Semiquincentennial Movie Project #41: The White Buffalo

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

Week #41: South Dakota -

 

 

 

The state of South Dakota was established on November 2, 1889

Details about South Dakota:

State bird: ring-necked pheasant

State flower: American pasqueflower

State tree: Black Hills spruce

Additional historical trivia:

As previously stated in last week's entry, both North and South Dakota were admitted on the same day. President Benjamin Harrison didn't want people to know which one was admitted first, but for convenience sake South Dakota is listed as being the second one, because it comes second alphabetically. 

The South Dakota state flag originally had "The Sunshine State" (below) on it, but when Florida hijacked the nickname in the 60's, the state made a new flag, with "The Mount Rushmore State" (above) embroidered on it.

 

The badlands area of the state is often referred to as the "playground of the dinosaurs", due to the large number of dinosaur fossils found there.

Rapid City features a statue of each of the U.S. Presidents in various locations on it's city streets. (I don't know how many of them have actually visited Rapid City...)

 

The state has 4X more cows than people... (not sure if there are just more Hindus, or what...)

Famous people born in South Dakota: Tom Brokaw, Al Neuharth (founder of USA Today), Shawn Colvin, Mamie Van Doren, Cheryl Ladd, Norm van Brocklin, Adam Vinatieri, U.S. Presidential candidate George McGovern and U.S. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey 

 

 

The White Buffalo (1977):

This film is rather an enigma in itself.

It was promoted as a "creature feature", I think, if you watch the trailer:

 

 

And yet.... And yet, the creature, somewhat like the terror that was later known as Jaws rarely is seen on screen. The film itself is more of a character study of the legendary Wild Bill Hickok (Charles Bronson) and the equally legendary Native American war chief Crazy Horse,(Will Samson),{who, by my research, never actually met in real life}. The creature itself really only appears briefly in full view of the camera. (And it doesn't look all that scary when it does.)

 

Not that it's all that disappointing as a film for the lack of an enhanced showing of the "monster" in question. Nor is it lacking in many of the tropes of a standard western, if one were to take it only on those terms. You do get your standard shoot-em-ups and bar fights one would come to expect in a western. The fights, to be honest, seem to be wedged in as an afterthought, but they make for some entertainment in their own right.

 

The basic problem, which may have been part of the problem for this movie to be as familiar as the aforementioned Jaws, is that the character study part lacks from a focus.

Hickok, who has come west ostensibly to take part in the Gold Rush that was then occurring in the Black Hills region, is NOT really there to become a prospector. What he is really there for is to hunt down an elusive nightmare he has been having, that of the titular white buffalo. The white buffalo haunts his dreams, causing him to wake up firing his guns into the nearest wall (or bed, where fortunately, no one is sleeping).

 

The white buffalo haunting the dreams of the protagonist in this film is often associated with the obsession that Ahab has for Moby Dick, the white whale of the famous novel of that name. At various times Hickok says the beast was "eatin' out my soul". Hickok claims that he isn't afraid of anything, except fear, and this monster of his dreams was causing that fear to overtake him.

 

Some of his acquaintances speculate that it may be just his imagination. It is hinted at several times that he battled syphyllis and that the disease may have rattled his brain. It's a sure bet that no one believes there is actually a white buffalo out there in the wilderness.

That is no one except the Lakota tribe that had a first hand witness to the destruction of their encampment by the creature. The buffalo rampaged through the village, taking out several tribesmen, including the daughter of the war chief Crazy Horse. His father tells him that it is unmanly to be such a crybaby about it and tells him that his daughter won't rest in peace in the afterlife unless he mans up and kills the white beast, taking the hide to enclose around his dead daughter. To that effect his father takes away his honored name and says that until he completes this quest he will henceforth go through life with the name "Worm".

Both Hickok and Crazy Horse, then, have the same goal, although it takes a bit of time before they end up pairing up. This is primarily due to the fact that Hickok has a bad name amongst the Indians as an Indian killer. So even when they do finally meet up there is some distrust between the two.

 

But, as will usually happen in movies like these, both eventually gravitate towards a communal truce to hunt down the buffalo. And, in the end, both manage to get some kind of closure to the demons that haunt them.

 

 

Accompanying Hickok is an old friend, Charlie Zane (Jack Warden), who, if anything, is even more rabidly racist against Native Americans than Hickok. Witness his willingness, at various points, to make the world exist with one less "redskin".  

 

Be that as it may, I think that Zane is probably the most pronounced character in the movie. Sometimes it's hard to garner any sympathy for Hickok. He has some integrity at various points, like when he throws a character off the stagecoach he is riding because that guy is just a little too rude to the female riding with them. But his demeanor towards her is quick to change when he realizes she is just as offensive as his male companion.

The fleshing out of the character study seems to be a little slapdash as well. One reviewer I read blames the director, J. Lee Thompson. Personally I didn't agree totally with the reviewer's criticism, mainly because I am a big fan of some of his other films, including Ice Cold in Alex, Cape Fear, two of the original Planet of the Apes films (Conquest of and Battle for  one for which he was nominated for an Oscar, The Guns of Navarone. Admittedly, The White Buffalo pales by comparison to those movies, but I think he did the best he could with the material he had at hand.

The White Buffalo did not fare well with either the public or the critics. It holds only a 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. One reviewer, for The Washington Post, is quoted as saying it was "destined for almost instant obscurity in domestic release, a consummation that can't come a minute too soon for director J. Lee Thompson, star Charles Bronson and everyone else in an exposed position on this fiasco."  It was budgeted at $6 million, and I would hazard a guess that most of that went to the cast (besides Bronson and Samson, names like John Carradine, Slim Pickens, Kim Novak, Clint Walker and Stuart Whitman make brief appearances. Ed Lauter, an actor whose face will be familiar, if not his name, also appears briefly playing his typical nasty guy who someone deemed to give a position of authority. as Capt. Tom Custer.)

It's a sure bet the money wasn't spent to make the buffalo all that believable. The brief scenes we get of it look pretty ridiculous to me. It's a sure bet that anyone who saw it wasn't anywhere near as fightened by it as they were by the shark in Jaws. Possibly no one actually DID see it. I couldn't find any information on how it fared at the ticket counter. 

Be that as it may, it's not entirely the washout that it's reputation would lead you to believe. It's entertaining on several levels, especially if you are a big fan of Charles Bronson. And as a western, it fits the bill pretty well. Just don't be fooled by that "creature feature" come on that the trailer above implies. It's just not that scary...

That wraps up this session with the project. Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

 

  

 

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #40: Leprechaun

 

 

 

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

Week #40: North Dakota -

The state of North Dakota was established on Nov. 2, 1889 

Details about North Dakota:

State bird: western meadowlark

State flower: wild prairie rose

State tree: American elm

Additional historical trivia:

Both North and South Dakota were admitted on the same day. President Benjamin Harrison didn't want people to know which one was admitted first, but for convenience sake North Dakota is listed as being the first because it comes first alphabetically.

Up until 2012, North Dakota officials were not required to be sworn into office, which techically would have made the state an unofficial state until then...

The only National park named after a President (Theodore Roosevelt) is in ND.

The Ghostbusters could have a job in Harvey. They have a library that is supposedly haunted.

In 1982, the city of Rutland made it's way into the record books with the world's largest hamburger.

Famous people born in North Dakota: Lawrence Welk, Bobby Vee, Angie Dickinson,  Louis L'Amour, William Christopher and Lynn Anderson.

 

I'm not going to beat around the bush on this one. If you, like me appreciate horror movies that have a healthy dose of comedy, this is one you should check out. My favorite horror/comedy movie still is, and probably always will be, An American Werewolf in London. But this one edges in to the top 5, maybe even into second place in that realm.

It's totally nuts when it comes to the comedic value. Credit star Warwick Davis for that part. There is a comedian I have seen clips of on Facebook, Brad Williams, a fellow "little person", who probably could have pulled this role off, but I think Davis was an excellent casting choice. You might remember him as the title character in Willow. It's too bad his size has limited his available roles (he was an Ewok in a couple of Star Wars films, and notably cast as Professor Flitwick in the Harry Potter films), because I think he could bring something to any role he had the opportunity to play. 

 

Personally, I think if they ever remake Wild, Wild West they ought to consider him for the role of Dr. Loveless. (The original TV series character was played by Michael Dunn, another "little person"...)

 

The film got a lot of negative reviews when it was first released. But, if you know me, you know that I often don't agree with critical reviews. A brief scan of wikipedia yields such comments as it "isn't dumb enough to be fun", or "ill advised slapstick". The comments also disparage the horror aspect, and I'll give them that... it isn't really all that scary. There is, however, enough shocking gore to put it in a realm with the average slasher flick.

I look at it along the same lines as I do the aforementioned Werewolf film, or maybe 80's horror/comedy films like House or the Evil Dead films. For me, the horror in those films take a back seat to the comedy interspersed in the film. Jennifer Aniston, making her feature film debut in this, has a few great comedic lines, too.  

Some of the best (read: funniest) parts of the film involve the various ways the leprechaun finds to give chase to his victims. He variously uses a tricycle(!), a pogo stick (!!), a toy car (!!) and even, God help us... a wheelchair(!!!). 

 

 

 

Leprechaun (1993): 

The set-up for this film centers around an old Irish couple, the O'Gradys, Dan and Leah (Shay Duffin and Pamela Mant). Dan has just come back from getting his beloved mother's ashes from the old country, where he also, somehow, managed to trick a leprechaun out of his gold. The leprechaun (Warwick Davis) is none too pleased about this, of course, but in the process Dan manages to seal up the leprechaun in a crate where it will remain for eternity (or for 10 years, since that's how long he is trapped before some unwitting people release him...)

 

This inevitable release occurs when a man, J.D. (John Sanderford), buys the old O'Grady house which he plans to refurbish. His unwilling daughter, Tory (Jennifer Anniston) is along for the ride. Initially Tory is a typical uppity, privileged brat, threatening to go into town and rent a hotel room rather than stay in this rat trap.

 

J.D.: "Never judge a book by it's cover, honey.

Tory: "Dad, this book doesn't even HAVE a cover..."

 

The problems escalate pretty quickly. Just as Tory is about to leave she runs into Nathan (Ken Olandt). In any other movie we probably would have gotten the stereotypical "Oh my gosh, he's a hunk!  OK, Dad, I'll stick around..." Instead, what we get is Nathan ridiculing her for her namby pamby attitude and she decides to stay just to put him in his place and show him she isn't going to let some guy one-up her in the fearlessness department.

 

 

Nathan has a couple of helpers; his brash younger brother, Alex (Robert Hy Gordon) and Alex's older, somewhat dimwitted friend, Ozzie (Mark Holton). It is Ozzie who gets the ball rolling when he accidentally frees the leprechaun. The greedy little sprite has only one goal; to retrieve the gold that the old man stole from him 10 years earlier, and absolutely nothing is going to stop him from his quest.

 

 

At one point, Ozzie, who is the only one who initially sees the leprechaun, starts looking for the fabled "end of the rainbow" (because, after all, the legends state that's where the leprechaun has his "pot of gold"). Of course, when Ozzie tries to get people to believe he actually saw a leprechaun, no one believes him. Not necessarily because they don't believe one could exist as much as Ozzie has a reputation for seeing things, like U.F.O.s, and they just think it's another one of his fantasies. (It having been established early on that Ozzie is basically a child in a grown-up's body...) 

Alex and Ozzie find the end of the rainbow and the bag of gold that Dan had hidden earlier. Ozzie, being Ozzie, says the best way to determine if the bag holds real gold is to bite it (which he saw in a movie once). How this dimwit expected to be able to determine it that way is not clear, probably not even to him, but he accidentally swallows the gold piece. (Remember that folks, it becomes relevant later).

There are several secondary characters that are what we might refer to as the "expendable" characters, none of which get enough character development for anyone to really care about them. Personally I would have liked to see Alex get taken out, that kid was just annoying as all get-out. And if I hadn't gotten to like Tory a little more as the movie went on, I wouldn't have shed many tears if the leprechaun had removed her from the scene either. Instead we get an innocent cop whose only crime was pulling over the speeding toy car as the leprechaun was giving chase for his gold, and the unfortunate rare coins dealer that Alex and Ozzie went to to see what their haul was worth. 

Ultimately the four friends FINALLY figure out if they just find the gold and give it to the leprechaun, maybe he will leave them alone. It does take some time for them to figure that part out, however, despite the fact that the leprechaun's main dialogue with them is "Give me back me gold!"...

 

When they finally do, the leprechaun realizes he's been bilked. They only gave him 99 coins and he originally had 100.  (Remember where that last gold coin is now? Scroll back up if you forgot...)

 

The ultimate dispatch scene where they finally are able to take the leprechaun out of the picture is pretty decent. But since the producers had their eye on at least a sequel (there are currently 7 of them, now), the fact that he was not able to retrieve his final gold piece opens up the possibility for his return. (Since I've never seen any of the sequels, I can't say how all of this pans out, but like Jason or Michael Myers or even Dracula, the old adage rears it's head at the end: "You can't keep a bad man down.")

Leprechaun turned out to be a gold mine for the makers. It only cost $900,000  to produce, but it managed to pull in $8.5 million in ticket sales. This despite the fact that it sits at only 35% on Rotten Tomatoes, and as previously noted, it was NOT a big hit with the critics. But, that shouldn't be a big surprise because highbrow critics are notoriously dismissive of the horror genre. Movies like Psycho and Halloween get a pass, in my opinion, because the "monster" is a normal human being that just went awry. When it comes to "monsters", unless the monster is a familiar creature, such as the shark in Jaws, the critics tend to be like "OK, big deal..." 

So, while the movie is pretty much a cardboard copy of the standard monster flick, I still like it. mainly because of how funny it is at places. Give it a shot.

Until next time, drive safely folks. And, my suggestion is if you see a rainbow, head in the opposite direction.

Quiggy

 

 

Fame Is Not All It's Cracked Up To Be

 

This is my entry for the Vivian Blaine Blogathon, hosted by Taking Up Room.

 

 

 

OK. I have to admit several things before getting started. When I saw Rebecca's announcement for this blogathon my first thought was "Vivian Blaine? Who the hell is Vivian Blaine?" When I looked up her filmography I almost passed on joining because, to be honest, although she had a career of movies, there definitely seemed to be nothing I wanted to spend any time with. I don't like musicals much, so Guys and Dolls, State Fair and Doll Face were definitely off the ticket. 

But then I scrolled down to the end of her filmography career, and gee, like many other Hollywood stars, she wrapped her career up in cheesy low-budget thrillers that were apparently just something to pay the bills. Parasite 3D looked promising, but, upon investigating it, it looked like she probably wasn't going to be much of a presence in it to make it worth devoting an entry dedicated to her (maybe in a future post when my subject is the star of the movie, Demi Moore, or the director of it, Charles Band, just not for this).

The last movie she made was a cheesy sounding slasher flick that garnered my interest however. I'm Going to Be Famous sounded like just the kind of bonkers stuff I have an affinity for.

So I watched it.

And I couldn't really figure out what the hell I just watched.

So I watched it again.

I still really have no idea what it's about...

The main problem I had is the only transfer I found online was so poorly uploaded online, that it was a struggle to see what was going on. The other problem is that I don't really think the director of the film, Paul Leder, actually knew what he was trying to achieve either. That name should have been a warning signal. Aside from A*P*E, which I reviewed a couple of years ago, and I Dismember Mama, he didn't have the recognition that would have been conducive to expect much. Even A*P*E  was not really quality stuff, even if I did appreciate it's cheesiness.

The best part of the film is when one of the characters says the movie title "I'm going to be famous!" Pretty much that is the whole point of the film. You've got a bunch of people who are trying to get ahead in the "kill or be killed" business of show business. (And, yes, I realize that's a pretty cheesy description of the ultimate plot of the film, but what am I going to do? There is not much else to delve into...)

The film has some fairly well known names in it. Dick Sargent was the second Darrin on Bewitched. Meredith MacRae made her name, primarily, as Billie Joe on Petticoat Junction. George Gaynes is probably best remembered as Commander Lassard in the Police Academy films, or as the potential love interest of "Dorothy Michaels" in Tootsie. Stanley Kamel played the psychiatrist who helped Monk cope with reality on the detective series of that name. And if you watched old 50's game shows, Robert Q. Lewis was the host of The Name's the Same. 

With the exception of Kamel, most of the actors above had already passed their prime as  name recognition stars and were probably just trying to keep from retiring to the Old Folks home. I feel certain that their portrayals here are not entirely their fault. I'm just guessing that Leder didn't have a clue how to direct the film. But be that as it may, most of them don't really come off as being as qualified as their previous output would have led you to believe.

BTW, since it quite possibly was the whole point, I give a pass to the would be actors playing the "wannabe stars" in this film. None of them are very good, and if they are intentionally acting that way, then, gee, I'd have to say they did a bang up job. They could be the best actors in the whole damn film... 

 

 

Note: Unfortunately there are virtually no stills from the film that I can Google, so this doesn't have much other than my brief thoughts.

I'm Going To Be Famous (1983):

The film opens with the Director, billed as such but called Sydney (or sometimes, "Stanley") by name, (Dick Sargent) preparing to see auditions for his new Broadway play. Everybody is gung-ho to get on board because not only is he a big name in the directing field, he is also a big name in the playwright field, since the play is his own script. And Susan Barker (Meredith Macrae) is the big name star of the production. 

And that, my friends, is the only comprehensible portion of the film. The rest is a mish mash of segments involving the backgrounds of the would be actors, some of whom have problems that could make a story for a decent movie if it didn't have to have the other stories bogging it down. I particularly like the character of Kitty (Roslyn Kind), who as the daughter of a famous porn star wants nothing more than to be recognized for her own talents rather than being the daughter of a well-known sex film star. Another part of the movie that makes no real sense: This is supposedly going to be a Broadway play, meaning performed in NYC. Why are they doing the casting in L.A.?

It takes quite a while of character development (for characters that no one probably gives a damn about in the first place), before anything decently interesting happens.

So what happens? What makes this movie worth a watch, if there is anything?

Well, those would be actors are so focused on becoming stars that they are willing to do anything (ANYTHING) to get their big break. For instance, one guy had a previous (gay) relationship with the Director, Sydney (or is it Stanley...?), and basically implies that the relationship would be made public if he doesn't get the lead role. (At that point in history it was still considered taboo to be outed...) 

The only way that this film can really make any sense is that you view at as a soap opera (and a really bad soap opera at that...) There are so many subplots going on that it's hard to keep track. One character is a parole officer who, although he is trying to keep tabs on one of his parolees, his real dream is to be an actor. (Yes, he's one of the "I'm going to be famous" people.) Another character who wants to be famous struggles when an old flame shows up, one that is not a really all that old of an "old flame", since she claims that he is the father of a baby she is pregnant with... Another actress, the aforementioned Kitty,  has trouble coping with the hectic lifestyle of trying to get famous that she occasionally overdoses on drugs or gets plastered on booze, despite the fact that her lover (or is it her husband) is trying to keep her straight. Or at least straight enough to function in society.

Then there's Vivian Blaine. I'm really not sure what she has to do with the film, other than the fact that she is an aging rich sexpot who is looking to hook up with another of those struggling would be actors. Actually I think she is the moneybags behind the production of the play, but it's never really clear.

The biggest disappointment for me is that come-on that brought me into watching this movie in the first place; that of the appellation that this was a "psychological thriller" complete with  murder. The film almost gets to the end before anyone is killed, and even then it's a bit anti-climatic. Sure, to be truthful, you don't see it coming, but by that time, I didn't even care. I did care about the last line from the guy who does the killing however... He just keeps screaming his name over and over to the TV crew that happens to be present. What he doesn't scream is "I'M GOING TO BE FAMOUS!" That in itself would have pushed this movie up at least by  ½ a star... (And, I was screaming at my screen "Say it! Say it, damn it!" No such luck).

It's anybody's guess who some of these characters are. IMDb lists several actors just by their stage names rather than who their character names are, so if you are not familiar with the actor, you won't know their character either. Neither George Gaynes nor Stanley Kamel have character name listings, but at least I recognized them. Of course, you COULD wait until the end credits run, but even that isn't very helpful, since the quality of the transfer and the black lettering of the actors is pretty unreadable. 

Roslyn Kind, quite possibly, might have gotten the role of Kitty simply because she was the half-sister of Barbra Streisand. She isn't Babs equal as a singer, and she can't even come close to competing with Barbra as an actress, but there are two scenes (added just to highlight her singing career?) in which she doesn't do too shabby a job of singing. But they have nothing to do with the film itself, except maybe to show just how far into her own dream world she has sunk.  

There isn't much about this film online either. Hell, it may have never seen the inside of a movie theater. And I found only one reviewer who even bothered to post a review. (His, or her, opinion was this was pure trash, basically). 

I cannot recommend this movie to anyone (and that makes probably only the third movie I have ever reviewed that I said that.) It's cheesy as all get out, which SHOULD have meant I'd say "give it a shot" for one view, but it is worse than even such clunkers as the previously reviewed The Beast of Yucca Flats and Teenage Zombies, both of which I would recommend you watch before this one. The highlight of the film, really, is the the title tune, played at the end of the film (some guy named Jay Arthur, who apparently never recorded anything else...)

So, would I, in retrospect, wish I had gone with one of those musicals I avoided? Probably not, but I can guarantee that the two times I watched this clunker will be the only times I ever watch it. My recommendation? Turn on your TV and watch the World Arm Wrestling Championships. A lot more excitement happens in two minutes of that than happens in the entire 90 minutes of this movie.

Until next time, drive safely. Even if you want to be "famous", causing some kind of train wreck like this film is not the best way to go...

 

Quiggy

 

 

   

 

 

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #39: America 3000

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

Week #39: Colorado -

 

 

The state of Colorado was established on August 1, 1876 

Details about Colorado:

State bird: lark bunting

State flower: Rocky Mountain columbine

State tree: Colorado blue spruce

Additional historical trivia: 

It's one of four states that intersect with each other. The other three are Utah, New Mexico and Arizona (which this same trivia piece will appear...)

 

Combining acrophobia, claustrophobia and gephyrophobia... the Royal Gorge Bridge is one of the highest suspension bridges in the world.

The Stanley Hotel, the inspiration for Stephen King's The Shining is in Estes Park.

Colorado is the only state to actually say "No" to an offer to host an Olympics.

In 1904 Colorado had 3 governors on one day. Alva Adams, a Democrat, won the election, but it transpired that he had cheated. His opponent James Peabody was installed as governor, on the condition that he immediately resign and give the office to his lieutenant governor, Jesse McDonald. 

Famous people born in Colorado: Lon Chaney, Ken Curtis (Chester on Gunsmoke), Tim Allen, Ken Kesey (wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), Jack Dempsey, Jello Biafra and U.S. Presidential candidate John Kerry. 

 

 

America 3000 (1986): 

It's the year 3000. (duhh).

 "Nine hundred years after the Great Nuke. 

The world man created he destroyed.

Out of the darkness and ignorance of the

radioactive rubble emerged a new order...

 

and the world was woggos!" 

 

(In old world speak that means _Crazy!)

 

The world has indeed gone "woggos." It is basically run by Fraus (women). The Fraus live in "Coms" which I think is a slang for "communities". (By the way, this film is replete with futuristic slang, and it may take some doing to figure out what the hell the narrator is saying... much like Alex in A Clockwork Orange...) The Fraus in question here live in the "Com of Frisco", which, despite the name, is located somewhere near Denver.

The Fraus occasionally go out into the wilderness to capture Plugots (men). They don't need men to establish their society, what they need them for is to perform manual labor, such as doing the heavy lifting. Of course, they also need them to help carry on the population, which is why the men they capture are classed as "Machos" (laborers) and "Seeders" (and if I need to tell you what that means they are for, you are reading the wrong blog...)

 

Our main hero/narrator is a Plugot named Gruss (William Wallace), who acts as the narrator of the story. Gruss doesn't particularly care for his options of being either a Macho OR a Seeder (although from looking at the Fraus, I'd be OK with being a Seeder, I think...)  

A companion of Gruss, Korvis (Chuck Wagner), hijacks a horse and makes a getaway and Gruss jumps on the horse with him to take advantage of the situation. The two boys manage to escape the Fraus because they head into an area called "the contams", which I gather is an area that is still (900 years later, note!) a danger zone from the radiation from that ancient nuclear war noted at the beginning, and the Fraus have a law that says they can't go into the contaminated areas.  A sign they pass indicates that this area was once a part of Denver.

 

Once they get to a point of safety, they start scrounging to survive. Of course, among the things they take that they "need to survive" are a top hat (really) and a children's ABC book (really! really!). And also, later it is revealed, a pristine copy of a vintage Playboy... (Hey, I know which I'd snag first...) They also hook up with a tribe of neanderthals who aren't much smarter than their neolithic ancestors. They only grunt and hoot, and have no real coherence of cooperation. Witness when they try to ambush a Frau food train. They would be lucky if they came away with a Snickers bar, the way they attack. But they do manage to seriously wound the leader of the Fraus, basically a "queen" called for purposes here, a "Tiara" (I'm not making this up!)

The Tiara, Reya (Camilla Sparv), makes it back to camp, but being mortally wounded she passes on the Tiara crown (no pun intended) to her daughter, Vena (Laurene Landon), which doesn't exactly sit well with her other daughter, Lakella (Victoria Barrett). But Lakella, at least as a front, accepts her mother's decision and vows to follow the new Tiara. 

By the way don't miss out on the significance of the attempt to heal Reya just before she passes into the great beyond. One woman, labelled a healer, brings out an old fashioned first aid kit (you can tell by the red cross emblazoned on it... and this thing is not even slightly rusty, considering it's probably a leftover from the days before the nuclear war... remember, 900 years ago...) The Fraus chant "red cross... red cross... red cross..." like its some kind of mantra.

 

Meanwhile back in the contaminated remains of Denver, Gruss and Korvis get together and organize a raid on the com of the Fraus. Mostly to get the Machos and the Seeders free, but also to gather up some of the stockpiles of food.   They make their escape chased by Fraus.

 

At this point the movie starts to get whacked out (it wasn't already?) Korvis is hit by Vena with her primitive but effective crossbow gun and falls into a cavern. 

 

He is saved from death from the arrow because it (conveniently) gets lodge into the children's book he was still carrying... In the cavern, lo and behold, he stumbles upon an ancient bomb shelter left over from pre-nuclear war. He finds the bunker stocked with 80's standards of a pinball game and a stand up version of the classic Centipede game (typical 1980's entertainment still being used ind 2100?). He also finds a cache of, (thankfully), laser rifles that would seem to be more fitting for 2100. 

 

This primitive man (by comparison to a modern 21st century man) almost ridiculously figures out how all this advanced technology works in a matter of minutes, reading the instructions for operating them and making the things work well. (Remember, earlier in the film he struggled with comprehending a child's ABCs book... I guess one of the side effects of nuclear fallout included making comprehension increase exponentially...)

Outside the bunker, now dressed in the gold radiation suit he found in the bunker, Korvis meets up with one of the slave men, who mistakes him for the legendary messiah the people have been waiting for; "the Prezee-dent" (Don't ask!) But it gives Korvis an idea. 

More ridiculous stuff happens, including a scene where Korvis informs Vena that he wants to meet her one on one in the contaminated zone. This involves him first convincing her that he is the coming of the Prezee-dent. To get her to do this he rigs up a fireworks display, accompanied by a recording played on a genuine 80's boom box. And, the funniest scene occurs when the music he plays is a recording of Tschiakovsky's 1812 Overture! This is humorous in more ways than one. the obvious being the standard 4th of July theatrics associated with Tschiakovsky's piece (and if you are not American you may be unfamiliar with this tradition), but also the fact that the Cold War enemy that the Americans fought during that nuclear war were Russians... I point out that this movie did come out in 1986, prior to the end of the Cold War in the 90's, but it's still funny.

 

 

Much of the movie doesn't make much sense if you really think about it from a logical standpoint. For one thing, supposedly if a woman gives birth to a male child, they throw it away. So how do we get men in the first place, then? After 900 years, if there are no women giving birth to boys that are left alive, where do those Plugots come from? For that matter, where are the women the Plugots are repopulating with in their own encampment?  Also, the fact that these women are looking for the coming of that messianic Prezee-dent, whom they are constantly referring to as a "he". If these women are so all-fired down on males, why is their potential "god' a male? And the biggest one is how do any of them have any idea how to perform in bed (so to speak) if there is a separating line between the male and the female societies and neither have contact except when Fraus capture Plugots? 

Note:I'm willing to overlook the fact that, as some reviewers I read pointed out, the women of CE 3000 somehow have a way to keep their hair in perfectly coiffed 80's hairstyles, even though it doesn't seem like the have beauty shops in their camp. 

This is the problem with quite a number of the kinds of films that I watch simply because they are done by whack jobs who are just cranking out films to crank out films. Sure, they're entertaining on one level, but many of them require you to leave your brain at the box office counter before going in to watch them. 

Cannon Films, the producers of this film and numerous others, had a reputation creating movies that were just based on a single concept with no real idea of logic or transparency. There is a great documentary, made in 2014, that delves in the Cannon mythos: Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, that gives a lot of insight into the kind of stuff that the duo of Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan, the two behind the film company, put out.

America 3000 had a budget of $2 million and, let's be honest, about half that probably was spent making all those Fraus look like they just came from the hairdressers. The special effects budget had to be pretty minimal, except for the Tschiakovsky fireworks scene. I can't find any details on how much money it made on ticket sales. It couldn't have been a major blockbuster, since I only found it by snagging a four movie set which included as it's other titles Arena, Eliminators and The Time Guardian, none of which I had ever even heard of. (The second half of the 1980's all, and I would bet all of them were lucky to have even one week at drive-in theaters, and probably no major theater venues...)

With the exception of Chuck Wagner, who had a recurring role on General Hospital in the early 80's, and Laurene Landon, who shows up in a lot of the same kind of schlock movies like this, it's probably a good bet you've never seen any of the cast in anything else.  (Yes, Camilla Sparv won a Golden Globes as Best New Actress in 1967 for her role in Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, but I've never met anyone else who has seen it...) 

But, be that as it may, if you like low-budget schlock as much as I do, this one could be a hoot. It's worth a look just for the scenes that feature "Aargh the Awful" (a prehistoric neanderthal the Fraus keep in a cage for entertainment and training purposes). 

 

Until next time, drive safely, folks,

Quiggy

 

 

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #38: Children of the Corn

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

Week #38: Nebraska -

 

 

 

The state of Nebraska was established on March 1, 1867 

Details about Nebraska:

State bird: Western meadowlark

State flower: goldenrod

State tree: cottonwood

Additional historical trivia:

Locking pliers, also known as "Vice-Grips", were invented in Nebraska.

March 14 is celebrated as Reuben Sandwich Day because one legend has it that the sandwich was invented in Omaha. (It's my favorite sandwich, even over a good hamburger).

Nebraska is also the home of the inventors of ranch dressing, Swanson dinners and Kool-Aid.

It is the only "triply land-locked" state, meaning it's the only state that you have to travel through at least three other states to get to a bay, ocean or gulf.

The nation's smallest city hall (10' x 12') is in Maskell.

Famous people born in Nebraska: A huge number of famous actors, like Marlon Brando, Nick Nolte, Fred Astaire, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Montgomery Clift, Harold Lloyd and Ward Bond, as well as Malcolm X,  L. Ron Hubbard, Warren Buffett, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and U.S. President Gerald Ford.

 

 

 

Children of the Corn (1984):

Those evil kids in Nebraska! Children of the Corn, quite possibly, is in contention for having spawned the most sequels in movie history. Note: I don't include such icons as Dracula and Sherlock Holmes in that because, after all, the many films featuring those characters are not, per se, all sequels to prior movies. As of this writing there are 10 movies in the series, and probably no end in sight. But, to be honest, the sequels have different children in them, so maybe you would not agree with the term "sequel"...

In his phenomenally entertaining book Showgirls, Teen Wolves and Astro Zombies, Mark Adams devoted an entire chapter to the series. I personally have never delved into the many sequels, some of which I hear are just the kind of "bad movie" fare that I have covered over the years. 

But the original may possibly be a preview to the whole bad movie vibe. 

Question: What's worse than a bunch of kids, inspired by some demonic creature they THINK is living in the cornfields, killing off all the adults in town to appease said "He Who Walks Behind the Rows"? How about a movie that has a bunch of kids, inspired by some demonic creature that IS living in the cornfield, doing this nefarious killing for "He Who Walks Behind the Rows". Or, at least maybe it's "demonic"... For all I know, it could be an alien from the 8th dimension. (The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension hit theaters that same year...)

Stephen King movies are notoriously hit or miss. Especially when it comes to adaptations of his horror output. Assuming they even bother to stick closely to the source material, this can be problematic. Sometimes you get a genuine gem, such as The Shawshank Redemption or Stand by Me (neither of which are horror movies, per se). The 1976 version of Carrie and Misery both are genuinely good, and qualify as horror.

But on the other hand, sometimes you get such drivel as The Lawnmower Man which has virtually no connection to the original story. Neither do, (need I say it?), the many sequels to previously filmed stories that may or may not have been faithful themselves. In the middle of the pack are such films that somehow maintain a connection to the King original, although several of them had to be expanded from the story to make them work as a full-fledged movie. Children of the Corn is one of these.

In the original King short story our main characters are a married couple who, at the time of the setting, don't particularly like each other. That was changed for the movie into a couple who, though not yet married at the time, were hopelessly in love with each other. Whether that changed the dynamic of the story is probably up to the reader/viewer. 

The movie opens 3 years earlier when Isaac (John Franklin) and his acolytes/followers, all children ritually slaughter all the adults of the town of Gatlin, Nebraska.

 

Three years late (the present), a couple, Burt (Peter Horton ) and his girlfriend/future wife, Vicky (Linda Hamilton) are en route to Seattle where Burt is going to do his intern work as a doctor to be. Along the way they are traveling through a seemingly deserted section of Nebraska, where the only thing around seems to be the miles and miles of corn. (And if you like corn, you might not anymore after watching this movie. That corn is about as scary as a horde of rats descending upon you in a basement... At least it was to me.)

 

Into the road stumbles a boy. Burt and Vicky think they hit and killed him, but it turns out that his throat had been cut before he ever got into the road. So they pack him into the trunk of their car and head to the nearby town of Gatlin to report it. But upon arriving in Gatlin, they find the town deserted. They can find no one, not one single person. 

 

It takes about 45 minutes of this movie before our intrepid couple find anything resembling humanity. The kids, who obviously have it in their best interests, or at least in the best interests of the monster living in the cornfield, do anything. For the most part, they just argue amongst themselves. This may be due in part because their leader, Isaac, is obviously a nutjob Pat Robertson wannabe. Isaac spouts apocalyptic scriptures about the fact that he Who Walks Behind the Rows must be appeased. His second in command, Malachai (Courtney Gains), is much more vindictive, but not quite as evil as the street preacher Isaac.

 

Eventually Burt and Vicky find Sarah and Job, two kids who are not beholden to Isaac and his ilk. Sarah is, as often happens in a King story, a psychic with visions. And both of them are playing a game that could get them into serious trouble if Isaac found out; to wit, having independent thought.

 

The ultimate conflict ends up after Vicky is captured. There is a revolt, and it turns out that Malachai may be even more demented in his religious zealotry than Isaac. He thinks that Isaac has failed He Who Walks Behind the Rows, and takes over. 

 

And our intrepid duo of adults are the only ones that seem to be able to come up with a plan.

 

Children of the Corn was originally scripted by King himself, but the director chucked that script and had it re-written. The scriptwriter, George Goldsmith, came up with something that more or less appealed to the director, but it fails on several stages. For one, it adds way too much extraneous stuff that had nothing to do with the movie. For one thing, the couple find an old man (R. G. Armstrong) whom the kids have allowed to live, obviously because he could get things the kids would need, such as tools. But since those same kids kill him off before the movie is halfway over, they must not have needed his help THAT bad...

 

At least the movie kept the fact in the film that their is SOMETHING out there in that cornfield. Although whatever it is, it pales in comparison in it's fright value to the kids themselves. Someone, I think it was King himself, called it a "gopher from Hell", because most of it's scenes on screen are just scenes of something burrowing underneath the soil of the cornfield. Even when it finally foes come up out of the ground, it looks more like left over special effects from Tron. (A demon from a computer world...? Maybe it's really an early invasion of the Borg...)

As cheaply as this movie was made, with a budget of only $3 million, and with King's name attached, it was probably a foregone conclusion that it would make a profit. And it did. Sort of... It mad $!4 million in ticket sales. But word of mouth probably hurt it. I think Roger Ebert, who was probably not a big fan of King in the first place, put it best: "By the end of Children of the Corn, the only thing moving behind the rows is the audience, fleeing to the exits." 

The seemingly never ending raft of sequels that the movie spawned, I think, says more about the audience's willingness to dive into this "evil children" trope than it does about how well the story flows into a fluid tale. Given that probably 75-80% of the potential audience for these sequels are probably parents themselves, it would seem to me that they might be deriving a satisfaction of seeing their own "little monsters" in the roles of those kids. (Not having any of my own, I may not be the right person to judge, but be that as it may...)

Personally, I think the story would have been better served if it had been made as part of an anthology, sort of like Creepshow or Creepshow II. (Replacing that segment in Creepshow II with the India would have been a better choice.  The film suffers a lot from the fact that it takes way too long for anything interesting to happen. It feels exactly like what it essentially is, a 40 minute film that was padded to fill an hour and a half slot.

Interesting note: Goldsmith has later claimed that the script was a metaphor for the Iranian Revolution of 1979, with the kids being the Muslims and the couple being the American hostages. Not sure how I feel about that. Is he saying that the revolutionaries were basically just kids?  

OK, so this is not exactly one of the greatest King films, it's not even one of the better 80's King films, but for a brief break from some of the other films I have reviewed over the years, it's not entirely bad. Just be sure to take a good shot of your Red Bull or Monster before cuing it up, or you may doze off during the lulls between action scenes. And  try not to laugh too hard when the demon shows up at the end.

Until next week, drive safely, folks. And stick to the highways. Those detours through the backwoods burgs are a little risky.

Quiggy