The Dean Martin Show

Today the variety show format is nearly unknown on American television. Saturday Night Live on NBC remains the sole survivor of the format, although it has traditionally concentrated on skit comedy much more than most variety shows. There was a time when variety shows were plentiful in the prime time line ups of the networks. In fact, there was a time when some of the biggest names of entertainment had their own variety shows. Judy Garland, Danny Kaye, Frank Sinatra, and many others had turns as hosts of their own variety shows. Among the most successful of them all was Dean Martin.

The Dean Martin Show debuted on NBC on September 16, 1965. While the show was often raked over the coals by critics, it proved to be a hit with viewers. Not only did The Dean Martin Show prove to be a hit in its first season, but it performed consistently well in the ratings for every season it was on. The series lasted for nine years, until May 1974. Afterwards the series had a bit of an afterlife in the form of spinoff specials entitled The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts. The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts would continue until 1984.

Dean Martin was no stranger to television or to variety shows when The Dean Martin Show debuted in 1965. In fact, with former comedy partner Jerry Lewis, he was one of the guests on the debut show of a variety series called Toast of the Town on June 20, 1948; it would later become better known as The Ed Sullivan Show. Both with and without Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin had appeared on such shows as The Jack Carter Show, The Jack Benny Programme, The Steve Allan Show, The Perry Como Show, and many others. Neither was Dean Martin a stranger to hosting variety shows. Martin and Lewis had served among the rotating hosts on The Colgate Comedy Hour from its debut on NBC on September 10, 1950 to the show's demise in 1955. In 1964 Dean Martin was the guest host of ABC's variety show The Hollywood Palace twice. It was on one of The Hollywood Palace shows which Martin hosted that The Rolling Stones made their first appearance on American television (Martin's jokes at The Stones' expense has since become the stuff of legend).

It might then seem curious to know that in 1965 Dean Martin was not particularly fond of the idea of doing a regularly scheduled television show. The reason was simply that Martin felt that a television series would prevent him from accepting offers for movies and nightclub performances. When NBC then approached Martin about the prospect of doing a variety show, he demanded terms so outrageous that he was sure the network would turn him down. Quite simply, Dean Martin demanded an exorbitantly high salary, that he be required only to show up for the actual taping of the show, and the show be taped on Sundays. Much to Martin's surprise, NBC accepted his terms.

The Dean Martin Show debuted in the fall of 1965 to a strong start. Its original format was very basic. Dean Martin and pianist Ken Lane were the series' only regulars. While Dean acted as host and sang a few songs, much of the show was filled with big name stars. It was very soon that the ratings for The Dean Martin Show began to falter. Having made a very big investment in the success of the series, NBC brought Greg Garrison in as the show's producer and director. Garrison was a television veteran who had directed such series as The Kate Smith Hour, The Milton Berle Show, and Meet Corliss Archer. In conjunction with musical director Lee Hale, Garrison set about revising the format of The Dean Martin Show. Martin's role on the show was increased, while the number of guest was decreased. Both Garrison and Hale worked hard to make Dean Martin more comfortable with the show. In fact, it was not unusual for Garrison to overbook guests should there be a need to replace them. Garrison and Hale's strategy worked. The Dean Martin Show climbed back to the top of the ratings. By 1967 the show was so successful that Dean Martin received from NBC what may have been the most lucrative contract up to that time.

From that time forward the format of The Dean Martin Show would only change a little over the years. Each show would begin with the strains of Dean Martin's 1964 hit "Everybody Loves Somebody." Dean would then enter by  stumble down a flight of stairs, which was soon switched to him sliding down a fireman's pole. Dean would sing a song, tell a few jokes, and introduce his guests. For the next hour there would be more songs (if a singer was the guest on that week's show, he or she would usually perform a solo number and later a duet with Dean), skits, and chat. The Dean Martin Show did have a few regular segments. At some point in the show Dean Martin would retire to his music room, whereupon there would be a knock on The Closet door. The individual in The Closet was always a celebrity guest and most of the time Martin had no idea who would be (this was done to keep his reactions spontaneous). Among the guests who emerged from The Closet were Jack Benny, Johnny Carson, Jimmy Durante,  Red Skelton, Flip Wilson,  and many others. The Closet was conceived when Garrison needed a means for Martin's uncle, comedian Leonard Barr, to make a surprise visit to the show. In another regular segment, drawn from Martin's nighclub act, Dean Martin would start singing a standard which would invariably end in a gag. The show generally ended with a production number with Martin's guests, often in the form of a musical sketch.

For the show Dean Martin adopted the persona he had created after he had parted ways with Jerry Lewis--that of a drunken, slightly lazy, womanising playboy. This worked well with the atmosphere of the show, which was relaxed, affable, and unpretentious. Although the show was always taped, it very much seemed like a live show. Much of this was due to the fact that Dean Martin had demanded that he be present only for the taping of the show. For only two days The Dean Martin Show would occupy Studio 4 at NBC in Burbank. Saturday would be occupied by rehearsals and blocking the camera setups, with musical director Lee Hale standing in for Martin. On Sunday the show was taped. Although Martin memorised his scripts beforehand, he most often read from cue cards. If he flubbed a line, he simply made a joke and went on. There were no retakes, so that every error Martin made when straight onto tape.

As with many variety shows of the era, The Dean Martin Show did not air in the summer. There were no reruns. As a result, over the years the production crew behind the show would produce various summer replacements which would fill the timeslot of The Dean Martin Show. In 1966 The Dean Martin Summer Show (which didn't feature Martin at all) was hosted by comedy team Rowan and Martin, who would go onto host Rowan and Martin's Laugh In. In 1967 The Dean Martin Summer Show  was renamed The Dean Martin Summer Show Starring Your Host Vic Damone. It was in during the 1967-1968 that it was decided the summer show should be a salute to the Thirties. The title for the 1968 summer series was inspired by the classic Busby Berkley musical The Golddiggers of 1933--Dean Martin Presents The Golddiggers. It proved successful enough to return for the 1969 summer season. For the 1970 summer season the show was moved to England and entitled The Golddiggers in London. In 1972 the summer replacement starred Bobby Darin in Dean Martin Presents The Bobby Darin Amusement Company. For 1973 the summer replacement series focused on country music, with the title of Dean Martin Presents Music Comedy. During the 1974 summer season, the show's time slot was filled by The Dean Martin Comedy World, which featured comics from all around the world.

The Dean Martin Show only changed a little over the years, but it did change.One of the changes to the show would come about because of its most successful summer replacement series. As mentioned above, it was in during the 1967-1968 that it was decided the summer show should be a tribute to the Thirties, executed as if network television existed at the time. It was Greg Garrison who had initially thought of the Thirties motif. It was Lee Hale who thought of the name The Golddiggers for the troupe of dancers and singers who would star in the show. Garrison and Hale then hired twelve women on the basis of their talent, attractiveness, and wholesomeness who would form the troupe. The Golddiggers made their debut on The Dean Martin Show during the 1967-1968 season. In addition to their own summer replacement series, The Golddiggers continued to appear on The Dean Martin Show and even appeared on other programmes (as well as appearing in Bob Hope's USO shows). In 1970 Greg Garrison and Nathan Hale picked four of The Golddiggers to peform as The Dingaling Sisters on The Dean Martin Show. In 1971 The Golddiggers were spun off into their own weekly syndicated show, Chevrolet Presents The Golddiggers. It ran for two seasons. Afterwards The Golddiggers did not appear on The Dean Martin Show, although The Dingaling Sisters continued to appear on the show until 1973.

It was in 1970, just as The Dingaling Sisters were formed, that a regular stable of comics was developed for The Dean Martin Show to help with its skits. Among the comics who regularly appeared on the series were Charles Nelson Reilly, Dom DeLuise, Nipsey Russell, Rodney Dangerfield, and others.

As hard as it is to believe today, The Dean Martin Show was for a time controversial. As the Sixties became the Seventies, the show increasingly became the target of feminists, who felt that the series promoted attitudes which objectified women. Garrison and Hale toned down many of the more sexist comments. Unfortunately, it was about that time that the ratings began to fall.

It was then in the fall of 1973 that The Dean Martin Show moved from the Thursday night timeslot it had held for its entire history to Friday nights. It also marked a major change in its format. Retitled The Dean Martin Comedy Hour, the show now featured a nearly half hour long "roast" segment patterned after the Friar's Club roasts, in which famous celebrities were roasted. A greater emphasis was placed on skits and a new country music segment was introduced. It was to no avail. The ratings did not improve. After nine years The Dean Martin Show was coming to an end. The roast segments had proven popular enough that they would be spun off into a series of specials, The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast, which would continue until 1974.

Today it is easy to take The Dean Martin Show for granted as another celebrity show. It must be kept in mind, however, that in 1965 Dean Martin was a major star. He had a extraordinarily successful recording career, so much so that his hit "Everybody Loves Somebody" actually knocked The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" out of the top spot on the American music charts. As an actor he had appeared in such films as Rio Bravo, Toys in the Attic, and What a Way to Go. As a both a successful movie star and recording star, Martin was then able to attract top flight talent. Many big name guests appeared on the show over the years. Cyd Charisse, Bing Crosby, Van Johnson, Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Mickey Rooney, John Wayne, and Orson Welles all appeared on the show, many of them multiple times. As might be expected, fellow Rat Packers also appeared on the show, including Frank Sinatra, Joey Bishop, and Angie Dickinson.

The Dean Martin Show is part of my fondest childhood memories as one of those shows my family watched regularly. It formed part of our Thursday night ritual. Dad would cook popcorn (in a skillet--this was in the days before microwave ovens were common and he apparently did not believe in Jiffy Pop) and we would settle down to watch The Dean Martin Show. While I know that much of the humour must have went over my head, I did find the show very funny as a child. And even though my tastes ran to The Beatles, The Who, and The Monkees (that much has not changed), even then I enjoyed Dean Martin's singing. He was the first crooner and the first member of the Rat Pack of whom I became a fan. I watched the show until the very end, even though I thought in the final seasons that the roasts took something away from the show has it had been.

Apparently I was not alone in my love of The Dean Martin Show. Other big stars had tried their hands at variety shows before Dean Martin. Judy Garland had made a failed attempt at a variety show. Fellow Rat Packer had tried no less than twice. Dean Martin succeeded. And it must be kept in mind that for the nine years that The Dean Martin Show aired, he continued to appear in movies and in nightclubs, and he continued to record. In the end he proved to be one of the few major stars who actually produced a lasting, classic, television, variety show.

National Novel Writing Month

For those of you who don't know, November is National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo. It is essentially a month long, writing project in which participants try to write a 50,000 word novel in only thirty days. While it is still called "National Novel Writing Month," it has truly become international in scope. Many people from many nations now participate.

NaNoWriMo was started in July 1999 by writer Chris Baty. That first year it had only twenty one participants, all of them in the San Francisco Bay area. Since that time it has grown considerably. By 2000 it had its own website, as well as a Yahoo Group for discussions. The number of participants that year had grown to 140. It was also moved to November,  with the idea that the more miserable weather would be more inclined to novel writing (hating summer as I do, I would argue with that idea....). It was in 2001 that NaNoWriMo really took off. Expecting only 150 participants, Chris Baty suddenly found 5000 people had signed up to his creative writing project. It must be kept in mind that at this time NaNoWriMo did not have an automated system for signing up, so that Chris Baty and several volunteers had to register participants by hand! Since then NaNoWriMo has grown by leaps and bounds. In 2002 it actually received coverage from both National Public Radio and CBS News. In 2005 59,703 people participated. In 2006 101,767 did.

National Novel Writing Month only has a few rules in order to "win" the project. The first is simply that one must write a 50,000 word novel from November 1 to November 30. The second is that the novel must be written from scratch. While one can create plot outlines, create character sketches, and perform research all before November 1, any actual writing cannot begin before that date. Third, the work must be a novel--a lengthy work of fiction. Third, one must be the sole author of his or her novel. Co-authored works are not allowed. Fourth, one cannot simply repeat the same word 50,000 times and win. Fifth, one must upload his or her novel to validate that it is 50,000 words or more. Here I must point out that there are no prizes beyond the satisfaction of completing a novel in one month. I must also point out that quality does matter for NaNoWriMo. All that matter is that the novel is written in thirty days or less and exceeds 50,000 words.

For those who are thinking that 50,000 words seems to scant too qualify as a novel, I must point out that a work of fiction need only be 40,000 words to be considered a novel (anything under 40,000 but above 17,500 is a novella, anything below 17,500, well, you get the picture).. Ray Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451 only has a count of 46,118 words. Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five only has 49,459 words. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby only weighs in at 50,061 words. All three of these works are considered novels, and yet only one of them has more than 50,000 words (and only a tad more at that).

Here I must point out that it is possible to write a novel, even a good novel in a month or less. The writers of the old pulp magazines actually did it on a monthly basis. Two of my idols, Lester Dent (who wrote the bulk of the Doc Savage novels) and Norvell Page (who wrote the bulk of The Spider novels) did this for literally years, and the majority of their works are quite readable. Ian Fleming wrote his first novel and the first novel starring James Bond, Casino Royale, in only around four weeks. While the emphasis for National Novel Writing Month is on quantity rather than quality--one simply has to get a novel out in 30 days, not necessarily a good one--it is possible to write something publishable in that time frame.

While I had heard of National Novel Writing Month several years ago, this is my first year participating in it. Here I must give credit to fellow writer, A Cat of Impossible Colour for alerting me to it on Twitter (otherwise I would have forgotten it until, oh, November 30....). For me NaNoWriMo is a chance to sharpen my writing skills. For those of you who don't know, while I am a published writer of nonfiction articles (and, of course, this blog), I have always wanted to be a published writer of fiction. While in my twenties I even wrote my first, unpublished novel (which will forever remain unpublished). After a lapse of  many years during which time making a living took precedence over writing, I decided once more to try my hand at fiction. I developed a concept for a novel and started on it this summer. It was then that I learned I was a bit rusty. NaNoWriMo is then a chance for me to sharpen my skills. Of course, as per the rules, I am writing a wholly original novel  for NaNoWriMo and not the one upon which I had been working.

Because of the time restraint, I am having to approach my NaNoWriMo novel a bit differently than anything I've written before. I did not even think of a concept for a novel that could be written in thirty days until November 1 was nearly upon me. This means that I could not develop a plot outline as I have for every short story I've written, the novel I'd written, or the novel I was writing. It also means that I had little time to do research ( my novel is set in England in 1654). I then find myself letting the plot develop as I write and not really worrying about too many historical inaccuracies (fortunately, I do have some knowledge of Cromwellian England). The biggest hurdle for me is finding time to write. I work five days a week, forty hours a week. This leaves very little time in which I can write even a thousand words a day, let alone the average of 1,666 words a day I  must write to reach 50,000 before November 30. I am finding now that I am having to play "catch up" on the weekends.

Regardless, NaNoWriMo is proving enjoyable. It is a bit of a challenge to actually produce a novel, even one that's not very good, in thirty days. I wholly recommend NaNoWriMo to anyone who is interested in writing fiction (although I think it would be a bit late to start now). And who knows? If Ian Fleming could start an entire franchise with a novel he wrote in a month, then maybe I could too?

Carl Ballantine Passes On

Character actor and magician Carl Ballantine passed Tuesday at the age of 92. He may well have been best known as con man Lester Gruber on the sitcom McHale's Navy. In both vaudeville and on television he also performed bumbling, inept magic tricks as "Ballantine the Great."

Carl Ballantine was born Meyer Kessler in Chicago, Illinois on September 27, 1917. At age 9 he was taught his first magic tricks by his barber. It was in 1940, when he was performing a straight magic act called "The River Gambler," using cards, poker chips, and money. Realising that his act was not a big hit in nightclubs, he decided to change his act. Ballantine developed an act in which he performed magic tricks very ineptly, expressing mock chagrin when they did not work. Ballantine soon found himself very much in demand as a nightclub performer. With a bad back, Ballantine was exempt from military service during World War II, but performed for the troops in England. During the Forties he performed at both the Palace Theatre in New York City and in Las Vegas as well.

Carl Ballantine made his first appearance on television on The Milton Berle Show, on which he performed his magic act/comedy routine. Throughout the Fifties he appeared on such shows as Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge, The Jack Carter Show, Frankie Laine Time, The Chevy Showroom Starring Andy Williams, and The Gary Moore Show. In the Sixties Ballantine appeared on such variety shows as The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Andy Williams Show, The Hollywood Palace, and The Dean Martin Show. As Lester Gruber, Ballantine was a regular on McHale's Navy, and appeared on the feature film based on the show--his first appearance in a motion picture in 1964. He guest starred on such shows as Car 54, Where Are You, That Girl, The Monkees, Laredo, Mayberry R.F.D., and I Dream of Jeannie. In 1969 he was a regular on The Queen and I. He appeared in the films Penelope, Speedway, and The Shakiest Gun in the West.

In the Seventies Ballantine guest starred on such shows as The Partridge Family, The Virginian, Love, American Style, O'Hara U.S. Treasury,  and When Things Were Rotten. He appeared in the films The World's Greatest Lover,  The North Avenue Irregulars, and Just You and Me, Kid. In 1972 he appeared on Broadway in a revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. In 1980 Carl Ballantine was a regular on the series One in a Million. He guest starred on Trapper John M.D., Blacke's Magic, Night Court, and The Cosby Show. He also appeared in the film The Best of Times.

In the Nineties Carl Ballantine appeared in the films Mr. Saturday Night, Oink, My Giant, and Susan's Plan. He did voice work on the cartoons Garfield and Friends, Freakazoid, and Spider-Man. In the Naughts he appeared in the movies The Million Dollar Kid, Farewell to Harry, and Aimee Semple McPherson (his last appearance on film). He performed his magic act/comedy routine for last time in the autumn of 2008, at the "It's Magic" show at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.

"The Great Ballantine" was an apt stage name for a man who was both a great magician and a great character actor. As a magician Ballantine had considerable skill, even if he appeared bumbling. Indeed, he was perhaps the first man to successfully combine comedy and magic in one act. As a character actor he not only played Gruber on McHale's Navy, but numerous memorable characters in his many guest appearances (including TV producer Hubbell Benson in The Monkees episode "Find The Monkees"). Carl Ballantine was a rarity, a man who was talented as a magician, a comedian, and an actor.

Actors Lou Jacobi and Collin Wilcox Pass On

Lou Jacobi

Character actor Lou Jacobi, passed on October 23 at the age of 95. He appeared on Broadway and in movies ranging from Irma la Douce to My Favourite Year.

Lou Jacobi was born Louis Jacobovitch  on December 28, 1913 in Toronto. He started acting at a young age, appearing in The Rabbi and the Priest in a Toronto theatre in 1924, playing a violin prodigy. As an adult he worked as the drama director of the Toronto YMHA, a social director at a summer resort, a stand up comedian, and as entertainment at such functions as bachelor parties and weddings. Jacobi went to London where he appeared in American musicals Guys and Dolls and Pal Joey. In 1952 he was even part of a comand performance at the London Palladium.

Jacobi made his film debut in the 1953 British film Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary. He made his television debut in an episode of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Presents in 1953. It was in 1955 that he made his debut on Broadway, playing Mr. Van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank. He would repeat the role in the 1959 movie adaptation of the film. In 1959 he appeared on Broadway in the play The Tenth Man.

Jacobi remained busy in the Sixties. On film he appeared in Irma la Douce, The Last of the Secret Agents, and Penolope. On television he guest starred on The Defenders, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and That Girl.  On Broadway he appeared in Come Blow Your Horn, Fade Out--Fade In, and Don't Drink the Water. In the Seventies he appeared in the movies Cotton Comes to Harlem, Next Stop, Greenwich Village, Roseland, and The Magician of Lublin. On television he was the lead on the TV show Ivan the Terrible in the summer of 1976. He also guest starred on The Dean Martin Show, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, Love American Style, Barney Miller, and Sanford and Son. On Broadway he appeared in Norman is That You, Unlikely Heroes, The Sunshine Boys, and Cheaters.

In the Eighties he appeared in the films Chu Chu and the Philly Flash, My Favourite Year, Isaac Littlefeathers, and The Boss' Wife. He was a regular on the 1986 series Melba, and guest starred on Too Close for Comfort, St. Elsewhere, and L.A. Law. It was in the Nineties that he made his last film appearances, in I Don't Buy Kisses Anymore and I.Q.

Lou Jacobi was a versatile actor who was capable of playing many roles. He could play a  genius, like Albert Einstein's friend Kurt Gödel in I.Q. or someone less than honourable like Mr. Van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank. In his career he played comedic ethnic characters and dramatic roles with equal ease. Quite simply, he was one of the best characters of the latter part of the Twentieth Century.

Collin Wilcox

Collin Wilcox, best known for playing Mayella Violet in To Kill a Mockingbird, passed on October 14 at the age of 74. The cause was brain cancer.

Collin Wilcox was born Cincinnati on February 4, 1935. While she was still a baby her family moved to Highlands, North Carolina. Her parents were two of the founders of he Highlands Community Theatre. It was there that she made her debut when she was still a child. She attended the University of Tennessee and later moved to Chicago where she studied at the Goodman School of Drama. In Chicago she was part of the Compass Players, which included Mike Nichols and Elaine May. In 1957 she moved to New York City, where she studied with the Actor's Studio.

Collin Wilcox made her debut on Broadway in The Day the Money Stopped in 1958. That same year she made her television debut on The DuPont Show of the Month. She made guest appearances on Brenner, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Untouchables, and The Eleventh Hour. She appeared on Broadway in Look We've Come Through in 1961 and Strange Interlude in 1963. It was in 1962 that she appeared in To Kill a Mockingbird.  Despite her prominent role in To Kill a Mockingbird, most of Wilcox's career would be spent in television. Throughout the Sixties she guest starred on Temple Houston, Route 66, The Twilight Zone, Ben Casey, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Defenders, Run For Your Life, The Fugitive, and The Virginian. She appeared in the movie The Name of the Game is Kill.

In 1970 she appeared in the films Catch 22, The Revolutionary, and The Baby Maker. In the Seventies she guest starred on The Waltons, Gunsmoke, The Streets of San Francisco, Cannon, Columbo, The Manhunter, Quincy M.E., and Little House on the Prairie. She appeared in the films September 30, 1955, A Rainy Day, and Jaws 2. In 1977 she moved back to Highlands with her husband Scott Paxton. Together they founded the Highlands Studio for the Arts. In the last years of her career she appeared in the movies Fluke, The Journey of August King, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and A Twist of Fate. She was a regular on the TV show Christy as Swannie O'Teale.

Collin Willcox was a talented actress who was not afraid to play roles that were not always glamourous. She was superb as  Mayella Violet, the girl who falsely accused a black man, in To Kill a Mockingbird. On her guest appearance on The Waltons she played an Aimee Semple McPherson style evangelist. She was a talented actress who could play a variety of roles with ease.

Happy Halloween 2009!

Today being a holiday, I thought I would not do a full fledged blog entry. Instead I will leave you with a really cool picture that evokes Halloween quite nicely and some holiday oriented videos.

As to the picture, this is the great Boris Karloff browsing comic books with a little girl. I am not sure when the picture was taken, but it must have been shortly after October 1954 when the Comics Code was enacted (notice the huge Comics Code seal on the sign), but before February/March 1955 when Tales from the Crypt ended its run. At any rate, I thought nothing could evoke the holiday better than Karloff and classic EC Comics.





Next up is one of the quintessential Halloween songs, "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Öyster Cult. Contrary to popular belief, the song is not about suicide. According to Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser, "Don't Fear the Reaper" is actually about how love transcends time. Indeed, the final verse of the song seems to evoke Poe's "Eleanora" than Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet."

Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear The Reaper @ Yahoo! Video

Next up is the original video to "Living Dead Girl" by Rob Zombie. The song is a pot-pourri of horror references. The title may be taken from the 1982 horror movie directed by French horror auteur Jean Rollin, La Morte Vivante ("The Living Dead Girl"). The song also contains a line from the trailer of the film Lady Frankenstein and the music at the start of the song is taken from the music in the trailer for Wes Craven's Last House on the Left. The song also contains a reference to Vincent Price's Dr. Goldfoot from two beach party movies, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine and Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs



As to what I'll be doing today, aside from handing out candy, I'm watching a marathon of The Brides of Dracula, Isle of the Dead, Bedlam, Shadow of the Vampire, and Kronos! Happy Halloween to all and to all a good night!

Horror by the Decade: Q

(As anyone who regularly reads this blog knows, each year to celebrate Halloween I post on topics relevant to that holiday. This year I have decided do something slightly different and write a post on a classic horror film, one from each decade from the Twenties to the Eighties, during the seven days preceding Halloween. This is the final post in this series, featuring a movie from the Eighties)

In 1982 there was a terrible sameness to the horror movies being released. The genre was dominated by the ongoing cycle towards slasher movies. It was the era of the endless Friday the 13th sequels, Pieces, and Slumber Party Massacre. There were a few holdovers from the occult horror cycle of the Seventies (Evilspeak, Invitation to Hell), and a few movies about ghosts (Amityville II: The Possession and Poltergeist). Very few horror movies stood out. Among them was John Carpenter's remake of The Thing (actually a more faithful adaptation of the novella upon which both were based, Who Goes There). There was also the horror comedy Basket Case and the anthology film Creepshow, a collaboration between George Romero and Stephen King. It would be another famous, low budget horror director besides Romero who would give 1982 another one of its better horror movies. That director was Larry Cohen. The film was simply entitled Q.

 In Q,  New York City is beset by a rash of murders in which the victims are skinned alive, apparently by a modern day Aztec cult. At the same time, there have been reports of a giant monster flying about the city. The police, including detectives Shepard (played by David Carradine) and Powell (Richard Roundtree) are sceptical of such reports until the monster starts eating people. Into this mix entered petty thief Jimmy Quinn (Michael Moriarty), who stumbles upon the creature's lair atop the Chrysler Building and decides to make the city pay for the information. It is from the gigantic creature that is at once reptile and bird that Q takes its title--"Q" is short for  "Quetzlcoatl," an Aztec god and the monster of the film.

Larry Cohen had worked in television (he created the shows Branded, The Blue Light, and The Invaders) before going onto become a notable director of low budget, independent films. He worked in many genres, including comedy and Blaxploitation, but it was for his horror movies that he would become best known.  Indeed, he had directed one of the most frightening horror movies of the Seventies, It's Alive, which featured a most unlikely monster--a mutant, cannibalistic baby. While on the surface his films would appear to be mere exploitation, in truth all of them contain commentary on modern day society.

It was in the early Eighties that Larry Cohen, veteran writer and producer of TV shows and B-movie director, had been hired to write and direct another adaptation of Mickey Spillane's I, the Jury. While he did write the screenplay, Cohen was fired after one week as the film's director, allegedly because the film's budget had spiralled out of control. To prove to the film's producers that he should not have been fired, Cohen decided he should make a what could be a very expensive film for much less than the new adaptation of I, the Jury cost. As to how Larry Cohen came upon the subject for his next film, it was quite simply the Chrysler Building in New York City. He was looking at the Chrysler Building one day and thought that it should have its own movie. After all, the Empire State Building had been featured in King Kong. When he turned his attention to the gargoyles on the sides of the Chrysler Building's towers, he thought that a giant bird looking for a place to nest in New York City would surely choose the Chrysler Building.

While there can be little doubt that the Chrysler Building provided much of the inspiration for the film, another possible source of inspiration for Q may have been the 1946 horror movie The Flying Serpent, produced by Poverty Row studio PRC. In The Flying Serpent George Zucco played a crazed archaeologist who stumbled upon a winged serpent, Quetzlcoatl, and then figured out a means to use the monster to take revenge on his enemies.

Pre-production on Q only lasted a week. Fired from I, the Jury, Larry Cohen decided not to waste the hotel room in New York he had rented and set to work on the film. Not only did he have a shooting script finished in six days, but he had also cast the movie as well!  Of course, the cast could have been very different. Cohen had considered Eddie Murphy (who was still on Saturday Night Live) for the role of Jimmy Quinn, and a relatively unknown actor at the time, Bruce Willis, for the role of Shepard.

With pre-production taking place so swiftly, Larry Cohen did not have a clear idea of what the film's monster would look like when he started the film. Having seen Alien, Cohen was struck by how little the monster was seen in that film. He thought that perhaps he could deliver the film's frights by  only offering glimpses of Quetzlcoatl's beak or claw, with no full shots of the monster. It was after a rough cut was made of the film that Cohen realised he would have to show the monster or audiences would be disappointed. Fortunately for Cohen, Steve Neil (who did special makeup effects on the film) was friends with stop motion animator Randall William Cook. Cook made a deal with Cohen to design the movie's monster. Cook then brought  fellow stop motion animator David Allan, as he did not own his own facilities for photographing the monster. David Allen brought model maker Dennis Gordon onto the project to help with creating the miniatures. Allen had to work in a hurry to get the special effects completed in time and his facilities were somewhat limited. The end result is that the special effects are sometimes uneven.

Just as the pre-production on Q happened at a breakneck pace, so too was it shot. The film was shot in only eighteen days. With such a brief period of pre-production and  a hectic shooting schedule, with shooting sometimes lasting from 18 to 20 hours a day. Many times Larry Cohen shot the film on the New York streets without a permit. Indeed, the film used no extras--everyone in the background of the film are ordinary New Yorkers, not actors.

Ironically, Q opened in New York City on October 8, 1982, one day before the movie from which Larry Cohen had been fired, I, the Jury, did. In the end Q made four times as much money as I, the Jury, even though it only cost an eighth as much. It must also be mentioned that Q received much better reviews than the new version of I, the Jury. Both The New York Times and Variety gave the film good reviews, while Roger Ebert seemed to have enjoyed the film while only giving it two and a half stars.

For a film that was made extremely swiftly and on a shoestring budget, Q is surprisingly good. The film's strengths rest in Larry Cohen's script and the performances of its leads. As might be expected of Cohen, Q has a very intelligent screenplay, one which once more deals with social issues. At the heart of  Q is the subject of religion, as the characters ponder whether Quetzlcoatl is a god, a monster, or possibly both. While examining the nature of godhood, the film also puts in swipes at politics, petty criminals, and the city of New York. This is not to say that Q is a dead serious, message film. The movie is filled with Cohen's usual humour, featuring some of the best dialogue he had ever written. Indeed, one of the great things about Q is that the film does work on many levels. It is at once a police procedural, a black comedy, and a monster movie.

Of course, even as great as Cohen's script was, the movie would not be nearly as good if it wasn't for the performances of its leads. Nearly every critic who reviewed the movie noted Michael Moriarty's performance as Jimmy Quinn. In fact, it may well have been the best performance of his career, surpassing even the one he gave in Bang the Drum Slowly. Quinn's cowardly, scheming Quinn is matched by David Carradine's straight arrow, hard working detective Shepard. In what could have easily been a one note performance in the hands of other another actor, Carradine gave Shephard depth. Richard Roundtree also delivers a good performance as the bad cop, Powell, to Shephard's good cop. In fact, the interaction between Powell and Quinn is one of the best things about the movie, given Powell's distaste for the petty hood.

Q is also very effective as a horror movie. There are a number of scenes which will make viewers jump from their seat. And for those who like gore, there is a good deal of that in the film. This is, after all, a movie in which modern day followers of the ancient Aztec religion flay people alive.

Q does have its flaws. While the special effects are very good for the most part, there are a few moments, particularly when Quetzlcoatl comes into full view, which are not quite convincing. Here I wish to stress that there is no fault on the part of Dave Allen and his special effects crew in this. They were brought onto the picture in post-production, rushed for time, and working with limited resources and a limited budget. There are also some scenes in which Larry Cohen's direction is less than stellar. Here again it must be kept in mind that Cohen was working very quickly, and often under less than desirable circumstances. Given the swiftness with which the film was made and its limited budget, it is perhaps a testament to Cohen's skill as a producer and director that the film is as good as it is.

At the time Q was released it was an oddity among horror movies. It was in many respects an anachronism, an old fashioned, giant monster movie released in the middle of a cycle towards slasher films. Even as a giant monster movie, however, it was different from any that had come before it. The film boasted a good screenplay that had plenty of intelligence, wit, and humour behind it. If the film has become a cult classic, perhaps it is because it is a genuinely good film.

Horror by the Decade: Phantasm

(As anyone who regularly reads this blog knows, each year to celebrate Halloween I post on topics relevant to that holiday. This year I have decided do something slightly different and write a post on a classic horror film, one from each decade from the Twenties to the Eighties, during the seven days preceding Halloween. This is the sixth post in this series, featuring a movie from the Seventies)

By 1979 the cycle towards occult horror which had begun in the late Sixties was finally coming to an end. At the same time the cycle towards slasher films had not really gotten started, even though Halloween had just been released the year before. With no one type of horror movie dominating the genre at the time, it should not be surprising that a few of the horror movies released in 1979 were decidedly different. Ridley Scott's Alien took horror into outer space, as the crew of a spaceship faced a monstrous extraterrestrial. Another movie also blended science fiction and horror, although in a wholly different way. Phantasm may have been the first movie to ever blend elements of Gothic horror with elements of science fiction.

Phantasm centred on thirteen year old orphan Mike Pearson (A. Michael Baldwin) and his twenty four year old brother Jody (Bill Thornbury) who was taking care of him. The two become suspicious of a mysterious undertaker known only as The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) when people start dying mysteriously in their small town. Aided by Reggie (Reggie Bannister), the local ice cream vendor, the three young men learn the terrifying truth about The Tall Man, whose weapons include killer dwarves (once the souls of the damned) and mysterious chrome spheres which are utterly deadly.

Don Coscarelli, the man who created Phantasm and its sequels, was only 19 when he became the youngest director to ever have his film distributed by a major studio. His film, Jim the World's Greatest  was a drama about a teenage boy dealing with an alcoholic father. It was distributed by Universal Pictures in 1976. His second film, Kenny and Company, also released in 1976, was a gentle comedy about a twelve year old boy. It was after Coscarelli had attended a sneak preview of Kenny and Company that he realised he should be directing horror movies. One of the scenes in Kenny and Company was set in a haunted house in which a man in a monster costume leaped out. It was at that point that the whole audience screamed.  It was then that Coscarelli decided his next film should be a horror movie.

To write his horror film, Coscarelli hid himself away in a mountain cabin isolated from civilisation, just outside Los Angeles. For inspiration he drew upon a nightmare he once had when he was in his late teens. In the nightmare he was running down marble corridors which never seemed to end. Pursuing him was a silver, metallic sphere whose purpose was apparently to sink the sharp razors it contained deep inside his skull. Coscarelli based the lead characters in the film upon actors from his previous films. In all Coscarelli stayed at the cabin for three weeks, at the end of which he had produced the rough draft of Phantasm. He chose the name Phantasm as it is a word that occurs frequently in the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Casting Phantasm would not be an overly difficult chore as Don Coscarelli based the major characters upon actors with whom he had worked. A. Michael Baldwin, who played Mike in the film, had been the star of Coscarelli's film Kenny and Company. Reggie Bannister, who played Reggie, had appeared in both of Coscarelli's prior films. Angus Scrimm had appeared in Coascarelli's film Jim the World's Greatest. It was only in the case of Mike's older brother Jody that Coscarelli did not get the actor he had originally conceived in the role.  Gregory Harrison, best known for his role in Trapper John M.D., was the actor Coscarelli had originally wanted in the role. He had previously appeared in Coascarelli's film Jim the World's Greatest. Harrison turned the role down, forcing Coscarelli to find another actor. The part of Jody ultimately went to Bill Thornbury.

Like Coscarelli's previous two films, Phantasm would be a low budget, independent film. Its budget was a mere $300,000. To keep costs down, it was decided that the movie would only be filmed in two locations. One was a warehouse in San Fernando Valley in which sets were built. The other was a house which not only serve as Mike and Jody's house in the film, but as a home for the film's crew while the movie was shooting. Initially Coscarelli had wanted to shoot parts of the film in a real mausoleum, but after visiting many mausoleums in the area decided against it. It simply would not have been possible to shoot many of the film's action sequences in an actual mausoleum.Graphic artist Mark Arnel, one of Coscarelli's friends from school, was then hired to design the film's mausoleum. The mausoleum set simply consisted of a single corridor, intersected by two hallways at its midway point and ending in an eight sided rotunda. With some ingenious camera work, the crew of Phantasm was able to create the illusion of a huge mausoleum using this one set.

Central to the success of Phantasm would be The Tall Man's most memorable weapons, the silver spheres. The spheres were designed by Willard Green, who only asked $1,100 for their creation. Sadly, he died before he could even be paid. Of course, the spheres that Green designed could not actually fly, so that the production crew had to find a way of making them do so. Different means of making the spheres fly were tested, including firing the spheres, powered by model rocket engines,  down tight piano wires. Unfortunately, none of the tested ways of making the spheres fly looked convincing. At last the crew arrived at a simple solution to make the spheres fly. The spheres would be hurled from behind the camera by art director David Gavin Brown, who had been a baseball pitcher in high school. The footage of the sphere was then shot in reverse. To make it appear that a sphere had embedded itself in someone's head, the sphere as simply stuck the person's head and then pulled off. This footage would then also be reversed.

Other effects on Phantasm were also very simple. At 6 foot 4 inches, Angus Scrimm was already very tall. To make him appear even taller, he wore suits that were several sizes too small and boots with three inch lifts in them. In a sequence in which The Tall Man lifted a coffin and put it in the back of hearse all by himself, the coffin was simply made of balsa wood and a rope attached to it, out of sight of the camera. The Tall Man's killer dwarves were simply played by children.

Because Phantasm was made on a shoestring budget, certain cost cutting measures were taken. Don Coscarelli did not own the equipment necessary to film Phantasm. As a result, he rented the equipment necessary to film the movie on Friday, shot the film all weekend, and then returned it on Monday. In doing so he could use the equipment for two days, while actually only paying for one. Although the credits would seem to indicate that the production design, makeup and costume design were done by more than one person, they were actually done by only one individual. Coscarelli's mother, Kate Coscarelli handled all of this, from decorating the sets to even designing the original makeup for The Tall Man.

Upon completion Phantasm had a running time of over three hours. Don Coscarelli decided that this was far too long and pared the film down to 88 minutes. While some of this footage was lost, much of it would be used in the third sequel to the movie, Phantasm: Oblivion. Even with so much footage cut from the film, Phantasm would run afoul of the MPAA ratings board. They initially gave Phantasm an X rating  because of two scenes in the film. The first was the notorious scene in which one of the silver spheres kills a man. the second was a scene in which a man, after having been killed, urinating on the floor beneath him. In the days before the NC-17 rating, the X rating was the kiss of death as far as a movie's box office potential was concerned. Fortunately, Los Angeles Times movie critic Charles Champlin, who had seen the film,  intervened and made a call to one of his friends who was on the ratings board. Phantasm was then given an $ rating with the infamous silver sphere sequence in tact.

Released on March 28, 1979, Phantasm seemed to a movie that critics either loved or hated. Charles Champlin of The Los Angeles Times and Vincent Canby of The New York Times gave the film sterling reviews. Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin both gave the film rather poor notices. Audiences proved to be a bit more fond of Phantasm. Made for only $300,000, the film grossed $11,988,469--an impressive number for a film which was produced, written, and directed by one man with a minimal budget. In the years that have followed it has become considered a cult classic among horror movie fans. In the end it would be followed by three sequels and inspire a good deal of merchandising.

Don Coscarelli set out simply to make a scary movie with Phantasm, and there can be little doubt that he succeeded.  Phantasm may have been the most frightening movie of 1979, even more so than Alien. What makes Phantasm so effective as a horror movie is that Coscarelli chose to capitalise on the common, childhood fears. The movie deals directly with the fear of abandonment as twelve year old Mike worries that his older brother Jody will leave him. It also deals with the fear of death in the form of The Tall Man, a villain posing as an undertaker, whose base is a mausoleum and who utilises the dead to his own evil ends. More than anything else, Phantasm deals with the fear of the unknown, as young Mike is thrown into a world of deadly silver spheres, killer dwarves, gateways to other worlds, and the inhuman villain known as The Tall Man. It is perhaps significant that Mike is twelve years old, an age where he is not quite a young child, but not quite an adolescent either. In some respects the strange world of Phantasm could be seen as a metaphor for the rather strange world of growing up.

Although shot on a very low budget, Phantasm looks like a much more expensive film. While most of the effects were simple, they look very convincing and hold up even today. The sets also look quite realistic--it is hard to believe that the mausoleum scenes were filmed using only one set.

Phantasm also benefited from good performances from its two leads. A. Michael Baldwin was quite effective as Mike, the young orphan who must face his fears of abandonment and death incarnate (The Tall Man). Angus Scrimm was also superb as The Tall Man, turning the otherworldly mortician into one of the most iconic villains of horror movies in the past thirty years.

Of course, none of this is to say that Phantasm is a perfect film. There are times when the movie seems disjointed. And beyond A. Michael Baldwin and Angus Scrimm, the acting is not always up to par. There are times when the movie nearly borders on camp. Fortunately, these flaws do not detract from a film, the whole of which is greater than the sum of its parts.

Phantasm became a cult classic for the simple reason that it is a scary movie that actually delivers on its promise to scare individuals. In centring on common childhood fears, Phantasm struck directly at the child within all of us. It is for that reason that Phantasm is still remembered, while so many of its contemporaries were forgotten.