Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, and The Naked City

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, by Russ Meyer, 1965

In the heyday of exploitation movies, one of the most important factors in getting butts in movie theater seats was to have a tantalizing title. I doubt there's ever been a title that piques curiosity more than Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Russ Meyer struck gold with that one, I must say. The real challenge is making a movie that lives up to that title.

Well, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a true classic, at least as far as trashy movies go. Look, it's not Gone with the Wind, but it does have a certain quality. It's the story of three badass go-go dancers, Billie, Rosie, and their leader, Varla (Tura Satana). While road racing in the desert, they come across a couple of goofy teenagers. Varla kills the boy and they end up kidnapping the girl. They then find themselves scheming to rob an old man in a wheelchair and his two sons (including a dumb, muscular one named The Vegetable), while their teenage hostage tries to get away.

That's basically the story. It almost felt like Meyer and his cowriter Jack Moran were just going "and then this happens", "and then this happens", when they were writing the screenplay, because I don't know how else you would make the leap from "road-racing go-go dancers kill a teen" to "then they end up on a ranch". Not that I'm complaining, though. The movie is weird and plenty of fun. I was amused by how un-trashy this trashy movie seemed. There's not even nudity or anything in it, the violence is tame, it's just, you know, titillation. There's almost an innocence to it. A few years later, this movie would have been wayyyy more exploitative.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a fun and memorable B-movie, but I'm not sure if it would have endured the way it has if it didn't have that crazy title. I'm glad that weird stuff like this exists, though.

The Naked City, by Jules Dassin, 1948

If you traced the police procedural drama genre all the way back to its roots, Jules Dassin's 1948 Film Noir, The Naked City, might have been the starting point. I could be wrong, but I'm guessing it was at least the beginning of the modern era. The Naked City plays like the original Law & Order episode.

It begins with the murder of a model. Two police detectives, Muldoon and Halloran (Barry Fitzgerald and Don Taylor) begin their investigation. We then see the entire investigative process play out, interviewing witnesses, looking for clues, and following leads, until ultimately, they find their man. I know I'm being vague, but look, it's a really successful formula that we all know by heart by now, don't we?

I don't mean to say that The Naked City is formulaic. I don't believe it was at the time. I think it might be a big reason the formula is so prevalent today. It's a great movie, it even won a couple Oscars. The mystery is very well constructed and richly layered. The cinematography, on location in New York City, is fantastic. The characters, including the investigators, suspects, witnesses, and even the murderer are all given depth and dimension. There's a great scene where Halloran goes home to his wife, who begs him to discipline their son, which he doesn't believe in. We learn a lot about his nature in that one scene. He's not going to hit his kid, which says a lot about a man in 1948.

The Naked City is a classic, and a very influential film. Jules Dassin made some pretty groundbreaking movies. In addition to revolutionizing the police procedural with this, he practically invented the heist genre too, with 1955's Rififi (more on that whenever I actually see it). The only other film I've seen by him is Topkapi, which is another fun and influential heist movie.

Switchblade Sisters, You're Gonna Miss Me

All I've wanted to do lately is watch movies. I don't really know why, but I've just been experiencing a hunger lately to take in as many films as I possibly can. I'm sure that's what those of you who know me think I'm like all the time, but truthfully, until fairly recently, I was happy to watch three or four movies a week, mixed in with countless TV shows, comic books, novels, video games, and websites, not to mention what passes for my piddling social life.

Suddenly, in July, I started watching a movie every single day, sometimes more than one. I watched close to 40 in that month alone, and that was even with me prepping a cross-country move! It looks like I'll come close to that again in August. In the last month and a half, I've watched 1/3 of the total movies I've watched all year!

Why am I telling you this? I have no idea. I just have so many movies to talk about right now, and the list of films I want to see keeps getting longer. The last couple months have felt quite fulfilling in that respect. I don't know how long I can keep up this momentum. Probably not long, since I'll be back to working full time by September. But I'll try to drag it out as long as I can.

The Switchblade Sisters, by Jack Hill, 1975

Watching old exploitation movies can often be a squirmy, unsettling affair. The violence doesn't usually take me aback very much, but the sex often can. Not that I'm prudish, I just don't really like it when things get rapey, as they often did in the 70's. In those cases, you usually just have to try to look past those scenes and try to appreciate the movie within the context it was made in.

Jack Hill's The Switchblade Sisters is actually a pretty well made film, despite the scenes that make you feel like a creep for watching them. It's about a gang of tough, kick-ass high school girls known as The Dagger Debs, who are like a sister sorority to a man gang called The Daggers. Maggie, a new girl in town, manages to work her way into the Debs, befriending the leader, Lace. Over the course of things, Maggie takes over the gang, throws out the guys, and changes the name to the much cooler sounding The Jezebels, and eventually, it all comes down to a big gang fight, with Maggie going up against her old friend Lace. Lots of violence and titillation along the way.

The Switchblade Sisters walks kind of a weird balance. The girls in the gang are strong, independent, three-dimensional characters, which is pretty impressive for its time. But the movie must also give in to the demands of its financiers and its target audience, so there's a lot of pretty tasteless stuff mixed in. You could almost say this movie is kind of feminist. You could also say it's not in the least bit feminist, and you would not be wrong. Overall, I did like The Switchblade Sisters. It has an entertaining story, and the lead girls were actually really badass. It's worth watching if you know that you're getting into some pretty gloriously trashy stuff. I know Quentin Tarantino is a big fan, if that's any indication.

You're Gonna Miss Me, by Keven McAlester, 2005

Rock and roll history and lore is riddled with stories of success and highly publicized accounts of tragedy. But along the paths of those famous stories are tangential stories of bands that almost made it, or artists who burned out before they even began. Bands who disintegrated after recording one ahead-of-its-time album. Artists who couldn't stand the attention. These stories are often just as, or more, interesting than hearing about The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, or Kurt Cobain again.

You're Gonna Miss Me is a documentary about Roky Erickson, lead singer of a 60's rock band called The 13th Floor Elevators, and apparently, the man who coined the word "psychedelic". They have some songs you might recognize, look them up. Erickson took too much LSD, was diagnosed schizophrenic, and committed. But when he gets out his guitar and sings, he still can make phenomenal music. A very interesting and pretty sad documentary, and an important side story in the Annals of Rock.

American Grindhouse

Any regular readers of this here webbity page can probably tell that I love watching B movies, cult movies, and other such cinematic oddities. I love the strange and fantastical, and many of my favorite movies are the ones that show me things that I have never seen or even imagined before. As an extension of that, I also love watching documentaries about such films. After watching them, I always end up with huge lists of movies I want to check out.

Elijah Drenner's documentary American Grindhouse is basically a complete history of exploitation movies, going back all the way to the dawn of cinema. It's highly informative, demonstrating through footage and interviews with experts, fans, and participants in the genre, how the societal mindset of each era was reflected in the usually cheap, often seedy films that played in the dingier, more rundown theaters across America.

I learned a lot, and perhaps saw some things that I can't unsee, such as a live birth (surprisingly, I handled it well), and footage from Tod Browning's Freaks, which I always kind of avoided, because that kind of stuff always makes me sad (it still made me sad).

I loved the section of the film about the films of the 1950's. I thought it was hilarious that there was an entire genre of Nudist Camp movies, just showing naked people frolicking and playing volleyball and stuff. That's such a strange, sexless way to sell sex that it could only have come from the repressed 1950's, you know?

The sixties are when things started to get pretty sick, which also makes sense because society was getting pretty sick, too. You know, turbulent times, and stuff. That's when the nudie movies got violent, and the horror movies got gory. I liked learning about Herschell Gordon Lewis, AKA the Godfather of Gore, who most of you might know from the scene about him in Juno. I'm not sure if I want to see his movies, but the guy was a trailblazer, taking horror movies to the over the top, Grand Guignol level.

A great debt is also owed to Roger Corman, who I have a particular appreciation for. He directed and produced so many independent movies, and found so many major movie talents in the process, that you could make an entire movie just on him. (What? They already have? I plan on watching that one too!) He was always able to tap into what the youth were looking for and, well, exploit it.

Eventually, in no small part due to Corman and the generation of talent he discovered and mentored (Scorsese, Nicholson, Dante, Demme, the list goes on...), exploitation movies became the mainstream blockbusters that we go and see today. Which is exactly why knowing this history should be important to anyone who loves the movies.

I seriously love documentaries like this. I always end up with huge lists of movies I want to see after I watch them. Did I mention it was narrated by Robert Forster? Pretty cool, right? Just be warned if you watch it: lots of nudity, lots of gore. Put the kids to bed!

Anyway, if you watch American Grindhouse and are still interested in learning about movies like this, might I direct your attention to the fantastic documentaries of Mark Hartley? Instead of the broad picture that American Grindhouse paints, Hartley narrows his focus to specific global movements or subgenres and digs deep. Not Quite Hollywood covers the Australian "Ozsploitation" movement, and Machete Maidens Unleashed covers Corman's exploits making movies on the cheap in the Phillipines in the 70's. Fascinating, educational and funny stuff. All three of these movies are on Netflix Instant (if you're in America, at least).

Machete Maidens Unleashed!

Documentarian Mark Hartley has made a name for himself chronicling cinematic histories that nobody else seems to want to touch. With his first film, Not Quite Hollywood, he explored the creative energy and weird anything goes vibe of the Australian exploitation movie scene. Along with countless trashy ones, some genuinely good films came out of that genre, such as George Miller's classic Mad Max, and Richard Franklin's demented horror film Patrick (which Hartley is now set to remake).

Now comes Hartley's second film, Machete Maidens Unleashed!, about the cinematic revolution in The Philippines through the 60's, 70's, and 80's, spurred on by schlock producer Roger Corman. Like the Ozsploitation scene, this is a lesser known piece of cinematic history that still deserves to be told.

The Philippines offered many resources for Corman to exploit: extremely cheap non-union labor, real life jungle sets, and stunt men willing to do anything for a buck. Corman made his movies there one after another, cheap and fast, utilizing many of the same actors and directors. He explored and exploited many genres there, including many Women in Prison films, some blaxploitation, martial arts, and horror. Most of these movies were, of course, terrible, but some of them do have their moments. Actors Pam Grier and Sid Haig cut their teeth making movies in The Philippines, and The Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme got his start writing them. The fact that the movies were so trashy allowed him to sneak in some subversive political subtext in places where nobody would look.

Hartley's documentary is told in a series of interviews, with, among others, Corman himself, Grier and Haig, his trailer cutters Alan Arkush and Joe Dante, and director John Landis. The interviews are intercut with scenes from the movies themselves. There are a lot of interesting stories told. A particularly funny one is Arkush and Dante's story about the exploding helicopter, and how it found its way into many of the trailers they cut.

The history of Americans shooting their films in The Philippines ultimately culminates in Francis Ford Coppola bringing his infamous production of Apocalypse Now to the country. Since there's already an entire movie about how that went down, they just spend a few minutes on it, but it's still some of the most interesting stuff in the movie.

After Apocalypse Now, The Philippines started exporting their own products. We're introduced to Weng Weng, a dwarf action star who starred in James Bond spoofs such as "For Your Height Only". He was their first homegrown success story in the international scene.

Machete Maidens Unleashed! is an extremely interesting, often outrageous story. I love this kind of thing, I find the oddballs working on the fringe of the mainstream so much more interesting. I hope Mark Hartley keeps on making these documentaries and exposing the world to the stories behind all these weird grindhouse gems. Next up, he's telling the story of Cannon Films, the Israeli production company that produced the hilariously bad disco musical The Apple (WATCH IT, EVERYONE!), Breakin', its sequel, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Masters of the Universe. Can't wait!

Machete Maidens Unleashed! and Not Quite Hollywood are available on Netflix Instant if you want to see them.

The Sentinel

Whew. I think I got in over my head with this one. But more on that later.

This was a horror movie from 1977, notable for featuring young Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum in small parts. It stars Woody Allen as Alvy Singer, and follows the various pitfalls in his relationship with Diane Keaton... oh wait, that's Annie Hall. What, were Goldblum and Walken a package deal in 1977? Oh, man, they should have been a comedy team, that would have been amazing. Sorry, that was stupid.

Starting over, The Sentinel was a horror movie from 1977 by director Michael Winner, the guy who made the Death Wish movies. It's one of those Catholic horror movies that were so popular in the 1970's after the success of Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist.

It's about a model named Alison (Cristina Raines) who moves into a new apartment because she wants to live on her own for a while before hooking up with her boyfriend Michael (Chris Sarandon). The place is beautiful, and the real estate agent seems suspiciously eager to rent it to her, dropping the price like crazy. Not long after moving there, Alison starts feeling weird, having flashbacks to her youthful suicide attempt (she walked in on her dad having an orgy). She has all sorts of weird neighbors that creep her out, including an old blind priest upstairs and an old man with a bird on his shoulder and a cat that he makes cakes for, not unlike Danny McBride in Pineapple Express (ok, pretty unlike that). When she mentions them, she is told that the only other tenant is the priest. So, her boyfriend sees something wrong and he sets out to get to the bottom of all this.

Turns out that the building is the gateway to hell and all these weird people that only Alison can see are damned. Also, Michael has a secret of his own, and also also, the church has plans of their own for Alison.

I've got to say, The Sentinel was pretty watchable. My favorite stuff was the more subtle horror, but it goes all out around halfway in. There's a pretty freaky sequence in the middle where Alison is attacked by her dead orgy dad.

I didn't like Cristina Raines' acting at first, but I have to say she grew on me over the course of the movie. Chris Sarandon holds a place in my heart as Jerry the Vampire in the original Fright Night, so I'm happy to see him in stuff. For much of the movie, I thought it was a good guy role, but ultimately, I guess his character was more in line with what you would expect Chris Sarandon to play. I should have known better, he even had a mustache. There are other name actors in the movie, including Burgess Meredith, Eli Wallach, and Beverly D'Angelo, and that old vaudeville duo, Goldblum and Walken, who, joking aside, actually share no screentime with each other.

The ending was way too much for me and kind of soured the entire experience. See, Michael Winner decided that when the gates of hell bust open and its denizens come out to take Alison away, they should be twisted and disfigured. So he hired a bunch of actually twisted and disfigured people to play the parts. I couldn't look, it was too heartbreaking and made me feel guilty and gross. So I basically sat with my head down for the last 10 minutes trying to work out what was going on just by listening.

I probably just shouldn't have watched the movie. I knew going into it about that stuff, I just thought maybe I could handle it. Anyway, as far as horror goes, the movie is pretty effective, and the story is interesting. I just could have really done without the exploitative stuff at the end. I guess, watch The Sentinel if you think you can handle it, but if you're sensitive to that kind of thing like I am, you should probably skip it and watch the Exorcist again, because it was a much better movie, anyway.

The Thing with Two Heads

I try to bring a good mix of reviews to this website. New releases, classics, foreign films, oddities. Once in a while, I'll watch a movie against my better judgment, out of pure curiosity. So, you tell me: if you saw this poster, you'd have to watch the movie, too, right? Yeah, I thought so.

As the logline suggests, The Thing with Two Heads is about a white bigot who's head is transplanted onto a soul brother's body. The bigot in question is Dr. Maxwell Kirshner, played by Ray Milland. He's a wheelchair bound transplant surgeon, the head of his own institute. He is no longer able to perform the transplants himself, but he supervises them. He doesn't allow black people on his staff. We know this because he somehow let one slip through the cracks. He tries to fire the dude, Fred Williams, but Fred gives a speech and has signed a contract, so he's allowed to stay for the remainder of his term.

At home Kirschner has a secret lab where he is developing the first ever head transplant. He's testing it on a gorilla (or possibly a man in a gorilla suit, I'm not sure). At one point, the two headed gorilla escapes. You'd think it would go on a rampage or something, but all the movie can really afford is to show it walking down the street calmly, and then knocking some things over in a grocery store. When they find the gorilla suit man, he's peacefully sitting in the supermarket, munching on two bananas.

Kirschner soon reveals that he is dying, and is planning on performing his head transplant on himself. You see, the transplant isn't two headed forever. After a month, the bond is made permanent, and the original head can be removed. They put out a call for death row inmates, offering a chance to buy them another month of life and the pride of knowing they donated themselves to science. They find their subject in Jack Moss ("Rosey" Grier), a man about to be given the chair for murder, but, as he says in his final words, he's innocent, and his girlfriend is just about to prove it, so he thinks he might donate himself to science after all. Oh, also, Jack Moss is black. You can tell this before you even see him because of the funky theme music that plays before he's introduced.

They perform the head transplant. It's actually a pretty well done sequence. For some reason, my favorite bit was when they were prepping Jack for the surgery by shaving his shoulder. Kirschner's severed head looked quite good for 40 years ago. It's mouth moved a little bit like it was still breathing, and it's eyes rolled open too. Oh, you know why? This movie is one of Rick Baker's first. Yes, the legendary creature designer is also the man in the two headed gorilla suit, according to the credits.

So the transplant is a success, and Kirschner, regaining consciousness first, is still unaware of his donor. He slowly regains control and narrates as he lifts up his hand, then his arm, and looks at it and goes, "is this some kind of a joke?" This is basically how Kirschner is through the whole movie. He's like your cranky old racist grandpa.

They are having some complications, I guess, because the surgeons summon Dr. Fred Williams to Kirschner's house to help them, with his anti-rejection expertise. When Jack comes to and finds another guy's head next to his own, he's not too happy. He manages to escape, holding Williams hostage, they jump into his car and go on the run.

What happens next is... well, it's... (sigh)... an endless police chase. First our heroes are on the run by car, then they shake the car and find their way onto a Motocross Rally, and take themselves a dirtbike. The chase lasts about half the running time of the movie. Yes, about 40 minutes. And they couldn't afford to do it on the street, so they do it in a field. A lot of police cars roll over. There's very little dialogue. It just keeps going.

Finally, after endless chasing, they make it to Jack's girlfriend's house, with only about 15 minutes of movie to go. Kirschner says more racist things. Jack tries to sleep with his girlfriend, saying "don't worry, baby, I'll just cover his head with a pillowcase!" Okay, that's a pretty funny line. What the movie comes down to is a battle for Jack's body as Kirschner begins to take control. Who can remove which head first???

The Thing with Two Brains actually has some funny moments. It isn't taking itself seriously, and the two leads actually commit to their parts. "Rosey" Grier is actually quite likeable as Jack, and I found myself rooting for him to clear his name and get this white asshole's head off his shoulder. Fred Williams was good, too. If it weren't for the looooooooong period in the middle where nothing of interest happens, this would be a somewhat enjoyable, goofy B-movie, with just a touch of social conscience.