The Story of Film: A Disappointment

The Story of Film: An OdysseyI came upon the documentary series The Story of Film: An Odyssey by Northern Irish film critic Mark Cousins. And the only way I could watch it was to sign up for some kind of Amazon Prime add-on (there seems to be an endless number of them). It bills itself as a kind of history of film. And since it has been a while since I studied the history of film in any systematic way, I thought it would be worth watching. I was wrong.

The series tries to be more inclusive of non-US filmmakers than other histories. I didn’t find that it did a very good job of this. It is still overwhelmingly focused on American filmmakers. And when it comes to world filmmaking, it still focuses on the usual suspects.

Each of the first 10 episodes covers roughly a decade of time. In general, this is a good approach. Working from the beginning of film allows you to see how it builds. But this series does little of this. When talking about techniques like cross-cutting, it spends almost no time. It is almost as if Cousins assumes that the viewer already knows this stuff.

But most of all, the whole thing comes off as the kind of history that would be watched by college-educated people who want to hold the “right” opinions.

Making DW Griffith Wispy

The whole thing reeks of the modern cinephile consensus. After providing a wholly unsatisfactory overview of early silent film, it does provide an introduction to some often neglected pioneers like Alice Guy-Blaché and Frances Marion. Then it rightly notes that DW Griffith is “over-remembered” but still important. He didn’t invent the close-up. [Sigh.] I’m not sure when people said that he did. When I took film history 30 years ago I learned that he did not invent the close-up.

But what should we remember Griffith for? According to the Story of Film, he added: “the wind in the trees” to film. I’m not even sure what this means other than that he shot outdoors a lot. Regardless, he didn’t invent this any more than he invented the close-up. Griffith is remembered for mastering the full range of film syntax at that time. But I guess it isn’t as interesting to take a nuts-and-bolts approach to his work. “The wind in the trees” sounds ever so much more appealing to upper-middle class viewers!

Bend Over Alfred, We’ve Got Some Smooching for Ya!

One of the most annoying thing in the series is its presentation of Alfred Hitchcock. People often get the impression that I don’t like Hitchcock’s work. That’s not true. I feel like I have to protect his work from intellectual pretenders who want to imbue it with pretenses that just aren’t in the work.

In this 15-minute sequence, we are told, “Hitchcock became the greatest image maker of the 20th century.” Even greater than Picasso! This is comically wrong. What does it even mean to be the “greatest image maker”? To create the most stunning images? That sure ain’t Hitchcock.

But to prove its point, the series says there are 7 reasons why this is true:

  1. Point of view
  2. Where he was born (film shouldn’t be about real life)
  3. His understanding of fear
  4. Close-ups
  5. Inverted establishing shots
  6. Under-use of music
  7. Odd camera angles.

All of this is pretty bland. This is clearly an argument in search of a predetermined conclusion. One could make much stronger cases for literally dozens of other 20th century filmmakers.

I could go point-by-point, but why? I do, however, want to note how idiotic the example is for the fifth reason. It is from the beginning of The 39 Steps. It starts with a close-up pan of a lighted sign that reads: “Music Hall.” And the series narrator says, “We don’t know where we are.”

[Facepalm.]

Then we see images of a man buying tickets, going to his seat, sitting down. And finally, we get the wide-shot of the inside of the music hall. Never would have guessed that! This is a perfectly acceptable way to start the movie and establish the location and the main character. But it isn’t especially innovative. And it has nothing to do with Hitchcock being “the greatest image maker of the 20th century.”

The Lack of Exploitation Film

Above all, The Story of Film focuses almost entirely on art filmmakers. Given the way the series tries to be socially conscious, I would have thought that Samuel Fuller would come up. But no. Similarly, there’s no George Romero. Or Tobe Hooper. Or John Carpenter or Wes Craven.

David Cronenberg is mentioned, but only his most obviously “art” work: Videodrome and Crash. Note that these films are really not related. Videodrome is classic body horror. Crash is a psychological drama. But I will allow that they are about the best of Cronenberg.

My point here is that The Story of Film is really just the story of a certain kind of film. And that film is the kind of appeals to boring college-educated types who get their opinions from articles in The New Yorker. The rest of us are better off putting on The Amazing Colossal Man and making that whole thing go away.

Image taken from Amazon under Fair Use.

Call Girl 2014

Jill GevargizianI just discovered a wonderful short film, Call Girl (2014). This is very exciting for me because I’m only 5 years out on this one; normally, I’m 10 years behind. And really, it isn’t even five years because it was only three and a half years ago that director Jill Gevargizian posted it on YouTube.

The film starts by proclaiming that it is from “Sixx Tape Productions.” And then the narrative starts with a close-up of Laurence R Harvey. So I immediately have visions of this being something of Tom Six that I can’t bear to watch. I paused the video and did a little research. It turns out that Sixx is just Gevargizian’s moniker.

So I tentatively clicked play but with my hand on the mouse should anything scatological appear. Thankfully, it did not.

Call Girl

In fact, Call Girl is a surprising and funny little horror film. Have a look. The narrative is only a bit more than four minutes long:

Watched it? Good.

Discussion

There are so many things I love about this film! The biggest is probably that it makes the viewer a voyeur. In fact, it makes the viewer into a homicidal psychopath, based on what we know from the dialog.

The streaming interruptions add a wonderful tension to the action. At the same time, it is so realistic that watching it on YouTube is not the best venue. It’s hard — even after repeated viewings — not to perceive the first interruption as the fault of your own connection. But this is hardly the fault of the filmmakers.

I’m also struck by how Harvey’s character has a child’s level of excitement — both before and after the deed.

Contrast this with the professionalism of the character played by Tristan Risk (Frankenstein Created Bikers). It’s a wonderful touch that she is “new at this.”

Finally, the vague ending is marvelous. My first take was that the prostitute would not have attacked had she not been attacked. But that seems to be undercut by what we see on the screen. After all, she doesn’t just kill Harvey; she feasts on him (in the most glorious moment in the film). And prostitution seems like a good way to get victims for a vampire.

Open Questions

I’m still confused about the last bit of dialog. She seems to say, “Do you want that? Do you?!” The screen goes black and then there is a beep — a text has come through. And we hear her say, “Good. See you soon.”

There are various ways to interpret this. What the text contained is not clear. But the threat is chilling.

Regardless of the ending, I’ll be checking out more work by Jill Gevargizian in the coming months.

Image cropped from Jill Gevargizian’s Twitter account and is used under Fair Use.

First Views: The Other Side of the Wind

The Other Side of the WindMost people think of psychotronic film as lowbrow. I don’t. I’m a film snob. And I love psychotronic film because it is generally the most authentic kind of film. There really isn’t much difference between psychotronic and art film. The difference is usually one of attitude (as well as budget). And the attitude of psychotronic filmmakers is generally better. But it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I love “art” films. (Note that I compared Death Bed: The Bed That Eats to Cries and Whispers.)

Finally: The Other Side of the Wind

For the last decade, I’ve had only one primary goal in live: to live long enough to see Orson Welles’ last film, The Other Side of the Wind. Indeed, I was not that big a Welles fan until I saw a couple of clips from the film back in the mid-1990s. It shocked me that an artist — late in his life — could create something so unique.

But over the years, I’d given up on the film ever being released. Then, just recently, I saw the following headline at Vox, There’s a New Orson Welles Film, and It’s Streaming on Netflix. I didn’t need to read the article. I just went to Netflix and entered, “The Other Side of the Wind.”

First Look

This is not a review. I’ve only seen the film once (at this writing — I’ve seen it a dozen times now) — and this is a film that needs to be seen multiple times. But even on this first viewing, it was captivating from the first frame.

The Conceit

Most people writing about it are turning it into some kind of psychological portrait of Welles. Maybe it is. Maybe every work of art is that for the artist. But what I took away from the film was its amazing visual palette. And the way Welles justifies this is by making the film about a party where Jake Hannaford (John Huston) is trying to get funds to finish his latest films. Thus, many reporters are there with tape recorders and 16 mm and Super8 cameras.

As a result, we get scenes shot with more than a half-dozen cameras — all of differing quality. Probably even more important, all these canny journalists are creeping around, getting incredibly intimate moments on film — the most heartbreaking are between Hannaford and his protégé Brooks Otterlake (Peter Bogdanovich). This was shot at a time when Bogdanovich really did feel that Welles had betrayed him and the performance is as raw as you will see.

Film-Within-the-Film

The film-within-the-film is a pretty cliched European art film. According to Wikipedia, it is something of a parody of Michelangelo Antonioni. But whoever wrote that can’t have seen any of his films. It reminds me a lot more of Alejandro Jodorowsky, but that’s a great insult to him. Hannaford’s film seems to have been a general parody of bad art films. It even includes a balloon of a penis that is deflated when the star of the film (Oja Kodar) pricks it. I’m sure that Welles and Kodar (who co-wrote these scenes) must have laughed mightily when they came up with that!

Confusing Ending

What confuses me is the end. From my reading over the years, I understood that the film ended with Hannaford driving his car into the movie screen and dying. Maybe they didn’t have enough coverage — both Welles and Houston are long dead. But maybe I’m just misinterpreting the ending. Hannaford’s last scene is almost heaven-like — or indicating that he is on his way to heaven.

More to Appreciate

As I indicated, I’m going to have to give this film a lot more thought. But on a first viewing, it’s clear that it is up with Welles’ greatest cinematic works: Othello, The Trial, Chimes at Midnight, and F for Fake. If you like challenging (or just interesting) films, you must see The Other Side of the Wind.

The image for The Other Side of the Wind is taken from Wikipedia and used under Fair Use.

Who Mourns for Arch Hall?

The Mads Are Back

I just went to see The Mads Are Back (Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff) of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame. They are doing live shows where they riff to low budget films. Last night it was The Choppers — the film Arch Hall Sr made before his more famous Eegah.

As can doubtless be guessed, it was a bittersweet event. The riffing was pretty funny. And the movie itself is quite good. But it is annoying to hear the film referred to as “bad.”

Idiot Hates This Island Earth

To make matters worse, This Island Earth (1955) came up during the Q&A after the film. It was used for MST3K: The Movie. Beaulieu noted that they had to do things to it. (For example, they removed an entire reel so that the film didn’t make much sense.)

The guy sitting next to me muttered, “It still sucked.” I wanted to punch him. This Island Earth is a science fiction classic — well received when released and even better regarded today. As usual, the MST3K crew didn’t like various aspects of it that were intentional like its lack of a standard hero’s plot.

Pandering to Idiots

But this idiot is the target audience for low budget films. It would be trivial to grow this website if my attitude was that these films were bad and only good for a laugh. But I’ve never been interested in writing for idiots.

And there is something that bothers me about anyone involved with MST3K referring to “bad” films: have they ever watched their hosted segments? They are embarrassing — generally worse than any film they riff to.

Show Some Respect

I’d really like it if the people who are using these films to create a different piece of art would show a little respect for the art that they would be nothing without.

But alas, they don’t. I’m not even sure that they know what they mean by bad. It seems to be nothing more than films that aren’t professionally produced dreck.

Toward the end of The Choppers an out-of-focus shot came on and Conniff riffed, “Look, Ed Wood’s taken over.” It got a big laugh because everyone “knows” Wood was a terrible filmmaker. Except his films were always well shot. William C Thompson was usually his cinematographer and he was quite good.

After that shot, there were several minutes of similarly bad coverage. This is almost certainly due to the print and not the way the film was released.

Support Art Especially When Riffing

I know this all sounds very petty, but it does matter. It isn’t that they are making fun of the films. But these films aren’t bad. And I’m really tired of complaints about films that are based on ignorance. (For example, not realizing that Death Bed: The Bed That Eats is a comedy.)

Worst of all, calling such films bad makes artists less likely to try to do anything but the same old thing. And it props up big budget films over personal and exploitation films.

I would gladly watch The Choppers again. I can’t say that of the $50 million Bohemian Rhapsody. Sadly, very few people agree with me. We are a society that cherishes mocking failure, even when there is none to mock.

Read: Pablo Casals on How to Appreciate Art

Image altered from The Mads Are Back header image. Used under Fair Use.

Bohemian Rhapsody, A Thousand Clowns, and the Dangers of Film Enthusiasm

Bohemian Rhapsody, A Thousand Clowns, and the Dangers of Film EnthusiasmI visited my sister over the weekend and we went to see Bohemian Rhapsody. It wasn’t a thrilling idea for several reasons. I don’t like biopics. I rarely like big-budget Hollywood films. I’ve never been a huge Queen fan. But going to lame films is something I have always done for my family. (They have learned not to reciprocate because of long — For Them — painful experience.)

The film turned out to be far worse than I had expected. The main reason biopics usually suck is because they are redemption stories. Admittedly, redemption stories can be fantastic; for example, Ikiru is one of my favorite films ever.

But in Bohemian Rhapsody it is the total cliche: artist finds success; artist goes on tilt; artist finds redemption by not going on tilt. For anyone who cares, there is an episode of Behind the Music about Queen. And it has the major advantage of ruining only 45-minutes of your life. Bohemian Rhapsody is well over 2 hours long. And it feels much longer. (Dunbar in Catch-22 would have loved it!)

But the main thing that struck me while watching the film was not that it was bad. Not that there wasn’t much badness to strike me. Although I once admired director Bryan Singer, it has been many years. He is now a typical Hollywood hack. Things might have been better if Peter Morgan had been kept as screenwriter, but instead, Anthony McCarten was brought on board — likely to pacify the remaining members of Queen who seem to have been determined the movie be as inoffensive and boring as possible. The whole thing is typical Hollywood nonsense, so I can hardly complain that my experience of the film was alternating boredom and outrage.

Noticing Technique

The main thing that bugged me was how technically I watched Bohemian Rhapsody. I was constantly taken out of the film by this or that directorial flourish. And I have always hated that! Any time some critic or other film enthusiast makes a big deal about the technical side of a film, I know that they are not worth listening to.

And this is what Hollywood is all about. The studios are convinced that people come to their movies to see the spectacle. This is not my experience at all. I can’t speak for teens, but adults want to see a good story well told.

There was one very impressive shot toward the end of the film. Queen is playing at Live Aid. The camera starts under Freddy Mercury’s piano. It is then pushed forward between his legs and over to Brian May. Finally, it tilts up to a shot of May’s guitar. It took me a good minute to figure out two ways to recreate what I will admit was a very pleasing shot.

The Thousand Clowns Paradox

If anything, the shots like this ruin the rest of the film. (Or would have done so if the rest of the film had been good.) I call it the Thousand Clowns Paradox. After the first cut of the film, the screenwriter Herb Gardner was horrified. He had first written it as a play. When he wrote the screenplay, Gardner tried to expand it for the screen, but ultimately, A Thousand Clowns looks like a play on film.

So Gardner worked with editor Ralph Rosenblum (both were also co-producers) to create more cinematic scenes using stock footage and music. And they are sublime! But in the context of the film, they only serve to highlight just how boring the other scenes are.

Without those scenes, the viewer isn’t unsettled. They are able to appreciate the exceptional story.

Technique Isn’t Storytelling

So it bothers me to be reminded that I’m watching a film. It bothers me even more that I do appreciate technique. But I fear that is something I’m just going to have to live with given how much of a film geek I am. And it will only get worse.

This is not what film-viewing and filmmaking should be. There is a common saying about editing a picture: you have to kill your darlings. The idea is that because of the filmmakers’ love of a scene, it stays in the edit, even though it is creating problem for the film as a whole. Usually, this is a matter of pacing. But I think this is also because of the Thousand Clowns Paradox. Sadly, fewer and fewer filmmakers hold to this.

Big-budget movies are made by huge egos. And that results in over-long movies filled with beautiful but worthless shots. It explains why I would rather watch any Howard Hawks or Russ Meyer film than almost anything at the local multiplex.

Bohemian Rhapsody poster via Wikipedia. Used under Fair Use.

The Lie in The Human Centipede Trilogy

The Human Centipede 3 PosterI have not seen any of The Human Centipede films. Normally, I would. But I don’t even like fart jokes. Scatological material makes me sick just to think about.

As a result, this rumination is based on reports, not actual viewing. I’m more than open to publishing any positive posts or pages on any of the films or the trilogy as a whole. Just contact me.

I can deal with small bits of scatological material as in Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. But a series of films, which don’t seem to have much of a sense of humor about themselves, based on the idea of people eating out of the anuses of others? Sorry. I can’t deal with it. Is it psychotronic? Sure. Am I going to watch it? Well, maybe the first film at some time in the future.

But what I want to talk about is writer/director Tom Six’s claim that he always meant for The Human Centipede to be a trilogy. That’s doubtless true. But it’s also certain that he hadn’t thought it through very carefully. That, or he shows a complete lack of creativity.

A Brief Overview of The Human Centipede

The films break down as follows:

The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
Other than the scatological aspect of the film, this is a pretty straightforward mad scientist film that could have starred John Carradine or Vincent Price in the 1950s or 1960s. Or did star Tim Curry in the 1970s. A car breaks down, the stranded victims go to a local house for help, only to be caught in the mad scientist’s evil web.
The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)
The sequel is a meta-film: a fan of the first film either does it for real or imagines that he does. Instead of 3 people, as in the first film, this one has 12. And instead of a surgeon doing the operation, the main character uses a staple gun, which even without seeing it, I know would not work. Anyone who has ever dealt with plumbing knows just how big a problem leaks are — to the point where the entire system rips apart.
The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)
Is a 12-person human centipede not enough for you? Well, this film offers 500! And so much more! It isn’t even all that much the human centipede anymore. But it’s there — eventually. Mostly, the film could be titled, “The Psychopathic Warden.” So that’s the focus of the film. And you can see why. The truth is, a human centipede of that size rather loses its impact (even with amputations), which may be why Six found he had to disgust his audience in so many other ways.

The Problem With the Third Film

This site is not about criticizing. It was never my idea to create a page for the first film or the trilogy simply because of my personal issues. I had thought of hiring a writer to cover it. But I finally decided not to (at least not the trilogy — maybe the first film) because of the fundamental problem with the third film.

The first film is classic horror — only with a really disgusting twist. The second film can at least be seen as postmodern in its meta-nature and unreliable narrator. (That’s charitable, but Psychotronic Review is nothing if not charitable!)

After being briefed on the second film, I was very interested to see where Tom Six was going to go with the third film. How do you go beyond meta? Well, apparently, he wasn’t thinking. I guess each film was just meant to get more disgusting than the last. But if that’s the case, why not do a fourth movie? Just have scene after scene where different people shit onto the lens of the camera?

Two Films Does Not a Trilogy Make!

But I don’t think that was what Tom Six was thinking. I think he had the idea for the second film in mind when he was making the first. And he figured he would come up with something for the third.

One thing seems clear: Tom Six did not have “The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)” in mind as his third film when he was making his first.

And he did! It just didn’t have anything to do with the first two films. The last film, as far as I can tell is simply torture porn.

Now that can be said of the first two films, but there is some wit to them. The last film seems to want to be campy. The trailer for it certainly is. The first two films are not campy. And reviews of the film make it sound as if Tom Six had simply run out of ideas.

And that makes me rethink even including the trilogy in the pantheon of psychotronic films. I know that psychotronic filmmakers very often just want to make a buck. But this seems like Hollywood thinking. Afterall, what’s left after the “full sequence”? The “final sequence”? If it had been a comedy, maybe.

The Pernicious Myth

But in addition to taking itself too seriously, it pushes a pernicious myth: the deterrence theory of crime prevention. It doesn’t work because (1) most violent crimes aren’t planned; and (2) people who plan crimes don’t expect to get caught. It also shows the warden murdering people with impunity. Is that really what the Dutch think the American justice system is like?

If the film had been made two years later, I might think it was trying to say something about Donald Trump, who seems to think he should have the same rights that the warden has in the film — that he is above the law. But it was released halfway through Obama’s second term. So what was the point?

What Does the Trilogy Mean?

You can call any three films a trilogy. John Carpenter refers to his “Apocalypse Trilogy”: The Thing (1982), Prince of Darkness (1987), and In the Mouth of Madness (1995). But he directed three other films between each of these and the films are in no way connected in the way that Tom Six’s trilogy is meant to be.

It’s only on the most simplistic level that these films build. The length of the centipede grows with each film. The explicit violence and degradation grow. In the second film, the action is based on the first film. In the third film, the action is based on the first two films. That’s pretty much it.

Does Tom Six Being in the Film Matter?

The one thing that makes The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence) at all expansionary is that Tom Six has a major role in the film — as Tom Six. But this hardly makes the film more meta-oriented than the second, because the first film is so important in the second. We don’t need to meet the director to know that one exists.

Six’s appearance has been said to indicate that he’s being serious. I see it the opposite way. His appearance means to push back against the first two films: they were fantasy but this one is real. And that completes no arc. It doesn’t even make sense. It is fantasy, whether the director is in it or not. So how do these three films tell a single story?

I can’t say. I’m open to other opinions. But one thing seems clear: Tom Six did not have The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence) in mind as his third film when he was making his first. He might have had the idea of setting it in a prison. But he must have thought he’d come up with something new that would pull it all together. He didn’t. A meta-meta-film is not basing a film on people watching two films instead of one.

And I’m left thinking ultimately all he has on his mind is new ways to disgust. And that’s fine. But no Tobe Hooper he.

Image is taken from Wikipedia and licensed under Fair Use.

Psychotronic Film’s Move to Television

Old TelevisionI doubtless got my start with psychotronic film through television, not films. When I went to the theater as a kid, it seems like I was always seeing some George Roy Hill film. (That’s no slight of him. I love him. He was one of those great directors who didn’t seem pretentious — like Edward Dmytryk and Michael Curtiz before him.)

But my first real experience with psychotronic film was a theatrical release, I just watched it on television: The Last Man on Earth. Too many people think it is a bad film, which I don’t get. There have been four screen versions of Richard Matheson’s masterpiece I Am Legend — the other three being The Omega Man (fun), I Am Omega (pretty fun), and I Am Legend (pseudo-serious dreck). Not surprisingly, I am Omega got mostly bad reviews and I Am Legend got mostly good reviews — yet more evidence of the fact that film “critics” are idiots.

The Last Man on Earth gave me nightmares for years! I find it rather sweet now. But man did it freak me out at the time. And it seemed to play at least once a month on Bob Wilkins’ Creature Features.

Kolchak Poisoned Me!

But what really got me going was Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Maybe it’s because it was such a silly show and that’s something I like about a great deal of psychotronic film: it doesn’t take itself very seriously. Also, of course, Carl Kolchak is the character I’ve based my entire life on. Not that I run into monsters every week. Of course, there was that one time…

As I wrote of Kolchak: “his pluses just barely offset his minuses.” And I think most of my employers would agree with that. They hate me, but they need me. It is something of a rush to be someone’s mixed blessing. Just like Carl Kolchak.

Psychotronic Television

As I put up the page for Kolchak: The Night Stalker, it occurred to me that I was once again adding a page for a television show. Out of 22 pages, 4 of them are for television series. And actually, that makes a lot of sense. Because by the time of my generation, the B-film had gone away. I went to plenty of double features when I was young — but always at specialty theaters. First run films showed trailers and then the feature.

(Note: this always bothered me. It bothered me even more on VHS tapes, “And now our feature presentation.” No! Now your only presentation! I don’t consider ads for coming films a presentation. But a Looney Tunes cartoon and a short B-picture, sure. Then you get to say, “And now our feature presentation.” Otherwise, don’t try to con me.)

As a result, psychotronic film really went to television. That was even truer once cable came around and all these stations needed content. You all know Mystery Science Theater 3000. It would never have been a national thing had it not been that Comedy Central had just started and the idea of two hours of cheap programming was just too good to pass up on.

Thunderbirds, Lost in Space and Star Trek

The Twilight Zone was psychotronic, although I could argue against that. But even if you question that, think about Thunderbirds, Lost in Space or the original Star Trek.

They are totally psychotronic! You doubt me? You think Star Trek was serious in any way? Watch:

Roger Corman’s Career

And then, of course, there is Roger Corman. But he’s just a symbol. There were others. He started in the movies but he moved increasingly to television. So none of this is too surprising.

Finally, there was the video revolution. In the early days of VCRs, a filmmaker could get just about anything distributed if they got a decent box design. And that didn’t stop those films from showing up on local television either.

The Best of It All

Now film (?!) producers have the best of all worlds. They can shoot feature films, get them distributed if they are lucky, otherwise release them on DVD, and license them to cable. A good example of that is District 13.

Many people make money just making videos for YouTube. I’m sure that if JR Bookwalter were 20-years-old now, that’s probably what he would be doing: shoot a $2,000 feature, get millions of YouTube views and make enough money off ads for a couple more films.

Of course, for people like me, it’s overwhelming. So many films are being made — especially horror films — that it’s like running around the world trying to see every high school play that gets produced. Luckily, there aren’t too many JR Bookwalters around, just as there aren’t too many good high school plays. Unluckily, there are still too many worthy productions for me to ever get around to — especially given my philosophy that if it’s worth writing about, it’s worth writing about in depth.

I’d still rather go out to a rundown theater and watch a nice print of The Last Man on Earth. But that ain’t the world anymore.

Image cropped from Old Television. It is in the public domain.

Money, Vision, and Psychotronic Film

Money, Vision, and Psychotronic Film

There is an interesting distinction between exploitation filmmakers. There are those who are just in it for the money — people like Herschell Gordon Lewis. And then there are visionaries (who were often con men) who would do whatever they could do to get their ideas on film — people like Ed Wood.

It doesn’t much matter to the final result. Lewis would never write anything as breathtakingly personal as Glen or Glenda. Yet in many ways the two men were quite similar. Wood certainly wanted his unique vision to be profitable. And Lewis was quite willing to tackle the social issues of his day in his later films.

Realism in Filmmaking

The issue, I think, is the realism of the filmmaker. Lewis famously said that he felt sorry for filmmakers who were trying to make art. Now, like so many things Lewis said, I think it was more for effect than anything else. But there is no doubt that Lewis was, as the Mothers put it, “only in it for the money.”

Wood, on the other hand, would have made his films if he knew that there was no money in it.

If Lewis Had Made Glen or Glenda

I focus on Glen or Glenda because it is Wood’s most pure vision — from his id on to celluloid. And this is why I consider it one of the greatest films ever made and the greatest idiosyncratic film ever made. (Oh, if he were only alive to see me write that! And sorry, George Barry: you still made a great film.)

But Lewis would have had no problem making Glen or Glenda himself — so long as he thought it would have made money. But I doubt it would have been as good — at least to viewers like me.

Wood was down on his knees begging society to understand him and those like him. Lewis would have been down on his knees looking for dropped dollars at the drive-in entrence.

Different Ways to Make a Great Film

Anyone who’s read more than a couple of sentences by me knows that I fall into the Ed Wood camp. Art? Professionalism? These are fine things in their right place. But they aren’t very important in psychotronic film. What I most love about psychotronic film is that it surprises me. When I first saw Glen or Glenda, I felt like I had entered Ed Wood’s brain — a wondrous place to spend an hour.

With Lewis’ films, I don’t get that experience. He never let’s me inside because his motivation is money, even if what he produced was often great.

An Aside: Ed Wood Was a Good Director

The idea that Ed Wood was a bad (much less the worst) director is nonsense. Most people who have seen any of his films have only seen Plan 9 From Outer Space — and only after being told it is a bad movie. And the rest just take it as a fact, having never seen it. (This is similar to Gary Larson’s “Hell’s Video Store,” which only had Ishtar for rent — a cartoon he created — and later apologized for — having never seen that great comedy.)

Plan 9 is not a bad film! Although hardly a great film, it is interesting throughout. What’s more, it’s subversive!

Focusing on Stupid Things

Yet people focus on things like the tombstones falling over. Why? Because they’ve been told to! I’m a movie fanatic. Now I mostly watch them alone, but I’ve watched hundreds with audiences, and they don’t notice things like this.

I think it wasn’t until my own fifth watching of Plan 9 that I noticed the tombstones. Why? Because I was concentrating on the story — like most viewers.

Who Does Professionalism Impress?

The exceptional amount of professionalism put into Hollywood films is put their for the filmmakers themselves. And this is why we end up with films like the first Star Wars looking so bad after a couple of years that Lucas was driven to replace all his special effects because two years later they were embarrassing. (I think doing that is an artistic sin; art exists in its own context; but I guess it isn’t a sin for Lucas because he is no artist.)

But most filmmakers don’t have that kind of money or power. So we have countless films that turn from live-action to cartoons and back. I personally find it distracting. Tombstones falling over on a tiny part of the screen is much easier to overlook than the fact that half of the third act of The Matrix Revolutions is a cartoon — and one that looks worse ever year.

Watch Jail Bait (which Ed Wood made between Glen or Glenda and Bride of the Monster). You will see a perfectly competent writer and director. Indeed, in terms of professionalism, he was easily as good as Herschell Gordon Lewis. But Wood had a personal vision that Lewis did not. And maybe Lewis is right: we should pity Wood.

But had Wood been an art painter, it is exactly this vision that would have made him a star. But since film is commodity to most people, Lewis is the success and Wood the failure.

Luck and the Movies

Still, we can’t lose sight of the fact that Lewis was just lucky. It’s not like gore wasn’t in the air. As I pointed out in my discussion of Blood Feast, Akira Kurosawa was already playing with gore in Yojimbo (1961) and in a spectacular way in Sanjuro (1962).

Had it not been for Blood Feast, Lewis would be remembered fondly by people like me for films like Scum of the Earth! and The Gruesome Twosome, but he would not be the icon he became.

The same is true of Wood, of course, but in a horrible way.

Some people decided to focus on Plan 9 From Outer Space and decide that it was the worst film ever. I don’t know where they got that idea — maybe just because Michael Bay hadn’t started making films yet. Most likely, they just didn’t understand what Wood was doing. And they probably hadn’t seen that many films anyway.

But it caught on. Ed Wood was “the worst director of all time” based upon seeing only one of his films and not understanding it. Sorry, but this is great writing and directing:

The Psychotronic Filmmakers Curse and Blessing

One thing you hear again and again in director commentaries on psychotronic films is disappointment. The directors wish they could have done this or that. Or they made a bad decision here. Or they really wish they had been able to go back and re-shoot this scene or shoot a missing transition. But they couldn’t. You never hear this from Hollywood directors because they aren’t constrained in that way. They’re constrained in a much worse way: in what the kind of film they can make to begin with.

Whether for money or vision, the psychotronic filmmaker is artistically free to make the kind of films they think people want to watch — whether they are right (as Lewis was) or wrong (as Wood was). In the end, we get films that delight us if we are open to them. All the “art” and professionalism in the world will not stop me from passing out before the first reel is finished.

Image is by Frank Moraes, released under CC BY 2.0. It used two public domain images: Person Vision Human Eyeball Woman Girl Eye and Dollar Currency Money US Dollar.

The Short Life of Jill Banner

The actor Jill Banner is iconic because of her role in the cult classic Spider Baby but also because of her tragic death at 35 years old. You can find quotes about her below.

“Jill Banner” sounds like a fake name and it is. She was born Mary Kathryn Molumby on 8 November 1946 in Bremerton, Washington to parents Raymond Molumby (18 August 1888) and Muriel Molumby (27 November 1919), nee Bergheim.

Jill’s father had three sons from a previous marriage but it doesn’t appear that she had any real interactions with these half-brothers.

Her father died when she was just 2 years old. After that her mother moved around a lot, apparently to live with relatives. However, since her father is buried in South Dakota, it is likely the move there was before he died.

By 1961, at the age of 15, she was attending Hollywood Professional School — a private K-12 school for child performers. At 17, she met and became close friends with Peggy Lipton, who would go on to star in The Mod Squad and marry Quincy Jones.

Her first big break came in 1964 when she auditioned for Spider Baby. Writer-director Jack Hill said of it, “We just chatted with her and she admitted she hadn’t had any experience. But she said, ‘I’m a lot of fun to have around.’ And the way she said that, all of us in the room suddenly felt that this strange girl was just right for the picture.”

Sadly, although the film was all but done by the end of 1964, the financial backers went bankrupt. This delayed the film’s release by three years. By that time, she had sever on-screen credits to her name, mostly on TV. After its release, she continued to work steadily, entirely in TV and usually cast as a young hippy.

In 1968, Banner met Marlon Brando when he was working on Candy (1968). They seem to have stayed together until 1976. She has no film credits for the last 4 years of this period. They were going to get married but had a fight and Banner moved to New Mexico to work in real estate.

In 1980, Jill Banner returned to Los Angeles. Just two years later, on 7 August 1982, she was driving on the Ventura Freeway (Hwy 101). A drunk driver in a truck hit her. She was thrown from her Toyota experiencing intense head trauma. She was in a coma and soon died at the Riverside Hospital in North Hollywood.

Jill Banner Filmography

I’ve watched everything I can find that features Jill Banner. Here is a full list of her TV/film credits with details about her roles.

  1. 24 January 1966: The John Forsythe Show Season 1 Episode 19 “If Food Be the Music of Love” — She plays Marcia. I haven’t managed to find a copy of this. Forsythe plays a retired Air Force officer who inherits a girl’s school. Comedian Guy Marks played his Air Force buddy, Elsa Lanchester was the school principal, and Ann B Davis was probably a teacher. This episode is about the poor quality of food at the school. I assume Marcia was one of the students. Forsythe’s daughter Page played a character with that name in two earlier episodes.
  2. 4 February 1966: Weekend of Fear — She plays Carol, the main character’s boyfriend’s ex in this micrro-budget thriller. She exists mostly to allow the villain to explain her evil plan. The film stars Mikki Malone, who is credited with a number of porn films in the 1990s although I would assume those were not sex roles given her age.
  3. 12 February 1967: Deadlier Than the Male — She plays Pam in an uncredited role in this spy thriller. I haven’t been able to find her in the released film. In an 8-minute sequence that was cut from the final film, Pam is a model who Robert mistakes for a spy. It’s a rather good scene. Elke Sommer is also featured in the film.
  4. 2 March 1967: Dragnet Season 1 Episode 7 “The Hammer” — She plays Camille Gearhardt, a bad girl with criminal tendencies who hooked up with the wrong guy and ends up in prison for accessory to murder. She gets to deliver a great line, “You got nice eyes… for a cop!”
  5. 3 May 1967: C’mon, Let’s Live a Little — She plays Wendy in this Bobby Vee vehicle. There are three young dark-haired women who act as a kind of single character. Banner does most of the talking for them. The singer Kim Carnes is featured in this film.
  6. 17 August 1967: The Stranger Returns — She plays Caroline, the daughter of the town’s double-dealing postmaster in this excellent spaghetti western. The character exists mostly to be used as a pawn but she does get a great moment with a slap.
  7. 21 December 1967: The President’s Analyst — She plays Snow White, a hippy who James Coburn hooks up with while on the run from the feds. The film also features William Daniels and Arte Johnson in small roles.
  8. 24 December 1967: Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told — She plays Virginia, one of the three insane Merrye children. She is obsessed with spiders. The film also features Lon Chaney Jr, Carol Ohmart, and Sid Haig.
  9. 5 March 1968: Shadow Over Elveron — She plays Jessie Drover, the pregnant daughter of corrupt Sheriff Verne Drover (Leslie Nielsen) who is forcing her to have an abortion. This TV movie also stars James Franciscus and Don Ameche.
  10. 9 January 1969: Dragnet Season 3 Episode 14 “Homicide: DR-22” — She plays Eve Stewart Wesson, a heroin addict and prostitute. She delivers a ton of exposition very much in the style of the show. Burt Mustin co-stars.
  11. 20 March 1969: Dragnet Season 3 Episode 23 “Forgery: DR-33” — She plays Sondra Kay Thompson, a sympathetic check forger. It’s a tiny role.
  12. 25 September 1969: Dragnet Season 4 Episode 2 “Homicide: The Student” — She plays Nancy Morton, a college student who knows an unstable murderer. This is another part with a lot of exposition and little else.
  13. 13 November 1969: Dragnet Season 4 Episode 8 “DHQ: Missing Person” — She plays Shirley Lawson, a young woman with a split personality. Her “older sister” wears a blond wig, so it’s fun to see that. This is the best of her Dragnet roles.
  14. 12 March 1970: Hunters Are for Killing — She plays Holly Fornell, the young hippy daughter of the cafe owner. She seems to exist entirely to establish Burt Reynolds as a good guy who doesn’t sleep with the gorgeous young woman who throws herself at him. But it’s hard to say since I’ve only seen this TV movie in German. It also features Martin Balsam, Melvyn Douglas, Suzanne Pleshette, and Larry Storch.
  15. 20 March 1970: The Name of the Game Season 2 Episode 23 “Echo of a Nightmare” — She plays Vivi Sue. I have not been able to see a copy to know more. The episode features guest stars Hoagy Carmichael, Arthur Hill, and Ricardo Montalban.
  16. 15 October 1970: Ironside Season 4 Episode 4 “Noel’s Gonna Fly” — She plays Judy Blue, a hippy girl who Noel interacts with after he runs away. It’s a bigger role than normal for her, featured in 3 locations. Lorraine Gary guest stars.
  17. 4 December 1970: The Name of the Game Season 3 Episode 12 “Why I Blew Up Dakota” — She plays Ginger Schermer, a “stewardess” who is the alibi for an artist accused of murder. This episode has a guest cast including Jose Ferrer, Carolyn Jones, Roddy McDowall, and Paul Stewart.
  18. 30 January 1972: Cade’s County Season 1 Episode 16 “Slay Ride: Part 1” — She plays Melanie, a young woman at a Native American commune. She exists to provide some exposition about the murdered woman. The show is actually pretty good; too bad it didn’t take off. The episode features character actor John Schuck and Academy Award-winning producer Tony Bill.
  19. 2 February 1972: Adam-12 Season 4 Episode “The Adoption” — She plays Rita, a young woman who agreed to give up her baby for cash who has had second thoughts. She says at the end of the episode, “I’m keeping my baby” — 14 years before Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach.” Jackie Coogan is featured in a subplot about a college football team giving performance-enhancing drugs to the students.
  20. 6 February 1972: Cade’s County Season 1 Episode 17 “Slay Ride: Part 2” — She is credited as Melanie, but doesn’t seem to have been in this episode.
  21. 5 March 1972: The Bold Ones: The New Doctors Season 3 Episode 11 “Discovery at Fourteen” — She plays “Curlish Girl.” I haven’t found the episode online. But I’ve found enough to know that Ron Howard plays a young man who is afraid he is gay. Given her character’s name, I assume this isn’t much of a part. The show had a great cast including EG Marshall, John Saxon, and Robert Walden.

Quotes From People Who Knew Her

I’ve done a lot of research to get a handle on Jill Banner. Here are notable quotes from the books.

Jack Hill

Writer and director Jack Hill was interviewed in The Hatching of Spider Baby and this is what he said about Jill Banner:

I don’t know how we found out about Jill Banner [for Spider Baby]. Somebody must have told us about her. She just came into the office for an interview and I’m sure she wasn’t expecting to get any kind of a leading role. We just chatted with her and she admitted she hadn’t had any experience. But she said, “I’m a lot of fun to have around.” And the way she said that, all of us in the room suddenly felt that this strange girl was just right for the picture. She just had this kind of presence.

It wasn’t until not too many years ago I had been trying to locate Jill Banner. I had a phone number on her, and I had no idea that she had died. And I learned that she had died in a terrible, terrible automobile accident on the Pacific Coast Highway. She was at that time living with Marlon Brando and, in fact, working on a screenplay with him. And I also heard from Jill’s manager that Brando had told someone that Jill was the only woman he had ever really loved. At her funeral, he remained long after everybody else had left — standing over her grave. So it must have been quite a relationship. And she was quite a remarkable girl, so I could understand very much why Brando would be fascinated by her.

Everett Greenbaum

Writer Everett Greenbaum (co-writer of The Ghost and Mr Chicken) is quoted about Banner in Brando: The Unauthorized Biography by Charles Higham:

He also had an affair with an ill-fated woman named Jill Banner. A tiny, appealing former actress who talked in a low-pitched sexy, drawling comic voice like Mae West, she eternally fascinated Marlon. According to Marlon and Wally Cox’s old friend Everett Greenbaum, Marlon was fiercely possessive of this intriguing girl. “I used to take Jill for rides in my airplane,” Greenbaum recalled. “Every time Jill went flying with me, Marlon got furious. They had a fight and then made up. Marlon bought her a golden apple made of solid gold studded with emeralds, rubies, and diamonds. She wore it around her neck. Then they went to some island in Hawaii, and Marlon had an argument with her on the beach and he yanked the apple off and threw it away in the ocean.”

Greenbaum added, “Jill was killed in a terrible car crash. I was at the funeral. I didn’t see Marlon. But I heard afterward he was hiding in the trees next to the burial ground.” Fearful of the attentions of the press, Marlon, as at Wally Cox’s funeral, didn’t want to be seen even by the other mourners.

Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando is probably not the most trustworthy source for information about Banner — or anything, really. The entirety of Songs My Mother Taught Me come across very much like Ernest Hemingway in A Moveable Feast — as a man who, despite all his successes is still trying to prove that he’s a real man. But he dedicates two chapters to Jill Banner, who he refers to as Weonna. Please note that many things he says are factually wrong like her hair and eye color and her mother being from Ireland (she was born in South Dakota).

Although I let some women believe I loved them — and in some cases I may have meant it at the time — there was one woman I loved more than any other.

I was in my early forties when I met Weonna in Rome. She had a part in Candy and was with a friend of mine. He and I had the same rivalry I’d had with Carlo Fiore; we both tried to seduce each other’s girl. After he introduced me to Weonna in a hotel lobby, he went off and I put it to her succinctly.

“Why don’t we go upstairs and fuck?” She answered, “Why not? Let’s go!”

That was the beginning and the end of the seduction.

Weonna was born only about a hundred miles away from my birthplace. She had written a little, done some acting, modeled for a while, made some money in real estate. She was an extraordinary piece of construction, with white skin, soft natural blonde hair, freckles, a lot of moles, green eyes, and a voice with the slightest hint of an Irish accent, a hand me down from her mother who was from Ireland. She made me laugh harder than any woman I’ve ever known. She was quick to understand and laughed at me a lot, too. Like my mother and grandmother, she had a sense of the absurd, thought the outrageous, and impose no limits on her imagination. She was amusing, witty, intelligent, eccentric. But she was also troubled. She distrusted people, drank too much, and occasionally used drugs — not hard drugs, but pills. It was spasmodic; she would use them awhile, then swear off them, be clean for a while, then start again, and I’d have to take her to a hospital because it was the only place where she could stop. Still, we had a lot of fun together, and even now I often laugh at what we laughed at then.

Note that Jill had brunette hair and blue eyes.

After this, he tells a story about stealing some pipes with Banner where she refuses to lie to the police for him. He notes, “I thought her disloyalty unbecoming.”

In the next chapter, he talks about Jill’s jealousy and describes a couple of (undoubtedly rare) examples of where he was innocent. Then he gives his side of how they broke up, which is flat-out contradicted by Brando’s assistant.

For several years I saw Weonna off and on and we loved a lot and fought a lot. She was a tough woman and gave as good as she got. She had an unerring sense of how to prick my insecurities and jealousies, and we had ferocious fights. I suppose neither of us was willing or able to change our ways. At our last meeting we stood toe-to-toe and really destroyed each other emotionally. It was a grizzly collision: Weonna, to get back at me because she said I had hurt her, had seduced one of my sons. I didn’t explode. I simply realized it was over and that there was no possibility of anything between us again. After what she did it was impossible to patch it up. I reassured my boy that he should not feel guilty, that what happened had been a maneuver by her to stick a dagger in my heart, and that he had no reason to feel any remorse.

Brando continues with some details about Banner’s later life but it isn’t clear how accurate it is:

For about five years, I didn’t see Weonna, though I thought about her often and from time to time heard news about her: she had moved to New Mexico, had given up acting, had done well in real estate, and had entered law school.

He goes on to talk about them when she returned to Los Angeles. It’s mostly self-serving nonsense. He claims that had she lived, they would have gotten back together.

It is notable that many sources claim she was working for Brando at the end. There is no mention of this.

He ends by claiming that Banner wanted to be buried with her father. I don’t doubt she once said that. But people get this idea that if someone says something once to them that much be The Truth. She didn’t know her father. She wasn’t a practicing Catholic. “Her mother is also dead now, and I’ve often thought of having Weonna’s casket moved so that she can be with her father. I know that one day I’ll do it.” He never did.

Alice Marchak

Alice Marchak was Marlon Brando’s long-time personal assistant. She wrote about the experience in Me and Marlon. She tells a rather different story to Marlon’s but I suspect they can be integrated.

Marlon had asked Jill to marry him. He suggested she pick out a ring. Instead, she opted for a ruby and emerald apple, that he had made for her, which she wore on a gold chain around her neck. Jill chose the apple for sentimental reasons. Marlon affectionately called her “the apple of my eye.”

The engagement was of short duration — the wedding bells would not be ringing.

They were en route to Tahiti via Hawaii with some friends and, as Jill recounted, they were on the balcony of the hotel. There were large waves crashing over the rocks below. Marlon was in a very surly mood; he was trying to antagonize everyone. He picked on her until he got a rise out of her. She uttered something that sent him round the bend. He went for her. He missed her, but not the ruby apple, which he tore from her neck and threw over the balcony into the sea and rocks below.

As far as Jill was concerned, the engagement was broken at that moment. There was no way the jeweled apple could be retrieved from the rocks and the sea. The attack, and loss, naturally upset her. That’s when, she confided, Marlon urged Valium on her. But she had cleaned up her act. She wasn’t going to allow him to control her ever again. And certainly not with drugs, as he had in the past. She decided she had to save herself. She couldn’t go to Tahiti with him. She returned to California. Called me. I applauded her decision. Jill left California. She didn’t say goodbye to anyone. None of her friends would tell Marlon where she was if they knew. Her mother professed not to know where her daughter was. When I spoke to her, she said Jill was saddened by not being able to let me know where she was, but she was afraid that out of loyalty to Marlon, I might tell him. It was a year before I heard of her whereabouts, but I never told Marlon.

A friend of mine, who lived in Santa Fe, had seen her. I never tried to contact Jill directly, but periodically I would call her mother to inquire about her. I wanted her to know I cared.

Jill was away for a few years. Then one day I learned from Marlon she had returned to California. Marlon revealed that a friend had seen her and had invited her to dinner. Marlon dropped in. He didn’t tell me the reception he received, but it must have been cool, because he didn’t see her again or he would have told me. She hadn’t phoned me. I decided I’d give her space and time since it was evident after several weeks that she did not want to resume her relationship with Marlon.

Then she called. We buried the past, but the future was in doubt. She was afraid of a relationship of any kind with Marlon. She had changed, but she realized he hadn’t. And she didn’t know if she was strong enough to withstand a Brando onslaught, or even wanted to prop him up as I had through the years. We’d stay in touch. After we terminated the call, I realized I failed to obtain her telephone number.

Marlon and I were leaving for Tahiti, Tetiaroa, for the summer. I promised myself I would call Jill upon my return. I wanted to see her again, have one of our enjoyable lunches. Vacation over, Marlon and I were on the plane en route home and Jill came to mind. It was about an eight-hour flight and during it, she came to mind several times. After the last time she flitted across my mind, I reminded myself I must contact Jill through her mother as soon as I arrived home. The thought had no sooner crossed my mind when Marlon turned to me and just above a whisper confided, “I think I’ll marry Jill. I’m going to call her when we get home.”

Banner died in a car accident before either could call.

Peggy Lipton

In her autobiography, Breathing Out, Peggy Lipton discusses Jill Banner in depth. She describes their meeting in Chapter 11, “The Magic Girl”:

The minute I saw Jill, I was enchanted. I watched her from afar for weeks. ” You have to get to know that girl, ” I kept telling myself.

Jill was my total opposite. I was the nice little Jewish girl with the good girl outfits, neatly turned up pageboy hairdo, and just the right Beret in place. On Jill everything was tight and slinky. Shirts, skirts, and cardigans that strained against her tiny bosom. Her skin was translucent. Her hair was black, her eyes cobalt blue. She was the most enigmatic, strange, mystical, magical, scary, wonderful person I’d ever seen, and, no matter what it took, I had to get to know her.

Jill would slink around like a cat, slithering between the desks or remaining completely still to observe someone making a complete fool of themselves. She had long cat fingers and long cat nails and a tiny, pouty mouth. She “oozed” Brigitte Bardot. She was meticulous about her appearance. No creases or stains over her clothes and her thick bangs were combed long and smooth enough to hide the expression in her eyes. She’d only let you see what she wanted you to see. She didn’t fidget. Everything about her was in slow motion, which fascinated me. I watched her with awe, wondering how I would ever get to know her.

Finally one day I made the approach. I was unbearably shy in most ways, but if I really wanted something, I could psych myself up to go after it. Outside in the cafeteria area, I saw Jill methodically unwrapping her sandwich so not one morsel of food would soil her impossibly glamorous fingernails. When I got my nerve, I asked her if I could have a bite of her sandwich. She said nothing, seductively putting the whole half in my mouth and watching me chew. Her finger caught a little mayonnaise on its tip and the next thing I knew she put it between my lips for me to lick off. She looked at me mischievously with her penetrating blue eyes. She was testing me; these were girls’ initiation rights. We laughed and she began talking to me, which, for Jill, was a big deal.

Lipton tells a few stories to show how Jill tested her. She also says that Jill was 16. But Lipton was 17 when she started at Hollywood Professional School. And she was only two months older than Banner, so I assume Banner was also 17. (She also later says it is 1963, so that tracks.)

In Chapter 12, “Enter Earl,” Lipton brings up the subject of sex via a 50-something war correspondent who Jill and she hung out with after school. It does not seem that Jill was sexually involved with him.

Jill and Earl were like characters in a movie. It was as if they had invented themselves. Jill seemed to come from nowhere. She had no father. No sisters. No brothers. She lived with her mother, but in all the years we were friends, I never met her mother or even talked to her. They came from Iowa farm country and her real name was Mary Kay — that was all I knew. That’s all I ever knew. The fact that we were so different from each other in our looks, our backgrounds, and our personalities had a profound magnetic pool on our relationship.

We became best friends. Every day after school, the two of us took our positions on Earl’s ratty couch. Her head on one end and my head on the other, our legs intertwined, drinking Coke and smoking cigarettes, petting the cats, and just fantasizing about our lives.

In Chapter 17, “We’ve Got a Ticket to Ride,” the two (with Earl’s help) try to meet The Beatles. But Peggy had to take the lead because Jill got cast in Spider Baby. She screwed things up for Jill but did end up meeting and sleeping with Paul McCartney. This seems to have caused a break in Jill and Peggy’s relationship, which lasted for about a year.

There is one story about Jill protecting Peggy from an abusive ex-boyfriend. And then Jill is never mentioned again except in passing at the end of the book related to an event in 1997, “I didn’t have Jill in my life anymore — she had died in a car crash in 1982, while living with Marlon Brando.” The fact that she’s wrong about Jill living with Brando shows their relationship was over long before Jill’s death.

Image of Jill Banner taken from Find a Grave. Licensed under Fair Use.

Toward a Definition of Psychotronic Film 2: Content

The Dead Next Door - Head Biting Fingers - Toward a Definition of Psychotronic Film 2: Content

In my last article on this subject, Toward a Definition of Psychotronic Film, I discussed what I considered the three different kinds of psychotronic films: true, independent, and Hollywood. In this article, I want to discuss the importance of content in psychotronic film, because more and more, I think that’s probably the most important aspect of what makes a film psychotronic.

Psychotronic Film Is Not Static

A good example of this is Charlie Kaufman’s amazing film Synecdoche, New York. Most people would call it an art film. And in a sense it is. But it is also a horror film of the most unique variety. And it is a psychotronic film. It’s just that it is so much a psychotronic film — so far ahead of its time — that most people miss it. Most people don’t understand that it is a series of horrors one after the other — everything that terrified Kaufman. And that didn’t include zombies, because let’s face it: zombies really aren’t frightening anymore; they’re funny.

By saying that zombies aren’t frightening anymore is not to put down zombie pictures. They too are usually psychotronic films — and some of the most fun films around — Night of the Living Dead (1990) is one of my all time favorite films. (I would not classify The Walking Dead as psychotronic; it’s slickly produced melodrama; not that melodrama can’t be psychotronic; see, for example, Ed Wood’s quite good Jail Bait.)

There is a shocking experience that every serious psychotronic film fan goes through. You’ve finally got to the point of paying the unwarrented price for The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film. At last, it is in your hot little hands — the Bible! And you leaf through it to find this:

The Shaggy Dog

That’s right, according to the psychotronic film bible, the family-friendly, barely science fiction Disney comedy The Shaggy Dog (1959) was a psychotronic film.

Really?!

I’m not putting down The Shaggy Dog. I love all those old formulaic Disney films like The Love Bug, Now You See Him, Now You Don’t, and Return from Witch Mountain. I’ve seriously considered calling The Cat From Outer Space a psychotronic film. These are all wonderful films that everyone should force their children to watch.

But psychotronic? Not if the term is to mean anything at all.

As I discussed in the previous article, films that most people would consider psychotronic — Dracula (1931), for example — do not fit with Michael Weldon’s own definition in his grand opus.

But if Dracula and Bride of Frankenstein are not a psychotronic films, the genre doesn’t mean much.

What Psychotronic Fans Like

The kind of people who have seen Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! a dozen times will also enjoy The Hired Hand.

Yes, they are very different films. Yet there is something that binds them together. What that is I can’t yet say. But I do know that it says something about psychotronic fans. Things in films that other people hate, they love.

Personally, I find most conventional films boring. There’s nothing new — no surprises. What they offer me is professionalism, and in some cases, that’s great. But usually, it’s just movie-making by the numbers. A typical Hollywood film is professional, consistent, reassuring.

What I take away from Pablo Casals’ idea of focusing on the good in art is that the thrilling moments vastly outweigh the supposed bad parts. In other words, consistency is not all that important — certainly not when that consistency is mediocrity.

A good example of brilliant inconsistency (although there are so many) is The Dead Next Door (1989). I love JR Bookwalter — I love his cinematic sensibility. But I see that almost everything he’s done is uneven. Still, in The Dead Next Door, I was thrilled that zombies don’t die when you cut off their heads (Why would they?!) and that a character is killed by a zombie shortly after he cut its head off.

This is one of those moments that I would sit through multiple Michael (The Worst Director of All Time™) Bay films for. And there is much more to love than that scene in The Dead Next Door.

Content Really Matters

But regardless of my more theoretical considerations, I’ve begun to think that what really defines a psychotronic film is the content of the films. And that was always a big part how people defined the genre: films about bikers or monsters or women running around naked or The Man getting his just deserts and so on.

Freaking the Squares

There is a feeling in psychotronic film of empowerment of the outsider and of giving the mainstream middle-class world the finger. Psychotronic film is, perhaps above all, dangerous.

To put it in the vernacular of the 1960s, psychotronic films are ones that freak out (Night of the Living Dead (1968)) and confuse (Scanners (1981)) the squares.

I’m not suggesting idiosyncratic or niche content makes a film psychotronic. I still haven’t seen The Room (2003), but even though it seems like it falls under the idiosyncratic category, it looks like it was intended to be a standard film, simply one written, produced, directed, and starring a clinically narcissistic man.

A psychotronic film wants to be a psychotronic film. And that usually begins with the very idea for the film.

Psychotronic Film: Step-by-Step, Inch-by-Inch

But we are still left with psychotronic films being defined largely as obscenity, “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it!”

Still, the effort goes on. And I believe we will come to a definition. But it will never be so clear that there won’t be fights about whether this or that film qualifies. But I think even today with no suitable definition, psychotronic fans would agree 95 percent of the time.

And I don’t believe anyone really thinks that The Shaggy Dog is a psychotronic film.

Zombie Head Biting Fingers cropped and enhanced from frame of The Dead Next Door. Licensed under Fair Use. The Shaggy Dog still taken from Movies Unlimited, which is probably a publicity photo used without permission that I am using under Fair Use.