Rixflix A to Z: Attack of the Giant Leeches (1956)

Director: Bernard L. Kowalski // AIP; 1:02; b/w
Crew Notables: Roger Corman (exec. producer); Leo Gordon (writer)
Cast Notables: Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers, Jan Shepard, Michael Emmet, Tyler McVey, Bruno VeSota, Gene Roth
Cinema 4 Rating: 3
I will forgo the obvious temptation to make jokes about lawyers, politicians, ex-wives or corporations to instead offer praise to the filmmakers of Attack of the Giant Leeches for giving the viewer exactly what they promise. There are leeches in the film, and while they seem to be of a truly unrecognizable or perhaps undiscovered species, they are indeed giant. While not towering over a building like Starro would whilst fighting the Justice League of America, these leeches are still far bigger than your average, everyday leech, and certainly they are slightly bigger than the people they are attacking. Oh, yes... the leeches also do attack, thereby lending the truth to the title. To Bernie Kowalski and American International Pictures, thank you for giving us what you promised in the title: giant leeches attacking.

And then it becames a case of "Thanks, but no thanks." Despite their commitment to truth in advertising, the filmmakers fail in nearly every other aspect of bringing this attack to life. Except for the highlight of the film -- when the actors in the leech costumes are slowly sucking the blood out of the hapless citizens of this backwoods redneck town -- the film resorts to a sort of Tennessee Williams-lite motif, with a gorgeous cheating wife running about with half the town behind the back of her portly, "Baby Doll"-style husband. His itchy trigger finger leads to plenty of trouble, which in turn leads to all of the involved parties in the love triangle ending up as victims to the voracious invertebrates. To do this, though, they have to end up near or in the waters of the swamp, which they invariably do, along with various other townsfolk, and then the leeches get to feed unchecked.

Despite warnings from the heroic ranger who is putting the mystery of their disappearances together, it is decided that high explosives in the water are the way to blast the leeches to kingdom come. This may wipe out much of the life in the water, but it unfortunately still leaves us with a slow, monotonous film to crawl our way through. The heroics are stiffened by the lack of imagination on the part of the screenplay, and we, as an audience just wish they not only had more phony but oddly eerie scenes of costumed monsters feeding on blood, but that they had written an ending where the leeches prevail so we would be rid of this town full of boring losers. The final shot of a surviving leech which the filmmakers provide could lead to this very thing, but I need far more assurance that this swamp community will be wiped off the face of the earth.

Either that, or have Tennessee Williams grow to 50 feet tall and have him face off against a mass of giant leeches in a kaiju wrasslin' match to the death. The winner gets to suck the blood from their overprotective, smothering mother and then carry on a torrid love affair with the corpse of the portly, "Baby Doll"-style husband. Either way, let's see the filmmakers capture that succinctly in a title. I'm thinking "Leechy Nuts"...

Psychotronic Ketchup: The Atomic Brain [Monstrosity] (1960) and The Astro-Zombies (1968)

Dull-eyed but not painless. How else can one feel after spending an hour sitting through a film where three women, one of them not even particularly attractive, wander from room to room in a dusty mansion, while the viewer sits less and less patiently waiting for the mad scientist to do them in so the film will reach its climax and the viewer can run screaming from his home? If there were some sort of reason this film was made, apart from stealing money from the pockets of unsuspecting viewers, then I cannot locate it. The Atomic Brain's mere two moments of camp value come from some tacked-on narration by what must be an unsuspecting "actual actor" (as opposed to the remainder of the cast) Bradford Dillman, and from a scene of one of the women, who has had her mind swapped with that of a feline, hissing and scratching at another woman while ensconced atop a gazebo. This is exactly how I felt as I watched the film, and it would have been terrific if I could have taken one or two of the director's eyes out with a vicious swipe of my paw. Such an attack on his visual orbs might also render him a better director, for surely he didn't do very well having the use of them.

There are some films where two hours of running time zip by like nothing, due to things like a snappy storyline, robust editing, living, breathing characters and an interesting visual style being part of their makeup. And then there are films where even an hour is far too long, where the film just seems to have leaped into some form of cinematic quicksand, and while the viewer wishes to grab a stick to push it under for good, the film only seems to grab that stick and hang on for dear life. If the film had something more to offer, one might feel compelled to pull it out of the muck, but such is not the fate for The Atomic Brain. Ted V. Mikel's The Astro-Zombies, on the other hand, is one that you really want to push under, but it keeps coming up with weird bits that make you think it is going to redeem itself. And then John Carradine incoherently mumbles his way through another five minutes of dialogue that has very little to do with the surrounding film, and you want to push it under again.

Think a Russ Meyer big-tittie film without the art. Think mutated spacemen whose only physical trace of this mutation is a cheap Halloween mask, who go about stabbing and strangling unsuspecting citizens while government functionaries slowly talk about stopping the menace but take an incredibly long time to do so. Think Tura Satana, all big jugs and little talent, doing the best femme fatale imitation she can muster, an act of seduction which is completely undermined by the fact that she is truly unattractive (Psychotronic describes her as a "pasty-faced stripper", and I can think of no better description). And yet, she serves the film well. Think John Carradine practically dog-paddling in booze through this role, who seems to have done about an afternoon's worth of work, and probably did about zero prep time for it, which truly shows. But he is Carradine, and you want to give him a break, if only he has a naked girl strapped to a table and is about to perform cruel experiments on her.

This is the type of film that truly defies criticism. It is truly bad, and yet, there is something about it that one can not write off completely. I know a brace of people who swear fealty to it (often the same group who back up Meyer even more vociferously), and even to me, it definitely has major camp appeal. The opening credits with the battling toy robots, which has little or nothing to do with the film at all, is proof of that, and it brought a tremendous smile to my face. I thought I was in for a major kitsch treat.

But, like The Atomic Brain, The Astro-Zombies is dull beyond belief. It is also much longer, so whatever I found enjoyable in its interior was done in by the extended running time, which just served to point out my boredom even more. Carradine just can't move a beaker and say a line or two; he does so for several minutes. The painted nude dancer can't just dance for thirty seconds and then the plot moves on; she has to do so for several minutes. Lifeless dialogue between the CIA guys just drones on and on, and a few minutes later, they do more droning on. I am droning on find things that this movie drones on about, so I will stop. It is an act of mercy that most of these films will not give you, so cherish it. I know I would.

Psychotronic Ketchup & Rixflix A to Z: Atom Age Vampire [Seddok, l'erede di Satana] (1960)

Director: Anton Giulio Majano // Manson/Topaz; 1:26; b/w
Cast Notables: Alberto Lupo, Susanne Loret, Sergio Fantoni, Franca Parisi
Cinema 4 Rating: 4

A few years back, HBO ran a series of films called Creature Features, which were not so much remakes of old 1950s Samuel Arkoff-produced science-fiction and horror films as they were remakes of the titles of those films. Instead of Earth Vs. the Spider being about a giant tarantula, in the new version, the filmmakers were inspired to create a more horrific take on Spider-Man, with the kid infected with radioactive spider blood becoming a blood-slurping villain after trying to use his powers for good. Most of the re-dos of old titles did not really work (though I have much affection for the new version of The She-Creature); it was an interesting experiment, but I thought some of the filmmaker choices were poor and I felt that a little more care should have been to quality control. This might seem a strange concept when speaking of making a movie out of a mere conceptual title, but its not like it hasn't been done successfully before throughout film history. But if you wanted your high-concept series to actually be successful, they should have tightened the reins on some of the directors (especially Larry Clark, who should have never been approached), and made sure the series was actually entertaining, which it only was sporadically.

What I would have been far more interested in is if they had taken the actual scripts from those old films, combined them with some decent acting and special effects, and outright re-filmed those old titles. And I don't mean that they should have camped up the old scripts acting-wise, but would instead play them perfectly straight (allowances could be made in the scripts for modernities, unless they decided to leave them in their original time period). I don't need to see this done; I am merely offering up my opinion on what would be far more interesting to see. I know that many times Roger Corman and his cohorts at AIP often had to make their films from scratch with only a title that they were provided, so I understand what they were trying to do with the Creature Feature remakes. It's just that the cultural atmosphere is far too different now for audiences to really be attracted in a large way to such an experiment, and so more effort should have been made to ensure that the show would entertain, and so that you wouldn't end up with a soft-core, boring and thoroughly nauseating (and not in a good way) version of Teenage Caveman.

Atom Age Vampire is not an old Sam Arkoff AIP flick, but material-wise it certainly could be. It possesses some of the same facial disrepair concerns as The Wasp Woman, and not only has a mad doctor performing cruel experiments on women, but he also occasionally turns into a monster and goes out at night to kill innocent victims. Not content with just these elements in its weirdly crowded plot, the filmmakers toss in a little more serious Gojira-style flavor and decide to give the doctor a past where he worked in Nagasaki after the atom bombs were dropped during WWII, and saw firsthand the nuclear devastation to the human populace. Yes, the Italian acting stepped out of a panini, with both ham and cheese intact, but the women are beautiful, and the location work is interesting. And there is the camerawork, which, as is often the case in 60's Italian horrors and giallos, always interesting. I like the way the main female character pulls off a robe and tosses it over the camera as she is departing a room, and I also enjoy the atmosphere in the damp, crudely lit basement where the doctor digs out his escape route for his monstrous alter-ego.

The film is as stupid and incoherent as a thousand other movies of this type, but there is something about it that is fascinating (apart from the items I ticked off above) and not once did my attention wander from it, as may happen when you have watched a thousand other movies of this type. I saw Astro-Zombies and The Atomic Brain bookended around this film, and while the films have similar themes, the differences in quality are incredibly noticeable when you approach it that way. It may seem cruel that I give a movie that I enjoyed watching only a "4", but this the level to which its overall quality brings it down, despite the fact that I will easily watch this again over most of the "5"-rated movies on my list. (It also shows the vast difference between a "4" and a mere "3" or "2", as the surrounding films I viewed were rated.)

Which leads me to my belief that a series of remakes much in the style of Creature Features, but of the actual scripts instead of the titles, would be fun to pursue. This film would be one of my picks, but careful consideration would have to be given to who would create the remake. My choice for this film would be David Cronenberg, who would probably never do it, but it wouldn't hurt to try. After all, he did a bang-up job on The Fly, and this film does touch on some of his pet themes which have recurred throughout his films. Now that he is an Oscar-nominated guy, it might be harder, but he does have an affection for the genre. As for the other films in the series, I am going to have to think about it, but for it be successful, one thing is sure. No films with naked street kids in it. We don't need Larry Clark buzzing around this project like a fly to a crap-splattered teenage buttock.

Rixflix A to Z: Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

Directors: Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise // Walt Disney Studios; 1:35; color
Crew Notables: Joss Whedon (story treatment); James Newton Howard (score)
Cast Notables: Michael J. Fox, James Garner, John Mahoney, Cree Summer, Leonard Nimoy, Jim Varney, Don Novello, David Ogden Stiers, Jacqueline Obradors, Florence Stanley, Natalie Strom, Corey Burton, Claudia Christian, Phil Morris, Jim Cummings
Cinema 4 Rating: 6

I do have to give kudos to the Disney animation department for defying expectations. Just when you think that you can sum up their efforts over the past, say, 70 years into a neat little package surrounded by cute, fuzzy animals and singing princesses, they pull this out of their bag of tricks. A Jules Verne-style voyage into the depths of the oceans, rendered in a modern action style, and populated almost entirely by actual human characters. Well, characters that are designed to look human, though they still fall into a precisely divided set of action movie stereotypes, so let's not give them the Palme D'Or for cinematic innovation just yet.

And yet, there is enough here to allow the viewer to forget that this film falls into the Disney line, even though the film starts out unpromisingly with an opening flashback to the downfall of Atlantis that might seem fresh if television animation and anime weren't already filled with similar imagery. Even though the film is loaded with death, it is mostly depersonalized and on a largely imagined, unseen scale (200 people lost in a submersible explosion, etc.); there are major characters that bite the dust, but never the ones that you wish would go, i.e. the grimy and smelly Mole character, who is supposed to be creepily endearing, but just ends up being an unrealistic and wholly unnecessary French stereotype. Likewise many of the stock action characters, including a commander (voiced by James Garner) whom you don't believe for a freaking second is one of the good guys, so that there is little surprise when he turns into a Big Bad. (I do wonder if the girl mechanic character was devised by Joss Whedon, who turned in a story treatment, because she bears a remarkable similarity to the hottie mechanic Kaylee in his later Firefly.)

Of course, Disney can't resist the obvious temptation: since this movie involves a lost ancient land, naturally it leads to yet another magical Disney princess. Princess culture makes me want to vomit, but since this movie was nowhere near a big hit, the company swiftly swept her and the rest of the characters under the rug. The truth is, she is one of the more bearable royal figures in their pantheon; more concerned with saving her civilization than herself, she is actually one of their more noble figures. (Of course, so is Pocahontas, but I friggin' hated her movie.) Yeah, "true love" plays a hand here, as can only be expected when a Disney princess is prancing about in a loincloth, but the film seems to be more committed to its re-certification of by-the-book action movie stereotypes and predictable action.

Again, this is one of those movies that I seem to have been programmed since birth to simply love from its first frame onward, and again, I find myself shrugging my shoulders in ennui. I seem to be predisposed to Verne-type fantasies, as well, but the fact is it just doesn't work for me here. I don't buy into the time period in which they set it because I really can't figure out why it was even necessary to place it there. The fact that I don't give a shit about the lost civilization of Atlantis in this film is because I don't believe it is underwater in the middle of the ocean in the first place. (If it is underwater somewhere, it would more likely be in the Mediterranean or Aegean areas.) I will believe anything in a movie if the characters in the movie themselves believe it can happen, and thus I am prepared to take an amazing leap of faith on my part to believe that the Atlanteans possessed the ability to prolong life through a mysterious lost power source or fly about on anti-gravity fish-ships. But, until late in the game, there is little sense of wonder to any of this frenzied action. Most of the characters seem to react to the most amazing things as if they happened everyday, and therein lies the problem. I said I will believe anything in a movie if the characters themselves believe it can happen, but with this, there has to be a healthy dose of disbelief within the characters, too. When the giant underwater creature that destroys the Nautilus-like submersible first appears, the general reaction is one of "Oh, well. Let's get out of here." Half of those characters, no matter how battle-hardened, should be crapping in their khakis.

This might seem like a giant leap to ask of generally G-rated Disney -- but, hey! The film is PG-rated, the safety zone of fart and poop jokes for kids, and Disney is about to kill 200 people in that submarine. Who said they can't go out with a laugh?

The First Evidence of the Oscars Sucking This Year...

...And the nominees for Best Animation Feature, Moderately Entertaining to Immensely Overrated Piece of Shit Division, are:

___ Cars (John Lasseter)
___ Happy Feet (George Miller)
___ Monster House (Gil Kenan)

Oh, look! Three underlined areas where I would never feel compelled, had I the chance to participate, to place a checkmark or an 'X'. What gives, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, often scientific but rarely artful? Is your august organization as befuddled in this matter as millions of vapid parents? Where's the love for the animated film that was more outright entertaining than all three of these films put together (and then some), and just as well-executed technically: Over the Hedge?

I'm not going to get into the whole "is motion-capture technology animation?" argument; to me, motion-capture is merely the most recent update of rotoscoping (essentially, tracing over live-action film), a money-saving animation process which worked plenty well for the Fleischer brothers and was used sparingly but successfully over the years by many of the top animators, including Disney (and, for someone like Bakshi, rather profusely), and I've never heard anyone say that the films they created were not "animated". And weren't we having this same argument about computer animation in general just a few years ago, and now, especially with the wild success of Pixar, it is pretty widely, if not begrudgingly in certain circles, accepted? There is plenty of room for all manner of passengers on this ship -- cel-heads, digitizers, even capturers -- if the film or sequence in question is not composed of mainly untampered live-action photography, then it should be considered animation, whether or not someone merely drew or painted over film. Or even if someone captured a live-acting performance and used a computer to do so. Thus, I am willing to accept anything outside of a standard filmed movie as "animated".

The real question here, though, is worthiness of celebration. Cars is mainly on this nominee list because it is from Pixar, and Pixar has a rep that it maintains very carefully, and I would be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy this film on a level just a notch above average. I rated it as a "6" on my chart, like Happy Feet, so I consider them to be, at least, merely "good", but it is, by a wide margin, my least favorite of Pixar's output. The problem is that Pixar's history is filled with such high quality work that the merest drop in story success leaves you with a merely good film. Still enjoyable, but with severe deficiencies in the story department, not least of all is the nagging question of "Where the hell are the human beings?" Even in Toy Story, the humans existed, even for the toys. In all of the Pixar films, the human presence is not just undeniable, but it is also commented upon by the non-human characters. In Cars, the vehicles seem to have invented themselves, or else they have become sentient beings and overthrown and destroyed the human race. Even the agent for the lead car is played by another car. The stands are filled with other cars, not cheering humans. This, for myself, digs for the film a deep and chilling chasm over which I may never be able to leap the General Lee in a half-corkscrew. And I kept waiting for a human played by Charlton Heston to show up in the town and yell, "Keep your filthy radials of me, you damn, dirty machines!!"

I might be tempted to root for Happy Feet, simply because it has been brought about by the man who gave us Mad Max, George Miller. Of course, despite the fact I liked it, I also said that I never needed to see a fucking tap-dancing penguin again in my life. Though the film seems like a carefree study of musical-bound penguins, Miller's action roots still get a chance to shine here in a pair of Jaws-like sequences involving first a most frightening leopard seal and then a killer whale duo that delight in slowly torturing their intended prey by tossing them about by mouth and nose through the air to each other. Aside from this, though, one swiftly comes to the realization that these penguins are just like us: dopey enough to enjoy bad (really bad) popular music and to allow religious zealots to infiltrate and control their system of government. I also imagine that penguin parents would also plop their kids down in front of each and every animated film that came along, should penguin parents have that option, and then the Penguin Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would then pick their Best Animated Feature nominees from some arcane process that only allows three nominees when there are enough films available to at least nominate a full five. (Even if only one actually deserves the honor...)

As for Monster House, which is one of the most wildly over-acclaimed films of recent memory, amazingly thumbed up by the likes of Ebert and Roeper, I can only say that I should love this film. There is no single element of its structure that I shouldn't enjoy: it takes place on Halloween, there are monsters, there is a circus subplot, there is an angry old man voiced by Steve Buscemi. Let me shout it: I... SHOULD... LOVE... THIS... MOVIE!!! Let me then shout this: I FUCKING DON"T!!! The closest parallel that I can describe is to bring up The Goonies. I enjoyed The Goonies when it came out, because I was young and generally uncritical. I just wanted to have fun at the movies in that period. And then a couple of years later, after rewatching it on VHS, I was struck with the notion of how truly bad it actually was. Not bad in a vile sort of way, but just annoyingly bad like when you get a headache after being around bratty screaming children for about twelve straight hours. The kind of headache you get that can only be tempered by crushing your skull with a vise. I left The Goonies alone for about a decade, and then I ran into it again a couple of years ago. This time, with a full understanding of the desperate straits that popular film, and society in general, were in during the Reign of Ray-Gun, I approached the film as openly and non-judgmental as I try to be when attending a film these days. And I got the same exact headache! I understand the nostalgia appeal for a film like The Goonies, and there is still a certain camp appeal to it, but it is a piece of crap.

This same exact fate awaits Monster House. People will run into it in a couple years and realize the error of their ways. They will see a badly-scripted, lazily detailed film with a cast of dead-eyed, creepy children, who are all voiced screamingly by some very poor actors -- and they will take themselves and their own children straight away to therapy. That therapy will consist of watching a good animated film like Over the Hedge, which will restore their faith in popular culture, and leave them feeling as zippy as Hammy the Squirrel. They will laugh along with well-constructed comic lines delivered by perfectly cast actors, and the once afflicted will suddenly feel better about themselves and others. And the world will be suffused in the glow of a giant Day-Glo rainbow, and zillions of Skittles will fall from the sky. And this bombardment of delicious candy will swiftly choke to death all of the Rapture-waiters, who will have their mouths agape in misplaced wonder. People will stop believing in fairy tales, society will be allowed to progress and take to the stars, and the world will be a better place.

And if none of this happens, it will be because Monster House won a friggin' Oscar. And I will blame the Academy for society's continued downfall...

Psychotronic Ketchup: Attack of the Puppet People (1958)

Nepotism is such an ugly word. One usually hears it in conjunction with someone getting a step up in a business due to their personal relationship with someone in a position of power within that company. Being from Alaska, this very thing happened in our political system, where a slime-coated State Senator won the Governorship and handed his open slot to his skeezy daughter. As I said, nepotism is an ugly word, sometimes made all the uglier by the participants.

Hollywood is, and always has been, suffused with nepotism, and it is no surprise when a director casts a family member in a production. But is it really nepotism when the casting in question really does nothing to help that person get a leg up in the industry? If your father is the king of rear-projection gigantism films, such as Mister Big himself, Bert I. Gordon, then isn't he really hindering your shot at a career by casting you in one of his justly infamous productions? Isn't this really a form of anti-nepotism?

Bert decided to grace the universe by "introducing" his sweet little chunk-faced daughter Susan in a tiny but plot-hinging role in Attack of the Puppet People, his crass attempt to cash in on the major success of Universal's far superior production of The Incredible Shrinking Man, released in the previous year. Apart from a cat and the subject of miniaturized people (though Universal's film had the usual radiation subplot of the 50's instead of a machine invented by a dollmaker), the chief link from this film to its predecessor is the protaganist's use of a nail as a sword against a dangerous opponent. Scott Carey used his sharp little weapon against a voracious tarantula; John Agar's stiffly played character of Bob uses it to protect himself and his lady love against a barking dog standing on the other side of a cardboard mail package. Unfortunately, though Gordon made the size of the antagonist larger, the effect pays off in much smaller dividends. In fact, it fails utterly, and while one could make the point that this entire film does too, there are things to like here.

I am so used to seeing John Hoyt appear in reruns of 60's television shows that his presence here as the lonely and slightly sympathetic (though emphasis should be placed on the "pathetic") dollmaker seems to make the film seem like a longer, if unsuccessful, episode of The Twilight Zone. He also makes this film surprisingly watchable. While many are quick to point out the cheap special effects, I would counter that many of the prop pieces work quite well, even if they never get close to approaching the grander level of Incredible or especially the Oscar-winning Dr. Cyclops (a personal favorite). The film also gets a major benefit from the cinematography of famed cinematographer Ernest Laszlo, who filmed a few lower-budget sci-fi programmers in the late 50's in the middle of a busy Oscar-winning career. While there is not much in the way of innovative shots, the film does have a sharp look to it (except, of course, when those annoyingly out-of-sync rear-projection shots show up).

It falls apart story-wise, though, mainly because the villain is not black-hearted enough. Even when he threatens to kill his creations, it is because he plans to kill himself as well, because he can't bear to live without his "dolls". Sure, he's a twisted fuck, but the way Hoyt portrays his mad loneliness makes his preposterous methods quite understandable, though I never believed for a second that he would actually carry through on his threat to murder them. Whether he does or not is left up in the air, as the film relies on a rather ambiguous (read: rushed and poorly written) ending regarding the fate of two-thirds of the "puppet people", who never do get around to attacking anyone, not even their tormentor.

And poor little "nepo-tized" Susan Gordon? While I asked if her casting would actually be hindered, this actually wasn't the case. She did go on to make a string of guest appearances on TV (including The Twilight Zone) through the sixties, but by '67, it seems she was done. It seems that in Bert's roughly 20 years of giant-sized movies (though he did make films in other genres during this period), this film about reducing people to doll-size was the ironic one-off (even if it practically uses the same effect), and perhaps this turnabout caused his daughter's career in showbiz to be shrunk simply by her appearance in it. She did make appearances in three more of her father's flicks, but strangely, none of his epics about giants. Perhaps he never wanted her to grow up. And for a guy obsessed with making everything in his universe enormous, that would be the weirdest thing of all.

Rixflix A to Z: At War with the Army (1950)

Director: Hal Walker // Paramount; 1:33; b/w
Cast Notables: Dean Martin (1st Sgt. Vic Puccinelli), Jerry Lewis (PFC Alvin Korwin), Mike Kellin (Sgt. McVey), Polly Bergen (Helen Palmer), Jean Ruth (Millie), Angela Green (Mrs. Caldwell), William Mendrek (Capt. Caldwell)
Cinema 4 Rating: 5

I swear that I am going to start a regular series called "Rewriting the Maltin Guide". There is enough bad film advice and misdirection in that book to fill a thousand posts, so even though I actually would never be without a copy (It is, or rather, used to be an invaluable reference guide), perhaps I should start a series sooner instead of later. I have mentioned before that the book has almost no feel for genre whatsoever, but I should also point out that it is a book squarely aimed at the most straight-laced of moviegoers, and thus most of its reviews come off strictly squaresville, baby. And every once in a while, a review -- oh, and dare I mention that Leonard Maltin doesn't even actually write many of the reviews himself? -- will mention a scene or song that really isn't worth mentioning at all.

In the review for At War with the Army, the first starring vehicle for the then-relatively new Martin and Lewis comedy team, the Maltin Guide points out the "memorable soda machine gag". I would like to ask what exactly is so memorable about it? Is it an amazing setpiece of clockwork technology and comic timing like Chaplin vs. the Machine in Modern Times? I ask this because the Chaplin sequence is one of the most famous in film comedy, and it is only hinted at in Maltin's review, whereas he takes pains to point out the soda machine sequence in this one. In a book where one tiny paragraph is allotted to each and every review, it seems a shame that one would waste time on what is actually a wasted opportunity for big laughs when the true heart of the film lies in the musical numbers, both solos and duos, for the film's stars. If one of the most classic comedic scenes doesn't rate a solo mention in the book, why should a subpar one?

I will defy the opinions of friends and acquaintances who fall into lockstep with the "generic" American attitude towards Jerry Lewis, even if at one time he was considered (mainly by himself) to be a comic genius, and state my adoration for the team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. The films are cookie cutter by almost any definition, though the later ones start to veer off into different directions, much as the stars would eventually. Jerry does the wacky stuff, Dean does the romantic stuff and a couple of solo songs, and the boys almost always get together on stage to recreate skits and songs from their theatrical act. They bicker and fight but always team up like brothers when the chips are down. The films vary very little from each other, and yet, growing up, I couldn't get enough of them.

This film, however, perhaps due to its status of their first starrer, is not quite there in terms of getting their act together. Because they plugged the stars into a popular play, the basis for their friendship is only hinted at, but never really felt, even when they get together on stage. It feels like at any moment that Dean is going to bust Jerry in the chops, and not just because he outranks him as a character. Even though the film is supposed to be a comedy, this feeling lends a harshness to the film that it can't outrun, and it is exacerbated by the fact that the comedy just doesn't work here. My guess is that the filmmakers just haven't quite figured out how to use Jerry on film yet, and small bits of business that Jerry produces, such as some of his reactions in his actually funny solo, "The Navy Gets the Gravy, but the Army Gets the Beans", don't get the sort of focus that they would get in later films when he would make the same type of faces or gestures. The camera seems reluctant to even try and keep up with the young whirlwind, and its stagnant state produces a mood of ennui in the viewer.

There are funny parts in the film, especially Jerry in hairy-chested drag serenading a drunken officer, well played by Mike Kellin. But that soda machine gag? The set up is that there is a machine in the orderly office that dispenses bottles of pop for a nickel, but every time that someone tries to purchase one, the machine makes a lot of dings and pings and the front of the machine lights up, but then nothing comes out no matter what the officers do. Later in the film, a lone Jerry causes something to barely brush the machine -- and the damn thing comes alive and starts spitting out bottle after bottle! Jerry tries to catch all of the bottles, but then the change dispenser starts dishing out coins like a slot machine. Soda is spraying all over Jerry as he tries in vain to stop the avalanche of bottles.

If it sounds funny, don't let me steer you wrong. It is funny, but it is really not all that memorable. It is a small, funny part of a not particularly funny or polished movie that occurs far too early in their film careers to have worked out their unique chemistry. It, either the film or the scene, hardly belongs in the comedy canon. Perhaps Maltin, who gives the film and unbelievable two-and-a-half stars (which is his rating for "Good"), only felt the scene "memorable" because it was the only part of the film he remembered. And if that is all that you can remember from a film, then you had better revise your ratings system.

And your book...

Recently Rated Movies #38: Zigzag Zombie?

I don't know what happened to TCM Underground. I don't know whether Rob Zombie, who is an admittedly very busy guy these days, was only signed to present a couple months of the late-night cult movie show or whether he got tired of the job or TCM got tired of him. I haven't actually heard anything about this. All I know is that one week he was hosting the show, and the next week, there was no longer a host... AT ALL. We get Robert Osborne dishing on every single movie in the world, including other late night features like TCM Imports, so why not this one? What happened to the hosting on this show?

Look, I don't need anyone to tell me anything about any of these movies. That's not the point. I have books; I have the Internet; I have a library card. I can do my own research into films, but Zombie's presence on the show, and the fact that they started this show at all, meant so much more to me. I don't need anyone to tell me about these movies; instead, I want someone to tell me about them. I just missed the heyday of horror movie hosts, and while looking back at some of the old tapes it seems as if one hasn't really missed anything, that is just not the case. The point is to lose one's self, not just in a stupid monster movie, but to wrap one's mind completely in the experience.

I want a show with an intro that perhaps sets an eerie tone of mock creepiness, a host who describes in an over-the-top manner all the horrors in which you are about to be immersed, or through a series of jokes and skits satirizes the film that you are seeing. Viewer letters and calls, bad puns, film facts -- it's all part of the experience, and it is something that I have only been able to capture sporadically through the likes of Elvira, Joe Bob Briggs and Mystery Science Theatre 3000 over the years. I loved all of those shows, much like as a teen I thrived on unadorned Creature Feature matinees and my beloved late-night World's Most Terrible Movies show, where I discovered the joys of Hammer and Harryhausen. And sometimes, someone will start a series like Sundance's Asia Extreme or IFC's Grindhouse, and I will get all fired up about them, even if I now own or have already seen most of the films being shown on them.

The joy is that of feeling as if I were part of some secret club, that gets together across the country to watch these crazy movies. It's the sort of club to which I actually would hesitate joining were it being formed in my neighborhood or community, and demanded personal attendance or dues. But on television, behind the glass and by myself in the dark of the living room, I strangely feel more connected to the world than if I were to actually interact with it. And if the show has a host, then that host becomes my confidante, who shares, sincerely or not, the love for this secret world with me.

I don't know where Zombie went, or if he is coming back, and I don't care if there was much criticism on the boards and blogs and whatnot regarding his "stiff performance" and the fact that he is "reading off a teleprompter". I've got news for you, posters... all of these hosts read off of teleprompters. Some people say he uses his hands too much. Hey, the guy is a rock star and a movie director. He's not holding a guitar here, which would tie up his hands, and the last time I noticed, movie directors tend to explain things with their hands... a lot. And Zombie can't help it if the producers of the show have decided to lend a "postmodern" look to the camerawork that allows for side angles which show Zombie still looking in the same direction as before, so that it becomes patently obvious that he is guilty of that practiced addiction of the television trade, "reading off a teleprompter". Oh, the horror... Robert Osborne doesn't have to put with this type of camerawork, and neither do most newscasters. If they did, you'd get the same feeling from them, as well. All I know, is that TCM should find a replacement host for him, either until he comes back, or for good.

I don't think Joe Bob Briggs or Elvira or Joel and the 'Bots are doing anything right now...

The List:
Scarecrows (1988, Showtime Beyond) - 6; TerrorVision (1986, Showtime Beyond) - 4; The Toolbox Murders (2004, Showtime) - 6; Bukowski: Born Into This (2003, IFC) - 8; Coffy (1973, TCM Underground) - 6; Foxy Brown (1974, TCM Underground) - 6; The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959, FLIX) - 7; Loch Ness (Showtime) - 5; Cherry 2000 (1987, Showtime) - 4; The Black Sleep (1956, TCM Underground) - 4; Blue Demon (2004, Showtime) - 3; Dang Kou Tan [The Bloody Fists] (ImaginAsianTV) - 5.

Rixflix A to Z: At the Earth's Core (1976)

Director: Kevin Connor // AIP/Amicus; 1:29; Color
Crew Notables: Edgar Rice Burroughs (novel), Ian Wingrove (special effects supervisor)
Cast Notables: Doug McClure (David Innes), Peter Cushing (Dr. Abner Perry), Caroline Munro (Princess Dia), Cy Grant (Ra), Godfrey James (Ghak)
Cinema 4 Rating: 5

If you would like to know the sort of film that I was allowed to see in theatres before that magical summer of 1977 when Star Wars, Dirty Harry and James Bond took over my adolescent cinematic focus, then look no further than At the Earth's Core. Presumed to be fairly benign -- rated PG, it featured rather obvious men-in-monster-costumes, barely believable special effects, and a poorly constructed prehistoric world that almost makes Land of the Lost look positively polished in comparison -- parents took it be the then-ideal type of movie (barring Disney trips) for the 12-year monster nut.

That the film is actually rather bloody was probably missed on by the parents who never actually attended the film with their kids. The majority of this blood, though, spurts out in rather fake streams from the bodies of giant, slobbering creatures, either done in by each other or at spear-point by the film's hero, David Innes, played without a trace of actual charisma by the serviceable "70s-hunky" leading man with the punching bag face, Doug McClure. Parents also probably missed out on the fact that the film also features just enough light T&A to make even a prepubescent only recently acquainted with his Dad's Playboy stash happy. A handful of girls in loincloths is very nice indeed, but the princess amongst them was none other than Caroline Munro, who loomed large in my heart in those days.

Yes, I loved Farrah like all the boys did, and had recently felt my tongue hit the floor when I espied Raquel Welch in the fur bikini for the first time, but Caroline was then showing up on the movie screens I was then frequenting. I had already seen her in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and in the year following this film, I would get to ogle her with James Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me. Late night TV would afford me glimpses of her as Vincent Price's late bride in the Dr. Phibes films and helping to fight the undead in Hammer's Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter. Near the end of the decade, I would make the ill-fated decision to go see Starcrash: The Adventures of Stella Star, an Italian Lucas ripoff that nonetheless was slightly worthwhile to see Munro running around in what basically looks like licorice body-floss. (I had no idea who David Hasselhoff was in those days... nor did anyone. Oh, to be blessedly innocent again...)

But the lovely Ms. Munro was not my reason for really, really, really begging my Mom to let me see this film. In the year previous to its release, I had became a huge Edgar Rice Burroughs fan. I had already swung my way through every Tarzan book at the Eagle River Public Library, and had set aside enough of my baseball card and comic money to start purchasing my own paperback library of his works. (Dammit! Those books cost a whole $1.25 apiece back then! An exorbitant fee, I tell you...!) At the bookstore, I became familiar with John Carter, Warlord of Mars, Carson Napier of Venus, the Mucker and the Outlaw of Torn. And I was also able to purchase and read the first couple of David Innes novels, At the Earth's Core and Pellucidar.

Innes, like most Burroughs heroes, is quite literally a superman: all of them are always in peak physical condition, outrageously muscled, above average in intelligence, able to learn the nuances and subtleties of any foreign language in the space of about twelve hours, and natural leaders of both men and beasts. Innes builds an "Iron Mole" machine with his friend Abner Perry, and burrow to a world inside our own world: Pellucidar, populated by the evil pterodactyl-like race, the Mahars, possessors of psychic abilities which allow them to control a pig-like race called the Sagoths, who in turn control via whip and chain the human tribes for the Mahars. Innes decides to lead the humans in rebellion against these cruel masters, and along the way, he has numerous close encounters with large, evil beasties (and some human beasties, too).

The film resembles Burroughs world for the most part, but never comes close to the chief weapon in Burroughs' arsenal: excitement. The guy could script an action sequence like nobody else, even given the obvious limitations of his talent. Even when plausibility (never really a factor in Burroughs) sinks into the quicksand, and when science takes a rocket beyond the farthest star in order to maintain as little connection with his tales as possible, one still will likely get caught up in the deathless and breathless exploits of his too, too heroic protagonists. Unfortunately, while the film never sits around for too long, it is never able to catch up to Burroughs' staggering pace

This film floats a bit on the charm of Peter Cushing, playing the dottering but brave Prof. Perry, who is smart enough to take one look at the Mahars and recognize immediately that they belong to the Rhamphorhynchus family, despite the fact that Rhamphorhynchusi (--uses...?) were much smaller than the Mahar, who are, due to the fact that they are played by humans in costumes, well... human-sized. Still, you believe it from Cushing, who lends his usual practiced authority to even the most ridiculous and stock roles.

But McClure, who also gained Burroughs experience in The Land That Time Forget and its sequel, People... (both of which I saw in theatres, as well), hits all of his marks physically (even in the badly staged battles against the beasties), but fails to truly involve the audience as a hero. His character almost just happens to be there, and you never believe that he had a hand at all in conceiving the Iron Mole, and if he did actually build it, it's only because he has the ability to lift heavy things. As it turns out, this will come out handing when tossing a large rock at a flame-belching firetoad, even if it is the Professor who saves the day with a wobbly-aimed reed-arrow. (Who knew firetoads explode when they fall off cliffs?)

I rip on McClure, but it is only half-heartedly. I have actually always liked the guy, and somehow ended up seeing most of his films as I grew up. And I'm sure that the deficiencies in his character are really due to the screenwriter making the outrageous warrior of Burroughs' vision into a more recognizable form of human being. Which is precisely what is wrong with the film: with the very rare exception, one does not go to a Tarzan movie to see the Jungle Lord in a suit; likewise, one would not like to see a John Carter story where he couldn't jump fifty feet in the air. But here is the movie version of David Innes -- looking for all the world like an unexceptional guy who does moderately exciting things in haphazardly blocked battles against men in monster suits in an unbelievably hokey jungle world. With Caroline Munro...

So, yes, I still like the film...

Rixflix A to Z: At the Circus (1939)

Director: Edward Buzzell // MGM; 1:27; b/w
Crew Notables: Franz Waxman (incidental music/musical director), Cedric Gibbons (art direction), Buster Keaton (gag consultant)
Cast Notables: Groucho Marx (J. Cheever Loophole), Chico Marx (Antonio Pirelli), Harpo Marx (Punchy), Kenny Baker (Jeff Wilson), Florence Rice (Julie Randall), Eve Arden (Peerless Pauline), Margaret Dumont (Mrs. Suzanna Dukesbury), Nat Pendleton (Goliath the Strongman), Fritz Feld (Jardinet), James Burke, Jerry Maren (Little Prof. Atom), Willie Best
Cinema 4 Rating: 6

I have always given short shrift -- that would be shrift that is a tad bit impatient in character -- to the later films of the Marx Brothers. Weened on Animal Crackers and Duck Soup, raised on Monkey Business and Horse Feathers, and graduated via the pair of Thalberg MGMs, A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races (not just the Queen albums of the same names), by the time I encountered their later films post-Thalberg (which would be Room Service on down), I had little regard for those later, lessened antics. Too desperate, those films seemed, and perhaps they were. But even reduced to scrambling for a repeat of their earlier success, and mired by the notions of others as to how best to display their talents (even in shallowly conceived reconfigurations of their earlier classic routines), the Marx boys still shine in numerous moments in these films, even if the films themselves are several notches below the collective efforts of their heyday.

Tonight, under the Big Top, I present At the Circus, a Marx Brothers film that almost comes off like the ones of old. It misses the net at which it is fired, but it tries. Sometimes it doesn't try all that hard, sometimes it tries a little too hard, but it tries, all right. The film makes you wait a full twelve minutes for Groucho to show up, after two mind-dulling musical numbers right out of the gate, which cause you to start rechecking the cast list to make sure he is in the damn thing at all. When he does arrive, he is his usual snappy barb-zinging self, but something seems slightly off. The same goes for Chico and Harpo, who are just fine by themselves, but like their younger mustachioed brother, seems to rub shoulders uneasily with the remainder of the cast. And I don't mean in the normal way that the Marxes rub shoulders uneasily with the other characters. I mean that they don't quite seem to match up with the actors. There are moments, especially through the first half of the film, where it seems as if a generic studio circus musical melodrama had found itself missing three actors, and then the Marxes wandered in to fill the roles on a whim.

That first half almost caves the big top in on itself. Groucho gets it worst with an awkward ceiling-walking scene with a young Eve Arden, whom I usually adore in comedies in even her smallest roles, that strives hard to pay off in laughs but is merely... well... there. And while Groucho singing Lydia the Tattooed Lady is a favorite song of mine, the musical trappings that surround his rendition here are staggeringly poorly staged and filmed, and not in the fun mocking way like the musical sequences in Duck Soup. Better to watch him as an old man on stage croaking the song out in the 70's -- and I do mean "better". Even worse is the "Swingali" number, which has decided it wants to repeat the "Gabriel Blow Your Horn" piece from A Day at the Races, surrounding Harpo Pied Piper-like with scores of smiling, singing black kids. At least that number had a catchy chorus; this one has no real logical momentum to it, and it is a blessed relief when Harpo reaches for his favorite instrument and shuts everyone else the hell up.

And then, something magical happens. The Marxes are finally allowed to do what they do best --- rip the joint apart. This occurs literally as Chico and Harpo dissemble a train compartment looking for $10,000 while a sleeping strongman (played almost anonymously by a disguised Nat Pendleton) is covered in feathers and has to endure Harpo crawling underneath through his mattress. While the scene seems to be trying to remind us of their famous stateroom scene of yore, it is far milder, but has many good moments between the brothers. Groucho finally truly comes alive when he at last meets up with his longtime nemesis/mock paramour Ms. Dumont, and is given the opportunity to plot the downfall of yet another high-hatting society snoozefest, this time set to feature a snotty French conductor. If Groucho's barbs regarding Dumont's ample carriage don't quite have the zip of old, it is still most refreshing to see them on screen together regardless, especially given what has come before. Once the finale has been crashed through with the usual Marx disregard for propriety, one has the brief -- very brief -- feeling that one has seen a pretty good outing for the boys.

Which it really isn't. But then, while watching a pair of Wheeler and Woolsey oldies the other day on Turner, I was struck with the notion that it really is a subjective thing. While I enjoy watching Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey (and, naturally, the third member of the team, the winsome Dorothy Lee) in their series of low-budget 30s gagfests -- and consider a couple of their films, especially Diplomaniacs, to be highly underrated -- at best, W&W's stuff is not just miles below the anarchic genius that the Marxes bestowed upon us in their first, let's say, seven films (in itself, that type of quality run is already pretty remarkable for a comedy team, especially in such a short period), but not even as funny as the boys in this film and the ones that followed. My problem with the later Marx films isn't really the films -- though they are lesser in overall talent and quality, especially the writing -- it's the fact that they followed sheer comic perfection. The Marxes are still the Marxes, and even if no one after Thalberg knew what to do with them, the kids were still alright. And still better than most of what the world had to offer, even in a lessened arena like At the Circus.

Pounded Like A Dawg: The Conclusion... or is it?

So, I got my money back.

I filed my claim with Amazon.com regarding my ill-advised purchase of a large ticket item for a Christmas present from one of the sellers that lurks in a vampiric manner within the bowels of their website. I have stated before that, up to this point, I have been completely satisfied with such purchases, and figured if a problem arose, that Amazon had a decent system for refunding one's money in that event. Turns out Amazon responded to my claim within a couple of days, researched the problem, and refunded my money. Amazon is going to get the money back from me anyway; as soon as the refund hits my statement, I am just going to reorder the item through Amazon itself, only for about $40 more than I paid from the idiots at Movie/Music/Book Dogpound. After all, it was Jen's major present.

But still, I thought, end of story...

...Or is it? Judging from the negative reactions on Amazon towards this seller, I was not the only one who lost out, at least temporarily, in trying to negotiate with the Dogpound. And then, the other day, I received an email from someone who at first thought that I was the Dogpound, because I had written a piece about them and they found it through Google, and then emailed me again to apologize. Then they supplied me with the following summation of their frustration with purchasing in such a fashion, via the Dogpound and the places, like Amazon and eBay, where these fiends thrive unchecked. I obtained their permission to reprint their missive, and I will refrain from comment, nor will I amend what they state very clearly below, apart from agreeing perhaps something should be done, as they suggest. To wit:

Looks like you got burnt as I and probably about 1000 others have.

I would not be opposed to enjoining with others to register a complaint with the FTC and state attorney general offices in states where Dogpound operated from. Before they were taken down from eBay as a registered user they stated in their eBay store that items would ship from Arizona and Florida. I live in CA, as you do, so the CA atty general's office may also be able to do something. The state or feds need a mailing address and a name before they can do something, usually. I did find a phone number on PayPal when I registered my complaint there: (480) 248-8967. Every time I've called I've gotten either a busy signal or an answering machine, but even the answering machine leaves no name or business name in their message. I googled the phone number and was led to a website where the Movie Dogpound was listed, and it gave the address as:
8776 East Shea Blvd Suite B3A-190
Scottsdale, Arizona, 85260 - US

I doubt much will happen out of this, except that PayPal does guarantee refunds if paid through them and not a credit card account. Thank goodness I didn't use a credit card. I'll probably get my $14.95 refunded, but these types of jerks just cause PayPal to recoup their losses through raising their service fees. That's why more needs to be done than just getting our money back.

There were two other sellers I got burnt by on eBay in the past 7 years. One was an operation very similar to Dogpound - sold cds, dvds and books - mostly comic books. He was a power seller with hundreds of auctions going on at a time, and an eBay store. I won an auction and paid promptly but got nothing and no communication. He was out of a small town in West Virginia. At least I did have a phone number from eBay, and a mailing address. First time I called him, a child answered the phone and said his dad was sleeping (mid-day) and could not be bothered. All other times, I got an answering machine or busy signal. No responses via email. eBay, at that time, could not help because my claim was under $25. By the time I had found this out from eBay, I had lost my window of opportunity to file with PayPal. But, I went through the WV Atty General's office. They pursued it for over a year but then responded that due to the small amount involved they could not continue to pursue and the seller was not responding to them. Later, I found that his internet store went down suddenly, as did his eBay store. But I was out my $$.

The other time I got burnt on eBay, it was a bid on supposedly certified original artifacts. When I received the items, with the certificates of authenticity, I found the certificates to be faked, as were the items purchased. That time it was for over $250, but that was 7 years ago, and I found eBay and PayPal to be less than cooperative. However, I found later that the guy was even using a fake name. In the artifact hobby community, it was reported that someone had filed suit with their Atty Gen office, and the guy did get convicted in Missouri and went to prison for mail fraud. Sure wish I had been able to enjoin with them.

While both eBay and PayPal have improved services for victims of such rip-offs over the years, I haven't seen them really pushing for prosecution. That needs to not only happen, but to be publicized to the eBay community as well as to the general public when it does happen - as much information as can be told without violating privacy laws needs to be told to be a deterrent to others.

I would LOVE to get a bunch of people together who have been ripped off by Dogpound and see if we could all, together, put them where they belong - prison - if it can be proved that they indeed have broken the law. You see, for those who are willing to take the risk, they can go on Amazon, eBay and similar sites, set up shop, and every 5 or 10 purchases, they simply rip off. They can put up thousands of sales at a time, use other names, email addresses and mailing addresses to bid on their own items, win and post for themselves fake positive feedback. They could also let some real customers win auctions and receive their items to assure there are some legitimate positive feedbacks. As long as they keep the positive feedback relatively high and pay their bills with eBay, Amazon, etc, they will be left alone by the host site. But for those sales where they don't deliver, it is pure profit for them, less the minimal listing costs. These costs are outrageously small for power sellers who list hundreds or thousands at a time. There is really little to deter the crooks from doing such scams.

I would love to do something to get this practice stopped! If interested, let me know and we can get more people involved and hopefully come up with some solutions. Petition eBay and Pay Pal to become more proactive would be a first step. Seeking prosecution would be a second step. Getting eBay, Amazon, etc to publicize prosecutions, thus scaring the crooks off, would be the ultimate goal.

Terry Provance
Spring Valley, CA

Psychotronic Ketchup & Rixflix A to Z: Assignment: Outer Space [Space Men] (1960)

Director: Antonio Margheriti (as Anthony Dawson) // Titanus/AIP; 1:13; Color
Crew Notables: Joseph von Stroheim (sound effects editor)
Cast Notables: Rik Von Nutter (Ray Peterson/IZ41), Gabriella Farinon (Lucy/Y13), David Montresor (George), Archie Savage (Al/X15), Alain Dijon (Archie/Y16)
Cinema 4 Rating: 3

Well, I think that I've found my porn name. Take a look at the name of the leading man of this weirdly compelling though thoroughly boring space epic, Rik Von Nutter, and tell me that isn't the perfect name to swipe for my much fantasized career as the next Larry Flynt. After all, the first name is the same as my own, the surname can be construed as mildly dirty, and it beats the hell out of something like, say, Max Hardcore. What a dopey name...

Actually, the star's name was "Van" not "Von", but it doesn't matter. In the credits for Assignment: Outer Space, a sort of Italian 2001: A Space Odyssey about eight years too early and without a lick of art, they called him "Von". What does matter is that this guy played Felix Leiter, James Bond's American buddy and sometimes partner, in Thunderball a half decade after this mess. So, he had enough going for him after this debacle to land that part.

Of course, I'm more concerned with this whole porn thing. If I'm going to be a purveyor of filth, then I am going to have to go into it with my heart. This, of course, means producing something near and dear to that organ -- no, not that one -- I mean, the whole heart thing. And what manner of perversion am I into these days? Elbows. Elbow sex. You know, that little bendy part of your arm. The thing that you take for granted each and every day -- and that I find so freakin' hot... hrrrnnnn... I'm not talking Rocky Horror-style "elbow sex", where you roll your arms up against your partner's and meet up at the elbow only to break off again. That's for rank amateurs (and bad dressers... and human parrots...) I'm talking full-on "erection meets flexion"... an E.J. would be the operative slang acronym. [All of this will be discussed in my forthcoming book "Elbows: The New Erogenous Zone" (which will sport the subtitle: "Expanding the Repertoire for the Happier Hooker".)]

Watching Assignment: Outer Space, I was struck by how disappointing elbow sex would be in space. Really, any form of sex with the female lead of this film, the fetching Gabrielle Farinon, would be worthwhile in even a failed attempted at coitus, but the whole elbow angle would be tough to engage. This is because she is either dressed in long-sleeved jumpsuits or in lumpy spacesuits, so her elbows are covered the entire time. This does not leave out, however, the prospects of textural experimentation: different fabrics leading to a variety of disparate sensations. I figure the jumpsuit would not be too bad for this -- nothing wrong with a little "dry elbowing" -- but I think the lumpen spacesuit would prove a little difficult due to its bulkiness.

Thoughts of "nudgery" (that's elbonic foreplay for you novices) with the fair Gabrielle pretty much had to get me though this film's fortunately brief running time, though every minute that I watched minus these salacious thoughts, I was led to the conclusion that, while these self-described cosmonauts seem to have conquered space (at least within the context of this film), they have actually done something more along the lines of stopping time altogether. This movie crawls. However, when I described the film earlier as "weirdly compelling", I meant exactly that: even when the action is monotonous to the point where one is forced to imagine elbow sex with the leading lady, the actors seem to be fully engaged with their actions (though the dialogue is dubbed). As crazy as the science in the film seems (flowers that create fusion?), this mopey, slow glide about the cosmos is actually helped by the fact its characters seem to believe the world in which they exist. You can rip this one for its many faults, but better films have drifted by with far less commitment to their silliness than the deeply unknown cast of Assignment: Outer Space. If I didn't have evidence of their careers following this film, I would swear that the cast had been left out in this void that only they believe in...

As a practicing "bowie", that's the currently en vogue slang for "elbow fetishist", I must admit that perhaps I am the only one that believes in elbow sex. This will all change with the publication of the book (it's more a pamphlet, really), and my line of DVDs. I won't go the Max Hardcore route: no savagely misogynistic slapping about and choking of drug-pumped women dressed as little girls who are bent into positions most circuses have written off as dangerous here. No... this is the pure stuff: elbows, elbows, elbows! Nothing but elbows: bent, straight... from any angle possible.

No weird stuff in the Rik Von Nutter Elbow Sex series.

Until I can find a girl that can actually pee on her elbow. Now that would get me the Max Hardcore money. Without having that dopey name...

Rixflix A to Z: Assassin of Youth (1937)

Director: Elmer Clifton // BCM Roadshow Prod.; 1:20; b/w
Cast Notables: Luana Walters (Joan Barrie), Arthur Gardner (Art Brighton), Michael Owen, Fay McKenzie, Dorothy Short
Cinema 4 Rating: 3

Early on in this propaganda film about the horrors of marijuana, some adults watch another propaganda film about the horrors of marijuana. This idea blows my mind more far more than marijuana ever has. (All its ever done for me is give me headaches and nausea.) The narrator of the film-within-the-film gives us a flurry of reasons why "the weed" is bad for our youth, and then closes his talk with this phrase: "But I'm afraid my words will not impress you."

Well, frankly, no. They do not impress me; not when your words are as stilted and full of lies and bad science and history. (His obvious discomfort and vocal stiffness in front of the camera also do not help his cause.) And the movie in which these people are watching your movie does not impress me, either. This sort of roadshow propaganda flick, which traveled from town to town back in the day, alerting the Chicken Little-public of the horrors that will surely befall their children if these various evils continue unchecked, really depended on delivering the kind of goods that normal studio films were not allowed to show (unless your last name was DeMille): sex, drugs, nudity -- the stuff that makes life worth shortening it for. Kids get the drugs, kids take the drugs, kids throw wild parties -- the next thing you know, Mary is knocked up or raped or both, and Billy is shot or raped or both. Teenagers go skinny-dipping, and then someone will foolishly try to drive a car and run over Billy, who is staggering home after being raped and shot.

I'm goofing, of course, but this film would have benefited by any of this happening within its not very provocative interior. Yeah, someone is run over by a pot-smoking kid early on, but it only sets up the story. Yeah, there is a stripping scene on a beach, but it is lit so dark that it merely becomes a shadowy tease. There is some suggestion of moral wrongs being committed, but no one actually murders anyone, and the entire plot revolves around the heroine's drug-dealing cousin trying to ruin her reputation so that the cousin will get a huge inheritance. So, it's not the marijuana that's causing the problems, but actually jealousy and greed? Holy Casual Drug Use, Batman!! The pot here is merely an innocent bystander in the true crime involved in the film.

Other films in this genre, like the more famous Reefer Madness or Marijuana: the Weed with Roots in Hell, deliver the goods. Evil stuff happens once everyone lights up, and consequences are faced. This movie has a happy ending straight out of any 30s or 40s family comedy; the feeling of the film is almost "Andy Hardy Cops A Light Buzz", once you add in the comic relief scenes with the town gossip, store clerk and judge that are laced throughout its running time. Its other defining aspect is its competence as a film; its production values are much higher than others of its ilk, and there is some actual acting going on in certain scenes.

It actually holds up in its archaic way as a light drama, but who is here for those sort of thrills? The point of viewing these sort of films today is to see filmmakers getting around the Hays Code because of some supposed "moral" fortitude that will compel "concerned" citizens to sit in the dark and see their most prurient fantasies on a movie screen, albeit as a warning against such behavior. The best (read: worst) of this lot, like the aforementioned films, at least feel dirty and grimy, like something filmed on the sly, even if they are as full of shit as this film. Assassin of Youth only toys with this concept of a vigilante peepshow, preferring instead to truly walk the straight and narrow, and as a cleaner, shinier version of the type of film it aspires to be.

And that, my friends, is some "dud" bud...

Rixflix A to Z: Army of Darkness (1992)

Director/Co-Writer: Sam Raimi // Universal/Renaissance; 1:21/1:36 (director's cut); Color
Crew Notables: Ivan Raimi (Co-Writer), Danny Elfman (theme), Joseph LoDuca (score), Bill Pope (cinematography)
Cast Notables: Bruce Campbell (Ash), Embeth Davidtz (Sheila), Marcus Gilbert (Lord Arthur), Ian Abercrombie (Wiseman), Richard Grove (Duke Henry the Red), Bridget Fonda (Linda), Patricia Tallman (possessed witch), Ted Raimi (cowardly warrior/2nd supportive villager/S-Mart clerk), Bill Moseley (Deadite Captain), Angela Featherstone (girl in S-Mart), Sam Raimi (knight in sweatshirt & sneakers), Josh Becker, Don Campbell, Charlie Campbell, Harley Cokeliss, William Lustig, Ivan Raimi & Bernard Rose (fake shemps, amongst many others...)
Cinema 4 Rating: 7

Alright, bitches. Where were you? I remember the snowbound February of 1993 very clearly. No one wanted to go to the movies, even on a Saturday afternoon when nothing else was going on, and so I slogged through the snow to check out the newly released Army of Darkness at the University Cinemas. And then I hung around the theatre to check it out again. And then I made a series of phone calls to see if anyone wanted to join me for the evening show, and I managed to get one, just one, other person to join me, and that was the wife. My friends, where were you? The armies of the frickin' dead were attacking!!! Haven't you ever heard of a call to arms, bitches?

When it came out, mainly due to Fangoria and Variety, I knew this film was really Evil Dead 3, though I understood the studio's need to make it seem as if it weren't part of that series. After all, the last film had been five years earlier, and this was the first in the series to get a major studio push, so there was apparently a desire at Universal to make this seem like a completely off-the-top fantasy film. Though I am no fan of numbered movie series, at least, I thought, maybe the words Evil Dead 3 would appear on the title within the film. But, they weren't. However, an even better surprise (and a great in-joke) occurred as star Bruce Campbell's name appeared (writ by smoke) on the screen, and was immediately joined by the following words: Vs. The Army of Darkness! Oh, if only the studio had seen fit to make this the true title of the film -- what a glorious B-movie heaven I would have been in!

I still ended up in that heaven that wintry Saturday afternoon when I saw the remainder of the film. Army of Darkness manages to not only capture and retain the elements of weird horror and over-the-top Three Stooges-style wackiness that director Sam Raimi and his pal Campbell introduced to the world in the first two films, but also extends itself into an unapologetic parody of sword-and-sorcery epics, Harryhausen-style skeleton animation and the very ideal of the heroic male protagonist.

Campbell's Ash may have the skills needed when the time calls for it, but up until then he is a blustery, slang-slinging braggart who basically bluffs his way through every situation. It's as if Twain's Connecticut Yankee ended up in King Arthur's Court, but while does manage to wow the "primitive screwheads" with his futuristic technology, he barely has any more grasp of the mechanics than they do at first glance. "Don't touch that!", he yells at one point. "Your primitive intellect wouldn't understand things with alloys and compositions and... things with... molecular structures." It's not that Ash isn't smart, though; of all the things that he has stored in his car's trunk (including a copy of Fangoria), he has a volume on Steam Plant Operation (for obscure reasons), so either he is someone with technological ambitions, or a healthy interest in furthering himself through reading, or more. But above all, he is an S-Mart working-stiff goofball who has been called into duty as "The Promised One", and thrust into a situation that would be enough to make anyone lose his cool. Except Ash. He's fought the Evil Dead before, after all...

...and that is where I point out my only real problems with this movie. It's not the first two movies. I wanted more outright horror from it. I love it unabashedly now, and while I recognized at that time that it was an interesting way to expand the series, the little gorehound in my soul was disappointed from that angle of things. My other problem was the length: I felt it was far too short at only 81 minutes, and just knew that Universal had trashed the film in the editing bay. Turns out, I was right: the director's cut that is now widely available on DVD (and which features an awesome commentary by Bruce, Sam and co-writer (and brother) Ivan Raimi), adds a full quarter hour of bits and snippets, as well as including the original ending of the film, which keeps more in line with the closing mood of the first two films. It is a wild conclusion, and Campbell considers it the true ending, since it was the original one written and filmed, before Universal had it changed to please the test-screening idiocracy. Raimi, perhaps considering his position in the studio world, seems a little more forgiving of the altered ending and seems reticent to really denounce it. Me? I didn't know there even was an "original ending" to miss, so how could I miss what I had never known? And besides, the "Hail to the King" ending is terrific. If the studio decrees that Army of Darkness has to end on a happy note, what better way to do it? After all, even though Ash may have a babe on his arm and the respect of his peers, he is still mired in a world where the Evil Dead are at large and on the attack. I love both endings.

Still, there is the fact that I had helped Ash fight the Evil Dead those first two times in the theatre. Even with my love for this third installment of the film, my loyalty has always been with the original film, one of those to which I kept dragging people kicking and screaming for another showing. As always, some cursed my movie radar, others loved it. Eventually, they would all come around. But I had never considered the viewpoint from the other end of things: that the third movie could be someone's first introduction to the undead world of Ash, and that they would consider it far superior to the original pair of films. I have met many people who are barely aware of the the original entries in the series, if at all -- they just know of Army of Darkness, and I also met people who totally disregard the first two, mainly because they are more horrific in tone (even with the funny parts), and the genre of horror is most decidedly not their cup of tea. They consider this one to be more of a fantasy epic (which is true), but somehow can't make the leap past the "horror" thing.

Jen is almost in that group of people, but she had an earlier introduction to the series, and manages to get past her own disregard for the genre because of Ash. Her fierce attachment to the character, and especially Bruce Campbell, stems first from Evil Dead 2, which her mother let her watch when she was much younger, though my guess would be that this film is probably her favorite of the three (Brisco County, Jr. has a hand in it, as well). Horror is not her cup of tea, either, but she ended up seeing both Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness, and turned out an Ash nut. How can she not? But it is passing strange that of all the numerous ways that our personal movie worlds don't match up that these films, with their outrageous gore, kung fu-like action and Three-Stooges comedy stylings end up being the litmus test.

And the gang? Sure, everyone that wouldn't heed my original call to arms saw it by the next weekend, and while we managed to thwart the Deadite hordes, it was a close one. Too close. But everything turned out groovy in the end.

If only we had seen the real ending...