Guilty Pleasures: Joe Dante
As William K. Everson pointed out in his own thoughtful and witty Guilty Pleasures piece in the November/December 1979 FILM COMMENT, the natural inclination of most contributors is to share discoveries that others may not have had the opportunity or the inclination to make for themselves—with the emphasis on those wonderful, mysterious impressions that movies make on the viewer at an early, critically defenseless age. Which still leaves me, at least, with the problem of exactly what tack to take. A few years ago, when it was a lot harder to get people to talk seriously about I Walked With a Zombie or Once Upon a Time in the West as great movies, I could have simply waxed enthusiastic over most of my favorite pictures, secure in the knowledge that to most people they would qualify as suitably oddball choices. But since then, film appreciation has opened up to a point where, happily, J. Hoberman can attempt a serious analysis of Edward D. Wood in these pages and nobody bats an eye. So let's face it, the search for the obscure, the forgotten, and the disreputable has become a lot more difficult.
And exactly how guilty are these pleasures supposed to be, anyway? I could defend currently unfashionable onetime greats like High Noon, Forbidden Games, or A Walk in the Sun. Or take perverse critical stands: I like Fellini’s Il bidone but not La strada; Targets is Peter Bogdanovich’s best picture; Kiss Me Deadly is the greatest movie of the Fifties; George Reeves is an underrated actor. How about a list of Favorite Unsung Masterpieces? Almost every director has at least one—The Narrow Margin (Richard Fleischer), Law and Order (Edward L. Cahn), Baby Face Nelson (Don Siegel), Hellzapoppin (H.C. Potter), It’s a Small World, (William Castle), Reign of Terror (Anthony Mann), Eye of the Devil (J. Lee Thompson), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (Peckinpah), etc. And what about shorts and cartoons? I haven’t heard anybody singing the praises of Flip the Frog lately. And who speaks for Scrappy? Or Puppetoons? Whew. The job’s just too big for that approach, so instead of listing hundreds of titles, I picked a bunch of movies I like a lot, sort of at random-although there does seem to be a preponderance of horror pictures. Hmmm. It tums out, anyway, that there’s nothing at all guilty about these pleasures. I only feel guilty about the ones I left out.
Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman (1958, Nathan Juran)
I heard that Paul Morrissey hopes to remake this, but I hope he Amazing Colossal Man instead. This version is perfect, so wonderful in fact that director Juran felt compelled to apply the same pseudonym he used on Brain from Planet Arous. Allison Hayes, a Saturday Matinee siren of my youth, gives it all she’s got as an alcoholic heiress who thwarts her greedy husband’s plot to put her “in the outhouse” by encountering a huge transparent alien and then waking up one morning 50 feet tall.
That’s a fairly cogent account of the plot, but the great thing is that the giantess angle appears to have been added at the last minute (“Hey, wait a minute—what if we make her 25, no, 50 feet tall?! Then we could call it Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman!”) This leads to such sublime conceits as having her awaken, giant-size (50 feet tall, remember), in her normal-size bed (in the upstairs bedroom), with the camera shooting past her giant papier-mâché hand lying on the pillow, the rest of her apparently extending off-screen into the houses next door. The cast, meanwhile, stares in dutiful horror at the only part of her there is to look at: her wrist.
I haven’t even mentioned the great paranoid sequence in which a newscaster harasses Allison from inside her TV set, or the marvelously precise dialogue. (Sheriff to Fleeing Extras: “Was it a giant woman?”) I don’t mean to imply a hint of Golden Turkey superciliousness to my recommendation of this (or any other); it’s just the way it is. At last, a movie worthy of its title.
Blood And Black Lace (1964, Mario Bava)
The word “Lurid” achieves new complexity when applied to the collected works of Mario Bava, an Italian cinematographer-turned-director whose intermittent brilliance is likely to remain forever obscured behind titles like the above, not to mention Hatchet for a Honeymoon, Kill Baby Kill, Planet of the Vampires, Evil Eye, and the ineffable Twitch of the Death Nerve. An unwitting pioneer in what has come to be known as the “stalk and slash” genre, Bava’s ingeniously conceived and lovingly photographed scenes of murder and mayhem are choreographed and mounted to blur the disturbing line between horror and beauty. His florid camerawork and stylized color lighting have influenced a lot of current filmmakers who, like me, could probably recount numerous appropriately Bava-esque brushes with violent death in the inner-city flea palaces where these pictures invariably played.
I caught most of the above titles in Philadelphia, at the inaptly named Family Theatre on Market Street (three movies for 60 cents; it smelled like disinfectant if you were lucky—and never, never go down to the men’s room), where my friends and I constantly faced the True Film Buff’s Test: how much do you really want to see this picture? Enough to change seats every reel? The experience of sitting through the movie was always a bit scarier than the movie itself, but maybe that was part of the appeal. The management was not above tricks like turning the heat up to brain-sizzling levels during The Day the Earth Caught Fire, so the general temperament of the audience was pretty unpredictable. But since these were really the only places you could see these films, we went.
I doubt whether Bava—reputedly a shy and insecure fellow who constantly refused invitations to work for the Woolner Brothers in California—ever imagined anybody going to this much trouble to see his work. But I’d love to be able to tell him about the near-riot that ensued during What! just as Christopher Lee picked up his whip and advanced toward Dahlia Lavi…
Confessions Of An Opium Eater (Albert Zugsmith, 1962)
Confessions Of An Opium Eater (1962, Albert Zugsmith)
Conventional scuttlebutt has it that Zug, like William Castle, is best thought of, if at all, as a producer of mainstream masterworks by other, better directors (Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, Jack Arnold’s The Incredible Shrinking Man, Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind, Alfred E. Green’s incomparable Invasion, U.S.A.). And with his own credits running to epic titles like Sex Kittens Go to College and The Incredible Sex Revolution, who am I to quibble? Nevertheless, in his heyday Zug exhibited some of the sensational tabloid leanings, if not the style, of Sam Fuller or, if you will, of an earlier-day Larry Cohen. And yet not even his teen-noir classic College Confidential—Steve Allen as a crusading campus sex researcher—can hold a candle to Opium Eater (alias Souls for Sale) for sheer, ingenuous, and possibly unintentional pop-poetry.
This triumphantly surreal parade of seemingly inexplicable images stars Vincent Price as a desperately philosophical soldier of fortune who takes drugs and endures various weird, serial-style tortures while busting a girls-for-sale ring in turn-of-the-century Chinatown, economically represented by an old Western backlot. Price has probably consumed more drugs onscreen than anyone except Bela Lugosi, and his “trip” sequence here tops them all. Everything and anything is included, from stock-footage alligators with hiccups on the soundtrack to some of the dreamiest slow-motion imagery I’ve ever seen—rich, shadowy black-and-white stuff by Joe Biroc.
The relentlessly sententious dialogue begins to make almost cosmic sense by the end of the picture, in which Price is last glimpsed floating down a sewer, embracing the dragon-lady heroine, and still pondering the Meaning of It All: “Was this just another girl in my arms—or was she a kind of Destiny for me?” I couldn’t tell you, and I’ve seen it plenty. But take my word for it, this is good stuff.
The Sadist (1962, James T. Landis)
Before his Big Break as cinematographer on McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Vilmos Zsigmond used to work as William Zsigmond, the moniker he used when he shot this sleazy mini-budget drive-in item about a teenage psycho holding three frightened teachers hostage in a desert junkyard, all presented in 94 minutes of consecutive “real time.” As directed by one James T. Landis (no relation to John; I asked), whose other credits are uniformly unexceptional, it’s tight, tense, and effective far beyond sensible expectation—especially since it was obviously conceived as a vehicle for Arch Hall, Jr., the beefy son of the owner of Fairway International Pictures, a long-since forgotten distributor. Hall, who looks like a huge demented baby, gives an eye-rolling homage-to-Dwight Frye performance that’s too nutty not to prove ultimately unsettling.
The mise-en-scène possibilities are, to say the least, squeezed dry as every possible “good shot” through every available piece of foreground is exhausted. Its triumph over the most minimal of resources makes this an ideal film for student filmmakers to study; just try and find it. It used to be on TV under the title Face of Terror, but not lately. Maybe it’ll turn out to be in the public domain and show up on hordes of dupey, fuzzy, video cassettes. That’s supposed to be better than unavailability, but I’m not so sure.
Exercist II: The Heretic (John Boorman, 1977)
Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977, John Boorman)
The day it opened in Hollywood, audiences exiting the theater were warning total strangers on line to go home and save their money—never a good sign. Nevertheless, despite some Duel in the Sun-size story and performance problems, this is probably the most prodigiously imaginative American movie of the past decade, as visually innovative as it is metaphysically ambitious. A later cut, remixed to smooth out deletions from the release print, is the extant version, but, as exhaustively detailed by Todd McCarthy in these pages (September/October 1977), it’s pretty much a compromise.
Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943, Roy William Neill)
Neill, one of my favorites, really comes through on this fifth entry in the then-declining Universal series which, despite obvious studio second-guessing, exhibits a rich pictorial style that compares quite favorably with Rowland V. Lee’s far higher-budgeted, more expressionistic Son of Frankenstein. Compositional ingenuity at its most efficient. Andrew Sarris once grudgingly granted Neill the status of “minor stylist,” but with this material, on these budgets, that ain’t chopped liver. The opening shot alone is probably the greatest single take in a B-movie of the forties. Okay, okay, except for Gun Crazy.
The Gamma People (1955, John Gilling)
Paul Douglas and Leslie Phillips are reporters on their way to the Salzburg Music Festival, no less, when their train car is detached and rolls into the “closed state” of Gudavia, where a vaguely Germanic scientist practices nasty mind control experiments with gamma rays. I’ve always been fond of this rather strange, oddly charming film which balances comedy, science-fantasy, melodrama, and politics none too dexterously. It’s certainly less audacious than John Farrow’s His Kind of Woman, which boldly intercuts slapstick and torture, but in never being quite what it seems, The Gamma People maintains a nicely quizzical, even fable- like tone throughout. Besides, Paul Douglas reminds me of my grandfather.
Invaders from Mars (William Cameron Menzies, 1953)
Invaders from Mars (1953, William Cameron Menzies)
As an examination of childhood paranoia it’s not exactly Night of the Hunter, but there’s a visionary impact to Menzies’ carefully off-center compositions and vague, minimalist sets that completely overshadows the subject matter. A truly definitive dream movie—nothing is real—and one of the few that completely justifies, even ennobles its hoary it’s-all-a-dream ending. Other Menzies designed-and-directed films are nearly as good (particularly Address Unknown, 1944), but they lack Invaders‘ mythic situations and sometimes tend to disintegrate into a succession of storyboard-like tableaux. A practical note: the redressing and stylized re-use of a few simple sets in this picture, notably the police station, should by required study for every low-budget art director.
Truck Turner (1974, Jonathan Kaplan)
Signaling the end of the black exploitation cycle, this unjustly obscure AIP action picture manages to tread the fine line between hard violence and distancing parody better than almost anything you can name from the period. Its furiously escalating mayhem transcends itself in much the same way an urban The Wild Bunch might. For a while I thought this was Kaplan’s best picture, but his current Heart Like a Wheel is even better. Too bad if you’re not supposed to include pictures made by your friends.
Long John Silver (1954, Byron Haskin)
When I was a kid this was the pirate movie, made in far-off Australia and therefore able to flaunt all the scruffiness, scariness, and timber-shivering that the earlier Disney version, also directed by Haskin, had tended to soft-pedal. Was there ever a filthier, crazier, more dangerous pirate than Robert Newton? Don’t let the parrot fool you, he’d cut your throat soon as look at you. (He was no slouch as Blackbeard, either. ) It’s been a long time since I saw this, but I particularly remember a scene in which Newton was served a drink he expected to be rum. “AharrRRGGHH!” he gasped, spitting it all over. “This be Milk!!” You had to be there. Which is harder than ever these days, because this picture seems to have disappeared from distribution.
Abbott and Costello
Recent “revelations” about their private lives have only reinforced the feeling I had as a kid: The fact that you couldn’t be sure whether they really liked each other or not gave their routines real tension, and hence meaningful humor. Cinematically their legacy is pretty tattered—no directors like Frank Tashlin gave their relationship the kind of perspective Martin & Lewis might occasionally achieve (Artists and Models). Their films were mostly a procession of assembly-line vehicles as well-produced as they were rigid in format. The best ones are either ruthlessly edited (Hold That Ghost) or built around a subsidiary genre (Abbott and Costello Meet Whatever).
Their best moments are the ones in which their curiously dead-ended verbal gymnastics are given free rein: an unsupervised quickie like Abbott and Costello In Society grinds to a welcome halt for one of my favorite routines, Bagle Street. Bud and Lou find themselves compelled, for no good reason, to deliver some hats to the Susquahanna Hat Shop on Bagle Street. They don’t know where Bagle Street is, so they decide to “ask somebody,” normal people like you or me that anyone might find on the sidewalk. It’s just that the mere mention of the street or the hats sends everyone they meet into either fits of violent derangement or homicidal fury. If you can’t see how this fits in with modern life then you owe yourself a walk around the block.
Away from Universal in the late Forties they made the less typical (no musical interludes, no romantic subplot) The Noose Hangs High, a sort of noirish comedy appropriately made for Eagle-Lion, my favorite B-picture studio. Bud and Lou are a little older, a little tired, and the rejoinders come offhandedly—they know the words so well that they can just turn them on and go. The most privileged moments are those in which it appears that the director and editor have passed out, particularly a long, rambling dinner scene in which they run through a decade’s worth of material with the sloppy grace of unemployed vaudevillians. They would have made a great pair of Sunshine Boys. I would have loved to have seen them do The Dumb Waiter, but I don’t mind settling for Buck Privates.
It’s a Gift (Norman Z. McLeod, 1934)
W.C. Fields drives his family to California to claim a nonexistent orange grove. There’s not much I can say about this picture, you really need to see it for yourself. It’s not only hilarious and elegiac, it’s one of the great movies about America, especially small-town America, if such a thing exists anymore; it’s still as dangerous as the frontier. W.C Fields exemplifies most of what made this country endure. John Wayne is terrific, but who can be John Wayne? Any of us can be, and have been, W.C. Fields.
The Tomb of Ligeia (Roger Corman, 1964)
Tomb of Ligeia (1964, Roger Corman)
I saw this at the Palace Theatre the day it opened, at the first show for $1.25. All I can tell you is it was money well spent, and I’m sure Roger would agree. Personal experience admittedly colors my affection for Roger’s work. The Trip, for example, is Roger’s most revealing picture, and if you want to know why, you work for him for five years.
A.C. Lyles Westerns (1964–1967)
Maybe these are guilty pleasures. Directed by such specialists in the prolific as Lesley Selander, William F. Claxton, and R.G. Springsteen and employing every aging character player in town, this likable series of Techniscope Paramount programmers pretty much proved to be the Last Roundup in more ways than one. With titles like Stage to Thunder Rock, Law of the Lawless, and Red Tomahawk, these are Just Movies, that’s all. Their total absence of style or substance makes for prototypical filmgoing, where the reward lies in the simple appreciation of basic craftsmanship and Hollywood myth-making.
The fact that the myths were in a terminal stage adds poignance to the pleasure of watching such icons as Barton MacLane, Richard Arlen, Brian Donlevy, William Bendix, Lon Chaney, et al. switching roles from film to film—authority symbol in one, outlaw in the next. In addition, every so often somebody like Lyle Bettger would give one of his best performances (Tom Tamer). Paramount’s Western street is gone now, and so are most of these people, but the pictures are still around—cheery examples of the last of their own kind.
