Giving them the Bird

This is my second entry in the It Takes a Thief Blogathon hosted by Moon in Gemini

Way back in 2016, I covered the Humphrey Bogart classic version of The Maltese Falcon.  I mentioned in passing that that version was actually the third time to film the classic Dashiell Hammett story.  At the time I didn't have access to the first two versions.  True story, however.  Just a day or two after I posted that review,  I was browsing through a stack of previously viewed DVDs in a discount bin and found what was labeled as "Disc 2" which had the first two movies on one disc.  (Obviously it was part of a two disc set, and I would have snagged the other one had it been available, since my only access to the original was and still is my local library's copy.)

The original version was made in 1931, before the Production Code era, and thus was not limited to only suggestive implications and covert hints when dealing with the characters.  Thus the scene in which Spade forces Miss Wonderley to strip to prove she is not hiding some stolen money -part of the original Hammett novel- could be put into the movie (although no nudity was allowed),  as well as a titillating scene of Miss Wonderley in a bubble bath scene, and an affair between Spade and Archer's wife,  that could only be hinted at in the 1941 version.

The Maltese Falcon (1931)

The character of Sam Spade in this outing is a far cry from the rough and cynical portrayal you most remember from Humphrey Bogart's portrayal.  For one thing, Ricardo Cortez plays Spade as a womanizer, flitting from one lady client to another, as well as having his partner's wife Iva (Thelma Todd) on the side.  He probably hasn't been entirely pure with his secretary, Effie (Una Merkel), either.  I will inject one thing, he grates on me, as he is nothing like what I expect from Sam Spade, based on both the aforementioned Bogart personification, but also based on how Spade is portrayed in the novel (which is much more like the Bogart version.)

This was the first version of the classic Hammett novel, and was done in the "pre-Code"  era.  The movie opens with Spade kissing yet another client goodbye, and you are left with the impression that more than kissing had been going on behind doors.  (This Spade has genuinely different ideas about the client/detective relationship than your average film noir detective, that's for sure).  He is quietly relaxing in his office when Effie escorts in Miss Wonderley (Bebe Daniels).  (BTW, this part is still true to the novel as that was the initial name used by the femme fatale, but in this movie she is apparently using her real name from the beginning, as opposed to being exposed by another name in the novel and the Bogart movie later.)

The basic plot, in case you are not familiar with either the Hammett novel or the Bogart movie is that Wonderley and an unseen Floyd Thursby are in cahoots to retrieve a valuable statuette from an owner in Instanbul (read: steal it).  There are others interested in it's retreival, too, including the man who hired the pair, the "Fat Man", also known as Caspar Gutman (Dudley Digges) and his associate, Joel Cairo (Otto Matieson).  You might recognize Wilmer, if you are a fan of old Universal horror movies.  That's Dwight Frye, who appeared as the dimwitted helper of Dr. Frankenstein, as well as the insane dupe of Dracula, two Universal horror classics that came out about the same time as this movie.

The twists and turns of the classic story are here.  There is the familiar backbiting and double crossing that is familiar to fans of the remake/novel.  But the quality of the production over all is rather disappointing.  Maybe because I am so familiar with the classic that I have a higher expectation for he others, but then no one can say I wasn't warned.  Everybody who already knew claimed that the 1941 version was superior to the previous two.  I will say I wasn't disappointed that Gutman and Cairo met the fate that the novel tells us happened after they left Spade's apartment.  Both characters were really annoying, and a lot had to do with the way the actors portrayed them.

Matieson, as Cairo, in particular was a bust, in my opinion.  It didn't surprise me that he got his start in silents, and I think that's probably where he should have stayed.  Of course, he didn't really get to have a career in "talkies" since he was killed in an automobile accident shortly after this movie was completed.  Digges had a more prolific career, but the only thing on his resume that I have seen is an appearance as a police chief in The Invisible Man.

Still, all in all, it isn't really a bad movie, per se.  It certainly is better than the first remake, Satan Met A Lady, which I review below.

Satan Met a Lady (1936)

What could be worse than a poorly acted version of a great detective story?  How about turning it into a comedy?  And one that only had the bare pieces of the story to hold it together at that.  This one was a true comedy, as opposed to the first one which was just funny in unintentional ways.  And it was a sub-par comedy at that.  Bette Davis did just about everything she could to get out of being involved with the movie, but since she was still a contract player at the time, she was forced to give in to the studio's demands.

As stated above, there is only a slim connection with the actual story in the original novel.  For one thing, Warren William (who plays "Ted Shane") is not established as a going concern in the detective business, but arrives on a train after being run out of town from his previous residence.  Shane is somebody who is a cad and a bounder and an entirely disreputable business man who finagles his way into his friend's detective agency when he arrives to his new digs.  Milton Ames (Porter Hall) is reluctant to take Shane on.  But since Ames' business is struggling, and within a few minutes in the office, Shane manages to bring in two new clients, Ames really has no choice.

One of the new clients is Valerie Purvis (Bette Davis) who hires the detective agency to shadow a man  (and here is one of the most consistent parallels with the novel).  Ames takes the job and is, of course killed, just like in the novel.  There is a punk kid named Kenneth (Maynard Holmes), who, if this wasn't intended to be a comedy, would be absolutely the least threatening gunsel ever portrayed on film (and that includes any character from the kid cast gangster spoof,  Bugsy Malone).

Sidney Greenstreet's marvelous fat man here is portrayed by a woman, Madame Barrabas (Alison Skipworth).  She too doesn't really inspire much to make the movie a winner (or even a not last-place loser, for that matter).  Arthur Treacher shines somewhat in the role that is supposed to parallel the Joel Cairo character, although if you've seen some of Treacher's other roles, I imagine you won't find him too impressive here.

The only real highlight is a squeaky, flighty secretary to the Ames-Shane agency, Miss Murgatroyd (Marie Wilson).  She almost literally carries this movie on her back.  You may find yourself wishing she would come back on screen and improve it one hundred fold.  I enjoyed every scene she was in, and it is she that keeps this "comedy" from being a true clunker in my vocabulary.

There is no "MacGuffin" called a Maltese Falcon in the movie, even though the picture claims the novel as the basis for it.  Instead there is a horn of Roland, filled with fabulous jewels.  Of course, as with the other two versions of the movie, the characters are doomed to disappointment when the "horn" actually shows up.  (At least they got that part right.)  The movie was critically panned by many of the critics of the day, including Bosley Crowther, who called it a "cynical farce of elaborate and sustained cheapness".

Unless you are a completist and just want to see all three versions of the film (or want to watch every movie that Davis or one of the other actors made), I highly suggest you avoid this one.  It's hardly worth the time, even for a comedy.

Quiggy

Food for Thought

This is my entry in the Food in Film Blogathon hosted by Speakeasy and Silver Screenings.

I often wonder what people think of me and how stable my mind must be... not that it would change anything if I did know... I just wonder...

I told Kristina and Ruth that I wanted to go a different and quirkier route with this topic, as is my wont on occasion.  Think of all the movies that have mouth-watering meals, excellent haute cuisine cooking and wonderful cooks standing over beaming patrons.  Is there anything more comforting than a well cooked and well served meal? Well... maybe if it's not too outré...


"Outré" is putting it mildly for the two movies discussed today.  You might want to think twice when you try that new restaurant down the street after hearing about these joints.  If you think twice about the turnover rate of stray cats near the Chinese place down the street, prepare to get really wary about the neighborhood mom and pop place next door.


I really enjoy black comedy.  Note:  if by "black" comedy your first thought is Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy, you are in the wrong universe.  Black comedy, also dark comedy,  is a term used to describe a medium (films, but also plays and the like) that take very serious subjects and turn them into a darkly humorous form.  Also called "gallows humor", it was first coined in the 30's by a French writer to describe some of Johnathan Swift's writings.  Swift once wrote that poor Irish people ought to sell their children to the rich to be used as food.   But the term has also been applied to writings even as early as ancient Greek writer Aristophanes.

Eating Raoul (1982):

Paul (Paul Bartel) and Mary Bland (Mary Woronov) are a straight-laced couple living in abject denial of the sexual mores of their apartment.  The two are married, but other than a little hugging and kissing, they are not really sexually active.  (They sleep in separate beds...just like the old 50's sitcom married couples did).

Their neighbors , in fact seemingly the whole apartment building however, are really into the swinger scene, with all the different sexual styles and appetites that entails.  Paul works in a liquor store, but is the ultimate wine snob, and gets fired because he refuses to sell some cheap wine that the owner has in stock and also because he bought a case of $400 a bottle wine, but the clientele who frequent the shop haven't got that kind of spendable income.

Meanwhile on the home front, Paul and Mary want to buy a house in the country and open up their own home-style kitchen, but they haven't got the money that the realtor is asking, and to make matters worse, someone else keeps offering more money, causing them to have to keep upping their own offer for the place.

Paul comes home one day to find Mary being molested by a swinger who strayed from the party being held in their building and kills him with a frying pan.  Finding him with a large sum of money, they decide to ditch the body in the trash compactor and pocket the money.  After killing a second straying swinger, the two decide there is some decent money to be had doing this.

They decide to advertise in a swinger's magazine, with the help of Doris (Susan Saiger), a stay-at-home mom who makes money on the side as a dominatrix.

While out one day, Paul finds an ad for a locksmith who does cheap work.  Because wine snob Paul has a pretty decent collection of vintage wines they call Raoul Mendoza (Robert Beltran).  Raoul, it turns out, has ulterior motives for installing burglar systems...he also robs his clientele after installing their security systems.

As such, he happens to break into the Bland's place after they have just killed another swinger but have not yet disposed of the body.  The three come up with a plan that benefits all three.  The Blands will keep the money and Raoul takes the bodies away, where he sells them to a dog food company and shares the profits with the Blands.



All seemingly goes well until one day Paul is out when a "client" shows up, and tries to rape Mary.  Raoul happens to come in and strangles the would-be rapist.  He then proceeds to woo Mary who is charmed by his demeanor (and his Thai Stick cigarette...).  Although Paul does not know what went on, he begins to suspect, and with Doris, tries to scare Raoul into leaving the country.  None of these ruses works, and Raoul makes plans to get rid of Paul instead and take Mary for his wife.

Be sure to stay for the finale of this movie.  You'll get to see why it was titled "Eating Raoul"...

Delicatessen (1991):

It never really is clear what happened to society in this movie, but from the appearance of the landscape, there must have been a nuclear war.  In this post apocalyptic world in France, food is in short supply.  They use bags of lentils and corn in lieu of money.  In one apartment building, Clapet (Jean-Claude Dreyfus), a butcher, runs a shop on the bottom floor to cater to his clientele.  He sells them meat which, it becomes clear, is not your typical meat.

Clapet runs ads in the newspaper advertising for a handyman.  Once the unaware handymen have been fattened up, Clapet kills them and sells their "meat" as meat.  It seems most of the residents are in on the ruse.  For sure, his daughter, Julie (Marie-Laure Dougnac) knows.  She falls in love with the new hire, Louison (Dominique Pinon) and alternately tries to help him escape or convince her father to let him go.

The apartment building is filled with other equally bizarre characters.  The best is Aurore (Silvie Laguna), a woman who is haunted by voices she thinks are in her head and tries various Rube Goldbergesque ways of committing suicide.

Also funny are a guerilla group of outcasts who live below the city in the sewers and whom Julie entreats to help her get Louison out of her father's hands.  Of course, they botch the job and kidnap the wrong person.

A warning to the potential viewer, both of these movies are obviously not family friendly (unless you are very liberal about what you let your kids watch...)  Also the second film is entirely in French, so unless you are fluent in French, you'll have to deal with subtitles (always a potential problem with some viewers.)


Whew.  I'm getting hungry now.  There's a new place that just opened up across town that advertises the "best baby back ribs"... (or maybe it says "baby ribs"...I'm not sure.


Quiggy

Fast...Faster...Fastest...Cannonball!

Director (and former stuntman) Hal Needham and Burt Reynolds had a rapport that led to several movies in the late 70's and early 80's.  They first teamed together for the movie Smokey and the Bandit, which was Needham's first movie as a director, the chance being given to him by his freind, Reynolds.  The pair went on to do Hooper a movie about stuntmen.  It was one of the first movies to ever have a blooper reel during the end credits crawl, something that would become something of a tradition in movies of this type.  (Jackie Chan, who was in the Cannonball Run movies, made this sequence a part of his movies after his experiences with that series).

Needham and Reynolds would also make the sequel Smokey and the Bandit II,  as well as Stroker Ace, a comedy about a stock car racer.  All of these movies  are lowbrow comedies, which were a specialty of Reynolds, even without Needham at the helm in the director's chair.  The two Cannonball Run movies were based on a real event.  The Cannonball Run  was a race run in the 70's to celebrate an historical run from coast-to-coast by the legendary Erwin "Cannonball" Baker in 1933.  The race was run five times and became a sort of protest to the then current reduction of the speed limit in most areas to 55 mph, as an effort to save on fuel during the energy crisis.

This was the dual movie match up at a drive-in that I went to see back in the early 80's.  It was a great time, as four of us loaded up on pizza and beer and had a ball laughing at the antics on the screen.   Although I remember several of those trips to the drive-in back in the day, sometimes just by myself and sometimes with friends, this is the one I remember most fondly.

I took a different tack in this review.  In the tradition of comedian Bob Newhart (who was NOT in either film, but I liked the idea), whose stand-up routine involved a one-sided telephone conversation to get his comedy across to the public, I post this one-sided conversation from a fictional scriptwriter (not the actual scriptwriter, be forewarned...) to a studio executive proposing the idea of the movie.

The Cannonball Run (1981)

Hi, Chief!  I have an idea for you to make a movie.  Plot?  There is no plot.  Really.  It's just about a race across the country in cars, and the efforts of the police to stop the race.

Really.  There is no plot.  Stars?  Well, we have Burt Reynolds as the main guy.  Yeah, it's SORT of like Smokey and the Bandit, but this will involve a lot of other people trying to achieve the same goal.

That is the plot!  No.  I'm serious.

Well, I'm thinking we could get Dom DeLuise to play Reynold's sidekick.  He will play a guy who has an alter ego that will show up at the most inopportune time, Captain Chaos.

Other characters?  Well, how about Jack Elam as an unhinged doctor?  Well, I'm thinking that Reynolds and DeLuise could be posing as ambulance drivers in order to avoid the police.  And they get Elam on board in case they actually do get pulled over...

No, I'm not kidding.  There really is no plot.  Other characters?  Well how about Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. as a pair of gamblers who are also trying to win the race?  They'll be disguising themselves as priests... As well as Jackie Chan as another racer, driving a souped up James Bond style trick car.

More?  Well, speaking of James Bond, I've got Roger Moore playing himself, an actor who has made a career out of playing a spy.  He would be a parody of himself as James Bond.  We could also get Terry Bradshaw and Mel Tillis as a couple of perpetually drunk hicks who are also entered into the race.

Cheesecake?  Well, yeah, I've got a couple of chicks to run the race, too.  Adrienne Barbeau and Tara Buckman will use their sexual endowments to try to get out of any encounters with the police.  And I'm also going to get Farrah Fawcett as an innocent environmentalist who will basically be kidnapped by Reynolds and DeLuise to be their patient in the ambulance.  Not to mention a revolving group of Bond girls who will appear as passengers with Roger Moore.  We won't explain how he keeps getting different girls, that will be part of the comedy.

No, Chief, we don't need a plot.  The whole movie will just be various vignettes about the racers and their encounters with the police across the country.

I do have one particularly funny idea for one of those vignettes.  I'm thinking an all-out brawl between the racers and a biker gang they encounter on the way.  And get this.  I'm thinking Peter Fonda as the leader of the biker gang  Yeah, I know.  Easy Rider and The Wild Angels star would be a fantastic addition.

Oh, yeah, I forgot.  I've got an idea to cast Jamie Farr as a sheikh from an oil-rich Arab country who will be trying to win the race for the glory of Allah.   There will also be Bert Convy as a millionaire who is in the race just for the thrills.  He'll be riding a motorcycle with a fat guy on the back and do the whole race on a wheelie.

With all those stars you still want a plot?  We'll make millions!  Who needs a plot?

The Cannonball Run II (1984)

Hi, Chief!  Yeah, it's me again.  I have another idea for you.  Remember Cannonball Run?  We made millions.  I told you so.  I've got an idea for a sequel.  Let's do it again.

Plot?  Well, OK, I'll give you a plot this time.  Better yet, I'll give you several plots.  We'll get Jamie Farr back as the sheikh who has been commanded by his father played by Ricardo Montalban, to win the Cannonball Run.  Only problem  is there isn't going to be a Cannonball Run this year.  So daddy tells son to buy one.  They put up a million dollars for the winner, which daddy expects son to win.

Well also have Charles Nelson Reilly as the ne'er-do-well son of a Mafia don who owes big bucks to a rival Mafia guy played by Telly Savalas.  With the help of some cohorts dredged from the Godfather movies (Abe Vigoda, Alex Rocco and Michael V. Gazzo, as well as Henry Silva), they plan to kidnap the sheikh and take his million, as well as hold him for ransom.  The cohorts will try various bumbling attempts which are doomed to fail.

Oh, yeah, chief, we'll have plenty of guests, just like last time.  I've got Martin and Davis returning, this time posing as policemen.  I've got Mel Tillis teamed up with Tony Danza driving a limousine that they get from their uncle played by George Lindsey, who is a used car dealer.  The limousine will be chauffeured by an orangutan. Yeah, an orangutan, like the one in the Clint Eastwood Every Which Way But Loose movie.

For cheesecake I've got Susan Anton and Barabara Bach as the drivers of a Lamborghini.  I've also got Shirley Maclaine and Marilu Henner as chorus girls who convince Reynolds and DeLuise that they are nuns.  Which reminds me, this time Reynolds and DeLuise will be posing as army officers.  This comes in handy when they are later pulled over by a cop and manage to get out of the ticket by the convenient arrival of Jim Nabors as an army private on leave who just happens to be a relative of the cop.

I've got Jackie Chan returning in a souped up computer operated car, and Richard Kiel as his bodyguard/driver.  And I've got so many cameos it'll make your head spin.

Who?  Well how about Tim Conway an Don Knotts as police officers?  Dub Talor and Fred Dryer as more cops?  How about Arte Johnson as a deranged stunt pilot?  Joe Theismann as a guy who gets hoodwinked into driving the two girls when their car breaks down?  And as icing on the cake?  I'll get Frank Sinatra to play himself!

I think we got a winner, Chief!  I really do.

(Hope you folks enjoyed this entry.  I'll be back to my regular format next time, but I enjoyed the chance to write this in this style.  Have a safe trip home.  And don't speed....unless you think you can get away with it...   Quiggy)

Dumb and Dumber? Meet Stupid and Stupider

Before the meteoric rise of one of the most recognizable actors of the 90's and beyond, a virtually unknown actor was cast as a dimwitted high school metal head, teaming up with another virtually unknown actor in a buddy movie franchise that has spawned one sequel, and continuous rumors of another sequel in the works. That actor was...Alex Winter (who???)... I mean Keanu Reeves.

Both actors had been on the scene for a few years, but both were still fledgling artists in 1989.  Winter, for his part, was most prominently known as one of Keifer Sutherland's cohorts in The Lost Boys, and Reeves had a role in the teen drama River's Edge. This would prove to be the launching pad for Reeves as a box-office draw.  Unfortunately, Winter did not see the same success, at least not in the theater, but his career took a different tack, working mostly behind and in front of the TV camera.

The first Bill and Ted movie arrived in theaters in early 1989.  Pitted against such blockbusters of the year as Tim Burton's first Batman, Ghostbusters II, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the movie still managed to find an audience and made enough of a profit that a follow-up was green-lighted.  That movie too managed to garner a profit.  Over 20 years later, in 2011, a rumor began circulating, one which Reeves and Winter both acknowledged, that a third movie was in the works, to catch the two as they approached their 50's, but this has yet to come to fruition.

The Bill & Ted franchise concept was the brainchild of  Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson, and, as near as I can tell, with the exception of a couple of the later series episodes of Laverne and Shirley, neither had any writing credits to their name.  They seem to have hit at just the right time with this, however.  That happens in Hollywood, sometimes.  One or a group of people just hit on something that connects with people on a certain level.  I must admit, however, that the crowd that this one hit with was a good 10-15 years younger than I was at the time, but yet I still got a kick out of it, especially the first one.  And every time Poison's "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" comes on the radio, I find myself imitating the two vocalizing the lyrics as if they were profound quotes from a philosophical guru.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

In the future, 500 years from now, the world is a liberal's wet dream.  People live in peace and harmony.  And it's all because of two teenagers from 1988 who are the saviors of the planet through their music.  But it wouldn't be that way without the intervention of a future mentor, Rufus (George Carlin), who goes back in time in a time machine in the form of a telephone booth.  (Shades of Doctor Who!)

I should warn you at the beginning, if you approach this movie with any hope of having it adhere to the concept of time travel and its inherent potential for paradoxes, you are doomed to disappointment.  The film plays fast and loose with the scientic part of the theories.  (And there are some legitimate theories out there, even if the possibility has yet to be proven concretely).

In the present of 1988, Bill S. Preston, Esquire (Alex Winter) and Ted Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves) are two brain dead slackers who are on the verge of failing history.  Their teacher, Mr. Ryan (Bernie Casey), tells them in no uncertain terms that they must get an A+ on their final exam, an oral presentation, if they are to have any hope of passing his course.

The two are approached by Rufus, who has come from the future to give them use of his time machine to help them pass history and thus save history as he knows it; a future in which the music of Wyld Stallions, their wannabe band, is actually a profound influence.  The two go back to France in the 1800's where they encounter Napoleon, and through an accident bring the French icon into the present.  Leaving Napoleon in the care of Ted's little brother and venture into the past where they abduct Billy the Kid and Socrates.  They also end up in medieval England where they fall in love with two princesses, the daughters of the king.

Seeking "extra credit", they venture back and get several more historical figures; Joan of Arc, Sigmund Freud, Ghengis Khan, Ludwig van Beethoven and Abraham Lincoln.  Bringing them to the present, they unleash them on the local mall, and try to track down Napoleon, whom Ted's brother ditched because he was too annoying.  The historical figure wreak havoc on the mall, and Napoleon, who has found his way to a water park called Waterloo is doing the same thing.

Finally gathering them all together, the two slackers manage to do a presentation at their history exam, which wows the assemblage.  Rufus congratulates them and presents them with the princess from the past as a present.  But they are still incompetent musicians.  One can only hope that they "do get better"  as Rufus promises to the audience, "breaking down the fourth wall", as it is known in the argot of film.

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)

It is a couple of years later.  The boys and their girlfriends (the princess from medieval England) have formed a band.  But the boys are still losers and haven't got a clue, how to play their guitars or anything else for that matter.  Meanwhile, a renegade from the future, De Nomolos (Joss Ackland) has engineered a plan to change the future by killing Bill and Ted before they can be the influence they eventually become.  He commandeers his own time machine and sends two Bill and Ted look-alike robots to do the job.


The two robots (which Bill and Ted call the "evil robot usses"), kill Bill and Ted.  The two seek out a way to return to the real life.  Along the way they manage to garner the help of the Grim Reaper, who is obliged to help them because they manage to defeat him in a game (or games, since the Grim Reaper is a sore loser...)

On their "bogus" journey they end up in Hell, where they find that Hell is rather personal, each of them forced to endure their own personal nightmare.  Bill has a granny, (played by Alex Winter with tons of makeup), ugly as sin, that wants a kiss and Ted has to escape a military school leader who wants him to drop and give him infinity in pushups).  They eventually escape Hell and get to Heaven, where the big guy in charge gives them the services of the best scientists in the universe (a couple of aliens) to help them defeat the evil robot usses.

In a showdown at the "Battle of the Bands" (in which Wyld Stallions were to perform, don't ask how they managed that...), Bill and Ted and their creations,  the good robot usses, battle the evil robot usses to try and save the day.  Of course, if they defeat the evil robot usses they will still have to deal with De Nomolos who is flat out determined to change the future, at whatever cost.

One can only wonder what happens in the future that causes these two to become the prophets of peace and harmony, when it's obvious they probably couldn't even SPELL "peace and harmony" without a spell check.  But since this is just goofy Hollywood time-wasting, its probably better not to dwell on it.

Well, folks, the screen has just darkened and a phone booth has materialized in the parking lot, so your humble reviewer may be off on an adventure for himself.  Have a safe drive home.

Quiggy

Humor in a Movie Vein

This is my entry in the Things I Learned From the Movies Blogathon, hosted by Speakeasy and Silver Screenings.

I have a book I bought years ago,  Videohound's Complete Guide to Cult Flicks and Trash Pics, printed by Visible Ink Press. The book, like all others in the Videohound series, collects a plethora of movie titles that fit in a particular vein, in this case some of the most obscure and weird movies ever made, as well as some mainstream movies that have a cult following status.  (The Star Wars movies would fit in that latter category).  The first part of that designation would include such low budget trash flicks as The Brain that Wouldn't Die, Robot Monster and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (all of which have been reviewed elsewhere on this blog.

I acquired my quirky sense of humor from watching some of these "trash pics".  It's part of my make-up.  I have a quick wit, although it's not always thought of by others as funny, I admit, especially when the person in question is the victim of the witty remark.  But it does make for some more or less clever observations if it works.

I read this book cover to cover, and one day it occurred  to me that I could make some rather snide (or witty, depending on your point of view) comments on some of the titles included in the book, without necessarily having been a viewer of said movies.  I have posted the following in one form or another on the web over the years.  These current comments are mostly new, however, because my memory is so bad I can no longer remember the original comments.  I hope you get a kick out of them, though.

Writer's Note:  The titles, in boldface, are actual titles of movies.  The comments in  (parentheses) are mine.  If the titles seem stupid, don't blame me.  If the comments, however, seem stupid, well.....ppptttthhh!  By the way, I know that more than a few of these selections were intended to be funny in their original form, but my comments are still valid.




Please Don't Eat My Mother (actually, we came for your daughter, Chuck!)

Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid (Look out!  He's got a pocket protector!)

Oh, Dad, Poor Dad!  Momma's Hung you in the Closet & I'm Feeling So Sad (But could you move over?  I need to get my shoes...)

(and yes, that says the star is Rosalind Russell...)


Alone in the T-Shirt Zone (Personally, I'd prefer to be alone in the WET T-shirt zone...)

Where's Poppa?  (Isn't he still hanging in the closet?)

And now for a triple feature:

Bad Girls from Mars
Bad Girls Go to Hell
(this isn't going to go well...)
Mars Needs Women
(See... I told you...)

 Hillbillies in a Haunted House (Also known as "Jethro Bodine Finally Scores"...)

Angels Hard as They Come (Imagine my disappointment.  It's not a porno movie...)

Prick Up You Ears (Shame on you for what you're thinking...)

Killer Tomatoes Eat France (And the rest of the world owes them a debt of "Thanks".)

Barn of the Naked Dead (Brought to you by the same people who gave you Silo of the Cross-Dressing Zombies)

Time for another triple feature:

It's Dead - Let's Touch It!
Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things
(But will they listen...?)
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies
(I didn't think so...)


{ Couldn't find a poster for It's Dead - Let's Touch It!  but I did find the video.  It's only 30 minutes long, and a riot...}

Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh (The MLB Pirates baseball team's voodoo rite to win the World Series went haywire...)

The Rats are Coming!  The Werewolves are Here! (Break out the Flit!)

The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman (for those of you who like your wrestling on the kinky side)

Rabid Grannies (Gee, grandma, what big teeth you have...)

There's Nothing Out There (That squeak is just Spot's squeaky toy... Wait a minute, we don't HAVE a dog...)

Don't look behind you, now, but...


Attack of the Mushroom People
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
(Where are they coming from...?) 
Attack of the Killer Refrigerator
Well, they had to be coming from SOMEWHERE, didn't they?)

Attack of the Giant Leeches
Attack of the Crab Monsters
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman
Attack of the Puppet People
Attack of the Mayan Mummy
Attack of the Robots
(HEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPP!)

Attack of the 60-Foot Centerfold
(Well, OK, maybe that one's not so bad.  Hmm... Where did I put those magic pills that Alice gave me...?)

This last one needs no comments.  It's title speaks for itself.

Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh-Eating, Hellbound, Zombified Living Dead Part 2 (In Shocking 2D)

If you need stitching up after that, Dr. Frankenstein's office is just down the hall.

Quiggy