The writing team of and Jim Mulholland made a career out of writing for Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show," David Letterman on "Late Show" and several Academy Awards ceremonies, but they also got to be bawdy at times, as writers of AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON, BAD BOYS and the Sylvester Stallone comedy vehicle OSCAR. Their sense of knowing cynicism came across in several comedy specials, including THE SELLING OF VINCE D'ANGELO and 1993's Showtime special BASIC VALUES: SEX, SHOCK AND CENSORSHIP IN THE '90s, a one-shot starring Shelley Long as an investigative news reporter hosting a special on controversial media. It's basically just an excuse for off-color gags, but it's well-remembered by the few that saw it.
Fortunately, at least some of the clips from the show have made their way on to YouTube. Here's a tale of Jesus's Last Supper done as a riff on GOODFELLAS, featuring Paul Benedict as a Michael Medved-like movie critic:
A parody of the explosion of urban-set movies for black audiences from the early '90s, a few years before DON'T BE A MENACE TO SOUTH CENTRAL WHILE DRINKING YOUR JUICE IN THE HOOD:
Alex Winter as rapper Stinx on Ice, who has all sorts of suggestions on how to "Kill Your Teacher":
And best of all, a fake trailer for the horror pic THE GRANNY (with Dan Hedaya), two years before the Shannon Whirry film THE GRANNY made the concept a reality:
There has been plenty to say about Roland Emmerich's recent film STONEWALL -- mostly negative, from its lack of historical accuracy to its whitewashing to its less-than-teriffic box office. The makers of the upcoming film STONEWALL: RIOT ON CHRISTOPHER STREET don't really care about historical accuracy either, but in this case, it's intentional.
S:ROCS, directed by Richard Griffin (DISCO EXORCIST, THE SINS OF DRACULA) reimagines the 1969 riots as a '70s exploitation film involving the Black Panthers, and the trailer looks like a hell of a lot of fun, even though some may consider the use of an important historical event blasphemous. I'd say it looks like it serves as a genre-loving response to the previous cinematic incarnations of the event.
Check out the trailer below, and watch for the film soon.
As my CD collection (because I have a CD collection) can prove, I'm a big fan of the Danny Elfman-fronted Oingo Boingo, at least before they became Boingo and became kinda "meh." In one of the odder collisions of pop culture, the band performed on Jerry Lewis's annual Labor Day telethon in 1987, performing "We Close Our Eyes" (which, strangely, seems to be lip-synced) and "Not My Slave" (which isn't?).
But that's not all the live Oingo I've got for you -- here's the band performing "Not My Slave" and "Elevator Man" on the short-lived (Sinbad-hosted!) "Keep on Cruisin'" the same year.
Of course, these clips come from a time after the band had become a bit more pop and less experimental. For a look at them closer to the era of FORBIDDEN ZONE, check them out on "The Gong Show" over a decade earlier, when they were still performing under their full moniker of "The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo."
There's a lot going on in terms of fandom history in this clip from a July episode of "The Mike Douglas Show." The man being interviewed is Phil Seuling, a comic book convention organizer and distributor who was responsible for the "direct market" as founder of Sea Gate Distributors in 1972, distributing comics directly to comic book specialty stores. (He was also a voice in Ralph Bakshi's FRITZ THE CAT.) There's Jamie Farr eagerly pointing out all of the Fawcett comics characters and discussing Wonder Woman's "mod" changes. And there's also some early cosplay, as Wendy Pini, who would co-create "Elfquest" with her husband the next year, comes out on stage dressed as Red Sonja. (The guy with the white hair is Jerry Lester, a regular comedian and personality who hosted one of the first late-night talk shows.)
Patrick McGoohan is best known to cult film fans as the star of "The Prisoner," but the classic series amounted to only one year in an impressive career of credits both in front of and behind the camera. His resume as director includes a handful of television episodes (in most cases, appearing as an actor in the project as well), but as far as feature films go, McGoohan only helmed one -- 1974's CATCH MY SOUL, also released in a possibly different cut as SANTA FE SATAN.
CATCH MY SOUL, as its alternate title suggest, was filmed around Santa Fe, New Mexico, where McGoohan and his family had moved to after the end of "The Prisoner." McGoohan got the directing job at the behest of producer/writer Jack Good, the British music producer and occasional actor who had previously been responsible for both "Shindig!" and the now-cult-favorite-but-then-notable-misfire television special "33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee," which deserves its own entry in this blog at some point.
The film was to be a rock opera remake of Shakespeare's "Othello," a source material McGoohan had some experience with, having played the Iago part in the jazz scene-set 1962 film ALL NIGHT LONG. Good had originally developed the project as a stage play, which played in Los Angeles in 1968 with BLACULA's William Marshall and Jerry Lee Lewis (!) in the main roles. (And I now have a new addition to my "to-do" list when I finally get to time travel.) The production moved to the U.K. with a new cast shortly thereafter.
The film was made, but in place of Marshall and Lewis were folk singer Richie Havens and future TV regular Lance LeGault, reprising his role from the U.K. stage version. Also joining the cast were singer Tony Joe White, future VICE SQUAD star Season Hubley and the ever-welcome Susan Tyrrell, who had just gotten an Oscar nomination for FAT CITY. Conrad Hall, fresh off of COOL HAND LUKE and ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE, was brought on as cinematographer. Future TERMINATOR 2 editor Richard A. Harris put it all together.
You can read a lot more about the production in Tom Mayer's astonishingly well-researched piece here, but the film and the soundtrack were released in 1973 to mediocre-to-poor reviews. As was the custom at the time, the film was re-released in 1975 under the title SANTA FE SATAN, in an attempt to get some of that EXORCIST cash. It's been little-seen since.
"Little-seen" understates the point. The film was never released on videocassette or DVD, and may never have aired on television. Until last year, the film had been considered completely lost, even turning up in Chris Poggiali's "Endangered List" on his obligatgory-for-obscure-film-fans "Temple of Schlock" blog.
The film was finally located in 2013 under the SANTA FE SATAN title, in a trailer on a farm in North Carolina (!), and Mayer's piece has a full write-up of the film itself. He also details the possibilities of the alternate cuts -- none of which can be confirmed without the existence of additional prints.
SANTA FE SATANhad something of a re-premiere in 2014, as part of North Carolina's RiverRun International Film Festival. It was stated that this would be the final time the film would be projected due to wear, but a restoration campaign would be taking place.
So why I am my going into great detail about this film you can't see?
Well, because now you can at least see a part of it. A trailer has emerged for the film, containing the first publicly-available footage of it that's been seen in nearly 40 years. It's only sixty seconds, but at least it's verifiable proof that it exists under its original title, CATCH MY SOUL.
The soundtrack has been available for a while, and it's definitely a treat, especially if you're a fan of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR. (I'm imagining the film being a bit like that, only without Ted Needy's emo savior.) It's not much to watch, but you can listen to it in full here:
Even if the film is a mess,its remarkable existence makes it a genuine curiosity. The tale of how two British entertainment figures randomly made a religious rock opera based on a Shakespeare play set in New Mexico is an undoubtedly compelling one, and any film distribution company worth their salt should be able to promote it with ease. (This seems like an ideal project for the newly-formed Etiquette Pictures or Grindhouse Releasing, whose recent issues of AN AMERICAN HIPPIE IN ISRAEL and GONE WITH THE POPE have brought former obscurities to welcoming audiences.)
Update: Rumor is that CATCH MY SOUL will be making its way onto DVD (and Blu-ray?) next year. Keep your eyes peeled!
