Weird and Forgotten Movies

[Doctor Strange]

Speaking of Vonnegut, and oddball films...

Has anybody here seen "Between Time and Timbuktu"? It's a PBS videotape "movie" made around 1972 - roughly the same timeframe as the "Slaughterhouse Five" film - that conflates many of Vonnegut's works (especially "The Sirens of Titan", my personal favorite) into a single tale of "astronaut Stoney Stevenson", whose space capsule is lost in the "Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum", where he ricochets around assorted incidents/characters from Vonnegut's stories. It's also notable for having Bob and Ray as newscasters covering his space flight (hilariously, 'natch).

I haven't seen it in a long time, but I recall it was hoot. I have no idea if it was ever released on DVD.

 

[Sefton]

Doc I think you may have come up with one of the best entries there. That seems really familiar yet I just can't quite place it. It's killin' me...I gotta see that now!:eusa_clap

 

[Sefton]

"Lost" Woody Allen film...

Men of Crisis: The Harvery Wallinger Story (1971) Written , directed by and starring Woody Allen. With Diane Keaton and Louise Lasser. This is a short film made by Woody Allen for PBS in '71 that was going to air during the feb. '72 primary season on New York's WNET. Woody plays an advisor to President Nixon.
It seems that the station execs. got cold feet (didn't want all of those fat govt. checks to dry up!) and pulled it before broadcast. For years it was thought lost until the short films producer, Jack Kuney came forward with the only known copy in 1997. WNET never got the broadcast rights so it's up to Allen if we will ever see this. The few who have seen it say that it is very funny...

In the film actual footage of the President and his cabinet are carefully edited (Zelig-like) into footage of Allen and his cast...

How I would love to see this "Lost" film! Woody please let us see it!:eusa_clap

 

[The Wolf]

a couple thoughts on your picks and one of my own

I never saw "Arnold" but I remember the ads. Wasn't Roddy McDowell given a mod suit that shrank and crushed him to death?
Ironically, fans of the Doc Savage novels hate "The Man of Bronze" movie yet own a copy of it.
I saw "Hudson Hawk" at the movies twice. I also own the novelization and soundtrack. When people are embarassed to tell me a movie they like I tell them I no right to judge because I admit liking "the hawk".

My weird forgotten movie is a "Arthur, Arthur". Donald Pleasance plays a failed inventor whom everybody takes advantage. He puts on a mod suit and wig and becomes a swinger. It gets odd from there.

I also just remembered "The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom", in which Shirley MacLaine keeps a lover in the attic. It is funny and weird. Bob Monkhouse even appears.

And how about "Morgan!" with David Warner (one of my favorite actors despite the amount of trash he's done) as an eccentric man trying to stop his ex-wife from marrying another man.

Sincerely,
The Wolf

P.S. "Head" is my favorite with Frank Zappa, Teri Garr and Carol Doda.

 

[Sefton]

Did anyone mention "Skidoo" (1968) Directed by Otto Preminger? Featuring Jackie Gleason,Carol Channing,Frankie Avalon,George Raft,Mickey Rooney etc. And Groucho Marx smoking pot...
It's supposed to be a great big comedy along the lines of "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World". Strange and not that funny but certainly weird and notable for the big names. Not coming to video soon and not as seen on TV. I caught it once in a small theater in S.F. mainly to see the famous scene of Groucho smoking a joint.

 

[Lincsong]

Another Russ Meyer Film I forget

Didn't he make a film where the hero was a 5' guy who rode into town on a burro? But, anyway, I remember in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World where the Englishman tells Milton Berle; "what's this American fixation with busoms? If the brazeer industry folded the entire American economy would collapse" Well, Russ Meyer's films definetely played onto that "American fixation" with busoms.:cheers1:

 

[John in Covina]

The ending is really really srewed up: A game of mime tennis. That's right, a whole bunch of mimes pretending to play tennis. he has to take part because they "hit" the "ball" across the fence and he has to mime "return" it to them. Scared me out of my wits. There was something incredibly sinister about that game of tennis.bk

********
That does sound weird, it makes me think of the TV series "The Prisoner" with the guy from "Secret Agent Man" the Prisoner had some bizarre stuff in it.

Quartermass and the Pit was kinda freaky.
"The Day the Fish Came Out" was weird.

There is a facinating thing about some of the 60's movies that is strange, the language (almost like the Beatnik - beat generation) the slang, the treatment of drugs, the emotional content and the strangeness of relationships being strained with bad communication. It is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. For a 60's outlook on strained relations and weird ness I suggest 2 Steve McQueen movies "Bullet" and "the Getaway" too much with the "HIP" speech. Also Shaft is a time capsule.

Not as obsurce but odd non the less:
Farenheit 451
Lord of the Flies
Time Bandits
The Satan Bug

 

[BellyTank]

Here's 2 more:

"Willard", 1971- Bruce Davison, as the Rat-loving weirdo nerd-

and

"Brewster McCloud", 1970, Bud Cort in a fantasy film about a boy who lives in the fallout shelter at the Houston Astrodome and wants to fly like a bird.
Sally Kellerman seems to be an Angel with her wings cut off.

Brewster McCloud was one of those films I caught on late-nite TV as a child and didn't fully understand but has haunted me ever since. "The Swimmer" was the same scenario- there are quite a few films I saw on TV as a young kid, didn't grasp and have stayed with me in my subconscious ever since.

A an adult, I always re-watch these couple of films whenerver they're on TV- can't help myself.
In 2006, I sometimes wonder how some of these late '60s, early '70s films ever got made...

B
T, Rat lover.

 

[Lincsong]

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

Anyone remember this 1969 film? What It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World described about Californian greed , B&C&T&A did to Californian lust. Robert Culp (Bob) and Natalie Wood (Carol) as the filmmaker and his wife. It starts out at a Northern California nudist camp in the Redwoods, where the sophisticated Bob and Carol awaken themselves to the concept of an "open marriage". Bob has an affair and Carol felt it was theraupeutic for their marriage so she decides to have one herself. Elliot Gould (Ted) and Dyan Cannon (Alice) as their "straight laced" friends who wonder if they're the real squares. Then Ted has an affair in Miami. Alice is going nuts. They end up in Las Vegas at Circus Circus. The ending; priceless, the casino empties out into the parking lot with everyone walking in a circle to Dionne Warwicks; "What the World Needs Now".:fing28: A must see, just to watch Natalie Wood who is absolutely gorgeous in the film.
Growing up in 1970's and 1980's California I know that this movie hits the nail right on the head. My parents neighbors told me that said such goings on were happening in their track in 1957!

 

[Michael Mallory]

For me, the most delightfully demented, bizarre film of the 70s is "Horror Hospital," a pretty obscure British horror film from 1973 starring the wonderful Michael Gough, who in later, better times was "Alfred" the butler in the first several "Batman" movies, but in the 60s and 70s was the "British Vincent Price" (most recently, he provided the voice of the wise, skeletal sage in "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride"). The cast also includes a sadly sodden Dennis Price, a homely but popular (for the time) young Brit actor named Robin Askwith, and the great Skip Martin, a dwarf actor of immense wit who appeared in a handful of British horror films in the 60s and 70s including Corman's "Masque of the Red Death." Ostensibly, the plot is about two young people who find themselves in a "rest farm," which is actually the domain of a mad doctor, an ex-Nazi, who is performing brain experiments on young people. His motive is that he was charred to a crisp in a lab fire years before (he wears a mask, ala "House of Wax"), and only by weakening their brains can he get young girls to do the horizontal bop with him! This is the kind of film the kind of film that Woody Allen parodied in horror spoof segment of "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)." I first saw it at a bargain drive in in the 70s in the midwest and have loved it ever since. Best scene: Skip Martin is locked in a room, and two guards come in. He manages to overcome them or knock them out (can't remember how -- it's been a while), but in order to reach the lock on the door, he has to pile the unconscious guards on top of each other, stand on them, flip the lock, then separate them again so they can open the door. It is a masterpiece of extended physical comedy that is more suited to a "Pink Panther" movie than a cheap horror film! If you can find this psychotic gem on tape or DVD, grab it!

 

[Magus]

WARNING "SPOILER" for "The Beguiled" in this post...errr...I think.

one film that always seemed to be on english TV when i was a nipper (in the 70s-early 80s) was 'The Beguiled'. clint eastwood is a wounded civil war soldier who holes up in a boarding school for girls. well, you can imagine the sexual tensions that might ensue. i have vivid memories of watching this movie on my black and white portable TV in my room with the sound turned down low so my parents wouldn't hear.

Lol...as I recall things didn't end up well in the end for Clint. Care for some mushrooms with that meal?

 

[Magus]

A few "different ones" stand out for me.

The first is "The Big Blue" Directed by Luc Besson, with Jean-Marc Barr, Rosanna Arquette and Jean Reno. Its about a open diver (one breath and go as deep as you can) his lifelong rival/friend. His sort of half man half fish nature and how his family actually might be dolphins. Very beautifully shot and interestingly acted, but 95% of the people that watch it look at me strangely and so..."HUH?" when its over.

The second is "Babette's gastebud" aka "Babette's Feast". A Denmark import film with subtitles only...about the liberating affect of good food...shot in a 10 building village in the hinterlands of Denmark. BTW it won the Best Foreign Language Film Acadamy Award.

And lastly "Brotherhood of the Wolf". How can you beat a French Kung Fu Native Americian Horror Saga set in revolutionary France? With Monica Bellucci as a prostitute hitwoman ...for the Vatician! (carfeul all...she is very naked in this one!...lol) Weird...well perhaps to some..but I loved it! Oh...if you watch it don't use the dubbed version. The french with subtitles is MUCH better.

 

[John in Covina]

WHo's Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?

 

[WoeSis]

I just watched "The Assassination Bureau" with Diana Rigg, Oliver Reed, and Telly Savalas. Not a great picture, but very enjoyable nonetheless.

i have to second the recommendation for "The Assassination Bureau." It's long been a favorite for me, but then again i had a schoolgirl's crush on Oliver Reed and he's rather handsome in the film.

Another odd film for the ranks: "Photographing Fairies"
See the IMDB information here.
It's the story of a photographer during the post WWI era who goes around debunking photographs of ghosts, fairies, et cetera. Then he finds a photo that he cannot debunk and the weirdness ensues. Very strange, very beautiful film with a haunting soundtrack.

 

[jamespowers]

My vote for the wierdest has to be Consuming Passions (1988). I am not going to elaborate but rent it and laugh. Don't let the title give you the wrong idea. It is not one of those movies.

Regards to all,

J

 

[Doctor Strange]

WoeSis - An interesting companion piece to "Photographing Fairies" worth seeing is "Fairy Tale: A True Story".

This is another crack at the Cottingley Fairies Hoax(?) made in about 1996 that takes a different approach. And it has great cameo peformances by Peter O'Toole (as spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) and Harvey Keitel (as spiritualist-debunker Harry Houdini), who are both drawn into the argument about the photos' "reality".

 

[J.B.]

.....Simple...and goofy.....

That would also apply to Destiny Turns on the Radio.....

...and you can add wierd to the point of muddled, too! (Just look at the cast.)

I Loved It! :eusa_doh:

 

[Marc Chevalier]

I will go to my grave insisting that the worst film of all time is BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL (1984). It's worse than forgotten: it was hardly ever known.

 

[Absinthe_1900]

Blood Circus ©1985
Only three people showed up to the premiere: an extra and two movie critics

You might consider this one for the worst: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0088824/


http://www.geocities.com/santogoldmuseum/

http://infomercial.tvheaven.com/santogold.htm

 

[Marc Chevalier]

The problem is that no one can see it!