Webb Wilder, Detective and Hillbilly Noir Roots Rocker!

Whether you call him “The Last of the Full-Grown Men,” “The Idol of Idle Youth,” or an electrifying roots-rocker with a talent for deadpan comedy, Webb Wilder is The Man! We of Team Bartilucci first discovered him in 1990; how fitting that we became his fans at the beginning of a brand new decade! It all started when I noticed a TV Guide listing for A&E’s Shortstories series, with its self-proclaimed “award-winning short films from around the world.” One of the shorts that day was a 1984 film, Webb Wilder, Private Eye, a.k.a The Saucer’s Reign, written and directed by one Stephen Mims at the University of Mississippi, from a story by Mims and Robert Field. I’d never heard of it, but since I’m a sucker for any kind of detective story, and since Vinnie and I had some free time, we watched it. We were hooked from the very first scene. A lanky, bespectacled young man looks us viewers in the eye. He wears a hat looking like a fedora and a Stetson fell in love and had a baby. As he addresses us in the audience, he’s illuminated by beams of light, camera right, looking all film noir-ish in glorious black-and-white. In a sepulchral yet hilarious deadpan Southern twang that brought to mind a thin young Southern-fried Alfred Hitchcock, he tells us viewers, “I’m like that Greek hobo with the limp. You know, the one who went from Hades to Yugo-Slovakia lookin’ for an honest man. Well, I got my own quest. What it is, is I’m lookin’ for the dishonest man. I am — Webb Wilder, Private Eye.”

“Urgent,” it said. But it wasn’t the same “Urgent” as the one on all my bills…".

After a fast-paced, rockabilly-scored credit sequence in which we see Webb’s dance moves (kind of like an amazingly cool spastic dancing the Frug) and his skills at running up and down stairs while brandishing a gun, we slide on into the case of The Saucer’s Reign. In voiceover like any noir film (parody) worth its salt, our hero is retained for “fifty bucks a day,” and opts to “drop…my current case,” after which we see Webb exiting a JC Penney in security guard garb. Webb’s off to Wakefield, Mississippi with his autographed Slim Whitman photo. His client is small-town postmaster Hiwayne Suggs (Roger Brinegar), who lives in “a one-chiropractor town that seemed peaceful enough. But an ant bed is peaceful till you step in it.”


Suggs is anxious for Webb to find his mysteriously missing wife, Pristene: “Space critters, Mr. Wilder! They abducted my Sweet Thing!” Webb studies a less-than-flattering photo of Pristene: “I didn’t think even Mars needed women that bad. Pristene Suggs was unvoluptuous.” (I’m pretty sure the photo of Pristene, listed in the credits as “Herself,” is in fact a guy in drag, but you can never be sure in this unpredictable world!) Webb enlists space buff Homer Greenspan (Jimmy Daniels) to help him unravel this caper: “Homer had ‘science fair’ written all over him.” Once Hiwayne blabs on the tiny town’s party line that a UFO might be setting up light housekeeping in Wakefield, Webb and Homer find themselves wading through a sea of reporters, deception, and trailer trash as the abduction stories and media frenzy get even wilder than Webb’s last name.

Stop! In the name of Webb!

By the time it ended, we’d formed our own little Webb Wilder mini-cult around this loopy, compact little gem. We were especially impressed to see co-writer Robert Field (a.k.a. R.S. Field) and Webb himself (formerly John Webb McMurray) composed and performed the film’s hard-rockin’ soundtrack. When A&E rebroadcast The Saucer’s Reign, Vinnie and I recorded it strictly for our own amusement, and showed it to any pals we could rope into being a captive audience, turning them into Webb Wilder fans in the process. If I recall correctly, it also turned up on The USA Network’s Night Flight.

We thought that was the last we’d ever hear of our beloved Webb Wilder until my 29^th birthday in 1992. We were celebrating with friends at the Manhattan branch of the popular Chicago restaurant Ed Debevic’s (anyone know if the NYC restaurant still exists?), including our pal Michael Gingold of Fangoria fame (there’s my name-drop for the day :-)). Our longtime pals Elayne and Steve showed us a then-recent issue of Psychotronic Video featuring a review of an album by Webb Wilder—the band! Apparently, while The Saucer’s Reign had been making the rounds of various TV anthology shows, Webb, R.S., and the rest of the band had formed a rockabilly group—or roots rock, as it’s called nowadays. In fact, they had just released their second album on the Zoo/Praxis label. However, John Webb McMurray had long since begun billing himself exclusively as Webb Wilder. Fine by me; after all, that’s how movie stars Gig Young and Anne Shirley got their stage names!

Before we went home that night, Vinnie and I popped into the Tower Records in Greenwich Village, and I left with two more birthday gifts: the Webb Wilder CDs Hybrid Vigor (1989) and DooDad (1991). Both were (and still are), the awesome, as we say at Team Bartilucci H.Q. We’re no music critics, but we know when a band can rock! Hybrid Vigor includes “Hittin’ Where it Hurts” and Team Bartilucci’s favorite, “Human Cannonball.” Even better, at the time the band had just put out DooDad, which included plenty of songs from their then-new movie, Horror Hayride (HH), whose many kick-butt tracks included “Tough it Out,” “Sittin’ Pretty,” and amazing cover versions of “Baby Please Don’t Go” and “I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night.” Meanwhile, Zoo/Praxis’ video arm released Webb Wilder’s Corn Flicks on VHS (c’mon, you remember VHS!), giving us beaucoup bellylaughs for the buck with three short films, all set in the “swampadelic” South and directed by Steve Mims. Each story was framed by tongue-in-cheek advice to fans by either Webb or Ted Roddy, of Ted Roddy and the Backwoods Hipsters, as Special Agent Travis Byrd, renowned for being “the knuckle end of the long arm of the law” and “cool as an October breeze.” Need I say Vinnie and I caught up on the Webb Wilder CDs we’d missed? (During the summer, “Poolside” from WW’s album It Came From Nashville is in heavy rotation!)

Corn Flicks gives us the delicious feeling that our man Webb is in the middle of a series of his hillbilly noir adventures. My favorite among these great shorts is Horror Hayride, written by Field and Steve Mims. It’s set in Nashville—“Nash Vegas, if you will,” as Webb says in his inimitable voice-over. Mims and Field’s characters and the screenplay’s sly, slightly surreal wit won us over immediately. The film opens with an intriguingly foreboding farm scene that morphs into little Webb finding himself in a close encounter of the spaceman kind. No sooner is Webb startled awake from what turns out to be one of his recurring nightmares about flying saucers than the Governor of Tennessee (Dirk Van Allen) stops Webb’s "Economy with Dignity" tour bus, asking our hero to do him a solid. Seems the Governor’s lovely young daughter Kirsten (Cristina Cassin) has finally graduated from Peabody College, having taken eight years to earn a four-year degree (“Who’s counting?” Webb replies gallantly). Her first job out of school is supervising the state’s new Driver Ed film, also titled Horror Hayride. The Guv wants to make sure the film will be “more relevant to modern rural teens. You know, the muscle-car, street-sign-shootin’ set.” Seems that Webb, “the only man who commands the respect of both reckless teens and the highway patrol,” helped put a rubber stamp truck-driving school out of business, and the Governor owes Webb one. Now he’ll owe Webb two as he agrees to help the Governor and Kirsten. After all, as Webb voiceovers in his pleasantly twangy tones, “The Guv was okay, for an authority figure.”

"We don't do retail, do we, Billy C?"

“We’re gonna have to talk to Billy C.” *POW!*

Singin' songs, fightin' crime; all in a day's work for Webb Wilder and Ted Roddy!

Webb has too much to dream (last night) after Briley slips him an LSD Mickey!

Kirsten’s honey is the enigmatic Briley Parkway (Bodie Plecas) the aspiring film director helming the Driver Ed flick, much to the disgruntlement of Mr. Fry, the apoplectic director of the Driver Ed program (Webb is a hoot as he does double duty as the unbilled Fry). Hiwayne, Parkway, Driver Ed films—Mims and Field have cars on the brain! Judging from Briley’s previous art-house opus, Slugtrail, his vision as an auteur seems to be inspired by both Jean-Luc Godard and William Castle (including a decapitated model head). Webb likes Briley’s work, even if Travis doesn’t; as Webb says, “I gave it a thumb-up. Travis only offered a finger.” But why is Briley making secret visits to porno outfit Antebellum Skin, and why is Kirsten raiding her mama’s trust fund to give Briley $5,000 each week? And how are gospel singer Carlsbad Devereaux (Shane Caldwell) and Webb’s former flame, psychiatrist Dr. Barbara Slovine (Janette Friend-Harris), mixed up in all the “swampadelic, psychotronic” goings-on? Soon Webb and Travis are up to their drawls in trouble, fighting a murderous porno ring whose opuses include The South Will Rise Again and Backstage at The Grand Old Orgy. Along the way, Webb and Travis get to sing an ode to Elvis Presley, “If You Don’t Think Elvis was Number One, You’re Full of Number Two;” as Webb sternly reminds some punks during a party scene at Carlsbad’s palatial home, “If it wasn’t for fat dead ol’ Elvis, there wouldn’t’ve been a Jimi Hendrix or a Peter and Gabriel….” True to the “noir” part of HH’s hillbilly noir, Webb also gets slugged, drugged, and loved as he rekindles his romance with the lovely “Doctor Barbara,” who tries to help Webb with those recurring flying saucer nightmares; I guess he never got over his first case!

Webb's latest opus, Scattergun, at a Webb Fest near you!

The rockin’ rhythms of Webb Wilder the Band work with the tongue-in-cheek detective plot perfectly. Co-writer/director Mims provides lots of atmosphere on a low budget (filming in Nashville helped), and the film’s black-and-white look is like Ansel Adams acting as DP for a Coen Brothers movie (except for one nifty color sequence after Webb is slipped some LSD). The characters take some pleasantly unexpected turns, with acting ranging from sublime (including Webb himself, natch) to amateurish, but that's part of the film’s charm.

The Chicago Tribune called HH “Twin Peaks with MTV thrown in the middle,” but this crazy little caper packs enough humor, plot, and action into its 36-minute running time to give David Lynch and company a run for their money. Being Southerners themselves, writers Field and Mims treat their characters with respect and affection, but they’re not afraid to poke wryly good-natured fun at themselves, as well as pretentious art movies, film noir tropes, and the country-and-Western music biz (Webb: “In Music City, even ugly girls are good-lookin’.”). The witty dialogue sings like Webb himself, and everyone gets at least one show-stealing line, like in this scene between Webb and Travis when Webb comes to after being knocked out by Antebellem Skin henchman Ike (Charles Gunning of Miller’s Crossing and Slacker, among others):

Travis: “So who adjusted your hat size?”
Webb: “Some greasy….I fell.”
Travis: “Right. Maybe next time you’ll trip on a damn .38.”
Webb: “Happens. I’m pretty clumsy.”
Travis: “Just tell me what you want on the tombstone. ‘Rock hard, sleep hard, wear glasses if you need ’em, and die stupid?’ ”

Webb & Dr. Barbara. This case is looking up—at Elvis!

The cast of low-key comic actors does a fine job with Mims and Field’s offbeat sense of humor, and the characters are more complex than you’d expect. Webb has an amazing knack for seeming tough and geeky at the same time (in a good way!) Over the years, we’ve had the pleasure of seeing Webb Wilder live in concert in our area for Musikfest, among other venues. Even all these years later, Webb and the guys keep rocking like nobody’s business, and Webb still has those Wilder-and-wonderful dance moves and that way-cool cavern-voiced delivery. Mims and Director of Photography Brian O’Kelley prove you don’t need a big budget to create atmosphere. HH is shot in glorious black-and-white except for Webb’s LSD hallucination, in psychedelic color with hilariously, endearingly cheesy ChromaKey F/X and color-wheel lighting, accompanied by WW's awesome cover version of The Electric Prunes' "I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)." If you like deadpan comedy, Dragnet, Twin Peaks, and rock ‘n’ roll Southern-style, I think you’re gonna love Horror Hayride!

Aunt Hallie vs. "old nasty disease."

After HH comes the popular festival favorite Aunt Hallie (AH). Written by Mims and Christopher Hammond, made in 1989 and getting acclaim at film festivals since 1991, AH is a comedy for today’s disease-paranoid world. Roger Brinegar of The Saucer’s Reign narrates this loopy spoof of brave disease-sufferers. The titular Aunt Hallie (Mary Gandy) finds a used condom on her lawn one day (*tsk!* Don’t people have any respect for others’ property?) Convinced that touching the condom has infected her with “Old Nasty Disease,” Aunt Hallie stoically and with dignity tries to keep from infecting her long-suffering kin by going to such daft lengths as never touching things if she can possibly avoid them (wait’ll you see what she does just to get up out of a rocking chair), and burning silverware and china cups and dishes identified as hers with Dyno labels; is that recycling, the genteel Southern way? The expressions on Aunt Hallie’s long-suffering relatives’ faces throughout the films are priceless. AH is one of the funniest stories of a self-styled martyr ever told, and well worth getting the DVD for, even if you’re not already a die-hard Webb Wilder fan!

Happily, all of these shorts and more of Steve Mims’ short films are now available on the DVD Webb Wilder’s Amazing B Picture Shorts. WW’s latest film, Scattergun, has been shown at Webb Wilder events; we live for the day it’ll be available on DVD, too. It also includes footage from Webb Fest 2006! Webb Wilder-mania starts here; won’t you help?

Heed the words of Mr. Fry, kids: "Dismemberment is not cute!"

For concert dates, DVDs, and other Webb Wilder-ness, check out the Webb site!
http://www.webbwilder.com

Vinnie Spins a Webb of his own

I have two aphorisms hanging up in my cubicle at work, Doc Savage’s Code and the Webb Wilder Credo (see above). This offers far too much insight into my mindset and philosophy.

As The Wife has said already, Horror Hayride gives you the impression that you’ve been dropped into the middle of a series of adventures, and you either pick it up as you go, or get left behind. It shares that feeling with a film about which I could (and have) go on about for hours, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension. Both films share a vibe of effortless cool, a bevy of mad characters, and a hero who can rock it with the best of them. No wonder that we tried for the longest time to write a fanfic crossover between the two.

The Saucer’s Reign is a solid laugh-fest with an amateurish air, but Horror Hayride shows what a couple years can do for a director and his actors. They had time to flesh out Webb’s history and character as well. In both stories, the cases that Webb takes on are right in line with the Nash-Vegas (if you will) mindset; Webb might be out of his league fighting Russian mobsters, but he’s right at home taking down a blue movie ring. Often, as The Three Amigos learned, it’s when you stray from the formula that things gang aft aglay.

Webb doesn’t come up North too often, but he visited our humble burg two years in a row recently, both at our big local summer event Musikfest, and at the re-opening of a local public pool and park for July Fourth. He’s still the aforementioned Electrifying Artist, and well worth your time in either live, recorded, or cinematic form. Pick up on it.

Encore Presentation of THE DARK CORNER for Lucille Ball's Centennial: You Picked A Fine Time to Meet Me, Lucille

This post is being republished as part of the Loving Lucy Blogathon hosted by True Classics in honor of Lucille Ball's Centennial today, Saturday, August 6th, 2011.

Watch your step—you might trip over a spoiler or two!

At times, 20th Century-Fox’s 1946 thriller The Dark Corner (TDC) plays like a greatest-hits collection of classic 1940s suspense films, but to me, that’s part of its charm. The talents involved include: co-star Clifton Webb, again playing a witty, urbane, snobbish Manhattanite fascinated by a beautiful brunette and her portrait like Laura; The Glass Key’s co-star William Bendix, who’s always fun to watch whether he’s playing a lovable mug or, in this case, a hissable thug; and Laura’s co-screenwriter Jay Dratler, along with Bernard C. Schoenfeld and Leo Rosten of The Joy of Yiddish fame! Indeed, the versatile Rosten wrote TDC’s original 1945 Good Housekeeping serial under the nom de plume Leonard Q. Ross. Ever prolific, Rosten also wrote many other stories, novels, and movie scripts, including two of my favorites, All Through the Night (1941) and Mystery Street (1950). Even the film’s Gershwin-esque opening theme music, a piece by Alfred Newman titled "Manhattan Street Scene," had been used before, in Fox’s first neo-noir thriller I Wake up Screaming (1941). (Fun Fact: Newman's Oscar-winning family of composers includes nephew Randy Newman, another of our household faves!)

TDC’s engaging cast, sharp dialogue, and compelling plot elements work wonderfully under Henry Hathaway’s direction.Critics and audiences agreed that Lucille Ball shines in this early dramatic role of hers, long before I Love Lucy made her a comedy icon. According to both the TCM Web site and the entertaining DVD commentary by film historians Alain Silver and James Ursini, Hathaway was such a tough taskmaster that Ball had a nervous breakdown during the filming. It doesn’t show onscreen in her assured, appealing portrayal of smart, loyal secretary Kathleen Stewart, originally Kathleen Conley in the Good Housekeeping serial (in fact, the DVD’s package copy mistakenly identifies Kathleen’s last name in the film as Conley, not Stewart). Kathleen's falling in love with her P.I. boss, Bradford Galt (no relation to John Galt), and the feeling is mutual.

As Brad, Mark Stevens makes a fine Dick Powell-like transition from musicals to tough-guy parts. Brad’s starting out fresh in New York City after being framed for manslaughter and nearly killed in California by his corrupt ex-partner, lawyer Tony Jardine. As a favor to his Cali colleagues, local cop Lt. Reeves is keeping tabs on Galt to make sure the “impulsive youth” stays out of trouble. In the role of Reeves, fans of the March of Time newsreels will recognize Reed Hadley’s commanding speaking voice; he’s got great screen presence and a formidable air of authority. Nevertheless, it seems Brad’s past is coming back to haunt him. When Brad catches a big lug (Bendix) on his tail wearing a white suit (who does he think he is, Roy Scheider in Last Embrace?), he’s shocked when the guy claims Tony Jardine hired him. The plot thickens as vulnerable but determined Brad sets out to see if Tony’s aiming to finish what he started out west.

"Working conditions are certainly looking up around here." And how!

Meanwhile, on the swankier side of the city, art dealer/collector Hardy Cathcart (Clifton Webb) drums up business for his posh art gallery and celebrates his third wedding anniversary at an elegant party for about a hundred of his closest friends and loved ones, including his beautiful young wife, Mari (Cathy Downs, who played the title role in My Darling Clementine and became the future wife of The Amazing Colossal Man). Hardy jokes that as a couple, Mari and Hardy are “the perfect picture of Beauty and the Beast,” though Mari charmingly disagrees. A close friend of the Cathcarts joins the celebration—none other than Tony Jardine himself (Kurt Kreuger, who excelled at playing smooth-talking Nazis and other shady Continental types), who’s apparently moved his law practice to The Big Apple! But Tony himself is still a bad apple, seducing and blackmailing vulnerable women of means.

"Beauty" Mari & "Beast" Hardy celebrate their 3rd anniversary. Tradition says leather is the gift of choice. Who'd have thought the Cathcarts were into leather?

We also find that Hardy’s burning love for Mari is like his passion for his paintings; he sees her and everything in his lavish home as treasured possessions. “I never want you to grow up,” Hardy coos to Mari as they waltz at the party. “You should remain ageless, like a Madonna, who lives and breathes and smiles, and belongs to me.” How’s that for an unsettling bit of sweet talk? Later, Hardy proudly unveils his newest acquisition, a painting he’s been obsessed with for years: a 19th-century portrait of a woman who bears a striking resemblance to Mari. It’s no coincidence: Hardy admits that when he met Mari after coveting the portrait for so long, “I felt as if I had always known her—and wanted her.” Although Hardy keeps Mari in the lap of luxury, the novelty of this marriage-cum-ownership is wearing off for his restless young wife. She and Hardy even have separate bedrooms (what did she expect with Clifton Webb and the Production Code?). No wonder Mari has the hots for Tony, unaware he’s a blackmailing gigolo. The script and Downs’s portrayal show Mari in a sympathetic light throughout TDC.  At a rendezvous with Tony at his luxe bachelor pad, Mari tells him, “Tony, I tried. I made a bad bargain, and I tried to stick it out with him, but I just keep sitting, listening to his paintings crack with age.” With the conflicting emotions flitting across Tony’s face as Mari gets more insistent that they run away together, we viewers can almost hear him thinking, “What about my career? How will I keep my seduction-and-extortion racket going after she dumps her rich husband to marry me?”  But that’s the least of their problems when these worlds of high society and low crime finally collide, as Hardy uses trickery and White Suit’s strong-arm tactics to fit Brad for a frame and Tony for a pine box.

"Whaddaya mean musical stars
can't play tough guys?!"

To complicate matters further, Brad can be his own worst enemy at times, especially since Tony’s near-fatal double-cross shook Brad’s confidence in himself, leaving him prone to drinking and despair. Good thing Kathleen always thinks on her feet when trouble rears its nasty head. She has a knack for dragging Brad out of his periodic pity parties and helping him focus on clearing himself while also rebuilding his shattered confidence. If you ask me, Kathleen is underpaid! The chemistry between Ball and Stevens deliciously blends banter, tenderness, and sexual smolder. Though Kathleen deftly keeps Brad from going all the way because she “plays for keeps,” the lovebirds still get into some pretty hot kissing, especially in a great scene showing the couple reflected in a mirror as they embrace.



A murder frame-up is no laughing matter to Lucille Ball and Mark Stevens


I like the whole “haves” vs. “have-nots” element running through TDC, with little details like the running gag about Brad scoring nylon stockings for Kathleen, and the crucial clue Brad gets from the slide-whistle-playing urchin (the uncredited Colleen Alpaugh) in White Suit’s building. Keep an eye out for two other uncredited but memorable character actors: Minerva Urecal, best known to Team Bartilucci as Mother in the 1960 season of TV's Peter Gunn and the harridan who gets briefly turned to stone in The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), playing one of Brad’s clients; and Douglas Spencer of The Thing from Another World as one of several deli customers gawking as Brad almost becomes a hit-and-run victim. In one scene between Hardy and White Suit, there’s this highbrow-to-lowbrow translation that always cracks me up as Hardy instructs White Suit to phone Brad and trick him into a deadly rendezvous:

Hardy (whispering to White Suit):
“Tell him you need two-hundred dollars to leave town.”

White Suit (to Brad on phone):
“I need two yards, powder money!”

If White Suit thinks he'll be living
The Life of Riley, he's got another think coming!

Getting back to clues, I love that something as prosaic as dry cleaning helps our heroes crack the case!  Another nice bit: Brad is dropping Kathleen off at the movies near his apartment, where he’s going to face off with White Suit. Worried, Kathleen pouts, “I never thought I’d have to beg you to take me up to your apartment.” Brad replies, with a grin, “You’ve been there...” The box office gal (Mary Field from Dark Passage and Ball of Fire, though she's an uncredited scene-stealer here) has the most priceless look on her face as she strains to hear the rest of the conversation!

TDC has plenty of superb writing and acting woven skillfully through the film noir tropes. I particularly liked this wonderful emotional scene between Hardy and Mari a little over an hour into the film, in which the couple talks around their marital situation in that “friend of a friend” way. Hardy reveals that Tony (who’s been murdered by now, unbeknownst to Mari, who’d planned to run off with Tony that very night), has been dallying with rich women, including Lucy Wilding (Molly Lamont from The Awful Truth and Scared to Death), who we (but not Mari) saw Tony blackmailing earlier. Mari doesn’t want to hear it:

Mari (near tears): “It’s not true! He’s always loathed her.”
Hardy: “He loathed her rather intimately, I’m afraid.”
Mari: “But he couldn’t! I mean, she’s too old for him.”

The distraught Mari rushes off to her bed, her figure shown off lusciously yet tastefully by the light shining through her filmy negligee (thanks to ace Director of Photography Joe MacDonald, amping up the moody film noir feel with his beautifully stark use of shadows and light) as she slips under the covers. Hardy’s expression is both cold and wounded. “Love is not the exclusive province of adolescents, my dear,” he says quietly. “It’s a heart ailment that strikes all age groups, like my love for you. My love for you is the only malady I’ve contracted since the usual childhood diseases—and it’s incurable.”

There’s a bracing street feeling to TDC’s periodic outbursts of brutal-for-the-era violence. None of this Marquis of Queensbury rules stuff—the combatants really clobber each other! Even Hardy commits a murder so sudden and shocking that I gasped in spite of myself. White Suit’s ambush in Brad’s apartment even has a touch of (unintentional?) humor; watch William Bendix’s head, and you'll see his toupee come loose, hanging onto his scalp by a thread!

The film was shot in both NYC and L.A., but it all looks convincingly like Manhattan. The NYC second-unit work is especially good, including shots of the Third Avenue El and an exciting car chase. In addition to the nifty commentary track, the DVD’s extras include swell vintage trailers for TDC and other Fox crime flicks. If you love films noir but don't have time to sit down and give all your favorites your undivided attention, watching TDC is the next best thing!

Happy Anniversary, You Things from Another World, You!

This review is part of the 50's Monster Mash Blogathon hosted by Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear. The blogathon runs from July 28th through August 2nd. Join our Fearless Leader Nathanael Hood and thrill to the astounding monster blog posts—and don't forget to leave comments for one and all! :-)

Dorian's Pick: The Thing from Another World (1951)

Happy 60th Anniversary, You Thing from Another World, You!

Director/producer Howard Hawks was a deft genre chameleon with 47 films to his credit, including the uncredited The Outlaw, Corvette K-225, Viva Villa!, The Prizefighter and the Lady, The Criminal Code, and my half of Team Bartilucci’s 1950s Monster Mash double-feature, The Thing from Another World (1951). Since we’re only discussing the original film here and not John Carpenter’s 1982 remake (which is equally superb and follows source author John W. Campbell Jr.’s tale more closely), let’s just call it The Thing…. from here on in, shall we? The director’s credit is given to Hawks’ editor Christian Nyby, but the action and banter is pure Hawks. As noted by Jon C. Hopwood in the IMDb and Lang Thompson and Jeff Stafford's TCM article, Hawks was reportedly on the set everyday as the producer, and the film bears his “auteurist” stamp. Still, talk about versatility; Hawks could do it all! His films ranged from comedies (Twentieth Century, Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday), adventure (Only Angels Have Wings, To Have and Have Not), westerns (Red River, Rio Bravo), mysteries (The Big Sleep) and even musicals (A Song is Born, the 1948 Danny Kaye/Virginia Mayo musical remake of Hawks’ 1941 comedy classic, Ball of Fire).

To arms, to arms! Uh, make that one arm….|

Over the strains of composer Dimitri Tiomkin’s beautifully eerie combo of brass and Theremin, our story begins at the Officers’ Club in Anchorage, Alaska, where Air Force Captain Pat Hendry (Kenneth Tobey), Lt. Eddie Dykes (James Young), and Lt. Ken “Mac” MacPherson (Robert Nichols, best known and loved by Team Bartilucci as Joe Wilson in This Island Earth. Read fellow blogger Caftan Woman's blog about it at http://caftanwoman.blogspot.com/) get wind of a big brouhaha going down at the North Pole. “Botanists, physicists, electronics,” Mac says. “Including a pin-up girl,” Eddie adds mischievously, “a very interesting type.” That would be Pat’s ex, the swift, smart, beautiful “Nikki” Nicholson, played by one of my favorite Hawks women, Margaret Sheridan. Raven-haired Nikki is the secretary to Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite from Colossus: The Forbin Project, among other films and TV shows), the leader of the aforementioned scientific brouhaha.

Those cute plants live on human blood? You bet your life!

General Fogerty (David McMahon) wants Pat, Mac, and Eddie to investigate a discovery at the North Pole at the request of Dr. Carrington and his scientific team. You’ll know the voices of the uncredited actors playing Doctors Vorhees, Chapman, and Redding, even if you don’t know their names: they are, in the above order, voiceover artist Paul Frees; John Dierkes, whose roles include the preacher in X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes; and George Fenneman of You Bet Your Life fame!
Newspaper reporter Ned “Scotty” Scott has been looking for a story to cover. In fact, he’s ready, willing, and able to fly all the way to the North Pole in hopes of getting an exclusive. Pat, Mac, and Eddie are fine with bringing Scotty along for the ride. Ever the newshound, he’s eager for a scoop: “I gotta get a story someplace!” Well, Scotty, be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it! Douglas Spencer, one of Team Bartilucci’s favorite—and all too often uncredited—character actors, steals his scenes as Scotty with his sharp wit and gangling presence. His many film and TV roles included parts in Double Indemnity, The Dark Corner, This Island Earth, and most notably, The Lost Weekend (in fact, Spencer was Ray Milland’s stunt double in many films). Thinning hair notwithstanding, Spencer was kinda like the Jeff Goldblum of his day, presence-wise. (As a Jeff Goldblum fan, I assure you I think that’s a good thing.) Poor Scotty may not always get a break or a picture, but he’s wonderful wiseass comedy relief, and he ends up redeeming himself nicely with his classic “Keep watching the skies” broadcast, not to get ahead of myself!

When the men reach the North Pole, they’re greeted not by Santa Claus, but a humungous all-but-submerged crashed aircraft that looks an awful lot like a flying saucer. Our intrepid heroes figure on using a thermite bomb to haul that spaceship outta there, but to their astonishment, the ship actually burns beneath the ice, then explodes. So much for subtlety! But our boys won’t be leaving empty-handed: there’s a great big humanoid creature (James Arness, before Them! and Gunsmoke made him a star) for them to take back as a souvenir to their base camp, Polar Expedition Six.

When it comes to Nikki, Pat’s hands are tied!

We soon find out the romance between Nikki and Pat had hit a speed bump after Pat had a few drinks too many. As Nikki says, chuckling, he’d “had moments of kind of making like an octopus.” This revelation eventually results in one of the film’s funniest, sexiest bits of comedy relief when they agree on “starting over again.” See, screen couples don’t always have to get naked to be sexy—just as well, considering The Thing’s North Pole location! What I love about the romance between Pat and Nikki is that their relationship is grownup yet playful, in the classic Hawks way. No soap-opera nonsense stops the story or mood in their tracks; instead, they flow into the scene offhandedly, making Nikki and Pat’s relationship feel more natural.

Ah, but our movie is called The Thing from Another World and not, say, Baby, It’s Cold Outside, so romance goes on the back burner when the rough Arctic weather cuts the base off from communication with the outside world, though our heroes keep trying to send messages, hoping others get through. Meanwhile, Mac and other poor schlubs who have to stand watch over their Swanson Frozen Alien are feeling progressively more spooked, swearing it looks like the creature’s eyes are moving. Soon our heroes learn the hard way that if you’re standing guard over a thawing alien who’s bigger and scarier than you are, don’t make the mistake Corporal Barnes (William Self) made, getting too caught up reading a book while the evil alien was defrosting. “A gun’s no good” is probably one of the scariest phrases to hear when a monster is on the loose! By the way, in real life, William Self went on to be a big TV producer for CBS, including The Twilight Zone, appropriately enough.

“I’m sorry, you Thing from another world you, the lady of the house ain’t home, and besides, we mailed you people a check last week!”

Whether the filmmakers want to credit Hawks or Nyby, I love Hawks’ signature naturalistic overlapping dialogue for all the characters; I wonder if that’s where Robert Altman got the idea for his own movies? For that matter, I like the joshing camaraderie among the actors playing the pilots and other personnel of Polar Expedition Six; they felt very authentic. In particular, the smart, snappy repartee between Nikki and Pat is irresistible; Tobey and Sheridan have great chemistry. On top of that, it's Nikki who figures out how to kill The Thing by essentially cooking it to death! How's that for Girl Power? You know, Hawks had wanted Sheridan to play the female lead in his 1948 western Red River, but pregnancy put the kibosh on that, and Sheridan recommended her friend Joanne Dru for the role instead. Sheridan’s career didn’t go much farther, even though she was wonderful in The Thing…. as well as the 1953 movie version of Mickey Spillane’s I, The Jury (as Mike Hammer’s sexy assistant Velda!).

Baked Alaska coming right up!

As Dr. Carrington, Robert Cornthwaite is one of cinema’s most memorably well-meaning yet misguided  scientists as he takes the concept of a vegetable-based alien one step further: those plants he’s been cultivating in the greenhouse actually live on human blood. If that doesn’t freak out the world’s vegans, I don’t know what will! Like certain H.P. Lovecraft characters, Dr. Carrington mistakenly thinks The Thing will become his best buddy, the poor fool. Isn’t that just like an increasingly mad scientist (see what happens when you get too little sleep?) to put their discoveries ahead of others’ safety? But then, what do you expect from a man who thinks that a creature with “No pleasure, no pain…no emotion, no heart” is “our superior in every way”? That guy has serious issues. I bet Paul Reiser’s character in Aliens was Dr. Carrington’s grandson or something!

The Thing…. is another film you could easily turn into a drinking game—drinking coffee, that is! I lost count of all the times someone came in with or asked for a cup of coffee. Speaking of unwittingly goofy things, why does everyone in The Thing…. say “Holy cat” instead of “Holy cats”? Was the “S” in “cats” added into that old expression later, or did Hawks and Nyby and company try to trim the Thing budget by lopping the "S" off ? As long as we're joking around, here's one of my favorite Thing/Hawks in-jokes:

Scotty: “You know how to shoot that?”
Mac: "I saw Gary Cooper in Sergeant York.” (Howard Hawks also directed and produced the Oscar-winning Sergeant York!)

Vinnie knows a thing or two about a Thing or two as well — Aside from a solid plot and cast of characters (if a bit of a sausage-fest), the film features two of the most quotable lines in silver-age science fiction: the final "Watch the skies" and Scotty's other wry summary, "An intellectual carrot — the mind boggles!" But the film loses the most impressive facet of Campbell's original story "Who Goes There?", that of the alien being a shapeshifter. As The Wife mentions, Carpenter's adaptation is far more adherent to Campbell's story, right down to the bit with testing blood with a hot wire. With the Hawks version, they took the structure of the story and pasted in a more generic monster, and it worked perfectly, because they realized that the tension comes not from the occasional moments of the monster popping out, but the suspense as we watch the characters worry that the monster MIGHT pop out. The best scare (and nervous laugh afterwards) in the film is when the scientists spend about five minutes preparing to go outside, strapping on the flamethrowers, stuffing sandwiches in their pockets, unbolting the door, and the Thing is just standing RIGHT THERE! Perfect surprise - You're expecting a big long search scene, and they hit you right away.

Vinnie's Pick:
Mothra  (1961) - "We're gonna need a bigger net!"

My love for daikaiju films is well known, so it's no shock that if I was going to talk about a monster picture, I was going to go big. Mothra is unique in the Godzilla pantheon in two ways. First, she's a female—the only female monster, save for the mate to Rodan, appearing and dying in his eponymous first film. And secondly, she's the only monster to start as a face, or good guy. Godzilla and the others started as bad guys, or at least uncaring forces of nature, only turning face when bigger threats came along. In many cases, the hope was the two warring beasts would kill each other off and good riddance. But Mothra was a protector from day one, first of the inhabitants of Infant Island in this first film, and later of the entire world. Also, Mothra is the only multi-generational monster; we see her die in her second film, Godzilla vs. The Thing (an ironic title for this pairing), replaced by a new pair of Mothra larvae from another egg. New generations have appeared in later films as well. This is different from how Rodan and his mate died in their solo film; that was sort of forgotten in later movies, much in the way that Godzilla's death in his first film is sort of swept under the canonical rug.

Shoubijin/Peanuts—allergy-free, & they sing nice, too!

In this film, a storm capsizes a cargo ship in an area of the ocean formerly used for atomic testing. When the crew are found on a nearby island, they are not only alive, but radiation-free. They explain that the natives of the island fed them juice that apparently kept them safe from the radiation in the area. An expedition is sent to the island, funded by Mr. Nelson, an entrepreneur from "Rolisica", a non-existent but real-sounding country, an amalgam of both the US and Russia, a generic "Big foreign country" that prizes money over common sense. The island is covered with huge mutated vegetation, stereotypical tropical island-dwelling denizens with little clothing and spectacular talent for choreography, and a pair of foot-tall "Fairies" known as the Shoubijin (played by the world-famous-in-Japan singing duo The Peanuts—think of Pink Lady, but with talent). Nelson abducts the Shoubijin and brings them back to Japan, presenting them in a theater show. I guess he figured unlike that guy with the monkey in New York, two little singing fairies can't do too much damage.

Oh, Nelson, you poor stupid foreign bastard.

The lovely song the fairies sing on stage, and almost constantly in their spare time, is a psychic call for help to their island's deity and protector, Mothra. They're basically guiding Mothra to them with these secret messages (Mosura code, if you will). Back on the island, the natives get a production number going that would put those Indonesian prisoners to shame, and awaken their god, who hatches from a huge egg as what looks like a gigantic silkworm. Following the Shoubijin's melodic GPS, she makes a bee-line (possibly the only insect pun I will use in this column) to Japan to save them. She goes through Tokyo like a house afire, finally resting against Tokyo Tower and building a cocoon.

One attempt to burn down the cocoon later (an elated news reporter, believing they have succeeded in defeating the monster, declares it "a great day for the Atomic Ray Gun"), Mothra breaks free as an adult winged creature, and starts raging all over the city, finally heading for the major Rolisican metropolis New Kirk City. Carrying through the differences between Mothra and the earlier Kaiju eiga Mothra is not killed or defeated at the end, she wins. The fairies are liberated from Nelson's captivity and are returned to Mothra, who leaves in peace and returns them all to Infant Island.

Mosura ya Mosura Dongan kasakuyan Indo muu Rusuto uiraadoa Hanba hanbamuyan Randa banunradan Tounjukanraa Kasaku yaanmu

Mothra O Mothra If we were to call for help Over time Over sea Like a wave you'd come Our guardian angel

Mothra is well known not only for her colorful plumage, but her various lovely songs, usually sung by the Shoubijin / Peanuts. Mothra's Song is likely the one most recognized, written in Malaysian to give it a foreign feel to the Japanese audience, the harmonies of The Peanuts transform it into a lovely ditty that you can't help humming. Introduced in Godzilla vs. The Thing, Mahara Mosura is equally lovely, having a slight more hymn-like tone, befitting a song for a god.

Mothra has proven as successful a character as Godzilla himself. She's appeared in all three eras of eiga film, the original Showa series, the more recent Heisei era, starting in 1984, and the current "Millennium". She's also gotten her own spinoff series of films, known in the US as the "Rebirth" series. In them, Mothra is the sole protector of the Earth, and no other of the Toho monsters appear. She fights two different versions of monsters based on the popular villain King Ghidorah, but new monsters nevertheless. Mothra gets various forms in the films, more armored designs, one that can travel underwater, and even a male incarnation.

Glad she's on our side, but keep her away from your clothes!

Considering how fragile real moths and butterflies are, it's all the more surprising that a monster based on one would prove so resilient, appearing in more films than any other; in fact, Mothra just celebrated its 50th anniversary!

An Analysis of The Paranoia Flick, or: You're Not Paranoid if They Really ARE Out to Get You! - By Team Bartilucci

"You gentlemen aren’t really trying to kill my son, are you?”

Jessie Royce Landis, unconvinced that thugs Adam Williams and Robert Ellenstein want to do just that to Cary Grant in North by Northwest (1959)

The spy film typically features a suave, sophisticated man about town who shoots at suave evil men about town over, say, a vital document that both parties are after. A horror film pits some everyday nebbish against some slimy, slithery fiend from Hell that nobody understands, but that everyone can at least see. But when you merge these two concepts, pitting the everyday nebbish against the suave men about town over something that only the suave guys know about and the nebbish doesn’t even know he or she has, you have the beginnings of one of Team Bartilucci’s favorite types of films: The Paranoia Flick.

Foul Play: I'll be watching you! (And vice-versa!)

The basic idea of The Paranoia Flick is simple. Place a total nobody into a situation involving spies, secret codes, beautiful members of the (traditionally) opposite sex, and almost certain death, and watch them collapse. In these films, the most important factor is the actors in the assorted roles. The target must be somebody you can believe is scared. Clint Eastwood, for example, would never succeed as a paranoia target! Even at his age, you’d be sure Clint would come through it all, cool as an October breeze. But some vulnerable yet likable sort like, say, Goldie Hawn, who was wonderful in Foul Play (1978), works perfectly in such a role. In fact, the late Colin Higgins, writer/director of Foul Play and writer of Silver Streak (1976), had a gift for paranoid comedy-thrillers with a Hitchcockian flair.

It doesn’t matter why the star of the film is being chased hither and yon, either. Cary Grant asked Alfred Hitchcock why his character was being chased all over the map in North by Northwest. Hitchcock (and consequently, Leo G. Carroll as the spymaster known as The Professor) answered, “Oh, I don’t know. Government secrets, perhaps?” Hitchcock, of course, gave us movie fans the term “MacGuffin” for the plot device that gets the story and the characters moving. Our favorite use of this was in, of all things, a G.I. Joe episode, in which both Joe and COBRA were in heated battle over a weapon known as “The MacGuffin Device.”

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. used the idea of the innocent person asked to assist with spy activities on a regular basis, said person usually being a lovely young woman who either worked for the bad guy, or used to go out with him, or some other vague connection they could exploit. While the guest star knew the situation she was getting into , there were still lots of opportunities for them to become convinced that everyone was a Thrush operative except, of course, for the ones who were.

Paranoia Flicks are generally comedies; if the plot is not being played for laughs, it ends up being more of a thriller like the aforementioned North by Northwest (NxNW), or the pretty solid early Will Smith film Enemy of the State, but the basic pieces of the puzzle are usually there. All Paranoia Flicks, be they comedy or thriller, must have certain essential scenes in order to make the Paranoia Cut:

The Drop Scene.  This is when the main character receives the MacGuffin, often literally dropped into their hands, and pretty much everyone on the planet notices except our unsuspecting protagonist.

In the case of a film like NxNW, Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) doesn't get an object; he's simply mistaken for someone else, the mythical George Kaplan. In the 1947 classic The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (TSLoWM), Rosalind van Hoorn (Virginia Mayo) slips the book of stolen Dutch treasures into poor schlub Walter Mitty's (Danny Kaye) coat while he's busy dithering. In The Man with One Red Shoe, the oft-forgotten 1985 American remake of the 1972 French comedy classic The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe, Tom Hanks is himself the drop! He's identified as the contact who's carrying incriminating evidence by Edward Herrmann, but no such information exists — he's really just an unsuspecting decoy to give the other group of spies someone to chase and follow.

Gotcha! - Smoke gets in your eyes, spies get in your strudel..

The Misdirected MacGuffin.  Often, our protagonist thinks he knows what the MacGuffin is, and he ends up guarding some worthless object with his life, leaving the real MacGuffin at the villains’ mercy.

There’s a classic example in the delightful yet surprisingly underrated 1985 comedy-thriller Gotcha!  In East Berlin (long story), the lovely and mysterious Sasha Banacek (Linda Fiorentino) has handed a package to our innocent college-boy hero Jonathan Moore (Anthony Edwards) behind the Iron Curtain. Since Jonathan has been immersed in paranoia-inducing antics for a while at this point in the movie, when Sasha tells him the package contains strudel, Jonathan thinks it’s code for, oh, Secret Government Strudel, perhaps (“Strudel, riiiight, strudel….”).

Gene Wilder doesn't support his local sheriff!

The Explanation Sequence.  This is Team Bartilucci’s personal favorite amongst Paranoia Flick tropes! Here’s where our hero must convince friends and/or loved ones that he’s in real danger, and not insane. Some of the best lines usually happen here, as the main character babbles a Cliffs Notes version of the script, with all the credible stuff left out, and a lot of iterations of “I’m not crazy!” put in.

Since it's the easiest scene to make funny, there are scads of examples of classic explanation sequences. In NxNW, perplexed hero Roger Thornhill tries to convince the Glen Cove police that he really was forcibly plied with bourbon by henchman Leonard (Martin Landau) and nearly killed in what was supposed to look like a drunk-driving accident. In a great twist, we don't hear Roger explain the events, we hear his lawyer (played by Get Smart's "Chief" Edward Platt) explain it all to the judge with a look of weary resignation on his face.

In TSLoWM, not only does Walter try in vain to convince everyone that The Boot’s henchmen are trying to kill him, but thanks to a Mickey Finn, he awakens to find one of the chief bad guys, Dr. Hugo Hollingshead (Boris Karloff), pulling a Gaslight routine on him, claiming he only imagined his dream girl Rosalind.

In Silver Streak (1976), Colin Higgins’ first great paranoid Hitchcockian comedy-thriller screenplay, our hero George Caldwell (Gene Wilder), who’s been traveling on the titular cross-country train, tries to explain the mysterious events and rising body count surrounding the MacGuffin to Sheriff Oliver Chauncey (Clifton James). In this case, the MacGuffin’s a book, The Rembrandt Letters, which contains startling revelations that would embarrass and disgrace the art-world bad guys if they don’t knock George off (and we don’t just mean the running gag about George constantly being knocked off the train). Naturally, our frazzled hero’s explanation is causing more confusion than enlightenment:  

Sheriff Chauncey: “Is he with the feds?”
George Caldwell: “Who?”
Sheriff Chauncey: “This guy Rembrandt.”
George Caldwell: “Rembrandt is dead!”
Sheriff Chauncey: “Dead? That makes four. Listen, fella, are you sure you’re not making this up as you go along? I’m an officer of the law and I got a lot better things to do than listen to that kind of funnin’. [Buzzer sounds] That's my hotline. Now you take your time to get your facts straight, ’cause when I come back, I want your answers clear and to the point. Got that? And you can start with who shot Rembrandt!”

The False Alarm.  Here’s where the main character overreacts to every snap of a twig, and thinks each stray glance means a spy or some other no-goodnik is on his trail. It’s usually at these points in the films that all the innocent people get hurt and/or humiliated, making the poor main character look even crazier. In Gotcha!, Jonathan runs a driver off the road when he mistakes them for Russian thugs following him, and pulls over to phone the police, frantically saying, "I want to report a following!"

The Turnabout.  Near the end of The Paranoia Flick, our protagonist has had enough of this evil folderol and fiddle-dee-dee, and finally gathers up all his intestinal fortitude and takes charge of the situation. This usually ends the film in a funny and/or exciting, suspenseful way, getting our hero back in the good graces of his friends and loved ones.

For example, after Walter Mitty finally finds and rescues his beloved Rosalind, he grows a backbone and starts using the tricks he picked up as a reader and editor of racy pulp magazines against his assailants, wiring doorknobs for electricity and setting up rope snares. Eventually he stands up to his family and so-called friends, and tells them off with a great bit of bravado that even wows Walter’s fat-headed, credit-nabbing boss (Thurston Hall), to the tune of promoting Walter to Associate Editor:

“Now you’re all going to listen to me. For years I’ve been listening to you, and you nearly put me in a straitjacket! Your small minds are musclebound with suspicion. That's because the only exercise you ever get is jumping to conclusions. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, every one of you!”

As an example of a film that hits every note perfectly, let's look at Dorian's personal favorite, Foul Play (1978), both written and directed by Colin Higgins, which, as good as it is, still beats the Higgins-penned Silver Streak to the title by 27 lengths.

Goldie Hawn plays lovable heroine Gloria Mundy (one of our favorite character names). Gloria lives in San Francisco (the film gives a nice tip of the hat to both Vertigo and Bullitt), but it’s no treat; she’s trying to adjust to her new life as a divorcee. Her friends suggest that she “take some chances.” So Gloria picks up a stranded but attractive motorist (Bruce Solomon of TV’s Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and Lanigan’s Rabbi), and wouldn’t you know the cute motorist-in-need, Bob “Scotty” Scott, is an undercover police detective on a case? Scotty turns on the charm and makes a date with Gloria for that night at the local revival theater. He surreptitiously slips a roll of film into his half-empty pack of cigarettes (The Drop), then asks the unsuspecting Gloria to hold onto his cigarette pack until their date, claiming it’ll help him cut back on his smoking. Alas, the bad guys get Scotty first; he staggers into the dark theater wet and bleeding, spending his last moments trying to distract Gloria from the film noir onscreen, his last words being “Beware of the dwarf.” By the time Gloria realizes what’s happening and rushes to the manager (Team B. fave Chuck McCann) for help, Scotty’s corpse has vanished, and the paranoia has taken a ringside seat.


Soon Gloria’s being terrorized by a man with a scar (Don Calfa) and one Whitey Jackson (William Frankfather), an albino in a white suit. These evil jaspers work for a hit man known as “The Dwarf.” In the following excerpts, the bad guys had broken into Gloria’s apartment, looking for that cigarette pack. None of them realize it’s hiding in plain sight, having fallen out of Scarface’s hand during the attack at Gloria’s charming apartment. They’re also unaware that the film in that cigarette pack contains evidence about an assassination taking place that week! Alas, Gloria fainted after seeing Scarface shockingly killed by Whitey's flying dagger (loss of consciousness is a time-honored recurring theme in Paranoia Flicks), so by the time she comes to and finds her apartment tidied up and corpse-free, she has a hard time getting through The Explanation Sequence of her nerve-shattering experience to police detectives Lt. Tony Carlson (Chevy Chase in his first leading-man role) and Inspector “Fergie” Ferguson (Brian Dennehy):

Gloria: “The dead body! It’s gone! It vanished!”
Tony: “Well, maybe it was embarrassed. Come on in here. I think you’d better sit down.”
Gloria: “But you don’t understand. The body has disappeared.”
Fergie: “Whose body was it?”
Gloria: “I don’t know. A man with a scar. He tried to murder me, but I stabbed him with the needles.”
Fergie: “Oh, narcotics, huh?”
Gloria: “No, knitting….I’ve got it! It must have been the albino…He’s the one who killed the man with the scar.”
Fergie: “I thought you killed the man with the scar.”
Gloria: “I did. Except he killed him after I killed him. See, I didn’t really kill him, I just stabbed him with the needles, right after he heard the cuckoo.” (Cuckoo clock cuckoos on schedule.)
Fergie: “Why did he wanna kill you?”
Gloria: “I’m not sure, but I think it was because of the cigarettes.”
Tony: “He wanted a cigarette?”
Gloria: “No, he wanted the whole pack!”
Fergie: “Kind of greedy.”

Gloria gets a visit from Innocent Dwarf J.J. MacKuen (Billy Barty) after she's been assaulted a couple of times, and has a hilarious False Alarm all over him, giving Barty a chance to do the physical comedy he so excelled at. While they never actually find the MacGuffin in the film, it remains Misdirected in that they think the pack of cigarettes itself is what they're after, not the film canister within.

She gets a couple of Turnabout scenes in the film, one rather early in the proceedings as she takes out a comic-book-reading moron (*sigh* — too long was comic-book-reading by an adult a shorthand for simple-mindedness. But I digress....) with the aid of some anti-rape gear provided by ubiquitous-at-the-time Marilyn Sokol. As Janet Maslin noted in her New York Times review of Foul Play, “…when a thug makes the mistake of catching Miss Hawn by surprise, she greets him with the most adorably indignant little shriek the movies have witnessed in years. Miss Hawn often looks frightened…but she even more often looks tremulously furious, and that’s her secret weapon…once (trouble) arrives, she’s never too out-to-lunch to lose her temper. And her anger, imbued with all the quivering, outraged self-righteousness Miss Hawn can muster, is enough to make the most hardened villain or moviegoer melt.”

Strangely enough, the greatest Paranoia Flick of all time is missing quite a few of the classic factors. We refer, of course, to writer/director Theodore J. Flicker's The President’s Analyst (1967), starring James Coburn, who had the coolest and scariest (in a good way) smile in show business. Coburn plays Dr. Sidney Schaefer, who’s appointed to be the titular role at the recommendation of his analyst Dr. Lee-Evans (Will Geer), after being thoroughly vetted by "CEA" agent Don Masters (Godfrey Cambridge). When Masters reveals his true identity, Sidney, used to having delusional patients before, asks for ID. Imagine his surprise when he gets it!

After a few sessions with the President, Sidney realizes that he is learning far too much in his position, and he starts worrying that all the world’s rival governments will try to kidnap him or even kill him for what he knows — and it turns out he’s right! At one point, when he realizes that even his lover, the sweet, gentle Nan (Joan Delaney), is a spy sent in to keep tabs on him (giving new meaning to the phrase "undercover agent"), Sidney flees Washington with the help of a typical suburban family (led by William "KITT" Daniels), only to find he’s being followed by every combination of the "Same Alphabet Soup" a la NxNW, up to and including the Canadian Secret Service.  As proof of the counterculture spin of the film, the only people in the entire film not out to capture or otherwise exploit Sidney is a busload of hippies he joins up with. Eventually he's captured and handed over to Kropotkin (the whamtaculous Severn Darden) who Sidney proceeds to psychoanalyze and turn to his cause.

The real enemy in the film comes from so far out in left field that it was playing in another stadium! If you’ve seen The President’s Analyst, I’m sure you’ll agree it’s one of the most devious paranoia flicks of all time. If you haven’t, it’s available on DVD, and through Netflix.
Got a favorite Paranoia Flick you’d like to praise to the skies, if you dare? Don’t be afraid — tell us about it before it’s too late!

A Paranoia Picture is Worth a Thousand Words!