Death Wish - Brian Garfield

"These young scum grow up in a welfare state where they see that violence goes unpunished and the old virtues are for stupid pious fools. What can we expect of them that's any better than this random vicious despair? These radicals keep arsenals in their attics and advocate the overthrow of an economic system which has graduated more people out of poverty than any other system in history. They arm themselves to attack honest hard-working citizens like you and me, and to shoot down beleaguered policemen, and what happens? The public is propagandized into outrage over the behavior of the police in defending themselves and the public!"

Fawcett Crest Paperback

The white man roars!

Well, it's not that simple. I pulled the passage above from a speech by one of Paul Benjamin's coworkers. It comes about halfway into the novel, after Paul has returned to work for the first time since his wife's brutal murder at the hands of random muggers. At this point in the novel, various versions of this speech have been uttered by a number of characters. They're frightened, angry and holed up in a city that is drowning in crime and chaos.

But are they really?

The interesting thing about this novel is that it's a case of strong suspicion equaling strong evidence. The upper middle class people in Paul Benjamin's circle are, for the most part, right of center on the political spectrum, suspicious of others encroaching into the world they grew up in, convinced that a fine line of defense by the police is all that protects them from the murder and rape that surrounds them. Paul Benjamin was the exception to that philosophy, The ultimate bleeding heart liberal, a friend calls him. Until a random act of violence destroys his family, that is.

Everyone has seen the movie that was based on Garfield's 1972 novel, And by now most everyone has seen the four sequels that have followed it. Those films don't bother much with the tragic psychosis experienced by Paul Benjamin. Instead, they're more feel-good flicks for the armchair streetfighter that percolates inside most of us. They're "movies for guys who like movies" as TNT used to say. The novel doesn't let us off so easily. It doesn't give us the release of getting to share Paul's retribution on the scum that destroyed his family. Instead, it's only in the final 4th of the novel that the first would-be mugger is killed. And just who is that scumbag mugger? Just a petty junkie living on the fringes in the park, as scared as the citizens he prays upon.

And more murders follow. More of life's losers that opt for the easiest opportunity to take a few dollars, or to hock a stolen TV, or to joyride in a stolen car.

There is an ugly current voiced in the novel that hasn't ever gone away. Over four decades later it's still fueling hatred inside of us. Here in Arizona we're subjected to a celebrity sheriff that has made a career of persecuting and accusing others not "like us" for the crime in our state. Arizona also boasts a semi-literate former governor (who now has designs on becoming VP of the U.S.!) who stated that our deserts were full of headless bodies. We have a community of angry retirees that would happily wall their town off to separate themselves from the "illegals" and welfare slobs who come here to either steal jobs or live off the system, it's never clear which. They've convinced themselves that they're the only generation that worked for what they have. We have a would-be political party who believes in shooting first and aiming later. We have people running for president who stoke fear in society, appealing to the worst of us for their own gain. The strongest lobby in Washington keeps banging a drum that things would be better if everybody was armed.

This book and movie tapped a nerve that's not pretty.

For more on this, check out the excellent review by Cullen Gallagher over at Pulp Serenade.

Dang! Aren't books supposed to be an escape?

Cult Movie Classic - The Big Cube

Sorry about the delay in posts. I set a schedule for myself to do at least one post a week, then failed. Like all great intentions...oh well. At least I've gotten some good books finished in the meantime, in addition to another column for Dark Eclipse which you might want to check out if you're so inclined.

I've been meaning to throw out a post for a pretty cool movie I saw some weeks back on TCM. It's The Big Cube, from 1969 and stars Lana Turner, Karin Mossberg, George Chakiris, Richard Egan and Daniel O'Herlihy. It was directed by Tito Davison.

Karin Mossberg in The Big Cube

The big names in the flick are clearly Lana Turner and George Chakiris, and both play their roles to the hilt. Well, at least George Chakiris does. Maybe Ms Turner was cashing a check, but still, she is enjoyable to watch. As is Karin Mossberg for reasons which are readily apparent in the photo here.

Lana Turner stars as Adriana, a stage actress who retires from the stage to marry Charles Winthrop, played by Daniel O'Herlihy. Winthrop is one of those wealthy cats who makes his living flying around the world making millions. His daughter Lisa (Karin Mossberg) fresh in from school in Europe, takes an instant dislike to Adriana. Adriana is nothing but kind to Lisa, and fervently hopes the two can get along swimmingly. Instead, Lisa immediately falls into the sordid world of bored rich kids and their squalid kicks. She meets a real charmer named Johnny Allan, who notices the swanky jewels on Lisa's lovely body and decides his ship has finally come to port. Daddy is none too pleased with Lisa's savage friends and makes it loud and clear to her. But Charles Winthrop is quickly jettisoned from the story due to a boating accident. He leaves his fortune to Lisa, naming Adriana as executor of the estate. The only catch is that Lisa is not to marry her boyfriend Johnny. Seems old Winthrop has seen right through slimy Johnny's intentions with Lisa. Johnny (George Chakiris) is a medical student of dubious reputation. When not bedding his new rich girlfriend, he gets his kicks dosing people with LSD. It's all mad fun! Everything is all hunky-dory until he learns of the the condition that Lisa not marry him if she expects to inherit a dime of Daddy's wealth. He quickly convinces Lisa that everything is Adriana's fault. If Adriana had never come into the picture, why Lisa would have her fortune and they could be married. Damn that Adriana, damn her! Only one thing the lovebirds can do. That is, dose Adriana with LSD and drive her batshit. Lisa, bless her pretty (empty) little head, quickly falls into line, and together she and Johnny commence with a campaign of psychological warfare on kind and trusting Adriana.

There are plenty of campy, psychedelic trippy scenes in The Big Cube to enjoy, along with a nifty little strip-tease act by one of Lisa's pals. Karin Mossberg is lovely to look at throughout the movie, but can't really compete in the acting department with the likes of Chakiris and Turner. Still, it's kind of a fun movie to check out. I understand it's available in a camp classic box-set from Warner Bros. I've also seen it pop up on TCM a few times, so it shouldn't be too hard to catch at some point.

Blow Up

Blow Up, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, is one of those ultra cool movies that I love. It's been a number of years since I've seen it, but it's one of those few movies that'll have scenes replay in my mind from time to time, like celluloid ghosts pulled from hiding by the most random of moments in one's daily life. I wouldn't pretend to know what it's about and what it means, so forget about any deep analysis from me here. Just one fan's admiration is all you're going to get here. That and a recommendation to seek it out and see for yourself it if you haven't already done so.

Released in 1966, Blow Up is a snapshot of a swinging, mod London; a time and place I would have loved to experience for myself. It's an "art film" whose story is deceptively simple. A photographer, played with laconic cool by David Hemmings, takes pictures of what appears to be a pair of lovers in a park. The woman involved discovers him doing so and is none to happy about it. She wants the film and the pictures. Later, while developing the photographs, he notices something odd about them. Within the frames, it seems the film has captured a body, and a murderer. The lovers' embrace is ambiguous, open to seeing it as either passionate or sinister. The more Hemmings tries to blow up the photographs, the less we can distinguish what is contained in them. That evening, after a lively romp with two birds, he goes back to the park alone and discovers a body there. When he returns to his studio he find's that it's been broken into and ransacked of his prints and negatives (echoes of the legendary "men in black"). By now, the viewer is hooked, and this is where the film really kicks.

To give any more away would take the fun away from the uninitiated who've yet to experience it for themselves. One may find it either invigorating, or frustrating. Perhaps both. That's what's fun about films like this. One scene I'd like to share however, is the famous one below where we're treated to a nightclub performance by The Yardbirds, featuring a young Jeff Beck and a pre-Led Zeppelin Jimmy Page. The audience's reaction to what's happening onstage is priceless.

I've also seen Antonoini's  L'Avventura and love it as well. Perhaps I have an attraction for ennui and mysteries without solutions.

Dick Contino and Daddy-O's

I shook, twisted, stomped, gyrated, flailed, flashed, genuflected, wiggled, strutted and banged my squeezebox like a dervish orbiting on Benzedrine, maryjane and glue. James Ellroy - "Dick Contino's Blues.

A couple weeks ago I caught this old B-flick, The Beat Generation, on TCM. With a screenplay by Richard Matheson (yes, the legend, Richard Matheson) I figured it would be good for a few chuckles late at night with a beer and potato chip meal for company, and for the most part I was right. It was pretty much as expected, a somewhat entertaining, somewhat derisive stab at the beat movement that was popular at the time it was made. Cheesy dialog, buffoonish characterizations and Mamie Van Doren slinking around make  it go down without getting too "wrapped up in the conformity of it all,"dig. Also showing up for the fun was Jackie Coogan, Louis Armstrong, a verse blowing Vampira, and...late in the movie...Dick Contino.

Dick Contino's role is limited to a singing cat at a bongo beach party thrown by nihilistic serial rapist Stan Hess (played to the hilt by Ray Danton) that becomes a sort of slapstick escape 'n chase scene, complete with rhumba line dancing, bongo banging and wrestling!

Watching Dick Contino perform "Don't Bug Me, Daddy-O" reminded me of another flick, Daddy-O, from 1958, starring Dick Contino. That movie, from what I remember, is fairly entertaining and bad enough to have gotten the MST 3000 treatment.

And, what does all this have to do with Ellroy's "Dick Contino's Blues"? Well, I'm gonna tell ya. It's just my way of recommending a couple of flicks and a pretty cool novelette that folds, spindles and mutilates 1950s L.A. hipsters, B-movies, pinkos, lefties, perverts, beatniks, fast cars, loose women, and a psycho or two, into one neat little package complete with its own soundtrack.

See what your grandparents shook their fists at, then tell 'em about it next Sunday at church. They'll be impressed.

Slaughter - "Don't hand him no jive!"

Slaughter from 1972, directed by Jack Starrett and starring Jim Brown, Stella Stevens and Rip Torn is one of those classic 1970s action movies that you don't see a lot of any more unless you deliberately seek them out. Maybe there should be a cable channel that shows nothing but classic action genre flicks from the decade...

Anyway, Jim Brown plays Slaughter, an ex-Green Beret who returns home to find who is behind the car-bombing death of his parents and kill their ass. His father was reputed to have shady ties, and it doesn't take long for Slaughter to discover that local mobsters were behind the hit. While questioning a lady friend of his dad's, an attempt is made on Slaughter's life. The lady is gunned down but is able to give Slaughter a name before dying. Slaughter reacts quickly enough to dispatch  one of the goons, and promptly gets arrested for murder afterward. Instead of facing punishment, Slaughter accepts a deal by the agent in charge of investigating the local mafia, in return for leading them to the big hood in charge. It's one of those scenes you have to just go with and accept. Slaughter heads to Mexico where he meets his partner on the case, a quirky dude named Harry. They're looking for a criminal big shot named Mario. Slaughter meets up with a moll named Ann, played by a hot Stella Stevens, and the two of them immediately fall for each other's excessive charms. Meanwhile, a psycho named Dominick, played by Rip Torn, is making his play to take over the criminal real estate run by Mario. Mario comes off as something of a ponce more than a bad-ass, and is gunned down by Dominick and his goons while practicing on his tennis game. Slaughter goes through bad guys, gets chased through alleyways by cars, gets in knife fights on rooftops, guns down hoods in the street, shoots up a casino and beds the hot Ann in his free time, culminating in an explosive showdown with the psycho wild-haired Dominick.

I liked this movie a lot, and enjoyed Jim Brown's performance as Slaughter. He carries the role in a charismatic style that will easily have audiences rooting for him. The man's got swagger to the nth degree in this flick and is one bad-ass Motherf***er to boot! The plot has holes, but there's plenty of sex and action to overlook them, not to mention tons of terrific dialog. Rip Torn is a bad guy that you can't wait to see get his ass handed to him. Stella Stevens was in a number of movies from this time and basically played the same role in each one, but is enjoyable to watch.

The film was successful enough to lead to a sequel, Slaughter's Big Rip-Off, which I'll have to catch.

Messiah of Evil

One of the things every horror movie fan knows is you have to wade through a lot of shit to find gold. Messiah of Evil from 1973 is one such find.

To describe the movie would take the fun out of seeing it for yourself, if you haven’t seen it already. I’ll say that it’s a psychotic, random, dreamlike, psychedelic, cannibal, zombie, vampire, swinger movie and let it go at that. All the right ingredients for a classic, right?

Marianna Hill plays Arletty Long, who comes to Point Dune to visit her father Joseph Long, a reclusive artist. She arrives in the night to a Mobil gas station, where the attendant tells her that no one wants to go to Point Dune. An antique pickup arrives and a gaunt, creepy Albino looking dude who tells the attendant that he wants “Two dollars, no knock!” The attendant then sees in the bed of the truck a couple of corpses, one with its eyes ripped out. Just another night in Point Dune, and just the type of weird scene to kickstart the craziness. But that’s nothing compared to the stuff in store for Arletty.

In town, Arletty looks for her father who is missing from his spooky house on the coast. The only clues he’s left behind are his scattered artwork and a chaotic diary, evidence of a disturbed mind. Arletty is meets the local art dealer who happens to be blind. Maybe that’s a shot at art critics, who knows…anyway, the dealer’s assistant tells Arletty that some others have been asking about her father, and they’re staying at the Seven Seas Motel. Arletty goes to the motel and finds Thom, played by Michael Greer, an aristocratic “collector” and his two travelling companions Laura and Toni, played by Anitra Ford and Joy Bang, respectively. Anitra Ford may look familiar to fans of The Price is Right as she appeared on the game show for several years early on. She’s a beautiful woman and would have been seen often on TV in the 70s in a number of shows. Toni is one of those bored seventies girls that you would have seen by the score in lower rung girlie magazines like Cheri back in the day, if that was your sort of thing. Entertaining Thom and his companions is the local town kook, played by Elisha Cook Jr. He blithers on about a blood moon and the town’s citizens turning into animals, before being sent on his way by the gang.  

Later, Thom and his girls take residence at Joseph Long’s house with Arletty. The opportunity for some groovy sex scenes with Arletty, Thom and the girls is squandered here, in lieu of more creepy randomness. Laura gets bored with the scene and leaves one night for San Francisco. She gets a ride into town by the creepy Albino character in his antique pickup, where he tries to impress her by consuming a live beach rat. Needless to say, Laura would rather bail at the next stop sign than ride any further with him. And this is where the movie turns from cheapy drive-in horror to cool, effective dreamlike horror. Laura wanders through a ghost town of brightly lit storefront windows until following a lone pedestrian into an empty Ralphs Supermarket. What Laura discovers in the supermarket is justifiably a famous horror movie moment and my describing it wouldn’t do it justice.

I believe the film is easily available for viewing, and I would recommend it to anyone who appreciates old horror flicks from the 70s and 80s that don’t follow the paint-by-numbers plot of your standard horror fare. I think you’ll dig it.

El Santo - The Legend

Santo en la venganza de la momia - 1970
 

My first exposure to Santo was when I was stationed in California back in the early 80's. I'd catch a few minutes of these movies on the independent stations from L.A. and was immediately intrigued. I'd grown up in Florida and was all too familiar with professional wrestling, masked and otherwise, and of course ate up anything that had to do with horror movies. But combining the two - pure genius!

Santo was Rodolfo Guzman Huerta and his wrestling career ran from the 1930's clear in to the 1980's. He starred in more than 50 lucha libre movies, of which I've only seen 4 in their entirety, including the one above, Santo en la venganza de la momia. I've got a long list to catch up on. Clearly Santo is the hero of the films, battling everything from vampire women, monsters, martians, pirates, evil scientists, gangsters and heels. You name it, he'll take them on in the name of justice. His movie adventures began in 1958 with Santo contra el cerebro del mal and continued until his last movie, Santo en la furia de los karatekas in 1982. Some years back I picked up some of his DVDs that had been subtitled in English. I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to find his movies on DVD should you want to.

In spite of Rodolfo Guzman Huerta's passing in 1984, Santo lives on in songs, cartoons, comic books, action figures and movies. Hopefully his legend will continue for a long time to come.

"I'll Be Lurking for You....."

Most of my favorite television memories are from when I was a kid growing up in Tampa Florida and watching Fright Theater and Creature Feature on WTOG, Channell 44, hosted by Dr. Paul Bearer (Dick Bennick, Sr.) every Saturday.

This quickie clip gives you an idea of the kind of humor and movies Dr. Paul Bearer would bring to the boys and ghouls every Saturday afternoon and late night. Every bad joke and pun was something only a kid would love. He would also have guests like Jack the Ripper and his Mummy. His hosting run in the Tenement Castle, located somewhere in St. Creaturesburg, began in 1971, I believe, and continued long after I'd grown up and moved away, until his death in 1995. A long, long haunt. I discovered him in 5th grade which would have been around 1974, and the first movie I remember seeing on his show was Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers. How's that for a useless memory? Actually, fond memories of trying to stay up on Saturday nights for Fright Theater's double feature, and hardly ever making it until the end, waking up sometime in the middle of the night to a sign-off screen, or a church show. Sometimes I would set my alarm for 11 PM, thinking if I got a couple hours sleep in first, I could make it through both movies. At some point Fright Theater went to a single feature before dropping entirely, but by then I'd discovered other things to do on Saturday night. Still, there was always Creature Feature to get your dose of Dr. Paul Bearer's excruciating puns and "horrible old movies."

Dr. Paul Bearer often made personal appearances around Tampa Bay, including the Gasparilla Day Parade in his Cadillac Hearse. I made it to one of his appearances at a stereo shop when I was in 6th grade and got a signed photograph that I've long since lost.

I miss old Dr. Paul Bearer and his horrible old movies, but am heartened to know that plenty others out there remember him fondly as well.