When considering certain filmmakers whose work I haven’t gotten around to seeing, I always think of Andrew Sarris’s phrase in The American Cinema, “Subjects for Further Research.” In this case, I note that this week I got my first dose of the work of an American underground legend when I was given the assignment to review the excellent documentary by Mary Jordan entitled Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis, which has come out on DVD from Arts Alliance America. I’m a massive fan of the Kuchar Bros. (especially the greatest complainer in the history of video art, Mr. George Kuchar) and their fan John Waters, but I confess to being a Smith-less film lover.
Jordan’s documentary offers a superb introduction to Smith’s work and his artistic allure (as well as his unrepentant eccentricities). Included in the documentary are interviews with a host of Sixties downtown types, including big George K. himself, Judith Malina, Mary Woronov, John Zorn, Richard Foreman, Tony Conrad, Ronald Tavel, Jonas Mekas, Ken Jacobs, and John Waters (oh, and the further-researcher himself… Andrew Sarris!). Their comments on Smith and life in the Village film/theater scene are fascinating, but what I was particularly taken with (besides Jack’s all-consuming loathing of his landlords… yay, man!) were the scenes from Smith’s films, which have the layered beauty and costumed elegance of Kenneth Anger, with the playful satires of Hollywood (on no budget) of the Kuchar Bros. The trailer for Jordan’s docu:
In an earlier entry in this blog I presented YouTube and Ubuweb links to the works of George Kuchar, so herewith I present the only Smith film available on YT. Of course, you must keep in mind that what Jordan’s film reveals is that Smith made a practice of not finalizing any of his movies after his landmark Flaming Creatures (1963). This is an earlier item, Scotch Tape, which evidently showed up on the Sundance Channel at some point:
As a bonus, here’s a link to an “underground movie flip book” by Smith that can be found on Ubuweb.
Since there is so little Jack Smith work available on the Web, and because I am utterly obsessed with one-hit wonders, here’s a link to the amazing, and completely unrelated, Whistlin’ Jack Smith’s 1967 chronically hook-driven “I was Kaiser Bill’s Batman.” I would make a very strong bet that you ain’t getting this tune outta your cranium once you hear it:
UPDATE (9/8): Just this past weekend Anthology showed Flaming Creatures, so I finally was witness to the crazed genius of Jack S. Much has been said about the picture, and it remains (esp. in these tight-assed times) a work that is confrontational, by turns kinetic and reflective, ugly and beautiful, profound and extremely silly. And you still couldn't air the thing on any cable channel save Sundance (who slip in some exceptionally "challenging" images every now again, as with Pink Flamingos and The Purified).
Friday, September 5, 2008
In her "own natural element": Deceased Artiste Roberta Collins
Roberta Collins was not an exploitation star of the first rank, but she made her sexy blonde presence known in a variety of top-notch Seventies genre classics for the drive-in and grindhouse crowd. She played a tough babe in some extremely memorable Seventies sleaze pics, from the terrific roller derby saga (starring Claudia Jennings and edited by some film student named Scorsese) Unholy Rollers (1972) and Deathrace 2000 (1975, as Matilda the Hun!) to Three The Hard Way (1972) and Eaten Alive (1977). In her later career, she appeared some really sub-par but still watchably awful Eighties sleaze, including Hardbodies (1984) and School Spirit (1985).
Why would you know Roberta? Well, if you’re a fan of the finest sleaze genre there, is the Women’s Prison picture, Roberta distinguished herself as the “hot, mean blonde chick” in a number of chicks-in-chains features. Starting with Jack Hill’s seminal exercise in Filippino prison-camp joy The Big Doll House (1971), and then in Women in Cages (1971), Jonathan Demme’s transformative, revisionist masterwork (I’m serious about that, it is terrific) Caged Heat (1974), and the latter-day revenge-behind bars classic Vendetta (1986), Roberta was at her best when imprisoned.
To illustrate the allure of Ms. Collins in her short prison shift, I offer the trailer for Hill’s The Big Doll House
And just in case you’re still drawing a blank as to exactly which blonde prisoner Roberta was, I do think that this fistfight/mud wrestling scene from Doll House where Roberta meets to settle matters with the queen of Blaxploitation (and Jack Hill discovery) Pam Grier should remind you (or at least just brighten up your day). No one has offered the official vote on this yet, but this scene has to one of the Top 5 Movie Catfights, if only for its raw sleaze factor:
and we leave Roberta in actually the finest movie she took part in, Demme’s Caged Heat, which does for the women’s prison picture what mainstream mavericks Altman and Peckinpah’s films were doing for the Western, the caper movie, the hardboiled detective saga, and a host of other genres. It’s rare that a B-budget film included so much imaginative weirdness — warden Barbara Steele’s odd Blue Angel nod alone is worth the price of admission — but Caged Heat certainly showed Demme to be a consummately talented filmmaker, and I have to say… I actually prefer it over a bunch of his mainstream pics.
Roberta left us at 62. Farewell, hot, mean blonde chick.
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