One month later, on Pre-Orientation Day at the University of Maryland, I began my inevitable future as the compleat film auteur.  I was enrolled as a film major and found myself in the company of a single fellow “auteur.”  He was a Woody Allen-type, only taller, and looked just as bewildered as me.  We struck up a conversation, and he casually mentioned that he’d made a number of 16mm shorts.  One of them had even aired on Channel 20.  It was, of course, Attack of the Paramecium Men.  I hailed him like a brother, and from that moment on my life took a turn for the comedic.

My new friend, Pat Caroll, was the comic genius behind the shorts.  They featured himself and fellow Good Counsel High School buddies Jim Phalen and Larry Zabel as the Langley Punks, a trio of hooligans who, when not drinking beer, have encounters with different extraterrestrial menaces.  In Insurance Salesmen From Saturn, the title creatures fail in their mission to bore earthlings to death and end up being bored into oblivion by the Punks’ endless, detailed descriptions of their cars.  Pat’s inspirations for these early films were the Three Stooges, Chaplin, Keaton, and the masked Mexican wrestler-turned-movie star, El Santo.

It was an amazing, exciting time, when a group of friends could get together, lug an unwieldy 16mm camera out to some godforsaken location and shoot a cohesive, if chaotic, short film crammed full of aliens, zombies, hotties, and oblivious, hedonistic “heroes.”  Later on, Pat would share writing duties with one of my best friends, Tom Welsh, and the hilariously brilliant Dave Nuttycombe.  After years of guest-starring as various menacing creatures, another Good Counsel alum, Bob Young, graduated–or flunked–to fourth Punk, and I became the recurring guest star.  One cold, windy Saturday afternoon we were shooting Hyatsville Holiday in a  closed-down drive-in theatre when a police car screeched onto the “set,” responding to a 911 call.  Spotting four scantily clad girls being menaced by several straight-jacketed insane-asylum escapees (myself among them), the patrolman almost called for backup. It took a lot of explaining on our part to stay out of jail.

The Biograph, a local repertory theatre, began promoting and playing the Langley Punks shorts.  A huge following developed and an appreciative, if inebriated, audience regularly filled the theater to laugh and cheer the Punks on.  Commercial film production executive Rich West took note of the phenomenon and offered to partner with the Punks, promising to help them turn out a technically more sophisticated product–possibly even something with sound.   Thus, Travesty Films was born, its motto, “So that others may laugh.”

Intestines From Space, the first Travesty production, faced many of the same challenges comedies in the late 20s  dealt with when making the transition to sound.  Actors used to a breakneck pace and gag-a-minute slapstick, were forced to slow down and deliver actual dialogue, often requiring multiple takes to get it right.  In a scene where four sexy girls introduce themselves to the Punks as “Candy,” “Honey,” “Sugar,” and “Taffy,” Jim mugged, “Boy, I’m glad I’m not a diabetic.”  Despite growing pains on the production, Intestines From Space became a monster Biograph hit, and it appeared as if Travesty was well on its way to bigger things, certainly color.

Alcoholics Unanimous, a short sporting both decent sound and color, was followed by the inspired comedy album, Teen Comedy Party.  After the album was played on the radio during The Dr. Demento Show, it became clear a decision had to be made about the company’s future artistic direction.  Tom and Dave wanted to attempt a more sophisticated “Animal House” type of feature, something they could use as a calling card in Hollywood.  I fully endorsed them in this move, but Pat was adamant about continuing on the same zany course they were on.

Unfortunately, their next project The Travesty Show  turned out to be a kind of last hurrah for the Langley Punks.  It was a throwback to The Honeymooners and was made in black-and-white as a cable TV pilot.  Complete with gag commercials, it was hysterically funny.

The internet, with all the media opportunities it offers today, was still ten years in the future.  In the early 80s, there was no way for Travesty to reach a larger audience, leaving the Punks with very little in the way of options.   Looking back on those days, there’s no doubt the Travesty vision was way ahead of its time.

Well aware of this, on June 7th, the American Film Institute honored Travesty with a tribute entitled From Here to Obscurity. The night was a tremendous success, and a sold-out audience filled the large, prestigious AFI Silver Theatre. Pat finally got the chance to be on the same screen as his idols: Chaplin, Keaton, and the Three Stooges, although not El Santo.

Gorath

Back on earth, high-ranking Japanese officials are peeved at not having been consulted about the decision to reroute JX-1, but after some thought, they magnanimously decide that, yes, maybe the right decision was made without them (useful information about the possible destruction of the earth was obtained, after all).  Once everyone is on the same page regarding the need to do something about Gorath, the bean counters weigh in with their penny-pinching take on the situation:  it’s going to cost a lot of money to save the earth.  It’s decided the job is too big for Japan to take on alone, and before you can say UNICEF, the project is a United Nations operation.

Considering contemporary attitudes about the United Nations, when even a generous assessment might find it ineffectual, at best, and part of a sinister cabal plotting world domination, at worst, Gorath’s vision of a world united is probably the most unlikely piece of speculation in a fairly improbable science fiction film.  The belief that the world’s scientists might come up with a course of action that every nation on earth would follow and get behind, seems a little wide of the mark also–especially given the plan that’s ultimately proposed.                                                                                                                                                                                                       
 Here is what the best and brightest recommend:  giant nuclear jets built at the South Pole that will push the earth out of Gorath’s path.  Seriously.  But before anyone can point out that the earth’s rotation might be a problem, cargo ships are deployed to the South Pole, and an impressive array of miniatures begin to clear land and build the gigantic jets.  After a few minutes of watching tiny flatbeds, cranes, dump trucks, and bulldozers move across frame, Gorath begins to look less like a motion picture and more like a Tonka Toy commercial.

Once the jets are ignited and blasting away, all that stands in the way of earth’s survival is–you probably guessed it–a giant walrus.  Possibly freed from an icy hibernation by the heat of the nuclear reactors, it rampages through the UN’s command center.  Upon learning of the existence of the giant walrus, the annoyed but blase reaction of the chief scientist is, “I didn’t think an animal existed down here that could give us any trouble.”  Perhaps when you belong to a country that has taken on Godzilla, Rodan, Ghidorah and dozens of other giant monsters, it’s a little difficult to get worked up over an oversized walrus.  A hover-jet is dispatched to locate the walrus, and, two laser blasts later, the problem is solved.

Gorath streaks by, missing the earth, causing only enough destruction with its gravitational pull to satisfy the apocalyptic expectations created by fear-mongering scientists.  While certainly not on a Roland Emmerich level of spectacle or even Irwin Allen, for that matter, the flooding of a couple of miniature cities provides the minimum cathartic experience of mayhem promised by the film.

Unfortunately, without massive maneuvering jets in the eastern and western hemispheres, the earth can only continue in one direction.  Amid the world-wide celebration, it’s lucky no one overhears the following exchange between two scientists:

“Now we face our biggest job.  We must put earth back on its original course.”

“We’ll need twice the nuclear power to put it back in its proper orbit.  I’d say it’s a bit like walking on water.”

It’s not exactly clear what the scientist means by this last line, but it doesn’t sound very encouraging.

*                                        *                                          *

I was eleven in 1966 when I first saw Gorath at a theater in downtown Los Angeles.  It was on a triple bill with Dr. Strangelove and another film I’ve since forgotten.  To be honest, at the time, I liked Gorath and Strangelove just about the same.  The great thing about going downtown to watch movies was that anything could turn up on a double or triple bill.  Current releases played with films that had opened five or ten years earlier.  A classic might share marquee space with an exploitation or foreign film, or just about anything for that matter, as long as it was printed on cellulose acetate and could be run through a projector.

Over the years, Dr. Strangelove has slowly moved to the top of my personal list of all time favorite films, and Gorath, admittedly, has dropped a rung or two, but I still enjoy its can-do, single-minded optimism and complete disdain for any fact that might get in the way of its goofy, visually bold premise.  Rotation be damned–we’re moving the earth!

For more Santo entries, check the sidebar under Categories and click Santo.

Companion piece to the Dogville Shorts review in Cinema Misfits, episode 18.  For those who doubted such a series could exist, go ahead and stare in disbelief and wonder at the stills and clips.  And for those who just can’t get enough of Dogville (and you know who you are, even if you won’t admit it), we offer Nancy’s appreciation of the series.

Ah, the Dogville Shorts.  I clearly recall stumbling across one of these gems on a hot summer afternoon about ten years ago.  It was quietly tacked on the end of a TCM film offering, and when it appeared, unbeknownst and unexpected by me, my first reaction was unmitigated incredulity.  Was it the heat, I pondered.  Was I dreaming?  Did I need to adjust my medication?  Or could this be real…dogs of all shapes, sizes, genders, and breeds, dressed as humans, acting out parodies of popular film genres?

Real it was, and real they are.  While film preservationists may mourn the miles and miles of celluloid treasures lost over the decades, at least the Dogville series has survived.  Whether that survival signifies good or evil depends upon individual taste (or, perhaps, lack of it).  I, for one, love them for any number of reasons, including their role in cinema history, the crazy productions, and their sheer silliness.  Oh, and the dogs!

Produced at the dawn of the sound era, the Dogville films, through their very existence, reflect the insatiable appetite filmgoers at the time had for talking pictures.  That’s clear enough from the films’ tagline, “All Barkies” (a play on the era’s ubiquitous “All Talkie” promotional slogan).

In 1929, MGM hired two second-string directors, Jules White (who now lives in infamy as the producer and director of the scores of Three Stooges movies) and Zion Myers to turn this oddball conception into a reality.  White and Myers usually shared directorial credits and provided many of the voices for the canine stars.

Ironically, these shorts are, in one way, actually more watchable than many of the features of the day as the “actors” voices, and all other sounds, were dubbed, freeing the four-footed thespians from the movement restrictions that sound enforced on their two-legged contemporaries.  They fly airplanes, drive cars, fight wars, go to nightclubs…all with a freedom of movement human actors on film had to wait years for.

There are those who might demur at the viewing of these shorts, and that’s understandable.  Dogs don’t usually walk upright and wear waistcoats and evening gowns.  Clearly, there are times when wires and harnesses are involved in order to achieve the onscreen antics of these pups.  Nevertheless, I think it’s highly doubtful that the canines are mistreated.  After all, they were obviously trained animals, and were therefore valuable assets both to their owners and the filmmakers.  Their mistreatment at the hands of White and Myers or anyone on the crew would have been senseless.  These pups were their bread and butter–or kibbles and bits, as it were.  Perhaps that’s a naive assumption to make, but I’m willing to make it.

I’ve been a dog lover all my life, and have seen scores of hounds who have, by virtue of negligent ownership or lack of any ownership at all, suffered far more than any of the celluloid pooches in this series could have.  In addition, there is currently at least one Great Dane out there who is forced to live with the indignity of being featured in this summer’s atrocious Marmaduke.  Now that’s a form of animal cruelty that no one can justify.

The entire Dogville Collection is now available through Warner Brother’s Archive Collection

Faced with the prospect of making a mummy movie, there are really only two choices.  Either (a) go the Stephen Sommer’s route and jettison altogether the idea of a slow-moving, ancient Egyptian prince wrapped in bandages, or (b) don’t make the movie at all.  Really.  This should always be the default choice.

Curse of the Faceless Man, however, chooses to go down the cinematic road less traveled–and by less traveled, I mean gone down once and only once.  It’s not enough that the “faceless man” of the title is ancient and slow–no, this particular mummy is also made of stone! This not only makes it the slowest mummy in film history, but for the first half of the film, even when the Faceless Man does manage to move, he is only capable of modest, sustained activity for minutes at a time.

Late in Curse of the Faceless Man, three doctors sum up the situation this way:

1st Doctor:  (referring to stone mummy)  It can not be alive.

2nd Doctor:  Not the way we know life.

3rd Doctor:  It is not dead.  Not dead as we know it.

Unexpressed by anyone, but probably occurring to all of them, is the following:

1st Doctor:  But it is slow.

2nd Doctor:  Yes.  Slow as we know slow.

3rd Doctor:  Old-lady-with-a-bad-hip-using-a-walker slow.

Absent a monster with the menace that can drive the story forward, Curse of the Faceless Man instead is powered by backstory.  Six people with various doctorates spend the majority of the film standing in cramped rooms, speculating wildly about  the possible origins and abilities of a stone mummy unearthed at a dig in nearby Pompeii.  Occasionally, Tina, the fiancée of one of the doctors, joins them.  As it turns out, Tina has a psychic connection with the Faceless Man, which is more than can be said for the connection she has with her stiff of a boyfriend, Paul.

Much of Curse of the Faceless Man plays like an extended sequence from What’s My Line? First there’s a series of questions,  hypotheses, wild guesses, and then–Ding!–someone gets it right, and the film advances to the next scene.

“The mummy is energized by light!”

Ding!

“The mummy tried to pin a brooch on Tina.  2000 years ago that was how a man showed his love for a woman.”

Ding!

“The mummy is an ancient Etruscan slave.  He must have been in an Egyptian temple, and when Vesuvius exploded, the vats filled with special embalming fluids were toppled and poured down on him.  He was flash-baked like a clay figure in a kiln and his body encased in a layer of stone.”

Ding!  Ding!  Ding!

The endless speculation could be forgiven if it were an excuse to showcase lots of scenic photography in Pompeii.  Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.

One man digging a hole stands in for an entire archeological excavation.  A plaque on the front of a building that is clearly the Griffith Observatory proclaims itself to be the Museo Di Pompeii Napolli.  Finally, in a desperate bid to convince the audience they are somewhere other than Southern California, the same boxy European cars turn up in scene after scene–inexplicably driving down roads not in Pompeii but in Griffith Park or on the Pacific Coast Highway.

Eventually, the film dispenses–not only with the idea of rising action–but the idea of “action” of any kind.  Freed from the twin burdens of character development and believable dialogue, the filmmakers decide to deliver the exposition in the most direct and economical manner possible: a reel-to-reel tape recorder.  Having hypnotized and regressed Tina back to an earlier life, Dr. Emmanuel (one of the many “doctors” in the film) invites Paul, Tina’s fiancée, to his office so he can hear the recording.

As they listen to Tina’s flat, emotionless voice, the camera stubbornly holds on a tight shot of the tape recorder, only occasionally cutting away to reaction shots of Dr. Emmanuel and Paul.  Although both of them look concerned, only Paul adopts a pose like Rodin’s “The Thinker” to let us know he is also thoughtful.

The following is an example of how possible unused footage might have been edited together.

TAPE RECORDER  (Tina’s Voice):  The skies have been dark since yesterday when father returned from the senate in Rome.  I feel that something terrible is going to happen.

CUT TO:

DR. EMMANUEL  AND PAUL

Paul starts to speak, but Dr. Emmanuel holds a finger up to his lips–gesturing for silence.

CUT TO:

TAPE RECORDER  (Tina’s Voice):  There’s been no rain.  No clouds.  Just the grey light over Pompeii that depresses me as I look through my window at Vesuvius and remember the curse placed upon my family by the slave Quintus Aquarius.

CUT TO:

PAUL

He appears deep in though, possibly weighing what action to take.  Then the camera tilts down to a pad of paper on the desk.  On it is written:  Drop off suit at cleaners.  Pick up cat food from store.   Check out Stabian baths.

CUT TO:

TAPE RECORDER  (Tina’s Voice):  I fear the slave and his strength, for he is the most powerful gladiator in all the empire.  He has threatened to escape his cell and take me from my house.

CUT TO:

PAUL

Seated at the desk, he is totally preoccupied with assembling a five-masted schooner inside of a glass bottle.

CUT TO:

TAPE RECORDER  (Tina’s Voice):  Yet, how can I return his love?  I am an aristocrat.  He is a slave.  It is not…  There–is that a rumbling in the ground?  The house shakes.

CUT TO:

DR. EMMANUEL AND PAUL

Dr. Emmanuel hands a gun  to Paul.  Paul spins the cylinder and holds the gun up to his head.  There is a moment’s hesitation, followed by a look of disappointment as the hammer comes down on an empty chamber.  Paul hands the gun back to Dr. Emmanuel.

TAPE RECORDER (Tina’s Voice):  I hear shouts in the streets.  It is a volcano.  It is Vesuvius.  Our house is falling above me…

Faced with the problem of reuniting the mummy and his reincarnated lover, the decidedly undramatic but ultimately time-saving decision is made to have Tina come to the Faceless Man.   In a hypnotic daze, Tina frees the stone mummy from his restraints and then faints–setting off what seems to be a kind of Pavlovian response in mummies:  the Faceless Man immediately takes her up in his arms.  Putting one stone foot in front of the other, he begins the slow, unbelievably tedious journey to the beach–15 miles away!

Hoping to maintain the breakneck pace that’s been established, the film cuts to a shot of the local inspector, Paul, and four other doctors gathered around a phone–waiting for it to ring.  The doctors look spent, drained of all hypotheses and backstory, unable any longer to advance the plot through either word or action.  The police force is sweeping the countryside in an attempt to turn up the Faceless Man, but all the inspector and the doctors can do is wait…

Until finally the phone rings!

Having dispensed with the idea of  ”rising action,” the film, in a heady disregard for audience expectations, turns its back on anything that might conceivably pass for a climax.    The Faceless Man, reliving his actions on the day Vesuvius exploded and destroyed Pompeii, hits the beach at exactly the same moment as the boxy European police cars.  The inspector, Paul, the doctors, and the entire police force of four men, spill out of the cars and race across the sand.  The Faceless Man backhands a policeman in the face, and with Tina in his arms, heads into the surf where he….

Well…where he begins to fizz and dissolve like a giant Alka Seltzer tablet.  Really.  In nothing flat, the stone mummy is gone.

As it turns out, Tina remembers nothing of what has happened, and in a completely unexpected turn of events, Paul passes up the opportunity for a long-winded explanation, instead deciding it’s “just as well” that Tina has no memory of  the Faceless Man.

One can only guess at the fate that might have awaited Tina if Paul and the doctors hadn’t arrived when they did.  Actually, that isn’t quite true.  It’s fairly obvious what would have happened.  The Faceless Man would have carried Tina into the water.  He would have dissolved.  And Tina, finding herself alone on the beach at dawn, would have been forced to thumb a ride back to town.

Not the most horrible fate imaginable, but certainly inconvenient.

One reason Curse of the Faceless Man is such a disappointment, is because it was written by Jerome Bixby and directed by Edward L. Cahn, the creative team responsible for It! The Terror From Beyond Space. While It! is a classic example of a B-movie overcoming the limitation of a low-budget with talent and imagination, Curse of the Faceless Man is, at best, perfunctory and, at worst, lazy and amateurish.

Not every effort can be a home run, but this isn’t even a bunt.

In any case, Curse of the Faceless Man remains a cautionary tale for anyone who might consider making a mummy movie.  The lesson?  Don’t.  That’s all there is to it: don’t.

THE LOST MISSILE

Jerome Bixby wrote many science fiction and horror films, but one of the oddest he ever penned was The Lost Missile.  While more fun and entertaining than Curse of the Faceless Man, it is also weirdly wrongheaded in its bizarre story choices.

A missile from somewhere in outer space (we never learn where it came from or why) circles the earth, leaving a charred and ruined swath of destruction in its wake.  Unfortunately, the threat posed by the missile is so arbitrary and unlikely, it’s impossible to take seriously; it doesn’t even work as a metaphor for nuclear war.  In some ways, the film seems a bit ahead of its time in foregrounding women’s issues and concerns, but unaccountably, it manages to do so in a way that makes them look silly and selfish.

The Lost Missile is one of a kind, and I do my best to make sense of it in my audio review.

Interview by Anonymous.

Early in 1968, Playboy magazine contacted me about the possibility of interviewing Stanley Kubrick.  It was an offer I eagerly accepted.  2001: A Space Odyssey had just opened, and critics, whether they loved the film or hated it, were united on one point: nothing like it had ever been seen on a movie screen before.

But was that true?

In 1965, with little or no fanfare, a movie containing many of the same elements as 2001 had been released.  I was in complete ignorance of this film,  but by the end of my interview with “Mr. Kubrick,” I would learn more about it and the film’s director, Bernard Knowles, than I ever cared to know.

For reasons that will soon become apparent, the interview was never published.  One editor at Playboy explained the situation to me this way:  “The god damned interview isn’t even with Stanley Kubrick!  And, oh yeah, if we publish it, he’s going to fucking sue us!”

It’s been many years since the interview took place,  and sadly, Mr. Kubrick is no longer with us.  The time seems right, however, finally to share this bit of lost cinematic history with the general public.  If nothing else, the interview possibly helps explain Mr. Kubrick’s reclusive habits in later years.

The Interview

Flap.  Flap.  Flap.  Flap.  Flap.

In the darkness, there was the sound of tail leader on a 16mm take-up reel spinning around and around.  I rose from my chair and flipped on the light switch–revealing Stanley Kubrick seated next to a portable 16mm projector on my desk.

KUBRICK:  Quite an eye-opener isn’t it?

I didn’t respond immediately, and in the silence, Mr. Kubrick tugged self-consciously at his beard–causing it to shift position on his face.  Anyway, that’s what I believed I saw.  I rubbed my eyes and, after a moment or two, was uncertain whether the beard had actually moved or not.

My lack of enthusiasm for the film seemed to catch Mr. Kubrick by surprise.

KUBRICK: Of course, the whole thing plays differently in a theater on a big screen.

PLAYBOY: I’m sure it does.

Our initial meeting had been cordial enough and the interview progressed in a satisfactory if not particularly remarkable manner…that is, until I questioned Mr. Kubrick about his influences.

PLAYBOY: Eisenstein.  Lang.  Max Ophals.  In the past, you’ve mentioned these filmmakers as being an influence on your work.  Would you add any others?

KUBRICK: Bernard Knowles.

If I had taken a drink of water at that moment, I might have done a spit-take.

PLAYBOY: Who?

That was when Mr. Kubrick directed me to turn off the lights.  The 16mm projector he had brought with him was threaded and ready to go.  For the next sixty-two minutes, it’s possible that I stared at the screen with my jaw hanging open.

In the darkness, the shaft of light from the projector must have revealed my expression.

KUBRICK: Amazing, isn’t it?

PLAYBOY: That’s one way of putting it.

The "amazing" adventure begins.

I was watching something called Spaceflight IC-1: An Adventure in Space. It was directed by Bernard Knowles, a filmmaker Mr. Kubrick seemed to rank along side Lang and Ophals.  Unfortunately, to make some sense of what follows, a brief description of the movie is required.

It is the year 2015, and the earth’s resources have been severely depleted by overpopulation, allowing an Orwellian government (apparently lacking any sense of irony, having named itself RULE) to take control in the ensuing chaos.  With earth facing an uncertain future, the decision is made to send spaceship IC-1 (IC for intergalactic colony) to the nearest inhabitable planet in hopes of reestablishing the human race.

Dr. Garth (left) the world's first "closed-circuit man."

The crew consists of four men, four women, three children (two boys, one girl), and a head.  The “head” is Dr. Garth, the first “closed circuit man.”  He feels nothing (emotionally or physically) and has a machine for a body.  In appearance, Dr. Garth can best be described as a head inside of an upside down fishbowl set on top of a filing cabinet that has the drawers turned to face the wall.  The remainder of the crew is in suspended animation, having been placed on the spaceship in cryogenic hibernation.

Spaceship IC-1.

The mid-section of spaceship IC-1 is a huge Ferris wheel like structure, a centrifuge that creates gravity by continually rotating.  Unaccountably, interior shots of the ship reveal a single hallway (the floor flat, not curved as might be expected), with two doors on the left wall, and another door at the end of the hallway.  There is also a stairway that leads to…  Well, it isn’t exactly clear where it leads to.

One year into a twenty-five year journey, the captain of spaceship IC-1 is informed that he is no longer able to conceive children.  The captain’s guilt and frustration at this turn of events (the mission of IC-1, after all, is procreation and re-population) drives him to act like a sort of Captain Queeg in outer space.

Mutineer checks on status of crew members in suspended animation.

Eventually, a mutiny takes place, and for reasons too tedious to recount, a crew member is revived from suspended animation.  The untested revival process transforms the crew member into a rampaging maniac who (conveniently for the mutineers) murders the captain, before he, himself, (even more conveniently) dies.

No longer subject to RULE’s overbearing dictates or the captain’s arbitrary, tyrannical authority, spaceship IC-1 continues on its journey to Earth 2, where, one can only hope, a free and democratic society will be established.

Flap.  Flap.  Flap.  Flap.  Flap.

KUBRICK: (agitated) Do you know what this film is?

PLAYBOY: Really bad?

KUBRICK: It’s a confession–at twenty-four frames per second!

"A Space Odyssey" or "An Adventure in Space"?

Confession?  I had no idea what Mr. Kubrick was talking about.  Besides, wasn’t the quote, “Truth at twenty-four frames per second”?  And how did Godard get mixed up in the interview?

KUBRICK: The living quarters inside the centrifuge.  The crew members in hibernation.  The god damn title, for that matter.  Adventure in Space.  A Space Odyssey.  Where to you think I got it all?

I hesitated before answering.

PLAYBOY: Spaceflight IC-1?

KUBRICK: Of course!  Bernard Knowles.  I tell you, the man’s a genius!   And I’m nothing but a fraud!  Hall 9000.  The “closed-circuit man.”  They’re one in the same.  Except Knowles captured the dichotomy of a dualistic future perfectly in a single, startling image.  Intellect vs emotion.  A being who is half human…

PLAYBOY: …half filing cabinet?

Mr. Kubrick stood up, planted a hand on either side of my desk, and leaned forward.

KUBRICK: My film is nothing but a sterile rip-off, hiding behind a huge budget, pretending to be something it isn’t–original!  Knowles’ film is alive with human tension, primal urges, and…

PLAYBOY: …soap opera melodramatics?

KUBRICK: Are you being intentionally obtuse?

Practically nose to nose with Mr. Kubrick, I couldn’t help but have serious doubts about the authenticity of his beard.

Then, as if on cue, the door to my office swung open–revealing a second Stanley Kubrick.

KUBRICK #2: Sorry I’m late.  There was a scheduling mix-up with the secretary…

Stanley Kubrick or Bernard Knowles?

Without warning, Kubrick #1 lunged forward.  I reached out to stop him but only came away with a handful of fake beard.

KUBRICK #2: (grappling with Kubrick #1) Let go of me, you crazy bastard!

The two Kubricks stumbled around my office, swinging wildly at one another, knocking over furniture, bouncing off the walls.

Abruptly, Kubrick #1 executed some sort of wrestling maneuver and, before I knew what was happening, had Kubrick #2 in a headlock.

KUBRICK #1: Admit it!  Admit you stole my movie!

KUBRICK #2: Ow!  Let go of my hair!  Who is this idiot?  Ooph!

Bernard Knowles or Stanley Kubrick?

In a blind panic, Kubrick #2 violently threw himself backward, pulling free, leaving Kubrick #1 holding his jacket.  Kubrick #2 didn’t hesitate and bolted for the door.

Kubrick #1: One way or another, people will know.  2001 is really my movie!

He looked straight at me.

KUBRICK #1: If you won’t accept the truth from me, you’ll accept it from him!

With that, Kubrick #1 dropped the jacket, grabbed the beard from my hand, and was out the door.

End of interview.

Coda

Later that day, I received a phone call from the police station.  The two Kubricks had been picked up fighting in the street and charged with assault and disturbing the peace.  Kubrick #2 had either lost his wallet, or what seems more likely, had it “lifted” during the altercation.  With both men claiming to be Stanley Kubrick, the desk sergeant asked me to come down and identify the authentic Kubrick.

Unfortunately, I only succeeded in making matters worse.  Faced with a line-up of bearded men, I misidentified Kubrick #1 (who it now seems clear was Bernard Knowles) as Stanley Kubrick, resulting in the real Kubrick spending the night in jail.

A week later, after tempers had cooled and apologies been offered, Mr. Kubrick agreed to a second interview, but only on the condition the first interview was never published and that someone other than myself conduct the interview.  It’s probably just as well my initial interview never saw publication since actual quotes from the real Kubrick would have amounted to little more than: “Ooph!”   “Ouch!”  and “Ugggh.”

Kubrick #1 was never seen again, and Bernard Knowles never acknowledged that he was the man impersonating  Stanley Kubrick and delivering a fraudulent confession.  To be honest, I have no solid evidence it was actually him, but just the same, it seems the most likely explanation.

I have to admit that, after all these years, I’m still unable to decide how I feel about Bernard Knowles.  Lunatic hack?  Or a visionary without any storytelling sense?

Use of holographic display 12 years before Princess Leia's plea for help in Star Wars.

Besides the similarities to 2001, IC-1 also anticipated a number of other science fiction films.  At one point in IC-1, a funeral is held aboard the spaceship, and it is strikingly similar to a scene 18 years later at the end of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.  There is also the use of holographic images, predating similar effects in the Star Wars movies.  Finally, the children on board IC-1 have psychic abilities, long before any number of such “gifted” children turn up in the books and films of Stephen King.

Spaceflight IC-1: groundbreaking film or cinematic sleeping aid?

I still have in my possession the 16mm projector and reel of film left behind by Kubrick #1.   Every now and then I set up the projector, turn off the lights, and watch Spaceflight IC-1 again.  Watching the film, I can’t help but wonder if more than coincidence was behind the similarities to 2001, and yet…

And yet, long before the mutiny takes place, I always start to nod off and then it’s only a matter of time before I’m sound asleep.

PLAYBOY: Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z.

Across the Rio Grande,  film distributor K. Gordon Murray caught sight of the Santo phenomena and was inspired.  At that time in 1962, the Italian Hercules movies starring Steve Reeves were pulling in large young male audiences.  Murray bought the US rights to two Santo titles, Santo Contra las Mujeres Vampiras (Santo VS the Vampire Women) and Santo en el Museo de Cera (Santo in the Wax Museum).  He dubbed the films into English, and hoping to cash in on the Italian muscleman fad, changed Santo’s name to Samson.  Vampire Women soon became a local-TV horror favorite, in no small part because it is the stuff boyish dreams are made of (including mine),  especially when those dreams are populated by the alluring title villainesses.  Not surprisingly, hot vixens became a staple of future Santo films.

By the mid-60s, the muscleman genre gave way to the spy craze, and with this change in tastes, Santo’s cinematic adventures ceased being adapted for a US market.  In his native land, however, Santo’s reign continued uabated as a Mexican movie hero.  He appeared in movies with even larger-budgets, not only as a monster-alien basher but also as a suave super spy himself.  In Operation 67, for instance, Santo wore a Bond-like tuxedo below his ever-present mask.  Some things couldn’t change.

A hero from a more innocent time, Santo found he was unable to compete with the rebel films of the late 60s and the Altamn-esque cinema of  the 70s.  Santo’s pictures of that decade, although replete with monsters and sexy women, were mostly chaotic, directionless efforts that lacked the atomosphere and charm of the earlier films.  Sadly, Santo himself was in something of a decline by the late 70s, a time that would usher in a resurgence of traditional fantasy heroes like Luke Skywalker, Superman, Flash Gordon, and Tarzan.  The legendary wrestler would have fit right in among them, but he chose instead to retire in 1982, dying two years later in 1984.  Tens of thousands of fans turned out at his funeral.

Many of us baby boomers will never forget the late-night hours spent in front of a flickering rabbit-eared TV watching the masked champion rescue a gorgeous babe from the clutches of some madman or vampire queen.  Even as a kid, part of me knew this was silly.  Still, years later, that didn’t stop me  as a teen from going to the Spanish-language theater in DC to watch the latest Santo adventure in color.  Today we’re much too cinematically sophisticated and critical to enjoy such simple fare, and yet, when ever I think of Santo, I always smile at the memory of him.

SANTO (SAMSON) IN THE WAX MUSEUM.

One hero.  Three reviewers.  The Misfits take on Mexico’s famous masked hero in one of his most well-known movies.  On a scale of 1 to 15 (15 being best), the Misfits give Santo in the Wax Museum a…

For more Santo entries, check the sidebar under Categories and click Santo.

Review: Like any good exploitation film, The World’s Greatest Sinner is a mix of low budget technical compromises, lurching story lines, ham-fisted visual metaphors, and odd, unpredictable moments.  When Clarence Hilliard makes his first speech about the “Immortal Man,” he steps up onto a pile of what looks like sandbags.  Then the camera slowly tilts down to reveal him standing on bags of manure, a sign reading “4 for a dollar.”  On stage with his rock ‘n roll band, Clarence doesn’t resemble a twitching, gyrating Elvis so much as he does a man having an epileptic fit.  Then there’s the 50-state, stock-footage campaign for president, where vaguely familiar newsreel shots cheer on intercut snippets of Hillard exhorting his followers to become gods!

But for every ridiculous moment, there’s also something a little disturbing or unexpected.  One of Clarence’s first converts is an elderly woman who lets him know that he “makes her feel young again. ”  He replies that she reminds him of his mother, and then the two embrace, sharing an uncomfortably passionate kiss.  The flip side of this decidedly twisted sexual coin is when a teenage girl tells the-soon-to-be-president that she can deliver the youth vote to him.  At first, Clarence seems a little more savvy than might be expected, getting the girl to admit she’s not 18 and is actually 14.  With this fact firmly established, he proceeds to have sex with her.

An unsettling scene of a different kind occurs after a rock ‘n roll concert/rally, where the all-white male audience decides to demonstrate its godhood by rioting.  Where actual newsreel footage later used in the run for the presidency looks creaky and unconvincing, the riot looks all too real, as if shot during an actual rampage.  I’ve seen crowds like this in big budget movies, and it’s not unusual to see a laughing extra or someone going lamely through the motions, but this group of young men seems to be deadly earnest as they swarm over cars in a frenzy of destruction.  In this instance, the film’s low budget actually works in the picture’s favor, with its harsh lighting and handheld camera creating a surprising sense of reality.

Many of the indoor scenes have an odd aesthetic all their own.  Either by intent or because the lighting kit only included a couple of spots and a reflector, many of the interior shots have two or three characters illuminated against a totally black background.  It’s like a minimalist play: this desk will now represent a room: this door is the entrance to a house: these silly Greek/kitsch statues represent a grand presidential candidate’s strategy room.

This reductionist idea also carries over to the characters.  Hilliard eventually ends up wearing a coat with the word “GOD’ embroidered in large letters on either sleeve.  The people who have bought into his “immortal” agenda wear a patch with an F on it to let us know they are “Followers.”  I was half-expecting a character to show up with a sign around his neck that proclaimed “Reporter” or maybe for another character to walk in wearing a T-shirt that read “Plot-Twist.”

The ending to The World’s Greatest Sinner is satisfyingly strange and unexpected — and visual.  All good things, especially since, at one point, it appeared as if the final revelation might depend on the emotional attachment Clarence still feels for his family, something the film never actually pulls off.

I’ll end this review with a description of one of the first images in the film.  Clarence, in what I guess is supposed to be a happier, simpler time, piles his family up on a horse.  Clarence, his wife, and their two small children — everyone gets on.  And they look a little precarious.  You half expect someone to fall off before the shot ends.  Here’s another detail: the scene takes place in the rain.

Did it just happen to rain that day, but the schedule and low budget demanded they had to get the scene in the can — rain or no rain?  Was it serendipitous?  Or was it intentional?  It doesn’t really matter.  This idiotic staging of the family pretending to be happy, when everyone is obviously miserable, unable to even go through the motions of being a normal family, is the perfect image to begin this twisted and singular film.

Some stuff worth knowing: Timothy Carey is probably best known for his role in Kubrick’s Path’s of Glory.   He’s one of the three soldiers being executed for cowardice and not following orders.  In the film, he is sarcastic and somehow both intense and laconic at the same time.  And, of course, there are dark circles under his eyes.  Does this man ever sleep?

Ray Dennis Steckler (director of The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-up Zombies!!?) was the cameraman, and there are some genuinely striking images mixed in with the more pedestrian and low budget aesthetic stuff.

Finally, Frank Zappa did the music, and the title song is a classic.

The Presidential cabinet meeting that convened as a result of this finding more than likely went something like this:

Top General: So what are these Bolshevik bastards up to?

CIA Agent: General. Mr. President. I’m not going to soft-pedal this. I’m going to give it to you straight. They’re painting their houses.

Shocked silence.

CIA Agent: Not only that, they’re raking up the leaves in their yards.

A gasp from the back of the room.

The President (shaking his head, to himself): My God. It’s worse than we feared.

CIA Agent: Yes it is, sir. They’re also tidying up in their homes. Vacuuming. Dusting. Do you want me to go on?

The President: No. I’ve heard more than enough. (long pause before rising and addressing cabinet members) Gentlemen, this is unacceptable. We can not allow a Tidiness Gap!

And so the film unit of The Civil Defense department snapped into action, producing “The House in the Middle.” The short begins with an aerial shot of Anytown, USA. “One American town looks like any other when you see it from an airplane window,” notes the narrator, leaving out the observation that once hydrogen bombs have been dropped, they all pretty much look the same.

Since the film is intended for the outlying suburbs and towns not immediately in the kill zone of a ground-zero explosion, the whole issue of large metropolitan areas being vaporized is discretely sidestepped.  The short also tends to focus on the atomic heat or “thermal wave” from a nuclear explosion and doesn’t have much to offer on the other after effects from the blast like…well, for one thing, radiation.

The short is brought to us courtesy of “The National Clean up – Paint up – Fix up Bureau.”  Happily, this group wasn’t in charge of naming any other government agencies or The Air Force might be known as “The Department of Heavier Than Air Vehicles – That Go Up And Come Down – Drop Bombs and Fire Missiles – And Sometimes Have Pilots With Cool Names Like Maverick – And Iceman and Goose – Well Goose Isn’t That Cool – But Iceman Is.”

For the purposes of the short, Anytown, USA is replicated at the Nevada Proving Grounds by two miniature houses.  Despite the minimalistic representation, you’d be hard-pressed to single it out from any of hundreds of other towns in America – that is, if they didn’t look like two anomalous objects stranded in a weird Daliesque landscape.  A huge melting watch wouldn’t look out of place there.

Structure-wise, the two houses are identical.  Inside, however, it’s a different story.  House #1 is notable for its untidy housekeeping.  Newspapers and magazines are left lying around.  The tables are cluttered with junk.  House #2, on the other hand, is spic and span.  The trash has been thrown out and tabletops are tidy.

The narrator then walks us through the steps in a nuclear explosion. First the light flash! Then the thermal wave! Quickly followed by the blast wave! When all is said and done, both houses on the outskirts of the atomic detonation survive, but the clutter inside House #1 catches fire, and even though the structure survived the blast, it ends up burning to the ground.

At this point, it comes as something of a shock to realize that Hazel might have been our first line of defense against nuclear attack. Perhaps the Civil Defense seal should have been replaced by The Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

A final test with three houses is staged for our edification, and ultimately, what the short comes down to is a retelling of the Three Little Pigs — with the atom bomb in the role of the Big Bad Wolf, huffing and puffing and blowing the houses down. House #1 is an eyesore with leaves and trash in the yard. House #2 (the house in the middle) is painted and has an uncluttered yard. House #3 is in rundown condition due to years of neglect.

Guess which house survives? Right. The house in the middle.

If this test had actually been a Russian sneak attack, the lucky owner of the house in the middle would have survived to take part in digging mass graves for thousands of irradiated and charred corpses. Still, when Mr. Lucky Homeowner looked at the ruble of the two houses on either side of his home, he’d be able to take a certain amount of satisfaction in the fact he was still alive.

“I tried to warn them,” he might say, and then the tumorous growth on his shoulder, which had been increasing in size and finally become a second freakish head, would add, “Yes you did. You and The National Clean up – Paint up – Fix Up Bureau.”

Here’s the helpful warning in its full-length glory, produced as it actually was by the friendly folks at the Paint, Varnish, and Lacquer Association.  No doubt it was a big hit at their convention that year (and what a rip-roaring event that had to be).