“Okay kid, here’s your chance to prove yourself to the producer. You do that and you’ve got it made in the stunt business.”
“I dunno, Drake. It doesn’t seem safe.”
“That’s very perceptive of you, Stevie. This stunt isn’t safe at all. In fact I’m pretty sure it was designed to kill whoever does it.”
“WHAT?”
“Turns out our producer is a big crybaby who thinks big fancy breasts are more important than the bonds of true friendship. I’m pretty sure he wants to murder me.”
An amusing exercise in which we pour salt on the wounds of those who temporarily achieved Hollywood glory, but were little prepared to keep it.
Just like Michael J. Pollard, last week’s inaugural victim of Hollywood caprice, George Kennedy is a true character actor. Beyond that though, all comparisons come to an immediate end. If Pollard was odd and quirky, Kennedy was solid and stalwart—a real man with a real face, real hairpiece, and real body.
The same year Pollard was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Bonnie and Clyde, Kennedy won for Cool Hand Luke. In it he played Dragline, a prison tough guy who initially gives Paul Newman’s titular character a hard time, until Luke’s unbreakable spirit inspires his respect and admiration. It was his biggest role in a 10-year career that started when he was hired to be a technical advisor on The Phil Silvers Show (aka Sgt. Bilko), which led to him becoming an extra, which led to his getting the occasional line, which led to bit parts in other TV shows and then eventually movies.
Despite his Oscar, Hollywood was reluctant to elevate him to leading man status. When it did it was in Guns of the Magnificent Seven, the third film in the franchise, and the first to not star any of the original Seven. Notable only for putting him onscreen with his cinematic brother-from-another-mother Joe Don Baker, Guns did little to turn Kennedy into a true star.
The 70s saw him starring in a short-lived, forgotten TV series (Sarge), all four entries in the laughable Airport franchise (making him the series' only consistent character), Earthquake, and another just as short-lived, just as forgotten TV series (The Blue Knight), but it was the 80s where things started getting rough. His B-Movie career actually started promisingly with 1981s Just Before Dawn, perhaps the best slasher film of the period not made by John Carpenter, but the same could not be said for Wacko, Chattanooga Choo-Choo, Bolero or Delta Force. Kennedy’s lowest point, though, came in 1988, courtesy of the same directorial genius who gave us this:
I am, of course, talking about:
Unavailable on DVD, Demonwarp is a movie I only saw once on late night TV sometime in the early 90s, yet it has never ceased to haunt my dreams. Directed by Emmett Alston, the film is a bizarre mish-mash of sub-genres, seemingly created by the careless fusion of several unrelated screenplays. It first appears to be a Bigfoot movie, albeit one made to feel like a slasher film (Alston had previously made New Years Evil) before transforming into a cult/alien conspiracy thriller in which a topless screaming Michelle Bauer is sacrificed on an altar to a century old extra-terrestrial/god.
That one scene with Bauer has never left my mind, but it pales in significance to another she appears in earlier in the movie. In it, she and a similarly busty friend (of the blonde variety) are introduced into the film out of nowhere and without context as two tanning enthusiasts who have come to the forest to bask in the sun’s golden rays. To do this requires they unburden themselves of their tops, which they do quickly and efficiently. But, unfortunately, the baring of their breasts attracts the Bigfoot creature who shows his distaste for their exhibitionism by graphically removing the blonde’s head from her body. Bauer screams, is captured by the creature, and then disappears from the narrative until it’s time to sacrifice her on the slab—making this another feature in which she spends more time onscreen naked than otherwise.
Kennedy’s role as the father of one of the moronic teenage characters is negligible and unnecessary, but enough to get his face featured on the poster and top-billed in the credits. It’s the dictionary definition of a paycheque performance.
Fortunately for Kennedy that same year he co-starred in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! a Zucker-Abrams-Zucker movie based on their very short-lived TV show. It and its two sequels brought him back into the limelight and probably remain the films for which he is best known (at least among my generation). When the franchise ended in 1994 he worked as consistently as any actor of retirement age should be expected to. He’s still at it today, at the considerable age of 86.
Chances are Kennedy had no idea he’d have such a tumultuous career 51 years earlier when he was 35 and guest-starring on a TV western called Sugerfoot. It would be the only time he worked with another future Oscar winner, who was a regular on the show for the third of its four seasons. She too would know the highest highs and the lowest lows, but unlike Kennedy, she has never experienced any significant late-career success.
I'm kinda resenting Steve Jobs right now. The man literally changed the world and I have been an Apple acolyte for as long as I can remember (I'm writing this on a MacBook, have an iMac at home, have owned no less than six iPods over the years, and am looking forward to pre-ordering the newest iPhone on Friday), but he had to die on the same day as an actor I loved, stealing even the nurgatory attention he might have otherwise recieved.
Charles Napier was one of the greats. An actor whose inherent masculinity was so abundent it crossed over to the side of self-parody. The first director to notice and take advantage of this was Russ Meyer, who used Napier to brilliant effect in several of his films. In SuperVixens he had his most memorable role as the crazed cop who kills Shari Eubank's SuperAngel when she mocks his inability to get it up in the presence of her "beautiful body".
A true working actor, Napier never failed to make an impression in the many, many projects he appeared in throughout his career. Not too long ago I watched what turned out to be his final performance in The Goods, an under-rated comedy where he was able to score laughs as an aging, racist car salesman. It once again reminded me how much he brought to the work he appeared in, and thinking about it now makes me realize how much I'm going to miss him.
Now lest you think the Costume Cavalcade is a "No Girls Allowed!" affair, let me set your mind at ease (or disturb you terribly) with suggestion number 2, which features the most unfairly overlooked horror icon in the slasher cannon.
Just a few days ago I brought up the Sleepaway Camp franchise in reference to Michael J. Pollard, and doing so reminded me that the thing people forget is that Angela, the film's transgendered murderer, isn't the film's most disturbing villain. No, that dishonour goes instead to the insane woman whose need for perfect order directly results in Angela's gender confusion and subsequent inability to stop herself from killing every asshole who crosses her path.
I am, of course, talking about:
Aunt Martha
Loonily portrayed by Desiree Gould, there's no question that Angela's aunt is just as batshit insane as her niece is. Given custody of Angela and her older brother after the tragic death of their father in a boating accident, Martha decides that having two boys, "Just won't do." and subsequently proceeds to raise the youngest of the two as a girl. This alone is disturbing enough, but Gould's performance is so mannered and bizarre that it goes even a level further into layers of insanity that are truly discomfiting to behold. Unfortunately, the film's final reveal of a naked Angela revealing her wanghood to all and sundry has a tendency to make people forget about everything that has preceded it.
But as great and compellingly odd a character as she is, does she have what it takes to make it as this year's Halloween costume of choice? Let's look at the numbers:
Difficulty to Create: 7/10 It all depends on the hat and where the Hell are going to find one that matches?
Obscurity: 7/10 Lots of folks have seen Sleepaway Camp, but the only thing they remember about it is the penis at the end. Only aficionados will recognize you without explanation.
Fun Factor: 7/10 Just watch that video and tell me that acting like that for a night wouldn't be a blast.
Potential "Sexy" Version: NA It's sexy already! (Or is that...just...me....)
Might Be Confused With: Parker Posey in one of the Christopher Guest movies.
Total Score: 4/10 I love Aunt Martha (as a villain, not a human being) and wish I could give her a much higher score, but the combination of obscurity and difficulty forces me to give her an unsatisfactory score of four out of ten.
Pity the poor movie buff at Halloween. Chances are you’ve been invited to a costume party and you want to showcase your geek bonafides by coming up with a perfect costume based on one of your favourite movies. Most people wouldn’t sweat it and would just throw on their roughest approximation of Indiana Jones, Han Solo, or a Ghostbuster and be done with it. But you’re here reading this, so you’re obviously not most people. You want to be different. To stand out. To be creative and original. But it’s such a fine line to walk. Be too original and you risk obscurity—dressing as a character from a movie no one else at the party has seen or even heard about. There's only so many times you can describe the plot of even your most cherished B-Movie before that shit just gets old.
That's why for the next few weeks I’m going to examine several potential costume choices and evaluate their pros and cons. My hope is that this public service gets people thinking about their Hollywood-inspired costume choices and prevents another tedious Halloween season filled with Freddys, Jasons, Batmans, Jokers, Slave Leias and the like.
Today we’re starting off with a costume whose main benefit is its ease of execution, and whose main disadvantage is that no normal person will know who you are and will likely find it extremely offensive. That said, if your friends are as geeky and odd as you are, it could prove to be a big hit.
From a 1980 movie starring Mrs. Ringo Starr and directed by the man who gave us Savage Streets I give you “Junior” Keller:
For those that have never seen The Unseen “Junior” is the severely disabled result of the incestuous union between Sydney Lassick and Lelia Goldoni, who try to keep him locked up in their basement. Unfortunately, their peace is invaded by a trio of female journalists who become stuck in the abandoned town in which they live. “Junior” decides to have some “fun” “playing” with them, with the result that everyone but Barbara Bach ends up dead.
To say that “Junior” represents a somewhat unfortunate depiction of the mentally and physically handicapped is something of an understatement. Essentially an adult with Down syndrome who’s been kept in a basement all his life, he’s more pathetic and sad than horrific, but that doesn’t stop director Danny Steinmann (who for some reason chose to have his name taken off this picture, but not Friday the 13th Part V) from portraying him as an actual movie monster—a creature to be feared rather than pitied. Perhaps the most bizarre thing about the character is that he’s portrayed by (an uncredited) Stephen Furst, who just two years earlier had starred as Flounder in Animal House, the biggest comedy of all time.
Hollywood sure is a bitch, isn’t she?
So let’s get to the costume numbers:
Difficulty to Create: 1/10 Throw on a dirty torn white T-shirt, a bag on your head, dirty white diapers, grab a worn out teddy bear, cover yourself in dirt and learn how to make your best “retard” face and you’re golden.
Obscurity: 8/10 True horror and B-Movie buffs might be able to figure it out, but no one else will have a clue.
Fun Factor: 7/10 Not only are you going to be the most comfortably clad person at the party, but you’ll also enjoy spending the whole night speaking only in unintelligible grunts and moans.
Potential "Sexy" Version (for the ladies): 10/10 Tighter T-shirt, thong "diaper", and it's all good.
Might Be Confused With: Sloth from The Goonies.
Total Score: 4.5/10 As comfortable and easy to throw together as this costume is, there’s no getting around the fact that you’re going to have tell everyone you meet the plot of a 1980 movie they have no interest in ever seeing.
Hollywood is a fickle mistress. One minute she’s a Brazilian supermodel who goes down on you in the middle of Spago and begs you to have a threesome with her even hotter Australian supermodel best friend, and then the next her lawyers are serving you a restraining order that says if you’re even on the same continent as her, the police are allowed to club you to death in front of your crying children.
And that’s how the pretty people get treated! It’s so much worse for the merely talented, who manage to win the celebrity lottery by being cast in the right role in the right movie at the right time. Oh, man, does Hollywood hate those assholes, especially if they’re unlucky enough to get nominated for an Oscar for their efforts. Sure they’ll give them a movie or two to star in, but once those movies-no-one-asked-for inevitably tank those poor bastards are lucky if their agent can get them an audition for a dog food commercial.
In need of interesting content, I’ve decided to occasionally mock these one-hit wonders by not only pointing them out, but also by singling out the lowest moment of their subsequent careers—the one film that well and truly should have driven them out of the business forever (but probably didn’t).
Tonight’s entry is one of the just plain oddest dudes to ever earn any attention from the Academy. The fact that he was eventually perfectly cast as Mr. Mxyptlk in the dreadful 80s Superboy syndicated TV show pretty much says it all.
A theatre and television actor who specialized in playing beatniks and children (everyone remembers that episode of Star Trek where he played the leader of a group of kids on a planet where going through puberty was fatal—he was 27 at the time), Pollard came to national attention when he was cast as C.W. Moss in Arthur Penn and Warren Beatty’s Bonnie & Clyde (producer/star Warren would get upset if I credited it solely to its director). As Moss, Pollard proved to be a unique and intriguing screen presence, which—combined with the critical and popular success of the film—resulted in a Best Supporting Actor nomination.
Despite being the clearest possible archetype of a “character actor”, Hollywood made a game attempt to allow him to carry some movies. He co-starred with Robert Redford in the period motorcycle drama Little Fauss and Big Halsey and played the title character in the very 70s revisionist western Dirty Little Billy. The failure of the last film, combined with his genuine oddness, quickly halted his trajectory and he pretty much disappeared for most of the 70s (the one decade you’d think would appreciate him the most), only to reappear in many terrible B-Movies and the occasional studio picture during the 80s and 90s. Whether in the hilariously misguided American Gothic, the charming Roxanne or blockbusters like Dick Tracy and Tango & Cash, he always played the same role—the really weird elfin guy.
Looking through his IMDb page there are a lot of low moments to choose from. I’ve already mentioned American Gothic, but it’s more weird than terrible. Fast Food is pretty miserable, but it has post-porn unbelievably hot era Traci Lords in it, so it too must be allowed to pass. I reviewed The Patriot for Flick Attack and thought it was horrible, but I now have no memory whatsoever of Pollard even being in it. Night Visitor is more bland than bad (which actually makes it that much harder to sit through) so that just leaves one clear choice for the lowest moment of Pollard’s post Oscar-nomination career. That’s right, folks:
Everyone remembers the original Sleepaway Camp. It’s the slasher classic where the killer turns out to be a twelve year-old girl with an enormous cock (spoiler). Much fewer people remember the two subsequent sequels, and if they do, it’s only because they starred Bruce Springsteen’s sister!
Having set the cinema world aflame with her role as the first Pat Benatar lookalike in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Pamela Springsteen was cast as the now adult version of the original film’s transgendered murderer. Unfortunately this didn’t lead to her achieving iconic horror franchise status, since the filmmakers (the same dude’s responsible for the above-mentioned Fast Food) decided to do something completely different that no one had ever done before and make a slasher movie that made fun of slasher movies! Even better, they did it twice!
Confused folks at the video store might have thought that the existence of Sleepaway Camp III indicated that there was a demand for the story to continue after Sleepaway Camp II, but the reality was that the filmmakers pulled a Salkind (look it up) and shot the two films back to back.
Truthfully it’s hard to tell which of the two are worse. Like all “funny” slasher movies, they are neither funny nor frightening, but Pollard’s only in the third one, so it doesn’t really matter. The sad thing is, he might very well be the best thing in it.
For shame, Sleepaway Camp III.
For shame.
Apparently Pollard’s still alive, but he hasn’t been up to much lately. Rob Zombie cast him in House of 1000 Corpses, which is just the sort of thing you’d expect Rob Zombie to do (he’s such a scamp!). As you probably, guessed Pollard never did take home that Oscar. He lost that year to George Kennedy, who won it for his memorable role in Cool Hand Luke—a great performance in a classic movie!
Considered the worst movie to ever win a Best Picture Oscar by many of the people who write for this blog, this Cecil B. DeMille circus drama is an insomniac’s nightmare—it’ll make you want to sleep more than anything else in the world, but will piss you off just enough to keep you awake.
Bet you didn’t know that Jesus was Swedish, did you? Long, boring and terrible, but still worth watching just to enjoy the hilariously inappropriate celebrity cameos. If you can’t quote John Wayne’s only line in this movie, you probably don't belong on this site.
This Jan Michael Vincent live action Disney flick actually isn’t that bad, but it turns out that there aren’t that many movies with the word “Greatest” in the title, so some unassuming film was bound to suffer. Life’s unfair sometimes. That said it’s the only movie of the four that’s so obscure I couldn’t find a decent image of the poster for it.
This biopic starring the legend himself is 100x better than Ali, but that says far more about how much Michael Mann fucked up one of the most compelling stories in American 20th century history than how good this flick is.
As you can see I've adopted a new strategy here at Vanity Fear (AKA Still The House of Glib until I get the banner changed) and instead of writing a new longer post every couple of weeks, have decided to contribute shorter daily posts instead. That way, experience has proven to me, leads to people actually visiting the site on occasion, which leads to me experiencing happiness, which leads to me not pressing the big red button the aliens gave me for when I could no longer justify the further existence of my destructive species.
But since I know some of you out there actually enjoyed my longer pieces I wanted to take the time to lead you to some I've recently written for another awesome blog, Paul Corupe's excellent Canuxploitation. It's not everyday you get to write for a website that actually coined a phrase, so I've been excited by the opportunity a random email I sent to Paul has afforded me. I've contributed three reviews and one amusing list thus far to Paul's site and I thought I'd link to them here for those of you who haven't yet confronted them in their natural habitat.
In this early 80s political thriller/ad-world satire, Lee Majors plays a character he never played before and never would again--the world's manliest copywriter.
Someone thought that ripping off Dumb and Dumber by recasting the leads with Pamela Anderson and Denise Richards was a surefire way to B.O. magic. My review explains why they were incredibly stupid for thinking this.
In this film, my least favourite female Prince protege cockteases an apeman until the creature just can't take it any more. This film is terrible, but that didn't keep me from admiring it.
Monday, October 10, 2011 at 6:00AM 
