Diary of A Man Out of Time

What Movie Am I Watching?

2009-11-11T00:14:05Z

If you know what movie this screen capture is from, please
start a conversation about it (or not) ...

MooT Clue-in-the-Dialogue: "If you deny what you know, or what you are, or where you are, you deny the simplest part of being alive, and then you die."

Click here to reveal the title ...

Guilty Pleasures No. 109

2009-11-10T01:01:51Z

My second-favorite, unintentionally funny, sci-fi horror western of all time is "The Beast of Hollow Mountain" (1956), starring long-time MooT fave Patricia Medina as Sarita, the sultry love-interest of an ex-pat American cowpoke, Jimmy Ryan (Guy Madison).

The story (written by Willis O'Brien, the man who designed and animated the original "King Kong") concerns Ryan's discovery that the cattle that keep goin' missing from his Mexican ranch are actually hors d'oeuvres for a local T Rex (actually, a cranky Allosaurus).

Turns out the surly dino shacks up inside a hollow mountain (aptly named Hollow Mountain), and local legend has it that the creature emerges only during times of drought to forage for water, a few tons of steak tartar, and unlucky Mexicans. Is this where the term "peasant food" comes from?

Holy Human Chalupas, Batman!

To make matters worse, the village has been set up right next to a treacherous swamp, said to be cursed and full of deadly pools of quicksand, from which no one dumb enough to enter ever returns. Someone obviously missed the real estate seminar on location, location, location!

Sound like the cinematic equivalent of a hot, steaming cow-pie?

You might think so, but I encourage all MooT followers to give "Beast" a chance, It's not that bad, but is cheesy enough to inspire the full MST3K treatment.

Hell, it was filmed in "Nassour Regiscope." So, it's got that going for it. Now, if only I knew who Nassour Regiscope was.

Regiscope was actually a fancy name for replacement animation, essentially animation created by filming multiple, rigid models instead of one super-articulated puppet.

In this case, the models were all hollow clay figurines (fired in a kiln just like the kind you may have used in elementary school, if you went to elementary school before the Eighties), sculpted in various poses and painted to match a larger version, as well as a rubber suit some actor wore if closeups were needed.

I wonder if Art Clokey saw this, and Eureka'd "Claymation!"

Nassour refers to stop-motion guru Edward Nassour, who co-directed "Beast" with live-action director Ismael Rodríguez. It was he who supervised the painstaking process of shooting some 20 different clay miniatures of the Allosaurus to create the illusion of a running and jumping monster (these apparently sold for $20,000 just last month). Many scenes in "Beast" are combos of traditional stop-action and Regiscope footage of the clay minis. The result is a monster that looks like it's doing "The Jerk" — when it's not pulling a muscle, that is. Makes me wish story writer O'Brien had had more to do with animating the beast, since he did a far better job with the creature in "The Black Scorpion" (1957).

Early on, Nassour did try to lure investors by describing Regiscope as a "computer-controlled" process whereby "actuating impulses" were fed to a mechanical figure, thus "bringing it to life for the cameras." (So that's how they coaxed a performances out of Tab Hunter!) This *was* Hollywood, remember, and that was probably the 380th lie told in that town at a particular quarter-second during the Spring of '56.

"The Beast of Hollow Mountain" is actually a quite charming and colorful example of post-Korean War kiddie matinee fodder made for undemanding eight-year olds. It packs a lot of cheesy action into just 78 minutes, along with a lot of treacly exposition to get you to care about the characters.

Yet, oddly, it's superior in a dozen ways to the recent "Land of the Lost," mostly because of its way higher cute factor and blazing retro-cool color palette — if you're lucky enough to find a version that's not washed out, that is. The costumes and locations are the stuff widescreen Technicolor was made for, but most of the versions available on the Internet are dogged by poor focus and exaggerated color shifts caused by sloppy conversions. The original had its problems in both areas as well, since the composite process used was not sophisticated, and merging live and process shots in color — in CinemaScope no less — required extra care, which its budget and schedule wouldn't allow.

"Beast" has a good-natured self-awareness at its core, under the candy coating so to speak, that reminds me of the unpretentiously lovable "Son of Godzilla."

And every so often, scene after scene sans a beast, the camera pulls back and shows ... the mountain!

Hey, maybe this thing was supposed to be called "Mountain of the Hollow Beast"?

Madison — our hero — is as charismatic a piece of man-cake as you'll find in Fifties B's. Along with the voloptuous Medina, he carries this thing as "story" — for what that's worth.

Okay, so he does look a little *too* handsome and campy-debonair in his brightly colored Roy Rogers shirts. Just how did he recruit the troupe of muscular cow-hunks that comprise his fun-lovin', ass-slappin' team of ranch-hands? There's not a Wishbone, soup-in-the-beard-type in the lot. They all look like varnished extras in a Cyd Charisse number in an Old West musical.

Amazingly, Madison's out-ponced on "Beast's" virtual cock-walk by a band of dandy Mexican Vaqueros, whose elegant charro suits, hallucinatorily bright silk neckerchiefs, and exquisitely detailed sombreros evoke regalia designed during an all-night tequila jag with Mr. Blackwell and Liberace. (Maybe they shoulda called it "Brokeback Mountain" based on all the male plumage on display.)

And the camera pans the desolation of the landscape, revealing ... the mountain!

Medina is a walking dream that mixes Jane Russell with Faith Domerogue. I do so like my English-Spanish spitfires in bullet bras. More notable, though, is the fact that her character has more resourcefulness and independence than most period monster-movie eye candy we're used to. She's resilient, sassy, brassy, and tough. When she falls and twists her ankle when running from the beast (a given occurrence), she snarls at the beast. She's no whiner! No stock screaming for her.

Plus she calls Ryan "Señor Cheemy." How cute is that?

And then the shot widens, and we see ... "The Mountain."

The rather formulaic plot furnishes a vintage red herring in the form of evil Enrique Rios (Eduardo Noriega), a rival rancher-racketeer who is engaged to Medina. The jealous and possessive Rios has an ... ahem, a beef ... with Ryan over the fact that his wife-to-be is in deep smit with the fancy-pantsed gringo. Ryan, whose competitive male dander is instantly up, accuses Rios of poaching his cows. The two adversaries hitch up their chaps and snarl at each other, in a bizarre dueling male camel-toe moment that never explodes into proper Western fisticuffs.

Did I mention that there's an annoying brat too? I mean really annoying. I mean he makes Short Round from "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" seem like a well-behaved delight to be around.

Panchito is his name (I told you he was little). He's the son of the village drunk, Pancho, who ventures into the swamp and is never seen again. When you get a dose of the whiny Panchito, you'll chalk up his Dad's disappearance as suicide. Damn! There goes the comic relief.

They search high and low for Pancho (I've already signed Artie Lange for the part in the remake), which brings them to the edge of the swamp. The camera lingers on all that's left of him, his sombrero, floating atop a pool of quicksand, then tilts up to show ... the mountain!

The Jurassic rustler — who doesn't appear on screen until the film's final 20 minutes — has the longest, reddest tongue I've ever seen on film (except for footage of KISS in concert). Did it swallow a live octopus? But that's not the fakest-looking aspect of what is a pretty striking stop-motion creation (you must consider that the great Ray Harryhausen didn't have a hand in the production). That award goes to the obvious painted rubber boot feet used by an actor in an Allosaurus costume for certain shots.

Oddly, those goofy feet are the focus of numerous closeups — it's one of the few times the production values really veer into the cheesy Godzilla-Gumby end of the rubber creature scale. In those herky-jerky moments, I feel like we're watching a Groinpullasaurus with back spasms doing the Macarena.

The SFX team of Jack Rabin and Louis DeWitt ("Kronos" and "Atomic Submarine") aren't close to being in Harryhausen's league, but they give us a serviceable if unsophisticated monstrosity most of the time. If you're in the 3rd grade, that is.

"Hey, this Mexican McNugget is as tough as plastic ...
and the serape is utterly flavorless."

I do love this beast of the empty hillock regardless of all of my sarcastic comments. And I think it's a boy, actually. A young monster, just like the beast in "Cloverfield." He's just so mischievous. He's feisty. He causes a cattle stampede (actually, speeding up the camera does) — to, what, tenderize his meal? And each cow he catches is devoured with uncommon joy. He (thankfully) terrorizes little Panchito for shits and giggles. Smelling a trap, he clumsily moonwalks backwards out of a some swamp goo. He just doesn't like the feeling of mud between his toes.

When Sarita and Panchito hole up in a house, he runs around it woo-wooing like a dopey dervish before sticking his snout through the roof — just to drive them batty, I think. He slides down a dirt embankment on his prodigious butt and chases after a horse. He fights like a mental patient. Through it all he wiggles that tongue crazily and brays like a cross between a cougar and a hyena.

Turns out it's the shortest reign of terror of any movie beast ever, clocking in at around 14 minutes.

"TBoHM" certainly inspired Harryhausen's "The Valley of Gwangi" (1969), which turns out to be my favorite — and perhaps the best — Western monster movie ever made (and the full realization of O'Brien's tale). D'ya think Gila Golan, "Gwangi's" version of Sarita as I call her, has something to do with that?

Best line? When Ryan opines "You know, I've always believed that sombreros were the goofiest-looking hats ever invented."

Watch "Beast" here, in its entirety, as it resides in the public domain.

In the meantime, a few more pix of funky cool Medina might help explain my gushing ...

That hunk of man up there with Patty is Lex Barker; the still is from "Duel on the Mississippi" (1955), in which she played a man-eater named Lili Scarlet.

And where was this hot tamale born? Why, where else but Liverpool, England!

P.S. Patty turned 90 this past July.

Jesters of the Empire No. 1

2009-11-09T20:28:33Z

Peter Cook as George Spiggott (The Devil) in "Bedazzled" (1967).

Girls With Guns Cont'd

2009-11-09T16:37:08Z

Patricia Medina in "The Buckskin Lady" (1957).

What Movie Am I Watching?

2009-11-09T10:20:58Z

If you know what movie this screen capture is from, please
start a conversation about it (or not) ...

MooT Clue-in-the-Dialogue: "We operate on a first-name basis. My first name is Captain."

Click here to reveal the title ...

Where She Got It From No. 8

2009-11-08T23:05:59Z

Mother ...

Marlene Jobert

And daughter ...

Eva Green

Although Eva looks like she got more of "it."

What Movie Am I Watching?

2009-11-08T22:52:37Z

If you know what movie this screen capture is from, please
start a conversation about it (or not) ...

MooT Clue-in-the-Dialogue: "They feel no fear. Cortical nerve clusters show complete inactivity. They feel no pain. Concepts of morality are disengaged. They feel no regrets. No remorse."

Click here to reveal the title ...

Happy Birthday, Robert Strauss

2009-11-08T11:15:06Z

Bob was one of my favorite character actors. I loved his gravelly voice and that catcher's mitt of a face that had dockyard and dogface toughness written all over it.

Strauss (left) as "The Animal" with Robert Shawley (on table) in a scene
from the 1951 Broadway production of "Stalag-17." He reprised the role
in the 1953 film. Photo for LIFE Magazine by Peter Stackpole.

The Animal's real name was Stanislas Kasava (which I still use as an Internet alias from time to time), and fans of the movie will remember he had a major crush on pinup Betty Grable. When Harvey Lembeck dresses up as a girl for the POW's Christmas party, Strauss hallucinates that Lembeck is Betty and creeps Lembeck out when he takes his delusion a little too far.

In addition to "The Animal," he's best remembered by the MooT as Beer Barrel in "The Bridges at Toko-Ri" (1954), PFC Bernstein in "Attack" (1956), Black Frankie Udino in "I, Mobster" (1958), and Romeo Scragg in "Li'l Abner (1959). He was also the janitor in Marilyn Monroe's and Tom Ewell's apartment building in "The Seven Year Itch" (1955).

A quintessential "New York actor," Bob moved from Broadway into TV in the early Fifties, appearing in many shows emanating from Manhattan — things like "Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, "The Alcoa Hour," "Damon Runyon Theater," "The Eddie Cantor Comedy Theater," "The Ford Television Theatre," "The Colgate Comedy Hour," "The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse," "Cavalcade of America," and the "Schlitz Playhouse of Stars."

He appeared as a guest star in numerous TV shows in the Sixties.

Bob died in 1975.

Monthly Disclaimer

2009-11-06T19:48:04Z

All photos are used solely for the purpose of discussion and comment. These images are not intended for any commercial purpose. Credit, where known, is given. No copyright is implied or granted. Many are from my personal collection of movie production stills and lobby cards.

Got Wood? No. 11 in a Series

2009-11-06T13:20:51Z

This time, Ian Bannen does. Nuzzling Nat in "Penelope" (1966).

Word of the Day: Agua

2009-11-06T10:58:52Z

Stella Stevens (left, as if!) gets wet in a scene from "Rage" (1966).

Another one of Stel's numerous "Fallen Woman" roles, which she would bring to an apotheosis in "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" (1970).

I think the woman in the other barrel is Ariadna Welter, a Mexican actress of some repute. But if anyone knows for sure, comment to confirm or correct.

What Movie Am I Watching?

2009-11-06T10:49:23Z

If you know what movie this screen capture is from, please
start a conversation about it (or not) ...

MooT Clue-in-the-Dialogue: "Life is simple now. They just have to do what I say."

Click here to reveal the title ...

The Other Great Thing About "The Kremlin Letter" ...

2009-11-04T18:25:03Z

No! Not Patrick O'Neal!

I mean Bibi Andersson!

Ignore that human 2 by 4 O'Neal. I cheered when Gary Busey shot him in "Under Seige."

I was too lazy to Photoshop him out and me in of some of these production stills. What a wanker! (Say it like David St. Hubbins.)

Sex Education No. 208

2009-11-04T15:42:37Z

Senta Berger

As photographed by Bill Ray for LIFE Magazine, 1964.

What Movie Am I Watching?

2009-11-04T12:31:30Z

If you know what movie this screen capture is from, please
start a conversation about it (or not) ...

MooT Clue-in-the-Dialogue: "Well, you have one week to recover the letter. Seven days, Polakov."

Click here to reveal the title ...

Girls With Guns Cont'd

2009-11-03T17:07:09Z

Barbara Parkins

What a great shot of Babs as she appeared as safecracker B.A. in John Huston's noirish, seedy spy-story "The Kremlin Letter" (1970).

Which, I must report, is one of the best, twisty-original spy films you've never seen — and not merely because we get to see George Sanders gussied up as an old drag queen, and our old friend Paladin, Richard Boone, gone blonde.

"The Kremlin Letter" is cleverly scripted, intense and gritty, and exposes the cruelty, ruthlessness, and amorality inherent in the well-storied world of Cold War espionage. It's also as bizarrely a detailed Cold War caper movie as you'll find, which probably goes a long way to making it more likable than it might seem from some reviews, which are caustic to say the least.

The film does have its problems, including what seems to be a risky dialogue or dubbing experiment. Characters begin speaking their lines in Russian (sans English subtitles), and then switch to English mid-sentence. In "The Hunt for Red October," the actors began with a sentence in the foreign tongue, and then switched to English for good. But, if you're paying attention and have a brain bigger than a walnut, you'll get it.

Other reviewers find the story messy, dense, opaque, and convoluted — and chalk it all up to the amok auteurism that made for several critical misses in Huston's erratic period (anything he did after 1966, starting with wrecks like "The Bible: In the Beginning" and scraping bottom with 1969's "Sinful Davey"). Not me. I think the thing is brilliantly layered and supremely entertaining, not just a series of solid parts (as some have said) dogged by interstitial weaknesses that sum to something less. It is based on a book, for Chrissakes! Remember those? And this one was, as they say, labyrinthine. Noel Behn, who wrote the novel, wrote another solid, quirky spy novel rife with motley characters, "The Shadowboxer." They were the types of tales that you'd stay up late to finish.

I liken the underpinnings of a good espionage yarn to the convoluted office politics in even the smallest companies. Who does one trust absolutely? Who's really in the know about what's really going on? Who knows what's gonna happen before it does? Who pulls whose strings, and who's misdirecting who? What's the other hand doing when one hand is on your shoulder? Do we really know anything or anyone for sure? The "Wilderness of Mirrors" indeed. And it was subject matter that Huston was familiar with, from a World War II stint in the U.S. Army's Counterintelligence Corps (C-I-C).

The human-on-human chess-games going on inside the grander matches between nation-states are undeniably depressing and cynical, but that's what I look for in these more cerebro-glacial spy tales (as opposed to pure entertainments). Depictions of a cold, cruel, and senseless world running on relentless automatic — and how that plays out in the lives of the people caught up in it. Now, that's right up my espionage-lovin' alley.

Long, beautifully lensed story short, terminally ill spymaster Dean Jagger and grizzled operative Boone are two higher-level agents working for a "good" (read: Western) intelligence agency. They form a team of aging mercenaries and other pros to go into Russia to retrieve an "explosive" document whose very existence threatens the profitable status quo that the Cold War has provided for the Americans and Russians. The letter apparently implicates the United States in a plot to assist the Soviet Union in keeping nuclear brat Red China from becoming a world power. The old "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" factor at work. So we have cases of strange bedfellows all over the place. The U.S. in bed with Russia to screw over the Chinese, and the unlikely assemblage of male and female spooks who both screw, and screw over, each another with abandon.

Boone is the real star here. He's a downright evil creep (referred to only as Ward) capable of anything. How vexing that he's ostensibly on the side of "right."

The team — less than crack on the surface — consists of Patrick O'Neal, Nigel Green, Parkins, and Sanders. Linguistic genius O'Neal has a photographic memory and a death-wish, and both figure into the plot's gadget-free proceedings.

Parkins' character is a virgin as well as a safecracker. I suppose that's supposed to be ironic, a Huston trademark. B.A.'s father, another old spy code-named The Erector Set, has been training her for years to replace him. She's such an accomplished thief that she can pick any combination lock with her toes while lying on her back in a purple cat-burglin' leotard. We're left wondering what else she can do on her back, in or out of the leotard, and even why she's called B.A. Beautiful Ass comes to mind.

Speaking of toes, Huston must have a thing for 'em, because we also get a scene in which one Russian agent tongue-bathes the little piggies of another. Thankfully, the little piggies belong to Swedish actress Bibi Andersson. The tongue belongs to Max von Sydow.

And speaking of irony, casting a flat-liner like the always wooden O'Neal as the "hero" (Charles Rone) is one thing, but having everyone treat him as a Bondian cocksman, is another. I'm writing it off as another Huston in-joke. But make no mistake. This is not even remotely like a slick 007 opus. "The Kremlin Letter" is all about skullduggery, scumbaggery, and physical and psychological buggery. (James Coburn was Huston's first choice to play Rone. Odd ... I've always thought that O'Neal was a serviceable Coburn if you needed a version of Coburn with the charm sucked out of him.)

The singular device I love in this thing is the notion of "The Intriguingly Named Operative." Though perhaps not so imaginatively named as the characters in the Bond films, the names here are not as campy and punny as Pussy Galore and Plenty O'Toole. They're more bent, a little mysterious, and slightly reminiscent of the oblique or downright goofy style of naming that novelist Trevanian exercises in his novels ("The Eiger Sanction," "Shibumi"). In "TKL" we have such nifty, intriguing monikers as Highwayman (Jagger), The Whore (Green), The Erector Set (Niall MacGinnis), Sweet Alice (Micheál MacLiammóir), Puppet Maker (Raf Vallone), The Negress (a lesbian seductress-blackmailer, played by Vonetta McGee), and Warlock (Sanders). There's also The Ditto Machine, The Priest, and The Dentist.

I guarantee, however, that you will be startled by the image of an extremely ancient-looking George Sanders in a blonde wig and heavy false eyelashes playing "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" on the piano in a gay bar — at a time when mainstream moviegoers could imagine what a gay bar might be.

Rounding out the inspired casting is Orson Welles, who plays a Russian spymaster, and aforementioned Bergman fixtures von Sydow and Andersson, who captivate as a lovey-dovey couple that capitalizes the K in Kink in KGB. Andersson also puts the defect in defector — she plays her character Erika as such a beautifully damaged creature that I can just watch her scenes over and over again.

And, of course, we have a nice zig-zagging plot (faithful, almost scene by scene, to Behn's complex narrative), peopled by compulsive liars and bullshitters, and full of double-crosses and unexpected reveals and side-switching.

"TKL" also boasts a fantastic tagline ...

If you miss the first five minutes, you miss one suicide, two executions, one seduction, and the key to the plot.

File under "M" for Misunderstood Flop, but also under "S" for Subzero Spy Thrillers, in the same icy-amoral vein as "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" (1965), "The Quiller Memorandum" (1966), "The Double Man" (1967), "Night Flight From Moscow" (1973), Huston's own "The Mackintosh Man" (1973), and the pinnacle, "Winter Kills" (1979).

It was ahead of its time in more than just a few ways, including its harsh depiction of homosexuality, prostitution, and organized crime in Russia, which, in 1970, ran completely counter to the propagandized image of that country as a bastion of morality standing against the corrosive tide of Westernization.

Since filming in Moscow was impossible at the time, Finnish capital Helsinki was tarted up, and comes across as a filthier Leningrad, which makes for a quite convincing stand-in for Moscow.

"The Kremlin Letter" is an obvious-to-me influence on the darkly unpatriotic spy yarns to come. The lack of patriotism I'm referring to comes from their portrayals of U.S. agents as completely corruptible, callous, duplicitous, and sadistic. This turn towards nastiness came for me in "The Black Windmill" (1974) and "3 Days of the Condor" (1975).

More? Here ...

PostScript: Perky Parky also appeared in another MooT Fave the following year, "Puppet on a Chain" (1971), based on Alistair MacLean's thriller about the Dutch drug trade. That's the movie that etched the name Sven Bertil-Taube in my memory forever.

Questionable Screen Chemistry No. 4

2009-11-03T15:26:47Z

TV movies and variety show specials in the late Sixties and Seventies were known for their bizarre pairings of lead performers.

These odd, oil-n'-water couples generally consisted of one fading actor and one aging actress, both past their prime, or perhaps they were marginal talents to begin with.

Later, network shows like "Fantasy Island" and "The Love Boat" hoovered up most of the run-off from this ever-growing group of sad celebrities-in-eclipse, and continued the tradition of making the casting equivalent of liverwurst and jelly sandwiches.

Although sometimes things worked out (I have fond memories of a Mel Tillis–Susan Anton special), most of the time I was hard-pressed to imagine two people less interested in one another.

This is one of those times ... someone imagined sparks between that old skin diver Mike Nelson and a former Bond Girl. Who, I ask? Who?

Lloyd Bridges and Britt Ekland, as Karl and Jenny Wallenda, of the famous high-wire troupe,
in "The Great Wallendas", an NBC-TV movie telecast in 1978.

What Movie Am I Watching?

2009-11-03T10:23:56Z

If you know what movie this screen capture is from, please
start a conversation about it (or not) ...

MooT Clue-in-the-Dialogue: "June. My old man used to take us camping up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We'd put down a blanket and sleep out under the stars ... June."

Click here to reveal the title ...

Hollywood's Greatest Hippie Chicks No. 19

2009-11-02T14:02:02Z

Susan Strasberg as the hottest deaf-mute runaway ever, "Jenny,"
in Richard "Stunt Man" Rush's "Psych-Out" (1968).

What more can you ask for than ...

Suz herself, as angelic-cute as ever, in a "stranger in a strange land" hipsploitation tale about a flower girl searching for her disaffected artist brother in San Fran during the long, hot Summer of Love hangover. It started in '67, but ended when? Around 1970? The opening credit sequence itself is a superbly compressed picto-poem of that space and place, a groovy time capsule all snappily shot in and around Golden Gate Park. Dig the lingering shots of Suz's exquisite bone structure, those wide eyes, and raven tresses as she looks through the window of a passing Greyhound at all the Scott Mackenzie street-life. Such sun-stroked Polaroid Swinger imagery of a post-teenage dream to die for. Where have all the girls that I can share my contempt for the establishment with gone? Seems like only yesterday that Suz was picking watermelons with Bill Holden in "Picnic" ... and don't forget her in "Scream of Fear" as the sexiest wheelchair-bound babe ever.
The tagline ... "Taste a Moment of Madness ... Listen to the Sound of Purple." Hmmmm ... not now, I'm busy tasting Susan's mini-skirt and listening to my pockets tighten. Did I mention how cute she is in this thing? There's this one camera shot, looking down, of her looking up at Jack Nicholson, with whom she's falling crazy in love ... the look of pure adoration on her face is marvelous. Every guy should catch a chick lookin' at him like that at least once in their lives. Hopefully, around 9 o'clock tonight.
A world in which every letter "O" is tag-turned into a peace sign! Endearingly phantasmagorical! (As the Lucky Charms Leprechaun might say, after a few hits from my boiled-chimp-skull-from-'Nam bong, that is.)
There can never be too much footage of wet-noodle hippie-style dancing. Who deboned the youth of America? And who bought out the inventory of every Chess King store and head shop on the West Coast to outfit the extras? Hubcap medallions and secret belt-buckle pot pipes abound.
In-film performances by The Seeds and The Strawberry Alarm Clock (of "Incense and Peppermints" fame), who here get to play their underwhelming ode to psilocybin, "Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow." The Storybook provides the main theme song, which is played over the opening credits. It's a addicting little ditty cleverly called "The Pretty Song from Psych-Out." (Check out the soundtrack here, with a cred to Psychedelic Lion.)
Nicholson (as "Stoney"), Bruce Dern, and Dean Stockwell in the same movie, with pre-Easy Rider Jack sporting an obvious clip-on ponytail. Dern — as "The Seeker" — wears a surplus Apache wig that looks like it was found in the back of the "F-Troop" costume trailer, mistaken for a rodent, and beaten with a coal-shovel. He's fond of aphorisms like "God is alive and well in a sugar cube."
Dern is a sculptor as well as a seeker ... his medium would seem to be Reynolds Wrap.
The script ... it was originally entitled "The Love Children," and written by Nicholson, which producer Samuel Z. Arkoff retitled after test audiences thought they were about to see a movie about "bastards" (er ... children born out of wedlock).
Jack faking his way through something that sounds like "Purple Haze" played backwards, yet his fingers never move ... he's the leader of the band "Mumblin' Jim," a group on the verge of success whose guitars magically strum themselves. The rest of the band of non-players is played by Adam Roarke, Max "The Mack" Julien, and Henry Jaglom (the future director).
Stockwell as a love guru named Dave who lives free of desire in a shanty on the roof of a building ... free of desire, that is, except for Jenny. He too has an Hekawi wig and headband that makes him look like Tonto. When he gets run down by a car in the film's "drugs are bad" ending, just before he frugs off his mortal coil he gurgles to the camera: "Reality is a deadly place. I hope *this* trip is a good one." Seriously, would you follow anyone named Dave anywhere?
Numerous dialogue gems like "It's all just one big plastic hassle," and "the acid has curdled and made you sour."
The poster, which clues us into the fact that "These are the PLEASURE LOVERS! They’ll ask for a dime with hungry eyes ... but they’ll give you love — for NOTHING!" Sounds like a good deal to me.
A psychedelic outdoor mock funeral in which a chick ends up climbing into the coffin to make out with "the dearly departed" — bed-in, dead-in, what's the difference?
Mind-bending set dressing right out of Spencer Gifts — black lights, lava lamps, strobes, and color organs rule the day.
The amazing George Barris-built Voxmobile makes it onto one of the film's promotional lobby cards, but disappointingly is nowhere to be found in the final cut. Only the Sixties could produce a combination car and mobile amplifier, with enough inputs for 32 electric guitars ... for when that 8-track just won't do and you need a live band inside your vehicle. Instead, we get some Scooby Doo vans that look like they were painted by Earl Scheib on shrooms. (The car, BTW, was built to promote Vox guitars, and looks like a cross between the Monkeemobile and the Munsters' Drag-u-La.)
"The Thousand Shimmering Beads of Innocence" scene — a dreamy, lysergic hand-held wonder courtesy of cinematographer and racking-focus master László Kovacs, which is, unfortunately, slashed on the Midnite Movies DVD. Damn! I just can't get enough of an entire house covered in a giant spider web of love beads, with all that free love going on filmed through a quarter-inch of gauze caked with vaseline! Fook!
The Maldenless Streets of San Francisco before Zodiac Time ... where "Haight" was love, man. "It's okay. No one has to answer to anyone else — that's what it's all about." Right on!
The very idea of painting "LOVE" over "STOP" on stop signs everywhere. And painting other people with ultraviolet paint in a room lit by black light. Me? I was looking for the glowing spots on the carpet where the cat pissed.
Guys with Abe Lincoln mutton chops and dirty feet, and the inner knowledge that every inch of their colorful paisley comes with a dose of intense BO.
The anti-hippie "junkyard thugs" who seem locked in a cosmic struggle with the flower children. And note that automobile boneyard frequented by those crew-cutted rednecks (the scrapheap of disposable consumerism?) is juxtaposed with the plush crash-pads of the free-love club (a different kind of boneyard to be sure). And there's someone else called "The Man" that figures into these proceedings. And another group allied with "The Man" called "The Fuzz."
Great "STP" hallucinations (STP is super-strong LSD; no one was chugging that gasoline additive that Andy Granatelli used to hawk); Jaglom's character has a text-book acid freak-out and imagines all of the people trying to "talk him down" are zombies; then he tries to cut off his own hand with a circular saw because it's melting. Did I mention Jenny vomits motor oil and worms after guzzling some STP-laced punch? Where'd the writers buy these crummy hallucinations? From the writers over at "The Mod Squad"?
Enough counterculture fashion clichés to shake a Thai stick at, ranging from macramé headbands to bear-claw necklaces.

Sniff the patchouli!

You mighta guessed that PO is from American International Pictures ... say no more! But, would you be surprised if I told you the production was bank-rolled by Dick Clark Enterprises? Yes, that Dick ... Clark. You know. The World's Oldest Teenager. The host of "American Bandstand" and "New Year's Rockin' Eve." After AIP took all kindsa flak for what was perceived as the glorification of LSD use in 1967's "The Trip," Clark got on board to counter that impression; ergo, "Psych-Out" enters with a trendy bang, but nods out with a "drugs will kill you" whimper.

Sadly, though, I'm now reminded that sweet, sweet Susan died back in '99. What a heart-breaking story hers was. And that, ma' friends, is a post for another day.

Below are a few clips, but you can watch the whole thing on YouTube, starting with Part I.

Girls With Guns Cont'd

2009-11-02T13:19:54Z

Luciana Paluzzi

Ah, the old scratching under your bra-strap with a gun barrel move.

Hot!

And I've learned to expect nothing less from the actress who gave us a wonderful rendition of Fiona Volpe in "Thunderball."

What A Lovely Pair of Coconuts ...

2009-11-02T13:18:59Z

Mara Lane

The MooT Word of the Day Is ...

2009-11-02T13:15:35Z

diaphanous

Our word-model today is Elyse Knox.

What Movie Am I Watching?

2009-11-02T13:13:46Z

If you know what movie this screen capture is from, please
start a conversation about it (or not) ...

MooT Clue-in-the-Dialogue: "Now some men goes for women, and some men goes for boys. But my love's warm and beautiful, and makes a baah-ing noise."

Click here to reveal the title ...

What Movie Am I Watching?

2009-11-01T20:37:07Z

If you know what movie this screen capture is from, please
start a conversation about it (or not) ...

MooT Clue-in-the-Dialogue: "He killed 12 people, wounded 23 more, stole six cars — most of them Ferraris. Robbed eight banks, six supermarkets, four jewelery stores, and a candy shop. Six of the ones he killed he carved up with a butcher knife. Two of them were kids. He did all that in two weeks."

Click here to reveal the title ...

Ever Wake Up & Realized You'd Had A Dream About ...

2009-11-01T14:05:38Z

Jenny Agutter

Musta been some amazing deep-brain collision of images of her as "Jessica 6" in "Logan's Run," "Molly Prior" in "The Eagle Has Landed," "Nurse Alex Price" in "American Werewolf in London," "Girl" in "Walkabout," and "Jill Mason" in "Equus."

The dream?

I think she was helping me put some orthotics in my comfort shoes.