Skidoo

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day...and they don't get much more trashy than this one...

Skidoo (Otto Preminger, 1968) Legendarily off-kilter comedy by that "master" of comedy, Otto Preminger, who, in his effort to make a movie that was "with it" perpetrated a film so far without "it," that one wonders why nobody told him it might be a bad idea...for any director. 

 

It might have been because there wasn't anybody at Paramount Pictures who had the power or the industry knowledge to be credible to a movie veteran like Preminger. Paramount had been "acquired" by Gulf and Western in 1966 and its chairman Charles Bluhdorn had made his mark in auto parts, zinc mines and manufacturing and was furthering his mint-making by buying up properties and tinkering or selling them off. Preminger was making films for Paramount and was a "studio property" who'd had a history of making edgy films that would challenge taboo's, but whose recent films were considered both artistic and financial failures.

This did nothing for the fortunes of Paramount, which, if you look at the films being released in that period (before bringing on Robert Evans as head of production) betrays of a long line of losers with the odd hit—usually a foreign acquisition, like Alfie and films that might be interesting (Seconds) but didn't attract an audience. The industry itself was seeing a downturn in receipts with more color TV's in homes and a calcified audience that wasn't getting any younger. Preminger thought he had a solution—make a movie that would appeal to "the kids."

Retired hitman Tony Banks (Jackie Gleason) has his evening of television interrupted by a pair of mobsters, Hechy (Caesar Romero) and son Angie (Frankie Avalon), who have orders from their boss "God" (this will be revealed as Groucho Marx, his first film appearance in eleven years) to knock off "Blue Chips" Packard (Mickey Rooney) who is due to testify before a Senate committee on organized crime. Banks begs retirement, but when a buddy (Arnold Stang) is found dead, he goes along with the plot for the safety of his wife Flo (Carol Channing) and his daughter Darlene (Alexandra Hay).

The idea is to have Banks smuggled into the same prison as Packard and then whack him—or "kiss him" in the mob parlance used in the film. He is incarcerated with Leech (Michael Constantine) a psychopath and "The Professor" (Austin Pendleton) a technical wizard arrested for draft-dodging. Meanwhile, Darlene's new boyfriend Stash (John Phillip Law) and his gang of "hippies" are being hassled by the police for their anti-establishment ways and Flo, being a bit of a free spirit herself, helps them from being arrested for living in the streets and invites them into her home.

Tony already has guilt feelings about whacking "Blue Chips" but when he mistakenly takes a tab of acid provided by The Professor, he gives up on the idea and instead tries to find a way of breaking out—involving lacing all of the food in the prison with LSD and escaping by makeshift balloon when everybody is high as kites.

The movie's heart might be in the right place, but it's mind is utterly lost. Maybe they were thinking they were making an all-out all-star comedy like It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World—a favorite of writer Mark Evanier, and who takes the opportunity to trash Skidoo every time it comes out of hiding. Sure, there are grudging pleasures: it features performances by the Big Three Batman TV villains with Romero, Frank Gorshin and Burgess Meredith, all acting, as does everyone in the film,in a manner that would charitably called "broad." Small parts with Richard Kiel and Slim Pickens. The notion that they filmed part of it on John Wayne's yacht. The score by Nilsson is harmless—he sings the End Credits—but it's not exactly good, either.

Nor is the film by any stretch of the imagination, even stretched pharmaceutically. There are sequences—a musical number with dancing garbage cans for instance—that are so badly thought out and executed that it is doppler-shifted into inscrutability in post. There is a cold-sweat chill of desperation over the whole enterprise. Sometimes even that can be cruelly funny. But not here. Even the casting of grizzled—if professional—veterans can't remove the stink of mercenary pandering and witless and dull-edged stabs at satire.

It's a mess. And not a funny one. Not even the knowledge of incompetence—as with the films of Ed Wood—can save it. One can only look at it with the hope that the bottom of the barrel has been reached. But even that hope gives no comfort. 

 

Bad trip, dude. 

X-Men: First Class

Written at the time of the film's release... 

 

"The X Factor"

or

"Don't 'X,' Don't Tell"

Movies from Marvel Studios seem to be running the pattern of "Star Trek" movies (at least in my eyes), the "even"-numbered ones tend to be best, while the "odd"-numbered ones are a little clunky.* That's certainly the case with the "X-Men" franchise. Bryan Singer's first film did a lot of heavy lifting adapting the comic to the screen, but there was a virulent strain of exposition, and some jostled positioning of the characters in what is essentially an action soap opera.  The best thing about it was its casting, but its big confrontation was poorly done.  X-II, also  directed by Singer, with all the introductions out of the way, concentrated on story and moved along smoothly with an emotional end-point that seemed to matter. Singer left to complicate the "Superman" movies, and left X-III in the hands of Brett Ratner, who produced a very expensive film that looked cheap, felt cheap and really screwed up the X-Men line-up. Ratner was required to use an expensive cast which ate up a lot of the film's budget, and the results on-screen suffered, despite the audience familiarity of the stars. There really didn't seem to be anywhere for another film to go, without some heavy gene-splicing of the cast.

So, here's the fourth "X-Men" Movie (we won't talk about X-Men Origins: Wolverine—we already have) X-Men: First Class, a sort of re-boot of the series, although keeping elements from the original films that everybody seems to like.  They could have easily made it an "X-Men Origins" film.  It starts where the first film began—at a concentration camp in Poland as Erik Lensherr (here Bill Milner, but he'll grow up to be Michael Fassbender**) watches helplessly (for the moment) as his parents are imprisoned in a concentration camp.***  The parallel story is of young Charles Xavier (Laurence Belcher, then James McAvoy ) who finds a metamorph in his kitchen (Morgan Lily, but she'll be played as a young adult by the ubiquitous Jennifer Lawrence), whom, recognizing a fellow mutant-traveler, he takes in as a sister.  Their lives progress and Lensherr, who has developed powers over metal, hunts down the Nazis (particularly Kevin Bacon) who killed his parents and tortured him, while Xavier attends Oxford with his "sister" Raven, achieving top honors—and why wouldn't he, as he can read minds and project thoughts. 

What is nice about X-Men: First Class is it takes real-world events of the time that Lee and Kirby were creating the series in the early 1960's—in this case, the nuclear gamesmanship of 1962 when the U.S. planted missiles in Turkey, which was then challenged by the Russians planting nukes in Cuba, thus lighting the match for the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of that year, which came within a sub-crew's breath of a nuclear X-change between the two very real "super-powers."  Singer is credited with the story, and however counter-intuitive it might have been to place it there (and it does create a couple of continuity errors), it "works" and works gang-busters.  With Singer's story and the direction of Matthew Vaughn (getting stronger and stronger with each movie), it feels more like a 60's groovy spy story than your standard super-hero fare, and for once—save for a poignant moment in X-II—the consequences of the plot really seem to matter.

Those familiar with the "X-Men" comics will know of "The Hellfire Club"**** and it turns out that organization of nefariousness and debauchery fits in well with the swinging '60's.  Led by Sebastian Shaw (Bacon), with henchmen Azazel (Jason Flemyng), Riptide (Álex González) and Emma Frost (January Jones), they've pulled the mental strings of military puppets on both sides to set up the nuclear stand-off, and as Shaw absorbs energy, a nuclear holocaust wouldn't kill him, it would only make him stronger.

Banding together with the CIA, (uneasily, except for agent Moira McTaggert—Rose Byrne and another played by Oliver Platt), Xavier joins forces with Lensherr, in classic "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" style, and begin recruiting other mutants to form a secret society of operatives hiding in the shadows to do undercover work against the Hellfire Club. Pretty soon, things become dire enough that they must come out of the cold and overtly take a stand, certainly taking their place among "the best and the brightest."

It's your classic "oppressed minority" story (something Lee and Kirby knew all too well when they were doing the comics—both were Jews, which was common among the pioneers of the creators of the superhero comics genre), but during the 60's it was a civil rights metaphor that only became more overt as the years went on.  Singer pitched his initial The X-Men concept as a "meeting between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X," but it was more than that; Singer gave it a "hiding in plain sight" slant towards gay rights that involved not only opposition to the mutants but out-right hysteria (something the scenario buys into with the "recruitment" angle, long a charge of anti-gay paranoia).

So, you have a superhero flick that acknowledges its comics roots by employing a style from the movies of its origin's time-frame, with a rather clear-eyed look at a real-life crisis (mutants weren't involved, although I've always had my suspicions about Robert McNamara), some nice performances, grand-standing direction, good action set-pieces, and a few nice surprises for fans of both the comics and the previous films.  X-Men: First Class manages to be more than the sum of its parts, certainly the best of the series and among the best of the genre, thanks to its scope and style and its own undefinable, uncanny "X"-factor.

The First "X-Men" comic (from 1963)

* Iron Man being an exception.

** Fassbender is terrific, playing contained rage and menace throughout, but when he lets go with the emotional histrionics, there is just enough control to it to make you worry what would happen if he "really" let go.

*** They even use Michael Kamen's music from the first film in the scene.

**** Although writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne cite "A Touch of Brimstone"—a controversial episode of the British TV series "The Avengers" (and it's important to make that distinction with Marvel)—there's been a long history of actual Hellfire Clubs. 

Don't Make a Scene (Redux): Rio Bravo

The Story: Rio Bravo, Howard Hawks' return to the Western genre—he'd been dabbling in comedies and even a widescreen historical epic, The Land of the Pharoahs, since he'd made his last, The Big Sky in 1952—was a return to form. Once again he worked with his star from Red River, John Wayne, and he loaded it (as he knew he'd have to) with a lot of strong, new talent who could hold the screen with Wayne, including Walter Brennan and Ward Bond, who'd worked with him before, but also Dean Martin, who was striking out on his own as a solo actor after years of appearing on-screen with his comedy partner, Jerry Lewis—if Martin could hold his own against that whirling dervish, the calmer Wayne should pose no threat, Ricky Nelson, who was something of a teen-idol from his work on television, and Angie Dickinson (who'd actually appeared with Wayne before in his cameo in I Married a Woman), who was 28 at the time, and combined glamour and tom-boyishness in a way that made her "one of the boys," perfect for Hawks who was known for creating some of the strongest female characters on the screen.

At the center of it, though, he had Wayne "that big strong oak" (as Katherine Hepburn described him) from whom he evoked the "pater familias" character in Red River which would serve as the template for Wayne for the rest of his career (and which made Hawks' pal and movie-rival John Ford remark "I didn't know the big sonuvabitch could ACT!"). Wayne is, at once the most harried of the characters and the one everybody is looking up to and trying to please. He has a "code" that takes some time to decipher, but the upshot of it is he doesn't take fools gladly, but does take his responsibilities very seriously, leading by example and with few words. In fact, the sequence that opened the movie is noticeable for having as few words as possible.

This scene has a lot of words from several quarters, as it has to explain the fallout from that opening sequence. For wagon-master Pat Wheeler, he wants to know why this familiar rest-stop all of a sudden has so many guys with guns around the perimeter asking nosy questions. Then, there's this guy at the city limits that he almost kind of recognizes who's throwing his weight around, telling him what he can do with his wagons. For an old free-ranger, this is a big adjustment from the wide open prairie. In fact, things in town are starting to make him chafe. The movie is badly in need of some exposition to set up the chief narrative thread—the barricading of the Sheriff and deputies in the jail by the Burdette family and their hired gun-men-a defensive position that recalls the situation of the Alamo, which the Burdette gang uses to a psychological advantage against the under-the-gun Chance and his crew. That's where Wheeler comes in (literally); he's needed to have the situation—and the stakes—explained.

That's the "what." The "why," and Chance's reasons behind them, will have to wait for another time and another "...Scene."

The Set-Up: The movie starts with a wordless ten-minute sequence where "Dude" (Dean Martin), dry and in need of a drink, enters a saloon and is teased by the bar-hounds and especially by a drunken Joe Burdette (Claude Akins). When a bystander tries to interfere, Joe shoots and kills him. In another saloon, Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne) and Dude team up to arrest Joe and take him in. But, Joe's arrest is only the beginning of their troubles.

Action!

DISSOLVE TO:21. EXT. EDGE OF TOWN DAY The wagon train is approaching Rio Bravo. At one side of the road is Boot Hill Cemetery. Beyond it toward town we see a man on horseback waiting in the middle of the road. The wagon train passes Boot Hill and nears the waiting man. There is a rough barn here at the side of the road. The barn has a yard in front of it with trees and a horse-trough. From the road there is a clear view right down the main street of Rio Bravo, but the barnyard is so placed that it is hidden from the viewpoint of anyone looking toward it from the town.

The man sitting his horse in the middle of the road is the Dude. The Dude wears a star, a Sheriff’s deputy.

He is a small man, almost frail-looking. At one time his name had been a legend on the Texas border. They had talked of his speed with a gun, of his deceptive mild manner, of his friendship with the Sheriff, John T. Chance. But that was the past. Now for two years Dude has been on the bottle, two years as the town drunk. He wears a battered hat, ragged clothes, run-down boots. He is unshaven and very close to the shakes. But for the time being, under stress, he is sober and desperately efficient.

Wheeler rides up to him, but Dude speaks first.

PAT WHEELER: What is all this?
DUDE: Hello, Mr. Wheeler. Tell your men to stay with the wagons till they're told different.
WHEELER: Who the devil do you think you're ordering around here?First Burdette's men stop me and now you stand there and try....

WHEELER: Say, seems like I ought to know you.
DUDE: Think you do, Mr. Wheeler.

WHEELER: Yeah, I remember you now. That star you're wearing kind of threw me off for a minute. Aren't you the fellow...

WHEELER: ...the Mexicans used to call borrachin?

DUDE: That's nearly right. Only it's borrachon.

WHEELER: I don't think I've ever seen you like this before.

DUDE: You mean sober? You're probably right. You know what borrachon means?
WHEELER: My Spanish ain't too good.

DUDE: It means drunk. Now if the name bothers you, they used to call me "Dude." Now are you going to tell your men or do l?

WHEELER: I'll tell my men.

He rides back down the line of wagons giving orders to his men.

WHEELER: Stand by the wagons, everybody! Pass the word.

22. EXT. EDGE OF TOWN DAYAs the wagons move on, a funeral procession comes out from town, heading toward Boot Hill. The hearse is preceded by JUANITO, a Mexican boy who thumps a slow beat on a Mexican or Indian stretched-hide drum. A few mourners follow behind. The funeral and the wagon-train pass each other in the road, Wheeler, Colorado, and the wagon-drivers taking off their hats as the hearse goes by. The wagons continue into town.

23. EXT. STREET DAY On one side of the street is the jail, a strongly built adobe structure with barred windows. Across the street from it is the RIO BRAVO SALOON.

The townspeople show by their actions that they are nervous and expecting trouble.

As the lead wagons come up the street John T. Chance, the Sheriff, walks to the middle of the street, carrying a rifle.

Wheeler rides to meet him.

WHEELER: Chance, what's going on here? People stopping me. Everybody telling me what I can and can't do. Next thing, you'll be telling me what to do.

SHERIFF JOHN T. CHANCE: Pat, I will tell you.
WHEELER: What?

CHANCE: Stop your wagons.

WHEELER: Oh, I give up.

Chance smiles and holds up his own hand to stop the wagons.

WHEELER: Now don't tell me what's going on. Just leave me wandering around in the fog.

WHEELER: I like it. I'm getting used to it. It makes me feel so good.
CHANCE: You better look out, Pat, you'll blow up and bust.

WHEELER: Listen, Chance, remember me? Your old friend Pat Wheeler. Now, will you please--

DUDE: Hey, Chance!

DUDE: What do you want to do about this outfit? Do you want to take their guns?

CHANCE: Got any new men with you, Pat?
WHEELER: No, nobody except Colorado here.

CHANCE: Where'd you take him on?
WHEELER: Fort Worth.
CHANCE: What does he do?

COLORADO: I speak English, Sheriff...

COLORADO: ...if you want to ask me.

CHANCE: All right, buster, what do you do?

COLORADO: I'm riding guard.

CHANCE: Pretty young for that, aren't you?

COLORADO: Just how old do you have to be, Sheriff?

WHEELER: You remember Ryan from Denver, don't you?
CHANCE: Rocky Ryan?
WHEELER: That's his boy. He tells me the kid's faster than he was.

CHANCE: He better be, packing a pair of guns.

COLORADO: Now, Sheriff, if it's the two guns...

COLORADO: ...that bother you, I could give you one of them. I could let you have them both. They wouldn't do me too much good.

(glancing at the jail window)

COLORADO: That fellow in the door there...

COLORADO: ... has a shotgun on me.

(Chance, surprised, also looks at the window, where a shotgun barrel shows)

CHANCE: Stumpy, didn't I tell--

STUMPY: I know. I'm going. I'm going.

CHANCE: You can keep your guns, Colorado.

COLORADO: Thanks, Sheriff. I don't want any trouble.

CHANCE: Well, then don't start any.
COLORADO: I won't, unless I tell you first.

CHANCE: That's good enough.

CHANCE: Pat, you can put your wagons in that corral.
WHEELER: I ought to do just that.
CHANCE: What?

WHEELER: I'm just guessing, you understand. It seems to me that you've already got some trouble here.
CHANCE: You're guessing right.

WHEELER: It so happens that part of our load there is fuel oil and dynamite.

WHEELER: Would you like to have that sitting next to you?
CHANCE: No, I wouldn't.

DUDE:  They could put them over there by the creek. Near the Burdette warehouse. If it's going to blow that's just as good a place as any.

CHANCE: Show them the way, Dude.

CHANCE: You can go along, Colorado.

COLORADO: Is that the way you want it, Mr. Wheeler?

WHEELER: Go ahead.

CHANCE: Let's get out of the middle of the street.

WHEELER: Now that you're satisfied and that the kid's got his guns...

WHEELER: ...would you mind telling me what this is all about?

CHANCE: We've got Joe Burdette in here.
WHEELER: Joe Burdette in jail? Nathan's brother?

CHANCE: That's right.

WHEELER: What are you holding them for?
CHANCE: They were about to bury the reason when you were coming in.

WHEELER: Murder?
CHANCE: No other word for it.

WHEELER: No wonder this town's in such a mess. What does Nathan say about this?
CHANCE: Nothing. He's not talking. Just doing. You saw part of it. He's got this town so bottled up that I can't get Joe out or any help in.

CHANCE: There are men over there watching us.

CHANCE: They're his.

CHANCE: I can't make a move without him knowing it.
WHEELER: Who you got helping you?

CHANCE: You met half of them.

WHEELER: You mean that fellow with the badge that stopped me, and who else?

CHANCE: Stumpy. You know him.

CHANCE: He's watching Joe and guarding the jail.

WHEELER: A game-legged old man and a drunk. That's all you got?

CHANCE: That's what I got.

WHEELER: If I ever saw a man holding the bull by the tail, you're it. It's a good idea putting my wagons where they're safe. Guess I better see they did it.

WHEELER: I'll see you later.

 Wheeler goes off with the wagons.

Rio Bravo

Written by Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman (and Howard Hawks)

Pictures by Russell Harlan and Howard Hawks

Rio Bravo is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Warner Home Video.