If you don't enjoy Mae West, you might as well leave this website, because she was the ultimate Queen of Camp, at least in her later years. This was a woman who basically saved Paramount Studios from complete bankruptcy and single-handedly brought feminism to its height of appreciation. She didn't need a man, but constantly talked about them anyway. "Men are like linoleum floors, lay 'em right and you can walk all over them for years'. Her quotes are as funny as they are timeless, and she had a million of them, all of which she wrote herself! "Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" Miss West definitely had her time in the spotlight, making hit after hit while in her heyday, but after a while, she'd basically had enough and lived quietly in the apartment building (that she purchased simply because the manager didn't care for her type of friends) called The Ravenwood. She even bought the building across the street because she didn't like the color and after buying it, she had it repainted.
Anyway, after years of being in retirement, Mae West was drawn back out into the spotlight to star in the camp classic Myra Breckinridge. A movie that even though it had Mae West, Raquel Welch, Farrah Fawcett, and a young Tom Selleck starring in it, tanked worse than most of the movies ever made at that point (1970). And even though it really isn't that great of a movie, it's still enjoyed for its trashy campiness and unbelievable storyline, not to mention the bad acting. But most of all, we got to see what became of the powerhouse we all knew as the incomparable Mae West, who was the real star of the film even though she probably had the least screen time of all the actors in the entire movie.
Even after the disastrous Myra Breckinridge had completely tanked at the box office, it still reminded Mae West that she was a star and had reignited her desire to be seen in films again, even though she was over 80 years old at that point. So she dug out an old play that she had written almost 20 years prior, that people had told her could never be filmed due to its sexual overtones, but it was now the late 1970s, and scripts like the ones Mae wrote were no longer seen as jailable offenses. Mae was always ahead of her time. I mean, this was a woman who wrote a play all about gay men, simply titled "Sex"...back in the 1920s!
So Mae West dug out an old script, revamped it, and hired literally EVERYBODY to star in it, and I do mean EVERYBODY. Timothy Dalton, Dom Deluise, Tony Curtis, Ringo Starr, Regis Philbin, George Hamilton, and Alice Cooper, just to name a few! And these were just the people who accepted a role in the film, dozens of other actors were offered roles and (wisely) turned them down. And even though it still had (almost) every star that was somewhat popular at the time, it STILL tanked at the box office, shockingly worse than Myra Breckinridge did, which people didn't think was cinematically possible. Proving that no matter how many wonderful actors you insert into a film it can still be a piece of crap.
Even though the plot is paper thin, and the acting is horrendous, I still loved it. Just to see how good Mae West still looked at 84 years old. Speaking of the plot, it was obviously geared to function as a showcase of stars instead of an actual movie. The entire story revolves around a woman named Marlo Manners (Mae West) who has recently married Sir Michael Barrington (Timothy Dalton) and no one even bats an eyelash despite the 60-year age difference between them. It just so happens that there is an international conference happening at the very hotel where Marlo and her new husband (#6) are now spending their honeymoon. Husbands 1-5 are all there and one of them, a Russian delegate I think, decides that he wants one last fling with his old flame Marlo. Meanwhile, her current husband spends the entire movie in an interview trying desperately to prove he's not gay ("Where's my husband? He's downstairs trying to save his reputation. Oh, well he should be up here with me trying to ruin it")
Madness erupts when it's discovered that Marlo has made a cassette recording of all her scandalous affairs, that her manager is trying to destroy but it keeps slipping through his fingers and makes its way all around the hotel in various sorts of mishaps. This little pink tape ends up everywhere from being stuck in a muscleman's pecs to one of the building's gargoyles. Not such a long story made even shorter, he gets it back, and the world (and Marlo's reputation) is saved. Not that she really cares. She's too busy trying on new outfits in her hotel room the entire time.
Most assuredly a movie that has more trivia than it does storyline. Mae West was basically blind, deaf, and senile when the movie was made and apparently needed an earpiece hidden in her wig to help her remember her lines. Sandbags were placed on the floor so that she would know when she'd hit her mark since she couldn't see two inches in front of her due to having severe cataracts. Such a terrible movie, but it does fall into that wonderful category of "so bad that it's good". And even though it got awful reviews, hardly made a dime, and was a temporary demise for many up-and-coming actors, there isn't one person who says that they had less than a marvelous time making it, proving that even when she was already half dead, Mae West could still be the life of the party.
I can say that I personally really love this movie. It was SO not what I thought it was gonna be when I started watching it. I can't even remember where I originally heard about this film, only that I managed to find it on YouTube and thought it was wonderful. Strange as it is, I think it's actually really well done and the premise is completely original in so many ways. Made in 1973, it took a while for this film to catch on cuz it was just so damn weird, but it had at least one famous actress in it and a few then-unknown actresses in it that would become semi-famous down the road. Ruth Roman had been in a hundred different movies by the time she made The Baby, mostly Westerns and several TV shows like The Outer Limits, I Spy, and Mission Impossible. But I think by the time she made this film, she was just trying to pay the rent. Anjenette Comer had done some television before making this film but gained a decently respectable resume' after starring in The Baby. Susanne Zenor didn't do much during or after this film but she was the original actress chosen to play Chrissie Snow on Three's Company but lost out at the last minute to another blonde bimbo named Suzanne (Somers). She eventually did get to have a brief walk-on part in Three's Company as a character named Samantha. Shame though, I think she would've taken that role to a whole new interesting level.
Anyway, on with the story. Ann Gentry (Anjenette Comer) is a social worker who is looking for something, a particular kind of client, at first we're not sure why yet, but the reason is definitely there. She meets the Wadsworth family, an odd bunch of ladies consisting of Mrs. Wadsworth (Ruth Roman) and her two daughters, Alba (Susanne Zenor), a suspiciously happy girl (at first) who gives tennis lessons in the afternoon, and Germaine, who looks like an Elvira knockoff with a devious glare that sets your nerves on end the moment you see her. She obsessively cleans all day (and occasionally does TV commercials). But when it's time for Ann to meet her client though, the weirdness picks up pace.
Ann's client is a grown man who is completely infantile, sleeps in a giant crib, sucks on a pacifier, can only utter the occasional gaga and googoo, and is always simply referred to as "Baby". Although Ann seems taken aback by this, she doesn't shy away from it and takes a liking to him almost immediately. In fact, Ann starts to become a little bit obsessed with Baby, showing up several times a week, way more than the typical social worker who may drop in a mere three to four times in an entire year. She attempts to get Baby to improve beyond his infantile state by trying to get him to stand on his own, possibly even walk but is suspiciously held back from doing so by the entire family.
After one of Anns attempts at getting Baby to "grow up" a little, we find that behind closed doors, the entire family is keeping Baby in his infantile state by torturing him with cattle prods and other evil tactics when he shows any sign of improvement, therefore making damn sure that he is never anything more than a "baby". But Ann is smart and though she doesn't witness the abuse firsthand, she definitely has figured out what's going on. She tries to get Baby put into a hospital for the mentally delayed but the Wadsworth women are not interested. It seems that this family of women is pretty hateful towards men, especially Baby, mostly because the mother was deserted by a different husband after each child was born.
Ann knows that she can help Baby and threatens to use the Public Guardian Office to take Baby away from the abuse that he suffers from almost daily. At first, all three women are disgusted and dismissive of Ann's threats, declare Baby as theirs and throw her off the property, but later on, they think better of it because they realize that they don't want Baby's abuse to be discovered. So they hatch a plan to lure Ann over to their house for Baby's birthday party and somehow get rid of her. Ann shows up, but she's a smart cookie and is prepared for pretty much anything.
During this party, one that is clearly for adults on drugs, without a single child (or adult children) in sight, some drunk prick keeps hitting on Ann and she declares that she is happily married and isn't interested. In fact, Ann is asked about her husband several times throughout the movie and is intentionally vague, not really saying that he's dead, but won't verify his existence either.
At first, the family is nice to Ann and seems like they genuinely want to make up, but during an innocent game of darts, Ann's punch is spiked and she becomes intoxicated. When she begins staggering, they take her to the basement and tie her up, with the intention of doing away with her meddling ass entirely after the party ends. Unfortunately for them, they leave the basement door ajar and Baby makes his way down to where Ann is being held captive. Because Baby has by now grown rather fond of Ann, he helps (or at least watches) as she manages to escape. But she ain't leaving here alone, not until she gets what she came after. She bails out of the party, takes Baby with her, and slashes the tires in the family car before she leaves so they can't come after her. Told ya she was a smart cookie.
The Wadsworth women are defeated, Baby is finally in Ann's safeguard, but this chicken hasn't been cooked yet. Ann sends a picture of Baby to the Wadsworth family, all dressed in a suit, standing tall and looking all grown up. This enrages Baby's mother and his demented sisters so they decide that they must find Baby and get him back, at any cost.
They manage to locate where Ann lives and sneak into the house with knives like some kind of Manson Family hippies and prepare to kill Ann and bring Baby home. After Alba and Germaine go into the house but don't return, the mother grows impatient and enters the house herself, but when she does find her daughters, they've already been murdered. She doesn't have much time to mourn though before Ann comes out of the darkness with an ax and attacks the mother. They battle for a few minutes before Mrs. Wadsworth falls from the staircase and breaks both legs. Instead of killing her though, Ann has a much better plan. You see, Ann has been having a swimming pool built in the backyard, but it isn't quite completed yet. She drags the entire Wadsworth family out to the backyard and buries them right where the pool is being dug. At least the daughters are already dead, but Mama Wadsworth gets to be buried alive. As she begs for her life, she demands to know why Ann wanted her Baby so badly as to go to such measures to get him. She replies, "I plan to give him nothing but the deepest of love".
A few weeks pass, the swimming pool is completed, and Ann goes into what looks like a nursery that we assume has been intended for Baby, but all along there has been another adult baby there...Anns husband. He apparently has had some kind of head injury that has rendered him infantile and Ann has been planning this entire time to find him the most appropriate playmate, hence the lengths she was willing to go to in order to have Baby all to herself. Being a social worker, Ann has seen the improvement that can occur when delayed individuals, mostly children, can have when socialized with others like themselves.
The last scene is tremendously happy but has a really creepy vibe to it. Ann, her infantile husband, and Baby are all playing in the pool, one big happy family...with three dead bodies buried just beneath them. Ann was a woman with a plan, keenly executed from the very beginning.
Okay, so The Exorcist isn't necessarily a cult film because it had a HUGE theatrical opening and pretty much everyone in the world saw it when it came out and proceeded to pass out, freak out, and then run to their nearest church to repent their sins. It did follow the cult film strategy though, albeit at a sincerely rapid pace. It only took one viewing at one theater for everyone who saw it to tell all their friends about it. And before you could say "Your Mother Sucks Cocks In Hell" theaters across America began to be overrun with people dying to view what was then labeled as the scariest film ever made. And that's a hard statement to back up because scary movies were a dime a dozen and it would have to take a really scarier-than-shit movie to live up to that kind of competition. Well, it did. People ran out of the theaters screaming, and people were fainting in the aisles and lobbies, but this only made more viewers flock to the local cinema in enormous crowds, waiting in line for hours to see what all the fuss was about.
I think the truly scariest aspect of The Exorcist is that it took you off guard because it involved a child, an innocent-looking little girl (brilliantly played by Linda Blair) who transformed into the most vile thing people could have possibly imagined. Possession and exorcism weren't a new concept by any means but had been restricted to rare cultures in Third World countries and the only time it was ever talked about in the United States was by elderly Catholic priests who considered it an embarrassment to religion in general, kept it in the closet and regarded it as a simply a mental health issue that belonged more in the realm of medicine than religion. A belief that still exists today even though the topic of exorcism has spawned more horror movies now than ever before, mostly attributed to movies like The Exorcist. Ever since it was released in 1973, there have been more copycat films dealing with the topic of exorcism than anyone could possibly count.
The basic story sort of makes a circle, basically ending where it began. A tired and reclusive priest named Father Merrin is in Iraq overseeing an archaeological dig when he comes across a statue of a demon named Pazuzu. After unearthing this find, he notices dogs violently fighting, clocks suddenly stop, and is almost run over by a horse-drawn carriage. The story then travels to the other side of the world and ends up in Georgetown Washington D.C. where a famous actress named Christine McNeil lives with her young daughter Regan. Christine begins hearing scratching on the walls, and mysterious sounds in the attic, and her daughter begins complaining that her bed keeps shaking.
Slowly, Regan's condition begins to worsen. In front of a bunch of people at one of her mother's celebrity parties, Regan comes downstairs, rambles a little, and then lets loose a stream of green slime from between her legs. Christine and her friends look mortified and Regan is rushed upstairs to the bath. Shortly after this incident, when Christine thinks Regan is finally settled into bed for the night she suddenly hears her daughter screaming. Upon opening the door, she sees her daughter's bed violently shaking up and down with no explanation for it. She takes Regan to a doctor but he is dismissive of her despite her insistence that her daughter couldn't possibly have been solely responsible for the bed shaking. The doctor convinces Christine that the problem is in Regans' head and not her bed.
Regan is then put through every grueling medical test known to mankind, with the doctors finding no explanation for her behavior which has by now become increasingly violent. Regan is brought home because her mother has flat-out refused to institutionalize her, even though that's basically all the doctors can offer. When a few of Regan's doctors are examining x-rays of an arteriogram of Regans' brain, finding nothing wrong at all, a frantic call from Christine comes through, begging the doctors to come to the house as Regan's behavior has exceeded violence and is now completely unreal. Regan spews profanities in a deep voice, is slapped across the face by unseen hands, and is basically getting the shit beaten out of her by something that no one else can see. She's promptly sedated and the doctors continue to try and convince Christine that it's all in Regan's head, even though it clearly is not.
There are a tremendous amount of scenes in this movie that are quite disturbing. Regan is found stabbing herself in the crotch while a deep voice coming from inside her keeps telling her to "Let Jesus Fuck You" while poltergeist activity begins occurring and random objects are thrown about. Regan forces her mother's face into her bloody crotch and then proceeds to slap her so hard that she flies across the room. A heavy dresser begins moving towards Christine all on its own, a chair flies against the door, blocking help from entering and in a completely shocking moment, Regan's head turns to look backward without breaking a single bone, and with the voice of Christine's friend and film director who has recently died while babysitting Regan, says "Do You Know What She Did, Your Cunting Daughter?"
There's a side story about a detective investigating a desecrating vandalism at the local church and the mysterious death of the movie director that Christine is currently working with, but the main side story is about a priest named Father Karras who is gradually losing his faith, mostly due to the death of his elderly mother. When all else seems lost, Christine contacts this priest because she is now convinced that her daughter's condition is not medical, but rather demonic in nature. As much as he really doesn't want to help her with this situation, he agrees to at least see Regan and give his advice because he is not just a priest but a doctor as well.
Upon arriving, he sees that Regan is worse than ever. She only speaks in a deep growling voice, uttering phrases in Latin as well as other languages, Poltergeist-like activity is still happening, and when Holy Water is sprinkled on her she reacts violently and before long she vomits directly in his face. He feels that exorcism may actually be needed after all and brings this to the attention of the church but is deemed unfit to perform the exorcism himself. This brings us back to the beginning with the elderly priest Father Merrin, who is located and brought in to perform the exorcism with Father Karras as his helper. Apparently, Father Merrin has performed exorcisms before and is seen as the perfect person for the job even though he's basically 108 years old, has heart problems, and the previous exorcisms he has performed have nearly killed him.
The exorcism is performed while Regan continuously vomits more green slime, levitates, and performs amazing feats of strength, all climaxing with her head rotating completely around in a circle in a scene that will live in infamy among horror films forever.
While both priests are taking a break, Father Merrin tries once more on his own to exorcise the demon, who then suffers a heart attack and dies. Father Karras becomes completely enraged when he sees Regan laughing at Father Merrin's death, so he beats her, strangles her, and begs the demon to enter him and spare this child from any further torment. We see his eyes begin to change to the rancid green that Regan's eyes have been since her possession. Knowing he is becoming possessed himself, he flings himself out of Regan's bedroom window and down a flight of stairs where he lands in a pool of blood and dies.
Regan begins crying for her mother in her own voice and Christine rushes to her side, who then sees instantly that Regan is "back" and that the vile demon possessing her has gone. Wanting to make a fresh start now that Regan is better, albeit pretty scarred from her ordeal, they both leave Georgetown and never look back.
I'd call this the end but it wasn't. An endless amount of attempts were made at having a successful sequel, including its immediate follow-up, Exorcist II: The Heretic. Exorcist III was only somewhat of a success, but only because it was based on a direct sequel to the book by William Peter Blatty who hated the theatrical sequel with a mad passion so he wrote his own sequel and they just used this newly written sequel as the screenplay for Exorcist III. Part IV was made, but deemed a disaster by all who were involved in making it, so it was basically remade with a more predictable ending, but still sucked beyond belief. A TV series was made, and now a direct movie sequel is coming out soon, starring the original main actresses Ellen Burstyn (Christine McNeil) and Linda Blair (Regan). It remains to be seen whether it will fall victim to the "shitty Exorcist sequel curse".
This movie has more trivia behind it than I could ever possibly list, literally HUNDREDS of juicy items could be discussed. Many people associated with its filming were either badly hurt or even died. Sets caught fire, actual paranormal activity was supposed to have happened, etc. And even though the movie was banned from being shown in different places all over the world and nearly acquired an X-rating, it still went on to win two Oscars and became Warner Brothers' highest-grossing movie ever made (when adjusted for inflation). Given the amount of exorcism/possession movies that have been released since, rewatching The Exorcist these days may not have the traumatizing effect it used to have, but when it was released in 1973, nothing like it had ever been seen before and it really was absolutely terrifying!
Session 9 is a complicated movie, but once you've figured out what has really happened, it becomes a puzzle well worth solving.
An asbestos removal crew is hired for a job at an abandoned insane asylum. Crew leader Gordon seems unusually tired and complains that his infant daughter has an ear infection and cries constantly. His partners are Phil, a family friend who is distant and suspicious of Gordon's overwhelming need to land this job even though it's extremely rushed, Mike, a curious law school dropout, Hank, a somewhat sleazy guy who's recently stolen Phil's girlfriend, and Jeff, a mullet headed dunce that has a fear of the dark.
Tensions abound from the start as no two crew members necessarily like each other and the rushed job proves rather exhausting. Gordon reveals to Phil that there are problems at home and that he is basically living in his van because he recently lost his temper and hit his wife. Hank's enjoyment when talking about stealing Phil's girlfriend makes the tension even worse.
After a generator fails, Mike goes down to the basement to fix it and finds a box marked as evidence, which has audiotapes in it labeled sessions 1-9. As he begins to listen to them, he learns that they are the taped therapy sessions of a woman named Mary Hobbes with Multiple Personality Disorder (patient #444). She has three personalities. There's Princess, which is an innocent female childlike personality that lives in the tongue because she's always talking. Billy is a male personality that lives in the eyes because he sees everything and seems like a protector of sorts. There's also a personality named Simon that the other personalities seem to be afraid to talk about. Upon reading Mary's file, it appears that she was given a china doll for Xmas when she was young and her brother was given a brand new hunting knife. Her brother plays a joke on Mary by jumping out of the darkness and scaring her on Xmas night causing her to fall on her doll which breaks and cuts her up pretty badly, she has a mental breakdown and grabs her brother's new knife and murders her family with it. With each tape, we hear more from her different personalities concerning what happened that night, as the doctor continues to ask about the third personality named Simon which the others are still reluctant to talk about.
Mike continues to find reasons to stop working on the asbestos job and to keep going to the basement to listen to one session tape after another while Gordon seems to be losing his grip on reality due to the stress of the job. We also notice a few other strange things about Gordon. He has a terrible burn on his leg, he often talks to his wife Wendy on a cell phone that obviously has no battery, and there are times when we notice he has things in common with the multiple personality patient Mary. Such as when he's on the phone with no battery, Mary's tombstone #444 (all graves at the asylum have just numbers, no names) is shown broken underneath the tree that Gordon is sitting on while "talking to his wife". We also see him stop and take a poignant moment to look at the magazine clippings on the wall of a patient's cell, when he leaves, we notice the patient's cell number is 444.
Random suspicions arise among the crew, such as why Mike isn't around much, why Gordon has blood under his fingernails, why Phil is secretly meeting with some neighborhood punks, and Hank ends up disappearing altogether and needs to be replaced. A deep voice sometimes speaks to Gordon saying "welcome home" and we're left wondering what events are real and what events are not.
At the beginning of the film, a guard has to let the crew in and they ask why a guard is needed because it's not like patients are gonna be escaping. He tells the crew that it is more about keeping patients out since many of them return to the hospital after it closed because it was the only home they knew. The correlation between patient Mary Hobbes and Gordon slowly becomes clear when we learn that the burn on Gordon's leg was the result of a pot of boiling water that spills on him while trying to talk to his wife about the baby screaming. Turns out he didn't just hit her, he's actually murdered his wife and infant daughter. This was the breakdown that caused him to be sent to the asylum, just like Mary. Gordon had been a patient at the asylum when it closed down and was desperate to return to the only home he knew. We know this because he looks into another cell that has pictures of his family on the walls, letting us know that this was his cell while at the hospital.
As a beautiful overhead shot of the hospital slowly drifts by, we hear the voice of the doctor asking Simon where he lives. In an eerie deep voice, Simon finally replies, "I live in the weak and in the wounded, doc". Both Gordon and Mary were weak and wounded, causing them to both have mental breakdowns and be sent to the asylum. I suppose the personality of Simon could reside in each and every one of us. Suffering a terrible wound while in a weak state of mind is a possibility that could occur at any time, and who knows what consequences that may have?
A fascinating side note about this movie is that no sets were needed at all because it was filmed entirely at the abandoned Danvers State Lunatic Asylum. A hospital that was not only huge in size but strangely beautiful. Despite being on the registry of historic buildings it was demolished with the exception of the front facade and was turned into some very cheap and ugly apartments that people have nothing good to say about. Surprisingly, hauntings weren't among the many complaints.
