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The Flickhead year-end list: ten additions I made to my DVD and Blu-ray library in 2011

Amer (2009) Or, Last Giallo At Marienbad. Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani pay homage to the Italian giallo genre of the 60s and 70s in this otherwise contemporary visual puzzle which interlocks key moments in a woman’s life. Heady, sensual and violent, this is an acquired taste; throughout it all I wondered what Donald Cammell could’ve done with this technology at his disposal.

Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno (2009) On the surface, a fairly straightforward account of Clouzot’s unfinished 1964 production, L’enfer. But as the story unfolds through the reminiscences of those who were present (including William Lubtchansky, Thi Lan Nguyen, Catherine Allégret and Costa-Gavras) and surviving footage of location exteriors and fascinating studio experiments (the latter recalling Kenneth Anger’s Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome), a sketchy portrait emerges of a filmmaker faced with self doubt, inner demons and a sense of impending doom. Directors Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea discover that Clouzot was inspired by Fellini’s personal approach to cinema in 8½, but what’s here is not one director emulating another, but rather Clouzot’s own descent into the life-altering conundrum snaring Marcello Mastroianni’s character in that picture. Curiously, no mention is made of the 1994 version of L’enfer Claude Chabrol constructed from Clouzot’s script.

Machete (2010) I’ve an on-again/off-again appreciation for Robert Rodriguez (here co-directing with Ethan Maniquis), and this is definitely ‘on,’ a movie determined to make the retro-Deuce dream of Grindhouse a reality. Suggesting Sam Peckinpah by way of Tex Avery, Machete blisters in the desert heat where everyone is bent on fucking over everyone else. It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world, brilliantly cast (can you top Steven Seagal?), down to the blinding eye candy of Jessica Alba (“Hold the spit, please”) and Michelle Rodriguez — the latter one tough cookie flaunting abs to die for. Needless to say, when Danny Trejo gets it on with the two dollbabes in the pool (mother and daughter, no less, the latter Lindsay Lohan!), I was hooked.

The Night Heaven Fell (1958) 2011 turned out to be the Year of Bardot in my living room, as we covered a great deal of Brigitte’s oeuvre. A lot of it is dross, but there were the occasional stand-outs, such as this overripe melodrama. Playing a young innocent fresh from the convent, BB is thrust into a provincial soap opera of lust and decadence, a scenario that could’ve soared in the hands of Luis Buñuel. (Remember Susana?) Instead, it’s Roger Vadim titillation, and there’s very little nuance or satire evident, just a lot of extremes. But he instinctively knew how to photograph the former Mrs. Vadim, especially naked, truly a sight to behold.

Road to Nowhere (2010) Any charges of arty pretentiousness affixed to this are warranted, but only among those who’ve never enjoyed the singular beauty of Monte Hellman’s vision. In his first substantial, feature-length picture since 1988’s Iguana, he returns to the quiet visual poetry of his best work: The Shooting, Two-Lane Blacktop, Cockfighter and China 9, Liberty 37. Plus it stars Shannyn Sossamon, a recent favorite of mine. Meanwhile, Monte completists should take note that his atypical and gamy Silent Night Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out! has surfaced on DVD as part of a discount horror set — click here.

Sci-Fi Invasion This is the first time I’ve ever bought an inexpensive collection of public domain movies, and for a sale price of ten dollars and ninety-nine cents I now own fifty SF (and pseudo-SF) features packed onto twelve DVDs! Before you can say, “How great is that?!?” let it be known that the only reason for my purchase was Mission Stardust, a 1967 Italian production originally titled ...4 ...3 ...2 ...1 ...morte. Back when I was a wee Flickhead, I’d see photos of its blonde bombshell star, Essy Persson, in the pages of Famous Monsters magazine, and now, more than forty years later, figured it was time to check things out. And what we found was a sketchy James Bondian scenario involving the ever-resourceful Perry Rhodan landing on the moon, getting hijacked by condescending extraterrestrials and battling it out with an Earth-bound megalomaniac, served in an image quality equal to a Goodtimes VHS tape. On a few occasions I had to reverse the disc a few minutes because I kept nodding off.

Serial (1980) With growing concerns over the probable demise of music CDs (read about it here), I assume DVDs and Blu-rays are also headed for extinction once online streaming takes over. I’m grabbing up any small, relatively unknown films that may not make the transition, hence this sharp, deceptively low key satire of Marin County trends of the late 1970s: encounter groups, fad vegetarianism, suburban orgies, sham spirituality, cult brainwashing, quack psychology and gay outlaw bikers, set to an Easy Listening score by Lalo Schifrin echoing the beige era of Love, American Style. Directed by prolific TV vet Bill Persky, this time capsule stars Martin Mull, Tuesday Weld, Bill Macy, Peter Bonerz, Sally Kellerman, Tom Smothers, Barbara Rhodes and Christopher Lee in one of his more interesting roles as ‘Skull.’

Sucker Punch (2011) At first put off by the antiseptic tone and dead-eye posturing I’ve come to associate with the Ritalin Generation, the film gradually seduced me as it bounced from scenario to scenario, trading off its lead characters with druggy dexterity. (Admittedly, watching this under the influence helps immeasurably.) Having seen both the theatrical version and an alternate cut extended by seventeen minutes, I prefer the leaner one: characters and situations are tighter, while the longer version occasionally wades in dreary repetition. I’m not familiar with director Zack Snyder’s other pictures, but kudos to his casting here, with a special shout-out to Jena Malone and Scott Glenn (and his endless barrage of cliché homilies).

Welcome to the Grindhouse: The Teacher and Pick-Up Recently I wrote about The Teacher (1974), a notorious teen-boy-meets-cougar romp (read it here), but its cofeature on this double set (meant to emulate the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse, only with films and trailers actually from the 1970s) is an outré endeavor bordering on the avant-garde: Pick-Up (1975), the sole directorial credit of Bernard Hirschenson, who rearranges the basic ingredients of sexploitation for something wholly unique, at least as far as Crown International Pictures are concerned. An odyssey through a Florida swampland, it combines lusty young folk, a sweaty authority figure modeled after Rod Steiger, youthful rebellion and visual effects evoking the spirit of Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising.

The Women in Cages Collection There are some nights when a Flickhead needs to don his fez, fire up a White Owl and cut loose, and what better accompaniment than a Pam Grier triple feature? In interviews she’s referred to these as the “hooties in the jungle” pictures she shot in the Philippines for Roger Corman, the cinematic equivalent of those sultry and ribald men’s ‘sweat mags’ of the 50s and 60s: Big Doll House and Women in Cages (both 1971); and The Big Bird Cage (1972) co-starring Anitra (Invasion of the Bee Girls) Ford. If you’re wondering which one’s the best, then you’re probably not ready.

For you blue

Mentally distanced from contemporary means of music broadcasting (I have no idea who’s hot on the Billboard charts — if such a thing still exists — and couldn’t navigate my way around a radio dial if you paid me), most of my exposure to new sounds often arrives via the internet or through music channels such as Palladia. This dirge, “Video Games” by the heretofore unknown (to me, at least) Lana Del Rey was recently discussed by Erich Kuersten on his blog, Acidemic. The first time I listened and watched, I imagined a young Angelina Jolie playing the ghost of Amy Winehouse singing from the grave. The second time, it evoked a memory from 1965 or ‘66, when the girl next door (Beverly) and I crashed a neighboring girl’s birthday party the two of us were most definitely not invited to while all the other kids were. I remember the celebrant, one Elaine Jacobs, telling me in no uncertain terms that she hated me and wanted me out of “her” house immediately. (Mind you, we were all seven- or eight-years-old.) Beverly and I both ran, she in tears, and took refuge in my basement while Elaine’s mother yelled arbitrarily in the wind for us to come back because we “were wanted.” We stayed away, milking sympathy but getting none. And then I tried to think of just one childhood memory that wasn’t in some way tainted by feelings of inadequacy, but came up empty.

Son of Harpo Speaks!

Son of Harpo Speaks! By Bill Marx. 328 pages, soft cover, illustrated. Published by and available from Applause Books. ISBN: 9781557837905.

Book review by Nelhydrea Paupér

Bill Marx’s autobiography, Son of Harpo Speaks!, is notable among the memoirs of celebrities’ children for the complete and unabashed love Marx has for his father and mother, actress Susan Fleming. It’s rather a relief to read about Hollywood parents who adored their children and who stayed together for life. The fact that Marx doesn’t find this unusual enough to point it out speaks volumes about his upbringing.

    The portrait of his father Harpo is uncomplicated. A loving, devoted, gentle man, Harpo is full of humor and practical jokes, an almost avant-garde openness to new types of art and music (including modern jazz and an enthusiastic announcement in 1964, much to his Julliard-educated son’s consternation, that he loves the Beatles) and a deep, wise intelligence that gives no hint of an education limited to the second grade.

    Like his three younger siblings, Bill Marx was adopted by Harpo and Susan at a time when would-be parents still visited orphanages and pick out the child they wanted. Bill’s adoption required assistance from Susan’s friend Marion Davies, who helped smooth the way for a second wedding, this time Catholic, between the Jewish Harpo and nominally Episcopalian Susan, allowing them to meet the birth mother’s stipulation that the boy be raised in a Catholic home. Following the adoption the family experienced several months of weekly home visits by a woman from the agency, causing the Marxes to drag out crosses and holy water from the closet for each visit. Harpo finally had enough and one day answered the door stark naked. They were never visited again.

    Later in the book he details the absolutely astonishing story of how he accidentally discovered his birth family, a tale so farfetched it could only have been either conceived by Dickens or actually be true.

Harpo on I Love Lucy

    Harpo hired his son at age twelve to be his personal prop man while he toured England with brother Chico in 1948. Thus young Billy was responsible for maintaining the innumerable items that filled the various pockets and sleeves of his father’s famous coat. He goes on to describe accompanying Harpo on his various TV appearances, including the legendary episode of I Love Lucy.

    Marx the Younger went on to become the music arranger for his father’s two 1950s instrumental albums, which hover between muzak and exotica, the first of which features the Chico Hamilton Quintet as Harpo’s band. Marx went on to make a name for himself as a composer and arranger, notable for his early 1970s AIP film scores (Count Yorga, Vampire; Scream, Blacula, Scream, etc.)

    Marx’s career is a curio to anyone interested in 1950s and ‘60s American popular music. He was signed as the first white artist on the black-owned label Chicago Vee-Jay Records (before the Beatles) for which he released a few easy listening LPs, mainly as The Castaway Strings (“The Bobby Vinton Songbook”). He spent most of the Sixties as the piano man at Dino’s Lodge, Dean Martin’s famed cocktail lounge on the Sunset Strip. Aside from his stint at AIP, he has sporadically scored and arranged music for films and TV (Murphy’s Romance, Who’s That Girl, Fantasy Island), as well as composed concert commissions.

    Marx makes no bones about the fact that he is not a writer, and the book could have used more guidance. More detail about his day to day home life growing up with his family would have been especially welcome. But enthusiasm and warmth fill the book, and personal photos are everywhere, making this a must for Marx Brothers fanatics.

Available from Applause Books