Andrew Sarris RIP — the only critic to note SKIDOO’s “widescreen tolerance” and place it in his Best Of 1969:
Of the American classicists and semi-classicists, I have a specially soft spot in my heart this year for George Cukor (“Justine”), John Frankenheimer (“Gypsy Moths”), Elia Kazan (“The Arrangement”), Otto Preminger (“Skidoo”), John Huston (“A Walk With Love and Death”), and I don’t care if they’re relevant or not.
The man who gave us The Monkees, EASY RIDER and the seminal New Hollywood production company, BBS, has passed into the celluloid gates beyond. Bert Schneider was a pivotal figure in the late 60’s and 70’s, a smart, progressive producer who celebrated talent and subversion as his resume proves. With a pilot scribed by Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker, THE MONKEES had the advantage of a perfect faux-band with terrific music by Neil Diamond, Harry Nilsson, and Carole King, along with a hip sensibility notches above the typical studio rip-off schemes. Schneider and director Bob Rafelson even dropped the laugh-track in the second season, a clear rebuke to network mandates. Testament to The Monkees impact was the fact that The Beatles were vocal fans of the show which resulted in Michael Nesmith being invited to the A DAY N THE LIFE orchestral sessions. The profits from the show allowed Schneider to indulge his film producing jones which he put to use by financing The Monkees amazing, deconstructionist, HEAD (1968), followed by a low-budget proto-biker project called EASY RIDER that AIP had passed on since they didn’t trust Dennis Hopper at the helm. The massive critical and popular success of this archetypal 60’s film led to the formation of BBS Productions (for Bert Schneider, Bob Rafelson and Steve Blauner), whose halycon days cineastes can only dream of — I know I have.
"A Safe Place"
The first time I called up EASY RIDER’s editorial consultant, Henry Jaglom, to discuss SKIDOO (another story), Henry grilled me in his no-bullshit way about my knowledge of BBS Productions, who went on to produce one of the most important series of films in American cinema history. From Jaglom’s oblique mystical A SAFE PLACE (1970) starring Orson Welles, Tuesday Weld and Jack Nicholson to Bob Rafelson’s FIVE EASY PIECES (1970) to Nicholson’s little-seen directorial debut DRIVE, HE SAID (1970) to Peter Bogdanovich’s award-winning THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (1971) to Rafelson’s under-rated KING OF MARVIN GARDENS (1972), capped by Schneider’s Oscar winning documentary about America’s disastrous Vietnam excursion, HEARTS AND MINDS (1975), BBS produced films that spoke to the 70’s discontent and disillusionment utilizing the era’s best cinema talents. That kind of cynical yet honest center cannot hold and Schneider retired from film-making by the end of the decade. Our friends at Criterion honored this groundbreaking period with one of their greatest releases, AMERICA LOST AND FOUND: THE BBS STORY featuring the above films (minus HEARTS AND MINDS), remastered in glorious Blu-Ray. Bert Schneider’s kind will not be seen again, and this brief Hollywood flirtation with American reality should be studied by every disciple of cinema.
One of the most unique voices of yesteryear has passed on. Arnold Stang, whose nerd countenance graced such films as THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM; IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD; HERCULES IN NEW YORK (co-starring in Arnold Schwarzenneger’s first film); and a little thing called SKIDOO, had a distinct high-pitched whine, which served him well as the cartoon character TOP CAT, and to modern audiences as the Buzz Bee for Honey Nut Cheerios. He had a long career in radio, television and film. And did I mention he was in SKIDOO? “Tony, I think it’s one of them hippies!”
If you want more evidence of how today’s conservative media spokespersons are rushing to help fossilize the Republican party, dig no further than Burt Prelutsky’s newest column on Politics And Celebrity (about which I learned from Ronald Reagan, Chuck Norrris, and Arnold Terminator) and includes this dazzling insight from a former TV writer who must have felt trapped in 1970’s Hollywood:
After all, in spite of the fact that affirmative action got her an Ivy League degree and a $7,000-a-week salary and, moreover, has sent billions of dollars for no particularly good reason to Africa, she insists this is a mean country. The burning question in my circle is: if the First Family gets a female dog, will she be the First Bitch or will she have to settle for second place?
Apparently, even the comedians at Townhall.com didn’t find Mr. Prelutsky’s latest bitter, bigoted rant as funny as their other contributors such as Dennis Prager and Michael Medved (both of whom love to decry the meanspiritedness of The Left) and the essay has been scrubbed. Free Republic still has it for now. But it’s this witless white rage against a good person that will continue to erode the foundations of today’s conservatism, and for that we should thank Burt Prelutsky, who also happened to write a beloved 1968 caustic essay on the set of a little film called SKIDOO…
One of my favorite movie theme songs like ever is this fantastic groovin’ ditty by The Turtles, with music by Johnny Williams when he was writing loungecore soundtracks for 1960’s Hollywood trifles. A GUIDE FOR THE MARRIED MAN (1967) is one such Playboy-era relic, directed by Gene Kelly with an all star cast including Walter Matthau (who passed on SKIDOO to do this!) and featuring lots of zoom-ins to the female anatomy. I liked the film for one major reason, this title song with a killer bass line and The Turtles’ ultimate “ba ba ba ba” chorus. Here’s a rare video clip of them acting the song out on the late great “Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.”
To celebrate the Summer Solstice of Movie Days Past, now we get our heads straight and taste the colors of madness. You dig this trip? Outta sight. PSYCH-OUT was released in March of 1968 by American International Pictures, produced by teen maven Dick Clark, and based on a screenplay by Jack Nicholson called THE LOVE CHILDREN, to be directed by rising maverick Richard Rush. The duo’s previous motorcycle film from 1967, HELL’S ANGELS ON WHEELS, grossed millions so they were brought in to give the hippie exploitation film counter-culture verisimilitude — and do it in 18 days with a 200 grand budget. AIP old school owner Samuel Z. Arkoff and others thought THE LOVE CHILDREN was a story about bastards, so like the carny barker at heart he was, Arkoff combined LSD with Hitchcock and came up with PSYCH-OUT. Another set of writers, E. Hunter Willett and Betty Ulius were brought in to revise Nicholson’s lengthy experimental script to a more linear AIP narrative, namely that of Jenny (Susan Strasberg), a 17 year old deaf girl searching for her artist brother in the paisley streets of San Francisco circa Summer of Love ’67.
I first saw PSYCH-OUT on VHS when I was working at Broadway Video in Long Beach way back in 1992 (I was the token straight employee of the gay owned/operated movie rental place, but that’s a whole other amazing post). I was immediately mesmerized with the credits (see it here), a musical journey through the heart of the Haight at the very peak of its cultural power. Buoyed by the pretty theme song, apropos named, “The Pretty Song from Psych-Out” by the Strawberry Alarm Clock, Jenny watches this new kaleidoscopic world through her bus window. As photographed by Lazlo Kovacs’ liberated camera, Strasberg’s face radiates a child-like glee at the colorful denizens of Hippie Land and it was a wise narrative move to let her be our surrogate. Her innocence is reflected by the atmospheric music and flower people of Golden Gate Park. The location footage also provides a perfect time-capsule glimpse at the apex of the legendary love summer. I consider this whole opening section a minor film in itself; even possibly my favorite credit scene of the 60’s.
Pursued by cops, Jenny stumbles into a Haight street coffee shop and is saved from The Man by one Stoney, played by Jack Nicholson in a role written for himself. Jenny finds herself drawn into the pot, bead and incense mindscape of Stoney and his band, Mumblin’ Jim (who I like to imagine had a single song that made it to number 27 on the charts: “One Big Plastic Hassle”). She’s been following the clues left behind by her brother, known only as “The Seeker” by the local heads and rednecks. The other band mates, played by AIP stalwart Adam Roarke and THE MACK star Max Julian, are joined by future director Henry Jaglom as a poster artist with the most outrageous mutton chops I’ve ever seen. Rush stages their cafe conversation in a loose, casual fashion, and there’s more verite here than almost all the exploitive hippie films of the decade. They seem like actual drop-out artists basking in coffee shop lassitude. And since the filmmakers were indeed on the fringe of the industry, their self-absorbed exuberance is palatable. I also love Roarke’s rejoinder to a friend’s too obvious pot smoking in the cafe: “Man, you are totally uncool.”
Of course, what’s probably most cool about PSYCH-OUT is Jack Nicholson, in a role very much like his famous outsiders. As this was his last film before EASY RIDER would make him a star, I find this a unique, terrific performance, his method style and libertine philosophy percolating under the dewy guise of a counter-culture musician. Nicholson nails all of his dialogue, managing to rise above the exploitation elements of the film. What’s particularly interesting is that Stoney is not an idealized peace and love archetype of the era. He’s tough, cynical and pragmatic; when his band mate accuses him of seeing only dollar signs, Stoney flashes that famous Nicholson devil grin and says, “Oh, the old bad thing, the root of all evil, right?” His character wants fame and fortune, not to mention a stable of liberated partners. He’s honest about his desires, less concerned with the socio-political implications of the period. And he has a pony-tail.
Credit is also overdue to Susan Strasberg in one of her few starring roles. It’s a shame that she was overshadowed not only by her famous father, Lee Strasberg, but by Marilyn Monroe, who seemed to have a stronger thespic relationship with him. Strasberg deserved better than what she was given, but she’s very appealing in PSYCH-OUT and easily matches Method with Nicholson. It’s also nice that in a movie decade not revered for its portrayals of female empowerment (Pussy Galore doesn’t quite count), that Strasberg stands out as a young girl on the cusp of womanhood. She emanates a joy of discovery, sexual and cultural, and the film is always on her side.
Along her journey, Jenny ends up falling in love with Stoney, of course. But his open warmth is replaced by cold indifference after he beds her in a love scene equivalent of a 60’s blacklight poster, their nude bodies covered by swirling psychedelic colors, soundtracked by that “Pretty Theme From Psych-Out.” Stoney’s friend, Dave (Dean Stockwell) the resident guru of the group, acts as his conscience, throwing out pithy koans like a hippie Pez dispenser. Stockwell’s yin to Nicholson’s yang are fun to watch together. Their banter about art versus commerce, love versus lust, reality versus illusion are the verbal high points of the movie. There is a lot of wit here, even in the expert photography of Laslo Kovacs (singled out as the only good thing in the film by the New York Times review). My favorite moment is a long, single-take tracking shot of Stoney and his band jamming a nifty organ tune as the searching camera goes from hippie to hippie, each doing his or her own thing, capturing the boredom and malaise of the love children.
Jenny finds herself disgusted by the stoned lethargy of the household and Stoney’s indifference. She finds little comfort with Dave, The Love Guru, who himself is painted as a hypocrite. The sexism of the day is still manifest, especially when Stoney shows up and gives her an ugly harangue, even though he’s the one who blew her off. Angered, she ends up taking the dangerous speed/acid drug, STP, offered by Dave, just as Stoney finds her brother Steve, played by Bruce Dern (in a wild, stringy mane wig). I like it when Dern is babbling about his fiery visions, and Nicholson cuts him off with, “You’re a little high.” But Dern gets a good scene to himself as he tells Stoney exactly how Jenny became deaf.
One of the tropes of the hippie film was the inevitable psychedelic freak-out, with the best of the decade belonging to Peter Fonda’s movie-length THE TRIP (1967), followed by Jackie Gleason’s 8 minute acid fest in my beloved SKIDOO and then the Mardi Gras hallucinogenic bad trip of EASY RIDER (1969). There are three trip sequences in PSYCH-OUT: the first with Max Julian seeing himself as a knight while he beats the shit out of some junkyard rednecks. The second is Henry Jaglom having scary visions hopped up on LSD. “I’m the guy who psych-outs!” he told me when I talked to him about his role as Warren. It’s hilarious when Warren says all he has to do is snap his fingers and he can come out of it…then he snaps his fingers and without a beat says, “It’s not working this time.”
Finally, Strasberg has an epic trip, effectively portrayed as a living hell, culminating with her body falling, tumbling through golden flames in a striking image. That the film ends on a bummer note is typical of the era, with the promise of Dionysus reduced to the threat of Hades. Just like THE TRIP was altered by AIP to make it seem that Fonda’s experience destroyed him (by adding cracks to the final image!), here we leave our flower children tangled in thorny vines with a tiny hope of redemption for Jenny. Or as Stoney says to Dave, “The acid has curdled and made you sour.”
Despite the cultural baggage, PSYCH-OUT is actually flat-out enjoyable, moreso than you might think. If you want to be limited in your thinking, you can watch the movie to laugh at the dirty hippies. Or you can find pleasure in a team of young artists working on a budget to create a work of period artfulness that would reflect their later work. There’s also a terrific score by Ronald Stein with memorable songs by The Strawberry Alarm Clock (who I got to sign my LP soundtrack at the Mods & Rockers Film fest) and The Seeds. Anybody interested in sixties cinema can find pleasure here. When I praised PSYCH-OUT to Jaglom, he said, “But it’s still an exploitation film.” I said, “But one more honest and adventurous than the others.” And I think it is. The movie also shows the roots of the discord and violence that would reflect the less loving year of 1968.
Richard Rush signs my Psych-Out LP - Photo: Matt Rabin
I’m also big fan of iconoclast director Richard Rush, who claims to have invented the rack-focus shot, one that alternates between the foreground figure and the background figure, except he calls it “critical focus” and it’s in ample use here. Along with Kovacs’ atmospheric lighting, Rush has a gift for framing. Sometimes he goes for obvious points, like a group of hippies outside a church who just happen to look like Jesus and his disciples, but I like the attempt to make visual metaphors into social critique. He was sympathetic, but not slavish, to the youth movement.
Oddly, when PSYCH-OUT was finally released with THE TRIP on DVD under MGM’s fantastic Midnite Movie series, almost 8 minutes of footage was shorn, possibly as it might have been a better print (in fact, I saw this shorter version at the late, great University Theater in Berkeley). The cuts are unfortunate, because they’re all interesting bits of business including a whole dressing room montage and an extended version of the lovely “Beads of Innocence” scene. The coveted DVD is out of print now, so hopefully MGM will find the longer version for re-release. But purists can track down the VHS from HBO Video for the uncut version.
PSYCH-OUT is an important pop movie foot-note since it was the last exploitation film of the 1960’s for many of the principals. It’s almost a cinematic graduation. Along with Nicholson on the cusp of stardom, co-stars Bruce Dern and Jaglom were about to embark on their next career phase. Richard Rush would direct the hit student-protest film, GETTING STRAIGHT (1970) for Columbia, and Nicholson, Jaglom and Kovacs would all be part of the creative team for the groundbreaking EASY RIDER. If anything, PSYCH-OUT is the missing link between AIP’s exploitation drug/motorcycle genre and the coming 70’s storm of the New Hollywood. Next to SKIDOO and EASY RIDER, it’s my favorite counter-culture film of the decade.
Here’s a typically snide British piece from The Guardian’s John Patterson on the resurgence of the 60’s film by way of the Peter Seller’s influenced THE LOVE GURU and the big screen version of GET SMART. But he’s way off. Sure, Myers obviously knows THE PARTY but THE LOVE GURU is a parody of Deepak Chopra and other new age spiritualists. GET SMART has no cultural baggage outside its updating to a post 9/11 spy world. So what is Patterson on about? He even includes acknowledged classics like THE PRESIDENT’S ANALYST (1967) in the category of tired ’60’s films. He goes on to praise Godard as the symbol of what filmmakers should be duplicating, and on that I’d agree, but Patterson is firing an uzi at a birdcage here. We should be so lucky to have a paranoid conspiracy satire such as THE PRESIDENT’S ANALYST today. The decade inspires filmmakers because of its liberated experimentation. That’s a Good Thing. And guess which film Patterson uses to showcase his misguided disgust with the new cinema era?
In the end, the 60s got under everybody’s skin, even the geriatrics’. The apogee of this regrettable tendency was Otto Preminger’s Skidoo, in which audiences were treated to doddering burn-outs and has-beens such as Jackie Gleason and Groucho Marx, the former enduring an acid freak-out, the latter brandishing a joint where formerly a cigar had been more than adequate.
And yet Mike Myers is still selling us his retread renditions of this cultural backwater – their satirical content long since depleted. The Austin Powers franchise may be definitively tapped out; The Guru is just another way to sell us the same old thing. Include me out.
I’m stunned, saddened to learn of John Phillip Law’s death on Tuesday at the age of 70. He was suffering from terminal cancer, but he didn’t let it be known. I was fortunate to meet him and enter his world way back in 2001, when this SKIDOO obssession turned out to be much more than a hunch. I’ll never forget the first time I walked into his living room; he looked at my arm and said in that heavy Diabolik voice, “What happened to your other wing?”
I had met John through supercool Rick Gerrard, famed music producer who worked with Harry Nilsson (and produced Jefferson Airplane’s classic “Surrealistic Pillow” — had I known at the time I would have dogpiled Rick with questions) through Curtis Armstrong, Nilsson Scholar, through a nice guy in the Hollywood Book & Poster. At the annual NilssonFest that Curtis was hosting, I told Rick about my SKIDOO interest and the next day he saw John, who passed on his number to me. So when I say Six Degrees of SKIDOO, I mean Six Degrees…
John always had a very 1960’s European look, very tall, with his stark chiseled face and bright intense eyes. He made a perfect naive Russian sailor in THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING (1966) under the tutelege of Alan Arkin and director Norman Jewison. He got very hot, and Otto Preminger snapped him up for what he hoped would be the next GONE WITH THE WIND, his adaptation of the Southern race relations potboiler, HURRY SUNDOWN (1966). Law’s wife was played by Faye Dunaway, and in a scene where they kiss, Preminger was so dissatisfied he bumped their heads together. Hard. But there were no hard feelings. “Otto was a mean motherfucker, but I liked him.”
Of course, it was his role as “Stash” the hippy in the incredible SKIDOO that cemented him to my heart. At his home, he showed me a treasure trove of photos through the years from his films. He told me great stories about living with Roger Vadim and Jane Fonda during the 1968 making of cult classics BARBARELLA and DANGER: DIABOLIK, with John the only man to pull off a suit of tight black leather. His confident, crazed laugh and perfect comic book posture made this the best 60’s James Bond film never made. We talked about his amazing period when his brother Tom Law and him owned “The Castle,” a legendary 60’s mansion and hang-out spot for folk like Bob Dylan and The Beatles. Even Preminger came by to partake the happening.
I told John I liked him as one of the creepy hunters in the rarely-seen, disturbing OPEN SEASON (1974) with Peter Fonda and William Holden. We talked about stop-motion god Ray Harryhausen when John assayed the title part in THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1974). I also praised him for one of my HBO mainstays, ATTACK FORCE Z (1980) a terrific and bloody action yarn with co-star Mel Gibson, reminiscent of THE WILD GEESE (1976). He had a nice role in CQ (2003) Roman Coppola’s charming, under-rated hommage to genre films like DIABOLIK. Overall, John was a traveller, he spoke four languages, and for him, making movies seemed to be just as much about the journey as the destination. I taped a career interview with him last year and you can see a youtube excerpt, focused on SKIDOO.
When Martin Lewis contacted me last year about screening SKIDOO at the Mods & Rockers Film Festival, I was ecstatic and immediately invited John to the second and final screening at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. Despite some recent hip surgery, he showed up in good health and high spirits. The house was packed and along with the last minute surprise of Blake Edwards showing up for THE PARTY (1968), it was fantastic to watch SKIDOO with John and a big crowd. I liked the attention he got from the fans.
I last talked to John a few weeks ago since the SKIDOO dvd I made for him wouldn’t play in his system. I promised to make him another, which I didn’t get to. He told me about the Italian biography coming out on him, DIABOLICAL ANGEL, and he mentioned that he was tired of jetting around. “You earned the right to be tired,” I told him. We had a couple of other SKIDOO screenings set-up for him to attend, but they haven’t come soon enough. I’m glad we had him for the Aero. On my answering machine, I have his rumbling voice letting me know whenever I need him for the next screening, he’ll be there. I believe him, and I’m not erasing that message.
John Phillip Law & Friend, July 29, 2007. Photo by Matt Rabin
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything about SKIDOO. Whoda thunk? That changes today as I had one of those great synchronistic encounters that’s made living in Los Angeles so memorable. As you all know, the great Michael Constantine plays “Leech,” the prisoner sharing the cell with Jackie Gleason and Austin Pendleton in Otto Preminger’s psychedelic masterpiece (or misfire, depending upon your bent). Constantine has been around awhile, and as a youth, I always loved him in one of my favorite early 70’s TV shows, ROOM 222 (for which he received two Emmy nominations). He also made a nice splash as the grandfather in the monster hit MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING.
And he walks into my coffee shop yesterday. I thought I had seen him before, but wasn’t sure. I don’t like to bother “celebrities” unless I have a reason to talk to them. But yesterday, as I”m sitting writing, wondering, in my favorite local bean-brewing hole, I see Michael Constantine enter. It’s destiny. I can’t think of a better reason to bother him than SKIDOO. So I intro myself and he’s of course disbelieving that anybody could be interested in SKIDOO. “That terrible film,” he says.
He sits and enthralls me with some war stories from the set. He does a fantastic booming imitation of Otto Preminger yelling at him: “Mr. Constantine, vat are you doing?!” He says the abuse got to the point where he wanted to punch Preminger out, and he let it be known. This led to one of Preminger’s minions rushing to Otto and his behavior changed. I was grinning ear to ear. I asked to interview him for my book and he gave me his email. I tried to impress upon him how SKIDOO is regarded today as a cult classic. He shakes his head and says, “You know who else liked it? Those kooks in England!”
Sometimes I love LA.
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Technicolor Dreams 