So Wrong They're Right (1995)

Russ Forster’s own narration or onscreen introduction, not only offering a clever social commentary, but also giving a refreshingly personal touch to these diary-like narratives.

From 1990 to 2000, Russ Forster published the magazine “8 Track Mind”, for and about 8-Track tape enthusiasts.  The magazine received a warm response from people, having somewhat been validated in their particular fascination, and for the most part, having their own strain of pop culture recognized.  His film So Wrong They're Right is the result of his 1994 10,000 mile, $20,000 cross-country crusade to put faces to the names of those enthusiasts who supported his magazine in print, creating a document in film about people with a unique fascination.

At the start, one gets the impression that this assembly of 8-Track collectors has a more socio-political agenda.. Gen X Situationism, if you like.  Forster's  own narration introduces the film as “a statement of active outrage and rebellion from a group of people who have opted out of a disposable consumer culture laid out for them to embrace in the spirit of growth and progress.”  Or if you like, these people cling to the 8-Track, “the vanguard of the analog revolution”, out of protest against the “orchestrated demise” of one format, for the conglomerates to sell you back something you already had, however in a new format.

While I partially agree with this, perhaps the statements made by Phil Milstein, who also coined the film’s title, are more telling: referring to 8-Tracks as “the dumbest form of music… totally dumb and that’s what I love about them… big dumb and sweet.”  Because the sound quality may or may not be inferior to CD, a KA-CHUNK sound is heard in the middle of long songs as the tape continues to the next track, and people like Jeff Economy wonder “if this is the last time I’ll be able to hear this” before the cassette falls apart,  I think the film’s central question is why people will still hang on to obsolete formats. 

For instance, let us remember the boom of vinyl nostalgia right at the point in which CD’s became more affordable.  Will DVD and Blu-Ray be the next 8-track with the proliferation of Netflix? 

One remark in So Wrong They're Right resonates: people falsely believe that the new medium has the definitive catalog of anything ever released.  Quick, when did you last see Telly Savalas’ “Who Love’s Ya, Baby” on CD?  You may rightly ask, who would want to?  But uttering that statement is also to play into what is precisely a point of this movie:  anything seemingly throwaway is heartfelt by someone.

But it’s still even more surprising that a marketplace for this format still exists.  (Hmmm, maybe I’d better hang on to my pet rock.)  We see Sparks, Nevada enterpreneu Tim Hunter on the phone taking an order for Iron Butterfly’s “Heavy” on 8-Track, and even more elaborately, “Big Bucks’ Burnett in Texas telling us about his sale of “Never Mind the Bollocks” for 100 bucks.  And we have to admire his sensibility: Why listen to The Beatles for the fifty millionth time when you can listen to Tiny Tim on 8-Track?  It’s cultural snobbery in reverse.  When Corey Greenburg wrote something on 8-Tracks in the highbrow publication “Stereophile”, that further broke the stigma—suddenly it became all right for readers to talk about something as “common” as this medium.  But still, they’re not necessarily retro cool, as 8-Track DJ’s never have to worry about having their tapes stolen. 

So Wrong They're Right would be enjoyable alone for the aspects of people sharing the most offbeat selections in their collections, like the Rudy Ray Moore comedy albums, or Grand Funk’s “Shinin’ On” (with the 3D cover!)  We see how these cassettes work their therapeutic ways into their lives. Jeff Economy listened to Lou Reed’s “Berlin” one summer while he was depressed.  (In fact, Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground are staples in people’s collections here, which does make sense, because they’ve always spoken to the fringe dwellers.)  One humorous example features the band Gumball emanating the virtues of their great big mountain of 30,000 tapes as inspiration (and they always pack a bunch with them for spiritual purposes while on tour.)  Perhaps more revealing, one enthusiast drove down the street blaring Reed’s infamous “Metal Machine Music” (nothing but 80 minutes of feedback)- a more anarchist rebuttal to mainstream consumerism cannot be imagined.

But Russ Forster stretches the parameters even more.  Throughout the enthusiastic bubbling about “TNT” shaped tape players, we get little glimpses of their lives- how this hobby is a representative overall of their lifestyles   This film is perhaps less made for music-collecting enthusiasts, more for people in the fanzine nation (which of course makes sense because many of these subjects contributed to the magazine). The handmade title cards, introducing the next city or speaker, even the rubbery “home movie” kind of sound, and wonky easy listening music (which warbles like a broken cassette) all add to the “Do-It-Yourself” appeal- the mantra of the underground publishing world.  Indeed, the colourful people in this film mirror those who wander past my table at all these zine fairs.

And for some, these sequences may be over-indulgent.  For instance, Doug Von Hoppe’s “8-track delivery boy” sequence is like an educational film gone awry.  The scene of librarian-by-day, “ Swingin’ 8 Track Chick” Abgail Levine, all decked in her go-go boots, calling the Library of Congress to get “8 Track Mind” an ISSN number, is shot with all the lurid colour and cheesy lounge music of a late 60’s counterculture flick.  Yet, they do add an extra, unexpected dimension to the narrative- all representative ways in which people carve out a little corner for themselves in a corporately bland world.

Medicine Ball Caravan (1971)

Director: Francois Reichenbach

Writer: Christian Haren

Producer: Tom Donahue

Cinematographers: Serge Halsdorf, Christian Odasso, Jean-Michel Surel

Warner Brothers, 88min; color

Featuring:

B.B. King. Alice Cooper, Delaney and Bonnie, Doug Kershaw, The Youngbloods, David Peel and the Lower East Side, Stoneground w/ Sal Valentino

My next sentence is probably unique among any review of a rock and roll film.  You should probably read the book before seeing the movie.

It may be just as hard to see this 1971 Warner Brothers documentary, as it is to find Thomas King Forcade’s tell-all book, Caravan of Love and Money, which told what went on behind the scenes of the making of this film.  The Medicine Ball Caravan was a cross-country tour of 150 people, who would stop here and there to put on a rock and roll concert.  The whole point of the caravan, despite spreading peace love and good vibes on the way to their final destination (England- which is not shown in the movie), was to offer a counterpoint to Woodstock.  That 1969 festival is generally considered to be the signature event of the love generation, but still many felt that Woodstock was too commercial, especially once it became a franchise (with a record set and a movie), and did not give back to the counterculture which of course inspired the whole thing in the first place. Ironically, Warner Brothers, the same distributors of said record set and movie,  gave the green light to make this “anti-Woodstock”, which attempted to give an honest portrayal of what the love generation was really about.

Medicine Ball Caravan is unique among rockumentaries.  Monterey Pop, Wattstax and all the others would’ve happened even if the cameras weren’t rolling. Instead, the caravan was created for the camera.  In other words, it is a documentary in which fabrication is used to capture reality.  The end result however, is questionable in its truthfulness, as it features people who are way too conscious of the camera. Whether it’s cinema verité or reality TV, one fundamental is shared: the camera is too powerful a tool for people to ignore; it changes them- encourages them to be larger than life. Early on, we hear the Youngbloods do a rendition of the Beatles’ “Act Naturally” -a snarky aside to how all the hippies are supposed to be before the cameras.  (The song is even a mantra by some meditating longhairs).

Yet to understand all that subtext of the images between the musical acts, well, you have to read the book first.  For example, you find out that the supposedly candid moment of a hippie couple making love in the early morning is bogus because the man knew the camera was there, and his bravado was increased.  You also find out that the scene where everyone jumps in jello was a symbolic way of bringing all the people together.  Oh.  And perhaps most interesting, Sal Valentino, formerly of the Beau Brummels, is in a band called Stoneground, which is seen briefly in the movie, doing some Janis Joplin angst.   Thanks to the book, we are informed that this band is actually fictitious- it was formed solely for the movie, a house band for the caravan, and supposedly, their most inspired performances did not occur on film. 

What we get is a vague travelogue with musical numbers by B.B. King (doing a great “How Blue Can You Get”), Alice Cooper (before the horror show makeup, but still pretty wild), and finally, a bravura performance by East Side enfant terrible David Peel (the guy who released an album with the hilariously crass title “Have a Marijuana”), who provides the film some solely needed sparks. 

Otherwise, the movie’s drama is most potent in a sequence where the caravan happens upon a campus rife with protests of student radicals. The entourage is accused of exploiting their generation, whereas Peel counters that they don’t want this movie to be another Woodstock.  “The people we want to come are the shorthairs- long hairs stay away from this movie.”  This may be a naïve attempt at getting the establishment to understand the counterculture, but one can’t imagine anyone except a counterculture audience buying tickets for admission.

During this scene, someone offers the amazingly prophetic line: “We can’t get it together among ourselves, man”, which presages the self-destruction of the love generation.  If we are to believe what was written in Forcade’s account, the pretentious French director Francois Reichenbach always showed up too late to capture the authentic, unscripted moments on film, and had to ask people to recreate them.  And perhaps because the campus unrest was still in progress once the camera crew arrived, this sequence is the only one (other than the concert acts) that feels authentic.

For all of the filmmakers’ dissent towards Woodstock, this movie simply wouldn’t exist with it. It has the same structure, to say nothing of the same optical effects, as the filmmakers have no visual imagination of their own. So we see Doug Kershaw perform “Louisiana Man” in split screen, and Stoneground doing their thing with some acid-washed optical effects.-  they even employed the same editor to work on this movie (future Last Waltz director Martin Scorsese)! 

This is a dichotomy of a movie about the dichotomy of the love generation.  The filmmakers end up contradicting themselves just as much as their subject matter. Like the doomed generation captured on film, the people behind the camera can’t get it together amongst themselves either, man.

Turkish Star Trek (1973)

Director: Hulki Saner
Writer: Ferdi Merter
Saner Film; 72 min; color

Cast:
Sadri Alisik (Turist Ömer), Erol Amaç (Mr. Spak), Cemil Sahbaz (Kaptan Kirk),
Ferdi Merter (Doktor McCoy)

Filmmakers in the exploitation racket would shamelessly rip off one hot property with copycat films that would duplicate the success of that commodity for as long as they continued to sell tickets. However, of all the low-budget knockoffs “inspired” by a Western Hemisphere trend, none seem so blatant, or as delirious, as those produced in Turkey. Movies inspired by Star Wars or Superman would not only copy the storyline, they’d even incorporate some footage from the source material! It is small wonder that they are pure gold for collectors of video obscura. Even when they are presented without subtitles, these films delight fans with their wonderfully crass acts of plunder and cheesy production values.

Turkish Star Trek (original title: Turist Omer Uzay Yolunda) is not completely a riff on the classic Gene Roddenberry TV series, as the lead role is that of a vagabond-type character named Turist Omer, (played by Turkish character actor Sadri Alisik, who has played this role in at least four other films), who gets beamed up to the Enterprise in this instalment. His adventures (think “Topol in Space”) are sly spoofs on classic episodes of the Star Trek franchise.

The film begins with the traditional opening credits sequence from the TV series (tinted in red), with liberal use of the “Star Trek” theme, and the Enterprise flying by the screen, with “whoosh” sound intact.  The credits too are padded with some surf music playing over a slide of a spiral galaxy.

And wait till you see the interior of the Enterprise.  The ship looks like a factory boiler room with a bunch of silly video screens placed about!  In this version, their Captain Kirk appears rather prissy, as opposed to the usual skirt-chasing archetype who has a green girlfriend at every asteroid. He doesn’t overact as much, either.  Spock, or “Spak”, is played by an actor who wears these silly plastic ears which do not resemble his skin tones, and actually (wisely?) conveys more emotion than Leonard Nimoy ever did.  In Istanbul, Spock is a self-mocking existentialist!  Rock on!

Even though the version I watched is not presented with subtitles, the histrionics of the actors are enough that you do get a sense of the story.  First, we get a remake of the classic episode, “The Man Trap”, as the crew beams down to a planet where a scientist couple does research.  The wife, Nancy, is an old flame of Dr. McCoy. We learn that she can change her appearance at will- she lures a security guard away by looking like some steely blonde.  The man is found dead with a bunch of strange red sucker marks on his face.  (Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” is heard on the soundtrack!)

Oh yes. Before we continue, two important notes. First, in Turkish Star Trek, people beam down by having these squiggly lines drawn all over them followed by the camera going out of focus.  Secondly, it is the guys in the green shirts that always get killed!

Suddenly we cut to a wedding scene (!) in which a bunch of people in really bad striped pants swarm around this station wagon with “Just Married” accoutrements.  Our hero, Turist Omer is suddenly threatened by mob types brandishing guns to sign a marriage license.  During his overacting, Omer prays to Allah, and suddenly appears on the same rocky setting that our crew beamed down to.  He is captured by this guy wearing leopard underwear who walks around like a robot (accompanied by clunking noises on the soundtrack!).  Omer is brought to the scientist couple, and then Nancy suddenly starts sucking his fingers!  (This is where we begin to see her “salt vampire” motif , stolen from the classic Trek episode.)

The landing party members beam Omer back up the ship with them, and first the lecherous beast tries to come on to the women on the bridge.  Thankfully, the females in Turkish Star Trek are a lot more aggressive—they respond by pulling phasers on him.  (The phasers, by the way, look like vibrators with handles.)  Meanwhile, Nancy kills a scientist crewmember, assumes his identity and then gets beamed aboard the ship.  Once you have such an interesting creature, especially if you know the original episode, it is rather annoying not to really do anything with the menace.  Instead the plot spends more time with Omer bugging Spock, and playing with all the dials on the control boards.  (Where would any Star Trek rip-off be without one Dutch angle shot of the crew falling all over the place?)

However, Nancy, in the guise of said crewmember starts to hypnotize all the lovely yeoman ladies, runs his/her/its fingers across the victims’ faces, and then licks the fingertips afterwards.  The Roddenberry universe was never so kinky!  Anyway, they beam back down to the planet, and discover the dead body of the real crewman.  Then Kirk and Spock do battle with some bad monster wearing rubber mask, gloves and a flame retardant suit (!) Then our real creature appears in the guise of a temptress for Omer, even a Vulcan bride for Spock, which thusly allows the plot to diverge into an “Amok Time” rip-off, where this dime-store version of Kirk and Spock do battle with each other as part of the Vulcan marriage rite (dinner and a movie just don’t cut it on Spock’s planet).  Disappointingly, no “da-da-dada” Star Trek fight music is heard.

Nancy’s husband meanwhile attempts to thwart the crew by having the landing party do battle with a bunch of duplicates of that same weird robot we saw earlier.  Omer saves the day by screwing up the professor’s machine.  Apparently, the creature had beamed down in the guise of McCoy.  Then the real McCoy beams down, and we learn from the professor that his wife’s true visage is that of a vampire who draws salt out of its victims.  Then the creature attacks Kirk while Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” plays!!

Having almost saved the day, the crew beams Omer back down to where they found him —but not without the actor doing an endless pantomime in the transporter room, even padding screen time by kissing everyone on the cheek… Spock included.  Omer appears right back in the middle of his shotgun wedding.  He and everyone is stunned at his new physical attribute… Vulcan ears!  Suddenly, that gives him the idea that he can save the day by giving the mobsters the Vulcan neck pinch.  The end.  I have a sudden urge to watch Pink Floyd in Pompeii.

(adapted from an article in ESR #16 about Turkish rip-offs)

DVD Releases We Dig This Week (08.07.12)

In the past few months, we've been enamoured of the releases by Olive Films, who has been tenacious at putting out material never before seen on disk (let alone VHS). Olive has even more exciting releases down the turnpike, which will be discussed at the appropriate times. Right now, we're thrilled to report that our new favourite DVD company is releasing the 1981 horror fave, The Boogens, this week.

One of the most-requested titles for DVD or Blu-Ray release, this tale concerns some scaly monsters who are discovered in a mine during an excavation, and continue their bloodshed anew. This flick was given a positive notice by author Stephen King in his non-fiction book Danse Macabre, and similarly won the hearts of those who had seen it during the drive-in glory days. Despite that the Republic VHS is still floating around, and that it has shown a couple of times on TCM, yours truly sheepishly admits to never having seen it, especially since it features cutie pie Rebecca Balding.

Ms. Balding was a teenage crush of mine after having viewed her good work in 1980's Silent Scream, in which the pretty young starlet showed strong dramatic talent and a spunky personality. That film and The Boogens hinted that she could have had a strong career in the 1980's as a new scream queen- alas she faded from the spotlight. 

Also of interest, The Boogens was directed by James L. Conway, who helmed many of those Sunn Classics paranormal documentaries in the 1970s, including In Search of Noah's Ark and Beyond And Back. Mr. Conway and Ms. Balding (who are married) are among those featured in the feature-length audio commentary track. Usually, Olive releases are bare-bones disks (which is a minor quibble since we're fortunate to see the films at all), but the commentary track should be a welcome bonus, especially since a mystique has developed around this little picture.

Check it out!

The Secret of Wendel Samson (1966)

Among the most durable and entertaining films from the proliferation of American underground cinema in the 1960s is the prolific work of twin brothers, George and Mike Kuchar. Whether they worked separately or together, their valentines to kitsch (B-movies, pop culture) are often amazing home movie wonders. These deliberate odes to trash culture also succeed because of the seams that show: the post-sync sound, tacky props or effects, cartoonish acting, and incongruous locations further make one aware of the shortcomings of the very kind of camp that has inspired their work. Although perhaps George Kuchar's work is the better known, it is Mike whose films first appeared on DVD. What further separates Mike's movies from his brother's is that in addition to the campy feel, there is also a nightmarish tone to the work.

Both of these tones are found in The Secret of Wendel Samson, a 33-minute wonder that features avant-garde visual artist Red Grooms (best known for his pieces which comment on pop culture) as Wendel, who is first seen bound in a spider web made from rope.  He is “tangled up psychologically”, confused about his sexual identity- keeping his homosexual encounters secret from his girlfriend Margaret (played by Mimi Gross, daughter of artist Heim Gross).

Mike Kuchar typically began this film with only a germ of an idea (the spider web), after meeting Grooms at a party and deciding to make a movie with him.  Then he customarily built the movie as shooting went along.  What results is a fascinating psychological mood piece, which is for the most part, a straight melodrama, with only slight comic relief (as we chuckle at the Brechtian feel of it all, with rubbery post-sync sound which Kuchar dubbed months later), campy voiceovers (60s underground siren Donna Kerness is the voice of Margaret) and thunderous canned music overemphasizing the drama.  It is also a marvel of storytelling with its fragmented narrative, weaved much like a web itself, as the story is several splintered moments of time, being told at once, as though they were fleeting impulses from Wendel’s mind.

Wendel is walking with Margaret when he spies two mysterious guys looking at him from across the street.  After he has a fling with a man named Terry (an actor that Mike Kuchar befriended on the daily commute), and a bravura performance in front of the mirror rehearsing ways to break up with him, he leaves the man’s apartment (actually Heim Gross’ apartment, splendidly decorated with artifacts and paintings), while Margaret and the two mysterious guys secretly spy on him.

One fateful night, Wendel fibs about having to stay home to fix the kitchen shutters, and goes to have a homosexual tryst instead.  Margaret pays him a surprise visit, and (gasp) the shutters aren’t done!!   Wendel’s voiceover, “Something tells me she’s here for more than just a chitchat”, proves correct, as she spends an inordinate amount of time snooping around while he tries to paint.  (In this interesting moment, Kuchar had just asked Grooms to start painting anything- and he makes an off-the-cuff picture of a bird, which subconsciously is fitting, as it represents Wendel’s yearning to fly away, break free of this indecision.)

Alas at this point, Wendel can only woo Margaret in his dreams, as evidenced by the fantasy sequence, set in a restaurant, where the pair drinks wine, as he snuggles up to her.  (In an interesting real life doppelganger, Mimi actually had the hots for Red, but he wasn’t interested in her.)  Yet, it is also in dreams where Wendel finally has to confront the truth about his identity.

This is where the film pulls out all the stops (“…like a badly dubbed Hercules movie…”) for a completely outrageous sequence, (admittedly influenced by Orson Welles’ The Trial), as Wendel experiences a nightmare while Margaret’s demands for copulation ring on.  As Bob Cowan’s trippy electronic music enhances all the weirdness, the two mysterious men seen earlier (one played by brother George) put a Luger pistol to his head, and he is taken to a room filled with a bunch of creepy people.  Wendel is accosted by a middle-aged blond woman toting a Super Patrol laser gun, who strips down to a swimsuit, dances provocatively and demands “Make love to me”.  This woman is the starlet Floraine Connors, who would continue to act in Mike Kuchar’s movies for decades. (She is featured prominently in the director's hilarious The Craven Sluck, which is also featured on the same DVD as this film.  (By the director’s own confession, she is “still a glamour puss at 80”, even though she can only work for an hour or so before getting tired).

This fantasy woman shoots a laser beam at Wendel’s leg, and these sleazy voyeurs throw him onto the bed.  This moment makes an ironic comment on machism,  brilliantly underscored by the introduction of the “Superman” TV series on the soundtrack.  Our hero naturally fails at “manhood”, and is pinned against the wall while people shoot toy cowboy guns and plastic machine guns with sparklers.  In hilarious pixilation, bullet holes appear on the wall.  This sequence is made even weirder by Kuchar’s wobbly post-dubbing.  Then we end where the film begins, where the shots of Wendel tied up, walking the lonely streets, and a decisive moment on a field, all logically converge in its own neatly designed web.

(The Secret of Wendel Samson is featured on the Other Cinema DVD of Kuchar's Sins of the Fleshapoids. Although that underground favourite is the headliner, for my money, the true jewels of the disk are the bonus Mike Kuchar shorts: the film reviewed above, and The Craven Sluck)

Skip Tracer (1977)

Director, Writer, Editor: Zale Dalen

Producer: Laara Dalen

Cinematographer: Ron Orieux

Music: J Dodd, Linton Garner

Highlight Communications; 94min; color

Cast:

David Peterson (John Collins), John Lazarus (Brent Solverman)

Back when Canada’s tax shelter movement was in full bloom, which encouraged dentists and lawyers to make movies with a 100% tax write-off, there were still films that didn’t attempt to be ersatz Hollywood commercial product, which was the norm for tax shelter fare.  Take Skip Tracer. This unsettling work opened in 1977 to good reviews on the festival circuit, and then, like all Canadian cinema not done by David Cronenberg, didn’t play well at the box office and slipped away, only to be occasionally revived in second-run venues whenever they do a “Best of…” Canadian retrospective, or to be shown on Bravo (when they still showed films to honour their CanCon requirements, instead of “Flashpoint” reruns. It only once made a fleeting appearance on home video (released to VHS under the title Deadly Business).

Skip Tracer is guerilla filmmaking at its finest.  Shot in roughly a month in the fall of 1976 for $145, 000, this is a lean, mean movie that unsparingly depicts the dirty things people must do to make a living.  Our “hero” is John Collins, a repo man who is in a slump.  Usually he is the top man of the year in terms of successfully collecting from delinquent debtors.  During his downtime, he shows the ropes to an eager young man, Brent Solverman. Through Collins, we learn that the trick to surviving this business is to be heartless.

Collins is a quick-witted cynic who seldom finds anything cheerful in his life.  When I first saw this film, I wasn't too crazy about David Peterson's performance: I thought he was straining too hard- straining with too much emphasis in his dialogue. On repeated glances, however, I realize that this is probably how Collins would act- playing over the top to perhaps disguise his shallow interior. 

Sometimes Collins doesn’t practice what he preaches, as there are moments when he lets his humanity precede his call of duty. Perhaps it is for this reason that he is no longer is the top dog of the company; as a result he no longer has a private office, and his effects have been moved to the common, open concept section of the bureau. It seems that Collins is as much at war with the competition in the office as the people who owe money. Most tellingly, he gets stabbed by someone he attempts to collect from. 

The key to Skip Tracer’s success is its constant element of surprise. The identity of his assailant remains unsolved.  Even the resolution of his consistent efforts to collect from a recurrent foil named Pettigrew, is shocking.  We are mostly observing a few moments in Collins' life.  Therefore the film is as disjointed and uneven as life is, just as in the films of John Cassavetes or his greatest disciple, Rob Nilsson.  All scenes in the film serve less to tell a story than to witness different facets of his character.  A more conventional film would naturally have the identity of the stabber resolved, or Collins' new partner would come to his rescue (if anything, Brent practically disappears from the plot, just as life could have it).  This incident nonetheless is the catalyst for Collins’ change in character.

Not too long before this scene, Collins is subtly trying to tell a client to get a loan through a bank instead of through his company, because the man would get charged a higher interest rate by this firm.  After he recuperates from his wound, Collins adapts a "fuck you" approach to everyone: the clients who always give him the runaround, and the agency that is always screwing him.

This striking film is written, directed and edited by Zale Dalen and produced by his wife Laara.  The film is mostly shot in long, single takes, which add to the element of surprise. The frame is so wide that anything could intervene.  One memorable segment features Collins hammering away at a drain pipe that one of his deadbeats is hiding in.  It is so uncomfortable to watch, as there are no safe cutaways- you are being forced to watch just what Collins puts up with in his daily routine.  But also Dalen has a great eye for detail.  Occasionally he will cutaway to involuntary gestures that people make, so you can really tell what they're thinking behind all that tough talk.

Filmed in canvases muddy browns and heightened whites, Skip Tracer has a washed-out look that compliments the gritty material.  Shot in the less picturesque avenues of Vancouver, this film is also an impressionistic essay about the cramped world in which Collins lives.  His realm is a claustrophobic office space with papers a mile high, a tiny bachelor apartment, seedy strip joints, bungalows with crying kids and expensive TV sets, and flat undeveloped suburbia with fancy houses in which ten-cent millionaires hide.

Skip Tracer puts to shame most of what passes itself off as Independent cinema today.  In contemporary usage, this term has been homogenized enough so that films with commercial ambitions made by smaller studios fall under this banner. It also puts to shame the mitigating factors that affect much of our country’s artists. After the critical success of this film, Zale Dalen’s follow-up picture, The Hounds of Notre Dame, was poorly handled, and has largely remained unseen, even in the usual slipshod ways in which Canadians must stoop to view their own country’s cinema. Dalen’s resume of sporadic feature films includes the futuristic punk fantasy Terminal City Ricochet, and the unreleased ensemble romantic comedy, Passion. Like many of our filmmakers who remained north of the border, he had spent much of his career directing television, as the feature films got fewer and further between.

Nonetheless, Skip Tracer is a dark horse milestone in Canadian cinema. It is a movie that didn’t deserve its early retirement from the limelight, but still, because it is an unsettling piece that one never truly shakes off, it keeps re-entering our psyche for play dates on the revival circuit. However you can see this, Skip Tracer is essential viewing.

(updated from a piece in ESR #3)

Who Is Bozo Texino? (2006)

“I guess you could say there’s a mystery to it; maybe you want it to be a mystery.”

The best film I saw in all of 2006 was Who Is Bozo Texino, a mesmerizing 55-minute black-and-white documentary by Bill Daniel.  The novel premise, about the search for the identity of a railroad graffiti artist, would already make for an intriguing film, but this piece is also a stunning decoupage of sight and sound- such a dense montage of striking visual compositions, and impressionistic voiceover. It is such a feast of a movie that one can scarcely believe it runs less than an hour.

Viewing Bozo Texino is to get the feeling of entering a secret society, and in fact, even attending the screening for it at Cinecyle in the fall of 2006 gave it that impression.  I had only learned about the event by one posting on a website, but the rest of the clientele however already seemed to be “in the know”.  The sense of being inaugurated into a subterranean culture is perhaps the perfect kind of inertia needed to view this film, which is in pursuit of an elusive subject.  (This screening opened with Bill Daniel’s two-minute short subject, The Underground Square Dance Association- a hilarious piece about another subterranean culture, which set the tone.)

The concept of people “riding the rails”, hobos hopping a freight train to a new frontier, harkens images of the Depression Era, yet, as one narrator suggests, the tradition dates back to Jack London era, the 1890’s. This custom of hopping on a freight train has outlaw romanticism, with the hobo (not a “bum”, but a “hobo”) as the classical renegade figure, defying responsibility and authority by charting their own destination on the rails. And to think that this tradition continues today is perhaps surprising, but that is also part of the film’s appeal. Although a lot of the people who speak on film are leathery, weather-beaten old men, one gets the impression that this tradition will continue, with the brief shots of young hippies running to catch a boxcar.  Very early in the film, we understand why this romantic notion continues in today’s society, with a breathtaking shot of a hobo in a boxcar looking at a mountain range.  It prefaces one man’s later observation: “To be absent from society is to be on a higher plane.”

During the making of this 16-year project, Bill Daniel has also edited for Craig Baldwin’s equally dense, found-footage collages.  That pursuit has served him well here, as it is a rhythm-perfect piece of film that moves like music, with crescendos and well-placed diminuendos.  Seeing this flurry of images and sounds in such a fragmented frenzy, one gets the whirlwind feeling of teetering from a locomotive.  And in moments when the film slows to a Zen calm  (where a single shot will play for a couple of minutes), it gives one the impression of a good rest at the end of a journey.

What is more, this remarkable film implodes the conventions of documentary, with its multitude of narrative viewpoints.  Its huge ensemble of anonymous voices is presented in as much a dizzying, disorienting fashion as the visuals.  Despite that we see some railroad riders onscreen in several scenes, they still remain as strangers to us: as phantom-like as the plethora of signatures and drawings on the trains that we see throughout.  A conventional A&E documentary would probably have started right off the bat with some exposition on Bozo Texino, yet we first see a (fleeting) shot of Texino’s drawing at the ninth minute, and only at the eighteenth (nearly one third of the film has already elapsed) does someone first mention his name.  Since this hour-long film is a condensation of a lifetime on the tracks, it makes sense that we only gradually learn of the central character, just as someone gradually would hear these stories as legends after time spent riding on the trains.

While perhaps documentary-like in its structure of talking heads, narration and candid shots of people catching rides on trains, this film more succeeds in giving the viewer a synthesis of what it is like to hop a freight train to parts unknown.  Its disorienting approach also compliments the fuzzy narrative, as this subculture is full of people who assume others’ identities.  John Easley, for instance, has adopted the signature of an older man named Coltrane (whose trademark is an Old West scout with long hair and a huge moustache).  As such, we hear conflicting opinions as to who is really signing the trains as Bozo Texino.  Unlike the case of Citizen Kane, perhaps we really don’t want to know the revelation of this “Rosebud”.

Because this subculture is so steeped in legend and lore, solving this puzzle perhaps robs it of its mystical quality.  This journey to uncovering Texino’s identity is another metaphor for the train ride—the destination matters less than the road trip.  On screen and on paper, Who Is Bozo Texino gives us a representation of a long exhilarating ride, with its blurry narrative and blinding editing, as a lifetime of memory and folklore is distilled into one hour.  Even more, each of these fleeting images is a miniature work of art in itself.  With the meticulous attention to frame composition and rich contrasts, Bill Daniel ably validates this vanguard lifestyle as an overwhelming experience.

It is perhaps over-simplifying this bohemian existence by romanticizing its freedom from the clutches of modern society, but how this film was being shown to the audience adds to that image.  Avoiding the usual trappings (literally and figuratively) of the film festival circuit, Bill Daniel would travel the continent in his van to show the film: fitting for the “wandering spirit nature” of its subject.  My seeing it in a cold, wooden screening facility (perhaps not unlike a boxcar itself) one October night further added to the visceral experience of this truly remarkable movie.

While you should see Who Is Bozo Texino on a big screen somewhere, somehow… you can purchase DVD’s of the film at www.billdaniel.net.

(originally published in ESR #18)

The Outsider (1951) - The Snob (1958)

One of the best and most prolific studios who produced those educational films we used to watch in public school, was Centron, based in Lawrence Kansas. Founded in 1947 by Lawrence H. Wolf and Russell A. Mosser, Centron’s educational films often stood apart from other studios producing mental hygiene movies, because they approached the material visually, as though they were making commercial movies. They didn’t rely so much on stagnant devices like talking heads and narration to enlighten the student body. Rather, the message would be wrapped up in narrative stories, and despite the meager budgets, these ten-minute epics were often well-produced little movies.  It is for this reason that many of their films even today are still worth seeing for their engaging storytelling and visual ideas.

Mind you, the subtext of these pictures (like many educational films in general) emerge today as being rather corny for their really square protagonists, but in truth, it may be that these movies already felt that way when they were originally released back in the 1940s and 50s. As youth became more prominent with each new generation, Victorian values began to change, and the white picket fence mentality that pervades many mental hygiene films seemed too squeaky clean for its own good.

By far the most important genre in all of educational films is that of social engineering. It manifested the number one reason that educational films were ever made: FEAR! Further, the social engineering films cleverly illustrated their scare tactics by showing the dire consequences of deviating from the social norm. In other words, such things as not making the bed would ostracize one from the rest of society. These pictures are often troubling today for their implicit social conditioning and sexual stereotyping (witness how subservient females are to males).

ABOVE: The Outsider. Note the framing, the lighting and even the positioning of the American flag, to suggest how Susan Jane is ostracized from the rest of the status quo. 

Many of the social guidance films that still do feel contemporary are by Centron. Their pictures, produced in conjunction with Young America Films, would follow their formula of being well-produced mini-movies, but would also have an open, unresolved ending, which would force the class to discuss what they had seen, and perhaps what would-should happen next. Many classroom films felt like cheats for their lazy unresolved conclusions. The Young America – Centron films on the other hand, had psychologically complex stories that would offer much discussion afterwards.

Of that remarkable output, two of the best are The Outsider (1951) and The Snob (1958), both featuring the gifted young actress Vera Stough.

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The Outsider (1951)

Director: Arthur H. Wolf

Writer: Margaret Travis

Producers: Arthur H. Wolf and Russell A. Mosser

Cinematographer: Norman Steuwe

Centron; 12 min; B&W

Cast:

Vera Stough (Susan Jane)

This is one of the best social guidance films, because it actually invests a lot of investigation into why the character Susan Jane is such a social misfit.  This little girl tries to fit into the social norm, but her attempts at doing so often fail due to misunderstandings.  To her credit, she makes the effort of going to them instead of waiting for them to come to her, by sitting with all the kids at the ice cream parlour.  But when the other kids order an ice cream, instead of the root beer she ordered, she interprets this as a signal of non-acceptance and runs off crying.  Later, in a neat shot that is reminiscent of a split-screen effect, she overhears two girls in the hall talking about not inviting someone to Marcy’s party on Friday night, and mistakenly believes they are talking about her.  Marcy goes to Susan Jane’s house to personally invite her to the party, and our heroine vows to work hard to fit in, from proper dress to not talking about herself.  The film ends on the ambiguous note, of course, just before she is to leave for the party, and title cards ask the audience what they think the fate of Susan Jane would be, and if our group has ever known anyone like her… or for that matter, if we are like her. 

This film was surprisingly made with a lot of care, even with attention to neat visuals.  The final scene heavily uses mirrors to give double images of Susan Jane, causing one to reflect just before she makes that crucial moment to fit in to the norm.  Unlike many of the “What do you think?” school of educational filmmaking, The Outsider paints a complex portrait of a shy individual, and offers suggestions that both outside factors and even her own awkwardness are contributing to her being out of the in-crowd.  Someone wisely thought to include a scene of Marcy asking her friends if somehow they are responsible for the girl’s not being able to fit in.  This question of course is not answered in the scene—that is left open for the viewers to discuss later.

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The Snob (1958)

Director: Herk Harvey

Writer: Margaret Travis

Producers: Arthur H. Wolf and Russell A. Mosser

Cinematographer: Norman Steuwe

Centron; 12 min; B&W

Cast:

Vera Stough (Sarah), Harper Barnes (Ron), Henry Effertz, Brady Rubin, Bret Waller

The girl who played Susan Jane in The Outsider is back- older and still out of the social status quo. On a Friday night, Sarah sits in her bedroom working on algebra, while next door, Ron and his friends are having their traditional Friday night bash, with good food, and all kinds of groovy jazz playing.  Sarah doesn’t want anything to do with them, nor do they with her.  However, Ron’s mother politely reminds him of the fact that when he was little, Sarah was the one who looked after him while had a fever.  That was a time, though, before Sarah went to junior high and got all hoity-toity.

What is so striking about The Snob is its maturity.  The performances are all realistic and the filmmakers approach this project like they were making a Hollywood movie (there is some inventive camerawork, and beautiful lighting).  This would be all for naught though, if the writing wasn’t easily as strong.  Happily, we get commentary from both sides about Sarah’s demeanour.  Her obsession ambition to succeed in school thusly results in a lot of misunderstandings with her classmates.  She tries too hard to fit in—her entry for the design of the yearbook is turned down in favour of someone else (we are not told why, but it may be that the other person won because he is well-liked, even if his entry could possibly be inferior to Sarah’s).  This surprisingly complex film is a labyrinth of misunderstandings and imagined slights.  Sarah’s contempt for her classmates could likely result from a conflict that she and her adversaries have long forgotten.  Is she so obsessive at being perfect (which thusly turns off everyone else) in an effort to fit in, or because she really feels superior to her schoolmates?  Is her “Who needs them?” attitude to her classmates a result of past failed attempts to fit in?

This all comes to a head when she is finally invited to another of Ron’s Friday night’s bashes.   She locks horns with newly elected school president, and runs out crying.  The film ends on this moment- asking the viewer “What next?’’ But this ending is not a cop-out, because even this final act stems from misread signals of both Sarah and her classmates. 

This is an amazingly complex film, with enough food-for-thought to fill something four times its length. Sarah’s conversation with her father, where we finally see her Achilles heel, is quite memorable- he says little, but his facial reactions ream volumes about his inability to help or understand his daughter’s behaviour.

In keeping with Centron’s usual quality, the performances, the direction, even the editing, are all top-drawer. (Today this film is even more interesting as one of the many industrial films made by Herk Harvey, who attempted to break into the movie business with his sole feature film, the cult classic Carnival of Souls.) The excellent Vera Stough, who plays Sarah (and the immortal Susan Jane), apparently did go to Broadway, and had some bit parts in 70s movies and TV series, but her work here suggests that she could have gone to far greater things.  

You can view both films below...

The Outsider:

The Snob:

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains (1981)

Director: Lou Adler

Writer: Nancy Dowd

Producer: Joe Roth

Cinematographer: Bruce Surtees

Paramount; 87 min; color

Cast:

Diane Lane (Corinne Burns), Marin Kanter (Tracy Burns), Laura Dern (Jessica McNeil), Peter Donat (Harley Dennis), Christine Lahti (Aunt Linda), Ray Winstone (Billy), Paul Simonon (Johnny ), Steve Jones (Steve), Paul Cook (Danny)

Early on, two of our three pissed-off teenaged girls, eager to escape all their suburban angst, are viewing their slipshod vehicle to freedom.  One of the girls looks at this rickety tour bus, and exclaims, “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”  The other girl replies, “Who gives a shit?  It’s our way out of this fucking town.”  This short, hilarious moment pretty much encapsulates the sassy tone of Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains; and for that matter, it is symbolizes its characters’ willingness to tolerate any situation, if it gets them a bit further on their journey to be rock and roll stars.  That “go for broke” sentiment is total rock and roll, and made by someone who would surely know.

Music producer Lou Adler didn’t make very many movies, but his rare sojourns into cinema were the last words of the love generation (Monterey Pop, which he produced) and counterculture (Up In Smoke, which he directed).  And although his direction here is sometimes flat, this cutting look at the punk music scene (with clever barbs at consumerism and its ample share of nihilism) benefits from a dynamite screenplay by Rob Morton (actually a pseudonym for Nancy Dowd, who earned her credentials for sass by writing Slap Shot), and game performances by its interesting cast.

Paramount put this movie on the shelf for three years before they released it, and even then, carelessly only let it run for a few days in limited engagements. Rather, the film found its audience with late-night airings on cable in the 1980s. Its appeal (and authenticity) is also helped in no small amount by the casting of Steve Jones and Paul Simonon (both of The Clash) and Peter Cook (of the Sex Pistols) as musicians.

At its core,Ladies and Gentlemen is a punk version of A Star Is Born.  Diane Lane (who was 15 during the production of this movie) plays Corinne, the leader of an all-girl punk act called The Stains.  Their gimmick is prancing around in trashy red nylons, skunk hair-dos, and no bras, while uttering the statement: “We don’t put out.”  Of course they can’t sing worth shit. (In fact, Christine Lahti, who has a small scene as Corinne’s aunt, has the best voice of all, as she sings along to Carole King on the radio!)  But what the Stains lack in musical talent (young Laura Dern plays the bassist!) they sure make up for in attitude.  (And this is punk- it’s not about musicianship, right?) Somehow, they become the opening act for the group The Looters in their cross-country tour.  Corinne has a dalliance with this one musician from the group The Metal Corpses (played by Fee Waybill of The Tubes)- and when he is found dead from an overdose (an image that doesn’t soon leave you), this scandal thereby forces the attention onto Corinne and her outfit, and before long, The Looters are opening for them, as the shows are now populated by Corinne lookalikes with the two-tone hair, trashy leather and nylon, chanting “We don’t put out.”  These scenes give more empowerment to young females than the likes of Madonna ever dared, or even Tiffany for that matter.  (And for my money, even with all the trashy threads, and Traci Lords brat pouts, Corinne is actually a more positive role model for young ladies than those half naked pop divas of today.)

Finally, enough is enough- the Looters are being booed off-stage by all the Stains fans, and lead singer Billy, with whom Corinne has also had a fling, manages to get this arena full of Stains-heads to realize how much they’ve been had, as all the Stains have really done is turn individualism into a commodity.  It’s an amazing scene, really, and it is a moment even truer now, with the way the mainstream swallowed the independent scene and turned it into commercial bubblegum.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains is a very funny movie- and while it is a sharp satire, the laughter also evolves because it is so real and it pulsates with life.  But even if the movie is about pissed-off teenagers playing pissed-off rock and roll, it is also responsible.  With scenes of the guys in the Looters seemingly fighting each other every five minutes, the unforgettable shot of a rocker found with a needle in his arm, all captured by Bruce Surtees’ gritty cinematography, the world this movie creates is certainly no place for young girls.

As testament part of its troubled production history, because the original downbeat ending didn’t test well, Paramount had called the trio of young actresses back a couple of years after principal photography for a tacked-on upbeat conclusion, and I think the film is better for it. The finale is a brilliant MTV mock-up, in a startlingly prescient sequence featuring the Stains now all scrubbed up with poofy hair and those slutty long thin earrings, playing a brand of power pop, which turned the urgency and intensity of punk into K-Mart musak. This message is not lost in today’s climate of suburban mall pubescent yearning that Christina and company pawn off the racks at Walmart. The scene too is lent some authenticity because the girls had visibly aged in those two years, thus illustrating the time spent on their road to fame and fortune.

By the way, is the name The Stains a spin on the group The Wet Spots?

Edge of Hell (1956)

Writer-Producer-Director: Hugo Haas
Music: Ernest Gold
Cinematographer: Eddie Fitzgerald
Universal; 78 min; B&W

Cast:
Hugo Hass (Valentine), Francesca De Scaffa (Jenette), June Hammerstein (Helen), Jeffrey Stone (Freddie), John Vosper (Mr. Hawkins), Ken Carlton (Billy)

The Czech-born Hugo Haas (1901-1968) was a highly regarded actor-writer-director in his native land [one of his indigenous directorial efforts, Skeleton on Horseback (1937), received raves at a recent one-shot New York screening], who like many filmmakers fled to America when World War 2 broke out.  Because he didn’t have conventional movie idol looks, the brawny Haas was instead given supporting character parts, often as villains or exotic roles (namely in such classics as Douglas Sirk’s melodrama Summer Storm, or the 1950 adventure film King Solomon’s Mines).  As the 1950’s began, Hugo Haas instead turned his attention to writing, producing, directing and co-starring in B-budgeted potboilers.  The tantalizing titles of these films evoke those of trashy drugstore paperbacks, or at least the magazines at the checkouts (The Other Woman; Pickup; One Girl’s Confession; Bait).  According to his fellow countrymen, his foray into such sensationalist fare, with tawdry budgets and lurid plots, was a long way from his work in his native land.  Also, because his work has been out of proper circulation for decades, it has been largely misrepresented as camp, or “so bad they’re good”, ironically due to the very scraps of cult film writings have kept his name alive for new generations.

One could call Hugo Haas a B-level Orson Welles: both would appear before and behind the camera in their pet projects and make the best with whatever resources they had.  Many filmmakers have successfully created an identifiable body of work within B-budgeted genre fare.  In truth, Hugo Haas’ films lack the innovative cinematic devices of poverty row auteur Edgar G. Ulmer, or for that matter, even the spacey literary visions of Edward D. Wood (to whom Haas has sometimes stupidly been compared by so-called cult film writers who should know better).  Yet they do have a unique personality: these modest pictures somehow belie their tawdry, lurid elements and become fascinating morality plays with surprising turns of redemption, sentimentality, and old world values.

The major criticism of Haas’ films is however well founded.  The writer-director would often cast himself in as the unlikely lead, who would have a doomed affair with a deceitful blonde woman who often had a young beau on a string to form a torrid love triangle.  And after seeing several of his films in a short time period, this formula becomes tiresome.  He would most commonly hire Cleo Moore as the female lead, but each of the lead actresses in his Hollywood epics is typically given ingénue roles taken under the wings of Haas’ own characters, suggesting a Svengali-Trilby plot device that further aggrandizes his own roles.  (To his credit though, Haas always gave good performances.)

Hugo Haas never shied away from outrageous symbols or heavy-handedness to make his point- and one of the definitive examples of that is in the deceptively titled Edge of Hell (1956), which may be the masterpiece of his thirteen American films as director.  It is a departure from his usual “deceitful femme fatale” formula: a Damon Runyon-esque fable that is by turns hilarious and tragic, culminating into a finale, which is outrageous, but not logically wrong.

Haas stars as Valentine (rhymes with “teen”), a vagrant who lives in the basement of an apartment house, and makes a meager living by performing on street corners with his dog Flip, and always within one step ahead of the law.  Like many of Haas’ characters, Valentine has fallen from the grace of his former glory days: he was once an actor and vaudevillian.  As the story progresses, he redeems himself upon being hired to perform with his dog at a child’s birthday party in the estate of wealthy Mr. Hawkins, arranged by Valentine’s neighbour Helen through her chauffeur boyfriend Freddie.  The refined Hawkins takes an instant liking to the earthy Valentine.  A delightful sequence in which the tramp performer entertains Hawkins with stories while the men share cigars and drinks is reminiscent of the moments in Chaplin’s City Lights (1931), where the Little Tramp is invited out by a drunk millionaire.  Thankfully, there is no scene where Valentine is turned out on his ear.  However, Hawkins exercises his rich person’s belief that money can buy anything when he offers an absurd amount of money to purchase Flip, since his kid won’t stop crying about wanting the dog.  Of course, Valentine turns down the proposition.  With the money that he made from the birthday party engagement, however, Valentine decides to share his wealth by throwing a party in his basement flat, in a truly wonderful scene that recalls the Frank Capra films of another era.  Indeed, the sentimental movies that Haas would make in the twilight of his career would seem out of the time in which they were made- more married to the tradition of 40s programmers than those of the late 1950’s.

However, I doubt that even Capra had concocted such a fascinating collusion of social class than this affair.  Throughout the film, Valentine’s hobo friends who live under the bridge are seen as aristocrats in tattered clothing.  They discuss their panhandling earnings in a patter similar to tycoons’ discussing stocks.  It is a joy to see these disparate characters thrown together in this party sequence—even the swarthy characters, like the slinky French girl Jenette and her shifty boyfriend Billy are equally welcome to share in Valentine’s good fortune.  Even at this soiree, the tramps (doubling as doormen) talk business like oil magnates, while the others drink and dance to phonograph records.  Still, the jibes against power and capital pervade the conversation.  (“Are you proud of your grandson?”  “He could be worse- he could be a politician.”)

Up until this moment, one wonders why the film is called Edge of Hell.  The title is justly earned after this wonderful scene, as the movie quickly changes in tone (even the overall look of the film, shot by Eddie Fitzgerald, becomes darker).  Some time has passed since the party, and we learn that Valentine has asthma (ironically, Hugo Haas would die of complications with asthma in 1968), and hasn’t been able to earn money on the streets.  He is eventually forced out of his home for non-payment of rent, and takes residence under the bridge with his hobo friends.  Meanwhile, Flip becomes ill, and Valentine realizes he is no longer able to take care of the dog properly, so he reconsiders selling the canine to Hawkins.  However, since Valentine is so desperate to get Flip a good home, he leaves with whatever small amount of money the butler had on hand at the moment.  Once Billy discovers that Valentine has sold the dog (knowing that he was once offered a tidy sum for Flip), he assumes that Valentine is loaded with money, and plots to rob him.  Helen and Jenette learn of his plan, and race to save Valentine in time.

ABOVE: Hugo Haas, June Hammerstein

The progression from light-hearted whimsy to tragedy is expertly maintained, culminating into a climax that is truly heartpounding.  Throughout the film, Valentine often associates his panhandling routines with acting.  Even in his final moments, he utters: “Don’t cry darling, I’ve been an old ham all my life; what can be greater for an actor than a death scene, don’t spoil it”.  The film however ends on an outrageous turn, smacking of “writer’s convenience” that would cause uproar in Screenwriting 101, as Valentine and Flip die at exactly the same moment.  While obviously contrived, this moment summarizes how Valentine and Flip are meant to be together for eternity.  Further still, Haas adds a bizarre finale, in which the man and his dog appear in front of a starry background, with liberal use of dry ice in the frame.  “Lord, can I show you some tricks?”  Roll of thunder. “Eternal life contract with no options.”  The background lights up, the music swells, THE END.

Haas was never so blatant with his spiritual overtones.  His supporters and detractors alike would have to agree, upon viewing this finale, that Hugo Haas was absolutely fearless in his pursuits.  Not only was he successful in making commercially viable movies while still filling them with his personal themes, no device was too heavy-handed enough to communicate his ideas.

Edge of Hell charts the path the Haas would take in the latter half of his career. He would gradually progress from noirish melodrama into more sentimental projects: Born to Be Loved (1959) and Paradise Alley (1962) are old-fashioned delights that deserve posts of their own. Hugo Haas would return to Europe and occasionally appear on television. Apparently, his star never diminished in Czechoslovakia: the works he made in his homeland during the 1930’s still draw an audience whenever they are played.

His Hollywood filmmaking career, however, is all but forgotten, and if one were to believe historians, justly so. Because Hugo Haas’ work has been out of circulation for so many years (save for scattered television play dates), a lot of misconceptions about his work have grown, and the inability to see his work in proper channels has allowed its unfairly negative reputation to grow.

In this age of information, it is astonishing how much Hugo Haas continues to be out of the public eye.  If one allows oneself to look beyond the poor production values, there is a genuine personality and richness to be found in his art.  Then as now, with so many movies being anonymously cranked out on the assembly line, Hugo Haas succeeded in being an auteur in the most subterranean antechamber of the Hollywood studio system.  Imperfect though they may be, the American films of Hugo Haas are worthy of re-discovery.

(Note: the above review is excerpted and abridged from an article on Hugo Haas, reviewing twelve of his American films, appearing in ESR #23, which is available at our store.)