Flicks: WUSA (1970)

Banned for 40 years w/no jugs in a movie that takes place in Nawlins? The terrorists have won.

Tonight on the Sleaze Blender: we feature WUSA (1970) a movie so controversial, so inflamatory, that since it's release in 1970 it's been "grey-listed". That is to say after being ran out of the same theaters that featured Tootsie and Deep Throat - WUSA hasn't been officially released on Laser Disc, VHS, DVD or Blu-Ray for the home entertainment market as of 2010^[0]. WUSA is only available for limited previewing at Youtube.

The film stars Paul Newman and Anthony Perkins in each actor's top form. WUSA was written by a best-selling author and helmed by Stuart Rosenberg the director of Cool Hand Luke (1967) - so why the ban?

To explain, Paramount's late 1960's and 1970's endeavors were to make more "personal" films. The studio financed "outsider" directors/writers whose pictures were shot outside of Hollerwood in an effort to re-connect with the American movie going public.

In 1970, Paramount brass chose director Stuart Rosenberg, whose Cool Hand Luke (1967) had achieved commercial and critical fame for Paramount. Rosenberg's job was to simply direct a dark political thriller set in New Orleans with some of the grit employed in Cool Hand Luke. The screenplay for WUSA was written by Robert Stone (author of Dog Soldiers and a Viet Nam war correspondent) whose book Hall of Mirrors, WUSA would be adapted from. It seemed like nothing could go wrong.

Much to Paramount's disappointment the result was WUSA: starring rage, racism, radio and cold, hard reality. WUSA was not exactly what the Easy Rider (1969) crowd was ready for. WUSA is a gut-wrenching portrait of social chaos set in the Big Sleazy of New Orleans, USA. Upon release, the film was promptly ripped to ribbons by shocked contemporary reviewers^[1] and failed to find an audience. Today, WUSA clearly rumbles and simmers with heartbreak and injustice that unwillingly became part of American consciousness in the late 1960's with the assassination of JFK and MLK and the war in Viet Nam.

Paul Newman stars as Rheinhardt - a washed up musician turned talk radio mouth piece. After being hand picked by Boss Bingamon (perennial character actor Pat Hingle) the CEO of a right-wing WUSA radio station Rheinhardt is promoted with words to the effect of "Whut is all these nee-gras doin' in mah city, Luke?". As the perpetual burnt out drunk, Rheinhardt dejectedly agrees and files away this verbal gem to polish into his own special brand of venomous hate-mongering on-air at America's Station: WUSA.

Rainey, played in brilliant form by co-star Anthony Perkins^[2] is a counter-point to his friend Rheinhardt. Rainey serves as what Stone by way of dialogue calls "the voice of Christian conscience". Tortured by the lack of morality or sanity in the Big Sleazy writer Stone puts a gun in Rainey's hands as he declares his intention to assassinate the CEO of WUSA, big Boss Bingamon.

Some gems of dialogue from the film include:

Random priest to Rheinhardt: "Gospel group? Man, they're stoned directly outta their minds!"

Rheinhardt to panicked crowd: "When we drop our bombs on gibbering slants - it's a bomb made out of love. The American way is innocence."

Rheinhardt to panicked crowd: "In America, our shoulders are wide...and sweaty. But our breath is sweet."

WUSA resonates and jolts as Rainey visits the gutters of New Orleans where life is a cheap one-way trip into a dark alley. Rainey confronts the Good Ol' Boys where they live with their crimes (debating the nature of fear in his characteristic brittle and overwhelming certainty) to absolute wretchedness as Rheinhardt, momentarily setting down his breakfast beer, shrugs off the news that his prostitute girlfriend Geraldine has hung herself in County jail.

During the climactic final act of the movie, a riot rages outside the New Orleans Convention Center, much as the Chicago Democratic Convention did in 1968, while the pretense of righteous jubilation overcomes the crowd inside. All the while, WUSA's trained cobra Rheinhardt, who could easily be substituted with a modern Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly (who all started as right-wing radio stars!), reminds the crowd of their "Loyalty Oathes" to their country and that they must strive for "Faith, flag and future." The crowd, whom Rheinhardt has described only minutes before as "...the only beast in the arena.", is in a triumphant state that can only be described as orgiastic, patriotic ecstasy.

At a "When The West Was Wild" gun fight is staged for the Convention Center crowd's amusement ("An important cultural tradition in America!" insists Boss Bingamon) Rainey takes aim and begins to fire a pistol at the WUSA leadership missing Bingamon completely but killing an aide and seriously wounding a 10-gallon hat. Chaos ensues.

Except for some typically awkward 70's style folkie score the movie is nearly pitch perfect. Four skulls outta four for WUSA!


Notes:
[0] = The Ol' Sleaze-A-Saurus found a bootleg DVD site calling itself "Loving Classics" that MAY or MAY NOT send you a copy of WUSA for $15 smackarinos. Caveat Empor, manlings.
[1] = New York Time film reviwers are known for being notoriouslly off the mark. The official and original review of WUSA by Roger Greenspan from November of 1970 described WUSA as " Lacking either the grace of art of the vitality of guerrilla theater, it can offer only the coarsest nourishment—and only to the elaborately self-deceived". Wow, are you sure you aren't describing your own movie review, manling?!
[2] = Sadly, Anthony Perkin's widow, Berry Berenson, was killed when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the WTC during the September 11^th attacks in 2001. Berry died just one day before the ninth anniversary of his death.

References:
IMDB, WUSA (1970)
Wikipedia, WUSA (film)
Movieposter.com, WUSA Stills and Posters

WUSA memorabila is available at:

Flicks: Trip With The Teacher (1975)

Even in 1975, the irony of this title was not always lost the stoner crowd.

Trip With Teacher (aka Deadly Field Trip) is Helter Skelter meets The Hills Have Eyes shot on a shoe string budget by Earl Barton. The 1975 rape-revenge film stars Zalman King as the main heavy Al the Biker. In another two decades, the same Zalman King would direct The Red Shoe Diaries (1992) and become a millionaire after adapting the film into a softcore simul-sex cable television series. However, in the post-Summer of Love year of 1975, Zalman King was a struggling nobody cast as a sweaty, begoggled biker and part-time Rapist.


OK, my motivation is: I haven't had an acting gig since 1963? Got it!

Trip With Teacher features four teen-age students and their big-legged teacher encountering crazed motorcycle thugs in the Rape Mountain Range of Western Utah. After dispatching the sole male of the group zaniness ensues as the females are preyed upon in a remote cabin.


The most creative split-screen? Shot was in a 1975 b-movie of course ...

Never fear ye restless manlings, for, after aun unlikely change of heart among one of the rapacious bikers the remaining females are eventually rescued. At the end of the picture there are toothy smiles all around and a lesson well learned: never ask anyone who owns a secluded cabin up on Rape Mountain for a lift anywhere!

One skull outta a possible four.



References:
IMDB, Trip With Teacher (1975)
Wikipedia, Trip With Teacher
House of Self-Indulgence, Whatta Trip! OR Goodgirls Don't Play w/Dead Things

Trip With Teacher is available at:

Flicks: Pandorum (2009)

In space, no one can hear you scream but everyone can see you pee your long johns.

The US/German co-production of Pandorum is a stand-out survival horror film set in deep space. The movie incorporates the best elements of Aliens 3, Event Horizon, Resident Evil, Red Planet and even uglier versions of John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars baddies^[0]. Writer Travis Milloy crafts a tense and chilling tale of a futuristic space Ark under attack in the darkness and in danger of total annihilation.

Randy Quaid, as Lt. Payton, anchors a colonization ship sent to the distant Earth-like planet of Tannis. The Elysium is en route on it's 123-year voyage from the pollution ravaged Earth and carries thousands of crew, personnel and civilians placed aboard in hyper-sleep to await their rotation to guide the ship to their new distant home.


Oh, snap - did dat sound like a Golden Marmaset to you?

Problems unfold in a well-paced and methodical plot as many of these interpid voyagers become warm brunch for a pack of ravenous, cannibalistic non-humans. The movie's FX, both make-up and post-production, add an eerie super-human quality to the ferocious cannibals as they hunt Ben Foster^[1] and beautiful German actress Antje Traue in the vast steel caverns of the Elysium.

In applying classic Stanislawsky Method Acting to a film script using interior versus exterior tension Milloy's screenplay's namesake comes from a unique type of space madness that derails the colonists. This illness is referred to euphemistically as Pandorum aka Orbital Dysfunction Syndrome (O.D.S.). Pandorum is paranoid dementia accompanied by profuse bleeding from the face followed by sudden homicidal or suicidal outbursts. This just what a space traveler needs when he's cooped up for 123 years: mouthy, violent space idjits.

This psychological aspect of the film attacks the crews' senses and psyches as they desperately evade and combat the cannibals.


FACT: Actress Antje Traue was frankensteined from the flawless face of Carrie Anne Moss and body of Kate Beckinsale.

The movie is very good but has some failings that occur in the very end that make for a bumpy ride. These twists may have been designed to get nervous teen-agers attention away from their cell-phones, feel copping or Twizzler buckets but make for some rough viewing by anyone not multi-tasking at the Multiplex with Mustang Sally.

The writing, acting and production are all very compelling with a stand-out performance by Ben Foster and supporting actors Eddie Rouse and Cung Le.

Notes:
[0] = The Sleaze-A-Saurus freely offers you points for a forced viewing of Ghosts of Mars, scaleless manlings... Ice Cube as an interstellar Boy From The Hood and the chick from Species as a tougher than nails space cop kinda sunk any chances that Carpenter's script ever had.
[1] = Ben Foster's previous experience included a walk-on in X-Men 3 and a role in the truly unwatchable 30 Days Of Night. The latter of which he played a bearded vampire groupie only known as "The Stranger".



References:
IMDB, Pandorum (2009)
Burn All Zombies!, Screamin' Through Space
Midnight Movie, How I Survived Space Cooties by Jorge Borenstein
Scheckie's Space Depot, Pandorum Wallpaper

Pandorum is available at:

Flicks: Man Hunt (1941)

Say, Sarge? What does that Tojo guy look like again?

Ex-Deutschlander director Fritz Lang (who made Metropolis in 1926 in a post-WWI Berlin) takes aim at Der Fuerher in the opening minutes of pre-WWII Man Hunt in American theaters. Walter Pidgeon stars as Canadian (!) thrill-seeking playboy and big game hunter Capt. Alan Thorndike. The Cap'n's noble efforts to decapitate National Socialism go awry when he's caught red-handed at Hitler's Bavarian hide-away with his trusty rifle in hand.

From there Thorndike, who is hastily referred to as "Eastern Canadian" but speaks with a native New Englander accent, is then gleefully tortured by the Nutzis. Despite facing top men in the field of vigorous interogation Thorndike refuses to implicate the English (er...Canadian?) government for his solo assassination attempt.

After escaping from certain death at the hands of the torture-happy Gestapo, Thorndike, eludes a sadistic game of cat-and-mouse with a Nutzi Major and finds safe passage to England aboard a Dutch freighter with 9-year old cabin boy and amateur Nazi hater Roddy McDowell. McDowell, who passed away in 1998, would later go on to star in Planet of the Apes in another 30 years. However, in Manhunt, he's a precocious English kid with a goofy smile and a keen knack for remembering lines.

After parting ways with McDowell, Capt. Thorndike flees to London with unlikely German assassin John Carradine (Grapes of Wrath) hot on his heels. Thorndike encounters the mouth-watering Joan Bennett (who also starred in Lang's Scarlet Street and The Woman in the Window) as the lovely British ingénue Jerri Stokes. The plucky Jerri attempts to aid Thorndike in eluding Carradine and his Nutzi minions in the foggy streets of old London town.


Joan Bennett in the make up chair during production of 1950's Green Hell.

The Sleaze-A-Saurus's sense of propriety demands that Joan Bennett's haunted beauty be noted. As one of the most understated beauties of 1940's American cinema, there were never a pair of more lovely, wounded eyes or a more perfect porcelain face than the luscious Joan Bennett at her cinematic peak. Her own early motivations to become an actress began as simply a way to upstage her far less attractive sister Constance Bennett. Constance herself starred in serials and minor features in the 1930's.

Joan Bennett, as Jerri, for all her heroic efforts at aiding Thordike is eventually captured and killed by guffawing Nazi henchmen. This leaves Thorndike, in the closing scene of Manhunt, to return to his quarry by parachuting bravely into Nazi Germany with his trusty rifle tucked under his arm and a stern expression on his face - this time to finish what he started.

Manhunt is interesting due to America's official neutrality regarding Hitler at the time. Manhunt was released just 6 months prior to the Axis attack at Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. Fritz Lang's insight into his audiences' growing (but unofficial) outrage over a brash little tyrant conquering the Old World of Europe resonated in theaters in June of 1941 when Man Hunt hit the silver screen with a bang.



References:
IMDB, Man Hunt
IMDB, Fritz Lang
Wikipedia, Man Hunt (1941)
Wikipedia, Joan Bennett

Fritz Lang Movies are available at: