The Short Films of David Lynch

Before David Lynch made his first full length feature film, the cult classic "Eraserhead", he produced several short films during his early years using different filming styles and techniques. Most of them are only a few minutes long and don't make much sense. Even Lynch himself has a hard time describing them and has only the faintest recollection of what he was thinking at the time and what he was trying to portray. Fortunately, these rare gems that show us how the creative genius that is David Lynch came to be, have been gathered together, dusted off and put together on one DVD. Now if we could only get John Waters to do the same thing with his early short films.

Six Men Getting Sick Six Times:

Filmed in 1967 with a cost of $200. Lynch made his first short film after gazing at a painting on display. A door opened and a stray breeze made the painting move a little. This inspired him to make a "moving painting". He built a sculpture screen 6X8 and animated a surrealistic image of what looks like six figures that move slightly, then puke. This sequence repeats six times and has a (very annoying) looping siren sound track. The final product is about 3-4 minutes long. A gentlemen named H. Barton Wasserman saw this piece of artwork, loved the idea and offered David Lynch $1000 to make one for him. Lynch bought a new camera with half the money and used the other half to film a new piece. He filmed over 100 ft of footage only to find out that there was a problem with the camera and all the footage was ruined and completely unusable. Fortunately, the buyer took pity on Lynch and gave him a little more money and said "Just give me a print". The result was his second short film, The Alphabet.



The Alphabet:

David Lynch was married to a girl named Peggy at the time, who was an exceptional painter and he used her talents to make most of this short film. Lynch got the inspiration for this film one night when Peggy's niece woke up from a nightmare where she was frantically repeating the alphabet. Filmed half live and half animated, letters appear (a capital A even gives birth to a bunch of little lower case a's) and change. A girl (played by Peggy Lynch) writhes around in bloody sheets, reciting the alphabet, blood red flows from her mouth and eyes in an otherwise completely monochromatic atmosphere. The soundtrack is mainly an operatic male singing and wind sounds. Approximately 4 minutes long. Very gothic, very nightmarish.



The Grandmother:

After completing "The Alphabet", David Lynch had been "bitten by the bug" and immediately started putting together another project titled "The Grandmother". The script was very dense and very short, a trait that we soon learned came with most of David Lynch's movie scripts. Lynch was already in the process of making Eraserhead (almost a hobby, taking over five years to complete) for over a year and the money had run out. Lynch applied for a grant from the American Film Institute, not at all expecting to get it. The scripts for both movies were submitted and surprisingly, he got the grant which was eventually used for the shorter of the two films (Eraserhead was over 90 minutes and The Grandmother was only 23 minutes). The Grandmother was finished in 1970 and quickly gained notoriety and very much displayed what was to be known as David Lynch's gothic personal style. It begins with some stop-motion animation using photo cutouts. A man, woman and child are "born" from the earth, the man attacks the child, which is the opening to the film's theme in live action. The story is told through imagery and has probably a total of six words said throughout the entire film. Basically, a young boy that has very neglectful and abusive parents yearns for love and affection. After getting his ass whipped for pissing the bed, the young boy pours dirt on his bed and plants a seed of some kind. He "waters" it daily and grows a disgusting looking plant that "gives birth" to an old lady. She turns out to be a grandmother figure towards the child. All is well, apparently the grandmother has no problem with the kid wetting his bed (we see it colored yellow against a mostly monochromatic background). One day the grandmother starts to "malfunction" and goes flipping out all around the room. The kid goes to his parents for help, but is met with abuse. The grandmother disappears. Next we see the kid strolling through a cemetery and he runs into the grandmother there, they both scream, kid goes home... The End. What does it all mean? I don't even think David Lynch knows for sure.



The Amputee:

Filmed in 1973, The Amputee exists in only two takes on two different types of film tape. The American Film Institute was looking into buying a large quantity of a particular kind of film tape and since there were two major brands being made at the time, both were tested using the same scene to see which looked better. Lynch asked if he could film whatever he wanted and was given permission to do so as long as it was exactly the same scene. With the freedom to do what he wanted, he scripted a scene where a male nurse (played by Lynch) is cleaning and dressing the wounds of a woman who has recently had both of her legs amputated. The woman (played by Catherine Coulson which we all grew to love as "The Log Lady" from Twin Peaks) is busy writing a letter or novel of some kind and pays absolutely no attention to the nurse who is about to puke because oozy crap is flowing out of her wounds. The first take had the better quality, but the second take is much funnier. Much more ooz than in the first one and the actress is clearly on the verge of laughing. Catherine Coulson who plays the amputee, was married to Jack Nance at the time. Jack Nance who played Henry in Eraserhead and Pete Martell on Twin Peaks was married to Coulson when Eraserhead and The Amputee were being filmed. They were reunited several years later when both had major roles on the hit series Twin Peaks.



The Cowboy and the Frenchman:

After Blue Velvet was released, David Lynch took a vacation in Paris. While there, he was approached by an associate about a TV series about how Americans see the French. David originally declined because he didn't really feel that it was something that could be done in what was becoming an ever evolving personal film style of his, which was very artful, abstract and gothic (everything this film wasn't supposed to be). Six different directors were chosen to make a short film that could possibly end up being the pilot to a new TV series. David Lynch went home and did some thinking about the offer and thought that maybe he could make a film with this theme. He should have stuck with his gut instinct, because this film really sucks and is my least favorite of the entire collection. Basically the story goes as such... Four ranch hands are sitting around chewin' "Tabaccee" and out of nowhere, a Frenchman comes staggering out of the forest carrying a suitcase with all the french essentials, such as wine, cheese, snails, perfume etc. Eventually, the group is joined by three women, who only dance around and have no apparent purpose for being there. Also a choir of three other women break in every now and then to sing a single verse and then back to the "story". When David Lynch presented his version of the pilot, he was greeted with the insult "Great, two cliches for the price of one". Needless to say, his version wasn't chosen. Can't say that I blame them, it really was bad and had a theme that I don't think Lynch could lower himself enough to even attempt to make this kind of crap. I think he felt a need for a more artful kind of work and a little more freedom when it came to his artistic integrity. But hey, it was worth a try.



Lumiere:

In the late 90's, Lumiere Brothers Incorporated., a large producer of TV and movie cameras, was doing an experiment with an antique camera. The camera was made of wood and had a crank. This camera was passed around to a few different directors. Each individual director was to produce 55 seconds of footage with the camera. Also there were some restrictions enforced: you could have no more than three takes, and once you got the crank turning, it couldn't be stopped until the film was over. In the short 55 seconds that David Lynch had, we see quick flashes of events such as... cops finding a dead body on the lawn, people crying, fire, and a naked woman in a large aquarium tank. If allowed more time, this film could have had some promise.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

Shortly after the cancellation of the hit television series known as Twin Peaks, fans still yearned for more. A year after the cancellation of the show, a prequel was made to help tie up some of the loose ends left by the series. Unfortunately, it created more questions than answers. The film didn't do very well, at least not in comparison to the cult phenomenon that emerged from the success of the TV series. It had more than a few strikes against it. A typical David Lynch (who abandoned the show in it's second season, yet returned to film the prequel movie) maneuver was to film as much footage as possible and then piece it all together later on. Over five hours of footage was filmed, yet was cut down to a mere two hours, leaving a tremendous amount of plot holes. Talk is in the air about a re-release of the film with the deleted footage returned. Maybe then, we can make better sense of the movie. Another strike against this film is the absence of all but a small handful of actors that were in the series. Most of them either declined to be in the movie or had other scheduling conflicts. A main character of the show, Donna Hayward, played by Lara Flynn Boyle, cited scheduling conflicts as well, but wide rumor has it that she just didn't want to do the nude scenes to be included in the movie. Therefore, since Donna Hayward was a critical part of the story, the part was recast with Moira Kelly, which confused a lot of people. Being a monster fan of the show, I found the movie quite a work of art and was able to (mostly) understand what was happening. As everyone who's seen the show knows, the story begins with the murder of Prom Queen Laura Palmer. The series builds momentum as the hunt for Laura's killer leads us face to face with the underbelly of the town and about how everyone in Twin Peaks has a secret. The first 17 out of 29 total episodes deals with the Laura Palmer case. The events leading up to Laura's death are slowly but surely revealed. The movie is more or less the last seven days of Laura Palmer's life, verbatim with what was described in the series. Another fault of the movie was that Sheryl Lee was already 25 when she played Laura Palmer who is only supposed to be 17 years old, and when playing out the tawdry secret life she lived, Sheryl Lee could almost pass for 30-something. Another complaint that many people have about the movie was that it was too "in your face", which was a stark contrast to the show where everything was bubbling just under the surface, the allure of everything being so secretive. I never really found this to be a fault though. I mean I loved the secrets of the town and all but this film was supposed to be about Laura's demise, which included drug abuse, prostitution, sexual promiscuity and bondage. So of course it's gonna be tawdry, because that's who Laura was. The audience craved for more information involving Laura Palmer, but when they got it, all they did was bitch about it. I'm positive that this movie could stand alone without having seen the series because that's how I saw it. One night a friend of mine rented it, I'd never seen the show before but was still able to understand what it was about and loved it. Like the show, it was well written and very clever. Granted a few things made more sense after watching the series, but if you don't have an extra 30 hours to watch the series, the movie does just fine.

Burnt Offerings

Even though this movie has a few relatively mainstream actors, such as Karen Black and Oliver Reed, even including the legendary Ms. Bette Davis in one her later roles that actually had some genuine acting on her part and not just some half ass performance just for the paycheck, for which she was so famous for doing in her last years. Burnt Offerings is one of those movies that you have to watch at least twice to fully grasp what's happening. This alone gives it the cult following that grants it permission among my inventory. Anyway, the movie starts out with a young couple that are looking for a house to rent, they happen upon a mansion that is being rented out for the summer at a suspiciously low price. The elderly and eccentric brother and sister that own the house have bestowed upon the couple one inconvenience... Their elderly mother lives in the attic bedroom and doesn't ever leave. This woman is to be left 3 trays of food every day and that's all. Despite this incredibly odd situation, they rent the house anyway because the wife just won't shut up about it. After a while, it seems almost to possess her. She becomes more and more interested in the old lady's hobby of collecting photographs. One odd aspect of the photos displayed is that not one of the people in the photos are smiling, in fact they look pretty miserable. Their young son has also come along for the ride and when he is seen accidentally falling and hurting his knee, moments later a seemingly dead plant has some new live growth on it. Pain seems to heal the old and somewhat decrepit mansion in some way. When the father cuts his finger on a champagne wire, a light bulb that originally did not work before now works fine. The Mrs. embarks on a cleaning frenzy that Joan Crawford would have been proud of, but is growing increasingly worried about the old lady upstairs because she's not eating the food that is being left for her. One day while restoring the old pool out back, the father is overcome with the desire to drown his son and nearly succeeds. The son manages to get away and the next day, the shabby old pool has now become a sparkling oasis with fountains and statues. As the mother grows more and more obsessed with the old lady upstairs, the meals have resumed consumption. The mother also starts to lie in order to keep anyone from being suspicious of the house. She notices the change in the pool and takes credit for cleaning it herself. She also becomes less and less receptive to her husbands advances and ultimately finds him repulsive. To console herself, she constantly returns to the old lady's sitting room. Soon she starts dressing like the "old-timey" women in the old lady's photo collection, even to the point of getting gray hair. Meanwhile, the aunt (Davis) who is usually so vibrant and witty has become a worn out old lady. She seems drained of all her energy, her hair turns gray and she's got enough luggage under her eyes to go to Europe. Soon after that, she becomes deathly ill. The father seems to be slowly losing his grasp on reality and keeps seeing a creepy smiley hearse driver that scared him as a child at his mothers funeral. The boy is almost killed by a mysterious gas leak in his bedroom, with all the windows and doors locked. As mom fakes calling the doctor when it looks like the aunt is gonna die any minute, she immediately withdraws into the old lady's room and starts eating her din-din. In a very simple but effective scene, the smiley hearse driver shows up instead of the doctor and shoves a casket at the aunt, next scene is her funeral. We also start noticing more changes to the house. The greenhouse that was originally full of dead plants is now full of beautiful plants and flowers. The house itself seems to be draining or consuming people and renewing itself with their pain and sorrow. After the aunts death, the mom doesn't even go to the funeral because she has to keep the old lady company. In fact, the mother is now fully gray, her wardrobe and hairdos are strictly 19th century and she has become extremely over protective of the old lady that apparently only she ever sees. When dad actually sees the house changing, the roof shingles, the floorboards, the tile, all falling off and being replaced with new ones, he decides the time has come to leave. Too bad the trees have decided otherwise. They block the road and attempt to drag dad off into the woods. Mom comes to the rescue and brings them back to the house. Some time later, the kid is swimming and the pool attempts to drown him. This even convinces mom that it's time to vacate. As they're leaving, mom decides that she can't leave without telling her favorite old fart that she's going. In a creepy conclusion, the dad gets tired of waiting for mom, so he goes back into the house after her. He goes into the old lady's room looking for mom, sees the old lady sitting by the window and swings her around to face him. When she turns around, it's mom with a possessed looking face, dressed as the old lady. Soon we see dad plummeting to his death from the attic window. He lands on the car containing his kid, the kid freaks and runs. He is then crushed under the rubble of a falling chimney. In the next scene we see the house, restored to it's prime time glory. Upon their return, we also hear the oddball brother and sister bragging about how beautiful it is and how happy they are that their mother has been restored to them. The camera pans through the old lady's photos and there are some new additions... dad, kid and aunt. The mother is missing from the photo. OK, so what the hell does it all mean? I assume that the house is being rented out to unsuspecting families who then become the spiritual battery that recharges the old mansion like sacrifices, hence the title "Burnt Offerings". What's the story with mom and the old lady? I assume that there never was an old lady. I think it was a ploy to get the mom interested in and ultimately possessed by the spirit of the old lady. That's why the food was not at first being eaten, but resumes when the mom becomes obsessed with her. This is confirmed when we see the mom grubbing on the old lady's supper. Since the mother is not among the photo collection at the end, it's my assumption that she was always destined to be part of the house. Great mystery flick that requires some thought to figure it out. Great mysteries are like puzzles without a box top to follow, only through a slow piecing together can we see the full picture.

Meet the Feebles!

Y'know, when I think of Peter Jackson, I think of a filthy rich multiple Oscar winning director. Professional in every sense of the word. But few people know that before Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson had a taste (Bad Taste, I should say. Forgive the pun) for gore and perversion. Even Meet the Feebles, a movie with a cast made entirely of puppets was perverted and gory. Needless to say, this is a very strange film and Jackson must've been high as a kite to come up with this shit. Meet the Feebles is a hodgepodge of bizarre occurrences and situations surrounding a puppet based variety show called "The Feebles". It truly does have way too many plots to keep up with, it's more the characters themselves that make the film. The bare bones of the story is this... Heidi the Hippo is married to Bletch the Walrus. She catches him screwing Samantha the Cat. Bletch humiliates Heidi and then fires her. She freaks and goes on a shooting spree killing pretty much everybody. Along the way, while following Heidi's downfall into food addiction, suicidal tendencies, and complete and total madness (Gee, I bet she would get along great with Britney Spears) we witness the following, note the ironies between the character and the animal chosen to represent them: A gossip columnist fly that loves to take pictures of people at their worst. A perverted and rude rat that runs the show and date rapes a poodle. A drunk elephant is slapped with a paternity suit by his ex-girlfriend... a chicken. She has just given birth to a bunch of "elephickens". Bletch the Walrus pukes up a fish that he ate earlier while it was auditioning for the show. Fish asks if he got the part then keels over. A warthog and a bulldog supply everyone with cocaine. An over sexed rabbit catches AIDS and slowly gets grosser and grosser throughout the movie. There's a porno sex scene between a cow (who has multiple piercing on her udders) and an insect. Cow accidentally sits on the insect killing him, the she and the the porno director plan to sell it as a snuff film. A knife throwing crocodile suffers drug withdrawal and kills everyone that dares to get on the spinning wheel. Eventually, he throws a knife into the air and catches it with his forehead. AIDS rabbit is determined to be on stage despite his illness. He shows up all green and slimy, then pukes all over the stage. This is very much like Muppets on crack. It's bawdy, it's disgusting, it's tasteless, it's gross... therefore I totally loved it. Although, during the hippo shooting spree I was quite alarmed to find out that puppets had blood and guts. I guess all those cotton stuffed animals I got as a child were just fake knock offs... thanks for nothin' mom!!!

Party Monster

There are three versions of this story, all of which are amazing. In the early 90's when the club kid craze was at it's peak, a club kid named Michael Alig (the crowned prince of all club kids) committed murder and even though he bragged about the killing, everyone just thought that that was just Michael being Michael, a well known drug user who would lie and swindle Jesus Christ if he thought it could get him some drugs. James St. James (self proclaimed original club kid) was a close friend and sometimes roommate with Michael Alig, and was therefore present for most of the inside story. In fact, it was James St. James that started this ball rolling. He wrote a wonderful book called "Disco Bloodbath, a Fabulous but True Tale of Murder in Clubland". It's a must read. Anyway, they made a documentary on the whole affair, including footage from all the key players in this bizarre story. Before his downfall, Michael Alig was a huge success as a party promoter, mostly for a club in New York called "The Limelight". Drugs flowed freely and the weirder you were, the cooler you'd be. It was a nonstop psychedelic world of color that was very intriguing and fun and even spawned a celebrity or two (RuPaul was a club kid). They also made the talk show circuit for a while, appearing on shows like "Geraldo" and "Sally Jesse Raphael". His favorite tactic was an impromptu surprise party held in anyplace from small McDonald's restaurants to subway stations. He made the news all the time and was a strong personality on the hippest of scenes. Eventually, the more drugs that Michael took, the more grim his party themes became. My favorite being the "Blood Feast Party" featuring every gruesome sight imaginable. Alig and his friend Freeze were all strung out one day when Mr. Pissed Off Drug Dealer Angel Melendez shows up and demands money which of course they don't have. A fight erupts, Angel is hit on the noggin with a hammer, dragged to the bathtub by Alig and Freeze, injected with Drano and smothered with a pillow. Michael dismembers Angels body and stuffs it in a large TV box and uses it for a coffee table. They also feel the need to hastily paint most of the walls red and blame a mysterious stench on screwed up plumbing. Eventually the smell becomes overwhelming so Michael and Freeze dump the box with the body in it into the river. The body is found and put into a freezer with a misidentification of race (he was listed as Asian, and Angel was Hispanic). If it weren't for Michael Alig bragging about it, he probably would have gotten away with it. When Michael Alig told his stories of killing Angel, everyone thought it was a joke because Michael always joked and was a notorious liar. Rumors started to circulate that Michael was not kidding when he bragged about killing Angel and certain people close to the situation started to come forward with their stories to save their own asses. Eventually, it all caught up with him and he and Freeze were convicted of first degree murder. A big budget movie has just been made that is the documentary verbatim minus the documentary narration, feel and look. Macauley Culkin plays Michael Alig with stark precision. Seth Green plays James St.James. Marilyn Manson and Chloe Sevigny also have notable parts in the movie. It's a colorful flick with a fantastic soundtrack which is somewhat nostalgic for those of us who watched the club kids and dared to be like them. It truly is a fabulous tale about murder in clubland.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a true cult "classic". It was made in 1956 and much like Night of the Living Dead, had a great idea but no money to back it up. Also like Night of the Living Dead, it wasn't expected to be the monstrous success that it was. With no real budget for special effects leading to a rather simplified movie (at least for it's genre) actually helped both of these films. Sometimes a great idea is so good that it doesn't really need any real reinforcement like special effects in order to be very effective. Anyway, the movie begins with Dr. Miles Bennell returning to his hometown after a vacation and coming across many patients complaining that someone they know is not really that person anymore, but some kind of impostor that only looks and sounds like the person they knew. Miles starts to rekindle an old flame with former sweetheart Becky Driscoll. They are drawn together again through many strange events. Her uncle Ira has been acting strangely and Becky herself feels that something is terribly wrong. Even though he looks and sounds like her uncle, he somehow now has a lack of emotion. Even stranger, after a few days, the panicky people complaining about impostors are now completely calm and are admitting to feeling silly at the thought of such nonsense. Well, they may seem to be better, but they are still acting strange. They start toting around weird giant seed pods and are also showing a lack of emotion. Miles and Becky team up with friends Jack and wife Teddy (Carolyn Jones-Morticia Addams) when jack calls Miles and complains about a dead body in his house. They rush right over and find a body that is completely devoid of character, has no fingerprints and is not breathing. Over a small amount of time, the body starts looking more and more like Jack, starts breathing and then disappears. All are stunned and mystified. They decide that it's better to stick together rather than run, as the whole town is quickly becoming impostors. Meanwhile four pods are out in the greenhouse just waiting for these people to fall asleep, as that seems to be when the transformation occurs. Miles, Becky, Jack and Teddy discover imitations of themselves forming from some kind of huge seed pod producing plant and naturally freak out. Jack and Teddy make a break for it while Miles and Becky are desperately trapped in his office with the whole town after them. They observe the towns people distributing seed pods to different trucks to be transported to different cities. Faking emotion, Miles and Becky fool everyone for a while but when Becky shows emotion towards a dog almost getting run over, they catch on and chase them out of town. Eventually Becky takes a nap and is "changed". Miles makes it to the highway, trying desperately to convince people about what's happening, hence the infamous line... "They're coming! They're here already! You're next!! You're next!!!". Of course no one wants to take him seriously because he's acting like a raging lunatic. Finally, at the police station he explains his story. Naturally they lock him up until it's reported to the station that a truck hauling abnormally huge seed pods has been in an accident. The story ends here, leading you to use your imagination as to whether the world gets overrun with alien plants from outer space or if the problem is caught in time before it takes over the world. Originally a book by Jack Finney simply called "The Body Snatchers", it was turned into film in 1956. A remake of the original movie was made in 1978 starring Donald Sutherland and Veronica Cartwright that was actually pretty good. It was much scarier and took place on a much larger scale. The original takes place in a small town called Santa Mira and the remake takes over all of San Francisco. Yet another remake was released in 2007 starring Nicole Kidman called The Invasion, which tried to be as subtle and creepy as the original and not go over the top as in the 1978 remake, but failed miserably at the box office. In this day and age, we like "in your face" movies that both shock and intrigue. Well, we already had both, so why make a third? It's a great story, but it's becoming a little overcooked. If you can't get your hands on the book (the very best version of the story) then stick with the original 1956 version. It's a true cult classic.

Marnie

Even though this 1964 Alfred Hitchcock classic isn't very cultish (it has two major Hollywood stars and a famous director) it's very deserving of a mention due to it's endless values. This post is also dedicated to my good friend Dave at DaveLandWeb.com, who has a major crush on Tippi Hedren. I highly recommend that everyone visit his site because he's a brilliant artist. In fact you can view his now famous painting of Blanche and Jane from the film "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?" right here on Cultarama! This one's for you Dave! Marnie (Tippi Hedren) is a woman of many faces, she's a calculated thief, a compulsive liar and professional chameleon when it comes to changing identities. Why, you ask? Let's find out. Marnie (under an assumed name) has been a loyal book keeper for the company she works for. Out of the blue, she steals $10,000 from her employer, dyes her hair from black to blonde and stashes the money in a train station locker and throws away the key. Marnie goes to see her mother who is loving to other children but acts like Marnie has some kind of disease. In fact she doesn't seem to feel much love for Marnie at all. Another mystery surrounding this already beyond mysterious woman is that she can't stand the color red. When she sees red, she completely freaks out. Marnie changes her hair from blonde to brown (her hair must've felt like straw after all that dying) and goes on to find another job as a book keeper. Her new employer Mark Rutland (Sean Connery) recognizes her from her previous job, but hires her anyway, without any references, knowing she's a criminal, basically just to figure her out. She is of course the loyal employee, observing everything, mostly the practices surrounding the safe, until the day comes when she again robs her employer blind. Since Rutland knew she was a thief, he managed to catch her red handed. Rather than calling the police, he blackmails her into marrying him. He may have fallen in love with her, but she was far from in love with him. In fact, she pretty much hates his guts. She hates being married to him and is utterly repulsed by his "husbandly advances". It's not really his fault though, Marnie hates all men, pretty much equally. Their honeymoon is predictably miserable. Mark starts to notice that Marnie is having nightmares about her mother. He studies her dreams and also discovers that she's been sending money to a mother that he never knew existed. Anyway, some jerk that recognizes Marnie from one of her other identities won't get off her ass no matter how many times she tells him that he's mistaken. He eventually confronts her husband who already knows she's a hardened criminal. Marnie breaks into her husbands safe and is again caught in the act. Knowing that there's some mysterious issue with her mother, he drags her kleptomaniac butt over to mom's house so he can finally figure out what's going on. Oh yeah, along with men and the color red, Marnie also hates storms, knocking sounds and men in white suits. Anyway, Mark confronts Mom only to discover that mom was a war whore. Prostituting herself to sailors (men in white suits) to support Marnie. During a weird childhood regression, Marnie tells the story of the night that changed her life and the circumstances that made her the way she is. One stormy night one of moms tricks knocks on the door (the hated knocking sound) comes in to be serviced by mom, Marnie is afraid of the storm that night. The trick comforts Marnie from the storm, but soon tries to molest her. Mom freaks out and in trying to protect her daughter from the trick (Bruce Dern cameo) gets beaten all to hell. To protect her mother from the trick, Marnie grabs a fireplace poker and beats the trick to death, resulting in lots of blood, hence the hatred of the color red. Marnies actions that night were never revealed because Mom told the police that she killed the trick in self defense. Willing to turn herself in (20 years later?) she is afraid of being sent to prison. She confesses to her husband that she would rather be with him than go to jail (who wouldn't?) Being married to Sean Connery vs. prison. Bet that was a hard decision on her part. The money being stolen and stashed at the beginning was just a false lead, very much like many other other Hitchcock films. She steals thousands of dollars without spending a dime (well, maybe a little on hair dye) simply because she's a kleptomaniac. Great movie, keeps you guessing till the end, extremely engaging. There is also a rumor that Tippi Hedren and Alfred Hitchcock had a major falling out during the filming of "Marnie". Alfred made some unwelcome romantic advances toward Tippi who was already engaged to someone else. When she refused his advances he made a very rude sexual slur towards her and she called him a fat @#%&*, thus ending their friendship.

Fritz the Cat

Fritz the Cat has been one of my very favorite movies for years. It's got so many pluses that make it worth watching again and again. It's got fascinating animation which is beyond cartoonish in its intermittent psychedelic sequences. It's got a great soundtrack. It's got a great story that is both comedic and moralistic (sort of), especially for a film that actually became the first animated motion picture to receive an X rating. Therefore, like most of the content on Cultarama, it really shouldn't be shown to kids, even if it is animated. It also received the honor of becoming the first independent film to gross over a million dollars. The character of Fritz the Cat was actually a character created by Robert Crumb who's "Keep on Truckin'" logo became part of the 60's. In fact the entire movie really captures the feel of the late 60's which is when it was being made, despite a 1972 release. Robert Crumb never gave the producers of the movie any rights or permissions to use his characters and actually sued to have his name removed from the credits. Crumb even went so far as to kill off Fritz the Cat in his comics so as to discourage another film. It didn't work, a sequel named "The Nine Live of Fritz the Cat" was released the following year. The story takes us through Fritz's adventures as he strolls through the major themes of the late 60's... orgies, drugs, religion, music, activism, etc. Even though it's rated X doesn't mean it's a porno, and especially by today's standards, far from it. It's just a great adventure story told by one of the most suave cool cats you'll ever meet. Plus a myriad of other colorful characters. All animals of course, but appropriate animals (cops are pigs, black people are crows, shady activists are lizards, Jews are old lions, the list goes on and on). This is a true classic and doesn't just deserve to be watched, it demands to be owned. It just made it to DVD so you have no excuse not to go out and get your copy!! An interesting side note to this movie is towards the end of the film when the activists are plotting to "make a statement" (blowing something up, I think). The makers of the movie invited real militants and activists into the recording studio and just recorded whatever they talked about. This actual dialogue recording was edited and used as the dialogue of the shady activists in the movie.

Blacula

He's black, he's beautiful... he's Blacula! Dracula's soul brother. This great blaxploitation film is basically just Bram Stoker's Dracula with black characters. Mamuwalde (great name) is an african prince who along with his wife Luva visit the legendary Count Dracula. Mamuwalde is bitten, turned into a vampire and locked in a coffin for centuries while his wife Luva is killed. In the year 1972, two gay interior designers buy Mamuwalde's coffin and bring it back to Los Angeles where he is unleashed upon the city and is hungry for fresh blood (I guess centuries in a coffin does tend to make one a little peckish). Mamuwalde meets Tina who is the reincarnation of his beautiful wife Luva. He pursues her while dodging her friend Mr. Gordon who finds out that Mamuwalde is a vampire. Gee... a cape, fangs, sleeps in a coffin... how did he ever figure that one out? Mr. Gordon thinks he's got Blacula by the balls when he finds his coffin, but when he opens it and stabs the inhabitant in the chest with a wooden stake, he realizes that he's accidentally stabbed Tina... duh. Blacula having lost his one and only true love for the second time, commits suicide by crawling into the daylight and frying himself. This movie was sincere in it's efforts to be a real horror film, but lacked the ability to frighten due to it's blaxploitation overload. Huge afros, some groovy disco music and Blacula... who's afro, eyebrows and sideburns grow huge whenever he vamps out. There's maybe one or two scary moments, but for the most part, this is a totally campy movie and is therefore very amusing to watch. A true cult classic.

The Bad Seed

The Bad Seed is one of my all time favorites. This film has a huge cult following due to it's constant unintentional hilarity. The story is heartbreaking yet has an unequaled hilarity. Little Rhoda Penmark is the epitome of class. She is overly ladylike, always impeccably dressed, curtsies at any and all occasions and is to say the least a weird ass kid. She's prone to extremely violent outbursts and is a most definitely a little girl that gets what she wants. She has the body of an 8 year old and the malicious nature of a serial killer. At a school picnic, a little boy is mysteriously drowned. Her mother prepares to give her that dreaded talk about death, but Rhoda is just fine with it and asks for a peanut butter sandwich and permission to go outside and roller skate. In front of most adults, Rhoda is perfection... blonde pig tails, frilly skirts, not a speck of dirt in sight and beyond polite. Among a few other people, she the biggest little bitch in the world and you'd feel the need to strangle her if it wasn't a movie. We learn that Rhoda and the drowned kid were in competition at school and the other kid won. Well, it's a bit of an understatement to say that Rhoda didn't take it well. She was seen picking on the winner and trying to steal the winning medal at a school picnic. She's subsequently implicated in the drowning/murder of the little boy by a lot of people and for good reason.... she's a cold calculated killer. She suspects that the handyman knows too much and burns him alive. Rhoda's mother slowly finds out more and more about her daughter, she finds the medal in Rhoda's room and like a protective mother she throws it over the pier close to where the boy drowned to cover for her. Mom also learns that she is adopted and that her real mother was a serial killer as cold as Rhoda. Earlier in the movie, there is a discussion about violence and murder as being hereditary, hence the planting of the bad seed, evil from the very start. Mom isn't taking this well and decides to kill Rhoda with some pills and then shoots herself in the head. Both survive, Rhoda recuperates much quicker than her Mom and goes back to the pier in the middle of a rainstorm to look for the medal. She is struck by lightening, killing her... the end. Apparently this strange and abrupt ending was due to a cinematic rule that existed at the time that said that the "bad guy" could not be shown as winning out in the end. The original ending was Rhoda killing her mother.

Freaks

Wow, what a masterpiece! This movie was made by Tod Browning (original film version of Dracula, Bela Lugosi) and has all the same subtle creepiness building into a most satisfying climax that all of his films seem to possess. When Freaks was filmed in 1932, the carnival sideshows were a big hit and there were many traveling circuses that had a freak sideshow. Mostly comprised of people born with deformities, women who have hormone problems and grow beards, conjoined twins, etc. Tod Browning used this freakshow backdrop as the frame for the moral plot of the story. The plot being as such... Hans and Frieda are two dwarfs that have a romantic relationship (which must have been odd because they were in reality brother and sister). That is until normal sized Cleopatra, the trapeze artist, comes along. Hans is instantly smitten. He callously dumps Frieda to pursue Cleo, who is definitely beautiful but is still by all means a conniving bitch. She milks Hans' generosity and makes fun of him behind his back, all while she secretly is having an affair with Hercules, the circus strong man. Cleo discovers that the reason Hans is so generous is that he has inherited a huge fortune. She then decides to convince Hans to marry her, then bump him off and make off with the loot. At their wedding reception, with all the freaks present, Cleo puts poison into Hans's champagne in an attempt to kill him then proceeds to make a drunken ass of herself by calling everybody a dirty slimy freak and to get away from her. She puts Hans on her shoulders and humiliates him by treating him like a child. She then fakes nursing him so that she can continue to poison him to death. Luckily one of the freaks overhears her plans to kill Hans and decide that she must pay. Apparently, when it comes to circus freaks, harm one and you piss off the entire tribe. In the middle of traveling through a rainstorm, all the freaks gang up on Cleo and chase her into the woods... a strike of lightning hits nearby. Fast forward a little and we see Cleo in a freakshow of her own, having been somehow changed into a sort of chicken woman. What's great about this film is that Tod Browning didn't want to fake the freaks, he wanted the real thing and throughout the movie we are shown some pretty incredible people. There's a woman with no arms that can do absolutely anything with her feet, a man with no arms or legs that can roll, light and smokes his own cigarettes. For some reason, this use of real persons really "freaked" people out. Apparently the audience is much happier knowing that there is a zipper somewhere that can be pulled and out comes a normal person. It freaked people out so much that it was banned for literally decades. Made in 1932, banned shortly after release and didn't make it onto video cassettes until the mid-80's and even then it was really hard to find. It's been released on DVD finally as of 2005. It's also been recently voted a cinematic masterpiece. It's not vulgar at all and has some very endearing characters as well as a great story, so why was it banned for so long? I wish I knew, but by the time it was released on video, there were all sorts of video nasties out there that are far more disturbing than Freaks. Due to it's notoriety as being banned for so long and it's difficulty in locating a copy, it has gathered a huge cult following and now thanks to DVD, can finally be appreciated and praised by future fans and admirers.

Trouble in Mind

I never in a million years could possibly conceive the idea that there would ever be a movie out there with Divine in it that I didn't love. I found one... I'm very sad about this so bear with. The truth is, I'm not totally sure what this film was about. I watched all 120 minutes of it desperately trying to tolerate an endless parade of stupid characters doing stupid things while waiting patiently for Divine's grand entrance. This is labeled a "crime drama" (with Divine?!) and is pretty hard to find now, I stumbled across it merely by chance. Imagine my excitement! Behold my disappointment!! Anyway, it's a crime drama (still don't know what exactly what the crime was) starring Lori Singer who stumbles around aimlessly, doing her best "Daryl Hannah in Splash" impersonation. The only difference is that she carries a baby around with her everywhere. She has a weird boyfriend that slowly gets weirder as the movie goes on. First he starts wearing a new stiffly sprayed pompadour hairdo. Then the hairdo has color streaks. By the end of the film he has pieced ears and full makeup (so 80's). Throw in Kris Kristofferson and Keith Carradine as some sort of law enforcing agents and there you have it. Divine's screen time was minimal at best. He plays some kind of eccentric gay mobfather. Snow white hair, a huge diamond earring and a solid black suit. He was obviously placed in the film because he was Divine. This was after Polyester but before Hairspray when Divine was finally starting to become a well known entertainer. His cameo is brief and in the end, he gets shot in the head. I can't really say that this is probably a movie Divine would have eventually hated as would be expected (well, it sucked), but I can say that it was nice to see Divine finally shown some true respect as an actor and placed in a big budget film as a cameo. Had he not died shortly after Hairspray, he would have seen a tremendous increase in his stardom because Hairspray was a huge hit. Oh well, those are the breaks. Even though this movie was terrible, I still savored every single second that Divine left on film.

Jail Bait

This was Ed Wood's second movie, but first feature film. Glen or Glenda had a horrible reception and seemed more like a semi-autobiographical documentary on transvestites, when it was supposed to be about sex changes. I think with Jail Bait, Ed was just trying to make some money. Crime dramas were very big at the time and he thought he cash in on it, then take the profits from that and make a sci-fi horror flick as was his usual M.O. Miraculously, a young Steve Reeves (Hercules) managed to make it into this little flick. Crime drama wasn't really Ed's favorite medium, but he did the best he could with it. Not a bad story really. I mean of course it has all the trademarks of being an Ed Wood film... deplorable acting, totally improbable plots and cheap sets. Speaking of sets, these here are exactly the same ones from Glen or Glenda, (this being the first film following Glen or Glenda, I guess Ed thought he could successfully recycle without anyone noticing). It also had the same actors which again just made it seem like Glen/Glenda was a murderer having plastic surgery to alter his/her face to escape the police. Basically, the story is about a guy who commits a murder, then he himself is murdered. His murderer tries to blackmail the original killers father (a prominent plastic surgeon) to alter his appearance to escape the authorities. The plastic surgeon thinks his son has only been kidnapped, but soon learns that his son is dead. He performs the plastic surgery (at the guys house, armed with a scalpel and a tub of hot water) and when the police finally start to catch up with killer #2, it's conveniently time for the unveiling of bandages to prove that he's someone else. Amazingly, the father managed to completely alter his face to look exactly like his dead son that was wanted for murder. He's shot by the cops, the end. Like I said, this isn't very much like most of Ed's stuff, but still has that totally cheaper than cheap feel to it that we've come to love in all Ed Wood's movies.

The Stepford Wives

Wow, what a great movie! Even though this film is very well known (which is definitely contrast to the general definition of a cult classic. But this movie has without a doubt gathered a huge cult status and has been recently remade as a comedy starring Nicole Kidman, Mathew Broderick and Bette Midler. The original is far superior to it's remake in both style, creativity, suspense and depth of character. A growing family is tired of the city (and all the craziness that comes with it) and decides to move to the cleaner suburban outskirts of the city to raise their children in a more wholesome environment. They choose Stepford, a town that from the start seems a little off kilter. For one thing, all the housewives are extremely vapid, caring only about cooking, cleaning and tending to their husbands every need with the utmost enthusiasm. When they talk, they sound like living TV commercials (If Shiny Clean Dishwasher soap were to ask me to do a commercial for them, not only would I do it, but I'd do it for free.) Despite it's oddities, this new couple manages to cope. The kids are doing well in school, making friends. The husband joins the Stepford Men's Association. Only Joanna the wife is not content, believing that something is odd, but just can't identify it. Fortunately for Joanna, another couple have recently moved to Stepford. The two wives (Joanna and Bobbie) instantly bond and very much agree that Stepford is just plain weird. It's TOO clean, everyone's TOO friendly and the wives are sexy and gorgeous, yet they fawn over overweight ugly old men (their husbands). Because all the men in town belong to the "Husbands Only" lodge they try to organize a womens club. Only one other woman in town is interested, a wife that has only been in Stepford for a few months, named Charmaine. Anyway, after returning from a "trip" with her husband, Charmaine is now acting like all the other wives in Stepford. Cooking, cleaning, and wearing flowery aprons while dusting the house in heels (totally Donna Reed style). This is a tremendous contrast from the independent, free thinking woman she was before who needed a recipe just to make ice. Joanna and Bobbie find this incredibly disturbing and can't understand how these transformations could possibly be taking place. Then soon after, Bobbie asks Joanna to babysit her kids while her and her husband go on "second honeymoon". When she comes back, she's wearing beautiful makeup, her kitchen is so clean it's sanitized and she is all of a sudden madly devoted to her husband. Joanna freaks and stabs Bobbie in the stomach. Bobbie pulls out the clean, non blood stained knife and proceeds to go haywire like a short circuited robot, opening and closing cabinets, dumping cup after cup of coffee on the floor, repeating things like "How could you do a thing like that", "When I was just going to give you coffee", "I thought we were friends". Noticing that it had been exactly six months after moving to Stepford that Charmaine changed and now Bobbie had been in town for exactly six months and has suddenly changed. Realizing that she has been in town for almost six months herself, Joanna becomes frantic. She seeks help from a psychiatrist who ends up being the only person that believes Joanna's story. The psychiatrist advises her to get out of town now... take the kids and run. But when Joanna returns, the children are nowhere to be found. She goes to the Mens Lodge to confront her husband and to get her kids. The only person she finds is the President of the Mens Association who basically tells her that she has no choice. She runs and hides in a room, but to her amazement the room looks just like her bedroom at home. There's even a replica of Joanna sitting at a vanity table brushing her hair. The replica has considerably larger boobs and has completely black eyes (the assumption is that she's not quite finished with her replication process). A shocked Joanna is strangled by the replica and the next thing you know, she's dressed all frilly and is obsessed with the grocery store. Oh, didn't I mention that one of the members of the Men's Association used to work at Disneyland... making robots.

Night of the Ghouls

Ed Wood's Night of the Ghouls is an unofficial sequel to Bride of the Monster. There are several references to "The Old Willows Place" (Dr. Vornoff's residence and lab that explodes in Bride of the Monster) and even Lobo, the kind hearted monster from "Bride" makes a reappearance (with much more gruesome make-up than before). A Swami scam artist that bilks people into believing that he can channel the dead, recruits an actress to plays a roaming ghost at night to frighten people. Unfortunately for her, a real ghost dressed in black is following her with the same intentions. As the Swami (who's actual name is Dr. Acula. (DrAcula, get it? Of course you get it, you just don't want it.) holds his fake seances, he fools people with the weirdest tricks. One is a floating trumpet, a guy in a white sheet scuttles by every now and then with a very whimsical tune that plays as he shuffles by. There was some other "floating" (obviously on a string) object that I couldn't identify. All this weirdness doesn't even phase the people at the seance. This cheap crap never even strikes the seance members in the slightest as strange or odd, they actually think it's "normal", although I use that term loosely. At the seance, two attendees are skeletons wearing cheap wigs. Eventually, after committing an endless list of criminal offences, the Swami isn't taken down by the law but instead by ghosts of the families that the Swami scammed. They crowd around him and the next morning, he's gone and the "ghosts" are now a pile of bones on the floor. This Ed Wood film came a little later in the game than most of his movies. You see, Ed didn't make movies, he made crap. Therefore was broke and fit the perfect stereotype of the starving artist. Since he was so broke, he couldn't afford to have this film developed. Decades later when Wade Williams bought the rights to Ed Wood's movies. He had the film developed decades after it was filmed, so that now we can enjoy this almost nearly lost classic. If you loved Bride of the Monster, then Night of the Ghouls should definitely be sought out. I think it's one of Eddie's better pieces of doo doo.

May

May is a pathetically lonely person who's only friend is a doll named "Suzie" that is special and isn't supposed to be taken out of her glass display case (gee, what fun). She also has a lazy eye and has to wear an eye patch to school, ensuring that she will have no friends. May grows up, but still has no friends (except Suzie, whom she talks to all the time). Tired of being alone, she seeks love and friendship. So one day she spots Adam, specifically his hands for which she has an unnatural liking for. They have a date or two until he discovers just how weird she is. She stalks him for a while, until overhearing Adam tell a friend how he successfully dumped "that nutcase". Distraught over Adam, May takes interest in Polly, a coworker of May's (her neck fascinates May) at the veterinarian hospital that has been hinting that she likes May for some time now. Polly seems sincere about having a relationship with May... that is until Ambrosia (Betty Grable on steroids) comes along and soon Polly's interest in May simmers down. Every time something goes sour in May's life, we hear the cracking of Suzie's glass case in the background, symbolically representing the cracking of May's sanity.. Hurt for the second time now, she desperately craves love, so she volunteers at a daycare for blind kids. This works out fine until May brings Suzie to the daycare for show and tell. An accident happens and the glass case gets broken and every child in the place gets shredded with broken glass (remember, they're blind kids, they see and discover through touching), thus ending her new hobby as a care giver. After some time, she's sitting on a city bench when some punk named Zero drops in. As oppose to his punk appearance, he's an overly polite nice guy. May is again searching for that one person that won't screw her over and will be her friend. Unfortunately, May had killed her cat a few days prior and stuffed it in the freezer, so when Zero goes looking for ice cubes, he gets a surprise. He calls May a freak and says that he'd never be her friend. This is the last straw and May snaps. She kills Zero by stabbing him in the head with scissors (something I've wanted to do to George Bush for a long time now). May finally catches on to the phrase "If you can't find a friend... make one." She decides that she needs more parts, so on Halloween she dresses up like Suzie and armed with scalpels and a beer cooler, sets out to collect all the parts she needs to make her "new friend". She collects Adam's hands, Polly's neck, and Ambrosia's legs. Nobody notices anything peculiar since it's Halloween. Once home, May sets to work "making" her new friend (May has a knack for sewing). With all the right parts, May now has the perfect friend. One thing is wrong though. May's new friend has a fabric head (I guess May never liked anyone's head enough to use it) and cannot see May. She tries putting her glasses on it to no avail. It appears that one last sacrifice can bring life to May's perfect friend. She gouges out her good eye and puts it on the "quilted cadaver". Then... the arm moves slowly up to May's crying face and strokes her hair, comforting her. Creepy to say the least. I suppose the installment of life to the "friend" is symbolic of May going right off the deep end, with this final comfort from the new friend she just made. This is probably one of the newest films to be awarded a cult status. Released in 2002, it was slow to catch on but it has gained a huge cult following in a pretty short period of time. One of my all-time favorites.

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane is a rather recent addition to a cult status. You see, it had a large budget, Oscar winning actresses and was a huge success when it was released... all of which are traits that would be really hard to include in any kind of cult film. I think the reason it's gained a lot of cult status is that this was intended to be a suspense/drama and turned out to be incredibly funny. Unintentional humor is usually a large part of what makes a cult film. Another aspect that makes this movie great is the off-screen antics of the films two main actresses. Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, who were in constant competition of the coveted title of Queen Bitch of Hollywood, a feud that had been growing for years before "Baby Jane" was filmed. Both actresses were practically fossils when they made this movie and were considered very low profile. One director even stated "I wouldn't give a wooden nickel for those two old broads." But director Robert Aldrich saw it differently and had struck upon a great idea... take two actresses who literally hated each others guts and put them both in a movie where their characters hate each others guts. Absolutely brilliant!! That hatred for each other fueled some of the best acting ever produced, with absolutely no inspiration needed at all. The story goes a little like this... In 1917 Baby Jane Hudson was the child star to end all child stars, singing and dancing her way across America's heart. But then she went and committed the worst crime that a child star can do... she grew up. Fast forward to 1935, Jane's sister Blanche has become the most successful actresses of her time and Jane's career is in the toilet. One night, the two of them are returning home from a party, we see one sister get out of the car to unlock the gates and the other sister hits the gas and outright runs her down. Fast forward again to "yesterday"... Blanche is in a wheelchair and Jane is her care giver. Basically two old biddies living in an old Hollywood house, and have been out of the spotlight for some time now, one was a star for a few years as a child and the other sister a much more successful actress as an adult for a much longer time. For years, the hatred and resentment has been building, until Jane is quite fed up with what she considers to be the sacrifice of her career for the sake of caring for her sister. The insinuation being that Jane ran Blanche down (just to be a bitch, I guess), so out of guilt takes care of her sister. Jane begins to treat her sister very badly and we soon learn that she also appears to be losing her grasp on reality. When they begin showing some of Blanche's old movies on television (before we had VCR's) Jane is terribly jealous and her abuse against Blanche become bizarrely inhumane. She takes out the phone in Blanche's room, is keeping flowers and fan mail meant for Blanche, she even cooks Blanche's parakeet and then serves it to her for dinner. Oh and didn't I also mention that Jane is now a raging alcoholic? The loonier Jane gets, the more desperate Blanche becomes, after all it's gotta be pretty scary to be dependent on someone who hates and resents you, cooks you parakeets and rats for dinner, is forging your signature and stealing from your bank account, and is by all means becoming a complete lunatic. All while slowly starving her sister to death, Jane is also trying to revive her act as "Baby Jane Hudson". Acting and dressing like when she was a young star, which of course looks totally creepy on someone who is now in her late 60's. Through the newspaper, she places an ad for a partner in reviving her career. She meets Edwin, who also thinks she's a nut, but a nut with money. He's just after the cash, therefore he indulges her looniness for the sake of making some money. Blanche's friend Elvira comes to find out why Blanche can't be reached on the phone and why Jane won't let her go upstairs to Blanche's room. Opening the door and finding Blanche hog tied to the bed with her mouth taped shut, she tries to help. Unfortunately Jane clobbers Elvira with a hammer from behind and kills her before she can help. That night, Jane dumps the body. A day or two later cops come questioning Jane about Elvira's disappearance, so Jane panics, grabs her barely conscious sister and heads for the beach. While lying on the beach, Jane plays in the sand while Blanche lies there dying. A wonderful twist ending occurs (which I normally wouldn't tell people, but what the hell, it's my blog). As a dying confession, Blanche reveals that it was actually her that was driving the car that fateful night, and not her sister Jane. Blanche had a hatred for Jane ever since they were little when Jane was getting all the attention. Apparently, Jane had been a real bitch to Blanche at the party that they had just returned home from and that it was Blanche that was driving, not jane who was unlocking the gates, and tried to run Jane down with the car, snapping her spine and crippling herself. She crawled out of the car and up to the gates and when the cops arrived they assumed Jane had done it. Jane was apparently too drunk to know what had happened. Then, one of the best lines of the movie... "You mean, all this time we could've been friends?". By now people are noticing a dying Blanche and a dancing Jane, so pretty soon the cops arrive, the end. We're left with the assumptions that Blanche gets the help she needs within minutes of losing her life, and that Jane is finally carted off to the funny farm where she seriously belongs. As I stated before, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis hated each other so there was definitely some awful tension going back and forth off camera (which greatly enhanced their performances on camera). A few examples: Joan Crawford was the CEO for Pepsi Cola at the time, therefore Bette Davis had Coca-Cola (Pepsi's biggest rival) machines installed everywhere. There's a scene where Jane is kicking the crap out of Blanche, and they had to use a dummy because Joan Crawford didn't trust Bette Davis to not actually kick her. In a scene where Jane is dragging Blanche out of bed and into the hall, you can tell that Bette Davis is really having a hard time carrying and dragging her, this is due to the fact that Joan Crawford hid heavy weights under her dress so that she would be much heavier when they had to do the scene. I could go on and on, the trivia for this movie is as fascinating as the movie itself. Even director Robert Aldrich was surprised (and relieved) when Bette Davis opted to do her own make-up for the film which is really terrible. He also stated that he would be literally too scared of her to make her look that bad. This truly is a great movie and is now really becoming a true cult classic.

Strait-Jacket

This little gem starring Joan Crawford is a must see. It covers all the essentials... campiness, a stupid plot, bad acting and an aging Hollywood superstar with nothing else to do. This film was made by William Castle (House on Haunted Hill) who had always used gimmicks with his movies (buzzing theater seats for "The Tingler" and a flying skeleton for "House on Haunted Hill") stumbled upon the ultimate gimmick when he found Joan Crawford. She had been making movies for a hell of a long time, with a hit here and there. It appeared that she was losing ground as an actress and when "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" made her a hot item once again. This film soon followed and really is a great performance on Crawford's part (can't say anything good about anyone else in this movie though). Alright, the movie opens when Lucy Harbin (Joan Crawford) coming home early from a trip and catches her husband screwing an old girlfriend. She takes an ax, chops them to bits and is carted off to the loony bin. Their daughter witnesses the entire event. Fast forward twenty years, Lucy is finally released from the asylum and goes to stay with her daughter. All seems fine... the daughter is a pretty young woman now, is a sculptress and is engaged to a handsome young man. Things couldn't be going better... until Lucy starts to have nightmares about the murders and wakes up next to two severed heads and hears an eerie nursery rhyme about herself repeated incessantly (Lucy Harbin took an ax and gave her husband forty whacks and when she saw what she had done, she gave his girlfriend forty one). Strange events begin to happen and people start disappearing. Everything points to Lucy, of course. We also learn that the gentleman that Lucy's daughter is engaged to is the son of a wealthy, prominent, business man. Lucy's daughter Carol is positive that her fiances parents are not going to allow their son to marry a woman who's mother is a certified but rehabilitated lunatic. So she assumes that having her mother recommitted (and out of the picture) is the only solution. Lucy herself actually walks in on someone who looks just like her in the process of committing an ax murder. A scuffle ensues and the "other" Joan Crawfords mask is pulled off. Surprise, surprise... it's Carol. Having made the mask from a sculpture she had created of her mothers face. All in the attempt to drive poor Lucy over the edge again, so she can have her stupid fiances parents like her. Kinda dumb, but still very entertaining.