DVR/TiVo/VCR Alert: The Swinger on TCM!

This very evening, on Friday the 23rd, TCM has slated in the late-evening "cult movie" slot the amazingly campy 1966 stunner The Swinger. I presented the wonderful "human paint brush" scene on the Funhouse when it first began in 1993, and got an immediate reaction (from the male and female viewers). It's definitely the precursor for the chocolate/beans scene in Tommy, but it's only one of several dazzlers in the picture. You will believe that director George Sidney had a crush on his star when you see the picture — you will also see the influence on that Lindsay Lohan poster for Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen a few years back. Record it and see...

The clip that fetched so much attention. I uploaded it to YT, and it has been "flagged" for adult content:



Interestingly, another poster put up the uncut version of the scene in a very sketchy looking copy (he's disabled the embed function). This version is longer and contains much mock-tribal silliness before Annie disrobes (making the movie seem even crazier). It also slows down her dancing, making it seem even more like Sidney was fetishizing fair young Annie. I have no idea why this was cut from the version I taped, it will interesting to see if it's in the TCM "official" version.

Steve Buscemi talks about two gods: Cassavetes and Kaurismaki

I haven't been doing the press-junket circuit lately, but when I did do it for the show, I delighted in getting the subjects to talk about something besides their latest movie. The best way to do this would be to evoke their influences. Here Steve Buscemi discusses his love of Cassavetes and surprised me by bringing up one of my big-time faves, Aki Kaurismaki.

Speaking of patriotism: Leo Stella sings "All-American Boy"

The common wisdom is that you can find out about anyone on the Internet, particularly those who were in the public spotlight for any amount of time. Well, that ain’t true for those who’ve toiled on public access. A lot of the legends of access here in Manhattan can’t be tracked down via the Net, and their stuff doesn't even show up on the glutted YouTube unless they themselves choose to post their clips. Sometimes, every so often, you get something that turns viral because of its comic appeal — as with the tape of access fix-it host Ken Sander being pranked on a call-in show, or the amazing “Preacher X” from California doing one of his “I’m God, beeyotch” raps.

In that spirit, I offer up another tidbit of the great Leo Stella, a lounge performer who seemed to have had a pretty solid resume in summer stock and other kinds of theater and cabaret when he took on his “Seems Like Old Times” program in the early Nineties on Manhattan cable-access. As the show went on, Leo started opening up to us and showed us his different sides: the show-biz pro would turn into the local neighborhood gesticulating Italian, who would then become a bookish dude reading his favorite poems, who would then give way to the horny Leo who discussed his “cherubs” — the young boys he loved so dearly, and would occasionally provide “candy” for. It was a helluva show, and it is well-remembered by those who saw it back when. In honor of the inauguration of the swelling feeling of patriotism (had to) this week, I offer up an excerpt of Leo crooning his own composition, “All-American Boy.”

Post-inauguration thoughts

The inauguration of President Obama finally took place, and he has begun the task at hand, namely cleaning up (or better yet, just arresting) the ongoing mess the other idiot made in his two wretched terms. The ceremony on Tuesday was an invigorating event, it was U.S. history pure and simple, and the first time most of us made certain we were watching a Presidential inauguration at the exact time it took place.

I wish the joy and enthusiasm that surrounded the event and lit me up for a day or so could actually combat the bad feelings that I started getting ‘bout this place, round about the time that Reagan got elected. I guess that was the point where I realized a truism about the country: we swing one way and then the other. We who sit on either side of the pendulum hope that the swings in our general direction are decisive ones, but they never are.

The Reagan election was a decisive turning point: It was the point at which illusion trumped reality and the B-Movie Actor As Leader was thought to be a good idea by a vast majority of the population (I mean, I love B-movies, but a fella’s gotta draw the line somewhere….). As the country moved more and more to the right, we seemed to really lose our grasp on intelligence – dumbness and tunnelvision became more and more prized attributes. Thus, the “Internet bubble”/instant knowledge, surplus-income Nineties were followed by the absolute nightmare that was the W. Bush years, in which as many liberties as could be taken, were taken. Now with Barack in the Oval Office, many folks feel that the right guy won. I’m one of them. Although the question of why exactly he won becomes a sticking point. He honestly deserved to win the office, and yet it’s also true that the other guys pushed it as far as they could — the country is now teetering on the precipice of bankruptcy, and the American people decided (cue the pendulum) that having a Dumb Guy (who made many folks feel comfortable in their dumbness) wasn’t the greatest decision. Let’s get a smart one, who doesn’t resemble the Democratic Party’s “Kennedy model” (the only thing they’ve pushed in the past few decades, in both the New England and Southern-Fried models).

President Obama is definitely less of a centrist than Clinton was, but he’s also a careful chess player. He has inherited probably the worst mess of any incoming Pres since FDR, and his trademark cool, calm demeanor should hopefully see him through. I support him, and yet even as I hope for the future, I wonder when the next craaaaazy, disastrous swing of the pendulum will happen.

God and Man: Deceased Artistes Ricardo Montalban and Patrick McGoohan

“Smiles, everyone, smiles…!”

Two TV legends died this week. Both men had their moments in the spotlight, but more importantly both starred in shows that are landmarks — one because it is the most pristine camp artifact you can find, the other because it is, simply put, a masterpiece.

In interviews, Ricardo Montalban, a proud Mexican, used to decry the images of Hispanics in the movies: bandits, lazy slackers, and Latin lovers. He was undoubtedly right, but he also must have realized that he carved out a career in Hollywood because he fit the third archetype. He was smooth, had a crisp accent, and seemed the very definition of a ladies man in his movie roles — although I do love his villainous turn as a nasty drug dealer in Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960), keeping Shelley Winters on the hard stuff to further complicate the life of her confused kid, James Darren, who doesn’t know whether to be a delinquent or a concert pianist (now there’s a campy plot for you). This week, upon his death, many fanboys referenced Shatner’s “KHAN!” shout in the original Trek (and of course, Ricardo’s return to the role in Nicholas Meyer’s terrific Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, 1982).


For me, the ultimate flourishing of Ricardo was his starring role in what is truly one of the most perfectly campy shows in history, Fantasy Island (1978-84). As Mr. Roarke, Ricardo started out as a sort of malevolent figure who granted his guests their wish but also taught them a nasty lesson in the process. As the series developed however, he became avuncular, friendlier, and even had affairs on the program. At its best, the show made Roarke into god: he dispensed pills that gave guests temporary sight or made them younger, opened windows and caused the rain to fall, and kicked Satan’s ass twice (and Roddy McDowall was the perfect adversary for him, clad in a pinstripe suit with teenytiny horns on his head).

Since Fantasy Island is a corporate property, it isn’t properly represented on YouTube. They do have this bit of much earlier Ricardo wonder, a single he released:


And we are allowed to watch the unforgettable credits for the show:


But mostly, there are just these ridiculously dumb five-minute “webisode” versions of the FI plotines. Fooey. Here’s one that features the great Sammy Davis (who appeared on the show twice, the second one being a weird foreshadowing of his own death by cancer):


The second gentleman who died this week was of course Patrick McGoohan. McGoohan is a curious figure in that he conceived of, co-wrote, and starred in one of the greatest series in the history of the medium, and yet spent the rest of his career being a talented yet distinctly-not-mind-blowing actor. He never scaled the heights of hammery (hammitude?) that Ricardo did, but he could be somewhat corny in some of his later roles, and what is most surprising is that his signature creation, The Prisoner, is so brilliant and yet stands alone in his filmography. He did direct a feature film — a rock version of Othello that I would love to see! — but the only other things he had a hand in directing were episodes of the wonderful Columbo series that were the most somber moments in that otherwise brisk and brilliant series (under his direction, Falk was a decidedly grimmer version of the character).


In any case, The Prisoner is a landmark in TV history, a show that might not seem as radical when seen today (since it has been so thoroughly ripped off by lesser fantasy fare), but was one of the seminal viewing experiences of my childhood. Watching the show as I got older, I understood more of its plot and McGoohan’s allegorical intentions, but it remains a mind-fuck no matter your age, one of the seminal TV series, something that for me (ultimate compliment here) ranks with the work of Ernie Kovacs, The Singing Detective, and Berlin Alexanderplatz as truly perfect television, something that fully demonstrates the kind of intelligence and barrier-breaking that is possible in the medium.

McGoohan had an interesting background: born in my old stamping grounds of Astoria, Queens; raised in Ireland, then England, he was a classically trained actor who did both theater and bad Disney movies early in his career, but broke through with Danger Man/Secret Agent. The latter is a good show, but rather a let-down when viewed after the perfection of The Prisoner (or even the eye-catching fun of The Avengers). An odd sort of progressive Puritan, McGoohan would only agree to star as John Drake, “the secret agent man,” if the scripts avoided the kind of sleazy sexuality and nasty violence that characterized the James Bond films.

McGoohan certainly achieved immortality as “Number Six” and deservedly so. The show presented the ultimate fusion of Kafka and Graham Greene, science fiction and the spy story, theater of the absurd and the Sixties youth revolution. Oh, and it was excellent TV storytelling.

Dig the theme (in the monochromatic version we all saw back then, even if you did have a color TV):


An ad for the show that includes one of the show’s key bits of dialogue (he would not be pushed, filed, stamped…):


One of the key scenes with the brilliant fucking Mr. Leo McKern, playing the best “Number Two”:


One eager poster put up a key part of the final episode. Promise me you will not watch this if you have not seen the series (and why haven’t you already seen it? Do yourself a favor and get it now – rent, purchase, whatever you do to obtain those silver discs):


And now, for the pure joy of the YouTube sharing experience: latter-day interviews with McGoohan, where he is willing to discuss the show (it is such a cult item that one assumes he never stopped being quizzed about it). Gold from someone’s VHS collection:


Another, super-rare lengthy discussion of the show by “Paddy Fitz” (one of his pseudonyms as a creator of The Prisoner). I love peoples’ VHS!:


This clip is definite “spoiler” time as he discusses the series’ finale. It’s the most embarrassing interview clip, though, as he’s asked to discuss the show for a scant few minutes in the context of what looks to be a tacky “nostalgia” special:


To further add fuel to the fire, as an older gent, McGoohan made this cryptic home-movie, apparently intended for use in a Prisoner TV documentary:


And why not end with a song? From the MTV era, “I Helped Patrick McGoohan Escape”


Let’s say it all in unison to both God (Ricardo) and Man (Patrick): Be Seeing You!

Farewell, Mondo Kim's

2008 was a very, very bad year for New York City stores and eateries. The number of places that are shuttering for good is growing literally by the week, but one particular closing evoked sentimental feelings in movie buffs throughout the city, namely the "alternative" vid-emporium Mondo Kim's on St. Marks Place. I considered the store a really invaluable resource for research for interviews and "Deceased Artiste" episodes of the show, and would travel from wherever I lived in this wacky metropolis downtown to rent discs and tapes (yes, tapes, kids!) so I could catch up on various artists' work. The odd thing about my connection with the store is that you couldn't help but have a sort of love/hate relationship with it. The eclectic range of the store's stock was incredibly important, and I'm speaking strictly of the rental department (I have a solid collection of films I've purchased on DVD and VHS, but have remained an in-store movie renter, who prefers "brick and mortar" establishments — as they are now sadly called — to doing the Netflix lazyman approach). Yet the clerks at Kim's were uniformly bored, smug, and in a few cases, openly rude. Being a regular Kim's customer did have its underside.

But let's remember the happier part of the equation, shall we? All those wonderfully rare movies, which have now become part of a fairy tale ending that will surely go down in video store lore. In case, you haven't heard, the rental stock of this Greenwich Village store has now been shipped to a Sicilian town that has a very eager, culture-minded mayor. The initial public "offering" for the rental stock made by the store's owner mentioned the continuation of memberships and other notions that seemed to squarely imply the desire for another retailer or library to purchase the collection: the poster with the offering can be found here. But now a *donation* of the entire collection has been made, so the citizens of a Sicilian town will have at their disposal 55,000 DVDs and tapes. The vast majority of the titles are in English or have only English subtitles. Among the collection is a fascinating assortment of avant-garde films, a fairly sizeable porn library, and yes, a good amount of bootlegged recordings (from imports, broadcast and cable airings) of rare films that couldn't be acquired otherwise. I had to leave the magic "b-----g" word out of the column that I wrote as a homage to Kim's for the trade magazine Video Business, as it was uncertain if the store would be "saved" at the last minute, and I wouldn't want to be the one blowing the whistle on such an important resource. We New Yorkers now envy the cities that still have "alternative" video emporia that have on their shelves the out of print, the outre, and "off-market" film titles.

My homage to Mondo Kim's

Deceased Artiste: "That Bad Eartha"

So many immaculately talented folks kicked off right as the last year ended. I hope to do tributes to a few of them on the show, but I wanted to present footage of one of them as soon as I could upload it. This is Earth Kitt doing "Montonous" which she debuted in the Broadway show New Faces of 1952. That show was turned into a film called New Faces in 1954 by Harry Horner. The picture is terribly stilted, but it does feature the first notable roles of Paul Lynde, Alice Ghostley, Ronny Graham, Carol Lawrence, Robert Clary (who is in waaaaay too many skits), and Eartha, who simply blows the show away with four songs.

I offer up her last tune in the pic, and one which set the tone for her image for years and years to come:

The inscrutable Satchmo

Every few years there's a really startling blackface sighting in Asian culture (me, I'm fond of the dementia of those Hong Kong movies that used Chinese guys in afro wigs and facepaint for fight scenes). This very heartfelt but wrongheaded tribute to the legendary Louis Armstrong is pretty amazing.



Thanks to John Walsh of the blissfully nasty You Are Hated!.

Please frequent the Menu Bar

The links have been updated, NEW blogs and sites have been added, the ones that went private or went down have been eliminated. So each click on the right is now a fully functional ticket to wondrous reading, listening, viewing, or downloading. You will be entertained!

How about some *non*-Xmas music?

This should take you out of the Yuletide mindset. Pure pop for now people, from the terrific Lou Christie, the man who gave us "Lightnin' Strikes," the catchiest ode to the sexiest double standard ever (*impossible* to ever forget that one). Here he is doing one of his hookier tunes, one of my all-time faves, "I'm Gonna Make You Mine." The video is a lip-synch deal, but what a lip-synch! By a pool in Florida, with two dancing babes, and a maybe not-so-wise decision to go with the shirtless/vest thing that was big for a while in the Swinging Sixties. Anyway, it's a damn hooky song.



UPDATE: reader Sandy noted that the original publicity film for this song is even more bizarre, as it features Lou in a scene reminiscent of the Geraldine Chaplin bit in Nashville (or any of several Godard flicks from the late '60s) where he walks through a junkyard filled with compacted cars singing his ode to unflappable romantic obsession. Truly he is a *wreck* because this babe won't date him....

Marco Ferreri on the Funhouse, all boxed up

My 1996 talk with the man who gave the world some of the strangest, craziest, funniest allegories about sex, politics, religion, and (his fave) the end of civilization can now be found subtitled as a supplement in The Marco Ferreri Collection from Koch Lorber. I’ve posted a few clips from it on YouTube. The video resolution isn’t as pristine as that of the original VHS, but you do have yellow subtitles (I for one am a fan of yellow subs) giving precise translations of Signore Ferreri’s sometimes cryptic and often evasive but always fascinating answers — and how incredibly beautiful is it to hear him say the English phrase “Bye Bye… [he pauses dramatically, to consider] Monkey”? I love this man’s work and was glad to be a small part of this ambitious box. Denying his characters are obsessive (I have so many clips from the films themselves that counter his answer…)

 

On the politics in his films:

 

And yes, discussing our Funhouse favorite, Bye Bye Monkey:

Have yourself a noir little Christmas

Go ahead, "Baby Boy Frankie Bono," revisit the Blast of Silence I put up on YT earlier this year as part of a review of the Criterion release.

Allen Baron's film was shot on location in NYC, and its Christmas sequence in Rockefeller Center gives a gorgeous portrait of what the city looked like in the early Sixties — and also offers a terrific opportunity for our hitman anti-hero (played by Baron) to feel even more isolated from the rest of humanity. The awesomely hardboiled voice delivering the second-person narration is that of the late, great Lionel Stander.

"I'm gonna make him penetrate, I'm gonna make him be a girl..."

It seems like a century ago. I listened to the radio on my way to high school, a Catholic high school, a Catholic all-boys high school (if you need to diagnose any of my ailments, please begin there), since there was no better way than to start the day with rebellious rock n’ roll emanating from a small portable radio.

And lest you think the rock was not rebellious, or at least packaged to sound so, let me just me mention that the station being listened to on this particular morning was WHBI-FM, a local oddity that used to rent itself out to foreign programmers, but also had two “punk” programs that played the best and weirdest punk and new wave records — the two featured DJs (a guy named Phil Barry and a Brit called "Scratchy") were clearly into freaking out the listener, and I remember hearing the beloved Barnes and Barnes’ “Cemetery Girls” (their snappy ode to necrophilia) as well as a truly creepy story-song about kids picking on a fat girl at school (all this in the late-evening hours, listening on a transistor, or on my way to prison… er, school).

The morning I remember in particular the song below was playing. Yes, the video you’re about to watch is hopelessly silly, the performer looks ridiculous — plus I was stunned and amused to see his song punctuated with wonderfully cheesy German “saucy” comedy.

Just imagine, though, the song hitting a teenager, back then on a crappy little radio. The melody (actually, the backing track, if I’m not mistaken) stolen from the greatest French “New Wave” tune of all time, actually a tongue-in-cheek punk parody of sorts, the immortal Plastic Bertrand’s “Ca Plane Pour Moi” which can be seen and heard here.

This rip-off English song had a nasty little homoerotic lyric that absolutely freaked the shit out of my mother when she heard it come out of the radio (she loved William B. Williams, as I did, but hey, a kid’s gotta grow up some time). She told me I should turn it off, but much to her credit, didn’t shut the radio off herself (plus the song was already just about over by the time she registered how “dirty” it was).

I know this entire event reeks of a past time before teens were all-knowing and exposed to just about everything under the sun. I guess I’m happy to have lived through those innocent moments, and to have experienced, through WHBI’s “punk” music programs and WBAI’s amazing, still radical free-form shows, a time when regular old commercial radio could be challenging, weird, upsetting, and yes, just plain “dirty” for its era. What followed thereafter (Stern, “O&A,” and the rest…) was all pathetic compared to some insane dude singing about getting head from another guy during the breakfast hour….

Still "unabideable": the slippery streets of the city

I wrote a blog entry when I had health insurance from my job, and now I have none, so it’s even more relevant. It involves the increasingly slippery sidewalks of NYC, and it can be found here

Since my last rant-post mentioned Queens, I will now evoke Brooklyn and say that I’m freelancing (ah, the life of instability, how it molds the modern man…) a block away from the shopping area laughingly called the “Fulton Mall.” It’s a commercial area filled with crappy clothing stores blasting awful music (although it does have cheesy low-rent emporia that fascinate me like the one in the pic), but it also has one of my chief banes, one that can only get worse when it rains (rhyme unintentional, but inevitable): the new-model pavement that appears in so many commercial and upscale areas of the Five Boroughs. It's not quite the marbleized nightmare that rules Park Avenue and other upscale districts in Manhattan, but it also isn't the old traditional gray, drab, reliable kind (read: it's wretched to navigate during a downpour). In other words, if you’re uninsured, or old, or unsteady on your pins, you just know you’re going to take a tumble. The only solution, besides wearing rubbers or rubber-soled shoes everywhere, alla time, is to take baby-steps and proceed with ever so much care when the torrents are upon the city. No, we don’t need no national healthcare, not at all, ever….

The cineaste that time forgot: Marco Ferreri

This week on the show I’m happy to reach back and air segments from an interview I did back in 1996 with Italian filmmaker Marco Ferreri. The twist to this episode is that it’s not a rerun: that interview was licensed for use in the new Marco Ferreri Collection, released by Koch Lorber. Thus I'm showing the interview, now with English subtitles, rather than its former on-site translation (which was good, but way too polite). The Ferreri box in which the interview appears includes eight movies, five of which have never been on DVD before, and two of which had never reached these shores, even through the mail-order VHS channels I’ve been monitoring for so long.

On the episode I run through the themes common to Ferreri’s cinema: allegories about the ends or beginnings of civilizations; absurdist, dark humor; parables about the birth of feminism in the Seventies; and the inevitable sight of major French and Italian stars in embarrassing and bizarre situations. I am devoted to Ferreri’s work, and have had to scramble around to find copies of his films on VHS over the years. As for DVD, there were three Image releases of titles that appear in this box, but nothing else has seen release until this Koch box. To celebrate this, I thought I’d do a survey-post showing the little of Ferreri that has cropped up on YouTube. I plan on uploading scenes from my interview, but for the instant, these clips are your best immediate fix for Marco-mania.

The rare Italian video documentary Marco Ferrreri: The Director Who Came From the Future, included in the box, is excerpted here with English subs. It is the best (and I believe only) introduction to Ferreri on video.



Here is an extremely groovy trailer for Dillinger is Dead, which has been restored and is rumored to be a candidate for a Criterion release in the near future:



This appears to be a handmade trailer for La Cagna, aka Liza, which finds Marcello Mastroianni on an island with Catherine Deneuve and his dog. In the film’s most memorable series of scenes, Catherine kills the dog, and takes its place (wearing a collar, heeling, fetching sticks). Only Ferreri got major European stars to tackle this sort of weirdness:



Ferreri’s only arthouse hit in America was La Grande Bouffe(1973), the tale of four jaded middle-aged men deciding to eat and fuck themselves to death. Here’s a suitably odd moment from the beginning of the proceeedings:



A scene from the same film, that I didn’t have time to include in this week’s episode. The distinguished Michel Piccoli suffers death by farting. The way this clip is cut on YT you miss the opening, where he plays the piano while expelling gas at a good clip:



There are no subtitles for this clip from the amazing Don’t Touch the White Woman(1974), Ferreri’s tripped-out Seventies Western satire, but you won’t need them to understand Marcello as a ridiculous Custer and Michel Piccoli as a puffed-up Buffalo Bill (speaking French with a pronounced American accent):



There are a few clips on YouTube that come from the films that are just simply impossible to get in the U.S. In fact there’s one whole film, The Banquet, that is offered (sans English titles) on the site. Here’s a totally comprehensible, unsubbed bit from The Future is Woman showing Hanna Schygulla and the perfect Ornella Muti enjoying themselves at a tacky Italian nightclub (for those who dig Eighties cheese, this is it):



During my film-fan years, the only Ferreri film that got major distribution was Tales of Ordinary Madness, his 1981 Bukowski adaptation that featured the super-cool Ben Gazzara as Bukowski’s fictional alter-ego. Gazzara was the perfect envisionment of the Bukowski hero, with the best-ever voice to recite his poetry:



And how could I resist the urge to end with one of the stranger but more compelling Marco fever-dreams, Bye Bye Monkey (1978). These are clips I uploaded to YT when I began doing this blog some months ago:

Unabideables: Xmas music, everywhere!

I think even those who do delight in the seasonal insanity that is Christmas would admit that Xmas music is played to fucking death. Since I do a program that more often than not takes a “nostalgic” look at pop culture, I’m of course more interested in the way that old music shows up around the holidays. I was walking on the main street in Astoria Queens (Steinway) today, and heard some lesser-known Christmas tune by the Supremes being piped in all along the length of the street. This started several years ago, major streets and thoroughfares having Xmas music piped in to encourage folks to buy things. Of course, I think that kind of attempted brainwash backfires, as those who are going to buy will buy anyway, and those who don’t have the dough, or have other modes of buying things, or simply have no one to buy anything for, are just going to run for cover every time another one of those fucking tunes starts up over the loudspeaker.

I love vintage American music, “popular standards,” old singles, novelty tunes, and any old kinda crap that has a killer hook to it. What I find so overwhelming and obnoxious about the Xmas-music overload is that it’s the one time of the year that radio (yes, I still listen to commercial radio, for better or worse — mostly talk) plays old music. When else would you hear Gene Autry or Burl Ives but during the Christmas season? Burl and Gene might’ve gotten a spin on good old Joe Franklin’s now-defunct show here in NYC (I remember Joe playing an extremely maudlin Autry tune about children visiting their mother’s grave as a Mom’s Day song one year), but the best older music, the things written by the big guys (Gershwin, Porter, Kern, all those dead men) will never see the light of day on NY radio again — but during the holidays, we hear “Rudolph” and “Frosty” and “Silver Bells” and five to six dozen tunes that form the “canon” of Xmas music (that extends to “Run, Run, Rudolph” and, gak, “Last Christmas” by George Michael). So, old music is indeed out there, you might enjoy it, but no, that’s a horribly narrow demographic, that stuff can’t be played on the radio — unless, of course, if it can foster pretend dreams of a Norman Rockwell world that never existed, even when these songs were gracing the top 40 for the first time. Some of the songs are actually wonderful, some of the cornball renditions by such unrepentantly uncool performers like the Mitch Miller singers or Johnny Mathis or Der Bingle, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, do have their charms. But as they assault the senses in stores and on sidewalks, they are as horrible to encounter as the oldies I love so dearly being trussed up and thrown out on oldies stations, or the “classic rock” that actually does still have the power to stir it up — but not on classic-rock radio.

All self-evident to most of the people who would choose to read these words, but as I stand in the drug store listening to some hoary old number for the umpteenth time, I wonder if the folks who run the Duane Reade chain (or Rite Aid or CVS) actually think that assaulting the senses with the feeblest of nostalgic tunes (or the most touching, like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” run into the ground until it no longer has any resonance) inspires added commerce. Or if it’s as most of us suspect: that the multitude of holiday shoppers (say, the ones who killed that guy at Walmart on Long Island on Black Friday by trampling on him to get to the big-screen TVs) will spend themselves into poverty no matter what is playing on the loudspeaker, and the overload of holiday music is just another game engaged in by our beloved capitalist society. One more reason that I completely resist the arrival of the holiday season… but then, due to not ever having that idyllic never-was, never-will-be Yuletide, completely miss it once it’s actually over….

RIP 4E: Deceased Artiste Forrest J. Ackerman

...or Uncle Forry, as he was known to a few generations of fanboys and fangirls over the past five decades. Forry's influence on fandom was, well, monstrously important (that one's for you, Sir): from his pioneering photo-gathering and pun-smithing chores on Famous Monsters of Filmland; to his appearances at fancons from the VERY first ones in the 1930s to the modern-day gatherings that take up entire cities; to his appearances in movies by Dante, Landis, Olen Ray, et al; to his utter childlike worship of Boris, Bela, Price, and of course, Lon Sr. — not forgetting the one monster that reduced three wonderful senior citizens (Forry, Ray Bradbury, and Ray Harryhausen) into little boys again on several occasions, King Kong (I hope I can be that young at their age, truly). He had a good bit of fun in his life from all directions (the Bill Landis bio of Kenneth Anger gets into the "sex-magick rituals" that used to be held at the Ackermansion, yowzah), and he will be missed by us all. He and the two Rays were the first generation of fanboys, and as such they deserve our admiration, respect, and love.

First I will direct you to Richard Corliss's wonderful obit for the man.

Then I will send you flying into "Music for Robots" an album credited to Forry, posted at the 36 15 blogspot.


Then, I must pass on this trove of the COVERS of FM, which should stir the soul of any proud fan-person. The first issue I had is on the right, but all the original covers can be found here. Go now!

Then I note that I am indeed extremely proud I got to interview the gent, and got the full tour of the Ackermansion. Here are the two clips I posted from our talk on YouTube. On Bela:



On early sci-fi fandom:


He tossed off at some point that he would like to have a good home for his awesomely beautiful collection of memorabilia (a lot of which was liquidated when his medical bills became too high a few years back, a tragedy), when he had gone "to that big sci-fi convention in the sky." He surely isn't standing in line, and is the first boy racing to the tables right now....

Oliver Reed: great actor, unforgettable talk show guest

This week I’m presenting the first part of my Ken Russell interview on the show. We discuss Oliver Reed, who starred in six of Mr. Russell’s films, and, interestingly, Ken says he doesn’t think Oliver was much of an actor, didn’t have much range. I would agree that he walked through a number of films, but he is exceptionally good in Russell’s work (perhaps because of the “system” they worked out — see the show to find out about it). You can currently view the entirety of Russell’s masterpiece, The Devils online. I’m not really sure how it has stayed up there, since YouTube is run by Americans, and thus is petrified by the very notion of nudity. Anyway, the film is a must-see (although it really needs to be viewed on at least a TV screen):



I would recommend heavily that you see Reed’s other works with Russell: The Debussy Film, Dante’s Inferno (where his readings of Rossetti's poems are sublime), and naturally enough, Tommy (Ollie’s scream-singing is quite something). Reed also starred in Russell’s Women in Love, where he participated in a scene that will NEVER be on YouTube — I’m talking, of course, about the insane naked wrestling scene with Alan Bates that pops into the film almost out of nowhere.

Over in the U.S., we did see Mr. Reed quite a lot on the big screen, but he also made an indelible impression on TV. He was one of several stars (I remember Robert Blake being one of the others) who invariably came on talk shows roaring drunk (his problem with booze ended his life prematurely at 62). I have assembled a little “round-up” of Ollie drunk on talk shows here and in England and, let me assure you, these are quite entertaining clips.

There is a full documentary about Reed that is available here. But I will start off the survey with this fascinating example of Reed stone-cold sober. He’s on The Tonight Show in 1975 with Shelley Winters, who is a major-league pain in the ass. In the third part of the interview, Ollie talks back to the never-quiet Shelley Winters, and makes a sexist remark that causes her to throw a drink in his face. It gets good about 2:30 in:



Here he is doing an insane American accent on the NBC Letterman. I think it should be entered into the record that everybody’s fave friendly host Dave was always an absolutely SHITTY straight man as a talk-show host, and seemed openly aggravated by many of his guests during the NBC years. He never, ever could play along with them, especially with comedians doing a character, like Pee-Wee, Andy Kaufman, or Bobcat. He in fact loved to show them up. Let me put this plainly: He sucked! Oliver, on the other hand, rocked:



Here he looks very worse for the wear, on a British show called After Dark, where he seems to be puzzling the other guests. Amazing television. This is actually a pretty interesting debate on violence, with Ollie in the middle.



On the British show The Word. He sings “Wild Thing” with the band Ned’s Atomic Dustbin!



Here he’s on another chat programme, making Serge Gainsbourg and Klaus Kinski seem like sober citizens. Wow!



Context for the preceding outburst can be found here. Now, would you rather watch Leno, or Letterman, or Kimmel, or Conan, or Craig letting someone pitch their latest bad movie, or bad sitcom, or bad CD, or would you rather have seen Ollie?

Here's to you, 2008

As the seasonal music begins to fill the air, I'd just like to add one more tune, dedicated to this wretched annum. Aside from the elation of the Presidential election and maybe like one other personal accomplishment, I would have to say the whole year needs to be over... NOW!

Thus the patron saints of my home borough of Queens. Bless you, boys:

Ken Russell playing a Mindgame off-Broadway (the Funhouse interview)

I recently got the chance to interview the oldest enfant terrible working in cinema, Mr. Ken Russell. I was intimidated going to the interview, as I've been watching his movies for the better part of three decades, and had gotten the impression that Mr. Russell was a current-day Von Stroheim (temperamental, capricious, prone to outbursts). The man I met was a brilliant, cultured, polite old Lion who knows his way around an anecdote. He was gracious, dodged no topic — including the not-exactly-complimentary review given his new play in The New York Times — and wound speaking to me for nearly double the length we had arranged. The chat will air on the Funhouse in installments and, as is always the case with the interviews I've done for the show, is allowing me the opportunity to re-view many of Mr. Russell's finer works, including his lesser known BBC biopics and his hands-down masterpiece The Devils. As a preview of the talk, I give you these two clips.

First, "Uncle Ken" talking about the play "Mindgame," currently playing at the Soho Playhouse in Manhattan.



Next, Russell offers his take on YouTube and the phenomenon of file-sharing rare movies.

Feeling depressed? Watch this

Winter has set in, there's been little to no heat in my Upper East Side tenement apartment for two days, the economy is a mess, the holiday frenzy is fast upon us, so what should you do? Watch these gentlemen:



That feels better.

One of the names I have constantly been searching on YouTube is "Peter Cook" (no, not that present-day lout). I need at some point to do a survey-post giving you the rounds of the amazing Cook finds on YT, but for the present I think the above should suffice. Well, since it's Xmas-time (which now begins at Halloween), I will throw in this one here, part of a series that is the only possible reason I'd revisit the worst of all Christmas tunes.

Alan Rudolph in the Funhouse (where he belongs)

I've done several interviews at press junkets, and I can honestly say that, while I was positively thrilled to do some of them, the individuals being interviewed are usually ready with a canned answer or two (that's why I like to ask open-ended things, like querying Werner Herzog on the purposes of the documentary — harder to get a canned answer that way). One of the most pleasant experiences I had at a junket was talking to Alan Rudolph, who seemed totally at ease, and seemed to actually listen to my questions and provide original answers. Anyway, I offer these two clips from our interview, which was done in 1997 to promote the opening of his brilliantly off-kilter comedy-drama Afterglow. Rudolph has made about seven films that I absolutely love. He's a challenging director who deserves better recognition.

On his visual style, especially his trademark zooms:


On "small movies" and his mentor, the late, great Robert Altman:

Let us give thanks for terrific music: blogspot is heaven

I haven't had the chance to update my link-list on the right there, but there is one blog that I'd truly recommend for the finest in lounge, jazz, comedy, and yes, Vegas/Rat Pack live wonders, this gent right here has it all:

Jazz Hot Sauce blog

And for something I've been listening to more than once, I recommend this lively compilation CD of supersonic tunes from the Sixties and things from later eras that sound as if they were made in the Sixties. You've got Mongo Santamaria, Edwin Starr, the Kinks, Jacques Dutronc, Buddy Rich, and Andy Williams, do you need any more? Well worth the time to download!

Blow Up a Go Go!

For those who don't know how this download thing goes with the blogspot blogs:
-You get the link from the blog, click the sucker, and then if it's on the Megaupload site, just follow the prompts. If it's on RapidShare, go in as a "free user." Megaupload allows several downloads an hour, whereas Rapidshare allows only one (you're clear after an hour or two to go after more).
-You need an RAR "extractor," which is a free download for the PC and Mac, just dig one up (it's the equivalent of the Winzip Unzipper thing — this software changes every freakin' year!) Drop the file in there and voila! You've got the album in MP3 form.
-Certain of the music blogspots require that you entire a password in the RAR extractor before you drop the file in there -- the ones I've cited above DO NOT! Huzzah.

"Baby Doll" in the Funhouse (Carroll Baker interview)

I conducted an interview with Carroll Baker, the Fifties movie queen best known for starring in Baby Doll, at the Chiller Theater convention back in late 2000. We were flooded by sunlight, so I decided to air the chat in b&w, which seemed somehow appropriate for a Hollywood star from the Golden Age.

Here Ms. Baker talks about working with James Dean on Giant.


And here she discusses one of our Funhouse favorites, Italian filmmaker Marco Ferreri, with whom she made the 1967 feminist parable/comedy/drama/fascinating mess The Harem.

VHS Clearance: a "real" Video Dog, scary home vids, and a porn-star works out

VHS has been the building block of the Funhouse for the show's 15 years, and I have too many of those black plastic wonders in my possession (and in storage lockers, and in my psyche, they're everywhere!). I've featured quite a lot of high art on the program, but every so often I'd review the most ridiculous VHS titles I'd come across. I herewith submit three items shown on the show back in late '96.

First, a companion-piece to the "Video Aquarium" tapes that became popular in the Eighties. "Video Dog" was a concept that was supposed to boost the spirits of those souls who wanted to own a pet but were prohibited from doing so by their landlord — or who just didn't want to clean up the mess. It's an absolutely ridiculous concept, but it reaches its interactive peak at this point where you are supposed to give the dog a series of commands. It's ready and waiting to comply. This tape appears to bounce due to vague tracking problems — perhaps my VCR was telling me something....



Then we have an item that is intentionally ridiculous. I love Joe Flaherty of SCTV and always dug his Count Floyd character, but here's an oddity, one of two instructional videos he made as the character (the other one was, I kid you not, a fire safety video, that I saw on locally on a PBS station late night). Here he shows us "How to Make Funny Home Videos" as the late-night horror host without a clue.



And finally something that will get your blood circulating, in a manner of speaking. It's ex-underage porn star Traci Lords' workout tape, but it's not the version that made the rounds as the "Advanced" tape. That one, which is excerpted on YouTube already, just has Traci saying "transition...!" over and over again (oh my TVC 15). In this version she does raps on the soundtrack. I much prefer this iteration of her exercises for the crotch area. What a talented young woman she was.

(this tape bounces too, but do you really care?)

The grooviest cola im Deustchland

I've referred to the Sixties as "the gift that keeps on giving" in the past few weeks on the show, and truly it is so. Just saw the documentary on the Monks (Transatlantic Feedback), which is a terrific tale of the one-album band that has ascended into cult heaven (deservedly so). In the film they discuss how the band worked with Charles Wilp, a conceptual artist doing ultra-mod ads for a German cola I've never heard of. Of course the 'verts are on YouTube and so humbly pass 'em on. Blow yer mind.

Intelligence in the body politic? (Damn I'm happy)

I was a little kid when the Sixties ended, and although the Seventies really was a time of bizarre, reckless optimism, I can’t say I’ve ever experienced a political moment as blissful as this past Tuesday when, for one instant, it seemed like America might actually be ready to grow up. I’ve voted for Democrats every time out of the box, but they have been such an ineffective party (excepting the Clinton charisma) for the past 28 years it's been depressing (independents are a great big dream, but akin to throwing your vote away in this two-party monolith).

I was extremely cynical and pessimistic heading into Tuesday, as I honestly don’t think this is a mature country — as far as culture, issues surrounding sex, issues surrounding race, the preservation of the human race, and (especially) intelligence. I was unsure that a majority of Americans could agree on anything aside from the fact that “we’re Number One!” Obama’s landslide surely came about because of the dire economic climate and the fact that Bush and co. have run amok with the mandate of the uncaring, apathetic mob. For the country to have actually made a statement, though, that times are indeed wretched is like stepping onto the first step of the 12-step ladder. The result is an event that is the most positive thing happen to the American Left in politics, the single greatest victory on a national level, since Nixon resigned way, way, way back in 1974.

I’m certain things will swing back, although I would hope they do not. We have too many citizens who are defiantly proud of their stupidity and narrow-mindedness. For a moment, though, it is nice to even be able to consider a future wherein we open up intellectually and emotionally, and learn that we are part of a whole, not Number One, and that’s it’s very, very reassuring to not have an Old White Guy with a defiant, belligerent attitude running the place. Intelligence has a place in government and part of me fears that Barack will be constantly, constantly confronting fear and loathing from the enormous Right Wing we have in this country, and could well become a national version of David Dinkins (so much for New York being liberal — since DD, we’ve had two of the most backward-looking bull-headed Rightists in the head slot for the city). For this moment, at this time, however, I rejoice in Obama’s intelligence and his ascent to power. Hope really is infectious.

Happy Halloween! 2: Forry Ackerman on the Funhouse

On All Hallows Eve, I am pleased to present clips from my interview with Forrest J. Ackerman, the editor of a seminal pub in my childhood, Famous Monsters of Filmland. Forry is still out there kicking, and I’m sure he’s pleased that the “little monsters” like myself that he inspired to further worship of monster-movies and sci-fi/fantasy flicks are still digging the material all these years later. I talked to Uncle Forry back in 1996, and he reflected back on his friendship with the legends, including Bela:



He also offered up reminiscences of the earliest sci-fi fandom in this country, a buncha strangely dressed young people who loved what they read and saw at the movies. I was inspired to ask Forry this question from a wonderful interview with him I read in The Washington Post which spoke about his wearing a spaceman outfit at his first convention in NYC, and how he felt finally like he really belonged to a community. Forry and his pals at the time (who included a young gent named Bradbury and some other kid named Harryhausen) were pioneer fanboys, and as such, we still owe them a great debt for allowing all this stuff to come out of “the closet.”

Happy Halloween! Monster-mash your ass off, people!

While most people contend that identities are hidden behind costumes, makeup, and masks on Halloween, I contend that people's real personalities emerge when they have the convenient cover of a "character." It's always been my favorite holiday, and while I don't have much planned for the day this year, I am happy to celebrate with the non-commenting readership of this here blog.

Firstly, I recommend you check out my blog post last year saluting Alice Cooper, one of my all-time faves and a Halloween perennial. All but two of the links still work (so much for the vagaries of YouTube), so check it out! It's here

Then, onto the anthem for the holiday, the timeless novelty classic, "Monster Mash." I offer you two versions this year. First, this exceeding sparse rendition by Bobby "Boris" himself, from an unnamed show and seemingly with timecodes blurred out:



And then a repost of the video I put up on YT of Bobby and the immortal Zacherle dueting on the number at the Chiller Theatre con a few years ago. Please feel free to join in at home:

Deceased Artiste, and Funhouse guest, Rudy Ray Moore: RIP Dolemite!

This week saw the passings of two people I interviewed on the Funhouse. Actor Guillaume Depardieu (more on him in the weeks to come) sadly died at the very young age of 37 after a stormy life that was punctuated by a few really interesting performances on screen. Also leaving this mortal coil, at 81, was a legend of blaxploitation, comedian/scripter/producer/taboo-buster Rudy Ray Moore.

I had a great time speaking to Rudy at the Chiller back in '96, and just as good a time putting together the episode that evolved from the talk. I have placed the entire show on YouTube, and realized once again that, while public access has lost its luster for many in the age of YT, there are still things we can do on access that you can't do on the Net's number video portal, namely show the naked bodies of Dolemite's bevvy of sleazy-lookin' babes of all races (the "offending" portions -- when will America ever grow up? Answer: never! -- are covered with a little msg). The battle to talk dirty, or rather, to use Mr. Moore's phrase "use ghetto expressions," on stage was won during Rudy's long lifetime, but America is still a country that cringes at the thought of nudity and giggles at the notion of sex. All I can say about that is what the man woulda toldja: Dolemite was his name, and fucking up muthafuckas was his game. Farewell Rude One!

Part One:


Part Two:


And the Third and last part:

William Klein: Delirious montages

William Klein has only made a handful of films, but he carved out an amazingly fresh and vigorously strange and funny cinematic style, especially in his trio of fiction films. I’ve been showing scenes from Klein’s films on the program since mail-order copies became available from France, and so I was utterly delighted when Eclipse/the Criterion Collection released all three in the box-set The Delirious Fictions of William Klein. I’ve noticed that two of the most visually arresting scenes from two of the films were up on Youtube already, but in abbreviated versions, and so I thought it would be best to see the scenes in their full mondo-montage context.

First the sequence in Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (1966) in which our heroine (Dorothy McGowan) becomes part of an odd spoof of beauty-product pitches, and then flies away with her Prince Charming (Sami Frey) in a wonderful bit of photo-animation. The latter part of the sequence is striking, as it prefigures Terry Gilliam’s work at the end of the decade but was influenced by the work of Harry Smith (thanks to Stephen Kroninger for the citation).



Then the wonderful skewering of American patriotism from Klein’s Mr. Freedom (1969). John Abbey (where did he go?) does a dynamite job delivering Klein’s mock recitation of American values, followed by a bright and bouncy montage (with the occasional dark, menacing overtone) elaborating the joys of the U.S. of A.

The Mayor Who Wouldn't Leave

From the national to the local: let me just state for the record that our billionaire mayor here in NYC has decided he deserves a third term. He has done nothing to appreciably make the city better in any way, but he plays a good role as daddy-placator, he has made sure he's never avoided a camera, and is, above all, phenomenally wealthy (so everyone is cowed into thinking he must know what's talking about). His voice is a monotone drone that just disappears into itself (I continually think of the speakers who make PowerPoint presentations you fall asleep at when you're briefed about your benefits at a new job). He is a drippy little rich man, but he's got his game goin', and so he decided to take a tip from the Fascist bastard who preceded him. He feels the city owes him more time in charge. What to do? He is going to have the City Council overturn the ruling that Mayors can only serve two terms because — while that ruling was good enough for every Mayor before Guiliani — it isn't proper that a billionaire be asked to vacate his job.

Every time I even consider "Mayor Mike" and his b.s. reign over the city, I think of Charles Foster Kane's "I think it would be fun to run a newspaper." Mike thought it would be fun to run a major American city, and it has been — for him.

Credit where credit is due: The above image of King Michael of Bloomberg came from the Queens Crap blog, which you should all visit, provided you're a Queens-ite, or like the place.

Forget about "the Bradley Effect" — what about "the Mean Old Prick Effect"?

Ah, my friends (you know I really want to associate that phrase with Joe Franklin, NOT John McCain), I don’t often touch on politics, but let me just note my disdain for the Cranky Old Bastard who's the Grand Old Party’s candidate for Pres. He’s man who was “broken” during his time in captivity (he himself used that phrase at the Republican Convention, what a strange item to bring up in a campaign speech), yet never needed any treatment for his PTSD (as his wife noted last week, only those who didn’t “attend the Naval Academy” need that kind of therapy). He clearly evidences that snotty temperament every time he is confronted by any sort of probing question — usually those related to how his positions on different topics have changed from day to day, hour to hour, never mind year to year…. He’s a mean old dude who’s wealthy as shit and really doesn’t, let’s be honest, really doesn't care about ya, not one little bit.

UPDATE: In the one day since I wrote these words, Johnny "Mac" has since been a cutie-pie at both the Al Smith dinner and the Letterman show. He has a way with a dry joke, I'll give him that. But then again, Reagan was a charming old fuck and he was a shitty President. Let's not confuse being funny onstage with the Mean Old Bastard we saw in the three debates and in any of the interviews that were mildly probing.

A smattering of Smothers: clips from the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour

This week on the show I’m reviewing the new Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour box set. You can read a review I wrote of the box here. But I should note that I dearly love the Smothers and dug the box mightily. Here are four clips I wished I could’ve included in their entirety in my mere 28-minutes of program:
The set’s single best segment, an unaired medley by Harry Belafonte that was banned in 1968 by CBS, as it is accompanied by disturbing footage of the preceding summer’s Democratic convention in Chicago. It's a tour-de-force performance by the great Harry:


George Harrison dropping by to cheer on the Bros. (we have the visual for this on the program but I’m doin’ my review over it):



Mama Cass doing one of her finest ditties with Tom along for the ride:



The West Coast cast of Hair with Ragni, Rado, and Jennifer Warnes (then Jennifer Warren) in the cast:



Here are some items that aren’t on the box, but they deserve yer attention:
Ray Charles jams with… Jackie Mason? (this episode is on the box)



The legendary banned Pete Seeger song “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy”



The legendary appearance by the Who:



An amazing turn by the Jefferson Airplane. Grace made herself up in blackface in order to mock the show, and just wound up seemingly especially exotic and cool-looking (and extremely stoned). “Crown of Creation”:



The second song, “Lather”:



And watching the box ensured that I just can’t get the Smothers’ theme outta my head. Here it is being hummed and sung by a nice assortment of guests from the third season:



And the single most mind-warping item to show up on the Net Smothers-wise (as it never aired on E! when they reran the shows), an appearance by the always awesome (and seldom seen) Mr. Harry Nilsson: