KILLER TONGUE (aka La lengua asesina, 1996)

Before she became network TV’s go-to dominatrix, Melinda “Mindy” Clarke gnawed her way into the hearts of horror fans as, aguably, cinema’s first sexy zombie, Julie, in Brian Yuzna’s Return of the Living Dead 3. The movie’s poster ghoul, “Julie”, was the ultimate gothy pierced princess and in 1993 her image graced the covers of countless horror magazines, the zombie equivalent of The IT Girl. Clarke followed this iconic role with appearances in other cult hits like Xena: Warrior Princess, Firefly, and the mainstream obsessional CSI (as Gus Grissom’s personal top, “Lady Heather”). 

But before becoming a genre darling, the actress-formerly-known-as-“Mindy” took a delightful side trip to Spain to star in the indescribably goofy La lengua asesina—better known to English speakers as Killer Tongue.

“I know now I should have listened to my mother. And I should have followed her ways. Stayed in our nice harmonious little town in Sombreroland. And become a straight and untroubled, well-respected Valium-bound husband-killer alcoholic. Then cook my head like a turkey in a gas oven on a beautiful Thanksgiving day. Just like she did. But now it’s too late. And anyway things don’t come that easy any more. It all started four years ago with a heist… and a kiss.”

After puling a bank job and betraying their accomplices (Chip and Frank, leaving them tied up with their lips glued together in a painful-to-remove kiss), Johnny and Candy split up to lie low. Johnny gets picked up by the cops—no doubt investigating his suspicious wearing of a gold lame` suit—while Candy gets she to a nunnery and raises giant multi-colored poodles while helping to run the sisters’ side business, God’s Gas & Diesel, a last chance out there in the desert.

Johnny has the ass-end of the deal, having to contend with the vicious Prison Director (Robert Englund appropriately eschewing subtlety) with a confusing message of submission tattooed on his knuckles. While it says “Fuck You”, prisoners are meant to read that as “Fuck Me”. Failure to communicate ensues. Also, he has to be constantly aware of the duplicit nature of his fellow inmates, particularly the Chief’s favorite, Mr. Wigs (Doug Bradley). 

Grown bitter over the intervening four years, Chip and Frank discover the whereabouts of Candy, but she’s already lammed out to rendesvous with Johnny, unaware of his incarceration. In a simple desert shack, Candy dons some domesticity and makes soup for her and her poodles. Just then, a bit of meteorite survives atmospheric entry and lands in their meal. One sip transforms her from a ‘50s housewife to a veiny creature in an armored exoskeleton, with back spines and kinky dark hair. The poodles transform into drag queens. Remi, Loca, Portia and, of course, Rudolph (inexplicably played by Jonathan Rhys Myers). “It’s us, your bitches. Remember? Little fluffy things?”

Before you can evoke the sacred name of Pedro Almodovar, Killer Tongue gets weird. –Er. Namely with the introduction of the titular character, Candy’s oral appendage that talks like Harvey Fierstein, grows to miles in length and can punch through solid objects without effort (including Chip, and then the porcelain tub beneath him, and the floor, and possibly the Earth’s crust). It desires human flesh and is terribly jealous of any mention of Johnny. It also comes with its own theme music.

Speaking of Johnny, he’s escaped into the desert with the Chief in pursuit. Somewhere along the line, he winds up handcuffed to the bumper of the vehicle, which he drags behind him, undeterred in his quest for Candy. 

While waiting for Johnny, Candy bides her time trying to rid herself of the evil alien tongue via iron and butcher knife. In response, the tongue tries to suffocate her by wrapping around her face, suspends her from the ceiling, and ultimately gets her pregnant. 

And if that doesn’t spell entertainment, I don’t know what does. 

Depending on your mood, Killer Tongue runs at a length of time equal to either 90 minutes or forever. Made with a very specific audience in mind, Killer Tongue is the definition of both “campy” and “wacky”. None of the outrageousness is presented with so much as a wink or a tongue-in-cheek. To the filmmakers, the world of Killer Tongue is how the real world should be, transpecies poodles and latex S&M outfits for all. You can’t accuse the cast of being over-the-top because there doesn’t seem to be a baseline. It starts at hysteria and ramps up from there. 

In attempting to short-hand a summary for it, I’ve compared it in turn to “John Waters’ Wild at Heart” and “David Cronenberg’s Raising Arizona.” But really, writer / director Alberto Sciamma has created a chimera that exists all on its own, without mate or even sibling. It actually feels like a ‘50s sitcom reinterpreted by aliens, a Meet the Hollowheads for telenova fans. 

It can’t really be said that the cast are playing their roles “straight”, though every character is presented without irony—in fact, this may be one of the least ironic films ever made. It’s definitely sincere in its insanity even when you can tell it’s lost all sense of a narrative thread in the third act. That being said, there are genuinely inspired bits of character utterly organic to the film’s reality. Clarke’s horror at her 90’ tongue has less to do with the consequences of being infected by an alien parasite and is more about her big plans being ruined for Johnny’s return. Englund’s vicious Prison Chief, for the best example, is as complex as a cartoon character can get. During the day, it’s his job to be foul, brutal and sadistic, beating up men left and right, putting them on dreaded “survey duty”. But at night he walks through the barracks with a simple smile on his face, tucking a blanket around Wig and comforting a wounded dove by making a nest for it out of his toupee. The Chief’s raison d’etre is to make Johnny screw up his probation, but it isn’t too long before you understand he’s doing that less out of sadism and more because he’ll miss the handsome lug when he goes. Englund doesn’t play this with a s

ense of homoeroticism either, but complicated affection. 

While the poodles are meant to enduce squeals of delight and/or derision, each of them having stepped from an episode of Ru Paul’s Drag Race, their love for Candy is both endearing and evocative of a pet’s love for its human. Even the tongue’s relationship with Candy has an edge of love and devotion, even though it’s technically an alien parasite relying on her to sustain its life. As for her and Johnny’s love, well that’s the sort of devotion you can only find in movies and Shirelles songs. 

Loud and colorful, with an infectious, possibly sexually-transmitted score by Spanish band Fangoria, Killer Tongue is the perfect movie for people who like this sort of thing. I say that smart-assedly, but sincerely. Killer Tongue is one of those cult-films-by-design that you’ll either love or hate. Take all of those cliches for what they’re worth. The only way to measure the film’s success is through personal opinion. I happened to really enjoy it the first time and my love hasn’t waned since. But, then again, I’m not you. As with most cult movies, enjoyment comes with some assembly required. 

Now, unlike most of the movies I yak about, Killer Tongue is not difficult to obtain and shows up on at least two different collections accompanying other wacky wonders like Jack Frost 2 (a killer snowman in the Bahamas!). However, the presentation varies. Try very hard to avoid a full screen version as you not only lose a lot of peripheral happiness, but it also comes with washed out color and a soft image, probably sourced from the original EP mode VHS released before the turn of the milennium. 

If you do manage to fall in love with this film as I have, might I recommend that, upon meeting Melinda Clarke, you refrain from asking her to lick you from across the room. 

Just… trust me on that. She isn’t into it.

VOLERE VOLARE (aka TO WANT TO FLY – 1991)

Apart from my deep dislike of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, my reputation as a film scholar is more often called into question due to my disdain for Italian cinema. It’s especially difficult to be taken seriously as a zombie enthusiast if you find it impossible to embrace the ouevre of Lucio Fulci, Ruggero Deodato or any of the other alphabet soup masters of flesh-eating mayhem. While I am proud to say that among my favorite films you will find Argento’s Deep Red, Suspiria and Tenebrae, my opinion of the maestro’s later work diminishes. I like the visuals of Mario Bava, but the pacing and stories of his masterpieces I’ve often found to be wanting.

This terminal case of “meh” extends beyond the horror genre as well, for I’m loathe to sit through another Fellini, Antonioni, Bertolucci, or, for the love of god, de Sica. Indeed, upon my third class-required viewing of The Bicycle Thief, I began to sympathise with Mussolini.

And please, don’t even get me started with the likes of Leone, Corbucci or Chef Boy-ar-dee. There aren’t enough hours in the day.

As with any rule, I have an exception, and that exception is Maurizio Nichetti. A one-man embodiment of the three Marx Brothers, Nichetti is an Italian Jacques Tati; a pop-eyed, mustachioed clown whose default expression seems to be innocent bewilderment. Nichetti was put on this Earth as reassurance that Italy has something to offer me in terms of its cinema, and seems to have the same problems with The Bicycle Thief as I do, as evinced in his satirical love-letter to Neo-Realism, the hilarious The Icicle Thief.

Unfortunately, as far as America goes, he’s no Roberto Benigni. I see that as a good thing, since the latter wore out his welcome six seconds into the 1997 Academy Awards ceremony, following America’s identity crisis upon embracing Life is Beautiful (The Day the Clown Cried without the good taste). Nichetti is virtually unknown in the Land of the Free, Home of the Bacon and that, my friends, is a cultural tragedy.

Even hardcore film geeks might have a difficult time identifying Nichetti. If his name rings any bells, it’s due to his “starring” role in the live action sections of animator Bruno Bozzetto’s Fantasia parody, Allegro Non Troppo (1976, which Nichetti cowrote). Famous for its extended sequence celebrating evolution, with life springing from a discarded Coca-Cola bottle set to Ravel’s Bolero, Allegro Non Troppo achieved some minor success in the U.S., but when initially released to Home Video, the film’s live-action sequences were excised, rendering Nichetti anonymous again. The majority of his filmography, including movies he wrote, directed and starred in, have never been released in the United States. While this might be great for us more-with-it-than-thou movie geeks, it’s a bit of a tragedy for the rest of the country’s film-goer-to-ers who’ve thusly been robbed.

Nichetti created his own iconic persona, a goofy, bushy everyman prone to misadventure —evoking, for shorthand sake, Chaplin, Groucho, Keaton and Mr. Bean—for his directorial debut, Ratataplan (1979). Playing variations of this role in a half-dozen other movies, he took the idea of human cartoon to its absurdly literal conclusion in the surprising and playful Volere volare.

Co-directed with animator and past collaborator Guido Manuli, Volere volare begins with Martina (Angela Finocchiaro from My Brother is an Only Child) lamenting to her friend Loredana (Mariella Valentini) that she doesn’t need a man in her life to be happy. Marriage is what’s expected, and she refuses to marry only for money. Which is all well and good for her to say since she’s surrounded by rich men. You see, she sees her career as that of a very specialized “social worker”, her job to understand people with personal eccentricities. For instance, one of her best clients is an elderly man with the (disturbing) voice of a toddler, who she bathes and rocks to sleep after his bottle. Then there are the “Architechts”, espresso-drinking twins who silently hang out at her home to watch her sleep, shower, dress for work and then lock up after she leaves. There’s a chef who likes to turn her naked body into elaborate deserts (“including a vat of melted chocolate; soon she's dressed in her sundae best.” Harrington, Washington Post, 1993), but can settle for casually spilling things on her when time is limited. She gets a workout from a married couple who take turns being dead, requiring her to assist the mourning partner left behind, make sure the body gets to the ambulance, etc. Things get difficult on those nights when the couple can’t decide who survived that night. While she refers to these quirks as “fetishes”, she’s never depicted doing anything sexual with her clients. Even the guy who likes her to sit on his photocopier only enjoys admiring the lacework on her underwear. Sex seems to be the furthest thing from their minds. (Thus, I think it’s inaccurate to echo my fellow critics in describing her as a “prostitute”.)

Nearby, Maurizio owns a film dubbing company with his brother. They split the work evenly: Maurizio provides the sound effects for old cartoons; Patrizio employs a lingerie-clad stable of mono-lingual actresses for the “specialty” audio of “art” movies. Spending his day either recording sound or searching for interesting noisemakers in hardware stores, Maurizio (called “Little Mustache” by his brother—“Ever since he grew one when he was three.”) manages to just miss meeting Martina on a number of occasions. But fortune won’t stay elusive for long.

One night, Maurizio frequently finds himself in the right place. When both of her “Necrophyles” decide to be dead, Martina finds herself needing an extra pair of hands to wrestle the loving bodies onto a parking lot gurney. Later that evening, he stumbles upon her again and accompanies her on another job, this time with a crazed cab driver who gets off on terrorizing her with his auto-acrobatics. Maurizio does panic better than she does. Finding himself stuck at her apartment—“Where do you live?” she asked. “Where you picked me up.”—he is assaulted by another of her clients who is contientious about stalking her and doesn’t like the competition. In a single night, Martina’s job has him strained, terrorized and assaulted. 

Much to her chagrin, she realizes later that her clients enjoyed the extra company. The thrill waning, Maurizio was just the extra shot in the arm their needs needed. Not wanting to risk losing her income, Martina attempts to hunt him down. The only trouble is, because of the multiple bicycle horns he keeps in his pockets in case of dubbing emergency, she only knows Maurizo by the nickname she’s given him: “Trumpetto”.

Meanwhile, Maurizo is experiencing his own job-related phenomenons. Each time he steps in front of his projector, one or more of the animated co-stars find their way into his pocket. At first, it’s just a simple turtle from a Fleischer Brothers cartoon, which manages to knock over stacks of film cans in its escape. Later, a flock of ducks defect from a Popeye short into the real world to cavort in the rain and get squished flat by cars. This condition becomes contagious, as he discovers on his first “date” with Martina at a swanky restaurant. A persistent itch on his hand reveals yellow cartoon gloves growing beneath his skin. Worse: the hands take on a life of their own—“animated” in all senses of the word—and fly off without him! Fortunately for him, Martina is too distracted by her spill-prone chef and his “accidents” that leave her covered with spaghetti.

The rest of the film follows this comedy of surreal errors to its logical absurdist conclusion: Martina finally finds the love of her life, just as he completes his transformation into a living—and very naked—cartoon character. (Which wasn’t that much of a stretch for Nichetti, being 75% cartoon anyway.) 

Gentle and uncomplicated, Volere volare makes no attept to explain Maurizio’s transformation, just as it sees no reason to explain Martina’s growing attraction to the odd little man. Just like love, human-to-cartoon evolution requires no deconstruction. And if you can allow that to satisfy your left-brain’s needs, that’s all that Volere volare asks of you. Without turning this into a discourse on economical-cultural dichotomy of comedy, the movie should seem unique to those raised on American sex comedies. The American-view blend of Night Shift with Who Framed Roger Rabbit? resulted in Ralph Bakshi’s raunchier Cool World, released just a year later. In contrast, once you become comfortable with the “non-exploitative European-style nudity” (to quote Richard Harrington’s Washington Post review), Volere volare is charming and utterly inoffensive. Even Patrizio’s stable of “actresses” and his blue movies are played for laughs, not titilation. Nichetti keeps the film’s heart in the clouds, rather than the gutter and avoids the cheap laugh in favor of the corny one. (Even more surprising considering that one of the film’s producers was Italy’s infamous prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, whose political career was overshadowed by his notorious “bunga-bunga parties”!)

The usual unfortunate caveat exists here, however. Unlike the better-distributed Allegro Non Troppo, Volere volare is difficult to come by and doesn’t seem to have gotten an international DVD release. The VHS image is dark and grainy, working against the movie’s intrinsic breezy charm. But perhaps, if we all get together and clap our goofy gloved hands together, maybe we can all will a DVD into existence. Or, at least, keep Tinkerbell alive long enough to make us one out of fairy dust. (Sorry, it’s a sexy cartoon fairy tale; I couldn’t resist.)

For added pleasure, please visit Nichetti’s website.

I BOUGHT A VAMPIRE MOTORCYCLE (1990)

Image stolen from UK Movie Posters

No film addict can survive on a steady diet of the same. You can watch Turner Classic Movies all day long but after such a marathon, you start to hunger for something different. Dare I say even something “worse”. “Worse”, of course, is subjective, so let’s say instead “ridiculous”. After a week of viewing heady and/or heavy movies, movies that made me think and feel, I was in dire need of the ridiculous. You can’t ask for more ridiculous than what is offered by the gory horror-spoof I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle. 

Director Dirk Campbell, very soon a maestro of children’s television programming, got hold of a script by Mycal Miller and John Wolskel (the latter a frequent writer of English-version anime like Appleseed), rang up half the cast (and sets and even the composer) of the BBC series Boon (including title character Michael Elphick, Neil Morrissey (future voice of Bob the Builder), Amanda Noar (aka Mrs. Morrissey, at the time, anyway), and C:3PO himself, Anthony Daniels. They gathered together and said, to borrow a quote from Daniels’ Priest character, “Right. Let's go kick some bottom!”

I would say that the film’s beginning—taking place in an old churchyard while a biker in a red hood that just screams “Satanist!” is obviously up to no good—with a turf war between two bike clubs, the unnamed Satanists and the vicious rabble “The Road Toads”, occurs for no good reason, but really, reason went out the window with the title. (In fact little happens in this film for any reason, so let’s just suspend that expectation altogether, shall we?) What happens is that The Road Toads lay brutal waste to the rival gang using crossbows and jump cuts. The hooded Satanist most near the center of the frame is cut down in the prime of his incantation, and the little animated Pokemon demon summoned has to quickly find a host. Its new home is the biker’s own abused Norton 850 Commando—as good as any in a pinch and, we’re told, a “quite reliable” vehicle. In a lovely scene, the dying biker-Satanist-guy slashes his throat and bleeds into the tank.

We then meet lovable slacker rascal Nick Oddy (Morrissey)—aka “Noddy”—who purchases the bike for £1100, tells his girlfriend Kim (Noar) he only spent £600, then calls his buddy Buzzer (Daniel Peacock) to take a butcher’s at it to see what it’ll need to make it go. As a gag, Buzzer steals the bike’s gas cap. The next day, he’s found strewn about his apartment (“That’s Buzzy. I’d know his head anywhere.”) but at least the bike runs perfectly now, so long as you don’t try to take it into the sunlight. Inspector Cleaver comes ‘round to make inquiries about who would have it in enough for Buzzer to dismantle him in such a way, but Noddy honestly can’t say. Partly because he doesn’t know and partly because Cleaver’s garlic breath has him momentarily stupified.

While out for a jag, Noddy informally meets The Road Toads and the bike bucks beneath him, running several of them, including their leader, Roach (Andrew Powell, Joshua Then and Now [review coming soon]), the crossbow-wielding mad lad-cum-teddy boy what done in the Satanist biker in the first place.

Later, they have a proper funeral for Buzzer, his coffin stuffed upright in some geezer’s sidecar. No hearse for Buzzer, “He wouldn’t be caught dead in one’a them things.” Noddy and Kim stop off for a pint and in walk Roach and his Road Toads. After a protracted brawl involving the entire pub, most of the crockery and several of the mock battle weapons decorating the walls, Noddy and Kim manage to escape on the bike. Still peckish, they swing by Fu King (ordering from none-other than Inspector Clousseu’s Cato (Burt Kwouk) for some Chinese, but the minute Kim suggests “garlic prawns” the bike takes off with her still on it. Around a corner, it tosses her off and seems about to front wheel her head off when the cross around her neck gleams and makes it back off.

Noddy finds Kim but the bike has gone out into the night to exact revenge on the rest of the Road Toads. First spikes grow out of its tank in punk porcupine fashion, used as both methods of impalation and projectile, then its cracked headlamp develops a chomping action rarely seen in motorcycles of that model. That’s not even to mention its Ben-Hur-styled arrowhead wheel protrusions. Only Roach escapes, albeit with a tie-rod lodged deep in his… er, tailpipe, as it were. Its bloodlust unsated, the motorcycle has a go at a woman Jack the Ripper-style in an alley. Then, just for fun, it eats a parking maid. This bit of greed gives it away. Unable to eat the whole woman, it returns to Noddy’s dark shed and that’s where its owner finds it, sleeping and with a support-hosed leg in its headlamp.

Understanding little of anything is a natural state for Noddy, so he goes off in search of a Vicar. Unfortunately, he has to make do with a Priest. 

 Image stolen from Flat Pack Film Festival

Noddy: “I don’t want to confess. It’s about my motorcycle.”

Priest: “Are you sure it isn’t a garage you want?”

Noddy: “My motorcycle has turned into a vampire!”

Priest: “Pull the other one.”

Soon the Priest understands what he’s up against when, whist attempting to haul the beast out into the sunlight, the clutch handle snaps his hand and severs his fingers. Now the problem arises: unless the Priest knows what demon he’s dealing with, any exorcism performed could just make things infinitely worse. And infinitely worse is what happens. The vampire motorcycle goes on an unprescendented maraude of slaughter and vehicular homicide, eventually trapping Noddy, Kim, the Priest and garlic-breathed Cleaver inside a gym for the chronically steroidal. And dawn is a long way off. Will Birmingham ever again be safe for the god-fearing members of the C. of E.? Or, okay, fine, the Catholics as well?

“And anyone involved in this project should be proud. The script is knowing and self deprecating, plus it doesn’t mind making Morrissey, the movie’s hero, out to be a lazy male-chauvinist pig. The British predilection with toilet humour is here in full force (the ‘talking turd’ sequence [a nightmare scene in which Buzzy embodies Noddy’s bowel movement] being a particularly disgusting highlight, especially when it jumps into Noddy’s mouth) as is our obsession with having nice cups of tea to solve everything. The music is also suitably ridiculous, ranging an incidental score that sounds like it was lifted from a Carry On movie (yes, they borrowed the composer from Boon, would you believe) to pumping rock tracks, one of which is called “She Runs On Blood... She Don't Run On Gasoline” (which is included in it’s separate entirety as a special feature on the DVD). But the biggest gem in this pot of treasure is seeing Anthony Daniels – Mr C-3PO himself – as a camp gung-ho biker exorcist, complete with razor-sharp throwing-crosses.” (Eatmybrains.com)

So, well… does this not summon to mind the word aforementioned: “ridiculous”? I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle is a gleefully gory horror-spoof-slash-homage. Never once does it take itself seriously because, well and again, it’s bloody title is “I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle”. If it were “Tea and Chips with the Missus”, that’d make it something else entirely. Everyone is on board here too, ‘all in’ as ‘they say’.

Truth be told, this was was a blind rental from our late-lamented local store, Incredibly Strange Video, sold by both the title and the prospect of watching His Lord and Lady Anthony Daniels perform sans gold outerwear. While not quite as hysterical as Braindead / Dead*Alive’s Father Jon McGruder (Stuart Devenie) (“I kick arse for the Lord!”), Daniels is highly entertaining and even kicks the film’s absurdity up another notch.

Speaking of the just-mentioned Peter Jackson cult favorite, there are numerous “touches” both movies share. Aside from the Priests and the anarchy, both possess comic relief bikers and a breakneck pace. Since they were released within a few years of each other (1990 for Motorcycle and 1993 for pre-LOTR Jackson), though from different areas of the English-speaking world, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine that both Jackson and Campbell hit on the same horror-spoof zeitgeist that drives both films. The biggest difference would be zombies vs. vampiric vehicles and a budget of $3 million versus whatever change was found inside the cushions in the Boon communal couch.

When you’re in need of ridiculous look no further. If ‘ridiculous is as ridiculous does’, then I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle does nicely. 

THE MADWOMAN OF CHAILLOT (1969)

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“This is the story of the triumph of good over evil,” we are told by the opening titles. “Obviously it is a fantasy.”

It is said that Molière and La Fontaine used to frequent the Cafe de l'Alma in the Chaillot district of Paris. But today it is visted by a group of leaders, including The Chairman (Yul Brynner), The General (Paul Henreid), The Commissar (Oskar Homolka), and The Prospector (Donald Pleasence), who privately refers to them as, “Just faceless, ordinary monsters.” Together, they form the Board of Directors of International Substrate, and they have hatched a plan to dig up Paris in order to get to the oil that lies beneath the city.

Now, it is well known that all districts of Paris have their own dotty protectors, the Madwomen, if you will. The titular "Madwoman of Chaillot" is Countess Aurelia (Katharine Hepburn, in her best performance as far as I'm concerned), who prefers to live every day as one specific date. “First, the morning paper. Not these current sheets full of vulgar lies. I always read the Gaulois for March 22, 1919. It’s by far the best. Delightful scandal. Excellent fashion notes. And of course the last-minute bulletin on the death of Leonide Leblanc. She used to live next door. And when I learn of her death every morning it gives me quite a start. To recover from which, Chaillot calls. It is time to dress for my morning walk. That takes much longer without a maid . . .”

She’s not so mad as to imagine that life really is the same as that one March morning. Time is passing, of course, but it’s not like she has to acknowledge it. “Of course, in the morning it doesn’t always feel so gay. Not when you’re taking your hair out of the dresser and your teeth out of the glass. And particularly if you’ve been dreaming that you’re a little girl on a pony looking for strawberries in the woods. But then comes a letter in the morning mail. One you wrote to yourself, giving your schedule for the day. Then, when I have washed in rosewater and put on my pins, rings, brooches, pearls, necklaces, I’m ready to begin again.”

The Prospector’s son, a radical activist named Rodrick (Richard Chamberlain), brings the Board’s scheme to the attention of the genteel lady, as well as her cadre of peers, including the waitress Irma (Nanette Newman), the Folksinger (Gordon Heath) and her most confident of confidants, the Ragpicker (Danny Kaye). “The world is being taken over by the pimps,” says master Ragpicker.

The Countess is appalled, “The world is unhappy? Why wasn’t I told?”

So distraught is she by this news of scheming, of men living life as if it was disposable, Countess Aurelia gathers the other Madwomen of the districts—Josephine, the Madwoman of La Concorde (Edith Evans), Constance, the Madwoman of Passy (Margaret Leighton), (Josephine, the Madwoman of La Concorde (Edith Evans), and Gabrielle, the Madwoman of Sulpice (Giulietta Masina). Together with the street people, her people, she desides to hold a trial for these despoilers, in absentia. The rich men and their destructive ways are represented by The Ragpicker.

“Criminals are always represented by their opposites,” assured Josephine, who was to be the judge. The trial was absolutely necessary, for something had to be done.

“If you kill them, they’ll be missed,” protested Constance. “And we’ll be fined. They fine you for every little thing, you know?”

To which the Countess replies, “Do you miss a cold when it’s gone? They’ll never be missed.”

Thus, the Ragpicker prepares the case, defending against the charge that he and his ilk worship money.

“Worship money? Me?” says the Ragpicker. “I plead not guilty! I don’t worship money. It’s the other way around. Money worships me. It won’t let me alone. The first time money came to me, I was a mere boy. Untouched. Untainted. It came quite suddenly when I innocently picked a bar of gold bullion out of a garbage can while playing. As you can imagine, I was horrified. I tried swapping it for a little, rundown one-track railroad. To my childish amazement this immediately sold itself for a hundred times its value. I made desperate efforts to get rid of this unwanted wealth. I bought refineries, department stores, every munitions factory I could lay hands on. The rest is history. They stuck to me. They multiplied. And now I am powerless. Everyone knows the poor have no one but themselves to blame for their poverty. But how is it the fault of the rich if they’re rich? Oh, I don’t ask for your pity. All I ask for is a little human understanding.”

He continues, “Ah, without money nobody likes or trusts you. But to have money is to be virtuous, beautiful, honest and witty. To have none is to be ugly and boring and stupid and useless.”

“One last question,” asks the Countess. “Suppose you find this oil you’re looking for? What will you do with it?”

“I’ll make war! I’ll destroy what remains of the world!”

When the trial concludes the verdict is clear: guilty. But how to carry out the sentence, and what shall the sentence be?

The Madwoman of Challot began life as the play, La Folle de Chaillot, written by acclaimed writer Jean Giraudoux and was first performed in Paris in 1945, a year after his death. In 1949, fellow playwright Maurice Valency adapted the story into English and it was warmly received in the United States. Subsequently, the play was reworked by Inherit the Wind authors Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee (with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman) into the musical Dear World, which won star Angela Lansbury a Tony Award. That same year, 1969, screenwriter, producer and pulp writer (with wife Edith), Edward Anhalt (The Boston Strangler), adapted the Valency script for the big screen, which was directed by Bryan Forbes (Séance on a Wet Afternoon). The film premiered in October, was met with favorable reviews from critics and not-too-shabby attendence, then quietly bowed out of the limelight, fading away with the final breaths of the “Summer (and Autumn) of Love”.

Anhalt’s screenplay adheres closely to Giraudoux’s play and embellishes only where he needs to. Just the same, spending the first act with the odious Board members gets a little tedious. While it is indeed fun to watch Brynner rail against the indignities he must suffer every day when exposed to the world’s rabble, the sequence becomes a slog. After about ten minutes, you’ll catch yourself saying, “I get it. They’re evil, cruel capitalists. What else is new?” But if you can stick with the movie until Hepburn’s marvelous Countess is introduced, the movie becomes a delightful ride from there. Until it slows down again with the introduction of the other Madwomen. Their first scene together unfortunately drags as well, mirroring the Board’s callousness with their own fractured-mirror outlooks on life. But the reward for coming this far is without question Danny Kaye’s moment as the Ragpicker during the trial. Assuming the collective persona of all cruel overseers and misers, the Ragpicker seems to shock himself by the end with the imperious self-righteousness he finds within. It’s a chilling moment of black comedy and the centerpiece of the film (as, I’m sure, it was the centerpiece of the play) and Kaye left me breathless, at least. 

 
The particulars of The Madwoman of Chaillot are, unfortunately, timeless. The rich will always run roughshod over the poor and life is wasted on the forward-thinkers, only appreciated by the young and the mad. And while the underlying themes are also universal, this particular movie seems more appropriate today than it might have in the post-war Paris of the ‘40s or mid-war America of the late ‘60s. The Madwomen and the street people, including the idealistic Irma and Roderick, could easily fit the mold of the modern “Occupy” movement; the Board of Directors are an easy surrogate for Wall Street and Corporate Culture. As the opening title card points out, almost bitterly, the results are pure fantasy.

While Anhalt invented scenes involving The Prospector and his son inside their home (where Pleasance’s character collects and displays old bathroom doors, hanging them on the wall as modern art), they wisely resisted the temptation to update the play for modern times. The Café and the Countess’s domiciles exist in stasis, the first eternally quaint and the latter decaying along with its owner’s mental stability, yet still retaining its dignity. Certainly Roderick and the Board members are given a more modern cut of suit, no hippies or swinging Londoners lurk in the background of the frame. The story stays put in its fantasy time period and could be easily trotted out for any generation.

Unfortunately, it really could be applied to any generation, as class warfare is less cyclical than it is a never-ending hypno-spiral. But how lovely would it be if we could just round up our ruthless rulers, bankers, despoilers and pimps and just march them off the end of the Earth? It’s of course an insurmountable solution. The best we can do is get up, dress up in our best, and pick a personal time from our past where life was perfect, without the simple evil of reality shattering our illusions of happiness.

For therein lies the true tragedy of The Madwoman of Challot: in the end, the Countess’s world has been intruded. Tomorrow may again be March 22, 1919, but it won’t change the fact that yesterday was quite gloomy, cold and hard.

Again, we must bow our head in silent prayer to the Warner Brothers Archives for preserving this handsome oil painting brought to life (thanks to the photography of Burnett Guffey and Claude Renoir). At the moment, it’s available as one of their movie-only standalone DVD-Rs, but it’s better than nothing at all. Amazon also has made it available on their Instant Video Service.

For another take on the story, be sure to check out the novelization on Richard Chamberlain’s website.

 

And for another excellent review, head on over to Ferdy on Films.

THE PHYNX (1970)

 (Image from Vintage Stills.com)

Let us bow our head in thanks to Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper, to Mike Nesmith, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork and the late Davy Jones. For they resisted the temptation to make a two-hour Monkees episode and rather made the wonderous Head, effectively destroying the “Pre-Fab Five” for the betterment of all. Because if they’d given the fans what they’d expected, it would have been The Phynx.

Starting with a baffling sequence in which a man who is later revealed to be an American spy repeatedly hurls himself over a wall only to be captured by a foreign general played by Michael Ansara. He’s then summarily booted back over the wall. On the third attempt, the spy goes to a conveniently-located carnival and fires himself out of a cannon. But the wiley General Ansara—I mean, Col. Rostinov—is waiting with a team of men and a fireman’s catch. The spy bounces so hard, he soars into the animated title sequence. Like most animated title sequences, it’s the best part of the movie. 

What seems like days later, he finally identifies himself as “Agent Corrigan” (Lou Antonio). He enters the secret headquarters of the SSA (Super Secret Agency) via a super secret men’s room stall, complete with a pair of decoy feet showing behind the door to deter the … curious? Embladdered? Anyway, he drops a coin, the toilet and wall spin and he’s in the bowels of the agency. No pun intended.

Now make no mistake, the SSA is powerful. They have divisions for everything. SSA “Sock It To Me” Division, a “Bigotry Department” and a “Hooker Division”, a Bureau of Invisible Men,  Madison Avenue Undercover and the Underage Undercover Department (filled with boy scouts).

His superior is Mr. Bogey and is played by character actor Mike Kellin. His impression of Bogart more resembles Wallace Shawn doing George Raft but, you know, whatever. Their superior is “No. 1”, who wears a suit and a box on his head with a face drawn on it. His voice is provided by Rich Little doing an impression of Rich Little. There’s big trouble here in the God-fearing United States, great world leaders are going missing. “World Leaders” in this case being George Jessel, Dorothy Lamour, Butterfly McQueen, Charlie MacCarthy and Edgar Bergan, and “the one and only Col. Sanders”. Before you can say “No big loss”, the two non-boxed agents rush to MOTHA (“Mechanical Oracle That Helps Americans”) to manufacture a plan to rescue their missing leaders. Like Hitchhiker’s Guide’s “Deep Thought”, the computer spits out the strategy: “form a pop group and stage a concert in Albania.”

The SSA “recruits” the disparate young men by abducting them. Michael D. Miller is a student protester hoisting a sign reading “Space Available”; Ray Chippeway is a American Indian college graduate whose father declares “White man make son pansy”; Dennis Larden, college athlete, is working a barbell while his latest conquest is awaiting in bed to be conquested when he is literally sucked into a vent via a giant magnet; and then there’s Lonny Stevens, stutteringly referred to as the “Young Negro”, the “Colored Guy”, and finally the “Afro-American”. Lonny is a seemingly successful commercial actor, doing an ad for beer. When he’s wrapped, a white guy takes his place as the producer announces, “Now let’s shoot one for the southern states.” And that, dear friends, is the height of the satire. 

What follows is a series of gags that are either hysterical or painful depending on your state of consciousness while viewing. Clint Walker is their drill instructor, Richard Pryor serves them “soul food” (looking like he has no idea where he is or how he got there and surely pissed that he didn’t get the punchline), and after they’re thoroughly trained in the art of both military spy-stuff and music, they are given a seal of approval by Dick Clark. MOTHA provides the group name: “The Phynx”. …You know, like “finks”? A ‘60s word for “narc”? “Snitch”? “Stoolie”? Shut up, it’s funny (which I think was the movie’s tag line). 

To make them stars, the SSA hires “Philbaby”, a music guru played by Larry Hankin, best known as Larry David’s first choice to play Kramer on Seinfeld. He creates a wall of sound for their song, “What’s Your Sign?” The Phynx debut on Ed Sullivan (who is held at gunpoint in front of his live studio audience) and the fans go absolutely Beatlemania over their softboiled Rutles song. Their first record leaps to Gold in twenty minutes (awarded to them by James Brown, the Ambassador of the Record Industry of the United States). Soon they’re loved and lusted after all over the world. Which shows the absolute power of Ed Sullivan more than anything else.

Now that they’re pop sensations, now comes the spy stuff, right? The trip to Albania? Well, no. The next hitch in the geddy-up arrives by a staggering Martha Raye (literally staggering because she’s supposed to be dying of some sort of wound—the location of which changes depending on where she’s clutching). There’s something about a map to the palace of Albanian ruler Markevitch (veteran second-to-third banana, George Tobias)—to keep it secret, Foxy (Raye) tattooed a third of the map upon the stomachs of her three daughters, located in London, Copenhagen and Rome. Because she’s in such a hurry dying, Foxy doesn’t give the girl’s names, but does provide three pictures of the girls with their faces obscured.

So before you can say “PG-rated Get Charlie Tully”, The Phynx are off on a girl-filled scavenger hunt, filled with schemes to get endless girls out of their clothes (including a young Sally Struthers in her first big-screen role)—x-ray specs in Rome, a take-a-number bang-me line in Copenhagen (which hysterically leaves the three non-black guys drained of fluid and lividity by around girl 1000. Lonny appears with the right girl and just quietly calls for a medic). This eats up a good chunk of the second act.

Finally they get to Albania and learn that the conspiracy is even worse than they imagined! More world-leaders have been abducted—Joe Louis, Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey (the latter two the only reason I watched this in the first place, I’m not ashamed to say), Jay Silverheels and the replacement Lone Ranger, John Hart (identified only as their character names), Buzby Berkeley and his original Gold Diggers—and are being held inside the palace to… sorta hang out with the royal family, including Joan Blondell as the Mrs. Monarch, Ruby. It seems that the actual rulers of the government are being held captive by Col. Michael Ansara, and that it was his plan to bring in The Phynx to “give the proletariat what they want” while still ruling the country on whatever vague form of Communism is being utilized. Fortunately for every one, Huntz Hall himself comes up with the plan to escape: “Radishes!”, he proclaims as a very sick-looking Gorcey hits him with his hat. 

 

(Image from Age of Comedy.com)

 

Then comes another song, the final escape and, proof that there is a God, the end credits. 

Now, many—okay, few, those who’ve actually seen this mess—have declared this overlong Monkees episode to be one of the worst movies ever made, but that’s not true by half. It’s simply a low-rent, no-budget “star-stravaganza” along the lines of future Love Boat and Fantasy Island. The music comes courtesy of Mike Stoller who, with his partner Jeff Leiber, wrote “Hound Dog”, “Jailhouse Rock”, “Is That All There Is?” and reams of other pop songs, to The Phynx’s sets are pleasantly familiar-sounding, with knowing little nods to Herman’s Hermets, the Beatles and the Monkees, and the Moody Blues.  (Poster courtesy of Unseen Films)

Veteran TV director Lee H. Katzan does the best with the borcht-belt gags and lame attempts at “hip” humor from writers Bob Booker, Stan Cornyn, George Foster, but much of it is still from hunger because it’s just not that funny. Amusing, yes, at times, if you dig this sort of thing. The biggest problem is with The Phynx themselves. Except for Lonny Stevens, who has actual charisma and was the only one of the four to make a go at a real acting career (near as I can tell), the three other guys are virtually indistinguishable from each other. A running gag has Chippaway bristling at casual “racist” remarks (When one girl leaps onto him with a cry of “Geronimo!”, he mutters, as if afraid he’ll be heard, “Is nothing sacred?”) then proceeds to speak Tonto-ese himself. Worst of all—he has no interplay with Silverheels (also speaking his trademark Tonto-ese) so the gag you figure they’re building toward never comes.

Depending on your affection for the guest stars, you’ll either be angered that their time is utterly wasted or you’ll just end up feeling sorry for them. For many, this was the plumbest role they’d landed in a while (Gorcey, at this point, was incurable alcoholic and was dead before the film was even released; many of the others would follow suit throughout the decade), and for the others you start to wonder if they really had been abducted for the film, being World Leaders and all. Not one of the “special guest stars” is given anything to do. It just seems as if the green room of Laugh-In had been tipped into a cart and carried off into the night.

At the end of the day, during the final tank and radish-cart chase as the end credits scroll, you’ll be no better nor worse off for having seen The Phynx. After many, many years of VHS bootlegs taken from a single television airing (complete with animated station bumpers every ten minutes, no matter who is talking or if they’re done), Warner Brothers Archive has restored the film in all its 1.85 glory and mono-to-stereo sound mix. Now, you too can have The Phynx play for you in your very own living room. 

Meanwhile, the Monkees have reunited for a world-reunion tour after never once doing anything remotely like this again. 

…Okay, 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee notwithstanding.

DRONES (2010)

Dilbert, The Drew Carey Show, The Office and Office Space have worked hard over the years to shatter the illusions built up by pro-Capitalism extravaganzas like How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying and Cash McCall. Modern entertainment has proven that corporate-culture office work can be more monotonous and soul-crushing than the first few weeks of military boot camp, certain to leave you a dry and empty husk alone in your cubicle. “Can be”, obviously; much different than “is”. Drones is the anti-“is” in this situation.
The cubicle civilization depicted in Drones is comprised of more or less comfortable workers. Unchallenged though they may be in most aspects of their lives, in and out of the office, the employees of Omnilink are not merely enduring their work-day. They work reasonably-hard doing reasonable tasks and at the end of the day, they go home. Even the artificial crises that pop up—the decreased lead time, the looming deadline—do little to jolt them from their routines. A key element in their daily existence is gossip, and that fills the space between forms and databases. Who is sleeping with who—the essential and possibly only ingredient. If Ian is such a creep, why does Miryam keep taking him back? When will Brian ever ask out Amy? These are the distractions from the database that corporate switched unwisely from its chronological to alphabetical structure. Discussions take place right out in the open because, well, the water cooler doesn’t work.

Encouraging the romantic pairing of Brian (Johnathan M. Woodward of Buffy and Firefly fame) and Amy (cult goddess Angela Bettis) is the centerpiece of Drones, setting the movie’s low-key catastrophes into motion. Office romances, you see, are discouraged by management for a reason. Breakups can lead to hostile working conditions or worse: galactic destruction. At best, it’s a distraction, so everyone would be better off keeping things professional. Unless you want a hostile race of aliens marking the human race for extinction and blowing up the whole planet? You don’t want that, would you? Bad for business.
Directed by Buffy co-stars Amber Benson and Adam Busch, Drones is a dry, droll comedy that has managed to fly under the radar for most of the film-going public. Well-received at Slamdance in 2010, theatrical exposure eluded it because of its very underemphasized nature. Critics dove into their thesaurus of clichés and hauled out that old indie standby, “quirky”, and slapped that appellation over every review. The problem is that Drones is not “quirky”. “Quirky” was coined for movies like Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and 500 Days of Summer and anything starring Zooey Deschanel or Parker Posey (the ‘90s version of Zooey). Drones on the other hand is quite the opposite of “quirky” as it’s the most perfectly-deadpan movie to come along in such a long while.

The strong script by Ben Acker and Ben Blacker (yes, I know; shut up) posits the time-tested hypothesis that aliens walk among us and in Men in Black fashion, they’re prepping reports, Xeroxing documents and shuffling data along with the rest of us. Opening with a Powerpoint presentation that will evoke dread in anyone who has ever endured the real thing, Drones’ company Omnilink is compared to a hive, with each member playing its part for the betterment of the colony. “A bee uses its tongue to extract pollan from a flower. We at Omnilink do the same thing. We use our tongues daily, but over the phone.”

The company’s interpersonal strategy: “The buzz of a job well-done is 1) keeping your cool; 2) reaching out; 3) and interacting with others.” Co-operation is vital and everyone should do their part by visiting neighbor’s cubicles, chatting—“Say, Bob, wasn’t that a great Powerpoint presentation Peter gave this morning?” Human relationships invigorate the hive.

Which is why everyone from supply-closet king Clark (Samm Levine) to spreadsheet crusader Cooperman are pestering Brian to ask out Amy. Not that he sees any problem with that. They’ve flirted in the past, but there are doubts. “She uses capital letters in her I.M.’s,” explains Brian. “I’m more of a lowercase kind of guy.”

“Tut,” tuts Cooperman. “Relish your differences; they're as important as your sames.”
Despite the shock of catching Clark “communicating” in the supply closet and revealing that he’s an alien, Brian retrieves a box of staples and delivers them to Amy. Then pops the question. Which envokes an extremely logical response. “You’ve asked me out in return for bringing me staples. It seems…disproportionate.” But they give it a shot, meet for drinks after work and over the weekend agree that they’re “dating”. Brian hardly gives Clark’s revelation a second thought.

By Monday, Amy is so excited about their new status as a couple that she drops her own bomb on Brian: She, too, is an alien, a race called Soyka, and the copier isn’t her “pet alien robot” but a communication device through which she talks to a co-worker (Jafe) on her own planet (Elg). But this, on top of Clark’s news and the sudden pressure of dating, makes Brian freak out. Unlike Clark’s people, who merely want to enslave the human race—

Clark: Nothing will really change except that I’ll be your boss.
Brian: Can I get a raise?
Clark: Sure!
Brian: Then I’m good.

—Amy’s people want to destroy the planet for fuel. But that plan is on hold “for now”. Brian’s reaction, though, drives a wedge between him and Amy and by lunch they’re no longer dating. The next day, he preps a Powerpoint presentation in which he uses a bar graph to declare that “Amy Is A Jerk”. Still getting used to her new human emotions, Amy doesn’t take well to this sort of thing, particularly as it had nothing to do with the new Planicka account and just serves to extend the meeting. So she contacts her people and tells them that it’s time to move up the deadline. The armada, she is told, will be there sometime after lunch.
Drones pulls this oddball story together with the conceit that, like any other office, this imminent disaster is met with the same urgency as any other client demand. Not only does everyone accept Clark’s and Amy’s extraterrestrial identities in stride but they pull together to help figure out the problem before the planet is destroyed or they have to work overtime. And with this approach, Benson, Busch, Acker and Blacker manage the ultimate triumph of zero cynicism.

Unlike so much of our entertainment, particularly in the realm of “indie” or “quirky”, the Omnilink drones are not the oppressed creatures from Office Space, comprised only of tension and teeth. Drones isn’t about revenge on corporate America but instead tackles the old fashioned notion of doing your job and going home. As ironic a term that “post-ironic” has become, that’s precisely what Drones is about. There’s no winking at the audience, no elbow-nudging or cooler-than-thou posturing. It asks, quite literally, what would you do if you found out a co-worker you liked and thought you knew was going to destroy the planet where you keep all your stuff? Would you go hysterical and attack her with a paper cutter? Or would you just try to talk her out? Because neither is going to make 5pm come any sooner and one seems like it would take more effort than the other. What is the corporate cubicle-jockey’s path of least resistence? And could it be done through interoffice email?

So many things could have scuttled Drones. In the hands of showier directors with something to prove, this alien-invasion-cum-coffee-break could have gone over-the-top, bug-eyes, hysterical mugging, punchlines with the extra punch. But Benson and Busch handle the material with knowing restraint. Even when Brian is at his most hysterical, Woodward’s performance barely raises beyond pitched incredulity. The movie they made is not about madcap artificiality and because of their mature approach Drones is delivered with likable characters and funny material. Nothing is ruined in the name of appeasing the Hollywood over-the-top machine. Which, of course, is why it was deemed an impossible sell.

As of this writing Drones is only available through Amazon’s on demand streaming service or through extended cable (I happened to catch it during a free weekend of Showtime). Reviews for the film thus far either stuff it into the aforementioned “quirky” category or dismiss it outright as a “nothing new indie thing”, citing the amusing score by Jonathan Dinerstein and Dan Bern (and Busch’s band Common Rotation)—especially the appropriate opening song “Strongly-Worded Memo”—as pretentious “prog-rock. (But again, that’s the too-cool-for-you crowd for you, and forgive me if I’m wrong, but isn’t being a hipster no longer cool? Or being knowingly uncool make you cool?) If you can watch it without falling prey to your own misconceptions of what a “festival movie” is or is not, you might find yourself charmed by Drones’ quiet story about humanity, aliens and spreadsheets.

Hail Soyka.

GOING BERSERK (1983)

Arguably, SCTV was one of the most innovative and influential television comedies of its time. Not only did it launch the careers of talented stars such as John Candy, Catherine O’Hara, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Martin Short and Eugene Levy, but it playfully messed the idea of what sketch comedy could be. Set in the mythical town of Melonville, the SCTV station was home to a variety of bizarre and low-budget programming, spoofing network and cable access television. Each week the viewer would be transported not only to the shows shown on SCTV but to the inner workings of SCTV itself. It was fast-paced, innovative and very funny. Inevitably, the idea of an SCTV movie was pitched to the studios. That movie became Strange Brew, starring Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis as the very Canadian MacKenzie Brothers. It was not Going Berserk starring Candy, Levy and Flaherty. But it was supposed to be.

Directed by the authentically-funny David Steinberg who wrote the script with the genuinely “okay” Dana Olsen, Going Berserk is a typical mishegoss of un- or vaguely-related scenes strung together by two-dimensional characters and a works-or-doesn’t premise. Like Police Academy, Animal House, Zapped, etc., there’s a lot going on in Going Berserk, little of it makes much sense and, amazingly, even less of it is funny.

Candy stars as John Bourgignon, a wanna-be drummer who co-owns a limo company with Chick Leff (Flaherty), but they owe money to sleazy movie producer Sal DiPasquale (Levy—his sole film credit was as creator of Kung Fu U…yes, we get a clip of it). John is getting married to Nancy, daughter of Senator Ed Reese, and Sal wants to shoot the wedding. In the meantime, Reese (who hates John because he’s a loser) has made an enemy of the Reverend Sun Yi Day (Richard Libertini), a spiritual leader who teaches that greed is just your god-granted desire for things that should be yours. Reese is trying to shut the Reverend down, so Sun Yi Day and his partners decide to brainwash John into shooting the Senator. Instead of unleashing his inner killer, the awake the uninhibited asshole within, so John mortifies everyone with inappropriate humor and dick jokes.

That’s the plot.

Around this are built elliptical gags where Candy does his patented over-reactions to extreme situations and does his self-conscious laugh (parodied by Flaherty in one scene). He accidentally gets into the middle of a brewing brawl between bikers and punks and both groups turn on him for being the least hip in the room. He winds up as a drummer-cum-bouncer at an all male strip review and is forced to battle the shrieking female audience members who attempt to molest the dancers. He gets arrested and handcuffed to Ernie Hudson and the two of them enact the movie’s sole funny sequence in a parody of The Defiant Ones. When the head to Hudson’s girlfriend’s apartment for a bout of going-away love-making, Candy is forced to stand outside the door—may I remind you once again that they’re handcuffed so their passion sends him slamming face-first into the doorjamb. As slapstick, that’s as good as the movie gets.

Now, there is no dispute that Candy, Levy and Flaherty are funny guys. SCTV is proof of that alone. But their film careers left a lot to be desired—and, in Levy’s case, continues to disappoint. Outside of an amusing parody of Father Knows Best, Flaherty has zero to do in Going Berserk, not as a comedian, not as a straight man. Levy does his best sleazy producer schtick and he’s well within his wheelhouse throughout, but there isn’t enough of him, and the material gives his straight men nothing to work with. His scenes are basically obscene monologues with Candy and Flaherty merely flesh props. Candy is amiable and perfectly aw-shucks as the well-meaning John. When responding to the berating of his future father-in-law, John explains his prospects as “Oh, I would say anywhere from thirty to eleven thousand a year, sir.” His facial reactions in scenes where the world is out of control are priceless. But when he’s under hypnosis, quite frankly, anyone could play those scenes of inappropriate humor and do the same job. Dick jokes were beneath Candy and that comes through. The same can be said for all the performances—none of the characters belong to the actors (with the possible exception of Levy) and were almost interchangeable in and of themselves.

It’s actually more entertaining to let your mind wander playing “Connections” during Going Berserk. For instance, Kurtwood Smith played the villainous Clarence Boddicker in Robocop and in Going Berserk his character is also named Clarence. Alley Mills went from the mom on The Wonder Years to that of a daffy executive on The Bold and the Beautiful. Ernie Hudson was in Ghostbusters and Candy was originally supposed to star in that as well, playing Rick Moranis’s role. Didn’t Richard Libertini play a role like this in All of Me? Hey, there’s Dixie Carter. Pat Hingle went on to play Commissioner Gordon in Burton’s Batman and who thought that was a good idea? Flaherty, as Count Floyd on SCTV, introduced a movie called “The Bloodsucking Monkeys from West Mifflin, PA”, which isn’t too far from my house. I used to go to the mall there…

Save for the sequence involving Hudson, Going Berserk has little going for it. The movie has almost no energy and has a disinterested sense of pace, as if everyone involved were disappointed before the first scene had been shot. It’s not surprising that the movie has basically faded from memory. Released to DVD in 2007 to no one’s insistence, it went quickly out of print. The trio went on to be sporadically funny in other movies (The Man, Hot to Trot, Nothing But Trouble and Who’s Harry Crumb notwithstanding). The best thing I can say about Going Berserk is that SCTV is available on DVD and should be watched at all costs. 

Movie Outlaw: FAKE BLOOD (2007)

I dislike the term “mockumentary” but I want for a better word to describe a piece of fictional non-fiction. If a “mockumentary” is ostensibly a fictional story shot in documentary style, do recreations fall into that category? Or are “mockumentaries” only designated so if they’re funny? I suppose it doesn’t really matter as director Andrew Shearer self-applies the term to his movie Fake Blood, so if he isn’t bothered by the appellation, why should I be?

I still think we need a new term because of the prefix “mock”. Fake Blood never mocks its subject, despite the inherent humor.

Anyhoo… brother and sister act Edward and Meredith Benjamin have always wanted to make their own movie. Something with “tits and blood and blood all over tits,” is Meredith’s dream. And she just happens to find an old script of her brother’s entitled “Bikini Blood Suckers”. Although with a title like that, who needs a script? Edward’s pregnant wife Cathy isn’t thrilled with the idea, but once Edward decides to go ahead with the project she becomes grudgingly supportive. Things go too smoothly at first—his friend Jen has a Hi-8 video camera (“what distributors want”) and they get an email from a big soap opera star who wants to make the transition into horror. Veronica Weaver comes off as a consummate professional, thinks the material is daring and can’t wait to dive in. After a series of disasterous audition tapes arrive and their choice of co-star O.D.s while “celebrating” her good fortune, Ed has no choice but to put his effects-loving sister into the role of lesbian vampire. Well, he has no choice because Cathy won’t give him one. “You’re going to finish this movie,” she says, and it’s not just the hormones talking.

And before you can say “cursed production”, all sorts of wrong starts to go. Veronica’s professional veneer starts to slip, then peel, then shatter—a “nudity” clause in her contract is evoked at every turn and “nudity” becomes a term with a very loose definition. Jen’s absence from one crucial shoot means replacing her at the last minute with Cousin Bob, a pro cameraman with 86 movies under his belt this year. Okay, they’re all porn films but still… A fake fang is swallowed. Meredith is so rattled about acting she forgets to mix up the blood. And Veronica continues to get crazier. That Cathy sees right through her from the start and won’t take any shit from her at all doesn’t ease Ed’s pain in the slightest. But it’s all for the good of the movie. Or whatever it is they’re all trying to make.

Andrew Shearer and his Gonzoriffic team always seem to fly under the critical radar with their off-beat horror comedies, so if this one has passed you by, don’t beat yourself up. Just head over to gonzoriffic.com and pick it up because if you’re an indie filmmaker yourself, this movie has “you” stamped all over it. Everyone who has ever shot—or attempted to shoot—a movie with limited resources will feel Ed’s pain. And you’ll smile with unashamed schadenfreude, thanking god that it isn’t you suffering through any of this.

95% of Fake Blood feels 100% genuine thanks to unforced performances from Monica Puller (as Meredith), Mitsu Bitchi (as Veronica), Cara Lott (as Cathy), Countess Samela (as Jen) and Shearer himself as Ed. As a production family having worked together for many years, they’re all completely comfortable with each other, which makes for a relaxed atmosphere in which to fein uncomfortabilty. That all scenes were improvised is even more impressive. Any uncomfortable pauses or lapses were undoubtedly edited out by Shearer’s merciless cutting and the pacing feels sharp without feeling rushed (though the tail end of some scenes do feel clipped). But it’s the verity of the film, and the sincerity that runs throughout, that keeps you glued to the scene. That and the amazement you’ll feel at Veronica’s behavior, even when you see each demand coming. 

Pick it up at www.gonzoriffic.com