Tarantino has singled out Witney as one of his favorite directors and a 'lost
master'." Some of his less fluffy projects include I Escaped from Devil's Island (1973 / trailer),
The Cat Burglar (1961 / full film), The
Bonnie Parker Story (1958 / full film), The Cool and the Crazy (1958 / trailer) and A
Strange Adventure (1956 / trailer).
"A
sorority house is on the brink of financial ruin because the house mother spent
all of their mortgage payment on helping underprivileged people. Now the
sorority has to earn $10,000 in a week and can't stoop to any Cinemax levels of
skeeziness to earn it – though the film gives it the ol' college try. While
a plot does actually exist (no doubt about that), there's a lot more
effort put into capturing the majesty of woman's rear ends than I've seen in
perhaps any other movie that doesn't explicitly mention 'anal' in the title. [The Retro Set]"
The plot description
above fails to mention that The Girls on
the Beach is unique in that it is perhaps the only film revolving around
The Beatles in which The Beatles never appear. Basically: The guys tell the
gals they know The Beatles and the gals organize a fundraiser with The Beatles
as the headlining act. But while the Fab Four doesn't show up in the movie, The
Beach Boys do. The Girls on the Beach also
has the mandatory cross-dressing scene in which the three lead young men dress
up as gals to sneak out of the sorority.
In his book Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First
Wave, 1959-1969, Thomas Lisanti gushes: "as expected from the title,
there are a lot of girls on the beach. A wisecracking little blonde named Gail
Gerber [a.k.a. Gail Gilmore, 4 Oct 1937 – 2 May 2014] stands out as the ditzy,
man-hungry Georgia. Gail is a knockout in her skimpy swimsuit but has stiff
competition from Natalie's younger, sexier sister Lana Wood [seen above, not
from the film, and later found in Satan's
Mistress (1982 / opening)
& Renovation (2010 / trailer)]
as the girl in the gold lame bikini and Anna Capri [6 July 1944 – 19 Aug 2010,
of William Gibson's Piranha Piranha
(1972 / trailer),
The Brotherhood of Satan (1971 / trailer)
and Enter the Dragon (1973 / trailer,
with Jim Kelly)]
as the curvaceous, busty Arlene. The female lead, Noreen Corcoran [2 Oct 1943 –
15 Jan 2016], is cute with dyed blonde hair, but she comes across as stilted
and uncomfortable clad in some of the ugliest swimsuits ever to appear on the
California coast. Linda Marshall as Cynthia spends most of the movie
ridiculously draped in a towel that she carries around with her. She's the
female Linus Van Pelt of the beach set. As the trio of lothario surfers, hunky
Martin West [of Assault on Precinct 13
(1976 / trailer)
and Hellhole (1985/ trailer)]
is fine as the leader, handsome blonde Aron Kincaid shows comedic promise, and
pretty boy Steve Rogers [of Angels from
Hell (1968 / trailer)]
with his striking dark features and penetrating crystal blue eyes has a
disarming charm about him. It's a pity that the guys aren't shirtless more
often."
Best
song of the movie?
Appropriately enough — Not! — Paramount sent The Girls on the Beach out as part of a double bill with the
western, Young Fury (1965 / full movie).
The
Wild Angels
(1966,
dir. Roger Corman)
Groovy poster.
"Another Peter Fonda flick, 1966's Wild Angels also starred Nancy Sinatra and became
Corman's first entry into the then-popular genre of motorcycle gang movies. The
resulting poster looks like it should be the cover to the most epic biker gang
comic book of all time. [Topless Robot]"Personally, here at a wasted life, we prefer the Italo version found a bitter further below.
Some claim that
Corman started the 60s' motorcycle flick craze, but if anything he simply made
the most influential one. Ignoring Kenneth Anger's experimental short Scorpio Rising (1963 / film)
for being a short, and the British flick The
Leather Boys (1964 / trailer)
for being more kitchen sink realism than motorcycle, there's still the Russ
Meyer roughie Motorcycho (1965 / opening credits,
with Haji)
with its mini-motorbike gang. That said, The
Wild Angels is arguably the first motorcycle "classic" made after
The Wild One (1953 / trailer), although we
personally think that Born Losers
(1967 / trailer) is the better
movie (it's only flaw being that Billy Jack doesn't die).
The story has
it that in 1966 Corman saw a photo of the Hell's Angels in a copy if Life magazine and decided to make a
motorcycle flick, once again getting Charles B. Griffith to do the screenplay.
Unsatisfied with what Griffith turned in, Corman had Peter Bogdanovich do a
rewrte. Griffith later said, "Everybody who worked on it threw things in
of their own choosing, including Peter Bogdanovich and Peter Fonda, who had
thrown in a lot of the psychedelic stuff that was later cut back. Fonda also
changed his name to Heavenly Blues.* It was a mess. […] The Dick Miller scene
at the oil well, for instance — which was supposed to be played by Fonda, when
George Chakiris* was in the lead — Roger moved everybody up one role when he
wouldn't ride the motorcycle. Dick was given dialogue. In my version, the guys
come up the tower and Miller's character [Rigger] sees their uniforms and says,
'You guys Hells' Angels?', and Loser [Bruce Dern] pulls up his shirtsleeves to
a close-up on a tattoo. And that was the end of the scene. But no, Dick had to
go into this speech about Anzio. I don't know if Dick wrote that; maybe it was
Barboura Morris or Bogdanovich. Anyway, it was a whole long bullshit scene. I
told Roger to 'Take my name off of it before you make the titles', but he told
me he already had! And he was enraged with me for wanting to. [Senses of Cinema]"
*"George
Chakiris was originally hired by Roger Corman to play 'Black Jack' (later
changed to 'Heavenly Blues' by Peter Fonda), but insisted that a stunt double
do his motorcycle riding, so Corman replaced him with Fonda, who was originally
cast as 'Loser'. [imdb]"
In any event,
at AV Club Corman says
his intentions with The Wild Angels
were as follows: "To really do this right, it can't be like The Wild One, which is the town's
reaction to these bad guys. It's got to be from the story of the bad guys, and
they can't be 100 percent bad, because nobody is 100 percent bad,* at least
nobody short of extreme psychosis. So I didn't want to portray them
sympathetically. It was a job simply of honestly portraying the Hells Angels
and their position in society. I saw them as the beginning of the
rebelliousness of the 1960s. The hippies came a little bit later, and the
movement into the streets from the college kids, but it really started, I
think, with the working-class kids who didn't fit into high society, and knew
it."
*Yep,
remember: even men who rape women are not 100% bad… Say what? Oh, wait — let's
let Cult Movies try
to clarify this: "[The Wild Angels]
is a remarkably hard-hitting film. There are several rapes, a church gets
trashed during a funeral service, a preacher is beaten up, and there's plenty
of other incidental violence. Not all the violence is committed by the bikers
either — the police are shown as being disturbingly willing to gun down people
who are unarmed. The movie doesn't flinch from examining the belief systems
that motivate Blues and his pals — they not only wear the symbols of fascism,
such as swastikas, they live out a fascist fantasy of power, violence and
nihilism. But at the same time the movie doesn't merely demonise them. They
have a dream of freedom, and their behaviour is a weird mix of loyalty and
viciousness, of idealism and selfishness. When Blues is asked what he believes
in, and can come up with nothing better than vague mumblings about freedom and
the right to get loaded, we can see his awareness of his own tragedy, that he
knows the emptiness of his own rhetoric. His alienation is complete, and it's
real. He isn't evil — he simply doesn't have enough awareness to be evil."
Long live the patriarchy...
The plot:
"Peter Fonda stars as 'Blues', the leader of a San Pedro chapter of
bikers. As the movie starts, they ride to the desert to find a stolen bike
belonging to 'Loser' (Bruce Dern). There's a fight, the cops arrive, and the
Angels try to escape, but Loser is caught by the police, shot, and goes to the
hospital. The Angels try to break him out, but he dies. They take Loser's body
to his hometown and attempt to have a church funeral for him, but it quickly
degenerates into a violent 'orgy.' […] The movie ends as the Angels stage a
funeral procession and bring the body to the graveyard; the locals begin
attacking the Angels, and Blues makes a final stand. Nancy Sinatra was cast as
Fonda's girl, though she really doesn't have much to do. Diane Ladd plays
Dern's lover [Gayish], as she was in real life (their daughter, Laura Dern, was
probably conceived around this time). [Combustible Celluloid]" Is this
the right place to mention that in the film, during Loser's funeral, two not
"100% bad" Angels drug and rape Loser's widowed lover, Gayish?
After Beach Ball (1965, see further above), the
second (and last) Sam Locke-written, Lennie Weinrib-directed flick to feature
Dick Miller in a small part, this time some guy named Rilk. Other cast
returnees from Beach Ball are Chris
Noel (named Susan in both films), Don Edmonds and James Wellman.
Like Alan
Rafkin's Ski Party (1965, see above),
this is a beach blanket bingo flick on the ski slopes... the last of a total of
four (non-related) ski-bingo flicks that includes the previously mentioned Ski Party and Get Yourself a College Girl (1964 / trailer)
and Winter
A-Go-Go (1965 / trailer).
As fitting for a final and weak effort, the music to Wild Wild Winter is mostly toothless and forgettable, even for the
genre.
The
Astronauts in Wild Wild Winter
doing
A Change of Heart:
Wild
Wild Winter seems never to have gotten either a VHS or DVD release, and is
thus so obscure that at the moment (25.02.2019) it doesn't even have one
External Review listed at the imdb,
though it does have two User Reviews, one which, by KHawley-2, says:
"I'm pretty confident this wasn't an Oscar contender in it's [sic] day,
but it was actually kind of funny in a retro sort of way. College students?
Most of the guys in this movie look old enough to be parents of college
students. Sit back, don't expect too much, and stay tuned for the bear at the
end of the movie."
Luckily,
however, there are books out there about movies like this one, including Tom Lisanti's Drive-in
Dream Girls: A Galaxy of B-Movie Starlets of the Sixties, which says:
"[Suzie] Kaye (2 Sept 1941 – 5 March 2008) gives a sprightly performance
(Variety called her 'a cutie') as Sandy, a coed and member of a sorority headed
by the prim Susan (Chris Noel, seen above not from this film), who instructs her Zeta-Theta sisters to
distrust men because all they want is a 'hi and a goodbye.'*
Long-in-the-tooth Gary Clarke ('He looks like our father,' laughs Suzie) was
cast as Lonnie, a surfer bum and ladies man who is coaxed to leave the shores
of Malibu to attend Alpine University by his friends Burt (Don Edmonds [1 Sept
1937 – 30 May 2009]) and Perry (Steve Rogers). The plan is for Lonnie to
romance and distract Susan so they could move in on her friends. Sandy and Dot
(Vicky Albright). Of course, Susan eventually uncovers Lonnie's ruse and he is
forced to participate in a championship ski contest against her snobbish
boyfriend John (Steve Franken [27 May 1932 – 24 Aug 2012]). Lonnie wins the
competition by fluke and gains the love of Susan."
*Actually,
between the two most men also want to get laid, or at least get a blowjob… though
some are satisfied with a simple handjob.
Dick
and Dee Dee in Wild Wild Winter
doing
Heartbeats:
Gary Clarke was
once married to Babe of Yesteryear Pat Woodell (12 July 1944 – 19 Sept 2015), with
whom he appears in Class of '74 (1972 / trailer).
Chris Noel survived The Glory Stompers (1967
/ trailer further above somewhere) and Vietnam to do The Tormentors (1971 / trailer), but the true
name of note of the cast — other than Dick Miller, that is — is of course Don Edmonds, still in his
"teen film actor" days. Today, his name is fondly remembered as that
of a director and producer of numerous socially un-redeeming trash classics.
His first directorial effort was Wild Honey
(1972, with the great Uschi Digard), but the
films that made his name are of course the two Dyanne Thorne anti-classics Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975 / trailer) and Ilsa,
Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976 / trailer, with Haji). Here's an interview with the man... If you
don't know his trash, you should.
The
Trip
(1967,
dir. Roger Corman)
Look at that
great Italian poster! "For some reason, the American version of the poster
for the LSD-fueled Peter Fonda movie The
Trip was presented in mostly black and white. Luckily, the
Italians know how to fix things and added some psychedelic color to the mix as
well as an image of Fonda either super high or… being serviced. Or maybe both!
Probably both. [Topless Robot]" The Danish poster below ain't too shabby, either.
Dick Miller, in
any event, fills in the scenery briefly as a bartender named Cash in yet
another Roger Corman movie, this one written by no one less than Jack Nicholson.
Personally, we
here at a wasted life tend to agree
with kakkarot at the imdb, who way back on 27 November 2000
wrote: "[…] Overall, this is an entertaining little time capsule filled
with twists and old film techniques. But I still cannot stress enough the
arrogance of a man who tries to capture an LSD trip on camera for the silver
screen. Even though the film did do moderately well at the box-office (for
1967, that is), mind-expansion enthusiasts, like myself, might find the LSD
depictions to be a bit funny at times, and the dialogue to be typical for a
film of its kind. […]" That said, we here at a wasted life also must mention we prefer mushrooms to acid, any
day.
Trailers from Hell offer some
trivia: "Writer Jack Nicholson and star Peter Fonda
told Roger Corman he couldn't make a movie about LSD without trying it at least
once. So Roger took a caravan of pals to Big Sur, where he dutifully dropped
acid and communed with the elements. Out of it all came his most personal and
revealing film, a pop art time capsule that was banned in Britain for nearly a
decade."*
And of course…
The
Trailer to
The Trip:
*About
his experience, RC says at AV Club:
"I had nothing but a
wonderful experience. I went up to Big Sur — I remember Timothy Leary saying
'Go someplace beautiful with people you know and try to drop the acid,' as we
used to say 'in such a setting' — so I went up to Big Sur, and I was the
straightest guy in a fairly wild crowd, so when people heard I was taking it,
so many other people evidently felt that 'If Rog can do this, it's okay. We'll
try it, too.' We had a caravan of cars going up to Big Sur, and we actually had
to work out a schedule as to who would be under the influence of acid while one
person would be watching them, who would be the straight person to make sure
that nothing went wrong. We actually worked out the equivalent of a production
schedule."
Pop Matters
has the non-existent plot: "The story has Peter Fonda as Paul, a
self-centered commercial director in the midst of a divorce from Sally (Susan Strasberg
[22 May 1938 – 21 Jan 1999]). He's decided to take an LSD trip to find out
something about himself. He scores some hits from Max (Dennis Hopper [17 May
1936 – 29 May 2010], of Red Rock West [1993]) and with John (creepy Bruce Dern, of The Glass House
[2001]) as his guide, prepares to 'flow to the center of everything'."
While tripping, Paul flees from the creepy John when John goes to get some
juice. He then wanders around LA; this is when he runs into various Corman
regulars like Miller, Barboura Morris and Luana Anders (12 May 1938 – 21 July
1996).
"Things
improve during the second half […]. During this time Paul escapes from the home
he is in and goes out onto the city streets. The editing and effects here are
impressive and ahead of its time. Some of the visits he has with the people he
meets prove interesting including an offbeat conversation that he has with a
lady that he meets inside a Laundromat (Barboura Morris) as well as one he has
with a very young girl inside her house. […] Fonda's performance was pretty
good and this may be one of the best roles of his career. Strasberg who
receives second billing appears just briefly and has very few speaking lines.
Dern is always fun when he is playing eccentric or intense characters, but here
where he is playing a relatively normal one he is boring. […] I was expecting
some sort of tragic or profound-like ending […]. However, nothing really
happens. The movie just kind of stops and that is it. The weak conclusion hurts
what is already a so-so film making it like the drug itself an interesting
experiment, but nothing more. [Scopophilia]"
"The band
in the club near the beginning is the International Submarine Band, featuring Gram
Parsons (5 Nov 1946 – 19 Sept 1973) on vocals. However,
their early country-rock sounds were removed and the psychedelic sounds of The
Electric Flag were dubbed into the film." Most people who see the film
seem to find Electric Flag's music a drag, ala Acidemic,
which grumbles "Who wants to begin to crash after a wild night like that
while forced to endure stock recording kazoo-driven dixieland jazz? Coming from
the oddly named 'American Music Band' [aka The Electric Flag] some tracks sound
like Corman fished them out of the trash at a high school pep rally, the sort
of thing Otto Preminger might put in Skiddoo
(1968 / trailer),
the kind of stuff Kevin Spacey might play to torture prisoners in The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009 /
trailer).
I love Louis Armstrong and Memphis Jug Band as much as the next stoner, don't
get me wrong, but not when the same style is generic and tone deaf to the
moment. My guess is Corman grabbed it from a royalty-free sound library where
it was used as the score for Harold Loyd silents that used to be on TV with
'BOinggg!'-style sound effects added. It was probably the last track on the
record and he just forgot to turn it off."
The key member
of The Electric Flag was the talented Michael Bloomfield (28 July 1943 – 15 Feb
1981) who, prior to ending his heroin-addicted life as an uncredited composer
of porn-flick soundtracks — for example, for the Mitchell Brothers
shorts Hot Nazis (1973),Rampaging Dental Assistants(1973) and Marzoff and Day (1974) and
the weirdness that is their feature film, Sodom and Gomorrah: The Last Seven Day (1975 / full NSFW movie) — and being found dead locked in his Mercedes, took part in the
superlative Super Session with
Al Kooper. Oddly enough, he doesn't play guitar on the album's best song.
Season of the
Witch,
from
Super Session:
Oh, by the way:
"AIP honchos Sam Arkoff and James Nicholson
tacked on that opening disclaimer, as well as superimposing a 'cracked glass'
effect over Fonda's face in the film's final shot, implying he'd been
permanently damaged by the experience. This pissed Corman off,
and after they later butchered his 1969 satire GAS-S-S-S! (trailer), he struck
out on his own and formed New World Pictures, where he and others could
enjoy artistic freedom (on a low-budget, of course). [Cracked Rear Viewer]"
A
Time for Killing
(1967,
dir. Phil Karlson & Roger Corman)
Roger Corman
tried to go "mainstream" with the majors, and after a lot of back and forth
he had a three-film deal with Columbia and the approval to do this western
based on the novel The Southern Blade
by Nelson and Shirley Wolford, to be filmed as The Long Ride Home, the title under which it was released in the
UK.
Filming started in June 1966 in one of the most beautiful counties of the
US, Kane County, Utah, and by the end of the month Corman rode off into the sunset
to return to the freedom of being an independent filmmaker and the eternally underappreciated
Phil Karlson (2 July 1908 – 12 Dec 1985) was pulled in to finish the movie.
Karlson is probably best remembered, if at all, as the director of the
mainstream trash Walking Tall (1973
/ trailer)
and Ben (1972 / trailer),
but his true forte was B&W film noirs like Kansas City Confidential
(1952) or 99 River Street (1953 / trailer)
or Phenix City Story (1955 / scene).
Michael "I Like Kids" Jackson sings
Ben, a love song to a rat:
Trivia: Harrison
Ford has his first credited film role in this movie, listed as "Harrison
J. Ford" At that point in time, he needed the middle initial to legally
differentiate himself from the long-since forgotten silent film actor, Harrison
Ford (16 March 1884 – 2 Dec 1957). Dick Miller as appears as someone named
Zollicoffer — the photo below is him in character.
A
Time for Killing was not a hit and has unjustly remained a relatively obscure
flick. At Ozus' World Movie Reviews,
Dennis Schwartz has the plot: "Nearing the end of the bloody Civil War,
after four years, Confederate prisoners led by Captain Bentley (George
Hamilton) escape from Fort Hawkes, Utah. On the run, heading for the Mexican
border, the deceitful Bentley, vowing that the war will never end for him,
ambushes a detail of Union soldiers and take as hostage the attractive Emily
Biddle (Inger Stevens [18 Oct 1934 – 30 April 1970]* of Hang 'em High [1968 / trailer]),
a missionary engaged to the fort's second-in-command, Maj. Tom Wolcott (Glenn
Ford [1 May 1916 – 30 Aug 2006]). The obstinate Col. Harries (Emile Meyer [18
Aug 1910 – 19 March 1987]) orders the reluctant Wolcott to take a detail and go
after the Rebs, even as Wolcott reasons with his commander that the war is
almost over and even if the Rebs are caught they'll soon be released. The Rebs
hole up in a Mexican bordello in the Arizona badlands, near the Mexican border.
Instead of escaping or returning home, madman Bentley waits for the Union
soldiers to catch up and has his sadist sergeant, Luther Liskell (Max Baer of Macon County Line [1974 / trailer]),
kill the Union dispatch rider carrying the news that the war is over. It
results in the lives of soldiers on both sides killed unnecessarily and of the
Major illegally crossing the border into Mexico to defend the honor of his
missionary girlfriend who was raped and beaten by Bentley."
*For whatever reasons, Inger Stevens killed
herself. Unrelated to that fact, in 1961 in TJ, she secretly married Ike Jones (23
Dec 1929 – 5 Oct 2014), "the first African American to graduate from
UCLA's School of Theatre, Film, and Television". That was a good six years
before interracial marriage was ruled legal by the Supreme Court in 1967. They
kept the marriage secret so as not to ruin her career.
Trailer to
A Time for
Killing:
"[A Time for Killing] a pretty violent movie, that's for sure, with lots of popguns firing
wildly! It's no The Wild Bunch (1969
/ trailer),
but there's still plenty of tomato paste! In the middle of all that, and amidst
the brooding, the rape, the thirst for revenge, sits a pair of comic
performances from [Dick] Miller and [Kay E.] Kuter! Ha ha, they're pretty funny
guys, and it's a welcome sight whenever these two scalawags appear on the
screen! [Ha ha, it's Burl!]"
Not everyone
agrees with Burl, however. Mondo 70,
for example, seethes: "[Roger Corman's] frequent stooge Dick Miller stuck
around in an annoying comic-relief role as a cowardly Union soldier that may
have been part of the original conception. If anything, Brown must have wanted
more of Miller; there are blatant studio pick-up shots of him and his comedy
partner that muck up the pacing that Karlson was supposed to improve. Their
pathetic comedy seems increasingly out-of-place as the story turns darker and
darker. Meanwhile, the best-known comic performer in the cast, Max Baer Jr. of The
Beverly Hillbillies (1962-71), turns in a once-in-a-lifetime turn as an
unhinged Reb, one of a band breaking out of a western prison camp days before
the end of the Civil War. This psycho loves fighting and killing for their own
sakes, and is almost as likely to pick fights with or kill his own comrades as
he is to fight the pursuing Union troops led by star Glenn Ford. Baer is
skyrocketing over the top, and yet he's topped by his character's commander, a
Confederate officer played by George Hamilton in a once-in-a-lifetime
channeling of pure evil. […] Also in the eclectic cast are (Harry) Dean Stanton
as one of the more reasonable Rebs and Timothy Carey as an arrogant Union
sharpshooter."
Go here
for some non-embeddable behind the scenes film footage of Dick Miller, Timothy
Carey, Roger Corman and others on set at
A Time for Killing.
The
St Valentine's Day Massacre
(1967,
dir. Roger Corman)
Dick Miller
makes an uncredited but not completely blink-and-you-miss-him appearance in a less than total blink-and-you-miss-him
part as "Gangster Dressed as a Cop", image below, one of the
triggermen at the famous Chicago gangland hit that gives this film its title.
The
hit of seven members of George "Bugs" Moran's
Northside Gang on 14 February 1929, so famously copied in the opening of Billy
Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959 /
trailer), is believed
to have been ordered by Al Capone and can be seen as the beginning of his end
as it finally turned popular opinion against him.
The
St Valentine's Day Massacre is one of Roger Corman's rare jobs for a
major Hollywood studio, in this case Twentieth Century Fox, and he famously
came in $400,000 under budget (and even complained that
had he worked outside of the Hollywood system, he could have saved even more
money). The movie is loosely based on an earlier version of the same tale
entitledSeven Against The Wall, broadcast on CBS's Playhouse 90 (1956-61) in December
1958; the movie, like the TV version, was scripted by semi-forgotten mystery
scribe turned TV writer, Howard Browne
(15 April 1908 – 28 Oct 1999).
A man who knew his mettle, Brown's only other two
feature-film credits are Portrait of a
Mobster (1961) and Capone (1975
/ trailer),
the latter of which even incorporates material from The
St Valentine's Day Massacre (but then, it was coproduced by Corman). In 2009, the British film glossy Empire
listed the movie #7 on its list of "The 20 Greatest Gangster Movies You've
Probably Never Seen". (Have you seen it? We haven't.) Dick Miller,by the way, shows up as one of the fake cops that guns everyone down at the titular massacre.
"A simple
way to describe The St. Valentine's Day
Massacre is that it is an old gangster film spiced up with some modern
violence. Its docudrama approach […] gives it the feel of a newsreel brought to
life, and Roger Corman's slick direction gives it that shot-on-the-backlot look
that conjures up memories of The Roaring
Twenties (1939 / trailer)
and The Public Enemy (1931 / trailer).*
However, the film amps up the casual brutality common to these films […] and
the event alluded to in the title is handled in a memorably grisly and brutal
fashion. Thankfully, this 'best of both worlds' approach works well and makes The St. Valentine's Day Massacre a
rousing crime film. The script delivers a dizzying array of double-crosses and
action set pieces, and Corman's direction gives it the snappy pace it needs.
Best of all, it's got a fantastic cast that dives into the material with gusto:
George Segal is gleefully nasty as a tough-guy enforcer Peter Gusenberg and Jason
Robards (26 July 1922 – 26 Dec 2000, of Murders
in the Rue Morgue[1971 / trailer, with Herbert Lom) gives a bombastic, scenery-devouring turn as Al Capone. It all adds
up to fast, brutal fun that is well worth a look for fans of old-school crime
films. [Donald Guarisco @ All Movie]"
*A film rarely screened today, The Public Enemy has one of the best,
and hardest, endings ever put on film. One wonders why Q.T. hasn't worked it into one of his films, yet.
"Told in a
straightforward, almost documentarian style by an omniscient no-nonsense
narrator (Paul Frees [22 June 1920 – 2 Nov 1986]), the film provides a great
deal of both insight and drama on the many events and key personalities that
lead to a violent conclusion which is also serves as the film's title. Corman
takes time to flesh out many real-life characters on both sides of the
conflict, so when the violence erupts, those impacted aren't simply faceless
gangsters but real people. [cinapse]"
A manly film
full of manly men, the only female role of note in the movie is that of the
gangster mole Myrtle, played by Jean Hale (above). A fact we mention only so we
have an excuse to embed a murder from her feature-film debut, the Del[bert] Tenney produced Violent
Midnight aka Psychomania (1963),
also featuring James Farentino.
Murder! in
Violent Midnight:
The
Dirty Dozen
(1967,
dir. Robert Aldrich)
Ok, here Dick
Miller truly does a blink-and-you-miss-him appearance, uncredited, as "MP
at hanging" in this "classic", the granddaddy of all
groups-gathered-to-die-while-executing-an-impossible-mission movie. Although
there is surely a more recent offering of the genre out there, the most recent
one that pops in our heads being Quentin Tarantino's
war fantasy Inglourious Basterds (2009 / trailer), itself
inspired by Enzo G. Castellari's Italo-version of
Aldrich's tale, The Inglorious Bastards (1977 / trailer).
Trailer
to
The Dirty Dozen:
"[The Dirty Dozen was one of] the biggest boxoffice hit[s] of 1967 [and] led to scores of
imitations, remakes and sequels. Robert Aldrich's brutal action film was highly
criticized at the time for its excessive violence and general air of nihilism,
but has remained an audience favorite through the decades. Yet Roger Corman got
there first with a more modest version of the same story, The Secret Invasion (1964 / trailer further below).[Trailers from Hell]"
We here at a wasted life admit that we've fallen
asleep both times we tried to watch the (probably) butchered version of The Dirty Dozen we caught on late-night
television, but many people find this war movie exciting; many people even call
it a classic. About the most interesting thing we found about the movie was the
once-innovative trick of not showing any credits until after a long pre-credit
sequence, something not commonly done prior to this movie. The cast is pretty
cool, too… maybe one day we'll give it a go on DVD, thus without commercial
breaks, and re-evolve our opinion of the movie. (Current view: it's a snoozer.)
Trailer
to
The Secret
Invasion:
Based on the
novel by E.M. Nathanson (17 Feb 1928 – 5 April 2016), a pal of the
great Russ Meyer (21 March 1922 – 18 Sept 2004). E.M.
Nathanson even participated in Meyer's early nudie-cutie, The Immoral Mr Teas (1959 / full movie).
The screenplay, however, was written by Nunnally Johnson (5 Dec 1897 – 25 March
1977) and Lukas Heller (21 July 1930 – 2 Nov 1988), the former a
Golden Age Hollywood screenwriter of note (for example, The Woman in the Window [1944 / full PD movie]),
the latter, whose first job seems to have been "additional dialogue"
for the Brit film Sapphire
(1959), eventually became a regular scribe for director Robert Aldrich (9 Aug
1918 – 5 Dec 1983). The Dirty Dozen
eventually begat a TV franchise of three TV movies — The Dirty Dozen: Next
Mission (1985 / trailer),
The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission (1987
/ trailer)
and The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission (1988
/ German trailer)
— as well as an unsuccessful and sanitized TV series, The Dirty Dozen, that lasted only one season (1988).
When the
original film came out back in 1967, Dell
Comics published a comic book version (estimated current value: $65.00 [Comic Book Realm]).
The plot: "Lee
Marvin plays Major Reisman, an American army officer posted on British soil
during WWII. He is brought in front of Generals Worden (Ernest Borgnine) and
Denton (Robert Webber) who, in light of his dubious conduct in service, decide
to hand him an inordinately difficult assignment: to train 12 court-martialled
soldiers (most of whom are awaiting the noose) for a mission involving
infiltrating a chateau in Rennes, France, and assassinating a number of
high-ranking German officers who occupy the building. In exchange, their sentences
will be reviewed. With the help of Sergeant Bowren (Richard Jaeckel [of Day of the Animals (1977)]), Reisman uses his unorthodox
approach to discipline to whip the unruly ragtag bunch into shape. However, his
efforts face challenges as he butts heads with one particularly defiant
subordinate by the name of Victor Franko (John Cassavetes [9 Dec 1929 – 3 Feb
1989]) and an uptight superior officer named Colonel Breed (Robert Ryan) whom
he crosses paths with. [Cinema's Fringes]"
"There is a
plodding and unnecessary segment in the middle where the dozen plays war games
against a rival officer's squad to show their worth that could have been left
out, but the opening recruiting segment, the training sequence, and especially
the daring raid at the end are spectacular. The Dirty Dozen is an exciting war film that provides evidence
supporting Truffaut's assertion [that 'it's not possible to make an anti-war
film because all war movies end up making war seem like fun']. [Andy's Film Blog]"
The original
poster was done by Frank McCarthy
(30 March 1924 — 17 November 2002). A successful American illustrator and
artist, he left the commercial arts biz somewhere between 1968 and 74 (online
sites disagree) to retreat to Sedona, Arizona, to
become an artist specializing in scenes of the "Old West".
Of all the manly
men on the ensemble cast, only one ever posed for Playgirl: former football player Jim Brown (of Mars Attacks [1996 / trailer]),
who plays one of the more likeable and less-guilty of the characters, did the
September 1974 centerfold, a photo of which we present below for your viewing
pleasure. (If anyone out there happens to have a nude shot of The Dirty Dozen's manly
Clint Walker, please
send. That's him above with Jim Brown and one Playboy's all-time sexiest centerfold bunnies, Dolly Read, who went on to star in Russ Meyer's camp classic, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls [1970 / trailer])
The Devil's Angels
(1967, dir. Daniel Haller)
A.k.a. The Checkered Flag — "Big bad
bikers butt heads with a small-town sheriff in this bargain-basement
sleaze-fest. [Sandra Brennan]"
We see this movie as
the one that got away: "Dick Miller started on this movie, but he was
recast after a bike crash left him with several broken ribs. [imdb]"
So let's look at a movie that doesn't have Dick Miller in it, but should have…
VHS Trailer to
The Devil's
Angels:
Plot: "A
member (Buck Kartalian [13 Aug 1922 – 24 May 2016], photo below not from the
film]) of The Skulls motorcycle gang kills someone in a hit-and-run accident.
He seeks refuge with gang leader John Cassavetes, who yearns for the good old
days. At one time their gang was two hundred members strong. Now they are less
than thirty. He decides the gang needs to find a small place they can call
their own. They saunter into a small town, not wanting to make a fuss (well,
they still steal and stuff, but it's pretty low key for them). The sheriff (Leo
Gordon [2 Dec 1922 – 26 Dec 2000] of The Intruder[1962],Nashville
Girl [1976 / trailer]
and Son of Hitler [1978 / first ten minutes])
tells them they have to leave town, but they can camp out on a nearby beach if
they can maintain the peace. A young local girl (Mimsy Farmer) sneaks out to
party with them and gets stoned out of her mind. She runs home and says the
(mostly) innocent bikers raped her. The locals come after The Skulls and
Cassavetes calls in reinforcements in the form of a giant biker gang. They take
over the town and put the officials on trial. In the end, the bikers destroy
the town while the disillusioned Cassavetes rides off alone. [Video Vacuum]"
Over at Senses of Cinema, scriptwriter
Charles B. Griffith once said: "They hired
John Cassavetes, of all people. I was called into his hotel and he says, 'What
the fuck is this shit?!', and I just say, 'Well, we wrote it last weekend in La
Jolla and I didn't know you were going to be in it. If I'd known you were going
to be in it, I would have shot myself!' [Laughs.] So he says, 'Fix this, fix
this, fix this' and so I fix those and that was it. The changes did suit him
and his acting ability. We never had anybody who could do what he could do.
Then Roger blamed me, saying I made a better motorcycle picture for Danny
Haller than him. I told him no, that was Cassavetes giving orders! […] Cassavetes
definitely improved it all."
Also in the cast: former Italo-Americab weight trainer and B & C film bit part player Buck Kartalian (13 Aug 1922 – 24 May 2016) — the photo of him below is not from the fim.
"It's a fun
biker flick with a strong cast and a thought-provoking story. If you're a biker
film fanatic or just a fan of AIP/Roger Corman in general, I definitely
recommend checking it out. [Cinema Retro]"
In any event, with Twilight of the Dogs, we have something
rare: a movie that truly seems not worth writing about. But, shit: if a donkey
dick-sucking toadstool incapable of telling the truth can make it to the White
House, we can surely manage to write a review of a movie not worth writing
about.
When it comes to what Twilight of the Dogs is about, the plot
description found all over the web is right: "One upon a time in the
future... a man and his cow fight against an evil cult leader." That said,
the flick isn't half as interesting as that description makes it sound.
We don't know who played the cow
(Melania?) but the man in question, "Sam Asgard", is played by sci-fi
author and no-budget filmmaker Tim Sullivan, who did a much better acting job
in his acting debut, the almost as atrocious horror flick, The Laughing Dead
(1989). Sullivan also scripted Twilight
of the Dogs, which initially might seem odd since Sullivan is an avowed
atheist and the movie is extremely religion-obsessed. But then, the main
religion of the movie, led by a power-hungry and blood-thirsty megalomaniac
named 
* The director of the hard to
find non-masterpieces I Was a Teenage Mummy [1962] and The Kid and the Killers [1974], not to mention Robby [1968 / trailer],
a movie often screened at NAMBLA
conventions.
Okay, but to return to the
technical aspects as experienced while watching the DVD. If we were to say that
the cinematography Twilight of the Dogs was
a masterful example of clarity, of the interplay and contrast of dark and
light, foreground and background, of effective day-for-night shots, of a deep
understanding of the capabilities of the cinematic form and the full expressive
possibilities of a convincing mise-en-scene, we would be lying. As much as our president.
Rest assured, the cinematography is a muddy mess and much of the movie — basically
any scene taking place at night or inside unlit buildings — is a visually mucky,
incomprehensible mess. (For the sake of doubt, however, let's blame it on the
transfer. But the suck-ass editing probably isn't due to the transfer, it's due
to how the flick was made.)
