VOLUME 22 - NUMBER 04 JULY-AUGUST 1986

The cast of characters who have helped make Miller Lite famous has brought America a lot of laughs. But the beer that stands behind them happens to be one of the most serious creations in the history of brewing. After all, the very idea of Lite was once considered an impossibility: a truly full-flavored beer that was significantly lower in calories than regular beer. AMERICA'S FAVORITE LIGHT BEER Today Miller Lite is far and away the largest-selling light beer in America and the nation's second largest-selling beer of any kind . This remarkable perfor- mance took a lot more than a good sense of humor. The brewing process that gives Lite its superior taste uses no fewer than 128 quality checks along the way to the bottle. MORE HOPS, MORE FLAVOR Lite's flavor is achieved by using two kinds of hops instead of just one for more hop flavor than most other light beers. Then the flavor is meticulously balanced to a perfectly mellow, well- rounded pilsner beer containing no additives or preservatives. The only way to achieve this much character in any beer is quality brewing every step of the way. To achieve it consistently in a beer with only 96 calories is a long way from funny. It's unprecedented. THERE'S ONLY ONE LITE BEER. MILLER LITE. © 1985 Miller Brewing Co.. Milwaukee. WI

•Sl•ssue published bimonthly by the Film Society ofLincoln Center Volume 22, Number 4 July-August 1986 Chainsawed .... .....9 Exploitation!: The Midsection First there was Texas Chain- That Wouldn't Die ...........31 saw Massacre, and you ate brown rice, wore earth shoes, Lissen, the entire issue is and pitied people over 30. pretty rank, right? Well, it all Now Leatherface is back in started when David Chute Chainsaw 2 to hack up Yup- and Kevin Allman went out pies (they make the best chili), to talk to David F. Friedman, and it's mighty fine with you. the schlockmeister of sex, sin, L.M. Kit Carson serves up spurts and splashes, the king 'Saws director Tobe Hooper as of swing, the sultan of sweat, main course, then spoons out the emperor of \"I Scream!\" script excerpts (page 13) for (page 32). Honey, Roger Cor- dessert. man is an arriviste- Friedman remembers the guys (Kroger Cagney's Cannibals. Babb, Louis Sonney) who did cinema as carney shows of Whether it was as Tom pickled punks (babies in bot- Powers, Cody jarrett, George tles) and electric chairs that M. Cohan, Eddie Barlett, or fried chickens. First of two jim Kincaid, Cagney's charac- parts! Then, Jimmy McDo- ters wanted their share - the nough careens down the road lion's - fair and square, or oth- that led from softcore sex- erwise. Pat McGilligan ploitationers to the hardballin' chronicles the sad, last days of hardcore genre (page 53). And a Hell's Kitchen kid who lived Mike Wilkins surveys all the dream, then got eaten up those women in prison, girls in in a nightmare. gangs, and schoolgirls in the showers films that caused car Dr. Ruth, Lifesize! crashes on two-lane blacktops everywhere (page 62). Plus The most respected sex thera- Jim Morton, Harry Med- pist (200 million closet cli- ved, and Joe Bob Briggs pick ents!) and bubbie of her day, their faves (page 66). Dr. Ruth stars in Daniel Vigne's new movie ... and 'Ruthless People' .............26 Industry becomes our first foldout heart throb. They took off in Airplane!, then Troma, new home of the barf (Splatter became Top Secret! Now Jack Barth U) pic, knows no shame. Bill Landis Also in this issue: asks ZAZ (Zucker, Abrahams, and tells why. Zucker) if they mean to sailor sell out. Journals ....................2 Books .....................81 When he was john Richie maybe he was Guilty Pleasures: Joe Bob B~ ... 70 How bad can sleaze be if somebody an okay dinner partner. As Sid Vicious, The man's wild: fired from the Dallas anthologizes it, hah? Richard Gehr his table habits degenerated. Robert Times Herald for bashing \"We Are The rates Incredibly Strange Films, a grab Seidenberg recalls the man who World,\" joe Bob Briggs retreats to the bag of taboo-busters, as respectable! inspired Alex Cox's new romance film. drive-in and tells ya the score. Harlan Kennedy ruminates on Sigour- Back Page: Quiz #20 ..........84 ney Weaver and Aliens. And Stephen Press Releases to Flip Out By....74 A grid to groan on. Schaefer laments the days when robots Some people will say anything to get Cover photo: by Gary Farr, courtesy were robots. ink. Including HarianJacobson. Cannon Films. Co-Editors: Harlan jacobson, Richard Corliss. Business Manager: Sayre Maxfield. Advertising and Circulation Manager: Tony Impavido . Art Director and Cover Design: Elliot Schulman. Assistant Editor: Marlaine Glicksman. Production: Deborah E. Dichter. West Coast Editor: Anne Thompson. European Correspondent: Harlan Kennedy. Research Consultant: Mary Corliss. Circulation Assistant: Deborah Freedman. Controller: Domingo Hornilla, jr. Editorial Intern: Robert jacklosky. Executive Director, Film Society of Lincoln Center: joanne Koch. Second class postage paid at New York and additional mailing offices. Copyright © 1986 by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed in FILM COMMENT do not represe nt Film Society of Lincoln Center policy. This publication is fully protected by domestic and international copyright. FILM COMMENT (ISSNOO 15-119X). 140 West 65th Street, New York, N.Y. 10023, U.S.A., is made possible in part by support from the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Subscription rates in the United States: $12 for six numbers, $22 for twelve numbers. Elsewhere $18 for six numbers , $34 for twelve numbers , payable in U.S. funds only. New subscribers shOllld include their occupations and zip codes. DiStributed by Eastern News, Sandusky, OH 44870. Postmaster: send address changes to FILM COMMENT, 140 West Sixty-Fifth Street, New York, N. Y. 10023, U.S.A. t

s Out of This World SID, THE MAN bucket story of these junkie punks j ohn Simon Richie's legacy lasts from beating up on each other,\" says Wool, \"and before he adopted non de fume Sid Oh, Sid, we hardly knew you. In then all of a sudden, after Sid is arrested Vicious to more than seven years downtown New York your pre- for Nancy's murder, he slashes his wrists. after he joined Nancy in the next world sence thrives. Your punkettes Therewas something so romantic about (via overdose) and nearly eight since he parade down St. Marks Place, too callow his not being able to live without her that was arrested for stabbing her to death in to remember the Sex Pistols and too the story changed into an epic romance New York's Chelsea Hotel-pushing the shallow to realize how pathetic your self- with genuine universality to it. Every- old joint reluctantly into the age of destruction was. In black leather, combat body's fascinated by passion, obsession, performance art. boots and spike hair, their snarls have and romance.\" been put on with the care that a prom He came from a broken home, got beat queen rolls on her lipstick. You were the Sid strikes a pose. up regularly by neighborhood gangs, quit blank generation's Jimmy Stewart. You school at 15, and hung out in disgruntled were a hero. You had charisma. You got London. In 1977, at 20, he became what you always told us you wanted: bassist for the Sex Pistols, the seminal death by 21. British punk rock band. Julien Temple's The Great Rock 'n' Roll He couldn't play his instrument, but Swindle presented you as a confident that didn't matter. Part of punk's appeal rock star, strutting down the street, was that anybody could do it. You didn't boldly ripping off a pie in mid-day and proceeding to smash said pie into the face have to be a trained musician to expose of an innocent passerby. That movie was anger and frustration-attitude was what never released in the U.S. due to the legal counted. Sid proved his mettle by bickering with the other Sex Pistols, attacking music journalist Nick Kent. manager Malcolm McLaren, Warner And he b~came noticed for accessorizing Bros., and the million other blokes who with safety pins and dancing like a pogo wanted to dip their fingers into the promising punk-rock pie. stick. Sid fell in love with Nancy, a renowned We did see Lech Kowalski's D. O.A., however. In the Pistols live footage, American groupie who had earned the singer Johnny Rotten was riveting, but nickname Nauseating Nancy through you were trying too hard. And the extended interview with you and some rather sleazy exploits at New York's girlfriend Nancy Spungen cemented sleaziest clubs. Scuttlebut is that she your heroic image as zombie-junkie. introduced Sid to his other great love: heroin. Together they sunk deeper into Now we can see you again on the silver junk, and Sid's violent streak began to screen in Alex Cox's Sid and Nancy. It's surface. A few days before the Pistols' ill- your biggest role yet, only this time, fated American tour, Sid tried jumping you're not here to play it. from a third-floor window. Nancy grabbed his belt and reeled him back in. Sid and Nancy (portrayed in the film by Sid thanked her by banging her head Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb) teamed against the wall until her screams brought up for one fast, bloody joyride straight the police (not the band); each of the into a concrete wall. Like a roadside seven stops on the tour brought further accident, their story both attracts and news of the band's ludicrous behavior and repels. We all like blood, guts, gore, drug Sid's self-destruction. abuse, and death in our movies. But that's not the intent of Cox and co-screenwriter One night, desperate for a fix and sans Abbe Wool. This ain't an all-out, tabloid- needle, Sid reportedly took apart a ballpoint pen, frantically flushed the ink style \"Punk-rocker Murders Go-Go out of the inner tube, filed down the point dancer Girlfriend in Hotel Room\" story. with a knife, filled the tube with cooked- This is a relationship movie. up junk and made a stab at his forearm. The pen was too blunt. Next he took a \"All along you're seeing this drug- safety pin, pricked his vein and tried to stick the pen into the opening; his hand was shaking too much to hit the pinhole. 2

Ifs back. Oh, is it ever back! GIomour spots with gIomour people - come on, wen aD going out with the Mars! Remember Hollywood? That's the town where the world's most beautiful women and the world's handsomest men used to live. By day they made pictures. At night they made whoopee - at the world's most glamorous night spots, naturally. You remember. You couldn't pick up a newspaper or a movie magazine, or life, or Look, without seeing Ty or Bob or Cary with his flame of the moment. They took them to places that became household names, as famous as the Empire State Building and the White House. The Trocadero. Earl Carroll's. The Brown Derby. The Cocoanut Grove. Oh, to be even a waiter or a cigarette girl at one of those magical places! Now you can do better. You can go there in style. Jim Heimann is your host, in the sparkling pages of. .. f\"J~ The Glamour-and-Fun-and-Gossip ~~ Book of the Year o Almost 100 photos in radiant color - from delightful miniatures of collectible matchbooks to larger-than-full-page spectaculars o 250 handsome black-and-white photos - in- cluding dozens that are full-page or larger o Printed thruout on gleaming 100-pound stock for superb reproduction and that luxurious \"feel\" o Oversized 10 x 10 ------------------------------------------- How the Oub Works .eyl~/~.I~.IAI• •~.I .eeK CLI. Every 4 weeks (13 times a year) you get a frre ropy of the Oub bulletin, PREVIEWS, 15 Oakland Avenue· Harrison, N.Y.10528 which offm the Featured Sela:tion plus a nice choice.of A1temalfS: books on fihns, lV, Please accept my membership in the MovielEntertainment *music, occasionally reoords and vidoocassetlfs. If you want the Featured Seloction, do *nothing. It will rome automatically. If you don't want the Featured Seloction or you do Book Oub and send me, FREE and postpaid, the beautiful want an Alternate, indicate your wishes on the handy card enclosed and return it by the $39.95 volume, Out with the Stars by Jim Heimann. I agree *deadline date. The majority of Oub books are offered at 2(}.300/0 discounts, plus a to buy 4 additional books, records or videocassettes at *charge for shipping and handling. As sOOn as you buy and pay for 4books, reoords or regular Club prices over the next 2 years. I also agree to the vidoocasseues at regular Oub prices, your membmhip may be ended at any time, either by Club rules spelled out in this coupon. Fe _36 *you or by the Oub. If you ever receive a Featured Seloction without having had 10 days Name __________________________________ *to decide if you want it, you may return it at Oub expense for full credit. For every Address City___________State ______Zip _ _ book, reoord or videocassette you buy at regular Oub price, you receive one or more Bonus Book Certilicales. These entitle you to buy many Oub books at deep discounts, *usually ~OJo off. These Bonus Books do not rount toward fuUilling your Oub obliga- tion but do enable you to buy fine books at giveaway prices. PREVIEWS also includes news about membm and their hobbies. You are wdrome to send in similar items. The *Oub will publish any such item it deems suitable, FREE. This is a real CLUB! Good *service. No romputers! Only one membmhip per household.

..... months and a wrist-slashing attempt later, Sid was back in jail, this time for assault with a broken bottle. On February 2 he was released again on bail. Upon leaving prison, Sid asked \"Where can 1 get a good slice of pizza?\"; 13 hours later he was dead from a heroin overdose. Abbe Wool's desire to see Sid's story romantically prevents a descent into facile cynicism, but it may also cloud the authors' VlSlOn. Though parts of the film have the same humor of alienation that Cox's Repo Man thrives on, particularly the visit to Nancy's family in the suburbs, it suffers an astonishing lack of irony. Irony that could have shown a kid who got tangled in his own image until it strangled him. Early in the film, Gary Oldman's Sid is comic, a sort of overgrown puppy kissing Nancy's toes on command and bashing Oldman and Webb in \"Sid and Nancy.\" music journalists at Johnny Rotten's But he kept jabbing away until he had dug request. The first time he's with Nancy in a bloody four-inch gash. interviewing me. 1 ain't in no fucking bed he's terrified. He's also sensitive: At Randy's Rodeo in San Antonio, Sid bounced onstage and announced, \"You group.\" finding Nancy scraping her bloody cowboys are all a bunch of fuckin' faggots.\" The crowd retaliated with a Sid mumbles, \"What was the ques- knuckles up and down a brick wall in steady barrage of spit, litter, and beer cans , one of which hit him square in the tion?\" and offers to do a sex scene for anger, Sid butts the wall with his head in teeth. Sid unstrapped his bass and smacked a guy over the head. The £ 100 before catching a few more zees. sympathy. And though his deterioration spotlights went off and there was silence until Johnny wimpered, \"Oh what a pity. And Nancy remembers a porn film that communicates genuine pain and sick- Sidney dropped his guitar.\" she and Sid purportedly made: \"It was ness, he is not pitied. At the Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas, Sid bent over the stage and invited a great fun, lying on a dirty floor, sucking \"In a certain romantic sense,\" explains pogoing girl to bash her forehead into his nose. For the next half-hour he let the and being dominant and submissive. Sid Wool, \"to die while you're still in love and blood run down his face onto his self- scarred chest, smeared it over his hands licking my feet and things like that~ still young is okay. Nancy was just going and face, spit it on clamoring fans and offered his bloodied fingers to the to kill herself one way or another. And Sid wagging tongues of the over-enthusiastic. would have just continued getting fucked After the last tour date in San Fran- cisco, the Sex Pistols broke up. On the I n August 1978, Sid and Nancy moved up until he made a fool. of himself like plane to New York, Sid overdosed. He to New York and rented a room at the Elvis-which is a much more pathetic had to be carried off on a stretcher. Chelsea. They thought things were story. Sid was such a focus and such an Afterward, in a hospital-bed interview looking up. icon for youth in general, and for punk in with Punk magazine, Sid said, \"I can't straighten up . 1 haven't been straight in During the first week of October, Sid particular. He was a basically sweet guy four years. It's my basic nature. And it's gonna kill me in six months . fell asleep with a lit cigarette in his hand who had this way of acting like a complete A few weeks later in an interview for and their room went up in flames. On snarling animal.\" D. O.A., Sid and Nancy are lying in bed, each necklaced with a bicycle chain and October 11 , Sid and Nancy paid a visit to Anyway, Sid, we still have the stories padlock. Sid, in red swastika T-shirt, can't form a coherent word. He slurs, grunts, Neon Leon, down the hall, and asked about you. Some of them might not be nods out, snores, and drops lit cigarettes on Nancy and the bed . She implores, him to hold onto their most prized completely true but, hey, a story's a story. \"Wake up. Don't be a fuckup. He's not possessions: Sid's leather jacket, his two Like the time you were sitting in a cafe gold records, and Sex Pistols stuff. The down South and this redneck says, \"You next morning Nancy's body was found think you're really tough, don't you? Well under the bathroom sink. She had been how 'bout this?\" and stubs his lit cigarette stabbed in the stomach and had bled to into his hand. And you say, \"How about death. Sid was charged with second- this?,\" take out a knife, slash open your degree murder. wrist, pour the blood on your cereal and Taken into custody, Sid begged, eat it. \"Please shoot me. Kill me. My baby is -ROBERT SEIDENBERG dead.\" He claimed that Nancy had fallen on a knife while she was playing with it. When asked why he didn't help her he replied , \"I am a dog. A dirty dog.\" WEAVER, THE WOMAN Later, Sid said that he and Nancy had a N ow at last it can be told. The true suicide pact and had been planning on and startling story of the shoot- killing themselves for weeks. Malcolm ing of the climactic scenes in McLaren posted $50,000 bail. But two 4

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Alien; the true and amazing identity of sporting black scales, a large tail, and a \"Aliens.\" the \"alien\" itself; and the true and repulsive prognathous head. After a short ingenious tale of the filmmakers' prepara- scream, I wondered, could this be the Take one: The camera moves in and tions for the sequel Aliens, only now alien? Vuden? films her chastely sleeping. among us. All this plus the story of an exciting young actress finding her feet Anxious that introductions be effected, Take two: One of the lady assistants and fame in a role to which she alone-of I lacked conversational repertoire with puts something near her breast. (What is all the space tug Nostromo's crew-was extraterrestrial reptiles and did not know it? A spot? A microorganism? Will it play destined to return . the proper mode of address. \"Hey, you\" a part in Aliens?). Again the camera might seem offhand, while \"Excuse me, closes in. Deep in outer Shepperton, one of the your Scaliness\" might be interpreted as satellite movie studios ringing London, it insulting. The alien took his head off, Take three: She is covered with white seemed a day like any other. Time: 1979. followed by his hands and feet, and silk, her arms folded over her breasts, as The soundstage was befogged with introduced himself as a black actor she will appear in the movie's released incense smoke, director Ridley Scott's named Bidaji Bilogi. version. Camera rolls again.... favorite device for texturing the visuals. I coughed my way toward Sigourney Bilogi had been innocently walking Meanwhile, on another soundstage the Weaver, with whom I went back a long along a British street when a movie talent Narcissus \"floats in space,\" suspended way-several weeks, since the scene in scout swooped upon him. Soon he was from a black velvet ceiling. Here, in long which, playing acting ship's commander screen-testing for the fully blown alien shot, the alien will be ejected in the film's Ripley, she refused to let in the infected (which in the last scene attacks Weaver) final eclat-leaving Sigourney Weaver john Hurt, alien-contaminated crewman, and winning the coveted role. Ironically, plus cat to voyage safely toward Aliens only to be countermanded by Ian Holm, Bilogi is a Nigerian whose visiting permit and perhaps even greater horrors than milk-blooded robot. had recently expired and who had she has yet encountered.... therefore become an illegal alien himself. Weaver's status, therefore, as a tough In space no one can hear you scream. but sexy broad whose looks could heat- He was talking to me about his HARLAN KENNEDY frazzle a man at 20 paces was known to claustrophobia inside the monster's head, me. Today she was sipping her usual when I became aware of a rustling sound ROBafS, THE MEN grape juice prior to stepping into the at the far side of the studio. Two of the Nostromo's escape capsule, the Narcis- film's three producers had uncoiled from The robot is lumbering and lasering sus, to shoot the movie's last scene. the piping of the soundstage walls and again in the celluloid summer sun were now advancing, having noted my with no less than five recent \"At a certain point you have to take on conversation with steely disapprobation. computerized clankers. A wimp kingdom the emotions of someone who knows Producer Gordon Carroll indicated how now rules robot movies, and not since the there's no time left, that everything could intense his pleasure and appreciation feebly hilarious Robot Monster of 1953 blow up in your face at any moment,\" would be if, after having witnessed what I have so many jive turkeys been passing Sigourney said. \"You're really going full wished to witness, I would leave the themselves off as rock-hard mechanical out 100 percent. You can't play it safe stage. Hush-hush secrecy was the order masters . anymore.\" Weaver had already survived of the day's shooting, said Carroll, himself on Alien an attempt to induce hysteria- trained in the highest reaches of diplo- In the Fifties, when a new wave of the sloughed squid skin of the alien in its macy, having served with the Pentagon robot movies placed the mainspring first form, which falls from the ceiling, (1949-52) before joining a top (unnamed) monster firmly in public consciousness, had been dropped on her without advertising ·ag~ncy. He later surfaced in robots were prime metaphors for the warning-and a near miss from a flame Hollywood. atomic era's technological possibilities. In thrower (\"One of the flames missed me Earth vs. Flying Saucers, The Myster- by three inches\"). \"Ripley, my character, I would have obliged immediately had ians, Kronos, and Invaders from Mars, cannot have any reaction. She just has to not a vision arrested me. Sigourney keep going. You put your blinders on Weaver had removed most of her because you cannot afford to think of clothes. She was getting ready to step what may happen to you or you'd just into her hypersleep pod. The producers snap.\" now realized that my immediate depar- ture was a lost cause. Yes, I have known that feeling, I said, before certain interviews. Weaver smiled The last scene of Alien was about to go a quick smile and was then approached before the cameras. Bidaji Bilogi was by wardrobe and makeup and whisked essaying the anfractuous contortions away. needed to insinuate himself into the pipe- ridden wall. Weaver was practicing her With 30 minutes to go before \"Action,\" beauty sleep while assistants, warding off I sat down on the floor to prime my notes the public's right to know, attached a and tape-recorder. As I leaned against the snatch patch. The cat jones was in the shiny hull of the escape capsule Narcis- hypersleep pod with Sigourney. Soon it sus (space tug Nostromo, space capsule would be replaced, for greater docility, by Narcissus-the ever-burgeoning industry a stuffed cat. Kennedy stood transfixed of establishing plot depth by allusion to beyond the glass window of the Nar- joseph Conrad), I was suddenly startled cissus, objectively appraising Weaver's to discover that I had a neighbor. It was something seven feet tall, tautly thin, and performance. 6

the robot was your basic semi-brute \"Making Mr. Right.\" \"Short Circuit.\" automaton. Not remotely human, these robots often terrified as they terrorized. NASA participation before the Challenger personal touch. Ulysses has the inno- tragedy. His coldly analytic personality is cence of a smart starchild and no Today's robot epics no longer need to presaged in Alien and Blade Runner; but problems dealing with the opposite sex, elevate audience anxiety over the perils of Jinx isn't a metaphor, he's a plot device, even when she's smarter, richer, and more technology, radiation, or the arms race. and like Circuifs Number Five, do- successful than he. Certainly there's more When the robot goes out of control-as gooder Jinx mirrors the humanistic spirit do the androids in Blade Runner- it is of nuclear pacifists. than a pointed metaphor on robot only highlighting possible error, not ideology here. Correspondingly, neo- indicting technology itself. \"Were manip- Deadly Friend is a summer entry in phyte director Steve de Jarnatt's Cherry ulating cliches,\" admits Syd Mead, who which robot madness gets the Wes 2000 features a female android (in the designed the puppet-like, manipulated, Craven treatment. This fearlessly title role) designed to be Ms. Right, hardware robots for Blade Runner; Tron, exploitive director (The Hills Have Eyes man's perfect mate. This Mad Maxine and the recent Short Circuit. Mead and Nightmare on Elm Street) has Australian thriller sounds more like the acknowledges that movie robots must devised yet another horror outing that Playboy philosophy brought to the big conform with audience expectation deals in Carrie-like revenge-with a screen with feminist overtones. rather than express state-of-the-art tech- microchip. Bee Bee (as in the little gun) is nological advancement. Despite increas- the Deadly Friend, a child-genius robot Are these any different than androids of ing technological sophistication, the who gets \"murdered.\" Only Bee Bee's old-Metropolis' seductress, or friendly, movie robot's long and honorable history microchip brain survives. Soon it's Robbie the Robot of Forbidden Planet, suggests that the robot of today is actually implanted in the brain-dead head of or especially Gort, the silver-suited, anti- the robot of yesterday-with a new suit. Samantha, the love of Bee Bees creator, a nuke behemoth in Robert Wises The 15-year-old computer genius . The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)? Well, Why this robot revival? Partly, of demented, jealously possessive Bee Bee/ yes and no . course, it's merchandising. Kids like toys, Samantha-the type played by Joan and toys that star in Saturday morning Crawford in Possessed- is now the Starting with the Eighties, filmmakers cartoon series sell better than those toys Deadly Friend wreaking vengence on all have been up to something else-feeding without a series. If this semi-craze wasn't past transgressors. Needless to say, up the old notions that being perfect isn't started by Ouija boards, it sure wasn't fall- Friend, in which a presumably \"male\" what it's cracked up to be, but hinting at out from Star mzrs, either. And boxoffice microchip inhabits Samantha, doesn't perfection's inevitability: In Ridley failures like Heartbeeps (1981) (a robot delve into the sexual conditioning of Scott's Blade Runner (1982), perfect romance) and Demon Seed (1977) intelligence. androids Rutger Hauer and Daryl Han- (impregnation by an overheated com- nah refuse to accept planned obsoles- puter) aren't the impetus a studio needs Presently in production, Susan cence and revolt; in Scott's earlier Alien to try again. Seidelman's Making Mr. Right, an (1979), Ian Holm's corporate-spy android android comedy, does. Mr. Right, aka nearly survived (and the company did, Today's audiences don't look to robots Ulysses, is designed with an enormous albeit offscreen); and inJames Cameron's as a vision of the future as much as a penis, which must be some kind of first in The Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger's character capable of entertaining various robot movie mythology. Designed for relentless refusals to die, limn current plot requirements. Robots are familiar solo space travel, he falls hopelessly in fears about the future-that androids are rather than exotic, even if they are love with the attractive media wizard born to rule. They may be kinder than threatening. If robots, like fashions in hired to give the space program a fundamentalists, anyway. clothes, vary from season to season in their look, so do they transform in their -STEPHEN SCHAEFER symbolic use. The hero of John Badham's Short Circuit is a nuclear-armed, five- foot robot called Number 5. Five has Nikon lenses to see, visor flaps for expression, and tank treads for \"legs.\" Animated and cutesy, he expounds Disney-style the Sixties' bromide \"Make Love Not War.\" Number 5 develops a crush on his bat-wielding protectress, spoofs John Wayne, and parodies the dance scene in Badham's Saturday Night Fever in a badly put cautionary example of how weaponry can mutate with intelligence. Much the same can be said for director Harry Winer's SpaceCamp 's Jinx, another cute robot with a personality that resembles Daddy Long Legs. Jinx is the too-literal robot ' that manipulates the shuttle into space in a movie made with 7

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by L.M. Kit Carson then get in an extra kick, then it's over... straight to the hospital in labor. Probably it was one of those good , good black-and- I'm always looking for a harder, nastier, then one more kick... white Michael Curtiz pictures she didn't No deal, friend. want to leave. My mother and father crazier sting in the work. One you can Burnt Matches. loved movies. As soon as I was out of the Tobe Hooper, b. 1942, Austin, Texas. hospital, I was taken with them to the taste. E - Tobe Hooper movies. And I literally grew up in the EEWWoaoaoaaaaooooo- \"I was a fanatic film fan from before movi.es.\" \" nnnnaaaaaeeeeyyyiiiiiiA- birth. My mother had to be taken out of the State Theatre in Austin Hooper spent his first two years in ••• AAAAAAYYYaaahhhhh- Austin. His father had a crackerbox- hhhhhgggaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAaaaaaa- aaaaaa . . .\" \"This one line of dialogue goes on for about the last 23 minutes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (a.k.a. 'Saw 1),\" says Tobe Hooper, who directed it. \"It covers the infamous, excruciating Dinner Table Sequence (which was filmed non- stop for 36 hours straight until the last pennies of the $160,000 budget ran out). It may be the longest solid scream-track ever to shake out darkened American movie houses.\" I first squirmed through it back in 1975 in a tiny, dumpy screening room just below Sunset Boulevard. I was newly exiled from Texas and had known Tobe Hooper as a good documentary filmma- ker (Peter, Paul, and Mary in Concert; . 1971) in Austin but had no way to be prepared for the bite of The Saw. I flat cou ldn't take it - neither could Paul Schrader, a curious friend who'd come along to the screening; about midway through the movie we buzzed the projectionist to skip a couple of reels and just show us the end. Whu: this sucker could really hurt you. Post-screening, blinking in the daylight leaning on our cars, Schrader and I tried to figure out what we'd run into. Brian DePalma and George Romero had only recently corkscrewed fresh blood into the horror genre (Sisters, Night ofthe Living Dead); but they were sophisto guys who'd kept the \"it's-only-a- movie\" deal with the audience. Hooper was a new deal- simply this: no deal. Hooper was a scare-director who was methodically unsafe, who the audience (you) finally just couldn't trust. Kind of like Life Its Ownself. He'd go too far, then go farther, and go farther, and go farther again, and kick it again, and then it's over, 9

shaped limestone hotel on Congress, the last four years. There I made my first 50 play-dates. Minus-zero boxoffice. .1 main street, about four blocks from the 16mm sound film , $1100 budget, called Hooper had forgotten the Odds For ~I Texas State Capitol building. The hotel The Abyss. Things were kind of dark was squared on all four sides by mov- around me in those days watching my The Future. iehouses (the Paramount, the State, the father dying.\" Queen, the Capitol) whose marquees 'Sawl changed every other day in the wartime After his father's death , Hooper Forties so there was a new movie to see returned to Austin and into the Univer- \"0 ne of the things messing with every day. Hooper wet-nursed on three, sity of Texas Film Department (popula- the audience in the 'Saw four movies a day, plus cartoons. tion , 2: Tobe Hooper and the Film movies are these characters Instructor) . that get around and wallow around down \"I can remember my first 6mm lens- in the grave and make artful objects out of shot looking up out of the crib at the Hooper got a part-time job making 20- brains and guts....This sort of messing shadows dancing on the ceiling. At the minute sales-tool shorts for a local gets connected to the persona of The same time I was learning to talk, I was insurance company- insidious little dra- Grand and Master of Monsters, The One learning to see everything in camera mas to pitch fear into families. Like what and The Only-which is Death itself. coverage: wide shots, close-ups, etc. I happens after Dad gets mashed to death The Grim Reaper. didn't exactly know I did this until I was in a three-car accident: lose the home; about 20: one evening outside San the dog runs away; finall y the 12-year-old \"So in 'Saw 1 when I took hold and Francisco I was watching the Pacific daughter hits the streets hooking. Like started screwing around with this Chain- Ocean from a cliffside - suddenly the what are the Odds For The Future: a saw Family who'd snapped into the Panavision aperture in my head widened hundred little golden plaster of Paris men persona of Death, I was getting these and went away. And I realized that all standing on a wonderful wide horizon; 95 horrendous shocks and jolts myself. those damn years I'd been shooting movies , with and without a camera.\" sof these figures abruptly explode; that sBecause that what gives me the creeps, At age four, Hooper made his first with- the odds; don't bet on it, pal. gives me the willies: Death. And all the camera shot: xcu of a small bronze horse After he'd made almost 50 of these accouterments and symbols of Death- statue he now keeps on a shelf in his the quilted satin, the shiny $22,000 living room. Then he started shooting bum trips , Hooper got a call from the coffin, embalming room, the moment hundreds of 8mm mimic-movies on $5 insurance company president congratu- when the lilies come. That stuff frightens budgets casting cousins and friends, lating him for helping to boost sales- me. I'm afraid of it. using a war-surplus three-lens Bell & plus a suggestion that Hooper start Howell spring-wind camera. studying the obituary columns so he \"This crazy chainsaw bunch had an could go shoot telephoto footage of real edge that touched me awfully deep down. By ten , Hooper had decided (after grief-filled funerals. Hooper quit. And I felt if I held on and kept going I'd toying with the notion of being a mad maybe touch nerves in the audience that scientist) to be a director. The grade Then, unaccountably, the insurance are ordinarily covered up - ultimate sub- school principal had called him into the prez called Hooper back. He had been conscious, terribly disturbing, nasty, office and warned that his classmates truly impressed with Hooper's work in sticky fears of Death. were weirded-out by Hooper's movie- scaring lots of money out of insurance nutness. Too late, Mr. Principal: Hooper buyers . He offered to bankroll a short Eggshells' smashup fried Hooper. was cranking out a new movie nearly film , no joke. Near broke at Christmas '72, he got daily, showing them at his house - and tangled in the last-minute-shopper mob charging the neighborhood 5¢ a head. At 2 1, Hooper wrote and directed The at a Montgomery Ward and shoveled into The kid had found out about boxoffice. Heisters, a 35mm, ten-minute, color the heavy equipment department - sud- comedy about three medieval outlaws denly he was standing face to face with a Last semi-Rosebud flashback: Hooper, who get into an absurdly escalated Road big wall display of glinting chainsaws. All like many brotherless/sisterless kids , Runner-cartoony fight over their stolen sizes. Row above row. An uneasy-making collected special odd bunches of things. booty. It won awards at the Tours, sight mixed with the tinsel, bright Maybe a way to fill up a solitary world. Cannes, and San Francisco film festivals. Christmas balls, red ribbons. Whu. One collection was cigar boxes of burnt And for better or worse, it made Hooper wooden matches. \"Yeh , I used to pick 'em a big shot in and around his hometoWn. And an abrupt Christmas crackup up all around in ashtrays and save 'em; thought flicker-lit a few of Hooper's Hooper shakes his head. \"Don't know \"I got a little bit swelled up - some brainy synapses: Quickest damn way out why. I think I thought they looked lonely.\" people said I got so high and mighty that ofhere tonight is just to yank-start one of Lonely burnt matches? Check Man and you couldn't hit me in the ass with a red those chainsaws and cut a path to the His Symbols. apple. Maybe so~ door. It was a joke, but only a half-joke. An image that sold itself a bit too strongly. Odds For The Future Over the next eight years Hooper schemed up his future. He formed three Hooper got the hell out of Montgom- ' 1 \\ f t e r my folks split up, I lived film-production houses in Austin; shot ery Ward, went home with a chainsaw in with my mother. But my father industrials and documentaries for PBS, the his brain, and started piecing together a became terminally ill when I Texas Highway Department, etc. Finally movie. \"In about 30 seconds I saw the he pooled enough money and power to movie right in front of me.\" was a teenager, and I moved to Grand finance his first feature , Eggshells. It was Prairie [near Dallasl to be with him for his about the breakdown of a commune, a He had part of a script about hippies in slightly surreal, end-of-hippiedom love a haunted house. And he had some story. This movie was going to be leftover childhood nightmares about a Hooper's ticket to Tomorrow. But this wacko Fifties mass murderer in Plain- was 1972: spacey hippies were media- field, Wisconsin, named Ed Gein-Gein dead history; Nixon was in solid; Watergate was just a hotel. Eggshells got 10

had been the usual sweetheart handy- the last girl is facing death with these 'Saw 2 man/baby-sitter type who also gutted and lunatic brothers bubbling and squabbling flayed drifters , made skin lamp shades, all around her, the audience starts Near Christmas '85 Hooper asked bone furniture, kept his freezer stacked laughing... then gets caught, catches itself me to consider the 'Saw sequel. with human hearts. [Hooper's relatives ... then starts feeling guilty for laughing... He needed a yes or no by January knew folks from Plainfield and some- then starts laughing again at feeling guilty I because the movie had already been times used to get a kick out of telling for laughing... So then the audience slotted to open in 1800 movie houses on Hooper the kid booger stories about Ed schizes right out not knowing what side August 22. Gein at bedtime.[ of the fence they're on: killers or victims? And intellectually/emotionally, they get Agents, lawyers , and pro movie-pals Hooper ran the hippies into the mass on both sides of the fence . Just to have it sneered lists of reasons for saying no: murderer and handed that booger a covered and be safe. And without chainsaw. Bango. realizing that , this way, they've made 1) Women-hating slasher sleaze yuk; themselves completely unsafe and ques- 2) The Sequel-itis Curse; \"One other thing messing with the tionable as moral beings. 3) Wipes your name right off the audience in the 'Saw movies is that these Serious Screenwriters' Map; deadly Chainsaw brothers are funny. \"It's wild behavior. Seems involuntary. 4) No way to write-shoot-produce a They're funny as hell. And the audience It's·another part of this movie that maybe real movie in seven months , etc. gets that joke. touches people in places they may not I liked all the reasons (best: the Screen- want to be touched. Places they normally writers' Map, lemme see that map). \"I've noted this happen in screenings hide and shield.\" However, I'd worked with Hooper more and more often as the years go on. At some horrible, tragic moment when 11

before (1978: Dead and Alive, a project Poltergeist; didn't work. there. Physically. now neatly dead on a shelf at Warners). 1 \"It's important for a movie today to do \"I'd love to suspend an audience out know Hooper has a trick for breaking in the back door to true strangeness, real more than tell a story. You've got to send a like that for 90 minutes. Kubrick knows madness. 1 know because he took me physical sensation through the audience how to do it. You can come out of a good into that crazy place a few times during and not let them off the hook. Kubrick movie different from the way you Dead and Alive - scared the hell outta were when you went in. That's what I'm me-yeh, Hooper's got a trick not many \"I like to just make it go faster and faster going to try to do~ people know. He stands there grinning, and faster and pumping and pumping and drinking a Dr. Pepper, and smoking a banging and banging until 1 get...in to Do Saw 2? You bet: it's about crois- havana and says, \"Y'ever been in Door you. Turn the visual and sound experi- sants; it's about chainsaws; it's about to Number 3? .. You been in with The Lady. ence into a harmonic that mesmerizes get you. You been in with The Tiger.... Don't you the audience, takes them right off into a wanna go in Door Number 3?\" Spielberg hypnotic zone where they're no longer Film Fan Footnote: I've still not seen all tried to learn how to do that by producing thinking about how it's done-they're just of 'Saw 1. Schrader claims he did watch it there in a lucid place like those moments all the way through once locked in a car at right before waking up. They're just out a rundown drive-in outside Shreveport, Louisiana. He claims. Scene from original \"Texas Chainsaw Massacre~ 12

e OlCe Legendary script doctor on Paris Texas, diarist, and heart-lung specialist on the remake of Breathless , L.M. Kit Carson handed over his original screen- play for Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 for excerpting here along with his dismem- berment of director Tobe Hooper (page 9). Though Carson warned that should we pass his script on to film critics and such, \"Leatherface has your address,\" we snipped out the following five scenes for you. We'll axe the usual introductory blather about what directors , actors, the d.p., and ketchupmaster do to help you believe you are there, and just say that reading it over lunch we laughed out loud. The one thing you can't do is cover your eyes. Chainsaw 2 has method and metaphor; so it's okay to like it. -H.J. Glad I Saw Ya' FADE IN: Hitchhiker and Chop Top (Bill Moseley) on candid camera. EXT: TWO-LANE HILL ROAD-END who're so stuck up, play \"You're on the little chicken with the farmer! OF DAY Disembodied VOICES from a car Road to Nowhere-\" The T-Ys hoot in excitement as the radio blip across the wide Texas sky. STRETCH (RADIO): You mean \"We're Mercedes accelerates into the other lane White convertible MERCEDES zooms wildly down a country hill toward an on the Road to Nowhere\"? for the collision game with the old truck. endless flatland. The gun-wielding passenger grabs the CUT TO: TEENAGE GIRL (RADIO): ... an that's phone, yukking. The Mercedes veers toward the truck. for Glen and couldya tell the girls at Plano Central High to just leave him alone... . GUNNER ONTO PHONE): Nah, babe, The truck wavers, then swerves into the LADY OJ STRETCH (RADIO): ...Got we're on the road to Texas/O.u. Weekend other lane. But the Mercedes cuts back it and I believe it: Glen is off-limits now! This is Stretch keeping the dedication in Dallas , you're on the road to Nowhere, head-on at it, as they see-saw back and line open on K-OKLA in Burkburnett.... Here by the 01' Red River on the tip-top hah? forth two, three times. The Mercedes of the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex. DRIVER: Hook 'em Horns! won't let the truck get away. An armadillo starts to cross the two-lane near a road sign: \"Mesquite 17 mi. !Dallas Ahead a beat-up PICKUP TRUCK Seconds before the crash, the truck 24 mi.\" The Mercedes whips past the road sign. The passenger shoots a hole in the chugs slowly toward the Mercedes from skids offthe road as the Mercedes rockets two I's in \"Dallas.\" The armadillo is spun into a ball by the force of the passing the opposite lane. past waving, \"Hook em Horns\" iforefin- Mercedes. And the balled-up critter rolls and bounces down the hill in the car's STRETCH (RADIO): OK, that's real ger and little finger out, the rest of the wind-drag. funny, guys. Wanna hang up now? You're hand clenched in afist). This is the hand CUT TO: INT. MERCEDES-END OF DAY tying up the line.... Hey, c'mon. gesture of support for the Texas football TWO TEXAS TEEN-YUPPIES drink and yuk along, calling the radio station on the The Driver spots the truck. team, nicknamed the Longhorns. car-phone. DRIVER: Yo Stretch! From the senior DRIVER: Check it out, dude: playa The T-Ys laugh crazily into the phone. boys at Wheeler High to the senior girls 13

Night is falling fast outside. TEEN-YUPS: The geek's gotta- THE CASE FOR TEEN-YUPS (INTO PHONE): Ya got what? whatzat? th'at, babe? Hot ride: stick with us! The figure whacks at the Mercedes STRETCH (RADIO): Yah, later sports. with the chainsaw scratching and chew- Just hang up, OK? ing up a rear fender. TEEN-Yups (INTO PHONE): No Whacks again, sparks spraying. way! We got a lot more requests! Whacks again, catching the convertible CUT TO: roof INT. K-OKLA RADIO STATION-DAY It s happening too fast. The chainsaw s (END OF DAY) ripping and shredding the convertible K-OKLA is a very low-tech small town roof The T- Ys duck and yell. The radio station, a three-man operation Mercedes can't get away. It s pinned COMMENT above a gun store. between the truck and the bridge. They STRETCH, the DJ, is a rangy Sam can't get away. Shepard sexpot cowgirl who s quit riding TEEN-YuPS: Get away, go! Can't: the horses to ride airwaves. Shes signaling bridge! Stand on it! Shoot 'em, shoot the Stop playing hide and seek with your \"Cut em off\" frantically (hand jerked bastard, get him ... back issues of FILM COMMENT. Our customized cases will hold a hard across throat) to her overalled The Gunner squirms and dodges, year's worth of issues. Made for us by Jesse Jones Industries, the blue leather- engineer; L. G. McPETERS, a young trying to aim and keep away from the ette cases are gold-stamped with the FILM COMMENT logo. You can pay Slim Pickens type. flying blade. He gets offa couple of wild by check, money order, or with a major credit card. Mail your coupon today STRETCH: L.G., can't you cut these shots. and stop playing around. jerks off? GUNNER: Duck! Stay down, I can't L.G.: Darlin', I'm tryin'. aim! Now! ... STRETCH: Don't call me \"Darlin',\" The Gunner hits the figure, blowing dammit. back the hood, revealing a strange L.G. cackles, flipping knobs. SQUASHED MAN with faint tire-tracks CUT TO: across his face (the HITCHHIKER who EXT. TWO-LANE BRIDGE-NIGHT was run down by the cattletruck at the Night is down. The Mercedes leaps up end on Chainsaw I). Hits the Squashed FILM COMMENT an incline on to a long narrow two-lane Man s neck-the headflops sideways like Jesse Jones Industries bridge. The Gunner shoots at the bridge a puppet-head with the strings cut. Dept. Film-C 499 East Erie Avenue railing. He sees the truck suddenly leap Oddly, theres no bloodfrom the wound. Philadelphia, PA 19134 onto the bridge after them-roaring DRIVER: Ya got him! Yee-haw! Good- toward the Mercedes, backwards. bye geek! ... GUNNER: Whoa, dude... But the figure only pauses a split Please send me _ _ FILM COMMENT Backing up at 90 mph. the truck moves second. Then starts hacking at the leatherette cases. frighteningly fast; catches up to the Mercedes more frenziedly. 1 case ..........................$7.95 Mercedes. Then it slaloms over to get CUT TO: 3 cases ........................$21.95 6 cases ........................$39.95 beside the Mercedes. INT. K-OKLA RADIO STATION- CUT TO: NIGHT INT. MERCEDES-NIGHT DIs sliding her earphones, yelling Enclosed is $_ _. Please add $1 per unit for The Driver and Gunner look over at back at the yelling and screaming postage and handling. Outside USA orders please add $2.50 per unit. (US funds only.) the weirdly reckless truck, slamming pouring from the car-phone connection. along backwards beside them. The same STRETCH: Ya hear this, L.G.? Please charge (minimum charge $15.00): radio station blares out of the truck, L. G. s shocking himselfpulling wires. o American Express 0 Visa making a big stereo sound between the L.G.: They're on a car-phone. I can't o MasterCard 0 Diners Club two vehicles. The truck s window is disconnect. We're jammed. They gotta rolled up and masked by a spiderweb hang up [winces). Card#_________________________ crack, the driver can't be seen. Stretch presses one earphone tighter; Expiration Date _________________ TEEN-YuPS: Whatthefuck?! You listening harder. Signature ______________________ crazy? Back off pig-fucker... STRETCH: Buzz-saw... Now an oddfigure pops up in the bed of INT. MERCEDES-NIGHT the truck: hooded, somehow unreal. The Its gotten a lot worse: the roofs Toll Free #,7 days a weekJ24 hours a day figure jerks back and forth like a big flapping open, Gunner's reloading. (Charge orders ONLy): Punch-and-Iudy puppet. Crazy as it The figure makes a last savage swing 1-800-972-5858 looks, the darkness makes it even harder into the Mercedes with the chainsaw. And Please ship w: to understand. suddenly the truck pops from reverse into Name: _________________________ TEEN-YuPS: What's that?! Lookit! first gear and zooms away in the opposite Some kinda geek... direction. Abruptly the figure grabs up something A moment of silence and hard breath- Address: _________.....,-___________ from the truck bed and yank-starts it, ing. Gunner hangs out the window (no PO box plcase) raising it overhead: a chainsaw. yelling and shooting after the disappear- City/State/Zip: __________________ CUT TO: ing truck. EXT. TWO-LANE BRIDGE-NIGHT GUNNER: Missed us, assholes! PA residents please add 6% sales tax. 14

Then the Driver sLumps a LinLe side- Crew. The man's in his sixties, but he's ON VIDEO ways. Both T- Ys realize that the top ofthe still ramrod straight with the real steeLy- Driver's head has been sawed through eyed squint that CLint Eastwood can onLy FeUini directs Sotyricon like a slice ofpizza. Both start screaming try to imitate. He's determined, not as the Driver's head blows open as the casual, an old-style iron man. A revealing portrait of Federico Fellini directing bLood geysers straight up through the the actors w ho populate the surreal world of ripped roof He's slung a weathered saddLebag over Fe//ini's Satvricon Immersed in the creative one shoulder. Hand-tooled letters spell process. Fell ini moves through the set, a larger SMASH CUT TO: out: LT. BOUDE \"LEFTY\" ENRIGHT/ than life embodiment of his characters. INT. K-OKLA RADIO STATION- TEXAS RANGER/(l9S4-J974). NIGHT \"A faSCinating documentary.\" Stretch jerks back hard as the scream- The burly Texas High PATROLMAN ing in her earphones peaks into an charges out ofhis car, yelling at Enright. $70- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun- Times expLoding crash. AbruptLy: dead siLence. A beat as Stretch thinks it over. Some- PATROLMAN: You! Old-timer, get KENNETH ANGER thing disturbing just went through her away from there! This is an accident ears. zone, the area's restricted-! MAGICK ~~~~~ L.G.: Whu, they cut off. Enright ignores him; and a clean-cut \"Comes from that beautiful young DETECTIVE exits the unmarked night from which emerge all She shivers invoLuntariLy, bLinks. car, cutting the PatroLman off. The the true works. It touches the STRETCH: Yeh ... How'd you do it, Detective picks his way down the slope, quick of the soul and this is L.G.? acting genial, overly polite. very rare.\" - Jean Cocteau He waggLes his eyebrows seductiveLy. DETECTIVE: Lt. Enright, sir. We Vol. 1: Fireworks, Rabbit's Moon, Eaux d'Artifice L.G.: Yeh, I put the underwoofer heard you might be headed this way. You Vol. 2: The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome come over for the big game? Vol. 3: Kustom Kar Kommandos, Puce Moment, Scorpio Rising across the overflapper... urm. Dunno. Vol. 4: Invocation of My Demon Brother, lucifer Rising Just went dead air. Enright ignores him too. ENRIGHT: You know why I'm here. Boxed set price 14 vols. with monograph & filmography!. .. $200 CUT TO: DETECTIVE: Yessir. Something about CREDITS/CHAINSAW MONTAGE: chainsaw killers. But that was 14 years The firsl 200 selSaresigned and numbered by Anger. A series of tabLeaux of prize Yuppie ago, sir. Besides this was an accident, consumer products: croissants, over- couple of wild kids raisin' hell. Individual volumes, each ...$50 priced designer sport clothes, etc. These Enright spits through his teeth. might appear to be a bunch ofupscale TV ENRIGHT: Yeh, one of 'em got so wild MAYA DEREN commercials: loving close-ups; smooth he sawed his own head off going 90 miles camera moves, back-lit in that unreaL per hour. Hell. Hell is exactly what they COLLECTED FILMS SpieLberg gLow. raised. Each tableau is shattered by a rampag- \" Maya Deren both evoked ing chainsaw. CUT TO: and exemplified the Amen- A sunny oak tabLe heaped with crois- INT. DOWNTOWN DALLAS HillEL can avant-garde ...and linked sants and jams and fruit and steaming ROOM-EVENING (LATER) the movement to the older pots of coffee and cream and... CHAIN- On the room's TV: shots of the European avant-garde films SAWED. wildness, as thousands of Texans and of Coc teau and Bufi uel.\" White shelves and wicker baskets Okies overrun downtown Dallas streets - Cecile Starr, N. Y Times stacked and strewn with Yuppie-brand crashing, brawling, yelling crazily, etc. sweaters and shirts and sweats and A TV COMMENTATOR recites mayhem Vol. I: EXPERIMENTAL FILMS-The authorized edillon sportcoats and vests and scarves and... statistics (number ofpeople shoved down of Deren's six \"chamber films,\" 1943-1959.. . ............. $75 CHAINSAWED. elevator shafts, etc.), half-jokingly trying Gleaming, multi-mirrored corner of to explain \"why\" this annual weekend Vol. II: DIVINE HORSEMEN: The living Gods of Haiti- luxury exercise nook piled with chrome runs mad. Maya Deren's journey into the mystical world of Voudoun.. . .$75 weights and exercise bicycle and baby- ANGLE-ENRIGHT blue foam exercise mat with exercise Enright sits ramrod straight in a chair LIVING THEATRE equipment and.. .CHAINSAWED. in the middle of the fancy-tacky room. He's in his shirt and suspenders, staring SIGNAlS FLAMES Our Hero straight ahead and drinking a bottle of \"Julian Bec k and Jud ith Mescal. Malina define their lifelong EXT. CRASH SITE-DAY Outside the windows, the sounds of commitment to a revolution- Just past the end of the bridge, the street-riots. A couple ofTV-sets drop past ary art in w hich politics and the windows, thrown from upper level thea ter are inseparable.\"- Mercedes has punched into a hillside. hotel rooms. Vincent Canby, N. Y Times Except for the tail lights and one rear tire, the car looks like a crushed beer CLOSER ANGLE-ENRIGHT By Sheldon Rochlin & Maxine Harris ...... $75 can. Enright seems unfazed by most of what's going on. He's slugging down the Other living Theatre films available on video: Down the sLope of the hill, a TOW- Mescal, sweating. He's muttering dis- TRUCK and CREW are digging the jointedly to himself: THE CONNECTION by Shirley Clarke .. .. . .$75 Mercedes out. ENRIGHT: ... Get back...Devil. .. You get no sleep tonight...No sleep ... You ain't THE BRIG by Jonas Mekas . . .$70 A short, buLL-like MAN in a Stetson is that big, Satan. Wrong, all wrong...Get digging information out ofthe Tow- Truck back dam mit to Hell... PARADISE NOW by Sheldon Rochlin .. .. $75 ORDERING INFORMATION: MasterCard and Visa are accepted, or orders may be prepaid INYS residents add 8'/.% sales taxI. Please add $2 per tape lor shipping and handling, and specify VHS or Beta format. mystic ~IR€ Vlb€o 285 WEST BROADWAY, DEPT FC, N.Y., N.Y. 10013 . ICall toll-free '-800-654-6208 [ I I (In N.Y. State calt 212-645-27331 ~

Enright s eyes shake in their own the closet walls around him, 25 or 35 pulls a sliver out ofher mouth. She holds chainsaws shattering the closet, splinter- it up to study it. private nightmare. He eats the agave ing, hacking. worm, up-ending the bottle hard. The sliver looks suspiciously like a big Enright keeps digging into his saddle- toenail. Enright lurches up, knocking over his bag. chair. Hes seeing something unseen. He Quickly the Oldster snatches the sliver; steps back unsteadily but hurriedly to an The rampaging saw-blades barely miss winking sagely. He tucks it in his pocket. his face, his hands. They shred his pants alcove holding the room s walk-in closet. legs, his hanging jacket. OLDSTER (TO G-Y): Wup! One of them hard-shelled peppercorns. ENRIGHT: ... I'll take you back to Hell Enright grabs up a six-gun out of the then ... . saddlebag.. .backs away from the attack- Oldster holds the trophy to his chest, ing closet. drooling chili all over himself uncon- Enright bangs open both louvered cerned-(its the COOKfrom Chainsaw closet doors, reaching for his saddle-bag. Now the chainsaws start chewing I, styled a little more upscale, gotten into through the alcove walls on both sides of a neat catering business. Hes an entre- Now chainsaws start bursting out of Enright. The chainsaws' rampage goes preneur. Its the Eighties). on and on insanely. Pin- Ups • Portraits • Posters • Physique OLDSTER (TO THE CROWD): No Poses • Pressbooks • Western • Horror • Enright quick-steps back again. He secret: it's the meat! Don't skimp on the Science Fiction • Musical s • Color Photos • steadies the gun in both hands in front of meat. An' I got a real good eye for prime 80 Years of Scenes From Motion Pictures him. meat. That's it!\". Rush $1.00 FOR OUR ILLUSTRATED BROC HURE XC,U.-SIX-GUN The F-Ys yuk it up, crowding in, 134 WEST 18th STREET, DEPT. Fe On the ebony-black handle of the guzzling champagne. Stretch lurks at the NEW YORK, N.Y. 10011 silver-plated Colt, these words in silver: edge of the crowd doing a radio remote- (212) 620-8160-61 My Gun Is Gods Gun. report. Shes muttering into the micro- phone plugged into an old Uher portable MOVIE Glad I Meat Ya' tape-recorder. Shes bored stiff. This is STAR how useless her job feels. PHOTOS INT. BIG D HOTEL LOBBY-DAY C.U.-CAST IRON MINIATURE CHILI- OLDSTER (HAMMING IT UP): An' I One of the world's largest collections of film gotta say: I love this town. It loves prime personality photographs, with emphasis on par TROPHY meat!' .. rare candids and European material. Send a S.A.S.E. with want-list to: A big black dipper drops a smoking Close Shave, or Vagina Dentata mound of chunky chili into the little pot, Milton T. Moore, Jr. It overflows, oozing down the trophy ANGLE-RADIO STATION ROOMS pedestal half-covering the FIRST PRIZE . Stretch shrieks running through the Dept. Fe emblem on the base. Offscreen: radio station; LEATHERFACE close APPLAUSE, APPLAUSE.. . behind sawing at things widely. Shes P.O. Box 140280 scrambling up the booth steps. Leather- Dallas, Texas 75214-0280 The lobby is a bad combo ofhysterical face stumbles after her. ... High Tech and fern. A tiny hi-style GOURMET-YUPPETTE is gingerly Inside the upstairs storage room, presenting the dripping trophy. A gaggle Stretch frantically tumbles boxes, etc. of FOOD-YUPPIES applauding, clink- anything around, desperate to make a ing their champagne glasses. wall. Outside she can hear Leather/ace clumping up and down the steps banging, GOURMET-YUPPETTE: Sooooo... buzzing haphazardly. for the second year in a row the Big- D-for-Dallas Chili Cook-Off Champion Stretch cowers fighting to calm herself, is...our favorite caterer...The Last Round- muttering: up Rolling Grill! ...Chef, Drayton Saw- yer!!!. .. STRETCH: They live on fear, they live on fear... An eccentric-looking OLDSTER pokes a path through the F- Ys. Hes Unexpectedly Leatherface bursts dressed like a gas-station guy in a brown through the side ofthe room right next to Big Smith coverall-topped by an old her; flailing his chainsaw berserkly. He Brooks Brothers bow-tie. He doesn't fit misses her; slamming his chainsaw deep in here at all, but... these are Yups who'd into the tub ofchopped ice, stalling it out rather eat than fuck. in a cloud ofsteam. The Oldster grasps the trophy, grin- The blood on the chainsaw-blade ning around at the applauding F- Ys like a stains the ice red, Stretch freezes. wolf. The Gourmet-Yuppette squeals, giving the Oldster a phony little hug. She Stretch and Leather/ace stare at each dips her finger into the chili, sucks it other across the ice tub, Hes panting; coyly. she doesn 't let herselfscream. GOURMET-YUPPETTE: Ohh, this Leather/ace raises the machine out of year! The secret? ..You must tell the the ice. .. and lays the cooling chainsaw secret of this fabulously tasty chili! blade against Stretch sbare leg. Unexpectedly the G-YS teeth click on something in the chili. She almost gags, She stifles a terrified gasp. Leather/ace slowly slides the wet blade up her inner thigh. 16

He's watching her. Stretch has no way COOK: Get ready for work, boys! Big CUT TO: out. No choice. She risks a choice, pre-game bunch tomorrow means a ton gathering her guts. of croissant sandwiches! I love this EXT. DOWNTOWN DALLAS STRETCH: How, how mad at me are town!. .. STREET-NIGHT you? .. You're not really mad at me? .. CUT TO: (pause) How good are you, huh? .. The silver truck whips around the EXT. DALLAS INTERFIRST BANK corner; roars down a ramp into an She's challenging him. Leatherface is underground parking garage. puzzled. PLAZA-NIGHT CUT TO: STRETCH: How...good ... are... you? .. A wide conjunction of many streets Leatherface cocks his head. Wrong: encircling the Interfirst Bank in down- INT. UNDERGROUND PARKING she should be screaming. town Dallas. The bank's a 72-story glass He inches the blade higher on her monolith outlined in neon-like argon GARAGE-NIGHT thigh. piping that glows green (the color of She doesn't blink-barely. money). Even at 4 A.M. the eve of the The multi-level concrete parking STRETCH: Oh? .. Really? .. football game, the near empty streets are garage seems endless. From somewhere He blinks, licks his one tooth. She's still beating. Scattered with marauding down in it comes echoing sounds of coming on to him. It stirs him unfami- bands of trouble-seeking knee-walking berserk destruction: ear-splitting liarly. DRUNKS . CRASHES interspersed with rebel-yells She's slowly, carefully rising up. and \"Hook em Horns\" chants. STRETCH: Are you ... really good? .. The Catering Truck cruises the plaza. Stretch eases herselfup to sit on the tip It starts to turn toward other streets. But The silver truck turns down a couple of ofthe chainsaw. She takes it between her gets caught at a stop-light by a huddle of levels-meets the root ofthis racket. legs. large REDNECK ROWDIES. The Row- STRETCH: Really, really good? .. dies spread around the truck, banging C.U.-OKLAHOMA LICENSE PLATE Leatherface doesn't know what to do. and rocking it. He licks tooth. He's never had a girl do The Oklahoma license plate hangs this. He's fumbling with the starter- ROWDIES: We want beer! We want half-off the front bumper of an OLD beer! Hey you got Okies in there? Get on CAR. The old car's being systematically mechanism on the chainsaw. it! They're hid in' Okies an' beer! Hook battered to bits. His hands flipping around the starter- 'em Horns! etc. A pack of stoned and drunk Texas mechanism; the blade between her legs. The Catering Truck tries to edge TEEN-YUPS in designer-preppie outfits Abruptly, Leatherface jerks away the attack the old car from Oklahoma. forward, but they won't let it go. They're They're ramming their sturdy DATSUN- chainsaw yank-starting it. But he doesn't slugging the truck. They're waggling ZX into it; backing up; ramming it again. turn it on her. He slashes the walls, \"Hook em Horns\" hands. They're beating on it, breaking windows with weighted sawed-off pool cues. boxes, etc. watching her in a rage-as if One BEER-GUT ROWDY smashes They're jumping up and down on the his fist through the truck's rear window. wreckage, rebel-yelling, chanting \"Hook demonstrating for her. em Horns.\" Stretch manages to stay cool. In aflash Leatherface lunges out ofthe Leatherface can't take her impassive-. truck's rear door; chainsaw cranking. . Inside the truck, Cook's leaning over the steering wheel grinning. He's inching ness. He's coming undone. Suddenly he The Beer-gut Rowdy shoves a \"Hook the truck along, eye-balling all the runs away. 'em Horns\" hand at Leatherface. designer-label clothes on the TEEN- Leatherface chainsaws off the hand- YUPS. Croissant and Coffin To Go flipping it into the truck. Handsome wardrobes ripple as a TRUCK'S REAR KITCHENElTE Chop- Top catches the Rowdy's hand. windshield shatters. Costly colors and The newly handless Rowdy doesn't rich patterns and designer trademarks LEATHERFACE is deeply quiet in the stop a beat. He thrusts his stump-arm at all over the pack. kitchenette/grill in the rear of the truck. Leatherface in the classic \"Fuck- You .. He's oblivious to the bickering and gesture. Cook nods around inside to the strange babbling up front. He's lost in thought. brothers. Feeling different. HANDLESS ROWDY: Oh yeh! Fuck You, ugly!! COOK: Now there you go, boys. See CHop-Top: climbs back, nudges anything that makes your ears wiggle? Leatherface. Even cut offfrom its Rowdy, the Rowdy That's Quality with a capital UK\" ... Hand struggles to straighten its middle CHop-Top: What'cha think, Bubba? finger. Chop- Top bobbles the live hand- The silver truck creeps closer to the Maybe I'll get a Sonny Bono-style wig-do, spooked. TEEN-YUPS. Cook rolls down his y'know: kinda page-boy, long look on the window, tooting the truck's horn. He sides, y'know? Chop-Top pitches the shaft-shooting waves to the T- Ys. hand back to the handless Rowdy. Chop- Leatherface doesn't respond. Chop- Top grapples Leatherface back inside. COOK: Hey: you little weasels want Top props up the Hitchhiker muppet. He's The truck shoots away. some croissants? checking his reflection in the chrome kitchenette walls. The handless Rowdy stares at his own ANGLE-TEEN-YUPS hand giving himself the finger. Now he CHop-Top: Hey, how bout it, hanh: feels dimly that something's wrong. The T- Ys turn from their mayhem, a Sonny Bono? Ya think? 'I got you babe. I little puzzled. Then the pack exchanges got you babe- '? CUT TO: knowing smiles: next target. A BIG T-Y straightens his orange Texas U. football Chop-Top nods the Hitchhiker's head INT. CATERING TRUCK-NIGHT helmet. enthusiastically. They slap five. The Cook yells back excitable: Cook's hornet mad, cursing and yelling. BIG T-Y: Sure you old fruit ... COOK: That's just trashy, dammit! The T- Ys move smugly to surround the Wasting time on rednecks! Like that silver truck, and close in. stringy farmboy you dragged tn-no Abruptly the truck's doors bop open. money in that kinda meat! It's all over in aflash ofshredded over- pricedfashion. ~ . 17

Based on the award-winning New York stage hit! OPENS AT THEATRES NATIONWIDE IN AUGUST

Yankee Doodle Diary \"Made it, Marge. Top ofthe world.\" by Pat McGilligan ney was a hardboiled Easterner. Though as \"the big league for con men and frauds .\" Cagney kept desert property and a He spent half the year in California as one Now that he is dead, James Cagney Beverly Hills residence, he abhorred the of many concessions to his wife. The will no doubt become fodder for a West Coast and particularly Hollywood, other half of the year (usually, summer biopic. Ever since he resurfaced which he described in his autobiography and fall) was savored in Martha's Vine- as a lifetime honoree of the American Film Institute in 1974, there has been no 'White Heat.\" end of angling for the rights to his life story. Travolta and Baryshnikov were talked about: Cagney admired Travolta's footwork in Saturday Night Fever, and they were · amiably photographed together by paparazzi; Baryshnikov has the young Cagney's volatile magnetism, but then there is the hitch of his accent. Mischa and Cagney swapped jazz-tap steps one day at the old Gower Gulch studios. But this was over ten years ago, when Cagney could still walk, talk, think for himself. The Travolta/Baryshnikov vehi- cles were never really serious. Rumors about film projects based on Cagney's life were kept alive by \"leaks\" to such loyal devotees as Army Archerd , the Daily Variety columnist. The speculation flat- tered Cagney; the motive was to give him something other than the past to think about. Upfront, I should say I wrote a book about Cagney once, and a film scenario was shopped around Hollywood, where interest was evident but ultimately nobody wanted to proceed with an unauthorized property. This took me rather by surprise; I thought the autho- rized version of Cagney's life was bland and unrevealing, and one of the principal reasons why no one had consummated a biopic. The only defensible movie about Cagney would have to be truthful, and therefore his input would have to be minimized and his ledger brought to account. But I was in no position to push my theory, and there were others stand- ing in line. Writer-director Burt Kennedy emerged as the strongest of Cagney's suitors. The director of such amiable B-westerns as Support Your Local Sheriff (1969), Kennedy was a weird choice to shape a Cagney biopic: he has been as much of a diehard Westerner, in an affectionate, latter-day Ford-Wayne tradition, as Cag- 19

yard, his farm in upstate New York, and in lists. Nieces, nephews, cousins, and in- It was painfully obvious that Cagney was occasional forays into New York City. laws tried to get through to visit Cagney, barely mobile and that his part, Police but Zimmerman was unimpressed by Commissioner Waldo Rhinelander, had Still, Kennedy was a kindred spirit. He family ties. literally been tailored for him. Even at had vaudeville background in his own that, it worked, it wasn't an embarrass- family, and when he met Cagney, they Though detectives and lawyers were ment. Two thirds of Jimmy Cagney is talked it up. Kennedy toiled on a draft, consulted, the Cagney family (meaning, better than none, went the thinking, and embellishing the early years, the years for the most part, the West Coast branch) it is no wonder that director Milos Cagney always took care to emphasize. kept silent about the situation for fear of Forman remains one of Zimmerman's The Kennedy effort at a Cagney biopic jeopardizing Cagney's fragile health. Two defenders. \"If she cooperates with them,\" was bruited about in the trades and years ago , Anthony Cook, writing in Life says Bill Cagney, \"they support her.\" looked like it had a good chance of finishing, even if Kennedy, born in 1922, Jimmy with wife Billie. Zimmerman picked up a fee as Cag- belonged to the old guard in the ney's agent and business manager (a role Hollywood youth movement. The Cag- magazine, spelled out the horror and Cagney's brother had always filled in the ney name was still magic, even to the new tragedy of a great film legend sealed off past); she also took a production credit boy network. from reality, held in thrall by Zimmer- and fee. In any case it was small potatoes; man. I have wondered why this article did the failed restaurateur was on her way to Then, about 1980, with Cagney not receive more widespread reaction-it quite a set-up. She gained power of already an octogenarian, Cagney's health certainly bears reading-but perhaps the attorney, of check-signing, of account- went into a precipitous decline: diabetes, media preferred to see the Cagney that ancy. On a hill overlooking the Cagneys' sciatica, and a series of strokes took a Ronald Reagan was trotting out for so modest upstate New York cottage she heavy psychological as well as physical many flag-waving functions. built a luxurious $600,000 house; land toll. He sold off his Morgan horses, his sites were set aside for her son and Vineyard hermitage, his beloved yacht. For someone so inaccessible to family daughter. A new lawyer materialized and ,Depressed, he felt ready to die. Then and friends, Cagney was extremely busy. the Cagney will was revised. Zimmerman Marge Zimmerman, now 62, and her Zimmerman orchestrated a flurry of was named executor of the estate. Now husband, Don, entered the equation, activity for a publicity-shy man who for the other Cagneys were kept at bay by making themselves \"useful\" around the 15 years had proven himself as earnest a this simple legal fact: Zimmerman held house. Marge was a local restaurateur recluse as Garbo. There were new books, all the cards. whom the Cagneys had befriended; Don talk show appearances, documentaries, was a civil engineer. To the Cagneys the baseballs tossed out at home openers, Meantime, there was talk of a film with Zimmermans were angels in an hour of pathetic appearances at charity benefits another ingenious Czech emigre director, need. For better or worse, Marge and (at \"The Night of 100 Stars,\" a wheel- Ivan Passer. This had Cagney posited as Don-but mainly Marge-began to chair-bound Cagney was forgotten in the the retired gunfighter Bat Masterson assume responsibility for every aspect of basement when curtain call rolled working as a sportswriter for a New York the Cagneys' lives. around), and, most importantly, a her- City newspaper. Perfect milieu for Cag- alded return to acting. ney. Dream casting. But Cagney was in First, out with the old: long-standing and out of hospitals, and no insurance relationships were severed; mail was A doctor reportedly told Cagney to go company would risk the proposition. A intercepted, phone calls were not passed back to work, and that word \"work\" must rumor floated in Hollywood that the film on or returned; and people who wanted have appealed to him. For Ragtime, a would be made anyway and that Cagney's to do business or maintain a friendship Cagney fan could not help but be legs would be \"animated\" for scenes that with Cagney first had to get past thankful, yet where was the wisdom, necessitated movement. In the end, Zimmerman. The Hollywood circle ultimately, in pushing an enfeebled star Cagney was out. Producer Robert Halmi fared worst, stumped by age and proxim- into a role he couldn't handle physically? wasm. ity. All deals were off. According to Kennedy, who has made no secret of his Halmi (Sr.) met Cagney early on in his annoyance, Zimmerman put the nix on relationship with the Zimmermans and his Cagney script by demanding a when Cagney was divesting his earthly production credit (and implicitly, a fee). goods; Halmi bought some horses. That was to become her m.o. over the Halmi and Marge Zimmerman were next decade. cozy, and out of their friendship sprang Terrible Joe Moran, a made-for-TV aging Cagney's relatives fared no better prize-fighter story that would shame- than Kennedy. Sister Jeanne (who lessly intercut clips of Cagney in his plays George M. Cohan's sister in prime, boxing in vintage Warners pro- Yankee Doodle Dandy) was dying of grammers. Again, Zimmerman took cancer, while younger (by five years) agent fees and a production credit. Look brother Bill, Cagney's business partner up Halmi's credentials and you will find a and closest confidant, was fighting off a passel of razzmatazz specials and nonde- series of debilitating heart attacks when script TV films (Bush Doctor with Hugh Zimmerman entered the scene. She kept O'Brien leaps out from the clips); Halmi \"harping\" (Kennedy's word) on the faults seemed less like Forman or Passer, of Cagney's two adopted children. idealistic Europeans hoping to achieve Already estranged from their parents, Golden Age flashbacks, than another they were now left off hospital visiting packager selling perfume with Cagney on 20

Cagney with Zimmerman. 21

the label. based on Cagney's own autobiography and received the stamp of approval. Halmi is also one of Zimmerman's (dictated into a tape-recorder as a favor to However, Cagney's death last April gave a relative and aspiring writer, and revised the project ASAP urgency, and Fox had defenders. According to Halmi-and this and enhanced by a ghostwriter), and on already committed to Paul Schrader's is the party line- Marge (and Don) the recent Doug Warren bio fostered by rock-and-roll movie. This took Fox off provided round-the-clock care for Cag- (and reportedly revised by) Zimmerman. the hook; reportedly, he was uncomforta- ney, who otherwise would have suc- Contrary to reports of Cagney's tendency ble with the project anyway. Now, cumbed years earlier and would not have to ramble incoherently, Halmi insists he according to Halmi, actors under consid- lived to experience such a memorable had an excellent memory for fresh tidbits eration are Kevin Bacon, Matthew Bro- dotage. \"She enthused him ,\" says Halmi. and anecdotes omitted from his two derick, and Michael Keaton . As yet there The Cagney family argues Cagney \"authorized\" books. In any case, Cagney is no director set. Come hell or high needed more professional care and a was sincerely anxious to promote a movie water, says Halmi, the show will be on in medical regimen; that Cagney, in a based on his life: like George M. Cohan the fall. supremely vulnerable state, was \"bam- in Yankee Doodle Dandy, he knew he was boozled\" (Kennedy's word) by Zimmer- dying, and he wanted to oversee his own Clint Eastwood once told me Cag- man; that it was Cagney's wife who immortalization. ney was one of the few actors he insisted on Zimmerman's essentiality, not truly admired, because on camera Cagney, who tried to dismiss her. But As envisioned by Halmi, the Cagney he was so \"fearless\" and would try much of this is in the tabloids and in the project will be a Hell's Kitchen rags-to- anything. Another interview, another Life article-which, as I say, is not boring. riches story, with not much in the way of time: Robert Redford told me Cagney vaudeville or Hollywood scenes. There was the one person he would really like to Terrible Joe Moran turned out to be will be little song-and-dance in author meet. Why? Cagney had had the guts to one of the more undignified swan songs Dan Wakefield's script, which wisely quit acting. of any major Thirties star. It was as if his avoids comparison with Cagney's Cohan. doctor had coaxed Fred Astaire into A paradox: the actor's fearlessness and performing one more jete, at his age, for \"Terrible Joe Moran.\" his disinterest in acting. Cagney was Love Boat. It had become, one third of In their conversations, according to fearless in front of the camera because he Jimmy Cagney is better than none. His Halmi , Cagney was explicit about the was not in the least mystified by it. If voice was slurred, his speeches dubbed characterizations of his wife, family, and anything, he disliked being a star, dis- by a mimic. Co-stars were shocked by his certain friends (\"nothing disparaging\"), dained Hollywood. He rarely viewed his decline. Critics were overly kind . Mem- and keen on honesty depicting his street own performances in movies. He could bers of the Cagney family believe that not pals who wound up in Sing Sing. Jack barely stomach reading scripts; several even Jack Warner could have coerced Warner will be built up as a \"real bad guy, times he vomited afterward. He did not Cagney into such disgrace, and that only an enemy,\" a perspective from which regard either writers, directors, or films Zimmerman, at this low ebb, could have Cagney never wavered. The film will end with the reverence he accorded vaude- managed it. ville or Broadway. with Cagney's breakthrough in The Now here's the kicker. It is Halmi Public Enemy, in 1931. Cagney was, however, terrified of real who is preparing the sanctioned life- increasingly so after the vortex of version of the Cagney life story. The gossip columns have Michael ]. the Thirties, which sucked in a Depres- When I sent my treatment around , every Fox playing Cagney, and Fox could carry sion Joe and spat out a star. It is no prospective producer wanted to know: everything off but the levels. Fox met accident Cagney loved the movies that Would Cagney give his approval? Not Cagney, who liked his con and charm, propelled him backward in time-The only because Cagney was notoriously Roaring Twenties, The Strawberry litigious, but because they yearn for the Blonde, Yankee Doodle Dandy-that Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. €oatered to a nature that deplored change. Anybody in the world could film the life He had a gut reaction to anything of John Lennon, but only one producer modern. He wouldn't travel on an could boast of having the Yoko Ono airplane, he wouldn't ride in a fast car. For version-which turned out to be pablum the most part, movies, to an actor like when it aired last spring on TV. Holly- Cagney, meant living in the world and wood loves the imprimatur of the imitating it; there was nothing less that departed (or soon-to-be), and it is Cagney cared to do. So long before One, Zimmerman's representation of herself as Two, Three he took to vacillating, hiding a Cagney that has incensed the remnants out, escaping movies and life. of the family. \"She's telling the family stories and she's a newcomer; one of the When he died , the wire service nieces told me angrily. eulogies sprang from the lips of Ronald Reagan, Charlton Heston, and Frank According to Halmi, the prospect of a Sinatra-in part because they are all that Cagney biopic would never have existed is left of the old gang, but, worse than without Zimmerman. At her insistence that, also because they could borrow Halmi and Cagney held \"long talks\"; Cagney's luster to score their own points. according to the Cagneys' lawyer, Fred The week after Cagney's death, I lunched Baker of Connecticut, Cagney trusted at MGM with Ivan Goff, the co-writer of Halmi and gave the producer leeway with White Heat, who remarked at how often much of the storyline. The film is to be Cagney's George M. Cohan was extolled 22

in the obituaries and how infrequently his \"Ragtime.\" romanced (and cast) Jimmy's leading equally bravura Cody Jarrett was men- ladies. Politically conservative, and tioned. Obviously, Cagney's legend is to It seems amazing now, but he was the always nagging Jimmy about his politics, be the American dream: rags-to-riches furthest left-wing of the big Thirties Bill ran with Hollywood's fast crowd, with success, self-fulfillment sweetness and stars, an instigator, donator, and petition- Howard Hughes and Preston Sturges. light. \"Made it, Ma,\" Cody Jarrett cried. signer, a staunch unionist active early in While Cagney was at home as usual, Bill \"Top of the world~ the formation of the Actors Guild, was out and about, occasionally making concerned about the Scottsboro Boys, the papers in some pre-dawn police raid Let us suppose for a moment that Spain, the Salinas Valley lettuce on a Sunset Strip locker club. A shrewd some \"unauthorized\" filmmaker rips off strikers-all the progressive causes of the and canny agent and business manager, the Cagney story from the Zimmermans, era. He raised a clenched fist at a May Bill (the wealthier of the two) is the the Halmis, the Reagans, and even from Day parade in Los Angeles. There was reason why Cagney's contracts pioneered Cagney himself. The Cagney brothers dinner with Theodore Dreiser and a sub percentage participation, story and direc- themselves ran roughshod over George rosa visit to the prison holding accused tor refusal, and three month vacation M. Cohan's specifications and pursued Preparedness Day bomber Tom Mooney, clauses-in 1938. Creatively, it was he their own instincts filming Yankee Doodle so that Cagney could pay his respects. He after 1936 who handled Cagney's career Dandy. Cohan was furious; one of his ex- sued Warner Brothers over his contract, and who produced Yankee Doodle wives filed a famous lawsuit still quoted in dragging heavily perspiring Jack Warner Dandy, one project that had them both relevant cases today. But the Cagneys into a Burbank courtroom and setting fired up. prevailed in the artistic decision-making, himself free-but blackballed, effec- and their instincts were, obviously, tively, for two years. Even at that, Jack Zimmerman was not the first strong sound. Warner never loaned him out to another woman in Cagney's life; far from aberra- studio-not once. By the end of the tional, there is a kind of grim logic in his For the unauthorized biopic, Martin Thirties Cagney was no longer engage. final dependence on her. Cagney's father, Scorsese would direct, and the script Disillusionment had set in, for politics weakened by alcoholism, died at 41, written (or perhaps rewritten, after a and acting. victim of a flu epidemic; his mother, one failed stab by someone else) by Paul of those sweet, no-nonsense Irish women Schrader. It would begin, not end, with When people talk about the injus- who populate Warners films, lived on into The Public Enemy and would bracket the tice of Zimmerman locking out the Forties, and Cagney always credited Thirties, the one decade that Cagney, the Cagney family in Jimmy's her guiding hand. Yet his father's death more than anyone, came to symbolize. It final years, they are usually thinking, first scarred Cagney and so, apparently, did a would be a show business Raging Bull- and foremost, of William Cagney. Old- priest's failure to arrive in time to keying on the two Cagney brothers-one timers always associated the brothers; administer last rites (presumably, a snub) . in the limelight, the other in the shadows. they seemed inseparable to that genera- When New York's Cardinal John j. Cagney would be driven by his own tion of Hollywood. Virtual look-a-likes, O'Connor leaned over at Cagney's funeral ambivalent id, dominating women, song- they were alter egos. In the \"unauthor- and apologized to Mrs. Cagney for the and-dance, the Great Depression as ized\" film version of Cagney's life story, incident, it surprised her. The Cagneys historical backdrop, and the cloud of the Bill might be a foil, to illuminate Jimmy. had \"a deeply ingrained sense of privacy\" Catholic Church. (from Cagney's autobiography), and this While Bill had his own fleeting acting was one of Cagney's secrets. Capturing Cagney could prove tricky. career in low-budget quickies in the early Onscreen, he ignited for his audiences, Thirties, he was pallid onscreen. Off- The family did not even know that which saw themselves in the despair and screen, he had a knack for business deals Cagney had once been an altar boy. He violence of his Hell's Kitchen characters. and turned out to be all the extrovert and played down his Catholic roots; they were He never stopped feeling tainted, cir- charmer his brother was not. He cumscribed, by that milieu. As he grew older, he was less willing to relive it through typecasting. A premature Method actor like Edward G. Robinson might wear gangster spats to psych up for a scene; Cagney always wore taps so that, between takes with the machine-gun, he could practice his buck-and-wing. Offscreen, he was gentle yet aloof, an enigma even to his closest friends, \"The far-away fella\" (in Pat O'Brien's words), \"a man so intense you felt you were breaking a silence when you were speaking to him\" (in Elia Kazan's). Cagney eschewed the party circuit and night-clubbing. Between takes, he sequestered himself in his trailer and dabbled in poetry and water- colors. His mind was inquiring and philosophical, if narrowed by his upbring- ing; i.e., Einstein's theory of relativity intrigued him-but he could find no one in the Warners lot to explain it to him. 23

not reflected upon in his memoirs. The Moriarity. The Cagneys' marriage was Vineyard-and that includes White Heat, Church helped mold Cagney, instilled one of the more discreet Hollywood which Cagney describes as a \"cheapjack\" him with guilt and defined his relation- unions, but it appears that Cagney job in his autobiography, a movie he did ships with women, in much the same way surrendered much to this strong-willed to bailout their independent company. it shaped close friend Spencer Tracy. It woman in the pick of friends, lifestyle, After One, Two, Three Cagney beat an was organic that Cagney was the least and politics. She is Scotch Presbyterian, increasingly sour retreat, turning more romantic film star of his era; only Joan farmstock from Iowa, night and day from right-wing (except on the environment) Blondell and he maintained any sexual Cagney. She liked to stay home and play and reclusive-while Bogie went on to chemistry, in eight pictures, and their cards, solitaire. They never had children, captivate successive generations learning onscreen relationship was mysteriously and the two they adopted were later how to survive in a tough spot. broken up at its peak. Cagney's prudery barred from the household for roughly led him in his autobiography to inveigh ten years. Jim Jr. tried to see his father one Think of the epilogue: Cagney, against onscreen kissing. recent Christmas and was turned away at wheezy, croaking his recollections to a the door by Zimmerman; shortly thereaf- ghost-writer-all very sad. The mind is In the end, the Catholic Church was ter he died of a heart attack at 44. As of feeble, but there are hints of the Cagney there, jockeying for position. I am told a this writing, Casey Cagney, despite a that was and the Cagney that could have certain priest wrote a letter to Life personal hard-luck story, appears to have been. In the background hovers a magazine praising Zimmerman; this been completely cut out of the wilL. woman, not his wife-she is elsewhere in same priest informed two Cagney nieces (\"Nothing disparaging?\") the room, dealing jacks. Then the that they would have to sit in the rear of camera moves in and we see that it is the mostly empty church during the Perhaps the \"unauthorized\" biopic of Zimmerman, stroking the wheelchair. funeral services because the front pews Cagney's life would end on the high note She finishes Cagney's sentences, sup- were reserved for immediate family, of Yankee Doodle Dandy, for that is when plies better words. She is the life support meaning wife \"Billie\" (also in her eight- Cagney's talent reached its zenith and he machine for the legend, the medium ies), Marge, and Don. They marched up left Warners. Everything after was anti- through which it exists, will live on, front anyway. climactic. It took ritual coaxing by Bill to turning his life into a neatly ordered lure Jimmy from the serenity of Martha's His wife? Not really a part for Cathy drama. ® \"Yankee Doodle Dandy.\" 24

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Piz- Jim Abrahams and David Zucker interviewed by Jack Barth The Seventies were notable for Wat~rg~te,. gas crises~ and a cultural nadtr sigrufied by diSCO, self-help, Farrah Fawcett hairdos, and Elton John platform shoes. But at least that was one decade that knew how to make fun of itself. Satirical sketch movies-Bananas, Groove Tube, Tunnelvision, Schlock, And Now For Something Completely Different, and Ken- tucky Fried Movie, as well as TV's Saturday Night Live and SCTV-toasted and roasted the absurd without worrying about three- act structure or whether a laugh had been really \"earned~ The last and best gasp for the \"gag container\" feature film was probably Air- plo.ne! (1980), directed by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker, known collectively as ZAZ. Airplo.ne! was densely packed with puns and visual humor; more happened in the background than most other comedies show in close-up. Despite Airplo.nefs stunning success, its attitude of humor-for-humor's-sake soon dropped out of favor, demonstrated even by the detona- tion of ZAZs own worthy follow-up, Top Secret! It's hard to say why the omnibus crashed. It's not like the public said, \"No more satire; we want empathetic characters and engrossing stories~ After careless consider- ation, I have concluded that movies have shied away from vitaminized screen com- edy in the Eighties for the following reasons: 1.) Animal House proved that counter- culture zanies could make traditional movies. 2.) The TV counterpart of the sketch- movie deteriorated as its brightest lights went into features. 3.) Modern comedians wanted to become actor/comedian hyphenates, as in \"Actor-Comedian Joe Piscopo~ 4.) Writers with a facility for burlesque, irony, and satire thought that made them screenwriters, too. S.) Contrary to prevailing wisdom, mod- ern audiences have longer attention spans. 26

6.} Contrary to prevailing wisdom, mod- jokes and form ats of the original. Jim Abrahams: We learned the frustra- ern audiences have longer attention spans. Instead, ZAZ was busy at ABC with tion of having an idea in mind and not Unfortunately, the transition has been swift and across-the-board. The world- Police Squad!, an AirpLane!- tyle send-up having it pulled off, tOo. Occasionally, we especially the entertainment industry-will always take itself too seriously, and now of TV police shows starring Leslie Nielsen. wou ld have an idea in our minds one way, there is nobody lancing the boil of pomposity. Sketch comedy may not be the Police Squad! was fresh, funny, and and John directed another way. only format for satire, but it does seem the only point of convergence between' our cancelled after six episodes. The shows are D.Z.: T he main thing that came out of current crop of satirical writers and the now available on videocassette. Kentucky Fried Movie is that we knew we movies. ZAZ, our premier movie satirists, traded Their next film , Top Secret!, was a had to direct if we wa nted to get it on the in for more traditional vehicles. Their new boxoffice disaster, though in many ways it is screen our way. That's not to say that film , RuthLess PeopLe , is broad, AnimaL House-meets-Pink Panther farce. It's based comically superior to Airplane! Whether Landis did things wro ng. On a lot of th ings on a powerful premise: On the same day that Danny DeVitO sets out to kill his wife, due to its marketing (the key image was a there wasn't a right or wrong. Bette Midler, she is kidnapped. The kidnappers are nice people who have been cow) or to the limp plot, Top Secret! What things didn't work in Airplane! ? screwed by Danny and are just getting revenge, they think. Pretty soon, every- marked the end of ZAZ's memorable D.Z.: You tend to forget those things, body is trying to stick it to everybody else, and the sympathetic characters are the Airplane! period. but [ remember a scene where a guy gets ones who emerge with the most justifiable motives for vengeance. Before leaving Paramount, Eisner and stuck to a typewriter and starts talking like While ZAZs other films lacked the Katzenberg had nursed ZAZ through the Donald Duck. A lot of stuff that was cut out dramatic tension of a stOryline, RuthLess PeopLe sustains its plot and characters from trauma of Top Secret! Now ensconced at e nded up in the television version. start to finish. But the anarchy that made ZAZs previous films so scintillating-the Disney, Eisenberg offered them Ruthless J.A.: They had to cut out the R-rated force that said, \"This screen is up for grabs'- has been lost. Walking out after People as a transition to more traditional stuff, and they had to replace it with Airplane!, your brain was switched to \"funny' mode. When you walk out of comedy (films without ironic exclamation something. Ruthless PeopLe , maybe one gag will stick with you: \"I love wrong numbers ~ marks in their titles) . At this writing, the D.Z.: And those parts work great on TV. David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and film looms as this summer's big comic hit. You're sitting alone in your living room , and Jerry Zucker moved to Los Angeles from Wisconsin in 1970, and ZAZ have taken Dale Launer's high- you don't know that nobody around you is enjoyed almost immediate success with their comic revue, Kentucky Fried Theater. concept farce and fashioned a bawdy, laughing. You think, \"Oh, this movie was a In 1977, John Landis directed the film version, Kentucky Fried Movie , which they stripped-down romp with slam-dunk big success, so it must be funnl wrote and produced. The film was a series of \"far-out\" sketches aimed at drunken laughs. They've also abandoned the sight After Airplane! what kind of projects collegiate media mavens. Though a prod- uct of its era, the fLim has some timeless gags, puns, and satire that marked all their were you pitching? laughs, particularly its kung-fu movie parody. previous work. Is this metamorphosis good J.A.: After Airplane! we were the young Airplane!, which they wrote and directed or bad for the world of comedy? Well, heroes ; everybody thought we had the in 1980, earned more smiles-per-galion than any fLim ever made. Through clever considering that ZAZ were the very best at magic at the time. We kind of misperceived marketing, a jolly trailer, and great word-of- mouth, this $3-million-or-so production what they did, the last thing movies need is ourselves, and what the real beauty of grossed an astounding $80 million, helping to afflIm the genius of Paramount's all-star a three-headed Blake Edwards.... -J.B. Airplane! was. We really thought- exec lineup, which at the time included Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Kat- D.Z.: That we could write. zenberg, and Frank Mancuso. H OW did John Landis get involved J.A.: That making a successful comedy Paramount then failed miserably with with Kentucky Fried Movie? was merely stringing a bunch of funny Airplane 2: The SequeL. ZAZ had no part David Zucker: We wanted to scenes together. That's what we walked of this reprise, which simply reiterated the away from Airplane! with, and that's not make a movie, but we didn't know how. really the way it works at all. John Landis had a movie out called D.Z.: The big lesson out of that was that SchLock. We saw him on The Tonight Show, we were bad writers but good rewriters. It this 21-year-old kid who made a movie for takes years to find that out. My dad always $60,000. We called and invited him to see said he never learned any lesson that didn't the show, Kentucky Fried Theater, and cost him money. since he was the oruy director we knew, we lbu weren't invoLved with Airplane 2: asked him how to write a script. The Sequel. So we went and wrote the script to J.A.: They came to us and told us they Airplane! and wanted John to direct it. We were going to do a sequel, and we couldn't sell that, so we gave that up. Then sympathized. If you have a corporate asset, we decided to write Kentucky Fried Movie. you're being irresponsible to your stock- We thought that would be easier to get off holders if you don't exploit it. They asked the ground, since it was a sketch movie. We us to be a part of it in any way we wanted, sold that by doing a ten-minute short. but we'd thought of all the airplane jokes we How did you eventually sell Airplane! ? could and said, \"Thanks, but no thanks~ D.Z.: Because of Kentucky Fried Movie What did you think ofit? we had credibility, at least as writers. D.Z. and J.A.: We never saw it. Paramount-Michael Eisner and Jeff Kat- Police Squad! came next. Was that zenberg-just loved the script to Airplane! intended as a limited series? The oruy stumbling block was that we D.Z.: No, it [the cancellation] was a wanted to direct. We just kept at it until complete surprise. Our plan was to start it finally they gave in and let us direct. off and fmd directOrs and writers who could take it over after the flISt six episodes. Did you Learn how to directfrom Landis? D.Z.: It was the flIst time we were ever J.A.: Really after the flIst episode. on a movie set, and we learned a lot about D.Z.: But the ratings went down after directing and about what we wanted . the flISt week and kept going down. 27

THE DEFINITIVE Do you think it failed because a IV someone else's script. So what happened POSTER CATALOG audience won't watch carefully enough to on Ruthless People [scripted by Dale catch the puns and sight gags? Launer}? The country's paramount col- lection of original movie pos- D.Z.: Tony Thomopolous, the head of J.A.: After Top Secret! we got the notion ters - rare, classic, contem- porary-such as \"Maltese Fal- ABC at the time, said TV doesn't work if it's we had a lot of trouble writing. So we con,\" \"Snow White,\" \"Jezebel.\" the kind you have to watch. started to develop projects in a producer Comprehensive catalogue with capacity, to look for writers and oversee over 350 prime lith os. Your lVu don't seem too proud of Top Secret!, them. chance nowto acquire previously the next film. Was anybody enthusiastic inaccessible graphics. $6.00 about it at the time? D.Z.: The projects are still in develop- CINEMONDE D.Z.: I don't think the studio was very ment. Were having them written and rewritten, but none are far enough along to 'fhe (icnius of enthusiastic. produce. When Katzenberg called with Aki.·a Kurosa\\va Ruthless People, I think our first reaction J.A.: They [Katzenberg and Eisner] was, \"Well read it, but why would we ever Rashomon want to direct anyone e1ses script?\" But it Ikuru knew it wasn't a good idea. The jokes might was so good, and further along than be fine, it might look nice and be well- anything we had in development, and Seven Samurai directed, but it's just not a good idea for a something we could do right now. After Top Hidden Fortress movie: a rock 'n' roll singer going to East Secret!, all our rules - no sequels, only Germany. directing our scripts - well, all bets were Yojimbo off. Sanjuro D.Z.: We just went out on a limb too far, Kagemusha Did you do any rewriting on it? and the branch broke. AU with 6ubt~1e8 and exceptional picture quality But isn't it the kind of movie you guys J.A.: Yes, almost half the year spent All are part of a remarkable collection of would go pay six bucks to see and enjoy? working on the ftlm was on the rewrite. the best films available on videotape D.Z.: No one should make a movie like D.Z.: When we got it, it had no third act. -now over 1000 Beta & VHS titles- Evergreen Video Society that. It wasn't about anything. The only We weren't completely finished when we way Top Secret! is going to be appreciated started shooting. Scenes were being rewrit- 213 West 35th Street is, 30 years from now on college campuses ten by Dale, under our suggestions, as we New Yorn, NY 10001 they're going to run it and say, \"This is shot. great. What happened to this? This is or(1-212l 714-9860 genius!\" It certainly doesn't work now. There are gags in Ruthless People that outside New Yor1< State use are much more simplistic than ones you J.A.: It had its audience, but if you're used in previousfilms, like the dog business 1-800-225-7783 or some ofthe sit-commy confusions... really communicating, you should reach a Write for free membership information and get larger audience. It's a lot of fun to,hit a broad D.Z.: A lot of things that wouldn't be so a copy of our newsletter as well as a audience. $5.00 credit on your first order. funny in Top Secret! and Airplane! are So what was it about Airplane! that was funny in this because they're so much a part Name different? of plot and character. We put away all our Airplane! caps and said we're going to do a Street Addr868 D.Z.: Airplane! had a lot of advantages: different movie now. Clty/StateILlP Code it was the first of a genre, people were J.A.: If you have a wonderful idea and completely surprised. No one had dared to 28 do puns before, and all those visual gags. characters, the onus isn't really on the jokes And despite how Airplane! was, it did have as much. In Top Secret! we let those jokes a coherent story-a love story-and a twist in the wind because they were coherent plot, where you actually rooted for hanging on nothing, whereas in this movie the characters, and I think people were you don't have to fight so hard for a joke or genuinely concerned that the plane be do so many camera tricks or drop things out landed safely. I think that's the thing we of the sky. We knew that we were going didn't take seriously enough when we came down a dead-end alley with pure satire, and to do Top Secret! People do want a story, if we were going to stay in the movie and they do want to believe in the business wed have to broaden our horizons characters. and see things a little more liberally. The jokes in Top Secret! were just as HOW do you direct as a team? funny as the jokes in Airplane! but it's like J.A.: Well, the bulk of a 0.). Simpson playing for Buffalo all those director's time is not spent on a years. A great, great back (those jokes) was playing on a bad team. The ending never stage, it's spent in pre- and post-production. worked: when you don't have a good During that time, we try to hammer out structure, there is no ending. People can things together. On the set we have a video laugh all through the movie, then they leave monitor hooked up to the camera, and the theater and say,. \"That wasn't so good.\" David and I usually watch the monitor. Jerry stands out on the set. We huddle after Where did the failure of Top Secret! a take and compare suggestions. Usually Leave you? Jerry delivers them. After a while, when D.Z.: Eisner and Katzenberg knew exactly what happened - we got a bad horse. The jockey was still good, but we just got wrapped around a bad project. lOu once said you would never do

people get to know us and feel comfortable differences. It always amounts to the same learn lessons from our past endeavor . As a with us, we're much more liberal in running process: you keep shuffling the script result, we've never had very much problem back and forth talking to actors. There's down, rehearsing the scenes, and putting it getting projects made that we want to have frequently conflict: you either get outvoted in front of the cameras. We don't go on to made. Do you agree, David? or there's not enough time to try it more the next scene until it makes us laugh on than one way. the set. D.Z.: Idistracted]: [ agree, because when Oswald aimed the gun .. .Anytime we D.Z.: We do share a common philoso- Are you students ofany directorial style? come up with a good idea, we have enough phy that the actors should be playing it Do you look at a film and go, \"Oh, look of a track record that we'll always be able to straight. That was true in Airplane!, Top what he did there \"? get it made. If something is so obscure that Secret!, and Police Squad!-everybody you can't get a studio executive to see it, plays it straight, doesn't try to be funny. D.Z.: No. I think we just notice bad then maybe it isn't so good. We trust Sometimes we'll get an actor on the set, direction. When it's good direction we Katzenberg and Eisner to see a good idea. they'll think, \"Gee, it's a comedy\" and think, \"Oh , what a great movie; and then they've got to be funny, maybe out of an maybe an hour after coming home we say, The big leap was that they had enough insecurity. We have to make them feel \"Gee, that director must have been good~ If confidence to give us this script, which was confident enough that they can just do a you notice direction I think it's getting in the not at all Airplane! or Top Secret! I suppose good acting job and let the comedy play that now proves we can do other kinds of itself. way. r think, for example, the shot of co medy. Are you at the point where you can work Danny getting the flIst phone caJl from the with a real comedian? kidnappers is a good shot, bur I hope that sDo you think directing a lot easier than people wouldn't notice it. A good director J.A.: Yes, rthink that's the case with this won't get in the way of good material. writing? D.Z.: Oh, yeah. movie. Katzenberg told us as we were going J.A.: Yes, I think that moment is in , \"When you work with Danny DeVito J.A.: I think writers are like offensive and Bette in particular, they'll bring much relished so much by the audience because more to the screen than is on the page; and that's people, that's the hook of the movie: a linemen. They're kind of big and ugly, and that turned out to be the truth. I've never guy comes home to kill his wife, and she's they get dirty. They do aU the work in the seen acting like that close up. There's one been kidnapped. trenches, and the directors come in and scene where the cops are interrogating take aU the glory. Danny, and he has to convince them that I suppose if Ruthless People is the big he's really upset that his wife has been D.Z.: Or you could say the writers are kidnapped. He cries .during that scene. summer comedy hit you'll have plenty of like outfielders and the director is like the Nobody put any onions in his eyes or chances to make newfilms... pitcher. anything. He did a number of takes, and each time he was good at being full of shit. J.A.: I notice that the tone to a lot of J.A.: I wouldn't say that. What adjustments did you have to make your questions is \"How does the industry D.Z.: The pitcher isn't good if his from Top Secret! to Ruthless People? regard you?\", and \"Were more doors open or fielders don't catch the ball. less doors after a given movie?\" Except for . D.Z.: r don't think there were any huge when we flIst started, we never thought J.A.: I wouldn't say that. about how the studio or industry would treat us. You have to do what you think is D.Z.: How 'bout, the writers are like the best. We're as introspective about our fans in the stands. You need them there to careers as anyone, and we try very hard to yell, but they're never noticed individually. J.A.: No, the writers are like the guys that sell beer in the stands. ~ Abrahams: Writers are like offensive line- men. They're big and ugly, do all the work in the trenches, and direc- tors take all the glory. David Zucker: Writers are outfielders, and the director is the pitcher. Abrahams: I wouldn't say that. Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker and David Zucker. 29

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David F. Friedman. Shoeshine and a smile. David F. Friedman underculture tells us more about the root stuff flourished in a hothouse climate of interviewed by David Chute forces and raw energies that have shaped repression. In this sense, two releases can American movies than official film histo- be seen as delivering the coup de grace to Most people don't even know rians would care to admit. the classic exploitation film: Russ Mey- there were exploitation films er's The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959), the before about 1960 or so, Americans have a sharper sense of the first purely happy-go-lucky nudie (with when Roger Corman, Sam forbidden, and a keener appetite for it, no hypocritical moral preachment Katzman, and Russ Meyer than the citizens of almost any other attached) to win release in mainstream really began to cook with gas. But country. This continent is the result of a movie theaters; and Gerard Damiano's .thirst to push beyond what is known, and Deep Throat (1973), which made the exploitation titan David F. Friedman what is just; the original mission of world safe for hardcore sex. \"Porno is the exploitation was the gratification of end of exploitation and it will be the end knows about the shoeshine-and-a-smile forbidden curiosity. When American salesmanship that fueled movies dating pop culture finally started calling things of all of us,\" David F. Friedman flatly back to 1914. In fact, talking to him by their right names, the old suggestive convinced me that the exploitation evasions began to look ridiculous. The declares - and he should know. Friedman is a pivotal figure whose 32

personal history cuts a neat cross-section was always understood that he and they phase of the Seventies and Eighties (a through a broad under-realm of American were in e~sentially the same business. phase that has just about run its course, in experience. At 63, he's the president of Friedman's view) are distinctly less the Adult Film Association of America, a That's partly why the most interesting interesting. The newer pictures bore partner in Pussycat Theaters, and the period for exploitation was the road-show because they don't flirt. Hardcore films leading distributer of hardcore movies on era that began in the Twenties and have neither history nor future, because the West Coast. But his career in culminated with Babb's Mom and Dad in there is nothing to evolve toward. They exploitation began in the mid-Forties, the mid-Forties. The country's internal are easy to read and they always say the and it connects with every significant pressures and most potent conflicts still same thing. twist and turn that the forbidden thrills simmered in these films. The softcore industry has taken. boom of the Sixties, and the hardcore As inept as the early films are, they fascinate decades later because they A smooth-talkin' Alabama boy whose youth was spent running away to one Nightmare Alley-style carnival after' another, Friedman took his first real movie job as a traveling regional p.r. man working out of the Buffalo field office of Paramount Pictures. There he picked up a grass-roots, look-'em-in-the-eye per- spective on movie distribution and mar- keting that came in handy a bit later, when he went to work as a, roadshow salesman with Chicago's legendary Kro- ger Babb, the exploitation mastermind behind the four-walled birth-of-a-baby classic Mom and Dad. Friedman struck out on his own in Chicago in the early Fifties and soon pushed <>xploitation bodily into new areas, grinding out nudist colony pictures and \"gore\" horror films like BLood Feast, with director-partner- pal Herschell Gordon Lewis. He brought the story full circle when he accepted a partnership in what was then the Sonney Amusement Company and moved from Chicago to Los Angeles in 1964; it eventually became Entertain- ment Ventures Incorporated, the outfit Friedman is still operating from the original warehouse headquarters on Cor- dova Street in downtown L.A. His partner, Dan Sonney, now 70, doesn't come into the office much anymore. But in the Fifties and Sixties Sonney was the Emperor of Exploitation for the whole West Coast. And his father, Louis Sonney, was one of the first full-time exploitation moguls in America, begin- ning in the early Twenties. So Dave Friedman's roots are planted deep. I f his early intoxication with the gypsy carney's life hadn't pulled him into the exploitation movie underworld, Friedman says, he could easily have become a \"sky grifter\"-the evocative carney-talk term for a tent-show evangel- ist. When he rode the carnival circuit in the Forties, with his \"pickled punk\" shows and his \"half-and-half\" exhibits, Friedman frequently ran into evangelists who have since become our most sanctimonious, public moralists; and it 33

bristle with evasions and contradictions. about 15 seconds. On one level, of famous nudie-cutie bible pictures. In the 1934 anti-VD picture Tell Your course, the exploiteers were simply Dave Friedman is a gifted, old-fash- Children (recently rereleased on the making sure that people understood how \"camp\" circuit as Sex Madness) , a leering strongly they disapproved of the lurid ioned story spinner, and the exploits of fiend gets so turned on by a burlesque material they were selling. (This gloss of these swashbuckling movie con-artists show that he stops off on his way home to moralism was called the \"square up .\") But have been polished smooth by hundreds rape a five-year-old girl. Meanwhile, two there is also a whiff of guilt and even self- of loving repetitions. Friedman also has a young secretaries are so over-stimulated disgust rising from these sin epics- sense of history. His Cordova Street by the same performance that they movies that capitalized on the depravity office is still wall-papered with lurid EVI become lesbians - a complete transfor- they pretended to condemn, even more movie posters (\"Trader Homee - The mation from straight to gay that takes vehemently than Cecil B. De Mille's Film that Breaks the Law of the Jungle\"), and it still echoes, on most working days, ---\"Wages of Sin~ with Italian opera arias played full blast. There are autographed photos of Ronald Reagan and Pat Boone pinned to the bulletin board. Friedman is a flagrant capitalist who relished concocting the ad campaigns even more than making the movies. His florid ad copy (like his speech) is redolent of the Southern courthouse and the carnival midway. Friedman is refreshing because he seems perfectly happy peddling his \"crotch operas\" and hauling in the swag, like a jovial, cigar-chomping robber baron - or the Ghost of Moguls Past. But take his cheerful-vulgarian act with a grain of salt. He must exercise some quality control, because a couple of his pictures have a distinctive sizzle. His black and white roughies of the early Sixties, The Defilers and A Smell of Honey, A Swallow of Brine, have the no-nons.ense crispness of classic B-pictures - but with girls. -D.C. DEFINITIONS What is an exploitation film? sIt a \"flat joint. \" sIt a flimflam. sIt a three-card monte. It sa con-merchant sdream. \"Dance Hall Racket.\" Maybe you could start by just \"Dance Hall Racket.\" telling us how you'd define exploitation. \"Exploitation had so many forms! Motion pictures are just the final refine- ment of the carnival, the side show, the strip show, the sensational vaudeville acts. Most of the people involved in the early stages of exploitation came from the carnival circuit. These characters could be models for the flimflam man, or cheap imitations of P. T. Barnum. The sky grifters - the evangelists - were basically on the same circuit. They were show- men, morning, noon, and night. \"They could have a stuffed whale or shark, and travel to tiny little town after tiny little town setting it up in a vacant store, or in a tent on the edge of town, or in a theater lobby. I had a pickled punk 34

~ give em a show. .. they've seen the show long before they ever come to the theater: the trailer, the ads, the six-sheets, the window cards, show that played the Canadian National the cops, the nurses, the lobby displays, the Exhibition as recently as 1958 . A pickled ambulance outfront, the smelling salts, the punk Ica rny-ta lk for 'kid'] is an embryo in a jar. fn those days Billboard was the vomit bags... the picture itselfis purely trade paper of the outdoor entertainment coincidental. industry, and you'd see ads from Mexico , where they did abortions, in the back: Starring Ray Brooks. Jenny Hanley· Luan Peters· Patrick Barr 'Pickled punks, $25.00 a bottle, guaran- Produced ond Directed by Peter Wolker •••• Distributed by Entertoinment Ventures, Inc. teed , shipped from Del Rio, Texas.' » Here's a quote ofyours that J like a lot: \"After Mr. Edison made those tintypes gallop, it wasn't but two days Later that some enterprising guy had his girlfriend take her clothes off, and that's how exploitation began.\" SupposedLy the first sex reel was made in 1894. \"Exploitation pictures are as old as film itself, although they really · began to flourish during the height of the original Motion Picture Code. The roads how men , the exploiteers, weren't subscribers to the Hays Office Code; they were itinerant carnival people. The essence of exploitation was any subject that was forbidden: miscegenation, abortion, unwed motherhood, venereal disease. You could sell the seven deadly sins and the 12 minor ones. All those subjects were fair game for the exploiteer - as long as it was in bad taste! \"Roger Corman's early pictures may have been exploitation, because he figured out that the kids who went to drive-ins didn't want musical comedies and heavy drama. They wanted cars tearing down the street and a fight. This was drive-in product - you knew it wasn't going to play Westwood. And all Sam Katzman's movies, too, came right off the front page of the Herald Examiner, things like Riot on Sunset Strip 11967). \"However, a lot of those pictures were conventionally distributed through exchanges. The technical definition of exploitation movies is cheaply made pictures distributed by roadshow men or by local independents called state's- righters. A major studio was opening, in those days, 400 prints. An exploitation picture never had more than 15 or 20, and they moved around from territory to territory. We mailed heralds, put up billboards and window cards - all the old circus gimmicks that the average theater manager just didn't have time to do . They often leased the theater (now called four- walling), and once they paid the exhibitor and put their own cashier in the booth, they could do anything they wanted. 35

\"The big difference between this and \"Louis Sonney was an Italian immi- here's his act: He calls some kid up from all other forms of exploitation is that with grant who came to this country around the audience and says, 'I'm gonna put this film you had the show in a can. There the turn of the century. His father was a bulletproof vest on you: Then he takes were no rainouts. That's what killed priest. He was a pretty good-sized guy, out a 045 and shoots the kid! The impact burlesque; all the broads wouldn't show and he worked his way out to Centralia, knocks him across the stage. The kid up, or the broads would be fighting-this, Washington, and got a job as a coal miner. would get up, his brains would be that, and the otber. I used to say, 'Why are He was a sort of John Henry type, he'd rearranged, and the old man would say, you worrying about the goddamn broads? mined so many tons of coal, and so big 'See, he'sa not hurt: That was the act! In A movie, the whole thing is in a can, it and strong that they made him the town those days you didn't worry about being comes to you, you can run it as many constable. sued and all the crap that goes on today. times as you want, it doesn't talk back, it doesn't need any moneY: The guy says, \"Now, Sonney's walking down the \"Sonney toured the country, and after 'You're right! Get these broads outta here! street one day, and a guy sorta skulks by the Pantages tour around 1921, he Get some film in here!' \" with his face all bandaged up. Sonney amplified it into a whole Crime-Doesn't- says, 'Hey, whatsa matta you?Whatta you Pay show. He bought the American rights OFFICER SONNEY looka me for? I thinka you done some- to an Italian silent of Dante's Inferno and thing wrong: The guy says, 'I've been used it to show what would happen if you Y ou've said that a swashbuckling hurt: Sonney says, 'I'm gonna cut those were a bad boy. He had a working electric character named Louis Sonney bandages off: It turns out the guy is Roy chair, and he would lecture. He didn't was the great pioneer ofexploita- Gardner, the train robber, the most believe in capital punishment, though. tion in America. In 1921, he founded the wanted man in America. Automatically I've got the placard in the office at company that you're still running today. it's front-page news. In those days, they Cordova Street: 'Officer Sonney - whose put celebrities into vaudeville shows, so aim in life is to benefit all mankind. To \"He was a character. He was the old man Pantages (the guy who·built the prove that crime is a disease and to original character! But he sort of just fell abolish Capital Punishment are his great into it. Pantages Theater in L.A.) brings Sonney hobbies: down here and puts him onstage. \"After a few years of this, his crime \"So Sonney's on the road now, and show was beginning to peter out. He's playing Montana, or somewhere, and he's tAt' YOUR WAY TO THE BANK dying. But down the street there's a guy with a clap opera - a 'perils of VD' show WITH THESE SMASH HIT SPECTACULARS - and he's killing 'em. Sonney sees the wax figure, diseased joints, the diseased FILMED IN vaginas, and he says, 'Aha!' Overnight, from a Crime-Doesn't-Pay show it UNCONCEALED COLOR becomes a sex show. Then it became a movie show. He eventually produced BOX OFFICE HIT NO. 1 over 400 films for the Sonney Amuse- ment Company, which became the 2 VIBRANTLY VISUAL leading exploitation movie supplier on VERSIONS the West Coast. Entertainment Ventures developed from Sonney Amusement, ONE FOR SPECIALTV HOUSES after I went into partnership with his boy, ONE FOR GENERAL RELEASE Dan Sonney, in 1963. * \"Louis Sonney is definitely a major figure. He produced or distributed Wages A Positive Plethora of Pulchritude! Prized of Sin, Sinful Souls, Forbidden Desires, and Prime Princesses Pleasingly, Provoca- Slave in Bondage, hundreds of one-reel tively and Prismatically Presented For nudies.. He died in 1949, and Dan took Pleasure and Profit! over. He made some notable things in the Fifties, including this little picture Dance *If YOU CAN STAND TO HEAR THE CANNON GO Hall Racket [1952] that Lenny Bruce and Honey Bruce were in. He did a nice short Off, SMELL THE SMOKE AND SEE THE flAMES, nudie with the stripper Lili St. Cyr in THEN THIS IS THE SHOW fOR YOUIII 1955, 'Her Wedding Night: Dan is 70 now. He gave most of the older negatives BOX OFFICE SPECTACULARS INC. to the UCLA Film Archive a few years ago. It's quite a collection.\" Produced by DAVIS FREEMAN / Directed by LEWIS H. GORDON THE 40 THIEVES IT BEGAN WITH BARNUM! Who were the so-called 40 Thieves? J#re they contempo- raries ofLouis Sonney 's ? 36

\"He was one of them. The 40 Thieves don't know if Cox and Underwood had a \"One aspect of exp loitatio n th at no one were the producers, fast talkers, and clap reel in Dust to Dust, but most of th e has done much with is prize-fight films. roadshow men who controlled most of YO stuff ca me after the war, from the Up until about 25 years ago it was illegal the exploitation business in the late Army's training films. I ran these pictures to transport a prize-fight film across a Twentie and on into the Forties . There when 1 was with the Army Motion state line. There was no TV, and the was Dwaine Esper, who made TeLL Your Picture Service - kids were passing out newsreels only had excerpts. So supply- Children 11936], which became Reefer when they saw 'em! Nazi atrocity film s ing that demand became quite an active Madness , and How to Undress in Front of also became big after the war. There was business for men with intestinal forti- Your Husband 11937]. He used to make one that was roadshowed called Halfway tude. A guy would film a whole prize- We terns in two days for $4000. There to HeLL 11948], narrated by Que nten fight and tour the co untry with it.\" was Pappy Golden, who lived to be about Reynolds, put together around the death- 95, who would steal the pennies off a camp footage. It sounds like aLmost anything sold to dead man's eyes. There was S. S. Millard audiences that couldn 't be satisfied out of San Francisco - we used to call him Steamship Millard. One time he's in THE DEFINITIVE laid in the New Orleans, walking down the street, 19th century and he sees a sign on a vacant theater: FILM Of THE american west... 'Call the XYZ Realty Company: So he GREAT AMERICAN a time and place ca lls them: 'This is S. S. Millard of the SEXPLOSION !! of unbridled United American Consolidated Amuse- ment Company of San Francisco, and we carnage and might be interested in your theater: 'Oh, carnality... yes sir, Mr. Millard!' So the guy comes down and opens the theater and Millard PILMBD IN AN E. 5. 1. PRODUCTION X ADULTS says, 'Oh, this is fine, this is lovely. Put released by ONLYl the lights on: And he sees that the CDLDR projectors are still in the booth. 'Yes; he ENTERTAINMENT VENTURES, INC. says, 'I think we might be very interested. Here's my card: 'Oh, thank you, Mr. Millard , here's my card: \"Later that day, Millard calls this kid and says, 'I forgot one thing. 1 forgot to measure the proscenium arch. 1know it's late, it's Friday, why not just give me the keys and I'll drop them back in your mailbox when I'm finished: So Millard gets the keys, opens the theater, puts his wife in the boxoffice, puts his heralds out, goes up in the booth , and starts grinding a girl-and-a-gorilla picture - all day Satur- day, all day Sunday. Sunday night he closes down, drops the keys in the kid's mailbox, and gets out of town.\" ~re the roadshow men making their own movies? \"Some of them made their own. There were hundreds of these things made, you know. Louis Sonney made a lot of product but, for instance, he didn't make Wages ofSin 11936]; he bought that from J. D. Kendis, who had a company called Continental Pictures, right up here on Hollywood Boulevard. They made a wide variety, about 15 or 20 pictures a year. Kendis made his living for years just grinding out these pictures like Forbid- den Oats. He didn't try to distribute these things ; he'd sell prints to state's-righters. \"There were these two other guys named Cox and Underwood. They had a show called Dust to Dust 11944] and Bryan Foy's High SchooL Girl 11932], with a birch reel attached (any medical supply company would sell you one). I 37

through the usual channels. razors - to the black-only theater chains. never be able to spend anywhere else. \"That's right. A guy named Ted Toddy Blacks of course wanted to see their own \"Toddy's last stand was in the Sixties, in Atlanta in the Forties made black people in movies in roles other than when he got hold of the car Bonnie and pictures with black casts. He bought up maids or slaves, but I mean, today, blacks Clyde were killed in and some 16mm all the black pictures that Oscar would destroy a theater that played one of home movies of the bloody aftermath Micheaux made. But Micheaux was these things. that one of the marshals on the scene had black and Toddy was white, an old \"Oddly enough; they played in the taken: shots of these good '01 boys Columbia Pictures press agent. There black islands of the Caribbean until a few holding the corpses up by the hair. This was strict segregation then, and Toddy years ago. Maybe they're still playing. As was right when the movie came out. So would sell pictures with these exagger- far as I know, Toddy still goes down there Toddy framed a joint in Myrtle Beach, ated black stereotypes - the big dick, the every year for his vacation because he's South Carolina, and for 2S cents you fried chicken, the watermelon, the big got money in those countries that he will could see the car, and then for another 2S cents - for the annex, or the blow-off, as the carneys say - you could see this footage on a continuous loop projector.\" Did these \"thieves\" get into a lot of trouble with the cops? \"Not with the cops so much. A guy gets into town and the cops are there, so he just snips out the hot footage, goes up on- stage, and says, 'Unfortunately, the police department has not allowed us to show you the entire production: The audience goes, 'Booooo!' But when the movie was over and the cops left, the guy was up in the booth handing the projectionist a one-reeler: 'Throw this on: And suddenly - zoom, zam - frontal nudity, tits and ass, everything. It only ran eight or nine minutes, but the audience walked out saying, 'Boy, you should have seen what we just saw!' \"That was called the square-up reel. The term comes from the carney or con artists' phrase 'squaring a beef: Louis Sonney made hundreds of these shorts here on Cordova Street. He shot an \"Reefer Madness.\" The jig is up. African village scene for a famous one called 'Girls of Loma Loma' in a vacant lot at Western and Washington. The reels were all silent, but it was amazing what they showed. No hardcore, of course, but all the women used to shave in those days, so here you are watching these fully shaved little ussy-pays! \"A bigger threat than the police was the local priest or Knights of Columbus. The Catholic bishops had formed the Legion of Decency in 1936, and if a town was Catholic you just got out of there. I remember once in Mandan, North Dakota, the K of C were out picketing this drive-in and then set fire to the tower!\" But didn't all the early feature films have some kind of cautionary moral or warning attached? \"Well, supposedly. That was called a square-up, too, squaring the moralists' beefs. One of the greatest is a picture that Louis Sonney made, with some Pretty Baby-type nudity in it, called Child Bride (1937): 'It is hoped that by the showing of \"Color Me Blood Red.\" Afilm in which you dare not become too involved! this picture the evils of child marriage in 38

the hills of Appalachia will be stamped here. You only need one more thing.' whic h wa just a re make of Brya n Foy's out. We don't present this picture in any 'What's that?' 'You need me. I'll show yo u High School Girl, whi ch wa also th e crude attempt to exploit this national how to sell it .' That very night , th e three bas is of Dust to Dust. Mildred ca me up tragedy; etc., etc. Next picture comes of them formed a partne rship : C ox, with the title and the name of the lecture r, along, it's about YO : 'It is hoped that Underwood , and Babb . They started Elliot Forbes. S he told Babb that the through the showing of this picture the touring the South, and each of th e m had a most e uph oniou s names are short Anglo- scourge of venereal disease will be unit. They agreed to meet in Clevel and Saxon names e nding in 's,' and th at tuc k. eradicated.' If it was Reefer Madness it and split up the swag. All the lecture rs were ca lled Alexa nder would be the evils of the dope trade. Leeds or C urti s H ayes . Whe n I did it in Louis Sonney had one called Marijuana \"Babb met his future wife Mildred on the Fifties I was Roger T. Miles. I liked that tour, in Indianapolis , and she says, the sound of that. They were very careful -I#!ed with Roots in Hell [1935I. Why don't you make a good birth movie?' not to call thi s guy a professor or a doctor. She wrote the story of Mom and Dad, ~Finally, Mike Ripps-Ripps was a fast- talkin' Southern boy, honey dripping off his tongue, smoked big black cigars- made a film called Bayou in the late Forties which he gave to United Artists. After they had the picture seven years by contract, Mike takes it back and comes up with a campaign and a new title: Poor White Trash [19571. There wasn't any- thing in this picture, but Mike promised 'abnormal scenes; and there were armed guards at the boxoffice checking IDs. Ripps told me, 'They don't come to see a picture, they come to see a show.' He didn't even have to square 'em up. They had the show before they ever saw the picture-before they ever got to the stheater. God! Now that exploitation! That's the original definition. \"But for me, Kroger Babb's Mom and Dad [19441 is still the number one greatest exploitation item in the history of world movies. You had the nurses, you had the truck out front with the search- lights, you had the sober lecturer in the white coat, you had the book sales. The suckers really felt they were going to a Broadway opening. That was the culmi- nation!\" KROGERBABB \"B abb was from nowhere, a little town called Wilmington, Ohio. His name wasn't even Kroger, it was Howard W. Babb. There is a chain of grocery stores in the Midwest called Kroger's, and he sold candy there as a kid. He always put 'Kroger' in quotes in all his ads. He became 'America's Fearless Young Showman.' For years I used that after he couldn't. Now I can't! \"So Babb was working for Checkres theaters in 1940 or '41. He's driving through some little town in Ohio and he sees a crowd going into a theater for a midnight show of Dust to Dust. The people are piling into this place. He sees these two characters sitting in there, Cox and Underwood, counting down and getting ready to leave town. And Babb says, 'You guys have really got something 39

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One thing I've always said about show business: \"You can scare em, you can make em laugh, you can make em cry, you can make em weep, you can make em wail, you can make em pee, you can make em defecate, butfor Christ ssake, don't bore em.\" \"A young girl in our community-the daughter of a very prominent citizen- was herselfunfortunately in trouble. She could not tell her parents, so she went to see your film . She saw the error of her ways and came home and told her parents. I am happy to say that this young girl gave birth to a fine baby and is now happily married to the father ofthe baby. Thank you for bringing us your picture. \"P.S. That girl was my daughter.' \" \"Now, thats the kind of copy Babb could write. You don't believe it today, but boy, they believed it then. \"But he had hundreds of letters from public officials, from school boards, from doctors and hospitals, that weren't fake. I . used to have cases of testimonial letters, cases of them! So the come-on was a mixture of fact and fantasy. At one point, Babb made the birth and disease footage available in 16mm for high school classes. ·Starlet.\" \"The Mom and Dad presentation didn't He was always an 'eminent hygiene vary much in all the years Babb was doing commentator: write that stuff. 'Mom and Dad: Women it, or even when I was doing it ten years \"So the three partners get back to Cleveland and by this time Marilyn has Cry. Men Get Fighting Mad. You'll Gasp, later. You had segregated shows; women Babb convinced. He says, 'Were going to make a really good one, and were going to You'll Wince, You'll Shudder- But You'll at 2 and 7 p.m. only, men at 9 only. The sell books afterwards: He laid out the whole campaign. But Cox and Under- See Truths and You'll Learn Facts: book they sold was the Department of wood both wanted out, so they took their share of the money and left. Cox was \"Babb knew these pictures weren't Health one, gussied up to look impres- never heard from again. Underwood had some success roadshowing a print of doing any harm; they were probably sive. And the lecture went like this: sUniversal's silent version of Uncle Tom doing some good. And he thrived on the \"'Ladies and gentlemen, I am not Cabin that he had purchased at a freight heat. He was in court 430 times with speaking about birth control. I do not auction. It was five years before Universal found out it was their picture! Mom and Dad. The exhibitor might say, advocate birth control in this book, in this \"Babb went on alone with Dust to Dust, 'Look, I'll play the picture, but it's lecture, or in the film you are about to until he met Jack Jossey, an iodie, and sells him this bill of goods on Mom and controversial. Why don't you show it to see. However, nature does operate in' Dad. They promoted four or five Cleve- land exhibitors to get the money. Then the school board or something?' Particu- patterns. And every young girl upon Babb came out to L.A., hired William Beaudine, Sr. to direct, and shot Mom larly in California, the school board would reaching puberty starts on her own and Dad on the old Monogram lot, which is now Public Television station KCET. In often say, 'I think this is wonderful! All of personal menstrual month. This means the Sixties, I shot Starlet and Trader Romee on that lot. our young girls and boys should see this that once each menstrual month an egg·is \"Babb really was a showman through film!' \" released. It travels down the oviduct, and through; he knew what he was doing. It was all carny: 'A Plethora of Ponderous \"Then suddenly it would be sponsored. through the Fallopian tube, and settles in Pachyderms!' 'Astonishing and Accom- plished Aerial Artists!' The man could But those were not towns where the the uterus, or womb. This period lasts church was strong. God help Kroger three days, and during that three-day Babb in Wisconsin or northern IIIinois. period, and that three-day period only But in towns that were predominantly that a woman is fertile, she can conceive Protestant, oh yeah, he sold this thing. and have a baby. Now. If marital relations \"This would be a typical item in a Babb take place within this three-day cycle and pressbook: 'ONE OF THE MANY LETTERS the male sperm unites with the female WE RECEIVED FROM THE MAYOR OF A ovum, then the miracle of conception MIDWESTERN COMMUNITY: takes place. If no relations take place, \"Gentlemen: then the ovum is disposed of with the \"Before your picture came to town, I normal menstrual flow, and a woman is vigorously opposed its showing, as I was infertile and can't conceive... : ill-advised by unknowledgeable people. I \"Oh, God, I've forgotten - it was beau- had no idea ofwhat it was. Let me tell you tiful, so polished! a story ofwhat happened. \"'Now, in addition to the information 42

contained in thi chapter, we have placed and ' and people like Ru s Meyer are the life stor and all it Country Boy with a a imple one-year chart, and an woman econd generation. The third ge ne ration Shoeshine; me, too. Like most o-ca ll ed who an add two and two and read a are Bob re se , Lee Frost, Vincent country boys, 'wa actually born in a calendar will be able to keep and maintain Miranda of Pus ycat-most of them good- ized town, Birmingham, labama. her elf in that way 0 he will know that active in the great day of softco re nudie My father wa a newspaperman, and my time of the month when she i fe rtile and and into ea rl y hardcore, the Mitchell uncle owned movie theater . The first can conceive 3S well a that time of Brothers, Alex D e Re nzy, Gerard time' ever saw a movie wa itting o n the D amiano. The fourth generation are the bench be ide my mother w hen he month. w,hen she is infertile and cannot kids in their twenti e who are into played th e o rga n. I've loved movie ever hardcore video. Sin ce. conceive. \"We called thi calendar 'Vatican Rou- \"Someday I want to write Kroger Babb's \"Afte r my mother and father were lette.' 'n yo ur windup, yo u almo t went into 'Onward hri tian Soldiers': \" 'By now, yo u're a king, ·Where ca n' obtain a set of the e booksr These books cannot be obtained in any book- tOre, and you will not find them on the shelve of any library. But through the effort of the Women' Research Guild- the ponsor of th is motion picture- these books are made available to you, the great American public, at a slight fraction above the actual cost of printing, han- dling, and di tribution. That price is one dollar a copy, two dollars for the set. Now think of it: for less than the COSt of a cartOn of cigarettes, you can own a set of the e vitally important books. And I believe with all my heart that a set of the e books belongs on the living room desk or the bedside table of every home in America. And thank God, through the efforts of the Women's Research Guild this may omeday come to pass. ILaugh- ter! My agents will now pass down the ai Ie among you, if you care to take home one or both of these books. And it would be my pleasure, if any of you have any questions , , will be in the lobby of the theater after the picture. Thank you all for your kind attention. , want to wish you a very long life, a very happy life, and above all a very healthy life. Thank you. Good night , and God bless you.' \"Cour e, most of the guys we had doing this were carnival sideshow talkers; they could bring tears to the eyes of these sucker :' THE FLEDGLING FILMED IN \\COLOR I ABOARD A 100 FOOT TWIN-SCREW CRUISER FRIEDMAN PIIOOUCED BY DAVID F. FRIEDMAN and WIlliAM AllEN CASruMAN -' DtIl£CTEl) BY RIOWID KANTEII Where do you come into the history SCRHNPlAY BY IItOWID KANTER and DAVID F. fItlEDMAN-'AN ADO 1'tIOOUCllON-' Ifi£ASED BY ENlUTAINMEHT YfHTUIt£5. 1NC. ofexploitation? \"' alwa s say , got into this • -=-U:'X DWTDn'. . . .EIfT VElJTUR£&, HIItC.. because I was too young to work and too nervous to steal! Chronologically, rm the 43 senior citizen of the second of four generations of exploitation. Louis Son- ney and Pappy Golden, Roy Reid and the rest of them, all born around the turn of the century, would be the first genera- tion. I was born in 1923, so Dan Sonney

divorced, my mother remarried and we degrees cooler inside: All the old gags. A pictures, and all that, and that's when I moved to Anniston, about 60 miles away. lot of the players used to like to go on the said, 'Let's get into the nudie-cutie The year the Tom Mix Circus wintered in road with me. I was on the road with business: IrwinJoseph was the only other Anniston, I was out there on the Chuck Heston, with Bob Hope. I could partner who was still active in the firm, showgrocnds every day. And I would always put together a golf game for Hope, and he didn't want any part of it. Like sneak away to see movies like High and he was basically a carny character to Babb, he really believed that we were on School Girl and Child Bride. During begin with. He would do anything. The an educational crusade. So I took over school I worked as a stagehand and whole movie business was closer to its the company and went on alone, and projectionist, and I went out on carnivals. roots in those days. At Paramount I that's when Herschell Gordon Lewis and Roadshow was like carney without the worked for Manny Brown, who was the I started making nudies.\" tragedies of wet lots and upping-and- branch manager in Buffalo. In his youth downing, with warm, dry theaters to play he was known as Professor Emmanual A. \"Daughter of the Sun.\" in every day, but with the excitement of Brown, and at 15 he was out on the road getting out of town with the last wave of lecturing with a film called Smashing the the brakeman's lantern! White Slave Trust [1914). \"My wife Carol and I are both from \"In 1954, when I finally left Paramount, Anniston, where her family were very I went into independent distribution, respectable business people (her father which soon meant skin-dependent distri- was the International Harvester automo- bution. By this time, I could tell you bile dealer). We were childhood sweet- every town over 25,000, whether it was a hearts. Carol has more degrees than a main-street or a courthouse-square town, thermometer (she's vice president of the where the railroad went through , where L.A. Audubon Society). This is a the loading zones were, what highway it marriage that everybody said would never was on, if there was a movie house, how work-Carol never objected to the carni- many and who owned them. So in 1955, vals, to pickled punks, to the nudie-cuties, when an opportunity came to throw in or even to hardcore. But to the birth-of-a- with Kroger Babb, Floyd Lewis, Gibney baby shows she said, That was the worst Talley, and Irwin Joseph in Chicago, I was thing you have ever done: I said, 'Honey, ready for it. we were really doing good: She said, 'I hate to think of the poor girls who \"I formed a little company called Apex are pregnant today because of Vatican Attractions. Their company, Modern Roulette: She thought the whole thing Film Distributors, licensed birth-of-a- was a scam (which it was) and that we baby films to me for various territories. I were exploiting a very natural medical was a SO/SO partner: I got nothing up function. front, and I went out and did my own bookings. I bought books from Modern \"Anyway. My stepfather was a chemical Film for SO cents apiece and made a engineer who built a plant outside quarter on each one. And I got SO percent Buffalo . I went to Cornell and then did a of all the film rentals. tour in the Army, Right after that I started hanging around film exchanges. I first \"I had fun being Roger T. Miles, the met Babb when he ordered some Army 'eminent hygiene commentator: The surplus searchlights through an ad I ran in minute you finished the speech they'd Billboard. He had a big operation, come up to you. You were the Authority! Hygenic Productions, that employed SO I'll never forget one time in Hastings, or 60 people. He ran Mom and Dad for Nebraska, this guy grabs me in the lobby. me, showed me the sex-education books. He's got on overalls and boots, and he's We had mutual friends all over the film been standing in pig shit for six months. business. He hadn't shaved in a year, and his fingernails-we could have cured the oil \"Then I did my obligatory tour of duty shortage right there. He smelled like a at the local office of Paramount. I was on fucking horse. And he says [broad the booking desk, I sold film, I was an cornpone accent), 'Hey, Mr. Mals, you office manager, and in 1952 I got into the sed there's noo sich of a thang as a frigid publicity department. That was the most woman, but I knows yo wrong 'cause Ah fun I think I ever had, working as a married to wan: And the only thing I traveling field man for Paramount. I was could say was, 'Did you ever think of always very comfortable in hotels and taking a bath?' restaurants. One time I came home from a road trip, got up from the breakfast \"Anyway, a year later I became ajunior table, and left a tip! partner in Modern Film and took the company in other directions. The whole \"I pulled some pretty good stunts, too. thing with Babb there was to keep him On a hot day you could always fry an egg out of it. He would have spent more on the sidewalk and put up a sign: 'When money than we could have made. I could you can fry an egg on the sidewalk, it's 20 see that it was the tail end of the birth 44

TITILLATION played a lot of first-run, fir t-c1ass houses. didn't look at that product too closely. What you saw depended on the commu- The French directors always had people \"Nudity and sexploitation srarted nity. [n the Forties, after the war, in their underwear or maybe a bare breast from the earliest days of the independent distributors began bringing or something. About 1954, '55, Peter film busine . The period in other foreign films. 'Banned in BostOn!' Horner from Union Films in New York 'Only the French Dared Do It!' Every- brought in a picture called And God from 1910 to 1920 i n't really that well- thing was French, French, French. Created Woman starring Miss Bardot. He documemed, but I've got a lot of footage, came up with a great campaign, since and the American Film Institute has a lot ~In 1955, one picture changed most of newspapers in those days weren't as of footage. I'm not talking about the 16 the art houses. There were probably 250 uptight about movie advertising as they and mm stag film that used to be shown theaters in the country that had the word are today. in fraternity house -those were being 'Art' in their names, and they were made by pimps and whores as far back as literally art-movie theaters. The censors \"These little theaters that used to play 1912, but they weren't being shown in theaters. But I've got some widely GfHE GEPOCHGAGL circulated nudie footage dating from 1912 GEVENT GIN c..AGDULT or 1913, in 35mm. The FI took the edge GENTEGRTAINGMENT! number and idemified the years, and the e were being shown in theaters. *SllIrrlna LANCE BOYLE .s Siegfried SYBELLE DANNINGER as Kriemhild *..~~I~P~ErTpE£Rf.8..3H~OA~R~DI~as~K9i~naEG!uOnMthAeNrH..E..I:D.Y~~-:H..O::..sI..B.•ru.n\"hild F\"\"~~=~~-\"\"\"\"iI ~By 1922 or '23, Louis Sonney was out of crime-does-not-pay and imo sex- liN COLOR that's when a lot of these pictures were made. Road to Ruin was made as a silent with Gram Withers. The key scene was a strip-poker game. A girl whose father was the leading moralist in town gets in trouble and has to have an abortion. Then comes the end of the picture: she's in a roadhouse, raking dates from busi- nessmen, and one of 'em goes up to her room. It's her father! They always had that kind of a shock ending. ~During the Thirties, skin pictures flourished. Bryan Foy, who was one of the Seven Little Foys and later made PT 109 for Warners, used to make these things. Bryan always said, 'Oh, these werefamity pictures!' And I said, 'Bryan, Elysia, Valley of the Nudes [19331. was Adults Only-Adults Only-Adults Only!' \"The tightest time, when censorship was strongest and nothing was shown, was from 1941 to '50. During the war years we all went into burlesque films. The Sonneys operated burlesque the- aters down on Main Street in Los Angeles, and every large town had a burlesque theater. The girls could show pasties, or a little nipple, or could wear a merkin. The filmmakers 'would set a camera up in the third row. There were dozens, scores of burlesque films in there, but, again, other than the scratch houses, they didn't get that much play. The GIs would go see them on a midnight show-a big thing Friday or Saturday night. For men only. That lasted into the late Fifties. ~Mom and Dad was the first really big sex-roadshow picture, but Hedy Lamarr in Ecstasy 119331 played a key part; it also 45

to maybe 700 or 800 people a Chicago, and I said, 'Rose, what if I could flops. The Prime Time [1957) was a week...suddenly, people were coming deliver some kind of cute one-reel shorts teenage thing; the girl who played the out of the woodwork! The theater with some breasts peeping out, a nipple teenager was about 30 and looked it. And managers said, 'My God, how long has flashing: She said, 'Oh, I could take all Living Jtenus [1958) was the Hugh this been going on?!' That one picture you could make!' I called other people I Hefner story. Harvey Korman, who was converted most of these so-called art knew on the burlesque circuit and they all just a young kid, came out of that one. houses into sex houses. When And God said the same thing. So when I got back Created Woman had run its course, they to Chicago I called Herschell. That was \"On Lucky Pierre, Herschell and I had found there were some other Bardot the basis of The Adventures of Lucky were the whole crew. Herschell directed pictures and immediately threw those in. Pierre [1959). and ran the camera, I ran the sound. We used Billy Falbo, a nightclub comic we \"The next great breakthrough was in \"Tom Dowd, who owned the principal got from the Morris office. You couldn't 1956, when a crazy German named nudie house in Chicago, the Capri get girls in Chicago except strippers, so I Walter Bibo made a film called Garden of Theater, could generate film rentals for went to a phony modeling agency in Eden. He shot it in Tampa in a nudist one of these crotch operas of $40,000 to Minneapolis. We brought the girls to colony, and this was the first American $70,000-and you could make them for Chicago for four days. So school was out; nudist colony picture in color. I think it $25,000. Tom was no fool. He said, 'You I think we made Lucky Pierre for a total ran about 65 minutes, and there may have guys come and make them for me: We cost of $9,000. been a total of 20 minutes of nudist made Daughter of the Sun [1960), colony footage in it. At that time, New Nature's Playmates [1962), B-O-/-N- \"Then we all started making the York State had one of the strictest N-N-G! [1962), Bell, Bare and Beautiful volleyball epics. Living in Chicago, you censorship systems in the country, [1963), Goldilocks and the Three Bares want to get out for the winter, so we administered by the Board of Regents, [1963). When Dowd got through playing always wanted to go to Miami to make which ran all education in New York. The pictures. We get to the nudist colony head guy's name was Dr. Louis Pesce. Herschel! Gordon Lewis. down there, and they want us to take off all our clothes. Fine. I look around for \"Bibo went before Pesce, and of course the pictures' first run, he'd turn them over all the gorgeous blondes, and-Jesus Garden of Eden was turned down-they to us for world distribution , and we got a Christ! - they look like they've been didn't even look at it. Bibo got a very fee and a percentage, in addition to our rotting in cold storage. We meet Miss smart lawyer, and this guy argued before fee for making them. Zelda, Queen of the Nudists, and this old the New York Supreme Court that broad's tits are hanging down to her belly nudism was a way of life and that there \"We had some competitors, too. Doris button. We sit down to dinner- Franco- was nothing lewd or licentious in this Wishman was a wonderful little old New American spaghetti on a day hotter than film; it was purely a documentary record. York Jewish grandmother type. Her films the engines of hell. All these old geezers And the New York State courts ordered were much worse than Herschell's and with missing teeth are sitting around Miss this picture passed. mine. She made one called Hideout in Zelda, so we had to salt the mines. the Sun: these two guys rob a bank and \"And school was out! Mr. Bibo forgot hide out in a nudist camp! And there was \"A lot of young people down there were that there were already a dozen nudist a family down in Florida, the Kaplans, working the hotels, so I called up Bunny camp pictures around, including Elysia, who made the funniest one in the world, Yeager, a cheesecake photographer, and which Bryan Foy made in 1933. So the Nude on the Moon, where all the broads she talked to this pimp known as the Pied minute New York passed Garden of have antennae. The square-up on most of Piper, who is serving a long sentence now Eden-bingo! Everybody is in with an old these nudist pictures used to be, 'This on a federal rap. He would lure underage nudist picture, and Times Square picture is approved by the American Sun- girls into this, so I said, 'Lock the son-of- becomes Nudist Square.\" bathing Association'-which actually a-bitch up and throwaway the key: And existed. So the Kaplans came out with this asshole came up with Rusty Allen, HERSCHELL this one and it said, 'This picture is ap- who was the star of Daughter ofthe Sun. proved by the American Moonbathing She was working as a hatcheck girl out on GORDON LEWIS Association: the Causeway. \"Herschell Gordon Lewis had a \"Herschell and I made a couple of \"Rusty was as pretty a girl as I've ever little company in Chicago that seen. And a real redhead, too; totally red. Her name was Estes, and somehow she . made industrial films and doc- was related to Billy Sol Estes. She was gay umentaries. Herschell and I were two and lived with the toughest bull dyke I minds that just worked. He is highly ever saw in my life, an Italian girl from educated. He had a command of the Brooklyn named Rae. Rae liked me. She English language that I envied and a wit talked like Little Caesar, and she said to that wouldn't stop. We were simpatico, me, 'Hey, Dave, youse know why I like we could trade one-liners. Until the final ya? You don't take no shots at my broad, blow-up I don't think we ever had an and I appreciate dat!' argument about anything. \"One night we finished shooting, and I \"Now, Rose La Rose, the famous took them both to dinner. Rae said, 'You stripper, and I were close friends, and as been so nice, you wanna come to the club she reached her fifties and could no where all the dykes hang out?' So Rae and longer strip, she took over the Town Hall Rusty both put on nice little dresses, and Burlesque in Toledo. I was there one day on a road trip for Modern Film out of I took them to dinner at the Foun- tainbleu. Afterward, Rae said, 'Rusty, I 46

gOlta go in the ladies' room.' Rusty said, had it typed up. the brains out, was shot right behind the 'Oh, Rae, don't change your clothes!' Rae \"I got in touch with some of myoid hotel. The manager set out chairs for the goes in and changes into her belt and guests so they could watch. The scene leather jacket with the skeleton on the carney buddies from the Ringling show, where the tongue gets ripped out was back, her studs and her chains, and Rusty who built the things we needed . In front done in one of the rooms. It was actually a says, 'Why'd you do that? You looked so of the Suez Motel, about· 118th and lamb's tongue. We used to send the kids nice!' And Rae says, 'You don't want me to Collins, where we were staying, was a big to the butcher shop to buy all the chicken go in that club and have them think I'm papier-mache sphinx, which we shot for entrails, and then we'd pour the pan- queer. do ya?' ~ our title treatment. We shot one day in a chromatic blood over it. The butcher warehouse with a temple set, for the didn't know what was going on! THE BLOOD TRILOGY blood sacrifices. The big scene where the girl is murdered on the beach, and the \"Plus, I found Connie Mason, who was \"They weren't all nudies. Hers- monster chops her head open and takes working in the Miami Playboy Club at the chell and I also made an almost forgotten picture called Scum The Monumental o/the Earlh [19631-in response to what Bob Cres e and the boys were doing out here in L.A. They were getting into what I call the 'roughies; things like The Animal /1963[, which was in black and white. The idea was to make them look realistic and gritty, like old-fashioned stag films. Her chell said, 'Give me a legitimate way to how bondage and torture.' The first thing that came to mind was Nazi slave camps, a direction we wanted to go in but which didn't develop tilll~ter. Then Stan Kohlberg, another Chicago exhibitor, said, 'Anytime you want to do something, I'll send you the money. \"So Herschell and I are hired, in 1963, by a couple of Florida burlesque opera- tors, carney guys, Leroy Griffith and Eli Jackson. Eli was married to Virginia 'Ding Dong' Bell-Miss 48-24-36-a stripper making $1,500 a week. They wanted to make a nudist film with Virginia, and they sent us the script for Bell, Bare and Beautiful, which they cast with all burlesque performers. The script was impossible. We shot this thing in Miami in three days. But Virginia-who turned our to be the most modest person of a1l- didn't want any pubic hair showing, or anything else. \"So I said to Herschell, 'We're not gonna make any money on this thing, with these clowns. Let's do something else while we're down here.' Well, Hers- chell had a friend who had developed pan-chromatic stage blood for a theater company. We took one of the kids in the cast, dug a hole in the beach, buried him with his head out, put that blood all around, and shot it-and it looked pretty good. I called Kohlberg, and he said, 'How much do you need?' and I said, '$24,000,' and he wired the money to the bank in Miami. The deal was, after Kohlberg gOt his 24 grand back, we'd split two ways-50 for him, 50 for us. We wrote Blood Feast in about one day- stayed up all night-and the next day we 47

51\"\";\"9 \"The second picture in the blood can make a picture a month: And I said, CONNIE MASON trilogy, Two Thousand Maniacs (1965), 'That's fine for you, but when the picture's Ployboy'• fo.ori'~ Playmate was more elaborate. As all this money finished you can do whatever you want- I THOMAS WOOD from Blood Feast was piling in, Herschell gotta work on distribution: It's the oldest was getting itchy to make another story in the world. Any time one partner JEFFREY ALLEN picture. Winter was coming, and Her- devotes himself entirely to distribution, schell had lived in the Deep South when he always feels that he's doing the bulk of LlV I NSSTON-JEROM~ EOEN he was a professor of English at 01' Miss. the work. Distribution is not fun. It's just I had seen Brigadoon in New York, so I like running any other wholesaling busi- time. So I said, 'How'd you like to be in a said, 'How about a town that comes to life ness. So Herschell went off on his own movie?' and she said, 'What, a nudie? once every hundred years to take revenge and made Moonshine Mountain (1964). That's the only kind of pictures they on the Yankees: Herschell wrote the make around here: Turned out she had thing, and we took over the entire town of \"The other argument was over quality. already been selected as a Playboy St. Cloud, Florida. I began to see a lot of X-rated stuff Playmate. I think we payed Connie $175 coming out of the coast from people like to play the lead. Herschell and I had an \"Two Thousand Maniacs cost about Bob Cresse, and I said, 'Herschell, I argument about her! I agreed with him $70,000. We had an actual crane shot and think these things have to be a little better that she could not act her way out of a crowd scenes, and we had to build a if we're going to continue to compete: He paper bag, but she was a pretty girl. device to drop boulders on people. At said, 'The theaters this stuff plays, they Herschell's wife at the time called my first the townspeople sorta said, 'What don't know any better: (To this day, if you wife and said I was having an affair with kinda picture is this?' But then when we read his interviews, Herschell still feels Connie-which I was not. I never took started spending money, they were this way. We have been talking about the broad to bed in my life. impressed. We took over 10 or 15 rooms making Blood Feast, II together, and in the hotel. I hired a local lady to answer Herschell feels we should just say, 'Here \"We shot Blood Feast in four and a half the phone in my room because I was still they are again, the gore masters: and do it days, took it back to Chicago, and started handling bookings on Blood Feast. The as crudely as we did the original. It could cutting it. The musical score was Her- whole town was unpaid extras; a lot of old work, but it would almost have to be a schell playing the organ, Larry Welling- people who couldn't afford to live in send-up, and send-ups scare the hell out ton on the kettle drum, and me on Miami. They didn't think it was horrible of me. The people who see these things triangle. The score was just recently at all. That shoot was the most fun of all real~y want to see them.) released as a record , if you can believe it. of 'em. And an easy edit, cut together When we had the footage all together I very smoothly. It never did the business \"Maybe Herschell was right all along, said, 'Herschell, God almighty! I don't Blood Feast did, even though it was a but when I shot my first film out here, know if we can do anything with this: But much better picture. The Defilers (1965), and took it back to we showed it to Stan Kohlberg, who said, New York, the reaction was, 'We didn't 'It's sensational! It's great! I'm gonna open \"Color Me Blood Red (1965) was the know these things could be that good: it at my drive-in in Peoria: one Herschell and I had the big blow-up Herschell went his own way and he got over. We shot it in Sarasota, in a house on into some legal trouble (I don't know \"I slapped the ads together real fast- 'A the beach. It was about an artist who much about it) [Franchise fraud-Ed.), WEIRD, GRISLY, ANCIENT RITE HOR- could only paint with blood. but I'm happy to say he's doing very well RENDOUSLY BROUGHT TO LIFE IN now. Although Herschell and I had some BLOOD COLOR'-and I had some special \"By then, Stan Kohlberg had a backer very bad times, it was more my fault than vomit bags made up. So Herschell and I named Sid Reich, who was merchandiz- his. He is one of the most interesting drive over with our wives to Peoria for the ing a new type of propane drive-in car people I've ever had the pleasure of opening. About five miles from the Bel heater for him, and Herschell kept knowing. I was very flattered recently Air Drive-In, there's a traffic jam and the saying, 'Jesus, with this guy involved we when he said that he would consider state cops are there. 'I'm the producer of getting back into the business if he could this picture: I say, and a cop says, 'I make another picture with me. We did oughtta put you in jail: And from then on, have fun together.\" ~ school was out! We made a quarter of a million dollars in the Carolinas-a terri- END OF PART ONE. See Next Issuefor the tory where a general release picture was conclusion of\"WAGES OF SIN~ lucky to do $100,000. Herschell and I were just giggling over the whole thing. Special thanks to my colleague Kevin Allman. society editor ofthe Los Angeles Herald Examiner, who sat in on most ofthe interview sessions and helped with the transcription. Research acknowl- edgment to Sinema: American Pornographic Films and the People Who Make Them, by Kenneth Turan and Stephen E Zito (Praeger, 1974), and Rei Search # \\0: Incredibly Strange Films, edited by V. IiIle . Andrea Juno. and Jim Morton (Re/Search. 1986). Frederic Rappapon contributed his exper- tise. Ajilmography appears next issue. 48