The Manitou was one of the wave of occult
horror flicks during the
70s--this time with some of that fashionable Native American culture and a few of those newfangled computers thrown in. Other than that, it's just your standard flick about a chick with a tumor on her back that has an undead Native American medicine man living in it.
Wot? I know--weird even by the addled standards of the Quaalude decade...
Our star is Tony Curtis, slumming--if you can call anything
Tony Curtis does
slumming, he always just seemed happy and bemused to be there, glad you see you, thank for the check--plays a two-bit
psychic who hustles old ladies (so many Tony Curtis roles involve the words "two-bit" and "hustle")...
C'mon, sweetheart, let's go. I gotta get this schmatte back to Williams Costume by five
or I pay for another day's rental.
He's got a sweet San Fran
bachelor pad with an awesome stereo, drinks
beer out of a wineglass and knows lots of babes. Among said babes is his ex, played by Susan Strasberg with a pussycat bow at her neck and a fetus on her back. (Yes, Susan, your father was a
guru of the American t
heatre, you
fucked Richard Burton and Warren Beatty, you
hung out with Marilyn Monroe, but here you are in
The Manitou. And just wait until the topless laser scene...)
Strasberg shows up on his doorstep and they wander around the various tourist locales of San Francisco, as
they always do in movies set there--everyone always goes to Fisherman's Wharf and the steep hills. No one ever goes to a
Kwik-E-Mart. She tells him about this tumor she's got and Curtis is all, "Oh, that's too bad. But it's on your back, right? Not on your front? Like, not your
lower front? Okay then." I mean, I was in New York during 9-11 and i know what fucking in the face of death is like but I'd consider "removal of a large tumor tomorrow" more of a "let's cuddle" occasion.
So, they bang, and as Strasberg and her tumor sleep, she mutters, "Panna witchy salatoo." It is not the last time we will hear this nonsense phrase repeated portentously. Nay, it will be repeated over and over until one longs for the simplicity of a
"Klaatu barada nikto!" or
"Pazuzu!"
So, they X-ray the tumor and the mop-topped and pastel-coated doctor declares,
"They are sure that the tumor on her neck is actually a fetus." I cannot think I of something I would less want to hear from a medical professional. I' think I'd rather hear "malignant" than "
monster fetus."
Of course, Tony Curtis rolls with this as he rolls with everything in
The Manitou (or anywhere else) and goes to rip off another old lady. (Curtis would go on to remain unphased by the weird and the undead in
Sextette.) However, when old lady goes full Linda Blair in the middle of a tarot reading, levitates and chants "Panna
witchy salatoo," he finally freaks out. Bitch's monster baby tumor is fucking with my livelihood!
So he goes back and tells the doctor all about "Panna witchy salatoo" and the doctor is like, "Whatever" and messes with his giant mainframe computer some more before stomping off to operate to remove said tumor. I'm waiting for some right-wing politician to run in and stop him because
Unborn Undead Native American Mutant Demon Parasites have a right to be born, even in the case of threatening the life of the mother and jeopardizing all the lives and souls on Earth. But i'm getting ahead of myself in
the story...
Anyway, the doctors try to X-ray the tumor, Strasberg has seizures and speaks in "possessed voice." They try to cut it off, the surgeon slits his wrist. They try to laser it off, the laser goes nuts like a
Spinal Tap stage prop gone wrong. So Tony Curtis
flounces off to to find Stella Stevens, who is slathered in self-tanner to the edge of blackface and is apparently some kind of California
psychic buddy of his.
They have a seance with a Gabor sister, some weird shit goes down with heads rising up out of the table and people speaking in tongues and freaky wind (But isn't there always freaky wind?) Stella's stoner hubby finds a passage in a book that seems to mention the human-tumor phenomena as well as the "panna witchy salatoo" and the gang is off to find the author...
Burgess Meredith! Yes! You loved his
kung fu battle in
Foul Play and leading motherfuckers straight to hell in
Torture Garden, so here he is! The
Scooby Gang asks for his help, he yadda yaddas about some more old books. Then they go up in his attic, which is a mere staircase above
his paneling n' shag, ferns n' pre-Columbia art living room, but shrouded in yard-square cobwebs and inches of dust because, y'know,
attic.
Burgess Meredith tells them that what they need is a non-parasitical undead Native American shaman to battle the Native American shaman that is attempting to resurrect himself. Tony Curtis hustles and bribes (via a
deus ex machina "aunt" who has $100,000 to donate to the little Indian kids or whatever because Tony Curtis knows motherfuckers don't do shit for free). In the meantime, the tumor has finally given birth to itself--although it's a dwarf thank to the goddamn X-rays, which means it looks kind of like
Tom Cruise in Rock of Ages drag.
Tonight, the role of the undead medicine man will be played by Glen Danzig...
So Tony Curtis and Live Shaman do battle with Undead Shaman. There's ice storms and computer malfunctions and random gore. Little Undead Shaman seems rather arbitrary in his attacks--he might
use mind control to force a doctor to cut himself with a scalpel, or it
might somehow create a giant lizard to chew on your hand, he might throw a possessed old lady at your or he might just rip your skin off. But, well, we already understand that logic isn't part of the
The Manitou's universe. Panna witchy salatoo.
Anahl nathrak, uthvas bethud, do cheol dienve...
Anyway,
The Manitou is what happens when no one's really paying attention, just throwing casting options and plot points against the wall like so much chimp scat and seeing what sticks. But that's what makes it fun to watch: If you can't come up with good snark for
The Manitou, no one can help you....
