Walter Brandi (The Playgirls and The Vampire 1960,Bloody Pit of Horror 1965) plays Albert Kovac an attorney who arrives at a strange desolate castle to settle the estate of the recently deceased Dr. Hauff. Starring the magnificent icon Barbara Steele who plays Cleo Hauff, the young widow who is having an affair. Riccardo Garrone plays Joseph Morgan and Mirella Maravidi plays Hauff’s daughter Corinne. Alfredo Rizzo plays Dr Nemek, and Luciano Pigozzi is the trusted servant Kurt. The history of the castle has been haunted by a curse, furthermore Dr Hauff used to dabble in the black arts and claimed to be able to summon the spirits of the dead victims of the plague to wreak vengeance on those he felt betrayed him.“The water will save you.”
‘Go back to the dead!!!’
In this atmospheric Gothic Italian horror film from the 60s, there are several creepy and classical effective moments of morbidity and gruesome death scenes. And disembodied hands are always sort of yucky.
just magnificent in her Barbara Steele-ness
Truthfully, I could watch anything that Barbara Steele was in, she has such a splendid kind of sensuality that just oozes off the screen, and those darkly fervent eyes that mesmerize. (wow didn’t really mean to rhyme there)and while this isn’t really a stand out vehicle for her in any way as compared to her other work, the film is not a bad little romp through some vintage Euro chills for it’s 87 minutes, even without the Italian version’s brief gratuitous breast shot. Directed byMassimo Pupillo (Bloody Pit of Horror 1965 with Mickey Hargitay, La Vendetta di Lady Morgan 1965 with Erica Blanc and Barbara Nelli as Lady Susan Morgan and Django Kills Softly 1967) Cinematography by Carlo Di Palmi who worked on Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966’s masterpiece Blow Up.
See ya round the snack bar, no butter on mine thanks-MonsterGirl
Bert I. Gordon is just TOO BIG to do in one short post. Hell, I never really do anything in a small way as by now you’ve come to know my style. The fabulous, hysterical, well-informed and outrageously amusing GoreGirl of Goregirl’s Dungeon one of THE BEST blog sites around, has given me the great honor of gracing The Last Drive-In with her enjoyable take of Mr. B.I.G. I thought it would be a perfect segue or Intermission between Part I and Part II of this special feature on the man who brought us giant sized menaces and campy diversions. So without any further ramblings from yours truly, I hand the stage over to the fantastical GoreGirl with her…
THE ABCs Of B.I.G.
Back in July 2009, I did a feature called The Coop of Cthulhu: Five Horror Films that Feature Chickens where I cited Bert I. Gordon’s Food of the Gods. When you are the new kid on the block in the world of blogging it takes some time to get yourself noticed; you are just a drop in an ocean as big as the world. It took a while before I received a comment of any kind, but the most exciting thing that happened to me that first year was receiving a comment from Mr. Gordon on the aforementioned post. When Jo asked me if I would like to contribute something for a feature she was doing on Bert I. Gordon I jumped at the chance. I was long overdue to cover some of the director’s work. In preparation for the feature, I read his autobiography The Amazing Colossal Worlds of Mr. B.I.G. His nickname Mr. B.I.G. not only represents his name; Bert Ira Gordon but his love for giant creatures. Your lesson today is to learn your B.I.G. ABCs…
A is for Attack of the Puppet People. Attack of the Puppet People was made in 1958. Starring John Agar, John Hoyt, and June Kenney; it is the story of a lonely doll-maker who creates a machine that shrinks people. His tiny prisoners inevitably attempt to escape their strange situation. Attack of the Puppet People has been a favourite since childhood. Born well after the film was released I enjoyed the 50s monster movies on Sunday afternoon television and then on video in the early 80s. There were countless films from the 50s with giant creatures in all shapes and sizes but very few had a premise with tiny creatures/people. The idea of which filled my childhood imagination with wonder. I would often daydream about shrinking my tattle-telling little sister.
B is for Beginning of the End. Beginning of the End was made in 1957. Starring Peter Graves and Peggy Castle; it is the story of a journalist who has discovered a species of giant grasshoppers created at an experimental state-run farm. She attempts to make her discovery public despite a government/military cover-up. Mr. Gordon discovered the difficulties of working with live grasshoppers; you can’t really teach a grasshopper to “act” and you cannot prevent them from eating each other either!
C is for The Cyclops. The Cyclops was made in 1957. Starring James Craig, Gloria Talbott, Lon Chaney Jr., Tom Drake, and Duncan Parker; it is the story of Susan Winters who has financed a trip to Mexico to search for her fiancé Bruce whose plane went down three years previous. She arranges a small four-seat plane and hires pilot Lee Brand. Accompanying Susan is BruceÃs closest friend Russ Bradford and Martin Melville who hopes to find uranium. The quartet finds more than they bargain for when they discover the area is inhabited by giant animals. And that is not the only surprise that awaits the group. Although most of The Cyclops was made in and around Los Angeles, Gordon decided he would film several reels of footage in Tijuana to add to the final product. Unfortunately, while there he was arrested and his camera and film were confiscated. Gordon avoided jail time by paying the arresting officer off but his film was exposed before it was returned to him, rendering it unusable.
D is for Kirk Douglas. Bert I. Gordon was hired by a Japanese Ad Agency to do a series of commercials with Kirk Douglas. The commercials, intended strictly for a Japanese audience were for a coffee product and were filmed in Kirk Douglas’ Beverly Hills home.
E is for Earth Vs. the Spider. Earth Vs. the Spider was made in 1958. Starring Ed Kemmer, June Kenney, and Eugene Persson; it is the story of a giant spider found in a cave that is killed and brought to the gymnasium of the local high school to await a team of researchers. The creature as it turns out is not deceased and is revived by rock music! The giant spider wreaks havoc on the small town. Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico was the perfect location to shoot for Gordon’s Earth Vs. the Spider but there was one problem; he was not permitted to light the Caverns in any way. Apparently light fosters the growth of organisms that would destroy the cavern’s surfaces. Unable to film on location, he shot photographs to use as background plates.
F is for Food of the Gods. The Food of the Gods was made in 1976. Starring Marjoe Gortner, Pamela Franklin, Ida Lupino, Belinda Balaski, and Ralph Meeker; it is loosely based on H.G. Wells’s book of the same name. A meteorite crashes near a small farm that causes a liquid to ooze from the ground. Some rats drink the liquid which causes them to grow to huge proportions. A group of various visitors including a man and his pregnant wife are forced to fight for their lives against the giant rats and a host of other giant creatures. The Food of the Gods was filmed on Bowen Island in British Columbia! Not only made in the motherland but in the province I live in. A former boyfriend’s family had a cottage on beautiful Bowen Island which I visited several times. Gordon built several miniature sets and hired several “rat trainers” for the shoot. Windstorms and snowstorms made shooting difficult but the always inventive Gordon simply wrote a snowstorm into the story.
G is for Grand Prix. The Food of the Gods was awarded the Grand Prix du Festival International Du Paris Fantastique 1977 (Fantasporto).
H is for How to Succeed with (the Opposite) Sex. How to Succeed with Sex was made in 1970. Starring Zack Taylor, Mary Jane Carpenter, and Bambi Allen; it is the story of Jack desperate to get his lovely fiancÈe in bed before their wedding day and her refusal inspires him to purchase a book on seducing women. I have not seen Gordon’s foray into sexploitation so I really can not comment except to say; it appears from what I’ve read that there are no giant creatures in this film.
It is for The International Film Festival of Catalonia. Mr. Gordon’s career was honored in 1998 at The International Film Festival of Catalonia in Sitges Spain where thirteen of his titles were shown.
J is for Leroy Johnson. Stuntman and actor Leroy Johnson appeared in Gordon’s 1962 film The Magic Sword as Sir Ulrich of Germany. Needless to say the man performed his own stunts in pretty much every role in which he was cast.
K is for King Dinosaur. King Dinosaur was made in 1955. Although Serpent Island is listed as his first feature film in his autobiography; IMDB lists King Dinosaur as his first. A new planet called Nova is discovered in the solar system and two couples are sent to explore it. The planet is inhabited by creatures great and small including the titular creature. Made on a micro-budget King DinosaurÃs simple effects were particularly troublesome. The iguanas were uncooperative cast members who refused to move. Gordon went to the local library to read up on Iguanas and found out that they go into a hibernation state in temperatures lower than 120 degrees. A few bathroom heaters fixed the problem and got the little actors moving.
L is for Ida Lupino. The lovely and talented Ida Lupino was featured in Gordon’s Food of the Gods as Mrs. Skinner; one of the last films she did before retiring from acting. Mrs. Skinner is the owner of the farm where a meteor landed that caused the animals of the area to grow to massive proportions. Poor Mrs. Skinner’s husband is eaten by giant rats!
M is for Magic Sword. Magic Sword was made in 1962. Starring Basil Rathbone, Estelle Winwood, and Gary Lockwood; it is the story of George the son of a sorcerer who tricks his mother in order to conjure up a suit of armor, a horse, and a magic sword. George sets out to save the princess who has been kidnapped by the evil Lodac. The princess is being guarded by a two-headed fire-breathing dragon! Gordon stepped aside from the effects in The Magic Sword and let Fox’s art department create the film’s two-headed fire-breathing dragons. Gordon preferred that real fire be used instead of being added in the optical lab. While the creature was not as large as it appeared in the film, it was still one of the largest creatures to appear in one of Gordon’s films and required two men to operate its movements.
the delightfully wonderful Estelle Winwood in The Magic Sword.
N is for Necromancy. Necromancy (aka The Witching) was made in 1972. Starring Orson Welles, Pamela Franklin, Lee Purcell, and Michael Ontkean; it is the story of a witches’ coven in the town of Lilith headed by Warlock Mr. Cato. The local radio station in the town where Gordon filmed coincidently had the call letters CATO; perhaps a little black magic at play here? Okay, probably not.
O is for Michael Ontkean. Michael Ontkean best known and beloved by me for his role as Sheriff Harry S. Truman in Twin Peaks appeared in Gordon’s 1972 film Necromancy as Frank Brandon.
P is for Picture Mommy Dead. Picture Mommy Dead was made in 1966. Starring Don Ameche, Martha Hyer, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Susan Gordon (her fourth appearance in a Gordon film); is the story of Susan who has recently come home after spending time in an asylum where she was recovering from the shock of her mother’s fiery death. Now living with her father and his new wife whose greedy intentions are less than noble. Picture Mommy Dead is the best film in Gordon’s resume and a real unappreciated gem with great performances. Hedy Lamarr was initially cast as Susan’s mother Jessica but was arrested the week before filming for shoplifting. Zsa Zsa Gabor was cast instead.
Q is for Faith Quabius. Faith Quabius appears in Gordon’s 1973 film The Mad Bomber as Martha; a personal favourite Gordon film of mine. Although Ms. Quabius has an itsy bitsy resume her last name starts with “Q”.
Faith Quabius in The Mad Bomber.Faith Quabius Soylent Green with Edgar G Robinson.
Chuck Connors as The Mad Bomber “You just littered… now pick it up.”
R is for Rathbone. The great Basil Rathbone played the evil wizard Lodac in Gordon’s 1962 film The Magic Sword. Although officially born in South Africa, Rathbone was raised in England. The Magic Sword was released in England under the title St. George and the 7 Curses and would receive a curious rating from the censors in England; a film that was intended to be for general audiences. The film had a problematic and almost non-existent run in the country.
the great Basil Rathbone in The Magic Sword
S is for Satan’s Princess. Satan’s Princess was made in 1990. Starring Robert Forster, Lydie Denier, and Caren Kaye; is the story of an ex-cop hired for a missing persons case whose clues all lead back to the sensual Nicole and a satanic cult. Satan’s Princess is Bert I. Gordon’s last film to date. Generally speaking, Gordon uses closed sets and limited crew for sex/nude scenes but on the request of his lead actress Lydie Denier, her husband was permitted to watch her perform a scene where she takes part in a Lesbian orgy.
T is for Tormented. Tormented was made in 1960. Starring Richard Carlson, Susan Gordon, Lugene Sanders, and Joe Turkel; it is the story of a man tormented by his dead lover, whom he could have saved but chose not to so he could marry another. Gordon is always working with a tight budget and schedule and often has to get creative to capture the shot he needs. In the case of Tormented a lighthouse was an important part of the plot, but it was not in the budget to travel with his cast and crew. Gordon simply shot footage of his ideal lighthouse in Salem, Massachusetts, and melded it with his California footage. The magic of movies!
U is for the University of Illinois. Bert I. Gordon was the special guest at the University of Illinois’ 20th Annual Insect Fear Film Festival on February 15, 2003.
V is for Village of the Giants. Village of the Giants was made in 1965. Starring Tommy Kirk, Johnny Crawford, Ron Howard, Joe Turkel, Beau Bridges, and Joy Harmon; is the story of a group of teenagers who steal the concoction of a brainiac kid that makes things grow to huge proportions. The teenagers ingest the goo and terrorize their community! This movie is a ton of fun and was Gordon’s first picture with AVCO Embassy. Look out for the adorable Toni Basil who was in charge of the film’s dance numbers!
W is for War of the Colossal Beast. War of the Colossal Beast was made in 1958. Starring Sally Fraser, Roger Pace, and Duncan Parkin; it is the sequel to Gordon’s The Amazing Colossal Man (1957). After the events of the first film a series of food truck robberies tip authorities off to the possibility that the Colossal Man is still living. After discovering him in a remote Mexican mountain range they drug and transport him back to America where he escapes and wreaks havoc. Although the horrifically mutated Col. Glenn Manning is the primary focus of War of the Colossal Beast; the character speaks just one word in the film “Joyce” his sister’s name.
X is for Xenonarc Lamp. This has absolutely nothing to do specifically with Bert I. Gordon, but I couldn’t find anything else for X. An Xenonarc Lamp is a high-intensity lighting device used in motion picture projection and eye surgery. Mr. Gordon was a film fan from an early age. At six his mother would drop him off at the local theatre and pick him up in time for dinner. He became friendly with the people who ran the theatre and was even allowed to sit in the projection booth and watch them change the reels. Sometimes if the reels broke during a film they would even let young Burt fix them; he learned to do this simply by observing. Gordon is a director through and through and cites the type of cameras he used often throughout his biography so this seemed like an appropriate “X” word.
A XenonArc Lamp… very cool… go figure
Y is for Yacht; which Mr. Gordon planned to buy after he moved to Hollywood to become a filmmaker.
The SS Minnow Yacht of Gilligan’s Island fame
Z is for Zsa Zsa Gabor. Okay, officially this should be under “G” but come on we all know Zsa Zsa by her first name don’t we?! Zsa Zsa plays Jessica Flagmore Shelley in Picture Mommy Dead; the deceased mother of Susan Shelley whose horrible death by fire caused little Susan to spend time in a mental institution. Zsa Zsa celebrated her birthday on the set of Picture Mommy Dead.
*information for this post was taken from Bert I. Gordon’s IMDB page and his autobiography The Amazing Colossal Worlds of Mr. B.I.G. You can buy his book at his official website www.bertigordon.com
Olga’s House of Shame tells the story of a brothel matron Olga (Audrey Campbell) who gets runs out of New York City so she takes her show on the road to a deserted ore mine where she can run her criminal empire and prostitution ring in peace.
Followed up by Olga’s Dance Hall Girls
Hey how’d this poster get in here? ⇧
Here’s the scene where the girl just ‘doesn’t know!‘
Never shameful but always playfully yours-MonsterGirl
“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” — Edgar Allan Poe
‘Leave Your Faith, Fear, and Sanity at the Water’s Edge – Jo Gabriel
“There are terrible creatures, ghosts, in the very air of America.” -D.H. Lawrence
Taken from his chapter The Bloody Chords of Memory, which I think is very appropriate for this discussion, Scott Poole from Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting states that, “it would be too simplistic to view monster tales as simple narratives in service of American violence. The monster is a many-headed creature, and narratives about it in America are highly complex. Richard Kearney describes the appearance of a monster in a narrative, in a dream, or in sensory experience ‘as a signal of borderline experiences and unattainable excess.’
In 1971, two films were released with a sort of queasy verisimilitude, using a monochromatic color scheme and protracted themes of insanity, fanaticism, and self-annihilation. One drawing more of its flicker from the time of cult murders by religious fanatics, and an anti-establishment repudiation reflected in the cult fringe film. The Night God Screamed utilizes as its anti-hero the motorcycle gang who hate ‘citizenship’ and phony institutionalized prophets. These outliers are dirty, rebelliously dangerous hippies who are hyped up and deluded into following a charismatic cult leader, a Neanderthal named Billy Joe Harlan, performed with a Shakespearean griminess by Michael Sugich.
Michael Sugich as the maniacal Mansoneseque cult leader Billy Joe.
He’s quite a Mansonesque figure with his malefic unibrow. This offering, aptly called The Night God Screamed, even boasts a scene where the cult actually crucifies the clean-cut minister Willis, a man of traditional gospel played by Alex Nicol.They essentially nail him to his own pridefully giant wooden phallic cross. Leaving his wife Fanny (Jeanne Crain) to scramble in the darkened halls, conflicted as to whether to try and help her husband or save herself from the cult’s ferocious blood lust, driving her into a numb moral and cognitive stasis of unresponsiveness, reason, and human connection. I will talk about this film in Part II.
The beautiful Jeanne Crain.
Let’s Scare Jessica To Death (1971) is a film that hints at a post-modern Americana Gothicism permeated by a rustic folksy style of vampirism, with its small town coteries, paranoia, and the archetypal hysterical woman in a sustained level of distress and adrift on a sea of inner monologues and miasma of fear. I’ll begin in Part I with my much-loved classic horror…
LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH 1971
“Leave your insanity at the door.”
Let’s Scare Jessica To Death 1971) is not only a far superior film, but it also—perhaps unintentionally—embodies the most iconic 1970s tropes, capturing what made that remarkable wave of horror films from the era so extraordinary.
Written by Gary Crutcher who gave us Stanley (1972) the man loves snakes, and Featuring the song-“Shadows”
Performed by The Electric Prunes
Experimental psychedelic group of the late 60s. The Electric Prunes had a hit in 1966 “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” also recognized for the song “Kyrie Eleison,” featured on the soundtrack of Easy Rider.
I keep coming across these great obscure creepy shockers from the 1960s. Often starring actors like Tab Hunter and Susan Strasberg. This bizarre theatre of lunacy was directed by Gunnar HellströmÂ
The Name of the Game is Kill! is a nice contribution to the psychotronic -cult-cinema genre, just because of the hostility, the great casting and the psychedelic music alone.
I love Collin Wilcox, I think she is one of the most underrated character actresses, so it’s nice to see her here with Tisha Sterling and Ms Strasberg doing what she does best, playing a quiet, deeply composed box of kindling with layers and layers of mood and intuitive style.
Jack Lordof Hawaii Five -O fame plays a stranger, a Hungarian traveler named Symcha Lipa (Sim) who is passing through an isolated town and hooks up with the peculiar Terry family run by matriarch and patriarch Father and Mother Terry, the androgynous T.C Jones (you remember Nurse Betty in AlfredHitchcock Hour’s An Unlocked Window she/he was also in 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt 1964 as Henry.)
The girls invite Sim to their home for some hospitality. Mother Terry lives with her three beautiful daughters and a menagerie of poisonous snakes and tarantulas.Mickey is friendly and welcoming but the other two sisters exude a malicious venom themselves. When Sim almost dies, he winds up in the hospital being warned by local Sheriff Fred Kendall played by Mort Mills not to get involved with the Terry family. Of course Sim doesn’t listen…
The Name of the Game is MonsterGirl finding you delicious goodies to feast your eyes on.
Directed by Kurt Neumann (The Fly 1958)and starring Johanna Matz as Eve Ullmann a young girl who answers an advertisement for international models, whose fashion shows are just fronts for men to buy what they ‘like.’
What unfolds is the dark underbelly of international white slave trafficking. The film was shot on location in Hollywood but created as the playground of Rio De Janeiro.
Scott Brady is Richard Lanning, a guy who works for Jaime Coltos a rich Brazilian mine owner (Raymond Burr) Jaime invites Richard to his country estate for a little romp, but one of the new ‘models’ Eve isn’t playing the game, and breaks a bottle over his head when he tries to get ‘friendly.’ Once Eve finds out the real operation she works for, she begins to make trouble. Also starring Ingrid Stenn ( Bewildered Youth 1957) as Connie Voorhees.
Also co-starring Gisela Fackeldey as Mme. Lansowa, Katharina Mayberg as Felicia, Erica Beer as Elise LeFevre, Hanita Hallan as Lena, Gert Fröbe as Lobos.
Growing up in the 7os, a lot of what inspired me to follow my journey as a singer/songwriter had much to do with the brilliant, evocatively poignant and memorable compositions by artists like the great Paul Williams. I still can’t listen or sing one of his iconic songs without becoming a fountain of tears, melting into an emotional puddle of ‘feelings.’ His contribution to the world as a singer/songwriter has been so immense, that I feel inadequate just showing a little love here, instead of doing one of my long winded posts.
But I am too agitated with excitement about the documentary Paul Williams Still Alive, and to have found him alive and well on Twitter. I love you, We love you Paul Williams.
You have given us a magical, alchemical concoction of music that will forever flare up like molten gold in our hearts. It’s so good to see you again.
So here’s a just a little reminder of SOME of the things this beautiful, brilliant man has brought us from his heavenly throne where he sits with the other musical angels.
From the new documentary, here’s the official trailer for Paul Williams Still Alive
Karen Carpenter sings Rainy Days and Mondays
Kermit the Frog sings The Rainbow Connection from The Muppet Movie
Karen Carpenter sings We’ve Only Just Begun
Barbra Streisand sings Evergreen from A Star is Born
Jessica Harper sings Old Souls from Phantom of The Paradise
Here’s to the immortal genius! – With love Jo Gabriel the little singer/songwriting MonsterGirl
Directed by Barry Shear, (Wild in the Streets 1968,Across 110th Street 1972) written by Joel Oliansky, Dennis Murphy and Mann Rubin. It stars Robert F. Lyons  as the infamous true life serial killer (Charles Schmid) Skipper Todd. The film hosts an incredible cast of actors, Richard Thomas, Belinda Montgomery, Sherry Miles, Joyce Ames, Holly Near, James Broderick, Gloria Grahame, Fay Spain, Edward Asner, Barbara Bel Geddes, Michael Conrad and Meg Foster.
Based on the real life character of 60s thrill killer, Charles Schmid also dubbed the Pied Piper of Tucson who was found guilty of murder in 1966 and sentenced to death, but wound up getting 50 years to life, when the state of Arizona temporarily abolished the death penalty in 1971. Eventually Schmid himself was murdered in prison.
Lyons worldly ruthlessly inhospitable persona channels a charismatic young philosophical misanthrope who embodies the 60s attitude of the anti establishment credo, taking it to a violent level of psychotic abandon. Todd becomes an anti- hero to the local youth who worship him, in particular the very young women he easily beds, who treat him like a deity. He exhibits the qualities of a Svengali as he manipulates both male and female devotees. Todd is cool and urbane, charming his way into the lives of several high school teenagers in a small California town. There is a jaundiced atmosphere to this community, as the complacency and rumbling undercurrent of disturbed restlessness paint a very uneasy portrait of American life off kilter.
When the film opens, Todd has killed a 16 year old girl named Sue Ellen Mack, having recruited two other teenagers to help cover up the crime by burying the body in the vast and ceaseless desert, the perfect place to lose a body. One teen is an overweight girl Norma (Holly Near) who hangs on Skipper like a minion, clinging to him like a swooning groupie and the other a scraggy termite called Andy.
Shear directs each scene with a heartless realism. The three while leaving the desert just having buried Sue Ellen, pick up Billy Roy ( Richard Thomas) who is hitchhiking, just having been released from reform school. There is the sensibility to the film that exposes a mob mentality. This heightened sense of a younger fringe craving to dwell aimlessly outside of society, the phrase used often to signify an opposition to society or being a ‘citizen’ is prevalent in sub genre films, such as the biker genre. In this environment it is feasible that an awakening adolescence would be mesmerized by an outlier, a bad boy, and therefore aide in concealing the crime. It’s conceivable that a flock of youths could be present at the scene of a murder, not only do nothing to stop it, and in fact, help in it’s surreptitious design to cover it up, and allude the police. The unrepentant complicity to the crimes bares a similarity to the working dynamic of the 1986 film The River’s Edge
Robert Thom wrote Angel Angel Down We Go. He envisions the anti hero as a guitar strumming Svengali-Here Robert F.Lyons is the songwriting/psychopath Skipper ToddJordan Christopher portrays the similarly brutal misanthropic sociopath Bogart Peter Stuyvesant in Robert Thom’s Angel Angel Down We Go 1969. Both peddlers of sex and death, wielding guitars as their weapon of seduction.
Skipper Todd manipulates Richard Thomas‘ character Billy like a master puppeteer, dangling the potential for romance with his former classmate Amata. Billy has been obsessed with Amata since High School. Unfortunately Amata only has eyes for Skipper, and poor naive Billy is so easily influenced and blinded by his attraction to this girl that he doesn’t see how Todd is using him as yet another pawn in his coterie.
Belinda Montgomery plays Roberta a pretty 16 year old girl from an affluent family, who is less pliant and impressionable at first. It is her rebellious attitude and her blatant defiance toward Skipper’s malevolent magnetism, which charge his advances which become more potent, as he becomes drawn to her the more she resists.
She’s the one female who appears immune at first to Skipper’s charms. Although she restrains from falling into the same infatuated vapidness like the other girls, ultimately after Skipper breaks into her house one night, beats and rapes her, she finally breaks down and succumbs to his control and decries that she loves him. The manifest use of violence against women as sexual stimulation, and the tenet of annihilating women’s power through control, not love is another inherent trope of the story. Skipper mother as a role model only teaches him to take, to make money, and skews the boundaries of love for him by bestowing upon him an odd, underlying sexualized affection.
We are clued into Skipper Todd’s evolution as a misogynist, as an Oedipal nightmare, who fancies himself an elitist an Ãœbermensch, Friedrich Nietzsche’s superman who poses as anti-hero, bemoaning the state of society and it’s lemmings who conform, yet ironically depending on the very thing he condemns in order to suck the life force out of it. This he needs for his egoist dogma to be able to thrive, feeding off the susceptible, and violating the vulnerable, just as Mrs. Todd picks the bones clean of the elderly men she is charged to take care of.
Though living as an outsider, he needs followers to facilitate his crimes. To help him bury the bodies. He espouses that people have ‘stale dreams’ and that society is riddled with lying and selfishness. In this he is a true Sociopath, as he is the most selfish phony of them all. As self deluded as was Charles Manson who consider himself to be a songwriter and profit, Todd also writes songs on his guitar, recording himself singing glorifying lyrics about his strangulations of the girls he kills. A minstrel madman, strumming and fucking his way through Tucson.
As I’ve said earlier, Todd’s followers include a young Richard Thomas as Billy Roy a guileless yet loyal young man, who unwittingly enables Todd to continue his blood lust and ravaging of young girls. Billy remains naive until the end, when he finally sees the true evil nature of his friend Skipper Todd, and ultimately turns on him.
Shear’s The Todd Killings conveys the feeling of hopelessness and hollow confinement which pervade much of the film and the collective scenes of impulsive brutality. Whether or not the story is historically accurate to the events that led up to Scmid’s capture is unclear, regardless the narrative is a somber, chilling mood piece about society and the attractive monsters it sometimes breeds.
The film creates an eerie, often brutally unsettling tone that unleashes a sense that there is no way out of conformity. You either live an existence of an ugly sterile complacency or wind up being sacrificed on the altar of individual freedom.
The use of the desert as a playground/killing field for Todd and his followers creates an alienating environment. Todd’s compulsion sets the tone for a fraying wire of isolation, in which a barren land of free love and reckless idolatry ultimately lead Todd and his followers to devolve by the film’s tragic end.
At the root of Todd’s twisted nature lies that hint of Oedipal fixation, as his relationship with his mother portrayed by Barbara Bel Geddes bares the reflections of an incestuous partnership. Todd’s conflation of sex and violence, his natural adeptness at manipulation and psycho-sexual violation ultimately make him a serial killer who thrives on destroying that which he is fixated on. The film provides us with an insight into his hatred of women, American motherhood, and the society that engenders both to be simple offerings for the slaughter.
Bel Geddes as Mother Todd –“I could use a little of your help around here you know” Skipper-“robbing the cadavers?”Mrs. Todd’s unbounded greed in one single minute-“now that juice comes to forty cents a quart young man so drink up “Mrs Todd-“the lord put me on this earth, just to support you”"¦. Skipper “If I do not get my allowance in four seconds flat I’ll (he whispers in her ear, then she smiles ) Mrs Todd- “uh hum, I think you’re capable of that.”Mother giving her little angel his milk money for the week
Mrs. Todd’s, Skipper’s money hungry mother owns a nursing home for elderly men running it like a military complex, all of who’s family members never visit. She manages this ‘institution’ like a waiting room for decaying livestock, providing minimal comforts, she’s more militant in her administrations than compassionate as a care giver. For her this is nothing but a business arrangement that supports her simple lifestyle. She shows no emotional connection to the elderly men in her care, nor for her son, who visits periodically, skulking around for hand outs. No emotional maternal outpouring, yet a queer romantic sort of banter.
Skipper tells her that he would ‘rather die than make my living that way.’ She tells him that he is in fact ‘living off them…We all make our lives that way, that’s what life is all about.”
Skipper treats her more like one of the many girlfriends he uses in order to cop some ready spending money. Mrs Todd spouts off about life like an unemotional puritanical hen, urging him to find employment or at least help her out there at the home, which he violently rejects.
The entire atmosphere of the old age home and the town, is disparaging of the human condition and gives us a little insight into Skipper Todd’s lack of empathy, largely pronounced by the contrasting verve of the youth culture shown asphyxiating by the small -town’s conservatism.
Todd’s mother is a clinically acidic detached, and cold-blooded ‘mother figure’ and a reminder that though Skipper seems repulsed by the way the old men have been abandoned by their families, it is still their money that he virtually parasites off of when he comes calling for a hand out from his confederate mother.
Without giving away the climax of the film, I will say that there is a particular scene towards the end that is so savage, framed with such a starkly simple realism, that it is utterly jarring.
The Todd Killings creates a story telling that fuses together our very real fears of the social boogeyman who lurk amidst all us ‘normal’ seeming folk, and although filmed in the 70s, it makes a timeless leap into a contemporary arena without loosing any of its thrust. It tells the story of a monster like Charles Schmid, without feeling outdated or hazy around the edges due to lack of a more graphic or gore drenched narrative.
The film also doesn’t rely on police procedural to fill us in on the details, it is told partly from the perspective of Todd’s own dystopian psyche and partly from the victims themselves. In particular Montgomery’s portrayal of Roberta which is nuanced, strikingly dramatic and ultimately heart wrenching.
The film also stars one of my favorite unsung actresses Gloria Grahame as Billy Roy’s mother. It also co-stars the wonderful Edward Asner, Fay Spain, James Broderick, Michael Conrad as Detective Shaw, and good old Holly Near as Norma ( just can’t forget her in Angel, Angel Down We Go 1969)as one of Skippers nubile sycophants.
Holly Near as Norma
“Teenage girls looking for the body of Alleen Rowe, in connection with murderer Charles Schmid.” Photo from LIFE magazine., via Sweetheart of the Rodeo’s blog post: Hell among the yearlings
On March 10, 1975, Schmid was stabbed 47 times by two fellow prisoners, he died almost a month later.
Notorious Pied Piper of Tucson killer of teenage girls-Charles Schmid
Skipper Todd: I try not to. But sometimes there’s a guy who’s really sweet… it’s so easy. We’re both men… we both know where it’s at. Personally, you’re not giving anything away.
Skipper Todd: I can sleep with them once because it degrades them. It makes them dirty. The worst thing about it is… you meet a chick who isn’t… bad. You can’t screw her because you don’t want to make her “dirty.”
Belinda J Montgomery 70s staple television actress and film star. Giving a brilliantly nuanced performance as Roberta, the object of Skippers affection/annihilation desire.
Roberta: You actually came to see me without any of your baby-pimps? Wow. How do I rate that honor?
Skipper Todd: I just loved your performance at the pool.
Roberta: So, you’re the one who rides the dune buggy and “services” the little girls huh?
Skipper Todd: Oh yes… and speaking of little girls, how old are you?
