Day 16 Rock ‘n’ Roll Miscreants: Give some screen time to the punks and/or metal heads (and Roger Wilson gave us a two-fer: for it’s all about the watch options)

Confessions of a Fan

Ask any male teenager haunting the racks of video stores in the ‘80s who their two favorite actresses were—this writer included—and the answer inevitably comes back: Diane Franklin and Jill Schoelen. No matter how good or bad the movie: you saw either of their names on the box, you rented the flick.

Chiller, Cutting Class, Popcorn, Rich Girl, and The Stepfather  for Jill Schoelen—check.

Amityville II: The Possession, Better Off Dead, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, The Last American Virgin,  and Terrorvision for Diane Franklin—check.

And the subject of this Scarecrow Challenge review, Roger Wilson, hit casting gold by being cast with both of them in Thunder Alley and Second Time Lucky. It’s been many, many years Roger, and we, the now low testosterone, hair-thinned curmudgeons of the VHS and vinyl epoch, continue to worship you in a Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar-tribute. We bow to you before the altar of the stage of The Palace, the faux-Phoenix, Arizona, rock club where you showed the world your rock ‘n’ roll “balbricks.” You are worthy, for you rawketh our analog, teenaged memories.

Roger Wilson: A Life on Record and Film

Born in New Orleans, on October 8, 1956, actor Wilson came to notice at the age of 25 in his first starring role as “Mickey” in the hugely successful Animal House-inspired comedies Porky’s (1981) and Porky’s II: The Next Day (1983).

As with Lane Caudell (with his own rock flick, Hanging on a Star), Kim Milford (with his rock flick, Song of the Succubus), and Rick Springfield (a rock star in the bomb Hard to Hold) before him, Wilson was an aspiring and accomplished rock ‘n’ roller who fronted a band called Num for several years. It was through his acting endeavors that Wilson was able to get two of his written/performed songs, “This Time” and “Radioactive Tears,” on the soundtrack for the obscure and rare New Zealand-shot Second Time Lucky (1984), an “Adam and Eve” rock musical-comedy in which he co-starred with our teenaged dream queen—Diane Franklin. Then writer-director J.S Cardone gave Roger’s musical skills a spotlight in Thunder Alley, which co-starred the soon-to-be girlfriend of Brad Pitt: Jill Schoelen. (Pitt and Schoelen became engaged after meeting on the set of a pre-stardom Pitt flick, the 1989 slasher romp, Cutting Class. The story of how Jill and Brad split before getting married is epic.)

A reformed rock ‘n’ roller who spent several years touring with rock bands in the early ‘70s, Cardone made a huge splash on the burgeoning home video market with his debut film, the 1982 slasher “video nasty” The Slayer—a film so “nasty” that it was banned from distribution in the land that loves-to-ban anything entertaining: the United Kingdom (see it on B&S Movies Exploring: Video Nasties Section 2 List). Cardone then hit his career peak in the early ‘90s through his association with Charles Band’s Full Moon Pictures. For us reformed teen denizens stumbling through our twenties in the pre-dawn years of the grunge era, we rented everything with a Full Moon logo on it—and with J.S Cardone’s name front and center on Shadowzone and Crash and Burn (both 1990), it was a no brainer: there was entertainment to be had.

After Cardone made a bloody splash in the post-Halloween slasher market and proved he could turn out economical, quality product, he was able to secure financing for his second film—a personal pet-project that drew from his early ‘70s band experiences.

So, in the glut of rock ‘n’ roll films permeating the cable transmission waves and video store shelves, with the likes of such rock ‘n’ roll classics as Eddie & the Cruisers (1980), Ladies and Gentleman: The Fabulous Stains (1981) and Streets of Fire (1984) (a “punk rock” Diane Lane two-fer?!), and Scenes from the Goldmine (1987; Catherine Mary Stewart from Night of the Comet!), there was Cardone’s 1985 rock ‘n’ roll love letter: Thunder Alley. And he cast Roger Wilson as; it seems, to be the onscreen pseudo-version of his younger Cardone-rock ‘n’ roll self.

Sadly, there’s no DVD version of Thunder Alley with an audio commentary to learn the backstory of Cardone’s hungry rock ‘n’ roll years. This writer ventures that Cardone made connections during those times and knew Surgical Steel’s Jim Keeler and Jeff Martin, Canadian hitmaker Gary O’Conner, and Shooting Star’s Gary West and Van McLain—and brought them onto the project to craft the music for the film’s faux band fronted by Roger Wilson: Magic.

Phoenix, Arizona’s Surgical Steel—where the film was shot (using some of the same locations as The Wraith and Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man)—appear in the film as themselves, as the “biggest band in town” and Magic’s main competition. In real life, they were; but as with their critically acclaimed, hometown brethren, Icon, a Quiet Riot rise-to-stardom wasn’t meant to be for the ‘Steel. The film spotlighted their songs “Surrender” and “Gimme Back My Heart.”

In addition to casting Roger Wilson, Cardone provided ex-bubblegum teen-idol Leif Garrett with his first gritty “adult” roll as the egotistical-insecure “Skip” (we wonder who Cardone’s “model” was). Garrett not only turns in a wonderful performance as an actor—but does a stellar job on lead vocals singing “Do You Feel Alright,” which previously appear on Shooting Star’s third album, III Wishes (July 1982). Other songs expertly done by Garrett (take the overly critical bubblegum out of your ears, Garrett really can sing) are “Just Another Pretty Boy,” written by Gary O’Connor (who provided “Back Where You Belong” to 38 Special), and “Danger, Danger” by Frankie Miller (revered British singer from Jude with Robin Trower).

However, the real star of this show was Roger Wilson. Although Roger is an accomplished guitarist in his own right, and proves those skills with his spot-on playing, he’s actually doubled by Scott Shelly—one of Shelly’s most prominent students was Quiet Riot and Ozzy Osbourne’s Randy Rhoads. There’s no doubt Cardone believed in Roger; to promote Wilson’s career, Cardone released a promotional 7” 45-rpm that was given away in record stores and movie theatres. It seemed Wilson’s dream to make it as a musician was happening.

A Falling Star

Then as quickly as his star rose, it came crashing down in a blaze of thunder, oddly enough, in an alley.

The story starts with Academy Award-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio when, fresh from his breakout roll in Titanic, partied with friends in the “Wolf Pack,” which is alleged to be a post-stardom euphemism for the group’s original, more nasty (and allegedly a press-generated) moniker of “The Pussy Posse.” The wolf-posse included an HBO-esque Entourage that included magician David Blaine and actors Kevin Connolly (ironically, later a star of Entourage; directed the John Travolta box-office bomb, Gotti), Jay Ferguson (“Stan Rizzo” of Mad Men), actor Lukas Haas, writer/director Harmony Korine, Tobey Maguire of Spider-Man fame, screenwriter Josh Miller (“Tim” in River’s Edge), and Ethan Suplee (TV’s My Name is Earl). Regardless of how the actor-amalgamate referred to themselves: they were notorious for their allegedly misogynistic and rebel rousing behaviors on the “upscale” New York City club scene.

One of those “incidents” that led to the wolf-posse’s ill repute involved actress Elizabeth Berkley, known for her attempt to break away from her squeaky clean teen-idol image cultivated by Saturday morning TV’s Saved by the Bell with a starring role in a “grown up part” in the critically lambasted Showgirls.

According to multiple media reports, Berkley attended the premiere of DiCaprio’s latest film, The Man in the Iron Mask—and visited the film’s VIP area, which was in full party mode courtesy of the Wolf Pack. It’s alleged that through DiCaprio’s L.A publicist, Karen Tenser, Berkley was invited by the actor and Jay Ferguson to party at the club Elaine’s after the premiere. Berkley politely declined, as she was dating Roger Wilson at the time (other media reports say Roger was there at the club by Berkley’s side when the invite was made).

Not taking a “no” for an answer, Berkley alleged that is when the “harassment” started, with an incessant barrage of invites from Tenser and Ferguson for dinners and parties. Wilson, as any chivalrous boyfriend would, intervened on one of those phone calls from actor Jay Ferguson—this time inviting Berkley to party with the pack at New York’s ritzy Asia de Cuba. Ferguson’s incensed response to Wilson’s intrusion was to invite Wilson to the club for a showdown.

Wilson accepted. And the thunder was about the roll in the alley.

Upon arrival at the club, Wilson took Ferguson’s offer to “step outside.” It’s then alleged DiCaprio (who ironically starred in Gangs of New York) interjected, “let’s go kick ass,” and led his wolf-posse into a West Side Story-styled, street-alley rumble. At that point, the recollections are hazy: a member of the posse—allegedly Ferguson—punched Wilson in the throat and damaged his larynx. Of all the body parts to suffer a blow: not his head or face, stomach or back: his throat.

Wilson’s singing career was over.

The unchecked testosterone melee resulted in a Manhattan judge tossing out Wilson’s $45 million lawsuit in 2004 against DiCaprio and “two other men” for the assault. It was determined that DiCaprio not only didn’t throw a punch, he didn’t encourage the fight—and Wilson was cast as the “aggressor.”

After the May 4, 1998, assault, Wilson’s career floundered with a series of little-seen TV movies and haphazardly distributed direct-to-video releases. Another TV series in the wake of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers wasn’t forthcoming. Meanwhile, DiCaprio moved up to the A-List and worked with Martin Scorsese.

Wilson, however, remained in the business behind the scenes. He moved into screenwriting, doing numerous uncredited rewrites (like the highly respected Carrie Fisher of Star Wars) for projects supervised by producer Steve Tisch (who produced Risky Business and Forrest Gump), Penny Marshall, and actress Sharon Stone. After teaching screenwriting at the college level, Roger Wilson forged a career in real estate development, which he still pursues today.

The bottom line, Roger: We love your work then and will love your work now. So clear out the vaults and upload your old material (especially from the hard-to-find Second Time Lucky)—and newer tunes—to a Spotify account for all of us Roger Wilson and Thunder Alley fans to enjoy. For in our analog-beating hearts sustained on digital life support, you are still a rock star. We want to rock with you again. You, my friend, are worthy to rock Thunder Alley.

More Roger Wilson?

A “Music of Roger Wilson and Thunder Alley” YouTube Playlist features the studio and video versions of all the songs from Thunder Alley with Roger Wilson and Leif Garrett, along with music by Gary O (and 38 Special), Frankie Miller (and Nazareth), Surgical Steel and Shooting Star. The playlist also includes the trailers and full films for Second Time Lucky and Thunder Alley.

“Sex, Balbrick, and Rock ’n’ Roll: The Music of Actor Roger Wilson” on Medium goes even deeper into Roger’s career, overflowing with more photos and trivia.

Update, May 18, 2021: We, unfortunately, didn’t delve into the Judas Priest connection sidebar to Thunder Alley, since this film review — and my previous Medium article — was all about showing Roger Wilson the love. But you know the connection now, courtesy of the fine folks at Global Web News for pinging back in our comments section (below) about this incredible article (published May 17) regarding Judas Priests’ Rob Halford’s connection to Phoenix, Arizona’s Surgical Steel — written by Cherry Bomb in the digital pages of Metal Injection.

So there you go! All the Roger Wilson and Surgical Steel ephemera you can handle, and then some.

Update, September 2021: Yes, we confess our love of Thunder Alley once more, with another take as part of our “Rock ‘n’ Roll Week III.” And since Cannon was behind it, we brought it back once more as part of our “Cannon Month” of film reviews.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S Movies.

Day 16. Rock ‘n’ Roll Miscreants: Give some screen time to the punks and/or metal heads.

“It’s super human, super music, super magic and super amazing! You’ll be compelled over the edge of sight and sound and under the spell of mind-boggling action and music! Pushed to the danger zone! It’s a death wish at 120 decibels! Stunt Rock! The ultimate rush!”

If there was ever a movie that can’t live up to its trailer, it’s Stunt Rock. Upon witnessing it on the Alamo Drafthouse’s Trailer War compilation, I fell in love with whatever this movie could be. I even ordered the official DVD of the film but never unwrapped it. Why? Because nothing could be as great as this trailer.

I’m so happy to have been proven wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G6XgzhtCJI

Stunt Rock — directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith (Dead-End Drive-In, Night of the Demons 2, Turkey Shoot and so many more) — is exactly the type of movie I love: Take a basic concept and let hijinks ensue.

As Trenchard-Smith sais himself, the concept was “Famous stuntman meets famous rock group. Much stunt, much rock. The kids will go bananas.” He’s also referred to it as “a largely plotless, pseudo-documentary, rocumentary and basically a 90-minute trailer for Grant Page.”

Grant Page is an Australian stuntman who pretty much defied death on a daily basis throughout the 70’s and 80’s, transforming his weekend hobby into a career that would give him international exposure thanks to films like The Man From Hong Kong, Mad Max, Death Cheaters, Mad Dog Morgan, Death Ship and so many more, as well as starring in Road Games and having his own TV series, Danger Freaks.

Basically, Grant comes to America, talks about stunts, does stunts, gets the girl — Trenchard-Smith’s future wife Margaret Gerard — and hangs out with a band that combines rock and roll and magic. Monique van den Ven (Amstersdamned, the 1982 version of Breathless, Paul Verhoeven’s Turkish Delight) also shows up.

There’s also the subplot of a movie being filmed and the ways directors and agents treat their talent. The agent in this film is played by Richard Blackburn, whose career is the kind that draws the laser focus of this website. Would it just be enough if he played Dr. Zaius on the Return to the Planet of the Apes cartoon series? Let me add that he also co-wrote Eating Raoul and appears in that film as James from the Valley. But perhaps what he’s most celebrated for — at least around these parts — are for writing, directing and appearing as the Reverend in the absolutely transcendent 1973 film Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural.

This is less of a film and more of a movie that you can shut off your brain and just savor the stuntwork while hearing Page discuss how and why he did it, interlayed with Sorcery in concert.

While Trenchard-Smith wanted Foreigner for the film, they were on tour and wouldn’t be back in time. That’s fortunate — no band other than Sorcery could have been in this movie.

A theatrical metal band formed in Los Angeles in 1976, Sorcery’s gimmick was that two master magicians would dress as Merlin (Paul Haynes) and Satan (Curtis James Hyde), join them on stage and battle one another in what their press bio referred to as “The King of the Wizards against the Prince of Darkness.”

The band was made up of Richard “Smokey” Taylor on guitar, Richie King on bass, Greg MaGie on vocals, Perry Morris on drums and the masked Doug Loch on keys. They’d later play Dick Clark’s 1982 A Rockin Halloween and 1983 A Magical Musical Halloween.

But if you really love metal, you probably know them best for a completely different film.

In 1984, Morris, Taylor and King became Headmistress, the band for the seminal metal/horror film Rocktober Blood, a film in which Billy “Eye” Harper wipes out most of his band before they reform a year after his killing spree has been halted.

That’s pretty much the movie. It doesn’t demand that you invest much more of your brain into it, instead relying on a magical blend of 1978 L.A., behind the scenes movie-making and wizards launching fire across a stage while a masked dude plays keyboards and dudes wail and shred. If this doesn’t sound like the most amazing film ever committed to celluloid to you, you’re invited to leave this site now and never come back.

The frequent use of split-screen seen in this movie was a necessary editing tool. That’s because many of the stunts from Australian films like The Dragon Files, Mad Dog Morgan and Death Cheaters was filmed on 16 mm and needed to be fixed to fit the wide frame. That said, I love how each frame has a different angle. It’s MTV three years before that little moon man ever launched.

I’m not the only lover of this film. Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof owes the way it presents stunts — much less a New Zealand stunt icon in Zoe Bell in a starring role — to this film. And Eli Roth wore a shirt of the film while filing Hostel 2 and has featured the Sorcery songs “Talking to the Devil” in Knock Knock and “Sacrifice” in his remake of Death Wish.

Perhaps Stunt Rock has even greater cultural significance. After all, it’s Phl Hartman’s first movie. And editor Robert Leighton — who was billed as Robery Money as this was a non-union film — would go on to be the supervising editor of This Is Spinal Tap. Hmm — now it’s all making sense.

While Trenchard-Smith would at one point state that this was the worst movie he ever made, he’s softened on the film in later years. What do you expect from a movie that went from an idea in the shower to in theaters in under 5 months?

Sadly, three months prior to Allied Artists distributing the film, they went bankrupt. The film was sold to Film Ventures International. And then…the movie disappeared for decades until it was rediscovered.

You can order this movie — and lots of other amazing stuff — from the band Sorcery. Do so right now. This is a movie begging to be experienced.

BONUS: The amazing Trailers from Hell has posted Trenchard-Smith discussing the film over the trailer and it’s everything you want it to be.

DAY 15. PICK YOUR POISON: One with some drugs in it. Turn on, tune in…and freak out!

You know why I’ve never done acid? This movie right here. After all, it has an “inspired by true events” square up in the end credits.

After a series of seemingly unconnected murders in Los Angeles, only one link keeps coming up — every single person took the same strain of LSD called Blue Sunshine.

Yep — the sins of the past decade are ready to come back and destroy the “Me” decade.

Zalman King — yes, the same man who got your mom all tingly after you went to bed with Showtime’s Red Show Diaries — plays Jerry Zipkin, a man accused of the murders who — in true giallo-style — must clear his name. That’s because he was at a party where the murders may have started, complete with a screaming Brion James and Billy Crystal’s brother singing Frank Sinatra songs before he starts throwing women into the fireplace.

If turns out that if you took Blue Sunshine, chances are that you’re about to lose all your hair, go crazy and start killing everyone in your path. Of course, no one knew this ten years ago when they were all dosing on it back in college. Chromosomal damage can be a real b, you know?

How can you not love a movie whose title is spoken by a parrot? One that has a climactic disco shootout? Or is so 1970’s that it ends up speaking for pretty much the entire decade?

Between the self-medicating Dr. David Blume, the hard-drinking and hair losing John O’Malley and Ed Flemming (Mark Goddard, Major Don West from Lost In Space) are all caught up in the grip of the bad trip. The effects pretty much sum up Flemming’s political campaign: “In the 1960s, Ed Flemming and his generation shook up the system. Now he’s working within it.” He has become the system. It’s as if the children in Manson’s famous quote — “These children that come at you with knives–they are your children. You taught them. I didn’t teach them. I just tried to help them stand up.” — are even more dangerous when fully grown.

Goddard isn’t the only TV star that shows up, as Alice Ghostly (Esmerelda from Bewitched) makes an appearance.

Writer and director Jeff Lieberman would lend his strange style to other films like Squirm, Remote Control, Just Before Dawn and the odd true crime TV show Love You to Death that starred John Waters as a Grim Reaper attending weddings of partners that would soon kill one another.

The director claims that two major TV networks expressed interest in purchasing the film as a “movie of the week.” The opportunity to get double the budget was appealing, but after seeing the edits that the movie would need to be able to play on network TV, Lieberman decided to produce this for theaters.

You can check out Blue Sunshine on Shudder or get the blu ray from Film Centrix.

DAY 15. PICK YOUR POISON: One with some drugs in it. Turn on, tune in…and freak out!

Otto Preminger was the king of the issue movie. To wit: The Man With the Golden Arm (drug addiction), Advise & Consent (homosexuality), Anatomy of a Murder (rape), Hurry Sundown (racial and sexual taboos) and The Cardinal (which touches on everything from interfaith marriage, pre-marital sex, abortion, racial bigotry, the rise of fascism and war, all heady subjects for many movies much less just one). And with 1960’s Exodus, Preminger struck back against the Hollywood blacklist by acknowledging banned screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.

However, as his career went on, he was criticized for two things: his heavy-handed nature and his reputation for bullying actors.

This may have started when Laurence Oliver stated that notion about Preminger in his autobiography Confessions of an Actor. Joan Crawford, who was a fan of his work, said that he was “Sort of a Jewish Nazi.” On the set of Angel Face, Angel Face” (1952), he demanded so many versions of a scene where Robert Mitchum slapped Jean Simmons across the face that Mitchum finally turned around and cuffed Preminger.

“I do not welcome advice from actors,” said Preminger, once said. “They are here to act.” The set was his dictatorship and he was given to violent outbursts. Supposedly, the great director once directed a group of child actors during Exodus by shouting,  “Cry, you little monsters! You see, your mothers have been taken away! You are never going to see them again – never!” as assistants led their stage mothers from their sight.

Preminger’s treatment of a young Tom Tryon — who would leave acting to instead write the books that would become The Other and The Dark Secret of Harvest Home — and Jean Sebring led to them suffering nervous breakdowns. He’d harangue them to the point of tears on the set. Once, he abused Tryon so badly in front of his family that he nearly quit The Cardinal, a movie that he would earn a Golden Globe nomination for. That night, after a workday filled with hatred, Preminger would follow classic abuser behavior by taking them to the finest dinners and treating them like human beings. The next day? The cycle would continue. For his part, Tryon sought to always be in the position to fire the director for the rest of his career.

He was an iconoclast, fighting against the world — studio heads, producers, actors, censors. It’d take an entire website for me to share the stories of Preminger’s life, from him guesting on the Batman TV show as Mr. Freeze to his secret son with dancer Gypsy Rose Lee, his fight with Darryl F. Zanuck that led to him being told ”you’ll never work in Hollywood again” before doing just that and making the classic film Laura and the fact that he was primarily known as an actor for playing Nazis, despite working with Tallulah Bankhead to held them escape Germany during the war, in movies like The Pied Piper, Margin for Error, They Got Me Covered Stalag 17.

So how did Otto Preminger come to direct a movie about LSD?

Because Hollywood in 1968 was a mess.

The counter-culture had taken full root. Hollywood was on the cusp of becoming what Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood essayed this year: out was the clean-cut man’s man who had a firm resolve. In was the sensitive bearded unsure of his place in the world.

Preminger was aware of this. That’s why he sought out Timothy Leary, the guru of LSD, and took the drug under his supervision. While Leary would say, “I consider Otto Preminger one of our failures,” he would also divulge “I was fooled by Otto Preminger. He was much hipper than I was.”

For his part, the director yearned to understand the youth culture that was revolutionizing the world. He went from the film being an anti-LSD movie to whatever it ended up becoming. And as he took acid himself, he said, “I saw things; I did not see myself.” What he did see was his wife in miniature form, which ended up in the movie. And his mindset changed after spending time with Tom and John Phillip Law, whose home The Castle was a legendary 1960’s mecca. Seriously, if you can name your home, you know that it’s going to be awesome. Rooms there were rented to young artists and musicians, among them the Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan. A young Harrison Ford was the carpenter. It was a totally different world for the Old Hollywood director to inhabit.

I first discover Skidoo in the Medved Brothers’ Golden Turkey Awards books. For years, it had been a cultural touchstone for what made a bad movie. I’ve learned over the years that what many see as trash, I discover as treasure. And when I watched the trailer for the film, I was astounded: this was a movie I wanted to see.

So why did I wait so long to see it?

Two reasons. One an excuse and the other reality.

The excuse? The film was incredibly difficult to find for years. But now, thanks to the cloud, we can call down any movie virtually at any time.

The real reason? The film that I built up inside my head had to be better than the actual reality. There’s no way any movie could live up to that insane trailer, where Old Hollywood mixes with Dr. Timothy Leary and a cliche-spouting Sammy Davis Jr. to cajole you into not only seeing Skidoo with mom and dad, but potentially dosing their Sprite before they view it in their local cinema.

The film begins with a cartoon Jackie Gleason dancing as a peace-logo flower descends and the logo of the movie fills the screen. Nilsson’s theme plays — he would also appear in the film in a minor role and sing the astounding end credits, covering every person down to the copyright info — as we pill back to a TV screen flashing through channels.

We hear the voices of stars Carol Channing and Arnold Stang over images from space, then Peter Lawford in a mock U.S. Senate hearing about organized crime, then scenes of Preminger’s In Harm’s Way in between each story beat and mock ad. Of note, Channing says that she hates how they chop up movies for TV. At one point, Preminger sued ABC for editing his film, after all.

More commercials follow, including one where an attractive woman promises you the viewer that “Now, you too can be beautiful and sexually desirable like me, instead of being that fat, disgusting, foul-breathed, slimy, wallowing sow that you are!” before another ad with an even more attractive blonde and then a man drinks beer while belching and being intercut with images of a swine in mud as an announcer happily intones, “Feel big! Drink Pig!”

This strange blend of footage — feeling like cut and paste Burroughs technique — continues with the jingle for Fat Cola (“You’ll never lose your man if you drink Fat Cola!”), kids made up like Our Gang complete with Pete the Pup all smoking cigarettes and then more kids being given guns as gifts and then an ad for New Daisy Chain Deodorant, which battles “dandruff, athlete’s foot and the common cold, cancer, birth defects, mental illness, ringworm, poison ivy, tooth decay, acne, measles, brain tumor, smallpox, syphilis, plague, influenza, hepatitis and St. Vitus Dance.”

We move back from the TV to reveal the cause of all this flipping: Gleason and Channing each have a gigantic remote control. One of them wants to see the Senate hearing; the other anything but. We then see Joe Pyne, a TV host who pioneered the confrontational style of today’s TV journalism, launch into a diatribe.

Welcome to Skidoo, chum.

Gleason is Tony Banks, a retired hitman who has settled down with Flo (Channing) and the girl who may or may not be his daughter — one wonders if any of Preminger’s relationship with Gypsy Rose Lee and the son he had to avoid claiming Erik figures into this — Darlene (Alexandra Hay, who is stunning and sadly died at the age of 46 from heart disease).

There are two big issues: Darlene has fallen for a hippy named Stash (John Phillip Law, forever Diabolik in my heart) and that the mob wants Tony back. Hechy (Cesar Romero!) and Angie (Frankie Avalon!) — a father and son duo in matching Halloween-tone suits — want him to rub out “Blud Chips” Packard (Mickey Rooney) before he can rat them all out to the U.S. Senate. Tony refuses the word of God, the top mobster, and pays for it when his best friend Harry (Arnold Stang, who is really the god of movies people decry as bad, appearing in this film as well as Dondi and Hercules In New York) shows up dead. Tony’s fingered for the crime and goes up the river, exactly as God intended.

We move to Alcatraz, a high-tech prison where Packard is being protected before he can testify. One of Tony’s cellmates is draft dodger Fred the Professor (Firesign Theater co-founder Austin Pendleton), who is a wizard with technology but refuses to use it. Of course, Tony talks him into creating a way of communicating with Packard. They renew their friendship and our protagonist — well, if this movie even has a hero — decides not to kill the man.

Meanwhile, Stash and his friends have moved into Tony’s house (their dialogue was written by Rob Reiner) while Flo does a striptease for Angie — she’s dressed in neon hues throughout the film and at times, appears as if she’s a real-life Big Bird — in the hopes of finding her husband. Darlene also shows up and nearly leaves Stash for the suave killer. He agrees to take her to see God and Stash hitches a ride.

When they arrive, we learn that God is Groucho Marx and has been trapped on his yacht for years, afraid that he could be killed at any time. Intriguingly, the ship used for this movie is John Wayne’s yacht the Wild Goose, which was once a U.S. Navy minesweeper named USS YMS-328. Given Wayne’s feelings about the counter-culture, I kind of adore that his ship became the setting for what follows.

God and his mistress (Luna, who somehow connects all the worlds of film, from Warhol’s Factory to Fellini Satyricon and dating Klaus Kinski, who worried that they did so many drugs together that they could ruin his career; the fact that the famous madman was worried about Luna’s behavior speaks volumes) fall for Darlene and Stash, who go on the run from them.

Tony realizes that because he can’t kill Packard, so he’ll never leave the prison. He writes to her on some of Fred’s stationery, licks the envelope when he shouldn’t and we now enter into a seven-minute sequence of Jackie Gleason tripping balls. “I see mathematics!” shouts Tony, as he begins sweating profusely as the world becomes packed with color and he learns that his dead friend Harry was the father of his daughter, but none of that matters anymore. All is one and all is love and acid conquers all, setting a conflicted mobster’s life right.

Real life did not imitate art, as Gleason would go on to endorse Nixon. Then again, maybe he just did that because he was obsessed with seeing an alien first-hand. No, really.

Cellmate Leach (Michael Constantine, yes the very same Portokalos paterfamilias of the My Big Fat Greek Wedding films) watches all this and says, “Hey, maybe if I take some of that stuff, I wouldn’t have to rape anybody anymore.”

The hippies mount a rescue attempt as Tony and Fred dose everyone in the prison, leading to the guards seeing a football game with the Green Bay Packers (played by the Orange County Ramblers) discard their clothes and play naked. The twosome fly away from the prison and end up on God’s yacht, where Channing warbles the theme song as Tony and Flo consummate their love, God reads Gabriel Vahanian’s The Death of God and then Angie and God’s mistress get married before the new bride makes out with her father-in-law. As all this happens, Geronimo (Tom Law) marries Stash and Darlene. 

To top all that off, God and Fred — now with shaved heads and Hare Krishna robes — sail off in a sailboat and smoke a joint. Groucho laughs and surprisingly says, “Mmm…pumpkin!”

An ordinary extraordinary movie would stop here.

But not Skidoo.

Preminger’s voice intrudes, as the voice of God almost, saying “Stop!, we are not through yet, and before you skidoo, we’d like to introduce our cast and crew…”

As stated earlier Nilsson sings everything along with asides, like “Luna as God’s Mistress, well you know-oh what I mean” and asking how your popcorn tastes.

Skidoo is awash with cameos, from character actors Fred Clark and Phil Arnold; Batman villains Frank Gorshin and Burgess Meredith; gangster star George Raft as the skipper; Doro Merande (who somehow survived working with Preminger multiple times); Slim Pickens and Robert Donner (Exidor from Mork & Mindy) as switchboard operators; Richard “Jaws” Kiel as a prisoner, Roman Gabriel (the first NFL quarterback of Filipino descent) as a prison guard.

Did the kids get it? Well, no. The film was not only a critical flop, it died in theaters too. It’s hard to say who the movie is for, as its themes are rooted in the counter-culture while the stars are firmly bound to the chains of Old Hollywood. You practically expect them to feed you tannis root and steal your baby, not turn you on and help drop you out.

Maybe Preminger was trying to connect with his aforementioned hidden progeny, who at the time of filming was living as a hippy in New York’s Greenwich Village. Or maybe he was making the kind of movie that would take a half-century to be appreciated.

That said, I love that Groucho did this movie, which was his last film. He also tripped on LSD with Paul Krassner to get ready for the film. Preminger browbeat the 78-year-old Marx Brother into bringing back his old greasepaint-mustache for this role and continually treated him like you’d expect Otto Preminger to treat an actor on set. This led to Jackie Gleason physically threatening Preminger’s life if he tried the same antics with him.

I spent more time writing about this film than I did watching it, but if my efforts lead to you watching it for yourself, I feel that I’ve properly done my job. You can get this movie for yourself from Olive FIlms.

NOTE: The New York Times obituary of Preminger, a Paul Krassner article about tripping with Groucho Marx and the New Yorker article “Balance of Terror” were used as references for this article. 

Day 14 S.T.D Madness!: Science, Transformations & Dabbling: A cracked scientist’s creative palette

This writer was a wee lad when 1973’s The Neptune Factor played at the neighborhood duplex. Equipped with nothing but the television and print ads we, the grade school-era Ralph McQuarries, feverish drew our Neptune submarine art class recreations, anticipating our parents taking us to see the film that weekend.

An Irwin Allen-styled earthquake? An underwater ocean lab plummets into a deep ocean trench? Lazy scientists that never leave the lab and, when they do, their hysterics unleash the beast? The “Aliens” attacking the crew of the Nostromo in James Cameron’s “Abyss” . . . are giant killer eels?

I’m all in . . . or at least I was: age robs us of our innocent, youthful tastes.

As is the case with the sensationalistic movie posters of ‘70s: the film behind the one-sheet never delivers on the art work promises. There was no “digital water” in the pre-CGI, George Lucas ‘70s; so the special effects endangering The Neptune consisted of fish “optically enlarged” into head butting, growling and howling, blood-thirsty monsters that cavort with Godzilla-style miniatures.

Beware: Giant Seahorse Crossing Ahead!

Forty-five years later, as I embark into the skies of blue and sea of green on my White & Red Submarine to battle the Aqua Meanies of Neptuneland, I’m blown away that The Neptune Factor — at its core it’s just your average sci-fi B-picture, only with a million dollar budget — starred Ernest Borgnine (“Cabbie” from Escape from New York), an Oscar winning actor. His co-star, Ben Gazzara (“Brad Wesley” from Road House), earned multiple Golden Globe and Emmy nods and Broadway accolades. Walter Pidgeon had two Oscar nods in his pocket; Yvette Mimieux worked consistently as one of MGM Studios’ leading contract players throughout the 1960s and made her debut in H.G Wells The Time Machine.

“The Most Fantastic Underwater Odyssey Ever Filmed,” so proclaimed those advertisements that fueled those art class fantasies.

And that was MGM’s goal: to do for the ocean what Kubrick did for space — by placing an Irwin Allen paint-by-numbers disaster plot underwater. And in case we forgot: the closing credits again remind us — with the film’s subtitle — we just experienced “An Undersea Odyssey.”

Uh, did we, really?

To hell with the Blue Meanies that freak me out, still, to this day. Full steam ahead to Pepperland, Ringo: We sail to a land where, instead of a HAL supercomputer jeopardizing the crew and mission, we get an Yvette superbitch disobeying orders, throwing switches, blowing circuits and causing the “Discovery” of the film to tumble ass-over-elbows down an aquatic abyss. Instead of a mind-bending space gate: we get a mind-numbing plethora of giant tropical fish. Instead of an acid-spewing Xenomorph: we get a head-butting Gold Fish.

For a film junkie like me: it’s celluloid déjà vu.

I’m watching the “giant” underwater crabs attack the toy-miniature Space Probe Taurus (1965) — only on a reported $2.5 million budget — all over again. At least the giant rat-spider-bat from Angry Red Planet (1959) was fun. It’s no fun watching 80 minutes of a future, post-apocalyptic New York cab driver feigning awe over a tropical fish tank under a zoom lens.

In the pre-2001: A Space Odyssey epoch, your typical science fiction film of the ‘50s and ‘60s consisted of Shakespearean-trained character actor John Carradine (father to “Snake Charmer” in Kill Bill) slipping into a silver lamé “space suit” to find a cure for the Earth’s vampire plague by way of a horde of bubbling, gurgling vials and beakers strewn across a wooden table in the “science lab.” On the wall was the requisite Bulova industrial-clock hung above a bank of reel-to-reel tape players replete with flashing lights that indicate danger is ahead.

For a film junkie like me: it’s celluloid déjà vu.

Here I am, watching another long-in-the-tooth actor — this time it’s Walter Pidgeon — in the same Carradine lab. And there’s a shot of a Bulova clock on the wall, again, you know, to remind us the stranded sealab’s oxygen is running out and the aquanauts will die.

Oh, Stanley. How did the “underwater you” go so wrong?

Stanley Kubrick, along with special effects artist, Douglas Trumbull, opened the once scoffing eyes of Hollywood’s mainstream studio system to the fact that the once low-budget genre of science fiction could present the same level of quality to the screen as any of their bloated-budget war, western, or bible epics.

The first A-List star to cross Hollywood’s sci-fi picket line was Moses and Ben-Hur himself: Charlton Heston. All three of Chuck’s contributions to the genre — Planet of the Apes (1968), The Omega Man (1971), and Soylent Green (1973) — became critical and box office hits—not just domestically, but internationally. Thanks to Heston setting the stage and proving science fiction could be well-made and generate favorable reviews and box office returns, then the flood gates opened with Yul Brynner, Bruce Dern, James Caan, Nigel Davenport, Sean Connery, Jackie Cooper, Richard Harris, Paul Newman, George Peppard, and Oliver Reed all making science fiction films.

And it was time for Ben Gazzara to jump into the deep end of the pool.

Made by 20th Century Fox and co-released by Fox and MGM Studios, The Neptune Factor (retitled for TV and video as The Neptune Disaster and Undersea Odyssey), essentially, is an underwater, sci-fi reimaging of Ernest Borgnine’s previous hit, the gold standard of ‘70s disaster pics: The Poseidon Adventure. And why is Walter Pidgeon here? For an air of familiarity: he captained The Seaview for Irwin Allen’s 20th Century Fox’s sci-fi sub flick, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

Yes, for a film junkie like me: it’s celluloid déjà vu.

And there I was, six years later, my mind swimming with X-Wing dogfights over the Death Star, anticipating the release of Voyage to the Bottom of the Black Hole, uh, I mean, The Black Hole Disaster, I mean, The U.S.S Cygnus Disaster, uh, The Poseidon In Space, as The Neptune shed its watery space as it shot off into outer space — minus the photo-giant fish tomfoolery — with Borgnine and Mimieux at the helm once again, this time aboard the Palamino, as they entered Disney’s Star Wars-inspired black hole.

And cinema history tells us The Black Hole was initially conceived in 1974 as a Poseidon-inspired sci-fi adventure — to capitalize on the sci-fi craze sparked by Heston’s success — known as Space Station One, aka, Voyage to the Bottom of the Black Hole Abyss as the Aliens Attack the U.S.S Poseidon Neptune Disaster Adventure. Considering the coolness of Trumbull’s post-2001 space opera, Silent Running, Space Station One, if made in 1974, could have worked.

Yes, it all comes back full circle because . . . for a film junkie like me: it’s always celluloid déjà vu.

And yes, I still run crying to my mommy because those Blue Meanies are still coming to get me, for a Beatle is scarier than a fish. Live in fear of the seas of green with the full movie on You Tube and Daily Motion.

Do you need more celluloid déjà vu? Then pull up a Chalmers, uh, I mean, chair, and visit the post-apocalypse world of Bladerunner—before Bladerunner—with 1962’s Creation of the Humanoids. And, it gets worse with 2020’s Underwater.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and B&S Movies, and learn more about his work on Facebook.

DAY 14. S.T.D. Madness: No, not syphilitic symptoms! Science, Transformation & Dabbing; a cracked scientist’s creative palette.

Producer Sandy Howard (A Man Called Horse, The Neptune Factor — look for that one in oh, a few hours on our site, The Devil’s Rain!, Meteor) had a three-picture deal with RCA-Columbia back in the glorious days of direct to video store movies. Along with Dark Tower (where Freddie Francis (numerous Hammer and Amicus favorites like Trog and Tales from the Crypt) and Ken Widerhorn (Shock Waves, Return of the Living Dead Part II, Eyes of a Stranger) combined forces to become Ken Barnett, directing Michael Moriarty and Jenny Agutter as they battled a haunted high rise) and Nightstick (in which a renegade cop and Leslie Nielsen battle terrorists), he dreamed up a ripoff of Aliens that would take place in a hospital that was called Green Monkey due to the theory that that’s where AIDS came from. Hey — it was 1987.

Helping matters was the 30% Canadian tax benefit, as long as the film was shot in the Great White North with mainly Canadian talent. That means that Saskatchewan native John Vernon is going to show up in most of these films. That’s a welcome thing in my eyes.

Marwellia Harbison is an old woman who loves her plants, but her Micronesian plant is drooping and when handyman Fred Adams inspects it, it pricks his finger. Soon, he collapses and she takes him to Hill Valley Hospital.

Doctors Rachel Carson (perhaps named for the Pittsburgh native whose book Silent Spring advanced the global environmental movement) and Judith Glass see the man and are shocked to discover he already has gangrene.

Ther next patient is the partner of Detective Jim Bishop (Steve Railsback, Helter Skelter, Turkey Shoot), who was shot point blank by criminals.

But back to Fred, who starts shaking and puking up a gigantic insect in pupa form, which they hospital techs put into a bell jar. For some reason, this hospital is also testing military-grade lasers and can analyze monstrous bugs that come out of the stomachs of old men. It’s really all things to all people, a deus ex machine for all seasons.

Marwella and the paramedic who helped Fred now have the same symptoms, and when Fred himself goes into cardiac arrest, the shock paddles cause his chest to explode in a torrent of blood. When the doctors all demand that the hospital be quarantined, hospital director Roger Levering (there’s that John Vernon role we’ve been waiting for!) refuses, as he doesn’t want to cause a panic.

Can things get worse? Of course. Remember that bug in the bell jar? Well, a lab tech is ordered to keep an eye on it, which she instantly forgets when her boyfriend brings the promise of weed and sex in the parking lot. Then, to compound matters, a group of sick kids decides to screw around and pour blue powder all over the beast. That blue powder ends up being some growth hormone, which of course was just lying around the lab. So now, in addition to the virus spreading throughout the hospital, there’s also a gigantic bug killing people left and right.

Can our heroes stop the bug — and the outbreak — before the government enacts the Return of the Living Dead protocol and nukes the hospital from orbit? Well, you’re just going to have to watch for yourself.

Don Lake, who is in six different Christopher Guest movies and is the writing partner of Bonnie Hunt, shows up as an entomologist. And if you’re looking for cameos by people that you know you love, look no further than SCTV alums Robin Duke and Joe Flaherty (Pittsburgh’s own Count Floyd) who are a couple preparing to have a baby in the midst of this insectoid madness. And this is also one of the very first acting roles for Sarah Polley, who would go on to star in the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. She’s one of the kids dumb enough to pour that blue growth powder all over that bug.

Blue Monkey is also known as Insect and Invasion of the Body Suckers, both of which have magnificent VHS box art.

So yeah. Blue Monkey. A movie that hasn’t been rediscovered and re-released as a $50 blu ray by a boutique label yet. Once you could rent it for 99¢, now you’ll pony up the big bucks for it. Until then, you can order it from VHSPS, which is where my copy came from.

DAY 13. DO YOU FEEL LUCKY, PUNK?: A film about luck; good, bad or ugly.

William Beaudine — as we discussed back when we watched Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter — came back from England in 1937 and had a rough time re-establishing himself with American studios. He ended up directing all-black films, realizing that when he did, he’d never reach the heights of fame he was at before.

Lucky Ghost was made a half-decade later, a sequel to Mr. Washington Goes to Town. It concerns the continuing adventures of Washington Delaware Jones (Mantan Moreland, the messenger in Spider Baby and a man considered to take over for Shemp in The Three Stooges in 1955), who has been such a strain on his hometown that a judge banishes him. As he travels to find a new place to live, he brings along Jefferson (F.E. Miller, who made several all black movies like Harlem on the Prairie, Harlem Rides the Range and The Bronze Buckaroo).

Neither man has any experience nor do they much like to work, so they decide to be food tasters. Their career path starts with impersonating food inspectors and stealing chickens, which gets them shot at.

The two then play craps with a rich man named Brown and two of his friends, cleaning them all out and getting a fancy car out of the deal. They travel to the country club of Dr. Brutus Blake, a con artist who wants to steal their money and keep Washington away from the club’s hostess.

That’s when we learn that Blake’s relatives haunt the joint and they’re none too happy about how he is turning out. But even when our heroes defeat Blake and win his club, the place is just as sinful and decadent as it’s ever been. So the ghosts en masse begin to haunt the club, sending the twosome of Washington and Jefferson running for their lives as the ghosts bemoan all of the “jitterbugging, jiving, and hullaballooing” and begins slamming doors and even playing the drums.

Race films — as they were called — featured parts for actors that never really got the chance to be anything other than servants.

Moreland is a great example, as he was mostly known for his role as chauffeur Birmingham Brown in the Charlie Chan films. He also worked with Ben Carter (who was replaced by Nipsey Russell in the 1950’s) and was inducted into the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum Hall of Fame in 2004.

F.E. Miller is considered one of the seminal figures in the development of African American musical theater on Broadway and was posthumously nominated for a Tony Award in 1979 for his contributions.

You can watch the whole movie below, at the Internet Archive or on Amazon Prime.

DAY 12. THE FRACAS AND THE FUZZ: Something revolving around cops and criminals.

After a day of cop related slashers, it’s kind of nice to know that I’m finally winding down with the final film — 1992’s Adam Rifkin-directed Psycho Cop Returns. Yes, the same Adam Rifkin that wrote and directed The Dark Backward, as well as being the writer for Small Soldiers, Mouse Hunt and Underdog. He also directed the KISS-centric Detroit Rock City.

Writer Dan Povenmire was offered the chance to direct the film, but as this would require him to quit his job on The Simpsons. Therefore, he declined the opportunity.

Officer Joe Vickers — again played by Robert R. Shafer — is continuing his series of murders for Satan. This time, he’s pretty much going Die Hard on a drug-fuelled office bachelor party.

This is one of the few slashers you’ll see where one of the victims ended up winning the Academy Award afterward. But Nick Vallelonga, who plays Michael, co-wrote and produced Green Book.

To balance that out, the ladies of the film are played by the always dependable Julie Strain (pretty much every late Andy Sidaris movie, but let’s go with Return to Savage Beach), Melanie Good, Maureen Flaherty and Carol Cummings, billed here under her non-adult stage name Kimberly Spies. The two go-go dancers are Brittany Ashland (adult actress Tanya Rivers) and Sara Lee Froton, whose only other credit is the deranged slasher Skinner. They were both discovered by the director at an actual bachelor party. And the host of that party? Charlie Sheen.

John Paxton, the father of actor Bill Paxton, also shows up as Mr. Stonecipher, the boss of this office building that’s being used for sexual and drug-addled hijinks.

Just like the first film in this series, you have the right to remain silent during it, as the humor and gore may just not be your cup of tea. Or you might totally love it. The jury, as they say, is out.

You can buy this from the crazy people that are Vinegar Syndrome, who have given their blu ray release of Psycho Cop Returns all the white glove attention that Criterion would to a Robert Altman film. God — or Satan — bless them.

DAY 12. THE FRACAS AND THE FUZZ: Something revolving around cops and criminals.

How have I ended up here, watching Psycho Cop in the middle of the night? I blame the annual Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge. What started with just Maniac Cop ended with all three of those films, then I was like, well, let’s see if there were any other cop-based slashers. Bad news for me — there totally was.

Wallace Potts would not be the filmmaker I’d think would make this film. The lover and documenter of international ballet star Rudolf Nureyev, he’s probably most famous for assembling, on behalf of the Rudolf Nureyev Foundation and the Fondation Rudolf Noureev, every single bit of footage possible of the dance star. Besides that, he directed the films Demi-Gods, Tales of the Unliving and the Undead and a French adult film entitled Dude.

I hate stereotypes, but again, not who you think of when you’re looking for someone to direct a slasher about a Satanic serial killing peace officer.

The film begins with Barbra and Greg, two newlyweds that you shouldn’t bother getting to know, as they soon come across a ritualistic murder ground. Joe Vickers (Robert R. Shafer, Bob Vance from TV’s The Office) finds them and easily snuffs out both of their lives. He’s a cop who was promised a good life by God that decided to go with Satan instead. He may also  be one of the undead.

The very next day, three couples travel to a secluded mansion that comes complete with a hunky caretaker who is soon killed by Vickers. Probably the only one of these people who you may know would be Cindy Guyer, who was a romance novel cover model and once engaged to Corey Haim for eight days before he threw her from a movie vehicle. She survived. As the character Julie in this movie, she does not.

Your capacity to enjoy this movie depends on just how desperate you were for new horror movies back at the end of the 1980’s. If you were like me, you rented anything with that little green horror sticker, so a movie like this may be grating in parts, but easily flies by. If you wasted your time watching actual pieces of cinema, you are probably going to despise every single moment.

Vickers is really Gary Henley, a discharged psychiatric patient who Satan has helped to infiltrate the California Police. He’s able to shrug off point blank bullets, but not a log that impales him. However, we never get a full disclosure of his powers and also learn that he could also be Ted Warnicky, an escaped psychopathic serial killer. This is what they call a non sequitur. Don’t say that slasher movies never taught us anything — you just learned about a conversational literary device that is derived from the Latin phrase “it does not follow.”

The Psycho Cop — of course — survives. There must be more psycho patrols to perform. He’s not really all that special or memorable. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, “Psycho Cop, I watched the first Maniac Cop with Matt Cordell. I watched the second and the third. Matt Cordell was a friend of mine. Psycho Cop, you’re no Matt Cordell.”

This isn’t available on DVD as of yet. Trust me, you’re not missing anything. But hey — here’s a link to watch it on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcGsGe84jiE