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Apocryphally Weird

56*. TOMMY (1975)

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“The Old Testament teems with prophecies of the Messiah, but nowhere is it intimated that that Messiah is to stand as a God to be worshiped. He is to bring peace on earth, to build up the waste places–to comfort the broken-hearted, but nowhere is he spoken of as a deity.”—Olympia Brown

DIRECTED BY: Ken Russell

FEATURING: Roger Daltrey, Ann-Margret, Oliver Reed, , , Jack Nicholson, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Barry Winch

PLOT: Tommy witnesses the murder of his WWII fighter-pilot father at the hands of his mother and step-father, who demand silence. The boy obliges, becoming wholly unresponsive to stimuli, aside from touch. When Tommy happens upon a pinball machine in a junkyard, he soon rockets to fame and messianic adulation from rebellious youths countrywide.

Still from Tommy (1975)

BACKGROUND:

  • The Who’s Tommy hit number two on the UK charts, going Gold within four months. Ken Russell did not care much for the music, but was intrigued by the ideas explored in the double album.
  • Russell’s Tommy was a box-office smash, garnering two Academy Award nominations (for Best Actress and Best Score).
  • George Lucas was slated to direct Tommy but opted instead to develop his own film, American Graffiti.
  • Every pinball machine featured in the film predates the original album’s release date of 1969.
  • Elton John refused the role of “Pinball Wizard” until he was promised the oversized Doc Marten boots worn by the character.
  • Mick Jagger, Tiny Tim, and were considered for the role of the Acid Queen before Tina Turner was signed on.
  • Every actor performs their own vocals—some more capably than others.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: At the height of his powers—and that would include the year of Tommy‘s release—Ken Russell made nothing but indelible images. But for stylistic and thematic reasons (not to mention sheer poetic excess), Tommy’s ordeal as he is installed within a syringe-imbued iron maiden during Tina Turner’s blow-out performance takes at least as much of the cake as any of the other wonders blaring on the screen.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Chrome-twinkling sex drug and rock ‘n’ roll body cage; a flood of beans fit for a queen

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: The Who provide the blaring wall of sound, Ken Russell’s crew manifest the blazing visuals, and a crack squad of heavy-hitter, top-of-their-game actors provide impressively calibrated bombastic characters, making for an audio-visual adventure that giddily drags you through a bonanza of immoderation. All somehow within the bounds of a “PG” rating.

Trailer for Tommy (1975)

COMMENTS: When you have a narrative that is as flimsy as it is outlandish, one way to make it work is cover it with lights, champagne, Continue reading 56*. TOMMY (1975) →

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

1976 EXPLOITATION TRIPLE FEATURE, PART ONE: THE OMEN & CARRIE

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1976 is such an astoundingly productive year in exploitation and horror that we’re forced to divide it into two parts. Religious-themed horror takes front and center in this first part, beginning with Alfred Sole’s Communion [better known today as Alice Sweet Alice], one of the most substantial cult films ever produced. Beginning with a young Brooke Shields torched in a pew, dysfunctional Catholicism is taken to grounds previously unseen. Mantling the most pronounced trends of the 1970s, Sole plays elastic with multiple genres (slasher, psychological, religious, independent movies, horror) with such idiosyncratic force that the movie’s cult status was inevitable. It should have made Sole a genre specialist, but his career as a director never took off, and he only made a few more films. Surprisingly, critics have been slow in coming around to Communion. It’s essential viewing and we hope to cover it in greater detail here at a later date.

Larry Cohen’s God Told Me To remains one of the most relentlessly original films of the 70s, already covered here and a solid List contender.

Richard Donner made a bona fide pop star out of a pre-pubescent antichrist with The Omen. It was a marketing bonanza, spawning endless sequels and a pointless 2006 remake. Sensationalistic, red-blooded, and commercially slick, in a National Enquirer kind of way, it’s predictably most successful in coming up with ways to slaughter characters—the most infamous of which is a decapitation by glass. In that, The Omen is a product of its time. The creativity in many of the later Hammer Dracula films was often solely reserved for ways to dispatch (and resurrect) its titular vampire. The Abominable Dr. Phibes took tongue-in-cheek delight utilizing the plagues of Egypt to annihilate everyone in sight. It was also the decade of Old Nick and deadly tykes. Throw in apocalyptic biblical paranoia, and The Omen is practically a smorgasbord of 70s trends.

Still from The Omen (1976)The Omen is helped tremendously by Jerry Goldsmith’s score, which is reminiscent of Carl Orff and still remembered (and imitated). Three character performances stand out: Billie Whitelaw, who literally lights up as a nanny from the pit, David Warner as a photographer obsessively trying to avoid his predestined end, and Patrick Troughton as a priest who “knows too much” (and gets his own Dracula-like finish). Unfortunately, the film is considerably hindered by its two leads. Gregory Peck, nice fella that he was off screen, is his usual wooden self and poorly cast as Damien’s adoptive ambassador father. The role was first offered to , whose old school conservative machismo and hammy charisma would undoubtedly have been a better fit. Alas, even though he rightly predicted it would be a major success, Heston objected to a film in which evil triumphed over good, and chose instead Continue reading 1976 EXPLOITATION TRIPLE FEATURE, PART ONE: THE OMEN & CARRIE →

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

1960 EXLPOITATION TRIPLE FEATURE: BEAT GIRL, HIGH SCHOOL CEASAR & DATE BAIT (1960)

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America in the 1960s and 1970s hardly had exclusive rights to juvenile delinquent exploitation trash films. With Beat Girl (1960), the U.K. delivered the goods in one of the sleaziest examples of the genre. Having a cast including Christopher Lee and certainly helps, as does a John Barry score (his first).

“This could be your daughter,” screamed the ads; rather hypocritically, one might add, since the movie’s ambition is to titillate and to exploit its Beat Girl Jennifer (Gillian Hills, who would show up later in Blow-up and A Clockwork Orange). Or, perhaps the ad was meant for Donald “If she wasn’t my daughter, perhaps I might…” Trump.

Ignored by constipated architect daddy Paul (David Farrar) and hating his twenty-something French floozy wife Nicole (Noelle Adam), Beat Girl decides to get revenge by going to the local coffee shop to cruise for beatnik-styled man meat. She sucks on a popsicle, dances to jazz music (!), smokes cigarettes, and gets drawn into the dark side of caffeinated pheromones by Daddy-O J.D. (a young Reed, in full ham mode) and a strip club manager with sordid eyebrows ( Lee, of course).

Still from Beat Girl (1960)We learn that our favorite Hammer Horror Count, being the perpetual predator that he is, had previously sampled Nicole, turned her into a stripper, and now plans to repeat his pattern of debauchery on poor Beat Girl. Chris’ Dracula comparatively seems like a misunderstood, chaste monk.

Beat Girl is dank and grimy enough to have originally earned an X certification. Predictably, the family melodrama and obligatory reformation scene are secondary to Hills and Adam strutting their stuff and shaking their go-go assets. Although tame today, it’s still an entertaining hoot, stylishly directed by veteran Edmond T. Greville.

As close to a “star” as the drive-in circuit had, John Ashley shows suitable angst as Matt Stevens, the High School Caesar, which means (as it should) that he’s the bad guy. Helpful hint for next time you’re watching Bill Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”: Brutus and Cassius are the protagonists. Director O’ Dale Ireland gets it right. Channeling the old Bard himself, his High School Caesar is a bit of a soap opera: it’s more about rise-to-power than fast cars, fisticuffs, or shootouts (although this being trash cinema, there are, of course ingredients of all the above).

Still from High School Caesar (1960)Unlike most of cinema’s juvenile delinquents, Matt comes from a well-to-do family, albeit a dysfunctional one that paves the path for some spoiled rich kid thuggery. (No, it’s not about Trump). High School Caesar rules the student body through fear, intimidation, and demonization of every person and demographic that he imagines his enemy. (No, it’s not about Trump).

After a rigged class election and plenty of strong-arming, things begin to go south as we head to Matt’s comeuppance. Ashley, giving a suave performance, makes it work, as well in his own tacky way as Paul Muni’s Tony Camonte (AKA “Scarface”).

Still from Date Bait (1960)If there wasn’t enough premarital sex and drugs in Caesar, Ireland more than makes up for it in his Date Bait, which could just as easily been titled Date Rape. This one’s the epitome of JD flicks, opening with the rock-n-roll lyrics “she’s my date bait baby, and I don’t mean maybe.” When the local dopehead Danny (Gary Clarke) gets outta rehab and hooks up with date bait Sue (Marlo Ryan), you know that switchblade-wielding beatniks, drag racing, testosterone-overdosed males clashing over breasts (squeezed into tight white sweaters), and run-ins with the law are not far behind. Of these three features, only Date Bait keeps intact all the trash genre stereotypes, which unsurprisingly means it was also the most successful of the trio on the drive-in circuit.

It’s not as well acted as Caesar (Sue’s parents, reading their lines, never rise above lethargy, even when lecturing her about her white trash boyfriend), and (per the norm) all the teens are played by twenty-somethings (it shows). On a pure entertainment level it’s probably more accessible to those who prefer their JD diet to be campy and cheap.

In the next week’s triple feature, we’ll zoom ahead a full year to… choppers, psychos, and damaged goods.

Bring your own pizza.

Capsules

CAPSULE: THE BROOD (1979)

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Recommended

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Art Hindle, , Samantha Eggar

PLOT: Horrible murders swirl around the family of a woman who is  under the care of a psychiatrist practicing “psychoplasmics,” an experimental therapy which elicits physical manifestations of psychic traumas.

Still from The Brood (1979)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: The “deformed children” of The Brood might seem like a bizarre bunch to neophytes, but a glance at Cronenberg’s later works reveals they’re strictly a warm-up act where weirdness is concerned.

COMMENTS: The Brood includes a touch of the body horror that Cronenberg fans tune in for, though you have to wait until the end for the big reveal. Throughout most of the running time, this is more of a “regular” horror effort, with little monsters bashing in heads in bloody assualts (the broodlings favor wooden hammers as their weapon of choice, and although there are only a few attacks, they are very memorable and very traumatic). A psychological background gives the story texture that keeps it from sliding into slasher movie territory. Frank Carveth (the unremarkable Art Hindle) once had a happy family, but his mentally ill wife Nola (a remarkable Samantha Eggar) has been taken under the care of experimental psychiatrist Hal Raglan (the dependable Oliver Reed). On a visit to pick up his five-year old daughter from a visit with her mother at the “Somafree Institute,” Frank watches a public demonstration where Raglin, roleplaying a meek patient’s harsh daddy, bullies the man until he breaks out in sores of shame on his face (“go all the way through it to the end,” the therapist whispers as he eagerly anticipates the festering of the sobbing man’s impending wounds). When he takes the little girl back home, Frank discovers bruises and scratches on her back. Frank insists the girl’s visits be cut off, but an arrogant and uncooperative Raglan is not keen on changing the cloistered Nola’s therapeutic regime at such a crucial time, and insists the current custody arrangement must continue. Frank decides to conduct his own investigation into psychoplasmics.

The backstory that explains the level of intensity on display here, particularly in that final confrontation between Frank and Nola, is that Cronenberg was going through a divorce and custody battle of his own at the time he wrote up the scenario. The Brood is a step forward in Cronenberg’s oeuvre; it’s more polished than his previous efforts Rabid and Shivers, which were clearly ambitious exploitation movies. With its satirical shots at psychiatry coupled with a searing psychology of its own, The Brood takes a turn towards art-horror. It’s helped immensely by Eggar’s wild-eyed, all-in performance; she’s a nutcase, and an unintentional monster, but not an unsympathetic one. The Brood is an experimental therapy by David Cronenberg to elicit a cinematic manifestation of his own traumatic divorce, and its a successful one. It seems like an obvious influence on ‘s even stranger and more bitter breakup memoir, Possession, which it beat to the screen by a mere two years. The torture of divorce, from the husband’s perspective, was a big movie topic at the time—patrons going out to see The Brood might have rubbed shoulders with those lining up to see the Oscar-winning Kramer vs. Kramer.

In 2015 The Brood joined Scanners, Videodrome, Dead Ringers, and Naked Lunch on the Criterion Collection label. Along with the usual extras, the release includes Cronenberg’s second low budget experimental movie, 1970’s Crimes of the Future, as a bonus feature. Crimes is the story of a rogue dermatologist who accidentally wipes out all females on the planet. Crimes is probably far weirder than The Brood, but not nearly as accomplished.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“In true Cronenberg fasion [sic], we are, instead, presented with something much, much weirder.”–Jerry, “Danny Isn’t Here Mrs. Torrance (DVD)

Capsules

CAPSULE: BURNT OFFERINGS (1976)

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DIRECTED BY: Dan Curtis

FEATURING: , Oliver Reed, Lee Montgomery,

PLOT: A family of three, and their elderly aunt, find a deal allowing them to stay in an old country mansion for the summer, providing they keep the place up and leave out a plate of food for the house’s reclusive matron, who never leaves her room.

Still from Burnt Offerings (1976)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: It’s too mild, with some slight ambiguity but no significant weirdness.

COMMENTS: Burnt Offerings was the beginning of a late 1970s/early 1980s haunted house cycle that encompassed three Amityville Horror movies; the mini-movement climaxed commercially with 1982’s Poltergeist and artistically with 1980’s The Shining. In fact, Offerings is most interesting when considered as a precursor to The Shining, which would take its theme of a parent possessed by an evil spirit and catapult it into the horror stratosphere. Offerings, on the other hand, suffers from poor pacing. It’s too leisurely getting started: it’s over a half hour into the film before we see the first incident which might be categorized as “supernatural.” Up until then, the focusing on spooky shots of light bulbs while horror movie music plays just doesn’t cut it. Even when things do finally start to happen—swimming pool roughhousing that gets dangerously out of hand, a recurring nightmare about a smiling chauffeur—events occur in fits and starts, with husband and wife spending the interim discussing how each previous manifestation of evil is affecting their relationship. Offering a few creepy moments along the way, the movie crawls to a non-surprise ending.

The film’s biggest virtue is its cast. Karen Black, by now no longer a sex kitten but not yet a matron, centers the film. Her sensuality is perfectly constrained, and we are not surprised at hints that the couple’s sex life may be well past the honeymoon phase. Son Lee Montgomery is acceptable; he doesn’t sink the film, which is the most you can really hope from a young actor. Bette Davis is unremarkable here, but she is Bette Davis; her very presence adds legitimacy. Of all the actors, Reed may understand the material’s urge vto break through into camp the best; the moments when his face goes spastic as he fights off the evil inside him give it the film some melodramatic tics of life.

Burnt Offerings was based on a 1973 novel by Robert Marasco, although director Dan Curtis (of TVs “Dark Shadows” fame) rewrote it significantly. The movie was not a critical success, but it has a small but devoted fan base (probably enough to categorize it as “fondly remembered,” but below the threshold that would make it a true cult movie). The 2015 Blu-ray contains a number of new interviews with the surviving cast and adds a new commentary track from critic Richard Harland Smith to the old one from Curtis, Black and co-writer William F. Nolan that has been ported over from the DVD release.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Most of the cliches of the Gothic genre are encompassed in the plot about Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Bette Davis, and young Lee H. Montgomery having a weird summer after moving into a home owned by batty Burgess Meredith and Eileen Heckart… might have been interesting if director Dan Curtis hadn’t relied strictly on formula treatment.”–Variety (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by “sunspotbaby.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Burnt Offerings (Special Edition) [Blu-ray]

Burnt Offerings (Special Edition) [Blu-ray]
  • This terrifying thriller does for summer homes what Jaws did for a dip in the surf
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