The Fastest Guitar Alive

You know those really shitty late Elvis movies? Well, if you ever wondered what a worse one would be like, it might be The Fastest Guitar Alive, Roy Orbison's feeble attempt at movie stardom.

This movie was made in 1967. On American movie screens you could see The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, Belle de Jour or this cheap-ass musical/western starring Roy Orbison, a prime example of the kind of crap other films were reacting against. Hell, even Valley of the Dolls is more artful and profound...

Yeah. It's nothing like this poster would lead you to believe.
This movie is a complete product of The Man.

The Fastest Guitar Alive starts out promisingly enough, with the sound of Roy Orbison warbling a tune. We get our first inkling of disaster when we see Sam the Sham listed in the credits and it's not as a musical guest. But here's ol' Roy, pompadour slicked down and flying high, strumming away on his guitar while perched on a medicine show wagon... towing a wagon of maidens behind. By a line that's hanging out the washing, because basically all the women do in this movie is laundry, dancing and a combination move of pouting and stomping their pretty little feet..

Roy Orbison and his wagon and his wimmin are attacked by a bunch of Indians. I can't really say Native Americans, as the "tribe" is quite clearly a bunch of paunchy middle-aged white guys with Jewish vaudeville accents. They also make jokes about Neo-Impressionist warpaint (made even worse by the fact that what they're pointing to as an example is clearly Abstract Expressionism). They "attack," so Orbison presses a button and a rifle barrel emerges from his guitar, he takes a few shots, the Indians flee in terror. The action in The Fastest Guitar Alive will remain at a strictly Wile E. Coyote level.

Oy.

So, anyway, they take the medicine show to San Francisco, where the ladies do a tepid saloon-girl routine about "doing the snuggle-huggle with you" and the boys make a half-assed attempt at peddling snake oil. It turns out that the whole gang aren't whores and con men at all--good thing too, because they all seem to suck at whoring at conning--they're Confederate spies! And we're supposed to think that's a good thing! In the same year the Supreme Court finally struck down laws forbidding interracial marriage and riots happened in over 150 American cities! And you thought women doing laundry and "the snuggle huggle" in the era of Janis Joplin was some passe wack shit...

Anyway, apparently Roy and his crew are out to steal a shipment of Union gold, in some plan that involves Roy Orbison first giving some local general's daughter "guitar lessons" and then putting on a fake beard. This is as good a time as any, and perhaps I should have said it sooner, to point out that Roy Orbison can't act for shit. Put a guitar in his hands, he's a lord. Put a script in his hands, he's a schmuck. He is not helped by the bad story, the lousy writing, the cheap production values, the lame supporting actors...

At the exact same moment, just a few miles up the California coast,
Hunter S. Thompson was doing acid with the Hells Angels.

So, anyway, Roy Orbison and the nitwits manage to steal the gold, squeezing in a few musical numbers before they go--the one where Roy bets a big "war drum," while the girls wander aimlessly--sorry, dance--around in buckskin bikinis belongs in Las Vegas Hillbillys. Then they head for El Paso to turn over their gold to their commander or whatever, with a few rounds of shenanigans along the way. Some bad dudes from San Francisco follow them, trying to get their ornery mitts on the gold. They run across the Nebbish Americans again. Another bad dude shows up when the girls are showerin' and Roy has to run him off.

But they pull into town only to find folks drinking and cheering and carousing in the street. It seems that the war has ended. The men's response: "The war is over. There's nothing left." The women's response: "We're left." One would like to think this is the sensible response to the end of hostility: Women, with their natural practicality and respect for life, are relived that life will continue. However, given the stance of the rest of The Fastest Guitar Alive, it's more likely that they just mean that they can all get hitched now. Elsewhere in America, it was the height of the protests opposing the Vietnam War...

So, what about the gold blah blah? They boys debate whether to keep it, then they decide to turn it in. In the meantime, various folks try to get the gold, leading to more fourth-rate Wile E. Coyote nonsense along with a few more musical numbers. I'd say the one thing the screenwriters for The Fastest Guitar Alive did right was keep the damn thing to 87 minutes.

Anyway, The Fastest Guitar Alive is an attempt to make 50s entertainment in the 60s  and, well, simply not good. Hell, even Elvis himself was leaving Clambake behind for the 68 Comeback Special by now (lawdy). The only redeeming quality is you get to hear some Roy Orbison songs and, frankly, you could do that better with a stereo.

The Forbidden Zone

In the immortal words of T.S.  Elliot, "And should I then presume? And how shall I begin?"

Unlike most of the movies on this site, The Forbidden Zone is intentionally weird and idiotic, or weirdly idiotic (actually, now that i think of it, it's idiotically weird). It's hard to make an intentional cult film--it often just comes off to self-conscious and smug to be authentically strange and subversive. However, The Forbidden Zone pulls it off because, however art-school absurd it is, it winds up going even further than intended.

 Yeah, i'm pretty sure that's a blunt. It'd better be.

A true relic of the 80s, down to Herve Villechaize as King Fausto of the Sixth Dimension (Yes!) It's also the first movie soundtrack by Danny Elfman of Oingo Boingo--or, as they were still known back then, the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo...

This German Expressionist/Max Fleischer aesthetic will continue throughout. Except when superseded by moments of bad 60s horror, 40s musicals, Warhol knockoffs and scat humor.

And we open with this guy running out of his basement and--whoa! Blackface. Before the credits even start.

Wait until they get to the Jews, the women, the trannys and the midgets. And the white guys: Everyone is mocked on the basest level in The Forbidden Zone. If you're not ready for that, note the word "forbidden" and move along. Hurry, before the child abuse jokes and menstruation gags kick in! Hitler and Satan will be here soon! Run!

So, the whole  premise, such as it is, is that there is a gateway to the Sixth Dimension (aka the Forbidden Zone) in the basement of the Hercules family: Ma, Pa, Gramps, Flash and Frenchy.

For some reason, The Forbidden Zone has old people played by twentysomething art goons in Caligari makeup and the kids played by aging Jewish comics in Boy Scout suits. But that is neither the last nor the least weird thing we shall see here....

Flash and Frenchy go to school, with their classmates: nerds, skanks, the knife-wielding pimp, the inbred pigtail twins, Chicken Boy and der Fuhrer.There are craps games and gunfights and some sweet jazz harmonizing, but school sucks. Frenchy jumps out the window, goes home, slips on a rollerskate and finds herself in the Forbidden Zone, where she is promptly treated to some weird boxing dudes and a song! Well, sorta, anyway!

Apparently this kid lost his nerve on set, so they wound up having to superimpose someone else's mouth over his face. Like Bette Davis' incorrectly fitted gown in All About Eve or the cloud that passed over the cornfield during a crucial shot in Bonnie and Clyde, it's the sort of on-set problem that only improves the filmic result. This is one of the movie's better musical numbers: The idea of people lip-synching to old 30s big band tunes was a fun idea, but it gets old if that's the only gag. The "Pico & Sepulveda" number is another excellent bit, but most of them--you're just kind of twiddling your thumbs. Or, given what you're watching, gobbling another handful of 'shrooms.

So, King Fausto of the Herve Dimension immediately falls madly in love with Frenchy, despite her odd mole and her penchant for sticking her tongue out at everybody. However, this does not sit well with his wife...

Behold Doris, the Queen of the Sixth Dimension, none other than Susan Tyrell HerSelf. Bow down!

Not because of Queen Doris, but because Susan Tyrrell. Susan Tyrrell's mom was a British diplomat and her dad was Carole Lombard and Loretta Young's agent. Susan Tyrrell played Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams at Lincoln Center and was nominated for an Academy Award for Fat City. Susan Tyrrell has appeared in the films of Andy Warhol, John Waters and Pee-Wee Herman. I wish I was one-tenth that awesome and so do you.

Anyway, Queen Susan Tyrrell sings a song that i'm pretty sure she did at the Mudd Club at least once and then has Frenchy locked up in the dungeon, where she meets some other locked-up girl... boy... boy we already saw, wearing a wig. (It can be hard to tell in this movie whether it's supposed to be a drag queen or a real female because both are often just boys in wigs.) Also King Herve pops through a window to snap photos in a moment that is creepier than was probably intended to be. And then he goes to make it up to the queen...

Fun fact: Herve Villechaize and Susan Tyrrell were actually dating. And, to answer the question that we're all asking: "I roll her up like a donut!" (Or that's what they say on the DVD commentary.)

In the meantime, Frenchy's brother and grandfather decide to jump down into the Sixth Dimension basement hole to rescue her....

Thus follows more scat humor, some flat rabbi jokes, a crucifixion bit, random whippings, some buggery, some bestiality, just padding out the running time here...

 

Meanwhile, Queen Susan Tyrrell ties up Frenchy in her electrified torture chamber. I must say, i enjoy a nice, scenery-chewing Susan Tyrrell Sprechstimme  more than the tenth or eleventh lip-synch to a Cab Calloway tune. Don't get me wrong: I freaking love Cab Calloway. Did i ever tell you about the time i saw him at a Mets game when i was about six? It was summer and--

--whoa! Alright, yeah, back to the film. I will say one thing: Even if The Forbidden Zone loses your attention, it won't be for long. The evil queen is defeated with the help of Warhol superstar Viva, who is wearing some kind of turd hat and never stops talking--in other words, standard Viva. Frenchy is declared the new Queen of the Sixth Dimension and everyone eats a bunch of hash brownies, drinks some Tequila and gets down to the Go-Gos...

The weirdest thing about The Forbidden Zone is perhaps how gosh darn much everyone involved believed in it. Herve Villechaize not only sunk his pay back into the film, he painted the freaking sets. (Only the part below the wainscotting. Ba-zing!) Many others also played multiple roles both in front of and behind the camera. I'm not sure what inspired such dedication, except for the fact that The Forbidden Zone looks like it was a fuck of a lot of fun to make.

Mae West

Most television biopics suck. Jennifer Love Hewitt as Audrey Hepburn, Lindsay Lohan as Elizabeth Taylor, any number of bland blonde starlets as Marilyn Monroe. However, there are a few exceptions: Christina Ricci as Lizzie Borden, Gina Gershon as Donatella Versace, Loni Andersen as Jayne Mansfield and Ann Jillian as Mae West.

During the 80s, Jillian was in the sassy waitress sitcom It's a Living, playing the sassiest waitress. While she doesn't quite possess the pulchritude of Mae West, she does convey more than a little of the sexiness, the self-possession and the wit of that resoundingly feminine proto-femninist.

The movie covers Mae's career through her child star days, her time in vaudeville, her scandalous stage productions of the 20s, her film career in the 30s and her later comeback. (Although they stop well before Myra Breckinridge. Because there's pretty much no one who wants to acknowledge that ever happened.) The wide chronology also offers plenty of opportunities for fabulous period costumes.

We first see Baby Mae as a precocious child performer with a head of Nellie Olsen ringlets, stomping her feet and demanding her spotlight (a tale West was to tell often later in life). Giving Baby Mae constant encouragement, support and new frocks is her mother Matilda, player by Piper Laurie as pretty much the polar opposite of the mom in Carrie.

We see the brunette Mae West plug along in vaudeville, trying singing trios, dancing duos, solo shimmys. She picks up a husband, who seems to spend most of his time following her around going, "Awww, Mae!" until she finally brushes him off--from both the act and the marriage. Well, i mean, she doesn't divorce him, she just gets him booked "on another circuit, with a lotta women. For forty weeks."

Mae is mentored and taught the fine points of individuality and style by a drag queen played by none other than Roddy McDowall. He watches in horror as she squeaks and grinds her way through a tawdry cave girl routine but, in the great tradition down to Bianca del Rio HerSelf, he counsels the tacky newcomer on how to get better. He takes Mae through everything from the nature of being a star to how to develop a routine to the finer points of contouring. I recall watching this movie when i was a kid and thinking: I need someone like this in my life.

Mae doesn't just pick up stage business and dance steps fast, she's also a quick study in life. She learns quick that when two men fight over a woman, it's often more about ego than love; that a woman who'll put up with anything from a man usually does. As the real Mae said: "I made up my mind early that I would never love another person as much as I loved myself. Maybe that sounds selfish. It is. But I saw what a mess people could make of their lives when they're smitten. Some of them go temporarily insane."

But TV movie Mae hooks up with rich businessguy James Timony, played by power bottom James Brolin. Blonde and begowned, Mae becomes a headliner with a bevy of tuxedoed chorus boys and a nice way with "C. C. Rider" and "Frankie and Johnny."

She writes and stars in her own play, Sex, promptly gets arrested and, after some laugh-tracked courtroom scenes, is thrown in the clink and comes out bigger and badder than ever. She writes and stars in Diamond Lil on Broadway, goes to Hollywood--if it seems to be happening awfully fast, it's because it is. The only real pause point, interestingly, is during the shooting of West's first film, Night After Night, where she gives a fine clinic in standing up for one's artistic rights (and comic timing).

Timony trails besottedly behind her the whole way but Mae West is too busy with her career to let anyone put a ring on it (again).  "Marriage is not a natural state! It was something invented by women to hang on to men!" This is kind of the closest we get to authentic Mae once the de rigeur romance kicks in..

The "becoming" part of the film is much more interesting and it's largely because it's all about Mae, not about some tacked-on romance. Mae West may have been well know for being more interested in career than romantic relationships but, once this movie hits the romantic relationship, that's all it's about. Unsurprising. The movie also brushes past the controversial nature of West's plays -- interracial relationships, homosexuality, cross-dressing, drug use, adultery, prostitution, castration, political corruption. Mae West: Too edgy for the 80s....

Jillian is notably less voluptuous than Mae West (isn't everybody, though) but she rocks the flapper look well. And heaven knows she does a better job then other ersatz Maes, the worst of which must be Faye Dunaway in a bargain-basement pseudo-religious flick entitled The Calling (don't inquire further, but let's just say there's a really cheap-ass Liberace too). It's recently been announced that Bette Midler will be playing Mae for HBO and, heaven knows, ain't no one (living) going to deliver those lines better. Still, her Mae West will probably give us a latter Mae, while Ann Jillian's Mae West , before it lapses into sentimentality, gives us an interesting depiction of her early years.