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Reader Recommendations

READER RECOMMENDATION: THE MANIPULATOR (1971)

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Reader Recommendation from James Auburn

AKA BJ Presents; B.J. Lang Presents 

Beware

“…a motion picture so haunted… it will never be shown!” – B.J. Lang Presents trailer

DIRECTED BY: Yabo Yablonsky

FEATURING: , ,

PLOT: The film takes place almost entirely on a dusty soundstage. B.J. Lang (Rooney) has kidnapped a woman he refers to as Carlotta (Luana Anders of “Easy Rider”) and has tied her to a wheelchair. Lang spends nearly 90 minutes tormenting Carlotta, screaming at her, forcing her to recite lines to an imaginary movie, and spooning baby food into her mouth, among other indignities. 

Still from the manipulator (1971)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: This acid-damaged wannabe-arthouse film has stupefied even jaded psychotronic film freaks. Every “hip” avant-garde editing gimmick in the psychedelic-era toolbox is utilized: strobe lights, fish-eye lens, solarization, freeze-frames, quick-cut frames of random images, flashbacks/flash-forwards, slow-motion/fast-motion, etc. The viewing experience feels like a 90-minute long, 104-degree-fever hallucination that makes you question your own sanity. The uncomfortably cathartic performances from its two leads seem like a blend of acting-workshop exercises and heavy existential therapy put on film. Through extended monologues, the central character explores his own inner turmoil and waxes philosophical about life and show business, and as he wallows in his own insanity, the movie itself follows suit.

 

COMMENTS: Yes, one of the most demented movies you’ve ever seen starred Mickey Rooney—and he gives a psychotic tour-de-force performance that must be seen to be disbelieved.

In the opening scene, B.J. Lang enters the soundstage, as if to begin a routine day of work, passing cobwebbed props and backdrops; he sits down, and starts talking excitedly to thin air. Lang establishes himself as either a movie director who has gone insane, or an insane man who fancies himself a movie director; it’s never quite clear which. He runs a take of an imaginary movie scene while barking orders at mannequins and a film crew that exists only in his addled head. This opening segment culminates in a nightmarish two-minute freakout sequence with Lang screaming at two nude white-bodypainted figures (his parents? sure, why not) who cruelly laugh at him, over a screeching electronic racket. Suddenly: silence. Closeup: Lang is drenched in sweat, exhausted, as are our eardrums and sensibilities. What’s your threshold for cinematic insanity? You’ll know in the first ten minutes of The Manipulator.

We then discover Carlotta, tied to the wheelchair. Evidently she’s been there against her will for some time. For a long stretch, her only line is “I’m hungry, Mr. Lang!” She repeats it, again and again, with every different inflection she can muster (Lang spoon-feeds her a few Continue reading READER RECOMMENDATION: THE MANIPULATOR (1971) →

Apocryphally Weird

60*. RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY: A MUSICAL ADVENTURE (1977)

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“This is really weird.”–Raggedy Andy, when a camel asks him to climb on and join him as he chases an invisible caravan in the sky

DIRECTED BY: Richard Williams

FEATURING: Claire Williams, voices of Didi Conn, Mark Baker, Fred Stuthman, Niki Flacks, George S. Irving, Marty Brill, Joe Silver, Alan Sues

PLOT: On her owner’s birthday, Raggedy Ann and her brother Andy meet Babette, a snobbish new doll from France. Babette is quickly abducted by snowglobe pirate Captain Contagious. Ann and Andy venture out into the night, where they encounter a camel, a taffy pit, and an inflatable Loony king, before finally confronting the pirate ship.

Still from Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977)

BACKGROUND:

  • Raggedy Ann began her life as a mass-produced rag doll in 1915. A series of children’s books based on the character followed in the 1920s, continuing until the 1970s. Fleischer Brothers studios made three animated Raggedy Ann and Andy shorts in the 1940s. The dolls are still produced today.
  • This feature film was loosely adapted from the 1924 children’s book “Raggedy Ann and Andy and the Camel with the Wrinkled Knees.“
  • Director Richard Williams took over for originally-slated director Abe Levitow, who died before production began.
  • The adaptation was originally conceived as a Broadway musical, then a TV special, before becoming a feature film. An actual Broadway musical with many of the same characters (but a different plot) followed in 1986.
  • The film ended up costing more than double its original budget, and was a box office failure. It was released on VHS, but has never officially been released on DVD or Blu-ray.
  • Voted onto the Apocrypha by readers in this poll.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: The Greedy, an inexplicable being who inhabits the Taffy Pit and exists as a sort of candy-themed, eternally mutating ian horror-cum-cupcake.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Ghost camel caravan in the sky; expanding looney king

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Raggedy Ann was a hobo doll, the cheapest and most unassuming children’s toy imaginable. Throwing this plain Jane toy into a backyard “Alice in Wonderland” scenario shouldn’t have produced results as odd as it did. A Musical Adventure is uneven, but in its insaner moments, it genuinely goes for broke.

Original trailer for Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977)

COMMENTS: “Good mescaline comes on slow. The first hour is all Continue reading 60*. RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY: A MUSICAL ADVENTURE (1977) →

List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE CATHEDRAL OF NEW EMOTIONS (2006)

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Die kathedrale der neuen gefühle

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DIRECTED BY: Helmut Herbst

PLOT: Members of a Seventies Berlin commune travel through space aimlessly in a shipping container clutched in a giant fist, until an amnesiac stowaway divulges information on the location of the commune’s founder.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Even in the world of animated psychedelic European science-fiction—a small niche, admittedly—there aren’t many projects that open with a naked figure trampolining on a small patch of bell peppers as the titles scroll by in the background. That turns out to be practically the baseline of “normal,” in light of what follows.

COMMENTS:  Various members of the commune/spaceship frequently repeat the phrase “My eyes are cast down in awe,” and it’s a fitting description of the experience of watching The Cathedral of New Emotions. Expanded from director/co-writer Herbst’s 1971 short, Cathedral follows the antics of a 1970s commune repurposed as soft 1970s sci-fi in the vein of or Samuel Delany. It’s like an animated Dark Star with sex and drugs, with a slight element of The Final Programme in the mix. When the spaceship is contained in a fist, hard science is not going to be a primary element, especially when the spacecraft has windshield wipers that sweep off detritus such as bugs and a Hawkman from “Flash Gordon.” The journey through space isn’t just physical. The main space of concern is the metaphysical: one character remarks that “he lives in his head,” and upon his rediscovery of commune founder Madson, a self-described “merchant of images,” he tells another that they are “also just fiction.” There’s a political element, with May ’68 and the Vietnam War referenced both directly and indirectly through the disaffected and somewhat aimless behavior of the “crew.”

Cathedral comes across as a smarter and hornier version of an offering made for stoners with brains. There is a lot of sexual imagery and content, both hetero and homo (a cocooned threeway, a visual pun regarding “blowjob”). If it’s still not clear, the lyrics of the Krautrock-styled theme song at the beginning and end of the film feature the chorus “You’re inside of me/Deep, deep inside of me, ohhh.” In keeping with the Adult Swim comparison, the closest  (watered-down) equivalent might be “Superjail!” (although that show features more grotesque cruelty and violence than sex.) Cathedral even has a pair of indeterminately gendered twins who serve roughly the same function as similar “Superjail!” pair, providing a mocking chorus and running commentary on the action. The TV cartoon’s design is also more grotesque than Cathedral‘s, although Herbst includes an element of grotesquerie related to sexual body horror.

Cathedral made its home video premiere courtesy of Deaf Crocodile as a (now sold-out) limited deluxe edition with a booklet including essays from Walter Chaw and Alexander McDonald and slipcover. The standard edition includes a commentary by German film historian Rolf Giesen that is as much a history of German animation as a discussion of this film (description is somewhat pointless because the film is experimental, Giesen says upfront, but he does talk about Cathedral and Herbst in the latter part of the commentary); a visual essay by filmmaker Stephen Broomer; “Container Interstellar,” the 7-minute short that was expanded into Cathedral; a 25-minute documentary examining Herbst’s work (mainly television shorts and an acclaimed documentary on the DADA movement); and an interview with Herbst, who died in 2021.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Defying any kind of logical description, the animated German sci-fi fever dream The Cathedral of New Emotions can proudly stand as the trippiest title released to date by Deaf Crocodile — and that’s saying something!”–Nathaniel Thompson, Mondo Digital (Blu-ray)

The Cathedral Of New Emotions [Blu-ray]

The Cathedral Of New Emotions [Blu-ray]
  • German director Helmut Herbst's long-lost animated sci-fi feature, a true hallucinogenic Space Freakout
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