BONUS: Milton Berle's Low Impact/High Comedy Workout

Disclaimer: The DVD I'm talking about today is not a horror movie, a drive-in movie, or a cult classic. It's pretty far out, though.

Some time ago, I was digging through the $1 DVD bin at Walmart in Marble Falls, Texas, when I came across something amazing: A Milton Berle exercise video. The cover of Milton Berle’s Low Impact High Comedy Workout had a PhotoShopped picture of Uncle Mitlie in a tracksuit, smoking a cigar and holding a martini and... wearing a cowboy hat???, and I think you’ll understand when I say I knew immediately that I had to own that DVD, no matter the cost, which fortunately was only one dollar.

How excited was I about this DVD? I was so excited that I took it home, put it on a shelf, and didn’t watch it for about four years. But on a recent Saturday, as my roommate Joe and I were looking for something to do, we realized the time had come to experience this workout once and for all.

First of all, I love that this thing even exists. I have to wonder how it came about… Were the producers looking to make a celebrity workout video for senior citizens and they asked Berle if he’d be interested? Or did Mr. Television himself take a look at all the various stars (and former stars) who were making big bucks for doing a few calisthenics and decide he wanted in? The video was released in 1995, and then, over a decade later and after Mr. Berle had gone on to that big Friar’s roast in the sky, somebody decided that it would be a good idea to release this thing on DVD. I love that even more.

The video opens with Laura Gladwin, of the Aerobics Something-Something of America. She warns us that, although this video will be really funny, Milton Berle takes exercise very seriously, so we should follow these tips to avoid any trouble. As she stumbles over the cue cards, I can’t help but get anxious… Where’s the comedy? Where’s Milton Berle? I can’t even imagine owning this video in the VHS age, when you’d have to fastforward past this stuff every single time you watched it.

Finally we get to the good stuff. The set is an aerobics room full of old people. Most of them are standing, but a few are sitting, which the video tells us is perfectly all right. Most of them are wearing Milton Berle Workout t-shirts or solid-colored sweats, except for one lady who’s wearing a Reebok sweatshirt. If this video were made today, they’d probably blur that out or make her wear it inside-out, unless Reebok was paying for it.

Hey, here he is. “Hi, this is Milton!” he greets us. Hi, Milton! Say something funny! “Our ideas about old age are changing,” he says, and then he tells us all the statistics of how many old people there are in America today. Huh. That’s not funny.

Now, I thought we were just going to do some leg lifts and stuff, but Milton explains that this video will make us feel good about ourselves and about aging. So it's a very ambitious comedy workout. “Then after the workout,” he says, “I’m gonna help plan a good, nutritional meal.” I can't wait.

So Milton introduces us to the class of seniors and the instructor, Merrily Smith. “Merrily, are you ready to roll?” asks Milton. When she says yes, he says, “Then Merrily we roll along!” And all the seniors crack up: HA HA HA HA HAHAHAHAHA HA! Oh, Uncle Miltie. You still got it!

And then… Well, then the rest of the video is pretty standard exercise video stuff, just geared for folks 60 and older. Milton doesn’t actually do the exercises; he just stands off to the side watching, and every once in a while he wanders in front of the camera and delivers a joke or talks to the exercisers. Here are some of his gems:

• “Oh God, I’d love to have the prune concession for this group!” (HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!)
• “This lady is on a liquid diet -- she only drinks what comes out of her blender. Last night she had two pot roasts and a chicken.” (HA HA HAHA HAHA HA!)
  
• “Have we met? Weren’t you a lifeguard at a water bed motel? (HA HA HA HA HA!) What are they laughing at? He saved me from drowning!”
• “I’ll show you how I can empty this whole studio in just one second… Watch this: BATHROOM BREAK!” (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

And then, during a break from the strenuous leg-lifting and arm-swinging, he comes out dressed as Richard Simmons, with shorts, a wig, and a ridiculous effeminate affectation. “Do you really like this outfit I’m wearing?” he asks the seniors, which is of course hilarious because Richard Simmons is always asking people if they like his outfit. “This really turns people’s heads,” he says, “and it doesn’t do much for their stomachs either!” And then: “It’s dangerous for me to look in the mirror in this outfit. I keep trying to jump on myself!” Man, that is Richad Simmons all over. Do you think the real Richard Simmons ever saw this video? Based on his appearances on David Letterman's show, it's always hard to tell whether he's in on the joke of himself or not.

If you thought that was the extent of Berle’s acting talent, think again: A few minutes later, he comes in as Jane Fonda. I guess nobody expected Milton Berle to go through an entire video without dressing in drag at least once. As Fonda, he notices that everyone is sweating and says, “Me, I never sweat. Ted pays someone to do it for me!” Aww, that joke is sad now because Jane Fonda and Ted Turner are divorced.

“I want you to know that I run a very slick workout class,” he/she says. “I do not allow my pupils to drink, smoke or have sex. Until the class is over.” Finally, to prove that the key to good aerobics is “no pain, no gain,” Milton Fonda punches himself in the stomach, then limps away… and it gets applause! How much were they paying these people anyway?

During these moments of outrageous comedy, the instructor stands there reacting with a sort of “Oh, you rascal!” expression on her face. She’s a regular person, not an actor, but she makes a pretty good straight man. Too bad they never made any more videos together. I would love to see Merrily as Milton's assistant for Milton Berle's Do-It-Yourself Catamaran Building.

By the way, I have a favorite senior of all the exercisers in the class. It's this lady:

She really gets into all the choreography, and adds a little something extra to every move. It's obvious she knows she's on camera, and she's wants to make sure she's noticed. Well, lady, I noticed you, and I say to you: You go, girl.

Hey, did you know that if you don’t have light weights to use in aerobics, you can just use water bottles? Well, you can! That’s pretty cool. And it leads to this exchange:

Milton: Sir, I noticed that they didn’t give you any bottles.
Man: No, they didn’t.
Milton: I guess they knew that you couldn’t hold your water!

Milton obviously knows his audience; the majority of the jokes are about old people stuff. Incontinence is funny! Oh, and then there’s this moment, which I still don’t understand:

Milton (to a guy sitting in a chair): Why aren’t you exercising?
Guy: I’m not here to exercise, I’m your brother Phil!
Milton: I know you’re my brother Phil! But why are you here?
Guy: You didn’t mail me my check, so I came to pick it up!
Milton: 93-year-old smartass…

Huh? What check is he talking about? Why does Milton Berle owe his
93-year-old brother money? Or was this something that was common knowledge in 1995? Maybe I’m just not remembering the front-page headlines telling the story of how Milton Berle asked his brother Phil to buy some stuff from him on eBay because he didn’t have an account, then forgot to pay him back.

Next up are some exercises that involve lying on a mat. (Or is that laying? I’m never sure about that one.) I should probably leave the jokes-at-old-people’s-expense to Milton, but I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the seniors wouldn’t be able to stand up once they were down on those mats. I’m pretty sure at least three of them fell asleep, anyway.

Merrily leads everyone in lifting themselves up off the mat, and back down again: “Up! Down! Up! Down!” And Milton says, “Up, down, up, down… Remember when those words had a whole different meaning?” Which I suppose is… a sex joke? Actually, I should point out the one joke that actually brought a smile to my face: Milton and a 91-year-old man compare their sex lives, and Milton says: "My wife and I make love almost every night! Almost on Monday, almost on Tuesday, almost on Wednesday..." Well, it seems funny compared to the other jokes, anyway.

Oh, and every once in a while Milton pops up in a little window in a corner of the screen to give us a helpful exercising tip. See, when he walks into the aerobics room, that’s when he’s going to tell a joke, but when he pops up in the little window, it means he’s going to give some serious advice. I’m glad they came up with that device, because otherwise I would still be trying to figure out why “Keep your stomach muscles tight” was supposed to be funny.

After a while, the exercisers have wiggled their limbs in just about every direction possible, so it’s time to cool down and wrap up. Milton comes in one more time, and tells everyone they did a sensational job. “Especially you, Merrily, you must be tired. Go to my dressing room and lie down.” So everyone shuffles out and says goodbye… and then, I’m sure, as soon as they were out of earshot, they all turned to each other and said, “Were any of those jokes funny?”

But there's still more Milton! As promised, we get Milton’s Healthful Hints for preparing a nutritious meal. Here’s a step-by-step summary of Milton Berle’s cooking process:

1. Stand there and watch as a professional chef does all the cooking.

The menu consists of herb-crusted salmon, Julienne vegetables, and garlic-roasted red potatoes. And the chef – Patricia Hill from 442 Restaurant in Los Angeles – is extremely uncomfortable on camera. She never once looks at the camera, and she barely looks at Milton. For the most part, he just narrates what she’s doing, explaining how much garlic to use or what to do with the leftover veggies. But when she’s chopping up red peppers, he can’t resist: “By the way, the knife she’s using was a gift from Lorena Bobbit.” My first instinct was to say, A-ha, that tells us exactly when this video was made… but then I remembered that it’s Milton Berle, and he was probably telling Lorena Bobbit jokes for 10 years after she was in the news. Yes, that would mean that he kept telling them after he died, but I wouldn’t put it past him.

When dinner’s ready, Milton says to Patricia, “It was a great pleasure watching you prepare this wonderful meal… and you can cook for me anytime,” and attempts to playfully pinch her cheek, but she doesn’t react at all. She cannot wait to get out of there. I bet she didn’t know what she was signing up for. She probably thought she was going to be cooking in the Milton Bradley workout video!*

And there you have it. We’ve learned to appreciate our aging bodies, we’ve gotten in shape, we’ve made some good food, and we’ve laughed our heads off at the cutting-edge comedy of Mr. Milton Berle. Good work, everyone.

So… Did Henny Youngman ever make a workout video?

*I struggled to find the name of another famous Milton here, but there are really no other Miltons out there. If you like, you can replace “Milton Bradley” in that sentence with “Berth Milton, Sr,” the noted Swedish pornographer.

Drive-in Classic 4 of 50: PRIME TIME

Still jumping around in the Drive-in Classics 50-movie pack, I selected 1977's Prime Time as my next "classic." It's a sketch film, a subgenre of comedy that inevitably yields mixed results. Kentucky Fried Movie and Amazon Women on the Moon are both full of funny moments, and they take advantage of having a larger budget and more production time than a TV sketch show would have... but they also both have their share of stupid segments. Loose Shoes, on the other hand, doesn't have a single sketch that's amusing enough to justify its existence. I had never heard of Prime Time before I got this DVD set, but I was eager to see if the funny outweighed the stupid. And, well... I don't want to ruin the suspense, but I'll just go ahead and tell you that this movie sucked.

THE MOVIE
As Prime Time begins, a high-ranking military officer named Bill settles down to watch TV somewhere in Washington, D.C. He sees a commercial for "Trans Puerto Rico," an airline boasting air conditioning (a ceiling fan), freshly-cooked meals (brown sludge prepared by an unhygenic slob of a chef), and plenty of baggage room to accommodate the body bag containing your mother. You might be thinking, What does any of that have to do with Puerto Rico? It's just the first of many segments designed to be as offensive as possible to various ethnic groups and nationalities.

That's followed by a televised speech by Congressman Simon, who rants to an empty stadium on the subject of moral decay before getting shot dead. High-ranking military officer Bill frantically alerts a colleague, who tells him that in fact there is no Congressman Simon, and nobody knows where that broadcast came from: "Somebody's messing with the TV waves." They realize that this is a matter for the president of the United States, so they alert him to the situation. And then there's a commercial for a men's product called Stay Down, which prevents unwanted erections but causes flatulence.

And that's the way the whole movie works. It's a bunch of TV show and commercial parodies, interrupted every 10 minutes or so by the president and his advisors trying to figure out what's happening. Segments include:

• A news report on the new law that allows a fetus to be aborted through its fifth year of life
• A telethon for sexual deviation
• A Charlie's Angels spoof called Manny's Nymphs, featuring three overweight women
• An oil company executive announcing that his company has discovered a new cheap energy source: the Negro

You get the idea. Nearly every sketch has something to do with 1) bathroom humor, 2) juvenile sex jokes, or 3) the hilariousness of all non-WASP peoples. Eventually all this rogue programming causes rioting in the streets, and the presidents makes the decision to blow up the world. I think. Maybe. Honestly, I was just relieved it was all over.

IS IT FUNNY?
No. No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.

No.

SOME OTHER TOPICS THIS MOVIE THINKS ARE FUNNY

• Breasts on areas of the body they don't belong
• Feminine hygiene products
• Slavery
• Killing the elderly
• Charles Whitman, the University of Texas student who killed 14 people and wounded 32 in a shooting spree on campus eleven years before this movie was released. This comes up in a scene featuring two guys climbing a tower with their guns to participate in the "Charles Whitman Invitational," and then we see them shooting pedestrians below, and then we see the victims getting hit and falling down, and then the shooters tie the dead bodies to the roof of their truck, and... that's comedy?

LESSONS I LEARNED
-This movie sucks.

COMMENTS

-Sometimes when I look at the way my own personal comedy standards have evolved, I wonder if my mind has gone too far into the gutter. I will sometimes laugh at inappropriate jokes that would have seemed repulsive to me, say, 15 years ago. But the fact that I hated Prime Time actually makes me feel really good about my own sense of decency.

-So was there anything in the movie that made me laugh? Looking over my notes, I see just one: A commercial that starts very seriously, promoting a sermon by an important minister... who is then revealed to be a poodle. It was all downhill from there.

-I suppose obscene language was still fairly novel in movies at this point. It seems like often the writers are counting on nothing more than the use of the s-word of the f-word to provide the key laugh of a scene.

-In fact, there's a lot of stuff that couldn't be done on TV in 1977, and still couldn't. I'm sure it would have been possible to create a film composed of too-hot-for-network-TV parodies that were actually clever. But this movie's not up to the task.

-One thing I will concede: Many of the commercial parodies must have been inspired by ad campaigns from the 1970s and earlier, which I've never seen. I'm familiar with "How do you spell relief?" but I've never seen an "Open your mouth for milk" commercial in my life. So maybe -- maybe -- I would have had a better appreciation of where the jokes were supposed to be if I had seen this movie upon its release. Speaking of which, the internet tells me that this film is sometimes called American Raspberry. So, there's that.

-One of the women in the "Manny's Nymphs" segment is none other than Suzanne Kent, perhaps best known as Mrs. Renee from Pee-wee's Playhouse. Another sketch featured Harry Shearer as a hapless hitchhiker. And former Texas governor hopeful Kinky Friedman shows up to sing a disgusting song about Ol' Ben Lucas, who had a lot of mucus. Friedman is also credited with providing vocals for a sort-of music video for the song "If I Were a Carpenter," which presents the song as a duet sung by Mary and Joseph on their way to the manger. I suppose the joke is supposed to be that Joseph was, in fact, a carpenter and Mary was a lady, but it seems... oddly sincere. They only undercut it by having the booming voice of God point out that it's going to be His baby.

-There's not much about this movie on the web, but the Unknown Movies site has this review, including some information on its distribution, for those really eager to know.

Letter grade for Prime Time: F

So what should I watch next? Hmm... I'm thinking either Black Hooker from the drive-in classics set, or Sex Madness from the cult classics set. What do you think?

Drive-in Classic 3 of 50: THE LEGEND OF BIGFOOT

And now for a chance of pace. A big, hairy, stinky change of pace. The Legend of Bigfoot was released in 1976, and according to the description on the DVD sleeve, it's a documentary. I was expecting it to be the kind of thing that you might see on the Discovery Channel... a look at the history of the Bigfoot legend, with some blurry photos and plaster casts but no new information. And, of course, it would contain the famous Patterson-Gimli Bigfoot film. Yeah, I definitely knew it would include the Patterson film, which we've all seen a million times.

I was wrong.

Wait, what? Could a public domain movie included in one of these 50-movie packs actually have something that I, a former child Bigfoot aficionado, had never seen before? Maybe!

THE "STORY"
The film was directed by Harry Stuart Winer, but the star of the show, the guy who wants us all to listen to him talk, is Ivan Marx. I looked him up - Ivan Marx was active in the Bigfoot believers community for a while, but this page, which refers to him as "the greatest huckster," seems representative of what most of his peers thought of him. But let's give him the benefit of the doubt! He's here to tell us about Bigfoot, and the whole movie is a first-person account of his personal Sasquatch journey.

From the very beginning, there are many shots of rugged outdoorsy stuff. What is this, a cigarette commercial? HA! Ivan Marx's voiceover says, sincerely: "This is my country." He's a tracker, see, which means he doesn't kill for sport, but to protect innocent animals from mean ol' bully animals. Or something like that. One day he was called to Alaska, where a rancher reported a large animal was killing his cows. Marx figured it must be a Kodiak bear-- but hold the phone! The rancher had a different idea: He insisted 'twas Bigfoot killed the beef. HA HA HAHA HAHA HA! That's a laugh. Of course, Marx doesn't believe in Bigfoot: "What a buncha hogwash," he says, with just as much sincerity as the nature stuff.

Marx tells his brother-in-law about the Bigfoot nonsense, but the bro-in-law says, "Hold on there, pardner! Bigfoots might be real!" (Not an exact quote.) See, 700 years ago, Indians drew pictures on cave walls of a giant man-beast-creature-monster-thing. What more proof could you ask for? And no sooner are the splinters of doubt stuck in the finger of Marx's mind than he comes across an 18-inch-long footprint... with hair in it! He sends it to a lab, and they report that the hair doesn't come from any known animal. Which would imply that it comes from... an unknown animal. Like a purple octo-zebra! That's an unknown animal, right? Well -- have you ever known one?

Long story short, Marx soon becomes a Bigfoot beliver. He searches all over the country in places where Bigfoots (or is it Bigfeet?) have been reported... and then, in Washington state, he sees one! It seems to have injured its foot, and sadly, the Bigfoot nation has no public health care system, so it's limping around in pain, but Marx captures it on film. He's amazed at his luck... but honestly, I'm more amazed that he expected anyone to accept the film as real, 'cause gee, it sure looks like a person wearing a furry suit and doing a funny dance. But Marx doesn't mention that.

Soon Marx develops a theory, based on his hardcore research, of course: Bigfoot migrates! The species travels north from various places in North America toward the Arctic Circle, where it mates at the moose breeding grounds. He doesn't tell us how the moose might feel about the Bigfoots invading their sex playground. Marx still can't get anyone to believe he's seen a Bigfoot with his own eyes, so he resolves to get real proof, even if it means traveling far from home, braving the cold, and watching moose gettin' it on. Because apparently filming a "real, live" Bigfoot still wasn't good enough.

BODY COUNT
No humans died, but a couple of animals don't make it through the film alive.

LESSONS I LEARNED
-Bigfoot migrated across the Bering Strait before the Ice Age. That's why he lives in North America! What?

-According to Ivan Marx: "You don't know what it is to wait 'til you've been a tracker." (My brother drives a Tracker. Does that count?)

-Ground squirrels play hard to get.

-The legends are true: Bigfoot can turn into a white bird, or some crap like that.

-Moose sexual tension is actually not sexy at all.

MY FAVORITE LINES
Ivan Marx: (while waiting for Bigfoot to show up on a beach) My secluded beach turned into Coney Island! The only way Bigfoot could show up here was wearing swimming trunks!

Ivan Marx: (while chasing a Bigfoot with his camera) What the hell am I doing?!

SADDEST MOMENT
-Marx has a whole feature film to fill, so he wastes some time by filming two ground squirrels. They're a playful mating pair... and then one of them gets hit by a car.

COMMENTS
-When I was a kid, I was all about Bigfoot. I'm still not convinced it's impossible (sadly, I've pretty much given up on the Loch Ness Monster) that they exist, but jeez, this movie doesn't help the cause of the believers much. So much of the theorizing just seems like stuff Ivan Marx made up as he went along... and then when he realized he still didn't have enough to make a feature film, he threw in a bunch of random nature footage and called it a day.

-You know, one of the things that made the aforementioned Patterson-Gimli Bigfoot film so debatable was the shaky camera work and the distance from the subject. It could just be a guy in a suit... but it's hard to tell! So let's assume Ivan Marx wanted his own much-talked-about Bigfoot footage, so he bought some suits and had his wife film him hopping around. He should have had her stand farther away! He should have had her shake the camera around! There's some Bigfoot footage at the end of the film that almost looks more like the Sasquatch family decided to shoot some home movies than an amazing example of wildlife caught on camera. And from what I've read online, this is not even the fakest of Marx's Bigfoot "evidence."

-So, yeah. Maybe Bigfoot is real, but Ivan Marx was not the man to prove it.

-Did this really play in drive-ins? I can't imagine it being very interesting to teenagers, but then, they were probably only there to get to first base anyway. Kind of like those moose.

-To be fair, the nature footage in this film probably looked pretty good on movie screens. Certainly it looked better than the washed-out copy on my public domain DVD set, anyway.

-So what do YOU think? Are there Bigfoots? Sasquatches? Oomahs? Yetis? Harry and the Hendersons? Let me know in the comments!

Letter grade for The Legend of Bigfoot: C

So what should I watch next? I'm really trying to avoid anything that looks like horror, so I'm thinking maybe my next "50 Movie Pack" movie will be Prime Time, which is allegedly a comedy.

Drive-in Classic 2 of 50: CREEPERS

Back to the "50 Drive-in Classics" DVD set! Once again I shun the order of the discs, and I jump directly to Creepers, a 1985 horror movie starring a very, very young Jennifer Connelly, before she won an Oscar, before she starred in Career Opportunities or Labyrinth, and before she became one of the most frequently screen-captured women on the internet.

Creepers was directed by Dario Argento, an Italian filmmaker who is quite popular among horror aficionados. He's also the father of actress Asia Argento, who almost became a star after appearing in the craptacular Vin Diesel action movie XXX.

An interesting fact I found in researching this movie online: Creepers is the title of the American cut of this movie, which has been edited to remove some of the gory stuff. The original version of the film is called Phenomena, which should not be confused with the movie Phenomenon starring John Travolta, even though Travolta, like Jennifer Connelly, has appeared in a movie based on a Marvel comic book (Travolta was in The Punisher, Connelly was in The Incredible Hulk).

Anyway. What's this movie about?

THE STORY:
In the first scene, a hapless young tourist girl gets left behind in the Swiss countryside when her tour bus leaves without her. She responds by doing what any smart-thinking person would do: She wanders unannounced into a random house. Seeking help, she shouts "I'm a foreigner!", which struck me as very funny for whatever reason. Argento lets us see that somewhere in the house something is chained to a wall and trying to get loose, but we don't see who or what it is. Before long, the girl is being chased by someone, and then her head gets cut off and thrown over a waterfall. Sploosh!

Months later, her decomposing head (Ewwww!) is examined by police officers and Dr. John McGregor (Donald Pleasance), an insect expert who can tell how long the head has been in the river by the type of maggots that are crawling on it, or something. It's pretty disgusting, but they're all very noncholant about this bodiless head they're looking at. Also: Pleasance has a pet chimp named Tina.

So where's Jennifer Connelly? Oh, here she is. She plays a teenage girl named Jennifer Corvino. Hey, her name is very similar to her actual-for-real name! I wonder if that was deliberate. Jennifer is the daughter of a famous, hunky movie star, so everyone she meets knows who her dad is. When we meet her, her dad's assistant is taking her to a private school, where she'll spend the year while he's in the Phillippines. Also: She likes bugs.

On Jennifer's first night in her room at the school, her roommate casually tells her there's a serial killer in the area. It's like, "Just so you know, sometimes I snore, and we're not allowed in the kitchen, and some guy's been killing people in our neighborhood. Good night!" And then we CUT TO: One of the girls from the school being chased by the unseen killer!

Meanwhile, Jennifer rises from her bed in a trance. Her head is filled with images of a long, bright corridor with doors everywhere, and electronic music plays on the soundtrack, and for just a second it feels like a Labyrinth prequel. But then she wanders outside -- she's sleepwalking! Unfortunately, her sleepwalking takes her right to the site of the latest murder by the killer. Then she falls off a roof, gets hit by a car, gets picked up by some teenage boys, jumps out of the car, and ends up hanging out with Dr. McGregor and his chimp.

Eventually, Dr. McGregor figures out the truth about Jennifer and her affinity for insects. She can actually communicate with them telepathically. She's like Ant-Man, only without the ability to grow and shrink, or the drinking problem (Wow, another Marvel superhero!). And then a bunch of stuff happens, and Jennifer's roommate gets killed by the murderer, and Dr. McGregor figures out that Jennifer can team up with a corpse-detecting fly to track down the killer. Which is a great idea! Except that Jennifer is a 14-year-old girl. So maybe it's not so wise for her to deliberately go to the home of a guy who's brutally murdered several other teenage girls.

I won't reveal the identity of the killer, but I will say that it's not anyone I would have guessed. Also, there are more maggots in this movie than most movies I've seen this year.

LESSONS I LEARNED
-Baby food tastes like cat food.

-It's an accepted scientific fact that insects can communicate via telepathy.

-One should never eat gummy worms while watching a movie that features many, many shots of maggots crawling all over everything.

BODY COUNT
Seven.

Memorable Lines
Roommate: What do you think about before you fall asleep?
Jennifer: My father.
Roommate: If I thought about your father, I’d never get any sleep!

Teacher: (desperately trying to get the class to pay attention) And what about Shakespeare? Mozart, Beethoven? And Richard Wagner?
Student: RICHARD GERE! (Classroom erupts in hollers of girls.)

MOST HORRIFYING MOMENT
When Jennifer finds herself in the killer's house, she ends up falling in a pool of dead bodies, body parts, and sludge in the basement. Yeccch.

COMMENTS
-So, I guess Dario Argento is considered a great horror director, but while this movie was competently made with some real suspense, the blood & guts aren't really my style. I can't imagine what the longer, more graphic version is like.

-It's nice to see Donald Pleasance in a movie where he doesn't get killed by Michael Myers.

-The movie has a largely heavy metal score. Sometimes it's effective, but usually it just draws attention to itself and reminds us that the movie is from 1985. The opening credits list the contributing bands, including Motorhead, Iron Maiden, and Andy Sex Gang. "Andy Sex Gang"?!?

-Tina the chimp is actually a pretty important character in the movie. In fact, if it weren't for her and her quick primate thinking, Jennifer wouldn't survive the movie!

-So Jennifer Connelly is the star of this film, and I know what you're all wondering: Does she appear standing at the end of a pier? (See Dark City, Requiem for a Dream, and House of Sand and Fog). Well, no. But she does run across a dock to a boat at one point! An early-career indication of things to come.

-I like that they don't try too hard to explain Jennifer's power. There's no "You were swarmed by magical insects when you were a baby, and they blessed you with their language!" It's just, "So, you can talk to bugs. Cool."

-I'm not normally one to yell at characters in a movie, but I'll confess that I actually shouted the classic "DON'T GO IN THERE!" to Jennifer during one scene.

-I'm sure today's kids are jaded, but this seems like the type of movie that would have been great to rent in high school with a group of friends and hope the girl you like gets spooked and grabs your arm a lot.

-Whoa! While I've been writing this I'm watching The Tonight Show in the background, and Conan O'Brien just said "Jennifer Connelly" right when I was typing her name! WHOAAAAA! I guess she's going to be on the show next week... I hope they spend the whole time talking about this movie!

-Did I mention there are a lot of maggots in this movie? 'Cause there are a lot of maggots.

Letter grade for Creepers: B-. Like I said, the icky stuff isn't my cup of tea, but I can see how it's a good example of its genre.

Stay tuned for more "drive-in classics!" And maybe some "cult classics!"

Drive-in Classic 1 of 50: I WONDER WHO'S KILLING HER NOW?

Disclaimer: Although I'm titling this post with "Drive-in Classic 1 of 50," 1975's I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now?, directed by Steven Hilliard Stern, is not actually the first movie in the Mill Creek 50 Movie Pack: Drive-in Classics DVD set. It's just the one I decided to watch first, based mostly on the title.

The title, of course, is a goof on the old song I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now. My initial assumption was that this would be a really bad thriller with a high body count. But as soon as I pressed PLAY, that belief was challenged. An animated opening title sequence? A credit that reads "Starring Bill Dana?" Could this be... a... comedy?

(Bill Dana, by the way, is a comedian best known for playing a Mexican character named José Jimenez, who ranks somewhere near the Frito Banditio in terms of political correctness.)

And it is indeed a comedy, or at least it thinks it is. It starts out promisingly enough, but about halfway through the tone changes, and the whole thing becomes really, really stupid.

THE STORY:

Jordan Oliver (I thought maybe this was Bill Dana, but no, it's Bob Dishy) is married to a wealthy, frigid woman named Clarice, and he works for her father's company. Jordan just has one little flaw as an employee: He's been stealing from the company for years. His supervisor tells him he has just 30 days to repay the $250,000 he's stolen, so he plans to ask his wife for help. But it's not Jordan's lucky day, because when he gets home his wife announces that she's planning to divorce him.

So what can Jordan do? He attempts to sell his collection of paintings, but a dealer tells him they're forgeries (He actually says "feurrrgeries"), and the entire collection is only worth $25,000. And that's just for the frames.

In a session with his analyst, Jordan has a brainstorm: What if he took out a life insurance policy on Clarice, then had her killed? What a quick and easy way to get the money! His analyst vows not to tell anyone, because he takes doctor-patient confidentiality seriously. But can he do it? That day at lunch, his fortune cookie encourages him: "DON'T BE A COWARD! DO IT NOW!!!" After taking in a movie called Die! Die! My Pet, Jordan makes up his mind: He's going to kill his wife.

Before the insurance policy can go into effect, he has to arrange for Clarice to have a physical, which he manages to do without her knowing, in an occasionally funny scene featuring future Karate Kid and Happy Days star Pat Morita as a very sneaky doctor. Then he heads to a bar, where he meets a wacky ethnic guy named Bobo (Bill Dana), and hires him to do the job.

But wait! The insurance guy has bad news: The doctor Jordan hired to do the physical is not a real doctor (of course not... he's a martial arts expert who runs a malt shop!), so the insurance policy is not yet effective! In a panic, Jordan tracks down Bobo, only to discover that Bobo subcontracted another hitman - Patla, another wacky ethnic guy.

So they both track him down, only to discover that he sub-subcontracted another hitman - Dr. Binay, who runs a fat farm, speaks like Bela Lugosi, and employs as a nurse a man in drag. So they all track him down, only to discover that he sub-sub-subcontracted another hitman - CIA agent James Kirsten, who is undercover as a (wacky French) waiter but is secretly a bricklaying enthusiast. And yep, he hired another guy, and he hired another guy, and so on and so forth, and please is this movie over yet?

The early scenes with Jordan scheming to get the money are entertaining enough, with a few clever gags. For example, at the movie theater, he views a scene in which the character names and dialogue are exactly the same as the preceeding divorce scene between himself and his wife.

But as soon as Bobo reveals the existence of Patla, any trace of wit disappears, and instead we get a series of scenes that each serve only to introduce the next wacky ethnic caricature. The writers stop creating jokes; instead, they just sit back and rely on silly men just being silly. It's almost like there are two movies happening here: One is an offbeat but enjoyable enough comedy about a guy trying to kill his wife, and the other one is a loud, obnoxious mess about a bunch of character actors running around acting ridiculous.

COMMENTS:
-Man, there is nothing about this movie on the internet. Even IMDb only has one external review link.

-So how come Bill Dana gets the "Starring" credit when Bob Dishy's Jordan Oliver is the main character? Was Jose Jimenez really that popular?

-When the waiter/CIA agent/bricklayer showed up , I thought it was prolific character actor Vincent Schiavelli, but sadly it was not. It was Richard Libertini, whom I don't think I had ever heard of before.

-There's a gag early on where Jordan sits at a piano, and appears to be beautifully playing a stirring classical piece, but then it's revealed that he's just miming it and the real music is coming from a tiny man playing a tiny piano. It's... odd. And then the art dealer is very short also. This movie clearly believes that short = hilarious.

-One gag during Jordan's search for a hitman involves a flasher on a street corner. Is this just a comedy thing, or did it really exist at some point -- Men standing on street corners wearing large trenchcoats, waiting to open them and reveal their everythings to unsuspecting passersby? If so, where are all the flashers today?

-Apparently this movie sometimes goes by the title Kill My Wife, Please, which is absolutely no better or worse than I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now?

-According to IMDb, director Steven Hilliard Stern also directed a TV movie called Murder in Space. I think I would like to see that.

Letter grade for I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now?: C

I don't know when I'll watch another one of these things, but I'm pretty my next one will be the "Drive-in Classic" Creepers, starring a very young Jennifer Connelly. But I still have 49 drive-in movies and 20 "Cult Classics" left to go, so I have plenty to choose from. Stay tuned!

50 Horror Classics: The Wrap-up

I did it! I watched 50 old public domain movies slapped together by a cheap home video label under the claim that all of them are "horror classics." So... now what? I'll get to that later, but first, how about a breakdown of all 50 horror classics by letter grade? Before you read on, try guessing which letter grade I gave out most frequently!

A: 2
Night of the Living Dead, Metropolis

B+: 3
The Little Shop of Horrors, The Phantom of the Opera, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

B: 9
House on Haunted Hill, The Bat, Monster from a Prehistoric Planet, Nosferatu, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Corpse Vanishes, Invisible Ghost, Creature From the Haunted Sea, Carnival of Souls

B-: 9
The Amazing Mr. X, Bloodlust!, The Gorilla, Doomed to Die, The Killer Shrews, The Fatal Hour, The Giant Gila Monster, One Body Too Many, The Last Man on Earth

C+: 5
A Shriek in the Night, Tormented, Bluebeard, The Vampire Bat, Nightmare Castle

C: 8
Last Woman on Earth, Swamp Women, Indestructible Man, King of the Zombies, The Ape, The Screaming Skull, The Monster Maker, Dementia 13

C-: 5
The Brain That Wouldn't Die, The Terror, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Atom Age Vampire, The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues

D+: 1
Dead Men Walk

D: 4
The World Gone Mad, The Mad Monster, White Zombie, Black Dragons

D-: 2
The Monster Walks, Revolt of the Zombies

F+: 1
The Beast of Yucca Flats

There you have it. There were more B's and B-'s than any other letter grade. That's pretty surprising to me, but I'll point out that I did try to keep these things in perspective when rating them. I was comparing them to each other, not to The Godfather.

Now here are some exciting odds and ends about this collection and my journey through it:

MOST FREQUENTLY APPEARING ACTOR
Bela Lugosi, with roles in 6 of these movies. Boris Karloff is the the runner-up, with 4 movies, followed by Vincent Price with 3. Honorable mentions include George Zucco with 2 and the supporting actors in the Mr. Wong movies, Grant Withers and Marjorie Reynolds, also with 2 appearances. Of course, it's possible there were some actors in minor roles in more than six of the old low-budget movies produced by the "Poverty Row" studios, but none that I recognized.

MADDEST SCIENTIST:

The scientist's assistant who later took over the scientist's identity in Maniac.

SPUNKIEST GIRL REPORTER
Patricia Hunter in The Corpse Vanishes, beating out Pat in A Shriek in the Night and Bobbi Logan in Doomed to Die and The Fatal Hour.

MOST INTIMIDATING PRIMATE:
The ape from The Ape, followed by the gorilla from The Gorilla, followed closely by the chimp from The Monster Walks.

FIVE SCARIEST MONSTERS
1. Nosferatu in Nosferatu
2. Mr. Hyde in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
3. The Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera
4. The zombies in Night of the Living Dead
5. The Bat in The Bat (not technically a monster, but a ruthless, efficient serial killer)

FIVE LEAST SCARY MONSTERS
1. The shrews in The Killer Shrews, with their dog bodies and paper-mache heads
2. The gila monster in The Giant Gila Monster, who slowly, calmly stepped on model trains and miniature cars
3. Jacob Javorski, the fat, lumbering schmo wandering the desert in The Beast of Yucca Flats
4. Elwyn the slow-moving, grandfatherly vampire in Dead Men Walk
5. The sea monster in The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues, looking enough like a piñata that candy might have come out if the characters had whacked it

MOVIES THAT STRAINED THE DEFINITION OF "HORROR"
A Shriek in the Night - Murder mystery
The Fatal Hour - Murder mystery
Doomed to Die - Murder mystery
Swamp Women - Exploitation, crime, adventure
The Gorilla - A mystery starring a comedy team, The Ritz Brothers
One Body Too Many - Starring comedian Jack Haley, more of a comic pastiche than a legitimate horror movie
Metropolis - Science fiction
The World Gone Mad - Incredibly boring

MOVIES DURING WHICH I FELL ASLEEP:
Included Tormented, King of the Zombies, and Bluebeard.

LONGEST RUNNING TIME:
Metropolis - 119 minutes

SHORTEST RUNNING TIME:
Maniac - 51 minutes

OLDEST FILM:
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from 1920

NEWEST FILM:
Night of the Living Dead from 1968

LONGEST TITLE:

Monster From a Prehistoric Planet, with 29 letters.

SHORTEST TITLE:

It's a tie! Maniac and The Ape each have just six letters each.

AVERAGE BODY COUNT:

Well, I was hoping to have an actual, mathematical mean here, but considering there were movies in which entire island populations died, and at least two where almost every human in the world died, it's hard to come up with an exact count. Let's say... oh, I don't know... twenty million.

MOVIE LIKED MOST BY MY ROOMMATE, JOE:
One Body Too Many. He also liked House on Haunted Hill.

MOST SHAMEFUL CONFESSION:

Mine, right now: I never did get around to writing a real review of Maniac. I did watch the film... and a torturous hour it was. Then I put a placeholder post up here to announce that I would have a real write-up posted soon, but by the time I got around to sitting down to write it, I had lost my notes. I couldn't recall the specifics, and there was just no way I was going to suffer through that movie again. I hope you can forgive me, and I'm pretty sure you will... After all, it's not like I raised the dead, or turned an innocent man into a werewolf, or threw a hat on a bed.

FINAL THOUGHTS
How did I make it through 50 movies? As much as I love motion pictures, it wasn't easy. The Beast of Yucca Flats was the movie that almost broke me, and The World Gone Mad once again challenged my resolve. But it was such a random collection of movies that there was always the chance that the next one would be better.

And some of them were better than I expected -- Creature from the Haunted Sea, for example, was a fun, tongue-in-cheek monster movie, and Carnival of Souls, as the first film in the box set, actually tricked me into expecting less crappiness in the ensuing 49 movies. It was also cool to catch up on some of the actual classic movies that somehow managed to find their way in -- Night of the Living Dead and The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the like. Oh, and then there was the time I wrote about The Phantom of the Opera, and a guy claiming to be Lon Chaney, Sr. commented. That was pretty unexpected.

I would love to say I feel like I'm a better person for having done this, but mostly I feel like a person who's spent a lot of time watching old movies. I can't help but notice that I spent a lot of time on this venture, at least a couple hours every week. Now that I'm finished, I could use the extra time to write the great American novel, or climb mountains, or take up oil painting or crocheting... but there are so many more movies in the world that I haven't watched yet!

As I mentioned in my first-ever post, I also own the 50 Movie Pack: Drive-in Movie Classics DVD set. It is tempting to watch them all -- How could I resist Creepers from 1984, starring a pre-Labyrinth Jennifer Connelly? Or a movie called I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now? Or that all-time classic, Black Hooker, which is somehow rated PG?

And this past Christmas, my dad, because he is silly and awesome, also gave me yet another DVD set from Mill Creek entertainment, namely 20 Movie Pack: Cult Classics. It includes such dubiously beloved films as Sex Madness, Marihuana, and Oomo-Oomo the Shark God. They all sound fantastic... plus, I hate to abandon this perfectly good blog.

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to watch one a week, but every once in a while, when the mood strikes, I'll throw one of these things -- a TNT Jackson or a The Cocaine Fields -- in the DVD player and write them up right here. I'll most likely send out e-mail notificiations when I do this... I know there are a handful of people who have been reading every week. If you want to be updated when I post a new review, let me know and I'll include you on the list. And maybe I'll finish watching all 70 of those drive-in and cult classics by the time I turn 70 years old.

So I guess that's it. Fifty horror classics. Thank you for reading. I hope you've gotten some semblance of enjoyment out of reading this blog, and I hope that you, like me, will always keep a special place for Bela Lugosi in your heart.

Horror Classic 50 of 50: THE PHANTOM FROM 10,000 LEAGUES

Countdown update: After this movie, there are... zero. Zero horror classics out of 50.

Wow! Can that possibly be true? Why, as good as these movies have been, it seems like only... only 12 years ago that I started this project. And now here I am, about to write up the very last one, 1955's The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues. Do you suppose the people at Mill Creek Entertainment who put these DVDs together saved the best for last? Will this phantom be even better than that other phantom who hung around the opera? Let's dive in and find out.

But first! Let me remind you that this blog ain't over yet! Next week I'll be posting the super mega deluxe Horror Movies Wrap-up post. In 3-D!

Synopsis
So there's this guy out fishing in a little rowboat in the ocean, and suddenly a monster shows up, tips his boat over, and fondles him vigorously until he dies.

Wait! They already showed us the monster? It hasn't even been 5 minutes yet! And here already we know exactly what the monster looks like (a cross between an iguana and one of those Chinese parade dragons, but less animated than either)! The filmmakers must have something pretty special planned for the rest of the movie if they're willing to go all-out like that in the first scene.

Later that day, the body of the fisherman is found on the beach by two men: federal agent Bill Grant, and a visitor in town whose name is Ted Baxter. Ted Baxter! Unfortunately, he's not played by Ted Knight, and he's not a dim, arrogant newsman. The two men are suspicious of each other, and it doesn't help when Ted explains that he's in town to see Professor King at the university. Grant doesn't trust Professor King either, what with his mysterious experiments and all.

Not long after, we see Professor King himself come home to the house he shares with his grown-up daughter. When Ted knocks on the door and asks to see King, King runs and hides in his room, then sneaks out the window, because he's suspicious of Ted (and pretty much all other people). Basically, everyone is suspicious of everyone else. If the cast of this movie had been on the game show Who Do You Trust?, they would have won zero dollars.

So, it's pretty obvious at this point that King is the monster, right? Like, his crazy experiments have resulted in his occasional transformation into a sea monster with killing as a hobby. Man, I've been watching so many of these old horror movies I can see this stuff coming from a mile away.

When Agent Grant and Ted run into each other again, Grant reveals that he's discovered the truth about Ted Baxter: His name's not really Ted Baxter. He's actually Ted Stevens, and he's a scientist himself, a scientist who's done a series of experiments with radiation and sea creatures, which somehow has the potential to lead to the invention of a death ray. And he's never been married to Georgia Engel! He's concerned about Professor King's experiments, because they might lead to something pretty unpleasant for all life as we know it. All of this, of course, makes Agent Grant suspicious.

How about a few more characters who are suspicious? Okay! There's Andy, the janitor who works at King's office, but he doesn't get much to do so why the heck am I even mentioning him? And there's King's secretary Ethel, who snoops around every chance she gets.

Not to mention George! George is former student of King's who now lurks around spying on everyone. He's in cahoots with Wanda, an icy blonde who works for... somebody. It's never explained who, but I guess the implication is that it's the Russians. And you know how much those commies would love to get their hands on our secrets for creating death rays and really ugly monsters!

Ted finally manages to make an appointment to talk to Professor King. By this time, Ted has started flirting with King's daughter Lois. Uncharacteristically, King tells Ted to show up at his house any time and walk in the unlocked front door. It soon becomes clear why the writers made this choice: It's so Ted can catch a quick glimpse of Lois wrapped in a towel just out of the shower.

When King shows up (wearing clothing, not a towel), he and Ted have a talk, and King reveals that he, too, knows that "Ted Baxter" is actually Ted Stevens. How did he deduce this? Well, it has something to do with his owning a copy of Ted's book, which has a giant picture of Ted on the cover. This guy is really, really bad at hiding his identity.

By this point, Ted has gone for an underwater swim himself, and he's seen the monster with his own eyes. As he talks to King, the truth comes out: The monster is a sea animal mutated by the hydrogen-uranium isotope, which King created and which was affected by the heavy water, and now the monster is guarding the uranium, and... whew. Anyway, I was wrong. King's not the monster, he's just a monstrously careless scientist.

I feel like this is a long synopsis. Does this synopsis feel long to you? Oh well, it's my last horror classic. Woo-hoo!

So, the next thing that happens is, the monster comes out of the water, starts singing, and soon becomes a star on Broadway! No, I'm sorry. That doesn't happen. But wouldn't be great if it did? The next actually important thing that does happen is Agent Grant and Ted decide to dive into the water and kill that thing. Their plan doesn't quite work out, because Ted is a lousy shot with a spear gun. Soon, Professor King realizes it's his responsibility to blow up that dang ol' monster, even if it means blowin' up his own dang self in the process.

Is It Scary?
It is not.

Lessons I Learned

• A small deposit of uranium on the ocean floor will cause any ship that passes over it to explode.
  
• The best way to endear yourself to the girl you like is to walk into her house while she's taking a shower and sit outside the bathroom door.

Body Count
Six, plus the entire crew of a cargo ship.

My Favorite Lines

• Lois: "You should do that more often!"
  Ted: "What?"
  Lois: "Smile."
  Ted: (with no emotion whatsoever) "Well, all I need is a little encouragement. And you've given that to me."
• Professor King, to his secretary: "Ethel, I consider you intelligent. A bit bitter, perhaps, no great lover of mankind. But intelligent."
• George, to his ex-lover Wanda: "For quite a while, were were just a man and a woman, weren't we? I didn't know then they could put beauty and poison so cleverly in one package."
• George: "You see too much, Ethel. You should wear blinkers." [Did he maybe mean "blinders?"
• Wanda: "You don't look well, George. Or is it just that I don't find you attractive anymore?"
  

Comments
• The answer to my question, "Did they save the best for last?" is no. This was one of those movies that, despite its short running time (this one was 80 minutes), seemed very slowly paced. A lot of the actors were less than impressive... Ted was a boring lead and Wanda always sounded like she was reading lines.

• Doesn't the word "phantom" usually imply something ghostly, or at least sneaky? This was a big, bulky, ugly monster. Not very phantomian. I'm pretty sure he wasn't from 10,000 leagues, either. Maybe it means the monster is a baseball player, and he's played in 10,000 different leagues in his career. But probably not.

• At various points in the film, we see Professor King performing experiments to mutate a turtle, but he ends up killing it. It's too bad he didn't let that mutant turtle grow to be a teenager... It could have become a ninja.

• The part where Ted Stevens is trying to pass himself off as "Ted Baxter" to Professor King, and then Professor King goes into the next room, where he has a science book written by Ted Stevens with an enormous picture of the author on the cover? Pretty hilarious. What publishing company specializing in books on scientific theory would put the author on the cover like that? Why not a picture of something scientific, like an isotope or the periodic table or the universe?

• At first it seemed like a bold choice to show the monster in the first five minutes of the movie. Upon further consideration, however, it just seems stupid.

• Ted Stevens' hairstyle looked a lot like Sean Connery's from the James Bond movies. I would suggest that he did it on purpose, but this movie was released in 1955, seven years before the first Bond film. So maybe Sean Connery stole his look from this guy!

• Every time a character jumps off a boat to go diving, on the score there's this little glissando on the piano as they plunge into the water. It's pretty cartoony, but I liked it. (I hope "glissando" is the correct term here. If it's not, please don't tell Uvalde High School band director Mr. Derocher that I got it wrong.)

Letter grade for The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues: C-

Next film in the 50-movie set: Nothing. That's all she wrote. That's the whole ball of wax. That's the whole bowl of fruit, the whole salad. But come back next week for the wrap-up post!